Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones

If we discard this fallacy boldly, and ask ourselves whether Amelia is or is not as
good as Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones, we shall I think be inclined to answer
rather in the affirmative than in the negative. It is perhaps a little more easy to
find fault with its characters than with theirs; or rather, though no one of these
characters has the defects of Blifil or of Allworthy, it is easy to say that no one of
them has the charm of the best personages of the earlier books. The idolaters of
Amelia would of course exclaim at this sentence as it regards that amiable lady;
and I am myself by no means disposed to rank amiability low in the scale of
things excellent in woman. But though she is by no means what her namesake
and spiritual grand-daughter. Miss Sedley, must, I fear, be pronounced to be, an
amiable fool, there is really too much of the milk of human kindness, unrefreshed
and unrelieved of its mawkishness by the rum or whisky of human frailty, in her.
One could have better pardoned her forgiveness of her husband if she had in the
first place been a little more conscious of what there was to forgive; and in the
second, a little more romantic in her attachment to him. As it is, he was son
homme; he was handsome; he had broad shoulders; he had a sweet temper; he
was the father of her children, and that was enough. At least we are allowed to
see in Mr. Booth no qualities other than these, and in her no imagination even of
any other qualities.