after the date of the last-quoted letter ("all over happily,
thank God, by four o'clock this morning") there came the birth of his
eighth child and sixth son; whom at first he meant to call by Oliver
Goldsmith's name, but settled afterwards into that of Henry Fielding;
and to whom that early friend Ainsworth who had first made us known to
each other, welcome and pleasant companion always, was asked to be
godfather. Telling me of the change in the name of the little fellow,
which he had made in a kind of homage to the style of work he was now so
bent on beginning, he added, "What should you think of this for a notion
of a character? 'Yes, that is very true: but now, _What's his motive?_'
I fancy I could make something like it into a kind of amusing and more
innocent Pecksniff. 'Well now, yes--no doubt that was a fine thing to
do! But now, stop a moment, let us see--_What's his motive?_'" Here
again was but one of the many outward signs of fancy and fertility that
accompanied the outset of all his more important books; though, as in
their cases also, other moods of the mind incident to such beginnings
were less favourable. "Deepest despondency, as usual, in commencing,
besets me;" is the opening of the letter in which he speaks of what of
course was always one of his first anxieties, the selection of a name.
In this particular instance he had been undergoing doubts and misgivings
to more than the usual degree. It was not until the 23rd of February he
got to anything like the shape of a feasible title. "I should like to
know how the enclosed (one of those I have been thinking of) strikes
you, on a first acquaintance with it. It is odd, I think, and new; but
it may have A's difficulty of being 'too comic, my boy.' I suppose I
should have to add, though, by way of motto, 'And in short it led to the
very Mag's Diversions. _Old Saying._' Or would it be better, there being
equal authority for either, 'And in short they all played Mag's
Diversions. _Old Saying?_'

_Mag's Diversions._
Being the personal history of
MR. THOMAS MAG THE YOUNGER,
Of Blunderstone House."

This was hardly satisfactory, I thought; and it soon became apparent
that he thought so too, although within the next three days I had it in
three other forms. "_Mag's Diversions_, being the Personal History,
Adventures, Experience and Observation of Mr. David Mag the