antecedent to his appointment as a Justice of the Peace, Fielding was in
straitened circumstances, and was largely aided, if not practically
supported, by his friends. Even supposing him to have been subsidised by
Government as alleged, his profits from the _True Patriot_ and the
_Jacobite's Journal_ could not have been excessive; and his gout, of
which he speaks in one of his letters to the Duke of Bedford, must have
been a serious obstacle in the way of his legal labours.

_The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_, was published by Andrew Millar
on the 28th of February 1749, and its appearance in six volumes, 12mo,
was announced in the _General Advertiser_ of that day's date. There had
been no author's name on the title-page of _Joseph Andrews_; but _Tom
Jones_ was duly described as "by Henry Fielding, Esq.," and bore the
motto from Horace, seldom so justly applied, of "_Mores hominum multorum
vidit._" The advertisement also ingenuously stated that as it was
"impossible to get Sets bound fast enough to answer the Demand for them,
such Gentlemen and Ladies as pleased, might have them sew'd in Blue
Paper and Boards at the Price of 16s a Set." The date of issue
sufficiently disposes of the statement of Cunningham and others, that
the book was written at Bow Street. Little more than the dedication,
which is preface as well, can have been produced by Fielding in his new
home. Making fair allowance for the usual tardy progress of a book
through the press, and taking into consideration the fact that the
author was actively occupied with his yet unfamiliar magisterial duties,
it is most probable that the last chapter of _Tom Jones_ had been penned
before the end of 1748, and that after that time it had been at the
printer's. For the exact price paid to the author by the publisher on
this occasion we are indebted to Horace Walpole, who, writing to George
Montagu in May 1749, says--"Millar the bookseller has done very
generously by him [Fielding]: finding Tom Jones, for which he had given