MARRIAGE
"What happiness the world affords equal to the possession of such
a woman as Sophia I sincerely own I have never yet discovered."
--_Tom Jones_.
Out of the paint and powder of the green-room, the tobacco clouds of the
tavern, the crowded streets where hungry genius went afoot one day, and
rode in a coach the next--in a word, out of the Town as Harry Fielding
knew it--we step, in the year 1734, into the idyll of his life, his
marriage with Charlotte Cradock. For to Fielding the supreme gift was
accorded of passionate devotion to a woman of whose charm and virtue he
himself has raised an enduring memorial in the lovely portrait of Sophia
Western. It is this portrait, explicitly admitted [1], that affords almost
our only authentic knowledge of Charlotte Cradock, beyond the meagre facts
that her home was in Salisbury, and that there she and her sisters reigned
as country belles. For it was not in the gay world of 'Riddoto's, Opera's,
and Plays,' nor among the humbler scenes of the great city in which he
delighted to watch the humours of simple folk (the highest life being in
his opinion 'much the dullest'), that Fielding found his wife. Doubtless
his six years about town, as hackney author, with his good birth, his
brilliant wit, and his scanty means, had made him well acquainted with
every phase of society, "from the Minister at his Levee, to the Bailiff at
his spunging-house; from the Duchess at her drum, to the Landlady behind
her bar"; but it was in the rural seclusion of an old cathedral town that
he wooed and won the beautiful Miss Cradock. Indeed it is impossible to
conceive of Sophia as for ever domiciled in streets. The very apostrophe
which heralds her first appearance in _Tom Jones_ is fragrant with
flower-enamelled meadows, fresh breezes, and the songs of birds "whose
sweetest notes not even Handel can excel"; and it is thus, with his
reader's mind attuned to the appropriate key, that Fielding ushers in his
heroine: "... lo! adorned with all the Charms in which Nature can array
her; bedecked with Beauty, Youth, Sprightliness, Innocence, Modesty, and
Tenderness, breathing Sweetness from her rosy Lips, and darting Brightness
from her sparkling Eyes, the lovely _Sophia_ comes." Of middle size, but
rather inclining to tall, with dark hair "curled so gracefully on her neck
that few could believe it to be her own," a forehead rather low, arched
eyebrows, and lustrous black eyes, a mouth that "exactly answered Sir John
Suckling's description in those lines
'Her lips were red and one was thin,
Compar'd to that was next her chin.
Some bee had stung it newly,'"
with a dimple in the right cheek, and a complexion rather more of the
lily than the rose unless increased by exercise or modesty when no
vermilion could equal it--such was the appearance of Sophia, who, most of
all "resembled one whose image never can depart from my breast."
Nor was the beautiful frame, Fielding hastens to add, disgraced by an
unworthy inhabitant. He lingers on the sweetness of temper which
"diffused a glory over her countenance which no regularity of features
can give"; on her perfect breeding, "though wanting perhaps a little of
that ease in her behaviour which is to be acquired only by habit, and
living within what is called the polite circle"; on the "noble, elevated
qualities" which outshone even her beauty.
The only facts recorded concerning Miss Cradock are that her home was in
Salisbury, or New Sarum as the city was then called, and that she
possessed a small fortune. It is said, but on what authority is not
stated, that she was one of three beautiful sisters, the belles of the
country town; and it is in accordance with this tradition that Fielding
should celebrate in some verses "writ when the Author was very young,"
the beauty and intellectual charm of the Miss Cradocks. When printing
these verses many years afterwards, in his _Miscellanies_ he describes the
poem as originally partly filled in with the 'Names of several young
Ladies,' which part he now omits, "the rather, as some Freedoms, tho'
gentle ones, were taken with little Foibles in the amiable Sex, whom to
affront in Print, is, we conceive, mean in any Man, and scandalous in a
Gentleman." Certainly the Miss Cradocks suffered no affront in the lines
retained, wherein the young poet affirms that of all the famed nymphs of
Sarum, that favoured city,
"Whose Nymphs excel all Beauty's Flowers,
As thy high Steeple doth all Towers"
the 'C----cks' were the best and fairest. Nay, has not great Jove himself
apportioned a 'celestial Dower' to these most favoured of maidens,
"To form whose lovely Minds and Faces
I stript half Heaven of its Graces."
From this charming sisterhood Harry Fielding won his bride, but not until
four years of waiting had been accomplished. So much may be assumed from
the early date of the verses entitled "Advice to the Nymphs of _New
S---m_. Written in the Year 1730." Here the newly returned student from
Leyden, the successful dramatist from Drury Lane, bids the Salisbury
beauties cease their vain endeavours to contend with the matchless charms
of his Celia. And here, in a pretty compliment introduced to the great Mr
Pope, then at the height of his fame, we are reminded that Celia's lover
is already a man of letters, for all his mere three and twenty years. When
Celia meets her equal, then, he declares, farthing candles shall eclipse
the moon, and "sweet _Pope_ be dull."
It is these youthful love-verses, verses as he himself was the first to
admit, that were 'indeed Productions of the Heart rather than the Head,'
that afford our only record of Fielding's wooing. Thus, he sings his
passion for _Celia_ in the declaration
"I hate the Town, and all its Ways;
Ridotto's, Opera's, and Plays;
The Ball, the Ring, the Mall, the Court;
Where ever the Beau-Monde resort....
All Coffee-houses, and their Praters;
All Courts of Justice, and Debaters;
All Taverns, and the Sots within 'em;
All Bubbles, and the Rogues that skin 'em,"
in short, the whole world 'cram'd all together,' because all his heart is
engrossed for Celia. Again, Cupid is called to account, in that the
careless urchin had left Celia's house unguarded from thieves, save for
an old fellow "who sat up all Night, with a Gun without any Ammunition."
Celia, it seems, had apprehended robbery, and her poet's rest is troubled:
"For how should I Repose enjoy,
While any fears your Breast annoy?
Forbid it Heav'n, that I should be
From any of your Troubles free."
Cupid explains his desertion by ingeniously declaring that a sigh from
Celia had blown him away
"_to Harry Fielding's breast_,"
in which lodging the 'wicked Child' wrought unconscionable havoc. Again,
Celia wishes to have a "Lilliputian to play with," so she is promptly
told that her lover would doff five feet of his tall stature, to meet her
pleasure, and
"Then when my Celia walks abroad
I'd be her pocket's little Load:
Or sit astride, to frighten People,
Upon her Hat's new fashion'd Steeple."
Nay, to be prized by Celia, who would not even take the form of her
faithful dog Quadrille.
Jove, we may remember, had dowered the lovely Miss Cradocks with minds as
fair as their persons; and the excellence of Celia's understanding is
again celebrated in a neatly turned verse upon her 'having blamed Mr Gay
for his Severity on her Sex.' Had other women known a tenderness like
hers, cries the poet, Gay's darts had returned into his own bosom; and
last of all should such blame come from her
"in whose accomplish'd Mind
The strongest Satire on thy Sex we find."
The love story that first ran to such pleasant rhymes, in the old
cathedral town, was destined to know many a harsh chapter of poverty and
sickness; but throughout it all the affection of the lovers remained
true; and there is no reason to doubt that, had it been in Harry
Fielding's power to achieve it, the promise of perhaps the most charming
of his love verses would have been fulfilled:
"Can there on Earth, my _Celia_, be,
A Price I would not pay for thee?
Yes, one dear precious Tear of thine
Should not be shed to make thee mine."
To read Swift's _Journal to Stella_ is almost a sacrilege; the little
notes that Dick Steele would write to his 'dearest Prue' at all hours of
day and night, from tavern and printing office, are scarce less private;
no such seals have been broken, no such records preserved, of the love
story of Harry Fielding. But to neither Swift nor Steele was it given to
raise so perfect and imperishable a memorial of the women loved by them,
as that reared by the passionate affection and grief of Fielding for
Charlotte Cradock. To this day the beautiful young figure of Sophia
Western, all charm and goodness, is alive in his immortal pages. And if,
as her friend Lady Bute asserts, Amelia also is Mrs Fielding's portrait,
then we know her no less intimately as wife and mother. We watch her brave
spirit never failing under the most cruel distresses and conflicts; we
play with her children in their little nursery; we hear her pleasant wit
with the good parson; we feel her fresh beauty, undimmed in the poor
remnants of a wardrobe that has gone, with her trinkets, to the
pawnbroker; we see a hundred examples of her courage and tenderness and
generosity. There is nothing in Fielding's life that is more to his honour
than the brief words in which so competent an observer as Lady Bute summed
up his marriage with Charlotte Cradock, "he loved her passionately and she
returned his affection."
It was in the little country church of St Mary Charlcombe, a remote
village some two miles from Bath, that "Henry Fielding, of ye Parish of St
James in Bath, Esq., and Charlotte Cradock of ye same Parish, spinster"
were married, on the 28th of November 1734. [2] Fifty years later the
village was described as containing only nine houses, the church, well
fitted for the flock, being but eighteen feet wide. The old Somerset
historian, Collinson, tells us how the hamlet stood on rising ground, in a
deep retired valley, surrounded by noble hills, and with a little stream
winding through the vale.
In the January following Fielding and his wife were presumably back in
town; for in this month he produced, at Drury Lane, the brisk little
farce called _An Old Man taught Wisdom_, a title afterwards changed to the
_Virgin Unmasked_. It is probable that this farce was especially written
to suit Kitty Clive in her excelling character of hoyden; and to it, as we
have seen, together with two of its predecessors, is assigned the credit
of having first given that superb comic actress an opportunity of
revealing her powers. Mrs Clive here played the part of Miss Lucy, a
forward young lady who after skittishly interviewing a number of suitors
proposed by her father, finally runs away with Thomas the footman. The
little piece is said to have achieved success; but scarce had it been
staged when "the prolific Mr Fielding," as a newspaper of the day styles
him, brought out a five-act comedy, named the _Universal Gallant: or The
different Husbands_, which wholly failed to please the audience, and
indeed ran but for three nights.
The dedication of this play is dated from "Buckingham Street, Feb. 12,"
and assuming Buckingham Street, Strand, to be the district meant, it is
probable that the newly married 'poet' and his wife were then living with
Mrs Fielding's relatives; for although the rate-books for Buckingham
Street fail to show the name of Fielding, they do show that a Mr Thomas
Cradock was then a householder in the street. In an _Advertisement_,
prefixed to the published copies of this ill-fated comedy, the
disappointed author deprecates the hasty voice of the pit in words that
suggest the anxiety of a man now responsible for a happiness dearer than
his own. "I have heard," he writes, "that there are some young Gentlemen
about this Town who make a Jest of damning Plays--but did they seriously
consider the Cruelty they are guilty of by such a Practice, I believe it
would prevent them"; the more, that if the author be "so unfortunate to
depend on the success of his Labours for his Bread, he must be an inhuman
Creature indeed, who would out of sport and wantonness prevent a Man from
getting a Livelihood in an honest and inoffensive Way, and make a jest of
starving him and his Family." There is other evidence that young men about
town were wont to amuse themselves by damning plays 'when George was
King.' In the _Prologue_ to this same condemned play, spoken by the actor
Quin, and said to have been written after the disastrous first night's
performance, a more elaborate indictment is laid against the audiences of
the day. The _Critick_, it seems, is grown so captious that if a poet
seeks new characters he is denounced for dealing in monsters; if they are
known and common, then he is a plagiarist; if his scenes are serious they
are voted dull; if humorous they are 'low' (a true Fielding touch). And
not only the critic but also the brainless beau stands, as we have seen,
ready to make sport of the poor author. For such as these
_"'Tis not the Poet's wit affords the Jest,
But who can Cat-call, Hiss, or Whistle best."_
In previous years the brilliant Leyden student might have merely derided
his enemies; to the Fielding of February 1735, struggling to support
himself and his beautiful country bride, this 'cruel usage' of his 'poor
Play' assumed a graver aspect:
_"Can then another's Anguish give you Joy?
Or is it such a Triumph to destroy?
We, like the fabled Frogs, consider thus,
This may be Sport to you, but it is Death to us."_
This note of personal protest recalls an indisputably reminiscent
observation in _Amelia_, to the effect that although the kindness of a
faithful and beloved wife compensates most of the evils of life, it
"rather serves to aggravate the misfortune of distressed circumstances,
from the consideration of the share which she is to bear in them." We all
know how bravely Amelia bore that share; how cheerfully she would cook the
supper; how firmly she confronted disaster. To realise how deeply Fielding
felt the pain of such struggles when falling upon "the best, the worthiest
and the noblest of women" we need but turn again to his own pages. If,
cries Amelia's husband, when his distresses overwhelm him, "if I was to
suffer alone, I think I could bear them with some philosophy"; and again
"this was the first time I had ever felt that distress which arises from
the want of money; a distress very dreadful indeed in the married state
for what can be more miserable than to see anything necessary to the
preservation of the beloved creature and not be able to supply it?"
To supply for his Celia much less than the necessities of life Harry
Fielding would undoubtedly have stripped his coat, and his shirt with it,
off his back; but, at the end of this same month of February, fortune
made the young couple sudden amends for the anxieties that seem to have
surrounded them. This turn of the wheel is reflected with curious
accuracy by an anonymous satirist of 1735:
"F---g, who _Yesterday_ appear'd so rough,
Clad in coarse Frize, and plaister'd down with _Snuff_,
See how his _Instant_ gaudy _Trappings_ shine;
What _Play-house_ Bard was ever seen so fine!
But this, not from his _Humour_ glows, you'll say
But mere _Necessity_;--for last Night lay
In pawn the Velvet which he wears to Day." [3]
This relief, for a time at least, from the pressing anxieties of a
'play-house bard,' befell by the death of Charlotte Fielding's mother,
Mrs Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury, who died in February, but a week or
two after the execution of a will wholly in favour of that 'dearly
beloved' daughter. As the details of Mrs Fielding's inheritance have not
hitherto been known, some portions of her mother's will may be quoted.
"... I Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury in the County of Wilts ... do make
this my last will and testament ... Item I give to my daughter Catherine
one shilling and all the rest and residue of my ready money plate jewels
and estate whatsoever and wheresoever after my debts and funeral charges
are fully paid and satisfied I give devize and bequeath the same unto my
dearly beloved daughter Charlott Ffeilding wife of Henry Ffeilding of
East Stour in the County of Dorset Esqre." Mrs Cradock proceeds to revoke
all former wills; and appoints her said daughter "Charlott Ffeilding" as
her sole executrix. The will is dated February 8 1734, old style, viz.
1735; and was proved in London on the 25th of the same month, 'Charlott
Ffeilding,' as sole executrix, being duly sworn to administer. The
provision of one shilling for another, and apparently _not_ dearly
beloved, daughter, Catherine, recalls the wicked sister in _Amelia_ who
"had some way or other disobliged her mother, a little before the old lady
died," and who consequently was deprived of that inheritance which
relieved Amelia and her husband from the direst straits.
As no plays are credited to Fielding's name for the ensuing months of
1735, it is a reasonable inference that the young Salisbury heiress, whose
experience of London had, doubtless, included a pretty close acquaintance
with the hardships of struggling genius, employed some of her inheritance
to enable her husband to return to the home of his boyhood, on the
"pleasant Banks of sweetly-winding Stour." There is no record of how the
Stour estate, settled on Henry Fielding and his brother and sisters, was
apportioned; but an engraving published in 1813 shows the old stone
"farmhouse," which Fielding occupied, the kitchen of which then still
remained as it was in the novelist's time, when it served as a parlour.
Behind the house stood a famous locust tree; and close by was the village
church served at this time, as the parish registers show, by the Rev.
William Young, the original of the immortal Parson Adams of _Joseph
Andrews_. [4] From a subsequent deed of sale we know that the estate
consisted of at least three gardens, three orchards, eighty acres of
meadow, one hundred and forty acres of pasture, ten acres of wood, two
dove-houses, and "common of pasture for all manner of cattle." To the
stone farmhouse, and to these orchards and meadows, commons and pastures,
Fielding brought his wife, probably in this year of 1735; and memories of
their sojourn at Stour surely inspired those references in _Amelia_ to the
country life of 'love, health, and tranquillity,' a life resembling a calm
sea which "must appear dull in description; for who can describe the
pleasures which the morning air gives to one in perfect health; the flow
of spirits which springs up from exercise; the delights which parents feel
from the prattle and innocent follies of their children; the joy with
which the tender smile of a wife inspires a husband; or lastly the
cheerful solid comfort which a fond couple enjoy in each others'
conversation.--All these pleasures, and every other of which our situation
was capable we tasted in the highest degree."
That a man endowed with Fielding's intense joy in living--he was "so
formed for happiness," wrote his cousin Lady Mary, "it is a pity he was
not immortal"--should eagerly taste all the pleasures of life as a country
gentleman, and that in 'the highest degree,' is entirely consonant with
his character. At the very end of his life, when dying of a complication
of diseases, his happy social spirit was still unbroken; for we find him
even then writing of his inability to enjoy an agreeable hour "without the
assistance of a companion which has always appeared to me necessary to
such enjoyment." [5] Nor would the generous temper, which was ever ready
to share his most needed guinea with a friend scarce poorer than himself,
be infected with niggardliness by the happy enjoyment of that position to
which he was by birth entitled. The well-known account therefore, given by
Murphy, of the East Stour episode is exactly what we might have expected
of Harry Fielding in the part of country gentleman: "To that place [_i.e._
his estate of East Stour]," says Murphy, "he retired with his wife, on
whom he doated, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and
intemperances to which he had addicted himself in the career of a town
life. But unfortunately a kind of family pride here gained an ascendant
over him, and he began immediately to vie in splendour with the
neighbouring country 'squires. With an estate not much above two hundred
pounds a year, and his wife's fortune, which did not exceed fifteen
hundred pounds, he encumbered himself with a large retinue of servants,
all clad in costly yellow liveries. For their master's honour, these
people could not descend so low as to be careful of their apparel, but in
a month or two were unfit to be seen; the 'squire's dignity required that
they should be new-equipped; and his chief pleasure consisting in society
and convivial mirth, hospitality threw open his doors, and, in less than
three years, entertainments, hounds, and horses, entirely devoured a
little patrimony...." This account is prefaced by gross inaccuracies of
fact, inexplicable in a biographer writing but ten years after the death
of his subject; but, as Mr Austin Dobson says, "there can be little doubt
that the rafters of the old farm by the Stour, with the great locust tree
at the back, which is figured in Hutchins's _History of Dorset_, rang
often to hunting choruses, and that not seldom the 'dusky Night rode down
the Sky' over the prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests."
Petty-minded moralists like Murphy have gravely admonished the great
novelist's memory for not having safely bestowed his estate in the consols
of the period; they forget that a spirit of small economy is generally the
compensation awarded to the poor average of humanity. The genius of
Fielding knew how to enjoy splendidly, and to give lavishly.
[1] _Tom Jones_. Book xiii. Introduction.
[2] See the registers of St Mary Charlcombe. As Sarah Fielding, the
novelist's sister, was buried in the entrance to the chancel of this
church, it would appear that some connection existed between Charlcombe
and the Fielding family.
[3] _Seasonable Reproof--a Satire in the manner of Horace_, 1735.
[4] The entry in the East Stour Registers is "W'm. Young, Curate
1731-1740."
[5] _Voyage to Lisbon_.