of Riches, and it was necessary for his Friends to have a sharp Insight into his Want of their Services, as well as good Inclinations or Abilities to serve him. In short he was one of the best of Men, and those who knew him best will most regret his Loss." [6] In the excellent company of Henry Fielding's friends George Lillo may surely take his stand beside the 'good Lord Lyttelton,' the munificent and pious Allen, and not far from 'Parson Adams' himself. No record has survived of Fielding's share in the political struggles of his party, during his first two years of "intense application" to the law. Walpole's power had been sensibly lessened by the death of the Queen, and he was losing the support of the country and even of the trading classes. The Prince of Wales, now openly hostile to the "great man," was the titular head of an Opposition numbering almost all the men of wit and genius in the kingdom. Lyttelton, Fielding's warmest friend, had become secretary to the Prince, and was recognised as a fluent leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. Another friend, John Duke of Argyll, had joined the ranks of the Opposition in the Lords. On the whole the author of _Pasquin_, may well have hoped for a speedy fall of the "Colossos," with "its Brains of Lead, its Face of Brass, its Hands of Iron, its Heart of Adamant," and the accession to power of a party not without obligations to the fearless manager of the little theatre in the Haymarket. During these years the Opposition, even though supported by Pope and Chesterfield, Thomson and Bolingbroke, could scarcely fail to utilise the trenchant scorn, the whole-hearted vigour, the boisterous humour, of Fielding's genius; and Murphy, speaking vaguely of Fielding's legal years, says that a "large number of fugitive political tracts, which had their value when the incidents were actually passing on the great scene of business, came from his pen." It is not however till November 1739, two years and a half after the pillorying of Walpole on the Haymarket boards, that Fielding is again clearly seen, 'laying about' him, in those clamourous eighteenth-century politics.