Henry Fielding: a Memoir Part 6

_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 c.u.m &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 const.i.tution 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 Ma.n.u.scripts_ 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 t.i.tle 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 cla.s.ses.

The Prince of Wales, now openly hostile to the "great man," was the t.i.tular 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 Bra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sing 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 n.o.ble 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 fict.i.tious name a political, literary, and didactic newspaper entered the field of party politics on November 15, 1739. The paper, under the t.i.tle 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 a.s.serts 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 ent.i.tled "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, a.s.serts, 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script, 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sengers embark carrying nothing with them; and the narrator describes how, after various Shades had qualified for their pa.s.sage, "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 l.u.s.ty _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, ent.i.tled _The Tryal of Colley Cibber_. The collection concludes as follows:

"ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT

"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 a.s.sertion, 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 doc.u.ments 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"