Fielding Part 7

Hogarth alone could have been the ideal ill.u.s.trator of Henry Fielding; that is to say--if, in lieu of the rude designs he made for _Tristram Shandy_, he could have been induced to undertake the work in the larger fas.h.i.+on of the _Rake's Progress_, or _The Marriage a la Mode_.

As might perhaps be antic.i.p.ated, _Tom Jones_ attracted the dramatist.

[Footnote: It may be added that it also attracted the plagiarist. As _Pamela_ had its sequel in _Pamela's Conduct in High Life_, 1741, so _Tom Jones_ was continued in _The History of Tom Jones the Foundling, in his Married State_, a second edition of which was issued in 1750. The Preface announces, needlessly enough, that "Henry Fielding, Esq., is not the Author of this Book." It deserves no serious consideration.] In 1765, one J. H. Steffens made a comedy of it for the German boards; and in 1785, a M. Desforges based upon it another, called _Tom Jones a Londres_, which was acted at the _Theatre Francais_. It was also turned into a comic opera by Joseph Reed in 1769, and played at Covent Garden.

But its most piquant transformation is the _Comedie lyrique_ of Poinsinet, acted at Paris in 1765-6 to the lively music of Philidor. The famous Caillot took the part of Squire Western, who, surrounded by _piqueurs_, and girt with the conventional _cor de cha.s.se_ of the Gallic sportsman, sings the following _ariette_, diversified with true Fontainebleau terms of venery:--

"D'un Cerf, dix Cors, j'ai connaissance: On l'attaque au fort, on le lance; Tous sont prets: Piqueurs & Valets Suivent les pas de l'ami Jone (_sic_).

J'entends crier: Volcelets, Volcelets.

Aussitot j'ordonne Que la Meute donne.

Tayaut, Tayaut, Tayaut.

Mes chiens decouples l'environnent; Les trompes sonnent: 'Courage, Amis: Tayaut, Tayaut.'

Quelques chiens, que l'ardeur derange, Quittent la voye & prennent le change Jones les ra.s.sure d'un cri: Ourvari, ourvari.

Accoute, accoute, accoute.

Au retour nous en revoyons.

Accoute, a Mirmiraut, courons Tout a Griffaut; Y apres: Tayaut, Tayaut.

On reprend route, Voila le Cerf a l'eau.

La trompe sonne, La Meute donne, L'echo resonne, Nous pressons les nouveaux relais: Volcelets, Volcelets.

L'animal force succombe, Fait un effort, se releve, enfin tombe: Et nos cha.s.seurs chantent tous a l'envi: 'Amis, goutons les fruits de la victoire; 'Amis, Amis, celebrons notre gloire.

'Halali, Fanfare, Halali 'Halali.'"

With this triumphant flourish of trumpets the present chapter may be fittingly concluded. [Footnote: See Appendix No. II.: Fielding and Mrs.

Hussey.]

CHAPTER VI.

JUSTICE LIFE--AMELIA.

In one of Horace Walpole's letters to George Montagu, already quoted, there is a description of Fielding's Bow Street establishment, which has attracted more attention than it deserves. The letter is dated May the 18th, 1749, and the pa.s.sage (in Cunningham's edition) runs as follows:--

"He [Rigby] and Peter Bathurst [Footnote: Probably a son of Peter Bathurst (d. 1748), brother of Pope's friend, Allen, Lord Bathurst.

Rigby was the Richard Rigby whose despicable character is familiar in Eighteenth-Century Memoirs. "He died (says Cunningham) involved in debt, with his accounts as Paymaster of the Forces hopelessly unsettled."]

t'other night carried a servant of the latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before Fielding; who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of Mr. Lyttelton, added that of Middles.e.x justice. He sent them word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. They did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a wh.o.r.e, and three Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. He never stirred nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir C. Williams, and Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs; on which he civilised."

Scott calls this "a humiliating anecdote;" and both Mr. Lawrence and Mr.

Keightley have exhausted rhetoric in the effort to explain it away. As told, it is certainly uncomplimentary; but considerable deductions must be made, both for the att.i.tude of the narrator and the occasion of the narrative. Walpole's champions.h.i.+p of his friends was notorious; and his absolute injustice, when his partisan spirit was uppermost, is everywhere patent to the readers of his Letters. In the present case he was not of the encroaching party; and he speaks from hearsay solely. But his friends had, in his opinion, been outraged by a man, who, according to his ideas of fitness, should have come to them cap in hand; and as a natural consequence, the story, no doubt exaggerated when it reached him, loses nothing under his transforming and malicious pen. Stripped of its decorative flippancy, however, there remains but little that can really be regarded as "humiliating." Scott himself suggests, what is most unquestionably the case, that the blind man was the novelist's half-brother, afterwards Sir John Fielding; and it is extremely unlikely that the lady so discourteously characterised could have been any other than his wife, who, Lady Stuart tells us, "had few personal charms."

There remain the "three Irishmen," who may, or may not, have been perfectly presentable members of society. At all events, their mere nationality, so rapidly decided upon, cannot be regarded as a stigma.

That the company and entertainment were scarcely calculated to suit the superfine standard of Mr. Bathurst and Mr. Rigby may perhaps be conceded. Fielding was by no means a rich man, and in his chequered career had possibly grown indifferent to minor decencies. Moreover, we are told by Murphy that, as a Westminster justice, he "kept his table open to those who had been his friends when young, and had impaired their own fortunes." Thus, it must always have been a more or less ragged regiment who met about that kindly Bow Street board; but that the fact reflects upon either the host or guests cannot be admitted for a moment. If the anecdote is discreditable to anyone it is to that facile retailer of _ana_, and incorrigible society-gossip, Mr. Horace Walpole.

But while these unflattering tales were told of his private life, Fielding was fast becoming eminent in his public capacity. On the 12th of May 1749 he was unanimously chosen chairman of Quarter Sessions at Hicks's Hall (as the Clerkenwell Sessions House was then called); and on the 29th of June following he delivered a charge to the Westminster Grand Jury which is usually printed with his works, and which is still regarded by lawyers as a model exposition. It is at first a little unexpected to read his impressive and earnest denunciations of masquerades and theatres (in which latter, by the way, one Samuel Foote had very recently been following the example of the author of _Pasquin_); but Fielding the magistrate and Fielding the playwright were two different persons; and a long interval of changeful experience lay between them. In another part of his charge, which deals with the offence of libelling, it is possible that his very vigorous appeal was not the less forcible by reason of the personal attacks to which he had referred in the Preface to _David Simple_, the _Jacobite's Journal_, and elsewhere. His only other literary efforts during this year appear to have been a little pamphlet ent.i.tled _A True State of the Case of Bosavern Penlez_; and a formal congratulatory letter to Lyttelton upon his second marriage, in which, while speaking gratefully of his own obligations to his friend, he endeavours to enlist his sympathies for Moore the fabulist who was also "about to marry." The pamphlet had reference to an occurrence which took place in July. Three sailors of the "Grafton" man-of-war had been robbed in a house of ill fame in the Strand. Failing to obtain redress, they attacked the house with their comrades, and wrecked it, causing a "dangerous riot," to which Fielding makes incidental reference in one of his letters to the Duke of Bedford, and which was witnessed by John Byrom, the poet and stenographer, in whose _Remains_ it is described. Bosavern Penlez or Pen Lez, who had joined the crowd, and in whose possession some of the stolen property was found, was tried and hanged in September. His sentence, which was considered extremely severe, excited much controversy, and the object of Fielding's pamphlet was to vindicate the justice and necessity of his conviction.

Towards the close of 1749 Fielding fell seriously ill with fever aggravated by gout. It was indeed at one time reported that mortification had supervened; but under the care of Dr. Thomson, that dubious pract.i.tioner whose treatment of Winnington in 1746 had given rise to so much paper war, he recovered; and during 1750 was actively employed in his magisterial duties. At this period lawlessness and violence appear to have prevailed to an unusual extent in the metropolis, and the office of a Bow Street justice was no sinecure.

Reform of some kind was felt on all sides to be urgently required; and Fielding threw his two years' experience and his deductions therefrom into the form of a pamphlet ent.i.tled _An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers, etc., with some Proposals for remedying this growing Evil_. It was dedicated to the then Lord High Chancellor, Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke, by whom, as well as by more recent legal authorities, it was highly appreciated. Like the _Charge to the Grand Jury_, it is a grave argumentative doc.u.ment, dealing seriously with luxury, drunkenness, gaming, and other prevalent vices. Once only, in an ironical pa.s.sage respecting beaus and fine ladies, does the author remind us of the author of _Tom Jones_. As a rule, he is weighty, practical, and learned in the law. Against the curse of Gin-drinking, which, owing to the facilities for obtaining that liquor, had increased to an alarming extent among the poorer cla.s.ses, he is especially urgent and energetic. He points out that it is not only making dreadful havoc in the present, but that it is enfeebling the race of the future, and he concludes--

"Some little Care on this Head is surely necessary: For tho' the Encrease of Thieves, and the Destruction of Morality; though the Loss of our Labourers, our Sailors, and our Soldiers, should not be sufficient Reasons, there is one which seems to be unanswerable, and that is, the Loss of our Gin-drinkers: Since, should the drinking this Poison be continued in its present Height during the next twenty Years, there will, by that Time, be very few of the common People left to drink it."

To the appeal thus made by Fielding in January 1751, Hogarth added his pictorial protest in the following month by his awful plate of _Gin Lane_, which, if not actually prompted by his friend's words, was certainly inspired by the same crying evil. One good result of these efforts was the "Bill for restricting the Sale of Spirituous Liquors,"

to which the royal a.s.sent was given in June, and Fielding's connection with this enactment is practically acknowledged by Horace Walpole in his _Memoires of the Last ten Years of the Reign of George II_. The law was not wholly effectual, and was difficult to enforce; but it was not by any means without its good effects. [Footnote: The Rev. R. Hurd, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, an upright and scholarly, but formal and censorious man, whom Johnson called a "word-picker," and franker contemporaries "an old maid in breeches," has left a reference to Fielding at this time which is not flattering. "I dined with him [Ralph Allen] yesterday, where I met Mr. Fielding,--a poor emaciated, worn-out rake, whose gout and infirmities have got the better even of his buffoonery" (Letter to Balguy, dated "Inner Temple, 19th March, 1751.") That Fielding had not long before been dangerously ill, and that he was a martyr to gout, is fact: the rest is probably no more than the echo of a foregone conclusion, based upon report, or dislike to his works. Hurd praised Richardson and proscribed Sterne. He must have been wholly out of sympathy with the author of _Tom Jones_.]

Between the publication of the _Enquiry_ and that of _Amelia_ there is nothing of importance to chronicle except Fielding's connection with one of the events of 1751, the discovery of the Glas...o...b..ry waters.

According to the account given in the _Gentleman's_ for July in that year, a certain Matthew Chancellor had been cured of "an asthma and phthisic" of thirty years' standing by drinking from a spring near Chain Gate, Glas...o...b..ry, to which he had (so he alleged) been directed in a dream. The spring forthwith became famous; and in May an entry in the Historical Chronicle for Sunday, the 5th, records that above 10,000 persons had visited it, deserting Bristol, Bath, and other popular resorts. Numerous pamphlets were published for and against the new waters; and a letter in their favour, which appeared in the _London Daily Advertiser_ for the 31st August, signed "Z. Z.," is "supposed to be wrote" by "J--e F--g." Fielding was, as may be remembered, a Somersets.h.i.+re man, Sharpham Park, his birthplace, being about three miles from Glas...o...b..ry; and he testifies to the "wonderful Effects of this salubrious Spring" in words which show that he had himself experienced them. "Having seen great Numbers of my Fellow Creatures under two of the most miserable Diseases human Nature can labour under, the Asthma and Evil, return from _Glas...o...b..ry_ blessed with the Return of Health, and having myself been relieved from a Disorder which baffled the most skilful Physicians," justice to mankind (he says) obliges him to take notice of the subject. The letter is interesting, more as showing that, at this time, Fielding's health was broken, than as proving the efficacy of the cure; for, whatever temporary relief the waters afforded, it is clear (as Mr. Lawrence pertinently remarks) that he derived no permanent benefit from them. They must, however, have continued to attract visitors, as a pump-room was opened in August 1753; and, although they have now fallen into disuse, they were popular for many years.

But a more important occurrence than the discovery of the Somersets.h.i.+re spring is a little announcement contained in Sylva.n.u.s Urban's list of publications for December 1751, No. 17 of which is "_Amelia_, in 4 books, 12mo; by Henry Fielding, Esq." The publisher, of course, was Andrew Millar; and the actual day of issue, as appears from the _General Advertiser_, was December the 19th, although the t.i.tle-page, by antic.i.p.ation, bore the date of 1752. There were two mottoes, one of which was the appropriate--

"_Felices ter & amplius Quos irrupta tenet Copula;_"

and the dedication, brief and simply expressed, was to Ralph Allen. As before, the "artful aid" of advertis.e.m.e.nt was invoked to whet the public appet.i.te.

"To satisfy the earnest Demand of the Publick (says Millar), this Work has been printed at four Presses; but the Proprietor notwithstanding finds it impossible to get them (_sic_) bound in Time, without spoiling the Beauty of the Impression, and therefore will sell them sew'd at Half-a-Guinea."

This was open enough; but, according to Scott, Millar adopted a second expedient to a.s.sist _Amelia_ with the booksellers.

"He had paid a thousand pounds for the copyright; and when he began to suspect that the work would be judged inferior to its predecessor, he employed the following stratagem to push it upon the trade. At a sale made to the booksellers, previous to the publication, Millar offered his friends his other publications on the usual terms of discount; but when he came to _Amelia_, he laid it aside, as a work expected to be in such demand, that he could not afford to deliver it to the trade in the usual manner. The _ruse_ succeeded--the impression was anxiously bought up, and the bookseller relieved from every apprehension of a slow sale."

There were several reasons why--superficially speaking--_Amelia_ should be "judged inferior to its predecessor." That it succeeded _Tom Jones_ after an interval of little more than two years and eight months would be an important element in the comparison, if it were known at all definitely what period was occupied in writing _Tom Jones_. All that can be affirmed is that Fielding must have been far more at leisure when he composed the earlier work than he could possibly have been when filling the office of a Bow Street magistrate. But, in reality, there is a much better explanation of the superiority of _Tom Jones_ to _Amelia_ than the merely empirical one of the time it took. _Tom Jones_, it has been admirably said by a French critic, "_est la condensation et le resume de toute une existence. C'est le resultat et la conclusion de plusieurs annees de pa.s.sions et de pensees, la formule derniere et complete de la philosophie personnelle que l'on s'est faite sur tout ce que l'on a vu et senti_." Such an experiment, argues Planche, is not twice repeated in a lifetime: the soil which produced so rich a crop can but yield a poorer aftermath. Behind _Tom Jones_ there was the author's ebullient youth and manhood; behind _Amelia_ but a section of his graver middle- age. There are other reasons for diversity in the manner of the book itself. The absence of the initial chapters, which gave so much variety to _Tom Jones_, tends to heighten the sense of impatience which, it must be confessed, occasionally creeps over the reader of _Amelia_, especially in those parts where, like d.i.c.kens at a later period, Fielding delays the progress of his narrative for the discussion of social problems and popular grievances. However laudable the desire (expressed in the dedication) "to expose some of the most glaring Evils, as well public as private, which at present infest this Country," the result in _Amelia_, from an art point of view, is as unsatisfactory as that of certain well-known pages of _Bleak House_ and _Little Dorrit_.

Again, there is a marked change in the att.i.tude of the author,--a change not wholly reconcilable with the brief period which separates the two novels. However it may have chanced, whether from failing health or otherwise, the Fielding of _Amelia_ is suddenly a far older man than the Fielding of _Tom Jones_. The robust and irrepressible vitality, the full-veined delight of living, the energy of observation and strength of satire, which characterise the one give place in the other to a calmer retrospection, a more compa.s.sionate humanity, a gentler and more benignant criticism of life. That, as some have contended, _Amelia_ shows an intellectual falling-off cannot for a moment be admitted, least of all upon the ground--as even so staunch an admirer as Mr. Keightley has allowed himself to believe--that certain of its incidents are obviously repeated from the _Modern Husband_ and others of the author's plays. At this rate _Tom Jones_ might be judged inferior to _Joseph Andrews_, because the Political Apothecary in the "Man of the Hill's"

story has his prototype in the _Coffee-House Politician_, whose original is Addison's Upholsterer. The plain fact is, that Fielding recognised the failure of his plays as literature; he regarded them as dead; and freely transplanted what was good of his forgotten work into the work which he hoped would live. In this, it may be, there was something of indolence or haste; but a.s.suredly there was no proof of declining powers.

If, for the sake of comparison, _Tom Jones_ may be described as an animated and happily-constructed comedy, with more than the usual allowance of first-rate characters, _Amelia_ must be regarded as a one- part piece, in which the rest of the _dramatis personae_ are wholly subordinate to the central figure. Captain Booth, the two Colonels, Atkinson and his wife, Miss Matthews, Dr. Harrison, Trent, the shadowy and maleficent "My Lord," are all less active on their own account than energised and set in motion by Amelia. Round her they revolve; from her they obtain their impulse and their orbit. The best of the men, as studies, are Dr. Harrison and Colonel Bath. The former, who is as benevolent as Allworthy, is far more human, and it may be added, more humorous in well-doing. He is an individual rather than an abstraction.

Bath, with his dignity and gun-cotton honour, is also admirable, but not entirely free from the objection made to some of d.i.c.kens's creations, that they are rather characteristics than characters. Captain William Booth, beyond his truth to nature, manifests no qualities that can compensate for his weakness, and the best that can be said of him is, that without it, his wife would have had no opportunity for the display of her magnanimity. There is also a certain want of consistency in his presentment; and when, in the residence of Mr. Bondum the bailiff, he suddenly develops an unexpected scholars.h.i.+p, it is impossible not to suspect that Fielding was unwilling to lose the opportunity of preserving some neglected scenes of the _Author's Farce_. Miss Matthews is a new and remarkable study of the _femme entretenue_, to parallel which, as in the case of Lady Bellaston, we must go to Balzac; Mrs.

James, again, is an excellent example of that vapid and colourless nonent.i.ty, the "person of condition." Mrs. Bennet, although apparently more contradictory and less intelligible, is nevertheless true to her past history and present environments; while her husband, the sergeant, with his concealed and reverential love for his beautiful foster-sister, has had a long line of descendants in the modern novel. It is upon Amelia, however, that the author has lavished all his pains, and there is no more touching portrait in the whole of fiction than this heroic and immortal one of feminine goodness and forbearance. It is needless to repeat that it is painted from Fielding's first wife, or to insist that, as Lady Mary was fully persuaded, "several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact." That famous scene where Amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the King's Arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a gla.s.s of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, "while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace of Trumps being in the Hands of his Adversary"--a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huskiness in the throat,--the visits to the p.a.w.nbroker and the sponging-house, the robbery by the little servant, the encounter at Vauxhall, and some of the pretty vignettes of the children, are no doubt founded on personal recollections. Whether the pursuit to which the heroine is exposed had any foundation in reality it is impossible to say; and there is a pa.s.sage in Murphy's memoir which almost reads as if it had been penned with the express purpose of antic.i.p.ating any too harshly literal identification of Booth with Fielding, since we are told of the latter that "though disposed to gallantry by his strong animal spirits, and the vivacity of his pa.s.sions, he was remarkable for tenderness _and constancy to his wife_ [the italics are ours], and the strongest affection for his children." These, however, are questions beside the matter, which is the conception of _Amelia_. That remains, and must remain for ever, in the words of one of Fielding's greatest modern successors, a figure

"wrought with love....

Nought modish in it, pure and n.o.ble lines Of generous womanhood that fits all time."

There are many women who forgive; but Amelia does more--she not only forgives, but she forgets. The pa.s.sage in which she exhibits to her contrite husband the letter received long before from Miss Matthews is one of the n.o.blest in literature; and if it had been recorded that Fielding--like Thackeray on a memorable occasion--had here slapped his fist upon the table, and said "_That_ is a stroke of genius!" it would scarcely have been a thing to be marvelled at. One final point in connection with her may be noted, which has not always been borne in mind by those who depict good women--much after Hogarth's fas.h.i.+on-- without a head. She is not by any means a simpleton, and it is misleading to describe her as a tender, fluttering little creature, who, because she can cook her husband's supper, and caresses him with the obsolete name of Billy, must necessarily be contemptible. On the contrary, she has plenty of ability and good sense, with a fund of humour which enables her to enjoy slily and even gently satirise the fine lady airs of Mrs. James. Nor is it necessary to contend that her faculties are subordinated to her affections; but rather that conjugal fidelity and Christian charity are inseparable alike from her character and her creed.

As ill.u.s.trating the tradition that Fielding depicted his first wife in Sophia Western and in Amelia, it has been remarked that there is no formal description of her personal appearance in his last novel, her portrait having already been drawn at length in _Tom Jones_. But the following depreciatory sketch by Mrs. James is worth quoting, not only because it indirectly conveys the impression of a very handsome woman, but because it is also an admirable specimen of Fielding's lighter manner:--

"'In the first place,' cries Mrs. James, 'her eyes are too large; and she hath a look with them that I don't know how to describe; but I know I don't like it. Then her eyebrows are too large; therefore, indeed, she doth all in her power to remedy this with her pincers; for if it was not for those, her eyebrows would be preposterous.--Then her nose, as well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side. [Footnote: See note on this subject in chapter iv., and Appendix No. III.]--Her neck likewise is too protuberant for the genteel size, especially as she laces herself; for no woman, in my opinion, can be genteel who is not entirely flat before. And lastly, she is both too short, and too tall.-- Well, you may laugh, Mr. James, I know what I mean, though I cannot well express it. I mean, that she is too tall for a pretty woman, and too short for a fine woman.--There is such a thing as a kind of insipid medium--a kind of something that is neither one thing or another. I know not how to express it more clearly; but when I say such a one is a pretty woman, a pretty thing, a pretty creature, you know very well I mean a little woman; and when I say such a one is a very fine woman, a very fine person of a woman, to be sure I must mean a tall woman. Now a woman that is between both, is certainly neither the one nor the other."

The ingenious expedients of Andrew Millar, to which reference has been made, appear to have so far succeeded that a new edition of _Amelia_ was called for on the day of publication. Johnson, to whom we owe this story, was thoroughly captivated with the book. Notwithstanding that on another occasion he paradoxically a.s.serted that the author was "a blockhead"--"a barren rascal," he read it through without stopping, and p.r.o.nounced Mrs. Booth to be "the most pleasing heroine of all the romances." Richardson, on the other hand, found "the characters and situations so wretchedly low and dirty" that he could not get farther than the first volume. With the professional reviewers, a certain Criticulus in the _Gentleman's_ excepted, it seems to have fared but ill; and although these adverse verdicts, if they exist, are now more or less inaccessible, Fielding has apparently summarised most of them in a mock-trial of _Amelia_ before the "_Court of_ Censorial Enquiry," the proceedings of which are recorded in Nos. 7 and 8 of the _Covent-Garden Journal_. The book is indicted upon the Statute of Dulness, and the heroine is charged with being a "_low_ Character," a "_Milksop_," and a "_Fool_;" with lack of spirit and fainting too frequently; with dressing her children, cooking and other "servile Offices;" with being too forgiving to her husband; and lastly, as may be expected, with the inconsistency, already amply referred to, of being "a Beauty _without a nose_." Dr. Harrison and Colonel Bath are arraigned much in the same fas.h.i.+on. After some evidence against her has been tendered, and "a Great Number of Beaus, Rakes, fine Ladies, and several formal Persons with bushy Wigs, and Canes at their Noses," are preparing to supplement it, a grave man steps forward, and, begging to be heard, delivers what must be regarded as Fielding's final apology for his last novel:--

"If you, Mr. Censor, are yourself a Parent, you will view me with Compa.s.sion when I declare I am the Father of this poor Girl the Prisoner at the Bar; nay, when I go further and avow, that of all my Offspring she is my favourite Child. I can truly say that I bestowed a more than ordinary Pains in her Education; in which I will venture to affirm, I followed the Rules of all those who are acknowledged to have writ best on the Subject; and if her Conduct be fairly examined, she will be found to deviate very little from the strictest Observation of all those Rules; neither Homer nor Virgil pursued them with greater Care than myself, and the candid and learned Reader will see that the latter was the n.o.ble model, which I made use of on this Occasion.

"I do not think my Child is entirely free from Faults. I know nothing human that is so; but surely she doth not deserve the Rancour with which she hath been treated by the Public. However, it is not my Intention, at present, to make any Defence; but shall submit to a Compromise, which hath been always allowed in this Court in all Prosecutions for Dulness.

I do, therefore, solemnly declare to you, Mr. Censor, that I will trouble the World no more with any Children of mine by the same Muse."

Whether sincere or not, this last statement appears to have afforded the greatest gratification to Richardson. "Will I leave you to Captain Booth?" he writes triumphantly to Mrs. Donnellan, in answer to a question she had put to him. "Captain Booth, Madam, has done his own business. Mr. Fielding has overwritten himself, or rather _under_- written; and in his own journal seems ashamed of his last piece; and has promised that the same Muse shall write no more for him. The piece, in short, is as dead as if it had been published forty years ago, as to sale." There is much to the same effect in the worthy little printer's correspondence; but enough has been quoted to show how intolerable to the super-sentimental creator of the high-souled and heroic _Clarissa_ was his rival's plainer and more practical picture of matronly virtue and modesty. In cases of this kind, _parva seges satis est_, and Amelia has long since outlived both rival malice and contemporary coldness. It is a proof of her author's genius, that she is even more intelligible to our age than she was to her own.

At the end of the second volume of the first edition of her history was a notice announcing the immediate appearance of the above-mentioned _Covent-Garden Journal_, a bi-weekly paper, in which Fielding, under the style and t.i.tle of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, a.s.sumed the office of Censor of Great Britain. The first number of this new venture was issued on January the 4th, 1752, and the price was threepence. In plan, and general appearance, it resembled the _Jacobite's Journal_, consisting mainly of an introductory Essay, paragraphs of current news, often accompanied by pointed editorial comment, miscellaneous articles, and advertis.e.m.e.nts. One of the features of the earlier numbers was a burlesque, but not very successful, _Journal of the present Paper War_, which speedily involved the author in actual hostilities with the notorious quack and adventurer Dr. John Hill, who for some time had been publis.h.i.+ng certain impudent lucubrations in the _London Daily Advertiser_ under the heading of _The Inspector_; and also with Smollett, whom he (Fielding) had ridiculed in his second number, perhaps on account of that little paragraph in the first edition of _Peregrine Pickle_, to which reference was made in an earlier chapter. Smollett, always irritable and combative, retorted by a needlessly coa.r.s.e and venomous pamphlet, in which, under the name of "Habbakkuk Hilding, Justice, Dealer and Chapman," Fielding was attacked with indescribable brutality. Another, and seemingly unprovoked, adversary whom the _Journal of the War_ brought upon him was Bonnel Thornton, afterwards joint-author with George Colman of the _Connoisseur_, who, in a production styled _Have at you All; or, The Drury Lane Journal_, lampooned Sir Alexander with remarkable rancour and a.s.siduity. Mr.

Lawrence has treated these "quarrels of authors" at some length; and they also have some record in the curious collections of the elder Disraeli. As a general rule, Fielding was far less personal and much more scrupulous in his choice of weapons than those who a.s.sailed him; but the conflict was an undignified one, and, as Scott has justly said, "neither party would obtain honour by an inquiry into the cause or conduct of its hostilities."

In the enumeration of Fielding's works it is somewhat difficult (if due proportion be observed) to a.s.sign any real importance to efforts like the _Covent-Garden Journal_. Compared with his novels, they are insignificant enough. But even the worst work of such a man is notable in its way; and Fielding's contributions to the _Journal_ are by no means to be despised. They are shrewd lay sermons, often exhibiting much out-of-the-way erudition, and nearly always distinguished by some of his personal qualities. In No. 33, on "Profanity," there is a character- sketch which, for vigour and vitality, is worthy of his best days; and there is also a very thoughtful paper on "Reading," containing a kindly reference to "the ingenious Author of _Clarissa_," which should have mollified that implacable moralist. In this essay it is curious to notice that, while Fielding speaks with due admiration of Shakespeare and Moliere, Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift, he condemns Rabelais and Aristophanes, although in the invocation already quoted from _Tom Jones_, he had included both these authors among the models he admired.

Another paper in the _Covent-Garden Journal_ is especially interesting because it affords a clue to a project of Fielding's which unfortunately remained a project. This was a Translation of the works of Lucian, to be undertaken in conjunction with his old colleague, the Rev. William Young. Proposals were advertised, and the enterprise was duly heralded by a "puff preliminary," in which Fielding, while abstaining from anything directly concerning his own abilities, observes, "I will only venture to say, that no Man seems so likely to translate an Author well, as he who hath formed his Stile upon that very Author"--a sentence which, taken in connection with the references to Lucian in _Tom Thumb_, the _Champion_ and elsewhere, must be accepted as distinctly autobiographic. The last number of the Covent-Garden Journal (No. 72) was issued in November 1752. By this time Sir Alexander seems to have thoroughly wearied of his task. With more gravity than usual he takes leave of letters, begging the Public that they will not henceforth father on him the dulness and scurrility of his worthy contemporaries; "since I solemnly declare that unless in revising my former Works, I have at present no Intention to hold any further Correspondence with the gayer Muses."

The labour of conducting the _Covent-Garden Journal_ must have been the more severe in that, during the whole period of its existence, the editor was vigorously carrying out his duties as a magistrate. The prison and political scenes in _Amelia_, which contemporary critics regarded as redundant, and which even to us are more curious than essential, testify at once to his growing interest in reform, and his keen appreciation of the defects which existed both in the law itself and in the administration of the law; while the numerous cases heard before him, and periodically reported in his paper by his clerk, afford ample evidence of his judicial activity. How completely he regarded himself (Bathurst and Rigby notwithstanding) as the servant of the public, may be gathered from the following regularly repeated notice:--