Page:The Works Of Henry Fielding (1903, NY) Vol. 12 - Miscellaneous Writings, Part 2.pdf/279

 THE COVENT-GARDEN JOURNAL

No. 10.

TUESDAY, February 4, 1752.

MODERNISED.

THE present age seems pretty well agreed in an opinion, that the utmost scope and end of reading is amusement only; and such, indeed, are now the fashionable books, that a reader can propose no more than mere entertainment, and it is sometimes very well for him if he finds even this, in his studies.

Letters, however, were surely intended for a much more noble and profitable purpose than this. Writers are not, I presume, to be considered as mere jackpuddings, whose business it is only to excite laughter: this, indeed, may sometimes be intermixed and served up with graver matters, in order to titillate the palate, and to recommend wholesome food to the mind; and for this purpose it hath been used by many excellent authors: "for why," as Horace says,