The Adventures of Joseph Andrews

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1893. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... had spent much breath, for he was a circumstantial teller of a story. Adams told him it was now in his power to return that favour; for his extraordinary goodness, as well as that fund of literature he was master of, * which he did not expect to find under such a roof, had raised in him more curiosity than he had ever known. "Therefore," said he, "if it be not too troublesome, sir, your history, if you please." The gentleman answered, he could not refuse him what he had so much right to insist on; and after some of the common apologies, which are the usual preface to a story, he thus began. Chapter tit. In "which the gentleman relates the history of his life. SIR, I am descended of a good family, and was born a gentleman. My education was liberal, and at a public school, in which I proceeded so far as to become master of the Latin, and to be tolerably versed in the Greek language. My father died when I * The author hath by some been represented to have made a blunder here: for Adams had indeed shown some learning (say they), perhaps all the author had; but the gentleman hath shown none, unless his approbation of Mr Adams be such: but surely it would be preposterous in him to call it so. I have, however, notwithstanding this criticism, which I am told came from the mouth of a great orator in a public coffee-house, left this blunder as it stood in the first edition. I will not have the vanity to apply to anything in this work the observation which M. Dacier makes in her preface to her Aristophanes: Je Hens pour une maxime constante, qu, une beauti midiocre plait plus gSniralement qu, une beauK sans difaut. Mr Congreve hath made such another blunder in his Love for Love, where Tattle tells Miss Prue, " She should admire him as much for the beauty he commends in her as...