a Condition very little better, on another, attended with other Circumstances, which served as very proper Decorations to such a Scene." The passage well illustrates the vicissitudes of his life, the reference in the last clause doubtless being to bailiffs. Yet he was struggling on in his profession and at the same time writing copiously. Some time before the middle of 1743 were issued three volumes of Miscellanies by Henry Fielding, Esq. They were published by subscription and according to the estimate of Sir Leslie Stephen1 must have yielded their author about £450. The list of subscribers included numerous representatives of the aristocracy of birth as well as of intellect. Nor were the volumes disappointing. Along with a good deal both in verse and prose that was the work of his early manhood and somewhat that was simply republished, there was included much new and valuable material. Of the more important works such as An Essay on Conversation, A Journey from this World to the Next, and The History of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great, I shall have occasion to speak later. These three are of themselves sufficient to remove the Miscellanies from mediocrity.

Towards the end of the same year Fielding's wife died after a long illness. That she had remained loyally attached to him through the whole of a married life which had brought her much trouble and perhaps occasional privation, we cannot doubt any more than we can the faithful devotion of her somewhat difficult husband. After her death, according to Murphy, he was so broken-hearted that his friends feared lest he lose his reason. Of the children of this marriage we know the name of but one, Eleanor Harriot, who accompanied her father on that "voyage to Lisbon" which ended his life. A son and one or two daughters seem to have died while very young.

During the next two years Fielding must have been engaged for the most part in the practice of his profession. In 1744 he published nothing except a preface to the second edition of his sister's David Simple, in which he took occasion to retract the promise which he had made in the preface to the Miscellanies to print nothing thenceforward except over his own signature, since in the face of it he had been subjected to the scandal of "putting forth anonymous work." This was doubtless a reference to a stupid and anonymous satire, the Causidicade, which had been attributed to him. In November, 1745, when the rebellion under the pretender Charles Edward broke out, he doubtless was thankful that he had made the declaration, for he once again became a journalist, this time in defense of the government. For about two years he wrote the periodical known as The True Patriot, and for nearly another, till November, 1748, -The Jacobite's Journal. His papers in both of these were largely political and of no lasting value, but by means of them he had the opportunity of expressing his strong feelings and doubtless of gaining the livelihood which for some reason or other he never found at the bar. That he was called a 66 pension'd scribbler" for his pains was only natural and not of necessity at all discreditable.

Meanwhile, on the 27th of November, 1747,1 he had married Mary Daniel, who had been his first wife's maid. Lady Louisa Stuart says of her: "The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate,

1 The date was first discovered by Mr. Austin Dobson. See p. 157 of his biography.

and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he told his friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." To this account nothing need be added save that, according to Fielding's own statements, particularly in the Voyage to Lisbon, he never found reason to repent his choice. Of this union were born four children,- William, who became a barrister and magistrate; Allen, who became a clergyman and who cared for his mother in her old age;1 and two daughters, one of whom died in infancy.

In December, 1748, through the interest of his lifelong friend Lyttelton with the Duke of Bedford, Fielding was appointed a justice of the peace for Westminster. He then took a house in Bow Street and a little later had the county of Middlesex added to his commission. In this office he labored very earnestly and to good purpose. Nor, we may be sure, did he find his position "humiliating to use good Sir Walter Scott's phrase with reference to a silly story 2 circulated by Horace Walpole so long as he did his work honestly and well. To be sure, the magistrates of that time had brought themselves into disrepute by their corrupt practices, but so had most public officers for that matter. It was not a position of great dignity, but it offered a steady income, if not one sufficient for his lavish nature; and it made him independent of friends such as Lyttelton and Allen, who had undoubtedly given him much occasional pecuniary assistance hitherto. He was assisted in the duties of the office by his half-brother,

1 She probably died at his house in Canterbury in 1802.

2 Telling how two young sparks intruded on his private life, were treated with scant courtesy, and came away to spread tales of his squalid housekeeping.

John Fielding,' who, though blind from his birth, had acquired a legal education and was a man of parts.

Apparently for a considerable length of time before his appointment as justice Fielding had been engaged in the composition of a new novel. This was The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. It was published by Andrew Millar on February 28, 1749, only two months after the author became a justice. The book had an immediate and immense success. So great, indeed, was its vogue that the publisher added one hundred pounds to the six hundred which he had originally agreed to pay. Even Richardson found that his devoted correspondents2 were filled with rapt admiration for the masterpiece, though he himself continued to heap petty abuse on its author and apparently could not find time to read the book. This was in contrast to Fielding's reception of Clarissa, which he had good-naturedly puffed in the fifth number of The Jacobite's Journal. Tom Jones was dedicated to Lyttelton in a long panegyric which is supportable only because the gratitude which the writer expresses is unmistakably genuine. Nor could the modest Lyttelton have resented the public way in which his virtues were lauded, since thereby his name was linked to an acknowledged masterpiece. The verdict of that day has never been reversed. The novel has appeared in almost innumerable English editions and has been translated into most of the European languages.

In the somewhat limited leisure of his life as a justice Fielding now began a new novel, which was to be his last. On the 19th of December, 1751, Andrew Millar issued Amelia, though

1 After Fielding's death his brother succeeded to his office, was knighted in 1761, and died in 1780. Unhappily, though he displayed remarkable energy, it is not clear that his conduct as magistrate was always above reproach.

2 See letters in Dobson, 189 ff.

by anticipation the title-page was dated 1752. For this work the publisher paid £1000, but certainly lost no money by the venture since a second edition was called for on the day of publication. To admit that this extraordinary demand was stimulated by skillful advertising is merely to give due credit to the astute Millar. He is said to have refused the ordinary discount to his agents on the plea of the enormous demand for the work, thereby creating such a demand. The book was simply and briefly dedicated to Ralph Allen, Esq., whose regard for the author and material assistance to him were gratefully remembered. Samuel Johnson was only one of the people of discrimination who found the work absorbing. In spite of his preference for Richardson, “he read it through without stopping" and pronounced Amelia "the most pleasing heroine of all the romances." The professional critics, to be sure, treated the novel rather harshly, but as usual their adverse comments had little influence on its popularity.

Almost immediately after the publication of Amelia, Fielding started a new biweekly paper, The Covent-Garden Journal, in which he assumed the title of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Censor of Great Britain. Notwithstanding the increasing burdens of his office as magistrate and in spite of obstinate ill health,2 he kept continually at work in his laudable endeavor to make a comfortable provision for his family against the time when he could no longer support them. Indeed, he may have foreseen that he was not destined to a long life. The new journal contained much of his best work in this kind of writing, a good deal for that matter which was above and outside journalism. It was as witty as his earlier ventures and much wiser. Here and there one can put his finger on a little essay and say,

1 Boswell, April 12, 1776.

2 An attack of "fever aggravated by gout" towards the end of 1749 for some time seemed likely to prove fatal.