the comparison might be instructive, although even then considerable allowances would have to be made for the essential difference between plays and novels. But, as we cannot make such a comparison, further inquiry is simply waste of time. All we can safely affirm is, that the plays of Fielding's youth did not equal the fictions of his maturity; and that, of those plays, the comedies were less successful than the farces and burlesques. Among other reasons for this latter difference one chiefly may be given:- that in the comedies he sought to reproduce the artificial world of Congreve and Wycherley, while in the burlesques and farces he depicted the world in which he lived.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHAMPION-JOSEPH ANDREWS.

THE Historical Register and Eurydice Hiss'd were pub lished together in June 1737. By this time the "Licensing Act" was passed, and the "Grand Mogul's Company" dispersed for ever. Fielding was now in his thirty-first year, with a wife and probably a daughter depending on him for support. In the absence of any prospect that he would be able to secure a maintenance as a dramatic writer, he seems to have decided, in spite of his comparatively advanced age, to revert to the profession for which he had originally been intended, and to qualify himself for the Bar. Accordingly, at the close of the year, he became a student of the Middle Temple, and the books of that society contain the following record of his admission: 1

Henricus Fielding, de East Stour in Com Dorset Ar, filius et hæres apparens Brig: Genlis: Edmundi Fielding admissus est in Societatem Medii Templi Lond specialiter et obligatur una

cum etc.

It may be noted, as

Et dat pro fine 4. 0. 0.

Mr. Keightley has already

1 This differs slightly from previous transcripts, having been verified at the Middle Temple.

observed, that Fielding is described in this entry as of East Stour, "which would seem to indicate that he still retained his property at that place;" and further, that his father is spoken of as a "brigadier-general," whereas (according to the Gentleman's Magazine) he had been made a major - general in December 1735. Of discrepancies like these it is idle to attempt any explanation. But, if Murphy is to be believed, Fielding devoted himself henceforth with remarkable assiduity to the study of law. The old irregularity of life, it is alleged, occasionally asserted itself, though without checking the energy of his application. "This," says his first biographer, "prevailed in him to such a degree, that he has been frequently known, by his intimates, to retire late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read, and make extracts from, the most abstruse authors, for several hours before he went to bed; so powerful were the vigour of his constitution and the activity of his mind." It is to this passage, no doubt, that we owe the picturesque wet towel and inked ruffles with which Mr. Thackeray has decorated him in Pendennis; and, in all probability, a good deal of graphic writing from less able pens respecting his modus vivendi as a Templar. In point of fact, nothing is known with certainty respecting his life at this period; and what it would really concern us to learn--namely, whether by "chambers" it is to be understood that he was living alone, and, if so, where Mrs. Fielding was at the time of these protracted vigils-Murphy has not told us. Perhaps she was safe all the while at East Stour, or with her sisters at Salisbury. Having no precise information, however, it can only be recorded, that, in spite of the fitful

outbreaks above referred to, Fielding applied himself to the study of his profession with all the vigour of a man who has to make up for lost time; and that, when on the 20th of June 1740 the day came for his being "called," he was very fairly equipped with legal knowledge. That he had also made many friends among his colleagues of Westminster Hall is manifest from the number of lawyers who figure in the subscription list of the Miscellanies.

To what extent he was occupied by literary work during his probationary period it is difficult to say. Murphy speaks vaguely of "a large number of fugitive political tracts;" but unless the Essay on Conversation, advertised by Lawton Gilliver in 1737, be the same as that afterwards reprinted in the Miscellanies, there is no positive record of anything until the issue of True Greatness, an epistle to George Dodington, in January 1741, though he may, of course, have written much anonymously. Among newspapers, the one Murphy had in mind was probably the Champion, the first number of which is dated November 15, 1739, two years after his admission to the Middle Temple as a student. On the whole, it seems most likely, as Mr. Keightley conjectures, that his chief occupation in the interval was studying law, and that he must have been living upon the residue of his wife's fortune or his own means, in which case the establishment of the above periodical may mark the exhaustion of his resources.

The Champion is a paper on the model of the elder essayists. It was issued, like the Tatler, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Murphy says that Fielding's part in it cannot now be ascertained; but as the

"Advertisement to the edition in two volumes of 1741 states expressly that the papers signed C. and L. are the "Work of one Hand," and as a number of those signed C are unmistakably Fielding's, it is hard to discover where the difficulty lay. The papers signed C. and L. are by far the most numerous, the majority of the remainder being distinguished by two stars, or the signature "Lilbourne.” These are understood to have been from the pen of James Ralph, whose poem of Night gave rise to a stinging couplet in the Dunciad, but who was nevertheless a man of parts, and an industrious writer. As will be remembered, he had contributed a prologue to the Temple Beau, so that his association with Fielding must have been of some standing. Besides Ralph's essays in the Champion, he was mainly responsible for the Index to the Times which accompanied each number, and consisted of a series of brief paragraphs on current topics, or the last new book. In this way Glover's London, Boyse's Deity, Somervile's Hobbinol, Lillo's Elmeric, Dyer's Ruins of Rome, and other of the very minor poetæ minores of the day, were commented upon. These notes and notices, however, were only a subordinate feature of the Champion, which, like its predecessors, consisted chiefly of essays and allegories, social, moral, and political, the writers of which were supposed to be members of an imaginary "Vinegar family," described in the initial paper. Of these the most prominent was Captain Hercules Vinegar, who took all questions relating to the Army, Militia, Trained-Bands, and "fighting Part of the Kingdom." His father, Nehemiah Vinegar, presided over history and politics; his uncle, Counsellor Vinegar, over law and judicature;