and conversational style of many French letters and English imitations of them. It is a hit at Richardson-is it not?-when he says: "And sure no one will contend, that the epistolary style is in general the most proper to a novelist, or that it hath been used by the best writers of this kind." Most of all, Fielding admired Lyttelton's "Persian Letters" descriptive of English manners and institutions, supposed to have been written by a Persian travelling in England, and sent to a friend at Ispahan. If novels were to be cast in letter form, he preferred that they should be confined to a letter or two, like some that Lyttelton introduced into this imaginary correspondence. He professed also to like letters such as his sister was writing, wherein is disregarded, to the reader's ease, the regular beginning and conclusion required of a novel; and in pointing out her feminine touches which would be the despair of any man, he quotes "a lady of very high rank, whose quality is however less an honour to her than her understanding"perhaps Lady Mary Wortley Montagu-on his sister's first novel. "So far," said she, "from doubting David Simple to be the performance of a woman, I am well convinced, it could not have been written by a man." Recommending the new book to the public, Fielding added: "I hope, for the sake of my fair country-women, that these excellent pictures of virtue and vice, which, to my knowledge, the author hath bestowed such pains in drawing, will not be thrown away on the world, but that much more advantage may accrue to the reader, than the good-nature and sensibility of the age have, to their immortal honour, bestowed on the author." If he meant the last clause, like a similar phrase in his sister's note to the five letters, to be taken in irony, it was an ungenerous insinuation, in view of twenty-odd pages filled with subscribers' names.

It is nevertheless an agreeable picture in which we see brother and sister collaborating and each speaking out

for the other. Of Henry's five letters, one, hardly rising above the talent of Sarah, is on love as the sweetest passion of life and a nobler incentive to labour than avarice or ambition. A pair of letters between Miss Prudentia Flutter and Miss Lucy Rural contrast the amusements of the town with those of the country during the Christmas holidays. It is a little novel in embryo such as Addison had written and such as in the author's opinion lent itself naturally to the letter form. Stories running to any length in this style Fielding found tiresome. In another letter a Frenchman records for the benefit of a friend at home his observations on a journey by boat up the Thames, from Whitehall Stairs to Putney, along the Surrey side and back by the Middlesex shore. This was an experiment in the humorous manner of Lyttelton, or rather his master, Montesquieu, but rendered lighter by numerous puns in explaining the names of places. Thus of Putney on the south bank and of Fulham directly across the river, it is said: "These two towns were founded by two sisters; and they received their names from the following occasion. These ladies being on the Surry shore, called for a boat to convey them across the water. The watermen being somewhat lazy, and not coming near enough to the land, the lady who had founded the town which stands in Surry, bid them put nigh; upon which her sister immediately cried out, 'A good omen; let Putnigh be the name of the place.' When they came to the other side, she who had founded the other town, ordered the watermen to push the boat full home; her sister then returned the favour, and gave the name of Full home to the place."

The most intimate of these five letters is the one that Fielding put first in his series-from Valentine in London to his friend David Simple in the country. It is a brief survey which Fielding took, early in 1747, of the state of the nation with reference to morals, literature, and politics.

His general proposition was that the moral and literary standards of a people depend upon the character of the leaders. At the present time "there is," he asserts, "no one patron of true genius, nor the least encouragement left for it in this kingdom." Despite this fact, a few writers of real talent manage to survive, but they are like plants growing in "a poor hungry soil." He is reminded, he says, of the answer that a gardener made to a covetous gentleman who was angry because there were no cucumbers in his garden. "How should you have cucumbers, Sir," retorted the gardener, "when you know you would not afford a hot-bed to raise them in?" There being no true standard of taste, literature has run, to the corruption of public morals, into profanity, indecency, slander, and dulness. Nowhere is a firm hand more needed than at the theatres. True, England now has several very great actors; but at Covent Garden, where Garrick and Quin and Mrs. Cibber were playing, the manager has given them rôles all this last winter in fustian tragedies; while the excellent comedians at Drury Lane, instead of treating the public to a lighter kind of "dramatical food," have attempted to emulate the best actors of Covent-Garden in their best parts; and have vainly endeavoured to rival one [Garrick] who never had, nor, I believe, ever will have an equal." Beyond these tragedies, false and unnatural, the theatres have nothing to offer except "French and Italian buffoonry" and "operas, in which Mr. Handel is totally silent." For himself Fielding solved the problem by seldom visiting either theatre. Perhaps he forgot that his own "Miser" had been admirably cast that very winter at Drury Lane, and both "The Miser" and "The Lottery" at Covent Garden. But the complaint about the theatres was in general well founded. Garrick and Quin played Rowe's "Fair Penitent" many times during the season, and "Jane Shore" almost continually through January.

Outwardly the church seemed to Fielding to be in a flourishing condition; but "with regard to morality, which may be considered as the internal part," he said, "I freely own, I believe no age or nation was ever sunk to a more deplorable state." Everywhere he saw "a total disregard to all true honour and honesty, every kind of corrupashamed of any thing

tion and prostitution, no man being but the appearance of poverty." Rarely did Fielding fall into so pessimistic a mood. No light could he throw on the dark picture until he came to politics. Then he said: "The administration of our public affairs is, in my opinion, at present in the hands of the very men, whom you, and every honest person would wish to be intrusted with it. Amongst those, tho' there is no absolute Prime Minister, yet there is one, whose genius must always make him the superior in every society, as he hath joined to the most penetrating wit, the clearest judgment both in men and things, and the profoundest knowledge of them, of any man, whom, perhaps the world ever saw." The unnamed minister to whom Fielding pays this fine tribute was probably not Henry Pelham, the brains of the Government, but Lord Chesterfield, who, as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, had kept that country tranquil during the late rebellion in Scotland, and had recently been appointed a Secretary of State, in consequence of his discreet management of an impetuous people.

An examination of the fugitive literature of the time reveals the fact that Fielding, after the suspension of "The True Patriot," put forth a number of anonymous pamphlets. Perhaps the first of them was a brief account, costing only sixpence, of a notorious incident sufficiently explained by the title: "The Female Husband; or, the Surprising History of Mrs. Mary alias Mr. George Hamilton, convicted for marrying a young Woman of Wells.' The trifle was advertised by Cooper the bookseller in "The

London Magazine” and elsewhere in November, 1746; and Andrew Millar, in giving a list of Fielding's works on a flyleaf of his sister's "Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia" (second edition, 1758), credited it to the author of "Tom Jones." All further trace of this piece of hack-work, which may have come from the pen of Fielding, is lost, except for an allusion to it in the next pamphlet of the series: "Ovid's Art of Love Paraphrased, and Adapted to the Present Times." The paraphrase of Ovid, which was announced in "The Gentleman's Magazine" for February, 1747, was printed for Millar, and placed on sale also at the shops of Cooper, Dodd, and George Woodfall. Its price was two shillings. Though no copy of the second pamphlet in its original form has yet come to light, it was reprinted at Dublin in 1759, with the title: "The Lover's Assistant, or, New Year's Gift; being, a New Art of Love, Adapted to the Present Times. Translated from the Latin, with Notes, By the late Ingenious Henry Fielding of Facetious Memory." The authorship is perfectly certain. Its sale not being very brisk, Fielding advertised the pamphlet a year later (March 12, 1748) in "The Jacobite's Journal,' and recommended it there to his readers. Millar also included it among Fielding's works advertised in the first separate edition of "Jonathan Wild” (1754), and again in Sarah Fielding's "Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia." As Fielding had a copy of this edition of "Jonathan Wild" in his library, he was aware of the advertisement in that volume. Equally convincing is the internal evidence. The little book has all of Fielding's technical peculiarities of style, and contains allusions and expressions exactly parallel to several in "The True Patriot," and in the novel which he was then writing. For example, he reproduces the praise of the Duke of Cumberland which had appeared in his newspaper, and makes similar facetious remarks as in "Tom Jones" on "The Gardener's Dictionary," an enter