Fielding, the Hoadlys, and the Composition of Pasquin

Abstract

FIELDING'S Pasquin, premiered by his troupe at the Little Hay market on 5 March 1736, was not only great popular success but also an artistic breakthrough. It marked, with the four plays that followed it in 1736-37, a significant advance in the creation of unique form suited to his decidedly individual talents.1 This form was Fielding's adaptation of the rehearsal play, first popularized in the Duke of Buckingham's Rehearsal (1671), the burlesque of contemporary dra matic conventions by the mock staging of play within play, complete with the fatuous commentary of its author. The distinctive feature of Pasquin, the best of Fielding's attempts in this subgenre, was that it pre sented the mock rehearsal of two plays, biting, yet bumbling, comedy and farcical tragedy. Fielding's heady success with Pasquin was somewhat soured by an escalating wrangle with John Rich, rival manager of Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden. In the previous winter, Fielding had offered Rich play of his, perhaps The Fathers: or, The Good-Natur'd Man, but this proposal was met with indifference.2 In Pasquin, Fielding's next play, Rich is satirized with some asperity. Rich's counterattack on Field ing and Pasquin culminated in his production of Marforio, play by Edward Phillips, which appeared at Covent Garden on 10 April 1736,