The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 12Fielding, Henry
General
The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 12
Fielding, Henry
English literature -- 18th century
MR ADAMS having favoured me with a second letter, I shall give it the
public without any apology. If anything in it should at first a little
shock those readers who know the world better, I hope they will make
allowances for the ignorance and simplicity of the writer.
TO THE TRUE PATRIOT.
MY WORTHY FRIEND,--I am concerned to find, by all our public accounts,
that the rebels still continue in the land. In my last I evidently
proved that their successes were owing to a judgment denounced against
our sins, and concluded with some exhortations for averting the Divine
anger by the only methods which suggested themselves to my mind. These
exhortations, by the event, I perceive have not had that regard paid
to them I had reason to expect. Indeed, I am the more confirmed in
this conjecture, by a lad whom I lately met at a neighbouring
baronet's, where I sojourned the two last days of the year, with my
good friend Mr Wilson.
This lad, whom I imagined to have been come from school to visit his
friends for the holidays (for though he is perhaps of sufficient age,
I found, on examination, he was not yet qualified for the university),
is, it seems, a man _sui juris_; and is, as I gather from the
young damsels, Sir John's daughters, a member of the society of
_bowes_. I know not whether I spell the word right; for I am not
ashamed to say I neither understand its etymology nor true import, as
it hath never once occurred in any lexicon or dictionary which I have
yet perused.
Whatever this society may be, either the lad with whom I communed is
an unworthy member, or it would become the government to put it down
by authority; for he uttered many things during our discourse for
which I would have well scourged any of the youth under my care.
He had not long entered the chamber before he acquainted the damsels
that he and his companions had carried the opera, in opposition to the
puts; by which I afterwards learnt he meant all sober and discreet
persons. "And fags!" says he (I am afraid, though, he made use of a
worse word), "we expected the bishops would have interfered; but if
they had we should have silenced them." I then thought to myself,
Strippling, if I had you well horsed on the back of another lad, I
would teach you more reverence to their lordships.
This opera, I am informed, is a diversion in which a prodigious sum of
money, more than is to be collected out of twenty parishes, is
lavished away on foreign eunuchs and papists, very scandalous to be
suffered at any time, especially at a season when both war and famine
hang over our heads.
[Illustration: "He acquainted the damsels that he and his companions
had carried the opera."]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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