His greatest novel, _Tom Jones_ (1749), completes and perfects his achievement. In the book we have all his previous virtues (and some of his weaknesses), with the addition of greater symmetry of plot, clearer and steadier vision into human life and human frailty, and a broader and more thickly peopled stage. His last novel, _Amelia_ (1751), had as the original of the heroine Fielding’s first wife, and the character of the erring husband Booth is based upon that of Fielding himself. This novel, though possessing power and interest, lacks the spontaneity of its great predecessor. The last work he produced was his _Voyage to Lisbon_, a diary written during his last journey. It possesses a painful interest, for it reveals a strong and patient mind, heavy with bodily affliction, yet still lively in its perception of human affairs. =3. Features of his Novels.= (_a_) Like Richardson, Fielding had a genius for sounding the emotions of the human heart, but his methods are different. Richardson pores over human weaknesses with puckered brow and with many a sigh; Fielding looks, laughs, and passes on. He does not seek to analyze or over-refine; and so his characters possess a breadth, humanity, and attraction denied to Richardson’s. Even a sneaking rogue like Blifil in _Tom Jones_ has a Shakespearian roundness of contour that keeps him from being quite revolting. (_b_) Fielding is breezy, bustling, and energetic in his _narrative_. He shows us life on the highway, in the cottage, and among the streets of London. Coleridge truly said that to take up Fielding after Richardson is like emerging from the sick-room on to the open lawn. (_c_) Fielding’s _humor_ is boisterous and broad to the point of coarseness--a kind of over-fed jollity. But it is frank and open, with none of the stealthy suggestiveness of Richardson. In dealing with this aspect of Fielding’s work (an aspect frequently repulsive to the more squeamish taste of the moderns) we must make allowance for the fashion of his time, which united a frankness of incident with a curious decorum of speech. He had also in him a freakishness of wit, the excess of his grosser mood, which led to fantastic interludes and digressions in his novels. For instance, in describing the numerous scuffles among his characters, he frequently adopts an elaborate mock-heroic style not quite in accordance with later taste. Fielding’s comic characters, such as Partridge, the humble companion of Tom Jones, are numerous, diversified, and exceedingly likeable and lively. (_d_) A word must be given to his _style_. He breaks away from the mannered, artificial style of the earlier novelists, and gives us the good “hodden grey” of his own period. His style has a slight touch of archaism in the use of words like “hath,” but otherwise it is fresh and clear. His use of dialogue and conversation is of a similar nature.