FIELDING, hearing that a friend of his was dejected because he was so deeply in debt, said to his informant,
'Is that all? How happy I should be if I could only get £500 deeper in debt than I am already.'
E. H. Barker, Literary Anecdotes and Contemporary Reminiscences (1852), ii. 35.
HENRY FIELDING being once in company with the Earl of Denbigh, and the conversation turning on Fielding's being of the Denbigh family, the Earl asked the reason why they spelt their names differently; the Earl's family doing it with the 'E' first (Feilding), and Mr. Henry Fielding with the 'I' first (Fielding).
'I cannot tell, my Lord,' answered Harry, 'except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell.'
Nichols, Anecdotes, iii, 384.