"The Attempt, indeed, is such, that the Want of Success can scarce be called a Disappointment, tho' I shall have lost much Time, and misemployed much Pains; and what is above all, shall miss the Pleasure of thinking that in the Decline of my Health and Life, I have conferred a great and lasting Benefit on my Country." In words still more resigned and dignified, he concludes the book:-- His enemies, he says, will no doubt "discover, that instead of intending a Provision for the Poor, I have been carving out one for myself, [Footnote: Presumably as Governor of the proposed County-house.] and have very cunningly projected to build myself a fine House at the Expence (_sic_) of the Public. This would be to act in direct Opposition to the Advice of my above Master [i.e. Horace]; it would be indeed Struere domos immemor sepulchri. Those who do not know me, may believe this; but those who do, will hardly be so deceived by that Chearfulness which was always natural to me; and which, I thank God, my Conscience doth not reprove me for, to imagine that I am not sensible of my declining Constitution.... Ambition or Avarice can no longer raise a Hope, or dictate any Scheme to me, who have no further Design than to pass my short Remainder of Life in some Degree of Ease, and barely to preserve my Family from being the Objects of any such Laws as I have here proposed." With the exception of the above, and kindred passages quoted from the Prefaces to the _Miscellanies_ and the Plays, the preceding pages, as the reader has no doubt observed, contain little of a purely autobiographical character. Moreover, the anecdotes related of Fielding by Murphy and others have not always been of such a nature as to inspire implicit confidence in their accuracy, while of the very few letters that have been referred to, none have any of those intimate and familiar touches which reveal the individuality of the writer. But from the middle of 1753 up to a short time before his death, Fielding has himself related the story of his life, in one of the most unfeigned and touching little tracts in our own or any other literature. The only thing which, at the moment, suggests itself for comparison with the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_ is the letter and dedication which Fielding's predecessor, Cervantes, prefixes to his last romance of _Persiles and Sigismunda_. In each case the words are animated by the same uncomplaining kindliness--the same gallant and indomitable spirit; in each case the writer is a dying man. Cervantes survived the date of his letter to the Conde de Lemos but three days; and the _Journal_, says Fielding's editor (probably his brother John), was "finished almost at the same period with life." It was written, from its author's account, in those moments of the voyage when, his womankind being sea-sick, and the crew wholly absorbed in working the ship, he was thrown upon his own resources, and compelled to employ his pen to while away the time. The