L1500

l1500, to his old home at east stour. around this rural seclusion fiction has freely accreted. he is supposed to have lived for three years on the footing of a typical 18th-century country gentleman; to have kept a pack of hounds; to have put his servants into impossible yellow liveries; and generally, by profuse hospitality and reckless expenditure, to have made rapid duck and drake of mrs fielding's modest legacy. something of this is demonstrably false; much, grossly exaggerated. in any case, he was in london as late as february 1735 (the date of the "preface" to _the universal gallant_); and early in march 1736 he was back again managing the haymarket theatre with a so-called "_great mogul's_ company of _english_ comedians." upon this new enterprise fortune, at the outset, seemed to smile. the first piece (produced on the 5th of march) was _pasquin, a dramatick satire on the times_ (a piece akin in its plan to buckingham's _rehearsal_), which contained, in addition to much admirable burlesque, a good deal of very direct criticism of the shameless political corruption of the walpole era. its success was unmistakable; and when, after bringing out the remarkable _fatal curiosity_ of george lillo, its author followed up _pasquin_ by the _historical register for the year 1736_, of which the effrontery was even more daring than that of its predecessor, the ministry began to bethink themselves that matters were going too far. how they actually effected their object is obscure: but grounds were speedily concocted for the licensing act of 1737, which restricted the number of theatres, rendered the lord chamberlain's licence an indispensable preliminary to stage representation, and--in a word--effectually put an end to fielding's career as a dramatist. whether, had that career been prolonged to its maturity, the result would have enriched the theatrical repertoire with a new species of burlesque, or reinforced it with fresh variations on the "wit-traps" of wycherley and congreve, is one of those inquiries that are more academic than, profitable. what may be affirmed is, that fielding's plays, as we have them, exhibit abundant invention and ingenuity; that they are full of humour and high spirits; that, though they may have been hastily written, they were by no means thoughtlessly constructed; and that, in composing them, their author attentively considered either managerial hints, or the conditions of the market. against this, one must set the fact that they are often immodest; and that, whatever their intrinsic merit, they have failed to rival in permanent popularity the work of inferior men. fielding's own conclusion was, "that he left off writing for the stage, when he ought to have begun"--which can only mean that he himself regarded his plays as the outcome of imitation rather than experience. they probably taught him how to construct _tom jones_; but whether he could ever have written a comedy at the level of that novel, can only be established by a comparison which it is impossible to make, namely, a comparison with _tom jones_ of a comedy written at the same age, and in similar circumstances. _tumble-down dick; or, phaeton in the suds_, _eurydice_ and _eurydice hissed_ are the names of three occasional pieces which belong to the last months of fielding's career as a haymarket manager. by this date he was thirty, with a wife and daughter. as a means of support, he reverted to the profession of his maternal grandfather; and, in november 1737, he entered the middle temple, being described in the books of the society as "of east stour in dorset." that he set himself strenuously to master his new profession, is admitted; though it is unlikely that he had entirely discarded the irregular habits which had grown upon him in his irresponsible bachelorhood. he also did a good deal of literary work, the best known of which is contained in the _champion_, a "news-journal" of the _spectator_ type undertaken with james ralph, whose poem of "night" is made notorious in the _dunciad_. that the _champion_ was not without merit is undoubted; but the essay-type was for the moment out-worn, and neither fielding nor his coadjutor could lend it fresh vitality. fielding contributed papers from the 15th of november 1739 to the 19th of june 1740. on the 20th of june he was called to the bar, and occupied chambers in pump court. it is further related that, in the diligent pursuit of his calling, he travelled the western circuit, and attended the wiltshire sessions. although, with the _champion_, he professed, for the time, to have relinquished periodical literature, he still wrote at intervals, a fact which, taken in connexion with his past reputation as an effective satirist, probably led to his being "unjustly censured" for much that he never produced. but he certainly wrote a poem "of true greatness" (1741); a first book of a burlesque epic, the _vernoniad_, prompted by vernon's expedition of 1739; a vision called the _opposition_, and, perhaps, a political sermon entitled the _crisis_ (1741). another piece, now known to have been attributed to him by his contemporaries (_hist. mss. comm., rept._ 12, app. pt. ix., p. 204), is the pamphlet entitled _an apology for the life of mrs shamela andrews_, a clever but coarse attack upon the prurient side of richardson's _pamela_, which had been issued in 1740, and was at the height of its popularity. _shamela_ followed early in 1741. richardson, who was well acquainted with fielding's four sisters, at that date his neighbours at hammersmith, confidently attributed it to fielding (_corr._ 1804, iv. 286, and unpublished letter at south kensington); and there are suggestive points of internal evidence (such as the transformation of _pamela's_ "mr b." into "mr booby") which tend to connect it with the future _joseph andrews_. fielding, however, never acknowledged it, or referred to it; and a great deal has been laid to his charge that he never deserved ("preface" to _miscellanies_, 1743). but whatever may be decided in regard to the authorship of _shamela_, it is quite possible that it prompted the more memorable _joseph andrews_, which made its appearance in february 1742, and concerning which there is no question. professing, on his title-page, to imitate cervantes, fielding set out to cover _pamela_ with homeric ridicule by transferring the heroine's embarrassments to a hero, supposed to be her brother. allied to this purpose was a collateral attack upon the slipshod _apology_ of the playwright colley cibber, with whom, for obscure reasons, fielding had long been at war. but the avowed object of the book fell speedily into the background as its author warmed to his theme. his secondary speedily became his primary characters, and lady booby and joseph andrews do not interest us now as much as mrs slipslop and parson adams--the latter an invention that ranges in literature with sterne's "uncle toby" and goldsmith's "vicar." yet more than these and others equally admirable in their round veracity, is the writer's penetrating outlook upon the frailties and failures of human nature. by the time he had reached his second volume, he had convinced himself that he had inaugurated a new fashion of fiction; and in a "preface" of exceptional ability, he announced his discovery. postulating that the epic might be "comic" or "tragic," prose or verse, he claimed to have achieved what he termed the "comic epos in prose," of which the action was "ludicrous" rather than "sublime," and the personages selected from society at large, rather than the restricted ranks of conventional high life. his plan, it will be observed, was happily adapted to his gifts of humour, satire, and above all, irony. that it was matured when it began may perhaps be doubted, but it was certainly matured when it ended. indeed, except for the plot, which, in his picaresque first idea, had not preceded the conception, _joseph andrews_ has all the characteristics of _tom jones_, even (in part) to the initial chapters. _joseph andrews_ had considerable success, and the exact sum paid for it by andrew millar, the publisher, according to the assignment now at south kensington, was l183:11s., one of the witnesses being the author's friend, william young, popularly supposed to be the original of parson adams. it was with young that fielding undertook what, with exception of "a very small share" in the farce of _miss lucy in town_ (1742), constituted his next work, a translation of the _plutus_ of aristophanes, which never seems to have justified any similar experiments. another of his minor works was a _vindication of the dowager duchess of marlborough_ (1742), then much before the public by reason of the _account of her life_ which she had recently put forth. later in the same year, garrick applied to fielding for a play; and a very early effort, _the wedding day_, was hastily patched together, and produced at drury lane in february 1743 with no great success. it was, however, included in fielding's next important publication, the three volumes of _miscellanies_ issued by subscription in the succeeding april. these also comprised some early poems, some essays, a lucianic fragment entitled a _journey from this world to the next_, and, last but not least, occupying the entire final volume, the remarkable performance entitled the _history of the life of the late mr jonathan wild the great_. it is probable that, in its composition, _jonathan wild_ preceded _joseph andrews_. at all events it seems unlikely that fielding would have followed up a success in a new line by an effort so entirely different in character. taking for his ostensible hero a well-known thief-taker, who had been hanged in 1725, he proceeds to illustrate, by a mock-heroic account of his progress to tyburn, the general proposition that greatness without goodness is no better than badness. he will not go so far as to say that all "human nature is newgate with the mask on"; but he evidently regards the description as fairly applicable to a good many so-called great people. irony (and especially irony neat) is not a popular form of rhetoric; and the remorseless pertinacity with which fielding pursues his demonstration is to many readers discomforting and even distasteful. yet--in spite of scott--_jonathan wild_ has its softer pages; and as a purely intellectual conception it is not surpassed by any of the author's works. his actual biography, both before and after _jonathan wild_, is obscure. there are evidences that he laboured diligently at his profession; there are also evidences of sickness and embarrassment. he had become early a martyr to the malady of his century--gout, and the uncertainties of a precarious livelihood told grievously upon his beautiful wife, who eventually died of fever in his arms, leaving him for the time so stunned and bewildered by grief that his friends feared for his reason. for some years his published productions were unimportant. he wrote "prefaces" to the _david simple_ of his sister sarah in 1744 and 1747; and, in 1745-1746 and 1747-1748, produced two newspapers in the ministerial interest, the _true patriot_ and the _jacobite's journal_, both of which are connected with, or derive from, the rebellion of 1745, and were doubtless, when they ceased, the pretext of a pension from the public service money (_journal of a voyage to lisbon_, "introduction"). in november 1747 he married his wife's maid, mary daniel, at st bene't's, paul's wharf; and in december 1748, by the interest of his old school-fellow, lyttelton, he was made a principal justice of peace for middlesex and westminster, an office which put him in possession of a house in bow street, and l300 per annum "of the dirtiest money upon earth" (_ibid._), which might have been more had he condescended to become what was known as a "trading" magistrate. for some time previously, while at bath, salisbury, twickenham and other temporary resting-places, he had intermittently occupied himself in composing his second great novel, _tom jones; or, the history of a foundling_. for this, in june 1748, millar had paid him l600, to which he added l100 more in 1749. in the february of the latter year it was published with a dedication to lyttelton, to whose pecuniary assistance to the author during the composition it plainly bears witness. in _tom jones_ fielding systematically developed the "new province of writing" he had discovered incidentally in _joseph andrews_. he paid closer attention to the construction and evolution of the plot; he elaborated the initial essays to each book which he had partly employed before, and he compressed into his work the flower and fruit of his forty years' experience of life. he has, indeed, no character quite up to the level of parson adams, but his westerns and partridges, his allworthys and blifils, have the inestimable gift of life. he makes no pretence to produce "models of perfection," but pictures of ordinary humanity, rather perhaps in the rough than the polished, the natural than the artificial, and his desire is to do this with absolute truthfulness, neither extenuating nor disguising defects and shortcomings. one of the results of this unvarnished naturalism has been to attract more attention to certain of the episodes than their inventor ever intended. but that, in the manners of his time, he had chapter and verse for everything he drew is clear. his sincere purpose was, he declared, "to recommend goodness and innocence," and his obvious aversions are vanity and hypocrisy. the methods of fiction have grown more sophisticated since his day, and other forms of literary egotism have taken the place of his once famous introductory essays, but the traces of _tom jones_ are still discernible in most of our manlier modern fiction. meanwhile, its author was showing considerable activity in his magisterial duties. in may 1749, he was chosen chairman of quarter sessions for westminster; and in june he delivered himself of a weighty charge to the grand jury. besides other pamphlets, he produced a careful and still readable _enquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers_, &c. (1751), which, among its other merits, was not ineffectual in helping on the famous gin act of that year, a practical result to which the "gin lane" and "beer street" of his friend hogarth also materially contributed. these duties and preoccupations left their mark on his next fiction, _amelia_ (1752), which is rather more taken up with social problems and popular grievances than its forerunners. but the leading personage, in whom, as in the sophia western of _tom jones_, he reproduced the traits of his first wife, is certainly, as even johnson admitted, "the most pleasing heroine of all the romances." the minor characters, too, especially dr harrison and colonel bath, are equal to any in _tom jones_. the book nevertheless shows signs, not of failure but of fatigue, perhaps of haste--a circumstance heightened by the absence of those "prolegomenous" chapters over which the author had lingered so lovingly in _tom jones_. in 1749 he had been dangerously ill, and his health was visibly breaking. the l1000 which millar is said to have given for _amelia_ must have been painfully earned. early in 1752 his still indomitable energy prompted him to start a third newspaper, the _covent garden journal_, which ran from the 4th of january to the 25th of november. it is an interesting contemporary record, and throws a good deal of light on his bow street duties. but it has no great literary value, and it unhappily involved him in harassing and undignified hostilities with smollett, dr john hill, bonnell thornton and other of his contemporaries. to the following year belong pamphlets on "provision for the poor," and the case of the strange impostor, elizabeth canning (1734-1773).[1] by 1754 his own case, as regards health, had grown desperate; and he made matters worse by a gallant and successful attempt to break up a "gang of villains and cut-throats," who had become the terror of the metropolis. this accomplished, he resigned his office to his half-brother john (afterwards sir john) fielding. but it was now too late. after fruitless essay both of dr ward's specifics and the tar-water of bishop berkeley, it was felt that his sole chance of prolonging life lay in removal to a warmer climate. on the 26th of june 1754 he accordingly left his little country house at fordhook, ealing, for lisbon, in the "queen of portugal," richard veal master. the ship, as often, was tediously wind-bound, and the protracted discomforts of the sick man and his family are narrated at length in the touching posthumous tract entitled the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_, which, with a fragment of a comment on bolingbroke's then recently issued essays, was published in february 1755 "for the benefit of his [fielding's] wife and children." reaching lisbon at last in august 1754, he died there two months later (8th october), and was buried in the english cemetery, where a monument was erected to him in 1830._ luget britannia gremio non dari fovere natum_ is inscribed upon it. his estate, including the proceeds of a fair library, only covered his just debts (_athenaeum_, 25th nov. 1905); but his family, a daughter by his first, and two boys and a girl by his second wife, were faithfully cared for by his brother john, and by his friend ralph allen of prior park, bath, the squire allworthy of _tom jones_. his will (undated) was printed in the _athenaeum_ for the 1st of february 1890. there is but one absolutely authentic portrait of him, a familiar outline by hogarth, executed from memory for andrew millar's edition of his works in 1762. it is the likeness of a man broken by ill-health, and affords but faint indication of the handsome harry fielding who in his salad days "warmed both hands before the fire of life." far too much stress, it is now held, has been laid by his first biographers upon the unworshipful side of his early career. that he was always profuse, sanguine and more or less improvident, is as probable as that he was always manly, generous and sympathetic. but it is also plain that, in his later years, he did much, as father, friend and magistrate, to redeem the errors, real and imputed, of a too-youthful youth. as a playwright and essayist his rank is not elevated. but as a novelist his place is a definite one. if the _spectator_ is to be credited with foreshadowing the characters of the novel, defoe with its earliest form, and richardson with its first experiments in sentimental analysis, it is to henry fielding that we owe its first accurate delineation of contemporary manners. neglecting, or practically neglecting, sentiment as unmanly, and relying chiefly on humour and ridicule, he set out to draw life precisely as he saw it around him, without blanks or dashes. he was, it may be, for a judicial moralist, too indulgent to some of its frailties, but he was merciless to its meaner vices. for reasons which have been already given, his high-water mark is _tom jones_, which has remained, and remains, a model in its way of the kind he inaugurated. an essay on fielding's life and writings is prefixed to arthur murphy's edition of his works (1762), and short biographies have been written by walter scott and william roscoe. there are also lives by watson (1807), lawrence (1855), austin dobson ("men of letters," 1883, 1907) and g.m. godden (1909). an annotated edition of the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ is included in the "world's classics" (1907). (a. d.) footnote: [1] for a full account of this celebrated case see howell, _state trials_ (1813), vol. xix.