PREFATORY NOTE. FROM a critical point of view, the works of Fielding have received abundant examination at the hands of a long line of distinguished writers. Of these, the latest is by no means the least; and as Mr. Leslie Stephen's brilliant studies, in the recent édition de luxe and the Cornhill Magazine, are now in every one's hands, it is perhaps no more than a wise discretion which has prompted me to confine my attention more strictly to the purely biographical side of the subject. In the present memoir, therefore, I have made it my duty, primarily, to verify such scattered anecdotes respecting Fielding as have come down to us; to correct (I hope not obtrusively) a few mis-statements which have crept into previous accounts; and to add such supplementary details as I have been able to discover for myself. In this task I have made use of the following authorities: I. Arthur Murphy's Essay on the Life and Genius of Henry Fielding, Esq. This was prefixed to the first collected edition of Fielding's works published by Andrew Millar in June, 1762; and it continued for a long time to be the recognised authority for Fielding's life. It is possible that it fairly reproduces his personality, as presented by contempo rary tradition; but it is misleading in its facts, and needlessly diffuse. Under pretence of respecting "the manes of the dead," the writer seems to have found it pleasanter to fill his space with vagrant discussions on the "Middle Comedy of |