the journal of a voyage to lisbon by henry fielding contents introduction to several works preface dedication to the public introduction to the voyage to lisbon the voyage introduction to several works when it was determined to extend the present edition of fielding, not merely by the addition of jonathan wild to the three universally popular novels, but by two volumes of miscellanies, there could be no doubt about at least one of the contents of these latter. the journal of a voyage to lisbon, if it does not rank in my estimation anywhere near to jonathan wild as an example of our author's genius, is an invaluable and delightful document for his character and memory. it is indeed, as has been pointed out in the general introduction to this series, our main source of indisputable information as to fielding dans son naturel, and its value, so far as it goes, is of the very highest. the gentle and unaffected stoicism which the author displays under a disease which he knew well was probably, if not certainly, mortal, and which, whether mortal or not, must cause him much actual pain and discomfort of a kind more intolerable than pain itself; his affectionate care for his family; even little personal touches, less admirable, but hardly less pleasant than these, showing an englishman's dislike to be "done" and an englishman's determination to be treated with proper respect, are scarcely less noticeable and important on the biographical side than the unimpaired brilliancy of his satiric and yet kindly observation of life and character is on the side of literature. there is, as is now well known since mr. dobson's separate edition of the voyage, a little bibliographical problem about the first appearance of this journal in 1755. the best known issue of that year is much shorter than the version inserted by murphy and reprinted here, the passages omitted being chiefly those reflecting on the captain, etc., and so likely to seem invidious in a book published just after the author's death, and for the benefit, as was expressly announced, of his family. but the curious thing is that there is another edition, of date so early that some argument is necessary to determine the priority, which does give these passages and is identical with the later or standard version. for satisfaction on this point, however, i must refer readers to mr. dobson himself. there might have been a little, but not much, doubt as to a companion piece for the journal; for indeed, after we close this (with or without its "fragment on bolingbroke"), the remainder of fielding's work lies on a distinctly lower level of interest. it is still interesting, or it would not be given here. it still has--at least that part which here appears seems to its editor to have--interest intrinsic and "simple of itself." but it is impossible for anybody who speaks critically to deny that we now get into the region where work is more interesting because of its authorship than it would be if its authorship were different or unknown. to put the same thing in a sharper antithesis, fielding is interesting, first of all, because he is the author of joseph andrews, of tom jones, of amelia, of jonathan wild, of the journal. his plays, his essays, his miscellanies generally are interesting, first of all, because they were written by fielding. yet of these works, the journey from this world to the next (which, by a grim trick of fortune, might have served as a title for the more interesting voyage with which we have yoked it) stands clearly first both in scale and merit. it is indeed very unequal, and as the author was to leave it unfinished, it is a pity that he did not leave it unfinished much sooner than he actually did. the first ten chapters, if of a kind of satire which has now grown rather obsolete for the nonce, are of a good kind and good in their kind; the history of the metempsychoses of julian is of a less good kind, and less good in that kind. the date of composition of the piece is not known, but it appeared in the miscellanies of 1743, and may represent almost any period of its author's development prior to that year. its form was a very common form at the time, and continued to be so. i do not know that it is necessary to assign any very special origin to it, though lucian, its chief practitioner, was evidently and almost avowedly a favorite study of fielding's. the spanish romancers, whether borrowing it from lucian or not, had been fond of it; their french followers, of whom the chief were fontenelle and le sage, had carried it northwards; the english essayists had almost from the beginning continued the process of acclimatization. fielding therefore found it ready to his hand, though the present condition of this example would lead us to suppose that he did not find his hand quite ready to it. still, in the actual "journey," there are touches enough of the master--not yet quite in his stage of mastery. it seemed particularly desirable not to close the series without some representation of the work to which fielding gave the prime of his manhood, and from which, had he not, fortunately for english literature, been driven decidedly against his will, we had had in all probability no joseph andrews, and pretty certainly no tom jones. fielding's periodical and dramatic work has been comparatively seldom reprinted, and has never yet been reprinted as a whole. the dramas indeed are open to two objections--the first, that they are not very "proper;" the second, and much more serious, that they do not redeem this want of propriety by the possession of any remarkable literary merit. three (or two and part of a third) seemed to escape this double censure--the first two acts of the author's farce (practically a piece to themselves, for the puppet show which follows is almost entirely independent); the famous burlesque of tom thumb, which stands between the rehearsal and the critic, but nearer to the former; and pasquin, the maturest example of fielding's satiric work in drama. these accordingly have been selected; the rest i have read, and he who likes may read. i have read many worse things than even the worst of them, but not often worse things by so good a writer as henry fielding. the next question concerned the selection of writings more miscellaneous still, so as to give in little a complete idea of fielding's various powers and experiments. two difficulties beset this part of the task--want of space and the absence of anything so markedly good as absolutely to insist on inclusion. the essay on conversation, however, seemed pretty peremptorily to challenge a place. it is in a style which fielding was very slow to abandon, which indeed has left strong traces even on his great novels; and if its mannerism is not now very attractive, the separate traits in it are often sharp and well-drawn. the book would not have been complete without a specimen or two of fielding's journalism. the champion, his first attempt of this kind, has not been drawn upon in consequence of the extreme difficulty of fixing with absolute certainty on fielding's part in it. i do not know whether political prejudice interferes, more than i have usually found it interfere, with my judgment of the two hanoverian-partisan papers of the '45 time. but they certainly seem to me to fail in redeeming their dose of rancor and misrepresentation by any sufficient evidence of genius such as, to my taste, saves not only the party journalism in verse and prose of swift and canning and praed on one side, but that of wolcot and moore and sydney smith on the other. even the often-quoted journal of events in london under the chevalier is overwrought and tedious. the best thing in the true patriot seems to me to be parson adams' letter describing his adventure with a young "bowe" of his day; and this i select, together with one or two numbers of the covent garden journal. i have not found in this latter anything more characteristic than murphy's selection, though mr. dobson, with his unfailing kindness, lent me an original and unusually complete set of the journal itself. it is to the same kindness that i owe the opportunity of presenting the reader with something indisputably fielding's and very characteristic of him, which murphy did not print, and which has not, so far as i know, ever appeared either in a collection or a selection of fielding's work. after the success of david simple, fielding gave his sister, for whom he had already written a preface to that novel, another preface for a set of familiar letters between the characters of david simple and others. this preface murphy reprinted; but he either did not notice, or did not choose to attend to, a note towards the end of the book attributing certain of the letters to the author of the preface, the attribution being accompanied by an agreeably warm and sisterly denunciation of those who ascribed to fielding matter unworthy of him. from these the letter which i have chosen, describing a row on the thames, seems to me not only characteristic, but, like all this miscellaneous work, interesting no less for its weakness than for its strength. in hardly any other instance known to me can we trace so clearly the influence of a suitable medium and form on the genius of the artist. there are some writers--dryden is perhaps the greatest of them--to whom form and medium seem almost indifferent, their all-round craftsmanship being such that they can turn any kind and every style to their purpose. there are others, of whom i think our present author is the chief, who are never really at home but in one kind. in fielding's case that kind was narrative of a peculiar sort, half-sentimental, half-satirical, and almost wholly sympathetic--narrative which has the singular gift of portraying the liveliest character and yet of admitting the widest disgression and soliloquy. until comparatively late in his too short life, when he found this special path of his (and it is impossible to say whether the actual finding was in the case of jonathan or in the case of joseph), he did but flounder and slip. when he had found it, and was content to walk in it, he strode with as sure and steady a step as any other, even the greatest, of those who carry and hand on the torch of literature through the ages. but it is impossible to derive full satisfaction from his feats in this part of the race without some notion of his performances elsewhere; and i believe that such a notion will be supplied to the readers of his novels by the following volumes, in a very large number of cases, for the first time. the journal of a voyage to lisbon dedication to the public your candor is desired on the perusal of the following sheets, as they are the product of a genius that has long been your delight and entertainment. it must be acknowledged that a lamp almost burnt out does not give so steady and uniform a light as when it blazes in its full vigor; but yet it is well known that by its wavering, as if struggling against its own dissolution, it sometimes darts a ray as bright as ever. in like manner, a strong and lively genius will, in its last struggles, sometimes mount aloft, and throw forth the most striking marks of its original luster. wherever these are to be found, do you, the genuine patrons of extraordinary capacities, be as liberal in your applauses of him who is now no more as you were of him whilst he was yet amongst you. and, on the other hand, if in this little work there should appear any traces of a weakened and decayed life, let your own imaginations place before your eyes a true picture in that of a hand trembling in almost its latest hour, of a body emaciated with pains, yet struggling for your entertainment; and let this affecting picture open each tender heart, and call forth a melting tear, to blot out whatever failings may be found in a work begun in pain, and finished almost at the same period with life. it was thought proper by the friends of the deceased that this little piece should come into your hands as it came from the hands of the author, it being judged that you would be better pleased to have an opportunity of observing the faintest traces of a genius you have long admired, than have it patched by a different hand, by which means the marks of its true author might have been effaced. that the success of the last written, though first published, volume of the author's posthumous pieces may be attended with some convenience to those innocents he hath left behind, will no doubt be a motive to encourage its circulation through the kingdom, which will engage every future genius to exert itself for your pleasure. the principles and spirit which breathe in every line of the small fragment begun in answer to lord bolingbroke will unquestionably be a sufficient apology for its publication, although vital strength was wanting to finish a work so happily begun and so well designed. preface there would not, perhaps, be a more pleasant or profitable study, among those which have their principal end in amusement, than that of travels or voyages, if they were wrote as they might be and ought to be, with a joint view to the entertainment and information of mankind. if the conversation of travelers be so eagerly sought after as it is, we may believe their books will be still more agreeable company, as they will in general be more instructive and more entertaining. but when i say the conversation of travelers is usually so welcome, i must be understood to mean that only of such as have had good sense enough to apply their peregrinations to a proper use, so as to acquire from them a real and valuable knowledge of men and things, both which are best known by comparison. if the customs and manners of men were everywhere the same, there would be no office so dull as that of a traveler, for the difference of hills, valleys, rivers, in short, the various views of which we may see the face of the earth, would scarce afford him a pleasure worthy of his labor; and surely it would give him very little opportunity of communicating any kind of entertainment or improvement to others. to make a traveler an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it is necessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he should have overlooked much of what he hath seen. nature is not, any more than a great genius, always admirable in her productions, and therefore the traveler, who may be called her commentator, should not expect to find everywhere subjects worthy of his notice. it is certain, indeed, that one may be guilty of omission, as well as of the opposite extreme; but a fault on that side will be more easily pardoned, as it is better to be hungry than surfeited; and to miss your dessert at the table of a man whose gardens abound with the choicest fruits, than to have your taste affronted with every sort of trash that can be picked up at the green-stall or the wheel-barrow. if we should carry on the analogy between the traveler and the commentator, it is impossible to keep one's eye a moment off from the laborious much-read doctor zachary gray, of whose redundant notes on hudibras i shall only say that it is, i am confident, the single book extant in which above five hundred authors are quoted, not one of which could be found in the collection of the late doctor mead. as there are few things which a traveler is to record, there are fewer on which he is to offer his observations: this is the office of the reader; and it is so pleasant a one, that he seldom chooses to have it taken from him, under the pretense of lending him assistance. some occasions, indeed, there are, when proper observations are pertinent, and others when they are necessary; but good sense alone must point them out. i shall lay down only one general rule; which i believe to be of universal truth between relator and hearer, as it is between author and reader; this is, that the latter never forgive any observation of the former which doth not convey some knowledge that they are sensible they could not possibly have attained of themselves. but all his pains in collecting knowledge, all his judgment in selecting, and all his art in communicating it, will not suffice, unless he can make himself, in some degree, an agreeable as well as an instructive companion. the highest instruction we can derive from the tedious tale of a dull fellow scarce ever pays us for our attention. there is nothing, i think, half so valuable as knowledge, and yet there is nothing which men will give themselves so little trouble to attain; unless it be, perhaps, that lowest degree of it which is the object of curiosity, and which hath therefore that active passion constantly employed in its service. this, indeed, it is in the power of every traveler to gratify; but it is the leading principle in weak minds only. to render his relation agreeable to the man of sense, it is therefore necessary that the voyager should possess several eminent and rare talents; so rare indeed, that it is almost wonderful to see them ever united in the same person. and if all these talents must concur in the relator, they are certainly in a more eminent degree necessary to the writer; for here the narration admits of higher ornaments of style, and every fact and sentiment offers itself to the fullest and most deliberate examination. it would appear, therefore, i think, somewhat strange if such writers as these should be found extremely common; since nature hath been a most parsimonious distributor of her richest talents, and hath seldom bestowed many on the same person. but, on the other hand, why there should scarce exist a single writer of this kind worthy our regard; and, whilst there is no other branch of history (for this is history) which hath not exercised the greatest pens, why this alone should be overlooked by all men of great genius and erudition, and delivered up to the goths and vandals as their lawful property, is altogether as difficult to determine. and yet that this is the case, with some very few exceptions, is most manifest. of these i shall willingly admit burnet and addison; if the former was not, perhaps, to be considered as a political essayist, and the latter as a commentator on the classics, rather than as a writer of travels; which last title, perhaps, they would both of them have been least ambitious to affect. indeed, if these two and two or three more should be removed from the mass, there would remain such a heap of dullness behind, that the appellation of voyage-writer would not appear very desirable. i am not here unapprised that old homer himself is by some considered as a voyage-writer; and, indeed, the beginning of his odyssey may be urged to countenance that opinion, which i shall not controvert. but, whatever species of writing the odyssey is of, it is surely at the head of that species, as much as the iliad is of another; and so far the excellent longinus would allow, i believe, at this day. but, in reality, the odyssey, the telemachus, and all of that kind, are to the voyage-writing i here intend, what romance is to true history, the former being the confounder and corrupter of the latter. i am far from supposing that homer, hesiod, and the other ancient poets and mythologists, had any settled design to pervert and confuse the records of antiquity; but it is certain they have effected it; and for my part i must confess i should have honored and loved homer more had he written a true history of his own times in humble prose, than those noble poems that have so justly collected the praise of all ages; for, though i read these with more admiration and astonishment, i still read herodotus, thucydides, and xenophon with more amusement and more satisfaction. the original poets were not, however, without excuse. they found the limits of nature too straight for the immensity of their genius, which they had not room to exert without extending fact by fiction: and that especially at a time when the manners of men were too simple to afford that variety which they have since offered in vain to the choice of the meanest writers. in doing this they are again excusable for the manner in which they have done it. ut speciosa dehine miracula promant. they are not, indeed, so properly said to turn reality into fiction, as fiction into reality. their paintings are so bold, their colors so strong, that everything they touch seems to exist in the very manner they represent it; their portraits are so just, and their landscapes so beautiful, that we acknowledge the strokes of nature in both, without inquiring whether nature herself, or her journeyman the poet, formed the first pattern of the piece. but other writers (i will put pliny at their head) have no such pretensions to indulgence; they lie for lying sake, or in order insolently to impose the most monstrous improbabilities and absurdities upon their readers on their own authority; treating them as some fathers treat children, and as other fathers do laymen, exacting their belief of whatever they relate, on no other foundation than their own authority, without ever taking the pains or adapting their lies to human credulity, and of calculating them for the meridian of a common understanding; but, with as much weakness as wickedness, and with more impudence often than either, they assert facts contrary to the honor of god, to the visible order of the creation, to the known laws of nature, to the histories of former ages, and to the experience of our own, and which no man can at once understand and believe. if it should be objected (and it can nowhere be objected better than where i now write, [12] as there is nowhere more pomp of bigotry) that whole nations have been firm believers in such most absurd suppositions, i reply, the fact is not true. they have known nothing of the matter, and have believed they knew not what. it is, indeed, with me no matter of doubt but that the pope and his clergy might teach any of those christian heterodoxies, the tenets of which are the most diametrically opposite to their own; nay, all the doctrines of zoroaster, confucius, and mahomet, not only with certain and immediate success, but without one catholic in a thousand knowing he had changed his religion. [footnote 12: at lisbon.] what motive a man can have to sit down, and to draw forth a list of stupid, senseless, incredible lies upon paper, would be difficult to determine, did not vanity present herself so immediately as the adequate cause. the vanity of knowing more than other men is, perhaps, besides hunger, the only inducement to writing, at least to publishing, at all. why then should not the voyage-writer be inflamed with the glory of having seen what no man ever did or will see but himself? this is the true source of the wonderful in the discourse and writings, and sometimes, i believe, in the actions of men. there is another fault, of a kind directly opposite to this, to which these writers are sometimes liable, when, instead of filling their pages with monsters which nobody hath ever seen, and with adventures which never have, nor could possibly have, happened to them, waste their time and paper with recording things and facts of so common a kind, that they challenge no other right of being remembered than as they had the honor of having happened to the author, to whom nothing seems trivial that in any manner happens to himself. of such consequence do his own actions appear to one of this kind, that he would probably think himself guilty of infidelity should he omit the minutest thing in the detail of his journal. that the fact is true is sufficient to give it a place there, without any consideration whether it is capable of pleasing or surprising, of diverting or informing, the reader. i have seen a play (if i mistake not it is one of mrs. behn's or of mrs. centlivre's) where this vice in a voyage-writer is finely ridiculed. an ignorant pedant, to whose government, for i know not what reason, the conduct of a young nobleman in his travels is committed, and who is sent abroad to show my lord the world, of which he knows nothing himself, before his departure from a town, calls for his journal to record the goodness of the wine and tobacco, with other articles of the same importance, which are to furnish the materials of a voyage at his return home. the humor, it is true, is here carried very far; and yet, perhaps, very little beyond what is to be found in writers who profess no intention of dealing in humor at all. of one or other, or both of these kinds, are, i conceive, all that vast pile of books which pass under the names of voyages, travels, adventures, lives, memoirs, histories, etc., some of which a single traveler sends into the world in many volumes, and others are, by judicious booksellers, collected into vast bodies in folio, and inscribed with their own names, as if they were indeed their own travels: thus unjustly attributing to themselves the merit of others. now, from both these faults we have endeavored to steer clear in the following narrative; which, however the contrary may be insinuated by ignorant, unlearned, and fresh-water critics, who have never traveled either in books or ships, i do solemnly declare doth, in my own impartial opinion, deviate less from truth than any other voyage extant; my lord anson's alone being, perhaps, excepted. some few embellishments must be allowed to every historian; for we are not to conceive that the speeches in livy, sallust, or thucydides, were literally spoken in the very words in which we now read them. it is sufficient that every fact hath its foundation in truth, as i do seriously aver is the ease in the ensuing pages; and when it is so, a good critic will be so far from denying all kind of ornament of style or diction, or even of circumstance, to his author, that he would be rather sorry if he omitted it; for he could hence derive no other advantage than the loss of an additional pleasure in the perusal. again, if any merely common incident should appear in this journal, which will seldom i apprehend be the case, the candid reader will easily perceive it is not introduced for its own sake, but for some observations and reflections naturally resulting from it; and which, if but little to his amusement, tend directly to the instruction of the reader or to the information of the public; to whom if i choose to convey such instruction or information with an air of joke and laughter, none but the dullest of fellows will, i believe, censure it; but if they should, i have the authority of more than one passage in horace to allege in my defense. having thus endeavored to obviate some censures, to which a man without the gift of foresight, or any fear of the imputation of being a conjurer, might conceive this work would be liable, i might now undertake a more pleasing task, and fall at once to the direct and positive praises of the work itself; of which indeed, i could say a thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant that i shall leave it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that i impose on him. a moderation for which he may think himself obliged to me when he compares it with the conduct of authors, who often fill a whole sheet with their own praises, to which they sometimes set their own real names, and sometimes a fictitious one. one hint, however, i must give the kind reader; which is, that if he should be able to find no sort of amusement in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public utility which will arise from it. if entertainment, as mr. richardson observes, be but a secondary consideration in a romance; with which mr. addison, i think, agrees, affirming the use of the pastry cook to be the first; if this, i say, be true of a mere work of invention, sure it may well be so considered in a work founded, like this, on truth; and where the political reflections form so distinguishing a part. but perhaps i may hear, from some critic of the most saturnine complexion, that my vanity must have made a horrid dupe of my judgment, if it hath flattered me with an expectation of having anything here seen in a grave light, or of conveying any useful instruction to the public, or to their guardians. i answer, with the great man whom i just now quoted, that my purpose is to convey instruction in the vehicle of entertainment; and so to bring about at once, like the revolution in the rehearsal, a perfect reformation of the laws relating to our maritime affairs: an undertaking, i will not say more modest, but surely more feasible, than that of reforming a whole people, by making use of a vehicular story, to wheel in among them worse manners than their own. introduction in the beginning of august, 1753, when i had taken the duke of portland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of which had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout, i was persuaded by mr. ranby, the king's premier sergeant-surgeon, and the ablest advice, i believe, in all branches of the physical profession, to go immediately to bath. i accordingly wrote that very night to mrs. bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging for a month certain. within a few days after this, whilst i was preparing for my journey, and when i was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, i received a message from his grace the duke of newcastle, by mr. carrington, the king's messenger, to attend his grace the next morning, in lincoln's-inn-fields, upon some business of importance; but i excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides being lame, i was very ill with the great fatigues i had lately undergone added to my distemper. his grace, however, sent mr. carrington, the very next morning, with another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, i immediately complied; but the duke, happening, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after i had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented for putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were every day committed in the streets; upon which i promised to transmit my opinion, in writing, to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the privy council. though this visit cost me a severe cold, i, notwithstanding, set myself down to work; and in about four days sent the duke as regular a plan as i could form, with all the reasons and arguments i could bring to support it, drawn out in several sheets of paper; and soon received a message from the duke by mr. carrington, acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with. the principal and most material of those terms was the immediately depositing six hundred pound in my hands; at which small charge i undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able, for the future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time formidable to the public. i had delayed my bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the bath waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. but i had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats, which i was sure of accomplishing the moment i was enabled to pay a fellow who had undertaken, for a small sum, to betray them into the hands of a set of thief-takers whom i had enlisted into the service, all men of known and approved fidelity and intrepidity. after some weeks the money was paid at the treasury, and within a few days after two hundred pounds of it had come to my hands, the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them were in actual custody, and the rest driven, some out of the town, and others out of the kingdom. though my health was now reduced to the last extremity, i continued to act with the utmost vigor against these villains; in examining whom, and in taking the depositions against them, i have often spent whole days, nay, sometimes whole nights, especially when there was any difficulty in procuring sufficient evidence to convict them; which is a very common case in street-robberies, even when the guilt of the party is sufficiently apparent to satisfy the most tender conscience. but courts of justice know nothing of a cause more than what is told them on oath by a witness; and the most flagitious villain upon earth is tried in the same manner as a man of the best character who is accused of the same crime. meanwhile, amidst all my fatigues and distresses, i had the satisfaction to find my endeavors had been attended with such success that this hellish society were almost utterly extirpated, and that, instead of reading of murders and street-robberies in the news almost every morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of november, and in all december, not only no such thing as a murder, but not even a street-robbery committed. some such, indeed, were mentioned in the public papers; but they were all found on the strictest inquiry, to be false. in this entire freedom from street-robberies, during the dark months, no man will, i believe, scruple to acknowledge that the winter of 1753 stands unrivaled, during a course of many years; and this may possibly appear the more extraordinary to those who recollect the outrages with which it began. having thus fully accomplished my undertaking, i went into the country, in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or less diseases than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the destruction of a body so entirely emaciated that it had lost all its muscular flesh. mine was now no longer what was called a bath case; nor, if it had been so, had i strength remaining sufficient to go thither, a ride of six miles only being attended with an intolerable fatigue. i now discharged my lodgings at bath, which i had hitherto kept. i began in earnest to look on my case as desperate, and i had vanity enough to rank myself with those heroes who, of old times, became voluntary sacrifices to the good of the public. but, lest the reader should be too eager to catch at the word vanity, and should be unwilling to indulge me with so sublime a gratification, for i think he is not too apt to gratify me, i will take my key a pitch lower, and will frankly own that i had a stronger motive than the love of the public to push me on: i will therefore confess to him that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect; for i had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased to suspect me of taking: on the contrary, by composing, instead of inflaming the quarrels of porters and beggars (which i blush when i say hath not been universally practiced), and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, i had reduced an income of about five hundred pounds [13] a-year of the dirtiest money upon earth to little more than three hundred pounds; a considerable proportion of which remained with my clerk; and, indeed, if the whole had done so, as it ought, he would be but ill paid for sitting almost sixteen hours in the twenty-four in the most unwholesome, as well as nauseous air in the universe, and which hath in his case corrupted a good constitution without contaminating his morals. [footnote 13: a predecessor of mine used to boast that he made one thousand pounds a-year in his office; but how he did this (if indeed he did it) is to me a secret. his clerk, now mine, told me i had more business than he had ever known there; i am sure i had as much as any man could do. the truth is, the fees are so very low, when any are due, and so much is done for nothing, that, if a single justice of peace had business enough to employ twenty clerks, neither he nor they would get much by their labor.] the public will not, therefore, i hope, think i betray a secret when i inform them that i received from the government a yearly pension out of the public service money; which, i believe, indeed, would have been larger had my great patron been convinced of an error, which i have heard him utter more than once, that he could not indeed say that the acting as a principal justice of peace in westminster was on all accounts very desirable, but that all the world knew it was a very lucrative office. now, to have shown him plainly that a man must be a rogue to make a very little this way, and that he could not make much by being as great a rogue as he could be, would have required more confidence than, i believe, he had in me, and more of his conversation than he chose to allow me; i therefore resigned the office and the farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my assistant. and now, lest the case between me and the reader should be the same in both instances as it was between me and the great man, i will not add another word on the subject. but, not to trouble the reader with anecdotes, contrary to my own rule laid down in my preface, i assure him i thought my family was very slenderly provided for; and that my health began to decline so fast that i had very little more of life left to accomplish what i had thought of too late. i rejoiced therefore greatly in seeing an opportunity, as i apprehended, of gaining such merit in the eye of the public, that, if my life were the sacrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popular act in putting my family at least beyond the reach of necessity, which i myself began to despair of doing. and though i disclaim all pretense to that spartan or roman patriotism which loved the public so well that it was always ready to become a voluntary sacrifice to the public good, i do solemnly declare i have that love for my family. after this confession therefore, that the public was not the principal deity to which my life was offered a sacrifice, and when it is farther considered what a poor sacrifice this was, being indeed no other than the giving up what i saw little likelihood of being able to hold much longer, and which, upon the terms i held it, nothing but the weakness of human nature could represent to me as worth holding at all; the world may, i believe, without envy, allow me all the praise to which i have any title. my aim, in fact, was not praise, which is the last gift they care to bestow; at least, this was not my aim as an end, but rather as a means of purchasing some moderate provision for my family, which, though it should exceed my merit, must fall infinitely short of my service, if i succeeded in my attempt. to say the truth, the public never act more wisely than when they act most liberally in the distribution of their rewards; and here the good they receive is often more to be considered than the motive from which they receive it. example alone is the end of all public punishments and rewards. laws never inflict disgrace in resentment, nor confer honor from gratitude. "for it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judge burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse." "you are not to be hanged sir," answered my ever-honored and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to be hanged that horses may not be stolen." in like manner it might have been said to the late duke of marlborough, when the parliament was so deservedly liberal to him, after the battle of blenheim, "you receive not these honors and bounties on account of a victory past, but that other victories may be obtained." i was now, in the opinion of all men, dying of a complication of disorders; and, were i desirous of playing the advocate, i have an occasion fair enough; but i disdain such an attempt. i relate facts plainly and simply as they are; and let the world draw from them what conclusions they please, taking with them the following facts for their instruction: the one is, that the proclamation offering one hundred pounds for the apprehending felons for certain felonies committed in certain places, which i prevented from being revived, had formerly cost the government several thousand pounds within a single year. secondly, that all such proclamations, instead of curing the evil, had actually increased it; had multiplied the number of robberies; had propagated the worst and wickedest of perjuries; had laid snares for youth and ignorance, which, by the temptation of these rewards, had been sometimes drawn into guilt; and sometimes, which cannot be thought on without the highest horror, had destroyed them without it. thirdly, that my plan had not put the government to more than three hundred pound expense, and had produced none of the ill consequences above mentioned; but, lastly, had actually suppressed the evil for a time, and had plainly pointed out the means of suppressing it for ever. this i would myself have undertaken, had my health permitted, at the annual expense of the above-mentioned sum. after having stood the terrible six weeks which succeeded last christmas, and put a lucky end, if they had known their own interests, to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians, who might have gasped through two or three mild winters more, i returned to town in february, in a condition less despaired of by myself than by any of my friends. i now became the patient of dr. ward, who wished i had taken his advice earlier. by his advice i was tapped, and fourteen quarts of water drawn from my belly. the sudden relaxation which this caused, added to my enervate, emaciated habit of body, so weakened me that within two days i was thought to be falling into the agonies of death. i was at the worst on that memorable day when the public lost mr. pelham. from that day i began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the grave; till in two months' time i had again acquired some little degree of strength, but was again full of water. during this whole time i took mr. ward's medicines, which had seldom any perceptible operation. those in particular of the diaphoretic kind, the working of which is thought to require a great strength of constitution to support, had so little effect on me, that mr. ward declared it was as vain to attempt sweating me as a deal board. in this situation i was tapped a second time. i had one quart of water less taken from me now than before; but i bore all the consequences of the operation much better. this i attributed greatly to a dose of laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. it first gave me the most delicious flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap. the month of may, which was now begun, it seemed reasonable to expect would introduce the spring, and drive of that winter which yet maintained its footing on the stage. i resolved therefore to visit a little house of mine in the country, which stands at ealing, in the county of middlesex, in the best air, i believe, in the whole kingdom, and far superior to that of kensington gravel-pits; for the gravel is here much wider and deeper, the place higher and more open towards the south, whilst it is guarded from the north wind by a ridge of hills, and from the smells and smoke of london by its distance; which last is not the fate of kensington, when the wind blows from any corner of the east. obligations to mr. ward i shall always confess; for i am convinced that he omitted no care in endeavoring to serve me, without any expectation or desire of fee or reward. the powers of mr. ward's remedies want indeed no unfair puffs of mine to give them credit; and though this distemper of the dropsy stands, i believe, first in the list of those over which he is always certain of triumphing, yet, possibly, there might be something particular in my case capable of eluding that radical force which had healed so many thousands. the same distemper, in different constitutions, may possibly be attended with such different symptoms, that to find an infallible nostrum for the curing any one distemper in every patient may be almost as difficult as to find a panacea for the cure of all. but even such a panacea one of the greatest scholars and best of men did lately apprehend he had discovered. it is true, indeed, he was no physician; that is, he had not by the forms of his education acquired a right of applying his skill in the art of physic to his own private advantage; and yet, perhaps, it may be truly asserted that no other modern hath contributed so much to make his physical skill useful to the public; at least, that none hath undergone the pains of communicating this discovery in writing to the world. the reader, i think, will scarce need to be informed that the writer i mean is the late bishop of cloyne, in ireland, and the discovery that of the virtues of tar-water. i then happened to recollect, upon a hint given me by the inimitable and shamefully-distressed author of the female quixote, that i had many years before, from curiosity only, taken a cursory view of bishop berkeley's treatise on the virtues of tar-water, which i had formerly observed he strongly contends to be that real panacea which sydenham supposes to have an existence in nature, though it yet remains undiscovered, and perhaps will always remain so. upon the reperusal of this book i found the bishop only asserting his opinion that tar-water might be useful in the dropsy, since he had known it to have a surprising success in the cure of a most stubborn anasarca, which is indeed no other than, as the word implies, the dropsy of the flesh; and this was, at that time, a large part of my complaint. after a short trial, therefore, of a milk diet, which i presently found did not suit with my case, i betook myself to the bishop's prescription, and dosed myself every morning and evening with half a pint of tar-water. it was no more than three weeks since my last tapping, and my belly and limbs were distended with water. this did not give me the worse opinion of tar-water; for i never supposed there could be any such virtue in tar-water as immediately to carry off a quantity of water already collected. for my delivery from this i well knew i must be again obliged to the trochar; and that if the tar-water did me any good at all it must be only by the slowest degrees; and that if it should ever get the better of my distemper it must be by the tedious operation of undermining, and not by a sudden attack and storm. some visible effects, however, and far beyond what my most sanguine hopes could with any modesty expect, i very soon experienced; the tar-water having, from the very first, lessened my illness, increased my appetite, and added, though in a very slow proportion, to my bodily strength. but if my strength had increased a little my water daily increased much more. so that, by the end of may, my belly became again ripe for the trochar, and i was a third time tapped; upon which, two very favorable symptoms appeared. i had three quarts of water taken from me less than had been taken the last time; and i bore the relaxation with much less (indeed with scarce any) faintness. those of my physical friends on whose judgment i chiefly depended seemed to think my only chance of life consisted in having the whole summer before me; in which i might hope to gather sufficient strength to encounter the inclemencies of the ensuing winter. but this chance began daily to lessen. i saw the summer mouldering away, or rather, indeed, the year passing away without intending to bring on any summer at all. in the whole month of may the sun scarce appeared three times. so that the early fruits came to the fullness of their growth, and to some appearance of ripeness, without acquiring any real maturity; having wanted the heat of the sun to soften and meliorate their juices. i saw the dropsy gaining rather than losing ground; the distance growing still shorter between the tappings. i saw the asthma likewise beginning again to become more troublesome. i saw the midsummer quarter drawing towards a close. so that i conceived, if the michaelmas quarter should steal off in the same manner, as it was, in my opinion, very much to be apprehended it would, i should be delivered up to the attacks of winter before i recruited my forces, so as to be anywise able to withstand them. i now began to recall an intention, which from the first dawnings of my recovery i had conceived, of removing to a warmer climate; and, finding this to be approved of by a very eminent physician, i resolved to put it into immediate execution. aix in provence was the place first thought on; but the difficulties of getting thither were insuperable. the journey by land, beside the expense of it, was infinitely too long and fatiguing; and i could hear of no ship that was likely to set out from london, within any reasonable time, for marseilles, or any other port in that part of the mediterranean. lisbon was presently fixed on in its room. the air here, as it was near four degrees to the south of aix, must be more mild and warm, and the winter shorter and less piercing. it was not difficult to find a ship bound to a place with which we carry on so immense a trade. accordingly, my brother soon informed me of the excellent accommodations for passengers which were to be found on board a ship that was obliged to sail for lisbon in three days. i eagerly embraced the offer, notwithstanding the shortness of the time; and, having given my brother full power to contract for our passage, i began to prepare my family for the voyage with the utmost expedition. but our great haste was needless; for the captain having twice put off his sailing, i at length invited him to dinner with me at fordhook, a full week after the time on which he had declared, and that with many asseverations, he must and would weigh anchor. he dined with me according to his appointment; and when all matters were settled between us, left me with positive orders to be on board the wednesday following, when he declared he would fall down the river to gravesend, and would not stay a moment for the greatest man in the world. he advised me to go to gravesend by land, and there wait the arrival of his ship, assigning many reasons for this, every one of which was, as i well remember, among those that had before determined me to go on board near the tower. the voyage wednesday, june 26, 1754.--on this day the most melancholy sun i had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at fordhook. by the light of this sun i was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom i doted with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where i had learned to bear pains and to despise death. in this situation, as i could not conquer nature, i submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever; under pretense of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer, the company of my little ones during eight hours; and i doubt not whether, in that time, i did not undergo more than in all my distemper. at twelve precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner told me than i kissed my children round, and went into it with some little resolution. my wife, who behaved more like a heroine and philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest daughter, followed me; some friends went with us, and others here took their leave; and i heard my behavior applauded, with many murmurs and praises to which i well knew i had no title; as all other such philosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess on the like occasions. in two hours we arrived in rotherhithe, and immediately went on board, and were to have sailed the next morning; but, as this was the king's proclamation-day, and consequently a holiday at the custom-house, the captain could not clear his vessel till the thursday; for these holidays are as strictly observed as those in the popish calendar, and are almost as numerous. i might add that both are opposite to the genius of trade, and consequently contra bonum publicum. to go on board the ship it was necessary first to go into a boat; a matter of no small difficulty, as i had no use of my limbs, and was to be carried by men who, though sufficiently strong for their burden, were, like archimedes, puzzled to find a steady footing. of this, as few of my readers have not gone into wherries on the thames, they will easily be able to form to themselves an idea. however, by the assistance of my friend, mr. welch, whom i never think or speak of but with love and esteem, i conquered this difficulty, as i did afterwards that of ascending the ship, into which i was hoisted with more ease by a chair lifted with pulleys. i was soon seated in a great chair in the cabin, to refresh myself after a fatigue which had been more intolerable, in a quarter of a mile's passage from my coach to the ship, than i had before undergone in a land-journey of twelve miles, which i had traveled with the utmost expedition. this latter fatigue was, perhaps, somewhat heightened by an indignation which i could not prevent arising in my mind. i think, upon my entrance into the boat, i presented a spectacle of the highest horror. the total loss of limbs was apparent to all who saw me, and my face contained marks of a most diseased state, if not of death itself. indeed, so ghastly was my countenance, that timorous women with child had abstained from my house, for fear of the ill consequences of looking at me. in this condition i ran the gauntlope (so i think i may justly call it) through rows of sailors and watermen, few of whom failed of paying their compliments to me by all manner of insults and jests on my misery. no man who knew me will think i conceived any personal resentment at this behavior; but it was a lively picture of that cruelty and inhumanity in the nature of men which i have often contemplated with concern, and which leads the mind into a train of very uncomfortable and melancholy thoughts. it may be said that this barbarous custom is peculiar to the english, and of them only to the lowest degree; that it is an excrescence of an uncontrolled licentiousness mistaken for liberty, and never shows itself in men who are polished and refined in such manner as human nature requires to produce that perfection of which it is susceptible, and to purge away that malevolence of disposition of which, at our birth, we partake in common with the savage creation. this may be said, and this is all that can be said; and it is, i am afraid, but little satisfactory to account for the inhumanity of those who, while they boast of being made after god's own image, seem to bear in their minds a resemblance of the vilest species of brutes; or rather, indeed, of our idea of devils; for i don't know that any brutes can be taxed with such malevolence. a sirloin of beef was now placed on the table, for which, though little better than carrion, as much was charged by the master of the little paltry ale-house who dressed it as would have been demanded for all the elegance of the king's arms, or any other polite tavern or eating-house! for, indeed, the difference between the best house and the worst is, that at the former you pay largely for luxury, at the latter for nothing. thursday, june 27.--this morning the captain, who lay on shore at his own house, paid us a visit in the cabin, and behaved like an angry bashaw, declaring that, had he known we were not to be pleased, he would not have carried us for five hundred pounds. he added many asseverations that he was a gentleman, and despised money; not forgetting several hints of the presents which had been made him for his cabin, of twenty, thirty, and forty guineas, by several gentlemen, over and above the sum for which they had contracted. this behavior greatly surprised me, as i knew not how to account for it, nothing having happened since we parted from the captain the evening before in perfect good humor; and all this broke forth on the first moment of his arrival this morning. he did not, however, suffer my amazement to have any long continuance before he clearly showed me that all this was meant only as an apology to introduce another procrastination (being the fifth) of his weighing anchor, which was now postponed till saturday, for such was his will and pleasure. besides the disagreeable situation in which we then lay, in the confines of wapping and rotherhithe, tasting a delicious mixture of the air of both these sweet places, and enjoying the concord of sweet sounds of seamen, watermen, fish-women, oyster-women, and of all the vociferous inhabitants of both shores, composing altogether a greater variety of harmony than hogarth's imagination hath brought together in that print of his, which is enough to make a man deaf to look at--i had a more urgent cause to press our departure, which was, that the dropsy, for which i had undergone three tappings, seemed to threaten me with a fourth discharge before i should reach lisbon, and when i should have nobody on board capable of performing the operation; but i was obliged to hearken to the voice of reason, if i may use the captain's own words, and to rest myself contented. indeed, there was no alternative within my reach but what would have cost me much too dear. there are many evils in society from which people of the highest rank are so entirely exempt, that they have not the least knowledge or idea of them; nor indeed of the characters which are formed by them. such, for instance, is the conveyance of goods and passengers from one place to another. now there is no such thing as any kind of knowledge contemptible in itself; and, as the particular knowledge i here mean is entirely necessary to the well understanding and well enjoying this journal; and, lastly, as in this case the most ignorant will be those very readers whose amusement we chiefly consult, and to whom we wish to be supposed principally to write, we will here enter somewhat largely into the discussion of this matter; the rather, for that no ancient or modern author (if we can trust the catalogue of doctor mead's library) hath ever undertaken it, but that it seems (in the style of don quixote) a task reserved for my pen alone. when i first conceived this intention i began to entertain thoughts of inquiring into the antiquity of traveling; and, as many persons have performed in this way (i mean have traveled) at the expense of the public, i flattered myself that the spirit of improving arts and sciences, and of advancing useful and substantial learning, which so eminently distinguishes this age, and hath given rise to more speculative societies in europe than i at present can recollect the names of--perhaps, indeed, than i or any other, besides their very near neighbors, ever heard mentioned--would assist in promoting so curious a work; a work begun with the same views, calculated for the same purposes, and fitted for the same uses, with the labors which those right honorable societies have so cheerfully undertaken themselves, and encouraged in others; sometimes with the highest honors, even with admission into their colleges, and with enrollment among their members. from these societies i promised myself all assistance in their power, particularly the communication of such valuable manuscripts and records as they must be supposed to have collected from those obscure ages of antiquity when history yields us such imperfect accounts of the residence, and much more imperfect of the travels, of the human race; unless, perhaps, as a curious and learned member of the young society of antiquarians is said to have hinted his conjectures, that their residence and their travels were one and the same; and this discovery (for such it seems to be) he is said to have owed to the lighting by accident on a book, which we shall have occasion to mention presently, the contents of which were then little known to the society. the king of prussia, moreover, who, from a degree of benevolence and taste which in either case is a rare production in so northern a climate, is the great encourager of art and science, i was well assured would promote so useful a design, and order his archives to be searched on my behalf. but after well weighing all these advantages, and much meditation on the order of my work, my whole design was subverted in a moment by hearing of the discovery just mentioned to have been made by the young antiquarian, who, from the most ancient record in the world (though i don't find the society are all agreed on this point), one long preceding the date of the earliest modern collections, either of books or butterflies, none of which pretend to go beyond the flood, shows us that the first man was a traveler, and that he and his family were scarce settled in paradise before they disliked their own home, and became passengers to another place. hence it appears that the humor of traveling is as old as the human race, and that it was their curse from the beginning. by this discovery my plan became much shortened, and i found it only necessary to treat of the conveyance of goods and passengers from place to place; which, not being universally known, seemed proper to be explained before we examined into its original. there are indeed two different ways of tracing all things used by the historian and the antiquary; these are upwards and downwards. the former shows you how things are, and leaves to others to discover when they began to be so. the latter shows you how things were, and leaves their present existence to be examined by others. hence the former is more useful, the latter more curious. the former receives the thanks of mankind; the latter of that valuable part, the virtuosi. in explaining, therefore, this mystery of carrying goods and passengers from one place to another, hitherto so profound a secret to the very best of our readers, we shall pursue the historical method, and endeavor to show by what means it is at present performed, referring the more curious inquiry either to some other pen or to some other opportunity. now there are two general ways of performing (if god permit) this conveyance, viz., by land and water, both of which have much variety; that by land being performed in different vehicles, such as coaches, caravans, wagons, etc.; and that by water in ships, barges, and boats, of various sizes and denominations. but, as all these methods of conveyance are formed on the same principles, they agree so well together, that it is fully sufficient to comprehend them all in the general view, without descending to such minute particulars as would distinguish one method from another. common to all of these is one general principle that, as the goods to be conveyed are usually the larger, so they are to be chiefly considered in the conveyance; the owner being indeed little more than an appendage to his trunk, or box, or bale, or at best a small part of his own baggage, very little care is to be taken in stowing or packing them up with convenience to himself; for the conveyance is not of passengers and goods, but of goods and passengers. secondly, from this conveyance arises a new kind of relation, or rather of subjection, in the society, by which the passenger becomes bound in allegiance to his conveyer. this allegiance is indeed only temporary and local, but the most absolute during its continuance of any known in great britain, and, to say truth, scarce consistent with the liberties of a free people, nor could it be reconciled with them, did it not move downwards; a circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatible to all kinds of slavery; for aristotle in his politics hath proved abundantly to my satisfaction that no men are born to be slaves, except barbarians; and these only to such as are not themselves barbarians; and indeed mr. montesquieu hath carried it very little farther in the case of the africans; the real truth being that no man is born to be a slave, unless to him who is able to make him so. thirdly, this subjection is absolute, and consists of a perfect resignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another; after which resignation, during a certain time, his subject retains no more power over his own will than an asiatic slave, or an english wife, by the laws of both countries, and by the customs of one of them. if i should mention the instance of a stage-coachman, many of my readers would recognize the truth of what i have here observed; all, indeed, that ever have been under the dominion of that tyrant, who in this free country is as absolute as a turkish bashaw. in two particulars only his power is defective; he cannot press you into his service, and if you enter yourself at one place, on condition of being discharged at a certain time at another, he is obliged to perform his agreement, if god permit, but all the intermediate time you are absolutely under his government; he carries you how he will, when he will, and whither he will, provided it be not much out of the road; you have nothing to eat or to drink, but what, and when, and where he pleases. nay, you cannot sleep unless he pleases you should; for he will order you sometimes out of bed at midnight and hurry you away at a moment's warning: indeed, if you can sleep in his vehicle he cannot prevent it; nay, indeed, to give him his due, this he is ordinarily disposed to encourage: for the earlier he forces you to rise in the morning, the more time he will give you in the heat of the day, sometimes even six hours at an ale-house, or at their doors, where he always gives you the same indulgence which he allows himself; and for this he is generally very moderate in his demands. i have known a whole bundle of passengers charged no more than half-a-crown for being suffered to remain quiet at an ale-house door for above a whole hour, and that even in the hottest day in summer. but as this kind of tyranny, though it hath escaped our political writers, hath been i think touched by our dramatic, and is more trite among the generality of readers; and as this and all other kinds of such subjection are alike unknown to my friends, i will quit the passengers by land, and treat of those who travel by water; for whatever is said on this subject is applicable to both alike, and we may bring them together as closely as they are brought in the liturgy, when they are recommended to the prayers of all christian congregations; and (which i have often thought very remarkable) where they are joined with other miserable wretches, such as women in labor, people in sickness, infants just born, prisoners and captives. goods and passengers are conveyed by water in divers vehicles, the principal of which being a ship, it shall suffice to mention that alone. here the tyrant doth not derive his title, as the stage-coachman doth, from the vehicle itself in which he stows his goods and passengers, but he is called the captain--a word of such various use and uncertain signification, that it seems very difficult to fix any positive idea to it: if, indeed, there be any general meaning which may comprehend all its different uses, that of the head or chief of any body of men seems to be most capable of this comprehension; for whether they be a company of soldiers, a crew of sailors, or a gang of rogues, he who is at the head of them is always styled the captain. the particular tyrant whose fortune it was to stow us aboard laid a farther claim to this appellation than the bare command of a vehicle of conveyance. he had been the captain of a privateer, which he chose to call being in the king's service, and thence derived a right of hoisting the military ornament of a cockade over the button of his hat. he likewise wore a sword of no ordinary length by his side, with which he swaggered in his cabin, among the wretches his passengers, whom he had stowed in cupboards on each side. he was a person of a very singular character. he had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, from those very reasons that proved he was not one; and to show himself a fine gentleman, by a behavior which seemed to insinuate he had never seen one. he was, moreover, a man of gallantry; at the age of seventy he had the finicalness of sir courtly nice, with the roughness of surly; and, while he was deaf himself, had a voice capable of deafening all others. now, as i saw myself in danger by the delays of the captain, who was, in reality, waiting for more freight, and as the wind had been long nested, as it were, in the southwest, where it constantly blew hurricanes, i began with great reason to apprehend that our voyage might be long, and that my belly, which began already to be much extended, would require the water to be let out at a time when no assistance was at hand; though, indeed, the captain comforted me with assurances that he had a pretty young fellow on board who acted as his surgeon, as i found he likewise did as steward, cook, butler, sailor. in short, he had as many offices as scrub in the play, and went through them all with great dexterity; this of surgeon was, perhaps, the only one in which his skill was somewhat deficient, at least that branch of tapping for the dropsy; for he very ingenuously and modestly confessed he had never seen the operation performed, nor was possessed of that chirurgical instrument with which it is performed. friday, june 28.--by way of prevention, therefore, i this day sent for my friend, mr. hunter, the great surgeon and anatomist of covent-garden; and, though my belly was not yet very full and tight, let out ten quarts of water; the young sea-surgeon attended the operation, not as a performer, but as a student. i was now eased of the greatest apprehension which i had from the length of the passage; and i told the captain i was become indifferent as to the time of his sailing. he expressed much satisfaction in this declaration, and at hearing from me that i found myself, since my tapping, much lighter and better. in this, i believe, he was sincere; for he was, as we shall have occasion to observe more than once, a very good-natured man; and, as he was a very brave one too, i found that the heroic constancy with which i had borne an operation that is attended with scarce any degree of pain had not a little raised me in his esteem. that he might adhere, therefore, in the most religious and rigorous manner to his word, when he had no longer any temptation from interest to break it, as he had no longer any hopes of more goods or passengers, he ordered his ship to fall down to gravesend on sunday morning, and there to wait his arrival. sunday, june 30.--nothing worth notice passed till that morning, when my poor wife, after passing a night in the utmost torments of the toothache, resolved to have it drawn. i despatched therefore a servant into wapping to bring in haste the best tooth-drawer he could find. he soon found out a female of great eminence in the art; but when he brought her to the boat, at the waterside, they were informed that the ship was gone; for indeed she had set out a few minutes after his quitting her; nor did the pilot, who well knew the errand on which i had sent my servant, think fit to wait a moment for his return, or to give me any notice of his setting out, though i had very patiently attended the delays of the captain four days, after many solemn promises of weighing anchor every one of the three last. but of all the petty bashaws or turbulent tyrants i ever beheld, this sour-faced pilot was the worst tempered; for, during the time that he had the guidance of the ship, which was till we arrived in the downs, he complied with no one's desires, nor did he give a civil word, or indeed a civil look, to any on board. the tooth-drawer, who, as i said before, was one of great eminence among her neighbors, refused to follow the ship; so that my man made himself the best of his way, and with some difficulty came up with us before we were got under full sail; for after that, as we had both wind and tide with us, he would have found it impossible to overtake the ship till she was come to an anchor at gravesend. the morning was fair and bright, and we had a passage thither, i think, as pleasant as can be conceived: for, take it with all its advantages, particularly the number of fine ships you are always sure of seeing by the way, there is nothing to equal it in all the rivers of the world. the yards of deptford and of woolwich are noble sights, and give us a just idea of the great perfection to which we are arrived in building those floating castles, and the figure which we may always make in europe among the other maritime powers. that of woolwich, at least, very strongly imprinted this idea on my mind; for there was now on the stocks there the royal anne, supposed to be the largest ship ever built, and which contains ten carriage-guns more than had ever yet equipped a first-rate. it is true, perhaps, that there is more of ostentation than of real utility in ships of this vast and unwieldy burden, which are rarely capable of acting against an enemy; but if the building such contributes to preserve, among other nations, the notion of the british superiority in naval affairs, the expense, though very great, is well incurred, and the ostentation is laudable and truly political. indeed, i should be sorry to allow that holland, france, or spain, possessed a vessel larger and more beautiful than the largest and most beautiful of ours; for this honor i would always administer to the pride of our sailors, who should challenge it from all their neighbors with truth and success. and sure i am that not our honest tars alone, but every inhabitant of this island, may exult in the comparison, when he considers the king of great britain as a maritime prince, in opposition to any other prince in europe; but i am not so certain that the same idea of superiority will result from comparing our land forces with those of many other crowned heads. in numbers they all far exceed us, and in the goodness and splendor of their troops many nations, particularly the germans and french, and perhaps the dutch, cast us at a distance; for, however we may flatter ourselves with the edwards and henrys of former ages, the change of the whole art of war since those days, by which the advantage of personal strength is in a manner entirely lost, hath produced a change in military affairs to the advantage of our enemies. as for our successes in later days, if they were not entirely owing to the superior genius of our general, they were not a little due to the superior force of his money. indeed, if we should arraign marshal saxe of ostentation when he showed his army, drawn up, to our captive general, the day after the battle of la val, we cannot say that the ostentation was entirely vain; since he certainly showed him an army which had not been often equaled, either in the number or goodness of the troops, and which, in those respects, so far exceeded ours, that none can ever cast any reflection on the brave young prince who could not reap the laurels of conquest in that day; but his retreat will be always mentioned as an addition to his glory. in our marine the case is entirely the reverse, and it must be our own fault if it doth not continue so; for continue so it will as long as the flourishing state of our trade shall support it, and this support it can never want till our legislature shall cease to give sufficient attention to the protection of our trade, and our magistrates want sufficient power, ability, and honesty, to execute the laws; a circumstance not to be apprehended, as it cannot happen till our senates and our benches shall be filled with the blindest ignorance, or with the blackest corruption. besides the ships in the docks, we saw many on the water: the yachts are sights of great parade, and the king's body yacht is, i believe, unequaled in any country for convenience as well as magnificence; both which are consulted in building and equipping her with the most exquisite art and workmanship. we saw likewise several indiamen just returned from their voyage. these are, i believe, the largest and finest vessels which are anywhere employed in commercial affairs. the colliers, likewise, which are very numerous, and even assemble in fleets, are ships of great bulk; and if we descend to those used in the american, african, and european trades, and pass through those which visit our own coasts, to the small craft that lie between chatham and the tower, the whole forms a most pleasing object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of an englishman who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognize any effect of the patriot in his constitution. lastly, the royal hospital at greenwich, which presents so delightful a front to the water, and doth such honor at once to its builder and the nation, to the great skill and ingenuity of the one, and to the no less sensible gratitude of the other, very properly closes the account of this scene; which may well appear romantic to those who have not themselves seen that, in this one instance, truth and reality are capable, perhaps, of exceeding the power of fiction. when we had passed by greenwich we saw only two or three gentlemen's houses, all of very moderate account, till we reached gravesend: these are all on the kentish shore, which affords a much dryer, wholesomer, and pleasanter situation, than doth that of its opposite, essex. this circumstance, i own, is somewhat surprising to me, when i reflect on the numerous villas that crowd the river from chelsea upwards as far as shepperton, where the narrower channel affords not half so noble a prospect, and where the continual succession of the small craft, like the frequent repetition of all things, which have nothing in them great, beautiful, or admirable, tire the eye, and give us distaste and aversion, instead of pleasure. with some of these situations, such as barnes, mortlake, etc., even the shore of essex might contend, not upon very unequal terms; but on the kentish borders there are many spots to be chosen by the builder which might justly claim the preference over almost the very finest of those in middlesex and surrey. how shall we account for this depravity in taste? for surely there are none so very mean and contemptible as to bring the pleasure of seeing a number of little wherries, gliding along after one another, in competition with what we enjoy in viewing a succession of ships, with all their sails expanded to the winds, bounding over the waves before us. and here i cannot pass by another observation on the deplorable want of taste in our enjoyments, which we show by almost totally neglecting the pursuit of what seems to me the highest degree of amusement; this is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own, contrived only for our ease and accommodation, to which such situations of our villas as i have recommended would be so convenient, and even necessary. this amusement, i confess, if enjoyed in any perfection, would be of the expensive kind; but such expense would not exceed the reach of a moderate fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which are daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate. the truth, i believe, is, that sailing in the manner i have just mentioned is a pleasure rather unknown, or unthought of, than rejected by those who have experienced it; unless, perhaps, the apprehension of danger or seasickness may be supposed, by the timorous and delicate, to make too large deductions--insisting that all their enjoyments shall come to them pure and unmixed, and being ever ready to cry out, ----nocet empta dolore voluptas. this, however, was my present case; for the ease and lightness which i felt from my tapping, the gayety of the morning, the pleasant sailing with wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which i was constantly entertained during the whole way, were all suppressed and overcome by the single consideration of my wife's pain, which continued incessantly to torment her till we came to an anchor, when i dispatched a messenger in great haste for the best reputed operator in gravesend. a surgeon of some eminence now appeared, who did not decline tooth-drawing, though he certainly would have been offended with the appellation of tooth-drawer no less than his brethren, the members of that venerable body, would be with that of barber, since the late separation between those long-united companies, by which, if the surgeons have gained much, the barbers are supposed to have lost very little. this able and careful person (for so i sincerely believe he is) after examining the guilty tooth, declared that it was such a rotten shell, and so placed at the very remotest end of the upper jaw, where it was in a manner covered and secured by a large fine firm tooth, that he despaired of his power of drawing it. he said, indeed, more to my wife, and used more rhetoric to dissuade her from having it drawn, than is generally employed to persuade young ladies to prefer a pain of three moments to one of three months' continuance, especially if those young ladies happen to be past forty and fifty years of age, when, by submitting to support a racking torment, the only good circumstance attending which is, it is so short that scarce one in a thousand can cry out "i feel it," they are to do a violence to their charms, and lose one of those beautiful holders with which alone sir courtly nice declares a lady can ever lay hold of his heart. he said at last so much, and seemed to reason so justly, that i came over to his side, and assisted him in prevailing on my wife (for it was no easy matter) to resolve on keeping her tooth a little longer, and to apply palliatives only for relief. these were opium applied to the tooth, and blisters behind the ears. whilst we were at dinner this day in the cabin, on a sudden the window on one side was beat into the room with a crash as if a twenty-pounder had been discharged among us. we were all alarmed at the suddenness of the accident, for which, however, we were soon able to account, for the sash, which was shivered all to pieces, was pursued into the middle of the cabin by the bowsprit of a little ship called a cod-smack, the master of which made us amends for running (carelessly at best) against us, and injuring the ship, in the sea-way; that is to say, by damning us all to hell, and uttering several pious wishes that it had done us much more mischief. all which were answered in their own kind and phrase by our men, between whom and the other crew a dialogue of oaths and scurrility was carried on as long as they continued in each other's hearing. it is difficult, i think, to assign a satisfactory reason why sailors in general should, of all others, think themselves entirely discharged from the common bands of humanity, and should seem to glory in the language and behavior of savages! they see more of the world, and have, most of them, a more erudite education than is the portion of landmen of their degree. nor do i believe that in any country they visit (holland itself not excepted) they can ever find a parallel to what daily passes on the river thames. is it that they think true courage (for they are the bravest fellows upon earth) inconsistent with all the gentleness of a humane carriage, and that the contempt of civil order springs up in minds but little cultivated, at the same time and from the same principles with the contempt of danger and death? is it--? in short, it is so; and how it comes to be so i leave to form a question in the robin hood society, or to be propounded for solution among the enigmas in the woman's almanac for the next year. monday, july 1.--this day mr. welch took his leave of me after dinner, as did a young lady of her sister, who was proceeding with my wife to lisbon. they both set out together in a post-chaise for london. soon after their departure our cabin, where my wife and i were sitting together, was visited by two ruffians, whose appearance greatly corresponded with that of the sheriffs, or rather the knight-marshal's bailiffs. one of these especially, who seemed to affect a more than ordinary degree of rudeness and insolence, came in without any kind of ceremony, with a broad gold lace on his hat, which was cocked with much military fierceness on his head. an inkhorn at his buttonhole and some papers in his hand sufficiently assured me what he was, and i asked him if he and his companion were not custom-house officers: he answered with sufficient dignity that they were, as an information which he seemed to conclude would strike the hearer with awe, and suppress all further inquiry; but, on the contrary, i proceeded to ask of what rank he was in the custom-house, and, receiving an answer from his companion, as i remember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor, i replied that he might be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that denomination would break into the presence of a lady without an apology or even moving his hat. he then took his covering from his head and laid it on the table, saying, he asked pardon, and blamed the mate, who should, he said, have informed him if any persons of distinction were below. i told him he might guess by our appearance (which, perhaps, was rather more than could be said with the strictest adherence to truth) that he was before a gentleman and lady, which should teach him to be very civil in his behavior, though we should not happen to be of that number whom the world calls people of fashion and distinction. however, i said, that as he seemed sensible of his error, and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to put his hat on again if he chose it. this he refused with some degree of surliness, and failed not to convince me that, if i should condescend to become more gentle, he would soon grow more rude. i now renewed a reflection, which i have often seen occasion to make, that there is nothing so incongruous in nature as any kind of power with lowness of mind and of ability, and that there is nothing more deplorable than the want of truth in the whimsical notion of plato, who tells us that "saturn, well knowing the state of human affairs, gave us kings and rulers, not of human but divine original; for, as we make not shepherds of sheep, nor oxherds of oxen, nor goatherds of goats, but place some of our own kind over all as being better and fitter to govern them; in the same manner were demons by the divine love set over us as a race of beings of a superior order to men, and who, with great ease to themselves, might regulate our affairs and establish peace, modesty, freedom, and justice, and, totally destroying all sedition, might complete the happiness of the human race. so far, at least, may even now be said with truth, that in all states which are under the government of mere man, without any divine assistance, there is nothing but labor and misery to be found. from what i have said, therefore, we may at least learn, with our utmost endeavors, to imitate the saturnian institution; borrowing all assistance from our immortal part, while we pay to this the strictest obedience, we should form both our private economy and public policy from its dictates. by this dispensation of our immortal minds we are to establish a law and to call it by that name. but if any government be in the hands of a single person, of the few, or of the many, and such governor or governors shall abandon himself or themselves to the unbridled pursuit of the wildest pleasures or desires, unable to restrain any passion, but possessed with an insatiable bad disease; if such shall attempt to govern, and at the same time to trample on all laws, there can be no means of preservation left for the wretched people." plato de leg., lib. iv. p. 713, c. 714, edit. serrani. it is true that plato is here treating of the highest or sovereign power in a state, but it is as true that his observations are general and may be applied to all inferior powers; and, indeed, every subordinate degree is immediately derived from the highest; and, as it is equally protected by the same force and sanctified by the same authority, is alike dangerous to the well-being of the subject. of all powers, perhaps, there is none so sanctified and protected as this which is under our present consideration. so numerous, indeed, and strong, are the sanctions given to it by many acts of parliament, that, having once established the laws of customs on merchandise, it seems to have been the sole view of the legislature to strengthen the hands and to protect the persons of the officers who became established by those laws, many of whom are so far from bearing any resemblance to the saturnian institution, and to be chosen from a degree of beings superior to the rest of human race, that they sometimes seem industriously picked out of the lowest and vilest orders of mankind. there is, indeed, nothing, so useful to man in general, nor so beneficial to particular societies and individuals, as trade. this is that alma mater at whose plentiful breast all mankind are nourished. it is true, like other parents, she is not always equally indulgent to all her children, but, though she gives to her favorites a vast proportion of redundancy and superfluity, there are very few whom she refuses to supply with the conveniences, and none with the necessaries, of life. such a benefactress as this must naturally be beloved by mankind in general; it would be wonderful, therefore, if her interest was not considered by them, and protected from the fraud and violence of some of her rebellious offspring, who, coveting more than their share or more than she thinks proper to allow them, are daily employed in meditating mischief against her, and in endeavoring to steal from their brethren those shares which this great alma mater had allowed them. at length our governor came on board, and about six in the evening we weighed anchor, and fell down to the nore, whither our passage was extremely pleasant, the evening being very delightful, the moon just past the full, and both wind and tide favorable to us. tuesday, july 2.--this morning we again set sail, under all the advantages we had enjoyed the evening before. this day we left the shore of essex and coasted along kent, passing by the pleasant island of thanet, which is an island, and that of sheppy, which is not an island, and about three o 'clock, the wind being now full in our teeth, we came to an anchor in the downs, within two miles of deal.--my wife, having suffered intolerable pain from her tooth, again renewed her resolution of having it drawn, and another surgeon was sent for from deal, but with no better success than the former. he likewise declined the operation, for the same reason which had been assigned by the former: however, such was her resolution, backed with pain, that he was obliged to make the attempt, which concluded more in honor of his judgment than of his operation; for, after having put my poor wife to inexpressible torment, he was obliged to leave her tooth in statu quo; and she had now the comfortable prospect of a long fit of pain, which might have lasted her whole voyage, without any possibility of relief. in these pleasing sensations, of which i had my just share, nature, overcome with fatigue, about eight in the evening resigned her to rest--a circumstance which would have given me some happiness, could i have known how to employ those spirits which were raised by it; but, unfortunately for me, i was left in a disposition of enjoying an agreeable hour without the assistance of a companion, which has always appeared to me necessary to such enjoyment; my daughter and her companion were both retired sea-sick to bed; the other passengers were a rude school-boy of fourteen years old and an illiterate portuguese friar, who understood no language but his own, in which i had not the least smattering. the captain was the only person left in whose conversation i might indulge myself; but unluckily, besides a total ignorance of everything in the world but a ship, he had the misfortune of being so deaf, that to make him hear, i will not say understand, my words, i must run the risk of conveying them to the ears of my wife, who, though in another room (called, i think, the state-room--being, indeed, a most stately apartment, capable of containing one human body in length, if not very tall, and three bodies in breadth), lay asleep within a yard of me. in this situation necessity and choice were one and the same thing; the captain and i sat down together to a small bowl of punch, over which we both soon fell fast asleep, and so concluded the evening. wednesday, july 3.--this morning i awaked at four o'clock for my distemper seldom suffered me to sleep later. i presently got up, and had the pleasure of enjoying the sight of a tempestuous sea for four hours before the captain was stirring; for he loved to indulge himself in morning slumbers, which were attended with a wind-music, much more agreeable to the performers than to the hearers, especially such as have, as i had, the privilege of sitting in the orchestra. at eight o 'clock the captain rose, and sent his boat on shore. i ordered my man likewise to go in it, as my distemper was not of that kind which entirely deprives us of appetite. now, though the captain had well victualled his ship with all manner of salt provisions for the voyage, and had added great quantities of fresh stores, particularly of vegetables, at gravesend, such as beans and peas, which had been on board only two days, and had possibly not been gathered above two more, i apprehended i could provide better for myself at deal than the ship's ordinary seemed to promise. i accordingly sent for fresh provisions of all kinds from the shore, in order to put off the evil day of starving as long as possible. my man returned with most of the articles i sent for, and i now thought myself in a condition of living a week on my own provisions. i therefore ordered my own dinner, which i wanted nothing but a cook to dress and a proper fire to dress it at; but those were not to be had, nor indeed any addition to my roast mutton, except the pleasure of the captain's company, with that of the other passengers; for my wife continued the whole day in a state of dozing, and my other females, whose sickness did not abate by the rolling of the ship at anchor, seemed more inclined to empty their stomachs than to fill them. thus i passed the whole day (except about an hour at dinner) by myself, and the evening concluded with the captain as the preceding one had done; one comfortable piece of news he communicated to me, which was, that he had no doubt of a prosperous wind in the morning; but as he did not divulge the reasons of this confidence, and as i saw none myself besides the wind being directly opposite, my faith in this prophecy was not strong enough to build any great hopes upon. thursday, july 4.--this morning, however, the captain seemed resolved to fulfill his own predictions, whether the wind would or no; he accordingly weighed anchor, and, taking the advantage of the tide when the wind was not very boisterous, he hoisted his sails; and, as if his power had been no less absolute over aeolus than it was over neptune, he forced the wind to blow him on in its own despite. but as all men who have ever been at sea well know how weak such attempts are, and want no authorities of scripture to prove that the most absolute power of a captain of a ship is very contemptible in the wind's eye, so did it befall our noble commander, who, having struggled with the wind three or four hours, was obliged to give over, and lost in a few minutes all that he had been so long a-gaining; in short, we returned to our former station, and once more cast anchor in the neighborhood of deal. here, though we lay near the shore, that we might promise ourselves all the emolument which could be derived from it, we found ourselves deceived; and that we might with as much conveniency be out of the sight of land; for, except when the captain launched forth his own boat, which he did always with great reluctance, we were incapable of procuring anything from deal, but at a price too exorbitant, and beyond the reach even of modern luxury--the fare of a boat from deal, which lay at two miles' distance, being at least three half-crowns, and, if we had been in any distress for it, as many half-guineas; for these good people consider the sea as a large common appendant to their manor; in which when they find any of their fellow-creatures impounded, they conclude that they have a full right of making them pay at their own discretion for their deliverance: to say the truth, whether it be that men who live on the sea-shore are of an amphibious kind, and do not entirely partake of human nature, or whatever else may be the reason, they are so far from taking any share in the distresses of mankind, or of being moved with any compassion for them, that they look upon them as blessings showered down from above, and which the more they improve to their own use, the greater is their gratitude and piety. thus at gravesend a sculler requires a shilling for going less way than he would row in london for threepence; and at deal a boat often brings more profit in a day than it can produce in london in a week, or perhaps in a month; in both places the owner of the boat founds his demand on the necessity and distress of one who stands more or less in absolute want of his assistance, and with the urgency of these always rises in the exorbitancy of his demand, without ever considering that, from these very circumstances, the power or ease of gratifying such demand is in like proportion lessened. now, as i am unwilling that some conclusions, which may be, i am aware, too justly drawn from these observations, should be imputed to human nature in general, i have endeavored to account for them in a way more consistent with the goodness and dignity of that nature. however it be, it seems a little to reflect on the governors of such monsters that they do not take some means to restrain these impositions, and prevent them from triumphing any longer in the miseries of those who are, in many circumstances at least, their fellow-creatures, and considering the distresses of a wretched seaman, from his being wrecked to his being barely windbound, as a blessing sent among them from above, and calling it by that blasphemous name. friday, july 5.--this day i sent a servant on board a man-of-war that was stationed here, with my compliments to the captain, to represent to him the distress of the ladies, and to desire the favor of his long-boat to conduct us to dover, at about seven miles' distance; and at the same time presumed to make use of a great lady's name, the wife of the first lord commissioner of the admiralty, who would, i told him, be pleased with any kindness shown by him towards us in our miserable condition. and this i am convinced was true, from the humanity of the lady, though she was entirely unknown to me. the captain returned a verbal answer to a long letter acquainting me that what i desired could not be complied with, it being a favor not in his power to grant. this might be, and i suppose was, true; but it is as true that, if he was able to write, and had pen, ink, and paper on board, he might have sent a written answer, and that it was the part of a gentleman so to have done; but this is a character seldom maintained on the watery element, especially by those who exercise any power on it. every commander of a vessel here seems to think himself entirely free from all those rules of decency and civility which direct and restrain the conduct of the members of a society on shore; and each, claiming absolute dominion in his little wooden world, rules by his own laws and his own discretion. i do not, indeed, know so pregnant an instance of the dangerous consequences of absolute power, and its aptness to intoxicate the mind, as that of those petty tyrants, who become such in a moment, from very well-disposed and social members of that communion in which they affect no superiority, but live in an orderly state of legal subjection with their fellow-citizens. saturday, july 6.--this morning our commander, declaring he was sure the wind would change, took the advantage of an ebbing tide, and weighed his anchor. his assurance, however, had the same completion, and his endeavors the same success, with his formal trial; and he was soon obliged to return once more to his old quarters. just before we let go our anchor, a small sloop, rather than submit to yield us an inch of way, ran foul of our ship, and carried off her bowsprit. this obstinate frolic would have cost those aboard the sloop very dear, if our steersman had not been too generous to exert his superiority, the certain consequence of which would have been the immediate sinking of the other. this contention of the inferior with a might capable of crushing it in an instant may seem to argue no small share of folly or madness, as well as of impudence; but i am convinced there is very little danger in it: contempt is a port to which the pride of man submits to fly with reluctance, but those who are within it are always in a place of the most assured security; for whosoever throws away his sword prefers, indeed, a less honorable but much safer means of avoiding danger than he who defends himself with it. and here we shall offer another distinction, of the truth of which much reading and experience have well convinced us, that as in the most absolute governments there is a regular progression of slavery downwards, from the top to the bottom, the mischief of which is seldom felt with any great force and bitterness but by the next immediate degree; so in the most dissolute and anarchical states there is as regular an ascent of what is called rank or condition, which is always laying hold of the head of him who is advanced but one step higher on the ladder, who might, if he did not too much despise such efforts, kick his pursuer headlong to the bottom. we will conclude this digression with one general and short observation, which will, perhaps, set the whole matter in a clearer light than the longest and most labored harangue. whereas envy of all things most exposes us to danger from others, so contempt of all things best secures us from them. and thus, while the dung-cart and the sloop are always meditating mischief against the coach and the ship, and throwing themselves designedly in their way, the latter consider only their own security, and are not ashamed to break the road and let the other pass by them. monday, july 8.--having passed our sunday without anything remarkable, unless the catching a great number of whitings in the afternoon may be thought so, we now set sail on monday at six o'clock, with a little variation of wind; but this was so very little, and the breeze itself so small, but the tide was our best and indeed almost our only friend. this conducted us along the short remainder of the kentish shore. here we passed that cliff of dover which makes so tremendous a figure in shakespeare, and which whoever reads without being giddy, must, according to mr. addison's observation, have either a very good head or a very bad, one; but which, whoever contracts any such ideas from the sight of, must have at least a poetic if not a shakesperian genius. in truth, mountains, rivers, heroes, and gods owe great part of their existence to the poets; and greece and italy do so plentifully abound in the former, because they furnish so glorious a number of the latter; who, while they bestowed immortality on every little hillock and blind stream, left the noblest rivers and mountains in the world to share the same obscurity with the eastern and western poets, in which they are celebrated. this evening we beat the sea of sussex in sight of dungeness, with much more pleasure than progress; for the weather was almost a perfect calm, and the moon, which was almost at the full, scarce suffered a single cloud to veil her from our sight. tuesday, wednesday, july 9, 10.--these two days we had much the same fine weather, and made much the same way; but in the evening of the latter day a pretty fresh gale sprung up at n.n.w., which brought us by the morning in sight of the isle of wight. thursday, july 11.--this gale continued till towards noon; when the east end of the island bore but little ahead of us. the captain swaggered and declared he would keep the sea; but the wind got the better of him, so that about three he gave up the victory, and making a sudden tack stood in for the shore, passed by spithead and portsmouth, and came to an anchor at a place called ryde on the island. a most tragical incident fell out this day at sea. while the ship was under sail, but making as will appear no great way, a kitten, one of four of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the window into the water: an alarm was immediately given to the captain, who was then upon deck, and received it with the utmost concern and many bitter oaths. he immediately gave orders to the steersman in favor of the poor thing, as he called it; the sails were instantly slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is, employed to recover the poor animal. i was, i own, extremely surprised at all this; less indeed at the captain's extreme tenderness than at his conceiving any possibility of success; for if puss had had nine thousand instead of nine lives, i concluded they had been all lost. the boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes, for, having stripped himself of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, he leaped boldly into the water, and to my great astonishment in a few minutes returned to the ship, bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. nor was this, i observed, a matter of such great difficulty as it appeared to my ignorance, and possibly may seem to that of my fresh-water reader. the kitten was now exposed to air and sun on the deck, where its life, of which it retained no symptoms, was despaired of by all. the captain's humanity, if i may so call it, did not so totally destroy his philosophy as to make him yield himself up to affliction on this melancholy occasion. having felt his loss like a man, he resolved to show he could bear it like one; and, having declared he had rather have lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to threshing at backgammon with the portuguese friar, in which innocent amusement they had passed about two-thirds of their time. but as i have, perhaps, a little too wantonly endeavored to raise the tender passions of my readers in this narrative, i should think myself unpardonable if i concluded it without giving them the satisfaction of hearing that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy of the good captain, but to the great disappointment of some of the sailors, who asserted that the drowning a cat was the very surest way of raising a favorable wind; a supposition of which, though we have heard several plausible accounts, we will not presume to assign the true original reason. friday, july 12.--this day our ladies went ashore at ryde, and drank their afternoon tea at an ale-house there with great satisfaction: here they were regaled with fresh cream, to which they had been strangers since they left the downs. saturday, july 13.--the wind seeming likely to continue in the same corner where it had been almost constantly for two months together, i was persuaded by my wife to go ashore and stay at ryde till we sailed. i approved the motion much; for though i am a great lover of the sea, i now fancied there was more pleasure in breathing the fresh air of the land; but how to get thither was the question; for, being really that dead luggage which i considered all passengers to be in the beginning of this narrative, and incapable of any bodily motion without external impulse, it was in vain to leave the ship, or to determine to do it, without the assistance of others. in one instance, perhaps, the living, luggage is more difficult to be moved or removed than an equal or much superior weight of dead matter; which, if of the brittle kind, may indeed be liable to be broken through negligence; but this, by proper care, may be almost certainly prevented; whereas the fractures to which the living lumps are exposed are sometimes by no caution avoidable, and often by no art to be amended. i was deliberating on the means of conveyance, not so much out of the ship to the boat as out of a little tottering boat to the land; a matter which, as i had already experienced in the thames, was not extremely easy, when to be performed by any other limbs than your own. whilst i weighed all that could suggest itself on this head, without strictly examining the merit of the several schemes which were advanced by the captain and sailors, and, indeed, giving no very deep attention even to my wife, who, as well as her friend and my daughter, were exerting their tender concern for my ease and safety, fortune, for i am convinced she had a hand in it, sent me a present of a buck; a present welcome enough of itself, but more welcome on account of the vessel in which it came, being a large hoy, which in some places would pass for a ship, and many people would go some miles to see the sight. i was pretty easily conveyed on board this hoy; but to get from hence to the shore was not so easy a task; for, however strange it may appear, the water itself did not extend so far; an instance which seems to explain those lines of ovid, omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque littora ponto, in a less tautological sense than hath generally been imputed to them. in fact, between the sea and the shore there was, at low water, an impassable gulf, if i may so call it, of deep mud, which could neither be traversed by walking nor swimming; so that for near one half of the twenty-four hours ryde was inaccessible by friend or foe. but as the magistrates of this place seemed more to desire the company of the former than to fear that of the latter, they had begun to make a small causeway to the low-water mark, so that foot passengers might land whenever they pleased; but as this work was of a public kind, and would have cost a large sum of money, at least ten pounds, and the magistrates, that is to say, the churchwardens, the overseers, constable, and tithingman, and the principal inhabitants, had every one of them some separate scheme of private interest to advance at the expense of the public, they fell out among themselves; and, after having thrown away one half of the requisite sum, resolved at least to save the other half, and rather be contented to sit down losers themselves than to enjoy any benefit which might bring in a greater profit to another. thus that unanimity which is so necessary in all public affairs became wanting, and every man, from the fear of being a bubble to another, was, in reality, a bubble to himself. however, as there is scarce any difficulty to which the strength of men, assisted with the cunning of art, is not equal, i was at last hoisted into a small boat, and being rowed pretty near the shore, was taken up by two sailors, who waded with me through the mud, and placed me in a chair on the land, whence they afterwards conveyed me a quarter of a mile farther, and brought me to a house which seemed to bid the fairest for hospitality of any in ryde. we brought with us our provisions from the ship, so that we wanted nothing but a fire to dress our dinner, and a room in which we might eat it. in neither of these had we any reason to apprehend a disappointment, our dinner consisting only of beans and bacon; and the worst apartment in his majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad, being fully sufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy. unluckily, however, we were disappointed in both; for when we arrived about four at our inn, exulting in the hopes of immediately seeing our beans smoking on the table, we had the mortification of seeing them on the table indeed, but without that circumstance which would have made the sight agreeable, being in the same state in which we had dispatched them from our ship. in excuse for this delay, though we had exceeded, almost purposely, the time appointed, and our provision had arrived three hours before, the mistress of the house acquainted us that it was not for want of time to dress them that they were not ready, but for fear of their being cold or over-done before we should come; which she assured us was much worse than waiting a few minutes for our dinner; an observation so very just, that it is impossible to find any objection in it; but, indeed, it was not altogether so proper at this time, for we had given the most absolute orders to have them ready at four, and had been ourselves, not without much care and difficulty, most exactly punctual in keeping to the very minute of our appointment. but tradesmen, inn-keepers, and servants, never care to indulge us in matters contrary to our true interest, which they always know better than ourselves; nor can any bribes corrupt them to go out of their way while they are consulting our good in our own despite. our disappointment in the other particular, in defiance of our humility, as it was more extraordinary, was more provoking. in short, mrs. francis (for that was the name of the good woman of the house) no sooner received the news of our intended arrival than she considered more the gentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself not to that which kindles but to that which extinguishes fire, and, forgetting to put on her pot, fell to washing her house. as the messenger who had brought my venison was impatient to be dispatched, i ordered it to be brought and laid on the table in the room where i was seated; and the table not being large enough, one side, and that a very bloody one, was laid on the brick floor. i then ordered mrs. francis to be called in, in order to give her instructions concerning it; in particular, what i would have roasted and what baked; concluding that she would be highly pleased with the prospect of so much money being spent in her house as she might have now reason to expect, if the wind continued only a few days longer to blow from the same points whence it had blown for several weeks past. i soon saw good cause, i must confess, to despise my own sagacity. mrs. francis, having received her orders, without making any answer, snatched the side from the floor, which remained stained with blood, and, bidding a servant to take up that on the table, left the room with no pleasant countenance, muttering to herself that, "had she known the litter which was to have been made, she would not have taken such pains to wash her house that morning. if this was gentility, much good may it do such gentlefolks; for her part she had no notion of it." from these murmurs i received two hints. the one, that it was not from a mistake of our inclination that the good woman had starved us, but from wisely consulting her own dignity, or rather perhaps her vanity, to which our hunger was offered up as a sacrifice. the other, that i was now sitting in a damp room, a circumstance, though it had hitherto escaped my notice from the color of the bricks, which was by no means to be neglected in a valetudinary state. my wife, who, besides discharging excellently well her own and all the tender offices becoming the female character; who, besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his part, had, before this, discovered the immoderate attention to neatness in mrs. francis, and provided against its ill consequences. she had found, though not under the same roof, a very snug apartment belonging to mr. francis, and which had escaped the mop by his wife's being satisfied it could not possibly be visited by gentle-folks. this was a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, lined on both sides with wheaten straw, and opening at one end into a green field and a beautiful prospect. here, without hesitation, she ordered the cloth to be laid, and came hastily to snatch me from worse perils by water than the common dangers of the sea. mrs. francis, who could not trust her own ears, or could not believe a footman in so extraordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife, and asked her if she had indeed ordered the cloth to be laid in the barn? she answered in the affirmative; upon which mrs. francis declared she would not dispute her pleasure, but it was the first time she believed that quality had ever preferred a barn to a house. she showed at the same time the most pregnant marks of contempt, and again lamented the labor she had undergone, through her ignorance of the absurd taste of her guests. at length we were seated in one of the most pleasant spots i believe in the kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which there was nothing deficient but the quantity. this defect was however so deplorable that we had consumed our whole dish before we had visibly lessened our hunger. we now waited with impatience the arrival of our second course, which necessity, and not luxury, had dictated. this was a joint of mutton which mrs. francis had been ordered to provide; but when, being tired with expectation, we ordered our servants to see for something else, we were informed that there was nothing else; on which mrs. francis, being summoned, declared there was no such thing as mutton to be had at ryde. when i expressed some astonishment at their having no butcher in a village so situated, she answered they had a very good one, and one that killed all sorts of meat in season, beef two or three times a year, and mutton the whole year round; but that, it being then beans and peas time, he killed no meat, by reason he was not sure of selling it. this she had not thought worthy of communication, any more than that there lived a fisherman at next door, who was then provided with plenty of soles, and whitings, and lobsters, far superior to those which adorn a city feast. this discovery being made by accident, we completed the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more real solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at white's. it may be wondered at, perhaps, that mrs. francis should be so negligent of providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive to her own interest; but this was not the case; for, having clapped a poll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price to discharge our bodies from her house, the less she suffered any other to share in the levy the clearer it came into her own pocket; and that it was better to get twelve pence in a shilling than ten pence, which latter would be the case if she afforded us fish at any rate. thus we passed a most agreeable day owing to good appetites and good humor; two hearty feeders which will devour with satisfaction whatever food you place before them; whereas, without these, the elegance of st. james's, the charde, the perigord-pie, or the ortolan, the venison, the turtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but will never convey happiness to the heart or cheerfulness to the countenance. as the wind appeared still immovable, my wife proposed my lying on shore. i presently agreed, though in defiance of an act of parliament, by which persons wandering abroad and lodging in ale-houses are decreed to be rogues and vagabonds; and this too after having been very singularly officious in putting that law in execution. my wife, having reconnoitered the house, reported that there was one room in which were two beds. it was concluded, therefore, that she and harriot should occupy one and myself take possession of the other. she added likewise an ingenious recommendation of this room to one who had so long been in a cabin, which it exactly resembled, as it was sunk down with age on one side, and was in the form of a ship with gunwales too. for my own part, i make little doubt but this apartment was an ancient temple, built with the materials of a wreck, and probably dedicated to neptune in honor of the blessing sent by him to the inhabitants; such blessings having in all ages been very common to them. the timber employed in it confirms this opinion, being such as is seldom used by ally but ship-builders. i do not find indeed any mention of this matter in hearn; but perhaps its antiquity was too modern to deserve his notice. certain it is that this island of wight was not an early convert to christianity; nay, there is some reason to doubt whether it was ever entirely converted. but i have only time to touch slightly on things of this kind, which, luckily for us, we have a society whose peculiar profession it is to discuss and develop. sunday, july 19.--this morning early i summoned mrs. francis, in order to pay her the preceding day's account. as i could recollect only two or three articles i thought there was no necessity of pen and ink. in a single instance only we had exceeded what the law allows gratis to a foot-soldier on his march, viz., vinegar, salt, etc., and dressing his meat. i found, however, i was mistaken in my calculation; for when the good woman attended with her bill it contained as follows:- l. s. d. bread and beer 0 2 4 wind 0 2 0 rum 0 2 0 dressing dinner 0 3 0 tea 0 1 6 firing 0 1 0 lodging 0 1 6 servants' lodging 0 0 6 ---------------- l 0 13 10 now that five people and two servants should live a day and night at a public-house for so small a sum will appear incredible to any person in london above the degree of a chimney-sweeper; but more astonishing will it seem that these people should remain so long at such a house without tasting any other delicacy than bread, small beer, a teacupful of milk called cream, a glass of rum converted into punch by their own materials, and one bottle of wind, of which we only tasted a single glass though possibly, indeed, our servants drank the remainder of the bottle. this wind is a liquor of english manufacture, and its flavor is thought very delicious by the generality of the english, who drink it in great quantities. every seventh year is thought to produce as much as the other six. it is then drank so plentifully that the whole nation are in a manner intoxicated by it; and consequently very little business is carried on at that season. it resembles in color the red wine which is imported from portugal, as it doth in its intoxicating quality; hence, and from this agreement in the orthography, the one is often confounded with the other, though both are seldom esteemed by the same person. it is to be had in every parish of the kingdom, and a pretty large quantity is consumed in the metropolis, where several taverns are set apart solely for the vendition of this liquor, the masters never dealing in any other. the disagreement in our computation produced some small remonstrance to mrs. francis on my side; but this received an immediate answer: "she scorned to overcharge gentlemen; her house had been always frequented by the very best gentry of the island; and she had never had a bill found fault with in her life, though she had lived upwards of forty years in the house, and within that time the greatest gentry in hampshire had been at it; and that lawyer willis never went to any other when he came to those parts. that for her part she did not get her livelihood by travelers, who were gone and away, and she never expected to see them more, but that her neighbors might come again; wherefore, to be sure, they had the only right to complain." she was proceeding thus, and from her volubility of tongue seemed likely to stretch the discourse to an immoderate length, when i suddenly cut all short by paying the bill. this morning our ladies went to church, more, i fear, from curiosity than religion; they were attended by the captain in a most military attire, with his cockade in his hat and his sword by his side. so unusual an appearance in this little chapel drew the attention of all present, and probably disconcerted the women, who were in dishabille, and wished themselves dressed, for the sake of the curate, who was the greatest of their beholders. while i was left alone i received a visit from mr. francis himself, who was much more considerable as a farmer than as an inn-holder. indeed, he left the latter entirely to the care of his wife, and he acted wisely, i believe, in so doing. as nothing more remarkable passed on this day i will close it with the account of these two characters, as far as a few days' residence could inform me of them. if they should appear as new to the reader as they did to me, he will not be displeased at finding them here. this amiable couple seemed to border hard on their grand climacteric; nor indeed were they shy of owning enough to fix their ages within a year or two of that time. they appeared to be rather proud of having employed their time well than ashamed of having lived so long; the only reason which i could ever assign why some fine ladies, and fine gentlemen too, should desire to be thought younger than they really are by the contemporaries of their grandchildren. some, indeed, who too hastily credit appearances, might doubt whether they had made so good a use of their time as i would insinuate, since there was no appearance of anything but poverty, want, and wretchedness, about their house; nor could they produce anything to a customer in exchange for his money but a few bottles of wind, and spirituous liquors, and some very bad ale, to drink; with rusty bacon and worse cheese to eat. but then it should be considered, on the other side, that whatever they received was almost as entirely clear profit as the blessing of a wreck itself; such an inn being the very reverse of a coffee-house; for here you can neither sit for nothing nor have anything for your money. again, as many marks of want abounded everywhere, so were the marks of antiquity visible. scarce anything was to be seen which had not some scar upon it, made by the hand of time; not an utensil, it was manifest, had been purchased within a dozen years last past; so that whatever money had come into the house during that period at least must have remained in it, unless it had been sent abroad for food, or other perishable commodities; but these were supplied by a small portion of the fruits of the farm, in which the farmer allowed he had a very good bargain. in fact, it is inconceivable what sums may be collected by starving only, and how easy it is for a man to die rich if he will but be contented to live miserable. nor is there in this kind of starving anything so terrible as some apprehend. it neither wastes a man's flesh nor robs him of his cheerfulness. the famous cornaro's case well proves the contrary; and so did farmer francis, who was of a round stature, had a plump, round face, with a kind of smile on it, and seemed to borrow an air of wretchedness rather from his coat's age than from his own. the truth is, there is a certain diet which emaciates men more than any possible degree of abstinence; though i do not remember to have seen any caution against it, either in cheney, arbuthnot, or in any other modern writer or regimen. nay, the very name is not, i believe, in the learned dr. james's dictionary; all which is the more extraordinary as it is a very common food in this kingdom, and the college themselves were not long since very liberally entertained with it by the present attorney and other eminent lawyers in lincoln's-inn-hall, and were all made horribly sick by it. but though it should not be found among our english physical writers, we may be assured of meeting with it among the greeks; for nothing considerable in nature escapes their notice, though many things considerable in them, it is to be feared, have escaped the notice of their readers. the greeks, then, to all such as feed too voraciously on this diet, give the name of heautofagi, which our physicians will, i suppose, translate men that eat themselves. as nothing is so destructive to the body as this kind of food, so nothing is so plentiful and cheap; but it was perhaps the only cheap thing the farmer disliked. probably living much on fish might produce this disgust; for diodorus siculus attributes the same aversion in a people of ethiopia to the same cause; he calls them the fish-eaters, and asserts that they cannot be brought to eat a single meal with the heautofagi by any persuasion, threat, or violence whatever, not even though they should kill their children before their faces. what hath puzzled our physicians, and prevented them from setting this matter in the clearest light, is possibly one simple mistake, arising from a very excusable ignorance; that the passions of men are capable of swallowing food as well as their appetites; that the former, in feeding, resemble the state of those animals who chew the cud; and therefore, such men, in some sense, may be said to prey on themselves, and as it were to devour their own entrails. and hence ensues a meager aspect and thin habit of body, as surely as from what is called a consumption. our farmer was one of these. he had no more passion than an ichthuofagus or ethiopian fisher. he wished not for anything, thought not of anything; indeed, he scarce did anything or said anything. here i cannot be understood strictly; for then i must describe a nonentity, whereas i would rob him of nothing but that free agency which is the cause of all the corruption and of all the misery of human nature. no man, indeed, ever did more than the farmer, for he was an absolute slave to labor all the week; but in truth, as my sagacious reader must have at first apprehended, when i said he resigned the care of the house to his wife, i meant more than i then expressed, even the house and all that belonged to it; for he was really a farmer only under the direction of his wife. in a word, so composed, so serene, so placid a countenance, i never saw; and he satisfied himself by answering to every question he was asked, "i don't know anything about it, sir; i leaves all that to my wife." now, as a couple of this kind would, like two vessels of oil, have made no composition in life, and for want of all savor must have palled every taste; nature or fortune, or both of them, took care to provide a proper quantity of acid in the materials that formed the wife, and to render her a perfect helpmate for so tranquil a husband. she abounded in whatsoever he was defective; that is to say, in almost everything. she was indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind to a standing-pool, and preserved all from stagnation and corruption. quin the player, on taking a nice and severe survey of a fellow-comedian, burst forth into this exclamation:--"if that fellow be not a rogue, god almighty doth not write a legible hand." whether he guessed right or no is not worth my while to examine; certain it is that the latter, having wrought his features into a proper harmony to become the characters of iago, shylock, and others of the same cast, gave us a semblance of truth to the observation that was sufficient to confirm the wit of it. indeed, we may remark, in favor of the physiognomist, though the law has made him a rogue and vagabond, that nature is seldom curious in her works within, without employing some little pains on the outside; and this more particularly in mischievous characters, in forming which, as mr. derham observes, in venomous insects, as the sting or saw of a wasp, she is sometimes wonderfully industrious. now, when she hath thus completely armed our hero to carry on a war with man, she never fails of furnishing that innocent lambkin with some means of knowing his enemy, and foreseeing his designs. thus she hath been observed to act in the case of a rattlesnake, which never meditates a human prey without giving warning of his approach. this observation will, i am convinced, hold most true, if applied to the most venomous individuals of human insects. a tyrant, a trickster, and a bully, generally wear the marks of their several dispositions in their countenances; so do the vixen, the shrew, the scold, and all other females of the like kind. but, perhaps, nature hath never afforded a stronger example of all this than in the case of mrs. francis. she was a short, squat woman; her head was closely joined to her shoulders, where it was fixed somewhat awry; every feature of her countenance was sharp and pointed; her face was furrowed with the smallpox; and her complexion, which seemed to be able to turn milk to curds, not a little resembled in color such milk as had already undergone that operation. she appeared, indeed, to have many symptoms of a deep jaundice in her look; but the strength and firmness of her voice overbalanced them all; the tone of this was a sharp treble at a distance, for i seldom heard it on the same floor, but was usually waked with it in the morning, and entertained with it almost continually through the whole day. though vocal be usually put in opposition to instrumental music, i question whether this might not be thought to partake of the nature of both; for she played on two instruments, which she seemed to keep for no other use from morning till night; these were two maids, or rather scolding-stocks, who, i suppose, by some means or other, earned their board, and she gave them their lodging gratis, or for no other service than to keep her lungs in constant exercise. she differed, as i have said, in every particular from her husband; but very remarkably in this, that, as it was impossible to displease him, so it was as impossible to please her; and as no art could remove a smile from his countenance, so could no art carry it into hers. if her bills were remonstrated against she was offended with the tacit censure of her fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacit sarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with the same success. on this lather hint she did indeed improve, for she daily raised some of her articles. a pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at a shilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishes for two shillings on the saturday, we paid half-a-crown for the cookery of one on the sunday; and, whenever she was paid, she never left the room without lamenting the small amount of her bill, saying, "she knew not how it was that others got their money by gentle-folks, but for her part she had not the art of it." when she was asked why she complained, when she was paid all she demanded, she answered, "she could not deny that, nor did she know she had omitted anything; but that it was but a poor bill for gentle-folks to pay." i accounted for all this by her having heard, that it is a maxim with the principal inn-holders on the continent, to levy considerable sums on their guests, who travel with many horses and servants, though such guests should eat little or nothing in their houses; the method being, i believe, in such cases, to lay a capitation on the horses, and not on their masters. but she did not consider that in most of these inns a very great degree of hunger, without any degree of delicacy, may be satisfied; and that in all such inns there is some appearance, at least, of provision, as well as of a man-cook to dress it, one of the hostlers being always furnished with a cook's cap, waistcoat, and apron, ready to attend gentlemen and ladies on their summons; that the case therefore of such inns differed from hers, where there was nothing to eat or to drink, and in reality no house to inhabit, no chair to sit upon, nor any bed to lie in; that one third or fourth part therefore of the levy imposed at inns was, in truth, a higher tax than the whole was when laid on in the other, where, in order to raise a small sum, a man is obliged to submit to pay as many various ways for the same thing as he doth to the government for the light which enters through his own window into his own house, from his own estate; such are the articles of bread and beer, firing, eating and dressing dinner. the foregoing is a very imperfect sketch of this extraordinary couple; for everything is here lowered instead of being heightened. those who would see them set forth in more lively colors, and with the proper ornaments, may read the descriptions of the furies in some of the classical poets, or of the stoic philosophers in the works of lucian. monday, july 20.--this day nothing remarkable passed; mrs. francis levied a tax of fourteen shillings for the sunday. we regaled ourselves at dinner with venison and good claret of our own; and in the afternoon, the women, attended by the captain, walked to see a delightful scene two miles distant, with the beauties of which they declared themselves most highly charmed at their return, as well as with the goodness of the lady of the mansion, who had slipped out of the way that my wife and their company might refresh themselves with the flowers and fruits with which her garden abounded. tuesday, july 21.--this day, having paid our taxes of yesterday, we were permitted to regale ourselves with more venison. some of this we would willingly have exchanged for mutton; but no such flesh was to be had nearer than portsmouth, from whence it would have cost more to convey a joint to us than the freight of a portugal ham from lisbon to london amounts to; for though the water-carriage be somewhat cheaper here than at deal, yet can you find no waterman who will go on board his boat, unless by two or three hours' rowing he can get drunk for the residue of the week. and here i have an opportunity, which possibly may not offer again, of publishing some observations on that political economy of this nation, which, as it concerns only the regulation of the mob, is below the notice of our great men; though on the due regulation of this order depend many emoluments, which the great men themselves, or at least many who tread close on their heels, may enjoy, as well as some dangers which may some time or other arise from introducing a pure state of anarchy among them. i will represent the case, as it appears to me, very fairly and impartially between the mob and their betters. the whole mischief which infects this part of our economy arises from the vague and uncertain use of a word called liberty, of which, as scarce any two men with whom i have ever conversed seem to have one and the same idea, i am inclined to doubt whether there be any simple universal notion represented by this word, or whether it conveys any clearer or more determinate idea than some of those old punic compositions of syllables preserved in one of the comedies of plautus, but at present, as i conceive, not supposed to be understood by any one. by liberty, however, i apprehend, is commonly understood the power of doing what we please; not absolutely, for then it would be inconsistent with law, by whose control the liberty of the freest people, except only the hottentots and wild indians, must always be restrained. but, indeed, however largely we extend, or however moderately we confine, the sense of the word, no politician will, i presume, contend that it is to pervade in an equal degree, and be, with the same extent, enjoyed by, every member of society; no such polity having been ever found, unless among those vile people just before commemorated. among the greeks and romans the servile and free conditions were opposed to each other; and no man who had the misfortune to be enrolled under the former could lay any claim to liberty till the right was conveyed to him by that master whose slave he was, either by the means of conquest, of purchase, or of birth. this was the state of all the free nations in the world; and this, till very lately, was understood to be the case of our own. i will not indeed say this is the case at present, the lowest class of our people having shaken off all the shackles of their superiors, and become not only as free, but even freer, than most of their superiors. i believe it cannot be doubted, though perhaps we have no recent instance of it, that the personal attendance of every man who hath three hundred pounds per annum, in parliament, is indispensably his duty; and that, if the citizens and burgesses of any city or borough shall choose such a one, however reluctant he appear, he may be obliged to attend, and be forcibly brought to his duty by the sergeant-at-arms. again, there are numbers of subordinate offices, some of which are of burden, and others of expense, in the civil government--all of which persons who are qualified are liable to have imposed on them, may be obliged to undertake and properly execute, notwithstanding any bodily labor, or even danger, to which they may subject themselves, under the penalty of fines and imprisonment; nay, and what may appear somewhat hard, may be compelled to satisfy the losses which are eventually incident, to that of sheriff in particular, out of their own private fortunes; and though this should prove the ruin of a family, yet the public, to whom the price is due, incurs no debt or obligation to preserve its officer harmless, let his innocence appear ever so clearly. i purposely omit the mention of those military or military duties which our old constitution laid upon its greatest members. these might, indeed, supply their posts with some other able-bodied men; but if no such could have been found, the obligation nevertheless remained, and they were compellable to serve in their own proper persons. the only one, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty is the lowest member of the society, who, if he prefers hunger, or the wild product of the fields, hedges, lanes, and rivers, with the indulgence of ease and laziness, to a food a little more delicate, but purchased at the expense of labor, may lay himself under a shade; nor can be forced to take the other alternative from that which he hath, i will not affirm whether wisely or foolishly, chosen. here i may, perhaps, be reminded of the last vagrant act, where all such persons are compellable to work for the usual and accustomed wages allowed in the place; but this is a clause little known to the justices of the peace, and least likely to be executed by those who do know it, as they know likewise that it is formed on the ancient power of the justices to fix and settle these wages every year, making proper allowances for the scarcity and plenty of the times, the cheapness and dearness of the place; and that the usual and accustomed wages are words without any force or meaning, when there are no such; but every man spunges and raps whatever he can get; and will haggle as long and struggle as hard to cheat his employer of twopence in a day's labor as an honest tradesman will to cheat his customers of the same sum in a yard of cloth or silk. it is a great pity then that this power, or rather this practice, was not revived; but, this having been so long omitted that it is become obsolete, will be best done by a new law, in which this power, as well as the consequent power of forcing the poor to labor at a moderate and reasonable rate, should be well considered and their execution facilitated; for gentlemen who give their time and labor gratis, and even voluntarily, to the public, have a right to expect that all their business be made as easy as possible; and to enact laws without doing this is to fill our statute-books, much too full already, still fuller with dead letter, of no use but to the printer of the acts of parliament. that the evil which i have here pointed at is of itself worth redressing, is, i apprehend, no subject of dispute; for why should any persons in distress be deprived of the assistance of their fellow-subjects, when they are willing amply to reward them for their labor? or, why should the lowest of the people be permitted to exact ten times the value of their work? for those exactions increase with the degrees of necessity in their object, insomuch that on the former side many are horribly imposed upon, and that often in no trifling matters. i was very well assured that at deal no less than ten guineas was required, and paid by the supercargo of an indiaman, for carrying him on board two miles from the shore when she was just ready to sail; so that his necessity, as his pillager well understood, was absolute. again, many others, whose indignation will not submit to such plunder, are forced to refuse the assistance, though they are often great sufferers by so doing. on the latter side, the lowest of the people are encouraged in laziness and idleness; while they live by a twentieth part of the labor that ought to maintain them, which is diametrically opposite to the interest of the public; for that requires a great deal to be done, not to be paid, for a little. and moreover, they are confirmed in habits of exaction, and are taught to consider the distresses of their superiors as their own fair emolument. but enough of this matter, of which i at first intended only to convey a hint to those who are alone capable of applying the remedy, though they are the last to whom the notice of those evils would occur, without some such monitor as myself, who am forced to travel about the world in the form of a passenger. i cannot but say i heartily wish our governors would attentively consider this method of fixing the price of labor, and by that means of compelling the poor to work, since the due execution of such powers will, i apprehend, be found the true and only means of making them useful, and of advancing trade from its present visibly declining state to the height to which sir william petty, in his political arithmetic, thinks it capable of being carried. in the afternoon the lady of the above-mentioned mansion called at our inn, and left her compliments to us with mrs. francis, with an assurance that while we continued wind-bound in that place, where she feared we could be but indifferently accommodated, we were extremely welcome to the use of anything which her garden or her house afforded. so polite a message convinced us, in spite of some arguments to the contrary, that we were not on the coast of africa, or on some island where the few savage inhabitants have little of human in them besides their form. and here i mean nothing less than to derogate from the merit of this lady, who is not only extremely polite in her behavior to strangers of her own rank, but so extremely good and charitable to all her poor neighbors who stand in need of her assistance, that she hath the universal love and praises of all who live near her. but, in reality, how little doth the acquisition of so valuable a character, and the full indulgence of so worthy a disposition, cost those who possess it! both are accomplished by the very offals which fall from a table moderately plentiful. that they are enjoyed therefore by so few arises truly from there being so few who have any such disposition to gratify, or who aim at any such character. wednesday, july 22.--this morning, after having been mulcted as usual, we dispatched a servant with proper acknowledgments of the lady's goodness; but confined our wants entirely to the productions of her garden. he soon returned, in company with the gardener, both richly laden with almost every particular which a garden at this most fruitful season of the year produces. while we were regaling ourselves with these, towards the close of our dinner, we received orders from our commander, who had dined that day with some inferior officers on board a man-of-war, to return instantly to the ship; for that the wind was become favorable and he should weigh that evening. these orders were soon followed by the captain himself, who was still in the utmost hurry, though the occasion of it had long since ceased; for the wind had, indeed, a little shifted that afternoon, but was before this very quietly set down in its old quarters. this last was a lucky hit for me; for, as the captain, to whose orders we resolved to pay no obedience, unless delivered by himself, did not return till past six, so much time seemed requisite to put up the furniture of our bed-chamber or dining-room, for almost every article, even to some of the chairs, were either our own or the captain's property; so much more in conveying it as well as myself, as dead a luggage as any, to the shore, and thence to the ship, that the night threatened first to overtake us. a terrible circumstance to me, in my decayed condition; especially as very heavy showers of rain, attended with a high wind, continued to fall incessantly; the being carried through which two miles in the dark, in a wet and open boat, seemed little less than certain death. however, as my commander was absolute, his orders peremptory, and my obedience necessary, i resolved to avail myself of a philosophy which hath been of notable use to me in the latter part of my life, and which is contained in this hemistich of virgil:- ----superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est. the meaning of which, if virgil had any, i think i rightly understood, and rightly applied. as i was therefore to be entirely passive in my motion, i resolved to abandon myself to the conduct of those who were to carry me into a cart when it returned from unloading the goods. but before this, the captain, perceiving what had happened in the clouds, and that the wind remained as much his enemy as ever, came upstairs to me with a reprieve till the morning. this was, i own, very agreeable news, and i little regretted the trouble of refurnishing my apartment, by sending back for the goods. mrs. francis was not well pleased with this. as she understood the reprieve to be only till the morning, she saw nothing but lodging to be possibly added, out of which she was to deduct fire and candle, and the remainder, she thought, would scarce pay her for her trouble. she exerted therefore all the ill-humor of which she was mistress, and did all she could to thwart and perplex everything during the whole evening. thursday, july 23.--early in the morning the captain, who had remained on shore all night, came to visit us, and to press us to make haste on board. "i am resolved," says he, "not to lose a moment now the wind is coming about fair: for my own part, i never was surer of a wind in all my life." i use his very words; nor will i presume to interpret or comment upon them farther than by observing that they were spoke in the utmost hurry. we promised to be ready as soon as breakfast was over, but this was not so soon as was expected; for, in removing our goods the evening before, the tea-chest was unhappily lost. every place was immediately searched, and many where it was impossible for it to be; for this was a loss of much greater consequence than it may at first seem to many of my readers. ladies and valetudinarians do not easily dispense with the use of this sovereign cordial in a single instance; but to undertake a long voyage, without any probability of being supplied with it the whole way, was above the reach of patience. and yet, dreadful as this calamity was, it seemed unavoidable. the whole town of ryde could not supply a single leaf; for, as to what mrs. francis and the shop called by that name, it was not of chinese growth. it did not indeed in the least resemble tea, either in smell or taste, or in any particular, unless in being a leaf; for it was in truth no other than a tobacco of the mundungus species. and as for the hopes of relief in any other port, they were not to be depended upon, for the captain had positively declared he was sure of a wind, and would let go his anchor no more till he arrived in the tajo. when a good deal of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted on this occasion, a thought occurred which every one wondered at its not having presented itself the first moment. this was to apply to the good lady, who could not fail of pitying and relieving such distress. a messenger was immediately despatched with an account of our misfortune, till whose return we employed ourselves in preparatives for our departure, that we might have nothing to do but to swallow our breakfast when it arrived. the tea-chest, though of no less consequence to us than the military-chest to a general, was given up as lost, or rather as stolen, for though i would not, for the world, mention any particular name, it is certain we had suspicions, and all, i am afraid, fell on the same person. the man returned from the worthy lady with much expedition, and brought with him a canister of tea, despatched with so true a generosity, as well as politeness, that if our voyage had been as long again we should have incurred no danger of being brought to a short allowance in this most important article. at the very same instant likewise arrived william the footman with our own tea-chest. it had been, indeed, left in the hoy, when the other goods were re-landed, as william, when he first heard it was missing, had suspected; and whence, had not the owner of the hoy been unluckily out of the way, he had retrieved it soon enough to have prevented our giving the lady an opportunity of displaying some part of her goodness. to search the hoy was, indeed, too natural a suggestion to have escaped any one, nor did it escape being mentioned by many of us; but we were dissuaded from it by my wife's maid, who perfectly well remembered she had left the chest in the bed-chamber; for that she had never given it out of her hand in her way to or from the hoy; but william perhaps knew the maid better, and best understood how far she was to be believed; for otherwise he would hardly of his own accord, after hearing her declaration, have hunted out the hoy-man, with much pains and difficulty. thus ended this scene, which began with such appearance of distress, and ended with becoming the subject of mirth and laughter. nothing now remained but to pay our taxes, which were indeed laid with inconceivable severity. lodging was raised sixpence, fire in the same proportion, and even candles, which had hitherto escaped, were charged with a wantonness of imposition, from the beginning, and placed under the style of oversight. we were raised a whole pound, whereas we had only burned ten, in five nights, and the pound consisted of twenty-four. lastly, an attempt was made which almost as far exceeds human credulity to believe as it did human patience to submit to. this was to make us pay as much for existing an hour or two as for existing a whole day; and dressing dinner was introduced as an article, though we left the house before either pot or spit had approached the fire. here i own my patience failed me, and i became an example of the truth of the observation, "that all tyranny and oppression may be carried too far, and that a yoke may be made too intolerable for the neck of the tamest slave." when i remonstrated, with some warmth, against this grievance, mrs. francis gave me a look, and left the room without making any answer. she returned in a minute, running to me with pen, ink, and paper, in her hand, and desired me to make my own bill; "for she hoped," she said "i did not expect that her house was to be dirtied, and her goods spoiled and consumed for nothing. the whole is but thirteen shillings. can gentlefolks lie a whole night at a public-house for less? if they can i am sure it is time to give off being a landlady: but pay me what you please; i would have people know that i value money as little as other folks. but i was always a fool, as i says to my husband, and never knows which side my bread is buttered of. and yet, to be sure, your honor shall be my warning not to be bit so again. some folks knows better than other some how to make their bills. candles! why yes, to be sure; why should not travelers pay for candles? i am sure i pays for my candles, and the chandler pays the king's majesty for them; and if he did not i must, so as it comes to the same thing in the end. to be sure i am out of sixteens at present, but these burn as white and as clear, though not quite so large. i expects my chandler here soon, or i would send to portsmouth, if your honor was to stay any time longer. but when folks stays only for a wind, you knows there can be no dependence on such!" here she put on a little slyness of aspect, and seemed willing to submit to interruption. i interrupted her accordingly by throwing down half a guinea, and declared i had no more english money, which was indeed true; and, as she could not immediately change the thirty-six shilling pieces, it put a final end to the dispute. mrs. francis soon left the room, and we soon after left the house; nor would this good woman see us or wish us a good voyage. i must not, however, quit this place, where we had been so ill-treated, without doing it impartial justice, and recording what may, with the strictest truth, be said in its favor. first, then, as to its situation, it is, i think, most delightful, and in the most pleasant spot in the whole island. it is true it wants the advantage of that beautiful river which leads from newport to cowes; but the prospect here extending to the sea, and taking in portsmouth, spithead, and st. helen's, would be more than a recompense for the loss of the thames itself, even in the most delightful part of berkshire or buckinghamshire, though another denham, or another pope, should unite in celebrating it. for my own part, i confess myself so entirely fond of a sea prospect, that i think nothing on the land can equal it; and if it be set off with shipping, i desire to borrow no ornament from the terra firma. a fleet of ships is, in my opinion, the noblest object which the art of man hath ever produced; and far beyond the power of those architects who deal in brick, in stone, or in marble. when the late sir robert walpole, one of the best of men and of ministers, used to equip us a yearly fleet at spithead, his enemies of taste must have allowed that he, at least, treated the nation with a fine sight for their money. a much finer, indeed, than the same expense in an encampment could have produced. for what indeed is the best idea which the prospect of a number of huts can furnish to the mind, but of a number of men forming themselves into a society before the art of building more substantial houses was known? this, perhaps, would be agreeable enough; but, in truth, there is a much worse idea ready to step in before it, and that is of a body of cut-throats, the supports of tyranny, the invaders of the just liberties and properties of mankind, the plunderers of the industrious, the ravishers of the chaste, the murderers of the innocent, and, in a word, the destroyers of the plenty, the peace, and the safety, of their fellow-creatures. and what, it may be said, are these men-of-war which seem so delightful an object to our eyes? are they not alike the support of tyranny and oppression of innocence, carrying with them desolation and ruin wherever their masters please to send them? this is indeed too true; and however the ship of war may, in its bulk and equipment, exceed the honest merchantman, i heartily wish there was no necessity for it; for, though i must own the superior beauty of the object on one side, i am more pleased with the superior excellence of the idea which i can raise in my mind on the other, while i reflect on the art and industry of mankind engaged in the daily improvements of commerce to the mutual benefit of all countries, and to the establishment and happiness of social life. this pleasant village is situated on a gentle ascent from the water, whence it affords that charming prospect i have above described. its soil is a gravel, which, assisted with its declivity, preserves it always so dry that immediately after the most violent rain a fine lady may walk without wetting her silken shoes. the fertility of the place is apparent from its extraordinary verdure, and it is so shaded with large and flourishing elms, that its narrow lanes are a natural grove or walk, which, in the regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art, and in its wanton exuberancy greatly exceeds it. in a field in the ascent of this hill, about a quarter of a mile from the sea, stands a neat little chapel. it is very small, but adequate to the number of inhabitants; for the parish doth not seem to contain above thirty houses. at about two miles distant from this parish lives that polite and good lady to whose kindness we were so much obliged. it is placed on a hill whose bottom is washed by the sea, and which from its eminence at top, commands a view of great part of the island as well as it does that of the opposite shore. this house was formerly built by one boyce, who, from a blacksmith at gosport, became possessed, by great success in smuggling, of forty thousand pound. with part of this he purchased an estate here, and, by chance probably, fixed on this spot for building a large house. perhaps the convenience of carrying on his business, to which it is so well adapted, might dictate the situation to him. we can hardly, at least, attribute it to the same taste with which he furnished his house, or at least his library, by sending an order to a bookseller in london to pack him up five hundred pounds' worth of his handsomest books. they tell here several almost incredible stories of the ignorance, the folly, and the pride, which this poor man and his wife discovered during the short continuance of his prosperity; for he did not long escape the sharp eyes of the revenue solicitors, and was, by extents from the court of exchequer, soon reduced below his original state to that of confinement in the fleet. all his effects were sold, and among the rest his books, by an auction at portsmouth, for a very small price; for the bookseller was now discovered to have been perfectly a master of his trade, and, relying on mr. boyce's finding little time to read, had sent him not only the most lasting wares of his shop, but duplicates of the same, under different titles. his estate and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts, whose widow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them, particularly her gardens, with so elegant a taste, that the painter who would assist his imagination in the composition of a most exquisite landscape, or the poet who would describe an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnish themselves with a richer pattern. we left this place about eleven in the morning, and were again conveyed, with more sunshine than wind, aboard our ship. whence our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when he promised us and himself a prosperous wind, i will not determine; it is sufficient to observe that he was a false prophet, and that the weathercocks continued to point as before. he would not, however, so easily give up his skill in prediction. he persevered in asserting that the wind was changed, and, having weighed his anchor, fell down that afternoon to st. helen's, which was at about the distance of five miles; and whither his friend the tide, in defiance of the wind, which was most manifestly against him, softly wafted him in as many hours. here, about seven in the evening, before which time we could not procure it, we sat down to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which was much better dressed than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold pasty which my wife had made at ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to eat on board our ship, whither we all cheerfully exulted in being returned from the presence of mrs. francis, who, by the exact resemblance she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no great propriety settled in paradise. friday, july 24.--as we passed by spithead on the preceding evening we saw the two regiments of soldiers who were just returned from gibraltar and minorca; and this day a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who was the captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle. he was what is called by some a very pretty fellow; indeed, much too pretty a fellow at his years; for he was turned of thirty-four, though his address and conversation would have become him more before he had reached twenty. in his conversation, it is true, there was something military enough, as it consisted chiefly of oaths, and of the great actions and wise sayings of jack, and will, and tom of our regiment, a phrase eternally in his mouth; and he seemed to conclude that it conveyed to all the officers such a degree of public notoriety and importance that it entitled him like the head of a profession, or a first minister, to be the subject of conversation among those who had not the least personal acquaintance with him. this did not much surprise me, as i have seen several examples of the same; but the defects in his address, especially to the women, were so great that they seemed absolutely inconsistent with the behavior of a pretty fellow, much less of one in a red coat; and yet, besides having been eleven years in the army, he had had, as his uncle informed me, an education in france. this, i own, would have appeared to have been absolutely thrown away had not his animal spirits, which were likewise thrown away upon him in great abundance, borne the visible stamp of the growth of that country. the character to which he had an indisputable title was that of a merry fellow; so very merry was he that he laughed at everything he said, and always before he spoke. possibly, indeed, he often laughed at what he did not utter, for every speech begun with a laugh, though it did not always end with a jest. there was no great analogy between the characters of the uncle and the nephew, and yet they seemed entirely to agree in enjoying the honor which the red-coat did to his family. this the uncle expressed with great pleasure in his countenance, and seemed desirous of showing all present the honor which he had for his nephew, who, on his side, was at some pains to convince us of his concurring in this opinion, and at the same time of displaying the contempt he had for the parts, as well as the occupation of his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some disgrace on himself, who was a member of that profession which makes every man a gentleman. not that i would be understood to insinuate that the nephew endeavored to shake off or disown his uncle, or indeed to keep him at any distance. on the contrary, he treated him with the utmost familiarity, often calling him dick, and dear dick, and old dick, and frequently beginning an oration with d--n me, dick. all this condescension on the part of the young man was received with suitable marks of complaisance and obligation by the old one; especially when it was attended with evidences of the same familiarity with general officers and other persons of rank; one of whom, in particular, i know to have the pride and insolence of the devil himself, and who, without some strong bias of interest, is no more liable to converse familiarly with a lieutenant than of being mistaken in his judgment of a fool; which was not, perhaps, so certainly the case of the worthy lieutenant, who, in declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to his countenance and conversation, as well as what effectually set a bar to all hopes of that honor, exclaimed, "no, sir, by the d-i hate all fools-no, d--n me, excuse me for that. that's a little too much, old dick. there are two or three officers of our regiment whom i know to be fools; but d--n me if i am ever seen in their company. if a man hath a fool of a relation, dick, you know he can't help that, old boy." such jokes as these the old man not only tools in good part, but glibly gulped down the whole narrative of his nephew; nor did he, i am convinced, in the least doubt of our as readily swallowing the same. this made him so charmed with the lieutenant, that it is probable we should have been pestered with him the whole evening, had not the north wind, dearer to our sea-captain even than this glory of his family, sprung suddenly up, and called aloud to him to weigh his anchor. while this ceremony was performing, the sea-captain ordered out his boat to row the land-captain to shore; not indeed on an uninhabited island, but one which, in this part, looked but little better, not presenting us the view of a single house. indeed, our old friend, when his boat returned on shore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of the superiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that the young man had a good five mile to walk before he could be accommodated with a passage to portsmouth. it appeared now that the captain had been only mistaken in the date of his prediction, by placing the event a day earlier than it happened; for the wind which now arose was not only favorable but brisk, and was no sooner in reach of our sails than it swept us away by the back of the isle of wight, and, having in the night carried us by christchurch and peveral-point, brought us the next noon, saturday, july 25, oft the island of portland, so famous for the smallness and sweetness of its mutton, of which a leg seldom weighs four pounds. we would have bought a sheep, but our captain would not permit it; though he needed not have been in such a hurry, for presently the wind, i will not positively assert in resentment of his surliness, showed him a dog's trick, and slyly slipped back again to his summer-house in the south-west. the captain now grew outrageous, and, declaring open war with the wind, took a resolution, rather more bold than wise, of sailing in defiance of it, and in its teeth. he swore he would let go his anchor no more, but would beat the sea while he had either yard or sail left. he accordingly stood from the shore, and made so large a tack that before night, though he seemed to advance but little on his way, he was got out of sight of land. towards evening the wind began, in the captain's own language, and indeed it freshened so much, that before ten it blew a perfect hurricane. the captain having got, as he supposed, to a safe distance, tacked again towards the english shore; and now the wind veered a point only in his favor, and continued to blow with such violence, that the ship ran above eight knots or miles an hour during this whole day and tempestuous night till bed-time. i was obliged to betake myself once more to my solitude, for my women were again all down in their sea-sickness, and the captain was busy on deck; for he began to grow uneasy, chiefly, i believe, because he did not well know where he was, and would, i am convinced, have been very glad to have been in portland-road, eating some sheep's-head broth. having contracted no great degree of good-humor by living a whole day alone, without a single soul to converse with, i took but ill physic to purge it off, by a bed-conversation with the captain, who, amongst many bitter lamentations of his fate, and protesting he had more patience than a job, frequently intermixed summons to the commanding officer on the deck, who now happened to be one morrison, a carpenter, the only fellow that had either common sense or common civility in the ship. of morrison he inquired every quarter of an hour concerning the state of affairs: the wind, the care of the ship, and other matters of navigation. the frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitude with which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of the captain's mind; he endeavored to conceal it, and would have given no small alarm to a man who had either not learned what it is to die, or known what it is to be miserable. and my dear wife and child must pardon me, if what i did not conceive to be any great evil to myself i was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them; in truth, i have often thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to the power of any man i know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted. can i say then i had no fear? indeed i cannot. reader, i was afraid for thee, lest thou shouldst have been deprived of that pleasure thou art now enjoying; and that i should not live to draw out on paper that military character which thou didst peruse in the journal of yesterday. from all these fears we were relieved, at six in the morning, by the arrival of mr. morrison, who acquainted us that he was sure he beheld land very near; for he could not see half a mile, by reason of the haziness of the weather. this land he said was, he believed, the berry-head, which forms one side of torbay: the captain declared that it was impossible, and swore, on condition he was right, he would give him his mother for a maid. a forfeit which became afterwards strictly due and payable; for the captain, whipping on his night-gown, ran up without his breeches, and within half an hour returning into the cabin, wished me joy of our lying safe at anchor in the bay. sunday, july 26.--things now began to put on an aspect very different from what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lost its mizzen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and fresh bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to our women, and we all sat down to a very cheerful breakfast. but, however pleasant our stay promised to be here, we were all desirous it should be short: i resolved immediately to despatch my man into the country to purchase a present of cider, for my friends of that which is called southam, as well as to take with me a hogshead of it to lisbon; for it is, in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is the growth of herefordshire. i purchased three hogsheads for five pounds ten shillings, all which i should have scarce thought worth mentioning, had i not believed it might be of equal service to the honest farmer who sold it me, and who is by the neighboring gentlemen reputed to deal in the very best; and to the reader, who, from ignorance of the means of providing better for himself, swallows at a dearer rate the juice of middlesex turnip, instead of that vinum pomonae which mr. giles leverance of cheeshurst, near dartmouth in devon, will, at the price of forty shillings per hogshead, send in double casks to any part of the world. had the wind been very sudden in shifting, i had lost my cider by an attempt of a boatman to exact, according to custom. he required five shillings for conveying my man a mile and a half to the shore, and four more if he stayed to bring him back. this i thought to be such insufferable impudence that i ordered him to be immediately chased from the ship, without any answer. indeed, there are few inconveniences that i would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands of these wretches, at the expense of my own indignation, of which i own they are not the only objects, but rather those who purchase a paltry convenience by encouraging them. but of this i have already spoken very largely. i shall conclude, therefore, with the leave which this fellow took of our ship; saying he should know it again, and would not put off from the shore to relieve it in any distress whatever. it will, doubtless, surprise many of my readers to hear that, when we lay at anchor within a mile or two of a town several days together, and even in the most temperate weather, we should frequently want fresh provisions and herbage, and other emoluments of the shore, as much as if we had been a hundred leagues from land. and this too while numbers of boats were in our sight, whose owners get their livelihood by rowing people up and down, and could be at any time summoned by a signal to our assistance, and while the captain had a little boat of his own, with men always ready to row it at his command. this, however, hath been partly accounted for already by the imposing disposition of the people, who asked so much more than the proper price of their labor. and as to the usefulness of the captain's boat, it requires to be a little expatiated upon, as it will tend to lay open some of the grievances which demand the utmost regard of our legislature, as they affect the most valuable part of the king's subjects--those by whom the commerce of the nation is carried into execution. our captain then, who was a very good and experienced seaman, having been above thirty years the master of a vessel, part of which he had served, so he phrased it, as commander of a privateer, and had discharged himself with great courage and conduct, and with as great success, discovered the utmost aversion to the sending his boat ashore whenever we lay wind-bound in any of our harbors. this aversion did not arise from any fear of wearing out his boat by using it, but was, in truth, the result of experience, that it was easier to send his men on shore than to recall them. they acknowledged him to be their master while they remained on shipboard, but did not allow his power to extend to the shores, where they had no sooner set their foot than every man became sui juris, and thought himself at full liberty to return when he pleased. now it is not any delight that these fellows have in the fresh air or verdant fields on the land. every one of them would prefer his ship and his hammock to all the sweets of arabia the happy; but, unluckily for them, there are in every seaport in england certain houses whose chief livelihood depends on providing entertainment for the gentlemen of the jacket. for this purpose they are always well furnished with those cordial liquors which do immediately inspire the heart with gladness, banishing all careful thoughts, and indeed all others, from the mind, and opening the mouth with songs of cheerfulness and thanksgiving for the many wonderful blessings with which a seafaring life overflows. for my own part, however whimsical it may appear, i confess i have thought the strange story of circe in the odyssey no other than an ingenious allegory, in which homer intended to convey to his countrymen the same kind of instruction which we intend to communicate to our own in this digression. as teaching the art of war to the greeks was the plain design of the iliad, so was teaching them the art of navigation the no less manifest intention of the odyssey. for the improvement of this, their situation was most excellently adapted; and accordingly we find thucydides, in the beginning of his history, considers the greeks as a set of pirates or privateers, plundering each other by sea. this being probably the first institution of commerce before the ars cauponaria was invented, and merchants, instead of robbing, began to cheat and outwit each other, and by degrees changed the metabletic, the only kind of traffic allowed by aristotle in his politics, into the chrematistic. by this allegory then i suppose ulysses to have been the captain of a merchant-ship, and circe some good ale-wife, who made his crew drunk with the spirituous liquors of those days. with this the transformation into swine, as well as all other incidents of the fable, will notably agree; and thus a key will be found out for unlocking the whole mystery, and forging at least some meaning to a story which, at present, appears very strange and absurd. hence, moreover, will appear the very near resemblance between the sea-faring men of all ages and nations; and here perhaps may be established the truth and justice of that observation, which will occur oftener than once in this voyage, that all human flesh is not the same flesh, but that there is one kind of flesh of landmen, and another of seamen. philosophers, divines, and others, who have treated the gratification of human appetites with contempt, have, among other instances, insisted very strongly on that satiety which is so apt to overtake them even in the very act of enjoyment. and here they more particularly deserve our attention, as most of them may be supposed to speak from their own experience, and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach. thus hunger and thirst, whatever delight they may afford while we are eating and drinking, pass both away from us with the plate and the cup; and though we should imitate the romans, if, indeed, they were such dull beasts, which i can scarce believe, to unload the belly like a dung-pot, in order to fill it again with another load, yet would the pleasure be so considerably lessened that it would scarce repay us the trouble of purchasing it with swallowing a basin of camomile tea. a second haunch of venison, or a second dose of turtle, would hardly allure a city glutton with its smell. even the celebrated jew himself, when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours. hence i suppose dr. south took that elegant comparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of an archimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton to the stillness of a sow at her wash. a simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, could only become it in the afternoon. whereas in those potations which the mind seems to enjoy, rather than the bodily appetite, there is happily no such satiety; but the more a man drinks, the more he desires; as if, like mark anthony in dryden, his appetite increased with feeding, and this to such an immoderate degree, ut nullus sit desiderio aut pudor aut modus. hence, as with the gang of captain ulysses, ensues so total a transformation, that the man no more continues what he was. perhaps he ceases for a time to be at all; or, though he may retain the same outward form and figure he had before, yet is his nobler part, as we are taught to call it, so changed, that, instead of being the same man, he scarce remembers what he was a few hours before. and this transformation, being once obtained, is so easily preserved by the same potations, which induced no satiety, that the captain in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew. they know him no longer; or, if they do, they acknowledge not his power, having indeed as entirely forgotten themselves as if they had taken a large draught of the river of lethe. nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to which circe hath conveyed them. there are many of those houses in every port-town. nay, there are some where the sorceress doth not trust only to her drugs; but hath instruments of a different kind to execute her purposes, by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from the knowledge and pursuit of his captain. this would, indeed, be very fatal, was it not for one circumstance; that the sailor is seldom provided with the proper bait for these harpies. however, the contrary sometimes happens, as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will snap at a pair of silver buttons, or buckles, as surely as at the specie itself. nay, sometimes they are so voracious, that the very naked hook will go down, and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake. in vain, at such a season as this, would the vows of a pious heathen have prevailed over neptune, aeolus, or any other marine deity. in vain would the prayers of a christian captain be attended with the like success. the wind may change how it pleases while all hands are on shore; the anchor would remain firm in the ground, and the ship would continue in durance, unless, like other forcible prison-breakers, it forcibly got loose for no good purpose. now, as the favor of winds and courts, and such like, is always to be laid hold on at the very first motion, for within twenty-four hours all may be changed again; so, in the former case, the loss of a day may be the loss of a voyage: for, though it may appear to persons not well skilled in navigation, who see ships meet and sail by each other, that the wind blows sometimes east and west, north and south, backwards and forwards, at the same instant; yet, certain it is that the land is so contrived, that even the same wind will not, like the same horse, always bring a man to the end of his journey; but, that the gale which the mariner prayed heartily for yesterday, he may as heartily deprecate to-morrow; while all use and benefit which would have arisen to him from the westerly wind of to-morrow may be totally lost and thrown away by neglecting the offer of the easterly blast which blows to-day. hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain, loss and disappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom great prejudice to the trade of a nation whose manufactures are thus liable to lie unsold in a foreign warehouse the market being forestalled by some rival whose sailors are under a better discipline. to guard against these inconveniences the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power; he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them so firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break through them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which i will not determine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery to be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity. to speak a plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one whom the wise citizens of london call a bad man; for, with such a one, though your bond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for nothing. what then is to be done in this case? what, indeed, but to call in the assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can, and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and, though he seldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile alive so fast in his noose, that he can never get out till he is let drop through it. why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, should not an immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of this order, who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to ship or to prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the leg in either place? but, as the case now stands, the condition of this poor captain without any commission, and of this absolute commander without any power, is much worse than we have hitherto shown it to be; for, notwithstanding all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good ship the elizabeth, if the sailor should, for better wages, find it more his interest to go on board the better ship the mary, either before their setting out or on their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer the latter without any other danger than that of "doing what he ought not to have done," contrary to a rule which he is seldom christian enough to have much at heart, while the captain is generally too good a christian to punish a man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerable expense for so doing. there are many other deficiencies in our laws relating to maritime affairs, and which would probably have been long since corrected, had we any seamen in the house of commons. not that i would insinuate that the legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in the sea-service; but, as these gentlemen are by their attendance in the house unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning what they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latter remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if none but courtiers and fox-hunters had been elected into parliament, without a single fish among them. the following seems to me to be an effect of this kind, and it strikes me the stronger as i remember the case to have happened, and remember it to have been dispunishable. a captain of a trading vessel, of which he was part owner, took in a large freight of oats at liverpool, consigned to the market at bearkey: this he carried to a port in hampshire, and there sold it as his own, and, freighting his vessel with wheat for the port of cadiz, in spain, dropped it at oporto in his way; and there, selling it for his own use, took in a lading of wine, with which he sailed again, and, having converted it in the same manner, together with a large sum of money with which he was intrusted, for the benefit of certain merchants, sold the ship and cargo in another port, and then wisely sat down contented with the fortune he had made, and returned to london to enjoy the remainder of his days, with the fruits of his former labors and a good conscience. the sum he brought home with him consisted of near six thousand pounds, all in specie, and most of it in that coin which portugal distributes so liberally over europe. he was not yet old enough to be past all sense of pleasure, nor so puffed up with the pride of his good fortune as to overlook his old acquaintances the journeymen tailors, from among whom he had been formerly pressed into the sea-service, and, having there laid the foundation of his future success by his shares in prizes, had afterwards become captain of a trading vessel, in which he purchased an interest, and had soon begun to trade in the honorable manner above mentioned. the captain now took up his residence at an ale-house in drury-lane, where, having all his money by him in a trunk, he spent about five pounds a day among his old friends the gentlemen and ladies of those parts. the merchant of liverpool, having luckily had notice from a friend during the blaze of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justice of peace, without the assistance of the law, recover his whole loss. the captain, however, wisely chose to refund no more; but, perceiving with what hasty strides envy was pursuing his fortune, he took speedy means to retire out of her reach, and to enjoy the rest of his wealth in an inglorious obscurity; nor could the same justice overtake him time enough to assist a second merchant as he had done the first. this was a very extraordinary case, and the more so as the ingenious gentleman had steered entirely clear of all crimes in our law. now, how it comes about that a robbery so very easy to be committed, and to which there is such immediate temptation always before the eyes of these fellows, should receive the encouragement of impunity, is to be accounted for only from the oversight of the legislature, as that oversight can only be, i think, derived from the reasons i have assigned for it. but i will dwell no longer on this subject. if what i have here said should seem of sufficient consequence to engage the attention of any man in power, and should thus be the means of applying any remedy to the most inveterate evils, at least, i have obtained my whole desire, and shall have lain so long wind-bound in the ports of this kingdom to some purpose. i would, indeed, have this work--which, if i should live to finish it, a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hope to me, will be probably the last i shall ever undertake--to produce some better end than the mere diversion of the reader. monday.--this day our captain went ashore, to dine with a gentleman who lives in these parts, and who so exactly resembles the character given by homer of axylus, that the only difference i can trace between them is, the one, living by the highway, erected his hospitality chiefly in favor of land-travelers; and the other, living by the water-side, gratified his humanity by accommodating the wants of the mariner. in the evening our commander received a visit from a brother bashaw, who lay wind-bound in the same harbor. this latter captain was a swiss. he was then master of a vessel bound to guinea, and had formerly been a privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudable service. the honesty and freedom of the switzer, his vivacity, in which he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbors the french, the awkward and affected politeness, which was likewise of french extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the english tar--for he had served under the colors of this nation and his crew had been of the same--made such an odd variety, such a hotch-potch of character, that i should have been much diverted with him, had not his voice, which was as loud as a speaking-trumpet, unfortunately made my head ache. the noise which he conveyed into the deaf ears of his brother captain, who sat on one side of him, the soft addresses with which, mixed with awkward bows, he saluted the ladies on the other, were so agreeably contrasted, that a man must not only have been void of all taste of humor, and insensible of mirth, but duller than cibber is represented in the dunciad, who could be unentertained with him a little while; for, i confess, such entertainments should always be very short, as they are very liable to pall. but he suffered not this to happen at present; for, having given us his company a quarter of an hour only, he retired, after many apologies for the shortness of his visit. tuesday.--the wind being less boisterous than it had hitherto been since our arrival here, several fishing-boats, which the tempestuous weather yesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with fish. this was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at ninepence a score. the only fish which bore any price was a john doree, as it is called. i bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. it resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and flavor. the price had the appearance of being considerable when opposed to the extraordinary cheapness of others of value, but was, in truth, so very reasonable when estimated by its goodness, that it left me under no other surprise than how the gentlemen of this country, not greatly eminent for the delicacy of their taste, had discovered the preference of the doree to all other fish: but i was informed that mr. quin, whose distinguishing tooth hath been so justly celebrated, had lately visited plymouth, and had done those honors to the doree which are so justly due to it from that sect of modern philosophers who, with sir epicure mammon, or sir epicure quin, their head, seem more to delight in a fish-pond than in a garden, as the old epicureans are said to have done. unfortunately for the fishmongers of london, the doree resides only in those seas; for, could any of this company but convey one to the temple of luxury under the piazza, where macklin the high-priest daily serves up his rich offerings to that goddess, great would be the reward of that fishmonger, in blessings poured down upon him from the goddess, as great would his merit be towards the high-priest, who could never be thought to overrate such valuable incense. and here, having mentioned the extreme cheapness of fish in the devonshire sea, and given some little hint of the extreme dearness with which this commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in london, i cannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or two, with the same view with which i have scattered my several remarks through this voyage, sufficiently satisfied in having finished my life, as i have probably lost it, in the service of my country, from the best of motives, though it should be attended with the worst of success. means are always in our power; ends are very seldom so. of all the animal foods with which man is furnished, there are none so plenty as fish. a little rivulet, that glides almost unperceived through a vast tract of rich land, will support more hundreds with the flesh of its inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. but if this be true of rivers, it is much truer of the sea-shores, which abound with such immense variety of fish that the curious fisherman, after he hath made his draught, often culls only the daintiest part and leaves the rest of his prey to perish on the shore. if this be true it would appear, i think, that there is nothing which might be had in such abundance, and consequently so cheap, as fish, of which nature seems to have provided such inexhaustible stores with some peculiar design. in the production of terrestrial animals she proceeds with such slowness, that in the larger kind a single female seldom produces more than one a-year, and this again requires three, for, or five years more to bring it to perfection. and though the lesser quadrupeds, those of the wild kind particularly, with the birds, do multiply much faster, yet can none of these bear any proportion with the aquatic animals, of whom every female matrix is furnished with an annual offspring almost exceeding the power of numbers, and which, in many instances at least, a single year is capable of bringing to some degree of maturity. what then ought in general to be so plentiful, what so cheap, as fish? what then so properly the food of the poor? so in many places they are, and so might they always be in great cities, which are always situated near the sea, or on the conflux of large rivers. how comes it then, to look no farther abroad for instances, that in our city of london the case is so far otherwise that, except that of sprats, there is not one poor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish? it is true indeed that this taste is generally of such excellent flavor that it exceeds the power of french cookery to treat the palates of the rich with anything more exquisitely delicate; so that was fish the common food of the poor it might put them too much upon an equality with their betters in the great article of eating, in which, at present, in the opinion of some, the great difference in happiness between man and man consists. but this argument i shall treat with the utmost disdain: for if ortolans were as big as buzzards, and at the same time as plenty as sparrows, i should hold it yet reasonable to indulge the poor with the dainty, and that for this cause especially, that the rich would soon find a sparrow, if as scarce as an ortolan, to be much the greater, as it would certainly be the rarer, dainty of the two. vanity or scarcity will be always the favorite of luxury; but honest hunger will be satisfied with plenty. not to search deeper into the cause of the evil, i should think it abundantly sufficient to propose the remedies of it. and, first, i humbly submit the absolute necessity of immediately hanging all the fishmongers within the bills of mortality; and, however it might have been some time ago the opinion of mild and temporizing men that the evil complained of might be removed by gentler methods, i suppose at this day there are none who do not see the impossibility of using such with any effect. cuncta prius tentanda might have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but cuncta prius tentata may now be replied: for surely, if a few monopolizing fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the westminster market, to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as well as other wise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves, that they might be truly said not only to have laid the whole strength of their heads, but of their shoulders too, to the business, it would be a vain endeavor for any other body of men to attempt to remove so stubborn a nuisance. if it should be doubted whether we can bring this case within the letter of any capital law now subsisting, i am ashamed to own it cannot; for surely no crime better deserves such punishment; but the remedy may, nevertheless, be immediate; and if a law was made at the beginning of next session, to take place immediately, by which the starving thousands of poor was declared to be felony, without benefit of clergy, the fishmongers would be hanged before the end of the session. a second method of filling the mouths of the poor, if not with loaves at least with fishes, is to desire the magistrates to carry into execution one at least out of near a hundred acts of parliament, for preserving the small fry of the river of thames, by which means as few fish would satisfy thousands as may now be devoured by a small number of individuals. but while a fisherman can break through the strongest meshes of an act of parliament, we may be assured he will learn so to contrive his own meshes that the smallest fry will not be able to swim through them. other methods may, we doubt not, he suggested by those who shall attentively consider the evil here hinted at; but we have dwelt too long on it already, and shall conclude with observing that it is difficult to affirm whether the atrocity of the evil itself, the facility of curing it, or the shameful neglect of the cure, be the more scandalous or more astonishing. after having, however, gloriously regaled myself with this food, i was washing it down with some good claret with my wife and her friend, in the cabin, when the captain's valet-de-chambre, head cook, house and ship steward, footman in livery and out on't, secretary and fore-mast man, all burst into the cabin at once, being, indeed, all but one person, and, without saying, by your leave, began to pack half a hogshead of small beer in bottles, the necessary consequence of which must have been either a total stop to conversation at that cheerful season when it is most agreeable, or the admitting that polyonymous officer aforesaid to the participation of it. i desired him therefore to delay his purpose a little longer, but he refused to grant my request; nor was he prevailed on to quit the room till he was threatened with having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to stand empty within my reach. with these menaces he retired at last, but not without muttering some menaces on his side, and which, to our great terror, he failed not to put into immediate execution. our captain was gone to dinner this day with his swiss brother; and, though he was a very sober man, was a little elevated with some champagne, which, as it cost the swiss little or nothing, he dispensed at his table more liberally than our hospitable english noblemen put about those bottles, which the ingenious peter taylor teaches a led captain to avoid by distinguishing by the name of that generous liquor, which all humble companions are taught to postpone to the flavor of methuen, or honest port. while our two captains were thus regaling themselves, and celebrating their own heroic exploits with all the inspiration which the liquor, at least, of wit could afford them, the polyonymous officer arrived, and, being saluted by the name of honest tom, was ordered to sit down and take his glass before he delivered his message; for every sailor is by turns his captain's mate over a cann, except only that captain bashaw who presides in a man-of-war, and who upon earth has no other mate, unless it be another of the same bashaws. tom had no sooner swallowed his draught than he hastily began his narrative, and faithfully related what had happened on board our ship; we say faithfully, though from what happened it may be suspected that tom chose to add perhaps only five or six immaterial circumstances, as is always i believe the case, and may possibly have been done by me in relating this very story, though it happened not many hours ago. no sooner was the captain informed of the interruption which had been given to his officer, and indeed to his orders, for he thought no time so convenient as that of his absence for causing any confusion in the cabin, than he leaped with such haste from his chair that he had like to have broke his sword, with which he always begirt himself when he walked out of his ship, and sometimes when he walked about in it; at the same time, grasping eagerly that other implement called a cockade, which modern soldiers wear on their helmets with the same view as the ancients did their crests--to terrify the enemy he muttered something, but so inarticulately that the word damn was only intelligible; he then hastily took leave of the swiss captain, who was too well bred to press his stay on such an occasion, and leaped first from the ship to his boat, and then from his boat to his own ship, with as much fierceness in his looks as he had ever expressed on boarding his defenseless prey in the honorable calling of a privateer. having regained the middle deck, he paused a moment while tom and others loaded themselves with bottles, and then descending into the cabin exclaimed with a thundering voice, "d--n me, why arn't the bottles stowed in, according to my orders?" i answered him very mildly that i had prevented his man from doing it, as it was at an inconvenient time to me, and as in his absence, at least, i esteemed the cabin to be my own. "your cabin!" repeated he many times; "no, d--n me! 'tis my cabin. your cabin! d--n me! i have brought my hogs to a fair market. i suppose indeed you think it your cabin, and your ship, by your commanding in it; but i will command in it, d--n me! i will show the world i am the commander, and nobody but i! did you think i sold you the command of my ship for that pitiful thirty pounds? i wish i had not seen you nor your thirty pounds aboard of her." he then repeated the words thirty pounds often, with great disdain, and with a contempt which i own the sum did not seem to deserve in my eye, either in itself or on the present occasion; being, indeed, paid for the freight of ---weight of human flesh, which is above fifty per cent dearer than the freight of any other luggage, whilst in reality it takes up less room; in fact, no room at all. in truth, the sum was paid for nothing more than for a liberty to six persons (two of them servants) to stay on board a ship while she sails from one port to another, every shilling of which comes clear into the captain's pocket. ignorant people may perhaps imagine, especially when they are told that the captain is obliged to sustain them, that their diet at least is worth something, which may probably be now and then so far the case as to deduct a tenth part from the net profits on this account; but it was otherwise at present; for when i had contracted with the captain at a price which i by no means thought moderate, i had some content in thinking i should have no more to pay for my voyage; but i was whispered that it was expected the passengers should find themselves in several things; such as tea, wine, and such like; and particularly that gentlemen should stow of the latter a much larger quantity than they could use, in order to leave the remainder as a present to the captain at the end of the voyage; and it was expected likewise that gentlemen should put aboard some fresh stores, and the more of such things were put aboard the welcomer they would be to the captain. i was prevailed with by these hints to follow the advice proposed; and accordingly, besides tea and a large hamper of wine, with several hams and tongues, i caused a number of live chickens and sheep to be conveyed aboard; in truth, treble the quantity of provisions which would have supported the persons i took with me, had the voyage continued three weeks, as it was supposed, with a bare possibility, it might. indeed it continued much longer; but as this was occasioned by our being wind-bound in our own ports, it was by no means of any ill consequence to the captain, as the additional stores of fish, fresh meat, butter, bread, &c., which i constantly laid in, greatly exceeded the consumption, and went some way in maintaining the ship's crew. it is true i was not obliged to do this; but it seemed to be expected; for the captain did not think himself obliged to do it, and i can truly say i soon ceased to expect it of him. he had, i confess, on board a number of fowls and ducks sufficient for a west india voyage; all of them, as he often said, "very fine birds, and of the largest breed." this i believe was really the fact, and i can add that they were all arrived at the full perfection of their size. nor was there, i am convinced, any want of provisions of a more substantial kind; such as dried beef, pork, and fish; so that the captain seemed ready to perform his contract, and amply to provide for his passengers. what i did then was not from necessity, but, perhaps, from a less excusable motive, and was by no means chargeable to the account of the captain. but, let the motive have been what it would, the consequence was still the same; and this was such that i am firmly persuaded the whole pitiful thirty pounds came pure and neat into the captain's pocket, and not only so, but attended with the value of ten pound more in sundries into the bargain. i must confess myself therefore at a loss how the epithet pitiful came to be annexed to the above sum; for, not being a pitiful price for what it was given, i cannot conceive it to be pitiful in itself; nor do i believe it is thought by the greatest men in the kingdom; none of whom would scruple to search for it in the dirtiest kennel, where they had only a reasonable hope of success. how, therefore, such a sum should acquire the idea of pitiful in the eyes of the master of a ship seems not easy to be accounted for; since it appears more likely to produce in him ideas of a different kind. some men, perhaps, are no more sincere in the contempt for it which they express than others in their contempt of money in general; and i am the rather inclined to this persuasion, as i have seldom heard of either who have refused or refunded this their despised object. besides, it is sometimes impossible to believe these professions, as every action of the man's life is a contradiction to it. who can believe a tradesman who says he would not tell his name for the profit he gets by the selling such a parcel of goods, when he hath told a thousand lies in order to get it? pitiful, indeed, is often applied to an object not absolutely, but comparatively with our expectations, or with a greater object: in which sense it is not easy to set any bounds to the use of the word. thus, a handful of halfpence daily appear pitiful to a porter, and a handful of silver to a drawer. the latter, i am convinced, at a polite tavern, will not tell his name (for he will not give you any answer) under the price of gold. and in this sense thirty pound may be accounted pitiful by the lowest mechanic. one difficulty only seems to occur, and that is this: how comes it that, if the profits of the meanest arts are so considerable, the professors of them are not richer than we generally see them? one answer to this shall suffice. men do not become rich by what they get, but by what they keep. he who is worth no more than his annual wages or salary, spends the whole; he will be always a beggar let his income be what it will, and so will be his family when he dies. this we see daily to be the case of ecclesiastics, who, during their lives, are extremely well provided for, only because they desire to maintain the honor of the cloth by living like gentlemen, which would, perhaps, be better maintained by living unlike them. but, to return from so long a digression, to which the use of so improper an epithet gave occasion, and to which the novelty of the subject allured, i will make the reader amends by concisely telling him that the captain poured forth such a torrent of abuse that i very hastily and very foolishly resolved to quit the ship. i gave immediate orders to summon a hoy to carry me that evening to dartmouth, without considering any consequence. those orders i gave in no very low voice, so that those above stairs might possibly conceive there was more than one master in the cabin. in the same tone i likewise threatened the captain with that which, he afterwards said, he feared more than any rock or quicksand. nor can we wonder at this when we are told he had been twice obliged to bring to and cast anchor there before, and had neither time escaped without the loss of almost his whole cargo. the most distant sound of law thus frightened a man who had often, i am convinced, heard numbers of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. nor did he sooner see the hoy approaching the vessel than he ran down again into the cabin, and, his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled on his knees, and a little too abjectly implored for mercy. i did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in this posture, but i immediately forgave him. and here, that i may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, i do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. neither did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my christianity exact, this forgiveness. to speak truth, i forgave him from a motive which would make men much more forgiving if they were much wiser than they are, because it was convenient for me so to do. wednesday.--this morning the captain dressed himself in scarlet in order to pay a visit to a devonshire squire, to whom a captain of a ship is a guest of no ordinary consequence, as he is a stranger and a gentleman, who hath seen a great deal of the world in foreign parts, and knows all the news of the times. the squire, therefore, was to send his boat for the captain, but a most unfortunate accident happened; for, as the wind was extremely rough and against the hoy, while this was endeavoring to avail itself of great seamanship in hauling up against the wind, a sudden squall carried off sail and yard, or at least so disabled them that they were no longer of any use and unable to reach the ship; but the captain, from the deck, saw his hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced either to stay on board his ship, or to hoist forth his own long-boat, which he could not prevail with himself to think of, though the smell of the venison had had twenty times its attraction. he did, indeed, love his ship as his wife, and his boats as children, and never willingly trusted the latter, poor things! to the dangers of the sea. to say truth, notwithstanding the strict rigor with which he preserved the dignity of his stations and the hasty impatience with which he resented any affront to his person or orders, disobedience to which he could in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one of the best natured fellows alive. he acted the part of a father to his sailors; he expressed great tenderness for any of them when ill, and never suffered any the least work of supererogation to go unrewarded by a glass of gin. he even extended his humanity, if i may so call it, to animals, and even his cats and kittens had large shares in his affections. an instance of which we saw this evening, when the cat, which had shown it could not be drowned, was found suffocated under a feather-bed in the cabin. i will not endeavor to describe his lamentations with more prolixity than barely by saying they were grievous, and seemed to have some mixture of the irish howl in them. nay, he carried his fondness even to inanimate objects, of which we have above set down a pregnant example in his demonstration of love and tenderness towards his boats and ship. he spoke of a ship which he had commanded formerly, and which was long since no more, which he had called the princess of brazil, as a widower of a deceased wife. this ship, after having followed the honest business of carrying goods and passengers for hire many years, did at last take to evil courses and turn privateer, in which service, to use his own words, she received many dreadful wounds, which he himself had felt as if they had been his own. thursday.--as the wind did not yesterday discover any purpose of shifting, and the water in my belly grew troublesome and rendered me short-breathed, i began a second time to have apprehensions of wanting the assistance of a trochar when none was to be found; i therefore concluded to be tapped again by way of precaution, and accordingly i this morning summoned on board a surgeon from a neighboring parish, one whom the captain greatly recommended, and who did indeed perform his office with much dexterity. he was, i believe, likewise a man of great judgment and knowledge in the profession; but of this i cannot speak with perfect certainty, for, when he was going to open on the dropsy at large and on the particular degree of the distemper under which i labored, i was obliged to stop him short, for the wind was changed, and the captain in the utmost hurry to depart; and to desire him, instead of his opinion, to assist me with his execution. i was now once more delivered from my burden, which was not indeed so great as i had apprehended, wanting two quarts of what was let out at the last operation. while the surgeon was drawing away my water the sailors were drawing up the anchor; both were finished at the same time; we unfurled our sails and soon passed the berry-head, which forms the mouth of the bay. we had not however sailed far when the wind, which, had though with a slow pace, kept us company about six miles, suddenly turned about, and offered to conduct us back again; a favor which, though sorely against the grain, we were obliged to accept. nothing remarkable happened this day; for as to the firm persuasion of the captain that he was under the spell of witchcraft, i would not repeat it too often, though indeed he repeated it an hundred times every day; in truth, he talked of nothing else, and seemed not only to be satisfied in general of his being bewitched, but actually to have fixed with good certainty on the person of the witch, whom, had he lived in the days of sir matthew hale, he would have infallibly indicted, and very possibly have hanged, for the detestable sin of witchcraft; but that law, and the whole doctrine that supported it, are now out of fashion; and witches, as a learned divine once chose to express himself, are put down by act of parliament. this witch, in the captain's opinion, was no other than mrs. francis of ryde, who, as he insinuated, out of anger to me for not spending more money in her house than she could produce anything to exchange for, or ally pretense to charge for, had laid this spell on his ship. though we were again got near our harbor by three in the afternoon, yet it seemed to require a full hour or more before we could come to our former place of anchoring, or berth, as the captain called it. on this occasion we exemplified one of the few advantages which the travelers by water have over the travelers by land. what would the latter often give for the sight of one of those hospitable mansions where he is assured that there is good entertainment for man and horse; and where both may consequently promise themselves to assuage that hunger which exercise is so sure to raise in a healthy constitution. at their arrival at this mansion how much happier is the state of the horse than that of the master! the former is immediately led to his repast, such as it is, and, whatever it is, he falls to it with appetite. but the latter is in a much worse situation. his hunger, however violent, is always in some degree delicate, and his food must have some kind of ornament, or, as the more usual phrase is, of dressing, to recommend it. now all dressing requires time, and therefore, though perhaps the sheep might be just killed before you came to the inn, yet in cutting him up, fetching the joint, which the landlord by mistake said he had in the house, from the butcher at two miles' distance, and afterwards warming it a little by the fire, two hours at least must be consumed, while hunger, for want of better food, preys all the time on the vitals of the man. how different was the case with us! we carried our provision, our kitchen, and our cook with us, and we were at one and the same time traveling on our road, and sitting down to a repast of fish, with which the greatest table in london can scarce at any rate be supplied. friday.--as we were disappointed of our wind, and obliged to return back the preceding evening, we resolved to extract all the good we could out of our misfortune, and to add considerably to our fresh stores of meat and bread, with which we were very indifferently provided when we hurried away yesterday. by the captain's advice we likewise laid in some stores of butter, which we salted and potted ourselves, for our use at lisbon, and we had great reason afterwards to thank him for his advice. in the afternoon i persuaded my wife whom it was no easy matter for me to force from my side, to take a walk on shore, whither the gallant captain declared he was ready to attend her. accordingly the ladies set out, and left me to enjoy a sweet and comfortable nap after the operation of the preceding day. thus we enjoyed our separate pleasures full three hours, when we met again, and my wife gave the foregoing account of the gentleman whom i have before compared to axylus, and of his habitation, to both which she had been introduced by the captain, in the style of an old friend and acquaintance, though this foundation of intimacy seemed to her to be no deeper laid than in an accidental dinner, eaten many years before, at this temple of hospitality, when the captain lay wind-bound in the same bay. saturday.--early this morning the wind seemed inclined to change in our favor. our alert captain snatched its very first motion, and got under sail with so very gentle a breeze that, as the tide was against him, he recommended to a fishing boy to bring after him a vast salmon and some other provisions which lay ready for him on shore. our anchor was up at six, and before nine in the morning we had doubled the berry-head, and were arrived off dartmouth, having gone full three miles in as many hours, in direct opposition to the tide, which only befriended us out of our harbor; and though the wind was perhaps our friend, it was so very silent, and exerted itself so little in our favor, that, like some cool partisans, it was difficult to say whether it was with us or against us. the captain, however, declared the former to be the case during the whole three hours; but at last he perceived his error, or rather, perhaps, this friend, which had hitherto wavered in choosing his side, became now more determined. the captain then suddenly tacked about, and, asserting that he was bewitched, submitted to return to the place from whence he came. now, though i am as free from superstition as any man breathing, and never did believe in witches, notwithstanding all the excellent arguments of my lord chief-justice hale in their favor, and long before they were put down by act of parliament, yet by what power a ship of burden should sail three miles against both wind and tide, i cannot conceive, unless there was some supernatural interposition in the case; nay, could we admit that the wind stood neuter, the difficulty would still remain. so that we must of necessity conclude that the ship was either bewinded or bewitched. the captain, perhaps, had another meaning. he imagined himself, i believe, bewitched, because the wind, instead of persevering in its change in his favor, for change it certainly did that morning, should suddenly return to its favorite station, and blow him back towards the bay. but, if this was his opinion, he soon saw cause to alter; for he had not measured half the way back when the wind again declared in his favor, and so loudly, that there was no possibility of being mistaken. the orders for the second tack were given, and obeyed with much more alacrity than those had been for the first. we were all of us indeed in high spirits on the occasion; though some of us a little regretted the good things we were likely to leave behind us by the fisherman's neglect; i might give it a worse name, for he faithfully promised to execute the commission, which he had had abundant opportunity to do; but nautica fides deserves as much to be proverbial as ever punica fides could formerly have done. nay, when we consider that the carthaginians came from the phoenicians who are supposed to have produced the first mariners, we may probably see the true reason of the adage, and it may open a field of very curious discoveries to the antiquarian. we were, however, too eager to pursue our voyage to suffer anything we left behind us to interrupt our happiness, which, indeed, many agreeable circumstances conspired to advance. the weather was inexpressibly pleasant, and we were all seated on the deck, when our canvas began to swell with the wind. we had likewise in our view above thirty other sail around us, all in the same situation. here an observation occurred to me, which, perhaps, though extremely obvious, did not offer itself to every individual in our little fleet: when i perceived with what different success we proceeded under the influence of a superior power which, while we lay almost idle ourselves, pushed us forward on our intended voyage, and compared this with the slow progress which we had made in the morning, of ourselves, and without any such assistance, i could not help reflecting how often the greatest abilities lie wind-bound as it were in life; or, if they venture out and attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and tide, and, if they have not sufficient prudence to put back, are most probably cast away on the rocks and quicksands which are every day ready to devour them. it was now our fortune to set out melioribus avibus. the wind freshened so briskly in our poop that the shore appeared to move from us as fast as we did from the shore. the captain declared he was sure of a wind, meaning its continuance; but he had disappointed us so often that he had lost all credit. however, he kept his word a little better now, and we lost sight of our native land as joyfully, at least, as it is usual to regain it. sunday.--the next morning the captain told me he thought himself thirty miles to the westward of plymouth, and before evening declared that the lizard point, which is the extremity of cornwall, bore several leagues to leeward. nothing remarkable passed this day, except the captain's devotion, who, in his own phrase, summoned all hands to prayers, which were read by a common sailor upon deck, with more devout force and address than they are commonly read by a country curate, and received with more decency and attention by the sailors than are usually preserved in city congregations. i am indeed assured, that if any such affected disregard of the solemn office in which they were engaged, as i have seen practiced by fine gentlemen and ladies, expressing a kind of apprehension lest they should be suspected of being really in earnest in their devotion, had been shown here, they would have contracted the contempt of the whole audience. to say the truth, from what i observed in the behavior of the sailors in this voyage, and on comparing it with what i have formerly seen of them at sea and on shore, i am convinced that on land there is nothing more idle and dissolute; in their own element there are no persons near the level of their degree who live in the constant practice of half so many good qualities. they are, for much the greater part, perfect masters of their business, and always extremely alert, and ready in executing it, without any regard to fatigue or hazard. the soldiers themselves are not better disciplined nor more obedient to orders than these whilst aboard; they submit to every difficulty which attends their calling with cheerfulness, and no less virtues and patience and fortitude are exercised by them every day of their lives. all these good qualities, however, they always leave behind them on shipboard; the sailor out of water is, indeed, as wretched an animal as the fish out of water; for though the former hath, in common with amphibious animals, the bare power of existing on the land, yet if he be kept there any time he never fails to become a nuisance. the ship having had a good deal of motion since she was last under sail, our women returned to their sickness, and i to my solitude; having, for twenty-four hours together, scarce opened my lips to a single person. this circumstance of being shut up within the circumference of a few yards, with a score of human creatures, with not one of whom it was possible to converse, was perhaps so rare as scarce ever to have happened before, nor could it ever happen to one who disliked it more than myself, or to myself at a season when i wanted more food for my social disposition, or could converse less wholesomely and happily with my own thoughts. to this accident, which fortune opened to me in the downs, was owing the first serious thought which i ever entertained of enrolling myself among the voyage-writers; some of the most amusing pages, if, indeed, there be any which deserve that name, were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever haunted the author. monday.--at noon the captain took an observation, by which it appeared that ushant bore some leagues northward of us, and that we were just entering the bay of biscay. we had advanced a very few miles in this bay before we were entirely becalmed: we furled our sails, as being of no use to us while we lay in this most disagreeable situation, more detested by the sailors than the most violent tempest: we were alarmed with the loss of a fine piece of salt beef, which had been hung in the sea to freshen it; this being, it seems, the strange property of salt-water. the thief was immediately suspected, and presently afterwards taken by the sailors. he was, indeed, no other than a huge shark, who, not knowing when he was well off, swallowed another piece of beef, together with a great iron crook on which it was hung, and by which he was dragged into the ship. i should scarce have mentioned the catching this shark, though so exactly conformable to the rules and practice of voyage-writing, had it not been for a strange circumstance that attended it. this was the recovery of the stolen beef out of the shark's maw, where it lay unchewed and undigested, and whence, being conveyed into the pot, the flesh, and the thief that had stolen it, joined together in furnishing variety to the ship's crew. during this calm we likewise found the mast of a large vessel, which the captain thought had lain at least three years in the sea. it was stuck all over with a little shell-fish or reptile, called a barnacle, and which probably are the prey of the rockfish, as our captain calls it, asserting that it is the finest fish in the world; for which we are obliged to confide entirely to his taste; for, though he struck the fish with a kind of harping-iron, and wounded him, i am convinced, to death, yet he could not possess himself of his body; but the poor wretch escaped to linger out a few hours with probably great torments. in the evening our wind returned, and so briskly, that we ran upwards of twenty leagues before the next day's [tuesday's] observation, which brought us to lat. 47 degrees 42'. the captain promised us a very speedy passage through the bay; but he deceived us, or the wind deceived him, for it so slackened at sunset, that it scarce carried us a mile in an hour during the whole succeeding night. wednesday.--a gale struck up a little after sunrising, which carried us between three and four knots or miles an hour. we were this day at noon about the middle of the bay of biscay, when the wind once more deserted us, and we were so entirely becalmed, that we did not advance a mile in many hours. my fresh-water reader will perhaps conceive no unpleasant idea from this calm; but it affected us much more than a storm could have done; for, as the irascible passions of men are apt to swell with indignation long after the injury which first raised them is over, so fared it with the sea. it rose mountains high, and lifted our poor ship up and down, backwards and forwards, with so violent an emotion, that there was scarce a man in the ship better able to stand than myself. every utensil in our cabin rolled up and down, as we should have rolled ourselves, had not our chairs been fast lashed to the floor. in this situation, with our tables likewise fastened by ropes, the captain and myself took our meal with some difficulty, and swallowed a little of our broth, for we spilt much the greater part. the remainder of our dinner being an old, lean, tame duck roasted, i regretted but little the loss of, my teeth not being good enough to have chewed it. our women, who began to creep out of their holes in the morning, retired again within the cabin to their beds, and were no more heard of this day, in which my whole comfort was to find by the captain's relation that the swelling was sometimes much worse; he did, indeed, take this occasion to be more communicative than ever, and informed me of such misadventures that had befallen him within forty-six years at sea as might frighten a very bold spirit from undertaking even the shortest voyage. were these, indeed, but universally known, our matrons of quality would possibly be deterred from venturing their tender offspring at sea; by which means our navy would lose the honor of many a young commodore, who at twenty-two is better versed in maritime affairs than real seamen are made by experience at sixty. and this may, perhaps, appear the more extraordinary, as the education of both seems to be pretty much the same; neither of them having had their courage tried by virgil's description of a storm, in which, inspired as he was, i doubt whether our captain doth not exceed him. in the evening the wind, which continued in the n.w., again freshened, and that so briskly that cape finisterre appeared by this day's observation to bear a few miles to the southward. we now indeed sailed, or rather flew, near ten knots an hour; and the captain, in the redundancy of his good-humor, declared he would go to church at lisbon on sunday next, for that he was sure of a wind; and, indeed, we all firmly believed him. but the event again contradicted him; for we were again visited by a calm in the evening. but here, though our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with a scene, which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one can form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. we were seated on the deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. not a single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the only object which engrossed our whole attention. he did indeed set with a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, while the horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to the opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered to our vision. compared to these the pageantry of theaters, or splendor of courts, are sights almost below the regard of children. we did not return from the deck till late in the evening; the weather being inexpressibly pleasant, and so warm that even my old distemper perceived the alteration of the climate. there was indeed a swell, but nothing comparable to what we had felt before, and it affected us on the deck much less than in the cabin. friday.--the calm continued till sun-rising, when the wind likewise arose, but unluckily for us it came from a wrong quarter; it was s.s.e., which is that very wind which juno would have solicited of aeolus, had gneas been in our latitude bound for lisbon. the captain now put on his most melancholy aspect, and resumed his former opinion that he was bewitched. he declared with great solemnity that this was worse and worse, for that a wind directly in his teeth was worse than no wind at all. had we pursued the course which the wind persuaded us to take we had gone directly for newfoundland, if we had not fallen in with ireland in our way. two ways remained to avoid this; one was to put into a port of galicia; the other, to beat to the westward with as little sail as possible: and this was our captain's election. as for us, poor passengers, any port would have been welcome to us; especially, as not only our fresh provisions, except a great number of old ducks and fowls, but even our bread was come to an end, and nothing but sea-biscuit remained, which i could not chew. so that now for the first time in my life i saw what it was to want a bit of bread. the wind however was not so unkind as we had apprehended; but, having declined with the sun, it changed at the approach of the moon, and became again favorable to us, though so gentle that the next day's observation carried us very little to the southward of cape finisterre. this evening at six the wind, which had been very quiet all day, rose very high, and continuing in our favor drove us seven knots an hour. this day we saw a sail, the only one, as i heard of, we had seen in our whole passage through the bay. i mention this on account of what appeared to me somewhat extraordinary. though she was at such a distance that i could only perceive she was a ship, the sailors discovered that she was a snow, bound to a port in galicia. sunday.--after prayers, which our good captain read on the deck with an audible voice, and with but one mistake, of a lion for elias, in the second lesson for this day, we found ourselves far advanced in 42 degrees, and the captain declared we should sup off porte. we had not much wind this day; but, as this was directly in our favor, we made it up with sail, of which we crowded all we had. we went only at the rate of four miles an hour, but with so uneasy a motion, continuing rolling from side to side, that i suffered more than i had done in our whole voyage; my bowels being almost twisted out of my belly. however, the day was very serene and bright, and the captain, who was in high spirits, affirmed he had never passed a pleasanter at sea. the wind continued so brisk that we ran upward of six knots an hour the whole night. monday.--in the morning our captain concluded that he was got into lat. 40 degrees, and was very little short of the burlings, as they are called in the charts. we came up with them at five in the afternoon, being the first land we had distinctly seen since we left devonshire. they consist of abundance of little rocky islands, a little distant from the shore, three of them only showing themselves above the water. here the portuguese maintain a kind of garrison, if we may allow it that name. it consists of malefactors, who are banished hither for a term, for divers small offenses--a policy which they may have copied from the egyptians, as we may read in diodorus siculus. that wise people, to prevent the corruption of good manners by evil communication, built a town on the red sea, whither they transported a great number of their criminals, having first set an indelible mark on them, to prevent their returning and mixing with the sober part of their citizens. these rocks lie about fifteen leagues northwest of cape roxent, or, as it is commonly called, the rock of lisbon, which we passed early the next morning. the wind, indeed, would have carried us thither sooner; but the captain was not in a hurry, as he was to lose nothing by his delay. tuesday.--this is a very high mountain, situated on the northern side of the mouth of the river tajo, which, rising about madrid, in spain, and soon becoming navigable for small craft, empties itself, after a long course, into the sea, about four leagues below lisbon. on the summit of the rock stands a hermitage, which is now in the possession of an englishman, who was formerly master of a vessel trading to lisbon; and, having changed his religion and his manners, the latter of which, at least, were none of the best, betook himself to this place, in order to do penance for his sins. he is now very old, and hath inhabited this hermitage for a great number of years, during which he hath received some countenance from the royal family, and particularly from the present queen dowager, whose piety refuses no trouble or expense by which she may make a proselyte, being used to say that the saving one soul would repay all the endeavors of her life. here we waited for the tide, and had the pleasure of surveying the face of the country, the soil of which, at this season, exactly resembles an old brick-kiln, or a field where the green sward is pared up and set a-burning, or rather a smoking, in little heaps to manure the land. this sight will, perhaps, of all others, make an englishman proud of, and pleased with, his own country, which in verdure excels, i believe, every other country. another deficiency here is the want of large trees, nothing above a shrub being here to be discovered in the circumference of many miles. at this place we took a pilot on board, who, being the first portuguese we spoke to, gave us an instance of that religious observance which is paid by all nations to their laws; for, whereas it is here a capital offense to assist any person in going on shore from a foreign vessel before it hath been examined, and every person in it viewed by the magistrates of health, as they are called, this worthy pilot, for a very small reward, rowed the portuguese priest to shore at this place, beyond which he did not dare to advance, and in venturing whither he had given sufficient testimony of love for his native country. we did not enter the tajo till noon, when, after passing several old castles and other buildings which had greatly the aspect of ruins, we came to the castle of bellisle, where we had a full prospect of lisbon, and were, indeed, within three miles of it. here we were saluted with a gun, which was a signal to pass no farther till we had complied with certain ceremonies which the laws of this country require to be observed by all ships which arrive in this port. we were obliged then to cast anchor, and expect the arrival of the officers of the customs, without whose passport no ship must proceed farther than this place. here likewise we received a visit from one of those magistrates of health before mentioned. he refused to come on board the ship till every person in her had been drawn up on deck and personally viewed by him. this occasioned some delay on my part, as it was not the work of a minute to lift me from the cabin to the deck. the captain thought my particular case might have been excused from this ceremony, and that it would be abundantly sufficient if the magistrate, who was obliged afterwards to visit the cabin, surveyed me there. but this did not satisfy the magistrate's strict regard to his duty. when he was told of my lameness, he called out, with a voice of authority, "let him be brought up," and his orders were presently complied with. he was, indeed, a person of great dignity, as well as of the most exact fidelity in the discharge of his trust. both which are the more admirable as his salary is less than thirty pounds english per annum. before a ship hath been visited by one of those magistrates no person can lawfully go on board her, nor can any on board depart from her. this i saw exemplified in a remarkable instance. the young lad whom i have mentioned as one of our passengers was here met by his father, who, on the first news of the captain's arrival, came from lisbon to bellisle in a boat, being eager to embrace a son whom he had not seen for many years. but when he came alongside our ship neither did the father dare ascend nor the son descend, as the magistrate of health had not yet been on board. some of our readers will, perhaps, admire the great caution of this policy, so nicely calculated for the preservation of this country from all pestilential distempers. others will as probably regard it as too exact and formal to be constantly persisted in, in seasons of the utmost safety, as well as in times of danger. i will not decide either way, but will content myself with observing that i never yet saw or heard of a place where a traveler had so much trouble given him at his landing as here. the only use of which, as all such matters begin and end in form only, is to put it into the power of low and mean fellows to be either rudely officious or grossly corrupt, as they shall see occasion to prefer the gratification of their pride or of their avarice. of this kind, likewise, is that power which is lodged with other officers here, of taking away every grain of snuff and every leaf of tobacco brought hither from other countries, though only for the temporary use of the person during his residence here. this is executed with great insolence, and, as it is in the hands of the dregs of the people, very scandalously; for, under pretense of searching for tobacco and snuff, they are sure to steal whatever they can find, insomuch that when they came on board our sailors addressed us in the covent-garden language: "pray, gentlemen and ladies, take care of your swords and watches." indeed, i never yet saw anything equal to the contempt and hatred which our honest tars every moment expressed for these portuguese officers. at bellisle lies buried catharine of arragon, widow of prince arthur, eldest son of our henry vii, afterwards married to, and divorced from henry viii. close by the church where her remains are deposited is a large convent of geronymites, one of the most beautiful piles of building in all portugal. in the evening, at twelve, our ship, having received previous visits from all the necessary parties, took the advantage of the tide, and having sailed up to lisbon cast anchor there, in a calm and moonshiny night, which made the passage incredibly pleasant to the women, who remained three hours enjoying it, whilst i was left to the cooler transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooler as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation is, at the same time, void of all ideas of friendship. wednesday.--lisbon, before which we now lay at anchor, is said to be built on the same number of hills with old rome; but these do not all appear to the water; on the contrary, one sees from thence one vast high hill and rock, with buildings arising above one another, and that in so steep and almost perpendicular a manner, that they all seem to have but one foundation. as the houses, convents, churches, &c., are large, and all built with white stone, they look very beautiful at a distance; but as you approach nearer, and find them to want every kind of ornament, all idea of beauty vanishes at once. while i was surveying the prospect of this city, which bears so little resemblance to any other that i have ever seen, a reflection occurred to me that, if a man was suddenly to be removed from palmyra hither, and should take a view of no other city, in how glorious a light would the ancient architecture appear to him! and what desolation and destruction of arts and sciences would he conclude had happened between the several eras of these cities! i had now waited full three hours upon deck for the return of my man, whom i had sent to bespeak a good dinner (a thing which had been long unknown to me) on shore, and then to bring a lisbon chaise with him to the seashore; but it seems the impertinence of the providore was not yet brought to a conclusion. at three o'clock, when i was from emptiness, rather faint than hungry, my man returned, and told me there was a new law lately made that no passenger should set his foot on shore without a special order from the providore, and that he himself would have been sent to prison for disobeying it, had he not been protected as the servant of the captain. he informed me likewise that the captain had been very industrious to get this order, but that it was then the providore's hour of sleep, a time when no man, except the king himself, durst disturb him. to avoid prolixity, though in a part of my narrative which may be more agreeable to my reader than it was to me, the providore, having at last finished his nap, dispatched this absurd matter of form, and gave me leave to come, or rather to be carried, on shore. what it was that gave the first hint of this strange law is not easy to guess. possibly, in the infancy of their defection, and before their government could be well established, they were willing to guard against the bare possibility of surprise, of the success of which bare possibility the trojan horse will remain for ever on record, as a great and memorable example. now the portuguese have no walls to secure them, and a vessel of two or three hundred tons will contain a much larger body of troops than could be concealed in that famous machine, though virgil tells us (somewhat hyperbolically, i believe) that it was as big as a mountain. about seven in the evening i got into a chaise on shore, and was driven through the nastiest city in the world, though at the same time one of the most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hath a very fine prospect of the river tajo from lisbon to the sea. here we regaled ourselves with a good supper, for which we were as well charged as if the bill had been made on the bath-road, between newbury and london. and now we could joyfully say, egressi optata troes potiuntur arena. therefore, in the words of horace, --hie finis chartaeque viaeque. 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 cockfights 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 squibwriter, 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 loveaffair. 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 ninepence; 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 _grubstreet 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. chapter ii. more plays--marriage--the licensing act. the very subordinate part in the _miser_ of "furnish, an upholsterer," was taken by a third-rate actor, whose surname has been productive of no little misconception among henry fielding's biographers. this was timothy fielding, sometime member of the haymarket and drury lane companies, and proprietor, for several successive years, of a booth at bartholomew, southwark, and other fairs. in the absence of any christian name, mr. lawrence seems to have rather rashly concluded that the fielding mentioned by genest as having a booth at bartholomew fair in 1733 with hippisley (the original peachum of the _beggar's opera_), was fielding the dramatist; and the mistake thus originated at once began that prosperous course which usually awaits any slip of the kind. it misled one notoriously careful inquirer, who, in his interesting chronicles of bartholomew fair, minutely investigated the actor's history, giving precise details of his doings at "bartlemy" from 1728 to 1736; but, although the theory involved obvious inconsistencies, apparently without any suspicion that the proprietor of the booth which stood, season after season, in the yard of the george inn at smithfield, was an entirely different person from his greater namesake. the late dr. rimbault carried the story farther still, and attempted to show, in _notes and queries_ for may 1859, that henry fielding had a booth at tottenham court in 1738, "subsequent to his admission into the middle temple;" and he also promised to supply additional particulars to the effect that even 1738 was not the "_last_ year of fielding's career as a booth-proprietor." at this stage (probably for good reasons) inquiry seems to have slumbered, although, with the fatal vitality of error, the statement continued (and still continues) to be repeated in various quarters. in 1875, however, mr. frederick latreille published a short article in _notes and queries_, proving conclusively, by extracts from contemporary newspapers and other sources, that the timothy fielding above referred to was the real fielding of the fairs; that he became landlord of the buffalo tavern "at the corner of bloomsbury square" in 1733; and that he died in august 1738, his christian name, so often suppressed, being duly recorded in the register of the neighbouring church of st. george's, where he was buried. the admirers of our great novelist owe mr. latreille a debt of gratitude for this opportune discovery. it is true that a certain element of bohemian picturesqueness is lost to henry fielding's life, already not very rich in recorded incident; and it would certainly have been curious if he, who ended his days in trying to dignify the judicial office, should have begun life by acting the part of a "trading justice," namely that of quorum in coffey's _beggar's wedding_, which timothy fielding had played at drury lane. but, on the whole, it is satisfactory to know that his early experiences did not, of necessity, include those of a strolling player. some obscure and temporary connection with bartholomew fair he may have had, as smollett, in the scurrilous pamphlet issued in 1742, makes him say that he blew a trumpet there in quality of herald to a collection of wild beasts; but this is probably no more than an earlier and uglier form of the apparition laid by mr. latreille. the only positive evidence of any connection between henry fielding and the smithfield carnival is, that theophilus cibber's company played the _miser_ at their booth in august 1733. with the exception of the _miser_ and an afterpiece, never printed, entitled _deborah; or, a wife for you all_, which was acted for miss raftor's benefit in april 1733, nothing important was brought upon the stage by fielding until january of the following year, when he produced the _intriguing chambermaid_, and a revised version of the _author's farce_. by a succession of changes, which it is impossible here to describe in detail, considerable alterations had taken place in the management of drury lane. in the first place, wilks was dead, and his share in the patent was represented by his widow. booth also was dead, and mrs. booth had sold her share to giffard of goodman's fields, while the elder cibber had retired. at the beginning of the season of 1733-34 the leading patentee was an amateur called highmore, who had purchased cibber's share. he had also purchased part of booth's share before his death in may 1733. the only other shareholder of importance was mrs. wilks. shortly after the opening of the theatre in september, the greater part of the drury lane company, led by the younger cibber, revolted from highmore and mrs. wilks, and set up for themselves. matters were farther complicated by the fact that john rich had not long opened a new theatre in covent garden, which constituted a fresh attraction; and that what fielding called the "wanton affected fondness for foreign musick," was making the italian opera a dangerous rival--the more so as it was patronised by the nobility. without actors, the patentees were in serious case. miss raftor, who about this time became mrs. clive, appears, however, to have remained faithful to them, as also did henry fielding. the lively little comedy of the _intriguing chambermaid_ was adapted from regnard especially for her; and in its published form was preceded by an epistle in which the dramatist dwells upon the "factions and divisions among the players," and compliments her upon her compassionate adherence to mr. highmore and mrs. wilks in their time of need. the epistle is also valuable for its warm and generous testimony to the private character of this accomplished actress, whose part in real life, says fielding, was that of "the best wife, the best daughter, the best sister, and the best friend." the words are more than mere compliment; they appear to have been true. madcap and humourist as she was, no breath of slander seems ever to have tarnished the reputation of kitty clive, whom johnson--a fine judge, when his prejudices were not actively aroused--called in addition "the best player that he ever saw." the _intriguing chambermaid_ was produced on the 15th of january 1734. lettice, from whom the piece was named, was well personated by mrs. clive, and colonel bluff by macklin, the only actor of any promise that highmore had been able to secure. with the new comedy the _author's farce_ was revived. it would be unnecessary to refer to this again, but for the additions that were made to it. these consisted chiefly in the substitution of marplay junior for sparkish, the actor-manager of the first version. the death of wilks may have been a reason for this alteration; but a stronger was no doubt the desire to throw ridicule upon theophilus cibber, whose behaviour in deserting drury lane immediately after his father had sold his share to highmore had not passed without censure, nor had his father's action escaped sarcastic comment. theophilus cibber--whose best part was beaumont and fletcher's copper captain, and who carried the impersonation into private life, had played in several of fielding's pieces; but fielding had linked his fortunes to those of the patentees, and was consequently against the players in this quarrel. the following scene was accordingly added to the farce for the exclusive benefit of "young marplay":-"_marplay junior._ mr. _luckless_, i kiss your hands--sir, i am your most obedient humble servant; you see, mr. _luckless_, what power you have over me. i attend your commands, tho' several persons of quality have staid at court for me above this hour. _luckless._ i am obliged to you--i have a tragedy for your house, mr. _marplay_. _mar. jun._ ha! if you will send it me, i will give you my opinion of it; and if i can make any alterations in it that will be for its advantage, i will do it freely. _witmore._ alterations, sir? _mar. jun._ yes, sir, alterations--i will maintain it, let a play be never so good, without alteration it will do nothing. _wit._ very odd indeed. _mar. jun._ did you ever write, sir? _wit._ no, sir, i thank heav'n. _mar. jun._ oh! your humble servant--your very humble servant, sir. when you write yourself you will find the necessity of alterations. why, sir, wou'd you guess that i had alter'd _shakespear_? _wit._ yes, faith, sir, no one sooner. _mar. jun._ alack-a-day! was you to see the plays when they are brought to us--a parcel of crude, undigested stuff. we are the persons, sir, who lick them into form, that mould them into shape--the poet make the play indeed! the colour-man might be as well said to make the picture, or the weaver the coat: my father and i, sir, are a couple of poetical tailors; when a play is brought us, we consider it as a tailor does his coat, we cut it, sir, we cut it: and let me tell you, we have the exact measure of the town, we know how to fit their taste. the poets, between you and me, are a pack of ignorant-_wit._ hold, hold, sir. this is not quite so civil to mr. _luckless_: besides, as i take it, you have done the town the honour of writing yourself. _mar. jun._ sir, you are a man of sense; and express yourself well. i did, as you say, once make a small sally into _parnassus_, took a sort of flying leap over _helicon_: but if ever they catch me there again-sir, the town have a prejudice to my family; for if any play you'd have made them ashamed to damn it, mine must. it was all over plot. it wou'd have made half a dozen novels: nor was it cram'd with a pack of wittraps, like _congreve_ and _wycherly_, where every one knows when the joke was coming. i defy the sharpest critick of 'em all to know when any jokes of mine were coming. the dialogue was plain, easy, and natural, and not one single joke in it from the beginning to the end: besides, sir, there was one scene of tender melancholy conversation, enough to have melted a heart of stone; and yet they damn'd it: and they damn'd themselves; for they shall have no more of mine. _wit._ take pity on the town, sir. _mar. jun._ i! no, sir, no. i'll write no more. no more; unless i am forc'd to it. _luckless._ that's no easy thing, _marplay_. _mar. jun._ yes, sir. odes, odes, a man may be oblig'd to write those you know." these concluding lines plainly refer to the elder cibber's appointment as laureate in 1730, and to those "annual birth-day strains," with which he so long delighted the irreverent; while the alteration of shakespeare and the cobbling of plays generally, satirised again in a later scene, are strictly in accordance with contemporary accounts of the manners and customs of the two dictators of drury lane. the piece indicated by marplay junior was probably theophilus cibber's _lover_, which had been produced in january 1731 with very moderate success. after the _intriguing chambermaid_ and the revived _author's farce_, fielding seems to have made farther exertions for "the distressed actors in drury lane." he had always been an admirer of cervantes, frequent references to whose master-work are to be found scattered through his plays; and he now busied himself with completing and expanding the loose scenes of the comedy of _don quixote in england_, which (as before stated) he had sketched at leyden for his own diversion. he had already thought of bringing it upon the stage, but had been dissuaded from doing so by cibber and booth, who regarded it as wanting in novelty. now, however, he strengthened it by the addition of some election scenes, in which--he tells lord chesterfield in the dedication--he designed to give a lively representation of "the calamities brought on a country by general corruption;" and it was duly rehearsed. but unexpected delays took place in its production; the revolted players returned to drury lane; and, lest the actors' benefits should further retard its appearance by postponing it until the winter season, fielding transferred it to the haymarket, where, according to geneste, it was acted in april 1734. as a play, _don quixote in england_ has few stage qualities and no plot to speak of. but the don with his whimsies, and sancho with his appetite and string of proverbs, are conceived in something of the spirit of cervantes. squire badger, too, a rudimentary squire western, well represented by macklin, is vigorously drawn; and the song of his huntsman scut, beginning with the fine line "the dusky night rides down the sky," has a verse that recalls a practice of which addison accuses sir roger de coverley:- _"a brushing fox in yonder wood, secure to find we seek; for why, i carry'd sound and good, a cartload there last week._ and a hunting we will go." the election scenes, though but slightly attached to the main story, are keenly satirical, and considering that hogarth's famous series of kindred prints belongs to a much later date, must certainly have been novel, as may be gathered from the following little colloquy between mr. mayor and messrs. guzzle and retail:-"_mayor_ (_to retail_) ....i like an opposition, because otherwise a man may be oblig'd to vote against his party; therefore when we invite a gentleman to stand, we invite him to spend his money for the honour of his party; and when both parties have spent as much as they are able, every honest man will vote according to his conscience. _guz._ mr. mayor talks like a man of sense and honour, and it does me good to hear him. _may._ ay, ay, mr. _guzzle_, i never gave a vote contrary to my conscience. i have very earnestly recommended the country-interest to all my brethren: but before that, i recommended the town-interest, that is, the interest of this corporation; and first of all i recommended to every particular man to take a particular care of himself. and it is with a certain way of reasoning, that he who serves me best, will serve the town best; and he that serves the town best, will serve the country best." in the january and february of 1735 fielding produced two more pieces at drury lane, a farce and a five-act comedy. the farce--a lively trifle enough--was _an old man taught wisdom_, a title subsequently changed to the _virgin unmasked_. it was obviously written to display the talents of mrs. clive, who played in it her favourite character of a hoyden, and, after "interviewing" a number of suitors chosen by her father, finally ran away with thomas the footman--a course in those days not without its parallel in high life, above stairs as well as below. it appears to have succeeded, though bookish, one of the characters, was entirely withdrawn in deference to some disapprobation on the part of the audience; while the part of wormwood, a lawyer, which is found in the latest editions, is said to have been "omitted in representation." the comedy, entitled _the universal gallant_; or, _the different husbands_, was scarcely so fortunate. notwithstanding that quin, who, after an absence of many years, had returned to drury lane, played a leading part, and that theophilus cibber in the hero, captain smart, seems to have been fitted with a character exactly suited to his talents and idiosyncrasy, the play ran no more than three nights. till the third act was almost over, "the _audience_," says the _prompter_ (as quoted by "sylvanus urban"), "sat quiet, in hopes it would mend, till finding it grew _worse_ and _worse_, they lost all patience, and not an _expression_ or _sentiment_ afterwards pass'd without its deserved _censure_." perhaps it is not to be wondered at that the author--"the prolifick _mr. fielding_," as the _prompter_ calls him, attributed its condemnation to causes other than its lack of interest. in his _advertisement_ he openly complains of the "cruel usage" his "poor play" had met with, and of the barbarity of the young men about town who made "a jest of damning plays"--a pastime which, whether it prevailed in this case or not, no doubt existed, as sarah fielding afterwards refers to it in _david simple_. if an author--he goes on to say--"be so unfortunate [_as_] 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." the plea is a good one if the play is good; but if not, it is worthless. in this respect the public are like the french cardinal in the story; and when the famished writer's work fails to entertain them, they are fully justified in doubting his _raison d'etre_. there is no reason for supposing that the _universal gallant_ deserved a better fate than it met with. judging from the time which elapsed between the production of this play and that of _pasquin_ (fielding's next theatrical venture), it has been conjectured that the interval was occupied by his marriage, and brief experience as a dorsetshire country gentleman. the exact date of his marriage is not known, though it is generally assumed to have taken place in the beginning of 1735. but it may well have been earlier, for it will be observed that in the above quotation from the preface to the _universal gallant_, which is dated from "buckingham street, feb. 12," he indirectly speaks of "his family." this, it is true, may be no more than the pious fraud of a bachelor; but if it be taken literally, we must conclude that his marriage was already so far a thing of the past that he was already a father. this supposition would account for the absence of any record of the birth of a child during his forthcoming residence at east stour, by the explanation that it had already happened in london; and it is not impossible that the entry of the marriage, too, may be hidden away in some obscure metropolitan parish register, since those of salisbury have been fruitlessly searched. at this distance of time, however, speculation is fruitless; and, in default of more definite information, the "spring of 1735," which keightley gives, must be accepted as the probable date of the marriage. concerning the lady, the particulars are more precise. she was a miss charlotte cradock, one of three sisters living upon their own means at salisbury, or--as it was then styled--new sarum. mr. keightley's personal inquiries, _circa_ 1858, elicited the information that the family, now extinct, was highly respectable, but not of new sarum's best society. richardson, in one of his malevolent outbursts, asserted that the sisters were illegitimate; but, says the writer above referred to, "of this circumstance we have no other proof, and i am able to add that the tradition of salisbury knows nothing of it." they were, however, celebrated for their personal attractions; and if the picture given in chap. ii. book iv. of _tom jones_ accurately represents the first mrs. fielding, she must have been a most charming brunette. something of the stereotyped characteristics of a novelist's heroine obviously enter into the description; but the luxuriant black hair, which, cut "to comply with the modern fashion," "curled so gracefully in her neck," the lustrous eyes, the dimple in the right cheek, the chin rather full than small, and the complexion having "more of the lilly than of the rose," but flushing with exercise or modesty, are, doubtless, accurately set down. in speaking of the nose as "exactly regular," fielding appears to have deviated slightly from the truth; for we learn from lady louisa stuart that, in this respect, miss cradock's appearance had "suffered a little" from an accident mentioned in book ii. of _amelia_, the overturning of a chaise. whether she also possessed the mental qualities and accomplishments which fell to the lot of sophia western, we have no means of determining; but lady stuart is again our authority for saying that she was as amiable as she was handsome. from the love-poems in the first volume of the _miscellanies_ of 1743-poems which their author declares to have been "productions of the heart rather than of the head"--it is clear that fielding had been attached to his future wife for several years previous to 1735. one of them, _advice to the nymphs of new s----m_, celebrates the charms of celia--the poetical equivalent for charlotte--as early as 1730; another, containing a reference to the player anthony boheme, who died in 1731, was probably written at the same time; while a third, in which, upon the special intervention of jove himself, the prize of beauty is decreed by venus to the salisbury sisters, may be of an earlier date than any. the year 1730 was the year of his third piece, the _author's farce_, and he must therefore have been paying his addresses to miss cradock not very long after his arrival in london. this is a fact to be borne in mind. so early an attachment to a good and beautiful girl, living no farther off than salisbury, where his own father probably resided, is scarcely consistent with the reckless dissipation which has been laid to his charge, although, on his own showing, he was by no means faultless. but it is a part of natures like his to exaggerate their errors in the moment of repentance; and it may well be that henry fielding, too, was not so black as he painted himself. of his love-verses he says--"this branch of writing is what i very little pretend to;" and it would be misleading to rate them highly, for, unlike his literary descendant, mr. thackeray, he never attained to any special quality of note. but some of his octosyllabics, if they cannot be called equal to prior's, fall little below swift's. "i hate"--cries he in one of the pieces, "i hate the town, and all its ways; ridotto's, opera's, and plays; the ball, the king, the mall, the court; wherever the beau-monde resort.... all coffee-houses, and their praters; all courts of justice, and debaters; all taverns, and the sots within 'em; all bubbles, and the rogues that skin 'em," --and so forth, the natural anti-climax being that he loves nothing but his "charmer" at salisbury. in another, which is headed _to celia-occasioned by her apprehending her house would be broke open, and having an old fellow to guard it, who sat up all night, with a gun without any ammunition_, and from which it has been concluded that the miss cradocks were their own landlords, venus chides cupid for neglecting to guard her favourite:- "'come tell me, urchin, tell no lies; where was you hid, in _vince's_ eyes? did you fair _bennet's_ breast importune? (i know you dearly love a fortune.)' poor _cupid_ now began to whine; 'mamma, it was no fault of mine. i in a dimple lay _perdue_, that little guard-room chose by you. a hundred loves (all arm'd) did grace the beauties of her neck and face; thence, by a sigh i dispossest, was blown to _harry fielding's_ breast; where i was forc'd all night to stay, because i could not find my way. but did mamma know there what work i've made, how acted like a turk; what pains, what torment he endures, which no physician ever cures, she would forgive.' the goddess smil'd, and gently chuck'd her wicked child, bid him go back, and take more care, and give her service to the fair." swift, in his _rhapsody on poetry_, 1733, coupled fielding with leonard welsted as an instance of sinking in verse. but the foregoing, which he could not have seen, is scarcely, if at all, inferior to his own _birthday poems to stella_. [footnote: swift afterwards substituted "the laureate [cibber]" for "fielding," and appears to have changed his mind as to the latter's merits. "i can assure mr. _fielding_," says mrs. pilkington in the third and last volume of her _memoirs_ (1754), "the dean had a high opinion of his wit, which must be a pleasure to him, as no man was ever better qualified to judge, possessing it so eminently himself."] the history of fielding's marriage rests so exclusively upon the statements of arthur murphy that it will be well to quote his words in full:-"mr. fielding had not been long a writer for the stage, when he married miss craddock [_sic_], a beauty from salisbury. about that time, his mother dying, a moderate estate, at stower in dorsetshire, devolved to him. to that place he retired with his wife, on whom he doated, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and intemperances to which he had addicted himself in the career of a town-life. but unfortunately a kind of family-pride here gained an ascendant over him; and he began immediately to vie in splendour with the neighbouring country 'squires. with an estate not much above two hundred pounds a-year, and his wife's fortune, which did not exceed fifteen hundred pounds, he 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 in their apparel, but, in a month or two, were unfit to be seen; the 'squire's dignity required that they should be new-equipped; and his chief pleasure consisting in society and convivial mirth, hospitality threw open his doors, and, in less than three years, entertainments, hounds, and horses, entirely devoured a little patrimony, which, had it been managed with oeconomy, might have secured to him a state of independence for the rest of his life, etc." this passage, which has played a conspicuous part in all biographies of fielding, was very carefully sifted by mr. keightley, who came to the conclusion that it was a "mere tissue of error and inconsistency." [footnote: some of mr. keightley's criticisms were anticipated by watson.] without going to this length, we must admit that it is manifestly incorrect in many respects. if fielding married in 1735 (though, as already pointed out, he may have married earlier, and retired to the country upon the failure of the _universal gallant_), he is certainly inaccurately described as "not having been long a _writer_ for the stage," since writing for the stage had been his chief occupation for seven years. then again his mother had died as far back as april 10, 1718, when he was a boy of eleven; and if he had inherited anything from her, he had probably been in the enjoyment of it ever since he came of age. furthermore, the statement as to "three years" is at variance with the fact that, according to the dedication to the _universal gallant_, he was still in london in february 1735, and was back again managing the haymarket in the first months of 1736. murphy, however, may only mean that the "estate" at east stour was in his possession for three years. mr. keightley's other points--namely, that the "tolerably respectable farm-house," in which he is supposed to have lived, was scarcely adapted to "splendid entertainments," or "a large retinue of servants;" and that, to be in strict accordance with the family arms, the liveries should have been not "yellow," but white and blue--must be taken for what they are worth. on the whole, the probability is, that murphy's words were only the careless repetition of local tittle-tattle, of much of which, as captain booth says pertinently in _amelia_, "the only basis is lying." the squires of the neighbourhood would naturally regard the dashing young gentleman from london with the same distrustful hostility that addison's "tory foxhunter" exhibited to those who differed with him in politics. it would be remembered, besides, that the new-comer was the son of another and an earlier fielding of less pretensions, and no real cordiality could ever have existed between them. indeed, it may be assumed that this was the case, for booth's account of the opposition and ridicule which he--"a poor renter!"--encountered when he enlarged his farm and set up his coach has a distinct personal accent. that he was lavish, and lived beyond his means, is quite in accordance with his character. the man who, as a bow street magistrate, kept open house on a pittance, was not likely to be less lavish as a country gentleman, with l1500 in his pocket, and newly married to a young and handsome wife. "he would have wanted money," said lady mary, "if his hereditary lands had been as extensive as his imagination;" and there can be little doubt that the rafters of the old farm by the stour, with the great locust tree at the back, which is figured in hutchins's _history of dorset_, rang often to hunting choruses, and that not seldom the "dusky night rode down the sky" over the prostrate forms of harry fielding's guests. [footnote: an interesting relic of the east stour residence has recently been presented by mr. merthyr guest (through mr. r. a. kinglake) to the somersetshire archaeological society. it is an oak table of solid proportions, and bears on a brass plate the following inscription, emanating from a former owner:--"this table belonged to henry fielding, esq., novelist. he hunted from east stour farm, 1718, and in three years dissipated his fortune keeping hounds." in 1718, it may be observed, fielding was a boy of eleven. probably the whole of the latter sentence is nothing more than a distortion of murphy.] but even l1500, and (in spite of murphy) it is by no means clear that he had anything more, could scarcely last for ever. whether his footmen wore yellow or not, a few brief months found him again in town. that he was able to rent a theatre may perhaps be accepted as proof that his profuse hospitalities had not completely exhausted his means. the moment was a favourable one for a fresh theatrical experiment. the stage-world was split up into factions, the players were disorganised, and everything seemed in confusion. whether fielding himself conceived the idea of making capital out of this state of things, or whether it was suggested to him by some of the company who had acted _don quixote in england_, it is impossible to say. in the first months of 1736, however, he took the little french theatre in the haymarket, and opened it with a company which he christened the "great mogul's company of comedians," who were further described as "having dropped from the clouds." the "great mogul" was a name sometimes given by playwrights to the elder cibber; but there is no reason for supposing that any allusion to him was intended on this occasion. the company, with the exception of macklin, who was playing at drury lane, consisted chiefly of the actors in _don quixote in england_; and the first piece was entitled _pasquin: a dramatick satire on the times: being the rehearsal of two plays, viz. a comedy call'd the election, and a tragedy call'd the life and death of common-sense_. the form of this work, which belongs to the same class as sheridan's _critic_ and buckingham's _rehearsal_, was probably determined by fielding's past experience of the public taste. his latest comedy had failed, and its predecessors had not been very successful. but his burlesques had met with a better reception, while the election episodes in _don quixote_ had seemed to disclose a fresh field for the satire of contemporary manners. and in the satire of contemporary manners he felt his strength lay. the success of _pasquin_ proved he had not miscalculated, for it ran more than forty nights, drawing, if we may believe the unknown author of the life of theophilus cibber, numerous and enthusiastic audiences "from _grosvenor, cavendish, hanover_, and all the other fashionable squares, as also from _pall mall_, and the _inns of court_." in regard to plot, the comedy which _pasquin_ contains scarcely deserves the name. it consists of a string of loosely-connected scenes, which depict the shameless political corruption of the walpole era with a good deal of boldness and humour. the sole difference between the "court party," represented by two candidates with the bunyan-like names of lord place and colonel promise, and the "country party," whose nominees are sir harry fox-chace and squire tankard, is that the former bribe openly, the latter indirectly. the mayor, whose sympathies are with the "country party" is finally induced by his wife to vote for and return the other side, although they are in a minority; and the play is concluded by the precipitate marriage of his daughter with colonel promise. mr. fustian, the tragic author, who, with mr. sneerwell the critic, is one of the spectators of the rehearsal, demurs to the abruptness with which this ingenious catastrophe is brought about, and inquires where the preliminary action, of which there is not the slightest evidence in the piece itself, has taken place. thereupon trapwit, the comic author, replies as follows, in one of those passages which show that, whatever fielding's dramatic limitations may have been, he was at least a keen critic of stage practice:-"_trapwit._ why, behind the scenes, sir. what, would you have every thing brought upon the stage? i intend to bring ours to the dignity of the _french_ stage; and i have _horace's_ advice of my side; we have many things both said and done in our comedies, which might be better perform'd behind the scenes: the _french_, you know, banish all cruelty from their stage; and i don't see why we should bring on a lady in ours, practising all manner of cruelty upon her lover: beside, sir, we do not only produce it, but encourage it; for i could name you some comedies, if i would, where a woman is brought in for four acts together, behaving to a worthy man in a manner for which she almost deserves to be hang'd; and in the fifth, forsooth, she is rewarded with him for a husband: now, sir, as i know this hits some tastes, and am willing to oblige all, i have given every lady a latitude of thinking mine has behaved in whatever manner she would have her." the part of lord place in the _election_, after the first few nights, was taken by cibber's daughter, the notorious mrs. charlotte charke, whose extraordinary memoirs are among the curiosities of eighteenthcentury literature, and whose experiences were as varied as those of any character in fiction. she does not seem to have acted in the _life and death of common-sense_, the rehearsal of which followed that of the _election_. this is a burlesque of the _tom thumb_ type, much of which is written in vigorous blank verse. queen common-sense is conspired against by firebrand, priest of the sun, by law, and by physic. law is incensed because she has endeavoured to make his piebald jargon intelligible; physic because she has preferred water gruel to all his drugs; and firebrand because she would restrain the power of priests. some of the strokes must have gone home to those receptive hearers who, as one contemporary account informs us, "were dull enough not only to think they contain'd wit and humour, but truth also":- "_queen common-sense._ my lord of _law_, i sent for you this morning; i have a strange petition given to me; two men, it seems, have lately been at law for an estate, which both of them have lost, and their attorneys now divide between them. _law._ madam, these things will happen in the law. _q. c. s._ will they, my lord? then better we had none: but i have also heard a sweet bird sing, that men, unable to discharge their debts at a short warning, being sued for them, have, with both power and will their debts to pay lain all their lives in prison for their costs. _law._ that may perhaps be some poor person's case, too mean to entertain your royal ear. _q. c. s._ my lord, while i am queen i shall not think one man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd; moreover, lord, i am inform'd your laws are grown so large, and daily yet encrease, that the great age of old _methusalem_ would scarce suffice to read your statutes out." there is also much more than merely transitory satire in the speech of "firebrand" to the queen:- "_firebrand._ ha! do you doubt it? nay, if you doubt that, i will prove nothing--but my zeal inspires me, and i will tell you, madam, you yourself are a most deadly enemy to the sun, and all his priests have greatest cause to wish you had been never born. _q. c. s._ ha! say'st thou, priest? then know i honour and adore the sun! and when i see his light, and feel his warmth, i glow with naming gratitude toward him; but know, i never will adore a priest, who wears pride's face beneath religion's mask. and makes a pick-lock of his piety, to steal away the liberty of mankind. but while i live, i'll never give thee power. _firebrand._ madam, our power is not deriv'd from you, nor any one: 'twas sent us in a box from the great sun himself, and carriage paid; _phaeton_ brought it when he overturn'd the chariot of the sun into the sea. _q. c. s._ shew me the instrument, and let me read it. _fireb._ madam, you cannot read it, for being thrown into the sea, the water has so damag'd it, that none but priests could ever read it since." in the end, firebrand stabs common-sense, but her ghost frightens ignorance off the stage, upon which sneerwell says--"i am glad you make _common-sense_ get the better at last; i was under terrible apprehensions for your moral." "faith, sir," says fustian, "this is almost the only play where she has got the better lately." and so the piece closes. but it would be wrong to quit it without some reference to the numberless little touches by which, throughout the whole, the humours of dramatic life behind the scenes are ironically depicted. the comic poet is arrested on his way from "_king's coffee-house,_" and the claim being "for upwards of four pound," it is at first supposed that "he will hardly get bail." he is subsequently inquired after by a gentlewoman in a riding-hood, whom he passes off as a lady of quality, but who, in reality, is bringing him a clean shirt. there are difficulties with one of the ghosts, who has a "church-yard cough," and "is so lame he can hardly walk the stage;" while another comes to rehearsal without being properly floured, because the stage barber has gone to drury lane "to shave the sultan in the new entertainment." on the other hand, the ghost of queen common-sense appears before she is killed, and is with some difficulty persuaded that her action is premature. part of "the mob" play truant to see a show in the park; law, straying without the playhouse passage is snapped up by a lord chiefjustice's warrant; and a jew carries off one of the maids of honour. these little incidents, together with the unblushing realism of the pots of porter that are made to do duty for wine, and the extra two-penny worth of lightning that is ordered against the first night, are all in the spirit of that inimitable picture of the _strolling actresses dressing in a barn_, which hogarth gave to the world two years later, and which, very possibly, may have borrowed some of its inspiration from fielding's "dramatic satire." there is every reason to suppose that the profits of _pasquin_ were far greater than those of any of its author's previous efforts. in a rare contemporary caricature, preserved in the british museum, [footnote: political and personal satires, no. 2287.] the "queen of common-sense" is shown presenting "henry fielding, esq.," with a well-filled purse, while to "harlequin" (john rich of covent garden) she extends a halter; and in some doggerel lines underneath, reference is made to the "show'rs of gold" resulting from the piece. this, of course, might be no more than a poetical fiction; but fielding himself attests the pecuniary success of _pasquin_ in the dedication to _tumble-down dick_, and mrs. charke's statement in her memoirs that her salary for acting the small part of lord place was four guineas a week, "with an indulgence in point of charges at her benefit" by which she cleared sixty guineas, certainly points to a prosperous exchequer. fielding's own benefit, as appears from the curious ticket attributed to hogarth and facsimiled by a. m. ireland, took place on april 25, but we have no record of the amount of his gains. mrs. charke farther says that "soon after _pasquin_ began to droop," fielding produced lillo's _fatal curiosity_ in which she acted agnes. this tragedy, founded on a cornish story, is one of remarkable power and passion; but upon its first appearance it made little impression, although in the succeeding year it was acted to greater advantage in combination with another satirical medley by fielding, the _historical register for the year_ 1736. like most sequels, the _historical register_ had neither the vogue nor the wit of its predecessor. it was only half as long, and it was even more disconnected in character. "harmonious cibber," as swift calls him, whose "preposterous odes" had already been ridiculed in _pasquin_ and the _author's farce_, was once more brought on the stage as ground-ivy, for his alterations of shakespeare; and under the name of pistol, theophilus cibber is made to refer to the contention between his second wife, arne's sister, and mrs. clive, for the honour of playing "polly" in the _beggar's opera_, a play-house feud which at the latter end of 1736 had engaged "the town" almost as seriously as the earlier rivalry of faustina and cuzzoni. this continued raillery of the cibbers is, as fielding himself seems to have felt, a "jest a little overacted;" but there is one scene in the piece of undeniable freshness and humour, to wit, that in which cock, the famous salesman of the piazzas--the george robins of his day--is brought on the stage as mr. auctioneer hen (a part taken by mrs. charke). his wares, "collected by the indefatigable pains of that celebrated virtuoso, _peter humdrum_, esq.," include such desirable items as "curious remnants of political honesty," "delicate pieces of patriotism," modesty (which does not obtain a bid), courage, wit, and "a very neat clear conscience" of great capacity, "which has been worn by a judge, and a bishop." the "cardinal virtues" are then put up, and eighteen-pence is bid for them. but after they have been knocked down at this extravagant sum, the buyer complains that he had understood the auctioneer to say "a cardinal's virtues," and that the lot he has purchased includes "temperance and chastity, and a pack of stuff that he would not give three farthings for." the whole of this scene is "admirable fooling;" and it was afterwards impudently stolen by theophilus cibber for his farce of the _auction_. the _historical register_ concludes with a dialogue between quidam, in whom the audience recognised sir robert walpole, and four patriots, to whom he gives a purse which has an instantaneous effect upon their opinions. all five then go off dancing to quidam's fiddle; and it is explained that they have holes in their pockets through which the money will fall as they dance, enabling the donor to pick it all up again, "and so not lose one half-penny by his generosity." the frank effrontery of satire like the foregoing had by this time begun to attract the attention of the ministry, whose withers had already been sharply wrung by _pasquin_; and it has been conjectured that the ballet of quidam and the patriots played no small part in precipitating the famous "licensing act," which was passed a few weeks afterwards. like the marriage which succeeded the funeral of hamlet's father, it certainly "followed hard upon." but the reformation of the stage had already been contemplated by the legislature; and two years before, sir john barnard had brought in a bill "to restrain the number of houses for playing of interludes, and for the better regulating of common players of interludes." this, however, had been abandoned, because it was proposed to add a clause enlarging the power of the lord chamberlain in licensing plays, an addition to which the introducer of the measure made strong objection. he thought the power of the lord chamberlain already too great, and in support of his argument he instanced its wanton exercise in the case of _gay's polly_, the representation of which had been suddenly prohibited a few years earlier. but _pasquin_ and the _register_ brought the question of dramatic lawlessness again to the front, and a bill was hurriedly drawn, one effect of which was to revive the very provision that sir john barnard had opposed. the history of this affair is exceedingly obscure, and in all probability it has never been completely revealed. the received or authorised version is to be found in coxe's _life of walpole_. after dwelling on the offence given to the government by _pasquin_, the writer goes on to say that giffard, the manager of goodman's fields, brought walpole a farce called _the golden rump_, which had been proposed for exhibition. whether he did this to extort money, or to ask advice, is not clear. in either case, walpole is said to have "paid the profits which might have accrued from the performance, and detained the copy." he then made a compendious selection of the treasonable and profane passages it contained. these he submitted to independent members of both parties, and afterwards read them in the house itself. the result was that by way of amendment to the "vagrant act" of anne's reign, a bill was prepared limiting the number of theatres, and compelling all dramatic writers to obtain a license from the lord chamberlain. such is coxe's account; but notwithstanding its circumstantial character, it has been insinuated in the sham memoirs of the younger cibber, and it is plainly asserted in the _rambler's magazine_ for 1787, that certain preliminary details have been conveniently suppressed. it is alleged that walpole himself caused the farce in question to be written, and to be offered to giffard, for the purpose of introducing his scheme of reform; and the suggestion is not without a certain remote plausibility. as may be guessed, however, _the golden rump_ cannot be appealed to. it was never printed, although its title is identical with that of a caricature published in march 1737, and fully described in the gentleman's magazine for that month. if the play at all resembled the design, it must have been obscene and scurrilous in the extreme. [footnote: horace walpole, in his _memoires of the last ten years of the reign of george ii._, says (vol. i. p. 12), "i have in my possession the imperfect copy of this piece as i found it among my father's papers after his death." he calls it fielding's; but no importance can be attached to the statement. there is a copy of the caricature in the british museum print room (political and personal satires, no. 2327).] meanwhile the new bill, to which it had given rise, passed rapidly through both houses. report speaks of animated discussions and warm opposition. but there are no traces of any divisions, or petitions against it, and the only speech which has survived is the very elaborate and careful oration delivered in the upper house by lord chesterfield. the "second cicero"--as sylvanus urban styles him--opposed the bill upon the ground that it would affect the liberty of the press; and that it was practically a tax upon the chief property of men of letters, their wit--a "precarious dependence"--which (he thanked god) my lords were not obliged to rely upon. he dwelt also upon the value of the stage as a fearless censor of vice and folly; and he quoted with excellent effect but doubtful accuracy the famous answer of the prince of conti [conde] to moliere [louis xiv.] when _tartuffe_ was interdicted at the instance of m. de lamoignon:--"it is true, moliere, harlequin ridicules heaven, and exposes religion; but you have done much worse--you have ridiculed the first minister of religion." this, although not directly advanced for the purpose, really indicated the head and front of fielding's offending in _pasquin_ and the _historical register_, and although in lord chesterfield's speech the former is ironically condemned, it may well be that fielding, whose _don quixote_ had been dedicated to his lordship, was the wire-puller in this case, and supplied this very illustration. at all events it is entirely in the spirit of firebrand's words in _pasquin_:- "speak boldly; by the powers i serve, i swear you speak in safety, even tho' you speak against the gods, provided that you speak not against priests." but the feeling of parliament in favour of drastic legislation was even stronger than the persuasive periods of chesterfield, and on the 21st of june 1737 the bill received the royal assent. with its passing fielding's career as a dramatic author practically closed. in his dedication of the _historical register_ to "the publick," he had spoken of his desire to beautify and enlarge his little theatre, and to procure a better company of actors; and he had added--"if nature hath given me any talents at ridiculing vice and imposture, i shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them, while the liberty of the press and stage subsists, that is to say, while we have any liberty left among us." to all these projects the "licensing act" effectively put an end; and the only other plays from his pen which were produced subsequently to this date were the "wedding day," 1743, and the posthumous _goodnatured man_, 1779, both of which, as is plain from the preface to the _miscellanies_, were among his earliest attempts. in the little farce of _miss lucy in town_, 1742, he had, he says, but "a very small share." besides these, there are three hasty and flimsy pieces which belong to the early part of 1737. the first of these, _tumble-down dick_; or, _phaeton in the suds_, was a dramatic sketch in ridicule of the unmeaning entertainments and harlequinades of john rich at covent garden. this was ironically dedicated to rich, under his stage name of "john lun," and from the dedication it appears that rich had brought out an unsuccessful satire on _pasquin_ called _marforio_. the other two were _eurydice_, a profane and pointless farce, afterwards printed by its author (in anticipation of beaumarchais) "as it was d--mned at the theatre-royal in drury-lane;" and a few detached scenes in which, under the title of _eurydice hiss'd; or, a word to the wise_, its untoward fate was attributed to the "frail promise of uncertain friends." but even in these careless and half-considered productions there are happy strokes; and one scarcely looks to find such nervous and sensible lines in a mere _a propos_ as these from _eurydice hiss'd_:- "yet grant it shou'd succeed, grant that by chance, or by the whim and madness of the town, a farce without contrivance, without sense should run to the astonishment of mankind; think how you will be read in after-times, when friends are not, and the impartial judge shall with the meanest scribbler rank your name; who would not rather wish a _butler's_ fame, distress'd, and poor in every thing but merit, than be the blundering laureat to a court?" self-accusatory passages such as this--and there are others like it-indicate a higher ideal of dramatic writing than fielding is held to have attained, and probably the key to them is to be found in that reaction of better judgment which seems invariably to have followed his most reckless efforts. it was a part of his sanguine and impulsive nature to be as easily persuaded that his work was worthless as that it was excellent. "when," says murphy, "he was not under the immediate urgency of want, they, who were intimate with him, are ready to aver that he had a mind greatly superior to anything mean or little; when his finances were exhausted, he was not the most elegant in his choice of the means to redress himself, and he would instantly exhibit a farce or a puppet-shew in the haymarket theatre, which was wholly inconsistent with the profession he had embarked in." the quotation displays all murphy's loose and negligent way of dealing with his facts; for, with the exception of _miss lucy in town_, which can scarcely be ranked among his works at all, there is absolutely no trace of fielding's having exhibited either "puppet-show" or "farce" after seriously adopting the law as a profession, nor does there appear to have been much acting at the haymarket for some time after his management had closed in 1737. still, his superficial characteristics, which do not depend so much upon murphy as upon those "who were intimate with him," are probably accurately described, and they sufficiently account for many of the obvious discordances of his work and life. that he was fully conscious of something higher than his actual achievement as a dramatist is clear from his own observation in later life, "that he left off writing for the stage, when he ought to have begun;"--an utterance which (we shrewdly suspect) has prompted not a little profitless speculation as to whether, if he had continued to write plays, they would have been equal to, or worse than, his novels. the discussion would be highly interesting, if there were the slightest chance that it could be attended with any satisfactory result. but the truth is, that the very materials are wanting. fielding "left off writing for the stage" when he was under thirty; _tom jones_ was published in 1749, when he was more than forty. his plays were written in haste; his novels at leisure, and when, for the most part, he was relieved from that "immediate urgency of want," which, according to murphy, characterised his younger days. if-as has been suggested--we could compare a novel written at thirty with a play of the same date, or a play written at forty with _tom jones_, the comparison might be instructive, although even then considerable allowances would have to be made for the essential difference between plays and novels. but, as we cannot make such a comparison, further inquiry is simply waste of time. all we can safely affirm is, that the plays of fielding's youth did not equal the fictions of his maturity; and that, of those plays, the comedies were less successful than the farces and burlesques. among other reasons for this latter difference one chiefly may be given:--that in the comedies he sought to reproduce the artificial world of congreve and wycherley, while in the burlesques and farces he depicted the world in which he lived. chapter iii. the champion--joseph andrews. the _historical register_ and _eurydice hiss'd_ were published together in june 1737. by this time the "licensing act" was passed, and the "grand mogul's company" dispersed for ever. fielding was now in his thirty-first year, with a wife and probably a daughter depending on him for support. in the absence of any prospect that he would be able to secure a maintenance as a dramatic writer, he seems to have decided, in spite of his comparatively advanced age, to revert to the profession for which he had originally been intended, and to qualify himself for the bar. accordingly, at the close of the year, he became a student of the middle temple, and the books of that society contain the following record of his admission: [footnote: this differs slightly from previous transcripts, having been verified at the middle temple.]-[574 g] 1 nov 1737. _henricus fielding, de east stour in com dorset ar, filius et haeres apparens brig: genlis: edmundi fielding admissus est in societatem medii templi lond specialiter et obligator una cum etc. et dat pro fine 4. 0. 0._ it may be noted, as mr. keightley has already observed, that fielding is described in this entry as of east stour, "which would seem to indicate that he still retained his property at that place;" and further, that his father is spoken of as a "brigadier-general," whereas (according to the _gentleman's magazine_) he had been made a major-general in december 1735. of discrepancies like these it is idle to attempt any explanation. but, if murphy is to be believed, fielding devoted himself henceforth with remarkable assiduity to the study of law. the old irregularity of life, it is alleged, occasionally asserted itself, though without checking the energy of his application. "this," says his first biographer, "prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has been frequently known, by his intimates, to retire late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read, and make extracts from, the most abstruse authors, for several hours before he went to bed; so powerful were the vigour of his constitution and the activity of his mind." it is to this passage, no doubt, that we owe the picturesque wet towel and inked ruffles with which mr. thackeray has decorated him in _pendennis_; and, in all probability, a good deal of graphic writing from less able pens respecting his _modus vivendi_ as a templar. in point of fact, nothing is known with certainty respecting his life at this period; and what it would really concern us to learn--namely, whether by "chambers" it is to be understood that he was living alone, and, if so, where mrs. fielding was at the time of these protracted vigils--murphy has not told us. perhaps she was safe all the while at east stour, or with her sisters at salisbury. having no precise information, however, it can only be recorded, that, in spite of the fitful outbreaks above referred to, fielding applied himself to the study of his profession with all the vigour of a man who has to make up for lost time; and that, when on the 20th of june 1740 the day came for his being "called," he was very fairly equipped with legal knowledge. that he had also made many friends among his colleagues of westminster hall is manifest from the number of lawyers who figure in the subscription list of the _miscellanies_. to what extent he was occupied by literary work during his probationary period it is difficult to say. murphy speaks vaguely of "a large number of fugitive political tracts;" but unless the _essay on conversation_, advertised by lawton gilliver in 1737, be the same as that afterwards reprinted in the _miscellanies_, there is no positive record of anything until the issue of true greatness, an epistle to george dodington, in january 1741, though he may, of course, have written much anonymously. among newspapers, the one murphy had in mind was probably the _champion_, the first number of which is dated november 15, 1739, two years after his admission to the middle temple as a student. on the whole, it seems most likely, as mr. keightley conjectures, that his chief occupation in the interval was studying law, and that he must have been living upon the residue of his wife's fortune or his own means, in which case the establishment of the above periodical may mark the exhaustion of his resources. the _champion_ is a paper on the model of the elder essayists. it was issued, like the _tatler_, on tuesdays, thursdays, and saturdays. murphy says that fielding's part in it cannot now be ascertained; but as the "advertisement" to the edition in two volumes of 1741 states expressly that the papers signed c. and l. are the "work of one hand," and as a number of those signed c. are unmistakably fielding's, it is hard to discover where the difficulty lay. the papers signed c. and l. are by far the most numerous, the majority of the remainder being distinguished by two stars, or the signature "lilbourne." these are understood to have been from the pen of james ralph, whose poem of _night_ gave rise to a stinging couplet in the _dunciad_, but who was nevertheless a man of parts, and an industrious writer. as will be remembered, he had contributed a prologue to the _temple beau_, so that his association with fielding must have been of some standing. besides ralph's essays in the _champion_, he was mainly responsible for the _index to the times_ which accompanied each number, and consisted of a series of brief paragraphs on current topics, or the last new book. in this way glover's _london_, boyse's _deity_, somervile's _hobbinol_, lillo's _elmeric_, dyer's _ruins of rome_, and other of the very minor _poetae minores_ of the day, were commented upon. these notes and notices, however, were only a subordinate feature of the _champion_, which, like its predecessors, consisted chiefly of essays and allegories, social, moral, and political, the writers of which were supposed to be members of an imaginary "vinegar family," described in the initial paper. of these the most prominent was captain hercules vinegar, who took all questions relating to the army, militia, trained-bands, and "fighting part of the kingdom." his father, nehemiah vinegar, presided over history and politics; his uncle, counsellor vinegar, over law and judicature; and dr. john vinegar his cousin, over medicine and natural philosophy. to others of the family--including mrs. joan vinegar, who was charged with domestic affairs--were allotted classic literature, poetry and the drama, and fashion. this elaborate scheme was not very strictly adhered to, and the chief writer of the group is captain hercules. shorn of the contemporary interest which formed the chief element of its success when it was first published, it must be admitted that, in the present year of grace, the _champion_ is hard reading. a kind of lassitude--a sense of uncongenial task-work--broods heavily over fielding's contributions, except the one or two in which he is quickened into animation by his antagonism to cibber; and although, with our knowledge of his after achievements, it is possible to trace some indications of his yet unrevealed powers, in the absence of such knowledge it would be difficult to distinguish the _champion_ from the hundred-and-one forgotten imitators of the _spectator_ and _tatler_, whose names have been so patiently chronicled by dr. nathan drake. there is, indeed, a certain obvious humour in the account of captain vinegar's famous club, which he had inherited from hercules, and which had the enviable property of falling of itself upon any knave in company, and there is a dash of the _tom jones_ manner in the noisy activity of that excellent housewife mrs. joan. some of the lighter papers, such as the one upon the "art of puffing," are amusing enough; and of the visions, that which is based upon lucian, and represents charon as stripping his freight of all their superfluous incumbrances in order to lighten his boat, has a double interest, since it contains references not only to cibber, but also (though this appears to have been hitherto overlooked) to fielding himself. the "tall man," who at mercury's request strips off his "old grey coat with great readiness," but refuses to part with "half his chin," which the shepherd of souls regards as false, is clearly intended for the writer of the paper, even without the confirmation afforded by the subsequent allusions to his connection with the stage. his "length of chin and nose," sufficiently apparent in his portrait, was a favourite theme for contemporary personalities. of the moral essays, the most remarkable are a set of four papers, entitled _an apology for the clergy_, which may perhaps be regarded as a set-off against the sarcasms of _pasquin_ on priestcraft. they depict, with a great deal of knowledge and discrimination, the pattern priest as fielding conceived him. to these may be linked an earlier picture, taken from life, of a country parson who, in his simple and dignified surroundings, even more closely resembles the vicar of wakefield than mr. abraham adams. some of the more general articles contain happy passages. in one there is an admirable parody of the norman-french jargon, which in those days added superfluous obscurity to legal utterances; while another, on "charity," contains a forcible exposition of the inexpediency, as well as inhumanity, of imprisonment for debt. references to contemporaries, the inevitable cibber excepted, are few, and these seem mostly from the pen of ralph. the following, from that of fielding, is notable as being one of the earliest authoritative testimonies to the merits of hogarth: "i esteem (says he) the ingenious _mr. hogarth_ as one of the most useful satyrists any age hath produced. in his excellent works you see the delusive scene exposed with all the force of humour, and, on casting your eyes on another picture, you behold the dreadful and fatal consequence. i almost dare affirm that those two works of his, which he calls the _rake's_ and the _harlot's progress_, are calculated more to serve the cause of virtue, and for the preservation of mankind, than all the _folio's_ of morality which have been ever written; and a sober family should no more be without them, than without the _whole duty of man_ in their house." he returned to the same theme in the preface to _joseph andrews_ with a still apter phrase of appreciation:--"it hath been thought a vast commendation of a painter, to say his figures seem to breathe; but surely, it is a much greater and nobler applause, that they appear to think." [footnote: fielding occasionally refers to hogarth for the pictorial types of his characters. bridget allworthy, he tells us, resembled the starched prude in _morning_; and mrs. partridge and parson thwackum have their originals in the _harlot's progress_. it was fielding, too, who said that the _enraged musician_ was "enough to make a man deaf to look at" (_voyage to lisbon_, 1755, p. 50).] when the _champion_ was rather more than a year old, colley cibber published his famous _apology_. to the attacks made upon him by fielding at different times he had hitherto printed no reply--perhaps he had no opportunity of doing so. but in his eighth chapter, when speaking of the causes which led to the licensing act, he takes occasion to refer to his assailant in terms which fielding must have found exceedingly galling. he carefully abstained from mentioning his name, on the ground that it could do him no good, and was of no importance; but he described him as "a broken wit," who had sought notoriety "by raking the channel" (i.e. kennel), and "pelting his superiors." he accused him, with a scandalised gravity that is as edifying as chesterfield's irony, of attacking "religion, laws, government, priests, judges, and ministers." he called him, either in allusion to his stature, or his pseudonym in the _champion_, a "_herculean_ satyrist," a "_drawcansir_ in wit"--"who, to make his poetical fame immortal, like another _erostratus_, set fire to his stage, by writing up to an act of parliament to demolish it. i shall not," he continues, "give the particular strokes of his ingenuity a chance to be remembered, by reciting them; it may be enough to say, in general terms, they were so openly flagrant, that the wisdom of the legislature thought it high time, to take a proper notice of them." fielding was not the man to leave such a challenge unanswered. in the _champion_ for april 22, 1740, and two subsequent papers, he replied with a slashing criticism of the _apology_, in which, after demonstrating that it must be written in english because it was written in no other language, he gravely proceeds to point out examples of the author's superiority to grammar and learning--and in general, subjects its pretentious and slip-shod style to a minute and highly detrimental examination. in a further paper he returns to the charge by a mock trial of one "col. _apol._" (i.e. colley-_apology_), arraigning him for that, "not having the fear of grammar before his eyes," he had committed an unpardonable assault upon his mother-tongue. fielding's knowledge of legal forms and phraseology enabled him to make a happy parody of court procedure, and mr. lawrence says that this particular "_jeu d'esprit_ obtained great celebrity." but the happiest stroke in the controversy-as it seems to us--is one which escaped mr. lawrence, and occurs in the paper already referred to, where charon and mercury are shown denuding the luckless passengers by the styx of their surplus _impedimenta_. among the rest, approaches "an elderly gentleman with a piece of wither'd laurel on his head." from a little book, which he is discovered (when stripped) to have bound close to his heart, and which bears the title of _love in a riddle_--an unsuccessful pastoral produced by cibber at drury lane in 1729--it is clear that this personage is intended for none other than the apologist, who, after many entreaties, is finally compelled to part with his treasure. "i was surprized," continues fielding, "to see him pass examination with his laurel on, and was assured by the standers by, that _mercury_ would have taken it off, if he had seen it." these attacks in the _champion_ do not appear to have received any direct response from cibber. but they were reprinted in a rambling production issued from "curll's chaste press" in 1740, and entitled the _tryal of colley cibber, comedian, &c._ at the end of this there is a short address to "the _self-dubb'd captain_ hercules vinegar, _alias_ buffoon," to the effect that "the malevolent flings exhibited by him and his man _ralph_," have been faithfully reproduced. then comes the following curious and not very intelligible "advertisement:"-"if the ingenious _henry fielding_ esq.; (son of the hon. lieut. general _fielding_, who upon his return from his travels entered himself of the _temple_ in order to study the law, and married one of the pretty miss _cradocks of salisbury_) will _own_ himself the author of 18 strange things called tragical _comedies_ and comical _tragedies_, lately advertised by _j. watts_, of _wild-court_, printer, he shall be _mentioned_ in capitals in the _third_ edition of mr. cibber's _life_, and likewise be placed _among_ the _poetae minores dramatici_ of the present age: then will both his _name and writings be remembered on record_, in the immortal _poetical register_ written by mr. giles jacob." the "poetical register" indicated was the book of that name, containing the _lives and characteristics of the english dramatic poets_, which mr. giles jacob, an industrious literary hack, had issued in 1723. mr. lawrence is probably right in his supposition, based upon the foregoing advertisement, that fielding "had openly expressed resentment at being described by cibber as 'a broken wit,' without being mentioned by name." he never seems to have wholly forgotten his animosity to the actor, to whom there are frequent references in _joseph andrews_; and, as late as 1749, he is still found harping on "the withered laurel" in a letter to lyttelton. even in his last work, the _voyage to lisbon_, cibber's name is mentioned. the origin of this protracted feud is obscure; but, apart from want of sympathy, it must probably be sought for in some early misunderstanding between the two in their capacities of manager and author. as regards theophilus cibber, his desertion of highmore was sufficient reason for the ridicule cast upon him in the _author's farce_ and elsewhere. with mrs. charke, the laureate's intractable and eccentric daughter, fielding was naturally on better terms. she was, as already stated, a member of the great mogul's company, and it is worth noting that some of the sarcasms in _pasquin_ against her father were put into the mouth of lord place, whose part was taken by this undutiful child. all things considered, both in this controversy and the later one with pope, cibber did not come off worst. his few hits were personal and unscrupulous, and they were probably far more deadly in their effects than any of the ironical attacks which his adversaries, on their part, directed against his poetical ineptitude or halting "parts of speech." despite his superlative coxcombry and egotism, he was, moreover, a man of no mean abilities. his _careless husband_ is a far better acting play than any of fielding's, and his _apology_, which even johnson allowed to be "well-done," is valuable in many respects, especially for its account of the contemporary stage. in describing an actor or actress he had few equals--witness his skilful portrait of nokes, and his admirably graphic vignette of mrs. verbruggen as that "finish'd impertinent," melantha, in dryden's _marriage a-la-mode_. the concluding paper in the collected edition of the _champion_, published in 1741, is dated june 19, 1740. on the day following fielding was called to the bar by the benchers of the middle temple, and (says mr. lawrence) "chambers were assigned him in pump court." simultaneously with this, his regular connection with journalism appears to have ceased, although from his statement in the preface to the _miscellanies_,--that "as long as from _june_ 1741," he had "desisted from writing one syllable in the _champion_, or any other public paper," --it may perhaps be inferred that up to that date he continued to contribute now and then. this, nevertheless, is by no means clear. his last utterance in the published volumes is certainly in a sense valedictory, as it refers to the position acquired by the _champion_, and the difficulty experienced in establishing it. incidentally, it pays a high compliment to pope, by speaking of "the divine translation of the _iliad_, which he [fielding] has lately with _no disadvantage to the translator_ compared with the original," the point of the sentence so impressed by its typography, being apparently directed against those critics who had condemned pope's work without the requisite knowledge of greek. from the tenor of the rest of the essay it may, however, be concluded that the writer was taking leave of his enterprise; and, according to a note by boswell, in his _life of johnson_, it seems that mr. reed of staple inn possessed documents which showed that fielding at this juncture, probably in anticipation of more lucrative legal duties, surrendered the reins to ralph. the _champion_ continued to exist for some time longer; indeed, it must be regarded as long-lived among the essayists, since the issue which contained its well-known criticism on garrick is no. 455, and appeared late in 1742. but as far as can be ascertained, it never again obtained the honours of a reprint. although, after he was called to the bar, fielding practically relinquished periodical literature, he does not seem to have entirely desisted from writing. in sylvanus urban's register of books, published during january 1741, is advertised the poem _of true greatness_ afterwards included in the _miscellanies_; and the same authority announces the _vernoniad_, an anonymous burlesque epic prompted by admiral vernon's popular expedition against porto bello in 1739, "with six ships only." that fielding was the author of the latter is sufficiently proved by his order to mr. nourse (printed in roscoe's edition), to deliver fifty copies to mr. chappel. another sixpenny pamphlet, entitled _the opposition, a vision_, issued in december of the same year, is enumerated by him, in the preface to the _miscellanies_, among the few works he had published "since the end of _june_ 1741;" and, provided it can be placed before this date, he may be credited with a political sermon called the _crisis_ (1741), which is ascribed to him upon the authority of a writer in nichols's _anecdotes_. he may also, before "the end of _june_ 1741," have written other things; but it is clear from his _caveat_ in the above-mentioned "preface," together with his complaint that "he had been very unjustly censured, as well on account of what he had not writ, as for what he had," that much more has been laid to his charge than he ever deserved. among ascriptions of this kind may be mentioned the curious _apology for the life of mr. the' cibber, comedian_, 1740, which is described on its title-page as a proper sequel to the autobiography of the laureate, in whose "style and manner" it is said to be written. but, although this performance is evidently the work of some one well acquainted with the dramatic annals of the day, it is more than doubtful whether fielding had any hand or part in it. indeed, his own statement that "he never was, nor would be the author of _anonymous_ scandal [the italics are ours] on the private history or family of any person whatever," should be regarded as conclusive. during all this time he seems to have been steadily applying himself to the practice of his profession, if, indeed, that weary hope deferred which forms the usual probation of legal preferment can properly be so described. as might be anticipated from his salisbury connections, he travelled the western circuit; and, according to hutchins's _dorset_, he assiduously attended the wiltshire sessions. he had many friends among his brethren of the bar. his cousin, henry gould, who had been called in 1734, and who, like his grandfather, ultimately became a judge, was also a member of the middle temple; and he was familiar with charles pratt, afterwards lord camden, whom he may have known at eton, but whom he certainly knew in his barrister days. it is probable, too, that he was acquainted with lord northington, then robert henley, whose name appears as a subscriber to the _miscellanies_, and who was once supposed to contend with kettleby (another subscriber) for the honour of being the original of the drunken barrister in hogarth's _midnight modern conversation_, a picture which no doubt accurately represents a good many of the festivals by which henry fielding relieved the tedium of composing those ms. _folio_ volumes on crown or criminal law, which, after his death, reverted to his half-brother, sir john. but towards the close of 1741 he was engaged upon another work which has outweighed all his most laborious forensic efforts, and which will long remain an english classic. this was _the history of the adventures of joseph andrews, and of his friend mr. abraham adams_, published by andrew millar in february 1742. in the same number, and at the same page of the _gentleman's magazine_ which contains the advertisement of the _vernoniad_, there is a reference to a famous novel which had appeared in november 1740, two months earlier, and had already attained an extraordinary popularity. "several encomiums (says mr. urban) on a series of _familiar letters_, publish'd but last month, entitled pamela or _virtue rewarded_, came too late for this magazine, and we believe there will be little occasion for inserting them in our next; because a second edition will then come out to supply the demands in the country, it being judged in town as great a sign of want of curiosity not to have read _pamela_, as not to have seen the _french_ and _italian_ dancers." a second edition was in fact published in the following month (february), to be speedily succeeded by a third in march and a fourth in may. dr. sherlock (oddly misprinted by mrs. barbauld as "dr. slocock") extolled it from the pulpit; and the great mr. pope was reported to have gone farther and declared that it would "do more good than many volumes of sermons." other admirers ranked it next to the bible; clergymen dedicated theological treatises to the author; and "even at ranelagh"--says richardson's biographer--"those who remember the publication say, that it was usual for ladies to hold up the volumes of pamela to one another, to shew that they had got the book that every one was talking of." it is perhaps hypercritical to observe that ranelagh gardens were not opened until eighteen months after mr. rivington's _duodecimos_ first made their appearance; but it will be gathered from the tone of some of the foregoing commendations that its morality was a strong point with the new candidate for literary fame; and its voluminous title-page did indeed proclaim at large that it was "published in order to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes." its author, samuel richardson, was a middle-aged london printer, a vegetarian and water-drinker, a worthy, domesticated, fussy, and highly-nervous little man. delighting in female society, and accustomed to act as confidant and amanuensis for the young women of his acquaintance, it had been suggested to him by some bookseller friends that he should prepare a "little volume of letters, in a common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers, who were unable to indite for themselves." as hogarth's conversation pieces grew into his progresses, so this project seems to have developed into _pamela, or virtue rewarded_. the necessity for some connecting link between the letters suggested a story, and the story chosen was founded upon the actual experiences of a young servant girl, who, after victoriously resisting all the attempts made by her master to seduce her, ultimately obliged him to marry her. it is needless to give any account here of the minute and deliberate way in which richardson filled in this outline. as one of his critics, d'alembert, has unanswerably said--_"la, nature est bonne a imiter, mais non pas jusgu'a l'ennui"_--and the author of _pamela_ has plainly disregarded this useful law. on the other hand, the tedium and elaboration of his style have tended, in these less leisurely days, to condemn his work to a neglect which it does not deserve. few writers--it is a truism to say so--have excelled him in minute analysis of motive, and knowledge of the human heart. about the final morality of his heroine's long-drawn defence of her chastity it may, however, be permitted to doubt; and, in contrasting the book with fielding's work, it should not be forgotten that, irreproachable though it seemed to the author's admirers, good dr. watts complained (and with reason) of the indelicacy of some of the scenes. but, for the moment, we are more concerned with the effect which _pamela_ produced upon henry fielding, struggling with the "eternal want of pence, which vexes public men," and vaguely hoping for some profitable opening for powers which had not yet been satisfactorily exercised. to his robust and masculine genius, never very delicately sensitive where the relations of the sexes are concerned, the strange conjunction of purity and precaution in richardson's heroine was a thing unnatural, and a theme for inextinguishable homeric laughter. that pamela, through all her trials, could really have cherished any affection for her unscrupulous admirer would seem to him a sentimental absurdity, and the unprecedented success of the book would sharpen his sense of its assailable side. possibly, too, his acquaintance with richardson, whom he knew personally, but with whom he could have had no kind of sympathy, disposed him against his work. in any case, the idea presently occurred to fielding of depicting a young man in circumstances of similar importunity at the hands of a dissolute woman of fashion. he took for his hero pamela's brother, and by a malicious stroke of the pen turned the mr. b. of _pamela_ into squire booby. but the process of invention rapidly carried him into paths far beyond the mere parody of richardson, and it is only in the first portion of the book that he really remembers his intention. after chapter x. the story follows its natural course, and there is little or nothing of lady booby, or her frustrate amours. indeed, the author does not even pretend to preserve congruity as regards his hero, for, in chapter v., he makes him tell his mistress that he has never been in love, while in chapter xi. we are informed that he had long been attached to the charming fanny. moreover, in the intervening letters which joseph writes to his sister pamela, he makes no reference to this long-existent attachment, with which, one would think, she must have been perfectly familiar. these discrepancies all point, not so much to negligence on the part of the author, as to an unconscious transformation of his plan. he no doubt speedily found that mere ridicule of richardson was insufficient to sustain the interest of any serious effort, and, besides, must have been secretly conscious that the "pamela" characteristics of his hero were artistically irreconcilable with the personal bravery and cudgel-playing attributes with which he had endowed him. add to this that the immortal mrs. slipslop and parson adams--the latter especially--had begun to acquire an importance with their creator for which the initial scheme had by no means provided; and he finally seems to have disregarded his design, only returning to it in his last chapters in order to close his work with some appearance of consistency. the _history of joseph andrews_, it has been said, might well have dispensed with lady booby altogether, and yet, without her, not only this book, but _tom jones_ and _amelia_ also, would probably have been lost to us. the accident which prompted three such masterpieces cannot be honestly regretted. it was not without reason that fielding added prominently to his titlepage the name of mr. abraham adams. if he is not the real hero of the book, he is undoubtedly the character whose fortunes the reader follows with the closest interest. whether he is smoking his black and consolatory pipe in the gallery of the inn, or losing his way while he meditates a passage of greek, or groaning over the fatuities of the manof-fashion in leonora's story, or brandishing his famous crabstick in defence of fanny, he is always the same delightful mixture of benevolence and simplicity, of pedantry and credulity and ignorance of the world. he is "compact," to use shakespeare's word, of the oddest contradictions,--the most diverting eccentricities. he has aristotle's _politics_ at his fingers' ends, but he knows nothing of the daily _gazetteers_; he is perfectly familiar with the pillars of hercules, but he has never even heard of the levant. he travels to london to sell a collection of sermons which he has forgotten to carry with him, and in a moment of excitement he tosses into the fire the copy of _aeschylus_ which it has cost him years to transcribe. he gives irreproachable advice to joseph on fortitude and resignation, but he is overwhelmed with grief when his child is reported to be drowned. when he speaks upon faith and works, on marriage, on school discipline, he is weighty and sensible; but he falls an easy victim to the plausible professions of every rogue he meets, and is willing to believe in the principles of mr. peter pounce, or the humanity of parson trulliber. not all the discipline of hog's blood and cudgels and cold water to which he is subjected can deprive him of his native dignity; and as he stands before us in the short great-coat under which his ragged cassock is continually making its appearance, with his old wig and battered hat, a clergyman whose social position is scarcely above that of a footman, and who supports a wife and six children upon a cure of twenty-three pounds a year, which his outspoken honesty is continually jeopardising, he is a far finer figure than pamela in her coach-and-six, or bellarmine in his cinnamon velvet. if not, as mr. lawrence says, with exaggerated enthusiasm, "the grandest delineation of a pattern-priest which the world has yet seen," he is assuredly a noble example of primitive goodness and practical christianity. it is certain--as mr. forster and mr. keightley have pointed out--that goldsmith borrowed some of his characteristics for dr. primrose, and it has been suggested that sterne remembered him in more than one page of _tristram shandy_. next to parson adams, perhaps the best character in _joseph andrews_-though of an entirely different type--is lady booby's "waitinggentlewoman," the excellent mrs. slipslop. her sensitive dignity, her easy changes from servility to insolence, her sensuality, her inimitably distorted vocabulary, which sheridan borrowed for mrs. malaprop, and dickens modified for mrs. gamp, are all peculiarities which make up a personification of the richest humour and the most life-like reality. mr. peter pounce, too, with his "scoundrel maxims," as disclosed in that remarkable dialogue which is said to be "better worth reading than all the works of _colley cibber_," and in which charity is defined as consisting rather in a disposition to relieve distress than in an actual act of relief; parson trulliber with his hogs, his greediness, and his willingness to prove his christianity by fisticuffs; shrewish mrs. towwouse with her scold's tongue, and her erring but perfectly subjugated husband,--these again are portraits finished with admirable spirit and fidelity. andrews himself, and his blushing sweetheart, do not lend themselves so readily to humorous art. nevertheless the former, when freed from the wiles of lady booby, is by no means a despicable hero, and fanny is a sufficiently fresh and blooming heroine. the characters of pamela and mr. booby are fairly preserved from the pages of their original inventor. but when fielding makes parson adams rebuke the pair for laughing in church at joseph's wedding, and puts into the lady's mouth a sententious little speech upon her altered position in life, he is adding some ironical touches which richardson would certainly have omitted. no selection of personages, however, even of the most detailed and particular description, can convey any real impression of the mingled irony and insight, the wit and satire, the genial but perfectly remorseless revelation of human springs of action, which distinguish scene after scene of the book. nothing, for example, can be more admirable than the different manifestations of meanness which take place among the travellers of the stage-coach, in the oft-quoted chapter where joseph, having been robbed of everything, lies naked and bleeding in the ditch. there is miss grave-airs, who protests against the indecency of his entering the vehicle, but like a certain lady in the _rake's progress_, holds the sticks of her fan before her face while he does so, and who is afterwards found to be carrying nantes under the guise of hungary-water; there is the lawyer who advises that the wounded man shall be taken in, not from any humane motive, but because he is afraid of being involved in legal proceedings if they leave him to his fate; there is the wit who seizes the occasion for a burst of facetious double-meanings, chiefly designed for the discomfiture of the prude; and, lastly, there is the coachman, whose only concern is the shilling for his fare, and who refuses to lend either of the useless greatcoats he is sitting upon, lest "they should be made bloody," leaving the shivering suppliant to be clothed by the generosity of the postilion ("a lad," says fielding with a fine touch of satire, "who hath been since transported for robbing a hen-roost"). this worthy fellow accordingly strips off his only outer garment, "at the same time swearing a great oath," for which he is duly rebuked by the passengers, "that he would rather ride in his shirt all his life, than suffer a fellow-creature to lie in so miserable a condition." then there are the admirable scenes which succeed joseph's admission into the inn; the discussion between the bookseller and the two parsons as to the publication of adams's sermons, which the "clergy would be certain to cry down," because they inculcate good works against faith; the debate before the justice as to the manuscript of aeschylus, which is mistaken for one of the fathers; and the pleasant discourse between the poet and the player which, beginning by compliments, bids fair to end in blows. nor are the stories of leonora and mr. wilson without their interest. they interrupt the straggling narrative far less than the man of the hill interrupts _tom jones_, and they afford an opportunity for varying the epic of the highway by pictures of polite society which could not otherwise be introduced. there can be little doubt, too, that some of mr. wilson's town experiences were the reflection of the author's own career; while the characteristics of leonora's lover horatio,--who was "a young gentleman of a good family, bred to the law," and recently called to the bar, whose "face and person were such as the generality allowed handsome: but he had a dignity in his air very rarely to be seen," and who "had wit and humour, with an inclination to satire, which he indulged rather too much"--read almost like a complimentary description of fielding himself. like hogarth, in that famous drinking scene to which reference has already been made, fielding was careful to disclaim any personal portraiture in _joseph andrews_. in the opening chapter of book iii. he declares "once for all that he describes not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species," although he admits that his characters are "taken from life." in his "preface," he reiterates this profession, adding that in copying from nature, he has "used the utmost care to obscure the persons by such different circumstances, degrees, and colours, that it will be impossible to guess at them with any degree of certainty." nevertheless--as in hogarth's case--neither his protests nor his skill have prevented some of those identifications which are so seductive to the curious; and it is generally believed,--indeed, it was expressly stated by richardson and others,--that the prototype of parson adams was a friend of fielding, the reverend william young. like adams, he was a scholar and devoted to aeschylus; he resembled him, too, in his trick of snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of mind. of this latter peculiarity it is related that on one occasion, when a chaplain in marlborough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the enemy's lines with his beloved _aeschylus_ in his hand. his peaceable intentions were so unmistakable that he was instantly released, and politely directed to his regiment. once, too, it is said, on being charged by a gentleman with sitting for the portrait of adams, he offered to knock the speaker down, thereby supplying additional proof of the truth of the allegation. he died in august 1757, and is buried in the chapel of chelsea hospital. the obituary notice in the _gentleman's magazine_ describes him as "late of gillingham, dorsetshire," which would make him a neighbour of the novelist. [footnote: lord thurlow was accustomed to find a later likeness to fielding's hero in his _protege_, the poet crabbe.] another tradition connects mr. peter pounce with the scrivener and usurer peter walter, whom pope had satirised, and whom hogarth is thought to have introduced into plate i. of marriage _a-la-mode_. his sister lived at salisbury; and he himself had an estate at stalbridge park, which was close to east stour. from references to walter in the _champion_ for may 31, 1740, as well as in the _essay on conversation_, it is clear that fielding knew him personally, and disliked him. he may, indeed, have been among those county magnates whose criticism was so objectionable to captain booth during his brief residence in dorsetshire. parson trulliber, also, according to murphy, was fielding's first tutor--mr. oliver of motcombe. but his widow denied the resemblance; and it is hard to believe that this portrait is not overcharged. in all these cases, however, there is no reason for supposing that fielding may not have thoroughly believed in the sincerity of his attempts to avoid the exact reproduction of actual persons, although, rightly or wrongly, his presentments were speedily identified. with ordinary people it is by salient characteristics that a likeness is established; and no variation of detail, however skilful, greatly affects this result. in our own days we have seen that, in spite of both authors, the public declined to believe that the harold skimpole of charles dickens, and george eliot's dinah morris, were not perfectly recognisable copies of living originals. upon its title-page, _joseph andrews_ is declared to be "written in imitation of the manner of cervantes," and there is no doubt that, in addition to being subjected to an unreasonable amount of ill-usage, parson adams has manifest affinities with don quixote. scott, however, seems to have thought that scarron's _roman comique_ was the real model, so far as mock-heroic was concerned; but he must have forgotten that fielding was already the author of _tom thumb_, and that swift had written the _battle of the books_. resemblances--not of much moment-have also been traced to the _paysan parvenu_ and the _histoire de marianne_ of marivaux. with both these books fielding was familiar; in fact, he expressly mentions them, as well as the _roman comique_, in the course of his story, and they doubtless exercised more or less influence upon his plan. but in the preface, from which we have already quoted, he describes that plan; and this, because it is something definite, is more interesting than any speculation as to his determining models. after marking the division of the epic, like the drama, into tragedy and comedy, he points out that it may exist in prose as well as verse, and he proceeds to explain that what he has attempted in _joseph andrews_ is "a comic epic-poem in prose," differing from serious romance in its substitution of a "light and ridiculous" fable for a "grave and solemn" one, of inferior characters for those of superior rank, and of ludicrous for sublime sentiments. sometimes in the diction he has admitted burlesque, but never in the sentiments and characters, where, he contends, it would be out of place. he further defines the only source of the ridiculous to be affectation, of which the chief causes are vanity and hypocrisy. whether this scheme was an after-thought it is difficult to say; but it is certainly necessary to a proper understanding of the author's method--a method which was to find so many imitators. another passage in the preface is worthy of remark. with reference to the pictures of vice which the book contains, he observes: "first, that it is very difficult to pursue a series of human actions, and keep clear from them. secondly, that the vices to be found here [i.e. in _joseph andrews_] are rather the accidental consequences of some human frailty, or foible, than causes habitually existing in the mind. thirdly, that they are never set forth as the objects of ridicule but detestation. fourthly, that they are never the principal figure at the time on the scene; and, lastly, they never produce the intended evil." in reading some pages of fielding it is not always easy to see that he has strictly adhered to these principles; but it is well to recall them occasionally, as constituting at all events the code that he desired to follow. although the popularity of fielding's first novel was considerable, it did not, to judge by the number of editions, at once equal the popularity of the book by which it was suggested. _pamela_, as we have seen, speedily ran through four editions; but it was six months before millar published the second and revised edition of _joseph andrews;_ and the third did not appear until more than a year after the date of first publication. with richardson, as might be expected, it was never popular at all, and to a great extent it is possible to sympathise with his annoyance. the daughter of his brain, whom he had piloted through so many troubles, had grown to him more real than the daughters of his body, and to see her at the height of her fame made contemptible by what in one of his letters he terms "a lewd and ungenerous engraftment," must have been a sore trial to his absorbed and self-conscious nature, and one which not all the consolations of his consistory of feminine flatterers--"my ladies," as the little man called them--could wholly alleviate. but it must be admitted that his subsequent attitude was neither judicious nor dignified. he pursued fielding henceforth with steady depreciation, caught eagerly at any scandal respecting him, professed himself unable to perceive his genius, deplored his "lowness," and comforted himself by reflecting that, if he pleased at all, it was because he had learned the art from _pamela_. of fielding's other contemporary critics, one only need be mentioned here, more on account of his literary eminence than of the special felicity of his judgment. "i have myself," writes gray to west, "upon your recommendation, been reading joseph andrews. the incidents are ill laid and without invention; but the characters have a great deal of nature, which always pleases even in her lowest shapes. parson adams is perfectly well; so is mrs. slipslop, and the story of wilson; and throughout he [_the author_] shews himself well read in stage-coaches, country squires, inns, and inns of court. his reflections upon high people and low people, and misses and masters, are very good. however the exaltedness of some minds (or rather as i shrewdly suspect their insipidity and want of feeling or observation) may make them insensible to these light things, (i mean such as characterise and paint nature) yet surely they are as weighty and much more useful than your grave discourses upon the mind, the passions, and what not." and thereupon follows that fantastic utterance concerning the romances of mm. marivaux and crebillon _fils_, which has disconcerted so many of gray's admirers. we suspect that any reader who should nowadays contrast the sickly and sordid intrigue of the _paysan parvenu_ with the healthy animalism of _joseph andrews_ would greatly prefer the latter. yet gray's verdict, though cold, is not undiscriminating, and is perhaps as much as one could expect from his cloistered and fastidious taste. various anecdotes, all more or less apocryphal, have been related respecting the first appearance of _joseph andrews_, and the sum paid to the author for the copyright. a reference to the original assignment, now in the forster library at south kensington, definitely settles the latter point. the amount in "lawful money of great britain," received by "henry fielding, esq." from "andrew millar of st. clement's danes in the strand," was l183 11s. in this document, as in the order to nourse of which a _facsimile_ is given by roscoe, both the author's name and signature are written with the old-fashioned double f, and he calls himself "fielding" and not "feilding," like the rest of the denbigh family. if we may trust an anecdote given by kippis, lord denbigh once asked his kinsman the reason of this difference. "i cannot tell, my lord," returned the novelist, "unless it be that my branch of the family was the first that learned to spell." in connection with this assignment, however, what is perhaps even more interesting than these discrepancies is the fact that one of the witnesses was william young. thus we have parson adams acting as witness to the sale of the very book which he had helped to immortalise. chapter iv. the miscellanies--jonathan wild. in march 1742, according to an article in the _gentleman's magazine_, attributed to samuel johnson, "the most popular topic of conversation" was the _account of the conduct of the dowager dutchess of marlborough, from her first coming to court, to the year 1710_, which, with the help of hooke of the _roman history_, the "terrible old sarah" had just put forth. among the little cloud of _sarah-ads_ and _old wives' tales_ evoked by this production, was a _vindication_ of her grace by fielding, specially prompted, as appears from the title-page, by the "late _scurrilous_ pamphlet" of a "noble author." if this were not acknowledged to be from fielding's pen in the preface to the _miscellanies_ (in which collection, however, it is not reprinted), its authorship would be sufficiently proved by its being included with _miss lucy in town_ in the assignment to andrew millar referred to at the close of the preceding chapter. the price millar paid for it was l5 5s, or exactly half that of the farce. but it is only reasonable to assume that the duchess herself (who is said to have given hooke l5000 for his help) also rewarded her champion. whether fielding's admiration for the "glorious woman" in whose cause he had drawn his pen was genuine, or whether--to use johnson's convenient euphemism concerning hooke--"he was acting only ministerially," are matters for speculation. his father, however, had served under the duke, and there may have been a traditional attachment to the churchills on the part of his family. it has even been ingeniously suggested that sarah fielding was her grace's god-child; [footnote: _memoirs of sarah, duchess of marlborough_, etc., by mrs. a. t. thomson, 1839.] but as her mother's name was also sarah, no importance can be attached to the suggestion. _miss lucy in town_, as its sub-title explains, was a sequel to the _virgin unmask'd_, and was produced at drury lane in may 1742. as already stated in chapter ii., fielding's part in it was small. it is a lively but not very creditable trifle, which turns upon certain equivocal london experiences of the miss lucy of the earlier piece; and it seems to have been chiefly intended to afford an opportunity for some clever imitation of the reigning italian singers by mrs. clive and the famous tenor beard. horace walpole, who refers to it in a letter to mann, between an account of the opening of ranelagh and an anecdote of mrs. bracegirdle, calls it "a little simple farce," and says that "mrs. clive mimics the muscovita admirably, and beard amorevoli tolerably." mr. walpole detested the muscovita, and adored amorevoli, which perhaps accounts for the nice discrimination shown in his praise. one of the other characters, mr. zorobabel, a jew, was taken by macklin, and from another, mrs. haycock (afterwards changed to mrs. midnight), foote is supposed to have borrowed mother cole in _the minor_. a third character, lord bawble, was considered to reflect upon "a particular person of quality," and the piece was speedily forbidden by the lord chamberlain, although it appears to have been acted a few months later without opposition. one of the results of the prohibition, according to mr. lawrence, was a _letter to a noble lord_ (the lord chamberlain) ... _occasioned by a representation ... of a farce called "miss lucy in town."_ this, in spite of the caveat in the preface to the _miscellanies_, he ascribes to fielding, and styles it "a sharp expostulation ... in which he [fielding] disavowed any idea of a personal attack." but mr. lawrence must plainly have been misinformed on the subject, for the pamphlet bears little sign of fielding's hand. as far as it is intelligible, it is rather against miss lucy than for her, and it makes no reference to lord bawble's original. the name of this injured patrician seems indeed never to have transpired; but he could scarcely have been in any sense an exceptional member of the georgian aristocracy. in the same month that _miss lucy in town_ appeared at drury lane, millar published it in book form. in the following june, t. waller of the temple-cloisters issued the first of a contemplated series of translations from aristophanes by henry fielding, esq., and the rev. william young who sat for parson adams. the play chosen was _plutus, the god of riches_, and a notice upon the original cover stated that, according to the reception it met with from the public, it would be followed by the others. it must be presumed that "the distressed, and at present, declining state of learning" to which the authors referred in their dedication to lord talbot, was not a mere form of speech, for the enterprise does not seem to have met with sufficient encouragement to justify its continuance, and this special rendering has long since been supplanted by the more modern versions of mitchell, frere, and others. whether fielding took any large share in it is not now discernible. it is most likely, however, that the bulk of the work was young's, and that his colleague did little more than furnish the preface, which is partly written in the first person, and betrays its origin by a sudden and not very relevant attack upon the "pretty, dapper, brisk, smart, pert dialogue" of modern comedy into which the "infinite wit" of wycherley had degenerated under cibber. it also contains a compliment to the numbers of the "inimitable author" of the _essay on man_. this is the second compliment which fielding had paid to pope within a brief period, the first having been that in the _champion_ respecting the translation of the _iliad_. what his exact relations with the author of the _dunciad_ were, has never been divulged. at first they seem to have been rather hostile than friendly. fielding had ridiculed the romish church in the _old debauchees_, a course which pope could scarcely have approved; and he was, moreover, the cousin of lady mary, now no longer throned in the twickenham temple. pope had commented upon a passage in _tom thumb_, and fielding had indirectly referred to pope in the _covent garden tragedy_. when it had been reported that pope had gone to see _pasquin_, the statement had been at once contradicted. but fielding was now, like pope, against walpole; and _joseph andrews_ had been published. it may therefore be that the compliments in _plutus_ and the _champion_ were the result of some _rapprochement_ between the two. it is, nevertheless, curious that, at this very time, an attempt appears to have been made to connect the novelist with the controversy which presently arose out of cibber's well-known letter to pope. in august 1742, the month following its publication, among the pamphlets to which it gave rise, was announced _the cudgel; or, a crab-tree lecture, to the author of the dunciad_. "by hercules vinegar, esq." this very mediocre satire in verse is still to be found at the british museum; but even if it were not included in fielding's general disclaimer as to unsigned work, it would be difficult to connect it with him. to give but one reason, it would make him the ally and adherent of cibber,--which is absurd. in all probability, like another grub street squib under the same pseudonym, it was by ralph, who had already attacked pope, and continued to maintain the captain's character in the _champion_ long after fielding had ceased to write for it. it is even possible that ralph had some share in originating the vinegar family, for it is noticeable that the paper in which they are first introduced bears no initials. in this case he would consider himself free to adopt the name, however disadvantageous that course might be to fielding's reputation. and it is clear that, whatever their relations had been in the past, they were for the time on opposite sides in politics, since while fielding had been vindicating the duchess of marlborough, ralph had been writing against her. these, however, are minor questions, the discussion of which would lead too far from the main narrative of fielding's life. in the same letter in which walpole had referred to _miss lucy in town_, he had spoken of the success of a new player at goodman's fields, after whom all the town, in gray's phrase, was "horn-mad;" but in whose acting mr. walpole, with a critical distrust of novelty, saw nothing particularly wonderful. this was david garrick. he had been admitted a student of lincoln's inn a year before fielding entered the middle temple, had afterwards turned wine-merchant, and was now delighting london by his versatility in comedy, tragedy, and farce. one of his earliest theatrical exploits, according to sir john hawkins, had been a private representation of fielding's _mock-doctor_, in a room over the st. john's gate, clerkenwell, so long familiar to subscribers of the _gentleman's magazine_; his fellow-actors being cave's journeymen printers, and his audience cave, johnson, and a few friends. after this he appears to have made the acquaintance of fielding; and late in 1742, applied to him to know if he had "any play by him," as "he was desirous of appearing in a new part." as a matter of fact fielding had two plays by him--the _goodnatured man_ (a title subsequently used by goldsmith), and a piece called _the wedding day_. the former was almost finished: the latter was an early work, being indeed "the third dramatic performance he ever attempted." the necessary arrangements having been made with mr. fleetwood, the manager of drury lane, fielding set to work to complete the _good-natured man_, which he considered the better of the two. when he had done so, he came to the conclusion that it required more attention than he could give it; and moreover, that the part allotted to garrick, although it satisfied the actor, was scarcely important enough. he accordingly reverted to the _wedding day_, the central character of which had been intended for wilks. it had many faults which none saw more clearly than the author himself, but he hoped that garrick's energy and _prestige_ would triumphantly surmount all obstacles. he hoped, as well, to improve it by revision. the dangerous illness of his wife, however, made it impossible for him to execute his task; and, as he was pressed for money, the _wedding day_ was produced on the 17th of february 1743, apparently much as it had been first written some dozen years before. as might be anticipated, it was not a success. the character of millamour is one which it is hard to believe that even garrick could have made attractive, and though others of the parts were entrusted to mrs. woffington, mrs. pritchard, and macklin, it was acted but six nights. the author's gains were under l50. in the preface to the _miscellanies_, from which most of the foregoing account is taken, fielding, as usual, refers its failure to other causes than its inherent defects. rumours, he says, had been circulated as to its indecency (and in truth some of the scenes are more than hazardous); but it had passed the licenser, and must be supposed to have been up to the moral standard of the time. its unfavourable reception, as fielding must have known in his heart, was due to its artistic shortcomings, and also to the fact that a change was taking place in the public taste. it is in connection with the _wedding day_ that one of the best-known anecdotes of the author is related. garrick had begged him to retrench a certain objectionable passage. this fielding, either from indolence or unwillingness, declined to do, asserting that if it was not good, the audience might find it out. the passage was promptly hissed, and garrick returned to the green-room, where the author was solacing himself with a bottle of champagne. "what is the matter, garrick?" said he to the flustered actor; "what are they hissing now?" he was informed with some heat that they had been hissing the very scene he had been asked to withdraw, "and," added garrick, "they have so frightened me, that i shall not be able to collect myself again the whole night"--"oh!" answered the author, with an oath, "they have found it out, have they?" this rejoinder is usually quoted as an instance of fielding's contempt for the intelligence of his audience; but nine men in ten, it may be observed, would have said something of the same sort. the only other thing which need be referred to in connection with this comedy--the last of his own dramatic works which fielding ever witnessed upon the stage--is macklin's doggerel prologue. mr. lawrence attributes this to fielding; but he seems to have overlooked the fact that in the _miscellanies_ it is headed, "_writ_ and spoken by mr. macklin," which gives it more interest as the work of an outsider than if it had been a mere laugh by the author at himself. garrick is represented as too busy to speak the prologue; and fielding, who has been "drinking to raise his spirits," has begged macklin with his "long, dismal, mercy-begging face," to go on and apologise. macklin then pretends to recognise him among the audience, and pokes fun at his anxieties, telling him that he had better have stuck to "honest _abram adams_," who, "in spight of critics, can make his readers laugh." the words "in spite of critics" indicate another distinction between fielding's novels and plays, which should have its weight in any comparison of them. the censors of the pit, in the eighteenth century, seem to have exercised an unusual influence in deciding whether a play should succeed or not; [footnote: miller's _coffee-house_, 1737, for example, was damned by the templars because it was supposed to reflect on the keepers of "dick's."--(_biog. dramatica_.)] and, from fielding's frequent references to friends and enemies, it would almost seem as if he believed their suffrages to be more important than a good plot and a witty dialogue. on the other hand, no coterie of wits and templars could kill a book like _joseph andrews_. to say nothing of the opportunities afforded by the novel for more leisurely character-drawing, and greater by-play of reflection and description--its reader was an isolated and independent judge; and in the long run the difference told wonderfully in favour of the author. macklin was obviously right in recommending fielding, even in jest, to stick to parson adams, and from the familiar publicity of the advice it may also be inferred, not only that the opinion was one commonly current, but that the novel was unusually popular. the _wedding day_ was issued separately in february 1743. it must therefore be assumed that the three volumes of _miscellanies_, by henry fielding, esq., in which it was reprinted, and to which reference has so often been made in these pages, did not appear until later. [footnote: by advertisement in the _london daily post and general advertiser_, they would seem to have been published early in april 1743.] they were published by subscription; and the list, in addition to a large number of aristocratic and legal names, contains some of more permanent interest. side by side with the chesterfields and marlboroughs and burlingtons and denbighs, come william pitt and henry fox, esqs., with dodington and winnington and hanbury williams. the theatrical world is well represented by garrick and mrs. woffington and mrs. clive. literature has no names of any eminence except that of young; for savage and whitehead, mallet and benjamin hoadly, are certainly _ignes minores_. pope is conspicuous for his absence; so also are horace walpole and gray, while richardson, of course, is wanting. johnson, as yet only the author of _london_, and journeyman to cave, could scarcely be expected in the roll; and, in any case, his friendship for the author of _pamela_ would probably have kept him away. among some other wellknown eighteenth century names are those of dodsley and millar the booksellers, and the famous vauxhall _impresario_ jonathan tyers. the first volume of the _miscellanies_, besides a lengthy preface, includes the author's poems, essays _on conversation_, _on the knowledge of the characters of men_, _on nothing_, a squib upon the transactions of the royal society, a translation from demosthenes, and one or two minor pieces. much of the biographical material contained in the preface has already been made use of, as well as those verses which can be definitely dated, or which relate to the author's love-affairs. the hitherto unnoticed portions of the volume consist chiefly of epistles, in the orthodox eighteenth century fashion. one--already referred to--is headed _of true greatness_; another, inscribed to the duke of richmond, _of good-nature_; while a third is addressed to a friend _on the choice of a wife_. this last contains some sensible lines, but although roscoe has managed to extract two quotable passages, it is needless to imitate him here. these productions show no trace of the authentic fielding. the essays are more remarkable, although, like montaigne's, they are scarcely described by their titles. that on _conversation_ is really a little treatise on good breeding; that on the _characters of men_, a lay sermon against fielding's pet antipathy--hypocrisy. nothing can well be wiser, even now, than some of the counsels in the former of these papers on such themes as the limits of raillery, the duties of hospitality, and the choice of subject in general conversation. nor, however threadbare they may look to-day, can the final conclusions be reasonably objected to:--"first, that every person who indulges his ill-nature or vanity, at the expense of others; and in introducing uneasiness, vexation, and confusion into society, however exalted or high-titled he may be, is thoroughly ill-bred;" and "secondly, that whoever, from the goodness of his disposition or understanding, endeavours to his utmost to cultivate the good-humour and happiness of others, and to contribute to the ease and comfort of all his acquaintance, however low in rank fortune may have placed him, or however clumsy he may be in his figure or demeanour, hath, in the truest sense of the word, a claim to good-breeding." one fancies that this essay must have been a favourite with the historian of the _book of snobs_ and the creator of major dobbin. the _characters of men_ is not equal to the _conversation._ the theme is a wider one; and the end proposed,--that of supplying rules for detecting the real disposition through all the social disguises which cloak and envelop it,--can scarcely be said to be attained. but there are happy touches even in this; and when the author says--"i will venture to affirm, that i have known some of _the best sort of men in the world_ (to use the vulgar phrase,) who would not have scrupled cutting a friend's throat; and _a fellow whom no man should be seen to speak to_, capable of the highest acts of friendship and benevolence," one recognises the hand that made the sole good samaritan in joseph andrews "a lad who hath since been transported for robbing a hen-roost." the account of the terrestrial chrysipus or guinea, a burlesque on a paper read before the royal society on the fresh water polypus, is chiefly interesting from the fact that it is supposed to be written by petrus gualterus (peter walter), who had an "extraordinary collection" of them. he died, in fact, worth l300,000. the only other paper in the volume of any value is a short one _of the remedy of affliction for the loss of our friends_, to which we shall presently return. the farce of _eurydice_, and the _wedding day_, which, with _a journey from this world to the next_, etc., make up the contents of the second volume of the _miscellanies_, have been already sufficiently discussed. but the _journey_ deserves some further notice. it has been suggested that this curious lucianic production may have been prompted by the vision of mercury and charon in the _champion_, though the kind of allegory of which it consists is common enough with the elder essayists; and it is notable that another book was published in april 1743, under the title of _cardinal fleury's journey to the other world_, which is manifestly suggested by quevedo. fielding's _journey_, however, is a fragment which the author feigns to have found in the garret of a stationer in the strand. sixteen out of five-and-twenty chapters in book i. are occupied with the transmigrations of julian the apostate, which are not concluded. then follows another chapter from book xix., which contains the history of anna boleyn, and the whole breaks off abruptly. its best portion is undoubtedly the first ten chapters, which relate the writer's progress to elysium, and afford opportunity for many strokes of satire. such are the whimsical terror of the spiritual traveller in the stagecoach, who hears suddenly that his neighbour has died of smallpox, a disease he had been dreading all his life; and the punishment of lord scrape, the miser, who is doomed to dole out money to all comers, and who, after "being purified in the body of a hog," is ultimately to return to earth again. nor is the delight of some of those who profit by his enforced assistance less keenly realised:--"i remarked a poetical spirit in particular, who swore he would have a hearty gripe at him: 'for, says he, the rascal not only refused to subscribe to my works; but sent back my letter unanswered, tho' i'm a better gentleman than himself.'" the descriptions of the city of diseases, the palace of death, and the wheel of fortune from which men draw their chequered lots, are all unrivalled in their way. but here, as always, it is in his pictures of human nature that fielding shines, and it is this that makes the chapters in which minos is shown adjudicating upon the separate claims of the claimants to enter elysium the most piquant of all. the virtuoso and butterfly hunter, who is repulsed "with great scorn;" the dramatic author who is admitted (to his disgust), not on account of his works, but because he has once lent "the whole profits of a benefit night to a friend;" the parson who is turned back, while his poor parishioners are admitted; and the trembling wretch who has been hanged for a robbery of eighteen-pence, to which he had been driven by poverty, but whom the judge welcomes cordially because he had been a kind father, husband, and son; all these are conceived in that humane and generous spirit which is fielding's most engaging characteristic. the chapter immediately following, which describes the literary and other inhabitants of elysium, is even better. here is leonidas, who appears to be only moderately gratified with the honour recently done him by mr. glover the poet; here is homer, toying with madam dacier, and profoundly indifferent as to his birthplace and the continuity of his poems; here, too, is shakespeare, who, foreseeing future commentators and the "new shakespere society," declines to enlighten betterton and booth as to a disputed passage in his works, adding, "i marvel nothing so much as that men will gird themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author. certes the greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest and most evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can in the least ballance our judgements which to prefer, i hold it matter of unquestionable certainty that neither is worth a farthing." then, again, there are addison and steele, who are described with so pleasant a knowledge of their personalities that, although the passage has been often quoted, there seems to be no reason why it should not be quoted once more:-"_virgil_ then came up to me, with mr. _addison_ under his arm. well, sir, said he, how many translations have these few last years produced of my _aeneid_? i told him, i believed several, but i could not possibly remember; for i had never read any but dr. _trapp's_. [footnote: dr. trapp's translation of the aeneid was published in 1718.]--ay, said he, that is a curious piece indeed! i then acquainted him with the discovery made by mr. _warburton_ of the _eleusinian_ mysteries couched in his 6th book. what mysteries? said mr. _addison_. the _eleusinian_, answered _virgil_, which i have disclosed in my 6th book. how! replied _addison_. you never mentioned a word of any such mysteries to me in all our acquaintance. i thought it was unnecessary, cried the other, to a man of your infinite learning: besides, you always told me, you perfectly understood my meaning. upon this i thought the critic looked a little out of countenance, and turned aside to a very merry spirit, one _dick steele_, who embraced him, and told him, he had been the greatest man upon earth; that he readily resigned up all the merit of his own works to him. upon which, _addison_ gave him a gracious smile, and clapping him on the back with much solemnity, cried out, _well said, dick._" after encountering these and other notabilities, including tom thumb and livy, the latter of whom takes occasion to commend the ingenious performances of lady marlborough's assistant, mr. hooke, the author meets with julian the apostate, and from this point the narrative grows languid. its unfinished condition may perhaps be accepted as a proof that fielding himself had wearied of his scheme. the third volume of the _miscellanies_ is wholly occupied with the remarkable work entitled the _history of the life of the late mr. jonathan wild the great_. as in the case of the _journey from this world to the next_, it is not unlikely that the first germ of this may be found in the pages of the _champion_. "reputation"--says fielding in one of the essays in that periodical--"often courts those most who regard her the least. actions have sometimes been attended with fame, which were undertaken in defiance of it. _jonathan wyld_ himself had for many years no small share of it in this kingdom." the book now under consideration is the elaboration of the idea thus casually thrown out. under the name of a notorious thief-taker hanged at tyburn in 1725, fielding has traced the progress of a rogue to the gallows, showing by innumerable subtle touches that the (so-called) greatness of a villain does not very materially differ from any other kind of greatness, which is equally independent of goodness. this continually suggested affinity between the ignoble and the pseudo-noble is the text of the book. against genuine worth (its author is careful to explain) his satire is in no wise directed. he is far from considering "_newgate_ as no other than human nature with its mask off;" but he thinks "we may be excused for suspecting, that the splendid palaces of the great are often no other than _newgate_ with the mask on." thus _jonathan wild the great_ is a prolonged satire upon the spurious eminence in which benevolence, honesty, charity, and the like have no part; or, as fielding prefers to term it, that false or "bombast greatness" which is so often mistaken for the "_true sublime_ in human nature"--greatness and goodness combined. so thoroughly has he explained his intention in the prefaces to the _miscellanies_, and to the book itself, that it is difficult to comprehend how scott could fail to see his drift. possibly, like some others, he found the subject repugnant and painful to his kindly nature. possibly, too, he did not, for this reason, study the book very carefully, for, with the episode of heartfree under one's eyes, it is not strictly accurate to say (as he does) that it presents "a picture of complete vice, _unrelieved by any thing of human feeling_, and never by any accident even deviating into virtue." if the author's introduction be borne in mind, and if the book be read steadily in the light there supplied, no one can refrain from admiring the extraordinary skill and concentration with which the plan is pursued, and the adroitness with which, at every turn, the villainy of wild is approximated to that of those securer and more illustrious criminals with whom he is so seldom confused. and fielding has never carried one of his chief and characteristic excellences to so great perfection: the book is a model of sustained and sleepless irony. to make any extracts from it--still less to make any extracts which should do justice to it, is almost impracticable; but the edifying discourse between wild and count la ruse in book i., and the pure comedy of that in book iv. with the ordinary of newgate (who objects to wine, but drinks punch because "it is no where spoken against in scripture"), as well as the account of the prison faction between wild and johnson, [footnote: some critics at this point appear to have identified johnson and wild with lord wilmington and sir robert walpole (who resigned in 1742), while mr. keightley suspects that wild throughout typifies walpole. but the advertisement "from the publisher" to the edition of 1754 disclaims any such "personal application." "the truth is (he says), as a very corrupt state of morals is here represented, the scene seems very properly to have been laid in newgate: nor do i see any reason for introducing any allegory at all; unless we will agree that there are, without those walls, some other bodies of men of worse morals than those within; and who have, consequently, a right to change places with its present inhabitants." the writer was probably fielding.] with its admirable speech of the "grave man" against party, may all be cited as examples of its style and method. nor should the character of wild in the last chapter, and his famous rules of conduct, be neglected. it must be admitted, however, that the book is not calculated to suit the nicely-sensitive in letters; or, it may be added, those readers for whom the evolution of a purely intellectual conception is either unmeaning or uninteresting. its place in fielding's works is immediately after his three great novels, and this is more by reason of its subject than its workmanship, which could hardly be excelled. when it was actually composed is doubtful. if it may be connected with the already-quoted passage in the _champion_, it must be placed after march 1740, which is the date of the paper; but, from a reference to peter pounce in book ii., it might also be supposed to have been written after _joseph andrews_. the bath simile in chapter xiv. book i., makes it likely that some part of it was penned at that place, where, from an epigram in the _miscellanies_ "written _extempore_ in the pump room," it is clear that fielding was staying in 1742. but, whenever it was completed, we are inclined to think that it was planned and begun before _joseph andrews_ was published, as it is in the highest degree improbable that fielding, always carefully watching the public taste, would have followed up that fortunate adventure in a new direction by a work so entirely different from it as _jonathan wild_. a second edition of the _miscellanies_ appeared in the same year as the first, namely in 1743. from this date until the publication of _tom jones_ in 1749, fielding produced no work of signal importance, and his personal history for the next few years is exceedingly obscure. we are inclined to suspect that this must have been the most trying period of his career. his health was shattered, and he had become a martyr to gout, which seriously interfered with the active practice of his profession. again, "about this time," says murphy vaguely, after speaking of the _wedding day_, he lost his first wife. that she was alive in the winter of 1742-3 is clear, for, in the preface to the _miscellanies_, he describes himself as being then laid up, "with a favourite child dying in one bed, and my wife in a condition very little better, on another, attended with other circumstances, which served as very proper decorations to such a scene,"--by which mr. keightley no doubt rightly supposes him to refer to writs and bailiffs. it must also be assumed that mrs. fielding was alive when the preface was written, since, in apologising for an apparent delay in publishing the book, he says the "real reason" was "the dangerous illness of one from whom i _draw_ [the italics are ours] all the solid comfort of my life." there is another unmistakable reference to her in one of the minor papers in the first volume, viz. that _of the remedy of affliction for the loss of our friends_. "i remember the most excellent of women, and tenderest of mothers, when, after a painful and dangerous delivery, she was told she had a daughter, answering; _good god! have i produced a creature who is to undergo what i have suffered!_ some years afterwards, i heard the same woman, on the death of that very child, then one of the loveliest creatures ever seen, comforting herself with reflecting, that _her child could never know what it was to feel such a loss as she then lamented_." were it not for the passages already quoted from the preface, it might almost be concluded from the tone of the foregoing quotation and the final words of the paper, which refer to our meeting with those we have lost in heaven, that mrs. fielding was already dead. but the use of the word "draw" in the preface affords distinct evidence to the contrary. it is therefore most probable that she died in the latter part of 1743, having been long in a declining state of health. for a time her husband was inconsolable. "the fortitude of mind," says murphy, "with which he met all the other calamities of life, deserted him on this most trying occasion." his grief was so vehement "that his friends began to think him in danger of losing his reason." that fielding had depicted his first wife in sophia western has already been pointed out, and we have the authority of lady mary wortley montagu and richardson for saying that she was afterwards reproduced in _amelia_. "amelia," says the latter, in a letter to mrs. donnellan, "even to her _noselessness_, is again his first wife." some of her traits, too, are to be detected in the mrs. wilson of _joseph andrews_. but, beyond these indications, we hear little about her. almost all that is definitely known is contained in a passage of the admirable _introductory anecdotes_ contributed by lady louisa stuart in 1837 to lord wharncliffe's edition of lady mary wortley montagu's _letters and works_. this account was based upon the recollections of lady bute, lady mary's daughter. "only those persons (says lady stuart) are mentioned here of whom lady bute could speak from her own recollection or her mother's report. both had made her well informed of every particular that concerned her relation henry fielding; nor was she a stranger to that beloved first wife whose picture he drew in his amelia, where, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident related in the novel,--a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose. [footnote: that any one could have remained lovely after such a catastrophe is difficult to believe. but probably lady bute (or lady stuart) exaggerated its effects; for--to say nothing of the fact that, throughout the novel, amelia's beauty is continually commended--in the delightfully feminine description which is given of her by mrs. james in book xi. chap. i., pp. 114-15 of the first edition of 1752, although she is literally pulled to pieces, there is no reference whatever to her nose, which may be taken as proof positive that it was not an assailable feature. moreover, in the book as we now have it, fielding, obviously in deference to contemporary criticism, inserted the following specific passages:--"she was, indeed, a most charming woman; and i know not whether the little scar on her nose did not rather add to, than diminish her beauty" (book iv. chap, vii.); and in mrs. james's portrait:--"then her nose, as well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side." no previous biographer seems to have thought it necessary to make any mention of these statements, while johnson's speech about "that vile broken nose, _never cured_," and richardson's coarsely-malignant utterance to mrs. donnellan, are everywhere industriously remembered and repeated.] he loved her passionately, and she returned his affection; yet led no happy life, for they were almost always miserably poor, and seldom in a state of quiet and safety. all the world knows what was his imprudence; if ever he possessed a score of pounds, nothing could keep him from lavishing it idly, or make him think of tomorrow. sometimes they were living in decent lodgings with tolerable comfort; sometimes in a wretched garret without necessaries; not to speak of the spunginghouses and hiding-places where he was occasionally to be found. his elastic gaiety of spirit carried him through it all; but, meanwhile, care and anxiety were preying upon her more delicate mind, and undermining her constitution. she gradually declined, caught a fever, and died in his arms." as usual, mr. keightley has done his best to test this statement to the utmost. part of his examination may be neglected, because it is based upon the misconception that lord wharncliffe, lady mary's greatgrandson, and not lady stuart, her granddaughter, was the writer of the foregoing account. but as a set-off to the extreme destitution alleged, mr. keightley very justly observes that mrs. fielding must for some time have had a maid, since it was a maid who had been devotedly attached to her whom fielding subsequently married. he also argues that "living in a garret and skulking in out o' the way retreats," are incompatible with studying law and practising as a barrister. making every allowance, however, for the somewhat exaggerated way in which those of high rank often speak of the distresses of their less opulent kinsfolk, it is probable that fielding's married life was one of continual shifts and privations. such a state of things is completely in accordance with his profuse nature [footnote: the passage as to his imprudence is, oddly enough, omitted from mr. keightley's quotation.] and his precarious means. of his family by the first mrs. fielding no very material particulars have been preserved. writing, in november 1745, in the _true patriot_, he speaks of having a son and a daughter, but no son by his first wife seems to have survived him. the late colonel chester found the burial of a "james fielding, son of henry fielding," recorded under date of 19th february 1736, in the register of st. giles in the fields; but it is by no means certain that this entry refers to the novelist. a daughter, harriet or harriot, certainly did survive him, for she is mentioned in the _voyage to lisbon_ as being of the party who accompanied him. another daughter, as already stated, probably died in the winter of 1742-3; and the _journey from this world to the next_ contains the touching reference to this or another child, of which dickens writes so warmly in one of his letters. "i presently," says fielding, speaking of his entrance into elysium, "met a little daughter, whom i had lost several years before. good gods! what words can describe the raptures, the melting passionate tenderness, with which we kiss'd each other, continuing in our embrace, with the most extatic joy, a space, which if time had been measured here as on earth, could not have been less than half a year." from the death of mrs. fielding until the publication of the _true patriot_ in 1745 another comparative blank ensues in fielding's history; and it can only be filled by the assumption that he was still endeavouring to follow his profession as a barrister. his literary work seems to have been confined to a preface to the second edition of his sister's novel of _david simple_, which appeared in 1744. this, while rendering fraternal justice to that now forgotten book, is memorable for some personal utterances on fielding's part. in denying the authorship of _david simple_, which had been attributed to him, he takes occasion to appeal against the injustice of referring anonymous works to his pen, in the face of his distinct engagement in the preface to the _miscellanies_, that he would thenceforth write nothing except over his own signature; and he complains that such a course has a tendency to injure him in a profession to which "he has applied with so arduous and intent a diligence, that he has had no leisure, if he had inclination, to compose anything of this kind (i.e. _david simple_)." at the same time, he formally withdraws his promise, since it has in no wise exempted him from the scandal of putting forth anonymous work. from other passages in this "preface," it may be gathered the immediate cause of irritation was the assignment to his pen of "that infamous paultry libel" the _causidicade_, a satire directed at the law in general, and some of the subscribers to the _miscellanies_ in particular. "this," he says, "accused me not only of being a bad writer, and a bad man, but with downright idiotism, in flying in the face of the greatest men of my profession." it may easily be conceived that such a report must be unfavourable to a struggling barrister, and fielding's anxiety on this head is a strong proof that he was still hoping to succeed at the bar. to a subsequent collection of _familiar letters between the principal characters in david simple and some others_, he supplied another preface three years later, together with five little-known epistles which, nevertheless, are not without evidence of his characteristic touch. a life of ups and downs like fielding's is seldom remarkable for its consistency. it is therefore not surprising to find that, despite his desire in 1744 to refrain from writing, he was again writing in 1745. the landing of charles edward attracted him once more into the ranks of journalism, on the side of the government, and gave rise to the _true patriot_, a weekly paper, the first number of which appeared in november. this, having come to an end with the rebellion, was succeeded in december 1747 by the _jacobite's journal_, supposed to emanate from "john trott-plaid, esq.," and intended to push the discomfiture of jacobite sentiment still further. it is needless to discuss these mainly political efforts at any length. they are said to have been highly approved by those in power: it is certain that they earned for their author the stigma of "pension'd scribbler." both are now very rare; and in murphy the former is represented by twenty-four numbers, the latter by two only. the _true patriot_ contains a dream of london abandoned to the rebels, which is admirably graphic; and there is also a prophetic chronicle of events for 1746, in which the same idea is treated in a lighter and more satirical vein. but perhaps the most interesting feature is the reappearance of parson adams, who addresses a couple of letters to the same periodical--one on the rising generally, and the other on the "young england" of the day, as exemplified in a very offensive specimen he had recently encountered at mr. wilson's. other minor points of interest in connection with the _jacobite's journal_, are the tradition associating hogarth with the rude woodcut headpiece (a scotch man and woman on an ass led by a monk) which surmounted its earlier numbers, and the genial welcome given in no. 5, perhaps not without some touch of contrition, to the two first volumes, then just published, of richardson's _clarissa_. the pen is the pen of an imaginary "correspondent," but the words are unmistakably fielding's:-"when i tell you i have lately received this pleasure [i.e. of reading a new master-piece], you will not want me to inform you that i owe it to the author of clarissa. such simplicity, such manners, such deep penetration into nature; such power to raise and alarm the passions, few writers, either ancient or modern, have been possessed of. my affections are so strongly engaged, and my fears are so raised, by what i have already read, that i cannot express my eagerness to see the rest. sure this mr. _richardson_ is master of all that art which _horace_ compares to witchcraft --pectus inaniter angit, irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet ut magus.--" between the discontinuance of the true patriot and the establishment of its successor occurred an event, the precise date of which has been hitherto unknown, namely, fielding's second marriage. the account given of this by lady louisa stuart is as follows:-"his [fielding's] biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the death of this charming woman [his first wife] he married her maid. and yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. the maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. in the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. this made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. at least this was what he told his friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." it has now been ascertained that the marriage took place at st. bene't's, paul's wharf, an obscure little church in the city, at present surrendered to a welsh congregation, but at that time, like mary-le-bone old church, much in request for unions of a private character. the date in the register is the 27th of november 1747. the second mrs. fielding's maiden name, which has been hitherto variously reported as macdonnell, macdonald, and macdaniel, is given as mary daniel, [footnote: see note to fielding's letter in chap. vii.] and she is further described as "of st clement's danes, middlesex, spinster." either previously to this occurrence, or immediately after it, fielding seems to have taken two rooms in a house in back lane, twickenham, "not far," says the rev. mr. cobbett in his _memorials_, "from the site of copt hall." in 1872 this house was still standing,--a quaint old-fashioned wooden structure; [footnote: now (1883) it no longer exists, and a row of cottages occupies the site.]--and from hence, on the 25th february 1748, was baptized the first of the novelist's sons concerning whom any definite information exists--the william fielding who, like his father, became a westminster magistrate. beyond suggesting that it may supply a reason why, during mrs. fielding's life-time, her husband's earliest biographer made no reference to the marriage, it is needless to dwell upon the proximity between the foregoing dates. in other respects the circumstance now first made public is not inconsistent with lady stuart's narrative; and there is no doubt, from the references to her in the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ and elsewhere, that mary daniel did prove an excellent wife, mother, and nurse. another thing is made clear by the date established, and this is that the verses "on felix; marry'd to a cook-maid" in the _gentleman's magazine_ for july 1746, to which mr. lawrence refers, cannot possibly have anything to do with fielding, although they seem to indicate that alliances of the kind were not unusual. perhaps _pamela_ had made them fashionable. on the other hand, the supposed allusion to lyttelton and fielding, to be found in the first edition of _peregrine pickle_, but afterwards suppressed, receives a certain confirmation. "when," says smollett, speaking of the relations of an imaginary mr. spondy with gosling scrag, who is understood to represent lyttelton, "he is inclined to marry his own cook-wench, his gracious patron may condescend to give the bride away; and may finally settle him in his old age, as a trading westminster justice." that, looking to the facts, fielding's second marriage should have gained the approval and countenance of lyttelton is no more than the upright and honourable character of the latter would lead us to expect. the _jacobite's journal_ ceased to appear in november 1748. in the early part of the december following, the remainder of smollett's programme came to pass, and by lyttelton's interest fielding was appointed a justice of the peace for westminster. from a letter in the _bedford correspondence_, dated 13th december 1748, respecting the lease of a house or houses which would qualify him to act for middlesex, it would seem that the county was afterwards added to his commission. he must have entered upon his office in the first weeks of december, as upon the ninth of that month one john salter was committed to the gatehouse by henry fielding, esq., "of bow street, covent garden, formerly sir thomas de veil's." sir thomas de veil, who died in 1746, and whose _memoirs_ had just been published, could not, however, have been fielding's immediate predecessor. chapter v. tom jones. writing from basingstoke to his brother tom, on the 29th october 1746, joseph warton thus refers to a visit he paid to fielding:-"i wish you had been with me last week, when i spent two evenings with fielding and his sister, who wrote david simple, and you may guess i was very well entertained. the lady indeed retir'd pretty soon, but russell and i sat up with the poet [warton no doubt uses the word here in the sense of 'maker' or 'creator'] till one or two in the morning, and were inexpressibly diverted. i find he values, as he justly may, his joseph andrews above all his writings: he was extremely civil to me, i fancy, on my father's account." [footnote: i.e. the rev. thomas warton, vicar of basingstoke, and sometime professor of poetry at oxford.] this mention of _joseph andrews_ has misled some of fielding's biographers into thinking that he ranked that novel above _tom jones_. but, in october 1746, _tom jones_ had not been published; and, from the absence of any reference to it by warton, it is only reasonable to conclude that it had not yet assumed a definite form, or fielding, who was by no means uncommunicative, would in all probability have spoken of it as an effort from which he expected still greater things. it is clear, too, that at this date he was staying in london, presumably in lodgings with his sister; and it is also most likely that he lived much in town when he was conducting the _true patriot_ and the _jacobite's journal_. at other times he would appear to have had no settled place of abode. there are traditions that _tom jones_ was composed in part at salisbury, in a house at the foot of milford hill; and again that it was written at twiverton, or twerton-on-avon, near bath, where, as the vicar pointed out in _notes and queries_ for march 15th, 1879, there still exists a house called fielding's lodge, over the door of which is a stone crest of a phoenix rising out of a mural coronet. this latter tradition is supported by the statement of mr. richard graves, author of the _spiritual quixote_, and rector, _circa_ 1750, of the neighbouring parish of claverton, who says in his _trifling anecdotes of the late ralph allen_, that fielding while at twerton used to dine almost daily with allen at prior park. there are also traces of his residence at bath itself; and of visits to the seat of lyttelton's father at hagley in worcestershire. towards the close of 1747 he had, as before stated, rooms in back lane, twickenham; and it must be to this or to some earlier period that walpole alludes in his _parish register_ (1759):- "here fielding met his bunter muse and, as they quaff'd the fiery juice, droll nature stamp'd each lucky hit with unimaginable wit;"-a quatrain in which the last lines excuse the first. according to mr. cobbett's already-quoted _memorials of twickenham_, he left that place upon his appointment as a middlesex magistrate, when he moved to bow street. his house in bow street belonged to john, duke of bedford; and he continued to live in it until a short time before his death. it was subsequently occupied by his half-brother and successor, sir john, [footnote: in the riots of '80--as dickens has not forgotten to note in _barnaby rudge_--the house was destroyed by the mob, who burned sir john's goods in the street (boswell's _johnson_, chap. lxx.)] who, writing to the duke in march 1770, to thank him for his munificent gift of an additional ten years to the lease, recalls "that princely instance of generosity which his grace shewed to his late brother, henry fielding." what this was, is not specified. it may have been the gift of the leases of those tenements which, as explained, were necessary to qualify fielding to act as a justice of the peace for the county of middlesex; it may even have been the lease of the bow street house; or it may have been simply a gift of money. but whatever it was, it was something considerable. in his appeal to the duke, at the close of the last chapter, fielding referred to previous obligations, and in his dedication of _tom jones_ to lyttelton, he returns again to his grace's beneficence. another person, of whose kindness grateful but indirect mention is made in the same dedication, is ralph allen, who, according to derrick, the bath m.c., sent the novelist a present of l200, before he had even made his acquaintance, [footnote: derrick's letters, 1767, ii. 95.] which, from the reference to allen in _joseph andrews_, probably began before 1742. lastly, there is lyttelton himself, concerning whom, in addition to a sentence which implies that he actually suggested the writing of _tom jones_, we have the express statements on fielding's part that "without your assistance this history had never been completed," and "i partly owe to you my existence during great part of the time which i have employed in composing it." these words must plainly be accepted as indicating pecuniary help; and, taking all things together, there can be little doubt that for some years antecedent to his appointment as a justice of the peace, fielding was in straitened circumstances, and was largely aided, if not practically supported, by his friends. even supposing him to have been subsidised by government as alleged, his profits from the _true patriot_ and the _jacobite's journal_ could not have been excessive; and his gout, of which he speaks in one of his letters to the duke of bedford, must have been a serious obstacle in the way of his legal labours. _the history of tom jones, a foundling_, was published by andrew millar on the 28th of february 1749, and its appearance in six volumes, 12mo, was announced in the _general advertiser_ of that day's date. there had been no author's name on the title-page of _joseph andrews_; but _tom jones_ was duly described as "by henry fielding, esq.," and bore the motto from horace, seldom so justly applied, of "_mores hominum multorum vidit._" the advertisement also ingenuously stated that as it was "impossible to get sets bound fast enough to answer the demand for them, such gentlemen and ladies as pleased, might have them sew'd in blue paper and boards at the price of 16s a set." the date of issue sufficiently disposes of the statement of cunningham and others, that the book was written at bow street. little more than the dedication, which is preface as well, can have been produced by fielding in his new home. making fair allowance for the usual tardy progress of a book through the press, and taking into consideration the fact that the author was actively occupied with his yet unfamiliar magisterial duties, it is most probable that the last chapter of _tom jones_ had been penned before the end of 1748, and that after that time it had been at the printer's. for the exact price paid to the author by the publisher on this occasion we are indebted to horace walpole, who, writing to george montagu in may 1749, says--"millar the bookseller has done very generously by him [fielding]: finding tom jones, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred." it is time, however, to turn from these particulars to the book itself. in _joseph andrews_, fielding's work had been mainly experimental. he had set out with an intention which had unexpectedly developed into something else. that something else, he had explained, was the comic epic in prose. he had discovered its scope and possibilities only when it was too late to re-cast his original design; and though _joseph andrews_ has all the freshness and energy of a first attempt in a new direction, it has also the manifest disadvantages of a mixed conception and an uncertain plan. no one had perceived these defects more plainly than the author; and in _tom jones_ he set himself diligently to perfect his new-found method. he believed that he foresaw a "new province of writing," of which he regarded himself with justice as the founder and lawgiver; and in the "prolegomenous, or introductory chapters" to each book--those delightful resting-spaces where, as george eliot says, "he seems to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine english"--he takes us, as it were, into his confidence, and discourses frankly of his aims and his way of work. he looked upon these little "initial essays" indeed, as an indispensable part of his scheme. they have given him, says he more than once, "the greatest pains in composing" of any part of his book, and he hopes that, like the greek and latin mottoes in the _spectator_, they may serve to secure him against imitation by inferior authors. [footnote: notwithstanding this warning, cumberland (who copied so much) copied these in his novel of _henry_. on the other hand, fielding's french and polish translators omitted them as superfluous.] naturally a great deal they contain is by this time commonplace, although it was unhackneyed enough when fielding wrote. the absolute necessity in work of this kind for genius, learning, and knowledge of the world, the constant obligation to preserve character and probability--to regard variety and the law of contrast:--these are things with which the modern tiro (however much he may fail to possess or observe them) is now supposed to be at least theoretically acquainted. but there are other chapters in which fielding may also be said to reveal his personal point of view, and these can scarcely be disregarded. his "fare," he says, following the language of the table, is "human nature," which he shall first present "in that more plain and simple manner in which it is found in the country," and afterwards "hash and ragoo it with all the high _french_ and _italian_ seasoning of affectation and vice which courts and cities afford." his inclination, he admits, is rather to the middle and lower classes than to "the highest life," which he considers to present "very little humour or entertainment." his characters (as before) are based upon actual experience; or, as he terms it, "conversation." he does not propose to present his reader with "models of perfection;" he has never happened to meet with those "faultless monsters." he holds that mankind is constitutionally defective, and that a single bad act does not, of necessity, imply a bad nature. he has also observed, without surprise, that virtue in this world is not always "the certain road to happiness," nor "vice to misery." in short, having been admitted "behind the scenes of this great theatre of nature," he paints humanity as he has found it, extenuating nothing, nor setting down aught in malice, but reserving the full force of his satire and irony for affectation and hypocrisy. his sincere endeavour, he says moreover in his dedication to lyttelton, has been "to recommend goodness and innocence," and promote the cause of religion and virtue. and he has all the consciousness that what he is engaged upon is no ordinary enterprise. he is certain that his pages will outlive both "their own infirm author" and his enemies; and he appeals to fame to solace and reassure him-"come, bright love of fame,"--says the beautiful "invocation" which begins the thirteenth book,--"inspire my glowing breast: not thee i call, who over swelling tides of blood and tears, dost bear the heroe on to glory, while sighs of millions waft his spreading sails; but thee, fair, gentle maid, whom _mnesis_, happy nymph, first on the banks of _hebrus_ didst produce. thee, whom _maeonia_ educated, whom _mantua_ charm'd, and who, on that fair hill which overlooks the proud metropolis of _britain_, sat, with thy _milton_, sweetly tuning the heroic lyre; fill my ravished fancy with the hopes of charming ages yet to come. foretel me that some tender maid, whose grandmother is yet unborn, hereafter, when, under the fictitious name of _sophia_, she reads the real worth which once existed in my _charlotte_, shall, from her sympathetic breast, send forth the heaving sigh. do thou teach me not only to foresee, but to enjoy, nay, even to feed on future praise. comfort me by a solemn assurance, that when the little parlour in which i sit at this instant, shall be reduced to a worse furnished box, i shall be read, with honour, by those who never knew nor saw me, and whom i shall neither know nor see." with no less earnestness, after a mock apostrophe to wealth, he appeals to genius:-"teach me (he exclaims), which to thee is no difficult task, to know mankind better than they know themselves. remove that mist which dims the intellects of mortals, and causes them to adore men for their art, or to detest them for their cunning in deceiving others, when they are, in reality, the objects only of ridicule, for deceiving themselves. strip off the thin disguise of wisdom from self-conceit, of plenty from avarice, and of glory from ambition. come thou, that hast inspired thy _aristophanes_, thy _lucian_, thy _cervantes_, thy _rabelais_, thy _moliere_, thy _shakespear_, thy _swift_, thy _marivaux_, fill my pages with humour, till mankind learn the good-nature to laugh only at the follies of others, and the humility to grieve at their own." from the little group of immortals who are here enumerated, it may be gathered with whom fielding sought to compete, and with whom he hoped hereafter to be associated. his hopes were not in vain. indeed, in one respect, he must be held to have even outrivalled that particular predecessor with whom he has been oftenest compared. like _don quixote_, _tom jones_ is the precursor of a new order of things,--the earliest and freshest expression of a new departure in art. but while _tom jones_ is, to the full, as amusing as _don quixote_, it has the advantage of a greatly superior plan, and an interest more skilfully sustained. the incidents which, in cervantes, simply succeed each other like the scenes in a panorama, are, in _tom jones_, but parts of an organised and carefully-arranged progression towards a foreseen conclusion. as the hero and heroine cross and re-cross each other's track, there is scarcely an episode which does not aid in the moving forward of the story. little details rise lightly and naturally to the surface of the narrative, not more noticeable at first than the most everyday occurrences, and a few pages farther on become of the greatest importance. the hero makes a mock proposal of marriage to lady bellaston. it scarcely detains attention, so natural an expedient does it appear, and behold in a chapter or two it has become a terrible weapon in the hands of the injured sophia! again, when the secret of jones' birth [footnote: much ink has been shed respecting fielding's reason for making his hero illegitimate. but may not "the history of tom jones, a _foundling_," have had no subtler origin than the recent establishment of the foundling hospital, of which fielding had written in the _champion_, and in which his friend hogarth was interested?] is finally disclosed, we look back and discover a hundred little premonitions which escaped us at first, but which, read by the light of our latest knowledge, assume a fresh significance. at the same time, it must be admitted that the over-quoted and somewhat antiquated dictum of coleridge, by which _tom jones_ is grouped with the _alchemist_ and _oedipus tyrannus_, as one of the three most perfect plots in the world, requires revision. it is impossible to apply the term "perfect" to a work which contains such an inexplicable stumbling-block as the man of the hill's story. then again, progress and animation alone will not make a perfect plot, unless probability be superadded. and although it cannot be said that fielding disregards probability, he certainly strains it considerably. money is conveniently lost and found; the naivest coincidences continually occur; people turn up in the nick of time at the exact spot required, and develop the most needful (but entirely casual) relations with the characters. sometimes an episode is so inartistically introduced as to be almost clumsy. towards the end of the book, for instance, it has to be shown that jones has still some power of resisting temptation, and he accordingly receives from a mrs. arabella hunt, a written offer of her hand, which he declines. mrs. hunt's name has never been mentioned before, nor, after this occurrence, is it mentioned again. but in the brief fortnight which jones has been in town, with his head full of lady bellaston, sophia, and the rest, we are to assume that he has unwittingly inspired her with so desperate a passion that she proposes and is refused--all in a chapter. imperfections of this kind are more worthy of consideration than some of the minor negligences which criticism has amused itself by detecting in this famous book. such, among others, is the discovery made by a writer in the _gentleman's magazine_, that in one place winter and summer come too close together; or the "strange specimen of oscitancy" which another (it is, in fact, mr. keightley) considers it worth while to record respecting the misplacing of the village of hambrook. to such trifles as these last the precept of _non offendar maculis_ may safely be applied, although fielding, wiser than his critics, seems to have foreseen the necessity for still larger allowances:-"cruel indeed," says he in his proemium to book xi., "would it be, if such a work as this history, which hath employed some thousands of hours in the composing, should be liable to be condemned, because some particular chapter, or perhaps chapters, may be obnoxious to very just and sensible objections.... to write within such severe rules as these, is as impossible as to live up to some splenetic opinions; and if we judge according to the sentiments of some critics, and of some christians, no author will be saved in this world, and no man in the next." notwithstanding its admitted superiority to _joseph andrews_ as a work of art, there is no male character in _tom jones_ which can compete with parson adams--none certainly which we regard with equal admiration. allworthy, excellent compound of lyttelton and allen though he be, remains always a little stiff and cold in comparison with the "veined humanity" around him. we feel of him, as of another impeccable personage, that we "cannot breathe in that fine air, that pure severity of perfect light," and that we want the "warmth and colour" which we find in adams. allworthy is a type rather than a character--a fault which also seems to apply to that molieresque hypocrite, the younger blifil. fielding seems to have welded this latter together, rather than to have fused him entire, and the result is a certain lack of verisimilitude, which makes us wonder how his pinchbeck professions and vamped-up virtues could deceive so many persons. on the other hand, his father, captain john blifil, has all the look of life. nor can there be any doubt about the vitality of squire western. whether the germ of his character be derived from addison's tory foxhunter or not, it is certain that fielding must have had superabundant material of his own from which to model this thoroughly representative, and at the same time, completely individual character. western has all the rustic tastes, the narrow prejudices, the imperfect education, the unreasoning hatred to the court, which distinguished the jacobite country gentleman of the georgian era; but his divided love for his daughter and his horses, his good-humour and his shrewdness, his foaming impulses and his quick subsidings, his tears, his oaths, and his barbaric dialect, are all essential features in a personal portrait. when jones has rescued sophia, he will give him all his stable, the chevalier and miss slouch excepted; when he finds he is in love with her, he is in a frenzy to "get _at un_" and "spoil his caterwauling." he will have the surgeon's heart's blood if he takes a drop too much from sophia's white arm; when she opposes his wishes as to blifil, he will turn her into the street with no more than a smock, and give his estate to the "_zinking_ fund." throughout the book he is _qualis ab incepto_,--boisterous, brutal, jovial, and inimitable; so that when finally in "chapter the last," we get that pretty picture of him in sophy's nursery, protesting that the tattling of his little granddaughter is "sweeter music than the finest cry of dogs in _england_," we part with him almost with a feeling of esteem. scott seems to have thought it unreasonable that he should have "taken a beating so unresistingly from the friend of lord fellamar," and even hints that the passage is an interpolation, although he wisely refrains from suggesting by whom, and should have known that it was in the first edition. with all deference to so eminent an authority, it is impossible to share his hesitation. fielding was fully aware that even the bravest have their fits of panic. it must besides be remembered that lord fellamar's friend was not an effeminate dandy, but a military man-probably a professed _sabreur_, if not a salaried bully like captain stab in the _rake's progress_; that he was armed with a stick and western was not; and that he fell upon him in the most unexpected manner, in a place where he was wholly out of his element. it is inconceivable that the sturdy squire, with his faculty for distributing "flicks" and "dowses,"--who came so valiantly to the aid of jones in his battle-royal with blifil and thwackum,--was likely, under any but very exceptional circumstances, to be dismayed by a cane. it was the exceptional character of the assault which made a coward of him; and fielding, who had the keenest eye for inconsistencies of the kind, knew perfectly well what he was doing. of the remaining _dramatis personae_--the swarming individualities with which the great comic epic is literally "all alive," as lord monboddo said--it is impossible to give any adequate account. few of them, if any, are open to the objection already pointed out with respect to allworthy and the younger blifil, and most of them bear signs of having been closely copied from living models. parson thwackum, with his antinomian doctrines, his bigotry, and his pedagogic notions of justice; square the philosopher, with his faith in human virtue (alas! poor square), and his cuckoo-cry about "the unalterable rule of eight and the eternal fitness of things;" partridge--the unapproachable partridge,-with his superstition, his vanity, and his perpetual _infandum regina_, but who, notwithstanding all his cheap latinity, cannot construe an unexpected phrase of horace; ensign northerton, with his vague and disrespectful recollections of "homo;" young nightingale and parson supple:--each is a definite character bearing upon his forehead the mark of his absolute fidelity to human nature. nor are the female actors less accurately conceived. starched miss bridget allworthy, with her pinched hogarthian face; miss western, with her disjointed diplomatic jargon; that budding slipslop, mrs. honour; worthy mrs. miller, mrs. fitzpatrick, mrs. waters, lady bellaston,--all are to the full as real. lady bellaston especially, deserves more than a word. like lady booby in _joseph andrews_, she is not a pleasant character; but the picture of the fashionable demirep, cynical, sensual, and imperious, has never been drawn more vigorously, or more completely--even by balzac. lastly, there is the adorable sophia herself, whose pardon should be asked for naming her in such close proximity to her frailer sister. byron calls her (perhaps with a slight suspicion of exigence of rhyme) too "emphatic;" meaning, apparently, to refer to such passages as her conversation with mrs. fitzpatrick, etc. but the heroine of fielding's time--a time which made merry over a lady's misadventures in horsemanship, and subjected her to such atrocities as those of lord fellamar--required to be strongly moulded; and sophia western is pure and womanly, in spite of her unfavourable surroundings. she is a charming example--the first of her race--of an unsentimentalised flesh-and-blood heroine; and time has hated no jot of her frank vitality or her healthy beauty. her descendants in the modern novel are far more numerous than the family which she bore to the fortunate--the too fortunate--mr. jones. and this reminds us that in the foregoing enumeration we have left out hamlet. in truth, it is by no means easy to speak of this handsome, but very un-heroic hero. lady mary, employing, curiously enough, the very phrase which fielding has made one of his characters apply to jones, goes so far as to call him a "sorry scoundrel;" and eminent critics have dilated upon his fondness for drink and play. but it is a notable instance of the way in which preconceived attributes are gradually attached to certain characters, that there is in reality little or nothing to show that he was either sot or gamester. with one exception, when, in the joy of his heart at his benefactor's recovery, he takes too much wine (and it may be noted that on the same occasion the catonic thwackum drinks considerably more), there is no evidence that he was specially given to tippling, even in an age of hard drinkers, while of his gambling there is absolutely no trace at all. on the other hand, he is admittedly brave, generous, chivalrous, kind to the poor, and courteous to women. what, then, is his cardinal defect? the answer lies in the fact that fielding, following the doctrine laid down in his initial chapters, has depicted him under certain conditions (in which, it is material to note, he is always rather the tempted than the tempter), with an unvarnished truthfulness which to the pure-minded is repugnant, and to the prurient indecent. remembering that he too had been young, and reproducing, it may be, his own experiences, he exhibits his youth as he had found him--a "piebald miscellany,"- "bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire;" and, to our modern ideas, when no one dares, as thackeray complained, "to depict to his utmost power a man," the spectacle is discomforting. yet those who look upon human nature as keenly and unflinchingly as fielding did, knowing how weak and fallible it is,--how prone to fall away by accident or passion,--can scarcely deny the truth of tom jones. that such a person cannot properly serve as a hero now is rather a question of our time than of fielding's, and it may safely be set aside. one objection which has been made, and made with reason, is that fielding, while taking care that nemesis shall follow his hero's lapses, has spoken of them with too much indulgence, or rather without sufficient excuse. coleridge, who was certainly not squeamish, seems to have felt this when, in a ms. note [footnote: these notes were communicated by mr. james gillman to _the literary remains of samuel taylor coleridge_, published by h. n. coleridge in 1836. the book in which they were made, (it is the four volume edition of 1773, and has gillman's book-plate), is now in the british museum. the above transcript is from the ms.] in the well-known british museum edition, he says:-"even in this most questionable part of tom jones [i.e. the lady bellaston episode, chap. ix. book xv.], i cannot but think after frequent reflection on it, that an additional paragraph, more fully & forcibly unfolding tom jones's sense of self-degradation on the discovery of the true character of the relation, in which he had stood to lady bellaston--& his awakened feeling of the dignity and manliness of chastity--would have removed in great measure any just objection, at all events relating to fielding himself, by taking in the state of manners in his time." another point suggested by these last lines may be touched _en passant_. lady bellaston, as fielding has carefully explained (chap. i. book xiv.), was not a typical, but an exceptional, member of society; and although there were eighteenth-century precedents for such alliances (e.g. miss edwards and lord anne hamilton, mrs. upton and general braddock,) it is a question whether in a picture of average english life it was necessary to deal with exceptions of this kind, or, at all events, to exemplify them in the principal personage. but the discussion of this subject would prove endless. right or wrong, fielding has certainly suffered in popularity for his candour in this respect, since one of the wisest and wittiest books ever written cannot, without hesitation, be now placed in the hands of women or very young people. moreover, this same candour has undoubtedly attracted to its pages many, neither young nor women, whom its wit finds unintelligent, and its wisdom leaves unconcerned. but what a brave wit it is, what a wisdom after all, that is contained in this wonderful novel! where shall we find its like for richness of reflection--for inexhaustible good-humour--for large and liberal humanity! like fontenelle, fielding might fairly claim that he had never cast the smallest ridicule upon the most infinitesimal of virtues; it is against hypocrisy, affectation, insincerity of all kinds, that he wages war. and what a keen and searching observation,--what a perpetual faculty of surprise,--what an endless variety of method! take the chapter headed ironically _a receipt to regain the lost affections of a wife_, in which captain john blifil gives so striking an example of mr. samuel johnson's just published _vanity of human wishes_, by dying suddenly of apoplexy while he is considering what he will do with mr. allworthy's property (when it reverts to him); or that admirable scene, commended by macaulay, of partridge at the playhouse, which is none the worse because it has just a slight look of kinship with that other famous visit which sir roger de coverley paid to philips's _distrest mother_. or take again, as utterly unlike either of these, that burlesque homeric battle in the churchyard, where the "sweetly-winding stour" stands for "reedy simois," and the bumpkins round for greeks and trojans! or take yet once more, though it is woful work to offer bricks from this edifice which _has_ already (in a sense) outlived the escorial, [footnote: the escorial, it will be remembered, was partially burned in 1872.] the still more diverse passage which depicts the changing conflict in black george's mind as to whether he shall return to jones the sixteen guineas that he has found:-"_black george_ having received the purse, set forward towards the alehouse; but in the way a thought occurred whether he should not detain this money likewise. his conscience, however, immediately started at this suggestion, and began to upbraid him with ingratitude to his benefactor. to this his avarice answered, 'that his conscience should have considered that matter before, when he deprived poor _jones_ of his 500l. that having quietly acquiesced in what was of so much greater importance, it was absurd, if not downright hypocrisy, to affect any qualms at this trifle.'--in return to which, conscience, like a good lawyer, attempted to distinguish between an absolute breach of trust, as here where the goods were delivered, and a bare concealment of what was found, as in the former case. avarice presently treated this with ridicule, called it a distinction without a difference, and absolutely insisted, that when once all pretensions of honour and virtue were given up in any one instance, that there was no precedent for resorting to them upon a second occasion. in short, poor conscience had certainly been defeated in the argument, had not fear stept in to her assistance, and very strenuously urged, that the real distinction between the two actions, did not lie in the different degrees of honour, but of safety: for that the secreting the 500l. was a matter of very little hazard; whereas the detaining the sixteen guineas was liable to the utmost danger of discovery. "by this friendly aid of fear, conscience obtained a compleat victory in the mind of _black george_, and after making him a few compliments on his honesty, forced him to deliver the money to _jones_." when one remembers that this is but one of many such passages, and that the book, notwithstanding the indulgence claimed by the author in the preface, and despite a certain hurry at the close, is singularly even in its workmanship, it certainly increases our respect for the manly genius of the writer, who, amid all the distractions of ill-health and poverty, could find the courage to pursue and perfect such a conception. it is true that both cervantes and bunyan wrote their immortal works in the confinement of a prison. but they must at least have enjoyed the seclusion so needful to literary labour; while _tom jones_ was written here and there, at all times and in all places, with the dun at the door and the wolf not very far from the gate. [footnote: salisbury, in the neighbourhood of which _tom jones_ is laid, claims the originals of some of the characters. thwackum is said to have been hele, a schoolmaster; square, one chubb, a deist; and dowling the lawyer a person named stillingfleet.] the little sentence quoted some pages back from walpole's letters is sufficient proof, if proof were needed, of its immediate success. andrew millar was shrewd enough, despite his constitutional confusion, and he is not likely to have given an additional l100 to the author of any book without good reason. but the indications of that success are not very plainly impressed upon the public prints. the _gentleman's magazine_ for 1749, which, as might be expected from johnson's connection with it, contains ample accounts of his own tragedy of _irene_ and richardson's recently-published _clarissa_, has no notice of _tom jones_, nor is there even any advertisement of the second edition issued in the same year. but, in the emblematic frontispiece, it appears under _clarissa_ (and sharing with that work a possibly unintended proximity to a sprig of laurel stuck in a bottle of nantes), among a pile of the books of the year; and in the "poetical essays" for august, one thomas cawthorn breaks into rhymed panegyric. "sick of her fools," sings this enthusiastic but scarcely lucid admirer- "sick of her fools, great _nature_ broke the jest, and _truth_ held out each character to test, when _genius_ spoke: let _fielding_ take the pen! life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men." there were others, however, who would scarcely have echoed the laudatory sentiments of mr. cawthorn. among these was again the excellent richardson, who seems to have been wholly unpropitiated by the olive branch held out to him in the _jacobite's journal_. his vexation at the indignity put upon _pamela_ by _joseph andrews_ was now complicated by a twittering jealousy of the "spurious brat," as he obligingly called _tom jones_, whose success had been so "unaccountable." in these circumstances, some of the letters of his correspondents must have been gall and wormwood to him. lady bradshaigh, for instance, under her _nom de guerre_ of "belfour," tells him that she is fatigued with the very name of the book, having met several young ladies who were for ever talking of their tom jones's, "for so they call their favourites," and that the gentlemen, on their side, had their sophias, one having gone so far as to give that all-popular name to his "dutch mastiff puppy." but perhaps the best and freshest exhibition (for, as far as can be ascertained, it has never hitherto been made public) of richardson's attitude to his rival is to be found in a little group of letters in the forster collection at south kensington. the writers are aaron hill and his daughters; but the letters do not seem to have been known to mrs. barbauld, whose last communication from hill is dated november 2, 1748. nor are they to be found in hill's own correspondence. the ladies, it appears, had visited richardson at salisbury court in 1741, and were great admirers of _pamela_, and the "divine _clarissa_." some months after _tom jones_ was published, richardson (not yet having brought himself to read the book) had asked them to do so, and give him their opinion as to its merits. thereupon minerva and astraea, who despite their names, and their description of themselves as "girls of an untittering disposition," must have been very bright and lively young persons, began seriously "to lay their two wise heads together" and "hazard this discovery of their emptiness." having "with much ado got over some reluctance, that was bred by a familiar coarseness in the _title_," they report "much (masqu'd) merit" in the "whole six volumes" --"a double merit, both of head, and _heart_." had it been the latter only it would be more worthy of mr. richardson's perusal; but, say these considerate pioneers, if he does spare it his attention, he must only do so at his leisure, for the author "introduces all his sections (and too often interweaves the _serious_ body of his meanings), with long runs of bantering levity, which his [fielding's] good sense may suffer by effect of." "it is true (they continue), he seems to wear this lightness, as a grave head sometime wears a _feather_: which tho' he and fashion may consider as an ornament, reflection will condemn, as a disguise, and _covering_." then follows a brief excursus, intended for their correspondent's special consolation, upon the folly of treating grave things lightly; and with delightful sententiousness the letter thus concludes:-"mean while, it is an honest pleasure, which we take in adding, that (exclusive of one wild, detach'd, and independent story of a _man of the hill_, that neither brings on anything, nor rose from anything that went before it) all the changefull windings of the author's fancy carry on a course of regular design; and end in an extremely moving close, where lives that seem'd to wander and run different ways, meet, all, in an instructive center. "the whole piece consists of an inventive race of disapointments and recoveries. it excites curiosity, and holds it watchful. it has just and pointed satire; but it is a partial satire, and confin'd, too narrowly: it sacrifices to authority, and interest. its _events_ reward sincerity, and punish and expose hypocrisy; shew pity and benevolence in amiable lights, and avarice and brutality in very despicable ones. in every part it has humanity for its intention: in too many, it _seems_ wantoner than it was meant to be: it has bold shocking pictures; and (i fear) [footnote: the "pen-holder" is the fair astraea.] not unresembling ones, in high life, and in low. and (to conclude this too adventurous guesswork, from a pair of forward baggages) woud, every where, (we think,) _deserve_ to please,--if stript of what the author thought himself most sure to _please by_. "and thus, sir, we have told you our sincere opinion of _tom jones_.... "your most profest admirers and most humble servants, "astraea and minerva hill. "plaistow the 27th of july 1749." richardson's reply to this ingenuous criticism is dated the 4th of august. his requesting two young women to study and criticise a book which he has heard strongly condemned as immoral,--his own obvious familiarity with what he has not read but does not scruple to censure,-his transparently jealous anticipation of its author's ability,--all this forms a picture so characteristic alike of the man and the time that no apology is needed for the following textual extract:-"i must confess, that i have been prejudiced by the opinion of several judicious friends against the truly coarse-titled tom jones; and so have been discouraged from reading it.--i was told, that it was a rambling collection of waking dreams, in which probability was not observed: and that it had a very bad tendency. and i had reason to think that the author intended for his second view (his _first_, to fill his pocket, by accommodating it to the reigning taste) in writing it, to whiten a vicious character, and to make morality bend to his practices. what reason had he to make his tom illegitimate, in an age where keeping is become a fashion? why did he make him a common--what shall i call it? and a kept fellow, the lowest of all fellows, yet in love with a young creature who was traping [trapesing?] after him, a fugitive from her father's house?--why did he draw his heroine so fond, so foolish, and so insipid?--indeed he has one excuse--he knows not how to draw a delicate woman--he has not been accustomed to such company,--and is too prescribing, too impetuous, too immoral, i will venture to say, to take any other byass than that a perverse and crooked nature has given him; or evil habits, at least, have confirm'd in him. do men expect grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? but, perhaps, i think the worse of the piece because i know the writer, and dislike his principles both public and private, tho' i wish well to the _man_, and love four worthy sisters of his, with whom i am well acquainted. and indeed should admire him, did he make the use of his talents which i wish him to make, for the vein of humour, and ridicule, which he is master of, might, if properly turned do great service to ye cause of virtue. "but no more of this gentleman's work, after i have said, that the favourable things, you say of the piece, will tempt me, if i can find leisure, to give it a perusal." notwithstanding this last sentence, richardson more than once reverts to _tom jones_ before he finishes his letter. its effect upon minerva and astraea is hest described in an extract from aaron hill's reply, dated seven days later (august the 11th):-"unfortunate _tom jones_! how sadly has he mortify'd two sawcy correspondents of your making! they are with me now: and bid me tell you, you have spoil'd 'em both, for criticks.--shall i add, a secret which they did not bid me tell you?--they, both, fairly _cry'd_, that you shou'd think it possible they you'd approve of any thing, in any work, that had an _evil tendency_, in any part or purpose of it. they maintain their point so far, however, as to be convinc'd they say, that _you_ will disapprove this over-rigid judgment of those friends, who you'd not find a thread of moral meaning in tom jones, quite independent of the levities they justly censure.--and, as soon as you have time to read him, for yourself, tis there, pert sluts, they will be bold enough to rest the matter.--mean while, they love and honour you and your opinions." to this the author of _clarissa_ replied by writing a long epistle deploring the pain he had given the "dear ladies," and minutely justifying his foregone conclusions from the expressions they had used. he refers to fielding again as "a very indelicate, a very impetuous, an unyielding-spirited man;" and he also trusts to be able to "bestow a reading" on _tom jones_; but by a letter from lady bradshaigh, printed in barbauld, and dated december 1749, it seems that even at that date he had not, or pretended he had not, yet done so. in another of the unpublished south kensington letters, from a mr. solomon lowe, occurs the following:--"i do not doubt"--says the writer--"but all europe will ring of it [_clarissa_]: when a cracker, that was some thous'd hours acom-posing, [footnote: _vide tom jones_, book xi. chap. i.] will no longer be heard, or talkt-of." richardson, with business-like precision, has gravely docketed this in his own handwriting,--"cracker, t. jones." it is unfortunate for mr. lowe's reputation as a prophet that, after more than one hundred and thirty years, this ephemeral firework, as he deemed it, should still be sparkling with undiminished brilliancy, and to judge by recent editions, is selling as vigorously as ever. from the days when lady mary wrote "_ne plus ultra_" in her own copy, and la harpe called it _le premier roman du monde_, (a phrase which, by the way, de musset applies to _clarissa_), it has come down to us with an almost universal accompaniment of praise. gibbon, byron, coleridge, scott, dickens, thackeray,--have all left their admiration on record,-to say nothing of professional critics innumerable. as may be seen from the british museum catalogue, it has been translated into french, german, polish, dutch, and spanish. russia and sweden have also their versions. the first french translation, or rather abridgment, by m. de la place was prohibited in france (to richardson's delight) by royal decree, an act which affords another instance, in scott's words, of that "french delicacy, which, on so many occasions, has strained at a gnat, and swallowed a camel" (e.g. the novels of m. crebillon _fils_). la place's edition (1750) was gracefully illustrated with sixteen plates by hubert bourguignon, called gravelot, one of those eighteenth-century illustrators whose designs at present are the rage in paris. in england, fielding's best-known pictorial interpreters are rowlandson and cruikshank, the latter being by far the more sympathetic. stothard also prepared some designs for harrison's _novelists magazine_; but his refined and effeminate pencil was scarcely strong enough for the task. hogarth alone could have been the ideal illustrator of henry fielding; that is to say--if, in lieu of the rude designs he made for _tristram shandy_, he could have been induced to undertake the work in the larger fashion of the _rake's progress_, or _the marriage a la mode_. as might perhaps be anticipated, _tom jones_ attracted the dramatist. [footnote: it may be added that it also attracted the plagiarist. as _pamela_ had its sequel in _pamela's conduct in high life_, 1741, so _tom jones_ was continued in _the history of tom jones the foundling, in his married state_, a second edition of which was issued in 1750. the preface announces, needlessly enough, that "henry fielding, esq., is not the author of this book." it deserves no serious consideration.] in 1765, one j. h. steffens made a comedy of it for the german boards; and in 1785, a m. desforges based upon it another, called _tom jones a londres_, which was acted at the _theatre francais_. it was also turned into a comic opera by joseph reed in 1769, and played at covent garden. but its most piquant transformation is the _comedie lyrique_ of poinsinet, acted at paris in 1765-6 to the lively music of philidor. the famous caillot took the part of squire western, who, surrounded by _piqueurs_, and girt with the conventional _cor de chasse_ of the gallic sportsman, sings the following _ariette_, diversified with true fontainebleau terms of venery:- "d'un cerf, dix cors, j'ai connaissance: on l'attaque au fort, on le lance; tous sont prets: piqueurs & valets suivent les pas de l'ami jone (_sic_). j'entends crier: volcelets, volcelets. aussitot j'ordonne que la meute donne. tayaut, tayaut, tayaut. mes chiens decouples l'environnent; les trompes sonnent: 'courage, amis: tayaut, tayaut.' quelques chiens, que l'ardeur derange, quittent la voye & prennent le change jones les rassure d'un cri: ourvari, ourvari. accoute, accoute, accoute. au retour nous en revoyons. accoute, a mirmiraut, courons tout a griffaut; y apres: tayaut, tayaut. on reprend route, voila le cerf a l'eau. la trompe sonne, la meute donne, l'echo resonne, nous pressons les nouveaux relais: volcelets, volcelets. l'animal force succombe, fait un effort, se releve, enfin tombe: et nos chasseurs chantent tous a l'envi: 'amis, goutons les fruits de la victoire; 'amis, amis, celebrons notre gloire. 'halali, fanfare, halali 'halali.'" with this triumphant flourish of trumpets the present chapter may be fittingly concluded. [footnote: see appendix no. ii.: fielding and mrs. hussey.] chapter vi. justice life--amelia. in one of horace walpole's letters to george montagu, already quoted, there is a description of fielding's bow street establishment, which has attracted more attention than it deserves. the letter is dated may the 18th, 1749, and the passage (in cunningham's edition) runs as follows:-"he [rigby] and peter bathurst [footnote: probably a son of peter bathurst (d. 1748), brother of pope's friend, allen, lord bathurst. rigby was the richard rigby whose despicable character is familiar in eighteenth-century memoirs. "he died (says cunningham) involved in debt, with his accounts as paymaster of the forces hopelessly unsettled."] t'other night carried a servant of the latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before fielding; who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of mr. lyttelton, added that of middlesex justice. he sent them word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. they did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a whore, and three irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. he never stirred nor asked them to sit. rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of sir c. williams, and bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs; on which he civilised." scott calls this "a humiliating anecdote;" and both mr. lawrence and mr. keightley have exhausted rhetoric in the effort to explain it away. as told, it is certainly uncomplimentary; but considerable deductions must be made, both for the attitude of the narrator and the occasion of the narrative. walpole's championship of his friends was notorious; and his absolute injustice, when his partisan spirit was uppermost, is everywhere patent to the readers of his letters. in the present case he was not of the encroaching party; and he speaks from hearsay solely. but his friends had, in his opinion, been outraged by a man, who, according to his ideas of fitness, should have come to them cap in hand; and as a natural consequence, the story, no doubt exaggerated when it reached him, loses nothing under his transforming and malicious pen. stripped of its decorative flippancy, however, there remains but little that can really be regarded as "humiliating." scott himself suggests, what is most unquestionably the case, that the blind man was the novelist's half-brother, afterwards sir john fielding; and it is extremely unlikely that the lady so discourteously characterised could have been any other than his wife, who, lady stuart tells us, "had few personal charms." there remain the "three irishmen," who may, or may not, have been perfectly presentable members of society. at all events, their mere nationality, so rapidly decided upon, cannot be regarded as a stigma. that the company and entertainment were scarcely calculated to suit the superfine standard of mr. bathurst and mr. rigby may perhaps be conceded. fielding was by no means a rich man, and in his chequered career had possibly grown indifferent to minor decencies. moreover, we are told by murphy that, as a westminster justice, he "kept his table open to those who had been his friends when young, and had impaired their own fortunes." thus, it must always have been a more or less ragged regiment who met about that kindly bow street board; but that the fact reflects upon either the host or guests cannot be admitted for a moment. if the anecdote is discreditable to anyone it is to that facile retailer of _ana_, and incorrigible society-gossip, mr. horace walpole. but while these unflattering tales were told of his private life, fielding was fast becoming eminent in his public capacity. on the 12th of may 1749 he was unanimously chosen chairman of quarter sessions at hicks's hall (as the clerkenwell sessions house was then called); and on the 29th of june following he delivered a charge to the westminster grand jury which is usually printed with his works, and which is still regarded by lawyers as a model exposition. it is at first a little unexpected to read his impressive and earnest denunciations of masquerades and theatres (in which latter, by the way, one samuel foote had very recently been following the example of the author of _pasquin_); but fielding the magistrate and fielding the playwright were two different persons; and a long interval of changeful experience lay between them. in another part of his charge, which deals with the offence of libelling, it is possible that his very vigorous appeal was not the less forcible by reason of the personal attacks to which he had referred in the preface to _david simple_, the _jacobite's journal_, and elsewhere. his only other literary efforts during this year appear to have been a little pamphlet entitled _a true state of the case of bosavern penlez_; and a formal congratulatory letter to lyttelton upon his second marriage, in which, while speaking gratefully of his own obligations to his friend, he endeavours to enlist his sympathies for moore the fabulist who was also "about to marry." the pamphlet had reference to an occurrence which took place in july. three sailors of the "grafton" man-of-war had been robbed in a house of ill fame in the strand. failing to obtain redress, they attacked the house with their comrades, and wrecked it, causing a "dangerous riot," to which fielding makes incidental reference in one of his letters to the duke of bedford, and which was witnessed by john byrom, the poet and stenographer, in whose _remains_ it is described. bosavern penlez or pen lez, who had joined the crowd, and in whose possession some of the stolen property was found, was tried and hanged in september. his sentence, which was considered extremely severe, excited much controversy, and the object of fielding's pamphlet was to vindicate the justice and necessity of his conviction. towards the close of 1749 fielding fell seriously ill with fever aggravated by gout. it was indeed at one time reported that mortification had supervened; but under the care of dr. thomson, that dubious practitioner whose treatment of winnington in 1746 had given rise to so much paper war, he recovered; and during 1750 was actively employed in his magisterial duties. at this period lawlessness and violence appear to have prevailed to an unusual extent in the metropolis, and the office of a bow street justice was no sinecure. reform of some kind was felt on all sides to be urgently required; and fielding threw his two years' experience and his deductions therefrom into the form of a pamphlet entitled _an enquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers, etc., with some proposals for remedying this growing evil_. it was dedicated to the then lord high chancellor, philip yorke, lord hardwicke, by whom, as well as by more recent legal authorities, it was highly appreciated. like the _charge to the grand jury_, it is a grave argumentative document, dealing seriously with luxury, drunkenness, gaming, and other prevalent vices. once only, in an ironical passage respecting beaus and fine ladies, does the author remind us of the author of _tom jones_. as a rule, he is weighty, practical, and learned in the law. against the curse of gin-drinking, which, owing to the facilities for obtaining that liquor, had increased to an alarming extent among the poorer classes, he is especially urgent and energetic. he points out that it is not only making dreadful havoc in the present, but that it is enfeebling the race of the future, and he concludes-"some little care on this head is surely necessary: for tho' the encrease of thieves, and the destruction of morality; though the loss of our labourers, our sailors, and our soldiers, should not be sufficient reasons, there is one which seems to be unanswerable, and that is, the loss of our gin-drinkers: since, should the drinking this poison be continued in its present height during the next twenty years, there will, by that time, be very few of the common people left to drink it." to the appeal thus made by fielding in january 1751, hogarth added his pictorial protest in the following month by his awful plate of _gin lane_, which, if not actually prompted by his friend's words, was certainly inspired by the same crying evil. one good result of these efforts was the "bill for restricting the sale of spirituous liquors," to which the royal assent was given in june, and fielding's connection with this enactment is practically acknowledged by horace walpole in his _memoires of the last ten years of the reign of george ii_. the law was not wholly effectual, and was difficult to enforce; but it was not by any means without its good effects. [footnote: the rev. r. hurd, afterwards bishop of worcester, an upright and scholarly, but formal and censorious man, whom johnson called a "word-picker," and franker contemporaries "an old maid in breeches," has left a reference to fielding at this time which is not flattering. "i dined with him [ralph allen] yesterday, where i met mr. fielding,--a poor emaciated, worn-out rake, whose gout and infirmities have got the better even of his buffoonery" (letter to balguy, dated "inner temple, 19th march, 1751.") that fielding had not long before been dangerously ill, and that he was a martyr to gout, is fact: the rest is probably no more than the echo of a foregone conclusion, based upon report, or dislike to his works. hurd praised richardson and proscribed sterne. he must have been wholly out of sympathy with the author of _tom jones_.] between the publication of the _enquiry_ and that of _amelia_ there is nothing of importance to chronicle except fielding's connection with one of the events of 1751, the discovery of the glastonbury waters. according to the account given in the _gentleman's_ for july in that year, a certain matthew chancellor had been cured of "an asthma and phthisic" of thirty years' standing by drinking from a spring near chain gate, glastonbury, to which he had (so he alleged) been directed in a dream. the spring forthwith became famous; and in may an entry in the historical chronicle for sunday, the 5th, records that above 10,000 persons had visited it, deserting bristol, bath, and other popular resorts. numerous pamphlets were published for and against the new waters; and a letter in their favour, which appeared in the _london daily advertiser_ for the 31st august, signed "z. z.," is "supposed to be wrote" by "j--e f--g." fielding was, as may be remembered, a somersetshire man, sharpham park, his birthplace, being about three miles from glastonbury; and he testifies to the "wonderful effects of this salubrious spring" in words which show that he had himself experienced them. "having seen great numbers of my fellow creatures under two of the most miserable diseases human nature can labour under, the asthma and evil, return from _glastonbury_ blessed with the return of health, and having myself been relieved from a disorder which baffled the most skilful physicians," justice to mankind (he says) obliges him to take notice of the subject. the letter is interesting, more as showing that, at this time, fielding's health was broken, than as proving the efficacy of the cure; for, whatever temporary relief the waters afforded, it is clear (as mr. lawrence pertinently remarks) that he derived no permanent benefit from them. they must, however, have continued to attract visitors, as a pump-room was opened in august 1753; and, although they have now fallen into disuse, they were popular for many years. but a more important occurrence than the discovery of the somersetshire spring is a little announcement contained in sylvanus urban's list of publications for december 1751, no. 17 of which is "_amelia_, in 4 books, 12mo; by henry fielding, esq." the publisher, of course, was andrew millar; and the actual day of issue, as appears from the _general advertiser_, was december the 19th, although the title-page, by anticipation, bore the date of 1752. there were two mottoes, one of which was the appropriate- "_felices ter & amplius quos irrupta tenet copula;_" and the dedication, brief and simply expressed, was to ralph allen. as before, the "artful aid" of advertisement was invoked to whet the public appetite. "to satisfy the earnest demand of the publick (says millar), this work has been printed at four presses; but the proprietor notwithstanding finds it impossible to get them (_sic_) bound in time, without spoiling the beauty of the impression, and therefore will sell them sew'd at half-a-guinea." this was open enough; but, according to scott, millar adopted a second expedient to assist _amelia_ with the booksellers. "he had paid a thousand pounds for the copyright; and when he began to suspect that the work would be judged inferior to its predecessor, he employed the following stratagem to push it upon the trade. at a sale made to the booksellers, previous to the publication, millar offered his friends his other publications on the usual terms of discount; but when he came to _amelia_, he laid it aside, as a work expected to be in such demand, that he could not afford to deliver it to the trade in the usual manner. the _ruse_ succeeded--the impression was anxiously bought up, and the bookseller relieved from every apprehension of a slow sale." there were several reasons why--superficially speaking--_amelia_ should be "judged inferior to its predecessor." that it succeeded _tom jones_ after an interval of little more than two years and eight months would be an important element in the comparison, if it were known at all definitely what period was occupied in writing _tom jones_. all that can be affirmed is that fielding must have been far more at leisure when he composed the earlier work than he could possibly have been when filling the office of a bow street magistrate. but, in reality, there is a much better explanation of the superiority of _tom jones_ to _amelia_ than the merely empirical one of the time it took. _tom jones_, it has been admirably said by a french critic, "_est la condensation et le resume de toute une existence. c'est le resultat et la conclusion de plusieurs annees de passions et de pensees, la formule derniere et complete de la philosophie personnelle que l'on s'est faite sur tout ce que l'on a vu et senti_." such an experiment, argues planche, is not twice repeated in a lifetime: the soil which produced so rich a crop can but yield a poorer aftermath. behind _tom jones_ there was the author's ebullient youth and manhood; behind _amelia_ but a section of his graver middleage. there are other reasons for diversity in the manner of the book itself. the absence of the initial chapters, which gave so much variety to _tom jones_, tends to heighten the sense of impatience which, it must be confessed, occasionally creeps over the reader of _amelia_, especially in those parts where, like dickens at a later period, fielding delays the progress of his narrative for the discussion of social problems and popular grievances. however laudable the desire (expressed in the dedication) "to expose some of the most glaring evils, as well public as private, which at present infest this country," the result in _amelia_, from an art point of view, is as unsatisfactory as that of certain well-known pages of _bleak house_ and _little dorrit_. again, there is a marked change in the attitude of the author,--a change not wholly reconcilable with the brief period which separates the two novels. however it may have chanced, whether from failing health or otherwise, the fielding of _amelia_ is suddenly a far older man than the fielding of _tom jones_. the robust and irrepressible vitality, the full-veined delight of living, the energy of observation and strength of satire, which characterise the one give place in the other to a calmer retrospection, a more compassionate humanity, a gentler and more benignant criticism of life. that, as some have contended, _amelia_ shows an intellectual falling-off cannot for a moment be admitted, least of all upon the ground--as even so staunch an admirer as mr. keightley has allowed himself to believe--that certain of its incidents are obviously repeated from the _modern husband_ and others of the author's plays. at this rate _tom jones_ might be judged inferior to _joseph andrews_, because the political apothecary in the "man of the hill's" story has his prototype in the _coffee-house politician_, whose original is addison's upholsterer. the plain fact is, that fielding recognised the failure of his plays as literature; he regarded them as dead; and freely transplanted what was good of his forgotten work into the work which he hoped would live. in this, it may be, there was something of indolence or haste; but assuredly there was no proof of declining powers. if, for the sake of comparison, _tom jones_ may be described as an animated and happily-constructed comedy, with more than the usual allowance of first-rate characters, _amelia_ must be regarded as a onepart piece, in which the rest of the _dramatis personae_ are wholly subordinate to the central figure. captain booth, the two colonels, atkinson and his wife, miss matthews, dr. harrison, trent, the shadowy and maleficent "my lord," are all less active on their own account than energised and set in motion by amelia. round her they revolve; from her they obtain their impulse and their orbit. the best of the men, as studies, are dr. harrison and colonel bath. the former, who is as benevolent as allworthy, is far more human, and it may be added, more humorous in well-doing. he is an individual rather than an abstraction. bath, with his dignity and gun-cotton honour, is also admirable, but not entirely free from the objection made to some of dickens's creations, that they are rather characteristics than characters. captain william booth, beyond his truth to nature, manifests no qualities that can compensate for his weakness, and the best that can be said of him is, that without it, his wife would have had no opportunity for the display of her magnanimity. there is also a certain want of consistency in his presentment; and when, in the residence of mr. bondum the bailiff, he suddenly develops an unexpected scholarship, it is impossible not to suspect that fielding was unwilling to lose the opportunity of preserving some neglected scenes of the _author's farce_. miss matthews is a new and remarkable study of the _femme entretenue_, to parallel which, as in the case of lady bellaston, we must go to balzac; mrs. james, again, is an excellent example of that vapid and colourless nonentity, the "person of condition." mrs. bennet, although apparently more contradictory and less intelligible, is nevertheless true to her past history and present environments; while her husband, the sergeant, with his concealed and reverential love for his beautiful foster-sister, has had a long line of descendants in the modern novel. it is upon amelia, however, that the author has lavished all his pains, and there is no more touching portrait in the whole of fiction than this heroic and immortal one of feminine goodness and forbearance. it is needless to repeat that it is painted from fielding's first wife, or to insist that, as lady mary was fully persuaded, "several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact." that famous scene where amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the king's arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, "while her husband was paying a debt of several guineas incurred by the ace of trumps being in the hands of his adversary"--a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huskiness in the throat,--the visits to the pawnbroker and the sponging-house, the robbery by the little servant, the encounter at vauxhall, and some of the pretty vignettes of the children, are no doubt founded on personal recollections. whether the pursuit to which the heroine is exposed had any foundation in reality it is impossible to say; and there is a passage in murphy's memoir which almost reads as if it had been penned with the express purpose of anticipating any too harshly literal identification of booth with fielding, since we are told of the latter that "though disposed to gallantry by his strong animal spirits, and the vivacity of his passions, he was remarkable for tenderness _and constancy to his wife_ [the italics are ours], and the strongest affection for his children." these, however, are questions beside the matter, which is the conception of _amelia_. that remains, and must remain for ever, in the words of one of fielding's greatest modern successors, a figure "wrought with love.... nought modish in it, pure and noble lines of generous womanhood that fits all time." there are many women who forgive; but amelia does more--she not only forgives, but she forgets. the passage in which she exhibits to her contrite husband the letter received long before from miss matthews is one of the noblest in literature; and if it had been recorded that fielding--like thackeray on a memorable occasion--had here slapped his fist upon the table, and said "_that_ is a stroke of genius!" it would scarcely have been a thing to be marvelled at. one final point in connection with her may be noted, which has not always been borne in mind by those who depict good women--much after hogarth's fashion-without a head. she is not by any means a simpleton, and it is misleading to describe her as a tender, fluttering little creature, who, because she can cook her husband's supper, and caresses him with the obsolete name of billy, must necessarily be contemptible. on the contrary, she has plenty of ability and good sense, with a fund of humour which enables her to enjoy slily and even gently satirise the fine lady airs of mrs. james. nor is it necessary to contend that her faculties are subordinated to her affections; but rather that conjugal fidelity and christian charity are inseparable alike from her character and her creed. as illustrating the tradition that fielding depicted his first wife in sophia western and in amelia, it has been remarked that there is no formal description of her personal appearance in his last novel, her portrait having already been drawn at length in _tom jones_. but the following depreciatory sketch by mrs. james is worth quoting, not only because it indirectly conveys the impression of a very handsome woman, but because it is also an admirable specimen of fielding's lighter manner:-"'in the first place,' cries mrs. james, 'her eyes are too large; and she hath a look with them that i don't know how to describe; but i know i don't like it. then her eyebrows are too large; therefore, indeed, she doth all in her power to remedy this with her pincers; for if it was not for those, her eyebrows would be preposterous.--then her nose, as well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side. [footnote: see note on this subject in chapter iv., and appendix no. iii.]--her neck likewise is too protuberant for the genteel size, especially as she laces herself; for no woman, in my opinion, can be genteel who is not entirely flat before. and lastly, she is both too short, and too tall.-well, you may laugh, mr. james, i know what i mean, though i cannot well express it. i mean, that she is too tall for a pretty woman, and too short for a fine woman.--there is such a thing as a kind of insipid medium--a kind of something that is neither one thing or another. i know not how to express it more clearly; but when i say such a one is a pretty woman, a pretty thing, a pretty creature, you know very well i mean a little woman; and when i say such a one is a very fine woman, a very fine person of a woman, to be sure i must mean a tall woman. now a woman that is between both, is certainly neither the one nor the other." the ingenious expedients of andrew millar, to which reference has been made, appear to have so far succeeded that a new edition of _amelia_ was called for on the day of publication. johnson, to whom we owe this story, was thoroughly captivated with the book. notwithstanding that on another occasion he paradoxically asserted that the author was "a blockhead"--"a barren rascal," he read it through without stopping, and pronounced mrs. booth to be "the most pleasing heroine of all the romances." richardson, on the other hand, found "the characters and situations so wretchedly low and dirty" that he could not get farther than the first volume. with the professional reviewers, a certain criticulus in the _gentleman's_ excepted, it seems to have fared but ill; and although these adverse verdicts, if they exist, are now more or less inaccessible, fielding has apparently summarised most of them in a mock-trial of _amelia_ before the "_court of_ censorial enquiry," the proceedings of which are recorded in nos. 7 and 8 of the _covent-garden journal_. the book is indicted upon the statute of dulness, and the heroine is charged with being a "_low_ character," a "_milksop_," and a "_fool_;" with lack of spirit and fainting too frequently; with dressing her children, cooking and other "servile offices;" with being too forgiving to her husband; and lastly, as may be expected, with the inconsistency, already amply referred to, of being "a beauty _without a nose_." dr. harrison and colonel bath are arraigned much in the same fashion. after some evidence against her has been tendered, and "a great number of beaus, rakes, fine ladies, and several formal persons with bushy wigs, and canes at their noses," are preparing to supplement it, a grave man steps forward, and, begging to be heard, delivers what must be regarded as fielding's final apology for his last novel:-"if you, mr. censor, are yourself a parent, you will view me with compassion when i declare i am the father of this poor girl the prisoner at the bar; nay, when i go further and avow, that of all my offspring she is my favourite child. i can truly say that i bestowed a more than ordinary pains in her education; in which i will venture to affirm, i followed the rules of all those who are acknowledged to have writ best on the subject; and if her conduct be fairly examined, she will be found to deviate very little from the strictest observation of all those rules; neither homer nor virgil pursued them with greater care than myself, and the candid and learned reader will see that the latter was the noble model, which i made use of on this occasion. "i do not think my child is entirely free from faults. i know nothing human that is so; but surely she doth not deserve the rancour with which she hath been treated by the public. however, it is not my intention, at present, to make any defence; but shall submit to a compromise, which hath been always allowed in this court in all prosecutions for dulness. i do, therefore, solemnly declare to you, mr. censor, that i will trouble the world no more with any children of mine by the same muse." whether sincere or not, this last statement appears to have afforded the greatest gratification to richardson. "will i leave you to captain booth?" he writes triumphantly to mrs. donnellan, in answer to a question she had put to him. "captain booth, madam, has done his own business. mr. fielding has overwritten himself, or rather _under_written; and in his own journal seems ashamed of his last piece; and has promised that the same muse shall write no more for him. the piece, in short, is as dead as if it had been published forty years ago, as to sale." there is much to the same effect in the worthy little printer's correspondence; but enough has been quoted to show how intolerable to the super-sentimental creator of the high-souled and heroic _clarissa_ was his rival's plainer and more practical picture of matronly virtue and modesty. in cases of this kind, _parva seges satis est_, and amelia has long since outlived both rival malice and contemporary coldness. it is a proof of her author's genius, that she is even more intelligible to our age than she was to her own. at the end of the second volume of the first edition of her history was a notice announcing the immediate appearance of the above-mentioned _covent-garden journal_, a bi-weekly paper, in which fielding, under the style and title of sir alexander drawcansir, assumed the office of censor of great britain. the first number of this new venture was issued on january the 4th, 1752, and the price was threepence. in plan, and general appearance, it resembled the _jacobite's journal_, consisting mainly of an introductory essay, paragraphs of current news, often accompanied by pointed editorial comment, miscellaneous articles, and advertisements. one of the features of the earlier numbers was a burlesque, but not very successful, _journal of the present paper war_, which speedily involved the author in actual hostilities with the notorious quack and adventurer dr. john hill, who for some time had been publishing certain impudent lucubrations in the _london daily advertiser_ under the heading of _the inspector_; and also with smollett, whom he (fielding) had ridiculed in his second number, perhaps on account of that little paragraph in the first edition of _peregrine pickle_, to which reference was made in an earlier chapter. smollett, always irritable and combative, retorted by a needlessly coarse and venomous pamphlet, in which, under the name of "habbakkuk hilding, justice, dealer and chapman," fielding was attacked with indescribable brutality. another, and seemingly unprovoked, adversary whom the _journal of the war_ brought upon him was bonnel thornton, afterwards joint-author with george colman of the _connoisseur_, who, in a production styled _have at you all; or, the drury lane journal_, lampooned sir alexander with remarkable rancour and assiduity. mr. lawrence has treated these "quarrels of authors" at some length; and they also have some record in the curious collections of the elder disraeli. as a general rule, fielding was far less personal and much more scrupulous in his choice of weapons than those who assailed him; but the conflict was an undignified one, and, as scott has justly said, "neither party would obtain honour by an inquiry into the cause or conduct of its hostilities." in the enumeration of fielding's works it is somewhat difficult (if due proportion be observed) to assign any real importance to efforts like the _covent-garden journal_. compared with his novels, they are insignificant enough. but even the worst work of such a man is notable in its way; and fielding's contributions to the _journal_ are by no means to be despised. they are shrewd lay sermons, often exhibiting much out-of-the-way erudition, and nearly always distinguished by some of his personal qualities. in no. 33, on "profanity," there is a charactersketch which, for vigour and vitality, is worthy of his best days; and there is also a very thoughtful paper on "reading," containing a kindly reference to "the ingenious author of _clarissa_," which should have mollified that implacable moralist. in this essay it is curious to notice that, while fielding speaks with due admiration of shakespeare and moliere, lucian, cervantes, and swift, he condemns rabelais and aristophanes, although in the invocation already quoted from _tom jones_, he had included both these authors among the models he admired. another paper in the _covent-garden journal_ is especially interesting because it affords a clue to a project of fielding's which unfortunately remained a project. this was a translation of the works of lucian, to be undertaken in conjunction with his old colleague, the rev. william young. proposals were advertised, and the enterprise was duly heralded by a "puff preliminary," in which fielding, while abstaining from anything directly concerning his own abilities, observes, "i will only venture to say, that no man seems so likely to translate an author well, as he who hath formed his stile upon that very author"--a sentence which, taken in connection with the references to lucian in _tom thumb_, the _champion_ and elsewhere, must be accepted as distinctly autobiographic. the last number of the covent-garden journal (no. 72) was issued in november 1752. by this time sir alexander seems to have thoroughly wearied of his task. with more gravity than usual he takes leave of letters, begging the public that they will not henceforth father on him the dulness and scurrility of his worthy contemporaries; "since i solemnly declare that unless in revising my former works, i have at present no intention to hold any further correspondence with the gayer muses." the labour of conducting the _covent-garden journal_ must have been the more severe in that, during the whole period of its existence, the editor was vigorously carrying out his duties as a magistrate. the prison and political scenes in _amelia_, which contemporary critics regarded as redundant, and which even to us are more curious than essential, testify at once to his growing interest in reform, and his keen appreciation of the defects which existed both in the law itself and in the administration of the law; while the numerous cases heard before him, and periodically reported in his paper by his clerk, afford ample evidence of his judicial activity. how completely he regarded himself (bathurst and rigby notwithstanding) as the servant of the public, may be gathered from the following regularly repeated notice:-"to the public. "all persons who shall for the future, suffer by robbers, burglars, &c., are desired immediately to bring, or send, the best description they can of such robbers, &c., with the time and place, and circumstances of the fact, to henry fielding, esq.; at his house in bow street." another instance of his energy in his vocation is to be found in the little collection of cases entitled _examples of the interposition of providence, in the detection and punishment of murder_, published, with preface and introduction, in april 1752, and prompted, as advertisement announces, "by the many horrid murders committed within this last year." it appeared, as a matter of fact, only a few days after the execution at oxford, for parricide, of the notorious miss mary blandy, and might be assumed to have a more or less timely intention; but the purity of fielding's purpose is placed beyond a doubt by the fact that he freely distributed it in court to those whom it seemed calculated to profit. the only other works of fielding which precede the posthumously published _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ are the _proposal for making an effectual provision for the poor_, etc., a pamphlet dedicated to the right honble. henry pelham, published in january 1753; and the _clear state of the case of elizabeth canning_, published in march. the former, which the hitherto unfriendly _gentleman's_ patronisingly styles an "excellent piece," conceived in a manner which gives "a high idea of his [the author's] present temper, manners and ability," is an elaborate project for the erection, _inter alia_, of a vast building, of which a plan, "drawn by an eminent hand," was given, to be called the countyhouse, capable of containing 5000 inmates, and including work-rooms, prisons, an infirmary, and other features, the details of which are too minute to be repeated in these pages, even if they had received any attention from the legislature, which they did not. the latter was fielding's contribution to the extraordinary judicial puzzle, which agitated london in 1753-4. it is needless to do more than recall its outline. on the 29th of january 1753, one elizabeth canning, a domestic servant aged eighteen or thereabouts, and who had hitherto borne an excellent character, returned to her mother, having been missing from the house of her master, a carpenter in aldermanbury, since the 1st of the same month. she was half starved and half clad, and alleged that she had been abducted, and confined during her absence in a house on the hertford road, from which she had just escaped. this house she afterwards identified as that of one mother wells, a person of very indifferent reputation. an ill-favoured old gipsy woman named mary squires was also declared by her to have been the main agent in illusing and detaining her. the gipsy, it is true, averred that at the time of the occurrence she was a hundred and twenty miles away; but canning persisted in her statement. among other people before whom she came was fielding, who examined her, as well as a young woman called virtue hall, who appeared subsequently as one of canning's witnesses. fielding seems to have been strongly impressed by her appearance and her story, and his pamphlet (which was contradicted in every particular by his adversary, john hill) gives a curious and not very edifying picture of the magisterial procedure of the time. in february, wells and squires were tried; squires was sentenced to death, and wells to imprisonment and burning in the hand. then, by the exertions of the lord mayor, sir crisp gascoyne, who doubted the justice of the verdict, squires was respited and pardoned. forthwith london was split up into egyptian and canningite factions; a hailstorm of pamphlets set in; portraits and caricatures of the principal personages were in all the print shops; and, to use churchill's words, "--_betty canning_ was at least, with _gascoyne's_ help, a six months feast." in april 1754, however, fate so far prevailed against her that she herself, in turn, was tried for perjury. thirty-eight witnesses swore that squires had been in dorsetshire; twenty-seven that she had been seen in middlesex. after some hesitation, quite of a piece with the rest of the proceedings, the jury found canning guilty; and she was transported for seven years. at the end of her sentence she returned to england to receive a legacy of l500, which had been left her by an enthusiastic old lady of newington-green. [footnote: so says the _annual register_ for 1761, p. 179. but according to later accounts (_gent. mag._ xliii. 413), she never returned, dying in 1773 at weathersfield in connecticut.] her "case" is full of the most inexplicable contradictions; and it occupies in the _state trials_ some four hundred and twenty closely-printed pages of the most curious and picturesque eighteenth-century details. but how, from the 1st of january 1753 to the 29th of the same month, elizabeth canning really did manage to spend her time is a secret that, to this day, remains undivulged. chapter vii. the journal of a voyage to lisbon. in march 1753, when fielding published his pamphlet on elizabeth canning, his life was plainly drawing to a close. his energies indeed were unabated, as may be gathered from a brief record in the _gentleman's_ for that month, describing his judicial raid, at four in the morning, upon a gaming-room, where he suspected certain highwaymen to be assembled. but his body was enfeebled by disease, and he knew he could not look for length of days. he had lived not long, but much; he had seen in little space, as the motto to _tom jones_ announced, "the manners of many men;" and now that, prematurely, the inevitable hour approached, he called cicero and horace to his aid, and prepared to meet his fate with philosophic fortitude. between _"quem fors dierum cunque dabit, lucro appone,"_ and _"grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora,"_ he tells us in his too-little-consulted _proposal for the poor_, he had schooled himself to regard events with equanimity, striving above all, in what remained to him of life, to perform the duties of his office efficiently, and solicitous only for those he must leave behind him. henceforward his literary efforts should be mainly philanthropic and practical, not without the hope that, if successful, they might be the means of securing some provision for his family. of fiction he had taken formal leave in the trial of _amelia_; and of lighter writing generally in the last paper of the _covent-garden journal_. but, if we may trust his introduction, the amount of work he had done for his poor-law project must have been enormous, for he had read and considered all the laws upon the subject, as well as everything that had been written on it since the days of elizabeth, yet he speaks nevertheless as one over whose head the sword had all the while been impending:-"the attempt, indeed, is such, that the want of success can scarce be called a disappointment, tho' i shall have lost much time, and misemployed much pains; and what is above all, shall miss the pleasure of thinking that in the decline of my health and life, i have conferred a great and lasting benefit on my country." in words still more resigned and dignified, he concludes the book:-his enemies, he says, will no doubt "discover, that instead of intending a provision for the poor, i have been carving out one for myself, [footnote: presumably as governor of the proposed county-house.] and have very cunningly projected to build myself a fine house at the expence (_sic_) of the public. this would be to act in direct opposition to the advice of my above master [i.e. horace]; it would be indeed struere domos immemor sepulchri. those who do not know me, may believe this; but those who do, will hardly be so deceived by that chearfulness which was always natural to me; and which, i thank god, my conscience doth not reprove me for, to imagine that i am not sensible of my declining constitution.... ambition or avarice can no longer raise a hope, or dictate any scheme to me, who have no further design than to pass my short remainder of life in some degree of ease, and barely to preserve my family from being the objects of any such laws as i have here proposed." with the exception of the above, and kindred passages quoted from the prefaces to the _miscellanies_ and the plays, the preceding pages, as the reader has no doubt observed, contain little of a purely autobiographical character. moreover, the anecdotes related of fielding by murphy and others have not always been of such a nature as to inspire implicit confidence in their accuracy, while of the very few letters that have been referred to, none have any of those intimate and familiar touches which reveal the individuality of the writer. but from the middle of 1753 up to a short time before his death, fielding has himself related the story of his life, in one of the most unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own or any other literature. the only thing which, at the moment, suggests itself for comparison with the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ is the letter and dedication which fielding's predecessor, cervantes, prefixes to his last romance of _persiles and sigismunda_. in each case the words are animated by the same uncomplaining kindliness--the same gallant and indomitable spirit; in each case the writer is a dying man. cervantes survived the date of his letter to the conde de lemos but three days; and the _journal_, says fielding's editor (probably his brother john), was "finished almost at the same period with life." it was written, from its author's account, in those moments of the voyage when, his womankind being sea-sick, and the crew wholly absorbed in working the ship, he was thrown upon his own resources, and compelled to employ his pen to while away the time. the preface, and perhaps the introduction, were added after his arrival at lisbon, in the brief period before his death. the former is a semihumorous apology for voyage-writing; the latter gives an account of the circumstances which led to this, his last expedition in search of health. at the beginning of august 1753, fielding tells us, having taken the duke of portland's medicine [footnote: a popular eighteenth-century gout-powder, but as old as galen. the receipt for it is given in the _gentleman's magazine_, vol. xxiii., 579.] for near a year, "the effects of which had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout," mr. ranby, the king's sergeant-surgeon [footnote: mr. ranby was also the friend of hogarth, who etched his house at chiswick.] (to whom complimentary reference had been made in the man of the hill's story in _tom jones_), with other able physicians, advised him "to go immediately to bath." he accordingly engaged lodgings, and prepared to leave town forthwith. while he was making ready for his departure, and was "almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street robbers," he received a message from the duke of newcastle, afterwards premier, through that mr. carrington whom walpole calls "the cleverest of all ministerial terriers," requesting his attendance in lincoln's-inn fields (newcastle house). being lame, and greatly over-taxed, fielding excused himself. but the duke sent mr. carrington again next day, and fielding with great difficulty obeyed the summons. after waiting some three hours in the antechamber (no unusual feature, as lord chesterfield informs us, of the newcastle audiences), a gentleman was deputed to consult him as to the devising of a plan for putting an immediate end to the murders and robberies which had become so common. this, although the visit cost him "a severe cold," fielding at once undertook. a proposal was speedily drawn out and submitted to the privy council. its essential features were the employment of a known informer, and the provision of funds for that purpose. by the time this scheme was finally approved, fielding's disorder had "turned to a deep jaundice," in which case the bath waters were generally regarded as "almost infallible." but his eager desire to break up "this gang of villains and cut-throats" delayed him in london; and a day or two after he had received a portion of the stipulated grant, (which portion, it seems, took several weeks in arriving), the whole body were entirely dispersed,--"seven of them were in actual custody, and the rest driven, some out of town, and others out of the kingdom." in examining them, however, and in taking depositions, which often occupied whole days and sometimes nights, although he had the satisfaction of knowing that during the dark months of november and december the metropolis enjoyed complete immunity from murder and robbery, his own health was "reduced to the last extremity." "mine (he says) was now no longer what is called a bath case," nor, if it had been, could his strength have sustained the "intolerable fatigue" of the journey thither. he accordingly gave up his bath lodgings, which he had hitherto retained, and went into the country "in a very weak and deplorable condition." he was suffering from jaundice, dropsy, and asthma, under which combination of diseases his body was "so entirely emaciated, that it had lost all its muscular flesh." he had begun with reason "to look on his case as desperate," and might fairly have regarded himself as voluntarily sacrificed to the good of the public. but he is far too honest to assign his action to philanthropy alone. his chief object (he owns) had been, if possible, to secure some provision for his family in the event of his death. not being a "trading justice,"--that is, a justice who took bribes from suitors, like justice thrasher in _amelia_, or justice squeez'um in the _coffee house politician_,--his post at bow street had scarcely been a lucrative one. "by composing, instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which i blush when i say hath not been universally practised) and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, i had reduced an income of about l500 a year of the dirtiest money upon earth to little more than l300, a considerable proportion of which remained with my clerk." besides the residue of his justice's fees, he had also, he informs us, a yearly pension from the government, "out of the public service-money," but the amount is not stated. the rest of his means, as far as can be ascertained, were derived from his literary labours. to a man of his lavish disposition, and with the claims of a family upon him, this could scarcely have been a competence; and if, as appears not very clearly from a note in the journal, he now resigned his office to his half-brother, who had long been his assistant, his private affairs at the beginning of the winter of 1753-54 must, as he says, have "had but a gloomy aspect." in the event of his death his wife and children could have no hope except from some acknowledgment by the government of his past services. meanwhile his diseases were slowly gaining ground. the terrible winter of 1753-54, which, from the weather record in the _gentleman's_, seems, with small intermission, to have been prolonged far into april, was especially trying to asthmatic patients, and consequently wholly against him. in february he returned to town, and put himself under the care of the notorious dr. joshua ward of pall mall, by whom he was treated and tapped for dropsy. [footnote: ward appears in hogarth's _consultation of physicians_, 1736, and in pope--"ward try'd on puppies, and the poor, his drop." he was a quack, but must have possessed considerable ability. bolingbroke wished pope to consult him in 1744; and he attended george ii. there is an account of him in nichols's _genuine works of hogarth_, i. 89.] he was at his worst, he says, "on that memorable day when the public lost mr. pelham (march 6th);" but from this time, he began, under ward's medicines, to acquire "some little degree of strength," although his dropsy increased. with may came the long-delayed spring, and he moved to fordhook, [footnote: it lay on the uxbridge road, a little beyond acton, and nearly opposite the subsequent site of the ealing common station of the metropolitan district railway. the spot is now occupied by "commodious villas."] a "little house" belonging to him at ealing, the air of which place then enjoyed a considerable reputation, being reckoned the best in middlesex, "and far superior to that of kensington gravel-pits." here a re-perusal of bishop berkeley's _siris_, which had been recalled to his memory by mrs. charlotte lennox, "the inimitable author of the _female quixote_," set him drinking tar-water with apparent good effect, except as far as his chief ailment was concerned. the applications of the trocar became more frequent: the summer, if summer it could be called, was "mouldering away;" and winter, with all its danger to an invalid, was drawing on apace. nothing seemed hopeful but removal to a warmer climate. aix in provence was at first thought of, but the idea was abandoned on account of the difficulties of the journey. lisbon, where doddridge had died three years before, was then chosen; a passage in a vessel trading to the port was engaged for the sick man, his wife, daughter, and two servants; and after some delays they started. at this point the actual _journal_ begins with a well-remembered entry:-"_wednesday, june 26th_, 1754.--on this day, the most melancholy sun i had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at fordhook. by the light of this sun, i was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom i doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where i had learnt to bear pains and to despise death. "in this situation, as i could not conquer nature, i submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever: under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me to suffer the company of my little ones, during eight hours; and i doubt not whether, in that time, i did not undergo more than in all my distemper. "at twelve precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner told me than i kiss'd my children round, and went into it with some little resolution. my wife, who behaved more like a heroine and philosopher, tho' at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest daughter, followed me; some friends went with us, and others here took their leave; and i heard my behaviour applauded, with many murmurs and praises to which i well knew i had no title; as all other such philosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess on the like occasions." two hours later the party reached rotherhithe. here, with the kindly assistance of his and hogarth's friend, mr. saunders welch, high constable of holborn, the sick man, who, at this time, "had no use of his limbs," was carried to a boat, and hoisted in a chair over the ship's side. this latter journey, far more fatiguing to the sufferer than the twelve miles ride which he had previously undergone, was not rendered more easy to bear by the jests of the watermen and sailors, to whom his ghastly, death-stricken countenance seemed matter for merriment; and he was greatly rejoiced to find himself safely seated in the cabin. the voyage, however, already more than once deferred, was not yet to begin. wednesday, being king's proclamation day, the vessel could not be cleared at the custom house; and on thursday the skipper announced that he should not set out until saturday. as fielding's complaint was again becoming troublesome, and no surgeon was available on board, he sent for his friend, the famous anatomist, mr. hunter, of covent garden, [footnote: this must have been william hunter, for in 1754 his more distinguished brother john had not yet become celebrated.] by whom he was tapped, to his own relief, and the admiration of the simple sea-captain, who (he writes) was greatly impressed by "the heroic constancy, with which i had borne an operation that is attended with scarce any degree of pain." on sunday the vessel dropped down to gravesend, where, on the next day, mr. welch, who until then had attended them, took his leave; and, fielding, relieved by the trocar of any immediate apprehensions of discomfort, might, in spite of his forlorn case, have been fairly at ease. he had a new concern, however, in the state of mrs. fielding, who was in agony with toothache, which successive operators failed to relieve; and there is an unconsciously touching little picture of the sick man and his skipper, who was deaf, sitting silently over "a small bowl of punch" in the narrow cabin, for fear of waking the pain-worn sleeper in the adjoining state-room. of his second wife, as may be gathered from the opening words of the _journal_, fielding always speaks with the warmest affection and gratitude. elsewhere, recording a storm off the isle of wight, he says, "my dear wife and child must pardon me, if what i did not conceive to be any great evil to myself, i was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them: in truth, i have often thought they are both too good, and too gentle, to be trusted to the power of any man." with what a tenacity of courtesy he treated the whilom mary daniel may be gathered from the following vignette of insolence in office, which can be taken as a set-off to the malicious tattle of walpole:-"soon after their departure [i.e. mr. welch and a companion], our cabin, where my wife and i were sitting together, was visited by two ruffians, whose appearance greatly corresponded with that of the sheriffs, or rather the knight-marshal's bailiffs. one of these, especially, who seemed to affect a more than ordinary degree of rudeness and insolence, came in without any kind of ceremony, with a broad gold lace upon his hat, which was cocked with much military fierceness on his head. an inkhorn at his button-hole, and some papers in his hand, sufficiently assured me what he was, and i asked him if he and his companions were not custom-house officers; he answered with sufficient dignity that they were, as an information which he seemed to consider would strike the hearer with awe, and suppress all further inquiry; but on the contrary i proceeded to ask of what rank he was in the custom house, and receiving an answer from his companion, as i remember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor; i replied, that he might be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that denomination would break into the presence of a lady, without any apology, or even moving his hat. he then took his covering from his head, and laid it on the table, saying, he asked pardon, and blamed the mate, who should, he said, have informed him if any persons of distinction were below. i told him he might guess from our appearance (which, perhaps, was rather more than could be said with the strictest adherence to truth) that he was before a gentleman and lady, which should teach him to be very civil in his behaviour, tho' we should not happen to be of the number whom the world calls people of fashion and distinction. however, i said, that as he seemed sensible of his error, and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to put his hat on again, if he chose it. this he refused with some degree of surliness, and failed not to convince me that, if i should condescend to become more gentle, he would soon grow more rude." the date of this occurrence was july the 1st. on the evening of the same day they weighed anchor and managed to reach the nore. for more than a week they were wind-bound in the downs, but on the 11th they anchored off hyde, from which place, on the next morning, fielding despatched the following letter to his brother. besides giving the names of the captain and the ship, which are carefully suppressed in the _journal_, [footnote: probably this was intentional. notwithstanding the statement in the "dedication to the public" that the text is given "as it came from the hands of the author," the journal, in the first issue of 1755, seems to have been considerably "edited." "mrs. francis" (the ryde landlady) is there called "mrs. humphrys," and the portrait of the military coxcomb, together with some particulars of fielding's visit to the duke of newcastle, and other details, are wholly omitted.] it is especially interesting as being the last letter written by fielding of which we have any knowledge:-"on board the queen of portugal, rich'd veal at anchor on the mother bank, off ryde, to the care of the post master of portsmouth --this is my date and yr direction. "july 12 1754. "dear jack, after receiving that agreeable lre from mess'rs fielding and co., we weighed on monday morning and sailed from deal to the westward. four days long but inconceivably pleasant passage brought us yesterday to an anchor on the mother bank, on the back of the isle of wight, where we had last night in safety the pleasure of hearing the winds roar over our heads in as violent a tempest as i have known, and where my only consideration were the fears which must possess any friend of ours, (if there is happily any such) who really makes our wellbeing the object of his concern especially if such friend should be totally inexperienced in sea affairs. i therefore beg that on the day you receive this mrs. daniel [footnote: it will be remembered that the maiden-name of fielding's second wife, as given in the register of st. bene't's, was mary daniel. "mrs. daniel" was therefore, in all probability, fielding's mother-in-law; and it may reasonably be assumed that she had remained in charge of the little family at fordhook.] may know that we are just risen from breakfast in health and spirits this twelfth instant at 9 in the morning. our voyage hath proved fruitful in adventures all which being to be written in the book, you must postpone yr. curiosity--as the incidents which fall under yr cognizance will possibly be consigned to oblivion, do give them to us as they pass. tell yr neighbour i am much obliged to him for recommending me to the care of a most able and experienced seaman to whom other captains seem to pay such deference that they attend and watch his motions, and think themselves only safe when they act under his direction and example. our ship in truth seems to give laws on the water with as much authority and superiority as you dispense laws to the public and examples to yr brethren in commission. please to direct yr answer to me on board as in the date, if gone to be returned, and then send it by the post and pacquet to lisbon to "yr affect brother "h. fielding "to john fielding esq. at his house in "bow street covt garden london." as the _queen of portugal_ did not leave ryde until the 23d, it is possible that fielding received a reply. during the remainder of this desultory voyage he continued to beguile his solitary hours--hours of which we are left to imagine the physical torture and monotony, for he says but little of himself--by jottings and notes of the, for the most part, trivial accidents of his progress. that happy cheerfulness, of which he spoke in the _proposal for the poor_, had not yet deserted him; and there are moments when he seems rather on a pleasure-trip than a forlorn pilgrimage in search of health. at ryde, where, for change of air, he went ashore, he chronicles, after many discomforts from the most disobliging of landladies (let the name of mrs. francis go down to posterity!), "the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, [in a barn] with more appetite, more real, solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at white's." at torbay, he expatiates upon the merits and flavour of the john dory, a specimen of which "gloriously regaled" the party, and furnished him with a pretext for a dissertation on the london fish supply. another page he devotes to commendation of the excellent _vinum pomonae_, or southam cyder, supplied by "mr. giles leverance of cheeshurst, near dartmouth in devon," of which, for the sum of five pounds ten shillings, he extravagantly purchases three hogsheads, one for himself, and the others as presents for friends, among whom no doubt was kindly mr. welch. here and there he sketches, with but little abatement of his earlier gaiety and vigour, the human nature around him. of the objectionable ryde landlady and her husband there are portraits not much inferior to those of the tow-wouses in _joseph andrews_, while the military fop, who visits his uncle the captain off spithead, is drawn with all the insight which depicted the vagaries of ensign northerton, whom indeed the real hero of the _journal_ not a little resembles. the best character sketch, however, in the whole is that of captain richard veal himself (one almost feels inclined to wonder whether he was in any way related to the worthy lady whose apparition visited mrs. bargrave at canterbury!), but it is of necessity somewhat dispersed. it has also an additional attraction, because, if we remember rightly, it is fielding's sole excursion into the domain of smollett. the rough old sea-dog of the haddock and vernon period, who had been a privateer; and who still, as skipper of a merchant-man, when he visits a friend or gallants the ladies, decorates himself with a scarlet coat, cockade, and sword; who gives vent to a kind of irish howl when his favourite kitten is suffocated under a feather bed; and falls abjectly on his knees when threatened with the dreadful name of law, is a character which, in its surly good-humour and sensitive dignity, might easily, under more favourable circumstances, have grown into an individuality, if not equal to that of squire western, at least on a level with partridge or colonel bath. there are numbers of minute touches--as, for example, his mistaking "a lion" for "elias" when he reads prayers to the ship's company; and his quaint asseverations when exercised by the inconstancy of the wind--which show how closely fielding studied his deaf companion. but it would occupy too large a space to examine the _journal_ more in detail. it is sufficient to say that after some further delays from wind and tide, the travellers sailed up the tagus. here, having undergone the usual quarantine and custom-house obstruction, they landed, and fielding's penultimate words record a good supper at lisbon, "for which we were as well charged, as if the bill had been made on the bath road, between newbury and london." the book ends with a line from the poet whom, in the _proposal for the poor_, he had called his master:- "--hic finis chartaeque viaeque." two months afterwards he died at lisbon, on the 8th of october, in the forty-eighth year of his age. he was buried on the hillside in the centre of the beautiful english cemetery, which faces the great basilica of the heart of jesus, otherwise known as the church of the estrella. here, in a leafy spot where the nightingales fill the still air with song, and watched by those secular cypresses from which the place takes its portuguese name of _os cyprestes_, lies all that was mortal of him whom scott called the "father of the english novel." his first tomb, which wraxall found in 1772, "nearly concealed by weeds and nettles," was erected by the english factory, in consequence mainly--as it seems--of a proposal made by an enthusiastic chevalier de meyrionnet, to provide one (with an epitaph) at his own expense. that now existing was substituted in 1830, by the exertions of the rev. christopher neville, british chaplain at lisbon. it is a heavy sarcophagus, resting upon a large base, and surmounted by just such another urn and flame as that on hogarth's tomb at chiswick. on the front is a long latin inscription; on the back the better-known words:-luget britannia gremio non dari fovere natum. [footnote: the fifth word is generally given as "datum." but the above version, which has been verified at lisbon, may be accepted as correct.] it is to this last memorial that the late george borrow referred in his _bible in spain:_-"let travellers devote one entire morning to inspecting the arcos and the mai das agoas, after which they may repair to the english church and cemetery, pere-la-chaise in miniature, where, if they be of england, they may well be excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as i did, of the author of "amelia," the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fashion to abuse in public and to read in secret." borrow's book was first published in 1843. of late years the tomb had been somewhat neglected; but from a communication in the _athenaeum_ of may 1879, it appears that it had then been recently cleaned, and the inscriptions restored, by order of the present chaplain, the rev. godfrey pope. there is but one authentic portrait of henry fielding. this is the penand-ink sketch drawn from memory by hogarth, long after fielding's death, to serve as a frontispiece for murphy's edition of his works. it was engraved in _facsimile_ by james basire, with such success that the artist is said to have mistaken an impression of the plate (without its emblematic border) for his own drawing. hogarth's sketch is the sole source of all the portraits, more or less "romanced," which are prefixed to editions of fielding; and also, there is good reason to suspect, of the dubious little miniature, still in possession of his descendants, which figures in hutchins's _history of dorset_ and elsewhere. more than one account has been given of the way in which the drawing was produced. the most effective, and, unfortunately, the most popular, version has, of course, been selected by murphy. in this he tells us that hogarth, being unable to recall his dead friend's features, had recourse to a profile cut in paper by a lady, who possessed the happy talent which pope ascribes to lady burlington. her name, which is given in nichols, was margaret collier, and she was possibly the identical miss collier who figures in richardson's _correspondence_. setting aside the fact that, as hogarth's eye-memory was marvellous, this story is highly improbable, it was expressly contradicted by george steevens in 1781, and by john ireland in 1798, both of whom, from their relations with hogarth's family, were likely to be credibly informed. steevens, after referring to murphy's fable, says in the _biographical anecdotes of william hogarth_, "i am assured that our artist began and finished the head in the presence of his wife and another lady. he had no assistance but from his own memory, which, on such occasions, was remarkably tenacious." ireland, in his _hogarth illustrated_, gives us as the simple fact the following:--"hogarth being told, after his friend's death, that a portrait was wanted as a frontispiece to his works, sketched this from memory." according to the inscription on basire's plate, it represents fielding at the age of forty-eight, or in the year of his death. this, however, can only mean that it represents him as hogarth had last seen him. but long before he died, disease had greatly altered his appearance; and he must have been little more than the shadow of the handsome harry fielding, who wrote farces for mrs. clive, and heard the chimes at midnight. as he himself says in the _voyage to lisbon_, he had lost his teeth, and the consequent falling-in of the lips is plainly perceptible in the profile. the shape of the roman nose, which colonel james in _amelia_ irreverently styled a "proboscis," would, however, remain unaltered, and it is still possible to divine a curl, half humorous, half ironic, in the short upper lip. the eye, apparently, was dark and deep-set. oddly enough, the chin, to the length of which he had himself referred in the _champion_, does not appear abnormal. [footnote: in the bust of fielding which miss margaret thomas has been commissioned by mr. r. a. kinglake to execute for the somerset valhalla, the shire-hall at taunton, these points have been carefully considered; and the sculptor has succeeded in producing a work which, while it suggests the mingling of humour and dignity that is fielding's chief characteristic, is also generally faithful to hogarth's indications. from these, indeed, it is impossible to deviate. not only is his portrait unique; but it was admitted to be like fielding by fielding's friends. the bust was placed in the shire hall, 4th september 1883.] beyond the fact that he was above six feet in height, and, until the gout had broken his constitution, unusually robust, murphy adds nothing further to our idea of his personal appearance. that other picture of his character, traced and retraced (often with much exaggeration of outline), is so familiar in english literature, that it cannot now be materially altered or amended. yet it is impossible not to wish that it were derived from some less prejudiced or more trustworthy witnesses than those who have spoken,--say, for example, from lyttelton or allen. there are always signs that walpole's malice, and smollett's animosity, and the rancour of richardson, have had too much to do with the representation; and even murphy and lady mary are scarcely persons whom one would select as ideal biographers. the latter is probably right in comparing her cousin to sir richard steele. both were generous, kindly, brave, and sensitive; both were improvident; both loved women and little children; both sinned often, and had their moments of sincere repentance; to both was given that irrepressible hopefulness, and full delight of being which forgets tomorrow in to-day. that henry fielding was wild and reckless in his youth it would be idle to contest;--indeed it is an intelligible, if not a necessary, consequence of his physique and his temperament. but it is not fair to speak of him as if his youth lasted for ever. "critics and biographers," says mr. leslie stephen, "have dwelt far too exclusively upon the uglier side of his bohemian life;" and fielding himself, in the _jacobite's journal_, complains sadly that his enemies have traced his impeachment "even to his boyish years." that he who was prodigal as a lad was prodigal as a man may be conceded; that he who was sanguine at twenty would be sanguine at forty (although this is less defensible) may also be allowed. but, if we press for "better assurance than bardolph," there is absolutely no good evidence that fielding's career after his marriage materially differed from that of other men struggling for a livelihood, hampered with ill-health, and exposed to all the shifts and humiliations of necessity. if any portrait of him is to be handed down to posterity, let it be the last rather than the first;--not the fielding of the green-room and the tavern--of covent garden frolics and "modern conversations;" but the energetic magistrate, the tender husband and father, the kindly host of his poorer friends, the practical philanthropist, the patient and magnanimous hero of the _voyage to lisbon_. if these things be remembered, it will seem of minor importance that to his dying day he never knew the value of money, or that he forgot his troubles over a chicken and champagne. and even his improvidence was not without its excusable side. once--so runs the legend--andrew millar made him an advance to meet the claims of an importunate tax-gatherer. carrying it home, he met a friend, in even worse straits than his own; and the money changed hands. when the taxgatherer arrived there was nothing but the answer--"friendship has called for the money and had it; let the collector call again." justice, it is needless to say, was satisfied by a second advance from the bookseller. but who shall condemn the man of whom such a story can be told? the literary work of fielding is so inextricably interwoven with what is known of his life that most of it has been examined in the course of the foregoing narrative. what remains to be said is chiefly in summary of what has been said already. as a dramatist he has no eminence; and though his plays do not deserve the sweeping condemnation with which macaulay once spoke of them in the house of commons, they are not likely to attract any critics but those for whom the inferior efforts of a great genius possess a morbid fascination. some of them serve, in a measure, to illustrate his career; others contain hints and situations which he afterwards worked into his novels; but the only ones that possess real stage qualities are those which he borrowed from regnard and moliere. _don quixote in england_, _pasquin_, the _historical register_, can claim no present consideration commensurate with that which they received as contemporary satires, and their interest is mainly antiquarian; while _tom thumb_ and the _covent-garden tragedy_, the former of which would make the reputation of a smaller man, can scarcely hope to be remembered beside _amelia_ or _jonathan wild_. nor can it be admitted that, as a periodical writer, fielding was at his best. in spite of effective passages, his essays remain far below the work of the great augustans, and are not above the level of many of their less illustrious imitators. that instinct of popular selection, which retains a faint hold upon the _rambler_, the _adventurer_, the _world_, and the _connoisseur_, or at least consents to give them honourable interment as "british essayists" in a secluded corner of the shelves, has made no pretence to any preservation, or even any winnowing, of the _champion_ and the _true patriot_. fielding's papers are learned and ingenious; they are frequently humorous; they are often earnest; but it must be a loiterer in literature who, in these days, except for antiquarian or biographical purposes, can honestly find it worth while to consult them. his pamphlets and projects are more valuable, if only that they prove him to have looked curiously and sagaciously at social and political problems, and to have striven, as far as in him lay, to set the crooked straight. their import, to-day, is chiefly that of links in a chain--of contributions to a progressive literature which has travelled into regions unforeseen by the author of the _proposal for the poor_, and the _inquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers_. as such, they have their place in that library of political economy of which mr. mcculloch has catalogued the riches. it is not, however, by his pamphlets, his essays, or his plays that fielding is really memorable; it is by his triad of novels, and the surpassing study in irony of _jonathan wild_. in _joseph andrews_ we have the first sprightly runnings of a genius that, after much uncertainty, had at last found its fitting vein, but was yet doubtful and undisciplined; in _tom jones_ the perfect plan has come, with the perfected method and the assured expression. there is an inevitable loss of that fine waywardness which is sometimes the result of untrained effort, but there is the general gain of order, and the full production which results of art. the highest point is reached in _tom jones_, which is the earliest definite and authoritative manifestation of the modern novel. its relation to de foe is that of the vertebrate to the invertebrate: to richardson, that of the real to the ideal--one might almost add, the impossible. it can be compared to no contemporary english work of its own kind; and if we seek for its parallel at the time of publication we must go beyond literature to art--to the masterpiece of that great pictorial satirist who was fielding's friend. in both fielding and hogarth there is the same constructive power, the same rigid sequence of cause and effect, the same significance of detail, the same side-light of allusion. both have the same hatred of affectation and hypocrisy--the same unerring insight into character. both are equally attracted by striking contrasts and comic situations; in both there is the same declared morality of purpose, coupled with the same sturdy virility of expression. one, it is true, leaned more strongly to tragedy, the other to comedy. but if fielding had painted pictures, it would have been in the style of the _marriage a la mode_; if hogarth had written novels, they would have been in the style of _tom jones_. in the gentler and more subdued _amelia_, with its tender and womanly central-figure, there is a certain change of plan, due to altered conditions--it may be, to an altered philosophy of art. the narrative is less brisk and animated; the character-painting less broadly humorous; the philanthropic element more strongly developed. to trace the influence of these three great works in succeeding writers would hold us too long. it may, nevertheless, be safely asserted that there are few english novels of manners, written since fielding's day, which do not descend from him as from their fount and source; and that more than one of our modern masters betray unmistakable signs of a form and fashion studied minutely from their frank and manly ancestor. postscript. a few particulars respecting fielding's family and posthumous works can scarcely be omitted from the present memoir. it has been stated that by his first wife he had one daughter, the harriet or harriot who accompanied him to lisbon, and survived him, although mr. keightley says, but without giving his authority, she did not survive him long. of his family by mary daniel, the eldest son, william, to whose birth reference has already been made, was bred to the law, became a barrister of the middle temple eminent as a special pleader, and ultimately a westminster magistrate. he died in october 1820, at the age of seventythree. he seems to have shared his father's conversational qualities, [footnote: _vide_ lockhart's _life of scott_, chap. 1.] and, like him, to have been a strenuous advocate of the poor and unfortunate. southey, writing from keswick in 1830 to sir egerton brydges, speaks of a meeting he had in st. james's park, about 1817, with one of the novelist's sons. "he was then," says southey, "a fine old man, though visibly shaken by time: he received me in a manner which had much of old courtesy about it, and i looked upon him with great interest for his father's sake." the date, and the fact that william fielding had had a paralytic stroke, make it almost certain that this was he; and a further reference by southey to his religious opinions is confirmed by the obituary notice in the _gentleman's_, which speaks of him as a worthy and pious man. the names and baptisms of the remaining children, as supplied for these pages by the late colonel chester, were mary amelia, baptized january 6, 1749; sophia, january 21, 1750; louisa, december 3, 1752; and allen, april 6, 1754, about a month before fielding removed to ealing. all these baptisms took place at st. paul's, covent garden, from the registers of which these particulars were extracted. the eldest daughter, mary amelia, does not appear to have long survived, for the same registers record her burial on the 17th december 1749. allen fielding became a clergyman, and died, according to burke, in 1823, being then vicar of st. stephen's, canterbury. he left a family of four sons and three daughters. one of the sons, george, became rector of north ockendon, essex, and married, in 1825, mary rebecca, daughter of ferdinand hanbury-williams, and grandniece of fielding's friend and school-fellow sir charles. this lady, who so curiously linked the present and the past, died not long since at hereford square, brompton, in her eighty-fifth year. mrs. fielding herself (mary daniel) appears to have attained a good old age. her death took place at canterbury on the 11th of march 1802, perhaps in the house of her son allen, who is stated by nichols in his _leicestershire_ to have been rector in 1803 of st. cosmus and damian-in-the-blean. after her husband's death, her children were educated by their uncle john and ralph allen, the latter of whom-says murphy--made a very liberal annual donation for that purpose; and (adds chalmers in a note), when he died in 1764, bequeathed to the widow and those of her family then living, the sum of l100 each. among fielding's other connections it is only necessary to speak of his sister sarah, and his above-mentioned brother john. sarah fielding continued to write; and in addition to _david simple_, published the _governess_, 1749; a translation of xenophon's _memorabilia_; a dramatic fable called the _cry_, and some other forgotten books. during the latter part of her life she lived at bath, where she was highly popular, both for her personal character and her accomplishments. she died in 1768; and her friend, dr. john hoadly, who wrote the verses to the _rake's progress_, erected a monument to her memory in the abbey church. "her unaffected manners, candid mind, her heart benevolent, and soul resign'd; were more her praise than all she knew or thought though athens wisdom to her sex she taught,"-says he; but in mere facts the inscription is, as he modestly styles it, a "deficient memorial," for she is described as having been born in 1714 instead of 1710, and as being the second daughter of general _henry_ instead of general _edmund_ fielding. john fielding, the novelist's half-brother, as already stated, succeeded him at bow street, though the post is sometimes claimed (on boswell's authority) for mr. welch. the mistake no doubt arose from the circumstance that they frequently worked in concert. previous to his appointment as a magistrate, john fielding, in addition to assisting his brother, seems to have been largely concerned in the promotion of that curious enterprise, the "universalregister-office," so often advertised in the _covent-garden journal_. it appears to have been an estate office, lost property office, servants' registry, curiosity shop, and multifarious general agency. as a magistrate, in spite of his blindness, john fielding was remarkably energetic, and is reported to have known more than 3000 thieves by their voices alone, and could recognise them when brought into court. a description of london and westminster is often ascribed to him, but he denied the authorship. he was knighted in 1761, and died at brompton place in 1780. lyttelton, who had become sir george in 1751, was raised to the peerage as baron lyttelton of frankley three years after fielding's death. he died in 1773. in 1760-5 he published his _dialogues of the dead_, profanely characterised by mr. walpole as "dead dialogues." no. 28 of these is a colloquy between "plutarch, charon, and a modern bookseller," and it contains the following reference to fielding:--"we have [says mr. bookseller] another writer of these imaginary histories, one who has not long since descended to these regions. his name is fielding; and his works, as i have heard the best judges say, have a true spirit of comedy, and an exact representation of nature, with fine moral touches. he has not indeed given lessons of pure and consummate virtue, but he has exposed vice and meanness with all the powers of ridicule." it is perhaps excusable that lawrence, like roscoe and others, should have attributed this to lyttelton; but the preface nevertheless assigns it, with two other dialogues, to a "different hand." they were, in fact, the first essays in authorship of that illustrious blue-stocking, mrs. elizabeth montagu. fielding's only posthumous works are the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ and the comedy of _the fathers; or, the good-natur'd man_. the _journal_ was published in february 1755, together with a fragment of a comment on bolingbroke's _essays_, which mallet had issued in march of the previous year. this fragment must therefore have been begun in the last months of fielding's life; and, according to murphy, he made very careful preparation for the work, as attested by long extracts from the fathers and the leading controversialists, which, after his death, were preserved by his brother. beyond a passage or two in richardson's _correspondence_, and a sneering reference by walpole to fielding's "account how his dropsy was treated and teased by an innkeeper's wife in the isle of wight," there is nothing to show how the _journal_ was received, still less that it brought any substantial pecuniary relief to "those innocents," to whom reference had been made in the "dedication." the play was not placed upon the stage until 1778. its story, which is related in the _advertisement_, is curious. after it had been set aside in 1742, [footnote: _vide_ chap. iv. p. 94.] it seems to have been submitted to sir charles hanbury williams. sir charles was just starting for russia, as envoy extraordinary. whether the ms. went with him or not is unknown; but it was lost until 1775 or 1776, when it was recovered in a tattered and forlorn condition by mr. johnes, m.p. for cardigan, from a person who entertained a very poor and even contemptuous opinion of its merits. mr. johnes thought otherwise. he sent it to garrick, who at once recognised it as "harry fielding's comedy." revised and retouched by the actor and sheridan, it was produced at drury lane, as _the fathers_, with a prologue and epilogue by garrick. for a few nights it was received with interest, and even some flickering enthusiasm. it was then withdrawn; and there is no likelihood that it will ever be revived. appendix no i. fielding and sarah andrew. by the courtesy of the editor of the _athenaeum_, the following letter is here reprinted from that paper for 2d june 1883:-75 eaton rise, ealing. in 1855, when mr. frederick lawrence published his _life of henry fielding_, he thus referred (ch. vii. p. 67) to an "early passage" in the novelist's career: "on his [fielding's] return from leyden he conceived a desperate attachment for his cousin, miss sarah andrews [_sic_]. that young lady's friends had, however, so little confidence in her wild kinsman, that they took the precaution of removing her out of his reach; not, it is said, until he had attempted an abduction or elopement.... his cousin was afterwards married to a plain country gentleman, and in that alliance found, perhaps, more solid happiness than she would have experienced in an early and improvident marriage with her gifted kinsman. her image, however, was never effaced from his recollection; and there is a charming picture (so tradition tells) of her luxuriant beauty in the portrait of sophia western, in _tom jones_." mr. lawrence gave no hint or sign of his authority for this unexpected and hitherto unrecorded incident. but the review of his book in the _athenaeum_ for 10th november 1855 elicited the following notes on the subject from mr. george roberts, some time mayor of lyme, and author of a brief history of that town. "henry fielding," wrote mr. roberts, "was at lyme regis, dorset, for the purpose of carrying off an heiress, miss andrew, the daughter of solomon andrew, esq., the last of a series of merchants of that name at lyme. the young lady was living with mr. andrew tucker, one of the corporation, who sent her away to modbury, in south devon, where she married an ancestor of the present rev. mr. rhodes, an eloquent preacher of bath, who possesses the andrew property. mr. rhodes's son married the young lady upon his return to modbury from oxford. the circumstances about the attempts of henry fielding to carry off the young lady, handed down in the ancient tucker family, were doubted by the late head of his family, dr. rhodes, of shapwick, uplyme, etc. since his decease i have found an entry in the old archives of lyme about the fears of andrew tucker, esq., the guardian, as to his safety, owing to the behaviour of henry fielding and his attendant, or man. according to the tradition of the tucker family, given in my _history of lyme_, sophia western was intended to pourtray miss andrew." to mr. roberts's communication succeeded that of another correspondent--one "p. s."--who gave some additional particulars: "there is now, at bellair, in the immediate neighbourhood of exeter the portrait of 'sophia western' [miss andrew]. bellair belongs to the rhodes family, and was the residence of the late george ambrose rhodes, fellow of caius college, and formerly physician to the devon and exeter hospital. he himself directed my attention to this picture. in the board-room of the above hospital there is also the three-quarter length portrait of ralph allen, esq., the 'squire allworthy' of the same novel." no further contribution appears to have been made to the literature of the subject. the late mr. keightley, in his articles on lawrence's book in _fraser's magazine_ for january and february 1858, did, as a matter of fact, refer to the story and mr. roberts's confirmation of it; but beyond pointing out that miss andrew could not have been the original of sophia western, who is declared by fielding himself (_tom jones_, bk. xiii. ch. i.) to have been the portrait of his first wife, charlotte cradock, he added nothing to the existing information. when i began to prepare the sketch of fielding recently included in mr. john morley's series of "english men of letters," matters stood at this point, and i had little hope that any supplementary details could be obtained. i was, indeed, fortunate enough to discover that burke's _landed gentry_ for 1858 gave the year of miss andrew's marriage as 1726; and inquiries at modbury, though they did not actually confirm this, practically did so, by disclosing the fact that a child of mr. and mrs. ambrose rhodes was baptized at that place in april 1727. it became clear, therefore, that instead of being subsequent to fielding's "return from leyden" in 1728, as lawrence supposed, the date of the reported attempt at elopement could not have been later than 1725 or the early part of 1726--so far back, in fact, in fielding's life that i confess to having entertained a private doubt whether it ever occurred at all. that doubt has now been completely removed by the appearance of some new and wholly unlooked-for evidence. after the publication in 1858 of his _fraser_ papers, mr. keightley seems to have continued his researches with the intention of writing a final biography of fielding. in this, which was to include a reprint of the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ and a critical examination of fielding's works, he made considerable progress; and by the courtesy of his nephew, mr. alfred c. lyster, his mss. have been placed at my disposal. much that relates to fielding's life has manifestly the disadvantage of having been written more than twenty years ago, and it reproduces some aspects of fielding which have now been abandoned; but in the elucidation and expansion of the sarah andrew episode mr. keightley leaves little to be desired. his first step, apparently, was to communicate with mr. roberts, who furnished him (6th may 1859) with the following transcript or summary of the original record in the _register book_ of lyme regis:-"john bowdidge, jun., was mayor when andrew tucker, gent., one of the corporation, caused henry fielding, gent., and his servant or companion, joseph lewis--both now and for some time past residing in the borough-to be bound over to keep the peace, as he was in fear of his life or some bodily hurt to be done or to be procured to be done to him by h. fielding and his man. mr. a. tucker feared that the man would beat, maim, or kill him. 14th november 1725." we thus get the exact date of the occurrence, 14th november 1725 (_i._. when fielding was eighteen), the fact that he had been staying for some time in lyme at that date, and the name of his servant. in a further letter of 14th may 1859, mr. roberts referred mr. keightley to mr. james davidson, a devon antiquary, in whose _history of newenham abbey_, longmans, 1843 (surely a most out-of-the-way source of information!), he found the following, derived by the author from the rhodes family (pp. 165, 166): "the estate [of shapwick, near axminster] continued but a short time the property of the noble family of petre, being sold by william the fourth baron, on the 10th of november 1670, to solomon andrew of lyme regis, a gentleman, who possessed a considerable property obtained by his ancestors and himself in mercantile affairs. from him it descended to his only son, who died at the age of twenty-nine years, leaving two sons and a daughter, the latter of whom, by the decease of her brothers, became heiress to the estate. this young lady was placed under the guardianship of mr. rhodes of modbury, and her uncle, mr. tucker of lyme, in whose family she resided. at this time henry fielding, whose very objectionable but once popular works have placed his name high on the list of novel-writers, was an occasional visitor at the place, and enraptured with the charms and the more solid attractions of miss andrew, paid her the most assiduous attention. the views of her guardians were, however, opposed to a connection with so dissipated, though well-born and well-educated a youth, who is said to have in consequence made a desperate attempt to carry the lady off by force on a sunday, when she was on her way to church. the residence of the heiress was then removed to modbury, and the disappointed admirer found consolation in the society of a beauty at salisbury whom he married." there are some manifest misconceptions in this account, due, no doubt, to mr. davidson's ignorance of the exact period of the occurrence as established by the above record in the lyme archives. in the first place, it must have been four or five years at least before fielding consoled himself with miss charlotte cradock, and nearly ten (according to the received date) before he married her. again, in saying that he was "dissipated," mr. davidson must have been thinking of his conventional after-character, for in 1725 he was but a boy fresh from eton, and could scarcely have established any reputation as a rake. nor is there anything in our whole knowledge of him to justify us in supposing that he was at any time a mere mercenary fortune-hunter. finally, according to one of mr. roberts's letters to mr. keightley, timorous mr. tucker of lyme had a very different reason from his personal shortcomings for objecting to fielding as a suitor to his ward. "the tucker family," says mr. roberts, "by tradition consider themselves tricked out of the heiress, miss andrew, by mr. rhodes of modbury, mr. andrew tucker intending the lady for his own son." nevertheless, these reservations made, mr. davidson's version, although _ex parte_, supplies colour and detail to the story. from a pedigree which he gives in his book, it further appears that mrs. rhodes died on the 22d of august 1783, aged seventy-three. this would make her fifteen in 1725. there remained lawrence's enigmatical declaration that she was fielding's cousin. briefly stated, the result of mr. keightley's inquiries in this direction tends to show that miss andrew's mother was connected with the family of fielding's mother, the goulds of sharpham park; and as mr. lawrence does not seem to have been aware of the existence of davidson's book, or to have had any acquaintance with the traditions or archives of lyme, mr. keightley surmises, very plausibly, that his unvouched data must have been derived, directly or indirectly, from the rhodes family. mr. keightley also ingeniously attempts to connect fielding's subsequent residence at leyden (1726-28?) [footnote: see peacock's _index to english-speaking students who have graduated at leyden university_, 1883 (p. 35), where fielding's name occurs under date of 16th march 1728, and _cornhill magazine_ for november 1863--"a scotchman in holland."] with this affair by assuming that he was despatched to the dutch university, instead of oxford or cambridge, in order to keep him out of harm's way. this is, however, to travel somewhat from the realm of fact into that of romance. at the same time, it must be admitted that the materials for romance are tempting. a charming girl, who is also an heiress; a pusillanimous guardian with ulterior views of his own; a handsome and high-spirited young suitor; a faithful attendant ready to "beat, maim, or kill" in his master's behalf; a frustrated elopement and a compulsory visit to the mayor--all these, with the picturesque old town of lyme for a background, suggest a most appropriate first act to harry fielding's biographical tragi-comedy. but to do such a theme justice we must "call up him that left half-told" the story of _denis duval_. appendix no. ii. fielding and mrs. hussey. at pp. 124-5, vol. i., of j. t. smith's _nollekens and his times_, 1828, occurs the following note:-"henry fielding was fond of colouring his pictures of life with the glowing and variegated tints of nature, by conversing with persons of every situation and calling, as i have frequently been informed by one of my [i.e. j. t. smith's] great-aunts, the late mrs. hussey, who knew him intimately. i have heard her say, that mr. fielding never suffered his talent for sprightly conversation to mildew for a moment; and that his manners were so gentlemanly, that even with the lower classes, with which he frequently condescended particularly to chat, such as sir roger de coverley's old friends, the vauxhall watermen, they seldom outstepped the limits of propriety. my aunt, who lived to the age of 105, had been blessed with four husbands, and her name had twice been changed to that of hussey: she was of a most delightful disposition, of a retentive memory, highly entertaining, and liberally communicative; and to her i have frequently been obliged for an interesting anecdote. she was, after the death of her second husband, mr. hussey, a fashionable sacque and mantua-maker, and lived in the strand, a few doors west of the residence of the celebrated le beck, a famous cook, who had a large portrait of himself for the sign of his house, at the north-west corner of half-moon street, since called little bedford street. one day mr. fielding observed to mrs. hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a novel, which he thought would be his best production; and that he intended to introduce in it the characters of all his friends. mrs. hussey, with a smile, ventured to remark, that he must have many niches, and that surely they must already be filled. 'i assure you, my dear madam,' replied he, 'there shall be a bracket for a bust of you.' some time after this, he informed mrs. hussey that the work was in the press; but, immediately recollecting that he had forgotten his promise to her, went to the printer, and was time enough to insert, in vol. iii. p. 17 [bk. x. ch. iv.], where he speaks of the shape of sophia western--'such charms are there in affability, and so sure is it to attract the praises of all kinds of people.'--'it may, indeed, be compared to the celebrated mrs. hussey.' to which observation he has given the following note: 'a celebrated mantua-maker in the strand, famous for setting off the shapes of women.'" there is no reason for supposing that this neglected anecdote should not be in all respects authentic. in fact, upon the venerated principle that "there it stands unto this day to witness if i lie,"-the existence of the passage and note in tom jones is practically sufficient argument for its veracity. this being so, it surely deserves some consideration for the light which it throws on fielding's character. mrs. hussey's testimony as to his dignified and gentlemanly manners, which does not seem to be advanced to meet any particular charge, may surely be set against any innuendoes of the burney and walpole type as to his mean environment and coarse conversation. and the suggestion that "the characters of all his friends"--by which must be intended rather mention of them than portraits--are to be found in his masterpiece, is fairly borne out by the most casual inspection of _tom jones_, especially the first edition, where all the proper names are in italics. in the dedication alone are references to the "princely benefactions" of john, duke of bedford, and to lyttelton and ralph allen, both of whom are also mentioned by name in bk. xiii. ch. i. the names of hogarth and garrick also occur frequently. in bk. iv. ch. i. is an anecdote of wilks the player, who had been one of fielding's earliest patrons. the surgeon in the story of the "man of the hill" (bk. viii. ch. xiii.) "whose name began with an _r_," and who "was sergeant-surgeon to the king," evidently stands for hogarth's chiswick neighbour, mr. ranby, by whose advice fielding was ordered to bath in 1753. again, he knew, though he did not greatly admire, warburton, to whose learning there is a handsome compliment in bk. xiii. ch. i. in bk. xv. ch. iv. is the name of another friend or acquaintance (also mentioned in the _journey from this world to the next_), hooke, of the _roman history_, who, like the author of _tom jones_, had drawn his pen for sarah, duchess of marlborough. bk. xi. ch. iv. contains an anecdote, real or imaginary, of richard nash, with whom fielding must certainly have become familiar in his visits to bath; and it is probable that square's medical advisers (bk. xviii. ch. iv.), dr. harrington and dr. brewster, both of whom subscribed to the _miscellanies_ of 1743, were well-known bathonians. mr. willoughby, also a subscriber, was probably "justice willoughby of noyle" referred to in bk. viii. ch. xi. whether the use of handel's name in bk. iv. ch. v. is of any significance there is no evidence; but the description in bk. iv. ch. vi. of conscience "sitting on its throne in the mind, like the lord high chancellor of this kingdom in his court," and fulfilling its functions "with a knowledge which nothing escapes, a penetration which nothing can deceive, and an integrity which nothing can corrupt," is clearly an oblique panegyric of philip yorke, lord hardwicke, to whom, two years later, fielding dedicated his _enquiry into the late increase of robbers_, etc. besides these, there are references to bishop hoadly (bk. ii. ch. vii.), mrs. whitefield, of the "bell" at gloucester, and mr. timothy harris (bk. viii. ch. viii), mrs. clive, and mr. miller of the _gardener's dictionary_ (bk. ix. ch. i.); and closer examination would no doubt reveal further allusions. meanwhile the above will be sufficient to show that the statement of the "celebrated mantua-maker in the strand" respecting fielding's friends in _tom jones_ is not without foundation. appendix no. iii. amelia's accident. in addition to the alterations mentioned at p. 109 _n_., fielding inserted the following paragraph in the _covent-garden journal_, no. 3, for 11th january 1752:-"it is currently reported that a famous surgeon, who absolutely cured one mrs. amelia booth, of a violent hurt in her nose, insomuch, that she had scarce a scar left on it, intends to bring actions against several ill-meaning and slanderous people, who have reported that the said lady had no nose, merely because the author of her history, in a hurry, forgot to inform his readers of that particular, and which, if those readers had any nose themselves, except that which is mentioned in the motto of this paper, they would have smelt out." the motto is the passage from martial (ep. i. 4. 6) in which he speaks of the _nasus rhinocerotis_. appendix no. iv. fieldingiana. the three foregoing appendices were added to the second edition of 1889. in this appendix, no. iv., i propose to bring together a few dispersed fragments of information, which, either in the way of fresh particulars, or in correction of hitherto-accepted statements made in the body of the book, have come to light during the interval. much that is absolutely new cannot, at this date, be reasonably anticipated. but the unexpected always happens; and the unexpected in the present instance has been productive of two or three items which are not unworthy of brief record. the first relates to that famous "eulogy of gibbon" mentioned in the second sentence of the book. the connexion of fielding's family with the hapsburgs is now no longer asserted. in april 1894, the question was exhaustively examined in the _genealogist_ (new series) by mr. j. horace round, who came to the conclusion that such a claim could not be established; and that, consequently, any picturesque conjunction between that "exquisite picture of human manners" (as gibbon called _tom jones_) [footnote: _autobiographies of edward gibbon_, 1896, p. 419.] and the "imperial eagle of the house of austria" must henceforth be abandoned. mr. round has since reprinted his paper at pp. 216-49 of his _studies in peerage and family history_, 1901; and in a final paragraph he announces that his arguments, at first hotly contested, have now been accepted by burke, from whose records the story has been withdrawn. the next matter is the exact period of fielding's residence at leyden (p. 8). this, although somewhat developed, long remained obscure. in 1883, in the absence of other data, i accepted, as my predecessors had done, murphy's statement that fielding "went _from eton to leyden_, and there continued to show an eager thirst for knowledge, and to _study the civilians_ with a remarkable application for _about two years_, when, remittances failing, he was obliged to return to london, _not then quite twenty years old_ [i.e. before 22nd april 1727]." [footnote: fielding's _works_, 1762, i. 8. the italics are mine.] when the "sarah andrew" episode was conclusively traced to november 1725 (appendix i. p. 200), it seemed only reasonable to suppose that it was succeeded by the leyden expatriation, especially as fielding's first play was produced in february 1728. nor was this supposition seriously disturbed by the appearance of further information. among mr. keightley's mss. i found reference to a paper in the _cornhill magazine_ for november 1863, entitled "a scotchman in holland" (i believe it to have been by james hannay). in this the writer stated that he had been allowed to inspect the album of the university of leyden, and had there, under 1728, found the entry, "henricus fielding, anglus, ann. 20. stud. lit." further, that fielding was living at the hotel of antwerp. it will be noted that this account was derived from the album itself; and that fielding is styled "stud. lit." twelve years after the _cornhill_ article, the university published their list of students from 1575 to 1875; and in 1883 mr. edward peacock, f.s.a., compiled from it, for the "index society," an _index to english speaking students who have graduated at leyden university_. at p. 35 of this appears "fielding, henricus, _anglus_, 16 mart. 1728. [col.] 915." this, it will be observed, adds the month and day, but reveals nothing as to the class of study. as i have implied, neither of these entries was seriously inconsistent with murphy's statement, except as regards "studying the civilians." but in 1906, mr. a. e. h. swaen printed in the _modern language review_ [footnote: vol. i, pp. 327-8 (july 1906, no. iv.)] what was apparently the fullest version of the inscription. from col. 915 (the column given by mr. peacock), he copied the following:--"febr. 16 1728: rectore johanne wesselio, henricus fielding, anglus. 20, l." mr. swaen held that this meant that, on the date named, fielding was _entered as litterarum studiosus_ at leyden. in this case, it would follow that his stay in holland must have been subsequent to february 16, 1728; and mr. swaen went on to suggest that as fielding's "first play, _love in several masques_, was staged at drury lane in february 1728, and his next play, _the temple beau_, was produced in january 1730," the barren interval or part of it, may have been filled by residence at leyden. the fresh complications imported into the question by this new aspect of it will be at once apparent. up to 1875 there had been but one fielding on the leyden books; so that all these differing accounts were variations from a single source. in this difficulty i was fortunate enough to enlist the sympathy of mr. frederic harrison, who most kindly undertook to make inquiries on my behalf at leyden university itself. in reply to certain definite queries drawn up by me, he obtained from the distinguished scholar and professor of history, dr. pieter blok, the following authoritative particulars. the exact words in the original _album academicum_ are:--"le martii _1728_ henricus fielding, anglus, annor. 20 litt. stud." he was then staying at the "casteel van antwerpen"--as related by "a scotchman in holland." his name only occurs again in the yearly _recensiones_ under the 22nd february 1729, as "henricus fieldingh," when he was domiciled with one jan oson. he must, consequently, have left leyden before the 8th february 1730,--the 8th february being the birthday of the university, after which all students had to be annually registered. the entry in the _album_ (as mr. swaen affirmed) is an admission entry; there are no leaving entries. as regards "studying the civilians," fielding might, in those days--dr. blok explains--have had private lessons from the professors, but could not have studied in the university without being on the books. to sum up:--after producing _love in several masques_ at drury lane, probably on the 12th february 1728, [footnote: genest, iii. 209.] fielding was admitted a "litt. stud." at leyden university on 16th march; was still there in february 1729; and left before 8th february 1730. murphy is therefore in fault in almost every particular. fielding did _not_ go from eton to leyden; he did _not_ make any recognised study of the civilians "with remarkable application" or otherwise; and he did _not_ return to london before he was twenty. but it is by no means improbable that the proximate cause of his coming home was the failure of remittances. another of the hitherto-unsolved difficulties in fielding's life has been the date of his first marriage (p. 38). lawrence gave the year as 1735; and keightley suggested the spring of that year. this, as swift would say, is near the mark, though confirmation has been slow in coming. in a letter dated 18th june 1906, mr. thomas s. bush announced in the _bath chronicle_ that the desired information was to be found in a register (not at salisbury, where search had been fruitlessly made, but) at the tiny church of st. mary, charlcombe, a secluded parish about one and a half miles north of bath. here is the record:--"november ye 28, 1734.--henry fielding, of ye parish of st. james in bath, esq., and charlotte cradock, of ye same parish, spinster, were married by virtue of a license from ye court of wells." all fielding lovers owe a debt of gratitude to mr. bush, whose researches also revealed the fact that sarah fielding, the novelist's third sister, was buried, not in bath abbey, where dr. john hoadly [footnote: bishop hoadly is sometimes said to have written her epitaph. in this case it must have been (like dr. primrose's on his deborah) anticipatory, for dr. benjamin hoadly, bishop of winchester, died in 1761.] raised a mural memorial to her, but "in yr entrance of the chancel [of charlcombe church] close to yr rector's seat," 14th april 1768. these are not the only fresh traces of the connexion of the fieldings with the old "queen of the west." in june last a tablet to fielding and his sister was placed on the wall of yew cottage, now widcombe lodge, church street, widcombe, where they once lived. sarah fielding figures frequently in richardson's _correspondence_; and it is with richardson as much as with fielding that the next jotting is concerned. previously to 1900, although second-hand booksellers had, i believe, occasionally attributed to fielding the pamphlet known as _an apology for the life of mrs. shamela andrews_, april 1741, no one had devoted much attention to that unworshipful performance. but when miss clara thomson began to prepare her excellent and careful life of richardson (1900), it became a part of her task to examine into this question. she found, first, that richardson had himself ascribed _shamela_ to fielding in a letter to "mrs. belfour" (lady bradshaigh); [footnote: _correspondence_, 1804, iv. p. 286.] and she was acute enough to discover, in the pamphlet itself, which appeared some months before _joseph andrews_, the suggestive, though not conclusive, fact that "mr. b." was provisionally transformed into "mr. booby." when, in 1902, i was engaged upon my own memoir of richardson for the "men of letters" series, i was naturally indisposed to connect this undoubtedly clever, but also unquestionably gross production with fielding, already "unjustly censured," as he complained in the "preface" to the _miscellanies_ of 1743, for much that he had never written (p. 72). but i must honestly confess that for the present it has been my ill-fortune to discover only corroborative evidence. to a document at south kensington, in which _shamela_ is mentioned, i found that richardson had appended, in the tremulous script of his old age:--"written by mr. h. fielding"; and since the publication of my book on richardson, mr. frederick macmillan has drawn my attention to the fact that a letter written in july 1741, by mr. t. dampier, afterwards sub-master of eton and dean of durham, to one of the windhams, contains the following:-"the book that has made the greatest noise lately in the polite world is _pamela_, a romance in low life. it is thought to contain such excellent precepts, that a learned divine at london [footnote: this enables me to correct an error at p. 74. as miss thomson points out (_samuel richardson_, 1900, p. 31) it was dr. benjamin slocock of st. saviour's, southwark, and not dr. sherlock, who praised _pamela_ from the pulpit. the mistake seems to have originated with jeffrey, and was freely repeated.] recommended it very strongly from the pulpit.... the dedication [of conyers middleton's _life of cicero_] to lord hervey has been very justly and prettily ridiculed by fielding in a dedication to a pamphlet called _shamela_ which he wrote to burlesque the fore-mentioned romance." [footnote: hist. mss. commission, 12th report, appendix, part ix., p. 204.] this shows unmistakably that _shamela_ was attributed to fielding by contemporary gossip. but then so was the _causidicade_ (p. 112), and _the apology for the life of mr. the' cibber_, _comedian_ (p. 72). i still cling to the hope that fielding was _not_ the author of _shamela_. the matter is examined at some length at pp. 42-45 of the "men of letters" memoir of richardson; and it is plain that, if fielding had wished to father it, he would have included it in the _miscellanies_ of 1743. the remaining points which call for notice are little more than dispersed adversaria. to the _amende honorable_ which fielding made to richardson in the _jacobites journal_ (pp. 113-14) should be added a further passage from the later _covent-garden journal_, no. 10-_pleasantry_ (as the ingenious author of _clarissa_ says of a story) "_should be made only the vehicle of instruction_." among other places connected with the composition of _tom jones_ (p. 118) may be mentioned widcombe house, bath (then mr. philip bennet's), a palladian villa close to the road from widcombe hill to prior park; and, if we are to believe _rambles round edge hills_, 1896, p. 17, fielding actually read that work in ms. to lyttelton and lord chatham in the dining-room of radway grange in warwickshire (mr. miller's). it should also be added that the agreement for _tom jones_ (p. 121), dated 5th march 1749, together with fielding's antecedent receipt for the money, dated 11th june 1748, of which in 1883 i could obtain no tidings, are (or were lately) in the huth collection. but perhaps the most important item which has come to light since 1883 is the will discovered in the prerogative court of canterbury by mr. george a. aitken. it is undated, though it was evidently executed at ealing in the novelist's last days, and runs as follows:-"in the name of god amen. i henry fielding of the parish of ealing in the county of middlesex do hereby give and bequeath unto ralph allen of prior park in the county of somerset esq. and to his heirs executors administrators and assigns for ever for the use of the said ralph his heirs, &c. all my estate real and personal and whatsoever and do appoint him sole executor of this my last will beseeching him that the whole (except my share in the register office) may be sold and forthwith converted into money and annuities purchased thereout for the lives of my dear wife mary and my daughters harriet and sophia and what proportions my said executor shall please to reserve to my sons william and allen shall be paid them severally as they shall attain the age of twenty and three. and as for my shares in the register or universal register office i give ten thereof to my aforesaid wife seven to my daughter harriet and three to my daughter sophia my wife to be put in immediate possession of her shares and my daughters of theirs as they shall severally arrive at the age of twenty one the immediate profits to be then likewise paid to my two daughters by my executor who is desired to retain the same in his hands until that time. witness my hand henry fielding. signed and acknowledged as his last will and testament by the within named testator in the presence of margaret collier, richd. boor, isabella ash." "on the 14th november 1754," comments mr. aitken, "administration (with the will annexed) of the goods, &c., of henry fielding, at lisbon, deceased, was granted to john fielding, esq., uncle and guardian lawfully assigned to harriet fielding, spinster, a minor, and sophia fielding, an infant, for the use and benefit and of the minor and infant until they were twenty one; ralph allen, esq., having renounced as well the execution of the will as administration of the goods, &c.; and mary fielding, the relict, having also renounced administration of the goods of the deceased." [footnote: _athenaeum_, february 1, 1890. a portrait of mary fielding by cotes, described by one who knew it as "a very fine drawing of a very ugly woman," was sold not many years since at christie's.] the register office, above mentioned, is that referred to at p. 194. what was the amount of the property so disposed of is not known. but in making inquiries in connexion with an edition of the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ issued by the chiswick press in 1892, [footnote: this considerably elaborates the first note at p. 179.] i discovered that fielding died possessed of a considerable library (653 lots), which was sold in february 1755, "for the benefit of his wife and family," by samuel baker of york street, covent garden, realising l364:7:1, or about l100 more than the public gave in 1785 for the books of johnson. an account of this collection, rich particularly in law, classics, poetry and drama, is given in the third series of my _eighteenth century vignettes_, 1896, pp. 164-178. a few words, in supplement to those in the "postscript" (pp. 191-2), may be devoted to fielding's family. concerning the daughter harriet, or harriot, mentioned in the foregoing will, i am indebted to colonel w. f. prideaux for pointing out to me that in burke's _landed gentry_, 1875, vol. ii. p. 938, it is stated that she afterwards became the second wife of colonel james gabriel montresor. as his first wife died in march 1761, when he was more than fifty-eight; and as he afterwards married for the third time, a widow, mrs. kemp of teynham, kent, it is probable that, as keightley says, harriet montresor was not long-lived. [footnote: according to thomas whitehead's _original anecdotes of the late duke of kingston and miss chudleigh_, 1792, p. 95 (for reference to which i am also indebted to col. prideaux), miss fielding was, at the date of her marriage, "in a deep decline,"--a circumstance which lends a touch of chivalry to col. montresor's devotion. she is said by whitehead to have been of "a sweet temper, and great understanding."] of the other children spoken of at p. 192, louisa died in may 1753, being buried from a house in hammersmith. and this brings me to a final question as to fielding's sisters. richardson speaks in august 1749 of being "well acquainted" with _four_ miss fieldings; and murphy and lawrence both refer to a catherine and an ursula of whom mr. keightley could learn nothing. with colonel prideaux's help, and the kind offices of mr. samuel martin of the hammersmith free library, the matter has now been set at rest. in 1887 the late sir leslie stephen had suggested to me that catherine and ursula were probably born at sharpham park. this must have been the case, though keightley had failed to establish it. at all events catherine and ursula existed, for they both died in 1750. the hammersmith registers at fulham record the following burials:--1750 july 9th, mrs. catherine feilding (_sic_). 1750 nov. 12th, mrs. ursula fielding. 1750[-1] feby. 24th, mrs. beatrice fielding. 1753 may 10th, louisa, d. of henry fielding, esq. the first three, with sarah, make up richardson's "four worthy sisters" (p. 140); and the final entry renders it probable that, in may 1753, fielding was staying in the house at hammersmith then occupied by his surviving sister, sarah. no well-authenticated likeness of fielding has yet superseded hogarth's outline (pp. 184-5), nor, if murphy's statement (_works_, 1762, i. p. 47) that "no portrait of him had ever been made" previously, be accurate, can any new likeness be looked for. nevertheless, both at the guelph (1891) and georgian (1906) exhibitions, the hon. gerald ponsonby exhibited a portrait of fielding; and another is included in the picture attributed to hogarth (also shown at the latter exhibition, and lately belonging to sir charles tennant), of the "green room, drury lane." there is also a bust (posthumous) by w. f. woodington at eton. and this reminds me that no more fitting tail-piece to this appendix can be conceived than the compact and penetrating lines which the late james russell lowell composed as an inscription for the bust of henry fielding at taunton:- "he looked on naked nature unashamed, and saw the sphinx, now bestial, now divine, in change and re-change; he nor praised nor blamed, but drew her as he saw with fearless line. did he good service? god must judge, not we. manly he was, and generous and sincere; english in all, of genius blithely free: who loves a man may see his image here." a. d. _march_ 1907. every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. archaic spellings, such as antient, expence, shew, inrolment, chearfully & encrease, have been retained. illustrations have been moved from mid-paragraph for ease of reading. (etext transcriber's note) the works of henry fielding edited by george saintsbury in twelve volumes vol. xi. miscellanies vol. i. [illustration: frontispiece] a journey from this world to the next and a voyage to lisbon by henry fielding esq [illustration: text decoration] edited by george saintsbury with illustrations by herbert railton & f. j. wheeler. london published by j. m. dent & co. at aldine house in great eastern street mdcccxciii contents of vol. i. page introduction xi a journey from this world to the next, etc. etc. introduction 1 book i. chapter i. _the author dies, meets with mercury, and is by him conducted to the stage which sets out for the other world_ 4 chapter ii. _in which the author first refutes some idle opinions concerning spirits, and then the passengers relate their several deaths_ 7 chapter iii. _the adventures we met with in the city of diseases_ 12 chapter iv. _discourses on the road, and a description of the palace of death_ 20 chapter v. _the travellers proceed on their journey, and meet several spirits who are coming into the flesh_ 23 chapter vi. _an account of the wheel of fortune, with a method of preparing a spirit for this world_ 28 chapter vii. _the proceedings of judge minos at the gate of elysium_ 31 chapter viii. _the adventures which the author met on his first entrance into elysium_ 37 chapter ix. _more adventures in elysium_ 40 chapter x. _the author is surprised at meeting julian the apostate in elysium; but is satisfied by him by what means he procured his entrance there. julian relates his adventures in the character of a slave_ 44 chapter xi. _in which julian relates his adventures in the character of an avaricious jew_ 52 chapter xii. _what happened to julian in the characters of a general, an heir, a carpenter, and a beau_ 56 chapter xiii. _julian passes into a fop_ 61 chapter xiv _adventures in the person of a monk_ 62 chapter xv. _julian passes into the character of a fidler_ 64 chapter xvi. _the history of the wise man_ 69 chapter xvii. _julian enters into the person of a king_ 77 chapter xviii. _julian passes into a fool_ 84 chapter xix. _julian appears in the character of a beggar_ 89 chapter xx. _julian performs the part of a statesman_ 95 chapter xxi. _julian's adventures in the post of a soldier_ 102 chapter xxii. _what happened to julian in the person of a taylor_ 108 chapter xxiii. _the life of alderman julian_ 112 chapter xxiv. _julian recounts what happened to him while he was a poet_ 118 chapter xxv. _julian performs the parts of a knight and a dancing-master_ 122 book xix. chapter vii. _wherein anna boleyn relates the history of her life_ 125 the journal of a voyage to lisbon. page dedication to the public 145 preface 147 introduction 156 the voyage 169 [illustration: text decoration] list of illustrations fielding's tomb at lisbon _frontispiece_ i desired him much to name a price _page 3_ he abjectly implored for mercy _" 258_ [illustration: text decoration] introduction. when it was determined to extend the present edition of fielding, not merely by the addition of _jonathan wild_ to the three universally popular novels, but by two volumes of _miscellanies_, there could be no doubt about at least one of the contents of these latter. the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_, if it does not rank in my estimation anywhere near to _jonathan wild_ as an example of our author's genius, is an invaluable and delightful document for his character and memory. it is indeed, as has been pointed out in the general introduction to this series, our main source of indisputable information as to fielding _dans son naturel_, and its value, so far as it goes, is of the very highest. the gentle and unaffected stoicism which the author displays under a disease which he knew well was probably, if not certainly, mortal, and which, whether mortal or not, must cause him much actual pain and discomfort of a kind more intolerable than pain itself; his affectionate care for his family; even little personal touches, less admirable, but hardly less pleasant than these, showing an englishman's dislike to be "done" and an englishman's determination to be treated with proper respect, are scarcely less noticeable and important on the biographical side than the unimpaired brilliancy of his satiric and yet kindly observation of life and character is on the side of literature. there is, as is now well known since mr dobson's separate edition of the _voyage_, a little bibliographical problem about the first appearance of this _journal_ in 1755. the best known issue of that year is much shorter than the version inserted by murphy and reprinted here, the passages omitted being chiefly those reflecting on the captain, &c., and so likely to seem invidious in a book published just after the author's death, and for the benefit, as was expressly announced, of his family. but the curious thing is that there is _another_ edition, of date so early that some argument is necessary to determine the priority, which does give these passages and is identical with the later or standard version. for satisfaction on this point, however, i must refer readers to mr dobson himself. there might have been a little, but not much, doubt as to a companion piece for the _journal_; for indeed, after we close this (with or without its "fragment on bolingbroke"), the remainder of fielding's work lies on a distinctly lower level of interest. it is still interesting, or it would not be given here. it still has--at least that part which here appears seems to its editor to have--interest intrinsic and "simple of itself." but it is impossible for anybody who speaks critically to deny that we now get into the region where work is more interesting because of its authorship than it would be if its authorship were different or unknown. to put the same thing in a sharper antithesis, fielding is interesting, first of all, because he is the author of _joseph andrews_, of _tom jones_, of _amelia_, of _jonathan wild_, of the _journal_. his plays, his essays, his miscellanies generally are interesting, first of all, because they were written by fielding. yet of these works, the _journey from this world to the next_ (which, by a grim trick of fortune, might have served as a title for the more interesting _voyage_ with which we have yoked it) stands clearly first both in scale and merit. it is indeed very unequal, and as the author was to leave it unfinished, it is a pity that he did not leave it unfinished much sooner than he actually did. the first ten chapters, if of a kind of satire which has now grown rather obsolete for the nonce, are of a good kind and good in their kind; the history of the metempsychoses of julian is of a less good kind, and less good in that kind. the date of composition of the piece is not known, but it appeared in the _miscellanies_ of 1743, and may represent almost any period of its author's development prior to that year. its form was a very common form at the time, and continued to be so. i do not know that it is necessary to assign any very special origin to it, though lucian, its chief practitioner, was evidently and almost avowedly a favourite study of fielding's. the spanish romancers, whether borrowing it from lucian or not, had been fond of it; their french followers, of whom the chief were fontenelle and le sage, had carried it northwards; the english essayists had almost from the beginning continued the process of acclimatisation. fielding therefore found it ready to his hand, though the present condition of this example would lead us to suppose that he did not find his hand quite ready to it. still, in the actual "journey," there are touches enough of the master--not yet quite in his stage of mastery. it seemed particularly desirable not to close the series without some representation of the work to which fielding gave the prime of his manhood, and from which, had he not, fortunately for english literature, been driven decidedly against his will, we had had in all probability no _joseph andrews_ and pretty certainly no _tom jones_. fielding's periodical and dramatic work has been comparatively seldom reprinted, and has never yet been reprinted as a whole. the dramas indeed are open to two objections--the first, that they are not very "proper;" the second, and much more serious, that they do not redeem this want of propriety by the possession of any remarkable literary merit. three (or two and part of a third) seemed to escape this double censure--the first two acts of the _author's farce_ (practically a piece to themselves, for the _puppet show_ which follows is almost entirely independent); the famous burlesque of _tom thumb_, which stands between the _rehearsal_ and the _critic_, but nearer to the former; and _pasquin_, the maturest example of fielding's satiric work in drama. these accordingly have been selected; the rest i have read, and he who likes may read. i have read many worse things than even the worst of them, but not often worse things by so good a writer as henry fielding. the next question concerned the selection of writings more miscellaneous still, so as to give in little a complete idea of fielding's various powers and experiments. two difficulties beset this part of the task--want of space and the absence of anything so markedly good as absolutely to insist on inclusion. the _essay on conversation_, however, seemed pretty peremptorily to challenge a place. it is in a style which fielding was very slow to abandon, which indeed has left strong traces even on his great novels; and if its mannerism is not now very attractive, the separate traits in it are often sharp and well-drawn. the book would not have been complete without a specimen or two of fielding's journalism. _the champion_, his first attempt of this kind, has not been drawn upon in consequence of the extreme difficulty of fixing with absolute certainty on fielding's part in it. i do not know whether political prejudice interferes, more than i have usually found it interfere, with my judgement of the two hanoverian-partisan papers of the '45 time. but they certainly seem to me to fail in redeeming their dose of rancour and misrepresentation by any sufficient evidence of genius such as, to my taste, saves not only the party journalism in verse and prose of swift and canning and praed on one side, but that of wolcot and moore and sydney smith on the other. even the often-quoted journal of events in london under the chevalier is overwrought and tedious. the best thing in the _true patriot_ seems to me to be parson adams' letter describing his adventure with a young "bowe" of his day; and this i select, together with one or two numbers of the _covent garden journal_. i have not found in this latter anything more characteristic than murphy's selection, though mr dobson, with his unfailing kindness, lent me an original and unusually complete set of the _journal_ itself. it is to the same kindness that i owe the opportunity of presenting the reader with something indisputably fielding's and very characteristic of him, which murphy did not print, and which has not, so far as i know, ever appeared either in a collection or a selection of fielding's work. after the success of _david simple_, fielding gave his sister, for whom he had already written a preface to that novel, another preface for a set of _familiar letters_ between the characters of _david simple_ and others. this preface murphy reprinted; but he either did not notice, or did not choose to attend to, a note towards the end of the book attributing certain of the letters to the author of the preface, the attribution being accompanied by an agreeably warm and sisterly denunciation of those who ascribed to fielding matter unworthy of him. from these the letter which i have chosen, describing a row on the thames, seems to me not only characteristic, but, like all this miscellaneous work, interesting no less for its weakness than for its strength. in hardly any other instance known to me can we trace so clearly the influence of a suitable medium and form on the genius of the artist. there are some writers--dryden is perhaps the greatest of them--to whom form and medium seem almost indifferent, their all-round craftsmanship being such that they can turn any kind and every style to their purpose. there are others, of whom i think our present author is the chief, who are never really at home but in one kind. in fielding's case that kind was narrative of a peculiar sort, half-sentimental, half-satirical, and almost wholly sympathetic--narrative which has the singular gift of portraying the liveliest character and yet of admitting the widest digression and soliloquy. until comparatively late in his too short life, when he found this special path of his (and it is impossible to say whether the actual finding was in the case of _jonathan_ or in the case of _joseph_), he did but flounder and slip. when he had found it, and was content to walk in it, he strode with as sure and steady a step as any other, even the greatest, of those who carry and hand on the torch of literature through the ages. but it is impossible to derive full satisfaction from his feats in this part of the race without some notion of his performances elsewhere; and i believe that such a notion will be supplied to the readers of his novels by the following volumes, in a very large number of cases, for the first time. [illustration: text decoration] a journey from this world to the next, _etc. etc._ introduction. whether the ensuing pages were really the dream or vision of some very pious and holy person; or whether they were really written in the other world, and sent back to this, which is the opinion of many (though i think too much inclining to superstition); or lastly, whether, as infinitely the greatest part imagine, they were really the production of some choice inhabitant of new bethlehem, is not necessary nor easy to determine. it will be abundantly sufficient if i give the reader an account by what means they came into my possession. mr robert powney, stationer, who dwells opposite to catherine-street in the strand, a very honest man and of great gravity of countenance; who, among other excellent stationary commodities, is particularly eminent for his pens, which i am abundantly bound to acknowledge, as i owe to their peculiar goodness that my manuscripts have by any means been legible: this gentleman, i say, furnished me some time since with a bundle of those pens, wrapped up with great care and caution, in a very large sheet of paper full of characters, written as it seemed in a very bad hand. now, i have a surprising curiosity to read everything which is almost illegible; partly perhaps from the sweet remembrance of the dear scrawls, skrawls, or skrales (for the word is variously spelt), which i have in my youth received from that lovely part of the creation for which i have the tenderest regard; and partly from that temper of mind which makes men set an immense value on old manuscripts so effaced, bustoes so maimed, and pictures so black that no one can tell what to make of them. i therefore perused this sheet with wonderful application, and in about a day's time discovered that i could not understand it. i immediately repaired to mr powney, and inquired very eagerly whether he had not more of the same manuscript? he produced about one hundred pages, acquainting me that he had saved no more; but that the book was originally a huge folio, had been left in his garret by a gentleman who lodged there, and who had left him no other satisfaction for nine months' lodging. he proceeded to inform me that the manuscript had been hawked about (as he phrased it) among all the booksellers, who refused to meddle; some alledged that they could not read, others that they could not understand it. some would have it to be an atheistical book, and some that it was a libel on the government; for one or other of which reasons they all refused to print it. that it had been likewise shewn to the r--l society, but they shook their heads, saying, there was nothing in it wonderful enough for them. that, hearing the gentleman was gone to the west-indies, and believing it to be good for nothing else, he had used it as waste paper. he said i was welcome to what remained, and he was heartily sorry for what was missing, as i seemed to set some value on it. [illustration: '_i desired him to name a price_'] i desired him much to name a price: but he would receive no consideration farther than the payment of a small bill i owed him, which at that time he said he looked on as so much money given him. i presently communicated this manuscript to my friend parson abraham adams, who, after a long and careful perusal, returned it me with his opinion that there was more in it than at first appeared; that the author seemed not entirely unacquainted with the writings of plato; but he wished he had quoted him sometimes in his margin, that i might be sure (said he) he had read him in the original: for nothing, continued the parson, is commoner than for men now-a-days to pretend to have read greek authors, who have met with them only in translations, and cannot conjugate a verb in _mi_. to deliver my own sentiments on the occasion, i think the author discovers a philosophical turn of thinking, with some little knowledge of the world, and no very inadequate value of it. there are some indeed who, from the vivacity of their temper and the happiness of their station, are willing to consider its blessings as more substantial, and the whole to be a scene of more consequence than it is here represented: but, without controverting their opinions at present, the number of wise and good men who have thought with our author are sufficient to keep him in countenance: nor can this be attended with any ill inference, since he everywhere teaches this moral: that the greatest and truest happiness which this world affords, is to be found only in the possession of goodness and virtue; a doctrine which, as it is undoubtedly true, so hath it so noble and practical a tendency, that it can never be too often or too strongly inculcated on the minds of men. [illustration: text decoration] book i. chapter i. _the author dies, meets with mercury, and is by him conducted to the stage which sets out for the other world._ on the first day of december 1741[a] i departed this life at my lodgings in cheapside. my body had been some time dead before i was at liberty to quit it, lest it should by any accident return to life: this is an injunction imposed on all souls by the eternal law of fate, to prevent the inconveniences which would follow. as soon as the destined period was expired (being no longer than till the body is become perfectly cold and stiff) i began to move; but found myself under a difficulty of making my escape, for the mouth or door was shut, so that it was impossible for me to go out at it; and the windows, vulgarly called the eyes, were so closely pulled down by the fingers of a nurse, that i could by no means open them. at last i perceived a beam of light glimmering at the top of the house (for such i may call the body i had been inclosed in), whither ascending, i gently let myself down through a kind of chimney, and issued out at the nostrils. no prisoner discharged from a long confinement ever tasted the sweets of liberty with a more exquisite relish than i enjoyed in this delivery from a dungeon wherein i had been detained upwards of forty years, and with much the same kind of regard i cast my eyes[b] backwards upon it. my friends and relations had all quitted the room, being all (as i plainly overheard) very loudly quarrelling below stairs about my will; there was only an old woman left above to guard the body, as i apprehend. she was in a fast sleep, occasioned, as from her savour it seemed, by a comfortable dose of gin. i had no pleasure in this company, and, therefore, as the window was wide open, i sallied forth into the open air: but, to my great astonishment, found myself unable to fly, which i had always during my habitation in the body conceived of spirits; however, i came so lightly to the ground that i did not hurt myself; and, though i had not the gift of flying (owing probably to my having neither feathers nor wings), i was capable of hopping such a prodigious way at once, that it served my turn almost as well. i had not hopped far before i perceived a tall young gentleman in a silk waistcoat, with a wing on his left heel, a garland on his head, and a caduceus in his right hand.[c] i thought i had seen this person before, but had not time to recollect where, when he called out to me and asked me how long i had been departed. i answered i was just come forth. "you must not stay here," replied he, "unless you had been murdered: in which case, indeed, you might have been suffered to walk some time; but if you died a natural death you must set out for the other world immediately." i desired to know the way. "o," cried the gentleman, "i will show you to the inn whence the stage proceeds; for i am the porter. perhaps you never heard of me--my name is mercury." "sure, sir," said i, "i have seen you at the playhouse." upon which he smiled, and, without satisfying me as to that point, walked directly forward, bidding me hop after him. i obeyed him, and soon found myself in warwick-lane; where mercury, making a full stop, pointed at a particular house, where he bad me enquire for the stage, and, wishing me a good journey, took his leave, saying he must go seek after other customers. i arrived just as the coach was setting out, and found i had no reason for enquiry; for every person seemed to know my business the moment i appeared at the door: the coachman told me his horses were to, but that he had no place left; however, though there were already six, the passengers offered to make room for me. i thanked them, and ascended without much ceremony. we immediately began our journey, being seven in number; for, as the women wore no hoops, three of them were but equal to two men. perhaps, reader, thou mayest be pleased with an account of this whole equipage, as peradventure thou wilt not, while alive, see any such. the coach was made by an eminent toyman, who is well known to deal in immaterial substance, that being the matter of which it was compounded. the work was so extremely fine, that it was entirely invisible to the human eye. the horses which drew this extraordinary vehicle were all spiritual, as well as the passengers. they had, indeed, all died in the service of a certain post-master; and as for the coachman, who was a very thin piece of immaterial substance, he had the honour while alive of driving the great peter, or peter the great, in whose service his soul, as well as body, was almost starved to death. such was the vehicle in which i set out, and now, those who are not willing to travel on with me may, if they please, stop here; those who are, must proceed to the subsequent chapters, in which this journey is continued. chapter ii. _in which the author first refutes some idle opinions concerning spirits, and then the passengers relate their several deaths._ it is the common opinion that spirits, like owls, can see in the dark; nay, and can then most easily be perceived by others. for which reason, many persons of good understanding, to prevent being terrified with such objects, usually keep a candle burning by them, that the light may prevent their seeing. mr locke, in direct opposition to this, hath not doubted to assert that you may see a spirit in open daylight full as well as in the darkest night. it was very dark when we set out from the inn, nor could we see any more than if every soul of us had been alive. we had travelled a good way before any one offered to open his mouth; indeed, most of the company were fast asleep,[d] but, as i could not close my own eyes, and perceived the spirit who sat opposite to me to be likewise awake, i began to make overtures of conversation, by complaining _how dark it was_. "and extremely cold too," answered my fellow-traveller; "though, i thank god, as i have no body, i feel no inconvenience from it: but you will believe, sir, that this frosty air must seem very sharp to one just issued forth out of an oven; for such was the inflamed habitation i am lately departed from." "how did you come to your end, sir?" said i. "i was murdered, sir," answered the gentleman. "i am surprized then," replied i, "that you did not divert yourself by walking up and down and playing some merry tricks with the murderer." "oh, sir," returned he, "i had not that privilege, i was lawfully put to death. in short, a physician set me on fire, by giving me medicines to throw out my distemper. i died of a hot regimen, as they call it, in the small-pox." one of the spirits at that word started up and cried out, "the small-pox! bless me! i hope i am not in company with that distemper, which i have all my life with such caution avoided, and have so happily escaped hitherto!" this fright set all the passengers who were awake into a loud laughter; and the gentleman, recollecting himself, with some confusion, and not without blushing, asked pardon, crying, "i protest i dreamt that i was alive." "perhaps, sir," said i, "you died of that distemper, which therefore made so strong an impression on you." "no, sir," answered he, "i never had it in my life; but the continual and dreadful apprehension it kept me so long under cannot, i see, be so immediately eradicated. you must know, sir, i avoided coming to london for thirty years together, for fear of the small-pox, till the most urgent business brought me thither about five days ago. i was so dreadfully afraid of this disease that i refused the second night of my arrival to sup with a friend whose wife had recovered of it several months before, and the same evening got a surfeit by eating too many muscles, which brought me into this good company." "i will lay a wager," cried the spirit who sat next him, "there is not one in the coach able to guess my distemper." i desired the favour of him to acquaint us with it, if it was so uncommon. "why, sir," said he, "i died of honour."--"of honour, sir!" repeated i, with some surprize. "yes, sir," answered the spirit, "of honour, for i was killed in a duel." "for my part," said a fair spirit, "i was inoculated last summer, and had the good fortune to escape with a very few marks on my face. i esteemed myself now perfectly happy, as i imagined i had no restraint to a full enjoyment of the diversions of the town; but within a few days after my coming up i caught cold by overdancing myself at a ball, and last night died of a violent fever." after a short silence which now ensued, the fair spirit who spoke last, it being now daylight, addressed herself to a female who sat next her, and asked her to what chance they owed the happiness of her company. she answered, she apprehended to a consumption, but the physicians were not agreed concerning her distemper, for she left two of them in a very hot dispute about it when she came out of her body. "and pray, madam," said the same spirit to the sixth passenger, "how came you to leave the other world?" but that female spirit, screwing up her mouth, answered, she wondered at the curiosity of some people; that perhaps persons had already heard some reports of her death, which were far from being true; that, whatever was the occasion of it, she was glad at being delivered from a world in which she had no pleasure, and where there was nothing but nonsense and impertinence; particularly among her own sex, whose loose conduct she had long been entirely ashamed of. the beauteous spirit, perceiving her question gave offence, pursued it no farther. she had indeed all the sweetness and good-humour which are so extremely amiable (when found) in that sex which tenderness most exquisitely becomes. her countenance displayed all the cheerfulness, the good-nature, and the modesty, which diffuse such brightness round the beauty of seraphina,[e] awing every beholder with respect, and, at the same time, ravishing him with admiration. had it not been indeed for our conversation on the small-pox, i should have imagined we had been honoured with her identical presence. this opinion might have been heightened by the good sense she uttered whenever she spoke, by the delicacy of her sentiments, and the complacence of her behaviour, together with a certain dignity which attended every look, word, and gesture; qualities which could not fail making an impression on a heart[f] so capable of receiving it as mine, nor was she long in raising in me a very violent degree of seraphic love. i do not intend by this, that sort of love which men are very properly said to make to women in the lower world, and which seldom lasts any longer than while it is making. i mean by seraphic love an extreme delicacy and tenderness of friendship, of which, my worthy reader, if thou hast no conception, as it is probable thou mayest not, my endeavour to instruct thee would be as fruitless as it would be to explain the most difficult problems of sir isaac newton to one ignorant of vulgar arithmetic. to return therefore to matters comprehensible by all understandings: the discourse now turned on the vanity, folly, and misery of the lower world, from which every passenger in the coach expressed the highest satisfaction in being delivered; though it was very remarkable that, notwithstanding the joy we declared at our death, there was not one of us who did not mention the accident which occasioned it as a thing we would have avoided if we could. nay, the very grave lady herself, who was the forwardest in testifying her delight, confessed inadvertently that she left a physician by her bedside; and the gentleman who died of honour very liberally cursed both his folly and his fencing. while we were entertaining ourselves with these matters, on a sudden a most offensive smell began to invade our nostrils. this very much resembled the savour which travellers in summer perceive at their approach to that beautiful village of the hague, arising from those delicious canals which, as they consist of standing water, do at that time emit odours greatly agreeable to a dutch taste, but not so pleasant to any other. those perfumes, with the assistance of a fair wind, begin to affect persons of quick olfactory nerves at a league's distance, and increase gradually as you approach. in the same manner did the smell i have just mentioned, more and more invade us, till one of the spirits, looking out of the coach-window, declared we were just arrived at a very large city; and indeed he had scarce said so before we found ourselves in the suburbs, and, at the same time, the coachman, being asked by another, informed us that the name of this place was the city of diseases. the road to it was extremely smooth, and, excepting the above-mentioned savour, delightfully pleasant. the streets of the suburbs were lined with bagnios, taverns, and cooks' shops: in the first we saw several beautiful women, but in tawdry dresses, looking out at the windows; and in the latter were visibly exposed all kinds of the richest dainties; but on our entering the city we found, contrary to all we had seen in the other world, that the suburbs were infinitely pleasanter than the city itself. it was indeed a very dull, dark, and melancholy place. few people appeared in the streets, and these, for the most part, were old women, and here and there a formal grave gentleman, who seemed to be thinking, with large tie-wigs on, and amber-headed canes in their hands. we were all in hopes that our vehicle would not stop here; but, to our sorrow, the coach soon drove into an inn, and we were obliged to alight. chapter iii. _the adventures we met with in the city of diseases._ we had not been long arrived in our inn, where it seems we were to spend the remainder of the day, before our host acquainted us that it was customary for all spirits, in their passage through that city, to pay their respects to that lady disease, to whose assistance they had owed their deliverance from the lower world. we answered we should not fail in any complacence which was usual to others; upon which our host replied he would immediately send porters to conduct us. he had not long quitted the room before we were attended by some of those grave persons whom i have before described in large tie-wigs with amber-headed canes. these gentlemen are the ticket-porters in the city, and their canes are the _insignia_, or tickets, denoting their office. we informed them of the several ladies to whom we were obliged, and were preparing to follow them, when on a sudden they all stared at one another, and left us in a hurry, with a frown on every countenance. we were surprized at this behaviour, and presently summoned the host, who was no sooner acquainted with it than he burst into an hearty laugh, and told us the reason was, because we did not fee the gentlemen the moment they came in, according to the custom of the place. we answered, with some confusion, we had brought nothing with us from the other world, which we had been all our lives informed was not lawful to do. "no, no, master," replied the host; "i am apprized of that, and indeed it was my fault. i should have first sent you to my lord scrape,[g] who would have supplied you with what you want." "my lord scrape supply us!" said i, with astonishment: "sure you must know we cannot give him security; and i am convinced he never lent a shilling without it in his life." "no, sir," answered the host, "and for that reason he is obliged to do it here, where he is sentenced to keep a bank, and to distribute money _gratis_ to all passengers. this bank originally consisted of just that sum, which he had miserably hoarded up in the other world, and he is to perceive it decrease visibly one shilling a-day, till it is totally exhausted; after which he is to return to the other world, and perform the part of a miser for seventy years; then, being purified in the body of a hog, he is to enter the human species again, and take a second trial." "sir," said i, "you tell me wonders: but if his bank be to decrease only a shilling a day, how can he furnish all passengers?" "the rest," answered the host, "is supplied again; but in a manner which i cannot easily explain to you." "i apprehend," said i, "this distribution of his money is inflicted on him as a punishment; but i do not see how it can answer that end, when he knows it is to be restored to him again. would it not serve the purpose as well if he parted only with the single shilling, which it seems is all he is really to lose?" "sir," cries the host, "when you observe the agonies with which he parts with every guinea, you will be of another opinion. no prisoner condemned to death ever begged so heartily for transportation as he, when he received his sentence, did to go to hell, provided he might carry his money with him. but you will know more of these things when you arrive at the upper world; and now, if you please, i will attend you to my lord's, who is obliged to supply you with whatever you desire." we found his lordship sitting at the upper end of a table, on which was an immense sum of money, disposed in several heaps, every one of which would have purchased the honour of some patriots and the chastity of some prudes. the moment he saw us he turned pale, and sighed, as well apprehending our business. mine host accosted him with a familiar air, which at first surprized me, who so well remembered the respect i had formerly seen paid this lord by men infinitely superior in quality to the person who now saluted him in the following manner: "here, you lord, and be dam--d to your little sneaking soul, tell out your money, and supply your betters with what they want. be quick, sirrah, or i'll fetch the beadle to you. don't fancy yourself in the lower world again, with your privilege at your a--." he then shook a cane at his lordship, who immediately began to tell out his money, with the same miserable air and face which the miser on our stage wears while he delivers his bank-bills. this affected some of us so much that we had certainly returned with no more than what would have been sufficient to fee the porters, had not our host, perceiving our compassion, begged us not to spare a fellow who, in the midst of immense wealth, had always refused the least contribution to charity. our hearts were hardened with this reflection, and we all filled our pockets with his money. i remarked a poetical spirit, in particular, who swore he would have a hearty gripe at him: "for," says he, "the rascal not only refused to subscribe to my works, but sent back my letter unanswered, though i am a better gentleman than himself." we now returned from this miserable object, greatly admiring the propriety as well as justice of his punishment, which consisted, as our host informed us, merely in the delivering forth his money; and, he observed, we could not wonder at the pain this gave him, since it was as reasonable that the bare parting with money should make him miserable as that the bare having money without using it should have made him happy. other tie-wig porters (for those we had summoned before refused to visit us again) now attended us; and we having fee'd them the instant they entered the room, according to the instructions of our host, they bowed and smiled, and offered to introduce us to whatever disease we pleased. we set out several ways, as we were all to pay our respects to different ladies. i directed my porter to shew me to the fever on the spirits, being the disease which had delivered me from the flesh. my guide and i traversed many streets, and knocked at several doors, but to no purpose. at one, we were told, lived the consumption; at another, the maladie alamode, a french lady; at the third, the dropsy; at the fourth, the rheumatism; at the fifth, intemperance; at the sixth, misfortune. i was tired, and had exhausted my patience, and almost my purse; for i gave my porter a new fee at every blunder he made: when my guide, with a solemn countenance, told me he could do no more; and marched off without any farther ceremony. he was no sooner gone than i met another gentleman with a ticket, _i.e._, an amber-headed cane in his hand. i first fee'd him, and then acquainted him with the name of the disease. he cast himself for two or three minutes into a thoughtful posture, then pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, on which he writ something in one of the oriental languages, i believe, for i could not read a syllable: he bade me carry it to such a particular shop, and, telling me it would do my business, he took his leave. secure, as i now thought myself, of my direction, i went to the shop, which very much resembled an apothecary's. the person who officiated, having read the paper, took down about twenty different jars, and, pouring something out of every one of them, made a mixture, which he delivered to me in a bottle, having first tied a paper round the neck of it, on which were written three or four words, the last containing eleven syllables. i mentioned the name of the disease i wanted to find out, but received no other answer than that he had done as he was ordered, and the drugs were excellent. i began now to be enraged, and, quitting the shop with some anger in my countenance, i intended to find out my inn, but, meeting in the way a porter whose countenance had in it something more pleasing than ordinary, i resolved to try once more, and clapped a fee into his hand. as soon as i mentioned the disease to him he laughed heartily, and told me i had been imposed on, for in reality no such disease was to be found in that city. he then enquired into the particulars of my case, and was no sooner acquainted with them than he informed me that the maladie alamode was the lady to whom i was obliged. i thanked him, and immediately went to pay my respects to her. the house, or rather palace, of this lady was one of the most beautiful and magnificent in the city. the avenue to it was planted with sycamore-trees, with beds of flowers on each side; it was extremely pleasant but short. i was conducted through a magnificent hall, adorned with several statues and bustoes, most of them maimed, whence i concluded them all to be true antiques; but was informed they were the figures of several modern heroes, who had died martyrs to her ladyship's cause. i next mounted through a large painted staircase, where several persons were depictured in caricatura; and, upon enquiry, was told they were the portraits of those who had distinguished themselves against the lady in the lower world. i suppose i should have known the faces of many physicians and surgeons, had they not been so violently distorted by the painter. indeed, he had exerted so much malice in his work, that i believe he had himself received some particular favours from the lady of this mansion: it is difficult to conceive a group of stranger figures. i then entered a long room, hung round with the pictures of women of such exact shapes and features that i should have thought myself in a gallery of beauties, had not a certain sallow paleness in their complexions given me a more distasteful idea. through this i proceeded to a second apartment, adorned, if i may so call it, with the figures of old ladies. upon my seeming to admire at this furniture, the servant told me with a smile that these had been very good friends of his lady, and had done her eminent service in the lower world. i immediately recollected the faces of one or two of my acquaintance, who had formerly kept bagnios; but was very much surprized to see the resemblance of a lady of great distinction in such company. the servant, upon my mentioning this, made no other answer than that his lady had pictures of all degrees. i was now introduced into the presence of the lady herself. she was a thin, or rather meagre, person, very wan in the countenance, had no nose, and many pimples in her face. she offered to rise at my entrance, but could not stand. after many compliments, much congratulation on her side, and the most fervent expressions of gratitude on mine, she asked me many questions concerning the situation of her affairs in the lower world; most of which i answered to her intire satisfaction. at last, with a kind of forced smile, she said, "i suppose the pill and drop go on swimmingly?" i told her they were reported to have done great cures. she replied she could apprehend no danger from any person who was not of regular practice; "for, however simple mankind are," said she, "or however afraid they are of death, they prefer dying in a regular manner to being cured by a nostrum." she then expressed great pleasure at the account i gave her of the beau monde. she said she had herself removed the hundreds of drury to the hundreds of charing-cross, and was very much delighted to find they had spread into st james's; that she imputed this chiefly to several of her dear and worthy friends, who had lately published their excellent works, endeavouring to extirpate all notions of religion and virtue; and particularly to the deserving author of the bachelor's estimate; "to whom," said she, "if i had not reason to think he was a surgeon, and had therefore written from mercenary views, i could never sufficiently own my obligations." she spoke likewise greatly in approbation of the method, so generally used by parents, of marrying children very young, and without the least affection between the parties; and concluded by saying that, if these fashions continued to spread, she doubted not but she should shortly be the only disease who would ever receive a visit from any person of considerable rank. while we were discoursing her three daughters entered the room. they were all called by hard names; the eldest was named lepra, the second chã¦ras, and the third scorbutia.[h] they were all genteel, but ugly. i could not help observing the little respect they paid their parent, which the old lady remarking in my countenance, as soon as they quitted the room, which soon happened, acquainted me with her unhappiness in her offspring, every one of which had the confidence to deny themselves to be her children, though she said she had been a very indulgent mother and had plentifully provided for them all. as family complaints generally as much tire the hearer as they relieve him who makes them, when i found her launching farther into this subject i resolved to put an end to my visit, and, taking my leave with many thanks for the favour she had done me, i returned to the inn, where i found my fellow-travellers just mounting into their vehicle. i shook hands with my host and accompanied them into the coach, which immediately after proceeded on its journey. chapter iv. _discourses on the road, and a description of the palace of death._ we were all silent for some minutes, till, being well shaken into our several seats, i opened my mouth first, and related what had happened to me after our separation in the city we had just left. the rest of the company, except the grave female spirit whom our reader may remember to have refused giving an account of the distemper which occasioned her dissolution, did the same. it might be tedious to relate these at large; we shall therefore only mention a very remarkable inveteracy which the surfeit declared to all the other diseases, especially to the fever, who, she said, by the roguery of the porters, received acknowledgments from numberless passengers which were due to herself. "indeed," says she, "those cane-headed fellows" (for so she called them, alluding, i suppose, to their ticket) "are constantly making such mistakes; there is no gratitude in those fellows; for i am sure they have greater obligations to me than to any other disease, except the vapours." these relations were no sooner over than one of the company informed us we were approaching to the most noble building he had ever beheld, and which we learnt from our coachman was the palace of death. its outside, indeed, appeared extremely magnificent. its structure was of the gothic order; vast beyond imagination, the whole pile consisting of black marble. rows of immense yews form an amphitheatre round it of such height and thickness that no ray of the sun ever perforates this grove, where black eternal darkness would reign was it not excluded by innumerable lamps which are placed in pyramids round the grove; so that the distant reflection they cast on the palace, which is plentifully gilt with gold on the outside, is inconceivably solemn. to this i may add the hollow murmur of winds constantly heard from the grove, and the very remote sound of roaring waters. indeed, every circumstance seems to conspire to fill the mind with horrour and consternation as we approach to this palace, which we had scarce time to admire before our vehicle stopped at the gate, and we were desired to alight in order to pay our respects to his most mortal majesty (this being the title which it seems he assumes). the outward court was full of soldiers, and, indeed, the whole very much resembled the state of an earthly monarch, only more magnificent. we past through several courts into a vast hall, which led to a spacious staircase, at the bottom of which stood two pages, with very grave countenances, whom i recollected afterwards to have formerly been very eminent undertakers, and were in reality the only dismal faces i saw here; for this palace, so awful and tremendous without, is all gay and sprightly within; so that we soon lost all those dismal and gloomy ideas we had contracted in approaching it. indeed, the still silence maintained among the guards and attendants resembled rather the stately pomp of eastern courts; but there was on every face such symptoms of content and happiness that diffused an air of chearfulness all round. we ascended the staircase and past through many noble apartments whose walls were adorned with various battle-pieces in tapistry, and which we spent some time in observing. these brought to my mind those beautiful ones i had in my lifetime seen at blenheim, nor could i prevent my curiosity from enquiring where the duke of marlborough's victories were placed (for i think they were almost the only battles of any eminence i had read of which i did not meet with); when the skeleton of a beef-eater, shaking his head, told me a certain gentleman, one lewis xiv., who had great interest with his most mortal majesty, had prevented any such from being hung up there. "besides," says he, "his majesty hath no great respect for that duke, for he never sent him a subject he could keep from him, nor did he ever get a single subject by his means but he lost 1000 others for him." we found the presence-chamber at our entrance very full, and a buz ran through it, as in all assemblies, before the principal figure enters; for his majesty was not yet come out. at the bottom of the room were two persons in close conference, one with a square black cap on his head, and the other with a robe embroidered with flames of fire. these, i was informed, were a judge long since dead, and an inquisitor-general. i overheard them disputing with great eagerness whether the one had hanged or the other burnt the most. while i was listening to this dispute, which seemed to be in no likelihood of a speedy decision, the emperor entered the room and placed himself between two figures, one of which was remarkable for the roughness, and the other for the beauty of his appearance. these were, it seems, charles xii. of sweden and alexander of macedon. i was at too great a distance to hear any of the conversation, so could only satisfy my curiosity by contemplating the several personages present, of whose names i informed myself by a page, who looked as pale and meagre as any court-page in the other world, but was somewhat more modest. he shewed me here two or three turkish emperors, to whom his most mortal majesty seemed to express much civility. here were likewise several of the roman emperors, among whom none seemed so much caressed as caligula, on account, as the page told me, of his pious wish that he could send all the romans hither at one blow. the reader may be perhaps surprized that i saw no physicians here; as indeed i was myself, till informed that they were all departed to the city of diseases, where they were busy in an experiment to purge away the immortality of the soul. it would be tedious to recollect the many individuals i saw here, but i cannot omit a fat figure, well drest in the french fashion, who was received with extraordinary complacence by the emperor, and whom i imagined to be lewis xiv. himself; but the page acquainted me he was a celebrated french cook. we were at length introduced to the royal presence, and had the honour to kiss hands. his majesty asked, us a few questions, not very material to relate, and soon after retired. when we returned into the yard we found our caravan ready to set out, at which we all declared ourselves well pleased; for we were sufficiently tired with the formality of a court, notwithstanding its outward splendour and magnificence. chapter v. _the travellers proceed on their journey, and meet several spirits who are coming into the flesh._ we now came to the banks of the great river cocytus, where we quitted our vehicle, and past the water in a boat, after which we were obliged to travel on foot the rest of our journey; and now we met, for the first time, several passengers travelling to the world we had left, who informed us they were souls going into the flesh. the two first we met were walking arm-in-arm, in very close and friendly conference; they informed us that one of them was intended for a duke, and the other for a hackney-coachman. as we had not yet arrived at the place where we were to deposit our passions, we were all surprized at the familiarity which subsisted between persons of such different degrees; nor could the grave lady help expressing her astonishment at it. the future coachman then replied, with a laugh, that they had exchanged lots; for that the duke had with his dukedom drawn a shrew for a wife, and the coachman only a single state. as we proceeded on our journey we met a solemn spirit walking alone with great gravity in his countenance: our curiosity invited us, notwithstanding his reserve, to ask what lot he had drawn. he answered, with a smile, he was to have the reputation of a wise man with â£100,000 in his pocket, and was practising the solemnity which he was to act in the other world. a little farther we met a company of very merry spirits, whom we imagined by their mirth to have drawn some mighty lot, but, on enquiry, they informed us they were to be beggars. the farther we advanced, the greater numbers we met; and now we discovered two large roads leading different ways, and of very different appearance; the one all craggy with rocks, full as it seemed of boggy grounds, and everywhere beset with briars, so that it was impossible to pass through it without the utmost danger and difficulty; the other, the most delightful imaginable, leading through the most verdant meadows, painted and perfumed with all kinds of beautiful flowers; in short, the most wanton imagination could imagine nothing more lovely. notwithstanding which, we were surprized to see great numbers crowding into the former, and only one or two solitary spirits chusing the latter. on enquiry, we were acquainted that the bad road was the way to greatness, and the other to goodness. when we expressed our surprize at the preference given to the former we were acquainted that it was chosen for the sake of the music of drums and trumpets, and the perpetual acclamations of the mob, with which those who travelled this way were constantly saluted. we were told likewise that there were several noble palaces to be seen, and lodged in, on this road, by those who had past through the difficulties of it (which indeed many were not able to surmount), and great quantities of all sorts of treasure to be found in it; whereas the other had little inviting more than the beauty of the way, scarce a handsome building, save one greatly resembling a certain house by the bath, to be seen during that whole journey; and, lastly, that it was thought very scandalous and mean-spirited to travel through this, and as highly honourable and noble to pass by the other. we now heard a violent noise, when, casting our eyes forwards, we perceived a vast number of spirits advancing in pursuit of one whom they mocked and insulted with all kinds of scorn. i cannot give my reader a more adequate idea of this scene than by comparing it to an english mob conducting a pickpocket to the water; or by supposing that an incensed audience at a playhouse had unhappily possessed themselves of the miserable damned poet. some laughed, some hissed, some squawled, some groaned, some bawled, some spit at him, some threw dirt at him. it was impossible not to ask who or what the wretched spirit was whom they treated in this barbarous manner; when, to our great surprize, we were informed that it was a king: we were likewise told that this manner of behaviour was usual among the spirits to those who drew the lots of emperors, kings, and other great men, not from envy or anger, but mere derision and contempt of earthly grandeur; that nothing was more common than for those who had drawn these great prizes (as to us they seemed) to exchange them with taylors and coblers; and that alexander the great and diogenes had formerly done so; he that was afterwards diogenes having originally fallen on the lot of alexander. and now, on a sudden, the mockery ceased, and the king-spirit, having obtained a hearing, began to speak as follows; for we were now near enough to hear him distinctly:-"gentlemen,--i am justly surprized at your treating me in this manner, since whatever lot i have drawn, i did not chuse: if, therefore, it be worthy of derision, you should compassionate me, for it might have fallen to any of your shares. i know in how low a light the station to which fate hath assigned me is considered here, and that, when ambition doth not support it, it becomes generally so intollerable, that there is scarce any other condition for which it is not gladly exchanged: for what portion, in the world to which we are going, is so miserable as that of care? should i therefore consider myself as become by this lot essentially your superior, and of a higher order of being than the rest of my fellow-creatures; should i foolishly imagine myself without wisdom superior to the wise, without knowledge to the learned, without courage to the brave, and without goodness and virtue to the good and virtuous; surely so preposterous, so absurd a pride, would justly render me the object of ridicule. but far be it from me to entertain it. and yet, gentlemen, i prize the lot i have drawn, nor would i exchange it with any of yours, seeing it is in my eye so much greater than the rest. ambition, which i own myself possest of, teaches me this; ambition, which makes me covet praise, assures me that i shall enjoy a much larger proportion of it than can fall within your power either to deserve or obtain. i am then superior to you all, when i am able to do more good, and when i execute that power. what the father is to the son, the guardian to the orphan, or the patron to his client, that am i to you. you are my children, to whom i will be a father, a guardian, and a patron. not one evening in my long reign (for so it is to be) will i repose myself to rest without the glorious, the heartwarming consideration, that thousands that night owe their sweetest rest to me. what a delicious fortune is it to him whose strongest appetite is doing good, to have every day the opportunity and the power of satisfying it! if such a man hath ambition, how happy is it for him to be seated so on high, that every act blazes abroad, and attracts to him praises tainted with neither sarcasm nor adulation, but such as the nicest and most delicate mind may relish! thus, therefore, while you derive your good from me, i am your superior. if to my strict distribution of justice you owe the safety of your property from domestic enemies; if by my vigilance and valour you are protected from foreign foes; if by my encouragement of genuine industry, every science, every art which can embellish or sweeten life, is produced and flourishes among you; will any of you be so insensible or ungrateful as to deny praise and respect to him by whose care and conduct you enjoy these blessings? i wonder not at the censure which so frequently falls on those in my station; but i wonder that those in my station so frequently deserve it. what strange perverseness of nature! what wanton delight in mischief must taint his composition, who prefers dangers, difficulty, and disgrace, by doing evil, to safety, ease, and honour, by doing good! who refuses happiness in the other world, and heaven in this, for misery there and hell here! but, be assured, my intentions are different. i shall always endeavour the ease, the happiness, and the glory of my people, being confident that, by so doing, i take the most certain method of procuring them all to myself."--he then struck directly into the road of goodness, and received such a shout of applause as i never remember to have heard equalled. he was gone a little way when a spirit limped after him, swearing he would fetch him back. this spirit, i was presently informed, was one who had drawn the lot of his prime minister. chapter vi. _an account of the wheel of fortune, with a method of preparing a spirit for this world._ we now proceeded on our journey, without staying to see whether he fulfilled his word or no; and without encountering anything worth mentioning, came to the place where the spirits on their passage to the other world were obliged to decide by lot the station in which every one was to act there. here was a monstrous wheel, infinitely larger than those in which i had formerly seen lottery-tickets deposited. this was called the wheel of fortune. the goddess herself was present. she was one of the most deformed females i ever beheld; nor could i help observing the frowns she expressed when any beautiful spirit of her own sex passed by her, nor the affability which smiled in her countenance on the approach of any handsome male spirits. hence i accounted for the truth of an observation i had often made on earth, that nothing is more fortunate than handsome men, nor more unfortunate than handsome women. the reader may be perhaps pleased with an account of the whole method of equipping a spirit for his entrance into the flesh. first, then, he receives from a very sage person, whose look much resembled that of an apothecary (his warehouse likewise bearing an affinity to an apothecary's shop), a small phial inscribed, the pathetic potion, to be taken just before you are born. this potion is a mixture of all the passions, but in no exact proportion, so that sometimes one predominates, and sometimes another; nay, often in the hurry of making up, one particular ingredient is, as we were informed, left out. the spirit receiveth at the same time another medicine called the nousphoric decoction, of which he is to drink _ad libitum_. this decoction is an extract from the faculties of the mind, sometimes extremely strong and spirituous, and sometimes altogether as weak; for very little care is taken in the preparation. this decoction is so extremely bitter and unpleasant, that, notwithstanding its wholesomeness, several spirits will not be persuaded to swallow a drop of it, but throw it away, or give it to any other who will receive it; by which means some who were not disgusted by the nauseousness drank double and treble portions. i observed a beautiful young female, who, tasting it immediately from curiosity, screwed up her face and cast it from her with great disdain, whence advancing presently to the wheel, she drew a coronet, which she clapped up so eagerly that i could not distinguish the degree; and indeed i observed several of the same sex, after a very small sip, throw the bottles away. as soon as the spirit is dismissed by the operator, or apothecary, he is at liberty to approach the wheel, where he hath a right to extract a single lot: but those whom fortune favours she permits sometimes secretly to draw three or four. i observed a comical kind of figure who drew forth a handful, which, when he opened, were a bishop, a general, a privy-counsellor, a player, and a poet-laureate, and, returning the three first, he walked off, smiling, with the two last. every single lot contained two more articles, which were generally disposed so as to render the lots as equal as possible to each other; on one was written, _earl_, _riches_, _health_, _disquietude_; on another, _cobbler_, _sickness_, _good-humour_; on a third, _poet_, _contempt_, _self-satisfaction_; on a fourth, _general_, _honour_, _discontent_; on a fifth, _cottage_, _happy love_; on a sixth, _coach and six_, _impotent jealous husband_; on a seventh, _prime minister_, _disgrace_; on an eighth, _patriot_, _glory_; on a ninth, _philosopher_, _poverty_, _ease_; on a tenth, _merchant_, _riches_, _care_. and indeed the whole seemed to contain such a mixture of good and evil, that it would have puzzled me which to chuse. i must not omit here that in every lot was directed whether the drawer should marry or remain in celibacy, the married lots being all marked with a large pair of horns. we were obliged, before we quitted this place, to take each of us an emetic from the apothecary, which immediately purged us of all our earthly passions, and presently the cloud forsook our eyes, as it doth those of ã�neas in virgil, when removed by venus; and we discerned things in a much clearer light than before. we began to compassionate those spirits who were making their entry into the flesh, whom we had till then secretly envied, and to long eagerly for those delightful plains which now opened themselves to our eyes, and to which we now hastened with the utmost eagerness. on our way we met with several spirits with very dejected countenances; but our expedition would not suffer us to ask any questions. at length we arrived at the gate of elysium. here was a prodigious crowd of spirits waiting for admittance, some of whom were admitted, and some were rejected; for all were strictly examined by the porter, whom i soon discovered to be the celebrated judge minos. chapter vii. _the proceedings of judge minos at the gate of elysium._ i now got near enough to the gate to hear the several claims of those who endeavoured to pass. the first, among other pretensions, set forth that he had been very liberal to an hospital; but minos answered, "ostentation," and repulsed him. the second exhibited that he had constantly frequented his church, been a rigid observer of fast-days: he likewise represented the great animosity he had shewn to vice in others, which never escaped his severest censure; and as to his own behaviour, he had never been once guilty of whoring, drinking, gluttony, or any other excess. he said he had disinherited his son for getting a bastard. "have you so?" said minos; "then pray return into the other world and beget another; for such an unnatural rascal shall never pass this gate." a dozen others, who had advanced with very confident countenances, seeing him rejected, turned about of their own accord, declaring, if he could not pass, they had no expectation, and accordingly they followed him back to earth; which was the fate of all who were repulsed, they being obliged to take a further purification, unless those who were guilty of some very heinous crimes, who were hustled in at a little back gate, whence they tumbled immediately into the bottomless pit. the next spirit that came up declared he had done neither good nor evil in the world; for that since his arrival at man's estate he had spent his whole time in search of curiosities; and particularly in the study of butterflies, of which he had collected an immense number. minos made him no answer, but with great scorn pushed him back. there now advanced a very beautiful spirit indeed. she began to ogle minos the moment she saw him. she said she hoped there was some merit in refusing a great number of lovers, and dying a maid, though she had had the choice of a hundred. minos told her she had not refused enow yet, and turned her back. she was succeeded by a spirit who told the judge he believed his works would speak for him. "what works?" answered minos. "my dramatic works," replied the other, "which have done so much good in recommending virtue and punishing vice." "very well," said the judge; "if you please to stand by, the first person who passes the gate by your means shall carry you in with him; but, if you will take my advice, i think, for expedition sake, you had better return, and live another life upon earth." the bard grumbled at this, and replied that, besides his poetical works, he had done some other good things: for that he had once lent the whole profits of a benefit-night to a friend, and by that means had saved him and his family from destruction. upon this the gate flew open, and minos desired him to walk in, telling him, if he had mentioned this at first, he might have spared the remembrance of his plays. the poet answered, he believed, if minos had read his works, he would set a higher value on them. he was then beginning to repeat, but minos pushed him forward, and, turning his back to him, applied himself to the next passenger, a very genteel spirit, who made a very low bow to minos, and then threw himself into an erect attitude, and imitated the motion of taking snuff with his right hand. minos asked him what he had to say for himself. he answered, he would dance a minuet with any spirit in elysium: that he could likewise perform all his other exercises very well, and hoped he had in his life deserved the character of a perfect fine gentleman. minos replied it would be great pity to rob the world of so fine a gentleman, and therefore desired him to take the other trip. the beau bowed, thanked the judge, and said he desired no better. several spirits expressed much astonishment at this his satisfaction; but we were afterwards informed he had not taken the emetic above mentioned. a miserable old spirit now crawled forwards, whose face i thought i had formerly seen near westminster abbey. he entertained minos with a long harangue of what he had done when in the house; and then proceeded to inform him how much he was worth, without attempting to produce a single instance of any one good action. minos stopt the career of his discourse, and acquainted him he must take a trip back again. "what! to s---house?" said the spirit in an ecstasy; but the judge, without making him any answer, turned to another, who, with a very solemn air and great dignity, acquainted him he was a duke. "to the right-about, mr duke," cried minos, "you are infinitely too great a man for elysium;" and then, giving him a kick on the b--ch, he addressed himself to a spirit who, with fear and trembling, begged he might not go to the bottomless pit: he said he hoped minos would consider that, though he had gone astray, he had suffered for it--that it was necessity which drove him to the robbery of eighteenpence, which he had committed, and for which he was hanged--that he had done some good actions in his life--that he had supported an aged parent with his labour--that he had been a very tender husband and a kind father--and that he had ruined himself by being bail for his friend. at which words the gate opened, and minos bid him enter, giving him a slap on the back as he passed by him. a great number of spirits now came forwards, who all declared they had the same claim, and that the captain should speak for them. he acquainted the judge that they had been all slain in the service of their country. minos was going to admit them, but had the curiosity to ask who had been the invader, in order, as he said, to prepare the back gate for him. the captain answered they had been the invaders themselves--that they had entered the enemy's country, and burnt and plundered several cities. "and for what reason?" said minos. "by the command of him who paid us," said the captain; "that is the reason of a soldier. we are to execute whatever we are commanded, or we should be a disgrace to the army, and very little deserve our pay." "you are brave fellows indeed," said minos; "but be pleased to face about, and obey my command for once, in returning back to the other world: for what should such fellows as you do where there are no cities to be burnt, nor people to be destroyed? but let me advise you to have a stricter regard to truth for the future, and not call the depopulating other countries the service of your own." the captain answered in a rage, "d--n me! do you give me the lie?" and was going to take minos by the nose, had not his guards prevented him, and immediately turned him and all his followers back the same road they came. four spirits informed the judge that they had been starved to death through poverty--being the father, mother, and two children; that they had been honest and as industrious as possible, till sickness had prevented the man from labour. "all that is very true," cried a grave spirit who stood by. "i know the fact; for these poor people were under my cure." "you was, i suppose, the parson of the parish," cries minos; "i hope you had a good living, sir." "that was but a small one," replied the spirit; "but i had another a little better."--"very well," said minos; "let the poor people pass." at which the parson was stepping forwards with a stately gait before them; but minos caught hold of him and pulled him back, saying, "not so fast, doctor--you must take one step more into the other world first; for no man enters that gate without charity." a very stately figure now presented himself, and, informing minos he was a patriot, began a very florid harangue on public virtue and the liberties of his country. upon which minos shewed him the utmost respect, and ordered the gate to be opened. the patriot was not contented with this applause; he said he had behaved as well in place as he had done in the opposition; and that, though he was now obliged to embrace the court measures, yet he had behaved very honestly to his friends, and brought as many in as was possible. "hold a moment," says minos: "on second consideration, mr patriot, i think a man of your great virtue and abilities will be so much missed by your country, that, if i might advise you, you should take a journey back again. i am sure you will not decline it; for i am certain you will, with great readiness, sacrifice your own happiness to the public good." the patriot smiled, and told minos he believed he was in jest; and was offering to enter the gate, but the judge laid fast hold of him and insisted on his return, which the patriot still declining, he at last ordered his guards to seize him and conduct him back. a spirit now advanced, and the gate was immediately thrown open to him before he had spoken a word. i heard some whisper, "that is our last lord mayor." it now came to our company's turn. the fair spirit which i mentioned with so much applause in the beginning of my journey passed through very easily; but the grave lady was rejected on her first appearance, minos declaring there was not a single prude in elysium. the judge then addressed himself to me, who little expected to pass this fiery trial. i confessed i had indulged myself very freely with wine and women in my youth, but had never done an injury to any man living, nor avoided an opportunity of doing good; that i pretended to very little virtue more than general philanthropy and private friendship. i was proceeding, when minos bid me enter the gate, and not indulge myself with trumpeting forth my virtues. i accordingly passed forward with my lovely companion, and, embracing her with vast eagerness, but spiritual innocence, she returned my embrace in the same manner, and we both congratulated ourselves on our arrival in this happy region, whose beauty no painting of the imagination can describe. [illustration: text decoration] chapter viii. _the adventures which the author met on his first entrance into elysium._ we pursued our way through a delicious grove of orange-trees, where i saw infinite numbers of spirits, every one of whom i knew, and was known by them (for spirits here know one another by intuition). i presently met a little daughter whom i had lost several years before. good gods! what words can describe the raptures, the melting passionate tenderness, with which we kissed each other, continuing in our embrace, with the most ecstatic joy, a space which, if time had been measured here as on earth, could not be less than half a year. the first spirit with whom i entered into discourse was the famous leonidas of sparta. i acquainted him with the honours which had been done him by a celebrated poet of our nation; to which he answered he was very much obliged to him. we were presently afterwards entertained with the most delicious voice i had ever heard, accompanied by a violin, equal to signior piantinida. i presently discovered the musician and songster to be orpheus and sappho. old homer was present at this concert (if i may so call it), and madam dacier sat in his lap. he asked much after mr pope, and said he was very desirous of seeing him; for that he had read his iliad in his translation with almost as much delight as he believed he had given others in the original. i had the curiosity to enquire whether he had really writ that poem in detached pieces, and sung it about as ballads all over greece, according to the report which went of him. he smiled at my question, and asked me whether there appeared any connexion in the poem; for if there did he thought i might answer myself. i then importuned him to acquaint me in which of the cities which contended for the honour of his birth he was really born? to which he answered, "upon my soul i can't tell." virgil then came up to me, with mr addison under his arm. "well, sir," said he, "how many translations have these few last years produced of my ã�neid?" i told him i believed several, but i could not possibly remember; for that i had never read any but dr trapp's. "ay," said he, "that is a curious piece indeed!" i then acquainted him with the discovery made by mr warburton of the elusinian mysteries couched in his sixth book. "what mysteries?" said mr addison. "the elusinian," answered virgil, "which i have disclosed in my sixth book." "how!" replied addison. "you never mentioned a word of any such mysteries to me in all our acquaintance." "i thought it was unnecessary," cried the other, "to a man of your infinite learning: besides, you always told me you perfectly understood my meaning." upon this i thought the critic looked a little out of countenance, and turned aside to a very merry spirit, one dick steele, who embraced him, and told him he had been the greatest man upon earth; that he readily resigned up all the merit of his own works to him. upon which addison gave him a gracious smile, and, clapping him on the back with much solemnity, cried out, "well said, dick!" i then observed shakspeare standing between betterton and booth, and deciding a difference between those two great actors concerning the placing an accent in one of his lines: this was disputed on both sides with a warmth which surprized me in elysium, till i discovered by intuition that every soul retained its principal characteristic, being, indeed, its very essence. the line was that celebrated one in othello- _put out the light, and then put out the light._ according to betterton. mr booth contended to have it thus:- _put out the light, and then put out_ the _light._ i could not help offering my conjecture on this occasion, and suggested it might perhaps be- _put out the light, and then put out_ thy _light._ another hinted a reading very sophisticated in my opinion- _put out the light, and then put out_ thee, _light._ making light to be the vocative case. another would have altered the last word, and read- _put out thy light, and then put out thy sight._ but betterton said, if the text was to be disturbed, he saw no reason why a word might not be changed as well as a letter, and, instead of "put out thy light," you may read "put out thy eyes." at last it was agreed on all sides to refer the matter to the decision of shakspeare himself, who delivered his sentiments as follows: "faith, gentlemen, it is so long since i wrote the line, i have forgot my meaning. this i know, could i have dreamt so much nonsense would have been talked and writ about it, i would have blotted it out of my works; for i am sure, if any of these be my meaning, it doth me very little honour." he was then interrogated concerning some other ambiguous passages in his works; but he declined any satisfactory answer; saying, if mr theobald had not writ about it sufficiently, there were three or four more new editions of his plays coming out, which he hoped would satisfy every one: concluding, "i marvel nothing so much as that men will gird themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author. certes the greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest and most evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can in the least ballance our judgments which to prefer, i hold it matter of unquestionable certainty that neither of them is worth a farthing." from his works our conversation turned on his monument; upon which, shakspeare, shaking his sides, and addressing himself to milton, cried out, "on my word, brother milton, they have brought a noble set of poets together; they would have been hanged erst have [ere they had] convened such a company at their tables when alive." "true, brother," answered milton, "unless we had been as incapable of eating then as we are now." chapter ix. _more adventures in elysium._ a crowd of spirits now joined us, whom i soon perceived to be the heroes, who here frequently pay their respects to the several bards the recorders of their actions. i now saw achilles and ulysses addressing themselves to homer, and ã�neas and julius caesar to virgil: adam went up to milton, upon which i whispered mr dryden that i thought the devil should have paid his compliments there, according to his opinion. dryden only answered, "i believe the devil was in me when i said so." several applied themselves to shakspeare, amongst whom henry v. made a very distinguishing appearance. while my eyes were fixed on that monarch a very small spirit came up to me, shook me heartily by the hand, and told me his name was thomas thumb. i expressed great satisfaction in seeing him, nor could i help speaking my resentment against the historian, who had done such injustice to the stature of this great little man, which he represented to be no bigger than a span, whereas i plainly perceived at first sight he was full a foot and a half (and the 37th part of an inch more, as he himself informed me), being indeed little shorter than some considerable beaus of the present age. i asked this little hero concerning the truth of those stories related of him, viz., of the pudding, and the cow's belly. as to the former, he said it was a ridiculous legend, worthy to be laughed at; but as to the latter, he could not help owning there was some truth in it: nor had he any reason to be ashamed of it, as he was swallowed by surprize; adding, with great fierceness, that if he had had any weapon in his hand the cow should have as soon swallowed the devil. he spoke the last word with so much fury, and seemed so confounded, that, perceiving the effect it had on him, i immediately waved the story, and, passing to other matters, we had much conversation touching giants. he said, so far from killing any, he had never seen one alive; that he believed those actions were by mistake recorded of him, instead of jack the giant-killer, whom he knew very well, and who had, he fancied, extirpated the race. i assured him to the contrary, and told him i had myself seen a huge tame giant, who very complacently stayed in london a whole winter, at the special request of several gentlemen and ladies; though the affairs of his family called him home to sweden. i now beheld a stern-looking spirit leaning on the shoulder of another spirit, and presently discerned the former to be oliver cromwell, and the latter charles martel. i own i was a little surprized at seeing cromwell here, for i had been taught by my grandmother that he was carried away by the devil himself in a tempest; but he assured me, on his honour, there was not the least truth in that story. however, he confessed he had narrowly escaped the bottomless pit; and, if the former part of his conduct had not been more to his honour than the latter, he had been certainly soused into it. he was, nevertheless, sent back to the upper world with this lot:--_army_, _cavalier_, _distress_. he was born, for the second time, the day of charles ii.'s restoration, into a family which had lost a very considerable fortune in the service of that prince and his father, for which they received the reward very often conferred by princes on real merit, viz.--000. at 16 his father bought a small commission for him in the army, in which he served without any promotion all the reigns of charles ii. and of his brother. at the revolution he quitted his regiment, and followed the fortunes of his former master, and was in his service dangerously wounded at the famous battle of the boyne, where he fought in the capacity of a private soldier. he recovered of this wound, and retired after the unfortunate king to paris, where he was reduced to support a wife and seven children (for his lot had horns in it) by cleaning shoes and snuffing candles at the opera. in which situation, after he had spent a few miserable years, he died half-starved and broken-hearted. he then revisited minos, who, compassionating his sufferings by means of that family, to whom he had been in his former capacity so bitter an enemy, suffered him to enter here. my curiosity would not refrain asking him one question, _i.e._, whether in reality he had any desire to obtain the crown? he smiled, and said, "no more than an ecclesiastic hath to the mitre, when he cries _nolo episcopari_." indeed, he seemed to express some contempt at the question, and presently turned away. a venerable spirit appeared next, whom i found to be the great historian livy. alexander the great, who was just arrived from the palace of death, past by him with a frown. the historian, observing it, said, "ay, you may frown; but those troops which conquered the base asiatic slaves would have made no figure against the romans." we then privately lamented the loss of the most valuable part of his history; after which he took occasion to commend the judicious collection made by mr hook, which, he said, was infinitely preferable to all others; and at my mentioning echard's he gave a bounce, not unlike the going off of a squib, and was departing from me, when i begged him to satisfy my curiosity in one point--whether he was really superstitious or no? for i had always believed he was till mr leibnitz had assured me to the contrary. he answered sullenly, "doth mr leibnitz know my mind better than myself?" and then walked away. [illustration: text decoration] chapter x. _the author is surprised at meeting julian the apostate in elysium; but is satisfied by him by what means he procured his entrance there. julian relates his adventures in the character of a slave._ as he was departing i heard him salute a spirit by the name of mr julian the apostate. this exceedingly amazed me; for i had concluded that no man ever had a better title to the bottomless pit than he. but i soon found that this same julian the apostate was also the very individual archbishop latimer. he told me that several lies had been raised on him in his former capacity, nor was he so bad a man as he had been represented. however, he had been denied admittance, and forced to undergo several subsequent pilgrimages on earth, and to act in the different characters of a slave, a jew, a general, an heir, a carpenter, a beau, a monk, a fiddler, a wise man, a king, a fool, a beggar, a prince, a statesman, a soldier, a taylor, an alderman, a poet, a knight, a dancing-master, and three times a bishop, before his martyrdom, which, together with his other behaviour in this last character, satisfied the judge, and procured him a passage to the blessed regions. i told him such various characters must have produced incidents extremely entertaining; and if he remembered all, as i supposed he did, and had leisure, i should be obliged to him for the recital. he answered he perfectly recollected every circumstance; and as to leisure, the only business of that happy place was to contribute to the happiness of each other. he therefore thanked me for adding to his, in proposing to him a method of increasing mine. i then took my little darling in one hand, and my favourite fellow-traveller in the other, and, going with him to a sunny bank of flowers, we all sat down, and he began as follows:-"i suppose you are sufficiently acquainted with my story during the time i acted the part of the emperor julian, though i assure you all which hath been related of me is not true, particularly with regard to the many prodigies forerunning my death. however, they are now very little worth disputing; and if they can serve any purpose of the historian they are extremely at his service. "my next entrance into the world was at laodicea, in syria, in a roman family of no great note; and, being of a roving disposition, i came at the age of seventeen to constantinople, where, after about a year's stay, i set out for thrace, at the time when the emperor valens admitted the goths into that country. i was there so captivated with the beauty of a gothic lady, the wife of one rodoric, a captain, whose name, out of the most delicate tenderness for her lovely sex, i shall even at this distance conceal; since her behaviour to me was more consistent with good-nature than with that virtue which women are obliged to preserve against every assailant. in order to procure an intimacy with this woman i sold myself a slave to her husband, who, being of a nation not over-inclined to jealousy, presented me to his wife, for those very reasons which would have induced one of a jealous complexion to have withheld me from her, namely, for that i was young and handsome. "matters succeeded so far according to my wish, and the sequel answered those hopes which this beginning had raised. i soon perceived my service was very acceptable to her; i often met her eyes, nor did she withdraw them without a confusion which is scarce consistent with entire purity of heart. indeed, she gave me every day fresh encouragement; but the unhappy distance which circumstances had placed between us deterred me long from making any direct attack; and she was too strict an observer of decorum to violate the severe rules of modesty by advancing first; but passion at last got the better of my respect, and i resolved to make one bold attempt, whatever was the consequence. accordingly, laying hold of the first kind opportunity, when she was alone and my master abroad, i stoutly assailed the citadel and carried it by storm. well may i say by storm; for the resistance i met was extremely resolute, and indeed as much as the most perfect decency would require. she swore often she would cry out for help; but i answered it was in vain, seeing there was no person near to assist her; and probably she believed me, for she did not once actually cry out, which if she had, i might very likely have been prevented. "when she found her virtue thus subdued against her will she patiently submitted to her fate, and quietly suffered me a long time to enjoy the most delicious fruits of my victory; but envious fortune resolved to make me pay a dear price for my pleasure. one day in the midst of our happiness we were suddenly surprized by the unexpected return of her husband, who, coming directly into his wife's apartment, just allowed me time to creep under the bed. the disorder in which he found his wife might have surprized a jealous temper; but his was so far otherwise, that possibly no mischief might have happened had he not by a cross accident discovered my legs, which were not well hid. he immediately drew me out by them, and then, turning to his wife with a stern countenance, began to handle a weapon he wore by his side, with which i am persuaded he would have instantly despatched her, had i not very gallantly, and with many imprecations, asserted her innocence and my own guilt; which, however, i protested had hitherto gone no farther than design. she so well seconded my plea (for she was a woman of wonderful art), that he was at length imposed upon; and now all his rage was directed against me, threatening all manner of tortures, which the poor lady was in too great a fright and confusion to dissuade him from executing; and perhaps, if her concern for me had made her attempt it, it would have raised a jealousy in him not afterwards to be removed. "after some hesitation rodoric cried out he had luckily hit on the most proper punishment for me in the world, by a method which would at once do severe justice on me for my criminal intention, and at the same time prevent me from any danger of executing my wicked purpose hereafter. this cruel resolution was immediately executed, and i was no longer worthy the name of a man. "having thus disqualified me from doing him any future injury, he still retained me in his family; but the lady, very probably repenting of what she had done, and looking on me as the author of her guilt, would never for the future give me either a kind word or look: and shortly after, a great exchange being made between the romans and the goths of dogs for men, my lady exchanged me with a roman widow for a small lap-dog, giving a considerable sum of money to boot. "in this widow's service i remained seven years, during all which time i was very barbarously treated. i was worked without the least mercy, and often severely beat by a swinging maid-servant, who never called me by any other names than those of the thing and the animal. though i used my utmost industry to please, it never was in my power. neither the lady nor her woman would eat anything i touched, saying they did not believe me wholesome. it is unnecessary to repeat particulars; in a word, you can imagine no kind of ill usage which i did not suffer in this family. "at last an heathen priest, an acquaintance of my lady's, obtained me of her for a present. the scene was now totally changed, and i had as much reason to be satisfied with my present situation as i had to lament my former. i was so absolutely my master's favourite, that the rest of the slaves paid me almost as much regard as they shewed to him, well knowing that it was entirely in my power to command and treat them as i pleased. i was intrusted with all my master's secrets, and used to assist him in privately conveying away by night the sacrifices from the altars, which the people believed the deities themselves devoured. upon these we feasted very elegantly, nor could invention suggest a rarity which we did not pamper ourselves with. perhaps you may admire at the close union between this priest and his slave, but we lived in an intimacy which the christians thought criminal; but my master, who knew the will of the gods, with whom he told me he often conversed, assured me it was perfectly innocent. "this happy life continued about four years, when my master's death, occasioned by a surfeit got by overfeeding on several exquisite dainties, put an end to it. "i now fell into the hands of one of a very different disposition, and this was no other than the celebrated st chrysostom, who dieted me with sermons instead of sacrifices, and filled my ears with good things, but not my belly. instead of high food to fatten and pamper my flesh, i had receipts to mortify and reduce it. with these i edified so well, that within a few months i became a skeleton. however, as he had converted me to his faith, i was well enough satisfied with this new manner of living, by which he taught me i might ensure myself an eternal reward in a future state. the saint was a good-natured man, and never gave me an ill word but once, which was occasioned by my neglecting to place aristophanes, which was his constant bedfellow, on his pillow. he was, indeed, extremely fond of that greek poet, and frequently made me read his comedies to him. when i came to any of the loose passages he would smile, and say. 'it was pity his matter was not as pure as his style;' of which latter he was so immoderately fond that, notwithstanding the detestation he expressed for obscenity, he hath made me repeat those passages ten times over. the character of this good man hath been very unjustly attacked by his heathen contemporaries, particularly with regard to women; but his severe invectives against that sex are his sufficient justification. "from the service of this saint, from whom i received manumission, i entered into the family of timasius, a leader of great eminence in the imperial army, into whose favour i so far insinuated myself that he preferred me to a good command, and soon made me partaker of both his company and his secrets. i soon grew intoxicated with this preferment, and the more he loaded me with benefits the more he raised my opinion of my own merit, which, still outstripping the rewards he conferred on me, inspired me rather with dissatisfaction than gratitude. and thus, by preferring me beyond my merit or first expectation, he made me an envious aspiring enemy, whom perhaps a more moderate bounty would have preserved a dutiful servant. "i fell now acquainted with one lucilius, a creature of the prime minister eutropius, who had by his favour been raised to the post of a tribune; a man of low morals, and eminent only in that meanest of qualities, cunning. this gentleman, imagining me a fit tool for the minister's purpose, having often sounded my principles of honour and honesty, both which he declared to me were words without meaning, and finding my ready concurrence in his sentiments, recommended me to eutropius as very proper to execute some wicked purposes he had contrived against my friend timasius. the minister embraced this recommendation, and i was accordingly acquainted by lucilius (after some previous accounts of the great esteem eutropius entertained of me, from the testimony he had borne of my parts) that he would introduce me to him; adding that he was a great encourager of merit, and that i might depend upon his favour. "i was with little difficulty prevailed on to accept of this invitation. a late hour therefore the next evening being appointed, i attended my friend lucilius to the minister's house. he received me with the utmost civility and chearfulness, and affected so much regard to me, that i, who knew nothing of these high scenes of life, concluded i had in him a most disinterested friend, owing to the favourable report which lucilius had made of me. i was however soon cured of this opinion; for immediately after supper our discourse turned on the injustice which the generality of the world were guilty of in their conduct to great men, expecting that they should reward their private merit, without ever endeavouring to apply it to their use. 'what avail,' said eutropius, 'the learning, wit, courage, or any virtue which a man may be possest of, to me, unless i receive some benefit from them? hath he not more merit to me who doth my business and obeys my commands, without any of these qualities?' i gave such entire satisfaction in my answers on this head, that both the minister and his creature grew bolder, and after some preface began to accuse timasius. at last, finding i did not attempt to defend him, lucilius swore a great oath that he was not fit to live, and that he would destroy him. eutropius answered that it would be too dangerous a task: 'indeed' says he, 'his crimes are of so black a die, and so well known to the emperor, that his death must be a very acceptable service, and could not fail meeting a proper reward: but i question whether you are capable of executing it.' 'if he is not,' cried i, 'i am; and surely no man can have greater motives to destroy him than myself: for, besides his disloyalty to my prince, for whom i have so perfect a duty, i have private disobligations to him. i have had fellows put over my head, to the great scandal of the service in general, and to my own prejudice and disappointment in particular.' i will not repeat you my whole speech; but, to be as concise as possible, when we parted that evening the minister squeezed me heartily by the hand, and with great commendation of my honesty and assurances of his favour, he appointed me the next evening to come to him alone; when, finding me, after a little more scrutiny, ready for his purpose, he proposed to me to accuse timasius of high treason, promising me the highest rewards if i would undertake it. the consequence to him, i suppose you know, was ruin; but what was it to me? why, truly, when i waited on eutropius for the fulfilling his promises, he received me with great distance and coldness; and, on my dropping some hints of my expectations from him, he affected not to understand me; saying he thought impunity was the utmost i could hope for on discovering my accomplice, whose offence was only greater than mine, as he was in a higher station; and telling me he had great difficulty to obtain a pardon for me from the emperor, which, he said, he had struggled very hardly for, as he had worked the discovery out of me. he turned away, and addressed himself to another person. "i was so incensed at this treatment, that i resolved revenge, and should certainly have pursued it, had he not cautiously prevented me by taking effectual means to despatch me soon after out of the world. "you will, i believe, now think i had a second good chance for the bottomless pit, and indeed minos seemed inclined to tumble me in, till he was informed of the revenge taken on me by rodoric, and my seven years' subsequent servitude to the widow; which he thought sufficient to make atonement for all the crimes a single life could admit of, and so sent me back to try my fortune a third time." chapter xi. _in which julian relates his adventures in the character of an avaricious jew._ "the next character in which i was destined to appear in the flesh was that of an avaricious jew. i was born in alexandria in egypt. my name was balthazar. nothing very remarkable happened to me till the year of the memorable tumult in which the jews of that city are reported in history to have massacred more christians than at that time dwelt in it. indeed, the truth is, they did maul the dogs pretty handsomely; but i myself was not present, for as all our people were ordered to be armed, i took that opportunity of selling two swords, which probably i might otherwise never have disposed of, they being extremely old and rusty; so that, having no weapon left, i did not care to venture abroad. besides, though i really thought it an act meriting salvation to murder the nazarenes, as the fact was to be committed at midnight, at which time, to avoid suspicion, we were all to sally from our own houses, i could not persuade myself to consume so much oil in sitting up to that hour: for these reasons therefore i remained at home that evening. "i was at this time greatly enamoured with one hypatia, the daughter of a philosopher; a young lady of the greatest beauty and merit: indeed, she had every imaginable ornament both of mind and body. she seemed not to dislike my person; but there were two obstructions to our marriage, viz., my religion and her poverty: both which might probably have been got over, had not those dogs the christians murdered her; and, what is worse, afterwards burned her body: worse, i say, because i lost by that means a jewel of some value, which i had presented to her, designing, if our nuptials did not take place, to demand it of her back again. "being thus disappointed in my love, i soon after left alexandria and went to the imperial city, where i apprehended i should find a good market for jewels on the approaching marriage of the emperor with athenais. i disguised myself as a beggar on this journey, for these reasons: first, as i imagined i should thus carry my jewels with greater safety; and, secondly, to lessen my expenses; which latter expedient succeeded so well, that i begged two oboli on my way more than my travelling cost me, my diet being chiefly roots, and my drink water. "but, perhaps, it had been better for me if i had been more lavish and more expeditious; for the ceremony was over before i reached constantinople; so that i lost that glorious opportunity of disposing of my jewels with which many of our people were greatly enriched. "the life of a miser is very little worth relating, as it is one constant scheme of getting or saving money. i shall therefore repeat to you some few only of my adventures, without regard to any order. "a roman jew, who was a great lover of falernian wine, and who indulged himself very freely with it, came to dine at my house; when, knowing he should meet with little wine, and that of the cheaper sort, sent me in half-a-dozen jars of falernian. can you believe i would not give this man his own wine? sir, i adulterated it so that i made six jars of [them] three, which he and his friend drank; the other three i afterwards sold to the very person who originally sent them me, knowing he would give a better price than any other. "a noble roman came one day to my house in the country, which i had purchased, for half the value, of a distressed person. my neighbours paid him the compliment of some music, on which account, when he departed, he left a piece of gold with me to be distributed among them. i pocketed this money, and ordered them a small vessel of sour wine, which i could not have sold for above two drachms, and afterwards made them pay in work three times the value of it. "as i was not entirely void of religion, though i pretended to infinitely more than i had, so i endeavoured to reconcile my transactions to my conscience as well as possible. thus i never invited any one to eat with me, but those on whose pockets i had some design. after our collation it was constantly my method to set down in a book i kept for that purpose, what i thought they owed me for their meal. indeed, this was generally a hundred times as much as they could have dined elsewhere for; but, however, it was _quid pro quo_, if not _ad valorem_. now, whenever the opportunity offered of imposing on them i considered it only as paying myself what they owed me: indeed, i did not always confine myself strictly to what i had set down, however extravagant that was; but i reconciled taking the overplus to myself as usance. "but i was not only too cunning for others--i sometimes overreached myself. i have contracted distempers for want of food and warmth, which have put me to the expence of a physician; nay, i once very narrowly escaped death by taking bad drugs, only to save one seven-eighth per cent. in the price. "by these and such like means, in the midst of poverty and every kind of distress, i saw myself master of an immense fortune, the casting up and ruminating on which was my daily and only pleasure. this was, however, obstructed and embittered by two considerations, which against my will often invaded my thoughts. one, which would have been intolerable (but that indeed seldom troubled me), was, that i must one day leave my darling treasure. the other haunted me continually, viz., that my riches were no greater. however, i comforted myself against this reflection by an assurance that they would increase daily: on which head my hopes were so extensive that i may say with virgil- '_his ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono._' indeed i am convinced that, had i possessed the whole globe of earth, save one single drachma, which i had been certain never to be master of--i am convinced, i say, that single drachma would have given me more uneasiness than all the rest could afford me pleasure. "to say the truth, between my solicitude in contriving schemes to procure money and my extreme anxiety in preserving it, i never had one moment of ease while awake nor of quiet when in my sleep. in all the characters through which i have passed, i have never undergone half the misery i suffered in this; and, indeed, minos seemed to be of the same opinion; for while i stood trembling and shaking in expectation of my sentence he bid me go back about my business, for that nobody was to be d----n'd in more worlds than one. and, indeed, i have since learnt that the devil will not receive a miser." chapter xii. _what happened to julian in the characters of a general, an heir, a carpenter, and a beau._ "the next step i took into the world was at apollonia, in thrace, where i was born of a beautiful greek slave, who was the mistress of eutyches, a great favourite of the emperor zeno. that prince, at his restoration, gave me the command of a cohort, i being then but fifteen years of age; and a little afterwards, before i had even seen an army, preferred me, over the heads of all the old officers, to be a tribune. "as i found an easy access to the emperor, by means of my father's intimacy with him, he being a very good courtier--or, in other words, a most prostitute flatterer--so i soon ingratiated myself with zeno, and so well imitated my father in flattering him, that he would never part with me from about his person. so that the first armed force i ever beheld was that with which marcian surrounded the palace, where i was then shut up with the rest of the court. "i was afterwards put at the head of a legion and ordered to march into syria with theodoric the goth; that is, i mean my legion was so ordered; for, as to myself, i remained at court, with the name and pay of a general, without the labour or the danger. "as nothing could be more gay, _i.e._, debauched, than zeno's court, so the ladies of gay disposition had great sway in it; particularly one, whose name was fausta, who, though not extremely handsome, was by her wit and sprightliness very agreeable to the emperor. with her i lived in good correspondence, and we together disposed of all kinds of commissions in the army, not to those who had most merit, but who would purchase at the highest rate. my levee was now prodigiously thronged by officers who returned from the campaigns, who, though they might have been convinced by daily example how ineffectual a recommendation their services were, still continued indefatigable in attendance, and behaved to me with as much observance and respect as i should have been entitled to for making their fortunes, while i suffered them and their families to starve. "several poets, likewise, addressed verses to me, in which they celebrated my achievements; and what, perhaps, may seem strange to us at present, i received all this incense with most greedy vanity, without once reflecting that, as i did not deserve these compliments, they should rather put me in mind of my defects. "my father was now dead, and i became so absolute in the emperor's grace that one unacquainted with courts would scarce believe the servility with which all kinds of persons who entered the walls of the palace behaved towards me. a bow, a smile, a nod from me, as i past through cringing crouds, were esteemed as signal favours; but a gracious word made any one happy; and, indeed, had this real benefit attending it, that it drew on the person on whom it was bestowed a very great degree of respect from all others; for these are of current value in courts, and, like notes in trading communities, are assignable from one to the other. the smile of a court favourite immediately raises the person who receives it, and gives a value to his smile when conferred on an inferior: thus the smile is transferred from one to the other, and the great man at last is the person to discount it. for instance, a very low fellow hath a desire for a place. to whom is he to apply? not to the great man; for to him he hath no access. he therefore applies to a, who is the creature of b, who is the tool of c, who is the flatterer of d, who is the catamite of e, who is the pimp of f, who is the bully of g, who is the buffoon of i, who is the husband of k, who is the whore of l, who is the bastard of m, who is the instrument of the great man. thus the smile, descending regularly from the great man to a, is discounted back again, and at last paid by the great man. "it is manifest that a court would subsist as difficultly without this kind of coin as a trading city without paper credit. indeed, they differ in this, that their value is not quite so certain, and a favourite may protest his smile without the danger of bankruptcy. "in the midst of all this glory the emperor died, and anastasius was preferred to the crown. as it was yet uncertain whether i should not continue in favour, i was received as usual at my entrance into the palace to pay my respects to the new emperor; but i was no sooner rumped by him than i received the same compliment from all the rest; the whole room, like a regiment of soldiers, turning their backs to me all at once: my smile now was become of equal value with the note of a broken banker, and every one was as cautious not to receive it. "i made as much haste as possible from the court, and shortly after from the city, retreating to the place of my nativity, where i spent the remainder of my days in a retired life in husbandry, the only amusement for which i was qualified, having neither learning nor virtue. "when i came to the gate minos again seemed at first doubtful, but at length dismissed me; saying though i had been guilty of many heinous crimes, in as much as i had, though a general, never been concerned in spilling human blood, i might return again to earth. "i was now again born in alexandria, and, by great accident, entring into the womb of my daughter-in-law, came forth my own grandson, inheriting that fortune which i had before amassed. "extravagance was now as notoriously my vice as avarice had been formerly; and i spent in a very short life what had cost me the labour of a very long one to rake together. perhaps you will think my present condition was more to be envied than my former: but upon my word it was very little so; for, by possessing everything almost before i desired it, i could hardly ever say i enjoyed my wish: i scarce ever knew the delight of satisfying a craving appetite. besides, as i never once thought, my mind was useless to me, and i was an absolute stranger to all the pleasures arising from it. nor, indeed, did my education qualify me for any delicacy in other enjoyments; so that in the midst of plenty i loathed everything. taste for elegance i had none; and the greatest of corporeal blisses i felt no more from than the lowest animal. in a word, as while a miser i had plenty without daring to use it, so now i had it without appetite. "but if i was not very happy in the height of my enjoyment, so i afterwards became perfectly miserable; being soon overtaken by disease, and reduced to distress, till at length, with a broken constitution and broken heart, i ended my wretched days in a gaol: nor can i think the sentence of minos too mild, who condemned me, after having taken a large dose of avarice, to wander three years on the banks of cocytus, with the knowledge of having spent the fortune in the person of the grandson which i had raised in that of the grandfather. "the place of my birth, on my return to the world, was constantinople, where my father was a carpenter. the first thing i remember was, the triumph of belisarius, which was, indeed, a most noble shew; but nothing pleased me so much as the figure of gelimer, king of the african vandals, who, being led captive on this occasion, reflecting with disdain on the mutation of his own fortune, and on the ridiculous empty pomp of the conqueror, cried out, 'vanity, vanity, all is mere vanity.' "i was bred up to my father's trade, and you may easily believe so low a sphere could produce no adventures worth your notice. however, i married a woman i liked, and who proved a very tolerable wife. my days were past in hard labour, but this procured me health, and i enjoyed a homely supper at night with my wife with more pleasure than i apprehend greater persons find at their luxurious meals. my life had scarce any variety in it, and at my death i advanced to minos with great confidence of entering the gate: but i was unhappily obliged to discover some frauds i had been guilty of in the measure of my work when i worked by the foot, as well as my laziness when i was employed by the day. on which account, when i attempted to pass, the angry judge laid hold on me by the shoulders, and turned me back so violently, that, had i had a neck of flesh and bone, i believe he would have broke it." chapter xiii. _julian passes into a fop._ "my scene of action was rome. i was born into a noble family, and heir to a considerable fortune. on which my parents, thinking i should not want any talents, resolved very kindly and wisely to throw none away upon me. the only instructors of my youth were therefore one saltator, who taught me several motions for my legs; and one ficus, whose business was to shew me the cleanest way (as he called it) of cutting off a man's head. when i was well accomplished in these sciences, i thought nothing more wanting, but what was to be furnished by the several mechanics in rome, who dealt in dressing and adorning the pope. being therefore well equipped with all which their art could produce, i became at the age of twenty a complete finished beau. and now during forty-five years i drest, i sang and danced, and danced and sang, i bowed and ogled, and ogled and bowed, till, in the sixty-sixth year of my age, i got cold by overheating myself with dancing, and died. "minos told me, as i was unworthy of elysium, so i was too insignificant to be damned, and therefore bad me walk back again." chapter xiv. _adventures in the person of a monk._ "fortune now placed me in the character of a younger brother of a good house, and i was in my youth sent to school; but learning was now at so low an ebb, that my master himself could hardly construe a sentence of latin; and as for greek, he could not read it. with very little knowledge therefore, and with altogether as little virtue, i was set apart for the church, and at the proper age commenced monk. i lived many years retired in a cell, a life very agreeable to the gloominess of my temper, which was much inclined to despise the world; that is, in other words, to envy all men of superior fortune and qualifications, and in general to hate and detest the human species. notwithstanding which, i could, on proper occasions, submit to flatter the vilest fellow in nature, which i did one stephen, an eunuch, a favourite of the emperor justinian ii., one of the wickedest wretches whom perhaps the world ever saw. i not only wrote a panegyric on this man, but i commended him as a pattern to all others in my sermons; by which means i so greatly ingratiated myself with him, that he introduced me to the emperor's presence, where i prevailed so far by the same methods, that i was shortly taken from my cell, and preferred to a place at court. i was no sooner established in the favour of justinian than i prompted him to all kind of cruelty. as i was of a sour morose temper, and hated nothing more than the symptoms of happiness appearing in any countenance, i represented all kind of diversion and amusement as the most horrid sins. i inveighed against chearfulness as levity, and encouraged nothing but gravity, or, to confess the truth to you, hypocrisy. the unhappy emperor followed my advice, and incensed the people by such repeated barbarities, that he was at last deposed by them and banished. "i now retired again to my cell (for historians mistake in saying i was put to death), where i remained safe from the danger of the irritated mob, whom i cursed in my own heart as much as they could curse me. "justinian, after three years of his banishment, returned to constantinople in disguise, and paid me a visit. i at first affected not to know him, and without the least compunction of gratitude for his former favours, intended not to receive him, till a thought immediately suggesting itself to me how i might convert him to my advantage, i pretended to recollect him; and, blaming the shortness of my memory and badness of my eyes, i sprung forward and embraced him with great affection. "my design was to betray him to apsimar, who, i doubted not, would generously reward such a service. i therefore very earnestly requested him to spend the whole evening with me; to which he consented. i formed an excuse for leaving him a few minutes, and ran away to the palace to acquaint apsimar with the guest whom i had then in my cell. he presently ordered a guard to go with me and seize him; but, whether the length of my stay gave him any suspicion, or whether he changed his purpose after my departure, i know not; for at my return we found he had given us the slip; nor could we with the most diligent search discover him. "apsimar, being disappointed of his prey, now raged at me; at first denouncing the most dreadful vengeance if i did not produce the deposed monarch. however, by soothing his passion when at the highest, and afterwards by canting and flattery, i made a shift to escape his fury. "when justinian was restored i very confidently went to wish him joy of his restoration: but it seems he had unfortunately heard of my treachery, so that he at first received me coldly, and afterwards upbraided me openly with what i had done. i persevered stoutly in denying it, as i knew no evidence could be produced against me; till, finding him irreconcilable, i betook myself to reviling him in my sermons, and on every other occasion, as an enemy to the church and good men, and as an infidel, a heretic, an atheist, a heathen, and an arian. this i did immediately on his return, and before he gave those flagrant proofs of his inhumanity which afterwards sufficiently verified all i had said. "luckily i died on the same day when a great number of those forces which justinian had sent against the thracian bosphorus, and who had executed such unheard-of cruelties there, perished. as every one of these was cast into the bottomless pit, minos was so tired with condemnation, that he proclaimed that all present who had not been concerned in that bloody expedition might, if they pleased, return to the other world. i took him at his word, and, presently turning about, began my journey." chapter xv. _julian passes into the character of a fidler._ "rome was now the seat of my nativity. my mother was an african, a woman of no great beauty, but a favourite, i suppose from her piety, of pope gregory ii. who was my father i know not, but i believe no very considerable man; for after the death of that pope, who was, out of his religion, a very good friend of my mother, we fell into great distress, and were at length reduced to walk the streets of rome; nor had either of us any other support but a fiddle, on which i played with pretty tolerable skill; for, as my genius turned naturally to music, so i had been in my youth very early instructed at the expense of the good pope. this afforded us but a very poor livelihood: for, though i had often a numerous croud of hearers, few ever thought themselves obliged to contribute the smallest pittance to the poor starving wretch who had given them pleasure. nay, some of the graver sort, after an hour's attention to my music, have gone away shaking their heads, and crying it was a shame such vagabonds were suffered to stay in the city. "to say the truth, i am confident the fiddle would not have kept us alive had we entirely depended on the generosity of my hearers. my mother therefore was forced to use her own industry; and while i was soothing the ears of the croud, she applied to their pockets, and that generally with such good success that we now began to enjoy a very comfortable subsistence; and indeed, had we had the least prudence or forecast, might have soon acquired enough to enable us to quit this dangerous and dishonourable way of life: but i know not what is the reason that money got with labour and safety is constantly preserved, while the produce of danger and ease is commonly spent as easily, and often as wickedly, as acquired. thus we proportioned our expenses rather by what we had than what we wanted or even desired; and on obtaining a considerable booty we have even forced nature into the most profligate extravagance, and have been wicked without inclination. "we carried on this method of thievery for a long time without detection: but, as fortune generally leaves persons of extraordinary ingenuity in the lurch at last, so did she us; for my poor mother was taken in the fact, and, together with myself, as her accomplice, hurried before a magistrate. "luckily for us, the person who was to be our judge was the greatest lover of music in the whole city, and had often sent for me to play to him, for which, as he had given me very small rewards, perhaps his gratitude now moved him: but, whatever was his motive, he browbeat the informers against us, and treated their evidence with so little favour, that their mouths were soon stopped, and we dismissed with honour; acquitted, i should rather have said, for we were not suffered to depart till i had given the judge several tunes on the fiddle. "we escaped the better on this occasion because the person robbed happened to be a poet; which gave the judge, who was a facetious person, many opportunities of jesting. he said poets and musicians should agree together, seeing they had married sisters; which he afterwards explained to be the sister arts. and when the piece of gold was produced he burst into a loud laugh, and said it must be the golden age, when poets had gold in their pockets, and in that age there could be no robbers. he made many more jests of the same kind, but a small taste will suffice. "it is a common saying that men should take warning by any signal delivery; but i cannot approve the justice of it; for to me it seems that the acquittal of a guilty person should rather inspire him with confidence, and it had this effect on us: for we now laughed at the law, and despised its punishments, which we found were to be escaped even against positive evidence. we imagined the late example was rather a warning to the accuser than the criminal, and accordingly proceeded in the most impudent and flagitious manner. "among other robberies, one night, being admitted by the servants into the house of an opulent priest, my mother took an opportunity, whilst the servants were dancing to my tunes, to convey away a silver vessel; this she did without the least sacrilegious intention; but it seems the cup, which was a pretty large one, was dedicated to holy uses, and only borrowed by the priest on an entertainment which he made for some of his brethren. we were immediately pursued upon this robbery (the cup being taken in our possession), and carried before the same magistrate, who had before behaved to us with so much gentleness: but his countenance was now changed, for the moment the priest appeared against us, his severity was as remarkable as his candour had been before, and we were both ordered to be stript and whipt through the streets. "this sentence was executed with great severity, the priest himself attending and encouraging the executioner, which he said he did for the good of our souls; but, though our backs were both flead, neither my mother's torments nor my own afflicted me so much as the indignity offered to my poor fiddle, which was carried in triumph before me, and treated with a contempt by the multitude, intimating a great scorn for the science i had the honour to profess; which, as it is one of the noblest inventions of men, and as i had been always in the highest degree proud of my excellence in it, i suffered so much from the ill-treatment my fiddle received, that i would have given all my remainder of skin to have preserved it from this affront. "my mother survived the whipping a very short time; and i was now reduced to great distress and misery, till a young roman of considerable rank took a fancy to me, received me into his family, and conversed with me in the utmost familiarity. he had a violent attachment to music, and would learn to play on the fiddle; but, through want of genius for the science, he never made any considerable progress. however, i flattered his performance, and he grew extravagantly fond of me for so doing. had i continued this behaviour i might possibly have reaped the greatest advantages from his kindness; but i had raised his own opinion of his musical abilities so high, that he now began to prefer his skill to mine, a presumption i could not bear. one day as we were playing in concert he was horribly out; nor was it possible, as he destroyed the harmony, to avoid telling him of it. instead of receiving my correction, he answered it was my blunder and not his, and that i had mistaken the key. such an affront from my own scholar was beyond human patience; i flew into a violent passion, i flung down my instrument in a rage, and swore i was not to be taught music at my age. he answered, with as much warmth, nor was he to be instructed by a stroling fiddler. the dispute ended in a challenge to play a prize before judges. this wager was determined in my favour; but the purchase was a dear one, for i lost my friend by it, who now, twitting me with all his kindness, with my former ignominious punishment, and the destitute condition from which i had been by his bounty relieved, discarded me for ever. "while i lived with this gentleman i became known, among others, to sabina, a lady of distinction, and who valued herself much on her taste for music. she no sooner heard of my being discarded than she took me into her house, where i was extremely well cloathed and fed. notwithstanding which, my situation was far from agreeable; for i was obliged to submit to her constant reprehensions before company, which gave me the greater uneasiness because they were always wrong; nor am i certain that she did not by these provocations contribute to my death: for, as experience had taught me to give up my resentment to my bread, so my passions, for want of outward vent, preyed inwardly on my vitals, and perhaps occasioned the distemper of which i sickened. "the lady, who, amidst all the faults she found, was very fond of me, nay, probably was the fonder of me the more faults she found, immediately called in the aid of three celebrated physicians. the doctors (being well fee'd) made me seven visits in three days, and two of them were at the door to visit me the eighth time, when, being acquainted that i was just dead, they shook their heads and departed. "when i came to minos he asked me with a smile whether i had brought my fiddle with me; and, receiving an answer in the negative, he bid me get about my business, saying it was well for me that the devil was no lover of music." chapter xvi. _the history of the wise man._ "i now returned to rome, but in a very different character. fortune had now allotted me a serious part to act. i had even in my infancy a grave disposition, nor was i ever seen to smile, which infused an opinion into all about me that i was a child of great solidity; some foreseeing that i should be a judge, and others a bishop. at two years old my father presented me with a rattle, which i broke to pieces with great indignation. this the good parent, being extremely wise, regarded as an eminent symptom of my wisdom, and cried out in a kind of extasy, 'well said, boy! i warrant thou makest a great man.' "at school i could never be persuaded to play with my mates; not that i spent my hours in learning, to which i was not in the least addicted, nor indeed had i any talents for it. however, the solemnity of my carriage won so much on my master, who was a most sagacious person, that i was his chief favourite, and my example on all occasions was recommended to the other boys, which filled them with envy, and me with pleasure; but, though they envied me, they all paid me that involuntary respect which it is the curse attending this passion to bear towards its object. "i had now obtained universally the character of a very wise young man, which i did not altogether purchase without pains; for the restraint i laid on myself in abstaining from the several diversions adapted to my years cost me many a yearning; but the pride which i inwardly enjoyed in the fancied dignity of my character made me some amends. "thus i past on, without anything very memorable happening to me, till i arrived at the age of twenty-three, when unfortunately i fell acquainted with a young neapolitan lady whose name was ariadne. her beauty was so exquisite that her first sight made a violent impression on me; this was again improved by her behaviour, which was most genteel, easy, and affable: lastly, her conversation compleated the conquest. in this she discovered a strong and lively understanding, with the sweetest and most benign temper. this lovely creature was about eighteen when i first unhappily beheld her at rome, on a visit to a relation with whom i had great intimacy. as our interviews at first were extremely frequent, my passions were captivated before i apprehended the least danger; and the sooner probably, as the young lady herself, to whom i consulted every method of recommendation, was not displeased with my being her admirer. "ariadne, having spent three months at rome, now returned to naples, bearing my heart with her: on the other hand, i had all the assurances consistent with the constraint under which the most perfect modesty lays a young woman, that her own heart was not entirely unaffected. i soon found her absence gave me an uneasiness not easy to be borne or to remove. i now first applied to diversions (of the graver sort, particularly to music), but in vain; they rather raised my desires and heightened my anguish. my passion at length grew so violent, that i began to think of satisfying it. as the first step to this, i cautiously enquired into the circumstances of ariadne's parents, with which i was hitherto unacquainted: though, indeed, i did not apprehend they were extremely great, notwithstanding the handsome appearance of their daughter at rome. upon examination, her fortune exceeded my expectation, but was not sufficient to justify my marriage with her, in the opinion of the wise and prudent. i had now a violent struggle between wisdom and happiness, in which, after several grievous pangs, wisdom got the better. i could by no means prevail with myself to sacrifice that character of profound wisdom, which i had with such uniform conduct obtained, and with such caution hitherto preserved. i therefore resolved to conquer my affection, whatever it cost me; and indeed it did not cost me a little. "while i was engaged in this conflict (for it lasted a long time) ariadne returned to rome: her presence was a terrible enemy to my wisdom, which even in her absence had with great difficulty stood its ground. it seems (as she hath since told me in elysium with much merriment) i had made the same impressions on her which she had made on me. indeed, i believe my wisdom would have been totally subdued by this surprize, had it not cunningly suggested to me a method of satisfying my passion without doing any injury to my reputation. this was by engaging her privately as a mistress, which was at that time reputable enough at rome, provided the affair was managed with an air of slyness and gravity, though the secret was known to the whole city. "i immediately set about this project, and employed every art and engine to effect it. i had particularly bribed her priest, and an old female acquaintance and distant relation of her's, into my interest: but all was in vain; her virtue opposed the passion in her breast as strongly as wisdom had opposed it in mine. she received my proposals with the utmost disdain, and presently refused to see or hear from me any more. "she returned again to naples, and left me in a worse condition than before. my days i now passed with the most irksome uneasiness, and my nights were restless and sleepless. the story of our amour was now pretty public, and the ladies talked of our match as certain; but my acquaintance denied their assent, saying, 'no, no, he is too wise to marry so imprudently.' this their opinion gave me, i own, very great pleasure; but, to say the truth, scarce compensated the pangs i suffered to preserve it. "one day, while i was balancing with myself, and had almost resolved to enjoy my happiness at the price of my character, a friend brought me word that ariadne was married. this news struck me to the soul; and though i had resolution enough to maintain my gravity before him (for which i suffered not a little the more), the moment i was alone i threw myself into the most violent fit of despair, and would willingly have parted with wisdom, fortune, and everything else, to have retrieved her; but that was impossible, and i had now nothing but time to hope a cure from. this was very tedious in performing it, and the longer as ariadne had married a roman cavalier, was now become my near neighbour, and i had the mortification of seeing her make the best of wives, and of having the happiness which i had lost, every day before my eyes. "if i suffered so much on account of my wisdom in having refused ariadne, i was not much more obliged to it for procuring me a rich widow, who was recommended to me by an old friend as a very prudent match; and, indeed, so it was, her fortune being superior to mine in the same proportion as that of ariadne had been inferior. i therefore embraced this proposal, and my character of wisdom soon pleaded so effectually for me with the widow, who was herself a woman of great gravity and discretion, that i soon succeeded; and as soon as decency would permit (of which this lady was the strictest observer) we were married, being the second day of the second week of the second year after her husband's death; for she said she thought some period of time above the year had a great air of decorum. "but, prudent as this lady was, she made me miserable. her person was far from being lovely, but her temper was intolerable. during fifteen years' habitation, i never passed a single day without heartily cursing her, and the hour in which we came together. the only comfort i received, in the midst of the highest torments, was from continually hearing the prudence of my match commended by all my acquaintance. "thus you see, in the affairs of love, i bought the reputation of wisdom pretty dear. in other matters i had it somewhat cheaper; not that hypocrisy, which was the price i gave for it, gives one no pain. i have refused myself a thousand little amusements with a feigned contempt, while i have really had an inclination to them. i have often almost choaked myself to restrain from laughing at a jest, and (which was perhaps to myself the least hurtful of all my hypocrisy) have heartily enjoyed a book in my closet which i have spoken with detestation of in public. to sum up my history in short, as i had few adventures worth remembering, my whole life was one constant lie; and happy would it have been for me if i could as thoroughly have imposed on myself as i did on others: for reflection, at every turn, would often remind me i was not so wise as people thought me; and this considerably embittered the pleasure i received from the public commendation of my wisdom. this self-admonition, like a _memento mori_ or _mortalis es_, must be, in my opinion, a very dangerous enemy to flattery: indeed, a weight sufficient to counterbalance all the false praise of the world. but whether it be that the generality of wise men do not reflect at all, or whether they have, from a constant imposition on others, contracted such a habit of deceit as to deceive themselves, i will not determine: it is, i believe, most certain that very few wise men know themselves what fools they are, more than the world doth. good gods! could one but see what passes in the closet of wisdom! how ridiculous a sight must it be to behold the wise man, who despises gratifying his palate, devouring custard; the sober wise man with his dram-bottle; or, the anti-carnalist (if i may be allowed the expression) chuckling over a b--dy book or picture, and perhaps caressing his housemaid! "but to conclude a character in which i apprehend i made as absurd a figure as in any in which i trod the stage of earth, my wisdom at last put an end to itself, that is, occasioned my dissolution. "a relation of mine in the eastern part of the empire disinherited his son, and left me his heir. this happened in the depth of winter, when i was in my grand climacteric, and had just recovered of a dangerous disease. as i had all the reason imaginable to apprehend the family of the deceased would conspire against me, and embezzle as much as they could, i advised with a grave and wise friend what was proper to be done; whether i should go myself, or employ a notary on this occasion, and defer my journey to the spring. to say the truth, i was most inclined to the latter; the rather as my circumstances were extremely flourishing, as i was advanced in years, and had not one person in the world to whom i should with pleasure bequeath any fortune at my death. "my friend told me he thought my question admitted of no manner of doubt or debate; that common prudence absolutely required my immediate departure; adding, that if the same good luck had happened to him he would have been already on his journey; 'for,' continued he, 'a man who knows the world so well as you, would be inexcusable to give persons such an opportunity of cheating you, who, you must be assured, will be too well inclined; and as for employing a notary, remember that excellent maxim, _ne facias per alium, quod fieri potest per te_. i own the badness of the season and your very late recovery are unlucky circumstances; but a wise man must get over difficulties when necessity obliges him to encounter them.' "i was immediately determined by this opinion. the duty of a wise man made an irresistible impression, and i took the necessity for granted without examination. i accordingly set forward the next morning; very tempestuous weather soon overtook me; i had not travelled three days before i relapsed into my fever, and died. "i was now as cruelly disappointed by minos as i had formerly been happily so. i advanced with the utmost confidence to the gate, and really imagined i should have been admitted by the wisdom of my countenance, even without any questions asked: but this was not my case; and, to my great surprize, minos, with a menacing voice, called out to me, 'you mr there, with the grave countenance, whither so fast, pray? will you please, before you move any farther forwards, to give me a short account of your transactions below?' i then began, and recounted to him my whole history, still expecting at the end of every period that the gate would be ordered to fly open; but i was obliged to go quite through with it, and then minos after some little consideration spoke to me as follows:-"'you, mr wiseman, stand forth if you please. believe me, sir, a trip back again to earth will be one of the wisest steps you ever took, and really more to the honour of your wisdom than any you have hitherto taken. on the other side, nothing could be simpler than to endeavour at elysium; for who but a fool would carry a commodity, which is of such infinite value in one place, into another where it is of none? but, without attempting to offend your gravity with a jest, you must return to the place from whence you came, for elysium was never designed for those who are too wise to be happy.' "this sentence confounded me greatly, especially as it seemed to threaten me with carrying my wisdom back again to earth. i told the judge, though he would not admit me at the gate, i hoped i had committed no crime while alive which merited my being wise any longer. he answered me, i must take my chance as to that matter, and immediately we turned our backs to each other." chapter xvii. _julian enters into the person of a king._ "i was now born at oviedo in spain. my father's name was veremond, and i was adopted by my uncle king alphonso the chaste. i don't recollect in all the pilgrimages i have made on earth that i ever past a more miserable infancy than now; being under the utmost confinement and restraint, and surrounded with physicians who were ever dosing me, and tutors who were continually plaguing me with their instructions; even those hours of leisure which my inclination would have spent in play were allotted to tedious pomp and ceremony, which, at an age wherein i had no ambition to enjoy the servility of courtiers, enslaved me more than it could the meanest of them. however, as i advanced towards manhood, my condition made me some amends; for the most beautiful women of their own accord threw out lures for me, and i had the happiness, which no man in an inferior degree can arrive at, of enjoying the most delicious creatures, without the previous and tiresome ceremonies of courtship, unless with the most simple, young, and unexperienced. as for the court ladies, they regarded me rather as men do the most lovely of the other sex; and, though they outwardly retained some appearance of modesty, they in reality rather considered themselves as receiving than conferring favours. "another happiness i enjoyed was in conferring favours of another sort; for, as i was extremely good-natured and generous, so i had daily opportunities of satisfying those passions. besides my own princely allowance, which was very bountiful, and with which i did many liberal and good actions, i recommended numberless persons of merit in distress to the king's notice, most of whom were provided for. indeed, had i sufficiently known my blest situation at this time, i should have grieved at nothing more than the death of alphonso, by which the burden of government devolved upon me; but, so blindly fond is ambition, and such charms doth it fancy in the power and pomp and splendour of a crown, that, though i vehemently loved that king, and had the greatest obligations to him, the thoughts of succeeding him obliterated my regret at his loss, and the wish for my approaching coronation dried my eyes at his funeral. "but my fondness for the name of king did not make me forgetful of those over whom i was to reign. i considered them in the light in which a tender father regards his children, as persons whose wellbeing god had intrusted to my care; and again, in that in which a prudent lord respects his tenants, as those on whose wealth and grandeur he is to build his own. both these considerations inspired me with the greatest care for their welfare, and their good was my first and ultimate concern. "the usurper mauregas had impiously obliged himself and his successors to pay to the moors every year an infamous tribute of an hundred young virgins: from this cruel and scandalous imposition i resolved to relieve my country. accordingly, when their emperor abderames the second had the audaciousness to make this demand of me, instead of complying with it i ordered his ambassadors to be driven away with all imaginable ignominy, and would have condemned them to death, could i have done it without a manifest violation of the law of nations. "i now raised an immense army; at the levying of which i made a speech from my throne, acquainting my subjects with the necessity and the reasons of the war in which i was going to engage: which i convinced them i had undertaken for their ease and safety, and not for satisfying any wanton ambition, or revenging any private pique of my own. they all declared unanimously that they would venture their lives and everything dear to them in my defence, and in the support of the honour of my crown. accordingly, my levies were instantly complete, sufficient numbers being only left to till the land; churchmen, even bishops themselves, enlisting themselves under my banners. "the armies met at alvelda, where we were discomfited with immense loss, and nothing but the lucky intervention of the night could have saved our whole army. "i retreated to the summit of a hill, where i abandoned myself to the highest agonies of grief, not so much for the danger in which i then saw my crown, as for the loss of those miserable wretches who had exposed their lives at my command. i could not then avoid this reflection--that, if the deaths of these people in a war undertaken absolutely for their protection could give me such concern, what horror must i have felt if, like princes greedy of dominion, i had sacrificed such numbers to my own pride, vanity, and ridiculous lust of power. "after having vented my sorrows for some time in this manner, i began to consider by what means i might possibly endeavour to retrieve this misfortune; when, reflecting on the great number of priests i had in my army, and on the prodigious force of superstition, a thought luckily suggested itself to me, to counterfeit that st james had appeared to me in a vision, and had promised me the victory. while i was ruminating on this the bishop of najara came opportunely to me. as i did not intend to communicate the secret to him, i took another method, and, instead of answering anything the bishop said to me, i pretended to talk to st james, as if he had been really present; till at length, after having spoke those things which i thought sufficient, and thanked the saint aloud for his promise of the victory, i turned about to the bishop, and, embracing him with a pleased countenance, protested i did not know he was present; and then, informing him of this supposed vision, i asked him if he had not himself seen the saint? he answered me he had; and afterwards proceeded to assure me that this appearance of st james was entirely owing to his prayers; for that he was his tutelar saint. he added he had a vision of him a few hours before, when he promised him a victory over the infidels, and acquainted him at the same time of the vacancy of the see of toledo. now, this news being really true, though it had happened so lately that i had not heard of it (nor, indeed, was it well possible i should, considering the great distance of the way), when i was afterwards acquainted with it, a little staggered me, though far from being superstitious; till being informed that the bishop had lost three horses on a late expedition, i was satisfied. "the next morning, the bishop, at my desire, mounted the rostrum, and trumpeted forth this vision so effectually, which he said he had that evening twice seen with his own eyes, that a spirit began to be infused through the whole army which rendered them superior to almost any force: the bishop insisted that the least doubt of success was giving the lie to the saint, and a damnable sin, and he took upon him in his name to promise them victory. "the army being drawn out, i soon experienced the effect of enthusiasm, for, having contrived another stratagem[i] to strengthen what the bishop had said, the soldiers fought more like furies than men. my stratagem was this: i had about me a dexterous fellow, who had been formerly a pimp in my amours. him i drest up in a strange antick dress, with a pair of white colours in his right hand, a red cross in his left, and having disguised him so that no one could know him, i placed him on a white horse, and ordered him to ride to the head of the army, and cry out, 'follow st james!' these words were reiterated by all the troops, who attacked the enemy with such intrepidity, that, notwithstanding our inferiority of numbers, we soon obtained a complete victory. "the bishop was come up by the time that the enemy was routed, and, acquainting us that he had met st james by the way, and that he had informed him of what had past, he added that he had express orders from the saint to receive a considerable sum for his use, and that a certain tax on corn and wine should be settled on his church for ever; and lastly, that a horseman's pay should be allowed for the future to the saint himself, of which he and his successors were appointed receivers. the army received these demands with such acclamations that i was obliged to comply with them, as i could by no means discover the imposition, nor do i believe i should have gained any credit if i had. "i had now done with the saint, but the bishop had not; for about a week afterwards lights were seen in a wood near where the battle was fought; and in a short time afterwards they discovered his tomb at the same place. upon this the bishop made me a visit, and forced me to go thither, to build a church to him, and largely endow it. in a word, the good man so plagued me with miracle after miracle, that i was forced to make interest with the pope to convey him to toledo, to get rid of him. "but to proceed to other matters.--there was an inferior officer, who had behaved very bravely in the battle against the moors, and had received several wounds, who solicited me for preferment; which i was about to confer on him, when one of my ministers came to me in a fright, and told me that he had promised the post i designed for this man to the son of count alderedo; and that the count, who was a powerful person, would be greatly disobliged at the refusal, as he had sent for his son from school to take possession of it. i was obliged to agree with my minister's reasons, and at the same time recommended the wounded soldier to be preferred by him, which he faithfully promised he would; but i met the poor wretch since in elysium, who informed me he was afterwards starved to death. "none who hath not been himself a prince, nor any prince till his death, can conceive the impositions daily put on them by their favourites and ministers; so that princes are often blamed for the faults of others. the count of saldagne had been long confined in prison, when his son d. bernard del carpio, who had performed the greatest actions against the moors, entreated me, as a reward for his service, to grant him his father's liberty. the old man's punishment had been so tedious, and the services of the young one so singularly eminent, that i was very inclinable to grant the request; but my ministers strongly opposed it; they told me my glory demanded revenge for the dishonour offered to my family; that so positive a demand carried with it rather the air of menace than entreaty; that the vain detail of his services, and the recompense due to them, was an injurious reproach; that to grant what had been so haughtily demanded would argue in the monarch both weakness and timidity; in a word, that to remit the punishment inflicted by my predecessors would be to condemn their judgment. lastly, one told me in a whisper, 'his whole family are enemies to your house.' by these means the ministers prevailed. the young lord took the refusal so ill, that he retired from court, and abandoned himself to despair, whilst the old one languished in prison. by which means, as i have since discovered, i lost the use of two of my best subjects. "to confess the truth, i had, by means of my ministers, conceived a very unjust opinion of my whole people, whom i fancied to be daily conspiring against me, and to entertain the most disloyal thoughts, when, in reality (as i have known since my death), they held me in universal respect and esteem. this is a trick, i believe, too often played with sovereigns, who, by such means, are prevented from that open intercourse with their subjects which, as it would greatly endear the person of the prince to the people, so might it often prove dangerous to a minister who was consulting his own interest only at the expense of both. i believe i have now recounted to you the most material passages of my life; for i assure you there are some incidents in the lives of kings not extremely worth relating. everything which passes in their minds and families is not attended with the splendour which surrounds their throne--indeed, there are some hours wherein the naked king and the naked cobbler can scarce be distinguished from each other. "had it not been, however, for my ingratitude to bernard del carpio, i believe this would have been my last pilgrimage on earth; for, as to the story of st james, i thought minos would have burst his sides at it; but he was so displeased with me on the other account, that, with a frown, he cried out, 'get thee back again, king.' nor would he suffer me to say another word." chapter xviii. _julian passes into a fool._ "the next visit i made to the world was performed in france, where i was born in the court of lewis iii., and had afterwards the honour to be preferred to be fool to the prince, who was surnamed charles the simple. but, in reality, i know not whether i might so properly be said to have acted the fool in his court as to have made fools of all others in it. certain it is, i was very far from being what is generally understood by that word, being a most cunning, designing, arch knave. i knew very well the folly of my master, and of many others, and how to make my advantage of this knowledge. "i was as dear to charles the simple as the player paris was to domitian, and, like him, bestowed all manner of offices and honours on whom i pleased. this drew me a great number of followers among the courtiers, who really mistook me for a fool, and yet flattered my understanding. there was particularly in the court a fellow who had neither honour, honesty, sense, wit, courage, beauty, nor indeed any one good quality, either of mind or body, to recommend him; but was at the same time, perhaps, as cunning a monster as ever lived. this gentleman took it into his head to list under my banner, and pursued me so very assiduously with flattery, constantly reminding me of my good sense, that i grew immoderately fond of him; for though flattery is not most judiciously applied to qualities which the persons flattered possess, yet as, notwithstanding my being well assured of my own parts, i past in the whole court for a fool, this flattery was a very sweet morsel to me. i therefore got this fellow preferred to a bishopric, but i lost my flatterer by it; for he never afterwards said a civil thing to me. "i never baulked my imagination for the grossness of the reflection on the character of the greatest noble--nay, even the king himself; of which i will give you a very bold instance. one day his simple majesty told me he believed i had so much power that his people looked on me as the king, and himself as my fool. at this i pretended to be angry, as with an affront. 'why, how now?' says the king; 'are you ashamed of being a king?' 'no, sir,' says i, 'but i am devilishly ashamed of my fool.' "herbert, earl of vermandois, had by my means been restored to the favour of the simple (for so i used always to call charles). he afterwards prevailed with the king to take the city of arras from earl baldwin, by which means, herbert, in exchange for this city, had peronne restored to him by count altmar. baldwin came to court in order to procure the restoration of his city; but, either through pride or ignorance, neglected to apply to me. as i met him at court during his solicitation, i told him he did not apply the right way; he answered roughly he should not ask a fool's advice. i replied i did not wonder at his prejudice, since he had miscarried already by following a fool's advice; but i told him there were fools who had more interest than that he had brought with him to court. he answered me surlily he had no fool with him, for that he travelled alone. 'ay, my lord,' says i, 'i often travel alone, and yet they will have it i always carry a fool with me.' this raised a laugh among the bystanders, on which he gave me a blow. i immediately complained of this usage to the simple, who dismissed the earl from court with very hard words, instead of granting him the favour he solicited. "i give you these rather as a specimen of my interest and impudence than of my wit--indeed, my jests were commonly more admired than they ought to be; for perhaps i was not in reality much more a wit than a fool. but, with the latitude of unbounded scurrility, it is easy enough to attain the character of wit, especially in a court, where, as all persons hate and envy one another heartily, and are at the same time obliged by the constrained behaviour of civility to profess the greatest liking, so it is, and must be, wonderfully pleasant to them to see the follies of their acquaintance exposed by a third person. besides, the opinion of the court is as uniform as the fashion, and is always guided by the will of the prince or of the favourite. i doubt not that caligula's horse was universally held in his court to be a good and able consul. in the same manner was i universally acknowledged to be the wittiest fool in the world. every word i said raised laughter, and was held to be a jest, especially by the ladies, who sometimes laughed before i had discovered my sentiment, and often repeated that as a jest which i did not even intend as one. "i was as severe on the ladies as on the men, and with the same impunity; but this at last cost me dear: for once having joked on the beauty of a lady whose name was adelaide, a favourite of the simple's, she pretended to smile and be pleased at my wit with the rest of the company; but in reality she highly resented it, and endeavoured to undermine me with the king. in which she so greatly succeeded (for what cannot a favourite woman do with one who deserves the surname of simple?) that the king grew every day more reserved to me, and when i attempted any freedom gave me such marks of his displeasure, that the courtiers who have all hawks' eyes at a slight from the sovereign, soon discerned it: and indeed, had i been blind enough not to have discovered that i had lost ground in the simple's favour by his own change in his carriage towards me, i must have found it, nay even felt it, in the behaviour of the courtiers: for, as my company was two days before solicited with the utmost eagerness, it was now rejected with as much scorn. i was now the jest of the ushers and pages; and an officer of the guards, on whom i was a little jocose, gave me a box on the ear, bidding me make free with my equals. this very fellow had been my butt for many years, without daring to lift his hand against me. "but though i visibly perceived the alteration in the simple, i was utterly unable to make any guess at the occasion. i had not the least suspicion of adelaide; for, besides her being a very good-humoured woman, i had often made severe jests on her reputation, which i had all the reason imaginable to believe had given her no offence. but i soon perceived that a woman will bear the most bitter censures on her morals easier than the smallest reflection on her beauty; for she now declared publicly, that i ought to be dismissed from court, as the stupidest of fools, and one in whom there was no diversion; and that she wondered how any person could have so little taste as to imagine i had any wit. this speech was echoed through the drawing-room, and agreed to by all present. every one now put on an unusual gravity on their countenance whenever i spoke; and it was as much out of my power to raise a laugh as formerly it had been for me to open my mouth without one. "while my affairs were in this posture i went one day into the circle without my fool's dress. the simple, who would still speak to me, cried out, 'so, fool, what's the matter now?' 'sir,' answered i, 'fools are like to be so common a commodity at court, that i am weary of my coat.' 'how dost thou mean?' answered the simple; 'what can make them commoner now than usual?'--'o, sir,' said i, 'there are ladies here make your majesty a fool every day of their lives.' the simple took no notice of my jest, and several present said my bones ought to be broke for my impudence; but it pleased the queen, who, knowing adelaide, whom she hated, to be the cause of my disgrace, obtained me of the king, and took me into her service; so that i was henceforth called the queen's fool, and in her court received the same honour, and had as much wit, as i had formerly had in the king's. but as the queen had really no power unless over her own domestics, i was not treated in general with that complacence, nor did i receive those bribes and presents, which had once fallen to my share. "nor did this confined respect continue long: for the queen, who had in fact no taste for humour, soon grew sick of my foolery, and, forgetting the cause for which she had taken me, neglected me so much, that her court grew intolerable to my temper, and i broke my heart and died. "minos laughed heartily at several things in my story, and then, telling me no one played the fool in elysium, bid me go back again." chapter xix. _julian appears in the character of a beggar._ "i now returned to rome, and was born into a very poor and numerous family, which, to be honest with you, procured its livelyhood by begging. this, if you was never yourself of the calling, you do not know, i suppose, to be as regular a trade as any other; to have its several rules and secrets, or mysteries, which to learn require perhaps as tedious an apprenticeship as those of any craft whatever. "the first thing we are taught is the countenance miserable. this indeed nature makes much easier to some than others; but there are none who cannot accomplish it, if they begin early enough in youth, and before the muscles are grown too stubborn. "the second thing is the voice lamentable. in this qualification too, nature must have her share in producing the most consummate excellence: however, art will here, as in every other instance, go a great way with industry and application, even without the assistance of genius, especially if the student begins young. "there are many other instructions, but these are the most considerable. the women are taught one practice more than the men, for they are instructed in the art of crying, that is, to have their tears ready on all occasions: but this is attained very easily by most. some indeed arrive at the utmost perfection in this art with incredible facility. "no profession requires a deeper insight into human nature than the beggar's. their knowledge of the passions of men is so extensive, that i have often thought it would be of no little service to a politician to have his education among them. nay, there is a much greater analogy between these two characters than is imagined; for both concur in their first and grand principle, it being equally their business to delude and impose on mankind. it must be confessed that they differ widely in the degree of advantage which they make by their deceit; for, whereas the beggar is contented with a little, the politician leaves but a little behind. "a very great english philosopher hath remarked our policy, in taking care never to address any one with a title inferior to what he really claims. my father was of the same opinion; for i remember when i was a boy, the pope happening to pass by, i tended him with 'pray, sir;' 'for god's sake, sir;' 'for the lord's sake, sir;'--to which he answered gravely, 'sirrah, sirrah, you ought to be whipt for taking the lord's name in vain;' and in vain it was indeed, for he gave me nothing. my father, overhearing this, took his advice, and whipt me very severely. while i was under correction i promised often never to take the lord's name in vain any more. my father then said, 'child, i do not whip you for taking his name in vain; i whip you for not calling the pope his holiness.' "if all men were so wise and good to follow the clergy's example, the nuisance of beggars would soon be removed. i do not remember to have been above twice relieved by them during my whole state of beggary. once was by a very well-looking man, who gave me a small piece of silver, and declared he had given me more than he had left himself; the other was by a spruce young fellow, who had that very day first put on his robes, whom i attended with 'pray, reverend sir, good reverend sir, consider your cloth.' he answered, 'i do, child, consider my office, and i hope all our cloth do the same.' he then threw down some money, and strutted off with great dignity. "with the women i had one general formulary: 'sweet pretty lady,' 'god bless your ladyship,' 'god bless your handsome face.' this generally succeeded; but i observed the uglier the woman was, the surer i was of success. "it was a constant maxim among us, that the greater retinue any one travelled with the less expectation we might promise ourselves from them; but whenever we saw a vehicle with a single or no servant we imagined our booty sure, and were seldom deceived. "we observed great difference introduced by time and circumstance in the same person; for instance, a losing gamester is sometimes generous, but from a winner you will as easily obtain his soul as a single groat. a lawyer travelling from his country seat to his clients at rome, and a physician going to visit a patient, were always worth asking; but the same on their return were (according to our cant phrase) untouchable. "the most general, and indeed the truest, maxim among us was, that those who possessed the least were always the readiest to give. the chief art of a beggar-man is, therefore, to discern the rich from the poor, which, though it be only distinguishing substance from shadow, is by no means attainable without a pretty good capacity and a vast degree of attention; for these two are eternally industrious in endeavouring to counterfeit each other. in this deceit the poor man is more heartily in earnest to deceive you than the rich, who, amidst all the emblems of poverty which he puts on, still permits some mark of his wealth to strike the eye. thus, while his apparel is not worth a groat, his finger wears a ring of value, or his pocket a gold watch. in a word, he seems rather to affect poverty to insult than impose on you. now the poor man, on the contrary, is very sincere in his desire of passing for rich; but the eagerness of this desire hurries him to over-act his part, and he betrays himself as one who is drunk by his overacted sobriety. thus, instead of being attended by one servant well mounted, he will have two; and, not being able to purchase or maintain a second horse of value, one of his servants at least is mounted on a hired rascallion. he is not contented to go plain and neat in his cloathes; he therefore claps on some tawdry ornament, and what he adds to the fineness of his vestment he detracts from the fineness of his linnen. without descending into more minute particulars, i believe i may assert it as an axiom of indubitable truth, that whoever shews you he is either in himself or his equipage as gaudy as he can, convinces you he is more so than he can afford. now, whenever a man's expence exceeds his income, he is indifferent in the degree; we had therefore nothing more to do with such than to flatter them with their wealth and splendour, and were always certain of success. "there is, indeed, one kind of rich man who is commonly more liberal, namely, where riches surprize him, as it were, in the midst of poverty and distress, the consequence of which is, i own, sometimes excessive avarice, but oftener extreme prodigality. i remember one of these who, having received a pretty large sum of money, gave me, when i begged an obolus, a whole talent; on which his friend having reproved him, he answered, with an oath, 'why not? have i not fifty left?' "the life of a beggar, if men estimated things by their real essence, and not by their outward false appearance, would be, perhaps, a more desirable situation than any of those which ambition persuades us, with such difficulty, danger, and often villany, to aspire to. the wants of a beggar are commonly as chimerical as the abundance of a nobleman; for besides vanity, which a judicious beggar will always apply to with wonderful efficacy, there are in reality very few natures so hardened as not to compassionate poverty and distress, when the predominancy of some other passion doth not prevent them. "there is one happiness which attends money got with ease, namely, that it is never hoarded; otherwise, as we have frequent opportunities of growing rich, that canker care might prey upon our quiet, as it doth on others; but our money stock we spend as fast as we acquire it; usually at least, for i speak not without exception; thus it gives us mirth only, and no trouble. indeed, the luxury of our lives might introduce diseases, did not our daily exercise prevent them. this gives us an appetite and relish for our dainties, and at the same time an antidote against the evil effects which sloth, united with luxury, induces on the habit of a human body. our women we enjoy with ecstasies at least equal to what the greatest men feel in their embraces. i can, i am assured, say of myself, that no mortal could reap more perfect happiness from the tender passion than my fortune had decreed me. i married a charming young woman for love; she was the daughter of a neighbouring beggar, who, with an improvidence too often seen, spent a very large income which he procured by his profession, so that he was able to give her no fortune down; however, at his death he left her a very well accustomed begging-hut, situated on the side of a steep hill, where travellers could not immediately escape from us, and a garden adjoining, being the twenty-eighth part of an acre, well planted. she made the best of wives, bore me nineteen children, and never failed, unless on her lying-in, which generally lasted three days, to get my supper ready against my return home in an evening; this being my favourite meal, and at which i, as well as my whole family, greatly enjoyed ourselves; the principal subject of our discourse being generally the boons we had that day obtained, on which occasions, laughing at the folly of the donors made no inconsiderable part of the entertainment; for, whatever might be their motive for giving, we constantly imputed our success to our having flattered their vanity, or overreached their understanding. "but perhaps i have dwelt too long on this character; i shall conclude, therefore, with telling you that after a life of 102 years' continuance, during all which i had never known any sickness or infirmity but that which old age necessarily induced, i at last, without the least pain, went out like the snuff of a candle. "minos, having heard my history, bid me compute, if i could, how many lies i had told in my life. as we are here, by a certain fated necessity, obliged to confine ourselves to truth, i answered, i believed about 50,000,000. he then replied, with a frown, 'can such a wretch conceive any hopes of entering elysium?' i immediately turned about, and, upon the whole, was rejoiced at his not calling me back." [illustration: text decoration] chapter xx. _julian performs the part of a statesman._ "it was now my fortune to be born of a german princess; but a man-midwife, pulling my head off in delivering my mother, put a speedy end to my princely life. "spirits who end their lives before they are at the age of five years are immediately ordered into other bodies; and it was now my fortune to perform several infancies before i could again entitle myself to an examination of minos. "at length i was destined once more to play a considerable part on the stage. i was born in england, in the reign of ethelred ii. my father's name was ulnoth: he was earl or thane of sussex. i was afterwards known by the name of earl goodwin, and began to make a considerable figure in the world in the time of harold harefoot, whom i procured to be made king of wessex, or the west saxons, in prejudice of hardicanute, whose mother emma endeavoured afterwards to set another of her sons on the throne; but i circumvented her, and, communicating her design to the king, at the same time acquainted him with a project which i had formed for the murder of these two young princes. emma had sent for these her sons from normandy, with the king's leave, whom she had deceived by her religious behaviour, and pretended neglect of all worldly affairs; but i prevailed with harold to invite these princes to his court, and put them to death. the prudent mother sent only alfred, retaining edward to herself, as she suspected my ill designs, and thought i should not venture to execute them on one of her sons, while she secured the other; but she was deceived, for i had no sooner alfred in my possession than i caused him to be conducted to ely, where i ordered his eyes to be put out, and afterwards to be confined in a monastery. "this was one of those cruel expedients which great men satisfy themselves well in executing, by concluding them to be necessary to the service of their prince, who is the support of their ambition. "edward, the other son of emma, escaped again to normandy; whence, after the death of harold and hardicanute, he made no scruple of applying to my protection and favour, though he had before prosecuted me with all the vengeance he was able, for the murder of his brother; but in all great affairs private relation must yield to public interest. having therefore concluded very advantageous terms for myself with him, i made no scruple of patronizing his cause, and soon placed him on the throne. nor did i conceive the least apprehension from his resentment, as i knew my power was too great for him to encounter. "among other stipulated conditions, one was to marry my daughter editha. this edward consented to with great reluctance, and i had afterwards no reason to be pleased with it; for it raised her, who had been my favourite child, to such an opinion of greatness, that, instead of paying me the usual respect, she frequently threw in my teeth (as often at least as i gave her any admonition), that she was now a queen, and that the character and title of father merged in that of subject. this behaviour, however, did not cure me of my affection towards her, nor lessen the uneasiness which i afterwards bore on edward's dismissing her from his bed. "one thing which principally induced me to labour the promotion of edward was the simplicity or weakness of that prince, under whom i promised myself absolute dominion under another name. nor did this opinion deceive me; for, during his whole reign, my administration was in the highest degree despotic: i had everything of royalty but the outward ensigns; no man ever applying for a place, or any kind of preferment, but to me only. a circumstance which, as it greatly enriched my coffers, so it no less pampered my ambition, and satisfied my vanity with a numerous attendance; and i had the pleasure of seeing those who only bowed to the king prostrating themselves before me. "edward the confessor, or st edward, as some have called him, in derision i suppose, being a very silly fellow, had all the faults incident, and almost inseparable, to fools. he married my daughter editha from his fear of disobliging me; and afterwards, out of hatred to me, refused even to consummate his marriage, though she was one of the most beautiful women of her age. he was likewise guilty of the basest ingratitude to his mother (a vice to which fools are chiefly, if not only, liable); and, in return for her endeavours to procure him a throne in his youth, confined her in a loathsome prison in her old age. this, it is true, he did by my advice; but as to her walking over nine ploughshares red-hot, and giving nine manors, when she had not one in her possession, there is not a syllable of veracity in it. "the first great perplexity i fell into was on the account of my son swane, who had deflowered the abbess of leon, since called leominster, in herefordshire. after this fact he retired into denmark, whence he sent to me to obtain his pardon. the king at first refused it, being moved thereto, as i afterwards found, by some churchmen, particularly by one of his chaplains, whom i had prevented from obtaining a bishopric. upon this my son swane invaded the coasts with several ships, and committed many outrageous cruelties; which, indeed, did his business, as they served me to apply to the fear of this king, which i had long since discovered to be his predominant passion. and, at last, he who had refused pardon to his first offence submitted to give it him after he had committed many other more monstrous crimes; by which his pardon lost all grace to the offended, and received double censure from all others. "the king was greatly inclined to the normans, had created a norman archbishop of canterbury, and had heaped extraordinary favours on him. i had no other objection to this man than that he rose without my assistance; a cause of dislike which, in the reign of great and powerful favourites, hath often proved fatal to the persons who have given it, as the persons thus raised inspire us constantly with jealousies and apprehensions. for when we promote any one ourselves, we take effectual care to preserve such an ascendant over him, that we can at any time reduce him to his former degree, should he dare to act in opposition to our wills; for which reason we never suffer any to come near the prince but such as we are assured it is impossible should be capable of engaging or improving his affection; no prime minister, as i apprehend, esteeming himself to be safe while any other shares the ear of his prince, of whom we are as jealous as the fondest husband can be of his wife. whoever, therefore, can approach him by any other channel than that of ourselves, is, in our opinion, a declared enemy, and one whom the first principles of policy oblige us to demolish with the utmost expedition. for the affection of kings is as precarious as that of women, and the only way to secure either to ourselves is to keep all others from them. "but the archbishop did not let matters rest on suspicion. he soon gave open proofs of his interest with the confessor in procuring an office of some importance for one rollo, a roman of mean extraction and very despicable parts. when i represented to the king the indecency of conferring such an honour on such a fellow, he answered me that he was the archbishop's relation. 'then, sir,' replied i, 'he is related to your enemy.' nothing more past at that time; but i soon perceived, by the archbishop's behaviour, that the king had acquainted him with our private discourse; a sufficient assurance of his confidence in him and neglect of me. "the favour of princes, when once lost, is recoverable only by the gaining a situation which may make you terrible to them. as i had no doubt of having lost all credit with this king, which indeed had been originally founded and constantly supported by his fear, so i took the method of terror to regain it. "the earl of boulogne coming over to visit the king gave me an opportunity of breaking out into open opposition; for, as the earl was on his return to france, one of his servants, who was sent before to procure lodgings at dover, and insisted on having them in the house of a private man in spite of the owner's teeth, was, in a fray which ensued, killed on the spot; and the earl himself, arriving there soon after, very narrowly escaped with his life. the earl, enraged at this affront, returned to the king at gloucester with loud complaints and demands of satisfaction. edward consented to his demands, and ordered me to chastise the rioters, who were under my government as earl of kent: but, instead of obeying these orders, i answered, with some warmth, that the english were not used to punish people unheard, nor ought their rights and privileges to be violated; that the accused should be first summoned--if guilty, should make satisfaction both with body and estate, but, if innocent, should be discharged. adding, with great ferocity, that as earl of kent it was my duty to protect those under my government against the insults of foreigners. "this accident was extremely lucky, as it gave my quarrel with the king a popular colour, and so ingratiated me with the people, that when i set up my standard, which i soon after did, they readily and chearfully listed under my banners and embraced my cause, which i persuaded them was their own; for that it was to protect them against foreigners that i had drawn my sword. the word foreigners with an englishman hath a kind of magical effect, they having the utmost hatred and aversion to them, arising from the cruelties they suffered from the danes and some other foreign nations. no wonder therefore they espoused my cause in a quarrel which had such a beginning. "but what may be somewhat more remarkable is, that when i afterwards returned to england from banishment, and was at the head of an army of the flemish, who were preparing to plunder the city of london, i still persisted that i was come to defend the english from the danger of foreigners, and gained their credit. indeed, there is no lie so gross but it may be imposed on the people by those whom they esteem their patrons and defenders. "the king saved his city by being reconciled to me, and taking again my daughter, whom he had put away from him; and thus, having frightened the king into what concessions i thought proper, i dismissed my army and fleet, with which i intended, could i not have succeeded otherwise, to have sacked the city of london and ravaged the whole country. "i was no sooner re-established in the king's favour, or, what was as well for me, the appearance of it, than i fell violently on the archbishop. he had of himself retired to his monastery in normandy; but that did not content me: i had him formally banished, the see declared vacant, and then filled up by another. "i enjoyed my grandeur a very short time after my restoration to it; for the king, hating and fearing me to a very great degree, and finding no means of openly destroying me, at last effected his purpose by poison, and then spread abroad a ridiculous story, of my wishing the next morsel might choak me if i had had any hand in the death of alfred; and, accordingly, that the next morsel, by a divine judgment, stuck in my throat and performed that office. "this of a statesman was one of my worst stages in the other world. it is a post subjected daily to the greatest danger and inquietude, and attended with little pleasure and less ease. in a word, it is a pill which, was it not gilded over by ambition, would appear nauseous and detestable in the eye of every one; and perhaps that is one reason why minos so greatly compassionates the case of those who swallow it: for that just judge told me he always acquitted a prime minister who could produce one single good action in his whole life, let him have committed ever so many crimes. indeed, i understood him a little too largely, and was stepping towards the gate; but he pulled me by the sleeve, and, telling me no prime minister ever entered there, bid me go back again; saying, he thought i had sufficient reason to rejoice in my escaping the bottomless pit, which half my crimes committed in any other capacity would have entitled me to." [illustration: text decoration] chapter xxi. _julian's adventures in the post of a soldier._ "i was born at caen, in normandy. my mother's name was matilda; as for my father, i am not so certain, for the good woman on her deathbed assured me she herself could bring her guess to no greater certainty than to five of duke william's captains. when i was no more than thirteen (being indeed a surprising stout boy of my age) i enlisted into the army of duke william, afterwards known by the name of william the conqueror, landed with him at pemesey or pemsey, in sussex, and was present at the famous battle of hastings. "at the first onset it was impossible to describe my consternation, which was heightened by the fall of two soldiers who stood by me; but this soon abated, and by degrees, as my blood grew warm, i thought no more of my own safety, but fell on the enemy with great fury, and did a good deal of execution; till, unhappily, i received a wound in my thigh, which rendered me unable to stand any longer, so that i now lay among the dead, and was constantly exposed to the danger of being trampled to death, as well by my fellow-soldiers as by the enemy. however, i had the fortune to escape it, and continued the remaining part of the day and the night following on the ground. "the next morning, the duke sending out parties to bring off the wounded, i was found almost expiring with loss of blood: notwithstanding which, as immediate care was taken to dress my wounds, youth and a robust constitution stood my friends, and i recovered after a long and tedious indisposition, and was again able to use my limbs and do my duty. "as soon as dover was taken i was conveyed thither with all the rest of the sick and wounded. here i recovered of my wound; but fell afterwards into a violent flux, which, when it departed, left me so weak that it was long before i could regain my strength. and what most afflicted me was, that during my whole illness, when i languished under want as well as sickness, i had daily the mortification to see and hear the riots and excess of my fellow-soldiers, who had happily escaped safe from the battle. "i was no sooner well than i was ordered into garrison at dover castle. the officers here fared very indifferently, but the private men much worse. we had great scarcity of provisions, and, what was yet more intolerable, were so closely confined for want of room (four of us being obliged to lie on the same bundle of straw), that many died, and most sickened. "here i had remained about four months, when one night we were alarmed with the arrival of the earl of boulogne, who had come over privily from france, and endeavoured to surprize the castle. the design proved ineffectual; for the garrison making a brisk sally, most of his men were tumbled down the precipice, and he returned with a very few back to france. in this action, however, i had the misfortune to come off with a broken arm; it was so shattered, that, besides a great deal of pain and misery which i endured in my cure, i was disabled for upwards of three months. "soon after my recovery i had contracted an amour with a young woman whose parents lived near the garrison, and were in much better circumstances than i had reason to expect should give their consent to the match. however, as she was extremely fond of me (as i was indeed distractedly enamoured of her), they were prevailed on to comply with her desires, and the day was fixed for our marriage. "on the evening preceding, while i was exulting with the eager expectation of the happiness i was the next day to enjoy, i received orders to march early in the morning towards windsor, where a large army was to be formed, at the head of which the king intended to march into the west. any person who hath ever been in love may easily imagine what i felt in my mind on receiving those orders; and what still heightened my torments was, that the commanding officer would not permit any one to go out of the garrison that evening; so that i had not even an opportunity of taking leave of my beloved. "the morning came which was to have put me in the possession of my wishes; but, alas! the scene was now changed, and all the hopes which i had raised were now so many ghosts to haunt, and furies to torment me. "it was now the midst of winter, and very severe weather for the season; when we were obliged to make very long and fatiguing marches, in which we suffered all the inconveniences of cold and hunger. the night in which i expected to riot in the arms of my beloved mistress i was obliged to take up with a lodging on the ground, exposed to the inclemencies of a rigid frost; nor could i obtain the least comfort of sleep, which shunned me as its enemy. in short, the horrors of that night are not to be described, or perhaps imagined. they made such an impression on my soul, that i was forced to be dipped three times in the river lethe to prevent my remembering it in the characters which i afterwards performed in the flesh." here i interrupted julian for the first time, and told him no such dipping had happened to me in my voyage from one world to the other: but he satisfied me by saying "that this only happened to those spirits which returned into the flesh, in order to prevent that reminiscence which plato mentions, and which would otherwise cause great confusion in the other world." he then proceeded as follows: "we continued a very laborious march to exeter, which we were ordered to besiege. the town soon surrendered, and his majesty built a castle there, which he garrisoned with his normans, and unhappily i had the misfortune to be one of the number. "here we were confined closer than i had been at dover; for, as the citizens were extremely disaffected, we were never suffered to go without the walls of the castle; nor indeed could we, unless in large bodies, without the utmost danger. we were likewise kept to continual duty, nor could any solicitations prevail with the commanding officer to give me a month's absence to visit my love, from whom i had no opportunity of hearing in all my long absence. "however, in the spring, the people being more quiet, and another officer of a gentler temper succeeding to the principal command, i obtained leave to go to dover; but alas! what comfort did my long journey bring me? i found the parents of my darling in the utmost misery at her loss; for she had died, about a week before my arrival, of a consumption, which they imputed to her pining at my sudden departure. "i now fell into the most violent and almost raving fit of despair. i cursed myself, the king, and the whole world, which no longer seemed to have any delight for me. i threw myself on the grave of my deceased love, and lay there without any kind of sustenance for two whole days. at last hunger, together with the persuasions of some people who took pity on me, prevailed with me to quit that situation, and refresh myself with food. they then persuaded me to return to my post, and abandon a place where almost every object i saw recalled ideas to my mind which, as they said, i should endeavour with my utmost force to expel from it. this advice at length succeeded; the rather, as the father and mother of my beloved refused to see me, looking on me as the innocent but certain cause of the death of their only child. "the loss of one we tenderly love, as it is one of the most bitter and biting evils which attend human life, so it wants the lenitive which palliates and softens every other calamity; i mean that great reliever, hope. no man can be so totally undone, but that he may still cherish expectation: but this deprives us of all such comfort, nor can anything but time alone lessen it. this, however, in most minds, is sure to work a slow but effectual remedy; so did it in mine: for within a twelvemonth i was entirely reconciled to my fortune, and soon after absolutely forgot the object of a passion from which i had promised myself such extreme happiness, and in the disappointment of which i had experienced such inconceivable misery. "at the expiration of the month i returned to my garrison at exeter; where i was no sooner arrived than i was ordered to march into the north, to oppose a force there levied by the earls of chester and northumberland. we came to york, where his majesty pardoned the heads of the rebels, and very severely punished some who were less guilty. it was particularly my lot to be ordered to seize a poor man who had never been out of his house, and convey him to prison. i detested this barbarity, yet was obliged to execute it; nay, though no reward would have bribed me in a private capacity to have acted such a part, yet so much sanctity is there in the commands of a monarch or general to a soldier, that i performed it without reluctance, nor had the tears of his wife and family any prevalence with me. "but this, which was a very small piece of mischief in comparison with many of my barbarities afterwards, was however the only one which ever gave me any uneasiness; for when the king led us afterwards into northumberland to revenge those people's having joined with osborne the dane in his invasion, and orders were given us to commit what ravages we could, i was forward in fulfilling them, and, among some lesser cruelties (i remember it yet with sorrow), i ravished a woman, murdered a little infant playing in her lap, and then burnt her house. in short, for i have no pleasure in this part of my relation, i had my share in all the cruelties exercised on those poor wretches; which were so grievous, that for sixty miles together, between york and durham, not a single house, church, or any other public or private edifice, was left standing. "we had pretty well devoured the country, when we were ordered to march to the isle of ely, to oppose hereward, a bold and stout soldier, who had under him a very large body of rebels, who had the impudence to rise against their king and conqueror (i talk now in the same style i did then) in defence of their liberties, as they called them. these were soon subdued; but as i happened (more to my glory than my comfort) to be posted in that part through which hereward cut his way, i received a dreadful cut on the forehead, a second on the shoulder, and was run through the body with a pike. "i languished a long time with these wounds, which made me incapable of attending the king into scotland. however, i was able to go over with him afterwards into normandy, in his expedition against philip, who had taken the opportunity of the troubles in england to invade that province. those few normans who had survived their wounds, and had remained in the isle of ely, were all of our nation who went, the rest of his army being all composed of english. in a skirmish near the town of mans my leg was broke and so shattered that it was forced to be cut off. "i was now disabled from serving longer in the army; and accordingly, being discharged from the service, i retired to the place of my nativity, where, in extreme poverty, and frequent bad health from the many wounds i had received, i dragged on a miserable life to the age of sixty-three; my only pleasure being to recount the feats of my youth, in which narratives i generally exceeded the truth. "it would be tedious and unpleasant to recount to you the several miseries i suffered after my return to caen; let it suffice, they were so terrible that they induced minos to compassionate me, and, notwithstanding the barbarities i had been guilty of in northumberland, to suffer me to go once more back to earth." chapter xxii. _what happened to julian in the person of a taylor._ "fortune now stationed me in a character which the ingratitude of mankind hath put them on ridiculing, though they owe to it not only a relief from the inclemencies of cold, to which they would otherwise be exposed, but likewise a considerable satisfaction of their vanity. the character i mean was that of a taylor; which, if we consider it with due attention, must be confessed to have in it great dignity and importance. for, in reality, who constitutes the different degrees between men but the taylor? the prince indeed gives the title, but it is the taylor who makes the man. to his labours are owing the respect of crouds, and the awe which great men inspire into their beholders, though these are too often unjustly attributed to other motives. lastly, the admiration of the fair is most commonly to be placed to his account. "i was just set up in my trade when i made three suits of fine clothes for king stephen's coronation. i question whether the person who wears the rich coat hath so much pleasure and vanity in being admired in it, as we taylors have from that admiration; and perhaps a philosopher would say he is not so well entitled to it. i bustled on the day of the ceremony through the croud, and it was with incredible delight i heard several say, as my cloaths walked by, 'bless me, was ever anything so fine as the earl of devonshire? sure he and sir hugh bigot are the two best drest men i ever saw.' now both those suits were of my making. "there would indeed be infinite pleasure in working for the courtiers, as they are generally genteel men, and shew one's clothes to the best advantage, was it not for one small discouragement; this is, that they never pay. i solemnly protest, though i lost almost as much by the court in my life as i got by the city, i never carried a suit into the latter with half the satisfaction which i have done to the former; though from that i was certain of ready money, and from this almost as certain of no money at all. "courtiers may, however, be divided into two sorts, very essentially different from each other; into those who never intend to pay for their clothes; and those who do intend to pay for them, but never happen to be able. of the latter sort are many of those young gentlemen whom we equip out for the army, and who are, unhappily for us, cut off before they arrive at preferment. this is the reason that taylors, in time of war, are mistaken for politicians by their inquisitiveness into the event of battles, one campaign very often proving the ruin of half-a-dozen of us. i am sure i had frequent reason to curse that fatal battle of cardigan, where the welsh defeated some of king stephen's best troops, and where many a good suit of mine, unpaid for, fell to the ground. "the gentlemen of this honourable calling have fared much better in later ages than when i was of it; for now it seems the fashion is, when they apprehend their customer is not in the best circumstances, if they are not paid as soon as they carry home the suit, they charge him in their book as much again as it is worth, and then send a gentleman with a small scrip of parchment to demand the money. if this be not immediately paid the gentleman takes the beau with him to his house, where he locks him up till the taylor is contented: but in my time these scrips of parchment were not in use; and if the beau disliked paying for his clothes, as very often happened, we had no method of compelling him. "in several of the characters which i have related to you, i apprehend i have sometimes forgot myself, and considered myself as really interested as i was when i personated them on earth. i have just now caught myself in the fact; for i have complained to you as bitterly of my customers as i formerly used to do when i was the taylor: but in reality, though there were some few persons of very great quality, and some others, who never paid their debts, yet those were but a few, and i had a method of repairing this loss. my customers i divided under three heads: those who paid ready money, those who paid slow, and those who never paid at all. the first of these i considered apart by themselves, as persons by whom i got a certain but small profit. the two last i lumped together, making those who paid slow contribute to repair my losses by those who did not pay at all. thus, upon the whole, i was a very inconsiderable loser, and might have left a fortune to my family, had i not launched forth into expenses which swallowed up all my gains. i had a wife and two children. these indeed i kept frugally enough, for i half starved them; but i kept a mistress in a finer way, for whom i had a country-house, pleasantly situated on the thames, elegantly fitted up and neatly furnished. this woman might very properly be called my mistress, for she was most absolutely so; and though her tenure was no higher than by my will, she domineered as tyrannically as if my chains had been riveted in the strongest manner. to all this i submitted, not through any adoration of her beauty, which was indeed but indifferent. her charms consisted in little wantonnesses, which she knew admirably well to use in hours of dalliance, and which, i believe, are of all things the most delightful to a lover. "she was so profusely extravagant, that it seemed as if she had an actual intent to ruin me. this i am sure of, if such had been her real intention, she could have taken no properer way to accomplish it; nay, i myself might appear to have had the same view: for, besides this extravagant mistress and my country-house, i kept likewise a brace of hunters, rather for that it was fashionable so to do than for any great delight i took in the sport, which i very little attended; not for want of leisure, for few noblemen had so much. all the work i ever did was taking measure, and that only of my greatest and best customers. i scarce ever cut a piece of cloth in my life, nor was indeed much more able to fashion a coat than any gentleman in the kingdom. this made a skilful servant too necessary to me. he knew i must submit to any terms with, or any treatment from, him. he knew it was easier for him to find another such a taylor as me than for me to procure such another workman as him: for this reason he exerted the most notorious and cruel tyranny, seldom giving me a civil word; nor could the utmost condescension on my side, though attended with continual presents and rewards, and raising his wages, content or please him. in a word, he was as absolutely my master as was ever an ambitious, industrious prime minister over an indolent and voluptuous king. all my other journeymen paid more respect to him than to me; for they considered my favour as a necessary consequence of obtaining his. "these were the most remarkable occurrences while i acted this part. minos hesitated a few moments, and then bid me get back again, without assigning any reason." chapter xxiii. _the life of alderman julian._ "i now revisited england, and was born at london. my father was one of the magistrates of that city. he had eleven children, of whom i was the eldest. he had great success in trade, and grew extremely rich, but the largeness of his family rendered it impossible for him to leave me a fortune sufficient to live well on independent of business. i was accordingly brought up to be a fishmonger, in which capacity i myself afterwards acquired very considerable wealth. "the same disposition of mind which in princes is called ambition is in subjects named faction. to this temper i was greatly addicted from my youth. i was, while a boy, a great partisan of prince john's against his brother richard, during the latter's absence in the holy war and in his captivity. i was no more than one-and-twenty when i first began to make political speeches in publick, and to endeavour to foment disquietude and discontent in the city. as i was pretty well qualified for this office, by a great fluency of words, an harmonious accent, a graceful delivery, and above all an invincible assurance, i had soon acquired some reputation among the younger citizens, and some of the weaker and more inconsiderate of a riper age. this, co-operating with my own natural vanity, made me extravagantly proud and supercilious. i soon began to esteem myself a man of some consequence, and to overlook persons every way my superiors. "the famous robin hood, and his companion little john, at this time made a considerable figure in yorkshire. i took upon me to write a letter to the former, in the name of the city, inviting him to come to london, where i assured him of very good reception, signifying to him my own great weight and consequence, and how much i had disposed the citizens in his favour. whether he received this letter or no i am not certain; but he never gave me any answer to it. "a little afterwards one william fitz-osborn, or, as he was nicknamed, william long-beard, began to make a figure in the city. he was a bold and an impudent fellow, and had raised himself to great popularity with the rabble, by pretending to espouse their cause against the rich. i took this man's part, and made a public oration in his favour, setting him forth as a patriot, and one who had embarked in the cause of liberty: for which service he did not receive me with the acknowledgments i expected. however, as i thought i should easily gain the ascendant over this fellow, i continued still firm on his side, till the archbishop of canterbury, with an armed force, put an end to his progress: for he was seized in bow-church, where he had taken refuge, and with nine of his accomplices hanged in chains. "i escaped narrowly myself; for i was seized in the same church with the rest, and, as i had been very considerably engaged in the enterprize, the archbishop was inclined to make me an example; but my father's merit, who had advanced a considerable sum to queen eleanor towards the king's ransom, preserved me. "the consternation my danger had occasioned kept me some time quiet, and i applied myself very assiduously to my trade. i invented all manner of methods to enhance the price of fish, and made use of my utmost endeavours to engross as much of the business as possible in my own hands. by these means i acquired a substance which raised me to some little consequence in the city, but far from elevating me to that degree which i had formerly flattered myself with possessing at a time when i was totally insignificant; for, in a trading society, money must at least lay the foundation of all power and interest. "but as it hath been remarked that the same ambition which sent alexander into asia brings the wrestler on the green; and as this same ambition is as incapable as quicksilver of lying still; so i, who was possessed perhaps of a share equal to what hath fired the blood of any of the heroes of antiquity, was no less restless and discontented with ease and quiet. my first endeavours were to make myself head of my company, which richard i. had just published, and soon afterwards i procured myself to be chosen alderman. "opposition is the only state which can give a subject an opportunity of exerting the disposition i was possessed of. accordingly, king john was no sooner seated on his throne than i began to oppose his measures, whether right or wrong. it is true that monarch had faults enow. he was so abandoned to lust and luxury, that he addicted himself to the most extravagant excesses in both, while he indolently suffered the king of france to rob him of almost all his foreign dominions: my opposition therefore was justifiable enough, and if my motive from within had been as good as the occasion from without i should have had little to excuse; but, in truth, i sought nothing but my own preferment, by making myself formidable to the king, and then selling to him the interest of that party by whose means i had become so. indeed, had the public good been my care, however zealously i might have opposed the beginning of his reign, i should not have scrupled to lend him my utmost assistance in the struggle between him and pope innocent the third, in which he was so manifestly in the right; nor have suffered the insolence of that pope, and the power of the king of france, to have compelled him in the issue, basely to resign his crown into the hands of the former, and receive it again as a vassal; by means of which acknowledgment the pope afterwards claimed this kingdom as a tributary fief to be held of the papal chair; a claim which occasioned great uneasiness to many subsequent princes, and brought numberless calamities on the nation. "as the king had, among other concessions, stipulated to pay an immediate sum of money to pandulph, which he had great difficulty to raise, it was absolutely necessary for him to apply to the city, where my interest and popularity were so high that he had no hopes without my assistance. as i knew this, i took care to sell myself and country as high as possible. the terms i demanded, therefore, were a place, a pension, and a knighthood. all those were immediately consented to. i was forthwith knighted, and promised the other two. "i now mounted the hustings, and, without any regard to decency or modesty, made as emphatical a speech in favour of the king as before i had done against him. in this speech i justified all those measures which i had before condemned, and pleaded as earnestly with my fellow-citizens to open their purses, as i had formerly done to prevail with them to keep them shut. but, alas! my rhetoric had not the effect i proposed. the consequence of my arguments was only contempt to myself. the people at first stared on one another, and afterwards began unanimously to express their dislike. an impudent fellow among them, reflecting on my trade, cryed out, 'stinking fish;' which was immediately reiterated through the whole croud. i was then forced to slink away home; but i was not able to accomplish my retreat without being attended by the mob, who huzza'd me along the street with the repeated cries of 'stinking fish.' "i now proceeded to court, to inform his majesty of my faithful service, and how much i had suffered in his cause. i found by my first reception he had already heard of my success. instead of thanking me for my speech, he said the city should repent of their obstinacy, for that he would shew them who he was: and so saying, he immediately turned that part to me to which the toe of man hath so wonderful an affection, that it is very difficult, whenever it presents itself conveniently, to keep our toes from the most violent and ardent salutation of it. "i was a little nettled at this behaviour, and with some earnestness claimed the king's fulfilling his promise; but he retired without answering me. i then applied to some of the courtiers, who had lately professed great friendship to me, had eat at my house, and invited me to theirs: but not one would return me any answer, all running away from me as if i had been seized with some contagious distemper. i now found by experience that, as none can be so civil, so none can be ruder than a courtier. "a few moments after the king's retiring i was left alone in the room to consider what i should do or whither i should turn myself. my reception in the city promised itself to be equal at least with what i found at court. however, there was my home, and thither it was necessary i should retreat for the present. "but, indeed, bad as i apprehended my treatment in the city would be, it exceeded my expectation. i rode home on an ambling pad through crouds who expressed every kind of disregard and contempt; pelting me not only with the most abusive language, but with dirt. however, with much difficulty i arrived at last at my own house, with my bones whole, but covered over with filth. "when i was got within my doors, and had shut them against the mob, who had pretty well vented their spleen, and seemed now contented to retire, my wife, whom i found crying over her children, and from whom i had hoped some comfort in my afflictions, fell upon me in the most outrageous manner. she asked me why i would venture on such a step, without consulting her; she said her advice might have been civilly asked, if i was resolved not to have been guided by it. that, whatever opinion i might have conceived of her understanding, the rest of the world thought better of it. that i had never failed when i had asked her counsel, nor ever succeeded without it;--with much more of the same kind, too tedious to mention; concluding that it was a monstrous behaviour to desert my party and come over to the court. an abuse which i took worse than all the rest, as she had been constantly for several years assiduous in railing at the opposition, in siding with the court-party, and begging me to come over to it; and especially after my mentioning the offer of knighthood to her, since which time she had continually interrupted my repose with dinning in my ears the folly of refusing honours and of adhering to a party and to principles by which i was certain of procuring no advantage to myself and my family. "i had now entirely lost my trade, so that i had not the least temptation to stay longer in a city where i was certain of receiving daily affronts and rebukes. i therefore made up my affairs with the utmost expedition, and, scraping together all i could, retired into the country, where i spent the remainder of my days in universal contempt, being shunned by everybody, perpetually abused by my wife, and not much respected by my children. "minos told me, though i had been a very vile fellow, he thought my sufferings made some atonement, and so bid me take the other trial." chapter xxiv. _julian recounts what happened to him while he was a poet._ "rome was now the seat of my nativity, where i was born of a family more remarkable for honour than riches. i was intended for the church, and had a pretty good education; but my father dying while i was young, and leaving me nothing, for he had wasted his whole patrimony, i was forced to enter myself in the order of mendicants. "when i was at school i had a knack of rhiming, which i unhappily mistook for genius, and indulged to my cost; for my verses drew on me only ridicule, and i was in contempt called the poet. "this humour pursued me through my life. my first composition after i left school was a panegyric on pope alexander iv., who then pretended a project of dethroning the king of sicily. on this subject i composed a poem of about fifteen thousand lines, which with much difficulty i got to be presented to his holiness, of whom i expected great preferment as my reward; but i was cruelly disappointed: for when i had waited a year, without hearing any of the commendations i had flattered myself with receiving, and being now able to contain no longer, i applied to a jesuit who was my relation, and had the pope's ear, to know what his holiness's opinion was of my work: he coldly answered me that he was at that time busied in concerns of too much importance to attend the reading of poems. "however dissatisfied i might be, and really was, with this reception, and however angry i was with the pope, for whose understanding i entertained an immoderate contempt, i was not yet discouraged from a second attempt. accordingly, i soon after produced another work, entitled, the trojan horse. this was an allegorical work, in which the church was introduced into the world in the same manner as that machine had been into troy. the priests were the soldiers in its belly, and the heathen superstition the city to be destroyed by them. this poem was written in latin. i remember some of the lines:- mundanos scandit fatalis machina muros, farta sacerdotum turmis: exinde per alvum visi exire omnes, magno cum murmure olentes. non aliter quã m cum humanis furibundus ab antris it sonus et nares simul aura invadit hiantes. mille scatent et mille alii; trepidare timore ethnica gens coepit: falsi per inane volantes effugere dei--desertaque templa relinquunt. jam magnum crepitavit equus, mox orbis et alti ingemuere poli: tunc tu pater, ultimus omnium maxime alexander, ventrem maturus equinum deseris, heu proles meliori digne parente." i believe julian, had i not stopt him, would have gone through the whole poem (for, as i observed in most of the characters he related, the affections he had enjoyed while he personated them on earth still made some impression on him); but i begged him to omit the sequel of the poem, and proceed with his history. he then recollected himself, and, smiling at the observation which by intuition he perceived i had made, continued his narration as follows:-"i confess to you," says he, "that the delight in repeating our own works is so predominant in a poet, that i find nothing can totally root it out of the soul. happy would it be for those persons if their hearers could be delighted in the same manner: but alas! hence that _ingens solitudo_ complained of by horace: for the vanity of mankind is so much greedier and more general than their avarice, that no beggar is so ill received by them as he who solicits their praise. "this i sufficiently experienced in the character of a poet; for my company was shunned (i believe on this account chiefly) by my whole house: nay, there were few who would submit to hearing me read my poetry, even at the price of sharing in my provisions. the only person who gave me audience was a brother poet; he indeed fed me with commendation very liberally: but, as i was forced to hear and commend in my turn, i perhaps bought his attention dear enough. "well, sir, if my expectations of the reward i hoped from my first poem had baulked me, i had now still greater reason to complain; for, instead of being preferred or commended for the second, i was enjoined a very severe penance by my superior, for ludicrously comparing the pope to a f--t. my poetry was now the jest of every company, except some few who spoke of it with detestation; and i found that, instead of recommending me to preferment, it had effectually barred me from all probability of attaining it. "these discouragements had now induced me to lay down my pen and write no more. but, as juvenal says, --si discedas, laqueo tenet ambitiosi consuetudo mali. i was an example of the truth of this assertion, for i soon betook myself again to my muse. indeed, a poet hath the same happiness with a man who is dotingly fond of an ugly woman. the one enjoys his muse, and the other his mistress, with a pleasure very little abated by the esteem of the world, and only undervalues their taste for not corresponding with his own. "it is unnecessary to mention any more of my poems; they had all the same fate; and though in reality some of my latter pieces deserved (i may now speak it without the imputation of vanity) a better success, as i had the character of a bad writer, i found it impossible ever to obtain the reputation of a good one. had i possessed the merit of homer i could have hoped for no applause; since it must have been a profound secret; for no one would now read a syllable of my writings. "the poets of my age were, as i believe you know, not very famous. however, there was one of some credit at that time, though i have the consolation to know his works are all perished long ago. the malice, envy, and hatred i bore this man are inconceivable to any but an author, and an unsuccessful one; i never could bear to hear him well spoken of, and writ anonymous satires against him, though i had received obligations from him; indeed i believe it would have been an absolute impossibility for him at any rate to have made me sincerely his friend. "i have heard an observation which was made by some one of later days, that there are no worse men than bad authors. a remark of the same kind hath been made on ugly women, and the truth of both stands on one and the same reason, viz., that they are both tainted with that cursed and detestable vice of envy; which, as it is the greatest torment to the mind it inhabits, so is it capable of introducing into it a total corruption, and of inspiring it to the commission of the most horrid crimes imaginable. "my life was but short; for i soon pined myself to death with the vice i just now mentioned. minos told me i was infinitely too bad for elysium; and as for the other place, the devil had sworn he would never entertain a poet for orpheus's sake: so i was forced to return again to the place from whence i came." chapter xxv. _julian performs the parts of a knight and a dancing-master._ "i now mounted the stage in sicily, and became a knight-templar; but, as my adventures differ so little from those i have recounted you in the character of a common soldier, i shall not tire you with repetition. the soldier and the captain differ in reality so little from one another, that it requires an accurate judgment to distinguish them; the latter wears finer cloaths, and in times of success lives somewhat more delicately; but as to everything else, they very nearly resemble one another. "my next step was into france, where fortune assigned me the part of a dancing-master. i was so expert in my profession that i was brought to court in my youth, and had the heels of philip de valois, who afterwards succeeded charles the fair, committed to my direction. "i do not remember that in any of the characters in which i appeared on earth i ever assumed to myself a greater dignity, or thought myself of more real importance, than now. i looked on dancing as the greatest excellence of human nature, and on myself as the greatest proficient in it. and, indeed, this seemed to be the general opinion of the whole court; for i was the chief instructor of the youth of both sexes, whose merit was almost entirely defined by the advances they made in that science which i had the honour to profess. as to myself, i was so fully persuaded of this truth, that i not only slighted and despised those who were ignorant of dancing, but i thought the highest character i could give any man was that he made a graceful bow: for want of which accomplishment i had a sovereign contempt for most persons of learning; nay, for some officers in the army, and a few even of the courtiers themselves. "though so little of my youth had been thrown away in what they call literature that i could hardly write and read, yet i composed a treatise on education; the first rudiments of which, as i taught, were to instruct a child in the science of coming handsomely into a room. in this i corrected many faults of my predecessors, particularly that of being too much in a hurry, and instituting a child in the sublimer parts of dancing before they are capable of making their honours. "but as i have not now the same high opinion of my profession which i had then, i shall not entertain you with a long history of a life which consisted of borã©es and coupã©es. let it suffice that i lived to a very old age and followed my business as long as i could crawl. at length i revisited my old friend minos, who treated me with very little respect and bade me dance back again to earth. "i did so, and was now once more born an englishman, bred up to the church, and at length arrived to the station of a bishop. "nothing was so remarkable in this character as my always voting----[j]." [illustration: text decoration] book xix. chapter vii. _wherein anna boleyn relates the history of her life._ "i am going now truly to recount a life which from the time of its ceasing has been, in the other world, the continual subject of the cavils of contending parties; the one making me as black as hell, the other as pure and innocent as the inhabitants of this blessed place; the mist of prejudice blinding their eyes, and zeal for what they themselves profess, making everything appear in that light which they think most conduces to its honour. "my infancy was spent in my father's house, in those childish plays which are most suitable to that state, and i think this was one of the happiest parts of my life; for my parents were not among the number of those who look upon their children as so many objects of a tyrannic power, but i was regarded as the dear pledge of a virtuous love, and all my little pleasures were thought from their indulgence their greatest delight. at seven years old i was carried into france with the king's sister, who was married to the french king, where i lived with a person of quality, who was an acquaintance of my father's. i spent my time in learning those things necessary to give young persons of fashion a polite education, and did neither good nor evil, but day passed after day in the same easy way till i was fourteen; then began my anxiety, my vanity grew strong, and my heart fluttered with joy at every compliment paid to my beauty: and as the lady with whom i lived was of a gay, chearful disposition, she kept a great deal of company, and my youth and charms made me the continual object of their admiration. i passed some little time in those exulting raptures which are felt by every woman perfectly satisfied with herself and with the behaviour of others towards her: i was, when very young, promoted to be maid of honour to her majesty. the court was frequented by a young nobleman whose beauty was the chief subject of conversation in all assemblies of ladies. the delicacy of his person, added to a great softness in his manner, gave everything he said and did such an air of tenderness, that every woman he spoke to flattered herself with being the object of his love. i was one of those who was vain enough of my own charms to hope to make a conquest of him whom the whole court sighed for. i now thought every other object below my notice; yet the only pleasure i proposed to myself in this design was, the triumphing over that heart which i plainly saw all the ladies of the highest quality and the greatest beauty would have been proud of possessing. i was yet too young to be very artful; but nature, without any assistance, soon discovers to a man who is used to gallantry a woman's desire to be liked by him, whether that desire arises from any particular choice she makes of him, or only from vanity. he soon perceived my thoughts, and gratified my utmost wishes by constantly preferring me before all other women, and exerting his utmost gallantry and address to engage my affections. this sudden happiness, which i then thought the greatest i could have had, appeared visible in all my actions; i grew so gay and so full of vivacity, that it made my person appear still to a better advantage, all my acquaintance pretending to be fonder of me than ever: though, young as i was, i plainly saw it was but pretence, for through all their endeavours to the contrary envy would often break forth in sly insinuations and malicious sneers, which gave me fresh matter of triumph, and frequent opportunities of insulting them, which i never let slip, for now first my female heart grew sensible of the spiteful pleasure of seeing another languish for what i enjoyed. whilst i was in the height of my happiness her majesty fell ill of a languishing distemper, which obliged her to go into the country for the change of air: my place made it necessary for me to attend her, and which way he brought it about i can't imagine, but my young hero found means to be one of that small train that waited on my royal mistress, although she went as privately as possible. hitherto all the interviews i had ever had with him were in public, and i only looked on him as the fitter object to feed that pride which had no other view but to shew its power; but now the scene was quite changed. my rivals were all at a distance: the place we went to was as charming as the most agreeable natural situation, assisted by the greatest art, could make it; the pleasant solitary walks, the singing of birds, the thousand pretty romantic scenes this delightful place afforded, gave a sudden turn to my mind; my whole soul was melted into softness, and all my vanity was fled. my spark was too much used to affairs of this nature not to perceive this change; at first the profuse transports of his joy made me believe him wholly mine, and this belief gave me such happiness that no language affords words to express it, and can be only known to those who have felt it. but this was of a very short duration, for i soon found i had to do with one of those men whose only end in the pursuit of a woman is to make her fall a victim to an insatiable desire to be admired. his designs had succeeded, and now he every day grew colder, and, as if by infatuation, my passion every day increased; and, notwithstanding all my resolutions and endeavours to the contrary, my rage at the disappointment at once both of my love and pride, and at the finding a passion fixed in my breast i knew not how to conquer, broke out into that inconsistent behaviour which must always be the consequence of violent passions. one moment i reproached him, the next i grew to tenderness and blamed myself, and thought i fancied what was not true: he saw my struggle and triumphed in it; but, as he had not witnesses enough there of his victory to give him the full enjoyment of it, he grew weary of the country and returned to paris, and left me in a condition it is utterly impossible to describe. my mind was like a city up in arms, all confusion; and every new thought was a fresh disturber of my peace. sleep quite forsook me, and the anxiety i suffered threw me into a fever which had like to have cost me my life. with great care i recovered, but the violence of the distemper left such a weakness on my body that the disturbance of my mind was greatly assuaged; and now i began to comfort myself in the reflection that this gentleman's being a finished coquet was very likely the only thing could have preserved me; for he was the only man from whom i was ever in any danger. by that time i was got tolerably well we returned to paris; and i confess i both wished and feared to see this cause of all my pain: however, i hoped, by the help of my resentment, to be able to meet him with indifference. this employed my thoughts till our arrival. the next day there was a very full court to congratulate the queen on her recovery; and amongst the rest my love appeared dressed and adorned as if he designed some new conquest. instead of seeing a woman he despised and slighted, he approached me with that assured air which is common to successful coxcombs. at the same time i perceived i was surrounded by all those ladies who were on his account my greatest enemies, and, in revenge, wished for nothing more than to see me make a ridiculous figure. this situation so perplexed my thoughts, that when he came near enough to speak to me, i fainted away in his arms. had i studied which way i could gratify him most, it was impossible to have done anything to have pleased him more. some that stood by brought smelling-bottles, and used means for my recovery; and i was welcomed to returning life by all those repartees which women enraged by envy are capable of venting. one cried, 'well, i never thought my lord had anything so frightful in his person or so fierce in his manner as to strike a young lady dead at the sight of him.' 'no, no,' says another, 'some ladies' senses are more apt to be hurried by agreeable than disagreeable objects.' with many more such sort of speeches which shewed more malice than wit. this not being able to bear, trembling, and with but just strength enough to move, i crawled to my coach and hurried home. when i was alone, and thought on what had happened to me in a public court, i was at first driven to the utmost despair; but afterwards, when i came to reflect, i believe this accident contributed more to my being cured of my passion than any other could have done. i began to think the only method to pique the man who had used me so barbarously, and to be revenged on my spightful rivals, was to recover that beauty which was then languid and had lost its lustre, to let them see i had still charms enough to engage as many lovers as i could desire, and that i could yet rival them who had thus cruelly insulted me. these pleasing hopes revived my sinking spirits, and worked a more effectual cure on me than all the philosophy and advice of the wisest men could have done. i now employed all my time and care in adorning my person, and studying the surest means of engaging the affections of others, while i myself continued quite indifferent; for i resolved for the future, if ever one soft thought made its way to my heart, to fly the object of it, and by new lovers to drive the image from my breast. i consulted my glass every morning, and got such a command of my countenance that i could suit it to the different tastes of variety of lovers; and though i was young, for i was not yet above seventeen, yet my public way of life gave me such continual opportunities of conversing with men, and the strong desire i now had of pleasing them led me to make such constant observations on everything they said or did, that i soon found out the different methods of dealing with them. i observed that most men generally liked in women what was most opposite to their own characters; therefore to the grave solid man of sense i endeavoured to appear sprightly and full of spirit; to the witty and gay, soft and languishing; to the amorous (for they want no increase of their passions), cold and reserved; to the fearful and backward, warm and full of fire; and so of all the rest. as to beaus, and all those sort of men, whose desires are centred in the satisfaction of their vanity, i had learned by sad experience the only way to deal with them was to laugh at them and let their own good opinion of themselves be the only support of their hopes. i knew, while i could get other followers, i was sure of them; for the only sign of modesty they ever give is that of not depending on their own judgments, but following the opinions of the greatest number. thus furnished with maxims, and grown wise by past errors, i in a manner began the world again: i appeared in all public places handsomer and more lively than ever, to the amazement of every one who saw me and had heard of the affair between me and my lord. he himself was much surprized and vexed at this sudden change, nor could he account how it was possible for me so soon to shake off those chains he thought he had fixed on me for life; nor was he willing to lose his conquest in this manner. he endeavoured by all means possible to talk to me again of love, but i stood fixed to my resolution (in which i was greatly assisted by the croud of admirers that daily surrounded me) never to let him explain himself: for, notwithstanding all my pride, i found the first impression the heart receives of love is so strong that it requires the most vigilant care to prevent a relapse. now i lived three years in a constant round of diversions, and was made the perfect idol of all the men that came to court of all ages and all characters. i had several good matches offered me, but i thought none of them equal to my merit; and one of my greatest pleasures was to see those women who had pretended to rival me often glad to marry those whom i had refused. yet, notwithstanding this great success of my schemes, i cannot say i was perfectly happy; for every woman that was taken the least notice of, and every man that was insensible to my arts, gave me as much pain as all the rest gave me pleasure; and sometimes little underhand plots which were laid against my designs would succeed in spite of my care: so that i really began to grow weary of this manner of life, when my father, returning from his embassy in france, took me home with him, and carried me to a little pleasant country-house, where there was nothing grand or superfluous, but everything neat and agreeable. there i led a life perfectly solitary. at first the time hung very heavy on my hands, and i wanted all kind of employment, and i had very like to have fallen into the height of the vapours, from no other reason but from want of knowing what to do with myself. but when i had lived here a little time i found such a calmness in my mind, and such a difference between this and the restless anxieties i had experienced in a court, that i began to share the tranquillity that visibly appeared in everything round me. i set myself to do works of fancy, and to raise little flower-gardens, with many such innocent rural amusements; which, although they are not capable of affording any great pleasure, yet they give that serene turn to the mind which i think much preferable to anything else human nature is made susceptible of. i now resolved to spend the rest of my days here, and that nothing should allure me from that sweet retirement, to be again tossed about with tempestuous passions of any kind. whilst i was in this situation my lord percy, the earl of northumberland's eldest son, by an accident of losing his way after a fox-chase, was met by my father about a mile from our house; he came home with him, only with a design of dining with us, but was so taken with me that he stayed three days. i had too much experience in all affairs of this kind not to see presently the influence i had on him; but i was at that time so intirely free from all ambition, that even the prospect of being a countess had no effect on me; and i then thought nothing in the world could have bribed me to have changed my way of life. this young lord, who was just in his bloom, found his passion so strong, he could not endure a long absence, but returned again in a week, and endeavoured, by all the means he could think of, to engage me to return his affection. he addressed me with that tenderness and respect which women on earth think can flow from nothing but real love; and very often told me that, unless he could be so happy as by his assiduity and care to make himself agreeable to me, although he knew my father would eagerly embrace any proposal from him, yet he would suffer that last of miseries of never seeing me more rather than owe his own happiness to anything that might be the least contradiction to my inclinations. this manner of proceeding had something in it so noble and generous, that by degrees it raised a sensation in me which i know not how to describe, nor by what name to call it: it was nothing like my former passion: for there was no turbulence, no uneasy waking nights attending it, but all i could with honour grant to oblige him appeared to me to be justly due to his truth and love, and more the effect of gratitude than of any desire of my own. the character i had heard of him from my father at my first returning to england, in discoursing of the young nobility, convinced me that if i was his wife i should have the perpetual satisfaction of knowing every action of his must be approved by all the sensible part of mankind; so that very soon i began to have no scruple left but that of leaving my little scene of quietness, and venturing again into the world. but this, by his continual application and submissive behaviour, by degrees entirely vanished, and i agreed he should take his own time to break it to my father, whose consent he was not long in obtaining; for such a match was by no means to be refused. there remained nothing now to be done but to prevail with the earl of northumberland to comply with what his son so ardently desired; for which purpose he set out immediately for london, and begged it as the greatest favour that i would accompany my father, who was also to go thither the week following. i could not refuse his request, and as soon as we arrived in town he flew to me with the greatest raptures to inform me his father was so good that, finding his happiness depended on his answer, he had given him free leave to act in this affair as would best please himself, and that he had now no obstacle to prevent his wishes. it was then the beginning of the winter, and the time for our marriage was fixed for the latter end of march: the consent of all parties made his access to me very easy, and we conversed together both with innocence and pleasure. as his fondness was so great that he contrived all the methods possible to keep me continually in his sight, he told me one morning he was commanded by his father to attend him to court that evening, and begged i would be so good as to meet him there. i was now so used to act as he would have me that i made no difficulty of complying with his desire. two days after this, i was very much surprized at perceiving such a melancholy in his countenance, and alteration in his behaviour, as i could no way account for; but, by importunity, at last i got from him that cardinal wolsey, for what reason he knew not, had peremptorily forbid him to think any more of me: and, when he urged that his father was not displeased with it, the cardinal, in his imperious manner, answered him, he should give his father such convincing reasons why it would be attended with great inconveniences, that he was sure he could bring him to be of his opinion. on which he turned from him, and gave him no opportunity of replying. i could not imagine what design the cardinal could have in intermeddling in this match, and i was still more perplexed to find that my father treated my lord percy with much more coldness than usual; he too saw it, and we both wondered what could possibly be the cause of all this. but it was not long before the mystery was all made clear by my father, who, sending for me one day into his chamber, let me into a secret which was as little wished for as expected. he began with the surprizing effects of youth and beauty, and the madness of letting go those advantages they might procure us till it was too late, when we might wish in vain to bring them back again. i stood amazed at this beginning; he saw my confusion, and bid me sit down and attend to what he was going to tell me, which was of the greatest consequence; and he hoped i would be wise enough to take his advice, and act as he should think best for my future welfare. he then asked me if i should not be much pleased to be a queen? i answered, with the greatest earnestness, that, so far from it, i would not live in a court again to be the greatest queen in the world; that i had a lover who was both desirous and able to raise my station even beyond my wishes. i found this discourse was very displeasing; my father frowned, and called me a romantic fool, and said if i would hearken to him he could make me a queen; for the cardinal had told him that the king, from the time he saw me at court the other night, liked me, and intended to get a divorce from his wife, and to put me in her place; and ordered him to find some method to make me a maid of honour to her present majesty, that in the meantime he might have an opportunity of seeing me. it is impossible to express the astonishment these words threw me into; and, notwithstanding that the moment before, when it appeared at so great a distance, i was very sincere in my declaration how much it was against my will to be raised so high, yet now the prospect came nearer, i confess my heart fluttered, and my eyes were dazzled with a view of being seated on a throne. my imagination presented before me all the pomp, power, and greatness that attend a crown; and i was so perplexed i knew not what to answer, but remained as silent as if i had lost the use of my speech. my father, who guessed what it was that made me in this condition, proceeded to bring all the arguments he thought most likely to bend me to his will; at last i recovered from this dream of grandeur, and begged him, by all the most endearing names i could think of, not to urge me dishonourably to forsake the man who i was convinced would raise me to an empire if in his power, and who had enough in his power to give me all i desired. but he was deaf to all i could say, and insisted that by next week i should prepare myself to go to court: he bid me consider of it, and not prefer a ridiculous notion of honour to the real interest of my whole family; but, above all things, not to disclose what he had trusted me with. on which he left me to my own thoughts. when i was alone i reflected how little real tenderness this behaviour shewed to me, whose happiness he did not at all consult, but only looked on me as a ladder, on which he could climb to the height of his own ambitious desires: and when i thought on his fondness for me in my infancy i could impute it to nothing but either the liking me as a plaything or the gratification of his vanity in my beauty. but i was too much divided between a crown and my engagement to lord percy to spend much time in thinking of anything else; and, although my father had positively forbid me, yet, when he came next, i could not help acquainting him with all that had passed, with the reserve only of the struggle in my own mind on the first mention of being a queen. i expected he would have received the news with the greatest agonies; but he shewed no vast emotion: however, he could not help turning pale, and, taking me by the hand, looked at me with an air of tenderness, and said, 'if being a queen would make you happy, and it is in your power to be so, i would not for the world prevent it, let me suffer what i will.' this amazing greatness of mind had on me quite the contrary effect from what it ought to have had; for, instead of increasing my love for him it almost put an end to it, and i began to think, if he could part with me, the matter was not much. and i am convinced, when any man gives up the possession of a woman whose consent he has once obtained, let his motive be ever so generous, he will disoblige her. i could not help shewing my dissatisfaction, and told him i was very glad this affair sat so easily on him. he had not power to answer, but was so suddenly struck with this unexpected ill-natured turn i gave his behaviour, that he stood amazed for some time, and then bowed and left me. now i was again left to my own reflections; but to make anything intelligible out of them is quite impossible: i wished to be a queen, and wished i might not be one: i would have my lord percy happy without me; and yet i would not have the power of my charms be so weak that he could bear the thought of life after being disappointed in my love. but the result of all these confused thoughts was a resolution to obey my father. i am afraid there was not much duty in the case, though at that time i was glad to take hold of that small shadow to save me from looking on my own actions in the true light. when my lover came again i looked on him with that coldness that he could not bear, on purpose to rid myself of all importunity: for since i had resolved to use him ill i regarded him as the monument of my shame, and his every look appeared to me to upbraid me. my father soon carried me to court; there i had no very hard part to act; for, with the experience i had had of mankind, i could find no great difficulty in managing a man who liked me, and for whom i not only did not care but had an utter aversion to: but this aversion he believed to be virtue; for how credulous is a man who has an inclination to believe! and i took care sometimes to drop words of cottages and love, and how happy the woman was who fixed her affections on a man in such a station of life that she might show her love without being suspected of hypocrisy or mercenary views. all this was swallowed very easily by the amorous king, who pushed on the divorce with the utmost impetuosity, although the affair lasted a good while, and i remained most part of the time behind the curtain. whenever the king mentioned it to me i used such arguments against it as i thought the most likely to make him the more eager for it; begging that, unless his conscience was really touched, he would not on my account give any grief to his virtuous queen; for in being her handmaid i thought myself highly honoured; and that i would not only forego a crown, but even give up the pleasure of ever seeing him more, rather than wrong my royal mistress. this way of talking, joined to his eager desire to possess my person, convinced the king so strongly of my exalted merit, that he thought it a meritorious act to displace the woman (whom he could not have so good an opinion of, because he was tired of her), and to put me in her place. after about a year's stay at court, as the king's love to me began to be talked of, it was thought proper to remove me, that there might be no umbrage given to the queen's party. i was forced to comply with this, though greatly against my will; for i was very jealous that absence might change the king's mind. i retired again with my father to his country-seat, but it had no longer those charms for me which i once enjoyed there; for my mind was now too much taken up with ambition to make room for any other thoughts. during my stay here, my royal lover often sent gentlemen to me with messages and letters, which i always answered in the manner i thought would best bring about my designs, which were to come back again to court. in all the letters that passed between us there was something so kingly and commanding in his, and so deceitful and submissive in mine, that i sometimes could not help reflecting on the difference betwixt this correspondence and that with lord percy; yet i was so pressed forward by the desire of a crown, i could not think of turning back. in all i wrote i continually praised his resolution of letting me be at a distance from him, since at this time it conduced indeed to my honour; but, what was of ten times more weight with me, i thought it was necessary for his; and i would sooner suffer anything in the world than be any means of hurt to him, either in his interest or reputation. i always gave some hints of ill health, with some reflections how necessary the peace of the mind was to that of the body. by these means i brought him to recal me again by the most absolute command, which i, for a little time, artfully delayed (for i knew the impatience of his temper would not bear any contradictions), till he made my father in a manner force me to what i most wished, with the utmost appearance of reluctance on my side. when i had gained this point i began to think which way i could separate the king from the queen, for hitherto they lived in the same house. the lady mary, the queen's daughter, being then about sixteen, i sought for emissaries of her own age that i could confide in, to instil into her mind disrespectful thoughts of her father, and make a jest of the tenderness of his conscience about the divorce. i knew she had naturally strong passions, and that young people of that age are apt to think those that pretend to be their friends are really so, and only speak their minds freely. i afterwards contrived to have every word she spoke of him carried to the king, who took it all as i could wish, and fancied those things did not come at first from the young lady, but from her mother. he would often talk of it to me, and i agreed with him in his sentiments; but then, as a great proof of my goodness, i always endeavoured to excuse her, by saying a lady so long time used to be a royal queen might naturally be a little exasperated with those she fancied would throw her from that station she so justly deserved. by these sort of plots i found the way to make the king angry with the queen; for nothing is easier than to make a man angry with a woman he wants to be rid of, and who stands in the way between him and his pleasure; so that now the king, on the pretence of the queen's obstinacy in a point where his conscience was so tenderly concerned, parted with her. everything was now plain before me; i had nothing farther to do but to let the king alone to his own desires; and i had no reason to fear, since they had carried him so far, but that they would urge him on to do everything i aimed at. i was created marchioness of pembroke. this dignity sat very easy on me; for the thoughts of a much higher title took from me all feeling of this; and i looked upon being a marchioness as a trifle, not that i saw the bauble in its true light, but because it fell short of what i had figured to myself i should soon obtain. the king's desires grew very impatient, and it was not long before i was privately married to him. i was no sooner his wife than i found all the queen come upon me; i felt myself conscious of royalty, and even the faces of my most intimate acquaintance seemed to me to be quite strange. i hardly knew them: height had turned my head, and i was like a man placed on a monument, to whose sight all creatures at a great distance below him appear like so many little pigmies crawling about on the earth; and the prospect so greatly delighted me, that i did not presently consider that in both cases descending a few steps erected by human hands would place us in the number of those very pigmies who appeared so despicable. our marriage was kept private for some time, for it was not thought proper to make it public (the affair of the divorce not being finished) till the birth of my daughter elizabeth made it necessary. but all who saw me knew it; for my manner of speaking and acting was so much changed with my station, that all around me plainly perceived i was sure i was a queen. while it was a secret i had yet something to wish for; i could not be perfectly satisfied till all the world was acquainted with my fortune: but when my coronation was over, and i was raised to the height of my ambition, instead of finding myself happy, i was in reality more miserable than ever; for, besides that the aversion i had naturally to the king was much more difficult to dissemble after marriage than before, and grew into a perfect detestation, my imagination, which had thus warmly pursued a crown, grew cool when i was in the possession of it, and gave me time to reflect what mighty matter i had gained by all this bustle; and i often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he has toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labour is a stinking nauseous animal. but my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst i was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love. for the whole time i was in this envied, this exalted state, i led a continual life of hypocrisy, which i now know nothing on earth can compensate. i had no companion but the man i hated. i dared not disclose my sentiments to any person about me, nor did any one presume to enter into any freedom of conversation with me; but all who spoke to me talked to the queen, and not to me; for they would have said just the same things to a dressed-up puppet, if the king had taken a fancy to call it his wife. and as i knew every woman in the court was my enemy, from thinking she had much more right than i had to the place i filled, i thought myself as unhappy as if i had been placed in a wild wood, where there was no human creature for me to speak to, in a continual fear of leaving any traces of my footsteps, lest i should be found by some dreadful monster, or stung by snakes and adders; for such are spiteful women to the objects of their envy. in this worst of all situations i was obliged to hide my melancholy and appear chearful. this threw me into an error the other way, and i sometimes fell into a levity in my behaviour that was afterwards made use of to my disadvantage. i had a son dead-born, which i perceived abated something of the king's ardour; for his temper could not brook the least disappointment. this gave me no uneasiness; for, not considering the consequences, i could not help being best pleased when i had least of his company. afterwards i found he had cast his eyes on one of my maids of honour; and, whether it was owing to any art of hers, or only to the king's violent passions, i was in the end used even worse than my former mistress had been by my means. the decay of the king's affection was presently seen by all those court-sycophants who continually watch the motions of royal eyes; and the moment they found they could be heard against me they turned my most innocent actions and words, nay, even my very looks, into proofs of the blackest crimes. the king, who was impatient to enjoy his new love, lent a willing ear to all my accusers, who found ways of making him jealous that i was false to his bed. he would not so easily have believed anything against me before, but he was now glad to flatter himself that he had found a reason to do just what he had resolved upon without a reason; and on some slight pretences and hearsay evidence i was sent to the tower, where the lady who was my greatest enemy was appointed to watch me and lie in the same chamber with me. this was really as bad a punishment as my death, for she insulted me with those keen reproaches and spiteful witticisms, which threw me into such vapours and violent fits that i knew not what i uttered in this condition. she pretended i had confessed talking ridiculous stuff with a set of low fellows whom i had hardly ever taken notice of, as could have imposed on none but such as were resolved to believe. i was brought to my trial, and, to blacken me the more, accused of conversing criminally with my own brother, whom indeed i loved extremely well, but never looked on him in any other light than as my friend. however, i was condemned to be beheaded, or burnt, as the king pleased; and he was graciously pleased, from the great remains of his love, to chuse the mildest sentence. i was much less shocked at this manner of ending my life than i should have been in any other station: but i had had so little enjoyment from the time i had been a queen, that death was the less dreadful to me. the chief things that lay on my conscience were the arts i made use of to induce the king to part with the queen, my ill usage of lady mary, and my jilting lord percy. however, i endeavoured to calm my mind as well as i could, and hoped these crimes would be forgiven me; for in other respects i had led a very innocent life, and always did all the good-natured actions i found any opportunity of doing. from the time i had it in my power, i gave a great deal of money amongst the poor; i prayed very devoutly, and went to my execution very composedly. thus i lost my life at the age of twenty-nine, in which short time i believe i went through more variety of scenes than many people who live to be very old. i had lived in a court, where i spent my time in coquetry and gaiety; i had experienced what it was to have one of those violent passions which makes the mind all turbulence and anxiety; i had had a lover whom i esteemed and valued, and at the latter part of my life i was raised to a station as high as the vainest woman could wish. but in all these various changes i never enjoyed any real satisfaction, unless in the little time i lived retired in the country free from all noise and hurry, and while i was conscious i was the object of the love and esteem of a man of sense and honour." on the conclusion of this history minos paused for a small time, and then ordered the gate to be thrown open for anna boleyn's admittance on the consideration that whoever had suffered being the queen for four years, and been sensible during all that time of the real misery which attends that exalted station, ought to be forgiven whatever she had done to obtain it.[k] [illustration: text decoration] the journal of a voyage to lisbon. dedication to the public. your candour is desired on the perusal of the following sheets, as they are the product of a genius that has long been your delight and entertainment. it must be acknowledged that a lamp almost burnt out does not give so steady and uniform a light as when it blazes in its full vigour; but yet it is well known that by its wavering, as if struggling against its own dissolution, it sometimes darts a ray as bright as ever. in like manner, a strong and lively genius will, in its last struggles, sometimes mount aloft, and throw forth the most striking marks of its original lustre. wherever these are to be found, do you, the genuine patrons of extraordinary capacities, be as liberal in your applauses of him who is now no more as you were of him whilst he was yet amongst you. and, on the other hand, if in this little work there should appear any traces of a weakened and decayed life, let your own imaginations place before your eyes a true picture in that of a hand trembling in almost its latest hour, of a body emaciated with pains, yet struggling for your entertainment; and let this affecting picture open each tender heart, and call forth a melting tear, to blot out whatever failings may be found in a work begun in pain, and finished almost at the same period with life. it was thought proper by the friends of the deceased that this little piece should come into your hands as it came from the hands of the author, it being judged that you would be better pleased to have an opportunity of observing the faintest traces of a genius you have long admired, than have it patched by a different hand, by which means the marks of its true author might have been effaced. that the success of the last written, though first published, volume of the author's posthumous pieces may be attended with some convenience to those innocents he hath left behind, will no doubt be a motive to encourage its circulation through the kingdom, which will engage every future genius to exert itself for your pleasure. the principles and spirit which breathe in every line of the small fragment begun in answer to lord bolingbroke will unquestionably be a sufficient apology for its publication, although vital strength was wanting to finish a work so happily begun and so well designed. [illustration: text decoration] preface. there would not, perhaps, be a more pleasant or profitable study, among those which have their principal end in amusement, than that of travels or voyages, if they were writ, as they might be and ought to be, with a joint view to the entertainment and information of mankind. if the conversation of travellers be so eagerly sought after as it is, we may believe their books will be still more agreeable company, as they will in general be more instructive and more entertaining. but when i say the conversation of travellers is usually so welcome, i must be understood to mean that only of such as have had good sense enough to apply their peregrinations to a proper use, so as to acquire from them a real and valuable knowledge of men and things, both which are best known by comparison. if the customs and manners of men were everywhere the same, there would be no office so dull as that of a traveller, for the difference of hills, valleys, rivers, in short, the various views of which we may see the face of the earth, would scarce afford him a pleasure worthy of his labour; and surely it would give him very little opportunity of communicating any kind of entertainment or improvement to others. to make a traveller an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it is necessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he should have overlooked much of what he hath seen. nature is not, any more than a great genius, always admirable in her productions, and therefore the traveller, who may be called her commentator, should not expect to find everywhere subjects worthy of his notice. it is certain, indeed, that one may be guilty of omission, as well as of the opposite extreme; but a fault on that side will be more easily pardoned, as it is better to be hungry than surfeited; and to miss your dessert at the table of a man whose gardens abound with the choicest fruits, than to have your taste affronted with every sort of trash that can be picked up at the green-stall or the wheelbarrow. if we should carry on the analogy between the traveller and the commentator, it is impossible to keep one's eye a moment off from the laborious much-read doctor zachary gray, of whose redundant notes on hudibras i shall only say that it is, i am confident, the single book extant in which above five hundred authors are quoted, not one of which could be found in the collection of the late doctor mead. as there are few things which a traveller is to record, there are fewer on which he is to offer his observations: this is the office of the reader; and it is so pleasant a one, that he seldom chuses to have it taken from him, under the pretence of lending him assistance. some occasions, indeed, there are, when proper observations are pertinent, and others when they are necessary; but good sense alone must point them out. i shall lay down only one general rule; which i believe to be of universal truth between relator and hearer, as it is between author and reader; this is, that the latter never forgive any observation of the former which doth not convey some knowledge that they are sensible they could not possibly have attained of themselves. but all his pains in collecting knowledge, all his judgment in selecting, and all his art in communicating it, will not suffice, unless he can make himself, in some degree, an agreeable as well as an instructive companion. the highest instruction we can derive from the tedious tale of a dull fellow scarce ever pays us for our attention. there is nothing, i think, half so valuable as knowledge, and yet there is nothing which men will give themselves so little trouble to attain; unless it be, perhaps, that lowest degree of it which is the object of curiosity, and which hath therefore that active passion constantly employed in its service. this, indeed, it is in the power of every traveller to gratify; but it is the leading principle in weak minds only. to render his relation agreeable to the man of sense, it is therefore necessary that the voyager should possess several eminent and rare talents; so rare indeed, that it is almost wonderful to see them ever united in the same person. and if all these talents must concur in the relator, they are certainly in a more eminent degree necessary to the writer; for here the narration admits of higher ornaments of stile, and every fact and sentiment offers itself to the fullest and most deliberate examination. it would appear, therefore, i think, somewhat strange if such writers as these should be found extremely common; since nature hath been a most parsimonious distributor of her richest talents, and hath seldom bestowed many on the same person. but, on the other hand, why there should scarce exist a single writer of this kind worthy our regard; and, whilst there is no other branch of history (for this is history) which hath not exercised the greatest pens, why this alone should be overlooked by all men of great genius and erudition, and delivered up to the goths and vandals as their lawful property, is altogether as difficult to determine. and yet that this is the case, with some very few exceptions, is most manifest. of these i shall willingly admit burnet and addison; if the former was not, perhaps, to be considered as a political essayist, and the latter as a commentator on the classics, rather than as a writer of travels; which last title, perhaps, they would both of them have been least ambitious to affect. indeed, if these two and two or three more should be removed from the mass, there would remain such a heap of dulness behind, that the appellation of voyage-writer would not appear very desirable. i am not here unapprized that old homer himself is by some considered as a voyage-writer; and, indeed, the beginning of his odyssey may be urged to countenance that opinion, which i shall not controvert. but, whatever species of writing the odyssey is of, it is surely at the head of that species, as much as the iliad is of another; and so far the excellent longinus would allow, i believe, at this day. but, in reality, the odyssey, the telemachus, and all of that kind, are to the voyage-writing i here intend, what romance is to true history, the former being the confounder and corrupter of the latter. i am far from supposing that homer, hesiod, and the other antient poets and mythologists, had any settled design to pervert and confuse the records of antiquity; but it is certain they have effected it; and for my part i must confess i should have honoured and loved homer more had he written a true history of his own times in humble prose, than those noble poems that have so justly collected the praise of all ages; for, though i read these with more admiration and astonishment, i still read herodotus, thucydides, and xenophon with more amusement and more satisfaction. the original poets were not, however, without excuse. they found the limits of nature too strait for the immensity of their genius, which they had not room to exert without extending fact by fiction: and that especially at a time when the manners of men were too simple to afford that variety which they have since offered in vain to the choice of the meanest writers. in doing this they are again excusable for the manner in which they have done it. ut speciosa dehinc miracula promant. they are not, indeed, so properly said to turn reality into fiction, as fiction into reality. their paintings are so bold, their colours so strong, that everything they touch seems to exist in the very manner they represent it; their portraits are so just, and their landscapes so beautiful, that we acknowledge the strokes of nature in both, without enquiring whether nature herself, or her journeyman the poet, formed the first pattern of the piece. but other writers (i will put pliny at their head) have no such pretensions to indulgence; they lye for lying sake, or in order insolently to impose the most monstrous improbabilities and absurdities upon their readers on their own authority; treating them as some fathers treat children, and as other fathers do laymen, exacting their belief of whatever they relate, on no other foundation than their own authority, without ever taking the pains of adapting their lies to human credulity, and of calculating them for the meridian of a common understanding; but, with as much weakness as wickedness, and with more impudence often than either, they assert facts contrary to the honour of god, to the visible order of the creation, to the known laws of nature, to the histories of former ages, and to the experience of our own, and which no man can at once understand and believe. if it should be objected (and it can nowhere be objected better than where i now write,[l] as there is nowhere more pomp of bigotry) that whole nations have been firm believers in such most absurd suppositions, i reply, the fact is not true. they have known nothing of the matter, and have believed they knew not what. it is, indeed, with me no matter of doubt but that the pope and his clergy might teach any of those christian heterodoxies, the tenets of which are the most diametrically opposite to their own; nay, all the doctrines of zoroaster, confucius, and mahomet, not only with certain and immediate success, but without one catholick in a thousand knowing he had changed his religion. what motive a man can have to sit down, and to draw forth a list of stupid, senseless, incredible lies upon paper, would be difficult to determine, did not vanity present herself so immediately as the adequate cause. the vanity of knowing more than other men is, perhaps, besides hunger, the only inducement to writing, at least to publishing, at all. why then should not the voyage-writer be inflamed with the glory of having seen what no man ever did or will see but himself? this is the true source of the wonderful in the discourse and writings, and sometimes, i believe, in the actions of men. there is another fault, of a kind directly opposite to this, to which these writers are sometimes liable, when, instead of filling their pages with monsters which nobody hath ever seen, and with adventures which never have, nor could possibly have, happened to them, waste their time and paper with recording things and facts of so common a kind, that they challenge no other right of being remembered than as they had the honour of having happened to the author, to whom nothing seems trivial that in any manner happens to himself. of such consequence do his own actions appear to one of this kind, that he would probably think himself guilty of infidelity should he omit the minutest thing in the detail of his journal. that the fact is true is sufficient to give it a place there, without any consideration whether it is capable of pleasing or surprising, of diverting or informing, the reader. i have seen a play (if i mistake not it is one of mrs behn's or of mrs centlivre's) where this vice in a voyage-writer is finely ridiculed. an ignorant pedant, to whose government, for i know not what reason, the conduct of a young nobleman in his travels is committed, and who is sent abroad to shew my lord the world, of which he knows nothing himself, before his departure from a town, calls for his journal to record the goodness of the wine and tobacco, with other articles of the same importance, which are to furnish the materials of a voyage at his return home. the humour, it is true, is here carried very far; and yet, perhaps, very little beyond what is to be found in writers who profess no intention of dealing in humour at all. of one or other, or both of these kinds, are, i conceive, all that vast pile of books which pass under the names of voyages, travels, adventures, lives, memoirs, histories, &c., some of which a single traveller sends into the world in many volumes, and others are, by judicious booksellers, collected into vast bodies in folio, and inscribed with their own names, as if they were indeed their own travels: thus unjustly attributing to themselves the merit of others. now, from both these faults we have endeavoured to steer clear in the following narrative; which, however the contrary may be insinuated by ignorant, unlearned, and fresh-water critics, who have never travelled either in books or ships, i do solemnly declare doth, in my own impartial opinion, deviate less from truth than any other voyage extant; my lord anson's alone being, perhaps, excepted. some few embellishments must be allowed to every historian; for we are not to conceive that the speeches in livy, sallust, or thucydides, were literally spoken in the very words in which we now read them. it is sufficient that every fact hath its foundation in truth, as i do seriously aver is the case in the ensuing pages; and when it is so, a good critic will be so far from denying all kind of ornament of stile or diction, or even of circumstance, to his author, that he would be rather sorry if he omitted it; for he could hence derive no other advantage than the loss of an additional pleasure in the perusal. again, if any merely common incident should appear in this journal, which will seldom i apprehend be the case, the candid reader will easily perceive it is not introduced for its own sake, but for some observations and reflexions naturally resulting from it; and which, if but little to his amusement, tend directly to the instruction of the reader or to the information of the public; to whom if i chuse to convey such instruction or information with an air of joke and laughter, none but the dullest of fellows will, i believe, censure it; but if they should, i have the authority of more than one passage in horace to alledge in my defence. having thus endeavoured to obviate some censures, to which a man without the gift of foresight, or any fear of the imputation of being a conjurer, might conceive this work would be liable, i might now undertake a more pleasing task, and fall at once to the direct and positive praises of the work itself; of which, indeed, i could say a thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant that i shall leave it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that i impose on him. a moderation for which he may think himself obliged to me when he compares it with the conduct of authors, who often fill a whole sheet with their own praises, to which they sometimes set their own real names, and sometimes a fictitious one. one hint, however, i must give the kind reader; which is, that if he should be able to find no sort of amusement in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public utility which will arise from it. if entertainment, as mr richardson observes, be but a secondary consideration in a romance; with which mr addison, i think, agrees, affirming the use of the pastry cook to be the first; if this, i say, be true of a mere work of invention, sure it may well be so considered in a work founded, like this, on truth; and where the political reflexions form so distinguishing a part. but perhaps i may hear, from some critic of the most saturnine complexion, that my vanity must have made a horrid dupe of my judgment, if it hath flattered me with an expectation of having anything here seen in a grave light, or of conveying any useful instruction to the public, or to their guardians. i answer, with the great man whom i just now quoted, that my purpose is to convey instruction in the vehicle of entertainment; and so to bring about at once, like the revolution in the rehearsal, a perfect reformation of the laws relating to our maritime affairs: an undertaking, i will not say more modest, but surely more feasible, than that of reforming a whole people, by making use of a vehicular story, to wheel in among them worse manners than their own. [illustration: text decoration] introduction. in the beginning of august, 1753, when i had taken the duke of portland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of which had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout, i was persuaded by mr ranby, the king's premier serjeant-surgeon, and the ablest advice, i believe, in all branches of the physical profession, to go immediately to bath. i accordingly writ that very night to mrs bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging for a month certain. within a few days after this, whilst i was preparing for my journey, and when i was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, i received a message from his grace the duke of newcastle, by mr carrington, the king's messenger, to attend his grace the next morning, in lincoln's-inn-fields, upon some business of importance; but i excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides being lame, i was very ill with the great fatigues i had lately undergone added to my distemper. his grace, however, sent mr carrington, the very next morning, with another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, i immediately complied; but the duke, happening, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after i had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented for putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were every day committed in the streets; upon which i promised to transmit my opinion, in writing, to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the privy council. though this visit cost me a severe cold, i, notwithstanding, set myself down to work; and in about four days sent the duke as regular a plan as i could form, with all the reasons and arguments i could bring to support it, drawn out in several sheets of paper; and soon received a message from the duke by mr carrington, acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with. the principal and most material of those terms was the immediately depositing six hundred pounds in my hands; at which small charge i undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able, for the future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time formidable to the public. i had delayed my bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the bath waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. but i had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats, which i was sure of accomplishing the moment i was enabled to pay a fellow who had undertaken, for a small sum, to betray them into the hands of a set of thief-takers whom i had enlisted into the service, all men of known and approved fidelity and intrepidity. after some weeks the money was paid at the treasury, and within a few days after two hundred pounds of it had come to my hands, the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them were in actual custody, and the rest driven, some out of the town, and others out of the kingdom. though my health was now reduced to the last extremity, i continued to act with the utmost vigour against these villains; in examining whom, and in taking the depositions against them, i have often spent whole days, nay, sometimes whole nights, especially when there was any difficulty in procuring sufficient evidence to convict them; which is a very common case in street-robberies, even when the guilt of the party is sufficiently apparent to satisfy the most tender conscience. but courts of justice know nothing of a cause more than what is told them on oath by a witness; and the most flagitious villain upon earth is tried in the same manner as a man of the best character who is accused of the same crime. meanwhile, amidst all my fatigues and distresses, i had the satisfaction to find my endeavours had been attended with such success that this hellish society were almost utterly extirpated, and that, instead of reading of murders and street-robberies in the news almost every morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of november, and in all december, not only no such thing as a murder, but not even a street-robbery committed. some such, indeed, were mentioned in the public papers; but they were all found, on the strictest enquiry, to be false. in this entire freedom from street-robberies, during the dark months, no man will, i believe, scruple to acknowledge that the winter of 1753 stands unrivaled, during a course of many years; and this may possibly appear the more extraordinary to those who recollect the outrages with which it began. having thus fully accomplished my undertaking, i went into the country, in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or less diseases than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the destruction of a body so entirely emaciated that it had lost all its muscular flesh. mine was now no longer what was called a bath case; nor, if it had been so, had i strength remaining sufficient to go thither, a ride of six miles only being attended with an intolerable fatigue. i now discharged my lodgings at bath, which i had hitherto kept. i began in earnest to look on my case as desperate, and i had vanity enough to rank myself with those heroes who, of old times, became voluntary sacrifices to the good of the public. but, lest the reader should be too eager to catch at the word _vanity_, and should be unwilling to indulge me with so sublime a gratification, for i think he is not too apt to gratify me, i will take my key a pitch lower, and will frankly own that i had a stronger motive than the love of the public to push me on: i will therefore confess to him that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect; for i had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased to suspect me of taking: on the contrary, by composing, instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which i blush when i say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, i had reduced an income of about five hundred pounds[m] a-year of the dirtiest money upon earth to little more than three hundred pounds; a considerable proportion of which remained with my clerk; and, indeed, if the whole had done so, as it ought, he would be but ill paid for sitting almost sixteen hours in the twenty-four in the most unwholesome, as well as nauseous air in the universe, and which hath in his case corrupted a good constitution without contaminating his morals. but, not to trouble the reader with anecdotes, contrary to my own rule laid down in my preface, i assure him i thought my family was very slenderly provided for; and that my health began to decline so fast that i had very little more of life left to accomplish what i had thought of too late. i rejoiced therefore greatly in seeing an opportunity, as i apprehended, of gaining such merit in the eye of the public, that, if my life were the sacrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popular act in putting my family at least beyond the reach of necessity, which i myself began to despair of doing. and though i disclaim all pretence to that spartan or roman patriotism which loved the public so well that it was always ready to become a voluntary sacrifice to the public good, i do solemnly declare i have that love for my family. after this confession therefore, that the public was not the principal deity to which my life was offered a sacrifice, and when it is farther considered what a poor sacrifice this was, being indeed no other than the giving up what i saw little likelihood of being able to hold much longer, and which, upon the terms i held it, nothing but the weakness of human nature could represent to me as worth holding at all; the world may, i believe, without envy, allow me all the praise to which i have any title. my aim, in fact, was not praise, which is the last gift they care to bestow; at least, this was not my aim as an end, but rather as a means of purchasing some moderate provision for my family, which, though it should exceed my merit, must fall infinitely short of my service, if i succeeded in my attempt. to say the truth, the public never act more wisely than when they act most liberally in the distribution of their rewards; and here the good they receive is often more to be considered than the motive from which they receive it. example alone is the end of all public punishments and rewards. laws never inflict disgrace in resentment, nor confer honour from gratitude. "for it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon at the bar to the late excellent judge burnet, "to hang a poor man for stealing a horse." "you are not to be hanged, sir," answered my ever-honoured and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to be hanged that horses may not be stolen." in like manner it might have been said to the late duke of marlborough, when the parliament was so deservedly liberal to him, after the battle of blenheim, "you receive not these honours and bounties on account of a victory past, but that other victories may be obtained." i was now, in the opinion of all men, dying of a complication of disorders; and, were i desirous of playing the advocate, i have an occasion fair enough; but i disdain such an attempt. i relate facts plainly and simply as they are; and let the world draw from them what conclusions they please, taking with them the following facts for their instruction: the one is, that the proclamation offering one hundred pounds for the apprehending felons for certain felonies committed in certain places, which i prevented from being revived, had formerly cost the government several thousand pounds within a single year. secondly, that all such proclamations, instead of curing the evil, had actually encreased it; had multiplied the number of robberies; had propagated the worst and wickedest of perjuries; had laid snares for youth and ignorance, which, by the temptation of these rewards, had been sometimes drawn into guilt; and sometimes, which cannot be thought on without the highest horror, had destroyed them without it. thirdly, that my plan had not put the government to more than three hundred pound expence, and had produced none of the ill consequences above mentioned; but, lastly, had actually suppressed the evil for a time, and had plainly pointed out the means of suppressing it for ever. this i would myself have undertaken, had my health permitted, at the annual expense of the above-mentioned sum. after having stood the terrible six weeks which succeeded last christmas, and put a lucky end, if they had known their own interests, to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians, who might have gasped through two or three mild winters more, i returned to town in february, in a condition less despaired of by myself than by any of my friends. i now became the patient of dr ward, who wished i had taken his advice earlier. by his advice i was tapped, and fourteen quarts of water drawn from my belly. the sudden relaxation which this caused, added to my enervate, emaciated habit of body, so weakened me that within two days i was thought to be falling into the agonies of death. i was at the worst on that memorable day when the public lost mr pelham. from that day i began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the grave; till in two months' time i had again acquired some little degree of strength, but was again full of water. during this whole time i took mr ward's medicines, which had seldom any perceptible operation. those in particular of the diaphoretic kind, the working of which is thought to require a great strength of constitution to support, had so little effect on me, that mr ward declared it was as vain to attempt sweating me as a deal board. in this situation i was tapped a second time. i had one quart of water less taken from me now than before; but i bore all the consequences of the operation much better. this i attributed greatly to a dose of laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. it first gave me the most delicious flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap. the month of may, which was now begun, it seemed reasonable to expect would introduce the spring, and drive off that winter which yet maintained its footing on the stage. i resolved therefore to visit a little house of mine in the country, which stands at ealing, in the county of middlesex, in the best air, i believe, in the whole kingdom, and far superior to that of kensington gravel-pits; for the gravel is here much wider and deeper, the place higher and more open towards the south, whilst it is guarded from the north wind by a ridge of hills, and from the smells and smoak of london by its distance; which last is not the fate of kensington, when the wind blows from any corner of the east. obligations to mr ward i shall always confess; for i am convinced that he omitted no care in endeavouring to serve me, without any expectation or desire of fee or reward. the powers of mr ward's remedies want indeed no unfair puffs of mine to give them credit; and though this distemper of the dropsy stands, i believe, first in the list of those over which he is always certain of triumphing, yet, possibly, there might be something particular in my case capable of eluding that radical force which had healed so many thousands. the same distemper, in different constitutions, may possibly be attended with such different symptoms, that to find an infallible nostrum for the curing any one distemper in every patient may be almost as difficult as to find a panacea for the cure of all. but even such a panacea one of the greatest scholars and best of men did lately apprehend he had discovered. it is true, indeed, he was no physician; that is, he had not by the forms of his education acquired a right of applying his skill in the art of physic to his own private advantage; and yet, perhaps, it may be truly asserted that no other modern hath contributed so much to make his physical skill useful to the public; at least, that none hath undergone the pains of communicating this discovery in writing to the world. the reader, i think, will scarce need to be informed that the writer i mean is the late bishop of cloyne, in ireland, and the discovery that of the virtues of tar-water. i then happened to recollect, upon a hint given me by the inimitable and shamefully-distressed author of the female quixote, that i had many years before, from curiosity only, taken a cursory view of bishop berkeley's treatise on the virtues of tar-water, which i had formerly observed he strongly contends to be that real panacea which sydenham supposes to have an existence in nature, though it yet remains undiscovered, and perhaps will always remain so. upon the reperusal of this book i found the bishop only asserting his opinion that tar-water might be useful in the dropsy, since he had known it to have a surprising success in the cure of a most stubborn anasarca, which is indeed no other than, as the word implies, the dropsy of the flesh; and this was, at that time, a large part of my complaint. after a short trial, therefore, of a milk diet, which i presently found did not suit with my case, i betook myself to the bishop's prescription, and dosed myself every morning and evening with half a pint of tar-water. it was no more than three weeks since my last tapping, and my belly and limbs were distended with water. this did not give me the worse opinion of tar-water; for i never supposed there could be any such virtue in tar-water as immediately to carry off a quantity of water already collected. for my delivery from this i well knew i must be again obliged to the trochar; and that if the tar-water did me any good at all it must be only by the slowest degrees; and that if it should ever get the better of my distemper it must be by the tedious operation of undermining, and not by a sudden attack and storm. some visible effects, however, and far beyond what my most sanguine hopes could with any modesty expect, i very soon experienced; the tar-water having, from the very first, lessened my illness, increased my appetite, and added, though in a very slow proportion, to my bodily strength. but if my strength had increased a little my water daily increased much more. so that, by the end of may, my belly became again ripe for the trochar, and i was a third time tapped; upon which, two very favourable symptoms appeared. i had three quarts of water taken from me less than had been taken the last time; and i bore the relaxation with much less (indeed with scarce any) faintness. those of my physical friends on whose judgment i chiefly depended seemed to think my only chance of life consisted in having the whole summer before me; in which i might hope to gather sufficient strength to encounter the inclemencies of the ensuing winter. but this chance began daily to lessen. i saw the summer mouldering away, or rather, indeed, the year passing away without intending to bring on any summer at all. in the whole month of may the sun scarce appeared three times. so that the early fruits came to the fulness of their growth, and to some appearance of ripeness, without acquiring any real maturity; having wanted the heat of the sun to soften and meliorate their juices. i saw the dropsy gaining rather than losing ground; the distance growing still shorter between the tappings. i saw the asthma likewise beginning again to become more troublesome. i saw the midsummer quarter drawing towards a close. so that i conceived, if the michaelmas quarter should steal off in the same manner, as it was, in my opinion, very much to be apprehended it would, i should be delivered up to the attacks of winter before i recruited my forces, so as to be anywise able to withstand them. i now began to recall an intention, which from the first dawnings of my recovery i had conceived, of removing to a warmer climate; and, finding this to be approved of by a very eminent physician, i resolved to put it into immediate execution. aix in provence was the place first thought on; but the difficulties of getting thither were insuperable. the journey by land, beside the expence of it, was infinitely too long and fatiguing; and i could hear of no ship that was likely to set out from london, within any reasonable time, for marseilles, or any other port in that part of the mediterranean. lisbon was presently fixed on in its room. the air here, as it was near four degrees to the south of aix, must be more mild and warm, and the winter shorter and less piercing. it was not difficult to find a ship bound to a place with which we carry on so immense a trade. accordingly, my brother soon informed me of the excellent accommodations for passengers which were to be found on board a ship that was obliged to sail for lisbon in three days. i eagerly embraced the offer, notwithstanding the shortness of the time; and, having given my brother full power to contract for our passage, i began to prepare my family for the voyage with the utmost expedition. but our great haste was needless; for the captain having twice put off his sailing, i at length invited him to dinner with me at fordhook, a full week after the time on which he had declared, and that with many asseverations, he must and would weigh anchor. he dined with me according to his appointment; and when all matters were settled between us, left me with positive orders to be on board the wednesday following, when he declared he would fall down the river to gravesend, and would not stay a moment for the greatest man in the world. he advised me to go to gravesend by land, and there wait the arrival of his ship, assigning many reasons for this, every one of which was, as i well remember, among those that had before determined me to go on board near the tower. [illustration: text decoration] the voyage. _wednesday, june 26, 1754._--on this day the most melancholy sun i had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at fordhook. by the light of this sun i was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom i doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where i had learned to bear pains and to despise death. in this situation, as i could not conquer nature, i submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever; under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer, the company of my little ones during eight hours; and i doubt not whether, in that time, i did not undergo more than in all my distemper. at twelve precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner told me than i kissed my children round, and went into it with some little resolution. my wife, who behaved more like a heroine and philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest daughter, followed me; some friends went with us, and others here took their leave; and i heard my behaviour applauded, with many murmurs and praises to which i well knew i had no title; as all other such philosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess on the like occasions. in two hours we arrived in rotherhithe, and immediately went on board, and were to have sailed the next morning; but, as this was the king's proclamation-day, and consequently a holiday at the custom-house, the captain could not clear his vessel till the thursday; for these holidays are as strictly observed as those in the popish calendar, and are almost as numerous. i might add that both are opposite to the genius of trade, and consequently _contra bonum publicum_. to go on board the ship it was necessary first to go into a boat; a matter of no small difficulty, as i had no use of my limbs, and was to be carried by men who, though sufficiently strong for their burthen, were, like archimedes, puzzled to find a steady footing. of this, as few of my readers have not gone into wherries on the thames, they will easily be able to form to themselves an idea. however, by the assistance of my friend mr welch, whom i never think or speak of but with love and esteem, i conquered this difficulty, as i did afterwards that of ascending the ship, into which i was hoisted with more ease by a chair lifted with pulleys. i was soon seated in a great chair in the cabin, to refresh myself after a fatigue which had been more intolerable, in a quarter of a mile's passage from my coach to the ship, than i had before undergone in a land-journey of twelve miles, which i had travelled with the utmost expedition. this latter fatigue was, perhaps, somewhat heightened by an indignation which i could not prevent arising in my mind. i think, upon my entrance into the boat, i presented a spectacle of the highest horror. the total loss of limbs was apparent to all who saw me, and my face contained marks of a most diseased state, if not of death itself. indeed, so ghastly was my countenance, that timorous women with child had abstained from my house, for fear of the ill consequences of looking at me. in this condition i ran the gauntlope (so i think i may justly call it) through rows of sailors and watermen, few of whom failed of paying their compliments to me by all manner of insults and jests on my misery. no man who knew me will think i conceived any personal resentment at this behaviour; but it was a lively picture of that cruelty and inhumanity in the nature of men which i have often contemplated with concern, and which leads the mind into a train of very uncomfortable and melancholy thoughts. it may be said that this barbarous custom is peculiar to the english, and of them only to the lowest degree; that it is an excrescence of an uncontrouled licentiousness mistaken for liberty, and never shews itself in men who are polished and refined in such manner as human nature requires to produce that perfection of which it is susceptible, and to purge away that malevolence of disposition of which, at our birth, we partake in common with the savage creation. this may be said, and this is all that can be said; and it is, i am afraid, but little satisfactory to account for the inhumanity of those who, while they boast of being made after god's own image, seem to bear in their minds a resemblance of the vilest species of brutes; or rather, indeed, of our idea of devils; for i don't know that any brutes can be taxed with such malevolence. a surloin of beef was now placed on the table, for which, though little better than carrion, as much was charged by the master of the little paltry ale-house who dressed it as would have been demanded for all the elegance of the king's arms, or any other polite tavern or eating-house! for, indeed, the difference between the best house and the worst is, that at the former you pay largely for luxury, at the latter for nothing. _thursday, june 27._--this morning the captain, who lay on shore at his own house, paid us a visit in the cabin, and behaved like an angry bashaw, declaring that, had he known we were not to be pleased, he would not have carried us for five hundred pounds. he added many asseverations that he was a gentleman, and despised money; not forgetting several hints of the presents which had been made him for his cabin, of twenty, thirty, and forty guineas, by several gentlemen, over and above the sum for which they had contracted. this behaviour greatly surprised me, as i knew not how to account for it, nothing having happened since we parted from the captain the evening before in perfect good-humour; and all this broke forth on the first moment of his arrival this morning. he did not, however, suffer my amazement to have any long continuance before he clearly shewed me that all this was meant only as an apology to introduce another procrastination (being the fifth) of his weighing anchor, which was now postponed till saturday, for such was his will and pleasure. besides the disagreeable situation in which we then lay, in the confines of wapping and rotherhithe, tasting a delicious mixture of the air of both these sweet places, and enjoying the concord of sweet sounds of seamen, watermen, fish-women, oyster-women, and of all the vociferous inhabitants of both shores, composing altogether a greater variety of harmony than hogarth's imagination hath brought together in that print of his, which is enough to make a man deaf to look at--i had a more urgent cause to press our departure, which was, that the dropsy, for which i had undergone three tappings, seemed to threaten me with a fourth discharge before i should reach lisbon, and when i should have nobody on board capable of performing the operation; but i was obliged to hearken to the voice of reason, if i may use the captain's own words, and to rest myself contented. indeed, there was no alternative within my reach but what would have cost me much too dear. there are many evils in society from which people of the highest rank are so entirely exempt, that they have not the least knowledge or idea of them; nor indeed of the characters which are formed by them. such, for instance, is the conveyance of goods and passengers from one place to another. now there is no such thing as any kind of knowledge contemptible in itself; and, as the particular knowledge i here mean is entirely necessary to the well understanding and well enjoying this journal; and, lastly, as in this case the most ignorant will be those very readers whose amusement we chiefly consult, and to whom we wish to be supposed principally to write, we will here enter somewhat largely into the discussion of this matter; the rather, for that no antient or modern author (if we can trust the catalogue of doctor mead's library) hath ever undertaken it, but that it seems (in the style of don quixote) a task reserved for my pen alone. when i first conceived this intention i began to entertain thoughts of enquiring into the antiquity of travelling; and, as many persons have performed in this way (i mean have travelled) at the expence of the public, i flattered myself that the spirit of improving arts and sciences, and of advancing useful and substantial learning, which so eminently distinguishes this age, and hath given rise to more speculative societies in europe than i at present can recollect the names of--perhaps, indeed, than i or any other, besides their very near neighbours, ever heard mentioned--would assist in promoting so curious a work; a work begun with the same views, calculated for the same purposes, and fitted for the same uses, with the labours which those right honourable societies have so chearfully undertaken themselves, and encouraged in others; sometimes with the highest honours, even with admission into their colleges, and with inrolment among their members. from these societies i promised myself all assistance in their power, particularly the communication of such valuable manuscripts and records as they must be supposed to have collected from those obscure ages of antiquity when history yields us such imperfect accounts of the residence, and much more imperfect of the travels, of the human race; unless, perhaps, as a curious and learned member of the young society of antiquarians is said to have hinted his conjectures, that their residence and their travels were one and the same; and this discovery (for such it seems to be) he is said to have owed to the lighting by accident on a book, which we shall have occasion to mention presently, the contents of which were then little known to the society. the king of prussia, moreover, who, from a degree of benevolence and taste which in either case is a rare production in so northern a climate, is the great encourager of art and science, i was well assured would promote so useful a design, and order his archives to be searched on my behalf. but after well weighing all these advantages, and much meditation on the order of my work, my whole design was subverted in a moment by hearing of the discovery just mentioned to have been made by the young antiquarian, who, from the most antient record in the world (though i don't find the society are all agreed on this point), one long preceding the date of the earliest modern collections, either of books or butterflies, none of which pretend to go beyond the flood, shews us that the first man was a traveller, and that he and his family were scarce settled in paradise before they disliked their own home, and became passengers to another place. hence it appears that the humour of travelling is as old as the human race, and that it was their curse from the beginning. by this discovery my plan became much shortened, and i found it only necessary to treat of the conveyance of goods and passengers from place to place; which, not being universally known, seemed proper to be explained before we examined into its original. there are indeed two different ways of tracing all things used by the historian and the antiquary; these are upwards and downwards. the former shews you how things are, and leaves to others to discover when they began to be so. the latter shews you how things were, and leaves their present existence to be examined by others. hence the former is more useful, the latter more curious. the former receives the thanks of mankind; the latter of that valuable part, the virtuosi. in explaining, therefore, this mystery of carrying goods and passengers from one place to another, hitherto so profound a secret to the very best of our readers, we shall pursue the historical method, and endeavour to shew by what means it is at present performed, referring the more curious enquiry either to some other pen or to some other opportunity. now there are two general ways of performing (if god permit) this conveyance, viz., by land and water, both of which have much variety; that by land being performed in different vehicles, such as coaches, caravans, waggons, &c.; and that by water in ships, barges, and boats, of various sizes and denominations. but, as all these methods of conveyance are formed on the same principles, they agree so well together, that it is fully sufficient to comprehend them all in the general view, without descending to such minute particulars as would distinguish one method from another. common to all of these is one general principle, that, as the goods to be conveyed are usually the larger, so they are to be chiefly considered in the conveyance; the owner being indeed little more than an appendage to his trunk, or box, or bale, or at best a small part of his own baggage, very little care is to be taken in stowing or packing them up with convenience to himself; for the conveyance is not of passengers and goods, but of goods and passengers. secondly, from this conveyance arises a new kind of relation, or rather of subjection, in the society, by which the passenger becomes bound in allegiance to his conveyer. this allegiance is indeed only temporary and local, but the most absolute during its continuance of any known in great britain, and, to say truth, scarce consistent with the liberties of a free people, nor could it be reconciled with them, did it not move downwards; a circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatible to all kinds of slavery; for aristotle in his politicks hath proved abundantly to my satisfaction that no men are born to be slaves, except barbarians; and these only to such as are not themselves barbarians; and indeed mr montesquieu hath carried it very little farther in the case of the africans; the real truth being that no man is born to be a slave, unless to him who is able to make him so. thirdly, this subjection is absolute, and consists of a perfect resignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another; after which resignation, during a certain time, his subject retains no more power over his own will than an asiatic slave, or an english wife, by the laws of both countries, and by the customs of one of them. if i should mention the instance of a stage-coachman, many of my readers would recognise the truth of what i have here observed; all, indeed, that ever have been under the dominion of that tyrant, who in this free country is as absolute as a turkish bashaw. in two particulars only his power is defective; he cannot press you into his service, and if you enter yourself at one place, on condition of being discharged at a certain time at another, he is obliged to perform his agreement, if god permit, but all the intermediate time you are absolutely under his government; he carries you how he will, when he will, and whither he will, provided it be not much out of the road; you have nothing to eat or to drink, but what, and when, and where he pleases. nay, you cannot sleep unless he pleases you should; for he will order you sometimes out of bed at midnight and hurry you away at a moment's warning: indeed, if you can sleep in his vehicle he cannot prevent it; nay, indeed, to give him his due, this he is ordinarily disposed to encourage: for the earlier he forces you to rise in the morning, the more time he will give you in the heat of the day, sometimes even six hours at an ale-house, or at their doors, where he always gives you the same indulgence which he allows himself; and for this he is generally very moderate in his demands. i have known a whole bundle of passengers charged no more than half-a-crown for being suffered to remain quiet at an ale-house door for above a whole hour, and that even in the hottest day in summer. but as this kind of tyranny, though it hath escaped our political writers, hath been i think touched by our dramatic, and is more trite among the generality of readers; and as this and all other kinds of such subjection are alike unknown to my friends, i will quit the passengers by land, and treat of those who travel by water; for whatever is said on this subject is applicable to both alike, and we may bring them together as closely as they are brought in the liturgy, when they are recommended to the prayers of all christian congregations; and (which i have often thought very remarkable) where they are joined with other miserable wretches, such as women in labour, people in sickness, infants just born, prisoners and captives. goods and passengers are conveyed by water in divers vehicles, the principal of which being a ship, it shall suffice to mention that alone. here the tyrant doth not derive his title, as the stage-coachman doth, from the vehicle itself in which he stows his goods and passengers, but he is called the captain--a word of such various use and uncertain signification, that it seems very difficult to fix any positive idea to it: if, indeed, there be any general meaning which may comprehend all its different uses, that of the head or chief of any body of men seems to be most capable of this comprehension; for whether they be a company of soldiers, a crew of sailors, or a gang of rogues, he who is at the head of them is always stiled the captain. the particular tyrant whose fortune it was to stow us aboard laid a farther claim to this appellation than the bare command of a vehicle of conveyance. he had been the captain of a privateer, which he chose to call being in the king's service, and thence derived a right of hoisting the military ornament of a cockade over the button of his hat. he likewise wore a sword of no ordinary length by his side, with which he swaggered in his cabin, among the wretches his passengers, whom he had stowed in cupboards on each side. he was a person of a very singular character. he had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, from those very reasons that proved he was not one; and to shew himself a fine gentleman, by a behaviour which seemed to insinuate he had never seen one. he was, moreover, a man of gallantry; at the age of seventy he had the finicalness of sir courtly nice, with the roughness of surly; and, while he was deaf himself, had a voice capable of deafening all others. now, as i saw myself in danger by the delays of the captain, who was, in reality, waiting for more freight, and as the wind had been long nested, as it were, in the south-west, where it constantly blew hurricanes, i began with great reason to apprehend that our voyage might be long, and that my belly, which began already to be much extended, would require the water to be let out at a time when no assistance was at hand; though, indeed, the captain comforted me with assurances that he had a pretty young fellow on board who acted as his surgeon, as i found he likewise did as steward, cook, butler, sailor. in short, he had as many offices as scrub in the play, and went through them all with great dexterity; this of surgeon was, perhaps, the only one in which his skill was somewhat deficient, at least that branch of tapping for the dropsy; for he very ingenuously and modestly confessed he had never seen the operation performed, nor was possessed of that chirurgical instrument with which it is performed. _friday, june 28._--by way of prevention, therefore, i this day sent for my friend mr hunter, the great surgeon and anatomist of covent-garden; and, though my belly was not yet very full and tight, let out ten quarts of water; the young sea-surgeon attended the operation, not as a performer, but as a student. i was now eased of the greatest apprehension which i had from the length of the passage; and i told the captain i was become indifferent as to the time of his sailing. he expressed much satisfaction in this declaration, and at hearing from me that i found myself, since my tapping, much lighter and better. in this, i believe, he was sincere; for he was, as we shall have occasion to observe more than once, a very good-natured man; and, as he was a very brave one too, i found that the heroic constancy with which i had borne an operation that is attended with scarce any degree of pain had not a little raised me in his esteem. that he might adhere, therefore, in the most religious and rigorous manner to his word, when he had no longer any temptation from interest to break it, as he had no longer any hopes of more goods or passengers, he ordered his ship to fall down to gravesend on sunday morning, and there to wait his arrival. _sunday, june 30._--nothing worth notice passed till that morning, when my poor wife, after passing a night in the utmost torments of the toothache, resolved to have it drawn. i despatched therefore a servant into wapping to bring in haste the best tooth-drawer he could find. he soon found out a female of great eminence in the art; but when he brought her to the boat, at the water-side, they were informed that the ship was gone; for indeed she had set out a few minutes after his quitting her; nor did the pilot, who well knew the errand on which i had sent my servant, think fit to wait a moment for his return, or to give me any notice of his setting out, though i had very patiently attended the delays of the captain four days, after many solemn promises of weighing anchor every one of the three last. but of all the petty bashaws or turbulent tyrants i ever beheld, this sour-faced pilot was the worst tempered; for, during the time that he had the guidance of the ship, which was till we arrived in the downs, he complied with no one's desires, nor did he give a civil word, or indeed a civil look, to any on board. the tooth-drawer, who, as i said before, was one of great eminence among her neighbours, refused to follow the ship; so that my man made himself the best of his way, and with some difficulty came up with us before we were got under full sail; for after that, as we had both wind and tide with us, he would have found it impossible to overtake the ship till she was come to an anchor at gravesend. the morning was fair and bright, and we had a passage thither, i think, as pleasant as can be conceived: for, take it with all its advantages, particularly the number of fine ships you are always sure of seeing by the way, there is nothing to equal it in all the rivers of the world. the yards of deptford and of woolwich are noble sights, and give us a just idea of the great perfection to which we are arrived in building those floating castles, and the figure which we may always make in europe among the other maritime powers. that of woolwich, at least, very strongly imprinted this idea on my mind; for there was now on the stocks there the royal anne, supposed to be the largest ship ever built, and which contains ten carriage-guns more than had ever yet equipped a first-rate. it is true, perhaps, that there is more of ostentation than of real utility in ships of this vast and unwieldy burthen, which are rarely capable of acting against an enemy; but if the building such contributes to preserve, among other nations, the notion of the british superiority in naval affairs, the expence, though very great, is well incurred, and the ostentation is laudable and truly political. indeed, i should be sorry to allow that holland, france, or spain, possessed a vessel larger and more beautiful than the largest and most beautiful of ours; for this honour i would always administer to the pride of our sailors, who should challenge it from all their neighbours with truth and success. and sure i am that not our honest tars alone, but every inhabitant of this island, may exult in the comparison, when he considers the king of great britain as a maritime prince, in opposition to any other prince in europe; but i am not so certain that the same idea of superiority will result from comparing our land forces with those of many other crowned heads. in numbers they all far exceed us, and in the goodness and splendour of their troops many nations, particularly the germans and french, and perhaps the dutch, cast us at a distance; for, however we may flatter ourselves with the edwards and henrys of former ages, the change of the whole art of war since those days, by which the advantage of personal strength is in a manner entirely lost, hath produced a change in military affairs to the advantage of our enemies. as for our successes in later days, if they were not entirely owing to the superior genius of our general, they were not a little due to the superior force of his money. indeed, if we should arraign marshal saxe of ostentation when he shewed his army, drawn up, to our captive general, the day after the battle of la val, we cannot say that the ostentation was entirely vain; since he certainly shewed him an army which had not been often equalled, either in the number or goodness of the troops, and which, in those respects, so far exceeded ours, that none can ever cast any reflexion on the brave young prince who could not reap the lawrels of conquest in that day; but his retreat will be always mentioned as an addition to his glory. in our marine the case is entirely the reverse, and it must be our own fault if it doth not continue so; for continue so it will as long as the flourishing state of our trade shall support it, and this support it can never want till our legislature shall cease to give sufficient attention to the protection of our trade, and our magistrates want sufficient power, ability, and honesty, to execute the laws; a circumstance not to be apprehended, as it cannot happen till our senates and our benches shall be filled with the blindest ignorance, or with the blackest corruption. besides the ships in the docks, we saw many on the water: the yatchts are sights of great parade, and the king's body yatcht is, i believe, unequalled in any country for convenience as well as magnificence; both which are consulted in building and equipping her with the most exquisite art and workmanship. we saw likewise several indiamen just returned from their voyage. these are, i believe, the largest and finest vessels which are anywhere employed in commercial affairs. the colliers, likewise, which are very numerous, and even assemble in fleets, are ships of great bulk; and if we descend to those used in the american, african, and european trades, and pass through those which visit our own coasts, to the small craft that lie between chatham and the tower, the whole forms a most pleasing object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of an englishman who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognise any effect of the patriot in his constitution. lastly, the royal hospital at greenwich, which presents so delightful a front to the water, and doth such honour at once to its builder and the nation, to the great skill and ingenuity of the one, and to the no less sensible gratitude of the other, very properly closes the account of this scene; which may well appear romantic to those who have not themselves seen that, in this one instance, truth and reality are capable, perhaps, of exceeding the power of fiction. when we had past by greenwich we saw only two or three gentlemen's houses, all of very moderate account, till we reached gravesend: these are all on the kentish shore, which affords a much drier, wholesomer, and pleasanter situation, than doth that of its opposite, essex. this circumstance, i own, is somewhat surprising to me, when i reflect on the numerous villas that crowd the river from chelsea upwards as far as shepperton, where the narrower channel affords not half so noble a prospect, and where the continual succession of the small craft, like the frequent repetition of all things, which have nothing in them great, beautiful, or admirable, tire the eye, and give us distaste and aversion, instead of pleasure. with some of these situations, such as barnes, mortlake, &c., even the shore of essex might contend, not upon very unequal terms; but on the kentish borders there are many spots to be chosen by the builder which might justly claim the preference over almost the very finest of those in middlesex and surrey. how shall we account for this depravity in taste? for surely there are none so very mean and contemptible as to bring the pleasure of seeing a number of little wherries, gliding along after one another, in competition with what we enjoy in viewing a succession of ships, with all their sails expanded to the winds, bounding over the waves before us. and here i cannot pass by another observation on the deplorable want of taste in our enjoyments, which we shew by almost totally neglecting the pursuit of what seems to me the highest degree of amusement; this is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own, contrived only for our ease and accommodation, to which such situations of our villas as i have recommended would be so convenient, and even necessary. this amusement, i confess, if enjoyed in any perfection, would be of the expensive kind; but such expence would not exceed the reach of a moderate fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which are daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate. the truth, i believe, is, that sailing in the manner i have just mentioned is a pleasure rather unknown, or unthought of, than rejected by those who have experienced it; unless, perhaps, the apprehension of danger or sea-sickness may be supposed, by the timorous and delicate, to make too large deductions--insisting that all their enjoyments shall come to them pure and unmixed, and being ever ready to cry out, ----nocet empta dolore voluptas. this, however, was my present case; for the ease and lightness which i felt from my tapping, the gaiety of the morning, the pleasant sailing with wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which i was constantly entertained during the whole way, were all suppressed and overcome by the single consideration of my wife's pain, which continued incessantly to torment her till we came to an anchor, when i dispatched a messenger in great haste for the best reputed operator in gravesend. a surgeon of some eminence now appeared, who did not decline tooth-drawing, though he certainly would have been offended with the appellation of tooth-drawer no less than his brethren, the members of that venerable body, would be with that of barber, since the late separation between those long-united companies, by which, if the surgeons have gained much, the barbers are supposed to have lost very little. this able and careful person (for so i sincerely believe he is) after examining the guilty tooth, declared that it was such a rotten shell, and so placed at the very remotest end of the upper jaw, where it was in a manner covered and secured by a large fine firm tooth, that he despaired of his power of drawing it. he said, indeed, more to my wife, and used more rhetoric to dissuade her from having it drawn, than is generally employed to persuade young ladies to prefer a pain of three moments to one of three months' continuance, especially if those young ladies happen to be past forty and fifty years of age, when, by submitting to support a racking torment, the only good circumstance attending which is, it is so short that scarce one in a thousand can cry out "i feel it," they are to do a violence to their charms, and lose one of those beautiful holders with which alone sir courtly nice declares a lady can ever lay hold of his heart. he said at last so much, and seemed to reason so justly, that i came over to his side, and assisted him in prevailing on my wife (for it was no easy matter) to resolve on keeping her tooth a little longer, and to apply palliatives only for relief. these were opium applied to the tooth, and blisters behind the ears. whilst we were at dinner this day in the cabin, on a sudden the window on one side was beat into the room with a crash as if a twenty-pounder had been discharged among us. we were all alarmed at the suddenness of the accident, for which, however, we were soon able to account, for the sash, which was shivered all to pieces, was pursued into the middle of the cabin by the bowsprit of a little ship called a cod-smack, the master of which made us amends for running (carelessly at best) against us, and injuring the ship, in the sea-way; that is to say, by damning us all to hell, and uttering several pious wishes that it had done us much more mischief. all which were answered in their own kind and phrase by our men, between whom and the other crew a dialogue of oaths and scurrility was carried on as long as they continued in each other's hearing. it is difficult, i think, to assign a satisfactory reason why sailors in general should, of all others, think themselves entirely discharged from the common bands of humanity, and should seem to glory in the language and behaviour of savages! they see more of the world, and have, most of them, a more erudite education than is the portion of landmen of their degree. nor do i believe that in any country they visit (holland itself not excepted) they can ever find a parallel to what daily passes on the river thames. is it that they think true courage (for they are the bravest fellows upon earth) inconsistent with all the gentleness of a humane carriage, and that the contempt of civil order springs up in minds but little cultivated, at the same time and from the same principles with the contempt of danger and death? is it----? in short, it is so; and how it comes to be so i leave to form a question in the robin hood society, or to be propounded for solution among the ã¦nigmas in the woman's almanac for the next year. _monday, july 1._--this day mr welch took his leave of me after dinner, as did a young lady of her sister, who was proceeding with my wife to lisbon. they both set out together in a post-chaise for london. soon after their departure our cabin, where my wife and i were sitting together, was visited by two ruffians, whose appearance greatly corresponded with that of the sheriffs, or rather the knight-marshal's bailiffs. one of these especially, who seemed to affect a more than ordinary degree of rudeness and insolence, came in without any kind of ceremony, with a broad gold lace on his hat, which was cocked with much military fierceness on his head. an inkhorn at his button-hole and some papers in his hand sufficiently assured me what he was, and i asked him if he and his companion were not custom-house officers: he answered with sufficient dignity that they were, as an information which he seemed to conclude would strike the hearer with awe, and suppress all further enquiry; but, on the contrary, i proceeded to ask of what rank he was in the custom-house, and, receiving an answer from his companion, as i remember, that the gentleman was a riding surveyor, i replied that he might be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that denomination would break into the presence of a lady without an apology or even moving his hat. he then took his covering from his head and laid it on the table, saying, he asked pardon, and blamed the mate, who should, he said, have informed him if any persons of distinction were below. i told him he might guess by our appearance (which, perhaps, was rather more than could be said with the strictest adherence to truth) that he was before a gentleman and lady, which should teach him to be very civil in his behaviour, though we should not happen to be of that number whom the world calls people of fashion and distinction. however, i said, that as he seemed sensible of his error, and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to put his hat on again if he chose it. this he refused with some degree of surliness, and failed not to convince me that, if i should condescend to become more gentle, he would soon grow more rude. i now renewed a reflexion, which i have often seen occasion to make, that there is nothing so incongruous in nature as any kind of power with lowness of mind and of ability, and that there is nothing more deplorable than the want of truth in the whimsical notion of plato, who tells us that "saturn, well knowing the state of human affairs, gave us kings and rulers, not of human but divine original; for, as we make not shepherds of sheep, nor oxherds of oxen, nor goatherds of goats, but place some of our own kind over all as being better and fitter to govern them; in the same manner were demons by the divine love set over us as a race of beings of a superior order to men, and who, with great ease to themselves, might regulate our affairs and establish peace, modesty, freedom, and justice, and, totally destroying all sedition, might complete the happiness of the human race. so far, at least, may even now be said with truth, that in all states which are under the government of mere man, without any divine assistance, there is nothing but labour and misery to be found. from what i have said, therefore, we may at least learn, with our utmost endeavours, to imitate the saturnian institution; borrowing all assistance from our immortal part, while we pay to this the strictest obedience, we should form both our private oeconomy and public policy from its dictates. by this dispensation of our immortal minds we are to establish a law and to call it by that name. but if any government be in the hands of a single person, of the few, or of the many, and such governor or governors shall abandon himself or themselves to the unbridled pursuit of the wildest pleasures or desires, unable to restrain any passion, but possessed with an insatiable bad disease; if such shall attempt to govern, and at the same time to trample on all laws, there can be no means of preservation left for the wretched people" plato de leg., lib. iv. p. 713, c. 714, edit. serrani. it is true that plato is here treating of the highest or sovereign power in a state, but it is as true that his observations are general and may be applied to all inferior powers; and, indeed, every subordinate degree is immediately derived from the highest; and, as it is equally protected by the same force and sanctified by the same authority, is alike dangerous to the well-being of the subject. of all powers, perhaps, there is none so sanctified and protected as this which is under our present consideration. so numerous, indeed, and strong, are the sanctions given to it by many acts of parliament, that, having once established the laws of customs on merchandize, it seems to have been the sole view of the legislature to strengthen the hands and to protect the persons of the officers who became established by those laws, many of whom are so far from bearing any resemblance to the saturnian institution, and to be chosen from a degree of beings superior to the rest of human race, that they sometimes seem industriously picked out of the lowest and vilest orders of mankind. there is, indeed, nothing so useful to man in general, nor so beneficial to particular societies and individuals, as trade. this is that _alma mater_ at whose plentiful breast all mankind are nourished. it is true, like other parents, she is not always equally indulgent to all her children, but, though she gives to her favourites a vast proportion of redundancy and superfluity, there are very few whom she refuses to supply with the conveniences, and none with the necessaries, of life. such a benefactress as this must naturally be beloved by mankind in general; it would be wonderful, therefore, if her interest was not considered by them, and protected from the fraud and violence of some of her rebellious offspring, who, coveting more than their share or more than she thinks proper to allow them, are daily employed in meditating mischief against her, and in endeavouring to steal from their brethren those shares which this great _alma mater_ had allowed them. at length our governor came on board, and about six in the evening we weighed anchor, and fell down to the nore, whither our passage was extremely pleasant, the evening being very delightful, the moon just past the full, and both wind and tide favourable to us. _tuesday, july 2._--this morning we again set sail, under all the advantages we had enjoyed the evening before. this day we left the shore of essex and coasted along kent, passing by the pleasant island of thanet, which is an island, and that of sheppy, which is not an island, and about three o'clock, the wind being now full in our teeth, we came to an anchor in the downs, within two miles of deal.--my wife, having suffered intolerable pain from her tooth, again renewed her resolution of having it drawn, and another surgeon was sent for from deal, but with no better success than the former. he likewise declined the operation, for the same reason which had been assigned by the former: however, such was her resolution, backed with pain, that he was obliged to make the attempt, which concluded more in honour of his judgment than of his operation; for, after having put my poor wife to inexpressible torment, he was obliged to leave her tooth in _statu quo_; and she had now the comfortable prospect of a long fit of pain, which might have lasted her whole voyage, without any possibility of relief. in these pleasing sensations, of which i had my just share, nature, overcome with fatigue, about eight in the evening resigned her to rest--a circumstance which would have given me some happiness, could i have known how to employ those spirits which were raised by it; but, unfortunately for me, i was left in a disposition of enjoying an agreeable hour without the assistance of a companion, which has always appeared to me necessary to such enjoyment; my daughter and her companion were both retired sea-sick to bed; the other passengers were a rude school-boy of fourteen years old and an illiterate portuguese friar, who understood no language but his own, in which i had not the least smattering. the captain was the only person left in whose conversation i might indulge myself; but unluckily, besides a total ignorance of everything in the world but a ship, he had the misfortune of being so deaf, that to make him hear, i will not say understand, my words, i must run the risque of conveying them to the ears of my wife, who, though in another room (called, i think, the state-room--being, indeed, a most stately apartment, capable of containing one human body in length, if not very tall, and three bodies in breadth), lay asleep within a yard of me. in this situation necessity and choice were one and the same thing; the captain and i sat down together to a small bowl of punch, over which we both soon fell fast asleep, and so concluded the evening. _wednesday, july 3._--this morning i awaked at four o'clock, for my distemper seldom suffered me to sleep later. i presently got up, and had the pleasure of enjoying the sight of a tempestuous sea for four hours before the captain was stirring; for he loved to indulge himself in morning slumbers, which were attended with a wind-music, much more agreeable to the performers than to the hearers, especially such as have, as i had, the privilege of sitting in the orchestra. at eight o'clock the captain rose, and sent his boat on shore. i ordered my man likewise to go in it, as my distemper was not of that kind which entirely deprives us of appetite. now, though the captain had well victualled his ship with all manner of salt provisions for the voyage, and had added great quantities of fresh stores, particularly of vegetables, at gravesend, such as beans and peas, which had been on board only two days, and had possibly not been gathered above two more, i apprehended i could provide better for myself at deal than the ship's ordinary seemed to promise. i accordingly sent for fresh provisions of all kinds from the shore, in order to put off the evil day of starving as long as possible. my man returned with most of the articles i sent for, and i now thought myself in a condition of living a week on my own provisions. i therefore ordered my own dinner, which i wanted nothing but a cook to dress and a proper fire to dress it at; but those were not to be had, nor indeed any addition to my roast mutton, except the pleasure of the captain's company, with that of the other passengers; for my wife continued the whole day in a state of dozing, and my other females, whose sickness did not abate by the rolling of the ship at anchor, seemed more inclined to empty their stomachs than to fill them. thus i passed the whole day (except about an hour at dinner) by myself, and the evening concluded with the captain as the preceding one had done; one comfortable piece of news he communicated to me, which was, that he had no doubt of a prosperous wind in the morning; but as he did not divulge the reasons of this confidence, and as i saw none myself besides the wind being directly opposite, my faith in this prophecy was not strong enough to build any great hopes upon. _thursday, july 4._--this morning, however, the captain seemed resolved to fulfil his own predictions, whether the wind would or no; he accordingly weighed anchor, and, taking the advantage of the tide when the wind was not very boisterous, he hoisted his sails; and, as if his power had been no less absolute over ã�olus than it was over neptune, he forced the wind to blow him on in its own despight. but as all men who have ever been at sea well know how weak such attempts are, and want no authorities of scripture to prove that the most absolute power of a captain of a ship is very contemptible in the wind's eye, so did it befal our noble commander, who, having struggled with the wind three or four hours, was obliged to give over, and lost in a few minutes all that he had been so long a-gaining; in short, we returned to our former station, and once more cast anchor in the neighbourhood of deal. here, though we lay near the shore, that we might promise ourselves all the emolument which could be derived from it, we found ourselves deceived; and that we might with as much conveniency be out of the sight of land; for, except when the captain launched forth his own boat, which he did always with great reluctance, we were incapable of procuring anything from deal, but at a price too exorbitant, and beyond the reach even of modern luxury--the fair of a boat from deal, which lay at two miles' distance, being at least three half-crowns, and, if we had been in any distress for it, as many half-guineas; for these good people consider the sea as a large common appendant to their manor, in which when they find any of their fellow-creatures impounded, they conclude that they have a full right of making them pay at their own discretion for their deliverance: to say the truth, whether it be that men who live on the sea-shore are of an amphibious kind, and do not entirely partake of human nature, or whatever else may be the reason, they are so far from taking any share in the distresses of mankind, or of being moved with any compassion for them, that they look upon them as blessings showered down from above, and which the more they improve to their own use, the greater is their gratitude and piety. thus at gravesend a sculler requires a shilling for going less way than he would row in london for threepence; and at deal a boat often brings more profit in a day than it can produce in london in a week, or perhaps in a month; in both places the owner of the boat founds his demand on the necessity and distress of one who stands more or less in absolute want of his assistance, and with the urgency of these always rises in the exorbitancy of his demand, without ever considering that, from these very circumstances, the power or ease of gratifying such demand is in like proportion lessened. now, as i am unwilling that some conclusions, which may be, i am aware, too justly drawn from these observations, should be imputed to human nature in general, i have endeavoured to account for them in a way more consistent with the goodness and dignity of that nature. however it be, it seems a little to reflect on the governors of such monsters that they do not take some means to restrain these impositions, and prevent them from triumphing any longer in the miseries of those who are, in many circumstances at least, their fellow-creatures, and considering the distresses of a wretched seaman, from his being wrecked to his being barely wind-bound, as a blessing sent among them from above, and calling it by that blasphemous name. _friday, july 5._--this day i sent a servant on board a man-of-war that was stationed here, with my compliments to the captain, to represent to him the distress of the ladies, and to desire the favour of his long-boat to conduct us to dover, at about seven miles' distance; and at the same time presumed to make use of a great lady's name, the wife of the first lord commissioner of the admiralty, who would, i told him, be pleased with any kindness shewn by him towards us in our miserable condition. and this i am convinced was true, from the humanity of the lady, though she was entirely unknown to me. the captain returned a verbal answer to a long letter acquainting me that what i desired could not be complied with, it being a favour not in his power to grant. this might be, and i suppose was, true; but it is as true that, if he was able to write, and had pen, ink, and paper on board, he might have sent a written answer, and that it was the part of a gentleman so to have done; but this is a character seldom maintained on the watery element, especially by those who exercise any power on it. every commander of a vessel here seems to think himself entirely free from all those rules of decency and civility which direct and restrain the conduct of the members of a society on shore; and each, claiming absolute dominion in his little wooden world, rules by his own laws and his own discretion. i do not, indeed, know so pregnant an instance of the dangerous consequences of absolute power, and its aptness to intoxicate the mind, as that of those petty tyrants, who become such in a moment, from very well-disposed and social members of that communion in which they affect no superiority, but live in an orderly state of legal subjection with their fellow-citizens. _saturday, july 6._--this morning our commander, declaring he was sure the wind would change, took the advantage of an ebbing tide, and weighed his anchor. his assurance, however, had the same completion, and his endeavours the same success, with his formal trial; and he was soon obliged to return once more to his old quarters. just before we let go our anchor, a small sloop, rather than submit to yield us an inch of way, ran foul of our ship, and carried off her bowsprit. this obstinate frolic would have cost those aboard the sloop very dear, if our steersman had not been too generous to exert his superiority, the certain consequence of which would have been the immediate sinking of the other. this contention of the inferior with a might capable of crushing it in an instant may seem to argue no small share of folly or madness, as well as of impudence; but i am convinced there is very little danger in it: contempt is a port to which the pride of man submits to fly with reluctance, but those who are within it are always in a place of the most assured security; for whosoever throws away his sword prefers, indeed, a less honourable but much safer means of avoiding danger than he who defends himself with it. and here we shall offer another distinction, of the truth of which much reading and experience have well convinced us, that as in the most absolute governments there is a regular progression of slavery downwards, from the top to the bottom, the mischief of which is seldom felt with any great force and bitterness but by the next immediate degree; so in the most dissolute and anarchical states there is as regular an ascent of what is called rank or condition, which is always laying hold of the head of him who is advanced but one step higher on the ladder, who might, if he did not too much despise such efforts, kick his pursuer headlong to the bottom. we will conclude this digression with one general and short observation, which will, perhaps, set the whole matter in a clearer light than the longest and most laboured harangue. whereas envy of all things most exposes us to danger from others, so contempt of all things best secures us from them. and thus, while the dung-cart and the sloop are always meditating mischief against the coach and the ship, and throwing themselves designedly in their way, the latter consider only their own security, and are not ashamed to break the road and let the other pass by them. _monday, july 8._--having past our sunday without anything remarkable, unless the catching a great number of whitings in the afternoon may be thought so, we now set sail on monday at six o'clock, with a little variation of wind; but this was so very little, and the breeze itself so small, that the tide was our best and indeed almost our only friend. this conducted us along the short remainder of the kentish shore. here we past that cliff of dover which makes so tremendous a figure in shakspeare, and which whoever reads without being giddy, must, according to mr addison's observation, have either a very good head or a very bad one; but which, whoever contracts any such ideas from the sight of, must have at least a poetic if not a shaksperian genius. in truth, mountains, rivers, heroes, and gods owe great part of their existence to the poets; and greece and italy do so plentifully abound in the former, because they furnish so glorious a number of the latter; who, while they bestowed immortality on every little hillock and blind stream, left the noblest rivers and mountains in the world to share the same obscurity with the eastern and western poets, in which they are celebrated. this evening we beat the sea of sussex in sight of dungeness, with much more pleasure than progress; for the weather was almost a perfect calm, and the moon, which was almost at the full, scarce suffered a single cloud to veil her from our sight. _tuesday, wednesday, july 9, 10._--these two days we had much the same fine weather, and made much the same way; but in the evening of the latter day a pretty fresh gale sprung up at n.n.w., which brought us by the morning in sight of the isle of wight. _thursday, july 11._--this gale continued till towards noon; when the east end of the island bore but little ahead of us. the captain swaggered and declared he would keep the sea; but the wind got the better of him, so that about three he gave up the victory, and making a sudden tack stood in for the shore, passed by spithead and portsmouth, and came to an anchor at a place called ryde on the island. a most tragical incident fell out this day at sea. while the ship was under sail, but making as will appear no great way, a kitten, one of four of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the window into the water: an alarm was immediately given to the captain, who was then upon deck, and received it with the utmost concern and many bitter oaths. he immediately gave orders to the steersman in favour of the poor thing, as he called it; the sails were instantly slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is, employed to recover the poor animal. i was, i own, extremely surprised at all this; less indeed at the captain's extreme tenderness than at his conceiving any possibility of success; for if puss had had nine thousand instead of nine lives, i concluded they had been all lost. the boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes, for, having stripped himself of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, he leaped boldly into the water, and to my great astonishment in a few minutes returned to the ship, bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. nor was this, i observed, a matter of such great difficulty as it appeared to my ignorance, and possibly may seem to that of my fresh-water reader. the kitten was now exposed to air and sun on the deck, where its life, of which it retained no symptoms, was despaired of by all. the captain's humanity, if i may so call it, did not so totally destroy his philosophy as to make him yield himself up to affliction on this melancholy occasion. having felt his loss like a man, he resolved to shew he could bear it like one; and, having declared he had rather have lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to threshing at backgammon with the portuguese friar, in which innocent amusement they had passed about two-thirds of their time. but as i have, perhaps, a little too wantonly endeavoured to raise the tender passions of my readers in this narrative, i should think myself unpardonable if i concluded it without giving them the satisfaction of hearing that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy of the good captain, but to the great disappointment of some of the sailors, who asserted that the drowning a cat was the very surest way of raising a favourable wind; a supposition of which, though we have heard several plausible accounts, we will not presume to assign the true original reason. _friday, july 12._--this day our ladies went ashore at ryde, and drank their afternoon tea at an ale-house there with great satisfaction: here they were regaled with fresh cream, to which they had been strangers since they left the downs. _saturday, july 13._--the wind seeming likely to continue in the same corner where it had been almost constantly for two months together, i was persuaded by my wife to go ashore and stay at ryde till we sailed. i approved the motion much; for though i am a great lover of the sea, i now fancied there was more pleasure in breathing the fresh air of the land; but how to get thither was the question; for, being really that dead luggage which i considered all passengers to be in the beginning of this narrative, and incapable of any bodily motion without external impulse, it was in vain to leave the ship, or to determine to do it, without the assistance of others. in one instance, perhaps, the living luggage is more difficult to be moved or removed than an equal or much superior weight of dead matter; which, if of the brittle kind, may indeed be liable to be broken through negligence; but this, by proper care, may be almost certainly prevented; whereas the fractures to which the living lumps are exposed are sometimes by no caution avoidable, and often by no art to be amended. i was deliberating on the means of conveyance, not so much out of the ship to the boat as out of a little tottering boat to the land; a matter which, as i had already experienced in the thames, was not extremely easy, when to be performed by any other limbs than your own. whilst i weighed all that could suggest itself on this head, without strictly examining the merit of the several schemes which were advanced by the captain and sailors, and, indeed, giving no very deep attention even to my wife, who, as well as her friend and my daughter, were exerting their tender concern for my ease and safety, fortune, for i am convinced she had a hand in it, sent me a present of a buck; a present welcome enough of itself, but more welcome on account of the vessel in which it came, being a large hoy, which in some places would pass for a ship, and many people would go some miles to see the sight. i was pretty easily conveyed on board this hoy; but to get from hence to the shore was not so easy a task; for, however strange it may appear, the water itself did not extend so far; an instance which seems to explain those lines of ovid, omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque littora ponto, in a less tautological sense than hath generally been imputed to them. in fact, between the sea and the shore there was, at low water, an impassable gulph, if i may so call it, of deep mud, which could neither be traversed by walking nor swimming; so that for near one half of the twenty-four hours ryde was inaccessible by friend or foe. but as the magistrates of this place seemed more to desire the company of the former than to fear that of the latter, they had begun to make a small causeway to the low-water mark, so that foot passengers might land whenever they pleased; but as this work was of a public kind, and would have cost a large sum of money, at least ten pounds, and the magistrates, that is to say, the churchwardens, the overseers, constable, and tithing-man, and the principal inhabitants, had every one of them some separate scheme of private interest to advance at the expence of the public, they fell out among themselves; and, after having thrown away one half of the requisite sum, resolved at least to save the other half, and rather be contented to sit down losers themselves than to enjoy any benefit which might bring in a greater profit to another. thus that unanimity which is so necessary in all public affairs became wanting, and every man, from the fear of being a bubble to another, was, in reality, a bubble to himself. however, as there is scarce any difficulty to which the strength of men, assisted with the cunning of art, is not equal, i was at last hoisted into a small boat, and, being rowed pretty near the shore, was taken up by two sailors, who waded with me through the mud, and placed me in a chair on the land, whence they afterwards conveyed me a quarter of a mile farther, and brought me to a house which seemed to bid the fairest for hospitality of any in ryde. we brought with us our provisions from the ship, so that we wanted nothing but a fire to dress our dinner, and a room in which we might eat it. in neither of these had we any reason to apprehend a disappointment, our dinner consisting only of beans and bacon; and the worst apartment in his majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad, being fully sufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy. unluckily, however, we were disappointed in both; for when we arrived about four at our inn, exulting in the hopes of immediately seeing our beans smoking on the table, we had the mortification of seeing them on the table indeed, but without that circumstance which would have made the sight agreeable, being in the same state in which we had dispatched them from our ship. in excuse for this delay, though we had exceeded, almost purposely, the time appointed, and our provision had arrived three hours before, the mistress of the house acquainted us that it was not for want of time to dress them that they were not ready, but for fear of their being cold or overdone before we should come; which she assured us was much worse than waiting a few minutes for our dinner; an observation so very just, that it is impossible to find any objection in it; but, indeed, it was not altogether so proper at this time, for we had given the most absolute orders to have them ready at four, and had been ourselves, not without much care and difficulty, most exactly punctual in keeping to the very minute of our appointment. but tradesmen, inn-keepers, and servants, never care to indulge us in matters contrary to our true interest, which they always know better than ourselves; nor can any bribes corrupt them to go out of their way whilst they are consulting our good in our own despight. our disappointment in the other particular, in defiance of our humility, as it was more extraordinary, was more provoking. in short, mrs francis (for that was the name of the good woman of the house) no sooner received the news of our intended arrival than she considered more the gentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself not to that which kindles but to that which extinguishes fire, and, forgetting to put on her pot, fell to washing her house. as the messenger who had brought my venison was impatient to be despatched, i ordered it to be brought and laid on the table in the room where i was seated; and the table not being large enough, one side, and that a very bloody one, was laid on the brick floor. i then ordered mrs francis to be called in, in order to give her instructions concerning it; in particular, what i would have roasted and what baked; concluding that she would be highly pleased with the prospect of so much money being spent in her house as she might have now reason to expect, if the wind continued only a few days longer to blow from the same points whence it had blown for several weeks past. i soon saw good cause, i must confess, to despise my own sagacity. mrs francis, having received her orders, without making any answer, snatched the side from the floor, which remained stained with blood, and, bidding a servant to take up that on the table, left the room with no pleasant countenance, muttering to herself that, "had she known the litter which was to have been made, she would not have taken such pains to wash her house that morning. if this was gentility, much good may it do such gentlefolks; for her part she had no notion of it." from these murmurs i received two hints. the one, that it was not from a mistake of our inclination that the good woman had starved us, but from wisely consulting her own dignity, or rather perhaps her vanity, to which our hunger was offered up as a sacrifice. the other, that i was now sitting in a damp room, a circumstance, though it had hitherto escaped my notice from the colour of the bricks, which was by no means to be neglected in a valetudinary state. my wife, who, besides discharging excellently well her own and all the tender offices becoming the female character; who, besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his part, had, before this, discovered the immoderate attention to neatness in mrs francis, and provided against its ill consequences. she had found, though not under the same roof, a very snug apartment belonging to mr francis, and which had escaped the mop by his wife's being satisfied it could not possibly be visited by gentlefolks. this was a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, lined on both sides with wheaten straw, and opening at one end into a green field and a beautiful prospect. here, without hesitation, she ordered the cloth to be laid, and came hastily to snatch me from worse perils by water than the common dangers of the sea. mrs francis, who could not trust her own ears, or could not believe a footman in so extraordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife, and asked her if she had indeed ordered the cloth to be laid in the barn? she answered in the affirmative; upon which mrs francis declared she would not dispute her pleasure, but it was the first time she believed that quality had ever preferred a barn to a house. she shewed at the same time the most pregnant marks of contempt, and again lamented the labour she had undergone, through her ignorance of the absurd taste of her guests. at length, we were seated in one of the most pleasant spots i believe in the kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which there was nothing deficient but the quantity. this defect was however so deplorable that we had consumed our whole dish before we had visibly lessened our hunger. we now waited with impatience the arrival of our second course, which necessity, and not luxury, had dictated. this was a joint of mutton which mrs francis had been ordered to provide; but when, being tired with expectation, we ordered our servants _to see for something else_, we were informed that there was nothing else; on which mrs francis, being summoned, declared there was no such thing as mutton to be had at ryde. when i expressed some astonishment at their having no butcher in a village so situated, she answered they had a very good one, and one that killed all sorts of meat in season, beef two or three times a year, and mutton the whole year round; but that, it being then beans and peas time, he killed no meat, by reason he was not sure of selling it. this she had not thought worthy of communication, any more than that there lived a fisherman at next door, who was then provided with plenty of soles, and whitings, and lobsters, far superior to those which adorn a city feast. this discovery being made by accident, we completed the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more real solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at white's. it may be wondered at, perhaps, that mrs francis should be so negligent of providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive to her own interest; but this was not the case; for, having clapped a poll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price to discharge our bodies from her house, the less she suffered any other to share in the levy the clearer it came into her own pocket; and that it was better to get twelve pence in a shilling than ten pence, which latter would be the case if she afforded us fish at any rate. thus we past a most agreeable day owing to good appetites and good humour; two hearty feeders which will devour with satisfaction whatever food you place before them; whereas, without these, the elegance of st james's, the charde, the perigord-pie, or the ortolan, the venison, the turtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but will never convey happiness to the heart or chearfulness to the countenance. as the wind appeared still immovable, my wife proposed my lying on shore. i presently agreed, though in defiance of an act of parliament, by which persons wandering abroad and lodging in ale-houses are decreed to be rogues and vagabonds; and this too after having been very singularly officious in putting that law in execution. my wife, having reconnoitred the house, reported that there was one room in which were two beds. it was concluded, therefore, that she and harriot should occupy one and myself take possession of the other. she added likewise an ingenious recommendation of this room to one who had so long been in a cabin, which it exactly resembled, as it was sunk down with age on one side, and was in the form of a ship with gunwales too. for my own part, i make little doubt but this apartment was an ancient temple, built with the materials of a wreck, and probably dedicated to neptune in honour of the blessing sent by him to the inhabitants; such blessings having in all ages been very common to them. the timber employed in it confirms this opinion, being such as is seldom used by any but ship-builders. i do not find indeed any mention of this matter in hearn; but perhaps its antiquity was too modern to deserve his notice. certain it is that this island of wight was not an early convert to christianity; nay, there is some reason to doubt whether it was ever entirely converted. but i have only time to touch slightly on things of this kind, which, luckily for us, we have a society whose peculiar profession it is to discuss and develop. _sunday, july 19._--this morning early i summoned mrs francis, in order to pay her the preceding day's account. as i could recollect only two or three articles i thought there was no necessity of pen and ink. in a single instance only we had exceeded what the law allows gratis to a foot-soldier on his march, viz., vinegar, salt, &c., and dressing his meat. i found, however, i was mistaken in my calculation; for when the good woman attended with her bill it contained as follows:- â£ _s._ _d._ bread and beer 0 2 4 wind 0 2 0 rum 0 2 0 dressing dinner 0 3 0 tea 0 1 6 firing 0 1 0 lodging 0 1 6 servants' lodging 0 0 6 __________ â£0 13 10 now that five people and two servants should live a day and night at a public-house for so small a sum will appear incredible to any person in london above the degree of a chimney-sweeper; but more astonishing will it seem that these people should remain so long at such a house without tasting any other delicacy than bread, small beer, a teacupfull of milk called cream, a glass of rum converted into punch by their own materials, and one bottle of _wind_, of which we only tasted a single glass, though possibly, indeed, our servants drank the remainder of the bottle. this _wind_ is a liquor of english manufacture, and its flavour is thought very delicious by the generality of the english, who drink it in great quantities. every seventh year is thought to produce as much as the other six. it is then drank so plentifully that the whole nation are in a manner intoxicated by it; and consequently very little business is carried on at that season. it resembles in colour the red wine which is imported from portugal, as it doth in its intoxicating quality; hence, and from this agreement in the orthography, the one is often confounded with the other, though both are seldom esteemed by the same person. it is to be had in every parish of the kingdom, and a pretty large quantity is consumed in the metropolis, where several taverns are set apart solely for the vendition of this liquor, the masters never dealing in any other. the disagreement in our computation produced some small remonstrance to mrs francis on my side; but this received an immediate answer: "she scorned to overcharge gentlemen; her house had been always frequented by the very best gentry of the island; and she had never had a bill found fault with in her life, though she had lived upwards of forty years in the house, and within that time the greatest gentry in hampshire had been at it; and that lawyer willis never went to any other when he came to those parts. that for her part she did not get her livelihood by travellers, who were gone and away, and she never expected to see them more, but that her neighbours might come again; wherefore, to be sure, they had the only right to complain." she was proceeding thus, and from her volubility of tongue seemed likely to stretch the discourse to an immoderate length, when i suddenly cut all short by paying the bill. this morning our ladies went to church, more, i fear, from curiosity than religion; they were attended by the captain in a most military attire, with his cockade in his hat and his sword by his side. so unusual an appearance in this little chapel drew the attention of all present, and probably disconcerted the women, who were in dishabille, and wished themselves drest, for the sake of the curate, who was the greatest of their beholders. while i was left alone i received a visit from mr francis himself, who was much more considerable as a farmer than as an inn-holder. indeed, he left the latter entirely to the care of his wife, and he acted wisely, i believe, in so doing. as nothing more remarkable past on this day i will close it with the account of these two characters, as far as a few days' residence could inform me of them. if they should appear as new to the reader as they did to me, he will not be displeased at finding them here. this amiable couple seemed to border hard on their grand climacteric; nor indeed were they shy of owning enough to fix their ages within a year or two of that time. they appeared to be rather proud of having employed their time well than ashamed of having lived so long; the only reason which i could ever assign why some fine ladies, and fine gentlemen too, should desire to be thought younger than they really are by the contemporaries of their grandchildren. some, indeed, who too hastily credit appearances, might doubt whether they had made so good a use of their time as i would insinuate, since there was no appearance of anything but poverty, want, and wretchedness, about their house; nor could they produce anything to a customer in exchange for his money but a few bottles of _wind_, and spirituous liquors, and some very bad ale, to drink; with rusty bacon and worse cheese to eat. but then it should be considered, on the other side, that whatever they received was almost as entirely clear profit as the blessing of a wreck itself; such an inn being the very reverse of a coffee-house; for here you can neither sit for nothing nor have anything for your money. again, as many marks of want abounded everywhere, so were the marks of antiquity visible. scarce anything was to be seen which had not some scar upon it, made by the hand of time; not an utensil, it was manifest, had been purchased within a dozen years last past; so that whatever money had come into the house during that period at least must have remained in it, unless it had been sent abroad for food, or other perishable commodities; but these were supplied by a small portion of the fruits of the farm, in which the farmer allowed he had a very good bargain. in fact, it is inconceivable what sums may be collected by starving only, and how easy it is for a man to die rich if he will but be contented to live miserable. nor is there in this kind of starving anything so terrible as some apprehend. it neither wastes a man's flesh nor robs him of his chearfulness. the famous cornaro's case well proves the contrary; and so did farmer francis, who was of a round stature, had a plump round face, with a kind of smile on it, and seemed to borrow an air of wretchedness rather from his coat's age than from his own. the truth is, there is a certain diet which emaciates men more than any possible degree of abstinence; though i do not remember to have seen any caution against it, either in cheney, arbuthnot, or in any other modern writer or regimen. nay, the very name is not, i believe, in the learned dr james's dictionary; all which is the more extraordinary as it is a very common food in this kingdom, and the college themselves were not long since very liberally entertained with it by the present attorney and other eminent lawyers in lincoln's-inn-hall, and were all made horribly sick by it. but though it should not be found among our english physical writers, we may be assured of meeting with it among the greeks; for nothing considerable in nature escapes their notice, though many things considerable in them, it is to be feared, have escaped the notice of their readers. the greeks, then, to all such as feed too voraciously on this diet, give the name of heautofagi, which our physicians will, i suppose, translate _men that eat themselves_. as nothing is so destructive to the body as this kind of food, so nothing is so plentiful and cheap; but it was perhaps the only cheap thing the farmer disliked. probably living much on fish might produce this disgust; for diodorus siculus attributes the same aversion in a people of ã�thiopia to the same cause; he calls them the fish-eaters, and asserts that they cannot be brought to eat a single meal with the heautofagi by any persuasion, threat, or violence whatever, not even though they should kill their children before their faces. what hath puzzled our physicians, and prevented them from setting this matter in the clearest light, is possibly one simple mistake, arising from a very excusable ignorance; that the passions of men are capable of swallowing food as well as their appetites; that the former, in feeding, resemble the state of those animals who chew the cud; and therefore, such men, in some sense, may be said to prey on themselves, and as it were to devour their own entrails. and hence ensues a meagre aspect and thin habit of body, as surely as from what is called a consumption. our farmer was one of these. he had no more passion than an ichthuofagus or ã�thiopian fisher. he wished not for anything, thought not of anything; indeed, he scarce did anything or said anything. here i cannot be understood strictly; for then i must describe a nonentity, whereas i would rob him of nothing but that free agency which is the cause of all the corruption and of all the misery of human nature. no man, indeed, ever did more than the farmer, for he was an absolute slave to labour all the week; but in truth, as my sagacious reader must have at first apprehended, when i said he resigned the care of the house to his wife, i meant more than i then expressed, even the house and all that belonged to it; for he was really a farmer only under the direction of his wife. in a word, so composed, so serene, so placid a countenance, i never saw; and he satisfied himself by answering to every question he was asked, "i don't know anything about it, sir; i leaves all that to my wife." now, as a couple of this kind would, like two vessels of oil, have made no composition in life, and for want of all savour must have palled every taste; nature or fortune, or both of them, took care to provide a proper quantity of acid in the materials that formed the wife, and to render her a perfect helpmate for so tranquil a husband. she abounded in whatsoever he was defective; that is to say, in almost everything. she was indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind to a standing-pool, and preserved all from stagnation and corruption. quin the player, on taking a nice and severe survey of a fellow-comedian, burst forth into this exclamation:--"if that fellow be not a rogue, god almighty doth not write a legible hand." whether he guessed right or no is not worth my while to examine; certain it is that the latter, having wrought his features into a proper harmony to become the characters of iago, shylock, and others of the same cast, gave us a semblance of truth to the observation that was sufficient to confirm the wit of it. indeed, we may remark, in favour of the physiognomist, though the law has made him a rogue and vagabond, that nature is seldom curious in her works within, without employing some little pains on the outside; and this more particularly in mischievous characters, in forming which, as mr derham observes, in venomous insects, as the sting or saw of a wasp, she is sometimes wonderfully industrious. now, when she hath thus completely armed our hero to carry on a war with man, she never fails of furnishing that innocent lambkin with some means of knowing his enemy, and foreseeing his designs. thus she hath been observed to act in the case of a rattlesnake, which never meditates a human prey without giving warning of his approach. this observation will, i am convinced, hold most true, if applied to the most venomous individuals of human insects. a tyrant, a trickster, and a bully, generally wear the marks of their several dispositions in their countenances; so do the vixen, the shrew, the scold, and all other females of the like kind. but, perhaps, nature hath never afforded a stronger example of all this than in the case of mrs francis. she was a short, squat woman; her head was closely joined to her shoulders, where it was fixed somewhat awry; every feature of her countenance was sharp and pointed; her face was furrowed with the small-pox; and her complexion, which seemed to be able to turn milk to curds, not a little resembled in colour such milk as had already undergone that operation. she appeared, indeed, to have many symptoms of a deep jaundice in her look; but the strength and firmness of her voice overbalanced them all; the tone of this was a sharp treble at a distance, for i seldom heard it on the same floor, but was usually waked with it in the morning, and entertained with it almost continually through the whole day. though vocal be usually put in opposition to instrumental music, i question whether this might not be thought to partake of the nature of both; for she played on two instruments, which she seemed to keep for no other use from morning till night; these were two maids, or rather scolding-stocks, who, i suppose, by some means or other, earned their board, and she gave them their lodging _gratis_, or for no other service than to keep her lungs in constant exercise. she differed, as i have said, in every particular from her husband; but very remarkably in this, that, as it was impossible to displease him, so it was as impossible to please her; and as no art could remove a smile from his countenance, so could no art carry it into hers. if her bills were remonstrated against she was offended with the tacit censure of her fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacit sarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with the same success. on this latter hint she did indeed improve, for she daily raised some of her articles. a pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at a shilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishes for two shillings on the saturday, we paid half-a-crown for the cookery of one on the sunday; and, whenever she was paid, she never left the room without lamenting the small amount of her bill, saying, "she knew not how it was that others got their money by gentlefolks, but for her part she had not the art of it." when she was asked why she complained, when she was paid all she demanded, she answered, "she could not deny that, nor did she know she had omitted anything; but that it was but a poor bill for gentlefolks to pay." i accounted for all this by her having heard, that it is a maxim with the principal inn-holders on the continent, to levy considerable sums on their guests, who travel with many horses and servants, though such guests should eat little or nothing in their houses; the method being, i believe, in such cases, to lay a capitation on the horses, and not on their masters. but she did not consider that in most of these inns a very great degree of hunger, without any degree of delicacy, may be satisfied; and that in all such inns there is some appearance, at least, of provision, as well as of a man-cook to dress it, one of the hostlers being always furnished with a cook's cap, waistcoat, and apron, ready to attend gentlemen and ladies on their summons; that the case therefore of such inns differed from hers, where there was nothing to eat or to drink, and in reality no house to inhabit, no chair to sit upon, nor any bed to lie in; that one third or fourth part therefore of the levy imposed at inns was, in truth, a higher tax than the whole was when laid on in the other, where, in order to raise a small sum, a man is obliged to submit to pay as many various ways for the same thing as he doth to the government for the light which enters through his own window into his own house, from his own estate; such are the articles of bread and beer, firing, eating and dressing dinner. the foregoing is a very imperfect sketch of this extraordinary couple; for everything is here lowered instead of being heightened. those who would see them set forth in more lively colours, and with the proper ornaments, may read the descriptions of the furies in some of the classical poets, or of the stoic philosophers in the works of lucian. _monday, july 20._--this day nothing remarkable passed; mrs francis levied a tax of fourteen shillings for the sunday. we regaled ourselves at dinner with venison and good claret of our own; and, in the afternoon, the women, attended by the captain, walked to see a delightful scene two miles distant, with the beauties of which they declared themselves most highly charmed at their return, as well as with the goodness of the lady of the mansion, who had slipt out of the way, that my wife and their company might refresh themselves with the flowers and fruits with which her garden abounded. _tuesday, july 21._--this day, having paid our taxes of yesterday, we were permitted to regale ourselves with more venison. some of this we would willingly have exchanged for mutton; but no such flesh was to be had nearer than portsmouth, from whence it would have cost more to convey a joint to us than the freight of a portugal ham from lisbon to london amounts to; for though the water-carriage be somewhat cheaper here than at deal, yet can you find no waterman who will go on board his boat, unless by two or three hours' rowing he can get drunk for the residue of the week. and here i have an opportunity, which possibly may not offer again, of publishing some observations on that political oeconomy of this nation, which, as it concerns only the regulation of the mob, is below the notice of our great men; though on the due regulation of this order depend many emoluments, which the great men themselves, or at least many who tread close on their heels, may enjoy, as well as some dangers which may some time or other arise from introducing a pure state of anarchy among them. i will represent the case, as it appears to me, very fairly and impartially between the mob and their betters. the whole mischief which infects this part of our oeconomy arises from the vague and uncertain use of a word called liberty, of which, as scarce any two men with whom i have ever conversed seem to have one and the same idea, i am inclined to doubt whether there be any simple universal notion represented by this word, or whether it conveys any clearer or more determinate idea than some of those old punic compositions of syllables preserved in one of the comedies of plautus, but at present, as i conceive, not supposed to be understood by any one. by liberty, however, i apprehend, is commonly understood the power of doing what we please; not absolutely, for then it would be inconsistent with law, by whose control the liberty of the freest people, except only the hottentots and wild indians, must always be restrained. but, indeed, however largely we extend, or however moderately we confine, the sense of the word, no politician will, i presume, contend that it is to pervade in an equal degree, and be, with the same extent, enjoyed by, every member of society; no such polity having been ever found, unless among those vile people just before commemorated. among the greeks and romans the servile and free conditions were opposed to each other; and no man who had the misfortune to be enrolled under the former could lay any claim to liberty till the right was conveyed to him by that master whose slave he was, either by the means of conquest, of purchase, or of birth. this was the state of all the free nations in the world; and this, till very lately, was understood to be the case of our own. i will not indeed say this is the case at present, the lowest class of our people having shaken off all the shackles of their superiors, and become not only as free, but even freer, than most of their superiors. i believe it cannot be doubted, though perhaps we have no recent instance of it, that the personal attendance of every man who hath three hundred pounds per annum, in parliament, is indispensably his duty; and that, if the citizens and burgesses of any city or borough shall chuse such a one, however reluctant he appear, he may be obliged to attend, and be forcibly brought to his duty by the serjeant-at-arms. again, there are numbers of subordinate offices, some of which are of burthen, and others of expence, in the civil government--all of which persons who are qualified are liable to have imposed on them, may be obliged to undertake and properly execute, notwithstanding any bodily labour, or even danger, to which they may subject themselves, under the penalty of fines and imprisonment; nay, and what may appear somewhat hard, may be compelled to satisfy the losses which are eventually incident, to that of sheriff in particular, out of their own private fortunes; and though this should prove the ruin of a family, yet the public, to whom the price is due, incurs no debt or obligation to preserve its officer harmless, let his innocence appear ever so clearly. i purposely omit the mention of those military or militiary duties which our old constitution laid upon its greatest members. these might, indeed, supply their posts with some other able-bodied men; but if no such could have been found, the obligation nevertheless remained, and they were compellable to serve in their own proper persons. the only one, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty is the lowest member of the society, who, if he prefers hunger, or the wild product of the fields, hedges, lanes, and rivers, with the indulgence of ease and laziness, to a food a little more delicate, but purchased at the expence of labour, may lay himself under a shade; nor can be forced to take the other alternative from that which he hath, i will not affirm whether wisely or foolishly, chosen. here i may, perhaps, be reminded of the last vagrant act, where all such persons are compellable to work for the usual and accustomed wages allowed in the place; but this is a clause little known to the justices of the peace, and least likely to be executed by those who do know it, as they know likewise that it is formed on the antient power of the justices to fix and settle these wages every year, making proper allowances for the scarcity and plenty of the times, the cheapness and dearness of the place; and that _the usual and accustomed wages_ are words without any force or meaning, when there are no such; but every man spunges and raps whatever he can get; and will haggle as long and struggle as hard to cheat his employer of twopence in a day's labour as an honest tradesman will to cheat his customers of the same sum in a yard of cloth or silk. it is a great pity then that this power, or rather this practice, was not revived; but, this having been so long omitted that it is become obsolete, will be best done by a new law, in which this power, as well as the consequent power of forcing the poor to labour at a moderate and reasonable rate, should be well considered and their execution facilitated; for gentlemen who give their time and labour _gratis_, and even voluntarily, to the public, have a right to expect that all their business be made as easy as possible; and to enact laws without doing this is to fill our statute-books, much too full already, still fuller with dead letter, of no use but to the printer of the acts of parliament. that the evil which i have here pointed at is of itself worth redressing, is, i apprehend, no subject of dispute; for why should any persons in distress be deprived of the assistance of their fellow-subjects, when they are willing amply to reward them for their labour? or, why should the lowest of the people be permitted to exact ten times the value of their work? for those exactions encrease with the degrees of necessity in their object, insomuch that on the former side many are horribly imposed upon, and that often in no trifling matters. i was very well assured that at deal no less than ten guineas was required, and paid by the supercargo of an indiaman, for carrying him on board two miles from the shore when she was just ready to sail; so that his necessity, as his pillager well understood, was absolute. again, many others, whose indignation will not submit to such plunder, are forced to refuse the assistance, though they are often great sufferers by so doing. on the latter side, the lowest of the people are encouraged in laziness and idleness; while they live by a twentieth part of the labour that ought to maintain them, which is diametrically opposite to the interest of the public; for that requires a great deal to be done, not to be paid, for a little. and moreover, they are confirmed in habits of exaction, and are taught to consider the distresses of their superiors as their own fair emolument. but enough of this matter, of which i at first intended only to convey a hint to those who are alone capable of applying the remedy, though they are the last to whom the notice of those evils would occur, without some such monitor as myself, who am forced to travel about the world in the form of a passenger. i cannot but say i heartily wish our governors would attentively consider this method of fixing the price of labour, and by that means of compelling the poor to work, since the due execution of such powers will, i apprehend, be found the true and only means of making them useful, and of advancing trade from its present visibly declining state to the height to which sir william petty, in his political arithmetic, thinks it capable of being carried. in the afternoon the lady of the above-mentioned mansion called at our inn, and left her compliments to us with mrs francis, with an assurance that while we continued wind-bound in that place, where she feared we could be but indifferently accommodated, we were extremely welcome to the use of anything which her garden or her house afforded. so polite a message convinced us, in spite of some arguments to the contrary, that we were not on the coast of africa, or on some island where the few savage inhabitants have little of human in them besides their form. and here i mean nothing less than to derogate from the merit of this lady, who is not only extremely polite in her behaviour to strangers of her own rank, but so extremely good and charitable to all her poor neighbours who stand in need of her assistance, that she hath the universal love and praises of all who live near her. but, in reality, how little doth the acquisition of so valuable a character, and the full indulgence of so worthy a disposition, cost those who possess it! both are accomplished by the very offals which fall from a table moderately plentiful. that they are enjoyed therefore by so few arises truly from there being so few who have any such disposition to gratify, or who aim at any such character. _wednesday, july 22._--this morning, after having been mulcted as usual, we dispatched a servant with proper acknowledgments of the lady's goodness; but confined our wants entirely to the productions of her garden. he soon returned, in company with the gardener, both richly laden with almost every particular which a garden at this most fruitful season of the year produces. while we were regaling ourselves with these, towards the close of our dinner, we received orders from our commander, who had dined that day with some inferior officers on board a man-of-war, to return instantly to the ship; for that the wind was become favourable, and he should weigh that evening. these orders were soon followed by the captain himself, who was still in the utmost hurry, though the occasion of it had long since ceased; for the wind had, indeed, a little shifted that afternoon, but was before this very quietly set down in its old quarters. this last was a lucky hit for me; for, as the captain, to whose orders we resolved to pay no obedience, unless delivered by himself, did not return till past six, so much time seemed requisite to put up the furniture of our bed-chamber or dining-room, for almost every article, even to some of the chairs, were either our own or the captain's property; so much more in conveying it as well as myself, as dead a luggage as any, to the shore, and thence to the ship, that the night threatened first to overtake us. a terrible circumstance to me, in my decayed condition; especially as very heavy showers of rain, attended with a high wind, continued to fall incessantly; the being carried through which two miles in the dark, in a wet and open boat, seemed little less than certain death. however, as my commander was absolute, his orders peremptory, and my obedience necessary, i resolved to avail myself of a philosophy which hath been of notable use to me in the latter part of my life, and which is contained in this hemistich of virgil:- ----superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est. the meaning of which, if virgil had any, i think i rightly understood, and rightly applied. as i was therefore to be entirely passive in my motion, i resolved to abandon myself to the conduct of those who were to carry me into a cart when it returned from unloading the goods. but before this, the captain, perceiving what had happened in the clouds, and that the wind remained as much his enemy as ever, came upstairs to me with a reprieve till the morning. this was, i own, very agreeable news, and i little regretted the trouble of refurnishing my apartment, by sending back for the goods. mrs francis was not well pleased with this. as she understood the reprieve to be only till the morning, she saw nothing but lodging to be possibly added, out of which she was to deduct fire and candle, and the remainder, she thought, would scarce pay her for her trouble. she exerted therefore all the ill-humour of which she was mistress, and did all she could to thwart and perplex everything during the whole evening. _thursday, july 23._--early in the morning the captain, who had remained on shore all night, came to visit us, and to press us to make haste on board. "i am resolved," says he, "not to lose a moment now the wind is coming about fair: for my own part, i never was surer of a wind in all my life." i use his very words; nor will i presume to interpret or comment upon them farther than by observing that they were spoke in the utmost hurry. we promised to be ready as soon as breakfast was over, but this was not so soon as was expected; for, in removing our goods the evening before, the tea-chest was unhappily lost. every place was immediately searched, and many where it was impossible for it to be; for this was a loss of much greater consequence than it may at first seem to many of my readers. ladies and valetudinarians do not easily dispense with the use of this sovereign cordial in a single instance; but to undertake a long voyage, without any probability of being supplied with it the whole way, was above the reach of patience. and yet, dreadful as this calamity was, it seemed unavoidable. the whole town of ryde could not supply a single leaf; for, as to what mrs francis and the shop called by that name, it was not of chinese growth. it did not indeed in the least resemble tea, either in smell or taste, or in any particular, unless in being a leaf; for it was in truth no other than a tobacco of the mundungus species. and as for the hopes of relief in any other port, they were not to be depended upon, for the captain had positively declared he was sure of a wind, and would let go his anchor no more till he arrived in the tajo. when a good deal of time had been spent, most of it indeed wasted on this occasion, a thought occurred which every one wondered at its not having presented itself the first moment. this was to apply to the good lady, who could not fail of pitying and relieving such distress. a messenger was immediately despatched with an account of our misfortune, till whose return we employed ourselves in preparatives for our departure, that we might have nothing to do but to swallow our breakfast when it arrived. the tea-chest, though of no less consequence to us than the military-chest to a general, was given up as lost, or rather as stolen; for though i would not, for the world, mention any particular name, it is certain we had suspicions, and all, i am afraid, fell on the same person. the man returned from the worthy lady with much expedition, and brought with him a canister of tea, despatched with so true a generosity, as well as politeness, that if our voyage had been as long again we should have incurred no danger of being brought to a short allowance in this most important article. at the very same instant likewise arrived william the footman with our own tea-chest. it had been, indeed, left in the hoy, when the other goods were re-landed, as william, when he first heard it was missing, had suspected; and whence, had not the owner of the hoy been unluckily out of the way, he had retrieved it soon enough to have prevented our giving the lady an opportunity of displaying some part of her goodness. to search the hoy was, indeed, too natural a suggestion to have escaped any one, nor did it escape being mentioned by many of us; but we were dissuaded from it by my wife's maid, who perfectly well remembered she had left the chest in the bed-chamber; for that she had never given it out of her hand in her way to or from the hoy; but william perhaps knew the maid better, and best understood how far she was to be believed; for otherwise he would hardly of his own accord, after hearing her declaration, have hunted out the hoy-man, with much pains and difficulty. thus ended this scene, which begun with such appearance of distress, and ended with becoming the subject of mirth and laughter. nothing now remained but to pay our taxes, which were indeed laid with inconceivable severity. lodging was raised sixpence, fire in the same proportion, and even candles, which had hitherto escaped, were charged with a wantonness of imposition, from the beginning, and placed under the stile of oversight. we were raised a whole pound, whereas we had only burned ten, in five nights, and the pound consisted of twenty-four. lastly, an attempt was made which almost as far exceeds human credulity to believe as it did human patience to submit to. this was to make us pay as much for existing an hour or two as for existing a whole day; and dressing dinner was introduced as an article, though we left the house before either pot or spit had approached the fire. here i own my patience failed me, and i became an example of the truth of the observation, "that all tyranny and oppression may be carried too far, and that a yoke may be made too intolerable for the neck of the tamest slave." when i remonstrated, with some warmth, against this grievance, mrs francis gave me a look, and left the room without making any answer. she returned in a minute, running to me with pen, ink, and paper, in her hand, and desired me to make my own bill; "for she hoped," she said, "i did not expect that her house was to be dirtied, and her goods spoiled and consumed, for nothing. the whole is but thirteen shillings. can gentlefolks lie a whole night at a public-house for less? if they can i am sure it is time to give off being a landlady: but pay me what you please; i would have people know that i value money as little as other folks. but i was always a fool, as i says to my husband, and never knows which side my bread is buttered of. and yet, to be sure, your honour shall be my warning not to be bit so again. some folks knows better than other some how to make their bills. candles! why yes, to be sure; why should not travellers pay for candles? i am sure i pays for my candles, and the chandler pays the king's majesty for them; and if he did not i must, so as it comes to the same thing in the end. to be sure i am out of sixteens at present, but these burn as white and as clear, though not quite so large. i expects my chandler here soon, or i would send to portsmouth, if your honour was to stay any time longer. but when folks stays only for a wind, you knows there can be no dependence on such!" here she put on a little slyness of aspect, and seemed willing to submit to interruption. i interrupted her accordingly by throwing down half a guinea, and declared i had no more english money, which was indeed true; and, as she could not immediately change the thirty-six shilling pieces, it put a final end to the dispute. mrs francis soon left the room, and we soon after left the house; nor would this good woman see us or wish us a good voyage. i must not, however, quit this place, where we had been so ill-treated, without doing it impartial justice, and recording what may, with the strictest truth, be said in its favour. first, then, as to its situation, it is, i think, most delightful, and in the most pleasant spot in the whole island. it is true it wants the advantage of that beautiful river which leads from newport to cowes; but the prospect here extending to the sea, and taking in portsmouth, spithead, and st helen's, would be more than a recompence for the loss of the thames itself, even in the most delightful part of berkshire or buckinghamshire, though another denham, or another pope, should unite in celebrating it. for my own part, i confess myself so entirely fond of a sea prospect, that i think nothing on the land can equal it; and if it be set off with shipping, i desire to borrow no ornament from the _terra firma_. a fleet of ships is, in my opinion, the noblest object which the art of man hath ever produced; and far beyond the power of those architects who deal in brick, in stone, or in marble. when the late sir robert walpole, one of the best of men and of ministers, used to equip us a yearly fleet at spithead, his enemies of taste must have allowed that he, at least, treated the nation with a fine sight for their money. a much finer, indeed, than the same expence in an encampment could have produced. for what indeed is the best idea which the prospect of a number of huts can furnish to the mind, but of a number of men forming themselves into a society before the art of building more substantial houses was known? this, perhaps, would be agreeable enough; but, in truth, there is a much worse idea ready to step in before it, and that is of a body of cut-throats, the supports of tyranny, the invaders of the just liberties and properties of mankind, the plunderers of the industrious, the ravishers of the chaste, the murderers of the innocent, and, in a word, the destroyers of the plenty, the peace, and the safety, of their fellow-creatures. and what, it may be said, are these men-of-war which seem so delightful an object to our eyes? are they not alike the support of tyranny and oppression of innocence, carrying with them desolation and ruin wherever their masters please to send them? this is indeed too true; and however the ship of war may, in its bulk and equipment, exceed the honest merchantman, i heartily wish there was no necessity for it; for, though i must own the superior beauty of the object on one side, i am more pleased with the superior excellence of the idea which i can raise in my mind on the other, while i reflect on the art and industry of mankind engaged in the daily improvements of commerce to the mutual benefit of all countries, and to the establishment and happiness of social life. this pleasant village is situated on a gentle ascent from the water, whence it affords that charming prospect i have above described. its soil is a gravel, which, assisted with its declivity, preserves it always so dry that immediately after the most violent rain a fine lady may walk without wetting her silken shoes. the fertility of the place is apparent from its extraordinary verdure, and it is so shaded with large and flourishing elms, that its narrow lanes are a natural grove or walk, which, in the regularity of its plantation, vies with the power of art, and in its wanton exuberancy greatly exceeds it. in a field in the ascent of this hill, about a quarter of a mile from the sea, stands a neat little chapel. it is very small, but adequate to the number of inhabitants; for the parish doth not seem to contain above thirty houses. at about two miles distant from this parish lives that polite and good lady to whose kindness we were so much obliged. it is placed on a hill whose bottom is washed by the sea, and which, from its eminence at top, commands a view of great part of the island as well as it does that of the opposite shore. this house was formerly built by one boyce, who, from a blacksmith at gosport, became possessed, by great success in smuggling, of forty thousand pound. with part of this he purchased an estate here, and, by chance probably, fixed on this spot for building a large house. perhaps the convenience of carrying on his business, to which it is so well adapted, might dictate the situation to him. we can hardly, at least, attribute it to the same taste with which he furnished his house, or at least his library, by sending an order to a bookseller in london to pack him up five hundred pounds' worth of his handsomest books. they tell here several almost incredible stories of the ignorance, the folly, and the pride, which this poor man and his wife discovered during the short continuance of his prosperity; for he did not long escape the sharp eyes of the revenue solicitors, and was, by extents from the court of exchequer, soon reduced below his original state to that of confinement in the fleet. all his effects were sold, and among the rest his books, by an auction at portsmouth, for a very small price; for the bookseller was now discovered to have been perfectly a master of his trade, and, relying on mr boyce's finding little time to read, had sent him not only the most lasting wares of his shop, but duplicates of the same, under different titles. his estate and house were purchased by a gentleman of these parts, whose widow now enjoys them, and who hath improved them, particularly her gardens, with so elegant a taste, that the painter who would assist his imagination in the composition of a most exquisite landscape, or the poet who would describe an earthly paradise, could nowhere furnish themselves with a richer pattern. we left this place about eleven in the morning, and were again conveyed, with more sunshine than wind, aboard our ship. whence our captain had acquired his power of prophecy, when he promised us and himself a prosperous wind, i will not determine; it is sufficient to observe that he was a false prophet, and that the weathercocks continued to point as before. he would not, however, so easily give up his skill in prediction. he persevered in asserting that the wind was changed, and, having weighed his anchor, fell down that afternoon to st helen's, which was at about the distance of five miles; and whither his friend the tide, in defiance of the wind, which was most manifestly against him, softly wafted him in as many hours. here, about seven in the evening, before which time we could not procure it, we sat down to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which was much better drest than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold pasty which my wife had made at ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to eat on board our ship, whither we all chearfully exulted in being returned from the presence of mrs francis, who, by the exact resemblance she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no great propriety settled in paradise. _friday, july 24._--as we passed by spithead on the preceding evening we saw the two regiments of soldiers who were just returned from gibraltar and minorca; and this day a lieutenant belonging to one of them, who was the captain's nephew, came to pay a visit to his uncle. he was what is called by some a very pretty fellow; indeed, much too pretty a fellow at his years; for he was turned of thirty-four, though his address and conversation would have become him more before he had reached twenty. in his conversation, it is true, there was something military enough, as it consisted chiefly of oaths, and of the great actions and wise sayings of jack, and will, and tom of our regiment, a phrase eternally in his mouth; and he seemed to conclude that it conveyed to all the officers such a degree of public notoriety and importance that it intitled him, like the head of a profession, or a first minister, to be the subject of conversation among those who had not the least personal acquaintance with him. this did not much surprise me, as i have seen several examples of the same; but the defects in his address, especially to the women, were so great that they seemed absolutely inconsistent with the behaviour of a pretty fellow, much less of one in a red coat; and yet, besides having been eleven years in the army, he had had, as his uncle informed me, an education in france. this, i own, would have appeared to have been absolutely thrown away had not his animal spirits, which were likewise thrown away upon him in great abundance, borne the visible stamp of the growth of that country. the character to which he had an indisputable title was that of a merry fellow; so very merry was he that he laughed at everything he said, and always before he spoke. possibly, indeed, he often laughed at what he did not utter, for every speech begun with a laugh, though it did not always end with a jest. there was no great analogy between the characters of the uncle and the nephew, and yet they seemed intirely to agree in enjoying the honour which the red-coat did to his family. this the uncle expressed with great pleasure in his countenance, and seemed desirous of shewing all present the honour which he had for his nephew, who, on his side, was at some pains to convince us of his concurring in this opinion, and at the same time of displaying the contempt he had for the parts, as well as the occupation, of his uncle, which he seemed to think reflected some disgrace on himself, who was a member of that profession which makes every man a gentleman. not that i would be understood to insinuate that the nephew endeavoured to shake off or disown his uncle, or indeed to keep him at any distance. on the contrary, he treated him with the utmost familiarity, often calling him dick, and dear dick, and old dick, and frequently beginning an oration with d----n me, dick. all this condescension on the part of the young man was received with suitable marks of complaisance and obligation by the old one; especially when it was attended with evidences of the same familiarity with general officers and other persons of rank; one of whom, in particular, i know to have the pride and insolence of the devil himself, and who, without some strong bias of interest, is no more liable to converse familiarly with a lieutenant than of being mistaken in his judgment of a fool; which was not, perhaps, so certainly the case of the worthy lieutenant, who, in declaring to us the qualifications which recommended men to his countenance and conversation, as well as what effectually set a bar to all hopes of that honour, exclaimed, "no, sir, by the d--i hate all fools--no, d----n me, excuse me for that. that's a little too much, old dick. there are two or three officers of our regiment whom i know to be fools; but d----n me if i am ever seen in their company. if a man hath a fool of a relation, dick, you know he can't help that, old boy." such jokes as these the old man not only took in good part, but glibly gulped down the whole narrative of his nephew; nor did he, i am convinced, in the least doubt of our as readily swallowing the same. this made him so charmed with the lieutenant, that it is probable we should have been pestered with him the whole evening, had not the north wind, dearer to our sea-captain even than this glory of his family, sprung suddenly up, and called aloud to him to weigh his anchor. while this ceremony was performing, the sea-captain ordered out his boat to row the land-captain to shore; not indeed on an uninhabited island, but one which, in this part, looked but little better, not presenting us the view of a single house. indeed, our old friend, when his boat returned on shore, perhaps being no longer able to stifle his envy of the superiority of his nephew, told us with a smile that the young man had a good five mile to walk before he could be accommodated with a passage to portsmouth. it appeared now that the captain had been only mistaken in the date of his prediction, by placing the event a day earlier than it happened; for the wind which now arose was not only favourable but brisk, and was no sooner in reach of our sails than it swept us away by the back of the isle of wight, and, having in the night carried us by christchurch and peveral-point, brought us the next noon, _saturday, july 25_, off the island of portland, so famous for the smallness and sweetness of its mutton, of which a leg seldom weighs four pounds. we would have bought a sheep, but our captain would not permit it; though he needed not have been in such a hurry, for presently the wind, i will not positively assert in resentment of his surliness, shewed him a dog's trick, and slily slipt back again to his summer-house in the south-west. the captain now grew outrageous, and, declaring open war with the wind, took a resolution, rather more bold than wise, of sailing in defiance of it, and in its teeth. he swore he would let go his anchor no more, but would beat the sea while he had either yard or sail left. he accordingly stood from the shore, and made so large a tack that before night, though he seemed to advance but little on his way, he was got out of sight of land. towards the evening the wind began, in the captain's own language, and indeed it freshened so much, that before ten it blew a perfect hurricane. the captain having got, as he supposed, to a safe distance, tacked again towards the english shore; and now the wind veered a point only in his favour, and continued to blow with such violence, that the ship ran above eight knots or miles an hour during this whole day and tempestuous night till bed-time. i was obliged to betake myself once more to my solitude, for my women were again all down in their sea-sickness, and the captain was busy on deck; for he began to grow uneasy, chiefly, i believe, because he did not well know where he was, and would, i am convinced, have been very glad to have been in portland-road, eating some sheep's-head broth. having contracted no great degree of good-humour by living a whole day alone, without a single soul to converse with, i took but ill physic to purge it off, by a bed-conversation with the captain, who, amongst many bitter lamentations of his fate, and protesting he had more patience than a job, frequently intermixed summons to the commanding officer on the deck, who now happened to be one morrison, a carpenter, the only fellow that had either common sense or common civility in the ship. of morrison he enquired every quarter of an hour concerning the state of affairs: the wind, the care of the ship, and other matters of navigation. the frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitude with which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of the captain's mind; he endeavoured to conceal it, and would have given no small alarm to a man who had either not learnt what it is to die, or known what it is to be miserable. and my dear wife and child must pardon me, if what i did not conceive to be any great evil to myself i was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them; in truth, i have often thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to the power of any man i know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted. can i say then i had no fear? indeed i cannot. reader, i was afraid for thee, lest thou shouldst have been deprived of that pleasure thou art now enjoying; and that i should not live to draw out on paper that military character which thou didst peruse in the journal of yesterday. from all these fears we were relieved, at six in the morning, by the arrival of mr morrison, who acquainted us that he was sure he beheld land very near; for he could not see half a mile, by reason of the haziness of the weather. this land he said was, he believed, the berry-head, which forms one side of torbay: the captain declared that it was impossible, and swore, on condition he was right, he would give him his mother for a maid. a forfeit which became afterwards strictly due and payable; for the captain, whipping on his night-gown, ran up without his breeches, and within half an hour returning into the cabin, wished me joy of our lying safe at anchor in the bay. _sunday, july 26._--things now began to put on an aspect very different from what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lost its mizen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and fresh bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to our women, and we all sat down to a very chearful breakfast. but, however pleasant our stay promised to be here, we were all desirous it should be short: i resolved immediately to despatch my man into the country to purchase a present of cider, for my friends of that which is called southam, as well as to take with me a hogshead of it to lisbon; for it is, in my opinion, much more delicious than that which is the growth of herefordshire. i purchased three hogsheads for five pounds ten shillings, all which i should have scarce thought worth mentioning, had i not believed it might be of equal service to the honest farmer who sold it me, and who is by the neighbouring gentlemen reputed to deal in the very best; and to the reader, who, from ignorance of the means of providing better for himself, swallows at a dearer rate the juice of middlesex turnip, instead of that vinum pomonã¦ which mr giles leverance of cheeshurst, near dartmouth in devon, will, at the price of forty shillings per hogshead, send in double casks to any part of the world. had the wind been very sudden in shifting, i had lost my cider by an attempt of a boatman to exact, according to custom. he required five shillings for conveying my man a mile and a half to the shore, and four more if he staid to bring him back. this i thought to be such insufferable impudence that i ordered him to be immediately chased from the ship, without any answer. indeed, there are few inconveniences that i would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands of these wretches, at the expence of my own indignation, of which i own they are not the only objects, but rather those who purchase a paultry convenience by encouraging them. but of this i have already spoken very largely. i shall conclude, therefore, with the leave which this fellow took of our ship; saying he should know it again, and would not put off from the shore to relieve it in any distress whatever. it will, doubtless, surprise many of my readers to hear that, when we lay at anchor within a mile or two of a town several days together, and even in the most temperate weather, we should frequently want fresh provisions and herbage, and other emoluments of the shore, as much as if we had been a hundred leagues from land. and this too while numbers of boats were in our sight, whose owners get their livelihood by rowing people up and down, and could be at any time summoned by a signal to our assistance, and while the captain had a little boat of his own, with men always ready to row it at his command. this, however, hath been partly accounted for already by the imposing disposition of the people, who asked so much more than the proper price of their labour. and as to the usefulness of the captain's boat, it requires to be a little expatiated upon, as it will tend to lay open some of the grievances which demand the utmost regard of our legislature, as they affect the most valuable part of the king's subjects--those by whom the commerce of the nation is carried into execution. our captain then, who was a very good and experienced seaman, having been above thirty years the master of a vessel, part of which he had served, so he phrased it, as commander of a privateer, and had discharged himself with great courage and conduct, and with as great success, discovered the utmost aversion to the sending his boat ashore whenever we lay wind-bound in any of our harbours. this aversion did not arise from any fear of wearing out his boat by using it, but was, in truth, the result of experience, that it was easier to send his men on shore than to recal them. they acknowledged him to be their master while they remained on shipboard, but did not allow his power to extend to the shores, where they had no sooner set their foot than every man became _sui juris_, and thought himself at full liberty to return when he pleased. now it is not any delight that these fellows have in the fresh air or verdant fields on the land. every one of them would prefer his ship and his hammock to all the sweets of arabia the happy; but, unluckily for them, there are in every seaport in england certain houses whose chief livelihood depends on providing entertainment for the gentlemen of the jacket. for this purpose they are always well furnished with those cordial liquors which do immediately inspire the heart with gladness, banishing all careful thoughts, and indeed all others, from the mind, and opening the mouth with songs of chearfulness and thanksgiving for the many wonderful blessings with which a sea-faring life overflows. for my own part, however whimsical it may appear, i confess i have thought the strange story of circe in the odyssey no other than an ingenious allegory, in which homer intended to convey to his countrymen the same kind of instruction which we intend to communicate to our own in this digression. as teaching the art of war to the greeks was the plain design of the iliad, so was teaching them the art of navigation the no less manifest intention of the odyssey. for the improvement of this, their situation was most excellently adapted; and accordingly we find thucydides, in the beginning of his history, considers the greeks as a sett of pirates or privateers, plundering each other by sea. this being probably the first institution of commerce before the ars cauponaria was invented, and merchants, instead of robbing, began to cheat and outwit each other, and by degrees changed the metabletic, the only kind of traffic allowed by aristotle in his politics, into the chrematistic. by this allegory then i suppose ulysses to have been the captain of a merchant-ship, and circe some good ale-wife, who made his crew drunk with the spirituous liquors of those days. with this the transformation into swine, as well as all other incidents of the fable, will notably agree; and thus a key will be found out for unlocking the whole mystery, and forging at least some meaning to a story which, at present, appears very strange and absurd. hence, moreover, will appear the very near resemblance between the sea-faring men of all ages and nations; and here perhaps may be established the truth and justice of that observation, which will occur oftener than once in this voyage, that all human flesh is not the same flesh, but that there is one kind of flesh of landmen, and another of seamen. philosophers, divines, and others, who have treated the gratification of human appetites with contempt, have, among other instances, insisted very strongly on that satiety which is so apt to overtake them even in the very act of enjoyment. and here they more particularly deserve our attention, as most of them may be supposed to speak from their own experience, and very probably gave us their lessons with a full stomach. thus hunger and thirst, whatever delight they may afford while we are eating and drinking, pass both away from us with the plate and the cup; and though we should imitate the romans, if, indeed, they were such dull beasts, which i can scarce believe, to unload the belly like a dung-pot, in order to fill it again with another load, yet would the pleasure be so considerably lessened that it would scarce repay us the trouble of purchasing it with swallowing a bason of camomile tea. a second haunch of venison, or a second dose of turtle, would hardly allure a city glutton with its smell. even the celebrated jew himself, when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours. hence i suppose dr south took that elegant comparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of an archimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton to the stillness of a sow at her wash. a simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, could only become it in the afternoon. whereas in those potations which the mind seems to enjoy, rather than the bodily appetite, there is happily no such satiety; but the more a man drinks, the more he desires; as if, like mark anthony in dryden, his appetite encreased with feeding, and this to such an immoderate degree, _ut nullus sit desiderio aut pudor aut modus_. hence, as with the gang of captain ulysses, ensues so total a transformation, that the man no more continues what he was. perhaps he ceases for a time to be at all; or, though he may retain the same outward form and figure he had before, yet is his nobler part, as we are taught to call it, so changed, that, instead of being the same man, he scarce remembers what he was a few hours before. and this transformation, being once obtained, is so easily preserved by the same potations, which induced no satiety, that the captain in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew. they know him no longer; or, if they do, they acknowledge not his power, having indeed as entirely forgotten themselves as if they had taken a large draught of the river of lethe. nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to which circe hath conveyed them. there are many of those houses in every port-town. nay, there are some where the sorceress doth not trust only to her drugs; but hath instruments of a different kind to execute her purposes, by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from the knowledge and pursuit of his captain. this would, indeed, be very fatal, was it not for one circumstance; that the sailor is seldom provided with the proper bait for these harpies. however, the contrary sometimes happens, as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will snap at a pair of silver buttons, or buckles, as surely as at the specie itself. nay, sometimes they are so voracious, that the very naked hook will go down, and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake. in vain, at such a season as this, would the vows of a pious heathen have prevailed over neptune, ã�olus, or any other marine deity. in vain would the prayers of a christian captain be attended with the like success. the wind may change how it pleases while all hands are on shore; the anchor would remain firm in the ground, and the ship would continue in durance, unless, like other forcible prison-breakers, it forcibly got loose for no good purpose. now, as the favour of winds and courts, and such like, is always to be laid hold on at the very first motion, for within twenty-four hours all may be changed again; so, in the former case, the loss of a day may be the loss of a voyage: for, though it may appear to persons not well skilled in navigation, who see ships meet and sail by each other, that the wind sometimes east and west, north and south, backwards and forwards, at the same instant; yet, certain it is that the land is so contrived, that even the same wind will not, like the same horse, always bring a man to the end of his journey; but, that the gale which the mariner prayed heartily for yesterday, he may as heartily deprecate to-morrow; while all use and benefit which would have arisen to him from the westerly wind of to-morrow may be totally lost and thrown away by neglecting the offer of the easterly blast which blows to-day. hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain, loss and disappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom great prejudice to the trade of a nation whose manufactures are thus liable to lie unsold in a foreign warehouse, the market being forestalled by some rival whose sailors are under a better discipline. to guard against these inconveniences the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power; he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them so firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break through them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which i will not determine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery to be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity. to speak a plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one whom the wise citizens of london call a bad man; for, with such a one, though your bond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for nothing. what then is to be done in this case? what, indeed, but to call in the assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can, and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and, though he seldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile alive so fast in his noose, that he can never get out till he is let drop through it. why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, should not an immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of this order, who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to ship or to prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the leg in either place? but, as the case now stands, the condition of this poor captain without any commission, and of this absolute commander without any power, is much worse than we have hitherto shewn it to be; for, notwithstanding all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good ship the elizabeth, if the sailor should, for better wages, find it more his interest to go on board the better ship the mary, either before their setting out or on their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer the latter without any other danger than that of "doing what he ought not to have done," contrary to a rule which he is seldom christian enough to have much at heart, while the captain is generally too good a christian to punish a man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerable expense for so doing. there are many other deficiencies in our laws relating to maritime affairs, and which would probably have been long since corrected, had we any seamen in the house of commons. not that i would insinuate that the legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in the sea-service; but, as these gentlemen are by their attendance in the house unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning what they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latter remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if none but courtiers and fox-hunters had been elected into parliament, without a single fish among them. the following seems to me to be an effect of this kind, and it strikes me the stronger as i remember the case to have happened, and remember it to have been dispunishable. a captain of a trading vessel, of which he was part owner, took in a large freight of oats at liverpool, consigned to the market at bearkey: this he carried to a port in hampshire, and there sold it as his own, and, freighting his vessel with wheat for the port of cadiz, in spain, dropt it at oporto in his way; and there, selling it for his own use, took in a lading of wine, with which he sailed again, and, having converted it in the same manner, together with a large sum of money with which he was intrusted, for the benefit of certain merchants, sold the ship and cargo in another port, and then wisely sat down contented with the fortune he had made, and returned to london to enjoy the remainder of his days, with the fruits of his former labours and a good conscience. the sum he brought home with him consisted of near six thousand pounds, all in specie, and most of it in that coin which portugal distributes so liberally over europe. he was not yet old enough to be past all sense of pleasure, nor so puffed up with the pride of his good fortune as to overlook his old acquaintances the journeymen taylors, from among whom he had been formerly pressed into the sea-service, and, having there laid the foundation of his future success by his shares in prizes, had afterwards become captain of a trading vessel, in which he purchased an interest, and had soon begun to trade in the honourable manner above mentioned. the captain now took up his residence at an ale-house in drury-lane, where, having all his money by him in a trunk, he spent about five pounds a day among his old friends the gentlemen and ladies of those parts. the merchant of liverpool, having luckily had notice from a friend during the blaze of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justice of peace, without the assistance of the law, recover his whole loss. the captain, however, wisely chose to refund no more; but, perceiving with what hasty strides envy was pursuing his fortune, he took speedy means to retire out of her reach, and to enjoy the rest of his wealth in an inglorious obscurity; nor could the same justice overtake him time enough to assist a second merchant as he had done the first. this was a very extraordinary case, and the more so as the ingenious gentleman had steered entirely clear of all crimes in our law. now, how it comes about that a robbery so very easy to be committed, and to which there is such immediate temptation always before the eyes of these fellows, should receive the encouragement of impunity, is to be accounted for only from the oversight of the legislature, as that oversight can only be, i think, derived from the reasons i have assigned for it. but i will dwell no longer on this subject. if what i have here said should seem of sufficient consequence to engage the attention of any man in power, and should thus be the means of applying any remedy to the most inveterate evils, at least, i have obtained my whole desire, and shall have lain so long wind-bound in the ports of this kingdom to some purpose. i would, indeed, have this work--which, if i should live to finish it, a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hope to me, will be probably the last i shall ever undertake--to produce some better end than the mere diversion of the reader. _monday._--this day our captain went ashore, to dine with a gentleman who lives in these parts, and who so exactly resembles the character given by homer of axylus, that the only difference i can trace between them is, the one, living by the highway, erected his hospitality chiefly in favour of land-travellers; and the other, living by the water-side, gratified his humanity by accommodating the wants of the mariner. in the evening our commander received a visit from a brother bashaw, who lay wind-bound in the same harbour. this latter captain was a swiss. he was then master of a vessel bound to guinea, and had formerly been a privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudable service. the honesty and freedom of the switzer, his vivacity, in which he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbours the french, the aukward and affected politeness, which was likewise of french extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the english tar--for he had served under the colours of this nation and his crew had been of the same--made such an odd variety, such a hotchpotch of character, that i should have been much diverted with him, had not his voice, which was as loud as a speaking-trumpet, unfortunately made my head ach. the noise which he conveyed into the deaf ears of his brother captain, who sat on one side of him, the soft addresses with which, mixed with aukward bows, he saluted the ladies on the other, were so agreeably contrasted, that a man must not only have been void of all taste of humour, and insensible of mirth, but duller than cibber is represented in the dunciad, who could be unentertained with him a little while; for, i confess, such entertainments should always be very short, as they are very liable to pall. but he suffered not this to happen at present; for, having given us his company a quarter of an hour only, he retired, after many apologies for the shortness of his visit. _tuesday._--the wind being less boisterous than it had hitherto been since our arrival here, several fishing-boats, which the tempestuous weather yesterday had prevented from working, came on board us with fish. this was so fresh, so good in kind, and so very cheap, that we supplied ourselves in great numbers, among which were very large soles at fourpence a pair, and whitings of almost a preposterous size at ninepence a score. the only fish which bore any price was a john dorã©e, as it is called. i bought one of at least four pounds weight for as many shillings. it resembles a turbot in shape, but exceeds it in firmness and flavour. the price had the appearance of being considerable when opposed to the extraordinary cheapness of others of value, but was, in truth, so very reasonable when estimated by its goodness, that it left me under no other surprise than how the gentlemen of this country, not greatly eminent for the delicacy of their taste, had discovered the preference of the dorã©e to all other fish: but i was informed that mr quin, whose distinguishing tooth hath been so justly celebrated, had lately visited plymouth, and had done those honours to the dorã©e which are so justly due to it from that sect of modern philosophers who, with sir epicure mammon, or sir epicure quin, their head, seem more to delight in a fish-pond than in a garden, as the old epicureans are said to have done. unfortunately for the fishmongers of london, the dorã©e resides only in those seas; for, could any of this company but convey one to the temple of luxury under the piazza, where macklin the high-priest daily serves up his rich offerings to that goddess, great would be the reward of that fishmonger, in blessings poured down upon him from the goddess, as great would his merit be towards the high-priest, who could never be thought to overrate such valuable incense. and here, having mentioned the extreme cheapness of fish in the devonshire sea, and given some little hint of the extreme dearness with which this commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in london, i cannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or two, with the same view with which i have scattered my several remarks through this voyage, sufficiently satisfied in having finished my life, as i have probably lost it, in the service of my country, from the best of motives, though it should be attended with the worst of success. means are always in our power; ends are very seldom so. of all the animal foods with which man is furnished, there are none so plenty as fish. a little rivulet, that glides almost unperceived through a vast tract of rich land, will support more hundreds with the flesh of its inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. but if this be true of rivers, it is much truer of the seashores, which abound with such immense variety of fish that the curious fisherman, after he hath made his draught, often culls only the daintiest part and leaves the rest of his prey to perish on the shore. if this be true it would appear, i think, that there is nothing which might be had in such abundance, and consequently so cheap, as fish, of which nature seems to have provided such inexhaustible stores with some peculiar design. in the production of terrestrial animals she proceeds with such slowness, that in the larger kind a single female seldom produces more than one a-year, and this again requires three, four, or five years more to bring it to perfection. and though the lesser quadrupeds, those of the wild kind particularly, with the birds, do multiply much faster, yet can none of these bear any proportion with the aquatic animals, of whom every female matrix is furnished with an annual offspring almost exceeding the power of numbers, and which, in many instances at least, a single year is capable of bringing to some degree of maturity. what then ought in general to be so plentiful, what so cheap, as fish? what then so properly the food of the poor? so in many places they are, and so might they always be in great cities, which are always situated near the sea, or on the conflux of large rivers. how comes it then, to look no farther abroad for instances, that in our city of london the case is so far otherwise that, except that of sprats, there is not one poor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish? it is true indeed that this taste is generally of such excellent flavour that it exceeds the power of french cookery to treat the palates of the rich with anything more exquisitely delicate; so that was fish the common food of the poor it might put them too much upon an equality with their betters in the great article of eating, in which, at present, in the opinion of some, the great difference in happiness between man and man consists. but this argument i shall treat with the utmost disdain: for if ortolans were as big as bustards, and at the same time as plenty as sparrows, i should hold it yet reasonable to indulge the poor with the dainty, and that for this cause especially, that the rich would soon find a sparrow, if as scarce as an ortolan, to be much the greater, as it would certainly be the rarer, dainty of the two. vanity or scarcity will be always the favourite of luxury; but honest hunger will be satisfied with plenty. not to search deeper into the cause of the evil, i should think it abundantly sufficient to propose the remedies of it. and, first, i humbly submit the absolute necessity of immediately hanging all the fishmongers within the bills of mortality; and, however it might have been some time ago the opinion of mild and temporizing men that the evil complained of might be removed by gentler methods, i suppose at this day there are none who do not see the impossibility of using such with any effect. _cuncta prius tentanda_ might have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but _cuncta prius tentata_ may now be replied: for surely, if a few monopolizing fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the westminster market, to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as well as other wise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves, that they might be truly said not only to have laid the whole strength of their heads, but of their shoulders too, to the business, it would be a vain endeavour for any other body of men to attempt to remove so stubborn a nusance. if it should be doubted whether we can bring this case within the letter of any capital law now subsisting, i am ashamed to own it cannot; for surely no crime better deserves such punishment; but the remedy may, nevertheless, be immediate; and if a law was made at the beginning of next session, to take place immediately, by which the starving thousands of poor was declared to be felony, without benefit of clergy, the fishmongers would be hanged before the end of the session. a second method of filling the mouths of the poor, if not with loaves at least with fishes, is to desire the magistrates to carry into execution one at least out of near a hundred acts of parliament, for preserving the small fry of the river of thames, by which means as few fish would satisfy thousands as may now be devoured by a small number of individuals. but while a fisherman can break through the strongest meshes of an act of parliament, we may be assured he will learn so to contrive his own meshes that the smallest fry will not be able to swim through them. other methods may, we doubt not, be suggested by those who shall attentively consider the evil here hinted at; but we have dwelt too long on it already, and shall conclude with observing that it is difficult to affirm whether the atrocity of the evil itself, the facility of curing it, or the shameful neglect of the cure, be the more scandalous or more astonishing. after having, however, gloriously regaled myself with this food, i was washing it down with some good claret with my wife and her friend, in the cabin, when the captain's valet-de-chambre, head cook, house and ship steward, footman in livery and out on't, secretary and fore-mast man, all burst into the cabin at once, being, indeed, all but one person, and, without saying by your leave, began to pack half a hogshead of small beer in bottles, the necessary consequence of which must have been either a total stop to conversation at that chearful season when it is most agreeable, or the admitting that polyonymous officer aforesaid to the participation of it. i desired him therefore to delay his purpose a little longer, but he refused to grant my request; nor was he prevailed on to quit the room till he was threatened with having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to stand empty within my reach. with these menaces he retired at last, but not without muttering some menaces on his side, and which, to our great terror, he failed not to put into immediate execution. our captain was gone to dinner this day with his swiss brother; and, though he was a very sober man, was a little elevated with some champagne, which, as it cost the swiss little or nothing, he dispensed at his table more liberally than our hospitable english noblemen put about those bottles, which the ingenious peter taylor teaches a led captain to avoid by distinguishing by the name of that generous liquor, which all humble companions are taught to postpone to the flavour of methuen, or honest port. while our two captains were thus regaling themselves, and celebrating their own heroic exploits with all the inspiration which the liquor, at least, of wit could afford them, the polyonymous officer arrived, and, being saluted by the name of honest tom, was ordered to sit down and take his glass before he delivered his message; for every sailor is by turns his captain's mate over a cann, except only that captain bashaw who presides in a man-of-war, and who upon earth has no other mate, unless it be another of the same bashaws. tom had no sooner swallowed his draught than he hastily began his narrative, and faithfully related what had happened on board our ship; we say faithfully, though from what happened it may be suspected that tom chose to add perhaps only five or six immaterial circumstances, as is always i believe the case, and may possibly have been done by me in relating this very story, though it happened not many hours ago. no sooner was the captain informed of the interruption which had been given to his officer, and indeed to his orders, for he thought no time so convenient as that of his absence for causing any confusion in the cabin, than he leapt with such haste from his chair that he had like to have broke his sword, with which he always begirt himself when he walked out of his ship, and sometimes when he walked about in it; at the same time, grasping eagerly that other implement called a cockade, which modern soldiers wear on their helmets with the same view as the antients did their crests--to terrify the enemy, he muttered something, but so inarticulately that the word _damn_ was only intelligible; he then hastily took leave of the swiss captain, who was too well bred to press his stay on such an occasion, and leapt first from the ship to his boat, and then from his boat to his own ship, with as much fierceness in his looks as he had ever expressed on boarding his defenceless prey in the honourable calling of a privateer. having regained the middle deck, he paused a moment while tom and others loaded themselves with bottles, and then descending into the cabin exclaimed with a thundering voice, "d--n me, why arn't the bottles stoed in, according to my orders?" i answered him very mildly that i had prevented his man from doing it, as it was at an inconvenient time to me, and as in his absence, at least, i esteemed the cabin to be my own. "your cabin!" repeated he many times; "no, d----n me! 'tis my cabin. your cabin! d----n me! i have brought my hogs to a fair market. i suppose indeed you think it your cabin, and your ship, by your commanding in it; but i will command in it, d----n me! i will shew the world i am the commander, and nobody but i! did you think i sold you the command of my ship for that pitiful thirty pounds? i wish i had not seen you nor your thirty pounds aboard of her." he then repeated the words thirty pounds often, with great disdain, and with a contempt which i own the sum did not seem to deserve in my eye, either in itself or on the present occasion; being, indeed, paid for the freight of ---weight of human flesh, which is above fifty per cent. dearer than the freight of any other luggage, whilst in reality it takes up less room; in fact, no room at all. in truth, the sum was paid for nothing more than for a liberty to six persons (two of them servants) to stay on board a ship while she sails from one port to another, every shilling of which comes clear into the captain's pocket. ignorant people may perhaps imagine, especially when they are told that the captain is obliged to sustain them, that their diet at least is worth something, which may probably be now and then so far the case as to deduct a tenth part from the neat profits on this account; but it was otherwise at present; for when i had contracted with the captain at a price which i by no means thought moderate, i had some content in thinking i should have no more to pay for my voyage; but i was whispered that it was expected the passengers should find themselves in several things; such as tea, wine, and such like; and particularly that gentlemen should stowe of the latter a much larger quantity than they could use, in order to leave the remainder as a present to the captain at the end of the voyage; and it was expected likewise that gentlemen should put aboard some fresh stores, and the more of such things were put aboard the welcomer they would be to the captain. i was prevailed with by these hints to follow the advice proposed; and accordingly, besides tea and a large hamper of wine, with several hams and tongues, i caused a number of live chickens and sheep to be conveyed aboard; in truth, treble the quantity of provisions which would have supported the persons i took with me, had the voyage continued three weeks, as it was supposed, with a bare possibility, it might. indeed it continued much longer; but as this was occasioned by our being wind-bound in our own ports, it was by no means of any ill consequence to the captain, as the additional stores of fish, fresh meat, butter, bread, &c., which i constantly laid in, greatly exceeded the consumption, and went some way in maintaining the ship's crew. it is true i was not obliged to do this; but it seemed to be expected; for the captain did not think himself obliged to do it, and i can truly say i soon ceased to expect it of him. he had, i confess, on board a number of fowls and ducks sufficient for a west india voyage; all of them, as he often said, "very fine birds, and of the largest breed." this i believe was really the fact, and i can add that they were all arrived at the full perfection of their size. nor was there, i am convinced, any want of provisions of a more substantial kind; such as dried beef, pork, and fish; so that the captain seemed ready to perform his contract, and amply to provide for his passengers. what i did then was not from necessity, but, perhaps, from a less excusable motive, and was by no means chargeable to the account of the captain. but, let the motive have been what it would, the consequence was still the same; and this was such that i am firmly persuaded the whole pitiful thirty pounds came pure and neat into the captain's pocket, and not only so, but attended with the value of ten pound more in sundries into the bargain. i must confess myself therefore at a loss how the epithet _pitiful_ came to be annexed to the above sum; for, not being a pitiful price for what it was given, i cannot conceive it to be pitiful in itself; nor do i believe it is thought by the greatest men in the kingdom; none of whom would scruple to search for it in the dirtiest kennel, where they had only a reasonable hope of success. how, therefore, such a sum should acquire the idea of pitiful in the eyes of the master of a ship seems not easy to be accounted for; since it appears more likely to produce in him ideas of a different kind. some men, perhaps, are no more sincere in the contempt for it which they express than others in their contempt of money in general; and i am the rather inclined to this persuasion, as i have seldom heard of either who have refused or refunded this their despised object. besides, it is sometimes impossible to believe these professions, as every action of the man's life is a contradiction to it. who can believe a tradesman who says he would not tell his name for the profit he gets by he selling such a parcel of goods, when he hath told a thousand lies in order to get it? pitiful, indeed, is often applied to an object not absolutely, but comparatively with our expectations, or with a greater object: in which sense it is not easy to set any bounds to the use of the word. thus, a handful of halfpence daily appear pitiful to a porter, and a handful of silver to a drawer. the latter, i am convinced, at a polite tavern, will not tell his name (for he will not give you any answer) under the price of gold. and in this sense thirty pound may be accounted pitiful by the lowest mechanic. one difficulty only seems to occur, and that is this, how comes it that, if the profits of the meanest arts are so considerable, the professors of them are not richer than we generally see them? one answer to this shall suffice. men do not become rich by what they get, but by what they keep. he who is worth no more than his annual wages or salary, spends the whole; he will be always a beggar let his income be what it will, and so will be his family when he dies. this we see daily to be the case of ecclesiastics, who, during their lives, are extremely well provided for, only because they desire to maintain the honour of the cloth by living like gentlemen, which would, perhaps, be better maintained by living unlike them. but, to return from so long a digression, to which the use of so improper an epithet gave occasion, and to which the novelty of the subject allured, i will make the reader amends by concisely telling him that the captain poured forth such a torrent of abuse that i very hastily and very foolishly resolved to quit the ship. i gave immediate orders to summon a hoy to carry me that evening to dartmouth, without considering any consequence. those orders i gave in no very low voice, so that those above stairs might possibly conceive there was more than one master in the cabin. in the same tone i likewise threatened the captain with that which, he afterwards said, he feared more than any rock or quicksand. nor can we wonder at this when we are told he had been twice obliged to bring to and cast anchor there before, and had neither time escaped without the loss of almost his whole cargo. the most distant sound of law thus frightened a man who had often, i am convinced, heard numbers of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. nor did he sooner see the hoy approaching the vessel than he ran down again into the cabin, and, his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled on his knees, and a little too abjectly implored for mercy. i did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in this posture, but i immediately forgave him. and here, that i may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, i do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. neither did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my christianity exact, this forgiveness. to speak truth, i forgave him from a motive which would make men much more forgiving if they were much wiser than they are, because it was convenient for me so to do. _wednesday._--this morning the captain drest himself in scarlet in order to pay a visit to a devonshire squire, to whom a captain of a ship is a guest of no ordinary consequence, as he is a stranger and a gentleman, who hath seen a great deal of the world in foreign parts, and knows all the news of the times. [illustration: _he abjectly implored for mercy_] the squire, therefore, was to send his boat for the captain, but a most unfortunate accident happened; for, as the wind was extremely rough and against the hoy, while this was endeavouring to avail itself of great seamanship in hawling up against the wind, a sudden squall carried off sail and yard, or at least so disabled them that they were no longer of any use and unable to reach the ship; but the captain, from the deck, saw his hopes of venison disappointed, and was forced either to stay on board his ship, or to hoist forth his own long-boat, which he could not prevail with himself to think of, though the smell of the venison had had twenty times its attraction. he did, indeed, love his ship as his wife, and his boats as children, and never willingly trusted the latter, poor things! to the dangers of the seas. to say truth, notwithstanding the strict rigour with which he preserved the dignity of his station, and the hasty impatience with which he resented any affront to his person or orders, disobedience to which he could in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one of the best natured fellows alive. he acted the part of a father to his sailors; he expressed great tenderness for any of them when ill, and never suffered any the least work of supererogation to go unrewarded by a glass of gin. he even extended his humanity, if i may so call it, to animals, and even his cats and kittens had large shares in his affections. an instance of which we saw this evening, when the cat, which had shewn it could not be drowned, was found suffocated under a feather-bed in the cabin. i will not endeavour to describe his lamentations with more prolixity than barely by saying they were grievous, and seemed to have some mixture of the irish howl in them. nay, he carried his fondness even to inanimate objects, of which we have above set down a pregnant example in his demonstration of love and tenderness towards his boats and ship. he spoke of a ship which he had commanded formerly, and which was long since no more, which he had called the princess of brazil, as a widower of a deceased wife. this ship, after having followed the honest business of carrying goods and passengers for hire many years, did at last take to evil courses and turn privateer, in which service, to use his own words, she received many dreadful wounds, which he himself had felt as if they had been his own. _thursday._--as the wind did not yesterday discover any purpose of shifting, and the water in my belly grew troublesome and rendered me short-breathed, i began a second time to have apprehensions of wanting the assistance of a trochar when none was to be found; i therefore concluded to be tapped again by way of precaution, and accordingly i this morning summoned on board a surgeon from a neighbouring parish, one whom the captain greatly recommended, and who did indeed perform his office with much dexterity. he was, i believe, likewise a man of great judgment and knowledge in the profession; but of this i cannot speak with perfect certainty, for, when he was going to open on the dropsy at large and on the particular degree of the distemper under which i laboured, i was obliged to stop him short, for the wind was changed, and the captain in the utmost hurry to depart; and to desire him, instead of his opinion, to assist me with his execution. i was now once more delivered from my burthen, which was not indeed so great as i had apprehended, wanting two quarts of what was let out at the last operation. while the surgeon was drawing away my water the sailors were drawing up the anchor; both were finished at the same time; we unfurled our sails and soon passed the berry-head, which forms the mouth of the bay. we had not however sailed far when the wind, which had, though with a slow pace, kept us company about six miles, suddenly turned about, and offered to conduct us back again; a favour which, though sorely against the grain, we were obliged to accept. nothing remarkable happened this day; for as to the firm persuasion of the captain that he was under the spell of witchcraft, i would not repeat it too often, though indeed he repeated it an hundred times every day; in truth, he talked of nothing else, and seemed not only to be satisfied in general of his being bewitched, but actually to have fixed with good certainty on the person of the witch, whom, had he lived in the days of sir matthew hale, he would have infallibly indicted, and very possibly have hanged, for the detestable sin of witchcraft; but that law, and the whole doctrine that supported it, are now out of fashion; and witches, as a learned divine once chose to express himself, are put down by act of parliament. this witch, in the captain's opinion, was no other than mrs francis of ryde, who, as he insinuated, out of anger to me for not spending more money in her house than she could produce anything to exchange for, or any pretence to charge for, had laid this spell on his ship. though we were again got near our harbour by three in the afternoon, yet it seemed to require a full hour or more before we could come to our former place of anchoring, or berth, as the captain called it. on this occasion we exemplified one of the few advantages which the travellers by water have over the travellers by land. what would the latter often give for the sight of one of those hospitable mansions where he is assured _that there is good entertainment for man and horse_; and where both may consequently promise themselves to assuage that hunger which exercise is so sure to raise in a healthy constitution. at their arrival at this mansion, how much happier is the state of the horse than that of the master! the former is immediately led to his repast, such as it is, and, whatever it is, he falls to it with appetite. but the latter is in a much worse situation. his hunger, however violent, is always in some degree delicate, and his food must have some kind of ornament, or, as the more usual phrase is, of dressing, to recommend it. now all dressing requires time, and therefore, though perhaps the sheep might be just killed before you came to the inn, yet in cutting him up, fetching the joint, which the landlord by mistake said he had in the house, from the butcher at two miles' distance, and afterwards warming it a little by the fire, two hours at least must be consumed, while hunger, for want of better food, preys all the time on the vitals of the man. how different was the case with us! we carried our provision, our kitchen, and our cook with us, and we were at one and the same time travelling on our road, and sitting down to a repast of fish, with which the greatest table in london can scarce at any rate be supplied. _friday._--as we were disappointed of our wind, and obliged to return back the preceding evening, we resolved to extract all the good we could out of our misfortune, and to add considerably to our fresh stores of meat and bread, with which we were very indifferently provided when we hurried away yesterday. by the captain's advice we likewise laid in some stores of butter, which we salted and potted ourselves, for our use at lisbon, and we had great reason afterwards to thank him for his advice. in the afternoon i persuaded my wife, whom it was no easy matter for me to force from my side, to take a walk on shore, whither the gallant captain declared he was ready to attend her. accordingly the ladies set out, and left me to enjoy a sweet and comfortable nap after the operation of the preceding day. thus we enjoyed our separate pleasures full three hours, when we met again, and my wife gave the foregoing account of the gentleman whom i have before compared to axylus, and of his habitation, to both which she had been introduced by the captain, in the stile of an old friend and acquaintance, though this foundation of intimacy seemed to her to be no deeper laid than in an accidental dinner, eaten many years before, at this temple of hospitality, when the captain lay wind-bound in the same bay. _saturday._--early this morning the wind seemed inclined to change in our favour. our alert captain snatched its very first motion, and got under sail with so very gentle a breeze that, as the tide was against him, he recommended to a fishing hoy to bring after him a vast salmon and some other provisions which lay ready for him on shore. our anchor was up at six, and before nine in the morning we had doubled the berry-head, and were arrived off dartmouth, having gone full three miles in as many hours, in direct opposition to the tide, which only befriended us out of our harbour; and though the wind was perhaps our friend, it was so very silent, and exerted itself so little in our favour, that, like some cool partisans, it was difficult to say whether it was with us or against us. the captain, however, declared the former to be the case during the whole three hours; but at last he perceived his error, or rather, perhaps, this friend, which had hitherto wavered in chusing his side, became now more determined. the captain then suddenly tacked about, and, asserting that he was bewitched, submitted to return to the place from whence he came. now, though i am as free from superstition as any man breathing, and never did believe in witches, notwithstanding all the excellent arguments of my lord chief-justice hale in their favour, and long before they were put down by act of parliament, yet by what power a ship of burthen should sail three miles against both wind and tide, i cannot conceive, unless there was some supernatural interposition in the case; nay, could we admit that the wind stood neuter, the difficulty would still remain. so that we must of necessity conclude that the ship was either bewinded or bewitched. the captain, perhaps, had another meaning. he imagined himself, i believe, bewitched, because the wind, instead of persevering in its change in his favour, for change it certainly did that morning, should suddenly return to its favourite station, and blow him back towards the bay. but, if this was his opinion, he soon saw cause to alter; for he had not measured half the way back when the wind again declared in his favour, and so loudly, that there was no possibility of being mistaken. the orders for the second tack were given, and obeyed with much more alacrity than those had been for the first. we were all of us indeed in high spirits on the occasion; though some of us a little regretted the good things we were likely to leave behind us by the fisherman's neglect; i might give it a worse name, for he faithfully promised to execute the commission, which he had had abundant opportunity to do; but _nautica fides_ deserves as much to be proverbial as ever _punica fides_ could formerly have done. nay, when we consider that the carthaginians came from the phenicians, who are supposed to have produced the first mariners, we may probably see the true reason of the adage, and it may open a field of very curious discoveries to the antiquarian. we were, however, too eager to pursue our voyage to suffer anything we left behind us to interrupt our happiness, which, indeed, many agreeable circumstances conspired to advance. the weather was inexpressibly pleasant, and we were all seated on the deck, when our canvas began to swell with the wind. we had likewise in our view above thirty other sail around us, all in the same situation. here an observation occurred to me, which, perhaps, though extremely obvious, did not offer itself to every individual in our little fleet: when i perceived with what different success we proceeded under the influence of a superior power, which, while we lay almost idle ourselves, pushed us forward on our intended voyage, and compared this with the slow progress which we had made in the morning, of ourselves, and without any such assistance, i could not help reflecting how often the greatest abilities lie wind-bound as it were in life; or, if they venture out and attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and tide, and, if they have not sufficient prudence to put back, are most probably cast away on the rocks and quicksands which are every day ready to devour them. it was now our fortune to set out _melioribus avibus_. the wind freshened so briskly in our poop that the shore appeared to move from us as fast as we did from the shore. the captain declared he was sure of a wind, meaning its continuance; but he had disappointed us so often that he had lost all credit. however, he kept his word a little better now, and we lost sight of our native land as joyfully, at least, as it is usual to regain it. _sunday._--the next morning the captain told me he thought himself thirty miles to the westward of plymouth, and before evening declared that the lizard point, which is the extremity of cornwall, bore several leagues to leeward. nothing remarkable passed this day, except the captain's devotion, who, in his own phrase, summoned all hands to prayers, which were read by a common sailor upon deck, with more devout force and address than they are commonly read by a country curate, and received with more decency and attention by the sailors than are usually preserved in city congregations. i am indeed assured, that if any such affected disregard of the solemn office in which they were engaged, as i have seen practised by fine gentlemen and ladies, expressing a kind of apprehension lest they should be suspected of being really in earnest in their devotion, had been shewn here, they would have contracted the contempt of the whole audience. to say the truth, from what i observed in the behaviour of the sailors in this voyage, and on comparing it with what i have formerly seen of them at sea and on shore, i am convinced that on land there is nothing more idle and dissolute; in their own element there are no persons near the level of their degree who live in the constant practice of half so many good qualities. they are, for much the greater part, perfect masters of their business, and always extremely alert, and ready in executing it, without any regard to fatigue or hazard. the soldiers themselves are not better disciplined nor more obedient to orders than these whilst aboard; they submit to every difficulty which attends their calling with chearfulness, and no less virtues and patience and fortitude are exercised by them every day of their lives. all these good qualities, however, they always leave behind them on shipboard; the sailor out of water is, indeed, as wretched an animal as the fish out of water; for though the former hath, in common with amphibious animals, the bare power of existing on the land, yet if he be kept there any time he never fails to become a nuisance. the ship having had a good deal of motion since she was last under sail, our women returned to their sickness, and i to my solitude; having, for twenty-four hours together, scarce opened my lips to a single person. this circumstance of being shut up within the circumference of a few yards, with a score of human creatures, with not one of whom it was possible to converse, was perhaps so rare as scarce ever to have happened before, nor could it ever happen to one who disliked it more than myself, or to myself at a season when i wanted more food for my social disposition, or could converse less wholesomely and happily with my own thoughts. to this accident, which fortune opened to me in the downs, was owing the first serious thought which i ever entertained of enrolling myself among the voyage-writers; some of the most amusing pages, if, indeed, there be any which deserve that name, were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever haunted the author. _monday._--at noon the captain took an observation, by which it appeared that ushant bore some leagues northward of us, and that we were just entering the bay of biscay. we had advanced a very few miles in this bay before we were entirely becalmed: we furled our sails, as being of no use to us while we lay in this most disagreeable situation, more detested by the sailors than the most violent tempest: we were alarmed with the loss of a fine piece of salt beef, which had been hung in the sea to freshen it; this being, it seems, the strange property of salt-water. the thief was immediately suspected, and presently afterwards taken by the sailors. he was, indeed, no other than a huge shark, who, not knowing when he was well off, swallowed another piece of beef, together with a great iron crook on which it was hung, and by which he was dragged into the ship. i should scarce have mentioned the catching this shark, though so exactly conformable to the rules and practice of voyage-writing, had it not been for a strange circumstance that attended it. this was the recovery of the stolen beef out of the shark's maw, where it lay unchewed and undigested, and whence, being conveyed into the pot, the flesh, and the thief that had stolen it, joined together in furnishing variety to the ship's crew. during this calm we likewise found the mast of a large vessel, which the captain thought had lain at least three years in the sea. it was stuck all over with a little shell-fish or reptile, called a barnacle, and which probably are the prey of the rock-fish, as our captain calls it, asserting that it is the finest fish in the world; for which we are obliged to confide entirely to his taste; for, though he struck the fish with a kind of harping-iron, and wounded him, i am convinced, to death, yet he could not possess himself of his body; but the poor wretch escaped to linger out a few hours with probably great torments. in the evening our wind returned, and so briskly, that we ran upwards of twenty leagues before the next day's [_tuesday's_] observation, which brought us to lat. 47â° 42â´. the captain promised us a very speedy passage through the bay; but he deceived us, or the wind deceived him, for it so slackened at sunset, that it scarce carried us a mile in an hour during the whole succeeding night. _wednesday._--a gale struck up a little after sun-rising, which carried us between three and four knots or miles an hour. we were this day at noon about the middle of the bay of biscay, when the wind once more deserted us, and we were so entirely becalmed, that we did not advance a mile in many hours. my fresh-water reader will perhaps conceive no unpleasant idea from this calm; but it affected us much more than a storm could have done; for, as the irascible passions of men are apt to swell with indignation long after the injury which first raised them is over, so fared it with the sea. it rose mountains high, and lifted our poor ship up and down, backwards and forwards, with so violent an emotion, that there was scarce a man in the ship better able to stand than myself. every utensil in our cabin rolled up and down, as we should have rolled ourselves, had not our chairs been fast lashed to the floor. in this situation, with our tables likewise fastened by ropes, the captain and myself took our meal with some difficulty, and swallowed a little of our broth, for we spilt much the greater part. the remainder of our dinner being an old, lean, tame duck roasted, i regretted but little the loss of, my teeth not being good enough to have chewed it. our women, who began to creep out of their holes in the morning, retired again within the cabin to their beds, and were no more heard of this day, in which my whole comfort was to find by the captain's relation that the swelling was sometimes much worse; he did, indeed, take this occasion to be more communicative than ever, and informed me of such misadventures that had befallen him within forty-six years at sea as might frighten a very bold spirit from undertaking even the shortest voyage. were these, indeed, but universally known, our matrons of quality would possibly be deterred from venturing their tender offspring at sea; by which means our navy would lose the honour of many a young commodore, who at twenty-two is better versed in maritime affairs than real seamen are made by experience at sixty. and this may, perhaps, appear the more extraordinary, as the education of both seems to be pretty much the same; neither of them having had their courage tried by virgil's description of a storm, in which, inspired as he was, i doubt whether our captain doth not exceed him. in the evening the wind, which continued in the n.w., again freshened, and that so briskly that cape finisterre appeared by this day's observation to bear a few miles to the southward. we now indeed sailed, or rather flew, near ten knots an hour; and the captain, in the redundancy of his good-humour, declared he would go to church at lisbon on sunday next, for that he was sure of a wind; and, indeed, we all firmly believed him. but the event again contradicted him; for we were again visited by a calm in the evening. but here, though our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with a scene, which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one can form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. we were seated on the deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. not a single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the only object which engrossed our whole attention. he did indeed set with a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, while the horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to the opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered to our vision. compared to these the pageantry of theatres, or splendour of courts, are sights almost below the regard of children. we did not return from the deck till late in the evening; the weather being inexpressibly pleasant, and so warm that even my old distemper perceived the alteration of the climate. there was indeed a swell, but nothing comparable to what we had felt before, and it affected us on the deck much less than in the cabin. _friday._--the calm continued till sun-rising, when the wind likewise arose, but unluckily for us it came from a wrong quarter; it was s.s.e., which is that very wind which juno would have solicited of ã�olus, had ã�neas been in our latitude bound for lisbon. the captain now put on his most melancholy aspect, and resumed his former opinion that he was bewitched. he declared with great solemnity that this was worse and worse, for that a wind directly in his teeth was worse than no wind at all. had we pursued the course which the wind persuaded us to take we had gone directly for newfoundland, if we had not fallen in with ireland in our way. two ways remained to avoid this; one was to put into a port of galicia; the other, to beat to the westward with as little sail as possible: and this was our captain's election. as for us, poor passengers, any port would have been welcome to us; especially, as not only our fresh provisions, except a great number of old ducks and fowls, but even our bread was come to an end, and nothing but sea-biscuit remained, which i could not chew. so that now for the first time in my life i saw what it was to want a bit of bread. the wind however was not so unkind as we had apprehended; but, having declined with the sun, it changed at the approach of the moon, and became again favourable to us, though so gentle that the next day's observation carried us very little to the southward of cape finisterre. this evening at six the wind, which had been very quiet all day, rose very high, and continuing in our favour drove us seven knots an hour. this day we saw a sail, the only one, as i heard of, we had seen in our whole passage through the bay. i mention this on account of what appeared to me somewhat extraordinary. though she was at such a distance that i could only perceive she was a ship, the sailors discovered that she was a snow, bound to a port in galicia. _sunday._--after prayers, which our good captain read on the deck with an audible voice, and with but one mistake, of a lion for elias, in the second lesson for this day, we found ourselves far advanced in 42â°, and the captain declared we should sup off porte. we had not much wind this day; but, as this was directly in our favour, we made it up with sail, of which we crowded all we had. we went only at the rate of four miles an hour, but with so uneasy a motion, continually rolling from side to side, that i suffered more than i had done in our whole voyage; my bowels being almost twisted out of my belly. however, the day was very serene and bright, and the captain, who was in high spirits, affirmed he had never passed a pleasanter at sea. the wind continued so brisk that we ran upward of six knots an hour the whole night. _monday._--in the morning our captain concluded that he was got into lat. 40â°, and was very little short of the burlings, as they are called in the charts. we came up with them at five in the afternoon, being the first land we had distinctly seen since we left devonshire. they consist of abundance of little rocky islands, a little distant from the shore, three of them only shewing themselves above the water. here the portuguese maintain a kind of garrison, if we may allow it that name. it consists of malefactors, who are banished hither for a term, for divers small offences--a policy which they may have copied from the egyptians, as we may read in diodorus siculus. that wise people, to prevent the corruption of good manners by evil communication, built a town on the red sea, whither they transported a great number of their criminals, having first set an indelible mark on them, to prevent their returning and mixing with the sober part of their citizens. these rocks lie about fifteen leagues north-west of cape roxent, or, as it is commonly called, the rock of lisbon, which we past early the next morning. the wind, indeed, would have carried us thither sooner; but the captain was not in a hurry, as he was to lose nothing by his delay. _tuesday._--this is a very high mountain, situated on the northern side of the mouth of the river tajo, which, rising about madrid, in spain, and soon becoming navigable for small craft, empties itself, after a long course, into the sea, about four leagues below lisbon. on the summit of the rock stands a hermitage, which is now in the possession of an englishman, who was formerly master of a vessel trading to lisbon; and, having changed his religion and his manners, the latter of which, at least, were none of the best, betook himself to this place, in order to do penance for his sins. he is now very old, and hath inhabited this hermitage for a great number of years, during which he hath received some countenance from the royal family, and particularly from the present queen dowager, whose piety refuses no trouble or expence by which she may make a proselyte, being used to say that the saving one soul would repay all the endeavours of her life. here we waited for the tide, and had the pleasure of surveying the face of the country, the soil of which, at this season, exactly resembles an old brick-kill, or a field where the green sward is pared up and set a burning, or rather a smoaking, in little heaps to manure the land. this sight will, perhaps, of all others, make an englishman proud of, and pleased with, his own country, which in verdure excels, i believe, every other country. another deficiency here is the want of large trees, nothing above a shrub being here to be discovered in the circumference of many miles. at this place we took a pilot on board, who, being the first portuguese we spoke to, gave us an instance of that religious observance which is paid by all nations to their laws; for, whereas it is here a capital offence to assist any person in going on shore from a foreign vessel before it hath been examined, and every person in it viewed by the magistrates of health, as they are called, this worthy pilot, for a very small reward, rowed the portuguese priest to shore at this place, beyond which he did not dare to advance, and in venturing whither he had given sufficient testimony of love for his native country. we did not enter the tajo till noon, when, after passing several old castles and other buildings which had greatly the aspect of ruins, we came to the castle of bellisle, where we had a full prospect of lisbon, and were, indeed, within three miles of it. here we were saluted with a gun, which was a signal to pass no farther till we had complied with certain ceremonies which the laws of this country require to be observed by all ships which arrive in this port. we were obliged then to cast anchor, and expect the arrival of the officers of the customs, without whose passport no ship must proceed farther than this place. here likewise we received a visit from one of those magistrates of health before mentioned. he refused to come on board the ship till every person in her had been drawn up on deck and personally viewed by him. this occasioned some delay on my part, as it was not the work of a minute to lift me from the cabin to the deck. the captain thought my particular case might have been excused from this ceremony, and that it would be abundantly sufficient if the magistrate, who was obliged afterwards to visit the cabin, surveyed me there. but this did not satisfy the magistrate's strict regard to his duty. when he was told of my lameness, he called out, with a voice of authority, "let him be brought up," and his orders were presently complied with. he was, indeed, a person of great dignity, as well as of the most exact fidelity in the discharge of his trust. both which are the more admirable as his salary is less than thirty pounds english per annum. before a ship hath been visited by one of those magistrates no person can lawfully go on board her, nor can any on board depart from her. this i saw exemplified in a remarkable instance. the young lad whom i have mentioned as one of our passengers was here met by his father, who, on the first news of the captain's arrival, came from lisbon to bellisle in a boat, being eager to embrace a son whom he had not seen for many years. but when he came alongside our ship neither did the father dare ascend nor the son descend, as the magistrate of health had not yet been on board. some of our readers will, perhaps, admire the great caution of this policy, so nicely calculated for the preservation of this country from all pestilential distempers. others will as probably regard it as too exact and formal to be constantly persisted in, in seasons of the utmost safety, as well as in times of danger. i will not decide either way, but will content myself with observing that i never yet saw or heard of a place where a traveller had so much trouble given him at his landing as here. the only use of which, as all such matters begin and end in form only, is to put it into the power of low and mean fellows to be either rudely officious or grossly corrupt, as they shall see occasion to prefer the gratification of their pride or of their avarice. of this kind, likewise, is that power which is lodged with other officers here, of taking away every grain of snuff and every leaf of tobacco brought hither from other countries, though only for the temporary use of the person during his residence here. this is executed with great insolence, and, as it is in the hands of the dregs of the people, very scandalously; for, under pretence of searching for tobacco and snuff, they are sure to steal whatever they can find, insomuch that when they came on board our sailors addressed us in the covent-garden language: "pray, gentlemen and ladies, take care of your swords and watches." indeed, i never yet saw anything equal to the contempt and hatred which our honest tars every moment expressed for these portuguese officers. at bellisle lies buried catharine of arragon, widow of prince arthur, eldest son of our henry vii., afterwards married to, and divorced from, henry viii. close by the church where her remains are deposited is a large convent of geronymites, one of the most beautiful piles of building in all portugal. in the evening, at twelve, our ship, having received previous visits from all the necessary parties, took the advantage of the tide, and having sailed up to lisbon cast anchor there, in a calm and moonshiny night, which made the passage incredibly pleasant to the women, who remained three hours enjoying it, whilst i was left to the cooler transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooler as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation is, at the same time, void of all ideas of friendship. _wednesday._--lisbon, before which we now lay at anchor, is said to be built on the same number of hills with old rome; but these do not all appear to the water; on the contrary, one sees from thence one vast high hill and rock, with buildings arising above one another, and that in so steep and almost perpendicular a manner, that they all seem to have but one foundation. as the houses, convents, churches, &c., are large, and all built with white stone, they look very beautiful at a distance; but as you approach nearer, and find them to want every kind of ornament, all idea of beauty vanishes at once. while i was surveying the prospect of this city, which bears so little resemblance to any other that i have ever seen, a reflexion occurred to me that, if a man was suddenly to be removed from palmyra hither, and should take a view of no other city, in how glorious a light would the antient architecture appear to him! and what desolation and destruction of arts and sciences would he conclude had happened between the several ã¦ras of these cities! i had now waited full three hours upon deck for the return of my man, whom i had sent to bespeak a good dinner (a thing which had been long unknown to me) on shore, and then to bring a lisbon chaise with him to the sea-shore; but it seems the impertinence of the providore was not yet brought to a conclusion. at three o'clock, when i was, from emptiness, rather faint than hungry, my man returned, and told me there was a new law lately made that no passenger should set his foot on shore without a special order from the providore, and that he himself would have been sent to prison for disobeying it, had he not been protected as the servant of the captain. he informed me likewise that the captain had been very industrious to get this order, but that it was then the providore's hour of sleep, a time when no man, except the king himself, durst disturb him. to avoid prolixity, though in a part of my narrative which may be more agreeable to my reader than it was to me, the providore, having at last finished his nap, dispatched this absurd matter of form, and gave me leave to come, or rather to be carried, on shore. what it was that gave the first hint of this strange law is not easy to guess. possibly, in the infancy of their defection, and before their government could be well established, they were willing to guard against the bare possibility of surprise, of the success of which bare possibility the trojan horse will remain for ever on record, as a great and memorable example. now the portuguese have no walls to secure them, and a vessel of two or three hundred tons will contain a much larger body of troops than could be concealed in that famous machine, though virgil tells us (somewhat hyperbolically, i believe) that it was as big as a mountain. about seven in the evening i got into a chaise on shore, and was driven through the nastiest city in the world, though at the same time one of the most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hath a very fine prospect of the river tajo from lisbon to the sea. here we regaled ourselves with a good supper, for which we were as well charged as if the bill had been made on the bath-road, between newbury and london. and now we could joyfully say, egressi optata troes potiuntur arena. therefore, in the words of horace, --hic finis chartã¦que viã¦que. end of vol. i. ballantyne press: edinburgh and london * * * * * footnotes: [a] some doubt whether this should not be rather 1641, which is a date more agreeable to the account given of it in the introduction: but then there are some passages which seem to relate to transactions infinitely later, even within this year or two. to say the truth there are difficulties attending either conjecture; so the reader may take which he pleases [b] eyes are not perhaps so properly adapted to a spiritual substance; but we are here, as in many other places, obliged to use corporeal terms to make ourselves the better understood. [c] this is the dress in which the god appears to mortals at the theatres. one of the offices attributed to this god by the ancients, was to collect the ghosts as a shepherd doth a flock of sheep, and drive them with his wand into the other world. [d] those who have read of the gods sleeping in homer will not be surprized at this happening to spirits. [e] a particular lady of quality is meant here; but every lady of quality, or no quality, are welcome to apply the character to themselves. [f] we have before made an apology for this language, which we here repeat for the last time; though the heart may, we hope, be metaphorically used here with more propriety than when we apply those passions to the body which belong to the soul. [g] that we may mention it once for all, in the panegyrical part of this work some particular person is always meant: but, in the satirical, nobody. [h] these ladies, i believe, by their names, presided over the _leprosy_, _king's-evil_, and _scurvy_. [i] this silly story is told as a solemn truth (_i.e._, that st james really appeared in the manner this fellow is described) by mariana, i. 7, â§78. [j] here part of the manuscript is lost, and that a very considerable one, as appears by the number of the next book and chapter, which contains, i find, the history of anna boleyn; but as to the manner in which it was introduced, or to whom the narrative is told, we are totally left in the dark. i have only to remark, that this chapter is, in the original, writ in a woman's hand: and, though the observations in it are, i think, as excellent as any in the whole volume, there seems to be a difference in style between this and the preceding chapters; and, as it is the character of a woman which is related, i am inclined to fancy it was really written by one of that sex. [k] here ends this curious manuscript; the rest being destroyed in rolling up pens, tobacco, &c. it is to be hoped heedless people will henceforth be more cautious what they burn, or use to other vile purposes; especially when they consider the fate which had likely to have befallen the divine milton, and that the works of homer were probably discovered in some chandler's shop in greece. [l] at lisbon. [m] a predecessor of mine used to boast that he made one thousand pounds a-year in his office; but how he did this (if indeed he did it) is to me a secret. his clerk, now mine, told me i had more business than he had ever known there; i am sure i had as much as any man could do. the truth is, the fees are so very low, when any are due, and so much is done for nothing, that, if a single justice of peace had business enough to employ twenty clerks, neither he nor they would get much by their labour. the public will not, therefore, i hope, think i betray a secret when i inform them that i received from the government a yearly pension out of the public service-money; which, i believe, indeed, would have been larger had my great patron been convinced of an error, which i have heard him utter more than once, that he could not indeed say that the acting as a principal justice of peace in westminster was on all accounts very desirable, but that all the world knew it was a very lucrative office. now, to have shewn him plainly that a man must be a rogue to make a very little this way, and that he could not make much by being as great a rogue as he could be, would have required more confidence than, i believe, he had in me, and more of his conversation than he chose to allow me; i therefore resigned the office and the farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my assistant. and now, lest the case between me and the reader should be the same in both instances as it was between me and the great man, i will not add another word on the subject. henry fielding _a memoir_ including newly discovered letters and records with illustrations from contemporary prints by g. m. godden "i am a man myself, and my heart is interested in whatever can befall the rest of mankind." joseph andrews. preface new material alone could justify any attempt to supplement the _fielding_ of mr austin dobson. such material has now come to light, and together with reliable facts collected by previous biographers, forms the subject matter of the present volume. as these pages are concerned with fielding the man, and not only with fielding the most original if not the greatest of english novelists, literary criticism has been avoided; but all incidents, disclosed by hitherto unpublished documents, or found hidden in the columns of contemporary newspapers, which add to our knowledge of fielding's personality, have been given. the new material includes records of fielding's childhood; documents concerning his estate in dorsetshire; the date and place, hitherto undiscovered, of that central event in his life, the death of his beloved wife, whose memorial was to be the imperishable figure of "sophia western"; letters, now first published, adding to our knowledge of his energies in social and legislative reform, and of the circumstances of his life; many extracts from the columns of the daily press of the period; notices, hitherto overlooked, from his contemporaries; and details from the unexplored archives of the middlesex records concerning his strenuous work as a london magistrate. the few letters by fielding already known to exist have been doubled in number; and a reason for the extraordinary rarity of these letters has been found in the unfortunate destruction, many years ago, of much of his correspondence. the charm of the one intimate letter that we possess from the pen of the 'father of the english novel,' that written to his brother john, during the voyage to lisbon, enhances regret at the loss of these letters. among the contemporary prints now first reproduced that entitled the _conjurors_ is of special interest, as being the only sketch of fielding, drawn during his lifetime, known to exist. rough as it is, the characteristic figure of the man, as described by his contemporaries and drawn from memory in hogarth's familiar plate, is perfectly apparent. the same characteristics may be distinguished in a small figure of the novelist introduced into the still earlier political cartoon, entitled the _funeral of faction_. such in brief are the reasons for the existence of this volume. it remains to express my warmest acknowledgment of mr austin dobson's unfailing counsel and assistance. my thanks are also due to mr ernest fielding for permission to reproduce the miniature which appears as the frontispiece; to mr aubrey court, of the house of lords; to mr e. s. w. hart, for his help throughout the necessary researches among the middlesex records; to mrs deane of gillingham; and to mr frederick shum of bath. and i am indebted to mr sidney colvin, keeper of the department of prints and drawings in the british museum, in regard to almost every one of the thirty-two rare prints and cartoons now reproduced. g. m. godden. _october_ 26, 1909. contents chapter i youth chapter ii play-house bard chapter iii marriage chapter iv political plays chapter v homespun drama chapter vi bar student--journalist chapter vii counsellor fielding chapter viii _joseph andrews_ chapter ix the _miscellanies_ and _jonathan wild_ chapter x patriotic journalism chapter xi _tom jones_ chapter xii mr justice fielding chapter xiii fielding and legislation chapter xiv _amelia_ chapter xv journalist and magistrate chapter xvi poor law reform chapter xvii voyage to lisbon--death list of illustrations _from photographs by marie léon_. henry fielding _from a miniature now in the possession of mr ernest fielding._ sharpham house, showing the room in which fielding was born _from a print published in 1826_. sir henry gould _from a mezzotint by j. hardy_. eton--1742 _from an engraving of a drawing by cozens_. anne oldfield _from a mezzotint of a painting by j. richardson_. leyden--1727 _from an engraving of a drawing by c. pronk_. kitty clive as philida _from a mezzotint of a painting by veter van bleeck, junr. 1735._ frontispiece to fielding's "tom thumb" _by hogarth_. the close, salisbury--1798 _from an acquatint of a drawing by e. dayes_. charlcombe church, near bath _from an engraving of a drawing made in 1784_. fielding's house, east stour, dorsetshire _from a print published in hutchins' "history of dorsetshire," 1813_. sir robert walpole--1740 _from a contemporary cartoon_. "pasquin" _from a cartoon depicting a scene in "pasquin" in which harlequinades, etc., triumph aver legitimate drama. pope is leaving a box. the signature "w. hogarth" is doubtful_. cartoon celebrating the success of "pasquin" _from a contemporary cartoon showing fielding, supported by shakespeare, receiving an ample reward, while to harlequin and his other opponents is accorded a halter_. the little theatre in the haymarket _from an engraving by dale, showing the demolition of the little theatre in 1821_. the green room, drury lane _from the painting by hogarth, in the possession of sir edward tennant_. the temple--1738 _from an engraving of a drawing by j. nicholas_. henry fielding holding the banner of the "champion" newspaper _from a contemporary cartoon showing sir robert walpole laughing at the "funeral" of an opposition motion in parliament_. cartoon showing fielding, in wig and gown, as a supporter of the opposition _from a print of 1741_. henry fielding reading at the bedford arms _from the frontispiece to sir john fielding's "jests."_ assignment for "joseph andrews" _from the autograph now in the south kensington museum_. beaufort buildings, strand, in 1725 _from a watercolour drawing by paul sandby, 1725_. prior park, near bath, the seat of ralph allen, 1750 _from an engraving of a contemporary drawing_. george, first baron lyttelton _from a portrait by an unknown artist_. theatre ticket for fielding's "mock doctor" _the signature "w. hogarth" is doubtful_. lady mary wortley montagu--1710 _from an engraving by caroline watson, from a miniature in the possession of the marquis of bute_. the bow street police court, sir john fielding presiding _from the "newgate calendar"_, 1795. edward moore _from a frontispiece in chalmers' "british essayists"_ 1817. sir john fielding _from a mezzotint of a painting by nathaniel hone, r.a._ ralph allen _from a chalk drawing by w. hoare, r.a._ henry fielding _from an engraving of a pen and ink sketch, made by hogarth after fielding's death_. henry fielding, defending betty canning from her accusers, the lord mayor, dr hill, and the gipsy _from a contemporary print, now first reproduced, and the only known sketch of fielding made during his lifetime_. justice saunders welch _from an engraving of a sketch by hogarth_. ryde--1795 _from an engraving of a drawing by charles tomkins_. lisbon--1793 _from a mezzotint of a drawing by noel_. the design on the cover is a copy, slightly enlarged, of an impression of fielding's seal, attached to an autograph letter in the british museum. henry fielding chapter i youth "i shall always be so great a pedant as to call a man of no learning a man of no education."--_amelia_. henry fielding was born at sharpham park, near glastonbury, on the 22nd of april 1707. his birth-room, a room known as the harlequin chamber, looked out over the roof of a building which once was the private chapel of the abbots of glastonbury; for sharpham park possessed no mean history. built in the sixteenth century by that distinguished prelate, scholar, and courtier abbot richard beere, the house had boasted its chapel, hall, parlour, chambers, storehouses and offices; its fishponds and orchards; and a park in which might be kept some four hundred head of deer. it was in this fair demesne that the aged, pious, and benevolent abbot whiting, abbot richard's successor, was seized by the king's commissioners, and summarily hung, drawn, and quartered on the top of the neighbouring tor hill. sharpham thereupon "devolved" upon the crown; but the old house remained, standing in peaceful seclusion where the pleasant slope of polden hill overlooks the somersetshire moors, till the birth of the 'father of the english novel' brought a lasting distinction to the domestic buildings of abbot beere. in the accompanying print, published in 1826, the little window of the harlequin chamber may be seen, above the low roofs of the abbots' chapel. that henry fielding should have been born among buildings raised by benedictine hands is not incongruous; for no man ever more heartily preached and practised the virtue of open-handed charity; none was more ready to scourge the vices of arrogance, cruelty and avarice; no english novelist has left us brighter pictures of innocence and goodness. and it was surely a happy stroke of that capricious fortune to whom fielding so often refers, to allot a harlequin chamber for the birth of the author of nineteen comedies; and yet more appropriate to the robust genius of the comic epic was the accident that placed on the wall, beneath the window of his birth-room, a jovial jest in stone. for here some sixteenth-century humorist had displayed the arms of abbot beere in the form of a convivial rebus or riddle--to wit, a cross and two beer flagons. soon after the civil wars, sharpham passed into the hands of the 'respectable family' of gould. by the goulds the house was considerably enlarged; and, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was in the possession of a distinguished member of the family, sir henry gould, knight, and judge of the king's bench. sir henry had but two children, a son davidge gould, and a daughter sarah. this only daughter married a well-born young soldier, the hon. edmund fielding; a marriage which, according to family assertions, was without the consent of her parents and "contrary to their good likeing." [1] and it was in the old home of the somersetshire goulds that the eldest son of this marriage, henry fielding, was born. thus on the side of his mother, sarah gould, fielding belonged to just that class of well-established country squires whom later he was to immortalise in the beautiful and benevolent figure of squire allworthy, and in the boisterous, brutal, honest western. and the description of squire allworthy's "venerable" house, with its air of grandeur "that struck you with awe," its position on the sheltered slope of a hill enjoying "a most charming prospect of the valley beneath," its surroundings of a wild and beautiful park, well-watered meadows fed with sheep, the ivy-grown ruins of an old abbey, and far-off hills and sea, preserves, doubtless, the features of the ancient and stately domain owned by the novelist's grandfather. if it was to the 'respectable' goulds that fielding owed many of his rural and administrative characteristics, such as that practical zeal and ability which made him so excellent a magistrate, it is in the family of his father that we find indications of those especial qualities of vigour, of courage, of the generous and tolerant outlook of the well-born man of the world, that characterise henry fielding. and it is also in these fielding ancestors that something of the reputed wildness of their brilliant kinsman may be detected. for in her wilful choice of edmund fielding for a husband, sir henry gould's only daughter brought, assuredly, a disturbing element into the quiet somersetshire home. the young man was of distinguished birth, even if he was not, as once asserted, of the blood royal of the hapsburgs. [2] his ancestor, sir john fielding, had received a knighthood for bravery in the french wars of the fourteenth century. a sir everard fielding led a lancastrian army during the wars of the roses. sir william, created earl of denbigh, fell fighting for the king in the civil wars, where, says clarendon, "he engaged with singular courage in all enterprises of danger"; a phrase which recalls the description of henry fielding "that difficulties only roused him to struggle through them with a peculiar spirit and magnanimity." lord denbigh fell, covered with wounds, when fighting as a volunteer in prince rupert's troop; while his eldest son, basil, then a mere youth, fought as hotly for the parliament. lord denbigh's second son, who like his father was a devoted loyalist, received a peerage, being created earl of desmond; and two of his sons figure in a wild and tragic story preserved by pepys. "in our street," says the diarist, writing in 1667, "at the three tuns tavern i find a great hubbub; and what was it but two brothers had fallen out and one killed the other. and who s'd. they be but the two fieldings; one whereof, bazill, was page to my lady sandwich; and he hath killed the other, himself being very drunk, and so is sent to newgate." it was a brother of these unhappy youths, john fielding, a royal chaplain and canon of salisbury, who by his marriage with a somersetshire lady, became father of edmund fielding. such was henry fielding's ancestry, and it cannot be too much insisted on that, throughout all the vicissitudes of his life, he was ever a man of breeding, no less than a man of wit. "his manners were so gentlemanly," said his friend mrs hussey, "that even with the lower classes with which he frequently condescended to chat, such as sir roger de coverley's old friends, the vauxhall watermen, they seldom outstepped the limits of propriety." and a similar recognition comes from the hand of a great, and not too friendly, critic. to "the very last days of his life," wrote thackeray, "he retained a grandeur of air, and although worn down by disease his aspect and presence imposed respect on the people around him." this denbigh ancestry recalls a pleasant example of fielding's wit, preserved in a story told by his son, and recorded in the pages of that voluminous eighteenth-century anecdotist, john nichols. "henry fielding," says nichols, "being once in company with the earl of denbigh, and the conversation's turning on fielding's being of the denbigh family, the earl asked the reason why they spelt their names differently; the earl's family doing it with the e first (feilding), and mr henry fielding with the i first (fielding). 'i cannot tell, my lord,' answered harry, 'except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell.'" in accordance with the fighting traditions of his race, edmund fielding went into the army; his name appearing as an ensign in the 1st foot guards. also, as became a fielding, he distinguished himself, we are told, in the "wars against france with much bravery and reputation"; and it was probably owing to active service abroad that the birth of his eldest son took place in his wife's old somersetshire home. the date fits in well enough with the campaigns of ramilies, oudennarde and malplaquet. soon after henry's birth, however, his father had doubtless left the low countries, for, about 1709, he appears as purchasing the colonelcy of an irish regiment. this regiment was ordered, in 1710, to spain; but before that year the colonel and his wife and son had a separate home provided for them, by the care of sir henry gould. at what precise date is uncertain, but some time before 1710, sir henry had purchased an estate at east stour in dorsetshire, consisting of farms and lands of the value of £4750, intending to settle some or the whole of the same on his daughter and her children. and already, according to a statement by the colonel, the old judge had placed his son-in-law in possession of some or all of this purchase, sending him oxen to plough his ground, and promising him a "dairye of cows." sir henry moreover had, said his son-in-law, declared his intention "to spend the vacant remainder of his life," sometimes with his daughter, her husband, and children at stour, and sometimes with his son davidge, presumably at sharpham. but in march, 1710, sir henry's death frustrated his planned retirement in the vale of stour; although three years later, in 1713, his intentions regarding a dorsetshire home for his daughter were carried out by the conveyance to her [3] and her children of the stour estate, for her sole enjoyment. the legal documents are careful to recite that the rents and profits should be paid to mrs fielding or her children, and her receipt given, and that the said edmund "should have nothing to do nor intermeddle therewith." in this settlement of the east stour farms, to the greater part of which henry fielding, then six years old, would be joint heir with his sisters, colonel fielding himself seems to have had to pay no less than £1750, receiving therefor "a portion of the said lands." so by 1713 both edmund fielding and his wife were settled, as no inconsiderable landowners, among the pleasant meadows of stour; and there for the next five years henry's early childhood was passed. indeed, mrs fielding must have been at stour when her eldest son was but three years old, for the baptism of a daughter, sarah, appears in the stour registers in november 1710. this entry is followed by the baptism of anne in 1713, of beatrice in 1714, of edmund in 1716, and by the death of anne in the last-named year, henry being then nine years old. according to arthur murphy, fielding's earliest and too often inaccurate biographer, the boy received "the first rudiments of his education at home, under the care of the revd. mr oliver." mr oliver was the curate of motcombe, a neighbouring village; and we have the authority of murphy and of hutchins, the historian of dorset, for finding 'a very humorous and striking portrait' of this pedagogue in the rev. mr trulliber, the pig-breeding parson of _joseph andrews_. if this be so, harry fielding's first tutor at stour was of a figure eminently calculated to foster the comic genius of his pupil. "he" (trulliber), wrote that pupil, some thirty years later, "was indeed one of the largest men you should see, and could have acted the part of sir _john falstaff_ without stuffing. add to this, that the rotundity of his belly was considerably increased by the shortness of his stature, his shadow ascending very near as far in height when he lay on his back, as when he stood on his legs. his voice was loud and hoarse, and his accents extremely broad; to complete the whole he had a stateliness in his gait when he walked, not unlike that of a goose, only he stalked slower." it appears that the widow of the motcombe curate denied the alleged portrait; but the house where mr oliver lived, "seemed to accord with fielding's description ... and an old woman who remembered him observed that 'he dearly loved a bit of good victuals, and a drop of drink.'" bearing in mind the great novelist's own earnest declaration that he painted "not men but manners," we may fairly assume that his dorsetshire tutor belonged to that class of coarse farmer-parson so justly satirised in the person of trulliber. according to another sketch of fielding's life, his early education was also directed by the rector of stour provost, "his parson adams." [4] while harry fielding was thus learning his first rudiments, his father, the colonel, seems to have been engaged in less useful pursuits in london. the nature of these pursuits appears from a _bill of complaint_, which by a happy chance has been preserved, between "edmund fielding of east stour, dorsetshire," and one robert midford, pretending to be a captain of the army. in this _bill_ [5] the said edmund declares that in 1716, being then resident in london, he often frequented princes coffee-house in the parish of st james. at princes he found his company sought by the reputed captain robert midford, who "prevailed upon him to play a game called 'faro' for a small matter of diversion, but by degrees drew him on to play for larger sums, and by secret and fraudulent means obtained very large sums, in particular notes and bonds for £500." further, the colonel entered into a bond of £200 to one mrs barbara midford, "sister or pretended sister of the said robert"; and so finally was threatened with outlawry by 'captain' midford for, presumably, payment of these debts. how colonel edmund finally escaped from the clutches of these rogues does not appear; but it is clear enough that his dorsetshire meadows were a safer place than princes coffee-house for a gentleman who could lose £500 at faro to a masquerading army captain. also sir henry gould's wisdom becomes apparent, in bequeathing his daughter an inheritance with which her husband was to have "nothing to doe." in 1718, two years after colonel fielding's experience at princes, mrs fielding died, leaving six young children to her husband's care, two sons and four daughters, henry, the eldest being but eleven years old. her death is recorded in the east stour registers as follows:--"sarah, wife of the hon. edmund fielding esqre. and daughter of sir henry gould kt. april 18 1718." about this time (the dates vary between 1716 and 1719) edmund fielding was appointed colonel of the invalids, an appointment which he appears to have held until his death. and within two years of the death of his first wife, colonel fielding must have married again, for in 1720 we find him and his then wife, _anne_, selling some 153 acres with messuages, barns and gardens, in east and west stour, to one awnsham churchill, esquire. what relation, if any, this land had to the property of the colonel's late wife and her children does not appear. some time in 1719, the year after his mother's death, or early in 1720, henry was sent to eton, as appears from his father's statement, made in february 1721, that his eldest son "who is now upwards of thirteen yeares old is and for more than a yeare last past hath been maintained ... at eaton schoole, the yearely expence whereof costs ... upwards of £60." and the boy must have been well away from the atmosphere of his home, in these first years after his mother's death, if the allegations of his grandmother, old lady gould, may be believed. these hitherto unknown records of henry fielding's boyhood are to be found in the proceedings of a chancery suit begun by lady gould, on behalf of her six grandchildren, henry, edmund, [6] katherine, ursula, sarah and beatrice, three years after the death of their mother--namely, on the 10th of february 1721, and instituted in the name of henry fielding as complainant. lady gould opens her grandchildren's case with a comprehensive indictment of her son-in-law. after reciting that her daughter sarah had married edmund fielding "without the consent of her father or mother and contrary to their good likeing," lady gould mentions her husband's bequest to their daughter, sarah fielding, of £3000 in trust to be laid out in the purchase of lands for the benefit of her and her children "with direction that the said edmund fielding should have nothing to do nor intermeddle therewith." and how sir henry did in his lifetime purchase "eastover" estate for his daughter, but died before the trust was completed; and that in 1713 his trustees, edmund fielding consenting, settled the said estate upon trust for sarah fielding and her children after her, the rents and profits to be paid for her, and acknowledged by her receipt "without her husband." and that if sarah fielding died intestate the estate be divided among her children. the bill then shows that sarah fielding did die intestate; and that then henry and his sisters and brother "being all infants of tender years and uncapable of managing their own affairs and to take care thereof, well hoped that ... their trustees would have taken care to receive the rents of the said premises," and have applied the same for their maintenance and education. one of these trustees, we may note, was henry fielding's uncle, davidge gould. this reasonable hope of the six "infants" was however, according to their grandmother, wholly disappointed. for their uncle davidge and his co-trustee, one william day, allowed edmund fielding to receive the rents, nay "entered into a combination and confederacy to and with the said edmund fielding," refusing to intermeddle with the said trust, whereby the children were in great danger of losing their means of maintenance and education. and this was by no means all. lady gould proceeds to point out that her son-in-law had, since his wife's death, "intermarried with one ... rapha ... widow an italian a person of the roman catholick profession who has severall children of her own and one who kept an eating house in london, and not at all fitt to have the care of [the complainants'] education and has now two daughters in a monastery beyond sea." it is not difficult to conceive the attitude of lady gould of sharpham park to an italian widow who kept an eating-house; but worse yet, in the view of those 'no popery' days, was to follow. "not only so," says her ladyship, "the said edmund fielding ... threatens to take your [complainants] from school into his own custody altho' [their] said grandmother has taken a house in the city of new sarum with an intent to have [her granddaughters] under her inspection and where ... katherine, ursula and sarah are now at school"; and "the said mr fielding doth give out in speeches that he will do with [the complainants] what he thinks fitt, and has openly commended the manner of education of young persons in monasteryes." this comprehensive indictment against colonel fielding received a prompt counter, the "severall answere of edmund fielding esqre ... to the bill of complaint of henry fielding, katherine fielding, ursula fielding, sarah fielding, and beatrice fielding, infants, by dame sarah gould, their grandmother and next friend," being dated february 23 1721, but thirteen days after lady gould had opened her attack. out of "a dutiful regard to the said lady gould his mother-in-law," colonel fielding declares himself unwilling to "controvert anything with her further than of necessity." but he submits that, in the matter of his marriage, he was "afterwards well approved of and received" by sir henry gould and his family; that he was also so happy as to be in favour with lady gould "till he marryed with his now wife"; which he believes "has occasioned some jealosye and displeasure in the lady gould, tho' without just grounds." edmund fielding then draws a pastoral picture of himself in occupation of the east stour estate, placed there by his father-in-law; of his oxen and dairy; and of the judge's intention of spending half the remainder of his days with his son-in-law on this dorsetshire farm. he admits his share in the trust settlement after sir henry's death; and points out that his brother-in-law, davidge gould, made him pay heavily on a portion of the estate. and he believes that, as his wife died intestate, all his children are "intituled to the said estate in equall proportions." then follows the colonel's main defence. his eldest son henry not being yet fourteen years of age, he has, ever since the death of his wife, continued in possession of the premises, taking the rents and profits thereof, which amount to about £150; and he positively declares that he has expended more annually on the maintenance and education of the said complainants, ever since the death of their mother, than the clear income of the said estate amounts to, and that he shall continue to take "a tender and affectionate care of all his said children." further, he professes himself a "protestant of the communion of the church of england," and asserts that he shall and will breed his said children protestants of that communion. he protests that his second wife is not an italian; nor did she keep an eating-house. he suggests that lady gould took her house at salisbury "as well with an intent to convenience herselfe by liveing in a towne" as for the inspection of his children. he "denyeth that he ever comended the manner of education of young persons in monasterys if it be meant in respect of religion." finally, he says that he has spent much money on improving the estate; that the income from the estate is hardly sufficient to maintain his children according to their station in the world since he is "nearly related to many noble familys"; and he "veryly believes in his conscience he can better provide for his said children by reason of his relation to and interest in the said noble familys than their said grandmother (who is now in an advanced age, being seventy yeares old or thereabouts)." here, it is plain, was a very pretty family quarrel. no man likes his mother-in-law to say that he has married the keeper of an italian eating-house, especially if the fact is correct; or that he is perverting his young children's trust money. neither was lady gould likely to be pacified by her son-in-law's remark that she was now "in an advanced age"; while his suggestion that his "noble" family would be of far more advantage to his children than that of the respectable goulds would have the added sting of undeniable truth. the next extant move in the fray bears date five months later, july 18 1721, and includes a petition by 'dame sarah gould' that the children be not removed from the places where they then were until the case be heard; and lady gould adds that if the children's persons or estates be "under ye management or power of ye said mr fielding and his now wife ye estate would not be managed to ye best advantage and their education would not be taken care of and there would be a great hazard that ye children might be perverted to ye romish religion." then follows an order in chancery, under the same date, "that ye eldest son of ye defend't. fielding ... be continued at eaton school where he now is and that ye rest of ye children be continued where they now are." the next document merely records the inclusion of henry's five-year-old brother edmund among the plaintiffs. and this is followed by a brief chancery order of november 30 1721, that "ye, plaintiff henry fielding who is not [_sic_] at eaton schoole be at liberty to go to ye said dame sarah gould, his grandmother and next friend during ye usual time of recess from school at xmas." after these christmas holidays spent by henry fielding with lady gould, doubtless at her house in salisbury, the chancery records pass on to the april following, 1722, when the boy's uncle and trustee davidge gould makes a statement "sworn at sharpham park," which concludes that the witness hears and believes that edmund fielding "has already three children by his present wife who is reputed to be of the romish church." in this same month comes another order from the court that henry be at liberty to leave eton for the whitsun holidays 1722, and to go to lady gould's house. in may edmund fielding appears as "of the parish of saint james, in the county of middlesex," and also as his children's "next friend and guardian." but two days later the long suit is concluded by the decision of the court, and here colonel fielding is, as heretofore, defendant, lady gould being the children's "next friend." the case came before the lord chancellor on the 28th of may 1722, and was "debated in the presence of learned counsels." the trust was upheld, and edmund fielding was required to deliver possession of the estate, rendering account of the rents and profits thereof since the death of his first wife; but he was to have "any and what" allowance for improvements, and for the children's maintenance and education. and it was further ordered that the children then at school continue at such schools till further order, and that "upon any breaking up at ye usuall times they do go and reside with ye lady gould their grandmother that they may not be under the influence of ye defendant fielding's wife, who appeared to be a papist." [7] so lady gould, for all her seventy years, won her case at every point. and colonel edmund fielding did not only lose the guardianship of his six children, and the administration of their estate. for there was, we learn, in court, during the hearing, one mrs cottington, the plaintiffs aunt, "alleadging that there was a debt of £700 due from ye defendant fielding to her"; which debt she offered should be applied for the benefit of her nephews and nieces. whereupon the court ordered that if mrs cottington proved the same, a master in chancery should purchase therewith lands to be settled for the "infants" in like manner as the trust estate. it may be only a coincidence, but £700 is the sum specifically mentioned in the proceedings brought by colonel fielding in october 1722, five months after the loss of his chancery suit, against the cardsharper, robert midford, who was then apparently threatening him with outlawry for the recovery of the gambling debt begun, as we have seen, at princes' coffee-house six years before. had the colonel borrowed the £700 from mrs cottington, with intent to discharge those debts; and, on being brought to law by her (on her nephews' and nieces' behalf) for that debt, did it occur to him to escape from the clutches of the psuedo "captain" midford by pleading, as he now does in this bill of 1722, that he "was tricked," and also "that gaming is illegal"? the latter plea has something of unconscious humour in the mouth of a gentleman who had lately lost £500 at faro. with this last echo of the coffee-house of st james's, and of the colonel's financial difficulties, that brave soldier, if somewhat reckless gambler, the hon. edmund fielding vanishes from sight, as far as the life of his eldest son is concerned. at the triumphant conclusion of his grandmother's suit henry fielding would be just fifteen years of age, and it is impossible not to wonder what side he took in these spirited family conflicts. no evidence, however, on such points appears in the dry legal documents; and all that we have for guide as to the effect in this impressionable time of his boyhood of the long months of contest, and of his strictly ordered holidays with his grandmother, is the declaration on the one hand that "filial piety ... his nearest relations agree was a shining part of his character," and on the other, the undeniably strong protestant bias that appears in his writing. of his aunt, mrs cottington, we get one later glimpse, when in 1723 she is made his trustee, in place of his uncle, davidge gould, mrs cottington being then resident in salisbury. at the end of the following year, however, in december 1724, davidge gould resumes his trusteeship, and with the record of that fact the disclosures yielded by these ancient parchments as to henry fielding's stormy boyhood come to an end. from these records it becomes possible to gain some idea of the surroundings of the great novelist's early youth. before his mother's death, indeed, when he was a boy of eleven, we already knew him as suffering the rough jurisdiction of his trulliberian tutor, parson oliver of motcombe village, and perhaps as under the wise and kindly guidance of the good scholar-parson, who was later to win the affection and respect of thousands of readers under the name of "parson adams." but now, for the first time, we learn of the disastrous second marriage by which colonel fielding, within two years of his first wife's death, placed a lady of at least disputable social standing at the head of his household, and one, moreover, whose faith roused the bitter religious animosities of that day. what wonder that the old lady gould strove fiercely to remove henry fielding, and his sisters and young brother, from east stour, when a madame rasa was installed in her daughter's place. and accordingly, as we have seen, even before the conclusion of the suit, henry was provisionally ordered by the court of chancery to spend his holidays with his grandmother. fielding would then be fourteen years old; and the judge's decision six months later that future holidays should be passed with lady gould, away from the influence of the second mrs fielding, doubtless severed the lad's connection with his dubious stepmother for the next six years. his home life, then, during the latter part of his eton schooling would be under lady gould's care; and was probably spent at salisbury. of his eton life, from his entrance at the school, when twelve years old, we know practically nothing. from the absence of his name on the college lists, it may be inferred that he was an oppidan. it is said that he gave "distinguished proofs of strong and peculiar parts"; and that he left the school with a good reputation as a classical scholar. and it is not surprising to learn that here, as he himself tells us, his vigorous energies made acquaintance with that 'birchen altar' at which most of the best blood in england has been disciplined. "and thou," he cries, "o learning (for without thy assistance nothing pure, nothing correct, can genius produce) do thou guide my pen. thee, in thy favourite fields, where the limpid gently rolling _thames_ washes thy _etonian_ banks, in early youth i have worshipped. to thee at thy birchen altar, with true _spartan_ devotion, i have sacrificed my blood." [8] that the sacrifice was not made in vain appears from the reputation with which fielding left eton of being "uncommonly versed in the greek authors and an early master of the latin classics"; and also from the yet better evidence of his own pages. long after these boyish days we find him, in the words of "the man of the hill," thus eloquently acknowledging the debt of humanity, and doubtless his own, to those inestimable treasures bequeathed to the world by ancient greece: "these authors, though they instructed me in no science by which men may promise to themselves to acquire the least riches, or worldly power, taught me, however, the art of despising the highest acquisitions of both. they elevate the mind, and steel and harden it against the capricious invasions of fortune. they not only instruct in the knowledge of wisdom, but confirm men in her habits, and demonstrate plainly, that this must be our guide, if we propose ever to arrive at the greatest worldly happiness; or to defend ourselves, with any tolerable security, against the misery which everywhere surrounds and invests us." [9] and that this was no mere figure of speech appears from that touching picture which murphy has left us of the brilliant wit, the 'wild' harry fielding, when under the pressure of sickness and poverty, quietly reading the _de consolations_ of cicero. his plato accompanied him on the last sad voyage to lisbon; and his library, when catalogued for sale on behalf of his widow and children, contained over one hundred and forty volumes of the greek and latin classics. thus, supreme student and master as he was of "the vast authentic book of nature," there is abundant proof that fielding fulfilled his own axiom that a "good share of learning" is necessary to the equipment of a novelist. let the romance writer's natural parts be what they may, learning, he declared, "must fit them for use, must direct them in it, lastly must contribute part at least of the materials." [10] looking back on such utterances by the 'father of the english novel,' written at the full height of his power, it is but natural to wonder if the boy's eager application to greek and latin drudgery had in it something of half-conscious preparation for the great part he was destined to play in the history of english literature. it is clear that henry fielding flung his characteristic energies zealously into the acquirement of the classical learning proffered him at eton; but a fine scholarship, great possession though it be, was not the only gain of his eton years. here, says murphy in his formal eighteenth-century phrasing, young fielding had "the advantage of being early known to many of the first people in the kingdom, namely lord lyttelton, mr fox, mr pitt, sir charles hanbury williams, and the late mr winnington, etc." of these companions at eton, george lyttelton, afterwards known as the "good lord lyttelton," statesman and orator, stands foremost by virtue of the generous warmth of a friendship continued throughout the novelist's chequered life. to lyttelton _tom jones_ was dedicated; it was his generosity, as generously acknowledged, that supplied fielding, for a time, with the very means of subsistence; and to him was due the appointment, subsequently discharged with so much zealous labour, of magistrate for westminster and middlesex. it is recorded that george lyttelton's school exercises "were recommended as models to his schoolfellows." another eton friend, thomas winnington, made some figure in the whig political world of the day; he was accredited by horace walpole with having an inexhaustible good humour, and "infinitely more wit than any man i ever knew." of the friendship with sir charles hanbury williams, of which we first hear at eton, little is known, save the curious episode of the recovery, many years after its author's death, of fielding's lost play _the good-natured man>_, which had apparently been submitted to sir charles, whose celebrity was great as a brilliant political lampoonist. of the acquaintance with henry fox, first baron holland, we hear nothing in later life; but the name of the greatest of all these eton contemporaries, that of the elder pitt, recurs in after years as one of the party at radway grange, in warwickshire, to whom fielding, after dinner, read aloud the manuscript of _tom jones_. [11] a reference to his fellow-etonian may be found in one of the introductory chapters of that masterpiece, where fielding, while again advocating the claims of learning, takes occasion to pay this sonorous tribute to pitt's oratory: "nor do i believe that all the imagination, fire, and judgment of pitt, could have produced those orations that have made the senate of england in these our times a rival in eloquence to greece and rome, if he had not been so well read in the writings of demosthenes and cicero, as to have transferred their whole spirit into his speeches and, with their spirit, their knowledge too." however excellent a knowledge of the classics the youthful scholar took away with him from eton, the rigours of his studies do not appear to have diminished that zest for life with which the very name of henry fielding is invested. for the obscurity of these early years is for a moment lifted to disclose the young genius as having already, before he was nineteen, fallen desperately in love with a beautiful heiress in dorsetshire; and, moreover, as threatening bodily force to accomplish his suit. the story, as indicated in the surviving outlines, might be the draft for a chapter of _tom jones_. the scene is lyme regis. the chief actors are harry fielding, scarce more than a schoolboy; a beautiful heiress, miss sarah andrew; [12] and her uncle, one mr andrew tucker, a timorous and crafty member of the local corporation. the handsome etonian, who had been for some time resident in the old town, fell madly in love, it seems, with the lady, who is stated to have been his cousin on his mother's side. the views of her guardian were, however, opposed to the young man's suit, mr andrew tucker mercenarily designing to secure the heiress for his own son. thereupon harry fielding is said to have made a desperate attempt to carry the lady off by force, and that, moreover, "on a sunday, when she was on her way to church." further, the efforts of the impetuous youth would seem to have extended to threatened assaults on the person of his fair cousin's guardian, mr tucker; for we find that affrighted worthy flying for protection to the arm of the law, as recorded in the _register book_ of lyme regis, under date of the 14th november 1725:--"... andrew tucker, gent., one of the corporation, caused henry fielding, gent., and his servant or companion, joseph lewis--both now for some time past residing in the borough--to be bound over to keep the peace, as he was in fear of his life or some bodily hurt to be done or to be procured to be done to him by h. fielding and his man. mr a. tucker feared that the man would beat, maim, or kill him." no words could more aptly sum up this delightful story than those of mr austin dobson: "a charming girl, who is also an heiress; a pusillanimous guardian, with ulterior views of his own; a handsome and high-spirited young suitor; a faithful attendant ready to 'beat, maim or kill' on his master's behalf; a frustrated elopement and a compulsory visit to the mayor--all these with the picturesque old town of lyme for a background, suggest a most appropriate first act to harry fielding's biographical tragi-comedy." [13] it is possible that fielding's own pen supplied the conclusion to this first act. for he tells us, in the preface to the _miscellanies_, that a version, in burlesque verse, of part of juvenal's sixth satire was originally sketched out before he was twenty, and that it was "all the revenge taken by an injured lover." the story loses none of its zest, moreover, when we remember that harry fielding was at this time still a ward of chancery. [1] chancery proceedings 1720 sqq. _fielding_ v. _fielding_. from the records of this chancery suit, instituted on behalf of henry fielding and his brother and sisters, as minors, by their grandmother lady gould, are taken the hitherto unpublished facts concerning the novelist's boyhood, contained in this chapter. the original documents are preserved in the record office. [2] see appendix a. [3] by means of a legacy of £3000 left by her father for his daughter's sole use, "her husband having nothing to doe with it." [4] _history and antiquities of leicestershire_. j. nichols. 1810. vol. iv. part i. p. 292. nichols does not state his authority for this statement, and it is not confirmed by local records. see hutchins' _history of dorset_ for the list of stour provost rectors. [5] chancery proceedings, 1722. _fielding_ v. _midford_. record office. [6] edmund's name was added in october following. [7] _chancery decrees and order books_. record office. [8] tom jones, book xiii. introduction. [9] ibid., book viii., ch. xiii. [10] _tom jones_, book ix. introduction. [11] see _infra_, chap. xi. [12] fifty years ago a portrait of the beautiful heiress, in the character of sophia western, was still preserved at the house of bellairs, near exeter, then the property of the rhodes family. the present ownership of the picture has, so far, eluded inquiry. [13] _fielding_, austin dobson, p. 202. chapter ii playhouse bard "i could not help reflecting how often the greatest abilities lie wind-bound, as it were, in life; or if they venture out, and attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and tide."--_journal of a voyage to lisbon_. it was but three years after the lyme regis episode that henry fielding, then a lad of one and twenty, won attention as a successful writer of comedy. of this his first entry into the gay world there are little but generalities to record; but, inaccurate as murphy is in some matters of fact, there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the engaging picture which he draws of the young man's _début_ upon the town. we read of the gaiety and quickness of his fancy; the wild flow of his spirits; the brilliancy of his wit; the activity of his mind, eager to know the world. to the possession of genius allied to the happiest temper, a temper "for the most part overflowing into wit, mirth, and good-humour," young fielding added a handsome face, a magnificent physique (he stood over six feet high), and the fullest vigour of constitution. "no man," wrote his cousin, lady mary wortley montagu, "enjoyed life more than he did." what wonder that he was soon "in high request with the men of taste and literature," or that report affirms him to have been no less welcome in ranks of society not at all distinguished by a literary flavour. that a youth so gifted, so "formed and disposed for enjoyment," should find himself his own master, in london, almost presupposes a too liberal indulgence in the follies that must have so easily beset him. when the great and cold mr secretary addison, no less than that "very merry spirit," dick steele, and the splendid congreve, drank more than was good for them, what chance would there be for a brilliant, ardent lad of twenty, suddenly plunged into the robust society of that age? if fielding, like his elders, indisputably loved good wine, let us remember that none of the heroes of his three great novels, neither that rural innocent joseph andrews, nor the exuberant youth tom jones, nor erring, repentant captain booth are immoderate drinkers. the degradation of drinking is, in fielding's pages, accorded to brutalised if honest country squires, and cruel and corrupt magistrates; and there is little evidence throughout his life to indicate that the great novelist drank more freely than did the genial heroes of his pen. as regards murphy's general assertion that, at this his entrance into life, young fielding "launched wildly into a career of dissipation" no other reputable contemporary evidence is discoverable of the "wildness" popularly attributed to fielding. that his youth was headlong and undisciplined is a plausible surmise; but justice demands that the charge be recognised as a surmise and nothing more. how keenly, twenty years later, he could appreciate the handicap that such early indulgences impose on a man's future life may be gathered from a passage in _joseph andrews_ which is not without the ring of personal feeling. the speaker is a generous and estimable country gentleman, living in arcadian retirement with his wife and children. descended of a good family and born a gentleman, he narrates how his education was acquired at a public school, and extended to a mastery of the latin, and a tolerable knowledge of the greek, language. becoming his own master at sixteen he soon left school, for, he tells his listeners, "being a forward youth, i was extremely impatient to be in the world: for which i thought my parts, knowledge, and manhood thoroughly qualified me. and to this early introduction into life, without a guide, i impute all my future misfortunes; for besides the obvious mischiefs which attend this, there is one which hath not been so generally observed. the first impression which mankind receives of you, will be very difficult to eradicate. how unhappy, therefore, must it be to fix your character in life, before you can possibly know its value, or weigh the consequences of those actions which are to establish your future reputation?" [1] that the wise and strenuous fielding of later years, the energetic student at the bar, the active and patriotic journalist, the merciless exponent of the hypocrite, the spendthrift, and the sensualist, the creator of the most perfect type of womanhood in english fiction (so said dr johnson and thackeray) should look back sadly on his own years of hot-blooded youth is entirely natural; but even so this passage and the well-known confession placed in the mouth of the supposed writer of the _journey from this world to the next_, [2] no more constitute direct evidence than do murphy's unattested phrases, or the anonymous scurrilities of eighteenth-century pamphleteers. by birth and education fielding's natural place was in the costly society of those peers and men of wealth and fashion who courted the brilliant young wit; but fortune had decreed otherwise, and at this his first entrance on the world he found, as he himself said, no choice but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman. true, his father allowed him a nominal £200 a year; but this, to quote another of his son's observations, "anybody might pay that would." the fact was that colonel fielding's marriage with madame rasa had resulted in a large and rapidly increasing family; and this burden, together with "the necessary demands of his station for a genteel and suitable expence," made it impossible for him to spare much for the maintenance of his eldest son. launched thus on the town, with every capacity for spending an income the receipt of which was denied to him, the young man flattered himself that he should find resources in his wit and invention; and accordingly he commenced as writer for the stage. his first play, a comedy entitled _love in several masks_, was performed at drury lane in february 1728, just before the youthful dramatist had attained his twenty-first year. in his preface to these 'light scenes' he alludes with some pride to this distinction--"i believe i may boast that none ever appeared so early on the stage";--and he proceeds to a generous acknowledgment of the aid received from those dramatic stars of the eighteenth-century, colley gibber, mr wilks and mrs oldfield, all of whom appeared in the cast. of the two former he says, "i cannot sufficiently acknowledge their civil and kind behaviour previous to its representation"; from which we may conclude, as his biographer laurence points out, that harry fielding was already familiar with the society of the green-room. to mrs oldfield,--that charming actress "in publick life, by all who saw approv'd in private life, by all who knew her lov'd"-the young man expresses yet warmer acknowledgments. "lastly," he declares, "i can never express my grateful sense of the good nature of mrs oldfield ... nor do i owe less to her excellent judgment, shown in some corrections which i shall for my own sake conceal." the comedy is dedicated, with the graceful diction and elaborate courtesies of the period, to fielding's cousin, that notable eighteenth-century wit, the lady mary wortley montagu; and from the dedication we learn that to lady mary's approval, on her first perusal, the play owed its existence. what the approval of a great lady of those times meant for the young writer may be measured by the fact that fielding concludes his dedication by solemnly 'informing the world' that the representation of his comedy was twice honoured with her ladyship's presence. in view of the frequent accusation of coarseness brought against fielding, we may quote a few lines of the prologue with which he made his literary entry into the world. here his audience are promised "humour, still free from an indecent flame, which, should it raise your mirth, must raise your shame: indecency's the bane to ridicule, and only charms the libertine, or fool: nought shall offend the fair one's ears to-day, which they might blush to hear, or blush to say. no private character these scenes expose, our bard, at vice, not at the vicious, throws." thus it was with an honourable declaration of war against indecency and libel that the young wit and man of fashion, began his career as "hackney writer." if to modern taste the first promise lacks something of fulfilment, it is but just to remember that to other times belong other manners. in the play, rustic and philosophic virtue is prettily rewarded by the possession of a beautiful heiress, while certain mercenary fops withdraw in signal discomfiture; and that fielding, at one and twenty, had already passed judgment on that glittering 'tinsel' tribe, is clear enough from his portrait of the "empty gaudy nameless thing," lord formal. lord formal appears on the stage with a complexion much agitated by a day of business spent with "three milleners, two perfumers, my bookseller's and a fanshop." in the course of these fatigues he has "rid down two brace of chairmen"; and had raised his colour to "that exorbitancy of vermeille" that it will hardly be reduced "under a fortnight's course of acids." it is the true spirit of comedy which introduces into this closely perfumed atmosphere the bluff country figure of sir positive trap, with his exordiums on the rustic ladies, and on "the good old english art of clear-starching." sir positive hopes "to see the time when a man may carry his daughter to market with the same lawful authority as any other of his cattle"; and causes lord formal some moments' perplexity, his lordship being "not perfectly determinate what species of animal to assign him to, unless he be one of those barbarous insects the polite call country squires." in this production of a youth of twenty we may find a foretaste of that keen relish in watching the human comedy, that vigorous scorn of avarice, that infectious laughter at pretentious folly, which accompanied the novelist throughout his life. to this same year is attributed a poem called the _masquerade_, which need only be noticed as again emphasising its author's lifelong war against the evils of his time. the _masquerade_ is a satire on the licentious gatherings organised by the notorious count heidegger, master of the revels to the court of george ii. many years later fielding reprinted [3] two other poetical effusions bearing the date of this his twenty-first year. of these the first, entitled "a description of u----n g----(alias _new hog's norton_) in _com-hants_" identified by mr keightley as upton grey in hampshire, is addressed to the fair _rosalinda,_ by her disconsolate _alexis_. alexis bewails his exile among "unpolish'd nymphs and more unpolish'd swains," and describes himself as condemned to live in a dwelling half house, half shed, with a garden full of docks and nettles, the fruit-trees bearing only snails- "happy for us had eve's this garden been she'd found no fruit, and therefore known no sin,"-the dusty meadows innocent of grass, and the company as innocent of wit. this sketch of rural enjoyments recalls a later utterance in _jonathan wild_, concerning the votaries of a country life who, with their trees, "enjoy the air and the sun in common and both vegetate with very little difference between them." with one or two eloquent exceptions there is scarce a page in fielding's books devoted to any interest other than that of human nature. the second fragment is a graceful little copy of verse addressed to _euthalia_, in which we may note, by the way, that the fair rosalinda's charms are ungallantly made use of as a foil to euthalia's dazzling perfections. as fielding found these verses not unworthy of a page in his later _miscellanies_ they are here recalled: to euthalia. written in the year 1728. "burning with love, tormented with despair, unable to forget or ease his care; in vain each practis'd art _alexis_ tries; in vain to books, to wine or women flies; each brings _euthalia's_ image to his eyes. in _lock's_ or _newton's_ page her learning glows; _dryden_ the sweetness of her numbers shews; in all their various excellence i find the various beauties of her perfect mind. how vain in wine a short relief i boast! each sparkling glass recalls my charming toast. to women then successless i repair, engage the young, the witty, and the fair. when _sappho's_ wit each envious breast alarms, and _rosalinda_ looks ten thousand charms; in vain to them my restless thoughts would run; like fairest stars, they show the absent sun." _love in several masks_ was produced, as we have seen, in february, 1728; and it is a little surprising to find the young dramatist suddenly appearing, four weeks later, as a university student. he was entered at the university of leyden, as "litt. stud," on the 16th of march 1728. the reason of this sudden change from the green-room of drury lane to the ancient dutch university must be purely matter of conjecture, as is the nature of fielding's undergraduate studies, murphy having lately been proved to be notably erroneous as to this episode. [4] his name occurs as staying, on his entry at leyden, at the "casteel von antwerpen"; and again, a year later, in the _recensiones_ of the university for february 1729, as domiciled with one jan oson. as all students were annually registered, the omission of any later entry proves that he left leyden before 1730; with which meagre facts and his own incidental remark that the comedy of _don quixote in england_ was "begun at leyden in the year 1728," our knowledge of the two years of fielding's university career concludes. in february 1730 he was presumably back in london, that being the date of his next play, the _temple beau_, produced by giffard, the actor, at the new theatre in goodman's fields. the prologue to the _temple beau_ was written by that man of many parts, james ralph, the hack writer, party journalist and historian, who was in after years to collaborate with fielding, both as a theatrical manager and as a journalist. ralph's opening lines are of interest as bearing on fielding's antagonism to the harlequinades and variety shows, then threatening the popularity of legitimate drama: "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." ralph bids his audience turn to the 'infant stage' of goodman's fields for matter more worthy their attention; and his promise that there "the comick muse, in smiles severely gay, shall scoff at vice, and laugh its crimes away" must surely have been inspired by the young genius from whom twenty years later came the formal declaration of his endeavour, in _tom jones,_ "to laugh mankind out of their favourite follies and vices." the special follies of the _temple beau_ have, for background, of course, those precincts in which fielding was later to labour so assiduously as a student, and as a member of the middle temple; but where, as the young templar of the play observes, "dress and the ladies" might also very pleasantly employ a man's time. but except for an oblique hit at duelling, a custom which fielding was later to attack with curious warmth, this second play seems to yield few passages of biographical interest. of very different value for our purpose is the third play, which within only two months appeared from a pen stimulated, presumably, by empty pockets. this was the comedy entitled the _author's farce_, being the first portion of a medley which included the '_puppet show call'd the pleasures of the town_; the whole being acted in the little theatre in the haymarket, long since demolished in favour of the present building. in the person of harry luckless, the hero of the _author's farce_, it is impossible not to surmise the figure of young fielding himself; a figure gay and spirited as those of his first comedy, but, by now, well acquainted with the hungers and the straits of a 'hackney writer.' mr luckless wears a laced-coat and makes a handsome figure (we remember that fielding had always the grand air), whereby his landlady, clamouring for her rent, upbraids him for deceiving her: "cou'd i have guess'd that i had a poet in my house! cou'd i have look'd for a poet under lac'd clothes!" the poor author offers her the security of his (as yet unacted) play; whereupon mrs moneywood (lineal ancestress of mrs raddles) pertinently cries out: "i would no more depend on a benefit-night of an unacted play, than i would on a benefit-ticket in an undrawn lottery." luckless next appeals to what should be his landlady's heart, assuring her that unless she be so kind as to invite him "i am afraid i shall scarce prevail on my stomach to dine to-day." to which the enraged lady answers: "o never fear that: you will never want a dinner till you have dined at all the eating-houses round.--no one shuts their doors against you the first time; and i scarce think you are so kind, seldom to trouble them a second." and that the good landlady had some grounds for her wrath is but too apparent when she announces: "well, i'm resolv'd when you are gone away (which i heartily hope will be very soon) i'll hang over my door in great red letters, _no lodging for poets_ ... my floor is all spoil'd with ink, my windows with verses, and my door has been almost beat down with duns.' while the landlady is still fuming, enters our author's man, jack. "_jack_. an't please your honour, i have been at my lord's, and his lordship thanks you for the favour you have offer'd of reading your play to him; but he has such a prodigious deal of business he begs to be excus'd. i have been with mr _keyber_ too: he made no answer at all...." "_luckless_. jack. "_jack_. sir. "_luckless_. fetch my other hat hither. carry it to the pawnbroker's. "_jack_. to your honour's own pawnbroker. "_luckless_. ay and in thy way home call at the cook's shop. so, one way or other i find, my head must always provide for my belly." at which moment enters the caustic, generous witmore, belabouring the profanity, the scurrility, the immodesty, the stupidity of the age with one hand, the while he pays his friend's rent with the other; and who, incidentally, is requested by that irascible genius to kick a worthy publisher down the stairs, on the latter's refusal to give fifty shillings "no, nor fifty farthings" for his play. once mollified by the settlement of her bill, we have the landlady playing advocate for her hapless lodger in words that sound very like the apologia of mr harry fielding himself: "i have always thought, indeed, mr _luckless_ had a great deal of honesty in his principles; any man may be unfortunate: but i knew when he had money i should have it...." and the good woman's reminiscence that while her lodger had money her doors were thundered at every morning between four and five by coachmen and chairmen; and her wish that that pleasant humour'd gentleman were "but a little soberer," finishes, we take it, the portrait of the fielding of 1730. "jack call a coach; and d'ye hear, get up behind it and attend me," cries the improvident poet, the moment his generous friend has left him; and so we are sure did young mr fielding put himself and his laced coat into a coach, and mount his man behind it, whenever the exigencies of duns and hunger were for a moment abated. and with as gallant a humour as that of his own luckless did he walk afoot, when those "nine ragged jades the muses" failed to bring him a competency. such failure on the part of the muses was due to no want of wooing on his part. during the six years between fielding's first appearance as dramatic author in 1728, and his marriage in 1734, there stand no fewer than thirteen plays to his name. of these none have won any lasting reputation; and to this period of the great novelist's life may doubtless be applied lady mary wortley montagu's description, when lamenting that her kinsman should have been "forced by necessity to publish without correction, and throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got without money, and money without scribbling." lady mary's account moreover is reinforced by murphy's classical periods: "mr fielding's case was generally the same with that of the poet described by juvenal; with a great genius, he must have starved if he had not sold his performance to a favourite actor. _esurit, intactam paridi, nisi vendit agaven_." a complete list of all these ephemera will be found in the bibliography at the end of this volume; here we need but notice those to which a special interest attaches. thus, that incomparable comic actress, kitty clive, was cast for a part in the _lottery_, a farce produced in 1731; and three years later fielding is adapting for her, especially, the _intriguing chambermaid_. it was in these two plays, and that of the _virgin unmasked_, that the town discovered the true comic genius of kitty clive "the best player i ever saw," in dr johnson's opinion. for this discovery fielding takes credit to himself, in the dedication addressed to mrs clive, which he prefixed to the _intriguing chambermaid_; and in which he finds opportunity to pay a noble tribute to the private life of that inimitable hoyden of the stage. "i cannot help reflecting" he writes, "that the town hath one great obligation to me, who made the first discovery of your great capacity, and brought you earlier forward on the theatre, than the ignorance of some and the envy of others would have otherwise permitted.... but as great a favorite as you at present are with the audience you would be much more so were they acquainted with your private character ... did they see you, who can charm them on the stage with personating the foolish and vicious characters of your sex, acting in real life the part of the best wife, the best daughter, the best sister, and the best friend." that this splendid praise was as sincere as it was generous need not be doubted. no breath of slander, even in that slanderous age, seems ever to have dulled the reputation of the queen of comedy, and "better romp than any i ever saw in nature"--to quote dr johnson again,--kitty clive. so few of fielding's letters have been, to our knowledge, preserved, that the following note addressed to lady mary wortley montagu, and concerning the _modern husband_, a comedy produced in 1731 or 1732, must here be given, though containing little beyond the fact that the dramatist of three years' standing seems still to have placed as high a value on his cousin's judgment, as when recording her approval of his first effort for the stage. the play was a piece of admittedly moral purpose, and was dedicated to sir robert walpole. the first line of the autograph is, apparently, missing. "i hope your ladyship will honour the scenes, which i presume to lay before you, with your perusal. as they are written on a model i never yet attempted, i am exceedingly anxious least they should find least mercy from you than my lighter productions. it will be a slight compensation to the modern husband, that your ladyship's censure will defend him from the possibility of any other reproof, since your least approbation will always give me a pleasure, infinitely superior to the loudest applauses of a theatre. for whatever has past your judgment, may, i think without any imputation of immodesty, refer want of success to want of judgment in an audience. i shall do myself the honour of waiting on your ladyship at twickenham next monday to receive my sentence, and am, madam, with the most devoted respect "your ladyship's "most obedient most humble servant "henry ffielding. [5] "london 7'br 4." in 1731-32 the burlesque entitled the _tragedy of tragedies; or the life and death of tom thumb the great_, took the town. the _tragedy_ parodies the absurdities of tragedians; and so far won immortality that in 1855 it was described as still holding the stage. but its chief modern interest lies in the tradition that swift once observed that he "had not laughed above twice" in his life,--once at the tricks of a merry-andrew, and again when fielding's tom thumb killed the ghost. the design for the frontispiece of the edition of 1731, here reproduced, is from the pencil of hogarth; and is the first trace of a connexion between fielding and the painter who was to be honoured so frequently in his pages. an adaptation from molière, produced in 1733, under the title of the _miser_, won from voltaire the praise of having added to the original "quelques beautes de dialogue particulières a sa [fielding's] nation." the leading character in the _miser_, lovegold, became a stock part, and survived to our own days, having been a favourite with phelps. in _don quixote in england_, produced in 1733 or 34, [6] fielding reappears in the character of patriotic censor with the design, as appears from the dedication to lord chesterfield, of representing "the calamities brought on a country by general corruption." no less than fifteen songs are interspersed in the play, and it is matter for curious conjecture why none of them was chosen for a reprint among the collected verses published ten years later in the _miscellanies_. time has almost failed to preserve even the hunting-song beginning finely- "the dusky night rides down the sky, and ushers in the morn; the hounds all join in glorious cry, the huntsman winds his horn:" but a happier fate has befallen the fifth song, now familiar as the first verse of the _roast beef of old england_. it is eminently appropriate that the most distinctly national of english novelists should have written: "_when mighty rost beef was the_ englishman's _food, it ennobled our hearts, and enriched our blood; our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good. oh, the rost beef of old england, and old_ england's _rost beef!_ "_then_, britons, _from all nice dainties refrain, which effeminate_ italy, france, _and_ spain; _and mighty rost beef shall command on the main. oh, the rost beef_, etc." to this truly prolific period of the young 'hackney writer's' pen belongs an _epilogue_, hitherto overlooked, written for charles johnson's five-act play _caelia or the perjur'd lover_, and spoken by kitty clive. the lines, which are hardly worth reprinting, consist of an ironic attack on the laxity of town morals, where "miss may take great liberties upon her," and each woman is virtuous till she be found out. an average of two plays a year is a record scarcely conducive to literary excellence; any more than is the empty cupboard, and the frequent recourse to 'your honour's own pawnbroker,' so often and so honourably familiar to struggling genius. "the farces written by mr fielding," says murphy"... were generally the production of two or three mornings, so great was his facility in writing"; and we have seen lady mary wortley montagu's assertion that much of his work would have been thrown into the fire had not his dinner gone with it. of the struggles of these early years [7] (struggles never wholly remitted, for, to quote lady mary again, fielding would have wanted money had his hereditary lands been as extensive as his imagination) we get further suggestions in the _poetical epistle_ addressed to sir robert walpole when the young poet was but twenty-three. the lines go with a gallant spirit, but it is not difficult to detect a savour of grim hardship behind the jests: "while at the helm of state you ride, our nation's envy and its pride; while foreign courts with wonder gaze, and curse those councils which they praise; would you not wonder, sir, to view your bard a greater man than you? which that he, is you cannot doubt, when you have heard the sequel out. . . . . . "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. your taste in architect, you know, hath been admir'd by friend and foe; but can your earthly domes compare with all my castles--in the air? "we're often taught it doth behove us to think those greater who're above us; another instance of my glory, who live above you, twice two story, and from my garret can look down on the whole street of arlington." [8] not to depend too greatly on mr luckless for our picture of fielding as a playwright, we will conclude it with the well-known passage from murphy: "when he had contracted to bring on a play, or a farce, 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." would that some of those friends had recorded for our delight the wit that, alas! has vanished like the smoke through which it was engendered. what would we not give for the table-talk of henry fielding. [1] _joseph andrews_, book iii. chap. iii. [2] _miscellanies_, ed. 1743, vol. ii. p. 62. [3] in the _miscellanies_ of 1743. [4] _fielding_, austin dobson, 1907. app. iv. [5] what appears to be the original autograph of the above letter is now (1909) in the library of the boston athenaeum, having been presented by mr c. p. greenough. [6] _notitia dramatica_ (british museum. mss. dept.) and genest give 1734 as the date of don quixote; murphy, edition of 1766, vol. iii p. 249, gives 1733. [7] for the refutation of genest's confusion of timothy fielding, a strolling player, with henry fielding, see austin dobson, _fielding_, pp. 28, 29. [8] the _miscellanies_. edition 1743. chapter iii 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_. chapter iv political plays "whoever attempteth to introduce corruption into any community, doth much the same thing, and ought to be treated in much the same manner with him who poisoneth a fountain." --dedication of the _historical register_. a prolonged retirement into dorsetshire, however pleasant were the banks of stour with a beautiful young wife, and a sufficient estate, could scarce be expected of fielding's restless genius. he was now thirty-five; his splendid physique was as yet unimpaired by the gout that was so soon to attack him; his powers were still hardly revealed; and, as far as we can discover, he was, at the moment, under no pressure for money. still, the hunting choruses of the squire westerns of dorsetshire can hardly have long sufficed for one whom lyttelton declared to have had "more wit than any man i ever knew"; and the social and political conditions of the country were increasingly calculated to inflame into practical activity that "enthusiasm for righteousness," which mr gosse has so well detected in fielding. [1] the distracted state of the london stage, divided by the factions of players and managers, afforded moreover an excellent opportunity for a dramatist of some means to essay an independent venture. and accordingly, at the beginning of 1736, we find the harry fielding of the green-room and the poet's garret, the henry fielding esqre of east stour, suddenly throwing the full force of his energies into political life, as the manager of, and writer for, a theatre with indisputable political aims. for the next eight years of his short life fielding was largely occupied in the lively turmoil of eighteenth-century politics; and here, first by means of the stage, and later as journalist, he played a part which has perhaps been somewhat unduly overshadowed by the surpassing achievements of his genius as father of the english novel. but if we would perceive the full figure of the man this time of boisterous political warfare is of no mean account. in the dedication of his first party play, the amazingly successful _pasquin_, fielding subscribes himself as "the most devoted servant of the public"; and no more appropriate keyword could be found for the energies which he threw into those envenomed political struggles of 1736-41. at the date of his first plunge into these struggles england stood sorely in need of a pen as biting, as witty and as fearless, as that of henry fielding. for over ten years the country had been ruled by one of those "peace at any price" ministers who have at times so successfully inflamed the baser commercial instincts of englishmen. sir robert walpole, the reputed organiser of an unrivalled system of bribery and corruption, the minister of whom a recent apologist frankly declares that to young members of parliament who spoke of public virtue and patriotism he would reply "you will soon come off that and grow wiser," the autocrat enamoured of power who could brook no colleague within measurable distance, the man of coarse habits and illiterate tastes, above all the man who induced his countrymen to place money before honour, and whose administration even an admirer describes as one of unparalleled stagnation--such a man must have roused intense antagonism in fielding's generous and ardent nature. for, from the days of his first boyish satires to the last energetic acts of his life as a london magistrate, for fielding to see an abuse was to set about reforming it. to his just sense of the true worth of money, the wholesale corruption of english political life accredited to walpole, the poisoning, to adopt his own simile, of the body politic, must have seemed the vilest national crime. there could never have been the least sympathy between the mercenary and apathetic methods of walpole and the open-hearted genius of fielding. and, added to such fundamental opposition of character, the influence of fielding's old school friend, george lyttelton, would, at this juncture especially, draw him into the active ranks of the opposition. lyttelton was then rising into celebrity as a ready parliamentary speaker; a celebrity as yet not wholly eclipsed by the youthful oratory of william pitt, the young cornet of the horse, who also had lately taken his seat on the opposition benches. it was the burning patriotism, the lofty character and the towering genius of pitt, the fluency and personal integrity of lyttelton, that led the younger members of the opposition in the house of commons; while in the lords another friend from whom fielding was to receive "princely benefactions," the young duke of bedford, a man of "inflexible honesty and goodwill to his country," attacked walpole's alleged corrupt practices in the election of scottish peers. with leaders such as william pitt and lyttelton on the one hand, and the corrupt figure of walpole on the other, there is no wonder that fielding flung all his generous force into the effort to free england from so degrading a domination. accordingly, in 1736, when the young pitt's impassioned eloquence was soon to alarm the _great man_--"we must muzzle that terrible cornet of the horse," sir robert said--and when fierce and riotous hostility to the government had broken out in the country over an attempted excise bill, fielding appears as a frankly political manager of the "new theatre" in the haymarket. this small theatre stood precisely adjoining the present palladian structure, as may be seen from a print of 1820, showing the demolition of the old building and the adjacent façade of the modern "haymarket." according to tom davies, who, as an actor in fielding's company and as an author of some pretensions should be reliable, fielding was a managing partner of this "new theatre," in company with james ralph, "about the year 1735." [2] and apparently early in 1736 [3] his political, theatrical, and social satire of _pasquin_ appeared on the little stage, and immediately captured the town. in _pasquin_ a perfectly outspoken attack on walpole's corrupt methods is united with a comprehensive onslaught on abuses in the stage, law, divinity, physic, society, and on the odes of colley cibber, sufficient one might suppose to satisfy even fielding's zeal. in an exuberant newspaper advertisement of the 5th of march mr pasquin is announced as intending to "lay about him with great impartiality," and throughout the play fielding's splendid figure may be felt, swinging his satiric club with a boisterous enjoyment. the immediate success achieved by the piece was certainly not due to any great dramatic excellence; and that so loosely knit a medley as _pasquin, a dramatic satire on the times: being the rehearsal of two plays, viz. a comedy call'd the election and a tragedy, call'd the life and death of common-sense_ should have achieved almost as long a run as the _beggars opera_, shows that the public heartily sympathised with the satirist. _pasquin_ begins with the rehearsal of a comedy, called _the election_, consisting of a series of broadly humorous scenes in which the open and diverse bribery at elections, the equally open immorality of fashionable town life, the connivance of country dames, and the inanity of the beau monde, are satirised. the country mayor, the ministerial candidates and the opposition squire drink, bribe and are bribed with complete impartiality. a scene devoted to the political young lady of the day affords opportunity for a hit at the sickly and effeminate lord 'fanny' hervey, that politician whom pope described as a "mere white curd of asse's milk," and of whom lady mary wortley montagu observed that "the world consisted of men, women, and herveys." pope had stigmatised hervey as _lord fanny_, and fielding obviously plays on the nickname by references to the value attached by certain young ladies to their fans. "faith," says his comic author, "this incident of the fan struck me so strongly that i was once going to call this comedy by the name of the fan." the comedy ends with the successful cooking of the election returns by mr mayor in favour of the ministerial candidates, for which "return" he is promised a "very good turn very soon"; and by the precipitate marriage of one of the said candidates to the mayor's daughter "to strengthen his interest with the returning officer." having settled the business of the corrupt and corrupting ministry in his comedy, mr pasquin proceeds to exhibit the rehearsal of his tragedy, _the life and death of common sense_. here the satirist, leaving politics, applies his cudgel mainly to the prevailing taste for pantomime, a form of entertainment introduced it was said some thirty years previously by one weaver, a country dancing master, and already lashed by sir richard steele in his couplet: "weaver, corrupter of the present age, who first taught silent sins upon the stage." that the covent garden manager, john rich, [4] could engage four french dancers, and a german with two dogs, taught to dance the _louvre_ and the _minuet_, at ten pounds a night, and clear thereby "above 20 good houses," while the othello of booth and the wildair of wilkes were neglected, was sufficient to rouse the indignation alike of moralists, dramatists and playgoers. fielding in turn took the matter up with all his natural warmth; and in _pasquin_ he represents the kingdom of the queen of common sense as invaded by a vast army of "singers, fidlers, tumblers, and ropedancers," who moreover fix their standard in covent garden, the headquarters of rich. not content with assailing this public folly, the 'tragedy' of _pasquin_ strikes a higher note by ranging among the foes of common sense three unworthy professors of law, medicine, and religion; callings, as fielding is careful to point out, "in themselves designed to shower the greatest blessings on mankind." queen common sense seemingly receives her deathblow; but her ghost finally rises victorious, and so justifies the author's contention that his "is almost the only play where she has got the better lately." the vigour with which mr pasquin here 'laid about him,' in such matters as the legal abuses relating to imprisonment for debt, may be inferred from the following passage. queen common sense is speaking to the representative of _bad_ law, and tells him she has heard that men "unable to discharge their debts at a short warning, being sued for them, have, with both power and will their debts to pay, lain all their lives in prison, for their costs. _law_. that may perhaps be some poor person's case too mean to entertain your royal ear. _q.c.s_. my lord, while i am queen i shall not think one man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd." so too, the great genius of fielding, when in long after years harnessed to the drudgery of a london magistrate, held no porter's brawl or beggar's quarrel too mean "to be redress'd." the immediate success of _pasquin_ attests, as we have said, the readiness of london audiences in 1736 to applaud an honest and humorous presentation of wicked ministers, corrupt clergy, lawyers, and doctors, inane laureates, and degrading public entertainments. mrs delany, gathering london news for dean swift, writes on april 22, "when i went out of town last autumn, the reigning madness was farinelli; i find it now turned on _pasquin_, a dramatic satire on the times. it has had almost as long a run as the beggar's opera; but in my opinion not with equal merit, though it has humour." [5] we are told how the piece drew numerous enthusiastic audiences "from _grosvenor_, _cavendish_, _hanover_, and all the other fashionable squares, as also from _pall mall_ and the _inns of court_" and on the 26th of may a benefit performance for the author was announced as the "60th. day." the vogue of the satire even demanded a key, as may be seen in an advertisement in the _london daily post_ for may 17: _this day is published, price four-pence. a key to pasquin, address'd to henry fielding esqre._ mr pasquin's own advertisements for his little theatre are not without the zest with which our beef-eating ancestors attacked politics, social abuses and one another. the announcement for march 5, ran as follows:- "_by the_ great mogul's _company of_ english _comedians, newly imported_. at the new theatre in the haymarket, this day, march 5, will be presented pasquin, a dramatick satyr on the times. being a rehearsal of two plays, viz. a comedy call'd the election; and a tragedy, call'd the life and death of common sense.... n.b.--mr pasquin intending to lay about him with great impartiality, hopes the town will all attend, and very civilly give their neighbours what the find belongs to 'em. n.b.--the cloaths are old, but the jokes entirely new...." in the following month the opposition was busy over the marriage of their chief supporter, the prince of wales; and mr pasquin duly chronicles the event in his advertisements of the 28th of april, observing that his company "by reason of the royal wedding expecting no company but themselves, are obliged to defer playing till tomorrow." a few days later, on the 12th of may, sir robert walpole celebrated the royal marriage by a grand evening entertainment given at his house in st james park; and on the same night 'pasquin' had the audacity to advertise a special performance, in the following terms (the "country party," it should be understood, was a usual name for walpole's opponents):-"for the benefit of miss burgess, who has so zealously espoused the country interest.... miss burgess hopes all patriots and lovers of their country will appear in her favour and give all encouragement to one who has so early distinguished herself on the side of liberty." in pasquin's _election_ scenes, this lady played the part of miss stitch, a political damsel, opposed to walpole's candidate. next day appeared an ironic counter-advertisement of a performance for "the benefit of miss jones (the mayor's daughter who hath so furiously espoused the court [_i.e._ walpole's] interest....) _n.b._--miss jones does not doubt that all true loyal people will give her all encouragement in their power, as she has engaged in so unpopular a side and even given away her fan (which very few young ladies would) for the service of the country: she hopes the courtiers will not let her be out of pocket by the bargain." here, again, is doubtless a hit at lord 'fanny' hervey; as well as a plain hint that those who espoused walpole's cause might expect ample payment for their trouble. is there any wonder that a wrathful and uneasy minister, not yet overthrown, shortly took stringent measures against the 'liberty' of the stage; measures by which a political stage censorship was formally established, and the topical gaiety of our theatre, and the pungency of our theatrical announcements, henceforth immeasurably dulled. a few further points of minor interest remain to be noted concerning that popular and scathing personage mr pasquin. by may the company styled themselves "pasquin's company of comedians"; a fresh indication of the credit attaching to the performance. in the previous month a contributor to _the grub street journal_ tells "dear grub" that he has seen pope applauding the piece; and, although the statement was promptly denied, a rare print by hogarth lends some colour to a very likely story; for the great mr pope, the terror of his enemies, the autocrat of literature, was warmly on the side of the opposition. hogarth depicts the stage of fielding's theatre, and thereon a scene in the fifth act of _pasquin_, in which the foes of queen common sense are for the moment triumphant. the side boxes are well filled; and in one of them mr pope's deformed figure, apparently, turns away, declaring: "there is no whitewashing this stuff." the curious may find another plate by hogarth in which pope _is_ busy whitewashing lord burlington; but the drift of the remark for the opposition drama of _pasquin_ seems obscure. the gains that accrued to fielding from the success of _pasquin_ are indicated by another rare print, that entitled the _judgement of the queen o' common sense. addressed to henry fielding esqre._ here, again, it is _pasquin's_ satire on the prevailing furore for pantomime that is chiefly illustrated; as common sense gives to rich, the harlequin, a halter, while to fielding she accords an overflowing purse. supporting fielding are a long lean shakespeare, and two figures, possibly the distinguished players kitty clive and quin; on the opposite side, behind harlequin, are figures representing the bad clergy, lawyers, and doctors satirised in the _tragedy_; and the whole is balanced by the emergence of the ghost in hamlet, from a trap door in the foreground. doggerel verses, at the foot of the print, celebrate the arrival of a bard, "from ye great mogul," bringing with him _wit, humour, and satyr_, and receiving the queen's "honest favour," in "show'rs of gold." under those golden showers, and with the applause of 'all the fashionable squares' ringing in his ears, we may leave mr pasquin. fielding's first venture as political dramatist and theatrical manager had proved brilliantly successful; his little theatre, like his own tom thumb, had assailed a dozen giant abuses, an all-powerful minister among them, and the town had applauded the courage and wit of the performance. in the following season, those same boards were to witness the author of _pasquin_ "laying about him" with an even greater political audacity. * * * * * content, doubtless, with the success of _pasquin_, fielding does not seem to have launched any further political attacks during the remaining months of 1736. a newspaper advertisement of june announces the intention of the 'great mogul's company of comedians' to continue "playing twice a week during the summer season," and _pasquin_ remained occasionally in the bills as late as the 2nd of july. the public were advised that "this is much the coolest house in town"; and audiences must have been drawn even in august, for in that month one small and presumably party play was performed, the _new comi-tragical interlude call'd the deposing and death of queen gin_. this little piece consisted of only two scenes, and was probably a skit on a bill "against spirituous liquors" which walpole had supported earlier in the year. the measure met with violent opposition, including petitions from the liverpool and bristol merchants; and in view of sir robert's own notorious excesses with the bottle a temperance bill from his hands may well have roused fielding's ironic laughter. the authorship of the satire is unknown; but the moral appears to have been unexceptionable, as _queen gin_, in the final scene, "drinks a great quantity of liquor and at last dies." fielding clearly began his second year at the 'little theatre' with some social or political exhortation, as the following bill appears for january:--"by a company of comedians, at the new theatre in the haymarket, this day, january 26, will be presented a dramatick satire on the times (never performed before) call'd the mirrour." by february "the original company who perform'd _pasquin_" are notified on the bills; and on the 2nd of march a performance is announced of a _dramatick tale of the king and the miller of mansfield_, presumably the same _miller of mansfield_ openly declared by one of walpole's "hired scribblers" to be aimed at the overthrow of the ministry. [6] all such preliminary skirmishes, however, served but to introduce the grand attack of the _historical register for the tear 1736_, the first performance of which may be assigned to the end of march 1737. [7] in the _register_ we have the most complete display of fielding's vigour as a fighting politician. here, to recur to mr pasquin's characteristic phrase, he "lays about him" with a gusto and honest frankness quite lost among our own tepid conventions. but however hard the hitting, however boisterous the broad humour, however biting the irony, it is noteworthy that in this his chief political satire, written moreover for a yet unregulated stage, fielding never stoops to the shameless personalities of his day. the fashion of the eighteenth-century permitted even the great and classical genius of pope to hurl lines at the persons of his opponents that, to modern ears, scarcely bear quotation. fielding, as we know, constantly asserted his intention of throwing not at the vicious but at vice; and accordingly, even in this party play, flung openly in the face of the minister, there is but one reference (and that only a fling at his "lack of any the least taste in polite literature") to the notorious personal failings of sir robert. it is against the minister, and not the man, that the hot-blooded opposition dramatist directs his humour and his irony. fielding's manly and generous nature here permitted no virulent personalities to blacken his pages. [8] the irony of the _register_ is chiefly reserved for the _dedication to the public_, designed for the reader at leisure; though here walpole is indicated broadly enough, first in the figure of an ass hung out on a signpost, and again as "old nick," for "who but the devil could act such a part." here the attacks of the ministerial papers are parried by ironic explanations that "the register is a ministerial pamphlet calculated to infuse into the minds of the people a great opinion of their ministry," explanations full of admirable fencing and excellent hits. and in these dedicatory pages fielding utters a sonorous warning to his countrymen concerning the insidious policy that was undermining their very constitution: "... here is the danger, here is the rock on which our constitution must, if it ever does split. the liberties of a people have been subdued by conquests of valour and force, and have been betrayed by the subtle and dexterous arts of refined policy, but these are rare instances; for geniuses of this kind are not the growth of every age, whereas if a general corruption be once introduced, and those, who should be the guardians and bulwarks of our liberty, once find or think they find an interest in giving it up, no great capacity will be required to destroy it. on the contrary the meanest, lowest, dirtiest fellow, if such an one should ever have the assurance in future ages to mimick power, and browbeat his betters, will be as able as machiavel himself could have been, to root out the liberties of the bravest people." from the solemnities of the _dedication_ we come to the "humming deal of satire," and the boisterous action, of the play itself. as in the case of _pasquin_ the form of the drama is that of a rehearsal, a form which affords excellent opportunities for such explanatory asides as that addressed to the critic who complains of the attempt to review a year's events in a single play: "sir," says the author, "if i comprise the whole actions of a year in half an hour, will you blame me, or those who have done so little in that time?" the long years of walpole's power were admittedly "years without parallel in our history, for political stagnation." scene one discovers five 'blundering blockheads' of politicians, in counsel with one silent "little gentleman yonder in the chair;" who knows all and says nothing, and whose politics lie so deep that "nothing but an inspir'd understanding can come at 'em." the blockheads, however, have capacity enough to snatch hastily at the money lying on their council table. walpole's jealousy of power, it may be remembered, had driven almost every man of ability out of his ministry. then comes a vivacious parody on the fashionable auctions of the day. lots comprising "a most curious remnant of political honesty," a "delicate piece of patriotism," and a "very clear conscience which has been worn by a judge and a bishop" and on which no dirt will stick, go for little or nothing, while lot 8, "a very considerable quantity of interest at court," excites brisk bidding, and is finally knocked down for one thousand pounds. from the excellent fooling of the auction, the action suddenly changes to combined satire on the ministry and on the two cibbers, father and son. the ministry are ingeniously implied to have been damn'd by the public; to give places with no attention to the capacity of the recipient; and to laugh at the dupes by whose money they live. a like weakness for putting blockheads in office and for giving places to rogues, and a like contempt of the public, is allegorically conveyed in the third act, in which 'apollo' casts the parts for a performance among sundry unworthy actors, and declares that the people may grumble 'as much as they please, as long as we get their money.' "there sir," cries the author to the critic of the rehearsal, "is the sentiment of a great man." the _great man_ was a phrase, to use pope's words, "by common use appropriated to the first minister"--that is, to walpole. in the next scene the effrontery of the piece culminates in a ballet where the prime minister appears, leading a chorus of false patriots, who, to use fielding's own words, are set in the 'odious and contemptible light' of a set of "cunning self-interested fellows who for a little paltry bribe would give up the liberties and properties of their country." these worthy patriots are of four types, the noisy, the cautious, the self-interested (he whose shop is his country) and the indolent ("who acts as i have seen a prudent man in company, fall asleep at the beginning of a fray and never wake 'till the end o't"). to them enters quidam, unblushingly announced in the play bill as "quidam, anglice a certain person," in other words walpole himself. quidam pours gold into the pockets of the four patriots, drinks with them, and then, when the 'bottle is out' (a too frequent occurrence at sir robert's table) takes up his fiddle, strikes up a tune and dances off, the patriots dancing after him. but even this is not all. "sir," says the author, "every one of these patriots have a hole in their pockets as mr quidam the fiddler there knows; so that he intends to make them dance 'till all the money is fall'n through, which he will pick up again and so not lose one halfpenny by his generosity...." we may suppose that the final scene lost nothing in breadth by the acting of quidam; and it is not surprising that the immediate result was the subjugation not, alas! of the ministry, but of the liberty of the stage. walpole's fall was delayed for three years; the destruction of the political stage was accomplished in three months. it is difficult to imagine that any party, in those days of comparatively arbitrary power, would venture a public satire so unveiled and so menacing as that of the _register_, unless supported by some confidence in the immediate fall of their opponents. without such confidence the political tactics of such an onslaught would be simple foolhardiness. signs of these false hopes are not wanting in the slight, but equally bold, satire on the sycophants represented as composing walpole's _levée_, which was shortly added to the _register_. this little sketch, in which a protest concerning the damning, early in the year, of fielding's ballad farce _eurydice_ is combined with the political satire, was advertised as follows:- "eurydice hiss'd: or, a word to the wise, giving an account of the rise, progress, greatness, and downfal of mr pillage, ... with the dreadful consequence and catastrophe of the whole." [9] we have the authority of tom davies, at this time a member of fielding's company, for the statement that "fielding in his _eurydice hiss'd_ had brought on the minister [walpole] in a _levée_ scene" [10]; and as pillage is the "very great man" who holds the _levée_ in the fragment, the above allusion to an expected downfall of walpole's ministry seems obvious. passages of similar import to the advertisement occur in the piece itself. thus the play is declared to convey a "beautiful image of the instability of human greatness"; and the spectacle is promised of the 'author of a mighty farce' at the pinnacle of human greatness and adored by a crowd of dependants, become by a sudden turn of fortune, scorned, "deserted and abandon'd." the single scene of the play opens when pillage is at the zenith of his power; a stage direction orders that "the lèvee enters, and range themselves to a ridiculous tune"; a partition of places ensues under the allegory of the business arrangements of a theatrical manager; and the author explains that by this _levée_ scene he hopes that persons greater than author-managers may learn to despise sycophants. close on the heels of the _levée_ comes the catastrophe. not one honest man, pillage sadly admits, is on his side; as his 'shallow plot' opens out the first applause changes to hisses; his farce is damn'd; and he himself is left consoling the solitude of his downfall by getting exceedingly drunk on a third bottle. the figure of a fallen minister boozing away his own intolerable reflections, was not calculated to pacify that notoriously hard drinker, sir robert, already soundly pilloried in the _register_, and severely indited by _pasquin_. by the end of april the _register_ had reached its thirty-first performance, a good run at that date; and according to an advertisement in the _craftsman_ the satire was still being played on the 7th of may. in little more than four weeks, and after the alleged perpetration of a treasonable and profane farce called _the golden rump_, a bill for stifling the liberty of the stage under a censorship was introduced, had passed through both houses, and received the royal assent. well might lord chesterfield exclaim in the brilliant speech which, in smollet's words, "will ever endear his character to all the friends of genius and literature, to all those who are warmed with zeal for the liberties of their country," that the bill was not only "of a very extraordinary nature, but has been brought in at a very extraordinary season and pushed with very extraordinary despatch." concerning the nature of the measure chesterfield had no doubt. he saw its tendency towards restraining the "liberty of the press which will be a long stride towards the destruction of liberty itself"; he pointed out that a minister who has merited the esteem of the people will neither fear the wit nor feel the satire of the theatre; he denounced the subjugation of the stage under "an arbitrary court license" which would convert it into a canal for conveying the vices and follies of "great men and courtiers" through the whole kingdom; he protested against the bill as an encroachment not only on liberty but also on property, for "wit, my lords, is a sort of property; it is the property of those that have it, and too often the only property that they have to depend on." as a manager of the intrepid little theatre in the haymarket, as well as the author of the most successful of the offending plays, the licensing act fell with double weight on fielding. "when i speak against the bill," cried chesterfield, "i must think i plead the cause of wit, i plead the cause of humour, i plead the cause of the british stage, and of every gentleman of taste in the kingdom." looking back over two centuries, we honour chesterfield in that, unknown to himself, he also pleaded the cause of the greatest of english humourists. but appeals on behalf of genius and freedom were thrown away upon walpole; the act received the royal assent on june 21 1737; and, in the honourable company of wit, humour, and taste, fielding was forced to retire from the theatre, on the boards of which he had for two years so vigorously assailed ministerial corruption and autocracy. [1] _works of henry fielding_, edited by edmund gosse. introduction, p. xxi. [2] _life of garrick_. t. davies. 1780, vol. i. p. 223. [3] _notitia dramatica_, mss. dept. british museum, speaks of _pasquin_ as performed for the fortieth time on april 21, 1736: and quotes an advertisement of the play for march 5. there seems to be no record of the actual first night. [4] rich appears to have been the manager at covent garden from 1733 to 1761. [5] _autobiography of mrs delany._ 1861. vol i. p. 554. [6] see fielding's ironic reference to such "iniquitous surmises" in the dedication to the _historical register_. [7] the earliest newspaper reference, so far available, is that of the _daily journal_ for april 6 1737, which speaks of april 11 as the ninth day of the _register_. [8] in the succeeding epilogue of _eurydice hiss'd_ it must be admitted that sir robert's love of the bottle is broadly satirised. [9] _daily advertiser_, april 29. 1737. [10] _life of garrick_, t. davies, vol. ii. p. 206. chapter v homespun drama "virtue distrest in humble state support." prologue to _fatal curiosity_. the licensing act of june 1737 thus brought henry fielding's career as political dramatist to a hasty conclusion; a conclusion quite unforeseen by the luckless author, as appears from his _dedication_ to the _historical register_, published almost at the moment when the act became law: "the very great indulgence you have shown my performances at the little theatre these two last years," he says, addressing his public, "have encouraged me to the proposal of a subscription for carrying on that theatre, for beautifying and enlarging it, and procuring a better company of actors." before finally losing sight of the stage on which _pasquin_ and the _register_ had scored such signal success, we may notice some minor incidents of these two years of fielding's administration. his company does not seem to have included either macklin, quin, or kitty clive; but that distinguished actress mrs pritchard, the central figure of hogarth's charming group called "the green room, drury lane," is said to have made her first appearance on his boards, [1] and his players also included that man of many parts tom davies. davies was a student of edinburgh university; an actor at drury lane and elsewhere; a bookseller of whom the elder d'israeli said 'all his publications were of the best kind'; the writer of various works including a _life of garrick_; and a particular friend of dr johnson. in the first year of fielding's management in the haymarket, davies was cast for a principal part in george lillo's tragedy _fatal curiosity_; and it is to his pen that we owe the only known contemporary reference to the active part taken by fielding himself in the affairs of his theatre. lillo, a jeweller of moorfields, had captured the town, a few years previously, by his tragedy of common life, _george barnwell_; and among the dramatists selected by fielding for representation on his stage the most interesting is undoubtedly this pioneer of the coming revolution in english literature. for, incredible as it may seem, until that first performance of _barnwell_, no writer, to quote tom davies' own words "had ventured to descend so low as to introduce the character of a merchant or his apprentice into a tragedy." certain "witty and facetious persons who call themselves the town," continues davies, brought to the first night copies of the old ballad on which the jeweller's play was based, meaning to mock the new tragedy with the old song; but so forcible and pathetic were lillo's scenes that these merry gentlemen were obliged "to throw away their ballads, and take out their handkerchiefs." more tears, we learn, were shed over this 'homespun drama' than at all the imitations of ancient fables by learned moderns. to fielding this revolution, from the buskin'd heroics of the alexanders and clelias to the living and natural pathos of the tragedy of a poor london apprentice, must have appealed with extraordinary force; for it is the especial glory of his own genius that, throwing aside all the traditions of his age, and 'adventuring on one of the most original expeditions that ever a writer undertook,' [2] he was to discover a new world for english fiction, the world of simple human nature. that expedition must have been already forming in his mind when, night after night, in the hottest part of the year, _george barnwell_ was playing to crowded houses, and convincing the astonished audiences of 1731 that even so low a creature as a london apprentice was possessed of passions extremely like their own. some ten years later, when fielding revealed the first true sign of his own surpassing genius in the _history of the adventures of joseph andrews_, he chose for his hero a country footman. the worthy city jeweller was, in his own limited measure, the forerunner, on the stage, of that new era in english literature created by honest andrews and parson adams, partridge and mrs slipslop, fanny and sergeant atkinson, tow-wouse and mrs miller, to name but a few of fielding's immortal portraits, drawn from the 'vast authentic book of nature.' it is no wonder then, to return to tom davies, that a play by lillo was announced on the bills of fielding's theatre within a few months of the opening of his management. on may 27, 1736, the following advertisement appeared: "guilt its own punishment. never acted before. by pasquin's company of comedians. being a true story in common life and the incidents extremely affecting." by the author of george barnwell. davies' part in the play was a chief one, that of young wilmot, and the story of the performance may be given in his own words. "mr fielding, who had a just sense of our author's merit, and who had often in his humourous pieces laughed at those ridiculous and absurd criticks who could not possibly understand the merit of barnwell, because the subject was low, treated lillo with great politeness and friendship. he took upon himself the management of the play and the instruction of the actors. it was during the rehearsal of the _fatal curiosity_ that i had an opportunity to see and to converse with mr lillo. plain and simple as he was in his address, his manner of conversing was modest affable and engaging. when invited to give his opinion how a particular sentiment should be uttered by the actor he expresst himself in the gentlest and most obliging terms, and conveyed instruction and conviction with good nature and good manners.... fielding was not content merely to revise the 'fatal curiosity,' and to instruct the actors how to do justice to their parts. he warmly recommended the play to his friends and to the public. besides all this he presented the author with a well written prologue." this _prologue_, which has apparently hitherto escaped the collectors of fielding's _works_, seems worthy of a reprint here, if only for its characteristic sympathy with virtue and distress 'in humble state,' and for the opening tribute to 'shakespeare's nature' and to 'fletcher's ease.' prologue to the fatal curiosity "the tragic muse has long forgot to please with shakespeare's nature or with fletcher's ease: no passion mov'd, thro' five long acts you sit, charm'd with the poet's language or his wit. fine things are said, no matter whence they fall; each single character must speak them all. "but from this modern fashionable way to-night our author begs your leave to stray. no fustian hero rages here to-night, no armies fall to fix a tyrant's right: from lower life we draw our scenes' distress: --let not your equals move your pity less! virtue distrest in humble state support; nor think she never lives without the court. "tho' to our scenes no royal robes belong and tho' our little stage as yet be young throw both your scorn and prejudice aside; let us with favour not contempt be try'd, thro' the first act a kind attention lend the growing scene shall force you to attend: shall catch the eyes of every tender fair, and make them charm their lovers with a tear. the lover too by pity shall impart his tender passion to his fair one's heart: the breast which others' anguish cannot move was ne'er the seat of friendship or of love." notwithstanding all the manager's friendly efforts, the play met at first with very little success, a failure in davies' opinion "owing in all probability to its being brought on in the latter part of the season, when the public had been satiated with a long run of _pasquin_," but, he adds, "it is with pleasure i observe that fielding generously persisted to serve the man whom he had once espoused; he tacked the 'fatal curiosity' to his historical register which was played with great success in the ensuing winter." [3] we owe no inconsiderable debt to tom davies in that he has preserved for us this picture of fielding, actively engaged in the stage-management of his little theatre; a picture, moreover, that does equal honour to the brilliant wit, the successful political satirist, and to that modest, gentle nonconformist poet, the man of whom it was said that he "had the spirit of an old roman joined to the innocence of a primitive christian," george lillo. a few weeks before the production of lillo's tragedy, and while _pasquin_ was still in the full tide of political success, an event occurred of closer import to fielding's affectionate nature than all the applause of the opposition and the town. this was the birth, in april, 1736, of his daughter charlotte. no english writer has left more charming pictures of mother and child than those we owe to the tenderness and simplicity of fielding's pen. when we find squire western turning, in his latter days, to sophia's nursery, and hear him declaring that the prattling of his granddaughter is "sweeter music than the finest cry of dogs in _england_" when we see captain booth stretched at full length on the floor of his poor lodgings, with his "little innocents" jumping over him, we are almost inclined to forgive alike the brutalities of the old foxhunter, and the weaknesses of the young soldier. fielding's affection for his children, his apprehensions for their ultimate provision, his anxiety in their sickness, his grief at the loss of a little daughter, are manifest in his pages. if anything could exceed the satisfaction which the brilliant success of _pasquin_ must have given to his buoyant nature, it would be the birth of this, the first child apparently, of his marriage with the beautiful charlotte cradock. the entry in the registers of st martin's in the fields runs as follows: baptized may 19th, 1736 charlotte fielding, of henry and charlotte, born april 27th. the dates of _pasquin_, of lillo's tragedy, and of the _historical register_, cover a considerable portion of the years 1736, 1737, and their production in a theatre under fielding's own management practically presupposes his presence in london at that time. this by no means fits in with murphy's implication that fielding retired to stour on his marriage, and that, remaining there, he ran through his "little patrimony," in "less than three years." a complete country retirement cannot be assigned to those busy years in the haymarket; and in 1736 the journey from london to dorsetshire was no trifling undertaking. but it seems quite possible that fielding and his wife went down to their small estate in dorsetshire for part or all of the summer, autumn and winter of both 1736 and 1737. this would cover the hunting months, and "hounds and horses," according to murphy, filled a large part in fielding's country life at stour; the time would be that of the comparatively dull season for the theatre in the haymarket; and, with the year immediately preceding _pasquin_, we should thus, perhaps, account sufficiently for murphy's "three years". certain passages in the _miscellanies_, published long after the pleasant meadows and the modest house at stour--no less than the turmoil of the green-room and the crowded political audiences in the haymarket--were things of the past, have a personal ring, reminiscent perhaps of such months of "sweet retirement" in dorsetshire. thus one of the characters in the _journey from this world to the next_ recalls the change, from a life of "restless anxieties," to a "little pleasant country house, where there was nothing grand or superfluous, but everything neat and agreeable"; and how, after a little time, "i began to share the tranquillity that visibly appeared in everything round me. i set myself to do works of fancy and to raise little flower-gardens, with many such innocent rural amusements; which altho' they are not capable of affording any great pleasure, yet they give that serene turn of the mind, which i think much preferable to anything else human nature is made susceptible of." to this pleasant picture of "rural amusements," and tranquillity, it is surely not impertinent to add this further passage, as a possible echo of charlotte fielding's thought, well acquainted as she must have been both with the "sweetly winding banks of stour" and with the clamorous successes of political drama: "in all these various changes i never enjoyed any real satisfaction, unless in the little time i lived retired in the country free from all noise and hurry." in the summer or autumn of 1737 the curtain was finally rung down on all the 'noise and hurry,' the achievements and audacities of fielding's "little stage"; a few months later, and the country retirement at stour had also become but a memory of that short life into which he managed to compress "more variety of scenes than many people who live to be very old." [1] _life of garrick_. t. davies, vol. ii. [2] _works of henry fielding_, edited by edmund gosse. introduction, p. xxix. [3] _the works of mr george lillo, with some account of his life_, t. davies. chapter vi bar student. journalist "the ... covetous, the prodigal, the ambitious, the voluptuous, the bully, the vain, the hypocrite, the flatterer, the slanderer, call aloud for the _champion's_ vengeance." --the _champion_, dec. 22, 1739. there is no record of when or how fielding disposed of his share in the management of the new theatre in the haymarket. but on june 21 1737, walpole's bill for regulating the stage received, as we have seen, the royal assent; and there can be no doubt that sir robert would at once apply his newly acquired powers to removing the dances of the fiddler, mr quiddam, and the drunken consolations of mr pillage, from the haymarket boards, if indeed these gentlemen had not anticipated events by already removing themselves. we may safely assume that henry fielding's career as political dramatist came to an abrupt conclusion some time in the summer of 1737. [1] it remains a matter for speculation why, after seven years spent in producing a stream of not unsuccessful social comedies and farces, leading up to a final and brilliant success in the field of political satiric drama, fielding should have thrown up the stage as a whole, when suddenly debarred from those party onslaughts which had occupied but a fraction of his dramatic energies. the cause was not any lack of popularity. "the farces written by mr fielding," wrote murphy in 1762, "were almost all of them very successful, and many of them are still acted every winter, with a continuance of approbation." and it is obvious that the fashionable vices and follies of the time afforded ample inducement to a satiric dramatist to continue 'laying about him,' even when ministerial offences had been rendered inviolate by act of parliament. neither was fielding's sanguine temperament likely to be daunted by the single failure of his farce _eurydice_, which had been damned at drury lane on february 19 of this same year: "disagreeable impressions," murphy tells us, "never continued long upon his mind." the most satisfactory solution of the matter seems to be that now, in the approaching maturity of his powers, the 'father of the english novel' was becoming conscious that the true field for his genius lay in a hitherto unattempted form of imaginative narration, and not within the five acts of comedy or farce. the entirely original conceptions of a _joseph andrews_ and a _jonathan wild_ may already have begun to captivate the vigorous energies of his mind. we have his own word for assigning "some years" to the writing of _tom jones_; it is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the conception of the first english "comic epic poem in prose" may date as far back as the summer of 1737. leaving surmise for fact, it is certain that this year marks the dividing line in fielding's life. henceforth he ceases to be the witty, facile, popular dramatist; and he enters slowly on his birthright as the first in time, if not in genius, of english novelists. to this complete severance from the theatre belongs his own remark that "he left off writing for the stage when he ought to have begun." arrived at a late maturity, and with accumulated stores of observation and insight,--"he saw the latent sources of human action," says murphy--his genius happily turned into a channel carved, with splendid originality, for itself alone. after nine years of servitude to the limitations of dramatic construction, limitations he was wont to relieve, as his friend james harris tells us, by "pleasantly though perhaps rather freely" _damning the man who invented fifth acts_, fielding was now soon to discover his freedom in the spacious, hitherto unadventured, regions of prose fiction. but genius, especially genius with wife and child to support, cannot maintain life on inspiration alone; and, accordingly, the ex-dramatist now flung himself, with characteristic impetuosity and courage, into a struggle for independence at the bar, perhaps the most arduous profession, under all the circumstances, that he could have chosen. for a reputation as the writer of eighteen comedies, and as the reckless political dramatist whose boisterous energies had set the town ringing with _pasquin_ and the _register_, the fame in short of being the successful manager of _the great mogul's company of comedians_, was surely the last reputation in the world to bring a man briefs from cautious attorneys. and, with whatever hopes of political patronage, any temperament less buoyant might well have hesitated to embark on reading for the bar at the age of thirty. but "by dificulties," says his earliest biographer, "his resolution was never subdued; on the contrary they only roused him to struggle through them with a peculiar spirit and magnanimity." so, within six months of the closing down of his little theatre under walpole's irate hand, fielding had formally entered himself as a student at the middle temple. the entry in the books of that society runs as follows:- [574 g] 1 nov'ris. 1737. _henricus fielding, de east stour in com dorset ar, filius et haeres apparens brig: gen'lis: edmundi fielding admissus est in societatem medii templi lond specialiter at obligatur una cum &c. et dat pro fine_ 4. 0. 0. of the ensuing two and a half years of student life in the temple we know practically nothing, beyond one vivacious picture of harry fielding's attack upon the law. "his application while a student in the temple," writes murphy, "was remarkably intense; and though it happened that the early taste he had taken of pleasure would occasionally return upon him, and conspire with his spirits and vivacity to carry him into the wild enjoyments of the town, yet it was particular in him that amidst all his dispositions nothing could suppress the thirst he had for knowledge, and the delight he felt in reading; and this prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has been frequently known by his intimates, to retire late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read and make extracts from the most abstruse authors, for several hours before he went to bed; so powerful were the vigour of his constitution and the activity of his mind." one of the few pages of fielding's autograph that have come down to us is presumably a relic of these student days. in the catalogue of the _morrison manuscripts_ occurs this description of two undated pages in his hand: "list of offences against the king and his state immediately, which the law terms high treason. offences against him in a general light as touching the commonwealth at large, as trade etc. offences against him as supreme magistrate etc." were ever genius and wit more straitly or more honourably shackled than that of henry fielding, gallantly accepting such toil as this, toil moreover that must have weighed with double weight on a man who had spent nine years in the company of those charming if 'fickle jades' the muses. all efforts have failed to trace where fielding and his wife and child (or children--the date of the birth of his daughter harriet is not known) lived during these laborious months; but that money was needed in the summer following his entry at the middle temple may be inferred from the sale of the property at stour. according to the legal note of this transaction, [2] "henry ffeilding and charlotte his wife" conveyed, in the trinity term of 1738, to one thomas hayter, for the sum of £260, "two messuages, two dove-houses, three gardens, three orchards, fifty acres of land, eighty acres of meadow, one hundred and forty acres of pasture, ten acres of wood and common and pasture for all manner of cattle with the appurtenances in east stour." it does not need a very active imagination to realise the keen regret with which fielding must have parted with his gardens and orchards, his pastures, woods and commons. sixty years ago the barn and one of the "dove-houses" had been but recently pulled down; and to this day the estate is still known as "fielding's farm." [3] it has been stated, on what authority does not appear, that, after leaving stour, fielding went to salisbury, and there bought a house, his solicitor being a mr john perm tinney. whatever be the fact as to the salisbury residence, it is certain that a full year after the sale of the dorsetshire property the temple student was by no means at the end of his resources. for in the following letter [4] to mr nourse, the bookseller, dated july 1739, we find him requiring a london house at a rent of forty pounds and with a large "eating parlour." "mr nourse, disappointments have hitherto prevented my paying y'r bill, which, i shall certainly do on my coming to town which will be next month. i desire the favour of y'u to look for a house for me near the temple. i must have one large eating parlour in it for the rest shall not be very nice. rent not upwards of £40 p. an: and as much cheaper as may be. i will take a lease for seven years. yr answer to this within a fortnight will much oblige. y'r humble serv't henry ffielding. i have got cro: eliz. [5] "july 9th 1739." this note, written a year before fielding's call to the bar, suggests that his early married life was by no means spent in the "wretched garrett" of lady louisa stuart's celebrated reminiscence. in the september following the sale of his dorsetshire estate fielding had to regret the death of george lillo, to whose success he had devoted so much personal care and energy, when staging lillo's tragedy _fatal curiosity_ on the boards of the little theatre in the haymarket. the close relationship in intellectual sympathy between lillo's talent and the genius of fielding has already been noticed. but apart from this intellectual sympathy, the personal worth and charm of the good tradesman is noteworthy, as affording striking proof of the quality of man chosen by the 'wild harry fielding' for regard and friendship. and it should be remembered that in those days to bridge the social gulf between the kinsman of the earl of denbigh and a working jeweller, required courage as well as insight. some time after lillo's death a generous memorial notice of him appeared in fielding's paper the _champion_. the writer detects in his work "an heart capable of exquisitely feeling and painting human distresses, but of causing none"; and declares that his title to be called the best tragic poet of his age, "was the least of his praise, he had the gentlest and honestest manners, and, at the same time, the most friendly and obliging. he had a perfect knowledge of human nature, though his contempt of all base means of application, which are the necessary steps to great acquaintance, restrained his conversation within very narrow bounds: he had the spirit of an old _roman_, joined to the innocence of a primitive christian; he was content with his little state of life, in which his excellent temper of mind gave him an happiness, beyond the power of riches, and it was necessary for his friends to have a sharp insight into his want of their services, as well as good inclinations or abilities to serve him. in short he was one of the best of men, and those who knew him best will most regret his loss." [6] in the excellent company of henry fielding's friends george lillo may surely take his stand beside the 'good lord lyttelton,' the munificent and pious allen, and not far from 'parson adams' himself. no record has survived of fielding's share in the political struggles of his party, during his first two years of "intense application" to the law. walpole's power had been sensibly lessened by the death of the queen, and he was losing the support of the country and even of the trading classes. the prince of wales, now openly hostile to the "great man," was the titular head of an opposition numbering almost all the men of wit and genius in the kingdom. lyttelton, fielding's warmest friend, had become secretary to the prince, and was recognised as a fluent leader of the opposition in the house of commons. another friend, john duke of argyll, had joined the ranks of the opposition in the lords. on the whole the author of _pasquin_, may well have hoped for a speedy fall of the "colossos," with "its brains of lead, its face of brass, its hands of iron, its heart of adamant," and the accession to power of a party not without obligations to the fearless manager of the little theatre in the haymarket. during these years the opposition, even though supported by pope and chesterfield, thomson and bolingbroke, could scarcely fail to utilise the trenchant scorn, the whole-hearted vigour, the boisterous humour, of fielding's genius; and murphy, speaking vaguely of fielding's legal years, says that a "large number of fugitive political tracts, which had their value when the incidents were actually passing on the great scene of business, came from his pen." it is not however till november 1739, two years and a half after the pillorying of walpole on the haymarket boards, that fielding is again clearly seen, 'laying about' him, in those clamourous eighteenth-century politics. his choice of a new weapon of attack is foreshadowed in the noble concluding words of the _introduction_ to the _historical register_; words written on the very eve of the ministerial bill gagging that and all other political plays: "if nature hath given me any talents at ridiculing vice and imposture, i shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them, while the liberty of the press and stage subsists, that is to say while we have any liberty left among us." a few weeks after these words were published the liberty of the stage was triumphantly stifled by walpole's licensing bill. but even "old bob" himself dared not lay his hand on the liberty of the british press; and so we find mr pasquin reappearing under the guise, or in the company, of the _champion and censor of great britain_, otherwise one _captain hercules vinegar_, a truculent avenger of wrong and exponent of virtue, in whose fictitious name a political, literary, and didactic newspaper entered the field of party politics on november 15, 1739. the paper, under the title of the _champion_, was issued three times a week, and consisted of one leading article, an anti-ministerial summary of news, and literary notices of new books. the first number announced that the author and owner was the said captain hercules vinegar, and that the captain would be aided in various departments by members of his family. thus the captain's wife, mrs joan vinegar, a matron of a very loquacious temper, was to undertake the ladies' column, and his son jack was to have "an eye over the gay part of the town." the criticism was to be conducted by mr nol vinegar who was reported to have spent one whole year in examining the use of a single word in horace. and the politics were to be dealt forth by the captain's father, a gentleman intimately versed in kingdoms, potentates and ministers, and of so close a disposition that he "seldom opens his mouth, unless it be to take in his food, or puff out the smoke of his tobacco." the paper bore no signed articles; but judging from an attack levelled against it in a pamphlet of the following year, [7] fielding and his former not very worshipful partner in the haymarket management, james ralph, were the reputed "authors," ralph being in a subordinate position. thus, it is stated that ralph, "is now say'd to be the 'squire of the _british_ champion"; the writer identifies _captain vinegar_ and the author of _pasquin_ as one and the same person; he describes pasquin and ralph as the "authors of the champion"; he asserts that the old roman statues of pasquin and marfario, "are now dignified and distinguished (by the champion and his doughty squire ralph), under the names [_sic_] of captain hercules vinegar."; he prints an address to the "_self-dubb'd captain_ hercules vinegar," and his "man _ralph_"; and appends some doggerel verse entitled "vinegar and his gang." but from all this nothing definite emerges as to the precise part taken by fielding in the authorship of the _champion_. the pamphleteer accredits a fragment of a paper signed c. to the _captain_, and attributes two papers, [8] signed c. and l., to "mr pasquin"--_i.e._ fielding; and as the reprint of the _champion_, which appeared in 1741, announces that all papers so signed are the "work of one hand," there is so much external proof that all such pages in these volumes (numbering some sixty essays) are by fielding. dr nathan drake, writing in 1809, more than sixty years after the appearance of the paper, asserts, without stating his reasons, that the numbers marked "c." and "l." "were the work of fielding." this view is further supported by the opinion of mr austin dobson, that many of the papers signed _c._ "are unmistakably fielding's." on the other hand murphy, writing only twenty-two years after the appearance of the paper, but often with gross inaccuracy, states that the _champion_ "owed its chief support to his [fielding's] abilities," but that "his essays in that collection cannot now be so ascertained as to perpetuate them in this edition of his works." boswell refers to fielding as possessing a "share" in the paper. a manuscript copy of some of the minutes of meetings of the _champion_ partners, written out in an eighteenth-century handwriting, and now in the possession of the present writer, confirms boswell's note, in as far as an entry therein records that "henry fielding esq. did originally possess two sixteenth shares of the champion as a writer in the said paper." one of the lists of the partners of the _champion_ which occur in the same manuscript, is headed by the name of "mr fielding." finally, a contemporary satirical print shows fielding with his "length of nose and chin" and his tall figure, acting as standard-bearer of the _champion_; the paper being represented in its political capacity of a leading opposition organ. there is, moreover, the internal evidence of style and sentiment. thus the matter rests; and although it is exceedingly tempting to use the _champion_ for inferences as to the manner in which fielding approached his new craft of journalism, and as to his attitude on the many subjects, theological, social, political and personal, handled in these essays, the evidence seems hardly sufficient to warrant such deductions. it does, however, seem clear, taking as evidence the shilling pamphlet already mentioned,[9] that harry fielding, the intrepid and audacious mr pasquin of 1736-7 reappeared, laying about him with his ever ready cudgel now raised to the dignity of a miraculous hercules club, as the _champion_ of 1739-41. to all lovers of good cudgelling, whether laid on the shoulders of the incorrigible old cynic sir robert, or on those of the egregious colley cibber, or falling on the follies and abuses of the day, the "pasquinades and vinegarades" of _captain hercules vinegar_, and his "doughty squire ralph," may be commended. and no fault can be found with the _captain's_ declaration, when establishing a court of judicature for the trial and punishment of sundry offenders in his pages, that "whatever is wicked, hateful, absurd, or ridiculous, must be exposed and punished, before this nation is brought to that height of purity and good manners to which i wish to see it exalted." [10] one personal sketch of fielding himself deserves quotation, whether drawn by his own hand or that of another. the _champion_ for may 24, 1740, contains a vision of the infernal regions, where charon, the ghostly boatman, is busy ferrying souls across the river styx. the ferryman bids his attendant mercury see that all his passengers embark carrying nothing with them; and the narrator describes how, after various shades had qualified for their passage, "a tall man came next, who stripp'd off an old grey coat with great readiness, but as he was stepping into the boat, _mercury_ demanded half his chin, which he utterly refused to comply with, insisting on it that it was all his own." fielding's length of chin and nose was well known; and not less familiar, doubtless, was the 'old grey coat,' among the purlieus of the temple. the beginning of the year 1740, when the lusty _champion_ and his cudgel were well established, and _captain hercules'_ private legal studies were drawing to a close, was marked by a fresh outburst of the old feud with colley cibber. cibber, already notorious as actor, dramatist, manager, the poet laureat of "preposterous odes," and the 'poetical tailor' who would even cut down shakespeare himself, now appeared in the character of historian and biographer, publishing early in 1740 the famous _apology for the life of mr colley cibber, comedian, and late patentee of the theatre royal. with an historical view of the stage during his own time._ cibber, soon to be scornfully chosen by pope as dunce-hero of the _dunciad_, had, for the past six years, been pilloried by fielding; and, not unmindful of these onslaughts, he inserted in his new work a virulent attack on the late manager of the new theatre in the haymarket. the tenor of _pasquin_ was here grossly misrepresented. fielding was described as being, at the time of entering on his management, "a broken wit"; he was accused of using the basest dramatic means of profit, since "he was in haste to get money"; and the final insult was added by cibber's stroke of referring to his enemy anonymously, as one whom "i do not chuse to name." looking back across two centuries on to the supreme figures of pope and fielding, it is matter for some wonder that these giants of the intellect should have greatly troubled to annihilate a colley cibber. a finer villain, it seems to us, might have been chosen by pope for the six hundred lines of his _dunciad_ a worthier target might have drawn the arrows of fielding's _champion_. but cibber possessed at least the art of arousing notable enmities; and the four slashing papers in which the _champion_ [11] promptly parried the scurrilities of the _apology_ still make pretty reading for those who are curious in the annals of literary warfare. it is noteworthy that these _champion_ retorts are honourably free from the personalities of an age incredibly gross in the use of personal invective. fielding's journal, even under the stinging provocation of the insults of the _apology_, was still true to the standard set in the _prologue_ of his first boyish play 'no private character these scenes expose.' it is cibber's ignorance of grammar, his murder of the english tongue, his inflated literary conceit, rather than his 'private character' that are here exposed. some time during the latter half of 1740 the whole feud between cibber, pope, fielding and ralph was reprinted in the shilling pamphlet, already referred to, entitled _the tryal of colley cibber_. the collection concludes as follows: "advertisement "if the ingenious _henry fielding_ esq.; (son of the hon. lieut. general _fielding_, who upon his return from his travels entered himself of the _temple_ in order to study the law, and married one of the pretty miss _cradocks_ of _salisbury_) will _own_ himself the author of 18 strange things called tragical _comedies_ and comical _tragedies_, lately advertised by _j. watts_, of _wild-court_, printer, he shall be _mentioned_ in capitals in the _third_ edition of mr cibber's _life_, and likewise be placed _among_ the _poetae minores dramatici_ of the present age; then will both his _name and writings be remembered on record_ in the immortal _poetical register_ written by mr giles jacob." the whole production affords a lively example of the full-blooded pamphleteering of 1740; and throws valuable light on fielding's repute as the _champion_. as regards ralph's collaboration with fielding at this period (a collaboration further affirmed by dr nathan drake's assertion, written in 1809, that james ralph was fielding's chief coadjutor in that paper) it may be recalled that ten years previously this not very reputable american had provided a prologue for fielding's early play, the _temple beau_; and that he appears again as fielding's partner in the management of the little theatre in the haymarket. gradually relinquishing his theatrical ambitions, ralph appears to have turned his talents to political journalism, and according to tom davies was becoming formidable as a party writer for the opposition in these last years of walpole's administration. boswell tells us that ralph ultimately succeeded fielding in his share of the _champion_; [12] but we have no definite knowledge of what precise part was taken by him in the earlier numbers. no continued trace occurs of his collaboration with fielding; and indeed it is difficult to conceive any permanent alliance between fielding's manly, independent, and generous nature, and the sordid and selfish character, and mediocre talents of james ralph. [1] the fullest newspaper for theatrical notices at this date, preserved in the british museum, the _london daily post_, is unfortunately missing for this year. [2] now first printed, from documents at the record office. [3] a table inscribed by a former owner as having belonged to henry fielding, esq., novelist, is now in the possession of the somersetshire archaeological society. the inscription adds that fielding "hunted from east stour farm in 1718." he would then be eleven years old! [4] from the hitherto unpublished original, in the library of alfred huth, esq. [5] "cro: eliz." is the legal abbreviation for justice croke's law reports for the reign of elizabeth. [6] _champion_, february 26, 1740. [7] _the tryal of colley cibber, comedian etc._ 1740. [8] those of april 22, and april 29, 1740. [9] and see _daily gazeteer_, oct. 9, 1740. [10] _champion_, december 22, 1739. [11] for april 22, april 29, may 6, and may 17. [12] boswell's _johnson_, edited by birkbeck hill. vol. i. p. 169. n. 2: "ralph ... as appears from the minutes of the partners of the _champion_ in the possession of mr reed of staple inn, succeeded fielding in his share of the paper before the date of that eulogium [1744]." chapter vii "counsellor fielding" "wit is generally observed to love to reside in empty pockets." _joseph andrews_. the last retort on colley cibber had scarcely been launched from the columns of the _champion_, when that intrepid 'censor of great britain' and indefatigable law student, _captain hercules vinegar_, attained the full dignities of a barrister of the middle temple. on june 20, 1740, fielding was called to the bar; and on the same day the benchers of his inn assigned to him chambers at no. 4 pump court, "up three pair of stairs." this assignment, according to the wording of the temple records, was "for the term of his natural life." these chambers may still be seen, with their low ceilings and panelled walls, very much to all appearance as when tenanted by harry fielding. the windows of the sitting-room and bedroom look out on to the beautiful old buildings of brick court, and from the head of the staircase one looks across to the stately gilded sundial of pump court, old even in fielding's day, with its warning motto: "shadows we are and like shadows depart." here, in these lofty chambers, up their "three pair" of worn and narrow stairs, fielding donned his barrister's gown, and waited for briefs; and, possessing as he did an imagination "fond of seizing every gay prospect," and natural spirits that gave him, as his cousin lady mary tells us, cheerfulness in a garret, this summer of 1740 must have been full of sanguine hopes. he was now thirty-three, and his splendid physique had not yet become shattered by gout. he had gained, murphy observes, no inconsiderable reputation by the _champion_; his position as a brilliant political playwright had been long ago assured by _pasquin_; the party to whose patriotic interests he had devoted so much energy and wit was now rapidly approaching power; and two years of eager application had equipped him with 'no incompetent share of learning' for a profession in which, we are told, he aspired to eminence. the swift disappointment of these brave hopes, the fast coming years of sickness, distress, and grief endow the old chambers with something of tragedy; but in june, 1740, the shadows were still but a sententious word on the dial. there is practically no surviving record of fielding's activity as a barrister. from murphy we learn that his pursuit of the law was hampered by want of means; and that, moreover, even his indomitable energies were soon often forced to yield to disabling attacks of illness. so long as his health permitted him he "attended with punctual assiduity" on the western circuit, and in term time at westminster hall. but gout rapidly "began to make such assaults upon him as rendered it impossible for him to be as constant at the bar as the laboriousness of his profession required," and he could only follow the law in intervals of health. under such "severities of pain and want" he yet made efforts for success; and the tribute rendered by his first biographer to the courage of those efforts deserves quotation in full: "it will serve to give us an idea of the great force of his mind, if we consider him pursuing so arduous a study under the exigencies of family distress, with a wife and children, whom he tenderly loved, looking up to him for subsistence, with a body lacerated by the acutest pains, and with a mind distracted by a thousand avocations and obliged for immediate supply to produce almost extempore a farce, a pamphlet, or a newspaper." murphy's careless pen seems here to confuse the student years with those of assiduous effort at the bar; and the extempore farces are, judging by the dates of fielding's collected plays, no more than a rhetorical flourish: but there seems no reason to doubt the essential truth of this picture of the vigorous struggles of the sanguine, witty, and not unlearned barrister, ambitious of distinction, and always sensitively anxious as to the maintenance of his wife and children. we may see him attending the western circuit in march and again in august, riding from winchester to salisbury, thence to dorchester and exeter, and on to launceston, taunton, bodmin, wells or bristol as the case might be; constant in his appearance at westminster; and supplementing his briefs by political pamphlets written in the service of an opposition supported by the intellect and integrity of the day. it is inexplicable that no records, in the letters or diaries of his brother lawyers, should have come down to us of circuits, enlivened by the wit of harry fielding; that practically all traces of his professional work should be lost; and that concerning the many friendships which he is recorded to have made at the bar we should know practically nothing beyond his own cordial acknowledgment of the lawyers' response, three years after his call, to the subscription for the _miscellanies_. in the preface to those volumes he writes: "i cannot however forbear mentioning my sense of the friendship shown me by a profession of which i am a late and unworthy member, and from whose assistance i derive more than half the names which appear to this subscription." all that we have to add to this, is the unconscious humour of murphy's observation that the friendships fielding met with "in the course of his studies, and indeed through the remainder of his life from the gentlemen of the legal profession in general, and particularly from some who have since risen to be the first ornaments of the law, will ever do honour to his memory." had the names of these worthy 'ornaments' been preserved, posterity could now give them due recognition as having been honoured by the friendship of henry fielding. [1] fielding in his habit, as he lived, is for ever eluding us. his tall figure vanishes behind the prolific playwright, the exuberant politician, the truculent journalist, the indefatigable magistrate, the great creative genius. but at no point does the wittiest man of his day, and a lawyer of some repute--'mr fielding is allowed to have acquired a respectable share of jurisprudence'--escape us so completely as during these years of 'punctual assiduity' at the bar. his very domicile is unknown, after the surrender of those pleasant chambers in pump court, on november 28 1740. the political activities of "counsellor fielding" stand out far more clearly than do the legal labours of these years of struggle at the bar. the year of his call, 1740, was one of constant embarrassment for sir robert walpole, whose long enjoyment of single power was now at last drawing to a miserable close. the conduct of the spanish war was arraigned, and suggestions were made that the government were in secret alliance with the enemy. when the news came, in march, that walpole's parliamentary opponent, the bluff admiral vernon, had captured porto bello from spain, with six ships only, the public rejoicing and votes of congratulation were so many attacks on the peace-at-any-price minister. a powerful fleet, designed against spain, lay inactive in torbay the greater part of the summer, through (alleged) contrary winds. and when parliament met in november 1740, an onslaught by the duke of argyll in the lords paved the way for the celebrated attack on sir robert in the commons, known as "the motion" of february 13, 1741. a fine political cartoon published in the following month, and here reproduced, in which walpole appears as mocking at the death and burial of this same "motion" of censure (which the house had rejected), places fielding in the forefront of the opposition procession. the dead "motion" is being carried to the "opposition" family vault, already occupied by jack cade and other "reformers"; and the bier is preceded by five standard-bearers, sadly carrying the insignia of the party's papers. among these, and second only to the famous _craftsman_, comes fielding's tall figure, bearing aloft a standard inscribed _the champion_, and emblazoned with that terrible club of _captain hercules vinegar_, which, we may recall, was always ready to "fall on any knave in company." behind the bier hobbles, clearly, the old duchess of marlborough; and walpole's fat figure stands in the foreground, laughing uproariously at this "funeral of faction." in the doggerel verses beneath this cartoon, it is very plainly hinted that "old sarah," and the opposition, were in league with the stewarts. in this historic debate, for which members secured seats at six o'clock in the morning, the vote of censure on "the _one person_" arraigned was defeated, sir robert once again securing a majority, and so "the motion" as the cartoonist depicts, died "of a disappointment." another cartoon commemorating this ill-fated effort is instructive as showing, again in the foreground of the fight, a figure wearing a barrister's wig, gown, and bands, and inscribed with the words _pasquin_ and _the champion_. the opposition leader, pulteney, leads both the _pasquin_ figure, and another representing the paper _common sense_, literally by the nose with the one hand, while with the other he neatly catches, on his drawn sword, walpole's organ the _gazetteer_. in doggerel verses attached to the print fielding is complimented with the following entire verse to himself:- "then the champion of the age, being witty, wise, and sage, comes with libells on the stage." this _pasquin_ figure has none of the personal characteristics of fielding, neither his "length of nose" nor his stately stature, so well suggested in the former print; but, lay figure though it be, it symbolises no less clearly the prominent part he played in these final political struggles of 1741. also the lawyer's dress with which fielding is here signified is noteworthy; and similar acknowledgment of his new dignities may be seen in the reference (in a copy of walpole's _gazetteer_ for 1740) to the attacks levelled on sir robert by "captain vinegar--_i.e._ counsellor f---d--g." these popular indications of fielding's activity in the fighting ranks of the opposition, during this last year of walpole's domination, are supplemented by the evidence of his own pen. as early as january 1741, and while the grand parliamentary attack of the 13th of february was but brewing, he published an eighteenpenny pamphlet, in verse, satirising sir robert's lukewarm conduct of the war with spain. to the title of _the vernoniad_, there was added a lengthy mock-title in greek, the whole being presented as a lost fragment by homer, describing, in epic style, the mission of one "mammon" sent by satan to baffle the fleets of a nation engaged in war with _iberia_. "mammon" is a perfectly obvious satirical sketch of walpole himself, in the execution of which the hand that had drawn the corrupt fiddler "mr quidam" and the tipsy "mr pillage" for the haymarket stage, has in no wise lost its cunning. "mammon" (walpole was reputed to have amassed much wealth) hides his palace walls by heaps of "ill-got pictures." the pictures collected at houghton, the minister's pretentious norfolk seat, were famous; and the notes to the "text" are careful to depict, in illustration, "some rich man without the least taste having purchased a picture at an immense price, lifting up his eyes to it with wonder and astonishment, without being able to discover wherein its true merit lies." "mammon" declares virtue to be but a name, and his wonted eloquence is bribery. sir robert asserted that every man has his price. "mammon" preserves dulness and ignorance, "while wit and learning starve." walpole's illiterate tastes were notorious. at the close of the poem, "mammon" accomplishes the behest of his master, satan, by bribing contrary winds to drive back the english ships (a satire on walpole's conduct of the war); and he finally returns to hell, and "in his palace keeps a _three weeks'_ feast." sir robert it may be noted usually entertained for three weeks, in the spring, at houghton. the whole is a slashing example of the robust eighteenth-century political warfare, polished by constant classical allusions and quotations; and doubtless it was read with delight in the coffee houses of the town in that critical winter of 1740-1741. two characteristic allusions must not be omitted. even in the heat of party hard hitting fielding finds time for a thrust at colley cibber, whose prose it seems was in several places by no means to be comprehended till "explained by the _herculean_ labours of captain _vinegar_" and there is a pleasant reference to "my friend hogarth the exactest copier of nature." in this first month of 1741, fielding published yet another poetical pamphlet for his party, but of a less truculent energy. _true greatness_ is a poem inscribed to a recruit in the opposition ranks, the celebrated george bubb dodington; and when the eulogiums offered by the poet to his political leaders, argyll, carteret, chesterfield, and lyttelton, to all of whom are ascribed that "true greatness" which "lives but in the noble mind," are completed by a description of dodington as irradiating a blaze of virtues, this particular pamphlet becomes somewhat rueful reading. for dodington was, if report speaks true, a pliant politician as well as an ineffable coxcomb, although it must be admitted that he won eulogies and compliments alike from the perfect integrity of lyttelton, and the honourable pen of james thomson. even fielding's glowing lines do not outstrip thomson's panegyric in _the seasons_. a more enduring interest however than the merits or demerits of a dodington, lies in this shilling pamphlet. in it is clearly foreshadowed fielding's great ironic outburst on false greatness, given to the world a few years later in the form of the history of that napoleon in villany, the "great" mr jonathan wild. in the medium of stiff couplets (verse being "a branch of writing" which fielding admits "i very little pretend to") the subject-matter of the magnificent irony of _jonathan wild_ is already sketched. here the spurious "greatness" of inhuman conquerors, of droning pedants, of paltry beaus, of hermits proud of their humility, is mercilessly laid bare; and something is disclosed of the "piercing discernment" of that genius which, murphy tell us, "saw the latent sources of human actions." we have seen indications in murphy's careless pages that these few years of fielding's assiduous efforts at the bar were years burdened by "severities of want and pain." it is difficult not to admit a reference to some such personal experiences in a passage in this same poem. the lines in question describe the poet going hungry and thirsty "as down cheapside he meditates the song".... a "great tatter'd bard," treading cautiously through the streets lest he meet a bailiff, oppressed with "want and with contempt," his very liberty to "wholesome air" taken from him, yet possessing the greatness of mind that no circumstances can touch, and the power to bestow a fame that shall outlive the gifts of kings. this latter claim foreshadows the magnificent apostrophe in _tom jones_ on that unconquerable force of genius, able to confer immortality both on the poet, and the poet's theme. was the 'great tatter'd bard,' cautiously treading the streets, little esteemed, and yet the conscious possessor of true greatness (did not the author of _tom jones_ rely with confidence on receiving honour from generations yet unborn), none other than the tall figure of fielding himself? at least we know that soon after this year he writes of having lately suffered accidents and waded through distresses, sufficient to move the pity of his readers, were he "fond enough of tragedy" to make himself "the hero of one." one of the rare fragments of fielding's autograph, [2] refers both to this pamphlet, and to the _vernoniad_: "mr nourse, "please to deliver mr chappell 50 of [crossed out: my] [_sic_] true greatness and 50 of the vernoniad. y'rs "hen. ffielding. "_april_ 20 1741." in june of this year occurred the death of general edmund fielding, briefly noticed in the _london magazine_ as that of an officer who "had served in the late wars against _france_ with much bravery and reputation." the general's own struggles to support his large family probably prevented his death affecting the circumstances of his eldest son. in the same month fielding appears as attending a "meeting of the partners in the champion," held at the feathers tavern, on june 29. the list of the partners present at the feathers is given as follows:--[3] present mr fielding mr nourse mr hodges mr chappelle mr cogan mr gilliver mr chandler the business recorded was the sale of the "impressions of the champion in two vollumes, 12'o, no. 1000." the impression was put up to the company by auction, and was knocked down to mr henry chappelle for £110, to be paid to the partners. the majority of the partners are declared by the minutes to have confirmed the bargain; the minority, as appears from the list of signatures, being strictly that of one, henry fielding. after this dissension fielding's name ceases to appear at the _champion_ meetings; and as he himself states that he left off writing for the paper from this very month the evidence certainly points to a withdrawal on his part in june 1741 from both the literary and the business management of the paper. the edition referred to in the minutes is doubtless that advertised in the _london daily post_ a few days before the meeting of the partners, as a publication of the _champion_ "in two neat pocket volumes." [4] meanwhile the whole force of the opposition was thrown into the battle of a general election; and it is interesting to note that pitt stood for the seat for fielding's boyish home, and the home of his wife, that of old sarum. the elections went largely against walpole, and by the end of june defeat was prophesied for a minister who would only be supported by a majority of sixteen. it is somewhat inexplicable that at this, the very moment of the approaching victory of his party fielding appears to have withdrawn from all journalistic work. "i take this opportunity to declare in the most solemn manner," he writes, in after years, "i have long since (as long as from _june_ 1741) desisted from writing one syllable in the _champion_, or any other public paper." and yet more unexpected is the fact that six months later, during the last weeks of walpole's failing power, a rumour should be abroad that fielding was assisting his old enemy. in one of his rare references to his private life, that in the preface to the _miscellanies_, he seeks to clear himself from unjust censures "as well on account of what i have not writ, as for what i have"; and, as an instance of such baseless aspersions, he relates that, in this winter of 1741, "i received a letter from a friend, desiring me to vindicate myself from two very opposite reflections, which two opposite parties thought fit to cast on me, _viz_. the one of writing in the _champion_ (tho' i had not then writ in it for upwards of half a year) the other, of writing in the gazetteer, in which i never had the honour of inserting a single word." what can have occurred, in the bewildering turmoil of that eighteenth-century party strife, that the author of _pasquin_, the possessor of "captain vinegar's" herculean club, should have to vindicate himself from a charge of writing in the columns of walpole's _gazetteer_. during these last months of sir robert's power his cabinet was much divided, and two of his ministers were in active revolt; possibly rumour assigned the services of the witty pen of counsellor fielding to these opposition ministerialists. but that some change did indeed take place in fielding's political activities, in these last six months of 1741 is obvious from his withdrawal from writing in any "public" paper; and from passages in the last political pamphlet known to have come from his pen. this pamphlet, entitled _the opposition. a vision_, was published in the winter of 1741, a winter of severe illness, and of "other circumstances" which, as he tells us, "served as very proper decorations" to the sickbeds of himself, his wife, and child. it is a lively attack on the divided councils and leaders of the opposition, thrown into the form of a dream, caused by the author's falling asleep over "a large quarto book intituled 'an apology for the life of mr colley gibber, comedian.'" in his dream fielding meets the opposition, in the form of a waggon, drawn by very ill-matched asses, the several drivers of which have lost their way. the luggage includes the motion for 1741, and a trunk containing the _champion_ newspaper. one passenger protests that he has been hugely spattered by the "dirt" of the "last motion," and that he will get out, rather than drive through more dirt. a gentleman of "a meagre aspect" (is he the lean lyttelton?) leaves the waggon; and another observes that the asses "appear to me to be the worst fed asses i ever beheld ... that long sided ass they call _vinegar_, which the drivers call upon so often to _gee up_, and _pull lustily_, i never saw an ass with a worse mane, or a more shagged coat; and that grave ass yoked to him, which they name _ralph_, and who pulls and brays like the devil, sir, he does not seem to have eat since the hard frost. [5] surely, considering the wretched work they are employed in, they deserve better meat." the longsided ass, vinegar, with the worst of manes and the most shagged coat, short even of provender, recalls the picture, drawn twelve months previously, of the great hungry tatter'd bard; and the inference seems fair enough that for fielding politics were no lucrative trade. a more creditable inference, in those days of universal corruption, it may be added, would be hard to find. the honour of a successful party writer who yet remained poor in the year 1741, must have been kept scrupulously clean. the _vision_ proceeds to show the waggon, with two new sets of asses from cornwall and scotland (the elections had gone heavily against walpole in both these districts), suddenly turning aside from the "great country road" (the opposition was known as the country party); and the protesting passengers are told that the end of their journey is "st james." some of the asses, flinching, are "well whipt"; but the waggon leaves the dreamer and many of its followers far behind. suddenly a fat gentleman's coach stops the way. the drivers threaten to drive over the coach, when one of the asses protests that the waggon is leaving the service of the country, and going aside on its own ends, and that "the honesty of even an ass would start" at being used for some purposes. the waggon is all in revolt and confusion, when the fat gentleman, who appeared to have "one of the pleasantest and best natured countenances i ever beheld," at last had the asses unharness'd, and turned into a delicious meadow, where they fell to feeding, as after "long abstinence." finally, the pleasant-faced fat gentleman's coach proceeds on the way from which the waggon had deviated, carrying with it some of the former drivers of the same; the mob burn the derelict obstructing vehicle; and their noise, and the stink and smoke of the conflagration wake the dreamer. in this last word of fielding's active political career (for his later anti-jacobite papers are concerned rather with constitutional and protestant, than with party strife), a retirement from political collar-work is certainly signified. his reasons for such a step escape us in the mist of those confused and heated conflicts. his detestation of walpole's characteristic methods may very well have roused his ever ready fighting instincts, whereas, once walpole's fall was practically assured the weak forces of the opposition (william pitt being yet many years from power) could have availed but little to enlist his penetrating intellect. and he may by now have found that politics afforded, in those days, but scanty support to an honourable pen. but supposition, in lack of further evidence, is fruitless; all that we can clearly perceive is that this winter of sickness and distress marks a final severance from party politics. the hungry 'hackney writer' of the lean sides and shagged coat, if not, indeed, turned to graze in the fat meadow of his dream, was at last freed from an occupation that could but shackle the genius now ready to break forth in the publication of _joseph andrews_. [1] a tantalising reference to one such acquaintance occurs in lord campbell's _lives of the chancellors_. vol. v. p. 357. in notes made by lord camden's nephew, george hardinge, for a proposed life of the lord chancellor there is this entry: "formed an acquaintance ... with henry fielding ... called to the bar." [2] now in the possession of w. k. bixby, esq., of st louis, u.s.a. [3] in a manuscript copy of the minutes, in the possession of the present writer. [4] _london daily post_, june 18-26, 1741. [5] the hard frost would be the terrible preceding winter of 1739-40, a winter long remembered for the severity of the cold, the cost of provisions, and the suffering of the poor. chapter viii joseph andrews "this kind of writing i do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our language." preface to _joseph andrews_. on the 2nd of february 1742 sir robert walpole, the 'colossos' of popular broadsides, under whose feet england had lain for exactly thirty years, received his final defeat; and the intrepid wit, who for the past eight years had heartily lashed the tyrannies and corruptions of that 'great man,' enjoyed at last the satisfaction of witnessing the downfall of the _mr quiddam_ and _mr pillage_ of his plays, of the _plunderer_ and _mammon_ of his pamphlets, of the _brass_ on whom many a stinging blow had fallen in the columns of his _champion_. with the retirement of walpole, fielding's vigorous figure vanishes from active political service. no more caustic greek epics, translated from the original "by homer," no more boisterous interludes with three-bottle prime ministers appearing in the part of principal boy, come from his pen. but scarcely is the ink dry on the page of his last known political pamphlet, when fielding reappears, in this spring of 1742, not as the ephemeral politician, but as the triumphant discoverer of a new continent for english literature; as the leader of a revolution in imaginative writing which has outlived the ministries and parties, the reforms, the broils, and warfares of two centuries. for, to-day, the fierce old contests of whig and tory, the far-off horrors of eighteenth-century gibbets, jails, and streets, the succession of this and that minister, the french wars and pragmatic sanctions of 1740 are all dead as queen anne. but the novel based on character, on human life, in a word on 'the vast authentic book of nature' is a living power; and it was by the publication, in february 1742, of _the adventures of mr joseph andrews and his friend mr abraham adams_, that fielding reveals himself as the father of the english novel. henceforth we can almost forget the hard-hitting political _champion_; we may quite forget the facile 'hackney writer' of popular farces, and the impetuous studies of the would-be barrister. with the appearance of these two small volumes henry fielding reaches the full stature of his genius as the first, and perhaps the greatest, of english novelists. it is difficult, at the present day, to realise the greatness of his achievement. fielding found, posturing as heroines of romance, the _clelias, cleopatras, astraeas_; he left the living women, fanny andrews, sophia western, amelia booth. "amelia," writes his great follower thackeray, "... the most charming character in english fiction,--fiction! why fiction? why not history? i know amelia just as well as lady mary wortley montagu." again, fielding found a world of polite letters, turning a stiff back on all "low" naturalness of life. he taught that world (as his friend lillo had already essayed to do in his tragedy of a _london merchant_) that the life of a humble footman, of a poor parson in a torn cassock, of the poverty-hunted wife of an impoverished army-captain, of a country lad without known parentage, interest or fortune, may make finer reading than all the court romances ever written; and, moreover, that "the highest life is much the dullest, and affords very little humour or entertainment." and, having rediscovered this world of natural and simple human nature, his genius proceeded to the creation of nothing less than an entirely new form of english literary expression, the medium of the novel. the preface to _joseph andrews_ shows that fielding was perfectly conscious of the greatness of his adventure. such a species of writing, he says, "i do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our language." we can but wonder at, and admire, the superb energy and confidence which could thus embark on the conscious production of this new thing, amid want, pain, and distress. and wonder and admiration increase tenfold on the further discovery that this fresh creation in literature, fashioned in circumstances so depressing, is overflowing with an exuberance of healthy life and enjoyment. having entered on his fair inheritance of this new world of human nature, fielding pourtrays it from the standpoint of his own maxim, that life "everywhere furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous." so, into this, his newly-cut channel for imaginative expression (to use mr gosse's happy phrase) he poured the strength of a genius naturally inclined to that "exquisite mirth and laughter," which as he declared in his preface to these volumes, "are probably more wholesome physic for the mind and conduce better to purge away spleen, melancholy, and ill affections than is generally imagined." no book ever more thoroughly carried out this wholesome doctrine. the laughter in _joseph andrews_ is as whole-hearted, if not as noisy, the practical jokes are as broad, as those of a healthy school-boy; and the pages ring with a spirit and gusto recalling lady mary's phrase concerning her cousin "that no man enjoyed life more than he did." to quote again from mr gosse: "a good deal in this book may offend the fine, and not merely the superfine. but the vitality and elastic vigour of the whole carry us over every difficulty... and we pause at the close of the novel to reflect on the amazing freshness of the talent which could thus make a set of west country scenes, in that despised thing, a novel, blaze with light like a comedy of shakespeare." so original in creation, so humane, so full of a brave delight in life, was the power that, mastering every gloomy obstacle of circumstance, broke into the stilted literary world of 1742; and murphy's irish rhetoric is not too warm when he talks of this sunrise of fielding's greatness "when his genius broke forth at once, with an effulgence superior to all the rays of light it had before emitted, like the sun in his morning glory." any detailed comment on the literary qualities of the genius which thus disclosed itself would exceed the limits of this memoir; and indeed such comment is, now, a thrice-told tale. to sir walter scott, fielding is the "father of the english novel"; to byron, "the prose homer of human nature." the magnificent tribute of gibbon still remains a towering monument, whatever experts may tell us concerning the hapsburg genealogy. "our immortal fielding," he wrote, "was of the younger branch of the earls of denbigh, who drew their origin from the counts of hapsburg. the successors of charles v. may disdain their brethren of england; but the romance of _tom jones_, that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the escurial and the imperial eagle of austria." smollett affirmed that his predecessor painted the characters, and ridiculed the follies, of life with equal strength, humour and propriety. the supreme autocrat of the eighteenth century, dr johnson himself, though always somewhat hostile to fielding, read _amelia_ through without stopping, and pronounced her to be 'the most pleasing heroine of all the romances.' "what a poet is here," cries thackeray, "watching, meditating, brooding, creating! what multitudes of truths has that man left behind him: what generations he has taught to laugh wisely and fairly." finally we may turn neither to novelist nor historian, but to the metaphysical philosopher, "how charming! how wholesome is fielding!" says coleridge, "to take him up after richardson is like emerging from a sick-room, heated by stoves, into an open lawn on a breezy day in may." such are some estimates of the quality of fielding's genius, given by men not incompetent to appraise him. to analyse that genius is, as has been said, beyond the scope of these pages. but fielding's first novel is not only a revelation of genius. it frankly reveals much of the man behind the pen; and in its pages, and in those of the still greater novels yet to come, we may learn more of the true fielding than from all the fatuities and surmises of his early biographers. thus in _joseph andrews_ for the first time we come really close to the splendid and healthy energy, the detachment, the relentless scorn, the warmth of feeling, that characterised henry fielding under all circumstances and at all times of his life. this book, as we have seen, was written under every outward disadvantage, and yet its pages ring with vigour and laughter. here is the same militant energy that had nerved fielding to fight the domination of a corrupt (and generally corrupting) minister for eight lean years; and which in later life flung itself into a chivalrous conflict with current social crime and misery. here is a detachment hardly less than that which fills the pages of the last _journal of a voyage to lisbon_ with a courage, a gaiety, a serenity that no suffering and hardship, and not even the near approach of death itself, could disturb. here, again, fielding consciously avows a moral purpose in his art; the merciless scorn of his insight in depicting a vicious man or woman is actuated, he expressly declares, by a motive other than that of 'art for art's sake.' and as this motive is scarce perceptible in the lifelike reality of the figures whom we see breathing in actual flesh and blood in his pages, and yet is of the first importance for understanding the character of their creator, the great novelist's confession of this portion of his literary faith may be quoted in full. the passage occurs in the preface to book iii. of _joseph andrews_. fielding is afraid, he explains, that his figures may be taken for particular portraits, whereas it is the type and not the individual that concerns him. "i declare here," he solemnly affirms, "once for all, i describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species." and he proceeds to make example of the lawyer in the stage coach as not indeed confined "to one profession, one religion, or one country; but when the first mean selfish creature appeared on the human stage, who made self the centre of the whole creation; would give himself no pain, incur no damage, advance no money to assist, or preserve his fellow-creatures; then was our lawyer born; and while such a person as i have described, exists on earth, so long shall he remain upon it." not therefore "to mimick some little obscure fellow" does this lawyer appear on fielding's pages, but "for much more general and noble purposes; not to expose one pitiful wretch, to the small and contemptible circle of his acquaintance; but to hold the glass to thousands in their closets that they may contemplate their deformity, and endeavour to reduce it." yet another characteristic of fielding's personality appears in the conscious control exercised over all the humorous and satiric zest of _joseph andrews_. here is no unseemly riot of ridicule. the ridiculous he declares in his philosophic preface is the subject-matter of his pages; but he will suffer no imputation of ridiculing vice or calamity. "surely," he cries, "he hath a very ill-framed mind, who can look on ugliness, infirmity, or poverty, as ridiculous in themselves"; and he formally declares that such vices as appear in this work "are never set forth as the objects of ridicule but detestation." what then were the limits which fielding imposed on himself in treating this, his declared subject matter of the ridiculous? hypocrisy and vanity, he says, appearing in the form of affectation; "great vices are the proper object of our detestation, smaller faults of our pity: but affectation appears to me the only true source of the ridiculous." such is fielding's sensitive claim for the decent limits of ridicule; and such the consciously avowed subject of his work. but the force of his genius, the depth of his insight, the warmth of his detestations and affections, soon carried him far beyond any mere study in the ridicule of vain and hypocritical affectation. the immortal figure of parson adams, striding through these pages, tells us infinitely much of the character of his creator, but nothing at all of the nature of affectation. the "rural innocence of a joseph andrews," to quote miss fielding's happy phrase [1] and of his charming fanny, are as natural and fresh as fielding's own dorsetshire meadows, but instruct us not at all in vanity or hypocrisy. to turn to the individual figures of _joseph andrews_; what do they tell us of the man who called them into being. first and foremost, it is parson adams who unquestionably dominates the book. however much the licentious grossness of lady booby, the shameless self-seeking of her waiting-woman, mrs slipslop, the swinish avarice of parson trulliber, the calculating cruelty of mrs tow-wouse, to name but some of the vices here exposed, blazon forth that 'enthusiasm for righteousness' which constantly moved fielding to exhibit the devilish in human nature in all its 'native deformity,' it is still adams who remains the central figure of the great comic epic. concerning the good parson, appreciation has stumbled for adequate words, from the tribute of sir walter scott to that of mr austin dobson. "the worthy parson's learning," wrote sir walter, "his simplicity, his evangelical purity of heart, and benevolence of disposition, are so admirably mingled with pedantry, absence of mind, and with the habit of athletic and gymnastic exercise, ... that he may be safely termed one of the richest productions of the muse of fiction." and to mr austin dobson, this poor curate, compact as he is of the oddest contradictions, the most diverting eccentricities, is "assuredly a noble example of primitive goodness, and practical christianity." we love adams, as fielding intended that we should, for his single-hearted goodness, his impulsiveness, his boundless generosity, his muscular courage; we are never allowed to forget the dignity of his office however ragged be the cassock that displays it; we admire his learning; we delight in his oddities. but above all he reflects honour on his creator by the inflexible integrity of his goodness. a hundred tricks are played on him by shallow knaves, and the result is but to convince us of the folly of knavery. his ill-clad and uncouth figure moves among the vicious and prosperous, and we perceive the ugliness of vice, and the poverty of wealth. with his nightcap drawn over his wig, a short grey coat half covering a torn cassock, the crabstick so formidable to ruffians in his hand, and his beloved aeschylus in his pocket, adams smoking his pipe by the inn fire, or surrounded by his "children" as he called his parishioners vying "with each other in demonstrations of duty and love," fully justifies john forster's comment on fielding's manly habit of "discerning what was good and beautiful in the homeliest aspects of humanity." before the true dignity of abraham adams, whether he be publicly rebuking the squire and pamela for laughing in church, or emerging unstained from adventures with hogs-wash and worse, the accident of his social position as a poor curate, contentedly drinking ale in the squire's kitchen, falls into its true insignificance. rumour assigned to fielding's friend and neighbour at east stour, the rev. william young, the honour of being the original of parson adams; and it is a pleasant coincidence that the legal assignment for _joseph andrews_, here reproduced in facsimile, should bear the signature, as witness, of the very man whose "innate goodness" is there immortalised. if there be any detractors of fielding's personal character still to be found, they may be advised to remember the truism that a man is known by his friends, and to apply themselves to a study of william young in the figure of parson adams. of the charming picture of rustic beauty and innocence presented in the blushing and warmhearted fanny less need be said; for fielding's ideal in womanhood was soon to be more fully revealed in the lovely creations of sophia and amelia. and honest joseph himself, his courage and fidelity, his constancy, his tenderness and chivalrous passion for fanny, his affection for mr adams, his voice "too musical to halloo to the dogs," his fine figure and handsome face, concerns us here chiefly as demonstrating that fielding, when he chose, could display both virtue and manliness as united in the person of a perfectly robust english country lad. these then, are some of the figures that fielding loved to create, breathing into their simple virtues a vigorous human life, fresh as coleridge said, as the life of a spring morning. in these joyous creations of his heart and of his genius, the great novelist assuredly gives us a perfectly unconscious revelation of his own character. and among the changing scenes of this human comedy one incident must not be forgotten. in the famous episode of the stage coach, all fielding's characteristic and relentless hatred of respectable hypocrisy, all his love of innate if ragged virtue is betrayed in the compass of a few pages: in those pages in which we see the robbed, half-murdered, and wholly naked joseph lifted in from the wayside ditch amid the protests and merriment of the respectable passengers; and his shivering body at last wrapped in the coat of the postilion,--"a lad who hath since been transported for robbing a hen-roost,"--who voluntarily stripped off a greatcoat, his only garment, "at the same time swearing a great oath (for which he was rebuked by the passengers) 'that he would rather ride in his shirt all his life, than suffer a fellow-creature to lie in so miserable a condition.'" much has been written concerning the notorious feud between fielding and richardson, a feud ostensibly based upon the fact that _joseph andrews_ was, to some extent, frankly a parody of richardson's famous production _pamela_. in 1740, two years before the appearance of _joseph andrews_ that middle-aged london printer had published _pamela, or virtue rewarded_, achieving thereby an enormous vogue. that amazing mixture of sententious moralities, of prurience, and of mawkish sentiment, became the rage of the town. admirers ranked it next to the bible; the great mr pope declared that it would "do more good than many volumes of sermons"; and it was even translated into french and italian, becoming, according to lady mary wortley montagu, who did not love richardson, "the joy of the chambermaids of all nations." that all this should have been highly agreeable to the good richardson, a 'vegetarian and water-drinker, a worthy, domesticated, fussy, and highly nervous little man,' ensconced in a ring of feminine flatterers whom he called 'my ladies,' is obvious; and proportionate was his wrath with fielding's _joseph andrews_, of which the early chapters, at least, are a perfectly frank, and to richardson audacious, satire on _pamela_. the caricature was indeed frank. joseph is introduced as pamela's brother; he writes letters to that virtuous maid-servant; and the mr b. of richardson becomes the squire booby of fielding. but there can be hardly two opinions as to such ridicule being an entirely justified and wholesome antidote to the pompous and nauseous original. to fielding's robust and masculine genius, says mr austin dobson, "the strange conjunction of purity and precaution in richardson's heroine was a thing unnatural and a theme for inextinguishable homeric laughter." to thackeray's sympathetic imagination the feud was the inevitable outcome of the difference between the two men. fielding, he says "couldn't do otherwise than laugh at the puny cockney bookseller, pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold him up to scorn as a moll-coddle and a milksop. his genius had been nursed on sack posset, and not on dishes of tea. his muse had sung the loudest in tavern choruses, and had seen the daylight streaming in over thousands of empty bowls, and reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of the watchman. richardson's goddess was attended by old maids and dowagers, and fed on muffins and bohea. 'milksop!' roars harry fielding, clattering at the timid shop-shutters. 'wretch! monster! mohock!' shrieks the sentimental author of _pamela_; and all the ladies of his court cackle out an affrighted chorus." looking back on the incident it seems matter for yet more homeric laughter that richardson should have called the resplendent genius of fielding "low." but the feud, it may be surmised, led to much of the odium that seems to have attached to fielding's name amongst some of his contemporaries. feeling ran high and was vividly expressed in those days; and when cousinly admiration for fielding was coupled by an excellent comment on richardson's book as the delight of the maidservants of all nations, personal retorts in favour of the popular sentimentalist were but too likely to ensue. apart from this aspect of the matter the ancient quarrel does not seem a very essential incident in fielding's life. the lack of means indicated by fielding himself, in his reminiscence of this winter of 1741-2 as darkened by the illness of himself, his wife and of a favourite child, attended "with other circumstances, which served as very proper decorations to such a scene," received but little alleviation from the publication of _joseph andrews_. the price paid for the book by andrew millar was but £183, 11s.; and there is no record that millar supplemented the original sum, as he did in the case of _tom jones_, when the sale was assured. the first edition appears to have consisted of 1,500 copies. a second edition, of 2,000 copies was issued in the same summer,[2] and a third edition followed in 1743. fielding's formal declaration that he described "not men but manners"; his solemn protest, in the preface to this very book, that "i have no intention to vilify or asperse anyone: for tho' everything is copied from the book of nature, and scarce a character or action produced which i have not taken from my own observations and experience, yet i have used the utmost care to obscure the persons by such different circumstances, degrees, and colours, that it will be impossible to guess at them with any degree of certainty"--represent rather his intention than the result. the portraits of "manners" by the "prose homer of human nature" were too lifelike to escape frequent identification. thus not only was the prototype of parson adams discovered, but that of his antithesis, the pig-breeding mr trulliber, was thought to exist in the person of the rev. mr oliver, the dorsetshire curate under whose tutelage fielding had been placed when a boy. tradition also connects mr peter pounce with the dorsetshire usurer peter walter. [3] two echoes have come down to us of the early appreciation of this novel. a translation of _joseph andrews_, "par une dame angloise," and bound for marie antoinette by derome le jeune, was placed on the shelves of her library in the petit trianon. [4] and, seven years after the appearance of _joseph andrews_, lady mary wortley montagu, when sixty years old, writes from her italian exile: "i have at length received the box with the books enclosed, for which i give you many thanks as they amuse me very much. i gave a very ridiculous proof of it, fitter indeed for my granddaughter than myself. i returned from a party on horseback; and after having rode 20 miles, part of it by moonshine, it was ten at night when i found the box arrived. i could not deny myself the pleasure of opening it; and falling upon fielding's works was fool enough to sit up all night reading. i think joseph andrews better than his foundling." [5] [1] _cleopatra and octavia_. sarah fielding. introduction. [2] see the ledgers of woodfall, the printer, quoted in _notes and queries_, series vi. p. 186. [3] it is interesting to note that samuel rogers was heard to speak with great admiration of chapter xiii. of book iii., entitled "a curious dialogue which passed between mr abraham adams and mr peter pounce." (ms. note by dyce, in a copy of _joseph andrews_, now in the south kensington museum.) [4] this copy, published in amsterdam in 1775, is now in the possession of mr pierpont morgan. [5] letters and works of lady mary wortley montagu. vol. ii. p. 194. chapter ix the _miscellanies_ and _jonathan wild_ "is there on earth a greater object of contempt than the poor scholar to a splendid beau; unless perhaps the splendid beau to the poor scholar." _covent garden journal_, no. 61. if the 'sunrise' of fielding's genius did indeed shine forth on the publication of _joseph andrews_, it was a sunrise attended by dark clouds. for, with the appearance of these two little volumes, we enter on the most obscure period of the great novelist's life, and on that in which he appears to have suffered the severest 'invasions of fortune.' as regards the winter immediately preceding the appearance of that joyous epic of the highway, he himself has told us that he was 'laid up in the gout, with a favourite child dying in one bed, and my wife in a condition very little better, on another, attended with other circumstances, which served as very proper decorations to such a scene.' in the following february, an entry in the registers of st martin's in the fields records the burial of a child "charlott fielding." so it is probable that the very month of the appearance of his first novel brought a private grief to fielding the poignancy of which may be measured by his frequent betrayals of an anxious affection for his children. to such distresses of sickness and anxiety, there was now, doubtless, added the further misery of scanty means. for a few months later an advertisement (hitherto overlooked) appears in the _daily post_, showing that fielding was already eagerly pushing forward the publication of the _miscellanies_, that incoherent collection which is itself proof enough that necessity alone had called it into being. "the publication of these volumes," he says, "hath been hitherto retarded by the author's indisposition last winter, and a train of melancholy accidents, scarce to be parallel'd; but he takes this opportunity to assure his subscribers that he will most certainly deliver them within the time mentioned in his last receipts, viz. by the 25th december next." [1] we may take it, then, that the first six months of 1742 were attended by no easy circumstances; and, accordingly, during these months fielding's hard-worked pen produced no less than three very different attempts to win subsistence from those humoursome jades the nine muses. to take these efforts in order of date, first comes, in march, his sole invocation of the historic muse, the _full vindication of the dutchess dowager of marlborough_, published almost before joseph andrews was clear of the printers, and sold at the modest price of one shilling. we learn from the title page that the _vindication_ was called forth by a "late _scurrilous_ pamphlet," containing "_base_ and _malicious_ invectives" against her grace. together with fielding's natural love for fighting, a family tie may have given him a further incitement to draw his pen on behalf of the aged duchess. for his first cousin, mary gould, the only child of his uncle james gould, m.p. for dorchester, had married general charles churchill, brother to the great duke. whether this cousinship by marriage led to any personal acquaintance between 'old sarah' and harry fielding we do not know; and the muniment room at blenheim affords no trace of any correspondence between the duchess and her champion. but certainly the _vindication_ lacks nothing of personal warmth. fielding tells us that he has never contemplated the character of that 'glorious woman' but with admiration; and he defends her against the attacks of her opponents through forty strenuous pages, in which the curious may still hear the echoes of the controversies that raged round the duke and his duchess, their mistress queen anne, and other actors of the revolution. the _vindication_ appeared in march; and a second edition was called for during the year. as far as millar's payment goes fielding, as appears from the assignment in _joseph andrews_, received only £5; and it is to be feared that the duchess (who is said to have paid the historian hooke £5000 for his assistance in the production of her own celebrated pamphlet) placed but little substantial acknowledgment in fielding's lean purse. her champion at any rate had, within three years, modified the views expressed in this _vindication_, concerning the munificence of her grace's private generosity; for in his journal the _true patriot_, there occurs the following obituary notice, "a man supposed to be a pensioner of the late duchess of marlborough.... he is supposed to have been poor." this same month of march marked fielding's final severance with the _champion_. the partners of that paper, meeting on march the 1st, ordered "that whereas henry fielding esq., did originally possess two sixteenth shares of the champion as a writer in the said paper and having withdrawn himself from that service for above twelve months past and refused his assistance in that capacity since which time mr ralph has solely transacted the said business. it is hereby declared that the said writing shares shall devolve on and be vested in mr james ralph." [2] it is curious that fielding did not add to his impoverished exchequer by selling his _champion_ shares. having sought assistance from the muse of history in march, fielding returns to his old charmer the dramatic muse in may; assisting in that month to produce a farce, at drury lane, entitled _miss lucy in town_. in this piece, he tells us, he had a very small share. he also received for it a very small remuneration; £10, 10s. being recorded as the price paid by andrew millar. in the following month fielding's inexhaustible energies were off on a new tack, producing, in startling contrast to _miss lucy_, a classical work, executed in collaboration with his friend the rev. william young, otherwise parson adams. the two friends contemplated a series of translations of all the eleven comedies of aristophanes; adorned by notes containing "besides a full explanation of the author, a compleat history of the manners and customs of the ancient greeks particularly of the athenians"; and in june they inaugurated their scheme with the work in question, a translation of the plutus.[3] william young, says hutchins, "had much learning which was the cement of mr fielding's connexion with him"; and fielding's own scholarship, irradiated by his wit, would assuredly have made him an ideal translator of greek comedy. but the public of 1742 appears to have afforded very little encouragement to this scheme, preferring that "pretty, dapper, brisk, smart, pert, dialogue" of their own comedies, to which allusion is made in the authors' preface. the rest of the year shows nothing from a pen somewhat exhausted perhaps with the production of _joseph andrews_ of the historical _vindication_, and of parts of a drury lane farce and of the _plutus_, all within five months. and the winter following, in which the promised _miscellanies_ should have appeared, brought, in the renewed illness of his wife, an anxiety that paralysed even fielding's buoyant vigour. this we learn from his own touching apology for the further delay of those volumes; a delay due, their author tells us, to "the dangerous illness of one from whom i draw all the solid comfort of my life, during the greatest part of this winter. this, as it is most sacredly true, so will it, i doubt not, sufficiently excuse the delay to all who know me." [4] early in the following year, after this second winter of crushing anxiety, and under an urgent pressure for means, fielding tried again his familiar _rôle_ of popular dramatist, giving his public the husks they preferred, in the comedy of the _wedding day_. this comedy was produced at drury lane on the 17th of february 1743. if fielding had failed to descend to the taste of the town in offering them aristophanes, he flung them in the _wedding day_ something too imperfect for acceptance, even by the 'critic jury of the pit,' and the bitter humour in which he was now shackling his genius to the honourable task of immediate bread-winning, or in his own words to the part of "hackney writer," comes out clearly enough in the well-known anecdote of the first night of this comedy. in murphy's words, garrick, then a new player, just taking the town by storm, "told mr fielding he was apprehensive that the audience would make free in a particular passage; adding that a repulse might so flurry his spirits as to disconcert him for the rest of the night, and therefore begged that it might be omitted. 'no, d--mn 'em,' replied the bard, 'if the scene is not a good one, let them find _that_ out.' accordingly the play was brought on without alteration, and, just as had been foreseen, the disapprobation of the house was provoked at the passage before objected to; and the performer alarmed and uneasy at the hisses he had met with, retired into the green-room, where the author was indulging his genius, and solacing himself with a bottle of champaign." fielding, continues murphy, had by this time drank pretty plentifully, and "'_what's the matter, garrick?_' says he, '_what are they hissing now?_' why the scene that i begged you to retrench; i knew it would not do; and they have so frightened me that i shall not be able to collect myself again the whole night. _oh! d--mn 'em_, replies the author, _they have found it out, have they!_" that fielding should be scornfully indifferent to the judgment of the pit on work forced from him by overwhelming necessities, and which his own judgment condemned, is a foregone conclusion; but that he suffered keenly in having to produce imperfect work, and was jealously anxious to clear his reputation, as a writer, in the matter of this particular comedy, is no less apparent from the very unusual personal explanation he offered for it, soon after the brief run of the play was over. for no man was more shy of autobiographical revelations. his biographers are continually reduced to gleaning stray hints, here and there, concerning his private life. [5] and therefore we can measure by this emergence from a habitual personal reticence the soreness with which he now published work unworthy of his genius. "mr garrick," fielding tells us, speaking of this distressed winter of 1742-3 "... asked me one evening, if i had any play by me; telling me he was desirous of appearing in a new part [and] ... as i was full as desirous of putting words into his mouth, as he could appear to be of speaking them, i mentioned [a] play the very next morning to mr _fleetwood_ who embraced my proposal so heartily, that an appointment was immediately made to read it to the actors who were principally to be concerned in it." on consideration, however, this play appeared to fielding to need more time for perfecting, and also to afford very little opportunity to garrick. so, recollecting that he still had by him a play which, although 'the third dramatic performance' he ever attempted, contained a character that would keep the audience's "so justly favourite actor almost eternally before their eyes," he decided, with characteristic impetuosity, to a change at the last moment. "i accordingly," he writes, "sat down with a resolution to work night and day, owing to the short time allowed me, which was about a week, in altering and correcting this production of my more juvenile years; when unfortunately the extreme danger of life into which a person, very dear to me, was reduced, rendered me incapable of executing my task. to this accident alone i have the vanity to apprehend, the play owes most of the glaring faults with which it appeared.... perhaps, it may be asked me why then did i suffer a piece which i myself knew was imperfect, to appear? i answer honestly and freely, that reputation was not my inducement; and that i hoped, faulty as it was, it might answer a much more solid, and in my unhappy situation, a much more urgent motive." this hope was, alas, frustrated; not even the brilliancy of a cast which included garrick, mrs pritchard, macklin, and peg woffington, could carry the _wedding day_ over its sixth night; and the harassed author received 'not £50 from the house for it.' the comedy is a coarsely moral attack on libertinism, a fact which probably, in no wise added to the popularity of the play in the pit and boxes of 1743. a doggerel prologue, both written and spoken by macklin, gives an excellent picture of the playhouse humours, and of the wild pit, of those exuberant days; and contains moreover the following sound advice, addressed to fielding "ah! thou foolish follower of the ragged nine you'd better stuck to honest abram adams, by half; he, in spite of critics can make your readers laugh." the next publication of these lean years was the _miscellanies_, a collection of mingled prose, verse, and drama, of which the only connecting link seems to be the urgent need of money which forced so heterogenous a medley from so great an artist. these long delayed volumes appeared, probably, in april, and were, says fielding, composed with a frequent "degree of heartache." they include the lover's verses of his early youth; philosophical, satiric, and didactic essays; a reprint of the political effusion dedicated to dodington; a few plays; the fragment entitled _a journey from this world to the next_; and the splendid ironic outburst on villany, _jonathan wild_. the _preface_, largely occupied as it is with those private circumstances which forced the hasty production of the _wedding day_, has other matter of even greater interest for the biographer. thus fielding's sensitive care of his reputation in essential matters appears in the fiery denial here given to allegations of publishing anonymous scandals: "i never was, nor will be the author of anonymous scandal on the private history or family of any person whatever. indeed there is no man who speaks or thinks with more detestation of the modern custom of libelling. i look on the practice of stabbing a man's character in the dark, to be as base and as barbarous as that of stabbing him with a poignard in the same manner; nor have i ever been once in my life guilty of it." here too, he marks his abhorrence of that 'detestable vice' hypocrisy, which vice he was, before long, to expose utterly in the person of blifil in _tom jones_. his happy social temperament is betrayed in the characteristic definition of good breeding as consisting in "contributing with our utmost power to the satisfaction and happiness of all about us." and in these pages we have fielding's philosophy of _goodness_ and _greatness_, delivered in words that already display an unrivalled perfection of style. speaking of his third volume, that poignant indictment of devilry the _life of mr jonathan wild the great_, it is thus that fielding exposes the iniquity of villains in "great" places:--"but without considering _newgate_ as no other than human nature with its mask off, which some very shameless writers have done, a thought which no price should purchase me to entertain, i think we may be excused for suspecting, that the splendid palaces of the great, are often no other than _newgate_ with the mask on. nor do i know anything which can raise an honest man's indignation higher than that the same morals should be in one place attended with all imaginable misery and infamy and in the other with the highest luxory and honour. let any impartial man in his senses be asked, for which of these two places a composition of cruelty, lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, hypocrisy, fraud and treachery, was best fitted, surely his answer must be certain and immediate; and yet i am afraid all these ingredients glossed over with wealth and a title, have been treated with the highest respect and veneration in the one, while one or two of them have been condemned to the gallows in the other." here is the converse of that insight which could discern goodness under a ragged cassock, or in a swearing postilion. and, having discerned the true nature of such great men, fielding proceeds to point out that "however the glare of riches and awe of title may terrify the vulgar; nay however hypocrisy may deceive the more discerning, there is still a judge in every man's breast, which none can cheat or corrupt, tho' perhaps it is the only uncorrupt thing about him"; that nothing is so preposterous as that men should laboriously seek to be villains; and that this judge, inflexible and honest "however polluted the bench on which he sits," always bestows on the spurious great the penalty of fear, an evil which "never can in any manner molest the happiness" of the "enjoyments of innocence and virtue." the subsequent philosophic dissertation on the qualities of goodness and greatness is interesting for such passages as the definition of a good man as one possessing "benevolence, honour, honesty, and charity"; and the fine declaration that of the passion of love "goodness hath always appeared to me the only true and proper object." and the very springs of action underlying half at least of each of the three great novels, and almost every page of _jonathan wild_, are revealed in the final declaration of the writer's intention to expose in these pages vice stripped of its false colours; to show it "in its native deformity." as the native and stripped deformity of vice is perhaps not often fully apprehended and certainly is very seldom exposed in our own age, fielding, by the very sincerity and fire of his morality, doubtless loses many a modern reader. it is in the third volume of the _miscellanies_, a volume completely occupied by _jonathan wild_, that fielding first fully reveals himself as public moralist. and in this rogue's progress to the gallows he displays so concentrated a zeal, that nothing short of his genius and his humour could have saved these pages from the dullness of the professional reformer. for the little volume consists of a relentless exposure of the deformity and folly of vice. here the foul souls of wild and his associates, stripped of all the glamour of picturesque crime, stand displayed in their essential qualities, with the result that even the pestilential air of thieves' slums, of 'night cellars,' and of newgate purlieus, an air which hangs so heavy over every page, falls back into insignificance before the loathsomeness of the central figure. a few years later, in the preface to _tom jones_, fielding formally asserted his belief that the beauty of goodness needed but to be seen 'to attract the admiration of mankind'; in _jonathan wild_ he appears to be already at work on the converse doctrine, that if the deformity of vice be but stripped naked, abhorrence must ensue. such a naked criminal is wild; and in the contemplation of his vices, as in the case of the arch hypocrite blifil, in _tom jones_, and of the shameless sensualist "my lord," in _amelia_, fielding's characteristic compassion for the faults of hard pressed humanity is, for the time, scorched up in the fierceness of his anger and scorn at deliberate cruelty, avarice and lust. under the spell of fielding's power of painting the devil in his native blackness, we feel that for such as wild hanging is too handsome a fate. it is easy for his newgate chaplain to assert that "nothing is so sinful as sin"; it takes a great genius and a great moralist to convince us, as in this picture, that nothing is so deformed or so contemptible. the dark places of _jonathan wild_ receive some light in the character of the good jeweller, in the tender scenes between that honest ruined tradesman and his wife and children, and in the devoted affection of his apprentice. but the true illumination of the book, and its personal value for the biographer, lie in the white heat of anger, the "sustained and sleepless irony" to adopt mr austin dobson's happy phrase, with which fielding, with a force unwavering from the first page to the last, here assails his subject. an underlying attack on the ministerial iniquity of "great men" in high places seems to be often suggested; if this be a true inference, it does but give us further proof of fielding's energies as a political, no less than as a moral, reformer. certainly, through all the squalid scenes of the book, the contention is insisted on that criminals of wild's tyrannical stamp may as easily be found in courts, and at the head of armies, as among the poor leaders of newgate gangs. to the wise moralist it is the same rogue, whether picking a pocket or swindling his country. and not to forget the wit in the moral reformer, we may leave mr jonathan wild listening to one of the reasons given by the newgate chaplain for his reverence's preference for punch over wine: "let me tell you, mr wild there is nothing so deceitful as the spirits given us by wine. if you must drink let us have a bowl of punch; a liquor i the rather prefer as it is nowhere spoken against in scripture." after _jonathan wild_ the most interesting fragment of the _miscellanies_ is the _journey from this world to the next_. in this essay fielding reveals his philosophy, his sternness, his affections, and his humour, as a man might do in intimate conversation. his warm humanity breathes in the conception that "the only business" of those who had won admission to elysium 'that happy place,' was to "contribute to the happiness of each other"; and again in the stern declaration of heaven's doorkeeper, the judge minos, that "no man enters that gate without charity." and indeed the whole chapter devoted to the judgments administered by minos on the spirits that come, confident or trembling, before him, and are either admitted to heaven, sent back to earth, or despatched to the "little back gate" opening immediately into the bottomless pit, is full of personal revelation. we feel the glee with which fielding consigns the "little sneaking soul" of a miser to diabolically ingenious torments; the satisfaction with which he watches minos apply a kick to the retreating figure of a duke, possessed of nothing but "a very solemn air and great dignity"; and the pleasure it gave him to observe the rejection accorded to "a grave lady," the judge declaring that "there was not a single prude in elysium." again, nothing could be more true to fielding's nature than the account of the poet who is admitted, not for the moral value he himself places on his dramatic works (which he endeavours to read aloud to minos), but because "he had once lent the whole profits of a benefit night to a friend, and by that means had saved him and his family from destruction"; unless it were the account of the poverty driven wretch, hanged for a robbery of eighteen-pence, who yet could plead that he had supported an aged parent with his labour, that he had been a very tender husband, and a kind father, and that he had ruined himself for being bail for a friend. "at these words," adds the historian, "the gate opened, and _minos_ bid him enter, giving him a slap on the back as he passed by him." when the author's own turn came, he very little expects, he tells us, "to pass this fiery trial. i confess'd i had indulged myself very freely with wine and women in my youth, but had never done an injury to any man living, nor avoided an opportunity of doing good; but i pretended to very little virtue more than general philanthropy and private friendship." here minos cut the speaker short, bidding him enter the gate, and not indulge himself trumpeting forth his virtues. whether or no we may here read the reflections of fielding's maturity, looking honestly back over his own forty years and forward with humble fear into the future, we may certainly see reflected in both confession and judgment much of the doctrine and the practice of his life. after the failure, early in 1743, of the _wedding day_, and the subsequent publication of the _miscellanies_, fielding seems to have thrown his energies for twelve months into an exclusive pursuit of the law. this appears from his statement, made a year later, in may 1744, that he could not possibly be the author of his sister's novel _david simple_, which had been attributed to him, because he had applied himself to his profession "with so arduous and intent a diligence that i have had no leisure, if i had inclination, to compose anything of this kind." clearly, in the period that covers the publication of _joseph andrews_ an historical pamphlet, parts of a farce and of _plutus_, and of the _miscellanies_, fielding found both leisure and inclination for writing; so this sudden immersion in law must relate to the twelve months or so intervening between these works and the publication of his statement. murphy corroborates this bout of hard legal effort. after the _wedding day_ says that biographer "the law from this time had its hot and cold fits with him." the cold fits were fits of gout; and inconveniences felt by fielding from these interruptions were, adds murphy "the more severe upon him, as voluntary and wilful neglect could not be charged upon him. the repeated shocks of illness disabled him from being as assiduous an attendant at the bar, as his own inclination and patience of the most laborious application, would otherwise have made him." mr counsellor fielding follows his retrospect of this strenuous attack on the law with a declaration that, henceforth, he intends to forsake the pursuit of that 'foolscap' literary fame, and the company of the 'infamous' nine muses; a decision based partly on the insubstantial nature of the rewards achieved, and partly it would seem due to the fact that at fielding's innocent door had been laid, he declares, half the anonymous scurrility, indecency, treason, and blasphemy that the few last years had produced. [6] in especial he protests against the ascription to his pen of that 'infamous paltry libel' on lawyers, the _causidicade_, an ascription which, as he truly says, accused him "not only of being a bad writer and a bad man, but with downright idiotism in flying in the face of the greatest men of my profession." he also declares that no anonymous work had issued from his pen since his promise to that effect; and that these false accusations had injured him cruelly in ease, reputation and interest. this solemn declaration that the now detested muses shall no longer beguile fielding's pen affords excellent reading in view of the fact that this absorbed barrister must, within a year or two, have been at work on _tom jones_. the whole emphatic outburst was probably partly an effort to assert himself as now wholly devoted to the law, and partly an example of one of those "occasional fits of peevishness" into which, murphy tells us, distress and disappointment would betray him. the preface to his sister's novel _david simple_, in which fielding took occasion to announce these protests and assertions, is his only extant publication for this year of 1744; and apart from its biographical value is not of any great moment. ample proof may be found in it of brotherly pride and admiration for the work of a sister "so nearly and dearly allied to me in the highest friendship as well as relation." there is the noteworthy declaration that the "greatest, noblest, and rarest of all the talents which constitute a genius" is the gift of "a deep and profound discernment of all the mazes, windings, and labyrinths which perplex the heart of man." the utterance concerning style, by so great a master of english, is memorable--"a good style as well as a good hand in writing is chiefly learned by practice." and a delightful reference should not be forgotten to the carping ignorant critic, who has indeed, "had a little latin inoculated into his tail," but who would have been much the gainer had "the same great quantity of birch been employed in scourging away his ill-nature." disabled by gout and harassed by want of money, a yet greater distress was now fast closing on fielding in the prolonged illness of his wife. "to see her daily languishing and wearing away before his eyes," says murphy, "was too much for a man of his strong sensations; the fortitude with which he met all other calamities of life [now] deserted him." in the autumn of 1744 mrs fielding was at bath, doubtless in the hope of benefit from the bath waters. and here, in november, she died. her body was brought to london for burial in the church of st. martin's in the fields; receiving on the 14th of november, 1744, honourable interment in the chancel vault, to the tolling of the great tenor bell, and with the fullest ceremonial of the time. indeed it is evident, from the charges still preserved in the sexton's book, that fielding rendered to his wife such stately honours as were occasionally accorded to the members of the few great families interred in the old church. the death of this beloved wife, murphy tells us, brought on fielding "such a vehemence of grief that his friends began to think him in danger of losing his reason." when we remember that he himself has explicitly stated that lovely picture of the 'fair soul in the fair body,' the sophia of _tom jones_, to have been but a portrait of charlotte fielding, we can in some measure realise his overwhelming grief at her death. and that the exquisite memorial raised to his wife by fielding's affection and genius was not more beautiful in mind or face than the original, is acknowledged by lady bute, a kinswoman of the great novelist. lady bute was no stranger, "to that beloved first wife whose picture he drew in his amelia, where, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty. he loved her passionately, and she returned his affection; yet had no happy life for they were almost always miserably poor, and seldom in a state of quiet and safety. his elastic gaiety of spirit carried him through it all; but meanwhile, care and anxiety were preying upon her more delicate mind, and undermining her constitution. she gradually declined, caught a fever and died in his arms." that fielding's married life was unhappy, whatever were its outward conditions, is obviously a very shallow misstatement; but, for the rest, the picture accords well enough with our knowledge of his nature. the passionate tenderness of which that nature was capable appears in a passage from those very _miscellanies_, which, he tells us, were written with so frequent a "degree of heartache." in the _journey from this world to the next_, fielding describes how, on his entrance into elysium, that "happy region whose beauty no painting of the imagination can describe" and where "spirits know one another by intuition" he presently met "a little daughter whom i had lost several years before. good gods! what words can describe the raptures, the melting passionate tenderness, with which we kiss'd each other, continuing in our embrace, with the most extatic joy, a space, which if time had been measured here as on earth, could not have been less than half a year." the fittest final comment on henry fielding's marriage with charlotte cradock is, perhaps, that saying of a member of his own craft of the drama, "now to love anything sincerely is an act of grace, but to love the best sincerely is a state of grace." [1] _daily post_, june 5, 1742. [2] ms. copy of the minutes of the meetings of the partners in the _champion_, in the possession of the present writer. [3] see _daily post_. may 29, 1742. [4] preface to the _miscellanies_. [5] such as the inscription on some verses, published in the _miscellanies_, as "written _extempore_ in the pump-room" at bath, in 1742. [6] preface to _david simple_. chapter x patriotic journalism "he only is the _true patriot_ who always does what is in his power for his country's service without any selfish views or regard to private interests."--the _true patriot_. fielding's active pen seems to have been laid aside for twelve months after the death of his wife; and it is perfectly in accord with all that we know of his passionate devotion to charlotte cradock that her loss should have shattered his energies for the whole of the ensuing year. murphy, as we have seen, speaks of the first vehemence of his grief as being so acute that fears were entertained for his reason. according to fielding's kinswomen, lady mary wortley montagu and lady bute, the first agonies of his grief approached to frenzy; but "when the first emotions of his sorrow were abated" his fine balance reasserted itself, and to quote again from murphy, "philosophy administered her aid; his resolution returned, and he began again to struggle with his fortune." as we hear no more of exclusive devotion to the law, it may be assumed that the attempt of the previous year to live by that arduous calling alone was now abandoned; and to a man of fielding's strong protestant and hanoverian convictions the year of the '45, when a stewart prince and an invading highland army had captured edinburgh and were actually across the border, could not fail to bring occupation. fielding believed ardently that protestant beliefs, civil liberty, and national independence of foreign powers were best safeguarded by a german succession to the english throne; so by the time prince charles and 6,000 men had set foot on english soil, the former 'champion of great britain' was again up in arms, discharging his sturdy blows in a new weekly newspaper entitled the _true patriot_. the _true patriot_ is chiefly notable as affording the first sign that fielding was now leaving party politics for the wider, and much duller, field of constitutional liberty. a man might die for the british constitution; but to be witty about it would tax the resources of a lucian. and, accordingly, in place of that gay young spark mr pasquin, who laid his cudgel with so hearty a good will on the shoulders of the offending 'great man,' there now steps out a very philosophic, mature, and soberly constitutional _patriot_; a patriot who explicitly asserts in his first number, "i am of no party; a word i hope by these my labours to eradicate out of our constitution: this being indeed the true source of all those evils which we have reason to complain of." and again, in no. 14, "i am engaged to no party, nor in the support of any, unless of such as are truly and sincerely attached to the true interest of their country, and are resolved to hazard all things in its preservation." here is a considerable change from the personal zest that placed mr quiddam and mr pillage before delighted audiences in the little theatre in the haymarket. the available copies of the _true patriot_, now in the british museum, [1] include only thirty-two numbers, starting from no. 1, which appeared on the 5th of november, 1745, and ending on june 3, 1746. the first number contains a characteristic tribute to dean swift, whose death had occurred 'a few days since.' doctor jonathan swift, says the _patriot_, was "a genius who deserves to be rank'd among the first whom the world ever saw. he possessed the talents of a lucian a rabelais and a cervantes and in his works exceeded them all. he employed his wit to the noblest purposes in ridiculing as well superstition in religion as infidelity and the several errors and immoralities which sprung up from time to time in his age; and lastly in defence of his country.... nor was he only a genius and a patriot; he was in private life a good and charitable man and frequently lent sums of money, without interest, to the poor and industrious; by which means many families were preserved from destruction." in no. 2, the _patriot_ reiterates his "sincere intention to calm and heal, not to blow up and inflame, any party-divisions"; but even the task of defending the british constitution could not stifle fielding's wit, and he escapes, for breathing space as it were, into a column devoted to the news items of the week, gathered from various papers, and adorned by comments of his own, printed in italics. and in this running commentary on the daily occurences of the time we get nearer, perhaps, to the table-talk of henry fielding than by any other means. thus he faithfully repeats the inflated obituary lists that were then in fashion, but with such a variation as the following, "thomas tonkin, ... universally lamented by his acquaintance. upwards of 40 cows belonging to one at tottenham court, _universally lamented by all their acquaintance_." on a notice of an anniversary meeting of the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts there is the pertinent comment "_it is a pity some method--was not invented for the propagation of the gospel in great britain_." after the deaths of a wealthy banker and factor, comes the obituary of "one nowns a labourer, _most probably immensely poor, and yet as rich now as either of the two preceeding_"; beside which may be placed the very characteristic assertion in no. 6 that "spleen and vapours inhabit palaces and are attired with pomp and splendor, while they shun rags and prisons." there is scarcely a personal allusion in all the thirty-two numbers of the _patriot_, save the charming picture of that gentleman sitting in his study "meditating for the good and entertainment of the public, with my two little children (as is my usual course to suffer them) playing near me." and the ending of his horrid nightmare, in which a jacobite executioner was placing a rope round his neck, "when my little girl entered my bedchamber and put an end to my dream by pulling open my eyes, and telling me that the taylor had brought home my cloaths for his majesty's birthday." the number for january 28 must not be overlooked, containing as it does, a scathing and humourous exposure of the profligate young sparks of the town, from no less a pen than that of the rev. mr. abraham adams; and parson adams' letter concludes with a paragraph in which may be heard the voice of the future zealous magistrate: "no man can doubt but that the education of youth ought to be the principal care of every legislation; by the neglect of which great mischief accrues to the civil polity in every city." when himself but a lad of twenty, and in the prologue of his first comedy, fielding had entered his protest against certain popular vices of the time, and had made merry over its follies. the desire to make the world he knew too well a better place than he found it is just as keen in the wit and humourist of thirty-nine; a desire, moreover, undulled by twenty years of vivacious living. surely not the least amazing feature of fielding's genius is this dual capacity for exuberant enjoyment, and incisive judgement. "his wit," said thackeray, "is wonderfully wise and detective; it flashes upon a rogue and brightens up a rascal like a policeman's lantern." to this time of national ferment belongs a publication of which we know nothing but the title, a _serious address_; and also one of our rare glimpses of the novelist's home life. joseph warton writes to his brother tom, on october 29, 1746:--"i wish you had been with me last week when i spent two evenings with fielding and his sister, who wrote david simple, and you may guess i was very well entertained. the lady indeed retir'd pretty soon, but russell and i sat up with the poet till one or two in the morning, and were inexpressibly diverted. i find he values, as he justly may, joseph andrews above all his writings: he was extremely civil to me, i fancy, on my father's account." joseph warton's father was vicar of basingstoke, professor of poetry at oxford, and moreover, something of a jacobite; whereby, we may surmise, that the _true patriot_ did not allow his staunch hanoverian sentiments too great an invasion into his private society. alas, that it did not occur to warton to preserve, for the entertainment of later ages, some fuller record of those two _noctes ambrosianae_. this sister, sally fielding as her cousin lady mary wortley montagu called her, made some figure in the literary world of the day. richardson extolled her "knowledge of the human heart"; murphy writes of her "lively and penetrating genius"; and her classical scholarship is attested by a translation of xenophon's _memorabilia_. that she also shared some of the engaging qualities of her brother may be assumed from the lines written to the memory of the "esteemed and loved ... mrs. sarah fielding," by her friend dr. john hoadley. "her unaffected manners, candid mind, her heart benevolent, and soul resign'd; were more her praise than all she knew or thought though athens wisdom to her sex she taught." sarah fielding's name occurs again as living with her brother in that house in beaufort buildings with which is associated perhaps the happiest instance of fielding's warm-hearted generosity. the story may be given as nearly as possible in the words of the narrator, one g. s., writing from harley street in 1786. after speaking of the conspicuous good nature of "the late harry fielding," g. s. says: "his receipts were never large, and his pocket was an open bank for distress and friendship at all times to draw on. marked by such a liberality of mind it is not to be wondered at if he was frequently under pecuniary embarrassments.... some parochial taxes for his house in beaufort buildings being unpaid, and for which he had been demanded again and again [we may remember how mr. luckless' door was "almost beat down with duns"]...he was at last given to understand by the collector who had an esteem for him, that he could procrastinate the payment no longer." to a bookseller, therefore he addressed himself, and mortgaged the coming sheets of some work then in hand. he received the cash, some ten or twelve guineas, and was returning home, full freighted with this sum, when, in the strand, within a few yards of his own house, he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. "harry felt the enthusiasm of friendship; an hundred interrogatives were put to him in a moment as where had he been? where was he going? how did he do? &c. &c. his friend told him in reply he had long been buffeting the waves of adverse fortunes, but never could surmount them." fielding took him off to dine at a neighbouring tavern, and as they talked, becoming acquainted with the state of his friend's pocket, emptied his own into it; and a little before dawn, he turned homewards "greater and happier than a monarch." arrived at beaufort buildings his sister, who had anxiously awaited him, reported that the collector had called for the taxes twice that day. "friendship," answered harry fielding "has called for the money and had it;--let the collector call again." well might his cousin lady mary say of the man of whom such a story could be told, "i am persuaded he has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth." during the summer following warton's visit to the brother and sister, fielding published a _dialogue between an alderman and a courtier_. and in the following november his second marriage took place, at the little city church of st bene't's, paul's wharf. the story of this marriage cannot be better told than in the words of lady mary wortley montagu's granddaughter, lady louisa stuart, quoting from the personal knowledge of her mother and grandmother: "his biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the death of this charming woman [his first wife] he married her maid. and yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. the maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. in the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping with her; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. this made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. at least this was what he told his friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." from a supposed allusion by smollett, in the first edition of _peregrine pickle_, (an allusion afterwards suppressed) it would appear that fielding's old schoolfellow and lifelong friend 'the good lord lyttelton' so far approved the marriage as himself to give mary daniel away; and, as the dates in the twickenham register of births show that the marriage was one of justice as well as expediency, this well accords with lyttelton's upright and honourable character. of fielding's affectionate and grateful loyalty to his second wife ample evidence appears in the pages of his last book, the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_. throughout this touching record of the journey of a dying man, there are references to her tenderness, ability and devotion. at the sad parting from children and friends, on the morning of their departure for lisbon, he writes of her behaviour as "more like a heroine and philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world." when, during the voyage down the thames, an unmannerly custom house officer burst into the cabin where fielding and his wife were sitting, the man was soundly rated for breaking "into the presence of a lady without an apology or even moving his hat"; by which we may see his sensitive care that due respect was accorded her. he tells us how he persuaded her with difficulty to take a walk on shore when their vessel was wind bound in torbay, it being "no easy matter for me to force [her] from my side." with anxious forboding he thinks of his "dear wife and child" facing the world alone after his death, for "in truth i have often thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to the power of any man i know, to whom they could possibly be so trusted." and in a more formal tribute he acknowledges the abilities that accompanied her worth, when he says that "besides discharging excellently well her own and all tender offices becoming the female character; ... besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, [she] could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband and occasionally perform his part." that fielding suffered socially by the fact of his second marriage is probable. but the fact is proof, if proof were needed, of his courage in reparation, and of the unworldly spirit in which he ultimately followed the dictates of that incorruptible judge which he himself asserted to be in every man's breast. it was in december 1747, just a month after his second marriage, that fielding again flung himself into the arena of contentious journalism, 'brandishing' his pen as truculently as ever on behalf of the protestant and hanoverian succession, and in despite of the jacobite cause. he called his new paper "_the jacobite's journal_, by john trott plaid esq're.," and the ironic title was accompanied by a woodcut traditionally associated with hogarth. the ironic mask, fielding explains, was assumed "in order if possible to laugh men out of their follies and to make men ashamed of owning or acting by" jacobite principles. the _jacobite's journal_ appeared at a moment when public opinion, and public gossip also, seem to have been immersed in the question whether a notorious pamphlet purporting to have been found among the papers of a late minister, mr. thomas winnington, were genuine or a libel. into this fray fielding promptly plunged, publishing, in december 1747, [2] a shilling pamphlet entitled _a proper answer to a late scurrilous libel,... by the author of the jacobites journal._ this little pamphlet, copies of which may be seen in the british museum, is merely a further vigorous declamation for civil liberty and the protestant religion, as under king george, and contains hardly any reference either to winnington or to the author. it was retorted on in two further pamphlets. in one of these a lady fanny and her friend, enjoying a 'chit chat,' discuss the news that lady fanny is she "whom f---g represents in a _plaid jocket_ in the front of his _jacobite_ journal." "the whirling coxcomb," cries lady fanny enraged, "what had he to do with ridiculing any party, who had travell'd round the whole circle of parties and ministers, ever since he could brandish a pen." [3] her ladyship adds some further sneers on writers pensioned to amuse people with their nonsense. the other counter pamphlet consists of conversations overheard, all over the town, on the subject of winnington and his _apology_. here a mercer and a bookseller abuse fielding for boxing the political compass, and for selling his pen. another bookseller insinuates that fielding's own attack on the _apology_ is but a half-hearted affair--"ah sir, you know not what f---g could do if he were willing ... you would have seen him mince and hash it so as to make half the town weep and the other laugh. don't you think the pen that writ _pasquin, joseph andrews_, and the _champion_ could have answered the apology if he had had the will?" "but i can't see why the author of the jacobite journal should want that will," protests a bencher. "alas sir!" cries the bookseller, "you forget the power of _necessity_. if a man that wants bread can establish a paper by the p--t off--e [post office?] taking off two thousand every week is he not more excusable...." to which the bencher replies that possibly it is fielding's 'wavering principles' that have "brought him to the necessity of writing for bread." [4] from all which we may assume that fielding's superiority to what he calls the "absurd and irrational distinction of parties [which] hath principally contributed to poison our constitution" [5] was very little understood by the heated party factions of 1747. to call one's political opponent a 'whirling coxcomb,' or a 'pensioned scribbler,' was a very mild amenity in eighteenth century party warfare; and the abuse of such small fry as these anonymous pamphleteers might be wholly disregarded did it not show fielding's prominence, during these anxious times, as a strenuous hanoverian, and also the fact that he had now not only largely abjured party politics, but that what party tenets he still held were changed. indeed as much may surely be deduced from the following philosophic passage in his _true patriot_. "i have formerly shown in this paper, that the bare objecting to a man a _change_ in his _political notions_, ought by no means to affect any person's _character_; because in a country like this it is simply impossible that a man of sound sense, and strict honour, should always adhere to the same _political creed_." [6] it is very little material to our knowledge of fielding as an honest man and a great genius to discover, were it possible, precisely what changes his political views underwent. when sir robert walpole essayed to corrupt the nation fielding fought strenuously in the cause of political honour; when a stewart invasion threatened (as he thought) both civil liberty and protestant beliefs he flung himself as zealously into the defence of the church of england and of the hanoverian government. it is clear that the latter exertions stirred up much cheap obliquy; and it must be admitted that such references to his antagonists as "last weeks dunghill of papers" were likely to entail unsavory retort. this abuse seems to have broken out with an excess of virulence not long after the appearance of the _jacobite's journal_; a fate, as fielding observes, little to be expected by the editor of a loyal paper. his dignified protest in the matter is worth recalling. in a leading article he declares that "before my paper hath reached the 20th. number a heavier load of scandal hath been cast upon me than i believe ever fell to the share of a single man. the author of the journal was soon guessed at; either from some singularity in style, or from little care which being free from any wicked purpose, i have ever taken to conceal my name. of this several writers were no sooner possessed than they attempted to blacken it with every kind of reproach; pursued me into private life, _even to my boyish years_; where they have given me almost every vice in human nature. again they have followed me with uncommon inveteracy into a profession in which they have very roundly asserted that i have neither business nor knowledge: and lastly, as an author they have affected to treat me with more contempt than mr. pope, who hath great merit and no less pride in the character of a writer hath thought proper to bestow on the lowest scribbler of his time. all this moreover they have poured forth in a vein of scurrility which hath disgraced the press with every abusive term in our language." although, as fielding adds, those who knew him would not take their opinion from those who knew him not, it is to be feared that the scurrilous libellers of the day succeeded in creating a prejudice that is hardly yet dispersed. for such petty clamours would be trifling enough round the figure of the creator of the english novel, were it not that in the abuse of the gutter press of his day we may probably find the reason for much of the vague cloud which has so strangely overhung fielding's name. in his own spirited protest he tells us of the 'ordure' that was thrown at him; and it is an old saying that if enough mud be thrown some will stick. in the february following the appearance of his new paper fielding must have been at twickenham; for the baptism of his son william appears in the parish register for that month. a writer of thirty years ago says that the house celebrated as that in which fielding lived was then still standing, a quaint old fashioned wooden dwelling, in back lane; and adds the information that fielding had two rooms, the house being then let in lodgings. [7] lysons, however, in his _environs of london_, published in 1795, says that fielding "rented a house at this time in the back-lane at twickenham," adding that he received his information from the earl of orford. the site is now occupied by a row of cottages. in his _parish register for twickenham_ horace walpole commemorates the great novelist's residence in that quiet village, so full of eighteenth century memories. here, he says, "... fielding met his bunter muse, and, as they quaff'd the fiery juice, droll nature stamp'd each lucky hit with unimaginable wit." bunter was a cant word for a woman who picks up rags about the street; and it may seem to later generations that the epithet fitted far more nicely the _bunter muse_ of that "facile retailer of _ana_ and incorrigible society-gossip," that rag-picker of anecdotes, mr. horace walpole himself. when the _journal_ had been running some six months, fielding formally relinquished his ironic character of a jacobite, partly because, as he says, the evils of jacobitism were too serious for jesting and required more open denunciation; partly because the age required more highly seasoned writing, the general taste in reading very much resembling "that of some particular man in eating who would never willingly devour what doth not stink"; and partly from the ineptitude of the public to appreciate the ironic method. this latter passage is of interest as coming from the author of that great masterpiece in irony, _jonathan wild_. fielding has observed, he tells us that "though irony is capable of furnishing the most exquisite ridicule; yet as there is no kind of humour so liable to be mistaken it is of all others the most dangerous to the writer. an infinite number of readers have not the least taste or relish for it, i believe i may say do not understand it; and all are apt to be tired when it is carried to any degree of length." the _jacobite's journal_ is of course mainly occupied with maintaining the protestant british constitution; but here, as in the _true patriot_, fielding allows himself a pleasant running commentary on the daily news. he also erects a _court of criticism_ in which, by virtue of his "high censorial office," he administers justice in "all matters in the republic of literature." by thus adopting the title of "censor of great britain" the editor of the _jacobites journal_ preserves his identity with that censorial _champion_ who nine years before had essayed to keep rogues in fear of his hercules' club. two judgments delivered by the _court_ are of interest. in one, due castigation is given to that incorrigible mimic and wit foote, who was once threatened by no less a cudgel than that of dr. johnson himself. foote was evading all law and order by his inimitable mimicries at the little theatre in the haymarket; and for these performances at his "scandal-shop" is very properly brought up before mr. censor's _court_. whereupon foote begins to mimic the _court_ "pulling a chew of tobacco from his mouth, in imitation of his honour who is greatly fond of that weed." the culprit suffers conviction for crime against law and good manners. having thus seen to the public welfare, fielding also happily settles a little score of his own on one of his anonymous libellers. "one porcupine pillage," he records, "came into the court and threw a great shovelful of dirt at his honour, _but luckily none of it hit him_." his comments on weekly news items are no less characteristic than those hidden in the columns of the _patriot_. thus, on a trotting match, he observes, "trotting is a sport truly adapted to the english genius." and on a man found dead in jewin street "formerly an eminent dealer in buckrams, but [who] being greatly reduced is supposed to have died for want," he notes, "_either of common sense in himself or common humanity in his aquaintance_." his own humanity is shown in the wise appeals, repeated on more than one page of the _journal_, for some effective provision for the distressed widows and children of the poor clergy. and his unbiassed judgment appears in the _amende honorable_ to richardson, in the form of generous and unstinted praise of _clarissa_. the first number of the _jacobite's journal_ was dated dec. 5, 1747, and 'mr. trott plaid' formally takes leave of his subject exactly eleven months later, on november 5, 1748, declaring that jacobites were, by then, little to be feared. [8] ten days before this last 'brandish' of fielding's constitutional pen, on october 26, 1748, his oaths had been received as a justice of the peace for westminster. [1] these are in the burney collection, and are inscribed "these papers are by the celebrated henry fielding esqre." [2] see the _gentleman's magazine_. dec. 1747. [3] _a free comment on the late mr. w-g-n's apology ... by a lady ..._ 1748. [4] _the patriot analized_. 1748. [5] _true patriot no. 14_. [6] _true patriot_. no. 29. may 20, 1746. [7] r. cobbett. _memorials of twickenham_, 1872. [8] the _journal's_ epitaph was promptly written by a scurrilous opponent in lines showing that the prominences of fielding's profile were well-known: beneath this stone lies _trott plaid john_ his length of chin and nose. see the _gentleman's magazine_, november 1748. chapter xi tom jones "in god's name let us speak out honestly and set the good against the bad." no. 48 of the _jacobite's journal_. the two years of fielding's life preceding his appointment as a bow street magistrate (an appointment comparable only to the choice of robert burns as an exciseman) were marked, as we have seen, by lively passages in the political arena, and a steady output of political journalism. indeed, by this time, the public must have associated swingeing denunciations of jacobites, and glowing eulogies of the british constitution, with harry fielding's name; just as seven years previously he had been in their eyes the 'champion' journalist of a brilliant opposition; and, for ten years before that, the witty writer of a stream of popular farces and comedies. for there is no evidence that his audacious innovation, his splendid adventure in literature, _joseph andrews_, really revealed the existence of a new genius in their midst to the whigs and tories of those factious days, to the gay frequenters of the play-house, to the barristers at westminster hall and on the western circuit. in 1748 fielding must have been, to his many audiences, a witty and well-born man of letters who, at forty-one, had as yet achieved no towering success; a facile dramatist; and a master of slashing political invective, growing perplexingly impartial, alike in his praise and his condemnation. while, as regards outward circumstances, the struggling barrister, baffled in his professional hopes by persistent attacks of gout, was now so far enlisted, to use his own fine image, under the black banner of poverty, that even the small post and hard duties of a bow street magistrate were worth his acceptance. [1] such was harry fielding as the world of 1748 knew him, in the coffee houses, the mall, the green-room and the law-courts. what that world did not know was that all this dramatic, journalistic, and political action, was little more than the surface movement of a vitality far too exuberant to be contained in any one groove of hackney writing,--of an impetuous 'enthusiasm for righteousness' far too ardent to pass by any flagrant social, moral, or political abuse without inflicting some form of chastisement; and that beneath this ever active surface movement fielding's genius was slowly maturing in that new continent of literature the borders of which he had already crossed seven years before. in the pages of _joseph andrews_, he had, as we know, tentatively explored that continent feeling his way along the unknown paths of this long neglected world of human nature; bringing back with him one immortal figure, that living embodiment of simple piety and scholarship, of charity and honest strength, parson adams; disclosing hints of discoveries, not yet perfected, among the humours and villanies, the virtues and charms, of a dozen other inhabitants of his _terra incognita_. but there is no sign that the greatness of his discovery, the splendour of his addition to the empire of english literature, was in the least apprehended during the seven years following the appearance of _joseph andrews_. only fielding himself was conscious that he had created a kind of writing "hitherto unattempted in our language." and, having crossed the borders of this new continent, he seems, after his first survey, to have deliberately immersed himself in one portion, and that the blackest, of his re-discovered world. for _jonathan wild_, with its disclosure of the active spirit of 'diabolism,' of naked vice, is little else than the exploration of those darkest recesses of human nature which can be safely entered only by the sanest and healthiest of intellects. fielding's strength was equal to his exploit; and from this, his second adventure, he brought back a picture of the deformity and folly of vice, drawn with a just and penetrating scorn unequalled, perhaps, by any english moralist. but neither of these two essays in the new field of writing had covered more than isolated or outlying portions, the first in sunlight, the second in shadow, of that vast territory. and it was not till the perfect maturity of his powers and of his experience, not till he had seen both the 'manners of many men,' and the workings of many hearts, not in a word till he had made himself master of great tracts of that human nature which had so long lain neglected, that fielding in _tom jones_ disclosed himself as the creator of the english novel. little is known as to when the conception of _tom jones_ first shaped itself in his mind, of where he lived during the writing of the great comic epic, or of the time occupied in its completion. appropriately for a book expressly designed "to recommend goodness and innocence" the plan of the novel was suggested, many years before its appearance, by the 'good lord lyttelton'; and we know, further, that the writing occupied 'some thousands of hours'; but _tom jones_ does not emerge into definite existence till the summer of 1748. legend it is true, attesting to the greatness of the achievement contained in the six little volumes, endows many localities with the fame of their origin. a well-credited contemporary writer, the rev. richard graves, declared that the novelist "while he was writing his novel of tom jones" lived at tiverton (twerton), one and a half miles from bath, and dined daily at prior park the seat of his munificent and pious friend ralph allen. mr graves says that fielding then lived in "the first house on the right hand with a spread eagle over the door." [2] salisbury is insistent that part at least of the great novel was written at milford house, near to that city. an anonymous old engraver asserts the same honour for fielding's farm at east stour, an assertion certainly not confirmed by the newly found documents concerning fielding's sale of property at stour in 1738. twickenham claims that the book was wholly composed in the house in back lane. and to an ancient building at tintern parva in the wye valley, said to have once been the lodging of the abbot of tintern, was also assigned the reputation of being the birthplace of the english novel. if the latter tradition were true, the fact that it was in the harlequin chamber of the abbots of glastonbury that henry fielding was born, becomes strangely matched by the birth, some forty years later, of his masterpiece, in the lodging of the abbot of tintern. the one point of real interest in all these traditions is the fact that the fame of _tom jones_ has been sufficient to create a widespread popular legend. the truth probably is that the book was written in the many shifting scenes of fielding's life during these years; now at bath whither his gout and the generous hospitality of ralph allen would take him; now in salisbury, the home of his boyhood, and the scene of his courtship with the lovely original of sophia western; possibly in his own county of somerset; and most probably both at twickenham, and in london. from these various legends it is pleasant to be able to disentangle one clear picture of the making of _tom jones_. before the manuscript was placed in the printers' hands fielding submitted it to the opinion both of the elder pitt, and of the estimable and pious lyttelton; and the account of this memorable meeting cannot be better given than in the words of a descendant of the hostess on that occasion, the rev. george miller, great-grandson of that sanderson miller of radway, warwickshire, who numbered many men of note among his acquaintance, and with whom fielding was on terms of intimate friendship. [3] writing to the present writer, in 1907, mr. miller says: "lord chatham and lord lyttleton came to radway to visit my ancestor, when lord chatham planted three trees to commemorate the visit, and a stone urn was placed between them. fielding was also of the party and read 'tom jones' in manuscript after dinner for the opinion of his hearers before publishing it. my father told me this often and he had the account from his grandmother who survived her husband several years and who was the hostess on the occasion." unhappily no record exists of the comments of one of the greatest of english statesmen when listening to this reading, in manuscript, of indubitably one of the greatest of english novels. the vagueness which hangs over the places in which _tom jones_ was written, the certainty that in all of them poverty was constantly present, is in perfect accord with the power of detachment manifested in this book from circumstances that would surely have tinged, if not over-whelmed, a weaker genius. sickness and poverty are stern sponsors; but neither were suffered to leave more than two traces on the pages destined to outlive so greatly the harsh circumstances in which they had birth. there is the frank acknowledgement of the writer's dependence on lyttelton's noble generosity, without which the book had never, fielding says, been completed, since "i partly owe to you my existence during great part of the time which i have employed in composing it." and a touching betrayal occurs of his anxiety for the future provision of the "prattling babes, whose innocent play hath often been interrupted by my labours." fielding was sensitively anxious for his wife and children; but, for himself, living as he did with visions such as that of the _invocation_ introducing book xiii of _tom jones_, the precise situation of his "little parlour," or the poorness of its furniture, cannot have appeared very material. "come bright love of fame," he cries "... fill my ravished fancy with the hopes of charming ages yet to come... do thou teach me not only to foresee, but to enjoy, nay, even to feed on future praise. comfort me by a solemn assurance, that when the little parlour in which i sit at this instant, shall be reduced to a worse furnished box, i shall be read, with honour, by those who never knew nor saw me, and whom i shall neither know nor see." this capacity of fielding for relegating circumstance to its true level, the detached idealism that moulded his genius, are, indeed, shown once for all in the fact that the exquisite picture of virtue, the whole-hearted attack on vice, the genial humour, the sunny portraits of humanity, the splendid cheerfulness of _tom jones_, that 'epic of youth,' came from a man in middle age, immersed in disheartening struggles, and fighting recurrent ill health. superficial critics have called fielding a realist because his figures are so full-blooded and alive that we feel we have met them but yesterday in the street; to eyes so shortsighted life itself must seem merely realistic. as none but an idealist could have conceived parson adams, so the creator of sophia again announced himself an idealist in the dedication of _tom jones_. here, in language of pure symbolism, he contends that the ideal virtues such as goodness and innocence, may most effectively be presented to men in a figure, for "an example is a kind of picture, in which virtue becomes as it were an object of sight, and strikes us with an idea of that loveliness, which _plato_ asserts there is in her naked charms." [4] to the man who could write thus, and, who, in later pages of his great 'epic,' could humbly desire of genius "do thou kindly take me by the hand, and lead me through all the mazes, the winding labyrinth of nature. initiate me into all those mysteries which profane eyes never beheld,"--to this man the material surroundings of life must have seemed of little greater import than the fittings of that narrow box to the occupation of which he looked forward with so calm a foresight. indeed he himself acknowledges a carelessness of outward comfort on his own behalf. "come," he cries, to the spirit of mercenary success, "thou jolly substance, with thy shining face, ... hold forth thy tempting rewards; thy shining chinking heap; thy quickly-convertible bank-bill, big with unseen riches; thy often-varying stock; the warm, the comfortable house; ... come thou, and if i am too tasteless of thy valuable treasures, warm my heart with the transporting thought of conveying them to others." his happy constitution, wrote his cousin lady mary, "made him forget everything when he was before a venison pasty or a flask of champagne"; but behind those healthy exhilarations was, assuredly, a serenity based on a clear perception of the values of life. to a man of fielding's happy social temperament, and who was yet also initiated into mysteries and occupied in converting ideal loveliness into 'an object of sight,' such matters as duns and pawnbrokers would seem precisely fit for oblivion in venison and champagne. in the creator of tom jones and of sophia the most indestructible delight in living, and the keenest discernment of the unsubstantial qualities of that delight, appear to have been admirably interwoven. by june 11, 1748, the book was far enough advanced for the publisher, andrew millar, to pay £600 for it, as appears from a receipt now in the possession of mr. alfred huth. [5] and it is eminently characteristic of the finances of a man who, as lady mary said, would have wanted money had his estates been as extensive as his imagination, that the receipt for this £600 is dated more than six months before the publication of the book. for it was not till february 28, 1749, that the _general advertiser_ announced this day is published, in six vols., 12 mo the history of tom jones, a foundling _mores hominum multorum vidit_. _by_ henry fielding, _esqre_ henceforth fielding ceases to be the boisterous politician, the witty dramatist; his poverty and his struggles for subsistence fall back, at his own bidding, among the accidents of life; and he stands revealed as the supreme genius, the creator of the english novel, the inheritor of that lasting fame which he had dared so confidently to invoke. the immediate success of the book, in that eighteenth-century world into which it was launched, is attested by the notice in the _london magazine_ of the very month of its publication. under the heading of a "plan of a late celebrated novel," the _magazine_ devotes its five opening pages to a summary of a book "which has given great amusement and we hope instruction to the polite part of the town." the summary is preceded by a description of _tom jones_ as a novel "calculated to recommend religion and virtue, to shew the bad consequences of indiscretion, and to set several kinds of vice in their most deformed and shocking light." the reviewer declares that "after one has begun to read it, it is difficult to leave off before having read the whole." and he concludes, "thus ends this pretty novel, with a most just distribution of rewards and punishments, according to the merits of all the persons who had any considerable share in it." [6] three months later horace walpole wrote, "millar the bookseller has done very generously by him [fielding]: finding tom jones, for which he had given him £600, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred." an admirer breaks out into rhyme, in the _gentleman's magazine_ for august 1749,- "let fielding take the pen! life dropt her mask, and all mankind were men." thereby anticipating thackeray's famous complaint that in his day no one dared "to depict to his utmost power a man." lady bradshaigh, writing by a happy irony of fate to richardson, says "as to tom jones i am fatigued with the name, having lately fallen into the company of several young ladies, who had each a 'tom jones' in some part of the world, for so they call their favourites." the gentlemen also had their sophias, one indeed having bestowed that all-popular name on his 'dutch mastiff puppy.' that eccentric eighteenth century philosopher, and enthusiastic greek scholar, lord monboddo declared that _tom jones_ had more of character in it than any other work, ancient or modern, known to him, adding, "in short, i never saw anything that was so animated, and as i may say, _all alive_ with characters and manners as _the history of tom jones_"; a criticism that recalls lady mary wortley montagu's remark that no man enjoyed life more than did fielding. doubtless it was his own magnificent capacity for living that endowed the very creatures of his pen with so abundant a vitality. in her own copy lady mary wrote _ne plus ultra_. to turn from the popular voices of the day to the comments of those capable of appraising genius, "what a master of composition fielding was!" exclaimed coleridge, "upon my word i think 'oedipus tyrannus,' the 'alchemist,' and 'tom jones' the three most perfect plots ever planned." to sir walter scott _tom jones_ was "truth and human nature itself." gibbon described the book as "the first of ancient or modern romances"; and, as we have seen, declared that its pages would outlive the imperial eagle of those hapsburgs from whom fielding was said to be descended. "there can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge," wrote thackeray. "to have your name mentioned by gibbon is like having it written on the dome of st peter's. pilgrims from all the world admire and behold it." pilgrims from all the world have likewise admired _tom jones_. translations have appeared in french, german, [7] spanish, swedish, russian, polish and dutch; and as for the english editions, they range from the three editions issued within the year of publication to the several noble volumes newly edited in our own day, and the sixpenny copies on our railway bookstalls. so fully has time justified the invocation to future fame sent forth from the little ill-furnished parlour of the struggling barrister. to analyse the grounds for a chorus of praise ranging from the 'young ladies' of the eighteenth century to the utterances of distinguished critics, and popular authors of our own day, would be to confound literary criticism with biography. but there are some points appertaining to fielding's great novel which cannot be here disregarded, in that they closely affect his personal character. such are the light in which he himself regarded his masterpiece, the intention with which he wrote it, and the means which he selected to carry that intention into effect. all these he himself very plainly sets forth in his _dedication_ to lyttelton and in other passages of _tom jones_. as to his intention. "i declare," he says, in the _dedication_, "that to recommend goodness and innocence hath been my sincere endeavour in this history." and the means selected for this end, and for the companion object of persuading men from guilt, are as clearly stated. first as we have seen, fielding plays the part of pure idealist, purposing to create a picture "in which virtue becomes as it were an object of sight." for such pictures we have but to think of sophia western, and of that final page of _tom jones_, than which no more charming representation of mutual affection, esteem, and well doing can be imagined. but besides this means of reaching his audience fielding adopted, he tells us, a second method. he argues that no acquisitions of guilt can compensate a man for the loss of inward peace, for the attendant horror, anxiety, and danger, to which he subjects himself; thus endeavouring to enlist man's self-interest no less than his admiration, on the side of virtue. again, he explains yet another method by which he essays to foil the progress of evil, viz. to show that virtue and innocence are chiefly betrayed "into the snares that deceit and villainy spread for them" by indiscretion; a moral which he has "the more industriously laboured ... since i believe it is much easier to make good men, wise than to make bad men good." for this purpose, he concludes, namely to show, as in a figure, the beauty of virtue, to persuade men that in following innocence and virtue they follow their own obvious interests, to arm them from the snares of villainy and deceit, "i have employed all the wit and humour of which i am master in the following history; wherein i have endeavoured to laugh mankind out of their favourite follies and vices." and, conscious that wit and humour require a rein quite unneeded by the methods of the professional moralist, fielding further asserts that in these pages his laughter is worthy of the aim which he sets before him. here, he carefully insists, are wit and humour wholly void of offence. he assures his reader that in the whole course of the work, he will find "nothing prejudicial to the cause of religion and virtue; nothing inconsistent with the strictest rules of decency, nor which can offend even the chastest eye in the perusal." as the almost incredible change from the manners of 1749 to those of the following century, and of our own day, has injuriously affected the reputation of fielding among readers ignorant of past conditions, this protest, in striking accord with the prologue for his first play acted when he was but a lad of twenty, cannot be too emphatically recorded. and no further justification of fielding's words need be entered than that verdict of the eighteenth century scholar and bishop of the english church, doctor warburton, when he declared that "mr. fielding [stands] the foremost among those who have given a faithful and chaste copy of life and manners." such were the noble purposes to which fielding consciously dedicated his genius in _tom jones_, and such was the careful restraint with which he exercised his chosen methods of wit and humour. that these purposes, executed by a supreme genius in the language and scenes of his own day, should ever have laid their author open to a charge of immorality is perhaps one of the most amazing pieces of irony in the whole history of english literature. but as this charge of moral laxity has been seriously brought against the pages of _tom jones_, and is perhaps not yet quite exploded, it cannot be wholly disregarded. the imputation amounts, briefly, to a too easy forgiveness for the youthful sins of jones, and the involving that engaging youth in too deep a degradation. the answers to these charges are, firstly, that fielding held strongly, and here exhibits, the humane and wise doctrine that a man should be judged, not by what he sometimes does, but by what he _is_. and, secondly, that as sir walter scott pointed out, when dealing with this very matter, "the vices into which jones suffers himself to fall are made the direct cause of placing him in the distressful situation which he occupies during the greater part of the narrative; while his generosity, his charity, and his amiable qualities become the means of saving him from the consequences of his folly." fielding was not wholly concerned with the acts of a man; to him the admission of the penitent thief into paradise, at the eleventh hour, could have been no stumbling block. and, further, tom jones not only suffers for his ill doing, but wins no heaven until he wholly purges himself from the sin which did so easily beset him. the distinction between doing and being is very fully enunciated by fielding himself, in the _introduction_ to book vii. "a single bad act," he says, "no more constitutes a villain in life, than a single bad part on the stage". and again, "now we, who are admitted behind the scenes of this great theatre of nature, (and no author ought to write any thing besides dictionaries and spelling-books who hath not this privilege) can censure the action, without conceiving any actual detestation of the person, whom perhaps nature may not have designed to act an ill part in all her dramas: for in this instance, life most exactly represents the stage, since it is often the same person who represents the villain and the heroe". coleridge has expressed the same truth in words written in a copy of _tom jones_, "if i want a servant or mechanic i wish to know what he _does_--but of a friend i must know what he _is_. and in no writer is this momentous distinction so finely brought forward as by fielding. we do not care what blifil does ... but blifil _is_ a villain and we feel him to be so." [8] it is true that, as scott regrets the depth of degradation into which tom jones is suffered to fall, so coleridge expresses a wish, "relatively to fielding himself" that the great novelist had emphasised somewhat more the repentance of his hero: but this may be balanced by that other noble tribute to his morality, "i dare believe who consulted his heart and conscience only without adverting to _what the world_ would say could rise from the perusal of fielding's _tom jones_, _joseph andrews_ and _amelia_ without feeling himself the better man--at least without an intense conviction that he could not be guilty of a base act." [9] to be forced to watch the temporary degradation of a noble nature, and the miseries ensuing, is surely one of the most effective means of rousing a hatred of vice. that such an exhibition should ever have been construed into moral laxity on the part of the author, especially when the restoration of the hero's character is drawn as entirely due to his ingrained worship of innocence and virtue, is almost incredible. in exact accordance with fielding's character as moralist in intent, although supreme artist in execution, is the fact of the dedication of _tom jones_ to his life-long friend lyttelton. george lyttelton, statesman, scholar, and orator, was a friend of whom any man might be proud. it was said of him that he "showed the judgment of a minister, the force and wit of an orator, and the spirit of a gentleman." as theologian he wrote a treatise on _the conversion of st. paul_ which, a hundred years later, was described as being "still regarded as one of the subsidiary bulwarks of christianity." as poet he won the praise of gray for his tender and elegiac verse. thomson sang of his "sense refined," and adds serene yet warm, humane yet firm his mind as little touch'd as any man's with bad; and pope drew his character as "still true to virtue and as warm as true." it was to this devout scholar, this refined gentleman, this warm-hearted follower of virtue, that _tom jones_ was dedicated, nay more, to him it owed both origin and completion. "to you, sir," fielding writes in his _dedication_, "it is owing that this history was ever begun. it was by your desire that i first thought of such a composition.... again, sir, without your assistance this history had never been completed.... i partly owe to you my existence during great part of the time in which i have employed in composing it." and that lyttelton cordially approved the book which owed so much to his own insight and generosity is evident from the references, in the _dedication_, to his favourable judgment. with the appearance of _tom jones_ fielding steps into his own place among the immortals. but lofty as his genius was, his feet were firmly planted in the world which he relished so keenly. to no man could be applied more happily the motto chosen by him for his title page, _mores hominum multorum vidit_--he saw the manners of many men. this characteristic emerges in a personal reminiscence of the novelist, at the very moment when the sheets of _tom jones_ were passing through the press. the great-nephew of his intimate friend mrs hussey relates; "henry fielding was fond of colouring his pictures of life with the glowing and variegated tints of nature, by conversing with persons of every situation and calling, as i have frequently been informed by one of my great aunts, the late mrs hussey, who knew him intimately. i have heard her say, that mr fielding never suffered his talent for sprightly conversation to mildew for a moment; and that his manners were so gentlemanly, that even with the lower classes, with which he frequently condescended particularly to chat such as sir roger de coverley's old friends, the vauxhall water-men, they seldom outstepped the limits of propriety. my aunt ... [was] a fashionable sacque and mantua-maker, and lived in the strand, ... one day mr fielding observed to mrs hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a novel, which he thought would be his best production; and that he intended to introduce into it the characters of all his friends. mrs hussey, with a smile, ventured to remark, that he must have many niches, and that surely they must already be filled. 'i assure you, my dear madam,' replied he, 'there shall be a bracket for a bust of you.' some time after this, he informed mrs hussey that the work was in the press; but, immediately recollecting that he had forgotten his promise to her, went to the printer, and was time enough to insert, in vol. iii. p. 17, where he speaks of the shape of sophia western--'such charms are there in affability, and so sure is it to attract the praises of all kinds of people.... it may indeed be compared to the celebrated mrs hussey.' to which observation he has given the following note: 'a celebrated mantua-maker in the strand, famous for setting off the shapes of women.'" [10] here is yet further proof, that fielding loved not only to see the manners of many men, but also to render them whatever service lay within his power. never were the warmest heart and the loftiest genius more happily united than in the creator of the english novel. lyttelton not only suggested and approved the great comic epic, and enabled distressed genius to live while composing it; his own worth and benevolence, together with those of the generous allen, afforded fielding, as he tells us, the materials for the picture here presented of allworthy. "the world," he says, speaking of this picture, "will not, i believe, make me the compliment of thinking i took it from myself. i care not: this they shall own, that the two persons from whom i have taken it, that is to say, two of the best and worthiest men in the world, are strongly and zealously my friends." and a point of still closer personal interest is the fact, already noticed, that in the lovely character and person of sophia western, fielding raised an enduring memorial to that beloved wife whose death had occurred a few years before the publication of _tom jones_. the authenticity of the portrait is explicitly stated in the _invocation_ prefixed to book xiii. apostrophizing that 'gentle maid,' bright 'love of fame,' fielding bids her, in the eighteenth century phrase that falls so strangely on a modern ear, "foretell me that some tender maid, whose grandmother is yet unborn, hereafter, when under the fictitious name of _sophia_ she reads the real worth which once existed in my _charlotte_, shall, from her sympathetic breast, send forth the _heaving sigh_." then follows, immediately, his own desire that he too may live in the knowledge and honour of far distant readers. fielding lies buried under southern skies, far from his wife's english grave; but in the immortal pages of his masterpiece they are not divided. [1] the fiat appointing fielding as magistrate for the city and borough of westminster, now in the house of lords, is dated july 30, 1748. [2] on the house identified with mr graves' description, and now known as "fielding's lodge," a tablet has recently been placed, through the energy of mr r. g. naish of twerton. [3] see _life of the earl of hardwicke_. g. harris. 1847. vol. ii. pp. 456-7. [4] _tom jones_. dedication. [5] see appendix for this, hitherto unpublished, receipt. [6] _london magazine_. feb. 1749. [7] in germany an edition of 1771 was followed by a second in 1780, and a third in 1786. in 1765 a lyrical comedy founded on the famous novel was acted in paris; and the same year it was transformed into a german comedy by j.h. steffens. [8] s. t. coleridge. manuscript notes in a copy of _tom jones_, now in the british museum. [9] ibid. [10] j. t. smith. _nollekens and his times_. vol. i. pp. 124-5. chapter xii mr justice fielding "the principal duty which every man owes is to his country." _enquiry into the ... increase of robbers_. to have created the english novel were, it might seem, achievement enough to tire for a while the most vigorous of intellects; but to the author of _tom jones_ the apathy of repose was unknown. at no period of fielding's short life can he be discerned as doing nothing; and, indeed, to an insight so penetrating, to an ardour so irrepressible, the england of george the second can have afforded but very little inducement to inaction. thus, in the one month of october 1748, the pages of _tom jones_ must have been nearing completion, if indeed the sheets were not already passing through the press. the hanoverian philippics of "mr trott-plaid" were still resounding in the _jacobite's journal_. while, on the 26th. of the month, fielding's oaths were received for an entirely new rôle, that of a justice of the peace for westminster. [1] ten days later the _jacobite's journal_ had ceased to exist; and that a rumour was abroad connecting this demise of the _journal_ with the bestowal of a new and arduous post on its editor appears from a paragraph in the _london evening post_. on nov. 8, that organ prepares its readers for the fact that the now defunct "mr trott-plaid" may possibly "rise awful in the form of a justice." within four weeks of this announcement 'justice fielding's' name appears for the first time in the police-news of the day, in a committal dated december 10th [2]. and two days later he is sending three thieves to the gatehouse, and admitting a suspected thief to bail, "after an examination which lasted several hours." and it is interesting to notice that throughout this first month of his magisterial work the now 'awful form' of justice henry fielding was kept constantly tempered in the public mind by the fact of his still undiminished popularity as a dramatist. in this december his comedies, with the inimitable 'romp' kitty clive as _miss lucy_, or the _intrigueing chambermaid_ or _chloe_, as the case might be, were played no fewer than nine times on the drury lane boards. scarcely had fielding bent his genius to these new responsibilities of examining westminster suspects and sending the rogues of that city to prison, than he appears preparing for an extension of those duties over the county of middlesex. to be a county magistrate in 1750, however, necessitated the holding of landed estate worth £100 per annum; and fielding's estate, for many years, seems to have been his pen. in this difficulty he turned to the duke of bedford, whose public virtues, and private generosity, were so soon to be acknowledged in the dedication of _tom jones_. it was but three weeks after his appointment that the westminster magistrate wrote as follows to the giver of those "princely benefactions": "bow street. decr. 13. 1748. "my lord, "such is my dependence on the goodness of your grace, that before my gout will permit me to pay my duty to you personally, and to acknowledge your last kind favour to me, i have the presumption to solicite your grace again. the business of a justice of peace for westminster is very inconsiderable without the addition of that for the county of middlesex. and without this addition i cannot completely serve the government in that office. but this unfortunately requires a qualification which i want. now there is a house belonging to your grace, which stands in bedford st., of 70l. a year value. this hath been long untenanted, and will i am informed, require about 300l. to put in repair. if your grace would have the goodness to let me have a lease of this house, with some other tenement worth 30l. a year, for 21 years, it would be a complete qualification. i will give the full worth for this lease, according to the valuation which any person your grace shall be pleased to appoint sets upon it. the only favour i beg of your grace is, that i be permitted to pay the money in two years, at four equal half-yearly payments. as i shall repair the house as soon as possible, it will be in reality an improvement of that small part of your grace's estate, and will be certain to make my fortune. "mr butcher will acquaint your grace more fully than perhaps i have been able to do; and if your grace thinks proper to refer it to him, i and mine will be eternally bound to pray for your grace tho i sincerely hope you will not lose a farthing by doing so vast a service to, "my lord your grace's "most obliged most obed' humble servant "h. ffielding." [3] it seems probable that the duke found better means of helping wit and genius, than by the leasing of the dilapidated tenement in bedford street. at any rate a month later, on january 11, we find fielding duly swearing to an estate as consisting of "several leasehold messuages or tenements lying or being in the several parishes of st paul covent garden, st martin in the ffields, st giles in the ffields, and st georges bloomsbury ... now in the possession or occupation of [my] tennants or undertennants, for and during the term of twenty one years of the clear yearly value of £100...." this statement, which is preserved in the middlesex records, is followed by fielding's signature, appended to an oath that his qualification to serve as a justice of the peace for the county is as above described. [4] on the day following this sworn statement, january 12, 1749, his oaths were received as a justice of the peace for middlesex. [5] but even this did not satisfy all the requirements of those days of doctrinal inquisitions and jacobite risings. the certificate may still be seen among the middlesex records, duly certified by charles tough, minister of the parish and church of st pauls, covent garden, and 'sworn in court,' that "henry fielding esq. on sunday the 26th day of march, 1749, did receive the sacrament of the lord's supper in ye parish church aforesaid, immediately after divine service and sermon, according to the usage of the church of england." [6] and among the same archives the dusty _oath roll_ is preserved, bearing, under date of april 5, 1749, the signature of _henry ffielding_ to a declaration of disbelief in the doctrine of transubstantiation; a comprehensive oath of faithful service to king george and abjuration of king james; an oath directed against the power of the holy see; and an oath of true allegiance to king george. all which oaths and declarations, it appears from the endorsement of the _roll_, were taken immediately after the administration of holy communion, as attested by two credible witnesses.[7] it is with this second commission in the peace that we enter on the last five years of fielding's crowded life, years full of that valiant struggle with eighteenth century crime to which the health of the great novelist was ultimately sacrificed. for no magistrate ever fulfilled more faithfully, or at greater personal cost, the first obligation of his oath, "ye shall swear that as justice of peace ... ye shall do equall right to the poor and to the rich, after your cunning witt and power and after the laws and customes of the realm...." and fielding brought to his new post something more than a zealous discharge of the daily and nightly duties of an eighteenth century police magistrate. his genius and his patriotism found opportunity in the squalid bow street court-room for advocating reforms as yet untouched by the slow hand of the professional philanthropist. the names of those reformers, of the men and women who swept away the pestilential horrors of eighteenth century prisons, of the statesmen who abolished laws that hung a man for stealing a handkerchief, and destroyed the public gallows that gave the mob their _tyburn holiday_, of the creators of our temperance legislation, of our poor-law system, of our model dwellings,--all these are held high in honour. because henry fielding was above all things a great creative genius his wise and strenuous efforts to raise social conditions, and to eradicate social sores, have been unduly forgotten. "whatever he desired, he desired ardently," says murphy. we soon have evidence of justice henry fielding's ardent desire to cleanse london from some of the crying evils of his time. of these evils none pressed more cruelly on the honest citizens than the prevalence and brutality of street robberies. to the well-protected englishman of to-day the london of 1750 would seem a nightmare of lawlessness. thieves, as fielding tells us, attacked their victims with loaded pistols, beat them with bludgeons and hacked them with cutlasses; and as to the murderers of the period, he has recorded how he himself was engaged on _five_ different murders, all committed by different gangs of street robbers within the space of one week. the exploit of one such gang may be quoted, from a newspaper paragraph of the first month of fielding's administration at bow street. "on friday evening," says the _general advertiser_ for january 23, 1749, "about twenty fellows arm'd with pistols, cutlasses, hangers, &c. went to the gatehouse and one of them knocking at the door, it was no sooner open'd than they all rush'd in, and struck and desperately wounded the turnkey, and all that oppos'd them, and in triumph carried off the fellow who pick'd general sinclaire's pocket of his watch as he was going into leicester house." surely, cries the indignant newspaper, "this instance of daring impudence must rouse every person of property to assemble and consult means for their own security at least; for if goals can be forc'd in this manner, private houses can make but little resistance against such gangs of villains as at present infest this great metropolis." it was admitted that the numbers and arms of street robbers rendered it ordinarily impossible to arrest them in the act; and fielding tells us how "officers of justice have owned to me that they have passed by [men] with warrants in their pockets against them without daring to apprehend them; and indeed they could not be blamed for not exposing themselves to sure destruction: for it is a melancholy truth, that at this very day a rogue no sooner gives the alarm within certain purlieus, than twenty or thirty armed villains are found ready to come to his assistance." and the new justice found no effectual means at his disposal for coping with what he very aptly calls the enslaved condition of londoners, assaulted, pillaged, and plundered; unable to sleep in their own houses, or to walk the streets, or to travel in safety. there were the watch, who, we learn from _amelia_ were "chosen out of those poor old decrepid people, who are from their want of bodily strength rendered incapable of getting a livelihood by work. these men, armed only with a pole, which some of them are scarce able to lift, are to secure the persons and houses of his majesty's subjects from the attacks of gangs of young, bold, stout, desperate and well-armed villains.... if the poor old fellows should run away from such enemies, no one i think can wonder, unless he should wonder that they are able even to make their escape." [8] these lineal descendants of dogberry were supplemented by constables who it appears had to apply to the military when called upon to cope with the mere suppression of a gaming-house; and by "thief-catchers," individuals so popularly odious that "the thief-catcher is in danger of worse treatment from the populace than the thief." while the law was thus handicapped, the thief, on his side, had the advantage of the irregular buildings and the immense number of lanes, alleys, courts, and bye-places of london and westminster, which, says fielding, "had they been intended for the very purpose of concealment, they could scarce have been better contrived. upon such a view the whole appears as a vast wood or forest, in which a thief may harbour with as great security as wild beasts do in the desarts of africa or arabia." also the thief's organisation was excellent: "there are at this time," fielding observes, "a great gang of rogues whose number falls little short of a hundred, who are incorporated in one body, have officers and a treasury; and have reduced theft and robbery into a regular system." further, he could generally bribe or deter the prosecutor. and in a last resource "rotten members of the law" forged his defence, and abundant false witnesses supported it. an illuminating example of the methods employed by our georgian ancestors towards "deterring" prosecution occurs in a smuggling case of 1748, perpetrated shortly before fielding first took office. a party of smugglers caught a custom-house officer and a shoemaker on their way to give evidence. the officer had 'every joint of him' broken; and after other torture, the description of which is more suitable for eighteenth century pages than our own, was dispatched. the less fortunate shoemaker was hung by the middle over a dry well, and left there. several days afterwards the smugglers, returning and hearing him groan, cut the rope, let him drop to the bottom, and threw in logs and stones to cover him. and it was not only from the common thief that the londoner of 1750 suffered. that fine flower of eighteenth century lawlessness, the gentleman of the road, carried his audacities into the heart of the town itself. "i was sitting in my own dining-room on sunday night," writes horace walpole, to a friend, "the clock had not struck eleven, when i heard a loud cry of 'stop thief!' a highwayman had attacked a postchaise in piccadilly: the fellow was pursued, rode over the watchman, almost killed him, and escaped." it was into a conflict with this epidemic of crime that fielding, at forty-three, and with already broken health, flung his energies, to such purpose that in these last five years of his life it is but too easy to forget the creator of _joseph andrews_, of _tom jones_, and of _amelia_, in his last 'ardent desire,' as ardently pursued, to purify the sorely diseased body politic. his method of attack was twofold. he dealt vigorously with the individual criminal; and he sought to remove some of the causes by which those criminals were engendered. the individual attack is, for the most part, but sordid reading. thus from a fragment of the westminster _committment books_, preserved with the middlesex records, we may see how in january and february of this year 1749 'henry fielding esq.' committed to the new prison such cases as: thomas thrupp for riot thomas trinder for burglary t. chamberlain and terence fitz patrick for assault c. o'neal for assaulting two watchmen mary hughes and caterine edmonds for assault and beating john smithson for exercising the art of pattenmaker without having been brought up thereto for seven years cornelius york for filing guineas christo kelsey for ill fame bryan park for assault this sorry list, interspersed with cases of murder, of robbery with violence, and of smuggling, may doubtless be extended over the entire five years of fielding's work on the bench; and to reiterate the details of such work would be as tedious now as the monotonous discharge of these duties must once have been to the author of _tom jones_. [9] of much more enduring interest is the great novelist's second line of attack on the problem confronting him. for henry fielding's insight was far too profound for him to fail to strike at the root of individual crime, in those conditions which bred the criminal as surely as, to use his own favourite simile, unclean surroundings breed disease. and he had not been six months on the bench before finding his first opportunity in a _charge_ delivered, as their chairman, to the westminster grand jury, on june 29, 1749. [10] this "very loyal, learned, ingenious, excellent and useful" charge was published "by order of the court, and at the unanimous request of the gentlemen of the grand jury"; and it is, mr austin dobson tells us, "still regarded by lawyers as a model exposition." it is also a stirring appeal to the worthy jurors to discharge their duties as befitted men called upon to exercise one of the most ancient and honourable of english liberties: "grand juries, gentlemen," declared their new chairman, "are in reality the only censors of this nation. as such, the manners of the people are in your hands, and in yours only. you, therefore, are the only correctors of them.... to execute this duty with vigilance, you are obliged by the duty you owe both to god and to your country." here is the same zeal, now directed to stimulating the conscience of the westminster jurors, which moved _captain vinegar_ to lay about him so lustily on all the abuses within reach of his newspaper, and which inspired the 'father of the english novel' with the admitted motive,--"i declare, that to recommend goodness and innocence hath been my sincere endeavour in this history"--if not with the consummate art of his pages. fielding specially directs the energies of his jurors to the repression of open profligacy, the more as, through the 'egregious folly' of their parents, the _town_ had then become the 'seminaries of education' for youths of birth and station. and he bids them attend to those 'temples of iniquity' the masquerade rooms of the time, with a side glance at foote's scandalous performances; to the gaming houses; to the prevalent vice of profane swearing, that "detestable crime, so injurious to the honour of god, so directly repugnant to his positive commands, so highly offensive to the ears of all good men, and so very scandalous to the nation in the ears of foreigners"; and to the libeller, a species of 'vermin' whom "men ought to crush wherever they find him, without staying till he bite them." it is noteworthy also, that to the genius of fielding, 'watching, brooding, creating,' the characteristic feature of his age seemed to be a "fury after licentious and luxurious pleasures." "gentlemen," he cries, "our news-papers, from the top of the page to the bottom, the corners of our streets up to the very eves of our houses, present us with nothing but a view of masquerades, balls, and assemblies of various kinds, fairs, wells, gardens, &c. tending to promote idleness, extravagance and immorality, among all sorts of people." many of the public, he declares, make diversion "no longer the recreation or amusement, but the whole business of their lives"; and not content with three theatres they must have a fourth. what would he have said to a london in which not four but a hundred and twenty theatres draw nightly, and sometimes twice a day, their crowded audiences. two days after the delivery of this _charge_ (which the _general advertiser_ praises as "excellent and learned") a three days street riot broke out, which it fell to fielding to subdue. on saturday july 1 a mob had gathered in the strand, about a disorderly house where a sailor was said to have been robbed. beadle nathaniel munns, arriving on the scene, found the mob crying out "pull down the house, pull down the house!"; and sent for the constables. meanwhile the mob broke open the house and demolished and stripped the same; and throwing the goods out of the windows, set fire to them, causing such danger of a general conflagration that 'the parish engines' were sent for. a constable, _not being able to find any magistrate in town_, went to somerset house to procure assistance from the military, and on his returning with a corporal and twelve men, a force that later that night was increased to an officer and forty men, the mob was at last dispersed. on the next day, however, sunday, they reassembled, and proceeded to demolish a second house, and to burn the goods thereof with an even larger fire than that of the preceding night. mr saunders welch, high constable for holborn and, fielding tells us, "one of the best officers who was ever concerned in the execution of justice, and to whose care, integrity and bravery the public hath, to my knowledge, the highest obligations," passing through fleet street at the time, saw this second fire, and was told by the owner of another house that the mob threatened to come to him next. upon which mr welch "well knowing the impossibility of procuring any magistrate at that time who would act," went to the tilt yard and procured an officer and some forty men; and returning, found the third house in great part wrecked, the danger of fire here being aggravated by the extreme narrowness of the street on both sides and the fact that the premises of a bank were adjacent. this same sunday night, also, the mob broke open the night-prison under beadle munns' house, rescuing two prisoners; and forced the watch-house of the liberty with stones and brick bats, to the imminent danger of the beadle's life, as "sworn before me, henry fielding." till three in the morning mr welch and the soldiers remained on duty, by which time the rioters had again dispersed. all this time fielding, mr welch records, was out of town; but, by noon on monday, the justice was back in bow street: and, on being acquainted with the riot, immediately dispatched an order for a party of the guards to bring the prisoners to his house, the streets being then full of a riotous crowd threatening danger of rescue. fielding proceeded to examine the prisoners, a "vast mob" meanwhile being assembled in bow steet, and the streets adjacent. on information of the threatening aspect of the people he applied to the secretary at war for a reinforcement of the guards; and from his window, spoke to the mob, informing them of their danger, and exhorting them to disperse, but in vain. rumours, moreover, came that four thousand sailors were assembling to march to the strand that monday night. in view of these rumours and of the riotous state of the streets, fielding, the officer of the guard, and mr welch "sat up the whole night, while a large party of soldiers were kept ready under arms who with the peace officers patrolled the streets." and thanks to this vigorous action on the part of their new magistrate the citizens found peace restored within twelve hours of his return to town. the same day as that on which fielding was addressing the riotous mob from his bow street windows, and sitting up all night with the officer of a military guard, he found time to write to the duke of bedford on his own behalf and on that of his family, concerning the provision for which he betrays so constant an anxiety. "bow street. july 3. 1749. "my lord, "the protection which i have been honoured with receiving at the hands of your grace, and the goodness which you were pleased to express some time toward me, embolden me to mention to your grace that the place of solicitor to the excise is now vacant by the death of mr selwyn. i hope no person is better qualified for it, and i assure you, my lord, none shall execute it with more fidelity. i am at this moment busied in endeavouring to suppress a dangerous riot, or i w'd have personally waited on your grace to solicite a favour which will make me and my family completely happy. "i am, &c., "h. ffielding." [11] the vacant post was secured, alas, by another candidate. a few weeks after the riotous scenes which had enabled fielding to show himself a man of prompt action in times of popular ferment, the publication is advertised of his _charge_, published "by order of the court and at the request of the gentleman of the grand jury." and on the same day he submits to the lord chancellor a copy both of this pamphlet, and of a draft of a _bill for the better preventing street robberies &c_, the design of which it appears lord hardwick had already encouraged. "bow street, july 21. 1749. "my lord, "i beg your lordship's acceptance of a charge given by me to the grand jury of westminster though i am but too sensible how unworthy it is of your notice. "i have likewise presumed to send my draught of a bill for the better preventing street robberies &c. which your lordship was so very kind to say you would peruse; i hope the general plan at least may be happy in your approbation. "your lordship will have the goodness to pardon my repeating a desire that the name of joshua brogden, may be inserted in the next commission of the peace for middlesex and westminster for whose [integrity] and ability in the execution of his office. i will engage my credit with your lordship, an engagement which appears to me of the most sacred nature. "i am, "my lord, with the utmost respect and devotion, "your lordship's most obed't "most humble servant "h. ffielding. [12] "to the right hon'ble. "the lord high chancellor of g. britain." all trace of the text of this draft bill seems to have been lost; but the fact of the lord chancellor's consent to consider its provisions shows clearly enough how rapidly fielding was adding to his now achieved fame as the author of _tom jones_ the very different reputation of an authority on criminal legislation. the application on behalf of joshua brogden, later if not at this time the justice's clerk, recalls the further pleasant tribute paid to the soundness of mr brogden's morals in the _journal of a voyage to lisbon_. if all fielding's modest magisterial income of £300 a year had gone, as he declares it should have done, to his clerk, that functionary would, he tells us, have been "but ill paid for sitting almost sixteen hours in the twenty four, in the most unwholesome, as well as nauseous air in the universe, and which hath in his case corrupted a good constitution without contaminating his morals." it was joshua brogden who had witnessed, a few months earlier, the agreement with andrew millar for _tom jones_. could the good clerk but have played the part of a boswell to his illustrious master we should have something more than our present scanty materials for the personal life of henry fielding. yet another of fielding's rare letters belongs to this year; a letter conveying his formal congratulations to lyttelton, on that model statesman's second marriage, and in which his warm heart again makes application, not on behalf of his own scanty means, but for a friend. "bow street, aug't 29, 1749. "sir, "permit me to bring up the rear of your friends in paying my compliments of congratulation on your late nuptials. there may perhaps be seasons when the rear may be as honourable a post in friendship as in war, and if so such certainly must be every time of joy and felicity. your present situation must be full of these; and so will be, i am confident, your future life from the same fountain. nothing can equal the excellent character your lady bears among those of her own sex, and i never yet knew them speak well of a woman who did not deserve their good words. how admirable is your fortune in the matrimonial lottery! i will venture to say there is no man alive who exults more in this, or in any other happiness that can attend you than myself; and you ought to believe me from the same reason that fully persuades me of the satisfaction you receive from any happiness of mine; this reason is that you must be sensible how much of it i owe to your goodness; and there is a great pleasure in gratitude though it is second i believe to that of benevolence; for of all the delights upon earth none can equal the raptures which a good mind feels on conferring happiness on those whom we think worthy of it. this is the sweetest ingredient in power, and i solemnly protest i never wished for power, more than a few days ago for the sake of a man whom i love, and that more perhaps from the esteem i know he bears towards you than from any other reason. this man is in love with a young creature of the most apparent worth, who returns his affection. nothing is wanting to make two very miserable people extremely blessed but a moderate portion of the greatest of human evils. so philosophers call it, and so it is called by divines, whose word is the rather to be taken, as they are, many of them, more conversant with this evil than ever philosophers were. the name of this man is moore to whom you kindly destined that laurel, which, though it hath long been withered, may not probably soon drop from the brow of its present possessor; but there is another place of much the same value now vacant: it is that of deputy licensor to the stage. be not offended at this hint; for though i will own it impudent enough in one who hath so many obligations of his own to you, to venture to recommend another man to your favour, yet impudence itself may possibly be a virtue when exerted on the behalf of a friend; at least i am the less ashamed of it, as i have known men remarkable for the opposite modesty possess it without the mixture of any other good quality. in this fault then you must indulge me; for should i ever see you as high in power as i wish, and as it is perhaps more my interest than your own that you should be, i shall be guilty of the like as often as i find a man in whom i can, after much intimacy discover no want, but that of the evil above mentioned. i beg you will do me the honour of making my compliments to your unknown lady, and believe me to be with the highest esteem, respect, love, and gratitude "sir, "y'r most obliged "most obed't "humble servant "henry fielding. "to the hon'ble "george lyttelton, esqr." [13] this edward moore was a poet held worthy, it would seem, to possess the laureat's 'withered' laurel (even in 1749 fielding cannot refrain from a thrust at colley cibber); a journalist; a writer of whom dibden declared that the tendency of all his productions was to "cultivate truth and morality"; a tradesman in the linen business; and the son of a dissenting minister: a combination of circumstances closely recalling fielding's friendship for the good dissenter, jeweller, and poet, george lillo. and it is to an undated letter by edward moore, hitherto overlooked, that we owe one of the rare references to henry fielding from a contemporary pen. moore is writing to a dissenting minister at taunton, one mr john ward, of whom it was said that venerable as he himself was for learning, worth, and piety he deemed it "_an honour to have his name connected with that of moore_,"--a further proof of the quality of man whom fielding choose for friend. moore had been prevented, by fielding's illness, from appointing an evening on which he might invite the taunton minister to his lodgings to meet there some of the first wits of the day. "it is not," he writes, "owing to forgetfulness that you have not heard from me before. fielding continues to be visited for his sins so as to be wheeled about from room to room; when he mends i am sure to see him at my lodgings; and you may depend upon timely notice. what fine things are wit and beauty, if a man could be temperate with one, or a woman chaste with the other! but he that will confine his acquaintance to the sober and the modest will generally find himself among the dull and the ugly. if this remark of mine should be thought to shoulder itself in without an introduction you will be pleased to note that fielding is a wit; that his disorder is the gout, and intemperance the cause." it is of course idle to contend that fielding always carried a cool head. murphy tells us that to him might justly be applied a parody on a saying concerning scipio,--"always over a social bottle or a book, he enured his body to the dangers of intemperance, and exercised his mind with studies." but we must in justice remember that the augustan age of english literature concerned itself but very little with our modern virtue of sobriety. that fielding, with the other great men of his day, very often drank more than was good for him, amounts to little more than saying that he wore a laced coat when he had one, and carried a sword at his side. the execution of one of the strand rioters, bosavern penlez by name, in september, had roused much controversy; and as the evidence in the case was in justice fielding's possession, and the attacks were levelled at the government, we find him plunged once more into political pamphleteering in the publication, under the date of 1749, of the learned little treatise entitled "_a true state of the case of bosavern penlez' who suffered on account of the late riot in the strand. in which the law regarding these offences and the statute of george i. commonly called the riot act are fully considered_." the pamphlet opens with a warm protest against the abuse to which fielding had been subjected by his political opponents. "it may easily be imagined," he writes, "that a man whose character hath been so barbarously, even without the least regard to truth or decency, aspersed, on account of his endeavours to defend the present government, might wish to decline any future appearance as a political writer"; but more weighty considerations move him to lay the defence of the riot act in general, and of this application of it in particular, before a public which had been imposed upon "in the grossest and wickedest manner." we have already quoted the vivid depositions concerning this strand riot, which were sworn before fielding, and which he here reproduces; and his historical defence of the public need of suppressing riots, from the days of wat tyler onwards, may be left to the curious reader. needless to say, fielding makes out an excellent case against the toleration of mob law:-"when by our excellent constitution the greatest subject, no not even the king himself, can, without a lawful trial and conviction divest the meanest man of his property, deprive him of his liberty, or attack him in his person; shall we suffer a licentious rabble to be accuser, judge, jury, and executioner; to inflict corporal punishment, break open men's doors, plunder their houses, and burn their goods?" and, at the close, this pamphlet reveals the warm-hearted magistrate no less than the erudite lawyer. for of the two condemned prisoners, wilson and penlez, the case of the former seemed to fielding "to be the object of true compassion." accordingly he laid the evidence in his possession before "some very noble persons," and, he adds, "i flatter myself that it might be a little owing to my representation, that the distinction between an object of mercy, and an object of justice at last prevailed". so the felon gained his respite, and a lasting niche for his name, in that he owed his life partly if not wholly to the generous compassion of henry fielding. the pamphlet seems to have made its mark, for a second edition was advertised within a month of publication. this eventful year, the year which had seen the publication of _tom jones_, the shackling of fielding's genius within the duties of a london magistrate, the issue of two pamphlets occupied with criminal reform and administration, the drafting of a proposed criminal bill, and the suppression of a riot, closed sadly with the death of fielding's little daughter, mary amelia, when barely twelve months old. she was buried at st paul's, covent garden, on the seventeenth of december, 1749. and some time in the autumn or early winter fielding himself appears to have been dangerously ill. this we learn from the following paragraph in the _general advertizer_ for december 28: "justice fielding has no mortification in his foot as has been reported: that gentleman has indeed been very dangerously ill with a fever, and a fit of the gout, in which he was attended by dr thompson, an eminent physician, and is now so well recovered as to be able to execute his office as usual." [1] his commission in the peace for westminster bears date october 25. 1748. [2] an application is reported for the 2nd of december before "justice fielding" of meards court, st. anne's, but for reasons given below this _may_ refer to john fielding. [3] from the autograph now at woburn abbey, and printed in the _correspondence of john fourth duke of bedford_. vol. i. p. 589. [4] middlesex records. volume of _qualification oaths for justices of the peace_. 1749. from an entry dated july 13, 1749, in the same volume, fielding appears to have then owned leases in the three first named parishes only. [5] see the king's writ, now preserved in the record office. [6] middlesex records. _sacramental certificates_. [7] middlesex records. _oath rolls_. [8] _amelia_. book i. chapter ii. [9] the westminster _session rolls_, preserved among the middlesex records, contain many recognizances all signed by fielding. [10] "on friday last," announces the general advertiser for may 17, "counsellor fielding, one of his majesty's justices of the peace was chosen chairman of the sessions at hicks hall for the county of middlesex"; a statement not very compatible with the incontestable evidence preserved in the _general orders books_ of the middlesex records, by which it appears that john lane esq're was elected chairman of the middlesex general sessions and general quarter session from ladyday 1749 to september 1752. the personal paragraphist of 1749 was perhaps no less inaccurate than his descendant of to-day. but a few weeks later this honour of chairmanship was certainly accorded to fielding by his brethren of the bench for westminster. an entry in the _sessions book_ of westminster, 1749 runs as follows: "may. 1749, mr fielding elected chairman of this present session and to continue untill the 2nd day of the next." _mss sessions books for westminster. vol. 1749_. middlesex records. [11] from the autograph now at woburn abbey, and printed in the _correspondence of john, fourth duke of bedford_, vol. ii. p. 35. [12] from the hitherto unpublished autograph now in the british museum. [13] this letter is now in the dreer collection of the historical society of pennsylvania, philadelphia, u.s.a. chapter xiii fielding and legislation "the subject, as well as the child, should be left without excuse before he is punished: for, in that case alone, the rod becomes the hand either of the parent or the magistrate." _inquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers_. there is no bill for the suppression of street robberies on the statute book for 1749 or 1750; so the draft which fielding, with characteristic energy, despatched to the lord chancellor but a few months after his appointment to the bench, was, presumably, pigeon-holed. meanwhile, the criminal conditions of the metropolis seem to have become, if anything, more scandalous. in february 1750, the _penny post_ reports the gaols in and about london to be "now so full of felons and desperate rogues that the keepers have not fetters enow to put upon them; so that in some prisons two or three are chained together to prevent their escape." and on the fifth of the same month the _general advertiser_ hears that "near 40 highwaymen, street robbers, burglars, rogues, vagabonds, and cheats have been committed within a week last past by justice fielding." but however full of business the bow street court-room might be, that dreary routine [1] would make, as we have said, but equally dreary reading. and the fact that both john and henry fielding appear to have been known as 'justice fielding' during the lifetime of the latter, lessens whatever biographical value might be extracted from the constant newspaper paragraphs recording the fielding cases. it is clear that the house in bow street was the centre of an active campaign against the thieves, murderers, professional gamblers, and highwaymen, who were then so rife. military guards conducted thither prisoners, brought for examination from newgate, for fear of rescue from gangs lurking in the neighbouring streets. all "persons who have been robbed" and their servants, were desired, by public advertisement, to attend justice fielding "at his house in bow street," to identify certain prisoners under examination. and thither came the "porters and beggars," the composing of whose quarrels henry fielding himself has told us, occupied his days. the generous spirit in which he treated such poor clients, and his tenderness for those driven by want into crime, are eminently characteristic of the man. by adjusting, instead of inflaming, these squalid quarrels, and by "refusing to take a shilling from a man who must undoubtedly would not have had another left," he reduced a supposed income of £500 a year to £300. and if the picture of the poor wretch, driven to highway robbery by the sight of his starving family, whom tom jones relieved from his own scanty purse, be not proof enough of the compassion that tempered justice fielding's sternness, we have his own express pleading for these unhappy victims of circumstance: "what can be more shocking," he cries, "than to see an industrious poor creature, who is able and willing to labour forced by mere want into dishonesty, and that in a nation of such trade and opulence." so justly could fielding apportion the contributary negligence of society towards the criminals bred by its apathy. and it was not only the impoverished porter who found help at bow street. "when," says murphy, "in the latter end of [mr fielding's] days he had an income of four or five hundred a-year, he knew no use of money but to keep his table open to those who had been his friends when young, and had impaired their own fortunes." as mr austin dobson says, in commenting on one of horace walpole's scurrilous letters, [2] "it must always have been a more or less ragged regiment which met about that kindly bow street board." the man who parted with his own hardly won arrears of rent to relieve the yet greater need of a college friend, was little likely to be less generous when the tardy 'jade fortune' at last put some secured income into his hands. no special event marks the spring and summer of 1750. on the 11th of january the westminster general quarter sessions opened, and on the following day fielding was again elected as chairman "for the two next quarter sessions"; which election was repeated, "for the two next sessions, [3]" in july. the registers of st paul's covent garden record the baptism of a daughter, sophia, on the 21st of january. and an indication that the zealous magistrate was plunged, personally, into some of the tumults of the time occurs in the following trifling note to the duke of bedford. "my lord, "in obedience to the commands i have the honour to receive from your grace, i shall attend tomorrow morning and do the utmost in my power to preserve the peace on that occasion. "i am, with gratitude and respect, "my lord, "your grace's most obliged "most obedient humble servant. "henry ffielding. [4] "bow street, "may 14, 1750." by the autumn, however, a rumour was abroad that the now famous author of _tom jones_ was engaged on pages of a very different nature. the _general advertiser_, for october 9, announces:-"we hear that an eminent magistrate is now employed in preparing a pamphlet for the press in which the several causes that have conspired to render robberies so frequent of late will be laid open; the defects of our laws enquired into, and methods proposed which may discourage and in a great measure prevent this growing evil for the future." this pamphlet, in which many a later reform was urged by fielding's far-sighted zeal, seems to have been still in preparation for the next two months. and in november the reform of the law had to give place to a more immediate urgency in protecting the lord chancellor. the keepers of three gaming houses, closed by his lordship's orders, were reported to be plotting against that exalted dignitary; and the case, as appears from the following letter to a lawyer, mr perkins, was in fielding's hands. [5] "sir "i have made full enquiry after the three persons and have a perfect account of them all. their characters are such that perhaps three more likely men could not be found in the kingdom for the hellish purpose mentioned in the letter. as the particulars are many and the affair of such importance i beg to see you punctually at six this evening when i will be alone to receive you--and am, sir, "yr. most obed; "humble servant "he ffielding. "bow street. nov. 25. 1750." when the keepers of gambling houses dared to fly at such high game as the person of the lord chancellor, there is no wonder that the safety of his majesty's ordinary lieges was of small account. "robbery," writes horace walpole, a few weeks before the date of the above letter, "is the only thing which goes on with any vivacity." and at the close of the year a royal proclamation was actually published, promising £100 over and above other rewards, and a free pardon, to any accomplice who should apprehend offenders committing murder, or robbery by violence, in london streets or within five miles of london, providing such an accomplice had not himself dealt a mortal wound. so startling a confession of impotence on the part of the government served very fitly to introduce the pamphlet, then on the eve of publication. and if further proof be needed of the conditions of public safety at the beginning of the year 1751, it may be seen in the passage of the king's speech delivered at the opening of parliament on the 17th of january, in which his majesty exhorted the commons to suppress outrages and violences on life and property; words representing, of course, the policy of the ministry. the title of fielding's little book, dedicated to lord hardwick, and published about january 22, is _an enquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers &c. with some proposals for remedying this growing evil. in which the present reigning vices are impartially exposed; and the laws that relate to the provision for the poor and to the punishment of felons are largely and freely examined_. the _enquiry_ opens with a powerful denunciation of the licence then allowed to the three great causes, in fielding's opinion, of the increasing demoralisation of the 'most useful part' of the people. these were, first, the immense number of places of amusement, all seducing the working classes to squander both their money and their time; this being "indeed a certain method to fill the streets with beggars and the goals with debtors and thieves." here, in fielding's view, new legislation was demanded. the second cause of the late excessive increase of crime, according to the _enquiry_, was an epidemic of gin drinking, "a new kind of drunkenness unknown to our ancestors [which] is lately sprung up amongst us." gin, says fielding, appeared to be the principal sustenance of more than an hundred thousand londoners, "the dreadful effects of which i have the misfortune every day to see, and to smell too." the crime resulting from such drunkenness was obvious; but fielding, looking far beyond the narrow confines of his court-room, beheld a future gin-sodden race, and he appeals to the legislature to put a stop to a practice, the consequences of which must alarm "the most sluggish degree of public spirit." it is surely something more than a coincidence that a few weeks after these warnings were published, hogarth issued his awful plate of _gin lane_. a third source of crime, in fielding's eyes, was the gambling among the 'lower classes of life,'--a school "in which most highwaymen of great eminence have been bred," and a habit plainly tending to the "ruin of tradesmen, the destruction of youth, and to the multiplication of every kind of fraud and violence." in this case the 'eminent magistrate' finds new legislation less needed than a vigorous enforcement of existing laws; such, he adds, "as hath lately been executed with great vigour within the liberty of westminster." before long the pages of _amelia_ were to bring home yet more forcibly to fielding's readers the cruel results of the pleasures (or speculations) of the needy gambler,--the 'destruction of familys,' thereby incurred, no less than the breeding of highwaymen. who does not remember "that famous scene when amelia is spreading, for the recreant who is losing his money at the kings arms, the historic little supper of hashed mutton, which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, 'while her husband was paying a debt of several guineas incurred by the ace of trumps being in the hands of his adversary'--a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huskiness in the throat." [6] the last great cause of crime which the _enquiry_ considers, and with much learning and detail, is the condition of the poor. here fielding's views on our modern problem of the unemployed may be read. and here occurs a splendid denunciation of the 'house of correction' or bridewell of the period, a prison for idle and disorderly persons where "they are neither to be corrected nor employed: and where with the conversation of many as bad and sometimes worse than themselves they are sure to be improved in the knowledge and confirmed in the practice of iniquity." the most impudent of the wretches brought before him, fielding tells us, were always "such as have been before acquainted with the discipline of bridewell." these prisons, from which the disorderly and idle came out, "much more idle and disorderly than they went in," were, says fielding, no other than "schools of vice, seminaries of idleness, and common-sewers of nastiness and disease." a fixed (and lower) rate of wages, it is curious to note, is one remedy advocated in the _enquiry_, for raising the condition of the poor. such were the 'temptations' to robbery that fielding would have removed, nobly conceiving the highest office of the legislature to be that of prevention rather than cure. the _enquiry_ concludes with offering some more immediate palliatives for the diseased state of the body politic, in the removing of actual 'encouragement to robbery.' first among such encouragements fielding places the fact that "the thief disposes of his goods with almost as much safety as the honestest tradesman"; and he urged the need of legislation to prohibit the amazing advertisements by which our ancestors promised to give rewards for the recovery of stolen goods "_and no questions asked_." such advertisements he declares to be "in themselves so very scandalous and of such pernicious consequence, that if men are not ashamed to own they prefer an old watch or a diamond ring to the good of [the] society it is a pity some effectual law was not contrived to prevent their giving this public countenance to robbery for the future." and, under this head, he advocates legislation either for the regulating of pawnbrokers, or for the entire extirpation of a "set of miscreants which, like other vermin, harbour only about the poor and grow fat sucking their blood." the subsequent legislation by which prosecutors were recompensed for loss of time and money, when prosecuting the 'wolves in society,' may be added to the measures forseen if not actually promoted by fielding's enlightened zeal. and in nothing was he more in advance of his age than in his denunciation of that scandal of the eighteenth century, the conduct and frequency of public executions. it has taken our legislators a hundred years to provide the swift, solemn and private executions urged by henry fielding, in place of the brutal 'tyburn holiday' enacted every six weeks for the benefit of the georgian mob. another matter demanding legislation was the great probability of escape afforded to thieves by the narrow streets and the common-lodging houses of the day. of the latter, crowded with miserable beds from the cellar to the garret, let out, at twopence a night the single beds, and threepence the double ones, fielding draws a picture as terrible as any of his friend hogarth's plates. and he concludes "nay i can add what i myself once saw in the parish of shoreditch where two little houses were emptied of near seventy men and women," and where the money found on all the occupants (with the exception of a pretty girl who was a thief) "did not amount to one shilling." in all these houses gin, moreover, was sold at a penny the quartern. housed thus, in conditions destructive of "all morality, decency and modesty," with the street for bed if they fall sick ("and it is almost a miracle that stench, vermin, and want should ever suffer them to be well"), oppressed with poverty, and sunk in every species of debauchery, "the wonder in fact is," cries fielding, "... that we have not a thousand more robbers than we have; indeed that all these wretches are not thieves must give us either a very high idea of their honesty or a very mean one of their capacity and courage." and, leaving for a moment legislative reform, fielding delivers a vigorous attack on the national sluggishness of public spirit which helped to render robbery a fairly safe profession. with such sluggishness his ardent nature had very little sympathy. "with regard to private persons," he protests, "there is no country i believe in the world where that vulgar maxim so generally prevails that what is the business of every man is the business of no man; and for this plain reason, that there is no country in which less honour is gained by serving the public. he therefore who commits no crime against the public, is very well satisfied with his own virtue; far from thinking himself obliged to undergo any labour, expend any money, or encounter any danger on such account." and in no part of the _enquiry_ does the writer more truly show his wisdom than in the pages on 'false compassion' that plausible weakness which refuses to prosecute the oppressors of the helpless and innocent, and which at that time, in the person of his majesty, king george ii. was, it appears, very active in pardoning offenders when convicted. fielding's arguments are incontestable; but his apologue may have found even more favour in the age of wit. he hopes such good nature may not carry those in power so far, "as it once did a clergyman in _scotland_ who in the fervour of his benevolence prayed to god that he would be graciously pleased to pardon the poor devil." to the devil, whether in man or in society, fielding was ever a 'spirited enemy'; and his first biographer tells us that "to the unworthy he was rather harsh." but the last page of this little book breathes that spirit of tenderness for hard pressed humanity which in fielding was so characteristically mingled with a wholesome severity. if the legislature would take proper care to raise the condition of the poor, then he declares the root of the evil would be struck: "nor in plain truth will the utmost severity to offenders be justifiable unless we take every possible method of preventing the offence ... the subject as well as the child should be left without excuse before he is punished: for in that case alone the rod becomes the hand either of the parent or the magistrate." and his last word is one of compassion for the "many cart-loads of our fellow-creatures [who] once in six weeks are carried to slaughter"; of whom much the greater part might, with 'proper care and regulations' have been made "not only happy in themselves but very useful members of the society which they now so greatly dishonour in the sight of all christendom." henry fielding is himself his own best illustration when he declares that the "good poet and the good politician do not differ so much as some who know nothing of either art affirm; nor would _homer_ or _milton_ have made the worst legislators of their times." to the reader of to-day the _enquiry_ betrays no party flavour, but its sedate pages clearly stirred up the hot feeling of the times. early in february the advertiser announced "_this day is published a letter to henry fielding esqre. occasioned by his enquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers &c_." and about the end of the month there appeared _considerations_, in two numbers of the _true briton_, "on justice fielding's 'enquiry,' shewing his mistakes about the constitution and our laws and that what he seems to propose is dangerous to our properties, liberties and constitution." on march 7 was announced _observations on mr fielding's enquiry_, by one b. sedgley. some opposition squib, too, must have been launched, to judge by the following item from an advertisement column of the same date: "a vindication of the rights and privileges of the commonality of england, in opposition to what has been advanced by the author of the enquiry, or to what may be promulgated by any ministerial artifices against the public cause of truth and liberty. _by_ timothy beck_ the happy cobler of portugal-street_." [7] perhaps some collector of eighteenth century pamphlets may be able to reveal these comments of the '_happy gobler of portugal-street_' upon the 'artifices' of henry fielding. [8] in the february following the publication of the _enquiry_ a parlimentary committee was appointed "to revise and consider the laws in being, which relate to felonies and other offences against the peace." [9] the committee included lyttelton and pitt, and there is of course every probability that fielding's evidence would be taken; but it seems impossible now to discover what share he may have had in this move by the government towards fresh criminal legislation. there is, however, the evidence of his own hand that in the matter of prison administration his efforts were not limited to academic pamphlets, or to the indictment, so soon to be published, contained in the terrible prison scenes of _amelia_. the following letter to the duke of newcastle [10] shows an anxious endeavour to secure such good government as was possible for at least one of the gaols. "my lord "it being of the utmost consequence to the public to have a proper prison keeper of the new prison at the time, i beg leave to recommend mr william pentlow a constable of st george bloomsbury to your grace's protection in the present vacancy. he is a man of whose courage and integrity i have seen the highest proofs, and is indeed every way qualified for the charge. i am with the most perfect respect, "my lord, "your grace's most obedient "and most humble servant, "henry ffielding "bow street jan. 15. 1750 [1751]." a second edition of the _enquiry_ appeared early in the spring; and according to the _journals of the house of commons_ it was resolved, in april, that a bill be brought in on the resolution of the committee appointed two months previously to consider criminal legislation. again it can only be surmised that fielding's assistance would be invoked in the drafting of this bill. that his vigorous denunciations of the national danger of the gin curse were in complete accord with the feeling of the government is apparent from the fact that two months later, in june 1751, the _tippling act_ [11] received the royal assent, by which act very stringent restrictions were imposed on the sale of spirits. in june fielding again appears as chairman of the westminster sessions. [12] and in september cases occur as brought before john fielding and others "at henry fielding's house in bow street," [13] from which it appears that fielding's blind half-brother was already acting as his assistant. in the following month john fielding appears among the justices of the westminster quarter sessions. [14] the year that had seen the publication of the _enquiry_, affords proof enough of fielding's active labours in criminal and social reform; but the last month of this year is marked by an occurrence of much greater import for english literature, the publication of the third great novel, _amelia_. [1] doubtless faithfully rendered in the old print, here reproduced, of fielding's blind half-brother, assistant, and successor, sir john fielding, hearing a bow street case. [2] see appendix. [3] middlesex records. _mss. sessions books_. 1750. [4] from the hitherto unpublished autograph, now at woburn abbey. [5] this hitherto unpublished letter is now in the british museum. it is addressed to "--perkins, esq. at his chambers no. 7, in lincolns inn square," and is sealed with fielding's seal, a facsimile of which appears on the cover of the present volume. [6] _fielding_. austin dobson. p. 156. [7] _the general advertiser_. march 7, 1751. [8] the _london magazine_ for february devoted five columns to an "abstract of mr fielding's enquiry"; and in the following month the _magazine_ again noticed the book, by printing a long anonymous letter in which fielding is attacked as a 'trading author' and a 'trading justice,' and in which the writer shows his intellectual grasp by advocating in all seriousness a law prohibiting the sovereign from gambling! [9] see _journals of the house of commons_. vol. xxii. p. 27, and the _london magazine_. vol. xx. p. 82. the _catalogue of printed papers. house of commons_, 1750-51, includes "a bill for the more effectual preventing robberies burglaries and other outrages within the city and liberty of westminster--" &c. [10] this hitherto unpublished letter is now in the british museum. it is endorsed "jan. 15, 1750(1)." [11] 24 george ii. c. 40. june 1751. [12] middlesex records. _sessions book_. 1751. [13] _general advertiser_. sept. 9. 1751. [14] middlesex records. _sessions book_. october, 1751. chapter xiv amelia "of all my offspring she is my favourite child." the _covent garden journal_. no. 8. on the 2nd of december 1751 the _general advertiser_ announces that _on wednesday the 18th of this month will be published_ in four volumes duodecimo amelia by henry fielding, esq; _beati ter et amplius quos irrupta tenet copula_. hor. and the puff preliminary of the period may be read in the same columns, declaring that the "earnest demand of the publick" had necessitated the use of four printing presses; and that it being impossible to complete the binding in time, copies would be available "sew'd at half-a-guinea a sett." sir walter scott tells us that, at a sale to booksellers before publication, andrew millar, the publisher, refused to part with _amelia_ on the usual discount terms; and that the booksellers, being thus persuaded of a great future for the book, eagerly bought up the impression. launched thus, and heralded by the popularity with which _tom jones_ had now endowed fielding's name, the entire edition was sold out on the day of publication; an event which evoked the observation from dr johnson that _amelia_ was perhaps the only book which being printed off betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night. the doctor gave not only unstinted praise, but also an involuntary tribute to _amelia_. he read the book through, without pausing, from beginning to end. and he pronounced amelia herself to be "the most pleasing heroine of all the romances." [1] but to the majority of readers amelia is, assuredly, something more than the most charming of heroines. she is the delightful companion; the wise and tender friend; a woman whose least perfection was that dazzling beauty which shone with equal lustre in the 'poor rags' lent her by her old nurse, or in her own clothing, just as the happy purity of her nature only glows more brightly for the dark scenes through which she moves. in the whole range of english literature there is surely no figure more warmly human, and yet less touched with human imperfection; none more simply and naturally alive, and yet truer in every crisis (and there were few of the sorrowful things of life unknown to her) to the best qualities of generous womanhood. and if it is largely for her glowing vitality that we love amelia, we love her none the less in that she is no fool. it was hardly necessary to tell us, as fielding is careful to do, that her sense of humour was keen, and that her insight into the ridiculous was tempered only by the deeper insight of her heart. her understanding of her husband is as perfect as her love for him; and that love is far too profound to allow a moment's suggestion of mere placid amiability. amelia, whether quizzing the absurdities of the affected fine ladies of her own rank, or cooking her husband's supper in the poor lodgings of their poverty; whether so radiant with happiness after seeing her little children handsomely entertained that with flushed cheeks and bright eyes, "she was all a blaze of beauty," or, pale with distress, bravely carrying her own clothes and the children's trinkets to the pawnbroker; whether betraying her own noble qualities of silence and forgiveness, or losing her temper with mrs bennett,--commands equal affection and admiration. "they say," wrote thackeray, "that it was in his own home that fielding knew her and loved her: and from his own wife that he drew the most charming character in english fiction--fiction? why fiction! why not history? i know amelia just as well as lady mary wortley montagu." lady mary, and her daughter lady bute, have left very definite statements concerning this portrait which their cousin was alleged to have hidden under the fair image of amelia. lady bute we are told was no stranger "to that beloved first wife whose picture he drew in his amelia, where, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original...." [2] and lady mary herself writes, "h. fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife, in the characters of mr and mrs booth [amelia and her husband], some compliments to his own figure excepted; and i am persuaded several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact." [3] against these persuations we must place the fact that this book contains no such explicit statement as that which in _tom jones_ assures us of the original of the beautiful sophia. but we shall not love amelia the less if we see her, with her courage and her beauty, her happy gaiety of spirit, her tenderness and strength, solacing the distresses and calming the storms of fielding's restless genius, rather than devoting those qualities to assuaging the misfortunes of captain william booth. for indeed captain booth has but one substantial title to our regard, and that is his adoration for his wife. true, he is a pretty figure of a man; he has a handsome face; he fights bravely, and would kick a rogue through the world; he believes in and loves his friends; and he plays charmingly with his children. but, deprive him of the good genius of his life, and captain booth would very speedily have sunk into the ruin and despair of any other profligate young gamester about the town; and for this his adoration the culprit wins our forgiveness, even as amelia not only forgave but forgot, when by virtue of her own unconscious goodness the captain retrieved himself, at last, from the folly of his ways. undoubtedly the man whom amelia loved, and who had the grace to return that passion, was no scoundrel at heart. it is impossible, now, to discover with any certainty the incidents which lady mary was persuaded were matters of fact. the experiences of captain booth, when essaying to turn gentleman farmer, have been quoted as copies of fielding's own ambitions at east stour; but surely on very slender evidence. much more personal seem many of the later scenes in the poor london lodgings, scenes of cruel distress and perfect happiness, of bitter disappointments and sanguine hope. here, very probably, we have echoes of the struggles of harry and charlotte fielding, in the days of hackney writing and of baffled efforts at the bar; just as the dry statement by arthur murphy, that fielding was "remarkable for ... the strongest affection for his children," comes to life in the many touching pictures of amelia and booth with their little son and daughter. the pursuit of such identity of incident may the more cheerfully be left to the anecdotist, in that the biographical value of _amelia_, is far more than incidental. for the book is, as has been said, a one-part piece. round the single figure of amelia all the other characters revolve; and it was of amelia that fielding himself has told us, in words that are a master key to his own character "of all my offspring she is my favourite child." as surely as a man may be known by his choice in a friend, so is the nature of the artist betrayed when he avows his partiality for one alone among all the creations of his genius. as to the remaining figures in this "model of human life," to quote fielding's own descriptive phrase of his book, those which tell us most of their author are that worthy, authoritative, humourous clergyman, dr harrison; the good sergeant atkinson; and that fiery pedant colonel bath, with his kind heart hidden under a ferocious passion for calling out every man whom he conceived to have slighted his honour. dr harrison does not win quite the same place in our hearts as the man whom thackeray calls 'dear parson adams'; his cassock rustles a little too loudly; the saint is a trifle obscured in the doctor. but yet we love him for his warm and protecting affection for his 'children' as he calls amelia and booth; for his dry humour; and for that generosity which was for ever draining his ample purse. and perhaps we like him none the less for his scholar's raillery of that early blue-stocking mrs bennet; while his dignity never shows to greater advantage than when he throws himself bodily on the villain murphy, achieving the arrest of that felon by the strength of his own arm, and the nimbleness of his own legs. and to this good doctor is given a saying eminently characteristic of justice fielding himself. we are told that "it was a maxim of his that no man could descend below himself in doing any act which may contribute to protect an innocent person, or to bring a rogue to the gallows." another trait of the doctor recalls fielding's oft reiterated aversion to what he calls grave formal persons: "you must know then, child," said he, to poor booth, sunk in the melancholy problem of supporting a wife and three children on something less than £40 a year, "that i have been thinking on this subject as well as you; for i can think, i promise you, with a pleasant countenance." of amelia's foster-brother sergeant atkinson (from whom major william dobbin is directly descended) it is enough to say that the noble qualities concealed beneath the common cloth of his sergeant's coat perfectly confirm a sentence written many years before by the hand of his author. "i will venture to affirm," fielding declares, in his early essay on the _characters of men_, "that i have known ... _a fellow whom no man should be seen to speak to_, capable of the highest acts of friendship and benevolence." fielding's energies in this his last novel, a novel be it remembered written in the midst of daily contact with the squalid vices exhibited in an eighteenth century court-room, seem to have been almost wholly absorbed in creating the most perfect escape from those surroundings in the person of amelia. beside the figure of his 'favourite child,' the vicious criminals of his stage, the malefic my lord, the loathsome trent, the debased justice, the terrible human wrecks in newgate, are but dark figures in a shadowy back-ground. still, the great moralist shows no lack of vigour in his delineations of such offspring of vice. the genius that knew how to rouse every reader of _tom jones_ to 'lend a foot to kick blifil downstairs,' awards in the last pages of _amelia_, a yet more satisfying justice to that nameless connoisseur in profligacy, my lord. in his dedication to ralph allen, fielding states that his book "is sincerely designed to promote the cause of virtue, and to expose some of the most glaring evils, as well public as private, which at present infest this country". the statement seems somewhat needless when prefacing pages which enshrine amelia; and where also are displayed blear eyed moll in the prison yard of newgate, as newgate was twenty years before the prison reforms of howard were heard of; justice thrasher and his iniquities; the 'diabolisms' of my lord and of his tool trent; the ruinous miseries of excessive gambling; and the abuses of duelling. indeed the avowedly didactic purpose of the moralist seems at times to cloud a little the fine perception of the artist. there are passages, in this book which, much as they redound to the honour of their writer, are indisputably heavy reading. but what shall not be forgiven to the creator of amelia. "to have invented that character," cries thackeray, also becoming didactic, "is not only a triumph of art, but it is a good action." and he tells us how with all his heart he loves and admires the 'kindest and sweetest lady in the world'; and how he thinks of her as faithfully as though he had breakfasted with her that morning in her drawing-room, or should meet her that afternoon in the park. it is recorded that fielding received from andrew millar £1000 for the copyright of _amelia_. but the reception of the new novel, after the first rush for copies, seems to have done little credit either to the brains or to the heart of the public. and in the month following _amelia's_ appearance, fielding satirises the comments of the town, in two numbers of his _covent garden journal_; protesting that though he does not think his child to be entirely free from faults--"i know nothing human that is so,"--still "surely she does not deserve the rancour with which she hath been treated by the public." as ironic specimens of the faults complained of in his heroine, he quotes the accusations that her not abusing her husband "for having lost money at play, when she saw his heart was already almost broke by it, was _contemptible meanness_"; that she condescends to dress her husband's supper, and to dress her children, to whom moreover she shows too much kindness; that she once mentions the devil; that she is a _low_ character; and that the beauty of her face is hopelessly flawed by a carriage accident. such are some of the charges brought against the lovely amelia by the "beaus, rakes, fine ladies, and several formal persons with bushy wigs and canes at their noses," who, in fielding's satire, crowd the court where his book is placed on trial for the crime of dullness. then fielding himself steps forward, and after pleading for this his 'favourite child,' on whom he has bestowed "a more than ordinary pains in her education," he declares, with the same hasty petulance that characterised that previous outburst in the preface to _david simple_, that indeed he "will trouble the world no more with any children of mine by the same muse." two months later the _gentleman's magazine_ prints a spirited appeal against this resolution. "his fair heroine's nose has in my opinion been too severely handled by some modern critics," [4] writes criticulus, after a passage of warm praise for the characterisation, the morality, and the 'noble reflections of the book'; and he proceeds to point out that the writings of such critics "will never make a sufficient recompense to the world, if _mr fielding_ adheres to what i hope he only said in his warmth and indignation of this injurious treatment, that he will never trouble the public with any more writings of this kind." the words of the enlightened _criticulus_ echo sadly when we remember that in little more than two years the great genius and the great heart of henry fielding were to be silenced. the _london magazine_ for 1751 devotes the first nine columns of its december number to a resume of the novel, and continues this compliment in another nine columns of appendix. with a fine patronage the reviewer concludes that "upon the whole, the story is amusing, the characters kept up, and many reflections which [sic] are useful, if the reader will but take notice of them, which in this unthinking age it is to be feared very few will." some imperfections he kindly excuses on the score of "the author's hurry of business in administering impartial justice to his majesty's good people"; but he cannot excuse what he declares to be the ridicule of _liberty_ in book viii.; and he solemnly exhorts the author that as "he has in this piece very justly exposed some of the private vices and follies of the present age" so he should in his next direct his satire against political corruption, otherwise 'he and his patrons' will be accused of compounding the same. [5] it seems incredible that any suggestion should ever have attached to the author of _pasquin_ and the _register_, as to one who could condone public corruption. and as for the accusation of tampering with "liberty" the like charge was brought, we may remember, by the "happy cobler of portugal street" against fielding's _inquiry into the encrease of robbers_. the literary cobblers who pursued _amelia_ with the abuse of their poor pens may very well be consigned to the oblivion of their political brother. the comment of one hostile pen cannot however be dismissed as coming from a literary cobbler, and that is the 'sickening' abuse, to use thackeray's epithet, which richardson dishonoured himself in flinging at his great contemporary. that abuse the sentimentalist poured out very freely on _amelia_; but, as mr austin dobson says, "in cases of this kind _parva seges satis est_, and amelia has long since outlived both rival malice and contemporary coldness. it is a proof of her author's genius that she is even more intelligible to our age than she was to her own." [6] in fielding's satiric description of the court before which his amelia stood her trial, he describes himself as an 'old gentleman.' the adjective seems hardly applicable to a man of forty five; but, to quote again from mr austin dobson, "however it may have chanced, whether from failing health or otherwise, the fielding of _amelia_ is suddenly a far older man than the fielding of _tom jones_. the robust and irrepressible vitality, the full veined delight of living, the energy of observation and strength of satire, which characterise the one, give place in the other to a calmer retrospection, a more compassionate humanity, a more benignant criticism of life." murphy's irish tongue declares a similar feeling in his comparison of the pages of this, the last of the three great novels, to the calm of the setting sun; a sun that had first broken forth in the 'morning glory' of _joseph andrews_, and had attained its 'highest warmth and splendour' in the inimitable pages of _tom jones_. there is indeed a mature wisdom and patience in amelia such as none but a pedant could demand of her enchanting younger sister sophia. in these later pages sophia has grown up into a gracious womanhood, while losing none of her girlhood's gaiety and charm. that amelia, his older and wiser though scarce sadder child, was the nearest, as he himself tells us, to fielding's own heart, is one more indication that here is the perfected image of that beloved wife, from whose youthful grace and beauty his genius had already modelled one exquisite memorial. [1] _anecdotes_. mrs piozzi. p. 221. [2] letters and works of lady mary wortley montagu. introductory anecdotes, p. cxxiii. [3] ibid. vol. ii. p. 289. [4] it is curious that to this unlucky incident, based according to lady louisa stuart, lady mary wortley montagu's grand-daughter, on a real accident to mrs fielding, dr johnson attributed the failure of the book with the public: "that vile broken nose ruined the sale," he declared. early in january fielding himself protests in his _covent garden journal_ that every reader of any intelligence would have discovered that the effects of amelia's terrible carriage accident had been wholly remedied by "a famous surgeon"; and that "the author of her history, in a hurry, forgot to inform his readers of that particular." the particular has by now fallen into its due insignificance, and, save for johnson's explanation therein of the poor sale of the book, is scarce worth recalling. [5] _london magazine_. december 1751. p. 531 and appendix. [6] _fielding_. austin dobson. p. 161. chapter xv journalist and magistrate "however vain or romantic the attempt may seem i am sanguine enough to aim at serving the noble interests of religion, virtue, and good sense, by these my lucubrations." the _covent garden journal_. no. 5. nothing could be more characteristic of fielding's active spirit than were the early months of 1752. for, no sooner had he deposited the four volumes of _amelia_ in the hands of the public, essaying to win his readers over to a love of virtue and a hatred of vice, by placing before their eyes that true "model of human life," than we find him launching a direct attack on the follies and evils of the age, by means of his old weapon, the press. the first number of the _covent garden journal_ appeared on the 4th of january, and its pages, produced under fielding's own management and apparently largely written by his own pen, provided satires on folly, invectives against vice, and incitements to goodness and sense, delivered in the name of one _sir alexander drawcansir, knt. censor of great britain_. [1] the new paper ran but for seventy-two numbers; perhaps for all the wit and learning, the fire and zest of its columns, the public were reluctant to buy their own lashings. but it may be doubted whether, except in the pages of his three great novels, henry fielding ever revealed himself more completely than in these his last informal 'lucubrations.' here, the active justice, the accomplished scholar, the lawyer, and man of the world, the first wit of his day, talks to us of a hundred topics, chosen indeed on the spur of the moment, but discussed in his own incomparable words, and with the now mature authority of one, who had "dived into the inmost recesses of human nature." no subject is too abstruse, none too trifling, for _mr censor_ to illumine. freed from the political bands of the earlier newspapers, this last _journal_, produced be it remembered by a man in shattered health, and distracted by the squalid business of a bow street court-room, ranges over an amazing compass of life and manners. thus, one january morning, _sir alexander's_ readers would open their paper to find him deploring the decline of "a religion sometime ago professed in this country, and which, if my memory fails me not was called christian." the following saturday they are presented with a learned and pleasant argument to prove that every male critic should be eighteen years of age, and "be able to read." a few days later the pages of writers purveying the prevalent "infidelity, scurrility, and indecency" are ingeniously allotted to various uses. in february the _journal_ accords a noble tribute "to that great triumvirate lucian, cervantes, and swift"; not indeed "for that wit and humour alone, which they all so eminently possesst, but because they all endeavoured with the utmost force of their wit and humour, to expose and extirpate those follies and vices which chiefly prevailed in their several countries." the design of aristophanes and rabelais on the other hand, appears to _mr censor_, if he may speak his opinion freely, "very plainly to have been to ridicule all sobriety, modesty, decency, virtue, and religion out of the world." from such considerations it is an easy passage to a definition of 'real taste' as derived from a "nice harmony between the imagination and the judgment"; and to these final censorial warnings:--"_evil communications corrupt good manners_ is a quotation of st paul from menander. evil books corrupt at once both our manners and our taste." four days after this learned 'lucubration' the voice of the warm-hearted magistrate speaks in a reminder of the prevailing abject misery of the london poor who "in the most miserable lingering manner do daily perish for want in this metropolis." and in almost the next number his honour gives his readers letters from the fair _cordelia_, from _sarah scandal_, and from other correspondents, of a wit pleasant enough to drive london's poverty far from their minds. two days after attending to these ladies, the _censor_ takes up his keenest weapons in an attack on that "detestable vice of slander" by which is taken away the "_immediate jewel of a man's soul_," his good name; a crime comparable to that of murder. here we have _sir alexander_ speaking with the same voice as did the playwright and journalist of ten years previously, when he declared, in his _miscellanies_, that to stab a man's character 'in the dark' is no less an offence than to stab his flesh in the same treacherous manner. indeed, throughout these last columns of weekly satire, wit, and learning, fielding remains true to the constant tenor of his genius. he exposes the miser, the seducer of innocence, the self-seeker, the place-hunter, the degraded vendor of moral poison, the 'charitable' hypocrite, with the same fierce moral energy as that with which, when but a lad of one and twenty, he first assailed the vices of the society in which his own lot was cast. his unconquerable energy, an energy that neither sickness nor distress could abate, still assaults that "cursed maxim ... that everybody's business is nobody's." and his wit has lost none of its point when thrusting at the lesser follies of the day; at the fair clara's devotion to her pet monkey; at the insolence of the town beau at the playhouse; at the arrogance of carters in the streets; at the vagaries of fashion according to which belinda graces the theatre with yards of ruff one day, and on the next discards that covering so entirely that the snowy scene in the boxes "becomes extremely delightful to the eyes of every beholder." it is quite impossible to convey, within the limits of a few pages, all that _sir alexander_ tells us of what he sees and hears, as the tragi-comedy of life passes before his bow street windows. for fielding possessed in the highest degree the art of hearing, to use his own analysis, not with the ear only (an organ shared by man with "other animals") but also with the head, and with the heart; just as his eye could penetrate beneath the velvet coat of the prosperous scoundrel, the reputation of the illiterate author, or the sorry rags of some honest hero of the gutter. and his _covent garden journal_ is, in truth, his journal of eleven months of a life into the forty odd years of which were compressed both the insight of genius, and the activities of twenty average men. such a record cannot be sifted into a summary. the acknowledged motive of this last of fielding's newspapers is, however, concise enough; and does equal honour to his patriotism and his humanity. the age, as it seemed to him, was an age of public degradation. religion was vanishing from the life of the people; politics were a petty question of party jealousy; literary taste was falling to the level of alehouse wit and backstairs scandal; the youth of the nation were completing their education, when fifteen or sixteen years old, by a course of the town, and then qualifying for a graduate's degree in like knowledge, by a foreign tour; the 'mob' was gaining a dangerous excess of power; the leaders of society were past masters and mistresses of vice and folly; the poor in the streets were sunk in misery, or brutalised into reckless crime. this was the england that _mr censor_ saw from his house in bow street; this was the england which he set out to purify; and the means which he chose were his own familiar weapons of satire and ridicule. of these, ridicule, he declares, when his _journal_ was but four weeks old, "is commonly a stronger and better method of attacking vice than the severer kind of satire." in accordance with which view, _general sir alexander_ is represented, in a mock historic forecast, as having, in the space of twelve months, entirely cleansed his country from the evils afflicting it, by means of a "certain weapon called a ridicule." these evils moreover fielding held to be most readily combated by assailing "those base and scandalous writings which the press hath lately poured in such a torrent upon us that the name of an author is in the ears of all good men become almost an infamous appelation"; and, accordingly, the first number of his new paper discloses _sir alexander_ in full crusade against these grub-street writers. but that he soon perceived the quixotic impolicy of such a campaign, appears very clearly, as early as the fifth number of the _journal_:--"when hercules undertook to cleanse the stables of augeas (a work not much unlike my present undertaking) should any little clod of dirt more filthy perhaps than all the rest have chanced to bedawb him, how unworthy his spirit would it have been to have polluted his hands, by seizing the dirty clod, and crumbling it to pieces. he should have known that such accidents were incident to such an undertaking: which though both a useful and heroic office, was yet none of the cleanliest; since no man, i believe, ever removed great quantities of dirt from any place without finding some of it sticking to his skirts." such dirty clods were undoubtedly thrown by nameless antagonists, as unworthy of fielding's steel as was one whose name has come down to us, the despicable dr john hill, who once suffered a public caning at ranelagh; and one clod, "more filthy perhaps than all the rest," soiled the hands of smollett. [2] but the dirt which was very freely flung on to our eighteenth-century hercules has, by now, fallen back, with great justice, on to the heads of his abusers. fielding has placed on record, in the _journal_, his conviction that the man who reads the works of the five heroic satirists, lucian, cervantes, swift, moliere and shakespeare, "must either have a very bad head, or a very bad heart, if he doth not become both a wiser and a better man." to-day, 'party and prejudice' having subsided, we are ready to say the same of the readers of the _covent garden journal_; perceiving that, if _mr censor_, like his five great forerunners, chose to send his satire "laughing into the world," it was that he might better effect the 'glorious purpose' announced in the fifth number of his paper: "however vain or romantic the attempt may seem, i am sanguine enough to aim at serving the noble interests of religion, virtue, and good sense, by these my lucubrations." to most men the production, twice a week, of a newspaper so wide in scope as the _covent garden journal_ (for its columns included the news of the day, as well as the manifold 'censorial' energies of _sir alexander_) would have been occupation enough; especially with a "constitution now greatly impaired and enfeebled," and when "labouring under attacks of the gout, which were, of course, severer than ever." but there is no hint of either editorial or valetudinarian seclusion in the fragmentary glimpses obtainable of mr justice fielding during these eleven months of 1752. thus, by an advertisement recurring throughout the _journal_, he expressly invites to his house in bow street, "all persons, who shall for the future suffer by robbers burglars &c.," that they may bring him "the best description they can of such robbers, &c., with the time, and place, and circumstances of the fact"; and that this invitation was likely to bring half london within his doors appears from fielding's own description of the condition of the capital at the time. "there is not a street," he declares, speaking of westminster, "which doth not swarm all day with beggars, and all night with thieves. stop your coach at what shop you will, however expeditious the tradesman is to attend you, a beggar is commonly beforehand with him; and if you should directly face his door the tradesman must often turn his head while you are talking to him, or the same beggar, or some other thief at hand will pay a visit to his shop!" and nothing could prove more conclusively the arduousness of fielding's work as a magistrate than the record of the last ten days of january, 1752. on the night of the 17th a peculiarly brutal murder had been perpetrated on a poor higgler in essex; and the _journal_ for january 28, tells us how fielding "spent near eight hours," examining, separately, suspected persons, "at the desire of several gentlemen of fortune in the county of essex"; having on the previous friday and saturday, been engaged "above twenty hours in taking depositions concerning this fact." then, on the day after the arrival of the murder suspects, we find two of the shoreditch constables bringing no fewer than ten "idle lewd and disorderly" men and women before the justice; a woman was charged by a diamond seller on suspicion of feloniously receiving "three brilliant diamonds"; mr welch, the notable high constable of holborn, brought seventeen "idle and lewd persons" whom he had apprehended the night before; and, to complete this single day's work, an italian was brought in, "all over covered with [the] blood" of a brother italian, whose head he had almost cut off. twenty-nine cases on one day, and these in the midst of eight hour examinations concerning a murder, were surely work enough to satisfy even fielding's energies. and, as another entry in his _journal_ mentions the examination of a suspected thief "very late at night," there seems to have been no hour out of the twenty-four in which the great novelist did not hold himself at the service of the public. meanwhile, the criminal licence of the streets was now receiving ministerial attention. the king's speech, delivered at the opening of parliament in the previous november, had contained a passage which might have been inspired by fielding himself: "i cannot conclude," said his majesty, "without recommending to you in the most earnest manner, to consider seriously of some effectual provisions to suppress those audacious crimes of robbery and violence which are now become so frequent...and which have proceeded in great measure from that profligate spirit of irreligion, idleness, gaming, and extravagance, which has of late extended itself in an uncommon degree, to the dishonour of the nation, and to the great offence and prejudice of the sober and industrious part of the people." six weeks later the first number of the _journal_, makes comment on the need of fresh legislation to suppress drunkenness; and on the twenty first of the month _sir alexander_ announces, with something of special information in his tone, that the immediate suppression of crimes of violence "we can with pleasure assure the public is at present the chief attention of parliament." it must have been with something of the pleasure which he so earnestly desires in one of the last utterances of his pen--"the pleasure of thinking that, in the decline of my health and life, i have conferred a great and lasting benefit on my country,"--that fielding saw the royal assent given, in the following march, to an act for the "_better preventing thefts and robberies and for regulating places of public entertainment, and punishing persons keeping disorderly houses_." [3] for this act is directed to the suppression of four of the abuses so strongly denounced, twelve months previously, in his own _enquiry_; and when we recall the fact that he had already submitted, to the lord chancellor, draft legislation for the suppression of robberies, it is at least a plausible surmise that here we have a memorial of henry fielding's patriotic energy, preserved on the pages of the statute book itself. [4] the four points so specially urged in the _enquiry_, and here made law, are the suppression of the "multitude of places of entertainment" for the working classes; the better suppression of gaming houses; the punishment of the scandalous advertisements offering rewards 'and no questions asked' for stolen goods; and the payment of certain prosecutors for their expenses in time and trouble, when a conviction had been obtained. in this same month of march another act, which closely concerned fielding's official work, received the royal assent. this was an act "for better preventing the horrid crime of murder." [5] the pressing need of such a measure had been already urged in the _covent garden journal_. in february the _journal_ declares that _"more shocking murders have been committed within the last year, than for many years before. to what can this be so justly imputed as to the manifest decline of religion among the lower people. a matter, which even, in a civil sense, demands the attention of the government."_ and mr censor returns to the subject on march 3: _"more murders and horrid barbarities have been committed within the last twelvemonth, than during many preceding years. this as we have before observed, is principally to be attributed to the declension of religion among the common people."_ by the end of the month the above-named act had received the royal assent; and the first clause thereof again yielded fielding the satisfaction of seeing a measure which he had warmly recommended in his enquiry now placed on the statute book, namely the clause that the execution of the criminal be made immediate on his conviction. this act, moreover, provides for the abatement of another scandal exposed by fielding many years previously, in the pages of jonathan wild, that of the excessive supply of drink allowed to condemned prisoners. in the following month fielding carried out a scheme, conceived he tells us "some time since," for combating this prevalence of murder. this was his shilling pamphlet, published about april 14, entitled "examples of the interposition of providence in the _detection_ and _punishment_ of murder. containing above thirty cases, in which this dreadful crime hath been brought to light in the most extraordinary and miraculous manner." the advertisement describes the _examples_ as _"very proper to be given to all the inferior kind of people; and particularly to the youth of both sexes, whose natural love of stories will lead them to read with attention what cannot fail of infusing in to their tender minds an early dread and abhorrence of staining their hands with the blood of their fellow-creatures"_ low as was the price, a "large allowance" was made by andrew millar to those who bought any quantity; and fielding distributed the little volume freely in court. the thirty-three _examples_ are introduced and concluded by fielding's own denunciation of this, "the blackest sin, which can contaminate the hands, or pollute the soul of man." and from these pages we may learn his own solemnly declared belief in a peculiarly "immediate interposition of the divine providence" in the detection of this crime; and also his faith in "the fearful and tremendous sentence of eternal punishment" as that divinely allotted to the murderer. he warns the murderer, moreover, that by hurrying a fellow-creature to a sudden and unprepared death he may be guilty of destroying not only his victim's body, but also his soul. and it may be questioned whether fielding ever put his unrivalled mastery of style to a nobler intention than in the closing words of this pamphlet, words designed to be read by the lowest of the people: "great courage may, perhaps, bear up a bad mind (for it is sometimes the property of such) against the most severe sentence which can be pronounced by the mouth of a human judge; but where is the fortitude which can look an offended almighty in the face? who can bear the dreadful thought of being confronted with the spirit of one whom we have murdered, in the presence of all the host of heaven, and to have justice demanded against our guilty soul, before that most awful judgement-seat, where there is infinite justice as well as infinite power?" the dedication of this pamphlet, dated bow street, april 8, 1752, is addressed to dr madox, bishop of worcester, and in it fielding recalls a conversation he had some time previously had with that prelate, in which he had mentioned the plan of such a book, and received immediate encouragement from his lordship. a further appreciation of the _examples_ appears in a paragraph in the _journal_ for may 5: "last week a certain colonel of the army bought a large number of the book called _examples of the interposition of providence in the detection and punishment of murder_, in order to distribute them amongst the private soldiers of his regiment. an example well worthy of imitation!" fielding never allows us to forget for any length of time one or another of his contrasting activities, however absorbed he may seem to be in some one field of action. now, when he is plunged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the criminal conditions of london, when he is admonishing the gayer end of the town with his weekly censorial satire and ridicule, and while he is watching the enactment of new legislation for which he had so strenously pleaded,--he suddenly reappears in his earlier rôle of classical scholar. on june 17, the columns of the _journal_ advertise proposals for "a new translation into english of the works of lucian. from the original greek. with notes, historical, critical and explanatory. by henry fielding esquire; and the rev. mr william young." to which notice there is added, a few days later, the assurance that "everything which hath the least tendency to the indecent will be omitted in this translation." the most delightful, perhaps, of all the leading articles in the _covent garden journal_ is that in which the merits of this "father of true humour" are delineated. the facetious wit, the "attic elegance of diction," the poignant satire, the virtues and abilities of lucian are here so persuasively presented that scarce a reader but surely would hasten, as he laid his paper down, to mr fielding's or mr young's house, or to millar in the strand or dodsley in pall mall, where orders (with a guinea to be paid on booking the same) were received. and this essay is also memorable for the express declaration therein contained that fielding had "formed his stile" upon that of lucian; and, again, as betraying a note of disappointment, an acknowledgment that worldly fortune had indeed treated him somewhat harshly, such as fielding's sanguine courage very seldom permits him to utter. the concluding words, written on his own behalf and on that of mr young, are words of gentle protest to the public for their lack of support to "two gentlemen who have hitherto in their several capacities endeavoured to be serviceable to them without deriving any great emolument to themselves from their labours." and when he tells us how that 'glory of human nature, marcus aurelius' employed lucian "in a very considerable post in the government," since that great emperor "did not, it seems, think, that a man of humour was below his notice or unfit for business of the gravest kind," we cannot but remember that the business on which the government of george ii. thought fit to employ the inimitable genius of henry fielding was that of a bow street magistrate. the onerous drudgery of that business, or else lack of response from a public deaf to its own interests, seems to have brought to nothing the project of this translation; and so english literature is the poorer for the loss of the works of the 'father of humour' translated by the incomparable pen of the 'father of the english novel.'[6] four months after the publication of the proposals for _lucian_, fielding took formal leave of the readers of his _covent garden journal_, telling them that he no longer had "inclination or leisure," to carry on the paper. his brief farewell words contain an assurance very like that solemnly made, we may remember, five years before the publication of _tom jones_. at present, he declares, he has "no intention to hold any further correspondence with the gayer muses"; just as eight years before he had announced that henceforth the 'infamous' nine should have none of his company. to this declaration is added a protest against the injustice of attributing abuse to a writer who "never yet was, nor ever shall be the author of any, unless to persons who are or ought to be infamous." from the tenor of this parting speech it is clear that fielding was, at the time, feeling keenly the imputation, flung by some of his contemporaries, of producing 'scandalous writings'; unmindful for the moment of his own calmer and wiser utterance, when he declared that men who engage in an heroic attempt to cleanse their age will undoubtedly find some of the dirt thereof sticking to their coats. "as he disdained all littleness of spirit, where ever he met with it in his dealings with the world, his indignation was apt to rise," says his contemporary murphy; and we know from earlier protests how cruelly fielding suffered from the attribution to his pen of writings utterly alien to his character. "... really," he cries, in the last words of the _journal_, "it is hard to hear that scandalous writings have been charged on me for that very reason which ought to have proved the contrary namely because they have been scandalous." the year 1752 closes with the birth of another daughter, born presumably in the house in bow street, as her baptism under the name of louisa is entered in the registers of st paul's, covent garden. the curtain that, in fielding's case, hangs so closely over all the pleasant intimate details of life, lifts once or twice during this year of incessant activity, and discloses just those warmhearted acts of kindness that help us to think of harry fielding with an affection almost as warm and personal as that we keep for dick steele or oliver goldsmith. fielding, we know, had "no other use for money" than to help those even less fortunate than himself; and several incidents of this year show how he turned his opportunities, both as journalist and magistrate, to like generous uses. thus there is the story of how, one day in march, "a poor girl who had come from wapping to see the new entertainment at covent garden theatre had her pocket cut off in the crowd before the doors were opened. tho' she knew not the pickpocket she came immediately to lay her complaint before the justice and with many tears lamented not the loss of her money, but of her entertainment. at last, having obtained a sufficient passport to the gallery she departed with great satisfaction, and contented with the loss of fourteen shillings, though she declared she had not much more in the world." [7] another day, or night rather, it is a poor troup of amateur players who had good reason to be grateful to the kindly justice:--"last monday night an information was given to henry fielding esquire: that a set of barber's apprentices, journeymen staymakers, maidservants &c. had taken a large room at the black house in the strand, to act the tragedy of the orphan; the price of admittance one shilling. about eight o'clock the said justice issued his warrant, directed to mr welch, high constable, who apprehended the said actors and brought them before the said justice, who out of compassion to their youth only bound them over to their good behaviour. they were all conducted through the streets in their tragedy dresses, to the no small diversion of the populace." [8] and in may both the ample energies and scanty purse of justice fielding were occupied in collecting a subscription for a young baker and his wife and child, who, by a disastrous fire, were suddenly plunged into destitution. for these poor people fielding obtained no less a sum than £57, within a fortnight of his announcement of their distress in the columns of the _journal_. the list of subscribers, published on may 16, shows a guinea against his own name, and a like sum, it may be noted, from the wealthy lyttelton. the splendour of fielding's genius has shone, as gibbon foretold, throughout the world. his indefatigable labours in cleansing england from some of the evils that then oppressed her deserve to be remembered, if not by all the world, at least by the citizens of that country which, in the decline of 'health and life,' he yet strove so eagerly to benefit. [1] a dramatic satire, advertised in march at covent garden theatre and written (as stated by dibdin, _history of the stage_. vol. v. p. 156), by the actor macklin, bore for sub-title _pasquin turned drawcansir, censor of great britain_. the name, and the further details of the advertisement, recall fielding's early success with his political _pasquin_: but all further trace of this 'satire' seems lost. see appendix c. [2] _a faithful narrative..._. by drawcansir.... alexander. 1752. [3] 25. g ii. cap 36. [4] all trace seems now lost of the actual part fielding may have taken in the drafting of this act. [5] 25. g. ii. c. 37. [6] it would seem, from the following advertisement, that fielding's inexhaustible pen published, about this time, a sixpenny pamphlet on 'a late act of parliament'; but all trace of it has been lost:--"a speech made in the censorial court of alexander drawcansir, monday, 6th june, 1752, concerning a late act of parliament. printed for the author. price 6d." _the general advertiser_, june 27, 1752. [7] the _general advertiser_ march 4. 1752. [8] the _general advertiser_, april 15, 1752. chapter xvi poor law reform "... surely there is some praise due to the bare design of doing a service to the public."--dedication of the _enquiry_. it is evident that the beginning of the year 1753 found fielding fully conscious that now he could only anticipate a 'short remainder of life.' but neither that consciousness, nor the increasing burden of ill-health, availed to dull the energies of these last years. scarcely had that indomitable knight, general sir alexander drawcansir retired from the active public service of conducting the _covent garden journal_ when his creator reappeared with an astonishingly comprehensive and detailed plan of poor-law reform; a plan adapted to the whole kingdom, and which according to a legal comment involved "nothing less than the repeal of the act of elizabeth and an entire reconstruction of the poor laws." [1] poor-law reform was at this time occupying the attention of the nation, and apparently also of the legislature. and we know, from the _enquiry into the increase of robberies_, that the question of lessening both the sufferings and the criminality of the poor had for years occupied fielding's warm heart and active intellect. but the extent to which he devoted these last months of his life to the cause of the poorest and most degraded deserves more than a passing recognition. he tells us, in the _introduction_ to the pamphlet embodying his great scheme, that he has applied himself long and constantly to this subject; that he has "read over and considered all the laws, in anywise relating to the poor, with the utmost care and attention," in the execution of which, moreover, he has been for "many years very particularly concerned"; and that in addition to this exhaustive study of the laws themselves, he has added "a careful perusal of everything which i could find that hath been written on this subject, from the original institution in the 43d. of _elizabeth_ to this day." such was the laborious preparation, extending presumably over many months, which the author of _tom jones_, and the first wit of his day, devoted to solving this vast problem of social reform. fielding was far too well skilled in the art of effective construction to present the public with undigested note-books from his voluminous reading. his scheme, based on all the laws, and upon all the comments on all the laws, regarding the poor, enacted and made for two hundred years, is a marvel of conciseness and practical detail; and, together with an _introduction_ and an _epilogue_, does but occupy the ninety pages of a two-shilling pamphlet. the pamphlet was published at the end of january 1753, with the title _a proposal for making an effectual provision for the poor, for amending their morals, and for rendering them useful members of the society. to which is added a plan of the buildings proposed, with proper elevations ... by henry fielding, esq.; barrister-at-law, and one of his majesty's justices of the peace for the county of middlesex_. the dedication, dated january 19, is to henry pelham, then chancellor of the exchequer, and from it we learn that fielding had personally mentioned his scheme to this minister. the introduction presents an eloquent appeal for some effectual remedy for the intolerably diseased state of the body politic as regarded the distresses and vices of the poor, their unseen sufferings no less than their frequent misdeeds. fielding protests against the popular ignorance of these sufferings in words that might have been spoken by some pleader for the east end 'settlements' of to-day. "if we were," he declares, "to make a progress through the outskirts of this town, and look into the habitations of the poor, we should there behold such pictures of human misery as must move the compassion of every heart that deserves the name of human. what indeed must be his composition who could see whole families in want of every necessary of life, oppressed with hunger, cold, nakedness, and filth, and with diseases, the certain consequence of all these; what, i say, must be his composition, who could look into such a scene as this, and be affected only in his nostrils?" as an instance of fielding's personal knowledge of the london slums of his day, a reference made by mr saunders welch to their joint work is of interest. writing in the same year, 1753, he mentions assisting "mr henry fielding in taking from under one roof upwards of seventy lodgers of both sexes." [2] to this little known misery of the poor, who "starve and freeze and rot among themselves," was added the problem of streets swarming with beggars during the day, and with thieves at night. and the nation groaned under yet a third burden, that of the heavy taxes levied for the poor, by which says fielding "as woeful experience hath taught us, neither the poor themselves nor the public are relieved." to attack such a three-headed monster as this was an adventure better fitted, it might seem, for that club which "captain hercules vinegar" had wielded thirteen years before, when in the full tide of his strength, than for the pen of a man in shattered health, and already serving the public in the daily labours of a principal magistrate. but nothing could restrain the ardour of fielding's spirit, how frail so ever had become its containing 'crust of clay,' when great abuses and great misery made their call on his powers; or countervail against the hope, with which the _introduction_ to his plan concludes. if that plan fails, he shall indeed, he declares have "lost much time, and misemployed much pains; and what is above all, shall miss the pleasure of thinking that in the decline of my health and life, i have conferred a great and lasting benefit on my country." the _plan_ is that of the erection of a vast combined county workhouse, prison, and infirmary; where the unemployed should find, not only work but _skilled instruction_, the poor relief, and the sick a hospital; where discipline and good order should be stringently enforced; and where two chaplains should labour at that 'correction and amendment' of the mind which "in real truth religion is alone capable of effectually executing." the entire scheme is worked out with extraordinary detail, in fifty-nine clauses; and is preceded by an elaborate architectural plan of the proposed institution (which was to house no less than five thousand six hundred persons) with its workshops, its men's quarters rigorously divided from those for the women, its recreation ground, its provision shops, its cells for the refractory and for prisoners, and its whipping post. and the pamphlet concludes by lengthy arguments in favour of the various clauses; and by a personal protest concerning the disinterestedness of proposals which "some few enemies" might assert to show signs of a design for private profit. fielding touchingly disavows any thought of occupying, officially, the great house raised by his imagination. to a man in his state of health such a project would, he says, be to fly in the face of the advice of his 'master,' horace; "it would be indeed _struere dotnos immemor sepulchri_." and, he adds, those who know him will hardly be so deceived "by that chearfulness which was always natural to me; and which, i thank god, my conscience doth not reprove me for, to imagine that i am not sensible of my declining constitution." the concluding words of this, fielding's last legislative effort, betray a like calm assurance that his day's work was drawing to its close. he has now, he tells us, "no farther design than to pass my short remainder of life in some degree of ease, and barely to preserve my family from being the objects of any such laws as i have here proposed." it is wholly in keeping with the genius of henry fielding that almost the last endeavour of his intellect should have been devoted to relieving the wretchedness and lessening the vices of the poorest and most miserable of his countrymen. the _proposal for ... the poor_ is written by the hand of the accomplished lawyer and indefatigable magistrate; but the energy that accomplished so great a labour, in spite of broken health and among a thousand interruptions, sprang from the heart which had already immortalised the ragged postilion of _joseph andrews_ and the starving highwayman of _tom jones_. this last january but one of fielding's life was not only occupied by the publication of proposals for an 'entire reconstruction of the poor laws.' in 1753 a london magistrate, or at least mr justice fielding, was at the service of the public on sunday no less than during the week; and on the first sunday of the new year the bow street room echoed to threats that read strangely enough when we think of the unknown petty thief, threatening sudden death to 'our immortal fielding.' "yesterday," says the _general advertiser_ for monday, january 8, "john simpson and james ellys were commited to newgate by henry fielding esq., for shop-lifting." the charge was one of stealing five silk handkerchiefs, and when the two men "were brought before the justice they behaved in a very impudent saucy manner, and one of them said hewished he had a pistol about him, he would blow the justice's brains out; upon which a party of the guards was sent for who conducted them safe to newgate." the bow street house, moreover, must have been full not only of prisoners and witnesses brought before the justice, but also of victims of all manner of theft. for two comprehensive notices appear in the _advertiser_ for this month, repeating the previous invitation accorded to such sufferers in the _covent garden journal_. on january 1, all persons cognizant of any burglary robbery or theft are desired to communicate immediately with mr brogden, clerk to justice fielding, "at his office at the said justice's in bow street." and again, towards the end of the month, "all persons that have been robbed on the highway in the county of middlesex within this three months last past, are desired to apply to mr brogden, at mr justice fielding's in bow street, covent garden." and here, too, came the solicitors that sought counsel's opinion on their client's behalf, with their fees; the magistrate of this period being under no disability in regard to his private practice. it was to his reputation as an advising barrister, and perhaps a little to the kindness of heart that must have been familiar to all who knew him, that fielding owed his connection with that extraordinary popular excitement of 1753, the mysterious case of the servant girl elizabeth canning. on the 29th of january 'betty canning' presented herself, after a month's disappearance, at the door of her mother's house in london, in a deplorable state of weakness and distress, and declared that she had been kidnapped by two men on new year's night, taken to a house on the hertford road, and there confined by an old gipsy woman for twenty-eight days, in a hay loft, with a pitcher of water and a few pieces of bread for sole sustenance. on the twenty ninth day, according to her own account, she escaped through a window and made her way back to her home. her neighbours, fired with pity for her sufferings, subscribed means for a prosecution; and, says fielding, in the pamphlet which he published two months after these events, "mr. _salt_, the attorney who hath been employed in this cause, ... upon this occasion, as he hath done upon many others, ... fixed upon me as the council to be advised with." then we have the following little domestic sketch, the only picture left to us of henry fielding as a practising barrister: "accordingly, upon the _6th of february_, as i was sitting in my room, counsellor _maden_ being then with me, my clerk delivered me a case, which was thus, as i remember, indorsed at the top, the case of elizabeth canning _for_ mr fielding's _opinion_, and at the bottom, _salt_, solr. upon the receipt of this case, with my fee, i bid my clerk give my service to mr. _salt_ and tell him, that i would take the case with me into the country, whither i intended to go the next day, and desired he would call for it the _friday_ morning afterwards; after which, without looking into it, i delivered it to my wife, who was then drinking tea with us, and who laid it by." mr brogden however presently returned upstairs, bringing the solicitor with him, who earnestly desired his counsel not only to read the case at once but also to undertake in his capacity of magistrate an examination of the injured girl, and of a supposed confederate of the gipsy. this task fielding at first declined, principally on the ground that he had been "almost fatigued to death with several tedious examinations" at that time, and had intended to refresh himself with a day or two's interval in the country, where he had not been "unless on a sunday, for a long time." the persuasions of the solicitor, curiosity as to the extrordinary nature of the case, and "a great compassion for the dreadful condition of the girl," however induced him to yield; and the next day the eighteen year old heroine of a story that was soon to set all london quarrelling, was brought in a chair to bow street, and then led upstairs, supported by two friends, into the presence of the justice. an issue of warrants followed upon her examination, and a further examination of a suspected confederate of the gipsy; the gipsy herself and her chief abettor having already been arrested by another magistrate. some days later, fielding being then out of town, "several noble lords" sent to his house, desiring to be present while he examined the gipsy woman; and the matter being arranged, "lord montfort," says fielding, "together with several gentlemen of fashion came at the appointed time." the company being in the justice's room, the prisoners and witnesses were brought up; and apparently some charge was afterwards brought against fielding as to the manner of his examination, for he here takes occasion to declare, what all who knew him must have known to be the truth, "i can truly say, that my memory doth not charge me with having ever insulted the lowest wretch that hath been brought before me." public opinion became hotly divided as to whether betty canning had indeed suffered all she declared at the hands of the gipsy, mary squires, or had maliciously endeavoured to perjure away the old woman's life. the lord mayor, sir crisp gascoyne, and fielding's old antagonist the despicable dr hill ardently supported the gipsy; fielding, in the pamphlet already quoted, and which was published in march, as warmly espoused the cause of the maid servant whom he calls "a poor, honest, innocent, simple girl, and the most unhappy and most injured of all human beings." the excitement of the town over this melodramatic mystery is reflected in the fact that a second edition of fielding's pamphlet (entitled _a clear state of the case of elizabeth canning_) was advertised within a few days of its first publication. [3] and, also, in the appearance of the sixpenny print, here for the first time reproduced, in which occurs the only representation of henry fielding known to have been drawn during his life time. this print, which bears the inscription "drawn from the life by the right honourable the lady fa--y k--w," shows fielding's tall figure, his legs bandaged for gout, the sword of justice in his hand and her scales hanging out of his pocket, speaking on behalf of his trembling client elizabeth canning; while opposed to him are my lord mayor, the notorious dr hill, and the old gipsy. the background is adorned with pictures of the newly built mansion house, and of the college of surgeons. [4] but for the glimpses it affords us of fielding as a barrister, and for his characteristic championship of what he was convinced was the cause of innocence oppressed, this once famous case might have been left undisturbed in the dust of the _state trials_, had it not incidentally been the means of preserving two of the extremely rare letters of the novelist. these letters, [5] hitherto unpublished, are addressed by fielding to the duke of newcastle, and were both written in the month following the publication of his pamphlet. the fact that both letters are dated from ealing shows that his connection with what was then a pleasant country village was earlier than has been supposed; and the acute suggestions in the second letter seem to indicate a suspicion of some of betty canning's supporters, if his conviction in the girl's own innocence still remained unshaken. "my lord duke "i received an order from my lord chancellor immediately after the breaking up of the council to lay before your grace all the affidavits i had taken since the gipsey's trial which related to that affair. i then told the messenger that i had taken none, as indeed the fact is the affidavits of which i gave my lord chancellor an abstract having been all sworn before justices of the peace in the neighbourhood of endfield, and remain i believe in the possession of an attorney in the city. however in consequence of the commands with which your grace was pleased to honour me yesterday, i sent my clerk immediately to the attorney to acquaint him with these commands, which i doubt not he will instantly obey. this i did from my great duty to your grace for i have long had no concern in this affair, nor have i seen any of the parties lately unless once when i was desired to send for the girl (canning) to my house that a great number of noblemen and gentleman might see her and ask her what questions they pleased. i am, with the highest duty, "my lord, "your graces most obedient "and most humble servant "henry ffielding. "ealing. april 14, 1753 "his grace the "duke of newcastle." "my lord duke, "i am extremely concerned to see by a letter which i have just received from mr jones by command of your grace that the persons concerned for the prosecution have not yet attended your grace with the affidavits in canning's affair. i do assure you upon my honour that i sent to them the moment i first received your grace's commands and having after three messages prevailed with them to come to me i desired them to fetch the affidavits that i might send them to your grace being not able to wait upon you in person. this they said they could not do, but would go to mr hume campbell their council, and prevail with him to attend your grace with all their affidavits many of which, i found were sworn after the day mentioned in the order of council. i told them i apprehended the latter could not be admitted, but insisted in the strongest terms on their laying the others immediately before your grace, and they at last promised me they would, nor have i ever seen them since. i have now again ordered my clerk to go to them to inform them of the last commands i have received, but as i have no compulsory power over them i can not answer for their behaviour, which indeed i have long disliked, and have therefore long ago declined giving them any advice, nor would i unless in obedience to your grace have anything to say to a set of the most obstinate fools i ever saw; and who seem to me rather to act from a spleen against my lord mayor, than from any motive of protecting innocence, tho' that was certainly their motive at first. in truth, if i am not deceived, i suspect they desire that the gipsey should be pardoned, and then to convince the world that she was guilty in order to cast the greater reflection on him who was principally instrumental in obtaining such pardon. i conclude with assuring your grace that i have acted in this affair, as i shall on all occasions with the most dutiful regard to your commands, and that if my life had been at stake, as many know, i could have done no more. "i am, with the highest respect, "my lord duke "y grace's most obedient, "and most humble servant, "henry ffielding. "ealing "april 27. 1753. "his grace the duke of newcastle." the dates of these letters show fielding to have been at ealing in the early spring of this year; and thus afford some confirmation of lysons' remark in his _environs of london_, published forty years later that "henry fielding had a country house at ealing where he resided the year before his death." [6] in may a connection with hammersmith is indicated, in the burial there of his little daughter louisa. the entry in the hammersmith registers is as follows: "may 10th. louisa, d. of henry fielding esqr." the nearer fielding's life draws to its premature close, the greater his physical suffering, so much the more eager seems his desire to leave behind him some practical achievement. we have already seen and wondered at his gigantic scheme for poor-law reform, published in the beginning of this year of fast declining 'health and life.' six months later came the commission in the execution of which the remains of that health and life were literally sacrificed in the effort to win some provision for his family, in the event of his own death. early in august the distinguished court surgeon john ranby had persuaded him to go immediately to bath. and he tells us, in that _journal of a voyage to lisbon_, [7] from which we have, from his own lips, the details of these last months, "i accordingly writ that very night to mrs bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging for a month certain." at this moment, when preparing for his journey, and while "almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street robbers," fielding received what might indeed be called a fatal summons to wait on the duke of newcastle, at his house in lincoln's inn fields, to consult on a means for "putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were every day committed in the streets." this visit cost him a severe cold; but, notwithstanding, he produced, in about four days, a scheme for the destruction of the "then reigning gangs" of robbers and cut-throats, and for the future protection of the public, which was promptly accepted, and the execution of which was confided into fielding's hands. "i had delayed my bath-journey for some time," he proceeds, "contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of my warmest friends, tho' my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the bath-waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. but i had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats." after some weeks the requisite funds were placed at fielding's disposal; and so successful were his methods, that within a few days, the whole gang was dispersed, some in custody, others in flight. his health was by this time "reduced to the last extremity"; but still, he tells us, he continued to act "with the utmost vigour against these villains." and, amid all his 'fatigues and distresses,' the satisfaction he so ardently desired came to him. during the "remaining part of the month of november and in all december," those darkest of months, not only was there no such thing as a murder, but not one street robbery was committed. when we recall the amazing condition of london at this time, when street robberies and murders were of almost daily occurrence, we realise the magnitude of this achievement on the part of a dying man. "having thus fully accomplished my undertaking," fielding continues, "i went into the country in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or less diseases than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the destruction of a body so entirely emaciated, that it had lost all its muscular flesh." it was now too late to apply the bath treatment; and even had it been desirable it was no longer possible, for the sick man's strength was so reduced that a ride of six miles fatigued him intolerably. the bath lodgings, which fielding, surely with his old invincible hopefulness, had hitherto kept were accordingly relinquished; and even his sanguine nature realised the desperate condition of his case. at this point in his narration he breaks off with a characteristically frank disclosure of the chief motive which had inspired him to the heroic exertions of these later months of 1753. at the beginning of the winter his private affairs it seems, "had but a gloomy aspect." the aspect of his own tenure of life we know. and hence to distress of body was added that keenest of all distresses of the mind, the despair of putting his family beyond the reach of necessity. it was gladly therefore that fielding offered up the 'poor sacrifice' of his shattered health, in the hope of securing a pension for his family, in case his own death were hastened by these last labours for the public. if sickness was not allowed to hinder fielding's energies for the benefit of the public, and for the future provision of his family, neither did he permit it to dull the activities of friendship. early in december, when his illness must have been acute, he wrote the following hitherto unpublished letter to the lord chancellor, on behalf of his friend mr saunders welch: [8] "my lord, "as i hear that a new commission of the peace is soon to pass the great seal for westm'r. give me leave to recommend the name of saunders welch, as well as to the next commission for middx. your lordship will, i hope, do me the honour of believing, i should not thus presume, unless i was well satisfied that the merit of the man would justifie my presumption. for this besides a universal good character and the many eminent services he hath done the public, i appeal in particular to master lane; and shall only add, as i am positive the truth is, that his place can be filled with no other more acceptable to all the gentlemen in the commission, and indeed to the public in general. i am with the highest duty and respect, "my lord, "your lordship's most obedient "and most humble servant, "henry ffielding." "decr 6. 1753 "to the lord high chancellor" [1] _life of henry fielding_. frederick lawrence, p. 138. [2] saunders welch. _a letter on the subject of robberies, wrote in the year 1753_. [3] see the _public advertiser_ 1753 march 17, 20, 24 &c. [4] this unique contemporary print of fielding may be seen in the british museum, print room, _social satires_, no. 3213. [5] record office. _state papers. domestic_ g. ii., 127, no. 24. [6] lysons. _environs of london_. 1795. vol. ii. p. 229. [7] the quotations from the _voyage to lisbon_ are from the edition recently prepared by mr austin dobson, for the 'world's classics.' [8] this letter is now in the british museum. the endorsement on the back is: "dec. 6, 1753 from mr fielding recommending mr. saunders welch to be in the com. of ye peace for westmr and middx." chapter xvii voyage to lisbon--death "satisfied in having finished my life, as i have probably lost it in the service of my country." _journal of a voyage to lisbon_. to a man dying of a complication of disorders the terrible winter of 1753-4 brought added danger; a winter which, says fielding, "put a lucky end, if they had known their own interests, to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians." but this, too, his splendid constitution struggled through; and in february 1754, he was back in town, in a condition less despaired of, he tells us, by himself than by any of his friends. and if he did not allow himself to despair, neither did he, even now, relinquish all his magistrate's work. on the 26th of february cases are actually recorded as brought before him. [1] but within a few days, apparently, of this date treatment employed on the advice of dr joshua ward, so weakened a body already 'enervate' and emaciated, that at first the patient "was thought to be falling into the agonies of death." on march 6, he was, he tells us, at his worst--that "memorable day when the public lost mr pelham. from that day i began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the grave; till in two months time i had again acquired some little degree of strength." before the expiration of these two months that 'little degree of strength' was again being expended in the drudgery of the bow street court-room. "yesterday," states the _public advertiser_ of april 17, "elizabeth smith was committed to newgate by henry fielding esqre; being charged with stealing a great quantity of linnen." [2] and five days later, on april 22, a committal is recorded in the middlesex _sessions book_. [3] although fielding could now leave his sickroom, when called thence to commit a thief to newgate, a newspaper paragraph, dated a little earlier in this same month of april, shows that the public were apprehensive that the protection afforded them by their indefatigable magistrate was now of a very precarious duration. the writer refers to the complete success of mr fielding's _plan_ for the subjugation of criminals, executed the previous winter, pointing out that "the public who had such reason to suspect the contrary have suffered fewer outrages than have happened any winter this twenty years." and without making any direct statement as to the fast failing strength of the author and executor of that _plan_, he continues in words that plainly indicate the abdication of those zealous energies: "the whole plan we are assured is communicated to justice john fielding and mr welch who are determined to bring it to that perfection of which it is capable." this 'assurance' of the _advertiser_ is confirmed by fielding's own words in the _voyage to lisbon_. "i therefore" he says, speaking clearly of the winter or spring of 1753-4, "resigned the office [of principal justice of the peace in westminster] and the farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my assistant." this blind brother, who in his turn became famous as a london magistrate, was now a justice of the peace for middlesex [4] as well as for westminster; and was at this time living in the strand, as the resident proprietor [5] of that enterprising _universal register office_ which has won incidental immortality in his brother's pages, and which combined such heterogeneous activities as those of an estate office, registry for servants of good character, lost property office, curiosity shop and general agency. another announcement in the columns of the _advertiser_ links this last spring of fielding's life with that earlier spring of 1743, when as a popular play-wright and a struggling barrister, absorbed in anxiety for the health of a beloved wife and with his own health already attacked, he published that masterpiece of irony _jonathan wild_. now, while he was still slowly drawing his 'feet out of the grave,' after those critical first days of march, a new edition of the _history_ of that "great man," with "considerable corrections and additions," was advertised; the actual date of publication being, apparently, about march 19. the new edition appeared with a prefatory note, "from the publisher to the reader," which although it bears no signature conveys, undoubtedly, fielding's intention, if not his actual words. there is the familiar protest against the "scurrility of others," the odium of which had fallen on the innocent shoulders of "the author of our little book"; and there is a solemn declaration that the said little book shows no reason for supposing any 'personal application' to be meant in its pages "unless we will agree that there are without those walls [i.e. of newgate], some other bodies of men of worse morals than those within; and who have consequently, a right to change places with its present inhabitants." then follows an explicit reference to a chapter in the _history_ of the arch-villain wild, which is obviously designed to satirise the condition of english politics, if not the person of any one politician. the disclaimer, seems on the whole, to partake very properly of the ironic nature of the ensuing pages; although it recalls that youthful declaration of the young dramatist, prefixed to his first comedy acted nearly thirty years before, that no private character was the target of his pen. at the end of these two months of march and april, spent as we have seen in acquiring some little degree of strength, and in at least attempting to expend the same on the consignment of petty thieves to newgate, fielding again submitted his dropsy to the surgeon, the consequences of which he now bore much better. this improvement, he tells us, he attributed greatly to "a dose of laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. it first gave me the most delicious flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap." lady mary wortley montagu has recorded how her cousin's 'happy constitution,' even when half-demolished, could enjoy, with undiminished zest "a venison pasty, or a flask of champagne." surely none other than henry fielding could have recorded with like zest this 'delicious flow of spirits' and 'comfortable nap' derived from a dose of laudanum. the month of may, with its promise of relief from the still lingering winter, had now begun. fielding therefore resolved, he says, to visit a little country house of his "which stands at ealing, in the county of middlesex, in the best air, i believe, in the whole kingdom." [6] towards the end of the month, he had resort to a long forgotten eighteenth century panacea, the tar-water discovered by bishop berkeley; and very soon experienced effects far beyond his "most sanguine hopes." success beyond fielding's most sanguine hopes must have been great indeed; and accordingly we hear how this tar-water, from the very first, lessened his illness, increased his appetite, and very slowly added to his bodily strength. by the end of the month a third application by his surgeon revealed distinctly favourable symptoms; but still both the dropsy and the asthma were becoming more serious; and the summer, which the doctors seemed to think the sick man's 'only chance of life' seemed scarce likely to visit england at all in that sunless year. "in the whole month of may the sun scarce appeared three times" we learn, from the _voyage_. fearing therefore the renewed assaults of winter, before he had recruited his forces so as "to be in anywise able to withstand them," fielding resolved, with the approval of a very eminent physician, to put an already formed project into immediate execution. this was to seek further recovery in some warmer climate. at first aix was thought of, but here the difficulties of travel in the reign of george ii. for invalids of slender means, proved insuperable. the journey by land, "beside the expense of it," fielding found to be "infinitely too long and fatiguing"; and no ship was announced as sailing within 'any reasonable time' for that part of the mediterranean. lisbon accordingly was decided upon; and john fielding soon discovered a ship with excellent passenger accommodation, and which was due to sail in three days. "i eagerly embraced the offer," writes fielding, as though he were starting on a pleasure cruise, instead of facing all the miseries of travel, when unable to make the least use of his limbs, and when his very appearance "presented a spectacle of the highest horror"; and he adds "i began to prepare my family for the voyage with the utmost expedition." twice, however, the captain put off his sailing, and at length his passenger invited him to dinner at ealing, a full week after the declared date of departure. meanwhile fielding's condition seems at least to have become no worse, for the _public advertiser_ of june 22 has "the pleasure to assure the publick that the report of the death of henry fielding esquire; inserted in an evening paper of thursday is not true, that gentleman's health being better than it has been for some month's past." it was not till the 26th of june that, in the memorable opening words of the _voyage_, "the most melancholy sun i had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at fordhook. by the light of this sun, i was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom i doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where i had learnt to bear pains and to despise death." the morning was spent with his children, the eldest of whom was then a boy of six; and "i doubt not," he writes, "whether, in that time, i did not undergo more than in all my distemper." at noon his coach was at the door, and this "was no sooner told me than i kiss'd my children round, and went into it with some little resolution." his wife, behaving "more like a heroine and philosopher, tho' at the same time the tenderest mother in the world," and his eldest daughter, followed him; and the invalid was swiftly driven the twelve miles to rotherhithe. here the task of embarking a man quite bereft of the use of his limbs had to be accomplished. this difficulty was overcome with the aid of saunders welch, the friend of whom fielding says "i never think or speak of but with love and esteem" [7]; and, at last, the traveller was "seated in a great chair in the cabin," after fatigues, the most cruel of which he declares to have been the inhuman jests made upon his wasted and helpless condition by the rows of sailors and watermen through whom he had been compelled to pass. from this moment we may read of the pleasures and thoughts, the experiences and meditations, but scarcely ever of the sufferings of the dying novelist, in the pages of what has been well called "one of the most unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own or any other literature" [8] confined for six weeks in the narrow prison of an eighteenth century trading vessel; unable to move save when lifted by unskilled hands; with food often intolerable to the healthiest appetite; with no relaxation save the company of the rough old sea-dog who commanded the _queen of portugal_; and fully conscious that his was a mortal illness,--the inexhaustible courage, the delight in man and in nature, the genius of henry fielding still triumphed over every external circumstance. throughout the voyage, fortune, moreover, seemed determined to heap on the unhappy traveller all manner of additional discomforts; and yet when we lay down this little volume "begun in pain, and finished almost at the same period with life," [9] the pictures left on the mind glow almost as brightly as those which fill the pages written in the full vigour of fielding's manhood, and which, as coleridge said, breathe the air of a spring morning. first came a delay of three days off the squalid shores of wapping and rotherhithe, whereby opportunity was afforded of "tasting a delicious mixture of the air of both these sweet places," and of enjoying such a concord of the voices of seamen, watermen, fishwomen, oyster women and their like as hogarth indicated "in that print of his which is enough to make a man deaf to look at." this delay, moreover, threatened to bring fielding within need of a surgeon when none should be procurable. his friend mr william hunter of covent garden, brother of the more famous john hunter, relieved this apprehension; but now fresh trouble occurred in the torments of toothache which befell mrs fielding. a servant was despatched in haste to wapping, but the desired 'toothdrawer,' arrived after the ship had at last, on sunday morning, the 30th of june, left her unsavoury moorings. that sunday morning "was fair and bright," and the diarist records how, dropping down to gravesend, "we had a passage thither i think as pleasant as can be conceiv'd." the yards of deptford and woolwich were 'noble sights'; the thames with its splendid shipping excelled all the rivers of the world; and the men of war, the unrivalled indiamen, the other traders, and even the colliers and small craft, all combined to form "a most pleasing object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of an englishman, who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognise any effect of the patriot in his constitution." and here fielding gives us a notable example of his own healthy taste in recreation; a taste agreeing very ill with the scurrilous popular myths concerning him, but entirely consonant with the manifest atmosphere of his genius. he deplores the general neglect of "what seems to me the highest degree of amusement: that is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own"; an amusement which need not "exceed the reach of a moderate fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which are daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate." fortune, as we have said, seemed to grudge every little pleasure that could have alleviated the condition of the helpless invalid on board the _queen of portugal_. the relief obtained from mr hunter, he tells us, "the gaiety of the morning, the pleasant sailing with wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which i was constantly entertained during the whole way, were all suppressed and overcome by the single consideration of my wife's pain, which continued incessantly to torment her." the second despatch of a messenger, in great haste to bring the best reputed operator in gravesend recalls murphy's words: "of sickness and poverty he was singularly patient and under pressure of those evils he could quietly read _cicero de consolatione_; but if either of them threatened his wife he was impetuous for her relief." the remedies both of the gravesend 'surgeon of some eminence,' and of yet another practitioner, who was sent for from deal, were ineffectual; but about eight in the evening of the following day, when the ship under contrary winds, was at anchor in the downs, mrs fielding fell asleep; and to that accident we owe one of the most characteristic passages in the _voyage_. his wife's relief from pain would, fielding tells us, "have given me some happiness, could i have known how to employ those spirits which were raised by it: but unfortunately for me, i was left in a disposition of enjoying an agreeable hour, without the assistance of a companion, which has always appeared to me necessary to such enjoyment; my daughter and her companion were both retired sea-sick to bed; the other passengers were a rude school boy of fourteen years old, and an illiterate portuguese friar, who understood no language but his own, in which i had not the least smattering. the captain was the only person left, in whose conversation i might indulge myself; but unluckily for me, besides his knowledge being chiefly confined to his profession, he had the misfortune of being so deaf, that to make him hear my words, i must run the risque of conveying them to the ears of my wife, who, tho' in another room (called, i think, the state-room; being indeed a most stately apartment capable of containing one human body in length, if not very tall, and three bodies in breadth) lay asleep within a yard of me. in this situation necessity and choice were one and the same thing; the captain and i sat down together to a small bowl of punch, over which we both soon fell fast asleep, and so concluded the evening." in the record of the previous day, while sketching the humours of jacks in office, fielding incidentally shows himself as no less careful of the respect due to his wife than he was solicitous for her comfort. a ruffianly custom-house officer had appeared in their cabin, wearing a hat adorned with broad gold lace, and 'cocked with much military fierceness.' on eliciting the information that 'the gentleman' was a riding surveyor, "i replied," says fielding, "that he might be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that denomination, would break into the presence of a lady, without any apology or even moving his hat. he then took his covering from his head, and laid it on the table, saying he asked pardon." to this 'riding surveyor' we owe also an indication that fielding found room in the narrow confines of a cabin for his plato; for the rude insolence of that functionary recalls to his mind the platonic theory of the divine original of rulers, and he proceeds to quote a long passage from the _laws_, which even his ready scholarship could scarce have had by heart. contrary winds continued to baffle all captain veal's seamanship, and afforded his passenger opportunities for a spirited protest concerning the need of some regulation both of the charges of long-shore boatmen, and of the manners of captains in the royal navy. on the evening of july 8 the _voyage_ records that "we beat the sea off sussex, in sight of dungeness, with much more pleasure than progress; for the weather was almost a perfect calm, and the moon, which was almost at the full, scarce suffered a single cloud to veil her from our sight"; and on the 18th of the month the _queen of portugal_ put in to ryde, at which place she remained wind-bound for no less than eleven days. these eleven days fielding spent, by his wife's persuasions, on shore, at the poor village inn which, together with a little church and some thirty houses, then constituted the village of ryde. of the hardships and humours of that sojourn the _voyage_ affords an account worthy of a place among the pages of either of the three great novels. the landlady, an incredibly mean and heartless shrew, inflicted daily annoyances and extortions on her wind-bound victims. the squalid building, partly constructed of wreck-wood, could scarce house the party. the food supplies, other than those the visitors brought with them, were chiefly 'rusty bacon, and worse cheese,' with very bad ale to drink. and on the first afternoon, the house was found to be so damp from recent scrubbing that mrs fielding, who "besides discharging excellently well her own, and all the tender offices becoming the female character; who besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his part," hastily snatched the invalid from "worse perils by water than the common dangers of the sea," and ordered dinner to be laid in a dry and commodious barn. so seated, "in one of the most pleasant spots, i believe, in the kingdom," and regaled on bacon, beans, and fish, "we completed," says fielding, "the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more real, solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at white's." on sunday the three ladies went to church, "attended by the captain in a most military attire, with his cockade in his hat, and his sword by his side" (captain veal had commanded a privateer); and fielding, while left alone, pursued those researches into human nature of which he never wearied by conversation with the landlord, a fine example of henpecked humanity. on the following day the ladies, again attended by captain veal, enjoyed a four mile walk, professing themselves greatly charmed with the scenery, and with the courtesy of a lady who owned a great house on this part of the coast, and who "had slipt out of the way, that my wife and her company might refresh themselves with the flowers and fruits with which her garden abounded." within twenty four hours this generous householder had sent a message to the inn, placing all that her garden or house afforded at the disposal of the travellers. fielding's man-servant was despatched with proper acknowledgements, and returned "in company with the gardener, both richly laden with almost every particular which a garden at this most fruitful season of the year produces." that evening, on a change of wind, captain veal came to demand his passengers' instant return. this would have been "a terrible circumstance to me, in my decayed condition," admits fielding, "especially as very heavy showers of rain, attended with a high wind, continued to fall incessantly; the being carried thro' which two miles in the dark, in a wet and open boat, seemed little less than certain death." happily the wind again veered till the following morning, when fielding and the three ladies, together with their manservant and maid, were safely re-embarked, not however without much agitation over the temporary loss of their tea-chest. this calamity was first compensated by the prompt aid of the hospitable lady aforementioned, and then averted by the diligent search of william the footman who at last discovered the hiding place of the missing 'sovereign cordial,' and thus, concludes his master, "ended this scene, which begun with such appearance of distress, and ended with becoming the subject of mirth and laughter." once more on board, ryde and its beautiful prospect, its verdant elms, its green meadows, and shady lanes all combining in fielding's opinion to make a most delightful habitation, faded from view. and, by seven o'clock, "we sat down" he says, "to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which was much better drest than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold pasty which my wife had made at ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to eat on board our ship, whither we all cheerfully exulted in being returned from the presence of mrs humphreys, [the landlady] who by the exact resemblance she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no great propriety settled in paradise." it is while commenting on the charm of the view from ryde,--"i confess myself so entirely fond of a sea prospect, that i think nothing on the land can equal it,"--that fielding incidentally utters that extraordinary reference to sir robert walpole as "one of the best of men and of ministers." the only explanation of these words at all consonant with what we know of fielding's life seems to be that here he adopts once more his familiar use of irony. the cheerfulness of spirit with which the invalid encountered every fresh distress, and 'exulted' in every pleasant sight and trifling pleasure, during those days at ryde, is very fully reflected in the following letter, happily preserved from the untoward fate which has apparently befallen every other intimate word from his pen. it was written to his brother john, on the first day of anchorage off ryde. "on board the queen of portugal, richd. veal at anchor on the mother bank, off ryde, to the care of the post master of portsmouth--this is my date and y'r direction. "july 12 1754 "dear jack, after receiving that agreeable lre from mess'rs. fielding & co., we weighed on monday morning and sailed from deal to the westward four days long but inconceivably pleasant passage brought us yesterday to an anchor on the mother bank, on the back of the isle of wight, where we had last night in safety the pleasure of hearing the winds roar over our heads in as violent a tempest as i have known, and where my only consideration were the fears which must possess any friend of ours (if there is happily any such), who really makes our well being the object of his concern especially if such friend should be totally inexperienced in sea affairs. i therefore beg that on the day you receive this mrs daniel may know that we are just risen from breakfast in health and spirits this twelfth instant at 9 in the morning. our voyage hath proved fruitful in adventures all which being to be written in the book you must postpone yr. curiosity. as the incidents which fall under yr cognizance will possibly be consigned to oblivion, do give them to us as they pass. tell yr neighbour i am much obliged to him for recommending me to the care of a most able and experienced seaman to whom other captains seem to pay such deference that they attend and watch his motions, and think themselves only safe when they act under his direction and example. our ship in truth seems to give laws on the water with as much authority and superiority as you dispense laws to the public and examples to yr brethern in commission, please to direct yr answer to me on board as in the date, if gone to be returned, and then send it by the post and pacquet to lisbon to "y'r affec't. brother "h. fielding [10] "to john fielding esq. at his house in bow street cov. garden london." it is probable, as mr austin dobson has pointed out, that the mrs daniel, whose anxieties fielding here shows himself anxious to relieve, was his second wife's mother. and by this time his brother was doubtless occupying that house in bow street so frequently advertised to the public, when any work was on foot for their protection, as the residence of 'henry fielding, esqre.' the almost diabolic figure of the ryde landlady had scarcely left his pages, when fielding found a new subject for his portraiture, in the pretentious ill-bred follies of a young officer, a nephew of the captain, who arrived on board to visit his uncle, and who serves as an excellent foil for the simple-hearted merits of the elder man. a rising wind, however, cut short the lieutenant's stories, and two nights later blew a hurricane which fielding declares, "would have given no small alarm to a man, who had either not learnt what it is to die, or known what it is to be miserable"; continuing, in words that need no comment, "my dear wife and child must pardon me, if what i did not conceive to be any great evil to myself, i was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them: in truth, i have often thought they are both too good, and too gentle, to be trusted to the power of any man." the sea he loved so well was not to be fielding's grave. early the next morning the _queen of portugal_ was at anchor in torbay; and the whole party sat down "to a very chearful breakfast." for a whole week the travellers were kept wind-bound off the devon coast, now at anchor, now making vain efforts to proceed. we hear of the 'fine clouted cream,' and the delicious cyder of the county (two hogsheads of which latter fielding purchased as presents for his friends); of the excellence of the local fish named 'john dóree,' of the scandalous need of legislation for the protection of sea-men when ashore from land-sharks, a digression which includes a pleasant interpretation of the myth of ulysses and circe as none other than the dilemma of a homeric merchant skipper whose crew circe "some good ale-wife," had made drunk "with the spirituous liquors of those days"; of the difficulty with which fielding could persuade his wife "whom it was no easy matter for me to force from my side" to take a walk on shore; and of the captain's grievous lamentations, which "seemed to have some mixture of the irish howl in them," [11] when his cat was accidentally suffocated. also, to these last wind-bound days belongs that famous incident which does perhaps no less honour to the hot tempered tyrannical old skipper than to his illustrious passenger. fielding, having just finished dinner, was enjoying some good claret in the cabin, with his wife and her friend--a cheerful moment, when conversation 'is most agreeable,' when tom, the captain's general factotum, burst in on them and began, without saying a 'by your leave', to bottle half a hogshead of small beer. after requests and protests, equally unavailing, this functionary found himself, says fielding, threatened "with having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to stand empty within my reach." thereupon tom reported his version of the matter to the captain, who came thundering down to the cabin in a rage that knew no bounds of language or civility. this behaviour from a man who had received not only liberal payment from his passenger for accommodation, but also such frequent stores of fresh provisions that fielding's private purse had indeed gone some way in maintaining the ship's crew, that passenger justly resented, and to a hasty resolve of quitting the ship by a hoy that should carry him to dartmouth, he added threats of legal action. the 'most distant sound of law,' however, he tells us, "frightened a man, who had often, i am convinced, heard numbers of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. nor did he sooner see the hoy approaching the vessel, than he ran down again into the cabin, and his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled on his knees, and a little too abjectly implored for mercy. i did not suffer a brave man and an old man, to remain a moment in this posture; but i immediately forgave him." it is this incident that thackeray chooses to complete his picture of the great novelist; adding that memorable comparison between the "noble spirit and unconquerable generosity" of fielding, and the lives of many unknown heroes of the sea: "such a brave and gentle heart, such an intrepid and courageous spirit i love to recognise in the manly the english harry fielding." within a week of this reconciliation the ship had made such progress southward that the captain 'in the redundancy of his good humour, declared he would go to church at lisbon on sunday next' (not the least pleasant of the pictures which fielding gives us of the privateer is that of his summoning all hands on deck on a sunday morning and then reading prayers 'with an audible voice'); but again the wind played him false, becalming him near cape finisterre. this last calm, however, brought with it sufficient compensation: "tho' our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with a scene which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one can form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. we were seated on the deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. not a single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the only object which engrossed our whole attention. he did indeed set with a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, while the horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to the opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered to our vision. compared to these the pageantry of theatres, or splendor of courts, are sights almost below the regard of children." four days later, at midnight, the anchor was cast off lisbon, after a calm and moonlit passage up the tagus, a passage, fielding writes, "incredibly pleasant to the women, who remained three hours enjoying it, while i was left to the cooler transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooler as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation, is, at the same time, void of all ideas of friendship." on the day following, the 24th of june, he landed, and that evening enjoyed the long unknown luxury of a good supper, in a kind of coffee-house "very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, [which] hath a very fine prospect of the river tajo from lisbon to the sea." with that pleasant prospect the voyage closes. begun as it was to while away the enforced solitude of his cabin, a condition, which no man, he tells us, disliked more than himself and which mortal sickness rendered especially irksome, these pages, some of which "were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever haunted the author," reveal fielding to us if not as mr lowell has said "with artless inadvertence" at least with perfect fullness. the undimmed gaiety of spirit, the tender affection, the constant desire to remove those evils which he found oppressing his country-men by sea not less than on land, the 'enthusiasm for righteousnes,' the humour of the first of english novelists, burn here as brightly as though the writer were but midway in his life's voyage. the hand that exposed evil in its native loathsomeness in a blifil and a wild has not lost its cunning in depicting mrs humphreys; the eye that delighted in the green fields of england saw in the southern sunset that which made human creations 'almost below the regard of children.' and to the last the patriotic energies of the author of _pasquin_ and of the _champion_, of the whole hearted social reformer, of the tireless magistrate, knew no relaxation. page after page of the _voyage_ justify the passage in which he tells us how "i would indeed have this work, which, if i live to finish it (a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hope to me), will be probably the last i shall ever undertake, to produce some better end than the mere diversion of the reader"; and manifest his desire, here explicitly stated, to finish life "as i have probably lost it, in the service of my country." we have no knowledge concerning the four months following the last entry in the pages of the _voyage to lisbon_. on october 8, 1754, the end so calmly expected came; and in the beautiful english cemetery, facing the great basilica of the heart of jesus, was laid to rest all that an alien soil could claim of 'our immortal fielding.' [1] the _public advertiser_, 1754, february 26. [2] the _public advertiser_ 1754, april 17. [3] middlesex records. _sessions book_. 1754. [4] see the middlesex records. [5] see the _public advertiser_. february, 1754. [6] this little house was apparently replaced by a larger house; and it is probably this second building of which a sketch is inserted in a copy of lysons' _environs_ to be seen in the guildhall library. it is now pulled down. [7] dr johnson spoke of saunders welch as "one of my best and dearest friends." [8] austin dobson. _fielding_, p. 170. [9] "dedication" of the _voyage_, written possibly by john fielding. [10] austin dobson. _fielding_, p. 179. from the autograph in the possession of mr frederick locker. [11] this and the following passage occur in the second version of the _voyage to lisbon_. appendix a _the hapsburg genealogy_ it appears that the hapsburg descent, formerly claimed by the denbigh family, must now be abandoned. the arguments against this descent, published by mr horace round, have been accepted by burke. further, dr g. f. warner permits me to publish his statement that "i have myself seen the documents upon which it [the claim] rests, and found them to be unmistakeable forgeries." as regards henry fielding's family it is interesting to find that his grandfather the rev. and hon. john fielding was not only canon of salisbury, and a doctor of divinity, but also archdeacon of dorsetshire. canon john fielding was buried at salisbury. his son george (henry fielding's uncle) was lt. colonel of the "royal regiment of the blues," and groom of the bed-chamber to queen anne and to george ii. he is buried in st george's chapel, windsor. (j. nichols. _history and antiquities of leicestershire_. 1810. vol. iv. pt. i. p. 394.) appendix b _receipt and assignment of "tom jones"_ the following documents are in the possession of alfred huth esq., and are now first published june 11 1748. rec'd. of mr. andrew millar six hundred pounds being in full for the sole copy right of a book called the history of a foundling in eighteen books. and in consideration of the said six hundred pounds i promise to asign over the said book to the said andrew millar his executors and assigns for ever when i shall be thereto demanded. £ s d £600, 00, 00. hen. ffielding the said work to contain six volumes in duodecimo. know all men by these presents that i henry fielding of st. paul's covent garden in the county of middlesex esq'r. for & in consideration of the sum of six hundred pounds of lawful money of great britain to me in hand paid by andrew millar of st. mary le strand in the county afores'd. bookseller the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged and of which i do acquit the s'd. andrew millar his executors & assigns, have bargained sold delivered assigned & set over all that my title right and property in & to a certain book printed in six volumes, known & called by the name & title of the history of tom jones, a foundling, inv'd. written by me the s'd. henry fielding, with all improvements, additions or alterations whatsoever which now are or hereafter shall at any time be made by me the s'd. henry fielding, or any one else by my authority to the s'd. book to have and to hold the s'd. bargained premises unto the s'd. andrew millar, his ex'ors adm'ors or assigns for ever and i do hereby covenant to & with the s'd. andrew millar his ex'ors adm'ors & assigns that i the s'd. henry fielding the author of the s'd. bargained premises have not at any time heretofore done committed or suffered any act or thing whatsoever by means whereof the s'd bargained premises or any part thereof is or shall be impeached or encumbered in any wise and i the s'd henry fielding for myself my ex'ors adm'ors & assigns shall warrant & defend the s'd bargained premises for ever against all persons whatsoever claiming under me my ex'ors adm'ors or assigns. in witness whereof i have hereunto set my hand & seal this twenty fifth day of march one thousand seven hundred & forty nine. h f fielding [illustration: seal.] signed sealed & delivered by the within named henry fielding the day and year within mentioned, in the presence of jos. brogden appendix c "_pasquin turned drawcansir_" the _general advertiser_ for march 13, 1752, page 3, advertises, as for macklin's benefit, at the theatre royal, covent garden, "a new dramatic satire of two acts, call'd covent garden theatre; or pasquin turned drawcansir censor of great britain written on the model of the comedies of aristophanes and the pasquinades of the italian theatre in paris; with chorusses of the people after the manner of the greek drama. the parts of the pit, and boxes, the stage, and the town to be performed by themselves for their diversion; the part of several dull disorderly characters in and about st. james, to be performed by certain persons for example; and the part of pasquin-drawcansir to be performed by his censorial highness, for his interest. the satire to be introduced by an oration, and to conclude by a peroration: both to be spoken from the rostrum, in the manner of certain orators by signer pasquin." this advertisement is also in the _covent garden journal_, with the addition of "galleries" after the word _boxes_. according to dibdin, _history of the stage_, vol. v. (preface dated 1800) p. 156, this satire was _by_ macklin. appendix d _the walpole 'anecdote'_ the following reference to fielding occurs in a letter by horace walpole, to george montagu, dated may 18, 1749. it may be prefaced by the statement that fielding's strenuous opposition to sir robert walpole was not likely to be overlooked by sir robert's son; and by mr austin dobson's comment "his [horace walpole's] absolute injustice, when his partisan spirit was uppermost, is everywhere patent to readers of his letters ... the story no doubt exaggerated when it reached him, loses nothing under his transforming and malicious pen." walpole writes: "he [rigby] and peter bathurst t'other night carried a servant of the latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before fielding; who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of mr lyttelton, added that of middlesex justice. he sent them word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. they did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a whore, and three irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. he never stirred nor asked them to sit. rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of sir c. williams, and bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs; on which he civilised." the 'blind man' was doubtless the half brother later to be knighted for his distinguished public services, sir john fielding; and, adds mr austin dobson, "it is extremely unlikely the lady so discourteously characterised could have been any other than his wife, who lady stuart tells us 'had few personal charms.' there remain the 'three irishmen' who may, or may not, have been perfectly presentable members of society. at all events, their mere nationality, so rapidly decided upon, cannot be regarded as a stigma." bearing in mind, on the one hand, our knowledge of fielding as he reveals himself in his own pages, and in his friendships, and on the other the character earned by horace walpole's pen, it seems matter for doubt whether this 'anecdote' deserves even a place in an appendix. appendix e _fielding's will_ fielding's will was discovered in the prerogative court of canterbury, by mr g. a. aitken. it is undated:-in the name of god amen--i henry fielding of the parish of ealing in the county of middlesex do hereby give and bequeath unto ralph allen of prior park in the county of somerset esqr and to his heirs executors administrators and assigns for ever to the use of the said ralph his heirs &c all my estate real and personal wheresoever and whatsoever and do appoint him sole executor of this my last will--beseeching him that the whole (except my shares in the register office) may be sold and forthwith converted into money and annuities purchased thereout for the lives of my dear wife mary and my daughters harriet and sophia and what proportions my said executor shall please to reserve to my sons william and allen shall be paid them severally as they shall attain the age of twenty and three and as for my shares in the register or universal register office i give ten thereof to my aforesaid wife seven to my daughter harriet and three to my daughter sophia my wife to be put in immediate possession of her shares and my daughters of theirs as they shall severally arrive at the age of 21 the immediate profits to be then likewise paid to my two daughters by my executor who is desired to retain the same in his hands until that time--witness my hand--henry fielding--signed and acknowledged as his last will and testament by the within named testator in the presence of--margaret collier--richd boor--isabella ash-proved 14th november 1754. extracted from the principal registry of the probate divorce and admiralty division of the high court of justice in the prerogative court of canterbury november 1754 henry fielding esquire--on the fourteenth day administration (with the will annexed) of the goods chattels and credits of henry fielding late of ealing in the county of middlesex but at lisbon in the kingdom of portugal esquire deceased was granted to john fielding esquire the uncle and curator or guardian lawfully assigned to harriet fielding spinster a minor and sophia fielding an infant the natural and lawfull daughters of the said deceased and two of the residuary legatees named in the said will for the use and benefit of the said minor and infant and until one of them shall attain the age of twenty one years for that ralph allen esquire the sole executor and residuary legatee in trust named in the said will hath renounced as well the execution thereof as letters of administration (with the said will annexed) of the goods chattels and credits of the said deceased and mary fielding widow the relict of the said deceased and the other residuary legatee named in the said will hath also renounced letters of administration (with the said will annexed) of the goods chattels and credits of the said deceased--the said john fielding having been first sworn duly to administer. in addition to the property mentioned here, fielding possessed a library, as mr austin dobson discovered, [1] which when sold six months after his death, "for the benefit of his wife and family," realised £364, 7s. 1d. or "about £100 more than the public gave in 1785 for the books of johnson." [2] also according to the _recollections of the late john adolphus_, by henderson, fielding purchased a 90 years' lease of a house near canterbury, for one of his daughters. of the children mentioned in this will, william became, a contemporary writer tells us, "an eminent barrister at law and inherits the integrity of his father and a large share of his brilliant talents." [3] mr austin dobson refers to william fielding as being like his father "a strenuous advocate of the poor and unfortunate," and adds that the obituary notice in the _gentleman's magazine_ records his worth and piety. [4] harriet fielding is said to have been of "a sweet temper and great understanding." [5] allen fielding became vicar of st. stephens canterbury, and was "greatly beloved by all, especially the little children," writes a descendant. allen fielding's four sons all took orders, and of the second, charles, it was written on his death, that "he had not only a heart that could feel for others, but a heart that lived in giving." [6] the noble qualities of henry fielding found their echo in his descendants. [1] austin dobson. _fielding_. appendix iv. p. 212-13; _and eighteenth century vignettes_, 1896, pp. 164-178. [2] austin dobson. _fielding_. appendix iv. p. 212-13; _and eighteenth century vignettes_, 1896, pp. 164-178. [3] j. nichols. _history and antiquities of leicestershire_. 1810. vol. iv. pt. i. p. 594. [4] austin dobson. _fielding_, p. 192. [5] t. whitehead. _original anecdotes of the late duke of kingston_, 1795. p. 95. [6] _some hapsburghs, fieldings, denbighs and desmonds_, by j. e. m. f. appendix f _fielding's tomb and epitaph_ fielding's present tomb, in the beautiful english cemetery at lisbon, was erected in 1830. on one side is inscribed: luget britannia gremio non dari fovere natum on the other side are the following lines: henrici fielding a somersetensibus apud glastoniam oriundi viri summo ingenio en quae restant: stylo quo non alius unquam intima qui potuit cordis reserare mores hominum excolendos suscepit virtuti decorum, vitio foeditatem asseruit, suum cuique tribuens; non quin ipse subinde irritaretur evitandis ardensin amicitia, in miseria sublevanda effusus hilaris urbanus et conjux et pater adamantus. aliis non sibi vixit vixit sed mortem victricem vincit dum natura durat dum saecula currunt naturae prolem scriptis prae se ferens suam et sua genlis extendet famam. [1] [1] _somerset and dorset notes and queries_. vol. viii. p. 353. appendix g _fielding's posthumous play "the fathers"_ fielding's play _the fathers_ or _the good-natured man_ seems to have been lost (apparently after being submitted to sir charles hanbury williams) till twenty years after fielding's death. it was discovered by m'r johnes, m.p. for cardigan, in 1775, or 1776, who sent it to garrick. garrick recognised it as "harry fielding's comedy"; and, after revision, it was produced at drury lane on november 30, 1778. garrick not only appeared in the cast, but also wrote both prologue and epilogue. a note, in the morrison manuscripts, from garrick to d'r john hoadley, dated january 3, 1776, concludes thus "we have found the lost sheep, henry fielding's good natured man which was mislaid near twenty years." [1] in the following pleasant letter sir john fielding commends mrs fielding's benefit night to dr hunter. "sir john fielding presents his compliments to dr. hunter, and acquaints him that the comedy of 'the good-natured man' written by the late mr. henry fielding will be performed at drury lane next monday being the author's widow's night. "he was your old and sincere friend. there are no other of his works left unpublished. this is the last opportunity you will have of shewing any respect to his memory as a genius, so that i hope you will send all your pupils, all your patients, all your friends, & everybody else to the play that night, by which means you will indulge your benevolent feelings and your sentiments of friendship. [2] "bow street, dec'r 4, 1778." [1] morrison manuscripts. catalogue. [2] _the athenaeum_. february 1. 1890. appendix h _undated accounts of fielding at salisbury and at barnes_ research has so far failed to identify the period of fielding's traditional residence in salisbury. according to the following passage in _old and new sarum or salisbury_, by r. benson and h. hatcher, 1843, he occupied three houses in or near salisbury. "it is well known that fielding the novelist married a lady of salisbury named craddock [sic] and was for a time resident in our city. from tradition we learn that he first occupied the house in the close at the south side of st anne's gate. he afterwards removed to that in st anne's street next to the friary; and finally established himself in the mansion at the foot of milford hill, where he wrote a considerable portion of his _tom jones_." [1] fielding's residence in barnes is no less illusive. the following passage occurs in the edition of 1795 of _lyson's environs of london_: "henry fielding, the celebrated novelist, resided at barnes, in the house which is now the property of mr partington." [2] in the edition of 1811 the house is described as "now the property of mrs stanton, widow of the late admiral stanton." [3] in manning and bray's _surrey_ the name of the house is given: "on barnes green is a very old house called milbourne house.... it was once the residence of henry fielding the celebrated novel writer. the widow of admiral stanton is the present owner of this house." [4] the barnes rate-books appear to throw no light on the date of fielding's residence at milbourne house. it is noteworthy that both the barnes and salisbury statements indicate a man of some means, living as befitted a fielding. [1] _history of wiltshire_. sir r. c. hoare; volume entitled "old and new sarum or salisbury," by r. benson and h. hatcher, 1843. p 602. [2] lysons. _environs of london_, edition of 1795. vol. i. part iii. p. 544. [3] _ibid_. edition 1811. vol. i. p. 10. [4] manning and bray. _history of surrey_, 1814, vol. iii. p. 316. appendix i _an undated letter of fieldings to lady mary wortley montagu_ the following undated letter is printed in _the letters and works of lady mary wortley montagu_ edited by lord wharncliffe and w. m. thomas. lord wharncliffe includes it with the letters from originals among the wortley papers. [1] wednesday evening madam,--i have presumed to send your ladyship a copy of the play which you did me the honour of reading three acts of last spring, and hope it may meet as light a censure from your ladyship's judgment as then; for while your goodness permits me (what i esteem the greatest, and indeed only happiness of my life) to offer my unworthy performances to your perusal, it will be entirely from your sentence that they will be regarded, or disesteemed by me. i shall do myself the honour of calling at your ladyship's door to-morrow at eleven, which, if it be an improper hour, i beg to know from your servant what other time will be more convenient. i am with the greatest respect and gratitude, madam, your ladyship's most obedient, most devoted humble servant. [1] letters and works of lady mary wortley montagu, edited by lord wharncliffe and w. m. thomas. vol. ii. p. 3, note i, and p. 22. appendix j fielding's _tom thumb_ this play appears to have carried some political significance in fielding's day; if it was not, indeed, written with a political intention. this may be gathered from an article in the _daily post_ of march 29, 1742, apropos of a performance of the _tragedy of tragedies_, that night, at drury lane. the article attributes, in detail, political intentions to the _tragedy_--"a piece at first calculated to ridicule some particular persons and affairs in europe (at the time it was writ) but more especially in this island." 