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Henry Fielding: a Memoir

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Title: Henry Fielding: a Memoir

Author: G. M. Godden


        
Release date: May 1, 2005 [eBook #8136]
                Most recently updated: February 21, 2015

Language: English

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*** 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incidents, disclosed by hitherto unpublished documents, or found hidden in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 Léon_.

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 £4750, 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 £1750,
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 £500."
Further, the colonel entered into a bond of £200 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 £500 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 £60." 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 £3000 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 £150; 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 £700 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 £700 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 £700 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 £500
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 £3000 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 _début_ 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 £200 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 Molière, produced in 1733, under the title of the _Miser_, won from
Voltaire the praise of having added to the original "quelques beautes de
dialogue particulières 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 façade
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 _levée_, 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, at 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 _levée_ scene" [10]; and as Pillage
is the "very great man" who holds the _levée_ 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 Lèvee 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 _levée_ scene he hopes that persons greater
than author-managers may learn to despise sycophants. Close on the heels
of the _levée_ 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 £260, "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 £40 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 £110, 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. Field

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