This story is usually cited by the critics as an illustration of how a man of genius began a piece of propaganda, and then got interested in his story, and turned it into a real work of art. I should alter the formula by saying that he changed from a negative to a positive kind of propaganda. Joseph Andrews runs away from his wicked mistress, taking a girl he truly loves, and the narrative turns from a satire on Richardson’s pseudo-virtues into a portrayal of what Fielding considers real virtue. Joseph and his girl fall into trouble, and their creator, in pleading their cause, defends the poor and friendless all over England, who do not get justice in the courts. Fielding knew, because he had ridden the circuits; being a warm-hearted man, he created a model English magistrate by the name of Squire Allworthy--an obvious enough name--to show how the law ought to be administered. Fielding next took to writing plays. But he ventured to make satiric allusions to “persons of quality”; therefore he ran afoul of the Lord Chamberlain, and one of his plays was banned. He was disgusted, and rather than conform, he gave up play-writing. There was no government big-wig overseeing fiction; and so this new art form was destined to become the vehicle of social criticism. In his next book this gentleman-novelist went on to write a deadly piece of satire. Looking out over Europe, he saw Frederick, king of Prussia, called “the great,” making a raid upon Silesia and seizing it; he saw other royal and imperial conquerors tormenting mankind with war. He took a notorious criminal, who had recently been hanged in London, and made him the hero of a novel, which parodied in detail the glory-career of a king. “Jonathan Wild the Great,” like all works of revolutionary tendency, has received from the critics small part of its due praise. There are few scenes more grim than the conclusion of the book, the satire upon the “consolations of religion” when the arch-criminal dies.