before, he had borrowed £400 of Tristram Walton of Salisbury, presumably to help him towards his education in the law, and had very properly acknowledged the debt in "a certain writing obligatory" which he signed and sealed at Salisbury as far back as September 22, 1739. But he declined to pay the debt, although he was often requested to do so, and he flatly refused to admit damages to the amount of £40 which Tristram Walton claimed. Determined to have his money, Walton brought suit against Collier in the Court of the King's Bench on June 14, 1745, and secured from the Court an order for "special bail." Thereupon, according to the record of the proceedings as given by Mr. de Castro:

"James Harris of the City of New Sarum in the County of Wilts Esquire and Henry Fielding of Boswell Court in the parsh of St. Clement Danes in the County of Middlesex Esquire come into the Court of our Lord the King before the King himself at Westminster in their proper persons and become Pledges and each of them by himself did become Pledge for the said Arthur that if it should happen that the said Arthur should be condemned in the plea aforesaid then the said Pledges did grant and each of them for himself did grant that as well the said Debt as all such damages costs and charges as should be adjudged to the said Tristram in that behalf should be made of their and each of their lands and chattels and be levyed to the use of the said Tristram if it should happen that the said Arthur should not pay the said debt and damages costs and charges to the said Tristram or render himself on that occasion to the Prison of the Marshal of the Marshalsea of our Lord the King before the King himself.”

The case, being duly tried, was decided in favour of the plaintiff; but Fielding immediately entered a demurrer for his client, which the Court overruled on November 12, 1745, and at the same time awarded the plaintiff further damages

to the amount of £8 10s. As a last resort, Fielding then appealed, on November 19, from the Exchequer Court to the Exchequer Chamber on a writ of error. The Chamber, after hearing the appeal on June 4, 1746, ordered:

"That the judgment should be in all things affirmed and should stand in full force and effect notwithstanding the said causes and matters assigned for Error by Arthur Collier. And it was also at the same time considered by the Court that Tristram Walton should recover against Arthur Collier eleven pounds and eleven shillings for his damages costs and charges which he had sustained by reason of the delay of execution of the said judgment on pretence of prosecuting the said Writ of Error."

The fatal day which Fielding had put off for months had at length arrived. Nothing could be collected from Harris, whose goods and chattels were far away in Salisbury. Accordingly an execution for £400 or more was taken out against Fielding. Beyond this we do not know the details. Probably Harris eventually paid his share of the obligation; but Dr. Collier stood by without much concern and let the law take its course. It may not be a mere coincidence that Fielding at once gave a quietus to the moribund "True Patriot," which he had conducted while the shadow of an ungrateful friend hung over him.*

* For the suit, see Mr. J. Paul de Castro, "Notes and Queries," 12 S. II, 104-106 (Aug. 5, 1916); where for Walton vs. Collier is cited King's Bench Plea Roll, Trinity Term, 18-19 George II, Roll 210, membrane 741 (Public Record Office).

CHAPTER XVI

THE JACOBITE'S JOURNAL

I

Again there was silence before the time came for another outburst of political journalism. Meanwhile Fielding and his sister continued to live in Old Boswell Court, where we have a casual view of them on an evening when they receive two visitors who call to pay their respects much as people nowadays seek out famous authors. The one who tells the story was Joseph Warton, a son of Thomas Warton, late professor of poetry at Oxford. Joseph was then but a young man recently in orders-not yet the Master of Winchester, and editor and critic of Pope. Of the reception he wrote, on October 29, 1746, to his brother Tom, a student at Oxford: "I wish you had been with me last week, when I spent two evenings with Fielding and his sister, who wrote David Simple, and you may guess I was very well entertained. The lady indeed retir'd pretty soon, but Russell and I sat up with the Poet [meaning Fielding, to whom the title was given by virtue of his plays] till one or two in the morning, and were inexpressibly diverted. I find he values, as he justly may, his Joseph Andrews above all his writings: he was extremely civil to me, I fancy, on my Father's account."'* This is the real Fielding in his most delightful humour; but it is not to be inferred, as has

* J. Wool, "Biographical Memoirs of Joseph Warton," 1806, p. 215. In 1728, Fielding made a visit to Upton Grey, a few miles from Basingstoke, where the elder Thomas Warton, having resigned his Oxford professorship, resided as Vicar of the parish. It is probable that the two men were acquainted.

been often done by readers who pay no attention to dates, that he placed his "Joseph Andrews" above "Tom Jones" —a novel of which only a part had yet been written. He merely meant that "Joseph Andrews" was better than his plays, essays, and minor fictions.

While he was conducting "The True Patriot," his sister had been preparing, we know further, to publish by subscription a continuation of her "David Simple," to be called "Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple, and Some Others." This was in line with the fashion set by Richardson, who added a second part to "Pamela" after the story had been concluded; for the characters were so real that people were willing to pay half a guinea more to learn how they thrived in the married state. Miss Fielding, owing to the success of her first venture, straightway began her sequel, with the intention, as may be seen in an advertisement in "The True Patriot" for February 18, 1746, of having it ready by the spring of that year; but she deferred publication-naming the next January as the probable date-because "her friends were totally prevented by the late public confusion, to favour her with their interest, as they kindly intended; nor could she herself think it decent to solicit a private subscription, in a time of such public danger." In the meantime Henry Woodfall printed for her, on November 23, 1746, five hundred subscription blanks,* that the work might proceed now the war was over. Some delay intervening, "The Familiar Letters," in two volumes, were not brought out until April, 1747.† It was an enterprise very like her brother's "Miscellanies." The volumes were printed for the author; Millar acted as the agent; and the price was put high-ten shillings a set for ordinary paper and a guinea for royal paper. The public responded nobly.

*Notes and Queries,'' 1 S. XI, 419 (June 2, 1855).

+ "The Gentleman's Magazine," April, 1747, p. 204.

Among the subscribers, numbering more than five hundred, were the Duchess of Bedford, the Countess of Orford, Mrs. Pitt, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Henry Fox, Thomas Winnington, Ralph Allen (who took five sets), the author's cousin, Henry Gould-and "Mr. Richardson," who, needless to say, had not lent the prestige of his name to her brother's "Miscellanies."

The sequel to "David Simple" is a rather dull performance of the moral kind, pieced out with many letters remotely connected with the original novel, the fragment of a fairy tale, a vision elaborated from an allegory of life which Sarah had read in "The Tatler," and two dialogues, called "Much Ado" and "Fashion," which were "a kind present" from an unnamed acquaintance. According to Dr. Johnson, the donor was James Harris, the friend from Salisbury, who was doubtless glad to find a place for the publication of his dialogues.* But what gives the book interest here is the fact that her brother Henry beyond doubt contributed the preface "written by a friend of the author," and the last five letters of the collection, which were introduced by a note in protest against the indirect attacks of Grub Street upon his character and reputation. "The following five letters," it is said in the note, "were given me by the author of the preface. I should have thought this hint unnecessary, had not much nonsense and scurrility been unjustly imputed to him by the good-judgment or good-nature of the age. They can know but little of his writings, who want to have them pointed out; but they know much less of him, who impute any such base and scandalous productions to his pen."

In his preface Fielding writes pleasantly on the different kinds of letters, real and imaginary, that have entertained his own and former times, condemning the inanity

* "Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay," edited by Charlotte Barrett, 1904, I, 86.