ments in the state, and was addressed in his capacity of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, by Robert Lloyd, as "Aonii duxque decusque chori," and yet when he was Secretary of State for the Southern Department he used to address letters to "the island of New England," and could not tell but that Jamaica was in the Mediterranean. When General Ligonier hinted to him that Annapolis ought to be defended, he replied with a lisping hurry, "Annapolis! Annapolis! oh! yes, Annapolis must be defended; to be sure Annapolis must be defended-where is Annapolis?' and when he was informed that Cape Breton was an island, he exclaimed," Cape Breton an island! wonderful!—show it me in the map. So it is, sure enough! My dear sir, you always bring us good news. I must go and tell the King that Cape Breton is an island." And this was the man on whom Fielding had to wait! It is satisfactory to know that the Duke's calm judgment highly approved Fielding's plan.

When at length Fielding was at liberty to go to Bath he did not think it advisable to make that trip. But some change was necessary; death impended him in England; his friends and wife implored him to fly for it to another land. For their sakes he consented, and after some discussion determined on a voyage to Lisbon. He well knew his end was approaching, but the hopefulness of his temperament made him think it probable that he might for another year enjoy the pleasures of life; for with all his suffering, and notwithstanding his freedom from fear of death, he was not anxious to die, but on the contrary found greater happiness in existence than is experienced by most people blessed with health, and wealth, and liberty. When Lady Mary Wortley Montague, his cousin and early acquaintance, was certified that he was no more, she wrote, "I am sorry for Henry Fielding's death, not only as I shall read no more of his writings, but because I believe he lost more than

VOL. I.

I

others, as no man enjoyed life more than he did; though few had less occasion to do so- -the highest of his preferment being raking in the lowest sinks of vice and misery. I should think it a nobler and less nauseous employment to be one of the staff-officers that conduct the nocturnal weddings. His happy constitution (even when he had, with great pains, half demolished it) made him forget every evil, when he was before a venison-pasty, or over a flask of champagne; and I am persuaded that he has known more happy moments than any prince upon earth. His natural spirits gave him rapture with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was striving in a garret." (By his cook-maid her lady-ship means the second Mrs. Fielding.) In this unusually happy constitution, in all probability, lay the cause of Fielding's many imprudences; most men can only get an occasional glimpse of sunshine, an occasional taste of felicity-and that only by wise calculation and provision; but how could Fielding, with such a well of gladness in his breast, deem it necessary to husband his resources, his means for procuring creature comforts, and the grosser materials for bliss? Anyhow this gleefulness of heart sent him cheerily (bravely he would have gone-even had he been sad as sad could be) on his voyage to death.

He went on board the vessel which carried him to Lisbon, on June 26, 1754. In the journal he kept of his voyage, there is the following passage :- "On this day the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake in my house at Fordhook. By the light of this sun I was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doted with a motherlike fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where I had learned to bear pains and despise death.

"In this situation, as I could not conquer Nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as

she had ever done of any woman whatsoever; under the pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer the company of my little ones during eight hours; and I doubt not whether, in that time, I did not undergo more than in all my distemper."

After much pain he managed to get on board the vessel at Rotherhithe. "I think," he writes, "upon my entrance of the boat, I presented a spectacle of the highest horror. The total loss of limbs was apparent to all who saw me, and my face contained marks of the most diseased state, if not of death itself. Indeed, so ghastly was my countenance that timorous women with child had abstained from my house, for fear of the ill consequences of looking at me. In this condition I ran the gauntlope (so I think I may call it) through rows of sailors and watermen, few of whom failed to pay their compliments to me by all manner of insults and jests on my misery." And then he goes on and states with his own simplicity that he did not conceive "any personal resentment at this behaviour; but it was a lively picture of that cruelty and inhumanity in the nature of men which I have often contemplated with concern, and which leads the mind into a train of very uncomfortable and melancholy thoughts."

Every one should read his narrative of his voyage to Lisbon. It contains no line that would be better removed ; it is valuable from some sketches of character, in a more masterly style and finished with greater delicacy than any in his novels; and while it affords evidence that Fielding's intellect, instead of becoming weaker had grown more vigorous with the progress of his disease, it makes the reader intimately acquainted with the grandeur of his nature. Lying in severe bodily anguish, having for hours no companion to converse with (for sea-sickness fell severely on the three ladies-his wife, his eldest daughter, and their companion-who sailed with him), he derived amusement

from all those troubles of his situation which affected only himself. His mind was active as ever; great schemes for the future at times rising before his imagination. The trifling incidents of that long and weary voyage, during which he had to undergo a painful surgical operation, he made the means of diverting his friends. Yet, one can scarcely believe that the humour displayed in that journal came from a dying man, not that it has the slightest tincture of unhallowed mirth-for it is all soft and playful as a child's smile, and is pervaded by that consideration for others which we are accustomed to think is almost solely possessed by

women.

One night there was a terrible storm, and it was manifest by the captain's manner that the ship was in danger. "The frequency of these summons, as well as the solicitude with which they were made, sufficiently testified the state of the captain's mind; he endeavoured to conceal it, and would have given no small alarm to a man who had not either learned what it is to die, or know what it is to be miserable. And my dear wife and child must pardon me, if what I did not conceive to be any great evil for myself, I was not much terrified with the thoughts of happening to them; in truth, I have often thought they are both too good and too gentle to be trusted to the power of any man I know, to whom they could possibly be trusted.

"Can I say, then, I had no fear? Indeed I cannot. Reader, I was afraid for thee, lest thou should'st have been deprived of that pleasure thou art now enjoying; and that I should not live to draw out on paper that military character which thou didst peruse in the journal of yesterday." A true artist's anxiety! 'Tis thus he fears death and loves life! Lord, ere I die, let me do this work!

Much of the time during which he was alone he passed in looking out upon the vast ocean, and listening to the voices of its depths. There is in his journal the following

passage, which has arrested every thoughtful reader: "Wednesday, July 3. This morning, I awaked at four o'clock, for my distemper seldom suffered me to sleep later. I presently got up, and had the pleasure of enjoying the sight of a tempestuous sea for four hours before the captain was stirring."

Henry Fielding died at Lisbon, October, 1754, in the 48th of his age. year