Line 1719. The worlds mandates.—The line is short and the sense unsatisfactory. Read "Their wordles mandates." The changes of "yr" to "ye" and "wordles" to "worldes" are both very easy, and a good sense is obtained. Cp. Shakspeare, 'Lucrece,' ll. 111, 112:—
Her joy with heaved up hand she doth express,
And wordless so greets heaven.
Line 1751. The Hittits.—Read "The Hittite" (sc. Uriah).
Line 1853.—What art thou that dost poor Mariam pursue?—We should probably omit "thou" or "that."
Line 1918. The line should end with a colon.
Line 1924. to be.—Read "to beg."
Line 1936. The line should end with a full-stop.
Lines 1937-9.
To fixe her thoughts all iniurie aboue
Is vertuous pride. Had Mariam thus bene prou'd,
Long famous life to her had bene allowd.
The editors, who apparently run these lines on to the preceding line, suggest "In" for " Is." The sense is got by keeping "Is." Possibly "her thoughts" should be "the thoughts." "Prou'd" is of course "proud."
Line 1944. her end.—Perhaps "your end."
Lines 1989-90. Put a colon after " storie," and a comma after "infamy."
Line 2027. did (= "died," as in 1.2132)—Cp. l. 930.
Line 2051. Proverb: "Try and trust."
Line 2073. guide.—Query "guile"?
Line 2112. the crew.—Query "thy crew"?
Line 2137. blows (= "blowse," as in 'Tit. And.,' IV. ii. 72).
Sheffield.
DID FIELDING WRITE 'SHAMELA'?
In November, 1740, was issued Richardson's 'Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded,' an amplification of his previously published 'Familiar Letters,' and it rapidly attained as full a measure of popularity as its author could have desired. Amid the din of applause a note of disapproval was sounded by the appearance of a brochure of some seventy pages announced in the Register of Books of The Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1741 (p. 224), thus: "Item 20. An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews. Price 1s. 6d. Dodd." On its title-page 'Shamela' purports to be the work of Mr. Conny Keyber, a satirical reference to Colley Cibber, who, earlier in 1740, had published his famous 'Apology,' for which he was "devilishly worked" by Fielding in the celebrated trial of the Poet Laureate for an attempted murder of the English language, in The Champion of May 17, 1740.
The purpose of the author of 'Shamela' was to ridicule 'Pamela' as a picture of life, and to challenge its morality as a guide to right conduct. To this end the author did not hesitate to out-herod Richardson in indelicacy when satirizing the absurd and wholly unnatural situations into which the characters in 'Pamela' were forced. Probably "Conny Keyber" would have left Richardson and his anæmic creations alone, had not the clergy (e.g. Dr. Benjamin Slocock of St. Saviour's, Southwark) extolled the book in public, ranking it as next to the Bible. The author of 'Shamela' laments, in all seriousness,
"the confederating to cry up a nonsensical, ridiculous book, and to be so weak and wicked as to pretend to make it a matter of Religion; whereas, so far from having any moral tendency, the bock is by no means innocent."
In February, 1742, appeared 'Joseph Andrews' published anonymously, but acknowledged, were proof needed, by Fielding in his 'Miscellanies' of 1743. 'Joseph Andrews' is largely devoted to satirizing 'Pamela,' so that Fielding's disregard for Richardson as a painter of manners was patent. Our inquiry, in this note, is to ascertain whether Fielding's first novel was the outcome of a previous literary tilt at Richardson.
The extrinsic evidence stands thus. Miss Clara Thomson ('Samuel Richardson,' 1900) finds that Richardson ascribed 'Shamela' to Fielding in a letter to Mrs. Belfour (Richardson's 'Correspondence,' iv. 286, 1804). Mr. Austin Dobson, while examining the Richardson correspondence at South Kensington, found a document in which 'Shamela' is mentioned, with a note thereon, in Richardson's own script: "Written by Mr. H. Fielding." But evidence more cogent is afforded by a letter written in July, 1741, by Mr. T. Dampier, afterwards sub-master of Eton and Dean of Durham, to one of the Windhams:—
"The book that has made the greatest noise lately in the polite world is 'Pamela,' a romance in low life. It is thought to contain such excellent precepts that a learned divine at London recommended it very strongly from the pulpit. . . .The dedication [of Conyers Middleton's 'Life of Cicero'] to Lord Hervey has been very justly and prettily ridiculed by Fielding in a dedication to a pamphlet called 'Shamela,' which he wrote to burlesque the fore-mentioned romance." Hist. MSS. Commission, 12th Report, Appendix, part ix. p. 204; also Austin Dobson's 'Fielding,' 1909, p. 210.
Furthermore, Fielding was acquainted with Dodd, the publisher of 'Shamela.' He had printed Fielding's 'Masquerade' in 1728, and Fielding makes a very friendly reference to his bookshop (the Peacock, without Temple Bar) in The Covent Garden
