of thousands of readers under the name of "Parson Adams." But now, for
the first time, we learn of the disastrous second marriage by which
Colonel Fielding, within two years of his first wife's death, placed a
lady of at least disputable social standing at the head of his household,
and one, moreover, whose Faith roused the bitter religious animosities of
that day. What wonder that the old Lady Gould strove fiercely to remove
Henry Fielding, and his sisters and young brother, from East Stour, when
a Madame Rasa was installed in her daughter's place. And accordingly, as
we have seen, even before the conclusion of the suit, Henry was
provisionally ordered by the Court of Chancery to spend his holidays with
his grandmother. Fielding would then be fourteen years old; and the
judge's decision six months later that future holidays should be passed
with Lady Gould, away from the influence of the second Mrs Fielding,
doubtless severed the lad's connection with his dubious stepmother for
the next six years. His home life, then, during the latter part of his
Eton schooling would be under Lady Gould's care; and was probably spent
at Salisbury.

Of his Eton life, from his entrance at the school, when twelve years old,
we know practically nothing. From the absence of his name on the college
lists, it may be inferred that he was an Oppidan. It is said that he gave
"distinguished proofs of strong and peculiar parts"; and that he left the
school with a good reputation as a classical scholar. And it is not
surprising to learn that here, as he himself tells us, his vigorous
energies made acquaintance with that 'birchen altar' at which most of the
best blood in England has been disciplined. "And thou," he cries, "O
Learning (for without thy Assistance nothing pure, nothing correct, can
Genius produce) do thou guide my Pen. Thee, in thy favourite Fields,
where the limpid gently rolling _Thames_ washes thy _Etonian_ banks, in
early Youth I have worshipped. To thee at thy birchen Altar, with true