Henry Fielding's Theatrical Reminiscences: Another Look at Sophia Western as Jenny Cameron

In an alphabetical companion to Henry Fielding, written by a foremost Fielding scholar, Sophia Western is described as "the beautiful and virtuous daughter of Squire Western, Allworthy's neighbor. She is in love with Tom as he is with her. … HF hints that she is the idealized figure of his beloved first wife Charlotte Cradock Fielding."¹ This explanation accords Sophia a marginal role in the text as "the daughter of," the beloved of, and the fictionalization of a real-life "wife of," while it also wrests complication away from the character by considering her merely "beautiful and virtuous." Admittedly, it is an appraisal written nearly twenty years ago; moreover, the entry limits itself to the bare bones of this and other characters, works, and topics. Nonetheless, the entry exemplifies most of what is still said of the heroine of The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749) in non-specialized criticism.² This notion, in turn, tends to seep into classroom discussions, entrenching the enduring cliché that Fielding is a male chauvinist, oblivious to and uninterested in the multidimensionality of women's personalities—in the apt words of Robert D. Hume: "a 'manly' writer touting frat-boy verities and cheery about sowing wild oats."³

The recognition of the complexity of Fielding's approach to gender issues has been nourishing eighteenth-century scholarship for the past three decades.⁴ It is now frequently acknowledged that the writer's attitude towards gender inequality is at least ambivalent, if not openly averse. Around the time of publication of the companion cited above, for instance, Earla A. Wilputte argued persuasively that Fielding "calls attention to the plight of eighteenth-century women to whom his culture denied an education, a political voice, any tangible social significance, and even identity once she was married."⁵ In a more recent study, Simon Dickie notes Fielding's bending of the sexual double standard in his positive depiction of desiring women.⁶ There is still work to do in that respect, however. That Sophia is a central and complex figure, far more than kin to the male characters of the novel and a surrogate wife for the writer, cannot be stressed enough. Neither can the fact that her characterization goes beyond a straightforward portrayal of virtuous femininity grounded in modesty and outward beauty. After all, it is Sophia's resolute abandonment of the paternal household that moves the narrative forward and towards its romantic conclusion from the second third of the book onwards.

Sophia's rebelliousness is a point of particular interest that crops up in discussions of another question that continues to perplex critics: Fielding's engagement with the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. The fact that Fielding's political pamphlets and periodicals took a vociferous stance against the Jacobites is often taken as unmistakable proof of his anti-Jacobitism, which, the argument goes, finds its fictional expression in Tom Jones.⁷ Yet, as some critics have also shown, Fielding's treatment of Jacobitism in his masterpiece is complicated to the point that it seems contradictory.⁸ Particularly mystifying is Sophia's simultaneous endorsement by the narrative as a fitting companion (and moral compass) for a hero who would seem to stand for Hanoverian principles—but who is also endowed with the youthful impetuousness and charm of Charles Edward Stuart—and her association, albeit fleeting and mistaken, with Jenny Cameron, the Young Pretender's reputed mistress.

A key piece in this critical jigsaw puzzle of the relationship between Sophia and Jenny Cameron has not yet been successfully placed, however. By this I mean the appearance of the Jacobite heroine in a pantomime staged in London around the time when Fielding was hard at work on the novel. Given the author's crucial, though frequently neglected, investment in the theatrical world, which continued long after he had ceased to be a practicing dramatist, taking a close look at this piece—and paying particular attention to the actress who performed as Cameron—sheds new light on the old problem of the representation of the Stuart rebellion in Tom Jones...