FIELDING, HENRY, born April 22, 1707, was the eon of General Edmund Fielding, a descendant of the earls of Denbigh. He was nearly connected with the ducal family of Kingston, and thereby with Lady M. W. Montagu. Being designed for the bar, be was removed from Eton to the University of Leyden, where he is said to have studied with application ; but owing to the limited nature of his finances, he was compelled to return to London, where he plunged into all the dissipation of the metropolis. His first resource as a means of support was writing for the stage ; end between 1727 and 1736 he produced eighteen comedies and farces, of which not more than two or three are now known or read.
About the year 1736 Fielding married. His wifo's portion and a small estate, inherited, as is supposed, from his mother, enabled him to retire from London; but his habitual extravagance again brought him into difficulties, and after three years he became a student at the Temple, with the view of retrieving his fortune at the bar. At the usual time he was called; but gout, the consequence of his early dissipation, rendered it impossible for him to practise with regularity sufficient to insure success. During the interval which preceded his call to the bar, ho supported his family by pamphlets and essays on the passing occurrences of day ; and at this time two events happened which seem to have influenced the whole of his remaining career : the death of his wife, to whom he was fondly attached, and the publication of Richardeon's novel of ' Pamela,' which gave him an opportunity to enter upon an employment which he found prefer able to the study of law. He now wrote what professed to be the counterpart of 'Pamela,' tho history of her brother, 'Joseph Andrews,' who undergoes a variety of trials of a kind similar to those which make Pamela's career so interesting. The whole book is intended as a satire on 'Pamela;' but the author visibly warms with his subject, and draws characters which perhaps none but himself could have drawn in any case, and not even he, had he kept his primary object distinctly in view.
The character of Parson Adams has been applauded and appre ciated so often that it would be vain to say anything in its praise; Nichols (` Literary Anecdotes,' iii., 371) informs us, that it wag taken from a clergyman named Young, and indeed it seems almost impos sible that so peculiar a character should have been the work of imagination, for there is perhaps scarcely anything so difficult for a novelist as to draw singularity without allowing it to lapse into improbability and extravagance. Sir Walter Scott relates (' Life of
Fielding,' pp. 95, 99), that Richardson took mean and petty methods of revenging himself upon his successful satirist, by depreciating him before members of his own family, and by endeavouring to diminish his reputation as an author. Fielding however did not make reprisals, but contented himself with noticing Clarissa in a favourable manner, in a publication which he at that time conducted, called 'The Jacobite Journal.' After the publication of 'Joseph Andrews,' Fielding wrote another play, ' The Wedding Day,' and a tract called 'The Journey from this World to the next,' which were followed by 'Jonathan 'Wild.' The Rebellion of 1745 induced Fielding to take the direction of a paper called 'The Jacobite Journal,' directed against the party known by that name, and in support of the Hanoverian succession. This, with other publications of the same kind, at last obtained him a small pension and the place of Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster, which he is said to have owed to the influence of Lord Lyttelton.
Horace Walpole, with his usual mixture of foppery and malice, gives a very unfavourable account of Fielding's habits at this period, but the account is so manifestly written for effect, and eo palpable a distortion of tho truth, that little regard need be paid to it—if indeed • sufficient explanation cannot be given of the circumstances related (see Lawrence's 'Life of Fielding.') Fielding's conduct as a magis trate proved a strong contrast to the usual iniquity of the so-called trading justices, one of whom he describes so forcibly in 'Amelia' under the name of 'Justice Thrasher.' Amidst the laborious duties of a magistrate and pamphleteer, for Fielding was both at once, he contrived to produce ' Tom Jones,' it novel which for graphic description, originality of characters, and interest of the tale, has been and aver will be held,in the very highest admiration. The publication of Tom Jones' was followed by come works on Poor Laws, in one of which he appears to have struck out a scheme not very dissimilar in principle to that which is now adopted. Ile also wrote a ' Charge to the Grand Jury of Middlesex' and some Law Tracts.