§18. Fielding seriously ill. II. Fielding and Smollett. Vol. 10. The Age of Johnson. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume X. The Age of Johnson.

II. Fielding and Smollett.

§ 18. Fielding seriously ill.

By the middle of 1753, Fielding was very ill. He was just setting out for Bath, when he was commissioned by the duke of Newcastle to frame a plan for checking the prevalence of robbery and murder. This he prepared, in the midst of his heavy work as magistrate. He stayed in London, and succeeded in breaking up a gang of ruffians. His illness, now, had become a combination of dropsy, jaundice and asthma, and he was unfit to take the journey to Bath. The winter of 1753–4 was long and severe. In May, he betook himself to his house, Fordhook, at Ealing, where he found some relief in drinking bishop Berkeley’s tar-water, though his dropsy grew worse. He was ordered to Lisbon; and, on 26 June, 1754, he left Fordhook, never to return.