of peevishness, and fatyric humour. The eagernefs of creditors, and the fallacy of diffembling friends, would for a while four his temper; his feelings were acute, and naturally fixed his attention to thofe objects from whence his uneafinefs fprung; of courfe he became, very early in life, an obferver of men and manners. Shrewd and piercing in his difcernment, he faw the latent fources of human actions, and he could trace the various incongruities of conduct arifing from them. As the ftudy of man is delightful in itself, affording a variety of difcoveries, and particularly interefting to the heart, it is no wonder that he fhould feel delight from it; and what we delight in foon grows into an habit. The various ruling paffions of men, their foibles their oddities, and their humours, engaged his attention; and from thefe principles he loved to account for the confequences which appeared in their behaviour. The inconfiftencies that flow from vanity, from affectation, from hypocrify, from pretended friendship, and in fhort, all the diffonant qualities, which are often whimsically blended together by the folly of men, could not fail to ftrike a perfon who had fo fine a fenfe of ridicule. A quick perception in this way, perhaps, affords as much real pleasure as the exercife of any other faculty of the mind; and accordingly we find that the ridicu lous is predominant through all our author's writings, and he never seems so happy, as when he is developing a character made up of motley and repugnant properties, and fhews you a man of specious pretences, turning out in the end the very reverfe of what he would appear. To fearch out, and to defcribe objects of this kind, feems to have been the favourite bent of Mr. Fielding's mind, as indeed it was of Theophraftus, Moliere, and others; like a vortex it drew in all his faculties, which were fo happily employed in descriptions of the manners, that upon the whole he must be pronounced an admirable COMIC GENIUS.

"When I call our Author a COMIC GENIUS, I would be understood in the largest acceptation of the phrafe, implying humourous and pleafant imitation of men and manners, whether it be in the way of fabulous narration, or dramatic compofition. In the former fpecies of writing lay the excellence of Mr. Fielding; but, in dramatic imitation, he must be allowed to fall fhort of the great mafters in that art; and how this hath happened to a COMIC GENIUS, to one eminently poffeffed of the talents requifite in the humorous provinces of the drama, will appear at the first blush of the

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question

T

queftion fomething 'unaccountable. But feveral caufes concurred to produce this effect. In the first place, without a tincture of delicacy running through an entire piece, and giving to good fenfe an air of urbanity and politenefs, it appears to me that no comedy will ever be of that kind, which Horace fays, will be particularly defired, and seen, will be advertised again."

This deficiency in our British Ariftophanes (from whence, though poffeffed of great comic talents, he proved not very fuccefsful in comedy) the Effayift afcribes "to the woundings which every freth difappointment gave him, before he was yet well difciplined in the fchool of life, and hackney'd in the ways of men; for in a more advanced period, when he did not write recentibus odiis, with his uneafiness just beginning to fefter, but with a calmer and more difpaffionate temper, we perceive him giving all the graces of description to incidents and paffions, which in his youth he would have dashed out with a rougher hand. An ingenious writer has paffed a judgment upon Ben Jonfen, which, though Fielding did not attain the fame dramatic eminence, may be justly applied to him. "His tafte for ridicule was ftrong, but indelicate, which made him not over-curious in the choice of his topics. And lastly, his ftyle in picturing his characters, though masterly, was without that elegance of hand, which is required to correct and allay the force of fo bold a colouring. Thus the byas of his nature leading him to Plautus, rather than Terence, for his model, it is not to be wondered that his wit is too frequently cauftic; his raillery coarse; and his humour exceffive." "Perhaps the afperity of Fielding's mufe was not a little encouraged by the practice of two great wits, who had fallen into the fame Vein before him; I mean Wycherley and Congreve, who were in general painters of harsh features, attached more to fubjects of deformity than grace; whofe drawings of women are ever a fort of Harlot's Progress, and whofe men for the most part lay violent hands upon deeds and fettlements, and generally deferve informations in the king's bench. Thefe two celebrated writers were not fond of copying the amiable part of human life; they had not learned the fecret of giving the fofter graces of compofition to their tablature, by contrafting the fair and beautiful in characters and manners to the vicious and irregular, and thereby rendering their pieces more exact imitations of nature. By making Congreve his model, it is no wonder

* Mr. Hurd.

that

that our author contracted this vicious turn, and became faulty in that part of his art, which the painters would call DESIGN. In his ftyle, he derived an error from the same fource: he sometimes forgot that humour and ridicule were the two principal ingredients of comedy; and, like his mafter, he frequently aimed at decorations of wit, which do not appear to make part of the ground, but seem rather to be embroidered upon it. There is another circumftance refpecting the drama, in which Fielding's judgment seems to have failed him the strength of his genius certainly lay in fabulous narration, and he did not fufficiently confider that fome incidents of a story, which, when related, may be worked up into a deal of pleafantry and humour, are apt, when thrown into action, to excite fenfations incompatible with humour and ridicule. I will venture to fay, that if he had refolved to shape the business and characters of his last comedy (the Wedding Day) into the form of a novel, there is not one scene in the piece, which, in his hands, would not have been very susceptible of ornament; but as they are arranged at prefent in dramatic order, there are few of them from which the tafte and good fenfe of an audience ought not, with propriety, to revolt.

"To thefe caufes of our author's failure in the province of the drama, may be added that fovereign contempt he always entertained for the understandings of the generality of mankind. It was in vain to tell him that a particular scene was dangerous on account of its coarfenefs, or because it retarded the general bufinefs with feeble efforts of wit; he doubted the difcernment of his auditors, and fo thought himfelf fecured by their ftupidity, if not by his own humour and vivacity. A very remarkable inftance of this difpofition appeared, when the comedy of the Wedding Day was put into rehearfal. An actor, who was principally concerned in the piece, and, though young, was then, by the advantage of happy requifites, an early favourite of the public, told Mr. Fielding he was apprehenfive that the audience would make free with him in a particular paffage; adding, that a repulfe might fo flurry his fpirits as to difconcert him for the reft of the night, and therefore begged that it might be omitted." "No, d-mn 'em, replied the bard, if the fcene is not a good one, let them find that out." "Accordingly the play was brought on without alteration, and, juft as had been foreseen, the difapprobation of the houfe was provoked at the paffage before objected to; and the performer, alarmed 1i3 and

and uneafy at the hiffes he had met with, retired into the greenroom, where the author was indulging his genius, and folacing himself with a bottle of champain. He had by this time drank pretty plentifully; and cooking his eye at the actor, while streams of tobacco trickled down from the corner of his mouth, What's the matter, Garrick? fays he, what are they hiffing now? Why the fcene that I begged you to retrench; I knew it would not do, and they have fo frightened me, that I fhall not be able to collect myself again the whole night. Oh! d-- mn 'em, replies the author, they HAVE found it out; have they?

"If we add to the foregoing remarks an observation of his own, namely, that he left off writing for the ftage, when he ought to have begun; and together with this confider his extreme hurry and difpatch, we fhall be able fully to account for his not bearing a more diftinguished place in the rank of dramatic writers. It is apparent, that in the frame and conftitution of his genius there was no defect, but fome faculty or other was fuffered to lie dormant, and the rest of courfe were exerted with lefs efficacy: at one time we see his wit fuperceding all his other talents; at another his invention runs riot, and multiplies incidents and characters in a manner repugnant to all the received laws of the drama. Generally his judgment was very little confulted. And indeed, how could it be otherwife? When he had contracted to bring on a play, or a farce, it is well known by many of his friends now living, that he would go home rather late from a tavern, and would, the next morning, deliver a scene to the players, written upon the papers which had wrapped the tobacco, in which he fo much delighted.

"As it was the lot of Henry Fielding to write always with a view to profit, it cannot but mortify a benevolent mind to perceive, from our author's own account, (for he is generally honeft enough to tell the reception his pieces met with) that he derived but fmall aids towards his fubfiftence from the treafuter of the playhoufe. One of his farces he has printed as it was damned at the theatre royal in Drury-lane; and that he might be more generous to his enemies than they were willing to be to him, he informs them, in the general preface to his Mircellanies, that for the Wedding Day, though acted fix nights, his profits from the houfe did not exceed fifty pounds. A fate not much better attended him in his earlier productions: but the feverity of the public, and the malice of his enemies, met with a noble alleviation from the patronage of the late

Duke

Duke of Richmond, John Duke of Argyle, the late Duke Roxborough, and many perfons of diftinguifhed rank and character; among whom may be numbered the prefent Lord Lyttelton, whofe friendship to our author foftened the rigour of his misfortunes, while he lived, and exerted itself towards his memory, when he was no more, by taking pains to clear up imputations of a particular kind, which had been thrown out against his character.

"Mr. Fielding had not been long a writer for the stage, when he married Mifs Craddock, a beauty from Salisbury. About that time his mother dying, a moderate estate at Stower in Dorfetfhire devolved to him. To that place he retired with his wife, on whom he doated, with a refolution to bid adieu to all the follies and intemperancies to which he had addicted himself in the career of a town-life. But unfortunately a kind of family-pride here gained an afcendant over him, and he began immediately to vie in fplendor with the neighbouring country fquires. With an eftate 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 fervants, all clad in coftly yellow liveries. For their mafter's honour, thefe people could not defcend fo low as to be careful in their apparel, but in a month or two were unfit to be feen; the fquire's dignity required that they fhould be new equipped; and his chief pleasure confifting in fociety and convivial mirth, hofpitality threw open his doors, and, in less than three years, entertainments, hounds and horfes entirely devoured a little patrimony, which, had it been managed with economy, might have fecured to him a state of independence for the reft of his life; and, with independence, a thing ftill more valuable, a character free from thofe interpretations, which the severity of mankind generally puts upon the actions of a man, whose imprudencies have led him into difficulties: for when once it is the fashion to condemn a character in the grofs, few are willing to diftinguish between the impulfes of neceffity, and the inclinations of the heart. Senfible of the difagreeable, fituation he had now reduced himself to, our author immediately determined to exert his best endeavours to recover, what he had wantonly thrown away, a decent competence; and being then about thirty years of age, he betook himself. to the study of the law. The friendships he met with in the courfe of his ftudies, and indeed through the remainder of his. Life, from the gentlemen of that profeffion in general, and particularly

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