Contributions to The Champion and Related Writings by Henry Fielding (review)

93 the text is followed here. 3 This engraving is reproduced in Howard Colvin, ‘‘Herms, Terms and Caryatids in English Architecture,’’ Essays in English Architecture (New Haven: Yale, 1999), p. 127. In addition, Colvin reproduces Kent’s own design for the arch, showing minor differences in the iconography. 4 The female reclining to the left carries a spear and may represent Britannia. 5 By the mid 1720s it is likely that Kent would have been aware of Pope’s early gardening experiments at Twickenham, and he may have begun to paint his friend around this date. It has been suggested that Kent may have provided material for The Dunciad. Annotating a reference to ‘‘Mr. Kent’’ in a letter from Pope to Lord Burlington in 1728, Sherburn wrote, ‘‘If this book is not . . . The Dunciad Variorum, it is difficult to identify. William Kent had no clear connection with The Dunciad, but the first page of the volume has a headpiece that looks much like his work, and he may have submitted other designs to Pope.’’See The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. George Sherburn, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), 2.533. 6 Quoted from an unspecified source by James Lees-Milne, Earls of Creation: Five Great Patrons of Eighteenth-Century Art (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962), p. 132. University of South Florida BOOK REVIEWS HENRY FIELDING. Contributions to The Champion and Related Writings, ed. William B. Coley. Oxford: Clarendon, 2003. Pp. cxxvi ⫹ 687. $225. —. Plays, Volume I, 1728–1731, ed. Thomas Lockwood. Oxford: Clarendon, 2004. Pp. xxviii ⫹ 780. $225. With the publication of these volumes, the Wesleyan edition of Fielding’s works, in the argot of the racetrack, has entered the final furlong. As Executive Editor of a series that includes definitive editions of Fielding’s novels, social pamphlets, and (now) political journalism, Mr. Coley might well congratulate himself and to lookeagerlytoward the finish. Instead, his prefatory materials look backward. As he meditates upon how ‘‘thedefinition ofeditorialresponsibility’’haschangedandhowthe‘‘limitsofanauthorcentered approach’’ have been proclaimed during the course of the Wesleyan edition, Mr. Coley waxes almost melancholic, perhaps because only two of the thirteen-member advisory board with which the edition began, and whose ‘‘advice’’ and ‘‘opinion’’ he cites, survive. Still, Mr. Coley’s lament about ‘‘the consequences of letting a project like the Wesleyan Fielding drag its slow length along’’ may strike those who have followed the course of the California Dryden or the McGill Burney as odd, even tendentious . This is not to minimize the remarkable challenges that the Champion presented to its editor. The journal, which appeared three times weekly beginning 15 November 1739, has been available only in a 1741 reprint, which ends with an essay from 17 June 1740. The periodical continued after that date, with ongoing if irregular contributions by Fielding. The Bodley Library has a file of Champion originals, minus the first nine- 94 teen numbers, that breaks off after 15 November 1740. Thus the Wesleyan edition is the first ‘‘since 1741 to use original issues as copy-text, and it is the only such edition to do so for material dating after 17 June 1740.’’It makes ‘‘generally accessible’’Fielding ’s contributions over the summer and autumn of 1740, a small but potentially significant addition to the Fielding canon. By collating the 1741 with the Bodley originals, Mr. Coley also discovered‘‘anotinconsiderablenumberoftextualdifferencesincluding rearrangement and omission of leader material’’ in the reprint edition, which was supervised by Fielding’s coadjutor, James Ralph. Beyond the difficulties created by his working from two copy-texts, Mr. Coley faced the daunting problem of establishing Fielding’s contributions to, and relationship with, the journal. 1741, in the vein of the Spectator, provides a key for assigning contributions , but the initials do not occur in all numbers. Mr. Coley admits that ‘‘the exact management structure’’ and ‘‘the original plans’’ for the journal have eluded his researches . These are important issues because 1739–1741 is a confusing and controversial period in Fielding’s life. Questions have been raised about his political loyalties and, more specifically, his willingness to let his pen be bought. Two problems—one over which he has no control, one of his own choosing—dog Mr. Coley’s General Introduction...