Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754
nature, with fine moral touches. He has not indeed given lessons of pure
and consummate virtue, but he has exposed vice and meanness with all the
powers of ridicule." It is perhaps excusable that Lawrence, like Roscoe
and others, should have attributed this to Lyttelton; but the preface
nevertheless assigns it, with two other dialogues, to a "different
hand." They were, in fact, the first essays in authorship of that
illustrious blue-stocking, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu.
Fielding's only posthumous works are the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_
and the comedy of _The Fathers; or, The Good-Natur'd Man_. The _Journal_
was published in February 1755, together with a fragment of a Comment on
Bolingbroke's _Essays_, which Mallet had issued in March of the previous
year. This fragment must therefore have been begun in the last months of
Fielding's life; and, according to Murphy, he made very careful
preparation for the work, as attested by long extracts from the Fathers
and the leading controversialists, which, after his death, were
preserved by his brother. Beyond a passage or two in Richardson's
_Correspondence_, and a sneering reference by Walpole to Fielding's
"account how his dropsy was treated and teased by an innkeeper's wife in
the Isle of Wight," there is nothing to show how the _Journal_ was
received, still less that it brought any substantial pecuniary relief to
"those innocents," to whom reference had been made in the "Dedication."
The play was not placed upon the stage until 1778. Its story, which is
related in the _Advertisement_, is curious. After it had been set aside
in 1742, [Footnote: _Vide_ chap. iv. p. 94.] it seems to have been
submitted to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. Sir Charles was just starting
for Russia, as Envoy Extraordinary. Whether the MS. went with him or not
is unknown; but it was lost until 1775 or 1776, when it was recovered in
a tattered and forlorn condition by Mr. Johnes, M.P. for Cardigan, from
a person who entertained a very poor and even contemptuous opinion of
its merits. Mr. Johnes thought otherwise. He sent it to Garrick, who at
once recognised it as "Harry Fielding's Comedy." Revised and retouched
by the actor and Sheridan, it was produced at Drury Lane, as _The
Fathers_, with a Prologue and Epilogue by Garrick. For a few nights it
was received with interest, and even some flickering enthusiasm. It was
then withdrawn; and there is no likelihood that it will ever be revived.
APPENDIX No I.
FIELDING AND SARAH ANDREW.
By the courtesy of the editor of the _Athenaeum_, the following letter is
here reprinted from that paper for 2d June 1883:--
75 Eaton Rise, Ealing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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