How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"So far, sir, from injuring you or your estate," says Sophia, "if my aunt had died yesterday, I am convinced she would have left you her whole fortune."
Whether Sophia intended it or no, I shall not presume to assert; but certain it is, these last words penetrated very deep into the ears of her father, and produced a much more sensible effect than all she had said before. […] "Yesterday! she would have left me her esteate yesterday! would she? Why yesterday, of all the days in the year? I suppose if she dies to-morrow, she will leave it to somebody else, and perhaps out of the vamily."—"My aunt, sir," cries Sophia, "hath very violent passions, and I can't answer what she may do under their influence." (7.5.10-11)
The main reason that Squire Western seems to care about maintaining a relationship with his sister is because she is wealthy, and he has an eye on her estate. So what's keeping them together is not family affection, but Squire Western's sense that Mrs. Western can be financially useful to him. Tom, Sophia, and Squire Allworthy all seem largely motivated by emotion: they feel love and grief and disappointment, and these feelings make them do stuff. But characters like Squire Western or Mr. Blifil have other, unemotional concerns that drive their actions. Would you say that the wide range of emotions that Tom and Sophia experience makes them more three-dimensional and believable as characters than Squire Western or Mr. Blifil?
Quote #5
But however well affected he might be to James or Charles, he was still much more attached to Little Benjamin than to either; for which reason he no sooner discovered the principles of his fellow-traveller than he thought proper to conceal and outwardly give up his own to the man on whom he depended for the making his fortune, since he by no means believed the affairs of Jones to be so desperate as they really were with Mr Allworthy. (8.9.4)
We don't think of Tom Jones as a particularly political novel. Yes, the characters in Tom Jones refer to the Jacobite Rebellion all the time (see our "Detailed Summary" of Book 7, Chapter 11). But they mostly talk about politics as something abstract and distant from their own lives.
In this passage, Partridge is pro-rebel. And Tom is pro-King George II. But Partridge doesn't tell Tom of his support for "James or Charles" (a.k.a., James and Charles Stuart, the son and grandson of exiled King James II and VII) because Partridge wants to stay friends with Tom. The possibility of profiting off Tom's return to Squire Allworthy totally overshadows the importance of any kind of political commitment for Partridge. Do you believe that people will usually choose their self-interest over their political ideals (as Partridge does in this passage)?
Quote #6
"Events of this nature in the public are generally apt to eclipse all private concerns. Our discourse therefore now became entirely political. For my own part, I had been for some time very seriously affected with the danger to which the Protestant religion was so visibly exposed under a Popish prince, and thought the apprehension of it alone sufficient to justify that insurrection; for no real security can ever be found against the persecuting spirit of Popery, when armed with power, except the depriving it of that power, as woeful experience presently showed." (8.14.16)
So, here's the thing: King James II did have a reputation for authoritarianism and for religious intolerance. So some of the Man of the Hill's concern about the shift of power against Protestantism during his reign is justified according to James II's policies. But look at the language that he is using: he talks about "the persecuting spirit of Popery," as though it is basic to the nature of all Catholicism to be harassing and intolerant. So there is clearly some anti-Catholic bias coming out in this section of the novel. Tom also talks enthusiastically about the need to protect and defend Protestantism (see, for example, 7.12.13-15). We think there's a double standard here: several characters in this novel strongly condemn Catholicism because of the need for religious tolerance.