Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/424

 the ‘distressed actors’ at Drury Lane. Mrs. Clive also stood by them. For her Fielding adapted the ‘Intriguing Chambermaid’ from Regnard's ‘Retour Imprévu’ (not from ‘Le Dissipateur’ by Destouches, as has been erroneously stated). It was acted 15 Jan. 1734, and published with a prefatory epistle, in which Mrs. Clive received very warm and obviously sincere compliments. The ‘Author's Farce,’ originally produced in 1730, was revived on the same occasion, with additional scenes smartly satirising the Cibbers. From their action on this occasion, and from a natural antipathy to their characters, Fielding henceforward carried on a steady warfare against both father and son. He remodelled a play already begun at Leyden, ‘Don Quixote in England,’ for the Drury Lane company. It contains some good political satire, but is chiefly remarkable as a proof of Fielding's lifelong admiration of Cervantes. The return of the revolted players to Drury Lane caused its transference to the Haymarket, where it was acted in April 1734. In the beginning of 1735 the farce called finally ‘The Virgin Unmasked,’ written for Mrs. Clive, and a comedy called ‘The Universal Gallant,’ and deservedly damned, were acted at Drury Lane.

A period of inactivity followed, to which his first marriage has been generally assigned. ‘The Universal Gallant,’ The lady was Charlotte Cradock, one of three sisters living on their own means at Salisbury. Richardson says that she was an illegitimate child (Correspondence, iv. 69). Murphy states that she had 1,500l., and that Fielding's ‘mother dying about this time’ (in reality seventeen years before) he inherited an estate of about 200l. a year at Stower in Dorsetshire. His extravagance and conviviality, according to Murphy, ‘entirely devoured’ his wife's ‘little patrimony’ ‘in less than three years.’ The ‘costly yellow liveries’ of his servants mentioned by Murphy really belonged to Robert Feilding [q. v.] The statement is unsatisfactory, but it is probable that Booth's account in ‘Amelia’ of his life in the country represents the facts: that Fielding was extravagant, and that the neighbouring squires disliked and misrepresented the Londoner, who certainly had an eye for their foibles. Love poems to ‘Celia,’ printed in the ‘Miscellanies,’ show that Fielding must have been already courting Miss Cradock in 1730. The Sophia of ‘Tom Jones’ clearly represents her person (bk. iv. ch. ii.), and probably her mind. Lady Louisa Stuart, in the anecdotes prefixed to Lady Mary W. Montagu's works, says that she was as beautiful and amiable as the ‘Amelia.’ Amelia, according to Richardson (ib. iv. 60), was his first wife, ‘even to her noselessness.’ Lady L. Stuart also says that she had really suffered the accident described in the novel, ‘a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose.’ The husband and wife loved each other passionately, and in spite of the errors of Fielding's earlier life he was always a devoted husband and father.

Fielding was back in London in the beginning of 1736, when he took the little theatre in the Haymarket. He opened it with his ‘Pasquin; a Dramatick Satire on the Times,’ in which, in a series of scenes on the plan of the ‘Rehearsal,’ he attacks the political corruption of Walpole's time. Mrs. Charke [q.v.] (Narrative, p. 63) acted in this, and made sixty guineas at her benefit. The piece had a run of fifty nights; and he endeavoured to follow it up next year by the ‘Historical Register for 1736.’ This contains a sharp attack upon Sir Robert Walpole as Quidam (, Life of Walpole). Fielding was a strong whig, but was now joining with most of his distinguished contemporaries of all parties in the opposition to the ministry. Sir John Barnard had already, in 1735, brought in a bill to restrict the license of the stage. It is said (ib. i. 516) that Giffard, manager of Goodman's Fields, showed a manuscript farce called ‘The Golden Rump’ to Walpole. Horace Walpole attributes this to Fielding, and says (Memoirs of George II, i. 12) that he found a copy among his father's papers. Sir Robert Walpole bought the copy, and read a selection of objectionable passages to the house (Rambler's Magazine, 1787). It is also alleged that Walpole had himself procured it to be written in order to give a pretext for restrictive measures. This is highly improbable. In any case, a bill was introduced in 1737, making a license from the lord chamberlain necessary for all dramatic performances. It was opposed in a famous speech by Lord Chesterfield, who, at the same time, spoke, perhaps ironically, of the excessive license of ‘Pasquin.’ The bill received the royal assent 21 June 1737, and put an end to Fielding's enterprise. He produced three flimsy pieces in the early part of 1737. Two plays afterwards produced, the ‘Wedding Day’ (1743) and the posthumous ‘Good-natured Man,’ had been written long before.

Fielding thus gave up play-writing at the age of thirty, and for the rest of his life laboured hard to retrieve his fortune and maintain his family. He entered the Middle Temple (1 Nov. 1737), when he is described as of ‘East Stour.’ Murphy says that he