decency to those who have (erroneously, I hope) embraced a cause in opposition to both, I shall now retire with the secret satisfaction which attends right actions, tho' they fail of any great reward from the one, and are prosecuted with curses and vengeance from the other."

The demise of "The True Patriot" came suddenly, without previous announcement, though there had been forewarnings of the end three months before. The fact seems to be that Fielding, who began his newspaper under a noble patriotic impulse, found the undertaking too heavy a burden to carry along with the practice of the law. Who were his assistants, we do not know. In advertising the first number of the paper in "The London Evening Post" for November 5, 1745, Cooper the publisher spoke of "the authors" of the periodical as if more than one writer were to be employed upon it; while Fielding, on the contrary, implied in his first leader that there was only one author or editor, who might be "Mr. F- -g. In a sense, both were right. Like other newspapers, "The True Patriot" published letters from correspondents on a variety of subjects, all of which the editor promised to print or acknowledge the receipt of. On one occasion he was chagrined that a letter from "Cato Britannicus" had been mislaid so that he must ask the British Cato for another copy. There were also occasional letters from foreign parts on the state of European politics, and "persons of distinction" supplied Fielding with news from the North. His miscellaneous items called "Apocrypha" were gathered from the London newspapers. The series of articles that he ran on the organization of a volunteer army was taken from a book that Millar was publishing under the title of "A Plan for Establishing and Disciplining a National Militia," of unknown authorship though ascribed to a Colonel Martin. But nearly everything that went into "The True Patriot" seems to have been more or less edited and sometimes re

worked. Even the extracts from Colonel Martin's book were not printed without "some few variations." All these editorial details involved labour in which Fielding must have received aid from a literary hack. Was the hack his sister Sarah or Parson Young or someone else in the employ of Cooper?

Most surprising nevertheless is the extent to which Fielding's own hand is visible in this journalistic work. While the paragraphs on foreign affairs, cast in the vague newspaper style of the period, were probably put together by another, the war news as it came by post from the North was clearly for the most part reshaped by Fielding himself into connected essays; and no one but him, of course, could have written that humorous comment on marriages, deaths, and trivial items reprinted as "Apocrypha" from his newspaper brethren. Just as certainly he often inserted phrases of his own in the letters which he printed; and in some cases letters signed by fanciful names could have been written only by himself. When, for example, "Rusticus" remarks that the direction-"kill the cattle as soon as they fall sick," if you wish to put an end to the cow distemper-is as if a physician should knock a patient on the head in order to cure him of a cold, we have the Fielding touch. Again, when "Oliver Oldcoat" of Gloucestershire remonstrates with the editor for his praise of the Ministry and hopes to see his "d-d newspaper" burnt by the common hangman, that is Fielding beyond doubt, even down to the phrasing which he had used elsewhere. Likewise a letter from "Heliogabalus" commending "The True Patriot," must have been Fielding's entirely. It was here that Fielding first elaborated his famous comparison, known to all readers of "Tom Jones," between a good newspaper or novel and a well-ordered feast, where in both cases one should begin with the plain dishes and proceed by the proper stages to the highly seasoned ragouts. Helio

gabalus, to quote a few of his sentences, wrote to the author of "The True Patriot":

"This Evening at Eight, as our Company had finished their Dinner, to which we seldom allow more than four Hours, a Gentleman pulled your last Paper out of his Pocket, and read it aloud to us; and greatly, I assure you, to the Satisfaction of us all; for we have some Taste besides that which is seated in the Palate, and are capable of relishing Wit as well as any Dainty.

"It was observed, that you had cooked up the Entertainment you serve to the Public with much Propriety: You give us first a Dish of substantial Food, when our Appetites are brisk and keen; you then serve up several petit Plats from the News Papers; and lastly, send us away with a Bon Bouche of your own.

"A Gentleman of great Delicacy of Taste declared, that you had a most excellent Way of ragooing these several Articles which you take from the Historians, as you are pleased to term them; and tho' this is the second Time of Dressing, the Italic Sauce which you add by way of Remark, gives a delicious Flavour to what was at first flat and insipid.

"Farewell, I love you as much as I do any thing which I can't eat. . .

Finally, nearly all the thirty-three leading articles—what Heliogabalus calls the dishes of substantial food-were from Fielding's pen. Only two of them can be regarded as of doubtful authorship. Number twenty-one, giving the pathetic story of a gentleman who attempted to force his daughter to marry a man she did not love, sounds more like Sarah than Henry Fielding. Number twenty-five, a letter signed "Philander" on true and false patriotism, bears none of the marks of Fielding's style and is altogether too dull for him; whereas number twenty-eight, a letter from "Tom Skipton," a footman in a great family,

relating how a man of his own order-one Matthew Henderson*-came to the gallows by imitating the vices of gentlemen, could have been written by no footman that ever lived. Only Fielding would quote "The Beggar's Opera" to the effect that "if little men will have their vices, as well as the great, they will be punished for them." Except, then, in perhaps two instances, Fielding wrote a leader for "The True Patriot" every week, besides doing a large amount of other editorial work such as has been here outlined. It was an immense labour.

The first signs of relaxing energy occurred in the issue of March 4, when Fielding complained of "many malicious and base endeavours" to hinder the sale of his newspaper. This was his explanation-how far justified, no one knows -of a dwindling circulation, due mainly to a decrease in the demand for news of the war. At that time the "Apocrypha" disappeared from "The True Patriot" and was never again resumed. Several good leading articles-particularly one on hanging-were yet to be written; but only the last of them equalled the earlier ones either in point or humour; and in these closing numbers are those two doubtful papers to which attention has been called. It can hardly be a mere coincidence that the Lent Assizes in the WestJustices Dennison and Foster presiding-opened at Southampton on March 4, and continued through the month at Salisbury, Dorchester, Exeter, and Taunton. The law still being of prime importance with Fielding, it is probable that he attended the justices as was his custom on the Western Circuit. If this be so, it accounts for the very general topics discussed in the leaders and essays on politics during March-all of which might easily have been written some time in advance of publication, and for the termination of the comment on the apocryphal news of the week-those little delicately flavoured dishes which Heliogabalus rel*The Gentleman's Magazine,'' 1746, pp. 174-175, 218, 220.

ished, but which Fielding could not serve up when out of London. Then came in April the sittings of the King's Bench in London and Westminster, which would demand Fielding's presence.

His grip on "The True Patriot," once loosened, was never regained. After April 22, not a single advertisement appeared in the newspaper, none even by the publisher or by Fielding's friend Andrew Millar. "The True Patriot," having served its purpose, ceased to interest the public as well as the editor. Thereupon Fielding closed his books in time for another journey into the West for the summer Assizes. Viewed thus from the narrow personal standpoint, "The True Patriot" was a newspaper which Fielding conducted with vigour during his leisure between the sittings of the courts where he practised, and which he managed to keep alive, with the help of others, during term time. There is no doubt of the editor's exalted patriotism nor of his desire to put money into a depleted purse. His desire was probably not fulfilled to the extent he anticipated; but it is indisputable that he performed important public services during a national crisis-a time of confusion, said Fielding, which he hoped God would "never suffer to have its equal in this kingdom."

His own private affairs, it has recently been shown by Mr. J. Paul de Castro, were also in great confusion. As the legal adviser of a friend, Fielding became his surety and was compelled to pay. The case was this. The Collier sisters had a brother Arthur, who was then practising as an advocate at Doctors' Commons. His name appears among the subscribers to Fielding's "Miscellanies" as "the Worshipful Dr. Collier, L.L.D." Born in the same year, the two men had probably known each other ever since they were boys together at Salisbury. Though a lawyer of some ability, Dr. Collier was rather eccentric and quite untrustworthy in matters of business. Many years