BEAU FIELDING.

"He pass'd his easy hours, instead of prayer,

In madrigals and Philising the fair."-GARTH'S Dispensary.

GOLDSMITH once shed tears from his simple, unsophisticated eyes, as he passed through a village at night, and thought that the sleeping inhabitants were unconscious how great a man was journeying that way. I fancy that most people who pass the Reigate station are in a similarly ignorant state of unconsciousness, and are not at all aware that they are close upon the cradle of Orlando the Fair.

I have heard the pleasant author of that pleasant story, 'Crewe Rise,' remark that the worthies of Suffolk count in greater numbers than the worthies of any other country. If worthiness be "greatness," in the sense of Jonathan Wild, Suffolk may envy Surrey such a son as Robert Fielding.

The father of this incomparable youth was a cavalier squire, with something like £500 per annum to nourish his dignity. "Bob" was early entered at the Temple, where he behaved like a Templar; was too idle to study the constitution of England, but very actively worked at the ruin of his own. He thought Fleetstreet vulgar, and removed to Scotland-yard, next door to the court, which then rioted at Whitehall.

The "beauty" of his neighbour attracted the notice of that other scamp, Charles II.; and as Fielding was too handsome for anything, the King only made him a Justice of the Peace.

The women however left him none; and their importunities induced him to abandon justice, and devote himself to wine, love

making, and living upon pensions from female purses. In a succeeding reign he gave up the Church, as he had before surrendered justice; and when James II. was King, Fielding assumed Romanism as a good speculation, and was especially zealous not only in protecting Popish chapels from the populace, but in giving asylum to the prettiest devotees of that faith who flew to his bosom for refuge.

He stuck to his profession under William III.; that is, he made none at all; and as he was accounted of no religion, his friends had no difficulty in getting him nominated Major-General. I think this must have been in the Horse Marines. The gallant officer was, at all events, never in fray more serious than with sleepy watchmen and slip-shod waiters, whom he ran through (he was an excellent runner, when peril pursued) with the most astonishing alacrity.

He was the handsomest man and the most extravagantly splendid dresser of his day. When he passed down the Mall at the fashionable hour, there was a universal flutter and sensation. "O'Carroll," he would then say to his servant, "does my sword touch my right heel? Do the ladies ogle me?"

"It does, Sir. They do, Sir."

"Then, O'Carroll," would the beau exclaim aloud, "let them die of love, and be d-d!"

"What a perfect gentleman! what a delicious creature!" chorused the ladies.

"Ay, ay," said the beau, "look and die! look and die!"

He was not kicked off the public promenade, but he was occasionally so ejected from the public stage. It was the habit or the fashion then for a portion of the audience to stand upon the stage, and the actors played, like mountebanks, in a crowd. It was further the habit of this superlative beau to make remarks aloud upon the ladies in the boxes. The latter,—not the boxes but the ladies, were not slow in flinging back retorts; and the players, enraged at being unheeded, would then fairly turn upon

Fielding and turn him out, with the ceremony, or want of it, observed in ejecting ill-bred curs.

But the beau was amply compensated for such treatment as this by the favour dealt to him by "officers and gentlemen." He was once being pursued by bailiffs sent after him by tailors whom he had ruined. As hare and hounds approached St. James's Palace, the officers on guard turned out, attacked the myrmidons of the law, pinked them all over till they looked like ribbed peppermint, and finally bore Fielding in triumph into the Palace!

The equipage of "Orlando" was not less singular than he was himself. He kept a hired chariot, drawn by his own horses, and attended by two footmen in bright yellow coats and black sarsnet sashes. Maidens sighed as he rode by, and murmured “ Adonis !” Admiring widows looked at him and exclaimed, "Handsome as Hercules!" He really did unite the most exquisite beauty both of feature and stature, with the most gigantic strength. Boys followed him in crowds, and hailed him father. He showered among them as many curses as blessings. "Did you never see a man before?" he once asked the foremost urchin of a youthful mob. “Never such a one as you, noble general,” answered the lad, an embryo beau from Westminster School. "Sirrah, I believe thee; there is a crown for thy wit."

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Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff states that the beau called himself an antediluvian, in respect of the insects that appeared in the world as men; and the ‘Tatler' further says, that "he sometimes rode in tumbril of less size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs and the grandeur of his personage to the greater advantage. At other seasons all his appointments had a magnificence, as if it were formed by the genius of Trimalchio of old, which showed itself in doing ordinary things with an air of pomp and grandeur. Orlando therefore called for tea by beat of drum; his valet got ready to shave him by a trumpet to horse; and water was brought for his teeth when the sound was changed to boot and saddle." Amid all this, the prince of beaux was speculatively looking

abroad. At Doctors' Commons he had seen the will of a Mr. Deleau, who left to his widow a town residence in Copthall-court, a country mansion at Waddon, in Surrey, and sixty thousand pounds, at the lady's absolute disposal. Fielding resolved to woc, and of course to win her.

His first application was made through an agent, to a Mrs. Villars, who used to act as hair dresser to the much-sought-after widow. Her services were asked for under promise of great reward, to bring matters about so that Mrs. Deleau should see Fielding, if it were only, as it were, by accident. The beau thought that if the widow saw, he would conquer. Were a marriage to follow, Fielding promised hundreds out of his wife's money.

The worthy agents failed to do their hirer's bidding. He even called at Waddon, under the name of Major-General Villars, and was allowed to see the gardens. He mistook a lady at a window for the lady of whom he was in search, and as she smiled when he put his hand to the left side of his laced waistcoat, and made a bow till his vertebra was horizontal, he concluded that his fortune was made; and the next day he sent letters in his own name. which the servants knowing the writer and having their orders, dropped into the fire,-after reading them in the servants' hall.

The next move was an application to see the grounds at Waddon, professedly from the famous or infamous Duchess of Cleveland, Fielding's chief patroness,-so low had fallen the mother of dukes and the concubine of a king. Permission was granted, but nothing came of the concession.

In the meantime Mrs. Villars, by no means disposed to lose the promised recompense, persuaded Fielding that the widow had yielded, and would pay him a visit. He was in a state of delight at the intelligence. The lady, however, who was to pass as Mrs. Deleau, was a 'Mistress Mary Wadsworth," who was ready for any joke, and thought the one proposed the best she had ever shared in, and she had been an actress in many. These two sensitive creatures accordingly repaired to Fielding's lodgings one

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soft autumnal eve. The beau was in a flutter of ecstasy, was continually on his knees, and devoted himself to the lowest position in hades if he ever had loved any woman before. The assumed Mrs. Deleau was coy, as became a widow with sixty thousand pounds and no encumbrances. The lover pressed her to be married that night, if she would not have him perish; but she playfully touched his cheek with her fan, and bade him wait and hope -sad, naughty fellow that he was!

After two more such visits, the soft and tender creature was seduced to sacrifice her scruples, and consented to a private marriage at her lover's chambers. The party supped joyously together, and then the bridegroom sallied forth in search of a priest. He found one at the Emperor of Germany's ambassador's; and his reverence having been introduced to the lady, satisfied her of the reality of his vocation, and in a twinkling buckled beau and belle together in a way, he said, that defied undoing. All the afterceremonies religiously observed in those refined days ensued; indeed the marriage would not have been half a marriage without them, and so all parties but the dupers were satisfied,—and in fact even they did not complain.

The bride left her home next morning unattended; for family reasons, she averred, it was necessary to keep the union unrevealed, and accordingly she only repaired now and then to see "the Count," as her husband styled himself, and to eat toasted cheese and drink port and vat-ale with a man who had married her, as he exclaimed at the sacred ceremony, "with all his heart, soul, blood, and everything else!"

There is no comedy of the last century, however absurd the plot, and coarse and ridiculous the incidents, that is more absurd, coarse, and ridiculous than this comedy in which Fielding was the hero and Mistress Wadsworth and the Duchess of Cleveland the heroines. The beau was convinced he had married a widow with a jointure of a golden character. The letters he addressed to the residence of Mrs. Deleau must have caused infinite astonishment