The cordial reception of the _Mock-Doctor_ seems to have encouraged
Fielding to make further levies upon Moliere, and he speaks of his hope
to do so in the "Preface." As a matter of fact, he produced a version of
_L'Avare_ at Drury Lane in the following year, which entirely outshone
the older versions of Shadwell and Ozell, and gained from Voltaire the
praise of having added to the original "_quelques beautes de dialogue
particulieres a sa_ (Fielding's) _nation_." Lovegold, its leading
_role_, became a stock part. It was well played by its first actor
Griffin, and was a favourite exercise with Macklin, Shuter, and (in our
own days) Phelps.

In February 1733, when the _Miser_ was first acted, Fielding was five
and twenty. His means at this time were, in all probability, exceedingly
uncertain. The small proportion of money due to him at his mother's
death had doubtless been long since exhausted, and he must have been
almost wholly dependent upon the precarious profits of his pen. That he
was assisted by rich and noble friends to any material extent appears,
in spite of Murphy, to be unlikely. At all events, an occasional
dedication to the Duke of Richmond or the Earl of Chesterfield cannot be
regarded as proof positive. Lyttelton, who certainly befriended him in
later life, was for a great part of this period absent on the Grand
Tour, and Ralph Allen had not yet come forward. In default of the always
deferred allowance, his father's house at Salisbury (?) was no doubt
open to him; and it is plain, from indications in his minor poems, that
he occasionally escaped into the country. But in London he lived for the
most part, and probably not very worshipfully. What, even now, would be
the life of a young man of Fielding's age, fond of pleasure, careless of
the future, very liberally equipped with high spirits, and straightway
exposed to the perilous seductions of the stage? Fielding had the
defects of his qualities, and was no better than the rest of those about