following note: 'A celebrated mantua-maker in the Strand, famous for setting off the shapes of women.'" [10] Here is yet further proof, that Fielding loved not only to see the manners of many men, but also to render them whatever service lay within his power. Never were the warmest heart and the loftiest genius more happily united than in the creator of the English novel. Lyttelton not only suggested and approved the great Comic Epic, and enabled distressed genius to live while composing it; his own worth and benevolence, together with those of the generous Allen, afforded Fielding, as he tells us, the materials for the picture here presented of Allworthy. "The World," he says, speaking of this picture, "will not, I believe, make me the Compliment of thinking I took it from myself. I care not: This they shall own, that the two Persons from whom I have taken it, that is to say, two of the best and worthiest Men in the World, are strongly and zealously my Friends." And a point of still closer personal interest is the fact, already noticed, that in the lovely character and person of Sophia Western, Fielding raised an enduring memorial to that beloved wife whose death had occurred a few years before the publication of _Tom Jones_. The authenticity of the portrait is explicitly stated in the _Invocation_ prefixed to Book xiii. Apostrophizing that 'gentle Maid,' bright 'Love of Fame,' Fielding bids her, in the eighteenth century phrase that falls so strangely on a modern ear, "Foretell me that some tender Maid, whose Grandmother is yet unborn, hereafter, when under the fictitious Name of _Sophia_ she reads the real worth which once existed in my _Charlotte_, shall, from her sympathetic Breast, send forth the _Heaving Sigh_." Then follows, immediately, his own desire that he too may live in the knowledge and honour of far distant readers. Fielding lies buried under southern skies, far from his wife's English grave; but in the immortal pages of his masterpiece they are not divided. [1] The Fiat appointing Fielding as Magistrate for the City and Borough of Westminster, now in the House of Lords, is dated July 30, 1748. [2] On the house identified with Mr Graves' description, and now known as "Fielding's Lodge," a tablet has recently been placed, through the energy of Mr R. G. Naish of Twerton. [3] See _Life of the Earl of Hardwicke_. G. Harris. 1847. Vol. II. pp. 456-7. [4] _Tom Jones_. Dedication. [5] See Appendix for this, hitherto unpublished, receipt. [6] _London Magazine_. Feb. 1749. [7] In Germany an edition of 1771 was followed by a second in 1780, and a third in 1786. In 1765 a lyrical comedy founded on the famous novel was acted in Paris; and the same year it was transformed into a German comedy by J.H. Steffens. [8] S. T. Coleridge. Manuscript notes in a copy of _Tom Jones_, now in the British Museum. [9] Ibid. [10] J. T. Smith. _Nollekens and his Times_. Vol. i. pp. 124-5. CHAPTER XII MR JUSTICE FIELDING