sion, and had a taste for some branches of it, is also evident. He is known to have compiled a work on Crown or Criminal Law, forming in manuscript two folio volumes, which was, after his death, placed in the hands of his half-brother, Sir John Fielding, the magistrate,—a competent judge of its merits,—and who is said to have pronounced it as being in some parts a perfect work.' The reputation for legal learning which he afterwards earned on the Middlesex bench, likewise tends to show that at one period of his life he must have taken pains to acquire a competent knowledge of his profession. A mind like his could not seriously apply itself to any subject with a perfectly unsatisfactory result. It is a great mistake to suppose that the intellectual powers which have been successfully exerted in the world of letters, would have been fruitlessly employed in the practical business of life. Had not Murray and Blackstone been attracted by circumstances to the practice of the law, can it be doubted that they would have each achieved distinction in literature? If "6 So sweet an Ovid" were lost in the one, it is not impossible that in the other the world has been deprived of an Addison or a Prior. Had Johnson or Swift, again, been attached to the Bar, allured by fortune to exert their talents in that arena, is it to be for a moment supposed that they would have ignominiously failed? It was a favourite idea of the former, that had he pursued the law as a profession, he would have mounted the judicial bench, with the title of Baron Lichfield; and as for the latter, it seems impossible that the powers of advocacy displayed in the "Drapier's Letters" could have failed to command attention, when employed in the discussion of private rights.2

(1) Murphy's Essay on the Life and Genius of Fielding.

(2) It is almost impossible here to avoid a reference to Mr. Justice Talfourd's successful cultivation of literature amidst his professional pursuits, and which will cause his name to be handed down to a late posterity, who might never have heard of him only as a judge.

That the world should refuse to give the man of letters credit for being able to learn what duller persons are known to acquire without much difficulty is obviously unjust. But the fallacy, in all its stark, staring deformity, was prevalent at the period when Fielding commenced his legal career, and is not quite hunted down yet. The dangerous reputation of a wit clung to him from the very outset, and scared away attorneys. Uncheered by the patronage of those powerful allies, he was constrained to take his place in the melancholy ranks of the briefless, or almost briefless, hangers-on of the courts, a position not perhaps of discredit, but certainly of grave inconvenience.

Many a brilliant career at the Bar has commenced under circumstances of equal discouragement. With some men, however, it has happened that time and patience have stood in the place of early patronage and encouragement. But Fielding could not afford to wait. He had a wife and child to whom he was tenderly attached (for a fonder husband and father never breathed), who depended for their subsistence upon his exertions. The wolf poverty was at his door, and to scare it away he was again compelled to have recourse to authorship. Accordingly, at the very time when he was devoting himself to his profession by a constant attendance on the courts and private study, he managed to compose two or three trivial pamphlets, evidently thrown off to supply the necessities of the hour, and he continued still to contribute a few papers to "The Champion." Six months after his call to the Bar (in January, 1741), he published two poetical brochures, to one of which, entitled "True Greatness," 1

(1) "True Greatness: an epistle to George Dodington, Esq." This was afterwards reprinted by Fielding in his "Miscellanies." The person to whom it is addressed, George Bubb Dodington (afterwards Lord Melcombe), was one of the most notorious personages of the age. A restless political intriguer,— active, clever, and witty,-he was likewise a fop of the first water, and managed to bring upon himself continual ridicule. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams lam

he affixed his name; the other-yclept "The Vernoniad" -was sent forth anonymously. It is a coarse burlesque, of which the hero was the popular idol of the day, Admiral Vernon, whose victories over the Spaniards were then in every mouth. The title displays a rather humorous affectation of learning.1 In the following December another trifle, called "The Opposition: a Vision," was added to the list of his occasional compositions, and was about the last which he published anonymously.

If the attendance on courts at this period were productive of little pecuniary profit to the struggling barrister, it doubtless enlarged considerably his fund of experience. At country sessions he became acquainted with the qualifications of the rural magistrates of that day;

pooned him in a ballad, once immensely popular, called "A Grub upon Bubb;" and Lord Chesterfield says of him, "With submission to my Lord Rochester, God made Dodington the coxcomb he is-mere human means could never bring it about." Dodington attached himself to the party of Frederick, Prince of Wales, to whom he lent money; and in his famous Diary will be found a curious record of party secrets and political intrigues.

(1) “ΤΗΣ ΟΜΗΡΟΥ VEPNON-ΙΑΔΟΣ Ραψωδια ἤ Γραμμα ά. The Vernoniad, done into English from the Original Greek of Homer, lately found at Constantinople, with Notes in usum, &c. Book the first." In Mr. Roscoe's edition of Fielding's works (8vo., 1841) is published the following note, as a fac-simile of his handwriting, from the collection of the late Mr. Upcott:"Mr. ——, please to deliver Mr. Chappel fifty of True Greatness, and fifty of the Vernoniad. Yours, Henry Fielding." Dated April 20th, 1741. Admiral Vernon's successful attack on Porto Bello (Nov., 1739) had, at this period, made him the idol of the hour. H. Walpole, writing to Sir H. Mann, Nov. 12, 1741, says, "It is Admiral Vernon's birthday, and the city shops are full of favours, the streets of marrowbones and cleavers, and the night full of mobbing, bonfires, and lights." Such were the manifestations of popular joy in 1741 !

(2) Several other trivial productions were probably thrown off by Fielding at this period, of some of which even the very names have perished; mention of one -evidently a political squib-is made in Nichols' "Literary Anecdotes " (Additions to vol. iii.):-"I possess a pamphlet," says the writer, "intituled "The Crisis: a Sermon on Rev. xiv. 9, 10, 11; necessary to be preached in all the Churches in England, Wales, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, at or before the next general election; humbly inscribed to the Right Reverend the Bench of Bishops. By a Lover of his Country. Vendidit hic auro Patriam. VIRG. London: Printed for A. Dodd, without Temple Bar. 1741. 8vo.' On the title-page of which is this remark:-This sermon was written by the late Mr. Fielding, author of Tom Jones, &c., as the printer of it assured me.-R. B.'"

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a class of persons severely satirised in his subsequent works. The lady who relates "The History of the Unfortunate Leonora," in "Joseph Andrews," gives, it will be recollected, a description of "sessions practice," which is gravely contradicted by Parson Adams; and the quiet irony both of the description and contradiction must have been much relished by Fielding's contemporaries at the Bar. "It seems it is usual," said the lady, "for the young gentlemen of the Bar to repair to these sessions, not so much for the sake of profit, as to show their parts, and learn the law of the justices of the peace; for which purpose one of the wisest and gravest of all the justices is appointed speaker or chairman, as they modestly call it; and he reads them a lecture, and instructs them in the true knowledge of the law." "You are here guilty of a little mistake," says Adams, "which, if you please, I will correct; I have attended at one of these quarter-sessions, where I observed the counsel taught the justices, instead of learning anything of them." And in the same novel there is presented a picture of "justice business" not very flattering to the rural gentry of the west in 1740. The depositions taken by the magistrate, in the absence of his clerk, previous to committing Joseph and Fanny to Bridewell, for the offence of cutting a twig (a crime which the learned personage defines as a kind of felonious larcenous thing"), may be taken as a fair caricature of the documents which occasionally came under the satirical barrister's own eye :—

"The depusition of James Scout, layer, and Thomas Trotter, yeoman, taken before me, one of his majesty's justasses of the peace for Zumersetshire.

"These deponents saith, and first Thomas Trotter for himself saith, that on the of this instant October, being Sabbath-day, between the ours of two and four in the afternoon, he zeed Joseph Andrews and Frances Goodwill walk akross a certane felde belunging to layer Scout, and out of the path which ledes thru the said felde, and there he zede Joseph Andrews with a nife cut one hasel

twig, of the value, as he believes, of three halfpence, or thereabouts; and he saith, that the said Frances Goodwill was likewise walking on the grass out of the said path in the said felde, and did receave and karry in her hand the said twig, and so was comfarting, eading, and abating to the said Joseph therein. And the said James Scout for himself says, that he verily believes the said twig to be his own proper twig," &c. 1

Even on the bench of the superior courts at this time there were some singular varieties of the judicial character. When Fielding's legal experience commenced, certain judges of the old school presided on circuit and in Westminster Hall, who, however competent their professional knowledge, were neither distinguished for dignity nor suavity of demeanour. Like a notorious chief-justice, they knew how to give "a lick with the rough side of their tongues." Of one of these personages a capital story is told in "Tom Jones" by Partridge, which may be properly referred to this period. Not only is the story a good one, but the exposure of the unfairness and inhumanity of the practice which then (and till a comparatively recent time) prevailed of depriving an accused person of the full privilege of professional advocacy, is creditable to the writer's sense of justice. Partridge has related how Francis, the son of Farmer Bridle, had detected a horse-stealer at a fair in possession of his father's mare. The thief is secured, bound over to take his trial, and the narration thus proceeds :-" Well, at last down came my Lord Justice Page to hold the assizes, and so the fellow was had up, and Frank was had up as a witness. To be sure I shall never forget the face of the judge when he began to ask him what he had to say against the prisoner. He made poor Frank tremble and shake in his shoes. 'Well, you fellow,' says

(1) "I know some justices," says Lawyer Scout to Lady Booby, "who make as much of committing a man to Bridewell, as his lordship at 'size would of hanging him; but it would do a man good to see his worship, our justice, commit a fellow to Bridewell; he takes so much pleasure in it: and when once we ha un there, we seldom hear any more o'um. He's either starved or eat up by vermin in a month's time."