AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
None are for being what they are in fault,
But for not being what they would be thought.
Where if the metre would suffer the word Ridiculous to close
the first line, the thought would be rather more proper. Great vices are the
proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults, of our pity; but affectation
appears to me the only true source of the Ridiculous.
But perhaps it may be objected to me, that I have against my
own rules introduced vices, and of a very black kind, into this work. To which
I shall answer: first, that it is very difficult to pursue a series of human
actions, and keep clear from them. Secondly, that the vices to be found here
are rather the accidental consequences of some human frailty or foible, than
causes habitually existing in the mind. Thirdly, that they are never set forth
as the objects of ridicule, but detestation. Fourthly, that they are never the
principal figure at that time on the scene: and, lastly, they never produce the
intended evil.
Having thus distinguished Joseph Andrews from the
productions of romance writers on the one hand and burlesque writers on the
other, and given some few very short hints (for I intended no more) of this
species of writing, which I have affirmed to be hitherto unattempted in our
language; I shall leave to my good-natured reader to apply my piece to my
observations, and will detain him no longer than with a word concerning the
characters in this work.
And here I solemnly protest I have no intention to vilify or
asperse any one; for though everything is copied from the book of nature, and
scarce a character or action produced which I have not taken from my I own
observations and experience; yet I have used the utmost care to obscure the
persons by such different circumstances, degrees, and colours, that it will be
impossible to guess at them with any degree of certainty; and if it ever
happens otherwise, it is only where the failure characterized is so minute,
that it is a foible only which the party himself may laugh at as well as any
other.
As to the character of Adams, as it is the most glaring in
the whole, so I conceive it is not to be found in any book now extant. It is
designed a character of perfect simplicity; and as the goodness of his heart
will recommend him to the good-natured, so I hope it will excuse me to the
gentlemen of his cloth; for whom, while they are worthy of their sacred order, no
man can possibly have a greater respect. They will therefore excuse me,
notwithstanding the low adventures in which he is engaged, that I have made him
a clergyman; since no other office could have given him so many opportunities
of displaying his worthy inclinations.