strikingly shown in what happened. In this condition,' he writes, I ran the gauntlope (so I think I may justly call it) through rows of sailors and watermen, few of whom failed of paying their compliments to me by all manner of insults and jests on my misery.' The state of the country a hundred years ago, both in a moral and religious point of view, was so unsatisfactory that it is difficult to give any adequate idea of it. Hogarth's engravings supply the most complete evidence of the coarse indifference to suffering among all classes of the community. Raikes had not established Sunday schools. There was darkness among rich, darkness among poor-a gross, thick, religious and moral darkness. that might be felt. Fielding soon found that the ship would not sail that day, so he had to provide himself a dinner'A sirloin of beef, for which, though little better than carrion,' he was charged a high price by the master of the little paltry alehouse.' The next day the captain of the ship paid him a visit, and behaving like an angry bashaw, said that he would not start till two days had passed, such was his will and pleasure.' Many were the troubles in store for the invalid traveller in search of health. Besides the disagreeable situation in which we then lay in the confines of Rotherhithe and Wapping, tasting a delicious mixture of the air of both. these sweet places, and enjoying the concord of sweet sounds of seamen, watermen, fish-women, oyster-women, and all the vociferous inhabitants of both shores,' there was the fear that the malady under which Fielding suffered might require medical treatment before his arrival in Lisbon, if the ship delayed its departure. On this latter point the captain comforted his sick passenger with the assurance that he had a pretty young fellow on board, who acted as his surgeon, as I find he likewise did as steward, cook, butler and sailor.'

Fielding here, in his usual fashion, enters into a long digression on the utter want of knowledge respecting the many trials and misadventures of travelling by land or sea that prevails among people of the highest rank. Hence his desire to detail his own experience. Fielding evidently thought, as Dr. Johnson did afterwards, that the only difference between a ship and a prison was that you paid for your accommodation in the former, while you were free of any

charges in the latter. Fielding sums up by expressing his belief that the framers of the Litany were right, when they coupled those who were journeying by land or sea 'with other miserable wretches, as women in labour, people in sickness, infants just born, prisoners and captives.'

At length, on June 30, four days after the appointed time, the ship sailed down the river and anchored opposite Gravesend. As he floats down the Thames, Fielding cannot pass by another observation on the deplorable want of taste in our enjoyments, which we show, by almost totally neglecting the pursuit of what seems to me the highest degree of amusement; this is, the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own, contrived only for our ease and accommodation.' The Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes and the many clubs which have followed the example of that earliest of our pleasure fleets, since it dates from 1812, have amply removed this stigma upon the amusements of that English race which for the most part takes kindly to the water.

On July 1 they sailed to the Nore, and the next day they had to anchor in the Downs near Deal. The captain did not gain the good-will of his passengers on further acquaintance. Fielding gives a sketch of him. He had been the captain of a privateer, which he chose to call being in the King's service, and thence derived a right of hoisting a military cockade over the button of his hat. He likewise wore a sword of no ordinary length by his side, with which he swaggered in his cabin among the wretches, his passengers, whom he had stowed in cupboards on each side. He was a person of a very singular character. He had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman from those very reasons that proved he was not one; and to show himself a fine gentleman by a behaviour which seemed to insinuate that he had never seen one. He was moreover a man of gallantry; at the age of seventy he had the finicalness of Sir Courtly Nice with the roughness of Surley; and while he was deaf himself, had a voice capable of deafening all others.'

On the 4th the ship weighed anchor, but after buffeting against the wind for four hours the captain had to give it up and re-anchor very near his old spot. When the wind-bound passengers wanted anything from the shore, they found that

the Deal people did not forget to charge for it. Here they remained till the 8th, on which day they actually and positively sailed. During the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th they were sailing from Deal to the Isle of Wight, making such way as the winds and tides would let them, and on the afternoon of the 11th they anchored opposite Ryde. Here then Fielding was deposited at the Isle of Wight fifteen days after he had embarked at the Tower-a pretty taste of voyaging in search of health in those days.

January 19, 1889.

II.

Ryde may now be fairly reckoned among the fashionable English watering-places; at any rate it amply supplies all that an invalid in search of health can require. This gay, bright town wore a very different aspect when more than a century ago poor Fielding came to it, and described it as it then was, after his fifteen days' weary voyage, or rather series of repeated ridings at anchor, from Rotherhithe on the Thames to the Isle of Wight, in a vessel with very scant accommodation for its passengers. On Friday, July 12, Fielding writes in his diary: This day our ladies went ashore at Ryde, and drank their afternoon tea at an ale-house there with great satisfaction; here they were regaled with fresh cream, to which they had been strangers since they left the Downs.' Fielding's party on board consisted of three ladies, his wife, his eldest daughter, and a young lady who had been placed under the charge of Mrs. Fielding during the voyage to Lisbon, and in addition to himself, two servants, a man and a maid, six persons in all. They formed the bulk of the passengers, for besides these there were only a rude, illconditioned schoolboy, fourteen years of age, and an 'illiterate Portuguese friar, who spoke no language but his own,' but managed to play backgammon with the captain of the ship. On the next day, Saturday, the wind seeming likely to continue in the same corner where it had been almost constantly for two months together, Fielding was persuaded

by his wife to go ashore and stay at Ryde till they sailed. This was easier said than done, for how was Fielding in his infirm condition to be carried across the swamp which separated Ryde from the open sea. 'In fact,' so he writes, 'between the sea and the land there was at low water an impassable gulf, if I may so call it, of deep mud, which could neither be traversed by walking nor swimming, so that for near one-half of the twenty-fours hours Ryde was inaccessible by friend or foe. But as the magistrates of the place seemed more to desire the company of the former than to fear that of the latter, they had begun to make a low causeway to the low-water mark, so that foot-passengers might land whenever they pleased; but as this work was of a public kind, and would have cost a large sum of money, at least ten pounds, and the magistrates, that is to say the churchwardens, overseers, constable, tithing-man, and the principal inhabitants had every one of them some separate scheme of private interest to advance at the expense of the public, they fell out among themselves, and after having thrown away onehalf of the requisite sum, resolved to save at least the other half, and rather be contented to sit down losers themselves than to enjoy any benefit which might bring in greater profit to another. Thus that unanimity which is so necessary in all public affairs became wanting, and every man from the fear of being a bubble to another was in reality a bubble to himself.'

It may be remarked that at the close of this passage we have that use of the word 'bubble,' which is now so rare, but which was so common in the eighteenth century, to denote the befooling, cheating, or humbugging one another.

The difficulties of the access to Ryde were at last overcome, for Fielding, 'after being hoisted into a small boat and being rowed near the shore, was taken up by two sailors who waded with me through the mud, and placed me in a chair on the land, whence they afterwards conveyed me a mile farther, and brought me to a house, which seemed to bid the fairest for hospitality of any in Ryde.'

A kind friend from over the water had sent him a buck' one finer and fatter ne'er ranged in a forest nor smoked on a platter.' As Fielding's party brought with them not only

the venison but also their provisions from the ship, they wanted only a fire to dress their dinner and a room in which to eat it. In neither of these had they any reason to apprehend a disappointment, our dinner consisting only of beans and bacon; and the worst apartment in his Majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad, being fully sufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy.'

A double disappointment here followed-the landlady was so anxious to clean her house that she had no time to cook their modest dinner for her guests, and forgetting her pot, took to washing her house.' As soon as they arrived Fielding had ordered Mrs. Francis (that was the name of the mistress of the lodging-house) 'to be called in order to give her instructions about the venison, in particular, what I would have roasted and what baked.' The other disappointment was that the floor of bricks was in such a damp condition that it struck a chill to the limbs of the valetudinarian. His careful wife had, however, provided against this danger. She had found, though not under the same roof, a very snug apartment belonging to Mr. Francis, and which had escaped the mop by his wife being satisfied it could not possibly be visited by gentle folks. This was a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, lined on both sides with wheaten straw, and openings at one end with a green field and a beautiful prospect. Here, without hesitation, she ordered the cloth to be laid and came hastily to snatch me from worse perils by water than the common dangers of the sea.'

In this comfortable room Fielding's footman laid the cloth, and seated at last in one of the most pleasant spots, I believe, in the kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon.' This finished, they looked forward to a second course. 'This was a joint of mutton, which Mrs. Francis had been ordered to provide; but when, tired with expectation, we ordered our servants to see for something else, we were informed that there was nothing else, on which Mrs. Francis being summoned declared there was no such thing as mutton in Ryde. When I expressed some astonishment at their having no butcher in a village so situated, she answered they had a very good one, and one that killed all sorts of