the Fields; but it is by no means certain that this entry refers to the novelist. A daughter, Harriet or Harriot, certainly did survive him, for she is mentioned in the Voyage to Lisbon as being of the party who accompanied him. Another daughter, as already stated, probably died in the winter of 1742-3; and the Journey from this World to the Next contains the touching reference to this or another child, of which Dickens writes so warmly in one of his letters. “I presently,” says Fielding, speaking of his entrance into Elysium, “met a little Daughter, whom I had lost several Years before. Good Gods! what Words can describe the Raptures, the melting passionate Tenderness, with which we kiss’d each other, continuing in our Embrace, with the most extatic Joy, a Space, which if Time had been measured here as on Earth, could not have been less than half a Year.”
From the death of Mrs. Fielding until the publication of the True Patriot in 1745 another comparative blank ensues in Fielding’s history; and it can only be filled by the assumption that he was still endeavouring to follow his profession as a barrister. His literary work seems to have been confined to a Preface to the second edition of his sister’s novel of David Simple, which appeared in 1744. This, while rendering fraternal justice to that now forgotten book, is memorable for some personal utterances on Fielding’s part. In denying the authorship of David Simple, which had been attributed to him, he takes occasion to appeal against the injustice of referring anonymous works to his pen, in the face of his distinct engagement in the Preface to the Miscellanies, that he would thenceforth write nothing except over his own signature; and he complains that such a course has a
