That a man endowed with Fielding's intense joy in living--he was "so formed for happiness," wrote his cousin Lady Mary, "it is a pity he was not immortal"--should eagerly taste all the pleasures of life as a country gentleman, and that in 'the highest degree,' is entirely consonant with his character. At the very end of his life, when dying of a complication of diseases, his happy social spirit was still unbroken; for we find him even then writing of his inability to enjoy an agreeable hour "without the assistance of a companion which has always appeared to me necessary to such enjoyment." [5] Nor would the generous temper, which was ever ready to share his most needed guinea with a friend scarce poorer than himself, be infected with niggardliness by the happy enjoyment of that position to which he was by birth entitled. The well-known account therefore, given by Murphy, of the East Stour episode is exactly what we might have expected of Harry Fielding in the part of country gentleman: "To that place [_i.e._ his estate of East Stour]," says Murphy, "he retired with his wife, on whom he doated, with a resolution to bid adieu to all the follies and intemperances to which he had addicted himself in the career of a town life. But unfortunately a kind of family pride here gained an ascendant over him, and he began immediately to vie in splendour with the neighbouring country 'squires. With an estate not much above two hundred pounds a year, and his wife's fortune, which did not exceed fifteen hundred pounds, he encumbered himself with a large retinue of servants, all clad in costly yellow liveries. For their master's honour, these people could not descend so low as to be careful of their apparel, but in a month or two were unfit to be seen; the 'squire's dignity required that they should be new-equipped; and his chief pleasure consisting in society and convivial mirth, hospitality threw open his doors, and, in less than three years, entertainments, hounds, and horses, entirely devoured a little patrimony...." This account is prefaced by gross inaccuracies of fact, inexplicable in a biographer writing but ten years after the death of his subject; but, as Mr Austin Dobson says, "there can be little doubt that the rafters of the old farm by the Stour, with the great locust tree at the back, which is figured in Hutchins's _History of Dorset_, rang often to hunting choruses, and that not seldom the 'dusky Night rode down the Sky' over the prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests." Petty-minded moralists like Murphy have gravely admonished the great novelist's memory for not having safely bestowed his estate in the consols of the period; they forget that a spirit of small economy is generally the compensation awarded to the poor average of humanity. The genius of Fielding knew how to enjoy splendidly, and to give lavishly. [1] _Tom Jones_. Book xiii. Introduction.