h the
following is a specimen:--

"The stone that always turns at will
To gold, the chemist craves;
But gold, without the chemist's skill,
Turns all men into knaves.

"The merchant would the courtier cheat,
When on his goods he lays
Too high a price--but faith he's bit--
For a courtier never pays.

"The lawyer with a face demure,
Hangs him who steals your pelf,
Because the good man can endure
No robber but himself.

"Betwixt the quack and highwayman,
What difference can there be?
Tho' this with pistol, that with pen,
Both kill you for a fee."

His plays were not very successful. They abounded in witty sallies and
repartee, but the general plot was not humorous. The jollity was of a
rough farcical character. It was said he left off writing for the stage
when he should have begun. He took little care with his plays, and would
go home late from a tavern, and bring a dramatic scene in the morning,
written on the paper in which he had wrapped his tobacco.

In many of his works he shows a mind approaching that of the Roman
satirists. Speaking of "Jonathan Wild," he says:--

"I think we may be excused for suspecting that the splendid palaces
of the great are often no other than Newgate with the mask on; nor
do I know anything which can raise an honest man's indignation
higher than that the same morals should be in one place attended
with all imaginary misery and infamy, and in the other with the
highest luxury and honour. Let any impartial man in his senses be
asked, for which of these two places a composition of cruelty,
lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, hypocrisy, fraud, and treachery
is best fitted? Surely his answer will be certain and immediate;
and yet I am afraid all these ingredients glossed over with wealth
and a title have been treated with the highest respect and
veneration in the one, while one or two of them have been condemned
to the gallows in the other. If there are, then, any men of such
morals, who dare call themselves great, and are so reputed, or
called at least, by the deceived multitude, surely a little private
censure by the few is a very moderate tax for them to pay."

There is a considerable amount of humour in Fielding's "Journey from
this World to the Next." He represents the spirits as drawing lots
before they enter this life as to what their destinies are to be, and he
int