Fielding and the Deists

Fielding and the Deists Martin C. Battestin Why, readers may well ask apropos of Ronald Paulson's The Life of Henry Fielding: A Critical Biography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), was it thought necessary to undertake anotherbiography ofFielding so soon after the publication ofmy own (1989) and that ofDonald Thomas (1990)? Considering that a notable impulse throughout this book is the attempt to discredit my understanding ofFielding's religious thought, one answer that comes to mind is the strange inveterate hostility towards my work on the part of Claude Rawson,1 who, as General Editor of the series of Blackwell Critical Biographies, commissioned Paulson, a kindred spirit, to write the book—thus offering him an opportunity to reiterate interpretations of Fielding he had published earlier over a period of years. This opportunity of recycling his thoughts on the subject must have been convenient for Paulson, considering that in the last four years he has also been occupied in publishing two other sizeable books, The Beautiful, Novel, and Strange (1996) and Don Quixote in England (1998), not to mention an edition of Hogarth's Analysis ofBeauty (1997). Putting aside thoughts of motives behind the making of The Life of Henry Fielding (the immodesty of the definite article in the title should not be attributed to the author; it is a feature of all the titles in Rawson's series), what sort ofbook is it? To begin with, Paulson disclaims any intent 1 See, for instance, Claude Rawson's review of Martin C. Battestin with Ruthe R. Battestin, Henry Fielding: A Life (London: Routledge, 1989) in London Review ofBooks, 5 April 1990. Throughout the present essay, references to our biography of Fielding appear as Life. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 13, Number 1, October 2000 68 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION to rival either "the encyclopedic coverage" of my own Life or "the swift, gripping narrative" ofThomas's. "The genre," he says, "is more an extended 'character' than a biographical narrative" (p. ix). Paulson's method, since the facts of Fielding's life must offer the opportunities for speculation about their significance in forming his character, is to introduce each of the six chapters with a "Chronology" ofthe events ofFielding's life during the period in question. The substance of each chapter—namely, chapter 1, "Student, 1707-1730"; chapter 2, "Playwright, 1730-1737"; chapter 3, "Hackney Writer and Barrister, 1737-1741"; chapter 4, "Author of Joseph Andrews, 1741-1742"; chapter 5, "Author of Tom Jones, 1742-1748"; chapter 6, "Magistrate, 1748-1754"—comprises Paulson's "analyses of the important issues" (p. ix). Impressively, considering the magnitude and complexity of his subject, the debts Paulson acknowledges to the work of others are both few and perfunctory—except, that is, for his thanks to Rawson for soliciting the book and reading the manuscript. He alludes to the help he has received from other scholars as follows: Besides the biographies of Fielding, it is a pleasure to acknowledge, most useful of all, the volumes of the Wesleyan edition of Fielding's works with their excellent introductions and annotation, (p. xiii) Now, the vocation of a scholar, being the enhancement of our knowledge and understanding of the past, must depend to some degree on the labours of his predecessors. It is customary, however, to acknowledge these debts, and the debt Paulson owes to one book in particular—that is, to Henry Fielding: A Life, written by myself in collaboration with my wife, Ruthe R. Battestin—is as deep as a debt of this kind can possibly be. The facts of Fielding's life as Paulson presents them—and I mean virtually all of them—have been culled from our biography, together with many of the illustrative quotations I use. I find it particularly unconscionable that nowhere in the four hundred pages of his book does Paulson acknowledge the archival research so fruitfully conducted by my wife— research called by Pat Rogers "a trawl of the archives without parallel."2 Without reference to our biography Paulson's notes cite call numbers for obscure documents in the Public Record Office and many other repositories ; the false impression conveyed is that Paulson himself has done 2 See Pat Rogers's review of Donald Thomas...

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