have been doomed to imbitter his life; the printer and his wife enjoyed a state of eternal discord, of the effects of which Cave could not avoid partaking; but after two years' study, he had so far mastered his art, that he was relieved from his troubles by being appointed to conduct a printing establishment at Norwich, and a weekly paper. Some opposition to this establishment engaged him in controversy, and first called forth his literary abilities. His master dying before the apprenticeship was terminated, Cave felt unwilling to subjugate himself to the termagant wife, and having obtained a stipulated allowance, married a young widow, with whom he lived at Bow. When his apprenticeship had expired, he was employed as a journeyman by Mr Barber, a printer connected with the tories. This circumstance appears to have wrought on Cave a political bias so far in favour of that party, that he occasionally contributed to Mist's Journal; but circunstances or conviction made him gradually turn towards the opposite party, although he never exceeded the extent of political partizanship which a man of calm feelings, whose mind was completely absorbed in his own projects, would naturally adopt. He exchanged the printing-house for a subordinate situation in the post-office, during which he found leisure sufficient to correct the Gradus ad Parnassum,'-a labour which certainly required no mean classical knowledge, and to write what Johnson briefly terms, 'An account of the Criminals,' which had for some time a considerable sale. From the period of his connection with the printing-office at Norwich, he had formed an idea of the practicability and utility of publishing the parliamentary debates,—a scheme which he afterwards accomplished with some difficulty and risk." He had an opportunity," says Nichols, "whilst engaged in a situation at the post-office, not only, as stated by Dr Johnson, of supplying his London friends with the provincial papers, but he also contrived to furnish the country printers with those written minutes of the proceedings in the two houses of parliament, which, within my own remembrance, were regularly circulated in the coffee-houses before the daily papers were tacitly permitted to report the debates." Cave was afterwards advanced to be clerk of the franks, and with a laudable wish to restrict the privilege, of which he superintended the exercise, to its proper public purposes, he took the rather unauthorized plan of stopping franks given by members of parliament to their friends. Such a proceeding was naturally called in question, and he was cited before the house to answer for a breach of privilege, in having stopped a frank given by Mr Plummer to the old duchess of Marlborough. Under the sanction of his oath of secrecy, he refused to answer questions, and was dismissed from his employment. It was remarked that he would never make use of the opportunity thus afforded him, of explaining to any one the private affairs of the office from which he had been so dismissed.

The sum which his economy and prudence had enabled him to collect in his varied employments, now enabled him to purchase a small printing-office, and to establish the famous Gentleman's Magazine.' The new literary system he had thus framed, embracing within the compass of one pamphlet, political news and discussion, criticism, original literature, anecdotes, and general information, did not first meet

1 Literary Anecdotes, vol. v. p. 9.

with much encouragement from the patrons of literature; but the public readily purchased the work, and the proprietor found himself increasing in fortune, and able to add such attractions as might still farther increase the circulation. He was soon enabled to dispose of 10,000 copies. It outlived many rivals, and, after a century of existence, still continues in being, now holding a secondary place in literature, and stalking unnoticed about the world, unchanged in form or substance, except by decay, like those old gentlemen who still wear the fashionable wigs and waistcoats of the last century, unmindful of the changes that surround them, the persons who have seen some of the better days of the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' and by whom it is probably still esteemed. In 1734 Cave became acquainted and formed a connection with Dr Johnson, which tended to enlighten the darker days of that remarkable man, whose eminent genius was then struggling to provide his body with food and clothing. He became an extensive contributor to the magazine, while some of his earlier works were published by Cave, of whose liberality he frequently speaks with praise. Cave bestowed on his magazine scrupulous personal care and attention. At its most prosperous period, if he heard any one talk of discontinuing it, he would say, "Let us have something good next month;" and Johnson remarked, that "he scarcely ever looked out at the window, but with a view to its improvement.' The firmness and patience with which Cave gradually vindicated the privilege of publishing the parliamentary debates in the magazine, form an important feature of his life, and must not be forgotten by a posterity to whom he at least smoothened the task of watching the proceedings of their representatives. He commenced operations in July, 1736, of procuring access to the house along with one or two friends; and the few notes they were enabled to collect, were adjusted, with the assistance of memory, to something like a summary of the proceedings, at a neighbouring tavern. These afterwards passed through the amplifying and improving hand of William Guthrie, the author of the well-known' Geographical Grammar,' and a person better known for the number and variety, than for the excellence of his works. He proceeded without molestation until April, 1738, when the numerous reports, published in various directions, attracted the notice of the house, and a resolution was passed to the effect of punishing future offenders. Cave then adopted the well-known device of prefacing his reports, with an Appendix to Captain Lemuel Gulliver's account of the famous Empire of Lilliput,' and terming them Debates in the Senate of Great Lilliput,' at the same time publishing his magazine in the name of his nephew, Edward Cave, junior. From 1740, when the dying efforts of Sir Robert Walpole's administration formed a subject of peculiar interest, Johnson superseded Guthrie as ornamenter of the reports, and the speeches of British senators became, from that period, renowned for redolent majesty of expression, a strong tinge of moral reflection, and a peculiar sameness. In April, 1747, he was cited before the house of lords for publishing a report of the trial of Lord Lovat; and, after an examination before a committee, in which was elicited his method of procuring reports, he was finally discharged with a reprimand, on paying his fees. After the yaer 1745, the debates

2

"Hawkins' Life of Johnson.

were discontinued, until they appeared in 1749, in the form of a letter from a member of parliament, to his country friend; and, after 1752, they were plainly printed with the initials of the speakers.

Besides maintaining a magazine, Cave had other means of patronizing literature, among which was the disposal of one or two prizes, of from £40 to £50 each, for the best poems on given subjects. The death of his wife in 1751 appears to have preyed upon his spirits; he lost his sleep and his appetite, "and lingering," says Johnson, "two years, fell, by drinking acid liquors, into a diarrhoea, and afterwards into a kind of lethargic insensibility, in which one of the last acts of reason he exerted was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this little narrative." He died on the 10th of January, 1754, in the 63d year of his age.

Henry Fielding.

BORN A. D. 1707.-died a. D. 1754.

HENRY FIELDING was born at Sharpham, near Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, on the 22d of April, 1707. He was connected with families of considerable hereditary rank. His father, lieutenant-general Fielding, who died in 1740, was grandson to George Fielding, earl of Desmond, brother to William, third earl of Denbigh, and his mother, Sarah Gould, the first of General Fielding's four wives, was daughter to Sir Henry Gould, knight, one of the judges of the court of king's bench. Henry received the earlier part of his education from the private tuition of the Rev. Mr Oliver, an individual, of whose character he is said to have branded his opinion in the scene with Parson Trulliber in Joseph Andrews, one of the most unredeeming pictures of a harsh, barbarous, and sordid mind, which his luxuriant pen ever drew. His education was afterwards continued at Eton-school, where chance threw him among such schoolfellows as Lyttleton, Fox, Pitt, and Winnington. At this period of comparatively extreme youth, he is said to have shown a greedy desire for the acquisition of classical literature; and it is probably more to this period of his life than to the after years which he spent in alternate dissipation and labour for subsistence, that we owe that minute critical knowledge of Greek and Roman writers, so frequently displayed in his novels. On leaving Eton, he went to the university of Leyden, where, for two years, he studied civil law, whether as an accomplishment, or for professional purposes, we are not told. Vehement animal passions distinguished him during his whole life, and the license of a university town, where he had no one particularly to superintend his actions, permitted him to commence a course of deep dissipation. Meanwhile, General Fielding's increasing family and moderate fortune prevented him from being regular in his remittances to his son. Henry's allowance was nominally £200 a year; but, as he used to remark, 66 any body might pay it that would." Unwilling, therefore, to harass his father, or to run deeply in debt, he found it expedient to return to London before the termination of his twentyfirst year. To Fielding, dissipation seems never to have brought its companion, idleness. At the early age at which he returned to Bri

tain, he had found the necessity of meeting his extravagance by the fruits of his pen. Don Quixote in England,' which was not published or acted until 1733, is said to have been part of the fruit of his leisure hours at Leyden;' it is perhaps the best paraphrase of Cervantes which the English language has produced. The comedy of Love in several Masks, which appeared in the year 1727—that in which he returned to Britain-was probably written under the same circumstances. This youthful production, although it immediately succeeded the very popular course of The Provoked Husband,' commanded some respect,—a circumstance perhaps partly owing to the very respectable actors who joined in the performance. From circumstances which would require a tedious, and might perhaps get but an unsatisfactory critical explanation, Fielding's plays neither attracted much popular notice at their appearance, nor supported an equality of fame with the celebrated theatrical productions of the period, yet few of them are so full of wellkept character. The chattering, bragging, conceited Rattle, and the stupidly solemn, and precise Lord Formal, are persons we meet with every day, while Sir Positive Trap, with his baronetcy more ancient and grand than an earldom, and his motives for all his actions in the previous habits of "the family of the Traps," if he does not now exist in all his freshness within the British empire, has left many diminished fac similes behind him. For ten years from the period of this first attempt, Fielding's pen was prolific in plays; but, although the British drama of later days affords us nowhere more amusing reading, some practical cause, the same which affected the first, prevented them all from existing for any considerable period as popular acting plays. A list of these performances, with their dates as they appeared, may here be given. The Temple Beau' was acted at Goodman's Fields in 1729; during the same year The Author's Farce' at the Haymarket. In 1731, the Lottery' appeared at Drury-lane, while, within the same year, he produced five other plays:- The Coffee-house Politician ;'

6

·

The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great; The Letter-Writers;'-' The Grub-street Opera,'—and ‘The Modern Husband.' In 1732 he produced four dramatic pieces at Drury-lane: The Mock-Doctor; The Covent Garden Tragedy;''The Debauchees,'-and The Miser.' In 1734 he produced a farce called An Old Man taught Wisdom,' and The Universal Gallant.' In 1736, ' Pasquin,' a production somewhat in the style of The Rehearsal,' was acted at the Haymarket. This production-which was supposed to be a dangerous satire on the three learned professions, but which might have more justly been termed an exposure of the political corruptness of the parties of the period, and a satire on the fashionable theatrical exhibitions-was made use of as a powerful argument in favour of Sir John Barnard's bill for limiting the number of theatres, and the proposal for subjecting all stage performances to the scrutiny of the lord-chamberlain. "Religion, laws, government, priests, judges, and ministers," says Colley Cibber, with more vivacity than truth, were laid flat at the feet of the Herculean satirist, this Drawcansir in wit, who spared neither friend nor foe, who, to make his poetical fame immortal, like another Erostrates, set fire to his stage by writing up to

' Ireland's Hogarth illustrated, vol. iii. p. 281.

66

6

an act of parliament to demolish it." The measures proposed were hastened by a similar production by Fielding in 1737, termed 'The Historical Register;' within the same year he produced three farces,— Eurydice, Eurydice Hissed,' and 'Tumble Down Dick.' In 1742 he resumed for a period his writings for the stage, producing Miss Lucy in Town,' and Plutus, the God of Riches,-a translation from Aristophanes. In 1743 he produced The Wedding Day' at Drurylane. The manuscript of his one remaining theatrical work, The Fathers, or the Good-natured Man,' had been lost during his life-time, and was accidentally discovered and acted in 1778. The author of so many plays never received fame or remuneration adequate to the genius and labour expended on them. Practical stage effect appears not to have been his study, and his mind was too luxuriant to be trammelled by the degenerate drama of his day; it is impossible to avoid admiration of the satirical knowledge of human nature frequently displayed; but the reader feels that the remarks might have come more appropriately from the pen of the author of Tom Jones' than from the lips of the individuals who are taught to utter them. The few which maintained a respectable footing on the stage were meritorious only as spirited translations from the French. Murphy, his commentator, would appear to have considered that these plays were defrauded of much of their due fame by the obstinacy of the author, who showed an undue self-reliance and contempt of public opinion in a branch of literature which, beyond all others, must be swayed by the temper of the multitude. He tells us that Garrick had once attempted in vain to remove a passage, which he saw the author himself was quite conscious was unfit for the stage; the answer was, "if the scene is not a good one, let them find that out." In the midst of the disapprobation of the house, Garrick retreated to the green-room, where he found the author was indulging himself with champaign and tobacco. "What's the matter now Garrick," he said, "what are they hissing now?" "Why, the scene I begged you to retrench," observed Garrick, “I knew it would not do; and they have so frightened me, that I shall not be able to recollect myself again the whole night." "Oh!" replied the author, " they have found it out, have they !" As another specimen of the same careless spirit, he chose to present the world with the farce of Eurydice" as it was damned at the theatre-royal in Drury-lane."

2

About the year 1733, Fielding married Charlotte, the daughter of Mr Cradock of Salisbury, a lady, by all accounts, of great personal beauty, and possessed of a small fortune of about £1500. Very nearly at the same time his mother's death made him the proprietor of an estate worth £200 a year. His marriage was one entirely of affection ; he loved his wife dearly, and he resolved to bid adieu to the pleasures of the town, and enjoy the comforts of his moderate income in retirement. But the unexpected possession of so large a sum in hard cash, was a temptation which Fielding was unable, and did not attempt for a moment to resist. Whatever speculative views he might have indulged on the subject of domestic retirement and a limited income, he never

2 That General Fielding, who is said to have died in 1740, should have married three wives-as Nichols says he did-after the year 1733, or six or seven years after Henry began to write for the stage, as it is expressed, is a little strange. We are unable to discover any means of reconciling the difficulty.