casion, he was not long ere he involved himself in a | quarrel with Dr. Hill, and other periodical writers. Among the latter, we are sorry to particularize Smollett, although possessed of the most kindred genius to Fielding's, which has yet appeared in British literature. The warfare was of short duration, and neither party would obtain honour by an inquiry into the cause or conduct of its hostilities. Meanwhile, Fielding's life was fast decaying; a complication of diseases had terminated in a dropsical habit, which totally undermined his strong constitution. The Duke of Newcastle, then prime minister, was desirous of receiving assistance from him in the formation of a plan for the remedy and prevention of secret robberies, and improving the police of the metropolis. For the small consideration of 600l., paid by the government, Fielding engaged to extirpate several gangs of daring ruffians, which at this time infested London and its vicinity; and though his health was reduced to the last extremity, he continued himself to superintend the conduct of his agents, to take evidence, and make commitments, until this great object was attained. These last exertions seem to have been fatal to his exhausted frame, which suffered at once under dropsy, and jaundice, and asthma. The Bath waters were tried in vain, and various modes of cure or alleviation were resorted to, of which tapping only appears to have succeeded to a certain extent. The medical attendants gave their last sad advice in recommending a milder climate. Of his departure for Lisbon, in conformity with their advice, he has himself left the following melancholy record, painting the man and his situation a thousand times better than any other pen could achieve. "On this day, Wednesday, June 26th, 1754,"* he says, "the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld, arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the light of this sun I was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school, where I had learned to bear pains, and to despise death. In this situation, as I could not conquer nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool * Voyage to Lisbon, p. 1 of me, as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever; under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer the company of my little ones during eight hours; and I doubt not whether, in that time, I did not undergo more than in all my distemper. At twelve precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner told me, than I kissed my children round, and went into it with some little resolution. My wife, who behaved more like a heroine and philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest daughter, fo.lowed me. Some friends went with us, and others here took their leave; and I heard my behaviour applauded, with many murmurs and praises, to which I well knew I had no title." This affecting passage makes a part of his Journey to Lisbon, a work which he commenced during the voyage, with a hand trembling in almost its latest hour. It remains a singular example of Fielding's natural strength of mind, that, while struggling hard at once with the depression, and with the irritability of disease, he could still exhibit a few flashes of that bright wit, which could once set the "world" in a roar. His perception of character, and power of describing it, had not forsaken him in those sad moments; for the master of the ship in which he sailed, the scolding landlady of the Isle of Wight, the military coxcomb, who visits their vessel, are all portraits, marked with the master-hand which traced Parson Adams and Squire Western. The Journey to Lisbon was abridged by fate. Fielding reached that city, indeed, alive, and remained there two months; but he was unable to continue his proposed literary labours. The hand of death was upon him, and seized upon his prey in the beginning of October, 1754. He died in the 48th year of his life, leaving behind him a widow, and four children one of whom died soon afterwards. His brother, Sir John Fielding, well known as a magistrate, aided by the bounty of Mr. Allen, made suitable provision for the survivors; but of their fate we are ignorant. Thus lived and thus died, at a period of life when the world might have expected continued delight from his matured powers, the celebrated Henry Fielding father of the English novel; and in his powers of strong and national humour, and forcible yet natural exhibition of character, unapproached, as yet, even by his successful followers. AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF HENRY FIELDING, ESQ. for true humour remains in this country. The materials of his own monument he has left behind him, scattered indeed without arrangement, and dispersed about the world. These, in justice to so eminent an author, Mr. Millar has determined to collect together, that the public may have, in one body, a good and valuable edition of writings, whose merit is so universally acknowledged. In the progress of this design, it naturally occurred that our author would be followed by the same kind of curiosity, which ever attends on those who have made themselves conspicuous in their time; which, with solicitude and an attachment to their memories, loves to inform itself of the minutest circumstances relating to them, where they were born, of what stature they were, of what temper of mind, what difficulties they met with in life, and with what disposition they met those difficulties, whether with despondency or fortitude, with gayety or moroseness; what sort of companions they were; with other anecdotes of the same nature. That the generality of readers, even though our author's memory is still recent in the minds of many, would expect to be gratified in these particulars, was a very obvious remark; and therefore it was resolved to prefix to this edition, An Essay on the Life and Genius of Henry Fielding. TO stand distinguished from the common racé of port to future ages, may be added the late Henry mankind, and, by the efforts of extraordinary virtues Fielding, whose works will be admired while a taste breaking out into acts of magnanimity and public spirit, or by a vigorous exertion of the faculties of the mind, enriching human life with the invention of arts, or the graces of elegant composition; to attain that point of eminence to which succeeding times shall look back with gratitude and admiration, is a lot assigned but to very few. The generality of people seem to be called into this world for no higher purposes than to breathe, to gaze at the sun, to eat and drink, to sleep, and expire. When little more than a century has rolled away, and a whole generation of men have passed from nature to eternity, as the poet solemnly expresses it, how few names, out of that wonderful multitude, stand recorded to posterity for any memorable performances, for any remarkable use made of their existence. Xerxes wept when he surveyed his millions round him, and reflected, that in the course of a few years, not one of them should remain upon the face of the earth; but the reflection grows still more gloomy, when it is considered how few of them were ever to be heard of again! It is a melancholy curiosity to cast an eye through the columns of chronology, where the princes, heroes, patriots, legislators, philosophers, poets, historians, and artists, who have figured in the world since the creation almost to the present day, are all carefully preserved, and like Egyptian kings, embalmed for the notice of mankind: How scanty the number! In complying with this usual demand of the curious, What a thrifty list does it afford us, when we compare it is not the intention of the present writer to disturb it with those prodigious bills of mortality, which the the manes of the dead, as has been practised by cerperishing generations, of whom we only know that they tain biographers; to insult his memory with an unnelived and they died, have furnished forth for the space cessary detail of his distresses, and the actions which of six thousand years! It calls to our minds the bat-resulted from them; to infer the character of his tles recorded of Cyrus, Semiramis, and other eastern heart from the overflowings of sudden and momentary sovereigns, in which we only know that they led an passions; to tear off ungenerously the shroud from astonishing number of millions to the field, and almost all sunk together into one undistinguished state of oblivion. Nor should this observation carry with it a satire upon the inactivity of mankind in general; for many, no doubt, who have not, to use Lord Verulam's expression, survived the weathers of time, employed themselves in a course of laudable industry, and used strenuous endeavours not to wear away their lives in silence, like the beasts of the field, prone to the earth, and subservient only to the excitements of appetite; It will, it is hoped, be sufficient for the reader's curibut the small returns, (if I may use a modern military osity, if the principal features of his mind are here phrase,) of good and serviceable men, must not only delineated; if his temper is shown, as much of it, at be owing to the vicissitudes of human affairs, and the least, as he transfused into his writings, if some acdevastations of wars, civil and religious, but also to the count be given of his family, and of the various situaarduous difficulty of serving mankind by public conduct, tions in life which his fortune allotted him. For more or performing any thing in the arts, either elegant or than this the author of this little tract has determined useful, and so bequeathing to posterity a lasting legacy. not to ransack; for it is not the entire history of the To the number of those who, by the vigour of their man, but the memoirs of an author, which he proposes talents, and the vivacity of their wit, seem to have en- to offer to the public. his remains, and pursue him with a cruelty of narra- Deiphobe armipotens, genus alto a sanguine Teucri, larged the bounds prescribed, in the common course Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, in of things, to the memory of man, and gained a pass- Somersetshire, near Glastonbury, April 22, 1707. His 13 ments of pleasure, which, though they could not suppress the exertion of his genius, yet retarded its true vigour, and, like clouds around the sun, made it seem to struggle with opposing difficulties, instead of throwing out at once, a warm, an equal, and an intense heat. At this period, however, our author had provided himself with a fund of more solid learning than usually is the portion of persons of his age; and his mind was at least so seasoned with literature, father, Edmund Fielding, served in the wars under | made him less accessible afterwards to those allurethe Duke of Marlborough, and arrived to the rank of lieutenant-general at the latter end of George I. or the beginning of George II. He was grandson to an Earl of Denbigh; nearly related to the Duke of Kingston, and many other noble and respectable families. His mother was daughter of Judge Gold, the grandfather of the present Sir Henry Gold, one of the barons of the exchequer. By these his parents he had* four sisters, Catharine, Ursula, Sarah, and Beatrice; and one brother, Edmund, who was an officer in the ma-that, amidst his wildest dissipations afterwards, norine service. Sarah Fielding, his third sister, is well known to the literary world, by the proofs she has given of a lively and penetrating genius, in many elegant performances, particularly David Simple, and the letters, which she afterwards published, between the characters introduced into that work. Our author's mother having paid her debt to nature, Lieutenant-General Fielding married a second time, and the issue of that marriage were six sons, George, James, Charles, John, William, and Basil, all dead excepting John, who is at present in the commission of the peace for the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, and the Liberties of Westminster, and has lately been raised to the honour of knighthood by his majesty, in reward of that zeal and spirited assiduity, with which he serves his country as a public magistrate. any thing could subdue the love of reading which he had so early contracted. It appears, from a preface to one of his plays, that he had conceived an early inclination for dramatic composition; the comedy called Don Quixote in England having made part of his literary amusement at Leyden; though, by his own account, it should seem that what he executed of it there, was little more than his canvass in a more advanced age, when he gave it to the stage with additional strokes of humour, and higher colourings than his inexperience had bestowed upon it at first. The play contains a true vein of good sense and satire, though his usual hurry in the production of his pieces did not afford him leisure, when he once determined to offer it to the public, to give it all the dramatic finishings requisite in a complete piece. Mr. Fielding's case was generally the same with that of the poet, described by Juvenal; with a great genius, he must have starved, if he had not sold his performance to a favourite actor. Henry Fielding received the first rudiments of his education at home, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Oliver, to whom, we may judge, he was not under considerable obligations, from the very humorous and Esurit, intactum Paridi nisi vendit Agaven. striking portrait given of him afterwards, under the To the same motive we must ascribe the multiplicity name of Parson Trulliber, in Joseph Andrews. From of his plays, and the great rapidity with which they Mr. Oliver's care, our author was removed to Eton were produced: for, school, where he had the advantage of being early as Mr. Congreve was content, in his whole life, to we find that, though such a writer known to many of the first people in the kingdom, produce four comedies and one tragedy, yet the exnamely, Lord Lyttleton, Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, Sir Charles gence of our author's affairs required, at his hand, no Hanbury Williams, and the late Mr. Winnington, &c. less than eight entire plays, besides fifteen farces, or At this great seminary of education, Henry Fielding pieces of a subordinate nature. gave distinguishing proofs of strong and peculiar a matter of wonder, that he, who most undoubtedly It has been often parts; and when he left the place, he was said to be possessed a vein of true and genuine humour, should uncommonly versed in the Greek authors, and an early master of the Latin classics; for both which he productions ;-that is to say, should not, in some lenot have proved more successful in his theatrical retained a strong admiration in all the subsequent gitimate comedy, have discovered the future father passages of his life. Thus accomplished, he went of Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia.from Eton to Leyden,† and there he continued to This, however, from what has been premised, seems show an eager thirst for knowledge, and to study the pretty fairly accounted for; but yet, for the real cause civilians with a remarkable application for about two of this inequality, we must still go somewhat deeper years, when, remittances failing, he was obliged to than this remark, which lies too palpable upon the return to London, not then quite twenty years old. incurious; and it shall be pursued, in its due place, surface of things. The inquiry may, perhaps, not be when we come to analyze his genius, and determine its nature and quality. Henry Fielding returned from Leyden to London ;At the age of twenty years, or thereabout, in the fullest vigour of constitution, which was re It is to be lamented that an excellent course of education was thus interrupted; as there is no manner of doubt, but, with such excellent endowments from nature as he certainly possessed, he might, by a continuance at a seat of learning, have laid in a much ampler store of knowledge, and have given such a complete improvement to his talents, as might after-markably strong, and patient of fatigue; still unwards have shone forth with still greater lustre in his writings: not to mention that, in a longer and more regular course of study, he might have imbibed such deep impressions of an early virtue, as would have *It was remarked by one of the journals of the time, that this is rather an odd expression. He studied at Leyden under the celebrated Vitriarius, then professor of civil law in the university, and author of "Institutiones Juris Naturæ et Gentium," 1719, 8vo. Biog. Brit. vol. vii. Sup.-C. shaken by excesses of pleasure, and unconquered by midnight watchings, till frequent returns of the gout attacked him with a severity that made him, in the latter part of his days, a melancholy repentant for the length, to Lisbon, in the hopes of lingering a little too free indulgences of his youth; and drove him, at longer in life. From the account of his voyage to that place, we may judge of the activity of his mind, and the strenuous flow of his spirits, which, under a complication of infirmities, could yet prompt him to the exercise of his wit, and the sallies of his imagination. | trace of it; from his secrecy and silence you had What, then, must have been the gayety and quickness nothing to apprehend. Apud quosdam acerbior in conof his fancy, when his strength was yet unimpaired viciis narrabatur; ut bonis comis, ita adversus malos by illness, and when, young in life, curiosity was eager injucundus. Ceterum ex iracundi nihil supererat : secreto know the world, and his passions were ready to tum et silentium ejus non timeres. Disagreeable imcatch at every hook pleasure had baited for them? pressions never continued long upon his mind; his It is no wonder that, thus formed and disposed for en- imagination was fond of seizing every gay prospect, and joyment, he launched widely into a career of dissipa-in his worst adversities, filled him with sanguine hopes tion. Though under age, he found himself his own of a better situation. To obtain this, he flattered himmaster, and in London; Hoc fonte derivata clades !-self that he should find his resources in his wit and inFrom that source flowed all the inconveniences that vention; and accordingly he commenced a writer for attended him throughout the remainder of his life.- the stage in the year 1727, being then about twenty The brilliancy of his wit, the vivacity of his humour, years of age. and his high relish of social enjoyment, soon brought him into high request with the men of taste and literature, and with the voluptuous of all ranks; to the former he was ever attentive, and gladly embraced all opportunities of associating with them; if the latter often ensnared him, and won from him too great a por-just applauses as ever were bestowed on the English tion of his time, it cannot be wondered at, considering the greenness of his years, the sensibility of his temper, and the warmth of his imagination. His finances were not answerable to the frequent draughts made upon him by the extravagance which naturally followed. He was allowed two hundred pounds a year, by his father, which, as he himself used to say, any body might pay that would." His first dramatic piece soon after adventured into the world, and was called Love in several Masques.It immediately succeeded the Provoked Husband, a play, which, as our author observes, for the continued space of twenty-eight nights, received as great and as stage. "These,” says Mr. Fielding, “were difficulties which seemed rather to require the superior force of a Wycherly or a Congreve, than a raw and unexperienced-pen; (for I believe I may boast that none ever appeared so early upon the stage." Notwithstanding these obstacles, the play, we find, was favourably received; and considering that it was his first attempt, it had no doubt the marks of promising genius. His second play, the Temple Beau, appeared the year after, and contains a great deal of spirit and real hu The fact was, General Fielding, with very good inclinations to support his son in the handsomest manner, very soon found it impracticable to make such ap-mour. Perhaps, in those days, when audiences were pointments for him as he could have wished. He had in the era of delicate and higher comedy, the success married again soon after the death of our author's of this piece was not very remarkable; but surely mother, and had so large an increase of family, and pieces of no very superior merit have drawn crowded that too, so quick, that, with the necessary demands of houses within our own memory, and have been attendhis station for a genteel and suitable expense, heed with a brilliancy of success; not but it must be could not spare, out of his income, any considerable acknowledged that the picture of a Temple Rake, disbursements for the maintenance of his eldest son. since exhibited by the late Dr. Hoadly, in the SuspiOf this truth Henry Fielding was sensible, and he cious Husband, has more of what the Italians call forwas therefore, in whatever difficulties he might be in- tunato, than can be allowed to the careless and hasty volved, never wanting in filial piety, which, his nearest pencil of Mr. Fielding. It would lead a great way relations agree, was a shining part of his character. from the intention of this essay, should we attempt to By difficulties his resolution was never subdued; analyze the several dramatic compositions of this on the contrary, they only roused him to struggle author; and indeed, as he confessedly did not attain to through them with a peculiar spirit and magna- pre-eminence in this branch of writing, at least was nimity. When he advanced a little more in life, and unequal to his other productions, it may be sufficient his commerce with mankind became enlarged, disap-to observe, that from the year 1727 to the end of 1736, pointments were observed by his acquaintance to almost all his plays and farces were written; not above provoke him into an occasional peevishness, and two or three having appeared since that time; so that severity of animadversion. This, however, had not a he produced about eighteen theatrical performances, tendency to imbitter his mind, or to give a tinge to plays and farces included, before he was quite thirty his general temper; which was remarkably gay, and years old. No selection has been made of those for the most part, overflowing into wit, mirth, and pieces; but they are all printed together in this edition, good humour. As he disdained all littleness of spirit, that the public might have the entire theatre of Henry wherever he met with it, in his dealings with the Fielding. For, though it must be acknowledged, that world, his indignation was apt to rise; and as he was of in the whole collection, there are few plays likely to a penetrating discernment, he could always develop make any considerable figure on the stage hereafter, selfishness, mistrust, pride, avarice, interested friend-yet they are worthy of being preserved, being the ship, the ungenerous and the unfeeling temper, how-works of a genius, who, in his wildest and most ever plausibly disguised; and, as he could read them inaccurate productions, yet occasionally displays the to the bottom, so he could likewise assault them with the keenest strokes of spirited and manly satire.Amongst the many fine traits of description in that character which Tacitus has left us of Agricola, there is a very delicate touch, which occurs to me at present, and seems applicable to the temper of our author; his reproof was sometimes thought to carry with it a degree of asperity; as to the good and amiable, he was polite, to the unworthy, he was rather harsh; but his anger once vented, there remained no talents of a master. Though in the plan of his pieces, he is not always regular, yet is he often happy in his diction and style; and in every groupe that he has exhibited, there are to be seen particular delineations that will amply recompense the attention bestowed upon them. The comedy of the Miser, which he has mostly taken from Moliere, has maintained its ground upon the stage, ever since it was first performed, and has the value of a copy from a great painter by an em inent hand. If the comedy of Pasquin were restored to the stage, it would, perhaps, be a more favourite | perhaps then, as he was of himself of a large and entertainment with our audiences than the much ad-comprehensive understanding, and possessed, besides, mired Rehearsal; a more rational one it certainly the virtues of humanity, he might have been contentwould be, as it would undoubtedly be better under-ed with milder restrictions, and not have made the stood. The Rehearsal, at present, seems to be re-remedy almost worse than the disease. But licenceived rather from prescription than any real delight tiousness was to be retrenched; and liberty received a it affords; it was the work of a noble wit; and the stab in the operation: luxuriant branches, that were object of its satire was one of the greatest geniuses extravagant in their growth, were to be lopped away; of this nation, the immortal Dryden. These two cir- and, to make short work of it, the woodman, in a fit of cumstances gave the play a wonderful eclat on its first anger, applied his axe to the root of the tree. The appearance; and the wit and humour of the parodies tree, it is true, is not quite fallen to the ground: but it were undoubtedly very high flavoured. But has it is grown sapless, withered, and unproductive; its annot lost its relish at present? and does not the whole nual fruits want the high flavour which they might appear a wild caricature, which very few can refer to have in a more generous nursery; no wood notes any original objects? However, its traditional fame wild are heard from its branches, and it is exactly in still procures for it a fashionable prejudice in its favour; the state described by Lucan: and for the sake of having the favourite actor, who performs the part of Bayes, continually before the eye, we crowd to it still, whenever it is acted, and we laugh and applaud, and roar, and "wonder with a fool-But it may be asked, are the players to be judges of ish face of praise." What Mr. Dryden has said conthe king's ministers? Shall grimace and mimicry cerning this celebrated performance, is but a mild attack the most exalted characters? and must the judgment from one who might have used more exas- great officers of state be, at the mercy of the perated language. "I have answered not the Re- actors, exhibited on a public stage? Why, no-exhearsal," says he, "because I knew the author sat to cept in a coronation, I think his majesty's servants should not be made ridiculous; and the dangerous himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce. Because also I knew that tendency of this buffooning kind of humour is strongly my betters were more concerned than I was in that satire; and, lastly, because Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson, the main pillars of it, were two such languishing gentlemen in their conversation, that I could liken them to nothing but their own relations, those noble characters of men of wit and pleasure about the town." But sense survived when merry jests were past, as his generous rival has sung since; and Dryden is now the admiration of his country. The Pasquin of Fielding came from the pen of an author in indigence; or, as the late Colley Cibber has contumeliously called him, a broken wit; and, therefore, though its success was considerable, it never shone forth with a lustre equal to its merit; and yet it is a composition that would have done honour to the Athenian stage, when the middle comedy, under the authority of the laws, made use of fictious names to satirise vice and folly, however dignified by honours and employments. But the middle comedy did not flourish long at Athens; the archness of its aim, and the poignancy of its satire, soon became offensive to the officers of state; a law was made to prohibit those oblique strokes of wit, and the comic muse was restrained from all indulgences of personal satire, however humorously drawn, under the appearance of imaginary characters. The same fate attended the use of the middle comedy in England; and it is said that the wit and humour of our modern Aristophanes, Mr. Fielding, whose quarry, in some of his pieces, particularly the Historical Register, was higher game than in prudence he should have chosen, were principal instruments in provoking that law under which the British theatre has groaned ever since. But the minister was sore, and in his resentment he struck too deep a blow. Had he considered that, by the bill which afterwards passed into a law, he was entailing slavery on the Muses, and that a time might come when all dramatic genius should thereby be led a vassal in the train of the managers of the theatre, to be graciously fostered, or haughtily oppressed, according to their caprice and prejudice; sy. Trunco, non frondibus, efficit umbram.* the cant of the green-room and of Grub-street, at the Have the |