Home > Authors Index > Henry Fielding > History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great > This page
The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great, a novel by Henry Fielding |
||
BOOK 4 - CHAPTER 12 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ BOOK IV. CHAPTER TWELVE. THE HISTORY RETURNS TO THE CONTEMPLATION OF GREATNESS. But we have already, perhaps, detained our reader too long in this relation from the consideration of our hero, who daily gave the most exalted proofs of greatness in cajoling the prigs, and in exactions on the debtors; which latter now grew so great, i. e., corrupted in their morals, that they spoke with the utmost contempt of what the vulgar call honesty. The greatest character among them was that of a pickpocket, or, in truer language, a file; and the only censure was want of dexterity. As to virtue, goodness, and such like, they were the objects of mirth and derision, and all Newgate was a complete collection of prigs, every man being desirous to pick his neighbour's pocket, and every one was as sensible that his neighbour was as ready to pick his; so that (which is almost incredible) as great roguery was daily committed within the walls of Newgate as without. The glory resulting from these actions of Wild probably animated the envy of his enemies against him. The day of his trial now approached; for which, as Socrates did, he prepared himself; but not weakly and foolishly, like that philosopher, with patience and resignation, but with a good number of false witnesses. However, as success is not always proportioned to the wisdom of him who endeavours to attain it, so are we more sorry than ashamed to relate that our hero was, notwithstanding his utmost caution and prudence, convicted, and sentenced to a death which, when we consider not only the great men who have suffered it, but the much larger number of those whose highest honour it hath been to merit it, we cannot call otherwise than honourable. Indeed, those who have unluckily missed it seem all their days to have laboured in vain to attain an end which Fortune, for reasons only known to herself, hath thought proper to deny them. Without any farther preface then, our hero was sentenced to be hanged by the neck: but, whatever was to be now his fate, he might console himself that he had perpetrated what ---------Nec Judicis ira, nec ignis. For my own part, I confess, I look on this death of hanging to be as proper for a hero as any other; and I solemnly declare that had Alexander the Great been hanged it would not in the least have diminished my respect to his memory. Provided a hero in his life doth but execute a sufficient quantity of mischief; provided he be but well and heartily cursed by the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the oppressed (the sole rewards, as many authors have bitterly lamented both in prose and verse, of greatness, i. e., priggism), I think it avails little of what nature his death be, whether it be by the axe, the halter, or the sword. Such names will be always sure of living to posterity, and of enjoying that fame which they so gloriously and eagerly coveted; for, according to a GREAT dramatic poet-- Fame Not more survives from good than evil deeds. Our hero now suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower him. He therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in affliction, a bottle; by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear, and bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort indeed he had not much, for not a single friend ever came near him. His wife, whose trial was deferred to the next sessions, visited him but once, when she plagued, tormented, and upbraided him so cruelly, that he forbad the keeper ever to admit her again. The ordinary of Newgate had frequent conferences with him, and greatly would it embellish our history could we record all which that good man delivered on these occasions; but unhappily we could procure only the substance of a single conference, which was taken down in shorthand by one who overheard it. We shall transcribe it therefore exactly in the same form and words we received it; nor can we help regarding it as one of the most curious pieces which either ancient or modern history hath recorded. _ |
||