to London, not then quite twenty years old" [_i.e._ before 22nd April,
1727]. In 1883, like my predecessors, I adopted this statement, for the
sufficient reason that I had nothing better to put in its place. And
Murphy should have been well-informed. He had known Fielding personally;
he was employed by Fielding's publisher; and he could, one would
imagine, have readily obtained accurate data from Fielding's surviving
sister, Sarah, who was only three years younger than her brother, of
whose short life (he died at forty-eight) she could scarcely have
forgotten the particulars. Murphy's story, moreover, exactly fitted in
with the fact, only definitely made known in June 1883, that Fielding,
as a youth of eighteen, had endeavoured, in November 1725, to abduct or
carry off his first love, Miss Sarah Andrew of Lyme Regis. Although the
lady was promptly married to a son of one of her fluttered guardians,
nothing seemed more reasonable than to assume that the disappointed
lover (one is sure he was never an heiress-hunter!) was despatched to
the Dutch University to keep him out of mischief.[75] But in once more
examining Mr. Keightley's posthumous papers, kindly placed at my
disposal by his nephew, Mr. Alfred C. Lyster, I found a reference to an
un-noted article in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for November, 1863 (from
internal evidence I believe it to have been written by James Hannay),
entitled "A Scotchman in Holland." Visiting Leyden, the writer was
permitted to inspect the University Album; and he found, under 1728, the
following:--"_Henricus Fielding, Anglus, Ann. 20. Stud. Lit._", coupled
with the further detail that he "was living at the 'Hotel of Antwerp.'"
Except in the item of "_Stud. Lit._", this did not seem to conflict
materially with Murphy's account, as Fielding was nominally twenty from
1727 to 1728, and small discrepancies must be allowed for.

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