family arms, the liveries should have been not "yellow," but white and
blue--must be taken for what they are worth. On the whole, the
probability is, that Murphy's words were only the careless repetition of
local tittle-tattle, of much of which, as Captain Booth says pertinently
in _Amelia_, "the only basis is lying." The squires of the neighbourhood
would naturally regard the dashing young gentleman from London with the
same distrustful hostility that Addison's "Tory Foxhunter" exhibited to
those who differed with him in politics. It would be remembered,
besides, that the new-comer was the son of another and an earlier
Fielding of less pretensions, and no real cordiality could ever have
existed between them. Indeed, it may be assumed that this was the case,
for Booth's account of the opposition and ridicule which he--"a poor
renter!"--encountered when he enlarged his farm and set up his coach has
a distinct personal accent. That he was lavish, and lived beyond his
means, is quite in accordance with his character. The man who, as a Bow
Street magistrate, kept open house on a pittance, was not likely to be
less lavish as a country gentleman, with L1500 in his pocket, and newly
married to a young and handsome wife. "He would have wanted money," said
Lady Mary, "if his hereditary lands had been as extensive as his
imagination;" and there can be little doubt that the rafters of the old
farm by the Stour, with the great locust tree at the back, which is
figured in Hutchins's _History of Dorset_, rang often to hunting
choruses, and that not seldom the "dusky Night rode down the Sky" over
the prostrate forms of Harry Fielding's guests. [Footnote: An
interesting relic of the East Stour residence has recently been
presented by Mr. Merthyr Guest (through Mr. R. A. Kinglake) to the
Somersetshire Archaeological Society. It is an oak table of solid
proportions, and bears on a brass plate the following inscription,
emanating from a former owner:--"This table belonged to Henry Fielding,
Esq., novelist. He hunted from East Stour Farm, 1718, and in three years