Fielding’s Parson Adams, with his AEschylus in his pocket, and Parson Moritz with his Milton, have points of likeness that bear strong witness to Fielding’s power of entering into the spirit of a true and gentle nature.  After the first touches of enthusiastic sentiment, that represent real freshness of enjoyment, there is no reaction to excess in opposite extreme.  The young foot traveller settles down to simple truth, retains his faith in English character, and reports ill-usage without a word of bitterness.

The great charm of this book is its unconscious expression of the writer’s character.  His simple truthfulness presents to us of 1886 as much of the England of 1782 as he was able to see with eyes full of intelligence and a heart full of kindness.  He heard Burke speak on the death of his friend and patron Lord Rockingham, with sudden rebuke to an indolent and inattentive house.  He heard young Pitt, and saw how he could fix, boy as he looked, every man’s attention.

“Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us! 
It wad frae many a blunder free us,
   And foolish notion.”

And when the power is so friendly as that of the Pastor Moritz, we may, if wise, know ourselves better than from a thousand satires, but if foolish we may let all run into self-praise.

H. M.

CHAPTER I.

On the Thames, 31st May.

At length, my dearest Gedike, I find myself safely landed on the happy shores of that country, a sight of which has, for many years, been my most earnest wish; and whither I have so often in imagination transported myself.  A few hours ago the green hills of England yet swam imperfectly before our eyes, scarcely perceptible in the distant horizon:  they now unfold themselves on either side, forming as it were a double amphitheatre.  The sun bursts through the clouds, and gilds alternately the shrubs and meadows on the distant shores, and we now espy the tops of two masts of ships just peeping above the surface of the deep.  What an awful warning to adventurous men!  We now sail close by those very sands (the Goodwin) where so many unfortunate persons have found their graves.

The shores now regularly draw nearer to each other:  the danger of the voyage is over; and the season for enjoyment, unembittered by cares, commences.  How do we feel ourselves, we, who have long been wandering as it were, in a boundless space, on having once more gained prospects that are not without limits!  I should imagine our sensations as somewhat like those of the traveller who traverses the immeasurable deserts of America, when fortunately he obtains a hut wherein to shelter himself; in those moments he certainly enjoys himself; nor does he then complain of its being too small.  It is indeed the lot of man to be always circumscribed to a narrow space, even when he wanders over the most extensive regions; even when the huge sea envelops him all around, and wraps him close to its bosom, in the act, as it were, of swallowing him up in a moment:  still he is separated from all the circumjacent immensity of space only by one small part, or insignificant portion of that immensity.