abstruse authors, for several hours before he went to bed; so powerful
were the vigour of his constitution and the activity of his mind." It is
to this passage, no doubt, that we owe the picturesque wet towel and
inked ruffles with which Mr. Thackeray has decorated him in _Pendennis_;
and, in all probability, a good deal of graphic writing from less able
pens respecting his _modus vivendi_ as a Templar. In point of fact,
nothing is known with certainty respecting his life at this period; and
what it would really concern us to learn--namely, whether by "chambers"
it is to be understood that he was living alone, and, if so, where Mrs.
Fielding was at the time of these protracted vigils--Murphy has not told
us. Perhaps she was safe all the while at East Stour, or with her
sisters at Salisbury. Having no precise information, however, it can
only be recorded, that, in spite of the fitful outbreaks above referred
to, Fielding applied himself to the study of his profession with all the
vigour of a man who has to make up for lost time; and that, when on the
20th of June 1740 the day came for his being "called," he was very
fairly equipped with legal knowledge. That he had also made many friends
among his colleagues of Westminster Hall is manifest from the number of
lawyers who figure in the subscription list of the _Miscellanies_.

To what extent he was occupied by literary work during his probationary
period it is difficult to say. Murphy speaks vaguely of "a large number
of fugitive political tracts;" but unless the _Essay on Conversation_,
advertised by Lawton Gilliver in 1737, be the same as that afterwards
reprinted in the _Miscellanies_, there is no positive record of anything
until the issue of True Greatness, an epistle to George Dodington, in
January 1741, though he may, of course, have written much anonymously.
Among newspapers, the one Murphy had in mind was probably the
_Champion_, the first number of which is dated November 15, 1739, two
years after his admission to the Middle Temple as a student. On the