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ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS
FIELDING
BY AUSTIN DOBSON
PREFATORY NOTE.
From a critical point of view, the works of Fielding have received
abundant examination at the hands of a long line of distinguished
writers. Of these, the latest is by no means the least; and as Mr.
Leslie Stephen's brilliant studies, in the recent _edition de luxe_ and
the _Cornhill Magazine_, are now in every one's hands, it is perhaps no
more than a wise discretion which has prompted me to confine my
attention more strictly to the purely biographical side of the subject.
In the present memoir, therefore, I have made it my duty, primarily, to
verify such scattered anecdotes respecting Fielding as have come down to
us; to correct (I hope not obtrusively) a few mis-statements which have
crept into previous accounts; and to add such supplementary details as I
have been able to discover for myself.
In this task I have made use of the following authorities:--
I. Arthur Murphy's _Essay on the Life and Genius of Henry Fielding,
Esq._ This was prefixed to the first collected edition of Fielding's
works published by Andrew Millar in April 1762; and it continued for a
long time to be the recognised authority for Fielding's life. It is
possible that it fairly reproduces his personality, as presented by
contemporary tradition; but it is misleading in its facts, and
needlessly diffuse. Under pretence of respecting "the Manes of the
dead," the writer seems to have found it pleasanter to fill his space
with vagrant discussions on the "Middle Comedy of the Greeks" and the
machinery of the _Rape of the Lock_, than to make the requisite
biographical inquiries. This is the more to be deplored, because, in
1762, Fielding's widow, brother, and sister, as well as his friend
Lyttelton, were still alive, and trustworthy information should have
been procurable.
II. Watson's _Life of Henry Fielding, Esq_. This is usually to be found
prefixed to a selection of Fielding's works issued at Edinburgh. It also
appeared as a volume in 1807, although there is no copy of it in this
form at the British Museum. It carries Murphy a little farther, and
corrects him in some instances. But its author had clearly never even
seen the _Miscellanies_ of 1743, with their valuable Preface, for he
speaks of them as one volume, and in apparent ignorance of their
contents.
III. Sir Walter Scott's biographical sketch for Ballantyne's _Novelist's
Library_. This was published in 1821; and is now included in the
writer's _Miscellaneous Prose Works_. Sir Walter made no pretence to
original research, and even spoke slightingly of this particular work;
but it has all the charm of his practised and genial pen.
IV. Roscoe's Memoir, compiled for the one-volume edition of Fielding,
published by Washbourne and others in 1840.
V. Thackeray's well-known lecture, in the _English Humourists of the
Eighteenth Century_, 1853.
VI. _The Life of Henry Fielding; with Notices of his Writings, his
Times, and his Contemporaries_. By Frederick Lawrence. 1855. This is an
exceedingly painstaking book; and constitutes the first serious attempt
at a biography. Its chief defect--as pointed out at the time of its
appearance--is an ill-judged emulation of Forster's _Goldsmith_. The
author attempted to make Fielding a literary centre, which is
impossible; and the attempt has involved him in needless digressions. He
is also not always careful to give chapter and verse for his statements.
VII. Thomas Keightley's papers _On the Life and Writings of Henry
Fielding_ in _Fraser's Magazine_ for January and February 1858. These,
prompted by Mr. Lawrence's book, are most valuable, if only for the
author's frank distrust of his predecessors. They are the work of an
enthusiast, and a very conscientious examiner. If, as reported, Mr.
Keightley himself meditated a life of Fielding, it is much to be
regretted that he never carried out his intention.
Upon the two last-mentioned works I have chiefly relied in the
preparation of this study. I have freely availed myself of the material
that both authors collected, verifying it always, and extending it
wherever I could. Of my other sources of information--pamphlets,
reviews, memoirs, and newspapers of the day--the list would be too long;
and sufficient references to them are generally given in the body of the
text. I will only add that I think there is scarcely a quotation of
importance in these pages which has not been compared with the original;
and, except where otherwise stated, all extracts from Fielding himself
are taken from the first editions.
At this distance of time, new facts respecting a man of whom so little
has been recorded require to be announced with considerable caution.
Some definite additions to Fielding lore I have, however, been enabled
to make. Thanks to the late Colonel J. L. Chester, who was engaged, only
a few weeks before his death, in friendly investigations on my behalf, I
am able to give, for the first time, the date and place of Fielding's
second marriage, and the baptismal dates of all the children by that
marriage, except the eldest. I am also able to fix approximately the
true period of his love-affair with Miss Sarah Andrew. From the original
assignment at South Kensington I have ascertained the exact sum paid by
Millar for _Joseph Andrews_; and in chapter v. will be found a series of
extracts from a very interesting correspondence, which does not appear
to have been hitherto published, between Aaron Hill, his daughters, and
Richardson, respecting _Tom Jones_. Although I cannot claim credit for
the discovery, I believe the present is also the first biography of
Fielding which entirely discredits the unlikely story of his having been
a stroller at Bartholomew Fair; and I may also, I think, claim to have
thrown some additional light on Fielding's relations with the Cibbers,
seeing that the last critical essay upon the author of the _Apology_
which I have met with, contains no reference to Fielding at all. For
such minor novelties as the passage from the _Universal Spectator_, and
the account of the projected translation of Lucian, etc., the reader is
referred to the book itself, where these, and other waifs and strays,
are duly indicated. If, in my endeavour to secure what is freshest, I
have at the same time neglected a few stereotyped quotations, which have
hitherto seemed indispensable in writing of Fielding, I trust I may be
forgiven.
Brief as it is, the book has not been without its obligations. To Mr. B.
F. Sketchley, Keeper of the Dyce and Forster Collections at South
Kensington, I am indebted for reference to the Hill correspondence, and
for other kindly offices; to Mr. Frederick Locker for permission to
collate Fielding's last letter with the original in his possession. My
thanks are also due to Mr. R. Arthur Kinglake, J.P., of Taunton; to the
Rev. Edward Hale of Eton College, the Rev. G. C. Green of Modbury,
Devon, the Rev. W. S. Shaw of Twerton-on-Avon, and Mr. Richard Garnett
of the British Museum. Without some expression of gratitude to the last
mentioned, it would indeed be almost impossible to conclude any modern
preface of this kind. If I have omitted the names of others who have
been good enough to assist me, I must ask them to accept my
acknowledgments although they are not specifically expressed.
EALING, _March_ 1883.
I have taken advantage of the present issue to add, in the form of
Appendices, some supplementary particulars which have come to my
knowledge since the book was first published. The most material of these
is the curious confirmation and extension of Fielding's love affair with
Sarah Andrew. Besides these additions, a few necessary rectifications
have been made in the text.
A. D.
EALING, _April_ 1889.
The approaching bi-centenary (April 22, 1907) of Fielding's birth
affords a pretext for bringing together, in a fourth Appendix, some
additional particulars which have been discovered or established since
the issue of the last edition of this Memoir. These particulars relate
to his pedigree, his residence at Leyden as a student, his marriage to
his first wife Charlotte Cradock, his Will, his library, his family and
some other minor matters.
A. D.
EALING. _March_ 1907.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS--FIRST PLAYS
CHAPTER II.
MORE PLAYS--MARRIAGE--THE LICENSING ACT
CHAPTER III.
THE CHAMPION--JOSEPH ANDREWS
CHAPTER IV.
THE MISCELLANIES--JONATHAN WILD
CHAPTER V.
TOM JONES
CHAPTER VI.
JUSTICE LIFE--AMELIA
CHAPTER VII.
THE JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO LISBON
POSTSCRIPT
APPENDIX No. I.
FIELDING AND SARAH ANDREW
APPENDIX No. II.
FIELDING AND MRS. HUSSEY
APPENDIX No. III.
AMELIA'S ACCIDENT
APPENDIX No. IV.
FlELDINGIANA
INDEX
CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS--FIRST PLAYS.
Like his contemporary Smollett, Henry Fielding came of an ancient
family, and might, in his Horatian moods, have traced his origin to
Inachus. The lineage of the house of Denbigh, as given in Burke, fully
justifies the splendid but sufficiently quoted eulogy of Gibbon. From
that first Jeffrey of Hapsburgh, who came to England, _temp._ Henry
III., and assumed the name of Fieldeng, or Filding, "from his father's
pretensions to the dominions of Lauffenbourg and Rinfilding," the future
novelist could boast a long line of illustrious ancestors. There was a
Sir William Feilding killed at Tewkesbury, and a Sir Everard who
commanded at Stoke. Another Sir William, a staunch Royalist, was created
Earl of Denbigh, and died in fighting King Charles's battles. Of his two
sons, the elder, Basil, who succeeded to the title, was a
Parliamentarian, and served at Edgehill under Essex. George, his second
son, was raised to the peerage of Ireland as Viscount Callan, with
succession to the earldom of Desmond; and from this, the younger branch
of the Denbigh family, Henry Fielding directly descended. The Earl of
Desmond's fifth son, John, entered the Church, becoming Canon of
Salisbury and Chaplain to William III. By his wife Bridget, daughter of
Scipio Cockain, Esq., of Somerset, he had three sons and three
daughters. Edmund, the third son, was a soldier, who fought with
distinction under Marlborough. When about the age of thirty, he married
Sarah, daughter of Sir Henry Gould, Knt., of Sharpham Park, near
Glastonbury, in Somerset, and one of the Judges of the King's Bench.
These last were the parents of the novelist, who was born at Sharpham
Park on the 22d of April 1707. One of Dr. John Fielding's nieces, it may
here be added, married the first Duke of Kingston, becoming the mother
of Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterwards Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was
thus Henry Fielding's second cousin. She had, however, been born in
1689, and was consequently some years his senior.
According to a pedigree given in Nichols (_History and Antiquities of
the County of Leicester_), Edmund Fielding was only a lieutenant when he
married; and it is even not improbable (as Mr. Keightley conjectures
from the nearly secret union of _Lieutenant_ Booth and Amelia in the
later novel) that the match may have been a stolen one. At all events,
the bride continued to reside at her father's house; and the fact that
Sir Henry Gould, by his will made in March 1706, left his daughter
L3000, which was to be invested "in the purchase either of a Church or
Colledge lease, or of lands of Inheritance," for her sole use, her
husband having "nothing to doe with it," would seem (as Mr. Keightley
suggests) to indicate a distrust of his military, and possibly
impecunious, son-in-law. This money, it is also important to remember,
was to come to her children at her death. Sir Henry Gould did not long
survive the making of his will, and died in March 1710. [Footnote: Mr.
Keightley, who seems to have seen the will, dates it--doubtless by a
slip of the pen--May 1708. Reference to the original, however, now at
Somerset House, shows the correct date to be March 8, 1706, before which
time the marriage of Fielding's parents must therefore be placed.] The
Fieldings must then have removed to a small house at East Stour (now
Stower), in Dorsetshire, where Sarah Fielding was born in the following
November. It may be that this property was purchased with Mrs.
Fielding's money; but information is wanting upon the subject. At East
Stour, according to the extracts from the parish register given in
Hutchins's _History of Dorset_, four children were born,--namely, Sarah,
above mentioned, afterwards the authoress of _David Simple_, Anne,
Beatrice, and another son, Edmund. Edmund, says Arthur Murphy, "was an
officer in the marine service," and (adds Mr. Lawrence) "died young."
Anne died at East Stour in August 1716. Of Beatrice nothing further is
known. These would appear to have been all the children of Edmund
Fielding by his first wife, although, as Sarah Fielding is styled on her
monument at Bath the _second_ daughter of General Fielding, it is not
impossible that another daughter may have been born at Sharpham Park.
At East Stour the Fieldings certainly resided until April 1718, when
Mrs. Fielding died, leaving her elder son a boy of not quite eleven
years of age. How much longer the family remained there is unrecorded;
but it is clear that a great part of Henry Fielding's childhood must
have been spent by the "pleasant Banks of sweetly-winding Stour" which
passes through it, and to which he subsequently refers in _Tom Jones_.
His education during this time was confided to a certain Mr. Oliver,
whom Lawrence designates the "family chaplain." Keightley supposes that
he was the curate of East Stour; but Hutchins, a better authority than
either, says that he was the clergyman of Motcombe, a neighbouring
village. Of this gentleman, according to Murphy, Parson Trulliber in
_Joseph Andrews_ is a "very humorous and striking portrait." It is
certainly more humorous than complimentary.
From Mr. Oliver's fostering care--and the result shows that, whatever
may have been the pig-dealing propensities of Parson Trulliber, it was
not entirely profitless--Fielding was transferred to Eton. When this
took place is not known; but at that time boys entered the school much
earlier than they do now, and it was probably not long after his
mother's death. The Eton boys were then, as at present, divided into
collegers and oppidans. There are no registers of oppidans before the
end of the last century; but the Provost of Eton has been good enough to
search the college lists from 1715 to 1735, and there is no record of
any Henry Fielding, nor indeed of any Fielding at all. It may therefore
be concluded that he was an oppidan. No particulars of his stay at Eton
have come down to us; but it is to be presumed Murphy's statement that,
"when he left the place, he was said to be uncommonly versed in the
Greek authors, and an early master of the Latin classics," is not made
without foundation. [Footnote: Fielding's own words in the verses to
Walpole some years later scarcely go so far:--
"_Tuscan_ and _French_ are in my Head; _Latin_ I write, and _Greek_ I--
read."] We have also his own authority (in _Tom_ _Jones_) for supposing
that he occasionally, if not frequently, sacrificed "with true Spartan
devotion" at the "birchen Altar," of which a representation is to be
found in Mr. Maxwell Lyte's history of the College. And it may fairly be
inferred that he took part in the different sports and pastimes of the
day, such as Conquering Lobs, Steal baggage, Chuck, Starecaps, and so
forth. Nor does it need any strong effort of imagination to conclude
that he bathed in "Sandy hole" or "Cuckow ware," attended the cock-
fights in Bedford's Yard and the bull-baiting in Bachelor's Acre, drank
mild punch at the "Christopher," and, no doubt, was occasionally brought
back by Jack Cutler, "Pursuivant of Runaways," to make his explanations
to Dr. Bland the Head-Master, or Francis Goode the Usher. Among his
school-fellows were some who subsequently attained to high dignities in
the State, and still remained his friends. Foremost of these was George
Lyttelton, later the statesman and orator, who had already commenced
poet as an Eton boy with his "Soliloquy of a Beauty in the Country."
Another was the future Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the wit and squib-
writer, then known as Charles Hanbury only. A third was Thomas
Winnington, for whom, in after years, Fielding fought hard with brain
and pen when Tory scribblers assailed his memory. Of those who must be
regarded as contemporaries merely, were William Pitt, the "Great
Commoner," and yet greater Earl of Chatham; Henry Fox, Lord Holland; and
Charles Pratt, Earl Camden. Gilbert West, the translator of Pindar, may
also have been at Eton in Fielding's time, as he was only a year older,
and was intimate with Lyttelton. Thomas Augustine Arne, again, famous in
days to come as Dr. Arne, was doubtless also at this date practising
sedulously upon that "miserable cracked common flute," with which
tradition avers he was wont to torment his school-fellows. Gray and
Horace Walpole belong to a later period.
During his stay at Eton, Fielding had been rapidly developing from a boy
into a young man. When he left school it is impossible to say; but he
was probably seventeen or eighteen years of age, and it is at this stage
of his career that must be fixed an occurrence which one of his
biographers places much farther on. This is his earliest recorded love-
affair. At Lyme Regis there resided a young lady, who, in addition to
great personal charms, had the advantage of being the only daughter and
heiress of one Solomon Andrew, deceased, a merchant of considerable
local reputation. Lawrence says that she was Fielding's cousin. This may
be so; but the statement is unsupported by any authority. It is certain,
however, that her father was dead, and that she was living "in maiden
meditation" at Lyme with one of her guardians, Mr. Andrew Tucker. In his
chance visits to that place, young Fielding appears to have become
desperately enamoured of her, and to have sadly fluttered the Dorset
dovecotes by his pertinacious and undesirable attentions. At one time he
seems to have actually meditated the abduction of his "flame," for an
entry in the town archives, discovered by Mr. George Roberts, sometime
Mayor of Lyme, who tells the story, declares that Andrew Tucker, Esq.,
went in fear of his life "owing to the behaviour of Henry Fielding and
his attendant, or man." Such a state of things (especially when
guardians have sons of their own) is clearly not to be endured; and Miss
Andrew was prudently transferred to the care of another guardian, Mr.
Rhodes of Modbury, in South Devon, to whose son, a young gentleman of
Oxford, she was promptly married. Burke (_Landed Gentry_, 1858) dates
the marriage in 1726, a date which is practically confirmed by the
baptism of a child at Modbury in April of the following year. Burke
further describes the husband as Mr. Ambrose Rhodes of Buckland House,
Buckland-Tout-Saints. His son, Mr. Rhodes of Bellair, near Exeter, was
gentleman of the Privy Chamber to George III.; and one of his
descendants possessed a picture which passed for the portrait of Sophia
Western. The tradition of the Tucker family pointed to Miss Andrew as
the original of Fielding's heroine; but though such a supposition is
intelligible, it is untenable, since he says distinctly (Book XIII.
chap. i. of _Tom Jones_) that his model was his first wife, whose
likeness he moreover draws very specifically in another place, by
declaring that she resembled Margaret Cecil, Lady Ranelagh, and, more
nearly, "the famous Dutchess of _Mazarine_." [Footnote: See Appendix No.
I.: Fielding and Sarah Andrew.]
With this early escapade is perhaps to be connected what seems to have
been one of Fielding's earliest literary efforts. This is a
modernisation in burlesque octosyllabic verse of part of Juvenal's sixth
satire. In the "Preface" to the later published _Miscellanies_, it is
said to have been "originally sketched out before he was Twenty," and to
have constituted "all the Revenge taken by an injured Lover." But it
must have been largely revised subsequent to that date, for it contains
references to Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Woffington, Cibber the younger, and even
to Richardson's _Pamela_. It has no special merit, although some of the
couplets have the true Swiftian turn. If Murphy's statement be correct,
that the author "went from Eton to Leyden," it must have been planned at
the latter place, where, he tells us in the preface to _Don Quixote in
England_, he also began that comedy. Notwithstanding these literary
distractions, he is nevertheless reported to have studied the civilians
"with a remarkable application for about two years." At the expiration
of this time, remittances from home failing, he was obliged to forego
the lectures of the "learned Vitriarius" (then Professor of Civil Law at
Leyden University), and return to London, which he did at the beginning
of 1728 or the end of 1727.
The fact was that his father, never a rich man, had married again. His
second wife was a widow named Eleanor Rasa; and by this time he was fast
acquiring a second family. Under the pressure of his growing cares, he
found himself, however willing, as unable to maintain his eldest son in
London as he had previously been to discharge his expenses at Leyden.
Nominally, he made him an allowance of two hundred a year; but this, as
Fielding himself explained, "any body might pay that would." The
consequence was, that not long after the arrival of the latter in the
Metropolis he had given up all idea of pursuing the law, to which his
mother's legal connections had perhaps first attracted him, and had
determined to adopt the more seductive occupation of living by his wits.
At this date he was in the prime of youth. From the portrait by Hogarth
representing him at a time when he was broken in health and had lost his
teeth, it is difficult to reconstruct his likeness at twenty. But we may
fairly assume the "high-arched Roman nose" with which his enemies
reproached him, the dark eyes, the prominent chin, and the humorous
expression; and it is clear that he must have been tall and vigorous,
for he was over six feet when he died, and had been remarkably strong
and active. Add to this that he inherited a splendid constitution, with
an unlimited capacity for enjoyment, and we have a fair idea of Henry
Fielding at that moment of his career, when with passions "tremblingly
alive all o'er"--as Murphy says--he stood,
"This way and that dividing the swift mind,"
between the professions of hackney-writer and hackney-coachman. His
natural bias was towards literature, and his opportunities, if not his
inclinations, directed him to dramatic writing.
It is not necessary to attempt any detailed account of the state of the
stage at this epoch. Nevertheless, if only to avoid confusion in the
future, it will be well to enumerate the several London theatres in
1728, the more especially as the list is by no means lengthy. First and
foremost there was the old Opera House in the Haymarket, built by
Vanbrugh, as far back as 1705, upon the site now occupied by Her
Majesty's Theatre. This was the home of that popular Italian song which
so excited the anger of thorough-going Britons; and here, at the
beginning of 1728, they were performing Handel's opera of _Siroe_, and
delighting the _cognoscenti_ by _Dite che fa_, the echo-air in the same
composer's _Tolomeo_. Opposite the Opera House, and, in position, only
"a few feet distant" from the existing Haymarket Theatre, was the New,
or Little Theatre in the Haymarket, which, from the fact that it had
been opened eight years before by "the French Comedians," was also
sometimes styled the French House. Next comes the no-longer-existent
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which Christopher Rich had rebuilt in
1714, and which his son John had made notorious for pantomimes. Here the
_Beggar's Opera_, precursor of a long line of similar productions, had
just been successfully produced. Finally, most ancient of them all,
there was the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane, otherwise the King's Play
House, or Old House. The virtual patentees at this time were the actors
Colley Cibber, Robert Wilks, and Barton Booth. The two former were just
playing the _Provok'd Husband_, in which the famous Mrs. Oldfield
(Pope's "Narcissa") had created a _furore_ by her assumption of Lady
Townley. These, in February 1728, were the four principal London
theatres. Goodman's Fields, where Garrick made his debut, was not opened
until the following year, and Covent Garden belongs to a still later
date.
Fielding's first dramatic essay--or, to speak more precisely, the first
of his dramatic essays that was produced upon the stage--was a five-act
comedy entitled _Love in Several Masques_. It was played at Drury Lane
in February 1728, succeeding the _Provok'd Husband_. In his "Preface"
the young author refers to the disadvantage under which he laboured in
following close upon that comedy, and also in being "contemporary with
an Entertainment which engrosses the whole Talk and Admiration of the
Town,"--i.e. the _Beggar's Opera_. He also acknowledges the kindness of
Wilks and Cibber "previous to its Representation," and the fact that he
had thus acquired their suffrages makes it doubtful whether his stay at
Leyden was not really briefer than is generally supposed, or that he
left Eton much earlier. In either case he must have been in London some
months before _Love in Several Masques_ appeared, for a first play by an
untried youth of twenty, however promising, is not easily brought upon
the boards in any era; and from his own utterances in _Pasquin_, ten
years later, it is clear that it was no easier then than now. The
sentiments of the Fustian of that piece in the following protest
probably give an accurate picture of the average dramatic experiences of
Henry Fielding:--
"These little things, Mr. _Sneerwell_, will sometimes happen. Indeed a
Poet undergoes a great deal before he comes to his Third Night; first
with the Muses, who are humorous Ladies, and must be attended; for if
they take it into their Head at any time to go abroad and leave you, you
will pump your Brain in vain: Then, Sir, with the Master of a
_Playhouse_ to get it acted, _whom you generally follow a quarter of a
Year before you know whether he will receive it or no_; and then perhaps
he tells you it won't do, and returns it you again, reserving the
Subject, and perhaps the Name, which he brings out in his next
_Pantomime_; but if he should receive the Play, then you must attend
again to get it writ out into Parts, and Rehears'd. Well, Sir, at last
the Rehearsals begin; then, Sir, begins another Scene of Trouble with
the Actors, some of whom don't like their Parts, and all are continually
plaguing you with Alterations: At length, after having waded thro' all
these Difficulties, his [the?] Play appears on the Stage, where one Man
Hisses out of Resentment to the Author; a Second out of Dislike to the
House; a Third out of Dislike to the Actor; a Fourth out of Dislike to
the Play; a Fifth for the Joke sake; a Sixth to keep all the rest in
Company. Enemies abuse him, Friends give him up, the Play is damn'd, and
the Author goes to the Devil, so ends the Farce."
To which Sneerwell replies, with much promptitude:
"The Tragedy rather, I think, Mr. _Fustian_." But whatever may have been
its preliminary difficulties, Fielding's first play was not exposed to
so untoward a fate. It was well received. As might be expected in a
beginner, and as indeed the references in the Preface to Wycherley and
Congreve would lead us to expect, it was an obvious attempt in the
manner of those then all-popular writers. The dialogue is ready and
witty. But the characters have that obvious defect which Lord
Beaconsfield recognised when he spoke in later life of his own earliest
efforts. "Books written by boys," he says, "which pretend to give a
picture of manners and to deal in knowledge of human nature must
necessarily be founded on affectation." To this rule the personages of
_Love in Several Masques_ are no exception. They are drawn rather from
the stage than from life, and there is little constructive skill in the
plot. A certain booby squire, Sir Positive Trap, seems like a first
indication of some of the later successes in the novels; but the rest of
the _dramatis personae_ are puppets. The success of the piece was
probably owing to the acting of Mrs. Oldfield, who took the part of Lady
Matchless, a character closely related to the Lady Townleys and Lady
Betty Modishes, in which she won her triumphs. She seems, indeed, to
have been unusually interested in this comedy, for she consented to play
in it notwithstanding a "slight Indisposition" contracted "by her
violent Fatigue in the Part of Lady Townly," and she assisted the author
with her corrections and advice--perhaps with her influence as an
actress. Fielding's distinguished kinswoman Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
also read the MS. Looking to certain scenes in it, the protestation in
the Prologue--
"Nought shall offend the Fair Ones Ears to-day,
Which they might blush to hear, or blush to say"--
has an air of insincerity, although, contrasted with some of the
writer's later productions, _Love in Several Masques_ is comparatively
pure. But he might honestly think that the work which had received the
_imprimatur_ of a stage-queen and a lady of quality should fairly be
regarded as morally blameless, and it is not necessary to bring any bulk
of evidence to prove that the morality of 1728 differed from the
morality of to-day.
To the last-mentioned year is ascribed a poem entitled the
"_Masquerade_. Inscribed to C--t H--d--g--r. By Lemuel Gulliver, Poet
Laureate to the King of Lilliput." In this Fielding made his satirical
contribution to the attacks on those impure gatherings organised by the
notorious Heidegger, which Hogarth had not long before stigmatised
pictorially in the plate known to collectors as the "large Masquerade
Ticket." As verse this performance is worthless, and it is not very
forcibly on the side of good manners; but the ironic dedication has a
certain touch of Fielding's later fashion. Two other poetical pieces,
afterwards included in the _Miscellanies_ of 1743, also bear the date of
1728. One is _A Description of U--n G--_ (alias _New Hog's Norton_) _in
Com. Hants_, which Mr. Keightley has identified with Upton Grey, near
Odiham, in Hampshire. It is a burlesque description of a tumbledown
country-house in which the writer was staying, and is addressed to
Rosalinda. The other is entitled _To Euthalia_, from which it must be
concluded that, in 1728, Sarah Andrew had found more than one successor.
But in spite of some biographers, and of the apparent encouragement
given to his first comedy, Fielding does not seem to have followed up
dramatic authorship with equal vigour, or at all events with equal
success. His real connection with the stage does not begin until January
1730, when the _Temple Beau_ was produced by Giffard the actor at the
theatre in Goodman's Fields, which had then just been opened by Thomas
Odell; and it may be presumed that his incentive was rather want of
funds than desire of fame. _The Temple Beau_ certainly shows an advance
upon its predecessor; but it is an advance in the same direction,
imitation of Congreve; and although Geneste ranks it among the best of
Fielding's plays, it is doubtful whether modern criticism would sustain
his verdict. It ran for a short time, and was then withdrawn. The
Prologue was the work of James Ralph, afterwards Fielding's colleague in
the _Champion_, and it thus refers to the prevailing taste. The
_Beggar's Opera_ had killed Italian song, but now a new danger had
arisen,--
"Humour and Wit, in each politer Age,
Triumphant, rear'd the Trophies of the Stage:
But only Farce, and Shew, will now go down,
And Harlequin's the Darling of the Town."
As if to confirm his friend's opinion, Fielding's next piece combined
the popular ingredients above referred to. In March following he
produced at the Haymarket, under the pseudonym of Scriblerus Secundus,
_The Author's Farce_, with a "Puppet Show" called _The Pleasures of the
Town_. In the Puppet Show, Henley, the Clare-Market Orator, and Samuel
Johnson, the quack author of the popular _Hurlothrumbo_, were smartly
satirised, as also was the fashionable craze for Opera and Pantomime.
But the most enduring part of this odd medley is the farce which
occupies the two first acts, and under thin disguises no doubt depicts
much which was within the writer's experience. At all events, Luckless,
the author in the play, has more than one of the characteristics which
distinguish the traditional portrait of Fielding himself in his early
years. He wears a laced coat, is in love, writes plays, and cannot pay
his landlady, who declares, with some show of justice, that she "would
no more depend on a Benefit-Night of an un-acted Play, than she wou'd on
a Benefit-Ticket in an un-drawn Lottery." "Her Floor (she laments) is
all spoil'd with Ink--her Windows with Verses, and her Door has been
almost beat down with Duns." But the most humorous scenes in the play--
scenes really admirable in their ironic delineation of the seamy side of
authorship in 1730--are those in which Mr. Bookweight, the publisher--
the Curll or Osborne of the period--is shown surrounded by the obedient
hacks, who feed at his table on "good Milk-porridge, very often twice a
Day," and manufacture the murders, ghost-stories, political pamphlets,
and translations from Virgil (out of Dryden) with which he supplies his
customers. Here is one of them as good as any:--
"_Bookweight._ So, Mr. _Index_, what News with you?
_Index._ I have brought my Bill, Sir.
_Book._ What's here?--for fitting the Motto of _Risum teneatis Amici_ to
a dozen Pamphlets at Sixpence per each, Six Shillings--For _Omnia vincit
Amor, & nos cedamus Amori_, Sixpence--For _Difficile est Satyram non
scribere_, Sixpence--Hum! hum! hum! Sum total, for Thirty-six _Latin_
Motto's, Eighteen Shillings; ditto _English_, One Shilling and Nine-
pence; ditto _Greek_, Four, Four Shillings. These _Greek_ Motto's are
excessively dear.
_Ind._ If you have them cheaper at either of the Universities, I will
give you mine for nothing.
_Book._ You shall have your Money immediately, and pray remember that I
must have two _Latin_ Seditious Motto's and one _Greek_ Moral Motto for
Pamphlets by to-morrow Morning....
_Ind._ Sir, I shall provide them. Be pleas'd to look on that, Sir, and
print me Five hundred Proposals, and as many Receipts.
_Book._ Proposals for printing by Subscription a new Translation of
Cicero, _Of the Nature of the Gods and his Tusculan Questions_, by
_Jeremy Index_, Esq.; I am sorry you have undertaken this, for it
prevents a Design of mine.
_Ind._ Indeed, Sir, it does not, for you see all of the Book that I ever
intend to publish. It is only a handsome Way of asking one's Friends for
a Guinea.
_Book._ Then you have not translated a Word of it, perhaps.
_Ind._ Not a single Syllable.
_Book._ Well, you shall have your Proposals forthwith; but I desire you
wou'd be a little more reasonable in your Bills for the future, or I
shall deal with you no longer; for I have a certain Fellow of a College,
who offers to furnish me with Second-hand Motto's out of the _Spectator_
for Two-pence each.
_Ind._ Sir, I only desire to live by my Goods, and I hope you will be
pleas'd to allow some difference between a neat fresh Piece, piping hot
out of the Classicks, and old thread-bare worn-out Stuff that has past
thro' ev'ry Pedant's Mouth...."
The latter part of this amusing dialogue, referring to Mr. Index's
translation from Cicero, was added in an amended version of the
_Author's Farce_, which appeared some years later, and in which Fielding
depicts the portrait of another all-powerful personage in the literary
life,--the actor-manager. This, however, will be more conveniently
treated under its proper date, and it is only necessary to say here that
the slight sketches of Marplay and Sparkish given in the first edition,
were presumably intended for Cibber and Wilks, with whom,
notwithstanding the "civil and kind Behaviour" for which he had thanked
them in the "Preface" to _Love in Several Masques_, the young dramatist
was now, it seems, at war. In the introduction to the Miscellanies, he
refers to "a slight Pique" with Wilks; and it is not impossible that the
key to the difference may be found in the following passage:--
"_Sparkish._ What dost think of the Play?
_Marplay._ It may be a very good one, for ought I know; _but I know the
Author has no Interest_.
_Spark._ Give me Interest, and rat the Play.
_Mar._ Rather rat the Play which has no Interest. Interest sways as much
in the Theatre as at Court.--And you know it is not always the Companion
of Merit in either."
The handsome student from Leyden--the potential Congreve who wrote _Love
in Several Masques_, and had Lady Mary Wortley Montagu for patroness,
might fairly be supposed to have expectations which warranted the
civilities of Messrs. Wilks and Cibber; but the "Luckless" of two years
later had probably convinced them that his dramatic performances did not
involve their _sine qua non_ of success. Under these circumstances
nothing perhaps could be more natural than that they should play their
parts in his little satire.
We have dwelt at some length upon the _Author's Farce_, because it is
the first of Fielding's plays in which, leaving the "wit-traps" of
Wycherley and Congreve, he deals with the direct censure of contemporary
folly, and because, apart from translation and adaptation, it is in this
field that his most brilliant theatrical successes were won. For the
next few years he continued to produce comedies and farces with great
rapidity, both under his own name, and under the pseudonym of Scriblerus
Secundus. Most of these show manifest signs of haste, and some are
recklessly immodest. We shall confine ourselves to one or two of the
best, and do little more than enumerate the others. Of these latter, the
_Coffee-House Politician; or, The Justice caught in his own Trap,_ 1730,
succeeded the _Author's Farce_. The leading idea, that of a tradesman
who neglects his shop for "foreign affairs," appears to be derived from
Addison's excellent character-sketch in the _Tatler_ of the "Political
Upholsterer." This is the more likely, in that Arne the musician, whose
father is generally supposed to have been Addison's original, was
Fielding's contemporary at Eton. Justice Squeezum, another character
contained in this play, is a kind of first draft of the later Justice
Thrasher in _Amelia_. The representation of the trading justice on the
stage, however, was by no means new, since Justice Quorum in Coffey's
_Beggar's Wedding_ (with whom, as will appear presently, Fielding's name
has been erroneously associated) exhibits similar characteristics.
Omitting for the moment the burlesque of _Tom Thumb_, the _Coffee-House
Politician_ was followed by the _Letter Writers; or, A new Way to Keep a
Wife at Home_, 1731, a brisk little farce, with one vigorously drawn
character, that of Jack Commons, a young university rake; the _Grub-
Street Opera_, 1731; the farce of the _Lottery_, 1731, in which the
famous Mrs. Clive, then Miss Raftor, appeared; the _Modern Husband_,
1732; the _Covent Garden Tragedy_, 1732, a broad and rather riotous
burlesque of Ambrose Philips' _Distrest Mother_; and the _Debauchees;
or, The Jesuit Caught_, 1732--which was based upon the then debated
story of Father Girard and Catherine Cadiere.
Neither of the two last-named pieces is worthy of the author, and their
strongest condemnation in our day is that they were condemned in their
own for their unbridled license, the _Grub Street Journal_ going so far
as to say that they had "met with the universal detestation of the
Town." The _Modern Husband_, which turns on that most loathsome of all
commercial pursuits, the traffic of a husband in his wife's dishonour,
appears, oddly enough, to have been regarded by its author with especial
complacency. Its prologue lays stress upon the moral purpose; it was
dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole; and from a couple of letters printed in
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's _Correspondence_, it is clear that it had
been submitted to her perusal. It had, however, no great success upon
the stage, and the chief thing worth remembering about it is that it
afforded his last character to Wilks, who played the part of Bellamant.
That "slight Pique," of which mention has been made, was no doubt by
this time a thing of the past.
But if most of the works in the foregoing list can hardly be regarded as
creditable to Fielding's artistic or moral sense, one of them at least
deserves to be excepted, and that is the burlesque of _Tom Thumb_. This
was first brought out in 1730 at the little theatre in the Hay-market,
where it met with a favourable reception. In the following year it was
enlarged to three acts (in the first version there had been but two),
and reproduced at the same theatre as the _Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The
Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great_, "with the Annotations of H.
Scriblerus Secundus." It is certainly one of the best burlesques ever
written. As Baker observes in his _Biographia Dramatica_, it may fairly
be ranked as a sequel to Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, since it includes the
absurdities of nearly all the writers of tragedies from the period when
that piece stops to 1730. Among the authors satirised are Nat. Lee,
Thomson (whose famous
"O Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!"
is parodied by
"O Huncamunca, Huncamunca, O!"),
Banks's _Earl of Essex_, a favourite play at Bartholomew Fair, the
_Busiris_ of Young, and the _Aurengzebe_ of Dryden, etc. The
annotations, which abound in transparent references to Dr. B[_entle_]y,
Mr. T[_heobal_]d, Mr. D[_enni_]s, are excellent imitations of
contemporary pedantry. One example, elicited in Act 1 by a reference to
"giants," must stand for many:--
"That learned Historian Mr. S--n in the third Number of his Criticism
on our Author, takes great Pains to explode this Passage. It is, says
he, difficult to guess what Giants are here meant, unless the Giant
_Despair_ in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, or the giant _Greatness_ in the
_Royal Villain_; for I have heard of no other sort of Giants in the
Reign of King _Arthur_. _Petnis Burmanus_ makes three _Tom Thumbs_, one
whereof he supposes to have been the same Person whom the _Greeks_
called _Hercules_, and that by these Giants are to be understood the
_Centaurs_ slain by that Heroe. Another _Tom Thumb_ he contends to have
been no other than the _Hermes Trismegistus_ of the Antients. The third
_Tom Thumb_ he places under the Reign of King _Arthur_; to which third
_Tom Thumb_, says he, the Actions of the other two were attributed. Now,
tho' I know that this Opinion is supported by an Assertion of _Justus
Lipsius, Thomam ilium Thumbum non alium quam Herculem fuisse satis
constat_; yet shall I venture to oppose one Line of Mr. _Midwinter_,
against them all,
_In_ Arthurs' Court Tom Thumb _did live_.
"But then, says Dr. _B-----y_, if we place _Tom Thumb_ in the Court of
King _Arthur_, it will he proper to place that Court out of _Britain_,
where no Giants were ever heard of. _Spencer_, in his _Fairy Queen_, is
of another Opinion, where describing Albion, he says,
Far within, a salvage Nation dwelt
Of hideous Giants.
And in the same canto:
Then _Elfar_ with two Brethren Giants had
The one of which had two Heads,--
The other three.
Risum teneatis, Amici."
Of the play itself it is difficult to give an idea by extract, as nearly
every line travesties some tragic passage once familiar to play-goers,
and now utterly forgotten. But the following lines from one of the
speeches of Lord Grizzle--a part admirably acted by Liston in later
years [Footnote: Compare Hazlitt, _On the Comic Writers of the Last
Century._]--are a fair specimen of its ludicrous use (or rather abuse)
of simile:--
"Yet think not long, I will my Rival bear,
Or unreveng'd the slighted Willow wear;
The gloomy, brooding Tempest now confin'd,
Within the hollow Caverns of my Mind,
In dreadful Whirl, shall rowl along the Coasts,
Shall thin the Land of all the Men it boasts,
And cram up ev'ry Chink of Hell with Ghosts.
So have I seen, in some dark Winter's Day,
A sudden Storm rush down the Sky's High-Way,
Sweep thro' the Streets with terrible ding-dong,
Gush thro' the Spouts, and wash whole Crowds along.
The crowded Shops, the thronging Vermin skreen,
Together cram the Dirty and the Clean,
And not one Shoe-Boy in the Street is seen."
In the modern version of Kane O'Hara, to which songs were added, the
_Tragedy of Tragedies_ still keeps, or kept the stage. But its crowning
glory is its traditional connection with Swift, who told Mrs. Pilkington
that he "had not laugh'd above twice" in his life, once at the tricks of
a merry-andrew, and again when (in Fielding's burlesque) Tom Thumb
killed the ghost. This is an incident of the earlier versions, omitted
in deference to the critics, for which the reader will seek vainly in
the play as now printed; and he will, moreover, discover that Mrs.
Pilkington's memory served her imperfectly, since it is not Tom Thumb
who kills the ghost, but the ghost of Tom Thumb which is killed by his
jealous rival, Lord Grizzle. A trifling inaccuracy of this sort,
however, is rather in favour of the truth of the story than against it,
for a pure fiction would in all probability have been more precise.
Another point of interest in connection with this burlesque is the
frontispiece which Hogarth supplied to the edition of 1731. It has no
special value as a design, but it constitutes the earliest reference to
that friendship with the painter, of which so many traces are to be
found in Fielding's works.
Hitherto Fielding had succeeded best in burlesque. But, in 1732, the
same year in which he produced the _Modern Husband_, the _Debauchees_,
and the _Covent Garden Tragedy_, he made an adaptation of Moliere's
_Medecin malgre lui_, which had already been imitated in English by Mrs.
Centlivre and others. This little piece, to which he gave the title of
the _Mock-Doctor_; or, _The Dumb Lady cur'd_, was well received. The
French original was rendered with tolerable closeness; but here and
there Fielding has introduced little touches of his own, as, for
instance, where Gregory (Sganarelle) tells his wife Dorcas (Martino),
whom he has just been beating, that as they are but one, whenever he
beats her he beats half of himself. To this she replies by requesting
that for the future he will beat the other half. An entire scene (the
thirteenth) was also added at the desire of Miss Raftor, who played
Dorcas, and thought her part too short. This is apparently intended as a
burlesque of the notorious quack Misaubin, to whom the _Mock-Doctor_ was
ironically dedicated. He was the proprietor of a famous pill, and was
introduced by Hogarth into the _Harlot's Progress_. Gregory was played
by Theophilus Cibber, and the preface contains a complimentary reference
to his acting, and the expected retirement of his father from the stage.
Neither Genest nor Lawrence gives the date when the piece was first
produced, but if the "April" on the dubious author's benefit ticket
attributed to Hogarth be correct, it must have been in the first months
of 1732.
The cordial reception of the _Mock-Doctor_ seems to have encouraged
Fielding to make further levies upon Moliere, and he speaks of his hope
to do so in the "Preface." As a matter of fact, he produced a version of
_L'Avare_ at Drury Lane in the following year, which entirely outshone
the older versions of Shadwell and Ozell, and gained from Voltaire the
praise of having added to the original "_quelques beautes de dialogue
particulieres a sa_ (Fielding's) _nation_." Lovegold, its leading
_role_, became a stock part. It was well played by its first actor
Griffin, and was a favourite exercise with Macklin, Shuter, and (in our
own days) Phelps.
In February 1733, when the _Miser_ was first acted, Fielding was five
and twenty. His means at this time were, in all probability, exceedingly
uncertain. The small proportion of money due to him at his mother's
death had doubtless been long since exhausted, and he must have been
almost wholly dependent upon the precarious profits of his pen. That he
was assisted by rich and noble friends to any material extent appears,
in spite of Murphy, to be unlikely. At all events, an occasional
dedication to the Duke of Richmond or the Earl of Chesterfield cannot be
regarded as proof positive. Lyttelton, who certainly befriended him in
later life, was for a great part of this period absent on the Grand
Tour, and Ralph Allen had not yet come forward. In default of the always
deferred allowance, his father's house at Salisbury (?) was no doubt
open to him; and it is plain, from indications in his minor poems, that
he occasionally escaped into the country. But in London he lived for the
most part, and probably not very worshipfully. What, even now, would be
the life of a young man of Fielding's age, fond of pleasure, careless of
the future, very liberally equipped with high spirits, and straightway
exposed to the perilous seductions of the stage? Fielding had the
defects of his qualities, and was no better than the rest of those about
him. He was manly, and frank, and generous; but these characteristics
could scarcely protect him from the terrors of the tip-staff, and the
sequels of "t'other bottle." Indeed, he very honestly and unfeignedly
confesses to the lapses of his youth in the _Journey from this World to
the Next_, adding that he pretended "to very little Virtue more than
general Philanthropy and private Friendship." It is therefore but
reasonable to infer that his daily life must have been more than usually
characterised by the vicissitudes of the eighteenth-century prodigal,--
alternations from the "Rose" to a Clare-Market ordinary, from gold-lace
to fustian, from champagne to "British Burgundy." In a rhymed petition
to Walpole, dated 1730, he makes pleasant mirth of what no doubt was
sometimes sober truth--his debts, his duns, and his dinnerless
condition. He (the verses tell us)
"--from his Garret can look down
On the whole Street of _Arlington_." [Footnote: Where Sir Robert lived]
Again--
"The Family that dines the latest
Is in our Street esteem'd the greatest;
But latest Hours must surely fall
Before him who ne'er dines at all;"
and
"This too doth in my Favour speak,
Your Levee is but twice a Week;
From mine I can exclude but one Day,
My Door is quiet on a _Sunday_."
When he can admit so much even jestingly of himself, it is but
legitimate to presume that there is no great exaggeration in the
portrait of him in 1735, by the anonymous satirist of _Seasonable
Reproof_:--
"_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_ flows, you'll say,
But mere _Necessity_;--for last Night lay
In _Pawn_, the _Velvet_ which he wears to Day."
His work bears traces of the inequalities and irregularities of his mode
of living. Although in certain cases (e.g. the revised edition of _Tom
Thumb_) the artist and scholar seems to have spasmodically asserted
himself, the majority of his plays were hasty and ill-considered
performances, most of which (as Lady Mary said) he would have thrown
into the fire "if meat could have been got without money, and money
without scribbling." "When he had contracted to bring on a play, or a
farce," says Murphy, "it is well known, by many of his friends now
living, that he would go home rather late from a tavern, and would, the
next morning, deliver a scene to the players, written upon the papers
which had wrapped the tobacco, in which he so much delighted." It is not
easy to conceive, unless Fielding's capacities as a smoker were unusual,
that any large contribution to dramatic literature could have been made
upon the wrappings of Virginia or Freeman's Best; but that his
reputation for careless production was established among his
contemporaries is manifest from the following passage in a burlesque
_Author's Will_ published in the _Universal Spectator_ of Oldys:--
"_Item_, I give and bequeath to my very _negligent_ Friend _Henry
Drama_, Esq., all my INDUSTRY. And whereas the World may think this an
unnecessary Legacy, forasmuch as the said _Henry Drama_, Esq., brings on
the Stage _four Pieces_ every Season; yet as such Pieces are always
wrote with uncommon _Rapidity_, and during such fatal Intervals only as
the _Stocks_ have been on the _Fall_, this Legacy will be of use to him
to revise and correct his Works. Furthermore, for fear the said _Henry
Drama_ should make an ill Use of the said _Industry_, and expend it all
on a _Ballad Farce_, it's my Will the said Legacy should be paid him by
equal Portions, and as his Necessities may require."
There can be little doubt that the above quotation, which is reprinted
in the _Gentleman's_ for July 1734, and seems to have hitherto escaped
inquiry, refers to none other than the "very negligent" Author of the
_Modern Husband_ and the _Old Debauchees_--in other words, to Henry
Fielding.