In this last word of Fielding's active political career (for his later anti-Jacobite papers are concerned rather with Constitutional and Protestant, than with party strife), a retirement from political collar-work is certainly signified. His reasons for such a step escape us in the mist of those confused and heated conflicts. His detestation of Walpole's characteristic methods may very well have roused his ever ready fighting instincts, whereas, once Walpole's fall was practically assured the weak forces of the Opposition (William Pitt being yet many years from power) could have availed but little to enlist his penetrating intellect. And he may by now have found that politics afforded, in those days, but scanty support to an honourable pen. But supposition, in lack of further evidence, is fruitless; all that we can clearly perceive is that this winter of sickness and distress marks a final severance from party politics. The hungry 'hackney writer' of the lean sides and shagged coat, if not, indeed, turned to graze in the fat meadow of his dream, was at last freed from an occupation that could but shackle the genius now ready to break forth in the publication of _Joseph Andrews_. [1] A tantalising reference to one such acquaintance occurs in Lord Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_. Vol. v. p. 357. In notes made by Lord Camden's nephew, George Hardinge, for a proposed Life of the Lord Chancellor there is this entry: "formed an acquaintance ... with Henry Fielding ... called to the Bar." [2] Now in the possession of W. K. Bixby, Esq., of St Louis, U.S.A. [3] In a manuscript copy of the Minutes, in the possession of the present writer. [4] _London Daily Post_, June 18-26, 1741. [5] The hard frost would be the terrible preceding winter of 1739-40, a winter long remembered for the severity of the cold, the cost of provisions, and the suffering of the poor. CHAPTER VIII JOSEPH ANDREWS "This kind of writing I do not remember to have seen hitherto attempted in our language." Preface to _Joseph Andrews_. On the 2nd of February 1742 Sir Robert Walpole, the 'Colossos' of popular broadsides, under whose feet England had lain for exactly thirty years, received his final defeat; and the intrepid wit, who for the past eight years had heartily lashed the tyrannies and corruptions of that 'Great Man,' enjoyed at last the satisfaction of witnessing the downfall of the _Mr Quiddam_ and _Mr Pillage_ of his plays, of the _Plunderer_ and _Mammon_ of his pamphlets, of the _Brass_ on whom many a stinging blow had fallen in the columns of his _Champion_.