been often done by readers who pay no attention to dates, that he placed his "Joseph Andrews" above "Tom Jones" —a novel of which only a part had yet been written. He merely meant that "Joseph Andrews" was better than his plays, essays, and minor fictions.

While he was conducting "The True Patriot," his sister had been preparing, we know further, to publish by subscription a continuation of her "David Simple," to be called "Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple, and Some Others." This was in line with the fashion set by Richardson, who added a second part to "Pamela" after the story had been concluded; for the characters were so real that people were willing to pay half a guinea more to learn how they thrived in the married state. Miss Fielding, owing to the success of her first venture, straightway began her sequel, with the intention, as may be seen in an advertisement in "The True Patriot" for February 18, 1746, of having it ready by the spring of that year; but she deferred publication-naming the next January as the probable date-because "her friends were totally prevented by the late public confusion, to favour her with their interest, as they kindly intended; nor could she herself think it decent to solicit a private subscription, in a time of such public danger." In the meantime Henry Woodfall printed for her, on November 23, 1746, five hundred subscription blanks,* that the work might proceed now the war was over. Some delay intervening, "The Familiar Letters," in two volumes, were not brought out until April, 1747.† It was an enterprise very like her brother's "Miscellanies." The volumes were printed for the author; Millar acted as the agent; and the price was put high-ten shillings a set for ordinary paper and a guinea for royal paper. The public responded nobly.

"Notes and Queries," 1 S. XI, 419 (June 2, 1855).

The Gentleman's Magazine," April, 1747, p. 204.

Among the subscribers, numbering more than five hundred, were the Duchess of Bedford, the Countess of Orford, Mrs. Pitt, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Henry Fox, Thomas Winnington, Ralph Allen (who took five sets), the author's cousin, Henry Gould-and "Mr. Richardson," who, needless to say, had not lent the prestige of his name to her brother's "Miscellanies.'

The sequel to "David Simple" is a rather dull performance of the moral kind, pieced out with many letters remotely connected with the original novel, the fragment of a fairy tale, a vision elaborated from an allegory of life which Sarah had read in "The Tatler," and two dialogues, called "Much Ado" and "Fashion," which were "a kind present" from an unnamed acquaintance. According to Dr. Johnson, the donor was James Harris, the friend from Salisbury, who was doubtless glad to find a place for the publication of his dialogues. But what gives the book interest here is the fact that her brother Henry beyond doubt contributed the preface "written by a friend of the author," and the last five letters of the collection, which were introduced by a note in protest against the indirect attacks of Grub Street upon his character and reputation. "The following five letters," it is said in the note, "were given me by the author of the preface. I should have thought this hint unnecessary, had not much nonsense and scurrility been unjustly imputed to him by the good-judgment or good-nature of the age. They can know but little of his writings, who want to have them pointed out; but they know much less of him, who impute any such base and scandalous productions to his pen."

In his preface Fielding writes pleasantly on the different kinds of letters, real and imaginary, that have entertained his own and former times, condemning the inanity *Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay," edited by Charlotte Barrett, 1904, I, 86.

and conversational style of many French letters and English imitations of them. It is a hit at Richardson-is it not?-when he says: "And sure no one will contend, that the epistolary style is in general the most proper to a novelist, or that it hath been used by the best writers of this kind." Most of all, Fielding admired Lyttelton's "Persian Letters" descriptive of English manners and institutions, supposed to have been written by a Persian travelling in England, and sent to a friend at Ispahan. If novels were to be cast in letter form, he preferred that they should be confined to a letter or two, like some that Lyttelton introduced into this imaginary correspondence. He professed also to like letters such as his sister was writing, wherein is disregarded, to the reader's ease, the regular beginning and conclusion required of a novel; and in pointing out her feminine touches which would be the despair of any man, he quotes "a lady of very high rank, whose quality is however less an honour to her than her understanding"perhaps Lady Mary Wortley Montagu-on his sister's first novel. "So far," said she, "from doubting David Simple to be the performance of a woman, I am well convinced, it could not have been written by a man." Recommending the new book to the public, Fielding added: "I hope, for the sake of my fair country-women, that these excellent pictures of virtue and vice, which, to my knowledge, the author hath bestowed such pains in drawing, will not be thrown away on the world, but that much more advantage may accrue to the reader, than the good-nature and sensibility of the age have, to their immortal honour, bestowed on the author." If he meant the last clause, like a similar phrase in his sister's note to the five letters, to be taken in irony, it was an ungenerous insinuation, in view of twenty-odd pages filled with subscribers' names.

It is nevertheless an agreeable picture in which we see brother and sister collaborating and each speaking out

for the other. Of Henry's five letters, one, hardly rising above the talent of Sarah, is on love as the sweetest passion of life and a nobler incentive to labour than avarice or ambition. A pair of letters between Miss Prudentia Flutter and Miss Lucy Rural contrast the amusements of the town with those of the country during the Christmas holidays. It is a little novel in embryo such as Addison had written and such as in the author's opinion lent itself naturally to the letter form. Stories running to any length in this style Fielding found tiresome. In another letter a Frenchman records for the benefit of a friend at home his observations on a journey by boat up the Thames, from Whitehall Stairs to Putney, along the Surrey side and back by the Middlesex shore. This was an experiment in the humorous manner of Lyttelton, or rather his master, Montesquieu, but rendered lighter by numerous puns in explaining the names of places. Thus of Putney on the south bank and of Fulham directly across the river, it is said: "These two towns were founded by two sisters; and they received their names from the following occasion. These ladies being on the Surry shore, called for a boat to convey them across the water. The watermen being somewhat lazy, and not coming near enough to the land, the lady who had founded the town which stands in Surry, bid them put nigh; upon which her sister immediately cried out, 'A good omen; let Putnigh be the name of the place.' When they came to the other side, she who had founded the other town, ordered the watermen to push the boat full home; her sister then returned the favour, and gave the name of Full home to the place."

The most intimate of these five letters is the one that Fielding put first in his series-from Valentine in London to his friend David Simple in the country. It is a brief survey which Fielding took, early in 1747, of the state of the nation with reference to morals, literature, and politics.

His general proposition was that the moral and literary standards of a people depend upon the character of the leaders. At the present time "there is," he asserts, "no one patron of true genius, nor the least encouragement left for it in this kingdom." Despite this fact, a few writers of real talent manage to survive, but they are like plants growing in "a poor hungry soil." He is reminded, he says, of the answer that a gardener made to a covetous gentleman who was angry because there were no cucumbers in his garden. "How should you have cucumbers, Sir," retorted the gardener, "when you know you would not afford a hot-bed to raise them in?" There being no true standard of taste, literature has run, to the corruption of public morals, into profanity, indecency, slander, and dulness. Nowhere is a firm hand more needed than at the theatres. True, England now has several very great actors; but at Covent Garden, where Garrick and Quin and Mrs. Cibber were playing, the manager has given them rôles all this last winter in fustian tragedies; while the excellent comedians at Drury Lane, instead of treating the public to a lighter kind of "dramatical food," have attempted to emulate the best actors of Covent-Garden in their best parts; and have vainly endeavoured to rival one [Garrick] who never had, nor, I believe, ever will have an equal." Beyond these tragedies, false and unnatural, the theatres have nothing to offer except "French and Italian buffoonry" and "operas, in which Mr. Handel is totally silent." For himself Fielding solved the problem by seldom visiting either theatre. Perhaps he forgot that his own "Miser" had been admirably cast that very winter at Drury Lane, and both "The Miser" and "The Lottery" at Covent Garden. But the complaint about the theatres was in general well founded. Garrick and Quin played Rowe's "Fair Penitent" many times during the season, and "Jane Shore" almost continually through January.