I have been reading _Joseph Andrews_. It is, in point of interest, inferior to _Tom Jones_. There are scenes where the wit is even more excellent, but the _nature_ of his characters are sacrificed to a love of buffoonery. Parson Adams is frequently put into situations so extravagant that the ludicrous is destroyed by the impossibility of the events. Fielding had a model, his tutor, a Dr. Young,[47] who was full of learning and simplicity. There is a story of him whilst he was chaplain to one of the Duke of Marlborough’s regiments. The enemies were encamped near each other expecting to be engaged; the _distrait_ chaplain walked out, and was so absorbed in the perusal of his _Æschylus_ that he passed the lines. A sentinel seized him for a spy, and carried him to the general. During his examination he stated so naturally that without thinking of anything one foot followed the other, and brought him without his knowledge where he was, adding that he assured his Excellence he was no spy. ‘Ah, mon ami, I sincerely believe you. The D. of M. ne vous aurez jamais choisi pour espion, mais vous resterez dîner.’ He was sent off, fully acquitted of the suspicion. [Sidenote: CALONNE] I have endeavoured to persuade Calonne to write his _Mémoires_. Even those of his own life would be interesting; but the period of his Administration, and his generous sacrifices to the Princes subsequent to their emigration, would fill up a period in the history of the Revolution which can only be well done by him. He set the best machine of revolt in motion. His own story is that when at the head of the Finance he found that for many years the expenditure of the Government had exceeded its receipts, and that Necker’s _compte rendu_ was a false assertion upon false fact: that to remedy this deficit he had persuaded the King to let him propose an equal taxation to the Noblesse and Clergy; that the Queen also was got over, till the night before he was to make his speech to the Notables, when she joined the faction headed by the Archevêque de Sens.[48] A _bon mot_ of Mirabeau upon him. He was a rash, impetuous man, without conduct or judgment. ‘L’Archevêque de Sens est toujours hors de son diocèse.’ I am reading the Arabian History in the most methodical way, too laborious to continue. I read Marigny, and refer to Ockley, the _Universal History_, and Gibbon. The latter I shall read when I have finished the others, because to read Gibbon one must understand the history he writes of _à fond_--at least so from his summary way of describing one should infer he thought it necessary for his readers.