In June, 1741, died Fielding's father, the General, at the age of sixty-five. His decease is recorded in "The Gentleman's Magazine" for that month, where it is said he held the appointment of Colonel of Invalids. At the close of his life the veteran was by no means in affluent circumstances, and his son Henry obtained by his death no accession of fortune. Both father and son, indeed, were victims of a prodigal disposition, and probably no amount of wealth could have kept either of them out of difficulties.

clerk, the judge says that no other word will make sense of the passage.' 'So then it seems,' says Pope, 'your master is not only a judge but a poet; as that is the case, the odds are against me. Give my respects to the judge, and tell him I will not contend with one that has the advantage of me, and he may fill up the blank as he pleases.'"-Johnson's Lives of the Poets (note).

The facetious barrister, Mr. Crowle, according to Horace Walpole, being once upon circuit with Page, was asked by some person "if the judge was not just behind." To which it is said he replied, "I don't know; but I am sure he was never just before." This was the same Mr. Crowle of whom a well-known story is told. Being counsel for Sir George Vandeput, at the famous Middlesex election in 1749, he was charged before the House of Commons with wilfully protracting the scrutiny, and showing contempt of the House, and was sentenced to be reprimanded on his knees by the Speaker. As he was rising from the ground, after the reprimand, he was heard to mutter, "This is the dirtiest house I ever was in."-- Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George II.

IN the month of February, 1742, Fielding sent forth into the world his first novel, "The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend, Mr. Abraham Adams." This work must have been written during the latter months of the previous year, when the author-unencumbered by briefs--had both leisure and necessity for literary exertion; and its origin may be briefly narrated.

At the close of the year 1740 the first part of Richardson's "Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded," made its appearance, and suddenly soared into astonishing popularity. Amongst all classes-in all intelligent circles-the book was quite the rage. The old recommended it to the young; brothers presented it to their sisters; its merits were extolled from the pulpit, and that too by no less celebrated a divine than Dr. Sherlock. Even at Ranelagh Gardens, it is said the chosen resort of the gay world, and the temple of fashion and frivolity—the ladies were in the habit of holding up the book to each other, to show that they were not without the popular favourite. Mr. Urban, in "The Gentleman's Magazine" for January, 1741, excuses himself for not reviewing what everybody had read; "it being judged in town," he says, "as great a sign of want of curiosity not to have read 'Pamela,' as not to have seen the French and Italian dancers." It was also whispered abroad that the great literary autocrat, Mr. Pope, had said that this so famous novel would do more good than volumes of sermons. In addition to this flood of eulogy the author received substantial and satis

factory proofs of the approval of the public, several editions of the work being disposed of within a twelvemonth. A French translation also was published in London, about a year after the publication of the original, which procured for "Pamela" even a continental reputation.

It would be idle to say that a work which was so extensively read, does not possess merits of a very high order. But, on the other hand, it is clear, that however great its attractions, they were much over-estimated and overpraised. The moral teaching which received the approbation of Pope and Sherlock should not be lightly spoken of; yet, with all due deference to such great authorities, it may be questioned whether many readers have risen from the perusal of Richardson's novel with more elevated notions of female honour than they before entertained. His morality was that of the age-rather the virtue of prudence than principle. His heroine adroitly resists the arts of the wealthy seducer, but her ruling motive is obviously lawful matrimony, rather than the simple preservation of chastity. The fortunate girl who gains a husband superior to her in station, and possessed of many amiable qualities, by vigilantly guarding her honour, must be always considered by the prudent portion of womankind an excellent pattern for imitation. (In such a sketch the "rewards of virtue" are no doubt eloquently set forth; but in what do they consist?-a coach-and-six, a gay wedding-dress, and a handsome bridegroom! Such temptations may certainly induce women to persevere in the path of virtue; but very similar inducements also may lead them to infamy. This Richardson-morality was, in fact, vulgar and conventional, not high-toned and spiritual; appealing only to self-interest and self-love; cool, shrewd, calculating, and sagacious; a good marketable article to pass through the world with, and to win its hollow respect and substantial rewards.

Fielding saw the "morality" of "Pamela" in this light

when he ridiculed it in "Joseph Andrews." It is not fair to suppose that he had any intention of representing in a ludicrous light those ideas of female purity which have received for ages the sanction of religion and the respect of mankind. His object was very different. It was a sham morality which he assailed,-the affectation of virtue, not virtue itself. He saw that the popular idol was not made of solid gold, as its worshippers believed, but a gilt and lacquered image, got up for show, and manufactured to suit the fashion of the times. A man of his hearty and genial humour could not hear with patience all the cant and nonsense uttered about it, and he therefore determined to show the world what it was made of. The self-sufficiency of the author was also no less provocative of satire than the book itself. Richardson's peculiarities were well known to Fielding. He knew him to be dull, respectable, vain, and sensitive, and he took a secret pleasure in aiming a shaft which he knew would wound him in his tenderest point.

The character of the author of "Pamela" was, indeed, in perfect keeping with his work. From his youth upwards he had delighted in feminine society and in tea-table sentimentality. In his maturer years his greatest pleasure was to give laws to a little senate of soft admirers, who regarded him with awe and tenderness, and never contradicted, argued with, or thwarted him. Whilst Fielding— roughly handled by the world-had made acquaintance with every species of folly and dissipation, and had been as familiar with the mirth of the tavern as the misery of the sponging-house, Richardson had lived the life of the thoroughly respectable and respected trader; accurate in his accounts, punctual in his dealings, regular in his habits, comfortable in his circumstances. No two men could Fielding had escaped

differ more widely from each other. from his wild life, not without stain or reproach, but with a knowledge of the world and the world's ways, a

quickness of apprehension, and a faculty for discerning and dissecting human motives, which could never have been acquired in a life of retirement and staid propriety.1 He had been too much rubbed about in the world to be duped by the most specious cunning, cant, or hypocrisy. Richardson, on the other hand-who had never known the want of a guinea, or committed an act which the most rigid moralist could censure-had so fortified and hedged himself up in his little citadel of virtue, and had so narrowed his views of human life, that he stumbled quite unsuspiciously into the pit-falls of insipidity and absurdity which lay in his way. Though an amiable and respectable, he was by no means a generous or largeminded man, and his mode of life had not been calculated to develop any great qualities. He had been flattered and idolised; whilst Fielding had been abused as a madbrained profligate, ridiculed and cut by his acquaintances. The breath of adulation was pleasant to Richardson, but Fielding estimated it at its true worth. The one was childishly covetous of praise, and greedy of the applause of partial friends; the other was as reckless of reputation as of his purse. If the proceeds from an essay or a pamphlet were sufficient to buy out an execution, or to satisfy a relentless tax-gatherer, Fielding was a happier man than if the whole society of wits at Will's, or all the critics of the press, had combined to trumpet forth his excellences. With such striking differences of disposition, it is not surprising to find the two great novelists of the age in direct antagonism. The success of "Pamela" was all that

(1) "Lastly, come Experience, long conversant with the wise, the good, the learned, and polite. Nor with these only, but with every kind of character, from the minister at his levée, to the bailiff at his sponging-house; from the duchess at her drum, to the landlady behind her bar. From these only can the manners of mankind be known, to which the exclusive pedant, however great his parts or extensive his bearing may be, hath ever been a stranger."-Tom Jones, book xiii. c. 1. Richardson said of Fielding, no doubt with truth, in one of his letters - -"His brawls, his jars, his gaols, his sponging-houses, are all drawn from what he has seen and known."