Only those persons (says Lady Stuart) are mentioned here of whom Lady Bute could speak from her own recollection or her mother’s report. Both had made her well informed of every particular that concerned her relation Henry Fielding; nor was she a stranger to that beloved first wife whose picture he drew in his Amelia, where, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident related in the novel,—a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose. [Footnote: That any one could have remained lovely after such a catastrophe is difficult to believe. But probably Lady Bute (or Lady Stuart) exaggerated its effects; for—to say nothing of the fact that, throughout the novel, Amelia’s beauty is continually commended—in the delightfully feminine description which is given of her by Mrs. James in Book xi. chap. i., pp. 114-15 of the first edition of 1752, although she is literally pulled to pieces, there is no reference whatever to her nose, which may be taken as proof positive that it was not an assailable feature. Moreover, in the book as we now have it, Fielding, obviously in deference to contemporary criticism, inserted the following specific passages:—“She was, indeed, a most charming woman; and I know not whether the little scar on her nose did not rather add to, than diminish her beauty” (Book iv. chap, vii.); and in Mrs. James’s portrait:—“Then her nose, as well proportioned as it is, has a visible scar on one side.” No previous biographer seems to have thought it necessary to make any mention of these statements, while Johnson’s speech about “That vile broken nose, never cured,” and Richardson’s coarsely-malignant utterance to Mrs. Donnellan, are everywhere industriously remembered and repeated.] He loved her passionately, and she returned his affection; yet led no happy life, for they were almost always miserably poor, and seldom in a state of quiet and safety. All the world knows what was his imprudence; if ever he possessed a score of pounds, nothing could keep him from lavishing it idly, or make him think of tomorrow. Sometimes they were living in decent lodgings with tolerable comfort; sometimes in a wretched garret without necessaries; not to speak of the spunging-houses and hiding-places where he was occasionally to be found. His
