'Goody Brown had great advantage of Molly in this particular . . . '

From Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)

‘Goody Brown had great advantage of Molly in this particular; for the former indeed had no breasts, her bosom (if it may be so called) as well as in colour as in many other properties exactly resembling a piece of parchment, upon which one might have drummed a considerable while without doing any damage.’

This sentence, from Henry Fielding’s wandering picaresque novel, is English pantomime: pantomime meets a Punch and Judy show. Poor Molly Seagrim has been accosted by the rough and ready Goody Brown, who is quite ready for a bloody battle, a female ‘fisticuff-war.’ Fielding is rude about Goody Brown’s lack of physical advantage in the bosom department, although perhaps on this rough occasion, not having a full bosom might be an advantage. Fielding’s 18th century syntax wanders towards the rude kill: not only does Mrs. Brown have ‘no breasts’ (the first attack) what breasts she does have are (second attack) as hard as ‘a piece of parchment’ one could drum on for sometime ‘without doing any damage.’ Goody Brown, in other words, is flat as a board. But parchment here calls to mind the substance of paper, which is to say the printed novel. Another way of putting it might be: Goody Brown is as flat and two dimensional out front as any character drawn on paper might be if they were a failed character. Caricature is one of the great English art forms of the 18th century. I think of the visual satire of James Gillray that follows a few years on from Fielding — what is a very effective visual dismissal of character printed --in Gillray’s case - upon a piece of wove paper. We innocently follow Fielding’s meandering syntax with our finger as he takes pause to land his next punch upon the two women who fight tooth and nail —until the blood comes. But we are not in the company of innocents, (the scene occurs outside the village church following on from the Sunday service), but of two savage terriers. The journey through this sentence may resemble the picaresque style of gentle dilly-dallying, but Fielding’s end is as sure and savage as his characters’ raised, unladylike fists. Rudeness, if delivered genteelly, is very effective.