Charlotte Cradock, one of three sisters living upon their own means at
Salisbury, or--as it was then styled--New Sarum. Mr. Keightley's
personal inquiries, _circa_ 1858, elicited the information that the
family, now extinct, was highly respectable, but not of New Sarum's best
society. Richardson, in one of his malevolent outbursts, asserted that
the sisters were illegitimate; but, says the writer above referred to,
"of this circumstance we have no other proof, and I am able to add that
the tradition of Salisbury knows nothing of it."

They were, however, celebrated for their personal attractions; and if
the picture given in chap. ii. book iv. of _Tom Jones_ accurately
represents the first Mrs. Fielding, she must have been a most charming
brunette. Something of the stereotyped characteristics of a novelist's
heroine obviously enter into the description; but the luxuriant black
hair, which, cut "to comply with the modern Fashion," "curled so
gracefully in her Neck," the lustrous eyes, the dimple in the right
cheek, the chin rather full than small, and the complexion having "more
of the Lilly than of the Rose," but flushing with exercise or modesty,
are, doubtless, accurately set down. In speaking of the nose as "exactly
regular," Fielding appears to have deviated slightly from the truth; for
we learn from Lady Louisa Stuart that, in this respect, Miss Cradock's
appearance had "suffered a little" from an accident mentioned in book
ii. of _Amelia_, the overturning of a chaise. Whether she also possessed
the mental qualities and accomplishments which fell to the lot of Sophia
Western, we have no means of determining; but Lady Stuart is again our
authority for saying that she was as amiable as she was handsome.

From the love-poems in the first volume of the _Miscellanies_ of 1743--
poems which their author declares to have been "Productions of the Heart
rather than of the Head"--it is clear that Fielding had been attached to