454
THE GREEN BAG
"I was not train 'd in Academic bowers, Mine have been anything but studious hours." Nor did he fail to apply himself as sedu lously to his maturer studies. Murphy, one of his earlier biographers, relates of him that notwithstanding his addiction to the ways of the comes jucundus of his day, he was " frequently known by his intimates to retire late at night from a tavern to his chambers, and there read, and make extracts from, the most abstruse authors for several hours before he went to bed." A digest of the Statutes at Large, in two folio volumes, prepared by him at this time, but never published, further attests the sincerity and earnest ness with which he applied himself to his professional studies. During all his pro bation, continuous writing for the Champion, and other periodical publications, claimed most of his leisure, the financial returns therefrom helping him somewhat to hold at bay the peremptory wolf at the door. On the 20th of June, 1740 Fielding was '* called "; but notwithstanding his careful training and keen desire to make his way in the courts, ill-health proved a serious handicap to success at the Bar, — a matter which his antecedents, too, were not likely to promote. It is said that he travelled the Western Circuit; and that for a time he put in constant but fruitless attendance at the Wiltshire sessions. He was on familiar terms with Charles Pratt, after wards Lord Camden, and Robert Henley ^ (who subsequently divided the plaudits of fame, first, as the supposed original of the drunken barrister in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Conversation; and, secondly, as the Lord High Chancellor of England) was also an acquaintance if not a friend. But it was not as a practising lawyer that Fielding was to do his work as an advocate of law reform and prepare the way for the coming of such a practical reformer as John Howard later in the cen
tury. It was reserved for him by means of works of fiction, to the production of which he was impelled by his lack of briefs, to first shock, and shock rudely, the stolid compla cency of the British public in the manage ment of their prison system. Always a keen critic of the abuses of the law, even before he went to the Bar he could write a satire (Life and Death of Common-Sense) in which we find the following: Queen Common Sense — My Lord of Law, I sent for you this morning; I have a strange petition given to me; Two men, it seems, have lately been at Law For an estate, which both of them have lost, And their Attorneys now divide between them. Law. Madam, these things will happen in the Law. Q. C. S. Will they, my Lord? Then better we had none : But I have also heard a sweet bird sing That men, unable to discharge their debts At a short warning, being sued for them, Have, with both power and will their debts to pay, Lain all their lives in prison for their costs. Law. That may, perhaps, be some poor person's case, Too mean to entertain your royal ear. Q. C. S. My Lord, while I ani Queen I shall not think One man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd! Moreover, Lord, I am informed your laws Are grown so large, and daily yet increase, That the great age of old Methusalem Would scarce suffice to read your Statutes out." In this passage we can discern the psychic trend toward that temperament of maturer life which was to produce Amelia, the earliest English example of the true tendenzroman, and one of the most caustic satires ever written in the interests of honest public life and a pure administration of
