The distinction between doing and being is very fully enunciated by Fielding himself, in the _Introduction_ to Book vii. "A single bad Act," he says, "no more constitutes a Villain in Life, than a single bad Part on the Stage". And again, "Now we, who are admitted behind the Scenes of this great Theatre of Nature, (and no Author ought to write any Thing besides Dictionaries and Spelling-Books who hath not this Privilege) can censure the Action, without conceiving any actual Detestation of the Person, whom perhaps Nature may not have designed to act an ill Part in all her Dramas: For in this Instance, Life most exactly represents the Stage, since it is often the same Person who represents the Villain and the Heroe". Coleridge has expressed the same truth in words written in a copy of _Tom Jones_, "If I want a servant or mechanic I wish to know what he _does_--but of a Friend I must know what he _is_. And in no writer is this momentous distinction so finely brought forward as by Fielding. We do not care what Blifil does ... but Blifil _is_ a villain and we feel him to be so." [8] It is true that, as Scott regrets the depth of degradation into which Tom Jones is suffered to fall, so Coleridge expresses a wish, "relatively to Fielding himself" that the great novelist had emphasised somewhat more the repentance of his hero: but this may be balanced by that other noble tribute to his morality, "I dare believe who consulted his heart and conscience only without adverting to _what the world_ would say could rise from the perusal of Fielding's _Tom Jones_, _Joseph Andrews_ and _Amelia_ without feeling himself the better man--at least without an intense conviction that he could not be guilty of a base act." [9] To be forced to watch the temporary degradation of a noble nature, and the miseries ensuing, is surely one of the most effective means of rousing a hatred of vice. That such an exhibition should ever have been construed into moral laxity on the part of the author, especially when the restoration of the hero's character is drawn as entirely due to his ingrained worship of innocence and virtue, is almost incredible. In exact accordance with Fielding's character as moralist in intent, although supreme artist in execution, is the fact of the dedication of _Tom Jones_ to his life-long friend Lyttelton. George Lyttelton, statesman, scholar, and orator, was a friend of whom any man might be proud. It was said of him that he "showed the judgment of a minister, the force and wit of an orator, and the spirit of a gentleman." As theologian he wrote a treatise on _The Conversion of St. Paul_ which, a hundred years later, was described as being "still regarded as one of the subsidiary bulwarks of Christianity." As poet he won the praise of Gray for his tender and elegiac verse. Thomson sang of his "sense refined," and adds Serene yet warm, humane yet firm his mind As little touch'd as any man's with bad; And Pope drew his character as