bearing the date of this his twenty-first year. Of these the first,
entitled "A Description of U----n G----(alias _New Hog's Norton_) in
_Com-Hants_" identified by Mr Keightley as Upton Grey in Hampshire, is
addressed to the fair _Rosalinda,_ by her disconsolate _Alexis_. Alexis
bewails his exile among

"Unpolish'd Nymphs and more unpolish'd Swains,"

and describes himself as condemned to live in a dwelling half house, half
shed, with a garden full of docks and nettles, the fruit-trees bearing
only snails--

"Happy for us had Eve's this Garden been
She'd found no Fruit, and therefore known no Sin,"--

the dusty meadows innocent of grass, and the company as innocent of wit.
This sketch of rural enjoyments recalls a later utterance in _Jonathan
Wild_, concerning the votaries of a country life who, with their trees,
"enjoy the air and the sun in common and both vegetate with very little
difference between them." With one or two eloquent exceptions there is
scarce a page in Fielding's books devoted to any interest other than that
of human nature.

The second fragment is a graceful little copy of verse addressed to
_Euthalia_, in which we may note, by the way, that the fair Rosalinda's
charms are ungallantly made use of as a foil to Euthalia's dazzling
perfections. As Fielding found these verses not unworthy of a page in his
later _Miscellanies_ they are here recalled:

TO EUTHALIA.