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Updated: May 21, 2025
Before his mother's death, indeed, when he was a boy of eleven, we already knew him as suffering the rough jurisdiction of his Trulliberian tutor, Parson Oliver of Motcombe village, and perhaps as under the wise and kindly guidance of the good scholar-parson, who was later to win the affection and respect of thousands of readers under the name of "Parson Adams."
It appears that the widow of the Motcombe curate denied the alleged portrait; but the house where Mr Oliver lived, "seemed to accord with Fielding's description ... and an old woman who remembered him observed that 'he dearly loved a bit of good victuals, and a drop of drink." Bearing in mind the great novelist's own earnest declaration that he painted "not men but manners," we may fairly assume that his Dorsetshire tutor belonged to that class of coarse farmer-parson so justly satirised in the person of Trulliber.
"Well done, Knapp!" muttered the Parson, swallowing his excitement. "Good little boy! Good little b-o-y! If he lives through this, he shall have a pint o beer to his breakfast to-morrow, by God he shall. Piper! how long'll they take getting here?" "Why, sir, a little better'n half an hour, I reckon. Drop down by Motcombe, through Upperton, and down along Water Lane." The Parson turned to Kit.
His education during this time was confided to a certain Mr. Oliver, whom Lawrence designates the "family chaplain." Keightley supposes that he was the curate of East Stour; but Hutchins, a better authority than either, says that he was the clergyman of Motcombe, a neighbouring village.
Mr Oliver was the curate of Motcombe, a neighbouring village; and we have the authority of Murphy and of Hutchins, the historian of Dorset, for finding 'a very humorous and striking portrait' of this pedagogue in the Rev. Mr Trulliber, the pig-breeding parson of Joseph Andrews.
Oliver of Motcombe. But his widow denied the resemblance; and it is hard to believe that this portrait is not overcharged. In all these cases, however, there is no reason for supposing that Fielding may not have thoroughly believed in the sincerity of his attempts to avoid the exact reproduction of actual persons, although, rightly or wrongly, his presentments were speedily identified.
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