and an upper-gallery crammed with liveried coxcombs, imitating the listless indifference of their masters. In those days, it will be borne in mind, London merchants really lived in London, generally in residences attached to their counting-houses, and, indeed, their credit depended on their living there. Macklin said that he remembered the first emigration of merchants from the city, but they did not venture farther than Hatton Garden; whilst the lawyers all resided in the neighbourhood of the inns of court, and were the principal playgoers of the period. From the circumstances above detailed, it may be gathered that a theatrical audience towards the middle of the eighteenth century was rather a difficult body to please. Fatal jealousies, also, too often prevailed amongst actors and authors; and Fielding bitterly complained that he, who in his whole life had never done an injury to a living person, should have been assailed from motives of private malice.1 He urged upon the public that a fair hearing had not been accorded to his comedy; and endeavoured to obtain a reversal of the judgment so cruelly passed upon it. But in this he did not succeed; nor will any one who takes the trouble to read "The Universal Gallant" be much surprised at his failure. (1) See Fielding's " Advertisement" to The Universal Gallant. "Authors," he says, "whose works have been rejected at the theatres are of all persons, they say, the most inveterate; but of all persons I am the last they should attack, as I have often endeavoured to procure the success of others, but never assisted at the condemnation of any one." CHAPTER VII. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.-COUNTRY LIFE. [1735-1736.] THE preceding pages have chronicled the literary achievements of Fielding during his seven years' apprenticeship to the precarious trade of dramatic authorship—from 1728 to 1735. But we have now arrived at a new and most important era in his life. For a time, therefore, we must bid farewell to theatrical triumphs, contentions, and disasters; and quit the feverish excitement of the town to breathe a fresher and more wholesome atmosphere. In the year 1735, Fielding formed a matrimonial alliance which was in all its circumstances a pure love-match.1 That his heart had been always peculiarly susceptible of the tender passion some of the earlier passages of his life fully prove. On his return from Leyden he conceived a desperate attachment for his cousin, Miss Sarah Andrews. That young lady's friends had, however, so little confidence in her wild kinsman, that they took the precaution of removing her out of his reach; not, it is said, until he had attempted an abduction or elopement. The unfortunate issue of this first passion seems to have severely preyed upon his youthful spirits. Amongst his miscellaneous poems, there appears an imitation, or "modernization" (as he calls it) of the sixth Satire of Juvenal, which, he (1) There is considerable difficulty in fixing the date of Fielding's first marriage. The dedication of "The Universal Gallant" to the Duke of Marlborough is dated "Buckingham Street, Feb. 12" [1735]; and up to this time he had been supplying the stage with "an annual crop" of farces, comedies, and burlesques. After the publication of "The Universal Gallant," he produced nothing for rather more than a twelvemonth, when "Pasquin" was brought out at the Haymarket. It was in this interval, it may be assumed, that his marriage and brief residence in the country took place. 1 tells us, was originally "sketched out before he was twenty," and "was all the revenge taken by an injured lover." Thus is Fielding found, like many other disappointed Lotharios, avenging himself for the fancied cruelty of a mistress by wholesale and indiscriminate abuse of the sex-a proceeding as illogical as it is unfair. His cousin was afterwards married to a plain country gentleman, and in that alliance found, perhaps, more solid happiness than she would have experienced in an early and improvident marriage with her gifted kinsman. Her image, however, was never effaced from his recollection; and there is a charming picture (so tradition tells) of her luxuriant beauty in the portrait of Sophia Western, in "Tom Jones." 2 It may be that this first disappointment contributed in a great degree to confirm Fielding in those habits of dissipation which are attributed to his early manhood. It is well for him and for the world, however, that he never degenerated into the hardened sceptic, the confirmed roué, -the habitual scoffer at every tie, human and divine. Happily his better nature survived the contamination of the loose principles and profligate habits of a town life. After six or seven years of reckless living, his heart remained susceptible of genuine emotions; and in spite of the bad examples by which he was surrounded, he was able to estimate at its proper value the priceless privilege of a virtuous attachment to a graceful and pure-minded woman. The lady with whom Fielding-now in the twentyseventh year of his age-entered the bonds of matrimony was one of three sisters named Cradock,3 who were amongst the most celebrated belles of the town of Salisbury,—then (1) Preface to Fielding's Miscellanies. 1743. (2) Book iv. c. 2. (3) The maiden name of Fielding's first wife, given in "Collins's Peerage," vol. iii., and in subsequent works of that class, is Brawicke. This confusion of names may probably arise from the circumstance of her illegitimacy, alluded to by Richardson in his Correspondence: "In his "Tom Jones,' his hero is made a natural child, because his own first wife was such." In some places the name is given as Braddock. better known as New Sarum. With these young ladies he had been for some time on terms of intimacy. Amongst his miscellaneous poems (published in 1743, but not included in any collection of his works) are several trifling compositions addressed to them on different occasions. These productions are of little value as poetical exercises, for Fielding did not possess in any high degree the talent for versification; but they were well adapted for the purpose and place for which they were written the young lady's album or scrap-book; and they throw some light on his personal history. The language was smooth and elegant, showing a ready and practised pen; and the ideas such as might fairly pass muster in those palmy days of pastoral revery,-when every lover was a Damon or a Strephon, and his beloved a Delia or a Celia. The prevalence of such a conventional jargon almost necessarily excluded the expression of genuine passion. One ought not, therefore, to expect to find much of that ingredient in the amatory lines which Fielding, as Strephon, addressed to Miss Cradock, on whom he conferred the name of Celia-the prettiest of pastoral designations.1 The courtship of Strephon and Celia doubtless soon became a common topic of conversation in the polite circles of Salisbury; and if the poetical effusions of the former displayed little passion or strong emotion, they certainly were remarkable for an amount of wit and fancy but rarely met with in such compositions. Strephon's ingenuity was exercised in giving a poetical colouring to several prosaic incidents in his mistress's daily life. Celia, for instance, one night appears to have (1) Her Christian name was Charlotte. Amongst Fielding's miscellaneous poems is the following "Rebus" addressed to Celia : 66 HER CHRISTIAN NAME. "A very good fish, very good way of selling A very bad thing, with a little bad spelling, Make the name by the parson and godfather given apprehended that the house would be broken open, and engaged an aged watchman to keep guard over the place with an unloaded gun. Thereupon of course Strephon called Cupid to account.1 Poor swain! he had dreamt that he saw his Celia with a pale cheek and a heaving bosom, disturbed by a distant cry of "Thieves!" Addressing her, he says: "Not so you look when at the ball Having addressed himself to Venus in this emergency, the goddess sends for Cupid, and soundly rates him for leaving Celia unprotected, save by this Sancho-who is armed with a gun, indeed, but without powder or shot-when a band of loves had been committed to his care for the purpose of vigilantly guarding her. The following is Cupid's defence : "Poor Cupid now began to whine, I in a dimple lay perdue— That little guard-room chose by you. Was blown to Harry Fielding's breast! But did mamma know there what work I've made-how acted like a Turk; What pain, what torments he endures, Upon another occasion the charms of the Cradocks were celebrated by Strephon in an ingenious mythological allein which Venus is represented to have formed the (1) "Cupid called to Account." See Fielding's Miscellanies, vol. i. 8vo. 1743. gory, |