Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754
There are some manifest misconceptions in this account, due, no doubt,
to Mr. Davidson's ignorance of the exact period of the occurrence as
established by the above record in the Lyme archives. In the first
place, it must have been four or five years at least before Fielding
consoled himself with Miss Charlotte Cradock, and nearly ten (according
to the received date) before he married her. Again, in saying that he
was "dissipated," Mr. Davidson must have been thinking of his
conventional after-character, for in 1725 he was but a boy fresh from
Eton, and could scarcely have established any reputation as a rake. Nor
is there anything in our whole knowledge of him to justify us in
supposing that he was at any time a mere mercenary fortune-hunter.
Finally, according to one of Mr. Roberts's letters to Mr. Keightley,
timorous Mr. Tucker of Lyme had a very different reason from his
personal shortcomings for objecting to Fielding as a suitor to his ward.
"The Tucker family," says Mr. Roberts, "by tradition consider themselves
tricked out of the heiress, Miss Andrew, by Mr. Rhodes of Modbury, Mr.
Andrew Tucker intending the lady for his own son." Nevertheless, these
reservations made, Mr. Davidson's version, although _ex parte_, supplies
colour and detail to the story. From a pedigree which he gives in his
book, it further appears that Mrs. Rhodes died on the 22d of August
1783, aged seventy-three. This would make her fifteen in 1725. There
remained Lawrence's enigmatical declaration that she was Fielding's
cousin. Briefly stated, the result of Mr. Keightley's inquiries in this
direction tends to show that Miss Andrew's mother was connected with the
family of Fielding's mother, the Goulds of Sharpham Park; and as Mr.
Lawrence does not seem to have been aware of the existence of Davidson's
book, or to have had any acquaintance with the traditions or archives of
Lyme, Mr. Keightley surmises, very plausibly, that his unvouched data
must have been derived, directly or indirectly, from the Rhodes family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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