442
NOTES AND QUERIES. 1 12 s.n. DEC. 2,1916.
11. 258-63 of the First Satire. Consequently,
Brewster died late in 1742 or early in 1743,
nnd was no longer alive when Fielding
referred to him in ' Tom Jones ' (xviii. 4).
It is curious that neither The Gentleman's
Magazine nor Musgrave has any record of
Brewster' s death.
III. In a long and most interesting note, ' "Jonathan Wild the Great" : its Germ ' ( 1 1 S ii. 261 ), your corraspondent MR. ALFRED F. ROBBINS sought to establish that Fielding was the anonymous author of two articles published in Mist's Weekly Journal for June 12 and 19, 1725, which describe, with an admirably ironic touch, the mental characteristics of this Newgate hero, executed the previous month.
At that date Fielding had recently left Eton, but probably had not yet betaken himself to Lyme Regis. The articles, if by him, would constitute his first literary ad- venture, and afford some evidence that he was then in London.
The contributions in question are so witty, and exhibit such finished workmanship, that they would add no little even to his reputation. At first blush they seem to be his handiwork : there is a like train of thought, and some similarity of diction, in the Mist articles and in his ' Jonathan Wild the Great ' of the ' Miscellanies,' as a few com- parisons indicate :
Mist (1725). ' JonathanWild'(ni3).
5. Yet it will be Book IV. chap. xv.
granted that a person While a great man and a
may be a rogue, and great rogue are synony-
yet be a great man. mous terms, so long shall
Wild stand unrivalled on
the pinnacle of greatness.
9. It is certain he Book I. chap. iii. But understood no Latin, though he woald not give for he had employ'd himself the pains re- his time to greater quisite to acquire a corn- advantage than in petent sufficiency in the learning words; but learned languages, yet did .... he consulted me he really listen with atten- in explaining to him tion to others, especially the Annals of Tacitus, when they translated the classical authors to him.
21. As to religion, Book IV. chap. xiii.
he was a little inclined Ordinary. As little as
to atheism. you seem to apprehend
it, you may find yourself
in hell before you expect
it. You will then be
ready to give more for a
drop of water than you
ever gave for a bottle of
wine.
Jonathan. Faith, well minded. What say you to a bottle of wine ?
Ordinary. I will drink - no wine with an atheist
Mist (1725). ' Jonathan Wild' (1743
21. As to party, he Book I. chap. viii. was a right modern Mr. Wild immediately \Vliii* according to the conveyed the larger share- definition which is ex- of the ready into his pressed in this their pocket according to an motto Keep what you excellent maxim of his get, and get what you First secure what share can. you can before you-
wrangle for the rest.
The fact that the Rev. Arthur Ccllier of Salisbury occasionally contributed to Mist's Journal, and might have introduced Fielding to the proprietor, lent some colour to MR. ROBBINS'S suggestion, but on the whole the- f olio wing considerations militate strongly against the Mist articles being Fielding'V work :
(a) Fielding's use of " hath," " doth," " mayst," " wilt," &c., which abound in his writings from ' The Masquerade ' of 1727 to his ' Comment on Lord Bolingbroke's Essays ' of 1754, is so characteristic that its entire absence from the Mist articles is an almost sure criterion that those articles are not his. A similar conclusion respecting this word- usage is arrived at by Prof. Jensen in his edition of The Covent Garden Journal, vol. i- p. 103, Yale University Press, 1915. Field- ing, of course, employed the common usages of " has " and " does " as well.
(6) Fielding was so ardent a Whig in later life that it is unlikely to find him deriding the- party as a whole. Even were his political inclinations less marked in adolescence, he would scarcely have ventured to express his views in print, seeing that his father, a justice of the peace for Dorset, had declared in 1721 that
" he made very good proof of his strict adherence to the present Government, particularly in
Eunishing all such persons as were brought before- im that were in the least suspected to be dis- affected to his present Majesty King George."
(c) The last two paragraphs but one of the second Mist article contain the following criticism :
" I think it will not be amiss to inform the world' that for some years past he [Wild] employed him- self in writing the ' History of his own Times,' which History he was pleased to put into my hands, having first exacted a promise from me not to- publish it till seven years after his death .... It is, as to style and truth, matter much preferable to another History of the same kind lately published,, and is free both from the vanity and rancour which makes up the greatest part of that History."
This refers unquestionably to Bishop Burnet's ' History, published in the previous year, 1724. Although Fielding possessed a copy at the time of his death, it cannot be supposed a youth just free from school would either travel through so voluminous a-
