seems to have once practically formed a plan for maintaining the integrity of his capital. He plunged instantaneously and deeply into country-gentleman extravagance; and it may afford a good instance to those who are fond of noting the variety of course adopted by reason and the passions in the same mind, to recollect that the describer of Squire Western was fired with the ambition of excelling among fox-hunting squires. He kept a retinue of servants, bought horses and hounds, and threw open his gates to convivial hospitality. When in three years his fortune had completely vanished, he stopped a little to consider his situation, and then his naturally strong mind, never overcome by difficulties, though it might yield to prosperity, boldly seized on the arduous profession of the law as a resource. He brought to his attendance

6

at the Temple a settled determination to expend uninterrupted study on his profession, a course which was only at times chequered by ebullitions of his former recklessness and dissipation, after which, it has been remarked, he could at any hour of the night resume his application to the most abstruse professional works. After the preparatory period, he commenced a sedulous attendance at Westminster-hall, and accompanied the western circuit, where he gave promise of eminence, when the strict attendance necessary for a professional man was interrupted by repeated attacks of the gout, which gradually drove him from his new employment. As a specimen of his legal diligence, he is said to have left behind him a manuscript, in two folio volumes, on crown-law, which has been pronounced " very perfect in some of its parts." Thus baffled in his bold attempt, he returned to literature, but of a different description from that in which we have found him previously engaged. He assisted in conducting The Champion,' and wrote a few pieces of poetry of no greater harmony than might be expected from the author of Pasquin.' The Essay on Conversation,' that 'On the Knowledge of the Characters of Men,' and the Journey from this World to the Next,' were productions of this period. In this last he was accused of an attempt to undermine religion, a charge which, in his succeeding works, he took earnest pains to prove ungrounded. The History of Jonathan Wild' next appeared, perhaps the most ingeniously arranged description of a tissue of blackguardisms which has ever been given to the world. This production may be called the first step on the ascent of elevation which he afterwards climbed; the second was The History and Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and his friend, Mr Abraham Adams,' which appeared in 1742. The author professed to follow Cervantes; but had he done so more minutely than he has, his subjects would not have admitted the same lengthened detail of character and similarity of incident, which was found applicable to a satire on a grand national folly. Even as it is, the simplicity and absence of mind of Parson Adams, with all their grotesqueness and real nature, verge on tiresomeness; and there is very little interest in the sleepy negative virtue of Joseph Andrews, whose character is very like that of his sister Pamela, if we may except her selfishness and artifice, two qualifications by the way of that eminent lady, which Fielding has quietly ridiculed, by making them a little more prominent than Richardson had done. But if any thing tires in the details connected with the principal persons, the defect is made up by the animation of the group around, and the continual variety of new characters there introduced. The Rev. Mi

Young, a man of considerable classical acquirements, and an intimate friend of Fielding, is said to have been the original of ‘Parson Adams.' Soon after the publication of this novel came the darkest hour of Fielding's life. Repeated illness prevented him from attending not only to his business as a lawyer, but to the miscellaneous labours of his pen, while it brought with it the train of additional expenses and vexations attendant on a valetudinarian. At the same time, the wife of his affections contracted a permanent and dangerous disorder, and he beheld the object of so much devotion gradually sunk by his own follies, from comfort and even opulence, to meet a slowly but steadily approaching dissolution in the midst of hopeless penury. On her death, the vehemence of his sorrow and self-reproach made his friends apprehensive that reason had quitted her seat. Time, however, restored his wonted activity and energy. On the breaking out of the rebellion in 1745, he gave a spirited support to government, in a periodical termed The True Patriot; and, with the same view, conducted a similar work in 1748, called 'The Jacobite's Journal.' It is to this period, when he probably lived with some of his nearest relatives, that we can best refer an anecdote, apparently authentic, which strikingly demonstrates how little selfishness there was in the dissipation or sensuality of Fielding, and how easily he could be imprudent at the dictation of his feelings. He had been, for a considerable period, in arrears with the payment of some parish taxes, for his house in Beaufort buildings, and the collector had repeatedly called. In his difficulty, Fielding applied to Tonson, who forwarded to him ten or twelve guineas on the deposit of a few sheets of some work on hand. While returning in the evening with his money, he met an old college chum, from whom he had been long separated, and the opportunity for a social bottle in a coffee-room was not to be neglected. In the course of the friendly and confidential conversation which naturally followed, Fielding discovered that his friend was unfortunate, and forgetting all his own woes, in the possession of a few guineas, which was probably the chief distinction between them at the time, he emptied the contents of his pocket into that of his friend. On returning he told his story and the fate of the money to his sister Emilia, who answered that the collector had called in his absence. "Friendship," he said, "has called for the money, and had it. Let the collector call again." At the age of forty-three Fielding's necessities compelled him to accept of the unpleasing and unpopular situation of a paid policemagistrate. In the fulfilment of duties so liable to incur censure, he has been accused of corruption; but the charges are vague and unsubstantial, and must, in justice, be rejected. For the honour of human nature it is indeed to be hoped, that the person who drew the character of Justice Thrasher, would not have followed the example he held up to execration. Those who are conversant with the writings of Fielding may easily calculate how great was the sagacity in penetrating the human heart, which he brought to aid his knowledge of law on the police-bench of Drury-lane; while the experience of his judicial practice may have increased his intimate knowledge of all the degrees and aspects of villany. But with so many opportunities of acquiring his favourite knowledge in an open and accredited manner, he could not avoid that spirit of private investigation into life and manners which had been his early characteristic. Of this propensity, Horace Walpole

has left a curious specimen. Rigby and Bathurst had carried a servant of the latter who had attempted to shoot his master, to lay the matter before Fielding as a justice. "He sent them word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. They did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, a whore, and three Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and on the dirtiest cloth. He never stirred nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir C. Williams, and Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs, on which he civilized." 3 The insinuations thus haughtily dealt out against the unfortunate genius were founded on too sure a foundation. Notwithstanding the bitterness with which he has satirized that vice in others, he sometimes made talent worship rank, and was compelled to barter his natural independence for what the imperious critic has emphatically termed 'victuals.'

We cannot afford room to characterise two works which he published at this period, An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers, &c. with some Proposals for Remedying this Growing Evil,' -and A Proposal for the Maintenance of the Poor,' but must pass to that work with which his name is inseparably attached: the novel of Tom Jones.' It would be useless to laud a work on which praise has been heaped on all hands, and from an acknowledgment of the genius displayed in which no one dissents; let us then just sum up its principal characteristics in a few words. The author states in his dedication that it cost him the labour of some years of his life; and no one who reads it can fail to see the scrupulous accuracy with which all its parts are fitted to each other. The plot is exceedingly complicated, but the art of the author is shown in not making it in the slightest degree unnaturally; he had studied to reach the utmost degree of complicacy which he could achieve without infringing nature, without distorted incidents, unexpected accidents, or losing the connection of cause and effect. The characters are infinitely varied, and placed in positions suiting them to relieve each other, the author never running on to tiresomeness in the exposition of one characteristic. The secret impulses of the actors are on all occasions ingeniously brought forward, not only in such a manner as to teach us human nature, but with a view to amuse through the intrinsic wit displayed in the development. The introductory chapters, and many other portions of the work, contain a vast fund of accurate reflection and keen satire. His impurities have offended the ear of modern propriety, yet in this respect there is as wide a distinction betwixt Fielding and Mrs Manly. as there is between Scott and Fielding. The age which permitted such indulgences should bear part of the censure, although it must be admitted that Fielding showed a peculiar pleasure in claiming the privilege it permitted. In censure, it may also be remarked, he somewhat degraded the female character, making good nature and submission the only good qualities his best of females possess, and beauty their loftiest recommendation. His next novel was 'Amelia,' and it is easy to perceive in it a decaying mind, possessed of its former genius, but not of

'Walpole's Letters to Mr Montague, p. 58

the ability to concentrate its powers into a grand laboured effort. The hero of the tale, Captain Booth, who seems to possess no earthly quality except a dogged affection for his wife, is brought through all the usual difficulties, and placed on the pinnacle of happiness, not by his own endeavours, by which the moral might have been strengthened, but by the mere operation of chance; and cringing to great men for 'a situation' seems all the effort of which the author thought him capable. He is however merely the point round which a fairy world of characters and incidents revolve. No one can read of Colonel Booth without recollecting how often he has met the man; and the ghastly horrors of the prison scene, with which the work commences, can never be erased from the mind of the reader. Still unwearied, although quickly declining in health, his next undertaking was The Covent-garden Journal, by Sir Alexander Drawcansir, knight, censor-general of Great Britain.' This periodical, published twice a week, he continued for a year, at the end of which the number and extent of his disorders prompted him to make a last effort to recover his health by a voyage to Portugal. At this time a dropsy had risen to so great a height, that he was compelled to submit to several operations of tapping; and in an account of his voyage, the last production of his active pen, he gives a mournful picture of the state of his health, while his remarks, although full of humour and his wonted vivacity, show occasional depression of spirits, and more than his usual acidity. He survived his arrival in Lisbon but two months, and died on the 8th of October, 1754, in the 48th year of his age. He left behind him a second wife, and four children.

John Henley.

BORN A. D. 1692.-died a. d. 1756.

THIS notorious character, better known by the appellation Orator Henley, was the son of the vicar of Melton-Mowbray, Leicestershire, in which parish he was born on the 3d of August, 1692.

In the early part of his life he exhibited great quickness of apprehension and more than ordinary talents. In 1709 he was entered of St John's college, Cambridge, where he prosecuted his studies with considerable diligence; but occasionally betrayed much arrogance of disposition. After taking his bachelor's degree, the trustees of Melton school gave him the head-mastership of that seminary, and for a time his exertions and skill conferred much celebrity upon it. But Henley was of much too aspiring a disposition to remain satisfied with a country mastership. Having been admitted into orders, he became inflamed with the ambition of figuring as a preacher in London. Accordingly to London he came, and by dint of pushing and consummate assurance obtained a lectureship, and was for a time a very popular preacher. His native arrogance however, soon burst forth, and vented itself in the most disgusting praises of himself and his oratorical powers, combined with the most intemperate abuse of all who seemed blind to his merits, or, as he supposed, set themselves to obstruct "his rising in town, from envy, jealousy, and a disrelish of those who are not qualified to be complete spaniels." The earl of Macclesfield presented him with a benefice

in the country of £80 per annum; and Lord Molesworth made him his chaplain; but all was esteemed too little for his worth; and in a fit of disappointment he flung up his benefice and lectureship, and set up an oratory, as he termed it, of his own, in Clare-market; whither he invited the world to come and listen to the only true orator that had yet appeared in modern times,—the recoverer of the action and the eloquence of Demosthenes.

These orations soon degenerated into downright buffoonery. His audience was composed of the very lowest ranks, and he sometimes fell upon singular expedients to extract money from them. On one occasion he got together a great number of shoemakers, by announcing that he would teach them the art of making a pair of excellent shoes in a few minutes. This wonderful abridgment of labour was effected before the eyes of his gaping auditory, by cutting off the tops of a pair of readymade boots!

Henley died in 1756. He was a man of considerable acquirements, and no mean genius; but he perverted all that might have raised him to respectability and even eminence, by his insatiable vanity and inordinate self-love. Hogarth has introduced him into some of his compositions, and Pope has immortalized him in the 'Dunciad.'

David Hartley, M.D.

BORN A. D. 1705.-died A. D. 1757.

THIS ingenious metaphysician was the son of a Yorkshire clergyman. He was educated at Cambridge, and chosen a fellow of Jesus college. He was originally intended for the church, but being unable to get over some religious scruples, he declined entering into orders, and applied himself to the study of medicine, in which profession he attained considerable reputation and practice. He died in 1757.

Hartley lived in terms of intimacy with most of the literary characters of his day. His talents were more than respectable, and his amiable dispositions and uncommon simplicity of character, endeared him to all who knew him. He was the author of several little professional tractates; but his great work, and that by which his name has been made familiar to all writers on metaphysical science, is his 'Observations on Man.' This work was begun by him in his twenty-fifth year, and published in his forty-third. It excited less interest when it first appeared than it perhaps does now; but we do not think justice has yet been done to the extraordinary sagacity and originality of thought every where conspicuous in the Observations.'

Hartley regards the brain, the nerves, and the spinal marrow, as the direct instruments of sensation. External objects, he conceives, excite vibrations in these medullary cords, which vibrations once communicated, are kept up by a certain subtle elastic fluid called ether. After a sufficient repetition of these vibrations, the sensations leave behind them types and images of themselves. Frequent repetition excites association, and association in its turn imparts to any one idea the power of exciting all the related ideas,--a power which belongs likewise to the vibratiuncles and their miniature images. Upon this principle