POSTSCRIPT.

Previous

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 seventy- three. 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 "Universal- Register-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.

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