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To Mrs. Goodhart, in the Upper Mississippi Valley.Dear Madam, -Many thanks for the New York newspaper you have kindly sent me, with the statistics of book-buying in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Those areinteresting particulars which tell one so much about the taste of a community.So the Rev. E. P. Roe is your favourite novelist there; a thousand of his books aresold for every two copies of the works of Henry Fielding? This appears to me tospeak but oddly for taste in the Upper Mississippi Valley. On Mr. Roe's works I haveno criticism to pass, for I have not read them carefully.But I do think your neighbours lose a great deal by neglecting Henry Fielding. Youwill tell me he is coarse (which I cannot deny); you will remind me of what Dr.Johnson said, rebuking Mrs. Hannah More. "I never saw Johnson really angry withme but once," writes that sainted maiden lady. "I alluded to some witty passage in'Tom Jones.'" He replied: "I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. Iam sorry to hear you have read it; a confession which no modest lady should evermake."You remind me of this, and that Johnson was no prude, and that his age wastolerant. You add that the literary taste of the Upper Mississippi Valley is muchmore pure than the waters of her majestic river, and that you only wish you knewwho the two culprits were that bought books of Fielding's.Ah, madam, how shall I answer you? Remember that if you have Johnson on yourside, on mine I have Mrs. More herself, a character purer than "the consecratedsnow that lies on Dian's lap." Again, we cannot believe Johnson was fair to Fielding, who had made his friend, the author of "Pamela," very uncomfortable by his jests.Johnson owned that he read all "Amelia" at one sitting. Could so worthy a man havebeen so absorbed by an unworthy book?Once more, I am not recommending Fielding to boys and girls. "Tom Jones" was oneof the works that Lydia Languish hid under the sofa; even Miss Languish did notcare to be caught with that hum