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intelligence and observation! what a wholesome hatred for meanness and knavery! what a vast sympathy! what a cheerfulness! what a manly relish of life! what a love of human kind! what a poet is here!—watching, meditating, brooding, creating! What multitudes of truths has that man left behind him! What generations he has taught to laugh wisely and fairly! What scholars he has formed and accustomed to the exercise of thoughtful humour and the manly play of wit! What a courage he had![1] What a dauntless and constant cheerfulness of intellect, that burned bright and steady through all the storms of his life, and never deserted its last wreck! It is wonderful to think of the pains and misery which
- ↑ In the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1786, an anecdote is related of Harry Fielding, "in whom," says the correspondent, "good-nature and philauthropy in their extreme degree were known to be the prominent features." It seems that "some parochial taxes" for his house in Beaufort Buildings had long been demanded by the collector. "At last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process of literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, when he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He asked the chum to dinner with him at a neighbouring tavern; and learning that he was in difficulties, emptied the contents of his pocket into his. On returning home he was informed that the collector had been twice for the money. 'Friendship has called for the money and had it,' said Fielding, 'let the collector call again.'"
It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name "Fielding," and not "Feilding," like the head of the house? "I cannot tell, my lord," said he, "except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell."
