of which has been inscribed Fielding's name. There in Back Lane was born the first child of the marriage-a son William, who, according to the parish register, was baptized on February 25, 1748. Twickenham seems to have been chosen as a place of retirement for Mrs. Fielding, while her husband must have remained much of the time in London.

The marriage exposed Fielding to considerable banter and abuse. Smollett, for example, introduced Fielding and Lyttelton, under fictitious names, into his first edition of "Peregrine Pickle" the former as "Mr. Spondy" who married "his own cook-wench," and the latter as Gosling Scrag, a gracious patron who condescended to give the bride away. Worse than this, a long article in "Old England," for April 23, 1748, represented Fielding as applying with his wife for his tickets to a box in the theatre and being refused on the ground that the woman with him was not his wife but only a maid or a woman of the town who could not be admitted into the company of ladies. It was a marriage, too, that his friends had to apologize for if they remarked about it at all. At best Fielding had taken a wife socially beneath him; he had done exactly what Mr. B. had done in "Pamela,"-for which Fielding had ridiculed him in "Joseph Andrews." Fielding's first biographer, Arthur Murphy, passed over the marriage as if there had been none, though he knew of it and was acquainted with the second Mrs. Fielding. What the prim Sarah Fielding, the friend of Richardson, thought of her brother's marriage, is not recorded; but his cousin Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed, as an example of his happy temper, that "his natural spirits gave him rapture with his cook-maid." Lady Mary, however, did not wholly disapprove of her cousin's conduct. The views of that branch of the family were given by her grand-daughter, Lady Louisa Stuart, who remembered what she had heard

in her youth. The passage is the last word on Fielding's second marriage. Remarking on the beauty of the first wife and Murphy's silence with reference to the second, Lady Stuart goes on to say:

"His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the death of this charming woman he married her maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping with her; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children [there was, however, only one child] a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he told his friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion."'*

Perhaps Smollett's assertion, not quite direct, that Lyttelton was present at the marriage to give the bride away, should be ascribed to mere rumour or ill-natured fiction; but it is certain that Lyttelton and Fielding were drawing together in a closer friendship than ever before since their days at Eton. To the outward view Lyttelton's political career had not been distinguished for its consistency. Long in the forefront of the opposition to Walpole, he had failed to support, after Sir Robert's downfall, the Wilmington Ministry though it contained many of his political friends, had indeed intrigued with Pelham for its overthrow, and had now become, as has been said earlier, a Lord of the Treasury in the new Administration known "The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,” 1861, I, 106.

as the Coalition or the Broad Bottom Ministry. More than this, he had apparently sought at one time an alliance with Walpole. By his political enemies, he was regarded as a renegade who had deserted his former colleagues and the Prince of Wales, the figurehead of the old Opposition. In fact, his Royal Highness, piqued by his conduct, had dismissed him from a post that he held as a favourite in the Prince's household. Much the same shifting character was also charged against Pelham, Pitt, and other Whig leaders who had come into power after the death of Wilmington.

Criticism of their measures to cure the wounds of the rebellion, was accompanied by a torrent of abuse from the newspapers, the most scurrilous of which, said Fielding, was "The London Evening Post." Hardly second to this tri-weekly was "Old England," written chiefly by "Argus Centoculi," who sometimes, as a variation on his "Argus of the Hundred Eyes," signed himself "Porcupine Pelagius," the pseudonym employed by the author of "The Causidicade." Among other anti-ministerial newspapers were "The Westminster Journal," managed by Richard Rolt; and Walpole's old organ, "The Daily Gazetteer," in which the leading writer, said to have been "W. Horsly," commented on current events under the assumed name of "The Fool," meaning thereby not a dunce but a wise man of the Shakespearean breed. In short, there had not been since the demise of "The True Patriot" a London newspaper of any importance that gave full and ungrudging support to the Coalition. Wherefore, according to current gossip which hit near the truth, it was decided to call in once more Fielding to champion the Government's policies and ridicule its critics. Lyttelton, whose career especially stood in need of defence, was the active agent in thus stripping the Bar again of "a notable ornament.'

II

The new periodical, the first number of which appeared on December 5, 1747, was called "The Jacobite's Journal' and purported to come from the pen of "John TrottPlaid, Esq," a variant of "John Trot," the pseudonym of a former contributor to "The Craftsman." It was issued every Saturday at twopence a copy. As in the case of "The True Patriot," the booksellers interested in the project were Cooper and Woodfall, with the addition of "C. Corbett, in Fleet-street." Among these names was included for a time "Mrs. Nutt, at the Royal-Exchange"; and the first number gave as the printer "W [illiam] Strahan, in Wine-Office-Court, Fleetstreet." At all these places advertisements and letters were received for the author. Besides having the same two booksellers for its main support, "The Jacobite's Journal" much resembled in form and style its predecessor. It had the usual four pages, beginning with a political essay, followed by foreign and domestic news, with which Fielding played delightfully in the character of Punch, and advertisements, which consisted mostly of books, though there were admitted a few notices of remedies of the better sort. Here was announced the publication of "Clarissa Harlowe," "Roderick Random,” "The Castle of Indolence," and the fourth edition of "Joseph Andrews." A moderate amount of advertising was also supplied by the Admiralty Office; and the Government purchased, according to rumour, two thousand copies or more of each issue for free distribution by post among the inns and alehouses throughout the kingdom.

No one could doubt, after reading a few numbers, that John Trottplaid was Henry Fielding. Never was Fielding happier in his humorous comment on the news of the day; never more generous in the praise of his friends living or dead, whatever their rank-whether among the nobility and

gentry or among the actors and tradespeople of London. When it was lamented that the Earl of Cromarty, a Scottish lord who had joined Charles Edward, should be stripped of his title and banished for life to a place near Exeter, Fielding in his love for the West remarked on the mildness of the punishment: "If Ovid had been obliged to have exchanged Scotland for Devonshire, he had never written his Tristia." When the roof of Westminster Hall became ruinous and had to be repaired with new spars, he observed: "Some will have it that the floor of WestminsterHall hath been long more ruinous than the roof." News, afterwards found to be incorrect, reached him that his kinsman Henry Gould (subsequently Sir Henry) had died while on the Western Circuit; and Fielding wrote:

"This young gentleman (who was of the Middle-Temple) had great Parts, and had with great Diligence applied them to the study of his Profession; in which he was arrived at a very extensive Knowledge, and had very early in Life acquired much Reputation."

On the death of the poet Thomson, he said:

"This Morning at Four o'Clock died of a violent Fever, at his House in Kew-Lane, the celebrated Mr James Thompson, Author of the Seasons, &c. an honest Man, who has not left one Enemy behind him. His Abilities as a Writer, his Works sufficiently witness to all the World; but the Goodness of his Heart, which overflowed with Benevolence, Humanity, universal Charity, and every amiable Virtue, was best known to those who had the Happiness of his Acquaintance; by every one of whom he was most tenderly beloved, and now most sincerely and most deservedly lamented."

All this good feeling, finely expressed, had also pervaded "The True Patriot"; it was the unmistakable mark of Fielding's hand.