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Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints — John Shaqi

Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary PrintsGodden, G. M. (Gertrude M.)

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Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints

Name: Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints
Author: Godden, G. M. (Gertrude M.)

Godden, G. M. (Gertrude M.)

Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754 -- Correspondence

and describes himself as condemned to live in a dwelling half house, half
shed, with a garden full of docks and nettles, the fruit-trees bearing
only snails--

  "Happy for us had Eve's this Garden been
  She'd found no Fruit, and therefore known no Sin,"--

the dusty meadows innocent of grass, and the company as innocent of wit.
This sketch of rural enjoyments recalls a later utterance in _Jonathan
Wild_, concerning the votaries of a country life who, with their trees,
"enjoy the air and the sun in common and both vegetate with very little
difference between them." With one or two eloquent exceptions there is
scarce a page in Fielding's books devoted to any interest other than that
of human nature.

The second fragment is a graceful little copy of verse addressed to
_Euthalia_, in which we may note, by the way, that the fair Rosalinda's
charms are ungallantly made use of as a foil to Euthalia's dazzling
perfections. As Fielding found these verses not unworthy of a page in his
later _Miscellanies_ they are here recalled:

  TO EUTHALIA.

  WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1728.

  "Burning with Love, tormented with Despair,
  Unable to forget or ease his Care;
  In vain each practis'd art _Alexis_ tries;
  In vain to Books, to Wine or Women flies;
  Each brings _Euthalia's_ Image to his Eyes.
  In _Lock's_ or _Newton's_ Page her Learning glows;
  _Dryden_ the Sweetness of her Numbers shews;
  In all their various Excellence I find
  The various Beauties of her perfect Mind.
  How vain in Wine a short Relief I boast!
  Each sparkling Glass recalls my charming Toast.
  To Women then successless I repair,
  Engage the Young, the Witty, and the Fair.
  When _Sappho's_ Wit each envious Breast alarms,
  And _Rosalinda_ looks ten thousand Charms;
  In vain to them my restless Thoughts would run;
  Like fairest Stars, they show the absent Sun."

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints

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