Henry Fielding – Tom Jones

D Barrister

Fielding was admitted to the Bar of the Middle Temple on 20 June 1740, having completed the normal seven year pupillage in just over two and a half years. Fielding’s intellect and diligence played their part, but the influence of his

³⁸ Paulson, above n 35, 29. The “Temple” is one of the Temples of the Bar; the title character, Young Wilding, is a pretend law student, who runs up large debts for “law books” (of which he has none).

³⁹ Battestin, above n 7, 231–232.
⁴⁰ Although anonymous, it was attributed to Fielding despite his denials. The play was never performed and no text survives. The inspiration for The Golden Rump was a satirical print, “The Festival of the Golden Rump” which depicts the King as a satyr while the Queen, dressed as a priestess, is inserting an “aurum potabile” into his naked backside. Prime Minister Robert Walpole is standing by, in the robes of a chief magician. See Rogers, above n 1, 94.
⁴¹ Battestin, above n 7, 69. The Act required theatres to hold a royal patent or a special licence from the Lord Chamberlain, and all new plays had to be licensed before being performed. Parliament had, in the words of Fielding’s friend, James Harris, “made a law, in order to curb one private man.” See Linda Bree “Henry Fielding’s Life” in Claude Rawson (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007) 10. See also Tom Jones, above n 6, 167, where Fielding makes his views known via a combined legal-theatrical metaphor: “[W]hat [do] the modern judges of our theatre mean by that word law; by which they have happily succeeded in banishing all humour from the stage, and have made the theatre as dull as a drawing-room?”
⁴² Rogers, above n 1, 97.
⁴³ Bree, above n 41, 11.
⁴⁴ Paulson, above n 35, 106.
uncle, Davidge Gould, helped secure his early admission. ⁴⁵ One of only (approximately) 200 barristers in total around this time, Fielding had joined an elite profession, but its “lower rungs were neither dignified nor remunerative.”⁴⁶ Fielding maintained chambers at the Temple for less than 6 months.⁴⁷ He rode the Western Circuit while his health permitted, ⁴⁸ but remained reliant on the income from his writing.⁴⁹ Fielding was, however, committed to the law, and in 1747 he sought appointment to the Bench.