"... surely there is some Praise due to the bare
Design of doing a Service to the Public."
--Dedication of the Enquiry.
It is evident that the beginning of the year 1753 found Fielding fully conscious that now he could only anticipate a 'short remainder of life.' But neither that consciousness, nor the increasing burden of ill-health, availed to dull the energies of these last years. Scarcely had that indomitable knight, General Sir Alexander Drawcansir retired from the active public service of conducting the Covent Garden Journal when his creator reappeared with an astonishingly comprehensive and detailed plan of poor-law reform; a plan adapted to the whole kingdom, and which according to a legal comment involved "nothing less than the repeal of the Act of Elizabeth and an entire reconstruction of the Poor Laws." 1 Poor-law reform was at this time occupying the attention of the nation, and apparently also of the legislature. And we know, from the Enquiry into the Increase of Robberies, that the question of lessening both the sufferings and the criminality of the poor had for years occupied Fielding's warm heart and active intellect. But the extent to which he devoted these last months of his life to the cause of the poorest and most degraded deserves more than a passing recognition. He tells us, in the Introduction to the pamphlet embodying his great scheme, that he has applied himself long and constantly to this subject; that he has "read over and considered all the Laws, in anywise relating to the Poor, with the utmost Care and Attention," in the execution of which, moreover, he has been for "many Years very particularly concerned"; and that in addition to this exhaustive study of the laws themselves, he has added "a careful Perusal of everything which I could find that hath been written on this Subject, from the Original Institution in the 43d. of Elizabeth to this Day." Such was the laborious preparation, extending presumably over many months, which the author of Tom Jones, and the first wit of his day, devoted to solving this vast problem of social reform.
Fielding was far too well skilled in the art of effective construction to present the public with undigested note-books from his voluminous reading. His scheme, based on all the laws, and upon all the comments on all the laws, regarding the poor, enacted and made for two hundred years, is a marvel of conciseness and practical detail; and, together with an Introduction and an Epilogue, does but occupy the ninety pages of a two-shilling pamphlet.
The pamphlet was published at the end of January 1753, with the title A Proposal for making an effectual Provision for the Poor, for amending their Morals, and for rendering them useful Members of the Society. To which is added a Plan of the Buildings proposed, with proper Elevations ... By Henry Fielding, Esq.; Barrister-at-Law, and one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex. The dedication, dated January 19, is to Henry Pelham, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and from it we learn that Fielding had personally mentioned his scheme to this Minister. The Introduction presents an eloquent appeal for some effectual remedy for the intolerably diseased state of the body politic as regarded the distresses and vices of the poor, their unseen sufferings no less than their frequent misdeeds. Fielding protests against the popular ignorance of these sufferings in words that might have been spoken by some pleader for the East End 'Settlements' of to-day. "If we were," he declares, "to make a Progress through the Outskirts of this Town, and look into the Habitations of the Poor, we should there behold such Pictures of human Misery as must move the Compassion of every Heart that deserves the Name of human. What indeed must be his Composition who could see whole Families in Want of every Necessary of Life, oppressed with Hunger, Cold, Nakedness, and Filth, and with Diseases, the certain Consequence of all these; what, I say, must be his Composition, who could look into such a Scene as this, and be affected only in his Nostrils?" As an instance of Fielding's personal knowledge of the London slums of his day, a reference made by Mr Saunders Welch to their joint work is of interest. Writing in the same year, 1753, he mentions assisting "Mr Henry Fielding in taking from under one roof upwards of seventy lodgers of both sexes." 2
To this little known misery of the poor, who "starve and freeze and rot among themselves," was added the problem of streets swarming with beggars during the day, and with thieves at night. And the nation groaned under yet a third burden, that of the heavy taxes levied for the poor, by which says Fielding "as woeful experience hath taught us, neither the poor themselves nor the public are relieved." To attack such a three-headed monster as this was an adventure better fitted, it might seem, for that club which "Captain Hercules Vinegar" had wielded thirteen years before, when in the full tide of his strength, than for the pen of a man in shattered health, and already serving the public in the daily labours of a principal magistrate. But nothing could restrain the ardour of Fielding's spirit, how frail so ever had become its containing 'crust of clay,' when great abuses and great misery made their call on his powers; or countervail against the hope, with which the Introduction to his plan concludes. If that plan fails, he shall indeed, he declares have "lost much Time, and misemployed much Pains; and what is above all, shall miss the Pleasure of thinking that in the Decline of my Health and Life, I have conferred a great and lasting Benefit on my Country."
The Plan is that of the erection of a vast combined county workhouse, prison, and infirmary; where the unemployed should find, not only work but skilled instruction, the poor relief, and the sick a hospital; where discipline and good order should be stringently enforced; and where two chaplains should labour at that 'correction and amendment' of the mind which "in real truth religion is alone capable of effectually executing." The entire scheme is worked out with extraordinary detail, in fifty-nine clauses; and is preceded by an elaborate architectural plan of the proposed institution (which was to house no less than five thousand six hundred persons) with its workshops, its men's quarters rigorously divided from those for the women, its recreation ground, its provision shops, its cells for the refractory and for prisoners, and its whipping post. And the pamphlet concludes by lengthy arguments in favour of the various clauses; and by a personal protest concerning the disinterestedness of proposals which "some few enemies" might assert to show signs of a design for private profit. Fielding touchingly disavows any thought of occupying, officially, the great house raised by his imagination. To a man in his state of health such a project would, he says, be to fly in the face of the advice of his 'Master,' Horace; "it would be indeed struere dotnos immemor sepulchri." And, he adds, those who know him will hardly be so deceived "by that Chearfulness which was always natural to me; and which, I thank God, my Conscience doth not reprove me for, to imagine that I am not sensible of my declining Constitution." The concluding words of this, Fielding's last legislative effort, betray a like calm assurance that his day's work was drawing to its close. He has now, he tells us, "no farther Design than to pass my short Remainder of Life in some Degree of Ease, and barely to preserve my Family from being the Objects of any such Laws as I have here proposed."
It is wholly in keeping with the genius of Henry Fielding that almost the last endeavour of his intellect should have been devoted to relieving the wretchedness and lessening the vices of the poorest and most miserable of his countrymen. The Proposal for ... the Poor is written by the hand of the accomplished lawyer and indefatigable magistrate; but the energy that accomplished so great a labour, in spite of broken health and among a thousand interruptions, sprang from the heart which had already immortalised the ragged postilion of Joseph Andrews and the starving highwayman of Tom Jones.
This last January but one of Fielding's life was not only occupied by the publication of proposals for an 'entire reconstruction of the Poor Laws.' In 1753 a London magistrate, or at least Mr Justice Fielding, was at the service of the public on Sunday no less than during the week; and on the first Sunday of the New Year the Bow Street room echoed to threats that read strangely enough when we think of the unknown petty thief, threatening sudden death to 'our immortal Fielding.' "Yesterday," says the General Advertiser for Monday, January 8, "John Simpson and James Ellys were commited to Newgate by Henry Fielding Esq., for shop-lifting." The charge was one of stealing five silk handkerchiefs, and when the two men "were brought before the Justice they behaved in a very impudent saucy manner, and one of them said hewished he had a Pistol about him, he would blow the Justice's Brains out; upon which a Party of the Guards was sent for who conducted them safe to Newgate." The Bow Street house, moreover, must have been full not only of prisoners and witnesses brought before the Justice, but also of victims of all manner of theft. For two comprehensive notices appear in the Advertiser for this month, repeating the previous invitation accorded to such sufferers in the Covent Garden Journal. On January 1, all persons cognizant of any burglary robbery or theft are desired to communicate immediately with Mr Brogden, clerk to Justice Fielding, "at his office at the said Justice's in Bow Street." And again, towards the end of the month, "All Persons that have been robbed on the Highway in the County of Middlesex within this three months last past, are desired to apply to Mr Brogden, at Mr Justice Fielding's in Bow Street, Covent Garden." And here, too, came the solicitors that sought counsel's opinion on their client's behalf, with their fees; the magistrate of this period being under no disability in regard to his private practice.
It was to his reputation as an advising barrister, and perhaps a little to the kindness of heart that must have been familiar to all who knew him, that Fielding owed his connection with that extraordinary popular excitement of 1753, the mysterious case of the servant girl Elizabeth Canning. On the 29th of January 'Betty Canning' presented herself, after a month's disappearance, at the door of her mother's house in London, in a deplorable state of weakness and distress, and declared that she had been kidnapped by two men on New Year's night, taken to a house on the Hertford road, and there confined by an old gipsy woman for twenty-eight days, in a hay loft, with a pitcher of water and a few pieces of bread for sole sustenance. On the twenty ninth day, according to her own account, she escaped through a window and made her way back to her home. Her neighbours, fired with pity for her sufferings, subscribed means for a prosecution; and, says Fielding, in the pamphlet which he published two months after these events, "Mr. Salt, the Attorney who hath been employed in this Cause, ... upon this Occasion, as he hath done upon many others, ... fixed upon me as the Council to be advised with." Then we have the following little domestic sketch, the only picture left to us of Henry Fielding as a practising barrister: "Accordingly, upon the 6th of February, as I was sitting in my Room, Counsellor Maden being then with me, my Clerk delivered me a Case, which was thus, as I remember, indorsed at the Top, The Case of Elizabeth Canning for Mr Fielding's opinion, and at the Bottom, Salt, Solr. Upon the Receipt of this Case, with my Fee, I bid my Clerk give my Service to Mr. Salt and tell him, that I would take the Case with me into the Country, whither I intended to go the next Day, and desired he would call for it the Friday Morning afterwards; after which, without looking into it, I delivered it to my Wife, who was then drinking Tea with us, and who laid it by."
Mr Brogden however presently returned upstairs, bringing the solicitor with him, who earnestly desired his counsel not only to read the case at once but also to undertake in his capacity of magistrate an examination of the injured girl, and of a supposed confederate of the gipsy. This task Fielding at first declined, principally on the ground that he had been "almost fatigued to death with several tedious examinations" at that time, and had intended to refresh himself with a day or two's interval in the country, where he had not been "unless on a Sunday, for a long time." The persuasions of the solicitor, curiosity as to the extrordinary nature of the case, and "a great compassion for the dreadful condition of the girl," however induced him to yield; and the next day the eighteen year old heroine of a story that was soon to set all London quarrelling, was brought in a chair to Bow Street, and then led upstairs, supported by two friends, into the presence of the Justice. An issue of warrants followed upon her examination, and a further examination of a suspected confederate of the gipsy; the gipsy herself and her chief abettor having already been arrested by another magistrate. Some days later, Fielding being then out of town, "several noble Lords" sent to his house, desiring to be present while he examined the gipsy woman; and the matter being arranged, "Lord Montfort," says Fielding, "together with several gentlemen of fashion came at the appointed time." The company being in the Justice's room, the prisoners and witnesses were brought up; and apparently some charge was afterwards brought against Fielding as to the manner of his examination, for he here takes occasion to declare, what all who knew him must have known to be the truth, "I can truly say, that my Memory doth not charge me with having ever insulted the lowest Wretch that hath been brought before me." Public opinion became hotly divided as to whether Betty Canning had indeed suffered all she declared at the hands of the gipsy, Mary Squires, or had maliciously endeavoured to perjure away the old woman's life. The Lord Mayor, Sir Crisp Gascoyne, and Fielding's old antagonist the despicable Dr Hill ardently supported the gipsy; Fielding, in the pamphlet already quoted, and which was published in March, as warmly espoused the cause of the maid servant whom he calls "a poor, honest, innocent, simple Girl, and the most unhappy and most injured of all human Beings." The excitement of the Town over this melodramatic mystery is reflected in the fact that a second edition of Fielding's pamphlet (entitled A clear state of the Case of Elizabeth Canning) was advertised within a few days of its first publication. 3 And, also, in the appearance of the sixpenny print, here for the first time reproduced, in which occurs the only representation of Henry Fielding known to have been drawn during his life time. This print, which bears the inscription "drawn from the life by the Right Honourable the Lady Fa--y K--w," shows Fielding's tall figure, his legs bandaged for gout, the sword of Justice in his hand and her scales hanging out of his pocket, speaking on behalf of his trembling client Elizabeth Canning; while opposed to him are my Lord Mayor, the notorious Dr Hill, and the old gipsy. The background is adorned with pictures of the newly built Mansion House, and of the College of Surgeons. 4
Henry Fielding, defending Betty Canning from her accusers, the Lord Mayor, Dr Hill, and the Gipsy
But for the glimpses it affords us of Fielding as a barrister,
and for his characteristic championship of what he was convinced
was the cause of innocence oppressed, this once famous case might
have been left undisturbed in the dust of the State
Trials, had it not incidentally been the means of preserving
two of the extremely rare letters of the novelist. These letters, 5
hitherto unpublished, are addressed by Fielding to the Duke of
Newcastle, and were both written in the month following the
publication of his pamphlet. The fact that both letters are dated
from Ealing shows that his connection with what was then a pleasant
country village was earlier than has been supposed; and the acute
suggestions in the second letter seem to indicate a suspicion of
some of Betty Canning's supporters, if his conviction in the girl's
own innocence still remained unshaken.
"My Lord Duke
"I received an order from my Lord Chancellor immediately after the breaking up of the Council to lay before your Grace all the Affidavits I had taken since the Gipsey's Trial which related to that Affair. I then told the Messenger that I had taken none, as indeed the fact is the Affidavits of which I gave my Lord Chancellor an Abstract having been all sworn before Justices of the Peace in the Neighbourhood of Endfield, and remain I believe in the Possession of an Attorney in the City.
However in Consequence of the Commands with which your Grace was pleased to honour me yesterday, I sent my Clerk immediately to the Attorney to acquaint him with these Commands, which I doubt not he will instantly obey. This I did from my great Duty to your Grace for I have long had no Concern in this Affair, nor have I seen any of the Parties lately unless once when I was desired to send for the Girl (Canning) to my House that a great Number of Noblemen and Gentleman might see her and ask her what Questions they pleased. I am, with the highest Duty,
"My Lord,
"Your Graces most obedient
"and most humble servant
"Henry Ffielding.
"Ealing. April 14, 1753
"His Grace the
"Duke of Newcastle."
"My Lord Duke,
"I am extremely concerned to see by a Letter which I have just received from Mr Jones by Command of your Grace that the Persons concerned for the Prosecution have not yet attended your Grace with the Affidavits in Canning's Affair. I do assure you upon my Honour that I sent to them the Moment I first received your Grace's Commands and having after three Messages prevailed with them to come to me I desired them to fetch the Affidavits that I might send them to your Grace being not able to wait upon you in Person. This they said they could not do, but would go to Mr Hume Campbell their Council, and prevail with him to attend your Grace with all their Affidavits many of which, I found were sworn after the Day mentioned in the order of Council. I told them I apprehended the latter could not be admitted, but insisted in the strongest terms on their laying the others immediately before your Grace, and they at last promised me they would, nor have I ever seen them since. I have now again ordered my Clerk to go to them to inform them of the last Commands I have received, but as I have no Compulsory Power over them I can not answer for their Behaviour, which indeed I have long disliked, and have therefore long ago declined giving them any Advice, nor would I unless in Obedience to your Grace have anything to say to a set of the most obstinate Fools I ever saw; and who seem to me rather to act from a Spleen against my Lord Mayor, than from any Motive of protecting Innocence, tho' that was certainly their Motive at first. In Truth, if I am not deceived, I Suspect they desire that the Gipsey should be pardoned, and then to convince the World that she was guilty in order to cast the greater Reflection on him who was principally instrumental in obtaining such Pardon. I conclude with assuring your Grace that I have acted in this Affair, as I shall on all Occasions with the most dutiful Regard to your Commands, and that if my Life had been at Stake, as many know, I could have done no more.
"I am, with the highest Respect,
"My Lord Duke
"Y Grace's most obedient,
"and most humble servant,
"Henry Ffielding.
"Ealing
"April 27. 1753.
"His Grace the Duke of Newcastle."
The dates of these letters show Fielding to have been at Ealing in the early spring of this year; and thus afford some confirmation of Lysons' remark in his Environs of London, published forty years later that "Henry Fielding had a country house at Ealing where he resided the year before his death." 6 In May a connection with Hammersmith is indicated, in the burial there of his little daughter Louisa. The entry in the Hammersmith Registers is as follows: "May 10th. Louisa, d. of Henry Fielding Esqr."
The nearer Fielding's life draws to its premature close, the greater his physical suffering, so much the more eager seems his desire to leave behind him some practical achievement. We have already seen and wondered at his gigantic scheme for poor-law reform, published in the beginning of this year of fast declining 'health and life.' Six months later came the commission in the execution of which the remains of that health and life were literally sacrificed in the effort to win some provision for his family, in the event of his own death. Early in August the distinguished Court surgeon John Ranby had persuaded him to go immediately to Bath. And he tells us, in that Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, 7 from which we have, from his own lips, the details of these last months, "I accordingly writ that very night to Mrs Bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging for a month certain." At this moment, when preparing for his journey, and while "almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street robbers," Fielding received what might indeed be called a fatal summons to wait on the Duke of Newcastle, at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, to consult on a means for "putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were every day committed in the streets." This visit cost him a severe cold; but, notwithstanding, he produced, in about four days, a scheme for the destruction of the "then reigning gangs" of robbers and cut-throats, and for the future protection of the public, which was promptly accepted, and the execution of which was confided into Fielding's hands. "I had delayed my Bath-journey for some time," he proceeds, "contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of my warmest friends, tho' my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath-waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats." After some weeks the requisite funds were placed at Fielding's disposal; and so successful were his methods, that within a few days, the whole gang was dispersed, some in custody, others in flight. His health was by this time "reduced to the last extremity"; but still, he tells us, he continued to act "with the utmost vigour against these villains." And, amid all his 'fatigues and distresses,' the satisfaction he so ardently desired came to him. During the "remaining part of the month of November and in all December," those darkest of months, not only was there no such thing as a murder, but not one street robbery was committed. When we recall the amazing condition of London at this time, when street robberies and murders were of almost daily occurrence, we realise the magnitude of this achievement on the part of a dying man. "Having thus fully accomplished my undertaking," Fielding continues, "I went into the country in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or less diseases than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the destruction of a body so entirely emaciated, that it had lost all its muscular flesh." It was now too late to apply the Bath treatment; and even had it been desirable it was no longer possible, for the sick man's strength was so reduced that a ride of six miles fatigued him intolerably. The Bath lodgings, which Fielding, surely with his old invincible hopefulness, had hitherto kept were accordingly relinquished; and even his sanguine nature realised the desperate condition of his case. At this point in his narration he breaks off with a characteristically frank disclosure of the chief motive which had inspired him to the heroic exertions of these later months of 1753. At the beginning of the winter his private affairs it seems, "had but a gloomy aspect." The aspect of his own tenure of life we know. And hence to distress of body was added that keenest of all distresses of the mind, the despair of putting his family beyond the reach of necessity. It was gladly therefore that Fielding offered up the 'poor sacrifice' of his shattered health, in the hope of securing a pension for his family, in case his own death were hastened by these last labours for the public.
If sickness was not allowed to hinder Fielding's energies for the benefit of the public, and for the future provision of his family, neither did he permit it to dull the activities of friendship. Early in December, when his illness must have been acute, he wrote the following hitherto unpublished letter to the Lord Chancellor, on behalf of his friend Mr Saunders Welch: 8
"My Lord,
"As I hear that a new Commission of the Peace is soon to pass the Great Seal for Westm'r. give me Leave to recommend the name of Saunders Welch, as well as to the next Commission for Middx. Your Lordship will, I hope, do me the Honour of believing, I should not thus presume, unless I was well satisfied that the Merit of the Man would justifie my Presumption. For this besides a universal Good Character and the many eminent services he hath done the Public, I appeal in particular to Master Lane; and shall only add, as I am positive the Truth is, that his Place can be filled with no other more acceptable to all the Gentlemen in the Commission, and indeed to the Public in general. I am with the highest Duty and Respect,
"My Lord,
"Your Lordship's most obedient
"and most humble servant,
"Henry Ffielding."
"Decr 6. 1753
"To the Lord High Chancellor"
"satisfied in having finished my life, as I have
probably lost it in the service of my country."
Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon.
To a man dying of a complication of disorders the terrible winter of 1753-4 brought added danger; a winter which, says Fielding, "put a lucky end, if they had known their own interests, to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians." But this, too, his splendid constitution struggled through; and in February 1754, he was back in town, in a condition less despaired of, he tells us, by himself than by any of his friends.
And if he did not allow himself to despair, neither did he, even now, relinquish all his magistrate's work. On the 26th of February cases are actually recorded as brought before him. 1 But within a few days, apparently, of this date treatment employed on the advice of Dr Joshua Ward, so weakened a body already 'enervate' and emaciated, that at first the patient "was thought to be falling into the agonies of death." On March 6, he was, he tells us, at his worst--that "memorable day when the public lost Mr Pelham. From that day I began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the grave; till in two months time I had again acquired some little degree of strength."
Before the expiration of these two months that 'little degree of strength' was again being expended in the drudgery of the Bow Street court-room. "Yesterday," states the Public Advertiser of April 17, "Elizabeth Smith was committed to Newgate by Henry Fielding Esqre; being charged with stealing a great quantity of Linnen." 2 And five days later, on April 22, a committal is recorded in the Middlesex Sessions Book. 3
Although Fielding could now leave his sickroom, when called thence to commit a thief to Newgate, a newspaper paragraph, dated a little earlier in this same month of April, shows that the public were apprehensive that the protection afforded them by their indefatigable magistrate was now of a very precarious duration. The writer refers to the complete success of Mr Fielding's Plan for the subjugation of criminals, executed the previous winter, pointing out that "the Public who had such Reason to suspect the contrary have suffered fewer Outrages than have happened any Winter this Twenty years." And without making any direct statement as to the fast failing strength of the author and executor of that Plan, he continues in words that plainly indicate the abdication of those zealous energies: "The whole Plan we are assured is communicated to Justice John Fielding and Mr Welch who are determined to bring it to that perfection of which it is capable." This 'assurance' of the Advertiser is confirmed by Fielding's own words in the Voyage to Lisbon. "I therefore" he says, speaking clearly of the winter or spring of 1753-4, "resigned the office [of principal Justice of the Peace in Westminster] and the farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my assistant."
This blind brother, who in his turn became famous as a London magistrate, was now a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex 4 as well as for Westminster; and was at this time living in the Strand, as the Resident Proprietor 5 of that enterprising Universal Register Office which has won incidental immortality in his brother's pages, and which combined such heterogeneous activities as those of an Estate Office, Registry for servants of good character, Lost Property Office, Curiosity Shop and General Agency.
Another announcement in the columns of the Advertiser links this last Spring of Fielding's life with that earlier Spring of 1743, when as a popular play-wright and a struggling barrister, absorbed in anxiety for the health of a beloved wife and with his own health already attacked, he published that masterpiece of irony Jonathan Wild. Now, while he was still slowly drawing his 'feet out of the grave,' after those critical first days of March, a new edition of the History of that "Great Man," with "considerable Corrections and Additions," was advertised; the actual date of publication being, apparently, about March 19. The new edition appeared with a prefatory note, "from the Publisher to the Reader," which although it bears no signature conveys, undoubtedly, Fielding's intention, if not his actual words. There is the familiar protest against the "scurrility of others," the odium of which had fallen on the innocent shoulders of "the author of our little book"; and there is a solemn declaration that the said little book shows no reason for supposing any 'personal application' to be meant in its pages "unless we will agree that there are without those Walls [i.e. of Newgate], some other bodies of men of worse morals than those within; and who have consequently, a right to change places with its present inhabitants." Then follows an explicit reference to a chapter in the History of the arch-villain Wild, which is obviously designed to satirise the condition of English politics, if not the person of any one politician. The disclaimer, seems on the whole, to partake very properly of the ironic nature of the ensuing pages; although it recalls that youthful declaration of the young dramatist, prefixed to his first comedy acted nearly thirty years before, that no private character was the target of his pen.
At the end of these two months of March and April, spent as we have seen in acquiring some little degree of strength, and in at least attempting to expend the same on the consignment of petty thieves to Newgate, Fielding again submitted his dropsy to the surgeon, the consequences of which he now bore much better. This improvement, he tells us, he attributed greatly to "a dose of laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. It first gave me the most delicious flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap." Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has recorded how her cousin's 'happy constitution,' even when half-demolished, could enjoy, with undiminished zest "a venison pasty, or a flask of champagne." Surely none other than Henry Fielding could have recorded with like zest this 'delicious flow of spirits' and 'comfortable nap' derived from a dose of laudanum.
The month of May, with its promise of relief from the still lingering winter, had now begun. Fielding therefore resolved, he says, to visit a little country house of his "which stands at Ealing, in the county of Middlesex, in the best air, I believe, in the whole kingdom." 6 Towards the end of the month, he had resort to a long forgotten eighteenth century panacea, the tar-water discovered by Bishop Berkeley; and very soon experienced effects far beyond his "most sanguine hopes." Success beyond Fielding's most sanguine hopes must have been great indeed; and accordingly we hear how this tar-water, from the very first, lessened his illness, increased his appetite, and very slowly added to his bodily strength. By the end of the month a third application by his surgeon revealed distinctly favourable symptoms; but still both the dropsy and the asthma were becoming more serious; and the summer, which the doctors seemed to think the sick man's 'only chance of life' seemed scarce likely to visit England at all in that sunless year. "In the whole month of May the sun scarce appeared three times" we learn, from the Voyage. Fearing therefore the renewed assaults of winter, before he had recruited his forces so as "to be in anywise able to withstand them," Fielding resolved, with the approval of a very eminent physician, to put an already formed project into immediate execution. This was to seek further recovery in some warmer climate. At first Aix was thought of, but here the difficulties of travel in the reign of George II. for invalids of slender means, proved insuperable. The journey by land, "beside the expense of it," Fielding found to be "infinitely too long and fatiguing"; and no ship was announced as sailing within 'any reasonable time' for that part of the Mediterranean. Lisbon accordingly was decided upon; and John Fielding soon discovered a ship with excellent passenger accommodation, and which was due to sail in three days. "I eagerly embraced the offer," writes Fielding, as though he were starting on a pleasure cruise, instead of facing all the miseries of travel, when unable to make the least use of his limbs, and when his very appearance "presented a spectacle of the highest horror"; and he adds "I began to prepare my family for the voyage with the utmost expedition." Twice, however, the captain put off his sailing, and at length his passenger invited him to dinner at Ealing, a full week after the declared date of departure. Meanwhile Fielding's condition seems at least to have become no worse, for the Public Advertiser of June 22 has "the pleasure to assure the Publick that the Report of the Death of Henry Fielding Esquire; inserted in an Evening paper of Thursday is not true, that Gentleman's Health being better than it has been for some Month's past."
It was not till the 26th of June that, in the memorable opening words of the Voyage, "the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the light of this sun, I was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where I had learnt to bear pains and to despise death." The morning was spent with his children, the eldest of whom was then a boy of six; and "I doubt not," he writes, "whether, in that time, I did not undergo more than in all my distemper." At noon his coach was at the door, and this "was no sooner told me than I kiss'd my children round, and went into it with some little resolution." His wife, behaving "more like a heroine and philosopher, tho' at the same time the tenderest mother in the world," and his eldest daughter, followed him; and the invalid was swiftly driven the twelve miles to Rotherhithe. Here the task of embarking a man quite bereft of the use of his limbs had to be accomplished. This difficulty was overcome with the aid of Saunders Welch, the friend of whom Fielding says "I never think or speak of but with love and esteem" 7; and, at last, the traveller was "seated in a great chair in the cabin," after fatigues, the most cruel of which he declares to have been the inhuman jests made upon his wasted and helpless condition by the rows of sailors and watermen through whom he had been compelled to pass.
From this moment we may read of the pleasures and thoughts, the experiences and meditations, but scarcely ever of the sufferings of the dying novelist, in the pages of what has been well called "one of the most unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own or any other literature" 8 Confined for six weeks in the narrow prison of an eighteenth century trading vessel; unable to move save when lifted by unskilled hands; with food often intolerable to the healthiest appetite; with no relaxation save the company of the rough old sea-dog who commanded the Queen of Portugal; and fully conscious that his was a mortal illness,--the inexhaustible courage, the delight in man and in nature, the genius of Henry Fielding still triumphed over every external circumstance. Throughout the voyage, fortune, moreover, seemed determined to heap on the unhappy traveller all manner of additional discomforts; and yet when we lay down this little volume "begun in pain, and finished almost at the same period with life," 9 the pictures left on the mind glow almost as brightly as those which fill the pages written in the full vigour of Fielding's manhood, and which, as Coleridge said, breathe the air of a spring morning.
First came a delay of three days off the squalid shores of Wapping and Rotherhithe, whereby opportunity was afforded of "tasting a delicious mixture of the air of both these sweet places," and of enjoying such a concord of the voices of seamen, watermen, fishwomen, oyster women and their like as Hogarth indicated "in that print of his which is enough to make a man deaf to look at." This delay, moreover, threatened to bring Fielding within need of a surgeon when none should be procurable. His friend Mr William Hunter of Covent Garden, brother of the more famous John Hunter, relieved this apprehension; but now fresh trouble occurred in the torments of toothache which befell Mrs Fielding. A servant was despatched in haste to Wapping, but the desired 'toothdrawer,' arrived after the ship had at last, on Sunday morning, the 30th of June, left her unsavoury moorings. That Sunday morning "was fair and bright," and the diarist records how, dropping down to Gravesend, "we had a passage thither I think as pleasant as can be conceiv'd." The yards of Deptford and Woolwich were 'noble sights'; the Thames with its splendid shipping excelled all the rivers of the world; and the men of war, the unrivalled Indiamen, the other traders, and even the colliers and small craft, all combined to form "a most pleasing object to the eye, as well as highly warming to the heart of an Englishman, who has any degree of love for his country, or can recognise any effect of the patriot in his constitution." And here Fielding gives us a notable example of his own healthy taste in recreation; a taste agreeing very ill with the scurrilous popular myths concerning him, but entirely consonant with the manifest atmosphere of his genius. He deplores the general neglect of "what seems to me the highest degree of amusement: that is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own"; an amusement which need not "exceed the reach of a moderate fortune, and would fall very short of the prices which are daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate."
Fortune, as we have said, seemed to grudge every little pleasure that could have alleviated the condition of the helpless invalid on board the Queen of Portugal. The relief obtained from Mr Hunter, he tells us, "the gaiety of the morning, the pleasant sailing with wind and tide, and the many agreeable objects with which I was constantly entertained during the whole way, were all suppressed and overcome by the single consideration of my wife's pain, which continued incessantly to torment her." The second despatch of a messenger, in great haste to bring the best reputed operator in Gravesend recalls Murphy's words: "Of sickness and poverty he was singularly patient and under pressure of those evils he could quietly read Cicero de Consolatione; but if either of them threatened his wife he was impetuous for her relief." The remedies both of the Gravesend 'surgeon of some eminence,' and of yet another practitioner, who was sent for from Deal, were ineffectual; but about eight in the evening of the following day, when the ship under contrary winds, was at anchor in the Downs, Mrs Fielding fell asleep; and to that accident we owe one of the most characteristic passages in the Voyage. His wife's relief from pain would, Fielding tells us, "have given me some happiness, could I have known how to employ those spirits which were raised by it: but unfortunately for me, I was left in a disposition of enjoying an agreeable hour, without the assistance of a companion, which has always appeared to me necessary to such enjoyment; my daughter and her companion were both retired sea-sick to bed; the other passengers were a rude school boy of fourteen years old, and an illiterate Portuguese friar, who understood no language but his own, in which I had not the least smattering. The captain was the only person left, in whose conversation I might indulge myself; but unluckily for me, besides his knowledge being chiefly confined to his profession, he had the misfortune of being so deaf, that to make him hear my words, I must run the risque of conveying them to the ears of my wife, who, tho' in another room (called, I think, the state-room; being indeed a most stately apartment capable of containing one human body in length, if not very tall, and three bodies in breadth) lay asleep within a yard of me. In this situation necessity and choice were one and the same thing; the captain and I sat down together to a small bowl of punch, over which we both soon fell fast asleep, and so concluded the evening." In the record of the previous day, while sketching the humours of Jacks in office, Fielding incidentally shows himself as no less careful of the respect due to his wife than he was solicitous for her comfort. A ruffianly custom-house officer had appeared in their cabin, wearing a hat adorned with broad gold lace, and 'cocked with much military fierceness.' On eliciting the information that 'the gentleman' was a riding surveyor, "I replied," says Fielding, "that he might be a riding surveyor, but could be no gentleman, for that none who had any title to that denomination, would break into the presence of a lady, without any apology or even moving his hat. He then took his covering from his head, and laid it on the table, saying he asked pardon." To this 'riding surveyor' we owe also an indication that Fielding found room in the narrow confines of a cabin for his Plato; for the rude insolence of that functionary recalls to his mind the Platonic theory of the divine original of rulers, and he proceeds to quote a long passage from the Laws, which even his ready scholarship could scarce have had by heart.
Contrary winds continued to baffle all Captain Veal's seamanship, and afforded his passenger opportunities for a spirited protest concerning the need of some regulation both of the charges of long-shore boatmen, and of the manners of captains in the Royal Navy. On the evening of July 8 the Voyage records that "we beat the sea off Sussex, in sight of Dungeness, with much more pleasure than progress; for the weather was almost a perfect calm, and the moon, which was almost at the full, scarce suffered a single cloud to veil her from our sight"; and on the 18th of the month the Queen of Portugal put in to Ryde, at which place she remained wind-bound for no less than eleven days.
These eleven days Fielding spent, by his wife's persuasions, on shore, at the poor village inn which, together with a little church and some thirty houses, then constituted the village of Ryde. Of the hardships and humours of that sojourn the Voyage affords an account worthy of a place among the pages of either of the three great novels. The landlady, an incredibly mean and heartless shrew, inflicted daily annoyances and extortions on her wind-bound victims. The squalid building, partly constructed of wreck-wood, could scarce house the party. The food supplies, other than those the visitors brought with them, were chiefly 'rusty bacon, and worse cheese,' with very bad ale to drink. And on the first afternoon, the house was found to be so damp from recent scrubbing that Mrs Fielding, who "besides discharging excellently well her own, and all the tender offices becoming the female character; who besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his part," hastily snatched the invalid from "worse perils by water than the common dangers of the sea," and ordered dinner to be laid in a dry and commodious barn. So seated, "in one of the most pleasant spots, I believe, in the kingdom," and regaled on bacon, beans, and fish, "we completed," says Fielding, "the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more real, solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at White's."
On Sunday the three ladies went to church, "attended by the captain in a most military attire, with his cockade in his hat, and his sword by his side" (Captain Veal had commanded a privateer); and Fielding, while left alone, pursued those researches into human nature of which he never wearied by conversation with the landlord, a fine example of henpecked humanity. On the following day the ladies, again attended by Captain Veal, enjoyed a four mile walk, professing themselves greatly charmed with the scenery, and with the courtesy of a lady who owned a great house on this part of the coast, and who "had slipt out of the way, that my wife and her company might refresh themselves with the flowers and fruits with which her garden abounded." Within twenty four hours this generous householder had sent a message to the inn, placing all that her garden or house afforded at the disposal of the travellers. Fielding's man-servant was despatched with proper acknowledgements, and returned "in company with the gardener, both richly laden with almost every particular which a garden at this most fruitful season of the year produces."
That evening, on a change of wind, Captain Veal came to demand his passengers' instant return. This would have been "a terrible circumstance to me, in my decayed condition," admits Fielding, "especially as very heavy showers of rain, attended with a high wind, continued to fall incessantly; the being carried thro' which two miles in the dark, in a wet and open boat, seemed little less than certain death." Happily the wind again veered till the following morning, when Fielding and the three ladies, together with their manservant and maid, were safely re-embarked, not however without much agitation over the temporary loss of their tea-chest. This calamity was first compensated by the prompt aid of the hospitable lady aforementioned, and then averted by the diligent search of William the footman who at last discovered the hiding place of the missing 'sovereign cordial,' and thus, concludes his master, "ended this scene, which begun with such appearance of distress, and ended with becoming the subject of mirth and laughter." Once more on board, Ryde and its beautiful prospect, its verdant elms, its green meadows, and shady lanes all combining in Fielding's opinion to make a most delightful habitation, faded from view. And, by seven o'clock, "we sat down" he says, "to regale ourselves with some roasted venison, which was much better drest than we imagined it would be, and an excellent cold pasty which my wife had made at Ryde, and which we had reserved uncut to eat on board our ship, whither we all cheerfully exulted in being returned from the presence of Mrs Humphreys, [the landlady] who by the exact resemblance she bore to a fury, seemed to have been with no great propriety settled in Paradise."
It is while commenting on the charm of the view from Ryde,--"I confess myself so entirely fond of a sea prospect, that I think nothing on the land can equal it,"--that Fielding incidentally utters that extraordinary reference to Sir Robert Walpole as "one of the best of men and of ministers." The only explanation of these words at all consonant with what we know of Fielding's life seems to be that here he adopts once more his familiar use of irony.
The cheerfulness of spirit with which the invalid encountered every fresh distress, and 'exulted' in every pleasant sight and trifling pleasure, during those days at Ryde, is very fully reflected in the following letter, happily preserved from the untoward fate which has apparently befallen every other intimate word from his pen. It was written to his brother John, on the first day of anchorage off Ryde.
"On board the Queen of Portugal, Richd. Veal at anchor on the Mother Bank, off Ryde, to the care of the Post Master of Portsmouth--this is my Date and y'r Direction.
"July 12 1754
"Dear Jack, After receiving that agreeable Lre from Mess'rs. Fielding & Co., we weighed on monday morning and sailed from Deal to the Westward Four Days long but inconceivably pleasant passage brought us yesterday to an Anchor on the Mother Bank, on the Back of the Isle of Wight, where we had last Night in Safety the Pleasure of hearing the Winds roar over our Heads in as violent a Tempest as I have known, and where my only Consideration were the Fears which must possess any Friend of ours (if there is happily any such), who really makes our Well being the Object of his Concern especially if such Friend should be totally inexperienced in Sea Affairs. I therefore beg that on the Day you receive this Mrs Daniel may know that we are just risen from Breakfast in Health and Spirits this twelfth Instant at 9 in the morning. Our Voyage hath proved fruitful in Adventures all which being to be written in the Book you must postpone yr. Curiosity. As the Incidents which fall under yr Cognizance will possibly be consigned to Oblivion, do give them to us as they pass. Tell yr Neighbour I am much obliged to him for recommending me to the care of a most able and experienced Seaman to whom other Captains seem to pay such Deference that they attend and watch his Motions, and think themselves only safe when they act under his Direction and Example. Our Ship in Truth seems to give Laws on the Water with as much Authority and Superiority as you Dispense Laws to the Public and Examples to yr Brethern in Commission, Please to direct yr Answer to me on Board as in the Date, if gone to be returned, and then send it by the Post and Pacquet to Lisbon to
"Y'r affec't. Brother
"H. Fielding 10
"To John Fielding Esq. at his House in Bow Street Cov. Garden
London."
It is probable, as Mr Austin Dobson has pointed out, that the Mrs Daniel, whose anxieties Fielding here shows himself anxious to relieve, was his second wife's mother. And by this time his brother was doubtless occupying that house in Bow Street so frequently advertised to the public, when any work was on foot for their protection, as the residence of 'Henry Fielding, Esqre.'
The almost diabolic figure of the Ryde landlady had scarcely left his pages, when Fielding found a new subject for his portraiture, in the pretentious ill-bred follies of a young officer, a nephew of the captain, who arrived on board to visit his uncle, and who serves as an excellent foil for the simple-hearted merits of the elder man. A rising wind, however, cut short the Lieutenant's stories, and two nights later blew a hurricane which Fielding declares, "would have given no small alarm to a man, who had either not learnt what it is to die, or known what it is to be miserable"; continuing, in words that need no comment, "my dear wife and child must pardon me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil to myself, I was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them: in truth, I have often thought they are both too good, and too gentle, to be trusted to the power of any man." The sea he loved so well was not to be Fielding's grave. Early the next morning the Queen of Portugal was at anchor in Torbay; and the whole party sat down "to a very chearful breakfast."
For a whole week the travellers were kept wind-bound off the Devon coast, now at anchor, now making vain efforts to proceed. We hear of the 'fine clouted cream,' and the delicious cyder of the county (two hogsheads of which latter Fielding purchased as presents for his friends); of the excellence of the local fish named 'john dóree,' of the scandalous need of legislation for the protection of sea-men when ashore from land-sharks, a digression which includes a pleasant interpretation of the myth of Ulysses and Circe as none other than the dilemma of a Homeric merchant skipper whose crew Circe "some good ale-wife," had made drunk "with the spirituous liquors of those days"; of the difficulty with which Fielding could persuade his wife "whom it was no easy matter for me to force from my side" to take a walk on shore; and of the captain's grievous lamentations, which "seemed to have some mixture of the Irish howl in them," 11 when his cat was accidentally suffocated. Also, to these last wind-bound days belongs that famous incident which does perhaps no less honour to the hot tempered tyrannical old skipper than to his illustrious passenger.
Fielding, having just finished dinner, was enjoying some good claret in the cabin, with his wife and her friend--a cheerful moment, when conversation 'is most agreeable,' when Tom, the captain's general factotum, burst in on them and began, without saying a 'by your leave', to bottle half a hogshead of small beer. After requests and protests, equally unavailing, this functionary found himself, says Fielding, threatened "with having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to stand empty within my reach." Thereupon Tom reported his version of the matter to the captain, who came thundering down to the cabin in a rage that knew no bounds of language or civility. This behaviour from a man who had received not only liberal payment from his passenger for accommodation, but also such frequent stores of fresh provisions that Fielding's private purse had indeed gone some way in maintaining the ship's crew, that passenger justly resented, and to a hasty resolve of quitting the ship by a hoy that should carry him to Dartmouth, he added threats of legal action. The 'most distant sound of law,' however, he tells us, "frightened a man, who had often, I am convinced, heard numbers of cannon roar round him with intrepidity. Nor did he sooner see the hoy approaching the vessel, than he ran down again into the cabin, and his rage being perfectly subsided, he tumbled on his knees, and a little too abjectly implored for mercy. I did not suffer a brave man and an old man, to remain a moment in this posture; but I immediately forgave him." It is this incident that Thackeray chooses to complete his picture of the great novelist; adding that memorable comparison between the "noble spirit and unconquerable generosity" of Fielding, and the lives of many unknown heroes of the sea: "Such a brave and gentle heart, such an intrepid and courageous spirit I love to recognise in the manly the English Harry Fielding."
Within a week of this reconciliation the ship had made such progress southward that the captain 'in the redundancy of his good humour, declared he would go to church at Lisbon on Sunday next' (not the least pleasant of the pictures which Fielding gives us of the privateer is that of his summoning all hands on deck on a Sunday morning and then reading prayers 'with an audible voice'); but again the wind played him false, becalming him near Cape Finisterre. This last calm, however, brought with it sufficient compensation: "tho' our voyage was retarded, we were entertained with a scene which as no one can behold without going to sea, so no one can form an idea of anything equal to it on shore. We were seated on the deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. Not a single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the only object which engrossed our whole attention. He did indeed set with a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, while the horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to the opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered to our vision. Compared to these the pageantry of theatres, or splendor of courts, are sights almost below the regard of children."
Four days later, at midnight, the anchor was cast off Lisbon, after a calm and moonlit passage up the Tagus, a passage, Fielding writes, "incredibly pleasant to the women, who remained three hours enjoying it, while I was left to the cooler transports of enjoying their pleasures at second-hand; and yet, cooler as they may be, whoever is totally ignorant of such sensation, is, at the same time, void of all ideas of friendship."
On the day following, the 24th of June, he landed, and that evening enjoyed the long unknown luxury of a good supper, in a kind of coffee-house "very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, [which] hath a very fine prospect of the River Tajo from Lisbon to the sea." With that pleasant prospect the Voyage closes. Begun as it was to while away the enforced solitude of his cabin, a condition, which no man, he tells us, disliked more than himself and which mortal sickness rendered especially irksome, these pages, some of which "were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever haunted the author," reveal Fielding to us if not as Mr Lowell has said "with artless inadvertence" at least with perfect fullness. The undimmed gaiety of spirit, the tender affection, the constant desire to remove those evils which he found oppressing his country-men by sea not less than on land, the 'enthusiasm for righteousnes,' the humour of the first of English novelists, burn here as brightly as though the writer were but midway in his life's voyage. The hand that exposed evil in its native loathsomeness in a Blifil and a Wild has not lost its cunning in depicting Mrs Humphreys; the eye that delighted in the green fields of England saw in the southern sunset that which made human creations 'almost below the regard of children.' And to the last the patriotic energies of the author of Pasquin and of the Champion, of the whole hearted social reformer, of the tireless magistrate, knew no relaxation. Page after page of the Voyage justify the passage in which he tells us how "I would indeed have this work, which, if I live to finish it (a matter of no great certainty, if indeed of any great hope to me), will be probably the last I shall ever undertake, to produce some better end than the mere diversion of the reader"; and manifest his desire, here explicitly stated, to finish life "as I have probably lost it, in the service of my country."
We have no knowledge concerning the four months following the last entry in the pages of the Voyage to Lisbon. On October 8, 1754, the end so calmly expected came; and in the beautiful English cemetery, facing the great Basilica of the Heart of Jesus, was laid to rest all that an alien soil could claim of 'our immortal Fielding.'
The Hapsburg genealogy
It appears that the Hapsburg descent, formerly claimed by the Denbigh family, must now be abandoned. The arguments against this descent, published by Mr Horace Round, have been accepted by Burke. Further, Dr G. F. Warner permits me to publish his statement that "I have myself seen the documents upon which it [the claim] rests, and found them to be unmistakeable forgeries."
As regards Henry Fielding's family it is interesting to find that his grandfather the Rev. and Hon. John Fielding was not only Canon of Salisbury, and a Doctor of Divinity, but also Archdeacon of Dorsetshire. Canon John Fielding was buried at Salisbury. His son George (Henry Fielding's uncle) was Lt. Colonel of the "Royal Regiment of the Blues," and Groom of the Bed-chamber to Queen Anne and to George II. He is buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor. (J. Nichols. History and Antiquities of Leicestershire. 1810. Vol. iv. pt. i. p. 394.)
Back to Chapter 1, footnote 2.
Receipt and Assignment of "Tom Jones"
The following documents are in the possession of Alfred Huth Esq., and are now first published
June 11 1748. Rec'd. of Mr. Andrew Millar Six hundred Pounds being
in full for the sole Copy Right of a Book called the History of a
Foundling in Eighteen Books. And in Consideration of the said Six
Hundred Pounds I promise to asign over the said Book to the said
Andrew Millar his Executors and assigns for ever when I shall be
thereto demanded.
| £ | s | d | |
| £600, | 00, | 00. | Hen. Ffielding |
The said Work to contain Six Volumes in Duodecimo.
Know all Men by these Presents that I Henry Fielding of St. Paul's Covent Garden in the County of Middlesex Esq'r. for & in consideration of the Sum of Six hundred Pounds of lawful Money of Great Britain to me in hand paid by Andrew Millar of St. Mary le Strand in the County afores'd. Bookseller the Receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged and of which I do Acquit the s'd. Andrew Millar his Executors & Assigns, have bargained sold delivered assigned & set over all that my Title Right and Property in & to a certain Book printed in Six Volumes, known & called by the Name & Title of The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, inv'd. written by me the s'd. Henry Fielding, with all Improvements, Additions or Alterations whatsoever which now are or hereafter shall at any time be made by me the s'd. Henry Fielding, or any one else by my authority to the s'd. Book To Have and to Hold the s'd. bargained Premises unto the s'd. Andrew Millar, his Ex'ors Adm'ors or Assigns for ever And I do hereby covenant to & with the s'd. Andrew Millar his Ex'ors Adm'ors & Assigns that I the s'd. Henry Fielding the Author of the s'd. bargained Premises have not at any time heretofore done committed or suffered any Act or thing whatsoever by means whereof the s'd bargained Premises or any part thereof is or shall be impeached or encumbered in any wise And I the s'd Henry Fielding for myself my Ex'ors Adm'ors & Assigns shall warrant & defend the s'd bargained Premises for ever against all Persons whatsoever claiming under me my Ex'ors Adm'ors or Assigns.
In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand & seal this twenty fifth day of March One thousand seven hundred & forty nine.
| H Ffielding | Seal |
Signed sealed & delivered
by the within named Henry
Fielding the day and year within
mentioned, in the presence of
Jos. Brogden
Back to Chapter 11, footnote 5.
"Pasquin turned Drawcansir"
The General Advertiser for March 13, 1752, Page 3, advertises, as for Macklin's Benefit, at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden,
"A New Dramatic Satire of Two Acts, call'd Covent Garden Theatre; or Pasquin turned Drawcansir Censor of Great Britain
Written on the Model of the Comedies of Aristophanes and the Pasquinades of the Italian Theatre in Paris; With Chorusses of the People after the manner of the Greek Drama. The Parts of the Pit, and Boxes, the Stage, and the Town to be performed by themselves for their Diversion; the Part of several dull disorderly Characters in and about St. James, to be performed by certain Persons for Example; and the Part of Pasquin-Drawcansir to be performed by his Censorial Highness, for his Interest.
The Satire to be introduced by an Oration, and to conclude by a Peroration: Both to be spoken from the Rostrum, in the Manner of certain Orators by Signer Pasquin."
This advertisement is also in the Covent Garden Journal, with the addition of "galleries" after the word Boxes. According to Dibdin, History of the Stage, Vol. V. (preface dated 1800) p. 156, this satire was by Macklin.