LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyright No.-_-^___ Shelf___.H_6 \<^60 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. HENRY FIELDING A MEMOIR Hemy Fielding. Henry Fielding A MEMOIR BY AUSTIN DOBSON REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Publishers t>o;ii5o "^Vv. t-nt.^ hut WED OCT 24 1900 «.a.J)r.WAr')rr.V.. 9«0fc« DIVISION, r; ov 21 i:;Ou Copyright, 1900 by DoDD, Mead & Company PREFACE TT was the doctrine of Voltaire that an author ^ should continue to correct his writings as long as possible. In the present reprint of my Memoir of Henry -Fielding, I have endeavoured to obey this teaching. I have gone through the book once more, verifying its statements anew, and adding, either in the text or as notes, those sparse fragments of fresh information which have come to my knowledge since it was first prepared. I trust that it now represents, accurately, and in compact form, the bulk of what is known to be trustworthy concerning the great man whom Scott called the *' Father of the English Novel." Austin Dobson. Ealing, ytme, igoo. PREFATORY NOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF 1883 FROM a critical point of view, the works of Fielding have received abundant examina- tion at the hands of a long line of distinguished writers. Of these, the latest is by no means the least ; and as Mr. Leslie Stephen's brilliant stud- ies, in the recent ddition de luxe ^ and the Corn- hill Maga^ine^ are now in every one's hands, it is perhaps no more than a wise discretion which has prompted me to confine my attention more strictly to the purely biographical side of the subject. In the present memoir, therefore, I have made it my duty, primarily, to verify such scattered anecdotes respecting Fielding as have come down to us ; to correct — I hope not obtrusively — a few misstate- ments which have crept into previous accounts ; and to add such supplementary details as I have been able to discover for myself. In this task I have made use of the following authorities : 1 This was written in 1883.— P. T. O. viii Prefatory Note I. Arthur Murphy's Essay on the Life and Genius of Henry Fielding, Esq. This was pre- fixed to the first collected edition of Fielding's works published by Andrew Millar in April, 1762 ; and it continued for a long time to be the recog- nised authority for Fielding's life. It is possible that it fairly reproduces his personality, as pre- sented by contemporary tradition ; but it is mis- leading in its facts, and needlessly diffuse. Un- der pretence of respecting *' the Manes of the dead," the writer seems to have found it pleas- anter to fill his space with vagrant discussions on the *' Middle Comedy of the Greeks" and the machinery of the Rape of the Lock, than to make the requisite biographical inquiries. This is the more to be deplored, because, in 1762, Fielding's widow, brother, and sister, as well as his friend Lyttelton, were still alive, and trustworthy infor- mation should have been procurable. II. William Watson's Life of Henry Fielding, Esq. This is usually to be found prefixed to a selection of Fielding's works issued at Edinburgh. It also appeared as a volume in 1807, although there is no copy of it in this form at the British Museum. It carries Murphy a little farther, and corrects him in some instances. But its author had clearly never even seen the Miscellanies of 1743, with their valuable Preface, for he speaks Prefatory Note ix of them as one volume, and in apparent ignorance of their contents. III. Sir Walter Scott's biographical sketch for Ballantyne's Novelist's Library. This was pub- lished in 182 1 ; and is now included in the writ- er's Miscellaneous Prose Works. Sir Walter made no pretence to original research, and even spoke slightingly of this particular effort ; but it has all the charm of his practised and genial pen. IV. Roscoe's Memoir, compiled for the one- volume edition of Fielding, published by Wash- bourne and others in 1840. V. Thackeray's well-known lecture, in the Eng- lish Humourists of the Eighteenth Century^ 1853. VI. The Life of Henry Fielding ; with Notices of his Writings, his Times, and his Contempora- ries. By Frederick Lawrence. 1855. This is an exceedingly painstaking book ; and constitutes the first serious attempt at a biography. Its chief defect — as pointed out at the time of its appear- ance — is an ill-judged emulation of Forster's Goldsmith, The author attempted to make Field- ing a literary centre, which is impossible ; and the attempt has involved him in needless digres- sions. He is also not always careful to give chapter and verse for his statements. VII. Thomas Keightley's papers On the Life and Writings of Henry Fielding in Eraser's Mag- X Prefatory Note a'{ine for January and February, 1859. These, prompted by Mr. Lawrence's book, are most valuable, if only for the author's frank distrust of his predecessors. They are the work of an en- thusiast, and a very conscientious examiner. If, as reported, Mr. Keightley himself meditated a life of Fielding, it is much to be regretted that he never carried out his intentions.^ Upon the two works last mentioned, I have chiefly relied in the preparation of his study. I have freely availed myself of the material that both authors collected, verifying it always, and extending it wherever I could. Of my other sources of information — pamphlets, reviews, memoirs, and newspapers of the day — the list would be too long ; and sufficient references to them are generally given in the body of the text. I will only add that I think there is scarcely a quotation of importance in these pages which has not been compared with the original ; and, ex- cept where otherwise stated, all extracts from Fielding himself are taken from the first editions. At this distance of time, new facts respect- ing a man of whom so little has been recorded, require to be announced with considerable cau- > See Appendix I., which shows that Mr. Keightley had made some progress in this direction before he died in 1872. —P. T. O. Prefatory Note xi tion. Some definite additions to Fielding lore I have, however, been enabled to make. Thanks to the late Colonel J. L. Chester, who was en- gaged, only a few weeks before his death, in friendly investigations on my behalf, I am able to give, for the first time, the date and place of Fielding's second marriage, and the baptismal dates of all the children by that marriage, except the eldest. I am also able to fix a true period of his love-affair with Miss Sarah Andrew. From the original assignment at South Kensington I have ascertained the exact sum paid by Millar for Joseph Andrews ; and in chapter v. will be found a series of extracts from a very interesting cor- respondence, which does not appear to have been hitherto published, between Aaron Hill, his daughters, and Richardson respecting Tom Jones. Although I cannot claim credit for the discovery, I believe the present is also the first biography of Fielding which entirely discredits the unlikely story of his having been a stroller at Bartholomew Fair ; and I may also, I think, claim to have thrown some additional light on Fielding's relations with the Cibbers, seeing that the last critical essay upon the author of the Apology which I have met with, contains no ref- erence to Fielding at all. For such minor nov- elties as the passage from the Universal Spectator xii Prefatory Note at p. 36, and the account of the projected trans- lation of Lucian at p. 226, etc., the reader is re- ferred to the book itself, where these, and other waifs and strays, are duly indicated. If, in my endeavour to secure what is freshest, I have at the same time neglected a few stereotyped quota- tions, which have hitherto seemed indispensable in writing of Fielding, I trust I may be forgiven. Brief as it is, the book has not been without its obligations. To Mr. R. F. Sketchley, Keeper of the Dyce and Forster Collections at South Kensington, I am indebted for reference to the Hill correspondence, and for other kindly offices ; to Mr. Frederick Locker for permission to col- late Fielding's last letter with the original in his possession. My thanks are also due to Mr. R. Arthur Kinglake, J. P., of Taunton ; to the Rev. Edward Hale of Eton College, the Rev. G. C. Green of Modbury, Devon, the Rev. W. S. Shaw of Twerton-on-Avon, and Mr. Richard Garnett of the British Museum. Without some expression of gratitude to the last mentioned, it would indeed be almost impossible to conclude any modern preface of this kind. If I have omitted the names of others who have been good enough to assist me, I must ask them to accept my acknowledgments although they are not spe- cifically expressed. A. D. Ealing, March^ 1883. Prefatory Note xiii PREFATORY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF 1 889 I have taken advantage of the present issue to add, in the form of Appendices, some supple- mentary particulars which have come to my knowledge since the book was first published. The most material of these is the curious confir- mation and extension of Fielding's love affair with Sarah Andrew. Besides these additions, a few necessary rectifications have been made in the text. A. D. Ealing, April, 1889. CHAPTER I PAGE Ancestry and birth (20 April, 1707); the Fielding fam- ily ; education ; life at Eton ; episode of Sarah Andrew; at Leyden; in London; the stage of 1728; Love in Several Masques ^ 1728; minor poems, The Temple Beau, 1730 ; The Author's Farce f 1730 ; more comedies and farces; Tom Thumb, 1730; The Mock Doctor, \*JZ'2.\ The Miser ^ 1733, town life I CHAPTER H Fielding and Timothy Fielding ; The Intriguing Cham- bermaid, 1734 ; The Author^ s Farce revived, 1734 ; Theophilus Gibber ; Don Quixote in England, 1734; a farce and a comedy; marriage, 1735 (?); Miss Charlotte Cradock ; love-poems ; life at East Stour ; the Great Mogul's Gompany ; Pasquin, 1736 ; plot, incidents and extracts ; The Historical Register, 1737; the Licensing Act; Fielding as a playwright 38 CHAPTER HI Becomes a student of the Middle Temple, i November, 1737; law and letters; the Champion, 1739-40 ; its themes ; attack in Gibber's Apology ; reply xvi Contents PAGE thereto; Tryal of Colley Cibber^ Comedian; Field- ing and Gibber; called to the Bar, 20 June, 1740 ; minor writings ; travels Western Circuit ; Richard- son's Pamela; Joseph Andrews, February, 1742; Parson Abraham Adams ; other personages of the book ; details and descriptions ; personal portrai- ture; plan of novel; Richardson and Gray; as- signment to Millar 81 CHAPTER IV Vindication of the Duchess of Marlborough, March, 1742; Miss Lucy in Town, May; Plutus, the God of Riches, May ; Pope and Fielding ; Garrick and The Wedding Day ; Macklin's prologue ; the Mis- cellanies, April, 1743; Essays, "On Conversa- tion ; " " On the Characters of Men ; " " A Journey from this World to the Next ; " " Jonathan Wild ; " domestic history, and death of Mrs. Fielding, 1743 (?) ; Lady Louisa Stuart's account; Mr. Keightley's comments ; prefaces to David Simple and Familiar Letters; the True Patriot, 1745, and the Jacobite's Journal, 1747 ; tribute to Rich- ardson; second marriage, 27 November, 1747; Justice of Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, December, 1748 121 CHAPTER V Fielding and Joseph Warton ; making of the master- piece ; means of existence ; Tom Jones published, 28 February, 1749; a "New Province of Writ- Contents xvii PAGE ingj" construction of the plot; the characters; Squire Western ; other persons of the drama ; Tom Jones himself; the author's humour, irony, human- ity ; reception of the book ; Richardson and Aaron Hill's daughters ; translators and illustrators ; adap- tations for the stage i6i CHAPTER VI A visit to Justice Fielding ; chairman of Quarter Ses- sions, 12 May, 1749; charge to the Westminster Grand Jury, 29 June ; case of Bosavern Penlez, July ; Enquiry iyito the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers^ January, 175 1 ; the Glastonbury waters ; publication of Amelia^ 19 December; its charac- teristics ; its characters and heroine ; her portrait ; the author's apology for his book ; Richardson on Fielding; the Covent Garden Journal, 1752; pro- posals for translating Lucian; Examples of the Interposition of Providence ^ April, 1752; Proposal for the Poor, January, 1753; Case of Elizabeth Canning-f March 200 CHAPTER VII The beginning of the end; poor law projects; Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon ; scheme for the prevention of robberies, etc.; failing health; magisterial duties; sets out for Lisbon, 26 June, 1754; inci- dents of journey; a " riding surveyor;" letter to John Fielding ; Captain Richard Veal and others ; xviii Contents PAGE reaches Lisbon, 14 August; dies there, 8 October; his tomb and epitaph ; his portrait ; his character ; his work 233 Postscript 267 Appendix No. I : Fielding and Sarah Andrew .... 277 Appendix No. II : Fielding and Mrs. Hussey .... 286 Appendix No. Ill: Fielding's will 291 Appendix No. IV: Extracts from ^ Journal of a Voy- age to Lisbon 293 Index 307 HENRY FIELDING A MEMOIR CHAPTER I Ancestry and birth (20 April, 1707); the Fielding family; education; life at Eton; episode of Sarah Andrew; at Ley den; in London; the stage of 1728; Love in Several Masques, 1728; minor poems, The Temple Beau, 1730; The Author's Farce, 17 30; more comedies and farces; Tom Thumb, 1730 ; The Mock Doctor, 1732; The Miser, 1733, town life. T IKE his contemporary Smollett, Henry ^ Fielding came of an ancient family, and might, in his Horatian moods, have traced his origin to Inachus. The lineage of the house of Denbigh — as given in Burke — fully justifies the splendid, if now discredited, eulogy of Gibbon.^ 1 From the edition of Gibbon's Aiitobiographies, published by Murray in 1896, it seems that this famous appreciation was only a fragment, not inserted in any of the different versions. It runs as follows : " Our immortal Fielding was of a younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who I 2 Henry Fielding But even without going back to that first Geoffrey of Hapsburgh, who, according to the time-honoured story, came to England, temp, Henry III., and assumed the name of Fieldeng, or Filding, '*from his father's pretensions to the dominions of Lauffenbourg and Rinfilding'' the future novelist could boast a long line of illustri- ous ancestors. There was a Sir William Feild- ing killed at Tewkesbury, and a Sir Everard who had commanded at Stoke. Another Sir William, a staunch Royalist, was created Earl of Denbigh, draw their origin from the counts of Hapsburgh, the lineal descendants of Ethico in the Seventh Century, Duke of Alsace. Far different have been the fortunes of the Eng- lish and German divisions of the family of Hapsburgh. The former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a peerage ; the latter, the Emperors of Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the Old and invaded the treasures of the New World. The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their humble brethren of England: but the Romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the Imperial Eagle of the house of Austria." (p. 419.) The illustrious author of the Decline and Fall, were he still alive, would probably be disconcerted to learn that modern genealogists are by no means satisfied as to the re- lations of the Denbighs and Hapsburghs. (See The Gene- alogist, New Series, for April, 1894, where this question is exhaustively examined by Mr. J. H. Round.) A Memoir 3 and died in fighting King Charles's battles. Of his two sons, the elder, Basil, who succeeded to the title, was a Parliamentarian, and had served at Edgehill under Essex. George, his second son, was raised to the peerage of Ireland as Vis- count Callan, with succession to the earldom of Desmond ; and from this, the younger branch of the Denbigh family, Henry Fielding directly de- scended. The Earl of Desmond's fifth son, John, entered the Church, becoming Canon of Salisbury and Chaplain to William III. By his wife Bridget, daughter of Scipio Cockain, Esq., of Somerset, he had three sons and three daugh- ters. Edmund, the third son, was a soldier, who fought with distinction under Marlborough. When about the age of thirty, he married Sarah, daughter of Sir Henry Gould, Knt., of Sharp- ham Park, near Glastonbury, in Somerset, and one of the Judges of the King's Bench. These last were the parents of the novelist, who was born at Sharpham Park on the 22d of April, 1707. One of Dr. John Fielding's nieces, it may here be added, married the first Duke of Kingston, becoming the mother of Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterwards Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was thus Henry Fielding's second cousin. She had, however, been born in 1689, and was conse- quently some years his senior. 4 Henry Fielding According to a pedigree given in Nichols (History and Antiquities of the County of Lei- cester), Edmund Fielding was only a lieutenant when he married ; and it is even not improbable (as Mr. Keightley conjectures from the nearly secret union of Lieutenant Booth and Amelia in the later novel) that the match may have been a stolen one. At all events, the bride continued to reside at her father's house ; and the fact that Sir Henry Gould, by his will made in March, 1706, left his daughter ;2^3,ooo, which was to be invested *' in the purchase either of a Church or CoUedge lease, or of lands of Inheritance/' for her sole use, her husband having '* nothing to doe with it/' would seem (as Mr. Keightley sug- gests) to indicate a distrust of his military, and possibly impecunious, son-in-law. This money, it is also important to remember, was to come to her children at her death. Sir Henry Gould did not long survive the making of his will, and died in March, 1710.^ The Fieldings must then have removed to a small house at East Stour (now Stower), in Dorsetshire, where Sarah Fielding 1 Mr. Keightley, who seems to have seen the will, dates it — doubtless by a slip of the pen — May, 1708. Reference to the original, however, now at Somerset House, shows the correct date to be March 8, 1706, before which time the marriage of Fielding's parents must therefore be placed. A Memoir 5 was born in the following November. It may be that this property was purchased with Mrs. Fielding's money ; but information is wanting upon the subject. At East Stour, according to the extracts from the parish register given in Hutchins's Hisiory of Dorset^ four children were born, — namiCly, Sarah, above mentioned, after- wards the authoress of David Simple^ Anne, Beatrice, and another son, Edmund. Edmund, says Arthur Murphy, ''was an officer in the marine service," and (adds Mr. Lawrence) ''died young." ^ Anne died at East Stour in August, 1716. Of Beatrice nothing further is known. These would appear to have been all the children of Edmund Fielding by his first wife, although, as Sarah Fielding is styled on her monument at* Bath the second daughter of General Fielding, it is not impossible that another daughter may have been born at Sharpham Park. At East Stour the Fieldings certainly resided until April, 1718, when Mrs. Fielding died, leav- ing her elder son a boy of not quite eleven years 1 He was alive in 1743, for his name appears in a list of Colonel James Cochran's Regiment of Marines printed at p. 25 of The Whitefoord Papers, 1898. Fielding refers to him in The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 1755, P* ^^^ ^^ first issue. 6 Henry Fielding of age. How much longer the family remained there is unrecorded ; but it is clear that a great part of Henry Fielding's childhood must have been spent by the ** pleasant Banks of sweetly- winding Stour " which passes through it, and to which he subsequently refers in Tom Jones, His education during this time was confided to a cer- tain 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. Of this gentleman, according to Murphy, Parson Trulliber in Joseph Andrews is a '^ very humorous and striking portrait." It is certainly more hu- morous than complimentary. From Mr. Oliver's fosterin^g care — and the result shows that, whatever may have been the pig-dealing propensities of Parson Trulliber, it was not entirely profitless — Fielding was trans- ferred to Eton. When this took place is not known ; but at that time boys entered the school much earlier than they do now, and it was prob- ably not long after his mother's death. The Eton boys were then, as at present, divided into collegers and oppidans. There are no registers of oppidans before the end of the last century ; but the Provost of Eton has been good enough A Memoir 7 to search the college lists from 171 5 to 1735, ^"^ there is no record of any Henry Fielding, nor indeed of any Fielding at all. It may therefore be concluded that he was an oppidan. No par- ticulars of his stay at Eton have come down to us ; but it is to be presumed Murphy's statement that, '* when he left the place, he was said to be uncommonly versed in the Greek authors, and an early master of the Latin classics," is not made without foundation.^ We have also his own au- thority (in Tom Jones) for supposing that he oc- casionally, if not frequently, sacrificed ^' with true Spartan devotion "at the ^* birchen Altar," of which a representation is to be found in Sir Maxwell Lyte's history of the College.^ And it may fairly be inferred that he took part in the different sports and pastimes of the day, such as Conquering Lobs, Steal baggage. Chuck, Stare- caps, and so forth. Nor does it need any strong effort of imagination to conclude that he bathed in ** Sandy hole " or '' Cuckow ware," attended the cock-fights in Bedford's Yard and the bull- baiting in Bachelor's Acre, drank mild punch at 1 Fielding's own words in the verses to Walpole some years later scarcely go so far : " Tuscan and French are in my Head ; Latin I write, and Greek I — read." ^ History of Eton College, 1875, P* 374* 8 Henry Fielding the ^^Christopher/' and, no doubt, was occa- sionally brought back by Jack Cutler, *^ Pursui- vant of Runaways," to make his explanations to Dr. Bland the Head-Master, or Francis Goode the Usher. Among his school-fellows were some who subsequently attained to high dignities in the State, and still remained his friends. Fore- most of these was George Lyttelton, later the statesman and orator, who had already com- menced poet as an Eton boy with his *' Soliloquy of a Beauty in the Country.'' Another was the future Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the wit and squib-writer, then known as Charles Hanbury only. A third was Thomas Winnington, for whom, in after years. Fielding fought hard with brain and pen when Tory scribblers assailed his memory. Of those who must be regarded as contemporaries merely, were William Pitt, the * ' Great Commoner," and yet greater Earl of Chat- ham ; Henry Fox, Lord Holland; and Charles Pratt, Earl Camden. Gilbert West, the transla- tor of Pindar, may also have been at Eton in Fielding's time, as he was only a year older, and was intimate with Lyttelton. Thomas Augus- tine Arne, again, famous in days to come as Dr. Arne^ was doubtless also at this date practising sedulously upon that " miserable cracked com- mon flute," with which tradition avers he was A Memoir 9 wont to torment his school-fellows. Gray and Horace Walpole belong to a later period. During his stay at Eton, Fielding had been rap- idly developing from a boy into a young man. When he left school it is impossible to say ; but he was probably seventeen or eighteen years of age, and it is at this stage of his career that must be fixed an occurrence which one of his biogra- phers places much farther on. This is his earliest recorded love-affair. At Lyme Regis there re- sided a young lady, who, in addition to great per- sonal charms, had the advantage of being the only daughter and heiress of one Solomon An- drew, deceased, a merchant of considerable local reputation. Lawrence says that she was Field- ing's cousin. This may be so ; but the state- ment is unsupported by any authority. It is cer- tain, however, that her father was dead, and that she was living *^ in maiden meditation " at Lyme with one of her guardians, Mr. Andrew Tucker. In his chance visits to that place, young Fielding appears to have become desperately enamoured of her, and to have sadly fluttered the Dorset dovecotes by his pertinacious and undesirable at- tentions. At one time he seems to have actually meditated the abduction of his ** flame," for an entry in the town archives, discovered by Mr. George Roberts, sometime Mayor of Lyme, who lo Henry Fielding tells the story, declares that Andrew Tucker, Esq., went in fear of his life ** owing to the behaviour of Henry Fielding and his attendant, or man/' Such a state of things (especially when guardians have sons of their own) is clearly not to be en- dured ; and Miss Andrew was prudently trans- ferred to the care of another guardian, Mr. Rhodes of Modbury, in South Devon, to whose son, a young gentleman of Oxford, she was promptly married. Burke {Landed Gentry, 1858) dates the marriage in 1726, a date which is prac- tically confirmed by the baptism of a child at Mod- bury in April of the following year. Burke further describes the husband as Mr. Ambrose Rhodes of Buckland House, Buckland-Tout-Saints. His son, Mr. Rhodes of Bellair, near Exeter, was gentleman of the Privy Chamber to George HI.; and one of his descendants possessed a picture which passed for the portrait of Sophia Western. The tradition of the Tucker family pointed to Miss Andrew as the original of Field- ing's heroine ; but though such a supposition is intelligible, it is untenable, since he says distinctly (Book XHI. chap. i. of Tom Jones) that his model was his first wife, whose likeness he more- over draws very specifically in another place, by declaring that she resembled Margaret Cecil, Lady Ranelagh, and, more nearly, "• the A Memoir ii famous Duchess of Mazarine,'' Hortensia Man- cini.-^ With this early escapade is perhaps to be con- nected what seems to have been one of Fielding's earliest literary efforts. This is a modernisation in burlesque octosyllabic verse of part of Juvenal's sixth satire. In the '' Preface" to the later pub- lished Miscellanies y it is said to have been '' orig- inally sketched out before he was Twenty,'' and to have constituted ^'all the Revenge taken by an injured Lover." But it must have been largely revised subsequent to that date, for it contains references to Mrs. Clive, Mrs. WofRngton, Gib- ber the younger, and even to Richardson's Pamela, It has no special merit, although some of the couplets have the true Swiftian turn. If Murphy's statement be correct, that the author ** went from Eton to Leyden," it must have been planned at the latter place, where, he tells us in the preface to Don Quixote in England, he also began that comedy. Notwithstanding these lit- erary distractions, he is nevertheless reported to have studied the civilians **with a remarkable application for about two years." At the ex- piration of this time, remittances from home fail- ing, he was obliged to forego the lectures of the ** learned Vitriarius " (then professor of Civil Law 1 See Appendix No. I. : Fielding and Sarah Andrew. 12 Henry Fielding at Leyden University), and return to London, which he did at the beginning of 1728 or the end of 1727.^ The fact was that his father, never a rich man, had married again. His second wife was a widow named Eleanor Rasa ; and by this time he was fast acquiring a second family. Under the pressure of his growing cares^ he found himself, however willing, as unable to maintain his eldest son in London as he had previously been to dis- charge his expenses at Leyden. Nominally, he made him an allowance of two hundred a year ; but this, as Fielding himself explained, ** any- body might pay that would." The consequence v/as, that not long after the arrival of the latter in the Metropolis he had given up all idea of pur- suing the law, to which his mother's legal con- nections had perhaps first attracted him, and had determined to adopt the more seductive occu- pation of living by his wits. At this date he was in the prime of youth. From the portrait by Hogarth representing him at a time when he was broken in health and had lost his teeth, it is diffi- 1 See Peacock's Index to English-speaking' students who have graduated at Leydeit University ^ 1883, p. 35, where Fielding's name occurs under date of 16 March, 1728; and Cornhill Magazine for November, 1863, — "A Scotchman in Holland." A Memoir 13 cult to reconstruct his likeness at twenty. But we may fairly assume the *' high-arched Roman nose " with which his enemies reproached him, the dark eyes, the prominent chin, and the humor- ous expression ; and it is clear that he must have been tall and vigorous, for he was over six feet when he died, and had been remarkably strong and active. Add to this that he inherited a splendid constitution, with an unlimited capacity for enjoyment, and we have a fair idea of Henry Fielding at that moment of his career, when with passions '' tremblingly alive all o'er " — as Murphy says — he stood, " This way and that dividing the swift mind," between the professions of hackney-writer and hackney-coachman.^ His natural bias was towards literature, and his opportunities, if not his inclinations, directed him to dramatic writing. It is not necessary to attempt any detailed account of the state of the stage at this epoch. Nevertheless, if only to avoid confusion in the future, it will be well to enumerate the several London theatres in 1728, the more especially as the list is by no means lengthy. First and fore- most there was the old Opera House in the Hay- 1 Letters y etc. of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu ^ 1 86 1, ii. 2S0. 14 Henry Fielding market, built by Vanbrugh, as far back as 1705, upon the site now occupied by Her Majesty's Theatre. This was the home of that popular Italian song which so excited the anger of thorough-going Britons ; and here, at the begin- ning of 1728, they were performing HandeFs opera of Siroe^ and delighting the cognoscenti by Diie che fd, the echo-air in the same composer's Tolomeo. Opposite the Opera House, and, in position, only '*a few feet distant'' from the existing Haymarket Theatre, was the New, or Little Theatre in the Haymarket, which, from the fact that it had been opened eight years be- fore by ^* the French Comedians," was also sometimes styled the French House. Next comes the no-longer-existent theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which Christopher Rich had rebuilt in 1714, and which his son John had made notorious for pantomimes. Here the Beggar's Opera, precursor of a long line of similar pro- ductions, had just been successfully produced. Finally, most ancient of them all, there was the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane, otherwise the King's Play House, or Old House. The virtual patentees at this time were the actors Colley Cibber, Robert Wilks, and Barton Booth. The two former were just playing the ProvoKd Hus- band, in which the famous Anne Oldfield (Pope's A Memoir 15 **Narcissa") had created a furore by her as- sumption of Lady Townly. These, in February, 1728, were the four principal London theatres. Goodman's Fields, where Garrick made his dibut, was not opened until the following year, and Covent Garden belongs to a still later date. Fielding's first dramatic essay — or, to speak more precisely, the first of his dramatic essays that was produced upon the stage — was a five- act comedy entitled Love in Several Masques. It was played at Drury Lane in February, 1728, succeeding the Provoked Husband, In his *^ Preface" the young author refers to the dis- advantage under which he laboured in following close upon that comedy, and also in being ** cotemporary with an Entertainment which en- grosses the whole Talk and Admiration of the Town," — Le,,the Beggar's Opera. He also acknowledges the kindness of Wilks and Gibber *' previous to its Representation," and the fact that he had thus acquired their suffrages makes it doubtful whether his stay at Leyden was not really briefer than is generally supposed, or that he left Eton much earlier. In either case he must have been in London some months before Love in Several Masques appeared, for a first play by an untried youth of twenty, however promis- ing, is not easily brought upon the boards in any 1 6 Henry Fielding era ; and from his own utterances in Pasquin, ten years later, it is clear that it was no easier then than now. The sentiments of the Fustian of that piece in the following protest probably give an accurate picture of the average dramatic experiences of Henry Fielding: " These little things, Mr. Sneerwell, will sometimes hap- pen. Indeed a Poet undergoes a great deal before he comes to his Third Night ; first with the Muses, who are humorous Ladies, and must be attended ; for if they take it into their Head at any time to go abroad and leave you, you will pump your Brain in vain : Then, Sir, with the Master of a Playhouse to get it acted, whom you generally follow a quarter of a Year before you know whether he will receive it or no ; and then perhaps he tells you it won't do, and returns it you again, reserving the Subject, and perhaps the Name, which he brings out in his next Pantomime ; but if he should receive the Play, then you must attend again to get it writ out into Parts, and Rehears'd. Well, Sir, at last the Rehearsals begin ; then, Sir, begins another Scene of Trouble with the Actors, some of whom don't like their Parts, and all are continually plaguing you with Alter- ations : At length, after having waded thro' all these Diffi- culties, his [the ?] Play appears on the Stage, where one Man Hisses out of Resentment to the Author ; a Second out of Dislike to the House ; a Third out of Dislike to the Actor ; a Fourth out of Dislike to the Play ; a Fifth for the Joke sake ; a Sixth to keep all the rest in Company. Ene- mies abuse him, Friends give him up, the Play is damn'd, and the Author goes to the Devil, so ends the Farce." A Memoir 1 7 To which Sneerwell replies, with much prompti- tude : ''The Tragedy rather, I think, Mr. FusiianJ' But whatever may have been its pre- liminary difficulties, Fielding's first play was not exposed to so untoward a fate. It was well re- ceived. As might be expected in a beginner, and as indeed the references in the Preface to Wycherley and Congreve would lead us to ex- pect, it was an obvious attempt in the manner of those then all-popular writers. The dialogue is ready and witty. But the characters have that obvious defect which Lord Beaconsfield recog- nised when he spoke in later life of his own earliest efforts. " Books written by boys," he says, " which pretend to give a picture of man- ners and to deal in knowledge of human nature must necessarily be founded on affectation." To this rule the personages of Love in Several Masques are no exception. They are drawn rather from the stage than from life, and there is little constructive skill in the plot. A certain booby squire, Sir Positive Trap, seems like a first indi- cation of some of the later successes in the novels ; but the rest of the dramatis personx are puppets. The success of the piece was probably owing to the acting of Mrs. Oldfield, who took the part of Lady Matchless, a character closely related to the Lady Townlys and Lady Betty 1 8 Henry Fielding Modishes, in which she won her triumphs. She seems, indeed, to have been unusually interested in this comedy, for she consented to play in it notwithstanding a ** slight Indisposition'' con- tracted ^' by her violent Fatigue in the Part of Lady Townly,'' and she assisted the author with her corrections and advice — perhaps with her influence as an actress. Fielding's distinguished kinswoman Lady Mary Wortley Montagu also read the MS. Looking to certain scenes in it, the protestation in the Prologue — " Nought shall offend the Fair Ones' Ears to-day, Which they might blush to hear, or blush to say '* — has an air of insincerity, although, contrasted with some of the writer's later productions, Love in Several Masques is comparatively pure. But he might honestly think that the work which had received the approval of a stage-queen and a lady of quality should fairly be regarded as mor- ally blameless, and it is not necessary to bring any bulk of evidence to prove that the morality of 1728 differed from the morality of to-day. To the last-mentioned year is ascribed a poem entitled the ''Masquerade. Inscribed to C — t H — d — g — r. By Lemuel Gulliver, Poet Laure- ate to the King of Lilliput." In this Fielding made his satirical contribution to the attacks on A Memoir 19 those impure gatherings organised by the noto- rious Heidegger, which Hogarth had not long be- fore stigmatised pictorially in the plate known to collectors as the *Marge Masquerade Ticket/' As verse this performance is worthless, and it is not very forcibly on the side of good manners ; but the ironic dedication has a certain touch of Fielding's later fashion. Two other poetical pieces, afterwards included in the Miscellanies of 1743, also bear the date of 1728. One is A Description of U — n G — (alias Neu^ Hogs Nor- ton) in Com, Hants, which Mr. Keightley has identified with Upton Grey, near Odiham, in Hampshire. It is a burlesque description of a tumble-down country-house in which the writer was staying, and is addressed to Rosalinda. The other is entitled To Euthalia, from which it must be concluded that, in 1728, Sarah Andrew had found more than one successor. But in spite of some biographers, and of the apparent encour- agement given to his first comedy, Fielding does not seem to have followed up dramatic author- ship with equal vigour, or at all events with equal success. His real connection with the stage does not begin until January, 1730, when the Temple Beau was produced by Giffard the actor at the theatre in Goodman's Fields, which had then just been opened by Thomas Odell ; and it may 20 Henry Fielding be presumed that his incentive was rather want of funds than desire of fame. The Temple Beau certainly shows an advance upon its predecessor ; but it is an advance in the same direction, imita- tion of Congreve ; and although Geneste ranks it among the best of Fielding's plays, it is doubt- ful whether modern criticism would sustain his verdict. It ran for a short time, and was then withdrawn. The Prologue was the work of James Ralph, afterwards Fielding's colleague in the Champion^ and it thus refers to the prevailing taste. The Beggar's Opera had killed Italian song, but now anew danger had arisen, — " Humour and Wit, in each politer Age, Triumphant, rear'd the Trophies of the Stage : But only Farce, and Shew, will now go down, And Ifarlegutn^sthe Darling of the Town.'* As if to confirm his friend's opinion, Fielding's next piece combined the popular ingredients above referred to. In March following he pro- duced at the Haymarket, under the pseudonym of Scriblerus Secundus, The Author s Farce, with a *' Puppet Show" called The Pleasures of the Town. In the Puppet Show, Henley, the Clare- Market Orator, and Samuel Johnson, the quack author of the popular Hurlothrumbo, were smartly satirised, as also was the fashionable A Memoir 21 craze for Opera and Pantomime. But the most enduring part of this odd medley is the farce which occupies the two first acts, and under thin disguises no doubt depicts much which was within the writer's experience. At all events, Luckless, the author in the play, has more than one of the characteristics which distinguish the traditional portrait of Fielding himself in his early years. He wears a laced coat, is in love, writes plays, and cannot pay his landlady, who declares, with some show of justice, that she *' would no more depend on a Benefit-Night of an un-acted Play, than she wou'd on a Benefit- Ticket in an un-drawn Lottery.'' ** Her Floor (she laments) is all spoil'd with Ink — her Win- dows with Verses, and her Door has been almost beat down with Duns." But the most hum.or- ous scenes in the play — scenes really admirable in their ironic delineation of the seamy side of authorship in 1730 — are those in which Mr. Bookweight, the publisher — the Curll or Os- borne of the period — is shown surrounded by the obedient hacks, who feed at his table on ** good Milk-porridge, very often twice a Day," and manufacture the murders, ghost-stories, political pamphlets, and translations from Virgil (out of Dryden) with which he supplies his cus- tomers. Here is one of them as good as any : 22 Henry Fielding " Bookiveight, So, Mr. Index y what News with you ? Index, I have brought my Bill, Sir. Book. What's here? — for fitting the Motto oi Risum teneatis Amici to a dozen Pamphlets at Sixpence per each, Six Shillings — For Onutia vmcit Amor, d^ nos cedamus Avioriy Sixpence — For Difficile est Satyram non scribere^ Sixpence — Hum ! hum ! hum ! Sum total, for Thirty- six Latin Motto's, Eighteen Shillings ; ditto English^ One Shilling and Ninepence ; ditto Greek, Four, Four Shillings. These Greek Motto's are excessively dear. Ind. If you have them cheaper at either of the Univer- sities, I will give you mine for nothing. Book, You shall have your Money immediately, and pray remember that I must have two Latin Seditious Motto's and one Greek Moral Motto for Pamphlets by to- morrow Morning. . . . Ind, Sir, I shall provide them. Be pleas'd to look on that. Sir, and . print me Five hundred Proposals, and as many Receipts. Book. Proposals for printing by Subscription a new Translation of Cicero, Of the Nature of the Gods and his Tiisculan Questions, by Jeremy htdex, Esq. ; I am sorry you have undertaken this, for it prevents a Design of mine. Ind. Indeed, Sir, it does not, for you see all of the Book that I ever intend to publish. It is only a handsome Way of asking one's Friends for a Guinea. Book. Then you have not translated a Word of it, perhaps. Ind, Not a single Syllable. Book. Well, you shall have your Proposals forthwith ; but I desire you wou'd be a little more reasonable in your Bills for the future, or I shall deal with you no longer ; for A Memoir 23 I have a certain Fellow of a College, who offers to furnish me with Second-hand Motto's out of the Spectator for Two- pence each. Ind. Sir, I only desire to live by my Goods, and I hope you will be pleas'd to allow some difference between a neat fresh Piece, piping hot out of the Classicks, and old thread-bare worn-out Stuff that has past thro' ev'ry Pedant's Mouth. . . :' The latter part of this amusing dialogue, refer- ring to Mr. Index's translation from Cicero, was added in an amended version of the Author s Farce, in which Fielding depicts another all-pow- erful personage in the literary life, — the actor- manager. This version, which appeared some years later, will, however, be more conveniently treated under its proper date, and it is only neces- sary to say here that the slight sketches of Marplay and Sparkish given in the first edition, were pre- sumably intended for Gibber and Wilks, with whom, notwithstanding the ** civil and kind Be- haviour " for which he had thanked them in the ** Preface" to Love in Several Masques, the young dramatist was now, it seems, at war. In the introduction to the Miscellanies, he refers to *' a slight Pique '' with Wilks ; and it is not im- possible that the key to the difference may be found in the following passage : « Sparkish, What dost think of the Play ? 24 Henry Fielding Marplay, It may be a very good one, for ought I know ; but I know the Author has no Interest. Spark, Give me Interest, and rat the Play. Mar, Rather rat the Play which has no Interest. In- terest sways as much in the Theatre as at Court. — And you know it is not always the Companion of Merit in either." The handsome student from Leyden — the po- tential Congreve who wrote Love in Several Masques, and had Lady Mary Wortley Montagu for patroness, might fairly be supposed to have expectations which warranted the civilities of Messrs. Wilks and Gibber ; but the ** Luckless '' of two years later had probably convinced them that his dramatic performances did not involve their sine qua non of success. In these circum- stances nothing perhaps could be more natural than that they should play their parts in his little satire. We have dwelt at some length upon the Auth- ors Farce, because it is the first of Fielding's plays in which, leaving the ** wit-traps " of Wych- erley and Congreve, he deals with the direct censure of contemporary folly, and because, apart from translation and adaptation, it is in this field that his most brilliant theatrical successes were won. For the next few years he continued to produce comedies and farces with great rapidity, both under his own name, and under the A Memoir 25 pseudonym of Scriblerus Secundus. Most of these show manifest signs of haste, and some are recklessly immodest. We shall confine ourselves to one or two of the best, and do little more than enumerate the others. Of these latter, the Coffee-House Politician; or, The Justice caught in his own Trap, 1730, succeeded the Author's Farce. The leading idea, that of a tradesman who neglects his shop for ^* foreign affairs," ap- pears to be derived from Addison's excellent character-sketch in the Tatler of the ** Political Upholsterer.'' This is the more likely, in that Arne the musician, whose father is generally sup- posed to have been Addison's original, was Fielding's contemporary at Eton. Justice Squeezum, another character contained in this play, is a kind of first draft of the later Justice Thrasher in Amelia. The representation of the trading justice on the stage, however, was by no means new, since Justice Quorum in Coffey's Beggar's Wedding (with whom, as will appear presently, Fielding's name has been erroneously associated) exhibits similar characteristics. Omit- ting for the moment the burlesques of Tom Thumb, the Coffee-House Politician wsisfoWowed by the Letter Writers ; or A new Way to Keep a Wife at Home, 175 1, a brisk little farce, with one vigorously drawn character, that of Jack Com- 26 Henry Fielding mons, a young university rake ; the Grub-Street Opera, 173 1 ; the farce of the Lottery, 1731? in which the famous Mrs. Clive, then Miss Raftor, appeared ; the Modern Husbancj, 1732 ; the Co- vent Garden Tragedy, 1732, a broad and rather riotous burlesque of Ambrose Philips' Distrest Mother; and the Debauchees; or, the Jesuit Caught, 1732 — which was based upon the then debated story of Father Girard and Catherine Cadiere. Neither of the two last-named pieces is worthy of the author, and their strongest condemnation in our day is that they were condemned in their own for their unbridled license, the Grub Street Journal going so far as to say that they had " met with the universal detestation of the Town/' The Modern Husband, which turns on that most loathsome of all commercial pursuits, the traffic of a husband in his wife's dishonour, appears, oddly enough, to have been regarded by its author with especial complacency. Its prologue lays stress upon the moral purpose ; it was dedi- cated to Sir Robert Walpole ; and from a couple of letters printed in Lady Mary Wortley Mon- tagu's correspondence, it is clear that it had been submitted to her perusal.^ It had, however, no great success upon the stage, and the chief 1 Letters^ etc., 1 86 1, ii. 19, 20. A Memoir 27 thing worth remembering about it is that it af- forded his last character to Wilks, who played the part of Bellamant. That ** slight Pique,'' of which mention has been made, was no doubt by this time a thing of the past. But if most of the works in the foregoing list can hardly be regarded as creditable to Fielding's artistic or moral sense, one of them at least de- serves to be excepted, and that is the burlesque of Tom Thumb, This was first brought out in 1730 at the little theatre in the Haymarket, where it met with a favourable reception. In the fol- lowing year it was enlarged to three acts (in the first version there had been but two), and repro- duced at the same theatre as the Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Greats ** with the Annotations of H. Scriblerus Secundus." It is certainly one of the best burlesques ever written. As Baker observes in his Biographia Dramaiica, it may fairly be ranked as a sequel to Buckingham's Rehearsal, since it includes the absurdities of nearly all the writers of tragedies from the period when that piece stops to 1730. Am^ong the authors sat- irised are Nat. Lee, Thomson (whose famous ** O Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O I " is parodied by " O Huncamunca, Huncamunca, O ! "), 28 Henry Fielding Banks's Earl of Essex, a favourite play at Bar- tholomew Fair, the Busiris of Young, and the Aureng^ebe of Dryden, etc. The annotations, which abound in transparent references to Dr. Blenile^y, Mr. T[heobal]dy Mr. D[enni]s, are ex- cellent imitations of contemporary pedantry. One example, elicited in Act i by a reference to ** giants," must stand for many: "That learned Historian Mr. S n in the third Number of his Criticism on our Author, takes great Pains to explode this Passage. It is, says he, difficult to guess what Giants are here meant, unless the Giant Despair in the Pilgrim's Progress, or the giant Greatness in the Royal Villain ; for I have heard of no other sort of Giants in the Reign of King Arthur, Petrus Buniianus makes three Tom Thumbs, one whereof he supposes to have been the same Person whom the Greeks called Hercules, and that by these Giants are to be understood the Centaurs slain by that Heroe. Another To7n Thu??ib he contends to have been no other than the Hermes Trismegistus of the Antients. The third Tom Thumb he places under the Reign of King Arthur ; to which third Tom Thujnb, says he, the Actions of the other two were attributed. Now, tho' I know that this Opinion is supported by an Assertion of Justus Lipsius, Thomam ilium- Thumbum nonalium quam Herculem fuisse satis constat ; yet shall I venture to oppose one Line of Mr. Midwinter, against them all. In Arthur's Court Tom Thumb did live, " But then, says Dr. B y, if we place To77t Thumb in the Court of King Arthur, it will be proper to place that A Memoir 29 Court out of Britain, where no Giants were ever heard of. Speizcer, in his Fairy Queen, is of another Opinion, where describing Albion, he says, Far within, a salvage Nation dwelt Of hideous Giants. And in the same canto : Then Elfar, with two Brethren Giants had The one of which had two Heads, — The other three, Risum teneatis, Amici." Of the play itself it is difficult to give an idea by extract, as nearly every line travesties some tragic passage once familiar to play-goers, and now utterly forgotten. But the following lines from one of the speeches of Lord Grizzle — a part admirably acted by Liston in later years ^ — are a fair specimen of its ludicrous use (or rather abuse) of simile : " Yet think not long, I will my Rival bear. Or unreveng'd the slightest Willow wear ; The gloomy, brooding Tempest now confin'd, Within the hollow Caverns of my Mind, In dreadful Whirl, shall rowl along the Coasts, Shall thin the Land of all the Men it boasts, J Compare Hazlitt, Lectures On the English Comic Writ- ers, 18 19, pp. 322-4. 30 Henry Fielding And cram up ev'ry Chink of Hell with Ghosts. So have I seen, in some dark Winter's Day, A sudden Storm rush down the Sky's High-Way, Sweep thro' the Streets with terrible ding-dong, Gush thro' the Spouts, and wash whole Crowds along. The crowded Shops, the thronging Vermin skreen, Together cram the Dirty and the Clean, And not one Shoe-Boy in the Street is seen." In the modern version of Kane O'Hara, to which songs were added, the Tragedy of Trage- dies still keeps, or kept the stage. But its crown- ing glory is its traditional connection with Swift, who told Mrs. Pilkington that he '• had not laugh'd above twice "in his life, once at the tricks of a merry-andrew, and again when (in Fielding's burlesque) Tom Thumb killed the ghost. ^ This is an incident of the earlier ver- sions, omitted in deference to the critics, for which the reader will seek vainly in the play as now printed ; and he will, moreover, discover that Mrs. Pilkington's memory served her im- perfectly, since it is not Tom Thumb who kills the ghost, but the ghost of Tom Thumb which is killed by his jealous rival, Lord Grizzle. A tri- ^ Memoirs y 1754,111. 155. Fielding himself refers to this exploit in the Prologue to TTie Modern Husband : — « He taught Tom Thumb strange victories to boast, Slew heaps of giants, and then — killed a ghost ! " A Memoir 31 fling inaccuracy of this sort, however, is rather in favour of the truth of the story than against it, for a pure fiction w^ould in all probability have been more precise. Another point of interest in connection with this burlesque is the frontispiece which Hogarth supplied to the edition of 1731. It has no special value as a design, but it consti- tutes the earliest reference to that friendship with the painter, of which so many traces are to be found in Fielding's works. Hitherto Fielding had succeeded best in bur- lesque. But, in 1732, the same year in which he produced the Modern Husband, the Debauchees, and the Covent Garden Tragedy, he made an adaptation of yioYieve's M6dicin malgrdlui, which had already been imitated in English by Mrs. Centlivre and others. This little piece, to which he gave the title of the Mock-Doctor ; or, The Dumb Lady curd, was well received. The French original was rendered with tolerable close- ness ; but here and there Fielding has introduced little touches of his own, as, for instance, where Gregory (Sganarelle) tells his wife Dorcas (Martine), whom he has just been beating, that as they are but one, whenever he beats her he beats half of himself. To this she replies by requesting that for the future he will beat the other half. An entire scene (the thirteenth) was 32 Henry Fielding also added at the desire of Miss Raftor, who played Dorcas, and thought her part too short. This is apparently intended as a burlesque of the notorious quack, Dr. John Misaubin, of St. Martin's Lane, to whom the Mock-Doctor was ironically dedicated. He was the proprietor of a famous pill, and was introduced by Hogarth into the Harlofs Progress, Gregory was played by Theophilus Gibber, and the preface contains a complimentary reference to his acting, and the expected retirement of his father from the stage. Neither Genest nor Lawrence gives the date when the piece was first produced, but if the ** April" on the very dubious author's benefit ticket attributed to Hogarth be correct, it must have been in the first months of 1732. The cordial reception of the Mock-Doctor seems to have encouraged Fielding to make further levies upon Moliere, and he speaks of his hope to do so in the '' Preface."" As a matter of fact, he produced a version of L'Avare at Drury Lane in the following year, which entirely out- shone the older versions of Shadwell and Ozell, and gained from Voltaire the praise of having added to the original ** quelques beautes de dia- logue particulieres k s^ (Fielding's) nation."" Lovegold, its leading rdle^ became a stock part. It was w^U played by its first actor Griffin, and A Memoir 2>Z was a favourite exercise with Macklin, Shuter, and (in our own days) Phelps. In February, 1733, when \he Miser was first acted, Fielding was five and twenty. His means at this time were, in all probability, exceedingly uncertain. The small proportion of money due to him at his mother's death had doubtless been long since exhausted, and he must have been almost wholly dependent upon the precarious profits of his pen. That he was assisted by rich and noble friends to any material extent appears, in spite of Murphy, to be unlikely. At all events, an occa- sional dedication to the Duke of Richmond or the Earl of Chesterfield cannot be regarded as proof positive. Lyttelton, who certainly be- friended him in later life, was for a great part of this period absent on the Grand Tour, and Ralph Allen had not yet come forward. In default of the always deferred allowance, his father's house at Salisbury (r) was no doubt open to him ; and it is plain, from indications in his minor poems, that he occasionally escaped into the country. But in London he lived for the most part, and probably not very worshipfully. What, even now, would be the life of a young man of Field- ing's age, fond of pleasure, careless of the future, very liberally equipped with high spirits, and straightway exposed to the perilous seductions of 34 Henry Fielding the stage ? Fielding had the defects of his qual- ities, and was no better than the rest of those about him. He was manly, and frank, and gen- erous ; but these characteristics could scarcely protect him from the terrors of the tip-stafi, and the sequels of '^t'other bottle/' Indeed, he very honestly and unfeignedly confesses to the lapses of his youth in the Journey from this World to the Next, adding that he pretended " to very little Virtue more than general Philanthropy, and pri- vate Friendship."^ It is therefore but reasona- ble to infer that his daily life must have been more than usually characterised by the vicissi- tudes of the eighteenth-century prodigal, — alter- nations from the " Rose" to a Clare-Market or- dinary, from gold-lace to fustian, from champagne to *' British Burgundy." In a rhymed petition to Walpole, he makes pleasant mirth of what no doubt was sometimes sober truth — his debts, his duns, and his dinnerless condition. He (the verses tell us) " from his Garret can look down On the whole Street of Arlington,^'' * Again — *< The Family that dines the latest Is in our Street esteem'd the greatest ; 1 Miscellmiies, by Henry Fielding, Esq., 1743, ii. 62. 2 Where Sir Robert lived, at No. 17. A Memoir 35 But latest Hours must surely fall Before him who ne'er dines at all ; " and " This too doth in my Favour speak, Your Levee is but twice a Week ; From mine I can exclude but one Day, My Door is quiet on a Sunday,^'* When he can admit so much even jestingly of himself, it is but legitimate to presume that there is no great exaggeration in the portrait of him in 1735? by the anonymous satirist of SeasonabU Reproof: <* F ^y who yesterday appeared so rough. Clad in coarse Frize^ and plaister'd down with Snuffs See how his Instant gaudy Trappings shine ; What Play-house Bard was ever seen so fine ! But this, not from his Hwriour flows, you'll say, But mere Necessity ; — for last Night lay In Pawiiy the Velvet which he wears to Day." His work bears traces of the inequalities and irregularities of his mode of living. Although in certain cases (e^g*^ the revised edition of Tom Thumb) the artist and scholar seems to have spasmodically asserted himself, the majority of his plays v^ere hasty and ill-considered perform- 1 Miscellanies y 1743, i. 42. The poem is headed "Writ- ten in the Year 1730." 36 Henry Fielding ances, most of which (as Lady Mary said) he would have thrown into the fire *' if meat could have been got without money, and money with- out scribbling/' '* When he had contracted to bring on a play, or a farce," says Murphy, ''it is well known, by many of his friends now living, that he would go home rather late from a tavern, and would, the next morning, deliver a scene to the players, written upon the papers, which had wrapped the tobacco, in which he so much de- lighted/' ^ It is not easy to conceive, unless Fielding's capacities as a smoker were unusual, that any large contribution to dramatic literature could have been made upon the wrappings of Virginia or Freeman's Best ; but that his reputa- tion for careless production was established among his contemporaries is manifest from the following passage in a burlesque ** Author's Will" published in the Universal Spectator of Oldys : ** Item, I give and bequeath to my very negli- gent Friend Henry Drama, Esq., all my Indus- try. And whereas the World may think this an unnecessary Legacy, forasmuch as the said Henry- Drama, Esq., brings on the stage four Pieces every Season ; yet as such Pieces are always wrote with uncommon Rapidity, and during such » Works, 1762, pp. 26-7. A Memoir 01 fatal Intervals only as the Stocks have been on the Folly this Legacy will be of use to him to re- vise and correct his Works. Furthermore, for fear the said Hc^ry Drama should make an ill Use of the sai: -^r, and expend it all on a Ballad Farceyii- ■ the said Legacy should be paid him by e .^ :as, and as his Neces- sities may require/*' ^ There can be little doubt that the above quota- tion, which seems to have hitherto escaped in- quiry, refers to none other than the ** very negli- gent " Author of the Modem Husban4 and the Old Debauchees — in other words, to Henry Fieldins: &• 1 GenUtmav^s Magazhu^ J^J* '734- CHAPTER II Fielding and Timothy Fielding ; The Intriguing Chamber- maid^ ^734 ; ^^ Author^ s Farce revived, 1734 ; Theoph- ilus Gibber; Don Quixote in England, 1734; a farce and a comedy ; marriage, 1735 (?) ; Miss Charlotte Crad- ock; love-poems; life at East Stour; the Great Mogul's Company; Pasquin, 1736; plot, incidents and extracts; The Historical Register ^ ^737 1 the Licensing Act; Fielding as a playwright. T^HE very subordinate part in the Miser of ^ '' Furnish, an Upholsterer," was taken by a third-rate actor, whose surname has been pro- ductive of no little misconception among Henry Fielding's biographers. This was Timothy Fielding, sometime member of the Haymarket and Drury Lane companies, and proprietor, for several successive years, of a booth at Bartholo- mew; Southwark, and other fairs. In the absence of any Christian name, Mr. Lawrence seems to have rather rashly concluded that the Fielding mentioned by Genest as having a booth at Bar- tholomew Fair in 1773 with Hippisley (the original Peachum of the Beggar's Opera) j was Fielding the dramatist ; and the mistake thus originated at once began that prosperous course A Memoir 39 which usually awaits any slip of the kind. It misled one notoriously careful inquirer, who, in his interesting chronicles of Bartholomew Fair, minutely investigated the actor's history, giving precise details of his doings at '' Bartlemy '' from 1728 to 1736; but, although the theory in- volved obvious inconsistencies, apparently with- out any suspicion that the proprietor of the booth which stood, season after season, in the yard of the George Inn at Smithfield, was an entirely different person from his greater namesake. The late Dr. Rimbault carried the story farther still, and attempted to show, in Notes and Queries for May, 1859, that Henry Fielding had a booth at Tottenham Court in 1738, ^^ subsequent to his admission into the Middle Temple ; " and he also promised to supply additional particulars to the effect that even 1738 vv'as not the " last year of Fielding's career as a booth-proprietor." At this stage (probably for good reasons) inquiry seems to have slumbered, although, with the fatal vitality of error, the statement continued (and still continues) to be repeated in various quarters. In 1875, however, the late Mr. Frederick Latreille published a short article in Notes and Queries,^ proving conclusively, by ex- tracts from contemporary newspapers and other * June 26. (5th Series, iii. 502.) 40 Henry Fielding sources, that the Timothy Fielding above re- ferred to was the real Fielding of the fairs ; that he became landlord of the Buffalo Tavern '' at the corner of Bloomsbury Square " in 1733 ; and that he died in August, 1738, his Christian name, so often suppressed, being duly recorded in the register of the neighbouring church of St. George's^ where he was buried. The admirers of the novelist owe Mr. Latreille a debt of grati- tude for this opportune discovery. It is true that a certain element of Bohem/ian picturesque- ness is lost to Henry Fielding's life, already not very rich in recorded incident ; and it would cer- tainly have been curious if he, who ended his days in trying to dignify the judicial office, should have begun life by acting the part of a *^ trading justice," namely that of Quorum in Coffey's Beggar's Wedding, which Timothy Fielding had played at Drury Lane. But, on the whole, it is satisfactory to know that his early experiences did not, of necessity, include those of a strolling player. Some obscure and temporary con- nection with Bartholomew Fair he may have had, as Smollett, in the scurrilous pamphlet issued in 1752, makes him say that he blew a trumpet there in quality of herald to a collection of wild beasts ; ^ but this is probably no more 1 A Faithful Narrative^ etc., 1752, p. 1 1 (see Post^ ch. vi.). A Memoir 41 than an earlier and uglier form of the apparition laid by Mr. Latreille. The only positive evi- dence of any connection between Henry Field- ing and the Smithfield carnival is, that Theophilus Gibber's company played the Mhe^r at their booth in August, 1733. With the exception of the Miser and an after- piece, never printed, entitled Deborah; or, A Wife for you all, which was acted for Miss Rafter's benefit in April, 1733, nothing important was brought upon the stage by Fielding until January of the following year, when he produced the Intriguing Chambermaid, and a revised version of the Author's Farce. By a succession of changes, which it is impossible here to describe in detail, considerable alterations had taken place in the management of Drury Lane. In the first place, Wilks was dead, and his share in the Patent was represented by his widow. Booth also was dead, and Mrs. Booth had sold her share to Giffard of Goodman's Fields, while the elder Gibber had retired. At the beginning of the season of 1733-34 the leading patentee was an amateur called Highmore, who had purchased Gibber's share. He had also purchased part of Booth's share before his death in May, 1733. The only other shareholder of importance was Mrs. Wilks. Shortly after the opening of the theatre 42 Henry Fielding in September, the greater part of the Drury Lane Company, led by the younger Gibber, revolted from Highmore and Mrs. Wilks, and set up for themselves. Matters were farther complicated by the fact that John Rich had not long opened a new theatre in Covent Garden, which consti- tuted a fresh attraction ; and that what Fielding called the ^* wanton affected Fondness for foreign Musick," was making the Italian opera a danger- ous rival — the more so as it was patronised by the nobility. Without actors the patentees were in serious case. Miss Raftor, who about this time became Mrs. Clive, appears, however, to have remained faithful to them, as also did Henry Fielding. The lively little comedy of the Intriguing Chambermaid was adapted from the Relour Imprdvu of Regnard especially for her ; and in its published form was preceded by an epistle in which the dramatist dwells upon the '* Factions and Divisions among the Players/' and compliments her upon her compassionate ad- herence to Mr. Highmore and Mrs. Wilks in their time of need. The epistle is also valuable for its warm and generous testimony to the private character of this accomplished actress, whose part in real life, says Fielding, was that of **the best Wife, the best Daughter, the best Sister, and the best Friend." The words are A Memoir 43 more than mere compliment ; they appear to have been true. Madcap and humourist as she was, no breath of slander seems ever to have tarnished the reputation of Catherine Clive, whom Johnson — a fine judge, when his preju- dices were not actively aroused — called in addi- tion *' the best player that he ever saw/' ^ The Intriguing Chambermaid was produced on the i^th of January, 1734. Lettice, from whom the piece was named, was well personated by Mrs. Clive, and Colonel Bluff by Macklin, the only actor of any promise that Highmore had been able to secure. With the new comedy the Author's Farce was revived. It would be un- necessary to refer to this again, but for the addi- tions that were made to it. These consisted chiefly in the substitution of Marplay Junior for Sparkish, the actor-manager of the first version. The death of Wilks may have been a reason for this alteration ; but a stronger was no doubt the desire to throw ridicule upon Theophilus Cibber, whose behaviour in deserting Drury Lane imme- diately after his father had sold his share to High- more had not passed without censure, nor had his father's action escaped sarcastic comment. The- ophilus Cibber — whose best part was Beaumont and Fletcher's Copper Captain, and who carried 1 Hill's BoszuelVs Johnsoft^ 1887, v. 126. 44 Henry Fielding the impersonation into private life — had played in several of Fielding's pieces ; but Fielding had linked his fortunes to those of the patentees, and was consequently against the players in this quar- rel. The following scene was accordingly added to the farce for the exclusive benefit of ^' Young Marplay '' : **Marplay junior, Mr. Luckless, I kiss your Hands — Sir, I am your most obedient humble Servant; you see, Mr. LucklesSy what Power you have over me. I attend your Commands, tho' several Persons of Quality have staid at Court for me above this Hour. Luckless, I am obliged to you — I have a Tragedy for your House, Mr. Marplay, Mar, jun. Ha ! if you will send it me, I will give you my Opinion of it ; and if I can make any Alterations in it that will be for its Advantage, I will do it freely. Witmore, Alterations, Sir? Mar. jun. Yes, Sir, Alterations — I will maintain it, let a Play be never so good, without Alteration it will do noth- ing. Wit, Very odd indeed. Mar. jun. Did you ever write. Sir ? Wit. No, Sir, I thank Heav'n. Mar. jun. Oh ! your humble Servant — your very hum- ble Servant, Sir. When you write yourself you will find the Necessity of Alterations. Why, Sir, wou'd you guess that I had alter'd Shakespeare ? Wit. Yes, faith, Sir, no one sooner. A Memoir 45 Mar, jun, Alack-a-day ! Was you to see the Plays when they are brought to us — a Parcel of crude, undi- gested Stuff. We are the Persons, Sir, who lick them into Form, that mould them into Shape — The Poet make the Play indeed ! The Colour-man might be as well said to make the Picture, or the Weaver the Coat : My Father and I, Sir, are a Couple of poetical Tailors ; when a Play is brought us, we consider it as a Tailor does his Coat, we cut it, Sir, we cut it : And let me tell you, we have the exact Measure of the Town, we know how to fit their Taste. The Poets, between you and me, are a Pack of igno- rant Wit. Hold, hold, sir. This is not quite so civil to T^Ir. Luckless : Besides, as I take it, you have done the Town the Honour of writing yourself. Mar, jun. Sir, you are a Man of Sense ; and express your- self well. I did, as you say, once make a small Sally into Parnassus, took a sort of flying Leap over Helicon : But if ever they catch me there again — Sir, the Town have a Prejudice to my Family; for if any Play cou'd have made them ashamed to damn it, mine must. It was all over Plot. It wou'd have made half a dozen Novels : Nor was it cram'd with a pack of Wit-traps, like Congreve and Wycherly, where every one knows when the Joke was coming. I defy the sharpest Critick of 'em all to know when any Jokes of mine were coming. The Dialogue was plain, easy, and natural, and not one single Joke in it from the Beginning to the End : Besides, Sir, there was one Scene of tender mel- ancholy Conversation, enough to have melted a Heart of Stone ; and yet they damn'd it : And they damn'd them- selves ; for they shall have no more of mine. Wit, Take pity on the Town, Sir. 46 Henry Fielding Mar, jun, I ! No, Sir, no. I'll write no more. No more ; unless I am forc'd to it. Luckless. That's no easy thing, Marplay, Mar. jun. Yes, Sir. Odes, Odes, a Man may be oblig'd to write to those you know." These concluding lines plainly refer to the elder Gibber's appointment as Laureate in 1730, and to those ** annual Birth-day Strains,'' with which he so long delighted the irreverent ; while the alter- ation of Shakespeare and the cobbling of plays generally, satirised again in a later scene, are strictly in accordance with contemporary ac- counts of the manners and customs of the two dictators of Drury Lane. The piece indicated by Marplay Junior was probably Theophilus Gib- ber's Lover ^ which had been produced in Janu- ary, 173 1, with very moderate success. After the Intriguing Chambermaid and the re- vived Author's Farce, Fielding seems to have made farther exertions for *' the distressed Actors in Drury Lane." He had always been an ad- mirer of Gervantes, frequent references to whose master-work are to be found scattered through his plays ; and he now busied himself with com- pleting and expanding the loose scenes of the comedy of Don Quixote in England, which (as before stated) he had sketched at Leyden for his A Memoir 47 own diversion. He had already thought of bring- ing it upon the stage, but had been dissuaded from doing so by Gibber and Booth, who re- garded it as wanting in novelty. Now, however, he strengthened it by the addition of some elec- tion scenes, in which — he tells Lord Chesterfield in the dedication — he designed to give a lively representation of ^* the Calamities brought on a Country by general Corruption ; " and it was duly rehearsed. But unexpected delays took place in its production ; the revolted players re- turned to Drury Lane ; and, lest the actors' ben- efits should further retard its appearance by postponing it until the winter season, Fielding transferred it to the Haymarket, where, accord- ing to Geneste, it was acted in April, i734- As a play, Don Quixote in England has few stage qualities and no plot to speak of. But the Don with his whimsies, and Sancho with his appetite and string of proverbs, are conceived in some- thing of the spirit of Cervantes. Squire Badger, too, a rudimentary Squire Western, well repre- sented by Macklin, is vigorously drawn ; and the song of his huntsman Scut, beginning with the fine line *' The dusky Night rides down the Sky," has a verse that recalls a practice of which Addison accuses Sir Roger de Goverly : 48 Henry Fielding ** A brushing Fox in yonder Wood, Secure to find we seek ; For why, I carry'd sound and good, A Cartload there last Week. And a Hiuiting uue will ^^."^ The election scenes, though but slightly attached to the main story, are keenly satirical, and con- sidering that Hogarth's famous series of kindred prints belongs to a much later date, must cer- tainly have been novel, as may be gathered from the following little colloquy between Mr. Mayor and Messrs. Guzzle and Retail : «* Mayor {^to RetaW). ... I like an Opposition, because otherwise a Man may be oblig'd to vote against his Party ; therefore when we invite a Gentleman to stand, we invite him to spend his Money for the Honour of his Party; and when both Parties have spent as much as they are able, every honest Man will vote according to his Conscience. Gmz, Mr. Mayor talks like a Man of Sense and Hon- our, and it does me good to hear him. May, Ay, ay, Mr. Guzzle, I never gave a Vote contrary to my Conscience. I have very earnestly recommended the Country-Interest to all my Brethren : But before that, I recommended the Town-Interest, that is, the interest of 1 The earliest form of the famous " Roast Beef of Old England " is also to be found in Do7i Quixote in Engla7id, Richard Leveridge took Fielding's first verse, added others, and set the whole to music (Hullah's Song Book, 1866, No. xxxix.). A Memoir 49 this Corporation ; and first of all I recommended to every particular Man to take a particular Care of himself. And it is with a certain way of Reasoning, That he who serves me best, will serve the Town best ; and he that serves the Town best, will serve the Country best." In the January and February of 177), Fielding produced two more pieces at Drury Lane, a bal- lad-farce and a five-act comedy. The farce — a lively trifle enough — was An Old Man taught Wisdom, a title subsequently changed to the Vir- gin Unmasked, It was obviously written to dis- play the talents of Mrs. Clive, who played in it her favourite character of a hoyden, and, after ** interviewing " a number of suitors chosen by her father, finally ran away with Thomas the footman — a course in those days not without its parallel in high life, above stairs as well as below. It appears to have succeeded, though Bookish, one of the characters, w^as entirely withdrawn in deference to some disapprobation on the part of the audience ; while the part of Wormwood, a lawyer, which is found in the latest editions, is said to have been '^omitted in representation." The comedy, entitled The Universal Gallant; or. The different Husbands, was scarcely so fortunate. Notwithstanding that Quin, who, after an absence of many years, had returned to Drury Lane, playing a leading part, and that Theophilus Cib- so Henry Fielding ber in the hero, Captain Smart, seems to have been fitted with a character exactly suited to his talents and idiosyncrasy, the play ran no more than three nights. Till the third act was almost over, *' the Audience^'' says the Prompter (as quoted by ^* Sylvanus Urban"), *^sat quiet, in hopes it would mend, till finding it grew worse and worse, they lost all Patience, and not an Ex- pression or Sentiment afterwards pass'd without its deserved Censured Perhaps it is not to be wondered at that the author — ''the prolifick Mr, Fielding,'' as the Prompter calls him, attrib- uted its condemnation to causes other than its lack of interest. In his Advertisement he openly complains of the *' cruel Usage" his ''poor Play'' had met with, and of the barbarity of the young men about town who made "a Jest of damning Plays" — a pastime which, whether it prevailed in this case or not, no doubt existed, as Sarah Fielding afterwards refers to it in David Simple. If an author — he goes on to say — "be so unfortunate [as] to depend on the success of his Labours for his Bread, he must bean inhuman Creature indeed, who would out of sport and wantonness prevent a Man from getting a Liveli- hood in an honest and inoffensive Way, and make a jest of starving him and his Family." The plea is a good one if the play be good ; but if A Memoir 51 not, it is worthless. In this respect the public are like the French Cardinal in the story ; and when the famished writer's work fails to enter- tain them, they are fully justified in doubting his claim to exist. There is no reason for supposing that the Universal Gallant deserved a better fate than it met with. Judging from the time which elapsed between the production of this play and that of Pasquin (Fielding's next theatrical venture), it has been conjectured that the interval was occupied by his marriage, and brief experience as a Dorsetshire country gentleman. The exact date of his mar- riage is not known, though it is generally assumed to have taken place in the beginning of 1735. But it may well have been earlier, for it will be observed that in the above quotation from the Preface to the Universal Gallant, which is dated from ** Buckingham Street, Feb. 12," he indi- rectly speaks of *^his family.'' This, it is true, may be no more than the pious fraud of a bache- lor ; but if it be taken literally, we must conclude that his marriage was already so far a thing of the past that he was already a father. This suppo- sition would account for the absence of any record of the birth of a child during his forthcom- ing residence at East Stour, by the explanation that it had already happened in London ; and it 52 Henry Fielding is not impossible that the entry of the marriage, too, may be hidden away in some obscure Met- ropolitan parish register, since those of Salisbury have been fruitlessly searched. At this distance of time, however, speculation is fruitless ; and, in default of more definite information, the ** spring of 1735," which Keightley gives, must be accepted as the probable date of the marriage. Concerning the lady, the particulars are more precise. She was a Miss Charlotte Cradock, one of three sisters living upon their own means at Salisbury, or — as it was then styled — New Sarum. Mr. Keightley's personal inquiries, circa 1858, elicited the information that the family, now extinct, was highly respectable, but not of New Sarum's best society. Richardson, in one of his malevolent outbursts, asserted that the sisters were illegitimate ; ^ but, says the writer above referred to, ** of this circumstance we have no other proof, and I am able to add that the tradition of Salisbury knows nothing of it." They were, however, celebrated for their personal attractions ; and if the picture given in Tom Jones^ accurately represents the first Mrs. Fielding, she must have been a most charming brunette. Something of the stereotyped charac- teristics of a novelist's heroine obviously enter 1 Correspondence f 1804, iv. 60. 2 Bk. iv., ch. 2. A Memoir S3 into the description ; but the luxuriant black hair, which, cut ** to comply with the modern Fash- ion," '' curled so gracefully in her Neck," the lustrous eyes, the dimple in the right cheek, the chin rather full than small, and the complexion having ** more of the Lilly than of the Rose," but flushing with exercise or modesty, are, doubt- less, accurately set down. In speaking of the nose as *' exactly regular," Fielding appears to have deviated slightly from the truth ; for we learn from Lady Louisa Stuart that, in this respect, Miss Cradock's appearance had '^suffered a little " from an accident mentioned in Amelia^ the overturning of a chaise.-^ Whether she also pos- sessed the mental qualities and accomplishments which fell to the lot of Sophia Western, we have no means of determining ; but Lady Louisa Stuart is again our authority for saying that she was as amiable as she was handsome.^ From the love-poems in the first volume of the Miscellanies of 1743 — poems which their author declares to have been *' Productions of the Heart rather than of the Head"^ — it is clear that Fielding had been attached to his future wife 1 See Fos^f ch. 4 and ch. 6. '^ Letters^ etc., of Lady Mary Wort ley Montagu^ 1 86 1, i. io6. ^ Miscellanies f I743> i'> "• 54 Henry Fielding for several years previous to 1735. One of them, Advice to the Nymphs of New S m, cele- brates the charms of Celia — the poetical equiva- lent for Charlotte — as early as 1730; another, containing a reference to the player Anthony Boheme, who died in 173 1, was probably written at the same time ; while a third, in which, upon the special intervention of Jove himself, the prize of beauty is decreed by Venus to the Salisbury sisters, may be of an earlier date than any. The year 1730 was the year of his third piece, the Author s Farce, and he must therefore have been paying his addresses to Miss Cradock not very long after his arrival in London. This is a fact to be borne in mind. So early an attachment to a good and beautiful girl, living no farther off than Salisbury, where his own father probably re- sided, is scarcely consistent with the reckless dissipation which had been laid to his charge, although, on his own showing, he was by no means faultless. But it is a part of natures like his to exaggerate their errors in the moment of re- pentance ; and it may well be that Henry Field- ing, too, was not so black as he painted himself in the Journey from this World to the Next. Of his love-verses he says — '' this Branch of Writ- ing is what I very little pretend to ; " ^ and it ^ Miscellanies^ I743» i»i ii» A Memoir 55 would be misleading to rate them highly, for, un- like his literary descendant, Thackeray, he never attained to any special quality of note.^ But some of his octosyllabics, if they cannot be called equal to Prior's, fall little below Swift's. *' I hate '' — cries he in one of the pieces, " I hate the Town, and all its Ways ; Ridotto's, Opera's, and Plays ; The Ball, the Ring, the Mall, the Court; Wherever the Beau-Monde resort . . . All CofFee-Houses, and their Praters; All Courts of Justice, and Debaters ; All Taverns, and the Sots within 'em ; All Bubbles, and the Rogues that skin *em," — and so forth, the natural anti-climax being that he loves nothing but his ** Charmer" at Salis- bury.^ In another, which is headed To Celia. — Occasioned by her apprehending her House would be broke open, and having an old Fellow to guard it, who sat up all Night, with a Gun vjithout any Ammunition^ and from which it had been concluded that the Miss Cradocks were their own landlords, Venus chides Cupid for neglect- ing to guard her favourite : 1 Nevertheless, the late Mr. Frederick Locker Lampson, a good judge, contrived to include no fewer than four of Fielding's pieces in the Anthology known as Lyra Elegait- iiarum, 1867, pp. 106, 135, 136, 139. ^Miscellanies, 1 743, i., 49. 5 6 Henry Fielding " * Come tell me, Urchin, tell no lies ; Where was you hid, in Vince's eyes ? Did your fair Bennefs Brest importune ? (I know you dearly love a fortune.) ' Poor Cupid now began to whine ; < Mamma, it was no Fault of mine. I in a Dimple lay perdue^ That little Guard-Room chose by you. A hundred Loves (all arm'd) did grace The Beauties of her Neck and Face ; Thence, by a Sigh I dispossest, Was blown to Harry Fielding'' s Breast ; Where I was forc'd all Night to stay, Because I could not find my Way. But did Mamma know there what Work I've made, how acted like a Turk ; What Pains, what Torment he endures, Which no Physician ever cures. She would forgive.' The Goddess smil'd. And gently chuck'd her wicked Child, Bid him go back, and take more Care, And give her Service to the Fair." ^ Swift, in his Rhapsody on Poetry, 1773, cou- pled Fielding with Leonard Welsted as an in- stance of sinking in verse. But the foregoing, which he could not have seen, is scarcely, if at all, inferior to his own Birthday Poems to Stella.^ "i^ Miscellanies J 1743, i. 58. 2 Swift afterward substituted " the laureate [Cibber] " for " Fielding," and appears to have changed his mind as to the A Memoir 57 The history of Fielding's marriage rests so ex- clusively upon the statements of Arthur Murphy that it will be well to quote his words in full : '* Mr. Fielding had not been long a writer for the stage, when he married Miss Craddock [sic]^ a beauty from Salisbury. About that time his mother dying, a moderate estate, at Stower in Dorsetshire devolved to him. To that place he retired with his wife, on whom he doated, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and in- temperances to which he had addicted himself in the career of a town-life. But unfortunately a kind of family-pride here gained an ascendant over him ; and he began immediately to vie in splendour with the neighbouring country squires. With an estate not much above two hundred pounds a-year, and his wife's fortune, which did not exceed fifteen hundred pounds, he encum- bered himself with a large retinue of servants, all clad in costly yellow liveries. For their master's honour, these people could not descend so low as to be careful in their apparel, but, in a month or two, were unfit to be seen ; the squire's dig- latter's merits. " I can assure Mr. Fieldi^g-^^ says Mrs. Pilkington in the third and last volume of her Memoirs, (1754), *< the Dean had a high opinion of his Wit, which must be a Pleasure to him, as no Man was ever better quali- fied to judge, possessing it so eminently himself.'* 5 8 Henry Fielding nity required that they should be newly-equipped ; and his chief pleasure consisted in society and convivial mirth, hospitality threw open his doors, and, in less than three years, entertainments, hounds and horses, entirely devoured a little patrimony, which, had it been managed with economy, might have secured to him a state of independence for the rest of his life, etc/'^ This passage, which has played a conspicuous part in all biographies of Fielding, was very carefully sifted by Mr. Keightley, who came to the conclusion that it was a '' mere tissue of error and inconsistency."^ Without going to this length, we must admit that it is manifestly incorrect in many respects. If Fielding married in 1735 (though, as already pointed out, he may have married earlier, and retired to the country upon the failure of the Universal Gallant)^ he is certainly inaccurately described as '* not having been long a writer for the stage," since writing for the stage had been his chief occupation for seven years. Then again his mother had died as far back as April 10, 1718, when he was a boy of eleven ; and if he had inherited anything from her, he had probably been in the enjoyment of it 1 Works f 1762,1. 27-8. * Some of Mr. Keightley's criticisms were anticipated by Watson. A Memoir 59 ever since he came of age. Furthermore, the statement as to ** three years'' is at variance with the fact that, according to the dedication to the Universal Gallant^ he was still in London in February, 173^, and was back again managing the Haymarket in the first months of 1736. Murphy, however, may only mean that the ^' estate " at East Stour was in his possession for three years. Mr. Keightley's other points — namely, that the ** tolerably respectable farm- house,'' in which he is supposed to have lived, was scarcely adapted to ** splendid entertain- ments," or ^' a large retinue of servants;'' and that, to be in strict accordance with the family arms, the liveries should have been not '* yellow," but white and blue — must be taken for what they are worth. ^ On the whole, the probability is, that Murphy's words were only the careless repetition of local tittle-tattle, of much of which as Captain Booth says pertinently in Amelia, 1 Mr. Leslie Stephen suggests that this detail of the liveries is borrowed from the career of the Duchess of Cleve- land's husband, " Beau," or " Handsome " Fielding (d. 1712), who, among other absurdities, " hired a coach, and kept two footmen clothed in yellow." He was also re- ported to have been (like the novelist) a Justice of the Peace for Westminster. {Diet, of JVat, Biography^ vol. rviii. (1S89), Art. <* Robert Fielding.") 6o Henry Fielding ** the only basis is lying." The squires of the neighbourhood would naturally regard the dash- ing young gentleman from London with the same distrustful hostility that Addison's '* Tory Fox- hunter" exhibited to those who differed with him in politics. It would be remembered, be- sides, that the new-comer was the son of another and an earlier Fielding of less pretensions, and no real cordiality could ever have existed be- tween them. Indeed, it may be assumed that this was the case, for Booth's account of the op- position and ridicule which he — ^'a poor renter I " — encountered when he enlarged his farm and set up his coach has a distinct personal accent. That he was lavish, and lived beyond his means, is quite in accordance with his char- acter. The man who, as a Bow Street magis- trate, kept open house on a pittance, was not likely to be less lavish as a country gentleman, with ;^i 500 in his pocket, and newly married to a young and handsome wife. ** He would have wanted money," said Lady Mary, ** if his heredi- tary lands had been as extensive as his imagi- nation ; '' ^ and there can be little doubt that the rafters of the old farm by the Stour, with the great locust tree at the back, which is figured in Hutchins's History of Dorset, rang often to 1 Letters y etc., 1861, ii. 283. A Memoir 6i hunting choruses, and that not seldom the ** dusky Night rode down the Sky" over the prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests.^ But even £i 500, and (in spite of Murphy) it is by no means clear that he had anything more, could scarcely last forever. Whether his footmen wore yellow or not, a few brief months found him again in town. That he was able to rent a theatre may perhaps be accepted as proof that his profuse hospitalities had not completely ex- hausted his means. The moment was a favourable one for a fresh theatrical experiment. The stage-world was split up into factions, the players were disorganised, and everything seemed in confusion. Whether Fielding himself conceived the idea of making capital out of this state of things, or whether it was suggested to him by some of the company 1 An interesting relic of the East Stour residence has re- cently been presented by Mr. Merthyr Guest (through Mr. R. A. Kinglake) to the Somersetshire Archaeological Society. It is an oak table of solid proportions, and bears on a brass plate the following inscription, emanating from a former owner : — *< This table belonged to Henry Fielding, Esq., novelist. He hunted from East Stour Farm, 17 18, and in three years dissipated his fortune keeping hounds." In 17 18, it may be observed. Fielding was a boy of eleven. Probably the whole of the latter sentence is nothing more than a distortion of Murphy. 62 Henry Fielding who had acted Don Quixote in England, it is im- possible to say. In the first months of 1736, however, he took the little French Theatre in the Haymarket, and opened it with a company which he christened the *^ Great MoguFs Com- pany of Comedians/' who were further described as ** having dropped from the Clouds/' The ** Great Mogul'* was a name sometimes given by playwrights to the elder Cibber ; but there is no reason for supposing that any allusion to him was intended on this occasion. The company, with the exception of Macklin, who was playing at Drury Lane, consisted chiefly of the actors in Don Quixote in England ; and the first piece was en- titled Pasquin : a Dramatick Satire on the Times : being the Rehearsal of Two Plays^ vi-{, a Comedy caird the Election, and a Tragedy calVd the Life and Death of Common-Sense, The form of this work, which belongs to the same class as Sheri- dan's Critic and Buckingham's Rehearsal, was probably determined by Fielding's past experi- ence of the public taste. His latest comedy had failed, and its predecessors had not been very successful. But his burlesques had met with a better reception, while the election episodes in Don Quixote had seemed to disclose a fresh field for the satire of contemporary manners. And in the satire of contemporary manners he felt his A Memoir 63 strength lay. The success of Pasquin proved he had not miscalculated, for it ran more than forty nights^ drawing, if we may believe the unknown author of the life of Theophilus Gibber, numer- ous and enthusiastic audiences " from Grosvenor, Cavendish, Hanover, and all the other fashionable Squares, as also from Pall Mall, and the Inns of Courtr 1 In regard to plot, the comedy which Pasquin contains scarcely deserves the name. It consists of a string of loosely-connected scenes, which depict the shameless political corruption of the Walpole era with a good deal of boldness and humour. The sole difference between the " Court party," represented by two Candidates with the Bunyan-like names of Lord Place and Colonel Promise, and the ** Country party," whose nominees are Sir Harry Fox-Chase and Squire Tankard, is that the former bribe openly, the latter indirectly. The Mayor, whose sym- pathies are with the ** Country Party" is finally induced by his wife to vote for and return the other side, although they are in a minority ; and the play is concluded by the precipitate marriage of his daughter with Colonel Promise. Mr. Fustian, the Tragic Author, who, with Mr. Sneerwell the Critic, is one of the spectators of > An Apology for the Life of Mr, The'' Gibber, I74i,p. 113, 64 Henry Fielding the rehearsal, demurs to the abruptness with which this ingenious catastrophe is brought about, and inquires where the preliminary action, of which there is not the slightest evidence in the piece itself, has taken place. Thereupon Trap- wit, the Comic Author, replies as follows, in one of those passages which show that, whatever Fielding's dramatic limitations may have been he was at least a keen critic of stage practice : " Trapwit. Why, behind the Scenes, Sir. What, would you have every Thing brought upon the Stage ? I intend to bring ours to the Dignity of the French Stage ; and I have Horace's Ad- vice of my Side ; we have many Things both said and done in our Comedies, which might be better performed behind the Scenes : the French, you know, banish all Cruelty from their Stage ; and I don't see why we should bring on a Lady in ours, practising all manner of Cruelty upon her Lover : beside, Sir, we do not only produce it, but encourage it ; for I could name you some Comedies, if I would, where a Woman is brought in for four Acts together, behaving to a worthy Man in a Manner for which she almost deserves to be hang'd ; and in the Fifth, forsooth, she is rewarded with him for a Husband : Now, Sir, as I know this hits some Tastes, and am willing to oblige all, I have given every Lady a Latitude A Memoir 65 of thinking mine has behaved in whatever Man- ner she vi^ould have her." The part of Lord Place in the Election after the first few nights, was taken by Gibber's daugh- ter, the notorious Mrs. Charlotte Charke, whose extraordinary Memoirs are among the curiosities of eighteenth-century literature, and whose ex- periences were as varied as those of any char- acter in fiction. She does not seem to have acted in the Life and Death of Common-Sense^ the rehearsal of which followed that of the Election, This is a burlesque of the Tom Thumb type, much of which is written in vigorous blank verse. Queen Common-Sense is conspired against by Firebrand, Priest of the Sun, by Law, and by Physic. Law is incensed because she has endeavoured to make his piebald jargon in- telligible ; Physic because she has preferred Water Gruel to all his drugs ; and Firebrand be- cause she would restrain the power of Priests. Some of the strokes must have gone home to those receptive hearers who, as one contempo- rary account informs us, '* were dull enough not only to think they contained Wit and Humour, but Truth also '' : ** Queen Common- Sense, My Lord of Laiu^ I sent for you this Morning; I have a strange Petition given to me ; 66 Henry Fielding Two Men, it seems, have lately been at Law For an Estate, which both of them have lost, And their Attorneys now divide between them. Law, Madam, these things will happen in the Law. Q, C, S, Will they, my Lord ? then better we had none : But I have also heard a sweet Bird sing, That Men, unable to discharge their Debts At a short Warning, being sued for them, Have, with both Power and Will their Debts to pay Lain all their Lives in Prison for their Costs. Law, That may perhaps be some poor Person's Case, Too mean to entertain your Royal Ear. Q, C, S. My Lord, while I am Queen I shall not think One Man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd ; Moreover, Lord, I am inform'd your Laws Are grown so large, and daily yet encrease, That the great Age of old Methusalem "Would scarce suffice to read your Statutes out." There is also much more than merely transi- tory satire in the speech of ** Firebrand'' to the Queen : " Firebrand, Ha ! do you doubt it ? nay, if you doubt that, I will prove nothing — But my zeal inspires me, And I will tell you, Madam, you yourself Are a most deadly Enemy to the Sun, And all his Priests have greatest Cause to wish You had been never born. Q, C. S. Ha ! say'st thou. Priest ? Then know I honour and adore the Sun ! A Memoir 67 And when I see his Light, and feel his Warmth, I glow with flaming Gratitude toward him ; But know, I never will adore a Priest, Vv'ho wears Pride's Face beneath Religion's Mask. And makes a Pick-Lock of his Piety, To steal away the Liberty of Mankind. But while I live, I'll never give thee Power. Firebrand. Madam, our Power is not deriv'd from you. Nor any one : 'Twas sent us in a Box From the great Sun himself, and Carriage paid ; Phaeton brought it when he overturn'd The Chariot of the Sun into the Sea. O. C, S. Shew me the Instrument, and let me read it. Fireb. Madam, you cannot read it, for being thrown Into the Sea, the Water has so damaged it. That none but Priests could ever read it since." In the end, Firebrand stabs Common-Sense, but her Ghost frightens Ignorance off the Stage, upon which Sneervvell says — " I am glad you make Common-Sense get the better at last ; I was under terrible Apprehensions for your Moral." *^ Faith, Sir," says Fustian, ''this is almost the only Play where she has got the bet- ter lately." And so the piece closes. But it would be wrong to quit it without some reference to the numberless little touches by which, throughout the whole, the humours of dramatic fife behind the scenes are ironically depicted. The Comic Poet is arrested on his way from 68 Henry Fielding ^^ King's Coffee-House^'' and the claim being ** for upwards of Four Pound," it is at first sup- posed that *^ he will hardly get Bail/' He is subsequently inquired after by a Gentlewoman in a Riding-Hood, whom he passes off as a Lady of Quality, but who, in reality, is bringing him a clean shirt. There are difficulties with one of the Ghosts, who has a *^ Church-yard Cough," and ** is so Lame he can hardly walk the Stage ;" while another comes to rehearsal without being properly floured, because the stage barber had gone to Drury Lane '^ to shave the Sultan in the New Entertainment." On the other hand, the Ghost of Queen Common-Sense appears before she is killed, and is with some difficulty persuaded that her action is premature. Part of '^ihe Mob" play truant to see a show in the park ; Law, straying without the playhouse passage is snapped up by a Lord Chief-Justice's Warrant ; and a Jew carries off one of the Maids of Honour. These little incidents, together with the unblushing realism of the Pots of Porter that are made to do duty for wine, and the extra two- pennyworth of Lightning that is ordered against the first night, are all in the spirit of that inimita- ble picture of the Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn, which Hogarth gave to the world two years later, and which, very possibly, may have A Memoir 69 borrowed some of its inspiration from Fielding's '* dramatic satire." There is every reason to suppose that the prof- its of Pasquin were far greater than those of any of its author's previous efforts. In a rare con- temporary caricature, preserved in the British Museum/ the *' Queen of Common-Sense'' is shown presenting '' Henry Fielding, Esq.," with a well-filled purse^ while to " Harlequin" (John Rich of Covent Garden) she extends a halter ; and in some doggerel lines underneath, reference is made to the ** show'rs of Gold " resulting from the piece. This, of course, might be no more than a poetical fiction ; but Fielding himself at- tests the pecuniary success of Pasquin m the Dedication to Tumble-Down Dick, and Mrs. Charke's statement in her Memoirs that her salary for acting the small part of Lord Place was four guineas a week, *' with an Indulgence in Point of Charges at her Benefit " by which she cleared sixty guineas,^ certainly points to a prosperous exchequer. Fielding's own benefit, as appears from the curious ticket attributed to Hogarth and facsimiled by A. M. Ireland, took place on April 25, but we have no record of the amount of his gains. Mrs. Charke farther says ^ Political and Personal Satires, No. 2283. ^ A Narrative, etc., 1755, pp. 63, 64. 70 Henry Fielding that ^* soon after Pasquin began to droop," Fielding produced Lillo's Fatal Curiosity in which she acted Agnes. This tragedy, founded on a Cornish story, is one of remarkable power and passion ; but upon its first appearance it made little impression, although in the succeed- ing year it was acted to greater advantage in combination with another satirical medley by Fielding, the Historical Register for the Year 1736. Like most sequels, the Historical Register had neither the vogue nor the wit of its predecessor. It was only half as long, and it was even more disconnected in character. '' Harmonious Gib- ber," as Swift calls him, whose *^ preposterous Odes " had already been ridiculed in Pasquin and the Author's Farce, was once more brought on the stage as Ground-Ivy, for his alterations of Shakespeare ; and under the name of Pistol, Theophilus Gibber is made to refer to the con- tention between his second wife, Arne's sister, and Mrs. Glive, for the honour of playing ^* Polly" in the Beggar's Opera, a play-house feud which at the latter end of 1736 had en- gaged '*the Town" almost as seriously as the earlier rivalry of Faustina and Guzzoni. This continued raillery of the Gibbers is, as Fielding himself seems to have felt, a *' Jest a little over-acted ; '' but there is one scene in the piece A Memoir 71 of undeniable freshness and humour, to wit, that in which Cock, the famous salesman of the Piazzas — the George Robins of his day — is brought on the stage as Mr. Auctioneer Hen (a part taken by Mrs. Charke). His wares, *' col- lected by the indefatigable Pains of that cele- brated Virtuoso, Peter Humdrum, Esq.,'' include such desirable items as '* curious Remnants of Political Honesty," ^^ delicate Pieces of Patriot- ism," Modesty (which does not obtain a bid), Courage, Wit, and *'a very neat clear Con- science" of great capacity, ** which has been worn by a Judge, and a Bishop." The '*Car- dinal Virtues " are then put up, and eighteen- pence is bid for them. But after they have been knocked down at this extravagant sum, the buyer complains that he had understood the auctioneer to say **a Cardinal's Virtues," and that the lot he has purchased includes ''Temperance and Chastity, and a Pack of Stuff that he would not give three Farthings for." The whole of this scene is *' admirable fooling ; " and it was after- wards impudently stolen by Theophilus Cibber for his farce of the Auction. The Historical Register concludes with a dialogue between Quidam, in whom the audience recognised Sir Robert Walpole, and four patriots, to whom he gives a purse which has an instantaneous effect 72 Henry Fielding upon their opinions. All five then go off danc- ing to Quidam's fiddle ; and it is explained that they have holes in their pockets through which the money will fall as they dance, enabling the donor to pick it all up again, **and so not lose one Half-penny by his Generosity/' The frank effrontery of satire like the fore- going had by this time begun to attract the at- tention of the Ministry, whose withers had already been sharply wrung by Pasquin ; and it has been conjectured that the ballet of Quidam and the Patriots played no sm.all part in precipi- tating the famous ** Licensing Act,'' which was passed a few weeks afterwards. Like the mar- riage which succeeded the funeral of Hamlet's father, it certainly *' followed hard upon." But the reformation of the stage had already been contemplated by the Legislature ; and two years before. Sir John Barnard had brought in a bill ** to restrain the number of houses for playing of Interludes, and for the better regulating of com- mon Players of Interludes." This, however, had been abandoned, because it was proposed to add a clause enlarging the power of the Lord Cham- berlain in licensing plays, an addition to which the introducer of the measure made strong objec- tion. He thought the power of the Lord Cham- berlain already too great, and in support of his A Memoir 73 argument he instanced its wanton exercise in the case of Gay's Polly, the representation of which had been suddenly prohibited a few years earlier. But Pasquin and the Register brought the question of dramatic lawlessness again to the front, and a bill was hurriedly drawn, one effect of which was to revive the very provision that Sir John Bar- nard had opposed. The history of this affair is exceedingly obscure, and in all probability it has never been completely revealed. The received or authorised version is to be found in Coxe's Life of Walpole. After dwelling on the offence given to the Government by Pasquin, the writer goes on to say that Giffard, the manager of Goodman's Fields, brought Walpole a farce called The Golden Rump, which had been pro- posed for exhibition. Whether he did this to ex- tort money, or to ask advice, is not clear. In either case, Walpole is said to have '^ paid the profits which might have accrued from the per- formance, and detained the copy." He then made a compendious selection of the treasonable and profane passages it contained. These he submitted to independent members of both parties, and afterwards read them in the House itself. The result was that by way of amendment to the ** Vagrant Act " of Anne's reign, a bill was pre- pared limiting the number of theatres, and com- 74 Henry Fielding pelling all dramatic writers to obtain a license from the Lord Chamberlain. Such is Coxe's account ; but notwithstanding its circumstantial character, it has been insinuated in the sham memoirs of the younger Gibber, and it is plainly asserted in the Rambler s Ma^a\ine for 1787, that certain preliminary details have been conveniently suppressed. It is alleged that Walpole himself caused the farce in question to be written, and to be offered to Giffard, for the purpose of introduc- ing his scheme of reform ; and the suggestion is not without a certain remote plausibility. As may be guessed, however, The Golden Rump cannot be appealed to. It was never printed, although its title is identical with that of a cari- cature published in March, 1737, and fully de- scribed in the Gentleman's Magazine for that month. If the play at all resembled the design, it must have been obscene and scurrilous in the extreme.''^ 1 Horace Walpole, in his Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George //,, says (vol. i., p. 12), ** I have in my possession the imperfect copy of this piece as I found it among my father's papers after his death." He calls it Fielding's ; but no importance can be attached to the state- ment. There is a copy of the caricature in the British Museum Print Room (Political and Personal Satires, No. 2327). A Memoir 75 Meanwhile, the new bill, to which it had given rise, passed rapidly through both Houses. Re- port speaks of animated discussions and warm opposition. But there are no traces of any di- visions, or petitions against it, and the only speech which has survived is the very elaborate and care- ful oration delivered in the Upper House by Lord Chesterfield. The '^second Cicero" — as Syl- vanus Urban styles him — opposed the bill upon the ground that it would affect the liberty of the press ; and that it was practically a tax upon the chief property of men of letters, their wit — a ** precarious dependence'' — which (he thanked God) my Lords were not obliged to rely upon. He dwelt also upon the value of the stage as a fearless censor of vice and folly ; and he quoted with excellent effect but doubtful accuracy the famous answer of the Prince of Conti [Cond6] to Moliere [Louis XIV.] when Tar/a/^ was inter- dicted at the instance of M. de Lamoignon: ** It is true, Moliere, Harlequin ridicules Heaven, and exposes religion; but you have done much worse — you have ridiculed the first minister of religion.'' This, although not directly advanced for the purpose, really indicated the head and front of Fielding's offending in Pasquin and the Historical Register, and although in Lord Chesterfield's speech the former is ironically con- ^6 Henry Fielding demned, it may well be that Fielding, whose Don Quixote had been dedicated to his Lordship, was the wire-puller in this case, and supplied this very illustration. At all events it is entirely in the spirit of Firebrand's words in Pasquin : ** Speak boldly ; by the Powers I serve, I swear You speak in Safety, even tho' you speak Against the Gods, provided that you speak Not against Priests." But the feeling of Parliament in favour of drastic legislation was even stronger than the persuasive periods of Chesterfield, and on the 21st of June, 1737, the bill received the royal assent. With its passing Fielding's career as a dramatic author practically closed. In his dedication of the Historical Register to " the Publick," he had spoken of his desire to beautify and enlarge his little theatre, and to procure a better company of actors; and he had added — *' If Nature hath given me any Talents at ridiculing Vice and Im- posture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of ex- erting them, while the Liberty of the Press and Stage subsists, that is to say, while we have any Liberty left among us.'' To all these projects the '' Licensing Act " effectively put an end ; and the only other plays from his pen which were produced subsequently to this date were the A Memoir 77 Wedding Day, 1743, and the posthumous Good- Natured Man, 1779, both of which, as is plain from the Preface to the Miscellanies, were among his earliest attempts. In the little farce of Af/55 Lucy in Tcivn, 1742, he had, he says but ''a very small Share." Besides these, there are three hasty and flimsy pieces which belong to the early part of 1737. The first of these, Tumble-Down Dick; or J Phaeton in the Suds, was a dramatic sketch in ridicule of the unmeaning Entertain- ments and Harlequinades of John Rich at Co- vent Garden. This was ironically dedicated to Rich, under his stage name of *' John Lun," and from the dedication it appears that Rich had brought out an unsuccessful satire on Pasquin called Marforio. The other two were Eurydice, a profane and pointless farce, afterwards printed by its author (in anticipation of Beaumarchais)^ *'as it was d — mned at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane ; " and a few detached scenes in which, under title of Eurydice Hiss'd; or, a Word to the Wise, its untoward fate was attributed to the ** frail Promise of uncertain Friends.'' But even in these careless and half-considered productions there are happy strokes ; and one scarcely looks ^ The Bar bier de Seville was printed in 1775, as " repre- sentee et tombee sur le Thidtre de la Coinedie-Frangaise,'''' 78 Henry Fielding to find such nervous and sensible lines in a mere a propos as these from Eurydice Hissed : " Yet grant it shou'd succeed, grant that by Chance, Or by the Whim and Madness of the Town, A Farce without Contrivance, without Sense Should run to the Astonishment of Mankind ; Think how you will be read in After-times, When Friends are not, and the impartial Judge Shall with the meanest Scribbler rank your Name ; Who would not rather wish a Butler's fame, Distress'd and poor in every thing but Merit, Than be the blundering Laureat to a Court ? '* Self-accusatory passages such as this — and there are others like it — indicate a higher ideal of dramatic writing than Fielding is held to have attained, and probably the key to them is to be found in that reaction of better judgment which seems invariably to have followed his most reck- less efforts. It was a part of his sanguine and impulsive nature to be as easily persuaded that his work was worthless as that it was excellent. '* When/' says Murphy, ^* he was not under the immediate urgency of want, they, who were in- timate with him, are ready to aver that he had a mind greatly superior to anything mean or little ; when his finances were exhausted, he was not the most elegant in his choice of the means to redress himself, and he would instantly exhibit a A Memoir 79 farce or puppet-shew in the Haymarket theatre, which was wholly inconsistent with the profes- sion he had embarked in."^ The quotation dis- plays all Murphy's loose and negligent way of dealing with his facts ; for, with the exception of Miz^ Lucy in Town, which can scarcely be ranked among his works at all, there is absolutely no trace of Fielding's having exhibited either *' pup- pet-shew " or *^ farce " after seriously adopting the law as a profession, nor does there appear to have been much acting at the Haymarket for some time after his management had closed in 1737. Still, his superficial characteristics, which do not depend so much upon Murphy as upon those *' who were intimate with him/' are prob- ably accurately described, and they sufficiently account for many of the obvious discordances of his work and life. That he was fully conscious of something higher than his actual achievement as a dramatist is clear from his own observation in later life, ^*that he left off writing for the stage, when he ought to have begun ; " — an ut- terance which (we suspect) has prompted not a little profitless speculation as to whether, if he had continued to write plays, they would have been equal to, or worse than, his novels. The discussion would be highly interesting, if there 1 Works, 1762, i. 47. 8o Henry Fielding were the slightest chance that it could be at- tended with any satisfactory result. But the truth is, that the very materials are wanting. Fielding *Meft off writing for the stage" when he was under thirty ; Tom Jones was published in 1749, when he was more than forty. His plays were written in haste ; his novels at leisure, and when, for the most part^ he was relieved from that ** immediate urgency of want," which, ac- cording to Murphy, characterised his younger days. If — as has been suggested — we could compare a novel written at thirty with a play of the same date, or a play written at forty with Tom Jones, the comparison might be instructive, although even then considerable allowances would have to be made for the essential differ- ence between plays and novels. But, as we can- not make such a comparison, further inquiry is simply waste of time. All we can safely affirm is, that the plays of Fielding's youth did not equal the fictions of his maturity ; and that, of those plays, the comedies were less successful than the farces and burlesques. Among other reasons for this latter difference one chiefly may be given : — that in the comedies he sought to reproduce the artificial world of Congreve andWycherly, while in the burlesques and farces he depicted the world in which he lived. CHAPTER III Becomes a student of the Middle Temple, I November, 1737; law and letters; the Champion^ 1739-40; its themes ; attack in Gibber's Apology ; reply thereto ; Tryal of Colley Cibber^ Comedian ; Fielding and Gibber ; called to the Bar, 20 June, 1740; minor writings ; travels Western Gircuit ; Richardson's Fa7nela ; Joseph AndrezuSy February, 1742; Parson Abraham Adams; other person- ages of the book ; details and descriptions ; personal por- traiture ; plan of novel; Richardson and Gray; assign- ment to Millar. T^HE Historical Register and Eur/dice Hiss'd ^ were published together in June, 1737. By this time the ^* Licensing Act " was passed, and the ''Grand Mogul's Company" dispersed for- ever. Fielding was now in his thirty-first year, with a wife and probably a daughter depending on him for support. In the absence of any pros- pect that he would be able to secure a mainte- nance as a dramatic writer, he seems to have decided, in spite of his comparatively advanced age, to revert to the profession for which he had originally been intended, and to qualify himself for the Bar. Accordingly, at the close of the 82 Henry Fielding year, he became a student of the Middle Temple, and the books of that society contain the follow- ing record of his admission : ^ [^74 G] I Nov"'' 1757. Henricus Fielding, de East Stoiir in Com Dorset Ar, filius et hceres apparens Brig: Gen^'^: Ed- munai Fielding admissus est in Socielatem Medii Templi Lond specialiter et obligatur una cum etc. Et dat pro fine 4, o. o. It may be noted, as Mr. Keightley has already observed, that Fielding is described in this entry as of East Stour, *^ which would seem to indicate that he still retained his property at that place ; '' and further, that his father is spoken of as a ^'brigadier-general,'' whereas (according to the Gentleman^s Magazine) he had been made a major-general in December, 1735. Of discrep- ancies like these it is idle to attempt any expla- nation. But, if Murphy is to be believed, Field- ing devoted himself henceforth with commendable assiduity to the study of law. The old irregu- larity of life, it is alleged, occasionally asserted itself, though without checking the energy of his application. '^ This,'' says his first biographer, ** prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has been frequently known by his intimates, to retire 1 This differs slightly from previous transcripts, having been verified at the Middle Temple. A Memoir 83 late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read and make extracts from the most ab- struse authors, for several hours before he went to bed ; so powerful were the vigour of his con- stitution and the activity of his mind." It is to this passage, no doubt, that we owe the pictur- esque wet towel and inked ruffles with which Thackeray has decorated him in chapter xxix. of Pendennis ; and, in all probability, a good deal of graphic writing from less able pens respecting his ways as a Templar. In point of fact, nothing is known with certainty respecting his life at this period, and what it would really concern us to learn — namely, whether by ^* chambers" it is to be understood that he was living alone, and, if so, where Mrs. Fielding was at the time of these pro- tracted vigils — Murphy has not told us. Per- haps she was safe all the while at East Stour, or with her sisters at Salisbury. Having no precise information, however, it can only be recorded, that, in spite of the fitful outbreaks above re- ferred to, Fielding applied himself to the study of his profession with all the vigour of a man who has to make up for lost time ; and that, when on the 20th of June, 1740, the day came for his being *' called," he was very fairly equipped with legal knowledge. That he had also made many friends among his colleagues of Westminster Hall is 84 Henry Fielding manifest from the number of lawyers who figure in the subscription list of the Miscellanies. To what extent he was occupied by literary work during his probationary period it is difficult to say. Murphy speaks vaguely of '^a large number of fugitive political tracts ; '' but unless the Essay on Conversation, advertised by Lawton Gilliver, in 1737, be the same as that afterwards reprinted in the Miscellanies, there is no positive record of anything until the issue of True Great- ness, an epistle to George Doddington, in Janu- ary, 1 741, though he may, of course, have writ- ten much anonymously. Am.ong newspapers, the one Murphy had in mind was probably the Champion, the first number of which is dated November 15, 1739, two years after his admis- sion to the Middle Temple as a student. On the whole, it seems most likely, as Mr. Keight- ley conjectures, that his chief occupation in the interval was studying law, and that he must have been living upon the residue of his wife's fortune or his own means, in which case the establish- ment of the above periodical may mark the ex- haustion of his resources. The Champion is a paper on the model of the elder essayists. It was issued, like the Taller, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Murphy says that Fielding's part in it cannot A Memoir 85 now be ascertained; but as the ^'Advertise- ment" to the edition in two volumes of 1741 states expressly that the papers signed C. and L. are the ** Work of one Hand," and as a number of those signed C. are unmistakably Fielding's, it is hard to discover where the difficulty lies. The papers signed C. and L. are by far the most numerous, the majority of the remainder being distinguished by two stars, or the signature *' Lilbourne." These are understood to have been from the pen of James Ralph, whose poem of Night gave rise to a stinging couplet in the Dunciad, but who was nevertheless a man of parts, and an industrious writer. As will be re- membered, he had contributed a prologue to the Temple Beau, so that his association with Fielding must have been of some standing. Be- sides Ralph's essays in the Champion, he was mainly responsible for the Index to the Times which accompanied each number, and consisted of a series of brief paragraphs on current topics, or the last new book. In this way Glover's London, Boyse's Deity, Somervile's Hobbinol, Lillo's Elmeric, Dyer's Ruins of Rome, and other of the very minor poets of the day, were commented upon. These notes and notices, however, were only a subordinate feature of the Champion, which, like its predecessors, con- 86 Henry Fielding sisted chiefly of essays and allegories, social, moral, and political, the writers of which were supposed to be members of an imaginary '* Vine- gar family," described in the initial paper. Of these the most prominent was Captain Hercules Vinegar, who took all questions relating to the Army, Militia, Trained-Bands, and *' fighting Part of the Kingdom." His father, Nehemiah Vinegar, presided over history and politics ; his uncle, Counsellor Vinegar, over law and judica- ture ; and Dr. John Vinegar his cousin, over medicine and natural philosophy. To others of the family — including Mrs. John Vinegar, who was charged with domestic affairs — were allotted classic literature, poetry and the Drama, and fashion. This elaborate scheme was not very strictly adhered to, and the chief writer of the group is Captain Hercules. Shorn of the contemporary interest which formed the chief element of its success when it was first published, it must be admitted that, in the present year of grace, the Champion is hard reading. A cloud of lassitude — a sense of un- congenial task-work — broods heavily over Field- ing's contributions, except the one or two in which he is quickened into animation by his an- tagonism to Gibber ; and although, with our knowledge of his after achievements, it is possi- A Memoir 87 ble to trace some indications of his yet un- revealed powers, in the absence of such knowl- edge it would be difficult to distinguish the Champion from the hundred-and-one forgotten imitators of the Spectator and Tatler, whose names have been so patiently chronicled by Dr. Nathan Drake. There is, indeed, a certain obvious humour in the account of Captain Vinegar's famous club, which he had inherited from Hercules, and which had the enviable property of falling of itself upon any knave in company, and there is a dash of the Tom Jones manner in the noisy activity of that excellent housewife Mrs. Joan. Some of the lighter papers, such as the one upon the ^^ Art of Puff- ing," are amusing enough ; and of the visions, that which is based upon Lucian, and represents Charon as stripping his freight of all their superfluous incumbrances in order to lighten his boat, has a double interest, since it contains references not only to Cibber, but also (though this appears to have been hitherto overlooked) to Fielding himself. The ** tall Man," who at Mercury's request strips off his '" old Grey Coat with great Readiness," but refuses to part with *' half his Chin," which the shepherd of souls re- gards as false^ is clearly intended for the writer of the paper, even v/ithout the confirmation 88 Henry Fielding afforded by the subsequent allusions "to his con- nection with the stage.^ His '^ length of chin and nose/' sufficiently apparent in his portrait, was a favourite theme for contemporary personalities.^ Of the moral essays, the most remarkable are a set of four papers, entitled An Apology for the Clergy, which may perhaps be regarded as a set- off against the sarcasms of Pasquin on priest- craft. They depict, with a great deal of knowl- edge and discrimination, the pattern priest as Fielding conceived him. To these may be linked an earlier picture, taken from life, of a country parson who^ in his simple and dignified surroundings^ even more closely resembles the Vicar of Wakefield than Mr. Abraham Adams. Some of the more general articles contain happy passages. In one there is an admirable parody 1 Champion f 24 May, 1740. 2 The former peculiarity gives rise to a curious and not very acute passage in one of Charlotte Bronte's letters : — " In the cynical prominence of the under jaw, one reads the man. It was the stamp of one who would never see his neighbours (especially his women neighbours) as they are^ but as they might be under the worst circumstances " {Life of Charlotte Bronte^ by Mrs. Gaskell, 1900, 565 n). Charlotte Bronte's attitude to Fielding was not as sym- pathetic as that of George Eliot. The author of Jane Eyre regarded Fielding's style as " arid," and deplored his views of life and human nature. A Memoir 89 of the Norman-French jargon, which in those days added superfluous obscurity to legal utter- ances ; while another, on *' Charity," contains a forcible exposition of the inexpediency, as well as inhumanity, of imprisonment for debt. Refer- ences to contemporaries, the inevitable Gibber excepted, are few, and these seem to be mostly from the pen of Ralph. The following, from that of Fielding, is notable as being one of the earliest authoritative testimonies to the merits of Hogarth: "I esteem (says he) the ingenious Mr. Hogarth as one of the most useful Satyrists any Age hath produced. In his excellent Works you see the delusive Scene exposed with all the Force of Humour^ and, on casting your Eyes on another Picture, you behold the dreadful and fatal Consequence. I almost dare affirm that those two Works of his, which he calls the Rakes and the Harlot's Progress^ are calculated more to serve the Cause of Virtue, and for the Preservation of Mankind, than all the Folio's of Morality which have been ever written ; and a sober Family should no more be without them, than without the Whole Duty of Man in their House." ^ He returned to the same theme in the Preface to Joseph Andreivs with a still apter phrase of appreciation: — " He hath been thought 1 Champion^ lo June, 1740. ^6 Henry Fielding a vast Commendation of a Painter, to say his Fig- ures seem to breathe ; but surely, it is a much greater and nobler Applause, that they appear to think." 1 When the Champion was rather more than a year old, Colley Gibber published his famous Apology, To the attacks made upon him by Fielding at different times he had hitherto printed no reply — perhaps he had no opportunity of do- ing so. But in his eighth chapter, when speak- ing of the causes which led to the Licensing Act, he takes occasion to refer to his assailant in terms which Fielding must have found exceed- ingly galling. He carefully abstained from mentioning his name, on the ground that it could do him no good, and was of no importance ; but he described him as '*a broken Wit,'' who had sought notoriety ** by raking the Channel " (i. e,, 1 Hogarth acknowledged this compliment later by refer- ring to Fielding's Preface as a further explanation of the etching of Character and Caricaturas, 1745. Fielding oc- casionally sends his readers to Hogarth for the pictorial types of his characters. Bridget Allworthy, he tells us. re- sembled the starched prude in Morning {To??i Jones, Bk. i., ch. II); and Mrs. Partridge and Parson Thwackum have their originals in the Harlofs Progress, (Bk. ii., ch. 3 ; and Bk. iii., ch. 6.) It was Fielding, too, who said that the Enraged Musician was " enough to make a man deaf to look at" {Voyage to Lisbon, 1755, p. 50). A Memoir 91 Kennel), and '* pelting his Superiors." He ac- cused him, with a scandalised gravity that is as edifying as Chesterfield's irony, of attacking *' Religion, Laws, Government, Priests, Judges, and Ministers." He called him, either in allu- sion to his stature, or his pseudonym in the Champion, a '' Cerculean Satyrist," a *' Dravjcan- sir in Wit" — *' who, to make his Poetical Fame immortal, like another Erostraius, set Fire to his Stage, by writing up to an Act of Parliament to demolish it. I shall not," he continues, *'give the particular Strokes of his Ingenuity a Chance to be remembered, by reciting them ; it may be enough to say, in general Terms, they were so openly flagrant, that the Wisdom of the Legisla- ture thought it high time, to take a proper No- tice of them." ^ Fielding was not the man to leave such a chal- lenge unanswered. In the Champion for April 22, 1740, and two subsequent papers,^ he replied with a slashing criticism of the Apolog/, in which, after demonstrating that it must be written in English because it was written in no other lan- guage, he gravely proceeds to point out exam- ples of the author's superiority to grammar and > An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibbery Com- ediafiy 1740, p. 164. 2 29 April and 6 May. 92 Henry Fielding learning — and in general, subjects its pretentious and slip-shod style to a minute and highly detri- mental examination. In a further paper ^ he re- turns to the charge by a mock trial of one ** Col. ApoL'" (i. e., CoWey- Apology) , arraigning him for that, **not having the Fear of Grammar before his Eyes," he had committed an unpardonable as- sault upon his mother-tongue. Fielding's knowl- edge of legal forms and phraseology enabled him to make a happy parody of court procedure, and Mr. Lawrence says that this particular '^ jea d' esprit obtained great celebrity." But the hap- piest stroke in the controversy — as it seems to us — is one which escaped Mr. Lawrence, and occurs in the paper already referred to, where Charon and Mercury are shown denuding the luckless passengers by the Styx of their surplus impedimenta. Among the rest, approaches ''an elderly Gentleman with a Piece of withered Laurel on his Head." From a little book, which he is discovered (when stripped) to have bound close to his heart, and which bears the title of Love in a Riddle — an unsuccessful pastoral pro- duced by Gibber at Drury Lane in 1729 — it is clear that this personage is intended for none other than the Apologist, who, after many en- treaties, is finally compelled to part with his 1 17 May. A Memoir 93 treasure. ^^ I was surprised," continues Field- ing, '* to see him pass Examination with his Laurel on, and was assured by the Standers by, that Mercury would have taken it off, if he had seen it."i These attacks in the Champion do not appear to have received any direct response from Gibber. But they were reprinted in a rambling production issued from ^* Curll's chaste press " in 1740, and entitled the Tryal of Coller Cibber, Comedian, &c. At the end of this there is a short address to '* the Self-dubFd Captain Hercules Vinegar, alias Buffoon,'' to the effect that " the malevolent Flings exhibited by him and his Man Ralphs'' have been faithfully reproduced. Then comes the following curious and not very intelligible *^ Advertisement : " ** If the Ingenious Henry Fielding, Esq. ; (Son of the Hon. Lieut. General Fielding, who upon his Return from his Travels entered himself of the Temple in order to study the Law, and married one of the pretty Miss Cradocks of Salis- bury) will own himself the Author of 18 strange Things called Tragical Comedies and Gomical Tragedies, lately advertised by J, Watts of Wild- Court, Printer, he shall be mentioned in Gapitals in the Third Edition of Mr. Gibber's Life, and * Champion f 24 May, 1740. 94 Henry Fielding likewise be placed among the Poetx minores Dra- matici of the Present Age : Then will both his Name and Writings be remembered on Record in the immortal Poetical Register written by Mr. Giles Jacob." The *' poetical register" indicated was the book of that name, containing the Lives and Characteristics of the English Dramatic Poets,wh\ch Mr. Giles Jacob, an industrious literarj' hack, had issued in 1723. Mr. Lawrence is probably right in his supposition, based upon the forego- ing advertisement, that Fielding **had openly expressed resentment at being described by Gibber as * a broken wit/ without being men- tioned by name." He never seems to have wholly forgotten his animosity to the actor, to whom there are frequent references in Joseph Andrews; and, as late as 1749, he is still found harping on ** the withered laurel" in a letter to Lyttelton.^ Even in his last work, Gibber's name is men- tioned. ^ The origin of this protracted feud is obscure ; but, apart from want of sympathy, it must probably be sought for in some early mis- understanding between the two in their capacities 1 Phillimore's Memoirs, etc., of George, Lord Lyttelton^ i845» P- 337- 2 Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 1755, p. 195. A Memoir 95 of manager and author. As regards Theoph- ilus Gibber, his desertion of Highmore was suf- ficient reason for the ridicule cast upon him in the Author's Farce and elsewhere. With Mrs. Charke, the Laureate's intractable and eccentric daughter, Fielding was naturally on better terms. She was, as already stated, a member of the Great Mogul's Gompany, and it is worth noting that some of the sarcasms in Pasquin against her father were put into the mouth of Lord Place, whose part was taken by this undutiful child. All things considered, both in this controversy and the later one with Pope, Gibber did not come off worst. His few hits were personal and unscrupulous, and they were probably far more deadly in their effects than any of the iron- ical attacks which his adversaries, on their part, directed against his poetical ineptitude or halting ** parts of speech." Despite his superlative cox- combry and egotism, he was, moreover, a man of no mean abilities. His Careless Husband is a far better acting play than any of Fielding's, and his Apology, which even Johnson allowed to be ** well-done/' is valuable in many respects, espe- cially for its account of the contemporary stage. In describing an actor or actress he had few equals — witness his skilful portrait of Nokes, and his admirably graphic vignette of Mrs. Ver- g6 Henry Fielding bruggen as that " finished Impertinent," Me- lantha, in Dryden's Marriage A-la-Mode, ^ The concluding paper in the collected edition of the Champion, published in 1741, is dated June 19, 1740. On the day following Fielding was called to the Bar by the benchers of the Middle Temple, and (says Mr. Lawrence) ** chambers were assigned him in Pump Court.'' Stimultaneously with this, his regular connection with journalism appears to have ceased, although from his statement in the Preface to the Miscel- lanies, — that *'as long as from June, 1741," he had ** desisted from writing one Syllable in the Champion, or any other public Paper/' — it may perhaps be inferred that up to that date he con- tinued to contribute now and then. This, never- theless, is by no means clear. His last utterance in the published volumes^ is certainly in a sense valedictory, as it refers to the position acquired by the Champion, Q.nd the difficulty experienced in establishing it. Incidentally, it pays a high compliment to Pope, by speaking of '' the divine Translation of the Iliad, which he [Fielding] has lately with no Disadvantage to the Translator com- PARED with the Original," the point of the sen- tence so impressed by its typography, being ap- ^An Apology y etc., 1740, pp. 85-7 and 99-100, 2 12 June, 1740. A Memoir 97 parently directed against those critics who had condemned Pope's work without the requisite knowleds^e of Greek. From the tenor of the rest of the essay it may, however, be concluded that the writer was taking leave of his enterprise ; and, according to a note by Bosw^ell,^ it seems that Mr. Reed of Staple Inn possessed documents which showed that Fielding at this juncture, prob- ably in anticipation of more lucrative legal duties, surrendered the reins to Ralph. The Champion continued to exist for some time longer ; indeed, it must be regarded as long-lived among the es- sayists, since the issue which contained its well- known criticism on Garrick is No. 45 ), and ap- peared late in 1742. But as far as can be ascer- tained, it never again attained the honours of a reprint. Although, after he was called to the Bar, Fielding practically relinquished periodical liter- ature, he does not seem to have entirely desisted from writing. In Sylvanus Urban's Register of Books, published during January, 1741, is ad- vertised the poem Of True Greatness afterwards included in the Miscellanies ; and the same au- thority announces the Vernoniad, an anonymous burlesque Epic prompted by Admiral Vernon's popular expedition against Porto Bello in 1739, 1 Hill's Boszueirs Life of Johnson^ 1S87, i- ^^9* 98 Henry Fielding ^' with six Ships only." That Fielding was the author of the latter is sufficiently proved by his order to Mr. Nourse (printed in Roscoe's edi- tion), to deliver fifty copies to Mr. Chappel. Another sixpenny pamphlet, entitled The Oppo- sition, a Vision, issued in December of the same year, is enumerated by him, in the Preface to the Miscellanies, among the works he had published *' since the End of June, 1741 ;" and, provided it can be placed before this date, he may be cred- ited with a political sermon called the Crisis (1741), which is ascribed to him upon the author- ity of a writer in NichoFs Anecdotes, He may also, before **the End of June, 1 741," have writ- ten other things ; but it is clear from his Caveat in the above-mentioned ^' Preface,'' together with his complaint that '^ he had been very un- justly censured, as well on account of what he had not writ, as for what he had,'' that much more has been laid to his charge than he ever de- served. Among ascriptions of this kind may be mentioned the curious Apolog/ for the Life of Mr. The' Cibber, Comedian, 1740, which is described on its title-page as a proper sequel to the autobiography of the Laureate, in whose *' style and manner" it is said to be written. But, although this performance is evidently the work of some one well acquainted with the dra- A Memoir 99 matic annals of the day, it is more than doubtful whether Fielding had any hand or part in it. In- deed, his own statement that ^' he never was, nor would be the Author of anonymous Scandal [the italics are ours] on the private History or Family of any Person whatever,''^ should be regarded as conclusive. During all this time he seems to have been steadily applying himself to the practice of his profession, if, indeed, that weary hope deferred which forms the usual probation of legal prefer- ment can properly be so described. As might be anticipated from his Salisbury connections, he travelled the Western Circuit ; and, according to Hutchins's Dorset^ he assiduously attended the Wiltshire sessions. He had many friends among his brethren of the Bar. His cousin, Henry Gould, who had been called in 1734, and who, like his grandfather, ultimately became a Judge, was also a member of the Middle Temple ; and he was familiar with Charles Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, whom he may have known at Eton, but whom he certainly knew in his barrister days. It is probable, too, that he was ac- quainted with Lord Northington, then Robert Henly, whose name appears as a subscriber to the Miscellanies^ and who was once supposed to 1 Miscellanies, 1743, i., xxviii. koTC loo Henry Fielding contend with Kettleby (another subscriber) for the honour of being the original of the drunken barrister in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Conver- sation, a picture which no doubt accurately rep- resents a good many of the festivals by which Henry Fielding relieved the tedium of compos- ing those MS. folio volumes on Crown or Crim- inal Law, which, after his death, reverted to his half-brother. Sir John. But towards the close of 1741 he was engaged upon another work which has outweighed all his most laborious forensic efforts, and which will long remain an English classic. This was The History of the Adven- tures of Joseph Andrews, and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, published by Andrew Millar, in February, 1742. In the same number, and at the same page of the Gentleman's Magazine which contains the advertisement of the Vernoniad, there is a refer- ence to a famous novel which had appeared in November, 1740, two months earlier, and had already attained an extraordinary popularity. '* Several Encomiums (says Mr. Urban) on a Series of Familiar Letters, published but last month, entitled Pamela or Virtue rewarded, came too late for this Magazine, and we believe there will be little Occasion for inserting them in our next ; because a Second Edition will then come A Memoir loi out to supply the Demands in the Country, it being judge-d in Town as great a Sign of Want of Curiosity not to have read Pamela, as not to have seen the French and Italian Dancers/' A second edition was in fact published in the fol- lowing month (February), to be speedily suc- ceeded by a third in March and a fourth in May. Dr. Sherlock (oddly misprinted by Mrs. Bar- bauld as *' Dr. Slocock ") extolled it from the pulpit ; and the great Mr. Pope was reported to have gone farther and declared that it would do more good than many sermons. Other admirers ranked it next to the Bible ; clergymen dedicated theological treaties to the author ; and '' even at Ranelagh " — says Richardson's biographer — ** those who remember the publication say, that it was usual for ladies to hold up the volumes of Pamela to one another, to shew that they had got the book that every one was talking of."^ It is perhaps hypercritical to observe that Rane- lagh Gardens were not open until eighteen months after Mr. Rivington's duodecimos first made their appearance ; but it will be gathered from the tone of some of the foregoing commendations that its morality was a strong point with the new can- didate for literary fame ; and its leisurely title- page did indeed proclaim at large that it was ^Richardson's Correspoyidence^ 1804, i., Iviii. I02 Henry Fielding ** Published in order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes." Its author, Samuel Richardson was a middle-aged London printer, a vegetarian and w^ater-drinker, a worthy, domes- ticated, fussy, and highly-nervous little man. Delighting in female society, and accustomed to act as confidant and secretary for the young women of his acquaintance, it had been sug- gested to him by some bookseller friends that he should prepare a ^' little volume of Letters, in a common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers, who were unable to indite for themselves.*"^ As Hogarth's Con- versation Pieces grew into his Progresses, so this project seems to have developed into Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. The necessity for some connecting link between the letters suggested a story, and the story chosen was founded upon the actual experiences of a young servant girl, who, after victoriously resisting all the attempts made by her master to seduce her, ultimately obliged him to marry her. It is needless to give any account here of the minute and deliberate way in which Richardson filled in this outline. As one of his critics, D'Alembert^ has unanswer- ably said — *' La nature est bonne k imiter, mais 1 Richardson's Correspondence, 1804, i., lii. A Memoir 103 non pas jusqu'a Tennui," — and the author of Pamela has plainly disregarded this useful law. On the other hand, the tedium and elaboration of his style have tended, in these less leisurely days, to condemn his work to a neglect which it does not deserve. Few writers — it is a truism to say so — have excelled him in minute analysis of motive, and knowledge of the human heart. About the final morality of his heroine's long- drawn defence of her chastity it may, however, be permitted to doubt ; and, in comparing the book with Fielding's work, it should not be for- gotten that, irreproachable though it seemed to the author's admirers, good Dr. Watts com- plained (and with reason) of the indelicacy of some of the scenes. But, for the moment, we are more concerned with the effect which Pamela produced upon Henry Fielding, struggling w^ith that ** eternal want of pence, which vexes public men," and vaguely hoping for some profitable opening for powers which had not yet been satisfactorily ex- ercised. To his robust and masculine genius, never very nicely sensitive where the relations of the sexes are concerned, the strange conjunction of purity and precaution in Richardson's heroine was a thing unnatural, and a theme for inextinguish- able Homeric laughter. That Pamela, through all I04 Henry Fielding her trials, could really have cherished any affection for her unscrupulous admirer would seem to him a sentimental absurdity, and the unprecedented success of the book would sharpen his sense of its assailable side. Possibly, too, his acquaint- ance with Richardson, v/hom he knew personally, but with whom he could have had no genuine sympathy, disposed him against his work. In any case, the idea presently occurred to Fielding of depicting a young man in circumstances of simi- lar importunity at the hands of a dissolute woman of fashion. He took for his hero Pamela's brother, and by a malicious stroke of the pen turned the Mr. B. of Pamela into Squire Booby. But the process of invention speedily carried him into paths far beyond the mere parody of Richardson, and it is only in the first portion of the book that he really remembers his intention. After chapter X. the story follows its natural course, and there is little or nothing of Lady Booby, or her frus- trate amours. Indeed, the author does not even pretend to preserve congruity as regards his hero, for, in chapter v., he makes him tell his mistress that he has never been in love, while in chapter xi. we are informed that he had long been attached to the charming Fanny. Moreover, in the inter- vening letters which Joseph writes to his sister Pamela, he makes no reference to this long- A Memoir 105 existent attachment, with which, one would think, she must have been perfectly familiar. These discrepancies all point, not so much to negligence on the part of the author, as to an un- conscious transformation of his plan. He no doubt found that mere ridicule of Richardson was insufficient to sustain the interest of any serious effort, and, besides, must have been secretly conscious that the ** Pamela" character- istics of his hero were artistically irreconcilable with the personal bravery and cudgel-playing at- tributes with which he had endowed him. Add to this that Mrs. Slipslop and Parson Adams — the latter especially — had begun to acquire an importance with their creator for which the ini- tial scheme had by no means provided ; and he finally seems to have disregarded his design, only returning to it in his last chapters in order to close his work with some appearance of consistency. The History of Joseph Andrews, it has been said, might well have dispensed with Lady Booby altogether, and yet, without her, not only this book, but Tom Jones and Amelia also, would probably have been lost to us. The accident which prompted three such performances cannot be honestly regretted. It was not without reason that Fielding added prominently to his title-page the name of Mr. io6 Henry Fielding Abraham Adams. If he is not the real hero of the book, he is undoubtedly the character whose fortunes the reader follows with the closest inter- est. Whether he is smoking his black and con- solatory pipe in the gallery of the inn, or losing his way while he meditates a passage of Greek, or groaning over the fatuities of the man-of- fashion in Leonora's story, or brandishing his fa- mous crabstick in defence of Fanny, he is always the same delightful mixture of benevolence and simplicity, of pedantry and credulity and igno- rance of the world. He is *' compact,'' to use Shakespeare's word, of the oddest contradictions, — the most diverting eccentricities. He has Aristotle's Politics at his finger's ends, but he knows nothing of the daily GuT^etteers ; he is per- fectly familiar with the Pillars of Hercules, but he has never even heard of the Levant. He travels to London to sell a collection of sermons which he has forgotten to carry with him ; and in a moment of excitement he tosses into the fire the copy of ^schylus which it has cost him years to transcribe. He gives irreproachable advice to Joseph on fortitude and resignation ; but he is overwhelmed with grief when his child is reported to be drowned. When he speaks upon faith and works, on marriage, on school discipline, he is weighty and sensible ; but he falls an easy victim A Memoir 107 to the plausible professions of every rogue he meets, and is willing to believe in the principles of Mr. Peter Pounce, or the humanity of Parson Trulliber. Not all the discipline of hog's blood and cudgels and cold water to which he is sub- jected can deprive him of his native dignity ; and as he stands before us in the short great-coat under which his ragged cassock is continually making its uninvited appearance, with his old wig and battered hat, a clergyman whose social posi- tion is scarcely above that of a footman, and who supports a wife and six children upon a cure of twenty-three pounds a year, which his outspoken honesty is continually jeopardising, he is a far finer figure than Pamela in her coach-and-six, or Bellarmine in his cinnamon velvet. If not, as Mr. Lawrence says, with exaggerated enthusi- asm, *^the grandest delineation of a pattern priest which the world has yet seen," he is as- suredly a noble example of primitive goodness and practical Christianity. It is not impossible — as Mr. Forster and Mr. Keightley have sug- gested — that Goldsmith borrowed some of his characteristics for Dr. Primrose, and it has been pointed out that Sterne remembered him in more than one page of Tristram Shandy. Next to Parson Adams, perhaps the best char- acter in Joseph Andrews — though of an entirely io8 Henry Fielding different type — is Lady Booby's ^* Waiting- Gentlewoman/' the excellent Mrs. Slipslop. Her sensitive dignity, her easy changes from servility to insolence, her sensuality, her in- imitably distorted vocabulary, which Sheridan borrowed for Mrs. Malaprop, and Dickens modified for Mrs. Gamp, are all peculiarities which make up a personification of the richest humour and the most life-like reality. Mr. Peter Pounce, too, with his " scoundrel maxims," as disclosed in that remarkable dialogue which is said to be '* better worth reading than all the Works of Colley Cibber,''' and in which charity is defined as consisting rather in a disposition to relieve distress than in an actual act of relief; Parson Trulliber with his hogs, his greediness, and his willingness to prove his Christianity by fisticuffs ; shrewish Mrs. Tow-wouse with her scold's tongue, and her erring but perfectly sub- jugated husband, — these again are portraits finished with admirable spirit and fidelity. An- drews himself, and his blushing sweetheart, do not lend themselves so readily to humorous art. Nevertheless the former, when freed from the wiles of Lady Booby, is by no means a despi- cable hero, and Fanny is a sufficiently fresh and blooming heroine. The characters of Pamela and Mr. Booby are fairly preserved from the A Memoir 109 pages of their original inventor. But when Fielding makes Parson Adams rebuke the pair for laughing in church at Joseph's wedding, and puts into the lady's mouth a sententious little speech upon her altered position in life, he is adding some ironical touches which Richardson would certainly have omitted. No selection of personages, however, even of the most detailed and particular description, can convey any real impression of the mingled irony and insight, the wit and satire, the genial but perfectly remorseless revelation of human springs of action, which distinguish scene after scene of the book. Nothing, for example, can be more admirable than the different manifestations of meanness which take place among the travellers of the stage-coach, in the oft-quoted chapter where Joseph, having been robbed of everything, lies naked and bleeding in the ditch. There is Miss Grave-airs, who protests against the in- decency of his entering the vehicle, but like a certain lady in the Rake's Progress, holds the sticks of her fan before her face while he does so, and who is afterwards found to be carrying Nantes under the guise of Hungary-water ; there is the lawyer who advises that the wounded man shall be taken in, not from any humane mo- tive, but because he is afraid of being involved no Henry Fielding in legal proceedings if they leave him to his fate ; there is the wit who seizes the occasion for a burst of equivocal facetice, chiefly designed for the discomfiture of the prude ; and, lastly, there is the coachman, whose only concern is the shil- ling for his fare, and who refuses to lend either of the useless greatcoats he is sitting upon, lest *Uhey should be made bloody," leaving the shivering suppliant to be clothed by the generos- ity of the postilion Q' a Lad," says Fielding with a fine touch of satire, *' who hath been since transported for robbing a Hen-roost "). This worthy fellow accordingly strips off his only outer garment, ^* at the same time swearing a great Oath," for which he is piously rebuked by the passengers, ^' that he would rather ride in his Shirt all his Life, than suffer a Fellow-Creature to lie in so miserable a Condition." Then there are the admirable scenes which succeed Joseph's admission into the inn ; the discussion between the bookseller and the two parsons as to the publication of Adams's sermons, which the ''Clergy would be certain to cry down," be- cause they inculcate good words against faith ; the debate before the justice as to the manuscript of iEschylus, which is mistaken for one of the Fathers ; and the pleasant discourse between the poet and the player which, beginning by compli- A Memoir m merits, bids fair to end in blows. Nor are the stories of Leonora and Mr. Wilson without their interest. They interrupt the straggling narrative far less than the Man of the Hill interrupts Tom Jones, and they afford an opportunity for varying the epic of the highway by pictures of polite so- ciety which could not otherwise be introduced. There can be little doubt, too, that some of Mr. Wilson's town experiences were the reflection of the author's own career ; while the character- istics of Leonora's lover Horatio, — who was **a young Gentleman of a good Family, bred to the Law," and recently called to the Bar, whose ** Face and Person were such as the Generality allowed handsome : but he had a Dignity in his Air very rarely to be seen," and who *^had Wit and Humour with an Inclination to Satire, which he indulged rather too much" — read almost like a complimentary description of Fielding him- self.i Like Hogarth, in that famous drinking scene to which reference has already been made. Fielding was careful to disclaim any personal portraiture in Joseph Andrews. In the opening chapter of Book iii. he declares ** once for all, that he de- scribes not Men, but Manners; not an Indi- vidual, but a Species," although he admits that 1 Joseph Andrews i 2d Ed., 1742, i. 157-8. 112 Henry Fielding his characters are *' taken from Life.'' In his ^' Preface," he reiterates this profession, adding that in copying from nature^ he has ^' used the utmost Care to obscure the Persons by such differ- ent Circumstances, Degrees, and Colours, that it will be impossible to guess at them with any de- gree of Certainty." Nevertheless — as in Ho- garth's case — neither his protests nor his skill have prevented some of those identifications which are so seductive to the curious ; and it is generally believed, — indeed, it was expressly stated by Richardson and others, — that the prototype of Parson Adams was a friend of Fielding, the Reverend William Young. Like Adams, he was a scholar and devoted to iEschylus ; he resembled him, too, in his trick of snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of mind. Of this latter peculiarity it is related that on one occasion, when a chaplain in Marl- borough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the enemy's lines with his beloved jEschylus in his hand. His peaceable intentions were so unmis- takable that he was instantly released, and po- litely directed to his regiment. Once, too, it is said, on being charged by a gentleman with sit- ting for the portrait of Adams, he offered to knock the speaker down, thereby supplying ad- ditional proof of the truth of the allegation. He A Memoir 113 died in August, 17^7, and is buried in the Chapel of Chelsea Hospital. The obituary notice in the Genilemans Magazine describes him as *'late of Gillingham, Dorsetshire/' which would make him a neighbour of the novelist.^ Another tradition connects Mr. Peter Pounce with the scrivener and usurer Peter Walter, whom Pope had satirised, and whom Hogarth is thought to have introduced i^nto Plate i. of Marriage d-la-Mode. His sister lived at Salisbury; and he himself had an estate at Staibridge Park, which was close to East Stour. From references to Walter in the Champion,'^ as well as in the Essay on Conversation,^ it is clear that Fielding knew him personally, and disliked him. He may, indeed, have been among those county magnates whose criticism was so objectionable to Captain Booth during his brief residence in Dorsetshire. Parson Trulliber, also, according to Murphy, was Fielding's first tutor — Mr. Oliver of Motcombe. But his w^dow 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, like many another from Le Sage to ' Lord Thurlow was accustomed to find a later likeness to Fielding's hero in his protege j the poet Crabbe. «3I May, 1740. ^ Miscellanies ^ 1743, i. 136. 114 Henry Fielding Daudet, may not have thoroughly believed in the sincerity of his attempts to avoid the exact re- production of actual persons, although, rightly or wrongly, his presentments were speedily identified. With ordinary people it is by salient characteristics that a likeness is established ; and no variation of detail, however skilful, greatly affects this result. In our own days we have seen that, in spite of both authors, the public de- clined to believe that the Harold Skimpole of Charles Dickens, and George Eliot's Dinah Morris, were not perfectly recognisable copies of living originals. Upon its title-page, Joseph Andrews is declared to be *^ written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes," and there is no doubt that, in addi- tion to being subjected to an unreasonable amount of ill-usage, Parson Adams has manifest affinities with Don Quixote. Scott, however, seems to have thought that Scarron's Roman Comique was the real model, so far as mock- heroic was concerned ; but he must have for- gotten that Fielding was already the author of Tom Thumb, and that Swift had written the Battle of the Books. Resemblances have also been traced to the Paysan Parvenu and the His- toire de Marianne of Marivaux. With both these books Fielding was familiar ; in fact, he ex- A Memoir 115 pressly mentions them, as well as the Roman Comlque, in the course of his story, and they doubtless exercised more or less influence upon his plan. But in the Preface^ from which we have already quoted, he describes that plan ; and this, because it is something definite, is more in- teresting than any speculation as to his determin- ing models. After marking the division of the Epic, like the Drama^ into Tragedy and Comedy, he points out that it may exist in prose as well as verse, and he proceeds to explain that what he has attempted in Joseph Andrews is " a comic Epic-Poem in Prose," differing from serious ro- mance in its substitution of a light and ridic- ulous " fable for a '^ grave and solemn " one, of inferior characters for those of superior rank, and of ludicrous for sublime sentiments. Some- times in the diction he has admitted burlesque, but never in the sentiments and characters, where, he contends, it would be out of place. He further defines the only source of the true ridicu- lous to be affectation, of which the chief causes are vanity and hypocrisy. Whether this scheme was an after-thought it is difficult to say ; but it is certainly necessary to a proper understanding of the author's method — a method which Vv'as to find so many imitators. Another passage in the Preface is worthy of remark. With reference to ii6 Henry Fielding the pictures of vice which the book contains, he observes : *• First, That it is very difficult to pursue a Series of human Actions, and keep clear from them. Secondly, That the Vices to be found here [u e,, in Joseph Andrews] are rather the accidental Consequences of some human Frailty, or Foible, than Causes habitually exist- ing in the Mind. Thirdly, That they are never set forth as the Objects of Ridicule but Detes- tation. Fourthly, That they are never the prin- cipal Figure at that Time on the Scene ; and, lastly, they never produce the intended Evil.''^ In reading some pages of Fielding it is not al- ways easy to see that he has strictly adhered to these principles ; but it is well to recall them oc- casionally, as constituting at all events the code that he desired to follow. Although the popularity of Fielding's first novel was considerable, it did not, to judge by the number of editions, at once equal the popu- larity of the book by which it was suggested. Pamela, as we have seen, speedily ran through four editions ; but it was six months before Millar published the second and revised edition of Joseph Andrews ;^ and the third did not appear 1 Joseph Andrews y 2d Ed., 1742, i., xiv.-v. 2 From certain extracts from the ledger of Woodfall, the printer, which were published in Notes and Queries, 1st A Memoir 117 until more than a year after the date of first pub- lication. With Richardson, as might be ex- pected, it was never popular at all, and to a great extent it is possible to sympathise with his an- noyance. The daughter of his brain, whom he had piloted through so many troubles, had grown to him more real than the daughters of his body, and to see her at the height of her fame made contemptible by what in one of his letters he terms ^' a lewd and ungenerous engraftment,'' m.ust have been a sore trial to his absorbed and self-conscious nature, and one which not all the consolations of his consistory of feminine flatterers — *^ my ladies," as the little man called them — could wholly alleviate. But it must be admitted that his subsequent attitude was neither judicious nor dignified. He pursued Fielding henceforth with steady depreciation, caught eagerly at any scandal respecting him, professed himself unable to perceive his genius, deplored his ''lowness," and comforted himself by reflecting that, if he pleased at all, it was because he had learned the art from Pamela, Of Fielding's other contempo- rary critics, one only need be mentioned here, more on account of his literary eminence than of Series, xi. 418, it appears that 1500 copies of the first edition were struck off in February, 1742, and 2000 of the second in the following May. ii8 Henry Fielding the special felicity of his judgment. *^ I have myself/' writes Gray to West, '* upon your rec- ommendation, been reading Joseph Andrews. The incidents are ill laid and without invention ; but the characters have a great deal of nature, which always pleases even in her lowest shapes. Parson Adams is perfectly well ; so is Mrs. Slip- slop, and the story of Wilson ; and throughout he [the author] shews himself well read in Stage- Coaches, Country Squires, Inns, and Inns of Court. His reflections upon high people and low people, and misses and masters, are very good. However the exaltedness of some minds (or rather as I shrewdly suspect their insipidity and want of feeling or observation) may make them insensible to these light things, (I mean such as characterise and paint nature) yet surely they are as weighty and much more useful than your grave discourses upon the mind, the pas- sions, and what not."" -^ And thereupon follows that fantastic utterance concerning the romances of MM. Marivaux and Cr6billon_/z/5, which has disconcerted so many of Gray's admirers. We suspect that any reader who should nowadays contrast the sickly and sordid intrigue of the Paysan Parvenu with the healthy animalism of 1 Mason's Poems and Memoirs of Gray, 2d Ed., 1 7 75, pp. 138-9. A Memoir 119 Joseph Andrews would greatly prefer the latter. Yet Gray's verdict, though cold, is not undis- criminating, and is perhaps as much as one could expect from his cloistered and fastidious taste. Various anecdotes, all more or less apocryphal, have been related respecting the first appearance of Joseph Andrews^ and the sum paid to the author for the copyright. A reference to the original assignment, now in the Forster Library at South Kensington, definitely settles the latter point. The amount in '' lawful Money of Great Britain," received by ** Henry Fielding, of the Middle Temple, Esq.," from " Andrew Millar of St. Clement's Danes in the Strand, Book- seller," was £iQ] : iis. In this document, as in the order to Nourse of which a facsimile is given by Roscoe, both the author's name and signature are written with the old-fashioned double f, and he calls himself ^* Fielding" and not ** Feilding," like the rest of the Denbigh family. If we may trust an anecdote given by Kippis, ^ the fifth Lord Denbigh once asked his kinsman the reason of this difference. ^' I can- not tell, my Lord," returned the novelist, ''ex- cept it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell." In connection with this assignment, however, what is perhaps 1 Nichol's Literary Anecdotes ^ 1812, iii. 384. I20 Henry Fielding even more interesting than these discrepancies is the fact that one of the witnesses was William Young. Thus we have Parson Adams acting as witness to the sale of the very book which he had helped to immortalise. CHAPTER IV Vindication of the Duchess of Marlboroughy'^\.2,xQS\^ 1 742; Miss Lucy in Town^ May ; PlutuSy the God of Riches^ May; Pope and Fielding; Garrick and The Wedding Day ; Macklin's prologue ; the Miscellanies y April, 1743; Essays, " On Conversation ; " « On the Characters of Men ; " "A Journey from this World to the Next; " " Jonathan Wild ; " domestic history, and death of Mrs. Fielding, 1743, (?) ; Lady Louisa Stuart's account; Mr. Keightley's comments ; prefaces to David Simple and Fainiliar Letters; the True Patriot , 1745, and the Jacobite'* s Journal y 1747; tribute to Richardson; second marriage, 27 November, 1747 ; Justice of Peace for West- minster and Middlesex, December, 1748. TN March, 1742, according to an article in ^ the Gentleman s Magazine, attributed to Sam- uel Johnson, ** the most popular Topic of Con- versation " was the Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough^ from her first coming to Court, to the Year 1710, which, with the help of Hooke of the Roman History, the ** terrible old Sarah" had just put forth. Among the little cloud of Sarah- Ads and Old Wives' Tales evoked by this production, was a Vindication of her Grace by Fielding, specially 122 Henry Fielding prompted, as appears from the title-page, by the *^ late scurrilous Pamphlet " of a '* noble Author." If this were not acknowledged to be from Fielding's pen in the Preface to the Miscel- lanies (in which collection, however, it is not re- printed), its authorship would be sufficiently proved by its being included with Miss Lucy in Towri in the assignment to Andrew Millar re- ferred to at the close of the preceding chapter. The price Millar paid for it was £^ : ^s., or ex- actly half that of the farce. But it is only reason- able to assume that the Duchess herself (who is said to have given Hooke ;^)000 for his help) also rewarded her champion. Whether Field- ing's admiration for the *' glorious Woman" in whose cause he had drawn his pen was genuine, or whether — to use Johnson's convenient eu- phemism concerning Hooke — **he was acting only ministerially," are matters for speculation. His father, however, had served under the Duke, and there may have been a traditional attachment to the Churchills on the part of his family. It has even been ingeniously suggested that Sarah Fielding was her Grace's god-child ; ^ but as her mother's name was also Sarah, no importance can be attached to the suggestion. 1 Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough^ etc., by Mrs. A. T. Thomson, 1839. A Memoir 1 23 Miss Lucy in Town, as its sub-title explains, was a sequel to the Virgin Unmask'd, and was produced at Drury Lane in May, 1742. As already stated in chapter ii., Fielding's part in it was small. It is a lively but not very creditable trifle, which turns upon certain equivocal London experiences of the Miss Lucy of the earlier piece ; and it seems to have been chiefly intended to afford an opportunity for some clever imitation of the reigning Italian singers by Mrs. Cliveandthe famous tenor Beard. Horace Walpole, who re- fers to it in a letter to Mann, between an ac- count of the opening of Ranelagh and an anec- dote of Mrs. Bracegirdle, calls it '' a little simple farce," and says that '' Mrs. Clive mimics the Muscovita admirably, and Beard, Amorevoli tol- erably.''^ Mr. Walpole detested the Muscovita, and adored Amorevoli, which perhaps accounts for the nice discrimination shown in his praise. One of the other characters, Mr, Zorobabel, a Jew, was taken by Macklin, and from another, Mrs. Hay- cock (afterwards changed to Mrs. Midnight), Foote is supposed to have borrowed Mother Cole in The Miner. A third character. Lord Bawble^ was considered to reflect upon '^a par- ticular person of quality,'' and the piece was speedily forbidden by the Lord Chamberlain, al- 1 Correspondence f by Cunningham, 1877, ^* ^^S* 124 Henry Fielding though it appears to have been acted a few months later without opposition. One of the re- sults of the prohibition, according to Mr. Law- rence, was a Letter to a Noble Lord (the Lord Chamberlain) . . . occasioned by a Represen- tation . , . of a Farce called *' Miss Lucy in Town'' This, in spite of the Caveat in the Pref- ace to the Miscellanies^ he ascribes to Fielding, and styles it ''a sharp expostulation ... in which he [Fielding] disavowed any idea of a per- sonal attack."^ But Mr. Lawrence must have been misinformed on the subject, for the pam- phlet bears little sign of Fielding's hand. As far as it is intelligible, it is rather against Miss Lucy than for her, and it makes no reference to Lord Bawble's original. The name of this injured pa- trician seems indeed never to have transpired ; but he could scarcely have been in any sense an exceptional member of the Georgian aristocracy. In the same month that Miss Lucy in Town appeared at Drury Lane, Millar published it in book form. In the following June, T. Waller of the Temple-Cloisters issued the first of a contem- plated series of translations from Aristophanes by Henry Fielding, Esq., and the Rev. William Young who sat for Parson Adams. The play chosen was Plutus, the God of Riches, and a 1 Life of Fielding, 1855, 168. A Memoir 125 notice upon the original cover stated that, accord- ing to the reception it met with from the public, it would be followed by the others. It must be presumed that ** the distressed, and at present, declining State of Learning '' to which the au- thors referred in their dedication to Lord Tal- bot, was not a mere form of speech, for the enter- prise does not seem to have met with sufficient encouragement to justify its continuance, and this special rendering has long since been sup- planted by the more modern versions of Mitchell, Frere, and others. Whether Fielding took any large share in it is not now discernible. It is most likely, however, that the bulk of the work was Young's, and that his colleague did little more than furnish the Preface, which is partly written in the first person, and betrays its origin by a sudden and not very relevant attack upon the *^ pretty, dapper, brisk, smart, pert Dialogue " of Modern Comedy into which the *' infinite Wit '' of Wycherley had degenerated under Gibber. It also contains a compliment to the numbers of the *' inimitable Author'' of the Essay on Man. This is the second compliment which Fielding had paid to Pope within a brief period, the first having been that in the Champion respecting the translation of the Iliad. What his exact relations with the author of the Dunciad were, has never 126 Henry Fielding been divulged. At first they seem to have been rather hostile than friendly. Fielding had ridi- culed the Roman Church in the Old Debauchees, a course which Pope could scarcely have ap- proved ; and he was, moreover, the cousin of Lady Mary, now no longer throned in the Twickenham Temple. Pope had commented upon a passage in Tom Thumb, and Fielding had indirectly referred to Pope in the Covent Garden Tragedy, When it had been reported that Pope had gone to see Pasquin, the statement had been at once contradicted. But Fielding was now, like Pope, against Walpole ; and Joseph Andrews had been published. It may therefore be that the compliments in Plutus and the Champion were the result of some rapprochement between the two. It is, nevertheless, curious that, at this very time, an attempt appears to have been made to connect the novelist with the controversy which presently arose out of Gibber's well-known letter to Pope. In August, 1742, the month fol- lowing its publication, among the pamphlets to which it gave rise, was announced The Cudgel; or, a Crab-tree Lecture, To the Author of the Dunciad. '' By Hercules Vinegar, Esq.'' This very mediocre satire in verse is still to be found at the British Museum ; but even if it were not included in Fielding's general disclaimer as to A Memoir 127 unsigned work, it would be difficult to connect it with him. To give but one reason, it would make him the ally and adherent of Gibber, — which is absurd. In all probability, like another Grub Street squib under the same pseudonym, it was by Ralph, who had already attacked Pope, and continued to maintain the Gaptain's character in the Champion long after Fielding had ceased to write for it. It is even possible that Ralph had some share in originating the Vinegar family, for it is noticeable that the paper in which they are first introduced bears no initials. In this case he would consider himself free to adopt the name, however disadvantageous that course might be to Fielding's reputation. And it is clear that, what- ever their relations had been in the past, they were for the time on opposite sides in politics, since while Fielding had been vindicating the Duchess of Marlborough^ Ralph had been writing against her. These, however, are minor questions, the dis- cussion of which would lead too far from the main narrative of Fielding's life. In the same letter in which Walpole had referred to Miss Lucy III Toirn, he had spoken of the success of a new player at Goodman's Fields, after whom all the town, in Gray's phrase, was ** horn-mad ; '' but in whose acting Mr. Walpole, with a critical 128 Henry Fielding distrust of novelty, saw nothing particularly won- derful. This was David Garrick. He had been admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn a year before Fielding entered the Middle Temple, had after- wards turned wine-merchant, and was now de- lighting London by his versatility in comedy, tragedy, and farce. One of his earliest theatrical exploits, according to Sir John Hawkins, had been a private representation of Fielding's Mock-Doctor, in a room over the St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, so long familiar to subscribers of the Gentleman's Magazine ; his fellow-actors being Cave's journeymen printers, and his audi- ence Cave, Johnson, and a few friends.^ After this he appears to have made the acquaintance of Fielding; and late in 1742, applied to him to know if he had '^ any Play by him," as *' he was desirous of appearing in a new Part." As a matter of fact Fielding had two plays by him — the Good-natured Man (a title subsequently used by Goldsmith), and a piece called The Wedding Day. The former was almost finished : the latter was an early work, being indeed " the third Dra- matic Performance he ever attempted." The necessary arrangements having been made with Mr. Fleetwood, the manager of Drury Lane, Fielding set to work to complete the Good- 1 Life of Johnson f 1787, p. 45. A Memoir 129 natured Man, which he considered the better of the two. When he had done so, he came to the conclusion that it required more attention than he could give it ; and moreover, that the part allotted to Garrick, although it satisfied the actor, was scarcely important enough. He ac- cordingly reverted to the Wedding Day, the cen- tral character of which had been intended for Wilks. It had many faults which none saw more clearly than the author himself, but he hoped that Garrick's energy and reputation, would trium- phantly surmount all obstacles. He hoped, as well, to improve it by revision. The dangerous illness of his wife, however, made it impossible for him to execute his task ; and, as he was pressed for money, the Wedding Day was pro- duced on the 17th of February, 1743, appar- ently much as it had been first written some dozen years before. As might be anticipated, it was not a success. The character of Millamour is one which it is hard to believe that even Garrick could have made attractive, and though others of the parts were entrusted to Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Pritchard, and Macklin, it was acted but six nights. The author's gains were under £)0, In the Preface to the Miscellanies, from which most of the foregoing account is taken, Fielding, as usual, refers its failure to other causes than its 130 Henry Fielding inherent defects. Rumours, he says, had been circulated as to its indecency (and in truth some of the scenes are more than hazardous) ; but it had passed the licenser, and must be supposed to have been up to the moral standard of the time. Its unfavourable reception, as Fielding must have known in his heart, w^as due to its artistic shortcomings, and also to the fact that a change was taking place in the public taste. It is in con- nection with the Wedding Day that one of the best-known anecdotes of the author is related. Garrick had begged him to retrench a certain passage. This Fielding, either from indolence or unwillingness, declined to do, asserting that if it was not good, the audience might find it out. The passage was promptly hissed, and Garrick returned to the green-room, where the author was solacing himself with a bottle of champagne. "What is the matter, Garrick?'' said he to the flustered actor; ** what are they hissing now .^ '' He was informed with some heat that they had been hiss- ing the very scene he had been asked to with- draw, "and," added Garrick, "they have so frightened me, that I shall not be able to collect myself again the whole night." — ^"Oh!" an- swered the author, with an oath, " they have found it out, have they ? " This rejoinder is usually quoted as an instance of Fielding's con- A Memoir 131 tempt for the intelligence of his audience ; but nine men in ten, it may be observed, would have said something of the same sort.^ The only other thing which need be re- ferred to in connection with this comedy — the last of his own dramatic works which Fielding J ever witnessed upon the stage — is Macklin's doggerel Prologue. Mr. Lawrence attributes this to Fielding ; but he seems to have over- looked the fact that in the Miscellanies it is headed, ''Writ and Spoken by Mr. Macklin/' which gives it more interest as the work of an outsider than if it had been a mere laugh by the author at himself. Garrick is represented as too busy to speak the prologue ; and Fielding, who has been *' drinking to raise his Spirits/' has begged Macklin with his *'long, dismal, Mercy-begging Face," to go on and apologise. Macklin then pretends to recognise him among the audience, and pokes fun at his anxieties, telling him that he had better have stuck to ** honest Abram AdamSy"" who, ^^in spight of Critics, can make his Readers laugh." The words *Mn spite of critics" indicate another dis- tinction between Fielding's novels and plays, which should have its weight in any comparison of them. The censors of the pit, in the eight- 1 Works y 1762, i. 26. 132 Henry Fielding eenth century, seem to have exercised an un- usual influence in deciding whether a play should succeed or not ; ^ and, from Fielding's frequent references to friends and enemies, it would almost seem as if he believed their suffrages to be more important than a good plot and a witty dialogue. On the other hand, no coterie of Wits and Templars could kill a book like Joseph Andrews, To say nothing of the opportunities afforded by the novel for more leisurely character- drawing, and greater by-play of reflection and description — its reader was an isolated and inde- pendent judge ; and in the long run the differ- ence told wonderfully in favour of the author. Macklin was obviously right in recommending Fielding, even in jest, to stick to Parson Adams, and from the familiar publicity of the advice it may also be inferred, not only that the opinion was one commonly current, but that the novel was unusually popular. The Wedding Day was issued separately in February, 174?. It must therefore be assumed that the three volumes of Miscellanies^ by Henry Fielding, Esq., in which it was reprinted^ and to 1 The Rev. James Miller's Coffee-House, for example, was damned in 1737 by the Templars because it was supposed to reflect on Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, the keepers of " Dick's," at Temple Bar. {Biog. Draiiiatica, 1812, ii. 1 1 1.) A Memoir 133 which reference has so ofien been made in these pages, did not appear until later.^ They were published by subscription ; and the list, in ad- dition to a large number of aristocratic and legal names, contains some of more permanent interest. Side by side with the Chesterfields and Marl- boroughs and Buriingtons and Denbighs, come William Pitt and Henry Fox, Esqs., with Dod- ington and Winnington and Hanbury Williams. The theatrical world is well represented by Garrick and Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Clive. Literature has no names of any eminence except that of Young ; for savage and Whitehead, Mal- let and Benjamin Hoadley, are certainly lesser lights. Pope is conspicuous for his absence : so also are Horace Walpole and Gray, while Rich- ardson, of course, is wanting. Johnson, as yet only the author of London, and journeyman to Cave, could scarcely be expected in the roll ; and, in any case, his friendship for the author of Pamela would probably have kept hira away. Among some other well-known eighteenth cen- tury names are those of Dodsley and Millar the booksellers, and the famous Vauxhall proprietor Jonathan Tyers. ' By advertisement in the Lojtdon Daily Post and General Advertiser^ they would seem to have been published early in April, 1743. 134 Henry Fielding The first volume of the Miscellanies, besides a lengthy Preface, includes the author's poems, essays On Conversation. On the Knowledge of the Character of Men, On Nothing, a squib upon the transactions of the Royal Society, a transla- tion from Demosthenes, and one or two minor pieces. Of much of the biographical material contained in the Preface use has already been made, as well as of those verses which can be definitely dated^ or which relate to the author's love-affairs. The hitherto unnoticed portions of the volume consist chiefly of Epistles, in the orthodox eighteenth century fashion. One is headed Of True Greatness; another, inscribed to the Duke of Richmond, Of Good-nature ; while a third is addressed to a friend On the Choice of a Wife. This last contains some sensible lines, but although Roscoe has managed to extract two quotable passages, it is needless to imitate him here. These productions show no trace of the authentic Fielding. The essays are more remarkable, although, like Montaigne's, they are scarcely described by their titles. That on Conversation is really a little treatise on good breeding ; that on the Characters of Men, a lay sermon against Fielding's pet antipathy — hy- pocrisy. Nothing can well be wiser, even now, than some of the counsels in the former of these A Memoir 135 papers on such themes as the limits of raillery, the duties of hospitality, and the choice of sub- ject in general conversation. Nor, however threadbare they may look to-day, can the final conclusions be reasonably objected to : *' First, That every Person vi^ho indulges his Ill-nature or Vanity, at the Expense of others ; and in intro- ducing Uneasiness, Vexation, and Confusion into Society, hov\^ever exalted or high-titled he may be, is thoroughly ill-bred ; " and ** Secondly, That whoever, from the Goodness of his Dispo- sition or Understanding, endeavours to his ut- most to cultivate the Good-humour and Happi- ness of others, and to contribute to the Ease and Comfort of all his Acquaintance^ however low in Rank Fortune may have placed him, or however clumsy he may be in his Figure or Demeanour, hath, in the truest Sense of the Word, a Claim to Good-Breeding."^ One fancies that this essay must have been a favourite with the his- torian of the Book of Snobs and the creator of Major Dobbin. The Characters of Men is not equal to the Conversation. The theme is a wider one ; and the end proposed, — that of supplying rules for detecting the real disposition through all the social disguises which cloak and envelop it, — can 1 Miscella7iieSy 1743, i. 178. 136 Henry Fielding scarcely be said to be attained. But there are happy touches even in this ; and when the author says — "I will venture to affirm^ that I have known some of the best sort of Men in the World (to use the vulgar Phrase,) who would not have scrupled cutting a Friend's Throat; and a Fellow whom no Man should be seen to speak to, capable of the highest Acts of Friendship and Benevolence/' ^ one recognises the hand that made the sole good Samaritan in Joseph Andrews '' a Lad who hath since been transported for rob- bing a Hen-roost." The account of the Terres- trial Chrysipus, or Guinea, a burlesque on a paper read before the Royal Society of the Fresh Water Polypus, is chiefly interesting from the fact that it is supposed to be written by Petrus Gualterus (Peter Walter), who had an '' extraor- dinary Collection'' of them. He died in fact, worth ;^ 300,000. The only other paper in the vol- ume of any value is a short one Of the Remedy of Affliction for the Loss of our Friends^ to which we shall presently return. The farce of Eurydice, and the Wedding Day, which, with A Journey from this World to the Next, etc., make up the contents of the second volume of the Miscellanies, have been already sufficiently discussed. But the Journey deserves ^ MiscellanieSy 1743, i. 199. A Memoir 137 some further notice. It has been suggested that this curious Lucianic production may have been prompted by the vision of Mercury and Charon in the Champion, though the kind of allegory of which it consists is common enough v/ith the elder essayists ; and it is notable that another book was published in April, 1743, under the title of Cardinal Fleurys Journey to the other World, which is manifestly suggested by Quevedo. Fielding's Journey, however, is a fragment which the author feigns to have found in the garret of a stationer in the Strand. Sixteen out of flve-and- twenty chapters in Book i. are occupied with the transmigrations of Julian the Apostate, whichare not concluded. Then follows another chapter from Book xix., which contains the history of Anna Boleyn, and the whole breaks off abruptly. Its best portion is undoubtedly the first nine chapters, which relate the writer's progress to Elysium, and afford opportunity for many strokes of satire. Such are the whimsical terror of the spiritual traveller in the stage-coach, who hears suddenly that his neighbour has died of small- pox, a disease he had been dreading all his life ; and the punishment of Lord Scrape, the miser, who is doomed to dole out money to all comers, and who, after *^ being purified in the Body of a Hog/' is ultimately to return to earth again. 138 Henry Fielding Nor is the delight of some of those who profit by his enforced assistance less keenly realised : ** I remarked a poetical Spirit in particular, who swore he would have a hearty Gripe at him : * For, says he, the Rascal not only refused to subscribe to my Works ; but sent back my Letter unanswered, tho' Tm a better Gentleman than himself/ " ^ The descriptions of the City of Diseases, the Palace of Death, and the Wheel of Fortune from which men draw their chequered lots, are all unrivalled in their way. But here, as always, it is in his pictures of human nature that Fielding shines, and it is this that makes the chapters in which Minos is shown adjudicating upon the separate claims of the claimants to enter Elysium the most piquant of all. The virtuoso and butterfly hunter, who is repulsed ^' with great Scorn ; '' the dramatic author who is admitted (to his disgust), not on account of his works, but be- cause he has once lent " the whole Profits of a Benefit Night to a Friend ; " the parson who is turned back, while his poor parishioners are ad- mitted ; and the trembling wretch who has been hanged for a robbery of eighteen-pence, to which he had been driven by poverty, but whom the judge welcomes cordially because he had been a kind father, husband, and son ; all these are con- 1 Miscellanies, I743> ii- 25. A Memoir 139 ceived in that humane and generous spirit which is Fielding's most engaging characteristic. The chapter immediately following^ which describes the literary and other inhabitants of Elysium, is even better. Here is Leonidas, who appears to be only moderately gratified with the honour re- cently done him by Mr. Glover, the poet; here is Homer, toying with Madam Dacier, and pro- foundly indifferent as to his birth-place and the continuity of his poems ; here, too, is Shake- speare, w^ho, foreseeing future commentators and the ^* New Shakespeare Society," declines to en- lighten Betterton and Booth as to a disputed passage in his works, adding, " I marvel nothing so much as that Men will gird themselves at dis- covering obscure Beauties in an Author. Certes the greatest and most pregnant Beauties are ever the plainest and most evidently striking ; and when two Meanings of a Passage can in the least balance our Judgm.ents which to prefer, I hold it matter of unquestionable Certainty that neither is worth a farthing.''^ Then, again, there are Addison and Steele, w^ho are described with so pleasant a knowledge of their personalities that, although the passage has been often quoted, there seems to be no reason why it should not be quoted once more : ^ Miscellanies y 1743, ii. 67-8. 140 Henry Fielding ^^ Virgil then came up to me, with Mr. Addison under his Arm. Well, Sir, said he, how many Translations have these few last Years produced of my jEneid) I told him, I believed several, but I could not possibly remember ; for I had never read any but Dr. Trapp's? — Ay, said he, that is a curious Piece indeed I I then ac- quainted him with the Discovery made by Mr. Warburton of the Eleusinian Mysteries couched in his 6th book. What Mysteries ? said Mr. Addison. The Eleusinian, answered Virgil, which I have disclosed in my 6th Book. How ! replied Addison, You never mentioned a word of any such Mysteries to me in all our Acquaint- ance. I thought it was unnecessary, cried the other, to a Man of your infinite Learning : be- sides, you always told me, you perfectly under- stood my meaning. Upon this I thought the Critic looked a little out of countenance, and turned aside to a very merry Spirit, one Dick Steele, who embraced him and told him. He had been the greatest Man upon Earth ; that he read- ily resigned up all the Merit of his own Works to him. Upon which, Addison gave him a gracious Smile, and clapping him on the Back with much Solemnity, cried out, Well said, Dick.''"^ 1 Dr. Trapp's translation of the yEneid was published in 1718. ^ Miscellanies f 1743, ii. 64-5. A Memoir 141 After encountering these and other notabilities, including Tom Thumb and Livvy, the latter of whom takes occasion to commend the ingenious performances of Lady Marlborough's assistant, Mr. Hooke, the author meets with Julian the Apostate, and from this point the narrative grows languid. Its unfinished condition may perhaps be accepted as a proof that Fielding himself had wearied of his scheme. The third volume of the Miscellanies is wholly occupied with the remarkable work entitled the History of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great, As in the case of the Journey from this World to the Next, it is not unlikely that the first germ of this may be found in the pages of the Champion, '' Reputation " — says Fielding in one of the essays in that periodical — *' often courts those most who regard her the least. Actions have som.etimes been attended with Fame, which were undertaken in Defiance of it. Jonathan W/ld himself had for miany years no small Share of it in this Kingdom." ^ The book now under consideration is the elaboration of the idea thus casually throvv^n out. Under the name of a no- torious thief-taker hanged at Tyburn in 1725, Fielding has traced the Progress of a Rogue to the Gallows, showing by innumerable subtle 1 Champion y 1 741, i. 330. 142 Henry Fielding touches that the (so-called) greatness of a villain does not very materially differ from any other kind of greatness, w^hich is equally independent of goodness. This continually suggested affinity betv^een the ignoble and the pseudo-noble is the text of the book. Against genuine worth, its author is careful to explain, his satire is in no wise directed. He is far from considering '^ Newgate as no other than Human Nature with its Mask off; '' but he thinks '' we may be ex- cused for suspecting, that the splendid Palaces of the Great are often no other than Newgate with the Mask on."^ Thus Jonathan Wild the Great is a prolonged satire upon the spurious eminence in which benevolence, honesty, charity, and the like have no part ; or, as Fielding prefers to term it, that false or '' Bombast Greatness ''^ which is so often mistaken for the '^ true Sublime in Human Nature" — Greatness and Goodness combined. So thoroughly has he explained his intention in the Prefaces to the Miscellanies, and to the book itself, that it is difficult to compre- hend how Scott could fail to see his drift. Pos- sibly, like some others, he found the subject re- '^ Miscellanies^ I743> i-» xx. 2 Cf. the definition of •« Great " in No. 4 of the Covent Garden Journal: — "Applied to a Thing, signifies Bigness; when to a Man, often Littleness or Meanness.'* A Memoir 143 pugnant and painful to his kindly nature. Pos- sibly, too, he did not, for this reason, study the book very carefully, for, with the episode of Heart- free under one's eyes, it is not strictly accurate to say (as he does) that it presents **a picture of complete vice, unrelieved by any thing of human feeling, and never by any accident even deviat- ing into virtue." ^ If the author's introduction be borne in mind, and if the book be read steadily in the light there supplied, no one can refrain from admiring the extraordinary skill and concen- tration with which the plan is pursued, and the adroitness with which, at every turn, the villainy of Wild is approximated to that of those securer and more illustrious criminals with whom he is so seldom confused. And Fielding has never carried one of his chief and characteristic excel- lences to so great perfection : the book is a model of sustained and sleepless irony. To make any extracts from it — still less to make any extracts which should do justice to it, is almost impracticable ; but the edifying discourse between Wild and Count La Ruse in Book i., and the pure comedy of that in Book iv. with the Ordi- nary of Newgate (who objects to wine, but drinks punch because '* it is no where spoken against in Scripture "), as well as the account of the prison ^ Lives of the Novelists ^ 1825, i. 21. 144 Henry Fielding faction between Wild and Johnson/ with its admirable speech of the '* grave Man" against Party, may all be cited as examples of its style and method. Nor should the character of Wild in the last chapter, and his famous rules of con- duct, be neglected. It must be admitted, how- ever, that the book is not calculated to suit the nicely-sensitive in letters ; or, it may be added, those readers for whom the evolution of a purely intellectual conception is either unmeaning or un- interesting. Its place in Fielding's works is im- mediately after his three great novels, and this is more by reason of its subject than its workman- ship, which could hardly be excelled. When it was actually composed is doubtful. If it may be 1 Some critics at this point appear to have identified John- son and Wild with Lord Wilmington and Sir Robert Wal- pole (who resigned in 1742), while Mr. Keightley suspects that Wild throughout typifies Walpole. But the advertise- ment " from the Publisher " to the edition of 1754 disclaims any such "personal Application." "The Truth is (he says), as a very corrupt State of Morals is here represented, the Scene seems very properly to have been laid in New- gate : Nor do I see any Reason for introducing any allegory at all ; unless we will agree that there are, without those Walls, some other Bodies of Men of worse Morals than those within; and who have, consequently, a Right to change Places with its present Inhabitants." The writer was probably Fielding. A Memoir 145 connected with the already-quoted passage in the Cliampion, it must be placed after March 4th, 1740, which is the date of the paper ; but, from a reference to Peter Pounce in Book ii., it might also be supposed to have been written after Joseph Andrews. The Bath simile in chapter xiv. Book i., makes it likely that some part of it was penned at that place, where, from an epi- gram in the Miscellanies " written Extempore in the Pump Room," it is clear that Fielding was staying in 1 742. But, whenever it was completed, we are inclined to think that it was planned and begun before Joseph- Andrews was published, as it is in the highest degree improbable that Field- ing, always carefully watching the public taste, would have followed up that fortunate adventure in a new direction by a work so entirely different from it as Jonathan Wild. A second edition of the Miscellanies appeared in the same year as the first, namely in 1745- From this date until the publication of Tom Jones in 1749, Fielding produced no work of signal importance, and his personal history for the next few years is exceedingly obscure. We are in- clined to suspect that this must have been the most trying period of his career. His health was shattered, and he had become a martyr to gout, which seriously interfered with the active practice 146 Henry Fielding of his profession. Again, ** about this time/' says Murphy vaguely, after speaking of the Wedding Day, he lost his first wife. That she was alive in the winter of 1742-3 is clear, for, in the Pref- ace to the Miscellanies, he describes himself as being then laid up, '* with a favourite Child dying in one Bed, and my Wife in a Condition very little better, on another, attended with other Cir- cumstances, which served as very proper Deco- rations to such a Scene,'' — by which Mr. Keightley no doubt rightly supposes him to refer to writs and bailiffs. It must also be assumed that Mrs. Fielding was alive when the Preface was written, since, in apologising for an apparent delay in publishing the book, he says the ** real Reason " was *^ the dangerous Illness of one from whom I draw [the italics are ours] all the solid Comfort of my Life." There is another unmis- takable reference to her in one of the minor papers in the first volume, viz, that Of the Remedy of Affliction for the Loss of our Friends, ''I re- member the most excellent of Women, and ten- derest of Mothers, when, after a painful and dangerous Delivery, she was told she had a Daughter, answering; Good God! have I pro- duced a Creature who is to undergo what I have suffered! Some Years afterwards, I heard the same Woman, on the Death of that very Child, A Memoir 147 then one of the loveliest Creatures ever seen, comforting herself with reflecting, that her Child could never know ivhat it vjas to feel such a Loss CLS she then Lanienied,'"^ Were it not for the passages already quoted from the Preface, it might almost be concluded from the tone of the foregoing quotation and the final words of the paper, which refer to our meeting with those we have lost in Heaven, that Mrs. Fielding was already dead. But the use of the word *' draw " in the Preface affords distinct evidence to the contrary. It is therefore most probable that she died in the latter part of 1743, having been long in a declining state of health. For a time her husband was inconsolable. **The fortitude of mind," says Murphy, ** with which he met all the other calamities of life, deserted him on this most trying occasion." His grief was so vehement *• that his friends began to think him in danger of losing his reason." ^ That Fielding had depicted his first wife in Sophia Western has already been pointed out, and we have the authority of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Richardson for saying that she was afterwards reproduced in Amelia, *' Amelia," says the latter, in a letter to Mrs. Donnellan, **even to her noselessness, is again his first « Miscellanies f 1743, i. 319. * Works, 1 7 62, i. 38. 148 Henry Fielding wife." Some of her traits, too, are to be de- tected in the Mrs. Wilson of Joseph Andrews, But, beyond these indications, we hear little about her. Almost all that is definitely known is con- tained in a passage of the admirable Introductory Anecdotes contributed by Lady Louisa Stuart to Lord Wharncliffe's edition of Lady Mary Wort- ley Montagu's Letters and Works, This account was based upon the recollections of Lady Bute, Lady Mary's daughter.^ ** Only those persons [says Lady Louisa Stuart] are mentioned here of whom Lady Bute could speak from her own recollection or her mother's report. Both had made her well informed of every particular that concerned her relation Henry Fielding ; nor was she a stranger to that beloved first wife whose picture he drew in his Amelia, where, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident related in the novel, — a frightful over- turn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose.'^ 1 Correspondence y 1804, iv. 60. 2 That any one could have remained lovely after such a catastrophe is difficult to believe. But probably Lady Bute (or Lady Louisa Stuart) exaggerated its effects; for — to say nothing of the fact that, throughout the novel, Amelia's A Memoir 149 He loved her passionately, and she returned his affection ; yet led no happy life, for they were al- most always miserably poor, and seldom in a state of quiet and safety. All the world knows what was his imprudence ; if ever he possessed a score of pounds, nothing could keep him from lavishing it idly, or make him think of to-morrow. Some- times they were living in decent lodgings with tolerable comfort ; sometimes in a wretched gar- ret without necessaries ; not to speak of the spunging-houses and hiding-places where he was beauty is continually commended — in the delightfully feminine description which is given of her by Mrs. James in Book xi. chap, i., pp. 1 14-15 of the first edition of 1752, although she is literally pulled to pieces, there is no refer- ence whatever to her nose, which may be taken as proof positive that it was not an assailable feature. Moreover, in the book as we now have it, Fielding, obviously in deference to contemporary criticism, inserted the following specific passages : " She was, indeed, a most charming woman ; and I know not whether the little scar on her nose did not rather add to, than diminish her beauty" (Book iv. chap, vii.) ; and in Mrs. James's portrait : " Then her nose, as well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side." No previous biographer seems to have thought it necessary to make any mention of these statements, while Johnson's speech about "that vile broken nose, never cured," (Hill's Johnsonian Miscellanies , 1897, i* 297), and Richardson's coarsely-malignant utterance to Mrs. Donnellan, are every- where industriously remembered and repeated. 150 Henry Fielding occasionally to be found. His elastic gaiety of spirit carried him through it all ; but, meanwhile, care and anxiety were preying upon her more delicate mind, and undermining her constitution. She gradually declined, caught a fever, and died in his arms.'' ^ As usual, Mr. Keightley has done his best to sift this statement to the utmost. Part of his examination may be neglected, because it is based upon the misconception that Lord Wharncliffe, Lady Mary's greatgrandson, and not Lady Louisa Stuart, her granddaughter, was the writer of the foregoing account. But as a set-off to the ex- treme destitution alleged, Mr. Keightley very justly observes that Mrs. Fielding must for some time have had a maid, since it was a maid who had been devotedly attached to her whom Field- ing subsequently married. He also argues that *' living in a garret and skulking in out o' the way retreats," are incompatible with studying law and practising as a barrister. Making every allow- ance, however, for the somewhat exaggerated way in which those of high rank often speak of the distresses of their less opulent kinsfolk, it is probable that Fielding's married life was one of continual shifts and privations. Such a state of 1 Le tiers f etc., of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu^ 1 86 1, i. 105-6. A Memoir 151 things is completely in accordance with his pro- fuse nature ^ and his precarious means. Of his family by the first Mrs. Fielding no very material particulars have been preserved. Writing, in November, 1745, in the True Patriot, he speaks of having a son and a daughter, but no son by his first wife seems to have survived him. The late Colonel Chester found the burial of a *' James Fielding, son of Henry Fielding/' re- corded under date of 19th February, 1736, in the register of St. Giles in the Fields ; but it is by no means certain that this entry refers to the novel- ist. A daughter, Eleanor Harriot, certainly did survive him, for she is mentioned in the Voyage to Lisbon as being of the party who accompanied him. Another daughter, as already stated, prob- ably died in the winter of 1742-3 ; and the Journey from this World to the Next contains the touching reference to this or another child, of which Dickens writes so warmly.^ ** I presently/' says Fielding, speaking of his entrance into Elysium, *' met a little Daughter, whom I had lost several Years before. Good Gods ! what Words can describe the Raptures, the melting * The passage as to his imprudence is, oddly enough, omitted from Mr. Keightley^s quotation. ^ Lttters, 1880, i. 394, 152 Henry Fielding passionate Tenderness, with which we kiss'd each other, continuing in our Embrace, with the most extatic Joy, a Space, which if Time had been measured here as on Earth, could not have been less than half a Year/' ^ From the death of Mrs. Fielding until the publication of the True Patriot \n 1745 another comparative blank ensues in Fielding's history ; and it can only be filled by the assumption that he was still endeavouring to follow his profession as a barrister. His literary work seems to have been confined to a Preface to the second edition of his sister's novel of David Simple, which ap- peared in 1744. This, while rendering fraternal justice to that now forgotten book, is memorable for some personal utterances on Fielding's part. In denying the authorship of David Simple, which had been attributed to him, he takes occasion to appeal against the injustice of referring anony- mous works to his pen, in the face of his distinct engagement in the Preface to the Miscellanies, that he would thenceforth write nothing except over his own signature ; and he complains that such a course has a tendency to injure him in a profession to which *' he has applied with so ar- duous and intent a diligence, that he has had no leisure, if he had inclination, to compose anything 1 Miscellanies t 1743, ii. 63. A Memoir 153 of this kind (i. e., David Simple).'' At the same time, he formally withdraws his promise, since it has in no wise exempted him from the scandal of putting forth anonymous work. From other passages in this '* Preface,'' it may be gathered the immediate cause of irritation was the assign- ment to his pen of '^ that infamous paultry libel '^ the Causidicade, a satire directed at the law in general, and some of the subscribers to the Mis- cellanies in particular. **This," he says, *' ac- cused me not only of being a bad writer, and a bad man, but with downright idiotism, in flying in the face of the greatest men of my profession/' It may easily be conceived that such a report must be unfavourable to a struggling barrister, and Fielding's anxiety on this head is a strong proof that he was still hoping to succeed at the Bar. To a subsequent collection of Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple and some others, he supplied another pref- ace three years later, together with five little- known epistles which, nevertheless, are not with- out evidence of his characteristic touch. ^ 1 The most characteristic of these — an imitation of a letter from a French traveller in England to his friend at Paris — was, however, reprinted by Professor Saintsbury in the final volume of his edition of Fielding's Works^ xii. 232-242. 1 54 Henry Fielding A life of ups and downs like Fielding's is sel- dom remarkable for its consistency. It is there- fore not surprising to find that, despite his desire in 1744 to cease from writing, he was writing again in 1745. The landing of Charles Edward once more attracted him into the ranks of jour- nalism, on the side of the Government, and gave rise to the True Patriot, a weekly paper, the first number of which appeared in November. This, having come to an end with the Rebellion, was succeeded on 5 December, 1747, by the Jaco- bite's Journal, supposed to emanate from " John Trott-Plaid, Esq.," and intended to push the dis- comfiture of Jacobite sentiment still further. It is needless to discuss these mainly political efforts at any length. They are said to have been highly approved by those in power : it is certain that they earned for their author the stigma of ** pensioned scribbler." Both are now very rare ; and in Murphy the former is represented by twenty-four numbers, the latter by two only. The True Patriot contains a dream of London abandoned to the rebels, which is admirably graphic ; and there is also a prophetic chronicle of events for 1746, in which the same idea is treated in a lighter and more satirical vein. But perhaps the most interesting feature is the reap- pearance of Parson Adams, who addresses a A Memoir 155 couple of letters to the same periodical — one on the rising generally, and the other on the ** young England '' of the day, as exemplified in a very offensive specimen he had recently encountered at Mr. Wilson's. Other minor points of interest in connection with the Jacobite's Journal, are the tradition associating Hogarth with the rude woodcut headpiece (a Scotch man and woman on an ass led by a monk) which surmounted its ear- lier numbers, and the genial welcome given in No. 5, perhaps not without some touch of contrition, to the two first volumes, then just published, of Richardson's Clarissa. The pen is the pen of an imaginary *' correspondent," but the words are unmistakably Fielding's : **\Vhen I tell you I have lately received this Pleasure [f. e., of reading a new master-piece], you will not want me to inform you that I owe it to the Author of Clarissa. Such Simplicity, such Manners, such deep Penetration into Nature; such Power to raise and alarm the Passions, few Writers, either ancient or modern, have been possessed of. My Affections are so strongly en- gaged, and my Fears are so raised, by what I have already read, that I cannot express my Eagerness to see the rest. Sure this Mr. Richardson is Master of all that Art which Horace compares to Witchcraft IS 6 Henry Fielding Pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet Ut Magus. — " 1 Between the discontinuance of the True Patriot and the establishment of its successor occurred an event, the precise date of which has been hitherto unknown, namely, Fielding's second marriage. The account given of this by Lady Louisa Stuart is as follows : '' His [Fielding's] biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the death of this charming woman [his first wife] he married her maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent crea- ture, devotedly attached to her mistress, and al- most broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her ; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually re- gretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer 1 He also refers to Richardson in No. lo of the Covent Garden Journal: — " Pleasure (as the ingenious Author of Clarissa says of a Story) s/wuld be made 07ily the Vehicle of Instruction,^^ A Memoir 157 mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this is what he told his friends ; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." ^ It has now been ascertained that the marriage took place at St. Bene't's, Paul's Wharf, an ob- scure little church in the City, at present sur- rendered to a Welsh congregation, but at that time, like Mary-le-bone old church, much in re- quest for unions of a private character. The date in the register is the 27th of November, 1747. The second Mrs. Fielding's maiden name, which has been hitherto variously reported as Macdon- nell, Macdonald, and Macdaniel, is given as Mary Daniel,^ and she is further described as ''of St. Clement's Danes, Middlesex, Spinster.'' Either previous to this occurrence, or immedi- ately after it, Fielding seems to have taken two rooms in a house in Back Lane, Twickenham, *' not far from the site of Copt Hall." ^ In 1872 this house was still standing, — a quaint old-fash- ^ Letters, etc., of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, 1861, i. 106. 2 See note to Fielding's letter in Chap. vii. 3Cobbett's Memorials of Twickenham^ 1872, pp. 52 and 358. iS8 Henry Fielding ioned wooden structure ; ' — and from hence, on the 25th February, 1748, was baptised the first of the novelist's sons concerning whom any definite information exists — the William Fielding who, like his father, became a Westminster magistrate. Beyond suggesting that it may supply a reason why, during Mrs. Fielding's life-time, her hus- band's earliest biographer made no reference to the marriage, it is needless to dwell upon the proximity between the foregoing dates. In other respects the circumstance now first made public is not inconsistent with Lady Louisa Stuart's narrative ; and there is no doubts from the refer- ences to her in the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon and elsewhere, that Mary Daniel did prove an excellent wife, mother, and nurse. Another thing is made clear by the date established, and this is that the verses ** On Felix ; Marry'd to a Cook- Maid " in the Gentleman s Magazine for July, 1746, to which Mr. Lawrence refers, cannot pos- sibly have anything to do with Fielding, although they seem to indicate that alliances of the kind were not unusual. Perhaps Pamela had made them fashionable. On the other hand, the sup- posed allusion to Lyttelton and Fielding, to be found in the first edition of Peregrine Pickky but 1 Now it no longer exists, and a row of cottages occupies the site. A Memoir 159 afterwards suppressed, receives a certain con- firmation. *^ When," says Smollett, speaking of the relations of an imaginary Mr. Spondy with Gosling Scrag, who is understood to represent Lyttelton, '* he is inclined to marry his own cook- wench, his gracious patron may condescend to give the bride away ; and may finally settle him, in his old age, as a trading Westminster justice. " That, looking to the facts, Fielding's second marriage should have gained the approval and countenance of Lyttelton is no more than the upright and hon- ourable character of the latter would lead us to expect. The Jacobite's Journal ceased to appear in No- vember, 1748. In the early part of the Decem- ber following, the remainder of Smollett's pro- gramme came to pass, and by Lyttelton's interest Fielding was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Westminster. From a letter in the Bedford Correspondence^ dated 13th December, 1748,^ respecting the lease of a house or houses which would qualify him to act for Middlesex, it would seem that the county was afterwards added to his commission. He must have entered upon his office in the first weeks of December, as upon the ninth of that month one John Salter was com- mitted to the Gatehouse by Henry Fielding, Esq., ^Bedford Correspondence ^ 1846, i. 588. i6o Henry Fielding ** of Bow Street, Covent Garden, formerly Sir Thomas de Veirs." Sir Thomas de Veil, who died in 1746, and whose Memoirs had just been published, could not, however, have been Field- ing's immediate predecessor. CHAPTER V Fielding and Joseph Warton ; making of the masterpiece ; means of existence ; Tom Jones published, 28 February, 1749; a " new Province of Writing; " construction of the plot ; the characters ; Squire Western ; other persons of the drama; Tom Jones himself; the author's humour; irony, humanity ; reception of the book ; Richardson and Aaron Hill's daughters ; translation and illustrators ; adaptations for the stage. Y\7RITING from Basingstoke to his brother ^^ Tom, on the 29th October, 1746, Joseph Warton thus refers to a visit he paid to Fielding : '* I wish you had been with me last week, when I spent two evenings with Fielding and his sister who wrote David Simple, and you may guess I was very well entertained. The lady indeed retired pretty soon, but Russell and I sat up with the Poet [Warton no doubt uses the word here in the sense of ' maker' or ^creator' ] till one or two in the morning, and were inex- pressibly diverted. I find he values, as he justly may, his Joseph Andrews above all his writings : he was extremely civil to me, I fancy, on my Father's account/' ^ ^ /. e.y the Rev. Thomas Warton, Vicar of Basingstoke, and sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford. 1 62 Henry Fielding This mention of Joseph Andrews has misled some of Fielding's biographers into thinking that he ranked that novel above Tom Jones, But, in October, 1746, Tom Jones had not been pub- lished ; and, from the absence of any reference to it by Warton, it is only reasonable to conclude that it had not yet assumed a definite form, or Fielding, who was by no means uncommunicative, would in all probability have spoken of it as an effort from which he expected still greater things. It is clear, too, that at this date he was staying in London, presumably in lodgings with his sister ; and it is also most likely that he lived much in town when he was conducting the True Patriot and the Jacobite's Journal. At other times he would appear to have had no settled place of abode. There are traditions that Tom Jones was composed in part at Salisbury, in a house at the foot of Milford Hill ; and again that it was writ- ten at Twiverton, or Twerton-on-Avon, near Bath, where, as the Vicar pointed out in Notes and Queries for March 15th, 1879, there still ex- ists a house called Fielding's Lodge, over the door of which is a mutilated stone crest. This latter tradition is supported by the statement of Mr. Richard Graves, author of the Spiritual Quixote, and rector, cfr{;a 1750, of the neighbour- ing parish of Claverton, who says in his Trifling; A Memoir 163 Anecdotes of the late Ralph Allen, that Fielding while at Twerton used to dine almost daily with Allen at Prior Park. There are also traces of his residence at Widcombe House, Bath, (Mr. Ben- net's) ; as also of visits to the seat of Lyttelton's father at Hagley in Worcestershire, and to Rad- way Grange in Warwickshire, in the dining-room of which it is traditionally asserted that he read the MS. of his book to Mr. Miller (the owner of the house), Lyttelton, and Lord Chatham.^ To- wards the close of 1747 he had, as before stated, rooms in Back Lane, Twickenham ; and it must be to this or to some earlier period that Walpole alludes in his Parish Register : ^ " Where Fielding met his bunter Muse, And, as they quafPd the fiery juice, Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit With unimaginable wit ;" — a quatrain in which the last lines excuse the first. According to Mr. Cobbett's already-quoted Memorials of Tvjickenham, he left that place upon his appointment as a Middlesex magistrate, when he moved to Bow Street. His house in Bow Street belonged to John, Duke of Bedford ; and he continued to live in it until a short time before ' Miller's Rambles rotmd Edge Hills ^ 1 896, 17. « Works t 1798, iv., 382-3. 164 Henry Fielding his death. It was subsequently occupied by his half-brother and successor, Sir John/ who, writ- ing to the Duke in March, 1770, to thank him for his munificent gift of an additional ten years to the lease, recalls ^^ that princely instance of gen- erosity which his Grace shewed to his late brother, Henry Fielding." What this was, is not specified. It may have been the gift of the leases of those tenements on the Bedford property which, as explained, were necessary to qualify Fielding to act as a Justice of the Peace for the county of Middlesex; it may even have been the lease of the Bow Street house ; or it may have been simply a gift of money. But whatever it was, it was something considerable. In his appeal to the Duke, at the close of the last chapter. Fielding referred to previous obligations, and in his dedication of Tom Jones to Lyttelton, he returns again to his Grace's beneficence. Another person, of whose kind- ness grateful but indirect mention is made in the same dedication, is Ralph Allen, who^ according to Derrick, the Bath M. C., sent the novelist a ^Bedford Correspondence, 1846, iii. 411. In the riots of '80 — as Dickens has not forgotten to note in Barnaby Rudge — the house was destroyed by the mob, who burned Sir John's goods in the street (^HilVs BoswelVs Johnson^ 1887, iii. 428, chap. Ixx.). A Memoir 165 present of ;2f 200, before he had even made his acquaintance,^ which, from the reference to Al- len in Joseph Andrews J probably began before 1742. Lastly, there is Lyttelton himself, con- cerning whom, in addition to a sentence which implies that he actually suggested the writing of Tom Jones, we have the express statements on Fielding's part that ^' without your Assistance this History had never been completed," and •" I partly owe to you my Existence during great Part of the Time which I have employed in com- posing it." ^ These words must plainly be ac- cepted as indicating pecuniary help ; and, taking all things together, there can be little doubt that for some years antecedent to his appointment as a Justice of the Peace, Fielding was in straitened circumstances, and was largely aided, if not practically supported, by his friends. Even supposing him to have been subsidised by Gov- ernment as alleged, his profits from the True Patriot and the Jacobite's Journal could not have been excessive ; and his gout, of which he speaks in one of his letters to the Duke of Bedford,^ must have been a serious obstacle in the way of his legal labours. 1 Derrick's Letters, 1767, ii. 95. 2 Dedication to Tom JoiieSy 1 749, i. iv.-v. 3 Bedford Correspondence y 1846, i. 588. 1 66 Henry Fielding The History of Tom Jones, a Foundlings was published by Andrew Millar on the 28th of Feb- ruary, 1749, and its appearance in six volumes, i2mo, was announced in the General Advertiser of that day's date. There had been no author's name on the title page of Joseph Andrews ; but Tom Jones was duly described as *'by Henry Fielding, Esq.," and bore the motto from Horace, seldom so justly applied, of '^ Mores hominum multorum vidit,'" The advertisement also ingenuously stated that as it was '' impos- sible to get Sets bound fast enough to an- swer the Demand for them, such Gentlemen and Ladies as pleased, might have them sew'd in Blue Paper and Boards at the Price of i6s. a Set.*" The date of issue sufficiently disposes of the statement of Cunningham and others, that the book was written at Bow Street. Little more than the dedication, which is preface as well, can have been produced by Fielding in his new home. Making fair allowance for the usual tardy progress of a book through the press, and taking into consideration the fact that the author was actively occupied with his yet unfamil- iar magisterial duties, it is most probable that the last chapter of Tom Jones had been penned before the end of 1748, and that after that time it had been at the printer's. For the exact price A Memoir 167 paid to the author by the publisher on this oc- casion we are indebted to Horace Walpole, who, writing to George Montagu in May, 1749, says — ** Millar the bookseller has done very gen- erously by him [Fielding] : finding Tom Jones, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred."^ It is time, however, to turn from these par- ticulars to Tom Jones itself. In Joseph Andreips, Fielding's work had been mainly experimental. He had set out with an intention which had un- expectedly developed into something else. That something else, he had explained, was the comic epic in prose. He had discovered its scope and possibilities only when it was too late to re-cast his original design; and though Joseph Andrews has all the freshness and energy of a first attempt in a new direction, it has also the manifest disad- vantages of a mixed conception and an uncer- tain plan. No one had perceived these defects more plainly than the author ; and in Tom Jones he set himself diligently to perfect his new-found method. He believed that he foresaw a ^' new 1 Fielding's autograph receipt for this sum, dated 1 1 June, 1748, is in the Huth Collection. It is accompanied by the original agreement for writing the book, signed and sealed by the author, and dated 5 March, 1749. 1 68 Henry Fielding Province of Writing/' of which he regarded him- self with justice as the founder and lawgiver ; and in the *^ prolegomenous, or introductory Chapters" to each book — those delightful rest- ing-spaces where, as George Eliot says, "he seems to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine English"^ — he takes us, as it were, into his con- fidence, and discourses frankly of his aims and his way of work. He looked upon these little '' initial Essays '' indeed, as an indispensable part of his scheme. They have given him, says he more than once, '* the greatest Pains in com- posing" of any part of his book, and he hopes that, like the Greek and Latin mottoes in the Spectator^ they may serve to secure him against imitation by inferior authors.^ Naturally a great deal they contain is by this time commonplace, ^ Middlemarchf 1874, p. 102. Of Fielding's style, in wliich he finds " somewhat inexpressibly heartening," Mr. Andrew Lang writes happily — *< One seems to be carried along, like a swimmer in a strong, clear stream, trustmg one's self to every whirl and eddy, with a feeling of safety, of comfort or delighted ease in the motion of the elastic water" {Letters on Literature, 1889, 38). 2 Notwithstanding this w^arning, Cumberland (who copied so much) copied these in his novel of Hejiry. On the other hand, Fielding's French and Polish translators omitted them as superfluous. A Memoir 169 although it was unhackneyed enough when Field- ing wrote. The absolute necessity in work of this kind for genius, learning, and knowledge of the world, the constant obligation to preserve character and probability — to regard variety and the law of contrast : — these are things with which the modern tiro (however much he may fail to pos- sess or observe them) is now supposed to be at least theoretically acquainted. But there are other chapters in which Fielding may also be said to reveal his personal point of view, and these can scarcely be disregarded. His '' Fare,'' he says, following the language of the table, is ** Human Nature," which he shall first present ** in that more plain and simple manner in which it is found in the Country,'' and afterwards ** hash and ragoo " it with all the high French and Italian seasoning of Affectation and Vice which Courts and Cities afford."^ His inclination, he admits, is rather to the middle and lower classes than to 'Uhe highest Life," which he considers to present ^^very little Humour or Entertain- ment." His characters (as before) are based upon actual experience ; or, as he terms it, *^ Conversation." He does not propose to pre- sent his reader with '* Models of Perfection;" he has never happened to meet with those 1 Tom JoneSy Bk. i., ch. i. lyo Henry Fielding ** faultless Monsters." He holds that mankind is constitutionally defective, and that a single bad act does not, of necessity, imply a bad na- ture. He has also observed, without surprise, that virtue in this world is not always '' the cer- tain Road to Happiness," nor '' Vice to Misery." In short, having been admitted ** behind the Scenes of this Great Theatre of Nature," he paints humanity as he has found it, extenuating nothing, nor setting down aught in malice, but reserving the full force of his satire and irony for affectation and hypocrisy. His sincere endeav- our, he declares in his dedication to Lyttelton, has been *'to recommend Goodness and Inno- cence,'' and promote the cause of religion and virtue. And he has all the consciousness that what he is engaged upon is no ordinary enter- prise. He is certain that his pages will outlive both '* their own infirm Author'' and his ene- mies ; and he appeals to Fame to solace and re- assure him — ^^Come, bright Love of Fame," — says the beautiful 'invocation" which begins the thir- teenth Book, — * inspire my glowing Breast: Not thee I call, who over swelling Tides of Blood and Tears, dost bear the Heroe on to Glory, while Sighs of Millions waft his spread- ing Sails ; but thee, fair, gentle maid, whom A Memoir 171 Mnesis, happy Nymph, first on the Banks of Hebrus didst produce. Thee, whom Mceonia educated, whom Mantua charmed, and who, on that fair Hill which overlooks the proud Metrop- olis of Britain^ sat, with thy Milton, sweetly tun- ing the Heroic Lyre ; fill my ravished Fancy with the Hopes of charming Ages yet to come. Foretel me that some tender Maid, whose Grandmother is yet unborn^ hereafter, when, un- der the fictitious Name of Sophia, she reads the real Worth which once existed in my Charlotte, shall, from her sympathetic Breast, send forth the heaving Sigh. Do thou teach me not only to foresee, but to enjoy, nay, even to feed on future Praise. Comfort me by a solemn Assur- ance, that when the little Parlour in which I sit at this Instant, shall be reduced to a worse fur- nished box, I shall be read, with Honour, by those who never knew nor saw me, and whom I shall never know nor see.""^ With no less earnestness, after a mock apos- trophe to Wealth, he appeals to Genius : *' Teach me (he exclaims), which to thee is no difficult Task, to know Mankind better than they know themselves. Remove that Mist which dims the Intellects of Mortals, and causes them to adore Men for their Art, or to detest them for iTom Jones, Bk. xiii., ch. i. 172 Henry Fielding their Cunning in deceiving others, when they are, in Reality, the Objects only of Ridicule, for deceiving themselves. Strip off the thin Dis- guise of Wisdom from Self-Conceit, of Plenty from Avarice, and of Glory from Ambition. Come thou, that hast inspired thy Aristophanes^ thy Lucian, thy Cervantes, thy Rabelais, thy Mo- litre, thy Shakespeare, ihy Swift, ihy Marivaux, fill my Pages w^ith Humour, till Mankind learn the Good-Nature to laugh only at the Follies of others, and the Humility to grieve at their own.''^ From the little group of immortals w^ho are here enumerated, it may be gathered with whom Fielding sought to compete, and with whom he hoped hereafter to be associated. His hopes were not in vain. Indeed, in one respect, he must be held to have even outrivalled that par- ticular predecessor with whom he has been often- est compared. Like Don Quixote, Tom Jones is the precursor of a new order of things, — the earliest and freshest expression of a new depar- ture in art. But while Tom Jones is, to the full, as amusing as Don Quixote, it has the advantage of a greatly superior plan, and an interest more skillfully sustained. The incidents which, in Cervantes, simply succeed each other like the scenes in a panorama, are, in Tom Jones, but 1/3. A Memoir 173 parts of an organised and carefully-arranged pro- gression towards a foreseen conclusion. As the hero and heroine cross and re-cross each other's track, there is scarcely an episode which does not aid in the moving forward of the story. Lit- tle details rise lightly and naturally to the surface of the narrative, not more noticeable at first than the most everyday occurrences, and a few pages farther on become of the greatest importance. The hero makes a mock proposal of marriage to Lady Bellaston. It scarcely detains attention, so natural an expedient does it appear, and be- hold in a chapter or two it has become a terrible weapon in the hands of the injured Sophia 1 Again, when the secret of Jones' birth ^ is finally disclosed, we look back and discover a hundred little premonitions which escaped us at first, but which, read by the light of our latest knowledge, assume a fresh significance. At the same time, it must be admitted that the over-quoted and somewhat antiquated dictum of Coleridge, by which Tom /ones is grouped with the Alchemist » Much ink has been shed respecting Fielding's reason for making his hero illegitimate. But may not "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundliiig^^ have had no subtler origin than the recent establishment of the Foundling Hospital, of which Fielding had written in the ChaittpioUy and in which his friend Hogarth was interested ? 174 Henry Fielding and CEdipus Tyrannusj as one of the three most perfect plots in the world, requires revision. However justified by precedent, it is impossible to apply the term '* perfect" to a work which contains such an inexplicable stumbling-block as the Man of the HilFs story. Then again, prog- ress and animation alone will not make a perfect plot, unless probability be superadded. And although it cannot be said that Fielding disre- gards probability, he certainly strains it consider- ably. Money is conveniently lost and found ; the naivest coincidences continually occur; peo- ple turn up in the nick of time at the exact spot required, and develop the most needful (but en- tirely casual) relations with the characters. Sometimes an episode is so inartistically intro- duced as to be almost clumsy. Towards the end of the book, for instance, it has to be shown that Jones has still some power of resisting temptation, and he accordingly receives from a Mrs. Arabella Hunt, a written offer of her hand, which he declines. Mrs. Hunt's name has never been mentioned before, nor, after this occurrence, is it mentioned again. But in the brief fortnight which Jones has been in town, with his head full of Lady Bellaston, Sophia, and the rest, we are to assume that he has unwittingly inspired her with so desperate a passion that she A Memoir 175 proposes and is refused — all in a chapter. Im- perfections of this kind are more worthy of con- sideration than some of the minor negligences which criticism has amused itself by detecting in this famous book. Such, among others, is the discovery made by a writer in the Genilemans Maga:{ine^ that in one place winter and summer come too close together; or the '* strange speci- men of oscitancy" which another (it is, in fact, Mr. Keightley) considers it worth while to re- cord respecting the misplacing of the village of Hambrook. To such trifles as these last the pre- cept of non offendar maculis may safely be applied, although Fielding, wiser than his critics, seems to have foreseen the necessity for still larger allowances : ** Cruel indeed," says he in his proemium to Book XL, ** would it be, if such a Work as this History, which hath employed some Thousands of Hours in the composing, should be liable to be condemned, because some particular Chapter, or perhaps Chapters, may be obnoxious to very just and sensible Objections. . . . To write within such severe Rules as these, is as impos- sible as to live up to some splenetic Opinions ; and if we judge according to the Sentiments of some Critics, and of some Christians, no Author will be saved in this World, and no Man in the next." 176 Henry Fielding Notwithstanding its admitted superiority to Joseph Andrews as a work of art, there is no male character in Tom Jones which can compete with Parson Adams — none certainly which we regard with equal admiration. Allworthy, excellent compound of Lyttelton and Allen though he be, remains always a little stiff and cold in compari- son with the 'Reined humanity" around him. V/e feel of him, as of another impeccable person- age, that we '^ cannot breathe in that fine air, That pure severity of perfect light,'' and that we want the '^ warmth and colour'' w^hich we find in Adams. AUworthy is a type rather than a char- acter — a fault which also seems to apply to that Molieresque hypocrite, the younger Blifil. Fielding seems to have welded this latter to- gether, rather than to have fused him entire, and the result is a certain lack of verisimilitude, which makes us wonder how his pinchbeck pro- fessions and vamped-up virtues could deceive so many persons. On the other hand, his father, Captain John Blifil, has all the look of life. Nor can there be any doubt about the vitality of Squire Western. Whether the germ of his char- acter be derived from Addison's Tory Foxhunter or not, it is certain that Fielding must have had superabundant material of his own from which to model this thoroughly representative, and at the A Memoir 177 same time, completely individual character. Western has all the rustic tastes, the narrow prej- udices, the imperfect education, the unreasoning hatred to the court, which distinguished the Jaco- bite country gentleman of the Georgian era ; but his divided love for his daughter and his horses, his good-humour and his shrewdness, his foam- ing impulses and his quick sudsidings, his tears, his oaths, and his barbaric dialect, are all essen- tial features in a personal portrait. When Jones has rescued Sophia, he will give him all his stable, the Chevalier and Miss Slouch excepted ; when he finds he is in love with her, he is in a frenzy to ''get at un^' and ''spoil his Caterwauling." He will have the surgeon's heart's blood if he takes a drop too much from Sophia's w^hite arm ; when she opposes his wishes as to Blifil, he will turn her into the street with no more than a smock, and give his estate to the ''-{inking Fund." Throughout the book he is qualis ab incepio, — boisterous, brutal, jovial, and inimi- table ; so that when finally in '' Chapter the Last,'' we get that pretty picture of him in Sophy's nursery, protesting that the tattling of his little granddaughter is ** sweeter Music than the finest Cry of Dosg in England,'^ we part with him al- most with a feeling of esteem. Scott seems to have thought it unreasonable that he should have 178 Henry Fielding ** taken a beating so unresistingly from the friend of Lord Fellamar,*' and even hints that the pas- sage is an interpolation, although he wisely re- frains from suggesting by whom, and should have known that it was in the first edition. With all deference to so eminent an authority, it is impos- sible to share his hesitation. Fielding was fully aware that even the bravest have their fits of panic. It must besides be remembered that Lord Fellamar's friend was not an effeminate dandy, but a military man — probably a professed sabreur, if not a salaried bully like Captain Stab in the Rake's Progress ; that he was armed with a stick and Western was not ; and that he fell upon him in the most unexpected manner, in a place where he was wholly out of his element. It is incon- ceivable that the sturdy squire, with his faculty for distributing*^ Flicks '' and *' Dowses," — who came so valiantly to the aid of Jones in his battle- royal with Blifil and Thwackum, — was likely, un- der any but very exceptional circumstances, to be dismayed by a cane. It was the exceptional character of the assault which made a coward of him ; and Fielding, who had the keenest eye for inconsistencies of the kind, knew perfectly well what he was doing. Of the remaining personages of the story- — the swarming individualities with which the book is A Memoir 179 literally **all alive/' as Lord Monboddo said — it is impossible to give any adequate account. Fev^ of them, if any, are open to the objection already pointed out with respect to Allworthy and the younger Blifil, and most of them bear signs of having been closely copied from living models. Parson Thwackum, with his Antino- mian doctrines^ his bigotry, and his pedagogic no- tions of justice ; Square the philosopher, with his faith in human virtue (alas 1 poor Square), and his cuckoo-cry about *' the unalterable Rule of Right and the eternal Fitness of Things ; '' Par- tridge — the unapproachable Partridge, — with his superstition, his vanity, and his perpetual Infan- dum regina, but who, notwithstanding all his cheap Latinity, cannot construe an unexpected phrase of Horace ; Ensign Northerton, with his vague and disrespectful recollections of '* Homo ;" young Nightingale and Parson Sup- ple : — each is a definite character bearing upon his brow the mark of his absolute fidelity to human nature. Nor are the female actors less accurately conceived. Starched Miss Bridget Allworthy, with her pinched Hogarthian face ; Miss Western, with her disjointed diplomatic jar- gon ; that budding Slipslop, Mrs. Honour; worthy Mrs. Miller^ Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Mrs. Waters, Lady Bellaston, — all are to the full as i8o Henry Fielding real. Lady Bellaston especially, deserves more than a word. Like Lady Booby in yos^p/i An- drews, she is not a pleasant character ; but the picture of the fashionable demirep, cynical, sen- sual, and imperious, has never been drawn more vigorously, or more completely — even by Balzac. Lastly, there is the adorable Sophia herself, whose pardon should be asked for naming her in such close proximity to her frailer sister. Byron calls her (perhaps with a slight suspicion of exigence of rhyme) too "' emphatic ; '' meaning, apparently, to refer to such passages as her conversation with Mrs. Fitzpatrick, etc. But the heroine of Field- ing's time — a time which made merry over a lady's misadventures in horsemanship, and sub- jected her to such atrocities as those of Lord Fellamar — required to be strongly moulded ; and Sophia Western is pure and womanly, in spite of her unfavourable surroundings. She is a charm- ing example — the first of her race — of an unsen- timentalised flesh-and-blood heroine ; and Time has bated no jot of her frank vitality or her healthy beauty. Her descendants in the modern novel are far more numerous than the family which she bore to the fortunate — the too fortu- nate—Mr. Jones. And this reminds us that in the foregoing enu- meration we have left out Hamlet. In truth, it A Memoir i8i is by no means easy to speak of this good-look- ing^ but very unheroic hero. Lady Mary, employ- ing, curiously enough^ the identical phrase which Fielding has made one of his characters apply to Jones, goes so far as to call him a *' sorry scoun- drel ; " ^ and eminent critics have dilated upon his fondness for drink and play. But it is a notable instance of the way in which preconceived at- tributes are gradually attached to certain char- acters, that there is in reality little or nothing to show that he was either sot or gamester. With one exception, when, in the joy of his heart at his benefactor's recovery, he takes too much wine (and it may be noted that on the same occasion the Catonic Thwackum drinks considerably more), there is no evidence that he was specially given to tippling, even in an age of hard drinkers, while of his gambling there is absolutely no trace at all. On the other hand, he is admittedly brave, generous, chivalrous, kind to the poor, and courteous to women. What, then, is his cardinal defect ? The answer lies in the fact that Field- ing, following the doctrine laid down in his initial chapters, has depicted him under certain condi- tions (in which, it is material to note, he is al- ways rather the tempted than the tempter), with an unvarnished truthfulness which to the pure- 1 Letters, etc., i86i, ii. 280. i82 Henry Fielding minded is repugnant, and to the prurient indecent. Remembering that he too had been young, and reproducing, it may be, his own experiences, he exhibits his youth as he had found him — a '* pie- bald miscellany," — «* Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire ; " and, to our modern ideas, when no one dares, as Thackeray complained, ^^ to depict to his utmost power a Man,'' the spectacle is discomforting. Yet those who look upon human nature as keenly and unflinchingly as Fielding did, knowing how weak and fallible it is, — how prone to fall away by accident or passion, — can scarcely deny the truth of Tom Jones. That such a person cannot properly serve as a hero now is rather a question of our time than of Fielding's, and it may safely be set aside. One objection which has been made, and made with reason, is that Fielding, while taking care that Nemesis shall follow his hero's lapses, has spoken of them with too much indulgence, or rather without sufficient excuse. Coleridge, who was certainly not squeamish, seems to have felt this when, in a MS. note^ in 1 These notes were communicated by Mr. James Gillman to The Literary Remains of Sa7?iuel Taylor Coleridge, pub- lished by H. N. Coleridge in 1836. The book in which A Memoir 183 the well-known British Museum edition, he says : ''Even in the most questionable part of Tom Jones [i.^., the Lady Bellaston episode, chap. ix. Book XV.], I cannot but think after frequent re- flection on it, that an additional paragraph, more fully & forcibly unfolding Tom Jones's sense of self-degradation on the discovery of the true char- acter of the relation, in which he had stood to Lady Bellaston — & his awakened feeling of the dignity and manliness of Chastity — would have removed in great measure any just objection, at all events relating to Fielding himself, by taking in the state of manners in his time." Another point suggested by these last lines may be touched en passant. Lady Bellaston as Fielding has carefully explained (chap. i. Book xiv.), was not a typical, but an exceptional, mem*- ber of society ; ^ and although there were eight- eenth-century precedents for such alliances (e.g., they were made, (it is the four volume edition of 1773, and has Gillman's book-plate), is now in the British Museum. The above transcript is from the MS. 1 She has sometimes been identified with Ethelreda or Audrey Harrison, Viscountess Townshend, also supposed by many to be the original of Lady Tempest in Coventry's Pompey the Little^ I75i> which, by the way, was dedicated to Fielding. These suggestions are ingenious rather than instructive. 184 Henry Fielding Miss Edwards and Lord Anne Hamilton, Mrs. Upton and General Braddock,) it is a question whether in a picture of average English life it was necessary to deal with exceptions of this kind, or, at all events, to exemplify them in the principal personage. But the discussion of this subject would prove interminable. Right or wrong, Fielding has certainly suffered in popularity for his candour in this respect, since one of the wisest and wittiest books ever written cannot, without hesitation, be now placed in the hands of women or very young people. Moreover, this same candour has undoubtedly attracted to its pages many, neither young nor women, whom its wit finds unintelligent, and its wisdom leaves un- concerned. But what a brave wit it is, what a wisdom after all, that is contained in this wonderful novel I Where shall we find its like for richness of re- flection — for inexhaustible good-humour — for large and liberal humanity 1 Like Fontenelle, Fielding might fairly claim that he had never cast the smallest ridicule upon the most infinitesimal of virtues ; it is against hyprocrisy, affectation, insincerity of all kinds, that he wages war. And what a keen and searching observation, — what a perpetual faculty of surprise, — what an endless va- riety of method I Take the chapter headed ironic- A Memoir 185 ally A Receipt to regain the lost Affections of a Wife, m which Captain John Blifil gives so striking an example of Mr. Samuel Johnson's just published Vanity of Human Wishes, by dying suddenly of apoplexy while he is considering what he will do with Mr. Allworthy's property (when it reverts to him) ; or that admirable scene, commended by Macaulay, of Partridge at the Playhouse, which is none the worse because it has just a slight look of kinship with that other famous visit which Sir Roger de Coverley paid to Philips's Distrest Mother, Or take again, as utterly unlike either of these, that burlesque Homeric battle in the churchyard, where the ** sweetly-winding Stour " stands for '* reedy Simois/' and the bumpkins round for Greeks and Trojans 1 Or take yet once more, though it is woful work to offer bricks from this edifice which has already (in a sense) outlived the Escorial/ the still more diverse pas- sage which depicts the changing conflict in Black George's mind as to whether he shall return to Jones the sixteen guineas that he has found : ^^ Black George having received the Purse, set forward towards the Alehouse ; but in the Way a Thought occurred whether he should not detain this Money likewise. His Conscience, how- ^ The Escorial, it will be remembered, was partially burned in 1872. 1 86 Henry Fielding ever, immediately started at this Suggestion, and began to upbraid him with Ingratitude to his Benefactor. To this his Avarice answered, * That his conscience should have considered that Matter before, when he deprived poor Jones of his 500I. That having quietly acquiesced in what was of so much greater Importance, it was ab- surb, if not downright Hypocrisy, to affect any Qualms at this Trifle.' — In return to which, Con- science, like a good Lawyer, attempted to dis- tinguish between an absolute Breach of Trust, as here where the Goods were delivered, and a bare Concealment of what was found, as in the former Case. Avarice presently treated this with Ridi- cule, called it a Distinction without a Difference, and absolutely insisted, that when once all Pre- tensions of Honour and Virtue were given up in any one Instance, that there was no Precedent for resorting to them upon a second Occasion. In short, poor Conscience had certainly been de- feated in the Argument, had not Fear stept in to her Assistance, and very strenuously urged, that the real Distinction between the two Actions, did not lie in the different degrees of Honour, but of Safety: For that the secreting the ^ool. was a matter of very little Hazard; whereas the detaining the sixteen Guineas was liable to the utmost Danger of Discovery. A Memoir 187 ** By this friendly Aid of Fear, Conscience obtained a compleat Victory in the mind of Bldck George, and after making him a few Compliments on his Honesty, forced him to deliver the Money to Jones,'' When one remembers that this is but one of many such passages, and that the book, notwith- standing the indulgence claimed by the author in the Preface, and despite a certain hurry at the close, is singularly even in its workmanship, it certainly increases our respect for the manly genius of the writer, who, amid all the distrac- tions of ill-health and poverty, could find the courage to pursue and perfect such a conception. It is true that both Cervantes and Bunyan wrote their masterpieces in the confinement of a prison. But they must at least have enjoyed the seclu- sion so needful to literary labour ; while Tom Jones was written here and there, at all times and in all places, with the dun at the door and the wolf not very far from the gate.^ The little sentence quoted some pages back from Walpole's letters is sufficient proof, if proof were needed, of its immediate success. Andrew Millar was shrewd enough, despite his constitu- ^ Salisbury, in the neighbourhood of which Tom Jojies is laid, claims the originals of some of the characters. Thwackum is said to have been Hele, a schoolmaster ; Square, Thomas 1 88 Henry Fielding tional confusion, and he is not likely to have given an additional ;^ioo to the author of any book without good reason. The indications of that success are not, however, very plainly im- pressed upon the public prints. The Gentleman's Magazine for 1749, which, as might be expected from Johnson's connection with it, contains am- ple accounts of his own tragedy of Irene and Richardson's recently-published Clarissa^ has no notice of Tom Jones, nor is there even any adver- tisement of the second edition issued in the same year. But, in the emblematic frontispiece, it appears under Clarissa (and sharing with that work a possibly unintended proximity to a sprig of laurel stuck in a bottle of Nantes), among a pile of the books of the year; and in the ** poet- ical essays" for August, one *^Tho. Cawthorn" breaks into rhymed panegyric. **Sick of her fools," sings this enthusiastic but scarcely lucid admirer — " Sick of her fools, great Nature broke the jest, And Irtith held out each character to test, When Genius spoke : Let Fieldmg take the pen ! Life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men." There were others^ however, who would scarcely have echoed the laudatory sentiments of Chubb, the Deist (d. 1747) ; and Dowling the lawyer, a person named Stillingfleet. A Memoir 189 Mr. Cawthorn. Among these was again the ex- cellent Richardson, who seems to have been wholly unpropitiated by the olive branch held out to him in the Jacobite's Journal. His vexation at the indignity put upon Pamela by Joseph An- drews was now complicated by a twittering jeal- ousy of the ** spurious brat," as he obligingly called Tom Jones, whose success had been so ^* unaccountable/' In these circumstances, some of the letters of his correspondents must have been gall and wormwood to him. Lady Brad- shaigh, for instance, under her pseudonym of ** Belfour,'' tells him that she is fatigued with the very name of the book, having met several young ladies who were for ever talking of their Tom Jones's, **for so they call their favourites,'' and that the gentlemen, on their side, had their So- phias, one having gone so far as to give that all- popular nam.e to his *' Dutch mastiff puppy." But perhaps the best and freshest exhibition (for, as far as can be ascertained, it has never hitherto been made public) of Richardson's attitude to his rival is to be found in a little group of letters in the Forster collection at South Kensington. The writers are Aaron Hill and his daughters; but the letters do not seem to have been known to Mrs. Barbauld, whose last communication from Hill is dated November 2, 1748. Nor are they 190 Henry Fielding to be found in Hill's own Correspondence. The ladies, it appears, had visited Richardson at Salisbury Court in 1741, and were great ad- mirers of Pamela^ and the ** divine Clarissa.'^ Some months after Tom Jones was published, Richardson (not having yet brought himself to read the book) had asked them to do so, and give him their opinion as to its merits. There- upon Minerva and Astraea, despite their descrip- tion of themselves as ''Girls of an untittering Disposition," must have been very bright and lively young persons, began seriously ''to lay their two wise heads together'' and "hazard this Discovery of their Emptiness." Having " with much ado got over some Reluctance, that was bred by a familiar coarseness in the Title,''^ they report " much (masqu'd) merit" in the "whole six volumes" — '^a double merit, both of Head, and Heart.'" Had it been the latter only it would be more worthy of Mr. Richard- son's perusal ; but, say these considerate pio- neers, if he does spare it his attention, he must only do so at his leisure, for the author ^' intro- duces All his Sections (and too often interweaves thes^noMsBody of his meanings), with long Runs of bantering Levity, which his [ Fielding's] Good sense may suffer by Effect of." " It is true (they continue), he seems to wear this Lightness, as a A Memoir 191 grave Head sometimes wears a Feather: which tho' He and Fashion may consider as an orna- ment, Reflection will condemn, as a Disguise, and covering,^' Then follows a brief excursus, intended for their correspondent's special conso- lation, upon the folly of treating grave things lightly ; and with delightful sententiousness the letter thus concludes : ** Meanwhile, it is an honest pleasure which we take in adding, that (exclusive of one wild, detach'd, and independent Story of a Man of the Hill, that neither brings on Anything, nor rose from Anything that went before it) All the changeful windings of the Author's Fancy carry on a course of regular Design ; and end in an extremely moving Close, where Lives that seem'd to w^ander and run different ways, meet, All, in an instructive Center. '* The whole piece consists of an inventive Race of Disappointments and Recoveries. It excites Curiosity, and holds it watchful. It has just and pointed Satire ; but it is a partial Satire, and confin'd too narrowly: It sacrifices to Au- thority, and Interest. Its Events reward Sincer- ity, and punish and expose Hypocrisy; shew Pity and Benevolence in amiable Lights, and Avarice and Brutality in very despicable ones. In every Part It has Humanity for its Intention: 192 Henry Fielding In too many, it seems wantoner than It was meant to be : It has bold shocking Pictures ; and (I fear)^ not unresembling ones, in high Life, and in low. And (to conclude this too adven- turous Guess-work, from a Pair of forward Bag- gages) would, every where, (we think,) deserve to please, — if stript of what the Author thought himself most sure to please hy, ^' And thus, Sir, we have told you our sincere opinion of Tom Jones, . . . " Your most Profest Admirers and most hum- ble Servants, '* Astrsea ^ and [ Hill. Minerva 3 '' Plaistow, the 2yth of Jul/, 1749." Richardson's reply to this ingenuous criticism is dated the 4th of August. His requesting two young women to study and criticise a book which he has heard strongly condemned as immoral, — his own obvious familiarity with what he has not read but does not scruple to censure, — his trans- parently jealous anticipation of its author's ability, — all this forms a picture so characteristic alike of 1 The " pen-holder " is the fair Astraea. These were their real names. There was a third sister, Urania. A Memoir 193 the man and the time that no apology is needed for the following textual extract : '• I must confess, that I have been prejudiced by the Opinion of Several judicious Friends against the truly coarse-titled Tom Jones ; and so have been discouraged from reading it. — I was told, that it was a rambling Collection of Waking Dreams, in which Probability was not observed : And that it had a very bad Tendency. And I had Reason to think that the Author intended for his Second View {\\\% jini, to fill his Pocket, by accommodating it to the reigning Taste) in writing it, to whiten a vicious character, and to make Morality bend to his Practices. What Reason had he to make his Tom illegitimate, in an Age where Keeping is become a Fashion ? Why did he make him a common — What shall I call it ? And a Kept Fellow, the Lowest of all Fellows, yet in Love with a Young Creature who was traping [trapesing?] after him, a Fugitive from her Father's House ? — Why did he draw his Her- oine so fond, so foolish, and so insipid ? — Indeed he has one Excuse — He knows not how to draw a delicate Woman — He has not been accustomed to such Company, — And is too prescribing, too impetuous, too immoral, I will venture to say, to take any other Byass than that a perverse and crooked Nature has given him ; or Evil Habits, 194 Henry Fielding at least, have confirmed in him. Do Men expect Grapes of Thorns, or Figs of Thistles? But, perhaps, I think the worse of the Piece because I know the Writer, and dislike his Principles both Public and Private, tho' I wish well to the Man, and Love Four worthy Sisters of his, with whom I am well acquainted. And indeed should ad- mire him, did he make the Use of his Talents which I wish him to make^ For the Vein of Hu- mour, and Ridicule, which he is Master of, might, if properly turned do great Service to y® Cause of Virtue. '* But no more of this Gentleman's Work, after I have said, That the favourable Things, you say of the Piece, will tempt me, if I can find Leisure, to give it a Perusal." Notwithstanding this last sentence, Richardson more than once reverts to Tom Jones before he finishes his letter. Its effect upon Minerva and Astr^ea is best described in an extract from Aaron HilTs reply, dated seven days later (August the nth) : *' Unfortunate Tom Jones ! how sadly has he mortify'd Two sawcy Correspondents of your making ! They are with me now : and bid me tell you. You have spoil'd 'em Both, for Criticks. — Shall I add, a Secret which they did not bid me tell you? — They, Both, fairly cr/'i, that You A Memoir 195 shou'd think it possible they cou'd approve of Any thing, in Any work, that had an Evil Ten- dene/, in any Part or Purpose of it. They main- tain their Point so far, however^ as to be con- vinc'd they say, that you will disapprove this over- rigid Judgment of those Friends, who cou'd not find a Thread of Moral Meaning in Tom Jones, quite independent of the Levities they justly cen- sure. — And, as soon as you have Time to read him, for yourself, 'tis there, pert Sluts, they will be bold enough to rest the Matter. — Meanwhile, they love and honour you and your opinions.'' To this the author of C/amsa replied by writing a long epistle deploring the pain he had given the ^* dear Ladies," and minutely justifying his fore- gone conclusions from the expressions they had used. He refers to Fielding again as *'a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding-spir- ited Man ; " and he also trusts to be able to '' bestow a Reading" on Tom Jones ; but by a letter from Lady Bradshaigh, printed in Barbauld, and dated December, 1749, it seems that even at that date he had not, or pretended he had not, yet done so. In another of the unpublished South Kensington letters, from a Mr. Solomon Lowe, (the author of a *' Critical Spelling Book"), oc- curs the following: — ** I do not doubt" — says the writer — ** but all Europe will ring of it ICla- 196 Henry Fielding rissa] : when a Cracker, that was some thous'd hours a-composing,^ will no longer be heard, or talkt-of/' Richardson, with business-like pre- cision, has gravely docketed this in his own hand- writing, — ** Cracker, T. Jones/' It is unfortunate for Mr. Lowe's reputation as a prophet that, after more than one hundred and thirty years, this ephemeral firework, as he deemed it, should still be sparkling with undiminished brilliancy, and to judge by recent additions, is selling as vigorously as ever. From the days when Lady Mary wrote ^' Ne plus ultra'' in her own copy, and La Harpe called it le premier ro- man da monde^ (a phrase which, by the way, De Musset applies to Clarissa), it has come down to us with an almost universal accompaniment of praise. Gibbon, Byron, Coleridge, Scott, Dick- ens, Thackeray, — have all left their admiration on record, — to say nothing of professional critics innumerable. As may be seen from the British Museum Catalogue, it has been translated into French, German, Polish, Dutch, and Spanish. Russia and Sweden have also their versions. The first French translation, or rather abridgment, by M.de La Place was prohibited in France^ (to Richardson's delight) by royal decree, an act 1 Vide Tom Jones, Book xi. chap. i. '^Monthly Review^ ^7S^f P* 432* A Memoir 197 which affords another instance, in Scott's words, of that '* French delicacy, which, on so many oc- casions, has strained at a gnat, and swallowed a earner' (t\ g., the novels of M. Crebillon fds). La Place's edition (1750) was gracefully illus- trated with sixteen plates by Hubert Bourguignon, called Gravelot, one of those eighteenth-century illustrators whose designs are still the rage in Paris. In England, Fielding's best-known pic- torial interpreters are Rowlandson and Cruik- shank, the latter being by far the more sympa- thetic. Stothard also prepared some designs for Harrison's Novelisfs Maga:[ine ; but his refined and effeminate penc'il w^as scarcely strong enough for the task. Hogarth alone could have been the ideal illustrator of Henry Fielding ; that is to say — if, in lieu of the rude designs he made for Tristram Shandy, he could have been induced to undertake the work in the larger fashion of the Rake's Progress or The Marriage a la Mode. As might perhaps be anticipated, Tom Jones attracted the dramatist.^ In 1765, one J. H. 1 It may be added that it also attracted the plagiarist. As Pamela had its sequel in Paviela's Conduct in High Life, 1 741, so Tom Jones was continued in TJie History of Tom Jones the Foimdling, in his Married State y 1750. The Preface announces, needlessly enough, that «• Henr}- Field- ing, Esq., is not the Author of this Book." It deserves no serious consideration. The same may be said of the volume 198 Henry Fielding Steffens made a comedy of it for the German boards; and in 1782 Desforges based upon it another, in five Acts, called Tom Jones d Londres, which was acted at the ThMire Frangais, and has been warmly praised by La Harpe, especially for its Fellamar.^ The book was also turned into a comic opera by Joseph Reed in 1769, and played at Covent Garden. But its most piquant trans- formation is the Comidie lyrique of Poinsinet, acted at Paris in 1765-6 to the lively music of Philidor. The famous bass, Joseph Caillot, took the part of Squire Western, who, surrounded by piqueurs, and girt with the conventional cor de chasse of the Gallic sportsman, sings the follow- ing ariette, diversified with true Fontainebleau terms of Venery : " D'un Cerf, dix Cors, j'ai connaissance : On I'attaque au fort, on le lance ; Tous sont pr^ts : Piqueurs & Valets Suivent les pas de I'ami Jone (sic). J'entends crier : Volcelets, Volcelets. entitled An Examen of the History of Tom Jones a Found- li7tg, 1750. 1 Raimbach the engraver saw this in 1802, at Picard's theatre in the Rue Feydeau, Picard himself playing " Squire Western" (Me??ioirs and Recollections, 1843, p. 87). Des- forges wrote an inferior sequel in 1787 entitled Tom Jones et Fellamar, A Memoir 199 Aussitot j'ordonne Que la Meute donne. Tayaut, Tayaut, Tayaut. Mes chiens decouples I'environnent ; Les trompes sonnent : * Courage, Amis ; Tayaut, Tayaut.' Quelques chiens, que I'ardeur derange, Quittent la voye & prennent le change. Jones les rassure d'un cri : Ourvari, ourvari. Accoute, accoute, accoute. Au retour nous en revoyons. Accoute, ^ Mirmiraut, courons ; Tout ^ Griffaut ; Y aprds : Tayaut, Tayaut. On reprend route, / Voil^ le Cerf a I'eau. La trompe sonne, La Meute donne, L'echo resonne, Nous pressons les nouveaux relais : Volcelets, Volcelets. L'animal force succombe. Fait un effort, se releve, enfin tombe : Et nos chasseurs chantent tous ^ Tenvi : * Amis, goutons les fruits de la victoire ; * Amis, Amis, celebrons notre gloire. * Halali, Fanfare, Halali « Halali/ " With which triumphant flourish of trumpets the present chapter may be fittingly concluded.^ * See Appendix No. II. : Fielding and Mrs. Hussey. CHAPTER VI A visit to Justice Fielding ; chairman of Quarter Sessions, 12 May, 1749; charge to the Westminster Grand Jury, 29 June ; case of Bosavern Penlez, July ; Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers ^ January, 1751 ; the Glastonbury waters ; publication of Ameliay 19 Decem- ber ; its characteristics ; its characters and heroine ; her portrait; the author's apology for his book; Richardson on Fielding; the Covent Garden Journal, 1752; pro- posals for translating Lucian ; Examples of the Interpo- sition of Providence f A.'prHy 1752 ; Proposals for the Poor^ January, 1753; Case of Elizabeth Canning, March. TN one of Horace Walpole's letters to George ^ Montagu, already quoted, there is a descrip- tion of Fielding's Bow Street establishment, which has attracted more attention than it de- serves. The letter is dated May the i8th, 1749, and the passage (in Cunningham's edition) runs as follows : ** He [Rigby] and Peter Bathurst ^ t'other 1 Probably a son of Peter Bathurst (d. 1748), a brother of Pope's friend, Allen, Lord Bathurst. Rigby was the Richard Rigby whose despicable character is familiar in Eighteenth-Century Memoirs. " He died (says Cunning- ham) involved in debt, with his accounts as Paymaster of the Forces hopelessly unsettled." A Memoir 201 night carried a servant of the lattefs, who had attempted to shoot him, before Fielding ; who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of Mr. Lyttelton, added that of Middlesex justice. He sent them word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. They did not under- stand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a whore, and three Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. He never stirred nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir C. Williams, and Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs ; on which he civilised." Scott calls this " a humiliating anecdote ; " and both Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Keightley have ex- hausted rhetoric in the effort to explain it away. As told, it is certainly uncomplimentary; but considerable deductions must be made, both for the attitude of the narrator and the occasion of the narrative. Walpole's championship of his friends was notorious ; and his absolute injustice, when his partisan spirit was uppermost, is every- where patent to the readers of his Letters. In the present case he was not of the encroaching party ; and he speaks from hearsay solely. But 30^ Henry Fielding his friends had, in his opinion, been outraged by a man, who, according to his ideas of fitness, should have come to them cap in hand ; and as a natural consequence, the story, no doubt exag- gerated when it reached him, loses nothing under his transforming and malicious pen. Stripped of its decorative flippancy, however, there remains but little that can really be regarded as ** humili- ating." Scott himself suggests, what is most un- questionably the case, that the blind man was the novelist's half-brother, afterwards Sir John Field- ing ; and it is extremely unlikely that the lady so discourteously characterised could have been any other than his wife, who, Lady Louisa Stuart tells us, '' had few personal charms.'' There re- main the *' three Irishmen," who may, or may not, have been perfectly presentable members of society. At all events, their mere nationality, so rapidly decided upon, cannot be regarded as a stigma. That the company and entertainment were scarcely calculated to suit the superfine standard of Mr. Bathurst and Mr. Rigby may perhaps be conceded. Fielding was by no means a rich man, and in his chequered career had possibly grown indifferent to minor decencies. Moreover, we are told by Murphy that, as a Westminster justice, he kept '*his table open to those who had been his friends when young, and A Memoir 203 had impaired their own fortunes."^ Thus, it must always have been a more or less ragged regiment who met about that kindly Bow Street board ; but that the fact reflects upon either the host or guests cannot be admitted for a moment. If the anecdote is discreditable to anyone it is to that facile retailer of ana and incorrigible society- gossip, Mr. Horace Walpole. But while these unflattering tales were told of his private life, Fielding was fast becoming emi- nent in his public capacity. On the 12th of May, 1749, he was unanimously chosen chairman of Quarter Sessions at Hick's Hall (as the Clerken- well Sessions House was then called) ; and on the 29th of June following he delivered a charge to the Westminster Grand Jury which is usually printed with his works, and which is still regarded by lawyers as a model exposition.^ It is at first a little unexpected to read his impressive and earnest denunciations of masquerades and theatres (in which latter, by the way, one Samuel Foote had very recently been following the example of the author of Pasquin), as Sheridan was to do later ; but Fielding the magistrate and Fielding the playwright were two different persons ; and a long interval of changeful experience lay be- tween them. In another part of his charge, 1 Worksy 1762, i. 48. ^ Id. iv. 435-449. 204 Henry Fielding which deals with the offence of libelling, it is possible that his very vigorous appeal was not the less forcible by reason of the personal at- tacks to which he had referred in the Preface to David Simple^ the Jacobite's Journal, and else- where. His only other literary efforts during this year appear to have been a little pamphlet entitled A True State of the Case of Bosavern Penle\; and a formal congratulatory letter to Lyttelton upon his second marriage, in which, while speaking gratefully of his own obligations to his friend, he endeavours to enlist his sym- pathies for Moore the fabulist who was also ** about to marry." The pamphlet had reference to an occurrence which took place in July. Three sailors of the '' Grafton'' man-of-war had been robbed in a house of ill-fame in the Strand. Failing to obtain redress, they attacked the house with their comrades, and wrecked it,^ causing a ** dangerous riot," to which Fielding makes in- cidental reference in one of his letters to the Duke of Bedford, and which was witnessed by John Byron, the poet and stenographer, in whose Remains it is described. Bosavern Penlez or Pen Lez, who had joined the crowd, and in 1 This feat, as readers of Goldsmith will doubtless remem- ber, was known technically as " tattering a kip," ( Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii. 12). A Memoir 205 whose possession some of the stolen property was found, was tried and hanged in September. His sentence, which was considered extremely severe, excited much controversy, and the object of Fielding's pamphlet was to vindicate the justice and necessity of his conviction. Towards the close of 1749 Fielding fell seriously ill with fever aggravated by gout. It was indeed at one time reported that mortifica- tion had supervened ; but under the care of Dr. Thomson, that dubious practitioner whose treat- ment of Winnington in 1746 had given rise to so much paper war, he recovered ; and during 1750 was actively employed in his magisterial duties. At this period lawlessness and violence appear to have prevailed to an unusual extent in the metrop- olis, and the office of a Bow Street justice was no sinecure. Reform of some kind was felt on all sides to be urgently required ; and Fielding threw his two years' experience and his deduc- tions therefrom into the form of a pamphlet en- titled An Enquiry into the Causes of the late In- crease of Robbers, etc,, with some Proposals for remedying this growing Evil, It was dedicated to the then Lord High Chancellor, Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke, by whom, as well as by more recent legal authorities, it was highly appreciated. Like the Charge to the Grand Jury, it is a grave 2o6 Henry Fielding argumentative document, dealing seriously with luxury, drunkenness, gaming, and other preva- lent vices. Once only, in an ironical passage re- specting beaus and fine ladies, does the author remind us of the author of Tom Jones. As a rule, he is weighty, practical, and learned in the law. Against the curse of Gin-drinking, which, owing to the facilities for obtaining that liquor, had increased to an alarming extent among the poorer classes, he is especially urgent and ener- getic. He points out that it is not only making dreadful havoc in the present, but that it is en- feebling the race of the future, and he con- cludes — *' Some little Care on this Head is surely nec- essary : For tho' the Encrease of Thieves, and the Destruction of Morality ; though the Loss of our Labourers, our Sailors, and our Soldiers, should not be sufficient Reasons, there is one which seems to be unanswerable, and that is, the Loss of our Gin-drinkers : Since, should the drinking this Poison be continued in its present Height during the next twenty Years, there will, by that Time, be very few of the common People left to drink it." To the appeal thus made by Fielding in January, 175 1 , Hogarth added his pictorial protest in the following month by his awful plate of Gin A Memoir 207 Lam^ which, if not actually prompted by his friend's words, was certainly inspired by the same crying evil. One good result of these efforts was the ''Bill for restricting the Sale of Spirituous Liquors," to which the royal assent was given in June, and Fielding's connection with this enact- ment is practically acknowledged by Horace Walpole in his Memoir es of the Last ten Years of the Reign of George IL The law was not wholly effectual, and was difficult to enforce ; but it was not by any means without its good effects.^ Between the publication of the Enquiry and that of Amelia there is nothing of importance to chronicle except Fielding's connection with one 1 The Rev. R. Hurd, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, an upright and scholarly, but formal and censorious man, whom Johnson called a « word-picker," and franker contempora- ries " an old maid in breeches," has left a reference to Field- ing at this time which is not flattering. <« I dined with him [Ralph Allen] yesterday, where I met Mr. Fielding,_a poor emaciated, worn-out rake, whose gout and infirmities have got the better even of his buffoonery " (Letter to Balguy, dated " Inner Temple, 19th March, 175 1.") That Fielding had not long before been dangerously ill, and that he was a martyr to gout, is fact : the rest is probably no more than the echo of a foregone conclusion, based upon report, or dislike to his works. Hurd praised Richardson and proscribed Sterne. He must have been wholly out of sympathy with the author of Tom Jones, 2o8 Henry Fielding of the events of 175 1, the discovery of the Glastonbury w^aters. According to the account given in the Gentleman s for July in that year, a certain Matthew Chancellor had been cured of " an asthma and phthisic " of thirty years' stand- ing by drinking from a spring near Chain Gate, Glastonbury, to which he had (so he alleged) been directed in a dream. The spring forthwith became famous; and in May an entry in the Historical Chronicle for Sunday, the 5th, records that above 10,000 persons had visited it, desert- ing Bristol, Bath, and other popular resorts. Numerous pamphlets were published for and against the new waters ; and a letter in their favour, which appeared in the London Daily Ad- vertiser for the 31st August, signed " Z. Z.,'' is ** supposed to be wrote" by ''J e F g." Fielding was, as may be remembered, a Somer- setshire man, Sharpham Park, his birthplace, be- ing about three miles from Glastonbury ; and he testifies to the *' wonderful Effects of this salu- brious Spring '"* in words which show that he had himself experienced them. ^* Having seen great Numbers of my Fellow Creatures under two of the most miserable Diseases human Nature can labour under, the Asthma and Evil, return from Glastonbury blessed with the Return of Health, and having myself been relieved from a Disorder A Memoir 209 which baffled the most skilful Physicians/' justice to mankind (he says) obliges him to take notice of the subject. The letter is interesting, more as showing that, at this time, Fielding's health was broken, than as proving the efficacy of the cure ; for, whatever temporary relief the waters afforded, it is clear (as Mr. Lawrence pertinently remarks) that he derived no permanent benefit from them. They must, however, have continued to attract visitors, as a pump-room was opened in August, 1753 ; and, although they have now fallen into disuse, they were popular for many years. But a more important occurrence than the dis- covery of the Somersetshire spring is a little an- nouncement contained in Sylvanus Urban's list of publications for December, 1751, No. 17 of which is " Amelia, in 4 books, i2mo ; by Henry Fielding, Esq." The publisher, of course, was Andrew Millar; and the actual day of issue, as appears from the General Advertiser, was Decem- ber the 19th, although the title-page, by anticipa- tion, bore the date of 1752. There were two mot- toes, one of which was the appropriate — Felices ter ^ amplius Quos irrupt a tenet Copula ; " and the dedication, brief and simply expressed, was to Ralph Allen. As before, the ^' artful 2IO Henry Fielding aid " of advertisement was invoked to whet the public appetite. ^'To satisfy the earnest Demand of the Pub- lick (says Millar), this Work has been printed at four Presses ; but the Proprietor notwithstand- ing finds it impossible to get them {sic) bound in Time, without spoiling the Beauty of the impres- sion, and therefore will sell them sew'd at Haif- a-Guinea." This was open enough ; but, according to Scott, Millar adopted a second expedient to as- sist Amelia with the booksellers. '* He had paid a thousand pounds for the copyright ; and when he began to suspect that the work would be judged inferior to its pred- ecessor, he employed the following stratagem to push it upon the trade. At a sale made to the booksellers, previous to the publication, Millar offered his friends his other publications on the usual terms of discount ; but when he came to Amelia^ he laid it aside, as a work expected to be in such demand, that he could not afford to de- liver it to the trade in the usual manner. The ruse succeeded— the impression was anxiously bought up, and the bookseller relieved from every apprehension of a slow sale." ^ There were several reasons why — superficially » Lives of the Novelists^ 1825, i. 35, A Memoir an speaking — Amelia should be *' judged inferior to its predecessor." That it succeeded Tom Jones after an interval of little more than two years and eight months would be an important element in the comparison, if it were known at all definitely what period was occupied in writing Tom Jones, All that can be affirmed is that Fielding must- have been far more at leisure when he composed the earlier work than he could possibly have been when filling the onerous office of a Bow Street magistrate. But, in reality, there is a much better explanation of the superiority of Tom Jones to Amelia than the merely empirical one of the time it took. Tom Jones, it has been admirably said by a French critic, *' est la condensation et le resume de toute une existence. C'est le resultat et la conclusion de plusieurs ann^es de passions et de pensees, la formule derni^re et complete de la philosophie personnelle que Ton s'est faite sur tout ce que Ton a vu et senti." Such an experi- ment, argues Gustave Planche,^ is not twice re- peated in a lifetime : the soil which produced so rich a crop can but yield a poorer aftermath. Behind Tom Jones there was the author's ebul- lient youth and manhood ; behind Amelia but a section of his graver middle-age. There are other reasons for diversity in the manner of the 1 Revue des Deux Monde s^ 1 83 2. 212 Henry Fielding book itself. The absence of the initial chapters, which gave so much variety to Tom Jones, tends to heighten the sense of impatience which, it must be confessed, occasionally creeps over the reader of Amelia, especially in those parts where, like Dickens at a later period. Fielding delays the progress of his narrative for the discussion of social problems and popular grievances. How- ever laudable the desire (expressed in the dedica- tion) ^' to expose some of the most glaring Evils^ as well public as private, which at present infest this Country," the result in Amelia, from an art point of view^ is as unsatisfactory as that of cer- tain well-known pages of Bleak House and Little Dorrit, Again, there is a marked change in the attitude of the author, — a change not wholly rec- oncilable with the brief period which separates the two novels. However it may have chanced, whether from failing health or otherwise, the Fielding of Amelia is suddenly a far older man than the Fielding of Tom Jones. The robust and irrepressible vitality, the full-veined delight of living, the energy of observation and strength of satire, which characterise the one give place in the other to a calmer retrospection, a more com- passionate humanity, a gentler and more benig- nant criticism of life. That, as some have con- tended, Amelia shows an intellectual falling-off A Memoir 213 cannot for a moment be admitted, least of all upon the ground — as even so staunch an admirer as Mr. Keightley has allowed himself to believe — that certain of its incidents are obviously re- peated from the Modern Husband and others of the author's plays. At this rate Tom Jones might be judged inferior to Joseph Andrews, because the Political Apothecary in the " Man of the Hills " story has his prototype in the Coffee-House Poll- iician, whose original is Addison's Upholster. The plain fact is, that Fielding recognised the failure of his plays as literature ; he regarded them as dead ; and freely transplanted what was good of his forgotten work into the work which he hoped would live. In this, it may be, there was something of indolence or haste ; but assuredly there was no proof of declining powers. If, for the sake of comparison, Tom Jones may be described as an animated and happily-con- structed comedy, with more than the usual allow- ance of first-rate characters, Amelia must be re- garded as a one-part piece, in which the rest of the personages are subordinate to the central figure. Captain Booth, the two Colonels, Atkin- son and his wife. Miss Matthews, Dr. Harrison, Trent, the shadowy and maleficent '' My Lord," are all less active on their own account than energised and set in motion by Amelia. Round 214 Henry Fielding her they revolve ; from her they obtain their im- pulse and their orbit. The best of the men, as studies, are Dr. Harrison and Colonel Bath. The former, who is as benevolent as Allworthy, is far more human, and it may be added, more humor- ous in v^ell-doing. He is an individual rather than an abstraction. Bath, w^ith his dignity and gun- cotton honour, is also admirable, but not entirely free from the objection made to some of Dick- en's creations, that they are characteristics rather than characters. Captain William Booth, beyond his truth to nature, manifests no qualities that can compensate for his weakness, and the best that can be said of him is, that without it, his wife would have had no opportunity for the display of her magnanimity. There is also a certain want of consistency in his presentment ; and when, in the residence of Mr. Bondum the bailiff, he suddenly develops an unexpected scholarship, it is impossible not to suspect that Fielding was un- willing to lose the opportunity of preserving some neglected scenes of the Author's Farce, Miss Matthews is a new and remarkable study of the femme entretenue, to parallel which, as in the case of Lady Bellaston, we must go to Balzac ; Mrs. James, again, an excellent example of that vapid and colourless nonentity, the '^ person of condition." Mrs. Bennet, although apparently A Memoir 215 more contradictory and less intelligible, is never- theless true to her past history and present en- vironments ; while her husband, the sergeant, with his reticent and reverential love for his beautiful foster-sister, has had a long line of de- scendants in the modern novel. It is upon Amelia, however, that the author has lavished all his pains, and there is no more touching portrait in the whole of fiction than this heroic and im- mortal one of feminine goodness and forbear- ance. It is needless to repeat that it is painted from Fielding's first wife, or to insist that, as Lady Mary was fully persuaded, *' several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact.*" That famous scene where Amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the King's Arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, ** while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace of Trumps being in the Hands of his Adversary " ^ — a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huski- ness in the throat, — the visits to the pawnbroker and the sponging-house, the robbery by the little servant, the encounter at Vauxhall, and some of * Amelia y Bk. x. ch. 5. 2i6 Henry Fielding the pretty vignettes of the children, are no doubt founded on personal recollections. Whether the pursuit to which the heroine is exposed had any foundation in reality it is impossible to say ; and there is a passage in Murphy's memoir which al- most reads as if it had been penned with the ex- press purpose of anticipating any too harshly literal identification of Booth with Fielding, since we are told of the latter that '* though dis- posed to gallantry by his strong animal spirits, and the vivacity of his passions, he was remark- able for tenderness and constancy to his wife [the italics are ours], and the strongest affection for his children/' ^ These, however, are questions beside the matter, which is the conception of Amelia. That remains, and must remain for ever, in the words of one of Fielding's greatest modern successors, a figure " wrought with love . . . Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines Of generous womanhood that fits all time." There are many women who forgive ; but Amelia does more — she not only forgives, but she forgets. The passage in which she exhibits to her con- trite husband the letter received long before from Miss Matthews is one of the noblest in litera- ls ^^^/^j, 1762, i. 48. A Memoir 217 ture ; and if it had been recorded that Fielding — like Thackeraj' on a memorable occasion — had here slapped his fist upon the table, and said '* That is a stroke of genius ! " it would scarcely have been a thing to be marvelled at. One last point in connection vv^ith her maybe noted, which has not always been borne in mind by those who depict good women — much after Hogarth's fash- ion — without a head. She is not by any means a simpleton, and it is misleading to describe her as a tender, fluttering little creature, who, be- cause she can cook her husband's supper, and caresses him with the obsolete name of Billy, must necessarily be contemptible. On the con- trary, she has plenty of ability and good sense, with a fund of humour which enables her to enjoy slily and even satirise gently the fine lady airs of Mrs. James. Nor is it necessary to contend that her faculties are subordinated to her affec- tions ; but rather that conjugal fidelity and Chris- tian charity are inseparable alike from her char- acter and her creed. As illustrating the tradition that Fielding de- picted his first wife in Sophia Western and in Amelia, it has been remarked that there is no formal description of her personal appearance in his last novel, her portrait having already been drawn at length in Tom Jones, But the follow- 2i8 Henry Fielding ing depreciatory sketch by Mrs. James is worth quoting, not only because it indirectly conveys the impression of a very handsome woman, but because it is also an admirable specimen of Fielding's lighter manner : ^* ' In the first place,' cries Mrs. James, *her eyes are too large ; and she hath a look with them that I don't know how to describe ; but I know I don't like it. Then her eyebrows are too large ; therefore, indeed, she doth all in her power to remedy this with her pincers ; for if it was not for those, her eyebrows would be pre- posterous. — Then her nose, as well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side. ^ — Her neck likewise is too protuberant for the genteel size, especially as she laces herself; for no woman, in my opinion, can be genteel who is not entirely flat before. And lastly, she is both too short, and too tall. — Well, you may laugh, Mr. James, I know what I mean, though I cannot well express it. I mean, that she is too tall for a pretty woman, and too short for a fine woman. — There is such a thing as a kind of insipid medium — a kind of something that is neither one thing nor another. I know not how to express it more clearly ; but when I say such a one is a pretty woman, a pretty thing, a pretty creature, 1 See note on this subject in chapter iv. A Memoir 219 you know very well I mean a little woman ; and when I say such a one is a very fine woman, a very fine person of a woman, to be sure I must mean a tall woman. Not a woman that is be- tween both, is certainly neither the one nor the other." 1 The ingenious expedients of Andrew Millar, to which reference has been made, appear to have so far succeeded that a new edition of Amelia was called for on the day of publication. John- son^ to whom we owe this story, was thoroughly captivated with the book. Notwithstanding that on another occasion he paradoxically asserted that the author was*' a blockhead" — **a barren rascal/' he read it through without stopping, and pronounced Mrs. Booth to be *'the most pleas- ing heroine of all the romances."^ Richardson, on the other hand, found '^the characters and situations so wretchedly low and dirty" that he could not get farther than the first volume.'^ With the professional reviewers, a certain Crit- J Amelia, Bk. xi. ch. i. 2 Hill's BoswelVs Johnson, 1887, iii- 43- Another ad- mirer was Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, who writes (30 March, 1751), "Methinks I long to engage you on the side of this poor unfortunate book, which I am told the fine folks are unanimous in pronouncing to be very sad stuff.'* (^Letters, 3d ed., 1819, i. 368.) ^ Correspondence y 1804, iv. 60. 220 Henry Fielding iculus in the Gentleman's excepted, it seems to have fared but ill ; and although these adverse verdicts, if they exist, are now more or less in- accessible, Fielding has apparently summarised most of them in a mock-trial of Amelia before the '* Court of Censorial Enquiry," the proceed- ings of which are recorded in Nos. 7 and 8 of the Covent-Garden Journal. The book is in- dicted upon the Statute of Dulness, and the heroine is charged with being a '' low Character," a ''Milksop,'^ and a ''Fool;'' with lack of spirit and fainting too frequently ; with dressing her children, cooking and other '* servile Offices;" with being too forgiving to her husband ; and lastly, as may be expected, with the inconsist- ency, already amply referred to, of being **a Beauty without a nose.'''^ Dr. Harrison and Colonel Bath are arraigned much in the same fashion. After some evidence against her has been tendered, and ^'a Great Number of Beaus, 1 Fielding had already inserted a special announcement on this point in No. 3(11 January, 1752): "It is currently reported that a famous Surgeon, who absolutely cured one Mrs. Amelia Booth, of a violent Hurt in her Nose, inso- much, that she had scarce a Scar left on it, intends to bring Actions against several ill-meaning and slanderous People, who have reported that the said Lady had no Nose, merely because the Author of her History, in a Hurry, forgot to in- A Memoir 221 Rakes, fine Ladies, and several formal Persons with bushy Wigs, and Canes at their Noses,'' are preparing to supplement it, a grave man steps forv\^ard, and, begging to be heard^ delivers what must be regarded as Fielding's final apology for his last novel : '' If you, Mr. Censor, are yourself a Parent, you will view me with Compassion when I de- clare I am the Father of this poor Girl the Prisoner at the Bar; nay, when I go further and avow, that of all my Off*spring she is my favour- ite Child. I can truly say that I bestowed a more than ordinary Pains in her Education ; in which I will venture to affirm, I followed the Rules of all those who are acknowledged to have writ best on the Subject ; and if her Con- duct be fairly examined, she will be found to deviate very little from the strictest Observation of all those Rules; neither Homer nor Virgil pursued them with greater Care than myself, and the candid and learned Reader will see that the latter was the noble model, which I made use of on this Occasion. form his Readers of that Particular, and which, if those Readers had any Nose themselves, except that which is mentioned in the Motto of this Paper, they would have smelt out." The motto is the passage from Martial in which he speaks of the nastis rhinocerotis. 222 Henry Fielding *M do not think my Child is entirely free from Faults. I know nothing human that is so ; but surely she doth not deserve the Rancour with which she hath been treated by the Public. However, it is not my Intention, at present, to make any Defence ; but shall submit to a Com- promise, which hath been always allowed in this Court in all Prosecutions for Dulness. 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.''^ Whether sincere or not, this last statement ap- pears to have afforded the greatest gratification to Richardson. ^^Will I leave you to Captain Booth?" he writes triumphantly to Mrs. Don- nellan, in answer to a question she had put to him. **Capt. Booth, Madam, has done his own business. Mr. Fielding has over-written him- self, or rather under-wv\X.iQn ; and in his own journal seems ashamed of his last piece ; and has promised that the same Muse shall write no more for him. The piece, in short, is as dead as if it had been published forty years ago, as to sale.''^ There is much to the same effect in the little printer's correspondence ; but enough has been quoted to show how intolerable to the super- 1 Covejit Gaj'den Journal, No. 8, 28 January, 1 75 2. 2 Correspondence, 1804, iv. 59. A Memoir 223 sentimental creator of the high-souled and heroic Clarissa was his rivars plainer and more practical picture of matronly virtue and modesty. In cases of this kind, parva seges satis est, and Amelia has long since outlived both rival malice and contem- porary coldness. It is a proof of her author's genius, that she is even more intelligible to our age than she w^as to her own. At the end of the second volume of the first edition of her history was a notice announcing the immediate appearance of the above-men- tioned Covent-Garden Journal, a bi-weekly paper, in which Fielding, under the style and title of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, assumed the office of Censor of Great Britain. The first number of this new venture was issued on Janu- ary the 4th, 1752, and the price was threepence. In plan, and general appearance, it resembled the Jacobite's Journal, consisting mainly of an introductory Essay, paragraphs of current news, often accompanied by pointed editorial com- ment, miscellaneous articles, and advertisements. One of the features of the earlier numbers was a burlesque, but not very successful. Journal of the present Paper War, which speedily involved the author in actual hostilities with the notorious quack and adventurer Dr. John Hill, who for some time had been publishing certain impudent 224 Henry Fielding lucubrations in the London Daily Advertiser under the heading of The Inspector; and also with Smollett, whom he (Fielding) had obliquely ridi- culed in his second number, perhaps on account of that little paragraph in the first edition of Peregrine Pickle^ to which reference was made in an earlier chapter. Smollett, always irritable and combative, retorted by a needlessly coarse and venomous pamphlet, in which, under the name of '' Habbakkuk Hilding/' Fielding was attacked with indescribable brutality.^ Another, and seemingly unprovoked, adversary whom the Journal of the War brought upon him was Bon- ne! Thornton, afterwards joint-author with George Colman of the Connoisseur, who, in a production styled Have at you All; or, The J The full title of this is — *'A Faithful Narrative of the Base and inhuman Arts That were lately practised up07i the Brain of Habbakkuk Hilding, Justice^ Dealer and Chap- man, Who now lies at his House in Covent Garden, in a deplorable State of Lunacy ; a dreadful mojtument of false Friendship and Delusion." By Drawcansir Alexander^ Fencing Master and Philomath, London: J. Sharp, 1752. All that Fielding had done to justify this laboured scurril- ity, was to make some not very terrible allusions to Roder- ick Random and Peregrine Pickle, The "false Friend- ship " referred to in the title-page was that of Fielding for Lyttelton, whom Smollett- hated, and who is also attacked in the Narrative, A Memoir 225 Drury Lam Journal^ lampooned Sir Alexander with remarkable rancour and assiduity. Mr. Lawrence has treated these '' quarrels of authors " at some length ; and they also have some record in the curious collections of the elder Disraeli. As a general rule, Fielding was far less personal and much more scrupulous in his choice of weap- ons than those who assailed him ; but the con- flict was an undignified one, and, as Scott has justly said, ^'neither party would obtain honour by an inquiry into the cause or conduct of its hostilities." In the enumeration of Fielding's works it is somewhat difficult (if due proportion be observed) to assign any real importance to efforts like the Covent-Garden Journal. Compared with his nov- els, they are insignificant enough. But even the worst work of such a man is notable in its way ; and Fielding's contributions to the Journal are by no means to be despised. They are shrewd lay sermons^ often exhibiting much out-of-the- way erudition, and nearly always distinguished by some of his personal qualities. In No. 33, on *^ Profanity," there is a character-sketch which, for vigour and vitality, is worthy of his best days ; and there is also a very thoughtful paper on " Reading," in No. 10, containing an already mentioned reference to " the ingenious Author 226 Henry Fielding of Clarissa,'" which should have mollified that implacable moralist. In this essay it is curious to notice that, while Fielding speaks with due admiration of Shakespeare and Moli^re, Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift, he condemns Rabelais and Aristophanes, although in the invocation already quoted from Tom Jones, he had included both these authors among the models he admired.^ Another paper in the Covent-Garden Journal is especially interesting because it affords a clue to a project of Fielding's which unfortunately re- mained a project. This was a Translation of the works of Lucian, to be undertaken in conjunc- tion with his old colleague, the Rev. William Young. Proposals were advertised, and the en- terprise was duly heralded by *^ puff preliminary," in which Fielding, while abstaining from anything directly concerning his own abilities, observes, ** I will only venture to say, that no Man seems so likely to translate an Author well, as he who hath formed his Stile upon that very Author'' — a sentence which, taken in connection with the ref- erences to Lucian in Tom Thumb the Champion and elsewhere, must be accepted as distinctly autobiographic. The last number of the Covent- 1 It is of course possible that this paper, which is initialed « C," may be by another hand. But Murphy reprints it as Fielding*s. A Memoir 227 Garden Journal (No. 72) was issued in November, 1752. By this time Sir Alexander seems to have thoroughly wearied of his task. With more gravity than usual he takes leave of letters, beg- ging the Public that they will not henceforth father on him the dulness and scurrility of his worthy contemporaries; ** since I solemnly de- clare that unless in revising my former Works, I have at present no Intention to hold any further Correspondence with the gayer Muses." ^ The labour of conducting the Covent-Garden Journal must have been the more severe in that, during the whole period of its existence, the editor was vigorously carrying out his duties as a magistrate. The prison and political scenes in Amelia, which contemporary critics regarded as redundant, and which even to us are more curious than essential, testify at once to his growing in- terest in reform, and his keen appreciation of the defects which existed both in the law itself and in the administration of the law ; while the nu- merous cases heard before him, and periodically reported in his paper by his clerk, Mr. Brogden, afford ample evidence of his judicial activity. How completely he regarded himself (Bathurst and Rigby notwithstanding) as the servant of the 1 Covent-Garden Journal^ 25 November, 1752. 228 Henry Fielding public, may be gathered from the following reg- ularly repeated notice : *^ To the Public. '' All Persons who shall for the Future, suffer by Robbers, Burglars, &c., are desired imme- diately to bring, or send, the best Description they can of such Robbers, &c., with the Time and Place, and Circumstances of the Fact, to Henry Fielding, Esq. ; at his House in Bow Street.'^ Another instance of his energy in his vocation is to be found in the little collection of cases en- titled Examples of the Interposition of Provi- dence^ in the Detection and Punishment of Murder, published, with Preface and Introduction, in April, 1752, and prompted, as advertisement an- nounces, *'by the many horrid Murders com- mitted within this last Year." It appeared, as a matter of fact, only a few days after the execu- tion at Oxford, for parricide, of the notorious Miss Mary Blandy, and might be assumed to have a more or less timely intention ; but the purity of Fielding's purpose is placed beyond a doubt by the fact that he freely distributed it in court to those whom it seemed calculated to profit. The only other works of Fielding which pre- cede the posthumously published Journal of a A Memoir 229 Voyage to Lisbon are the Proposal for Making an Effectual Provision for the Poor, etc., a pamphlet dedicated to the Right Hondle. Henry Pelham, published in January, 17^3 ; and the Clear State of the Case of Elizabeth Canning, published in March. The former, which the hitherto un- friendly Gentleman s patronisingly styles an ^* ex- cellent piece," conceived in a manner which gives '' a high idea of his [the author's] present temper, manners and ability," is an elaborate project for the erection, inter alia, of a vast build- ing, at Acton Wells, of which a plan, *' drawn by an Eminent Hand," was given, to be called the County-house, capable of containing 5,000 in- mates, and including work-rooms, prisons, an in- firmary, and other features, the details of which are too minute to be repeated in these pages, even if they had received any attention from the Legislature, which they did not. The latter was Fielding's contribution to the extraordinary judicial puzzle, which agitated London in 1753-4. It is needless to do more than recall its outline. On Monday the 29th of January, 1753, one Elizabeth Canning, a domestic servant aged eighteen or thereabouts, who had hitherto borne an excellent character, returned to her mother, having been missing from the house of her mas- ter, a carpenter in Aldermanbury, since the ist 230 Henry Fielding of the same month. She was half starved and half clad, and alleged that she had been abducted, and confined in a house on the Hertford Road, from which she had just escaped. This house she afterwards identified as that of one Susan- nah or Mother Wells, a person of very indifferent reputation. An ill-favoured old gipsy woman named Mary Squires w^as also declared by her to have been the main agent in ill-using and detain- ing her. The gipsy, it is true, averred that at the time of the occurrence she was a hundred and twenty miles away in Dorsetshire ; but Canning persisted in her statement. Among other people before whom she 'came was Fielding, who ex- amined her, as well as a young woman called Virtue Hall, Vvmo appeared subsequently as one of Canning's witnesses. Fielding seems to have been strongly impressed by her appearance and her story, and his pamphlet (which was contra- dicted in every particular by his adversary, John Hill) gives a curious and not very edifying picture of the m.agisterial procedure of the period. In February, Wells and Squires were tried ; Squires was sentenced to death, and V/ells to imprison- ment and burning in the hand. Then, by the ex- ertions of the Lord Mayor, Sir Crisp Gascoyne, who doubted the justice of the verdict. Squires was respited and pardoned. Forthwith London A Memoir 231 was split up into Egyptian and Canningite fac- tions ; a hailstorm of pamphlets set in, one of the best of which was by Allan Ramsay the painter ; portraits and caricatures of the principal person- ages were in all the print shops ; and, to use Churchill's words in The Ghost, " — ^alty Canning was at least. With Gascoyfte's help, a six months feast" * In April, 1754, however. Fate so far prevailed against her that she herself, in turn, was tried at the Old Bailey for perjury. Thirty-eight wit- nesses swore that Squires had been in Dorsetshire ; twenty-seven that she had been seen in Middle- sex. After some hesitation, quite of a piece with the rest of the proceedings, the jury found Can- ning guilty ; and she was transported for seven years. At the end of her sentence she returned to England to receive a legacy of ;^> 00, which had been left to her three years before by an enthusiastic old lady of Newington-green.* Her » She did not, however, mislead every one, for clever Lady Hervey regarded her account of her adventures as ** one of the silliest, worst-formed, improbable stories I ever met" {Letters of Mary Lepelj Lady Hervey, 1S21, p. 202.) »So says the Annual Register ior 1761, p. 179. But ac- cording to later accounts {Gent, Mag, xJiii. 413), she never returned, dying in July, 1773, at Weathers field in Connecti- cut. 232 Henry Fielding **case'' is full of the most inexplicable contra- dictions ; and it occupies in the State Trials some four hundred and twenty closely-printed pages of the most curious and picturesque eighteenth-cen- tury details. But how, from the ist of January, 17)3, to ^^^ 29th of the same month, Elizabeth Canning really did manage to spend her time is a secret that^ to this day, remains unrevealed. CHAPTER VII The beginning of the end ; poor law projects ; Journal of a Voyage to Lisbo7i ; scheme for the prevention of rob- beries, etc; failing health; magisterial duties; sets out for Lisbon, 26 June, 1754; incidents of journey; a " riding surveyor ; " letter to John Fielding ; Captain Richard Veal and others ; reaches Lisbon, 14 August ; dies there, 8 October ; his tomb and epitaph ; his por- trait ; his character ; his work. In March, 1753, when Fielding published his pamphlet on Elizabeth Canning, his life was plainly drawing to a close. His energies indeed were unabated, as may be gathered from a brief record in the Gentleman s for that month, describ- ing his judicial raid, at four in the morning, upon a gaming-room, where he suspected certain high- waymen to be assembled. But his body was en- feebled by disease, and he knew he could not look for length of days. He had lived not long, but much ; he had seen in little space, as the motto to Tom Jones announced, ** the manners of many men ; '' and now that, prematurely, the inevitable hour approached, he called Cicero and Horace to his aid, and prepared to meet his fate with philosophic fortitude. Between 234 Henry Fielding " Quern fcrs dieru7?i cunque dabit^ lucro Appone;' and «* Grata stiperveniet, quce non sperabitur^ hora^'* he tells us in his too-little-consulted Proposals for the Poor, he had schooled himself to regard events with equanimity, striving above all, in what remained to him of life, to perform the duties of his office efficiently, and solicitous only for those he must leave behind him. Hencefor- ward his literary efforts should be mainly philan- thropic and practical, not without the hope that, if successful^ they might be the means of securing some provision for his family. Of fiction he had taken formal leave in the trial of Amelia; and of lighter writing generally in the last paper of the Covent-Garden Journal. But, if we may trust his Introduction, the amount of work he had done for his poor-law project must have been enormous, for he had read and considered all the laws upon the subject, as well as everything that had been written on it since the days of Eliza- beth, yet he speaks nevertheless as one over whose head the sword had all the while been im- pending : **The Attempt, indeed, is such, that the Want of Success can scarce be called a Disappointment, tho' I shall have lost much Time^ and misem- A Memoir 235 ployed much Pains ; and what is above all, shall miss the Pleasure of thinking that in the Decline of my Health and Life, I have conferred a great and lasting Benefit on my Country." In words still more resigned and dignified, he concludes the book — His enemies, he says, will no doubt, " Discover, that instead of intending a Pro- vision for the Poor, I have been carving out one for myself,^ and have very cunningly projected to build myself a fine House at the Expence of the Public. This would be to act in direct Opposi- tion to the Advice of my above Master [f.e., Horace] ; it would be indeed Struere domos immemor sepidchru Those who do not know me, may believe this ; but those who do, will hardly be so deceived by that Chearfulness which was always natural to me ; and which, I thank God, my Conscience doth not reprove m.e, for, to imagine that I am not sensible of my declining Constitution. . . . Ambition or Avarice can no longrer raise a Hooe, or dictate any Scheme to me, who have no fur- ther Design than to pass my short Remainder of Life in some Degree of Ease, and barely to pre- 1 Presumably as Governor of the proposed County-house. 236 Henry Fielding serve my Family from being the Objects of any such Laws as I have here proposed/' With the exception of the above, and kindred passages quoted from the Prefaces to the Mis- cellanies and the Plays, the preceding pages, as the reader has no doubt observed, contain little of a purely autobiographical character. More- over, the anecdotes related of Fielding by Murphy and others have not always been of such a nature as to inspire implicit confidence in their accuracy, while of the very few letters that have been referred to, none has any of those intimate and familiar touches which reveal the individual- ity of the writer. But from the middle of 1753 up to a short time before his death, Fielding has himself related the story of his life, in one of the most unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own or any other literature. The only thing which, at the moment, suggests itself for com- parison with the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon is the prologue and dedication which Fielding's predecessor, Cervantes, prefixes to his last romance of Persiles and Si^ismunda, In each case the words are animated by the same uncom- plaining kindliness — the same gallant and in- domitable spirit ; in each case the writer is a dying man. Cervantes survived the date of his letter to the Conde de Lemos but four days ; and A Memoir 237 the Journal says Fielding's editor (probably his brother John), was '* finished almost at the same period with life.*' It was written, from its author's account, in those moments of the voyage when, his womankind being sea-sick, and the crew wholly absorbed in working the ship, he was thrown on his own resources, and compelled to employ his pen to while away the time. The Preface, and perhaps the Introduction, were added after his arrival at Lisbon, in the brief period before his death. The former is a semi- humorous apology for voyage-writing ; the latter gives an account of the circumstances which led to this, his last expedition in search of health. At the beginning of August, 1753, — Fielding tells us, — having taken the Duke of Portland's medicine^ for near a year, *' the effects of which had been the carrying oif the symptoms of a lin- gering imperfect gout," Mr. Ranby, the King's Sergeant-Surgeon (to whom complimentary ref- erence had been made in the Man of the Hill's story) ,^ with other able physicians, advised him *'to go immediately to Bath." He accordingly engaged lodgings, and prepared to leave town 1 A popular eighteenth-century gout-powder, but as old as Galen. The receipt for it is given in the Gentle7iia7i's Mag- azine, vol. xxii., 579. 2 Tom Jones y Bk. viii., ch. 13. 23.8 Henry Fielding forthwith. While he was making ready for his departure, and was *^ almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street robbers,'' he received a message from the Duke of New- castle, afterwards Premier, through that Mr. Carrington whom Walpole calls **the cleverest of all ministerial terriers," requesting his attend- ance in Lincoln's-Inn Fields (Newcastle House). Being lame, and greatly overtaxed. Fielding ex- cused himself. But the Duke sent Mr. Carring- ton again next day, and Fielding with great dif- ficulty obeyed the summons. After waiting some three hours in the antechamber (no unusual fea- ture, as Lord Chesterfield informs us, of the New- castle audiences), a gentleman was deputed to consult him as to the devising of a plan for putting an immediate end to the murders and robberies which had become so common. This, although the visit cost him '*a severe cold," Fielding at once undertook. A proposal was speedily drawn out and submitted to the Privy Council. Its es- sential features were the employment of a known informer, and the provision of funds for that pur- pose. By the time this scheme was finally approved, Fielding's disorder had '* turned to a deep jaun- A Memoir 239 dice," in which case the Bath waters were gen- erally regarded as '' almost infallible. " But his eager desire to break up *• this gang of villains and cut-throats " delayed him in London ; and a day or two alter he had received a portion of the stipulated grant, (which portion, it seems, took several weeks in arriving), the whole body were entirely dispersed, — ** seven of thera were in actual custody, and the rest driven, some out of town, and others out of the kingdom." In ex- amining them, however, and in taking deposi- tions, which often occupied whole days and some- times nights, although he had the satisfaction of knowing that during the dark months of Novem- ber and December the metropolis enjoyed com- plete immunity from murder and robbery,-^ his own health was *' reduced to the last extremity/' ** Mine (he says) was now no longer what is called a Bath case," nor, if it had been, could his strength have sustained the '* intolerable fatigue " of the journey thither. He accordingly gave up his Bath lodgings, which he had hitherto retained, and went into the country '' in a very weak and de- 1 This is confirmed by a paragraph in the Public Advertiser for I January, 1754, — "A Gentleman at Genoa writes, that the Letters from Corsica are as full of Housebreakings, Robberies and Murders, as a London Newspaper before Mr, F, *s Plan was carried into Execution,^^ 240 Henry Fielding plorable condition." He was suffering from jaundice, dropsy, and asthma, under which com- bination of diseases his body was '^ so entirely emaciated, that it had lost all its muscular flesh." He had begun with reason *^to look on his case as desperate," and might fairly have regarded himself as voluntarily sacrificed to the good of the public. But he is far too honest to assign his ac- tion to philanthropy alone. His chief object (he owns) had been, if possible, to secure some pro- vision for his family in the event of his death. Not being a '' trading justice," — that is, a justice who took bribes from suitors, like Justice Thrasher in Amelia, or Justice Squeez'um in the Coffee House Politician, — his post at Bow Street had scarcely been a lucrative one. '^ By composing, instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I say hath not been universally practised) and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had reduced an in- come of about 500/ a year of the dirtiest money upon earth to little more than 300/, a considera- ble proportion of which remained with my clerk." ^ Besides the residue of his justice's fees, he had also, he informs us, a yearly pension from the Government, ^* out of the public service-money," ^ journal of a Voyage to Lisbott^ ^755> PP- 23-4. A Memoir 241 but the amount is not stated. The rest of his means, ais far as can be asc^: : ere de- riTed from his literary labours " - : r* his lavish (fisposition, and with tt e .!ly upon him, tins could scarcel petence ; and if, as appears e: a note in the /ouniiit , he no^v :-■ ^ :z::r to his half-brother, who had I: -s as»st- ant, his private affairs at the be. ;^^ e .in- ter of I75J-54 most, as he sa; s : t ?i gloomy aspect." In the eve wife and children could have ' : some acknowledgment by the GoTenumeait 01 ms past services. Meanwhile his &»er, wlieie Fielding likens InlEicst to « War^s Fill [whidi] ffies at once to die poitic- 242 Henry Fielding that memorable day when the public lost Mr. Pelham (March 6th) ; '' but from this time, he began, under Ward's medicines, to acquire '' some little degree of strength," although his dropsy in- creased. With May came the long-delayed spring, and he moved to Fordhook,^ a ''little house " belonging to him at Ealing, the air of which place then enjoyed a considerable reputa- tion, being reckoned the best in Middlesex, " and far superior to that of Kensington Gravel- Pits/' Here a re-perusal of Bishop Berkeley's Siris^ which had been recalled to his memory by Mrs. Charlotte Lenox, '' the inimitable and shame- fully distressed author of the Female Quixote^'' set him drinking tar-water with apparent good effect, except as far as his chief ailment was concerned. The applications of the trocar became more frequent : the summer, if summer it could be called, was '^mouldering away;'' and winter, ular Part of the Body on v/hich you desire to operate." (Bk. viii., cri. 9.) He was a quack, but must have possessed considerable ability. Bolingbroke wished Pope to consult him in 1744; and he attended George II. There is an ac- count of him in Nichols's Genuine Works of Hogar thy i. 89^ 1 It lay on the Uxbridge Road, a little beyond Acton, and nearly opposite the present Ealing Common Station of the Metropolitan District Railway. The site is now occupied by a larger house bearing the same name. A Memoir 243 with all its danger to an invalid, was drawing on apace. Nothing seemed hopeful but removal to a warmer climate. Aix in Provence was at first thought of, but the idea was abandoned on ac- count of the diflSculties of the journey. Lisbon, where Doddridge had died three years before, was then chosen ; a passage in a vessel trading to the port was engaged for the sick man, his wife, daughter, and two servants ; ^and after some de- lays they started.^ At this point the actual JoiiT" nal begins with a well remembered entry : ^ These were a footman and a lady's maid. The foot- man's Christian name is given in the Journal as ^Yilliam ; the maid was probably the Isabella Ash who was one of the witnesses to Fielding's Will (Appendix No. III.). * Mrs. Fielding was also accompanied by " a young lady " {Jaurnalf etc., 1755, p. 69). This was Miss Margaret Col- lier, one of the daughters of Arthur Collier, the metaphysi- cian. She was a witness to Fielding's Will (Appendix No. III.). In a letter to Richardson {Correspondence^ 1804, ii. 77), she complains of having been reported to be the "au- thor of Mr. Fielding's last work. The Voyage to Lisbon," because " it was so very bad a performance, and fell so far short of his other works, it must needs be the person with him who wrote it."' But this is nothing to the language of another of Richardson's admirers, Mr. Thomas Edwards, author of The Canons of Criticisfn : — " I have lately read over with much indignation Fielding's last piece, called his Voyage to Lisbon. That a man who had led such a life as he had, should trifle in that manner when immediate death 244 Henry Fielding '^Wednesday, June 26, 1754. — On this day, the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the light of this sun, I was, in my own opin- ion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother- like fondness, guided by nature and passion^ and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where I had learnt to bear pains and to despise death. '' In this situation, as I could not conquer na- ture, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever : under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me to suffer the com- pany of my little ones, during eight hours ; and I doubt not w^hether, in that time, I did not un- dergo more than in all my distemper. *' At tv/elve precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner told me than I kiss'd my children round, and went into it with some little resolution. My wife, who behaved more was before his eyes, is amazing. From this book I am con- firmed in what his other works had fully persuaded me of, that with all his parade of pretences to virtuous and humane affections, the fellow had no heart. And so — his knell is knolled'^ (Idzd, iii. 125). This of the book which, Haz- lett tells us, was the favourite of Charles Lamb ! A Memoir 245 like a heroine and philosopher, tho' at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest daughter^ followed me ; some friends went with us, and others here took their leave ; and I heard my behaviour applauded, with many mur- murs and praises to which I well knew I had no title ; as all other such philosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess on the like oc- casions."^ Two hours later the party reached Redriffe or Rotherhithe. Here, with the kind assistance of his and Hogarth's friend, Mr. Saunders Welch, High Constable of Holborn, the sick man, who, at this time, ^* had no use of his limbs," was carried to a boat, and hoisted in a chair over the ship's side. This latter journey, far more fatigu- ing to the sufferer than the twelve miles ride which he had previously undergone, was not ren- dered more easy to bear by the jests of the water- men and sailors, to whom his ghastly, death- stricken countenance seemed matter for merri- ment ; and he v/as greatly rejoiced to find himself safely seated in the cabin. The voyage, however, already more than once deferred, was not yet to begin. Wednesday, being King's Proclamation Day, the vessel could not be cleared at the Custom House ; and on Thursday the skipper 1 Journal, etc., 1755, pp. 39-40. 246 Henry Fielding announced that he should not set out until Satur- day. As Fielding's complaint was again becom- ing troublesome, and no surgeon was available on board, he sent for his old friend, the famous anat- omist, William Hunter, of Covent Garden, by whom he was tapped, to his own relief, and the admiration of the simple sea-captain, who (he writes) was greatly impressed by *^the heroic constancy, with which I had borne an operation that is attended with scarce any degree of pain." On Sunday the vessel dropped down to Graves- end, where, on the next day, Mr. Welch, who until then had attended them, took his leave ; and. Fielding, relieved by the trocar of any im- mediate apprehensions of discomfort, might, in spite of his forlorn case, have been fairly at ease. He had a new concern, however, in the state of Mrs. Fielding, who was in agony with toothache, which successive operators failed to relieve ; and there is an unconsciously touching little picture of the sick man and his skipper, who was deaf, sit- ting silently over " a small bowl of punch " in the narrow cabin, for fear of waking the pain-worn sleeper in the adjoining state-room. Of his sec- ond wife, as may be gathered from the opening words of the Journal Fielding always speaks with the warmest affection and gratitude. Else- where, recording a storm off the Isle of Wight, A Memoir 247 he says, ** My dear wife and child must pardon me, if what I z\i not conceive to be any great evil to mysr'f. I as not much terrified with the thoughts of ■ . : ening to them: in truth, I have often thought they are both too good, and too gentle, to be trusted to the power of any man I know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted.^ With what a tenacity of courtesy he treated the whilom Mary Daniel may be gathered from the following vignette of insolence in office, which can be taken as a set-off to the malicious tattle of Walpole : •* Soon after their departnre [i. ^., tbat of Mr. Welch and Miss Collier's sister Jane« who had come to see her ofif], our cabin, where my wife and I were sitting together, was visited bj two ruffians, whose appearance greatly corre- sponded with that of the sheriff's, or rather the knight- marshal's bafli&. One of these, especially, who seemed to affect a more than ordinary degree of rudeness and in- solence, came in without any kind of ceremony, with a broad gold lace upon his hat, which was cocked with much military fierceness on his head. An inkhom at his button-hole,' and some papers in his hand, sufficiently assured me what he was, and I asked him if he and his 1 Journal^ etc, 1755, p. 149. •Readers of Boswell will recall how, at the sale of Thrale's brewery, Johnson bustled about, " with an ink-horn and pen in his button-hole, like an excise man" (Hill's BosweWs Johnson^ 1887, iy. 87). 248 Henry Fielding companions were not custom-house officers; he answered with sufficient dignity, that they were, as an information which he seemed to consider would strike the hearer with awe, and suppress all further inquiry ; but on the contrary I proceeded to ask of what rank he was in the Custom- house, and receiving an answer from his companion, as I remember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor ; I re- plied that he might be a riding surveyor, but he could be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that de- nomination, would break into the presence of a lady, with- out any apology, or even moving his hat. He then took his covering from his head, and laid it on the table, saying, he asked pardon, and blamed the mate, who should, he said, have informed him if any persons of distinction were below. I told him he might guess from our appearance (which, perhaps, was rather more than could be said with the strictest adherence to truth) that he was before a gentle- man and lady, which should teach him to be very civil in his behaviour, tho* we should not happen to be of the num- ber whom the world calls people of fashion and distinction. However, I said, that as he seemed sensible of his error, and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to put his hat on again, if he chose it. This he refused with some degree of surliness, and failed not to convince me that, if I should condescend to become more gentle, he would soon grow more rude." ^ The date of this occurrence was Monday, July the 1st. At six, on the evening of the same day they weighed anchor and managed to reach the Nore. For more than a week they were wind- 1 Journal f etc., 1755, PP* 69-7 1. A Memoir 249 bound in the Downs, but on the nth they an- chored off Ryde, from which place, on the next morning, Fielding despatched the following letter to his brother. Besides giving the names of the captain and the ship, which are carefully suppressed in the Journal, it is especially interest- ing as being the last letter written by Fielding of which we have any knowledge : "On board the Queen of Portugal, Riclid Veal at anchor on the Mother Bank, off Ryde, to the Care of the Post Master of Portsmouth— this is my Date and yr Direction. July 12, 1754. "Dear Jack, After receiving that agreeable Lre from Messrs. Fielding and Co., we weighed on monday morning and sailed from Deal to the Westward Four Days long but inconceivably pleasant Passage brought us yesterday to an Anchor on the Mother Bank, on the Back of the Isle of Wight, where we had last Night in Safety the Pleasure of hearing the Winds roar over our Heads in as violent a Tem- pest as I have known, and where my only Consideration were the Fears which must possess any Friend of ours, (if there is happily any such) who really makes our Wellbeing the Object of his Concern especially if such Friend should be totally inexperienced in Sea Affairs. I therefore beg that on the Day you receive this Mrs Daniel ^ may know that we are lit will be remembered (see Ch. iv.) that the maiden- name of Fielding's second wife, as given in the Register of St. Bene't's, was Mary Daniel. ** Mrs. Daniel " was there- 250 Henry Fielding just risen from Breakfast in Health and Spirits this twelfth Instant at 9 in the morning. Our Voyage hath proved fruit- ful in Adventures all which being to be written in the Book, you must postpone yr Curiosity As the Incidents which fall under yr Cognizance will possibly be consigned to Ob- livion, do give them to us as they pass. Tell yr Neighbour I am much obliged to him for recommending me to the Care of a most able and experienced Seaman to whom other Captains seem to pay such Deference that they attend and watch his Motions, and think themselves only safe when they act under his Direction and Example. Our Ship in Truth seems to give Laws on the Water with as much Authority and Superiority as you Dispense Laws to the Public and Examples to yr Brethren in Commission. Please to direct yr Answer to me on Board as in the Date, if gone to be returned, and then send it by the Post and Pacquet to Lisbon to " Yr affect Brother " H. Fielding " To John Fielding Esq. at his House in Bow Street Covt Garden London." As the Queen of Portugal did not leave Ryde until the 23d, it is possible that Fielding received a reply. During the remainder of this desultory voyage he continued to beguile his solitary hours — hours of which we are left to imagine the physical torture and monotony, for he says but little of himself — by jottings and notes of the, fore, in all probability, Fielding's mother-in-law; and it may reasonably be assumed that she had remained in charge of the little family at Fordhook. A Memoir 251 for the most part, trivial accidents of his prog- ress. That happy cheerfulness, of which he spoke in the Proposal for the Poor, had not yet deserted him ; and there are moments when he seems rather on a pleasure-trip than a forlorn pilgrimage in search of health. At Ryde, where, for change of air, he went ashore, he chronicles, after many discomforts from the most disobliging of landladies (let the name of Mrs. Francis go down to posterity I), ** the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, [in a barn] with more appetite, more real, solid luxury, and more fes- tivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at Whites."^ At Torbay, he expatiates upon the merits and flavour of the John Dory, dear to Charles Lamb and Quin, a specimen of which ^'gloriously regaled" the party, and furnished him with a pretext for a dissertation on the Lon- don Fish Supply. Another page he devotes to commendation of the excellent *'Rom" Vinum Pomonce, or Southam cyder, supplied by " Mr. Giles Leverance of Cheeshurst, near Dart- mouth in Devon,'' of which, for the sum of five pounds ten shillings, he extravagantly purchased three hogsheads, one for himself, and the others as presents for his friends, among whom no doubt was kindly Mr. Welch. Here and there he ^Journal, etc., 1755, p. lOO. 252 Henry Fielding sketches, with but little abatement of his earlier gaiety and vigour, the human nature around him. Of -the objectionable Ryde landlady and her hus- band there are portraits not much inferior to those of the Tow-wouses in Joseph Andrews, while the military fop, who visits his uncle the captain off Spithead, is drawn with all the insight which depicted the vagaries of Ensign Northerton, whom indeed the real hero of the Journal not a little resembles. The best character sketch, however, in the whole is that of Captain Rich- ard Veal himself (one almost feels inclined to wonder whether he was in any way related to the worthy lady whose apparition visited Mrs. Bar- grave at Canterbury!), but it is of necessity somewhat dispersed.^ It has also an additional attraction, because — if we remember rightly — it is Fielding's sole excursion into the domain of Smollett. The rough old sea-dog of the Had- dock and Vernon period, who had been a priva- teer; and who still, as skipper of a merchant- man, when he visits a friend or gallants the ladies^ decorates himself with a scarlet coat, cockade, and sword ; who gives vent to a kind of Irish howl when his favourite kitten is suffo- jy^2/r;2<2/, etc., 1755, pp. I10-16, and 142-6. Passages relating to some of these personages are given in Appendix No. IV. A Memoir 253 cated under a feather bed ; and falls abjectly on his knees when threatened with the dreadful name of Law, is a character which, in its surly good-humour and sensitive dignity, might easily, under more favourable circumstances, have grown into an individuality, if not equal to that of Squire Western, at least on a level with Par- tridge or Colonel Bath. There are numbers of minute touches — as, for example, his mistaking ''a lion'' for *' Elias" when he reads prayers to the ship's company ; and his quaint asseverations when exercised by the incoastancy of the wind — which show how closely Fielding studied his deaf companion. But it would occupy too large a space to examine the Journal more in detail. It is sufficient to say that after some further de- lays from wind and tide, the travellers sailed up the Tagus. Here, having undergone the usual quarantine and custom-house obstruction, they landed, and Fielding's penultimate words record a good supper at Lisbon, '' for which we were as well charged, as if the bill had been miade on the Bath road, between Newbury and London." The book ends with a line from the poet whom, in the Proposal for the Poor, he had called his master: " — Azc Finis chartceque viceque.^^ Two months afterwards he died at Lisbon, on 254 Henry Fielding the 8th of October, in the forty-eighth year of his age.^ He was buried on the hillside in the centre of the beautiful English cemetery, which faces the great Basilica of the Heart of Jesus, otherwise known as the Church of the Estrella. Here, in a leafy spot where the nightingales fill the still air with song, and watched by those secular cypresses from which the place takes its Portuguese name of Os CypresteSy lies all that was mortal of him whom Scott called the ** Father of the English Novel." His first tomb, which Sir Nathaniel Wraxall found in 1772, '* nearly concealed by weeds and nettles,''^ was erected by the English factory, in consequence mainly — as it seems — of a proposal made by an enthusiastic Chevalier de Meyrionnet, to provide one (with an epitaph) at his own expense. That now existing was sub- stituted in 1830^ by the exertions of the Rev. Christopher Neville, British Chaplain at Lisbon. It is a heavy sarcophagus, resting upon a large base, and surmounted by just such another urn and flame as that on Hogarth's tomb at Chis- wick. On the front is a long Latin inscription ; on the south face, under '^ Fielding,'' the better- known words : iSee Appendix No. III.: Fielding's Will. 2 Memoirs, 2d ed., 1836, i. A Memoir 255 LuGET Britannia Gremio non dart FOVERE NATUM.l It is to this last memorial that George Borrow referred in hi'§ BibU in Spain : *' Let travellers devote one entire morning to inspecting the Arcos and the Mai das agoas, after which they may repair to the English church and cemetery, Pere-la-chaise in miniature, where, if they be of England, they may well be excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as I did, of the author of ** Amelia," the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fashion to abuse in public and to read in secret." ^ Sorrow's book was first published in 1843. Of late years the tomb had been somev/hat neg- lected ; but from a communication in the Ath- enceuni of May, 1879, it appears that it had then been recently cleaned, and the inscriptions re- stored, by order of the chaplain of that day, the Rev. Godfrey Pope. There is but one authentic portrait of Henry Fielding. This is the pen-and-ink sketch drawn from memory by Hogarth, long after Fielding's 1 The fifth word is generally given as " datum." But the above version, which has been verified at Lisbon, may be accepted as correct. '^ Bible in Spain ^ 1843, i- ^' 25 6 Henry Fielding death, to serve as a frontispiece for Murphy's edition of his works. It was engraved \r\ facsimile by James Basire, with such success that the artist is said to have mistaken an impression of the plate (without its emblematic border) for his own drawing. Hogarth's sketch is the sole source of all the portraits, more or less *' ro- manced," which are prefixed to editions of Field- ing ; and also, there is some reason to suspect, of the dubious little miniature, still in possession of his descendants, which figures in Hutchins's His- tory of Dorset and elsewhere. More than one account has been given of the way in which the drawing was produced. The most effective, and, unfortunately, the most popular, version has, of course, been selected by Murphy. In this he tells us that Hogarth, being unable to recall his dead friend's features, had recourse to a profile cut in paper by a lady, who possessed the happy talent which Pope ascribes to Lady Burlington.^ Setting aside the fact that^ as Hogarth's eye- memory was marvellous, this story is highly im- probable, it was expressly contradicted by George 1 Works, 1762, i. 48. Nichols [Genuine Works of Hogartk/ui. (1817,) 350,) gives the name of this lady, who, it appears, was the Margaret Collier already mentioned as one of the party on the " Queen of Portugal." A Memoir 257 Steevens in 1781,^ and by John Ireland in 1798,^ both of whom, from their relations with Hogarth's family, were likely to be credibly informed. Steevens, after referring to Murphy's fable, says, *' I am assured that our artist began and finished the head in the presence of his wife and another lady. He had no assistance but from his own memory, which, on such occasions, was remark- ably tenacious." Ireland, gives us as the simple fact the following: — " Hogarth being told, after his friend's death, that a portrait was wanted as a frontispiece to his works, sketched this from memory.'' According to the inscription on Basire's plate, it represents Fielding at the age of forty-eight, or in the year of his death. This, however, can only mean that it represents him as Hogarth had last seen him. But long before he died, disease had greatly altered his appearance ; and he must have been little more than a shadow of the handsome Harry Fielding, who wrote farces for Mrs. Clive, and heard the chim.es at midnight. As he himself says in the Voyage to Lisbon, he had lost his teeth,^ and the consequent falling-in of the lips is plainly perceptible in the profile. The shape of the Roman nose, which Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth, p. 131. ^Hogarth Illustrated, iii. 291. ^Journal, etc., 1755, p. 203. 258 Henry Fielding ColonelJames irreverently styled a ** proboscis,"^ would, however, remain unaltered, and it is still possible to divine a curl, half humorous, half ironic, in the short upper lip. The eye, appar- ently, was dark and deep-set. Oddly enough, the chin, to the length of which he had himself referred in the Champion, does not appear abnor- mal.^ Beyond the fact that he was above six feet in height, and, until the gout had broken his 1 Amelia^ Bk. xi. ch. i. 2 In the bust of Fielding which Miss Margaret Thomas was commissioned by Mr. R. A. Kinglake to execute for the Somerset Valhalla, the Shire-Hall at Taunton, these points have been carefully considered ; and the sculptor has suc- ceeded in producing a work which, while it suggests the mingling of humour and dignity that is Fielding's chief char- acteristic, is also generally faithful to Hogarth's indications. From these, indeed, it is impossible to deviate. Not only is his portrait unique, for Murphy says expressly ( Works^ 1762, i. 47) that no portrait of Fielding had ever been made previously; but it was admitted to be like Fielding by Fielding's friends. Miss Thomas's bust was placed in the Shire Hall, 4th September, 1883 ; and the following in- scription was written for it by James Russell Lowell, by whom it was unveiled : " He looked on naked nature unashamed. And saw the Sphinx, now bestial, now divine, In change and rechange ; he nor praised nor blamed. But drew her as he saw with fearless line. A Memoir 259 constitution, unusually robust, Murphy adds nothing further to our idea of his personal appear- ance. That other picture of his character^ traced and retraced (often with much exaggeration of out- line), is so familiar in English literature, that it cannot now be materially altered or amended. Yet it is impossible not to wish that it were de- rived from some less prejudiced or more trust- worthy witnesses than those who have spoken, — say, for example, from Lyttelton or Allen. There are always signs that Walpole's malice, and Smollett's animosity, and the rancour of Richard- son, have had too much to do with the represen- tation ; and even Murphy and Lady Mary are scarcely persons whom one would select as ideal biographers. The latter is probably right in com- paring her cousin to Sir Richard Steele. ^ Both were generous, kindly, brave, and sensitive ; both were improvident ; both loved women and little children ; both sinned often, and had their mo- ments of sincere repentance ; to both was given that irrepressible hopefulness, and full delight Did he good service ? God must judge, not we. Manly he was, and generous and sincere ; English in all, of genius blithely free : Who loves a Man may see his image here." '^ Letters y etc., i86i, ii. 283. 26o Henry Fielding of being which forgets to-morrow in to-day. That Henry Fielding was wild and reckless in his youth it would be idle to contest ; — indeed it is an intelligible, if not a necessary, consequence of his physique and his temperament. But it is not fair to speak of him as if his youth lasted for- ever. " Critics and biographers," says Mr. Leslie Stephen, ''have dwelt far too exclusively upon the uglier side of his Bohemian life ; " and Field- ing himself, in the Jacobite's Journal, complains sadly that his enemies have traced his impeachment '' even to his boyish Years.'' That he who was prodigal as a lad was prodigal as a man may be conceded ; that he who was sanguine at twenty would be sanguine at forty (although this is less defensible) may also be allowed. But, if we press for ''better assurance than Bardolph," there is absolutely no good evidence that Field- ing's career after his marriage materially differed from that of other men struggling for a livelihood, hampered with ill-health, and exposed to all the shifts and humiliations of necessity. If any por- trait of him is to be handed down to posterity, let it be the last rather than the first ; — not the Fielding of the green-room and the tavern — of Covent Garden frolics and " modern conversa- tions ; " but the energetic magistrate, the tender husband and father, the kindly host of his poorer A Memoir 261 friends, the practical philanthropist, the patient and magnanimous hero of the Vo/age to Lisbon. If these things be remembered, it will seem of minor importance that to his dying day he never knew the value of money, or that he forgot his troubles over a chicken and champagne.^ And even his improvidence was not without its excus- able side. Once — so runs the legend^ — Andrew Millar made him an advance to meet the claims of an importunate tax-gatherer. Carrying it home, he met a friend, in even worse straits than his own ; and the money changed hands. When the tax-gatherer arrived there was nothing but the answer — '' Friendship has called for the money and had it ; let the collector call again." Justice, it is needless to say, was satisfied by a second iQf this latter faculty Professor Saintsbury says: «* Lady Mary's view of his [Fielding's] childlike enjoy- ment of the moment has been, I think, much exaggerated by posterity, and was probably not a little mistaken by the lady herself. There are two moods in which the motto is carp^ diem ; one a mood of simply childish hurry, the other where behind the enjoyment of the moment lurks, and which the enjoyment of the moment is not a little heightened by, that vast ironic consciousness of the before and after, which I at least see everywhere in the background of Fielding's work." (Introduction to Dent's edition of Fielding, 1893, i- xxv.-vi.) ' G entleinaii' s Magazine ^ August, 1786. 262 Henry Fielding advance from the bookseller. But who shall condemn the man of whom such a story can be told? The literary work of Fielding is so inextricably interwoven with what is known of his life that most of it has been examined in the course of the foregoing narrative. What remains to be said, is chiefly in summary of what has been said already. As a dramatist he has no eminence ; and though his plays do not deserve the sweeping condem- nation with which Macaulay once spoke of them in the House of Commons, they are not likely to attract any critics but those for whom the inferior efforts of a great genius possess a morbid fasci- nation. Some of them serve, in a measure, to illustrate his career : others contain hints and situations which he afterwards worked into his novels ; but the only ones that possess real stage qualities are those which he borrowed from Regnard and Moliere. Don Quixote in England, Pasqiiin, the Historical Register, can claim no present consideration commensurate with that which they received as contemporary satires, and their interest is mainly antiquarian ; while Tom Thumb and the Covent-Garden Tragedy, the former of which would make the reputation of a smaller man, can scarcely hope to be remembered beside Amelia or Jonathan Wild, Nor can it be A Memoir 263 admitted that, as a periodical writer, Fielding was at his best. In spite of effective passages, his essays remain far below the work of the great AugustanS; and are not above the level of many of their less illustrious imitators. That instinct of popular selection, which retains a faint hold upon the Rambler, the Adventurer, the V/orld and the Connoisseur, or at least consents to give them honourable interment as '' British Essay- ists " in a secluded corner of the shelves, has made no pretence to any preservation, or even any winnowing^ of the Champion and the True Patriot. Fielding's papers are learned and ingen- ious ; they are frequently humorous ; they are often earnest ; but it must be a loiterer in literature who, in these days, except for antiquarian or biographical purposes, can honestly find it worth while to con- sult" them. His pamphlets and projects are more valuable, if only that they prove him to have looked curiously and sagaciously at social and political problems, and to have striven, as far as in him lay, to set the crooked straight. Their import, to-day, is chiefly that of links in a chain — of contributions to a progressive literature which has since travelled into regions unforeseen by the author of the Proposal for the Poor, and the Inquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers. As such, they have their place in that 264 Henry Fielding library of Political Economy of which M'CulIoch has catalogued the riches. It is not, however, by his pamphlets, his essays, or his plays that Fielding is really memorable ; it is by his triad of novels, and the surpassing study in irony of Jonathan Wild, In Joseph Andrews we have the first sprightly runnings of genius that, after much uncertainty, had at last found its fitting vein, but was yet doubtful and undisciplined : in Tom Jones the perfect plan has come, with the per- fected method and the assured expression. There is an inevitable loss of that fine wayward- ness v/hich is sometimes the result of untrained effort, but there is the general gain of order, and the full production which results of art. The highest point is reached in Tom Jones, which is the earliest definite and authoritative manifesta- tion of the modern novel. Its relation to De Foe is that of the vertebrate to the invertebrate : to Richardson, that of the real to the ideal — one might almost add, the impossible.-^ It can be compared to no contemporary English work of its own kind ; and if we seek for its parallel at 1 In this connection the reader may be profitably referred to the admirable dialogue between Fielding and Richardson in T/ie New Lucian of the late accomplished scholar and critic, Mr. H. D. Traill (Revised and enlarged edition, 1900, pp. 268-286). A Memoir 265 the time of publication we must go beyond litera- ture to art — to the masterpiece of that great pictorial satirist who was Fielding's friend. In both Fielding and Hogarth there is the same con- structive power, the same rigid sequence of cause and effect, the same significance of detail, the same side-light of allusion. Both have the same hatred of affectation and hypocrisy — the same un- erring insight into character. Both are equally attracted by striking contrasts and comic situa- tions ; in both there is the same declared morality of purpose, coupled with the same sturdy virility of expression. One, it is true, leaned more strongly to tragedy, the other to comedy. But if Fielding had painted pictures, it would have been in the style of the Marriage a la mode ; if Hogarth had written novels^ they would have been in the style of Tom Jones. In the gentler and more subdued Amelia, with its tender and womanly central-figure, there is a certain change of plan, due to altered conditions — it may be^ to an altered philosophy of art. The narrative is less brisk and animated ; the character-painting less broadly humorous ; the philanthropic element more strongly developed. To trace the influence of these three great works in succeeding writers would hold us too long. It may, nevertheless, be safely asserted that there are few English novels 266 Henry Fielding of manners, written since Fielding's day, which do not descend from him as from their fount and source ; and that more than one of our modern masters betray unmistakable signs of a form and fashion studied minutely from their frank and manly ancestor. POSTSCRIPT A FEW particulars respecting Fielding's family and posthumous works can scarcely be omitted from the present memoir. It has been stated that by his first wife he had one daugh- ter, the Eleanor Harriot who accompanied him to Lisbon, and survived him, although Mr. Keightley says, but without giving his authority, she did not survive him long. Of his family by Mary Daniel, the eldest son, William, to whose birth reference has already been made, was bred to the law, became a barrister of the Middle Temple eminent as a special pleader, and ulti- mately a Westminster magistrate. He died in October, 1820, at the Police Office, Queen- Square at the age of seventy-three. He seemed to have shared his father's conversational quali- ties,^ and, like him, to have been a strenuous ad- vocate of the poor and unfortunate. Southey, writing from Keswick in 1830 to Sir Egerton 1 Videy Lockhart's Life of Scott, chap, i., and Bedford Cor- respondence^ 1846, iii. 41 in., where it is said that " he was the delight of the circuit.'* 268 Postscript Brydges, speaks of a meeting he had in St. James's Park, about 1817, with one of the novelist's sons. *' He was then/' says Southey, ^* a fine old man, though visibly shaken by time : he received me in a manner which had much of old courtesy about it, and I looked upon him with great interest for his father's sake." The date, and the fact that William Fielding had had a paralytic stroke, make it almost certain that this was he ; and a further reference by Southey to his religious opinions is confirmed by the obituary notice in the Gentleman s^ which speaks of him as a worthy and pious man.* The names and baptisms of the remaining children, as supplied for these pages by the late Colonel Chester, were Mary Amelia, baptised January 6, 1749 ; Sophia, January 21, 1750 ; Louisa, December 3, 1752; and Allen, April 6, 1754, about a month before Fielding removed to Ealing. All these baptisms took place at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, from the registers of which these particulars were ex- tracted. The eldest daughter, Mary Amelia, does not appear to have long survived, for the same registers record her burial on the 17th De- cember, 1749. Allen Fielding became a clergy- man, and died, according to Burke, in 1823, be- ing then vicar of St. Stephen's, Canterbury. He 1 1820, ii. 373-4. Postscript 269 left a family of four sons and three daughters. One of the sons. George, became rector of North Ockendon, Essex, and married, in 1825, Mary Rebecca, daughter of Ferdinand Hanbury-Wil- liams, and grandniece of Fielding's friend and school-fellow Sir Charles. This lady, who so curiously linked the present and the past, died at Hereford Square, Brompton, in her eighty-fifth year. Mrs. Fielding herself (Mary Daniel) ap- pears to have attained a good old age.^ Her death took place at Canterbury on the nth of March, 1802, perhaps in the house of her son Allen, who is stated by Nichols in his Leicester- shire to have been rector in 1803 of St. Cosmus and Damian-in-the-Blean. After her husband's death, her children were educated by their uncle John and Ralph Allen, the latter of whom — says Murphy — made a very generous annual donation for that purpose. In 1762, when Murphy v/rote, only William, Allen and Sophia were alive, and to these three the Master of Prior Park at his death in 1704, bequeathed the sum of ^100 each.^ 1 A portrait of her by Francis Cotes, R. A., described by one who saw it as " a very fine drawing of a very ugly woman," was sold not many years since at Christie's. 2 Ralph Allen also left ;,f icx) to Fielding's sister Sarah ( Vide, Will in Peach's Historic Houses of Bath, Second 270 Postscript Among Fielding's other connections it is only necessary to speak of his sister Sarah, and his above-mentioned brother John. Sarah Fielding continued to write ; and in addition to a third volume of David Simple, published the Governess, 1749 ; the History of the Countess Dellwyn, ^759 J a translation of Xenophon's Memorabilia; a dra- matic fable called the Cr/ (with Margaret Collier's sister Jane), and some other forgotten books. During the latter part of her life she lived at Bath, where she was highly popular, both for her personal character and her accomplishments. She had a cottage in Church Lane, Widcombe. She died in 1768 ; and her friend. Dr. John Hoadly, who wrote the verses to the Rake's Progress, erected a monument to her memory in the Abbey Church. " Her unaffected Manners, candid Mind, Her Heart benevolent, and Soul resign'd ; Were more her Praise than all she knew or thought Though Athens Wisdom to her Sex she taught," says he ; but in mere facts the inscription is^ as he modestly styles it, a '* deficient Memorial,'' for she is described as having been born in 17 14 Series, 1884, p. 149). It may be added that Sophia Field- ing must have lived far into this century since she occu- pied a house near Canterbury during the entire period of ninety years for which her father had signed the lease, (Hen- derson's Recollections of John Adolphus^ 187 1, 227). Postscript 271 instead of 17 10, and as being the daughter of General Henry instead of General Edmund Field- ing. John Fielding, the novelist's half-brother, as already stated^ succeeded him at Bow Street, though the post has been sometimes claimed (on Bosweirs authority) for Mr. Welch. The mis- take no doubt arose from the circumstance that they frequently worked in concert. Previous to his appointment as a magistrate, John Fielding, in addition to assisting his brother, seems to have been largely concerned in the promotion of that curious enterprise, the '' Universal-Register- Office/' in which Henry Fielding held shares.^ It was often advertised in the Covent-Garden Jour- nal ; and appears to have been an Estate Office, Lost Property Office, Servants' Registry, Curi- osity Shop, and multifarious General Agency. As a magistrate, in spite of his blindness, John Field- ing was remarkably energetic, and is reported to have known more than 3,000 thieves by their voices alone, and could recognise them when brought into Court. There are many references to John Fielding in the periodical and other liter- ature of the day, e. g., in Churchiirs Ghost and Goldsmith's** Rhymed Letters to Mr. Bunbury." Besides professional works, a description of London and Westminster is often ascribed to 1 Cf, Amelia, 1752, Bk. v. ch. 9 (p. 170). 272 Postscript him, but he denied the authorship.^ He was knighted in 1761, and died at Brompton Place in 1780.^ Lyttelton, who had become Sir George in 175 1, was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyttelton of Frankley three years after Fielding's death. He died in 1773. In 1760-5 he pub- lished his Dialogues of the Dead, profanely char- acterised by Mr. Walpole as '' Dead Dialogues." No. 28 of these is a colloquy between '' Plutarch, Charon, and a Modern Bookseller," and it con- tains the following reference to Fielding : — '* We have [says Mr. Bookseller] another writer of these imaginary histories, one who has not long since descended to these regions. His name is Fielding ; and his works, as I have heard the best judges say, have a true spirit of comedy, and an exact representation of nature, with fine moral touches. He has not indeed given lessons of pure and consummate virtue, but he has exposed vice and meanness with all the powers of ridicule." It is perhaps excusable that Lawrence, like Roscoe and others, should have attributed this to Lyttelton ; but the preface nevertheless assigns it, with two other dialogues, 1 Public Advertiser y 6 January, 1777. 2 He was more fortunate than his famous elder brother, for there are at least three portraits of him, two by Na- thaniel Hone, and one by the Rev. M. W. Peters, R. A. Postscript 273 to a ** different hand." They were, in fact, the first essays in authorship of that illustrious blue- stocking, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu. Fielding's only posthumous works are the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon^ and the comedy of The Fathers; or, The Good Natufd Man. The Journal was published on the 2 5 February, 1755, and the advertisement announced that it was ^* printed for the Benefit of his [Fielding's] Wife and Children." Notwithstanding a state- ment in the " Dedication to the Public" that it remained '^as it came from the hands of the author," the first issue seems to have been con- siderably edited. The Ryde landlady appears as ^' Mrs. Humphreys," and several passages relating to the Captain of the '' Queen of Portugal/' his nephew, and Fielding himself, were withheld, probably from prudential motives. But towards the close of the year, and after the earthquake at Lisbon, the volume was reprinted with the same date, dedication and title-page, but, as regards the text, corresponding in all respects with the version put forward by Murphy in the Works of 1762.^ Both of the versions of 1755 included a * The circumstances connected with the publication of these two versions are fully discussed in the " Introduction " to the present writer's reprint of the yotivnal^ issued in 1892, by Messrs. Whittingham & Co. 2 74 Postscript '* Fragment of a Comment on Bolingbroke's Es- says/' which Essays Mallet had issued in March, 1754. This fragment must therefore have been begun in the last months of Fielding's life ; and, according to Murphy, he made very careful prep- aration for the work, as attested by long extracts from the Fathers and the leading controversial- ists, which, after his death, were preserved by his brother. Beyond a passage or two in Rich- ardson's Correspondence, and a sneering reference by Walpole to Fielding's '' account how his dropsy was treated and teased by an innkeeper's wife in the Isle of Wight," there is nothing to show how the Journal was received, still less that it brought any substantial pecuniary relief to ** those innocents," to whom reference had been made in the " Dedication." The storv of The Good Natur'd Man, which was not placed upon the stage until 1778, is curious. According to the " Advertisement," after it had been set aside in 1742, Mt seems to have been submitted to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. Sir Charles was just starting for Russia, as En- voy Extraordinary. Whether Fielding's MS. went with him or not is unknown ; but it was lost until 177) o^ ^77^^ when it was recovered in a tattered and forlorn condition by Mr. Johnes, 1 Vu/e, chap, iv., p. 94. Postscript 275 M. P. for Cardigan, from a person who enter- tained a very poor and even contemptuous opin- ion of its merits. Mr. Johnes thought other- wise. He sent it to Garrick, who at once rec- ognised it as *^ Harry Fielding's Comedy." Re- vised and retouched by the actor and Sheridan, it was produced at Drury Lane on the 30th No- vember, 1778, as The Fathers, with a Prologue and Epilogue by Garrick. For nine nights it was received with interest, and even some flick- ering enthusiasm. It was then withdrawn ; and there is no likelihood that it will ever be re- vived.^ The consultation of contemporary newspapers made necessary in connection with the issue of Fielding's Journal, resulted in the discovery that he possessed an extensive library. This was an- nounced for sale in February, 1755, four months alter his death, the auctioneer being Mr. Baker of York Street, Covent Garden, by whom it was disposed of on four successive evenings. It con- sisted of 6)3 lots and realised ;^3 64^ 7, i. It was rich in law and classics, poetry and drama, and included many valuable folios. .Further men- 1 Mr. Baillie of Norfolk Square, London, has a letter from Sir John Fielding to William Hunter, begging him to go to the "Author's Widow's night" i^Athenuum^ I February, 1890). 276 Postscript tion of it here is however needless, as it has been sufficiently described in an earlier volume of this series.^ But it may be added in this place that if, as is sometimes contended, Henry Fielding made parade of learning, he seems to have been exceptionally well provided with a scholar's stock in trade. iSee "Fielding's Library" in Eighteenth Century Vi- gnettes , Third Series, pp. 163-177. APPENDIX NO. I FIELDING AND SARAH ANDREW BY the courtesy of the editor of the Atherueuniy the following letter is here reprinted from that paper for 2d June, 1883 : 75 Eaton Rise, Ealing. In 1855, when Mr. Frederick Lawrence pub- lished his Life of Henry Fielding, he thus re- ferred (ch. vii. p. 67) toan ** early passage " in the novelist's career: *'On his [Fielding's] return from Leyden he conceived a desperate attach- ment for his cousin, Miss Sarah Andrew [sic]. That young lady's friends had, however, so little confidence in her wild kinsman, that they took the precaution of removing her out of his reach ; not, it is said, until he had attempted an abduc- tion or elopement. . . . His cousin was afterwards married to a plain country gentleman, and in that alliance found, perhaps, more solid happiness than she would have experienced in an early and improvident marriage with her gifted kinsman. Her image, however, was never ef- faced from his recollection ; and there is a charm- 278 Appendix I ing picture (so tradition tells) of her luxuriant beauty in the portrait of Sophia Western, in Tom Jones,'' Mr. Lawrence gave no hint or sign of his authority for this unexpected and hitherto un- recorded incident. But the review of his book in the A//i^na?wm for loth November, 1855, elicited the following notes on the subject from Mr. George Roberts, sometime mayor of Lyme, and author of a brief history of that town. '* Henry Fielding," wrote Mr. Roberts, ^* was at Lyme Regis, Dorset, for the purpose of carrying off an heiress. Miss Andrew, the daughter of Solomon Andrew, Esq., the last of a series of merchants of that name at Lyme. The young lady was liv- ing with Mr. Andrew Tucker, one of the corpo- ration, who sent her away to Modbury, in South Devon, where she married an ancestor of the present Rev. Mr. Rhodes, an eloquent preacher of Bath, who possesses the Andrew property. Mr. Rhodes's son married the young lady upon his return to Modbury from Oxford. The cir- cumstances about the attempts of Henry Fielding to carry off the young lady, handed down in the ancient Tucker family, were doubted by the late head of his family, Dr. Rhodes, of Shapwick, Uplyme, etc. Since his decease I have found an entry in the old archives of Lyme about the fears of Andrew Tucker, Esq., the guardian, as to his Appendix I 279 safety, owing to the behaviour of Henry Fielding and his attendant, or man. According to the tradition of the Tucker family, given in my His- tory of Lyme, Sophia Western was intended to pourtray Miss Andrew/' To Mr. Roberts's com- munication succeeded that of another correspond- ent — one '' P. S." — who gave some additional particulars : '' There is now at Bellair, in the im- mediate neighbourhood of Exeter the portrait of * Sophia Western ' [Miss Andrew]. Bellair be- longs to the Rhodes family, and was the residence of the late George Ambrose Rhodes, Fellow of Caius College, and formerly Physician to the Devon and Exeter Hospital. He himself directed my attention to this picture. In the board-room of the above hospital there is also the three- quarter length portrait of Ralph Allen, Esq., the 'Squire Allworthy ' of the same novel.'' No further contribution appears to have been made to the literature of the subject. The late Mr. Keightley, in his articles on Lawrence's book in Fraser's Ma^a\ine for January and February, 1858, did, as a matter of fact, refer to the story and Mr. Roberts's confirmation of it ; but beyond pointing out that Miss Andrew could not have been the original of Sophia Western, who is de- clared by Fielding himself {Tom Jones, bk. xiii. ch. i.) to have been the portrait of his first wife, 28o Appendix I Charlotte Cradock, he added nothing to the ex- isting information. When I began to prepare the sketch of Field- ing recently included in Mr. John Morley's series of '' English Men of Letters/' matters stood at this point, and I had little hope that any supple- mentary details could be obtained. I was, in- deed, fortunate enough to discover that Burke's Landed Gentry for 1858 gave the year of Miss Andrews's marriage as 1726; and inquiries at Modbury, though they did not actually confirm this, practically did so, by disclosing the fact that a child of Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose Rhodes w^as baptised at that place in April, 1727. It became clear, therefore, that instead of being subsequent to Fielding's ** return from Leyden " in 1728, as Law^rence supposed, the date of the reported at- tempt at elopement could not have been later than 1725 or the early part of 1726 — so far back, in fact, in Fielding's life that I confess to having entertained a private doubt whether it ever oc- curred at all. That doubt has now been com- pletely removed by the appearance of some new and wholly unlooked-for evidence. After the publication in 1858 of his Fraser papers, Mr. Keightley seems to have continued his researches with the intention of writing a final biography of Fielding. In this, which was to in- Appendix I 281 elude a reprint of the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon and a critical examination of Fielding's works, he made considerable progress ; and by the courtesy of his nephew, Mr. Alfred C. Lyster, his MSS. have been placed at my dis- posal. Much that relates to Fielding's life has manifestly the disadvantage of having been written more than twenty years ago^ and it reproduces some aspects of Fielding which have now been abandoned ; but in the elucidation and expansion of the Sarah Andrew episode Mr. Keightley leaves little to be desired. His first step, appar- ently, was to communicate with Mr. Roberts, who furnished him (6th May, 1859) with the fol- lowing transcript or summary of the original record in the Register Book of Lyme Regis : *^John Bowdidge, Jun.^ was Mayor when Andrew Tucker, Gent., one of the corporation, caused Henry Fielding, Gent., and his servant or companion, Joseph Lewis — both now and for some time past residing in the borough — to be bound over to keep the peace, as he was in fear of his life or some bodily hurt to be done or to be procured to be done to him by H. Fielding and his man. Mr. A. Tucker feared that the man would beat, maim, or kill him. 14th No- vember, 172^." We thus get the exact date of the occurrence, 282 Appendix I 14th November, 1725 (f. ^., when Fielding was eighteen), the fact that he had been staying for some time in Lyme at that date, and the name of his servant. In a further letter of 14th May, 1859, Mr. Roberts referred Mr. Keightley to Mr. James Davidson, a Devon antiquary, in whose History of Newenham Abbey, Longmans, 1845 (surely a most out-of-the-way source of in- formation I), he found the following, derived by the author from the Rhodes family (pp. 165, 166) : '*The estate [of Shapwick, near Axminster] continued but a short time the property of the noble family of Petre, being sold by William the fourth baron, on the loth of November, 1670, to Solomon Andrew of Lyme Regis, a gentleman, who possessed a considerable property obtained by his ancestors and himself in mercantile affairs. From him it descended to his only son, who died at the age of twenty-nine years, leaving two sons and a daughter, the latter of whom, by the decease of her brothers, became heiress to the estate. This young lady was placed under the guardian- ship of Mr. Rhodes of Modbury, and her uncle, Mr. Tucker of Lyme, in whose family she re- sided. At this time Henry Fielding, whose very objectionable but once popular works have placed his name high on the list of novel-writers, was an occasional visitor at the place, and enraptured Appendix I 283 with the charms and the more solid attractions of Miss Andrew, paid her the most assiduous atten- tion. The views of her guardians were, how- ever, opposed to a connection with so dissipated, though well-born and well-educated a youth, who is said to have in consequence made a desperate attempt to carry the lady off by force on a Sun- day, when she was on her way to church. The residence of the heiress was then removed to Modbury, and the disappointed admirer found consolation in the society of a beauty at Salisbury whom he married." There are some manifest misconceptions in this account, due, no doubt, to Mr. Davidson's ig- norance of the exact period of the occurrence as established by the above record in the Lyme archives. In the first place, it must have been four or five years at least before Fielding con- soled himself with Miss Charlotte Cradock, and nearly ten (according to the received date) before he married her. Again, in saying that he was *' dissipated," Mr. Davidson must have been thinking of his conventional after-character, for in 1725 he was but a boy fresh from Eton, and could scarcely have established any reputation as a rake. Nor is there anything in our whole knowledge of him to justify us in supposing that he was at any time a mere mercenary fortune- 284 Appendix I hunter. Finally, according to one of Mr. Roberts's letters to Mr. Keightley, timorous Mr. Tucker of Lyme had a very different reason from his personal shortcomings for objecting to Field- ing as a suitor to his ward. '' The Tucker Family," says Mr. Roberts, ** by tradition con- sider themselves tricked out of the heiress, Miss Andrew, by Mr. Rhodes of Modbury, Mr. Andrew Tucker intending the lady for his own son." Nevertheless, these reservations made, Mr. Davidson's version, although ex parte, sup- plies colour and detail to the story. From a pedigree which he gives in his book, it further appears that Mrs. Rhodes died on the 22d of August, 1783, aged seventy-three. This would make her fifteen in 1725. There remained Law- rence's enigmatical declaration that she was Fielding's cousin. Briefly stated, the result of Mr. Keightley's inquiries in this direction tends to show that Miss Andrew's mother was con- nected with the family of Fielding's mother, the Goulds of Sharpham Park ; and as Mr. Law- rence does not seem to have been aware of the ex- istence of Davidson's book, or to have had any acquaintance with the traditions or archives of Lyme, Mr. Keightley surmises, very plausibly, that his unvouched data must have been derived, directly or indirectly, from the Rhodes family. Appendix I 285 Mr. Keightley also ingeniously attempts to connect Fielding's subsequent residence at Leyden (1726-28?) with this affair by assuming that he was despatched to the Dutch university, instead of Oxford or Cambridge, in order to keep him out of harm's way. This is, however, to travel somewhat from the realm of fact into that of romance. At the same time, it must be admitted that the materials for romance are tempting. A charming girl, who is also an heir- ess ; a pusillanimous guardian with ulterior views of his own ; a handsome and high-spirited young suitor ; a faithful attendant ready to "' beat, maim, or kill " in his master's behalf ; a frustrated elope- ment and a compulsory visit to the mayor — all these, with the picturesque old town of Lyme for a background, suggest a most appropriate first act to Harry Fielding's biographical tragi-comedy. But to do such a theme justice we must «« call up him that left half-told " the story of Denis DuvaL APPENDIX No. II FIELDING AND MRS. HUSSEY At pp. 124-5, vol. i., of J. T. Smith's Nolle- kens and his Times, 1828, occurs the following note : '' Henry Fielding was fond of colouring his pictures of life with the glowing and variegated tints of Nature, by conversing with persons of every situation and calling, as I have frequently been informed by one of my [i.e., J. T. Smith's] great-aunts, the late Mrs. Hussey, who knew him intimately. I have heard her say, that Mr. Fielding never suffered his talent for sprightly conversation to mildew for a moment ; and that his manners were so gentlemanly, that even with the lower classes, with which he frequently con- descended particularly to chat, such as Sir Roger de Coverley's old friends, the Vauxhall water- men, they seldom outstepped the limits of pro- priety. My aunt, who lived to the age of 105, had been blessed with four husbands, and her name had twice been changed to that of Hussey: she was of a most delightful disposition, of a re- Appendix II 287 tentive memory, highly entertaining, and liberally communicative ; and to her I have frequently been obliged for an interesting anecdote. She was, after the death of her second husband, Mr. Hussey, a fashionable sacque and mantua-maker, and lived in the Strand, a few doors west of the residence of the celebrated Le Beck, a famous cook, who had a large portrait of himself for the sign of his house, at the north-west corner of Half-moon Street, since called Little Bedford Street. One day Mr. Fielding observed to Mrs. Hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a novel, which he thought would be his best pro- duction ; and that he intended to introduce in it the characters of all his friends. Mrs. Hussey, with a smile, ventured to remark, that he must have many niches, and that surely they must al- ready be filled. ' I assure you, my dear madam,' replied he, ' there shall be a bracket for a bust of you.** Some time after this, he informed Mrs. Hussey that the work was in the press ; but, immediately recollecting that he had forgotten his promise to her, went to the printer, and was time enough to insert, in vol. iii. p. 17 [bk. x. ch. iv.], where he speaks of the shape of Sophia Western — ' Such charms are there in affability, and so sure is it to attract the praises of all kinds of people.' — ' !t may, indeed, be compared to 288 Appendix II the celebrated Mrs. Hussey/ To which obser- vation he has given the following note : ' A cele- brated mantua-maker in the Strand, famous for setting off the shapes of women/ " There is no reason for supposmg that this neg- lected anecdote should not be in all respects authentic. In fact, upon the venerated principle that " there it stands unto this day To witness if I lie/^ — the existence of the passage and note in Tom Jones is practically suflficient argument for its veracity. This being so, it surely deserves some consideration for the light which it throws on Fielding's character. Mrs. Hussey's testimony as to his dignified and gentlemanly manners, which does not seem to be advanced to meet any particular charge, may surely be set against any innuendoes of the Burney and Walpole type as to his mean environment and coarse conversation. And the suggestion that **the characters of all his friends " — by which must be intended rather mention of them than portraits — are to be found in his masterpiece, is fairly borne out by the most casual inspection of Tom Jones, especially the first edition, where all the proper names are in italics. In the dedication alone are references to the '' princely Benefactions" of John, Duke Appendix II 289 of Bedford, and to Lyttelton and Ralph Allen, both of whom are also mentioned by name in bk. xiii. ch. i. The names of Hogarth and Garrick also occur frequently. In bk. iv. ch. i, is an anecdote of Wilks the player, who had been one of Fielding's earliest patrons. The surgeon in the story of the '' Man of the Hill " (bk. viii. ch. xiii.) '* whose Name began with an R,'' and who ** was Sergeant-Surgeon to the King," evidently stands for Hogarth's Chiswick neighbour, Mr. Ranby, by whose advice Fielding was ordered to Bath in 1753. Again, he knew, though he did not greatly admire, Warburton, to whose learn- ing there is a handsome compliment in bk. xiii. ch. i. In bk. xv. ch. iv. is the name of another friend or acquaintance (also mentioned in the Journey from this World to the Next), Hooke of the Roman History, who, like the author of Tom Jones, had drawn his pen for Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Bk. xi. ch. iv. contains an anec- dote, real or imaginary, of Richard Nash, with whom Fielding must certainly have become famil- iar in his visits to Bath ; and it is probable that Square's medical advisers (bk.xviii. ch. iv.), Dr. Harrington and Dr. Brewster, both of whom subscribed to the Miscellanies of 1743, were well- known Bathonians. Mr. Willoughby, also a subscriber, was probably '^ Justice Willoughby 290 Appendix II of Noyle " referred to in bk. viii. ch. xi. Whether the use of Handel's name in bk. iv. ch. V. is of any significance there is no evidence ; but the description in bk. iv. ch. vi. of Con- science *' sitting on its Throne in the Mind, like the Lord High Chancellor of this Kingdom in his Court," and fulfilling its functions **witha Knowledge which nothing escapes, a Penetration which nothing can deceive, and an Integrity which nothing can corrupt," is clearly an oblique panegyric of Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke, to whom, two years later, Fielding dedicated his Enquiry into the late Increase of Robbers, etc. Besides these, there are references to Bishop Hoadly(bk. ii. ch. vii.), Mrs. Whitefield, of the *' Bell" at Gloucester, and Mr. Timothy Harris (bk. viii. ch. viii.), Mrs. Clive and Mr. Miller of the Gardener s Dictionary (bk. ix. ch. i.) ; and closer examination would no doubt reveal further illusions. Meanwhile the above will be sufficient to show that the statement of the " cele- brated mantua-maker in the Strand" respecting Fielding's friends in Tom Jones is not without foundation. APPENDIX NO. Ill Fielding's will In the Athenceum for i February, 1890, Mr. George A. Aitken, to whom the public is in- debted for so many discoveries in eighteenth- century literature, printed an undated will by Fielding which is now in the Prerogative court of Canterbury. It runs as follows : '* In the name of God Amen. I Henry Field- ing of the Parish of Ealing in the County of Middlesex do hereby give and bequeath unto Ralph Allen of Prior Park in the County of Somerset Esqr. and to his heirs executors ad- ministrators and assigns for ever to the use of the said Ralph his heirs, etc., all my estate real and personal and whatsoever and do appoint him sole executor of this my last will Beseeching him that the whole (except my share in the Register of- fice) may be sold and forthwith converted into money and annuities purchased thereout for the lives of my dear wife Mary and my daughters Harriet and Sophia and what proportions my said executor shall please to reserve to my sons 292 Appendix III William and Allen shall be paid them severally as they shall attain the age of twenty and three. And as for my shares in the Register or Univer- sal Register Office I give ten thereof to my afore- said wife seven to my daughter Harriet and three to my daughter Sophia, my v/ife to be put in im- mediate possession of her shares and my daugh- ters of theirs as they shall severally arrive at the age of twenty-one the immediate profits to be then likewise paid to my two daughters by my executor who is desired to retain the same in his hands until that time. Witness my hand Henry Fielding. Signed and acknowledged as his last will and testament by the within named testator in presence of Margaret Collier, Rich'd Boor, Isabella Ash.'' '* On the 14th of November, 1754," says Mr. Aitken, *' administration (with the will annexed) of the goods, etc., of Henry Fielding at Lisbon, deceased, was granted to John Fielding, Esq., uncle and guardian lawfully assigned to Harriet Fielding, spinster, a minor, and Sophia Fielding, an infant for the use and benefit of the minor and infant until they were twenty-one ; Ralph Allen, Esq., having renounced as well the execution of the will as administration of the goods, etc. ; and Mary Fielding, the relict, having also renounced administration of the goods of the deceased." APPENDIX NO. IV Extracts From '' A Journal Of A Voyage To Lisbon" /. The Captain of the '' Queen of Portugal.''' Thursday^ June 27. — This morning the captain, who lay on shore at his own house, paid us a visit in the cabin ; and behaved like an angry bashaw, declaring that, had he known we were not to be pleased, he would not have carried us for^ool. He added many asseverations that he was a gentleman, and despised money; not for- getting several hints of the presents which had been made him for his cabin, of 20, 30, and 40 guineas, by several gentlemen, over and above the sum for which they had contracted. This behaviour greatly surprised me, as I knew not how to account for it, nothing having happened since we parted from the captain the evening be- fore in perfect good humour ; and all this broke forth on the first moment of his arrival this morn- ing. He did not, however, suffer my amaze- ment to have any long continuance before he clearly show^ed me that all this was meant only as an apology to introduce another procrastina- 294 Appendix IV tion (being the fifth) of his weighing anchor ; which was now postponed till Saturday, for such was his will and pleasure. . . . The particular tyrant whose fortune it was to stow us aboard laid a farther claim to this appella- tion than the bare command of a vehicle of con- veyance. He had been the captain of a privateer, which he chose to call being in the king's service, and thence derived a right of hoisting the military ornament of a cockade over the button of his hat. He likewise wore a sword of no ordinary length by his side, with which he swaggered in his cabin among the wretches his passengers, whom he had stowed in cupboards on each side. He was a person of a very singular character. He had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, from those very reasons that proved he was not one ; and to show himself a fine gentleman, by a behaviour which seemed to insinuate he had never seen one. He was, moreover, a man of gallantry ; at the age of seventy he had the finical- ness of Sir Courtly Nice, with the roughness of Surly ; and^ while he was deaf himself, had a voice capable of deafening all others. . . . A most tragical incident fell out this day at sea. While the ship was under sail, but making, as will appear, no great way, a kitten, one of four of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the Appendix IV 295 window into the water: an alarm was imme- diately given to the captain, who was then upon deck, and received it with the utmost concern and many bitter oaths. He immediately gave orders to the steersman in favour of the poor thing, as he called it ; the sails were instantly slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is, em- ployed to recover the poor animal. I was, I own, extremely surprised at all this ; less, indeed, at the captain's extreme tenderness than at his conceiving any possibility of success ; for if puss had had nine thousand instead of nine lives, I concluded they had been all lost. The boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes, for, having stripped himself of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, he leaped boldly into the water, and to my great astonishment in a few minutes returned to the ship bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. Nor was this, I observed, a matter of such great difficulty as it appeared to my ignorance, and pos- sibly may seem to that of my fresh-water reader ; the kitten was now exposed to air and sun on the deck, where its life, of which it retained no symp- toms, was despaired of by all. The captain's humanity, if I may so call it, did not so totally destroy his philosophy, as to make him yield himself up to affliction on this melan- choly occasion. Having felt his loss like a man, 296 Appendix IV he resolved to show he could bear it like one ; and, having declared, he had rather have lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to thresh- ing at backgammon with the Portuguese friar, in which innocent amusement they had passed about two-thirds of their time. . . . But, to return from so long a digression, to which the use of so improper an epithet gave oc- casion, and to which the novelty of the subject allured, I will make the reader amends by con- cisely telling him that the captain poured forth such a torrent of abuse that I very hastily and very foolishly resolved to quit the ship. I gave immediate orders to summons a hoy to carry me that evening to Dartmouth, without considering any consequence. Those orders I gave in no very low voice, so that those above stairs might possibly conceive there was more than one mas-^ ter in the cabin. In the same tone I likewise threatened the captain with that which, he after- wards said, he feared more than any rock or quicksand. Nor can we wonder at this when we are told he had been twice obliged to bring to and cast anchor there before, and had neither time escaped without the loss of almost his whole cargo. The most distant sound of law thus frightened a man^ who had often, I am convinced, heard Appendix IV 297 numbers of cannon roar round him with intre- pidity. Nor did he sooner see the hoy approach- ing the vessel than he ran down again into the cabin, and, his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled on his knees, and a little too abjectly im- plored for mercy. I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in this posture, but I imme- diately forgave him. And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, I do utterly dis- claim all praise on the occasion. Neither did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact, this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him for a motive which would make men much more forgiving if they were much wiser than they are ; because it was convenient for me so to do. Wednesddf. — This morning the captain dressed himself in scarlet in order to pay a visit to a Devonshire squire, to v/hom a captain of a ship is a guest of no ordinary consequence, as he is a stranger and a gentleman, who hath seen a great deal of the world in foreign parts, and knows all the news of the times. The squire, therefore, was to send his boat for the captain, but a most unfortunate accident hap- pened, for, as the wind was extremely rough and 298 Appendix IV against the hoy, while this was endeavouring to avail itself of great seamanship in hauling up against the wind, a sudden squall carried off sail and yard, or at least so disabled them that they were no longer of any use and unable to reach the ship ; but the captain, from the deck, saw his hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced either to stay on board his ship, or to hoist forth his own long-boat, which he could not prevail with himself to think of, though the smell of the venison had had twenty times its attraction. He did, indeed, love his ship as his wife, and his boats as children, and never willingly trusted the latter, poor things ! to the dangers of the seas. To say truth, notwithstanding the strict rigour with which he preserved the dignity of his sta- tion, and the hasty impatience with which he re- sented any affront to his person or orders, dis- obedience to which he could in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one of the best natur'd fellows alive. He acted the part of a father to his sailors ; he expressed great tender- ness for any of them when ill, and never suffered any, the least work of supererogation to go unre- warded by a glass of gin. He even extended his humanity, if I may so call it, to animals, and even his cats and kittens had large shares in his affections. An instance of which we saw this Appendix IV 299 evening, when the cat, which had shown it could not be drowned, was found suffocated under a feather-bed in the cabin. I will not endeavour to describe his lamentations with more prolixity than barely by saying, they were grievous, and seemed to have some mixture of the Irish howl in them. Nay, he carried his fondness even to in- animate objects, of which we have above set down a pregnant example in his demonstration of love and tenderness towards his boats and ship. He spoke of a ship which he had commanded formerly, and which was long since no more, which he had called the Princess of Brazil, as a widower of a deceased wife. This ship, after having followed the honest business of carrying goods and passengers for hire many years, did at last take to evil courses and turn privateer, in which service, to use his own words, she received many dreadful wounds, which he himself had felt as if they had been his own. II. Mrs, Francis of Ryde, However, as there is scarce any difficulty to which the strength of men, assisted with the cun- ning of art, is not equal, I was at last hoisted into a small boat, and, being rowed pretty near the shore, was taken up by two sailors, who waded with me through the mud, and placed me 300 Appendix IV in a chair on the land, whence they afterwards conveyed me a quarter of a mile farther, and brought me to a house which seemed to bid the fairest for hospitality of any in Ryde. We brought with us our provisions from the ship, so that we wanted nothing but a fire to dress our dinner, and a room in which we might eat it. In neither of these had we any reason to apprehend a disappointment, our dinner consist- ing only of beans and bacon, and the worst apart- ment in his Majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad, being fully sufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy. Unluckily, however, we were disappointed in both ; for when we arrived about four at our inn, exulting in the hopes of immediately seeing our beans smoking on the table^ we had the mortifi- cation of seeing them on the table indeed, but without that circumstance which would have made the sight agreeable, being in the same state in which we had despatched them from our ship. In excuse for this delay, though we had ex- ceeded, almost purposely, the time appointed, and our provision had arrived three hours before, the mistress of the house acquainted us, that it was not for want of time to dress them that they were not ready, but for fear of their being cold or over-done before we should come ; which Appendix IV 301 she assured us was much worse than waiting a few minutes for our dinner. An observation so very just, that it is impossible to find any objec- tion in it ; but indeed it was not altogether so proper at this time, for we had given the most abso- lute orders to have them ready at four, and had been ourselves, not without much care and difficulty, most exactly punctual in keeping to the very minute of our appointment. But tradesmen, inn- keepers, and servants never care to indulge us in matters contrary to our true interest, which they always know better than ourselves ; nor can any bribes corrupt them to go out of their way, whilst they are consulting our good in our own despite. Our disappointment in the other particular, in defiance of our humility, as it was more extra- ordinary, was more provoking. In short, Mrs. Francis (for that was the name of the good woman of the house) no sooner received the news of our intended arrival, than she considered m.ore the gentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself not to that which kindles, but to that which extinguishes fires, and, forgetting to put on her pot, fell to washing her house. As the messenger who had brought my venison was impatient to be despatched, I ordered it to 302 Appendix IV be brought and laid on the table, in the room where I was seated ; and the table not being large enough, one side, and that a very bloody one, was laid on the brick floor. I then ordered Mrs. Francis to be called in, in order to give her instructions concerning it ; in particular^ what I would have roasted, and what baked, concluding that she would be highly pleased with the pros- pect of so much money being spent in her house, as she might have now reason to expect, if the wind continued only a few days longer to blow from the same points whence it had blown for several weeks past. I soon saw good cause, I must confess, to despise my own sagacity. Mrs. Francis, having received her orders, without making any answer, snatched the side from the floor, which remained stained with blood, and, bidding a servant to take up that on the table, left the room with no pleas- ant countenance, muttering to herself that, **had she known the litter which was to have been made, she would not have taken such pains to wash her house that morning. If this was gentility, much good may it do such gentlefolks ; for her part, she had no notion of it." From these murmurs, I received two hints. The one, that it was not from a mistake of our inclination that the good woman had starved us, Appendix IV 303 but from wisely consulting her own dignity, or rather, perhaps, her vanity, to which our hunger was offered up as a sacrifice. The other, that I was now sitting in a damp room ; a circumstance, though it had hitherto escaped my notice, from the colour of the bricks, which was by no means to be neglected in a valetudinary state. My wife, who, besides discharging excellently well her own and all the tender offices becoming the female character ; who, besides being a faith- ful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his part, had, before this, discovered the immoderate attention to neatness in Mrs. Francis, and pro- vided against its ill consequences. She had found, though, not under the same roof, a very snug apartment belonging to Mr. Francis, and which had escaped the mop by his wife's being sat- isfied it could not possibly be visited by gentlefolks. This was a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, lined on both sides with wheaten straw, and opening at one end into a green field, and a beau- tiful prospect. Here, without hesitation, she ordered the cloth to be laid, and came hastily to snatch me from worse perils by water than the common dangers of the sea. Mrs. Francis, who could not trust her own 304 Appendix IV ears, or could not believe a footman in so extra- ordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife, and asked her if she had indeed ordered the cloth to be laid in the barn ; she answered in the affirma- tive ; upon which Mrs. Francis declared she would not dispute her pleasure, but it vv^as the first time, she believed, that quality had ever pre- ferred a barn to a house. She showed at the same time the most pregnant marks of contempt, and again lamented the labour she had under- gone through her ignorance of the absurd taste of her guests. At length Vv^e were seated in one of the most pleasant spots I believe in the kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which there was nothing deficient but the quantity. This defect was, however, so deplorable that we had consumed our whole dish before we had visibly lessened our hunger. We now waited with impatience the arrival of our second course, which necessity and not luxury had dictated. This was a joint of mutton, which Mrs. Francis had been ordered to provide ; but when, being tired with expectation, we ordered our servants io see for something else, we were informed that there was nothing else ; on which Mrs. Francis, being summoned, declared there were no such thing as m.utton to be had at Ryde. When I ex- Appendix IV 305 pressed some astonishment at their having no butcher in a village so situated, she answered they had a very good one^ and one that killed all sorts of meat in season, beef two or three times a year, and mutton the whole year round ; but that, it be- ing then beans and peas time, he killed no meat, by reason he was not sure of selling it. This she had not thought worthy of communication, any more than that there lived a fisherman at next door, who was then provided with plenty of soals, and whitings, and lobsters, far superior to those which adorn a city feast. This discovery being made by accident, we completed the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more ap- petite, more real, solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at White's. It may be wondered at, perhaps, that Mrs. Francis should be so negligent of providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive to her own interest : but this was not the case ; for, having clapped a poll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price to discharge our bodies from her house, the less she suffered any other to share in the levy, the clearer it came into her own pocket ; and that it was better to get twelve pence in a shilling than ten pence, which latter would be the case if she afforded us fish at any rate. 3o6 Appendix IV Thus we past a most agreeable day owing to good appetites and good humour ; two hearty feeders which will devour with satisfaction what- ever food you place before them : whereas, with- out these, the elegance of St. James's, the chard, the perigord-pie, or the ortolan, the vension, the turtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but will never convey happiness to the heart or cheer- fulness to the countenance. Index Addison, Joseph, 25, 139, 176, 213. "Advice to the Nymphs of NewS — -m" (1730), 54. Aitken, George A., 291, 292. Allen, Ralph, of Prior Park, 33, 163, 164, 165, 207 n., 209, 259, 269, 279, 289, 291, 292. "Amelia," 25, 105, 147, 207; published Dec, 175 1, 209 ; advertising expedi- ents, 210; compared with "Tom Jones," 211-213; its characteristics and heroine, 214-227; her portrait, 217-219, 227, 234, 240, 262, 265. Andrew, Sarah, 9, 10, 277- 285. "Apology for the Clergy, An," 88. Arne, Dr. Thomas Augus- tine, 8. AthencBUftiy 255 ; letter to, reprinted, 277, 278 ; Field- ing's undated will, 291, 292. " Author's Farce," The, pro- duced March, 1730, 20; characters, 21; quoted. 22, 23, 24; revised, 1734, 43; quoted, 44-46, 54, 95. 214. Bedford, John, Duke of, 163-165, 204, 288. Booth, Barton, 14, 41, 47. Borrow, George, quoted, 255. Bronte, Charlotte, 88 n. Centilivre, Mrs., 31. Champion, The, 20; first number, Nov. 15, 1793, 84; its scheme, 85, 86; themes, 87 ; contributions, 88-90 ; attacks on Gibber, 91-93; concluding paper, 96, 97, 113, 125, 137, 141, 145, 226, 258, 263. " Charge to the Grand Jury " (1749), 203, 205. Clarke, Mrs. Charlotte, Col- ley Gibber's daughter, 65, 693 7i» 95- Gibber, Golley, 14, 15, 23, 41, 46, 47, 62, 87, 89, 90, 94, 95, 108, 126, 127. Gibber, Theophilus, 32, 41, 42, 43,46,49,70, 71,74, 95- 3o8 index «* Clear State of the Case of Elizabeth Canning " (1753), 229-232. Clive, Mrs. (Miss Raftor), 26, 32, 41, 42, 43, 49, 70, 123, I33» 257, 290. «* Coffee House Politician, The ; or, The Justice caught in his own Trap " (1730), 25, 213, 240. Coleridge, quoted, 173, 182, ,183. Coveni-Gardenjournaly 220 ; first number, Jan. 4, 1752, 223 ; quality of Fielding's contributions, 225, 226, 234, 271. « Covent-Garden Tragedy " (1732), 26, 31, 126, 268. Cradock, Charlotte, Field- ing's first wife, 52, 54, 57, 283. Daniel, Mary (Fielding's second wife), 157, 158, 247. " David Simple," preface to, 152, 153, 204. Davidson, James, quoted, 282-4. " Debauchees, The ; or, the Jesuit Caught" (1732), 26. " Deborah ; or, A Wife for you all" (acted in 1733, never printed), 41. " Description of U n G (alias * New Hog's Norton ') in Com. Hants " (1728), 19. Dickens, 108. " Don Quixote in England " (1734), II; expanded and strengthened, 46-49, 62, 262. Dryden, 28. Edwards, Thomas, quoted, 243-4 n. " Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Rob- bers, etc., with some Pro- posals for remedying this growing Evil" (1751), 205-7, 263, 290. " Essay on Conversation " (1740), 113. "Eurydice" (i737). 77. 136. "Eurydice Hiss'd ; or, a Word to the Wise" (1737), 77»78, 81. " Examples of the Interposi- tion of Providence, in the Detection and Punish- ment of Murder" (1752), 228. Fielding, Anne (Fielding's sister), 5. Fielding, Allen (Fielding's son), 268, 269, 292. Fielding, Charlotte Cradock (Fielding's first wife), 83, 146, 147, 151, 152. Fielding, Edmund (Field- ing's father), 3, 82. Fielding, Edmund (Field- ing's brother), 5. Fielding, Eleanor Harriet (Fielding's daughter), 15 1, 268, 291, 292. Index 309 Fielding, Henry, his an- cestry, 1-3; birth, 3; parents, 4 ; removal to East Stour, 4; mother's death, 5 ; first teacher, Mr. Oliver, 6 ; life at Eton, 6-9; school-fellows of note, 8 ; contemporaries, 8; earhest recorded love- affair, 9-I1; one of his earliest literary efforts, 1 1 ; return from Leyden University to London, 12; his father's second mar- riage, 12 ; choice of a pro- fession, 12; portrait by Hogarth, 12; first dra- matic essay, " Love in Several Masques," 14 ; its favorable reception, 17; the " Masquerade," a poem, 19; "A Descrip- tion of U n G (alias *New Hog's Nor- ton') in Com. Hants," 19; "To Euthalia," 19; be- ginning of his real con- nection with the stage, 19; the "Temple Beau," 20 ; " The Author's Farce " and " The Pleasures of the Town," 20-24 ; rapid production of comedies and farces, 24; the " Coffee House Politician," 25 ; " Letter Writers," 25 ; " Grub Street Opera," 26; " Lottery," 26 ; " Modern Husband," 26 ; " Covent- Garden Tragedy," 26 ; " Debauchees," 26; " Tom Thumb," 27-31 ; the " Mock-Doctor," an adap- tation of Moliere's " Medi- cin malgrehii,^^ 31 ; further levies upon Moliere, 32; version of ^^ VAvare,' 32; the " Miser," 33 ; financial straits, 33-36; character- istics at 25, 34; effect of his mode of living upon his work, 35 ; rapidity and carelessness of production, 36; burlesqued in "Au- thor's Will," 36, 37; identity confused with that of Timothy Fielding, 38- 41 ; " Deborah," 41 ; the " Intriguing Chamber- maid," 41-46; revised version of the " Author's Farce," 41-46; "Don Quixote in England," 46- 49 ; " An Old Man taught Wisdom," 49; "The Uni- versal Gallant," 45-51 ; first marriage, 5 1 ; love- poems, 53-56; life at East Stour, 57 ; the " Great Tvlogul's Company of Comedians," 62; " Pasquin," 62-70 ; " Fatal Curiosity," 70 ; " Histori- cal Register," 70-72; effect of the Licensing Act, 72-76; playwright career closed, 76 ; " Miss Lucy in Town," 77 ; " Wedding Day," 77 ; " Good Natured Man," 77; "Tumble-Down 3TO Index Dick," 77; "Eurydice," 77 ; " Eurydice Hiss'd," 77, 78; admission to the Middle Temple, 82 ; ways as a Templar, 82, 83 ; literary work, 84 ; ** True Greatness," 84 ; connection with the Chauipion^ 84, 85, 87-90 ; attacked in Gibber's « Apology," 90, 91 ; reply thereto, 91 ; animosity to Gibber, 94, 95 ; call to the bar, 96 ; " Of True Great- ness," 97 ; " Vernoniad," 97 ; " The Opposition, a Vision," 98 ; the " Crisis," 98 ; devotion to his profes- sion, 99; "Joseph An- drews," 100, 104-120; effect of Richardson's " Pamela," 103 ; assign- ment of " Joseph An- drews" to Andrew Mil- lar, 119; "Vindication of the Duchess of Marl- borough," 121, 1 22; "Miss Lucy in Town," 123, 124; translation of " Plutus, the God of Riches," 124, 125; relations with Pope, 125, 126; "The Wedding Day " and Garrick, 128- 131 ; three volumes of " Miscellanies," 132, 133; essays " On Conversation," " On the Knowledge of the Character of Men," " On Nothing," etc., 134-136; "A Journey from this World to the Next," 136-I41; "Jona- than Wild," 141-145; domestic history and death of first wife, 145-150; children by his first wife, 151; Preface to "David Simple," 152, 153; Pref- ace to " Familiar Letters," 153; the True Patriot ^ 154; the Jacobite's Jour- naly 154, 155; second marriage, 156, 157 ; Justice of the Peace for West- minster and Middlesex, 159; "Tom Jones," 162- 166, 172-199; a ."new Province of Writing " fore- seen, 168 ; " a humiliating anecdote," 200, 201; chairman of Quarter Ses- sions, 203 ; charge to the Westminster Grand Jury, 203, 204 ; serious illness, 205 ; " An Enquiry into the Causes of the late In- crease of Robbers, etc.," 205,206; connection with the Glastonbury waters, 208, 209 ; " Amelia," 209- 218; the author's apology for the book, 220-222 ; the Covent- Garden Journal^ 223-227 ; " Examples of the Interposition of Provi- dence," 228 ; " Proposal for making an Effectual Provision for the Poor," 229 ; the " Clear State of the Case of Elizabeth Canning," 229-232 ; the beginning of the end, 233, Index 3" 234 ; poor law projects, 234-236; "Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon," 236, 237 ; scheme for the pre- vention of murders and robberies, 238, 239 ; fail- ing health, 239-241 ; de- parture for Lisbon, 243; incidents of the journey, 245-249; letter to John Fielding, 249, 250; ar- rival at Lisbon, 253; death and burial, 253, 254 ; tomb and epitaph, 254» 255; portrait, 255- 258; bust, 258 n. ; char- acter, 259-262; work, 262-266 ; family, 267- 272; posthumous works, 273-275 ; library, 275, 276; romantic attachment for Sarah Andrews, 279- 285 ; Mrs. Hussey's testi- mony, 286-290; his will, 291, 292; incidents of the voyage to Lisbon, 293- 306. Fielding, John (Fielding's half-brother, afterward Sir John), 202, 241, 249, 269, 270, 271, 292. Fielding, John, Canon of Salisbury (Fielding's grandfather), 3. Fieldmg, Louisa (Fielding's daughter), 268. Fielding, Mary Amelia (Fielding's daughter), 268. Fielding, Mary Daniel (Fielding's second wife), 157, 246, 269, 291. Fielding, Sarah (Fielding's sister, author of " David Simple"), 5, 50, 270. Fielding, Sarah Gould (Fielding's mother), 3, 5. Fielding, Sophia (Fielding's daughter), 268, 269, 291, 292. Fielding, Timothy, a third- rate actor, 38, 39, 40. Fielding, William (Field- ing's son), 158, 268, 269, 292. Fox, Henry, Lord Holland, 8, 133. Garrick, David, 15, 97; Garrick and "The Wed- ding Day," 128-131; 133, 275, 289. Geneste, , 20, 32, 38, 47. Gentleman's Magazine, 100, 158, 175, 188, 229, 233. George Eliot, quoted, 168. Goldsmith, Oliver, 107. " Good-Natured Man, The Fathers; or. The" (1779), 77, 128; story of its loss and recovery, 273-275. Gould, Judge Henry (Field- ing's cousin), 99. Gould, Sir Henry, Knt. (Fielding's grandfather), 3»4. Gray, Thomas, 9, 118, 119, " Grub Street Opera " (1731). 26. Henley, John, the Clare- Marker Orator, 20. 312 Index Hill, Aaron, 189, 194. Hill, the Misses, 190-192, 194. Hill, Dr. John, 223. " Historical Register for the Year 1736" (1737), 70, 7i» 73, 75» 76, 81, 262. Hogarth, William, 12, 31, 32, 48, 69; Fielding's testimony to his merits, 89, 90 n., 100, 102, III, 112, 113, 155, 197, 206, 217, 241 n., 254, 255, 256, 257, 265, 2S9. Hooke, Nathaniel, 121, 122, 289. Hunter, William, 246. Hurd, Rev. R., Bishop of Worcester, quoted, 207 n. Hussey, Mrs., 286-288. " Intriguing Chamber- maid," The (1734), 4i» 43. 46. Jacobite's Journal (1747), 154; extract, 155, 159, 162, 165, 189, 204, 223, 260. Johnson, Samuel, 20, 121, 133, 185, 188, 219. "Jonathan Wild the Great, History of the Life of the late Mr.," description, 141-145, 262, 264. " Joseph Andrews, The History of the Adventures of, and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams " (1742), 6, 89, 94; personages, 104-109; details and de- scriptions, 109-I11; per- sonal portraiture, 1 1 1- 114, 114-116; Richard- son and the author, 116— 119; assignment to Mil- lar, 119, 120, 126, 132, 136, 145, 148, 161, 162, 165, 166, 167, 176, 180, 213, 252, 264. " Journey from this World to the Next,"_ A, 34, 54; plan description and ex- tracts, 136-141, 151, 289. Keightley, Thomas (Field- ing's biographer), 4, 6, 19, 52, 58, 59» 82, 84, 107, 144 n., 146, 150, 175, 201, 213, 268, 279, 280, 281, 282, 284, 285. Lang, Andrew, quoted, 168 n. Latreille, Frederick, sub- stance of article in Notes a7id Queries, 39-41. Lawrence, Frederick (Field- ing's biographer), 32, '^^'^^ 92, 94, 96, 107, 124, 131, 158, 201, 209, 225, 272; quoted, 277, 278, 280, 284. ^' VAvare'' (1733), a ver- sion of, 32. " Letter Writers, The ; or, A New Way to Keep a Wife at Home" (1731), 25- " Life and Death of Com- mon-Sense " (See " Pas- Index 313 quin "), description and extracts, 65-69. London Daily Advertiser^ 208, 224. " Love in Several Masques " (1728), 15, 17, 18, 23, 24. Lowell, James Russell, quoted, 258 n. Lyttleton, George, 8, 33, 94, 158, 163, 164, 165, 170, 201, 204, 224 n., 259, 272, 289. Macaulay, Thomas Bab- bington, 262. "Masquerade,'* the (1728), 18. Millar, Andrew, 119, 133, 166, 167, 187, 209, 210, 219, 261. "Miscellanies" (1743), u, 19, 84, 9M9» 122, 124, 129, 131, 132, 136, 141, 142, 145, 146, 152, 153, 236. "Miser," the (1733), 38, 41. " Miss Lucy in Town " (1742), 77, 79, 122, 123, 127. " Mock-Doctor, The ; or The Dumb Lady cur'd " (1732), 31, 128. "Modern Husband," The (1732), 26, 31, 213. Montagu, Lady Mary Wort- ley (Fielding's second cousin), 3, 18, 24,26, 36; quoted, 60, 126, 147, 148, 181, 196, 215, 259. Murphy, Arthur, 5, 7, 11, i3» 33» 57» 59» 78-80, 82, 84, 113, 146, I47» 202, 216, 226 n., 236, 256, 257, 258 n., 259, 273, 274. Odell, Thomas, 19. " Of Good-nature," 134. " Of the Remedy of Afflic- tion for the Loss of our Friends," 136, 146. " Of True Greatness " (1741), 84, 97» 134. Oldfield, Mrs. Anne, 14, 17, 18. "Old Man taught Wisdom, An" (1735), 49. Oliver, Mr. (Fielding's first tutor), 6, 113. "On Conversation," 134. "On Nothing," 134. " On the Choice of a Wife," 134. "On the Knowlege of the Character of Men," 34, 135- " Opposition, The, a Vision " (1739), 98. " Pasquin, a Dramatic Satire on the Times: be- ing the rehearsal of two Plays, viz, a Comedy call'd the Election, and a Tragedy call'd the Life and Death of Common- Sense " (1736), 16, 51; plot, incidents and ex- tracts, 62-70, 72, 73, 75, 76,77, 88,95, 126,262. 3M Index Pelham, Sir Henry, 229, 242. Pitt, William, Earl of Chat- ham, 8, 133, 163. Planche, Gustave, quoted, 211. " Pleasures of the Town, The" (1730), 20. Pope, Alexander, 95, 96, 97, loi, 113, 125, 126, 127, 133. Pratt, Charles, Earl Cam- den, 8, 99. FrofHpiery the, quoted, 50. " Proposal for Making an Effectual Provision for the Poor" (1753), 229. Raftor, Miss, see Mrs. Clive. Ralph, James (Fielding's colleague on the Cha??i- pion), 20, 85, 89, 97, 127. Richardson, John, 14, 42, 69, 77. Richardson, Samuel, li, 52; his "Pamela," loi- 112, 117, 133, 147, 155, 188, 189, 190, 192, 195, 196, 219, 222, 243 n., 264, 274. Roberts, George, Mayor of Lyme, 9 ; quoted, 278, 281, 282, 284. Saintsbury, Prof., quoted, 261, n. Scriblerus Secundus (Field- ing's pseudonym), 20, 25,' 27. Scott, Sir Walter, 202; quoted, 210, 225, 254. Sheridan, Thomas, the actor, 108. Sheridan, Richard, B. B., 275- Smith, J. T., quoted, 286- 288. Smollett, Tobias George, I, 40 ; quoted, 159, 224, 252, 259. Southey, Robert, quoted, 268. Steele, Sir Richard, 139, 140. Stephen, Leslie, quoted, 260. Sterne, Laurence, 107. Stuart, Lady Louisa, 53, 148, 150; quoted, 156, 158, 202. Swift, Jonathan, 30, 56. "Temple Beau," The (1730), 19, 20, 85. Thackeray, William Make- peace, 83. "To Celia," 55, 56. "To Euthalia" (1728), 19. Thomas, Margaret, 258 n. "Tom Jones, a Foundling, The History of" (1749), 6, 7, 10, 52, 80, 105, III, 145, 162, 164, 165, 166; construction of the plot, 169-175 ; the characters, 176-183; the author's humour, irony, humanity, 184-188; its reception, 188; Richardson's atti- tude, 189, 192-196; Aa- ron Hill's daughters and Index 315 the book, 190-192; trans- lators and illustrators, 196, 197 ; adaptations for the stage, 197-199, 206, 211, 212, 213, 217, 226, 233, 241 n., 264, 265, 278, 279, 288, 290. Thomas, Nat. Lee, 27. " Tragedy of Tragedies ; or, the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great '* (1730), description and ex- tracts, 27-31, 126, 262. "Tumble-Down Dick;* or, Phaeton in the Suds " (I737)»77- True Patriot (1745), 15 1, 152, 154, 156, 162, 165, 263. "True State of the Case of Bosavern Penlez, A " (1749), 204. " Universal Gallant, The ; or. The different Hus- bands" (i735)» 49, 5^ 58, 59. Veal, Captain Richard, 252. "Vernoniad" (1741), 97, 100. " Vindication of the Duch- ess of Marlborough '* (1742), 121, 122. " Virgin Unmasked," 49, 123. *< Voyage to Lisbon, Journal of a" (1755), 151, 158, 228, 236, 237, 241 ; quot- ed, 244, 245, 247, 249, 252, 253, 257, 261, 273, 275, 281 ; extracts, 293- 306. Walpole, Horace, 9, 123, 127, 133, 163; quoted, 167, 200, 201, 203, 207, 247, 259, 272, 274. Walpole, Sir Robert, 34, 7 1, 126, 144 n. Walter, Peter, 113. Ward, Dr. Joshua, 241. Warton, Joseph, quoted, 161, 162. " Wedding Day," the (1743), 77, 128, 132, 136. Welch, Saunders, 245, 246, 251, 271. Wilks, Robert, 14, 15, 23, 27» 41, 43. Williams, Sir Charles Han- bury, 8, 133, 274. Winnington, Thomas, 8, i33» 205. Woffington, Mrs., 1 1, 133. Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, 254. YoRKE, Philip, Lord Hard- wicke, 205, 290. Young, Edward, 28, 133. Young, Rev. William, 1 1 2, 120, 124, 125, 226.