Fielding Part 3

Concerning the lady, the particulars are more precise. She was a Miss Charlotte Cradock, one of three sisters living upon their own means at Salisbury, or--as it was then styled--New Sarum. Mr. Keightley's personal inquiries, _circa_ 1858, elicited the information that the family, now extinct, was highly respectable, but not of New Sarum's best society. Richardson, in one of his malevolent outbursts, a.s.serted that the sisters were illegitimate; but, says the writer above referred to, "of this circ.u.mstance we have no other proof, and I am able to add that the tradition of Salisbury knows nothing of it."

They were, however, celebrated for their personal attractions; and if the picture given in chap. ii. book iv. of _Tom Jones_ accurately represents the first Mrs. Fielding, she must have been a most charming brunette. Something of the stereotyped characteristics of a novelist's heroine obviously enter into the description; but the luxuriant black hair, which, cut "to comply with the modern Fas.h.i.+on," "curled so gracefully in her Neck," the l.u.s.trous eyes, the dimple in the right cheek, the chin rather full than small, and the complexion having "more of the Lilly than of the Rose," but flus.h.i.+ng with exercise or modesty, are, doubtless, accurately set down. In speaking of the nose as "exactly regular," Fielding appears to have deviated slightly from the truth; for we learn from Lady Louisa Stuart that, in this respect, Miss Cradock's appearance had "suffered a little" from an accident mentioned in book ii. of _Amelia_, the overturning of a chaise. Whether she also possessed the mental qualities and accomplishments which fell to the lot of Sophia Western, we have no means of determining; but Lady Stuart is again our authority for saying that she was as amiable as she was handsome.

From the love-poems in the first volume of the _Miscellanies_ of 1743-- poems which their author declares to have been "Productions of the Heart rather than of the Head"--it is clear that Fielding had been attached to his future wife for several years previous to 1735. One of them, _Advice to the Nymphs of New S----m_, celebrates the charms of Celia--the poetical equivalent for Charlotte--as early as 1730; another, containing a reference to the player Anthony Boheme, who died in 1731, was probably written at the same time; while a third, in which, upon the special intervention of Jove himself, the prize of beauty is decreed by Venus to the Salisbury sisters, may be of an earlier date than any. The year 1730 was the year of his third piece, the _Author's Farce_, and he must therefore have been paying his addresses to Miss Cradock not very long after his arrival in London. This is a fact to be borne in mind. So early an attachment to a good and beautiful girl, living no farther off than Salisbury, where his own father probably resided, is scarcely consistent with the reckless dissipation which has been laid to his charge, although, on his own showing, he was by no means faultless. But it is a part of natures like his to exaggerate their errors in the moment of repentance; and it may well be that Henry Fielding, too, was not so black as he painted himself. Of his love-verses he says--"this Branch of Writing is what I very little pretend to;" and it would be misleading to rate them highly, for, unlike his literary descendant, Mr.

Thackeray, he never attained to any special quality of note. But some of his octosyllabics, if they cannot be called equal to Prior's, fall little below Swift's. "I hate"--cries he in one of the pieces,

"I hate the Town, and all its Ways; Ridotto's, Opera's, and Plays; The Ball, the King, the Mall, the Court; Wherever the Beau-Monde resort....

All Coffee-Houses, and their Praters; All Courts of Justice, and Debaters; All Taverns, and the Sots within 'em; All Bubbles, and the Rogues that skin 'em,"

--and so forth, the natural anti-climax being that he loves nothing but his "Charmer" at Salisbury. In another, which is headed _To Celia-- Occasioned by her apprehending her House would be broke open, and having an old Fellow to guard it, who sat up all Night, with a Gun without any Ammunition_, and from which it has been concluded that the Miss Cradocks were their own landlords, Venus chides Cupid for neglecting to guard her favourite:--

"'Come tell me, Urchin, tell no lies; Where was you hid, in _Vince's_ eyes?

Did you fair _Bennet's_ Breast importune?

(I know you dearly love a Fortune.)'

Poor _Cupid_ now began to whine; 'Mamma, it was no Fault of mine.

I in a Dimple lay _perdue_, That little Guard-Room chose by you.

A hundred Loves (all arm'd) did grace The Beauties of her Neck and Face; Thence, by a Sigh I dispossest, Was blown to _Harry Fielding's_ Breast; Where I was forc'd all Night to stay, Because I could not find my Way.

But did Mamma know there what Work I've made, how acted like a Turk; What Pains, what Torment he endures, Which no Physician ever cures, She would forgive.' The G.o.ddess smil'd, And gently chuck'd her wicked Child, Bid him go back, and take more Care, And give her Service to the Fair."

Swift, in his _Rhapsody on Poetry_, 1733, coupled Fielding with Leonard Welsted as an instance of sinking in verse. But the foregoing, which he could not have seen, is scarcely, if at all, inferior to his own _Birthday Poems to Stella_. [Footnote: Swift afterwards subst.i.tuted "the laureate [Cibber]" for "Fielding," and appears to have changed his mind as to the latter's merits. "I can a.s.sure Mr. _Fielding_," says Mrs.

Pilkington in the third and last volume of her _Memoirs_ (1754), "the Dean had a high opinion of his Wit, which must be a Pleasure to him, as no Man was ever better qualified to judge, possessing it so eminently himself."]

The history of Fielding's marriage rests so exclusively upon the statements of Arthur Murphy that it will be well to quote his words in full:--

"Mr. Fielding had not been long a writer for the stage, when he married Miss Craddock [_sic_], a beauty from Salisbury. About that time, his mother dying, a moderate estate, at Stower in Dorsets.h.i.+re, devolved to him. To that place he retired with his wife, on whom he doated, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and 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 enc.u.mbered himself with a large retinue of servants, all clad in costly yellow liveries. For their master's honour, these people could not descend so low as to be careful in their apparel, but, in a month or two, were unfit to be seen; the 'squire's 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, which, had it been managed with oeconomy, might have secured to him a state of independence for the rest of his life, etc."

This pa.s.sage, which has played a conspicuous part in all biographies of Fielding, was very carefully sifted by Mr. Keightley, who came to the conclusion that it was a "mere tissue of error and inconsistency."

[Footnote: Some of Mr. Keightley's criticisms were antic.i.p.ated by Watson.] Without going to this length, we must admit that it is manifestly incorrect in many respects. If Fielding married in 1735 (though, as already pointed out, he may have married earlier, and retired to the country upon the failure of the _Universal Gallant_), he is certainly inaccurately described as "not having been long a _writer_ for the stage," since writing for the stage had been his chief occupation for seven years. Then again his mother had died as far back as April 10, 1718, when he was a boy of eleven; and if he had inherited anything from her, he had probably been in the enjoyment of it ever since he came of age. Furthermore, the statement as to "three years" is at variance with the fact that, according to the dedication to the _Universal Gallant_, he was still in London in February 1735, and was back again managing the Haymarket in the first months of 1736. Murphy, however, may only mean that the "estate" at East Stour was in his possession for three years. Mr. Keightley's other points--namely, that the "tolerably respectable farm-house," in which he is supposed to have lived, was scarcely adapted to "splendid entertainments," or "a large retinue of servants;" and that, to be in strict accordance with the family arms, the liveries should have been not "yellow," but white and blue--must be taken for what they are worth. On the whole, the probability is, that Murphy's words were only the careless repet.i.tion of local t.i.ttle-tattle, of much of which, as Captain Booth says pertinently in _Amelia_, "the only basis is lying." The squires of the neighbourhood would naturally regard the das.h.i.+ng young gentleman from London with the same distrustful hostility that Addison's "Tory Foxhunter" exhibited to those who differed with him in politics. It would be remembered, besides, that the new-comer was the son of another and an earlier Fielding of less pretensions, and no real cordiality could ever have existed between them. Indeed, it may be a.s.sumed that this was the case, for Booth's account of the opposition and ridicule which he--"a poor renter!"--encountered when he enlarged his farm and set up his coach has a distinct personal accent. That he was lavish, and lived beyond his means, is quite in accordance with his character. The man who, as a Bow Street magistrate, kept open house on a pittance, was not likely to be less lavish as a country gentleman, with L1500 in his pocket, and newly married to a young and handsome wife. "He would have wanted money," said Lady Mary, "if his hereditary lands had been as extensive as his imagination;" and there can be little doubt that the rafters of the old farm by the Stour, with the great locust tree at the back, which is figured in Hutchins's _History of Dorset_, rang often to hunting choruses, and that not seldom the "dusky Night rode down the Sky" over the prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests. [Footnote: An interesting relic of the East Stour residence has recently been presented by Mr. Merthyr Guest (through Mr. R. A. Kinglake) to the Somersets.h.i.+re Archaeological Society. It is an oak table of solid proportions, and bears on a bra.s.s plate the following inscription, emanating from a former owner:--"This table belonged to Henry Fielding, Esq., novelist. He hunted from East Stour Farm, 1718, and in three years dissipated his fortune keeping hounds." In 1718, it may be observed, Fielding was a boy of eleven. Probably the whole of the latter sentence is nothing more than a distortion of Murphy.] But even L1500, and (in spite of Murphy) it is by no means clear that he had anything more, could scarcely last for ever. Whether his footmen wore yellow or not, a few brief months found him again in town. That he was able to rent a theatre may perhaps be accepted as proof that his profuse hospitalities had not completely exhausted his means.

The moment was a favourable one for a fresh theatrical experiment. The stage-world was split up into factions, the players were disorganised, and everything seemed in confusion. Whether Fielding himself conceived the idea of making capital out of this state of things, or whether it was suggested to him by some of the company who had acted _Don Quixote in England_, it is impossible to say. In the first months of 1736, however, he took the little French Theatre in the Haymarket, and opened it with a company which he christened the "Great Mogul's Company of Comedians," who were further described as "having dropped from the Clouds." The "Great Mogul" was a name sometimes given by playwrights to the elder Cibber; but there is no reason for supposing that any allusion to him was intended on this occasion. The company, with the exception of Macklin, who was playing at Drury Lane, consisted chiefly of the actors in _Don Quixote in England_; and the first piece was ent.i.tled _Pasquin: a Dramatick 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_. The form of this work, which belongs to the same cla.s.s as Sheridan's _Critic_ and Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, was probably determined by Fielding's past experience of the public taste. His latest comedy had failed, and its predecessors had not been very successful.

But his burlesques had met with a better reception, while the election episodes in _Don Quixote_ had seemed to disclose a fresh field for the satire of contemporary manners. And in the satire of contemporary manners he felt his strength lay. The success of _Pasquin_ proved he had not miscalculated, for it ran more than forty nights, drawing, if we may believe the unknown author of the life of Theophilus Cibber, numerous and enthusiastic audiences "from _Grosvenor, Cavendish, Hanover_, and all the other fas.h.i.+onable Squares, as also from _Pall Mall_, and the _Inns of Court_."

In regard to plot, the comedy which _Pasquin_ contains scarcely deserves the name. It consists of a string of loosely-connected scenes, which depict the shameless political corruption of the Walpole era with a good deal of boldness and humour. The sole difference between the "Court party," represented by two Candidates with the Bunyan-like names of Lord Place and Colonel Promise, and the "Country party," whose nominees are Sir Harry Fox-Chace and Squire Tankard, is that the former bribe openly, the latter indirectly. The Mayor, whose sympathies are with the "Country party" is finally induced by his wife to vote for and return the other side, although they are in a minority; and the play is concluded by the precipitate marriage of his daughter with Colonel Promise. Mr. Fustian, the Tragic Author, who, with Mr. Sneerwell the Critic, is one of the spectators of the rehearsal, demurs to the abruptness with which this ingenious catastrophe is brought about, and inquires where the preliminary action, of which there is not the slightest evidence in the piece itself, has taken place. Thereupon Trapwit, the Comic Author, replies as follows, in one of those pa.s.sages which show that, whatever Fielding's dramatic limitations may have been, he was at least a keen critic of stage practice:--

"_Trapwit._ Why, behind the Scenes, Sir. What, would you have every Thing brought upon the Stage? I intend to bring ours to the Dignity of the _French_ Stage; and I have _Horace's_ Advice of my Side; we have many Things both said and done in our Comedies, which might be better perform'd behind the Scenes: The _French_, you know, banish all Cruelty from their Stage; and I don't see why we should bring on a Lady in ours, practising all manner of Cruelty upon her Lover: beside, Sir, we do not only produce it, but encourage it; for I could name you some Comedies, if I would, where a Woman is brought in for four Acts together, behaving to a worthy Man in a Manner for which she almost deserves to be hang'd; and in the Fifth, forsooth, she is rewarded with him for a Husband: Now, Sir, as I know this. .h.i.ts some Tastes, and am willing to oblige all, I have given every Lady a Lat.i.tude of thinking mine has behaved in whatever Manner she would have her."

The part of Lord Place in the _Election_, after the first few nights, was taken by Cibber's daughter, the notorious Mrs. Charlotte Charke, whose extraordinary Memoirs are among the curiosities of eighteenth- century literature, and whose experiences were as varied as those of any character in fiction. She does not seem to have acted in the _Life and Death of Common-Sense_, the rehearsal of which followed that of the _Election_. This is a burlesque of the _Tom Thumb_ type, much of which is written in vigorous blank verse. Queen Common-Sense is conspired against by Firebrand, Priest of the Sun, by Law, and by Physic. Law is incensed because she has endeavoured to make his piebald jargon intelligible; Physic because she has preferred Water Gruel to all his drugs; and Firebrand because she would restrain the power of Priests.

Some of the strokes must have gone home to those receptive hearers who, as one contemporary account informs us, "were dull enough not only to think they contain'd Wit and Humour, but Truth also":--

"_Queen Common-Sense._ My Lord of _Law_, I sent for you this Morning;

I have a strange Pet.i.tion given to me; Two Men, it seems, have lately been at Law For an Estate, which both of them have lost, And their Attorneys now divide between them.

_Law._ Madam, these things will happen in the Law.

_Q. C. S._ Will they, my Lord? then better we had none: But I have also heard a sweet Bird sing, That Men, unable to discharge their Debts At a short Warning, being sued for them, Have, with both Power and Will their Debts to pay Lain all their Lives in Prison for their Costs.

_Law._ That may perhaps be some poor Person's Case, Too mean to entertain your Royal Ear.

_Q. C. S._ My Lord, while I am Queen I shall not think One Man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd; Moreover, Lord, I am inform'd your Laws Are grown so large, and daily yet encrease, That the great Age of old _Methusalem_ Would scarce suffice to read your Statutes out."

There is also much more than merely transitory satire in the speech of "Firebrand" to the Queen:--

"_Firebrand._ Ha! do you doubt it? nay, if you doubt that, I will prove nothing--But my zeal inspires me, And I will tell you, Madam, you yourself Are a most deadly Enemy to the Sun, And all his Priests have greatest Cause to wish You had been never born.

_Q. C. S._ Ha! say'st thou, Priest?

Then know I honour and adore the Sun!

And when I see his Light, and feel his Warmth, I glow with naming Grat.i.tude toward him; But know, I never will adore a Priest, Who wears Pride's Face beneath Religion's Mask.

And makes a Pick-Lock of his Piety, To steal away the Liberty of Mankind.

But while I live, I'll never give thee Power.

_Firebrand._ Madam, our Power is not deriv'd from you, Nor any one: 'Twas sent us in a Box From the great Sun himself, and Carriage paid; _Phaeton_ brought it when he overturn'd The Chariot of the Sun into the Sea.

_Q. C. S._ Shew me the Instrument, and let me read it.

_Fireb._ Madam, you cannot read it, for being thrown Into the Sea, the Water has so damag'd it, That none but Priests could ever read it since."

In the end, Firebrand stabs Common-Sense, but her Ghost frightens Ignorance off the Stage, upon which Sneerwell says--"I am glad you make _Common-Sense_ get the better at last; I was under terrible Apprehensions for your Moral." "Faith, Sir," says Fustian, "this is almost the only Play where she has got the better lately." And so the piece closes. But it would be wrong to quit it without some reference to the numberless little touches by which, throughout the whole, the humours of dramatic life behind the scenes are ironically depicted. The Comic Poet is arrested on his way from "_King's Coffee-House,_" and the claim being "for upwards of Four Pound," it is at first supposed that "he will hardly get Bail." He is subsequently inquired after by a Gentlewoman in a Riding-Hood, whom he pa.s.ses off as a Lady of Quality, but who, in reality, is bringing him a clean s.h.i.+rt. There are difficulties with one of the Ghosts, who has a "Church-yard Cough," and "is so Lame he can hardly walk the Stage;" while another comes to rehearsal without being properly floured, because the stage barber has gone to Drury Lane "to shave the Sultan in the New Entertainment." On the other hand, the Ghost of Queen Common-Sense appears before she is killed, and is with some difficulty persuaded that her action is premature. Part of "the Mob" play truant to see a show in the park; Law, straying without the playhouse pa.s.sage is snapped up by a Lord Chief- Justice's Warrant; and a Jew carries off one of the Maids of Honour.

These little incidents, together with the unblus.h.i.+ng realism of the Pots of Porter that are made to do duty for wine, and the extra two-penny worth of Lightning that is ordered against the first night, are all in the spirit of that inimitable picture of the _Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn_, which Hogarth gave to the world two years later, and which, very possibly, may have borrowed some of its inspiration from Fielding's "dramatic satire."

There is every reason to suppose that the profits of _Pasquin_ were far greater than those of any of its author's previous efforts. In a rare contemporary caricature, preserved in the British Museum, [Footnote: Political and Personal Satires, No. 2287.] the "Queen of Common-Sense"

is shown presenting "Henry Fielding, Esq.," with a well-filled purse, while to "Harlequin" (John Rich of Covent Garden) she extends a halter; and in some doggerel lines underneath, reference is made to the "show'rs of Gold" resulting from the piece. This, of course, might be no more than a poetical fiction; but Fielding himself attests the pecuniary success of _Pasquin_ in the Dedication to _Tumble-Down d.i.c.k_, and Mrs.

Charke's statement in her Memoirs that her salary for acting the small part of Lord Place was four guineas a week, "with an Indulgence in Point of Charges at her Benefit" by which she cleared sixty guineas, certainly points to a prosperous exchequer. Fielding's own benefit, as appears from the curious ticket attributed to Hogarth and facsimiled by A. M.

Ireland, took place on April 25, but we have no record of the amount of his gains. Mrs. Charke farther says that "soon after _Pasquin_ began to droop," Fielding produced Lillo's _Fatal Curiosity_ in which she acted Agnes. This tragedy, founded on a Cornish story, is one of remarkable power and pa.s.sion; but upon its first appearance it made little impression, although in the succeeding year it was acted to greater advantage in combination with another satirical medley by Fielding, the _Historical Register for the Year_ 1736.

Like most sequels, the _Historical Register_ had neither the vogue nor the wit of its predecessor. It was only half as long, and it was even more disconnected in character. "Harmonious Cibber," as Swift calls him, whose "preposterous Odes" had already been ridiculed in _Pasquin_ and the _Author's Farce_, was once more brought on the stage as Ground-Ivy, for his alterations of Shakespeare; and under the name of Pistol, Theophilus Cibber is made to refer to the contention between his second wife, Arne's sister, and Mrs. Clive, for the honour of playing "Polly"

in the _Beggar's Opera_, a play-house feud which at the latter end of 1736 had engaged "the Town" almost as seriously as the earlier rivalry of Faustina and Cuzzoni. This continued raillery of the Cibbers is, as Fielding himself seems to have felt, a "Jest a little overacted;" but there is one scene in the piece of undeniable freshness and humour, to wit, that in which c.o.c.k, the famous salesman of the Piazzas--the George Robins of his day--is brought on the stage as Mr. Auctioneer Hen (a part taken by Mrs. Charke). His wares, "collected by the indefatigable Pains of that celebrated Virtuoso, _Peter Humdrum_, Esq.," include such desirable items as "curious Remnants of Political Honesty," "delicate Pieces of Patriotism," Modesty (which does not obtain a bid), Courage, Wit, and "a very neat clear Conscience" of great capacity, "which has been worn by a Judge, and a Bishop." The "Cardinal Virtues" are then put up, and eighteen-pence is bid for them. But after they have been knocked down at this extravagant sum, the buyer complains that he had understood the auctioneer to say "a Cardinal's Virtues," and that the lot he has purchased includes "Temperance and Chast.i.ty, and a Pack of Stuff that he would not give three Farthings for." The whole of this scene is "admirable fooling;" and it was afterwards impudently stolen by Theophilus Cibber for his farce of the _Auction_. The _Historical Register_ concludes with a dialogue between Quidam, in whom the audience recognised Sir Robert Walpole, and four patriots, to whom he gives a purse which has an instantaneous effect upon their opinions. All five then go off dancing to Quidam's fiddle; and it is explained that they have holes in their pockets through which the money will fall as they dance, enabling the donor to pick it all up again, "and so not lose one Half-penny by his Generosity."

The frank effrontery of satire like the foregoing had by this time begun to attract the attention of the Ministry, whose withers had already been sharply wrung by _Pasquin_; and it has been conjectured that the ballet of Quidam and the Patriots played no small part in precipitating the famous "Licensing Act," which was pa.s.sed a few weeks afterwards. Like the marriage which succeeded the funeral of Hamlet's father, it certainly "followed hard upon." But the reformation of the stage had already been contemplated by the Legislature; and two years before, Sir John Barnard had brought in a bill "to restrain the number of houses for playing of Interludes, and for the better regulating of common Players of Interludes." This, however, had been abandoned, because it was proposed to add a clause enlarging the power of the Lord Chamberlain in licensing plays, an addition to which the introducer of the measure made strong objection. He thought the power of the Lord Chamberlain already too great, and in support of his argument he instanced its wanton exercise in the case of _Gay's Polly_, the representation of which had been suddenly prohibited a few years earlier. But _Pasquin_ and the _Register_ brought the question of dramatic lawlessness again to the front, and a bill was hurriedly drawn, one effect of which was to revive the very provision that Sir John Barnard had opposed. The history of this affair is exceedingly obscure, and in all probability it has never been completely revealed. The received or authorised version is to be found in c.o.xe's _Life of Walpole_. After dwelling on the offence given to the Government by _Pasquin_, the writer goes on to say that Giffard, the manager of Goodman's Fields, brought Walpole a farce called _The Golden Rump_, which had been proposed for exhibition. Whether he did this to extort money, or to ask advice, is not clear. In either case, Walpole is said to have "paid the profits which might have accrued from the performance, and detained the copy." He then made a compendious selection of the treasonable and profane pa.s.sages it contained. These he submitted to independent members of both parties, and afterwards read them in the House itself. The result was that by way of amendment to the "Vagrant Act" of Anne's reign, a bill was prepared limiting the number of theatres, and compelling all dramatic writers to obtain a license from the Lord Chamberlain. Such is c.o.xe's account; but notwithstanding its circ.u.mstantial character, it has been insinuated in the sham memoirs of the younger Cibber, and it is plainly a.s.serted in the _Rambler's Magazine_ for 1787, that certain preliminary details have been conveniently suppressed. It is alleged that Walpole himself caused the farce in question to be written, and to be offered to Giffard, for the purpose of introducing his scheme of reform; and the suggestion is not without a certain remote plausibility. As may be guessed, however, _The Golden Rump_ cannot be appealed to. It was never printed, although its t.i.tle is identical with that of a caricature published in March 1737, and fully described in the Gentleman's Magazine for that month. If the play at all resembled the design, it must have been obscene and scurrilous in the extreme. [Footnote: Horace Walpole, in his _Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II._, says (vol. i. p. 12), "I have in my possession the imperfect copy of this piece as I found it among my father's papers after his death." He calls it Fielding's; but no importance can be attached to the statement. There is a copy of the caricature in the British Museum Print Room (Political and Personal Satires, No. 2327).]

Meanwhile the new bill, to which it had given rise, pa.s.sed rapidly through both Houses. Report speaks of animated discussions and warm opposition. But there are no traces of any divisions, or pet.i.tions against it, and the only speech which has survived is the very elaborate and careful oration delivered in the Upper House by Lord Chesterfield.

The "second Cicero"--as Sylva.n.u.s Urban styles him--opposed the bill upon the ground that it would affect the liberty of the press; and that it was practically a tax upon the chief property of men of letters, their wit--a "precarious dependence"--which (he thanked G.o.d) my Lords were not obliged to rely upon. He dwelt also upon the value of the stage as a fearless censor of vice and folly; and he quoted with excellent effect but doubtful accuracy the famous answer of the Prince of Conti [Conde]

to Moliere [Louis XIV.] when _Tartuffe_ was interdicted at the instance of M. de Lamoignon:--"It is true, Moliere, Harlequin ridicules Heaven, and exposes religion; but you have done much worse--you have ridiculed the first minister of religion." This, although not directly advanced for the purpose, really indicated the head and front of Fielding's offending in _Pasquin_ and the _Historical Register_, and although in Lord Chesterfield's speech the former is ironically condemned, it may well be that Fielding, whose _Don Quixote_ had been dedicated to his Lords.h.i.+p, was the wire-puller in this case, and supplied this very ill.u.s.tration. At all events it is entirely in the spirit of Firebrand's words in _Pasquin_:--

"Speak boldly; by the Powers I serve, I swear You speak in Safety, even tho' you speak Against the G.o.ds, provided that you speak Not against Priests."

But the feeling of Parliament in favour of drastic legislation was even stronger than the persuasive periods of Chesterfield, and on the 21st of June 1737 the bill received the royal a.s.sent.

With its pa.s.sing Fielding's career as a dramatic author practically closed. In his dedication of the _Historical Register_ to "the Publick,"

he had spoken of his desire to beautify and enlarge his little theatre, and to procure a better company of actors; and he had added--"If Nature hath given me any Talents at ridiculing Vice and 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." To all these projects the "Licensing Act" effectively put an end; and the only other plays from his pen which were produced subsequently to this date were the "Wedding Day," 1743, and the posthumous _Good- Natured Man_, 1779, both of which, as is plain from the Preface to the _Miscellanies_, were among his earliest attempts. In the little farce of _Miss Lucy in Town_, 1742, he had, he says, but "a very small Share."

Besides these, there are three hasty and flimsy pieces which belong to the early part of 1737. The first of these, _Tumble-Down d.i.c.k_; or, _Phaeton in the Suds_, was a dramatic sketch in ridicule of the unmeaning Entertainments and Harlequinades of John Rich at Covent Garden. This was ironically dedicated to Rich, under his stage name of "John Lun," and from the dedication it appears that Rich had brought out an unsuccessful satire on _Pasquin_ called _Marforio_. The other two were _Eurydice_, a profane and pointless farce, afterwards printed by its author (in antic.i.p.ation of Beaumarchais) "as it was d--mned at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane;" and a few detached scenes in which, under the t.i.tle of _Eurydice Hiss'd; or, a Word to the Wise_, its untoward fate was attributed to the "frail Promise of uncertain Friends." But even in these careless and half-considered productions there are happy strokes; and one scarcely looks to find such nervous and sensible lines in a mere _a propos_ as these from _Eurydice Hiss'd_:--

"Yet grant it shou'd succeed, grant that by Chance, Or by the Whim and Madness of the Town, A Farce without Contrivance, without Sense Should run to the Astonishment of Mankind; Think how you will be read in After-times, When Friends are not, and the impartial Judge Shall with the meanest Scribbler rank your Name; Who would not rather wish a _Butler's_ fame, Distress'd, and poor in every thing but Merit, Than be the blundering Laureat to a Court?"

Self-accusatory pa.s.sages such as this--and there are others like it-- indicate a higher ideal of dramatic writing than Fielding is held to have attained, and probably the key to them is to be found in that reaction of better judgment which seems invariably to have followed his most reckless efforts. It was a part of his sanguine and impulsive nature to be as easily persuaded that his work was worthless as that it was excellent. "When," says Murphy, "he was not under the immediate urgency of want, they, who were intimate with him, are ready to aver that he had a mind greatly superior to anything mean or little; when his finances were exhausted, he was not the most elegant in his choice of the means to redress himself, and he would instantly exhibit a farce or a puppet-shew in the Haymarket theatre, which was wholly inconsistent with the profession he had embarked in." The quotation displays all Murphy's loose and negligent way of dealing with his facts; for, with the exception of _Miss Lucy in Town_, which can scarcely be ranked among his works at all, there is absolutely no trace of Fielding's having exhibited either "puppet-show" or "farce" after seriously adopting the law as a profession, nor does there appear to have been much acting at the Haymarket for some time after his management had closed in 1737.

Still, his superficial characteristics, which do not depend so much upon Murphy as upon those "who were intimate with him," are probably accurately described, and they sufficiently account for many of the obvious discordances of his work and life. That he was fully conscious of something higher than his actual achievement as a dramatist is clear from his own observation in later life, "that he left off writing for the stage, when he ought to have begun;"--an utterance which (we shrewdly suspect) has prompted not a little profitless speculation as to whether, if he had continued to write plays, they would have been equal to, or worse than, his novels. The discussion would be highly interesting, if there were the slightest chance that it could be attended with any satisfactory result. But the truth is, that the very materials are wanting. Fielding "left off writing for the stage" when he was under thirty; _Tom Jones_ was published in 1749, when he was more than forty. His plays were written in haste; his novels at leisure, and when, for the most part, he was relieved from that "immediate urgency of want," which, according to Murphy, characterised his younger days. If-- as has been suggested--we could compare a novel written at thirty with a play of the same date, or a play written at forty with _Tom Jones_, the comparison might be instructive, although even then considerable allowances would have to be made for the essential difference between plays and novels. But, as we cannot make such a comparison, further inquiry is simply waste of time. All we can safely affirm is, that the plays of Fielding's youth did not equal the fictions of his maturity; and that, of those plays, the comedies were less successful than the farces and burlesques. Among other reasons for this latter difference one chiefly may be given:--that in the comedies he sought to reproduce the artificial world of Congreve and Wycherley, while in the burlesques and farces he depicted the world in which he lived.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHAMPION--JOSEPH ANDREWS.