THE LIFE OF HENRY FIELDING; WITH NOTICES OF His Writings, his Times, and his Contemporaries. 4 BY FREDERICK LAWRENCE, OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. Mores hominum multorum vidit." HORACE. De Arte Poeticâ. LONDON: ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, & CO., 25, PATERNOSTER ROW. L3 PREFACE. RATHER more than a century has elapsed since the death of Henry Fielding. During this period, there have appeared the following sketches of his life and character:-Arthur Murphy prefixed to the collected edition of his works, published in 1762, an Essay, in which the principal facts of his life are noticed, without any attempt at chronological arrangement. In 1807, an "Account of the Life and Writings" of the novelist was published by William Watson, which was afterwards prefixed to an edition of his select works, published in Edinburgh, in 1812. A few years later (in 1821), Sir Walter Scott contributed a "Life of Fielding" (since printed amongst his miscellaneous prose works) to Ballantyne's "Novelist's Library." In 1840, a one-volume edition of Fielding's works was published, to which Mr. Roscoe contributed a biography of some length. To this it must be added that a memoir of the novelist is contained in that valuable repertory of literary facts, Nichols' "Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century;"-not to speak of various articles in reviews, encyclopædias, and biographical dictionaries. State University of Iowa |