their brother. and were known to Richardson (Austin Dobson, p. 140; Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ix. 589; Murphy). were all buried in Hammersmith Church—9 July 1750, 12 Nov. 1750, and 24 Feb. 1750–1 respectively. Henry was educated by a Mr. Oliver, curate of Motcombe, said by Murphy to be the original of Trulliber, and at Eton, where he was a contemporary of George Lyttelton, Charles Hanbury (afterwards Williams), and Winnington, his friends in later life, and also of Pitt, Fox, and Charles Pratt (Lord Camden). He had hardly left Eton when he had a stormy love-affair with Sarah, only daughter and heiress of Solomon Andrew, a merchant of Lyme Regis. Her father was dead, and her guardian, Andrew Tucker, complained (in November 1725) that he went in fear of his life from the behaviour of Fielding and his man. Miss Andrew was sent to another guardian, Mr. Rhodes of Modbury in South Devonshire, to whose son she was married soon afterwards (1726) (Athenæum, 10 Nov. 1855 and 2 June 1883; extracts from Lyme Regis records). Fielding made a burlesque translation of part of the second satire of Juvenal, afterwards printed in the ‘Miscellanies.’ This, he says, was the ‘only revenge taken by an injured lover’ (Preface to Miscellanies). He was sent to study law at Leyden under the ‘learned Vitriarius.’. He is said to have studied hard; but he certainly began to write plays during his studentship. A failure of remittances, according to Murphy, caused his return. His father had married a widow, Elizabeth Rasa, by whom he had six sons, including John [q. v.] He nominally allowed Henry 200l. a year, but, as the latter used to say (Murphy), ‘any body might pay it that would.’ Edmund Fielding became a major-general in 1735 and a lieutenant-general in 1739, and died (aged 65) on 20 June 1741.
Fielding was a man of great constitutional vigour; over six feet in height, and remarkably powerful and active. He threw himself recklessly into the pleasures of London life, and to supply his wants had to choose (M. W. Montagu, 1837, iii. 93) between the career of a hackney coachman and that of a hackney writer. He began by writing plays, then the most profitable kind of literature. His first performance, ‘Love in several Masques’—a comedy of the Congreve school—was brought out at Drury Lane in Feb. 1728. He acknowledges in the preface the kindness of Wilkes and Cibber ‘previous to its representation.’ It would therefore appear that his residence and certainly his studies at Leyden had been interrupted before his departure. His name appears in the ‘Leyden Album’ on 16 March 1728 (see Peacock, Index; and ‘A Scotchman in Holland’ in Cornhill Mag. for November 1863), a date which would apparently imply a return to Leyden. The play, though eclipsed by the contemporary ‘Beggar's Opera,’ was well received. A more carefully written comedy in the same vein, the ‘Temple Beau,’ was acted in January 1730 at Goodman's Fields. Fielding now became a regular playwright, and before the age of thirty produced a great number of comedies, farces, and burlesques. He wrote in haste whatever was likely to catch the public. He had few scruples of delicacy, though he claims a certain moral purpose for sufficiently offensive performances. Even the ‘Modern Husband’ (1732), one of the coarsest, dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole, and respectfully submitted to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (as appears from letters published in her life), was intended, according to the prologue, to make ‘modern vice detestable.’ Two adaptations from Molière, the ‘Mock Doctor’ (1732), from the ‘Médecin malgré lui,’ and the ‘Miser’ (1733), from the ‘Avare,’ appear to have been among his most successful comedies. His burlesques, however, gave the first intimation of his real genius. The farce of ‘Tom Thumb,’ acted at the Haymarket in 1730, and with an additional act in 1731, in which he burlesques all the popular playwrights of the day, is still amusing, and long kept the stage in a version by Kane O'Hara (1780). According to Mrs. Pilkington (Memoirs, iii. 93), Swift told her that he had only laughed twice in his life, once at Tom Thumb's killing the ghost. She adds that Swift admired Fielding's wit. A contemptuous reference to him in the ‘Rhapsody’ was afterwards altered by the substitution of ‘the Laureate’ (Cibber) for Fielding. In spite of the oblivion into which the objects of his satire have fallen, it has not yet lost the claim due to its exuberant fun.
Fielding's plays only filled his pockets for the moment. The anonymous author of ‘A Seasonable Reproof’ (1735) describes him as appearing one day in the velvet which was in pawn the day before. A burlesque author's will (reprinted from Oldys's ‘Universal Spectator’ in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ July 1734) ridicules his taste and carelessness. A story has often been reprinted that Fielding kept a booth at Bartholomew fair in 1733. It is, however, conclusively shown by Mr. F. Latreille (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iii. 502) that the booth was really kept by Timothy Fielding, an actor.
In the autumn of 1733 a revolt, headed by Theophilus Cibber, took away many of the actors from Drury Lane, which was further threatened by the competition of a new theatre in Covent Garden. Fielding thought that Highmore, the patentee at Drury Lane, had been badly treated. He heartily sup-
