HENRY FIELDING.

Henry Fielding, the son of Lieutenant General Fielding, and a descendant of the Earls of Denbigh, was born in Somersetshire in 1707. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards studied civil law at Leyden. He was compelled at an early age to rely upon his own resources, and was called to the bar in London; but although he appears to have been a good lawyer, he was not successful in obtaining a lucrative practice, and he supplied his wants by writing comedies and farces. Later in life he was a contributor to the newspaper But his fame rests on his novels, which are, in many respects, the best ever writ press. ten. They are, Joseph Andrews, a burlesque upon the tedious Richardson's Pamela, Amelia, and Tom Jones. They are admirable pictures of English society, unequalled in the knowledge of human nature they display, charmingly simple in style, and abounding in wit and in a certain quaint humor. Cervantes was the model the author has followed, and it is a question whether even Don Quixote, though more imaginative, is, on the whole, a greater work than Tom Jones.

The illustrious Gibbon thus speaks of him: "Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the Counts of Hapsburg.

The successors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of England, but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial eagle of Austria."

But there is another view to be taken of Fielding and of his works. He led a rather dissolute life in his youth, and although he has never intentionally countenanced immorality, it must be confessed that he has not set up a very high standard of conduct. Tom Jones, in spite of some good points, was rather a sorry fellow; and if, as we believe, the book fairly represents the manners of the time, we must be thankful for the great improvement which has since taken place. Profanity, indecency, and drunkenness appear to have been as common as the light, and air, and daily food. The books can only be commended to the mature and the stable-minded.

The selection here given has appeared in other compilations, and is repeated now for the simple reason that after a pretty careful search no other suitable extract could be found in any of his works.

Fielding was appointed a police magistrate at the age of forty-three, and discharged the duties of his office with marked ability. His experience in court led him to write the Life of Jonathan Wild, an amazing piece of satire, and equal probably to anything he has left. The Journey from this World to the Next has also many fine points.

In 1754, being in feeble health, he was induced to try a sea voyage. He sailed to Lisbon, and there, shortly after, he died.

PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAYHOUSE.

[From Tom Jones.]

In the first row, then, of the first gallery, did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been

in.

When the first music was played, he said "it was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time without putting one another out." While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs. Miller, "Look, look, madam; the very picture of the man in the end of the Common-prayer Book, before the gunpowder treason service." Nor could he help observing, with a sigh, when

all the candles were lighted, "that here were candles enough burnt in one night to keep an honest poor family for a whole twelve-month." As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, began, Partridge was all attention; nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked Jones "what man that was in the strange dress; something," said he, "like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armor; is it?" Jones answered, "That is the ghost." To which Partridge replied, with a smile, "Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. Though I can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet I am certain I should know one if I saw him better than that comes to. No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as that, neither." In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighborhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue until the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior upon the stage. "O, la! sir," said he, "I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of anything, for I know it is but a play; and if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much company; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the only person." Why, who," cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a coward here besides thyself?" Nay, you may call me coward if you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay; go along with you! Ay, to be sure! Who's fool, then? Will you? Lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness! Whatever happens, it is good enough for you. Follow you! I'd follow the devil as soon. Nay, perhaps it is the devil - for they say he can put on what likeness he pleases. O, here he is again! No further! No, you have gone far enough already; further than I'd have gone for all the king's dominions." Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, "Hush, hush, dear sir; don't you hear him?" And during the whole speech of the ghost he sat with his eyes fixed partly on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open, the same passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet succeeding likewise in him.

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When the scene was over, Jones said, "Why, Partridge, you exceed my expectations. You enjoy the play more than I conceived possible." 'Nay, sir," answered Partridge, "if you are not afraid of the devil, I can't help it; but, to be sure, it is natural to be sur

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prised at such things, though I know there is nothing in them: not that it was the ghost that surprised me, neither; for I should have known that to have been only a man in a strange dress; but when I saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that which took hold of me." "And dost thou imagine then, Partridge," cries Jones, "that he was really frightened?" "Nay, sir," said Partridge, “did not you yourself observe afterwards, when he found it was his own father's spirit, and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, and he was struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, just as I should have been had it been my own case. But hush! O, la! what noise is that? There he is again. Well, to be certain, though I know there is nothing at all in it, I am glad I am not down yonder where those men are." Then turning his eyes again upon Hamlet, "Ay, you may draw your sword; what signifies a sword against the power of the devil?"

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During the second act Partridge made very few remarks. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the king's countenance. Well," said he, "how people may be deceived by faces! Nulla fides fronti1 is, I find, a true saying. Who would think, by looking in the king's face, that he had ever committed a murder?" He then inquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprised, gave him no other satisfaction than that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire."

Partridge sat in fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghost made his next appearance, Partridge cried out, "There, sir, now; what say you now? is he frightened now or no? As much frightened as you think me, and, to be sure, nobody can help some fears, I would not be in so bad a condition as - what's his name?

Squire Hamlet is there, for all the world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit? As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth." 'Indeed, you saw right," answered Jones. "Well, well," cries Partridge, "I know it is only a play; and besides, if there was anything in all this, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for, as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person. There, there; ay, no wonder you are in such a passion; shake the vile, wicked wretch to pieces. If she was my own mother I should serve her so. To be sure, all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings. Ay, go about your business; I hate the sight of you."

Our critic was now pretty silent till the play which Hamlet intro

1 Put no trust in a countenance.

duces before the king. This he did not at first understand, till Jones explained it to him; but he no sooner entered into the spirit of it than he began to bless himself that he had never committed murder. Then, turning to Mrs. Miller, he asked her "if she did not imagine the king looked as if he was touched; though he is,” said he, “a good actor, and doth all he can to hide it. Well, I would not have so much to answer for as that wicked man there hath, to sit upon a much higher chair than he sits upon. No wonder he ran away; for your sake I'll never trust an innocent face again."

The grave-digging scene next engaged the attention of Partridge, who expressed much surprise at the number of skulls thrown upon the stage. To which Jones answered "that it was one of the most famous burial-places about town." "No wonder, then,' cries Partridge, "that the place is haunted. But I never saw in my life a worse grave-digger. I had a sexton, when I was clerk, that should have dug three graves while he is digging one. The fellow handles a spade as if it was the first time he had ever had one in his hand. Ay, ay, you may sing. You had rather sing than work, I believe." Upon Hamlet's taking up the skull, he cried out, "Well, it is strange to see how fearless some men are. I never could bring myself to touch anything belonging to a dead man on any account. He seemed frightened enough, too, at the ghost, I thought. Nemo omnibus horis sapit."

1

Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the end of which Jones asked him which of the players he had liked best. To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, "The king, without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town, for they are all agreed that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer. "Why, I could act as well myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord help me, any man, that is, any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but, indeed, madam, though I was never at a play in London, yet I have seen acting before in the country; and the king for my money: he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other. Anybody may see he is an actor."

1 No one is wise at all times.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, in 1709. He was educated at Oxford, and afterwards went to London to live by authorship. His early struggles with poverty probably sharpened a natural harshness of temper, so that, in after life, even when he was above want, and was the acknowledged leader of men of letters, he often showed the manners of a boor, and used the speech of a bully. There is no author, of any age or nation, whom we know so intimately as Johnson. His biographer, Boswell, whose name has become the synonym of servility, of impertinent curiosity, and the indefatigable jotting down of all things that men of sense and spirit would suppress, has produced a book without a parallel in absorbing interest, and containing the most faithful photographic portrait ever put on paper. Johnson's poems, as might be expected, have weight of thought, and a sonorous and stately diction, but are deficient in imagination and grace. Indeed, the faculty of imagination seems to have been wanting in this sturdy mind, and the admirer of the poetry of an earlier day will be almost sure to dislike everything that the burly critic has approved. Johnson was, in fact, an embodiment of the understanding, a huge epitome of the common sense of mankind, and a poem in his hands fared as would a butterfly between a clown's horny thumb and finger. His principal works are his English Dictionary, Rasselas, Tour to the Hebrides, London, The Vanity of Human Wishes, the Lives of the Poets, and essays in The Rambler and The Idler.

Apart from his disagreeable manners, Johnson is to be honored for his manly indepen dence, his unflinching honesty, and his generous nature. His heart was as sound as his head; and if he was a despot in his circle, he delighted in acts of personal kindness just as much as he did in overwhelming an opponent with a Mississippi current of argument. In one of Macaulay's essays is a most admirable sketch of this remarkable man. volume, in one of the letters of Walpole, there is an amusing reference to him by a politi cal opponent.

Later in this

The style of Johnson cannot be commended to the student as a model for imitation.

[Letter to Lord Chesterfield.]

February 7, 1755

MY LORD: I have been lately informed by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honor, which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre, that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.