Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/425

 died vigorously, and often left a tavern late at night to abstract the works of ‘abstruse authors’ for several hours. He was called to the bar 20 June 1740, and joined the western circuit. He is said (, Dorset) to have regularly attended the Wiltshire sessions; but he did not succeed at the bar. While a student at the Temple he joined with James Ralph [q. v.] in editing a periodical paper called ‘The Champion.’ Ralph was at this time much employed by the adherents of Frederick, prince of Wales, and especially by Dodington, to whom, in 1741, Fielding addressed a poetical epistle on ‘True Greatness.’ The ‘Champion’ is one of the innumerable imitations of the ‘Spectator;’ and Fielding's essays (signed C. and L.) are attempts to work a nearly exhausted vein. While the ‘Champion’ was running, Cibber published his ‘Apology.’ In the eighth chapter there were some irritating references to Fielding as a ‘broken wit,’ who had sought notoriety by personal scurrility and abuse of the government. Fielding retorted by a vigorous attack in the ‘Champion.’ The papers were reprinted by Curll in a pamphlet called ‘The Tryal of Colley Cibber, Comedian.’ An ‘Apology for the Life of Mr. The. Cibber, Comedian’ (1740), has also been attributed to Fielding, but the internal evidence is conclusive against an attribution which rests upon mere guess.

Richardson's ‘Pamela’ appeared in November 1740, and at once became popular. Fielding, irresistibly amused by the prudery and sentimentalism of the book, began a parody, in which Pamela's brother was to be tempted by a lady as Pamela is tempted by the squire. The book, called ‘The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr. Abraham Adams,’ developed as it was written, especially by the introduction of the famous Parson Adams. It is generally admitted that the prototype of Adams was William Young (d. 1757), who had many of the parson's oddities, and who in 1752 undertook to co-operate with Fielding in a translation of Lucian, never executed. Fielding speaks of this in the ‘Covent Garden Journal,’ and remarks that he has ‘formed his style upon that very author’ (Lucian). Young also co-operated with Fielding in ‘Plutus,’ a translation from Aristophanes, in 1742. ‘Joseph Andrews’ professes to be written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, and resemblances have also been traced to Marivaux’ ‘Marianne’ and to Scarron's ‘Roman Comique’ (both of whom Fielding quotes), but the substantial originality is undeniable. The book was published in February 1742. The original assignment to Millar, preserved in the Forster collection at South Kensington, shows that Fielding received for it 183l. 11s. Richardson resented Fielding's attack with a bitterness which finds frequent vent in his correspondence, even with Sarah Fielding, and is not the less offensive because it takes a high moral tone. Citations from some letters to Aaron Hill and his daughters given by Mr. Austin Dobson (pp. 137–40), from the originals in the Forster collection, curiously illustrate a feeling which appears never to have been retorted by Fielding.

The same assignment includes a payment of 5l. 5s. to Fielding for a ‘Vindication’ of the Duchess of Marlborough's account of her conduct. Fielding probably received some additional payment from the duchess. Garrick was now making his first appearance in London. Hawkins (Life of Johnson, p. 45) says that he gave a private performance of Fielding's ‘Mock Doctor’ at Cave's rooms in St. John's Gate. He asked Fielding, whose acquaintance he soon made, to provide a part for him. Fielding had two early plays by him, the ‘Good-natured Man’ and the ‘Wedding Day.’ He revised the latter, though greatly troubled by a dangerous illness of his wife, and it was produced 17 Feb. 1743. It ran only six nights, and the author made under 50l. (Preface to Miscellanies). Murphy says that Fielding had refused to alter a dangerous passage, saying ‘Damn them [the audience], let them find that out.’ When it was actually hissed, he was drinking a bottle of champagne and chewing tobacco (simultaneously, it is suggested) in the green-room. Hearing that the passage had been hissed, he observed, ‘Oh, damn them, they have found it out, have they?’ The story must be taken for what it is worth, and Fielding's remarks on the failure (ib.) show that his insensibility was in any case not permanent. The play was published in February 1743. In 1743 also appeared his three volumes of ‘Miscellanies,’ which reached a second edition in the same year. The book was published by subscription, and the list mentions over four hundred subscribers, including many ‘persons of quality,’ lawyers, and actors. His old enemy, Robert Walpole, now Earl of Orford, took ten copies; and Fielding speaks warmly of him in his ‘Voyage to Lisbon.’ The number of copies subscribed for was 519, which would apparently produce about 450l. It includes some previously published pieces and early poems, and miscellaneous essays and plays; but the two most remarkable items are the ‘Journey from this World to the Next’—including some clever satire and a passage describing a meeting with a dead child, which was greatly admired by Dickens (Letters, i.