substantial reward which a minister of the crown is able to "Proceed, even thus proceed, bless'd youth, to charm, Till fortune, once not blind to merit, smile As the stage now offered few attractions in the way of remuneration, and as poets cannot live on panegyric, it is not surprising to find that about this time little was done by Fielding in the way of original composition. He had found by experience, as the bookseller asserts in "The Author's Farce," that "a play, like a bill, is of no value till it is accepted." As he had at all times laboured for present profit, he had no disposition to pass his time in the manufacture of wares for which there was no market. Still he was not wholly idle. He had by him some crude scenes of a comedy which he had written at Leyden, and of which mention has already been made. It was a wild extravaganza-called "Don Quixote in England"—a bold attempt to introduce the immortal knight of La Mancha on the English stage, under new scenes and circumstances. The idea was rather a boyish and impracticable one; and when Fielding began to have a little experience in theatrical affairs, and had taken counsel with older heads than his (1) This year was produced at Drury Lane a play by Charles Johnson, called "Colia; or, the Perjured Lover," to which Fielding contributed an epilogue,-the same Johnson who is described in the notes to the "Dunciad' as being famous "for writing a play every year, and being at Button's every day." He was a member of the Middle Temple, but deserted the law for the stage, and finally married a buxom widow with a good fortune, on which he set up a tavern in Bow Street. That he was fatter than bard beseems, and no stranger to creature-comforts, may be surmised by the portrait given of him in the notes to "The Dunciad :"-" He had probably thriven better in his vocation, had he been a small matter leaner; he may be justly called a martyr to obesity, and be said to have fallen a victim to the rotundity of his parts." own, he laid the play on the shelf, and thought no more of it for some years. Its existence, however, was known to most of his theatrical friends, and in the distressed state of Drury Lane (as he could not perhaps be prevailed on to write a new play), he was solicited to produce these first fruits of his dramatic frenzy. To these solicitations he yielded; and probably not without secret satisfaction. The first and favourite idea of an author, like the first love of man or woman, has always an enduring influence on the mind. It is in many cases a passion which more or less colours the after-life, and gives a direction to the genius. It was undoubtedly thus with Fielding. To represent Don Quixote mistaking road-side public-houses for castles, in England instead of Spain, an English country squire with his dogs for a giant at the head of his armies, and a pert rural Abigail for a distressed princess, perhaps exceeded the bounds of extravagance permitted even to the burlesque; whilst the humour was of too subtle and grave a character to be popular with ordinary theatrical audiences. But however wild and incongruous the notion, it was identified with Fielding's earliest intellectual aspirations. He had fastened from his boyhood with eager delight on the immortal creations of Cervantes. They were the loadstars of his fancy: the fairy forms which had led captive his youthful imagination. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that the rude comedy written at Leyden, in the first transports of youthful ardour, was a favourite with its author, for the idea had taken deep root in his mind. When called on to produce a play, without much, if any, expectation of profit, he set to work to revise it con amore; and he added some new scenes, in which the Don is represented as a candidate at an English election. Although, as may be gathered from Fielding's preface, the comedy in its altered form was several times rehearsed at Drury Lane, and a day fixed for its representation, it was never produced on those boards. The intervention of the actors' benefits, and other circumstances, would have altogether prevented its appearance during the theatrical season, had not the author removed it to the New Theatre in the Haymarket, which, after having been closed for some years, had been lately opened by a company of comedians, who had revolted from the patent theatres. Here it was performed early in 1734, and, as might have been expected, met with little success. However absurd in design, or unfitted for the stage, this comedy will nevertheless be found in the closet both readable and entertaining. If Don Quixote and his trusty squire are not very felicitously introduced by Fielding on English ground, yet their respective characters, as developed in the romance, are admirably preserved. The first scene introduces us to Sancho vainly endeavouring to stave off the demands of Guzzle, the English innkeeper, and answering his threats with a string of proverbs worthy of the Sancho of Cervantes :: Guzzle. Tell me not of Spain, sir; I am an Englishman, where no one is above the law, and if your master does not pay me, I shall lay his Spaniardship fast in a place which he will find it as difficult to get out of, as your countrymen have found it to get into Gibraltar. Sancho. That's neither here nor there, as the old saying is; many are shut into one place and out of another. Men bar houses to keep rogues out, and jails to keep them in. He that's hanged for stealing a horse to-day has no reason to buy oats for him to-morrow. Fielding's Don Quixote is the identical Don Quixote of the romance; the very soul of honour; a monomaniac, it is true, but a man of rare wit and wisdom. Even the greedy Sancho would consent to fast in order to listen to his discourses. Whilst his acts are those of a madman, his language is that of a philosopher. He mistakes a flock of sheep for an army, but he denounces in no measured terms the social anomalies and vices which most revolt a chivalrous nature. He wages war, in a spirit of true knighterrantry, not only against giants and monsters, but against hypocrisy, servility, cunning, and corruption. In fact, a happy mixture of sense and extravagance distinguishes the hero of the comedy as well as of the romance. Take the following passage, in which the coarse characters and amusements of the country squires of the eighteenth century are felicitously satirised. Don Quixote. There is now arrived in this castle one of the most accursed giants that ever infested the earth. He marches at the head of his army, that howl like Turks in an engagement. Sancho. Oh, lud! oh, lud! this is the country squire at the head of his pack of dogs. Quixote. What dost thou mutter, varlet? Sancho. Why, sir, this giant that your worship talks of is a country gentleman who is going a courting, and his army is neither more nor less than his kennel of fox-hounds. Quixote. Oh, the prodigious force of enchantment! Sirrah, I tell thee this is the giant Toglogmoglog, lord of the island Gogmogog, whose belly hath been the tomb of above a thousand strong men. Sancho. Of above a thousand hogsheads of strong beer, I believe. Quixote. This must be the enchanter Merlin. I know him by his dogs. But, thou idiot! dost thou imagine that women are to be hunted like hares, that a man would carry his hounds with him to visit his mistress? Sancho. Sir, your true English squire and his hounds are as inseparable as the Spaniard and his Toledo. He eats with his hounds, drinks with his hounds, and lies with his hounds; your true arrant English squire is but the first dog-boy in his house. Quixote. 'Tis pity then that fortune should contradict the order of nature. It was a wise institution of Plato to educate children according to their minds, not to their births; these squires should sow that corn which they ride over. Sancho, when I see a gentleman on his own coach-box, I regret the loss which some one has had of a coachman; the man who toils all day after a partridge or a pheasant might serve his country by toiling after a plough; and when I see a low, mean, tricking lord, I lament the loss of an excellent attorney. In his dedication of this comedy to Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, the author dwells with much complacency on the wholesome tendency of the "election scenes" which he had engrafted upon it. "The most ridiculous exhibitions of luxury or avarice" (so writes the young dramatic censor) may have little effect on the sensualist or the miser; but I fancy a lively representation of the calamities brought on a country by general corruption might have a very sensible and useful effect on the spectators." Fielding's object was laudable enough, and his exposure of electoral corruption is characterised by wit and vigour; but he must have been a Quixote indeed who could have conceived it possible that any amount of satire and sarcasm would have induced Sir Robert Walpole to have abandoned the system of widespread corruption by which he carried on the government of England at this period. Politics apart, however, the scenes in which Don Quixote is brought into contact with the corrupt rulers of the borough, which he is solicited to stand for as a candidate, exhibit a dramatic skill and humour which few of our comic writers have excelled. At the beginning of the year 1735, Fielding brought out another farce at Drury Lane, which, like its predecessor, "The Intriguing Chambermaid," was evidently written to display the peculiar comic talents of Mrs. Clive. It was entitled "An old Man taught Wisdom; or, the Virgin Unmasked." In this trifle an unsophisticated young lady, after receiving various suitors selected by her father, disappoints them all by marrying a footman. This was by no means an unprecedented occurrence in real life at that period. Many ladies of quality displayed their admiration of the cane and the top-knot, by leading (or being led by) John or Thomas to the hymencal altar.1 Such ladies (1) In a paper on ballad-singing in "The Grub Street Journal" of February, 1735, the frequent fraternisation of the kitchen and parlour, celebrated in the common street ballads of the time, is thus described: "One tells, How a footman died for love of a young lady, and how she was haunted by his ghost and died for grief. Another, How the coachman ran away with his young mistress, took to hedging and ditching, and she to knitting and spinning, and lived vastly happy, and in great plenty. And a third, How the young squire, master's eldest son, fell in love with the chambermaid, married her at the Fleet, was turned out of doors, kept an inn, got money as fast as hops, till the old gentleman died suddenly without a will, and then his son got all, kept a coach, and made his wife a great lady, who bore him twins for twelve years together, who all lived to be justices of the peace." |