Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding

by Henry Fielding

  To give you some idea of this (for it is impossible for any one who doth not live in what they call a free country, to have an adequate notion of a mob) whenever a pickpocket is taken in the fact, the person who takes him calls out “pickpocket.” Upon which word, the mob, who are always at hand in the street, assemble; and having heard the accusation, and sometimes the defence (though they are not always very strict as to the latter, judging a good deal by appearances), if they believe the accuser, the prisoner is sentenced to be ducked; and this sentence is immediately executed with such rigour, that he hardly escapes with his life.

  The mob take cognizance of all other misdemeanours which happen in the streets, and they are a court, which generally endeavours to do justice, though they sometimes err, by the hastiness of their decisions. Perhaps it is the only court in the world, where there is no partiality arising from respect of persons.

  They are great enemies to the use of swords, as they are weapons with which they are not intrusted. If a gentleman draws a sword, though it be only in terrorem to defend himself, he is certain to be very severely treated by them; but they give great encouragement to their superiors, who will condescend to shew their courage in the way which the mob themselves use, by boxing, of which we shall presently shew you an instance.

  Our boat was now with some difficulty close to the landing-place; for there was a great croud of boats, every one of which, instead of making way for us, served to endeavour to keep us out. Upon this occasion many hundred curses passed between our watermen and their fellows, and not a few affronts were cast on us, especially as we were drest after the manner of our country.

  At last we arrived safe on shore, where we payed our watermen, who grumbled at our not giving them something to drink (for all the labouring people in this country apply their hire only to eatables, for which reason they expect something over and above to drink).

  As we walked towards the Strand, a drayman ran his whip directly into my friend’s face, perhaps with no design of doing this, but at the same time, without any design of avoiding it. My friend, who is impatient of an affront, immediately struck the carter with his fist, who attempted to return the favour with his whip; but Monsieur Bellair, who is extremely strong and active, and who hath learnt to box in this country, presently closed in with him, and tript up his heels.

  The mob now assembled round us, and being pleased with my friend for not having drawn his sword, inclined visibly to his side, and commended many blows which he gave his adversary, and other feats of activity, which he displayed during the combat, that lasted some minutes; at the end of which, the drayman yielded up the victory, crying with a sneer— “D — n you, you have been on the stage, or I am mistaken.”

  The mob now gave a huzza in my friend’s favour, and sufficiently upbraided his antagonist, who, they said, was well enough served for affronting a gentleman.

  Monsieur Bellair had on the beginning of the scuffle, while the enemy lay on the ground, delivered his sword to one of the bystanders; which person had unluckily walked off in the croud, without remembering to restore it.

  Upon this the mob raged violently, and swore vengeance against the thief, if he could be discovered; but as this could not be done, he was obliged at length to submit to the loss.

  When we began to depart, several of our friends demanded of us something to drink; but as we were more out of humour with the loss, than pleased with the glory obtained, we could not be prevailed upon to open our purses.

  The company were incensed with this. We were saluted with the titles of Mounshire, and other contemptuous appellations; several missile weapons, such as dirt, &c., began likewise to play on us, and we were both challenged to fight by several, who told my friend, though he beat the drayman, he was not above half a man.

  We then made the best of our way, and soon escaped into a

  Hackney-coach.

  Thus I have sent you a particular account of this voyage, from some parts of which you may perhaps conclude, that the meanest rank of people are in this country better provided for than their superiors; and that the gentry, at least those of the lower class of that order, fare full as well in other places: for, to say the truth, it appears to me, that an Englishman in that station is liable to be opprest by all above him, and insulted by all below him.

  I am, &c.

  THE END

  The Biographie s

  Henry Fielding, c.1748

  THE LIFE OF HENRY FIELDING by Sir Walter Scot t

  Of all the works of imagination, to which English genius has given origin, the writings of Henry Fielding are, perhaps, most decidedly and exclusively her own. They are not only altogether beyond the reach of translation, in the proper sense and spirit of the word, but we even question, whether they can be fully understood, or relished to the highest extent, by such natives of Scotland and Ireland, as are not habitually and intimately acquainted with the characters and manners of Old England. Parson Adams, Towwouse, Partridge, above all, Squire Western, are personages as peculiar to England, as they are unknown to other countries. Nay, the actors, whose character is of a more general cast, as Allworthy, Mrs. Miller, Tom Jones himself, and almost all the subordinate agents in the narrative, have the same cast of nationality, which adds not a little to the verisimilitude of the tale. The persons of the story live in England, travel in England, quarrel and fight in England; and scarce an incident occurs, without its being marked by something, which could not well have happened in any other country. This nationality may be ascribed to the author’s own habits of life, which rendered him conversant, at different periods, with all the various classes of English society, specimens of which he has selected with inimitable spirit of choice and description, for the amusement of his readers. Like many other men of talent, Fielding was unfortunate, — his life was a life of imprudence and uncertainty; but it was while passing from the high society to which he was born, to that of the lowest and most miscellaneous kind to which his fortune condemned him, that he acquired the extended familiarity with the English character, in every rank and aspect, which has made his name immortal as a painter of national manners.

  HENRY FIELDING, born 22d April 1707, was of noble descent, the third son of General Edmund Fielding, himself the third son of the Hon. John Fielding, who was the fifth son of William, Earl of Denbigh, who died in 1655. Our author was nearly connected with the ducal family of Kingston, which boasted a brighter ornament than rank or titles could bestow, in the wit and beauty of the celebrated Lady-Mary Wortley Montague. The mother of Henry Fielding was a daughter of Judge Gold, the first wife of his father the General. Henry was the only son of this marriage; but he had four sisters of the full blood, of whom Sarah, the third, was distinguished as an authoress by the history of David Simple, and other literary attempts. General Fielding married a second time, after the death of his first lady, and had a numerous family, one of whom is well remembered as a judge of police, by the title of Sir John Fielding. It is most probable, that the expense attending so large a family, together with a natural thoughtlessness of disposition on the part of his father, occasioned Henry’s being early thrown into those precarious circumstances, with which, excepting at brief intervals, he continued to struggle through life.

  After receiving the rudiments of education from the Rev. Mr. Oliver, who is supposed to have furnished him with the outline of Parson Trulliber’s character, Fielding was removed to Eton, where he became imbued deeply with that love of classic literature, which may be traced through all his works. As his father destined him to the bar, he was sent from Eton to study at Leyden, where he is said to have given earnest attention to the civil law. Had he remained in this regular course of study, the courts would probably have gained a lawyer, and the world would have lost a man of genius; but the circumstances of General Fielding determined the chance in favour of posterity, though perhaps against his son. Remittances failed, and the young student was compelled to return, at the age of twenty, to plunge into the dissipation of Lon
don, without a monitor to warn, or a friend to support him. General Fielding, indeed, promised his son an allowance of two hundred pounds a-year; but this, as his son used to say, “any one might pay who would.” It is only necessary to add, that Fielding was tall, handsome, and well-proportioned, had an expressive countenance, and possessed, with an uncommonly strong constitution, a keen relish of pleasure, with the power of enjoying the present moment, and trusting to chance for the future,and the reader has before him sufficient grounds to estimate the extent of his improvidence and distress. Lady Mary Wortley Montague, his kinswoman, and early acquaintance, has traced his temperament, and its consequences, in a few lines; and no one who can use her words, would willingly employ his own.

  “I am sorry for Henry Fielding’s death,” says her ladyship, in one of her letters, upon receiving information of that event, “not only as I shall read no more of his writings, but because I believe he lost more than others, as no man enjoyed life more than he did; though few had less occasion to do so, the highest of his preferment being raking in the lowest sinks of vice and misery. I should think it a nobler and less nauseous employment, to be one of the staff-officers that conduct the nocturnal weddings. His happy constitution (even when he had, with great pains, half demolished it,) made him forget every evil, when he was before a venison-pasty or over a flask of champaign; and I am persuaded he has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth. His natural spirits gave him rapture with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was starving in a garret. There was a great similitude between his character and that of Sir Richard Steele. He had the advantage, both in learning, and, in my opinion, genius; they both agreed in wanting money, in spite of all their friends, and would have wanted it, if their hereditary lands had been as extensive as their imagination; yet each of them was so formed for happiness, it is pity he was not immortal.”

  Some resources were necessary for a man of pleasure, and Fielding found them in his pen, having, as he used to say himself, no alternative, but to be a hackney writer, or a hackney coachman. He at first employed himself in writing for the theatre, then in high reputation, having recently engaged the talents of Wycherley, of Congreve, Vanburgh, and Farquhar. Fielding’s comedies and farces were brought on the stage in hasty succession; and play after play, to the number of eighteen, sunk or swam on the theatrical sea, betwixt the years 1727 and 1736. None of these are now known or read, excepting the mock-tragedy of Tom Thumb, the translated play of The Miser, and the farces of The Mock-Doctor and Intriguing Chamber-Maid; and yet they are the production of an author unrivalled for his conception and illustration of character in the kindred walk of imaginary narrative.

  Fielding, the first of British novelists; for such he may surely be termed, has thus added his name to that of Le Sage and others, who, eminent for fictitious narration, have either altogether failed in their dramatic attempts, or at least have fallen far short of that degree of excellence, which might have been previously augured of them. It is hard to fix upon any plausible reason for a failure, which has occurred in too many instances to be the operation of mere chance, especially since a priori one would think the same talents necessary for both walks of literature. Force of character, strength of expression, felicity of contrast and situation, a well-constructed plot, in which the developement is at once natural and unexpected, and where the interest is kept uniformly alive, till summed up by the catastrophe — all these are requisites as essential to the labour of the novelist, as to that of the dramatist, and, indeed, appear to comprehend the sum of the qualities necessary to success in both departments. Fielding’s biographers have, in this particular instance, explained his lack of theatrical success, as arising entirely from the careless haste with which he huddled up his dramatic compositions; it being no uncommon thing with him to finish an act or two in a morning, and to write out whole scenes upon the paper in which his favourite tobacco had been wrapped up. Negligence of this kind will no doubt give rise to great inequalities in the productions of an author, so careless of his reputation; but will scarcely account for an attribute something like dulness, which pervades Fielding’s plays, and which is rarely found in those works which a man of genius throws off “at a heat,” to use Dryden’s expression, in prodigal self-reliance on his internal resources. Neither are we at all disposed to believe, that an author, so careless as Fielding, took much more pains in labouring his novels, than in composing his plays; and we are, therefore compelled to seek some other and more general reason for the inferiority of the latter. This may perhaps be found in the nature of those two studies, which, intimately connected as they seem to be, are yet naturally distinct in some very essential particulars; so much so as to vindicate the general opinion, that he who applies himself with eminent success to the one, becomes, in some degree, unqualified for the other; — like the artizan, who, by a particular turn for excellence in one mechanical department, loses the habit of dexterity necessary for acquitting himself with equal reputation in another, or as the artist, who has dedicated himself to the use of water-colours, is usually less distinguished by his skill in oil-painting.

  It is the object of the novel-writer to place before the reader as full and accurate a representation of the events which he relates, as can be done by the mere force of an excited imagination, without the assistance of material objects. His sole appeal is made to the world of fancy and of ideas, and in this consists his strength and his weakness, his poverty and his wealth. He cannot, like the painter, present a visible and tangible representation of his towns and his woods, his palaces and his castles; but, by awakening the imagination of a congenial reader, he places before his mind’s eye, landscapes fairer than those of Claude, and wilder than those of Salvator. He cannot, like the dramatist, present before our living eyes the heroes of former days, or the beautiful creations of his own fancy, embodied in the grace and majesty of Kemble or of Siddons; but he can teach his reader to conjure up forms even more dignified and beautiful than theirs. The same difference follows him through every branch of his art. The author of a novel, in short, has neither stage nor scene-painter, nor company of comedians, nor dresser, nor wardrobe; words, applied with the best of his skill, must supply all that these bring to the assistance of the dramatist. Action, and tone, and gesture, the smile of the lover, the frown of the tyrant, the grimace of the buffoon, — all must be told, for nothing can be shown. Thus, the very dialogue becomes mixed with the narration; for he must not only tell what the characters actually said, in which his task is the same as that of the dramatic author, but must also describe the tone, the look, the gesture, with which their speech was accompanied, — telling, in short, all which, in the drama, it becomes the province of the actor to express. It must, therefore, frequently happen, that the author best qualified for a province, in which all depends on the communication of his own ideas and feelings to the reader, without any intervening medium, may fall short of the skill necessary to adapt his compositions to the medium of the stage, where the very qualities most excellent in a novelist are out of place, and an impediment to success. Description and narration, which form the essence of the novel, must be very sparingly introduced into dramatic composition, and scarce ever have a good effect upon the stage. Even Puff, in The Critic, has the good sense to leave out “all about gilding the eastern hemisphere;” and the very first thing which the players struck out of his memorable tragedy was, the description of queen Elizabeth, her palfrey, and her side-saddle. The drama speaks to the eye and ear; and when it ceases to address these bodily organs, and would exact from a theatrical audience that exercise of the imagination which is necessary to follow forth and embody circumstances neither spoken nor exhibited, there is an immediate failure, though it may be the failure of a man of genius. Hence it follows, that though a good acting play may be made by selecting a plot and characters from a novel, yet scarce any effort of genius could render a play into a narrative romance. In the former case, the author has only to contract the events within the spac
e necessary for representation, to choose the most striking characters, and exhibit them in the most forcible contrast, discard from the dialogue whatever is redundant or tedious, and so dramatize the whole. But we know not any effort of genius, which could successfully insert into a good play, those accessories of description and delineation, which are necessary to dilate it into a readable novel. It may thus easily be conceived, that he whose chief talent lies in addressing the imagination only, and whose style, therefore, must be expanded and circumstantial, may fail in a kind of composition where so much must be left to the efforts of the actor, with his allies and assistants the scene-painter and property-man, and where every attempt to interfere with their province, is an error unfavourable to the success of the piece. Besides, it must be further remembered, that in fictitious narrative an author carries on his manufacture alone, and upon his own account; whereas, in dramatic writing, he enters into partnership with the performers, and it is by their joint efforts that the piece is to succeed. Copartnery is called, by Civilians, the mother of discord; and how likely it is to prove so in the present instance, may be illustrated by reference to the admirable dialogue between the Player and Poet in Joseph Andrews, Book III, chap. 10. The poet must either be contented to fail, or to make great condescensions to the experience, and pay much attention to the peculiar qualifications, of those by whom his piece is to be represented. And he who in a novel had only to fit sentiments, action, and character, to the ideal beings, is now compelled to assume the much more difficult task of adapting all these to real existing persons, who, unless their parts are exactly suited to their own taste, and their peculiar capacities, have, each in his line, the means, and not infrequently the inclination, to ruin the success of the play. Such are, amongst many others, the peculiar difficulties of the dramatic art, and they seem impediments which lie peculiarly in the way of the novelist who aspires to extend his sway over the stage.