The Adventures of David Simple (1904)/Preface
Preface
BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOM JONES"
As so many worthy persons have, I am told, ascribed the honour of this performance to me, they will not be surprised at seeing my name to this preface; nor am I very insincere, when I call it an honour; for if the authors of the age are amongst the number of those who conferred it on me, I know very few of them to whom I shall return the compliment of such a suspicion.
I could indeed have been very well content with the reputation, well knowing that some writings may be justly laid to my change, of a merit greatly inferior to that of the following work; had not the imputation directly accused me of falsehood, in breaking a promise, which I have solemnly made in print, of never publishing, even a pamphlet, without setting my name to it: a promise I have always hitherto faithfully kept; and, for the sake of men's characters, I wish all other writers were by law obliged to use the same method; but, till they are, I shall no longer impose any such restraint on myself.
A second reason which induces me to refuse this untruth, is, that it may have a tendency to injure me in a profession, to which I have applied with so arduous and intent a diligence, to compose anything of this kind. Indeed, I am very far from entertaining such an inclination; I know the value of the reward which fame confers on authors, too well, to endeavour any longer to obtain it; nor was the world ever more unwilling to bestow the glorious, envied prize, of the laurel or bays, than I should now be to receive any such garland or fool's cap. There is not, I believe (and it is bold to affirm) a single free Briton in this kingdom, who hates his wife more heartily than I detest the muses. They have, indeed, behaved to me like the most infamous harlots; and have laid many a spurious, as well as deformed production at my door: in all which, my good friends the criticks have, in their profound discernment, discovered some resemblance of the parent; and thus I have been reputed and reported the author of half the scurrility, bawdy, treason, and blasphemy, which these last few years have produced.
I am far from thinking every person who hath thus aspersed me, had a determinate design of doing me an injury; I impute it only to an idle, childish levity, which possesses too many minds, and makes them report their conjectures as matters of fact, without weighing the proof, or considering the consequence. But as to the former of these, my readers will do well to examine their own talents very strictly, before they are too thoroughly convinced of their abilities to distinguish an author's style so accurately, as from that only to pronounce an anonymous work to be his: and, as to the latter, a little reflection will convince them of the cruelty they are guilty of by such reports. For my own part, I can aver, that there are few crimes of which I should have been more ashamed, than of some writings laid to my charge. I am as well assured of the injuries I have suffered from such unjust imputations, not only in general character; but as they have, I conceive, frequently raised m inveterate enemies, in persons to whose disadvantage I have never entertained a single thought; nay, in men whose characters, and even names, have been unknown to me.
Among all the scurrilities with which I have been accused (though equally and totally innocent of every one) none ever raised my indignation so much as the Causidicade: this accused me not only of being a bad writer, and a bad man; but with downright idiotism, in flying in the face of the greatest men of my profession. I take, therefore, this opportunity to protest, that I never saw that infamous, paultry libel, till long after it had been in print; nor can any man hold it in greater contempt and abhorrence than myself.
The reader will pardon my dwelling so long on this subject, as I have suffered so cruelly by these aspersions in my own ease, in my reputation, and in my interest. I shall, however, henceforth treat such censure with the contempt it deserves; and do here revoke the promise I formerly made; so that I shall now look upon myself at full liberty to publish an anonymous work, without any breach of faith. For though probably I shall never make any use of this liberty, there is no reason why I should be under a restraint for which I have not enjoyed the purposed recompense.
A third, and indeed the strongest reason which hath drawn me into print, is to do justice to the real and sole author of this little book; who, notwithstanding the many excellent observations dispersed through it, and the deep knowledge of human nature it discovers, is a young woman; one so nearly and dearly allied to me, in the highest friendship as well as relation, that if she had wanted any assistance of mine, I would have been as ready to have given it her, as I would have been just to my word in owning it: but, in reality, two or three hints which arose on the reading of it, and some little direction as to the conduct of the second volume, much the greater part of which I never saw till in print, were all the aid she received from me. Indeed, I believe there are few books in the world so absolutely the author's own as this.
There were some grammatical and other errors in style in the first impression, which my absence from town prevented my correcting, as I have endeavoured though in great haste, in this edition: by comparing the one with the other, the reader may see, if he thinks it worth his while, the share I have in this book, as it now stands, and which amounts to little more than the correction of some small errors, which want of habit in writing chiefly occasioned, and which no man of learning would think worth his censure in a romance; nor any gentlemen, in the writings of a young woman.
And as the faults of this work want very little excuse, so its beauties want as little recommendation: though I will not say but they may sometimes stand in need of being pointed out to the generality of readers. For as the merit of this work consists in a vast penetration into human natures, a deep and profound discernment of all the mazes, windings, and labyrinths, which perplex the heart of man to such a degree, that he is himself often incapable of seeing through them; and as this is the greatest, noblest, and rarest, of all the talents which constitute a genius, so a much larger share of this talent is necessary, even to recognize these discoveries, when they are laid before us, than falls to the share of a common reader. Such beauties, therefore, in an author, must be contented to pass often unobserved and untasted; whereas, on the contrary, the imperfections of this little book, which arise, not from want of genius, but of learning, lie open to the eyes of every fool who has had a little Latin inoculated into his tail; but had the same great quantity of birch been better employed, in scourging away his ill-nature, he would not have exposed it in endeavouring to cavil at the first performance of one, whose sex and age entitle her to the gentlest criticism, while her merit, of an infinitely higher kind, may defy the severest. But I believe the warmth of ray friendship hath led me to engage a critick of my own imagination only, for I should be sorry to conceive such a one had any real existence. If, however, any such composition of folly, meanness, and malevolence, should actually exist, he must be as incapable of conviction, as unworthy of an answer. I shall, therefore, proceed to the more pleasing task of pointing out some of the beauties of this little work.
I have attempted, in my preface to Joseph Andrews, to prove, that every work of this kind is in its nature a comick epick poem, of which Homer left us a precedent, though it be unhappily lost.
The two great originals of a serious air, which we have derived from that mighty genius, differ principally in the action, which in the Iliad is entire and uniform; in the Odyssey, is rather a series of actions, all tending to produce one great end. Virgil and Milton are, I think, the only pure imitators of the former: most of the other Latin, as well as Italian, French, and English epick poets, chusing rather the history of some war, as Lucan, and Silius Italicus; or a series of adventures, as Ariosto, etc, for the subject of their poems.
In the same manner, the comick writer may either fix on one action, as the authors of Le Lutrin, the Dunciad, etc., or on a series, as Butler in verse, and Cervantes in prose, have done.
Of this latter kind is the book now before us; where the fable consists of a series of separate adventures, detached from and independent on each other, yet all tending to one great end: so that those who should object to want of unity of action here, may, if they please, or if they dare, fly back with their objection, in the face of even the Odyssey itself.
This fable hath in it these three difficult ingredients which will be found on consideration to be always necessary to works of this kind, viz. that the main end or scope be at once amiable, ridiculous, and natural.
If it be said, that some of the comick performances I have above mentioned differ in the first of these, and set before us the odious, instead of the amiable; I answer, that is far from being one of their perfections; and of this the authors themselves seem so sensible, that they endeavour to deceive their reader by false glosses and colours; and, by the help of irony at least, to represent the aim and design of their heroes in a favourable and agreeable light.
I might farther observe, that, as the incidents arising from this fable, though often surprising, are everywhere natural (credibility not being once shocked through the whole) so there is one beauty very apparent, which hath been attributed by the greatest of criticks to the greatest of poets; that every episode bears a manifest impression of the principal design, and chiefly turns on the perfection or imperfection of friendship; of which noble passion, from its highest purity to its lowest falsehoods and disguises, this little book is, in my opinion, the most exact model.
As to the characters here described, I shall repeat the saying of one of the greatest men of this age, "That they are as wonderfully drawn by the writer, as they were by nature herself." There are many strokes in Orgueil, Spatter, Varnish, Le Vif, the Balancer, and some others, which would have shined in the pages of Theophrastus, Horace, or La Bruyere. Nay, there are some touches, which I will venture to say, might have done honour to the pencil of the immortal Shakespeare himself.
The sentiments are in general extremely delicate; those particularly which regard friendship, are, I think, as noble and elevated as I have anywhere met with: nor can I help remarking, that the author had been so careful in justly adapting them to her characters, that a very indifferent reader, after he is in the least acquainted with the character of the speaker can seldom fail of applying every sentiment to the person who utters it. Of this we have the strongest instance in Cynthia and Camilla, where the lively spirit of the former, and the gentle softness of the latter, breathe through every sentence which drops from either of them.
The diction I shall say no more of, than as it is the last and lowest perfection in a writer, and one which many of great genius seem to have little regarded, so I must allow my author to have the least merit on this head: many errors in style existing in the first edition, and some, I am convinced, remaining still uncured in this; but experience and habit will most certainly remove this objection; for a good style, as well as a good hand in writing, is chiefly learned by practice.
I shall here finish these short remarks on this little book, which have been drawn from me by those people, who have very falsely and impertinently called me its author; I declare I have spoken no more than my real sentiments of it, nor can I see with any relation or attachment to merit should restrain me from its commendation.
The true reason why some have been backward in giving this book its just praise, and why others have sought after some more known and experienced author for it, is, I apprehend, no other, than an astonishment how one so young, and in appearance unacquainted with the world, should know so much both of the better and worse part, as is here exemplified: but, in reality, a very little knowledge of the world will afford an observer, moderately accurate, sufficient instances of evil; and a short communication with her own heart will leave the author of this book very little to seek abroad of all the good which is to be found in human nature.