at Finchley to protect the Londoners; and indeed such was the state of affairs, that historians have confidently asserted that if the resolution of the Pretender to march on the metropolis had been indulged by his followers, he would have been quietly recognised as Regent of England before Christmas Day, 1745.1

In this season of dismay, "The True Patriot" was distinguished by its enthusiastic advocacy of the cause of the house of Hanover, and by a literary merit then rarely seen in the political journal. On the 17th December (No. 7), its readers were gratified by the reappearance in its columns of an old acquaintance—the worthy Mr. Abraham Adams-who characteristically delivers his opinion of public affairs, and declares his approval of Fielding's paper:

"I am delighted," he says, "and that greatly, with many passages in these papers. The moderation which you profess towards all parties perfectly becomes a Christian. Indeed, I have always thought that moderation in the shepherd was the best, if not only, way to bring home all the straggling sheep to his flock. I have intimated this at the vestry, and even at visitation before the Archdeacon: Sed Cassandra non creditum est. I like your method of placing a motto from the classics at the head of every paper. It must give some encouragement to your readers, that the author understands (at least) one line of Latin, which is, perhaps, more than can be safely predicated of every writer in this age."

The honest parson naturally expresses surprise at the progress of the rebellion, which, he observes, can only be ascribed to one cause,- "the just judgment of God against an offending people;" and he advises, with characteristic. emphasis, recourse to fasting and prayer, and, above all, the exercise of Christian charity.

The Jeremiad of Mr. Abraham Adams over the marvellous successes of the rebels was scarcely in print, when (1) Lord Mahon's History of England, and the authorities there cited.

With the Duke of Cum

their fortunes began to decline. berland on their track, they had commenced their retreat from Derby in sullen silence and bitter despondency. As they retraced their steps, their reception in Manchester, and other towns through which they passed, was very different from that which they met with in their advance. Having finally entered Carlisle-the great border townthey left there a scanty garrison, whilst the main body marched into Scotland. Before the year had ended, Carlisle was surrendered unconditionally to the forces of King George, and England was cleared of her rebellious invaders, who promised, on their departure, that they would pay another visit in the spring: a promise they were little likely to keep, now that the prestige of success had vanished.

(1) On the invasion of England by the rebels, Fielding, in all probability, "turned out," with his brethren of the Bar, prepared to serve his sovereign with the sword as well as the pen. On December 9th, 1745, Horace Walpole thus writes to Sir H. Mann:-"We are threatened with great preparations for a French invasion, but the coast is exceedingly guarded; and for the people, the spirit against the rebels increases every day. Though they have marched thus into the heart of the kingdom, there has not been the least symptom of a rising, not even in the great towns of which they possessed themselves. . . . . But here in London, the aversion to them is amazing; on some thoughts of the king's going to an encampment at Finchley, the weavers not only offered him a thousand men, but the whole body of the Law formed themselves into a little army, under the command of Lord Chief-Justice Willes, and were to have done duty at St. James', to guard the royal family in the king's absence." This precedent was followed in more recent times by the inns of court, whose members, on the apprehended invasion of England by Napoleon Buonaparte, formed themselves into a volunteer corps under the command of the celebrated Erskine, who appropriately baptised his awkward squadron "The Devil's Own."

P

CHAPTER XVII.

"THE TRUE PATRIOT.". -END OF THE REBELLION.-SECOND MARRIAGE.

[1746.]

THE beginning of the year 1746 found Fielding still occupied with "The True Patriot," and rendering thereby acknowledged service to the panic-stricken government. His varied information and nervous diction imparted an unwonted interest to the discussion of political topics, and his paper was in great request. Rarely indeed have literary talents of so high an order been pressed into the service of party journalism. Nor is it to be supposed that the accomplished journalist wielded a merely mercenary pen on behalf of established authority. His sympathies were entirely with the cause he so warmly espoused and so ably supported; he was, upon principle and from conviction, a devoted friend of the house of Hanover-regarding its permanent sway as the best guarantee for social order and rational liberty;-and his political writings have consequently an additional value as the faithful reflex of his genuine sentiments.

When the cause of the rebels became more desperate, and the panic occasioned by their advance into England began to subside, Fielding felt justified in treating the attempt in a lighter strain than might have appeared becoming in the first instance. He accordingly now indulged in a vein of caustic satire, which was calculated to render the unprosperous cause ridiculous as well as odious. In the number for January 7th, for instance, he printed an imaginary journal of events in 1746, formed on the

supposition that the rebels had proved victorious, from which the following items are selected :-

“Jan. 12. Being the first Sunday after Epiphany, Father Macdagger, the royal confessor, preached at St. James' -sworn afterwards of the Privy Council-arrived the French Ambassador with a numerous retinue.

"Feb. 2. Long Acre and Covent Garden allotted out in portions to the Highland Guards. Two watermen and a porter committed to Lollards' Tower at Lambeth, for heresy.

"Feb. 13. Four heretics burnt in Smithfield-Mr. Mac Henley1 attended them, assisted on this extraordinary occasion by Father O'Blaze, the Dominican.

"March 4. An eminent physician fined 200 marks in the King's Bench for an inuendo at Batson's, that Bath water was preferable to holy water. Three hundred Highlanders of the opposite party, with their wives and children, massacred in Scotland. The Pope's nuncio arrived this evening at Greenwich."

In the thirteenth number (January 28th), there is a second communication from Mr. Abraham Adams. The parson begins by stating that he is concerned to find, by all the public accounts, that the rebels still continued in the land.

"In my last," he writes, "I evidently proved that their successes were owing to a judgment denounced against our sins, and concluded with some exhortations for averting the divine anger, by the only methods which suggested themselves to my mind. These exhortations, by the event, I perceive have not had the regard paid to them I had reason to expect. Indeed, I am the more confirmed in this conjecture, by a lad whom I lately met at a neigh

(1) Mr. Orator Henley. This person, whose eccentric career has been noticed in a previous chapter (pp. 23-26), distinguished himself as a furious Jacobite. On the 4th December, 1746, it is stated, in a contemporary newspaper, that he was, "by order of the Earl of Chesterfield, one of the secretaries of state, delivered into the custody of a messenger, in order to be examined on a charge of endeavouring to alienate the minds of his majesty's subjects from their allegiance, by his harangues at his Oratory Chapel." Horace Walpole thus notices the circumstance: "The famous Orator Henley is taken up for treasonable flippancies."—Correspondence, vol. ii.

bouring baronet's, where I sojourned the two last days of the year, with my good friend Mr. Wilson.' This lad, whom I imagined to have been come from school to visit his friends for the holidays (for though he is perhaps of sufficient age, I found, on examination, he was not yet qualified for the university) is, it seems, a man sui juris; and is, as I gather from the young damsels, Sir John's daughters, a member of the Society of Bowes. I know not whether I spell the word right; for I am not ashamed to say, I neither understand its etymology nor true import, as it hath never once occurred in any lexicon or dictionary which I have yet perused."

The manners and opinions of this beau are most revolting to the patriotic spirit of Adams, whose comments thereon are curious and characteristic:

"When grace was said after meat, and the damsels departed, the lad began to grow more wicked. Sir John, who is an honest Englishman, hath no other wine but that of Portugal. This our Bowe could not drink; and when Sir John very nobly declared he scorned to indulge his palate with rarities for which he must furnish the foe with money to carry on a war with the nation, the stripling replied, 'Rat the nation!' (God forgive me for repeating such words!) 'I had rather live under French government than be debarred from French wine.' Oho! my youth! if I had you horsed, thinks I again. But, indeed, Sir John well scourged him with his tongue for that expression. . . . . Mr. Wilson now found me grow very uneasy, as indeed I had been from the beginning; nor could anything but respect to the company have prevented me from correcting the boy long before; he therefore endeavoured to turn the discourse, and asked our spark when he left London. To which he answered, the Wednesday before. How, sir,' said I, 'travel on Christmasday!' Was it so?' says he; 'fags, that's more than I knew; but why not travel on Christmas-day as well as any other?' Why not!' said I, lifting my voice, for I had lost all patience; 'were you not brought up in the Christian religion? Did you never learn your Catechism?' He then burst out into an unmannerly laugh, and so provoked me that I should certainly have smote him, had I not laid my crabstick down in the window, and had not Mr. Wilson been fortunately placed between us."

The rebellion, having lingered out the winter, was decisively crushed in the spring by the bloody battle of Culloden, which was fought on the 16th of April. In one half hour (1) See Joseph Andrews.