Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/428

 Portland's medicine’ for nearly a year as a remedy for gout, he was ordered to Bath. He was detained in London by a summons from the Duke of Newcastle to give his advice upon a scheme for suppressing robbers. Fielding devised a plan, which consisted in providing informers by a fund supplied for the purpose. He succeeded by great activity in breaking up a gang, and during the following November and December London was free from the usual outrages. His own health was completely ruined. He was harassed by anxiety for his family. The justice was paid partly by fees. By making up quarrels and refusing the last shillings of the poor he reduced ‘500l. a year of the dirtiest money on earth to little more than 300l.,’ most of which went to his clerk. Something also came from the ‘public service money.’ Throughout the next summer he was failing. He was desperately ill in March 1754, when a severe winter still lingered, but gained some relief from the treatment of Ward, known for his ‘drop.’ In May he moved to his little house, Fordhook, at Ealing. Berkeley's ‘Siris’ put him upon drinking tar-water. He fancied that this, like his other experiments, did him some good, but it became evident that there was no hope of real improvement except in a warmer climate. He sailed for Lisbon with his wife, daughter, and two servants. He embarked at Rotherhithe 26 June 1754. After many delays his ship, the Queen of Portugal, anchored off Ryde on 11 July, and was detained until the 23rd. Lisbon was at last reached. The incidents of his voyage are detailed with great humour and with undiminished interest in life in the posthumously published ‘Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon.’ Mr. Austin Dobson rightly says that it is one ‘of the most unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own or any other literature.’ A Margaret Collier (, Correspondence, ii. 77), daughter of Arthur Collier [q. v.] [see, Collier, p. 162), apparently went with Fielding to Lisbon, and was supposed to have written the book, because it was so inferior to his other works. The gallant spirit with which Fielding met this trying experience doubtless sustained him to the last. He died at Lisbon, after two months' stay, 8 Oct. 1754. He was buried at the English cemetery. A tomb was erected by the English factory, and was replaced in 1830 by another, erected through the exertions of the British chaplain, the Rev. Christopher Neville. Mrs. Fielding died at Canterbury 11 March 1802. The children were brought up by their uncle, Sir John, and by Ralph Allen, who made them a liberal yearly allowance. These were (1) William, baptised 25 Feb. 1748; (2) Mary Amelia, 6 Jan. 1749 (buried 17 Dec. 1749); (3) Sophia, 21 Jan. 1750; (4) Louisa, 3 Dec. 1752 (buried at Hammersmith 10 May 1753); (5) Allen, 6 April 1754. William Fielding joined the northern circuit, became about 1808 a magistrate for Westminster, and died in October 1820 (Gent. Mag. 1820, ii. 373–4). He is said to have inherited his father's conversational powers, but had little business (, Life of Scott, ch. 1.; Life of Lord Campbell, i. 197). Southey mentions in a letter to Sir Egerton Brydges in 1830 that he had met Fielding about 1817, when he was a fine old man, ‘though visibly shaken by time.’ Allen became a clergyman, and at his death in 1823 was vicar of St. Stephen's, Canterbury.

The only authentic portrait of Fielding is from a pen-and-ink sketch by Hogarth, taken from memory, or, according to Murphy, whose account was contradicted by Steevens and Ireland, from a profile cut in paper by a lady. It was engraved by Basire for Murphy's edition of Fielding's works. A miniature occasionally engraved seems to be taken from this. A bust of Fielding has been erected in Taunton shire hall, for which the artist, Miss Margaret Thomas, was guided by Hogarth's drawing. A table, said to have belonged to Fielding at East Stour, was given to the Somersetshire Archæological Society (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. vii. 406).

Fielding never learnt to be prudent. Lady M. W. Montagu compares him to Steele, and speaks of the irresistible buoyancy of spirits which survived his money and his constitution (to Lady Bate, 22 Sept. 1755). No estate could have made him rich. He was more generous than just. The story is often repeated (Gent. Mag. August 1786) that he gave a sum borrowed from Millar, the bookseller, for taxes, to a poorer friend, and that when the tax-gatherer appeared he said: ‘Friendship has called for the money; let the collector call again.’ Murphy says that after he became justice he kept an open table for his poorer friends. The plays represent the recklessness of his youth. From the age of thirty he was struggling vigorously to retrieve his position, to support his family, and to do his duty when in office, and to call attention to grave social evils. This is the period of his great novels, which, however wanting in delicacy, show a sturdy moral sense as well as a masculine insight into life and character. He is beyond question the real founder of the English novel as a genuine picture of men and women, and in some respects has never