The same sad morn to Church and State St. John's fell genius issued forth, Bolingbroke's insidious attack in many essays on the Christian religion threw the clergy-both Anglican and nonconformist-into consternation. They denounced him in the newspapers, in pamphlets, and in longer treatises. To them and to the public at large, Bolingbroke was the arch-atheist, a blasphemer and hypocrite, who like all godless men recanted during his last illness and met death with abject fear of the torments in store for him. The philosopher did indeed suffer intense pain in the days preceding his death, but it came from a cancer in his face, not from his conscience. He did indeed remark, when he bade farewell to Chesterfield, "God who placed me here will do what He pleases with me hereafter, and He knows best what to do"; but this was no recantation, for Bolingbroke was never an atheist; nor do his last words display any anxiety about the punishment that awaits him in another world. Fielding, disregardful of apocryphal tales, set out, as soon as he was able, to expose the fallacies of Bolingbroke's philosophy. He went about the task with characteristic thoroughness. In the first place there were five folio volumes to look into, of which the last, containing the essays, had to be read with the minutest care; and then to buttress his arguments, he thought it necessary, according to Murphy, to go through "the Fathers and the most eminent writers of controversy." The circumstances in which he prosecuted these studies were described in "The Evening Advertiser" for April 16-18, 1754. Though the paragraph writer doubtless overdrew the picture somewhat for effect, he expressed the general concern that Fielding might not live to complete the work upon which he was employed: "It must always be remembered to the honour of Mr. Fielding, that, while he is sinking under a complicated load of dangerous disorders, and is so near the verge of eternity, that at night there is but little probability of his surviving to the next day; he devotes the whole strength of his faculties to the honour of God, and the virtue and happiness of the human soul, in detecting the pernicious errors of the late Lord Bolingbroke; who, as long as his memory shall be transmitted to posterity, must be considered as the disgrace of his country, and the enemy of mankind. That Mr. Fielding's efforts, if the exertion of them is permitted to continue, will be attended with general success, there is great reason to expect; but the manner in which Lord Bolingbroke is said to have quitted life, will always be a more efficacious confutation of his principles, than can be produced by the confederated strength of human intellects." The long extracts which Fielding made from philosophers and divines for his answer to Bolingbroke were preserved, says Murphy in 1762, by his brother John. These papers have since disappeared; but so much of his refutation as he wrote out has survived. As published after the author's death, under the title of "A Fragment of a Comment on Lord Bolingbroke's Essays," there are of it twenty-seven pages and a half. These show Fielding's mind in his illness working smoothly and logically in a graceful and subdued style. They are pervaded with that philosophic wit and humour which Fielding had learned from South and Shaftesbury-which, we see from his confession in "The Covent-Garden Journal," he had come to prefer to the wild play of Cervantes, or Lucian even. He lays down a few principles for his guidance and then proceeds to examine Bolingbroke's essays one by one, bringing to the front his lordship's contradictory assertions, and undermining his philosophy by showing that his authorities said exactly the opposite of that which Bolingbroke declared they said. The method is subtle ridicule. His conclusion is that Bolingbroke was insincere in his opinions, that his lordship wrote but in jest. Becoming ironical, he finds "the noblest conservation of character" in this man who made "the temporal happiness, the civil liberties and properties of Europe" the game of his earliest youth, and could discover "no sport so adequate to the entertainment of his advanced age, as the eternal and final happiness of all mankind." Fielding did not get far in his examen of Bolingbroke's essays, hardly beyond the first of them in the fifth volume. It was clearly his intention to complete the work while at Fordhook. But this design was upset by the necessity of leaving England. The physicians whom he consulted told him that his only chance of life was a long rest through the summer in order to gather strength against the ensuing winter. But there was no summer in England this year. A cold, wet spring had followed a severe winter. "In the whole month of May," says Fielding, "the sun scarce appeared three times. So that the early fruits came to the fulness of their growth, and to some appearance of ripeness, without acquiring any real maturity; having wanted the heat of the sun to soften and meliorate their juices." Likewise June came, and still summer lagged behind. If Fielding were to have the benefits of a warm season, it was now certain that he must go south in search of them. At first he thought of Aix in Provence; but consideration of this place was soon abandoned, for no ship was about to sail from London to Marseilles or to any other neighbouring port in the Mediterranean, and it was impossible for him to endure the journey overland, to say nothing of the expense of it. In the end he settled upon Lisbon, which was easy to reach owing to the large number of merchantmen engaged in the Portuguese trade. If winds were favour·able, he might make the voyage in two weeks.* At Lisbon, Fielding hoped to find the warmth he longed for, and to escape, by remaining there, the inclemency of another English winter. "The Jacobite's Journal," March 19, 1718. CHAPTER XXVII A VOYAGE TO LISBON One day, apparently the twelfth of June, his brother John sent him word that excellent accommodations might be obtained on "a ship that was obliged to sail for Lisbon in three days"; that is, on Saturday the fifteenth. The vessel, which lay by the London docks at Rotherhithe, was "The Queen of Portugal," and the captain was Richard Veal (or Veale). Though the time was extremely short for making the necessary preparations, Fielding instructed his brother to engage passage for himself and those members of his family who were to accompany him, and thereupon began to set his affairs in order for the voyage "with the utmost expedition." One of the first things to do was to make his will, if indeed he had not already made it since coming to Fordhook. The document, indicative of haste, for it bears no date, reads as follows: "In the Name of God Amen-I Henry Fielding of the parish of Ealing in the County of Middlesex do hereby give and bequeath unto Ralph Allen of Prior Park in the County of Somerset Esq and to his heirs executors administrators and assigns for ever to the use of the said Ralph his heirs &c all my Estate real and personal wheresoever and whatsoever and do appoint him sole Executor of this my last Will-Beseeching him that the whole (except my shares in the Register Office) may be sold and forthwith converted into Money and Annuities purchased thereout for the lives of my dear Wife Mary and my daughters Harriet and Sophia and what proportions my said Executor shall please |