thereby anticipating Thackeray's famous complaint that in his day no one dared "to depict to his utmost power a Man." Lady Bradshaigh, writing by a happy irony of fate to Richardson, says "as to Tom Jones I am fatigued with the name, having lately fallen into the company of several young ladies, who had each a 'Tom Jones' in some part of the world, for so they call their favourites." The gentlemen also had their Sophias, one indeed having bestowed that all-popular name on his 'Dutch mastiff puppy.' That eccentric eighteenth century philosopher, and enthusiastic Greek scholar, Lord Monboddo declared that _Tom Jones_ had more of character in it than any other work, ancient or modern, known to him, adding, "in short, I never saw anything that was so animated, and as I may say, _all alive_ with characters and manners as _the History of Tom Jones_"; a criticism that recalls Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's remark that no man enjoyed life more than did Fielding. Doubtless it was his own magnificent capacity for living that endowed the very creatures of his pen with so abundant a vitality. In her own copy Lady Mary wrote _Ne plus Ultra_. To turn from the popular voices of the day to the comments of those capable of appraising genius, "What a master of composition Fielding was!" exclaimed Coleridge, "Upon my word I think 'Oedipus Tyrannus,' the 'Alchemist,' and 'Tom Jones' the three most perfect plots ever planned." To Sir Walter Scott _Tom Jones_ was "truth and human nature itself." Gibbon described the book as "the first of ancient or modern romances"; and, as we have seen, declared that its pages would outlive the Imperial Eagle of those Hapsburgs from whom Fielding was said to be descended. "There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge," wrote Thackeray. "To have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it written on the dome of St Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and behold it." Pilgrims from all the world have likewise admired _Tom Jones_. Translations have appeared in French, German, [7] Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Polish and Dutch; and as for the English editions, they range from the three editions issued within the year of publication to the several noble volumes newly edited in our own day, and the sixpenny copies on our railway bookstalls. So fully has time justified the invocation to future fame sent forth from the little ill-furnished parlour of the struggling barrister.