HENRY FIELDING

A MEMOIR
INCLUDING NEWLY DISCOVERED LETTERS
AND RECORDS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM CONTEMPORARY PRINTS

BY

G. M. GODDEN

"I am a man myself, and my heart is interested inwhatever can befall the rest of mankind."
JOSEPH ANDREWS.

PREFACE

New material alone could justify any attempt to supplement theFielding of Mr Austin Dobson. Such material has now cometo light, and together with reliable facts collected by previousbiographers, forms the subject matter of the present volume. Asthese pages are concerned with Fielding the man, and not only withFielding the most original if not the greatest of Englishnovelists, literary criticism has been avoided; but all incidents,disclosed by hitherto unpublished documents, or found hidden in thecolumns of contemporary newspapers, which add to our knowledge ofFielding's personality, have been given.

The new material includes records of Fielding's childhood;documents concerning his estate in Dorsetshire; the date and place,hitherto undiscovered, of that central event in his life, the deathof his beloved wife, whose memorial was to be the imperishablefigure of "Sophia Western"; letters, now first published, adding toour knowledge of his energies in social and legislative reform, andof the circumstances of his life; many extracts from the columns ofthe daily press of the period; notices, hitherto overlooked, fromhis contemporaries; and details from the unexplored archives of theMiddlesex Records concerning his strenuous work as a Londonmagistrate. The few letters by Fielding already known to exist havebeen doubled in number; and a reason for the extraordinary rarityof these letters has been found in the unfortunate destruction,many years ago, of much of his correspondence. The charm of the oneintimate letter that we possess from the pen of the 'Father of theEnglish Novel,' that written to his brother John, during the voyageto Lisbon, enhances regret at the loss of these letters.

Among the contemporary prints now first reproduced that entitledthe Conjurors is of special interest, as being the onlysketch of Fielding, drawn during his lifetime, known to exist.Rough as it is, the characteristic figure of the man, as describedby his contemporaries and drawn from memory in Hogarth's familiarplate, is perfectly apparent. The same characteristics may bedistinguished in a small figure of the novelist introduced into thestill earlier political cartoon, entitled the Funeral ofFaction.

Such in brief are the reasons for the existence of this volume.It remains to express my warmest acknowledgment of Mr AustinDobson's unfailing counsel and assistance. My thanks are also dueto Mr Ernest Fielding for permission to reproduce the miniaturewhich appears as the frontispiece; to Mr Aubrey Court, of the Houseof Lords; to Mr E. S. W. Hart, for his help throughout thenecessary researches among the Middlesex Records; to Mrs Deane ofGillingham; and to Mr Frederick Shum of Bath. And I am indebted toMr Sidney Colvin, Keeper of the Department of Prints and Drawingsin the British Museum, in regard to almost every one of thethirty-two rare prints and cartoons now reproduced.

G. M. GODDEN.

October 26, 1909.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
YOUTH

CHAPTER II
PLAY-HOUSE BARD

CHAPTER III
MARRIAGE

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