that cheerful air which had so often eheated him into content and happiness.1

(1) The maiden name of Fielding's second wife was Mary Macdaniel. She survived him nearly half a century, and died at Canterbury, in the year 1802, at a very advanced age. In "The Gentleman's Magazine" for July, 1746, there are some satirical stanzas "On Felix, marry'd to a Cook-maid," which may probably have referred to Fielding. The following are two of the verses,— the first and last :

"THE

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE

JACOBITE JOURNAL."-PERSONAL ATTACKS ON EDITOR.-FIELDING APPOINTED A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.

[1747-1748.]

SOON after the suppression of the rebellion, "The True Patriot," having performed its office, was discontinued. Its success, however, encouraged Fielding, after the lapse of a considerable interval, to set on foot another political paper, to which he gave the name of "The Jacobite Journal." The object of this publication was (in the words of the author of "Waverley") "to eradicate those feelings and sentiments which had been already so effectually crushed on the field of Culloden." Though the rebellion had been quelled, and disaffection dared not openly manifest itself, the cause of the Stuarts was not at this period wholly abandoned by their English and Scotch adherents. "The king over the water" was still toasted in many old-fashioned country houses; and many a peer and politician who professed an ardent attachment to the house of Hanover was known to be ready and eager to transfer his allegiance to the Stuarts, if a safe opportunity offered. At this juncture, when the ranks of the Jacobites had been thinned by the sword, by exile, and the scaffold, the political journalist sought "to discredit the shattered remnant of an unsuccessful party," by covering it with ridicule, and holding it up to national contempt. The design, it is said, was heartily approved of by persons in power; for Fielding's talents were well-known, and it was believed that ridicule. might have more success than argument in the eradication of Jacobite sentiments.

(1) Scott's Life of Fielding. Lives of the Novelists.

The first number of "The Jacobite Journal, by John Trott-plaid, Esq.," was published in December, 1747. As in commencing "The True Patriot," so in his new paper, Fielding began with a wholesale assault on contemporary news-writers, little likely to conciliate that fraternity. "If ever there was a time," he says, "when a weekly writer might venture to appear, it is the present; for few readers will imagine it presumption to enter the lists against those works of his contemporaries which are now known by the name of newspapers; since his talents must be very indifferent, if he is not capable of shining among a set of such dark planets."

With a faithful hand the journalist describes the demeanour of the unavowed Jacobites of the time-a numerous and very dangerous class:

"Others, though very stanch Jacobites in their hearts, have been ashamed of owning themselves so in all companies. Amongst one another, indeed, whilst the glass goes merrily round, they freely drink the healths and talk the language of the party, according to the old observation-Defendit numerus, &c.; but in the presence of wicked Whigs, who look grave at the king over the water, the Royal Exchange, the three W's (a great health), and other such witty jests, a modest man may be put out of countenance;-as men of wit generally blush when their jest is not laughed at. Besides, he may thus be drawn into argument, and be put upon the defence of those doctrines by reason, which are far above the reach of it; for it may be truly said of Jacobitism (what a modern writer, with as much malice as falsehood, says of Christianity) that it is not founded on argument."

"The Jacobite Journal" was adorned with a woodcut, representing Mr. Trott-plaid and his wife, the one arrayed in a plaid waistcoat, and the other in a plaid petticoat, huzzaing, whilst a sly-looking Jesuit introduces to their notice a copy of "The London Evening Post." To this

(1) This description is taken from "The Gentleman's Magazine," for we have not been lucky enough to meet with any original copy of Fielding's paper. Might not the caricature in question have been designed by the pencil of Hogarth, himself a stanch Whig as well as Fielding's friend? To appreciate

caricature the journalist refers in the course of his introductory address; and he winds up with a piece of whimsical satire on the affectation then so prevalent amongst political writers of italicising unimportant words, and printing only the first and last letters, or a mere skeleton of others, for the purpose of attracting attention, and giving mysterious importance to their lucubrations. Having remarked that the days of severity in dealing with Jacobitism had passed, the journalist (in the person of Mr. Trott-plaid) thus proceeds :

"But, God be praised, there is no such spirit at present in power; and if a man will only venture being laughed at, he may own himself a Jacobite without any other danger. Now, as I really love to make men laugh, more than any other of my acquaintances, so I have owned myself a Jacobite thus publicly, and have contrived a method of appearing in my Scotch plaid all over the kingdom at one and the same time.

"In this dress I intend to abuse the * and the ; I intend to lash not only the m-stry, but every man who hath any p-ce or p-ns-n from the g-vernm-t, or who is entrusted with any degree of power or trust under it, let his r-nk be ever so high, his f―rt-ne never so great, or his ch―r-cter never so good. For this purpose I have provided myself with a vast quantity of Italian letter, and asterisks of all sorts. And as for all the words which I embowel, or rather envowel, I will never so mangle them but they shall be as well

properly the purpose and satire of "The Jacobite Journal," the circumstances of the period must be borne in mind. Symptoms of disaffection manifested themselves in 1748-9, not in open rioting and outrage, but in ostentatious displays of the symbols of a proscribed faction. The Scotch plaid was selected as the most favoured emblem of Jacobitism. "Many individuals," says Smollett (1748), "animated by the fume of inebriation, now loudly extolled that cause which they durst not avow when it required their open approbation and assistance; and, though they industriously avoided exposing their lives and fortunes to the chance of war, in promoting their favourite interest when there was a possibility of success, they betrayed no apprehensions in celebrating the memory of its last effort, amidst the tumult of a riot, and the clamours of intemperance. In the neighbourhood of Lichfield the sportsmen of the party appeared in the Highland taste of variegated drapery; and their zeal descending to a very extraordinary exhibition of practical ridicule, they hunted with hounds clothed in plaid, a fox dressed in a red uniform. Even the females at their assembly, and the gentlemen at the races, affected to wear the chequered stuff by which the Prince Pretender and his followers had been distinguished."-History of England.

known as if they retained every vowel in them. This I promise myself, that when I have any meaning they shall understand it."

In December, 1747, Fielding also published a political pamphlet, in vindication of the character of a deceased friend and schoolfellow, Mr. Winnington, well-known as an active politician, who had held office under Sir Robert Walpole, and had acted as chairman of committees in the House of Commons. He died in 1746; and about a year after his decease a pamphlet was published, entitled, "An Apology for the Conduct of a Second-rate Minister, from the Year 1739, when he commenced Courtier," and said to be "written by himself, and found amongst his papers." This apology was a Tory squib, written with some art and method, and representing that Sir R. Walpole and his associates were all secret Jacobites, who had designedly legislated in the manner best calculated to waste and enervate the strength of the nation, so that the people "would in length of time come of themselves to a sense of their condition, and be ready to exchange it for a better;" and that "another branch of his scheme was to corrupt the morals of the people generally, in order to create an indif

(1) Horace Walpole has left us the following amusing account of this celebrated politician:-"Winnington had been bred a Tory, but had left them in the height of Sir R. Walpole's power: when that minister sunk, he had injudiciously, and to please my Lady Townsend, who had then the greatest influence over him, declined visiting him, in a manner to offend the sturdy old Whigs; and his jolly way of laughing at his own want of principles had revolted all the graver sort, who thought deficiency of honesty too sacred and profitable a commodity to be profaned and turned into ridicule. He had infinitely more wit than any man I ever knew, and it was as ready and quick as it was constant and unmeditated. His style was a little brutal; his courage not at all so; his good humour inexhaustible: it was impossible to hate or to trust him."-Memoirs of the Reign of George II. In a letter to Sir H. Mann, dated April 25th, 1746, Walpole gives a circumstantial account of Winnington's death, and attributes it entirely to the bad treatment of Thomson, whom he contemptuously describes as "One Thomson, a quack, whose foundation of method could not be guessed but by a general contradiction to all received practice." Of this physician (who was the friend of Fielding and other literary men of the period) more will be said hereafter (see chap. xxi.) Thomson's treatment of Winnington gave rise to many pamphlets.