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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Henry Fielding: A Memoir + +Author: G. M. Godden + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8136] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 17, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY FIELDING: A MEMOIR *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Robert Connal +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +HENRY FIELDING + +_A MEMOIR_ +INCLUDING NEWLY DISCOVERED LETTERS +AND RECORDS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS +FROM CONTEMPORARY PRINTS + +BY + +G. M. GODDEN + + + + +"I am a man myself, and my heart is interested in whatever can befall the +rest of mankind." + +JOSEPH ANDREWS. + + + + +PREFACE + +New material alone could justify any attempt to supplement the _Fielding_ +of Mr Austin Dobson. Such material has now come to light, and together +with reliable facts collected by previous biographers, forms the subject +matter of the present volume. As these pages are concerned with Fielding +the man, and not only with Fielding the most original if not the greatest +of English novelists, literary criticism has been avoided; but all +incidents, disclosed by hitherto unpublished documents, or found hidden in +the columns of contemporary newspapers, which add to our knowledge of +Fielding's personality, have been given. + +The new material includes records of Fielding's childhood; documents +concerning his estate in Dorsetshire; the date and place, hitherto +undiscovered, of that central event in his life, the death of his beloved +wife, whose memorial was to be the imperishable figure of "Sophia +Western"; letters, now first published, adding to our knowledge of his +energies in social and legislative reform, and of the circumstances of his +life; many extracts from the columns of the daily press of the period; +notices, hitherto overlooked, from his contemporaries; and details from +the unexplored archives of the Middlesex Records concerning his strenuous +work as a London magistrate. The few letters by Fielding already known to +exist have been doubled in number; and a reason for the extraordinary +rarity of these letters has been found in the unfortunate destruction, +many years ago, of much of his correspondence. The charm of the one +intimate letter that we possess from the pen of the 'Father of the English +Novel,' that written to his brother John, during the voyage to Lisbon, +enhances regret at the loss of these letters. + +Among the contemporary prints now first reproduced that entitled the +_Conjurors_ is of special interest, as being the only sketch of Fielding, +drawn during his lifetime, known to exist. Rough as it is, the +characteristic figure of the man, as described by his contemporaries and +drawn from memory in Hogarth's familiar plate, is perfectly apparent. The +same characteristics may be distinguished in a small figure of the +novelist introduced into the still earlier political cartoon, entitled the +_Funeral of Faction_. + +Such in brief are the reasons for the existence of this volume. It remains +to express my warmest acknowledgment of Mr Austin Dobson's unfailing +counsel and assistance. My thanks are also due to Mr Ernest Fielding for +permission to reproduce the miniature which appears as the frontispiece; +to Mr Aubrey Court, of the House of Lords; to Mr E. S. W. Hart, for his +help throughout the necessary researches among the Middlesex Records; to +Mrs Deane of Gillingham; and to Mr Frederick Shum of Bath. And I am +indebted to Mr Sidney Colvin, Keeper of the Department of Prints and +Drawings in the British Museum, in regard to almost every one of the +thirty-two rare prints and cartoons now reproduced. + +G. M. GODDEN. + +_October_ 26, 1909. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I + +YOUTH + +CHAPTER II + +PLAY-HOUSE BARD + +CHAPTER III + +MARRIAGE + +CHAPTER IV + +POLITICAL PLAYS + +CHAPTER V + +HOMESPUN DRAMA + +CHAPTER VI + +BAR STUDENT--JOURNALIST + +CHAPTER VII + +COUNSELLOR FIELDING + +CHAPTER VIII + +_Joseph Andrews_ + +CHAPTER IX + +THE _Miscellanies_ AND _Jonathan Wild_ + +CHAPTER X + +PATRIOTIC JOURNALISM + +CHAPTER XI + +_Tom Jones_ + +CHAPTER XII + +MR JUSTICE FIELDING + +CHAPTER XIII + +FIELDING AND LEGISLATION + +CHAPTER XIV + +_Amelia_ + +CHAPTER XV + +JOURNALIST AND MAGISTRATE + +CHAPTER XVI + +POOR LAW REFORM + +CHAPTER XVII + +VOYAGE TO LISBON--DEATH + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +_From photographs by Marie Leon_. + +Henry Fielding +_From a miniature now in the possession of Mr Ernest Fielding._ + +Sharpham House, showing the room in which Fielding was born +_from a print published in 1826_. + +Sir Henry Gould +_From a mezzotint by J. Hardy_. + +Eton--1742 +_From an engraving of a drawing by Cozens_. + +Anne Oldfield +_From a mezzotint of a painting by J. Richardson_. + +Leyden--1727 +_From an engraving of a drawing by C. Pronk_. + +Kitty Clive as Philida +_From a mezzotint of a painting by Veter van Bleeck, junr. 1735._ + +Frontispiece to Fielding's "Tom Thumb" +_By Hogarth_. + +The Close, Salisbury--1798 +_From an acquatint of a drawing by E. Dayes_. + +Charlcombe Church, near Bath +_From an engraving of a drawing made in 1784_. + +Fielding's house, East Stour, Dorsetshire +_From a print published in Hutchins' "History of Dorsetshire," 1813_. + +Sir Robert Walpole--1740 +_From a contemporary cartoon_. + +"Pasquin" +_From a cartoon depicting a scene in "Pasquin" in which Harlequinades, +etc., triumph aver legitimate drama. Pope is leaving a box. The Signature +"W. Hogarth" is doubtful_. + +Cartoon celebrating the success of "Pasquin" +_From a contemporary cartoon showing Fielding, supported by +Shakespeare, receiving an ample reward, while to Harlequin and his other +opponents is accorded a halter_. + +The Little Theatre in the Haymarket +_From an engraving by Dale, showing the demolition of the Little +Theatre in 1821_. + +The Green Room, Drury Lane +_From the painting by Hogarth, in the possession of Sir Edward +Tennant_. + +The Temple--1738 +_From an engraving of a drawing by J. Nicholas_. + +Henry Fielding holding the Banner of the "Champion" newspaper +_From a contemporary cartoon showing Sir Robert Walpole laughing at the +"Funeral" of an Opposition Motion in Parliament_. + +Cartoon showing Fielding, in Wig and Gown, as a supporter of the +Opposition +_From a print of 1741_. + +Henry Fielding reading at the Bedford Arms +_From the frontispiece to Sir John Fielding's "Jests."_ + +Assignment for "Joseph Andrews" +_From the autograph now in the South Kensington Museum_. + +Beaufort Buildings, Strand, in 1725 +_From a watercolour drawing by Paul Sandby, 1725_. + +Prior Park, near Bath, the seat of Ralph Allen, 1750 +_From an engraving of a contemporary drawing_. + +George, First Baron Lyttelton +_From a portrait by an unknown artist_. + +Theatre Ticket for Fielding's "Mock Doctor" +_The signature "W. Hogarth" is doubtful_. + +Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--1710 +_From an engraving by Caroline Watson, from a miniature in the +possession of the Marquis of Bute_. + +The Bow Street Police Court, Sir John Fielding presiding +_From the "Newgate Calendar"_, 1795. + +Edward Moore +_From a frontispiece in Chalmers' "British Essayists"_ 1817. + +Sir John Fielding +_From a mezzotint of a painting by Nathaniel Hone, R.A._ + +Ralph Allen +_From a chalk drawing by W. Hoare, R.A._ + +Henry Fielding +_From an engraving of a pen and ink sketch, made by Hogarth after +Fielding's death_. + +Henry Fielding, defending Betty Canning from her accusers, the Lord +Mayor, Dr Hill, and the Gipsy +_From a contemporary print, now first reproduced, and the only known +sketch of Fielding made during his lifetime_. + +Justice Saunders Welch +_From an engraving of a sketch by Hogarth_. + +Ryde--1795 +_From an engraving of a drawing by Charles Tomkins_. + +Lisbon--1793 +_From a mezzotint of a drawing by Noel_. + +The design on the cover is a copy, slightly enlarged, of an impression of +Fielding's seal, attached to an autograph letter in the British Museum. + + + + +HENRY FIELDING + + + + +CHAPTER I + +YOUTH + + "I shall always be so great a pedant as to call a man of no + learning a man of no education."--_Amelia_. + + +Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, on the 22nd +of April 1707. His birth-room, a room known as the Harlequin Chamber, +looked out over the roof of a building which once was the private chapel +of the abbots of Glastonbury; for Sharpham Park possessed no mean +history. Built in the sixteenth century by that distinguished prelate, +scholar, and courtier Abbot Richard Beere, the house had boasted its +chapel, hall, parlour, chambers, storehouses and offices; its fishponds +and orchards; and a park in which might be kept some four hundred head of +deer. It was in this fair demesne that the aged, pious, and benevolent +Abbot Whiting, Abbot Richard's successor, was seized by the king's +commissioners, and summarily hung, drawn, and quartered on the top of the +neighbouring Tor Hill. Sharpham thereupon "devolved" upon the crown; but +the old house remained, standing in peaceful seclusion where the pleasant +slope of Polden Hill overlooks the Somersetshire moors, till the birth of +the 'father of the English Novel' brought a lasting distinction to the +domestic buildings of Abbot Beere. In the accompanying print, published +in 1826, the little window of the Harlequin Chamber may be seen, above +the low roofs of the abbots' chapel. + +That Henry Fielding should have been born among buildings raised by +Benedictine hands is not incongruous; for no man ever more heartily +preached and practised the virtue of open-handed charity; none was more +ready to scourge the vices of arrogance, cruelty and avarice; no English +novelist has left us brighter pictures of innocence and goodness. And it +was surely a happy stroke of that capricious Fortune to whom Fielding so +often refers, to allot a Harlequin Chamber for the birth of the author of +nineteen comedies; and yet more appropriate to the robust genius of the +Comic Epic was the accident that placed on the wall, beneath the window +of his birth-room, a jovial jest in stone. For here some +sixteenth-century humorist had displayed the arms of Abbot Beere in the +form of a convivial rebus or riddle--to wit, a cross and two beer flagons. + +Soon after the Civil Wars, Sharpham passed into the hands of the +'respectable family' of Gould. By the Goulds the house was considerably +enlarged; and, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was in the +possession of a distinguished member of the family, Sir Henry Gould, +Knight, and Judge of the King's Bench. Sir Henry had but two children, a +son Davidge Gould, and a daughter Sarah. This only daughter married a +well-born young soldier, the Hon. Edmund Fielding; a marriage which, +according to family assertions, was without the consent of her parents and +"contrary to their good likeing." [1] And it was in the old home of the +Somersetshire Goulds that the eldest son of this marriage, Henry Fielding, +was born. + +Thus on the side of his mother, Sarah Gould, Fielding belonged to just +that class of well-established country squires whom later he was to +immortalise in the beautiful and benevolent figure of Squire Allworthy, +and in the boisterous, brutal, honest Western. And the description of +Squire Allworthy's "venerable" house, with its air of grandeur "that +struck you with awe," its position on the sheltered slope of a hill +enjoying "a most charming prospect of the valley beneath," its +surroundings of a wild and beautiful park, well-watered meadows fed with +sheep, the ivy-grown ruins of an old abbey, and far-off hills and sea, +preserves, doubtless, the features of the ancient and stately domain +owned by the novelist's grandfather. + +If it was to the 'respectable' Goulds that Fielding owed many of his +rural and administrative characteristics, such as that practical zeal and +ability which made him so excellent a magistrate, it is in the family of +his father that we find indications of those especial qualities of +vigour, of courage, of the generous and tolerant outlook of the well-born +man of the world, that characterise Henry Fielding. And it is also in +these Fielding ancestors that something of the reputed wildness of their +brilliant kinsman may be detected. + +For in her wilful choice of Edmund Fielding for a husband, Sir Henry +Gould's only daughter brought, assuredly, a disturbing element into the +quiet Somersetshire home. The young man was of distinguished birth, even +if he was not, as once asserted, of the blood royal of the Hapsburgs. +[2] His ancestor, Sir John Fielding, had received a knighthood for bravery +in the French wars of the fourteenth century. A Sir Everard Fielding led a +Lancastrian army during the Wars of the Roses. Sir William, created Earl +of Denbigh, fell fighting for the king in the Civil Wars, where, says +Clarendon, "he engaged with singular courage in all enterprises of +danger"; a phrase which recalls the description of Henry Fielding "that +difficulties only roused him to struggle through them with a peculiar +spirit and magnanimity." Lord Denbigh fell, covered with wounds, when +fighting as a volunteer in Prince Rupert's troop; while his eldest son, +Basil, then a mere youth, fought as hotly for the Parliament. Lord +Denbigh's second son, who like his father was a devoted loyalist, received +a peerage, being created Earl of Desmond; and two of his sons figure in a +wild and tragic story preserved by Pepys. "In our street," says the +Diarist, writing in 1667, "at the Three Tuns Tavern I find a great hubbub; +and what was it but two brothers had fallen out and one killed the other. +And who s'd. they be but the two Fieldings; one whereof, Bazill, was page +to my Lady Sandwich; and he hath killed the other, himself being very +drunk, and so is sent to Newgate." It was a brother of these unhappy +youths, John Fielding, a royal chaplain and Canon of Salisbury, who by his +marriage with a Somersetshire lady, became father of Edmund Fielding. + +Such was Henry Fielding's ancestry, and it cannot be too much insisted on +that, throughout all the vicissitudes of his life, he was ever a man of +breeding, no less than a man of wit. "His manners were so gentlemanly," +said his friend Mrs Hussey, "that even with the lower classes with which +he frequently condescended to chat, such as Sir Roger de Coverley's old +friends, the Vauxhall watermen, they seldom outstepped the limits of +propriety." And a similar recognition comes from the hand of a great, and +not too friendly, critic. To "the very last days of his life," wrote +Thackeray, "he retained a grandeur of air, and although worn down by +disease his aspect and presence imposed respect on the people around him." + +This Denbigh ancestry recalls a pleasant example of Fielding's wit, +preserved in a story told by his son, and recorded in the pages of that +voluminous eighteenth-century anecdotist, John Nichols. "Henry Fielding," +says Nichols, "being once in company with the Earl of Denbigh, and the +conversation's turning on Fielding's being of the Denbigh family, the +Earl asked the reason why they spelt their names differently; the Earl's +family doing it with the E first (Feilding), and Mr Henry Fielding with +the I first (Fielding). 'I cannot tell, my Lord,' answered Harry, 'except +it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to +spell.'" + +In accordance with the fighting traditions of his race, Edmund Fielding +went into the army; his name appearing as an ensign in the 1st Foot +Guards. Also, as became a Fielding, he distinguished himself, we are +told, in the "Wars against France with much Bravery and Reputation"; and +it was probably owing to active service abroad that the birth of his +eldest son took place in his wife's old Somersetshire home. The date fits +in well enough with the campaigns of Ramilies, Oudennarde and Malplaquet. +Soon after Henry's birth, however, his father had doubtless left the Low +Countries, for, about 1709, he appears as purchasing the colonelcy of an +Irish Regiment. This regiment was ordered, in 1710, to Spain; but before +that year the colonel and his wife and son had a separate home provided +for them, by the care of Sir Henry Gould. At what precise date is +uncertain, but some time before 1710, Sir Henry had purchased an estate +at East Stour in Dorsetshire, consisting of farms and lands of the value +of L4750, intending to settle some or the whole of the same on his +daughter and her children. And already, according to a statement by the +colonel, the old judge had placed his son-in-law in possession of some or +all of this purchase, sending him oxen to plough his ground, and +promising him a "Dairye of Cows." Sir Henry moreover had, said his +son-in-law, declared his intention "to spend the vacant Remainder of his +life," sometimes with his daughter, her husband, and children at Stour, +and sometimes with his son Davidge, presumably at Sharpham. But in March, +1710, Sir Henry's death frustrated his planned retirement in the Vale of +Stour; although three years later, in 1713, his intentions regarding a +Dorsetshire home for his daughter were carried out by the conveyance to +her [3] and her children of the Stour estate, for her sole enjoyment. The +legal documents are careful to recite that the rents and profits should be +paid to Mrs Fielding or her children, and her receipt given, and that the +said Edmund "should have nothing to do nor intermeddle therewith." + +In this settlement of the East Stour farms, to the greater part of which +Henry Fielding, then six years old, would be joint heir with his sisters, +Colonel Fielding himself seems to have had to pay no less than L1750, +receiving therefor "a portion of the said lands." So by 1713 both Edmund +Fielding and his wife were settled, as no inconsiderable landowners, +among the pleasant meadows of Stour; and there for the next five years +Henry's early childhood was passed. Indeed, Mrs Fielding must have been +at Stour when her eldest son was but three years old, for the baptism of +a daughter, Sarah, appears in the Stour registers in November 1710. This +entry is followed by the baptism of Anne in 1713, of Beatrice in 1714, of +Edmund in 1716, and by the death of Anne in the last-named year, Henry +being then nine years old. + +According to Arthur Murphy, Fielding's earliest and too often inaccurate +biographer, the boy received "the first rudiments of his education at +home, under the care of the Revd. Mr Oliver." Mr Oliver was the curate of +Motcombe, a neighbouring village; and we have the authority of Murphy and +of Hutchins, the historian of Dorset, for finding 'a very humorous and +striking portrait' of this pedagogue in the Rev. Mr Trulliber, the +pig-breeding parson of _Joseph Andrews_. If this be so, Harry Fielding's +first tutor at Stour was of a figure eminently calculated to foster the +comic genius of his pupil. "He" (Trulliber), wrote that pupil, some thirty +years later, "was indeed one of the largest Men you should see, and could +have acted the part of Sir _John Falstaff_ without stuffing. Add to this, +that the Rotundity of his Belly was considerably increased by the +shortness of his Stature, his shadow ascending very near as far in height +when he lay on his Back, as when he stood on his Legs. His Voice was loud +and hoarse, and his Accents extremely broad; to complete the whole he had +a Stateliness in his Gait when he walked, not unlike that of a Goose, only +he stalked slower." It appears that the widow of the Motcombe curate +denied the alleged portrait; but the house where Mr Oliver lived, "seemed +to accord with Fielding's description ... and an old woman who remembered +him observed that 'he dearly loved a bit of good victuals, and a drop of +drink.'" Bearing in mind the great novelist's own earnest declaration that +he painted "not men but manners," we may fairly assume that his +Dorsetshire tutor belonged to that class of coarse farmer-parson so justly +satirised in the person of Trulliber. According to another sketch of +Fielding's life, his early education was also directed by the rector of +Stour Provost, "his Parson Adams." [4] + +While Harry Fielding was thus learning his first rudiments, his father, +the colonel, seems to have been engaged in less useful pursuits in +London. The nature of these pursuits appears from a _Bill of Complaint_, +which by a happy chance has been preserved, between "Edmund Fielding of +East Stour, Dorsetshire," and one Robert Midford, pretending to be a +captain of the army. In this _Bill_ [5] the said Edmund declares that in +1716, being then resident in London, he often frequented Princes +Coffee-house in the Parish of St James. At Princes he found his company +sought by the reputed Captain Robert Midford, who "prevailed upon him to +play a game called 'Faro' for a small matter of diversion, but by degrees +drew him on to play for larger sums, and by secret and fraudulent means +obtained very large sums, in particular notes and bonds for L500." +Further, the colonel entered into a bond of L200 to one Mrs Barbara +Midford, "sister or pretended sister of the said Robert"; and so finally +was threatened with outlawry by 'Captain' Midford for, presumably, payment +of these debts. How Colonel Edmund finally escaped from the clutches of +these rogues does not appear; but it is clear enough that his Dorsetshire +meadows were a safer place than Princes Coffee-house for a gentleman who +could lose L500 at faro to a masquerading army captain. Also Sir Henry +Gould's wisdom becomes apparent, in bequeathing his daughter an +inheritance with which her husband was to have "nothing to doe." + +In 1718, two years after Colonel Fielding's experience at Princes, Mrs +Fielding died, leaving six young children to her husband's care, two sons +and four daughters, Henry, the eldest being but eleven years old. Her +death is recorded in the East Stour registers as follows:--"Sarah, Wife +of the Hon. Edmund Fielding Esqre. and daughter of Sir Henry Gould Kt. +April 18 1718." + +About this time (the dates vary between 1716 and 1719) Edmund Fielding +was appointed Colonel of the Invalids, an appointment which he appears to +have held until his death. And within two years of the death of his first +wife, Colonel Fielding must have married again, for in 1720 we find him +and his then wife, _Anne_, selling some 153 acres with messuages, +barns and gardens, in East and West Stour, to one Awnsham Churchill, +Esquire. What relation, if any, this land had to the property of the +colonel's late wife and her children does not appear. + +Some time in 1719, the year after his mother's death, or early in 1720, +Henry was sent to Eton, as appears from his father's statement, made in +February 1721, that his eldest son "who is now upwards of thirteen yeares +old is and for more than a yeare last past hath been maintained ... at +Eaton schoole, the yearely expence whereof costs ... upwards of L60." And +the boy must have been well away from the atmosphere of his home, in +these first years after his mother's death, if the allegations of his +grandmother, old Lady Gould, may be believed. + +These hitherto unknown records of Henry Fielding's boyhood are to be +found in the proceedings of a Chancery suit begun by Lady Gould, on +behalf of her six grandchildren, Henry, Edmund, [6] Katherine, Ursula, +Sarah and Beatrice, three years after the death of their mother--namely, +on the 10th of February 1721, and instituted in the name of Henry Fielding +as complainant. Lady Gould opens her grandchildren's case with a +comprehensive indictment of her son-in-law. After reciting that her +daughter Sarah had married Edmund Fielding "without the consent of her +Father or Mother and contrary to their good likeing," Lady Gould mentions +her husband's bequest to their daughter, Sarah Fielding, of L3000 in trust +to be laid out in the purchase of lands for the benefit of her and her +children "with direction that the said Edmund Fielding should have nothing +to do nor intermeddle therewith." And how Sir Henry did in his lifetime +purchase "Eastover" estate for his daughter, but died before the trust was +completed; and that in 1713 his trustees, Edmund Fielding consenting, +settled the said estate upon trust for Sarah Fielding and her children +after her, the rents and profits to be paid for her, and acknowledged by +her receipt "without her Husband." And that if Sarah Fielding died +intestate the estate be divided among her children. The bill then shows +that Sarah Fielding did die intestate; and that then Henry and his sisters +and brother "being all Infants of tender years and uncapable of managing +their own affairs and to take Care thereof, well hoped that ... their +Trustees would have taken Care to receive the Rents of the said premises," +and have applied the same for their maintenance and education. One of +these trustees, we may note, was Henry Fielding's uncle, Davidge Gould. +This reasonable hope of the six "Infants" was however, according to their +grandmother, wholly disappointed. For their uncle Davidge and his +co-trustee, one William Day, allowed Edmund Fielding to receive the rents, +nay "entered into a Combination and Confederacy to and with the said +Edmund Fielding," refusing to intermeddle with the said trust, whereby the +children were in great danger of losing their means of maintenance and +education. And this was by no means all. Lady Gould proceeds to point out +that her son-in-law had, since his wife's death, "intermarried with +one ... Rapha ... Widow an Italian a Person of the Roman Catholick +Profession who has severall children of her own and one who kept an eating +House in London, and not at all fitt to have the care of [the +complainants'] Education and has now two daughters in a Monastery beyond +Sea." It is not difficult to conceive the attitude of Lady Gould of +Sharpham Park to an Italian widow who kept an eating-house; but worse yet, +in the view of those 'No Popery' days, was to follow. "Not only so," says +her ladyship, "the said Edmund Fielding ... threatens to take your +[complainants] from school into his own custody altho' [their] said +Grandmother has taken a House in the City of New Sarum with an intent to +have [her granddaughters] under her Inspection and where ... Katherine, +Ursula and Sarah are now at school"; and "the said Mr Fielding doth give +out in speeches that he will do with [the complainants] what he thinks +fitt, and has openly commended the Manner of Education of young persons in +Monasteryes." + +This comprehensive indictment against Colonel Fielding received a prompt +counter, the "Severall Answere of Edmund Fielding Esqre ... to the Bill +of Complaint of Henry Fielding, Katherine Fielding, Ursula Fielding, +Sarah Fielding, and Beatrice Fielding, Infants, by Dame Sarah Gould, +their Grandmother and next Friend," being dated February 23 1721, but +thirteen days after Lady Gould had opened her attack. Out of "a dutiful +Regard to the said Lady Gould his Mother-in-Law," Colonel Fielding +declares himself unwilling to "Controvert anything with her further than +of necessity." But he submits that, in the matter of his marriage, he was +"afterwards well approved of and received" by Sir Henry Gould and his +family; that he was also so happy as to be in favour with Lady Gould +"till he marryed with his now wife"; which he believes "has Occasioned +some Jealosye and Displeasure in the Lady Gould, tho' without Just +Grounds." Edmund Fielding then draws a pastoral picture of himself in +occupation of the East Stour estate, placed there by his father-in-law; +of his oxen and dairy; and of the judge's intention of spending half the +remainder of his days with his son-in-law on this Dorsetshire farm. He +admits his share in the trust settlement after Sir Henry's death; and +points out that his brother-in-law, Davidge Gould, made him pay heavily +on a portion of the estate. And he believes that, as his wife died +intestate, all his children are "Intituled to the said Estate in Equall +proportions." + +Then follows the colonel's main defence. His eldest son Henry not being +yet fourteen years of age, he has, ever since the death of his wife, +continued in possession of the premises, taking the rents and profits +thereof, which amount to about L150; and he positively declares that he +has expended more annually on the maintenance and education of the said +complainants, ever since the death of their mother, than the clear income +of the said estate amounts to, and that he shall continue to take "a +Tender and affectionate care of all his said Children." Further, he +professes himself a "protestant of the Communion of the Church of +England," and asserts that he shall and will breed his said children +Protestants of that communion. He protests that his second wife is not an +Italian; nor did she keep an eating-house. He suggests that Lady Gould +took her house at Salisbury "as well with an Intent to convenience +herselfe by liveing in a Towne" as for the inspection of his children. He +"denyeth that he ever Comended the Manner of Education of young persons +in monasterys if it be meant in Respect of Religion." Finally, he says +that he has spent much money on improving the estate; that the income +from the estate is hardly sufficient to maintain his children according +to their station in the world since he is "nearly related to many Noble +Familys"; and he "veryly believes in his conscience he can better provide +for his said Children by reason of his relation to and Interest in the +said noble Familys than their said Grandmother (who is now in an advanced +age, being seventy yeares old or thereabouts)." + +Here, it is plain, was a very pretty family quarrel. No man likes his +mother-in-law to say that he has married the keeper of an Italian +eating-house, especially if the fact is correct; or that he is perverting +his young children's trust money. Neither was Lady Gould likely to be +pacified by her son-in-law's remark that she was now "in an advanced +age"; while his suggestion that his "noble" family would be of far more +advantage to his children than that of the respectable Goulds would have +the added sting of undeniable truth. + +The next extant move in the fray bears date five months later, July 18 +1721, and includes a petition by 'Dame Sarah Gould' that the children be +not removed from the places where they then were until the case be heard; +and Lady Gould adds that if the children's persons or estates be "under +ye management or power of ye said Mr Fielding and his now wife ye Estate +would not be managed to ye best advantage and their Education would not +be taken care of and there would be a great hazard that ye children might +be perverted to ye Romish Religion." Then follows an order in Chancery, +under the same date, "that ye eldest son of ye Defend't. Fielding ... be +continued at Eaton School where he now is and that ye rest of ye children +be continued where they now are." + +The next document merely records the inclusion of Henry's five-year-old +brother Edmund among the plaintiffs. And this is followed by a brief +Chancery order of November 30 1721, that "ye, plaintiff Henry Fielding +who is not [_sic_] at Eaton Schoole be at liberty to go to ye said Dame +Sarah Gould, his Grandmother and next friend during ye usual time of +recess from School at Xmas." + +After these Christmas holidays spent by Henry Fielding with Lady Gould, +doubtless at her house in Salisbury, the Chancery records pass on to the +April following, 1722, when the boy's uncle and trustee Davidge Gould +makes a statement "sworn at Sharpham Park," which concludes that the +witness hears and believes that Edmund Fielding "has already three +children by his present wife who is reputed to be of the Romish church." +In this same month comes another order from the court that Henry be at +liberty to leave Eton for the Whitsun holidays 1722, and to go to Lady +Gould's house. In May Edmund Fielding appears as "of the Parish of Saint +James, in the County of Middlesex," and also as his children's "next +Friend and Guardian." But two days later the long suit is concluded by +the decision of the court, and here Colonel Fielding is, as heretofore, +defendant, Lady Gould being the children's "next friend." + +The case came before the Lord Chancellor on the 28th of May 1722, and was +"debated in the presence of learned Counsels." The trust was upheld, and +Edmund Fielding was required to deliver possession of the estate, +rendering account of the rents and profits thereof since the death of his +first wife; but he was to have "any and what" allowance for improvements, +and for the children's maintenance and education. And it was further +ordered that the children then at school continue at such schools till +further order, and that "upon any breaking up at ye usuall times they do +go and reside with ye Lady Gould their Grandmother that they may not be +under the influence of ye Defendant Fielding's Wife, who appeared to be a +papist." [7] + +So Lady Gould, for all her seventy years, won her case at every point. +And Colonel Edmund Fielding did not only lose the guardianship of his six +children, and the administration of their estate. For there was, we +learn, in court, during the hearing, one Mrs Cottington, the plaintiffs +aunt, "alleadging that there was a debt of L700 due from ye Defendant +Fielding to her"; which debt she offered should be applied for the +benefit of her nephews and nieces. Whereupon the court ordered that if +Mrs Cottington proved the same, a Master in Chancery should purchase +therewith lands to be settled for the "Infants" in like manner as the +trust estate. + +It may be only a coincidence, but L700 is the sum specifically mentioned +in the proceedings brought by Colonel Fielding in October 1722, five +months after the loss of his Chancery suit, against the cardsharper, +Robert Midford, who was then apparently threatening him with outlawry for +the recovery of the gambling debt begun, as we have seen, at Princes' +Coffee-house six years before. Had the colonel borrowed the L700 from Mrs +Cottington, with intent to discharge those debts; and, on being brought +to law by her (on her nephews' and nieces' behalf) for that debt, did it +occur to him to escape from the clutches of the psuedo "Captain" Midford +by pleading, as he now does in this Bill of 1722, that he "was tricked," +and also "that gaming is illegal"? The latter plea has something of +unconscious humour in the mouth of a gentleman who had lately lost L500 +at faro. With this last echo of the coffee-house of St James's, and of +the colonel's financial difficulties, that brave soldier, if somewhat +reckless gambler, the Hon. Edmund Fielding vanishes from sight, as far as +the life of his eldest son is concerned. + +At the triumphant conclusion of his grandmother's suit Henry Fielding +would be just fifteen years of age, and it is impossible not to wonder +what side he took in these spirited family conflicts. No evidence, +however, on such points appears in the dry legal documents; and all that +we have for guide as to the effect in this impressionable time of his +boyhood of the long months of contest, and of his strictly ordered +holidays with his grandmother, is the declaration on the one hand that +"filial piety ... his nearest relations agree was a shining part of his +character," and on the other, the undeniably strong Protestant bias that +appears in his writing. Of his aunt, Mrs Cottington, we get one later +glimpse, when in 1723 she is made his trustee, in place of his uncle, +Davidge Gould, Mrs Cottington being then resident in Salisbury. At the +end of the following year, however, in December 1724, Davidge Gould +resumes his trusteeship, and with the record of that fact the disclosures +yielded by these ancient parchments as to Henry Fielding's stormy boyhood +come to an end. + +From these records it becomes possible to gain some idea of the +surroundings of the great novelist's early youth. Before his mother's +death, indeed, when he was a boy of eleven, we already knew him as +suffering the rough jurisdiction of his Trulliberian tutor, Parson Oliver +of Motcombe village, and perhaps as under the wise and kindly guidance of +the good scholar-parson, who was later to win the affection and respect +of thousands of readers under the name of "Parson Adams." But now, for +the first time, we learn of the disastrous second marriage by which +Colonel Fielding, within two years of his first wife's death, placed a +lady of at least disputable social standing at the head of his household, +and one, moreover, whose Faith roused the bitter religious animosities of +that day. What wonder that the old Lady Gould strove fiercely to remove +Henry Fielding, and his sisters and young brother, from East Stour, when +a Madame Rasa was installed in her daughter's place. And accordingly, as +we have seen, even before the conclusion of the suit, Henry was +provisionally ordered by the Court of Chancery to spend his holidays with +his grandmother. Fielding would then be fourteen years old; and the +judge's decision six months later that future holidays should be passed +with Lady Gould, away from the influence of the second Mrs Fielding, +doubtless severed the lad's connection with his dubious stepmother for +the next six years. His home life, then, during the latter part of his +Eton schooling would be under Lady Gould's care; and was probably spent +at Salisbury. + +Of his Eton life, from his entrance at the school, when twelve years old, +we know practically nothing. From the absence of his name on the college +lists, it may be inferred that he was an Oppidan. It is said that he gave +"distinguished proofs of strong and peculiar parts"; and that he left the +school with a good reputation as a classical scholar. And it is not +surprising to learn that here, as he himself tells us, his vigorous +energies made acquaintance with that 'birchen altar' at which most of the +best blood in England has been disciplined. "And thou," he cries, "O +Learning (for without thy Assistance nothing pure, nothing correct, can +Genius produce) do thou guide my Pen. Thee, in thy favourite Fields, +where the limpid gently rolling _Thames_ washes thy _Etonian_ banks, in +early Youth I have worshipped. To thee at thy birchen Altar, with true +_Spartan_ Devotion, I have sacrificed my Blood." [8] That the sacrifice +was not made in vain appears from the reputation with which Fielding left +Eton of being "uncommonly versed in the Greek authors and an early master +of the Latin classics"; and also from the yet better evidence of his own +pages. Long after these boyish days we find him, in the words of "The man +of the Hill," thus eloquently acknowledging the debt of humanity, and +doubtless his own, to those inestimable treasures bequeathed to the world +by ancient Greece: "These Authors, though they instructed me in no Science +by which Men may promise to themselves to acquire the least Riches, or +worldly Power, taught me, however, the Art of despising the highest +Acquisitions of both. They elevate the Mind, and steel and harden it +against the capricious Invasions of Fortune. They not only instruct in the +Knowledge of Wisdom, but confirm Men in her Habits, and demonstrate +plainly, that this must be our Guide, if we propose ever to arrive at the +greatest worldly Happiness; or to defend ourselves, with any tolerable +Security, against the Misery which everywhere surrounds and invests us." +[9] And that this was no mere figure of speech appears from that touching +picture which Murphy has left us of the brilliant wit, the 'wild' Harry +Fielding, when under the pressure of sickness and poverty, quietly reading +the _De Consolations_ of Cicero. His Plato accompanied him on the last sad +voyage to Lisbon; and his library, when catalogued for sale on behalf of +his widow and children, contained over one hundred and forty volumes of +the Greek and Latin classics. + +Thus, supreme student and master as he was of "the vast authentic book of +nature," there is abundant proof that Fielding fulfilled his own axiom +that a "good share of learning" is necessary to the equipment of a +novelist. Let the romance writer's natural parts be what they may, +learning, he declared, "must fit them for use, must direct them in it, +lastly must contribute part at least of the materials." [10] Looking back +on such utterances by the 'father of the English Novel,' written at the +full height of his power, it is but natural to wonder if the boy's eager +application to Greek and Latin drudgery had in it something of +half-conscious preparation for the great part he was destined to play in +the history of English literature. + +It is clear that Henry Fielding flung his characteristic energies +zealously into the acquirement of the classical learning proffered him at +Eton; but a fine scholarship, great possession though it be, was not the +only gain of his Eton years. Here, says Murphy in his formal +eighteenth-century phrasing, young Fielding had "the advantage of being +early known to many of the first people in the kingdom, namely Lord +Lyttelton, Mr Fox, Mr Pitt, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, and the late Mr +Winnington, etc." + +Of these companions at Eton, George Lyttelton, afterwards known as the +"good Lord Lyttelton," statesman and orator, stands foremost by virtue of +the generous warmth of a friendship continued throughout the novelist's +chequered life. To Lyttelton _Tom Jones_ was dedicated; it was his +generosity, as generously acknowledged, that supplied Fielding, for a +time, with the very means of subsistence; and to him was due the +appointment, subsequently discharged with so much zealous labour, of +Magistrate for Westminster and Middlesex. It is recorded that George +Lyttelton's school exercises "were recommended as models to his +schoolfellows." Another Eton friend, Thomas Winnington, made some figure +in the Whig political world of the day; he was accredited by Horace +Walpole with having an inexhaustible good humour, and "infinitely more wit +than any man I ever knew." Of the friendship with Sir Charles Hanbury +Williams, of which we first hear at Eton, little is known, save the +curious episode of the recovery, many years after its author's death, of +Fielding's lost play _The Good-Natured Man>_, which had apparently been +submitted to Sir Charles, whose celebrity was great as a brilliant +political lampoonist. Of the acquaintance with Henry Fox, first Baron +Holland, we hear nothing in later life; but the name of the greatest of +all these Eton contemporaries, that of the elder Pitt, recurs in after +years as one of the party at Radway Grange, in Warwickshire, to whom +Fielding, after dinner, read aloud the manuscript of _Tom Jones_. +[11] A reference to his fellow-Etonian may be found in one of the +introductory chapters of that masterpiece, where Fielding, while again +advocating the claims of learning, takes occasion to pay this sonorous +tribute to Pitt's oratory: "Nor do I believe that all the imagination, +fire, and judgment of Pitt, could have produced those orations that have +made the senate of England in these our times a rival in eloquence to +Greece and Rome, if he had not been so well read in the writings of +Demosthenes and Cicero, as to have transferred their whole spirit into his +speeches and, with their spirit, their knowledge too." + +However excellent a knowledge of the classics the youthful scholar took +away with him from Eton, the rigours of his studies do not appear to have +diminished that zest for life with which the very name of Henry Fielding +is invested. For the obscurity of these early years is for a moment +lifted to disclose the young genius as having already, before he was +nineteen, fallen desperately in love with a beautiful heiress in +Dorsetshire; and, moreover, as threatening bodily force to accomplish his +suit. The story, as indicated in the surviving outlines, might be the +draft for a chapter of _Tom Jones_. The scene is Lyme Regis. The chief +actors are Harry Fielding, scarce more than a schoolboy; a beautiful +heiress, Miss Sarah Andrew; [12] and her uncle, one Mr Andrew Tucker, a +timorous and crafty member of the local corporation. The handsome Etonian, +who had been for some time resident in the old town, fell madly in love, +it seems, with the lady, who is stated to have been his cousin on his +mother's side. The views of her guardian were, however, opposed to the +young man's suit, Mr Andrew Tucker mercenarily designing to secure the +heiress for his own son. Thereupon Harry Fielding is said to have made a +desperate attempt to carry the lady off by force, and that, moreover, "on +a Sunday, when she was on her way to Church." Further, the efforts of the +impetuous youth would seem to have extended to threatened assaults on the +person of his fair cousin's guardian, Mr Tucker; for we find that +affrighted worthy flying for protection to the arm of the law, as recorded +in the _Register Book_ of Lyme Regis, under date of the 14th November +1725:--"... Andrew Tucker, Gent., one of the Corporation, caused Henry +Fielding, Gent., and his servant or companion, Joseph Lewis--both now 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." No words could more +aptly sum up this delightful story than those of Mr Austin Dobson: "a +charming girl, who is also an heiress; 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' on his master's behalf; a +frustrated elopement 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." +[13] It is possible that Fielding's own pen supplied the conclusion to +this first act. For he tells us, in the preface to the _Miscellanies_, +that a version, in burlesque verse, of part of Juvenal's sixth satire was +originally sketched out before he was twenty, and that it was "all the +Revenge taken by an injured Lover." The story loses none of its zest, +moreover, when we remember that Harry Fielding was at this time still a +Ward of Chancery. + +[1] Chancery Proceedings 1720 sqq. _Fielding_ v. _Fielding_. From the +records of this Chancery suit, instituted on behalf of Henry Fielding and +his brother and sisters, as minors, by their grandmother Lady Gould, are +taken the hitherto unpublished facts concerning the novelist's boyhood, +contained in this chapter. The original documents are preserved in the +Record Office. + +[2] See Appendix A. + +[3] By means of a legacy of L3000 left by her father for his daughter's +sole use, "her husband having nothing to doe with it." + +[4] _History and Antiquities of Leicestershire_. J. Nichols. 1810. Vol. +iv. Part i. p. 292. Nichols does not state his authority for this +statement, and it is not confirmed by local records. See Hutchins' +_History of Dorset_ for the list of Stour Provost rectors. + +[5] Chancery Proceedings, 1722. _Fielding_ v. _Midford_. Record Office. + +[6] Edmund's name was added in October following. + +[7] _Chancery Decrees and Order Books_. Record Office. + +[8] Tom Jones, Book xiii. Introduction. + +[9] Ibid., Book viii., ch. xiii. + +[10] _Tom Jones_, Book ix. Introduction. + +[11] See _infra_, chap. xi. + +[12] Fifty years ago a portrait of the beautiful heiress, in the character +of Sophia Western, was still preserved at the house of Bellairs, near +Exeter, then the property of the Rhodes family. The present ownership of +the picture has, so far, eluded inquiry. + +[13] _Fielding_, Austin Dobson, p. 202. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PLAYHOUSE BARD + + "I could not help reflecting how often the greatest abilities lie + wind-bound, as it were, in life; or if they venture out, and + attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and + tide."--_Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_. + +It was but three years after the Lyme Regis episode that Henry Fielding, +then a lad of one and twenty, won attention as a successful writer of +comedy. Of this his first entry into the gay world there are little but +generalities to record; but, inaccurate as Murphy is in some matters of +fact, there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the engaging picture +which he draws of the young man's _debut_ upon the Town. We read of the +gaiety and quickness of his fancy; the wild flow of his spirits; the +brilliancy of his wit; the activity of his mind, eager to know the world. +To the possession of genius allied to the happiest temper, a temper "for +the most part overflowing into wit, mirth, and good-humour," young +Fielding added a handsome face, a magnificent physique (he stood over six +feet high), and the fullest vigour of constitution. "No man," wrote his +cousin, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, "enjoyed life more than he did." What +wonder that he was soon "in high request with the men of taste and +literature," or that report affirms him to have been no less welcome in +ranks of society not at all distinguished by a literary flavour. + +That a youth so gifted, so "formed and disposed for enjoyment," should +find himself his own master, in London, almost presupposes a too liberal +indulgence in the follies that must have so easily beset him. When the +great and cold Mr Secretary Addison, no less than that "very merry +Spirit," Dick Steele, and the splendid Congreve, drank more than was good +for them, what chance would there be for a brilliant, ardent lad of +twenty, suddenly plunged into the robust society of that age? If +Fielding, like his elders, indisputably loved good wine, let us remember +that none of the heroes of his three great novels, neither that rural +innocent Joseph Andrews, nor the exuberant youth Tom Jones, nor erring, +repentant Captain Booth are immoderate drinkers. The degradation of +drinking is, in Fielding's pages, accorded to brutalised if honest +country squires, and cruel and corrupt magistrates; and there is little +evidence throughout his life to indicate that the great novelist drank +more freely than did the genial heroes of his pen. As regards Murphy's +general assertion that, at this his entrance into life, young Fielding +"launched wildly into a career of dissipation" no other reputable +contemporary evidence is discoverable of the "wildness" popularly +attributed to Fielding. That his youth was headlong and undisciplined is +a plausible surmise; but justice demands that the charge be recognised as +a surmise and nothing more. How keenly, twenty years later, he could +appreciate the handicap that such early indulgences impose on a man's +future life may be gathered from a passage in _Joseph Andrews_ which is +not without the ring of personal feeling. The speaker is a generous and +estimable country gentleman, living in Arcadian retirement with his wife +and children. Descended of a good family and born a gentleman, he narrates +how his education was acquired at a public school, and extended to a +mastery of the Latin, and a tolerable knowledge of the Greek, language. +Becoming his own master at sixteen he soon left school, for, he tells his +listeners, "being a forward Youth, I was extremely impatient to be in the +World: For which I thought my Parts, Knowledge, and Manhood thoroughly +qualified me. And to this early Introduction into Life, without a Guide, I +impute all my future Misfortunes; for besides the obvious Mischiefs which +attend this, there is one which hath not been so generally observed. The +first Impression which Mankind receives of you, will be very difficult to +eradicate. How unhappy, therefore, must it be to fix your Character in +Life, before you can possibly know its Value, or weigh the Consequences of +those Actions which are to establish your future Reputation?" [1] That the +wise and strenuous Fielding of later years, the energetic student at the +Bar, the active and patriotic journalist, the merciless exponent of the +hypocrite, the spendthrift, and the sensualist, the creator of the most +perfect type of womanhood in English fiction (so said Dr Johnson and +Thackeray) should look back sadly on his own years of hot-blooded youth is +entirely natural; but even so this passage and the well-known confession +placed in the mouth of the supposed writer of the _Journey from this World +to the Next_, [2] no more constitute direct evidence than do Murphy's +unattested phrases, or the anonymous scurrilities of eighteenth-century +pamphleteers. + +By birth and education Fielding's natural place was in the costly society +of those peers and men of wealth and fashion who courted the brilliant +young wit; but fortune had decreed otherwise, and at this his first +entrance on the world he found, as he himself said, no choice but to be a +hackney writer or a hackney coachman. True, his father allowed him a +nominal L200 a year; but this, to quote another of his son's +observations, "anybody might pay that would." The fact was that Colonel +Fielding's marriage with Madame Rasa had resulted in a large and rapidly +increasing family; and this burden, together with "the necessary demands +of his station for a genteel and suitable expence," made it impossible +for him to spare much for the maintenance of his eldest son. Launched +thus on the Town, with every capacity for spending an income the receipt +of which was denied to him, the young man flattered himself that he +should find resources in his wit and invention; and accordingly he +commenced as writer for the stage. His first play, a comedy entitled +_Love in Several Masks_, was performed at Drury Lane in February 1728, +just before the youthful dramatist had attained his twenty-first year. In +his preface to these 'light scenes' he alludes with some pride to this +distinction--"I believe I may boast that none ever appeared so early on +the stage";--and he proceeds to a generous acknowledgment of the aid +received from those dramatic stars of the eighteenth-century, Colley +Gibber, Mr Wilks and Mrs Oldfield, all of whom appeared in the cast. Of +the two former he says, "I cannot sufficiently acknowledge their civil and +kind behaviour previous to its representation"; from which we may +conclude, as his biographer Laurence points out, that Harry Fielding was +already familiar with the society of the green-room. To Mrs +Oldfield,--that charming actress + + "In publick Life, by all who saw Approv'd + In private Life, by all who knew her Lov'd"-- + +the young man expresses yet warmer acknowledgments. "Lastly," he +declares, "I can never express my grateful sense of the good nature of +Mrs Oldfield ... nor do I owe less to her excellent judgment, shown in +some corrections which I shall for my own sake conceal." The comedy is +dedicated, with the graceful diction and elaborate courtesies of the +period, to Fielding's cousin, that notable eighteenth-century wit, the +Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and from the dedication we learn that to Lady +Mary's approval, on her first perusal, the play owed its existence. What +the approval of a great lady of those times meant for the young writer +may be measured by the fact that Fielding concludes his dedication by +solemnly 'informing the world' that the representation of his comedy was +twice honoured with Her Ladyship's presence. + +In view of the frequent accusation of coarseness brought against +Fielding, we may quote a few lines of the prologue with which he made his +literary entry into the world. Here his audience are promised + + "Humour, still free from an indecent Flame, + Which, should it raise your Mirth, must raise your Shame: + Indecency's the Bane to Ridicule, + And only charms the Libertine, or Fool: + Nought shall offend the Fair One's Ears to-day, + Which they might blush to hear, or blush to say. + No private Character these Scenes expose, + Our Bard, at Vice, not at the Vicious, throws." + +Thus it was with an honourable declaration of war against indecency and +libel that the young wit and man of fashion, began his career as "hackney +writer." If to modern taste the first promise lacks something of +fulfilment, it is but just to remember that to other times belong other +manners. + +In the play, rustic and philosophic virtue is prettily rewarded by the +possession of a beautiful heiress, while certain mercenary fops withdraw +in signal discomfiture; and that Fielding, at one and twenty, had already +passed judgment on that glittering 'tinsel' tribe, is clear enough from +his portrait of the "empty gaudy nameless thing," Lord Formal. Lord +Formal appears on the stage with a complexion much agitated by a day of +business spent with "three milleners, two perfumers, my bookseller's and +a fanshop." In the course of these fatigues he has "rid down two brace of +chairmen"; and had raised his colour to "that exorbitancy of Vermeille" +that it will hardly be reduced "under a fortnight's course of acids." It +is the true spirit of comedy which introduces into this closely perfumed +atmosphere the bluff country figure of Sir Positive Trap, with his +exordiums on the rustic ladies, and on "the good old English art of +clear-starching." Sir Positive hopes "to see the time when a man may +carry his daughter to market with the same lawful authority as any other +of his cattle"; and causes Lord Formal some moments' perplexity, his +lordship being "not perfectly determinate what species of animal to +assign him to, unless he be one of those barbarous insects the polite +call country squires." In this production of a youth of twenty we may +find a foretaste of that keen relish in watching the human comedy, that +vigorous scorn of avarice, that infectious laughter at pretentious folly, +which accompanied the novelist throughout his life. + +To this same year is attributed a poem called the _Masquerade_, which need +only be noticed as again emphasising its author's lifelong war against the +evils of his time. The _Masquerade_ is a satire on the licentious +gatherings organised by the notorious Count Heidegger, Master of the +Revels to the Court of George II. + +Many years later Fielding reprinted [3] two other poetical effusions +bearing the date of this his twenty-first year. Of these the first, +entitled "A Description of U----n G----(alias _New Hog's Norton_) in +_Com-Hants_" identified by Mr Keightley as Upton Grey in Hampshire, is +addressed to the fair _Rosalinda,_ by her disconsolate _Alexis_. Alexis +bewails his exile among + + "Unpolish'd Nymphs and more unpolish'd Swains," + +and describes himself as condemned to live in a dwelling half house, half +shed, with a garden full of docks and nettles, the fruit-trees bearing +only snails-- + + "Happy for us had Eve's this Garden been + She'd found no Fruit, and therefore known no Sin,"-- + +the dusty meadows innocent of grass, and the company as innocent of wit. +This sketch of rural enjoyments recalls a later utterance in _Jonathan +Wild_, concerning the votaries of a country life who, with their trees, +"enjoy the air and the sun in common and both vegetate with very little +difference between them." With one or two eloquent exceptions there is +scarce a page in Fielding's books devoted to any interest other than that +of human nature. + +The second fragment is a graceful little copy of verse addressed to +_Euthalia_, in which we may note, by the way, that the fair Rosalinda's +charms are ungallantly made use of as a foil to Euthalia's dazzling +perfections. As Fielding found these verses not unworthy of a page in his +later _Miscellanies_ they are here recalled: + + TO EUTHALIA. + + WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1728. + + "Burning with Love, tormented with Despair, + Unable to forget or ease his Care; + In vain each practis'd art _Alexis_ tries; + In vain to Books, to Wine or Women flies; + Each brings _Euthalia's_ Image to his Eyes. + In _Lock's_ or _Newton's_ Page her Learning glows; + _Dryden_ the Sweetness of her Numbers shews; + In all their various Excellence I find + The various Beauties of her perfect Mind. + How vain in Wine a short Relief I boast! + Each sparkling Glass recalls my charming Toast. + To Women then successless I repair, + Engage the Young, the Witty, and the Fair. + When _Sappho's_ Wit each envious Breast alarms, + And _Rosalinda_ looks ten thousand Charms; + In vain to them my restless Thoughts would run; + Like fairest Stars, they show the absent Sun." + +_Love in Several Masks_ was produced, as we have seen, in February, 1728; +and it is a little surprising to find the young dramatist suddenly +appearing, four weeks later, as a University student. He was entered at +the University of Leyden, as "Litt. Stud," on the 16th of March 1728. The +reason of this sudden change from the green-room of Drury Lane to the +ancient Dutch university must be purely matter of conjecture, as is the +nature of Fielding's undergraduate studies, Murphy having lately been +proved to be notably erroneous as to this episode. [4] His name occurs as +staying, on his entry at Leyden, at the "Casteel von Antwerpen"; and +again, a year later, in the _recensiones_ of the University for February +1729, as domiciled with one Jan Oson. As all students were annually +registered, the omission of any later entry proves that he left Leyden +before 1730; with which meagre facts and his own incidental remark that +the comedy of _Don Quixote in England_ was "begun at Leyden in the year +1728," our knowledge of the two years of Fielding's university career +concludes. In February 1730 he was presumably back in London, that being +the date of his next play, the _Temple Beau_, produced by Giffard, the +actor, at the new theatre in Goodman's Fields. + +The prologue to the _Temple Beau_ was written by that man of many parts, +James Ralph, the hack writer, party journalist and historian, who was in +after years to collaborate with Fielding, both as a theatrical manager and +as a journalist. Ralph's opening lines are of interest as bearing on +Fielding's antagonism to the harlequinades and variety shows, then +threatening the popularity of legitimate drama: + + "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 HARLEQUIN'S the Darling of the Town." + +Ralph bids his audience turn to the 'infant stage' of Goodman's Fields +for matter more worthy their attention; and his promise that there + + "The Comick Muse, in Smiles severely gay, + Shall scoff at Vice, and laugh its Crimes away" + +must surely have been inspired by the young genius from whom twenty years +later came the formal declaration of his endeavour, in _Tom Jones,_ +"to laugh mankind out of their favourite follies and vices." + +The special follies of the _Temple Beau_ have, for background, of course, +those precincts in which Fielding was later to labour so assiduously as a +student, and as a member of the Middle Temple; but where, as the young +Templar of the play observes, "dress and the ladies" might also very +pleasantly employ a man's time. But except for an oblique hit at duelling, +a custom which Fielding was later to attack with curious warmth, this +second play seems to yield few passages of biographical interest. Of very +different value for our purpose is the third play, which within only two +months appeared from a pen stimulated, presumably, by empty pockets. This +was the comedy entitled the _Author's Farce_, being the first portion of a +medley which included the '_Puppet Show call'd the Pleasures of the Town_; +the whole being acted in the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, long since +demolished in favour of the present building. + +In the person of Harry Luckless, the hero of the _Author's Farce_, it is +impossible not to surmise the figure of young Fielding himself; a figure +gay and spirited as those of his first comedy, but, by now, well +acquainted with the hungers and the straits of a 'hackney writer.' Mr +Luckless wears a laced-coat and makes a handsome figure (we remember that +Fielding had always the grand air), whereby his landlady, clamouring for +her rent, upbraids him for deceiving her: "Cou'd I have guess'd that I had +a Poet in my House! Cou'd I have look'd for a Poet under lac'd Clothes!" +The poor author offers her the security of his (as yet unacted) play; +whereupon Mrs Moneywood (lineal ancestress of Mrs Raddles) pertinently +cries out: "I would no more depend on a Benefit-Night of an unacted Play, +than I would on a Benefit-Ticket in an undrawn Lottery." Luckless next +appeals to what should be his landlady's heart, assuring her that unless +she be so kind as to invite him "I am afraid I shall scarce prevail on my +Stomach to dine to-day." To which the enraged lady answers: "O never fear +that: you will never want a Dinner till you have dined at all the +Eating-houses round.--No one shuts their Doors against you the first time; +and I scarce think you are so kind, seldom to trouble them a second." And +that the good landlady had some grounds for her wrath is but too apparent +when she announces: "Well, I'm resolv'd when you are gone away (which I +heartily hope will be very soon) I'll hang over my Door in great red +Letters, _No Lodging for Poets_ ... My Floor is all spoil'd with Ink, my +Windows with Verses, and my Door has been almost beat down with Duns.' +While the landlady is still fuming, enters our author's man, Jack. + + "_Jack_. An't please your Honour, I have been at my Lord's, + and his Lordship thanks you for the Favour you have offer'd of + reading your Play to him; but he has such a prodigious deal of + Business he begs to be excus'd. I have been with Mr _Keyber_ + too: he made no Answer at all...." + + "_Luckless_. Jack. + + "_Jack_. Sir. + + "_Luckless_. Fetch my other Hat hither. Carry it to the + Pawnbroker's. + + "_Jack_. To your Honour's own Pawnbroker. + + "_Luckless_. Ay And in thy way home call at the Cook's Shop. + So, one way or other I find, my Head must always provide for my + Belly." + +At which moment enters the caustic, generous Witmore, belabouring the +profanity, the scurrility, the immodesty, the stupidity of the age with +one hand, the while he pays his friend's rent with the other; and who, +incidentally, is requested by that irascible genius to kick a worthy +publisher down the stairs, on the latter's refusal to give fifty +shillings "no, nor fifty farthings" for his play. Once mollified by the +settlement of her bill, we have the landlady playing advocate for her +hapless lodger in words that sound very like the apologia of Mr Harry +Fielding himself: "I have always thought, indeed, Mr _Luckless_ had a +great deal of Honesty in his Principles; any Man may be unfortunate: but I +knew when he had Money I should have it...." And the good woman's +reminiscence that while her lodger had money her doors were thundered at +every morning between four and five by coachmen and chairmen; and her wish +that that pleasant humour'd gentleman were "but a little soberer," +finishes, we take it, the portrait of the Fielding of 1730. "Jack call a +coach; and d'ye hear, get up behind it and attend me," cries the +improvident poet, the moment his generous friend has left him; and so we +are sure did young Mr Fielding put himself and his laced coat into a +coach, and mount his man behind it, whenever the exigencies of duns and +hunger were for a moment abated. And with as gallant a humour as that of +his own Luckless did he walk afoot, when those "nine ragged jades the +muses" failed to bring him a competency. + +Such failure on the part of the Muses was due to no want of wooing on his +part. During the six years between Fielding's first appearance as dramatic +author in 1728, and his marriage in 1734, there stand no fewer than +thirteen plays to his name. Of these none have won any lasting reputation; +and to this period of the great novelist's life may doubtless be applied +Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's description, when lamenting that her kinsman +should have been "forced by necessity to publish without correction, and +throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, +if meat could have been got without money, and money without scribbling." +Lady Mary's account moreover is reinforced by Murphy's classical periods: +"Mr Fielding's case was generally the same with that of the poet described +by Juvenal; with a great genius, he must have starved if he had not sold +his performance to a favourite actor. _Esurit, intactam Paridi, nisi +vendit Agaven_." A complete list of all these ephemera will be found in +the bibliography at the end of this volume; here we need but notice those +to which a special interest attaches. Thus, that incomparable comic +actress, Kitty Clive, was cast for a part in the _Lottery_, a farce +produced in 1731; and three years later Fielding is adapting for her, +especially, the _Intriguing Chambermaid_. It was in these two plays, and +that of the _Virgin Unmasked_, that the town discovered the true comic +genius of Kitty Clive "the best player I ever saw," in Dr Johnson's +opinion. For this discovery Fielding takes credit to himself, in the +dedication addressed to Mrs Clive, which he prefixed to the _Intriguing +Chambermaid_; and in which he finds opportunity to pay a noble tribute to +the private life of that inimitable hoyden of the stage. "I cannot help +reflecting" he writes, "that the Town hath one great obligation to me, who +made the first discovery of your great capacity, and brought you earlier +forward on the theatre, than the ignorance of some and the envy of others +would have otherwise permitted.... But as great a favorite as you at +present are with the audience you would be much more so were they +acquainted with your private character ... did they see you, who can charm +them on the stage with personating the foolish and vicious characters of +your sex, acting in real life the part of the best Wife, the best +Daughter, the best Sister, and the best Friend." That this splendid praise +was as sincere as it was generous need not be doubted. No breath of +slander, even in that slanderous age, seems ever to have dulled the +reputation of the queen of comedy, and "better romp than any I ever saw in +nature"--to quote Dr Johnson again,--Kitty Clive. + +So few of Fielding's letters have been, to our knowledge, preserved, that +the following note addressed to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and concerning +the _Modern Husband_, a comedy produced in 1731 or 1732, must here be +given, though containing little beyond the fact that the dramatist of +three years' standing seems still to have placed as high a value on his +cousin's judgment, as when recording her approval of his first effort for +the stage. The play was a piece of admittedly moral purpose, and was +dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole. The first line of the autograph is, +apparently, missing. + + +"I hope your Ladyship will honour the Scenes, which I presume to lay +before you, with your Perusal. As they are written on a Model I never yet +attempted, I am exceedingly anxious least they should find least Mercy +from you than my lighter Productions. It will be a slight compensation to +the modern Husband, that your Ladyship's censure will defend him from the +Possibility of any other Reproof, since your least Approbation will +always give me a Pleasure, infinitely superior to the loudest Applauses +of a Theatre. For whatever has past your judgment, may, I think without +any Imputation of Immodesty, refer Want of Success to Want of Judgment in +an Audience. I shall do myself the honour of waiting on your Ladyship at +Twickenham next Monday to receive my Sentence, and am, Madam, with the +most devoted Respect + +"Your Ladyship's +"most Obedient most humble Servant +"Henry Ffielding. [5] + +"London 7'br 4." + +In 1731-32 the burlesque entitled the _Tragedy of Tragedies; or the Life +and Death of Tom Thumb the Great_, took the Town. The _Tragedy_ parodies +the absurdities of tragedians; and so far won immortality that in 1855 it +was described as still holding the stage. But its chief modern interest +lies in the tradition that Swift once observed that he "had not laughed +above twice" in his life,--once at the tricks of a merry-andrew, and again +when Fielding's Tom Thumb killed the ghost. The design for the +frontispiece of the edition of 1731, here reproduced, is from the pencil +of Hogarth; and is the first trace of a connexion between Fielding and the +painter who was to be honoured so frequently in his pages. An adaptation +from Moliere, produced in 1733, under the title of the _Miser_, won from +Voltaire the praise of having added to the original "quelques beautes de +dialogue particulieres a sa [Fielding's] nation." The leading character in +the _Miser_, Lovegold, became a stock part, and survived to our own days, +having been a favourite with Phelps. In _Don Quixote in England_, produced +in 1733 or 34, [6] Fielding reappears in the character of patriotic censor +with the design, as appears from the dedication to Lord Chesterfield, of +representing "the Calamities brought on a Country by general Corruption." +No less than fifteen songs are interspersed in the play, and it is matter +for curious conjecture why none of them was chosen for a reprint among the +collected verses published ten years later in the _Miscellanies_. Time has +almost failed to preserve even the hunting-song beginning finely-- + + "The dusky Night rides down the Sky, + And ushers in the Morn; + The Hounds all join in glorious Cry, + The Huntsman winds his Horn:" + +But a happier fate has befallen the fifth song, now familiar as the first +verse of the _Roast Beef of Old England_. It is eminently appropriate that +the most distinctly national of English novelists should have written: + + "_When mighty Rost Beef was the_ Englishman's _food, + It ennobled our Hearts, and enriched our Blood; + Our Soldiers were brave and our Courtiers were good. + Oh, the Rost Beef of old England, + And old_ England's _Rost Beef!_ + + "_Then_, Britons, _from all nice Dainties refrain, + Which effeminate_ Italy, France, _and_ Spain; + _And mighty Rost Beef shall command on the Main. + Oh, the Rost Beef_, etc." + +To this truly prolific period of the young 'hackney writer's' pen belongs +an _Epilogue_, hitherto overlooked, written for Charles Johnson's five-act +play _Caelia or the Perjur'd Lover_, and spoken by Kitty Clive. The lines, +which are hardly worth reprinting, consist of an ironic attack on the +laxity of town morals, where "Miss may take great liberties upon her," and +each woman is virtuous till she be found out. + +An average of two plays a year is a record scarcely conducive to literary +excellence; any more than is the empty cupboard, and the frequent recourse +to 'your honour's own pawnbroker,' so often and so honourably familiar to +struggling genius. "The farces written by Mr Fielding," says Murphy"... +were generally the production of two or three mornings, so great was his +facility in writing"; and we have seen Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's +assertion that much of his work would have been thrown into the fire had +not his dinner gone with it. Of the struggles of these early years [7] +(struggles never wholly remitted, for, to quote Lady Mary again, Fielding +would have wanted money had his hereditary lands been as extensive as his +imagination) we get further suggestions in the _Poetical Epistle_ +addressed to Sir Robert Walpole when the young poet was but twenty-three. +The lines go with a gallant spirit, but it is not difficult to detect a +savour of grim hardship behind the jests: + + "While at the Helm of State you ride, + Our Nation's Envy and its Pride; + While foreign Courts with Wonder gaze, + And curse those Councils which they praise; + Would you not wonder, Sir, to view + Your Bard a greater Man than you? + Which that he, is you cannot doubt, + When you have heard the Sequel out. + . . . . . + "The Family that dines the latest, + Is in our Street esteem'd the greatest; + But latest Hours must surely fall + Before him who ne'er dines at all. + + Your Taste in Architect, you know, + Hath been admir'd by Friend and Foe; + But can your earthly Domes compare + With all my Castles--in the Air? + + "We're often taught it doth behove us + To think those greater who're above us; + Another Instance of my Glory, + Who live above you, twice two Story, + And from my Garret can look down + On the whole Street of Arlington." [8] + +Not to depend too greatly on Mr Luckless for our picture of Fielding as a +playwright, we will conclude it with the well-known passage from Murphy: +"When he had contracted to bring on a play, or a farce, 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 +delighted." Would that some of those friends had recorded for our delight +the wit that, alas! has vanished like the smoke through which it was +engendered. What would we not give for the table-talk of Henry Fielding. + +[1] _Joseph Andrews_, Book iii. Chap. iii. + +[2] _Miscellanies_, ed. 1743, vol. ii. p. 62. + +[3] In the _Miscellanies_ of 1743. + +[4] _Fielding_, Austin Dobson, 1907. App. iv. + +[5] What appears to be the original autograph of the above letter is now +(1909) in the library of the Boston Athenaeum, having been presented by Mr +C. P. Greenough. + +[6] _Notitia Dramatica_ (British Museum. MSS. Dept.) and Genest give 1734 +as the date of Don Quixote; Murphy, edition of 1766, vol. iii p. 249, +gives 1733. + +[7] For the refutation of Genest's confusion of Timothy Fielding, a +strolling player, with Henry Fielding, see Austin Dobson, _Fielding_, pp. +28, 29. + +[8] The _Miscellanies_. Edition 1743. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MARRIAGE + + + "What happiness the world affords equal to the possession of such + a woman as Sophia I sincerely own I have never yet discovered." + --_Tom Jones_. + +Out of the paint and powder of the green-room, the tobacco clouds of the +tavern, the crowded streets where hungry genius went afoot one day, and +rode in a coach the next--in a word, out of the Town as Harry Fielding +knew it--we step, in the year 1734, into the idyll of his life, his +marriage with Charlotte Cradock. For to Fielding the supreme gift was +accorded of passionate devotion to a woman of whose charm and virtue he +himself has raised an enduring memorial in the lovely portrait of Sophia +Western. It is this portrait, explicitly admitted [1], that affords almost +our only authentic knowledge of Charlotte Cradock, beyond the meagre facts +that her home was in Salisbury, and that there she and her sisters reigned +as country belles. For it was not in the gay world of 'Riddoto's, Opera's, +and Plays,' nor among the humbler scenes of the great city in which he +delighted to watch the humours of simple folk (the highest life being in +his opinion 'much the dullest'), that Fielding found his wife. Doubtless +his six years about town, as hackney author, with his good birth, his +brilliant wit, and his scanty means, had made him well acquainted with +every phase of society, "from the Minister at his Levee, to the Bailiff at +his spunging-house; from the Duchess at her drum, to the Landlady behind +her bar"; but it was in the rural seclusion of an old cathedral town that +he wooed and won the beautiful Miss Cradock. Indeed it is impossible to +conceive of Sophia as for ever domiciled in streets. The very apostrophe +which heralds her first appearance in _Tom Jones_ is fragrant with +flower-enamelled meadows, fresh breezes, and the songs of birds "whose +sweetest notes not even Handel can excel"; and it is thus, with his +reader's mind attuned to the appropriate key, that Fielding ushers in his +heroine: "... lo! adorned with all the Charms in which Nature can array +her; bedecked with Beauty, Youth, Sprightliness, Innocence, Modesty, and +Tenderness, breathing Sweetness from her rosy Lips, and darting Brightness +from her sparkling Eyes, the lovely _Sophia_ comes." Of middle size, but +rather inclining to tall, with dark hair "curled so gracefully on her neck +that few could believe it to be her own," a forehead rather low, arched +eyebrows, and lustrous black eyes, a mouth that "exactly answered Sir John +Suckling's description in those lines + + 'Her lips were red and one was thin, + Compar'd to that was next her chin. + Some bee had stung it newly,'" + +with a dimple in the right cheek, and a complexion rather more of the +lily than the rose unless increased by exercise or modesty when no +vermilion could equal it--such was the appearance of Sophia, who, most of +all "resembled one whose image never can depart from my breast." + +Nor was the beautiful frame, Fielding hastens to add, disgraced by an +unworthy inhabitant. He lingers on the sweetness of temper which +"diffused a glory over her countenance which no regularity of features +can give"; on her perfect breeding, "though wanting perhaps a little of +that ease in her behaviour which is to be acquired only by habit, and +living within what is called the polite circle"; on the "noble, elevated +qualities" which outshone even her beauty. + +The only facts recorded concerning Miss Cradock are that her home was in +Salisbury, or New Sarum as the city was then called, and that she +possessed a small fortune. It is said, but on what authority is not +stated, that she was one of three beautiful sisters, the belles of the +country town; and it is in accordance with this tradition that Fielding +should celebrate in some verses "writ when the Author was very young," +the beauty and intellectual charm of the Miss Cradocks. When printing +these verses many years afterwards, in his _Miscellanies_ he describes the +poem as originally partly filled in with the 'Names of several young +Ladies,' which part he now omits, "the rather, as some Freedoms, tho' +gentle ones, were taken with little Foibles in the amiable Sex, whom to +affront in Print, is, we conceive, mean in any Man, and scandalous in a +Gentleman." Certainly the Miss Cradocks suffered no affront in the lines +retained, wherein the young poet affirms that of all the famed nymphs of +Sarum, that favoured city, + + "Whose Nymphs excel all Beauty's Flowers, + As thy high Steeple doth all Towers" + +the 'C----cks' were the best and fairest. Nay, has not great Jove himself +apportioned a 'celestial Dower' to these most favoured of maidens, + + "To form whose lovely Minds and Faces + I stript half Heaven of its Graces." + +From this charming sisterhood Harry Fielding won his bride, but not until +four years of waiting had been accomplished. So much may be assumed from +the early date of the verses entitled "Advice to the Nymphs of _New +S---m_. Written in the Year 1730." Here the newly returned student from +Leyden, the successful dramatist from Drury Lane, bids the Salisbury +beauties cease their vain endeavours to contend with the matchless charms +of his Celia. And here, in a pretty compliment introduced to the great Mr +Pope, then at the height of his fame, we are reminded that Celia's lover +is already a man of letters, for all his mere three and twenty years. When +Celia meets her equal, then, he declares, farthing candles shall eclipse +the moon, and "sweet _Pope_ be dull." + +It is these youthful love-verses, verses as he himself was the first to +admit, that were 'indeed Productions of the Heart rather than the Head,' +that afford our only record of Fielding's wooing. Thus, he sings his +passion for _Celia_ in the declaration + + "I hate the Town, and all its Ways; + Ridotto's, Opera's, and Plays; + The Ball, the Ring, the Mall, the Court; + Where ever 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," + +in short, the whole world 'cram'd all together,' because all his heart is +engrossed for Celia. Again, Cupid is called to account, in that the +careless urchin had left Celia's house unguarded from thieves, save for +an old fellow "who sat up all Night, with a Gun without any Ammunition." +Celia, it seems, had apprehended robbery, and her poet's rest is troubled: + + "For how should I Repose enjoy, + While any fears your Breast annoy? + Forbid it Heav'n, that I should be + From any of your Troubles free." + + +Cupid explains his desertion by ingeniously declaring that a sigh from +Celia had blown him away + + "_to Harry Fielding's breast_," + +in which lodging the 'wicked Child' wrought unconscionable havoc. Again, +Celia wishes to have a "Lilliputian to play with," so she is promptly +told that her lover would doff five feet of his tall stature, to meet her +pleasure, and + + "Then when my Celia walks abroad + I'd be her pocket's little Load: + Or sit astride, to frighten People, + Upon her Hat's new fashion'd Steeple." + +Nay, to be prized by Celia, who would not even take the form of her +faithful dog Quadrille. + +Jove, we may remember, had dowered the lovely Miss Cradocks with minds as +fair as their persons; and the excellence of Celia's understanding is +again celebrated in a neatly turned verse upon her 'having blamed Mr Gay +for his Severity on her Sex.' Had other women known a tenderness like +hers, cries the poet, Gay's darts had returned into his own bosom; and +last of all should such blame come from her + + "in whose accomplish'd Mind + The strongest Satire on thy Sex we find." + + +The love story that first ran to such pleasant rhymes, in the old +cathedral town, was destined to know many a harsh chapter of poverty and +sickness; but throughout it all the affection of the lovers remained +true; and there is no reason to doubt that, had it been in Harry +Fielding's power to achieve it, the promise of perhaps the most charming +of his love verses would have been fulfilled: + + "Can there on Earth, my _Celia_, be, + A Price I would not pay for thee? + Yes, one dear precious Tear of thine + Should not be shed to make thee mine." + +To read Swift's _Journal to Stella_ is almost a sacrilege; the little +notes that Dick Steele would write to his 'dearest Prue' at all hours of +day and night, from tavern and printing office, are scarce less private; +no such seals have been broken, no such records preserved, of the love +story of Harry Fielding. But to neither Swift nor Steele was it given to +raise so perfect and imperishable a memorial of the women loved by them, +as that reared by the passionate affection and grief of Fielding for +Charlotte Cradock. To this day the beautiful young figure of Sophia +Western, all charm and goodness, is alive in his immortal pages. And if, +as her friend Lady Bute asserts, Amelia also is Mrs Fielding's portrait, +then we know her no less intimately as wife and mother. We watch her brave +spirit never failing under the most cruel distresses and conflicts; we +play with her children in their little nursery; we hear her pleasant wit +with the good parson; we feel her fresh beauty, undimmed in the poor +remnants of a wardrobe that has gone, with her trinkets, to the +pawnbroker; we see a hundred examples of her courage and tenderness and +generosity. There is nothing in Fielding's life that is more to his honour +than the brief words in which so competent an observer as Lady Bute summed +up his marriage with Charlotte Cradock, "he loved her passionately and she +returned his affection." + +It was in the little country church of St Mary Charlcombe, a remote +village some two miles from Bath, that "Henry Fielding, of ye Parish of St +James in Bath, Esq., and Charlotte Cradock of ye same Parish, spinster" +were married, on the 28th of November 1734. [2] Fifty years later the +village was described as containing only nine houses, the church, well +fitted for the flock, being but eighteen feet wide. The old Somerset +historian, Collinson, tells us how the hamlet stood on rising ground, in a +deep retired valley, surrounded by noble hills, and with a little stream +winding through the vale. + +In the January following Fielding and his wife were presumably back in +town; for in this month he produced, at Drury Lane, the brisk little +farce called _An Old Man taught Wisdom_, a title afterwards changed to the +_Virgin Unmasked_. It is probable that this farce was especially written +to suit Kitty Clive in her excelling character of hoyden; and to it, as we +have seen, together with two of its predecessors, is assigned the credit +of having first given that superb comic actress an opportunity of +revealing her powers. Mrs Clive here played the part of Miss Lucy, a +forward young lady who after skittishly interviewing a number of suitors +proposed by her father, finally runs away with Thomas the footman. The +little piece is said to have achieved success; but scarce had it been +staged when "the prolific Mr Fielding," as a newspaper of the day styles +him, brought out a five-act comedy, named the _Universal Gallant: or The +different Husbands_, which wholly failed to please the audience, and +indeed ran but for three nights. + +The dedication of this play is dated from "Buckingham Street, Feb. 12," +and assuming Buckingham Street, Strand, to be the district meant, it is +probable that the newly married 'poet' and his wife were then living with +Mrs Fielding's relatives; for although the rate-books for Buckingham +Street fail to show the name of Fielding, they do show that a Mr Thomas +Cradock was then a householder in the street. In an _Advertisement_, +prefixed to the published copies of this ill-fated comedy, the +disappointed author deprecates the hasty voice of the pit in words that +suggest the anxiety of a man now responsible for a happiness dearer than +his own. "I have heard," he writes, "that there are some young Gentlemen +about this Town who make a Jest of damning Plays--but did they seriously +consider the Cruelty they are guilty of by such a Practice, I believe it +would prevent them"; the more, that if the author be "so unfortunate to +depend on the success of his Labours for his Bread, he must be an inhuman +Creature indeed, who would out of sport and wantonness prevent a Man from +getting a Livelihood in an honest and inoffensive Way, and make a jest of +starving him and his Family." There is other evidence that young men about +town were wont to amuse themselves by damning plays 'when George was +King.' In the _Prologue_ to this same condemned play, spoken by the actor +Quin, and said to have been written after the disastrous first night's +performance, a more elaborate indictment is laid against the audiences of +the day. The _Critick_, it seems, is grown so captious that if a poet +seeks new characters he is denounced for dealing in monsters; if they are +known and common, then he is a plagiarist; if his scenes are serious they +are voted dull; if humorous they are 'low' (a true Fielding touch). And +not only the critic but also the brainless beau stands, as we have seen, +ready to make sport of the poor author. For such as these + + _"'Tis not the Poet's wit affords the Jest, + But who can Cat-call, Hiss, or Whistle best."_ + +In previous years the brilliant Leyden student might have merely derided +his enemies; to the Fielding of February 1735, struggling to support +himself and his beautiful country bride, this 'cruel usage' of his 'poor +Play' assumed a graver aspect: + + _"Can then another's Anguish give you Joy? + Or is it such a Triumph to destroy? + We, like the fabled Frogs, consider thus, + This may be Sport to you, but it is Death to us."_ + +This note of personal protest recalls an indisputably reminiscent +observation in _Amelia_, to the effect that although the kindness of a +faithful and beloved wife compensates most of the evils of life, it +"rather serves to aggravate the misfortune of distressed circumstances, +from the consideration of the share which she is to bear in them." We all +know how bravely Amelia bore that share; how cheerfully she would cook the +supper; how firmly she confronted disaster. To realise how deeply Fielding +felt the pain of such struggles when falling upon "the best, the worthiest +and the noblest of women" we need but turn again to his own pages. If, +cries Amelia's husband, when his distresses overwhelm him, "if I was to +suffer alone, I think I could bear them with some philosophy"; and again +"this was the first time I had ever felt that distress which arises from +the want of money; a distress very dreadful indeed in the married state +for what can be more miserable than to see anything necessary to the +preservation of the beloved creature and not be able to supply it?" + +To supply for his Celia much less than the necessities of life Harry +Fielding would undoubtedly have stripped his coat, and his shirt with it, +off his back; but, at the end of this same month of February, fortune +made the young couple sudden amends for the anxieties that seem to have +surrounded them. This turn of the wheel is reflected with curious +accuracy by an anonymous satirist of 1735: + + "F---g, who _Yesterday_ appear'd so rough, + Clad in coarse Frize, and plaister'd down with _Snuff_, + See how his _Instant_ gaudy _Trappings_ shine; + What _Play-house_ Bard was ever seen so fine! + But this, not from his _Humour_ glows, you'll say + But mere _Necessity_;--for last Night lay + In pawn the Velvet which he wears to Day." [3] + +This relief, for a time at least, from the pressing anxieties of a +'play-house bard,' befell by the death of Charlotte Fielding's mother, +Mrs Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury, who died in February, but a week or +two after the execution of a will wholly in favour of that 'dearly +beloved' daughter. As the details of Mrs Fielding's inheritance have not +hitherto been known, some portions of her mother's will may be quoted. +"... I Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury in the County of Wilts ... do make +this my last will and testament ... Item I give to my daughter Catherine +one shilling and all the rest and residue of my ready money plate jewels +and estate whatsoever and wheresoever after my debts and funeral charges +are fully paid and satisfied I give devize and bequeath the same unto my +dearly beloved daughter Charlott Ffeilding wife of Henry Ffeilding of +East Stour in the County of Dorset Esqre." Mrs Cradock proceeds to revoke +all former wills; and appoints her said daughter "Charlott Ffeilding" as +her sole executrix. The will is dated February 8 1734, old style, viz. +1735; and was proved in London on the 25th of the same month, 'Charlott +Ffeilding,' as sole executrix, being duly sworn to administer. The +provision of one shilling for another, and apparently _not_ dearly +beloved, daughter, Catherine, recalls the wicked sister in _Amelia_ who +"had some way or other disobliged her mother, a little before the old lady +died," and who consequently was deprived of that inheritance which +relieved Amelia and her husband from the direst straits. + +As no plays are credited to Fielding's name for the ensuing months of +1735, it is a reasonable inference that the young Salisbury heiress, whose +experience of London had, doubtless, included a pretty close acquaintance +with the hardships of struggling genius, employed some of her inheritance +to enable her husband to return to the home of his boyhood, on the +"pleasant Banks of sweetly-winding Stour." There is no record of how the +Stour estate, settled on Henry Fielding and his brother and sisters, was +apportioned; but an engraving published in 1813 shows the old stone +"farmhouse," which Fielding occupied, the kitchen of which then still +remained as it was in the novelist's time, when it served as a parlour. +Behind the house stood a famous locust tree; and close by was the village +church served at this time, as the parish registers show, by the Rev. +William Young, the original of the immortal Parson Adams of _Joseph +Andrews_. [4] From a subsequent deed of sale we know that the estate +consisted of at least three gardens, three orchards, eighty acres of +meadow, one hundred and forty acres of pasture, ten acres of wood, two +dove-houses, and "common of pasture for all manner of cattle." To the +stone farmhouse, and to these orchards and meadows, commons and pastures, +Fielding brought his wife, probably in this year of 1735; and memories of +their sojourn at Stour surely inspired those references in _Amelia_ to the +country life of 'love, health, and tranquillity,' a life resembling a calm +sea which "must appear dull in description; for who can describe the +pleasures which the morning air gives to one in perfect health; the flow +of spirits which springs up from exercise; the delights which parents feel +from the prattle and innocent follies of their children; the joy with +which the tender smile of a wife inspires a husband; or lastly the +cheerful solid comfort which a fond couple enjoy in each others' +conversation.--All these pleasures, and every other of which our situation +was capable we tasted in the highest degree." + +That a man endowed with Fielding's intense joy in living--he was "so +formed for happiness," wrote his cousin Lady Mary, "it is a pity he was +not immortal"--should eagerly taste all the pleasures of life as a country +gentleman, and that in 'the highest degree,' is entirely consonant with +his character. At the very end of his life, when dying of a complication +of diseases, his happy social spirit was still unbroken; for we find him +even then writing of his inability to enjoy an agreeable hour "without the +assistance of a companion which has always appeared to me necessary to +such enjoyment." [5] Nor would the generous temper, which was ever ready +to share his most needed guinea with a friend scarce poorer than himself, +be infected with niggardliness by the happy enjoyment of that position to +which he was by birth entitled. The well-known account therefore, given by +Murphy, of the East Stour episode is exactly what we might have expected +of Harry Fielding in the part of country gentleman: "To that place [_i.e._ +his estate of East Stour]," says Murphy, "he retired with his wife, on +whom he doated, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and +intemperances 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 encumbered 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 of their apparel, but in +a month or two were unfit to be seen; the 'squire's dignity required that +they should be new-equipped; and his chief pleasure consisting 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...." This account is prefaced by gross inaccuracies of +fact, inexplicable in a biographer writing but ten years after the death +of his subject; but, as Mr Austin Dobson says, "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 hunting choruses, and that not seldom the 'dusky Night rode down +the Sky' over the prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests." +Petty-minded moralists like Murphy have gravely admonished the great +novelist's memory for not having safely bestowed his estate in the consols +of the period; they forget that a spirit of small economy is generally the +compensation awarded to the poor average of humanity. The genius of +Fielding knew how to enjoy splendidly, and to give lavishly. + +[1] _Tom Jones_. Book xiii. Introduction. + +[2] See the registers of St Mary Charlcombe. As Sarah Fielding, the +novelist's sister, was buried in the entrance to the chancel of this +church, it would appear that some connection existed between Charlcombe +and the Fielding family. + +[3] _Seasonable Reproof--a Satire in the manner of Horace_, 1735. + +[4] The entry in the East Stour Registers is "W'm. Young, Curate +1731-1740." + +[5] _Voyage to Lisbon_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +POLITICAL PLAYS + + "Whoever attempteth to introduce corruption into any community, + doth much the same thing, and ought to be treated in much the + same manner with him who poisoneth a fountain." + --Dedication of the _Historical Register_. + +A prolonged retirement into Dorsetshire, however pleasant were the banks +of Stour with a beautiful young wife, and a sufficient estate, could +scarce be expected of Fielding's restless genius. He was now thirty-five; +his splendid physique was as yet unimpaired by the gout that was so soon +to attack him; his powers were still hardly revealed; and, as far as we +can discover, he was, at the moment, under no pressure for money. Still, +the hunting choruses of the Squire Westerns of Dorsetshire can hardly +have long sufficed for one whom Lyttelton declared to have had "more wit +than any man I ever knew"; and the social and political conditions of the +country were increasingly calculated to inflame into practical activity +that "enthusiasm for righteousness," which Mr Gosse has so well detected +in Fielding. [1] The distracted state of the London stage, divided by the +factions of players and managers, afforded moreover an excellent +opportunity for a dramatist of some means to essay an independent venture. +And accordingly, at the beginning of 1736, we find the Harry Fielding of +the green-room and the poet's garret, the Henry Fielding Esqre of East +Stour, suddenly throwing the full force of his energies into political +life, as the manager of, and writer for, a theatre with indisputable +political aims. For the next eight years of his short life Fielding was +largely occupied in the lively turmoil of eighteenth-century politics; and +here, first by means of the stage, and later as journalist, he played a +part which has perhaps been somewhat unduly overshadowed by the surpassing +achievements of his genius as father of the English novel. But if we would +perceive the full figure of the man this time of boisterous political +warfare is of no mean account. In the dedication of his first party play, +the amazingly successful _Pasquin_, Fielding subscribes himself as "the +most devoted Servant of the public"; and no more appropriate keyword could +be found for the energies which he threw into those envenomed political +struggles of 1736-41. + +At the date of his first plunge into these struggles England stood sorely +in need of a pen as biting, as witty and as fearless, as that of Henry +Fielding. For over ten years the country had been ruled by one of those +"peace at any price" Ministers who have at times so successfully inflamed +the baser commercial instincts of Englishmen. Sir Robert Walpole, the +reputed organiser of an unrivalled system of bribery and corruption, the +Minister of whom a recent apologist frankly declares that to young members +of Parliament who spoke of public virtue and patriotism he would reply +"you will soon come off that and grow wiser," the autocrat enamoured of +power who could brook no colleague within measurable distance, the man of +coarse habits and illiterate tastes, above all the man who induced his +countrymen to place money before honour, and whose administration even an +admirer describes as one of unparalleled stagnation--such a man must have +roused intense antagonism in Fielding's generous and ardent nature. For, +from the days of his first boyish satires to the last energetic acts of +his life as a London magistrate, for Fielding to see an abuse was to set +about reforming it. To his just sense of the true worth of money, the +wholesale corruption of English political life accredited to Walpole, the +poisoning, to adopt his own simile, of the body politic, must have seemed +the vilest national crime. There could never have been the least sympathy +between the mercenary and apathetic methods of Walpole and the +open-hearted genius of Fielding. And, added to such fundamental opposition +of character, the influence of Fielding's old school friend, George +Lyttelton, would, at this juncture especially, draw him into the active +ranks of the Opposition. + +Lyttelton was then rising into celebrity as a ready parliamentary speaker; +a celebrity as yet not wholly eclipsed by the youthful oratory of William +Pitt, the young cornet of the horse, who also had lately taken his seat on +the Opposition benches. It was the burning patriotism, the lofty character +and the towering genius of Pitt, the fluency and personal integrity of +Lyttelton, that led the younger members of the Opposition in the House of +Commons; while in the Lords another friend from whom Fielding was to +receive "princely benefactions," the young Duke of Bedford, a man of +"inflexible honesty and goodwill to his country," attacked Walpole's +alleged corrupt practices in the election of Scottish peers. With leaders +such as William Pitt and Lyttelton on the one hand, and the corrupt figure +of Walpole on the other, there is no wonder that Fielding flung all his +generous force into the effort to free England from so degrading a +domination. Accordingly, in 1736, when the young Pitt's impassioned +eloquence was soon to alarm the _Great Man_--"we must muzzle that terrible +Cornet of the Horse," Sir Robert said--and when fierce and riotous +hostility to the government had broken out in the country over an +attempted Excise Bill, Fielding appears as a frankly political manager of +the "New Theatre" in the Haymarket. This small theatre stood precisely +adjoining the present Palladian structure, as may be seen from a print of +1820, showing the demolition of the old building and the adjacent facade +of the modern "Haymarket." According to Tom Davies, who, as an actor in +Fielding's company and as an author of some pretensions should be +reliable, Fielding was a managing partner of this "New Theatre," in +company with James Ralph, "about the year 1735." [2] And apparently early +in 1736 [3] his political, theatrical, and social satire of _Pasquin_ +appeared on the little stage, and immediately captured the town. + +In _Pasquin_ a perfectly outspoken attack on Walpole's corrupt methods is +united with a comprehensive onslaught on abuses in the stage, law, +divinity, physic, society, and on the odes of Colley Cibber, sufficient +one might suppose to satisfy even Fielding's zeal. In an exuberant +newspaper advertisement of the 5th of March Mr Pasquin is announced as +intending to "lay about him with great impartiality," and throughout the +play Fielding's splendid figure may be felt, swinging his satiric club +with a boisterous enjoyment. The immediate success achieved by the piece +was certainly not due to any great dramatic excellence; and that so +loosely knit a medley as _PASQUIN, a Dramatic Satire on the Times: Being +the Rehearsal of Two Plays, viz. A Comedy call'd THE ELECTION and a +Tragedy, call'd The Life and Death of COMMON-SENSE_ should have achieved +almost as long a run as the _Beggars Opera_, shows that the public +heartily sympathised with the satirist. _Pasquin_ begins with the +rehearsal of a comedy, called _The Election_, consisting of a series of +broadly humorous scenes in which the open and diverse bribery at +elections, the equally open immorality of fashionable town life, the +connivance of country dames, and the inanity of the beau monde, are +satirised. The country Mayor, the Ministerial candidates and the +Opposition squire drink, bribe and are bribed with complete impartiality. +A scene devoted to the political young lady of the day affords opportunity +for a hit at the sickly and effeminate Lord 'Fanny' Hervey, that +politician whom Pope described as a "mere white curd of Asse's milk," and +of whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed that "the world consisted of +men, women, and Herveys." Pope had stigmatised Hervey as _Lord Fanny_, and +Fielding obviously plays on the nickname by references to the value +attached by certain young ladies to their fans. "Faith," says his comic +author, "this incident of the fan struck me so strongly that I was once +going to call this comedy by the name of the Fan." The comedy ends with +the successful cooking of the election returns by Mr Mayor in favour of +the Ministerial candidates, for which "return" he is promised a "very good +turn very soon"; and by the precipitate marriage of one of the said +candidates to the Mayor's daughter "to strengthen his interest with the +returning officer." + +Having settled the business of the corrupt and corrupting Ministry in his +comedy, Mr Pasquin proceeds to exhibit the rehearsal of his tragedy, _The +Life and Death of Common Sense_. Here the satirist, leaving politics, +applies his cudgel mainly to the prevailing taste for pantomime, a form of +entertainment introduced it was said some thirty years previously by one +Weaver, a country dancing master, and already lashed by Sir Richard Steele +in his couplet: + + "Weaver, corrupter of the present age, + Who first taught silent sins upon the stage." + +That the Covent Garden manager, John Rich, [4] could engage four French +dancers, and a German with two dogs, taught to dance the _Louvre_ and the +_Minuet_, at ten pounds a night, and clear thereby "above 20 good houses," +while the Othello of Booth and the Wildair of Wilkes were neglected, was +sufficient to rouse the indignation alike of moralists, dramatists and +playgoers. Fielding in turn took the matter up with all his natural +warmth; and in _Pasquin_ he represents the kingdom of the Queen of Common +Sense as invaded by a vast army of "singers, fidlers, tumblers, and +ropedancers," who moreover fix their standard in Covent Garden, the +headquarters of Rich. + +Not content with assailing this public folly, the 'Tragedy' of _Pasquin_ +strikes a higher note by ranging among the foes of Common Sense three +unworthy professors of Law, Medicine, and Religion; callings, as Fielding +is careful to point out, + + "in themselves designed + To shower the greatest blessings on Mankind." + +Queen Common Sense seemingly receives her deathblow; but her ghost finally +rises victorious, and so justifies the author's contention that his "is +almost the only play where she has got the better lately." The vigour with +which Mr Pasquin here 'laid about him,' in such matters as the legal +abuses relating to imprisonment for debt, may be inferred from the +following passage. Queen Common Sense is speaking to the representative of +_bad_ Law, and tells him she has heard 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." + +So too, the great genius of Fielding, when in long after years harnessed +to the drudgery of a London magistrate, held no porter's brawl or beggar's +quarrel too mean "to be redress'd." + +The immediate success of _Pasquin_ attests, as we have said, the readiness +of London audiences in 1736 to applaud an honest and humorous presentation +of wicked Ministers, corrupt clergy, lawyers, and doctors, inane +Laureates, and degrading public entertainments. Mrs Delany, gathering +London news for Dean Swift, writes on April 22, "When I went out of Town +last Autumn, the reigning madness was Farinelli; I find it now turned on +_Pasquin_, a dramatic satire on the times. It has had almost as long a run +as the Beggar's Opera; but in my opinion not with equal merit, though it +has humour." [5] We are told how the piece drew numerous enthusiastic +audiences "from _Grosvenor_, _Cavendish_, _Hanover_, and all the other +fashionable Squares, as also from _Pall Mall_ and the _Inns of Court_" And +on the 26th of May a benefit performance for the author was announced as +the "60th. Day." The vogue of the satire even demanded a key, as may be +seen in an advertisement in the _London Daily Post_ for May 17: _This Day +is published, Price Four-Pence. A Key to Pasquin, address'd to Henry +Fielding Esqre._ + +Mr Pasquin's own advertisements for his little theatre are not without the +zest with which our beef-eating ancestors attacked politics, social abuses +and one another. The announcement for March 5, ran as follows:-- + + "_By the_ Great Mogul's _Company of_ English + _Comedians, Newly Imported_. At the New Theatre in the + Haymarket, this Day, March 5, will be presented + + PASQUIN, + + A Dramatick SATYR on the times. + + Being a Rehearsal of two PLAYS, viz. a Comedy call'd The + ELECTION; and a Tragedy, call'd The Life and Death of COMMON + SENSE.... + + N.B.--Mr Pasquin intending to lay about him with great + Impartiality, hopes the Town will all attend, and very civilly + give their Neighbours what the find belongs to 'em. + + N.B.--The Cloaths are old, but the Jokes entirely new...." + +In the following month the Opposition was busy over the marriage of their +chief supporter, the Prince of Wales; and Mr Pasquin duly chronicles the +event in his advertisements of the 28th of April, observing that his +company "by reason of the Royal Wedding expecting no Company but +themselves, are obliged to defer Playing till tomorrow." A few days +later, on the 12th of May, Sir Robert Walpole celebrated the royal +marriage by a grand evening entertainment given at his house in St James +Park; and on the same night 'Pasquin' had the audacity to advertise a +special performance, in the following terms (the "country party," it +should be understood, was a usual name for Walpole's opponents):-- + +"For the Benefit of Miss Burgess, who has so zealously espoused the +Country Interest.... Miss Burgess hopes all Patriots and Lovers of their +Country will appear in her favour and give all encouragement to one who +has so early distinguished herself on the side of Liberty." In Pasquin's +_Election_ scenes, this lady played the part of Miss Stitch, a political +damsel, opposed to Walpole's candidate. Next day appeared an ironic +counter-advertisement of a performance for "the Benefit of Miss Jones (the +Mayor's daughter who hath so furiously espoused the Court [_i.e._ +Walpole's] Interest....) _N.B._--Miss Jones does not doubt that all true +loyal People will give her all Encouragement in their Power, as she has +engaged in so unpopular a Side and even given away her FAN (which very few +young ladies would) for the service of the Country: she hopes the +Courtiers will not let her be out of pocket by the Bargain." Here, again, +is doubtless a hit at Lord 'Fanny' Hervey; as well as a plain hint that +those who espoused Walpole's cause might expect ample payment for their +trouble. + +Is there any wonder that a wrathful and uneasy Minister, not yet +overthrown, shortly took stringent measures against the 'liberty' of the +stage; measures by which a political stage censorship was formally +established, and the topical gaiety of our theatre, and the pungency of +our theatrical announcements, henceforth immeasurably dulled. + +A few further points of minor interest remain to be noted concerning that +popular and scathing personage Mr Pasquin. By May the company styled +themselves "Pasquin's Company of Comedians"; a fresh indication of the +credit attaching to the performance. In the previous month a contributor +to _The Grub Street Journal_ tells "Dear Grub" that he has seen Pope +applauding the piece; and, although the statement was promptly denied, a +rare print by Hogarth lends some colour to a very likely story; for the +great Mr Pope, the terror of his enemies, the autocrat of literature, was +warmly on the side of the Opposition. Hogarth depicts the stage of +Fielding's theatre, and thereon a scene in the fifth act of _Pasquin_, in +which the foes of Queen Common Sense are for the moment triumphant. The +side boxes are well filled; and in one of them Mr Pope's deformed figure, +apparently, turns away, declaring: "There is no whitewashing this stuff." +The curious may find another plate by Hogarth in which Pope _is_ busy +whitewashing Lord Burlington; but the drift of the remark for the +Opposition drama of _Pasquin_ seems obscure. The gains that accrued to +Fielding from the success of _Pasquin_ are indicated by another rare +print, that entitled the _Judgement of the Queen o' Common Sense. +Addressed to Henry Fielding Esqre._ Here, again, it is _Pasquin's_ satire +on the prevailing furore for pantomime that is chiefly illustrated; as +Common Sense gives to Rich, the harlequin, a halter, while to Fielding she +accords an overflowing purse. Supporting Fielding are a long lean +Shakespeare, and two figures, possibly the distinguished players Kitty +Clive and Quin; on the opposite side, behind Harlequin, are figures +representing the bad clergy, lawyers, and doctors satirised in the +_Tragedy_; and the whole is balanced by the emergence of the ghost in +Hamlet, from a trap door in the foreground. Doggerel verses, at the foot +of the print, celebrate the arrival of a bard, "from ye Great Mogul," +bringing with him _Wit, Humour, and Satyr_, and receiving the Queen's +"honest favour," in "show'rs of gold." + +Under those golden showers, and with the applause of 'all the fashionable +Squares' ringing in his ears, we may leave Mr Pasquin. Fielding's first +venture as political dramatist and theatrical manager had proved +brilliantly successful; his little theatre, like his own Tom Thumb, had +assailed a dozen giant abuses, an all-powerful Minister among them, and +the town had applauded the courage and wit of the performance. In the +following season, those same boards were to witness the author of +_Pasquin_ "laying about him" with an even greater political audacity. + + * * * * * + +Content, doubtless, with the success of _Pasquin_, Fielding does not seem +to have launched any further political attacks during the remaining months +of 1736. A newspaper advertisement of June announces the intention of the +'Great Mogul's Company of Comedians' to continue "playing twice a week +during the summer season," and _Pasquin_ remained occasionally in the +bills as late as the 2nd of July. The public were advised that "This is +much the coolest House in Town"; and audiences must have been drawn even +in August, for in that month one small and presumably party play was +performed, the _New Comi-Tragical Interlude call'd the Deposing and Death +of Queen Gin_. This little piece consisted of only two scenes, and was +probably a skit on a Bill "against spirituous liquors" which Walpole had +supported earlier in the year. The measure met with violent opposition, +including petitions from the Liverpool and Bristol merchants; and in view +of Sir Robert's own notorious excesses with the bottle a temperance Bill +from his hands may well have roused Fielding's ironic laughter. The +authorship of the satire is unknown; but the moral appears to have been +unexceptionable, as _Queen Gin_, in the final scene, "drinks a great +quantity of liquor and at last dies." + +Fielding clearly began his second year at the 'little theatre' with some +social or political exhortation, as the following bill appears for +January:--"By a Company of Comedians, At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, +this Day, January 26, will be presented a Dramatick Satire on the Times +(never performed before) call'd The Mirrour." By February "the Original +Company who perform'd _Pasquin_" are notified on the bills; and on the 2nd +of March a performance is announced of a _Dramatick Tale of the King and +the Miller of Mansfield_, presumably the same _Miller of Mansfield_ openly +declared by one of Walpole's "hired scribblers" to be aimed at the +overthrow of the Ministry. [6] All such preliminary skirmishes, however, +served but to introduce the grand attack of the _Historical Register for +the Tear 1736_, the first performance of which may be assigned to the end +of March 1737. [7] + +In the _Register_ we have the most complete display of Fielding's vigour +as a fighting politician. Here, to recur to Mr Pasquin's characteristic +phrase, he "lays about him" with a gusto and honest frankness quite lost +among our own tepid conventions. But however hard the hitting, however +boisterous the broad humour, however biting the irony, it is noteworthy +that in this his chief political satire, written moreover for a yet +unregulated stage, Fielding never stoops to the shameless personalities of +his day. The fashion of the eighteenth-century permitted even the great +and classical genius of Pope to hurl lines at the persons of his opponents +that, to modern ears, scarcely bear quotation. Fielding, as we know, +constantly asserted his intention of throwing not at the vicious but at +vice; and accordingly, even in this party play, flung openly in the face +of the Minister, there is but one reference (and that only a fling at his +"lack of any the least taste in polite literature") to the notorious +personal failings of Sir Robert. It is against the Minister, and not the +man, that the hot-blooded Opposition dramatist directs his humour and his +irony. Fielding's manly and generous nature here permitted no virulent +personalities to blacken his pages. [8] + +The irony of the _Register_ is chiefly reserved for the _Dedication to the +Public_, designed for the reader at leisure; though here Walpole is +indicated broadly enough, first in the figure of an ass hung out on a +signpost, and again as "Old Nick," for "who but the devil could act such a +part." Here the attacks of the Ministerial papers are parried by ironic +explanations that "The Register is a ministerial pamphlet calculated to +infuse into the minds of the people a great opinion of their ministry," +explanations full of admirable fencing and excellent hits. And in these +dedicatory pages Fielding utters a sonorous warning to his countrymen +concerning the insidious policy that was undermining their very +constitution: "... Here is the danger, here is the rock on which our +constitution must, if it ever does split. The liberties of a people have +been subdued by conquests of valour and force, and have been betrayed by +the subtle and dexterous arts of refined policy, but these are rare +instances; for geniuses of this kind are not the growth of every age, +whereas if a general corruption be once introduced, and those, who should +be the guardians and bulwarks of our liberty, once find or think they find +an interest in giving it up, no great capacity will be required to destroy +it. On the contrary the meanest, lowest, dirtiest fellow, if such an one +should ever have the assurance in future ages to mimick power, and +browbeat his betters, will be as able as Machiavel himself could have +been, to root out the liberties of the bravest people." From the +solemnities of the _Dedication_ we come to the "humming deal of satire," +and the boisterous action, of the play itself. As in the case of _Pasquin_ +the form of the drama is that of a rehearsal, a form which affords +excellent opportunities for such explanatory asides as that addressed to +the critic who complains of the attempt to review a year's events in a +single play: "Sir," says the author, "if I comprise the whole actions of a +year in half an hour, will you blame me, or those who have done so little +in that time?" The long years of Walpole's power were admittedly "years +without parallel in our history, for political stagnation." Scene one +discovers five 'blundering blockheads' of politicians, in counsel with one +silent "little gentleman yonder in the chair;" who knows all and says +nothing, and whose politics lie so deep that "nothing but an inspir'd +understanding can come at 'em." The blockheads, however, have capacity +enough to snatch hastily at the money lying on their council table. +Walpole's jealousy of power, it may be remembered, had driven almost every +man of ability out of his ministry. Then comes a vivacious parody on the +fashionable auctions of the day. Lots comprising "a most curious remnant +of Political Honesty," a "delicate piece of Patriotism," and a "very clear +Conscience which has been worn by a judge and a bishop" and on which no +dirt will stick, go for little or nothing, while Lot 8, "a very +considerable quantity of Interest at Court," excites brisk bidding, and is +finally knocked down for one thousand pounds. From the excellent fooling +of the auction, the action suddenly changes to combined satire on the +Ministry and on the two Cibbers, father and son. The Ministry are +ingeniously implied to have been damn'd by the public; to give places with +no attention to the capacity of the recipient; and to laugh at the dupes +by whose money they live. A like weakness for putting blockheads in office +and for giving places to rogues, and a like contempt of the public, is +allegorically conveyed in the third act, in which 'Apollo' casts the parts +for a performance among sundry unworthy actors, and declares that the +people may grumble 'as much as they please, as long as we get their +money.' "There sir," cries the author to the critic of the rehearsal, "is +the sentiment of a great man." The _Great Man_ was a phrase, to use Pope's +words, "by common use appropriated to the first minister"--that is, to +Walpole. In the next scene the effrontery of the piece culminates in a +ballet where the Prime Minister appears, leading a chorus of false +patriots, who, to use Fielding's own words, are set in the 'odious and +contemptible light' of a set of "cunning self-interested fellows who for a +little paltry bribe would give up the liberties and properties of their +country." These worthy patriots are of four types, the noisy, the +cautious, the self-interested (he whose shop is his country) and the +indolent ("who acts as I have seen a prudent man in company, fall asleep +at the beginning of a fray and never wake 'till the end o't"). To them +enters Quidam, unblushingly announced in the play bill as "Quidam, Anglice +a Certain Person," in other words Walpole himself. Quidam pours gold into +the pockets of the four patriots, drinks with them, and then, when the +'bottle is out' (a too frequent occurrence at Sir Robert's table) takes up +his fiddle, strikes up a tune and dances off, the patriots dancing after +him. But even this is not all. "Sir," says the author, "every one of these +patriots have a hole in their pockets as Mr Quidam the fiddler there +knows; so that he intends to make them dance 'till all the money is fall'n +through, which he will pick up again and so not lose one halfpenny by his +generosity...." We may suppose that the final scene lost nothing in +breadth by the acting of Quidam; and it is not surprising that the +immediate result was the subjugation not, alas! of the Ministry, but of +the liberty of the stage. Walpole's fall was delayed for three years; the +destruction of the political stage was accomplished in three months. + +It is difficult to imagine that any party, in those days of comparatively +arbitrary power, would venture a public satire so unveiled and so menacing +as that of the _Register_, unless supported by some confidence in the +immediate fall of their opponents. Without such confidence the political +tactics of such an onslaught would be simple foolhardiness. Signs of these +false hopes are not wanting in the slight, but equally bold, satire on the +sycophants represented as composing Walpole's _levee_, which was shortly +added to the _Register_. This little sketch, in which a protest concerning +the damning, early in the year, of Fielding's ballad farce _Eurydice_ is +combined with the political satire, was advertised as follows:-- + + "EURYDICE HISS'D: or, a Word to the Wise, giving an Account of + the Rise, Progress, Greatness, and Downfal of Mr Pillage, ... with + the dreadful Consequence and Catastrophe of the whole." [9] + +We have the authority of Tom Davies, at7 this time a member of Fielding's +company, for the statement that "Fielding in his _Eurydice Hiss'd_ had +brought on the Minister [Walpole] in a _levee_ scene" [10]; and as Pillage +is the "very great man" who holds the _levee_ in the fragment, the above +allusion to an expected downfall of Walpole's Ministry seems obvious. +Passages of similar import to the advertisement occur in the piece itself. +Thus the play is declared to convey a "beautiful image of the instability +of human greatness"; and the spectacle is promised of the 'author of a +mighty farce' at the pinnacle of human greatness and adored by a crowd of +dependants, become by a sudden turn of fortune, scorned, "deserted and +abandon'd." + +The single scene of the play opens when Pillage is at the zenith of his +power; a stage direction orders that "The Levee enters, and range +themselves to a ridiculous tune"; a partition of places ensues under the +allegory of the business arrangements of a theatrical manager; and the +author explains that by this _levee_ scene he hopes that persons greater +than author-managers may learn to despise sycophants. Close on the heels +of the _levee_ comes the catastrophe. Not one honest man, Pillage sadly +admits, is on his side; as his 'shallow plot' opens out the first applause +changes to hisses; his farce is damn'd; and he himself is left consoling +the solitude of his downfall by getting exceedingly drunk on a third +bottle. + +The figure of a fallen Minister boozing away his own intolerable +reflections, was not calculated to pacify that notoriously hard drinker, +Sir Robert, already soundly pilloried in the _Register_, and severely +indited by _Pasquin_. By the end of April the _Register_ had reached its +thirty-first performance, a good run at that date; and according to an +advertisement in the _Craftsman_ the satire was still being played on the +7th of May. In little more than four weeks, and after the alleged +perpetration of a treasonable and profane farce called _The Golden Rump_, +a Bill for stifling the liberty of the stage under a censorship was +introduced, had passed through both Houses, and received the royal assent. +Well might Lord Chesterfield exclaim in the brilliant speech which, in +Smollet's words, "will ever endear his character to all the friends of +genius and literature, to all those who are warmed with zeal for the +liberties of their country," that the Bill was not only "of a very +extraordinary nature, but has been brought in at a very extraordinary +season and pushed with very extraordinary despatch." Concerning the nature +of the measure Chesterfield had no doubt. He saw its tendency towards +restraining the "liberty of the Press which will be a long stride towards +the destruction of Liberty itself"; he pointed out that a Minister who has +merited the esteem of the people will neither fear the wit nor feel the +satire of the theatre; he denounced the subjugation of the stage under "an +arbitrary Court license" which would convert it into a canal for conveying +the vices and follies of "great men and Courtiers" through the whole +kingdom; he protested against the Bill as an encroachment not only on +liberty but also on property, for "Wit, my Lords, is a sort of property; +it is the property of those that have it, and too often the only property +that they have to depend on." + +As a manager of the intrepid little theatre in the Haymarket, as well as +the author of the most successful of the offending plays, the Licensing +Act fell with double weight on Fielding. "When I speak against the Bill," +cried Chesterfield, "I must think I plead the cause of Wit, I plead the +cause of Humour, I plead the cause of the British Stage, and of every +gentleman of taste in the Kingdom." Looking back over two centuries, we +honour Chesterfield in that, unknown to himself, he also pleaded the cause +of the greatest of English humourists. But appeals on behalf of genius and +freedom were thrown away upon Walpole; the Act received the royal assent +on June 21 1737; and, in the honourable company of Wit, Humour, and Taste, +Fielding was forced to retire from the theatre, on the boards of which he +had for two years so vigorously assailed Ministerial corruption and +autocracy. + +[1] _Works of Henry Fielding_, Edited by Edmund Gosse. Introduction, +p. xxi. + +[2] _Life of Garrick_. T. Davies. 1780, vol. i. p. 223. + +[3] _Notitia Dramatica_, MSS. Dept. British Museum, speaks of _Pasquin_ as +performed for the fortieth time on April 21, 1736: and quotes an +advertisement of the play for March 5. There seems to be no record of the +actual first night. + +[4] Rich appears to have been the manager at Covent Garden from 1733 to +1761. + +[5] _Autobiography of Mrs Delany._ 1861. Vol I. p. 554. + +[6] See Fielding's ironic reference to such "iniquitous surmises" in the +Dedication to the _Historical Register_. + +[7] The earliest newspaper reference, so far available, is that of the +_Daily Journal_ for April 6 1737, which speaks of April 11 as the ninth +day of the _Register_. + +[8] In the succeeding Epilogue of _Eurydice Hiss'd_ it must be admitted +that Sir Robert's love of the bottle is broadly satirised. + +[9] _Daily Advertiser_, April 29. 1737. + +[10] _Life of Garrick_, T. Davies, vol. ii. p. 206. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HOMESPUN DRAMA + + "Virtue distrest in humble state support." + Prologue to _Fatal Curiosity_. + +The Licensing Act of June 1737 thus brought Henry Fielding's career as +political dramatist to a hasty conclusion; a conclusion quite unforeseen +by the luckless author, as appears from his _Dedication_ to the +_Historical Register_, published almost at the moment when the Act became +law: "The very great indulgence you have shown my performances at the +little theatre these two last years," he says, addressing his public, +"have encouraged me to the proposal of a subscription for carrying on that +theatre, for beautifying and enlarging it, and procuring a better company +of actors." + +Before finally losing sight of the stage on which _Pasquin_ and the +_Register_ had scored such signal success, we may notice some minor +incidents of these two years of Fielding's administration. His company +does not seem to have included either Macklin, Quin, or Kitty Clive; but +that distinguished actress Mrs Pritchard, the central figure of Hogarth's +charming group called "The Green Room, Drury Lane," is said to have made +her first appearance on his boards, [1] and his players also included that +man of many parts Tom Davies. Davies was a student of Edinburgh +University; an actor at Drury Lane and elsewhere; a bookseller of whom the +elder D'Israeli said 'all his publications were of the best kind'; the +writer of various works including a _Life of Garrick_; and a particular +friend of Dr Johnson. In the first year of Fielding's management in the +Haymarket, Davies was cast for a principal part in George Lillo's tragedy +_Fatal Curiosity_; and it is to his pen that we owe the only known +contemporary reference to the active part taken by Fielding himself in the +affairs of his theatre. + +Lillo, a jeweller of Moorfields, had captured the town, a few years +previously, by his tragedy of common life, _George Barnwell_; and among +the dramatists selected by Fielding for representation on his stage the +most interesting is undoubtedly this pioneer of the coming revolution in +English literature. For, incredible as it may seem, until that first +performance of _Barnwell_, no writer, to quote Tom Davies' own words "had +ventured to descend so low as to introduce the character of a merchant or +his apprentice into a tragedy." Certain "witty and facetious persons who +call themselves the town," continues Davies, brought to the first night +copies of the old ballad on which the jeweller's play was based, meaning +to mock the new tragedy with the old song; but so forcible and pathetic +were Lillo's scenes that these merry gentlemen were obliged "to throw away +their ballads, and take out their handkerchiefs." More tears, we learn, +were shed over this 'homespun drama' than at all the imitations of ancient +fables by learned moderns. To Fielding this revolution, from the buskin'd +heroics of the Alexanders and Clelias to the living and natural pathos of +the tragedy of a poor London apprentice, must have appealed with +extraordinary force; for it is the especial glory of his own genius that, +throwing aside all the traditions of his age, and 'adventuring on one of +the most original expeditions that ever a writer undertook,' [2] he was to +discover a new world for English fiction, the world of simple human +nature. That expedition must have been already forming in his mind when, +night after night, in the hottest part of the year, _George Barnwell_ was +playing to crowded houses, and convincing the astonished audiences of 1731 +that even so low a creature as a London apprentice was possessed of +passions extremely like their own. Some ten years later, when Fielding +revealed the first true sign of his own surpassing genius in the _History +of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews_, he chose for his hero a country +footman. The worthy City jeweller was, in his own limited measure, the +forerunner, on the stage, of that new era in English literature created by +honest Andrews and Parson Adams, Partridge and Mrs Slipslop, Fanny and +Sergeant Atkinson, Tow-wouse and Mrs Miller, to name but a few of +Fielding's immortal portraits, drawn from the 'vast authentic book of +Nature.' + +It is no wonder then, to return to Tom Davies, that a play by Lillo was +announced on the bills of Fielding's theatre within a few months of the +opening of his management. On May 27, 1736, the following advertisement +appeared: + + "Guilt its Own Punishment. Never Acted before. By Pasquin's + Company of Comedians. Being a True Story in Common Life and the + Incidents extremely affecting." By the Author of George Barnwell. + +Davies' part in the play was a chief one, that of young Wilmot, and the +story of the performance may be given in his own words. "Mr Fielding, who +had a just sense of our author's merit, and who had often in his humourous +pieces laughed at those ridiculous and absurd criticks who could not +possibly understand the merit of Barnwell, because the subject was low, +treated Lillo with great politeness and friendship. He took upon himself +the management of the play and the instruction of the actors. It was +during the rehearsal of the _Fatal Curiosity_ that I had an opportunity to +see and to converse with Mr Lillo. Plain and simple as he was in his +address, his manner of conversing was modest affable and engaging. When +invited to give his opinion how a particular sentiment should be uttered +by the actor he expresst himself in the gentlest and most obliging terms, +and conveyed instruction and conviction with good nature and good +manners.... Fielding was not content merely to revise the 'Fatal +Curiosity,' and to instruct the actors how to do justice to their parts. +He warmly recommended the play to his friends and to the public. Besides +all this he presented the author with a well written prologue." + +This _Prologue_, which has apparently hitherto escaped the collectors of +Fielding's _Works_, seems worthy of a reprint here, if only for its +characteristic sympathy with virtue and distress 'in humble state,' and +for the opening tribute to 'Shakespeare's nature' and to 'Fletcher's +ease.' + +PROLOGUE TO THE FATAL CURIOSITY + + "The Tragic Muse has long forgot to please + With Shakespeare's nature or with Fletcher's ease: + No passion mov'd, thro' five long acts you sit, + Charm'd with the poet's language or his wit. + Fine things are said, no matter whence they fall; + Each single character must speak them all. + + "But from this modern fashionable way + To-night our author begs your leave to stray. + No fustian hero rages here to-night, + No armies fall to fix a tyrant's right: + From lower life we draw our scenes' distress: + --Let not your equals move your pity less! + Virtue distrest in humble state support; + Nor think she never lives without the court. + + "Tho' to our scenes no royal robes belong + And tho' our little stage as yet be young + Throw both your scorn and prejudice aside; + Let us with favour not contempt be try'd, + Thro' the first act a kind attention lend + The growing scene shall force you to attend: + Shall catch the eyes of every tender fair, + And make them charm their lovers with a tear. + The lover too by pity shall impart + His tender passion to his fair one's heart: + The breast which others' anguish cannot move + Was ne'er the seat of friendship or of love." + + +Notwithstanding all the manager's friendly efforts, the play met at first +with very little success, a failure in Davies' opinion "owing in all +probability to its being brought on in the latter part of the season, when +the public had been satiated with a long run of _Pasquin_," but, he adds, +"it is with pleasure I observe that Fielding generously persisted to serve +the man whom he had once espoused; he tacked the 'Fatal Curiosity' to his +Historical Register which was played with great success in the ensuing +winter." [3] We owe no inconsiderable debt to Tom Davies in that he has +preserved for us this picture of Fielding, actively engaged in the +stage-management of his little theatre; a picture, moreover, that does +equal honour to the brilliant wit, the successful political satirist, and +to that modest, gentle Nonconformist poet, the man of whom it was said +that he "had the spirit of an old Roman joined to the innocence of a +Primitive Christian," George Lillo. + +A few weeks before the production of Lillo's tragedy, and while _Pasquin_ +was still in the full tide of political success, an event occurred of +closer import to Fielding's affectionate nature than all the applause of +the Opposition and the town. This was the birth, in April, 1736, of his +daughter Charlotte. No English writer has left more charming pictures of +mother and child than those we owe to the tenderness and simplicity of +Fielding's pen. When we find Squire Western turning, in his latter days, +to Sophia's nursery, and hear him declaring that the prattling of his +granddaughter is "sweeter Music than the finest Cry of Dogs in _England_" +when we see Captain Booth stretched at full length on the floor of his +poor lodgings, with his "little innocents" jumping over him, we are almost +inclined to forgive alike the brutalities of the old foxhunter, and the +weaknesses of the young soldier. Fielding's affection for his children, +his apprehensions for their ultimate provision, his anxiety in their +sickness, his grief at the loss of a little daughter, are manifest in his +pages. If anything could exceed the satisfaction which the brilliant +success of _Pasquin_ must have given to his buoyant nature, it would be +the birth of this, the first child apparently, of his marriage with the +beautiful Charlotte Cradock. The entry in the registers of St Martin's in +the Fields runs as follows: Baptized May 19th, 1736 Charlotte Fielding, of +Henry and Charlotte, Born April 27th. + +The dates of _Pasquin_, of Lillo's tragedy, and of the _Historical +Register_, cover a considerable portion of the years 1736, 1737, and their +production in a theatre under Fielding's own management practically +presupposes his presence in London at that time. This by no means fits in +with Murphy's implication that Fielding retired to Stour on his marriage, +and that, remaining there, he ran through his "little patrimony," in "less +than three years." A complete country retirement cannot be assigned to +those busy years in the Haymarket; and in 1736 the journey from London to +Dorsetshire was no trifling undertaking. But it seems quite possible that +Fielding and his wife went down to their small estate in Dorsetshire for +part or all of the summer, autumn and winter of both 1736 and 1737. This +would cover the hunting months, and "hounds and horses," according to +Murphy, filled a large part in Fielding's country life at Stour; the time +would be that of the comparatively dull season for the theatre in the +Haymarket; and, with the year immediately preceding _Pasquin_, we should +thus, perhaps, account sufficiently for Murphy's "three years". Certain +passages in the _Miscellanies_, published long after the pleasant meadows +and the modest house at Stour--no less than the turmoil of the green-room +and the crowded political audiences in the Haymarket--were things of the +past, have a personal ring, reminiscent perhaps of such months of "sweet +Retirement" in Dorsetshire. Thus one of the characters in the _Journey +from this World to the next_ recalls the change, from a life of "restless +Anxieties," to a "little pleasant Country House, where there was nothing +grand or superfluous, but everything neat and agreeable"; and how, after a +little time, "I began to share the Tranquillity that visibly appeared in +everything round me. I set myself to do Works of Fancy and to raise little +Flower-Gardens, with many such innocent rural Amusements; which altho' +they are not capable of affording any great Pleasure, yet they give that +serene Turn of the Mind, which I think much preferable to anything else +Human Nature is made susceptible of." To this pleasant picture of "rural +Amusements," and tranquillity, it is surely not impertinent to add this +further passage, as a possible echo of Charlotte Fielding's thought, well +acquainted as she must have been both with the "sweetly winding banks of +Stour" and with the clamorous successes of political drama: "in all these +various Changes I never enjoyed any real Satisfaction, unless in the +little time I lived retired in the Country free from all Noise and Hurry." + +In the summer or autumn of 1737 the curtain was finally rung down on all +the 'noise and hurry,' the achievements and audacities of Fielding's +"little stage"; a few months later, and the country retirement at Stour +had also become but a memory of that short life into which he managed to +compress "more variety of Scenes than many People who live to be very +old." + +[1] _Life of Garrick_. T. Davies, vol. ii. + +[2] _Works of Henry Fielding_, edited by Edmund Gosse. Introduction, p. +xxix. + +[3] _The Works of Mr George Lillo, with some Account of his Life_, T. +Davies. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +BAR STUDENT. JOURNALIST + + "the ... Covetous, the Prodigal, the Ambitious, the Voluptuous, + the Bully, the Vain, the Hypocrite, the Flatterer, the Slanderer, + call aloud for the _Champion's_ Vengeance." + --The _Champion_, Dec. 22, 1739. + +There is no record of when or how Fielding disposed of his share in the +management of the New Theatre in the Haymarket. But on June 21 1737, +Walpole's Bill for regulating the stage received, as we have seen, the +royal assent; and there can be no doubt that Sir Robert would at once +apply his newly acquired powers to removing the dances of the fiddler, Mr +Quiddam, and the drunken consolations of Mr Pillage, from the Haymarket +boards, if indeed these gentlemen had not anticipated events by already +removing themselves. We may safely assume that Henry Fielding's career as +political dramatist came to an abrupt conclusion some time in the summer +of 1737. [1] + +It remains a matter for speculation why, after seven years spent in +producing a stream of not unsuccessful social comedies and farces, leading +up to a final and brilliant success in the field of political satiric +drama, Fielding should have thrown up the stage as a whole, when suddenly +debarred from those party onslaughts which had occupied but a fraction of +his dramatic energies. The cause was not any lack of popularity. "The +farces written by Mr Fielding," wrote Murphy in 1762, "were almost all of +them very successful, and many of them are still acted every winter, with +a continuance of approbation." And it is obvious that the fashionable +vices and follies of the time afforded ample inducement to a satiric +dramatist to continue 'laying about him,' even when Ministerial offences +had been rendered inviolate by Act of Parliament. Neither was Fielding's +sanguine temperament likely to be daunted by the single failure of his +farce _Eurydice_, which had been damned at Drury Lane on February 19 of +this same year: "disagreeable impressions," Murphy tells us, "never +continued long upon his mind." The most satisfactory solution of the +matter seems to be that now, in the approaching maturity of his powers, +the 'Father of the English Novel' was becoming conscious that the true +field for his genius lay in a hitherto unattempted form of imaginative +narration, and not within the five acts of comedy or farce. The entirely +original conceptions of a _Joseph Andrews_ and a _Jonathan Wild_ may +already have begun to captivate the vigorous energies of his mind. We have +his own word for assigning "some years" to the writing of _Tom Jones_; it +is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the conception of the first +English "Comic Epic Poem in Prose" may date as far back as the summer of +1737. + +Leaving surmise for fact, it is certain that this year marks the dividing +line in Fielding's life. + +Henceforth he ceases to be the witty, facile, popular dramatist; and he +enters slowly on his birthright as the first in time, if not in genius, of +English novelists. To this complete severance from the theatre belongs his +own remark that "he left off writing for the stage when he ought to have +begun." Arrived at a late maturity, and with accumulated stores of +observation and insight,--"he saw the latent sources of human action," +says Murphy--his genius happily turned into a channel carved, with +splendid originality, for itself alone. After nine years of servitude to +the limitations of dramatic construction, limitations he was wont to +relieve, as his friend James Harris tells us, by "pleasantly though +perhaps rather freely" _damning the man who invented fifth acts_, Fielding +was now soon to discover his freedom in the spacious, hitherto +unadventured, regions of prose fiction. But genius, especially genius with +wife and child to support, cannot maintain life on inspiration alone; and, +accordingly, the ex-dramatist now flung himself, with characteristic +impetuosity and courage, into a struggle for independence at the Bar, +perhaps the most arduous profession, under all the circumstances, that he +could have chosen. For a reputation as the writer of eighteen comedies, +and as the reckless political dramatist whose boisterous energies had set +the town ringing with _Pasquin_ and the _Register_, the fame in short of +being the successful manager of _The Great Mogul's Company of Comedians_, +was surely the last reputation in the world to bring a man briefs from +cautious attorneys. And, with whatever hopes of political patronage, any +temperament less buoyant might well have hesitated to embark on reading +for the Bar at the age of thirty. But "by dificulties," says his earliest +biographer, "his resolution was never subdued; on the contrary they only +roused him to struggle through them with a peculiar spirit and +magnanimity." So, within six months of the closing down of his little +theatre under Walpole's irate hand, Fielding had formally entered himself +as a student at the Middle Temple. + +The entry in the books of that society runs as follows:-- + + [574 G] 1 Nov'ris. 1737. + + _Henricus Fielding, de East Stour in Com Dorset Ar, filius et + haeres apparens Brig: Gen'lis: Edmundi Fielding admissus est in + Societatem Medii Templi Lond specialiter at obligatur una cum &c. + + Et dat pro fine_ 4. 0. 0. + +Of the ensuing two and a half years of student life in the Temple we know +practically nothing, beyond one vivacious picture of Harry Fielding's +attack upon the law. "His application while a student in the Temple," +writes Murphy, "was remarkably intense; and though it happened that the +early taste he had taken of pleasure would occasionally return upon him, +and conspire with his spirits and vivacity to carry him into the wild +enjoyments of the town, yet it was particular in him that amidst all his +dispositions nothing could suppress the thirst he had for knowledge, and +the delight he felt in reading; and this prevailed in him to such a +degree, that he has been frequently known by his intimates, to retire late +at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read and make extracts +from the most abstruse authors, for several hours before he went to bed; +so powerful were the vigour of his constitution and the activity of his +mind." + +One of the few pages of Fielding's autograph that have come down to us is +presumably a relic of these student days. In the catalogue of the +_Morrison Manuscripts_ occurs this description of two undated pages in his +hand: "List of offences against the King and his state immediately, which +the Law terms High Treason. Offences against him in a general light as +touching the Commonwealth at large, as Trade etc. Offences against him as +supreme Magistrate etc." Were ever genius and wit more straitly or more +honourably shackled than that of Henry Fielding, gallantly accepting such +toil as this, toil moreover that must have weighed with double weight on a +man who had spent nine years in the company of those charming if 'fickle +jades' the Muses. + +All efforts have failed to trace where Fielding and his wife and child (or +children--the date of the birth of his daughter Harriet is not known) +lived during these laborious months; but that money was needed in the +summer following his entry at the Middle Temple may be inferred from the +sale of the property at Stour. According to the legal note of this +transaction, [2] "Henry ffeilding and Charlotte his wife" conveyed, in the +Trinity Term of 1738, to one Thomas Hayter, for the sum of L260, "two +messuages, two dove-houses, three gardens, three orchards, fifty acres of +Land, eighty acres of meadow, one hundred and forty acres of pasture, ten +acres of wood and common and pasture for all manner of cattle with the +appurtenances in East Stour." It does not need a very active imagination +to realise the keen regret with which Fielding must have parted with his +gardens and orchards, his pastures, woods and commons. Sixty years ago the +barn and one of the "dove-houses" had been but recently pulled down; and +to this day the estate is still known as "Fielding's Farm." [3] + +It has been stated, on what authority does not appear, that, after leaving +Stour, Fielding went to Salisbury, and there bought a house, his solicitor +being a Mr John Perm Tinney. Whatever be the fact as to the Salisbury +residence, it is certain that a full year after the sale of the +Dorsetshire property the Temple student was by no means at the end of his +resources. For in the following letter [4] to Mr Nourse, the bookseller, +dated July 1739, we find him requiring a London house at a rent of forty +pounds and with a large "eating Parlour." + + +"Mr Nourse, + +Disappointments have hitherto prevented my paying y'r Bill, which, I +shall certainly do on my coming to Town which will be next Month. I +desire the favour of y'u to look for a House for me near the Temple. I +must have one large eating Parlour in it for the rest shall not be very +nice. + +Rent not upwards of L40 p. an: and as much cheaper as may be. I will take +a Lease for Seven years. Yr Answer to this within a fortnight will much +oblige. + +Y'r Humble Serv't + +Henry Ffielding. + +I have got Cro: Eliz. [5] + +"July 9th 1739." + +This note, written a year before Fielding's call to the Bar, suggests +that his early married life was by no means spent in the "wretched +garrett" of Lady Louisa Stuart's celebrated reminiscence. + +In the September following the sale of his Dorsetshire estate Fielding had +to regret the death of George Lillo, to whose success he had devoted so +much personal care and energy, when staging Lillo's tragedy _Fatal +Curiosity_ on the boards of the little theatre in the Haymarket. The close +relationship in intellectual sympathy between Lillo's talent and the +genius of Fielding has already been noticed. But apart from this +intellectual sympathy, the personal worth and charm of the good tradesman +is noteworthy, as affording striking proof of the quality of man chosen by +the 'wild Harry Fielding' for regard and friendship. And it should be +remembered that in those days to bridge the social gulf between the +kinsman of the Earl of Denbigh and a working jeweller, required courage as +well as insight. Some time after Lillo's death a generous memorial notice +of him appeared in Fielding's paper the _Champion_. The writer detects in +his work "an Heart capable of exquisitely Feeling and Painting human +Distresses, but of causing none"; and declares that his title to be called +the best tragic poet of his age, "was the least of his Praise, he had the +gentlest and honestest Manners, and, at the same Time, the most friendly +and obliging. He had a perfect Knowledge of Human Nature, though his +Contempt of all base Means of Application, which are the necessary Steps +to great Acquaintance, restrained his Conversation within very narrow +Bounds: He had the Spirit of an old _Roman_, joined to the Innocence of a +primitive Christian; he was content with his little State of Life, in +which his excellent Temper of Mind gave him an Happiness, beyond the Power +of Riches, and it was necessary for his Friends to have a sharp Insight +into his Want of their Services, as well as good Inclinations or Abilities +to serve him. In short he was one of the best of Men, and those who knew +him best will most regret his Loss." [6] In the excellent company of Henry +Fielding's friends George Lillo may surely take his stand beside the 'good +Lord Lyttelton,' the munificent and pious Allen, and not far from 'Parson +Adams' himself. + +No record has survived of Fielding's share in the political struggles of +his party, during his first two years of "intense application" to the law. +Walpole's power had been sensibly lessened by the death of the Queen, and +he was losing the support of the country and even of the trading classes. +The Prince of Wales, now openly hostile to the "great man," was the +titular head of an Opposition numbering almost all the men of wit and +genius in the kingdom. Lyttelton, Fielding's warmest friend, had become +secretary to the Prince, and was recognised as a fluent leader of the +Opposition in the House of Commons. Another friend, John Duke of Argyll, +had joined the ranks of the Opposition in the Lords. On the whole the +author of _Pasquin_, may well have hoped for a speedy fall of the +"Colossos," with "its Brains of Lead, its Face of Brass, its Hands of +Iron, its Heart of Adamant," and the accession to power of a party not +without obligations to the fearless manager of the little theatre in the +Haymarket. During these years the Opposition, even though supported by +Pope and Chesterfield, Thomson and Bolingbroke, could scarcely fail to +utilise the trenchant scorn, the whole-hearted vigour, the boisterous +humour, of Fielding's genius; and Murphy, speaking vaguely of Fielding's +legal years, says that a "large number of fugitive political tracts, which +had their value when the incidents were actually passing on the great +scene of business, came from his pen." It is not however till November +1739, two years and a half after the pillorying of Walpole on the +Haymarket boards, that Fielding is again clearly seen, 'laying about' him, +in those clamourous eighteenth-century politics. + +His choice of a new weapon of attack is foreshadowed in the noble +concluding words of the _Introduction_ to the _Historical Register_; words +written on the very eve of the Ministerial Bill gagging that and all other +political plays: "If nature hath given me any talents at ridiculing vice +and imposture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them, while +the liberty of the press and stage subsists, that is to say while we have +any liberty left among us." A few weeks after these words were published +the liberty of the stage was triumphantly stifled by Walpole's Licensing +Bill. But even "old Bob" himself dared not lay his hand on the liberty of +the British Press; and so we find Mr Pasquin reappearing under the guise, +or in the company, of the _Champion and Censor of Great Britain_, +otherwise one _Captain Hercules Vinegar_, a truculent avenger of wrong and +exponent of virtue, in whose fictitious name a political, literary, and +didactic newspaper entered the field of party politics on November 15, +1739. The paper, under the title of the _Champion_, was issued three times +a week, and consisted of one leading article, an anti-Ministerial summary +of news, and literary notices of new books. The first number announced +that the author and owner was the said Captain Hercules Vinegar, and that +the Captain would be aided in various departments by members of his +family. Thus the Captain's wife, Mrs Joan Vinegar, a matron of a very +loquacious temper, was to undertake the ladies' column, and his son Jack +was to have "an Eye over the gay Part of the Town." The criticism was to +be conducted by Mr Nol Vinegar who was reported to have spent one whole +year in examining the use of a single word in Horace. And the politics +were to be dealt forth by the Captain's father, a gentleman intimately +versed in kingdoms, potentates and Ministers, and of so close a +disposition that he "seldom opens his Mouth, unless it be to take in his +Food, or puff out the Smoke of his Tobacco." + +The paper bore no signed articles; but judging from an attack levelled +against it in a pamphlet of the following year, [7] Fielding and his +former not very worshipful partner in the Haymarket management, James +Ralph, were the reputed "authors," Ralph being in a subordinate position. +Thus, it is stated that Ralph, "is now say'd to be the 'Squire of the +_British_ CHAMPION"; the writer identifies _Captain Vinegar_ and the +author of _Pasquin_ as one and the same person; he describes Pasquin and +Ralph as the "Authors of the Champion"; he asserts that the old Roman +statues of Pasquin and Marfario, "are now dignified and distinguished (by +The CHAMPION and his doughty Squire RALPH), under the Names [_sic_] of +Captain Hercules Vinegar."; he prints an address to the "_Self-dubb'd +Captain_ Hercules Vinegar," and his "Man _Ralph_"; and appends some +doggerel verse entitled "Vinegar and his gang." But from all this nothing +definite emerges as to the precise part taken by Fielding in the +authorship of the _Champion_. The pamphleteer accredits a fragment of a +paper signed C. to the _Captain_, and attributes two papers, [8] signed C. +and L., to "Mr Pasquin"--_i.e._ Fielding; and as the reprint of the +_Champion_, which appeared in 1741, announces that all papers so signed +are the "Work of one Hand," there is so much external proof that all such +pages in these volumes (numbering some sixty essays) are by Fielding. Dr +Nathan Drake, writing in 1809, more than sixty years after the appearance +of the paper, asserts, without stating his reasons, that the numbers +marked "C." and "L." "were the work of Fielding." This view is further +supported by the opinion of Mr Austin Dobson, that many of the papers +signed _C._ "are unmistakably Fielding's." + +On the other hand Murphy, writing only twenty-two years after the +appearance of the paper, but often with gross inaccuracy, states that the +_Champion_ "owed its chief support to his [Fielding's] abilities," but +that "his essays in that collection cannot now be so ascertained as to +perpetuate them in this edition of his works." Boswell refers to Fielding +as possessing a "share" in the paper. A manuscript copy of some of the +Minutes of meetings of the _Champion_ partners, written out in an +eighteenth-century handwriting, and now in the possession of the present +writer, confirms Boswell's note, in as far as an entry therein records +that "Henry Fielding Esq. did originally possess Two Sixteenth Shares of +the Champion as a Writer in the said paper." One of the lists of the +partners of the _Champion_ which occur in the same manuscript, is headed +by the name of "Mr Fielding." Finally, a contemporary satirical print +shows Fielding with his "length of nose and chin" and his tall figure, +acting as standard-bearer of the _Champion_; the paper being represented +in its political capacity of a leading Opposition organ. There is, +moreover, the internal evidence of style and sentiment. Thus the matter +rests; and although it is exceedingly tempting to use the _Champion_ for +inferences as to the manner in which Fielding approached his new craft of +journalism, and as to his attitude on the many subjects, theological, +social, political and personal, handled in these essays, the evidence +seems hardly sufficient to warrant such deductions. It does, however, seem +clear, taking as evidence the shilling pamphlet already +mentioned,[9] that Harry Fielding, the intrepid and audacious Mr Pasquin +of 1736-7 reappeared, laying about him with his ever ready cudgel now +raised to the dignity of a miraculous Hercules club, as the _Champion_ of +1739-41. To all lovers of good cudgelling, whether laid on the shoulders +of the incorrigible old cynic Sir Robert, or on those of the egregious +Colley Cibber, or falling on the follies and abuses of the day, the +"Pasquinades and Vinegarades" of _Captain Hercules Vinegar_, and his +"doughty Squire Ralph," may be commended. And no fault can be found with +the _Captain's_ declaration, when establishing a Court of Judicature for +the trial and punishment of sundry offenders in his pages, that "whatever +is wicked, hateful, absurd, or ridiculous, must be exposed and punished, +before this Nation is brought to that Height of Purity and good Manners to +which I wish to see it exalted." [10] + +One personal sketch of Fielding himself deserves quotation, whether drawn +by his own hand or that of another. The _Champion_ for May 24, 1740, +contains a vision of the Infernal Regions, where Charon, the ghostly +boatman, is busy ferrying souls across the River Styx. The ferryman bids +his attendant Mercury see that all his passengers embark carrying nothing +with them; and the narrator describes how, after various Shades had +qualified for their passage, "A tall Man came next, who stripp'd off an +old Grey Coat with great Readiness, but as he was stepping into the Boat, +_Mercury_ demanded half his Chin, which he utterly refused to comply with, +insisting on it that it was all his own." Fielding's length of chin and +nose was well known; and not less familiar, doubtless, was the 'old Grey +Coat,' among the purlieus of the Temple. + +The beginning of the year 1740, when the lusty _Champion_ and his cudgel +were well established, and _Captain Hercules'_ private legal studies were +drawing to a close, was marked by a fresh outburst of the old feud with +Colley Cibber. Cibber, already notorious as actor, dramatist, manager, the +Poet Laureat of "preposterous Odes," and the 'poetical Tailor' who would +even cut down Shakespeare himself, now appeared in the character of +historian and biographer, publishing early in 1740 the famous _Apology for +the Life of Mr Colley Cibber, Comedian, and late Patentee of the Theatre +Royal. With an Historical View of the Stage during his Own Time._ + +Cibber, soon to be scornfully chosen by Pope as dunce-hero of the +_Dunciad_, had, for the past six years, been pilloried by Fielding; and, +not unmindful of these onslaughts, he inserted in his new work a virulent +attack on the late manager of the New Theatre in the Haymarket. The tenor +of _Pasquin_ was here grossly misrepresented. Fielding was described as +being, at the time of entering on his management, "a Broken Wit"; he was +accused of using the basest dramatic means of profit, since "he was in +haste to get money"; and the final insult was added by Cibber's stroke of +referring to his enemy anonymously, as one whom "I do not chuse to name." + +Looking back across two centuries on to the supreme figures of Pope and +Fielding, it is matter for some wonder that these giants of the intellect +should have greatly troubled to annihilate a Colley Cibber. A finer +villain, it seems to us, might have been chosen by Pope for the six +hundred lines of his _Dunciad_ a worthier target might have drawn the +arrows of Fielding's _Champion_. But Cibber possessed at least the art of +arousing notable enmities; and the four slashing papers in which the +_Champion_ [11] promptly parried the scurrilities of the _Apology_ still +make pretty reading for those who are curious in the annals of literary +warfare. It is noteworthy that these _Champion_ retorts are honourably +free from the personalities of an age incredibly gross in the use of +personal invective. Fielding's journal, even under the stinging +provocation of the insults of the _Apology_, was still true to the +standard set in the _Prologue_ of his first boyish play + + 'No private character these scenes expose.' + +It is Cibber's ignorance of grammar, his murder of the English tongue, +his inflated literary conceit, rather than his 'private character' that +are here exposed. + +Some time during the latter half of 1740 the whole feud between Cibber, +Pope, Fielding and Ralph was reprinted in the shilling pamphlet, already +referred to, entitled _The Tryal of Colley Cibber_. The collection +concludes as follows: + + "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 + _Salisbury_) will _own_ himself the AUTHOR of 18 + strange Things called Tragical _Comedies_ and Comical + _Tragedies_, lately advertised by _J. Watts_, of + _Wild-Court_, Printer, he shall be _mentioned_ in + Capitals in the _Third_ edition of Mr CIBBER'S _Life_, + and likewise be placed _among_ the _Poetae minores + Dramatici_ 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 whole production affords a lively example of the full-blooded +pamphleteering of 1740; and throws valuable light on Fielding's repute as +the _Champion_. + +As regards Ralph's collaboration with Fielding at this period (a +collaboration further affirmed by Dr Nathan Drake's assertion, written in +1809, that James Ralph was Fielding's chief coadjutor in that paper) it +may be recalled that ten years previously this not very reputable American +had provided a prologue for Fielding's early play, the _Temple Beau_; and +that he appears again as Fielding's partner in the management of the +Little Theatre in the Haymarket. Gradually relinquishing his theatrical +ambitions, Ralph appears to have turned his talents to political +journalism, and according to Tom Davies was becoming formidable as a party +writer for the Opposition in these last years of Walpole's administration. +Boswell tells us that Ralph ultimately succeeded Fielding in his share of +the _Champion_; [12] but we have no definite knowledge of what precise +part was taken by him in the earlier numbers. No continued trace occurs of +his collaboration with Fielding; and indeed it is difficult to conceive +any permanent alliance between Fielding's manly, independent, and generous +nature, and the sordid and selfish character, and mediocre talents of +James Ralph. + +[1] The fullest newspaper for theatrical notices at this date, preserved +in the British Museum, the _London Daily Post_, is unfortunately missing +for this year. + +[2] Now first printed, from documents at the Record Office. + +[3] A table inscribed by a former owner as having belonged to Henry +Fielding, Esq., novelist, is now in the possession of the Somersetshire +Archaeological Society. The inscription adds that Fielding "hunted from +East Stour Farm in 1718." He would then be eleven years old! + +[4] From the hitherto unpublished original, in the library of Alfred Huth, +Esq. + +[5] "Cro: Eliz." is the legal abbreviation for Justice Croke's law reports +for the reign of Elizabeth. + +[6] _Champion_, February 26, 1740. + +[7] _The Tryal of Colley Cibber, Comedian etc._ 1740. + +[8] Those of April 22, and April 29, 1740. + +[9] And see _Daily Gazeteer_, Oct. 9, 1740. + +[10] _Champion_, December 22, 1739. + +[11] For April 22, April 29, May 6, and May 17. + +[12] Boswell's _Johnson_, edited by Birkbeck Hill. Vol. i. p. 169. n. 2: +"Ralph ... as appears from the minutes of the partners of the _Champion_ +in the possession of Mr Reed of Staple Inn, succeeded Fielding in his +share of the paper before the date of that eulogium [1744]." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"COUNSELLOR FIELDING" + + "Wit is generally observed to love to reside in empty pockets." + _Joseph Andrews_. + +The last retort on Colley Cibber had scarcely been launched from the +columns of the _Champion_, when that intrepid 'Censor of Great Britain' +and indefatigable law student, _Captain Hercules Vinegar_, attained the +full dignities of a barrister of the Middle Temple. On June 20, 1740, +Fielding was called to the Bar; and on the same day the Benchers of his +Inn assigned to him chambers at No. 4 Pump Court, "up three pair of +stairs." This assignment, according to the wording of the Temple records, +was "for the term of his natural life." These chambers may still be seen, +with their low ceilings and panelled walls, very much to all appearance as +when tenanted by Harry Fielding. The windows of the sitting-room and +bedroom look out on to the beautiful old buildings of Brick Court, and +from the head of the staircase one looks across to the stately gilded +sundial of Pump Court, old even in Fielding's day, with its warning motto: + + "Shadows we are and like shadows depart." + +Here, in these lofty chambers, up their "three pair" of worn and narrow +stairs, Fielding donned his barrister's gown, and waited for briefs; and, +possessing as he did an imagination "fond of seizing every gay prospect," +and natural spirits that gave him, as his cousin Lady Mary tells us, +cheerfulness in a garret, this summer of 1740 must have been full of +sanguine hopes. He was now thirty-three, and his splendid physique had not +yet become shattered by gout. He had gained, Murphy observes, no +inconsiderable reputation by the _Champion_; his position as a brilliant +political playwright had been long ago assured by _Pasquin_; the party to +whose patriotic interests he had devoted so much energy and wit was now +rapidly approaching power; and two years of eager application had equipped +him with 'no incompetent share of learning' for a profession in which, we +are told, he aspired to eminence. The swift disappointment of these brave +hopes, the fast coming years of sickness, distress, and grief endow the +old chambers with something of tragedy; but in June, 1740, the shadows +were still but a sententious word on the dial. + +There is practically no surviving record of Fielding's activity as a +barrister. From Murphy we learn that his pursuit of the law was hampered +by want of means; and that, moreover, even his indomitable energies were +soon often forced to yield to disabling attacks of illness. So long as his +health permitted him he "attended with punctual assiduity" on the Western +circuit, and in term time at Westminster Hall. But gout rapidly "began to +make such assaults upon him as rendered it impossible for him to be as +constant at the bar as the laboriousness of his profession required," and +he could only follow the law in intervals of health. Under such +"severities of pain and want" he yet made efforts for success; and the +tribute rendered by his first biographer to the courage of those efforts +deserves quotation in full: "It will serve to give us an idea of the great +force of his mind, if we consider him pursuing so arduous a study under +the exigencies of family distress, with a wife and children, whom he +tenderly loved, looking up to him for subsistence, with a body lacerated +by the acutest pains, and with a mind distracted by a thousand avocations +and obliged for immediate supply to produce almost extempore a farce, a +pamphlet, or a newspaper." Murphy's careless pen seems here to confuse the +student years with those of assiduous effort at the Bar; and the extempore +farces are, judging by the dates of Fielding's collected plays, no more +than a rhetorical flourish: but there seems no reason to doubt the +essential truth of this picture of the vigorous struggles of the sanguine, +witty, and not unlearned barrister, ambitious of distinction, and always +sensitively anxious as to the maintenance of his wife and children. We may +see him attending the Western circuit in March and again in August, riding +from Winchester to Salisbury, thence to Dorchester and Exeter, and on to +Launceston, Taunton, Bodmin, Wells or Bristol as the case might be; +constant in his appearance at Westminster; and supplementing his briefs by +political pamphlets written in the service of an Opposition supported by +the intellect and integrity of the day. + +It is inexplicable that no records, in the letters or diaries of his +brother lawyers, should have come down to us of circuits, enlivened by the +wit of Harry Fielding; that practically all traces of his professional +work should be lost; and that concerning the many friendships which he is +recorded to have made at the Bar we should know practically nothing beyond +his own cordial acknowledgment of the lawyers' response, three years after +his call, to the subscription for the _Miscellanies_. In the preface to +those volumes he writes: "I cannot however forbear mentioning my sense of +the Friendship shown me by a Profession of which I am a late and unworthy +Member, and from whose Assistance I derive more than half the Names which +appear to this subscription." All that we have to add to this, is the +unconscious humour of Murphy's observation that the friendships Fielding +met with "in the course of his studies, and indeed through the remainder +of his life from the gentlemen of the legal profession in general, and +particularly from some who have since risen to be the first ornaments of +the law, will ever do honour to his memory." Had the names of these worthy +'ornaments' been preserved, posterity could now give them due recognition +as having been honoured by the friendship of Henry Fielding. [1] + +Fielding in his habit, as he lived, is for ever eluding us. His tall +figure vanishes behind the prolific playwright, the exuberant politician, +the truculent journalist, the indefatigable magistrate, the great creative +genius. But at no point does the wittiest man of his day, and a lawyer of +some repute--'Mr Fielding is allowed to have acquired a respectable share +of jurisprudence'--escape us so completely as during these years of +'punctual assiduity' at the Bar. His very domicile is unknown, after the +surrender of those pleasant chambers in Pump Court, on November 28 1740. + +The political activities of "Counsellor Fielding" stand out far more +clearly than do the legal labours of these years of struggle at the Bar. +The year of his call, 1740, was one of constant embarrassment for Sir +Robert Walpole, whose long enjoyment of single power was now at last +drawing to a miserable close. The conduct of the Spanish War was +arraigned, and suggestions were made that the Government were in secret +alliance with the enemy. When the news came, in March, that Walpole's +parliamentary opponent, the bluff Admiral Vernon, had captured Porto Bello +from Spain, with six ships only, the public rejoicing and votes of +congratulation were so many attacks on the peace-at-any-price Minister. A +powerful fleet, designed against Spain, lay inactive in Torbay the greater +part of the summer, through (alleged) contrary winds. And when Parliament +met in November 1740, an onslaught by the Duke of Argyll in the Lords +paved the way for the celebrated attack on Sir Robert in the Commons, +known as "The Motion" of February 13, 1741. A fine political cartoon +published in the following month, and here reproduced, in which Walpole +appears as mocking at the death and burial of this same "Motion" of +censure (which the House had rejected), places Fielding in the forefront +of the Opposition procession. The dead "Motion" is being carried to the +"Opposition" family vault, already occupied by Jack Cade and other +"reformers"; and the bier is preceded by five standard-bearers, sadly +carrying the insignia of the party's papers. Among these, and second only +to the famous _Craftsman_, comes Fielding's tall figure, bearing aloft a +standard inscribed _The Champion_, and emblazoned with that terrible club +of _Captain Hercules Vinegar_, which, we may recall, was always ready to +"fall on any knave in company." Behind the bier hobbles, clearly, the old +Duchess of Marlborough; and Walpole's fat figure stands in the foreground, +laughing uproariously at this "Funeral of Faction." In the doggerel verses +beneath this cartoon, it is very plainly hinted that "old Sarah," and the +Opposition, were in league with the Stewarts. In this historic debate, for +which members secured seats at six o'clock in the morning, the vote of +censure on "the _one person_" arraigned was defeated, Sir Robert once +again securing a majority, and so "the Motion" as the cartoonist depicts, +died "of a Disappointment." Another cartoon commemorating this ill-fated +effort is instructive as showing, again in the foreground of the fight, a +figure wearing a barrister's wig, gown, and bands, and inscribed with the +words _Pasquin_ and _The Champion_. The Opposition Leader, Pulteney, leads +both the _Pasquin_ figure, and another representing the paper _Common +Sense_, literally by the nose with the one hand, while with the other he +neatly catches, on his drawn sword, Walpole's organ the _Gazetteer_. In +doggerel verses attached to the print Fielding is complimented with the +following entire verse to himself:-- + + "Then the Champion of the Age, + Being Witty, wise, and Sage, + Comes with Libells on the Stage." + +This _Pasquin_ figure has none of the personal characteristics of +Fielding, neither his "length of nose" nor his stately stature, so well +suggested in the former print; but, lay figure though it be, it symbolises +no less clearly the prominent part he played in these final political +struggles of 1741. Also the lawyer's dress with which Fielding is here +signified is noteworthy; and similar acknowledgment of his new dignities +may be seen in the reference (in a copy of Walpole's _Gazetteer_ for 1740) +to the attacks levelled on Sir Robert by "Captain Vinegar--_i.e._ +Counsellor F---d--g." + +These popular indications of Fielding's activity in the fighting ranks of +the Opposition, during this last year of Walpole's domination, are +supplemented by the evidence of his own pen. As early as January 1741, and +while the grand Parliamentary attack of the 13th of February was but +brewing, he published an eighteenpenny pamphlet, in verse, satirising Sir +Robert's lukewarm conduct of the war with Spain. To the title of _The +Vernoniad_, there was added a lengthy mock-title in Greek, the whole being +presented as a lost fragment by Homer, describing, in epic style, the +mission of one "Mammon" sent by Satan to baffle the fleets of a nation +engaged in war with _Iberia_. "Mammon" is a perfectly obvious satirical +sketch of Walpole himself, in the execution of which the hand that had +drawn the corrupt fiddler "Mr Quidam" and the tipsy "Mr Pillage" for the +Haymarket stage, has in no wise lost its cunning. "Mammon" (Walpole was +reputed to have amassed much wealth) hides his palace walls by heaps of +"ill-got Pictures." The pictures collected at Houghton, the Minister's +pretentious Norfolk seat, were famous; and the notes to the "Text" are +careful to depict, in illustration, "some rich Man without the least Taste +having purchased a Picture at an immense Price, lifting up his eyes to it +with Wonder and Astonishment, without being able to discover wherein its +true Merit lies." "Mammon" declares virtue to be but a name, and his +wonted eloquence is bribery. Sir Robert asserted that every man has his +price. "Mammon" preserves dulness and ignorance, "while Wit and Learning +starve." Walpole's illiterate tastes were notorious. At the close of the +poem, "Mammon" accomplishes the behest of his master, Satan, by bribing +contrary winds to drive back the English ships (a satire on Walpole's +conduct of the war); and he finally returns to hell, and "in his Palace +keeps a _three Weeks'_ Feast." Sir Robert it may be noted usually +entertained for three weeks, in the spring, at Houghton. The whole is a +slashing example of the robust eighteenth-century political warfare, +polished by constant classical allusions and quotations; and doubtless it +was read with delight in the coffee houses of the Town in that critical +winter of 1740-1741. Two characteristic allusions must not be omitted. +Even in the heat of party hard hitting Fielding finds time for a thrust at +Colley Cibber, whose prose it seems was in several places by no means to +be comprehended till "explained by the _Herculean_ Labours of Captain +_Vinegar_" And there is a pleasant reference to "my friend Hogarth the +exactest Copier of Nature." + +In this first month of 1741, Fielding published yet another poetical +pamphlet for his party, but of a less truculent energy. _True Greatness_ +is a poem inscribed to a recruit in the Opposition ranks, the celebrated +George Bubb Dodington; and when the eulogiums offered by the poet to his +political leaders, Argyll, Carteret, Chesterfield, and Lyttelton, to all +of whom are ascribed that "True Greatness" which "lives but in the Noble +Mind," are completed by a description of Dodington as irradiating a blaze +of virtues, this particular pamphlet becomes somewhat rueful reading. For +Dodington was, if report speaks true, a pliant politician as well as an +ineffable coxcomb, although it must be admitted that he won eulogies and +compliments alike from the perfect integrity of Lyttelton, and the +honourable pen of James Thomson. Even Fielding's glowing lines do not +outstrip Thomson's panegyric in _The Seasons_. + +A more enduring interest however than the merits or demerits of a +Dodington, lies in this shilling pamphlet. In it is clearly foreshadowed +Fielding's great ironic outburst on false greatness, given to the world a +few years later in the form of the history of that Napoleon in villany, +the "great" Mr Jonathan Wild. In the medium of stiff couplets (verse being +"a branch of Writing" which Fielding admits "I very little pretend to") +the subject-matter of the magnificent irony of _Jonathan Wild_ is already +sketched. Here the spurious "greatness" of inhuman conquerors, of droning +pedants, of paltry beaus, of hermits proud of their humility, is +mercilessly laid bare; and something is disclosed of the "piercing +discernment" of that genius which, Murphy tell us, "saw the latent sources +of human actions." + +We have seen indications in Murphy's careless pages that these few years +of Fielding's assiduous efforts at the Bar were years burdened by +"severities of want and pain." It is difficult not to admit a reference to +some such personal experiences in a passage in this same poem. The lines +in question describe the Poet going hungry and thirsty + + "As down Cheapside he meditates the Song".... + +a "great tatter'd Bard," treading cautiously through the streets lest he +meet a bailiff, oppressed with "want and with contempt," his very liberty +to "wholesome Air" taken from him, yet possessing the greatness of mind +that no circumstances can touch, and the power to bestow a fame that shall +outlive the gifts of kings. This latter claim foreshadows the magnificent +apostrophe in _Tom Jones_ on that unconquerable force of genius, able to +confer immortality both on the poet, and the poet's theme. Was the 'great +tatter'd Bard,' cautiously treading the streets, little esteemed, and yet +the conscious possessor of true greatness (did not the author of _Tom +Jones_ rely with confidence on receiving honour from generations yet +unborn), none other than the tall figure of Fielding himself? At least we +know that soon after this year he writes of having lately suffered +accidents and waded through distresses, sufficient to move the pity of his +readers, were he "fond enough of Tragedy" to make himself "the Hero of +one." + +One of the rare fragments of Fielding's autograph, [2] refers both to this +pamphlet, and to the _Vernoniad_: + + +"Mr Nourse, + +"Please to deliver Mr Chappell 50 of [crossed out: my] [_sic_] True +Greatness and 50 of the Vernoniad. + +Y'rs + +"Hen. Ffielding. + +"_April_ 20 1741." + +In June of this year occurred the death of General Edmund Fielding, +briefly noticed in the _London Magazine_ as that of an officer who "had +served in the late Wars against _France_ with much Bravery and +Reputation." The General's own struggles to support his large family +probably prevented his death affecting the circumstances of his eldest +son. In the same month Fielding appears as attending a "Meeting of the +Partners in the Champion," held at the Feathers Tavern, on June 29. The +list of the partners present at the Feathers is given as follows:--[3] + + Present + + Mr Fielding + Mr Nourse + Mr Hodges + Mr Chappelle + + Mr Cogan + Mr Gilliver + Mr Chandler + +The business recorded was the sale of the "Impressions of the Champion in +two Vollumes, 12'o, No. 1000." The impression was put up to the Company by +auction, and was knocked down to Mr Henry Chappelle for L110, to be paid +to the partners. The majority of the partners are declared by the Minutes +to have confirmed the bargain; the minority, as appears from the list of +signatures, being strictly that of one, Henry Fielding. After this +dissension Fielding's name ceases to appear at the _Champion_ meetings; +and as he himself states that he left off writing for the paper from this +very month the evidence certainly points to a withdrawal on his part in +June 1741 from both the literary and the business management of the paper. +The edition referred to in the Minutes is doubtless that advertised in the +_London Daily Post_ a few days before the meeting of the partners, as a +publication of the _Champion_ "in two neat Pocket Volumes." [4] + +Meanwhile the whole force of the Opposition was thrown into the battle of +a General Election; and it is interesting to note that Pitt stood for the +seat for Fielding's boyish home, and the home of his wife, that of Old +Sarum. The elections went largely against Walpole, and by the end of June +defeat was prophesied for a Minister who would only be supported by a +majority of sixteen. + +It is somewhat inexplicable that at this, the very moment of the +approaching victory of his party Fielding appears to have withdrawn from +all journalistic work. "I take this Opportunity to declare in the most +solemn Manner," he writes, in after years, "I have long since (as long as +from _June_ 1741) desisted from writing one Syllable in the _Champion_, or +any other public Paper." And yet more unexpected is the fact that six +months later, during the last weeks of Walpole's failing power, a rumour +should be abroad that Fielding was assisting his old enemy. In one of his +rare references to his private life, that in the Preface to the +_Miscellanies_, he seeks to clear himself from unjust censures "as well on +account of what I have not writ, as for what I have"; and, as an instance +of such baseless aspersions, he relates that, in this winter of 1741, "I +received a letter from a Friend, desiring me to vindicate myself from two +very opposite Reflections, which two opposite Parties thought fit to cast +on me, _viz_. the one of writing in the _Champion_ (tho' I had not then +writ in it for upwards of half a year) the other, of writing in the +Gazetteer, in which I never had the honour of inserting a single Word." +What can have occurred, in the bewildering turmoil of that +eighteenth-century party strife, that the author of _Pasquin_, the +possessor of "Captain Vinegar's" Herculean Club, should have to vindicate +himself from a charge of writing in the columns of Walpole's _Gazetteer_. +During these last months of Sir Robert's power his Cabinet was much +divided, and two of his Ministers were in active revolt; possibly rumour +assigned the services of the witty pen of Counsellor Fielding to these +Opposition Ministerialists. But that some change did indeed take place in +Fielding's political activities, in these last six months of 1741 is +obvious from his withdrawal from writing in any "Public" paper; and from +passages in the last political pamphlet known to have come from his pen. +This pamphlet, entitled _The Opposition. A Vision_, was published in the +winter of 1741, a winter of severe illness, and of "other circumstances" +which, as he tells us, "served as very proper Decorations" to the sickbeds +of himself, his wife, and child. It is a lively attack on the divided +councils and leaders of the Opposition, thrown into the form of a dream, +caused by the author's falling asleep over "a large quarto Book intituled +'An apology for the Life of Mr Colley Gibber, Comedian.'" In his dream +Fielding meets the Opposition, in the form of a waggon, drawn by very +ill-matched asses, the several drivers of which have lost their way. The +luggage includes the Motion for 1741, and a trunk containing the +_Champion_ newspaper. One passenger protests that he has been hugely +spattered by the "Dirt" of the "last Motion," and that he will get out, +rather than drive through more dirt. A gentleman of "a meagre aspect" (is +he the lean Lyttelton?) leaves the waggon; and another observes that the +asses "appear to me to be the worst fed Asses I ever beheld ... that long +sided Ass they call _Vinegar_, which the Drivers call upon so often to +_gee up_, and _pull lustily_, I never saw an Ass with a worse Mane, or a +more shagged Coat; and that grave Ass yoked to him, which they name +_Ralph_, and who pulls and brays like the Devil, Sir, he does not seem to +have eat since the hard Frost. [5] Surely, considering the wretched Work +they are employed in, they deserve better Meat." + +The longsided ass, Vinegar, with the worst of manes and the most shagged +coat, short even of provender, recalls the picture, drawn twelve months +previously, of the great hungry tatter'd Bard; and the inference seems +fair enough that for Fielding politics were no lucrative trade. A more +creditable inference, in those days of universal corruption, it may be +added, would be hard to find. The honour of a successful party writer who +yet remained poor in the year 1741, must have been kept scrupulously +clean. The _Vision_ proceeds to show the waggon, with two new sets of +asses from Cornwall and Scotland (the elections had gone heavily against +Walpole in both these districts), suddenly turning aside from the "Great +Country Road" (the Opposition was known as the Country Party); and the +protesting passengers are told that the end of their journey is "St +James." Some of the asses, flinching, are "well whipt"; but the waggon +leaves the dreamer and many of its followers far behind. Suddenly a Fat +Gentleman's coach stops the way. The drivers threaten to drive over the +coach, when one of the asses protests that the waggon is leaving the +service of the country, and going aside on its own ends, and that "the +Honesty of even an Ass would start" at being used for some purposes. The +waggon is all in revolt and confusion, when the Fat Gentleman, who +appeared to have "one of the pleasantest and best natured Countenances I +ever beheld," at last had the asses unharness'd, and turned into a +delicious meadow, where they fell to feeding, as after "long Abstinence." +Finally, the pleasant-faced fat gentleman's coach proceeds on the way from +which the waggon had deviated, carrying with it some of the former drivers +of the same; the mob burn the derelict obstructing vehicle; and their +noise, and the stink and smoke of the conflagration wake the dreamer. + +In this last word of Fielding's active political career (for his later +anti-Jacobite papers are concerned rather with Constitutional and +Protestant, than with party strife), a retirement from political +collar-work is certainly signified. His reasons for such a step escape us +in the mist of those confused and heated conflicts. His detestation of +Walpole's characteristic methods may very well have roused his ever ready +fighting instincts, whereas, once Walpole's fall was practically assured +the weak forces of the Opposition (William Pitt being yet many years from +power) could have availed but little to enlist his penetrating intellect. +And he may by now have found that politics afforded, in those days, but +scanty support to an honourable pen. + +But supposition, in lack of further evidence, is fruitless; all that we +can clearly perceive is that this winter of sickness and distress marks a +final severance from party politics. The hungry 'hackney writer' of the +lean sides and shagged coat, if not, indeed, turned to graze in the fat +meadow of his dream, was at last freed from an occupation that could but +shackle the genius now ready to break forth in the publication of _Joseph +Andrews_. + +[1] A tantalising reference to one such acquaintance occurs in Lord +Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_. Vol. v. p. 357. In notes made by +Lord Camden's nephew, George Hardinge, for a proposed Life of the Lord +Chancellor there is this entry: "formed an acquaintance ... with Henry +Fielding ... called to the Bar." + +[2] Now in the possession of W. K. Bixby, Esq., of St Louis, U.S.A. + +[3] In a manuscript copy of the Minutes, in the possession of the present +writer. + +[4] _London Daily Post_, June 18-26, 1741. + +[5] The hard frost would be the terrible preceding winter of 1739-40, a +winter long remembered for the severity of the cold, the cost of +provisions, and the suffering of the poor. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +JOSEPH ANDREWS + + "This kind of writing I do not remember to have seen hitherto + attempted in our language." + Preface to _Joseph Andrews_. + +On the 2nd of February 1742 Sir Robert Walpole, the 'Colossos' of popular +broadsides, under whose feet England had lain for exactly thirty years, +received his final defeat; and the intrepid wit, who for the past eight +years had heartily lashed the tyrannies and corruptions of that 'Great +Man,' enjoyed at last the satisfaction of witnessing the downfall of the +_Mr Quiddam_ and _Mr Pillage_ of his plays, of the _Plunderer_ and +_Mammon_ of his pamphlets, of the _Brass_ on whom many a stinging blow had +fallen in the columns of his _Champion_. + +With the retirement of Walpole, Fielding's vigorous figure vanishes from +active political service. No more caustic Greek epics, translated from the +original "by Homer," no more boisterous interludes with three-bottle Prime +Ministers appearing in the part of principal boy, come from his pen. But +scarcely is the ink dry on the page of his last known political pamphlet, +when Fielding reappears, in this Spring of 1742, not as the ephemeral +politician, but as the triumphant discoverer of a new continent for +English literature; as the leader of a revolution in imaginative writing +which has outlived the Ministries and parties, the reforms, the broils, +and warfares of two centuries. For, to-day, the fierce old contests of +Whig and Tory, the far-off horrors of eighteenth-century gibbets, jails, +and streets, the succession of this and that Minister, the French Wars and +Pragmatic Sanctions of 1740 are all dead as Queen Anne. But the novel +based on character, on human life, in a word on 'the vast authentic Book +of Nature' is a living power; and it was by the publication, in February +1742, of _The Adventures of Mr Joseph Andrews and his Friend Mr Abraham +Adams_, that Fielding reveals himself as the father of the English novel. +Henceforth we can almost forget the hard-hitting political _Champion_; we +may quite forget the facile 'hackney writer' of popular farces, and the +impetuous studies of the would-be barrister. With the appearance of these +two small volumes Henry Fielding reaches the full stature of his genius as +the first, and perhaps the greatest, of English novelists. + +It is difficult, at the present day, to realise the greatness of his +achievement. Fielding found, posturing as heroines of romance, the +_Clelias, Cleopatras, Astraeas_; he left the living women, Fanny Andrews, +Sophia Western, Amelia Booth. "Amelia," writes his great follower +Thackeray, "... the most charming character in English fiction,--Fiction! +Why fiction? Why not history? I know Amelia just as well as Lady Mary +Wortley Montagu." Again, Fielding found a world of polite letters, turning +a stiff back on all "low" naturalness of life. He taught that world (as +his friend Lillo had already essayed to do in his tragedy of a _London +Merchant_) that the life of a humble footman, of a poor parson in a torn +cassock, of the poverty-hunted wife of an impoverished army-captain, of a +country lad without known parentage, interest or fortune, may make finer +reading than all the Court romances ever written; and, moreover, that "the +highest life is much the dullest, and affords very little humour or +entertainment." And, having rediscovered this world of natural and simple +human nature, his genius proceeded to the creation of nothing less than an +entirely new form of English literary expression, the medium of the novel. + +The preface to _Joseph Andrews_ shows that Fielding was perfectly +conscious of the greatness of his adventure. Such a species of writing, he +says, "I do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our language." +We can but wonder at, and admire, the superb energy and confidence which +could thus embark on the conscious production of this new thing, amid +want, pain, and distress. And wonder and admiration increase tenfold on +the further discovery that this fresh creation in literature, fashioned in +circumstances so depressing, is overflowing with an exuberance of healthy +life and enjoyment. Having entered on his fair inheritance of this new +world of human nature, Fielding pourtrays it from the standpoint of his +own maxim, that life "everywhere furnishes an accurate observer with the +ridiculous." So, into this, his newly-cut channel for imaginative +expression (to use Mr Gosse's happy phrase) he poured the strength of a +genius naturally inclined to that "exquisite mirth and laughter," which as +he declared in his preface to these volumes, "are probably more wholesome +physic for the mind and conduce better to purge away spleen, melancholy, +and ill affections than is generally imagined." No book ever more +thoroughly carried out this wholesome doctrine. The laughter in _Joseph +Andrews_ is as whole-hearted, if not as noisy, the practical jokes are as +broad, as those of a healthy school-boy; and the pages ring with a spirit +and gusto recalling Lady Mary's phrase concerning her cousin "that no man +enjoyed life more than he did." To quote again from Mr Gosse: "A good deal +in this book may offend the fine, and not merely the superfine. But the +vitality and elastic vigour of the whole carry us over every difficulty... +and we pause at the close of the novel to reflect on the amazing freshness +of the talent which could thus make a set of West country scenes, in that +despised thing, a novel, blaze with light like a comedy of Shakespeare." + +So original in creation, so humane, so full of a brave delight in life, +was the power that, mastering every gloomy obstacle of circumstance, broke +into the stilted literary world of 1742; and Murphy's Irish rhetoric is +not too warm when he talks of this sunrise of Fielding's greatness "when +his genius broke forth at once, with an effulgence superior to all the +rays of light it had before emitted, like the sun in his morning glory." + +Any detailed comment on the literary qualities of the genius which thus +disclosed itself would exceed the limits of this memoir; and indeed such +comment is, now, a thrice-told tale. To Sir Walter Scott, Fielding is the +"father of the English novel"; to Byron, "the prose Homer of human +nature." The magnificent tribute of Gibbon still remains a towering +monument, whatever experts may tell us concerning the Hapsburg genealogy. +"Our immortal Fielding," he wrote, "was of the younger branch of the Earls +of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the Counts of Hapsburg. The +successors of Charles V. may disdain their 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 Austria." +Smollett affirmed that his predecessor painted the characters, and +ridiculed the follies, of life with equal strength, humour and propriety. +The supreme autocrat of the eighteenth century, Dr Johnson himself, though +always somewhat hostile to Fielding, read _Amelia_ through without +stopping, and pronounced her to be 'the most pleasing heroine of all the +romances.' "What a poet is here," cries Thackeray, "watching, meditating, +brooding, creating! What multitudes of truths has that man left behind +him: what generations he has taught to laugh wisely and fairly." Finally +we may turn neither to novelist nor historian, but to the metaphysical +philosopher, "How charming! How wholesome is Fielding!" says Coleridge, +"to take him up after Richardson is like emerging from a sick-room, heated +by stoves, into an open lawn on a breezy day in May." Such are some +estimates of the quality of Fielding's genius, given by men not +incompetent to appraise him. To analyse that genius is, as has been said, +beyond the scope of these pages. But Fielding's first novel is not only a +revelation of genius. It frankly reveals much of the man behind the pen; +and in its pages, and in those of the still greater novels yet to come, we +may learn more of the true Fielding than from all the fatuities and +surmises of his early biographers. + +Thus in _Joseph Andrews_ for the first time we come really close to the +splendid and healthy energy, the detachment, the relentless scorn, the +warmth of feeling, that characterised Henry Fielding under all +circumstances and at all times of his life. This book, as we have seen, +was written under every outward disadvantage, and yet its pages ring with +vigour and laughter. Here is the same militant energy that had nerved +Fielding to fight the domination of a corrupt (and generally corrupting) +Minister for eight lean years; and which in later life flung itself into a +chivalrous conflict with current social crime and misery. Here is a +detachment hardly less than that which fills the pages of the last +_Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_ with a courage, a gaiety, a serenity that +no suffering and hardship, and not even the near approach of death itself, +could disturb. Here, again, Fielding consciously avows a moral purpose in +his art; the merciless scorn of his insight in depicting a vicious man or +woman is actuated, he expressly declares, by a motive other than that of +'art for art's sake.' And as this motive is scarce perceptible in the +lifelike reality of the figures whom we see breathing in actual flesh and +blood in his pages, and yet is of the first importance for understanding +the character of their creator, the great novelist's confession of this +portion of his literary faith may be quoted in full. The passage occurs in +the preface to Book iii. of _Joseph Andrews_. Fielding is afraid, he +explains, that his figures may be taken for particular portraits, whereas +it is the type and not the individual that concerns him. "I declare here," +he solemnly affirms, "once for all, I describe not Men, but Manners; not +an Individual, but a Species." And he proceeds to make example of the +lawyer in the stage coach as not indeed confined "to one Profession, one +Religion, or one Country; but when the first mean selfish Creature +appeared on the human Stage, who made Self the Centre of the whole +Creation; would give himself no Pain, incur no Damage, advance no Money to +assist, or preserve his Fellow-Creatures; then was our Lawyer born; and +while such a Person as I have described, exists on Earth, so long shall he +remain upon it." Not therefore "to mimick some little obscure Fellow" does +this lawyer appear on Fielding's pages, but "for much more general and +noble Purposes; not to expose one pitiful Wretch, to the small and +contemptible Circle of his Acquaintance; but to hold the Glass to +thousands in their Closets that they may contemplate their Deformity, and +endeavour to reduce it." + +Yet another characteristic of Fielding's personality appears in the +conscious control exercised over all the humorous and satiric zest of +_Joseph Andrews_. Here is no unseemly riot of ridicule. The ridiculous he +declares in his philosophic preface is the subject-matter of his pages; +but he will suffer no imputation of ridiculing vice or calamity. "Surely," +he cries, "he hath a very ill-framed Mind, who can look on Ugliness, +Infirmity, or Poverty, as ridiculous in themselves"; and he formally +declares that such vices as appear in this work "are never set forth as +the objects of Ridicule but Detestation." What then were the limits which +Fielding imposed on himself in treating this, his declared subject matter +of the ridiculous? Hypocrisy and vanity, he says, appearing in the form of +affectation; "Great Vices are the proper Object of our Detestation, +smaller Faults of our Pity: but Affectation appears to me the only true +Source of the Ridiculous." Such is Fielding's sensitive claim for the +decent limits of ridicule; and such the consciously avowed subject of his +work. But the force of his genius, the depth of his insight, the warmth of +his detestations and affections, soon carried him far beyond any mere +study in the ridicule of vain and hypocritical affectation. The immortal +figure of Parson Adams, striding through these pages, tells us infinitely +much of the character of his creator, but nothing at all of the nature of +affectation. The "rural innocence of a Joseph Andrews," to quote Miss +Fielding's happy phrase [1] and of his charming Fanny, are as natural and +fresh as Fielding's own Dorsetshire meadows, but instruct us not at all in +vanity or hypocrisy. + +To turn to the individual figures of _Joseph Andrews_; what do they tell +us of the man who called them into being. First and foremost, it is Parson +Adams who unquestionably dominates the book. However much the licentious +grossness of Lady Booby, the shameless self-seeking of her waiting-woman, +Mrs Slipslop, the swinish avarice of Parson Trulliber, the calculating +cruelty of Mrs Tow-wouse, to name but some of the vices here exposed, +blazon forth that 'enthusiasm for righteousness' which constantly moved +Fielding to exhibit the devilish in human nature in all its 'native +Deformity,' it is still Adams who remains the central figure of the great +comic epic. Concerning the good parson, appreciation has stumbled for +adequate words, from the tribute of Sir Walter Scott to that of Mr Austin +Dobson. "The worthy parson's learning," wrote Sir Walter, "his simplicity, +his evangelical purity of heart, and benevolence of disposition, are so +admirably mingled with pedantry, absence of mind, and with the habit of +athletic and gymnastic exercise, ... that he may be safely termed one of +the richest productions of the Muse of Fiction." And to Mr Austin Dobson, +this poor curate, compact as he is of the oddest contradictions, the most +diverting eccentricities, is "assuredly a noble example of primitive +goodness, and practical Christianity." We love Adams, as Fielding intended +that we should, for his single-hearted goodness, his impulsiveness, his +boundless generosity, his muscular courage; we are never allowed to forget +the dignity of his office however ragged be the cassock that displays it; +we admire his learning; we delight in his oddities. But above all he +reflects honour on his creator by the inflexible integrity of his +goodness. A hundred tricks are played on him by shallow knaves, and the +result is but to convince us of the folly of knavery. His ill-clad and +uncouth figure moves among the vicious and prosperous, and we perceive the +ugliness of vice, and the poverty of wealth. With his nightcap drawn over +his wig, a short grey coat half covering a torn cassock, the crabstick so +formidable to ruffians in his hand, and his beloved AEschylus in his +pocket, Adams smoking his pipe by the inn fire, or surrounded by his +"children" as he called his parishioners vying "with each other in +demonstrations of duty and love," fully justifies John Forster's comment +on Fielding's manly habit of "discerning what was good and beautiful in +the homeliest aspects of humanity." Before the true dignity of Abraham +Adams, whether he be publicly rebuking the Squire and Pamela for laughing +in church, or emerging unstained from adventures with hogs-wash and worse, +the accident of his social position as a poor curate, contentedly drinking +ale in the squire's kitchen, falls into its true insignificance. + +Rumour assigned to Fielding's friend and neighbour at East Stour, the Rev. +William Young, the honour of being the original of Parson Adams; and it is +a pleasant coincidence that the legal assignment for _Joseph Andrews_, +here reproduced in facsimile, should bear the signature, as witness, of +the very man whose "innate goodness" is there immortalised. If there be +any detractors of Fielding's personal character still to be found, they +may be advised to remember the truism that a man is known by his friends, +and to apply themselves to a study of William Young in the figure of +Parson Adams. + +Of the charming picture of rustic beauty and innocence presented in the +blushing and warmhearted Fanny less need be said; for Fielding's ideal in +womanhood was soon to be more fully revealed in the lovely creations of +Sophia and Amelia. And honest Joseph himself, his courage and fidelity, +his constancy, his tenderness and chivalrous passion for Fanny, his +affection for Mr Adams, his voice "too musical to halloo to the dogs," his +fine figure and handsome face, concerns us here chiefly as demonstrating +that Fielding, when he chose, could display both virtue and manliness as +united in the person of a perfectly robust English country lad. + +These then, are some of the figures that Fielding loved to create, +breathing into their simple virtues a vigorous human life, fresh as +Coleridge said, as the life of a Spring morning. In these joyous creations +of his heart and of his genius, the great novelist assuredly gives us a +perfectly unconscious revelation of his own character. And among the +changing scenes of this human comedy one incident must not be forgotten. +In the famous episode of the stage coach, all Fielding's characteristic +and relentless hatred of respectable hypocrisy, all his love of innate if +ragged virtue is betrayed in the compass of a few pages: in those pages in +which we see the robbed, half-murdered, and wholly naked Joseph lifted in +from the wayside ditch amid the protests and merriment of the respectable +passengers; and his shivering body at last wrapped in the coat of the +postilion,--"a Lad who hath since been transported for robbing a +Hen-roost,"--who voluntarily stripped off a greatcoat, his only garment, +"at the same time swearing a great Oath (for which he was 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.'" + +Much has been written concerning the notorious feud between Fielding and +Richardson, a feud ostensibly based upon the fact that _Joseph Andrews_ +was, to some extent, frankly a parody of Richardson's famous production +_Pamela_. In 1740, two years before the appearance of _Joseph Andrews_ +that middle-aged London printer had published _Pamela, or Virtue +Rewarded_, achieving thereby an enormous vogue. That amazing mixture of +sententious moralities, of prurience, and of mawkish sentiment, became the +rage of the Town. Admirers ranked it next to the Bible; the great Mr Pope +declared that it would "do more good than many volumes of Sermons"; and it +was even translated into French and Italian, becoming, according to Lady +Mary Wortley Montagu, who did not love Richardson, "the joy of the +chambermaids of all nations." That all this should have been highly +agreeable to the good Richardson, a 'vegetarian and water-drinker, a +worthy, domesticated, fussy, and highly nervous little man,' ensconced in +a ring of feminine flatterers whom he called 'my ladies,' is obvious; and +proportionate was his wrath with Fielding's _Joseph Andrews_, of which the +early chapters, at least, are a perfectly frank, and to Richardson +audacious, satire on _Pamela_. The caricature was indeed frank. Joseph is +introduced as Pamela's brother; he writes letters to that virtuous +maid-servant; and the Mr B. of Richardson becomes the Squire Booby of +Fielding. But there can be hardly two opinions as to such ridicule being +an entirely justified and wholesome antidote to the pompous and nauseous +original. To Fielding's robust and masculine genius, says Mr Austin +Dobson, "the strange conjunction of purity and precaution in Richardson's +heroine was a thing unnatural and a theme for inextinguishable Homeric +laughter." To Thackeray's sympathetic imagination the feud was the +inevitable outcome of the difference between the two men. Fielding, he +says "couldn't do otherwise than laugh at the puny cockney bookseller, +pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold him up to +scorn as a moll-coddle and a milksop. His genius had been nursed on sack +posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse had sung the loudest in tavern +choruses, and had seen the daylight streaming in over thousands of empty +bowls, and reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of the watchman. +Richardson's goddess was attended by old maids and dowagers, and fed on +muffins and bohea. 'Milksop!' roars Harry Fielding, clattering at the +timid shop-shutters. 'Wretch! Monster! Mohock!' shrieks the sentimental +author of _Pamela_; and all the ladies of his court cackle out an +affrighted chorus." + +Looking back on the incident it seems matter for yet more Homeric laughter +that Richardson should have called the resplendent genius of Fielding +"low." But the feud, it may be surmised, led to much of the odium that +seems to have attached to Fielding's name amongst some of his +contemporaries. Feeling ran high and was vividly expressed in those days; +and when cousinly admiration for Fielding was coupled by an excellent +comment on Richardson's book as the delight of the maidservants of all +nations, personal retorts in favour of the popular sentimentalist were but +too likely to ensue. Apart from this aspect of the matter the ancient +quarrel does not seem a very essential incident in Fielding's life. + +The lack of means indicated by Fielding himself, in his reminiscence of +this winter of 1741-2 as darkened by the illness of himself, his wife and +of a favourite child, attended "with other Circumstances, which served as +very proper Decorations to such a Scene," received but little alleviation +from the publication of _Joseph Andrews_. The price paid for the book by +Andrew Millar was but L183, 11s.; and there is no record that Millar +supplemented the original sum, as he did in the case of _Tom Jones_, when +the sale was assured. The first edition appears to have consisted of 1,500 +copies. A second edition, of 2,000 copies was issued in the same +summer,[2] and a third edition followed in 1743. + +Fielding's formal declaration that he described "not men but manners"; his +solemn protest, in the preface to this very book, that "I have no +Intention to vilify or asperse anyone: for tho' everything is copied from +the Book of Nature, and scarce a Character or Action produced which I have +not taken from my own Observations and Experience, yet I have used the +utmost Care to obscure the Persons by such different Circumstances, +Degrees, and Colours, that it will be impossible to guess at them with any +degree of Certainty"--represent rather his intention than the result. The +portraits of "manners" by the "prose Homer of human nature" were too +lifelike to escape frequent identification. Thus not only was the +prototype of Parson Adams discovered, but that of his antithesis, the +pig-breeding Mr Trulliber, was thought to exist in the person of the Rev. +Mr Oliver, the Dorsetshire curate under whose tutelage Fielding had been +placed when a boy. Tradition also connects Mr Peter Pounce with the +Dorsetshire usurer Peter Walter. [3] + +Two echoes have come down to us of the early appreciation of this novel. A +translation of _Joseph Andrews_, "par une Dame Angloise," and bound for +Marie Antoinette by Derome le Jeune, was placed on the shelves of her +library in the Petit Trianon. [4] And, seven years after the appearance of +_Joseph Andrews_, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when sixty years old, writes +from her Italian exile: "I have at length received the box with the books +enclosed, for which I give you many thanks as they amuse me very much. I +gave a very ridiculous proof of it, fitter indeed for my granddaughter +than myself. I returned from a party on horseback; and after having rode +20 miles, part of it by moonshine, it was ten at night when I found the +box arrived. I could not deny myself the pleasure of opening it; and +falling upon Fielding's works was fool enough to sit up all night reading. +I think Joseph Andrews better than his Foundling." [5] + +[1] _Cleopatra and Octavia_. Sarah Fielding. Introduction. + +[2] See the ledgers of Woodfall, the printer, quoted in _Notes and +Queries_, Series vi. p. 186. + +[3] It is interesting to note that Samuel Rogers was heard to speak with +great admiration of chapter xiii. of Book iii., entitled "A curious +Dialogue which passed between Mr Abraham Adams and Mr Peter Pounce." (MS. +note by Dyce, in a copy of _Joseph Andrews_, now in the South Kensington +Museum.) + +[4] This copy, published in Amsterdam in 1775, is now in the possession of +Mr Pierpont Morgan. + +[5] Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Vol. ii. p. 194. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE _Miscellanies_ AND _Jonathan Wild_ + + "Is there on earth a greater object of contempt than the poor + scholar to a splendid beau; unless perhaps the splendid beau to + the poor scholar." + _Covent Garden Journal_, No. 61. + +If the 'sunrise' of Fielding's genius did indeed shine forth on the +publication of _Joseph Andrews_, it was a sunrise attended by dark clouds. +For, with the appearance of these two little volumes, we enter on the most +obscure period of the great novelist's life, and on that in which he +appears to have suffered the severest 'invasions of Fortune.' + +As regards the winter immediately preceding the appearance of that joyous +epic of the highway, he himself has told us that he was 'laid up in the +gout, with a favourite Child dying in one Bed, and my Wife in a Condition +very little better, on another, attended with other Circumstances, which +served as very proper Decorations to such a Scene.' In the following +February, an entry in the registers of St Martin's in the Fields records +the burial of a child "Charlott Fielding." So it is probable that the very +month of the appearance of his first novel brought a private grief to +Fielding the poignancy of which may be measured by his frequent betrayals +of an anxious affection for his children. + +To such distresses of sickness and anxiety, there was now, doubtless, +added the further misery of scanty means. For a few months later an +advertisement (hitherto overlooked) appears in the _Daily Post_, showing +that Fielding was already eagerly pushing forward the publication of the +_Miscellanies_, that incoherent collection which is itself proof enough +that necessity alone had called it into being. "The publication of these +Volumes," he says, "hath been hitherto retarded by the Author's +indisposition last Winter, and a train of melancholy Accidents, scarce to +be parallel'd; but he takes this opportunity to assure his Subscribers +that he will most certainly deliver them within the time mentioned in his +last receipts, viz. by the 25th December next." [1] + +We may take it, then, that the first six months of 1742 were attended by +no easy circumstances; and, accordingly, during these months Fielding's +hard-worked pen produced no less than three very different attempts to win +subsistence from those humoursome jades the nine Muses. To take these +efforts in order of date, first comes, in March, his sole invocation of +the historic Muse, the _Full Vindication of the Dutchess Dowager of +Marlborough_, published almost before Joseph Andrews was clear of the +printers, and sold at the modest price of one shilling. We learn from the +title page that the _Vindication_ was called forth by a "late _scurrilous_ +Pamphlet," containing "_base_ and _malicious_ Invectives" against Her +Grace. Together with Fielding's natural love for fighting, a family tie +may have given him a further incitement to draw his pen on behalf of the +aged Duchess. For his first cousin, Mary Gould, the only child of his +uncle James Gould, M.P. for Dorchester, had married General Charles +Churchill, brother to the great Duke. Whether this cousinship by marriage +led to any personal acquaintance between 'old Sarah' and Harry Fielding we +do not know; and the muniment room at Blenheim affords no trace of any +correspondence between the Duchess and her champion. But certainly the +_Vindication_ lacks nothing of personal warmth. Fielding tells us that he +has never contemplated the character of that 'Glorious Woman' but with +admiration; and he defends her against the attacks of her opponents +through forty strenuous pages, in which the curious may still hear the +echoes of the controversies that raged round the Duke and his Duchess, +their mistress Queen Anne, and other actors of the Revolution. The +_Vindication_ appeared in March; and a second edition was called for +during the year. As far as Millar's payment goes Fielding, as appears from +the assignment in _Joseph Andrews_, received only L5; and it is to be +feared that the Duchess (who is said to have paid the historian Hooke +L5000 for his assistance in the production of her own celebrated pamphlet) +placed but little substantial acknowledgment in Fielding's lean purse. Her +champion at any rate had, within three years, modified the views expressed +in this _Vindication_, concerning the munificence of Her Grace's private +generosity; for in his journal the _True Patriot_, there occurs the +following obituary notice, "A Man supposed to be a Pensioner of the late +Duchess of Marlborough.... He is supposed to have been Poor." + +This same month of March marked Fielding's final severance with the +_Champion_. The partners of that paper, meeting on March the 1st, ordered +"that Whereas Henry Fielding Esq., did Originally possess Two Sixteenth +Shares of the Champion as a Writer in the said paper and having withdrawn +himself from that Service for above Twelve Months past and refused his +Assistance in that Capacity since which time Mr Ralph has solely +Transacted the said Business. It is hereby Declared that the said Writing +Shares shall devolve on and be vested in Mr James Ralph." [2] It is +curious that Fielding did not add to his impoverished exchequer by selling +his _Champion_ shares. + +Having sought assistance from the Muse of history in March, Fielding +returns to his old charmer the dramatic Muse in May; assisting in that +month to produce a farce, at Drury Lane, entitled _Miss Lucy in Town_. In +this piece, he tells us, he had a very small share. He also received for +it a very small remuneration; L10, 10s. being recorded as the price paid +by Andrew Millar. + +In the following month Fielding's inexhaustible energies were off on a new +tack, producing, in startling contrast to _Miss Lucy_, a classical work, +executed in collaboration with his friend the Rev. William Young, +otherwise Parson Adams. The two friends contemplated a series of +translations of all the eleven comedies of Aristophanes; adorned by notes +containing "besides a full Explanation of the Author, a compleat History +of the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Greeks particularly of the +Athenians"; and in June they inaugurated their scheme with the work in +question, a translation of the Plutus.[3] William Young, says Hutchins, +"had much learning which was the cement of Mr Fielding's connexion with +him"; and Fielding's own scholarship, irradiated by his wit, would +assuredly have made him an ideal translator of Greek comedy. But the +public of 1742 appears to have afforded very little encouragement to this +scheme, preferring that "pretty, dapper, brisk, smart, pert, Dialogue" of +their own comedies, to which allusion is made in the authors' preface. + +The rest of the year shows nothing from a pen somewhat exhausted perhaps +with the production of _Joseph Andrews_ of the historical _Vindication_, +and of parts of a Drury Lane farce and of the _Plutus_, all within five +months. And the winter following, in which the promised _Miscellanies_ +should have appeared, brought, in the renewed illness of his wife, an +anxiety that paralysed even Fielding's buoyant vigour. This we learn from +his own touching apology for the further delay of those volumes; a delay +due, their author tells us, to "the dangerous Illness of one from whom I +draw all the solid Comfort of my Life, during the greatest Part of this +Winter. This, as it is most sacredly true, so will it, I doubt not, +sufficiently excuse the Delay to all who know me." [4] Early in the +following year, after this second winter of crushing anxiety, and under an +urgent pressure for means, Fielding tried again his familiar _role_ of +popular dramatist, giving his public the husks they preferred, in the +comedy of the _Wedding Day_. This comedy was produced at Drury Lane on the +17th of February 1743. + +If Fielding had failed to descend to the taste of the Town in offering +them Aristophanes, he flung them in the _Wedding Day_ something too +imperfect for acceptance, even by the 'critic jury of the pit,' And the +bitter humour in which he was now shackling his genius to the honourable +task of immediate bread-winning, or in his own words to the part of +"hackney writer," comes out clearly enough in the well-known anecdote of +the first night of this comedy. In Murphy's words, Garrick, then a new +player, just taking the Town by storm, "told Mr Fielding he was +apprehensive that the audience would make free in a particular passage; +adding that a repulse might so flurry his spirits as to disconcert him for +the rest of the night, and therefore begged that it might be omitted. 'No, +d--mn 'em,' replied the bard, 'if the scene is not a good one, let them +find _that_ out.' Accordingly the play was brought on without alteration, +and, just as had been foreseen, the disapprobation of the house was +provoked at the passage before objected to; and the performer alarmed and +uneasy at the hisses he had met with, retired into the green-room, where +the author was indulging his genius, and solacing himself with a bottle of +champaign." Fielding, continues Murphy, had by this time drank pretty +plentifully, and "'_What's the matter, Garrick?_' says he, '_what are they +hissing now?_' Why the scene that I begged you to retrench; I knew it +would not do; and they have so frightened me that I shall not be able to +collect myself again the whole night. _Oh! d--mn 'em_, replies the author, +_they HAVE found it out, have they!_" That Fielding should be scornfully +indifferent to the judgment of the pit on work forced from him by +overwhelming necessities, and which his own judgment condemned, is a +foregone conclusion; but that he suffered keenly in having to produce +imperfect work, and was jealously anxious to clear his reputation, as a +writer, in the matter of this particular comedy, is no less apparent from +the very unusual personal explanation he offered for it, soon after the +brief run of the play was over. For no man was more shy of +autobiographical revelations. His biographers are continually reduced to +gleaning stray hints, here and there, concerning his private life. +[5] And therefore we can measure by this emergence from a habitual +personal reticence the soreness with which he now published work unworthy +of his genius. "Mr Garrick," Fielding tells us, speaking of this +distressed winter of 1742-3 "... asked me one Evening, if I had any play +by me; telling me he was desirous of appearing in a new Part [and] ... as +I was full as desirous of putting Words into his Mouth, as he could appear +to be of speaking them, I mentioned [a] Play the very next morning to Mr +_Fleetwood_ who embraced my Proposal so heartily, that an Appointment was +immediately made to read it to the Actors who were principally to be +concerned in it." On consideration, however, this play appeared to +Fielding to need more time for perfecting, and also to afford very little +opportunity to Garrick. So, recollecting that he still had by him a play +which, although 'the third Dramatic Performance' he ever attempted, +contained a character that would keep the audience's "so justly favourite +Actor almost eternally before their Eyes," he decided, with characteristic +impetuosity, to a change at the last moment. "I accordingly," he writes, +"sat down with a Resolution to work Night and Day, owing to the short Time +allowed me, which was about a Week, in altering and correcting this +Production of my more Juvenile Years; when unfortunately the extreme +Danger of Life into which a Person, very dear to me, was reduced, rendered +me incapable of executing my Task. To this Accident alone I have the +vanity to apprehend, the Play owes most of the glaring Faults with which +it appeared.... Perhaps, it may be asked me why then did I suffer a Piece +which I myself knew was imperfect, to appear? I answer honestly and +freely, that Reputation was not my Inducement; and that I hoped, faulty as +it was, it might answer a much more solid, and in my unhappy situation, a +much more urgent Motive." This hope was, alas, frustrated; not even the +brilliancy of a cast which included Garrick, Mrs Pritchard, Macklin, and +Peg Woffington, could carry the _Wedding Day_ over its sixth night; and +the harassed author received 'not L50 from the House for it.' The comedy +is a coarsely moral attack on libertinism, a fact which probably, in no +wise added to the popularity of the play in the pit and boxes of 1743. + +A doggerel prologue, both written and spoken by Macklin, gives an +excellent picture of the playhouse humours, and of the wild pit, of those +exuberant days; and contains moreover the following sound advice, +addressed to Fielding + + "Ah! thou foolish follower of the ragged Nine + You'd better stuck to honest Abram Adams, by half; + He, in spite of critics can make your Readers laugh." + +The next publication of these lean years was the _Miscellanies_, a +collection of mingled prose, verse, and drama, of which the only +connecting link seems to be the urgent need of money which forced so +heterogenous a medley from so great an artist. These long delayed volumes +appeared, probably, in April, and were, says Fielding, composed with a +frequent "Degree of Heartache." They include the lover's verses of his +early youth; philosophical, satiric, and didactic essays; a reprint of the +political effusion dedicated to Dodington; a few plays; the fragment +entitled _A Journey from this World to the Next_; and the splendid ironic +outburst on villany, _Jonathan Wild_. + +The _Preface_, largely occupied as it is with those private circumstances +which forced the hasty production of the _Wedding Day_, has other matter +of even greater interest for the biographer. Thus Fielding's sensitive +care of his reputation in essential matters appears in the fiery denial +here given to allegations of publishing anonymous scandals: "I never was, +nor will be the Author of anonymous Scandal on the private History or +Family of any Person whatever. Indeed there is no Man who speaks or thinks +with more detestation of the modern custom of Libelling. I look on the +practice of stabbing a Man's Character in the Dark, to be as base and as +barbarous as that of stabbing him with a Poignard in the same manner; nor +have I ever been once in my Life guilty of it." Here too, he marks his +abhorrence of that 'detestable Vice' hypocrisy, which vice he was, before +long, to expose utterly in the person of Blifil in _Tom Jones_. His happy +social temperament is betrayed in the characteristic definition of good +breeding as consisting in "contributing with our utmost Power to the +Satisfaction and Happiness of all about us." And in these pages we have +Fielding's philosophy of _goodness_ and _greatness_, delivered in words +that already display an unrivalled perfection of style. Speaking of his +third volume, that poignant indictment of devilry the _Life of Mr Jonathan +Wild the Great_, it is thus that Fielding exposes the iniquity of villains +in "great" places:--"But without considering _Newgate_ as no other than +Human Nature with its mask off, which some very shameless Writers have +done, a Thought which no Price should purchase me to entertain, I think we +may be excused for suspecting, that the splendid Palaces of the Great, are +often no other than _Newgate_ with the Mask on. Nor do I know anything +which can raise an honest Man's Indignation higher than that the same +Morals should be in one Place attended with all imaginable Misery and +Infamy and in the other with the highest Luxory and Honour. Let any +impartial Man in his Senses be asked, for which of these two Places a +Composition of Cruelty, Lust, Avarice, Rapine, Insolence, Hypocrisy, Fraud +and Treachery, was best fitted, surely his Answer must be certain and +immediate; and yet I am afraid all these Ingredients glossed over with +Wealth and a Title, have been treated with the highest Respect and +Veneration in the one, while one or two of them have been condemned to the +Gallows in the other." + +Here is the converse of that insight which could discern goodness under a +ragged cassock, or in a swearing postilion. And, having discerned the true +nature of such Great Men, Fielding proceeds to point out that "However the +Glare of Riches and Awe of Title may terrify the Vulgar; nay however +Hypocrisy may deceive the more Discerning, there is still a Judge in every +Man's Breast, which none can cheat or corrupt, tho' perhaps it is the only +uncorrupt thing about him"; that nothing is so preposterous as that men +should laboriously seek to be villains; and that this Judge, inflexible +and honest "however polluted the Bench on which he sits," always bestows +on the spurious Great the penalty of fear, an evil which "never can in any +manner molest the Happiness" of the "Enjoyments of Innocence and Virtue." + +The subsequent philosophic dissertation on the qualities of goodness and +greatness is interesting for such passages as the definition of a good man +as one possessing "Benevolence, Honour, Honesty, and Charity"; and the +fine declaration that of the passion of Love "goodness hath always +appeared to me the only true and proper Object." And the very springs of +action underlying half at least of each of the three great novels, and +almost every page of _Jonathan Wild_, are revealed in the final +declaration of the writer's intention to expose in these pages vice +stripped of its false colours; to show it "in its native Deformity." As +the native and stripped deformity of vice is perhaps not often fully +apprehended and certainly is very seldom exposed in our own age, Fielding, +by the very sincerity and fire of his morality, doubtless loses many a +modern reader. + +It is in the third volume of the _Miscellanies_, a volume completely +occupied by _Jonathan Wild_, that Fielding first fully reveals himself as +public moralist. And in this Rogue's progress to the gallows he displays +so concentrated a zeal, that nothing short of his genius and his humour +could have saved these pages from the dullness of the professional +reformer. For the little volume consists of a relentless exposure of the +deformity and folly of vice. Here the foul souls of Wild and his +associates, stripped of all the glamour of picturesque crime, stand +displayed in their essential qualities, with the result that even the +pestilential air of thieves' slums, of 'night cellars,' and of Newgate +purlieus, an air which hangs so heavy over every page, falls back into +insignificance before the loathsomeness of the central figure. A few years +later, in the preface to _Tom Jones_, Fielding formally asserted his +belief that the beauty of goodness needed but to be seen 'to attract the +admiration of mankind'; in _Jonathan Wild_ he appears to be already at +work on the converse doctrine, that if the deformity of vice be but +stripped naked, abhorrence must ensue. Such a naked criminal is Wild; and +in the contemplation of his vices, as in the case of the arch hypocrite +Blifil, in _Tom Jones_, and of the shameless sensualist "My Lord," in +_Amelia_, Fielding's characteristic compassion for the faults of hard +pressed humanity is, for the time, scorched up in the fierceness of his +anger and scorn at deliberate cruelty, avarice and lust. Under the spell +of Fielding's power of painting the devil in his native blackness, we feel +that for such as Wild hanging is too handsome a fate. It is easy for his +Newgate chaplain to assert that "nothing is so sinful as sin"; it takes a +great genius and a great moralist to convince us, as in this picture, that +nothing is so deformed or so contemptible. The dark places of _Jonathan +Wild_ receive some light in the character of the good jeweller, in the +tender scenes between that honest ruined tradesman and his wife and +children, and in the devoted affection of his apprentice. But the true +illumination of the book, and its personal value for the biographer, lie +in the white heat of anger, the "sustained and sleepless irony" to adopt +Mr Austin Dobson's happy phrase, with which Fielding, with a force +unwavering from the first page to the last, here assails his subject. An +underlying attack on the Ministerial iniquity of "Great Men" in high +places seems to be often suggested; if this be a true inference, it does +but give us further proof of Fielding's energies as a political, no less +than as a moral, reformer. Certainly, through all the squalid scenes of +the book, the contention is insisted on that criminals of Wild's +tyrannical stamp may as easily be found in courts, and at the head of +armies, as among the poor leaders of Newgate gangs. To the wise moralist +it is the same rogue, whether picking a pocket or swindling his country. + +And not to forget the wit in the moral reformer, we may leave Mr Jonathan +Wild listening to one of the reasons given by the Newgate chaplain for his +Reverence's preference for punch over wine: "Let me tell you, Mr Wild +there is nothing so deceitful as the spirits given us by wine. If you must +drink let us have a bowl of punch; a liquor I the rather prefer as it is +nowhere spoken against in Scripture." + +After _Jonathan Wild_ the most interesting fragment of the _Miscellanies_ +is the _Journey from this World to the Next_. In this essay Fielding +reveals his philosophy, his sternness, his affections, and his humour, as +a man might do in intimate conversation. His warm humanity breathes in the +conception that "the only Business" of those who had won admission to +Elysium 'that happy Place,' was to "contribute to the Happiness of each +other"; and again in the stern declaration of Heaven's doorkeeper, the +Judge Minos, that "no Man enters that Gate without Charity." And indeed +the whole chapter devoted to the judgments administered by Minos on the +spirits that come, confident or trembling, before him, and are either +admitted to Heaven, sent back to earth, or despatched to the "little Back +Gate" opening immediately into the bottomless pit, is full of personal +revelation. We feel the glee with which Fielding consigns the "little +sneaking soul" of a miser to diabolically ingenious torments; the +satisfaction with which he watches Minos apply a kick to the retreating +figure of a duke, possessed of nothing but "a very solemn Air and great +Dignity"; and the pleasure it gave him to observe the rejection accorded +to "a grave Lady," the Judge declaring that "there was not a single Prude +in Elysium." Again, nothing could be more true to Fielding's nature than +the account of the poet who is admitted, not for the moral value he +himself places on his Dramatic Works (which he endeavours to read aloud to +Minos), but because "he had once lent the whole profits of a Benefit Night +to a Friend, and by that Means had saved him and his Family from +Destruction"; unless it were the account of the poverty driven wretch, +hanged for a robbery of eighteen-pence, who yet could plead that he had +supported an aged Parent with his labour, that he had been a very tender +Husband, and a Kind Father, and that he had ruined himself for being Bail +for a Friend. "At these words," adds the historian, "the gate opened, and +_Minos_ bid him enter, giving him a slap on the Back as he passed by him." + +When the author's own turn came, he very little expects, he tells us, "to +pass this fiery Trial. I confess'd I had indulged myself very freely with +Wine and Women in my Youth, but had never done an Injury to any Man +living, nor avoided an opportunity of doing good; but I pretended to very +little Virtue more than general Philanthropy and Private Friendship." Here +Minos cut the speaker short, bidding him enter the gate, and not indulge +himself trumpeting forth his virtues. Whether or no we may here read the +reflections of Fielding's maturity, looking honestly back over his own +forty years and forward with humble fear into the future, we may certainly +see reflected in both confession and judgment much of the doctrine and the +practice of his life. + +After the failure, early in 1743, of the _Wedding Day_, and the subsequent +publication of the _Miscellanies_, Fielding seems to have thrown his +energies for twelve months into an exclusive pursuit of the law. This +appears from his statement, made a year later, in May 1744, that he could +not possibly be the author of his sister's novel _David Simple_, which had +been attributed to him, because he had applied himself to his profession +"with so arduous and intent a diligence that I have had no leisure, if I +had inclination, to compose anything of this kind." Clearly, in the period +that covers the publication of _Joseph Andrews_ an historical pamphlet, +parts of a farce and of _Plutus_, and of the _Miscellanies_, Fielding +found both leisure and inclination for writing; so this sudden immersion +in law must relate to the twelve months or so intervening between these +works and the publication of his statement. Murphy corroborates this bout +of hard legal effort. After the _Wedding Day_ says that biographer "the +law from this time had its hot and cold fits with him." The cold fits were +fits of gout; and inconveniences felt by Fielding from these interruptions +were, adds Murphy "the more severe upon him, as voluntary and wilful +neglect could not be charged upon him. The repeated shocks of illness +disabled him from being as assiduous an attendant at the bar, as his own +inclination and patience of the most laborious application, would +otherwise have made him." + +Mr Counsellor Fielding follows his retrospect of this strenuous attack on +the law with a declaration that, henceforth, he intends to forsake the +pursuit of that 'foolscap' literary fame, and the company of the +'infamous' nine Muses; a decision based partly on the insubstantial nature +of the rewards achieved, and partly it would seem due to the fact that at +Fielding's innocent door had been laid, he declares, half the anonymous +scurrility, indecency, treason, and blasphemy that the few last years had +produced. [6] In especial he protests against the ascription to his pen of +that 'infamous paltry libel' on lawyers, the _Causidicade_, an ascription +which, as he truly says, accused him "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." He also declares that no anonymous work had issued +from his pen since his promise to that effect; and that these false +accusations had injured him cruelly in ease, reputation and interest. This +solemn declaration that the now detested Muses shall no longer beguile +Fielding's pen affords excellent reading in view of the fact that this +absorbed barrister must, within a year or two, have been at work on _Tom +Jones_. The whole emphatic outburst was probably partly an effort to +assert himself as now wholly devoted to the law, and partly an example of +one of those "occasional fits of peevishness" into which, Murphy tells us, +distress and disappointment would betray him. + +The preface to his sister's novel _David Simple_, in which Fielding took +occasion to announce these protests and assertions, is his only extant +publication for this year of 1744; and apart from its biographical value +is not of any great moment. Ample proof may be found in it of brotherly +pride and admiration for the work of a sister "so nearly and dearly allied +to me in the highest friendship as well as relation." There is the +noteworthy declaration that the "greatest, noblest, and rarest of all the +talents which constitute a genius" is the gift of "a deep and profound +discernment of all the mazes, windings, and labyrinths which perplex the +heart of man." The utterance concerning style, by so great a master of +English, is memorable--"a good style as well as a good hand in writing is +chiefly learned by practice." And a delightful reference should not be +forgotten to the carping ignorant critic, who has indeed, "had a little +Latin inoculated into his tail," but who would have been much the gainer +had "the same great quantity of birch been employed in scourging away his +ill-nature." + +Disabled by gout and harassed by want of money, a yet greater distress was +now fast closing on Fielding in the prolonged illness of his wife. "To see +her daily languishing and wearing away before his eyes," says Murphy, "was +too much for a man of his strong sensations; the fortitude with which he +met all other calamities of life [now] deserted him." In the autumn of +1744 Mrs Fielding was at Bath, doubtless in the hope of benefit from the +Bath waters. And here, in November, she died. Her body was brought to +London for burial in the church of St. Martin's in the Fields; receiving +on the 14th of November, 1744, honourable interment in the chancel vault, +to the tolling of the great tenor bell, and with the fullest ceremonial of +the time. Indeed it is evident, from the charges still preserved in the +sexton's book, that Fielding rendered to his wife such stately honours as +were occasionally accorded to the members of the few great families +interred in the old church. + +The death of this beloved wife, Murphy tells us, brought on Fielding "such +a vehemence of grief that his friends began to think him in danger of +losing his reason." When we remember that he himself has explicitly stated +that lovely picture of the 'fair soul in the fair body,' the Sophia of +_Tom Jones_, to have been but a portrait of Charlotte Fielding, we can in +some measure realise his overwhelming grief at her death. And that the +exquisite memorial raised to his wife by Fielding's affection and genius +was not more beautiful in mind or face than the original, is acknowledged +by Lady Bute, a kinswoman of the great novelist. Lady Bute was no +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. He loved her passionately, and she returned his affection; yet +had no happy life for they were almost always miserably poor, and seldom +in a state of quiet and safety. 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." That Fielding's married life was +unhappy, whatever were its outward conditions, is obviously a very shallow +misstatement; but, for the rest, the picture accords well enough with our +knowledge of his nature. The passionate tenderness of which that nature +was capable appears in a passage from those very _Miscellanies_, which, he +tells us, were written with so frequent a "Degree of Heartache." In the +_Journey from this World to the Next_, Fielding describes how, on his +entrance into Elysium, that "happy region whose beauty no Painting of the +Imagination can describe" and where "Spirits know one another by +Intuition" he presently met "a little Daughter whom I had lost several +years before. Good Gods! What Words can describe the Raptures, the melting +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." + +The fittest final comment on Henry Fielding's marriage with Charlotte +Cradock is, perhaps, that saying of a member of his own craft of the +drama, "Now to love anything sincerely is an act of grace, but to love the +best sincerely is a state of grace." + +[1] _Daily Post_, June 5, 1742. + +[2] MS. copy of the Minutes of the Meetings of the Partners in the +_Champion_, in the possession of the present writer. + +[3] See _Daily Post_. May 29, 1742. + +[4] Preface to the _Miscellanies_. + +[5] Such as the inscription on some verses, published in the +_Miscellanies_, as "Written _Extempore_ in the Pump-room" at Bath, in +1742. + +[6] Preface to _David Simple_. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +PATRIOTIC JOURNALISM + + "he only is the _true Patriot_ who always does what is in + his Power for his Country's Service without any selfish Views or + Regard to private Interests."--The _True Patriot_. + +Fielding's active pen seems to have been laid aside for twelve months +after the death of his wife; and it is perfectly in accord with all that +we know of his passionate devotion to Charlotte Cradock that her loss +should have shattered his energies for the whole of the ensuing year. +Murphy, as we have seen, speaks of the first vehemence of his grief as +being so acute that fears were entertained for his reason. According to +Fielding's kinswomen, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Lady Bute, the first +agonies of his grief approached to frenzy; but "when the first emotions of +his sorrow were abated" his fine balance reasserted itself, and to quote +again from Murphy, "philosophy administered her aid; his resolution +returned, and he began again to struggle with his fortune." + +As we hear no more of exclusive devotion to the law, it may be assumed +that the attempt of the previous year to live by that arduous calling +alone was now abandoned; and to a man of Fielding's strong Protestant and +Hanoverian convictions the year of the '45, when a Stewart Prince and an +invading Highland army had captured Edinburgh and were actually across the +border, could not fail to bring occupation. Fielding believed ardently +that Protestant beliefs, civil liberty, and national independence of +foreign powers were best safeguarded by a German succession to the English +throne; so by the time Prince Charles and 6,000 men had set foot on +English soil, the former 'Champion of Great Britain' was again up in arms, +discharging his sturdy blows in a new weekly newspaper entitled the _True +Patriot_. + +The _True Patriot_ is chiefly notable as affording the first sign that +Fielding was now leaving party politics for the wider, and much duller, +field of Constitutional liberty. A man might die for the British +Constitution; but to be witty about it would tax the resources of a +Lucian. And, accordingly, in place of that gay young spark Mr Pasquin, who +laid his cudgel with so hearty a good will on the shoulders of the +offending 'Great Man,' there now steps out a very philosophic, mature, and +soberly constitutional _Patriot_; a patriot who explicitly asserts in his +first number, "I am of no party; a word I hope by these my labours to +eradicate out of our constitution: this being indeed the true source of +all those evils which we have reason to complain of." And again, in No. +14, "I am engaged to no Party, nor in the Support of any, unless of such +as are truly and sincerely attached to the true interest of their Country, +and are resolved to hazard all Things in its Preservation." Here is a +considerable change from the personal zest that placed Mr Quiddam and Mr +Pillage before delighted audiences in the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. + +The available copies of the _True Patriot_, now in the British Museum, +[1] include only thirty-two numbers, starting from No. 1, which appeared +on the 5th of November, 1745, and ending on June 3, 1746. The first number +contains a characteristic tribute to Dean Swift, whose death had occurred +'a few days since.' Doctor Jonathan Swift, says the _Patriot_, was "A +genius who deserves to be rank'd among the first whom the World ever saw. +He possessed the Talents of a Lucian a Rabelais and a Cervantes and in his +Works exceeded them all. He employed his Wit to the noblest Purposes in +ridiculing as well Superstition in Religion as Infidelity and the several +Errors and Immoralities which sprung up from time to time in his Age; and +lastly in defence of his Country.... Nor was he only a Genius and a +Patriot; he was in Private Life a good and charitable Man and frequently +lent Sums of Money, without interest, to the Poor and Industrious; by +which means many Families were preserved from Destruction." In No. 2, the +_Patriot_ reiterates his "sincere Intention to calm and heal, not to blow +up and inflame, any Party-Divisions"; but even the task of defending the +British Constitution could not stifle Fielding's wit, and he escapes, for +breathing space as it were, into a column devoted to the news items of the +week, gathered from various papers, and adorned by comments of his own, +printed in italics. And in this running commentary on the daily occurences +of the time we get nearer, perhaps, to the table-talk of Henry Fielding +than by any other means. Thus he faithfully repeats the inflated obituary +lists that were then in fashion, but with such a variation as the +following, "Thomas Tonkin, ... universally lamented by his Acquaintance. +Upwards of 40 Cows belonging to one at Tottenham Court, _universally +lamented by all their Acquaintance_." On a notice of an anniversary +meeting of the Society for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts there +is the pertinent comment "_It is a Pity some Method--was not invented for +the Propagation of the Gospel in Great Britain_." After the deaths of a +wealthy banker and factor, comes the obituary of "One Nowns a Labourer, +_most probably immensely poor, and yet as rich now as either of the two +Preceeding_"; beside which may be placed the very characteristic assertion +in No. 6 that "Spleen and Vapours inhabit Palaces and are attired with +Pomp and Splendor, while they shun Rags and Prisons." + +There is scarcely a personal allusion in all the thirty-two numbers of the +_Patriot_, save the charming picture of that gentleman sitting in his +study "meditating for the good and entertainment of the public, with my +two little children (as is my usual course to suffer them) playing near +me." And the ending of his horrid nightmare, in which a Jacobite +executioner was placing a rope round his neck, "when my little girl +entered my bedchamber and put an end to my dream by pulling open my eyes, +and telling me that the taylor had brought home my cloaths for his +Majesty's Birthday." The number for January 28 must not be overlooked, +containing as it does, a scathing and humourous exposure of the profligate +young sparks of the Town, from no less a pen than that of the Rev. Mr. +Abraham Adams; and Parson Adams' letter concludes with a paragraph in +which may be heard the voice of the future zealous magistrate: "No man can +doubt but that the education of youth ought to be the principal care of +every legislation; by the neglect of which great mischief accrues to the +civil polity in every city." When himself but a lad of twenty, and in the +prologue of his first comedy, Fielding had entered his protest against +certain popular vices of the time, and had made merry over its follies. +The desire to make the world he knew too well a better place than he found +it is just as keen in the wit and humourist of thirty-nine; a desire, +moreover, undulled by twenty years of vivacious living. Surely not the +least amazing feature of Fielding's genius is this dual capacity for +exuberant enjoyment, and incisive judgement. "His wit," said Thackeray, +"is wonderfully wise and detective; it flashes upon a rogue and brightens +up a rascal like a policeman's lantern." + +To this time of national ferment belongs a publication of which we know +nothing but the title, a _Serious Address_; and also one of our rare +glimpses of the novelist's home life. Joseph Warton writes to his brother +Tom, on October 29, 1746:--"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 retir'd +pretty soon, but Russell and I sat up with the Poet till one or two in the +morning, and were inexpressibly diverted. I find he values, as he justly +may, Joseph Andrews above all his writings: he was extremely civil to me, +I fancy, on my Father's account." Joseph Warton's father was Vicar of +Basingstoke, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and moreover, something of a +Jacobite; whereby, we may surmise, that the _True Patriot_ did not allow +his staunch Hanoverian sentiments too great an invasion into his private +society. Alas, that it did not occur to Warton to preserve, for the +entertainment of later ages, some fuller record of those two _noctes +ambrosianae_. + +This sister, Sally Fielding as her cousin Lady Mary Wortley Montagu called +her, made some figure in the literary world of the day. Richardson +extolled her "knowledge of the human heart"; Murphy writes of her "lively +and penetrating genius"; and her classical scholarship is attested by a +translation of Xenophon's _Memorabilia_. That she also shared some of the +engaging qualities of her brother may be assumed from the lines written to +the memory of the "esteemed and loved ... Mrs. Sarah Fielding," by her +friend Dr. John Hoadley. + + "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." + +Sarah Fielding's name occurs again as living with her brother in that +house in Beaufort Buildings with which is associated perhaps the happiest +instance of Fielding's warm-hearted generosity. The story may be given as +nearly as possible in the words of the narrator, one G. S., writing from +Harley Street in 1786. After speaking of the conspicuous good nature of +"the late Harry Fielding," G. S. says: "His receipts were never large, and +his pocket was an open bank for distress and friendship at all times to +draw on. Marked by such a liberality of mind it is not to be wondered at +if he was frequently under pecuniary embarrassments.... Some parochial +taxes for his house in Beaufort Buildings being unpaid, and for which he +had been demanded again and again [we may remember how Mr. Luckless' door +was "almost beat down with duns"]...he was at last given to understand by +the collector who had an esteem for him, that he could procrastinate the +payment no longer." To a bookseller, therefore he addressed himself, and +mortgaged the coming sheets of some work then in hand. He received the +cash, some ten or twelve guineas, and was returning home, full freighted +with this sum, when, in the Strand, within a few yards of his own house, +he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. "Harry +felt the enthusiasm of friendship; an hundred interrogatives were put to +him in a moment as where had he been? where was he going? how did he do? +&c. &c. His friend told him in reply he had long been buffeting the waves +of adverse fortunes, but never could surmount them." Fielding took him off +to dine at a neighbouring tavern, and as they talked, becoming acquainted +with the state of his friend's pocket, emptied his own into it; and a +little before dawn, he turned homewards "greater and happier than a +monarch." Arrived at Beaufort Buildings his sister, who had anxiously +awaited him, reported that the collector had called for the taxes twice +that day. "Friendship," answered Harry Fielding "has called for the money +and had it;--let the collector call again." Well might his cousin Lady +Mary say of the man of whom such a story could be told, "I am persuaded he +has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth." + +During the summer following Warton's visit to the brother and sister, +Fielding published a _Dialogue between an Alderman and a Courtier_. And in +the following November his second marriage took place, at the little City +church of St Bene't's, Paul's Wharf. The story of this marriage cannot be +better told than in the words of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's +granddaughter, Lady Louisa Stuart, quoting from the personal knowledge of +her mother and grandmother: + +"His 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 creature, devotedly attached +to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first +agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief +but from weeping with her; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but in +talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his +habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think +he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a +more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he told his +friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and +fully justified his good opinion." From a supposed allusion by Smollett, +in the first edition of _Peregrine Pickle_, (an allusion afterwards +suppressed) it would appear that Fielding's old schoolfellow and lifelong +friend 'the good Lord Lyttelton' so far approved the marriage as himself +to give Mary Daniel away; and, as the dates in the Twickenham Register of +births show that the marriage was one of justice as well as expediency, +this well accords with Lyttelton's upright and honourable character. Of +Fielding's affectionate and grateful loyalty to his second wife ample +evidence appears in the pages of his last book, the _Journal of a Voyage +to Lisbon_. Throughout this touching record of the journey of a dying man, +there are references to her tenderness, ability and devotion. At the sad +parting from children and friends, on the morning of their departure for +Lisbon, he writes of her behaviour as "more like a heroine and +philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world." +When, during the voyage down the Thames, an unmannerly custom house +officer burst into the cabin where Fielding and his wife were sitting, the +man was soundly rated for breaking "into the presence of a lady without an +apology or even moving his hat"; by which we may see his sensitive care +that due respect was accorded her. He tells us how he persuaded her with +difficulty to take a walk on shore when their vessel was wind bound in +Torbay, it being "no easy matter for me to force [her] from my side." With +anxious forboding he thinks of his "dear wife and child" facing the world +alone after his death, for "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." And in a more formal tribute he +acknowledges the abilities that accompanied her worth, when he says that +"besides discharging excellently well her own and all tender offices +becoming the female character; ... besides being a faithful friend, an +amiable companion, and a tender nurse, [she] could likewise supply the +wants of a decrepit husband and occasionally perform his part." That +Fielding suffered socially by the fact of his second marriage is probable. +But the fact is proof, if proof were needed, of his courage in reparation, +and of the unworldly spirit in which he ultimately followed the dictates +of that incorruptible judge which he himself asserted to be in every man's +breast. + +It was in December 1747, just a month after his second marriage, that +Fielding again flung himself into the arena of contentious journalism, +'brandishing' his pen as truculently as ever on behalf of the Protestant +and Hanoverian succession, and in despite of the Jacobite cause. He called +his new paper "_The Jacobite's Journal_, by John Trott Plaid Esq're.," and +the ironic title was accompanied by a woodcut traditionally associated +with Hogarth. The ironic mask, Fielding explains, was assumed "in order if +possible to laugh Men out of their follies and to make men ashamed of +owning or acting by" Jacobite principles. + +The _Jacobite's Journal_ appeared at a moment when public opinion, and +public gossip also, seem to have been immersed in the question whether a +notorious pamphlet purporting to have been found among the papers of a +late Minister, Mr. Thomas Winnington, were genuine or a libel. Into this +fray Fielding promptly plunged, publishing, in December 1747, [2] a +shilling pamphlet entitled _A Proper Answer to a Late Scurrilous +Libel,... By the Author of the Jacobites Journal._ This little pamphlet, +copies of which may be seen in the British Museum, is merely a further +vigorous declamation for civil liberty and the Protestant religion, as +under King George, and contains hardly any reference either to Winnington +or to the author. It was retorted on in two further pamphlets. In one of +these a Lady Fanny and her friend, enjoying a 'Chit chat,' discuss the +news that Lady Fanny is she "whom F---g represents in a _Plaid Jocket_ in +the front of his _Jacobite_ Journal." "The Whirling Coxcomb," cries Lady +Fanny enraged, "what had he to do with ridiculing any Party, who had +travell'd round the whole Circle of Parties and Ministers, ever since he +could brandish a Pen." [3] Her Ladyship adds some further sneers on +writers pensioned to amuse people with their nonsense. The other counter +pamphlet consists of conversations overheard, all over the town, on the +subject of Winnington and his _Apology_. Here a mercer and a bookseller +abuse Fielding for boxing the political compass, and for selling his pen. +Another bookseller insinuates that Fielding's own attack on the _Apology_ +is but a half-hearted affair--"Ah Sir, you know not what F---g could do if +he were willing ... you would have seen him mince and hash it so as to +make half the Town weep and the other laugh. Don't you think the Pen that +writ _Pasquin, Joseph Andrews_, and the _Champion_ could have answered the +Apology if he had had the Will?" "But I can't see why the Author of the +Jacobite Journal should want that will," protests a Bencher. "Alas Sir!" +cries the bookseller, "You forget the Power of _Necessity_. If a Man that +wants Bread can establish a Paper by the P--t Off--e [Post Office?] taking +off two thousand every week is he not more excusable...." To which the +Bencher replies that possibly it is Fielding's 'Wavering Principles' that +have "brought him to the Necessity of writing for Bread." [4] From all +which we may assume that Fielding's superiority to what he calls the +"absurd and irrational Distinction of Parties [which] hath principally +contributed to poison our Constitution" [5] was very little understood by +the heated party factions of 1747. + +To call one's political opponent a 'Whirling Coxcomb,' or a 'pensioned +scribbler,' was a very mild amenity in eighteenth century party warfare; +and the abuse of such small fry as these anonymous pamphleteers might be +wholly disregarded did it not show Fielding's prominence, during these +anxious times, as a strenuous Hanoverian, and also the fact that he had +now not only largely abjured party politics, but that what party tenets he +still held were changed. Indeed as much may surely be deduced from the +following philosophic passage in his _True Patriot_. "I have formerly +shown in this Paper, that the bare objecting to a Man a _Change_ in his +_Political Notions_, ought by no means to affect any Person's _Character_; +because in a Country like this it is simply impossible that a Man of sound +Sense, and strict Honour, should always adhere to the same _Political +Creed_." [6] It is very little material to our knowledge of Fielding as an +honest man and a great genius to discover, were it possible, precisely +what changes his political views underwent. When Sir Robert Walpole +essayed to corrupt the nation Fielding fought strenuously in the cause of +political honour; when a Stewart invasion threatened (as he thought) both +civil liberty and Protestant beliefs he flung himself as zealously into +the defence of the Church of England and of the Hanoverian Government. It +is clear that the latter exertions stirred up much cheap obliquy; and it +must be admitted that such references to his antagonists as "last weeks +Dunghill of Papers" were likely to entail unsavory retort. + +This abuse seems to have broken out with an excess of virulence not long +after the appearance of the _Jacobite's Journal_; a fate, as Fielding +observes, little to be expected by the editor of a loyal paper. His +dignified protest in the matter is worth recalling. In a leading article +he declares that "before my paper hath reached the 20th. number a heavier +load of Scandal hath been cast upon me than I believe ever fell to the +Share of a Single Man. The Author of the Journal was soon guessed at; +Either from some Singularity in Style, or from little care which being +free from any wicked Purpose, I have ever taken to conceal my Name. Of +this several Writers were no sooner possessed than they attempted to +blacken it with every kind of Reproach; pursued me into private Life, +_even to my boyish Years_; where they have given me almost every Vice in +Human Nature. Again they have followed me with uncommon Inveteracy into a +Profession in which they have very roundly asserted that I have neither +Business nor Knowledge: And lastly, as an Author they have affected to +treat me with more Contempt than Mr. Pope, who hath great Merit and no +less Pride in the Character of a Writer hath thought proper to bestow on +the lowest Scribbler of his Time. All this moreover they have poured forth +in a vein of Scurrility which hath disgraced the Press with every abusive +Term in our Language." Although, as Fielding adds, those who knew him +would not take their opinion from those who knew him not, it is to be +feared that the scurrilous libellers of the day succeeded in creating a +prejudice that is hardly yet dispersed. For such petty clamours would be +trifling enough round the figure of the creator of the English novel, were +it not that in the abuse of the gutter press of his day we may probably +find the reason for much of the vague cloud which has so strangely +overhung Fielding's name. In his own spirited protest he tells us of the +'ordure' that was thrown at him; and it is an old saying that if enough +mud be thrown some will stick. + +In the February following the appearance of his new paper Fielding must +have been at Twickenham; for the baptism of his son William appears in the +Parish Register for that month. A writer of thirty years ago says that the +house celebrated as that in which Fielding lived was then still standing, +a quaint old fashioned wooden dwelling, in Back Lane; and adds the +information that Fielding had two rooms, the house being then let in +lodgings. [7] Lysons, however, in his _Environs of London_, published in +1795, says that Fielding "rented a house at this time in the Back-Lane at +Twickenham," adding that he received his information from the Earl of +Orford. The site is now occupied by a row of cottages. In his _Parish +Register for Twickenham_ Horace Walpole commemorates the great novelist's +residence in that quiet village, so full of eighteenth century memories. +Here, he says, + + "... Fielding met his bunter Muse, + And, as they quaff'd the fiery juice, + Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit + With unimaginable wit." + +Bunter was a cant word for a woman who picks up rags about the street; and +it may seem to later generations that the epithet fitted far more nicely +the _bunter muse_ of that "facile retailer of _ana_ and incorrigible +society-gossip," that rag-picker of anecdotes, Mr. Horace Walpole himself. + +When the _Journal_ had been running some six months, Fielding formally +relinquished his ironic character of a Jacobite, partly because, as he +says, the evils of Jacobitism were too serious for jesting and required +more open denunciation; partly because the age required more highly +seasoned writing, the general taste in reading very much resembling "that +of some particular Man in eating who would never willingly devour what +doth not stink"; and partly from the ineptitude of the public to +appreciate the ironic method. This latter passage is of interest as coming +from the author of that great masterpiece in irony, _Jonathan Wild_. +Fielding has observed, he tells us that "though Irony is capable of +furnishing the most exquisite Ridicule; yet as there is no kind of humour +so liable to be mistaken it is of all others the most dangerous to the +Writer. An infinite Number of Readers have not the least taste or relish +for it, I believe I may say do not understand it; and all are apt to be +tired when it is carried to any degree of Length." + +The _Jacobite's Journal_ is of course mainly occupied with maintaining the +Protestant British Constitution; but here, as in the _True Patriot_, +Fielding allows himself a pleasant running commentary on the daily news. +He also erects a _Court of Criticism_ in which, by virtue of his "high +Censorial Office," he administers justice in "all matters in the Republic +of Literature." By thus adopting the title of "Censor of Great Britain" +the editor of the _Jacobites Journal_ preserves his identity with that +censorial _Champion_ who nine years before had essayed to keep rogues in +fear of his Hercules' club. Two judgments delivered by the _Court_ are of +interest. In one, due castigation is given to that incorrigible mimic and +wit Foote, who was once threatened by no less a cudgel than that of Dr. +Johnson himself. Foote was evading all law and order by his inimitable +mimicries at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket; and for these +performances at his "scandal-shop" is very properly brought up before Mr. +Censor's _Court_. Whereupon Foote begins to mimic the _Court_ "pulling a +Chew of Tobacco from his Mouth, in Imitation of his Honour who is greatly +fond of that weed." The culprit suffers conviction for crime against law +and good manners. Having thus seen to the public welfare, Fielding also +happily settles a little score of his own on one of his anonymous +libellers. "One Porcupine Pillage," he records, "came into the court and +threw a great shovelful of dirt at his honour, _but luckily none of it hit +him_." His comments on weekly news items are no less characteristic than +those hidden in the columns of the _Patriot_. Thus, on a trotting match, +he observes, "Trotting is a Sport truly adapted to the English Genius." +And on a man found dead in Jewin Street "formerly an eminent Dealer in +Buckrams, but [who] being greatly reduced is supposed to have died for +Want," he notes, "_either of Common Sense in himself or Common Humanity in +his Aquaintance_." His own humanity is shown in the wise appeals, repeated +on more than one page of the _Journal_, for some effective provision for +the distressed widows and children of the poor clergy. And his unbiassed +judgment appears in the _amende honorable_ to Richardson, in the form of +generous and unstinted praise of _Clarissa_. + +The first number of the _Jacobite's Journal_ was dated Dec. 5, 1747, and +'Mr. Trott Plaid' formally takes leave of his subject exactly eleven +months later, on November 5, 1748, declaring that Jacobites were, by then, +little to be feared. [8] Ten days before this last 'brandish' of +Fielding's Constitutional pen, on October 26, 1748, his oaths had been +received as a Justice of the Peace for Westminster. + +[1] These are in the Burney Collection, and are inscribed "These papers +are by the celebrated Henry Fielding Esqre." + +[2] See the _Gentleman's Magazine_. Dec. 1747. + +[3] _A Free Comment on the Late Mr. W-G-N's Apology ... By a +Lady ..._ 1748. + +[4] _The Patriot Analized_. 1748. + +[5] _True Patriot No. 14_. + +[6] _True Patriot_. No. 29. May 20, 1746. + +[7] R. Cobbett. _Memorials of Twickenham_, 1872. + +[8] The _Journal's_ epitaph was promptly written by a scurrilous opponent +in lines showing that the prominences of Fielding's profile were +well-known: + + Beneath this stone + Lies _Trott Plaid John_ + His length of chin and nose. + +See the _Gentleman's Magazine_, November 1748. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +TOM JONES + + "In God's Name let us speak out honestly and set the good against + the bad." + No. 48 of the _Jacobite's Journal_. + +The two years of Fielding's life preceding his appointment as a Bow Street +magistrate (an appointment comparable only to the choice of Robert Burns +as an exciseman) were marked, as we have seen, by lively passages in the +political arena, and a steady output of political journalism. Indeed, by +this time, the public must have associated swingeing denunciations of +Jacobites, and glowing eulogies of the British Constitution, with Harry +Fielding's name; just as seven years previously he had been in their eyes +the 'Champion' journalist of a brilliant Opposition; and, for ten years +before that, the witty writer of a stream of popular farces and comedies. +For there is no evidence that his audacious innovation, his splendid +adventure in literature, _Joseph Andrews_, really revealed the existence +of a new genius in their midst to the Whigs and Tories of those factious +days, to the gay frequenters of the play-house, to the barristers at +Westminster Hall and on the Western Circuit. In 1748 Fielding must have +been, to his many audiences, a witty and well-born man of letters who, at +forty-one, had as yet achieved no towering success; a facile dramatist; +and a master of slashing political invective, growing perplexingly +impartial, alike in his praise and his condemnation. While, as regards +outward circumstances, the struggling barrister, baffled in his +professional hopes by persistent attacks of gout, was now so far enlisted, +to use his own fine image, under the black banner of poverty, that even +the small post and hard duties of a Bow Street magistrate were worth his +acceptance. [1] + +Such was Harry Fielding as the world of 1748 knew him, in the Coffee +houses, the Mall, the Green-room and the Law-courts. What that world did +not know was that all this dramatic, journalistic, and political action, +was little more than the surface movement of a vitality far too exuberant +to be contained in any one groove of hackney writing,--of an impetuous +'enthusiasm for righteousness' far too ardent to pass by any flagrant +social, moral, or political abuse without inflicting some form of +chastisement; and that beneath this ever active surface movement +Fielding's genius was slowly maturing in that new continent of literature +the borders of which he had already crossed seven years before. In the +pages of _Joseph Andrews_, he had, as we know, tentatively explored that +continent feeling his way along the unknown paths of this long neglected +world of human nature; bringing back with him one immortal figure, that +living embodiment of simple piety and scholarship, of charity and honest +strength, Parson Adams; disclosing hints of discoveries, not yet +perfected, among the humours and villanies, the virtues and charms, of a +dozen other inhabitants of his _terra incognita_. But there is no sign +that the greatness of his discovery, the splendour of his addition to the +empire of English literature, was in the least apprehended during the +seven years following the appearance of _Joseph Andrews_. Only Fielding +himself was conscious that he had created a kind of writing "hitherto +unattempted in our language." + +And, having crossed the borders of this new continent, he seems, after his +first survey, to have deliberately immersed himself in one portion, and +that the blackest, of his re-discovered world. For _Jonathan Wild_, with +its disclosure of the active spirit of 'diabolism,' of naked vice, is +little else than the exploration of those darkest recesses of human nature +which can be safely entered only by the sanest and healthiest of +intellects. Fielding's strength was equal to his exploit; and from this, +his second adventure, he brought back a picture of the deformity and folly +of vice, drawn with a just and penetrating scorn unequalled, perhaps, by +any English moralist. But neither of these two essays in the new field of +writing had covered more than isolated or outlying portions, the first in +sunlight, the second in shadow, of that vast territory. And it was not +till the perfect maturity of his powers and of his experience, not till he +had seen both the 'manners of many men,' and the workings of many hearts, +not in a word till he had made himself master of great tracts of that +human nature which had so long lain neglected, that Fielding in _Tom +Jones_ disclosed himself as the creator of the English novel. + +Little is known as to when the conception of _Tom Jones_ first shaped +itself in his mind, of where he lived during the writing of the great +Comic Epic, or of the time occupied in its completion. Appropriately for a +book expressly designed "to recommend goodness and innocence" the plan of +the novel was suggested, many years before its appearance, by the 'good +Lord Lyttelton'; and we know, further, that the writing occupied 'some +thousands of hours'; but _Tom Jones_ does not emerge into definite +existence till the summer of 1748. + +Legend it is true, attesting to the greatness of the achievement contained +in the six little volumes, endows many localities with the fame of their +origin. A well-credited contemporary writer, the Rev. Richard Graves, +declared that the novelist "while he was writing his novel of Tom Jones" +lived at Tiverton (Twerton), one and a half miles from Bath, and dined +daily at Prior Park the seat of his munificent and pious friend Ralph +Allen. Mr Graves says that Fielding then lived in "the first house on the +right hand with a spread eagle over the door." [2] Salisbury is insistent +that part at least of the great novel was written at Milford House, near +to that city. An anonymous old engraver asserts the same honour for +Fielding's Farm at East Stour, an assertion certainly not confirmed by the +newly found documents concerning Fielding's sale of property at Stour in +1738. Twickenham claims that the book was wholly composed in the house in +Back Lane. And to an ancient building at Tintern Parva in the Wye Valley, +said to have once been the lodging of the Abbot of Tintern, was also +assigned the reputation of being the birthplace of the English novel. If +the latter tradition were true, the fact that it was in the Harlequin +chamber of the Abbots of Glastonbury that Henry Fielding was born, becomes +strangely matched by the birth, some forty years later, of his +masterpiece, in the lodging of the Abbot of Tintern. The one point of real +interest in all these traditions is the fact that the fame of _Tom Jones_ +has been sufficient to create a widespread popular legend. The truth +probably is that the book was written in the many shifting scenes of +Fielding's life during these years; now at Bath whither his gout and the +generous hospitality of Ralph Allen would take him; now in Salisbury, the +home of his boyhood, and the scene of his courtship with the lovely +original of Sophia Western; possibly in his own county of Somerset; and +most probably both at Twickenham, and in London. + +From these various legends it is pleasant to be able to disentangle one +clear picture of the making of _Tom Jones_. Before the manuscript was +placed in the printers' hands Fielding submitted it to the opinion both of +the elder Pitt, and of the estimable and pious Lyttelton; and the account +of this memorable meeting cannot be better given than in the words of a +descendant of the hostess on that occasion, the Rev. George Miller, +great-grandson of that Sanderson Miller of Radway, Warwickshire, who +numbered many men of note among his acquaintance, and with whom Fielding +was on terms of intimate friendship. [3] Writing to the present writer, in +1907, Mr. Miller says: "Lord Chatham and Lord Lyttleton came to Radway to +visit my ancestor, when Lord Chatham planted three trees to commemorate +the visit, and a stone urn was placed between them. Fielding was also of +the party and read 'Tom Jones' in manuscript after dinner for the opinion +of his hearers before publishing it. My father told me this often and he +had the account from his Grandmother who survived her husband several +years and who was the hostess on the occasion." Unhappily no record exists +of the comments of one of the greatest of English statesmen when listening +to this reading, in manuscript, of indubitably one of the greatest of +English novels. + +The vagueness which hangs over the places in which _Tom Jones_ was +written, the certainty that in all of them poverty was constantly present, +is in perfect accord with the power of detachment manifested in this book +from circumstances that would surely have tinged, if not over-whelmed, a +weaker genius. Sickness and poverty are stern sponsors; but neither were +suffered to leave more than two traces on the pages destined to outlive so +greatly the harsh circumstances in which they had birth. There is the +frank acknowledgement of the writer's dependence on Lyttelton's noble +generosity, without which the book had never, Fielding says, been +completed, since "I partly owe to you my Existence during great Part of +the Time which I have employed in composing it." And a touching betrayal +occurs of his anxiety for the future provision of the "prattling babes, +whose innocent play hath often been interrupted by my labours." Fielding +was sensitively anxious for his wife and children; but, for himself, +living as he did with visions such as that of the _Invocation_ introducing +Book xiii of _Tom Jones_, the precise situation of his "little Parlour," +or the poorness of its furniture, cannot have appeared very material. +"Come bright Love of Fame," he cries "... fill my ravished Fancy with the +Hopes of charming Ages yet to come... Do thou teach me not only to +foresee, but to enjoy, nay, even to feed on future Praise. Comfort me by a +solemn Assurance, that when the little Parlour in which I sit at this +Instant, shall be reduced to a worse furnished Box, I shall be read, with +Honour, by those who never knew nor saw me, and whom I shall neither know +nor see." + +This capacity of Fielding for relegating circumstance to its true level, +the detached idealism that moulded his genius, are, indeed, shown once for +all in the fact that the exquisite picture of virtue, the whole-hearted +attack on vice, the genial humour, the sunny portraits of humanity, the +splendid cheerfulness of _Tom Jones_, that 'Epic of Youth,' came from a +man in middle age, immersed in disheartening struggles, and fighting +recurrent ill health. Superficial critics have called Fielding a realist +because his figures are so full-blooded and alive that we feel we have met +them but yesterday in the street; to eyes so shortsighted life itself must +seem merely realistic. As none but an idealist could have conceived Parson +Adams, so the creator of Sophia again announced himself an idealist in the +Dedication of _Tom Jones_. Here, in language of pure symbolism, he +contends that the ideal virtues such as goodness and innocence, may most +effectively be presented to men in a figure, for "an Example is a Kind of +Picture, in which Virtue becomes as it were an Object of Sight, and +strikes us with an Idea of that Loveliness, which _Plato_ asserts there is +in her naked Charms." [4] To the man who could write thus, and, who, in +later pages of his great 'Epic,' could humbly desire of Genius "do thou +kindly take me by the Hand, and lead me through all the Mazes, the winding +Labyrinth of Nature. Initiate me into all those Mysteries which profane +Eyes never beheld,"--to this man the material surroundings of life must +have seemed of little greater import than the fittings of that narrow box +to the occupation of which he looked forward with so calm a foresight. +Indeed he himself acknowledges a carelessness of outward comfort on his +own behalf. "Come," he cries, to the spirit of mercenary success, "Thou +jolly Substance, with thy shining Face, ... hold forth thy tempting +Rewards; thy shining chinking Heap; thy quickly-convertible Bank-bill, big +with unseen Riches; thy often-varying Stock; the warm, the comfortable +House; ... Come thou, and if I am too tasteless of thy valuable Treasures, +warm my Heart with the transporting Thought of conveying them to others." +His happy constitution, wrote his cousin Lady Mary, "made him forget +everything when he was before a venison pasty or a flask of champagne"; +but behind those healthy exhilarations was, assuredly, a serenity based on +a clear perception of the values of life. To a man of Fielding's happy +social temperament, and who was yet also initiated into mysteries and +occupied in converting ideal loveliness into 'an object of sight,' such +matters as duns and pawnbrokers would seem precisely fit for oblivion in +venison and champagne. In the creator of Tom Jones and of Sophia the most +indestructible delight in living, and the keenest discernment of the +unsubstantial qualities of that delight, appear to have been admirably +interwoven. + +By June 11, 1748, the book was far enough advanced for the publisher, +Andrew Millar, to pay L600 for it, as appears from a receipt now in the +possession of Mr. Alfred Huth. [5] And it is eminently characteristic of +the finances of a man who, as Lady Mary said, would have wanted money had +his estates been as extensive as his imagination, that the receipt for +this L600 is dated more than six months before the publication of the +book. For it was not till February 28, 1749, that the _General Advertiser_ +announced + + This day is published, in six vols., 12 mo + THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, + A FOUNDLING + _Mores hominum multorum vidit_. + _By_ HENRY FIELDING, _Esqre_ + +Henceforth Fielding ceases to be the boisterous politician, the witty +dramatist; his poverty and his struggles for subsistence fall back, at his +own bidding, among the accidents of life; and he stands revealed as the +supreme genius, the creator of the English novel, the inheritor of that +lasting fame which he had dared so confidently to invoke. + +The immediate success of the book, in that eighteenth-century world into +which it was launched, is attested by the notice in the _London Magazine_ +of the very month of its publication. Under the heading of a "Plan of a +late celebrated NOVEL," the _Magazine_ devotes its five opening pages to a +summary of a book "which has given great Amusement and we hope Instruction +to the polite Part of the Town." The summary is preceded by a description +of _Tom Jones_ as a novel "calculated to recommend religion and virtue, to +shew the bad consequences of indiscretion, and to set several kinds of +vice in their most deformed and shocking light." The reviewer declares +that "after one has begun to read it, it is difficult to leave off before +having read the whole." And he concludes, "Thus ends this pretty novel, +with a most just distribution of rewards and punishments, according to the +merits of all the persons who had any considerable share in it." [6] Three +months later Horace Walpole wrote, "Millar the bookseller has done very +generously by him [Fielding]: finding Tom Jones, for which he had given +him L600, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred." An +admirer breaks out into rhyme, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for August +1749,-- + + "let Fielding take the pen! + Life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men." + +thereby anticipating Thackeray's famous complaint that in his day no one +dared "to depict to his utmost power a Man." Lady Bradshaigh, writing by a +happy irony of fate to Richardson, says "as to Tom Jones I am fatigued +with the name, having lately fallen into the company of several young +ladies, who had each a 'Tom Jones' in some part of the world, for so they +call their favourites." The gentlemen also had their Sophias, one indeed +having bestowed that all-popular name on his 'Dutch mastiff puppy.' That +eccentric eighteenth century philosopher, and enthusiastic Greek scholar, +Lord Monboddo declared that _Tom Jones_ had more of character in it than +any other work, ancient or modern, known to him, adding, "in short, I +never saw anything that was so animated, and as I may say, _all alive_ +with characters and manners as _the History of Tom Jones_"; a criticism +that recalls Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's remark that no man enjoyed life +more than did Fielding. Doubtless it was his own magnificent capacity for +living that endowed the very creatures of his pen with so abundant a +vitality. In her own copy Lady Mary wrote _Ne plus Ultra_. + +To turn from the popular voices of the day to the comments of those +capable of appraising genius, "What a master of composition Fielding was!" +exclaimed Coleridge, "Upon my word I think 'Oedipus Tyrannus,' the +'Alchemist,' and 'Tom Jones' the three most perfect plots ever planned." +To Sir Walter Scott _Tom Jones_ was "truth and human nature itself." +Gibbon described the book as "the first of ancient or modern romances"; +and, as we have seen, declared that its pages would outlive the Imperial +Eagle of those Hapsburgs from whom Fielding was said to be descended. +"There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge," wrote +Thackeray. "To have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it +written on the dome of St Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and +behold it." Pilgrims from all the world have likewise admired _Tom Jones_. +Translations have appeared in French, German, [7] Spanish, Swedish, +Russian, Polish and Dutch; and as for the English editions, they range +from the three editions issued within the year of publication to the +several noble volumes newly edited in our own day, and the sixpenny copies +on our railway bookstalls. So fully has time justified the invocation to +future fame sent forth from the little ill-furnished parlour of the +struggling barrister. + +To analyse the grounds for a chorus of praise ranging from the 'young +ladies' of the eighteenth century to the utterances of distinguished +critics, and popular authors of our own day, would be to confound literary +criticism with biography. But there are some points appertaining to +Fielding's great novel which cannot be here disregarded, in that they +closely affect his personal character. Such are the light in which he +himself regarded his masterpiece, the intention with which he wrote it, +and the means which he selected to carry that intention into effect. + +All these he himself very plainly sets forth in his _Dedication_ to +Lyttelton and in other passages of _Tom Jones_. As to his intention. "I +declare," he says, in the _Dedication_, "that to recommend Goodness and +Innocence hath been my sincere Endeavour in this History." And the means +selected for this end, and for the companion object of persuading men from +guilt, are as clearly stated. First as we have seen, Fielding plays the +part of pure idealist, purposing to create a picture "in which virtue +becomes as it were an object of sight." For such pictures we have but to +think of Sophia Western, and of that final page of _Tom Jones_, than which +no more charming representation of mutual affection, esteem, and well +doing can be imagined. But besides this means of reaching his audience +Fielding adopted, he tells us, a second method. He argues that no +acquisitions of guilt can compensate a man for the loss of inward peace, +for the attendant horror, anxiety, and danger, to which he subjects +himself; thus endeavouring to enlist man's self-interest no less than his +admiration, on the side of virtue. Again, he explains yet another method +by which he essays to foil the progress of evil, viz. to show that virtue +and innocence are chiefly betrayed "into the snares that deceit and +villainy spread for them" by indiscretion; a moral which he has "the more +industriously laboured ... since I believe it is much easier to make good +Men, wise than to make bad Men good." For this purpose, he concludes, +namely to show, as in a figure, the beauty of virtue, to persuade men that +in following innocence and virtue they follow their own obvious interests, +to arm them from the snares of villainy and deceit, "I have employed all +the Wit and Humour of which I am Master in the following History; wherein +I have endeavoured to laugh Mankind out of their favourite Follies and +Vices." + +And, conscious that wit and humour require a rein quite unneeded by the +methods of the professional moralist, Fielding further asserts that in +these pages his laughter is worthy of the aim which he sets before him. +Here, he carefully insists, are wit and humour wholly void of offence. He +assures his reader that in the whole course of the work, he will find +"nothing prejudicial to the Cause of Religion and Virtue; nothing +inconsistent with the strictest Rules of Decency, nor which can offend +even the chastest Eye in the Perusal." As the almost incredible change +from the manners of 1749 to those of the following century, and of our own +day, has injuriously affected the reputation of Fielding among readers +ignorant of past conditions, this protest, in striking accord with the +prologue for his first play acted when he was but a lad of twenty, cannot +be too emphatically recorded. And no further justification of Fielding's +words need be entered than that verdict of the eighteenth century scholar +and bishop of the English Church, Doctor Warburton, when he declared that +"Mr. Fielding [stands] the foremost among those who have given a faithful +and chaste copy of life and manners." + +Such were the noble purposes to which Fielding consciously dedicated his +genius in _Tom Jones_, and such was the careful restraint with which he +exercised his chosen methods of wit and humour. That these purposes, +executed by a supreme genius in the language and scenes of his own day, +should ever have laid their author open to a charge of immorality is +perhaps one of the most amazing pieces of irony in the whole history of +English literature. But as this charge of moral laxity has been seriously +brought against the pages of _Tom Jones_, and is perhaps not yet quite +exploded, it cannot be wholly disregarded. The imputation amounts, +briefly, to a too easy forgiveness for the youthful sins of Jones, and the +involving that engaging youth in too deep a degradation. The answers to +these charges are, firstly, that Fielding held strongly, and here +exhibits, the humane and wise doctrine that a man should be judged, not by +what he sometimes does, but by what he _is_. And, secondly, that as Sir +Walter Scott pointed out, when dealing with this very matter, "the vices +into which Jones suffers himself to fall are made the direct cause of +placing him in the distressful situation which he occupies during the +greater part of the narrative; while his generosity, his charity, and his +amiable qualities become the means of saving him from the consequences of +his folly." Fielding was not wholly concerned with the acts of a man; to +him the admission of the Penitent Thief into Paradise, at the eleventh +hour, could have been no stumbling block. And, further, Tom Jones not only +suffers for his ill doing, but wins no heaven until he wholly purges +himself from the sin which did so easily beset him. + +The distinction between doing and being is very fully enunciated by +Fielding himself, in the _Introduction_ to Book vii. "A single bad Act," +he says, "no more constitutes a Villain in Life, than a single bad Part on +the Stage". And again, "Now we, who are admitted behind the Scenes of this +great Theatre of Nature, (and no Author ought to write any Thing besides +Dictionaries and Spelling-Books who hath not this Privilege) can censure +the Action, without conceiving any actual Detestation of the Person, whom +perhaps Nature may not have designed to act an ill Part in all her Dramas: +For in this Instance, Life most exactly represents the Stage, since it is +often the same Person who represents the Villain and the Heroe". Coleridge +has expressed the same truth in words written in a copy of _Tom Jones_, +"If I want a servant or mechanic I wish to know what he _does_--but of a +Friend I must know what he _is_. And in no writer is this momentous +distinction so finely brought forward as by Fielding. We do not care what +Blifil does ... but Blifil _is_ a villain and we feel him to be so." [8] + +It is true that, as Scott regrets the depth of degradation into which Tom +Jones is suffered to fall, so Coleridge expresses a wish, "relatively to +Fielding himself" that the great novelist had emphasised somewhat more the +repentance of his hero: but this may be balanced by that other noble +tribute to his morality, "I dare believe who consulted his heart and +conscience only without adverting to _what the world_ would say could rise +from the perusal of Fielding's _Tom Jones_, _Joseph Andrews_ and _Amelia_ +without feeling himself the better man--at least without an intense +conviction that he could not be guilty of a base act." [9] To be forced to +watch the temporary degradation of a noble nature, and the miseries +ensuing, is surely one of the most effective means of rousing a hatred of +vice. That such an exhibition should ever have been construed into moral +laxity on the part of the author, especially when the restoration of the +hero's character is drawn as entirely due to his ingrained worship of +innocence and virtue, is almost incredible. + +In exact accordance with Fielding's character as moralist in intent, +although supreme artist in execution, is the fact of the dedication of +_Tom Jones_ to his life-long friend Lyttelton. George Lyttelton, +statesman, scholar, and orator, was a friend of whom any man might be +proud. It was said of him that he "showed the judgment of a minister, the +force and wit of an orator, and the spirit of a gentleman." As theologian +he wrote a treatise on _The Conversion of St. Paul_ which, a hundred years +later, was described as being "still regarded as one of the subsidiary +bulwarks of Christianity." As poet he won the praise of Gray for his +tender and elegiac verse. Thomson sang of his "sense refined," and adds + + Serene yet warm, humane yet firm his mind + As little touch'd as any man's with bad; + +And Pope drew his character as + + "Still true to virtue and as warm as true." + +It was to this devout scholar, this refined gentleman, this warm-hearted +follower of virtue, that _Tom Jones_ was dedicated, nay more, to him it +owed both origin and completion. "To you, Sir," Fielding writes in his +_Dedication_, "it is owing that this History was ever begun. It was by +your Desire that I first thought of such a Composition.... Again, Sir, +without your Assistance this History had never been completed.... I partly +owe to you my Existence during great Part of the Time in which I have +employed in composing it." And that Lyttelton cordially approved the book +which owed so much to his own insight and generosity is evident from the +references, in the _Dedication_, to his favourable judgment. + +With the appearance of _Tom Jones_ Fielding steps into his own place among +the immortals. But lofty as his genius was, his feet were firmly planted +in the world which he relished so keenly. To no man could be applied more +happily the motto chosen by him for his title page, _mores hominum +multorum vidit_--he saw the manners of many men. This characteristic +emerges in a personal reminiscence of the novelist, at the very moment +when the sheets of _Tom Jones_ were passing through the press. The +great-nephew of his intimate friend Mrs Hussey relates; "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 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 condescended particularly to chat +such as Sir Roger de Coverley's old friends, the Vauxhall water-men, they +seldom outstepped the limits of propriety. My aunt ... [was] a fashionable +sacque and mantua-maker, and lived in the Strand, ... One day Mr Fielding +observed to Mrs Hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a novel, which +he thought would be his best production; and that he intended to introduce +into 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 already 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, 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.... It may indeed be compared +to the celebrated Mrs Hussey.' To which observation he has given the +following note: 'A celebrated mantua-maker in the Strand, famous for +setting off the shapes of women.'" [10] + +Here is yet further proof, that Fielding loved not only to see the manners +of many men, but also to render them whatever service lay within his +power. Never were the warmest heart and the loftiest genius more happily +united than in the creator of the English novel. + +Lyttelton not only suggested and approved the great Comic Epic, and +enabled distressed genius to live while composing it; his own worth and +benevolence, together with those of the generous Allen, afforded Fielding, +as he tells us, the materials for the picture here presented of Allworthy. +"The World," he says, speaking of this picture, "will not, I believe, make +me the Compliment of thinking I took it from myself. I care not: This they +shall own, that the two Persons from whom I have taken it, that is to say, +two of the best and worthiest Men in the World, are strongly and zealously +my Friends." And a point of still closer personal interest is the fact, +already noticed, that in the lovely character and person of Sophia +Western, Fielding raised an enduring memorial to that beloved wife whose +death had occurred a few years before the publication of _Tom Jones_. The +authenticity of the portrait is explicitly stated in the _Invocation_ +prefixed to Book xiii. Apostrophizing that 'gentle Maid,' bright 'Love of +Fame,' Fielding bids her, in the eighteenth century phrase that falls so +strangely on a modern ear, "Foretell me that some tender Maid, whose +Grandmother is yet unborn, hereafter, when under 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_." Then +follows, immediately, his own desire that he too may live in the knowledge +and honour of far distant readers. Fielding lies buried under southern +skies, far from his wife's English grave; but in the immortal pages of his +masterpiece they are not divided. + +[1] The Fiat appointing Fielding as Magistrate for the City and Borough of +Westminster, now in the House of Lords, is dated July 30, 1748. + +[2] On the house identified with Mr Graves' description, and now known as +"Fielding's Lodge," a tablet has recently been placed, through the energy +of Mr R. G. Naish of Twerton. + +[3] See _Life of the Earl of Hardwicke_. G. Harris. 1847. Vol. II. pp. +456-7. + +[4] _Tom Jones_. Dedication. + +[5] See Appendix for this, hitherto unpublished, receipt. + +[6] _London Magazine_. Feb. 1749. + +[7] In Germany an edition of 1771 was followed by a second in 1780, and a +third in 1786. In 1765 a lyrical comedy founded on the famous novel was +acted in Paris; and the same year it was transformed into a German comedy +by J.H. Steffens. + +[8] S. T. Coleridge. Manuscript notes in a copy of _Tom Jones_, now in the +British Museum. + +[9] Ibid. + +[10] J. T. Smith. _Nollekens and his Times_. Vol. i. pp. 124-5. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MR JUSTICE FIELDING + + "The principal Duty which every Man owes is to his Country." + _Enquiry into the ... Increase of Robbers_. + +To have created the English novel were, it might seem, achievement enough +to tire for a while the most vigorous of intellects; but to the author of +_Tom Jones_ the apathy of repose was unknown. At no period of Fielding's +short life can he be discerned as doing nothing; and, indeed, to an +insight so penetrating, to an ardour so irrepressible, the England of +George the Second can have afforded but very little inducement to +inaction. + +Thus, in the one month of October 1748, the pages of _Tom Jones_ must have +been nearing completion, if indeed the sheets were not already passing +through the press. The Hanoverian philippics of "Mr Trott-Plaid" were +still resounding in the _Jacobite's Journal_. While, on the 26th. of the +month, Fielding's oaths were received for an entirely new role, that of a +Justice of the Peace for Westminster. [1] Ten days later the _Jacobite's +Journal_ had ceased to exist; and that a rumour was abroad connecting this +demise of the _Journal_ with the bestowal of a new and arduous post on its +editor appears from a paragraph in the _London Evening Post_. On Nov. 8, +that organ prepares its readers for the fact that the now defunct "Mr +Trott-Plaid" may possibly "rise awful in the Form of a Justice." Within +four weeks of this announcement 'Justice Fielding's' name appears for the +first time in the Police-news of the day, in a committal dated December +10th [2]. And two days later he is sending three thieves to the Gatehouse, +and admitting a suspected thief to bail, "after an Examination which +lasted several hours." And it is interesting to notice that throughout +this first month of his magisterial work the now 'awful form' of Justice +Henry Fielding was kept constantly tempered in the public mind by the fact +of his still undiminished popularity as a dramatist. In this December his +comedies, with the inimitable 'romp' Kitty Clive as _Miss Lucy_, or the +_Intrigueing Chambermaid_ or _Chloe_, as the case might be, were played no +fewer than nine times on the Drury Lane boards. + +Scarcely had Fielding bent his genius to these new responsibilities of +examining Westminster suspects and sending the rogues of that city to +prison, than he appears preparing for an extension of those duties over +the county of Middlesex. To be a county magistrate in 1750, however, +necessitated the holding of landed estate worth L100 per annum; and +Fielding's estate, for many years, seems to have been his pen. In this +difficulty he turned to the Duke of Bedford, whose public virtues, and +private generosity, were so soon to be acknowledged in the Dedication of +_Tom Jones_. It was but three weeks after his appointment that the +Westminster magistrate wrote as follows to the giver of those "princely +Benefactions": + + +"Bow Street. Decr. 13. 1748. + +"My Lord, + +"Such is my Dependence on the Goodness of your Grace, that before my Gout +will permit me to pay my Duty to you personally, and to acknowledge your +last kind Favour to me, I have the Presumption to solicite your Grace +again. The Business of a Justice of Peace for Westminster is very +inconsiderable without the Addition of that for the County of Middlesex. +And without this Addition I cannot completely serve the Government in that +office. But this unfortunately requires a Qualification which I want. Now +there is a House belonging to your Grace, which stands in Bedford St., of +70l. a year value. This hath been long untenanted, and will I am informed, +require about 300l. to put in Repair. If your Grace would have the +Goodness to let me have a Lease of this House, with some other Tenement +worth 30l. a year, for 21 years, it would be a complete Qualification. I +will give the full Worth for this lease, according to the valuation which +any Person your Grace shall be pleased to appoint sets upon it. The only +favour I beg of your Grace is, that I be permitted to pay the Money in two +years, at four equal half-yearly Payments. As I shall repair the House as +soon as possible, it will be in Reality an Improvement of that small Part +of your Grace's estate, and will be certain to make my Fortune. + +"Mr Butcher will acquaint your Grace more fully than perhaps I have been +able to do; and if Your Grace thinks proper to refer it to him, I and mine +will be eternally bound to pray for your Grace tho I sincerely hope you +will not lose a Farthing by doing so vast a service to, + +"My Lord your Grace's +"Most obliged most obed' humble servant +"H. Ffielding." [3] + +It seems probable that the Duke found better means of helping wit and +genius, than by the leasing of the dilapidated tenement in Bedford Street. +At any rate a month later, on January 11, we find Fielding duly swearing +to an estate as consisting of "several Leasehold Messuages or Tenements +Lying or being in the several parishes of St Paul Covent Garden, St Martin +in the ffields, St Giles in the ffields, and St Georges Bloomsbury ... now +in the possession or occupation of [my] Tennants or Undertennants, for and +during the Term of Twenty one years of the clear yearly value of L100...." +This statement, which is preserved in the Middlesex Records, is followed +by Fielding's signature, appended to an oath that his qualification to +serve as a Justice of the Peace for the county is as above described. [4] + +On the day following this sworn statement, January 12, 1749, his oaths +were received as a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex. [5] But even this +did not satisfy all the requirements of those days of doctrinal +inquisitions and Jacobite risings. The certificate may still be seen among +the Middlesex Records, duly certified by Charles Tough, Minister of the +Parish and Church of St Pauls, Covent Garden, and 'Sworn in Court,' that +"Henry Fielding Esq. on Sunday the 26th day of March, 1749, did receive +the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in ye Parish Church aforesaid, +immediately after Divine Service and Sermon, according to the usage of the +Church of England." [6] And among the same archives the dusty _Oath Roll_ +is preserved, bearing, under date of April 5, 1749, the signature of +_Henry ffielding_ to a declaration of disbelief in the doctrine of +Transubstantiation; a comprehensive oath of faithful service to King +George and abjuration of King James; an oath directed against the power of +the Holy See; and an oath of true allegiance to King George. All which +oaths and declarations, it appears from the endorsement of the _Roll_, +were taken immediately after the administration of Holy Communion, as +attested by two credible witnesses.[7] + +It is with this second Commission in the Peace that we enter on the last +five years of Fielding's crowded life, years full of that valiant struggle +with eighteenth century crime to which the health of the great novelist +was ultimately sacrificed. For no magistrate ever fulfilled more +faithfully, or at greater personal cost, the first obligation of his Oath, +"Ye shall swear that as Justice of Peace ... ye shall do equall right to +the Poor and to the Rich, after your Cunning Witt and Power and after the +Laws and Customes of the Realm...." And Fielding brought to his new post +something more than a zealous discharge of the daily and nightly duties of +an eighteenth century police magistrate. His genius and his patriotism +found opportunity in the squalid Bow Street Court-room for advocating +reforms as yet untouched by the slow hand of the professional +philanthropist. The names of those reformers, of the men and women who +swept away the pestilential horrors of eighteenth century prisons, of the +statesmen who abolished laws that hung a man for stealing a handkerchief, +and destroyed the public gallows that gave the mob their _Tyburn holiday_, +of the creators of our temperance legislation, of our poor-law system, of +our model dwellings,--all these are held high in honour. Because Henry +Fielding was above all things a great creative genius his wise and +strenuous efforts to raise social conditions, and to eradicate social +sores, have been unduly forgotten. + +"Whatever he desired, he desired ardently," says Murphy. We soon have +evidence of Justice Henry Fielding's ardent desire to cleanse London from +some of the crying evils of his time. Of these evils none pressed more +cruelly on the honest citizens than the prevalence and brutality of street +robberies. To the well-protected Englishman of to-day the London of 1750 +would seem a nightmare of lawlessness. Thieves, as Fielding tells us, +attacked their victims with loaded pistols, beat them with bludgeons and +hacked them with cutlasses; and as to the murderers of the period, he has +recorded how he himself was engaged on _five_ different murders, all +committed by different gangs of street robbers within the space of one +week. The exploit of one such gang may be quoted, from a newspaper +paragraph of the first month of Fielding's administration at Bow Street. +"On Friday evening," says the _General Advertiser_ for January 23, 1749, +"about twenty fellows arm'd with Pistols, Cutlasses, Hangers, &c. went to +the Gatehouse and one of them knocking at the Door, it was no sooner +open'd than they all rush'd in, and struck and desperately wounded the +Turnkey, and all that oppos'd them, and in Triumph carried off the Fellow +who pick'd General Sinclaire's pocket of his watch as he was going into +Leicester House." Surely, cries the indignant newspaper, "this instance of +Daring Impudence must rouse every Person of Property to assemble and +consult means for their own Security at least; for if Goals can be forc'd +in this manner, private Houses can make but little resistance against such +Gangs of Villains as at present infest this Great Metropolis." It was +admitted that the numbers and arms of street robbers rendered it +ordinarily impossible to arrest them in the act; and Fielding tells us how +"Officers of Justice have owned to me that they have passed by [men] with +Warrants in their Pockets against them without daring to apprehend them; +and indeed they could not be blamed for not exposing themselves to sure +Destruction: For it is a melancholy Truth, that at this very Day a Rogue +no sooner gives the Alarm within certain Purlieus, than twenty or thirty +armed Villains are found ready to come to his Assistance." And the new +Justice found no effectual means at his disposal for coping with what he +very aptly calls the enslaved condition of Londoners, assaulted, pillaged, +and plundered; unable to sleep in their own houses, or to walk the +streets, or to travel in safety. There were the Watch, who, we learn from +_Amelia_ were "chosen out of those poor old decrepid People, who are from +their Want of bodily Strength rendered incapable of getting a Livelihood +by Work. These Men, armed only with a Pole, which some of them are scarce +able to lift, are to secure the Persons and Houses of his Majesty's +Subjects from the Attacks of Gangs of young, bold, stout, desperate and +well-armed Villains.... If the poor old Fellows should run away from such +Enemies, no one I think can wonder, unless he should wonder that they are +able even to make their Escape." [8] These lineal descendants of Dogberry +were supplemented by constables who it appears had to apply to the +military when called upon to cope with the mere suppression of a +gaming-house; and by "Thief-catchers," individuals so popularly odious +that "the Thief-catcher is in Danger of worse Treatment from the Populace +than the Thief." While the law was thus handicapped, the thief, on his +side, had the advantage of the irregular buildings and the immense number +of lanes, alleys, courts, and bye-places of London and Westminster, which, +says Fielding, "had they been intended for the very purpose of +concealment, they could scarce have been better contrived. Upon such a +view the whole appears as a vast Wood or Forest, in which a Thief may +harbour with as great Security as Wild Beasts do in the Desarts of Africa +or Arabia." Also the thief's organisation was excellent: "there are at +this Time," Fielding observes, "a great Gang of Rogues whose Number falls +little short of a Hundred, who are incorporated in one Body, have Officers +and a Treasury; and have reduced Theft and Robbery into a regular System." +Further, he could generally bribe or deter the prosecutor. And in a last +resource "rotten Members of the Law" forged his defence, and abundant +false witnesses supported it. An illuminating example of the methods +employed by our Georgian ancestors towards "deterring" prosecution occurs +in a smuggling case of 1748, perpetrated shortly before Fielding first +took office. A party of smugglers caught a custom-house officer and a +shoemaker on their way to give evidence. The officer had 'every joint of +him' broken; and after other torture, the description of which is more +suitable for eighteenth century pages than our own, was dispatched. The +less fortunate shoemaker was hung by the middle over a dry well, and left +there. Several days afterwards the smugglers, returning and hearing him +groan, cut the rope, let him drop to the bottom, and threw in logs and +stones to cover him. And it was not only from the common thief that the +Londoner of 1750 suffered. That fine flower of eighteenth century +lawlessness, the gentleman of the road, carried his audacities into the +heart of the Town itself. "I was sitting in my own dining-room on Sunday +night," writes Horace Walpole, to a friend, "the clock had not struck +eleven, when I heard a loud cry of 'stop thief!' A highwayman had attacked +a postchaise in Piccadilly: the fellow was pursued, rode over the +watchman, almost killed him, and escaped." + +It was into a conflict with this epidemic of crime that Fielding, at +forty-three, and with already broken health, flung his energies, to such +purpose that in these last five years of his life it is but too easy to +forget the creator of _Joseph Andrews_, of _Tom Jones_, and of _Amelia_, +in his last 'ardent desire,' as ardently pursued, to purify the sorely +diseased body politic. His method of attack was twofold. He dealt +vigorously with the individual criminal; and he sought to remove some of +the causes by which those criminals were engendered. The individual attack +is, for the most part, but sordid reading. Thus from a fragment of the +Westminster _Committment Books_, preserved with the Middlesex Records, we +may see how in January and February of this year 1749 'Henry Fielding +Esq.' committed to the New Prison such cases as: + +Thomas Thrupp for riot +Thomas Trinder for burglary +T. Chamberlain and Terence +Fitz Patrick for assault +C. O'Neal for assaulting two Watchmen +Mary Hughes and Caterine +Edmonds for assault and beating +John Smithson for exercising the art of pattenmaker + without having been brought up thereto + for seven years +Cornelius York for filing guineas +Christo Kelsey for ill fame +Bryan Park for assault + + +This sorry list, interspersed with cases of murder, of robbery with +violence, and of smuggling, may doubtless be extended over the entire five +years of Fielding's work on the Bench; and to reiterate the details of +such work would be as tedious now as the monotonous discharge of these +duties must once have been to the author of _Tom Jones_. [9] Of much more +enduring interest is the great novelist's second line of attack on the +problem confronting him. + +For Henry Fielding's insight was far too profound for him to fail to +strike at the root of individual crime, in those conditions which bred the +criminal as surely as, to use his own favourite simile, unclean +surroundings breed disease. And he had not been six months on the Bench +before finding his first opportunity in a _Charge_ delivered, as their +Chairman, to the Westminster Grand Jury, on June 29, 1749. [10] This "very +loyal, learned, ingenious, excellent and useful" Charge was published "By +Order of the Court, and at the unanimous Request of the Gentlemen of the +Grand Jury"; and it is, Mr Austin Dobson tells us, "still regarded by +lawyers as a model exposition." It is also a stirring appeal to the worthy +jurors to discharge their duties as befitted men called upon to exercise +one of the most ancient and honourable of English liberties: "Grand +Juries, Gentlemen," declared their new Chairman, "are in Reality the only +Censors of this Nation. As such, the Manners of the People are in your +Hands, and in yours only. You, therefore, are the only Correctors of +them.... To execute this Duty with Vigilance, you are obliged by the Duty +you owe both to God and to your Country." Here is the same zeal, now +directed to stimulating the conscience of the Westminster Jurors, which +moved _Captain Vinegar_ to lay about him so lustily on all the abuses +within reach of his newspaper, and which inspired the 'father of the +English Novel' with the admitted motive,--"I declare, that to recommend +Goodness and Innocence hath been my sincere Endeavour in this History"--if +not with the consummate art of his pages. + +Fielding specially directs the energies of his jurors to the repression of +open profligacy, the more as, through the 'egregious folly' of their +parents, the _Town_ had then become the 'seminaries of education' for +youths of birth and station. And he bids them attend to those 'temples of +iniquity' the masquerade rooms of the time, with a side glance at Foote's +scandalous performances; to the gaming houses; to the prevalent vice of +profane swearing, that "detestable Crime, so injurious to the Honour of +God, so directly repugnant to His positive Commands, so highly offensive +to the Ears of all good Men, and so very scandalous to the Nation in the +Ears of Foreigners"; and to the libeller, a species of 'Vermin' whom "men +ought to crush wherever they find him, without staying till he bite them." +It is noteworthy also, that to the genius of Fielding, 'watching, +brooding, creating,' the characteristic feature of his age seemed to be a +"fury after licentious and luxurious pleasures." "Gentlemen," he cries, +"our News-Papers, from the Top of the Page to the Bottom, the Corners of +our Streets up to the very Eves of our Houses, present us with nothing but +a View of Masquerades, Balls, and Assemblies of various Kinds, Fairs, +Wells, Gardens, &c. tending to promote Idleness, Extravagance and +Immorality, among all Sorts of People." Many of the public, he declares, +make diversion "no longer the Recreation or Amusement, but the whole +Business of their Lives"; and not content with three theatres they must +have a fourth. What would he have said to a London in which not four but a +hundred and twenty theatres draw nightly, and sometimes twice a day, their +crowded audiences. + +Two days after the delivery of this _Charge_ (which the _General +Advertiser_ praises as "excellent and learned") a three days street riot +broke out, which it fell to Fielding to subdue. On Saturday July 1 a mob +had gathered in the Strand, about a disorderly house where a sailor was +said to have been robbed. Beadle Nathaniel Munns, arriving on the scene, +found the mob crying out "Pull down the house, pull down the house!"; and +sent for the constables. Meanwhile the mob broke open the house and +demolished and stripped the same; and throwing the goods out of the +windows, set fire to them, causing such danger of a general conflagration +that 'the parish engines' were sent for. A constable, _not being able to +find any magistrate in Town_, went to Somerset House to procure assistance +from the military, and on his returning with a corporal and twelve men, a +force that later that night was increased to an officer and forty men, the +mob was at last dispersed. On the next day, however, Sunday, they +reassembled, and proceeded to demolish a second house, and to burn the +goods thereof with an even larger fire than that of the preceding night. +Mr Saunders Welch, High Constable for Holborn and, Fielding tells us, "one +of the best Officers who was ever concerned in the Execution of Justice, +and to whose Care, Integrity and Bravery the Public hath, to my Knowledge, +the highest Obligations," passing through Fleet Street at the time, saw +this second fire, and was told by the owner of another house that the mob +threatened to come to him next. Upon which Mr Welch "well knowing the +Impossibility of procuring any Magistrate at that Time who would act," +went to the Tilt Yard and procured an officer and some forty men; and +returning, found the third house in great part wrecked, the danger of fire +here being aggravated by the extreme narrowness of the street on both +sides and the fact that the premises of a bank were adjacent. This same +Sunday night, also, the mob broke open the night-prison under Beadle +Munns' house, rescuing two prisoners; and forced the Watch-house of the +Liberty with stones and brick bats, to the imminent danger of the Beadle's +life, as "sworn before me, Henry Fielding." Till three in the morning Mr +Welch and the soldiers remained on duty, by which time the rioters had +again dispersed. All this time Fielding, Mr Welch records, was out of +town; but, by noon on Monday, the Justice was back in Bow Street: and, on +being acquainted with the riot, immediately dispatched an order for a +party of the Guards to bring the prisoners to his house, the streets being +then full of a riotous crowd threatening danger of rescue. Fielding +proceeded to examine the prisoners, a "vast mob" meanwhile being assembled +in Bow Steet, and the streets adjacent. On information of the threatening +aspect of the people he applied to the Secretary at War for a +reinforcement of the Guards; and from his window, spoke to the mob, +informing them of their danger, and exhorting them to disperse, but in +vain. Rumours, moreover, came that four thousand sailors were assembling +to march to the Strand that Monday night. In view of these rumours and of +the riotous state of the streets, Fielding, the officer of the guard, and +Mr Welch "sat up the whole night, while a large party of soldiers were +kept ready under arms who with the peace officers patrolled the streets." +And thanks to this vigorous action on the part of their new magistrate the +citizens found peace restored within twelve hours of his return to town. + +The same day as that on which Fielding was addressing the riotous mob from +his Bow Street windows, and sitting up all night with the officer of a +military guard, he found time to write to the Duke of Bedford on his own +behalf and on that of his family, concerning the provision for which he +betrays so constant an anxiety. + + +"Bow Street. July 3. 1749. + +"My Lord, + +"The Protection which I have been honoured with receiving at the Hands of +your Grace, and the goodness which you were pleased to express some time +toward me, embolden me to mention to your Grace that the Place of +Solicitor to the Excise is now vacant by the Death of Mr Selwyn. I hope +no Person is better qualified for it, and I assure you, my Lord, none +shall execute it with more Fidelity. I am at this Moment busied in +endeavouring to suppress a dangerous Riot, or I w'd have personally +waited on your Grace to solicite a Favour which will make me and my +Family completely happy. + +"I am, &c., + +"H. Ffielding." [11] + +The vacant post was secured, alas, by another candidate. + +A few weeks after the riotous scenes which had enabled Fielding to show +himself a man of prompt action in times of popular ferment, the +publication is advertised of his _Charge_, published "by order of the +Court and at the request of the Gentleman of the Grand Jury." And on the +same day he submits to the Lord Chancellor a copy both of this pamphlet, +and of a draft of a _Bill for the better preventing Street Robberies &c_, +the design of which it appears Lord Hardwick had already encouraged. + + +"Bow Street, July 21. 1749. + +"My Lord, + +"I beg your Lordship's acceptance of a Charge given by me to the Grand +Jury of Westminster though I am but too sensible how unworthy it is of +your notice. + +"I have likewise presumed to send my Draught of a Bill for the better +preventing street Robberies &c. which your Lordship was so very kind to +say you would peruse; I hope the general Plan at least may be happy in +your Approbation. + +"Your Lordship will have the goodness to pardon my repeating a desire +that the name of Joshua Brogden, may be inserted in the next commission +of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster for whose [integrity] and +Ability in the Execution of his office. I will engage my credit with your +Lordship, an Engagement which appears to me of the most sacred Nature. + +"I am, +"My Lord, with the utmost Respect and Devotion, +"Your Lordship's most Obed't +"Most humble Servant +"H. Ffielding. [12] + +"To the Right Hon'ble. +"The Lord High Chancellor of G. Britain." + +All trace of the text of this draft Bill seems to have been lost; but the +fact of the Lord Chancellor's consent to consider its provisions shows +clearly enough how rapidly Fielding was adding to his now achieved fame as +the author of _Tom Jones_ the very different reputation of an authority on +criminal legislation. + +The application on behalf of Joshua Brogden, later if not at this time the +Justice's Clerk, recalls the further pleasant tribute paid to the +soundness of Mr Brogden's morals in the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_. +If all Fielding's modest magisterial income of L300 a year had gone, as he +declares it should have done, to his clerk, that functionary would, he +tells us, have been "but ill paid for sitting almost sixteen hours in the +twenty four, in the most unwholesome, as well as nauseous air in the +universe, and which hath in his case corrupted a good constitution without +contaminating his morals." It was Joshua Brogden who had witnessed, a few +months earlier, the agreement with Andrew Millar for _Tom Jones_. Could +the good clerk but have played the part of a Boswell to his illustrious +master we should have something more than our present scanty materials for +the personal life of Henry Fielding. + +Yet another of Fielding's rare letters belongs to this year; a letter +conveying his formal congratulations to Lyttelton, on that model +statesman's second marriage, and in which his warm heart again makes +application, not on behalf of his own scanty means, but for a friend. + + +"Bow Street, Aug't 29, 1749. + +"Sir, + +"Permit me to bring up the Rear of your Friends in paying my Compliments +of Congratulation on your late Nuptials. There may perhaps be seasons when +the Rear may be as honourable a Post in Friendship as in War, and if so +such certainly must be every time of Joy and Felicity. Your present +situation must be full of these; and so will be, I am confident, your +future Life from the same Fountain. Nothing can equal the excellent +character your Lady bears among those of her own Sex, and I never yet knew +them speak well of a woman who did not deserve their good words. How +admirable is your Fortune in the Matrimonial Lottery! I will venture to +say there is no man alive who exults more in this, or in any other +Happiness that can attend you than myself; and you ought to believe me +from the same Reason that fully persuades me of the satisfaction you +receive from any Happiness of mine; this Reason is that you must be +sensible how much of it I owe to your goodness; and there is a great +Pleasure in Gratitude though it is second I believe to that of +Benevolence; for of all the Delights upon Earth none can equal the +Raptures which a good mind feels on conferring Happiness on those whom we +think worthy of it. This is the sweetest ingredient in Power, and I +solemnly protest I never wished for Power, more than a few days ago for +the sake of a Man whom I love, and that more perhaps from the esteem I +know he bears towards you than from any other Reason. This Man is in Love +with a young Creature of the most apparent worth, who returns his +affection. Nothing is wanting to make two very miserable People extremely +Blessed but a moderate portion of the greatest of human Evils. So +Philosophers call it, and so it is called by Divines, whose word is the +rather to be taken, as they are, many of them, more conversant with this +Evil than ever Philosophers were. The Name of this man is Moore to whom +you kindly destined that Laurel, which, though it hath long been withered, +may not probably soon drop from the Brow of its present Possessor; but +there is another Place of much the same Value now vacant: it is that of +Deputy Licensor to the Stage. Be not offended at this Hint; for though I +will own it impudent enough in one who hath so many Obligations of his own +to you, to venture to recommend another man to your Favour, yet Impudence +itself may possibly be a Virtue when exerted on the behalf of a Friend; at +least I am the less ashamed of it, as I have known men remarkable for the +opposite Modesty possess it without the mixture of any other good Quality. +In this Fault then you must indulge me; for should I ever see you as high +in Power as I wish, and as it is perhaps more my Interest than your own +that you should be, I shall be guilty of the like as often as I find a Man +in whom I can, after much intimacy discover no want, but that of the Evil +above mentioned. I beg you will do me the Honour of making my Compliments +to your unknown Lady, and believe me to be with the highest Esteem, +Respect, Love, and Gratitude + +"Sir, +"Y'r most obliged +"Most obed't +"humble Servant + +"Henry Fielding. + +"To the Hon'ble +"George Lyttelton, Esqr." [13] + +This Edward Moore was a poet held worthy, it would seem, to possess the +Laureat's 'withered' laurel (even in 1749 Fielding cannot refrain from a +thrust at Colley Cibber); a journalist; a writer of whom Dibden declared +that the tendency of all his productions was to "cultivate truth and +morality"; a tradesman in the linen business; and the son of a dissenting +minister: a combination of circumstances closely recalling Fielding's +friendship for the good dissenter, jeweller, and poet, George Lillo. And +it is to an undated letter by Edward Moore, hitherto overlooked, that we +owe one of the rare references to Henry Fielding from a contemporary pen. +Moore is writing to a dissenting minister at Taunton, one Mr John Ward, of +whom it was said that venerable as he himself was for learning, worth, and +piety he deemed it "_an honour to have his name connected with that of +Moore_,"--a further proof of the quality of man whom Fielding choose for +friend. Moore had been prevented, by Fielding's illness, from appointing +an evening on which he might invite the Taunton minister to his lodgings +to meet there some of the first wits of the day. "It is not," he writes, +"owing to forgetfulness that you have not heard from me before. Fielding +continues to be visited for his sins so as to be wheeled about from room +to room; when he mends I am sure to see him at my lodgings; and you may +depend upon timely notice. What fine things are Wit and Beauty, if a Man +could be temperate with one, or a Woman chaste with the other! But he that +will confine his acquaintance to the sober and the modest will generally +find himself among the dull and the ugly. If this remark of mine should be +thought to shoulder itself in without an introduction you will be pleased +to note that Fielding is a Wit; that his disorder is the Gout, and +intemperance the cause." It is of course idle to contend that Fielding +always carried a cool head. Murphy tells us that to him might justly be +applied a parody on a saying concerning Scipio,--"always over a social +bottle or a book, he enured his body to the dangers of intemperance, and +exercised his mind with Studies." But we must in justice remember that the +Augustan age of English literature concerned itself but very little with +our modern virtue of sobriety. That Fielding, with the other great men of +his day, very often drank more than was good for him, amounts to little +more than saying that he wore a laced coat when he had one, and carried a +sword at his side. + +The execution of one of the Strand rioters, Bosavern Penlez by name, in +September, had roused much controversy; and as the evidence in the case +was in Justice Fielding's possession, and the attacks were levelled at the +Government, we find him plunged once more into political pamphleteering in +the publication, under the date of 1749, of the learned little treatise +entitled "_A True State of the Case of Bosavern Penlez' who suffered on +account of the late riot in the Strand. In which the Law regarding these +Offences and the Statute of George I. commonly called the Riot Act are +fully considered_." The pamphlet opens with a warm protest against the +abuse to which Fielding had been subjected by his political opponents. "It +may easily be imagined," he writes, "that a Man whose Character hath been +so barbarously, even without the least Regard to Truth or Decency, +aspersed, on account of his Endeavours to defend the present Government, +might wish to decline any future Appearance as a political Writer"; but +more weighty considerations move him to lay the defence of the Riot Act in +general, and of this application of it in particular, before a public +which had been imposed upon "in the grossest and wickedest manner." We +have already quoted the vivid depositions concerning this Strand riot, +which were sworn before Fielding, and which he here reproduces; and his +historical defence of the public need of suppressing riots, from the days +of Wat Tyler onwards, may be left to the curious reader. Needless to say, +Fielding makes out an excellent case against the toleration of mob law:-- +"When by our excellent Constitution the greatest Subject, no not even the +King himself, can, without a lawful Trial and Conviction divest the +meanest Man of his Property, deprive him of his Liberty, or attack him in +his Person; shall we suffer a licentious Rabble to be Accuser, Judge, +Jury, and Executioner; to inflict corporal Punishment, break open Men's +Doors, plunder their Houses, and burn their Goods?" And, at the close, +this pamphlet reveals the warm-hearted magistrate no less than the erudite +lawyer. For of the two condemned prisoners, Wilson and Penlez, the case of +the former seemed to Fielding "to be the Object of true Compassion." +Accordingly he laid the evidence in his possession before "some very noble +Persons," and, he adds, "I flatter myself that it might be a little owing +to my Representation, that the Distinction between an Object of Mercy, and +an Object of Justice at last prevailed". So the felon gained his respite, +and a lasting niche for his name, in that he owed his life partly if not +wholly to the generous compassion of Henry Fielding. The pamphlet seems to +have made its mark, for a second edition was advertised within a month of +publication. + +This eventful year, the year which had seen the publication of _Tom +Jones_, the shackling of Fielding's genius within the duties of a London +magistrate, the issue of two pamphlets occupied with criminal reform and +administration, the drafting of a proposed Criminal Bill, and the +suppression of a riot, closed sadly with the death of Fielding's little +daughter, Mary Amelia, when barely twelve months old. She was buried at St +Paul's, Covent Garden, on the seventeenth of December, 1749. And some time +in the autumn or early winter Fielding himself appears to have been +dangerously ill. This we learn from the following paragraph in the +_General Advertizer_ for December 28: "Justice Fielding has no +Mortification in his Foot as has been reported: that Gentleman has indeed +been very dangerously ill with a Fever, and a Fit of the Gout, in which he +was attended by Dr Thompson, an eminent Physician, and is now so well +recovered as to be able to execute his Office as usual." + +[1] His Commission in the Peace for Westminster bears date October 25. +1748. + +[2] An application is reported for the 2nd of December before "Justice +Fielding" of Meards Court, St. Anne's, but for reasons given below this +_may_ refer to John Fielding. + +[3] From the autograph now at Woburn Abbey, and printed in the +_Correspondence of John Fourth Duke of Bedford_. Vol. i. p. 589. + +[4] Middlesex Records. Volume of _Qualification Oaths for Justices of the +Peace_. 1749. From an entry dated July 13, 1749, in the same volume, +Fielding appears to have then owned leases in the three first named +parishes only. + +[5] See the King's Writ, now preserved in the Record Office. + +[6] Middlesex Records. _Sacramental Certificates_. + +[7] Middlesex Records. _Oath Rolls_. + +[8] _Amelia_. Book i. Chapter ii. + +[9] The Westminster _Session Rolls_, preserved among the Middlesex +Records, contain many recognizances all signed by Fielding. + +[10] "On Friday last," announces the General Advertiser for May 17, +"Counsellor Fielding, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace was +chosen Chairman of the Sessions at Hicks Hall for the County of +Middlesex"; a statement not very compatible with the incontestable +evidence preserved in the _General Orders Books_ of the Middlesex Records, +by which it appears that John Lane Esq're was elected Chairman of the +Middlesex General Sessions and General Quarter Session from Ladyday 1749 +to September 1752. The personal paragraphist of 1749 was perhaps no less +inaccurate than his descendant of to-day. But a few weeks later this +honour of chairmanship was certainly accorded to Fielding by his brethren +of the Bench for Westminster. An entry in the _Sessions Book_ of +Westminster, 1749 runs as follows: "May. 1749, Mr Fielding elected +chairman of this present Session and to continue untill the 2nd day of the +next." _MSS Sessions Books for Westminster. Vol. 1749_. Middlesex Records. + +[11] From the autograph now at Woburn Abbey, and printed in the +_Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford_, vol. ii. p. 35. + +[12] From the hitherto unpublished autograph now in the British Museum. + +[13] This letter is now in the Dreer Collection of the Historical Society +of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, U.S.A. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FIELDING AND LEGISLATION + + "The Subject, as well as the Child, should be left without excuse + before he is punished: for, in that case alone, the Rod becomes + the Hand either of the Parent or the Magistrate." + _Inquiry Into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers_. + +There is no Bill for the suppression of street robberies on the Statute +Book for 1749 or 1750; so the draft which Fielding, with characteristic +energy, despatched to the Lord Chancellor but a few months after his +appointment to the Bench, was, presumably, pigeon-holed. Meanwhile, the +criminal conditions of the metropolis seem to have become, if anything, +more scandalous. In February 1750, the _Penny Post_ reports the gaols in +and about London to be "now so full of Felons and desperate Rogues that +the Keepers have not fetters enow to put upon them; so that in some +Prisons two or three are chained together to prevent their escape." And on +the fifth of the same month the _General Advertiser_ hears that "near 40 +Highwaymen, street Robbers, Burglars, Rogues, Vagabonds, and Cheats have +been committed within a week last past by Justice Fielding." But however +full of business the Bow Street court-room might be, that dreary routine +[1] would make, as we have said, but equally dreary reading. And the fact +that both John and Henry Fielding appear to have been known as 'Justice +Fielding' during the lifetime of the latter, lessens whatever biographical +value might be extracted from the constant newspaper paragraphs recording +the Fielding cases. It is clear that the house in Bow Street was the +centre of an active campaign against the thieves, murderers, professional +gamblers, and highwaymen, who were then so rife. Military guards conducted +thither prisoners, brought for examination from Newgate, for fear of +rescue from gangs lurking in the neighbouring streets. All "Persons who +have been robbed" and their servants, were desired, by public +advertisement, to attend Justice Fielding "at his House in Bow Street," to +identify certain prisoners under examination. And thither came the +"porters and beggars," the composing of whose quarrels Henry Fielding +himself has told us, occupied his days. The generous spirit in which he +treated such poor clients, and his tenderness for those driven by want +into crime, are eminently characteristic of the man. By adjusting, instead +of inflaming, these squalid quarrels, and by "refusing to take a shilling +from a man who must undoubtedly would not have had another left," he +reduced a supposed income of L500 a year to L300. And if the picture of +the poor wretch, driven to highway robbery by the sight of his starving +family, whom Tom Jones relieved from his own scanty purse, be not proof +enough of the compassion that tempered Justice Fielding's sternness, we +have his own express pleading for these unhappy victims of circumstance: +"what can be more shocking," he cries, "than to see an industrious poor +Creature, who is able and willing to labour forced by mere want into +Dishonesty, and that in a Nation of such Trade and Opulence." So justly +could Fielding apportion the contributary negligence of society towards +the criminals bred by its apathy. + +And it was not only the impoverished porter who found help at Bow Street. +"When," says Murphy, "in the latter end of [Mr Fielding's] days he had an +income of four or five hundred a-year, he knew no use of money but to keep +his table open to those who had been his friends when young, and had +impaired their own fortunes." As Mr Austin Dobson says, in commenting on +one of Horace Walpole's scurrilous letters, [2] "it must always have been +a more or less ragged regiment which met about that kindly Bow Street +board." The man who parted with his own hardly won arrears of rent to +relieve the yet greater need of a College friend, was little likely to be +less generous when the tardy 'jade Fortune' at last put some secured +income into his hands. + +No special event marks the spring and summer of 1750. On the 11th of +January the Westminster General Quarter Sessions opened, and on the +following day Fielding was again elected as chairman "for the two next +Quarter Sessions"; which election was repeated, "for the two next +Sessions, [3]" in July. The Registers of St Paul's Covent Garden record +the baptism of a daughter, Sophia, on the 21st of January. And an +indication that the zealous magistrate was plunged, personally, into some +of the tumults of the time occurs in the following trifling note to the +Duke of Bedford. + + +"My Lord, + +"In obedience to the Commands I have the Honour to receive from your +Grace, I shall attend tomorrow morning and do the utmost in my Power to +preserve the Peace on that occasion. + +"I am, with gratitude and Respect, +"My Lord, +"Your Grace's most obliged +"most obedient humble servant. + +"Henry Ffielding. [4] + +"Bow Street, + +"May 14, 1750." + +By the autumn, however, a rumour was abroad that the now famous author of +_Tom Jones_ was engaged on pages of a very different nature. The _General +Advertiser_, for October 9, announces:-- + +"We hear that an eminent Magistrate is now employed in preparing a +Pamphlet for the Press in which the several causes that have conspired to +render Robberies so frequent of late will be laid open; the Defects of our +Laws enquired into, and Methods proposed which may discourage and in a +great measure prevent this growing Evil for the future." + +This pamphlet, in which many a later reform was urged by Fielding's +far-sighted zeal, seems to have been still in preparation for the next two +months. And in November the reform of the law had to give place to a more +immediate urgency in protecting the Lord Chancellor. The keepers of three +gaming houses, closed by his lordship's orders, were reported to be +plotting against that exalted dignitary; and the case, as appears from the +following letter to a lawyer, Mr Perkins, was in Fielding's hands. [5] + + +"Sir + +"I have made full enquiry after the three Persons and have a perfect +account of them all. Their characters are such that perhaps three more +likely Men could not be found in the Kingdom for the Hellish Purpose +mentioned in the Letter. As the Particulars are many and the Affair of +such Importance I beg to see you punctually at six this evening when I +will be alone to receive you--and am, Sir, + +"Yr. most obed; +"humble servant + +"He Ffielding. + +"Bow Street. Nov. 25. 1750." + +When the keepers of gambling houses dared to fly at such high game as the +person of the Lord Chancellor, there is no wonder that the safety of his +Majesty's ordinary lieges was of small account. "Robbery," writes Horace +Walpole, a few weeks before the date of the above letter, "is the only +thing which goes on with any vivacity." And at the close of the year a +Royal Proclamation was actually published, promising L100 over and above +other rewards, and a free pardon, to any accomplice who should apprehend +offenders committing murder, or robbery by violence, in London streets or +within five miles of London, providing such an accomplice had not himself +dealt a mortal wound. So startling a confession of impotence on the part +of the Government served very fitly to introduce the pamphlet, then on the +eve of publication. And if further proof be needed of the conditions of +public safety at the beginning of the year 1751, it may be seen in the +passage of the King's Speech delivered at the opening of Parliament on the +17th of January, in which his Majesty exhorted the Commons to suppress +outrages and violences on life and property; words representing, of +course, the policy of the Ministry. + +The title of Fielding's little book, dedicated to Lord Hardwick, and +published about January 22, is _An Enquiry into the Causes of the late +Increase of Robbers &c. with some Proposals for remedying this growing +Evil. In which the Present Reigning Vices are impartially exposed; and the +Laws that relate to the Provision for the Poor and to the Punishment of +Felons are largely and freely examined_. The _Enquiry_ opens with a +powerful denunciation of the licence then allowed to the three great +causes, in Fielding's opinion, of the increasing demoralisation of the +'most useful Part' of the people. These were, first, the immense number of +places of amusement, all seducing the working classes to squander both +their money and their time; this being "indeed a certain Method to fill +the Streets with Beggars and the Goals with Debtors and Thieves." Here, in +Fielding's view, new legislation was demanded. The second cause of the +late excessive increase of crime, according to the _Enquiry_, was an +epidemic of gin drinking, "a new Kind of Drunkenness unknown to our +Ancestors [which] is lately sprung up amongst us." Gin, says Fielding, +appeared to be the principal sustenance of more than an hundred thousand +Londoners, "the dreadful Effects of which I have the Misfortune every Day +to see, and to smell too." The crime resulting from such drunkenness was +obvious; but Fielding, looking far beyond the narrow confines of his +court-room, beheld a future gin-sodden race, and he appeals to the +legislature to put a stop to a practice, the consequences of which must +alarm "the most sluggish Degree of Public Spirit." It is surely something +more than a coincidence that a few weeks after these warnings were +published, Hogarth issued his awful plate of _Gin Lane_. A third source of +crime, in Fielding's eyes, was the gambling among the 'lower Classes of +Life,'--a school "in which most Highwaymen of great eminence have been +bred," and a habit plainly tending to the "Ruin of Tradesmen, the +Destruction of Youth, and to the Multiplication of every Kind of Fraud and +Violence." In this case the 'Eminent Magistrate' finds new legislation +less needed than a vigorous enforcement of existing laws; such, he adds, +"as hath lately been executed with great Vigour within the Liberty of +Westminster." Before long the pages of _Amelia_ were to bring home yet +more forcibly to Fielding's readers the cruel results of the pleasures (or +speculations) of the needy gambler,--the 'Destruction of Familys,' thereby +incurred, no less than the breeding of highwaymen. Who does not remember +"that famous scene when Amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is +losing his money at the Kings 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 huskiness in the throat." [6] The last great cause +of crime which the _Enquiry_ considers, and with much learning and detail, +is the condition of the poor. Here Fielding's views on our modern problem +of the unemployed may be read. And here occurs a splendid denunciation of +the 'House of Correction' or Bridewell of the period, a prison for idle +and disorderly persons where "they are neither to be corrected nor +employed: and where with the conversation of many as bad and sometimes +worse than themselves they are sure to be improved in the Knowledge and +confirmed in the Practice of Iniquity." The most impudent of the wretches +brought before him, Fielding tells us, were always "such as have been +before acquainted with the Discipline of Bridewell." These prisons, from +which the disorderly and idle came out, "much more idle and disorderly +than they went in," were, says Fielding, no other than "Schools of Vice, +Seminaries of Idleness, and Common-sewers of Nastiness and Disease." A +fixed (and lower) rate of wages, it is curious to note, is one remedy +advocated in the _Enquiry_, for raising the condition of the poor. + +Such were the 'temptations' to robbery that Fielding would have removed, +nobly conceiving the highest office of the legislature to be that of +prevention rather than cure. The _Enquiry_ concludes with offering some +more immediate palliatives for the diseased state of the body politic, in +the removing of actual 'Encouragement to Robbery.' First among such +encouragements Fielding places the fact that "the Thief disposes of his +goods with almost as much safety as the honestest Tradesman"; and he urged +the need of legislation to prohibit the amazing advertisements by which +our ancestors promised to give rewards for the recovery of stolen goods +"_and no questions asked_." Such advertisements he declares to be "in +themselves so very scandalous and of such pernicious Consequence, that if +Men are not ashamed to own they prefer an old Watch or a Diamond Ring to +the Good of [the] Society it is a pity some effectual Law was not +contrived to prevent their giving this public Countenance to Robbery for +the future." And, under this head, he advocates legislation either for the +regulating of pawnbrokers, or for the entire extirpation of a "Set of +Miscreants which, like other Vermin, harbour only about the Poor and grow +fat sucking their Blood." The subsequent legislation by which prosecutors +were recompensed for loss of time and money, when prosecuting the 'wolves +in society,' may be added to the measures forseen if not actually promoted +by Fielding's enlightened zeal. And in nothing was he more in advance of +his age than in his denunciation of that scandal of the eighteenth +century, the conduct and frequency of public executions. It has taken our +legislators a hundred years to provide the swift, solemn and private +executions urged by Henry Fielding, in place of the brutal 'Tyburn +holiday' enacted every six weeks for the benefit of the Georgian mob. +Another matter demanding legislation was the great probability of escape +afforded to thieves by the narrow streets and the common-lodging houses of +the day. Of the latter, crowded with miserable beds from the cellar to the +garret, let out, at twopence a night the single beds, and threepence the +double ones, Fielding draws a picture as terrible as any of his friend +Hogarth's plates. And he concludes "Nay I can add what I myself once saw +in the Parish of Shoreditch where two little Houses were emptied of near +seventy Men and Women," and where the money found on all the occupants +(with the exception of a pretty girl who was a thief) "did not amount to +one shilling." In all these houses gin, moreover, was sold at a penny the +quartern. Housed thus, in conditions destructive of "all Morality, Decency +and Modesty," with the street for bed if they fall sick ("and it is almost +a Miracle that Stench, Vermin, and Want should ever suffer them to be +well"), oppressed with poverty, and sunk in every species of debauchery, +"the Wonder in Fact is," cries Fielding, "... that we have not a thousand +more Robbers than we have; indeed that all these wretches are not thieves +must give us either a very high Idea of their Honesty or a very mean one +of their Capacity and Courage." And, leaving for a moment legislative +reform, Fielding delivers a vigorous attack on the national sluggishness +of public spirit which helped to render robbery a fairly safe profession. +With such sluggishness his ardent nature had very little sympathy. "With +regard to Private Persons," he protests, "there is no Country I believe in +the World where that vulgar Maxim so generally prevails that what is the +Business of every Man is the business of no Man; and for this plain +Reason, that there is no Country in which less Honour is gained by serving +the Public. He therefore who commits no crime against the Public, is very +well satisfied with his own Virtue; far from thinking himself obliged to +undergo any Labour, expend any Money, or encounter any Danger on such +Account." And in no part of the _Enquiry_ does the writer more truly show +his wisdom than in the pages on 'false Compassion' that plausible weakness +which refuses to prosecute the oppressors of the helpless and innocent, +and which at that time, in the person of his Majesty, King George II. was, +it appears, very active in pardoning offenders when convicted. Fielding's +arguments are incontestable; but his apologue may have found even more +favour in the age of wit. He hopes such good nature may not carry those in +power so far, "as it once did a Clergyman in _Scotland_ who in the fervour +of his Benevolence prayed to God that He would be graciously pleased to +pardon the poor Devil." + +To the devil, whether in man or in society, Fielding was ever a 'spirited +enemy'; and his first biographer tells us that "to the unworthy he was +rather harsh." But the last page of this little book breathes that spirit +of tenderness for hard pressed humanity which in Fielding was so +characteristically mingled with a wholesome severity. If the legislature +would take proper care to raise the condition of the poor, then he +declares the root of the evil would be struck: "nor in plain Truth will +the utmost severity to Offenders be justifiable unless we take every +possible Method of preventing the offence ... the Subject as well as the +child should be left without Excuse before he is punished: for in that +Case alone the Rod becomes the Hand either of the Parent or the +Magistrate." And his last word is one of compassion for the "many +Cart-loads of our Fellow-creatures [who] once in six weeks are carried to +Slaughter"; of whom much the greater part might, with 'proper care and +Regulations' have been made "not only happy in themselves but very useful +Members of the Society which they now so greatly dishonour in the Sight of +all Christendom." + +Henry Fielding is himself his own best illustration when he declares that +the "good Poet and the good Politician do not differ so much as some who +know nothing of either art affirm; nor would _Homer_ or _Milton_ have made +the worst Legislators of their Times." + +To the reader of to-day the _Enquiry_ betrays no party flavour, but its +sedate pages clearly stirred up the hot feeling of the times. Early in +February the Advertiser announced "_This Day is published A Letter to +Henry Fielding Esqre. occasioned by his Enquiry into the causes of the +late increase of Robbers &c_." And about the end of the month there +appeared _Considerations_, in two numbers of the _True Briton_, "on +Justice Fielding's 'Enquiry,' shewing his Mistakes about the Constitution +and our Laws and that what he seems to propose is dangerous to our +Properties, Liberties and Constitution." On March 7 was announced +_Observations on Mr Fielding's Enquiry_, by one B. Sedgley. Some +opposition squib, too, must have been launched, to judge by the following +item from an advertisement column of the same date: "a Vindication of the +Rights and Privileges of the Commonality of England, in Opposition to what +has been advanced by the Author of the Enquiry, or to what may be +promulgated by any Ministerial Artifices against the public Cause of Truth +and Liberty. _By_ Timothy Beck_ the Happy Cobler of Portugal-street_." +[7] Perhaps some collector of eighteenth century pamphlets may be able to +reveal these comments of the '_Happy Gobler of Portugal-street_' upon the +'artifices' of Henry Fielding. [8] + +In the February following the publication of the _Enquiry_ a Parlimentary +Committee was appointed "to revise and consider the Laws in being, which +relate to Felonies and other Offences against the Peace." [9] The +Committee included Lyttelton and Pitt, and there is of course every +probability that Fielding's evidence would be taken; but it seems +impossible now to discover what share he may have had in this move by the +Government towards fresh criminal legislation. There is, however, the +evidence of his own hand that in the matter of prison administration his +efforts were not limited to academic pamphlets, or to the indictment, so +soon to be published, contained in the terrible prison scenes of _Amelia_. +The following letter to the Duke of Newcastle [10] shows an anxious +endeavour to secure such good government as was possible for at least one +of the gaols. + + +"My Lord + +"It being of the utmost consequence to the Public to have a proper Prison +Keeper of the new Prison at the Time, I beg leave to recommend Mr William +Pentlow a Constable of St George Bloomsbury to your Grace's Protection in +the present Vacancy. He is a Man of whose Courage and Integrity I have +seen the highest Proofs, and is indeed every way qualified for the +charge. I am with the most Perfect Respect, + +"My Lord, +"Your Grace's most obedient +"and most humble servant, + +"Henry Ffielding +"Bow Street Jan. 15. 1750 [1751]." + +A second edition of the _Enquiry_ appeared early in the spring; and +according to the _Journals of the House of Commons_ it was resolved, in +April, that a Bill be brought in on the resolution of the Committee +appointed two months previously to consider criminal legislation. Again it +can only be surmised that Fielding's assistance would be invoked in the +drafting of this Bill. That his vigorous denunciations of the national +danger of the gin curse were in complete accord with the feeling of the +Government is apparent from the fact that two months later, in June 1751, +the _Tippling Act_ [11] received the royal assent, by which Act very +stringent restrictions were imposed on the sale of spirits. + +In June Fielding again appears as Chairman of the Westminster Sessions. +[12] And in September cases occur as brought before John Fielding and +others "at Henry Fielding's house in Bow Street," [13] from which it +appears that Fielding's blind half-brother was already acting as his +assistant. In the following month John Fielding appears among the Justices +of the Westminster Quarter Sessions. [14] + +The year that had seen the publication of the _Enquiry_, affords proof +enough of Fielding's active labours in criminal and social reform; but the +last month of this year is marked by an occurrence of much greater import +for English literature, the publication of the third great novel, +_Amelia_. + +[1] Doubtless faithfully rendered in the old print, here reproduced, of +Fielding's blind half-brother, assistant, and successor, Sir John +Fielding, hearing a Bow Street case. + +[2] See Appendix. + +[3] Middlesex Records. _MSS. Sessions Books_. 1750. + +[4] From the hitherto unpublished autograph, now at Woburn Abbey. + +[5] This hitherto unpublished letter is now in the British Museum. It is +addressed to "--Perkins, Esq. at his Chambers No. 7, in Lincolns Inn +Square," and is sealed with Fielding's seal, a facsimile of which appears +on the cover of the present volume. + +[6] _Fielding_. Austin Dobson. p. 156. + +[7] _The General Advertiser_. March 7, 1751. + +[8] The _London Magazine_ for February devoted five columns to an +"Abstract of Mr Fielding's Enquiry"; and in the following month the +_Magazine_ again noticed the book, by printing a long anonymous letter in +which Fielding is attacked as a 'trading author' and a 'trading justice,' +and in which the writer shows his intellectual grasp by advocating in all +seriousness a law prohibiting the sovereign from gambling! + +[9] See _Journals of the House of Commons_. Vol. xxii. p. 27, and the +_London Magazine_. Vol. xx. p. 82. The _Catalogue of Printed Papers. House +of Commons_, 1750-51, includes "A Bill for the more effectual preventing +Robberies Burglaries and other Outrages within the City and Liberty of +Westminster--" &c. + +[10] This hitherto unpublished letter is now in the British Museum. It is +endorsed "Jan. 15, 1750(1)." + +[11] 24 George II. c. 40. June 1751. + +[12] Middlesex Records. _Sessions Book_. 1751. + +[13] _General Advertiser_. Sept. 9. 1751. + +[14] Middlesex Records. _Sessions Book_. October, 1751. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AMELIA + + "of all my Offspring she is my favourite Child." + The _Covent Garden Journal_. No. 8. + +On the 2nd of December 1751 the _General Advertiser_ announces that + + _On Wednesday the 18th of this Month will be published_ + + IN FOUR VOLUMES DUODECIMO + + AMELIA + + By HENRY FIELDING, Esq; + _Beati ter et amplius + Quos irrupta tenet Copula_. HOR. + +And the puff preliminary of the period may be read in the same columns, +declaring that the "earnest Demand of the Publick" had necessitated the +use of four printing presses; and that it being impossible to complete the +binding in time, copies would be available "sew'd at Half-a-Guinea a +Sett." Sir Walter Scott tells us that, at a sale to booksellers before +publication, Andrew Millar, the publisher, refused to part with _Amelia_ +on the usual discount terms; and that the booksellers, being thus +persuaded of a great future for the book, eagerly bought up the +impression. Launched thus, and heralded by the popularity with which _Tom +Jones_ had now endowed Fielding's name, the entire edition was sold out on +the day of publication; an event which evoked the observation from Dr +Johnson that _Amelia_ was perhaps the only book which being printed off +betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night. The Doctor +gave not only unstinted praise, but also an involuntary tribute to +_Amelia_. He read the book through, without pausing, from beginning to +end. And he pronounced Amelia herself to be "the most pleasing heroine of +all the romances." [1] + +But to the majority of readers Amelia is, assuredly, something more than +the most charming of heroines. She is the delightful companion; the wise +and tender friend; a woman whose least perfection was that dazzling beauty +which shone with equal lustre in the 'poor rags' lent her by her old +nurse, or in her own clothing, just as the happy purity of her nature only +glows more brightly for the dark scenes through which she moves. In the +whole range of English literature there is surely no figure more warmly +human, and yet less touched with human imperfection; none more simply and +naturally alive, and yet truer in every crisis (and there were few of the +sorrowful things of life unknown to her) to the best qualities of generous +womanhood. And if it is largely for her glowing vitality that we love +Amelia, we love her none the less in that she is no fool. It was hardly +necessary to tell us, as Fielding is careful to do, that her sense of +humour was keen, and that her insight into the ridiculous was tempered +only by the deeper insight of her heart. Her understanding of her husband +is as perfect as her love for him; and that love is far too profound to +allow a moment's suggestion of mere placid amiability. Amelia, whether +quizzing the absurdities of the affected fine ladies of her own rank, or +cooking her husband's supper in the poor lodgings of their poverty; +whether so radiant with happiness after seeing her little children +handsomely entertained that with flushed cheeks and bright eyes, "she was +all a blaze of beauty," or, pale with distress, bravely carrying her own +clothes and the children's trinkets to the pawnbroker; whether betraying +her own noble qualities of silence and forgiveness, or losing her temper +with Mrs Bennett,--commands equal affection and admiration. "They say," +wrote Thackeray, "that it was in his own home that Fielding knew her and +loved her: and from his own wife that he drew the most charming character +in English fiction--Fiction? Why fiction! Why not history? I know Amelia +just as well as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu." + +Lady Mary, and her daughter Lady Bute, have left very definite statements +concerning this portrait which their cousin was alleged to have hidden +under the fair image of Amelia. Lady Bute we are told was no 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...." [2] And Lady Mary +herself writes, "H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his +first wife, in the characters of Mr and Mrs Booth [Amelia and her +husband], some compliments to his own figure excepted; and I am persuaded +several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact." [3] +Against these persuations we must place the fact that this book contains +no such explicit statement as that which in _Tom Jones_ assures us of the +original of the beautiful Sophia. But we shall not love Amelia the less if +we see her, with her courage and her beauty, her happy gaiety of spirit, +her tenderness and strength, solacing the distresses and calming the +storms of Fielding's restless genius, rather than devoting those qualities +to assuaging the misfortunes of Captain William Booth. For indeed Captain +Booth has but one substantial title to our regard, and that is his +adoration for his wife. True, he is a pretty figure of a man; he has a +handsome face; he fights bravely, and would kick a rogue through the +world; he believes in and loves his friends; and he plays charmingly with +his children. But, deprive him of the good genius of his life, and Captain +Booth would very speedily have sunk into the ruin and despair of any other +profligate young gamester about the Town; and for this his adoration the +culprit wins our forgiveness, even as Amelia not only forgave but forgot, +when by virtue of her own unconscious goodness the Captain retrieved +himself, at last, from the folly of his ways. Undoubtedly the man whom +Amelia loved, and who had the grace to return that passion, was no +scoundrel at heart. + +It is impossible, now, to discover with any certainty the incidents which +Lady Mary was persuaded were matters of fact. The experiences of Captain +Booth, when essaying to turn gentleman farmer, have been quoted as copies +of Fielding's own ambitions at East Stour; but surely on very slender +evidence. Much more personal seem many of the later scenes in the poor +London lodgings, scenes of cruel distress and perfect happiness, of bitter +disappointments and sanguine hope. Here, very probably, we have echoes of +the struggles of Harry and Charlotte Fielding, in the days of hackney +writing and of baffled efforts at the Bar; just as the dry statement by +Arthur Murphy, that Fielding was "remarkable for ... the strongest +affection for his children," comes to life in the many touching pictures +of Amelia and Booth with their little son and daughter. The pursuit of +such identity of incident may the more cheerfully be left to the +anecdotist, in that the biographical value of _Amelia_, is far more than +incidental. For the book is, as has been said, a one-part piece. Round the +single figure of Amelia all the other characters revolve; and it was of +Amelia that Fielding himself has told us, in words that are a master key +to his own character "of all my offspring she is my favourite Child." As +surely as a man may be known by his choice in a friend, so is the nature +of the artist betrayed when he avows his partiality for one alone among +all the creations of his genius. + +As to the remaining figures in this "model of human life," to quote +Fielding's own descriptive phrase of his book, those which tell us most of +their author are that worthy, authoritative, humourous clergyman, Dr +Harrison; the good Sergeant Atkinson; and that fiery pedant Colonel Bath, +with his kind heart hidden under a ferocious passion for calling out every +man whom he conceived to have slighted his honour. Dr Harrison does not +win quite the same place in our hearts as the man whom Thackeray calls +'dear Parson Adams'; his cassock rustles a little too loudly; the saint is +a trifle obscured in the Doctor. But yet we love him for his warm and +protecting affection for his 'children' as he calls Amelia and Booth; for +his dry humour; and for that generosity which was for ever draining his +ample purse. And perhaps we like him none the less for his scholar's +raillery of that early blue-stocking Mrs Bennet; while his dignity never +shows to greater advantage than when he throws himself bodily on the +villain Murphy, achieving the arrest of that felon by the strength of his +own arm, and the nimbleness of his own legs. And to this good Doctor is +given a saying eminently characteristic of Justice Fielding himself. We +are told that "it was a maxim of his that no man could descend below +himself in doing any act which may contribute to protect an innocent +person, or to bring a rogue to the gallows." Another trait of the Doctor +recalls Fielding's oft reiterated aversion to what he calls grave formal +persons: "You must know then, child," said he, to poor Booth, sunk in the +melancholy problem of supporting a wife and three children on something +less than L40 a year, "that I have been thinking on this subject as well +as you; for I can think, I promise you, with a pleasant countenance." Of +Amelia's foster-brother Sergeant Atkinson (from whom Major William Dobbin +is directly descended) it is enough to say that the noble qualities +concealed beneath the common cloth of his sergeant's coat perfectly +confirm a sentence written many years before by the hand of his author. "I +will venture to affirm," Fielding declares, in his early essay on the +_Characters of Men_, "that I have known ... _a Fellow whom no man should +be seen to speak to_, capable of the highest acts of Friendship and +Benevolence." + +Fielding's energies in this his last novel, a novel be it remembered +written in the midst of daily contact with the squalid vices exhibited in +an eighteenth century court-room, seem to have been almost wholly absorbed +in creating the most perfect escape from those surroundings in the person +of Amelia. Beside the figure of his 'favourite child,' the vicious +criminals of his stage, the malefic My Lord, the loathsome Trent, the +debased Justice, the terrible human wrecks in Newgate, are but dark +figures in a shadowy back-ground. Still, the great moralist shows no lack +of vigour in his delineations of such offspring of vice. The genius that +knew how to rouse every reader of _Tom Jones_ to 'lend a foot to kick +Blifil downstairs,' awards in the last pages of _Amelia_, a yet more +satisfying justice to that nameless connoisseur in profligacy, My Lord. + +In his Dedication to Ralph Allen, Fielding states that his book "is +sincerely designed to promote the Cause of Virtue, and to expose some of +the most glaring Evils, as well public as private, which at present infest +this Country". The statement seems somewhat needless when prefacing pages +which enshrine Amelia; and where also are displayed Blear Eyed Moll in the +prison yard of Newgate, as Newgate was twenty years before the prison +reforms of Howard were heard of; Justice Thrasher and his iniquities; the +'diabolisms' of My Lord and of his tool Trent; the ruinous miseries of +excessive gambling; and the abuses of duelling. Indeed the avowedly +didactic purpose of the moralist seems at times to cloud a little the fine +perception of the artist. There are passages, in this book which, much as +they redound to the honour of their writer, are indisputably heavy +reading. But what shall not be forgiven to the creator of Amelia. "To have +invented that character," cries Thackeray, also becoming didactic, "is not +only a triumph of art, but it is a good action." And he tells us how with +all his heart he loves and admires the 'kindest and sweetest lady in the +world'; and how he thinks of her as faithfully as though he had +breakfasted with her that morning in her drawing-room, or should meet her +that afternoon in the Park. + +It is recorded that Fielding received from Andrew Millar L1000 for the +copyright of _Amelia_. But the reception of the new novel, after the first +rush for copies, seems to have done little credit either to the brains or +to the heart of the public. And in the month following _Amelia's_ +appearance, Fielding satirises the comments of the Town, in two numbers of +his _Covent Garden Journal_; protesting that though he does not think his +child to be entirely free from faults--"I know nothing human that is +so,"--still "surely she does not deserve the Rancour with which she hath +been treated by the Public." As ironic specimens of the faults complained +of in his heroine, he quotes the accusations that her not abusing her +husband "for having lost Money at Play, when she saw his Heart was already +almost broke by it, was _contemptible Meanness_"; that she condescends to +dress her husband's supper, and to dress her children, to whom moreover +she shows too much kindness; that she once mentions the DEVIL; that she is +a _low_ character; and that the beauty of her face is hopelessly flawed by +a carriage accident. Such are some of the charges brought against the +lovely Amelia by the "Beaus, Rakes, fine Ladies, and several formal +Persons with bushy wigs and canes at their Noses," who, in Fielding's +satire, crowd the Court where his book is placed on trial for the crime of +dullness. Then Fielding himself steps forward, and after pleading for this +his 'favourite Child,' on whom he has bestowed "a more than ordinary Pains +in her Education," he declares, with the same hasty petulance that +characterised that previous outburst in the preface to _David Simple_, +that indeed he "will trouble the World no more with any children of mine +by the same Muse." Two months later the _Gentleman's Magazine_ prints a +spirited appeal against this resolution. "His fair heroine's nose has in +my opinion been too severely handled by some modern critics," [4] writes +Criticulus, after a passage of warm praise for the characterisation, the +morality, and the 'noble reflections of the book'; and he proceeds to +point out that the writings of such critics "will never make a sufficient +recompense to the world, if _Mr Fielding_ adheres to what I hope he only +said in his warmth and indignation of this injurious treatment, that he +will never trouble the public with any more writings of this kind." The +words of the enlightened _Criticulus_ echo sadly when we remember that in +little more than two years the great genius and the great heart of Henry +Fielding were to be silenced. + +The _London Magazine_ for 1751 devotes the first nine columns of its +December number to a resume of the novel, and continues this compliment in +another nine columns of appendix. With a fine patronage the reviewer +concludes that "upon the whole, the story is amusing, the characters kept +up, and many reflections which [sic] are useful, if the reader will but +take notice of them, which in this unthinking age it is to be feared very +few will." Some imperfections he kindly excuses on the score of "the +author's hurry of business in administering impartial justice to his +majesty's good people"; but he cannot excuse what he declares to be the +ridicule of _Liberty_ in Book viii.; and he solemnly exhorts the author +that as "he has in this piece very justly exposed some of the private +vices and follies of the present age" so he should in his next direct his +satire against political corruption, otherwise 'he and his patrons' will +be accused of compounding the same. [5] It seems incredible that any +suggestion should ever have attached to the author of _Pasquin_ and the +_Register_, as to one who could condone public corruption. And as for the +accusation of tampering with "Liberty" the like charge was brought, we may +remember, by the "Happy Cobler of Portugal Street" against Fielding's +_Inquiry into the Encrease of Robbers_. The literary cobblers who pursued +_Amelia_ with the abuse of their poor pens may very well be consigned to +the oblivion of their political brother. The comment of one hostile pen +cannot however be dismissed as coming from a literary cobbler, and that is +the 'sickening' abuse, to use Thackeray's epithet, which Richardson +dishonoured himself in flinging at his great contemporary. That abuse the +sentimentalist poured out very freely on _Amelia_; but, as Mr Austin +Dobson says, "in cases of this kind _parva seges satis est_, and Amelia +has long since outlived both rival malice and contemporary coldness. It is +a proof of her author's genius that she is even more intelligible to our +age than she was to her own." [6] + +In Fielding's satiric description of the Court before which his Amelia +stood her trial, he describes himself as an 'old gentleman.' The adjective +seems hardly applicable to a man of forty five; but, to quote again from +Mr Austin Dobson, "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 compassionate humanity, a more benignant criticism +of life." Murphy's Irish tongue declares a similar feeling in his +comparison of the pages of this, the last of the three great novels, to +the calm of the setting sun; a sun that had first broken forth in the +'morning glory' of _Joseph Andrews_, and had attained its 'highest warmth +and splendour' in the inimitable pages of _Tom Jones_. There is indeed a +mature wisdom and patience in Amelia such as none but a pedant could +demand of her enchanting younger sister Sophia. In these later pages +Sophia has grown up into a gracious womanhood, while losing none of her +girlhood's gaiety and charm. That Amelia, his older and wiser though +scarce sadder child, was the nearest, as he himself tells us, to +Fielding's own heart, is one more indication that here is the perfected +image of that beloved wife, from whose youthful grace and beauty his +genius had already modelled one exquisite memorial. + +[1] _Anecdotes_. Mrs Piozzi. p. 221. + +[2] Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Introductory +Anecdotes, p. cxxiii. + +[3] Ibid. Vol. ii. p. 289. + +[4] It is curious that to this unlucky incident, based according to Lady +Louisa Stuart, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's grand-daughter, on a real +accident to Mrs Fielding, Dr Johnson attributed the failure of the book +with the public: "that vile broken nose ruined the sale," he declared. +Early in January Fielding himself protests in his _Covent Garden Journal_ +that every reader of any intelligence would have discovered that the +effects of Amelia's terrible carriage accident had been wholly remedied by +"a famous Surgeon"; and that "the Author of her History, in a hurry, +forgot to inform his Readers of that Particular." The particular has by +now fallen into its due insignificance, and, save for Johnson's +explanation therein of the poor sale of the book, is scarce worth +recalling. + +[5] _London Magazine_. December 1751. p. 531 and Appendix. + +[6] _Fielding_. Austin Dobson. p. 161. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +JOURNALIST AND MAGISTRATE + + "However vain or romantic the Attempt may seem I am sanguine + enough to aim at serving the noble Interests of Religion, Virtue, + and good Sense, by these my lucubrations." + The _Covent Garden Journal_. No. 5. + +Nothing could be more characteristic of Fielding's active spirit than were +the early months of 1752. For, no sooner had he deposited the four volumes +of _Amelia_ in the hands of the public, essaying to win his readers over +to a love of virtue and a hatred of vice, by placing before their eyes +that true "model of human life," than we find him launching a direct +attack on the follies and evils of the age, by means of his old weapon, +the press. + +The first number of the _Covent Garden Journal_ appeared on the 4th of +January, and its pages, produced under Fielding's own management and +apparently largely written by his own pen, provided satires on folly, +invectives against vice, and incitements to goodness and sense, delivered +in the name of one _Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great +Britain_. [1] The new paper ran but for seventy-two numbers; perhaps for +all the wit and learning, the fire and zest of its columns, the public +were reluctant to buy their own lashings. But it may be doubted whether, +except in the pages of his three great novels, Henry Fielding ever +revealed himself more completely than in these his last informal +'lucubrations.' Here, the active Justice, the accomplished scholar, the +lawyer, and man of the world, the first wit of his day, talks to us of a +hundred topics, chosen indeed on the spur of the moment, but discussed in +his own incomparable words, and with the now mature authority of one, who +had "dived into the inmost Recesses of Human Nature." No subject is too +abstruse, none too trifling, for _Mr Censor_ to illumine. Freed from the +political bands of the earlier newspapers, this last _Journal_, produced +be it remembered by a man in shattered health, and distracted by the +squalid business of a Bow Street Court-room, ranges over an amazing +compass of life and manners. + +Thus, one January morning, _Sir Alexander's_ readers would open their +paper to find him deploring the decline of "a Religion sometime ago +professed in this Country, and which, if my Memory fails me not was called +Christian." The following Saturday they are presented with a learned and +pleasant argument to prove that every male critic should be eighteen years +of age, and "BE ABLE TO READ." A few days later the pages of writers +purveying the prevalent "Infidelity, Scurrility, and Indecency" are +ingeniously allotted to various uses. In February the _Journal_ accords a +noble tribute "to that great Triumvirate Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift"; +not indeed "for that Wit and Humour alone, which they all so eminently +possesst, but because they all endeavoured with the utmost Force of their +Wit and Humour, to expose and extirpate those Follies and Vices which +chiefly prevailed in their several Countries." The design of Aristophanes +and Rabelais on the other hand, appears to _Mr Censor_, if he may speak +his opinion freely, "very plainly to have been to ridicule all Sobriety, +Modesty, Decency, Virtue, and Religion out of the world." From such +considerations it is an easy passage to a definition of 'real Taste' as +derived from a "nice Harmony between the Imagination and the Judgment"; +and to these final censorial warnings:--"_Evil Communications corrupt good +Manners_ is a quotation of St Paul from Menander. EVIL BOOKS CORRUPT AT +ONCE BOTH OUR MANNERS AND OUR TASTE." Four days after this learned +'lucubration' the voice of the warm-hearted magistrate speaks in a +reminder of the prevailing abject misery of the London poor who "in the +most miserable lingering Manner do daily perish for Want in this +Metropolis." And in almost the next number his Honour gives his readers +letters from the fair _Cordelia_, from _Sarah Scandal_, and from other +correspondents, of a wit pleasant enough to drive London's poverty far +from their minds. Two days after attending to these ladies, the _Censor_ +takes up his keenest weapons in an attack on that "detestable vice of +slander" by which is taken away the "_immediate Jewel of a Man's Soul_," +his good name; a crime comparable to that of murder. Here we have _Sir +Alexander_ speaking with the same voice as did the playwright and +journalist of ten years previously, when he declared, in his +_Miscellanies_, that to stab a man's character 'in the dark' is no less an +offence than to stab his flesh in the same treacherous manner. Indeed, +throughout these last columns of weekly satire, wit, and learning, +Fielding remains true to the constant tenor of his genius. He exposes the +miser, the seducer of innocence, the self-seeker, the place-hunter, the +degraded vendor of moral poison, the 'charitable' hypocrite, with the same +fierce moral energy as that with which, when but a lad of one and twenty, +he first assailed the vices of the society in which his own lot was cast. +His unconquerable energy, an energy that neither sickness nor distress +could abate, still assaults that "cursed Maxim ... that Everybody's +business is Nobody's." And his wit has lost none of its point when +thrusting at the lesser follies of the day; at the fair Clara's devotion +to her pet monkey; at the insolence of the Town Beau at the playhouse; at +the arrogance of carters in the streets; at the vagaries of fashion +according to which Belinda graces the theatre with yards of ruff one day, +and on the next discards that covering so entirely that the snowy scene in +the boxes "becomes extremely delightful to the eyes of every Beholder." + +It is quite impossible to convey, within the limits of a few pages, all +that _Sir Alexander_ tells us of what he sees and hears, as the +tragi-comedy of life passes before his Bow Street windows. For Fielding +possessed in the highest degree the art of hearing, to use his own +analysis, not with the ear only (an organ shared by man with "other +Animals") but also with the head, and with the heart; just as his eye +could penetrate beneath the velvet coat of the prosperous scoundrel, the +reputation of the illiterate author, or the sorry rags of some honest hero +of the gutter. And his _Covent Garden Journal_ is, in truth, his journal +of eleven months of a life into the forty odd years of which were +compressed both the insight of genius, and the activities of twenty +average men. Such a record cannot be sifted into a summary. The +acknowledged motive of this last of Fielding's newspapers is, however, +concise enough; and does equal honour to his patriotism and his humanity. +The age, as it seemed to him, was an age of public degradation. Religion +was vanishing from the life of the people; politics were a petty question +of party jealousy; literary taste was falling to the level of alehouse wit +and backstairs scandal; the youth of the nation were completing their +education, when fifteen or sixteen years old, by a course of the Town, and +then qualifying for a graduate's degree in like knowledge, by a foreign +tour; the 'mob' was gaining a dangerous excess of power; the leaders of +society were past masters and mistresses of vice and folly; the poor in +the streets were sunk in misery, or brutalised into reckless crime. This +was the England that _Mr Censor_ saw from his house in Bow Street; this +was the England which he set out to purify; and the means which he chose +were his own familiar weapons of satire and ridicule. Of these, ridicule, +he declares, when his _Journal_ was but four weeks old, "is commonly a +stronger and better method of attacking Vice than the severer kind of +Satire." In accordance with which view, _General Sir Alexander_ is +represented, in a mock historic forecast, as having, in the space of +twelve months, entirely cleansed his country from the evils afflicting it, +by means of a "certain Weapon called a Ridicule." These evils moreover +Fielding held to be most readily combated by assailing "those base and +scandalous Writings which the Press hath lately poured in such a torrent +upon us that the Name of an Author is in the ears of all good Men become +almost an infamous appelation"; and, accordingly, the first number of his +new paper discloses _Sir Alexander_ in full crusade against these +Grub-Street writers. But that he soon perceived the quixotic impolicy of +such a campaign, appears very clearly, as early as the fifth number of the +_Journal_:--"when Hercules undertook to cleanse the Stables of Augeas (a +Work not much unlike my present Undertaking) should any little clod of +Dirt more filthy perhaps than all the rest have chanced to bedawb him, how +unworthy his Spirit would it have been to have polluted his Hands, by +seizing the dirty clod, and crumbling it to Pieces. He should have known +that such Accidents were incident to such an Undertaking: which though +both a useful and heroic office, was yet none of the cleanliest; since no +Man, I believe, ever removed great quantities of Dirt from any Place +without finding some of it sticking to his skirts." Such dirty clods were +undoubtedly thrown by nameless antagonists, as unworthy of Fielding's +steel as was one whose name has come down to us, the despicable Dr John +Hill, who once suffered a public caning at Ranelagh; and one clod, "more +filthy perhaps than all the rest," soiled the hands of Smollett. [2] But +the dirt which was very freely flung on to our eighteenth-century Hercules +has, by now, fallen back, with great justice, on to the heads of his +abusers. Fielding has placed on record, in the _Journal_, his conviction +that the man who reads the works of the five heroic satirists, Lucian, +Cervantes, Swift, Moliere and Shakespeare, "must either have a very bad +Head, or a very bad Heart, if he doth not become both a Wiser and a better +Man." To-day, 'party and prejudice' having subsided, we are ready to say +the same of the readers of the _Covent Garden Journal_; perceiving that, +if _Mr Censor_, like his five great forerunners, chose to send his satire +"laughing into the World," it was that he might better effect the +'glorious Purpose' announced in the fifth number of his paper: "However +vain or romantic the Attempt may seem, I am sanguine enough to aim at +serving the noble Interests of Religion, Virtue, and good Sense, by these +my Lucubrations." + +To most men the production, twice a week, of a newspaper so wide in scope +as the _Covent Garden Journal_ (for its columns included the news of the +day, as well as the manifold 'censorial' energies of _Sir Alexander_) +would have been occupation enough; especially with a "constitution now +greatly impaired and enfeebled," and when "labouring under attacks of the +gout, which were, of course, severer than ever." + +But there is no hint of either editorial or valetudinarian seclusion in +the fragmentary glimpses obtainable of Mr Justice Fielding during these +eleven months of 1752. Thus, by an advertisement recurring throughout the +_Journal_, he expressly invites to his house in Bow Street, "All Persons, +who shall for the Future suffer by Robbers Burglars &c.," that they may +bring him "the best Description they can of such Robbers, &c., with the +Time, and Place, and Circumstances of the Fact"; and that this invitation +was likely to bring half London within his doors appears from Fielding's +own description of the condition of the capital at the time. "There is not +a street," he declares, speaking of Westminster, "which doth not swarm all +day with beggars, and all night with thieves. Stop your coach at what shop +you will, however expeditious the tradesman is to attend you, a beggar is +commonly beforehand with him; and if you should directly face his door the +tradesman must often turn his head while you are talking to him, or the +same beggar, or some other thief at hand will pay a visit to his shop!" +And nothing could prove more conclusively the arduousness of Fielding's +work as a magistrate than the record of the last ten days of January, +1752. On the night of the 17th a peculiarly brutal murder had been +perpetrated on a poor higgler in Essex; and the _Journal_ for January 28, +tells us how Fielding "spent near eight hours," examining, separately, +suspected persons, "at the desire of several gentlemen of Fortune in the +County of Essex"; having on the previous Friday and Saturday, been engaged +"above Twenty hours in taking Depositions concerning this Fact." Then, on +the day after the arrival of the murder suspects, we find two of the +Shoreditch constables bringing no fewer than ten "idle lewd and +disorderly" men and women before the Justice; a woman was charged by a +diamond seller on suspicion of feloniously receiving "three Brilliant +Diamonds"; Mr Welch, the notable High Constable of Holborn, brought +seventeen "idle and lewd Persons" whom he had apprehended the night +before; and, to complete this single day's work, an Italian was brought +in, "all over covered with [the] Blood" of a brother Italian, whose head +he had almost cut off. Twenty-nine cases on one day, and these in the +midst of eight hour examinations concerning a murder, were surely work +enough to satisfy even Fielding's energies. And, as another entry in his +_Journal_ mentions the examination of a suspected thief "very late at +Night," there seems to have been no hour out of the twenty-four in which +the great novelist did not hold himself at the service of the public. + +Meanwhile, the criminal licence of the streets was now receiving +Ministerial attention. The King's Speech, delivered at the opening of +Parliament in the previous November, had contained a passage which might +have been inspired by Fielding himself: "I cannot conclude," said His +Majesty, "without recommending to you in the most earnest manner, to +consider seriously of some effectual provisions to suppress those +audacious crimes of Robbery and Violence which are now become so +frequent...and which have proceeded in great Measure from that profligate +Spirit of Irreligion, Idleness, Gaming, and Extravagance, which has of +late extended itself in an uncommon degree, to the Dishonour of the +Nation, and to the great Offence and Prejudice of the sober and +industrious Part of the People." Six weeks later the first number of the +_Journal_, makes comment on the need of fresh legislation to suppress +drunkenness; and on the twenty first of the month _Sir Alexander_ +announces, with something of special information in his tone, that the +immediate suppression of crimes of violence "we can with Pleasure assure +the Public is at present the chief attention of Parliament." + +It must have been with something of the pleasure which he so earnestly +desires in one of the last utterances of his pen--"the pleasure of +thinking that, in the decline of my health and life, I have conferred a +great and lasting Benefit on my Country,"--that Fielding saw the royal +assent given, in the following March, to an Act for the "_better +preventing Thefts and Robberies and for regulating Places of Public +Entertainment, and punishing Persons keeping disorderly Houses_." +[3] For this Act is directed to the suppression of four of the abuses so +strongly denounced, twelve months previously, in his own _Enquiry_; and +when we recall the fact that he had already submitted, to the Lord +Chancellor, draft legislation for the suppression of robberies, it is at +least a plausible surmise that here we have a memorial of Henry Fielding's +patriotic energy, preserved on the pages of the Statute Book itself. +[4] The four points so specially urged in the _Enquiry_, and here made +law, are the suppression of the "multitude of places of Entertainment" for +the working classes; the better suppression of Gaming Houses; the +punishment of the scandalous advertisements offering rewards 'and no +questions asked' for stolen goods; and the payment of certain prosecutors +for their expenses in time and trouble, when a conviction had been +obtained. + +In this same month of March another Act, which closely concerned +Fielding's official work, received the royal assent. This was an Act "for +better preventing the horrid Crime of Murder." [5] The pressing need of +such a measure had been already urged in the _Covent Garden journal_. In +February the _Journal_ declares that _"More shocking Murders have been +committed within the last Year, than for many Years before. To what can +this be so justly imputed as to the manifest decline of Religion among the +lower People. A matter, which even, in a Civil Sense, demands the +attention of the Government."_ And Mr Censor returns to the subject on +March 3: _"More Murders and horrid Barbarities have been committed within +the last twelvemonth, than during many preceding years. This as we have +before observed, is principally to be attributed to the Declension of +Religion among the Common People."_ By the end of the month the +above-named Act had received the royal assent; and the first clause +thereof again yielded Fielding the satisfaction of seeing a measure which +he had warmly recommended in his Enquiry now placed on the Statute Book, +namely the clause that the execution of the criminal be made immediate on +his conviction. This Act, moreover, provides for the abatement of another +scandal exposed by Fielding many years previously, in the pages of +Jonathan Wild, that of the excessive supply of drink allowed to condemned +prisoners. + +In the following month Fielding carried out a scheme, conceived he tells +us "some time since," for combating this prevalence of murder. This was +his shilling pamphlet, published about April 14, entitled "Examples of the +Interposition of Providence in the _Detection_ and _Punishment_ of MURDER. +Containing above thirty cases, in which this dreadful crime hath been +brought to light in the most extraordinary and miraculous manner." The +advertisement describes the _Examples_ as _"very proper to be given to all +the inferior Kind of People; and particularly to the Youth of both sexes, +whose natural Love of Stories will lead them to read with Attention what +cannot fail of Infusing in to their tender Minds an early Dread and +Abhorrence of staining their Hands with the Blood of their +Fellow-creatures"_ Low as was the price, a "large allowance" was made by +Andrew Millar to those who bought any quantity; and Fielding distributed +the little volume freely in Court. + +The thirty-three _Examples_ are introduced and concluded by Fielding's own +denunciation of this, "the blackest sin, which can contaminate the hands, +or pollute the soul of man." And from these pages we may learn his own +solemnly declared belief in a peculiarly "immediate interposition of the +Divine providence" in the detection of this crime; and also his faith in +"the fearful and tremendous sentence of eternal punishment" as that +divinely allotted to the murderer. He warns the murderer, moreover, that +by hurrying a fellow-creature to a sudden and unprepared death he may be +guilty of destroying not only his victim's body, but also his soul. And it +may be questioned whether Fielding ever put his unrivalled mastery of +style to a nobler intention than in the closing words of this pamphlet, +words designed to be read by the lowest of the people: "Great courage may, +perhaps, bear up a bad mind (for it is sometimes the property of such) +against the most severe sentence which can be pronounced by the mouth of a +human judge; but where is the fortitude which can look an offended +Almighty in the face? Who can bear the dreadful thought of being +confronted with the spirit of one whom we have murdered, in the presence +of all the Host of Heaven, and to have justice demanded against our guilty +soul, before that most awful judgement-seat, where there is infinite +justice as well as infinite power?" + +The dedication of this pamphlet, dated Bow Street, April 8, 1752, is +addressed to Dr Madox, Bishop of Worcester, and in it Fielding recalls a +conversation he had some time previously had with that prelate, in which +he had mentioned the plan of such a book, and received immediate +encouragement from his lordship. A further appreciation of the _Examples_ +appears in a paragraph in the _Journal_ for May 5: "Last week a certain +Colonel of the Army bought a large number of the book called _Examples of +the Interposition of Providence in the Detection and Punishment of +Murder_, in Order to distribute them amongst the private soldiers of his +Regiment. An Example well worthy of Imitation!" + +Fielding never allows us to forget for any length of time one or another +of his contrasting activities, however absorbed he may seem to be in some +one field of action. Now, when he is plunged in a hand-to-hand struggle +with the criminal conditions of London, when he is admonishing the gayer +end of the Town with his weekly censorial satire and ridicule, and while +he is watching the enactment of new legislation for which he had so +strenously pleaded,--he suddenly reappears in his earlier role of +classical scholar. On June 17, the columns of the _Journal_ advertise +proposals for "A New Translation into English of the Works of LUCIAN. From +the original Greek. With Notes, Historical, Critical and Explanatory. By +Henry Fielding Esquire; and the Rev. Mr William Young." To which notice +there is added, a few days later, the assurance that "Everything which +hath the least Tendency to the Indecent will be omitted in this +Translation." The most delightful, perhaps, of all the leading articles in +the _Covent Garden Journal_ is that in which the merits of this "Father of +True Humour" are delineated. The facetious wit, the "attic Elegance of +Diction," the poignant satire, the virtues and abilities of Lucian are +here so persuasively presented that scarce a reader but surely would +hasten, as he laid his paper down, to Mr Fielding's or Mr Young's house, +or to Millar in the Strand or Dodsley in Pall Mall, where orders (with a +guinea to be paid on booking the same) were received. And this essay is +also memorable for the express declaration therein contained that Fielding +had "formed his stile" upon that of Lucian; and, again, as betraying a +note of disappointment, an acknowledgment that worldly fortune had indeed +treated him somewhat harshly, such as Fielding's sanguine courage very +seldom permits him to utter. The concluding words, written on his own +behalf and on that of Mr Young, are words of gentle protest to the public +for their lack of support to "two gentlemen who have hitherto in their +several capacities endeavoured to be serviceable to them without deriving +any great Emolument to themselves from their Labours." And when he tells +us how that 'glory of human Nature, Marcus Aurelius' employed Lucian "in a +very considerable Post in the Government," since that great emperor "did +not, it seems, think, that a Man of Humour was below his Notice or unfit +for Business of the gravest Kind," we cannot but remember that the +business on which the Government of George II. thought fit to employ the +inimitable genius of Henry Fielding was that of a Bow Street magistrate. + +The onerous drudgery of that business, or else lack of response from a +public deaf to its own interests, seems to have brought to nothing the +project of this translation; and so English literature is the poorer for +the loss of the works of the 'Father of Humour' translated by the +incomparable pen of the 'Father of the English Novel.'[6] + +Four months after the publication of the proposals for _Lucian_, Fielding +took formal leave of the readers of his _Covent Garden Journal_, telling +them that he no longer had "Inclination or Leisure," to carry on the +paper. His brief farewell words contain an assurance very like that +solemnly made, we may remember, five years before the publication of _Tom +Jones_. At present, he declares, he has "No intention to hold any further +correspondence with the gayer Muses"; just as eight years before he had +announced that henceforth the 'infamous' Nine should have none of his +company. To this declaration is added a protest against the injustice of +attributing abuse to a writer who "never yet was, nor ever shall be the +author of any, unless to Persons who are or ought to be infamous." From +the tenor of this parting speech it is clear that Fielding was, at the +time, feeling keenly the imputation, flung by some of his contemporaries, +of producing 'scandalous Writings'; unmindful for the moment of his own +calmer and wiser utterance, when he declared that men who engage in an +heroic attempt to cleanse their age will undoubtedly find some of the dirt +thereof sticking to their coats. "As he disdained all littleness of +spirit, where ever he met with it in his dealings with the world, his +indignation was apt to rise," says his contemporary Murphy; and we know +from earlier protests how cruelly Fielding suffered from the attribution +to his pen of writings utterly alien to his character. "... really," he +cries, in the last words of the _Journal_, "it is hard to hear that +scandalous Writings have been charged on me for that very Reason which +ought to have proved the Contrary namely because they have been +Scandalous." + +The year 1752 closes with the birth of another daughter, born presumably +in the house in Bow Street, as her baptism under the name of Louisa is +entered in the registers of St Paul's, Covent Garden. + +The curtain that, in Fielding's case, hangs so closely over all the +pleasant intimate details of life, lifts once or twice during this year of +incessant activity, and discloses just those warmhearted acts of kindness +that help us to think of Harry Fielding with an affection almost as warm +and personal as that we keep for Dick Steele or Oliver Goldsmith. +Fielding, we know, had "no other use for money" than to help those even +less fortunate than himself; and several incidents of this year show how +he turned his opportunities, both as journalist and magistrate, to like +generous uses. Thus there is the story of how, one day in March, "A poor +girl who had come from Wapping to see the new entertainment at Covent +Garden Theatre had her pocket cut off in the crowd before the doors were +opened. Tho' she knew not the Pickpocket she came immediately to lay her +complaint before the Justice and with many tears lamented not the loss of +her Money, but of her Entertainment. At last, having obtained a sufficient +Passport to the Gallery she departed with great satisfaction, and +contented with the loss of fourteen shillings, though she declared she had +not much more in the world." [7] Another day, or night rather, it is a +poor troup of amateur players who had good reason to be grateful to the +kindly Justice:--"last Monday night an Information was given to Henry +Fielding Esquire: that a set of Barber's apprentices, Journeymen +Staymakers, Maidservants &c. had taken a large room at the Black House in +the Strand, to act the Tragedy of the Orphan; the Price of Admittance One +shilling. About eight o'clock the said Justice issued his Warrant, +directed to Mr Welch, High Constable, who apprehended the said Actors and +brought them before the said Justice, who out of compassion to their Youth +only bound them over to their good behaviour. They were all conducted +through the streets in their Tragedy Dresses, to the no small diversion of +the Populace." [8] And in May both the ample energies and scanty purse of +Justice Fielding were occupied in collecting a subscription for a young +baker and his wife and child, who, by a disastrous fire, were suddenly +plunged into destitution. For these poor people Fielding obtained no less +a sum than L57, within a fortnight of his announcement of their distress +in the columns of the _Journal_. The list of subscribers, published on May +16, shows a guinea against his own name, and a like sum, it may be noted, +from the wealthy Lyttelton. + +The splendour of Fielding's genius has shone, as Gibbon foretold, +throughout the world. His indefatigable labours in cleansing England from +some of the evils that then oppressed her deserve to be remembered, if not +by all the world, at least by the citizens of that country which, in the +decline of 'health and life,' he yet strove so eagerly to benefit. + +[1] A dramatic satire, advertised in March at Covent Garden Theatre and +written (as stated by Dibdin, _History of the Stage_. Vol. v. p. 156), by +the actor Macklin, bore for sub-title _Pasquin turned Drawcansir, Censor +of Great Britain_. The name, and the further details of the advertisement, +recall Fielding's early success with his political _Pasquin_: but all +further trace of this 'Satire' seems lost. See Appendix C. + +[2] _A faithful Narrative..._. By Drawcansir.... Alexander. 1752. + +[3] 25. G II. cap 36. + +[4] All trace seems now lost of the actual part Fielding may have taken in +the drafting of this Act. + +[5] 25. G. II. c. 37. + +[6] It would seem, from the following advertisement, that Fielding's +inexhaustible pen published, about this time, a sixpenny pamphlet on 'a +late Act of Parliament'; but all trace of it has been lost:--"A speech +made in the Censorial Court of Alexander Drawcansir, Monday, 6th June, +1752, concerning a late Act of Parliament. Printed for the Author. Price +6d." _The General Advertiser_, June 27, 1752. + +[7] The _General Advertiser_ March 4. 1752. + +[8] The _General Advertiser_, April 15, 1752. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +POOR LAW REFORM + + "... surely there is some Praise due to the bare Design of doing a + Service to the Public."--Dedication of the _Enquiry_. + + +It is evident that the beginning of the year 1753 found Fielding fully +conscious that now he could only anticipate a 'short remainder of life.' +But neither that consciousness, nor the increasing burden of ill-health, +availed to dull the energies of these last years. Scarcely had that +indomitable knight, General Sir Alexander Drawcansir retired from the +active public service of conducting the _Covent Garden Journal_ when his +creator reappeared with an astonishingly comprehensive and detailed plan +of poor-law reform; a plan adapted to the whole kingdom, and which +according to a legal comment involved "nothing less than the repeal of the +Act of Elizabeth and an entire reconstruction of the Poor Laws." [1] +Poor-law reform was at this time occupying the attention of the +nation, and apparently also of the legislature. And we know, from the +_Enquiry into the Increase of Robberies_, that the question of lessening +both the sufferings and the criminality of the poor had for years occupied +Fielding's warm heart and active intellect. But the extent to which he +devoted these last months of his life to the cause of the poorest and most +degraded deserves more than a passing recognition. He tells us, in the +_Introduction_ to the pamphlet embodying his great scheme, that he has +applied himself long and constantly to this subject; that he has "read +over and considered all the Laws, in anywise relating to the Poor, with +the utmost Care and Attention," in the execution of which, moreover, he +has been for "many Years very particularly concerned"; and that in +addition to this exhaustive study of the laws themselves, he has added "a +careful Perusal of everything which I could find that hath been written on +this Subject, from the Original Institution in the 43d. of _Elizabeth_ to +this Day." Such was the laborious preparation, extending presumably over +many months, which the author of _Tom Jones_, and the first wit of his +day, devoted to solving this vast problem of social reform. + +Fielding was far too well skilled in the art of effective construction to +present the public with undigested note-books from his voluminous reading. +His scheme, based on all the laws, and upon all the comments on all the +laws, regarding the poor, enacted and made for two hundred years, is a +marvel of conciseness and practical detail; and, together with an +_Introduction_ and an _Epilogue_, does but occupy the ninety pages of a +two-shilling pamphlet. + +The pamphlet was published at the end of January 1753, with the title _A +Proposal for making an effectual Provision for the Poor, for amending +their Morals, and for rendering them useful Members of the Society. To +which is added a Plan of the Buildings proposed, with proper +Elevations ... By Henry Fielding, Esq.; Barrister-at-Law, and one of His +Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex_. The +dedication, dated January 19, is to Henry Pelham, then Chancellor of the +Exchequer, and from it we learn that Fielding had personally mentioned his +scheme to this Minister. The Introduction presents an eloquent appeal for +some effectual remedy for the intolerably diseased state of the body +politic as regarded the distresses and vices of the poor, their unseen +sufferings no less than their frequent misdeeds. Fielding protests against +the popular ignorance of these sufferings in words that might have been +spoken by some pleader for the East End 'Settlements' of to-day. "If we +were," he declares, "to make a Progress through the Outskirts of this +Town, and look into the Habitations of the Poor, we should there behold +such Pictures of human Misery as must move the Compassion of every Heart +that deserves the Name of human. What indeed must be his Composition who +could see whole Families in Want of every Necessary of Life, oppressed +with Hunger, Cold, Nakedness, and Filth, and with Diseases, the certain +Consequence of all these; what, I say, must be his Composition, who could +look into such a Scene as this, and be affected only in his Nostrils?" As +an instance of Fielding's personal knowledge of the London slums of his +day, a reference made by Mr Saunders Welch to their joint work is of +interest. Writing in the same year, 1753, he mentions assisting "Mr Henry +Fielding in taking from under one roof upwards of seventy lodgers of both +sexes." [2] + +To this little known misery of the poor, who "starve and freeze and rot +among themselves," was added the problem of streets swarming with beggars +during the day, and with thieves at night. And the nation groaned under +yet a third burden, that of the heavy taxes levied for the poor, by which +says Fielding "as woeful experience hath taught us, neither the poor +themselves nor the public are relieved." To attack such a three-headed +monster as this was an adventure better fitted, it might seem, for that +club which "Captain Hercules Vinegar" had wielded thirteen years before, +when in the full tide of his strength, than for the pen of a man in +shattered health, and already serving the public in the daily labours of a +principal magistrate. But nothing could restrain the ardour of Fielding's +spirit, how frail so ever had become its containing 'crust of clay,' when +great abuses and great misery made their call on his powers; or +countervail against the hope, with which the _Introduction_ to his plan +concludes. If that plan fails, he shall indeed, he declares have "lost +much Time, and misemployed 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." + +The _Plan_ is that of the erection of a vast combined county workhouse, +prison, and infirmary; where the unemployed should find, not only work but +_skilled instruction_, the poor relief, and the sick a hospital; where +discipline and good order should be stringently enforced; and where two +chaplains should labour at that 'correction and amendment' of the mind +which "in real truth religion is alone capable of effectually executing." +The entire scheme is worked out with extraordinary detail, in fifty-nine +clauses; and is preceded by an elaborate architectural plan of the +proposed institution (which was to house no less than five thousand six +hundred persons) with its workshops, its men's quarters rigorously divided +from those for the women, its recreation ground, its provision shops, its +cells for the refractory and for prisoners, and its whipping post. And the +pamphlet concludes by lengthy arguments in favour of the various clauses; +and by a personal protest concerning the disinterestedness of proposals +which "some few enemies" might assert to show signs of a design for +private profit. Fielding touchingly disavows any thought of occupying, +officially, the great house raised by his imagination. To a man in his +state of health such a project would, he says, be to fly in the face of +the advice of his 'Master,' Horace; "it would be indeed _struere dotnos +immemor sepulchri_." And, he adds, those who know him will hardly be so +deceived "by that Chearfulness which was always natural to me; and which, +I thank God, my Conscience doth not reprove me for, to imagine that I am +not sensible of my declining Constitution." The concluding words of this, +Fielding's last legislative effort, betray a like calm assurance that his +day's work was drawing to its close. He has now, he tells us, "no farther +Design than to pass my short Remainder of Life in some Degree of Ease, and +barely to preserve my Family from being the Objects of any such Laws as I +have here proposed." + +It is wholly in keeping with the genius of Henry Fielding that almost the +last endeavour of his intellect should have been devoted to relieving the +wretchedness and lessening the vices of the poorest and most miserable of +his countrymen. The _Proposal for ... the Poor_ is written by the hand of +the accomplished lawyer and indefatigable magistrate; but the energy that +accomplished so great a labour, in spite of broken health and among a +thousand interruptions, sprang from the heart which had already +immortalised the ragged postilion of _Joseph Andrews_ and the starving +highwayman of _Tom Jones_. + +This last January but one of Fielding's life was not only occupied by the +publication of proposals for an 'entire reconstruction of the Poor Laws.' +In 1753 a London magistrate, or at least Mr Justice Fielding, was at the +service of the public on Sunday no less than during the week; and on the +first Sunday of the New Year the Bow Street room echoed to threats that +read strangely enough when we think of the unknown petty thief, +threatening sudden death to 'our immortal Fielding.' "Yesterday," says the +_General Advertiser_ for Monday, January 8, "John Simpson and James Ellys +were commited to Newgate by Henry Fielding Esq., for shop-lifting." The +charge was one of stealing five silk handkerchiefs, and when the two men +"were brought before the Justice they behaved in a very impudent saucy +manner, and one of them said hewished he had a Pistol about him, he would +blow the Justice's Brains out; upon which a Party of the Guards was sent +for who conducted them safe to Newgate." The Bow Street house, moreover, +must have been full not only of prisoners and witnesses brought before the +Justice, but also of victims of all manner of theft. For two comprehensive +notices appear in the _Advertiser_ for this month, repeating the previous +invitation accorded to such sufferers in the _Covent Garden Journal_. On +January 1, all persons cognizant of any burglary robbery or theft are +desired to communicate immediately with Mr Brogden, clerk to Justice +Fielding, "at his office at the said Justice's in Bow Street." And again, +towards the end of the month, "All Persons that have been robbed on the +Highway in the County of Middlesex within this three months last past, are +desired to apply to Mr Brogden, at Mr Justice Fielding's in Bow Street, +Covent Garden." And here, too, came the solicitors that sought counsel's +opinion on their client's behalf, with their fees; the magistrate of this +period being under no disability in regard to his private practice. + +It was to his reputation as an advising barrister, and perhaps a little to +the kindness of heart that must have been familiar to all who knew him, +that Fielding owed his connection with that extraordinary popular +excitement of 1753, the mysterious case of the servant girl Elizabeth +Canning. On the 29th of January 'Betty Canning' presented herself, after a +month's disappearance, at the door of her mother's house in London, in a +deplorable state of weakness and distress, and declared that she had been +kidnapped by two men on New Year's night, taken to a house on the Hertford +road, and there confined by an old gipsy woman for twenty-eight days, in a +hay loft, with a pitcher of water and a few pieces of bread for sole +sustenance. On the twenty ninth day, according to her own account, she +escaped through a window and made her way back to her home. Her +neighbours, fired with pity for her sufferings, subscribed means for a +prosecution; and, says Fielding, in the pamphlet which he published two +months after these events, "Mr. _Salt_, the Attorney who hath been +employed in this Cause, ... upon this Occasion, as he hath done upon many +others, ... fixed upon me as the Council to be advised with." Then we have +the following little domestic sketch, the only picture left to us of Henry +Fielding as a practising barrister: "Accordingly, upon the _6th of +February_, as I was sitting in my Room, Counsellor _Maden_ being then +with me, my Clerk delivered me a Case, which was thus, as I remember, +indorsed at the Top, The Case of Elizabeth Canning _for_ Mr Fielding's +_opinion_, and at the Bottom, _Salt_, Solr. Upon the Receipt of this Case, +with my Fee, I bid my Clerk give my Service to Mr. _Salt_ and tell him, +that I would take the Case with me into the Country, whither I intended to +go the next Day, and desired he would call for it the _Friday_ Morning +afterwards; after which, without looking into it, I delivered it to my +Wife, who was then drinking Tea with us, and who laid it by." + +Mr Brogden however presently returned upstairs, bringing the solicitor +with him, who earnestly desired his counsel not only to read the case at +once but also to undertake in his capacity of magistrate an examination of +the injured girl, and of a supposed confederate of the gipsy. This task +Fielding at first declined, principally on the ground that he had been +"almost fatigued to death with several tedious examinations" at that time, +and had intended to refresh himself with a day or two's interval in the +country, where he had not been "unless on a Sunday, for a long time." The +persuasions of the solicitor, curiosity as to the extrordinary nature of +the case, and "a great compassion for the dreadful condition of the girl," +however induced him to yield; and the next day the eighteen year old +heroine of a story that was soon to set all London quarrelling, was +brought in a chair to Bow Street, and then led upstairs, supported by two +friends, into the presence of the Justice. An issue of warrants followed +upon her examination, and a further examination of a suspected confederate +of the gipsy; the gipsy herself and her chief abettor having already been +arrested by another magistrate. Some days later, Fielding being then out +of town, "several noble Lords" sent to his house, desiring to be present +while he examined the gipsy woman; and the matter being arranged, "Lord +Montfort," says Fielding, "together with several gentlemen of fashion came +at the appointed time." The company being in the Justice's room, the +prisoners and witnesses were brought up; and apparently some charge was +afterwards brought against Fielding as to the manner of his examination, +for he here takes occasion to declare, what all who knew him must have +known to be the truth, "I can truly say, that my Memory doth not charge me +with having ever insulted the lowest Wretch that hath been brought before +me." Public opinion became hotly divided as to whether Betty Canning had +indeed suffered all she declared at the hands of the gipsy, Mary Squires, +or had maliciously endeavoured to perjure away the old woman's life. The +Lord Mayor, Sir Crisp Gascoyne, and Fielding's old antagonist the +despicable Dr Hill ardently supported the gipsy; Fielding, in the pamphlet +already quoted, and which was published in March, as warmly espoused the +cause of the maid servant whom he calls "a poor, honest, innocent, simple +Girl, and the most unhappy and most injured of all human Beings." The +excitement of the Town over this melodramatic mystery is reflected in the +fact that a second edition of Fielding's pamphlet (entitled _A clear state +of the Case of Elizabeth Canning_) was advertised within a few days of its +first publication. [3] And, also, in the appearance of the sixpenny print, +here for the first time reproduced, in which occurs the only +representation of Henry Fielding known to have been drawn during his life +time. This print, which bears the inscription "drawn from the life by the +Right Honourable the Lady Fa--y K--w," shows Fielding's tall figure, his +legs bandaged for gout, the sword of Justice in his hand and her scales +hanging out of his pocket, speaking on behalf of his trembling client +Elizabeth Canning; while opposed to him are my Lord Mayor, the notorious +Dr Hill, and the old gipsy. The background is adorned with pictures of the +newly built Mansion House, and of the College of Surgeons. [4] + +But for the glimpses it affords us of Fielding as a barrister, and for his +characteristic championship of what he was convinced was the cause of +innocence oppressed, this once famous case might have been left +undisturbed in the dust of the _State Trials_, had it not incidentally +been the means of preserving two of the extremely rare letters of the +novelist. These letters, [5] hitherto unpublished, are addressed by +Fielding to the Duke of Newcastle, and were both written in the month +following the publication of his pamphlet. The fact that both letters are +dated from Ealing shows that his connection with what was then a pleasant +country village was earlier than has been supposed; and the acute +suggestions in the second letter seem to indicate a suspicion of some of +Betty Canning's supporters, if his conviction in the girl's own innocence +still remained unshaken. + + +"My Lord Duke + +"I received an order from my Lord Chancellor immediately after the +breaking up of the Council to lay before your Grace all the Affidavits I +had taken since the Gipsey's Trial which related to that Affair. I then +told the Messenger that I had taken none, as indeed the fact is the +Affidavits of which I gave my Lord Chancellor an Abstract having been all +sworn before Justices of the Peace in the Neighbourhood of Endfield, and +remain I believe in the Possession of an Attorney in the City. + +However in Consequence of the Commands with which your Grace was pleased +to honour me yesterday, I sent my Clerk immediately to the Attorney to +acquaint him with these Commands, which I doubt not he will instantly +obey. This I did from my great Duty to your Grace for I have long had no +Concern in this Affair, nor have I seen any of the Parties lately unless +once when I was desired to send for the Girl (Canning) to my House that a +great Number of Noblemen and Gentleman might see her and ask her what +Questions they pleased. I am, with the highest Duty, + +"My Lord, +"Your Graces most obedient +"and most humble servant +"Henry Ffielding. +"Ealing. April 14, 1753 +"His Grace the +"Duke of Newcastle." + + +"My Lord Duke, + +"I am extremely concerned to see by a Letter which I have just received +from Mr Jones by Command of your Grace that the Persons concerned for the +Prosecution have not yet attended your Grace with the Affidavits in +Canning's Affair. I do assure you upon my Honour that I sent to them the +Moment I first received your Grace's Commands and having after three +Messages prevailed with them to come to me I desired them to fetch the +Affidavits that I might send them to your Grace being not able to wait +upon you in Person. This they said they could not do, but would go to Mr +Hume Campbell their Council, and prevail with him to attend your Grace +with all their Affidavits many of which, I found were sworn after the Day +mentioned in the order of Council. I told them I apprehended the latter +could not be admitted, but insisted in the strongest terms on their +laying the others immediately before your Grace, and they at last +promised me they would, nor have I ever seen them since. I have now again +ordered my Clerk to go to them to inform them of the last Commands I have +received, but as I have no Compulsory Power over them I can not answer +for their Behaviour, which indeed I have long disliked, and have +therefore long ago declined giving them any Advice, nor would I unless in +Obedience to your Grace have anything to say to a set of the most +obstinate Fools I ever saw; and who seem to me rather to act from a +Spleen against my Lord Mayor, than from any Motive of protecting +Innocence, tho' that was certainly their Motive at first. In Truth, if I +am not deceived, I Suspect they desire that the Gipsey should be +pardoned, and then to convince the World that she was guilty in order to +cast the greater Reflection on him who was principally instrumental in +obtaining such Pardon. I conclude with assuring your Grace that I have +acted in this Affair, as I shall on all Occasions with the most dutiful +Regard to your Commands, and that if my Life had been at Stake, as many +know, I could have done no more. + +"I am, with the highest Respect, +"My Lord Duke +"Y Grace's most obedient, +"and most humble servant, +"Henry Ffielding. +"Ealing +"April 27. 1753. +"His Grace the Duke of Newcastle." + +The dates of these letters show Fielding to have been at Ealing in the +early spring of this year; and thus afford some confirmation of Lysons' +remark in his _Environs of London_, published forty years later that +"Henry Fielding had a country house at Ealing where he resided the year +before his death." [6] In May a connection with Hammersmith is indicated, +in the burial there of his little daughter Louisa. The entry in the +Hammersmith Registers is as follows: "May 10th. Louisa, d. of Henry +Fielding Esqr." + +The nearer Fielding's life draws to its premature close, the greater his +physical suffering, so much the more eager seems his desire to leave +behind him some practical achievement. We have already seen and wondered +at his gigantic scheme for poor-law reform, published in the beginning of +this year of fast declining 'health and life.' Six months later came the +commission in the execution of which the remains of that health and life +were literally sacrificed in the effort to win some provision for his +family, in the event of his own death. Early in August the distinguished +Court surgeon John Ranby had persuaded him to go immediately to Bath. And +he tells us, in that _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_, [7] from which we +have, from his own lips, the details of these last months, "I accordingly +writ that very night to Mrs Bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she +had taken me a lodging for a month certain." At this moment, when +preparing for his journey, and while "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," Fielding received what might indeed be called a fatal summons to +wait on the Duke of Newcastle, at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, to +consult on a means for "putting an immediate end to those murders and +robberies which were every day committed in the streets." This visit cost +him a severe cold; but, notwithstanding, he produced, in about four days, +a scheme for the destruction of the "then reigning gangs" of robbers and +cut-throats, and for the future protection of the public, which was +promptly accepted, and the execution of which was confided into Fielding's +hands. "I had delayed my Bath-journey for some time," he proceeds, +"contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the +ardent desire of my warmest friends, tho' my distemper was now turned to a +deep jaundice; in which case the Bath-waters are generally reputed to be +almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this +gang of villains and cut-throats." After some weeks the requisite funds +were placed at Fielding's disposal; and so successful were his methods, +that within a few days, the whole gang was dispersed, some in custody, +others in flight. His health was by this time "reduced to the last +extremity"; but still, he tells us, he continued to act "with the utmost +vigour against these villains." And, amid all his 'fatigues and +distresses,' the satisfaction he so ardently desired came to him. During +the "remaining part of the month of November and in all December," those +darkest of months, not only was there no such thing as a murder, but not +one street robbery was committed. When we recall the amazing condition of +London at this time, when street robberies and murders were of almost +daily occurrence, we realise the magnitude of this achievement on the part +of a dying man. "Having thus fully accomplished my undertaking," Fielding +continues, "I went into the country in a very weak and deplorable +condition, with no fewer or less diseases than a jaundice, a dropsy, and +an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the destruction of a body so +entirely emaciated, that it had lost all its muscular flesh." It was now +too late to apply the Bath treatment; and even had it been desirable it +was no longer possible, for the sick man's strength was so reduced that a +ride of six miles fatigued him intolerably. The Bath lodgings, which +Fielding, surely with his old invincible hopefulness, had hitherto kept +were accordingly relinquished; and even his sanguine nature realised the +desperate condition of his case. At this point in his narration he breaks +off with a characteristically frank disclosure of the chief motive which +had inspired him to the heroic exertions of these later months of 1753. At +the beginning of the winter his private affairs it seems, "had but a +gloomy aspect." The aspect of his own tenure of life we know. And hence to +distress of body was added that keenest of all distresses of the mind, the +despair of putting his family beyond the reach of necessity. It was gladly +therefore that Fielding offered up the 'poor sacrifice' of his shattered +health, in the hope of securing a pension for his family, in case his own +death were hastened by these last labours for the public. + +If sickness was not allowed to hinder Fielding's energies for the benefit +of the public, and for the future provision of his family, neither did he +permit it to dull the activities of friendship. Early in December, when +his illness must have been acute, he wrote the following hitherto +unpublished letter to the Lord Chancellor, on behalf of his friend Mr +Saunders Welch: [8] + + +"My Lord, + +"As I hear that a new Commission of the Peace is soon to pass the Great +Seal for Westm'r. give me Leave to recommend the name of Saunders Welch, +as well as to the next Commission for Middx. Your Lordship will, I hope, +do me the Honour of believing, I should not thus presume, unless I was +well satisfied that the Merit of the Man would justifie my Presumption. +For this besides a universal Good Character and the many eminent services +he hath done the Public, I appeal in particular to Master Lane; and shall +only add, as I am positive the Truth is, that his Place can be filled +with no other more acceptable to all the Gentlemen in the Commission, and +indeed to the Public in general. I am with the highest Duty and Respect, + +"My Lord, +"Your Lordship's most obedient +"and most humble servant, +"Henry Ffielding." +"Decr 6. 1753 +"To the Lord High Chancellor" + +[1] _Life of Henry Fielding_. Frederick Lawrence, p. 138. + +[2] Saunders Welch. _A Letter on the subject of Robberies, wrote in the +year 1753_. + +[3] See the _Public Advertiser_ 1753 March 17, 20, 24 &c. + +[4] This unique contemporary print of Fielding may be seen in the British +Museum, Print Room, _Social Satires_, No. 3213. + +[5] Record Office. _State Papers. Domestic_ G. II., 127, no. 24. + +[6] Lysons. _Environs of London_. 1795. Vol. ii. p. 229. + +[7] The quotations from the _Voyage to Lisbon_ are from the edition +recently prepared by Mr Austin Dobson, for the 'World's Classics.' + +[8] This letter is now in the British Museum. The endorsement on the back +is: "Dec. 6, 1753 from Mr Fielding recommending Mr. Saunders Welch to be +in the Com. of ye Peace for Westmr and Middx." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +VOYAGE TO LISBON--DEATH + + "satisfied in having finished my life, as I have probably lost it in + the service of my country." + _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_. + +To a man dying of a complication of disorders the terrible winter of +1753-4 brought added danger; a winter which, says Fielding, "put a lucky +end, if they had known their own interests, to such numbers of aged and +infirm valetudinarians." But this, too, his splendid constitution +struggled through; and in February 1754, he was back in town, in a +condition less despaired of, he tells us, by himself than by any of his +friends. + +And if he did not allow himself to despair, neither did he, even now, +relinquish all his magistrate's work. On the 26th of February cases are +actually recorded as brought before him. [1] But within a few days, +apparently, of this date treatment employed on the advice of Dr Joshua +Ward, so weakened a body already 'enervate' and emaciated, that at first +the patient "was thought to be falling into the agonies of death." On +March 6, he was, he tells us, at his worst--that "memorable day when the +public lost Mr Pelham. From that day I began slowly, as it were, to draw +my feet out of the grave; till in two months time I had again acquired +some little degree of strength." + +Before the expiration of these two months that 'little degree of strength' +was again being expended in the drudgery of the Bow Street court-room. +"Yesterday," states the _Public Advertiser_ of April 17, "Elizabeth Smith +was committed to Newgate by Henry Fielding Esqre; being charged with +stealing a great quantity of Linnen." [2] And five days later, on April +22, a committal is recorded in the Middlesex _Sessions Book_. [3] + +Although Fielding could now leave his sickroom, when called thence to +commit a thief to Newgate, a newspaper paragraph, dated a little earlier +in this same month of April, shows that the public were apprehensive that +the protection afforded them by their indefatigable magistrate was now of +a very precarious duration. The writer refers to the complete success of +Mr Fielding's _Plan_ for the subjugation of criminals, executed the +previous winter, pointing out that "the Public who had such Reason to +suspect the contrary have suffered fewer Outrages than have happened any +Winter this Twenty years." And without making any direct statement as to +the fast failing strength of the author and executor of that _Plan_, he +continues in words that plainly indicate the abdication of those zealous +energies: "The whole Plan we are assured is communicated to Justice John +Fielding and Mr Welch who are determined to bring it to that perfection of +which it is capable." This 'assurance' of the _Advertiser_ is confirmed by +Fielding's own words in the _Voyage to Lisbon_. "I therefore" he says, +speaking clearly of the winter or spring of 1753-4, "resigned the office +[of principal Justice of the Peace in Westminster] and the farther +execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my assistant." + +This blind brother, who in his turn became famous as a London magistrate, +was now a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex [4] as well as for +Westminster; and was at this time living in the Strand, as the Resident +Proprietor [5] of that enterprising _Universal Register Office_ which has +won incidental immortality in his brother's pages, and which combined such +heterogeneous activities as those of an Estate Office, Registry for +servants of good character, Lost Property Office, Curiosity Shop and +General Agency. + +Another announcement in the columns of the _Advertiser_ links this last +Spring of Fielding's life with that earlier Spring of 1743, when as a +popular play-wright and a struggling barrister, absorbed in anxiety for +the health of a beloved wife and with his own health already attacked, he +published that masterpiece of irony _Jonathan Wild_. Now, while he was +still slowly drawing his 'feet out of the grave,' after those critical +first days of March, a new edition of the _History_ of that "Great Man," +with "considerable Corrections and Additions," was advertised; the actual +date of publication being, apparently, about March 19. The new edition +appeared with a prefatory note, "from the Publisher to the Reader," which +although it bears no signature conveys, undoubtedly, Fielding's intention, +if not his actual words. There is the familiar protest against the +"scurrility of others," the odium of which had fallen on the innocent +shoulders of "the author of our little book"; and there is a solemn +declaration that the said little book shows no reason for supposing any +'personal application' to be meant in its pages "unless we will agree that +there are without those Walls [i.e. of Newgate], some other bodies of men +of worse morals than those within; and who have consequently, a right to +change places with its present inhabitants." Then follows an explicit +reference to a chapter in the _History_ of the arch-villain Wild, which is +obviously designed to satirise the condition of English politics, if not +the person of any one politician. The disclaimer, seems on the whole, to +partake very properly of the ironic nature of the ensuing pages; although +it recalls that youthful declaration of the young dramatist, prefixed to +his first comedy acted nearly thirty years before, that no private +character was the target of his pen. + +At the end of these two months of March and April, spent as we have seen +in acquiring some little degree of strength, and in at least attempting to +expend the same on the consignment of petty thieves to Newgate, Fielding +again submitted his dropsy to the surgeon, the consequences of which he +now bore much better. This improvement, he tells us, he attributed greatly +to "a dose of laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. It first gave me the most +delicious flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap." Lady Mary +Wortley Montagu has recorded how her cousin's 'happy constitution,' even +when half-demolished, could enjoy, with undiminished zest "a venison +pasty, or a flask of champagne." Surely none other than Henry Fielding +could have recorded with like zest this 'delicious flow of spirits' and +'comfortable nap' derived from a dose of laudanum. + +The month of May, with its promise of relief from the still lingering +winter, had now begun. Fielding therefore resolved, he says, to visit a +little country house of his "which stands at Ealing, in the county of +Middlesex, in the best air, I believe, in the whole kingdom." [6] Towards +the end of the month, he had resort to a long forgotten eighteenth century +panacea, the tar-water discovered by Bishop Berkeley; and very soon +experienced effects far beyond his "most sanguine hopes." Success beyond +Fielding's most sanguine hopes must have been great indeed; and +accordingly we hear how this tar-water, from the very first, lessened his +illness, increased his appetite, and very slowly added to his bodily +strength. By the end of the month a third application by his surgeon +revealed distinctly favourable symptoms; but still both the dropsy and the +asthma were becoming more serious; and the summer, which the doctors +seemed to think the sick man's 'only chance of life' seemed scarce likely +to visit England at all in that sunless year. "In the whole month of May +the sun scarce appeared three times" we learn, from the _Voyage_. Fearing +therefore the renewed assaults of winter, before he had recruited his +forces so as "to be in anywise able to withstand them," Fielding resolved, +with the approval of a very eminent physician, to put an already formed +project into immediate execution. This was to seek further recovery in +some warmer climate. At first Aix was thought of, but here the +difficulties of travel in the reign of George II. for invalids of slender +means, proved insuperable. The journey by land, "beside the expense of +it," Fielding found to be "infinitely too long and fatiguing"; and no ship +was announced as sailing within 'any reasonable time' for that part of the +Mediterranean. Lisbon accordingly was decided upon; and John Fielding soon +discovered a ship with excellent passenger accommodation, and which was +due to sail in three days. "I eagerly embraced the offer," writes +Fielding, as though he were starting on a pleasure cruise, instead of +facing all the miseries of travel, when unable to make the least use of +his limbs, and when his very appearance "presented a spectacle of the +highest horror"; and he adds "I began to prepare my family for the voyage +with the utmost expedition." Twice, however, the captain put off his +sailing, and at length his passenger invited him to dinner at Ealing, a +full week after the declared date of departure. Meanwhile Fielding's +condition seems at least to have become no worse, for the _Public +Advertiser_ of June 22 has "the pleasure to assure the Publick that the +Report of the Death of Henry Fielding Esquire; inserted in an Evening +paper of Thursday is not true, that Gentleman's Health being better than +it has been for some Month's past." + +It was not till the 26th of June that, in the memorable opening words of +the _Voyage_, "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 opinion, 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." The morning +was spent with his children, the eldest of whom was then a boy of six; and +"I doubt not," he writes, "whether, in that time, I did not undergo more +than in all my distemper." At noon his coach was at the door, and this +"was no sooner told me than I kiss'd my children round, and went into it +with some little resolution." His wife, behaving "more like a heroine and +philosopher, tho' at the same time the tenderest mother in the world," and +his eldest daughter, followed him; and the invalid was swiftly driven the +twelve miles to Rotherhithe. Here the task of embarking a man quite bereft +of the use of his limbs had to be accomplished. This difficulty was +overcome with the aid of Saunders Welch, the friend of whom Fielding says +"I never think or speak of but with love and esteem" [7]; and, at last, +the traveller was "seated in a great chair in the cabin," after fatigues, +the most cruel of which he declares to have been the inhuman jests made +upon his wasted and helpless condition by the rows of sailors and watermen +through whom he had been compelled to pass. + +From this moment we may read of the pleasures and thoughts, the +experiences and meditations, but scarcely ever of the sufferings of the +dying novelist, in the pages of what has been well called "one of the most +unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own or any other literature" +[8] Confined for six weeks in the narrow prison of an eighteenth century +trading vessel; unable to move save when lifted by unskilled hands; with +food often intolerable to the healthiest appetite; with no relaxation save +the company of the rough old sea-dog who commanded the _Queen of +Portugal_; and fully conscious that his was a mortal illness,--the +inexhaustible courage, the delight in man and in nature, the genius of +Henry Fielding still triumphed over every external circumstance. +Throughout the voyage, fortune, moreover, seemed determined to heap on the +unhappy traveller all manner of additional discomforts; and yet when we +lay down this little volume "begun in pain, and finished almost at the +same period with life," [9] the pictures left on the mind glow almost as +brightly as those which fill the pages written in the full vigour of +Fielding's manhood, and which, as Coleridge said, breathe the air of a +spring morning. + +First came a delay of three days off the squalid shores of Wapping and +Rotherhithe, whereby opportunity was afforded of "tasting a delicious +mixture of the air of both these sweet places," and of enjoying such a +concord of the voices of seamen, watermen, fishwomen, oyster women and +their like as Hogarth indicated "in that print of his which is enough to +make a man deaf to look at." This delay, moreover, threatened to bring +Fielding within need of a surgeon when none should be procurable. His +friend Mr William Hunter of Covent Garden, brother of the more famous John +Hunter, relieved this apprehension; but now fresh trouble occurred in the +torments of toothache which befell Mrs Fielding. A servant was despatched +in haste to Wapping, but the desired 'toothdrawer,' arrived after the ship +had at last, on Sunday morning, the 30th of June, left her unsavoury +moorings. That Sunday morning "was fair and bright," and the diarist +records how, dropping down to Gravesend, "we had a passage thither I think +as pleasant as can be conceiv'd." The yards of Deptford and Woolwich were +'noble sights'; the Thames with its splendid shipping excelled all the +rivers of the world; and the men of war, the unrivalled Indiamen, the +other traders, and even the colliers and small craft, all combined to form +"a most pleasing object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart +of an Englishman, who has any degree of love for his country, or can +recognise any effect of the patriot in his constitution." And here +Fielding gives us a notable example of his own healthy taste in +recreation; a taste agreeing very ill with the scurrilous popular myths +concerning him, but entirely consonant with the manifest atmosphere of his +genius. He deplores the general neglect of "what seems to me the highest +degree of amusement: that is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of +our own"; an amusement which need not "exceed the reach of a moderate +fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which are daily paid for +pleasures of a far inferior rate." + +Fortune, as we have said, seemed to grudge every little pleasure that +could have alleviated the condition of the helpless invalid on board the +_Queen of Portugal_. The relief obtained from Mr Hunter, he tells us, "the +gaiety of the morning, the pleasant sailing with wind and tide, and the +many agreeable objects with which I was constantly entertained during the +whole way, were all suppressed and overcome by the single consideration of +my wife's pain, which continued incessantly to torment her." The second +despatch of a messenger, in great haste to bring the best reputed operator +in Gravesend recalls Murphy's words: "Of sickness and poverty he was +singularly patient and under pressure of those evils he could quietly read +_Cicero de Consolatione_; but if either of them threatened his wife he was +impetuous for her relief." The remedies both of the Gravesend 'surgeon of +some eminence,' and of yet another practitioner, who was sent for from +Deal, were ineffectual; but about eight in the evening of the following +day, when the ship under contrary winds, was at anchor in the Downs, Mrs +Fielding fell asleep; and to that accident we owe one of the most +characteristic passages in the _Voyage_. His wife's relief from pain +would, Fielding tells us, "have given me some happiness, could I have +known how to employ those spirits which were raised by it: but +unfortunately for me, I was left in a disposition of enjoying an agreeable +hour, without the assistance of a companion, which has always appeared to +me necessary to such enjoyment; my daughter and her companion were both +retired sea-sick to bed; the other passengers were a rude school boy of +fourteen years old, and an illiterate Portuguese friar, who understood no +language but his own, in which I had not the least smattering. The captain +was the only person left, in whose conversation I might indulge myself; +but unluckily for me, besides his knowledge being chiefly confined to his +profession, he had the misfortune of being so deaf, that to make him hear +my words, I must run the risque of conveying them to the ears of my wife, +who, tho' in another room (called, I think, the state-room; being indeed a +most stately apartment capable of containing one human body in length, if +not very tall, and three bodies in breadth) lay asleep within a yard of +me. In this situation necessity and choice were one and the same thing; +the captain and I sat down together to a small bowl of punch, over which +we both soon fell fast asleep, and so concluded the evening." In the +record of the previous day, while sketching the humours of Jacks in +office, Fielding incidentally shows himself as no less careful of the +respect due to his wife than he was solicitous for her comfort. A +ruffianly custom-house officer had appeared in their cabin, wearing a hat +adorned with broad gold lace, and 'cocked with much military fierceness.' +On eliciting the information that 'the gentleman' was a riding surveyor, +"I replied," says Fielding, "that he might be a riding surveyor, but could +be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that denomination, +would break into the presence of a lady, without 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." To this 'riding surveyor' we owe also +an indication that Fielding found room in the narrow confines of a cabin +for his Plato; for the rude insolence of that functionary recalls to his +mind the Platonic theory of the divine original of rulers, and he proceeds +to quote a long passage from the _Laws_, which even his ready scholarship +could scarce have had by heart. + +Contrary winds continued to baffle all Captain Veal's seamanship, and +afforded his passenger opportunities for a spirited protest concerning the +need of some regulation both of the charges of long-shore boatmen, and of +the manners of captains in the Royal Navy. On the evening of July 8 the +_Voyage_ records that "we beat the sea off Sussex, in sight of Dungeness, +with much more pleasure than progress; for the weather was almost a +perfect calm, and the moon, which was almost at the full, scarce suffered +a single cloud to veil her from our sight"; and on the 18th of the month +the _Queen of Portugal_ put in to Ryde, at which place she remained +wind-bound for no less than eleven days. + +These eleven days Fielding spent, by his wife's persuasions, on shore, at +the poor village inn which, together with a little church and some thirty +houses, then constituted the village of Ryde. Of the hardships and humours +of that sojourn the _Voyage_ affords an account worthy of a place among +the pages of either of the three great novels. The landlady, an incredibly +mean and heartless shrew, inflicted daily annoyances and extortions on her +wind-bound victims. The squalid building, partly constructed of +wreck-wood, could scarce house the party. The food supplies, other than +those the visitors brought with them, were chiefly 'rusty bacon, and worse +cheese,' with very bad ale to drink. And on the first afternoon, the house +was found to be so damp from recent scrubbing that Mrs Fielding, who +"besides discharging excellently well her own, and all the tender offices +becoming the female character; who besides being a faithful friend, an +amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of +a decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his part," hastily snatched +the invalid from "worse perils by water than the common dangers of the +sea," and ordered dinner to be laid in a dry and commodious barn. So +seated, "in one of the most pleasant spots, I believe, in the kingdom," +and regaled on bacon, beans, and fish, "we completed," says Fielding, "the +best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more +real, solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an +entertainment at White's." + +On Sunday the three ladies went to church, "attended by the captain in a +most military attire, with his cockade in his hat, and his sword by his +side" (Captain Veal had commanded a privateer); and Fielding, while left +alone, pursued those researches into human nature of which he never +wearied by conversation with the landlord, a fine example of henpecked +humanity. On the following day the ladies, again attended by Captain Veal, +enjoyed a four mile walk, professing themselves greatly charmed with the +scenery, and with the courtesy of a lady who owned a great house on this +part of the coast, and who "had slipt out of the way, that my wife and her +company might refresh themselves with the flowers and fruits with which +her garden abounded." Within twenty four hours this generous householder +had sent a message to the inn, placing all that her garden or house +afforded at the disposal of the travellers. Fielding's man-servant was +despatched with proper acknowledgements, and returned "in company with the +gardener, both richly laden with almost every particular which a garden at +this most fruitful season of the year produces." + +That evening, on a change of wind, Captain Veal came to demand his +passengers' instant return. This would have been "a terrible circumstance +to me, in my decayed condition," admits Fielding, "especially as very +heavy showers of rain, attended with a high wind, continued to fall +incessantly; the being carried thro' which two miles in the dark, in a wet +and open boat, seemed little less than certain death." Happily the wind +again veered till the following morning, when Fielding and the three +ladies, together with their manservant and maid, were safely re-embarked, +not however without much agitation over the temporary loss of their +tea-chest. This calamity was first compensated by the prompt aid of the +hospitable lady aforementioned, and then averted by the diligent search of +William the footman who at last discovered the hiding place of the missing +'sovereign cordial,' and thus, concludes his master, "ended this scene, +which begun with such appearance of distress, and ended with becoming the +subject of mirth and laughter." Once more on board, Ryde and its beautiful +prospect, its verdant elms, its green meadows, and shady lanes all +combining in Fielding's opinion to make a most delightful habitation, +faded from view. And, by seven o'clock, "we sat down" he says, "to regale +ourselves with some roasted venison, which was much better drest than we +imagined it would be, and an excellent cold pasty which my wife had made +at Ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to eat on board our ship, whither +we all cheerfully exulted in being returned from the presence of Mrs +Humphreys, [the landlady] who by the exact resemblance she bore to a fury, +seemed to have been with no great propriety settled in Paradise." + +It is while commenting on the charm of the view from Ryde,--"I confess +myself so entirely fond of a sea prospect, that I think nothing on the +land can equal it,"--that Fielding incidentally utters that extraordinary +reference to Sir Robert Walpole as "one of the best of men and of +ministers." The only explanation of these words at all consonant with what +we know of Fielding's life seems to be that here he adopts once more his +familiar use of irony. + +The cheerfulness of spirit with which the invalid encountered every fresh +distress, and 'exulted' in every pleasant sight and trifling pleasure, +during those days at Ryde, is very fully reflected in the following +letter, happily preserved from the untoward fate which has apparently +befallen every other intimate word from his pen. It was written to his +brother John, on the first day of anchorage off Ryde. + + +"On board the Queen of Portugal, Richd. Veal at anchor on the Mother Bank, +off Ryde, to the care of the Post Master of Portsmouth--this is my Date +and y'r Direction. + +"July 12 1754 + +"Dear Jack, After receiving that agreeable Lre from Mess'rs. Fielding & +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 Tempest 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 Well being 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 just risen from Breakfast in Health and Spirits this +twelfth Instant at 9 in the morning. Our Voyage hath proved fruitful 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 Oblivion, 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 +Brethern 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 + +"Y'r affec't. Brother +"H. Fielding [10] + +"To John Fielding Esq. at his House in Bow Street Cov. Garden London." + +It is probable, as Mr Austin Dobson has pointed out, that the Mrs Daniel, +whose anxieties Fielding here shows himself anxious to relieve, was his +second wife's mother. And by this time his brother was doubtless occupying +that house in Bow Street so frequently advertised to the public, when any +work was on foot for their protection, as the residence of 'Henry +Fielding, Esqre.' + +The almost diabolic figure of the Ryde landlady had scarcely left his +pages, when Fielding found a new subject for his portraiture, in the +pretentious ill-bred follies of a young officer, a nephew of the captain, +who arrived on board to visit his uncle, and who serves as an excellent +foil for the simple-hearted merits of the elder man. A rising wind, +however, cut short the Lieutenant's stories, and two nights later blew a +hurricane which Fielding declares, "would have given no small alarm to a +man, who had either not learnt what it is to die, or known what it is to +be miserable"; continuing, in words that need no comment, "my dear wife +and child must pardon me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil +to myself, I was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening 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." The sea he loved so well +was not to be Fielding's grave. Early the next morning the _Queen of +Portugal_ was at anchor in Torbay; and the whole party sat down "to a very +chearful breakfast." + +For a whole week the travellers were kept wind-bound off the Devon coast, +now at anchor, now making vain efforts to proceed. We hear of the 'fine +clouted cream,' and the delicious cyder of the county (two hogsheads of +which latter Fielding purchased as presents for his friends); of the +excellence of the local fish named 'john doree,' of the scandalous need of +legislation for the protection of sea-men when ashore from land-sharks, a +digression which includes a pleasant interpretation of the myth of Ulysses +and Circe as none other than the dilemma of a Homeric merchant skipper +whose crew Circe "some good ale-wife," had made drunk "with the spirituous +liquors of those days"; of the difficulty with which Fielding could +persuade his wife "whom it was no easy matter for me to force from my +side" to take a walk on shore; and of the captain's grievous lamentations, +which "seemed to have some mixture of the Irish howl in them," [11] when +his cat was accidentally suffocated. Also, to these last wind-bound days +belongs that famous incident which does perhaps no less honour to the hot +tempered tyrannical old skipper than to his illustrious passenger. + +Fielding, having just finished dinner, was enjoying some good claret in +the cabin, with his wife and her friend--a cheerful moment, when +conversation 'is most agreeable,' when Tom, the captain's general +factotum, burst in on them and began, without saying a 'by your leave', to +bottle half a hogshead of small beer. After requests and protests, equally +unavailing, this functionary found himself, says Fielding, threatened +"with having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened +to stand empty within my reach." Thereupon Tom reported his version of the +matter to the captain, who came thundering down to the cabin in a rage +that knew no bounds of language or civility. This behaviour from a man who +had received not only liberal payment from his passenger for +accommodation, but also such frequent stores of fresh provisions that +Fielding's private purse had indeed gone some way in maintaining the +ship's crew, that passenger justly resented, and to a hasty resolve of +quitting the ship by a hoy that should carry him to Dartmouth, he added +threats of legal action. The 'most distant sound of law,' however, he +tells us, "frightened a man, who had often, I am convinced, heard numbers +of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. Nor did he sooner see the hoy +approaching 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 implored for mercy. I did not suffer a brave man and an old man, +to remain a moment in this posture; but I immediately forgave him." It is +this incident that Thackeray chooses to complete his picture of the great +novelist; adding that memorable comparison between the "noble spirit and +unconquerable generosity" of Fielding, and the lives of many unknown +heroes of the sea: "Such a brave and gentle heart, such an intrepid and +courageous spirit I love to recognise in the manly the English Harry +Fielding." + +Within a week of this reconciliation the ship had made such progress +southward that the captain 'in the redundancy of his good humour, declared +he would go to church at Lisbon on Sunday next' (not the least pleasant of +the pictures which Fielding gives us of the privateer is that of his +summoning all hands on deck on a Sunday morning and then reading prayers +'with an audible voice'); but again the wind played him false, becalming +him near Cape Finisterre. This last calm, however, brought with it +sufficient compensation: "tho' our voyage was retarded, we were +entertained with a scene which as no one can behold without going to sea, +so no one can form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. We were +seated on the deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be +imagined. Not a single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun +himself was the only object which engrossed our whole attention. He did +indeed set with a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, +while the horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to +the opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in +rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered to +our vision. Compared to these the pageantry of theatres, or splendor of +courts, are sights almost below the regard of children." + +Four days later, at midnight, the anchor was cast off Lisbon, after a calm +and moonlit passage up the Tagus, a passage, Fielding writes, "incredibly +pleasant to the women, who remained three hours enjoying it, while I was +left to the cooler transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; +and yet, cooler as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such +sensation, is, at the same time, void of all ideas of friendship." + +On the day following, the 24th of June, he landed, and that evening +enjoyed the long unknown luxury of a good supper, in a kind of +coffee-house "very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile +from the city, [which] hath a very fine prospect of the River Tajo from +Lisbon to the sea." With that pleasant prospect the Voyage closes. Begun +as it was to while away the enforced solitude of his cabin, a condition, +which no man, he tells us, disliked more than himself and which mortal +sickness rendered especially irksome, these pages, some of which "were +possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever haunted +the author," reveal Fielding to us if not as Mr Lowell has said "with +artless inadvertence" at least with perfect fullness. The undimmed gaiety +of spirit, the tender affection, the constant desire to remove those evils +which he found oppressing his country-men by sea not less than on land, +the 'enthusiasm for righteousnes,' the humour of the first of English +novelists, burn here as brightly as though the writer were but midway in +his life's voyage. The hand that exposed evil in its native loathsomeness +in a Blifil and a Wild has not lost its cunning in depicting Mrs +Humphreys; the eye that delighted in the green fields of England saw in +the southern sunset that which made human creations 'almost below the +regard of children.' And to the last the patriotic energies of the author +of _Pasquin_ and of the _Champion_, of the whole hearted social reformer, +of the tireless magistrate, knew no relaxation. Page after page of the +_Voyage_ justify the passage in which he tells us how "I would indeed have +this work, which, if I live to finish it (a matter of no great certainty, +if indeed of any great hope to me), will be probably the last I shall ever +undertake, to produce some better end than the mere diversion of the +reader"; and manifest his desire, here explicitly stated, to finish life +"as I have probably lost it, in the service of my country." + +We have no knowledge concerning the four months following the last entry +in the pages of the _Voyage to Lisbon_. On October 8, 1754, the end so +calmly expected came; and in the beautiful English cemetery, facing the +great Basilica of the Heart of Jesus, was laid to rest all that an alien +soil could claim of 'our immortal Fielding.' + +[1] The _Public Advertiser_, 1754, February 26. + +[2] The _Public Advertiser_ 1754, April 17. + +[3] Middlesex Records. _Sessions Book_. 1754. + +[4] See the Middlesex Records. + +[5] See the _Public Advertiser_. February, 1754. + +[6] This little house was apparently replaced by a larger house; and it is +probably this second building of which a sketch is inserted in a copy of +Lysons' _Environs_ to be seen in the Guildhall Library. It is now pulled +down. + +[7] Dr Johnson spoke of Saunders Welch as "one of my best and dearest +friends." + +[8] Austin Dobson. _Fielding_, p. 170. + +[9] "Dedication" of the _Voyage_, written possibly by John Fielding. + +[10] Austin Dobson. _Fielding_, p. 179. From the autograph in the +possession of Mr Frederick Locker. + +[11] This and the following passage occur in the second version of the +_Voyage to Lisbon_. + + + + +APPENDIX A + +_The Hapsburg genealogy_ + +It appears that the Hapsburg descent, formerly claimed by the Denbigh +family, must now be abandoned. The arguments against this descent, +published by Mr Horace Round, have been accepted by Burke. Further, Dr G. +F. Warner permits me to publish his statement that "I have myself seen +the documents upon which it [the claim] rests, and found them to be +unmistakeable forgeries." + +As regards Henry Fielding's family it is interesting to find that his +grandfather the Rev. and Hon. John Fielding was not only Canon of +Salisbury, and a Doctor of Divinity, but also Archdeacon of Dorsetshire. +Canon John Fielding was buried at Salisbury. His son George (Henry +Fielding's uncle) was Lt. Colonel of the "Royal Regiment of the Blues," +and Groom of the Bed-chamber to Queen Anne and to George II. He is buried +in St George's Chapel, Windsor. (J. Nichols. _History and Antiquities +of Leicestershire_. 1810. Vol. iv. pt. i. p. 394.) + + + + +APPENDIX B + +_Receipt and Assignment of "Tom Jones"_ + +The following documents are in the possession of Alfred Huth Esq., and +are now first published + +June 11 1748. + +Rec'd. of Mr. Andrew Millar Six hundred Pounds being in full for the sole +Copy Right of a Book called the History of a Foundling in Eighteen Books. +And in Consideration of the said Six Hundred Pounds I promise to asign +over the said Book to the said Andrew Millar his Executors and assigns +for ever when I shall be thereto demanded. + +L s d +L600, 00, 00. Hen. Ffielding + +The said Work to contain Six Volumes in Duodecimo. + +Know all Men by these Presents that I Henry Fielding of St. Paul's Covent +Garden in the County of Middlesex Esq'r. for & in consideration of the +Sum of Six hundred Pounds of lawful Money of Great Britain to me in hand +paid by Andrew Millar of St. Mary le Strand in the County afores'd. +Bookseller the Receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged and of which I do +Acquit the s'd. Andrew Millar his Executors & Assigns, have bargained +sold delivered assigned & set over all that my Title Right and Property +in & to a certain Book printed in Six Volumes, known & called by the Name +& Title of The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, inv'd. written by me +the s'd. Henry Fielding, with all Improvements, Additions or Alterations +whatsoever which now are or hereafter shall at any time be made by me the +s'd. Henry Fielding, or any one else by my authority to the s'd. Book To +Have and to Hold the s'd. bargained Premises unto the s'd. Andrew Millar, +his Ex'ors Adm'ors or Assigns for ever And I do hereby covenant to & with +the s'd. Andrew Millar his Ex'ors Adm'ors & Assigns that I the s'd. Henry +Fielding the Author of the s'd. bargained Premises have not at any time +heretofore done committed or suffered any Act or thing whatsoever by +means whereof the s'd bargained Premises or any part thereof is or shall +be impeached or encumbered in any wise And I the s'd Henry Fielding for +myself my Ex'ors Adm'ors & Assigns shall warrant & defend the s'd +bargained Premises for ever against all Persons whatsoever claiming under +me my Ex'ors Adm'ors or Assigns. + +In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand & seal this twenty fifth +day of March One thousand seven hundred & forty nine. + +H F fielding [Illustration: Seal.] + +Signed sealed & delivered +by the within named Henry +Fielding the day and year within +mentioned, in the presence of +Jos. Brogden + + + + +APPENDIX C + + "_Pasquin turned Drawcansir_" + +The _General Advertiser_ for March 13, 1752, Page 3, advertises, as +for Macklin's Benefit, at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, + +"A New Dramatic Satire of Two Acts, call'd +Covent Garden Theatre; or Pasquin turned Drawcansir +Censor of Great Britain + +Written on the Model of the Comedies of Aristophanes and the Pasquinades +of the Italian Theatre in Paris; With Chorusses of the People after the +manner of the Greek Drama. The Parts of the Pit, and Boxes, the Stage, +and the Town to be performed by themselves for their Diversion; the Part +of several dull disorderly Characters in and about St. James, to be +performed by certain Persons for Example; and the Part of +Pasquin-Drawcansir to be performed by his Censorial Highness, for his +Interest. + +The Satire to be introduced by an Oration, and to conclude by a +Peroration: Both to be spoken from the Rostrum, in the Manner of certain +Orators by Signer Pasquin." + +This advertisement is also in the _Covent Garden Journal_, with the +addition of "galleries" after the word _Boxes_. According to Dibdin, +_History of the Stage_, Vol. V. (preface dated 1800) p. 156, this satire +was _by_ Macklin. + + + + +APPENDIX D + +_The Walpole 'anecdote'_ + +The following reference to Fielding occurs in a letter by Horace Walpole, +to George Montagu, dated May 18, 1749. It may be prefaced by the +statement that Fielding's strenuous opposition to Sir Robert Walpole was +not likely to be overlooked by Sir Robert's son; and by Mr Austin +Dobson's comment "his [Horace Walpole's] absolute injustice, when his +partisan spirit was uppermost, is everywhere patent to readers of his +Letters ... the story no doubt exaggerated when it reached him, loses +nothing under his transforming and malicious pen." Walpole writes: "He +[Rigby] and Peter Bathurst t'other night carried a servant of the +latter's, 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 understand 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." + +The 'blind man' was doubtless the half brother later to be knighted for +his distinguished public services, Sir John Fielding; and, adds Mr Austin +Dobson, "it is extremely unlikely the lady so discourteously +characterised could have been any other than his wife, who Lady Stuart +tells us 'had few personal charms.' There remain 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." Bearing in mind, on the one hand, our knowledge of +Fielding as he reveals himself in his own pages, and in his friendships, +and on the other the character earned by Horace Walpole's pen, it seems +matter for doubt whether this 'anecdote' deserves even a place in an +appendix. + + + + +APPENDIX E + +_Fielding's Will_ + +Fielding's will was discovered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, by +Mr G. A. Aitken. It is undated:-- + +IN THE NAME OF GOD AMEN--I HENRY FIELDING 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 +administrators and assigns for ever to the use of the said Ralph his +heirs &c all my Estate real and personal wheresoever and whatsoever and +do appoint him sole EXECUTOR of this my last Will--Beseeching him that +the whole (except my shares in the Register Office) 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 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 Universal +Register Office I give ten thereof to my aforesaid Wife seven to my +Daughter Harriet and three to my daughter Sophia my Wife to be put in +immediate possession of her shares and my Daughters of theirs as they +shall severally arrive at the Age of 21 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 the presence of--MARGARET COLLIER--RICHD +BOOR--ISABELLA ASH-- + +Proved 14th November 1754. + +Extracted from the Principal Registry of the Probate Divorce and +Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice + +In the Prerogative Court of Canterbury + +November 1754 + +HENRY FIELDING Esquire--On the fourteenth day Administration (with the +Will annexed) of the Goods Chattels and Credits of Henry Fielding late of +Ealing in the County of Middlesex but at Lisbon in the Kingdom of +Portugal Esquire deceased was granted to John Fielding Esquire the Uncle +and Curator or Guardian lawfully assigned to Harriet Fielding Spinster a +Minor and Sophia Fielding an Infant the natural and lawfull Daughters of +the said Deceased and two of the Residuary Legatees named in the said +Will for the use and benefit of the said Minor and Infant and until one +of them shall attain the age of twenty one years for that Ralph Allen +Esquire the sole Executor and Residuary Legatee in Trust named in the +said Will hath renounced as well the Execution thereof as Letters of +Administration (with the said Will annexed) of the Goods Chattels and +Credits of the said deceased and Mary Fielding Widow the Relict of the +said deceased and the other Residuary Legatee named in the said Will hath +also renounced Letters of Administration (with the said Will annexed) of +the Goods Chattels and Credits of the said deceased--the said John +Fielding having been first sworn duly to administer. + +In addition to the property mentioned here, Fielding possessed a library, +as Mr Austin Dobson discovered, [1] which when sold six months after his +death, "for the Benefit of his Wife and Family," realised L364, 7s. 1d. or +"about Ll00 more than the public gave in 1785 for the books of Johnson." +[2] Also according to the _Recollections of the Late John Adolphus_, by +Henderson, Fielding purchased a 90 years' lease of a house near +Canterbury, for one of his daughters. + +Of the children mentioned in this will, William became, a contemporary +writer tells us, "an eminent barrister at law and inherits the integrity +of his father and a large share of his brilliant talents." [3] Mr Austin +Dobson refers to William Fielding as being like his father "a strenuous +advocate of the poor and unfortunate," and adds that the obituary notice +in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ records his worth and piety. [4] Harriet +Fielding is said to have been of "a sweet temper and great understanding." +[5] Allen Fielding became Vicar of S6. Stephens Canterbury, and was +"greatly beloved by all, especially the little children," writes a +descendant. Allen Fielding's four sons all took Orders, and of the second, +Charles, it was written on his death, that "he had not only a heart that +could feel for others, but a heart that lived in giving." [6] The noble +qualities of Henry Fielding found their echo in his descendants. + +[1] Austin Dobson. _Fielding_. Appendix IV. p. 212-13; _and Eighteenth +Century Vignettes_, 1896, pp. 164-178. + +[2] Austin Dobson. _Fielding_. Appendix IV. p. 212-13; _and Eighteenth +Century Vignettes_, 1896, pp. 164-178. + +[3] J. Nichols. _History and Antiquities of Leicestershire_. 1810. Vol. +iv. Pt. I. p. 594. + +[4] Austin Dobson. _Fielding_, p. 192. + +[5] T. Whitehead. _Original Anecdotes of the late Duke of Kingston_, 1795. +p. 95. + +[6] _Some Hapsburghs, Fieldings, Denbighs and Desmonds_, by J. E. M. F. + + + + +APPENDIX F + +_Fielding's Tomb and Epitaph_ + +Fielding's present tomb, in the beautiful English cemetery at Lisbon, was +erected in 1830. On one side is inscribed: + + LUGET BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DARI + FOVERE NATUM + +On the other side are the following lines: + + Henrici Fielding + A Somersetensibus apud Glastoniam oriundi + Viri summo ingenio + en quae restant: + Stylo quo non alius unquam + Intima qui potuit cordis reserare mores hominum excolendos + suscepit + Virtuti decorum, vitio foeditatem asseruit, suum cuique tribuens; + Non quin ipse subinde irritaretur evitandis + Ardensin amicitia, in miseria sublevanda effusus + Hilaris urbanus et conjux et pater adamantus. + Aliis non sibi vixit + Vixit sed mortem victricem vincit dum natura durat dum saecula + currunt + Naturae prolem scriptis prae se ferens + Suam et sua genlis extendet famam. [1] + +[1] _Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries_. Vol. viii. p. 353. + + + + +APPENDIX G + +_Fielding's posthumous play "The Fathers"_ + +Fielding's play _The Fathers_ or _The Good-natured Man_ seems to have been +lost (apparently after being submitted to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams) +till twenty years after Fielding's death. It was discovered by M'r Johnes, +M.P. for Cardigan, in 1775, or 1776, who sent it to Garrick. Garrick +recognised it as "Harry Fielding's Comedy"; and, after revision, it was +produced at Drury Lane on November 30, 1778. Garrick not only appeared in +the cast, but also wrote both prologue and epilogue. A note, in the +Morrison Manuscripts, from Garrick to D'r John Hoadley, dated January 3, +1776, concludes thus "We have found the lost sheep, Henry Fielding's Good +Natured Man which was mislaid near twenty years." [1] In the following +pleasant letter Sir John Fielding commends Mrs Fielding's Benefit night to +Dr Hunter. + +"Sir John Fielding presents his compliments to Dr. Hunter, and acquaints +him that the Comedy of 'The Good-natured Man' written by the late Mr. +Henry Fielding will be performed at Drury Lane next Monday being the +Author's Widow's night. + +"He was your old and sincere friend. There are no other of his Works left +unpublished. This is the last opportunity you will have of shewing any +respect to his Memory as a Genius, so that I hope you will send all your +Pupils, all your Patients, all your Friends, & everybody else to the Play +that Night, by which Means you will indulge your benevolent feelings and +your Sentiments of Friendship. [2] + +"Bow Street, Dec'r 4, 1778." + +[1] Morrison Manuscripts. Catalogue. + +[2] _The Athenaeum_. February 1. 1890. + + + + +APPENDIX H + +_Undated Accounts of Fielding at Salisbury and at Barnes_ + +Research has so far failed to identify the period of Fielding's +traditional residence in Salisbury. According to the following passage in +_Old and New Sarum or Salisbury_, by R. Benson and H. Hatcher, 1843, he +occupied three houses in or near Salisbury. "It is well known that +Fielding the Novelist married a lady of Salisbury named Craddock [sic] and +was for a time resident in our City. From tradition we learn that he first +occupied the house in the Close at the south side of St Anne's Gate. He +afterwards removed to that in St Anne's Street next to the Friary; and +finally established himself in the Mansion at the foot of Milford Hill, +where he wrote a considerable portion of his _Tom Jones_." [1] + +Fielding's residence in Barnes is no less illusive. The following passage +occurs in the edition of 1795 of _Lyson's Environs of London_: "Henry +Fielding, the celebrated Novelist, resided at Barnes, in the house which +is now the property of Mr Partington." [2] In the edition of 1811 the +house is described as "now the property of Mrs Stanton, widow of the late +Admiral Stanton." [3] In Manning and Bray's _Surrey_ the name of the house +is given: "On Barnes Green is a very old house called Milbourne House.... +It was once the residence of Henry Fielding the celebrated novel writer. +The widow of Admiral Stanton is the present owner of this house." [4] The +Barnes Rate-books appear to throw no light on the date of Fielding's +residence at Milbourne House. It is noteworthy that both the Barnes and +Salisbury statements indicate a man of some means, living as befitted a +Fielding. + +[1] _History of Wiltshire_. Sir R. C. Hoare; volume entitled "Old and New +Sarum or Salisbury," by R. Benson and H. Hatcher, 1843. p 602. + +[2] Lysons. _Environs of London_, edition of 1795. Vol. i. part iii. p. +544. + +[3] _Ibid_. Edition 1811. Vol. i. p. 10. + +[4] Manning and Bray. _History of Surrey_, 1814, vol. iii. p. 316. + + + + +APPENDIX I + +_An undated letter of Fieldings to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_ + +The following undated letter is printed in _The Letters and Works of +Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_ edited by Lord Wharncliffe and W. M. +Thomas. Lord Wharncliffe includes it with the letters from originals +among the Wortley papers. [1] + + +Wednesday evening + +Madam,--I have presumed to send your ladyship a copy of the play which +you did me the honour of reading three acts of last spring, and hope it +may meet as light a censure from your ladyship's judgment as then; for +while your goodness permits me (what I esteem the greatest, and indeed +only happiness of my life) to offer my unworthy performances to your +perusal, it will be entirely from your sentence that they will be +regarded, or disesteemed by me. I shall do myself the honour of calling +at your ladyship's door to-morrow at eleven, which, if it be an improper +hour, I beg to know from your servant what other time will be more +convenient. I am with the greatest respect and gratitude, madam, + +Your ladyship's most obedient, most devoted humble servant. + +[1] Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, edited by Lord +Wharncliffe and W. M. Thomas. Vol. ii. p. 3, note I, and p. 22. + + + + +APPENDIX J + +FIELDING'S _Tom Thumb_ + +This play appears to have carried some political significance in +Fielding's day; if it was not, indeed, written with a political intention. +This may be gathered from an article in the _Daily Post_ of March 29, +1742, apropos of a performance of the _Tragedy of Tragedies_, that night, +at Drury Lane. The article attributes, in detail, political intentions to +the _Tragedy_--"a Piece at first calculated to ridicule some particular +Persons and Affairs in Europe (at the Time it was writ) but more +especially in this Island." + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Henry Fielding: A Memoir, by G. M. 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