"Then the Champion of the Age, Being Witty, wise, and Sage, Comes with Libells on the Stage." This _Pasquin_ figure has none of the personal characteristics of Fielding, neither his "length of nose" nor his stately stature, so well suggested in the former print; but, lay figure though it be, it symbolises no less clearly the prominent part he played in these final political struggles of 1741. Also the lawyer's dress with which Fielding is here signified is noteworthy; and similar acknowledgment of his new dignities may be seen in the reference (in a copy of Walpole's _Gazetteer_ for 1740) to the attacks levelled on Sir Robert by "Captain Vinegar--_i.e._ Counsellor F---d--g." These popular indications of Fielding's activity in the fighting ranks of the Opposition, during this last year of Walpole's domination, are supplemented by the evidence of his own pen. As early as January 1741, and while the grand Parliamentary attack of the 13th of February was but brewing, he published an eighteenpenny pamphlet, in verse, satirising Sir Robert's lukewarm conduct of the war with Spain. To the title of _The Vernoniad_, there was added a lengthy mock-title in Greek, the whole being presented as a lost fragment by Homer, describing, in epic style, the mission of one "Mammon" sent by Satan to baffle the fleets of a nation engaged in war with _Iberia_. "Mammon" is a perfectly obvious satirical sketch of Walpole himself, in the execution of which the hand that had drawn the corrupt fiddler "Mr Quidam" and the tipsy "Mr Pillage" for the Haymarket stage, has in no wise lost its cunning. "Mammon" (Walpole was reputed to have amassed much wealth) hides his palace walls by heaps of "ill-got Pictures." The pictures collected at Houghton, the Minister's pretentious Norfolk seat, were famous; and the notes to the "Text" are careful to depict, in illustration, "some rich Man without the least Taste having purchased a Picture at an immense Price, lifting up his eyes to it with Wonder and Astonishment, without being able to discover wherein its true Merit lies." "Mammon" declares virtue to be but a name, and his wonted eloquence is bribery. Sir Robert asserted that every man has his price. "Mammon" preserves dulness and ignorance, "while Wit and Learning starve." Walpole's illiterate tastes were notorious. At the close of the poem, "Mammon" accomplishes the behest of his master, Satan, by bribing contrary winds to drive back the English ships (a satire on Walpole's conduct of the war); and he finally returns to hell, and "in his Palace keeps a _three Weeks'_ Feast." Sir Robert it may be noted usually entertained for three weeks, in the spring, at Houghton. The whole is a slashing example of the robust eighteenth-century political warfare, polished by constant classical allusions and quotations; and doubtless it was read with delight in the coffee houses of the Town in that critical winter of 1740-1741. Two characteristic allusions must not be omitted.