Whether the Beau still thought of fortune, or whether having once tried matrimony, he was so enchanted with it as to make it his cacoethes, does not appear:  the legend explains not for what reason he married the antiquated beauty only three weeks after he had been united to the supposed widow.  For a time he wavered between the two, but that time was short:  the widow discovered his second marriage, claimed him, and in so doing revealed the well-kept secret that she was not a widow; indeed, not even the relict of John Deleau, Esq., of Whaddon, but a wretched adventurer of the name of Mary Wadsworth, who had shared with Mrs. Villars the plunder of the trick.  The Beau tried to preserve his dignity, and throw over his duper, but in vain.  The first wife reported the state of affairs to the second:  and the duchess, who had been shamefully treated by Master Fielding, was only too glad of an opportunity to get rid of him.  She offered Mary Wadsworth a pension of L100 a year, and a sum of L200 in ready money, to prove the previous marriage.  The case came on, and Beau Fielding had the honour of playing a part in a famous state trial.

With his usual impudence he undertook to defend himself at the Old Bailey, and hatched up some old story to prove that the first wife was married at the time of their union to one Brady; but the plea fell to the ground, and the fine gentleman was sentenced to be burned in the hand.  His interest in certain quarters saved him this ignominious punishment which would, doubtless, have spoiled a limb of which he was particularly proud.  He was pardoned:  the real widow married a far more honourable gentleman, in spite of the unenviable notoriety she had acquired; the sham one was somehow quieted, and the duchess died some four years later, the more peacefully for being rid of her tyrannical mate.

Thus ended a petty scandal of the day, in which all the parties were so disreputable that no one could feel any sympathy for a single one of them.  How the dupe himself ended is not known.  The last days of fops and beaux are never glorious.  Brummell died in slovenly penury; Nash in contempt.  Fielding lapsed into the dimmest obscurity; and as far as evidence goes, there is as little certainty about his death as of that of the Wandering Jew.  Let us hope that he is not still alive:  though his friends seemed to have cared little whether he were so or not, to judge from a couple of verses written by one of them:—­

    ’If Fielding is dead,
       And rests under this stone,
     Then he is not alive
       You may bet two to one.

    ’But if he’s alive,
       And does not lie there—­
     Let him live till he’s hanged,
       For which no man will care.’

    OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER ANNE.