The Works of Henry Fielding Volume 10 Author:Henry Fielding Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TWO GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF AS MANY OF CUE HEROES ANCESTORS AS CAN BE GATHERED OUT OF THE RUBBISH OF ANTIQUITY, WHICH HATH BEEN CAREFULLY SIFTED FOR THAT... more » PURPOSE. IT is the custom of all biographers, at their entrance into their work, to step a little backwards (as far, indeed, generally as they are able) and to trace up their hero, as the ancients did the river Nile, till an incapacity of proceeding higher puts an end to their search. What first gave rise to this method is somewhat difficult to determine. Sometimes I have thought that the hero's ancestors have been introduced as foils to himself. Again, I have imagined it might be to obviate a suspicion that such extraordinary personages were not produced in the ordinary course of nature, and may have proceeded from the author's fear that, if we were not told who their fathers were, they might be in danger, like prince Pretty- man, of being supposed to have had none. Iastly, and perhaps more truly, I have conjectured that the design of the biographer hath been no more than to shew his great learning and knowledge of antiquity. A design to which the world hath probably owed JONATHAN'S ANCESTRY many notable discoveries, and indeed most of tlw labours of our antiquarians. But whatever original this custom had, it is noi i too well established to be disputed. I shall therefore conform to it in the strictest manner. Mr. Jonathan Wild, or Wyld, then (for he himself did not always agree in one method of spelling his name), was descended from the great Wolfstan Wild, who came over with Hengist, and distinguished himself very eminently at that famous festival, where the Britons were so treacherously murdered by the Saxons; for when the word was given, i.e. Nemet eour Saxes, take md your swords, this gentleman, being...« less