for he refused all finery, as did Fanny likewise, who could be prevailed on by Pamela to attire herself in nothing richer than a white demity night-gown. Her shift, indeed, which Pamela presented her, was of the finest kind, and had an edging of lace round the bosom; she likewise equipped her with a pair of fine white thread stockings, which were all she would accept; for she wore one of her own short round-eared caps, and over it a little straw hat, lined with cherrycoloured silk, and tied with a cherry-coloured ribbon. In this dress she came forth from her chamber, blushing and breathing sweets; and was by Joseph, whose eyes sparkled fire, led to the church, the whole family attending, where Mr Adams performed the ceremony; at which nothing was so remarkable, as the extraordinary and unaffected modesty of Fanny, unless the true Christian piety of Adams, who publicly rebuked Mr Booby and Pamela for laughing in so sacred a place, and on so solemn an occasion. Our parson would have done no less to the highest prince on earth; for though he paid all submission and deference to his superiors in other matters, where the least spice of religion intervened, he immediately lost all respect of persons. It was his maxim, that he was a servant of the Highest, and could not, without departing from his duty, give up the least article of his honour, or of his cause, to the greatest earthly potentate. Indeed he always asserted, that Mr Adams at church, with his surplice on, and Mr Adams without that ornament, in any other place, were two very different persons. When the church rites were over, Joseph led his blooming bride back to Mr Booby's, (for the distance was so very little, they did not think proper to use a coach ;) the whole company at tended them likewise on foot; and now a most magnificent entertainment was provided, at which Parson Adams demonstrated an appetite surprising, as well as surpassing every one present: indeed the only persons who betrayed any deficiency on this occasion, were those on whose account the feast was provided. They pampered their imaginations with the much more exquisite repast which the approach of night promised them; the thoughts of which filled both their minds, though with different sensations; the one all desire, while the other had her wishes tempered with fears. At length, after a day passed with the utmost merriment, corrected by the strictest decency; in which, however, Parson Adams, being well filled with ale and pudding, had given a loose to more facetiousness than was usual to him; the happy, the blessed moment arrived, when Fanny retired with her mother, her mother-inlaw, and her sister. She was soon undressed; for she had no jewels to deposit in their caskets, nor fine laces to fold with the nicest exactness. Undressing to her was properly discovering, not putting off ornaments; for as all her charms were the gifts of nature, she could divest herself of none. How, reader, shall I give thee an ade quate idea of this lovely young creature: the bloom of roses and lilies might a little illustrate her complexion, or their smell her sweetness; but to comprehend her entirely, conceive youth, health, bloom, neatness, and innocence, in her bridal bed; conceive all these in their utmost perfection, and you may place the charming Fanny's picture before your eyes. Joseph no sooner heard she was in bed, than he fled with the utmost eagerness to her. A minute carried him into her arms, where we shall leave this happy couple to enjoy the private rewards of their constancy; rewards so great and sweet, that I apprehend Joseph neither envied the noblest duke, nor Fanny the finest duchess that night. The third day, Mr Wilson and his wife, with their son and daughter, returned home; where they now live together in a state of bliss scarce, equalled. Mr Booby hath, with unprecedented generosity, given Fanny a fortune of two thousand pounds, which Joseph hath laid out in a little estate in the same parish with his father, which he now occupies, (his father having stocked it for him ;) and Fanny presides with most excellent management in his dairy: where, however, she is not at present very able to bustle much, being, as Mr Wilson informs me in his last letter, extremely big with her first child. Mr Booby hath presented Mr Adams with a living of one hundred and thirty pounds a-year. He at first refused it, resolving not to quit his parishioners, with whom he had lived so long; but on recollecting he might keep a curate at this living, he hath been lately inducted into it. The pedlar, besides several handsome presents both from Mr Wilson and Mr Booby, is, by the latter's interest, made an exciseman; a trust which he discharges with such justice, that he is greatly beloved in his neighbourhood. As for the Lady Booby, she returned to London in a few days, where a young captain of dragoons, together with eternal parties at cards, soon obliterated the memory of Joseph. Joseph remains blessed with his Fanny, whom he doats on with the utmost tenderness, which is all returned on her side. The happiness of this couple is a perpetual fountain of pleasure to their fond parents; and what is particularly remarkable, he declares he will imitate them in their retirement; nor will be prevailed on by any booksellers, or their authors, to make his appearance in HIGH LIfe. END OF THE ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH ANDrews. TO THE HON. GEORGE LYTTELTON, Esq. ONE OF THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE TREASURY. NOTWITHSTANDING your constant refusal, when I have asked leave to prefix your name to this dedication, I must still insist on my right to desire your protection of this Work. To you, sir, it is owing that this history was ever begun. It was by your desire that I first thought of such a composition. So many years have since past that you may have, perhaps, forgotten this circumstance: but your desires are to me in the nature of commands; and the impression of them is never to be erased from my memory. Again, sir, without your assistance this history had never been completed. Be not startled at the assertion. I do not intend to draw on you the suspicion of being a romance-writer. I mean no more, than that I partly owe to you my existence during great part of the time which I have employed in composing it: another matter which it may be necessary to remind you of, since there are certain actions of which you are apt to be extremely forgetful; but of these I hope I shall always have a better memory than yourself. Lastly, it is owing to you that the history appears what it now is. If there be in this work, as some have been pleased to say, a stronger picture of a truly benevolent mind than is to be found in any other, who that knows you, and a particular acquaintance of yours, will doubt whence that benevolence hath been copied? The world will not, I believe, make me the compliment of thinking I took it from myself. I care -not: this they shall own, that the two persons from whom I have taken it, that is to say, two of the best and worthiest men in the world, are strongly and zealously my friends. I might be contented with this, and yet my vanity will add a third to the number; and him one of the greatest and noblest, not only in his rank, but in every public and private virtue. But here, whilst my gratitude for the princely benefactions of the Duke of Bedford bursts from my heart, you must forgive my reminding you that it was you who first recommended me to the notice of my benefactor. And what are your objections to the allowance of the honour which I have solicited? Why, you have commended the book so warmly, that you should be ashamed of reading your name before the dedication. Indeed, sir, if the book itself doth not make you ashamed of your commendations, nothing that I can here write will, or ought. I am not to give up my right to your protection and patronage, because you have commended my book; for though I acknowledge so many obligations to you, I do not add this to the number, in which friendship, I am convinced, hath so little share, since that can neither bias your judgment, nor pervert your integrity. An enemy may at any time obtain your commendation by only deserving it, and the utmost which the faults of your friends can hope for, is your silence; or, perhaps, if too severely accused, your gentle palliation. In short, Sir, I suspect that your dislike of public praise is your true objection to granting my request. I have observed, that you have, in common with my two other friends, an unwillingness to hear the least mention of your own virtues; that, as a great poet says of one of you, (he might justly have said it of all three,) you Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. If men of this disposition are as careful to shun applause, as others are to escape censure, how just must be your apprehension of your character falling into my hands; since what would not a man have reason to dread, if attacked by an author who had received from him injuries equal to my obligations to you! And will not this dread of censure increase in proportion to the matter which a man is conscious of having afforded for it? If his whole life, for instance, should have been one continued subject of satire, he may well tremble when an incensed satirist takes him in hand. Now, sir, if we apply this to your modest aversion to panegyric, how reasonable will your fears of me appear! Yet surely you might have gratified my ambition, from this single confidence, that I shall always prefer the indulgence of your inclinations to the satisfaction of my own. A very strong instance of which I shall give you in this address, in which I am determined to follow the example of all other dedicators, and will consider not what my patron really deserves to have written, but what he will be best pleased to read. Without further preface, then, I here present you with the labours of some years of my life. What merit these labours have, is already known to yourself. If, from your favourable judgment, I have conceived some esteem for them, it cannot be imputed to vanity; since I should have agreed as implicitly to your opinion, had it been given in favour of any other man's production. Negatively, at least, I may be allowed to say, that had I been sensible of any great demerit in the work, you are the last person to whose protection I would have ventured to recommend it. From the name of my patron, indeed, I hope my reader will be convinced, at his very entrance on this work, that he will find in the whole course of it nothing prejudicial to the cause of religion and virtue; nothing inconsistent with the strictest rules of decency, nor which can offend even the chastest eye in the perusal. On the contrary, I declare, that to recommend goodness and innocence hath been my sincere endeavour in this history. This honest purpose you have been pleased to think I have attained; and, to say the truth, it is likeliest to be attained in books of this kind: for an example is a kind of picture, in which virtue becomes, as it were, an object of sight, and strikes us with an idea of that loveliness which Plato asserts there is in her naked charms. Besides displaying that beauty of virtue which may attract the admiration of mankind, I have attempted to engage a stronger motive to human action in her favour, by convincing men that their true interest directs them to a pursuit of her. For this purpose I have shewn, that no acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms. And again, that as these acquisitions are in themselves generally worthless, so are the means to attain them not only base and infamous, but at best uncertain, and always full of danger. Lastly, I have endeavoured strongly to inculcate, that virtue and innocence can scarce ever be injured but by indiscretion; and that it is this alone which often betrays them into the snares that deceit and villainy spread for them; a moral which I have the more industriously laboured, as the teaching it is, of all others, the likeliest to be attended with success; since, I believe, it is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good. For these purposes I have employed all the wit and humour of which I am master in the following history; wherein I have endeavoured to laugh mankind out of their favourite follies and vices. How far I have succeeded in this good attempt, I shall submit to the candid reader, with only two requests: First, That he will not expect to find perfection in this work; and, Secondly, That he will excuse some parts of it, if they fall short of that little merit which I hope may appear in others. |