ing: but in dramatic imitation, he must be allowed | harsh features, attached more to subjects of deformity

than grace; whose drawings of women are ever a sort of Harlot's Progress, and whose men, for the most part, lay violent hands upon deeds and settlements, and generally deserve information in the King's Bench. These two celebrated writers were not fond of copying the amiable part of human life; they had not learned the secret of giving the softer graces of composition to their tablature, by contrasting the fair and beautiful in characters and manners to the vicious and irregular, and thereby rendering their pieces more exact imitations of nature. By making Congreve his model, it is no wonder that our author contracted this vicious turn, and became faulty in that part of his art which the painters would call design. In his style he derived an error from the same source: he sometimes forgot that humour and ridicule were the two principal ingredients of comedy; and, like his master, he frequently aimed at decorations of wit, which do not appear to make part of the ground, but seem rather to be embroidered upon it. It has been observed,† that the plays of Congreve appear not to be legitimate comedies, but strings of repartees and sallies of wit, the most poignant and polite indeed, but unnatural and ill-placed. If we except the Old Bachelor, Foresight, and Sir Samson Legend, there will hardly, perhaps, be found a character in this lively writer exempt from this general censure. The frequent surprises of allusion, and the quickness and vivacity of those sudden turns, which abound in Mr. Congreve, breaking out where you least expected them, as if a train of wit had been laid all around, put one in mind of those fireworks in a

to fall short of the great masters in that art; and how this hath happened to a comic genius, to one eminently possessed of the talents requisite in the humorous provinces of the drama, will appear, at the first blush of the question, something unaccountable. But several causes concurred to produce this effect. In the first place, without a tincture of delicacy running through an entire piece, and giving to good sense an air of urbanity and politeness, it appears to me that no comedy will ever be of that kind, which Horace says will be particularly desired; and seen, will be advertised again. I know that the influence of a favourite performer may, for a time, uphold a middling production; but, when a Wilks leaves the stage, even a Sir Harry Wildair will be thrown by neglected. The idea of delicacy in writing, I find so well explained in an ingenious essay on that subject, now on the table before that I shall transcribe the passage. me, "Delicacy," says this polite author, "is good sense; but good sense refined; which produces an inviolable at tachment to decorum, and sanctity as well as elegance of manners, with a clear discernment and warm sensibility of whatever is pure, regular, and polite; and, at the same time, an abhorrence of whatever is gross, rustic, or impure; of unnatural, effeminate, and over wrought ornaments of every kind. It is, in short, the graceful and the beautiful, added to the just and the good." By snatching the grace here defined and described, the late Colley Cibber has been able, in a few of his plays, to vie with, and almost outstrip, the greatest wits of this country; and, by not adverting to this embellishment, this liberal air of expression, if I may so call it, Mr. Fielding, with strong observa-water-piece, which used formerly to be played off at tion upon life, and excellent discernment of the hu- Cuper's Gardens; no sooner one tube, charged with morous and the ridiculous; in short, with a great powder, raised itself above the surface, and vented comic genius, has been rather unsuccessful in comedy. itself in various forms and evolutions of fire, but inThere seems to me little or no room to doubt but stantly another and another was lighted up; and the that this want of refinement, which we here complain pleasure of the spectators arose from seeing secret of, was principally owing to the woundings which artificial mines blazing out of an element, in which every fresh disappointment gave him, before he was such a machinery could not be expected. The same yet well disciplined in the school of life, and hack- kind of entertainment our author aimed at too freneyed in the ways of men; for, in a more advanced quently in his comedies; and as in this he bore a period, when he did not write recentibus odiis, with similitude to Wycherley and Congreve, so he also frehis uneasiness just beginning to fester, but with a quently resembled them in the indelicacy, and somecalmer and more dispassionate temper, we perceive times the downright obscenity, of his raillery; a vice him giving all the graces of description to incidents introduced, or at least pampered, by the wits of and passions which, in his youth, he would have Charles II.: the dregs of it, till very lately, not being dashed out with a rougher hand. An ingenious wri- quite purged away. There is another circumstance ter,* to whom we have already referred, has passed respecting the drama, in which Fielding's judgment a judgment upon Ben Jonson, which, though Field- seems to have failed him: the strength of his genius ing did not attain the same dramatic eminence, may certainly lay in fabulous narration, and he did not be justly applied to him: "His taste for ridicule was sufficiently consider that some incidents of a story, strong, but indelicate; which made him not over-which when related may be worked up into a deal of curious in the choice of his topics. And lastly, his style in picturing his characters, though masterly, was without that elegance of hand which is required to correct and allay the force of so bold a colouring. Thus the bias of his nature leading him to Plautus, rather than Terence, for his model, it is not to be wondered, that his wit is too frequently caustic, his raillery coarse, and his humour excessive." Perhaps the asperity of Fielding's muse was not a little encouraged by the practice of two great wits, who had fallen into the same vein before him; I mean Wycherley and Congreve, who were, in general, painters of

* Mr. Hurd.

pleasantry and humour, are apt, when thrown into action, to excite sensations incompatible with humour and ridicule. I will venture to say, that, if he had resolved to shape the business and characters of his last comedy (The Wedding Day) into the form of a novel, there is not one scene in the piece, which, in his hands, would not have been very susceptible of ornament: but as they are arranged at present in dramatic order, there are few of them from which the taste and good sense of an audience ought not, with propriety, to revolt. When Virgil is preparing the catastrophe of his Dido, the critics have never ob

See the Adventurer.

jected to him, that he describes the nurse, with a motherly and officious care, tottering along the apart

ments:

Illa gradum studio celerabat anili.

But wo to the tragic poet that should offer to pre-
sent the same circumstance to the eye of an au-
dience! The Tom Jones of our author, and the Gil
Blas of Le Sage, still continue to yield universal de-
light to their respective readers; but two late at
tempts to dramatise them, if I may so call it, have
demonstrated that the characters and incidents of
those applauded performances, which, when figured
to us by the imagination only, are found so agree-
able and interesting, lose much of their comic force
and beauty, when they are attempted to be realized
to us on the stage. There are objects and parts of
nature which the rules of composition will allow to
be described, but not actually to be produced on the
scene; because they are attended with some con-
comitant circumstances, which, in the narrative, are
overlooked, but when shown to view, press too hardly
on the mind, and become indelicate.

Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipse sibi tradit spectator.-

we shall be able fully to account for his not bearing a more distinguished place in the rank of dramatic writers. It is apparent that, in the frame and constitution of his genius, there was no defect, but some faculty or other was suffered to lie dormant, and the rest of course were exerted with less efficacy: at one time we see his wit superseding all his other talents; at another, his invention runs riot, and multiplies incidents and characters in a manner repugnant to all the received laws of the drama. Generally his judgment was very little consulted. And, indeed, how could it be otherwise ?-When he had contracted to bring on a play, or a farce, it is well known, by many of his friends now living, that he would go home rather late from a tavern, and would, the next morning, deliver a scene to the players, written upon the papers which had wrapped the tobacco in which he so much delighted.

Notwithstanding the inaccuracies which have arisen from this method of proceeding, there is not a play in the whole collection which is not remarkable for some degree of merit, very striking in its kind; in general there prevails a fine idea of character; occasionally we see the true comic, both of situation and sentiment; and always we find a strong knowledge of life, delivered indeed with a caustic wit, but often zested with fine infusions of the ridiculous: so that, upon the whole, the plays and farces of our author are well

and the reader, who peruses them attentively, will not only carry away with him many useful discoveries of the foibles, affectations, and humours of mankind, but will also agree with me, that inferior productions are now successful upon the stage.

To these causes of our author's failure in the province of the drama, may be added that sovereign con-worthy of a place in this general edition of his works; tempt he always entertained for the understandings of the generality of mankind. It was in vain to tell him that a particular scene was dangerous, on account of its coarseness, or because it retarded the general business with feeble efforts of wit; he doubted the discernment of his auditors, and so thought him- As it was the lot of Henry Fielding to write always self secured by their stupidity, if not by his own hu- with a view to profit, it cannot but mortify a benevomour and vivacity. A very remarkable instance of lent mind, to perceive, from our author's own adthis disposition appeared when the comedy of the count, (for he is generally honest enough to tell the reWedding Day was put into rehearsal. An actor ception his pieces met with,) that he derived but who was principally concerned in the piece, and, small aids towards his subsistence from the treasurer though young, was then, by the advantage of happy of the play-house. One of his farces he has printed, requisites, an early favourite of the public, told Mr. as it was damned at the Theatre-Royal in DruryFielding he was apprehensive that the audience Lane; and that he might be more generous to his enewould make free with him in a particular passage; mies than they were willing to be to him, he informs adding, that a repulse might so flurry his spirits as them in the general preface to his Miscellanies, that to disconcert him for the rest of the night, and there- for the Wedding Day, though acted six nights, his fore begged that it might be omitted. "No, d-mn profits from the house did not exceed fifty pounds. 'em!" replied the bard: "if the scene is not a good A fate not much better attended him in his earlier one, let them find that out." Accordingly the play productions; but the severity of the public, and the was brought on without alteration, and, just as had malice of his enemies, met with a noble alleviation been foreseen, the disapprobation of the house was from the patronage of the late Duke of Richmond, provoked at the passage before objected to; and the John Duke of Argyle, the late Duke of Roxborough, performer, alarmed and uneasy at the hisses he had and many persons of distinguished rank and characmet with, retired into the green-room, where the au- ter; among whom may be numbered the present thor was indulging his genius, and solacing himself Lord Lyttleton, whose friendship to our author softwith a bottle of champaigne. He had by this time ened the rigour of his misfortunes while he lived, and drank pretty plentifully; and cocking his eye at the exerted itself towards his memory when he was no actor, while streams of tobacco trickled down from more, by taking pains to clear up imputations of a the corner of his mouth, "What's the matter, Gar-particular kind, which had been thrown out against rick?" says he, "what are they hissing now?"-"Why, his character.* the scene that I begged you to retrench; I knew it would not do; and they have so frightened me that I shall not be able to collect myself again the whole night."—" Oh! d-mn 'em," replies the author, "they HAVE found it out, have they?"

If we add to the foregoing remarks, an observation of his own, namely, that he left off writing for the stage when he ought to have begun; and together with this consider his extreme hurry and despatch,

Mr. Fielding had not been long a writer for the stage when he married Miss Craddock, a beauty from Salisbury. About that time, his mother dying, a moderate estate, at Stower, in Dorsetshire, devolved to him. To that place he retired with his wife, on whom he doted, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and intemperances to which

* Lord Lyttleton died in 1773.--C.

stance, as he saw himself at once disabled from ever rising to the eminence he aspired to. However, under the severities of pain and want, he still pursued his researches with an eagerness of curiosity peculiar to him; and though it is wittily remarked by Wycherley, that Apollo and Lyttleton seldom meet in the same brain, yet Mr. Fielding is allowed to have acquired a respectable share of jurisprudence, and, in some particular branches, he is said to have arisen to a great degree of eminence, more especially in crown-law, as may be judged from his leaving two volumes in folio upon that subject. This work remains still unpublished in the hands of his brother, Sir John Fielding; and by him I am informed that it is deemed perfect in some parts. It will serve to give us an idea of the great force and vigour of his mind, if we consider him pursuing so arduous a study under the exigencies of family distress-with a wife and children, whom he tenderly loved, looking up to him for subsistence; with a body lacerated by the acutest pains; and with a mind distracted by a thousand avocations; and obliged, for immediate supply, to produce, almost extempore, a play, a farce, a pamphlet, or a newspaper. A large number of fugitive political tracts, which had their value when the incidents were actually passing on the great scene of business, came from his pen, the periodical paper called the Champion owing its chief support to his abilities; and though his essays, in that collection, cannot now be so ascertained as to perpetuate them in this edition of his works, yet the reputation arising to him, at the time of publication, was not inconsiderable. It does not appear that he ever wrote much poetry: with such talents as he possessed, it cannot be supposed that he was unqualified to acquit himself handsomely in that art; but correct versification probably required more pains and time than his exigencies would allow. In the preface to his Miscellanies, he tells us that his poetical pieces were

he had addicted himself in the career of a town life. | him as rendered it impossible for him to be as conBut unfortunately a kind of family-pride here gained stant at the bar as the laboriousness of his profession an ascendant over him; and he began immediately required: he could only now follow the law by to vie in splendour with the neighbouring country snatches, at such intervals as were free from indis'squires. With an estate not much above two hun-position; which could not but be a dispiriting circumdred pounds a year, and his wife's fortune, which did not exceed fifteen hundred pounds, he encumbered himself with a large retinue of servants, all clad in costly yellow liveries.* For their master's honour, these people could not descend so low as to be careful in their apparel, but in a month or two were unfit to be seen; the squire's dignity required that they should be new equipped; and his chief pleasure consisted in society and convivial mirth, hospitality threw open his doors, and in less than three years, entertainments, hounds, and horses, entirely devoured a little patrimony, which, had it been managed with economy, might have secured to him a state of independence, for the rest of his life; and, with independence, a thing still more valuable, a character free from those interpretations which the severity of mankind generally puts upon the actions of a man whose imprudences have led him into difficulties: for, when once it is the fashion to condemn a character in the gross, few are willing to distinguish between the impulses of necessity, and the inclinations of the heart. Sensible of the disagreeable situation he had now reduced himself to, our author immediately determined to exert his best endeavours to recover, what he had wantonly thrown away, a decent competence; and, being then about thirty years of age, he betook himself to the study of the law. The friendships he met with in the course of his studies, and, indeed, through the remainder of his life, from the gentlemen of that profession in general, and particularly from some who have since risen to be the first ornaments of the law, will for ever do honour to his memory. His application while he was a student in the Temple was remarkably intense; and though it happened that the early taste he had taken of pleasure would occasionally return upon him, and conspire with his spirits and vivacity to carry him into the wild enjoyments of the town, yet it was particular in him, that, amidst all his dissipations, nothing could suppress the thirst he had for knowledge, and the delight he felt in read-mostly written when he was very young, and were ing; and this prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has been frequently known by his intimates to retire late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read and make extracts from the most abstruse authors, for several hours before he went to bed; so powerful were the vigour of his constitution and the activity of his mind. A parody on what Paterculus says of Scipio might justly be applied to Henry Fielding: always over a social bottle or a book, he inured his body to the dangers of intemperance, and exercised his mind with studies: semperque inter arma ac studia versatus, aut corpus periculis, aut animum disciplinis exercuit. After the customary time of probation at the Temple he was called to the bar, and was allowed to have carried with him to Westminster Hall no incompetent share of learning. He attended with punctual assiduity both in term-time and on the Western circuit, as long as his health permitted him, but the gout soon began to make such assaults upon

Fielding has ingeniously incorporated this piece of folly in his Amelia, Book III. Chap. 12. Booth, with respect to imprudence and conjugal affection, was Henry Fielding; and Richardson asserts that Amelia was the first Mrs. Fielding.-C.

productions of the heart rather than of the head. He adds, that this branch of writing is what he very little pretended to, and was very little his pursuit. Accordingly, out of this edition, which is intended to consist entirely of pieces more highly finished than works of mere amusement generally are, his verses are all discarded: but, as a specimen of his ability in this way, it is judged proper to preserve, in this Essay on his Life and Genius, one short piece, which the reader will not find unentertaining.

The gentlemen of the Western circuit have a tradition concerning Fielding, which, though somewhat inconsistent with the account that Mr. Murphy has given of him, yet is perfectly agreeable to the idea generally entertained of his humour and character. Having attended the judges two or three years without the least prospect of success, he published proposals for a new law-book: which, being circulated round the country, the young barrister was, at the ensuing assizes, loaded with briefs at every town on the circuit. But his practice, thus suddenly increased, almost as suddenly declined. Ann. Regis. 1762.-C.

Ralph succeeded Fielding in carrying on this paper, but none of the Essays were published except two vo lumes, including the period when Fielding was the principal author. Some of them might, I think, be attributed to Fielding, from internal evidence, but they would add little to his fame.-C.

With regard to the History of Jonathan Wild, his | little private censure by the few is a very moderate design, he tells us, was not "to enter the lists with that excellent historian, who, from authentic papers and records, &c. hath given so satisfactory an account of this great man; nor yet to contend with the memoirs of the ordinary of Newgate, which generally contain a more particular relation of what the heroes are to suffer in the next world, than of what they did in this. The history of Jonathan Wild is rather a narrative of such actions as he might have performed, or would, or should have performed, than what he really did; and may, in reality, as well suit any other such great man as the person himself whose name it bears. As it is not a very faithful portrait of Jonathan Wild, so neither is it intended to represent the features of any other person; roguery, and not a rogue, is the subject; so that any particular application will be unfair in the reader, especially if he knows much of the great world; since he must then be acquainted with more than one on whom he can fix the resemblance."

tax for them to pay, provided no more was to be demanded; but, however the glare of riches and awe of title may dazzle and terrify the vulgar; nay, however hypocrisy may deceive the more discerning, there is still a judge in every man's breast, which none can cheat or corrupt, though perhaps it is the only uncorrupt thing about him. And yet, inflexible and honest as this judge is, (however polluted the bench be on which he sits,) no man can, in my opinion, enjoy any applause which is not adjudged to be his due. Nothing seems to be more preposterous than that, while the way to true honour lies so open and plain, men should seek faults by such perverse and rugged paths; that, while it is so easy, and safe, and truly honourable, to be good, men should wade through difficulty, and danger, and real infamy, to be great, or, to use a synonymous word, villains. Nor hath goodness less advantage in the article of pleasure than of honour over this kind of greatness. The same righteous judge always annexes a bitter anxiety to the purchasers of guilt, whilst it adds double sweetness to the enjoyments of innocence and virtue; for fear, which all the wise agree is the most wretched of human evils, is, in some degree, always attending the former, and never can, in any manner, molest the happiness of the latter. This is the doctrine which I have endeavoured to inculcate in this history; confining myself, at the same time, within the rules of probability: for, except in one chapter, which is meant as a burlesque on the extravagant account of travellers, I believe I have not exceeded it. And though, perhaps, it sometimes happens, contrary to the instances I have given, that the villain succeeds in his pursuit, and acquires some transitory imperfect honour or pleasure to himself for his iniquity; yet, I believe, he oftener shares the fate of Jonathan Wüd, and suffers the punishment, without obtaining the reward. As I believe it is not easy to teach a more useful lesson than this, if I have been able to add the pleasant to it, I might flatter myself with hav

Our author proceeds to give a further account of this work, in a strain which shows, however conversant he might be in the characters of men, that he did not suffer a gloomy misanthropy to take such possession of him, as to make him entertain depreciating ideas of mankind in general, without exceptions in favour of a great part of the species. Though the passage be long, I shall here transcribe it, as it will prove subservient to two purposes; it will throw a proper light upon the history of Jonathan Wild, and it will do honour to Mr. Fielding's sentiments. "I solemnly protest," says he, "that I do by no means intend, in the character of my hero, to represent human nature in general; such insinuations must be attended with very dreadful conclusions; nor do I see any other tendency they can naturally have, but to encourage and sooth men in their villanies, and to make every well-disposed man disclaim his own species, and curse the hour of his birth into such a society. For my part, I understand those writers who describe human nature in this depraved charac-ing carried every point. But, perhaps, some apoter, as speaking only of such persons as Wild and his gang; and, I think, it may be justly inferred, that they do not find in their own bosoms any deviation from the general rule. Indeed, it would be an insufferable vanity in them to conceive themselves as the only exception to it. But without considering Newgate as no other than human nature with its mask off, which some very shameless writers have done, I think we may be excused for suspecting that the splendid palaces of the great are often no other than Newgate with the mask on; nor do I know any thing which can raise an honest man's indignation higher, than that the same morals should be in one place attended with all imaginable misery and infamy, and in the other with the highest luxury and honour. Let any impartial man in his senses be asked for which of these two places a composition of cruelty, lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, hypocrisy, fraud, and treachery, is best fitted? Surely his answer must be certain and immediate; and yet I am afraid all these ingredients, glossed over with wealth and a title, have been treated with the highest respect and veneration in the one, while one or two of them have been condemned to the gallows in the other. If there are, then, any men of such morals, who dare call themselves great, and are so reputed, or called at least, by the deceived multitude, surely a

logy may be required of me for having used the word greatness, to which the world has annexed such honourable ideas, in so disgraceful and contemptuous a light. Now, if the fact be, that the greatness which is commonly worshipped, is really of that kind which I have here represented, the fault seerns rather to lie in those who have ascribed to it those honours, to which it hath not, in reality, the least claim. The truth, I apprehend, is, we often confound the ideas of goodness and greatness toge ther, or rather include the former in the idea of the latter. If this be so, it is surely a great error, and no less than a mistake of the capacity for the will. In reality, no qualities can be more distinct: for as it cannot be doubted but that benevolence, honour honesty, and charity, make a good man; and that parts and courage are the efficient qualities of a great man; so it must be confessed, that the ingredients which compose the former of these characters bear no analogy to, nor dependence on, those which constitute the latter. A man may therefore be great without being good, or good without being great. However, though the one bear no necessary depen dence on the other, neither is there any absolute re pugnancy among them, which may totally preven their union; so that they may, though not of neces sity, assemble in the same mind, as they actually did