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 standard Authors' 
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HENRY FIELDING. 
 (1707-1754.) 
 
Stanbarb Hutbors' Booklets. 
 
 Henry Fielding 
 
 BY 
 
 J. WALKER McSPADDEN 
 
 >I«LC«1>S T X A-T-SD -, 
 
 ' < , . . 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CROSCUP & STERLING COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 
 
GONC3RESS, j 
 r„#c Copies R£CS'.ved| 
 
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 Copyright 1902, by 
 CROSCUP & STERLING COMPANY 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 HENRY FIELDING: 
 
 I. The Time .... 
 II. The Man .... 
 
 III. The Playwright . 
 
 IV. The Novelist 
 V. Miscellaneous Writings . 
 
 VI. Friends and Contemporaries 
 The Need of a Complete Fielding 
 First Complete Edition of his Works 27 
 List of Fielding's Writings . . -30 
 
 7 
 9 
 13 
 15 
 20 
 22 
 26 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Portrait of Fielding 
 
 Anne Oldfield 
 
 Mrs. Clive (ne'e Raftor) . " 
 
 Front of New Theatre in the 
 Haymarket .... " 
 
 Sharpham House, Fielding's 
 Birthplace .... '« 
 
 Front of Drury Lane Theatre " 
 
 William Ernest Henley, LL.D. " 
 
 Table of Fielding's Contemporaries 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 facing page 7 
 
 " " 9 
 
 " " 13 
 
 24 
 26 
 
 33 
 
MRS. OLDFIELD. 
 See pp. 13 and 14. 
 

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 Henry Fielding 
 
 I. The Time 
 
 ENRY FIELDING is the Cervantes 
 of Eighteenth Century England. 
 With his deep irony and trenchant 
 wit he stormed the castles of sen- 
 timentalism and opened the way for 
 worthier, saner structures. His work must be 
 judged not by its surface, but by its inner cur- 
 rents and the influence upon subsequent lit- 
 erary thought. 
 
 With the restoration of Charles II to the 
 throne in 1660, England threw off the sedate 
 life of the Puritans and plunged into a wild 
 riot of merriment and debauch. The litera- 
 ture reflected the popular trend; and the con- 
 cluding years of the seventeenth century pro- 
 duced novels and plays of anything but edifying 
 character. The stage had deteriorated and 
 palled upon the public taste, which turned for 
 a season to foreign romances of adventure and 
 intrigue — books often sunk in a mire of moral 
 filth though screened by court tinsel and 
 pageantry. 
 
 Then came Swift with his satires, " Tale of 
 a Tub " and " Gulliver's Travels," and Defoe 
 
8 Henry Fielding 
 
 with his sustained narrative " Robinson Cru- 
 soe." These marked a transition. The begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century found a field 
 large and inviting for a new type of fiction. 
 
 To Richardson — that name called up in any 
 survey of Fielding — belongs credit for the 
 founding of a new school : the novel of char- 
 acter and manners, which is the prototype of 
 modern fiction. In his own words, he wished 
 to turn the minds of young persons " into a 
 course of reading different from the pomp and 
 parade of romance writing." Above all things, 
 he desired to combat the unhealthful ten- 
 dency of foreign fiction and ground his plots 
 sternly upon moral conduct. In " Pamela, or 
 Virtue Rewarded," his heroine is made to un- 
 dergo severe temptation and withstand many 
 assaults upon her chastity; and finally to re- 
 claim her libertine lover through the very force 
 of her steadfastness. In " Clarissa Harlowe," 
 the heroine is depicted as falling a prey to 
 circumstance, but still displaying the dignity 
 of a resistant virtue. 
 
 All this was very well for the morals of 
 the time; but Richardson came near erring 
 through excess of zeal. In his eagerness to 
 point the only safe path for virtue, he un- 
 deniably revealed scenes of such glaring real- 
 ism as to affect unfavorably many younger 
 minds particularly susceptible to such influ- 
 ence. He reminds us of Du Maurier's sketch 
 in " Punch," where the old lady says to her 
 grandson : " You surely did not climb into the 
 bathtub with your clothes on ! " To which the 
 young hopeful replies : " No, but I will do it." 
 
MRS. CLIVE. 
 See p. 14. 
 
The Man 9 
 
 Upon this defect of morbid sentimentalism 
 one man looked — smiled — and winked sol- 
 emnly. That man was Henry Fielding — wit, 
 rake, man-about-town, lawyer, dramatist, and 
 henceforth novelist. Let us glance back a 
 moment at this humorist's antecedents and 
 life. 
 
 II. The Man 
 
 HENRY FIELDING could boast a 
 long line of illustrious ancestors, 
 says Austin Dobson. There was a 
 Sir William Feilding (so spelled) 
 killed at Tewkesbury, and a Sir 
 Everard who had commanded at Stoke. An- 
 other Sir William was created Earl of Den- 
 bigh and fell fighting for King Charles. Of 
 his two sons, the elder was a Parliamentarian, 
 and the younger was raised to the peerage of 
 Ireland. From the younger branch Henry di- 
 rectly descended, being of the fourth genera- 
 tion. Edmund Fielding, his father, had served 
 with distinction in the army under Marl- 
 borough. About the age of thirty he left the 
 service with the rank of lieutenant and married 
 Sarah, daughter of Sir Henry Gould, of Sharp- 
 ham Park, Somerset, a Judge of the King's 
 Bench. Henry was the eldest of five children 
 resulting from this union. 
 
 The author of "Tom Jones" was born at 
 
io Henry Fielding 
 
 Sharpham Park, on the 22d of April, 1707. 
 When but two or three years old his parents 
 removed to East Stour, Dorsetshire, and it is 
 there that Henry's boyhood was passed. His 
 first schooling was had under a private tutor. 
 Later he went to Eton, where he must have 
 known William Pitt, Henry Fox, George Lyt- 
 telton and Gilbert West. From Eton he went 
 to Leyden University, but remittances of the 
 family allowance presently failing, he was 
 forced to return to London and endeavor to 
 make his own livelihood. He was now in his 
 twentieth year. 
 
 Fielding had been educated with a view of 
 becoming a lawyer, but in London he early 
 decided to give up that profession and at- 
 tempt to live by his wits. As he himself 
 jocosely remarked, " I must be either a hack- 
 ney coachman or a hackney-writer." He 
 therefore turned to writing plays, several of 
 which were produced with some success by 
 the best actors and actresses of the time, such 
 as Garrick and Mrs. Oldfield. Of these plays 
 we shall take occasion to speak again later. 
 The young author was now serving his ap- 
 prenticeship and gradually acquiring more and 
 more facility with his pen. As to his pecuniary 
 success we cannot be so certain. But about 
 the spring of 1735 he married a Miss Char- 
 lotte Cradock, an attractive young woman, 
 whom he seemed to have loved, and who was 
 an heiress in her own right. He withdrew 
 from London with her to his early home in 
 Dorsetshire, where (according to some biog- 
 raphers) he squandered her money and his 
 
^■.-.;,.- J .a.— ,-r T-rir 
 
 The Man n 
 
 asaa II III I ■ II II l«B^«— — ^M^M»^— — — 
 
 own in riotous living and lavish entertaining — 
 for he was always a man who lived largely 
 and not always cautiously. Be that as it may, 
 we find him again in London, in the succeed- 
 ing year, when he became manager of the 
 Haymarket Theatre. Shortly afterward he 
 entered the Middle Temple as a student of 
 law, but again his literary bent asserted itself, 
 and in 1739 he began writing for the 
 " Champion," a periodical of essays modeled 
 along the lines of the " Tatler." The first of 
 his novels, " Joseph Andrews," was published 
 in 1742, to be followed at intervals by the three 
 other books of the great quartette upon which 
 his fame rests — " Jonathan Wild," " Tom 
 Jones" and "Amelia," the last being com- 
 pleted in 1751. 
 
 Meanwhile he had eked out his living by 
 editing other journals and by serving as a 
 justice of the peace. In 1754, failing health 
 obliged him to journey to Lisbon, where he 
 died on the 8th of October in that year. 
 
 In person Fielding was tall and large (says 
 Keightley) being upwards of six feet high; 
 and he seems to have attached much value to 
 physical power, for he forms all his heroes 
 after his own likeness. In consequence prob- 
 ably of his formation, he appears to have had 
 a high relish for animal enjoyments. But we 
 have no proof that his life was otherwise than 
 regular after his marriage. Even in his most 
 licentious days he never lost his respect for 
 religion and virtue. 
 
 Says Taine : " Fielding protests on behalf of 
 nature; and certainly to see his actions and 
 
12 Henry Fielding: 
 
 his person, we might think him made ex- 
 pressly for that: a robust, strongly-built man, 
 above six feet, sanguine, with an excess of 
 good humour and animal spirits, loyal, gen- 
 erous, affectionate and brave, but impudent, 
 extravagant, a drinker, a roysterer, ruined as 
 it were by his heirloom, having seen the ups 
 and downs of life, bespattered, but always 
 jolly. . . . Force, activity, invention, ten- 
 derness, all overflowed in him. He had a 
 mother's fondness for his children, adored his 
 wife, became almost mad when he lost her, 
 found no other consolation than to weep with 
 his maidservant, and ended by marrying that 
 good and honest girl, that he might give a 
 mother to his children; the last trait in the 
 portrait of his valiant plebeian heart, quick in 
 telling all, possessing no dislikes, but all the 
 best parts of man except delicacy. We read 
 his books as we drink a pure, wholesome and 
 rough wine, which cheers and fortifies us, and 
 which wants nothing but boquet" 
 
The Playwright 13 
 
 III. The Playwright 
 
 BALZAC, serving his apprenticeship 
 in a Parisian garret, first turned his 
 r""jj|S hand to writing " blood-and-thun- 
 BjBj|]P der " novels, now carefully classi- 
 fied — and avoided — as "Works of 
 Youth." To the young man Fielding, cut off 
 from the family allowance and facing life in 
 London, the easiest path to literature, if not 
 wealth, seemed to be the drama. In 1728 
 there were not many theatres in London, but 
 the two or three then open were destined to 
 lasting fame by reason of the actors and plays 
 produced. First, there was the old Opera 
 House in the Haymarket, built in 1705 upon 
 the site now occupied by Her Majesty's 
 Theatre. Opposite it stood the New, or Little 
 Theatre in the Haymarket. Then there was 
 the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and finally, 
 oldest of them all, came the Theatre-Royal in 
 Drury Lane, where played Colley Cibber, 
 Robert Wilks, Barton Booth and Mrs. Anne 
 Oldfield. The following year, Goodman's 
 Fields opened its doors, and here it was that 
 Garrick first appeared. Covent Garden be- 
 longs to a later year. 
 
 The young Fielding was fortunate enough 
 to secure the interest of Mrs. Oldfield, Wilks 
 and Cibber in regard to his first play, " Love 
 in Several Masques." It was put on at Drury 
 Lane, with Mrs. Oldfield in the leading femi- 
 
14 Henry Fielding" 
 
 nine role, and its success, in whatever degree, 
 was probably due to her art and popularity. 
 In another play, " The Lottery," presented 
 three years later, he was again fortunate in 
 enlisting the services of Miss Raftor, who 
 was later to reach the heights of histrionic 
 fame as Mrs. Clive. This splendid actress re- 
 mained for several years a staunch friend of 
 the young playwright, and undoubtedly con- 
 tributed largely to his success. Later he had 
 the advice and assistance of David Garrick. 
 Fielding's dramatic lines had been cast in 
 profitable places. For nearly ten years he 
 wrote plays, chiefly in the burlesque or comic 
 vein. One of his earliest biographers said 01 
 them : " Though it must be acknowledged that 
 in the whole collection there are few plays 
 likely to make any considerable figure on the 
 stage hereafter [this was in 1762], yet they 
 are worthy of being preserved, being the works 
 of a genius who in his wildest and most in- 
 accurate productions yet occasionally displays 
 the talent of a master. Though in the plan of 
 his plays he is not always regular, yet he is 
 often happy in diction and style; and in 
 every group that he has exhibited there are 
 to be seen particular delineations that will 
 amply recompense the attention bestowed upon 
 them." 
 
 Perhaps his most enduring plays are " Tom 
 Thumb," " Pasquin," " The Miser " and " The 
 Wedding Day." Others, while receiving atten- 
 tion at the time, relied for popularity upon 
 their satire of contemporary events. Fielding 
 the playwright began at twenty and ended at 
 
The Novelist 15 
 
 thirty years. Fielding the novelist was the 
 more experienced man of forty, writing not 
 because pressed by want — as may have been 
 the case in some of the plays — but because he 
 had obtained a larger vision of life, and was 
 called upon to set down what he saw — soberly, 
 calmly, and with the pen of abiding genius. 
 
 IV. The Novelist 
 
 WE have already pictured Fielding 
 as smiling over the sentimentalism 
 of Richardson's " Pamela." It was 
 this smile that led to the end of the 
 playwriting and the beginning of the 
 novel-making on the part of the humorist. 
 Seized by an impulse to ridicule, he began 
 "Joseph Andrews"; but it ended far above 
 the bounds its author had set for it. Then 
 came "Jonathan Wild" — still in a spirit of 
 ridicule. Finally, with the appearance of 
 "Tom Jones" and "Amelia," England awoke 
 to the fact that she had another master 
 novelist. 
 
 JOSEPH ANDREWS 
 
 The biting satire of " Joseph Andrews " lies 
 in the situation. Joseph is made the brother 
 of Richardson's virtuous Pamela, assailed in 
 his turn by all the temptations which had 
 caused her woe. But, in this case, a reversal 
 of the sexes results in a broad burlesque. The 
 
1 6 Henry Fielding- 
 
 story speedily grows beyond a parody, how- 
 ever, and takes on a more dignified and inde- 
 pendent interest. And at least two characters 
 destined to immortality are produced, in the 
 persons of Mrs. Slipslap and Parson Adams — 
 who alone abundantly justify the existence of 
 this book and absolve it from the weakness of 
 a parody. Upon its title-page "Joseph An- 
 drews " is declared to be " written in imitation 
 of the manner of Cervantes," and indeed we 
 can see many touches common to the Spanish 
 writer, especially in the troubles and adven- 
 tures of the well-meaning Parson. Like Cer- 
 vantes, too, Fielding was applying vigorous 
 weapons against a faulty condition. The 
 " womanish " Richardson, being offended by 
 an impure literature, had gone to an extreme 
 of avoidance. With coarse laughter, Fielding 
 represents the return swing of the pendulum, 
 and his work is to influence a wholesome me- 
 dium — not directly, but by suggestion. 
 
 JONATHAN WILD 
 
 "'Jonathan Wild/" says Coleridge, "is as- 
 suredly the best of all the fictions in which a 
 villain is throughout the prominent character." 
 Again we have a satire by reversion — this time, 
 not of the sexes, but of types. Instead of 
 choosing a hero of integrity and honor, the 
 author deliberately holds up a villain to be 
 admired. The satire is in no way directed 
 against genuine worth — as the author is care- 
 ful to explain — but against the conventionality 
 of romance where there is always "a virtuous 
 
The Novelist 17 
 
 and gallant hero, a wicked monster his oppo- 
 site, and a pretty girl who finds a champion." 
 Thackeray, whom we have just quoted, con- 
 tinues : " In that strange apologue [of " Jona- 
 than Wild "] the author takes for a hero the 
 greatest rascal, coward, traitor, tyrant, hypo- 
 crite, that his wit and experience, both large 
 in this matter, could enable him to devise or 
 depict: he accompanies this villain through all 
 the actions of his life, with a grinning defer- 
 ence and a wonderful mock respect; and does 
 not leave him until he is dangling at the gal- 
 lows, when the satirist makes him a low bow 
 and wishes the scoundrel good-day." 
 
 TOM JONES 
 
 Once more we see the influence of Cervantes 
 in " Tom Jones," the classic upon which Field- 
 ing's larger fame rests. " Like ' Don Quixote/ " 
 says Dobson, " ' 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 amus- 
 ing as ' Don Quixote/ it has the advantage of 
 a greatly superior plan, and an interest more 
 skillfully sustained. The incidents which in 
 Cervantes simply succeed each other like the 
 scenes in a panorama are, in ' Tom Jones/ but 
 parts of an organized and carefully-arranged 
 procession towards a foreseen conclusion." 
 One of the chief marvels of this story is its 
 plot — always kept well in hand, however intri- 
 cate. Each scene, no matter how apparently 
 
1 8 Henry Fielding 
 
 trivial, has been placed there with reference 
 to some other episode. The wonder of it all 
 is seen after the story is ended — if the reader 
 do but look back at the many finely joined 
 parts of the superstructure. 
 
 The other great claim for this novel — and 
 perhaps the chiefest — is its picture of life and 
 manners. Fielding has succeeded in photo- 
 graphing his characters so clearly that after 
 the lapse of a century and a half they seem real 
 and living. This does not mean that we ad- 
 mire them all. The hero himself is not en- 
 titled to unequivocal admiration. He sows 
 wild oats too generously to serve as a model ; 
 and his repentance, however sincere, comes 
 too close on the promise of his reward. But, 
 as Henry Morley says, the book breathes 
 health. The convention of the time did not 
 forbid a direct picturing of its evil; and the 
 scenes good and bad are always given for what 
 they are, and with no false gloss upon them. 
 Vice is not made ethically triumphant over 
 virtue; while the whole texture of thought 
 and action is imbued with the charm of 
 genius. 
 
 AMELIA 
 
 In point of general excellence, " Amelia " is 
 generally considered inferior to " Tom Jones," 
 yet it presents pictures of domestic life which 
 make it highly valuable on its own account. 
 It is also morally stronger than its predecessor. 
 The prodigal Captain Booth is a better man 
 than the erratic Tom Jones. Traits in each of 
 
The Novelist 19 
 
 them lead us to suspect that they are pat- 
 terned to an extent after Fielding himself. 
 There is little doubt but that the author had 
 his own wife in mind when he drew the por- 
 trait of Amelia. " To have invented that char- 
 acter," says Thackeray, " is not only a triumph 
 of art but it is a good action. They say that 
 it was in his own house that Fielding knew her 
 and loved her ; and from his own wife 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." 
 
 " Of all his novels," says E. P. Whipple, 
 " ' Amelia ' leaves the finest impression of quiet 
 domestic delight, of the sweet home feeling, 
 and the humanities connected with it. . . . 
 Amelia herself, the wife and mother, arrayed 
 in all matronly graces, with her rosy children 
 about her, is a picture of womanly gentleness 
 and beauty, and unostentatious heroism, such 
 as never leaves the imagination in which it 
 has once found a place." 
 
20 Henry Fielding 
 
 V. Miscellaneous Writings 
 
 A! SURVEY of the work of Fielding 
 would be incomplete without men- 
 tion of his poems and miscellaneous 
 writings. One of his earliest pub- 
 lished works was a versified adap- 
 tation into English of part of Juvenal's sixth 
 satire — a broad satire in octosyllabic lines 
 aimed ostensibly at some of the evils of society 
 in Fielding's own time. In the first volume 
 of his " Miscellanies " was printed a collec- 
 tion of love poems, which their author de- 
 clared to be " Productions of the Heart 
 rather than of the Head." It was published 
 in 1743, the year in which appeared " The 
 Journey from this World to the Next," a 
 witty satire culminating, in the narrative, with 
 the author's entrance into Elysium. This 
 book lacks coherence, but is enlivened by some 
 amusing passages. 
 
 Mention has already been made of Fielding's 
 contributions to the " Champion." These es- 
 says form a rich collection of current comment, 
 comprising enough material in themselves for 
 a good-sized volume. His essay writing was 
 not limited to this periodical, but also found 
 expression in the " True Patient," the " Jacob- 
 ites' Journal," and the " Covent Garden Jour- 
 nal." All this scattered material has now been 
 pretty definitely identified by scholars. 
 
 In the legal field this indefatigable man like- 
 wise left his impress. His magistracy resulted 
 in the writing up of some of his most interest- 
 
FRONT OF THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET. 
 
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 "V*": 
 
 
 
 
 
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 SHARPHAM HOUSE, 
 Fielding's Birthplace. 
 
Miscellaneous Writings 21 
 
 ing cases, such as that of " Elizabeth Can- 
 ning " and that of " Bosavern Penlez"; and 
 also a clear-cut " Enquiry into the Causes of 
 the late Increase of Robbers," which was dedi- 
 cated to the Lord High Chancellor, Lord Hard- 
 wicke, by whom, as well as by more recent 
 legal authorities, it was highly appreciated. 
 
 In 1743 appeared the three volumes of " Mis- 
 cellanies," the first of which included a lengthy 
 preface, Fielding's poems, and essays " On 
 Conversation," " On the Knowledge of the 
 Character of Men," and " On Nothing." The 
 second volume included the " Journey from 
 this World to the Next " and two of his plays. 
 The third volume was wholly occupied with 
 " Jonathan Wild." 
 
 Ten years later Fielding began his "Journal 
 of a Voyage to Lisbon." To that city he had 
 gone in quest of health, and there it was he 
 died. The story of the closing months of his 
 life as related by himself is " one of the most 
 unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own 
 or any other literature." Here we obtain a 
 final glimpse of the man, and by far the best. 
 We see him a sufferer, a wanderer, and a 
 courteous gentleman. If any portrait of him 
 is to be handed down to history, let it be the 
 last rather than the first; not the Fielding of 
 the green-room and the tavern, but he of 
 maturer and sedate years — the tender husband 
 and father, the kindly host of his poorer 
 friends, the chivalrous and patient wanderer 
 in a " Voyage to Lisbon." 
 
 Note.— For a complete list of Fielding's Writings see 
 pages 30 to 32. 
 
ii i, MI B <M a^ BigMia jj ai ji Mi ^ B MBiaMaaiaM 
 
 22 Henry Fielding* 
 
 VI. Friends and Contemporaries 
 
 SINGULARLY enough, the one name 
 indissolubly connected with Fielding 
 is not that of a friend; for Richard- 
 son never understood his rival 
 novelist, and never forgave him for 
 his parodies. But the two names have come 
 to be closely welded as the chiefest novelists 
 of the time, and their work standing at oppo- 
 site goals has jointly established the bounds of 
 succeeding fiction. 
 
 Nor could the literary dictator, Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson, be called a friend of Fielding's; he 
 was too strong an adherent of Richardson's 
 for that. And although the Doctor read at 
 least one of Fielding's books through with- 
 out stopping, he could never be induced to do 
 more than studiously find fault with them. 
 
 Fielding paid more than one tribute to the 
 abilities of Alexander Pope both as trans- 
 lator of the " Iliad," and as author of the 
 " Essay on Man," but some doubt exists as to 
 their personal relations. For a time they ap- 
 pear to have been more hostile than friendly. 
 
 Thomas Gray, the poet, was not in sympathy 
 with Fielding's method. He wrote a cold crit- 
 ique of "Joseph Andrews," but at the same 
 time could discern the power of the pen which 
 produced it. 
 
 Smollett, Colley Cibber, and Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole were among others who waged war 
 
Friends and Contemporaries 23 
 
 against him. Smollett's took the form of per- 
 sonal rancor, aroused because of Fielding's 
 criticisms of " Roderick Random " and " Pere- 
 grime Pickle," and found vent in a coarse, 
 abusive pamphlet full of brutal strictures. 
 Cibber was put upon the defensive by certain 
 bantering personalities aimed at him in the 
 " Champion," and to which he replied by his 
 famous " Apology." Why Cibber and Fielding 
 grew apart is not known, for in the latter's 
 eariy days the actor had helped him greatly. 
 Walpole's malice was called forth by Fielding's 
 covert satires on his administration. 
 
 Andrew Millar, the book-publisher and 
 seller, proved a serviceable friend to Fielding. 
 Millar, it may be remembered, was the pub- 
 lisher of Johnson's Dictionary. He brought 
 out Fielding's works with considerable suc- 
 cess. Horace Walpole writes : " Millar, the 
 bookseller, has done very generously by him; 
 finding Tom Jones, for which he had given 
 him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he 
 has given him another hundred." 
 
 William Hogarth drew one of the best por- 
 traits of Fielding (the one included in the 
 present booklet). A friendship and admira- 
 tion seem always to have been maintained be- 
 tween the two men. Fielding spoke in high- 
 est terms of both the drawings and the writ- 
 ings of Hogarth, and the latter acknowledged 
 the compliment by kindly references in his 
 turn. 
 
 A friend of very great value to Fielding 
 was George, Lord Lyttelton, whom he first 
 met in his schoolboy days at Eton. Lyttel- 
 
24 Henry Fielding- 
 
 ton manifested lively interest in his friend 
 throughout his life; and there is even a hint 
 that he helped him out of financial straits. 
 " Tom Jones " was dedicated to him, and the 
 author says : " Without your assistance this 
 History had never been completed." 
 
 We have already spoken of the stage friends 
 of Fielding — Garrick, Mrs. Oldfield, and Mrs. 
 Clive. And mention must be made of his 
 distinguished second-cousin, Lady Mary Wort- 
 ley Montagu, whose prominence and influence 
 aided him greatly in his early years. She 
 gave him excellent assistance in perusing and 
 criticizing his plays, and left a definite im- 
 press upon his character and writings. An- 
 other kinswoman who influenced his early 
 London life was Miss Sarah Andrew with 
 whom he fell desperately in love. He would 
 have eloped with her, it is said, had she not 
 been removed beyond his reach. Her image, 
 however, was never effaced from his memory; 
 and it is believed that she is pictured in the 
 lovely portrait of Sophia Western, in " Tom 
 Jones." 
 
 Sarah Jennings, first Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, and wife of the famous military com- 
 mander, was noted for the acidity of her 
 tongue no less than for her mental attain- 
 ments. Her frequent broils with statesmen 
 led to an attack upon her in a current maga- 
 zine, which was attributed to Johnson, and 
 which Fielding characterized as scurrilous. He 
 replied in a " Vindication." But as to his 
 personal relations with the dowager or her 
 friendship for him, we can only surmise. 
 
Friends and Contemporaries 25 
 
 Ralph Allen, a country gentleman, renowned 
 for his lavish hospitality, was a loyal friend 
 to Fielding, who dedicated " Amelia " to him. 
 Upon the author's death, Allen saw to the edu- 
 cation of his children, and settled an hundred 
 pounds a year upon them. 
 
 In conclusion, Fielding's relations with his 
 contemporaries were like those with literature. 
 Throughout he was open and courageous — 
 giving of himself generously, yet fearless in 
 attack. His fights, moreover, were in the open 
 light of day and tinctured by no mean re- 
 venge. To his friends he was unwaveringly 
 true. Says Lowell : — 
 
 "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." 
 
 $£ 
 
26 Henry Fielding 
 
 THE NEED OF 
 A Complete Edition of Fielding 
 
 "The real monument which Fielding's mem- 
 ory most needs is one that does not ask for the 
 chisel of any sculptor or the voice of any ora- 
 tor. It is, moreover, a memorial which would 
 neither be difficult to raise nor pecuniarily un- 
 profitable. This memorial is a complete edi- 
 tion of his writings. Though one hundred and 
 thirty years have gone by since his death, this 
 act of justice to his reputation has never yet 
 been performed. Apparently, it has never 
 once been contemplated. A portion of his 
 work — and, in a certain way, of work especially 
 characteristic — is practically inaccessible to the 
 immense majority of English-speaking men. 
 We are the losers by this neglect more than he. 
 The mystery which envelops much of Field- 
 ing's career can never be cleared away, the es- 
 timate of his character and conduct can never 
 be satisfactorily fixed, until everything he 
 wrote has been put into the hands of indepen- 
 dent investigators pursuing separate lines of 
 study." — Thomas R. Lounsbury, LL.D., Yale 
 College. 
 
 •sr 
 
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, LL.D., 
 Editor of the New Fielding. 
 
Complete Works 2J 
 
 THE COMPLETE WRITINGS OF 
 
 Henry Fielding, Esq- 
 
 Comprising the unexpurgated text of 
 
 His Novels, Plays, Poems and Miscellaneous 
 Writings. 
 
 A FINAL AND DEFINITIVE EDITION 
 
 With an Essay on the Life, Genius and 
 Achievement of the Author, by 
 
 WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, LL.D. 
 
 COMPLETE IN SIXTEEN VOLUMES. 
 
 ESSRS. Croscup & Sterling Com- 
 pany have great pleasure in an- 
 nouncing the immediate publication 
 of the COMPLETE WRITINGS 
 OF HENRY FIELDING thus sup- 
 plying for the first time the literary 
 urgency as stated by Professor Lounsbury. 
 
 To this end, and to provide at once and for 
 all time a definitive edition, every known source 
 in Great Britain, the continent and America 
 has been searched by the aid of experts for the 
 remains of Henry Fielding, the greatest and 
 most characteristic of English novelists of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Most people know Fielding as merely a 
 novelist. Yet in addition to his four great 
 novels, he wrote twenty-five plays, some of 
 which held the stage in their day. He pleaded 
 at the bar, and wrote political articles and 
 pamphlets of considerable power. He is the 
 greatest figure of the eighteenth century in 
 England among imaginative writers. 
 
28 Henry Fielding 
 
 The editorship has been undertaken by Mr. 
 William Ernest Henley, who will contribute to 
 the final volume an essay an the Life, Genius 
 and Achievement of the Author. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The edition of Fielding here presented will 
 be carefully collated throughout with the earli- 
 est and most approved text. 
 
 As for Commentary, neither expense nor 
 pains has been spared in the effort to bring 
 together in this work every possible aid for 
 an intelligent understanding of the personality 
 of the great author, his writings and his times. 
 
 To this end, in addition to the literary work 
 of the editor, the rights to the valuable intro- 
 duction and illustrative notes by Mr. Austin 
 Dobson to A Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 
 have been purchased from the English pub- 
 lishers, and will be included. 
 
 A valuable paper on The Descent of Field- 
 ing , illustrated with the authentic Fielding 
 arms, will be specially contributed by Mr. A. 
 C. Fox-Davies, the eminent English geneal- 
 ogist, and editor of "The Genealogical Maga- 
 zine." 
 
 A complete Bibliography of the First Edi- 
 tions of Fielding's writings will also be in- 
 cluded, being the -first systematic attempt of 
 the kind; and for the special interest of the 
 general reader there will be prefixed to each 
 of the novels a List of ihe Characters appear- 
 ing in the story. 
 
 And for the text nothing in existence which 
 this prolific writer produced will be omitted 
 from this unique edition, which will vindicate 
 for all time Fielding's reputation not only as a 
 novelist, but as an earnest practical lawyer and 
 publicist. 
 
Complete Works 29 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Fielding is an author whom artists have 
 loved to illustrate, and the best line artists of 
 the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries 
 vied with each other in producing pictorially his 
 fine and clear-cut types of English character. 
 The great caricaturist Rowlandson is naturally 
 in his element as illustrator to the creator oi 
 Square the Philosopher, Thwackum, and Part- 
 ridge. But the genre painter Corbould, the 
 classic Stothard, Borel, Hulett, Rooker, Ho- 
 garth, and others also found congenial work in 
 lighting up to the eye, what Fielding presented 
 to the understanding. 
 
 In addition to these illustrations every possi- 
 ble print and engraving illustrative of scenes 
 in the great writer's life has been reproduced. 
 
 The engraved titles will be the facsimile of a 
 design by Corbould, and the lettering is taken 
 from one of the earliest editions. 
 
 Thus everything worthy of pictorial perpet-> 
 uation has been here reproduced, making this 
 edition in text and illustrations a final and 
 complete collection of all that now exists of 
 Fielding. 
 
 MANUFACTURE. 
 
 The work will be printed from a clear open- 
 face type, upon beautiful paper of special make, 
 with watermark, and the presentment of the 
 volumes will in every respect be worthy of this 
 great classic. 
 
 Full descriptive circulars with sample pages 
 and illustration will be forwarded free of 
 charge to any address. 
 
 Croscup & Sterling Company, 135 Fifth 
 Avenue, New York. 
 
30 Henry Fielding 
 
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 Synopsis of Contents 
 
 (i) NOVELS, 7 vols. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 The Adventures of Joseph Andrews. 
 
 volume 2. 
 Jonathan Wild. 
 A Journey from this World to the Next. 
 
 volume 3. 
 The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, I. 
 
 volume 4. 
 The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, II. 
 
 volume 5. 
 The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, III. 
 
 volume 6. 
 Amelia, I. 
 
 VOLUME 7. 
 
 Amelia, II. 
 
 (2) PLAYS AND POEMS, 5 vols. 
 
 VOLUME 8. 
 
 Love in Several Masques. 
 
 The Temple Beau. 
 
 The Author's Farce; with a Puppet Show 
 Called The Pleasures of the Town. 
 
 The Lottery. 
 
 volume 9. 
 
 The Tragedy of Tragedies ; or, The Life and 
 Death of Tom Thumb, the Great. 
 
 The Coffee-House Politicians; or, the Jus- 
 tice Caught in His Own Trap. 
 
 The Letter- Writers ; or, A New Way to 
 Keep a Wife at Home. 
 
 The Grub-Street Opera. 
 
 The Debauchees; or, The Jesuit Caught. 
 
Complete Works 31 
 
 VOLUME 10. 
 
 The Modern Husband. 
 
 The Covent Garden Tragedy. 
 
 The Mock Doctor; or, The Dumb Lady 
 Cured. 
 
 The Miser. 
 
 The Intriguing Chambermaid. 
 
 The Old Man Taught Wisdom ; or, The Vir- 
 gin Unmasked. 
 
 volume 11. 
 
 Don Quixote in England. 
 
 The Universal Gallant; or, The Different 
 
 Husbands. 
 Pasquin; a Dramatic Satire on the Times. 
 The Historical Register for the Year 1736. 
 Eurydice. 
 Eurydice Hissed; or, A Word to the Wise. 
 
 VOLUME 12. 
 
 Tumbledown Dick; or, Phaeton in the 
 
 Suds. 
 Miss Lucy in Town. 
 The Wedding Day. 
 
 The Fathers; or, The Good-Natured Man. 
 Introduction to Miscellanies and Poems 
 
 (1743). 
 Poems. 
 
 (3) LEGAL WRITINGS, 1 vol. 
 
 VOLUME 13. 
 
 An Inquiry into the Causes of the Late 
 Increase of Robbers, etc. 
 
 A Proposal for Making an Effectual Pro- 
 vision for the Poor. 
 
 A Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury, 
 June 29TH, 1749. 
 
 A Clear State of the Case of Elizabeth 
 Canning. 
 
 A True State of the Case of Bosavern 
 Penlez. 
 
32 Henry Fielding: 
 
 (4) MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 
 3 vols. 
 
 VOLUME 14. 
 
 The True Patriot. 
 The Jacobites Journal. 
 The Covent Garden Journal. 
 An Essay on Conversation. 
 An Essay on the Knowledge of the Char- 
 acters of Men. 
 An Essay on Nothing. 
 The Opposition; A Vision. 
 
 volume 15. 
 
 A Full Vindication of the Duchess Dow- 
 ager of Marlborough. 
 The Vernoniad. 
 Philosophical Transactions for the Year 
 
 1742-43. 
 Articles in the Champion. 
 
 volume 16. 
 
 An Essay on the Life, Genius and Achieve- 
 ment of the Author, by W. E. Henley. 
 
 The Descent of Henry Fielding, by A. C. Fox- 
 Davies. 
 
 Bibliography of the First Editions of Fielding's 
 Writings. 
 
 Preface to David Simple. 
 
 Preface to Familiar Letters. 
 
 Dedication and Preface to Plutus; A 
 Comedy. 
 
 The First Olynthiac of Demosthenes. 
 
 A Dialogue Between Jupiter, Juno, Apollo 
 and Mercury. 
 
 Of the Remedy of Affliction for the Loss 
 of our Friends. 
 
 Examples of the Interposition of Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 A Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon; with in- 
 troduction and notes by Austin Dobson. 
 
 A Fragment of a Comment on Lord Boling- 
 brooke's Essays. 
 
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