THE essay on Fielding was published in the Quarterly Review for December, 1855. From two letters written to Elwin by Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill, Commissioner of Bankrupts at Bristol, and previously Recorder of Birmingham, it may be gathered that the author intended to return to the subject in a further paper. The sketch having, in brief, covered the whole ground, it is not very apparent what room there was for a second instalment, and this may have hindered its execution. Another project was for the separate publication of the article, and it was interleaved for the purpose. A few trifling emendations are, however, all the revision it received. A page of criticism upon Lawrence's Life of Fielding, which was chosen to put at the head of the review, is omitted from the present reprint. The references to Fielding's Works, now appended to the essay, are to Dr. Chalmers's reprint, in 1806, of Murphy's edition of 1762, with Murphy's Memoir of Fielding prefixed. H FIELDING ENRY FIELDING was the great-grandson of the Earl of Desmond, who was a son of the Earl of Denbigh. The peer of the novelist's generation asked him why they wrote their names differently, the elder line adhering to the old usage of placing the e before the i (Feilding). "I cannot tell, my lord," replied Henry, "except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell."1 The Earls of Denbigh derived their origin from the House of Habsburg, which supplied emperors to Germany and kings to Spain; and Gibbon employed the circumstance to point his celebrated eulogy upon our immortal countryman: "The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their brethren of England; but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will survive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial eagle of the House of Austria." 2 This founder of a glory more durable than that of kings was born at Sharpham Park, in Somersetshire, on the 22nd of April, 1707. His father, Edmund, served under the Duke of Marlborough, and subsequently rose to the rank of lieutenant-general; his mother was a daughter of Mr. Justice Gould. In addition to the novelist, a son and four daughters were the issue of the marriage. When Henry's mother died, the widower took a second wife, by whom he had six sons. This lady also preceded 3 1 [Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii. p. 384.] the general to the tomb, and before his own death, in 1741, he had married a third and fourth time. Henry was first instructed at home by Mr. Oliver, a clergyman, the original of Parson Trulliber, in Joseph Andrews. Although the minister of the parish, he is described in the novel as devoting his whole attention to farming, and as personally superintending its most grovelling details. His build, habits, and conversation, all partake of his agricultural calling. In a word, he is a mean, ignorant farmer, in Orders. It may be inferred from this satirical sketch, however embellished in the details, that young Fielding received from him neither knowledge nor kindness, and the only benefit he probably did his pupil was the unintentional service of furnishing him with the materials for his ludicrous portrait. Henry was next sent to Eton, where he formed an acquaintance with several persons who were afterwards distinguished. One of these was the future great commoner, Mr. Pitt. Fielding soon repaired, at this celebrated seminary, the neglect of Mr. Oliver, and became conspicuous among his fellows for his knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics. How deeply his mind was imbued with them, how heartily he admired and how much he had profited by them, is evident in all his happiest works. He has, indeed, been accused of a tendency to pedantry; but what with some men is ostentation was, in his case, the simple application of materials which early habit had made so familiar that they had lost their learned air, and were entirely native to him. From Eton, when he was about eighteen years of age, he went to Leyden, where for two years he studied civil law with the diligence of a man who was seriously bent on qualifying himself for his profession. He was then compelled to return to England by the inability of his father to supply him with funds. His biographer, Murphy, laments this interruption to his education, because “an ampler store of knowledge might have given such a |