converts a profit into a loss. But in the next place, he insists upon a misfortune which has a very strong appearance of personal recollection. He had always been fond, he says, of driving a coach. He picked up an old coach and harness for twelve pounds, and considered that the horses which drew his waggons would also draw his coach. The consequence, he says, was inconceivable. "The neighbouring little squires were uneasy to see a poor renter become their equal in a matter on which they placed so much dignity;" they ridiculed his equipage, and were unkind enough, it seems, to declare that his horses, "which were as well matched as any in the kingdom, were of different colours and sizes; with much more of that kind of wit, the only basis of which is lying." The irritation which appears in this phrase suggests personal motive. The curate's wife used to sneer at poor Amelia and say, "Though my husband does not keep a coach, madam-"; the farmers of his district called him the squire farmer; he was always forced to buy dearer and sell cheaper than his neighbours; his lands were always being trespassed upon, and if his own cattle trespassed on other lands he had either to go to law or to make amends fourfold for the damage. It would of course be unsafe to drawn any definite conclusion; but it certainly seems as if Fielding was tacitly protesting here against the stories of which he had been the hero. The "yellow liveries" are in themselves suspicious; the story is clearly one of those of which we know by instinct that they will not stand the test of inquiry, where independent inquiry is possible; and the vexation with which Booth dwells upon the similar scandal of the old coach is very like a reflection from the real scandal about the liveries. Perhaps Fielding had bought some yellow plush as a bargain, and amused himself by arraying his coachman and gardener in this brilliant costume, with the result of being jeered upon his family pride, and nicknamed the Farmer Squire. Moreover it is quite as much in character to suppose that he damaged himself by some rash speculation as by direct personal extravagance. I fancy that a young man who had been living on his wits in London till he is eight and twenty, would be not unlikely to ruin himself by an extemporised experiment in farming, even if his expenditure upon liveries were more showy than really extravagant. Up to this point, Fielding had undoubtedly been reckless enough; but it is also clear that the rest of his life was passed in serious attempts to retrieve his position and maintain his family; and we may therefore fairly doubt whether in this early period of his married life, he took leave of all common sense so completely as has been supposed. In any case, Fielding was soon back in London; and again dependent upon his brains, not only for himself, but for a wife, and soon for a young family. His first adventure was still in the theatrical line. The stage was under restraints the precise legal bearing of which seems not to have been quite settled. The patentees of the great theatres had a partial monopoly, though attempts were being frequently made to infringe it in spite of complaints, both from the patentees themselves and from the respectable public, who regarded an increase in the number of theatres as a symptom of national corruption. A struggle had taken place in the latter part of Fielding's London life. Old Cibber, on retiring from the stage in 1732, had sold his share of the patent of Drury Lane to a certain Highmore, another share still belonging to the widow of Wilks, the actor, who had been Cibber's colleague. In 1733, some of the principal actors, instigated it seems by Cibber's graceless son, Theophilus, made a secession to the Haymarket, which served as a Mons Sacer upon these occasions. Fielding had taken the side of Highmore and Wilks with characteristic zeal. The Cibbers were thought to have acted very shabbily to poor Highmore. After the father had sold him the property for a considerable amount, the son did his best to make it worthless, and that, as it would seem, without any substantial grievance to allege in excuse. Poor Highmore in despair had to beat about everywhere for actors. His main dependence seems to have been upon the rising actress, Miss Raftor, who was soon to become famous as Mrs. Clive, and upon that eccentric, pugnacious, wrong-headed Irishman, Macklin, who was engaged for the occasion. Macklin's first London success, according to one account, had been in a small character in Fielding's Coffee-house Politicians, and the two were afterwards intimate. Fielding meanwhile sympathised with Highmore, and exerted himself vigorously to help Drury Lane by supplying new pieces in the emergency. He adapted from Regnard's Le Dissipateur a lively farce called the Intriguing Chambermaid. It had the merit of giving a good part for the rising Mrs. Clive. The play was published with a dedication to her, in which Fielding speaks with hearty gratitude of the faithfulness with which she had stood by the Drury Lane managers, and the generosity with which she had declined to make a profit out of their difficulties. Fielding also revived his old piece, the Author's Farce, with the addition of certain scenes in which the two Cibbers are ridiculed under the names of Marplay, senior and junior. This was apparently the first act in a long warfare which Fielding waged against the indomitable laureate, who had thus to bear the rough satire of Fielding, as well as the more spiteful and less discriminating attacks of Pope. Cibber, as the living incarnation of the Rattles and Foppingtons whom he represented upon the stage, would naturally incur the hearty contempt of Fielding. The two men were antipathetic to each other; but it is probable that the immediate cause of quarrel was Fielding's conviction of the ungenerous behaviour of the two Cibbers upon this occasion. The attack would of course be welcome at Drury Lane under the circumstances. In spite of all exertions, Highmore got the worst of this theatrical warfare. He was finally reduced to sell his share of the theatre to Charles Fleetwood, for half of what he had given, and retired a wiser and poorer man. Fleetwood speedily reconciled himself to the seceders, who, in March 1734, returned to Drury Lane. Before the reconciliation, Fielding had been furbishing up another old farce called Don Quixote in England. He began it, he tells us, at Leyden, in the year 1728; but Booth and Cibber, then managers of Drury Lane, advised him against producing it. In truth, it is chiefly remarkable as indicating Fielding's early enthusiasm for Cervantes, an enthusiasm for which he found frequent expression in later years. He had brought over Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to England, and imitated as closely as he could their style of conversation. Sancho, of course, abounds in proverbs, and the Don delivers himself of very admirable moral sentiments, and shows the obvious traces of his illusions. Fielding, however, had not been able to f VOL. I. devise many amusing incidents, or, in fact, to do much more than provide some of the adventures at Spanish inns with an English counterpart. The "distressed actors at Drury Lane" had persuaded him to do what he could for his old fragment; and he tried to improve it by introducing some scenes in which the Don is introduced to the remarkable humours of an English election. The piece was rehearsed, but it was delayed by various accidents until no longer needed at Drury Lane. Highmore had been defeated; the seceders had returned, and Fielding's services as an author were no longer required, whilst Macklin's engagement came to an end. The two friends got together a small company, and brought out this piece in the deserted Haymarket. It seems to have had little success, but it probably suggested the enterprise which Fielding attempted upon his return to London after the catastrophe of the "yellow liveries." 1 Fielding, coming to London with a wife and child, and considering the subject of ways and means, would naturally reflect that a manager has a better chance of making a regular income than a dramatist. He hit upon a scheme which promised well, and which actually succeeded for a time, though it was finally crushed by external circumstances. He got together a company of actors, christened them as "The Great Mogul's Company," engaged again the theatre in the Haymarket, and brought out a piece by himself called Pasquin, a Dramatic Satire on the Times. The form, borrowed from the famous Rehearsal, is now more familiar through Sheridan's adaptation in the Critic. Two plays are rehearsed. The first is a comedy in which Fielding pursues the theme already suggested in Don Quixote in England, and gives a forcible description of a contested election. The court and country party come in for a tolerably equal share of ridicule; the Mayor listening to the blandishments of Sir Henry 1 It may be worth while to mention that an enigmatic phrase in the preface to Don Quixote in England, about the "Giant Cajanus,” is explained by the fact that " Mynheer Cajanus" seems to have been a Dutch actor or harlequin, who appeared as Garagantua in a piece called Cupid and Psyche, the performance of which was one of the obstacles to the representation of Don Quixote. How Garagantua came into connection with Cupid and Psyche does not appear. Foxchase and Squire Tankard, whilst the Mayoress and her daughter are gained over by the fine words of Lord Place and Colonel Promise. Bribery and corruption have not become so entirely things of the past that the wit has lost all its savour, and perhaps the only incident quite antiquated is the catastrophe. The Mayor is bullied by his wife to vote for the court, and to his disgust finds himself in a minority. His wife, however, points out that as he is returning-officer, he may declare the courtiers to be duly elected, when there will be a "controverted election," and he may still have a chance of selling himself. The tragedy which follows records the grand battle between Queen Commonsense and Queen Ignorance, in which poor Commonsense is slain, though she reappears as a ghost and declares that at least she will continue to haunt her enemies. Fielding is expressing his characteristic contempt for the Italian singers and French players, who are triumphing over the true old British taste. Audiences who have been "tired with the dull works of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Vanbrugh," are now "entertained with one of these pantomimes of which the master of the playhouse, two or three painters, and half-a-score dancingmasters are the compilers." He wonders how it is "possible for any creature of human understanding, after having been diverted for two or three hours with the productions of great genius, to sit for three more and see a set of people running about the stage after one another, without speaking one syllable, and playing several juggling tricks which are done at Fawks's after a much better manner." A song in Don Quixote in England expresses Fielding's general point of view as a critic pretty accurately : When mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food, And old England's roast beef! Then, Britons, from all such dainties refrain, Which effeminate Italy, France and Spain, And mighty roast beef shall command in the main. And old England's roast beef! |