Henry Fielding: Political Writer by Thomas R. Cleary (review)

HUMANITIES 413 apparatus) LLethim who does notknowProteus go to Pan.' Hisalchemical readings extend to authors like Pierre Jean Fabre (also unidentified), whose works are catalogued with the library of his friend Robert Child. Occasionally, Rudrum turns to remote sources for what can be found in the anthologies (Beatus can be found in the Theatrum Chemicum) or misses a reference to the Vulgate. There are some curious glosses of passages translated from Latin (the Ficinian spiritus, adapted by Dorn, is identified as the Holy Spirit). But these are minor blemishes on a major triumph. Anyone who fears such errors had better stay clear of Renaissance magic. Rudrum voices a 'profound' relief at the end of his labours, and students of literature and ideas must feel a profound debt. 'Was it worthwhile?' is a question that he must have faced more than once, and one his readers may also face. Unlike Vaughan, Rudrum does not offer a 'little book' at a 'small price,' or hint at riches to be had from his advice. The book seems badly in need of a companion volume, to explain what Vaughan is saying. But whether he is read as literature or magic, Thomas Vaughan will long be quoted from this fine edition. (THOMAS WILLARD) Thomas R. Cleary. Henry Fielding: Political Writer Wilfrid Laurier University Press. xviii, 347· $27.95 The presses and journals ~re still so full ofstudies ofFielding's novels and (to some extent) of his plays that a book on his contribution to and involvement with the politics of the age, presented by one who is trained in literature and has acquired animpressive command ofthe historyofthe period, is especially welcome. Cleary is, as other reviewers have noted, in no sense re-treading the steps of Brian McCrea's Henry Fielding and the Politics ofMid-Eighteenth-Century England, published four years ago. It is a great virtue in Cleary, I think, not to deal with this flawed work, but to leave his opinion tactfully in his own notes to his introduction. His central thesis in the first part of his volume seems to me right. Fielding did not I develop' politically from one party or label to another. His positions were founded on his perception ofthe immediate exigencies of the situation. This stance, Cleary would argue, is not a position peculiar to Fielding; rather it characterizes many of his fellow writers. Cleary does not say so directly, but his case undercuts the more simple-minded readers of the political history of the eighteenth century, content with historical analyses inherited from the past and often left unchallenged. Cleary's approach to his subject is not built on the bones of the past, although he has made use of all the secondary materials and (more critically) all of Fielding. One of the virtues of his study is that we do not hear the flip of the card file. The book has been some time in coming, but the easy command of the subject makes that time worth while. 414 LETTERS IN CANADA 1984 The sheer amount of learning is bound to create problems for a reader, even for one who is close to the material. I have no answer for this problem, but some of the issues might, I think, have been divided so that a reader could reflect on these and on Fielding's place in these. I missed Cleary at times when he develops the historical background against which he wants to see his author. But these are minor points in a volume that will be useful for many years. Some of his readings will be disputed, but that comment in itself will tell readers how carefully he has read texts. (PATRICIA BRUCKMANN) Peter Sabor. Horace Walpole: A Reference Guide G.K. Hall. xxvii, 270. $39.00 On receiving this 'first bibliography of writings on Horace Walpole' for review, I turned immediately, since the arrangement is chronological, to 1972, to see what digest of my doctoral thesis had been written. Nothing. So I sighed and turned to 1976 to see what Sabor had to say about my two articles published in that year on Walpole's involvement in the architecture of Hagley Hall and The...