History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Chapter i – The introduction to the work, or bill of fare to the – Chapter iv.

Henry Fielding opens his History of Tom Jones, a Foundling with a metafictional preface in which he compares himself to the keeper of a public ordinary rather than a private host, asserting that since readers pay for their meal they have a right to inspect the bill of fare in advance. He declares that his provision consists entirely of “Human Nature,” and defends his choice by borrowing Alexander Pope’s maxim that “True wit is nature to advantage drest.” Like a skilled cook who begins a feast with plain fare and finishes with rich sauces, Fielding intends first to represent human nature in its simpler country setting before moving on to the affectations and vices of town life. The narrator pauses to warn off critics by asserting his right to digress throughout the work.

The story proper opens in Somersetshire, where Squire Allworthy is described as “the favourite of both nature and fortune.” Having inherited one of the largest estates in the county and buried a beloved wife and three infant children, he lives quietly with his sister Miss Bridget Allworthy, a woman somewhat past thirty who prides herself on prudence, despises beauty as a snare, and treats handsome women with studied contempt.

Returning home late one evening after a quarter-year’s absence in London, Allworthy prepares for bed and discovers an infant wrapped in coarse linen between his sheets. He rings for Mrs Deborah Wilkins, the elderly housekeeper, who arrives in such a state of alarm at finding him undressed that she nearly swoons. Once told of the foundling, Deborah recommends exposing the child on the churchwarden’s doorstep, declaring it “doth not smell like a Christian.” Allworthy, however, is moved by the baby’s gentle grip on his finger and orders Deborah to provide for it overnight.

At breakfast the next morning, Allworthy presents the child to Miss Bridget. Contrary to Deborah’s expectation of virtuous outrage, Bridget declares she will not oppose her brother’s “whim” and orders a liberal nursery and proper provisions, while privately murmuring that such indulgence “encouraged vice.” The narrator defends this grumbling compliance as more meritorious than silent obedience, since the visible difficulty of the submission enhances the obligation.

Allworthy commissions Deborah to investigate the parish. Compared in a simile to a kite descending on small birds, the housekeeper terrifies the inhabitants with her inquiries. Suspicion falls on Jenny Jones, a former servant of the schoolmaster Mr Partridge of Little Baddington, who had acquired an uncommon mastery of Latin through her master’s tutoring. Neighbors resent her learning and envy her appearance in a new silk gown. Summoned before Deborah, Jenny freely confesses to having borne the child but refuses, despite threats, to name the father. Allworthy takes her into his study and delivers a stern admonition on the heinousness of incontinence, arguing that all the shame and ruin fall on the woman. To his surprise, Jenny responds with dignity, declaring herself bound by sacred vows of honor and religion to conceal the seducer. Impressed by her integrity, Allworthy promises to remove her from the parish. The foundling is christened Thomas and given Allworthy’s own name.

Meanwhile Miss Bridget and Mrs Deborah have listened through the keyhole of Allworthy’s study, and afterward conduct a dialogue in which Bridget praises Jenny’s honor and blames some “artful villain.” When Jenny is sent away, the gossips turn their malice on Allworthy himself and spread the rumor that he is the foundling’s father. The narrator assures the reader that Allworthy is in fact entirely innocent.

Two brothers then arrive as guests: Dr. Blifil, a man of great religious appearance but incompetent in medicine, forced into the profession by an obstinate father; and his brother Captain Blifil, a coarse, broad-shouldered half-pay officer of thirty-five whose real passion is for Allworthy’s “lands, tenements, and hereditaments.” The doctor, having fished out that Allworthy intends his sister’s children to inherit his fortune, proposes his brother as a suitor. The captain courts Miss Bridget with ritualistic formality, the lady defends her citadel with proper decorum, and within a month they marry. Allworthy delivers a sermon declaring love the only foundation of matrimonial happiness and condemning those who marry for beauty or fortune alone.

Almost immediately the captain turns against his brother, refusing his presence in the house on the grounds that the doctor once tried to injure him by interceding in his favor. When Allworthy remonstrates, the captain accuses the doctor of cruelty. The doctor’s heart breaks; he retires to London and soon dies of what Fielding calls “a distemper which kills many more than is generally imagined, and would have a fair title to a place in the bill of mortality.” The narrator attributes the captain’s conduct to a diabolical maxim of policy — once you have used a friend to rise, kick away the ladder — and to his envy of the doctor’s superior learning.

In the eighth month after the wedding Miss Bridget gives birth to a son. The captain objects on scriptural grounds to raising Tom alongside his own child, but Allworthy defends the innocent foundling. Meanwhile Mrs Deborah Wilkins has made a discovery she intends to use against Tom: she has learned that the true father is the schoolmaster Mr Partridge.

Fielding then depicts the Partridge household as a comic inversion of Aristotle’s domestic polity, in which the schoolmaster is utterly mastered by his wife. Mrs Partridge, childless after nine years of marriage, harbors a ferocious jealousy of her husband, particularly toward the learned maid Jenny Jones. Catching the two leaning together over a Latin text, she explodes in fury, drives Jenny from the house, and shortly afterward engages Mr Partridge in one of the bloodiest domestic battles ever recorded, tearing his wig and shirt from him and opening five bleeding wounds on his face.

Months later, at the village chandler’s shop, Mrs Partridge learns that Jenny has borne two bastards in the parish since her dismissal. Convinced anew of her husband’s guilt, she renews the attack. The rumor reaches Mrs Wilkins, who tells Captain Blifil. Allworthy summons the schoolmaster and his wife to Paradise Hall. Despite Partridge’s protests that his wife extorted a false confession by importunity, and despite the absence of Jenny herself, who has fled with a recruiting officer, Allworthy pronounces him guilty and strips him of his annuity. The schoolmaster loses his pupils, his wife dies of smallpox, and he is forced to leave the country in poverty.

The closing chapter sketches the deteriorating marriage of Captain and Mrs Blifil, whose theological disputations have given way to mutual contempt. Each opposes the other on principle: the captain hates the foundling, so the lady caresses him. Their hidden hatred, Fielding observes, yields an “exquisite delight” in tormenting one another, though Allworthy remains largely unaware of the true state of affairs.