Fashionable Society in Fielding's Time

Extract

In using satire to ridicule the vices and follies of his contemporaries, Fielding is the direct successor of the last member of that “Triumvirate of Wit,” Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift, to which he so often refers in his works. In his novels and in his periodical essays Fielding often refers to the luxury of the times and the consequent general moral corruption among all classes of society. He ridicules especially the affectation of his contemporaries—their vanity and hypocrisy, the twin roots of affectation—and assails with direct invective their spiritual and moral degeneration. Believing that example is stronger than precept in reforming human conduct, he likes to place before them examples, ridiculous or odious, of what they are to avoid; but his satire is more kindly than Swift's.