Henry Fielding – Tom Jones

C Playwright, Student, Journalist, Novelist

1 Playwright and Student


Fielding’s first play was staged at Drury Lane in February 1728. However, for reasons that can only be speculated on,³⁵ between March 1728 and April 1729 Fielding spent two terms studying at the University of Leiden. Uncertainty surrounds what he was studying³⁶ and why he left.³⁷ By the end 1729 Fielding was back in London. His second play, The Temple Beau, was staged in January
³⁰ After his marriage, Fielding “retired” to the farm at East Stour to live the life of a country squire. His extravagance saw Charlotte’s fortune dissipated on “hospitality, horses, and hounds”; Fielding and Charlotte were back in London, penniless, in the spring of 1736. See Frederick Lawrence The Life of Henry Fielding (Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co, London, 1855) 74–80.
³¹ An early Fielding biography summarises the position well: “Both father and son, indeed, were the victims of a prodigal disposition, and probably no amount of wealth could have kept either of them out of difficulties.” See Lawrence, above n 30, 150. Fielding managed to avoid the fate of his father, Edmund, who was sent to Fleet Prison (over a debt of £887.10s) in November 1740, not long before his death.
³² Rogers, above n 1, 150. Mary was a devoted wife, and the marriage was by all accounts a happy one. Fielding had five children (three of whom died young) with Charlotte; Mary and Fielding had five children in the six years they were married.
³³ Ibid, 155. Horace Walpole, Sir Robert’s son, later wrote: “… Fielding started up, & striking his breast, cried, ‘if you talk of virtue, here’s virtue! I married my whore yesterday.’ He had; Lyttelton made him.”
³⁴ Tom Jones, above n 6, 675.
³⁵ Godden, above n 11, 34, declines to speculate: “The reason for this sudden change … must surely be a matter of conjecture.”; Battestin, above n 7, 63, suggests: “He had the wit to see that his apprenticeship to his craft [as a playwright] was still far from complete … .”; Ronald Paulson The Life of Henry Fielding (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2000) 20, states: “[Fielding’s] father decided for him … .”; and Rogers, above n 1, 29, simply says: “[T]here was less family pressure than personal whim behind the decision … My own view is that Henry probably just changed his mind [about going to university].”
³⁶ Rogers, above n 1, 29, says Fielding was studying classical literature; Paulson, above n 35, 20, says Fielding was “officially” enrolled in law, but improving his knowledge of the classics; Battestin, above n 7, 64, simply says it is uncertain. When one considers that many of Fielding’s works have a strong autobiographical element, the plot of The Temple Beau (see n 38 below) indicates Paulson is probably close to the mark.
³⁷ Rogers, above n 1, 30, suggests the withdrawal of the small allowance his father had been paying was a factor; Battestin, above n 7, 72–73, notes that Fielding was in debt and a summons had been taken out against him in the University Court.
1730.³⁸ Over the next seven years, Fielding wrote 18 plays,³⁹ many of which satirised Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and his government. In 1737, an “obscene and seditious farce”, The Golden Rump,⁴⁰ in which Walpole featured prominently, precipitated the passage of the Licensing Act which ended Fielding’s theatrical career.⁴¹ On 1 November 1737 Fielding took the formal steps necessary to commence studying law.⁴²


2 Journalist and Novelist

Financial necessity saw Fielding’s career as a political journalist continue in tandem with his legal career, including his time on the Bench. Fielding’s experiments with prose fiction began in 1740 and his first published piece, Shamela, appeared in 1741. ⁴³ Several other works followed before the publication of Tom Jones in 1749. Theatrical metaphors marked many of Fielding’s early works, but as his legal training advanced, judicial metaphors began to dominate.⁴⁴ And as this paper will demonstrate, Fielding’s use of legal and judicial metaphor reached its zenith in Tom Jones.