London for medical advice, Fielding could say: "He was a good natured and honest man. In public he always preserved his integrity, and in private life an inoffensive cheerfulness, which made him an amiable companion." When Fielding, the Eton boy, visited his grandmother Gould at Salisbury, this Thomas Wyndham was recorder of Sarum. He subscribed to the "Miscellanies." Of the Rev. Dr. William Broome, who died at Bath, it was recorded: "This gentleman was not unknown in the learned world, tho' perhaps he had less reputation in it than he deserved. He read over the whole comment of Eustathius in Greek, in order to furnish Mr. Pope with notes to his Iliad and Odyssey. Nay perhaps he had some share in the translating, at least in the construing those poems, if we may believe Mr. Pope himself." Finally, on Swift there was a paragraph in which Fielding left his most direct estimate of his brother humorist as a man as well as a writer:

"A few Days since died in Ireland, Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's in Dublin. A Genius who deserves to be ranked among the first whom the World ever saw. He possessed the Talents of a Lucian, a Rabelais, and a Cervantes, and in his Works exceeded them all. He employed his Wit to the noblest Purposes, in ridiculing as well Superstition in Religion as Infidelity, and the several Errors and Immoralities which sprung up from time to time in his Age; and lastly, in the Defence of his Country, against several pernicious Schemes of Wicked Politicians. Nor was he only a Genius and a Patriot; he was in private Life a good and charitable Man, and frequently lent Sums of Money without Interest to the Poor and Industrious; by which Means many Families were preserved from Destruction. The Loss of so excellent a Person would have been more to be lamented, had not a Disease that affected his Understanding, long since deprived him of the Enjoy

ment of Life, and his Country of the Benefit of his great Talents; But we hope this short and hasty Character will not be the last Piece of Gratitude paid by his Cotemporaries to such eminent Merit."

Fielding's leaders also assumed a serious tone as the danger from the invading army increased on every day's march further southward. When news reached London that the Highlanders were at Derby, the capital was struck, says Fielding, "with a terror scarce to be credited." A day of fast and humiliation was appointed for December 18. The Bishop of St. Asaph preached before the Lords at St. Peter's, Westminster, and the Rector of St. Mary-leBow before the Commons at St. Margaret's. Both took the same text: "Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent." Never before, according to the newspapers, had there been so great an attendance of Lords and Commons. The day preceding the fast, Fielding revived Parson Adams for a sermon addressed to the town, on a text taken from Pythagoras: "Go upon the work, having first prayed to the Gods for success." Much, I daresay, as the Bishop of St. Asaph, Parson Adams attributed "the unparallel'd success" of the rebellion to “the just judgment of God against an offending people." During the three or four years that he had "tarried in the great city," he had seen everywhere "monstrous impieties and iniquities," far surpassing in wickedness anything recorded of ancient Sodom. Nothing could save a town void of charity and given over wholly to lying and luxury, but "a total amendment of life, a total change of manners." Subsequently Parson Adams had another discourse on the divine wrath that was overtaking a nation bent upon its own destruction; wherein he imputed all the ills that Great Britain was suffering under, to "the notorious want of care in parents in the education of youth," who are no longer, either in the city or in the country, instructed in the

principles of religion, virtue, morality, and patriotism. The only ambition of a young man, so far as he has observed, is to become a member of the society of bowes, a word, if that be the correct spelling, whose etymology and import, the Parson says, he cannot understand, "as it hath never once occurred in any lexicon or dictionary which I have yet perused."

One night, after the rebels had captured Carlisle, Fielding represents himself as having a dream or vision of the Highlanders entering London and massacring the inhabitants. While writing in his study, his children playing about him, he was arrested by a gang of ruffians on the charge of high treason, dragged through streets piled high with the slaughtered, and thrown into a prisoners' pen with the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester. He was put through a form of trial before a judge who addressed him "in broken English" and only stared when he asserted that the life of no man was worth preserving longer than it was to be defended by the known laws of his country." The judge immediately gave him over to the executioner; but just as the rope was being put round his neck, his little daughter entered his bedchamber and put an end to the dream, by pulling open his eyes, and telling him that his tailor had just brought him a new suit of clothes for his Majesty's birthday. Not only would worthy citizens of London like himself, said Fielding in another paper, fall into "utter misery and desolation," should a Popish Prince gain the throne, but all those unpatriotic gentlemen discontented with the present order in church and state should pause and reflect on the fate awaiting them. He inquires of the freethinkers who spend their time in ridiculing parsons for "the useless services of praying, preaching, catechising and instructing the people," how they would like to be forced into "auricular confession, pennance, fasting, and all the tiresome forms and

ceremonies exacted by the Church of Rome!"

Again, he asks those politicians who make it their profession to sell themselves to one party or another, what hope they can have under an absolute Prince. "A freeman," remarks Fielding ironically, "may justly sell himself, but a slave cannot." There is no necessity of purchasing a slave, for he is already owned. The only persons who will be permitted to pillage the country will be "hungry Highlanders" and "hungry priests.

These two papers were subsequently elaborated into "a waking dream," in which are depicted the actual events that would have occurred had the Pretender, instead of retracing his steps from Derby, gone on and taken London. It is an imaginary journal kept by "an honest tradesman living in the busy part of the city" for two or three months after the massacre of Christmas week. In abbreviated form, these are some of the events recorded by the Londoner:

"January 1, 1746. This Day the supposed Conqueror was proclaimed at Stocks Market, amidst the loud Acclamations of Highlanders and Friars.

"Jan. 2. A Proclamation issued for a free Parliament (according to the Declaration) to meet the 20th Instant. The twelve Judges removed, and twelve new ones appointed, some of whom had scarce ever been in Westminster-Hall before.

"Jan. 3. Queen Anne's Statue in St. Paul's Church Yard taken away, and a large Crucifix erected in its Room. "Jan. 10. Three Anabaptists committed to Newgate, for pulling down the Crucifix in Paul's Church Yard.

"Jan. 20. The free Parliament opened-the Speech and Addresses filled with Sentiments of civil and religious Liberty.

"Jan. 22. Three Members, to wit, Mr. D[odingto]n, Mr.

P[it]t, Mr. L[yttelto]n, were seized in their Houses, and sent to the Tower, by a Warrant from a Secretary of State.

"Jan. 26. This Day the Gazette informs us, that Portsmouth, Berwick, and Plymouth, were delivered into the Hands of French Commissaries, as Cautionary Towns.

"Jan. 28. A Bill brought into the Commons, and twice read the same Day, to repeal the Act of Habeas Corpus. "Feb. 3. Father Poignardini, an Italian Jesuit, made Privy-Seal.

"Feb. 13. Four Heretics burnt in Smithfield-Mr. Mac-henly [Orator Henley] attended them, assisted on this extraordinary Occasion by Father O-Blaze, the Dominican. "Feb. 19. Father Mac-dagger made President of Magdalen College in Oxford.

"Feb. 21. The Deanry of Christ Church given to Father Poignardini, and the Bishoprics of Winchester and Ely, to the General of the Jesuits Order, resident in Italy.

"March 1. The French Ambassador made a Duke, with Precedence.

"March 4. An eminent Physician fined 200 Marks in the King's Bench, for an innuendo at Batson's, that Bath Water was preferable to Holy Water.

"March 7. The Pope's Nuncio makes his Public Entrymet at the Royal Exchange by my Lord Mayor (a Frenchman).

"March 9. My little Boy Jacky taken ill of the Itch. He had been on the Parade with his Godfather the Day before, to see the Life-Guards, and had just touched one of their Plaids.

"March 16. Lord C[hief] J[ustice] W[il]les, and Admiral V[erno]n, hang'd at Tyburn.

"March 17. Fresh Rumours of a Plot-a Riot in the City-a Rising in the North-a Descent in the West-Confusions, Uproars, Commitments, Hangings, Burnings, &c. &c."