Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/486

 The Vol. XIX.

Green

No. 8

HENRY

BOSTON

FIELDING

AS

A

Bag August, 1907

LAW

REFORMER

By Charles Morse rPWO hundred years ago, on the 22nd A of April, there was born at Sharpham Park, Glastonbury, England, a man who was destined to win from a better-known man, and certainly a better-known writer, coming after him the title of the "Father of the English Novel." It was Henry Fielding who was so acclaimed, and his encomiast was Sir Walter Scott. It is interesting to note, by the way, that both these distinguished literary men were lawyers by profession and that each held, for a period in his life, a minor judicial office. It is a common thing for Literature to take tithe and toll from the intellectual resources of the Bar, but it is -not often that the historian can record a reprisal Fielding, however, applied himself to the study of the law after he had achieved some fame as a literary man. It was not until he had reached his thirtieth year that he became a student of the Middle Temple; and before that time he had produced some clever, but not very success ful, plays, and had managed a theater of his own. His bold satires on the Walpole Ministry, Pasquin and the Historical Register, led to the passage of the Licensing Acts of 1737, which had the almost instan. taneous effect of closing up business for the "Great Mogul's Company of Come dians" in the Haymarket, and ending the proprietor's career as a mere play wright. And be it said, by the way, that if in that career he proved a Gay to the politicians, he certainly was something of an Aristophanes to his dramatic com

peers. His Miscellanies might be consulted with advantage upon this point. In the year 1737, with a wife (whose small fortune he had squandered) to support, Fielding concluded that as he had suffered at the hands of the law in his former avoca tion, to the law he should look to retrieve his mischances. Accordingly we find the following entry in the books of the Middle Temple : "(574G 1 Novris 1737. Henricus Fielding, de East Stour in Com. Dorset Ar. filius et haeres apparens Brig: Genlis: Edmundi Fielding admissus est in Societatem Medii Templi Lond. specialiter et obligatur una cum etc. Et dat pro fine 4.0.0". Undoubtedly this legend would have commended itself to the new student's critical taste had it been couched in better Latin, for Fielding was no mean scholar. When he left Eton in his youth it was said of him that he was " uncommonly versed in the Greek authors, and an early master of the Latin classics." Indeed, in some verses addressed to Walpole, he says of himself : "Tuscan and French are in my headLatin I write, and Greek I — read." From Eton, Fielding is said to have gone to the University of Leyden, but conceding this to be doubtful, he certainly could not have echoed Charles Lamb's lament —