"To satisfy the earnest Demand of the Publick (says Millar), this Work has been printed at four Presses; but the Proprietor notwithstanding finds it impossible to get them (_sic_) bound in Time, without spoiling the Beauty of the Impression, and therefore will sell them sew'd at Half-a-Guinea." This was open enough; but, according to Scott, Millar adopted a second expedient to assist _Amelia_ with the booksellers. "He had paid a thousand pounds for the copyright; and when he began to suspect that the work would be judged inferior to its predecessor, he employed the following stratagem to push it upon the trade. At a sale made to the booksellers, previous to the publication, Millar offered his friends his other publications on the usual terms of discount; but when he came to _Amelia_, he laid it aside, as a work expected to be in such demand, that he could not afford to deliver it to the trade in the usual manner. The _ruse_ succeeded--the impression was anxiously bought up, and the bookseller relieved from every apprehension of a slow sale." There were several reasons why--superficially speaking--_Amelia_ should be "judged inferior to its predecessor." That it succeeded _Tom Jones_ after an interval of little more than two years and eight months would be an important element in the comparison, if it were known at all definitely what period was occupied in writing _Tom Jones_. All that can be affirmed is that Fielding must have been far more at leisure when he composed the earlier work than he could possibly have been when filling the office of a Bow Street magistrate. But, in reality, there is a much better explanation of the superiority of _Tom Jones_ to _Amelia_ than the merely empirical one of the time it took. _Tom Jones_, it has been admirably said by a French critic, "_est la condensation et le resume de toute une existence. C'est le resultat et la conclusion de plusieurs annees de passions et de pensees, la formule derniere et complete de la philosophie personnelle que l'on s'est faite sur tout ce que l'on a vu et senti_." Such an experiment, argues Planche, is not twice repeated in a lifetime: the soil which produced so rich a crop can but yield a poorer aftermath. Behind _Tom Jones_ there was the author's ebullient youth and manhood; behind _Amelia_ but a section of his graver middle- age. There are other reasons for diversity in the manner of the book itself. The absence of the initial chapters, which gave so much variety to _Tom Jones_, tends to heighten the sense of impatience which, it must be confessed, occasionally creeps over the reader of _Amelia_, especially in those parts where, like Dickens at a later period, Fielding delays the progress of his narrative for the discussion of social problems and popular grievances. However laudable the desire (expressed in the dedication) "to expose some of the most glaring Evils, as well public as private, which at present infest this Country," the