Henry Fielding: a Memoir Part 5

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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sailed 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] _Not.i.tia Dramatica_, MSS. Dept. British Museum, speaks of _Pasquin_ as performed for the fortieth time on April 21, 1736: and quotes an advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sions extremely like their own. Some ten years later, when Fielding revealed the first true sign of his own surpa.s.sing 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, f.a.n.n.y 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.signed 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 pa.s.sages 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 Amus.e.m.e.nts; 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 Amus.e.m.e.nts," and tranquillity, it is surely not impertinent to add this further pa.s.sage, 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 a.s.sent; 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 antic.i.p.ated events by already removing themselves. We may safely a.s.sume 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 d.a.m.ned 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 a.s.signing "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 acc.u.mulated 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" _d.a.m.ning the man who invented fifth acts_, Fielding was now soon to discover his freedom in the s.p.a.cious, 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 circ.u.mstances, 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.