Selected essays of Henry Fielding

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IR 6^

Preface

This selection of the essays of Henry Fielding is designed to introduce him as an essay writer rather than as a novelist. It is an attempt to show his mastery of prose style and vigorous thought, quite apart from his yet more extraordinary mastery of narrative. It may serve, I hope, to give a practical acquaintance with the man and his work to some readers who for reasons of youth, or distaste, or the force of tradition have not yet learned their Fielding in his novels. Some may be genuinely surprised to find these essays unexceptionable in delicacy, not unfit reading virginibus puerisqiie ; though lovers of Fielding's art do not need to be told that his coarsest passages are less liable to do harm than much of the meretricious work that young misses and growing boys are nowadays permitted to read unblushingly and unthinkingly. This little book certainly contains nothing improper, and it has been made with the one idea of giving a representative selection of the essays. It contains by no means all of Fielding's work in this field, though perhaps the cream of it. In order to avoid the danger of scrappiness, the essays have been arranged not chronologically but with an attempt at logical sequence. Reference to the chronological list at the end of the volume will show instantly whence any given selection is taken.

The text is based on first or second editions in most cases, though Murphy's edition of 1 762 has been used for the extracts from The Covent-Ga7^de7i/o2/riial dindXh&Jour?tal of a Voyage to Lisbon. Murphy's text of the Works has been reprinted over and over again by subsequent editors, though except vi • PREFACE

perhaps for the posthumous works it has no real authority. As a consequence, the current editions abound in readings that, to say the best for them, almost certainly were not Fielding's own. It has seemed to me better, therefore, as I have not had access to all the editions published in the author's lifetime and so have been unable to make a critical text, to give a reprint of some one specified edition in each case. Thus we can read the words as Fielding once wrote them in any case, which is better than reading what the careless Murphy chose to print, even if we miss a few changes made by the author himself. The only liberty I have taken with the text has been to modernize the capitalization. A very few omissions are indicated in the notes, and three or four words necessary for the sense have been supplied in brackets. Changed titles are also indicated by brackets. It is difficult to annotate Fielding without making the comment burdensome ; but I have tried to do it as briefly as is consistent with the proper elucidation of the text.

Grateful acknowledgment is due several friends and colleagues who have answered cheerfully the numerous questions propounded to them from time to time, to the general editors of the series, and also to Mr. W. C. Lane for permission to use the library of Harvard University.

G. H. G.

Bryn Mawr College

Contents

INTRODUCTION: page

I. Biographical Sketch ix

XL Fielding's Works xxxii

II Fielding's Works

The dates and subjects of Fielding's works have been mentioned briefly in the account of his life. It is necessary, however, to consider the more important ones in greater detail, to describe their contents, and to show how and where the author succeeded in reaching an achievement worthy of his powers. The fact that until he was thirty years of age he was known entirely as a poet and dramatist makes it natural to discuss first his efforts in these two directions.

1 Horace, Ars Poetica, v, 142.

INTRODUCTION xxxiii

POEMS AND PLAYS

Though they were not pubHshed in collected form, and, indeed, though many of them never saw the light at all till the appearance of the three-volume Miscellanies in 1743, Fielding's poems were almost all the work of his early manhood. They are chiefly interesting from the fact of their authorship, possessing of themselves little intrinsic worth. Though sometimes graceful and almost always vivacious, they are of their time, the work of a young man who wrote verse in the prevailing style for the same reason, generally obscure, that causes most young men of literary tendency to turn poets for a little. He himself characterizes ^ the verses which he chose to print as "Productions of the Heart rather than of the Head." That being so, it is scarcely worth our while to examine them very closely or criticise them very severely. In his prologues and the occasional verses found in his plays he is happier, though this success was perhaps due rather to high spirits than to poetic inspiration. It was seldom that he compassed such a line as that which begins the hunting song in Don Quixote in England :

The dusky night rode down the sky.

With his plays the case is far different. All of them were hasty productions, to be sure, and some were as ephemeral as the work of the sorriest playwrights of the time ; yet a few deserve reading for their own sake, and several cannot properly be neglected in any adequate account of Fielding's career. They are all satires, whether comedies, farces, or burlesques, for young Harry Fielding was not less alive to the follies of his kind — to say nothing of himself — than was the creator of Jonathan Wild and the despicable Captain Booth. These

1 Preface to Miscellanies.

xxxiv INTRODUCTION

plays, it must be remembered, were the work of his early manhood, — of a time when he had neither found his proper field of work nor taken up the reins of self-government. They are full of high spirits, of slashing criticism, of broad humor, and of rollicking parody. They are marred by a hundred defects of carelessness, coarseness, and bad taste. Yet at their best — and their best is in burlesque — they are very good indeed. According to their kind and in the way of their kind, To7n Thumb and Pasquin have scarcely been excelled.

Fielding's first two plays, Love in Several Masques (1728) and The Temple Beau (1730), are nothing more than imitations of Van Brugh and Congreve, — pale reflections of that " comedy of manners " which was only excellent when polished of phrase and delicate of wit. Indeed, they bear more resemblance to the " wit- traps " of the laureate Colley Gibber than to The Way of the World. They show surprisingly little observation of life, even though one remembers that the author was not much past his majority.

The two plays next produced, however, evidence a decided advance in every way. These were The Author^ s Farce and The Pleasures of the Town (March, 1730), which together made up the bill at the Haymarket Theatre. The latter is described as a "puppet-show," — apt name for a clever farce which portrays and satirizes the pantomime makers and nostrum venders of the metropolis. The former piece, however, was the better and in its revised form will be described below. Similar in general character to these farces was The Coffee- House Politician^ which appeared in the same year. As in most such pieces the whole interest of the reader — if not of the spectator — is absorbed by one figure, the tradesman who busies himself with matters that are too weighty for him, with ludicrous results.

INTRODUCTION xxxv

It is a clear indication of the rapidity with which Fielding could turn out these satirical dramatic sketches — for the pieces above named are little more — that he was able in the same year to produce a play which was at once even less serious than they and yet his most important contribution to drama. I refer, of course, to Tom Thumb the Great. Its merit was at once recognized, indeed, and in the following year an altered form appeared. After having a successful run, this was published, with an admirable preface and notes by " H. Scriblerus Secundus," one of those delightful pedants whom authors have been creating as foils to their own imaginations from the seventeenth century down to Scott and Lowell. If the writers of mock-heroic tragedy were well ridiculed in the text, the scholars of the day were as well laughed at in the annotations. In the preface, in praise of the " tragedy," he says : " It hath, among other languages, been translated into Dutch, and celebrated with great applause at Amsterdam (where burlesque never came) by the title of Mynheer Vander Thumb, the burgomasters receiving it with that reverent and silent attention which becometh an audience at a deep tragedy." Or witness his erudite remarks on the final scene, where all the important characters are successively killed : " No scene, I believe, ever received greater honours than this. It was applauded by several encores, a word very unusual in tragedy. And it was very difficult for the actors to escape without a second slaughter. This I take to be a lively assurance of that fine spirit of liberty which remains among us, and which Mr. Dryden, in his essay on Dramatick Poetry,^ hath observed : ' Whether custom,' says he, ' hath so formed them to fierceness, I know not ; but they will scarcely suifer combats and other objects of horror to be taken from them.'

1 Of Dramatick Poesie, An Essay, 1668. Fielding's quotation is not altogether accurate, but it gives the sense of the passage.

xxxvi INTRODUCTION

And indeed I am for having them encouraged in this martial disposition ; nor do I beUeve our victories over the French have been owing to anything more than to those bloody spectacles daily exhibited in our tragedies, of which the French stage is so intirely clear."

Yet the notes are but the sauce to the feast. For three acts of the most turgid blank verse, Tom Thumb, Lord Grizzle, the princess Huncamunca, and other fantastic creatures rage and rant in a fashion not very unlike that of the tragedies which the audiences of those days somehow found supportable. Their utterances, indeed, are for the most part excellent parodies of speeches found in the plays of Dryden, Lee, Otway, Rowe, " Jemmy " Thomson, and lesser lights of drama. The passages copied from these authors, or, as he puts it, the matter imitated by them from Tom Thumbs are carefully indicated by the excellent Scriblerus Secundus. So Grizzle cries out,

Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh !

and we have the note : " This beautiful line, which ought,

says Mr. W ^ to be written in gold, is imitated in the

Neiv Sophonisba : ^

Oh ! Sophonisba ; Sophonisba, oh ! "

So the giantess Huncamunca exclaims of the valiant dwarf, her lover :

Oh Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! wherefore art thou Tom Thumb?

a parody of Otway 's

Oh ! Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius ?

It is interesting to note that, in spite of the fact that he was a lover of Shakespeare, Fielding apparently did not recognize that this verse, like most of Man'us, was nothing but a solemn travesty of Romeo and Juliet.

1 For Warburton. 2 j^y Thomson.

INTRODUCTION xxxvii

One other example, which is a burlesque of the now forgotten " heroic " style rather than of the particular absurdity of any one passage, must suffice to illustrate the play. In Act III a ghost appears to King Arthur and among other deliverances remarks :

Thy subjects up in arms, by Grizzle led, Will, ere the rosy-finger'd morn shall ope The shutters of the sky, before the gate Of this thy royal palace, swarming spread. So have I seen the bees in clusters swarm, So have I seen the stars in frosty nights, So have I seen the sand in windy days, So have I seen the ghosts on Pluto's shore. So have I seen the flowers in spring arise. So have I seen the leaves in autumn fall, So have I seen the fruits in summer smile, So have I seen the snow in winter frown.

AH in all, Tom Thumb has seldom been equaled in its way. It is certainly one of the best pieces of dramatic satire in English or, perhaps, in any language. It stands between The Rehearsal and Sheridan's Critic in point of time and is surpassed by neither in unfailing flow of spirits and what Fielding himself in another connection^ called "surprizing absurdity." Such burlesque can perhaps best be written by young men, and the youthfulness of it adds to its charm. It is not the finest form of satire, it lays a somewhat heavy hand on its victims, it is botlt boisterous and obvious ; but what man with any sense of humor can resist its wholesome current of fun?

Of Fielding's plays which appeared in 1732 and 1733,^ only two need detain us, since all the others are quite unworthy of their author as well as objectionable according to any standard

1 See remarks on burlesque in preface Vo Joseph Andrews, No. IV of this volume. 2 gee p. xiv.

xxxviii INTRODUCTION

of morality and art. The two exceptions are .the adaptations from Moliere, — The Mock- Doctor and The Miser. In the former he followed Le Medeciti malgre liii fairly closely, though he added much to the dialogue as well as to the complications of the plot and changed the conclusion in order to avoid the romantic climax of the original. His rendering is spirited in every part, though it scarcely need be said that he lacks the delicate brilliancy of Moliere's style. Yet the play well deserved the enthusiastic reception which it obtained ; nor was The Miser a less successful adaptation. Here again Fielding caught the spirit of the French comedy and transferred it with little loss to the English stage. He was not a translator simply, but presented anew the clearly defined characters of the original, perhaps with the more ease because they were not of one nation nor of one time, but drawn broadly and without superfluous strokes. It is an interesting commentary on Fielding's career as a playwright that he never succeeded in writing regular comedy of any value except in these adaptations. He appreciated what was good in his predecessors but could not, or did not, fashion his original work on the same sound principles. Perhaps his immaturity prevented, perhaps the hasty composition to which his necessities drove him. Yet we cannot sincerely regret that he gave up the attempt to write comedy when he did, since in his novels he turned his ripened powers to a use as good.

The Author^ s Farce, which was revived in 1734 in the same bill as The Ifitrigiiing Chambe?'maid, — itself a lively adaptation from Regnard, made for Mrs. Clive, — is far and away the best of Fielding's efforts in this sort. Even now, when the personal satire which it contains has lost its point, it furnishes the reader with excellent entertainment. To some extent the farce is probably autobiographical, — the account of the adventures of a young author. Luckless, with two bailiffs, two

INTRODUCTION xxxix

managers, a publisher, and his landlady. At least. Fielding undoubtedly had experiences which furnished him with material for it. The gay young writer in 'Oaced clothes" who found friends more easily than money to pay his landlady, who was hounded by bailiffs, and who had to do with purveyors of machine-made literature, has all the superficial characteristics of the author himself. Marplay senior and his foppish son are copies of the two Gibbers, with whom for one reason or another Fielding was continually at war. Unjust though the sketches be, they are sufficiently amusing even now.

Marplay sen. Ha, ha, ha!

Mar.jun. What do you think of the play?

Mar. sen. It may be a very good one, for aught I know : but I am resolved, since the town will not receive any of mine, they shall have none from any other. I'll keep them to their old diet.

Mar. jiin. But suppose they won't feed on 't ?

Mar. sen. Then it shall be crammed down their throats.

Mar.juti. I wish, father, you would leave me that art for a legacy, since I am afraid I am like to have no other from you.

Mar. se7i. 'T is buff, child, 'tis buff — true Corinthian brass ; and, heaven be praised, tho' I have given thee no gold, I have given thee enough of that, which- is the better inheritance of the two. Gold thou might'st have spent, but this is a lasting estate that will stick by thee all thy life.

Mar. jun. What shall be done with that farce which was damned last night?

Mar. sen. Give it them again to-morrow. I have told some persons of quality that it is a good thing, and I am resolved not to be in the wrong : let us see which will be weary first, the town of damning, or we of being damned.

Mar. jun. Rat the town, I say.

Mar. sen. That 's a good boy ; and so say I : but, prithee, what didst thou do with the comedy which I gave thee t' other day, that I thought a good one ?

xl INTRODUCTION

Mar. jiin. Did as you ordered me ; returned it to the author, and told him it would not do.

Mar. sen. You did well. If thou writest thyself, and that I know thou art very well qualified to do, it is thy interest to keep back all other authors of any merit, and be as forward to advance those of none.

Mar. jun. But I am a little afraid of writing ; for my writings, you know, have fared but ill hitherto.

Mar. sen. That is because thou liast a little mistaken the method of writing. The art of writing, boy, is the art of stealing old plays, by changing the name of the play, and new ones, by changing the name of the author.

Mar. jun. If it was not for these cursed hisses and catcalls —

Mar. sen. Harmless musick, child, very harmless musick, and what, when one is but well seasoned to it, has no effect at all : for my part, I have been used to them.

Mar. jun. Ay, and I have been used to them too, for that matter.

Mar. sen. And stood them bravely too. Idle young actors are fond of applause, but, take my word for it, a clap is a mighty silly, empty thing, and does no more good than a hiss ; and therefore, if any man loves hissing, he may have his three shillings worth at me whenever he pleases.

Exeunt}

The scenes in which Bookweight, the bookseller, appears are equally lively. He is a capital caricature of the unlettered and purely commercial publisher. With great good humor he is shown in his circle of hack writers, — Index, Scarecrow, Blotpage, and the rest, ^ whom he employs at starvation wages in his own shop, giving them as he says " good milk porridge, very often twice a day, which is good wholesome food and proper for students." His interview with Scarecrow illustrates his method excellently.

^ Act II, sc. ii.

INTRODUCTION xli

Scarecrow. Sir, I have brought you a libel against the ministry.

Bookweight. Sir, I shall not take anything against them; — for I have two in the press already. Aside.

Scare. Then, sir, I have an Apology in defence of them.

Book. That I shall not meddle with neither ; they don't sell so well.

Scare. I have a translation of Virgil's ^neid, with notes on it, if we can agree about the price. ^ Book. Why, what price would you have ?

Scare. You shall read it first, otherwise how will you know the value ?

Book. No, no, sir, I never deal that way — a poem is a poem, and a pamphlet a pamphlet with me. Give me a good handsome large volume, with a full promising title-page at the head of it, printed on a good paper and letter, the whole bound and gilt, and I'll warrant its selling. You have the common error of authors, who think people buy books to read. No, no, books are only bought to furnish libraries, as pictures and glasses, and beds and chairs, are for other rooms. Look ye, sir, I don't like your title-page : however, to oblige a young beginner, I don't care if I do print it at ray own expence.

Scare. But pray, sir, at whose expence shall I eat?

Book. At whose? Why, at mine, sir, at mine. I am as great a friend to learning as the Dutch are to trade : no one can want bread with me who will earn it ; therefore, sir, if you please to take your seat at my table, here will be everything necessary provided for you : good milk porridge, very often twice a day, which is good wholesome food and proper for students ; a translator too is what I want at present, my last being in Newgate for shop-lifting". The rogue had a trick of translating out of the shops as well as the languages.

Scare. But I am afraid I am not qualified for a translator, for I understand no language but my own.

Book. What, and translate Virgil ?

Scare. Alas ! I translated him out of Dryden.

xlii INTRODUCTION

Book. Lay by your hat, sir — lay by your hat, and take your seat immediately. Not qualified! — thou art as well versed in thy trade as if thou hadst laboured in my garret these ten years. Let me tell you, friend, you will have more occasion for invention than learning here. You will be obliged to translate books out of all languages, especially French, that were never printed in any language whatsoever.

Scare. Your trade abounds in mysteries.

Book. The study of bookselling is as difficult as the law : and there are as many tricks in the one as the other. Sometimes we give a foreign name to our own labours, and sometimes we put our names to the labours of others. Then, as the lawyers have John-a-Nokes and Tom-a-Stiles, so we have Messieurs Moore near St. Paul's and Smith near the Royal Exchange.^

Perhaps the best thing in the farce, however, is the portrait of Mrs. Money wood, the landlady, who is nearly related to Mrs. Tow-wouse of Joseph Andrezvs and the keeper of the inn on the Bristol road in To7ii Jones. Her regard for a laced coat and still more for a full purse, her irascible sordidness, and her frank animalism are depicted with the sure touch which was to distinguish the author's later efforts in the field of contemporary manners. Here again Fielding showed his capability of doing really sterling work within the limits of ordinary human nature.

The only other plays by Fielding that need detain us are Don Quixote in England (1734), Pasquin (1736), and The Historical Register Jor the Year 1736. The first of these was an early work, which he furbished up to help out the " distressed actors in Drury Lane " but finally produced at the Haymarket. It is chiefly interesting because it shows that Cervantes' masterpiece was already known to him and loved as genuinely as in later days when he owned his indebtedness

1 Act II, sc. v.

INTRODUCTION xliii

to it in the formation of his narrative style. The farce itself possesses few dramatic qualities. The adventures, save the election scenes, are closely modeled on those in Don Quixote^ and the characters, with the exception of Squire Badger, whom Mr. Austin Dobson calls -^ " a rudimentary Squire Western," are either adaptations or lay figures. 2'he Histoj'ical Register also has only fortuitous interest, partly as the successor of Pasquin, partly from the consequences which the vigorous political satire of the piece brought upon Fielding.^

Pasquin itself is of more consequence and ranks with The Author's Farce and Tom Thiwib as the most important of Fielding's dramatic works. Like To7n Thumb it is written in the manner of The Rehearsal, though it burlesques politicians as broadly as it does authors. The scheme of the play is as follows. Trapwit and Fustian undertake the preliminary ' rehearsals of their plays, respectively a comedy called The Election and a tragedy called The Life and Death of Common Sense, on the stage of the same theatre. The comedy occupies three acts and the tragedy two. The former describes a contested election in the country with much boldness and shows little consideration for either party, since though the candidates of the " country party " bribe more openly, those of the " court party" do so with better effect. The remarks of Trapwit and Fustian furnish a witty byplay and indicate that Fielding was well aware of his contemporaries' weakness in drama, if not of his own. With the conclusion of The Election begins * the rehearsal of the tragedy, which details the strife between Queen Common Sense and Queen Ignorance, with the ultimate destruction of the former. As Fustian himself says : ^ " I believe I may defy all the poets who have ever writ, or ever will write, to produce its equal : it is, sir, so crammed with drums and trumpets, thunder and hghtning, battles and ghosts,

1 47. 2 See p. xvii. ^ Act V, sc. i.

xliv INTRODUCTION

that I believe the audience will want no entertainment after it : it is as full of shew as Merlin's cave itself ; and for wit — no rope-dancing or tumbling can come near it." The burlesque is not so purely literary as that of Tom Thumbs less boisterous indeed, but more pungent and more concerned with the faults of contemporary life. The dying soliloquy of Common Sense in the last scene, and the subsequent remarks of her slayer Firebrand, may serve to illustrate the play.

Queen Coi7inioji Sense.

Oh, traytor ! thou hast murder'd Common Sense.

Fairwel, vain world ! to Ignorance I give thee.

Her leaden sceptre shall henceforward rule.

Now, priest, indulge thy wild ambitious thoughts;

Men shall embrace thy schemes, till thou hast drawn

All worship from the Sun upon thyself :

Henceforth all things shall topsy-turvy turn ;

Physick shall kill, and Law enslave the world;

Cits shall turn beaus, and taste Italian songs,

While courtiers are stock-jobbing in the city.

Places requiring learning and great parts

Henceforth shall all be hustled in a hat,

And drawn by men deficient in them both.

Statesmen — but oh ! cold death will let me say

No more — and you must guess et ccetera. Dies.

Firebra7td.

She 's gone ! but ha ! it may beseem me ill

T' appear her murderer. I '11 therefore lay

This dagger by her side ; and that will be

Sufficient evidence, with a little money.

To make the coroner's inquest find self-murder.

Her loss with tears, praise her with all my art.

Good Ignorance will still believe it all. Exit.

INTRODUCTION xlv

NOVELS

One is tempted to say that it was characteristic of Henry Fielding that he should have come into his literary heritage almost by chance. Whatever his merit as a writer of burlesque and of essays, it is first, last, and always as a noveUst that he chiefly merits our honor. Yet his choice of the narrative form was not at all deliberate. When he began to write Joseph Andrews he certainly intended to produce nothing more than a parody of Richardson's Pamela^ and though by the irresistible impulse of his genius he was carried far beyond the bounds of his original design, he never quite forgot his purpose. In the course of its composition he discovered the kingdom which he was to rule and announced as much in beginning Tom Jones} That was all.

We can, I think, understand the attitude which he took toward Richardson's work if we remember the characters of the two men and the adulation with which Pamela was greeted. Samuel Richardson, excellent man, was little in many qualities of mind as well as in body. He lived a placid, rather humdrum life, attentive to his business as bookseller, gifted with marvelous powers of minute observation, finicky in private matters as in prose style, and compact of sensibility, to use the old phrase. Henry Fielding was his opposite in almost every particular. He was cast in a larger mold, was a man to give and to take hard knocks without flinching. He had seen at thirty-three years a good many ways of life, and within the bounds which he never tried to cross he knew human nature as thoroughly as man ever does. He was impatient of the restraints of his life, but thoroughly in love with life itself and the good material world. From his nature and training alike he was not very sensitive about the niceties of morals, though he had a fine

1 See Book II, chap, i, No. V of this volume.

xlvi INTRODUCTION

contempt for what was mean and, in spite of his early wrongdoing, for what was morally bad. He was tender without being sentimental, generous to a fault, brave to rashness, and as full of high spirits and humor as Richardson was deficient in those qualities.

On the publication of Pamela in November, 1740, he probably read the book, as did everybody else, — dukes and duchesses, maids and footmen. He heard the author praised as one of the great men of Europe, undoubtedly he heard of the complacency with which the little bookseller received the homage of devoted females, and he certainly was aware of his full-blown conceit. He must have been amused by all this, as well as somewhat disgusted. He appreciated the merits of Richardson's work, it is to be hoped, — his elaborate analysis of motives and his careful art; but he was moved to Jovian laughter by the mawkishness of it all, its conventionality and its essential untruthfulness.