"The Family that dines the latest Is in our Street esteem'd the greatest; But latest Hours must surely fall Before him who ne'er dines at all;" and "This too doth in my Favour speak, Your Levee is but twice a Week; From mine I can exclude but one Day, My Door is quiet on a _Sunday_." When he can admit so much even jestingly of himself, it is but legitimate to presume that there is no great exaggeration in the portrait of him in 1735, by the anonymous satirist of _Seasonable Reproof_:-- "_F------g_, who _yesterday_ appear'd so rough, Clad in _coarse Frize_, and plaister'd down with _Snuff_, See how his _Instant_ gaudy Trappings shine; What _Play-house_ Bard was ever seen so fine! But this, not from his _Humour_ flows, you'll say, But mere _Necessity_;--for last Night lay In _Pawn_, the _Velvet_ which he wears to Day." His work bears traces of the inequalities and irregularities of his mode of living. Although in certain cases (e.g. the revised edition of _Tom Thumb_) the artist and scholar seems to have spasmodically asserted himself, the majority of his plays were hasty and ill-considered performances, most of which (as Lady Mary said) he would have thrown into the fire "if meat could have been got without money, and money without scribbling." "When he had contracted to bring on a play, or a farce," says Murphy, "it is well known, by many of his friends now living, that he would go home rather late from a tavern, and would, the next morning, deliver a scene to the players, written upon the papers which had wrapped the tobacco, in which he so much delighted." It is not easy to conceive, unless Fielding's capacities as a smoker were unusual, that any large contribution to dramatic literature could have been made upon the wrappings of Virginia or Freeman's Best; but that his reputation for careless production was established among his contemporaries is manifest from the following passage in a burlesque _Author's Will_ published in the _Universal Spectator_ of Oldys:-- "_Item_, I give and bequeath to my very _negligent_ Friend _Henry Drama_, Esq., all my INDUSTRY. And whereas the World may think this an unnecessary Legacy, forasmuch as the said _Henry Drama_, Esq., brings on the Stage _four Pieces_ every Season; yet as such Pieces are always wrote with uncommon _Rapidity_, and during such fatal Intervals only as the _Stocks_ have been on the _Fall_, this Legacy will be of use to him to revise and correct his Works. Furthermore, for fear the said _Henry Drama_ should make an ill Use of the said _Industry_, and expend it all on a _Ballad Farce_, it's my Will the said Legacy should be paid him by equal Portions, and as his Necessities may require."