Fielding | Page 8

author in the play, has more than one of the characteristics which distinguish the traditional portrait of Fielding himself in his early years. He wears a laced coat, is in love, writes plays, and cannot pay his landlady, who declares, with some show of justice, that she "would no more depend on a Benefit-Night of an un-acted Play, than she wou'd on a Benefit-Ticket in an un-drawn Lottery." "Her Floor (she laments) is all spoil'd with Ink--her Windows with Verses, and her Door has been almost beat down with Duns." But the most humorous scenes in the play-- scenes really admirable in their ironic delineation of the seamy side of authorship in 1730--are those in which Mr. Bookweight, the publisher-- the Curll or Osborne of the period--is shown surrounded by the obedient hacks, who feed at his table on "good Milk-porridge, very often twice a Day," and manufacture the murders, ghost-stories, political pamphlets, and translations from Virgil (out of Dryden) with which he supplies his customers. Here is one of them as good as any:--
"Bookweight. So, Mr. Index, what News with you?
Index. I have brought my Bill, Sir.
Book. What's here?--for fitting the Motto of Risum teneatis Amici to a dozen Pamphlets at Sixpence per each, Six Shillings--For Omnia vincit Amor, & nos cedamus Amori, Sixpence--For Difficile est Satyram non scribere, Sixpence--Hum! hum! hum! Sum total, for Thirty-six Latin Motto's, Eighteen Shillings; ditto English, One Shilling and Nine- pence; ditto Greek, Four, Four Shillings. These Greek Motto's are excessively dear.
Ind. If you have them cheaper at either of the Universities, I will give you mine for nothing.
Book. You shall have your Money immediately, and pray remember that I must have two Latin Seditious Motto's and one Greek Moral Motto for Pamphlets by to-morrow Morning....
Ind. Sir, I shall provide them. Be pleas'd to look on that, Sir, and print me Five hundred Proposals, and as many Receipts.
Book. Proposals for printing by Subscription a new Translation of Cicero, Of the Nature of the Gods and his Tusculan Questions, by Jeremy Index, Esq.; I am sorry you have undertaken this, for it prevents a Design of mine.
Ind. Indeed, Sir, it does not, for you see all of the Book that I ever intend to publish. It is only a handsome Way of asking one's Friends for a Guinea.
Book. Then you have not translated a Word of it, perhaps.
Ind. Not a single Syllable.
Book. Well, you shall have your Proposals forthwith; but I desire you wou'd be a little more reasonable in your Bills for the future, or I shall deal with you no longer; for I have a certain Fellow of a College, who offers to furnish me with Second-hand Motto's out of the Spectator for Two-pence each.
Ind. Sir, I only desire to live by my Goods, and I hope you will be pleas'd to allow some difference between a neat fresh Piece, piping hot out of the Classicks, and old thread-bare worn-out Stuff that has past thro' ev'ry Pedant's Mouth...."
The latter part of this amusing dialogue, referring to Mr. Index's translation from Cicero, was added in an amended version of the Author's Farce, which appeared some years later, and in which Fielding depicts the portrait of another all-powerful personage in the literary life,--the actor-manager. This, however, will be more conveniently treated under its proper date, and it is only necessary to say here that the slight sketches of Marplay and Sparkish given in the first edition, were presumably intended for Cibber and Wilks, with whom, notwithstanding the "civil and kind Behaviour" for which he had thanked them in the "Preface" to Love in Several Masques, the young dramatist was now, it seems, at war. In the introduction to the Miscellanies, he refers to "a slight Pique" with Wilks; and it is not impossible that the key to the difference may be found in the following passage:--
"Sparkish. What dost think of the Play?
Marplay. It may be a very good one, for ought I know; but I know the Author has no Interest.
Spark. Give me Interest, and rat the Play.
Mar. Rather rat the Play which has no Interest. Interest sways as much in the Theatre as at Court.--And you know it is not always the Companion of Merit in either."
The handsome student from Leyden--the potential Congreve who wrote Love in Several Masques, and had Lady Mary Wortley Montagu for patroness, might fairly be supposed to have expectations which warranted the civilities of Messrs. Wilks and Cibber; but the "Luckless" of two years later had probably convinced them that his dramatic performances did not involve their sine qua non of success. Under these circumstances nothing perhaps could be more natural than that they should play their parts in his little satire.
We have dwelt at some length upon the Author's Farce, because it is the first of Fielding's