Fielding Part 9

LUGET BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DARI FOVERE NATUM. [Footnote: The fifth word is generally given as "datum." But the above version, which has been verified at Lisbon, may be accepted as correct.]

It is to this last memorial that the late George Borrow referred in his _Bible in Spain:_--

"Let travellers devote one entire morning to inspecting the Arcos and the Mai das agoas, after which they may repair to the English church and cemetery, Pere-la-chaise in miniature, where, if they be of England, they may well be excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as I did, of the author of "Amelia," the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fas.h.i.+on to abuse in public and to read in secret."

Borrow's book was first published in 1843. Of late years the tomb had been somewhat neglected; but from a communication in the _Athenaeum_ of May 1879, it appears that it had then been recently cleaned, and the inscriptions restored, by order of the present chaplain, the Rev.

G.o.dfrey Pope.

There is but one authentic portrait of Henry Fielding. This is the pen- and-ink sketch drawn from memory by Hogarth, long after Fielding's death, to serve as a frontispiece for Murphy's edition of his works. It was engraved in _facsimile_ by James Basire, with such success that the artist is said to have mistaken an impression of the plate (without its emblematic border) for his own drawing. Hogarth's sketch is the sole source of all the portraits, more or less "romanced," which are prefixed to editions of Fielding; and also, there is good reason to suspect, of the dubious little miniature, still in possession of his descendants, which figures in Hutchins's _History of Dorset_ and elsewhere. More than one account has been given of the way in which the drawing was produced.

The most effective, and, unfortunately, the most popular, version has, of course, been selected by Murphy. In this he tells us that Hogarth, being unable to recall his dead friend's features, had recourse to a profile cut in paper by a lady, who possessed the happy talent which Pope ascribes to Lady Burlington. Her name, which is given in Nichols, was Margaret Collier, and she was possibly the identical Miss Collier who figures in Richardson's _Correspondence_. Setting aside the fact that, as Hogarth's eye-memory was marvellous, this story is highly improbable, it was expressly contradicted by George Steevens in 1781, and by John Ireland in 1798, both of whom, from their relations with Hogarth's family, were likely to be credibly informed. Steevens, after referring to Murphy's fable, says in the _Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth_, "I am a.s.sured that our artist began and finished the head in the presence of his wife and another lady. He had no a.s.sistance but from his own memory, which, on such occasions, was remarkably tenacious." Ireland, in his _Hogarth Ill.u.s.trated_, gives us as the simple fact the following:--"Hogarth being told, after his friend's death, that a portrait was wanted as a frontispiece to his works, sketched this from memory." According to the inscription on Basire's plate, it represents Fielding at the age of forty-eight, or in the year of his death. This, however, can only mean that it represents him as Hogarth had last seen him. But long before he died, disease had greatly altered his appearance; and he must have been little more than the shadow of the handsome Harry Fielding, who wrote farces for Mrs. Clive, and heard the chimes at midnight. As he himself says in the _Voyage to Lisbon_, he had lost his teeth, and the consequent falling-in of the lips is plainly perceptible in the profile. The shape of the Roman nose, which Colonel James in _Amelia_ irreverently styled a "proboscis,"

would, however, remain unaltered, and it is still possible to divine a curl, half humorous, half ironic, in the short upper lip. The eye, apparently, was dark and deep-set. Oddly enough, the chin, to the length of which he had himself referred in the _Champion_, does not appear abnormal. [Footnote: In the bust of Fielding which Miss Margaret Thomas has been commissioned by Mr. R. A. Kinglake to execute for the Somerset Valhalla, the s.h.i.+re-Hall at Taunton, these points have been carefully considered; and the sculptor has succeeded in producing a work which, while it suggests the mingling of humour and dignity that is Fielding's chief characteristic, is also generally faithful to Hogarth's indications. From these, indeed, it is impossible to deviate. Not only is his portrait unique; but it was admitted to be like Fielding by Fielding's friends. The bust was placed in the s.h.i.+re Hall, 4th September 1883.]

Beyond the fact that he was above six feet in height, and, until the gout had broken his const.i.tution, unusually robust, Murphy adds nothing further to our idea of his personal appearance.

That other picture of his character, traced and retraced (often with much exaggeration of outline), is so familiar in English literature, that it cannot now be materially altered or amended. Yet it is impossible not to wish that it were derived from some less prejudiced or more trustworthy witnesses than those who have spoken,--say, for example, from Lyttelton or Allen. There are always signs that Walpole's malice, and Smollett's animosity, and the rancour of Richardson, have had too much to do with the representation; and even Murphy and Lady Mary are scarcely persons whom one would select as ideal biographers.

The latter is probably right in comparing her cousin to Sir Richard Steele. Both were generous, kindly, brave, and sensitive; both were improvident; both loved women and little children; both sinned often, and had their moments of sincere repentance; to both was given that irrepressible hopefulness, and full delight of being which forgets to- morrow in to-day. That Henry Fielding was wild and reckless in his youth it would be idle to contest;--indeed it is an intelligible, if not a necessary, consequence of his physique and his temperament. But it is not fair to speak of him as if his youth lasted for ever. "Critics and biographers," says Mr. Leslie Stephen, "have dwelt far too exclusively upon the uglier side of his Bohemian life;" and Fielding himself, in the _Jacobite's Journal_, complains sadly that his enemies have traced his impeachment "even to his boyish Years." That he who was prodigal as a lad was prodigal as a man may be conceded; that he who was sanguine at twenty would be sanguine at forty (although this is less defensible) may also be allowed. But, if we press for "better a.s.surance than Bardolph,"

there is absolutely no good evidence that Fielding's career after his marriage materially differed from that of other men struggling for a livelihood, hampered with ill-health, and exposed to all the s.h.i.+fts and humiliations of necessity. If any portrait of him is to be handed down to posterity, let it be the last rather than the first;--not the Fielding of the green-room and the tavern--of Covent Garden frolics and "modern conversations;" but the energetic magistrate, the tender husband and father, the kindly host of his poorer friends, the practical philanthropist, the patient and magnanimous hero of the _Voyage to Lisbon_. If these things be remembered, it will seem of minor importance that to his dying day he never knew the value of money, or that he forgot his troubles over a chicken and champagne. And even his improvidence was not without its excusable side. Once--so runs the legend--Andrew Millar made him an advance to meet the claims of an importunate tax-gatherer. Carrying it home, he met a friend, in even worse straits than his own; and the money changed hands. When the tax- gatherer arrived there was nothing but the answer--"Friends.h.i.+p has called for the money and had it; let the collector call again." Justice, it is needless to say, was satisfied by a second advance from the bookseller. But who shall condemn the man of whom such a story can be told?

The literary work of Fielding is so inextricably interwoven with what is known of his life that most of it has been examined in the course of the foregoing narrative. What remains to be said is chiefly in summary of what has been said already. As a dramatist he has no eminence; and though his plays do not deserve the sweeping condemnation with which Macaulay once spoke of them in the House of Commons, they are not likely to attract any critics but those for whom the inferior efforts of a great genius possess a morbid fascination. Some of them serve, in a measure, to ill.u.s.trate his career; others contain hints and situations which he afterwards worked into his novels; but the only ones that possess real stage qualities are those which he borrowed from Regnard and Moliere. _Don Quixote in England_, _Pasquin_, the _Historical Register_, can claim no present consideration commensurate with that which they received as contemporary satires, and their interest is mainly antiquarian; while _Tom Thumb_ and the _Covent-Garden Tragedy_, the former of which would make the reputation of a smaller man, can scarcely hope to be remembered beside _Amelia_ or _Jonathan Wild_. Nor can it be admitted that, as a periodical writer, Fielding was at his best. In spite of effective pa.s.sages, his essays remain far below the work of the great Augustans, and are not above the level of many of their less ill.u.s.trious imitators. That instinct of popular selection, which retains a faint hold upon the _Rambler_, the _Adventurer_, the _World_, and the _Connoisseur_, or at least consents to give them honourable interment as "British Essayists" in a secluded corner of the shelves, has made no pretence to any preservation, or even any winnowing, of the _Champion_ and the _True Patriot_. Fielding's papers are learned and ingenious; they are frequently humorous; they are often earnest; but it must be a loiterer in literature who, in these days, except for antiquarian or biographical purposes, can honestly find it worth while to consult them. His pamphlets and projects are more valuable, if only that they prove him to have looked curiously and sagaciously at social and political problems, and to have striven, as far as in him lay, to set the crooked straight. Their import, to-day, is chiefly that of links in a chain--of contributions to a progressive literature which has travelled into regions unforeseen by the author of the _Proposal for the Poor_, and the _Inquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers_. As such, they have their place in that library of Political Economy of which Mr. McCulloch has catalogued the riches. It is not, however, by his pamphlets, his essays, or his plays that Fielding is really memorable; it is by his triad of novels, and the surpa.s.sing study in irony of _Jonathan Wild_. In _Joseph Andrews_ we have the first sprightly runnings of a genius that, after much uncertainty, had at last found its fitting vein, but was yet doubtful and undisciplined; in _Tom Jones_ the perfect plan has come, with the perfected method and the a.s.sured expression. There is an inevitable loss of that fine waywardness which is sometimes the result of untrained effort, but there is the general gain of order, and the full production which results of art. The highest point is reached in _Tom Jones_, which is the earliest definite and authoritative manifestation of the modern novel. Its relation to De Foe is that of the vertebrate to the invertebrate: to Richardson, that of the real to the ideal--one might almost add, the impossible. It can be compared to no contemporary English work of its own kind; and if we seek for its parallel at the time of publication we must go beyond literature to art--to the masterpiece of that great pictorial satirist who was Fielding's friend.

In both Fielding and Hogarth there is the same constructive power, the same rigid sequence of cause and effect, the same significance of detail, the same side-light of allusion. Both have the same hatred of affectation and hypocrisy--the same unerring insight into character.

Both are equally attracted by striking contrasts and comic situations; in both there is the same declared morality of purpose, coupled with the same st.u.r.dy virility of expression. One, it is true, leaned more strongly to tragedy, the other to comedy. But if Fielding had painted pictures, it would have been in the style of the _Marriage a la Mode_; if Hogarth had written novels, they would have been in the style of _Tom Jones_. In the gentler and more subdued _Amelia_, with its tender and womanly central-figure, there is a certain change of plan, due to altered conditions--it may be, to an altered philosophy of art. The narrative is less brisk and animated; the character-painting less broadly humorous; the philanthropic element more strongly developed. To trace the influence of these three great works in succeeding writers would hold us too long. It may, nevertheless, be safely a.s.serted that there are few English novels of manners, written since Fielding's day, which do not descend from him as from their fount and source; and that more than one of our modern masters betray unmistakable signs of a form and fas.h.i.+on studied minutely from their frank and manly ancestor.

POSTSCRIPT.

A few particulars respecting Fielding's family and posthumous works can scarcely be omitted from the present memoir. It has been stated that by his first wife he had one daughter, the Harriet or Harriot who accompanied him to Lisbon, and survived him, although Mr. Keightley says, but without giving his authority, she did not survive him long. Of his family by Mary Daniel, the eldest son, William, to whose birth reference has already been made, was bred to the law, became a barrister of the Middle Temple eminent as a special pleader, and ultimately a Westminster magistrate. He died in October 1820, at the age of 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, Ess.e.x, 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 _Leicesters.h.i.+re_ 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 s.e.x 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 circ.u.mstance that they frequently worked in concert. Previous to his appointment as a magistrate, John Fielding, in addition to a.s.sisting 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 authors.h.i.+p. 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 a.s.signs it, with two other dialogues, to a "different hand." They were, in fact, the first essays in authors.h.i.+p of that ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.sage 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 _Advertis.e.m.e.nt_, 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 pa.s.sage" 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 circ.u.mstances 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 n.o.ble 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 guardians.h.i.+p 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 a.s.siduous 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 Peac.o.c.k'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 a.s.suming 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.