Fielding

This is a historical biography. The three foregoing Appendices were added to the second edition of 1889. In this Appendix, No. IV. , I propose to bring together a few dispersed fragments of information, which, either in the way of fresh particulars, or in correction of hitherto-accepted statements made in the body of the book, have come to light during the interval. Much that is absolutely new cannot, at this date, be reasonably anticipated. But the unexpected always happens; and the unexpected in the present instance has been productive of two or three items which are not unworthy of brief record. The first relates to that famous eulogy of Gibbon mentioned in the second sentence of the book. The connexion of Fielding’s family with the Hapsburgs is now no longer asserted. In April 1894, the question was exhaustively examined in the Genealogist (New Series) by Mr. J. Horace Round, who came to the conclusion that such a claim could not be established; and that, consequently, any picturesque conjunction between that exquisite picture of human manners (as Gibbon called Tom Jones) 52 and the Imperial Eagle of the house of Austria must henceforth be abandoned. Mr. Round has since reprinted his paper at pp. 216-49 of his Studies in Peerage and Family History, 1901; and in a final paragraph he announces that his arguments, at first hotly contested, have now been accepted by Burke, from whose records the story has been withdrawn.