most prominent was Captain Hercules Vinegar, who took all questions
relating to the Army, Militia, Trained-Bands, and "fighting Part of the
Kingdom." His father, Nehemiah Vinegar, presided over history and
politics; his uncle, Counsellor Vinegar, over law and judicature; and
Dr. John Vinegar his cousin, over medicine and natural philosophy. To
others of the family--including Mrs. Joan Vinegar, who was charged with
domestic affairs--were allotted classic literature, poetry and the
Drama, and fashion. This elaborate scheme was not very strictly adhered
to, and the chief writer of the group is Captain Hercules.

Shorn of the contemporary interest which formed the chief element of its
success when it was first published, it must be admitted that, in the
present year of grace, the _Champion_ is hard reading. A kind of
lassitude--a sense of uncongenial task-work--broods heavily over
Fielding's contributions, except the one or two in which he is quickened
into animation by his antagonism to Cibber; and although, with our
knowledge of his after achievements, it is possible to trace some
indications of his yet unrevealed powers, in the absence of such
knowledge it would be difficult to distinguish the _Champion_ from the
hundred-and-one forgotten imitators of the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_,
whose names have been so patiently chronicled by Dr. Nathan Drake. There
is, indeed, a certain obvious humour in the account of Captain Vinegar's
famous club, which he had inherited from Hercules, and which had the
enviable property of falling of itself upon any knave in company, and
there is a dash of the _Tom Jones_ manner in the noisy activity of that
excellent housewife Mrs. Joan. Some of the lighter papers, such as the
one upon the "Art of Puffing," are amusing enough; and of the visions,
that which is based upon Lucian, and represents Charon as stripping his
freight of all their superfluous incumbrances in order to lighten his
boat, has a double interest, since it contains references not only to