The reader, if he considers that this fellow was already
obnoxious to Mr Western, and if he considers farther
the weighty business by which that gentleman’s
displeasure had been incurred, will perhaps condemn
this as a foolish and desperate undertaking; but if
he should totally condemn young Jones on that account,
he will greatly applaud him for strengthening himself
with all imaginable interest on so arduous an occasion.
For this purpose, then, Tom applied to Mr Western’s
daughter, a young lady of about seventeen years of
age, whom her father, next after those necessary implements
of sport just before mentioned, loved and esteemed
above all the world. Now, as she had some influence
on the squire, so Tom had some little influence on
her. But this being the intended heroine of this
work, a lady with whom we ourselves are greatly in
love, and with whom many of our readers will probably
be in love too, before we part, it is by no means
proper she should make her appearance at the end of
a book.
BOOK IV.
CONTAINING THE TIME OF A YEAR.
Chapter i.
Containing five pages of paper.
As truth distinguishes our writings from those idle
romances which are filled with monsters, the productions,
not of nature, but of distempered brains; and which
have been therefore recommended by an eminent critic
to the sole use of the pastry-cook; so, on the other
hand, we would avoid any resemblance to that kind of
history which a celebrated poet seems to think is
no less calculated for the emolument of the brewer,
as the reading it should be always attended with a
tankard of good ale—
While—history
with her comrade ale,
Soothes the sad series
of her serious tale
For as this is the liquor of modern historians, nay,
perhaps their muse, if we may believe the opinion
of Butler, who attributes inspiration to ale, it ought
likewise to be the potation of their readers, since
every book ought to be read with the same spirit and
in the same manner as it is writ. Thus the famous
author of Hurlothrumbo told a learned bishop, that
the reason his lordship could not taste the excellence
of his piece was, that he did not read it with a fiddle
in his hand; which instrument he himself had always
had in his own, when he composed it.
That our work, therefore, might be in no danger of
being likened to the labours of these historians,
we have taken every occasion of interspersing through
the whole sundry similes, descriptions, and other
kind of poetical embellishments. These are, indeed,
designed to supply the place of the said ale, and
to refresh the mind, whenever those slumbers, which
in a long work are apt to invade the reader as well
as the writer, shall begin to creep upon him.
Without interruptions of this kind, the best narrative
of plain matter of fact must overpower every reader;
for nothing but the ever lasting watchfulness, which
Homer has ascribed only to Jove himself, can be proof
against a newspaper of many volumes.
