behaviour to his friend Heartfree is a convincing proof, that the true iron or steel greatness of his heart was not debased by any softer metal. Indeed, while greatness consists in power, pride, insolence, and doing mischief to mankind;-to speak out-while a great man and a great rogue are synonymous terms, so long shall Wild stand unrivalled on the pinnacle of GREATNESS."

Many of the comic touches in this tale are inimitable. Such for instance is the scene between Jonathan Wild and the Count La Ruse, when "The two friends sat down to cards, a circumstance which I should not have mentioned, but for the sake of observing the prodigious force of habit; for, though the Count knew, if he won ever so much of Mr. Wild, he should not receive a shilling, yet could he not refrain from packing the cards; nor could Wild keep his hands out of his friend's pockets, though he knew there was nothing in them."

The gloomiest period of Fielding's life came soon after the publication of these novels. Repeated and severe illness prevented him from attending not only to his business as a lawyer, but to the miscellaneous labours of his pen, while it brought with it the train of additional expenses and vexations attendant on sickness. At the same time, his wife, to whom he was deeply attached, was afflicted with a permanent and dangerous disorder, and he beheld the object of his fondest affections gradually sunk by his own follies, from comfort and even opulence, to meet a slowly but steadily approaching death in the midst of hopeless penury. On her decease, the vehemence of his sorrow and self-reproach made his friends apprehensive that the blow had deprived him of reason. Time, however, restored his wonted activity and energy. On the breaking out of the rebellion in 1745, he gave a spirited support to government, in a periodical termed "The True Patriot ;" and, with the same view, conducted a similar work in 1748, called "The Jacobite's Journal." It is to this period, when he probably lived with some of his nearest relatives, that we can best refer an anecdote, apparently authentic, which strikingly demonstrates how little selfishness there was in the dissipation or sensuality of Fielding, and how easily he could be imprudent at the dictation of his feelings. He had been, for a considerable period, in arrears with the payment of some parish taxes, for a house in Beaufort buildings, and the collector had repeatedly called. In his diffi culty, Fielding applied to Tonson, who forwarded to him ten or

twelve guineas on the deposit of a few sheets of some work on hand. While returning in the evening with his money, he met an old college friend, from whom he had been long separated, and the opportunity for a social bottle in a coffee-room was not to be neglected. In the course of the friendly and confidential conversation which naturally followed, Fielding discovered that his friend was unfortunate, and forgetting all his own woes in the possession of a few guineas, which was probably the chief distinction between them at the time, he emptied the contents of his pocket into that of his friend. On returning he told his story and the fate of the money to his sister Emilia, who answered that the collector had called in his absence. Friendship," he said, "has called for the money, and had it. Let the collector call again."

At the age of forty-three, Fielding gladly accepted the office of a paid metropolitan justice, which gave him the means of existence; though the situation was far inferior in emolument as well as in respectability to what such an appointment is at present. Fielding's marvellous powers of discerning the true workings of the human heart, and his keen perception of character must have been kept in constant exercise while he filled this office, which to many would have been repulsive, but which presented him with an infinite variety of all those scenes which he loved to watch and to depict; both those wherein occur the apparently strange truths and hard realities of common daily life, as well as scenes of startling crime and complicated villainy.

I have mentioned Fielding's two first novels; they would have been enough to ensure him fame, but it is his third work, "Tom Jones," which has given him the European celebrity which is attached to his name. I use the term "European celebrity," because translations of this work are even more popular abroad, than the original is here; and foreign critics far outvie Fielding's countrymen in their praises of it. La Harpe, for instance, goes the length of calling "Tom Jones," "le premier roman du monde, et le livre le mieux fait de l' Angleterre." Fielding says in this preface, that he was engaged on this work for many years; and the results of care and artistic skill are visible not only in the variety of characters which are introduced, the individuality which each of these possesses, and the consistent appropriateness of the language and actions ascribed to each, but also in the admirable

arrangement of the events of the story. Coleridge has pronounced a high eulogium on this, and he adds to it a beautiful and felicitous simile, which describes some of Fielding's peculiar merits more vividly than can be done by any formal definitions, or detached examples. The passage of Coleridge which I refer to is as follows:

"What a master of composition Fielding was! Upon my word, I think the Edipus Tyrannus,' 'The Alchemist,' and 'Tom Jones,' the three most perfect plots ever planned. And how charming, how wholesome Fielding always is. To take him up after Richardson is like emerging from a sick room heated by stoves into an open lawn, on a breezy day in May."—(Table Talk, Vol. i.)

Coleridge, La Harpe and Byron are sufficient witnesses of the admiration which Fielding inspires in the most gifted and highly cultured minds. But, like Shakspeare, he is the idol not merely of the most learned and refined, but of every class of readers. Probably "Tom Jones" is the most universally read work of fiction in the language. Criticism on such a book is superfluous. But there is a reproach commonly urged against Fielding, especially when "Tom Jones" is mentioned, which must not be left unnoticed, though to some extent it must remain unanswered. Fielding is accused of coarseness and immorality. Coarse he undoubtedly is when his subject leads him to describe coarse scenes and personages. But I do not think that he ever goes out of his way to find filth, as Swift does, or that he wallows in it when it lies in his path. As for the other branch of the charge, if it mean that the general object of any of Fielding's writings was immoral, or that he ever made vice attractive, or scoffed at virtue, the imputation is wholly false. Fielding's favourite characters, and which he holds up to our esteem most earnestly, are always pure and good. Such, for instance, are the Heartfrees, Allworthy, and Amelia Booth. He never narrates a vicious adventure without making it bring ridicule as well as suffering on those engaged in it. But if it be meant that Fielding narrates adventures of this description more frequently and more in detail than was necessary, the charge must, with regret and shame, be admitted to be too true. Still it only shows that he has laid himself open to the same objection which applies to nearly all the greatest comic and satiric writers. Until Aristophanes, Rabelais, Swift,

Dryden, and many more are banished from our libraries I cannot see that Fielding ought to be ostracised. We must also discriminate how much of this censure applies to the individual and how much to the age in which he lived. I do not mean that change of place or time can change the standards of Right and Wrong, of Purity and Licentiousness; but where a writer is gross in a gross age, it only shows that he has not the singular virtue of rejecting the taint of evil communications; whereas, he who writes licentiously in defiance of custom and example, must draw his impurities from the foul depths of his own bad heart. I gladly on this disagreeable subject refer to Sir Walter Scott's defence of Swift, a far worse offender than Fielding. Scott says

"The best apology for this unfortunate perversion of taste, indulgence of caprice, and abuse of talent is the habits of the times and situation of the author. In the former respect, we should do great injustice to the present day by comparing our manners with those of the reign of George I. The writings even of the most esteemed poets of that period contain passages which in modern times would be accounted to deserve the pillory. Nor was the tone of conversation more pure than that of composition; for the taint of Charles the Second's reign continued to infect society until the present reign, when, if not more moral, we have become at least more decent than our fathers."

1

Scott quotes, in a note to this passage, several curious proofs of how gross (if judged of by modern rules) the conversation of even ladies of the highest rank used to be, fifty or sixty years before the time when he was writing. He might, in fact, have done more than claim for us a superiority in this respect over our fathers. We are entitled to vary the celebrated boast of Sthenelus, and say-—

Ημεις του ΜΗΤΡΩΝ μέγ ̓ ἀμείμονες εὐχόμεθ ̓ εἶναι.

Fielding's last novel was his "Amelia," a work in which some have fancied that they could trace symptoms of declining genius. This book certainly wants the vigour and variety of " Tom Jones," but it is itself full of interest, power, and pathos. The character of Justice Thrasher is as severely and strongly drawn, as any in Fielding's other works; and neither he nor any other writer has surpassed the fearful truthfulness of the prison scenes. Above

1 Life of Swift, p. 385.

all, Fielding has made his heroine, throughout the story, an object of our admiration, and also of our anxious sympathy and interest: unlike the good personages in many novels, who are made by their authors so painfully meek, and who bear their sufferings with such elaborate propriety, that they seem fit for nothing but to be victims, and the reader feels quite disappointed when any good fortune befalls them.

Fielding's last publication was "The Covent-garden Journal, by Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knight, Censor-general of Great Britain." This periodical, published twice a-week, he continued for a year, at the end of which the number and extent of his disorders induced him to make a last effort for recovery by a voyage to Portugal. In an account of his voyage, the last production of his active pen, he gives a mournful picture of the state of his health, while his remarks, although full of humour and his wonted vivacity, show occasional depression of spirits, and more than his usual sarcasm. He survived his arrival in Lisbon but two months, and died on the 8th of October, 1754, in the 48th year of his age. (Scott's Lives of the Novelists.-Life, by Murphy.— Cunningham's Brit. Biog.)

GRAY.

Or all the men of genius whom Eton has educated, there is no one who has blended his fame more closely with hers, than the poet Gray. Every reader of his poems is reminded or informed of Eton's beauties and glories; and very few of the hundreds who annually visit or revisit Eton, look upon the old College towers, and the fair fresh scenery around them, without feeling Gray's exquisite stanzas almost spontaneously revive in the memory.

THOMAS GRAY was born in Cornhill, on the 16th of December, 1716. He was the fifth among twelve children, of Mr. Philip Gray, a citizen and scrivener of London, and was the only one of the twelve who outlived the period of infancy.

Probably much of Gray's peculiarly retiring and sensitive character was owing to the circumstance of his thus being brought up an only child; and, though his father lived for many years after Gray had arrived at early manhood, the future poet was emphatically "the only child of his mother;" for the father, a