for the same purpose—­to shine in society:  both used the same means—­coats and bon-mots.  The only distinction is, that the garments of the beaux were better, and their sayings not so good as those of the wits; while the conversation of the wits was better, and their apparel not so striking as those of the beaux.  So, my Lord Chesterfield, who prided yourself quite as much on being a fine gentleman as on being a fine wit, you cannot complain at your proximity to Mr. Nash and others who were fine gentlemen, and would have been fine wits if they could.

Robert Fielding was, perhaps, the least of the beaux; but then, to make up for this, he belonged to a noble family:  he married a duchess, and, what is more, he beat her.  Surely in the kingdom of fools such a man is not to be despised.  You may be sure he did not think he was, for was he not made the subject of two papers in ‘The Tatler,’ and what more could such a man desire?

His father was a Suffolk squire, claiming relationship with the Earls of Denbigh, and therefore, with the Hapsburgs, from whom the Beau and the Emperors of Austria had the common honour of being descended.  Perhaps neither of them had sufficient sense to be proud of the greatest intellectual ornament of their race, the author of ‘Tom Jones;’ but as our hero was dead before the humourist was born, it is not fair to conjecture what he might have thought on the subject.

It does not appear that very much is known of this great gem of the race of Hapsburg.  He had the misfortune to be very handsome, and the folly to think that his face would be his fortune:  it certainly stood him in good stead at times, but it also brought him into a lamentable dilemma.

His father was not rich, and sent his son to the Temple to study laws which he was only fitted to break.  The young Adonis had sense enough to see that destiny did not beckon him to fame in the gloom of a musty law court, and removed a little further up to the Thames, and the more fashionable region of Scotland Yard.  Here, where now Z 300 repairs to report his investigations to a Commissioner, the young dandies of Charles II.’s day strutted in gay doublets, swore hasty oaths of choice invention, smoked the true Tobago from huge pipe-bowls, and ogled the fair but not too bashful dames who passed to and fro in their chariots.  The court took its name from the royalties of Scotland, who, when they visited the South, were there lodged, as being conveniently near to Whitehall Palace.  It is odd enough that the three architects, Inigo Jones, Vanbrugh, and Wren, all lived in this yard.

It was not to be supposed that a man who could so well appreciate a handsome face and well-cut doublet as Charles II. should long overlook his neighbour, Mr. Robert Fielding, and in due course the Beau, who had no other diploma, found himself in the honourable position of a justice of the peace.