The history of Tom Jones: a foundling. In three volumes. ... By Henry Fielding, Esq;. [pt.1]

To the HONOURABLE George Lyttleton, Esq One of the Lords Commissioners of the TREASURY.

SIR,

NOTWITHSTANDING your constant Re∣fusal, when I have asked Leave to prefix your Name to this Dedication, I must-still insist on my Right to desire your Protection of this Work.

To you, Sir, it is owing that this History was ever began. It was by your Desire that I first thought of such a Composition. So many Years have since past, that you may have, perhaps, forgotten this Circumstance: But your Desires are to me in the Nature of Commands; and the Impression of them is never to be erased from my Memory.

Again, Sir, without your Assistance this History had never been completed. Be not

startled at the Assertion. I do not intend to draw on you the Suspicion of being a Romance Writer. I mean no more than that I partly owe to you my Existance during great Part of the Time which I have employed in composing it: another Matter which it may be necessary to remind you of; since there are certain Actions of which you are apt to be extremely forget∣ful; but of these I hope I shall always have a better Memory than yourself.

Lastly, it is owing to you that the History appears what it now is. If there be in this Work, as some have been pleased to say, a stronger Picture of a truly benevolent Mind than is to be found in any other, who that knows you, and a particular Acquaintance of yours, will doubt whence that Benevolence hath been copied? The World will not, I be∣lieve, make me the Compliment of thinking I took it from myself. I care not: This they shall own, that the two Persons from whom I have taken it, that is to say, two of the best and worthiest Men in the World, are strongly and zealously my Friends. I might be con∣tented with this, and yet my Vanity will add a third to the Number; and him one of the greatest and noblest, not only in his Rank, but in every public and private Virtue. But here whilst my Gratitude for the princely Benefac∣tions of the Duke of Bedford bursts from my Heart, you must forgive my reminding you,

that it was vou who first recommended me to the Notice of my Benefactor.

And what are your Objections to the Allow∣ance of the Honour which I have solicited? Why, you have commended the Book so warmly, that you should be ashamed of read∣ing your Name before the Dedication. In∣deed, Sir, if the Book itself doth not make you ashamed of your Commendations, nothing that I can here write will, or ought. I am not to give up my Right to your Protection and Pa∣tronage, because you have commended my Book: For though I acknowledge so many Ob∣ligations to you, I do not add this to the Num∣ber; in which Friendship, I am convinced, hath so little Share: Since that can neither biass your Judgment, nor pervert your Integrity. An Enemy may at any Time obtain your Com∣mendation by only deserving it; and the ut∣most which the Faults of your Friends can hope for is your Silence; or, perhaps, if too severely accused, your gentle Palliation.

In short, Sir, I suspect, that your Dislike of public Praise is your true Objection to granting my Request. I have observed, that you have in common with my two other Friends, an Unwillingness to hear the least Mention of your own Virtues; that, as a great Poet says of one of you, (he might justly have said it of all three) you

Do Good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.

If Men of this Disposition are as careful to shun Applause, as others are to escape Cen∣sure, how just must be your Apprehension of your Character falling into my Hands; since what would not a Man have Reason to dread, if attacked by an Author who had received from him Injuries equal to my Obligations to you!

And will not this dread of Censure increase in Proportion to the Matter which a Man is conscious of having afforded for it? If his whole Life, for Instance, should have been one con∣tinued Subject of Satire, he may well trem∣ble when an incensed Satyrist takes him in Hand. Now, Sir, if we apply this to your modest Aversion to Panegyric, how reasona∣bly will your Fears of me appear.

Yet surely you might have gratified my Ambition, from this single Consideration, that I shall always prefer the Indulgence of your Inclinations to the Satisfaction of my own. A very strong Instance of which I shall give you in this Address; in which I am deter∣mined to follow the Example of all other Dedicators, and will consider not what my Patron really deserves to have written, but what he will be best pleased to read.

Without further Preface then, I here pre∣sent you with the Labours of some Years of my Life. What Merit these Labours have is already known to yourself. If from your favourable Judgment, I have conceived

some esteem for them, it cannot be imputed to Vanity; since I should have agreed as im∣plicitly to your Opinion, had it been given in Favour of any other Man's Production. Ne∣gatively, at least, I may be allowed to say, that had I been sensible of any great Demerit in the Work, you are the last Person to whose Protection I would have ventured to recom∣mend it.

From the Name of my Patron, indeed, I hope my Reader will be convinced, at his ve∣ry Entrance on this Work, that he will find in the whole Course of it nothing prejudicial to the Cause of Religion and Virtue; nothing inconsistent with the strictest Rules of Decen∣cy, nor which can offend even the chastest Eye in the Perusal. On the contrary, I de∣clare, that to recommend Goodness and In∣nocence hath been my sincere Endeavour in this History. This honest Purpose you have been pleased to think I have attained: And to say the Truth, it is likeliest to be attained in Books of this Kind; for an Example is a Kind of Picture, in which Virtue becomes as it were an Object of Sight, and strikes us with an Idea of that Loviliness, which Plato asserts there is in her naked Charms.

Besides displaying that Beauty of Virtue which may attract the Admiration of Man∣kind, I have attempted to engage a stronger Motive to Human Action in her Favour, by convincing Men, that their true Interest

directs them to a pursuit of her. For this Purpose I have shewn, that no Acquisitions of Guilt can compensate the Loss of that so∣lid inward Comfort of Mind, which is the sure Companion of Innocence and Virtue; nor can in the least balance the Evil of that Horror and Anxiety which, in their Room, Guilt introduces into our Bosoms. And a∣gain, that as these Acquisitions are in them∣selves generally worthless, so are the Means to attain them not only base and infamous, but at best incertain, and always full of Dan∣ger. Lastly, I have endeavoured strongly to inculcate, that Virtue and Innocence can scarce ever be injured but by Indiscretion; and that it is this alone which often betrays them into the Snares that Deceit and Villainy spread for them. A Moral which I have the more industriously laboured, as the teaching it is, of all others, the likeliest to be attend∣ed with Success; since, I believe, it is much easier to make good Men wise, than to make bad Men good.

For these Purposes I have employed all the Wit and Humour of which I am Master in the following History; wherein I have en∣deavoured to laugh Mankind out of their fa∣vourite Follies and Vices. How far I have succeeded in this good Attempt, I shall sub∣mit to the candid Reader, with only two Requests: First, That he will not expect to find Perfection in this Work; and Secondly,

That he will excuse some Parts of it, if they fall short of that little Merit which I hope may appear in others.

I will detain you, Sir, no longer. Indeed I have run into a Preface, while I professed to write a Dedication. But how can it be otherwise? I dare not praise you; and the on∣ly Means I know of to avoid it, when you are in my Thoughts, are either to be entirely silent, or to turn my Thoughts to some other Subject.

Pardon, therefore, what I have said in this Epistle, not only without your Consent, but absolutely against it; and give me at least Leave, in this public Manner, to declare, that I am, with the highest Respect and Gra∣titude,

SIR,

Your most Obliged, Obedient Humble Servant, Henry Fielding.