mild punch at the "Christopher," and, no doubt, was occasionally brought
back by Jack Cutler, "Pursuivant of Runaways," to make his explanations
to Dr. Bland the Head-Master, or Francis Goode the Usher. Among his
school-fellows were some who subsequently attained to high dignities in
the State, and still remained his friends. Foremost of these was George
Lyttelton, later the statesman and orator, who had already commenced
poet as an Eton boy with his "Soliloquy of a Beauty in the Country."
Another was the future Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the wit and squib-
writer, then known as Charles Hanbury only. A third was Thomas
Winnington, for whom, in after years, Fielding fought hard with brain
and pen when Tory scribblers assailed his memory. Of those who must be
regarded as contemporaries merely, were William Pitt, the "Great
Commoner," and yet greater Earl of Chatham; Henry Fox, Lord Holland; and
Charles Pratt, Earl Camden. Gilbert West, the translator of Pindar, may
also have been at Eton in Fielding's time, as he was only a year older,
and was intimate with Lyttelton. Thomas Augustine Arne, again, famous in
days to come as Dr. Arne, was doubtless also at this date practising
sedulously upon that "miserable cracked common flute," with which
tradition avers he was wont to torment his school-fellows. Gray and
Horace Walpole belong to a later period.

During his stay at Eton, Fielding had been rapidly developing from a boy
into a young man. When he left school it is impossible to say; but he
was probably seventeen or eighteen years of age, and it is at this stage
of his career that must be fixed an occurrence which one of his
biographers places much farther on. This is his earliest recorded love-
affair. At Lyme Regis there resided a young lady, who, in addition to
great personal charms, had the advantage of being the only daughter and
heiress of one Solomon Andrew, deceased, a merchant of considerable
local reputation. Lawrence says that she was Fielding's cousin. This may