The Works of Henry Fielding Edited by George Saintsbury in 12 Volumes — Volume 12 by Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754, Saintsbury, George, 1845-1933

A bustle now arose, not worth recounting, which ended in my departure with Mr Wilson, though we had purposed to tarry there that night.

In our way home we both lamented the peculiar hardiness of this country, which seems bent on its own destruction, nor will take warning by any visitation, till the utmost wrath of Divine vengeance overtakes it.

In discoursing upon this subject, we imputed much of the present profligacy to the notorious want of care in parents in the education of youth, who, as my friend informs me, with very little school-learning, and not at all instructed (_ne minime quidem imbuti_) in any principles of religion, virtue, and morality, are brought to the great city, or sent to travel to other great cities abroad, before they are twenty years of age, where they become their own masters, and enervate both their bodies and minds with all sorts of diseases and vices before they are adult.

I shall conclude with a passage in Aristotle's Politics, lib. viii. cap. I. "[Greek text]" Which, for the sake of women, and those few gentlemen who do not understand Greek, I have rendered somewhat paraphrastically in the vernacular:--"No man can doubt but that the education of youth ought to be the principal care of every legislator; by the neglect of which, great mischief accrues to the civil polity in every city."

I am, while you write like an honest man and a good Christian, your hearty friend and well-wisher,

ABRAHAM ADAMS.

* * * * *

THE COVENT-GARDEN JOURNAL.

No. 10.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1752.

At nostri proavi Plautinos et numeros, et Laudavere sales; nimium patienter utrumque, Ne dicam stulte, mirati.

MODERNISED.

In former times this tasteless, silly town Too fondly prais'd Tom D'Urfey and Tom Brown.

THE present age seems pretty well agreed in an opinion, that the utmost scope and end of reading is amusement only; and such, indeed, are now the fashionable books, that a reader can propose no more than mere entertainment, and it is sometimes very well for him if he finds even this, in his studies.

Letters, however, were surely intended for a much more noble and profitable purpose than this. Writers are not, I presume, to be considered as mere jack-puddings, whose business it is only to excite laughter: this, indeed, may sometimes be intermixed and served up with graver matters, in order to titillate the palate, and to recommend wholesome food to the mind; and for this purpose it hath been used by many excellent authors: "for why," as Horace says, "should not any one promulgate truth with a smile on his countenance?" Ridicule indeed, as he again intimates, is commonly a stronger and better method of attacking vice than the severer kind of satire.