_"Can then another's Anguish give you Joy? Or is it such a Triumph to destroy? We, like the fabled Frogs, consider thus, This may be Sport to you, but it is Death to us."_
This note of personal protest recalls an indisputably reminiscent observation in _Amelia_, to the effect that although the kindness of a faithful and beloved wife compensates most of the evils of life, it "rather serves to aggravate the misfortune of distressed circumstances, from the consideration of the share which she is to bear in them." We all know how bravely Amelia bore that share; how cheerfully she would cook the supper; how firmly she confronted disaster. To realise how deeply Fielding felt the pain of such struggles when falling upon "the best, the worthiest and the noblest of women" we need but turn again to his own pages. If, cries Amelia's husband, when his distresses overwhelm him, "if I was to suffer alone, I think I could bear them with some philosophy"; and again "this was the first time I had ever felt that distress which arises from the want of money; a distress very dreadful indeed in the married state for what can be more miserable than to see anything necessary to the preservation of the beloved creature and not be able to supply it?"
To supply for his Celia much less than the necessities of life Harry Fielding would undoubtedly have stripped his coat, and his shirt with it, off his back; but, at the end of this same month of February, fortune made the young couple sudden amends for the anxieties that seem to have surrounded them. This turn of the wheel is reflected with curious accuracy by an anonymous satirist of 1735:
"F---g, who _Yesterday_ appear'd so rough, Clad in coarse Frize, and plaister'd down with _Snuff_, See how his _Instant_ gaudy _Trappings_ shine; What _Play-house_ Bard was ever seen so fine! But this, not from his _Humour_ glows, you'll say But mere _Necessity_;--for last Night lay In pawn the Velvet which he wears to Day." [3]
This relief, for a time at least, from the pressing anxieties of a 'play-house bard,' befell by the death of Charlotte Fielding's mother, Mrs Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury, who died in February, but a week or two after the execution of a will wholly in favour of that 'dearly beloved' daughter. As the details of Mrs Fielding's inheritance have not hitherto been known, some portions of her mother's will may be quoted. "... I Elizabeth Cradock of Salisbury in the County of Wilts ... do make this my last will and testament ... Item I give to my daughter Catherine one shilling and all the rest and residue of my ready money plate jewels and estate whatsoever and wheresoever after my debts and funeral charges are fully paid and satisfied I give devize and bequeath the same unto my dearly beloved daughter Charlott Ffeilding wife of Henry Ffeilding of East Stour in the County of Dorset Esqre." Mrs Cradock proceeds to revoke all former wills; and appoints her said daughter "Charlott Ffeilding" as her sole executrix. The will is dated February 8 1734, old style, viz. 1735; and was proved in London on the 25th of the same month, 'Charlott Ffeilding,' as sole executrix, being duly sworn to administer. The provision of one shilling for another, and apparently _not_ dearly beloved, daughter, Catherine, recalls the wicked sister in _Amelia_ who "had some way or other disobliged her mother, a little before the old lady died," and who consequently was deprived of that inheritance which relieved Amelia and her husband from the direst straits.