Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/650

* FIELD GLASS. 592 FIELDING. power, and at the same time to be extremely portable. It is a Galileo's telescope with a large achromatic object-glass to secure a brilliantly lighted image, and an achromatic eyeglass which is negative or concave. The magnifying power of the held glass is ascertained by dividing the focal length of the objective by that of the eye- piece, consequently the magnifying power of such a glass is limited by the length of tubes which can be used. To obviate long tubes field glasses are now constructed where, by an arrange- ment of reflecting prisms placed within the tubes, the ray traverses to and fro, and the advant. of a long focal length in small compass are ob- tained. Field glass is a term also applied to the lens interposed between the object-glass and eyeglass of a microscope, which, receiving the diverging rays from the former before they form an image, causes them to converge, and thus contracts the dimensions of the image, and in- creases its brightness, so as to render it of such a size and degree of distinctness that the whole of it may be viewed by means of the eyeglass. See Microscope. FIELD GUN. See Field Artillery; Ord- nance. FIELDING, Anthony Van Dtck Copley (1787-1855). A British water-color painter. He studied under John Varley, and devoted himself principally to marine painting. He contributed very largely to the exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colors, of which he was an influential member, having been its president from 1831 until his death, lie is especially noted for his effects in light and mist, and found an ardent admirer in Ruskin. In later life his work declined, but he was. nevertheless, one of the most distinguished of English water-colorists. FIELDING, Henby (1707-54). An English novelist, not improperly called the father of the modern novel. The son of (Jen. Edmund Fielding, he was horn at Sharpham Park, near Glaston- bury, in Somersetshire, April 22, 1707. He be- longed to tin- younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, and iiis aristocratic spirit showed itself in many of the political controversies of later life. Life at Baton was followed by two years' attendance at the University of Leyden, where he studied law. On returning to England, it was necessary for Fielding to win his way for himself, as his father was richer in children than in more material t reasure. He determined on play-writing, and for ten years contributed generously to the stage. So twenty-five plays make up the total of this period, but none of them showed sufficient dramatic arl to insure permanence, although they contained sufficient political satire to give rise to the Lord Chamber Iain's censorship of the drama. The interest of the dialogue in parts, and the humor which one adilj associates with Fielding, are not lack- in them, while the plots of manj -how that he had l he sto> teller's gift: luil on account of a desire to adapt hi- plays to the taste of the linn-, and an inability to comprehend a- well as i" rise to the heights of dramatic possibility, his dramatic work is forgotten. !••<< in Several n i torical interest . a- it was t he to be produced (1728), and so introd id Fielding to the public; while Don Quixoti in England is worth at least a mention n ii sug- his liking for Cervantes, To Cervantes Fielding looked back as afterwards Tfia looked back to Fielding, and as we read Doit Quixote, Joseph Vndrews, and. say. Henry St mond, we note how the warm, genial, honest blood runs truly and similarly through the veins of these authors. All three have insight into men's characters, and power to see beneath the surface of life alike high and low; all three have the saving grace of humor, the sincere hatred of hypocrisy, the pleasant faculty of personal inter- polation and friendly interpretation of men and things. The two Englishmen, indeed, lacked the genius for noble idealization which ten-antes possessed; but all three were optimists in a world whose evil they plainly discerned and described, and the winningness of their work is not lessened by that splendid power of satire which in Thack- eray and Fielding was directed against the af- fectations and hypocrisy of their own tjnif- and society, exposing the ridiculous in life, while in Cervantes it dealt more nearly with what pessi- mists look upon as the satire of the universe, the seeming futility of ideal endeavor. Fielding's reputation is based for the most part on three novels: Joseph Indrews (174:2) ; Tom Jones (T74HI: and Amelia (1751). Joseph An- dreas was planned to be a parody on Richard- son's Pamela, the sentimental, moralizing novel in which the poor heroine is rewarded for her virtuous resistance to the nobleman, her lover, by the offer of marriage which Fielding suggests may have been one of the motives of her chastity. Joseph Andrews, the handsome, pure-minded footman, was. as brother of Pamela, to parallel his sister's virtuous conduct ; but before the story had progressed far the author became so interested in the characters he had set in motion that the parody purpose was set aside, and the novel developed as an original and independent work of fiction. Parson Adams, the stalwart, confiding, simple-minded, and high-minded curate, is one of the most engaging persons that eigh- teenth-century literature has bequeathed to us, while the description of the inns and of the life of the road, again reminiscent of Cervantes, are vivid to the point of reality. The faculty of description was Fielding's, and if often we miss the intense emotional treatment or the sympa- thetic delineation of the spiritual clement in man's activity, it is still good to listen to the exposition and to the comments of one whose common sense allowed no dimming of his per- ception, and whose manly nature ami warm heart would not permit poverty, the animosity of enemies, or sickness to warp his judgment. Ilis writings are. therefore, graphic and illuminative, ami though they are not loftily inspiring because of their lack in liner sympathy, a pervading healthiness of lone and a sense of straightfor- ward observation do much to atone for the broad speech that is so often unnecessarily their chief blemish. His own experience crops up unmislak ably in his hooks, ami Tom Jones has well hen called 'Fielding ill his youth.' as Captain Booth i 'the Fielding of later years.' The looseness of many of tin- scenes and the coarseness of much of the language of his novels are indicative, therefor,', not alone of a lax society, but also of a life in which there was a good share of rioting and carousal, The lihal words of praise to he sail of Fielding's novels arc that they possess the unitj of plot which differentiates them from such structureless work as that of Smollett, while the