The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling: Books I-VIII

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1820. Excerpt: ... all your assistance, will, I find, be too heavy for me to support. But if you all smile on my labours, I hope still to bring them to a happy conclusion. CHAPTER II. What bejel Mr. Jones on his arrival in London. The learned Dr. Misaubin used to say, that the proper direction to him was, To Dr. Misaubin fit the World; intimating, that there were few people in it to whom his great reputation was not known. And, perhaps, upon a very nice examination into the matter, we shall find that this circumstance bears no inconsiderable part among the many blessings of grandeur. The great happiness of being known to posterity, with the hopes of which we so delighted ourselves in the preceding chapter, is the portion of few. To have the several elements which compose our names, as Sydenham expresses it, repeated a thousand years hence, is a gift beyond the power of title and wealth; and is scarce to be purchased, unless by the sword and the pen. But to avoid the scandalous imputation, while we yet live, of being one whom nobody knows (a scandal, by the bye, as old as the days of Homer*), will always be the envied portion of those, who have a legal title either to honour or estate. From that figure, therefore, which the Irish peer, who brought Sophia to town, hath already made in this history, the reader will conclude, doubtless, ii must have been an easy matter to have discovered * Sec the 2d Odyssey, ver. 175. his house in London, without knowing the particular street or square which he inhabited, since he must have been one whom every body knows. To say the truth, so it would have been to any of those tradesmen who are accustomed to attend the regions of the great; for the doors of the great are generally no less easy to find, than it is difficult to get entrance into thenC But Jones, as well as...