This is what might have been; but the tradesman's son did not catch the itch from a Highland plaid; nor did holy water become a substitute for the Bath wells. In order to prevent the direful events that Fielding saw in his imagination, "the whole body of the law," says Horace Walpole, "formed themselves into a little army, under the command of Lord Chief Justice Willes, and were to have done duty at St. James's, to guard the royal family in the King's absence."'* This remark of Walpole's has led to the assertion that Fielding probably joined with his brethren of the Bar and learned to use a sword as well as a pen. But Walpole's statement is not quite accurate; and the conjecture that Fielding, afflicted with the gout, enlisted in a volunteer corps, is preposterous. All that happened is told by Fielding himself in "The True Patriot." "The young lawyers and students of the Temple," he says in number five, "being willing to defend as well as practice the laws of their country, have lately applied themselves to the study of the laws of arms, in which exercise they are daily attended in the several Inns of Court by serjeants." The news is given with the punning query: "Whether these be serjeants at law, or of the army?" Though Fielding himself was unable to bear arms, he took an active interest in the measures for the defence of the kingdom. Perhaps he wrote that "Loyal Song" beginning

O Brother Sawney, hear you the news,

Twang 'em, we'll bang 'em, and hang 'em up all.

An army's just coming without any shoes,

Twang 'em, we'll bang 'em, and hang 'em up all.

To arms, to arms

which appeared in the first number of "The True Patriot'; and for weeks he appealed in a series of letters from "a person of great property, as well as great abilities," to the

*Letters of Horace Walpole," edited by Toynbee, II, 160; and Lawrence, "Life of Fielding, 209.

people everywhere to organize themselves into a militia to supplement the regular army in face of the threatened invasion from France. Without any expense to the Government, volunteer forces were to be raised in every county and city throughout England against "the attempts of our most implacable enemies, now supporting the most atrocious rebellion."

Fielding also lent his aid to the theatres, which often, especially through December, 1745, gave their entire profits to patriotic associations. Old anti-Papal plays were revived, such as Lee's "Massacre of Paris" depicting St. Bartholomew's Day, Ford's "Perkin Warbeck," and Cibber's "Nonjuror." On the same stage were performed Cibber's "Papal Tyranny, or King John" and Fielding's "The Debauchees : or, the Jesuit Caught." Fielding wrote no new play, but was probably the author of "An Epilogue, Design'd to be spoken by Mrs. Woffington, in the Character of a Volunteer."'* Mrs. Woffington, "a bold, smart. Volunteer," enters "reading a Gazette" and cursing all cowards. The epilogue was used many times at Drury Lane, once with "Three Hours after Marriage." While praising the English actors for their patriotism, Fielding kept up an almost continuous fire at the Italian singers, who had been brought over as usual for the season. Hard pressed by competition with the legitimate drama, "Giovani Cantilena" is represented as appealing to the editor of "The True Patriot" to "rite sumting to recomend de opera, or begar me sal be oblige to go back to Italy like one fool as me did cum"; and the letter becomes the occasion for a mock defence of the opera as the most fitting diversion amid public calamities. It was by music that Nero calmed and composed the agonies of his mind while Rome was in flames; Socrates learned to sing in his old age; and *The True Patriot," Feb., 18-25, 1746; reprinted, with minor alterations, in "A Foundling Hospital for Wit," June, 1746, pp. 24-25.

Pythagoras held that virtue, peace, health, and all other good things were but harmony. To those who fear that Italian music may enervate the minds of a nation, Fielding replies that it is so much the better for that; if England wishes to be safe from the attack of hostile neighbours, there is no surer way than the employment of every means for weakening the character and morals of the people, so that she will not be worth conquering. Before the season was far advanced, the Italian opera, however, vied with the English theatres in patriotic appeals, extolling the Duke of Cumberland and abusing the Pretender. Thereupon Fielding inserted in his periodical a letter purporting to come from Rome to the effect that the Pope shed tears on hearing the news, and excommunicated all the Roman Catholics in the troupe of Italian singers; and that the Pretender, crying out "Et tu, Lady," fell into a swoon, from which he recovered only to see that his cause was now forever lost.

As soon as Prince Charles was well out of England, an Opposition began to show its head in and out of Parliament. The Government was criticised for ever letting the Highlanders get so far south as Derby, for its conduct of the war with France, for the stagnation in trade, and for the heavy taxes. In reply Fielding declared that, but for the energy of the Government in bringing over troops from Flanders, the Pretender would have long since been in possession of London, and that the foreign war which interfered with shipping and made necessary unusual taxation, was a legacy from the Walpole Administration. And when the Duke of Cumberland shattered the Highland army at Culloden, Fielding proclaimed loudly the complete triumph of his friends and their cause. There had been, he said, able Ministries before, but none ever equalled the one headed by the Pelhams. For the first time were at the helm statesmen good as well as great; for the first time in Eng

land's history, "patriot" and "courtier" had become words compatible and necessarily conjoined. The Administration was now in the hands of "a glorious body of men who have shewn that the highest dignity and property in this kingdom are accompany'd with the highest honour; who esteem power and preferment of no value any longer than they can be preferred with a strict adherence to the true interest of their country." The Duke of Cumberland "that fulmen belli"-was placed among the great military commanders, and his father the King among the ideal princes-just, merciful, benevolent, and happy in the love of his family and subjects.

With those who still remained disaffected, Fielding had good sport. Some of them were "idiots"; others were mischief-makers who for the good of the country ought to give themselves over to Jack Ketch the hangman. Twice, in large type advertisements, Fielding warned these men against attempts to suppress "The True Patriot" by bribing hawkers and booksellers to have nothing to do with it; and, continuing the jest of the hangman, he set a day for their dissection, in lieu of hanging, in "The True Patriot"; but relented on receiving a "humble petition from the people calling themselves the Opposition," who promised to submit to "his Highness, the Great Sole True Patriot of Great Britain,” and in particular to subscribe to his newspaper. They pleaded in their own behalf their faulty education, their mean abilities, their inconsiderable number, and their impotency to do harm. "Their actions (or rather their words)," they said, "proceeded from two motives, the one of which hath been always thought noble and laudable, and the latter hath been held almost a justification of any act whatever. These are ambition and necessity. If the Government will please to satisfy these, it is very well known they are ready to become its humble servants at any time. They have no quarrel either with men

or measures; but can never agree that their country is taken care of, whilst they themselves, who are that part of their country which they love best, are neglected. They have no more hatred of power than a pack of hounds have of a hare, who bellow after her only because she runs away from them, and they cannot overtake her. Places are what they desire, and many of them very moderate ones." As no malice but only human weakness lay behind the fruitless endeavours of the Opposition, Fielding thought a reprieve should be granted them, though, unless they kept quiet, it might be necessary to proceed against them again and let Jack Ketch have them after all. Later he claimed that the Opposition wholly died out; that England was blessed as never before in his lifetime with "the utter extinction of parties."

As everyone was now a true patriot, said Fielding with a touch of irony, he saw no reason for continuing a newspaper by that name. Accordingly the last number of "The True Patriot"-it is the thirty-third-appeared on June 17, 1746. That last number may have been lost; it is not in the file, otherwise complete, at the British Museum; it has never been described, nor has any reference ever been made to it by Fielding's biographers. Fortunately "the substance" of it was reprinted in "The London Magazine" for June, 1746. Fielding's last leader was a farewell to the public, conceived in the finest spirit of patriotism. "The True Patriot," he told his readers, was undertaken at a time when the rebellion was "attended with an appearance of success that struck the whole nation with a general panick." If he had been in the earlier numbers vehement in his attacks on the Pretender and his followers, it was because he believed that the religion and liberties of his country were then in the gravest danger. Without claiming "any extraordinary merit" from his undertaking, he had merely discharged his "duty as an Englishman, and as a