The frank effrontery of satire like the foregoing had by this time begun to attract the attention of the Ministry, whose withers had already been sharply wrung by Pasquin; and it has been conjectured that the ballet of Quidam and the Patriots played no small part in precipitating the famous “Licensing Act,” which was passed a few weeks afterwards. Like the marriage which succeeded the funeral of Hamlet’s father, it certainly “followed hard upon.” But the reformation of the stage had already been contemplated by the Legislature; and two years before, Sir John Barnard had brought in a bill “to restrain the number of houses for playing of Interludes, and for the better regulating of common Players of Interludes.” This, however, had been abandoned, because it was proposed to add a clause enlarging the power of the Lord Chamberlain in licensing plays, an addition to which the introducer of the measure made strong objection. He thought the power of the Lord Chamberlain already too great, and in support of his argument he instanced its wanton exercise in the case of Gay’s Polly, the representation of which had been suddenly prohibited a few years earlier. But Pasquin and the Register brought the question of dramatic lawlessness again to the front, and a bill was hurriedly drawn, one effect of which was to revive the very provision that Sir John Barnard had opposed. The history of this affair is exceedingly obscure, and in all probability it has never been completely revealed. The received or authorised version is to be found in Coxe’s Life of Walpole. After dwelling on the offence given to the Government by Pasquin, the writer goes on to say that Giffard, the manager of Goodman’s Fields, brought Walpole a farce called The Golden Rump, which had been proposed for exhibition. Whether he did this to extort money, or to ask advice, is not clear. In either case, Walpole is said to have “paid the profits which might have accrued from the performance, and detained the copy.” He then made a compendious selection of the treasonable and profane passages it contained. These he submitted to independent members of both parties, and afterwards read them in the House itself. The result was that by way of amendment to the “Vagrant Act” of Anne’s reign, a bill was prepared limiting the number of theatres, and compelling all dramatic writers to obtain a license from the Lord Chamberlain. Such is Coxe’s account; but notwithstanding its circumstantial character, it has been insinuated in the sham memoirs of the younger Cibber, and it is plainly asserted in the Rambler’s Magazine for 1787, that certain preliminary details have been conveniently suppressed. It is alleged that Walpole himself caused the farce in question to be written, and to be offered to Giffard, for the purpose of introducing his scheme of reform; and the suggestion is not without a certain remote plausibility. As may be guessed, however, The Golden Rump cannot be appealed to. It was never printed, although its title is identical with that of a caricature published in March 1737, and fully described in the Gentleman’s Magazine for that month. If the play at all resembled the design, it must have been obscene and scurrilous in the extreme. [Footnote: Horace Walpole, in his Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II., says (vol. i. p. 12), “I have in my possession the imperfect copy of this piece as I found it among my father’s papers after his death.” He calls it Fielding’s; but no importance can be attached to the statement. There is a copy of the caricature in the British Museum Print Room (Political and Personal Satires, No. 2327).]
Meanwhile the new bill, to which it had given rise, passed rapidly through both Houses. Report speaks of animated discussions and warm opposition. But there are no traces of any divisions, or petitions against it, and the only speech which has survived is the very elaborate and careful oration delivered in the Upper House by Lord Chesterfield. The “second Cicero” — as Sylvanus Urban styles him — opposed the bill upon the ground that it would affect the liberty of the press; and that it was practically a tax upon the chief property of men of letters, their wit — a “precarious dependence” — which (he thanked God) my Lords were not obliged to rely upon. He dwelt also upon the value of the stage as a fearless censor of vice and folly; and he quoted with excellent effect but doubtful accuracy the famous answer of the Prince of Conti [Conde] to Moliere [Louis XIV.] when Tartuffe was interdicted at the instance of M. de Lamoignon:— “It is true, Moliere, Harlequin ridicules Heaven, and exposes religion; but you have done much worse — you have ridiculed the first minister of religion.” This, although not directly advanced for the purpose, really indicated the head and front of Fielding’s offending in Pasquin and the Historical Register, and although in Lord Chesterfield’s speech the former is ironically condemned, it may well be that Fielding, whose Don Quixote had been dedicated to his Lordship, was the wire-puller in this case, and supplied this very illustration. At all events it is entirely in the spirit of Firebrand’s words in Pasquin: —
”Speak boldly; by the Powers I serve, I swear
You speak in Safety, even tho’ you speak
Against the Gods, provided that you speak
Not against Priests.”
But the feeling of Parliament in favour of drastic legislation was even stronger than the persuasive periods of Chesterfield, and on the 21st of June 1737 the bill received the royal assent.
With its passing Fielding’s career as a dramatic author practically closed. In his dedication of the Historical Register to “the Publick,” he had spoken of his desire to beautify and enlarge his little theatre, and to procure a better company of actors; and he had added— “If Nature hath given me any Talents at ridiculing Vice and Imposture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them, while the Liberty of the Press and Stage subsists, that is to say, while we have any Liberty left among us.” To all these projects the “Licensing Act” effectively put an end; and the only other plays from his pen which were produced subsequently to this date were the “Wedding Day,” 1743, and the posthumous Good- Natured Man, 1779, both of which, as is plain from the Preface to the Miscellanies, were among his earliest attempts. In the little farce of Miss Lucy in Town, 1742, he had, he says, but “a very small Share.” Besides these, there are three hasty and flimsy pieces which belong to the early part of 1737. The first of these, Tumble-Down Dick; or, Phaeton in the Suds, was a dramatic sketch in ridicule of the unmeaning Entertainments and Harlequinades of John Rich at Covent Garden. This was ironically dedicated to Rich, under his stage name of “John Lun,” and from the dedication it appears that Rich had brought out an unsuccessful satire on Pasquin called Marforio. The other two were Eurydice, a profane and pointless farce, afterwards printed by its author (in anticipation of Beaumarchais) “as it was d — mned at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane;” and a few detached scenes in which, under the title of Eurydice Hiss’d; or, a Word to the Wise, its untoward fate was attributed to the “frail Promise of uncertain Friends.” But even in these careless and half-considered productions there are happy strokes; and one scarcely looks to find such nervous and sensible lines in a mere a propos as these from Eurydice Hiss’d: —
”Yet grant it shou’d succeed, grant that by Chance,
Or by the Whim and Madness of the Town,
A Farce without Contrivance, without Sense
Should run to the Astonishment of Mankind;
Think how you will be read in After-times,
When Friends are not, and the impartial Judge
Shall with the meanest Scribbler rank your Name;
Who would not rather wish a Butler’s fame,
Distress’d, and poor in every thing but Merit,
Than be the blundering Laureat to a Court?”
Self-accusatory passages such as this — and there are others like it — indicate a higher ideal of dramatic writing than Fielding is held to have attained, and probably the key to them is to be found in that reaction of better judgment which seems invariably to have followed his most reckless efforts. It was a part of his sanguine and impulsive nature to be as easily persuaded that his work was worthless as that it was excellent. “When,” says Murphy, “he was not under the immediate urgency of want, they, who were intimate with him, are ready
to aver that he had a mind greatly superior to anything mean or little; when his finances were exhausted, he was not the most elegant in his choice of the means to redress himself, and he would instantly exhibit a farce or a puppet-shew in the Haymarket theatre, which was wholly inconsistent with the profession he had embarked in.” The quotation displays all Murphy’s loose and negligent way of dealing with his facts; for, with the exception of Miss Lucy in Town, which can scarcely be ranked among his works at all, there is absolutely no trace of Fielding’s having exhibited either “puppet-show” or “farce” after seriously adopting the law as a profession, nor does there appear to have been much acting at the Haymarket for some time after his management had closed in 1737. Still, his superficial characteristics, which do not depend so much upon Murphy as upon those “who were intimate with him,” are probably accurately described, and they sufficiently account for many of the obvious discordances of his work and life. That he was fully conscious of something higher than his actual achievement as a dramatist is clear from his own observation in later life, “that he left off writing for the stage, when he ought to have begun;” — an utterance which (we shrewdly suspect) has prompted not a little profitless speculation as to whether, if he had continued to write plays, they would have been equal to, or worse than, his novels. The discussion would be highly interesting, if there were the slightest chance that it could be attended with any satisfactory result. But the truth is, that the very materials are wanting. Fielding “left off writing for the stage” when he was under thirty; Tom Jones was published in 1749, when he was more than forty. His plays were written in haste; his novels at leisure, and when, for the most part, he was relieved from that “immediate urgency of want,” which, according to Murphy, characterised his younger days. If — as has been suggested — we could compare a novel written at thirty with a play of the same date, or a play written at forty with Tom Jones, 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 published 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: [Footnote: This differs slightly from previous transcripts, having been verified at the Middle Temple.] —
[574 G] 1 Nov 1737.
Henricus Fielding, de East Stour in Com Dorset Ar, filius et haeres apparens Brig: Genlis: Edmundi Fielding admissus est in Societatem Medii Templi Lond specialiter et obligator una cum etc.
Et dat pro fine 4. 0. 0.
It may be noted, as Mr. Keightley has already 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 poetae 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; and Dr. John Vinegar his cousin, over medicine and natural philosophy. To others of the family — including Mrs. Joan Vinegar, who was charged with domestic affairs — were allotted classic literature, poetry and the Drama, and fashion. This elaborate scheme was not very strictly adhered to, and the chief writer of the group is Captain Hercules.
Shorn of the contemporary interest which formed the chief element of its success when it was first published, it must be admitted that, in the present year of grace, the Champion is hard reading. A kind of lassitude — a sense of uncongenial task-work — broods heavily over Fielding’s contributions, except the one or two in which he is quickened into animation by his antagonism to Cibber; and although, with our knowledge of his after achievements, it is possible to trace some indications of his yet unrevealed powers, in the absence of such knowledge it would be difficult to distinguish the Champion from the hundred-and-one forgotten imitators of the Spectator and Tatler, whose names have been so patiently chronicled by Dr. Nathan Drake. There is, indeed, a certain obvious humour in the account of Captain Vinegar’s famous club, which he had inherited from Hercules, and which had the enviable property of falling of itself upon any knave in company, and there is a dash of the Tom Jones manner in the noisy activity of that excellent housewife Mrs. Joan. Some of the lighter papers, such as the one upon the “Art of Puffing,” are amusing enough; and of the visions, that which is based upon Lucian, and represents Charon as stripping his freight of all their superfluous incumbrances in order to lighten his boat, has a double interest, since it contains references not only to Cibber, but also (though this appears to have been hitherto overlooked) to Fielding himself. The “tall Man,” who at Mercury’s request strips off his “old Grey Coat with great Readiness,” but refuses to part with “half his Chin,” which the shepherd of souls regards as false, is clearly intended for the writer of the paper, even without the confirmation afforded by the subsequent allusions to his connection with the stage. His “length of chin and nose,” sufficiently apparent in his portrait, was a favourite theme for contemporary personalities. Of the moral essays, the most remarkable are a set of four papers, entitled An Apology for the Clergy, which may perhaps be regarded as a set-off against the sarcasms of Pasquin on priestcraft. They depict, with a great deal of knowledge and discrimination, the pattern priest as Fielding conceived him. To these may be linked an earlier picture, taken from life, of a country parson who, in his simple and dignified surroundings, even more closely resembles the Vicar of Wakefield than Mr. Abraham Adams. Some of the more general articles contain happy passages. In one there is an admirable parody of the Norman-French jargon, which in those days added superfluous obscurity to legal utterances; while another, on “Charity,” contains a forcible exposition of the inexpediency, as well as inhumanity, of imprisonment for debt. References to contemporaries, the inevitable Cibber excepted, are few, and these seem mostly from the pen of Ralph. The following, from that of Fielding, is notable as being one of the earliest authoritative testimonies to the merits of Hogarth: “I esteem (says he) the ingenious Mr. Hogarth as one of the most useful Satyrists any Age hath produced. In his excellent Works you see the delusive Scene exposed with all the Force of Humour, and, on casting your Eyes on another Picture, you behold the dreadful and fatal Consequence. I almost dare affirm that those two Works of his, which he calls the Rake’s and the Harlot’s Progress, are calculated more to serve the Cause of Virtue, and for the Preservation of Mankind, than all the Folio’s of Morality which have been ever written; and a sober Family should no more be without them, than without the Whole Duty of Man in their House.” He returned to the same theme in the Preface to Joseph Andrews with a still apter phrase of appreciation:— “It hath been thought a vast Commendation of a Painter, to say his Figures seem to breathe; but surely, it is a much greater and nobler Applause, that they appear to think.” [Footnote: Fielding occasionally refers to Hogarth for the pictorial types of his characters. Bridget Allworthy, he tells us, resembled the starched prude in Morning; and Mrs. Partridge and Parson Thwackum have their originals in the Harlot’s Progress. It was Fielding, too, who said that the Enraged Musician was “enough to make a man deaf to look at” (Voyage to Lisbon, 1755, p. 50).]
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 428
