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Notes
These poems, no copy of which appears to have survived, were advertised in the Daily Post and Daily Journal for 10 November 1727.
See Bertrand A. Goldgar, Walpole and the Wits: The Relation of Politics to Literature, 1722-1742 (1976), pp. 102-105.
Ralph wrote the Prologue for Fielding's Temple Beau (January 1730), and as Helen Sard Hughes suggested (MP, 20 [1922-3], 19-34), Fielding may have found the idea for Tom Thumb in Ralph's The Touchstone (1728). On Fielding's friendship with Theobald, see C. B. Woods, PQ, 28 (1949), 419-424, as well as the compliment to him in Fielding's unpublished verse "Epistle to Mr. Lyttleton" (1733), lines 124-31 (Grundy, p. 244). Fielding's biographers have never adequately treated his friendship with Cooke, who, during the period 1729-32, was the author, successively, of three ministerial periodicals: viz. the London Journal, the British Journal, and The Comedian.
To the violent episodes in which Fielding became embroiled in the autumn of 1725 in Lyme Regis may now be added another occurring in London a year later, in which an acquaintance from Upton Grey accused Fielding of assaulting him on 4 November in St. James's parish (PRO: K.B.10.19. Pt. I, Michaelmas 13 George I).
Thus, when Wild and Mrs. Heartfree set out for Holland from London, they proceed via Harwich to Rotterdam (Jonathan Wild, II. ix-x).
Walpole set out for Houghton from London on Friday, 28 June; he returned to Town on Tuesday morning, 16 July, and went directly to Hampton Court (see the Daily Journal, 1, 17 July 1728).
Fielding's name does not appear in the surviving court records of Harwich, Norwich, and King's Lynn for 1728-1729; however, these records are incomplete and of course some other town may be meant.
The Craftsman (19 September 1730) announced, somewhat prematurely as it turned out, that "the Town will shortly be diverted by a Comedy of Mr. Fielding's, call'd, The Modern Husband, which is said to bear a great Reputation."
A correspondent in The Craftsman (15 March 1728/9) developed at length what would become a standard figure for Walpole: "the LEVIATHAN . . . this prodigious MAN-FISH."
See M. C. and R. R. Battestin, "A Fielding Discovery, with Some Remarks on the Canon," Studies in Bibliography, 33 (1980), 135.
Horace Walpole describes the lantern in Ædes Walpolianœ: or, A Description of the Collection of Pictures at Houghton-Hall in Norfolk, 2nd ed. (1752), p. 73. In 1749 Lord Chesterfield acquired the lantern for the hall of his newly built townhouse in Mayfair (see General Advertiser, 3 November 1749). It is frequently mentioned in accounts of Chesterfield House: see Athenœum (28 August 1869), p. 273; H. B. Wheatley and P. Cunningham, London Past and Present (1891), I. 388; W. H. Craig, Life of Lord Chesterfield (1907), p. 277, n. 1.
From Horace Walpole's annotated copy of Chesterfield's Miscellaneous Works, eds. M. Maty and J. D. Justamond (1777), I. 30 (second series): in the British Library. See also Ædes Waipolianœ (loc. cit.) where he refers specifically to "the Craftsman, which made so much Noise about this Lantern at Houghton."
See the mock-letter "to the Author of the Daily Gazetteer," signed "H. B.," in Newcomb's Miscellaneous Collection of Original Poems . . . Written chiefly on Political and Moral Subjects (1740), p. 359.
Craig, p. 277, n. 1; Rudé, Hanoverian London, 1714-1808 (1971), p. 44. In a letter of 23 August 1975 Professor Rudé was kind enough to assure me that Wheatley was his source.
No such gloss occurs in any of the copies of Ædes Walpolianœ recorded in Allen T. Hazen's Catalogue of Horace Walpole's Library (1969). Indeed, Walpole himself apparently suspected Chesterfield of having originated the joke. In a copy of the first edition (1747) now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, he wrote: "This lantern is now taken away, and a french lustre, bought at Ld Cholmondeley's sale, placed in it's room, by the Second Lord Orford, who has lately sold the celebrated Lantern to Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, one of the great opponents of Sir R.W. & no unlikely Author of the Legends of the Lantern." For this information I am indebted to Mr. R. W. Lightbown, Keeper of the Library, the V&A Museum. For their help in checking other annotated copies of this work, I wish to thank Mrs. Catherine Jestin, Mrs. Edwine M. Martz, and Dr. Charles Ryskamp.
Alluding, apparently, to a pious leader in the London Journal (6 July 1728) on the inner light of conscience in men.
The meaning of the Latin epigraph is explained as follows in CS (26 February 1737): "The Romans us'd to say, ex Pede Herculem, or, you may know Hercules by his Foot, intimating, that one may commonly judge of the Whole by a Part." For Fielding's ironic association of Walpole with Hercules, see Ch (8 May 1740): "I own there is something very ridiculous in the image of several millions of people complaining bitterly against the insults and oppression of one man. What an idea must we conceive of this man, but that he is another Hercules . . .!"
On the possibility that Fielding, on returning from Holland for the summer, might have visited Walpole in Norfolk, see above, p. 74.
Cf. PRS, referring to the "Chrysipus": "I intend here only to set down some of its chief qualities; for to enumerate all, would require a large volume" (XV. 73). Also Ch (8 December 1739), referring to Hercules' club: "I have here given only a Specimen of the Adventures of this heroic Wood; the whole are compriz'd in a large Folio . . . ."
Besides the more exact parallels to this unusual phrase quoted in the introduction (p. 82), cf. also the following: "strikes a very great awe into the eyes of the beholders" (Ch, 20 March 1739/40); "your shining qualities . . . never reach the eyes of" (JW, II. 15), "a considerable sum glittering in their eyes" (II. 40).
The essay originally carried the following introduction by Nathaniel Mist: The long Vacation among the busy World is called the dull Time of the Year; it is therefore incumbent upon us Writers (whose Province it is to entertain the Publick) as [sic] such Seasons, to present them with something that may be good for the Vapours, a Distemper arising from cloudy Weather, or an unactive Life, or too much Money; to which Purpose I shall now publish a learned Essay, which comes from a Correspondent upon the Benefit of laughing. I remember a French Comedy, in which Harlequin is introduced as a Philosopher disputing with another of the same Character concerning Man, whom he defines thus, L'Homme est une Animal risible. Thus he does not imagine Man to be a rational, but a laughing Animal, and it will be allowed, that Laughter is the only Thing which distinguishes some Men from Beasts, and this is sufficient to shew the Subject not unworthy our serious Consideration.
The physicians in TT (p. 35), mistaking a monkey for Thumb, give him a drug that poisons him. "Nauseous" is one of F's favorite words. Applied to drugs it occurs in LSM (VIII. 64), FCW (XII. 269), JSS (XII. 319), CGT (X. 129), RALF (XVI. 106), KCM (XIV. 298), Ch (27 March 1740), JWN (II. 238, 304), TJ (III. 192).
Cf. "the various laughs, titters, tehes, &c., of the fair sex" (KCM, XIV. 288). Also the laughs of Lady Charlotte and Mrs. Modern in MH (X. 39, 67) and Miss Lucy in Town: "And te, he, he, / And te, he, he! / At nothing as loud as a jest" (XII. 39).
On the "Sneer" see KCM (XIV. 288), Ch (13 Dec. 1739, 3 Jan., 12 Feb. 1739/40, 25 Mar., 10 June, 19 Aug. 1740), JA (I. 130, 183, 232, 246, 311), TJ (III. 365).
One of the milder examples of F's "low" comedy: cf. "carry off the wine and the p-ss of a great man together" (Co, XIV. 274); "a long piss-burnt beard" (JA, I. 305), or the scene in which Joseph douses the captain and Adams with the contents of a chamberpot (I. 292).
Cf. a "smile, and a strong contraction of the muscles" (KCM, XIV. 289); "as he had that perfect mastery of . . . his muscles . . . he soon conveyed a smile into his countenance" (JW, II. 63); "we are taught . . . the countenance miserable . . . before the muscles are grown too stubborn" (JWN, II. 293); and several instances in JA: comedy "doth not . . . so strongly affect and agitate the muscles" as burlesque (I. 20); "he had a perfect command of his muscles, and could laugh inwardly without . . . symptoms in his countenance" (I. 282); the comical appearance of Adams "disordered the composed gravity of [Pounce's] muscles" (I. 305).
One source of comedy in F's theory of humor, as in KCM (XIV. 287): "suppose a person well-drest should tumble in a dirty place in the street; I am afraid there are few who would not laugh at the accident." Cf. also the beau Jack Stocks laughing at the country squire Lovemore: "Ha, ha, ha . . . squire Noodle, faith, you make a very odd sort of a ridiculous figure—Ha, ha!" (L, VIII. 284); and JA, where Joseph and Fanny "would scarce have refrained laughing to see the parson rolling down the hill" (I. 220) and where Adams's tumbling off his horse affords "infinite merriment to the servants" (I. 389). The phrase itself is common in F's works, as in Ch: "we often see a blundering fellow" (6 Dec. 1739), "one of the most . . . blundering Fellows" (17 June 1740).
Swift was always one of F's favorite wits. Earlier in 1728 he published Ma under the pseudonym, "Lemuel Gulliver, Poet Laureat to the King of Lilliput" and in LSM he has Lord Formal praise "that divine collection of polite learning written by Mr. Gulliver" (VIII. 55). In JA Fielding invokes as his own Muse, "thou who didst infuse such wonderful humor into the pen of immortal Gulliver" (I. 270).
A frequent witticism in F's writings: e.g. "it is admitted to be the general Presumption, that no Physician ever takes his own Physick" (CJ, p. 20); when the College of Physicians own the sway of Common Sense, "May we be forced to take our own prescriptions" (P, XI. 210); "a quack doctor . . . who trumpets over the virtues of his pills . . . and begs to be excused from taking any of them himself" (Ch, 19 Apr. 1740); and in RALF F declares that his "prescriptions . . . have this uncommon recommendation, that I have tried them upon myself with some success" (XVI. 100). Also Dulness in D (p. 227): "Which of my Doctors would with Safety kill / Should he not only write but taste his Bill."
F so much admired this character that in TrT he invented his own version of her, "Glumdalca, of the Giants."
Cf. JA (I. 96): " 'the clergy would be certain to cry down" Adams's sermons. " 'God forbid . . . any books should be propagated which the clergy would cry down.' " See also below, n. 42.
F often celebrates the jollifying power of wine: e.g. Ma (lines 347-8), TB (VIII. 114), LW (IX. 170-171), GSO (IX. 214), JW (II. 194). See esp. Sotmore in RR (IX. 86-87), who with a friend in a tavern raises "good humour" over a "pint" of wine; and "H. Bottle" in Ch (20 May 1740), who recommends "the jolly Delight of an honest Fellow over a Bottle."
F often expressed his admiration for Butler's "inimitable Hudibras" (Ch, 27 Nov. 1739; also 1 Apr. 1740; EH, XI. 302; TJ, III. 171). Earlier in 1728 he had in a sense anticipated this association between Butler and Swift: see Ma, a poem in hudibrastics by "Lemuel Gulliver", esp. lines 21-28, 53-54.
The use of proverbs is a distinctive feature of F's humor. With the present passage compare especially TrT (IX. 54-55, n. 98): "I am not so well pleased with any written remains of the ancients, as with those little aphorisms which verbal tradition hath delivered down to us, under the title of Proverbs . . . My Lord Bacon is of opinion that whatever is known of arts and sciences might be proved to have lurked in the Proverbs of Solomon. . . . a more perfect system of ethics, as well as economy, might be compiled out of them, than is at present extant." In DQE Sancho is given whole speeches comprised entirely of proverbs (e.g. I. vi, II. vi, III, vi). See also Ch (28 Feb. 1739/40, 7 June 1740); in a later issue (28 Aug. 1740) F adds to the present list of proverbs on laughter by quoting "this Proverb, Let him laugh that wins."
Cf. MD (X. 162), where the physicians attending Davy's wife disagree in their diagnoses: "one says 'tis the dropsy; another 'tis the what-d'ye-call it, the tumpany."
Cf. JA (I. 92): "that sanative soporiferous draught, a medicine"; also Ch. (27 Mar. 1740): "Haustipotiferous Draught."
Cf.. Ch (13 Sept. 1740), referring to Tories and Whigs: "These Creatures are exceeding noxious."
Cf. KCM (XIV. 285-286): "that glavering sneering smile . . . a compound of malice and fraud . . . . that glavering smile, whose principal ingredient is malice." Also AF (VIII. 194): "As ye are done by, ye malicious, do; / And kindly laugh at him, who laughs at you"; TB (VIII. 106) "that malicious smile"; JA (I. 311) "a malicious sneer"; TJ (III. 365) "one of her malicious sneers."
Presumably a play on the sexual meaning of to die. Cf. TT (p. 31), where Cleora implores Cupid on behalf of the "Love-sick Maid": "When One you wound, you then destroy; / When Both you kill, you kill with Joy."
Cf. KCM (XIV. 287): "that honest, hearty, loud chuckle, which shakes the sides of aldermen and squires, without the least provocation of a jest; proceeding chiefly from a full belly." In TB (VIII. 107) Lady Lucy Pedant's laugh reveals her "very fine teeth." Cf. JSS (XII. 325): "Her . . . teeth blacken."
Cf. Job Vinegar writing in Ch (4 Sept. 1740) of the education of women: they are "but half taught to read and write . . . . The Women write Letters from one to another, which they call Scrolls, or, according to others, Scrols, Scroles, Scrawls, Scrauls, Skrawls, Skrauls, Scrales, Sqrals, Ksrals, (for they are all the same Word, differently spelt)"; F makes the same point in the same way in JWN (II. 211). Several of his female characters write letters that are comically misspelled: e.g. Shamela (Letter I) and her mother (Letter VIII), and Mrs. Honour (TJ, V. 189-190).
F's ignorant characters often commit such ribald blunders when they attempt to express themselves in writing: e.g. Jonathan Wild's "adwhorable" (II. 115) and in JA (I. 328) Justice Frolick's "cumfarting."
Women who suffer from the vapors are plentiful in F's plays: e.g. LSM (VIII. 42, 46, 47), TB (VIII. 157), RR (IX, 100), GSO (IX. 268), UG (XI. 83, 100), E (XI. 284), MLT (XII. 55, 62). In JWN (II. 230) this malady, personified, is said to be the patron of physicians.
One of F's favorite epithets: e.g. RR (IX. 125) "handsome reward"; LW (IX. 176) "handsome booty"; Mi (X. 215) "a good handsome soup"; UG (XI. 126) "not acting the handsomest part by me"; JA (I. 91) "introduce something handsome on him", etc. Also as an adverb (see below, "Physiognomist," n. 34): e.g. LSM (VIII. 77) "I shall be very handsomely disengaged"; DQE (XI. 29) "come down handsomely with the ready"; JA (I. 129) "if I knew how to be handsomely off with the other."
The maid's speech follows the usual formula in F, when he is representing female servants in dialogue with their mistresses: "Lord [or La], Madam . . . your Ladyship . . . ." Thus Mrs. Honour in TJ (III. 191-192), who is also fond of the word "handsome": "La, ma'am, what doth your la'ship think? the girl . . . you thought so handsome . . . . I, ma'am! . . . I am sorry your ladyship should have such an opinion of me . . . . Because I said he was a handsome man? . . . I never thought as it was any harm to say a young man was handsome . . . handsome is that handsome does." Cf. also Catchit in LSM (VIII. 32, 34, 56-57); Betty in LW (IX. 194); Lately in MH (X, 13), Jenny in L (VIII. 276-277); Slipslop in JA (I. 44-45, 316, 325).
F often satirizes the ladies' passion for quadrille, the fashionable card game: e.g. LSM (VIII. 27, 42, 55), TB (VIII. 171), L (VIII. 277), MH (X. 14-15, 50), Mi (X. 184-185, 238), UG (XI. 82, 124). The game is among "The Pleasures of the Town" ridiculed in AF (1730 version, pp. 49-52), where Punch echoes the sentiment and phrasing of the present passage by advising, "That if you would avoid all ill, / You should leave off the dear quadrille" (emphasis added); in MH (X. 15) Mrs. Worthy "has left off play."
In UG (XI. 154) Capt. Spark and Sir Simon Raffler similarly consider which is the superior entertainment, "country dancing" or "quadrille." Country dances, always associated in his thoughts with fiddlers and innocent merriment, were a favorite amusement of F's. In TT (p. 32) the King remarks of Huncamunca, "A Country Dance of Joys is in your Face"; and in TJ (IV. 261) Mrs. Fitzpatrick speaks of the "gayety and mirth . . . in a country-dance." Cf. also LSM (VIII. 42). The fiddler in LW (IX. 178) is "obliged to play some country-dances"; indeed, a number of Fielding's plays end with fiddlers doing just this—e.g. GSO (revised version), CGT, HR (XI. 267), where Walpole as Quidam fiddles while his followers dance. A whole chapter of JWN (I. xv) is devoted to Julian's life as a fiddler; and in the Battle in the Churchyard in TJ (III. 172) F thus laments the vanquished Jemmy Tweedle, who "cheered the rural nymphs and swains, when upon the green they interweaved the sprightly dance, while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to his own music. How little now avails his fiddle!"
The folly of investing in stocks is a recurrent theme in F's writings of the period: e.g. LSM (VIII. 85), TB (VIII. 110; also 109, 132-133, 177), D (p. 222). See, too, IC (X. 305), DQE (XI. 37), and L, where Mr. Stocks and Jack Stocks are brothers.
Cf. Betty in JA (I. 101), who contemplates suicide when Joseph rejects her advances: "but whilst she was engaged in this meditation, happily death presented itself to her in so many shapes—of drowning, hanging, poisoning, etc.—that her distracted mind could resolve on none." As for the particular poison contemplated, cf. Pincet in TB (VIII. 173), who disguises herself as the lawyer, Counsellor Ratsbane.
F, too, seems to have found the antics of monkeys diverting; one was among his personal effects advertised for sale after his death (Public Advertiser, 26 Dec. 1754). In LSM (VIII. 41) Lady Matchless hopes for a lover who will at least be "able to divert one in the sullenness of a monkey," and in TJ (V. 256) a young woman's pretending to learning is said to be "as absurd as any of the affectations of an ape." Eurydice in the play has a "favourite monkey" (XI. 284), and in TT (p. 35) a monkey dressed in Thumb's clothes is dosed to death by doctors. See also MH (X. 28), V (XV. 37), JA (I. 46), Co (XIV. 265).
F's contempt for stock-jobbers is apparent from several passages: e.g. Ch (16 Feb. 1739/40): "estates which have been gotten by plunder, cheating, or extortion, which would include most . . . stockjobbers"; L (VIII. 291), an entire song satirizing the breed; MLT (XII. 60), where the Jew Zorobabel is called, a "low, pitiful, stock-jobbing pick-pocket." Cf. also AF (1730, p. 31), MH (X. 35), and P (XI. 224).
Cf. JWN (II. 272) "he burst into a loud laugh" and (II. 288) "I thought Minos would have burst his sides at it." Also AF (1730, p. 36), where Witmore imagines the audience laughing "till they burst."
In TJ (IX. 109) the robbers "cried out . . . that they were dead men," and (V. 244) Fitzpatrick, having been run through the body by Jones, declares, "I am a dead man."
Two adjectives which F often applies to characters with sullen, prim dispositions, as in Sourwit the critic in HR and Counsellor Starchum in TB (VIII. 173). Thus in Ch (5 Apr. 1740) charity is said to be "a stranger to all sourness . . . of mind"; JWN (II. 268) "I was of a sour, morose temper, and hated . . . the symptoms of happiness appearing in any countenance"; O (XIV. 325) "a sour complexion"; JA (I. 194) "one of the sourest-faced women"; (145) "discreet and starch carriage."
Cf. WD (XII. 88): "Millamour, was you ever in company with my Lord Grig?— He is the merriest dog—"
Fielding found it amusing to refer to trades or arts or sciences as "Mysteries": e.g. Ma (lines 133-134); AF (1730, p. 32), GSO (IX. 225), Co (XIV. 269), N (XIV. 314), JWN (II. 293), etc. With the phrasing of the present passage, cf. JA (I. 103): "There are certain mysteries or secrets in all trades . . . which are seldom discovered."
Hippocrates and Galen are invoked as the supreme medical authorities in many passages in F's works: e.g. Ch (25 Dec. 1739, 26 Aug. 1740), JA (I. 75), CJ (pp. 5-6), and TT (p. 33), where they are cited along with Paracelsus. See also, for Hippocrates: MD (X. 154), Ch (15 Nov. 1739); for Galen: DQE (XI. 48), PRS (XV. 66).
Cf. LSM (VIII. 18) "you . . . are . . . most an enemy to yourself"; P (XI. 192): "I am my own enemy."
F's quacks regularly prescribe these three remedies: the 1st Physician in TT (pp. 33-34) has "put on Four Blisters . . . a Purge, and a Vomit"; and in DQE (XI. 48) Dr. Drench orders "vomiting, purging, blistering" and later (68) predicts dire consequences if his patient "be not . . . blistered, vomited, purged, this instant." In OMTW (X. 348-9) Blister the apothecary similarly recommends "purging, and vomiting, and blistering."
Cf. JA, where Barnabas cites "the example of the primitive ages" of the clergy (I. 95), and Adams believes he's met "a Christian of the true primitive kind" (I. 200). Also JW (II. 183), where it is said that Mrs. Heartfree "might tempt a saint to abandon the ways of holiness."
Both Joseph Andrews (I. 81) and Tom Jones (IV. 72-74) find themselves in this predicament when they are committed to the care of doctors.
"Sweetness" is the quality Fielding associates with the "temper" and "countenance" of Fanny in JA (I. 176) and Sophia in TJ (III. 148, V. 208). Cf. also Mrs. Partridge in TJ (III. 70), whose "countenance did not denote much natural sweetness of temper."
A consistent theme of F's satire is the empty promises of great men and courtiers, particularly Walpole. In Ch (17 Jan. 1739/40), for example, the following are among the "unintelligible sounds" great men utter: "believe me, depend on me, I'll certainly serve you another time, this is promised"; and item 5 in "Nicodemus Bungle's" course of lectures on the art of prime-ministry is: "Promises of all Sorts and Sizes . . . nothing in them" (28 Feb. 1739/40). With the reference in the present passage to "the first Vacancy," compare Ch (14 Feb. 1739/40): "talk of vacancies, good things, snug places, &c. . . . I have as great contempt for the promises of Mr. Forage [i.e. Walpole] as any man living can have"; and also the promising gentleman's assurance to the alehouse-keeper in JA (I. 207)—"I was certain of the first vacancy". Cf. also LW (IX. 162), DQE (XI. 34), P (the character of Col. Promise and passim), KCM (XIV. 293), JW (II. 21), and EH (XI. 299), where Pillage [i.e. Walpole] gives assurances—"you shall be provided for in time. You must have patience . . . depend on me you shall have a part."
"Quidam" ("Somebody") is F's name for Walpole in HR. Cf. P (XI. 191), where the daughter of the Mayor says of the Daily Gazetteer, which Walpole distributed gratis throughout the country: "my papers are paid for too by somebody."
For an excellent brief discussion of Fielding's interest in this subject, see H. K. Miller, Essays on Fielding's 'Miscellanies': A Commentary on Volume One (1961), pp. 192-194.
Together with such similar compounds as "Fellow-Christians" and "Fellow Subjects" occurring later in the essay, F often uses the expression "Fellow-Creature(s)"—here as in the following essay on hunters and politicians from The Craftsman (see that text, n. 4). Among many instances, see the following: FC (line 10), JA (I. 195, 215, 264), JW (II. 204), JWN (II. 235), TJ (III. 25). Other variants include "Fellow-Citizens" (Ch, 22 Nov. 1739; KCM, XIV. 282); "Fellow-Sufferers" (TJ, V. 37); "Fellow-Soldiers" (JWN, II. 305); "Fellow-Travellers" (Ch. 27 Dec. 1739; JA, I. 108, 109, 167, 217, 284, 314; TJ, IV. 103, V. 293).
F often poses as one who has mastered the "Rules" of a particular science or art, as in Ch, where he lays down rules for critics (27 Nov. 1739), for angling and politics (15 Dec. 1739), for perfecting impudence (29 Jan. 1739/40), for subduing the passions (2 Feb. 1739/40). In the Preface to JA he sets down the rules for the comic-epic; in JW, those for "greatness"; in Co, those for good-breeding. With his insistence in the present paragraph that the science of physiognomy is governed by rules "certain" and "infallible," cf. KCM: "rules, the . . . infallibility of which" (XIV. 283); "infallible guide . . . greatest certainty . . . . so certain a method" (289); "more certain rule" (301).
Cf. Ch (15 July 1740), where Hercules Vinegar, recounting the history of lost arts and sciences, declares that "such as were obliged to converse with the Devil for their Knowledge, were named Conjurers"; his father, Nehemiah, has set up a political "conjuring Shop."
"Squint's" general pose and many of his phrases anticipate those of "Nicodemus Bungle" in Ch (28 Feb. 1739/40), who, after protesting that "the Mysteries of Politics . . . require neither the Talents of a Conjurer, nor so much Labour and Instruction to comprehend," declares that the "Art of Prime-Ministry" is a very different matter: "An Art which to those who are not versed in it, doth indeed seem to abound in Mysteries . . . . But as dark and difficult as this is, I have, with infinite Pain and Study, at last made myself a perfect Master of it, and intend to convert my Knowledge at once to the Use of my Country." Ch indeed contains numerous echoes of "Squint's" declaration: politics is said to be "a mystery . . . a secret not easy to be apprehended . . . reserved only for the adepts" (14 Feb. 1739/40); Walpole is represented as a quack who, because of his success, has been thought "a Conjurer . . . but indeed his Success is entirely owing to an Art which no Man was ever so great a Master of" (15 July 1740). The present paragraph contains two concepts which Fielding repeatedly uses: that of the adept in a science, and of a conjurer or conjuring. For the former, see Ch (15 Nov. 1739, 29 Jan., 14 Feb., 13 Mar. 1739/40, 15, 22 Apr. [where F corrects Cibber for misusing the word], 8 May, 12 June, 16 Aug. 1740) and JW (II. 89). References to conjurers: Ma (Dedication), LSM (VIII. 86), AF (1730, p. 49), RR (IX. 117), LW (IX. 174), TrT ("Merlin, a Conjurer"), L (VIII. 293), GSO (revised, p. 77), MH (X. 15), Mi (X. 205), HR (XI. 245).
Cf. Ch: "brought to that height of purity" (22 Dec. 1739); "an height to which I myself have arrived" (25 Dec. 1739); "raise and elevate human nature to the highest pitch of goodness" (22 Jan. 1739/40); "bring them to this height of perfection" (29 Jan. 1739/40). Also JW (II. 204): "arrived at that degree of greatness."
The place of excise-men and custom-house officers in this list will be clear from P (XI. 183): "the customs and the excise afford a great number of places." Also Ch (15 May 1740): "Resolv'd, To prevent Corruption, that . . . no Wife of an Exciseman or Customhouse Officer shall be allowed any Vote."
Cf. the division of society in JW into two classes, "of those who employ hands for the use of the community in which they live, and of those who employ hands merely for their own use, without any regard to the benefit of society" (II. 47); or "Let us consider ourselves all as members of one community, to the public good of which we are to sacrifice our private views" (155). Also JWN (II. 244): "you will . . . sacrifice your own happiness to the public good."
Cf. Mrs. Honour in TJ (III. 359): "it is less wicked to hurt all the world than one's own dear self."
Cf. TrT (IX. 24): "When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough. / I've done my duty, and I've done no more."
Cf. Mi (X. 185): "I have a whole budget of news to tell you." F adopts this usage in his pseudonym "Mum Budget" (CS, 13 May 1738).
Cf. JWN (II. 231), as the narrator arrives at the Presence Chamber in the Palace of Death: "a buzz ran through it, as in all assemblies, before the principal figure enters."
Cf. DAD (XVI. 79), where Alexander is said to receive the "worship . . . . [the] adoration of slaves." Also Mrs. Trulliber's attitude toward her husband in JA (I. 189): she "carried her adoration to an opinion of his infallibility . . . . and now worshipped her husband."
Cf. Ch (13 Dec. 1739), where this epithet is applied to Walpole no fewer than four times: "a huge over grown fellow . . . . the huge man," etc.
As with "lolling" and "grinning" to follow, F was fond enough of this adjective to use it as the name of two of his characters, "Lord Lazy" (MH) and "Doctor Lazy" (MD, X. 148). Especially relevant in the present context are CGT (X. 114), where the chairman declares that those who ride instead of walk are "lazy rascals," and JW (II. 141, 150), where Wild is several times said to be "lazy" for employing others to rob for him.
Cf. S (pp. 333-334): "it doth not become me to loll in a chariot." "Lady Loller" figures in UG (XI. 137).
F, who later in this essay refers to Walpole twice more as the "Grinner," emphasizes this feature of the minister's countenance in Ch: "the art of grinning with a heavy heart is the very greatest qualification of a statesman" (15 Dec. 1739); lecturing on the art of prime-ministry, "Nicodemus Bungle" stresses the qualification of "A very particular broad Grin, the like never seen before" (28 Feb. 1739/40); "I never saw a pernicious Knave without a Grin upon his Face" (28 Aug. 1740). "Beau Grin" is a character in LSM (VIII. 25).
The lions kept at the Tower of London are referred to in several of F's plays: L (VIII. 291), MH (X. 45), MLT (XII. 37-38). It is tempting to see this reference as a compliment to F's good friend, the painter John Ellys, whom Walpole appointed Keeper of the Lions; but Elly's appointment appears to date from 1739. Cf. CGJ (29 Aug. 1752): "Mr. Ellis informs me that he never could discover any the least Indication of Contempt in the Lions under his Care."
F often uses these words, cringe and abject, to describe the behavior of sychophants: e.g. Co (XIV. 257), where he characterizes the wrong attitude toward one's superiors as "an abject and base servility . . . . cringes [that] fall little short of prostration." In JWN (II. 264) Julian thus recalls his life as a general: "A bow, a smile, a nod from me, as I passed through cringing crowds, were esteemed as signal favours"; and in Ch (2 Oct. 1740) the led captain is said to "fawn in a very abject and submissive Manner" on those who will feed him. In general, compare the behavior of Walpole and his followers in the present passage with that of the proud parson and his parishioners in JA (I. 198): "I often laugh when I behold him on Sundays strutting along the churchyard like a turkey-cock through rows of his parishioners, who bow to him with as much submission, and are as unregarded as a set of servile courtiers by the proudest prince in Christendom."
The term seems synonymous with "Leviathan," a name for Walpole among Opposition writers and used by Capt. Merit in MH (X. 21). Cf. similar compounds elsewhere in F: a "man-fool" (WD, XII. 107); "the strange man-woman" (P, XI. 179); "she-dog" (JA, I. 98).
Following Aristotle (Politics, II. vi. 19) and Horace (Satires, I. iv. 25-26), F regarded avarice and ambition as complementary passions exemplifying negative and positive excess. They are thus paired in many of his works: UG (XI. 153), S (p. 306), N (XIV. 317-318), DAD (XVI. 82), TJ (III. 286), CGJ (4 Nov. 1752).
F recalls the old axiom expressed by Capt. Bilkum in CGT (X. 115): "If born to hang, [I] never shall be drowned." The infant Tom Jones is said to have been discovered "in a box so full of rain-water, that he would certainly have been drowned, had he not been reserved for another fate" (IV. 94)—that fate being "that he was certainly born to be hanged" (III. 107). As Jonathan Wild contemplates drowning himself in the sea, F contrives an entire episode to dramatize this axiom, applying it again to a character who is meant to suggest Walpole (II. 90-93). Cf. also Punch and Joan's song in AF (1730, p. 43): "Would you were hanged or drowned in a ditch."
Hanging, F declares in JW (II. 199), is "the proper catastrophe of a great man" —a sentiment he expressed in many other places as well: e.g. RR (IX. 93), MH (X. 20), Ch (8 Jan. 1739/40). Most particularly, it was the appropriate fate for the Great Man, Sir Robert Walpole—whether he appears as Robin in GSO (IX. 221-222) or as Jonathan Wild. In JW (II. 197-201) F devotes an entire chapter to expounding this thesis—and in a manner that recalls the present passage in several ways: in the notion that "Fortune at his birth . . . ordained" Wild to hang; in the observation that a "good judge" (such as "Tom Squint") will see that the deeds of such a great man deserve this conclusion; in the ironic representation of hanging as an ascent, as Wild's "highest consummation," his "apotheosis," his "exalted end"; and in echoing the phrase "going upstairs out of the World" (emphasis added)—viz. "swung out of this world . . . . going this way out of the world."
In a note to his chapter "Of hats" in JW, F remarks "that custom, which hath descended through all nations, of showing respect by pulling off this covering, and that no man is esteemed fit to converse with his superiors with it on" (II. 74, n.). Thus in S (p. 318) Parson Williams complains that Booby "met my father without . . . pulling off his hat"; in JA (I. 198) a certain clergyman is so proud "he will not move his hat" to his parishioners (cf. F's phrase in the present passage); and Tom Jones (III. 123) is similarly "deficient in outward tokens of respect" to Thwackum, "often forgetting to pull off his hat." See also Ch (22 Nov. 1739), JA (I. 89), TJ (IV. 234).
This oath is often uttered by F's bullies when affecting that "fierce aspect" which, he observes in KCM (XIV. 288), is "the symptom only of a bully": e.g. Bob Bagshot in JW (II. 27) and Wild himself (89-90, 197); Bellarmine and the man of courage in JA (I. 131-132, 152).
Another of F's favorite adjectives—applied, for example, to apothecaries (OMTW, X. 338), Tories (P, XI. 181), "creatures" (S, p. 333, and JA, I. 325), eyes (JA, I. 98), a name, and the hawk that killed Sophia's songbird (TJ, III. 152, 295).
Cf. AF (1730, p. 16): "To see a fellow . . . toss up his empty noddle with a scornful disdain."
Cf. P (XI. 182), where the mayor's daughter, who favors the Court Party, parrots the ministerial charge that those in Opposition were Jacobites at heart and hence sympathetic to Roman Catholicism: "Yes, I hope I am a friend to my country; I am not for bringing in the pope."
Cf. Ch (19 Feb. 1739/40): "all men in power will naturally first provide for their own relations, yet . . . this preference should not extend itself to the most distant affinity by marriage of those relations; nay, even to their very menial dependants . . . conferring genteel places, those of profit and even of trust on the lowest servants, without any regard to birth, education, or capacity."
"Bullies" are a favorite target of F's satire: e.g. KCM (XIV. 288), Ch (20 Nov. 1739, 13 Mar. 1739/40), JW (II. 28, 190), JWN (II. 264). With the present association of bullies and cuckolds, see esp. RR (IX. 88), where Ramble means "to lessen the number of bullies, and increase that of cuckolds."
Cuckolds and cuckolding are, of course, a recurrent subject of F's comedies. But the theme, as well as the phrase itself, of the "contented cuckold" is especially prominent in MH, which F was composing at about this same time. Besides the passage quoted in the introduction above (p. 76), the idea of the "willing" or "voluntary" cuckold is expressed elsewhere in the play (X. 10, 93), by Gaywit in particular: "And I am mistaken, if many husbands in this town do not live very comfortably by being content with their infamy, nay, by being promoters of it" (35).
In "the hunting adventure" in JA (Bk. III, ch. vi) F similarly calls the squire's attendants "dogs of his own species"—"human . . . curs," who, he remarks, "did indeed no great honor to the canine kind" (I. 269-270, 276).
When referring to Diogenes the Cynic, F invariably stressed the root meaning of the Greek kynikos (dog-like, currish): e.g. TG (XII. 251), "the cynic's snarling pride"; DAD (XVI. 80, 83).
In "the hunting adventure" in JA (I. 269) F likens the malevolent squire to Nimrod, thus emphasizing the analogy in the first edition: "he was a great Hunter of Men".
For F's use of such compounds as "Fellow-Creatures" and "Fellow-Subjects" (below), see above, "Physiognomist," n. 1. A constant theme of F's writings is that tyrants and conquerors—such "great men" as Alexander, Caesar, Charles XII of Sweden—have throughout history satisfied their ambitions at the cost of thousands ruined and destroyed: cf. V (XV. 43, n.), where he speaks of the "honours in all ages paid to conquerors (alias robbers) tyrants (alias murderers) and prime ministers (alias plunderers)"; also DQE (XI. 32), TG (XII. 251), N (XIV. 317), DAD (XVI. 78-9, 80-81). The theme recurs in JW (e.g. II. 2-3, 46, 105), but with the phrasing of the present passage, cf. the following, describing "a CONQUEROR, a TYRANT . . . at the head of a multitude of prigs, called an army, to molest their neighbors; to introduce rape, rapine, bloodshed, and every kind of misery among their own species" (66-67, emphasis added); "conquerors who have . . . destroyed the countries and cities of their fellow-creatures, from no other provocation than that of glory" (204, emphasis added).
References to Pope in F's works are plentiful, and in this early period they are not always complimentary, especially when he was composing poems for the eyes of Lady Mary. In D (p. 224) he disparages Windsor Forest; but no doubt his true opinion of that poem is expressed in JVL (XVI. 248) and in EL (p. 242): "I too with thee and with the World admire / The Bard in Windsor Groves who strung his Lyre."
Among many other references in his works, see Ch (15 Mar. 1739/40), where F discusses Ovid's "exuberance of fancy" in the Metamorphoses, "that admirable work."
In TJ (V. 254) Western declares: "I'd rather be run by my own dogs, as one Acton was, that the story-book says was turned into a hare, and his own dogs killed un and eat un."
Cf. DQE (XI. 17-18): "Sir, your true English squire and his hounds are as inseparable as your Spanish and his Toledo. He eats with his hounds, drinks with his hounds, and lies with his hounds; your true arrant English squire is but the first dog-boy in his house." Also F (XII. 188), where it is said that only "something of vast importance" could draw Sir Gregory Kennel from his foxhounds.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, III. 206-225. F burlesques this celebrated passage in "the hunting adventure" in JA (I. 271-272), where Adams, like Actæon, is set upon by the hounds—Rockwood and Jowler, Ringwood and Fairmaid and Caesar, Thunder and Plunder, and Wonder and Blunder. "Ringwood" is a name used by both Arthur Golding and George Sandys in their translations of this passage.
With the irony of the word "noble" applied to the sound of hunting dogs in full cry, cf. TJ (IV. 305): "a pack of hounds began to open their melodious throats." Cf. also GSO (rev., p. 86), DQE (XI. 17), Ch (17 Jan. 1739/40), JA (I. 267).
One of F's favorite terms, which he used both in the technical sense of the denouement of a play and in the looser sense of an unhappy final event: e.g. Trt (IX. 10, 71 n. 140), P (XI. 193), F (XII. 231), EH (XI. 305), JA (I. 99, 162, 205), RALF (XVI. 102), JW (II. 146, 158, 194, 197, 199), TJ (IV. 169, 194).
Cf. JA (I. 268), where the hounds similarly mistake Adams for their usual game: "some of them (by mistake perhaps for the hare's skin) laid hold of the skirts of his cassock." Adams, indeed, narrowly escapes the fate of Actæon; for the "hounds, in devouring" the hare, thus began to worry the parson, and had he not wakened in time, "must certainly have tasted his flesh, which delicious flavor might have been fatal to him" (269).
This formula, which occurs in Cicero's De Natura Deorum (III. xxxii. 81: "Dies deficiat si velim enumerare"), also occurs in Ch (21 Feb. 1739/40): "It would be needless . . . to enumerate any more instances"; cf. also PRS (XV. 73, quoted above, "Lanthorn," n. 3). Often F alters the Latin, as in CS (13 May 1738), "si velim omnia percurrere Dies deficeret": e.g. TP (28 Jan. 1746), CGJ (7 Jan. 1752), and Englished in Ch (1 Mar. 1739/40), "It would be endless to run through the several branches of this art."
Cf. RR (IX, 143), where Dabble reads "the Lying Post" to Politic: "'Fontainbleau, January the 23rd. Yesterday his Majesty went a hunting." Also F (XII. 193), where Young Kennel has been "hunting with the King of France."
In Ch (4 Sept. 1740) it is said that country squires "devote their Lives to the Destruction of wild Beasts."
In JA (I. 273) the hunting squire enjoys "bull or bear baiting" and the bitch "Fairmaid" has "worried bulls" (272).
Cf. Ch (29 July 1740, "Home News"): Walpole and his party, now meeting at Houghton, "are principally taken up with laying out for a new Pack of stanch Hounds to stock the m[inisteria]l Kennel: In which not only no Pains or Expence will be spar'd to see that they are fleet-footed, well-mouth'd, quick-nostrill'd, &c. but, likewise, to teach them to leap over a Stick, fetch and carry, and perform all the Tricks of the most tractable Spaniels."
Cf. the huntsman in JA (I. 272-3), who "lifted his voice, and called his hounds from the fight, telling them, in a language they understood, that it was in vain to contend longer." Western, too, knows "how to encourage the dogs with his voice, and to animate the hunt with his holla"; and he is skillful "in drawing the dogs when they were at a fault" (TJ, IV. 306-307).
As in JA (I. 112) this was F's chief complaint about hunters: "'He no more regarded a field of wheat when he was hunting than he did the highway; that he had injured several poor farmers by trampling their corn under his horse's heels . . . . [he] pursued his game over a field of corn"; this is also true of the squire who shoots the Wilsons' dog (I. 259), as it is of Western and his fellow sportsmen in TJ (IV. 305). See also DQE (XI. 18), Ch (8 Dec. 1739).
Cf. L (VIII. 270): "The Sportsman esteems / The horse . . . / That leaps o'er a pitiful gate"—an activity in which both Frank Kennel (F, XII. 189) and Tom Jones (III. 140) excel.
The huntsman in JA (I. 274) hopes the hounds that attacked Adams have not learned to "follow vermin instead of sticking to a hare"; in a note (278, n.) F refers to hounds "that will hunt fox or other vermin." Also TJ (III. 268).
Cf. Grizzle's simile in TT (p. 27), who declares that Thumb "made" the giants he claims to have killed, "As Fox-hunters bring Foxes to a Wood, / And then with Hounds they drive them out again"; also TrT (IX. 31-32). And Scut the huntsman's song in DQE (XI. 39): "A brushing fox in yonder wood / Secure to find we seek; / For why, I carried, sound and good, / A cartload there last week."
Cf. Western in TJ (IX. 306): "the squire pursued over hedge and ditch, with all his usual . . . alacrity." This recklessness causes Sophia to implore Jones "not to lead her father through so many dangers in hunting . . . . not to ride so madly, nor to take those dangerous leaps" (III. 160). Also DQE (XI. 40).
Perhaps F's favorite way of describing one who risks bodily injury: e.g. in GSO (IX. 245) Robin warns William that he will overturn the coach "and break both master and mistress's necks; it is always neck or nothing with you"; in TJ (III. 26) F fears that his description of Allworthy's estate will bring "the reader's neck . . . into danger" and he worries "how to get thee down without breaking thy neck" (28). In the same novel it is said that "none who . . . set much value on their necks" (III. 345) would pass through a certain bad neighborhood. But with the present context and phrasing, cf. esp. (194), where Sophia Western by accompanying her father in the chase, hopes "to restrain his impetuosity, and to prevent him from so frequently exposing his neck to the utmost hazard"; and Tow-wouse in JA (I. 87), who "ran downstairs without any fear of breaking his neck."
Cf. TJ (IV. 306-07): "Sportsmen, in the warmth of a chase, are too much engaged to attend to any manner of ceremony, nay, even to the offices of humanity: for, if any of them meet with an accident by tumbling into a ditch, or into a river, the rest pass on regardless, and generally leave him to his fate." In "the hunting adventure" in JA (I. 268) F dramatizes this behavior of hunters.
F often expressed his admiration for Addison, whose periodical, The Freeholder (1715-16), provided him with topics and ideas for TP and JJ.
Cf. Ch (20 Dec. 1739): "'tis my humble Opinion (for I should be very loath to enter the Lists with so formidable a Champion as Ovid) . . . ."
Cf. TrT (IX. 8): "as it is indeed in some measure incumbent on me"; RR (IX. 147): "I think it incumbent on us all"; JW (II. 164): "The good magistrate . . . thought it incumbent on him."
F often insists on this point: e.g. in Ch (29 Mar. 1740) he declares that "There is nothing so unjustifiable as the general abuse of any nation or body of men," and regrets "the custom of throwing scandal on a whole profession for the vices of some particular members." See also Ch (12 Feb., 6 Mar. 1739/40), Co (XIV. 271), TJ (IV. 33).
Cf. Ch (15 Apr. 1740) again referring to Walpole: "But . . . my readers will easily suggest to themselves numberless instances of this consummate inperfection, at least every one will be able to furnish himself with the instance of one whose greatness they can account for only from his excellence in badness in every kind."
F used this expression repeatedly: e.g. Ch (16 Feb. 1739/40) "This virtue [charity] hath shone forth brighter in our time"; (21 Feb. 1739/40) "one [species of charity] which shines forth in a very particular manner"; (22 July 1740) "to shine forth in gilded Equipages abroad"; DAD (XVI. 81) "There is more greatness . . . in thee than at present shines forth"; TJ (III. 179) "Sophia shone forth that day with more gayety and sprightliness than usual."
Cf. Ch (20 Nov. 1739) members of learned societies "might have shined out very illustriously"; (29 Nov. 1739) "Qualities, that would add a Lustre"; TJ (III. 354) "beauty in its highest lustre"; (IV. 249) "Daylight . . . in its full lustre."
Alluding, no doubt, to the suppression of Gay's Polly in December 1728. F praised Gay in Ch (1 Mar. 1739/40, 6 Sept. 1740); but in D, which satirizes the Scriblerus group, Gay is ridiculed as Ilar and Polly is represented as a "Dull, senseless Libel level'd at the Great" (p. 230; also 237-239).
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