FIELDING, HENRY ( 1707-54). An English novelist, not improperly called the father of the modern novel. The son of Gem Edmund Fielding, he was born at Sharpham Park, near Glaston bury, in Somersetshire, April 22, 1707. Ile be longed to the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, and his aristocratic spirit. showed itself in many of the political controversies of later life. Life at Eaton was followed by two years' attendance at the University of Leyden. where he studied law. On returning to England, it was necessary for Fielding to win his way for himself, as his father was richer in children than in more material treasure. Ile determined on play-writing, and for ten years contributed generously to the stage. Some twentydive plays make up the total of this period, but none of them showed sufficient dramatic art to insure permanence, although they contained sufficient pal it Mal satire to give rise to the Lord Chamber lain's censorship of the drama. The interest of the dialogue in parts, and the humor which one so readily associates with Fielding. are not lark ing in them, while the plots of many show that he had the story-teller's gift: hut on account. of a desire to adapt his plays to the taste of the times, and an inability to comprehend as well as to rise to the heights of dramatic possibility, his dramatic work is forgotten. Imo. in Serena ID:Nines has an historical interest, as it was the first to be produced (1728), and so introduced Fielding to the public; while lion Quixote in Pnyland is worth at least a mention, as it sug gests his liking for Cervantes. To Cervantes Fielding looked back as afterwards. Thacker:iv looked back to Fielding, and as we read Quixote, Joseph A ndrews, and, say, Henry Es mond, we note how the warm. genial, honest blood runs truly and similarly through the veins of these authors. All three have insight into men's characters, and power to see beneath the surface of life alike high and low; all three have the saving grace of humor, the sincere hatred of hypocrisy, the pleasant faculty of personal inter polation and friendly interpretation of men and things. The two Englishmen, indeed, lacked the genius for noble idealization which Cervantes possessed ; hut all three were optimists in a world whose evil they plainly discerned and described, and the w inningness of their work is not lessened by that splendid power of satire which in Thack eray and Fielding was directed against the af fectations and hypocrisy of their own times and society, exposing the ridiculous in life, while in Cervantes it dealt more nearly with what pessi mists look upon as the satire of the universe, the seeming of ideal endeavor.
Fielding's reputation is based for the most part on three novels: Joseph Andrews (1742) ; Tom Jones (1749) ; and .1 melia (1751). Joseph An drews was planned to be a parody on Richard son's Pamela. the sentimental, moralizing novel in which the poor heroine is rewarded for her virtuous resistance to the nobleman, her lover, by the offer of marriage which Fielding suggests may have been one of the motives of her chastity. Joseph Andrews, the handsome. pure-minded footman, was. as brother of Pamela, to parallel his sister's virtuous conduct ; but before the story had progressed far the author became so interested in the characters he had set in motion that the parody purpose was set aside, and the novel developed as an original and independent work of fiction. Parson Adams, the stalwart, confiding. simple-minded, and high-minded curate, is one of the most engaging, persons that eigh teenth-century literature has bequeathed to us, while the description of the inns and of the life of the road, again reminiscent of Cervantes, are vivid to the point of reality. The faculty of description was Fielding's. and if often we miss the intense emotional treatment or the sympa thetic delineation of the spiritual element in man's activity, it is still good to listen to the exposition and to the comments of one whose common sense allowed no dimming of his per ception, and whose manly nature and Minn heart would not perinit poverty, the animosity of enemies, or sickness to warp his judgment. IIis writings are, therefore, and illuminative, and though they are not loftily inspiring because of their lack in liner sympathy, a pervading healthiness of tone and a sense of straightfor ward observation do much to atone for the broad speech that is so often unnecessarily their chief blemish. II is own experience crops up unmistak ably in his hooks, and Tom Jones has well been called 'Fielding in his youth.' as Captain Booth is `the Fielding of later years.' The looseness of many of the scenes and the coarseness of much of the language of his novels are indicative, therefor', not alone of a lax society, but also of a life in which there was a good share of rioting and ronsal. The filial words of praise to be said of Fielding's novels are that they possess the unity of plot which differentiates them from such structureless work as that of Smollett, while the remarks and criticisms imbedded in them have witch of the wisdom and the wit that one looks for and finds in Montaigne. It is the lack of opportunity in dramatic compositions for such pi rsonal running commentary anal maxims that partially explains the comparative failure of Fielding as a playwright.