A slight digression may not be improper here. Even in their own days, when the _gros mot_ was much less shocking than it is now, there was a general notion--which has more or less persisted, in spite of all changes of fashion in this respect, and exists even now when licence of subject as distinguished from phrase has to a great extent returned--that Fielding is more "coarse," more "improper," and so forth than Richardson. As a matter of fact, neither admits positively indecent language--that had gone out, except in the outskirts and fringes of English literature, generations earlier. But I am much mistaken if there are not in Richardson more than a few scenes and situations the "impropriety" of which positively exceeds anything in Fielding. Naturally one does not give indications: but readers may be pretty confident about the fact. The comparative "bloodlessness," however--the absence of life and colour in the earlier and older writer--acts as a sort of veil to them. Yet (to return to larger and purer air), however much one may admire _Joseph Andrews_, the kind of _parasitic_ representation which it allows itself, and the absence of any attempt to give an original story tells against it. And it may, in any case, be regarded as showing that the novelist, even yet, was hugging the shore or allowing himself to be taken in tow--that he did not dare to launch out into the deep and trust to his own sails and the wind of nature to propel him--to his own wits and soul to guide. Even Fielding's next venture--the wonderful and almost unique venture of _Jonathan Wild_--leaves some objection of this sort possible, though, for myself, I should never dream of admitting it. Jonathan was (so much the worse for human nature) a real person: and the outlines of his story--if not the actual details--are given partly by his actual life, partly by Gay's _Beggar's Opera_ and its sequel. Moreover, the whole marvellous little book has a purpose--the purpose of satire on false ideas of greatness, historical and political. The invention and the art of the writer are not even yet allowed frank and free course.