almost daily" at Prior Park, and lived, "while he was writing his novel of Tom Jones," at Twerton in "the first house on the right hand, with a spread eagle over the door."

It is difficult to find any reason for doubting the clergyman's word. The old stone house, easily identified, has been named, as I have said earlier, "Fielding's Lodge." As one enters through the quaint doorway, there is, curiously enough, a "little parlour" to the left with an ancient fireplace, unchanged since Fielding sat and wrote there. There may have been "a little parlour" also in the houses which Fielding occupied in Old Boswell Court and at Twickenham; so it must be left undetermined where he composed the most eloquent passage that ever came from his pen. On the supposition that he wrote the famous invocation with which the thirteenth book opens in immediate sequence to the twelfth book, he must have been then in town conducting "The Jacobite's Journal." But that initial chapter, standing by itself, might have been written earlier or later than the narrative surrounding it. All that can be said with certainty is that the "little parlour" at Twerton fits exactly into the situation as Fielding describes it. To sum up without pressing this detail beyond warrant, the positive assertion of Graves, combined with the chronology of Fielding's other literary activities, clearly indicates that the first books of "Tom Jones" and some of the later chapters were composed at Twerton. Nothing stands in the way of the assumption that Fielding, after he had given up "The True Patriot," spent the summer and autumn of 1746 at Twerton and that he returned for briefer periods the two following years. So London, Twickenham, and Bath must divide the honour of being the birthplace of "Tom Jones." Before the novel had passed through the press, Fielding had permanently settled in Bow Street as a justice of the peace. His house, of which the Duke of

Bedford gave him a lease, stood on the west side of the street, near the present public house known as "The Grapes."* In the dedication of "Tom Jones," he thanked the Duke for his "princely benefactions."

Another story takes us into the midlands for a scene some weeks before Fielding gave his manuscript to the publisher. Lyttelton's country seat was at Hagley in Worcestershire. The seat of the Earl of Denbigh was at Newnham Paddox near the eastern border of Warwickshire. To the south in the same shire lay the fine estate of Sanderson Miller on the Edge Hills overlooking the village of Radway. This country gentleman, now almost forgotten, was a conspicuous figure in the mid-eighteenth century, skilled in agriculture, Gothic architecture, and hospitality. A graduate of Oxford, he had acquired a love of old books, which he gathered about him in a large library. At this time he was only thirty-one years old, and had recently married "a sweet little woman," to repeat the phrase of one who knew her. His house, called Radway Grange, had been built from the stones of an old monastery which once stood on its site. On the summit, two miles from the house, he was then erecting a tower to mark the spot where King Charles fixed the royal standard before descending the hill to give battle to Lord Essex. The scenery, beautiful in itself, had been made more beautiful by hanging woods and ornamental trees of his own planting. The squire, described as good-humoured, convivial, and facetious, liked to have about him his friends among the Whig politicians and men of letters, whom he lavishly entertained. A short time before the publication of "Tom Jones," he had as his guests the elder Pitt, Lyttelton, Henry Fielding, and a kinsman of the novelist, whose name is given in the story as George Fielding. It is uncertain who this fourth mem* Mr. J. Paul de Castro, "The Modern Language Review," April, 1917, p.

233.

ber of the company was. Both the Earl of Denbigh and Edmund Fielding had had brothers named George, but they had been long since dead after honourable careers in the army. The only living George Fielding closely connected with the family was a half-brother of Henry, born of Edmund Fielding's second marriage. This young man may have been the person intended by the narrative; but it is more likely that some confusion has arisen in the account-that George Fielding has been brought into the story in place of William Fielding, the Earl of Denbigh. While on this visit to Radway Grange, "the great novelist," it is said, read the manuscript of "Tom Jones" to the "distinguished audience" seated about him in the diningroom, that he might have their comment before his final revision. It is a scene of surpassing interest, if it be true.

*

And no suspicion rests upon the tradition except in the matter of a few ornaments which are here mostly suppressed. The story was told long ago by George Harris in his Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who was a frequent visitor at Radway and whose house at Wimpole was made over on designs furnished by Miller. It has recently been retold with more definite details in "Rambles round the Edge Hills and in the Vale of the Red Horse," by the Rev. George Miller, a descendant of the hospitable squire. Writing to Miss Godden in 1907, Mr. Miller repeated the story as given here and added: "My father told me this often and he had the account from his grandmother, who survived her husband several years and who was the hostess on the occasion."+ Pitt, a most intimate friend of Sanderson Miller, was doubtless making one of his long visits at Radway. Fielding perhaps had been staying with Lyttelton at Hagley, and thus went over to Miller's with him, while the Earl of Denbigh was invited in to com*"Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke,'' 1847, II, 456-457.

+ Miss Godden, "Henry Fielding,'' p. 179.