of 1749 he was dangerously ill with an unusually severe attack of the gout, and though he recovered, he was probably never quite well again; in 1751 he seemed to Hurd "a poor, emaciated, worn-out rake, whose gout and infirmities have got the better even of his buffoonery," though Fielding was at that date only forty-four. He was now writing his novel of Amelia, which was published late in 1751. Fielding attempted to return. to journalism, and edited The Covent Garden Journal for a few months, under the

pseudonym of Sir Alexander Drawcansir. In 1753 he, like the rest of England, was deeply excited over the case of the mysterious disappearance of Elizabeth Canning, who professed to have been kidnapped by gipsies. Fielding entered into this queer business with extreme gusto, and the latest work he published is a favourable exposition of Betty Canning's case. But Fielding was now very ill, and his condition was made worse by his persistence in staying in town to break up a notorious gang of cut-throats who were infesting London. When at last he got away to Bath, his health "was reduced to the last extremity." He dragged miserably through a very severe winter, and spent part of the following spring at Fordhook, near Ealing, where he had a little house. But the doctors insisted on a warmer climate, and in June 1754 Fielding started for Lisbon. In his Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755) he has given particulars of the adventures and inconveniences of this expedition, which he endured with philosophy and courage. He died at Lisbon on the 8th of October 1754, and lies buried in the English cemetery. The reckless generosity and sanguine improvidence of Fielding were shocking to the moralists of his own time, and there can be no question that he had something of the wildness of Tom Jones in his youth. But he was a man of elevated and tender feeling, quixotically courageous, full of love for his fellow-beings, and always ready to share his last guinea with a poorer man than himself. Mr. Austin Dobson's close examination of the incidents of his somewhat shadowy career has much lessened the scandal with which Fielding's name used to be accompanied.