handsome: but he had a Dignity in his Air very rarely to be seen," and who "had Wit and Humour, with an Inclination to Satire, which he indulged rather too much"--read almost like a complimentary description of Fielding himself. Like Hogarth, in that famous drinking scene to which reference has already been made, Fielding was careful to disclaim any personal portraiture in _Joseph Andrews_. In the opening chapter of Book iii. he declares "once for all that he describes not Men, but Manners; not an Individual, but a Species," although he admits that his characters are "taken from Life." In his "Preface," he reiterates this profession, adding that in copying from nature, he has "used the utmost Care to obscure the Persons by such different Circumstances, Degrees, and Colours, that it will be impossible to guess at them with any degree of certainty." Nevertheless--as in Hogarth's case--neither his protests nor his skill have prevented some of those identifications which are so seductive to the curious; and it is generally believed,--indeed, it was expressly stated by Richardson and others,--that the prototype of Parson Adams was a friend of Fielding, the Reverend William Young. Like Adams, he was a scholar and devoted to AEschylus; he resembled him, too, in his trick of snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of mind. Of this latter peculiarity it is related that on one occasion, when a chaplain in Marlborough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the enemy's lines with his beloved _AEschylus_ in his hand. His peaceable intentions were so unmistakable that he was instantly released, and politely directed to his regiment. Once, too, it is said, on being charged by a gentleman with sitting for the portrait of Adams, he offered to knock the speaker down, thereby supplying additional proof of the truth of the allegation. He died in August 1757, and is buried in the Chapel of Chelsea Hospital. The obituary notice in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ describes him as "late of Gillingham, Dorsetshire," which would make him a neighbour of the novelist. [Footnote: Lord Thurlow was accustomed to find a later likeness to Fielding's hero in his _protege_, the poet Crabbe.] Another tradition connects Mr. Peter Pounce with the scrivener and usurer Peter Walter, whom Pope had satirised, and whom Hogarth is thought to have introduced into Plate i. of Marriage _a-la-Mode_. His sister lived at Salisbury; and he himself had an estate at Stalbridge Park, which was close to East Stour. From references to Walter in the _Champion_ for May 31, 1740, as well as in the _Essay on Conversation_, it is clear that Fielding knew him personally, and disliked him. He may, indeed, have been among those county magnates whose criticism was so objectionable to Captain Booth during his brief residence in Dorsetshire. Parson Trulliber, also, according to Murphy, was Fielding's first tutor--Mr. Oliver of Motcombe. But his widow denied the resemblance; and it is hard