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direction of the excellent Selim Slim.''* Against the ascription of this pamphlet to Fielding are certain minor technicalities of style; and it is hard to account for the name of “R. Freeman" on the title-page as publisher. Other considerations of equal weight, however, point to Fielding. The burlesque of the contending serjeants is in line with what we have in "Joseph Andrews"; and the method of dealing with Perceval is a continuation of the mock trials conducted by Mr. Trottplaid in "The Jacobite's Journal," down to the use of similar phrases. These resemblances cannot be accidental. Either Fielding or a clever imitator shot this bolt at a spurious Patriot and disguised Jacobite. III

The time had now come for a recognition of Fielding's services to his Majesty's Government, which-men and measures he had ably championed for three years against bitter and unscrupulous enemies. Besides the Pelhams and Lyttelton, he possessed another staunch friend in the Administration—the rich and powerful Duke of Bedford, the First Lord of the Admiralty and Privy Councillor since 1745. Upon the Duke, as chief of the Admiralty Office, fell the brunt of criticism for the conduct of the war on the sea. Again and again Fielding came to the rescue of "a noble Duke of the highest rank, the most extensive property, and the most unblemished honour, and whose labours have... been indefatigable for the service of his country, and crowned with most eminent success." It was a just tribute to the man during whose administration a successless war on land had been partially redeemed by victories at sea. In February, 1748, the Duke of Bedford resigned from the Admiralty, and entered the Cabinet as Secretary for the Southern Department, "to the great joy," remarked Fielding, "of all who wish well to the true interest of *Old England," March 25, 1749.

"The Jacobite's Journal," Jan. 30, 1748.

their country."* Fielding, it is apparent, once had the ambition to end his career on the King's Bench like his kinsmen among the Goulds; but his hopes must have dwindled in the face of broken health and the difficult enterprise of making a living. He had no good reason to expect more than he now received. On the recommendation of Lyttelton, the Duke of Bedford obtained for him a place in the Commission of Peace for Westminster, to fill one of the two vacancies which occurred that year. The fiat authorizing the appointment bears the date of July 30, and his commission that of October 25, 1748. The next day he took the usual oaths, and six weeks later he was presiding over the justice court in Bow Street, Covent Garden. The town, passing by his immediate predecessor, regarded him as heir to the mantle of Sir Thomas de Veil, long the terror of the theatrical district. Colonel de Veil, as he was called, had died two years before. That a playwright whose farces were running at the theatres should be installed in Veil's place as a Justice of the Peace, had for the wits a humorous aspect. Men and women of the kind represented in some of his plays, Fielding the magistrate was now sending to jail. It was quite common for a Bow Street justice to have his jurisdiction extended over the entire county of Middlesex; otherwise many criminals, by passing into the city of London, could escape him. Fielding at once saw the necessity of this extension; but he was unable to qualify, on the score of property, for a county magistrate, who must possess real estate to the value of £100 a year. In this difficulty he wrote the following letter to the Duke of Bedford, who owned most of Bloomsbury and Covent Garden:

"My Lord,

"Bow Street. Decr. 13. 1748..

Such is my Dependence on the Goodness of your Grace, that before my Gout will permit me to pay my Duty to you

*The Jacobite's Journal," Feb. 20, 1748.

personally, and to acknowledge your last kind Favour to me, I have the Presumption to solicit your Grace again. The Business of a Justice of Peace for Westminster is very inconsiderable without the Addition of that for the County of Middlesex. And without this Addition I cannot completely serve the Government in that office. But this unfortunately requires a Qualification which I want. Now there is a House belonging to your Grace, which stands in Bedford St., of 701. a year value. This hath been long untenanted, and will I am informed, require about 3001. to put in Repair. If your Grace would have the Goodness to let me have a Lease of this House, with some other Tenement worth 301. a year, for 21 years, it would be a complete Qualification. I will give the full Worth for this lease, according to the valuation which any Person your Grace shall be pleased to appoint sets upon it. The only favour I beg of your Grace is, that I be permitted to pay the Money in two years, at four equal half-yearly Payments. As I shall repair the House as soon as possible, it will be in Reality an Improvement of that small Part of your Grace's estate, and will be certain to make my Fortune.

"Mr. Butcher* will acquaint your Grace more fully than perhaps I have been able to do; and if Your Grace thinks proper to refer it to him, I and mine will be eternally bound to pray for your Grace tho I sincerely hope you will not lose a Farthing by doing so vast a service to,

My Lord your Grace's

Most obliged most obedt humble servant
H. FFIELDING."+

The Duke of Bedford was more generous than Fielding anticipated. Instead of troubling him with a house that *Mr. Butcher was the Duke's agent.

+ First published in "Correspondence of John Fourth Duke of Bedford," 1842, I, 589-590. Printed from the autograph at Woburn Abbey by Miss Godden in "Henry Fielding,'' p. 196.

would have required an expenditure of £300 for repairs, he gave him a lease for twenty-one years of various small properties having a clear rental value of £100 per annum, and described as "several leasehold messuages or tenements lying or being in the several parishes of St Paul Covent Garden, St Martin in the Ffields, St Giles in the Ffields, and St George Bloomsbury, co: Middlesex, now in the occupation of his tenants." Pursuant to this ingenious arrangement, Fielding qualified, on January 11, 1749, as a Justice of the Peace for the County of Middlesex, and immediately took the oaths of the office "at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace at Hicks Hall, St. John Street."'* Subsequently he met the current religious tests necessary to a servant in his Majesty's Government. On Sunday, March 26, he received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, according to the usages of the Church of England; and on April 5, after again receiving the Holy Communion, he put his signature to declarations against the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the power of the Holy See, abjured King James and his descendants, and promised allegiance and faithful service to King George. These oaths and declarations were properly attested by Charles Tough, the minister of his parish and by other credible witnesses. Thereupon Fielding, supported by the Duke of Bedford, entered upon the vast labour of ridding Middlesex of thieves, highwaymen, and robbers in order that life and property might be safe. That is a remarkable story never yet half told; but it must be held in abeyance, for "Tom Jones" had just appeared.

*Record Office. Middlesex Guildhall. "Oaths taken by Justices of the Peace, 1746-50," p. 187. Owing to some inaccuracy in the first declaration or to some alteration in the leases, Fielding took a similar oath, leaving out the Bloomsbury leases, on July 13, 1749 (ibid., p. 191). The details connected with Fielding's appointment were first discovered and assembled by Miss Godden in her "Henry Fielding," pp. 173, 175, 194-198.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PUBLICATION OF TOM JONES

It has been often lamented that Fielding, when he discovered his talent in "Joseph Andrews," did not proceed forthwith to write a novel free from all dependency upon Richardson, in fulfilment of the vision he then had of a great comic epic in prose, which should be for modern England what the comic counterpart of the Iliad had been for ancient Greece. Such, it is clear from the dedication of "Tom Jones" to Lyttelton, was the desire of his friend and patron, who believed him possessed of the extraordinary endowments requisite for the undertaking. Though Fielding regarded Lyttelton's desire as hardly less than a command, neither time nor circumstance then seemed favourable. The fact is, Fielding's mind soon became engrossed with the law; and so fierce and scurrilous were the attacks upon him by Grub Street for what he had written and for what he had not written, that he resolved to publish nothing more for the amusement of the public. His "Miscellanies," as I have related, was to be his last book in general literature. The next year, in the summer of 1744, he did indeed write a preface to "David Simple" to please and aid his sister; but it was made the occasion for a solemn declaration that he had given up the struggle for literary fame, upon which he had come to look with contempt.

Unexpectedly, however, the insurrection of 1745 drew him into patriotic journalism, where his ability to deal with exactly contemporary life and affairs shone with very

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