that one of the two lenses of the “eye-piece” which is next to the object-glass; the other is called the “eye-glass.”
FIELDFARE (O.E. fealo-for＝fallow-farer), a large species of
thrush, the Turdus pilaris of Linnaeus—well known as a regular
and common autumnal visitor throughout the British Islands and
a great part of Europe, besides western Asia, and even reaching
northern Africa. It is the Veldjakker and Veld-lyster of the Dutch,
the Wachholderdrossel and Kramtsvogel of Germans, the Litorne of
the French, and the Cesena of Italians. This bird is of all
thrushes the most gregarious in. habit, not only migrating in large
bands and keeping in flocks during the winter, but even commonly
breeding in society—200 nests or more having been seen within a
very small space. The birch-forests of Norway, Sweden and
Russia are its chief resorts in summer, but it is known also to
breed sparingly in some districts of Germany. Though its nest
has been many times reported to have been found in Scotland,
there is perhaps no record of such an incident that is not open to
doubt; and unquestionably the missel-thrush (T. viscivorus) has
been often mistaken for the fieldfare by indifferent observers.
The head, neck, upper part of the back and the rump are grey;
the wings, wing-coverts and middle of the back are rich hazel-brown;
the throat is ochraceous; and the breast reddish-brown—both
being streaked or spotted with black, while the belly and
lower wing-coverts are white, and the legs and toes very dark-brown.
The nest and eggs resemble those of the blackbird
(T. merula), but the former is usually built high up in a tree.
The fieldfare’s call-note is harsh and loud, sounding like t’chatt’chat:
its song is low, twittering and poor. It usually arrives in
Britain about the middle or end of October, but sometimes earlier,
and often remains till the middle of May before departing for its
northern breeding-places. In hard weather it throngs to the
berry-bearing bushes which then afford it sustenance, but in open
winters the flocks spread over the fields in search of animal food—worms,
slugs and the larvae of insects. In very severe seasons it
will altogether leave the country, and then return for a shorter
or longer time as spring approaches. From William of Palerne
(translated from the French c. 1350) to the writers of our own day
the fieldfare has occasionally been noticed by British poets with
varying propriety. Thus Chaucer’s association of its name with
frost is as happy as true, while Scott was more than unlucky in his
well-known reference to its “lowly nest” in the Highlands.
Structurally very like the fieldfare, but differing greatly in many other respects, is the bird known in North America as the “robin”—its ruddy breast and familiar habits reminding the early British settlers in the New World of the household favourite of their former homes. This bird, the Turdus migratorius of Linnaeus, has a wide geographical range, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Greenland to Guatemala, and, except at its extreme limits, is almost everywhere a very abundant species. As its scientific name imports, it is essentially a migrant, and gathers in flocks to pass the winter in the south, though a few remain in New England throughout the year. Yet its social instincts point rather in the direction of man than of its own kind, and it is not known to breed in companies, while it affects the homesteads, villages and even the parks and gardens of the large cities, where its fine song, its attractive plumage, and its great services as a destroyer of noxious insects, combine to make it justly popular. (A. N.)
FIELDING, ANTHONY VANDYKE COPLEY (1787–1855),
commonly called Copley Fielding, English landscape painter (son
of a portrait painter), became at an early age a pupil of John
Varley. He took to water-colour painting, and to this he confined
himself almost exclusively. In 1810 he became an associate
exhibitor in the Water-colour Society, in 1813 a full member, and
in 1831 president of that body. He also engaged largely in
teaching the art, and made ample profits. His death took place at
Worthing in March 1855. Copley Fielding was a painter of much
elegance, taste and accomplishment, and has always been highly
popular with purchasers, without reaching very high in originality
of purpose or of style: he painted in vast number all sorts of
views (occasionally in oil-colour) including marine subjects in
large proportion. Specimens of his work are to be seen in the
water-colour gallery of the Victoria and Albert Museum, of dates
ranging from 1829 to 1850. Among the engraved specimens of
his art is the Annual of British Landscape Scenery, published
in 1839.
(W. M. R.)
FIELDING, HENRY (1707–1754), English novelist and playwright,
was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, Somerset,
on the 22nd of April 1707. His father was Lieutenant Edmund
Fielding, third son of John Fielding, who was canon of Salisbury
and fifth son of the earl of Desmond. The earl of Desmond
belonged to the younger branch of the Denbigh family, who,
until lately, were supposed to be connected with the Habsburgs.
To this claim, now discredited by the researches of Mr J. Horace
Round (Studies in Peerage, 1901, pp. 216–249), is to be attributed
the famous passage in Gibbon’s Autobiography which predicts for
Tom Jones—“that exquisite picture of human manners”—a
diuturnity exceeding that of the house of Austria. Henry
Fielding’s mother was Sarah Gould, daughter of Sir Henry
Gould, a judge of the king’s bench. It is probable that the
marriage was not approved by her father, since, though she
remained at Sharpham Park for some time after that event,
his will provided that her husband should have nothing to do
with a legacy of £3000 left her in 1710. About this date the
Fieldings moved to East Stour in Dorset. Two girls, Catherine
and Ursula, had apparently been born at Sharpham Park;
and three more, together with a son, Edmund, followed at East
Stour. Sarah, the third of the daughters, born November
1710, and afterwards the author of David Simple and other
works, survived her brother.
Fielding’s education up to his mother’s death, which took place in April 1718 at East Stour, seems to have been entrusted to a neighbouring clergyman, Mr Oliver of Motcombe, in whom tradition traces the uncouth lineaments of “Parson Trulliber” in Joseph Andrews. But he must have contrived, nevertheless, to prepare his pupil for Eton, to which place Fielding went about this date, probably as an oppidan. Little is known of his schooldays. There is no record of his name in the college lists; but, if we may believe his first biographer, Arthur Murphy, by no means an unimpeachable authority, he left “uncommonly versed in the Greek authors, and an early master of the Latin classics,”—a statement which should perhaps be qualified by his own words to Sir Robert Walpole in 1730:—
“Tuscan and French are in my head;
Latin I write, and Greek—I read.”
But he certainly made friends among his class-fellows—some of whom continued friends for life. Winnington and Hanbury-Williams were among these. The chief, however, and the most faithful, was George, afterwards Sir George, and later Baron Lyttelton of Frankley.
When Fielding left Eton is unknown. But in November 1725 we hear of him definitely in what seems like a characteristic escapade. He was staying at Lyme (in company with a trusty retainer, ready to “beat, maim or kill” in his young master’s behalf), and apparently bent on carrying off, if necessary by force, a local heiress, Miss Sarah Andrew, whose fluttered guardians promptly hurried her away, and married her to some one else (Athenaeum, 2nd June 1883). Her baffled admirer consoled himself by translating part of Juvenal’s sixth satire into verse as “all the Revenge taken by an injured Lover.” After this he must have lived the usual life of a young man about town, and probably at this date improved the acquaintance of his second cousin, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, to whom he inscribed his first comedy, Love in Several Masques, produced at Drury Lane in February 1728. The moment was not particularly favourable, since it succeeded Cibber’s Provok’d Husband, and was contemporary with Gay’s popular Beggar’s Opera. Almost immediately afterwards (March 16th) Fielding entered himself as “Stud. Lit.” at Leiden University. He was still there in February 1729. But he had apparently left before the annual registration of February 1730, when his name is absent from the books (Macmillan’s Magazine, April 1907); and in January 1730 he brought out a second comedy at the newly-opened theatre in Goodman’s Fields. Like its predecessor, the Temple
