This is as good an account as can be given by me.'
Poor Ordinary! If he was modest, he was also untruthful, and you are
certain that it was not thus the hero met his death.
Even had Fielding never written his masterpiece, Jonathan Wild would
still have been surnamed 'The Great.' For scarce a chap-book appeared in
the year of Jonathan's death that did not expose the only right and
true view of his character. 'His business,' says one hack of prison
literature, 'at all times was to put a false gloss upon things, and
to make fools of mankind.' Another precisely formulates the theory
of greatness insisted upon by Fielding with so lavish an irony and so
masterly a wit. While it is certain that The History of the Late Mr.
Jonathan Wild is as noble a piece of irony as literature can show, while
for the qualities of wit and candour it is equal to its motive, it is
likewise true that therein you meet the indubitable Jonathan Wild. It
is an entertainment to compare the chap-books of the time with the
reasoned, finished work of art: not in any spirit of pedantry--since
accuracy in these matters is of small account, but with intent to show
how doubly fortunate Fielding was in his genius and in his material. Of
course the writer rejoiced in the aid of imagination and eloquence;
of course he embellished his picture with such inspirations as Miss
Laetitia and the Count; of course he preserves from the first page to
the last the highest level of unrivalled irony.
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