The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 11

About seven in the evening I got into a chaise on shore, and was driven through the nastiest city in the world, though at the same time one of the most populous, to a kind of coffee-house, which is very pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill, about a mile from the city, and hath a very fine prospect of the river Tajo from Lisbon to the sea.

Here we regaled ourselves with a good supper, for which we were as well charged as if the bill had been made on the Bath-road, between Newbury and London.

And now we could joyfully say,

Egressi optata Troes potiuntur arena

Therefore, in the words of Horace,

– hic Finis chartæque viæque

END OF VOL. I

notes

1

Some doubt whether this should not be rather 1641, which is a date more agreeable to the account given of it in the introduction: but then there are some passages which seem to relate to transactions infinitely later, even within this year or two. To say the truth there are difficulties attending either conjecture; so the reader may take which he pleases

2

Eyes are not perhaps so properly adapted to a spiritual substance; but we are here, as in many other places, obliged to use corporeal terms to make ourselves the better understood.

3

This is the dress in which the god appears to mortals at the theatres. One of the offices attributed to this god by the ancients, was to collect the ghosts as a shepherd doth a flock of sheep, and drive them with his wand into the other world.

4

Those who have read of the gods sleeping in Homer will not be surprized at this happening to spirits.

5

A particular lady of quality is meant here; but every lady of quality, or no quality, are welcome to apply the character to themselves.

6

We have before made an apology for this language, which we here repeat for the last time; though the heart may, we hope, be metaphorically used here with more propriety than when we apply those passions to the body which belong to the soul.

7

That we may mention it once for all, in the panegyrical part of this work some particular person is always meant: but, in the satirical, nobody.

8

These ladies, I believe, by their names, presided over the leprosy, king’s-evil, and scurvy.

9

This silly story is told as a solemn truth (i. e., that St James really appeared in the manner this fellow is described) by Mariana, I. 7, § 78.

10

Here part of the manuscript is lost, and that a very considerable one, as appears by the number of the next book and chapter, which contains, I find, the history of Anna Boleyn; but as to the manner in which it was introduced, or to whom the narrative is told, we are totally left in the dark. I have only to remark, that this chapter is, in the original, writ in a woman’s hand: and, though the observations in it are, I think, as excellent as any in the whole volume, there seems to be a difference in style between this and the preceding chapters; and, as it is the character of a woman which is related, I am inclined to fancy it was really written by one of that sex.

11

Here ends this curious manuscript; the rest being destroyed in rolling up pens, tobacco, &c. It is to be hoped heedless people will henceforth be more cautious what they burn, or use to other vile purposes; especially when they consider the fate which had likely to have befallen the divine Milton, and that the works of Homer were probably discovered in some chandler’s shop in Greece.

12

At Lisbon.

13

A predecessor of mine used to boast that he made one thousand pounds a-year in his office; but how he did this (if indeed he did it) is to me a secret. His clerk, now mine, told me I had more business than he had ever known there; I am sure I had as much as any man could do. The truth is, the fees are so very low, when any are due, and so much is done for nothing, that, if a single justice of peace had business enough to employ twenty clerks, neither he nor they would get much by their labour. The public will not, therefore, I hope, think I betray a secret when I inform them that I received from the Government a yearly pension out of the public service-money; which, I believe, indeed, would have been larger had my great patron been convinced of an error, which I have heard him utter more than once, that he could not indeed say that the acting as a principal justice of peace in Westminster was on all accounts very desirable, but that all the world knew it was a very lucrative office. Now, to have shewn him plainly that a man must be a rogue to make a very little this way, and that he could not make much by being as great a rogue as he could be, would have required more confidence than, I believe, he had in me, and more of his conversation than he chose to allow me; I therefore resigned the office and the farther execution of my plan to my brother, who had long been my assistant. And now, lest the case between me and the reader should be the same in both instances as it was between me and the great man, I will not add another word on the subject.