(Henry), a well known writer of the present age, son of lieutenant-general Fielding who served under the duke of Marlborough, was born in 1707. He had four sisters; of whom Sarah is well known, as writer of The Adventures of David Simple. On the death of his mother, his father married again; and Sir John Fielding, who succeeded him in the commission of the peace for Middlesex, is his brother by this marriage. Henry was sent to study at Leyden; but a failure in his remittances obliged him to return in two years, when his own propensity to gaiety and profusion drove him to write for the stage at 20 years of age. His first dramatic piece, Love in several Masques, which was well received, appeared in 1727; and all his plays and farces, to the amount of 18, were written before the year 1737; and many of them are still acted with applause. While he was thus employed, he married a young lady with 1500l. fortune, and inherited an estate of 200l. a-year from his mother: all which, though on the plan of retiring into the country, he contrived to dissipate in three years; and then applied himself to the study of the law for a maintenance. In losing his fortune, he acquired the gout: which rendering it impossible for him to attend the bar, lie with a shattered constitution had recourse to many extempore applications of his pen for immediate supplies; until, soon after the late rebellion, he accepted the office of acting justice for Middlesex, an employment much more profitable than honourable in the public esteem. Reduced at length by the fatigues of this office, and by a complication of disorders, he by the advice of his physicians went to Lisbon, where he died in 1754. He wrote a great number of fugitive pamphlets and periodical essays; but is chiefly distinguished by his Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and History of Tom Jones. His works have been collected and published, with his life prefixed, by Mr Murphy.