History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

by Henry Fielding

  Chapter i.

  A comparison between the world and the stage.

  The world hath been often compared to the theatre; and many gravewriters, as well as the poets, have considered human life as a greatdrama, resembling, in almost every particular, those scenicalrepresentations which Thespis is first reported to have invented, andwhich have been since received with so much approbation and delight inall polite countries.

  This thought hath been carried so far, and is become so general, thatsome words proper to the theatre, and which were at firstmetaphorically applied to the world, are now indiscriminately andliterally spoken of both; thus stage and scene are by common use grownas familiar to us, when we speak of life in general, as when weconfine ourselves to dramatic performances: and when transactionsbehind the curtain are mentioned, St James's is more likely to occurto our thoughts than Drury-lane.

  It may seem easy enough to account for all this, by reflecting thatthe theatrical stage is nothing more than a representation, or, asAristotle calls it, an imitation of what really exists; and hence,perhaps, we might fairly pay a very high compliment to those who bytheir writings or actions have been so capable of imitating life, asto have their pictures in a manner confounded with, or mistaken for,the originals.

  But, in reality, we are not so fond of paying compliments to thesepeople, whom we use as children frequently do the instruments of theiramusement; and have much more pleasure in hissing and buffeting them,than in admiring their excellence. There are many other reasons whichhave induced us to see this analogy between the world and the stage.

  Some have considered the larger part of mankind in the light ofactors, as personating characters no more their own, and to which infact they have no better title, than the player hath to be in earnestthought the king or emperor whom he represents. Thus the hypocrite maybe said to be a player; and indeed the Greeks called them both by oneand the same name.

  The brevity of life hath likewise given occasion to this comparison.So the immortal Shakespear--

  --Life's a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.

  For which hackneyed quotation I will make the reader amends by a verynoble one, which few, I believe, have read. It is taken from a poemcalled the Deity, published about nine years ago, and long sinceburied in oblivion; a proof that good books, no more than good men, doalways survive the bad.

  From Thee[*] all human actions take their springs, The rise of empires and the fall of kings! See the vast Theatre of Time display'd, While o'er the scene succeeding heroes tread! With pomp the shining images succeed, What leaders triumph, and what monarchs bleed! Perform the parts thy providence assign'd, Their pride, their passions, to thy ends inclin'd: Awhile they glitter in the face of day, Then at thy nod the phantoms pass away; No traces left of all the busy scene, But that remembrance says--_The things have been!_

  [*] The Deity.

  In all these, however, and in every other similitude of life to thetheatre, the resemblance hath been always taken from the stage only.None, as I remember, have at all considered the audience at this greatdrama.

  But as Nature often exhibits some of her best performances to a veryfull house, so will the behaviour of her spectators no less admit theabove-mentioned comparison than that of her actors. In this vasttheatre of time are seated the friend and the critic; here are clapsand shouts, hisses and groans; in short, everything which was everseen or heard at the Theatre-Royal.

  Let us examine this in one example; for instance, in the behaviour ofthe great audience on that scene which Nature was pleased to exhibitin the twelfth chapter of the preceding book, where she introducedBlack George running away with the L500 from his friend andbenefactor.

  Those who sat in the world's upper gallery treated that incident, I amwell convinced, with their usual vociferation; and every term ofscurrilous reproach was most probably vented on that occasion.

  If we had descended to the next order of spectators, we should havefound an equal degree of abhorrence, though less of noise andscurrility; yet here the good women gave Black George to the devil,and many of them expected every minute that the cloven-footedgentleman would fetch his own.

  The pit, as usual, was no doubt divided; those who delight in heroicvirtue and perfect character objected to the producing such instancesof villany, without punishing them very severely for the sake ofexample. Some of the author's friends cryed, "Look'e, gentlemen, theman is a villain, but it is nature for all that." And all the youngcritics of the age, the clerks, apprentices, &c., called it low, andfell a groaning.

  As for the boxes, they behaved with their accustomed politeness. Mostof them were attending to something else. Some of those few whoregarded the scene at all, declared he was a bad kind of man; whileothers refused to give their opinion, till they had heard that of thebest judges.

  Now we, who are admitted behind the scenes of this great theatre ofNature (and no author ought to write anything besides dictionaries andspelling-books who hath not this privilege), can censure the action,without conceiving any absolute detestation of the person, whomperhaps Nature may not have designed to act an ill part in all herdramas; for in this instance life most exactly resembles the stage,since it is often the same person who represents the villain and theheroe; and he who engages your admiration to-day will probably attractyour contempt to-morrow. As Garrick, whom I regard in tragedy to bethe greatest genius the world hath ever produced, sometimescondescends to play the fool; so did Scipio the Great, and Laelius theWise, according to Horace, many years ago; nay, Cicero reports them tohave been "incredibly childish." These, it is true, played the fool,like my friend Garrick, in jest only; but several eminent charactershave, in numberless instances of their lives, played the foolegregiously in earnest; so far as to render it a matter of some doubtwhether their wisdom or folly was predominant; or whether they werebetter intitled to the applause or censure, the admiration orcontempt, the love or hatred, of mankind.

  Those persons, indeed, who have passed any time behind the scenes ofthis great theatre, and are thoroughly acquainted not only with theseveral disguises which are there put on, but also with the fantasticand capricious behaviour of the Passions, who are the managers anddirectors of this theatre (for as to Reason, the patentee, he is knownto be a very idle fellow and seldom to exert himself), may mostprobably have learned to understand the famous _nil admirari_ ofHorace, or in the English phrase, to stare at nothing.

  A single bad act no more constitutes a villain in life, than a singlebad part on the stage. The passions, like the managers of a playhouse,often force men upon parts without consulting their judgment, andsometimes without any regard to their talents. Thus the man, as wellas the player, may condemn what he himself acts; nay, it is common tosee vice sit as awkwardly on some men, as the character of Iago wouldon the honest face of Mr William Mills.

  Upon the whole, then, the man of candour and of true understanding isnever hasty to condemn. He can censure an imperfection, or even avice, without rage against the guilty party. In a word, they are thesame folly, the same childishness, the same ill-breeding, and the sameill-nature, which raise all the clamours and uproars both in life andon the stage. The worst of men generally have the words rogue andvillain most in their mouths, as the lowest of all wretches are theaptest to cry out low in the pit.