SOURCE: "Satires of Tyrants and Toadeaters: Fielding and Collier," in Companions Without Vows: Relationships Among Eighteenth-Century British Women, The University of Georgia Press, 1994, pp. 41–60.

Below, Rizzo discusses the concept of the "toadeater" in eighteenth-century literature and Fielding's use of the motif to explore unhealthy relationships maintained by unequal distributions of power.

The toadeater—certainly a common type of humble companion—is often, and sometimes unjustifiably, first thought of when the subject of humble companionship arises. The word toadeater as applied to a political lackey (or toady) was new when in 1742 Horace Walpole called Harry Vane "Pulteney's toadeater."¹ Sarah Fielding, using it two years later in The Adventures of David Simple (1744) in its sense of a humble companion, defined it: "It is a Metaphor taken from a Mountebank's Boy eating Toads, in order to show his Master's Skill in expelling Poison. It is built on a Supposition … that People...