To supply for his Celia much less than the necessities of life Harry Fielding would undoubtedly have stripped his coat, and his shirt with it, off his back; but, at the end of this same month of February, fortune made the young couple sudden amends for the anxieties that seem to have surrounded them. This turn of the wheel is reflected with curious accuracy by an anonymous satirist of 1735:

"F—-g, who Yesterday appear'd so rough, Clad in coarse Frize, and plaister'd down with Snuff, See how his Instant gaudy Trappings shine; What Play-house Bard was ever seen so fine! But this, not from his Humour glows, you'll say But mere Necessity;—for last Night lay In pawn the Velvet which he wears to Day." [3]

This relief, for a time at least, from the pressing anxieties of a 'play-house bard,' befell by the death of Charlotte Fielding's mother, Mrs Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury, who died in February, but a week or two after the execution of a will wholly in favour of that 'dearly beloved' daughter. As the details of Mrs Fielding's inheritance have not hitherto been known, some portions of her mother's will may be quoted. "... I Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury in the County of Wilts ... do make this my last will and testament ... Item I give to my daughter Catherine one shilling and all the rest and residue of my ready money plate jewels and estate whatsoever and wheresoever after my debts and funeral charges are fully paid and satisfied I give devize and bequeath the same unto my dearly beloved daughter Charlott Ffeilding wife of Henry Ffeilding of East Stour in the County of Dorset Esqre." Mrs Cradock proceeds to revoke all former wills; and appoints her said daughter "Charlott Ffeilding" as her sole executrix. The will is dated February 8 1734, old style, viz. 1735; and was proved in London on the 25th of the same month, 'Charlott Ffeilding,' as sole executrix, being duly sworn to administer. The provision of one shilling for another, and apparently not dearly beloved, daughter, Catherine, recalls the wicked sister in Amelia who "had some way or other disobliged her mother, a little before the old lady died," and who consequently was deprived of that inheritance which relieved Amelia and her husband from the direst straits.

As no plays are credited to Fielding's name for the ensuing months of 1735, it is a reasonable inference that the young Salisbury heiress, whose experience of London had, doubtless, included a pretty close acquaintance with the hardships of struggling genius, employed some of her inheritance to enable her husband to return to the home of his boyhood, on the "pleasant Banks of sweetly-winding Stour." There is no record of how the Stour estate, settled on Henry Fielding and his brother and sisters, was apportioned; but an engraving published in 1813 shows the old stone "farmhouse," which Fielding occupied, the kitchen of which then still remained as it was in the novelist's time, when it served as a parlour. Behind the house stood a famous locust tree; and close by was the village church served at this time, as the parish registers show, by the Rev. William Young, the original of the immortal Parson Adams of Joseph Andrews. [4] From a subsequent deed of sale we know that the estate consisted of at least three gardens, three orchards, eighty acres of meadow, one hundred and forty acres of pasture, ten acres of wood, two dove-houses, and "common of pasture for all manner of cattle." To the stone farmhouse, and to these orchards and meadows, commons and pastures, Fielding brought his wife, probably in this year of 1735; and memories of their sojourn at Stour surely inspired those references in Amelia to the country life of 'love, health, and tranquillity,' a life resembling a calm sea which "must appear dull in description; for who can describe the pleasures which the morning air gives to one in perfect health; the flow of spirits which springs up from exercise; the delights which parents feel from the prattle and innocent follies of their children; the joy with which the tender smile of a wife inspires a husband; or lastly the cheerful solid comfort which a fond couple enjoy in each others' conversation.—All these pleasures, and every other of which our situation was capable we tasted in the highest degree."

That a man endowed with Fielding's intense joy in living—he was "so formed for happiness," wrote his cousin Lady Mary, "it is a pity he was not immortal"—should eagerly taste all the pleasures of life as a country gentleman, and that in 'the highest degree,' is entirely consonant with his character. At the very end of his life, when dying of a complication of diseases, his happy social spirit was still unbroken; for we find him even then writing of his inability to enjoy an agreeable hour "without the assistance of a companion which has always appeared to me necessary to such enjoyment." [5] Nor would the generous temper, which was ever ready to share his most needed guinea with a friend scarce poorer than himself, be infected with niggardliness by the happy enjoyment of that position to which he was by birth entitled. The well-known account therefore, given by Murphy, of the East Stour episode is exactly what we might have expected of Harry Fielding in the part of country gentleman: "To that place [i.e. his estate of East Stour]," says Murphy, "he retired with his wife, on whom he doated, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and intemperances to which he had addicted himself in the career of a town life. But unfortunately a kind of family pride here gained an ascendant over him, and he began immediately to vie in splendour with the neighbouring country 'squires. With an estate not much above two hundred pounds a year, and his wife's fortune, which did not exceed fifteen hundred pounds, he encumbered himself with a large retinue of servants, all clad in costly yellow liveries. For their master's honour, these people could not descend so low as to be careful of their apparel, but in a month or two were unfit to be seen; the 'squire's dignity required that they should be new-equipped; and his chief pleasure consisting in society and convivial mirth, hospitality threw open his doors, and, in less than three years, entertainments, hounds, and horses, entirely devoured a little patrimony...." This account is prefaced by gross inaccuracies of fact, inexplicable in a biographer writing but ten years after the death of his subject; but, as Mr Austin Dobson says, "there can be little doubt that the rafters of the old farm by the Stour, with the great locust tree at the back, which is figured in Hutchins's History of Dorset, rang often to hunting choruses, and that not seldom the 'dusky Night rode down the Sky' over the prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests." Petty-minded moralists like Murphy have gravely admonished the great novelist's memory for not having safely bestowed his estate in the consols of the period; they forget that a spirit of small economy is generally the compensation awarded to the poor average of humanity. The genius of Fielding knew how to enjoy splendidly, and to give lavishly.

[1] Tom Jones. Book xiii. Introduction.

[2] See the registers of St Mary Charlcombe. As Sarah Fielding, the novelist's sister, was buried in the entrance to the chancel of this church, it would appear that some connection existed between Charlcombe and the Fielding family.

[3] Seasonable Reproof—a Satire in the manner of Horace, 1735.

[4] The entry in the East Stour Registers is "W'm. Young, Curate 1731-1740."

[5] Voyage to Lisbon.



CHAPTER IV

POLITICAL PLAYS

"Whoever attempteth to introduce corruption into any community, doth much the same thing, and ought to be treated in much the same manner with him who poisoneth a fountain." —Dedication of the Historical Register.

A prolonged retirement into Dorsetshire, however pleasant were the banks of Stour with a beautiful young wife, and a sufficient estate, could scarce be expected of Fielding's restless genius. He was now thirty-five; his splendid physique was as yet unimpaired by the gout that was so soon to attack him; his powers were still hardly revealed; and, as far as we can discover, he was, at the moment, under no pressure for money. Still, the hunting choruses of the Squire Westerns of Dorsetshire can hardly have long sufficed for one whom Lyttelton declared to have had "more wit than any man I ever knew"; and the social and political conditions of the country were increasingly calculated to inflame into practical activity that "enthusiasm for righteousness," which Mr Gosse has so well detected in Fielding. [1] The distracted state of the London stage, divided by the factions of players and managers, afforded moreover an excellent opportunity for a dramatist of some means to essay an independent venture. And accordingly, at the beginning of 1736, we find the Harry Fielding of the green-room and the poet's garret, the Henry Fielding Esqre of East Stour, suddenly throwing the full force of his energies into political life, as the manager of, and writer for, a theatre with indisputable political aims. For the next eight years of his short life Fielding was largely occupied in the lively turmoil of eighteenth-century politics; and here, first by means of the stage, and later as journalist, he played a part which has perhaps been somewhat unduly overshadowed by the surpassing achievements of his genius as father of the English novel. But if we would perceive the full figure of the man this time of boisterous political warfare is of no mean account. In the dedication of his first party play, the amazingly successful Pasquin, Fielding subscribes himself as "the most devoted Servant of the public"; and no more appropriate keyword could be found for the energies which he threw into those envenomed political struggles of 1736-41.

At the date of his first plunge into these struggles England stood sorely in need of a pen as biting, as witty and as fearless, as that of Henry Fielding. For over ten years the country had been ruled by one of those "peace at any price" Ministers who have at times so successfully inflamed the baser commercial instincts of Englishmen. Sir Robert Walpole, the reputed organiser of an unrivalled system of bribery and corruption, the Minister of whom a recent apologist frankly declares that to young members of Parliament who spoke of public virtue and patriotism he would reply "you will soon come off that and grow wiser," the autocrat enamoured of power who could brook no colleague within measurable distance, the man of coarse habits and illiterate tastes, above all the man who induced his countrymen to place money before honour, and whose administration even an admirer describes as one of unparalleled stagnation—such a man must have roused intense antagonism in Fielding's generous and ardent nature. For, from the days of his first boyish satires to the last energetic acts of his life as a London magistrate, for Fielding to see an abuse was to set about reforming it. To his just sense of the true worth of money, the wholesale corruption of English political life accredited to Walpole, the poisoning, to adopt his own simile, of the body politic, must have seemed the vilest national crime. There could never have been the least sympathy between the mercenary and apathetic methods of Walpole and the open-hearted genius of Fielding. And, added to such fundamental opposition of character, the influence of Fielding's old school friend, George Lyttelton, would, at this juncture especially, draw him into the active ranks of the Opposition.

Lyttelton was then rising into celebrity as a ready parliamentary speaker; a celebrity as yet not wholly eclipsed by the youthful oratory of William Pitt, the young cornet of the horse, who also had lately taken his seat on the Opposition benches. It was the burning patriotism, the lofty character and the towering genius of Pitt, the fluency and personal integrity of Lyttelton, that led the younger members of the Opposition in the House of Commons; while in the Lords another friend from whom Fielding was to receive "princely benefactions," the young Duke of Bedford, a man of "inflexible honesty and goodwill to his country," attacked Walpole's alleged corrupt practices in the election of Scottish peers. With leaders such as William Pitt and Lyttelton on the one hand, and the corrupt figure of Walpole on the other, there is no wonder that Fielding flung all his generous force into the effort to free England from so degrading a domination. Accordingly, in 1736, when the young Pitt's impassioned eloquence was soon to alarm the Great Man—"we must muzzle that terrible Cornet of the Horse," Sir Robert said—and when fierce and riotous hostility to the government had broken out in the country over an attempted Excise Bill, Fielding appears as a frankly political manager of the "New Theatre" in the Haymarket. This small theatre stood precisely adjoining the present Palladian structure, as may be seen from a print of 1820, showing the demolition of the old building and the adjacent facade of the modern "Haymarket." According to Tom Davies, who, as an actor in Fielding's company and as an author of some pretensions should be reliable, Fielding was a managing partner of this "New Theatre," in company with James Ralph, "about the year 1735." [2] And apparently early in 1736 [3] his political, theatrical, and social satire of Pasquin appeared on the little stage, and immediately captured the town.

In Pasquin a perfectly outspoken attack on Walpole's corrupt methods is united with a comprehensive onslaught on abuses in the stage, law, divinity, physic, society, and on the odes of Colley Cibber, sufficient one might suppose to satisfy even Fielding's zeal. In an exuberant newspaper advertisement of the 5th of March Mr Pasquin is announced as intending to "lay about him with great impartiality," and throughout the play Fielding's splendid figure may be felt, swinging his satiric club with a boisterous enjoyment. The immediate success achieved by the piece was certainly not due to any great dramatic excellence; and that so loosely knit a medley as PASQUIN, a Dramatic Satire on the Times: Being the Rehearsal of Two Plays, viz. A Comedy call'd THE ELECTION and a Tragedy, call'd The Life and Death of COMMON-SENSE should have achieved almost as long a run as the Beggars Opera, shows that the public heartily sympathised with the satirist. Pasquin begins with the rehearsal of a comedy, called The Election, consisting of a series of broadly humorous scenes in which the open and diverse bribery at elections, the equally open immorality of fashionable town life, the connivance of country dames, and the inanity of the beau monde, are satirised. The country Mayor, the Ministerial candidates and the Opposition squire drink, bribe and are bribed with complete impartiality. A scene devoted to the political young lady of the day affords opportunity for a hit at the sickly and effeminate Lord 'Fanny' Hervey, that politician whom Pope described as a "mere white curd of Asse's milk," and of whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed that "the world consisted of men, women, and Herveys." Pope had stigmatised Hervey as Lord Fanny, and Fielding obviously plays on the nickname by references to the value attached by certain young ladies to their fans. "Faith," says his comic author, "this incident of the fan struck me so strongly that I was once going to call this comedy by the name of the Fan." The comedy ends with the successful cooking of the election returns by Mr Mayor in favour of the Ministerial candidates, for which "return" he is promised a "very good turn very soon"; and by the precipitate marriage of one of the said candidates to the Mayor's daughter "to strengthen his interest with the returning officer."

Having settled the business of the corrupt and corrupting Ministry in his comedy, Mr Pasquin proceeds to exhibit the rehearsal of his tragedy, The Life and Death of Common Sense. Here the satirist, leaving politics, applies his cudgel mainly to the prevailing taste for pantomime, a form of entertainment introduced it was said some thirty years previously by one Weaver, a country dancing master, and already lashed by Sir Richard Steele in his couplet:

"Weaver, corrupter of the present age, Who first taught silent sins upon the stage."

That the Covent Garden manager, John Rich, [4] could engage four French dancers, and a German with two dogs, taught to dance the Louvre and the Minuet, at ten pounds a night, and clear thereby "above 20 good houses," while the Othello of Booth and the Wildair of Wilkes were neglected, was sufficient to rouse the indignation alike of moralists, dramatists and playgoers. Fielding in turn took the matter up with all his natural warmth; and in Pasquin he represents the kingdom of the Queen of Common Sense as invaded by a vast army of "singers, fidlers, tumblers, and ropedancers," who moreover fix their standard in Covent Garden, the headquarters of Rich.

Not content with assailing this public folly, the 'Tragedy' of Pasquin strikes a higher note by ranging among the foes of Common Sense three unworthy professors of Law, Medicine, and Religion; callings, as Fielding is careful to point out,

"in themselves designed To shower the greatest blessings on Mankind."

Queen Common Sense seemingly receives her deathblow; but her ghost finally rises victorious, and so justifies the author's contention that his "is almost the only play where she has got the better lately." The vigour with which Mr Pasquin here 'laid about him,' in such matters as the legal abuses relating to imprisonment for debt, may be inferred from the following passage. Queen Common Sense is speaking to the representative of bad Law, and tells him she has heard that men

"unable to discharge their debts At a short warning, being sued for them, Have, with both power and will their debts to pay, Lain all their lives in prison, for their costs.

Law. That may perhaps be some poor person's case Too mean to entertain your royal ear.

Q.C.S. My Lord, while I am Queen I shall not think One man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd."

So too, the great genius of Fielding, when in long after years harnessed to the drudgery of a London magistrate, held no porter's brawl or beggar's quarrel too mean "to be redress'd."

The immediate success of Pasquin attests, as we have said, the readiness of London audiences in 1736 to applaud an honest and humorous presentation of wicked Ministers, corrupt clergy, lawyers, and doctors, inane Laureates, and degrading public entertainments. Mrs Delany, gathering London news for Dean Swift, writes on April 22, "When I went out of Town last Autumn, the reigning madness was Farinelli; I find it now turned on Pasquin, a dramatic satire on the times. It has had almost as long a run as the Beggar's Opera; but in my opinion not with equal merit, though it has humour." [5] We are told how the piece drew numerous enthusiastic audiences "from Grosvenor, Cavendish, Hanover, and all the other fashionable Squares, as also from Pall Mall and the Inns of Court" And on the 26th of May a benefit performance for the author was announced as the "60th. Day." The vogue of the satire even demanded a key, as may be seen in an advertisement in the London Daily Post for May 17: This Day is published, Price Four-Pence. A Key to Pasquin, address'd to Henry Fielding Esqre.

Mr Pasquin's own advertisements for his little theatre are not without the zest with which our beef-eating ancestors attacked politics, social abuses and one another. The announcement for March 5, ran as follows:—

"By the Great Mogul's Company of English Comedians, Newly Imported. At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, this Day, March 5, will be presented

PASQUIN,

A Dramatick SATYR on the times.

Being a Rehearsal of two PLAYS, viz. a Comedy call'd The ELECTION; and a Tragedy, call'd The Life and Death of COMMON SENSE....

N.B.—Mr Pasquin intending to lay about him with great Impartiality, hopes the Town will all attend, and very civilly give their Neighbours what the find belongs to 'em.

N.B.—The Cloaths are old, but the Jokes entirely new...."

In the following month the Opposition was busy over the marriage of their chief supporter, the Prince of Wales; and Mr Pasquin duly chronicles the event in his advertisements of the 28th of April, observing that his company "by reason of the Royal Wedding expecting no Company but themselves, are obliged to defer Playing till tomorrow." A few days later, on the 12th of May, Sir Robert Walpole celebrated the royal marriage by a grand evening entertainment given at his house in St James Park; and on the same night 'Pasquin' had the audacity to advertise a special performance, in the following terms (the "country party," it should be understood, was a usual name for Walpole's opponents):—

"For the Benefit of Miss Burgess, who has so zealously espoused the Country Interest.... Miss Burgess hopes all Patriots and Lovers of their Country will appear in her favour and give all encouragement to one who has so early distinguished herself on the side of Liberty." In Pasquin's Election scenes, this lady played the part of Miss Stitch, a political damsel, opposed to Walpole's candidate. Next day appeared an ironic counter-advertisement of a performance for "the Benefit of Miss Jones (the Mayor's daughter who hath so furiously espoused the Court [i.e. Walpole's] Interest....) N.B.—Miss Jones does not doubt that all true loyal People will give her all Encouragement in their Power, as she has engaged in so unpopular a Side and even given away her FAN (which very few young ladies would) for the service of the Country: she hopes the Courtiers will not let her be out of pocket by the Bargain." Here, again, is doubtless a hit at Lord 'Fanny' Hervey; as well as a plain hint that those who espoused Walpole's cause might expect ample payment for their trouble.

Is there any wonder that a wrathful and uneasy Minister, not yet overthrown, shortly took stringent measures against the 'liberty' of the stage; measures by which a political stage censorship was formally established, and the topical gaiety of our theatre, and the pungency of our theatrical announcements, henceforth immeasurably dulled.

A few further points of minor interest remain to be noted concerning that popular and scathing personage Mr Pasquin. By May the company styled themselves "Pasquin's Company of Comedians"; a fresh indication of the credit attaching to the performance. In the previous month a contributor to The Grub Street Journal tells "Dear Grub" that he has seen Pope applauding the piece; and, although the statement was promptly denied, a rare print by Hogarth lends some colour to a very likely story; for the great Mr Pope, the terror of his enemies, the autocrat of literature, was warmly on the side of the Opposition. Hogarth depicts the stage of Fielding's theatre, and thereon a scene in the fifth act of Pasquin, in which the foes of Queen Common Sense are for the moment triumphant. The side boxes are well filled; and in one of them Mr Pope's deformed figure, apparently, turns away, declaring: "There is no whitewashing this stuff." The curious may find another plate by Hogarth in which Pope is busy whitewashing Lord Burlington; but the drift of the remark for the Opposition drama of Pasquin seems obscure. The gains that accrued to Fielding from the success of Pasquin are indicated by another rare print, that entitled the Judgement of the Queen o' Common Sense. Addressed to Henry Fielding Esqre. Here, again, it is Pasquin's satire on the prevailing furore for pantomime that is chiefly illustrated; as Common Sense gives to Rich, the harlequin, a halter, while to Fielding she accords an overflowing purse. Supporting Fielding are a long lean Shakespeare, and two figures, possibly the distinguished players Kitty Clive and Quin; on the opposite side, behind Harlequin, are figures representing the bad clergy, lawyers, and doctors satirised in the Tragedy; and the whole is balanced by the emergence of the ghost in Hamlet, from a trap door in the foreground. Doggerel verses, at the foot of the print, celebrate the arrival of a bard, "from ye Great Mogul," bringing with him Wit, Humour, and Satyr, and receiving the Queen's "honest favour," in "show'rs of gold."

Under those golden showers, and with the applause of 'all the fashionable Squares' ringing in his ears, we may leave Mr Pasquin. Fielding's first venture as political dramatist and theatrical manager had proved brilliantly successful; his little theatre, like his own Tom Thumb, had assailed a dozen giant abuses, an all-powerful Minister among them, and the town had applauded the courage and wit of the performance. In the following season, those same boards were to witness the author of Pasquin "laying about him" with an even greater political audacity.

* * * * *

Content, doubtless, with the success of Pasquin, Fielding does not seem to have launched any further political attacks during the remaining months of 1736. A newspaper advertisement of June announces the intention of the 'Great Mogul's Company of Comedians' to continue "playing twice a week during the summer season," and Pasquin remained occasionally in the bills as late as the 2nd of July. The public were advised that "This is much the coolest House in Town"; and audiences must have been drawn even in August, for in that month one small and presumably party play was performed, the New Comi-Tragical Interlude call'd the Deposing and Death of Queen Gin. This little piece consisted of only two scenes, and was probably a skit on a Bill "against spirituous liquors" which Walpole had supported earlier in the year. The measure met with violent opposition, including petitions from the Liverpool and Bristol merchants; and in view of Sir Robert's own notorious excesses with the bottle a temperance Bill from his hands may well have roused Fielding's ironic laughter. The authorship of the satire is unknown; but the moral appears to have been unexceptionable, as Queen Gin, in the final scene, "drinks a great quantity of liquor and at last dies."

Fielding clearly began his second year at the 'little theatre' with some social or political exhortation, as the following bill appears for January:—"By a Company of Comedians, At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, this Day, January 26, will be presented a Dramatick Satire on the Times (never performed before) call'd The Mirrour." By February "the Original Company who perform'd Pasquin" are notified on the bills; and on the 2nd of March a performance is announced of a Dramatick Tale of the King and the Miller of Mansfield, presumably the same Miller of Mansfield openly declared by one of Walpole's "hired scribblers" to be aimed at the overthrow of the Ministry. [6] All such preliminary skirmishes, however, served but to introduce the grand attack of the Historical Register for the Tear 1736, the first performance of which may be assigned to the end of March 1737. [7]

In the Register we have the most complete display of Fielding's vigour as a fighting politician. Here, to recur to Mr Pasquin's characteristic phrase, he "lays about him" with a gusto and honest frankness quite lost among our own tepid conventions. But however hard the hitting, however boisterous the broad humour, however biting the irony, it is noteworthy that in this his chief political satire, written moreover for a yet unregulated stage, Fielding never stoops to the shameless personalities of his day. The fashion of the eighteenth-century permitted even the great and classical genius of Pope to hurl lines at the persons of his opponents that, to modern ears, scarcely bear quotation. Fielding, as we know, constantly asserted his intention of throwing not at the vicious but at vice; and accordingly, even in this party play, flung openly in the face of the Minister, there is but one reference (and that only a fling at his "lack of any the least taste in polite literature") to the notorious personal failings of Sir Robert. It is against the Minister, and not the man, that the hot-blooded Opposition dramatist directs his humour and his irony. Fielding's manly and generous nature here permitted no virulent personalities to blacken his pages. [8]

The irony of the Register is chiefly reserved for the Dedication to the Public, designed for the reader at leisure; though here Walpole is indicated broadly enough, first in the figure of an ass hung out on a signpost, and again as "Old Nick," for "who but the devil could act such a part." Here the attacks of the Ministerial papers are parried by ironic explanations that "The Register is a ministerial pamphlet calculated to infuse into the minds of the people a great opinion of their ministry," explanations full of admirable fencing and excellent hits. And in these dedicatory pages Fielding utters a sonorous warning to his countrymen concerning the insidious policy that was undermining their very constitution: "... Here is the danger, here is the rock on which our constitution must, if it ever does split. The liberties of a people have been subdued by conquests of valour and force, and have been betrayed by the subtle and dexterous arts of refined policy, but these are rare instances; for geniuses of this kind are not the growth of every age, whereas if a general corruption be once introduced, and those, who should be the guardians and bulwarks of our liberty, once find or think they find an interest in giving it up, no great capacity will be required to destroy it. On the contrary the meanest, lowest, dirtiest fellow, if such an one should ever have the assurance in future ages to mimick power, and browbeat his betters, will be as able as Machiavel himself could have been, to root out the liberties of the bravest people." From the solemnities of the Dedication we come to the "humming deal of satire," and the boisterous action, of the play itself. As in the case of Pasquin the form of the drama is that of a rehearsal, a form which affords excellent opportunities for such explanatory asides as that addressed to the critic who complains of the attempt to review a year's events in a single play: "Sir," says the author, "if I comprise the whole actions of a year in half an hour, will you blame me, or those who have done so little in that time?" The long years of Walpole's power were admittedly "years without parallel in our history, for political stagnation." Scene one discovers five 'blundering blockheads' of politicians, in counsel with one silent "little gentleman yonder in the chair;" who knows all and says nothing, and whose politics lie so deep that "nothing but an inspir'd understanding can come at 'em." The blockheads, however, have capacity enough to snatch hastily at the money lying on their council table. Walpole's jealousy of power, it may be remembered, had driven almost every man of ability out of his ministry. Then comes a vivacious parody on the fashionable auctions of the day. Lots comprising "a most curious remnant of Political Honesty," a "delicate piece of Patriotism," and a "very clear Conscience which has been worn by a judge and a bishop" and on which no dirt will stick, go for little or nothing, while Lot 8, "a very considerable quantity of Interest at Court," excites brisk bidding, and is finally knocked down for one thousand pounds. From the excellent fooling of the auction, the action suddenly changes to combined satire on the Ministry and on the two Cibbers, father and son. The Ministry are ingeniously implied to have been damn'd by the public; to give places with no attention to the capacity of the recipient; and to laugh at the dupes by whose money they live. A like weakness for putting blockheads in office and for giving places to rogues, and a like contempt of the public, is allegorically conveyed in the third act, in which 'Apollo' casts the parts for a performance among sundry unworthy actors, and declares that the people may grumble 'as much as they please, as long as we get their money.' "There sir," cries the author to the critic of the rehearsal, "is the sentiment of a great man." The Great Man was a phrase, to use Pope's words, "by common use appropriated to the first minister"—that is, to Walpole. In the next scene the effrontery of the piece culminates in a ballet where the Prime Minister appears, leading a chorus of false patriots, who, to use Fielding's own words, are set in the 'odious and contemptible light' of a set of "cunning self-interested fellows who for a little paltry bribe would give up the liberties and properties of their country." These worthy patriots are of four types, the noisy, the cautious, the self-interested (he whose shop is his country) and the indolent ("who acts as I have seen a prudent man in company, fall asleep at the beginning of a fray and never wake 'till the end o't"). To them enters Quidam, unblushingly announced in the play bill as "Quidam, Anglice a Certain Person," in other words Walpole himself. Quidam pours gold into the pockets of the four patriots, drinks with them, and then, when the 'bottle is out' (a too frequent occurrence at Sir Robert's table) takes up his fiddle, strikes up a tune and dances off, the patriots dancing after him. But even this is not all. "Sir," says the author, "every one of these patriots have a hole in their pockets as Mr Quidam the fiddler there knows; so that he intends to make them dance 'till all the money is fall'n through, which he will pick up again and so not lose one halfpenny by his generosity...." We may suppose that the final scene lost nothing in breadth by the acting of Quidam; and it is not surprising that the immediate result was the subjugation not, alas! of the Ministry, but of the liberty of the stage. Walpole's fall was delayed for three years; the destruction of the political stage was accomplished in three months.

It is difficult to imagine that any party, in those days of comparatively arbitrary power, would venture a public satire so unveiled and so menacing as that of the Register, unless supported by some confidence in the immediate fall of their opponents. Without such confidence the political tactics of such an onslaught would be simple foolhardiness. Signs of these false hopes are not wanting in the slight, but equally bold, satire on the sycophants represented as composing Walpole's levee, which was shortly added to the Register. This little sketch, in which a protest concerning the damning, early in the year, of Fielding's ballad farce Eurydice is combined with the political satire, was advertised as follows:—

"EURYDICE HISS'D: or, a Word to the Wise, giving an Account of the Rise, Progress, Greatness, and Downfal of Mr Pillage, ... with the dreadful Consequence and Catastrophe of the whole." [9]

We have the authority of Tom Davies, at7 this time a member of Fielding's company, for the statement that "Fielding in his Eurydice Hiss'd had brought on the Minister [Walpole] in a levee scene" [10]; and as Pillage is the "very great man" who holds the levee in the fragment, the above allusion to an expected downfall of Walpole's Ministry seems obvious. Passages of similar import to the advertisement occur in the piece itself. Thus the play is declared to convey a "beautiful image of the instability of human greatness"; and the spectacle is promised of the 'author of a mighty farce' at the pinnacle of human greatness and adored by a crowd of dependants, become by a sudden turn of fortune, scorned, "deserted and abandon'd."

The single scene of the play opens when Pillage is at the zenith of his power; a stage direction orders that "The Levee enters, and range themselves to a ridiculous tune"; a partition of places ensues under the allegory of the business arrangements of a theatrical manager; and the author explains that by this levee scene he hopes that persons greater than author-managers may learn to despise sycophants. Close on the heels of the levee comes the catastrophe. Not one honest man, Pillage sadly admits, is on his side; as his 'shallow plot' opens out the first applause changes to hisses; his farce is damn'd; and he himself is left consoling the solitude of his downfall by getting exceedingly drunk on a third bottle.

The figure of a fallen Minister boozing away his own intolerable reflections, was not calculated to pacify that notoriously hard drinker, Sir Robert, already soundly pilloried in the Register, and severely indited by Pasquin. By the end of April the Register had reached its thirty-first performance, a good run at that date; and according to an advertisement in the Craftsman the satire was still being played on the 7th of May. In little more than four weeks, and after the alleged perpetration of a treasonable and profane farce called The Golden Rump, a Bill for stifling the liberty of the stage under a censorship was introduced, had passed through both Houses, and received the royal assent. Well might Lord Chesterfield exclaim in the brilliant speech which, in Smollet's words, "will ever endear his character to all the friends of genius and literature, to all those who are warmed with zeal for the liberties of their country," that the Bill was not only "of a very extraordinary nature, but has been brought in at a very extraordinary season and pushed with very extraordinary despatch." Concerning the nature of the measure Chesterfield had no doubt. He saw its tendency towards restraining the "liberty of the Press which will be a long stride towards the destruction of Liberty itself"; he pointed out that a Minister who has merited the esteem of the people will neither fear the wit nor feel the satire of the theatre; he denounced the subjugation of the stage under "an arbitrary Court license" which would convert it into a canal for conveying the vices and follies of "great men and Courtiers" through the whole kingdom; he protested against the Bill as an encroachment not only on liberty but also on property, for "Wit, my Lords, is a sort of property; it is the property of those that have it, and too often the only property that they have to depend on."

As a manager of the intrepid little theatre in the Haymarket, as well as the author of the most successful of the offending plays, the Licensing Act fell with double weight on Fielding. "When I speak against the Bill," cried Chesterfield, "I must think I plead the cause of Wit, I plead the cause of Humour, I plead the cause of the British Stage, and of every gentleman of taste in the Kingdom." Looking back over two centuries, we honour Chesterfield in that, unknown to himself, he also pleaded the cause of the greatest of English humourists. But appeals on behalf of genius and freedom were thrown away upon Walpole; the Act received the royal assent on June 21 1737; and, in the honourable company of Wit, Humour, and Taste, Fielding was forced to retire from the theatre, on the boards of which he had for two years so vigorously assailed Ministerial corruption and autocracy.

[1] Works of Henry Fielding, Edited by Edmund Gosse. Introduction, p. xxi.

[2] Life of Garrick. T. Davies. 1780, vol. i. p. 223.

[3] Notitia Dramatica, MSS. Dept. British Museum, speaks of Pasquin as performed for the fortieth time on April 21, 1736: and quotes an advertisement of the play for March 5. There seems to be no record of the actual first night.

[4] Rich appears to have been the manager at Covent Garden from 1733 to 1761.

[5] Autobiography of Mrs Delany. 1861. Vol I. p. 554.

[6] See Fielding's ironic reference to such "iniquitous surmises" in the Dedication to the Historical Register.

[7] The earliest newspaper reference, so far available, is that of the Daily Journal for April 6 1737, which speaks of April 11 as the ninth day of the Register.

[8] In the succeeding Epilogue of Eurydice Hiss'd it must be admitted that Sir Robert's love of the bottle is broadly satirised.

[9] Daily Advertiser, April 29. 1737.

[10] Life of Garrick, T. Davies, vol. ii. p. 206.



CHAPTER V

HOMESPUN DRAMA

"Virtue distrest in humble state support." Prologue to Fatal Curiosity.

The Licensing Act of June 1737 thus brought Henry Fielding's career as political dramatist to a hasty conclusion; a conclusion quite unforeseen by the luckless author, as appears from his Dedication to the Historical Register, published almost at the moment when the Act became law: "The very great indulgence you have shown my performances at the little theatre these two last years," he says, addressing his public, "have encouraged me to the proposal of a subscription for carrying on that theatre, for beautifying and enlarging it, and procuring a better company of actors."

Before finally losing sight of the stage on which Pasquin and the Register had scored such signal success, we may notice some minor incidents of these two years of Fielding's administration. His company does not seem to have included either Macklin, Quin, or Kitty Clive; but that distinguished actress Mrs Pritchard, the central figure of Hogarth's charming group called "The Green Room, Drury Lane," is said to have made her first appearance on his boards, [1] and his players also included that man of many parts Tom Davies. Davies was a student of Edinburgh University; an actor at Drury Lane and elsewhere; a bookseller of whom the elder D'Israeli said 'all his publications were of the best kind'; the writer of various works including a Life of Garrick; and a particular friend of Dr Johnson. In the first year of Fielding's management in the Haymarket, Davies was cast for a principal part in George Lillo's tragedy Fatal Curiosity; and it is to his pen that we owe the only known contemporary reference to the active part taken by Fielding himself in the affairs of his theatre.

Lillo, a jeweller of Moorfields, had captured the town, a few years previously, by his tragedy of common life, George Barnwell; and among the dramatists selected by Fielding for representation on his stage the most interesting is undoubtedly this pioneer of the coming revolution in English literature. For, incredible as it may seem, until that first performance of Barnwell, no writer, to quote Tom Davies' own words "had ventured to descend so low as to introduce the character of a merchant or his apprentice into a tragedy." Certain "witty and facetious persons who call themselves the town," continues Davies, brought to the first night copies of the old ballad on which the jeweller's play was based, meaning to mock the new tragedy with the old song; but so forcible and pathetic were Lillo's scenes that these merry gentlemen were obliged "to throw away their ballads, and take out their handkerchiefs." More tears, we learn, were shed over this 'homespun drama' than at all the imitations of ancient fables by learned moderns. To Fielding this revolution, from the buskin'd heroics of the Alexanders and Clelias to the living and natural pathos of the tragedy of a poor London apprentice, must have appealed with extraordinary force; for it is the especial glory of his own genius that, throwing aside all the traditions of his age, and 'adventuring on one of the most original expeditions that ever a writer undertook,' [2] he was to discover a new world for English fiction, the world of simple human nature. That expedition must have been already forming in his mind when, night after night, in the hottest part of the year, George Barnwell was playing to crowded houses, and convincing the astonished audiences of 1731 that even so low a creature as a London apprentice was possessed of passions extremely like their own. Some ten years later, when Fielding revealed the first true sign of his own surpassing genius in the History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, he chose for his hero a country footman. The worthy City jeweller was, in his own limited measure, the forerunner, on the stage, of that new era in English literature created by honest Andrews and Parson Adams, Partridge and Mrs Slipslop, Fanny and Sergeant Atkinson, Tow-wouse and Mrs Miller, to name but a few of Fielding's immortal portraits, drawn from the 'vast authentic book of Nature.'

It is no wonder then, to return to Tom Davies, that a play by Lillo was announced on the bills of Fielding's theatre within a few months of the opening of his management. On May 27, 1736, the following advertisement appeared:

"Guilt its Own Punishment. Never Acted before. By Pasquin's Company of Comedians. Being a True Story in Common Life and the Incidents extremely affecting." By the Author of George Barnwell.

Davies' part in the play was a chief one, that of young Wilmot, and the story of the performance may be given in his own words. "Mr Fielding, who had a just sense of our author's merit, and who had often in his humourous pieces laughed at those ridiculous and absurd criticks who could not possibly understand the merit of Barnwell, because the subject was low, treated Lillo with great politeness and friendship. He took upon himself the management of the play and the instruction of the actors. It was during the rehearsal of the Fatal Curiosity that I had an opportunity to see and to converse with Mr Lillo. Plain and simple as he was in his address, his manner of conversing was modest affable and engaging. When invited to give his opinion how a particular sentiment should be uttered by the actor he expresst himself in the gentlest and most obliging terms, and conveyed instruction and conviction with good nature and good manners.... Fielding was not content merely to revise the 'Fatal Curiosity,' and to instruct the actors how to do justice to their parts. He warmly recommended the play to his friends and to the public. Besides all this he presented the author with a well written prologue."

This Prologue, which has apparently hitherto escaped the collectors of Fielding's Works, seems worthy of a reprint here, if only for its characteristic sympathy with virtue and distress 'in humble state,' and for the opening tribute to 'Shakespeare's nature' and to 'Fletcher's ease.'

PROLOGUE TO THE FATAL CURIOSITY

"The Tragic Muse has long forgot to please With Shakespeare's nature or with Fletcher's ease: No passion mov'd, thro' five long acts you sit, Charm'd with the poet's language or his wit. Fine things are said, no matter whence they fall; Each single character must speak them all.

"But from this modern fashionable way To-night our author begs your leave to stray. No fustian hero rages here to-night, No armies fall to fix a tyrant's right: From lower life we draw our scenes' distress: —Let not your equals move your pity less! Virtue distrest in humble state support; Nor think she never lives without the court.

"Tho' to our scenes no royal robes belong And tho' our little stage as yet be young Throw both your scorn and prejudice aside; Let us with favour not contempt be try'd, Thro' the first act a kind attention lend The growing scene shall force you to attend: Shall catch the eyes of every tender fair, And make them charm their lovers with a tear. The lover too by pity shall impart His tender passion to his fair one's heart: The breast which others' anguish cannot move Was ne'er the seat of friendship or of love."

Notwithstanding all the manager's friendly efforts, the play met at first with very little success, a failure in Davies' opinion "owing in all probability to its being brought on in the latter part of the season, when the public had been satiated with a long run of Pasquin," but, he adds, "it is with pleasure I observe that Fielding generously persisted to serve the man whom he had once espoused; he tacked the 'Fatal Curiosity' to his Historical Register which was played with great success in the ensuing winter." [3] We owe no inconsiderable debt to Tom Davies in that he has preserved for us this picture of Fielding, actively engaged in the stage-management of his little theatre; a picture, moreover, that does equal honour to the brilliant wit, the successful political satirist, and to that modest, gentle Nonconformist poet, the man of whom it was said that he "had the spirit of an old Roman joined to the innocence of a Primitive Christian," George Lillo.

A few weeks before the production of Lillo's tragedy, and while Pasquin was still in the full tide of political success, an event occurred of closer import to Fielding's affectionate nature than all the applause of the Opposition and the town. This was the birth, in April, 1736, of his daughter Charlotte. No English writer has left more charming pictures of mother and child than those we owe to the tenderness and simplicity of Fielding's pen. When we find Squire Western turning, in his latter days, to Sophia's nursery, and hear him declaring that the prattling of his granddaughter is "sweeter Music than the finest Cry of Dogs in England" when we see Captain Booth stretched at full length on the floor of his poor lodgings, with his "little innocents" jumping over him, we are almost inclined to forgive alike the brutalities of the old foxhunter, and the weaknesses of the young soldier. Fielding's affection for his children, his apprehensions for their ultimate provision, his anxiety in their sickness, his grief at the loss of a little daughter, are manifest in his pages. If anything could exceed the satisfaction which the brilliant success of Pasquin must have given to his buoyant nature, it would be the birth of this, the first child apparently, of his marriage with the beautiful Charlotte Cradock. The entry in the registers of St Martin's in the Fields runs as follows: Baptized May 19th, 1736 Charlotte Fielding, of Henry and Charlotte, Born April 27th.

The dates of Pasquin, of Lillo's tragedy, and of the Historical Register, cover a considerable portion of the years 1736, 1737, and their production in a theatre under Fielding's own management practically presupposes his presence in London at that time. This by no means fits in with Murphy's implication that Fielding retired to Stour on his marriage, and that, remaining there, he ran through his "little patrimony," in "less than three years." A complete country retirement cannot be assigned to those busy years in the Haymarket; and in 1736 the journey from London to Dorsetshire was no trifling undertaking. But it seems quite possible that Fielding and his wife went down to their small estate in Dorsetshire for part or all of the summer, autumn and winter of both 1736 and 1737. This would cover the hunting months, and "hounds and horses," according to Murphy, filled a large part in Fielding's country life at Stour; the time would be that of the comparatively dull season for the theatre in the Haymarket; and, with the year immediately preceding Pasquin, we should thus, perhaps, account sufficiently for Murphy's "three years". Certain passages in the Miscellanies, published long after the pleasant meadows and the modest house at Stour—no less than the turmoil of the green-room and the crowded political audiences in the Haymarket—were things of the past, have a personal ring, reminiscent perhaps of such months of "sweet Retirement" in Dorsetshire. Thus one of the characters in the Journey from this World to the next recalls the change, from a life of "restless Anxieties," to a "little pleasant Country House, where there was nothing grand or superfluous, but everything neat and agreeable"; and how, after a little time, "I began to share the Tranquillity that visibly appeared in everything round me. I set myself to do Works of Fancy and to raise little Flower-Gardens, with many such innocent rural Amusements; which altho' they are not capable of affording any great Pleasure, yet they give that serene Turn of the Mind, which I think much preferable to anything else Human Nature is made susceptible of." To this pleasant picture of "rural Amusements," and tranquillity, it is surely not impertinent to add this further passage, as a possible echo of Charlotte Fielding's thought, well acquainted as she must have been both with the "sweetly winding banks of Stour" and with the clamorous successes of political drama: "in all these various Changes I never enjoyed any real Satisfaction, unless in the little time I lived retired in the Country free from all Noise and Hurry."

In the summer or autumn of 1737 the curtain was finally rung down on all the 'noise and hurry,' the achievements and audacities of Fielding's "little stage"; a few months later, and the country retirement at Stour had also become but a memory of that short life into which he managed to compress "more variety of Scenes than many People who live to be very old."

[1] Life of Garrick. T. Davies, vol. ii.

[2] Works of Henry Fielding, edited by Edmund Gosse. Introduction, p. xxix.

[3] The Works of Mr George Lillo, with some Account of his Life, T. Davies.



CHAPTER VI

BAR STUDENT. JOURNALIST

"the ... Covetous, the Prodigal, the Ambitious, the Voluptuous, the Bully, the Vain, the Hypocrite, the Flatterer, the Slanderer, call aloud for the Champion's Vengeance." —The Champion, Dec. 22, 1739.

There is no record of when or how Fielding disposed of his share in the management of the New Theatre in the Haymarket. But on June 21 1737, Walpole's Bill for regulating the stage received, as we have seen, the royal assent; and there can be no doubt that Sir Robert would at once apply his newly acquired powers to removing the dances of the fiddler, Mr Quiddam, and the drunken consolations of Mr Pillage, from the Haymarket boards, if indeed these gentlemen had not anticipated events by already removing themselves. We may safely assume that Henry Fielding's career as political dramatist came to an abrupt conclusion some time in the summer of 1737. [1]

It remains a matter for speculation why, after seven years spent in producing a stream of not unsuccessful social comedies and farces, leading up to a final and brilliant success in the field of political satiric drama, Fielding should have thrown up the stage as a whole, when suddenly debarred from those party onslaughts which had occupied but a fraction of his dramatic energies. The cause was not any lack of popularity. "The farces written by Mr Fielding," wrote Murphy in 1762, "were almost all of them very successful, and many of them are still acted every winter, with a continuance of approbation." And it is obvious that the fashionable vices and follies of the time afforded ample inducement to a satiric dramatist to continue 'laying about him,' even when Ministerial offences had been rendered inviolate by Act of Parliament. Neither was Fielding's sanguine temperament likely to be daunted by the single failure of his farce Eurydice, which had been damned at Drury Lane on February 19 of this same year: "disagreeable impressions," Murphy tells us, "never continued long upon his mind." The most satisfactory solution of the matter seems to be that now, in the approaching maturity of his powers, the 'Father of the English Novel' was becoming conscious that the true field for his genius lay in a hitherto unattempted form of imaginative narration, and not within the five acts of comedy or farce. The entirely original conceptions of a Joseph Andrews and a Jonathan Wild may already have begun to captivate the vigorous energies of his mind. We have his own word for assigning "some years" to the writing of Tom Jones; it is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the conception of the first English "Comic Epic Poem in Prose" may date as far back as the summer of 1737.

Leaving surmise for fact, it is certain that this year marks the dividing line in Fielding's life.

Henceforth he ceases to be the witty, facile, popular dramatist; and he enters slowly on his birthright as the first in time, if not in genius, of English novelists. To this complete severance from the theatre belongs his own remark that "he left off writing for the stage when he ought to have begun." Arrived at a late maturity, and with accumulated stores of observation and insight,—"he saw the latent sources of human action," says Murphy—his genius happily turned into a channel carved, with splendid originality, for itself alone. After nine years of servitude to the limitations of dramatic construction, limitations he was wont to relieve, as his friend James Harris tells us, by "pleasantly though perhaps rather freely" damning the man who invented fifth acts, Fielding was now soon to discover his freedom in the spacious, hitherto unadventured, regions of prose fiction. But genius, especially genius with wife and child to support, cannot maintain life on inspiration alone; and, accordingly, the ex-dramatist now flung himself, with characteristic impetuosity and courage, into a struggle for independence at the Bar, perhaps the most arduous profession, under all the circumstances, that he could have chosen. For a reputation as the writer of eighteen comedies, and as the reckless political dramatist whose boisterous energies had set the town ringing with Pasquin and the Register, the fame in short of being the successful manager of The Great Mogul's Company of Comedians, was surely the last reputation in the world to bring a man briefs from cautious attorneys. And, with whatever hopes of political patronage, any temperament less buoyant might well have hesitated to embark on reading for the Bar at the age of thirty. But "by dificulties," says his earliest biographer, "his resolution was never subdued; on the contrary they only roused him to struggle through them with a peculiar spirit and magnanimity." So, within six months of the closing down of his little theatre under Walpole's irate hand, Fielding had formally entered himself as a student at the Middle Temple.

The entry in the books of that society runs as follows:—

[574 G] 1 Nov'ris. 1737.

_Henricus Fielding, de East Stour in Com Dorset Ar, filius et haeres apparens Brig: Gen'lis: Edmundi Fielding admissus est in Societatem Medii Templi Lond specialiter at obligatur una cum &c.

Et dat pro fine_ 4. 0. 0.

Of the ensuing two and a half years of student life in the Temple we know practically nothing, beyond one vivacious picture of Harry Fielding's attack upon the law. "His application while a student in the Temple," writes Murphy, "was remarkably intense; and though it happened that the early taste he had taken of pleasure would occasionally return upon him, and conspire with his spirits and vivacity to carry him into the wild enjoyments of the town, yet it was particular in him that amidst all his dispositions nothing could suppress the thirst he had for knowledge, and the delight he felt in reading; and this prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has been frequently known by his intimates, to retire late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read and make extracts from the most abstruse authors, for several hours before he went to bed; so powerful were the vigour of his constitution and the activity of his mind."

One of the few pages of Fielding's autograph that have come down to us is presumably a relic of these student days. In the catalogue of the Morrison Manuscripts occurs this description of two undated pages in his hand: "List of offences against the King and his state immediately, which the Law terms High Treason. Offences against him in a general light as touching the Commonwealth at large, as Trade etc. Offences against him as supreme Magistrate etc." Were ever genius and wit more straitly or more honourably shackled than that of Henry Fielding, gallantly accepting such toil as this, toil moreover that must have weighed with double weight on a man who had spent nine years in the company of those charming if 'fickle jades' the Muses.

All efforts have failed to trace where Fielding and his wife and child (or children—the date of the birth of his daughter Harriet is not known) lived during these laborious months; but that money was needed in the summer following his entry at the Middle Temple may be inferred from the sale of the property at Stour. According to the legal note of this transaction, [2] "Henry ffeilding and Charlotte his wife" conveyed, in the Trinity Term of 1738, to one Thomas Hayter, for the sum of L260, "two messuages, two dove-houses, three gardens, three orchards, fifty acres of Land, eighty acres of meadow, one hundred and forty acres of pasture, ten acres of wood and common and pasture for all manner of cattle with the appurtenances in East Stour." It does not need a very active imagination to realise the keen regret with which Fielding must have parted with his gardens and orchards, his pastures, woods and commons. Sixty years ago the barn and one of the "dove-houses" had been but recently pulled down; and to this day the estate is still known as "Fielding's Farm." [3]

It has been stated, on what authority does not appear, that, after leaving Stour, Fielding went to Salisbury, and there bought a house, his solicitor being a Mr John Perm Tinney. Whatever be the fact as to the Salisbury residence, it is certain that a full year after the sale of the Dorsetshire property the Temple student was by no means at the end of his resources. For in the following letter [4] to Mr Nourse, the bookseller, dated July 1739, we find him requiring a London house at a rent of forty pounds and with a large "eating Parlour."

"Mr Nourse,

Disappointments have hitherto prevented my paying y'r Bill, which, I shall certainly do on my coming to Town which will be next Month. I desire the favour of y'u to look for a House for me near the Temple. I must have one large eating Parlour in it for the rest shall not be very nice.

Rent not upwards of L40 p. an: and as much cheaper as may be. I will take a Lease for Seven years. Yr Answer to this within a fortnight will much oblige.

Y'r Humble Serv't

Henry Ffielding.

I have got Cro: Eliz. [5]

"July 9th 1739."

This note, written a year before Fielding's call to the Bar, suggests that his early married life was by no means spent in the "wretched garrett" of Lady Louisa Stuart's celebrated reminiscence.

In the September following the sale of his Dorsetshire estate Fielding had to regret the death of George Lillo, to whose success he had devoted so much personal care and energy, when staging Lillo's tragedy Fatal Curiosity on the boards of the little theatre in the Haymarket. The close relationship in intellectual sympathy between Lillo's talent and the genius of Fielding has already been noticed. But apart from this intellectual sympathy, the personal worth and charm of the good tradesman is noteworthy, as affording striking proof of the quality of man chosen by the 'wild Harry Fielding' for regard and friendship. And it should be remembered that in those days to bridge the social gulf between the kinsman of the Earl of Denbigh and a working jeweller, required courage as well as insight. Some time after Lillo's death a generous memorial notice of him appeared in Fielding's paper the Champion. The writer detects in his work "an Heart capable of exquisitely Feeling and Painting human Distresses, but of causing none"; and declares that his title to be called the best tragic poet of his age, "was the least of his Praise, he had the gentlest and honestest Manners, and, at the same Time, the most friendly and obliging. He had a perfect Knowledge of Human Nature, though his Contempt of all base Means of Application, which are the necessary Steps to great Acquaintance, restrained his Conversation within very narrow Bounds: He had the Spirit of an old Roman, joined to the Innocence of a primitive Christian; he was content with his little State of Life, in which his excellent Temper of Mind gave him an Happiness, beyond the Power of Riches, and it was necessary for his Friends to have a sharp Insight into his Want of their Services, as well as good Inclinations or Abilities to serve him. In short he was one of the best of Men, and those who knew him best will most regret his Loss." [6] In the excellent company of Henry Fielding's friends George Lillo may surely take his stand beside the 'good Lord Lyttelton,' the munificent and pious Allen, and not far from 'Parson Adams' himself.

No record has survived of Fielding's share in the political struggles of his party, during his first two years of "intense application" to the law. Walpole's power had been sensibly lessened by the death of the Queen, and he was losing the support of the country and even of the trading classes. The Prince of Wales, now openly hostile to the "great man," was the titular head of an Opposition numbering almost all the men of wit and genius in the kingdom. Lyttelton, Fielding's warmest friend, had become secretary to the Prince, and was recognised as a fluent leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. Another friend, John Duke of Argyll, had joined the ranks of the Opposition in the Lords. On the whole the author of Pasquin, may well have hoped for a speedy fall of the "Colossos," with "its Brains of Lead, its Face of Brass, its Hands of Iron, its Heart of Adamant," and the accession to power of a party not without obligations to the fearless manager of the little theatre in the Haymarket. During these years the Opposition, even though supported by Pope and Chesterfield, Thomson and Bolingbroke, could scarcely fail to utilise the trenchant scorn, the whole-hearted vigour, the boisterous humour, of Fielding's genius; and Murphy, speaking vaguely of Fielding's legal years, says that a "large number of fugitive political tracts, which had their value when the incidents were actually passing on the great scene of business, came from his pen." It is not however till November 1739, two years and a half after the pillorying of Walpole on the Haymarket boards, that Fielding is again clearly seen, 'laying about' him, in those clamourous eighteenth-century politics.

His choice of a new weapon of attack is foreshadowed in the noble concluding words of the Introduction to the Historical Register; words written on the very eve of the Ministerial Bill gagging that and all other political plays: "If nature hath given me any talents at ridiculing vice and imposture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them, while the liberty of the press and stage subsists, that is to say while we have any liberty left among us." A few weeks after these words were published the liberty of the stage was triumphantly stifled by Walpole's Licensing Bill. But even "old Bob" himself dared not lay his hand on the liberty of the British Press; and so we find Mr Pasquin reappearing under the guise, or in the company, of the Champion and Censor of Great Britain, otherwise one Captain Hercules Vinegar, a truculent avenger of wrong and exponent of virtue, in whose fictitious name a political, literary, and didactic newspaper entered the field of party politics on November 15, 1739. The paper, under the title of the Champion, was issued three times a week, and consisted of one leading article, an anti-Ministerial summary of news, and literary notices of new books. The first number announced that the author and owner was the said Captain Hercules Vinegar, and that the Captain would be aided in various departments by members of his family. Thus the Captain's wife, Mrs Joan Vinegar, a matron of a very loquacious temper, was to undertake the ladies' column, and his son Jack was to have "an Eye over the gay Part of the Town." The criticism was to be conducted by Mr Nol Vinegar who was reported to have spent one whole year in examining the use of a single word in Horace. And the politics were to be dealt forth by the Captain's father, a gentleman intimately versed in kingdoms, potentates and Ministers, and of so close a disposition that he "seldom opens his Mouth, unless it be to take in his Food, or puff out the Smoke of his Tobacco."

The paper bore no signed articles; but judging from an attack levelled against it in a pamphlet of the following year, [7] Fielding and his former not very worshipful partner in the Haymarket management, James Ralph, were the reputed "authors," Ralph being in a subordinate position. Thus, it is stated that Ralph, "is now say'd to be the 'Squire of the British CHAMPION"; the writer identifies Captain Vinegar and the author of Pasquin as one and the same person; he describes Pasquin and Ralph as the "Authors of the Champion"; he asserts that the old Roman statues of Pasquin and Marfario, "are now dignified and distinguished (by The CHAMPION and his doughty Squire RALPH), under the Names [sic] of Captain Hercules Vinegar."; he prints an address to the "Self-dubb'd Captain Hercules Vinegar," and his "Man Ralph"; and appends some doggerel verse entitled "Vinegar and his gang." But from all this nothing definite emerges as to the precise part taken by Fielding in the authorship of the Champion. The pamphleteer accredits a fragment of a paper signed C. to the Captain, and attributes two papers, [8] signed C. and L., to "Mr Pasquin"—i.e. Fielding; and as the reprint of the Champion, which appeared in 1741, announces that all papers so signed are the "Work of one Hand," there is so much external proof that all such pages in these volumes (numbering some sixty essays) are by Fielding. Dr Nathan Drake, writing in 1809, more than sixty years after the appearance of the paper, asserts, without stating his reasons, that the numbers marked "C." and "L." "were the work of Fielding." This view is further supported by the opinion of Mr Austin Dobson, that many of the papers signed C. "are unmistakably Fielding's."

On the other hand Murphy, writing only twenty-two years after the appearance of the paper, but often with gross inaccuracy, states that the Champion "owed its chief support to his [Fielding's] abilities," but that "his essays in that collection cannot now be so ascertained as to perpetuate them in this edition of his works." Boswell refers to Fielding as possessing a "share" in the paper. A manuscript copy of some of the Minutes of meetings of the Champion partners, written out in an eighteenth-century handwriting, and now in the possession of the present writer, confirms Boswell's note, in as far as an entry therein records that "Henry Fielding Esq. did originally possess Two Sixteenth Shares of the Champion as a Writer in the said paper." One of the lists of the partners of the Champion which occur in the same manuscript, is headed by the name of "Mr Fielding." Finally, a contemporary satirical print shows Fielding with his "length of nose and chin" and his tall figure, acting as standard-bearer of the Champion; the paper being represented in its political capacity of a leading Opposition organ. There is, moreover, the internal evidence of style and sentiment. Thus the matter rests; and although it is exceedingly tempting to use the Champion for inferences as to the manner in which Fielding approached his new craft of journalism, and as to his attitude on the many subjects, theological, social, political and personal, handled in these essays, the evidence seems hardly sufficient to warrant such deductions. It does, however, seem clear, taking as evidence the shilling pamphlet already mentioned,[9] that Harry Fielding, the intrepid and audacious Mr Pasquin of 1736-7 reappeared, laying about him with his ever ready cudgel now raised to the dignity of a miraculous Hercules club, as the Champion of 1739-41. To all lovers of good cudgelling, whether laid on the shoulders of the incorrigible old cynic Sir Robert, or on those of the egregious Colley Cibber, or falling on the follies and abuses of the day, the "Pasquinades and Vinegarades" of Captain Hercules Vinegar, and his "doughty Squire Ralph," may be commended. And no fault can be found with the Captain's declaration, when establishing a Court of Judicature for the trial and punishment of sundry offenders in his pages, that "whatever is wicked, hateful, absurd, or ridiculous, must be exposed and punished, before this Nation is brought to that Height of Purity and good Manners to which I wish to see it exalted." [10]

One personal sketch of Fielding himself deserves quotation, whether drawn by his own hand or that of another. The Champion for May 24, 1740, contains a vision of the Infernal Regions, where Charon, the ghostly boatman, is busy ferrying souls across the River Styx. The ferryman bids his attendant Mercury see that all his passengers embark carrying nothing with them; and the narrator describes how, after various Shades had qualified for their passage, "A tall Man came next, who stripp'd off an old Grey Coat with great Readiness, but as he was stepping into the Boat, Mercury demanded half his Chin, which he utterly refused to comply with, insisting on it that it was all his own." Fielding's length of chin and nose was well known; and not less familiar, doubtless, was the 'old Grey Coat,' among the purlieus of the Temple.

The beginning of the year 1740, when the lusty Champion and his cudgel were well established, and Captain Hercules' private legal studies were drawing to a close, was marked by a fresh outburst of the old feud with Colley Cibber. Cibber, already notorious as actor, dramatist, manager, the Poet Laureat of "preposterous Odes," and the 'poetical Tailor' who would even cut down Shakespeare himself, now appeared in the character of historian and biographer, publishing early in 1740 the famous Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber, Comedian, and late Patentee of the Theatre Royal. With an Historical View of the Stage during his Own Time.

Cibber, soon to be scornfully chosen by Pope as dunce-hero of the Dunciad, had, for the past six years, been pilloried by Fielding; and, not unmindful of these onslaughts, he inserted in his new work a virulent attack on the late manager of the New Theatre in the Haymarket. The tenor of Pasquin was here grossly misrepresented. Fielding was described as being, at the time of entering on his management, "a Broken Wit"; he was accused of using the basest dramatic means of profit, since "he was in haste to get money"; and the final insult was added by Cibber's stroke of referring to his enemy anonymously, as one whom "I do not chuse to name."

Looking back across two centuries on to the supreme figures of Pope and Fielding, it is matter for some wonder that these giants of the intellect should have greatly troubled to annihilate a Colley Cibber. A finer villain, it seems to us, might have been chosen by Pope for the six hundred lines of his Dunciad a worthier target might have drawn the arrows of Fielding's Champion. But Cibber possessed at least the art of arousing notable enmities; and the four slashing papers in which the Champion [11] promptly parried the scurrilities of the Apology still make pretty reading for those who are curious in the annals of literary warfare. It is noteworthy that these Champion retorts are honourably free from the personalities of an age incredibly gross in the use of personal invective. Fielding's journal, even under the stinging provocation of the insults of the Apology, was still true to the standard set in the Prologue of his first boyish play

'No private character these scenes expose.'

It is Cibber's ignorance of grammar, his murder of the English tongue, his inflated literary conceit, rather than his 'private character' that are here exposed.

Some time during the latter half of 1740 the whole feud between Cibber, Pope, Fielding and Ralph was reprinted in the shilling pamphlet, already referred to, entitled The Tryal of Colley Cibber. The collection concludes as follows:

"ADVERTISEMENT

"If the Ingenious Henry Fielding Esq.; (Son of the Hon. Lieut. General Fielding, who upon his Return from his Travels entered Himself of the Temple in order to study the Law, and married one of the pretty Miss Cradocks of Salisbury) will own himself the AUTHOR of 18 strange Things called Tragical Comedies and Comical Tragedies, lately advertised by J. Watts, of Wild-Court, Printer, he shall be mentioned in Capitals in the Third edition of Mr CIBBER'S Life, and likewise be placed among the Poetae minores Dramatici of the Present Age; then will both his Name and Writings be remembered on Record in the immortal Poetical Register written by Mr Giles Jacob."

The whole production affords a lively example of the full-blooded pamphleteering of 1740; and throws valuable light on Fielding's repute as the Champion.

As regards Ralph's collaboration with Fielding at this period (a collaboration further affirmed by Dr Nathan Drake's assertion, written in 1809, that James Ralph was Fielding's chief coadjutor in that paper) it may be recalled that ten years previously this not very reputable American had provided a prologue for Fielding's early play, the Temple Beau; and that he appears again as Fielding's partner in the management of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. Gradually relinquishing his theatrical ambitions, Ralph appears to have turned his talents to political journalism, and according to Tom Davies was becoming formidable as a party writer for the Opposition in these last years of Walpole's administration. Boswell tells us that Ralph ultimately succeeded Fielding in his share of the Champion; [12] but we have no definite knowledge of what precise part was taken by him in the earlier numbers. No continued trace occurs of his collaboration with Fielding; and indeed it is difficult to conceive any permanent alliance between Fielding's manly, independent, and generous nature, and the sordid and selfish character, and mediocre talents of James Ralph.

[1] The fullest newspaper for theatrical notices at this date, preserved in the British Museum, the London Daily Post, is unfortunately missing for this year.

[2] Now first printed, from documents at the Record Office.

[3] A table inscribed by a former owner as having belonged to Henry Fielding, Esq., novelist, is now in the possession of the Somersetshire Archaeological Society. The inscription adds that Fielding "hunted from East Stour Farm in 1718." He would then be eleven years old!

[4] From the hitherto unpublished original, in the library of Alfred Huth, Esq.

[5] "Cro: Eliz." is the legal abbreviation for Justice Croke's law reports for the reign of Elizabeth.

[6] Champion, February 26, 1740.

[7] The Tryal of Colley Cibber, Comedian etc. 1740.

[8] Those of April 22, and April 29, 1740.

[9] And see Daily Gazeteer, Oct. 9, 1740.

[10] Champion, December 22, 1739.

[11] For April 22, April 29, May 6, and May 17.

[12] Boswell's Johnson, edited by Birkbeck Hill. Vol. i. p. 169. n. 2: "Ralph ... as appears from the minutes of the partners of the Champion in the possession of Mr Reed of Staple Inn, succeeded Fielding in his share of the paper before the date of that eulogium [1744]."



CHAPTER VII

"COUNSELLOR FIELDING"

"Wit is generally observed to love to reside in empty pockets." Joseph Andrews.

The last retort on Colley Cibber had scarcely been launched from the columns of the Champion, when that intrepid 'Censor of Great Britain' and indefatigable law student, Captain Hercules Vinegar, attained the full dignities of a barrister of the Middle Temple. On June 20, 1740, Fielding was called to the Bar; and on the same day the Benchers of his Inn assigned to him chambers at No. 4 Pump Court, "up three pair of stairs." This assignment, according to the wording of the Temple records, was "for the term of his natural life." These chambers may still be seen, with their low ceilings and panelled walls, very much to all appearance as when tenanted by Harry Fielding. The windows of the sitting-room and bedroom look out on to the beautiful old buildings of Brick Court, and from the head of the staircase one looks across to the stately gilded sundial of Pump Court, old even in Fielding's day, with its warning motto:

"Shadows we are and like shadows depart."

Here, in these lofty chambers, up their "three pair" of worn and narrow stairs, Fielding donned his barrister's gown, and waited for briefs; and, possessing as he did an imagination "fond of seizing every gay prospect," and natural spirits that gave him, as his cousin Lady Mary tells us, cheerfulness in a garret, this summer of 1740 must have been full of sanguine hopes. He was now thirty-three, and his splendid physique had not yet become shattered by gout. He had gained, Murphy observes, no inconsiderable reputation by the Champion; his position as a brilliant political playwright had been long ago assured by Pasquin; the party to whose patriotic interests he had devoted so much energy and wit was now rapidly approaching power; and two years of eager application had equipped him with 'no incompetent share of learning' for a profession in which, we are told, he aspired to eminence. The swift disappointment of these brave hopes, the fast coming years of sickness, distress, and grief endow the old chambers with something of tragedy; but in June, 1740, the shadows were still but a sententious word on the dial.

There is practically no surviving record of Fielding's activity as a barrister. From Murphy we learn that his pursuit of the law was hampered by want of means; and that, moreover, even his indomitable energies were soon often forced to yield to disabling attacks of illness. So long as his health permitted him he "attended with punctual assiduity" on the Western circuit, and in term time at Westminster Hall. But gout rapidly "began to make such assaults upon him as rendered it impossible for him to be as constant at the bar as the laboriousness of his profession required," and he could only follow the law in intervals of health. Under such "severities of pain and want" he yet made efforts for success; and the tribute rendered by his first biographer to the courage of those efforts deserves quotation in full: "It will serve to give us an idea of the great force of his mind, if we consider him pursuing so arduous a study under the exigencies of family distress, with a wife and children, whom he tenderly loved, looking up to him for subsistence, with a body lacerated by the acutest pains, and with a mind distracted by a thousand avocations and obliged for immediate supply to produce almost extempore a farce, a pamphlet, or a newspaper." Murphy's careless pen seems here to confuse the student years with those of assiduous effort at the Bar; and the extempore farces are, judging by the dates of Fielding's collected plays, no more than a rhetorical flourish: but there seems no reason to doubt the essential truth of this picture of the vigorous struggles of the sanguine, witty, and not unlearned barrister, ambitious of distinction, and always sensitively anxious as to the maintenance of his wife and children. We may see him attending the Western circuit in March and again in August, riding from Winchester to Salisbury, thence to Dorchester and Exeter, and on to Launceston, Taunton, Bodmin, Wells or Bristol as the case might be; constant in his appearance at Westminster; and supplementing his briefs by political pamphlets written in the service of an Opposition supported by the intellect and integrity of the day.