Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/188

 182

NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 s. m. MABOH 10, 1917.

at Drary Lane (Wheatley, supra, p. 352) In that year Quin had been in retirement at Bath five years, and Fielding in his grave two.

(6) The presence of Miss Lavinia Fenton suggests that the portraits were executed, at latest, in 1728, when she quitted the stage after playing Polly Peachum in ' The Beggar's Opera.' In 1728 Barry was but 9.

(c) Quin joined Covent Garden Theatre in 1742, and there he remained till his retirement in 1751.

(d) Barry lived and acted in Dublin until he made his first appearance at Drury Lane on Oct. 4, 1746. He removed in 1750, first to Covent Garden, and then to Ireland, and never returned to Drury Lane till 1767, when he stayed till 1774.

(e) As Barry's is the portrait least ques- tioned, Hogarth's work should perhaps be allocated somewhere between 1746 and 1750 the painter was dead when Barry returned to Drury Lane which would negative the inclusion of Miss Pritchard, Miss Fenton, and Quin. During that period Fielding was no longer an homme du thedtre, but much engaged with the aftermath of the Rebellion, with ' Tom Jones,' with law reform, and with ' Amelia,' and though very possibly an occasional visitor to the green- rooms, he had certainly ceased to be accounted an habitue there.

( / ) Finally, Arthur Murphy, himself an actor, wrote in 1762 :

" Considering the esteem Fielding was in with all the artists, it is somewhat extraordinary that no portrait of him had ever been made. He had often promised to sit to his friend Hogarth, for whose good qualities and excellent genius he always entertained so high an esteem. .. .un- luckily, however, it so fell out that no picture of him was ever drawn."

In view of these discrepancies is there any tangible ground for supposing Fielding to be included in the Drury Lane group, much as we should wis*i to believe it ? But it would be valuable to have the views of your readers conversant with matters theatrical, and specially to know at what date, and by whom, the names were attached.

3. One of the opening paragraphs of ' Amelia ' runs :

" It hath been observed by many, as well as the celebrated writer of ' Three Letters,' that no human institution is capable of consummate perfection. An observation which, perhaps, that writer at least gathered from discovering some defects in the polity even of this well-regulated nation."

I find that Fielding is referring to a pamphlet entitled :

" Three Letters upon the Gin Act and Common Informers, to which is added a letter injrespect

to the Lights in London, and the present darkness of Westminster. ' Oft we imagine all things well When Death and Danger tread upon our heel.' Printed for W. Lloyd, next the King's Arms Tavern, in Chancery Lane, near Fleet Street, 1738 (price 6d.)."

4. In the ' Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon,' Fielding makes some curious and (at this distance of time) not wholly intelligible reflections arising out cf the penurious habits of farmer Francis and his wife, the keepers of the inn at Hyde. They occur under date July 19, but should be under July 14 (12 S. ii. 515), and run thus :

"It is inconceivable what sums may be col- lected by starving only, and how easy it is for a man to die rich if he will but be contented to live miserably. Nor is there in this kind of starving^ anv thing so terrible as some apprehend. It neither wastes a man's flesh nor robs him of his cheerfulness. The famous Cornaro's case welt proves the contrary ; and so did farmer Francis,, who was of a round stature, had a plump round face, with a kind of smile on it, and seemed to- borrow an air of wretchedness rather from his coat's age than from his own. The truth is, there is a certain diet which emaciates men more than any possible degree of abstinence ; though I do not remember to have seen any caution against it, either in Cheney, Arbuthnot, or in any- other modern writer on regimen. Nay, the very name is not, I believe, in the learned Dr. James's Dictionary ; all the which is the more extra- ordinary as it is a very common food in this Kingdom, and the College themselves were not long since very liberally entertained with it by the present attorney and other eminent lawyers, in Lincoln's-inn-hall, and were all made horribly sick by it. [The last thirty-three words were suppressed in the first or editio princeps, but were re-introduced in the " Earthquake " edition of the ' Voyage.']. .. .What hath puzzled our physicians, and prevented them from setting this matter in the clearest light, is possibly one simple mistake .... that the passions of men are capable of swallowing food as well as their appetites. . . . "

The purport of this note is not to discuss the particular passion Fielding had in mind, but to record the probable public function to which he is adverting. The Public Adver- tiser (cf which Fielding was a part proprietor) of May 2, 1754, announces :

" This day the Rt. Hon. the Lord Chief Justice Ryder and Mr. Justice Bathurst will be call'd to the degree of Serjeants-at-Law ; after which an elegant entertainment will be given by them at Lincoln's Inn Hall."

This is followed in the issue of May 4 with :

" Sir Dudley Rider, Knt., lately appointed Lord Chief Justice of his Majesty's Court of King's Bench, and the Hon. Henry Bathurst, appointed a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, on their being called to the degree of Serjeants at Law on Thursday last, were presented to the Court of Common Pleas, my Lord Chief Justice by the Attorney - General and Mr.