Part 9 (1/2)

And not to forget the wit in the moral reformer, we may leave Mr Jonathan Wild listening to one of the reasons given by the Newgate chaplain for his Reverence's preference for punch over wine: ”Let me tell you, Mr Wild there is nothing so deceitful as the spirits given us by wine. If you must drink let us have a bowl of punch; a liquor I the rather prefer as it is nowhere spoken against in Scripture.”

After _Jonathan Wild_ the most interesting fragment of the _Miscellanies_ is the _Journey from this World to the Next_. In this essay Fielding reveals his philosophy, his sternness, his affections, and his humour, as a man might do in intimate conversation. His warm humanity breathes in the conception that ”the only Business” of those who had won admission to Elysium 'that happy Place,' was to ”contribute to the Happiness of each other”; and again in the stern declaration of Heaven's doorkeeper, the Judge Minos, that ”no Man enters that Gate without Charity.” And indeed the whole chapter devoted to the judgments administered by Minos on the spirits that come, confident or trembling, before him, and are either admitted to Heaven, sent back to earth, or despatched to the ”little Back Gate” opening immediately into the bottomless pit, is full of personal revelation. We feel the glee with which Fielding consigns the ”little sneaking soul” of a miser to diabolically ingenious torments; the satisfaction with which he watches Minos apply a kick to the retreating figure of a duke, possessed of nothing but ”a very solemn Air and great Dignity”; and the pleasure it gave him to observe the rejection accorded to ”a grave Lady,” the Judge declaring that ”there was not a single Prude in Elysium.” Again, nothing could be more true to Fielding's nature than the account of the poet who is admitted, not for the moral value he himself places on his Dramatic Works (which he endeavours to read aloud to Minos), but because ”he had once lent the whole profits of a Benefit Night to a Friend, and by that Means had saved him and his Family from Destruction”; unless it were the account of the poverty driven wretch, hanged for a robbery of eighteen-pence, who yet could plead that he had supported an aged Parent with his labour, that he had been a very tender Husband, and a Kind Father, and that he had ruined himself for being Bail for a Friend. ”At these words,” adds the historian, ”the gate opened, and _Minos_ bid him enter, giving him a slap on the Back as he pa.s.sed by him.”

When the author's own turn came, he very little expects, he tells us, ”to pa.s.s this fiery Trial. I confess'd I had indulged myself very freely with Wine and Women in my Youth, but had never done an Injury to any Man living, nor avoided an opportunity of doing good; but I pretended to very little Virtue more than general Philanthropy and Private Friends.h.i.+p.” Here Minos cut the speaker short, bidding him enter the gate, and not indulge himself trumpeting forth his virtues. Whether or no we may here read the reflections of Fielding's maturity, looking honestly back over his own forty years and forward with humble fear into the future, we may certainly see reflected in both confession and judgment much of the doctrine and the practice of his life.

After the failure, early in 1743, of the _Wedding Day_, and the subsequent publication of the _Miscellanies_, Fielding seems to have thrown his energies for twelve months into an exclusive pursuit of the law. This appears from his statement, made a year later, in May 1744, that he could not possibly be the author of his sister's novel _David Simple_, which had been attributed to him, because he had applied himself to his profession ”with so arduous and intent a diligence that I have had no leisure, if I had inclination, to compose anything of this kind.” Clearly, in the period that covers the publication of _Joseph Andrews_ an historical pamphlet, parts of a farce and of _Plutus_, and of the _Miscellanies_, Fielding found both leisure and inclination for writing; so this sudden immersion in law must relate to the twelve months or so intervening between these works and the publication of his statement. Murphy corroborates this bout of hard legal effort. After the _Wedding Day_ says that biographer ”the law from this time had its hot and cold fits with him.” The cold fits were fits of gout; and inconveniences felt by Fielding from these interruptions were, adds Murphy ”the more severe upon him, as voluntary and wilful neglect could not be charged upon him. The repeated shocks of illness disabled him from being as a.s.siduous an attendant at the bar, as his own inclination and patience of the most laborious application, would otherwise have made him.”

Mr Counsellor Fielding follows his retrospect of this strenuous attack on the law with a declaration that, henceforth, he intends to forsake the pursuit of that 'foolscap' literary fame, and the company of the 'infamous' nine Muses; a decision based partly on the insubstantial nature of the rewards achieved, and partly it would seem due to the fact that at Fielding's innocent door had been laid, he declares, half the anonymous scurrility, indecency, treason, and blasphemy that the few last years had produced. [6] In especial he protests against the ascription to his pen of that 'infamous paltry libel' on lawyers, the _Causidicade_, an ascription which, as he truly says, accused him ”not only of being a bad writer and a bad man, but with downright idiotism in flying in the face of the greatest men of my profession.” He also declares that no anonymous work had issued from his pen since his promise to that effect; and that these false accusations had injured him cruelly in ease, reputation and interest. This solemn declaration that the now detested Muses shall no longer beguile Fielding's pen affords excellent reading in view of the fact that this absorbed barrister must, within a year or two, have been at work on _Tom Jones_. The whole emphatic outburst was probably partly an effort to a.s.sert himself as now wholly devoted to the law, and partly an example of one of those ”occasional fits of peevishness” into which, Murphy tells us, distress and disappointment would betray him.

The preface to his sister's novel _David Simple_, in which Fielding took occasion to announce these protests and a.s.sertions, is his only extant publication for this year of 1744; and apart from its biographical value is not of any great moment. Ample proof may be found in it of brotherly pride and admiration for the work of a sister ”so nearly and dearly allied to me in the highest friends.h.i.+p as well as relation.” There is the noteworthy declaration that the ”greatest, n.o.blest, and rarest of all the talents which const.i.tute a genius” is the gift of ”a deep and profound discernment of all the mazes, windings, and labyrinths which perplex the heart of man.” The utterance concerning style, by so great a master of English, is memorable--”a good style as well as a good hand in writing is chiefly learned by practice.” And a delightful reference should not be forgotten to the carping ignorant critic, who has indeed, ”had a little Latin inoculated into his tail,” but who would have been much the gainer had ”the same great quant.i.ty of birch been employed in scourging away his ill-nature.”

Disabled by gout and hara.s.sed by want of money, a yet greater distress was now fast closing on Fielding in the prolonged illness of his wife. ”To see her daily languis.h.i.+ng and wearing away before his eyes,” says Murphy, ”was too much for a man of his strong sensations; the fort.i.tude with which he met all other calamities of life [now] deserted him.” In the autumn of 1744 Mrs Fielding was at Bath, doubtless in the hope of benefit from the Bath waters. And here, in November, she died. Her body was brought to London for burial in the church of St. Martin's in the Fields; receiving on the 14th of November, 1744, honourable interment in the chancel vault, to the tolling of the great tenor bell, and with the fullest ceremonial of the time. Indeed it is evident, from the charges still preserved in the s.e.xton's book, that Fielding rendered to his wife such stately honours as were occasionally accorded to the members of the few great families interred in the old church.

The death of this beloved wife, Murphy tells us, brought on Fielding ”such a vehemence of grief that his friends began to think him in danger of losing his reason.” When we remember that he himself has explicitly stated that lovely picture of the 'fair soul in the fair body,' the Sophia of _Tom Jones_, to have been but a portrait of Charlotte Fielding, we can in some measure realise his overwhelming grief at her death. And that the exquisite memorial raised to his wife by Fielding's affection and genius was not more beautiful in mind or face than the original, is acknowledged by Lady Bute, a kinswoman of the great novelist. Lady Bute was no stranger, ”to that beloved first wife whose picture he drew in his Amelia, where, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty. He loved her pa.s.sionately, and she returned his affection; yet had no happy life for they were almost always miserably poor, and seldom in a state of quiet and safety. His elastic gaiety of spirit carried him through it all; but meanwhile, care and anxiety were preying upon her more delicate mind, and undermining her const.i.tution. She gradually declined, caught a fever and died in his arms.” That Fielding's married life was unhappy, whatever were its outward conditions, is obviously a very shallow misstatement; but, for the rest, the picture accords well enough with our knowledge of his nature. The pa.s.sionate tenderness of which that nature was capable appears in a pa.s.sage from those very _Miscellanies_, which, he tells us, were written with so frequent a ”Degree of Heartache.” In the _Journey from this World to the Next_, Fielding describes how, on his entrance into Elysium, that ”happy region whose beauty no Painting of the Imagination can describe” and where ”Spirits know one another by Intuition” he presently met ”a little Daughter whom I had lost several years before. Good G.o.ds! What Words can describe the Raptures, the melting pa.s.sionate Tenderness, with which we kiss'd each other, continuing in our Embrace, with the most extatic Joy, a s.p.a.ce, which if Time had been measured here as on Earth, could not have been less than half a Year.”

The fittest final comment on Henry Fielding's marriage with Charlotte Cradock is, perhaps, that saying of a member of his own craft of the drama, ”Now to love anything sincerely is an act of grace, but to love the best sincerely is a state of grace.”

[1] _Daily Post_, June 5, 1742.

[2] MS. copy of the Minutes of the Meetings of the Partners in the _Champion_, in the possession of the present writer.

[3] See _Daily Post_. May 29, 1742.

[4] Preface to the _Miscellanies_.

[5] Such as the inscription on some verses, published in the _Miscellanies_, as ”Written _Extempore_ in the Pump-room” at Bath, in 1742.

[6] Preface to _David Simple_.

CHAPTER X

PATRIOTIC JOURNALISM

”he only is the _true Patriot_ who always does what is in his Power for his Country's Service without any selfish Views or Regard to private Interests.”--The _True Patriot_.

Fielding's active pen seems to have been laid aside for twelve months after the death of his wife; and it is perfectly in accord with all that we know of his pa.s.sionate devotion to Charlotte Cradock that her loss should have shattered his energies for the whole of the ensuing year.

Murphy, as we have seen, speaks of the first vehemence of his grief as being so acute that fears were entertained for his reason. According to Fielding's kinswomen, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Lady Bute, the first agonies of his grief approached to frenzy; but ”when the first emotions of his sorrow were abated” his fine balance rea.s.serted itself, and to quote again from Murphy, ”philosophy administered her aid; his resolution returned, and he began again to struggle with his fortune.”

As we hear no more of exclusive devotion to the law, it may be a.s.sumed that the attempt of the previous year to live by that arduous calling alone was now abandoned; and to a man of Fielding's strong Protestant and Hanoverian convictions the year of the '45, when a Stewart Prince and an invading Highland army had captured Edinburgh and were actually across the border, could not fail to bring occupation. Fielding believed ardently that Protestant beliefs, civil liberty, and national independence of foreign powers were best safeguarded by a German succession to the English throne; so by the time Prince Charles and 6,000 men had set foot on English soil, the former 'Champion of Great Britain' was again up in arms, discharging his st.u.r.dy blows in a new weekly newspaper ent.i.tled the _True Patriot_.

The _True Patriot_ is chiefly notable as affording the first sign that Fielding was now leaving party politics for the wider, and much duller, field of Const.i.tutional liberty. A man might die for the British Const.i.tution; but to be witty about it would tax the resources of a Lucian. And, accordingly, in place of that gay young spark Mr Pasquin, who laid his cudgel with so hearty a good will on the shoulders of the offending 'Great Man,' there now steps out a very philosophic, mature, and soberly const.i.tutional _Patriot_; a patriot who explicitly a.s.serts in his first number, ”I am of no party; a word I hope by these my labours to eradicate out of our const.i.tution: this being indeed the true source of all those evils which we have reason to complain of.” And again, in No.

14, ”I am engaged to no Party, nor in the Support of any, unless of such as are truly and sincerely attached to the true interest of their Country, and are resolved to hazard all Things in its Preservation.” Here is a considerable change from the personal zest that placed Mr Quiddam and Mr Pillage before delighted audiences in the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.

The available copies of the _True Patriot_, now in the British Museum, [1] include only thirty-two numbers, starting from No. 1, which appeared on the 5th of November, 1745, and ending on June 3, 1746. The first number contains a characteristic tribute to Dean Swift, whose death had occurred 'a few days since.' Doctor Jonathan Swift, says the _Patriot_, was ”A genius who deserves to be rank'd among the first whom the World ever saw.

He possessed the Talents of a Lucian a Rabelais and a Cervantes and in his Works exceeded them all. He employed his Wit to the n.o.blest Purposes in ridiculing as well Superst.i.tion in Religion as Infidelity and the several Errors and Immoralities which sprung up from time to time in his Age; and lastly in defence of his Country.... Nor was he only a Genius and a Patriot; he was in Private Life a good and charitable Man and frequently lent Sums of Money, without interest, to the Poor and Industrious; by which means many Families were preserved from Destruction.” In No. 2, the _Patriot_ reiterates his ”sincere Intention to calm and heal, not to blow up and inflame, any Party-Divisions”; but even the task of defending the British Const.i.tution could not stifle Fielding's wit, and he escapes, for breathing s.p.a.ce as it were, into a column devoted to the news items of the week, gathered from various papers, and adorned by comments of his own, printed in italics. And in this running commentary on the daily occurences of the time we get nearer, perhaps, to the table-talk of Henry Fielding than by any other means. Thus he faithfully repeats the inflated obituary lists that were then in fas.h.i.+on, but with such a variation as the following, ”Thomas Tonkin, ... universally lamented by his Acquaintance.

Upwards of 40 Cows belonging to one at Tottenham Court, _universally lamented by all their Acquaintance_.” On a notice of an anniversary meeting of the Society for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts there is the pertinent comment ”_It is a Pity some Method--was not invented for the Propagation of the Gospel in Great Britain_.” After the deaths of a wealthy banker and factor, comes the obituary of ”One Nowns a Labourer, _most probably immensely poor, and yet as rich now as either of the two Preceeding_”; beside which may be placed the very characteristic a.s.sertion in No. 6 that ”Spleen and Vapours inhabit Palaces and are attired with Pomp and Splendor, while they shun Rags and Prisons.”

There is scarcely a personal allusion in all the thirty-two numbers of the _Patriot_, save the charming picture of that gentleman sitting in his study ”meditating for the good and entertainment of the public, with my two little children (as is my usual course to suffer them) playing near me.” And the ending of his horrid nightmare, in which a Jacobite executioner was placing a rope round his neck, ”when my little girl entered my bedchamber and put an end to my dream by pulling open my eyes, and telling me that the taylor had brought home my cloaths for his Majesty's Birthday.” The number for January 28 must not be overlooked, containing as it does, a scathing and humourous exposure of the profligate young sparks of the Town, from no less a pen than that of the Rev. Mr.

Abraham Adams; and Parson Adams' letter concludes with a paragraph in which may be heard the voice of the future zealous magistrate: ”No man can doubt but that the education of youth ought to be the princ.i.p.al care of every legislation; by the neglect of which great mischief accrues to the civil polity in every city.” When himself but a lad of twenty, and in the prologue of his first comedy, Fielding had entered his protest against certain popular vices of the time, and had made merry over its follies.

The desire to make the world he knew too well a better place than he found it is just as keen in the wit and humourist of thirty-nine; a desire, moreover, undulled by twenty years of vivacious living. Surely not the least amazing feature of Fielding's genius is this dual capacity for exuberant enjoyment, and incisive judgement. ”His wit,” said Thackeray, ”is wonderfully wise and detective; it flashes upon a rogue and brightens up a rascal like a policeman's lantern.”