(1707-1754).—
Novelist, was born at Sharpham Park, near
Glastonbury. His father was General Edmund F., descended from the
Earls of Denbigh and Desmond, and his mother was the daughter of Sir
Henry Gould of Sharpham Park. His childhood was spent at East Stour,
Dorset, and his education was received at first from a tutor, after
which he was sent to Eton. Following a love affair with a young
heiress at Lyme Regis he was sent to Leyden to study law, where he
remained until his ƒ., who had entered into a second marriage,
and who was an extravagant man, ceased to send his allowance. Thrown
upon his own resources, he came to London and began to write light
comedies and farces, of which during the next few years he threw off
nearly a score. The drama, however, was not his true vein, and none of
his pieces in this kind have survived, unless Tom Thumb, a
burlesque upon his contemporary playwrights, be excepted. About 1735
he married Miss Charlotte Cradock, a beautiful and amiable girl to
whom, though he gave her sufficient cause for forbearance, he was
devotedly attached. She is the prototype of his “Amelia” and
“Sophia.” She brought him £1500, and the young couple
retired to East Stour, where he had a small house inherited from his
mother. The little fortune was, however, soon dissipated; and in a
year he was back in London, where he formed a company of comedians,
and managed a small theatre in the Haymarket. Here he produced
successfully Pasquin, a Dramatic Satire on the Times, and
The Historical Register for 1736, in which Walpole was
satirised. This enterprise was brought to an end by the passing of the
Licensing Act, 1737, making the imprimatur of the Lord
Chamberlain necessary to the production of any play. F. thereupon read
law at the Middle Temple, was called to the Bar in 1740, and went the
Western Circuit. The same year saw the publication of
Richardson’s Pamela, which inspired F. with the idea of a
parody, thus giving rise to his first novel, Joseph
Andrews. As, however, the characters, especially Parson Adams,
developed in his hands, the original idea was laid aside, and the work
assumed the form of a regular novel. It was published in 1742, and
though sharing largely in the same qualities as its great successor,
Tom Jones, its reception, though encouraging, was not
phenomenally cordial. Immediately after this a heavy blow fell on
F. in the death of his wife. The next few years were occupied with
writing his Miscellanies, which contained, along with some
essays and poems, two important works, A Journey from this World to
the Next, and The History of Jonathan Wild the Great, a
grave satire; and he also conducted two papers in support of the
Government, The True Patriot and The Jacobite Journal,
in consideration of which he was appointed Justice of the Peace for
Middlesex and Westminster, and had a pension conferred upon him. In
1746 he set convention at defiance by marrying Mary MacDaniel, who had
been his first wife’s maid, and the nurse of his children, and
who proved a faithful and affectionate companion. F. showed himself an
upright, diligent, and efficient magistrate, and his Inquiry into
the Increase of Robbers (1751), with suggested remedies, led to
beneficial results. By this time, however, the publication of his
great masterpiece, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
(1749), had given him a place among the immortals. All critics are
agreed that this book contains passages offensive to delicacy, and
some say to morality. This is often excused on the plea of the coarser
manners of the age; but a much stronger defence is advanced on the
ground that, while other novelists of the time made immorality an
incentive to merriment, F.’s treatment of such subjects, as
Lowell has said, “shocks rather than corrupts,” and that in
his pages evil is evil. On the other hand, there is universal
agreement as to the permanent interest of the types of character
presented, the profound knowledge of life and insight into human
nature, the genial humour, the wide humanity, the wisdom, and the
noble and masculine English of the book. His only other novel,
Amelia, which some, but these a small minority, have regarded
as his best, was published in 1751. His health was now thoroughly
broken, and in 1753, as a forlorn hope, he went in search of
restoration to Lisbon, where he died on October 8, and was buried in
the English cemetery. His last work was a Journal of his
voyage. Though with many weaknesses and serious faults, F. was
fundamentally a man of honest and masculine character, and though
improvident and reckless in his habits, especially in earlier life, he
was affectionate in his domestic relations, and faithful and efficient
in the performance of such public duties as he was called to
discharge. Thackeray thus describes his appearance, “His figure
was tall and stalwart, his face handsome, manly, and noble-looking; to
the last days of his life he retained a grandeur of air; and, though
worn down by disease, his aspect and presence imposed respect upon
people round about him.”
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