In conclusion, it is right to observe that, notwithstanding the few quotations which have been made from the Preface to the Miscellanies, and which appear in the Preface to Fielding's works in ten volumes, octavo, to which this one is supplementary, still in a complete edition of his writings, the insertion here of the whole of that excellent composition is desirable, especially in as far as it regards the History of Jonathan Wild the Great;' for there is given the author's notions of the kind of greatness which should attract the heartfelt homage of the virtuous and the good; as well as his enlightened views of human nature, and of mankind's truest-indeed his only true road to happiness. For he says:

'I solemnly protest I do by no means intend in the character of my 'hero (Wild) to represent human nature in general. . . . I understand 'those writers who describe human nature in this depraved character, as 'speaking only of such persons as Wild and his gang; and I think it may 'be justly inferred that they do not find in their own bosoms any devia'tion from the general rule. Indeed, it would be an insufferable vanity ' in them to conceive themselves as the only exception to it.'

How well applied is this adroit and cutting sarcasm to those philosophers who read human nature through the deceptive medium of the 'Idols of the Den;' for, as Lord Bacon avers

'There is no small difference between the idols of the human mind ' and the ideas of the divine mind-that is to say, between certain idle 'dogmas and the real stamp and impress of created objects, as they are 'found in nature.'

And how admirable are his views with respect to man's capacity for the attainment of happiness, and of the surest, and at the same time easiest, manner of obtaining that blessing: and in quoting them here, I feel a

pride in closing this humble preface of mine with a passage that exhibits, in a charming way, the instinctive wisdom and glowing good-nature of the manly, the English Harry Fielding,' as Thackeray emphatically calls him :

6

'Nothing seems to me,' he writes, more preposterous than that, ' while the way to true honour lies open and plain, men should seek false 'by such perverse and rugged paths; that while it is so easy and safe, and truly honourable to be good, men should wade through difficulty ' and danger, and real infamy, to be great, or, to use a synonymous word, 'villains.

'Nor hath goodness less advantage in the article of pleasure, than of 'honour over this kind of greatness. The same righteous Judge ‘always annexes a bitter anxiety to the purchases of guilt, whilst it adds

a double sweetness to the enjoyments of innocence and virtue: for 'fear, which all the wise agree is the most wretched of human evils, is, in ? some degree, always attending on the former, and never can in any manner molest the happiness of the latter.'

JAMES P. BROWNE, M.D.

February, 1872.

A

CLEAR STATE

OF THE

CASE

OF

ELIZABETH CANNING.

Who hath sworn that she was Robbed and almost Starved to Death by a gang of Gipsies and other villains in January last, for which one MARY SQUIRES now lies under Sentence of Death.

Quæ, quia sunt admirabilia, contraque Opinionem omnium, tentare volui possentne proferri in Lucem, & ita dici ut probarentur.

CICERO, Parad.

VOL. XI.

BY

HENRY FIELDING, Esq.

B

CASE

OF

ELIZABETH CANNING.

THERE is nothing more admirable, nor, indeed, more amiable, in the Law of England, than the extreme tenderness with which it proceeds against persons accused of capital crimes. In this respect it justly claims a preference to the institutions of all other countries; in some of which a criminal is hurried to execution, with rather less ceremony than is required by our law to carry him to prison; in many, the trials (if they may be called such) have little of form, and are so extremely precipitate that the unhappy wretch hath no time to make his defence, but is often condemned without well knowing his accuser, and sometimes without well understanding his accusation. In this happy kingdom, on the contrary, so tender is the law of the life of a subject, so cautious of unjustly or erroneously condemning him, that, according to its own maxim, De Morte Hominis nulla est Cunctatio longa, it