his anxieties, telling him that he had better have stuck to “honest Abram Adams,” who, “in spight of Critics, can make his Readers laugh.” The words “in spite of critics” indicate another distinction between Fielding’s novels and plays, which should have its weight in any comparison of them. The censors of the pit, in the eighteenth century, seem to have exercised an unusual influence in deciding whether a play should succeed or not; [Footnote: Miller’s Coffee-House, 1737, for example, was damned by the Templars because it was supposed to reflect on the keepers of “Dick’s.”—(Biog. Dramatica.)] and, from Fielding’s frequent references to friends and enemies, it would almost seem as if he believed their suffrages to be more important than a good plot and a witty dialogue. On the other hand, no coterie of Wits and Templars could kill a book like Joseph Andrews. To say nothing of the opportunities afforded by the novel for more leisurely character-drawing, and greater by-play of reflection and description—its reader was an isolated and independent judge; and in the long run the difference told wonderfully in favour of the author. Macklin was obviously right in recommending Fielding, even in jest, to stick to Parson Adams, and from the familiar publicity of the advice it may also be inferred, not only that the opinion was one commonly current, but that the novel was unusually popular.
The Wedding Day was issued separately in February 1743. It must therefore be assumed that the three volumes of Miscellanies, by Henry Fielding, Esq., in which it was reprinted, and to which reference has so often been made in these pages, did not appear until
