Various anecdotes, all more or less apocryphal, have been related respecting the first appearance of Joseph Andrews, and the sum paid to the author for the copyright. A reference to the original assignment, now in the Forster Library at South Kensington, definitely settles the latter point. The amount in “lawful Money of Great Britain,” received by “Henry Fielding, Esq.” from “Andrew Millar of St. Clement’s Danes in the Strand,” was L183 11s. In this document, as in the order to Nourse of which a facsimile is given by Roscoe, both the author’s name and signature are written with the old-fashioned double f, and he calls himself “Fielding” and not “Feilding,” like the rest of the Denbigh family. If we may trust an anecdote given by Kippis, Lord Denbigh once asked his kinsman the reason of this difference. “I cannot tell, my lord,” returned the novelist, “unless it be that my branch of the family was the first that learned to spell.” In connection with this assignment, however, what is perhaps even more interesting than these discrepancies is the fact that one of the witnesses was William Young. Thus we have Parson Adams acting as witness to the sale of the very book which he had helped to immortalise.
CHAPTER IV. THE MISCELLANIES — JONATHAN WILD.
In March 1742, according to an article in the Gentleman’s Magazine, attributed to Samuel Johnson, “the most popular Topic of Conversation” was the Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Dutchess of Marlborough, from her first coming to Court, to the Year 1710, which, with the help of Hooke of the Roman History, the “terrible old Sarah” had just put forth. Among the little cloud of Sarah-Ads and Old Wives’ Tales evoked by this production, was a Vindication of her Grace by Fielding, specially prompted, as appears from the title-page, by the “late scurrilous Pamphlet” of a “noble Author.” If this were not acknowledged to be from Fielding’s pen in the Preface to the Miscellanies (in which collection, however, it is not reprinted), its authorship would be sufficiently proved by its being included with Miss Lucy in Town in the assignment to Andrew Millar referred to at the close of the preceding chapter. The price Millar paid for it was L5 5s, or exactly half that of the farce. But it is only reasonable to assume that the Duchess herself (who is said to have given Hooke L5000 for his help) also rewarded her champion. Whether Fielding’s admiration for the “glorious Woman” in whose cause he had drawn his pen was genuine, or whether — to use Johnson’s convenient euphemism concerning Hooke— “he was acting only ministerially,” are matters for speculation. His father, however, had served under the Duke, and there may have been a traditional attachment to the Churchills on the part of his family. It has even been ingeniously suggested that Sarah Fielding was her Grace’s god-child; [Footnote: Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, etc., by Mrs. A. T. Thomson, 1839.] but as her mother’s name was also Sarah, no importance can be attached to the suggestion.
Miss Lucy in Town, as its sub-title explains, was a sequel to the Virgin Unmask’d, and was produced at Drury Lane in May 1742. As already stated in chapter ii., Fielding’s part in it was small. It is a lively but not very creditable trifle, which turns upon certain equivocal London experiences of the Miss Lucy of the earlier piece; and it seems to have been chiefly intended to afford an opportunity for some clever imitation of the reigning Italian singers by Mrs. Clive and the famous tenor Beard. Horace Walpole, who refers to it in a letter to Mann, between an account of the opening of Ranelagh and an anecdote of Mrs. Bracegirdle, calls it “a little simple farce,” and says that “Mrs. Clive mimics the Muscovita admirably, and Beard Amorevoli tolerably.” Mr. Walpole detested the Muscovita, and adored Amorevoli, which perhaps accounts for the nice discrimination shown in his praise. One of the other characters, Mr. Zorobabel, a Jew, was taken by Macklin, and from another, Mrs. Haycock (afterwards changed to Mrs. Midnight), Foote is supposed to have borrowed Mother Cole in The Minor. A third character, Lord Bawble, was considered to reflect upon “a particular person of quality,” and the piece was speedily forbidden by the Lord Chamberlain, although it appears to have been acted a few months later without opposition. One of the results of the prohibition, according to Mr. Lawrence, was a Letter to a Noble Lord (the Lord Chamberlain) … occasioned by a Representation … of a Farce called “Miss Lucy in Town.” This, in spite of the Caveat in the Preface to the Miscellanies, he ascribes to Fielding, and styles it “a sharp expostulation … in which he [Fielding] disavowed any idea of a personal attack.” But Mr. Lawrence must plainly have been misinformed on the subject, for the pamphlet bears little sign of Fielding’s hand. As far as it is intelligible, it is rather against Miss Lucy than for her, and it makes no reference to Lord Bawble’s original. The name of this injured patrician seems indeed never to have transpired; but he could scarcely have been in any sense an exceptional member of the Georgian aristocracy.
In the same month that Miss Lucy in Town appeared at Drury Lane, Millar published it in book form. In the following June, T. Waller of the Temple-Cloisters issued the first of a contemplated series of translations from Aristophanes by Henry Fielding, Esq., and the Rev. William Young who sat for Parson Adams. The play chosen was Plutus, the God of Riches, and a notice upon the original cover stated that, according to the reception it met with from the public, it would be followed by the others. It must be presumed that “the distressed, and at present, declining State of Learning” to which the authors referred in their dedication to Lord Talbot, was not a mere form of speech, for the enterprise does not seem to have met with sufficient encouragement to justify its continuance, and this special rendering has long since been supplanted by the more modern versions of Mitchell, Frere, and others. Whether Fielding took any large share in it is not now discernible. It is most likely, however, that the bulk of the work was Young’s, and that his colleague did little more than furnish the Preface, which is partly written in the first person, and betrays its origin by a sudden and not very relevant attack upon the “pretty, dapper, brisk, smart, pert Dialogue” of Modern Comedy into which the “infinite Wit” of Wycherley had degenerated under Cibber. It also contains a compliment to the numbers of the “inimitable Author” of the Essay on Man.
This is the second compliment which Fielding had paid to Pope within a brief period, the first having been that in the Champion respecting the translation of the Iliad. What his exact relations with the author of the Dunciad were, has never been divulged. At first they seem to have been rather hostile than friendly. Fielding had ridiculed the Romish Church in the Old Debauchees, a course which Pope could scarcely have approved; and he was, moreover, the cousin of Lady Mary, now no longer throned in the Twickenham Temple. Pope had commented upon a passage in Tom Thumb, and Fielding had indirectly referred to Pope in the Covent Garden Tragedy. When it had been reported that Pope had gone to see Pasquin, the statement had been at once contradicted. But Fielding was now, like Pope, against Walpole; and Joseph Andrews had been published. It may therefore be that the compliments in Plutus and the Champion were the result of some rapprochement between the two. It is, nevertheless, curious that, at this very time, an attempt appears to have been made to connect the novelist with the controversy which presently arose out of Cibber’s well-known letter to Pope. In August 1742, the month following its publication, among the pamphlets to which it gave rise, was announced The Cudgel; or, a Crab-tree Lecture, To the Author of the Dunciad. “By Hercules Vinegar, Esq.” This very mediocre satire in verse is still to be found at the British Museum; but even if it were not included in Fielding’s general disclaimer as to unsigned work, it would be difficult to connect it with him. To give but one reason, it would make him the ally and adherent of Cibber, — which is absurd. In all probability, like another Grub Street squib under the same pseudonym, it was by Ralph, who had already attacked Pope, and continued to maintain the Captain’s character in the Champion long after Fielding had ceased to write for it. It is even possible that Ralph had some share in originating the Vinegar family, for it is noticeable that the paper in which they are first introduced bears no initials. In this case he would con
sider himself free to adopt the name, however disadvantageous that course might be to Fielding’s reputation. And it is clear that, whatever their relations had been in the past, they were for the time on opposite sides in politics, since while Fielding had been vindicating the Duchess of Marlborough, Ralph had been writing against her.
These, however, are minor questions, the discussion of which would lead too far from the main narrative of Fielding’s life. In the same letter in which Walpole had referred to Miss Lucy in Town, he had spoken of the success of a new player at Goodman’s Fields, after whom all the town, in Gray’s phrase, was “horn-mad;” but in whose acting Mr. Walpole, with a critical distrust of novelty, saw nothing particularly wonderful. This was David Garrick. He had been admitted a student of Lincoln’s Inn a year before Fielding entered the Middle Temple, had afterwards turned wine-merchant, and was now delighting London by his versatility in comedy, tragedy, and farce. One of his earliest theatrical exploits, according to Sir John Hawkins, had been a private representation of Fielding’s Mock-Doctor, in a room over the St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, so long familiar to subscribers of the Gentleman’s Magazine; his fellow-actors being Cave’s journeymen printers, and his audience Cave, Johnson, and a few friends. After this he appears to have made the acquaintance of Fielding; and late in 1742, applied to him to know if he had “any Play by him,” as “he was desirous of appearing in a new Part.” As a matter of fact Fielding had two plays by him — the Good- natured Man (a title subsequently used by Goldsmith), and a piece called The Wedding Day. The former was almost finished: the latter was an early work, being indeed “the third Dramatic Performance he ever attempted.” The necessary arrangements having been made with Mr. Fleetwood, the manager of Drury Lane, Fielding set to work to complete the Good-natured Man, which he considered the better of the two. When he had done so, he came to the conclusion that it required more attention than he could give it; and moreover, that the part allotted to Garrick, although it satisfied the actor, was scarcely important enough. He accordingly reverted to the Wedding Day, the central character of which had been intended for Wilks. It had many faults which none saw more clearly than the author himself, but he hoped that Garrick’s energy and prestige would triumphantly surmount all obstacles. He hoped, as well, to improve it by revision. The dangerous illness of his wife, however, made it impossible for him to execute his task; and, as he was pressed for money, the Wedding Day was produced on the 17th of February 1743, apparently much as it had been first written some dozen years before. As might be anticipated, it was not a success. The character of Millamour is one which it is hard to believe that even Garrick could have made attractive, and though others of the parts were entrusted to Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Pritchard, and Macklin, it was acted but six nights. The author’s gains were under L50. In the Preface to the Miscellanies, from which most of the foregoing account is taken, Fielding, as usual, refers its failure to other causes than its inherent defects. Rumours, he says, had been circulated as to its indecency (and in truth some of the scenes are more than hazardous); but it had passed the licenser, and must be supposed to have been up to the moral standard of the time. Its unfavourable reception, as Fielding must have known in his heart, was due to its artistic shortcomings, and also to the fact that a change was taking place in the public taste. It is in connection with the Wedding Day that one of the best-known anecdotes of the author is related.
Garrick had begged him to retrench a certain objectionable passage. This Fielding, either from indolence or unwillingness, declined to do, asserting that if it was not good, the audience might find it out. The passage was promptly hissed, and Garrick returned to the green-room, where the author was solacing himself with a bottle of champagne. “What is the matter, Garrick?” said he to the flustered actor; “what are they hissing now?” He was informed with some heat that they had been hissing the very scene he had been asked to withdraw, “and,” added Garrick, “they have so frightened me, that I shall not be able to collect myself again the whole night”— “Oh!” answered the author, with an oath, “they HAVE found it out, have they?” This rejoinder is usually quoted as an instance of Fielding’s contempt for the intelligence of his audience; but nine men in ten, it may be observed, would have said something of the same sort.
The only other thing which need be referred to in connection with this comedy — the last of his own dramatic works which Fielding ever witnessed upon the stage — is Macklin’s doggerel Prologue. Mr. Lawrence attributes this to Fielding; but he seems to have overlooked the fact that in the Miscellanies it is headed, “Writ and Spoken by Mr. Macklin,” which gives it more interest as the work of an outsider than if it had been a mere laugh by the author at himself. Garrick is represented as too busy to speak the prologue; and Fielding, who has been “drinking to raise his Spirits,” has begged Macklin with his “long, dismal, Mercy-begging Face,” to go on and apologise. Macklin then pretends to recognise him among the audience, and pokes fun at his anxieties, telling him that he had better have stuck to “honest Abram Adams,” who, “in spight of Critics, can make his Readers laugh.” The words “in spite of critics” indicate another distinction between Fielding’s novels and plays, which should have its weight in any comparison of them. The censors of the pit, in the eighteenth century, seem to have exercised an unusual influence in deciding whether a play should succeed or not; [Footnote: Miller’s Coffee-House, 1737, for example, was damned by the Templars because it was supposed to reflect on the keepers of “Dick’s.” — (Biog. Dramatica.)] and, from Fielding’s frequent references to friends and enemies, it would almost seem as if he believed their suffrages to be more important than a good plot and a witty dialogue. On the other hand, no coterie of Wits and Templars could kill a book like Joseph Andrews. To say nothing of the opportunities afforded by the novel for more leisurely character-drawing, and greater by-play of reflection and description — its reader was an isolated and independent judge; and in the long run the difference told wonderfully in favour of the author. Macklin was obviously right in recommending Fielding, even in jest, to stick to Parson Adams, and from the familiar publicity of the advice it may also be inferred, not only that the opinion was one commonly current, but that the novel was unusually popular.
The Wedding Day was issued separately in February 1743. It must therefore be assumed that the three volumes of Miscellanies, by Henry Fielding, Esq., in which it was reprinted, and to which reference has so often been made in these pages, did not appear until later. [Footnote: By advertisement in the London Daily Post and General Advertiser, they would seem to have been published early in April 1743.] They were published by subscription; and the list, in addition to a large number of aristocratic and legal names, contains some of more permanent interest. Side by side with the Chesterfields and Marlboroughs and Burlingtons and Denbighs, come William Pitt and Henry Fox, Esqs., with Dodington and Winnington and Hanbury Williams. The theatrical world is well represented by Garrick and Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Clive. Literature has no names of any eminence except that of Young; for Savage and Whitehead, Mallet and Benjamin Hoadly, are certainly ignes minores. Pope is conspicuous for his absence; so also are Horace Walpole and Gray, while Richardson, of course, is wanting. Johnson, as yet only the author of London, and journeyman to Cave, could scarcely be expected in the roll; and, in any case, his friendship for the author of Pamela would probably have kept him away. Among some other well- known eighteenth century names are those of Dodsley and Millar the booksellers, and the famous Vauxhall impresario Jonathan Tyers.
The first volume of the Miscellanies, besides a lengthy Preface, includes the author’s poems, essays On Conversation, On the Knowledge of the Characters of Men, On Nothing, a squib upon the transactions of the Royal Society, a translation from Demosthenes, and one or two minor pieces. Much of the biographical material contained in the Preface has already been made use of, as well as those verses which can be definitely dated, or which relate to the author’s love-affairs. The hitherto un
noticed portions of the volume consist chiefly of Epistles, in the orthodox eighteenth century fashion. One — already referred to — is headed Of True Greatness; another, inscribed to the Duke of Richmond, Of Good-nature; while a third is addressed to a friend On the Choice of a Wife. This last contains some sensible lines, but although Roscoe has managed to extract two quotable passages, it is needless to imitate him here. These productions show no trace of the authentic Fielding. The essays are more remarkable, although, like Montaigne’s, they are scarcely described by their titles. That on Conversation is really a little treatise on good breeding; that on the Characters of Men, a lay sermon against Fielding’s pet antipathy — hypocrisy. Nothing can well be wiser, even now, than some of the counsels in the former of these papers on such themes as the limits of raillery, the duties of hospitality, and the choice of subject in general conversation. Nor, however threadbare they may look to-day, can the final conclusions be reasonably objected to:— “First, That every Person who indulges his Ill-nature or Vanity, at the Expense of others; and in introducing Uneasiness, Vexation, and Confusion into Society, however exalted or high-titled he may be, is thoroughly ill-bred;” and “Secondly, That whoever, from the Goodness of his Disposition or Understanding, endeavours to his utmost to cultivate the Good-humour and Happiness of others, and to contribute to the Ease and Comfort of all his Acquaintance, however low in Rank Fortune may have placed him, or however clumsy he may be in his Figure or Demeanour, hath, in the truest sense of the Word, a Claim to Good-Breeding.” One fancies that this essay must have been a favourite with the historian of the Book of Snobs and the creator of Major Dobbin.
The Characters of Men is not equal to the Conversation. The theme is a wider one; and the end proposed, — that of supplying rules for detecting the real disposition through all the social disguises which cloak and envelop it, — can scarcely be said to be attained. But there are happy touches even in this; and when the author says— “I will venture to affirm, that I have known some of the best sort of Men in the World (to use the vulgar Phrase,) who would not have scrupled cutting a Friend’s Throat; and a Fellow whom no Man should be seen to speak to, capable of the highest Acts of Friendship and Benevolence,” one recognises the hand that made the sole good Samaritan in Joseph Andrews “a Lad who hath since been transported for robbing a Hen-roost.” The account of the Terrestrial Chrysipus or Guinea, a burlesque on a paper read before the Royal Society on the Fresh Water Polypus, is chiefly interesting from the fact that it is supposed to be written by Petrus Gualterus (Peter Walter), who had an “extraordinary Collection” of them. He died, in fact, worth L300,000. The only other paper in the volume of any value is a short one Of the Remedy of Affliction for the Loss of our Friends, to which we shall presently return.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 431
