Page:A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices.djvu/110

 other literary celebrities, being himself a man of literary tastes and attainments. He published a volume of Poems, dedicated to Garrick, 1790; but his work best known now is his History of Pembrokeshire, published in 1811. He died at Fishguard, 1821.

Admitted 6 February, 1571-2.

Son and heir of Edward Ferrers of Badsley (Baddesley Clinton), co. Warwick. Succeeding to the paternal estate, he devoted himself to the study of antiquities, and made an extensive collection of those of his native county, which were afterwards used by Dugdale for his History. He was a friend of Camden, who highly extols his character and learning. He died 10 Oct. 1633, leaving behind many MSS., still preserved in various collections.

FEVERSHAM, EARL OF. See.

FIELDING. See FEILDING.

Admitted 1 November, 1737.

Son and heir of Brigadier-General Edmund Fielding of East Stour, Dorset He was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, on 22 April, 1707. Though he devoted himself during his residence at the Temple with great energy to legal studies and made for some time after his call on 20 June, 1740, a serious attempt to get practice, his connection with the law, like that of his successors, (q.v.) and  (q.v.) was but an incident in his life, now little remembered amidst the glories of his achievements in the fields of literature. "The friendships, however," remarks one of his biographers, "he met with in the course of his studies from gentlemen of that profession, and particularly from some who have since risen to be the first ornaments of the law, will for ever do honour to his memory." Before his entrance at the Temple, Fielding had acquired fame as a writer of Plays and Farces, and, finding no briefs came in at the law, he again took up his pen, but in a new character, and produced those incomparable works of fiction which have rendered his name immortal. In these, as in his writings for the Stage, there is evidence of his familiarity with the Temple life of those days. (See The Temple Beau, etc.). In 1748 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Westminster, and was afterwards qualified to act for Middlesex, in which position he laboured energetically and conscientiously. The family of Fielding claimed kindred origin with the royal house of Hapsburg (see Earls of Denbigh, in Burke's Peerage). Referring to this connexion the historian Gibbon truly remarks, "The successors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of England; but the romance of Tom Jones will outlive the palace of Escurial and the imperial eagle of Austria."

The following is a list of his works in the order of publication: Love in Several Masks, a Comedy (1728); The Temple Beau, a Comedy (1730); The Author's Farce (1730); The Coffee-house Politicians, a Comedy (1730); The Tragedy of Tragedies (1731); The Letter Writers, a Farce (1731); The Grub Street Opera (1731); The Lottery, a Farce (1731); The Modern Husband, a Comedy (1732); The Mock Doctor, a Comedy from Molière (1732); The Debauchees, a Comedy (1733); The Miser, a Comedy from Plautus and Molière (1733); Don