66 at the same time so deep and lasting, that his | have been expressed. Richardson saw in it friends greatly feared for his reason. nothing but vulgarity and immorality; Johnson spoke of Fielding as a rascal," and in the meantime, his books have been translated into almost every European language. "Tom Jones" was soon followed by "Amelia." By this time the indiscretions of Fielding's youth began to tell upon his constitution. He was, however, full of mental energy, and commenced a new periodical called "The Covent Garden Journal," almost immediately after the publication of his last novel. In this Journal he commenced a vigorous onslaught on some of the inferior writers of the day, and set apart a portion of it for what he called " A Journal of the War." The person principally attacked was Sir John Hill, who returned all Fielding's abuse with interest in a paper of his own called "The Inspector." Fielding had a powerful enemy, too, at this period in Smollet, who seems rather to have disliked him for his intimacy with George Lyttleton, than from any personal cause. An abusive attack against the two friends, which appeared at this time, is attributed to Smollet, who was, at all events, On recovering from the immediate effects of this great calamity, Fielding applied once more to the law. In a preface which he wrote at this time, to the second edition of his sister's book, "David Simple," he gave the world to understand that, as he was now making some progress in his profession, he wished no longer to be regarded as a man of letters. It was not long, however, before he was again active in literature. In 1745, when the Rebellion broke out, he started a newspaper in support of Government, to which he gave the name of "The New Patriot;" the immediate object of which was to write down the Jacobites. The greater part of this paper is lost, only a few numbers having been preserved in Mr. Murphy's edition of Fielding's works. It had a good sale till the suppression of the Rebellion, when its publication was discontinued. In 1747, Fielding started another political paper, called "The Jacobite's Journal," the object of which was to put a finishing stroke to the life of those principles which had received so severe a shock at Culloden. At this period, Field-guilty of a violent and scurrilous attack upon ing was subjected to a violent and unjust persecution from his fellow-labourers in literature, who, not contented with fair weapons of attack, thrust before the public the former errors of his private life. It is curious to find his enemies accusing him, among other offences, of having produced "the dry and unnatural character of Parson Adams." On the death of his wife, Fielding had found great consolation in deploring her loss, and in talking over her virtues with a faithful and attached maid, whom she had left. Their common sorrow and common attach ment to the memory of "the flower of Sarum" gave birth to a feeling of strong mutual friendship, and three years after the death of his Charlotte, Fielding thinking he could find no more faithful guardian for his children, or more sympathizing companion for himself, married this humble friend of his former wife, nor had he, as far as we know, ever reason to regret the step. In 1749, just seven years after the appearance of Joseph Andrews, Fielding published his "Tom Jones." This work was not, as has been stated, written "amidst the bustle of magisterial duties;" on the contrary, many years, and "those not the brightest of his life," had been spent in its composition. It had an immediate sale and became at once widely popular. The bookseller, Millar, who had purchased the copyright for six hundred pounds, added another hundred to the stipulated sum. There are few books upon which more widely different opinions the justice and his patron, inserted in the first edition of his Peregrin Pickle, but withdrawn from the subsequent editions. Fielding had a third enemy in Bonnell Thornton, who edited the Drury Lane Journal. After editing the "Covent Garden Journal" for several months, Fielding was compelled to give it up on account of his increasing infirmities. He did not, however, neglect his magisterial duties, and in 1753, we find him taking an active part in the case of Elizabeth Canning, that case which puzzled so many of the wise heads of the day. Elizabeth Canning was an illiterate servant girl, who being absent from her master's service for a month, accounted for her disappearance by telling a minute and circumstantial tale of being waylaid, and carried to a house of ill-fame, where she affirmed that she was forcibly detained, and fed on bread and water till she contrived to escape. Though there were some discrepancies in the story, it received full credence from Fielding, and many of his brother magistrates. A gipsy woman, named Squires, was found in the house indicated by the girl, and sworn to, as having been engaged in the transaction, and notwithstanding an "alibi” attested by many witnesses, she was condemned to death on the testimony of Elizabeth Canning. The Mayor of London saved the poor creature's life, and a short time after, the girl herself was tried for wilful and corrupt perjury, and the whole story then appearing to be an invention, she was transported for life to the American Plantations. of "At the rehearsal of the Wedding-Day, the young actor (Garrick) told Fielding that he feared the audience might express their disapprobation added, that a repulse might so flurry his spirits a particularly objectionable passage; and as to disconcert him for the rest of the night.' But Fielding was inexorable. If the scene is not a good one,' he said, let them find that out.' The actor's forebodings, however, turned out to be well with a storm of hisses; and Garrick, who was grounded. The objectionable passage was met the stage in a huff, and sought for consolation in peculiarly sensitive on such matters, retired from the gossip of a green-room. There he found Fielding sitting over a bottle of champagne, of which he had drunk rather freely. What's the matter, Garrick?' he exclaimed, as the actor entered the room in a somewhat excited state. What are Fielding wrote a pamphlet on her case, which | Garrick, have sufficient connexion with Fieldwas replied to by his enemy Sir John Hill. ing to claim a place here:By this time Fielding's health was fast sinking, and his only hope of prolonging his life seemed to be a journey to another climate. At first, arrangements were made for his removal to Bath, but it was found at the last moment that his public services could not be well dispensed with. Street robberies, accompanied with violence, had become alarmingly prevalent, and Fielding, whose heart seems always to have been in his work, could not be spared when there was real On the application of the Duke work to do. of Newcastle, he drew up a plan for the suppression of street robberies, which proved to be so effective, that the dark nights of November and December, 1753, passed without a single outrage. Fielding's life was now drawing to a close, and he had still made no provision for his family, but he entertained a strong hope that this successful attempt to serve the public would be repaid after his death to those for whose future he had so many misgivings. During the whole winter. he suffered severely with dropsy, and when summer arrived, he prepared to depart to a warmer air, and in the month of June 1754, embarked in a trading vessel for Lisbon. A Journal which he kept on the passage, records the inconvenience and discomforts under which a sea voyage was made in those days; in this last production of his pen, his buoyant spirits are everywhere to be traced. He reached Lisbon in August, to die two months after. they hissing now? He was angrily informed it Oh!' said the author, with an oath, coolly resuming his pipe of tobacco, they have found it out, have they?'" was the scene he had been advised to retrench. Garrick was as niggardly as Fielding was profuse, in his habits, and it was the great delight of Fielding to ridicule on the parsimony of his friend : half-a-crown from Mrs. Cibber, Got bless herbere's a shilling from Mr. Macklin-here is two. from Mr. Havard-and here is something more from the poet, Got pless his merry heart.' By his great astonishment, he saw it contained no this time David had unfolded the paper, when, to more than one penny! Garrick felt nettled at this, and next day spoke to Fielding about the impropriety of jesting with a servant. Jesting!' said Fielding, with seeming surprise; so far from it, his lodgings to Fielding, Macklin, Havard, (the "Garrick, we are told, had given a dinner at comedian), Mrs. Cibber, and others; and veils to servants being then much in fashion, Macklin, and most of the company, gave Garrick's man (David, a Welshman) something at parting—some a shilling, some half-a-crown, whilst Fielding very formally slipped a piece of paper in his hand, with In closing our retrospect of the days of something folded in the inside. When all the Henry Fielding, we must not neglect to ac- glee, Garrick asked him how much he had got. company were gone, David, seeming to be in high knowledge our obligation to Mr. Lawrence,I can't tell you yet, sir,' said David. Here's to whose work we have been indebted for much information. Mr. Lawrence's entertaining book is, as its title tells us, not only a Life of Fielding, but a notice of his contemporaries, and, in these contemporaneous notices consists, to say the least, half the interest of the work. In becoming a man's biographer, we are bound to follow, year after year, in his track, whether he introduces us to strange and moving scenes, or keeps us by his side in the chimney-corner; but, in a “notice," we are free to pick and choose our materials, and Mr. Lawrence has used this freedom with tact and discrimination. His notices are generally so managed as to contain just such information and just such amusement as one cares to have concerning the characters one meets by the way, in following another man's life. Were we to begin to extract from the piquant anecdotes in this book, we should not know where to end. We may, however, give two, which, though partly belonging to the sketch of meant to do the fellow a real piece of service; for had I given him a shilling or half-a-crown, I know you would have taken it from him; but by giving him only a penny, he had a chance of calling it his own."" We conclude with an appropriate extract from Mr. Thackeray's Lectures:-" I can not hope to make a hero of Henry Fielding. Why hide his faults? Why conceal his weaknesses in a cloud of periphrasis? Why not show him, like him, as he is, not robed in a marble toga, and draped and polished in a heroic attitude, but with inked ruffles and claret stains, in his tarnished laced coat, and on his manly face the marks of good place, among the books of the nineteenth fellowship, of illness, of kindness, of care, and century, corresponding to that justly conwine. Stained as you see him, and worn by ceded by us to the "Analogy" of Butler in care and dissipation, that man retains some the literature of the last age, or to the of the most precious and splendid human "Thoughts" of Pascal in that of the age qualities and endowments. He has an ad- preceding. mirable natural love of truth, the keenest Our quotation, it will be seen, refers exinstinctive antipathy to hypocrisy, the hap-pressly only to "biblical" interpretation, piest satirical gift of laughing it to scorn. and to the "revelation" of God contained in His wit is wonderfully wise and detective; Scripture. But the lesson it contains may it flashes upon a rogue, and lightens up a be applied to the interpretation of any reverascal, like a policeman's lantern. He is one lation of the Divine Being, as well that of the manliest and kindliest of human beings. contained in the events of the material In the midst of all his imperfections he re- world, or in the facts of the human conspects female innocence and infantine tender-sciousness, as on the pages of the Bible. ness, as you would suppose such a greathearted, courageous soul would respect and care for them. He could not be so brave, generous, truth-telling as he is, were he not infinitely merciful, pitiful, and tender. He will give any man his purse-he can't help kindness and profusion. He may have low metaphysical ingenuity has supplied to untastes, but not a mean mind; he admires, with all his heart, good and virtuous men, stoops to no flattery, bears no rancour, disdains all disloyal arts, does his public duty rightfully, is loved by his family, and dies at his work." ART. VIII-A Treatise on the Augustinian And the movement referred to suggests the need for an emancipation of religious knowledge from the trammels,not of polemical theology only, but of unphilosophical assumption of every kind. That movement must clear away for itself the obstructions which belief; and not less those which eclesiastical prejudice has opposed to the reception of the facts of Divine Revelation in their mysterious integrity. We mention both these together, as we often observe a common foundation of dogmatic assumption, on which unbelievers, on the one side, reject or sit in judgment on divine mysteries, and certain orthodox theologians, on the other, endeavour to enforce consistency within an order of ideas whose psychological character forbids any attempt to comprehend them within the narrow enclosure of a human system and finite knowledge. The latter overweening conceit is a mainstay of modern Atheism. "THERE is a movement forward," says the author of the Restoration of Belief, "which Thus expanded in its application, the is not merely desirable, not merely posible, foregoing extract may suggest as an ideal at but almost certain to come about. This which to aim, the deliverance of religious is a thorough and absolute emancipation thought and research from the bondage of a of biblical interpretation from the trammels false metaphysics, which, in theological that have hitherto been imposed upon hands, has wantonly added difficulties of its it by our polemical theologies. When own to those inseparable from the employonce this liberation has been effected, the ment of a finite understanding in such quesutterances of the Scripture will have room tions. Thus a way into our faith may be to take a new hold of the human mind, opened, for the entrance of Revealed Facts, -accepted as true in their simplest mean- in their collective purity, unvitiated by the ing; and then a genuine counterpoising vain endeavours of opposite parties to atof moral and spiritual principles will free-tain a "systematic coherence," which matly develop itself in a manner that shall ters so high cannot receive in any finite ingive rest to the heart; whether or not a sys- telligence. Revelation, in its intellectual tematic coherence can be secured for scientific aspect can be appreciated only by those who theology."-We quote these words from a have reflected deeply on our theological igvolume which contains logical sagacity and philosophic comprehension, as well as the magnanimity and courage of faith, in richer profusion than any other work bearing on religious matters that has been addressed to the present generation. The "Restoration of Belief" may, in many respects, take a norance. Through an increase of that reflection, we may hope for an increase of a genuine inductive spirit, in that part of modern thought which has hitherto most firmly resisted the influence of Bacon,- -we mean the department of Theology. In the present state of theological opinion, this much-needed reform is promoted as much by those who | ing it. Those who remind men of their ignorremove metaphysical obstructions to faith ance use an argument which, however it may in mysterious truths whose ramifications fall short of striking with its full philosophical penetrate every part of natural and super- undeniable truth, before which all human souls strength, and producing its due effect, appeals to an natural theology, as by others, who add to must bow. And the most ardent minds, in the our information of what has been positively very heat of controversy, have an indirect snspirevealed regarding the Divine Being, in the cion that a strong ground has been established in changes of nature or the texts of the Bible. this quarter. On the other hand, this knowledge The one class make room for the material of the limits of human reason is not, and perhaps gathered by the other. never will be, for reasons which I have given, We have no intention to discuss, as mat- very acute or accurate in the minds of the mass; while the tendency to one-sided views and to ters of biblical doctrine, any of the numerhasty assumption is strong, and is aided by pasous questions in ecclesiastical history and sion and self-love, as well as by better feeling miscontroversial divinity, investigated by Mr. applied. On the whole, therefore, while improved Mozley, with exemplary candour, in the able philosophy has perhaps entirely destroyed some and learned work which stands at the head great false assumptions which have reigned in the of this article, and forms a valuable addition world, so that these will never rise again, it cannot to theological literature. We are drawn to subdue the temper which makes such assumptions. his book, as we find pervading it an inter- it cannot be expected that it will ever habitually It is able occasionally to check and qualify, but esting attempt to apply the solvent of Reli- regulate theological thought and controversy. It gious Philosophy, to a well-worn debate in will from time to time step in as a monitor, and the schools of metaphysics and theology. take advantage of a pause and quiet interval to We are glad to see in that attempt one impress its lesson upon mankind, to bring them among other signs, that a long and discourg-back to reflection when they have been carried too ing controversy is leading divines to inter- far, and convert for the time a sense of error into pret more deeply, because more with the a more cautious view of truth; but it will never aid of philosophical reflection on the nature and boundaries of finite knowledge, the inspired words which express the best of all metaphysical lessons-WE KNOW IN PART. Metaphysic only proves by rational reflection, what in them is expressed through Divine inspiration. It is true that we must not overrate the influence of philosophical reflection on human knowledge, either in directly solving difficulties for rationalism, or in chasing away, from the region of religious belief, dogmatic as sumptions which, for the most part, retain their hold over their theological victims by other means than intelligent apprehension. We are here glad to quote from Mr. Mozley some eloquent sentences, much in sympathy with our own opinion. perhaps do more than this. Unable to balance and settle, it will give a useful oscillation to the human mind, an alternation of enthusiasm and judgment, of excitement and repose.”—Pp. 339, 340. There are two modes in which perplexities of speculation, and the "trammels" of polemical theology, may be removed from the path of those engaged in inductive research among the facts of Divine Revelation. Of these the one is direct and positive; the other indirect or negative. That is, we may find ourselves rationally at liberty to accept all the offered facts,-notwithstanding the seeming contradictions which they involve when received in their integrity, either (1.) through a comprehensible resolution of their apparent contradictions, or (2.) through a demonstration that such contradictions result from the very finitude of human knowledge, and that a finite intelligence must be content to live for ever, satisfied with this incomprehensible and merely negative solution. "Philosophers," he says, "have from time to time prophesied a day when a better understanding would commence of man with himself, and of man with man. They have risen up from the survey of the past with the idea that it is impossible that mankind can go on for ever repeating the same mistakes; that they must one day see rect satisfaction, and cannot, when it becomes The popular mind naturally craves for dithe limits of human reason, distinguish what they know from what they do not know, and draw the alive to a difficulty, be readily made to renecessary conclusion, that on some questions they ceive as the only possible conclusion, a cannot insist on any one absolute truth, and con- scientific proof that for us there must here demn each other accordingly. But the vision remain a difficulty for ever. It has been does not approach at present any very clear fulfil- encouraged in this tendency by the circumment. The limits of human reason are perhaps stance, that many metaphysicians have vain better understood in the world now than they ever were before; and such knowledge has evidently ly sought positive solutions of mysteries an effect on controversy, modifying and chasten- necessarily implied in the finitude of knowledge; and that "systematic" divines have dealt with the incomprehensible words and *See especially chapters ii. and xi. propositions in which such mysteries are ex- | hended in finite knowledge, and thus conpressed, as if they were not incomprehensi- clude logically, that whatever happens ble at all, but part of the territory of or- (whether an act of will or a change in the dinary intelligence. Philosophy has now, material world) must happen, and could not as it seems to us, almost reached the stage in possibly be other than it is. Their oppoits progress, at which the second of the two nents, too, virtually confine the full meaning modes above referred to shall be more gen- of "causal necessity" within the limits of erally recognised as alone and sufficiently human comprehension-but after another available. The spirit of Bacon, together fashion. They take for granted that causawith the speculations of Locke, and Kant, tion in the abstract is sufficiently intelligible and Sir William Hamilton, have wonder- to require the assumption, that their favourfully advanced our knowledge of the true ite dogma of free action in man must be intheory of our necessary ignorance. * The consistent with absolute power in the Sufull practical application of that theory cor- preme Being; and conclude accordingly responds with the "movement forward," in that the omnipotence and omniscience of the theological province, hopefully described God are modified by the acts of his creafrom afar by the author of the "Restora-tures. tion of Belief." But what if both these counter assump Mr. Mozley, in this volume, endeavours tions contain by implication an unphilosoto apply the illustrations of human ignorance phical theory of human knowledge, and an which may be discovered in reflection on oversight of the phenomena of our theolothe boundary of knowledge, to a group of gical ignorance? They do so, if it can be speculative difficulties, by which free pro- demonstrated, that "causal necessity" begress, both in theological research and in the comes ultimately an unintelligible necessity, Christian life, has been too much hindered. that the proposition which expresses it Viewed on its philosophical side, that group (i. e., "every change implies a cause") must has appeared to demand a comprehensible re- be an incomprehensible proposition, as long conciliation of man's conviction that he is free as our intelligence is finite or imperfect. and responsible for his actions, with the uni- Philosophical reflection upon its character versal and necessary conviction that every must settle this point. At any rate, such event must be caused; on its theological reflection reveals many other incomprehenside, it has suggested the apparent inconsis-sible ideas and beliefs. They are the foundtency of human agency-unfallen, fallen, or ation of those we regard as perfectly intellirestored-on the one hand, and Divine Pow-gible. "Omnia exeunt in mysterium." er, or more specially Divine Grace and This must be so unless our mental experiPredestination, on the other. That "every ence is the measure of existence, and its event must be caused," seems the germ of necessary truths the boundary of being. Pantheistic Fatalism; "I am the creator of my own actions," appears to be a first step towards Atheism. Every metaphysical assumption employed in theology, this one regarding Causality and Divine Power among the number,ought, therefore, to be subjected to the ordeal of reflection upon its ultimate meaning before it is permitted to find its way into the "heartless syllogisms" of controversy. In the view of these perplexities, rival sects and angry controversies have been maintained, in the Pagan and also in the Christian world. One party first pretend to define, and then exclusively reason from, the Mr. Mozley wisely turns his eye in this axiom which expresses the necessity of "a direction in the opening chapters of his cause," and the infinity of the power of book. Let us avail ourselves of an extract God. They virtually take for granted that from his description of certain incomprethe meaning of that axiom can be comprehensible ideas and convictions, which form *The theory of our a priori ignorance—that man must seek for what appears, in order to gain the only knowledge that is for him possible of what is must abandon the ideal of 66 a universal science," totum, teres, atque rotundum,-and instead gradually accumulate a knowledge, that must be to him, on the whole, essentially imperfect and anomalous, because finite,-its imperfection and ultimately mysterious character being the very evidence of its finitude this surely is the lesson of all true philosophy from Plato downwards. But these moderns have in different ways, helped to give a scientific expression to that lesson, in a form congenial to the wants of the modern mind, and especially of theology. the background of the familiar beliefs of ordinary experience. We may, by reflecting upon them, see our theological ignorance as in a metaphysical looking-glass. "It will be evident to any one at all conversant with philosophy, and who will summon to his mind a few instances of the different kinds of truths to which it calls our attention, and which it assumes and uses in its arguments and speculations, that there are two very different kinds of truths upon which philosophy proceeds-one, of which the conception is distinct and absolute; the other, of which the conception is indistinct, |