Amelia was admired by ‘a judicious few’ for its strong moral tone, and later by Dr Johnson, who liked it even better than Clarissa. But many readers complained that Fielding had lost his comic touch. The good characters were dull, while the underworld settings were abominably ‘low’ and offensive to good taste. Having stayed clear of literary controversy for some time, Fielding had re-entered the fray by beginning a ‘Paper War’ in his new Covent-Garden Journal in January 1752. Old enemies were joined by new opponents, like the rebarbative critic John Hill, and Tobias Smollett (who thought Fielding had pinched the character of Partridge in Joseph Andrews from Strap in Roderick Random). To add to the humiliation, in the first edition Fielding had mentioned Amelia's injured nose, but not its mending: since a damaged nose was a sign of syphilis, critics had a field-day.

Pamphlets, satires, and comic verse rained down. Smarting under the onslaught, Fielding defended his novel movingly in a comic trial in the Journal. The ‘Town’ claims the book is:

In the following issue, ‘a great Number of Beaus, Rakes, fine Ladies and formal Persons with bushy Wigs’, push forward as witnesses when a ‘grave Man’ asks to be heard (CGJ 65). Describing Amelia as his ‘favourite Child’, not free from faults, but the product of loving labour, he suggests a compromise: ‘I do, therefore, solemnly declare to you, Mr Censor, that I will trouble the World no more with any Children of mine by the same Muse’ (CGJ 66).

Amelia was, indeed, Fielding's last novel. But the Covent-Garden Journal and The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon show he had lost none of his flair.