Many years later [Fielding] reprinted [3] two other poetical effusions 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.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1728.
"Burning with Love, tormented with Despair,
Unable to forget or ease his Care;
In vain each practis'd art Alexis tries;
In vain to Books, to Wine or Women flies;
Each brings Euthalia's Image to his Eyes.
In Lock's or Newton's Page her Learning glows;
Dryden the Sweetness of her Numbers shews;
In all their various Excellence I find
The various Beauties of her perfect Mind.
How vain in Wine a short Relief I boast!
Each sparkling Glass recalls my charming Toast.
To Women then successless I repair,
Engage the Young, the Witty, and the Fair.
When Sappho's Wit each envious Breast alarms,
And Rosalinda looks ten thousand Charms;
In vain to them my restless Thoughts would run;
Like fairest Stars, they show the absent Sun."
Love in Several Masks was produced, as we have seen, in February, 1728; and it is a little surprising to find the young dramatist suddenly appearing, four weeks later, as a University student. He was entered at the University of Leyden, as "Litt. Stud," on the 16th of March 1728. The reason of this sudden change from the green-room of Drury Lane to the ancient Dutch university must be purely matter of conjecture, as is the nature of Fielding's undergraduate studies, Murphy having lately been proved to be notably erroneous as to this [episode]. [4] His name occurs as staying, on his entry at Leyden, at the "Casteel von Antwerpen"; and again, a year later, in the recensiones of the University for February 1729, as domiciled with one Jan Oson. As all students were annually registered, the omission of any later entry proves that he left Leyden before 1730; with which meagre facts and his own incidental remark that the comedy of Don Quixote in England was "begun at Leyden in the year 1728," our knowledge of the two years of Fielding's university career concludes. In February 1730 he was presumably back in London, that being the date of his next play, the Temple Beau, produced by Giffard, the actor, at the new theatre in Goodman's Fields.
The prologue to the Temple Beau was written by that man of many parts, James Ralph, the hack writer, party journalist and historian, who was in after years to collaborate with Fielding, both as a theatrical manager and as a journalist. Ralph's opening lines are of interest as bearing on Fielding's antagonism to the harlequinades and variety shows, then threatening the popularity of legitimate drama: