Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary PrintsGodden, G. M. (Gertrude M.)
General
Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints
Godden, G. M. (Gertrude M.)
Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754 -- Correspondence
This advertisement is also in the _Covent Garden Journal_, with the
addition of "galleries" after the word _Boxes_. According to Dibdin,
_History of the Stage_, Vol. V. (preface dated 1800) p. 156, this satire
was _by_ Macklin.
APPENDIX D
_The Walpole 'anecdote'_
The following reference to Fielding occurs in a letter by Horace Walpole,
to George Montagu, dated May 18, 1749. It may be prefaced by the
statement that Fielding's strenuous opposition to Sir Robert Walpole was
not likely to be overlooked by Sir Robert's son; and by Mr Austin
Dobson's comment "his [Horace Walpole's] absolute injustice, when his
partisan spirit was uppermost, is everywhere patent to readers of his
Letters ... the story no doubt exaggerated when it reached him, loses
nothing under his transforming and malicious pen." Walpole writes: "He
[Rigby] and Peter Bathurst t'other night carried a servant of the
latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before Fielding; who, to all
his other vocations, has, by the grace of Mr Lyttelton, added that of
Middlesex justice. He sent them word he was at supper, that they must
come next morning. They did not understand that freedom, and ran up,
where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a whore, and three
Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and
the dirtiest cloth. He never stirred nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who
had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir C. Williams, and
Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that
dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs; on which he civilised."
The 'blind man' was doubtless the half brother later to be knighted for
his distinguished public services, Sir John Fielding; and, adds Mr Austin
Dobson, "it is extremely unlikely the lady so discourteously
characterised could have been any other than his wife, who Lady Stuart
tells us 'had few personal charms.' There remain the 'three Irishmen' who
may, or may not, have been perfectly presentable members of society. At
all events, their mere nationality, so rapidly decided upon, cannot be
regarded as a stigma." Bearing in mind, on the one hand, our knowledge of
Fielding as he reveals himself in his own pages, and in his friendships,
and on the other the character earned by Horace Walpole's pen, it seems
matter for doubt whether this 'anecdote' deserves even a place in an
appendix.
APPENDIX E
_Fielding's Will_
Fielding's will was discovered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, by
Mr G. A. Aitken. It is undated:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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