Henry Fielding: Political Writer

Robert Merrett was Professor of English at the University of Alberta.

This important survey of Fielding’s works concentrates upon his plays, journals, and tracts because scholars have interpreted them naively. To counter such interpretations, Cleary focuses on Fielding’s relations with various political leaders and patrons. Since political details are very particularized and the challenging of critics very precise, so that the larger historical and political contexts are not always apparent, the study is clearly intended for scholars rather than general readers. In its seven chapters, it sets contemporary views of the relations of writers and current affairs against “bipartisan myths of an outmoded historiography.” Rejecting the categories of Whig and Tony, Cleary speaks in terms of conflict between ministerial and opposition groups, stressing the shifting alliances within each group. He concentrates upon tensions within the opposition, because Fielding was associated with the Broad-Bottoms, who for most of his career served in opposition. By showing how vulnerable to self-interest the opposition was and how faithful Fielding was to the Broad-Bottoms, who alone stood for principled political reform, Cleary proves that Fielding’s satire of Sir Robert Walpole and the opposition is not inconsistent, also explaining in what circumstances and from what viewpoints Fielding praised Walpole as well as the leaders of the Broad-Bottom party.

Early in his career, according to Cleary, Fielding had no political affiliations. He indiscriminately praised and blamed Sir Robert Walpole; he equally praised and blamed the opposition. But once committed to politics, he was made angrier by the divisiveness of opposition than by the corruption of Walpole. For Cleary, there is no consistent evolution in Fielding as an opposition writer, although most scholars propose this. He refutes anti-Walpole readings of the early plays. Even later plays thought to be anti-Walpole are too balanced in their political criticism to be merely anti-ministerial. Hence, Pasquin is Broad-Bottom not only because it attacks electoral corruption of the ministerial party but also because it suggests the fragility of the opposition. This latter theme appears in The Opposition: A Vision and explains the relative praise of Walpole. Cleary’s reading of Jonathan Wild, in which he shows that the satire applies as much to the opposition turncoats as to Walpole, is persuasive and original. After 1746, when the Broad-Bottoms entered the ministry, the dynamics of Fielding’s writing changed because he had to reconcile the party’s principles with serving the King. Whereas in earlier journalism he had scoffed at ministerial writing that was anti-Jacobite, he now had to associate anti-Hanoverian rhetoric with Jacobitism. Having to defend court politics, he could not write forthrightly. Yet he enjoyed baiting the opposition. He embraced the role of a ministerial writer without solemnity. Aware of his reversed stances, he enjoyed them to a degree. At the same time, Cleary argues, Fielding still possessed the capacity to withdraw from politics and to be non-partisan. His last two novels, Tom Jones and Amelia, are not at all partisan because tensions within the Broad-Bottom party divided his patrons into two groups and he did his best to stay in favour with both groups by dropping political messages. Tom Jones does show signs of having been revised in its central third sections under the influence of The Jacobite’s Journal, and in his tracts Fielding very much supported the ministerial initiatives for social and legal reform, but there is plenty of evidence that Fielding, as in Amelia, stopped addressing current political topics.

This study is packed with important historical research. It employs exemplary analytical and deductive methods. Although longer than need be and although its expression is often neither efficient nor stylish, it deserves the attention of all serious students of the eighteenth century.