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.

The emoluments of this office enabled Orlando, as 'The Tatler' calls
him, to shine forth in all his glory. With an enviable indifference to
the future, he launched out into an expenditure which alone would have
made him popular in a country where the heaviest purse makes the
greatest gentleman. His lacqueys were arrayed in the brightest yellow
coats with black sashes--the Hapsburg colours. He had a carriage, of
course, but, like Sheridan's, it was hired, though drawn by his own
horses. This carriage was described as being shaped like a sea-shell;
and 'the Tatler' calls it 'an open tumbril of less size than ordinary,
to show the largeness of his limbs and the grandeur of his personage to
the best advantage.' The said limbs were Fielding's especial pride: he
gloried in the strength of his leg and arm; and when he walked down the
street, he was followed by an admiring crowd, whom he treated with as
much haughtiness as if he had been the emperor himself, instead of his
cousin five hundred times removed. He used his strength to good or bad
purpose, and was a redoubted fighter and bully, though good-natured
withal. In the Mall, as he strutted, he was the cynosure of all female
eyes. His dress had all the elegance of which the graceful costume of
that period was capable, though Fielding did not, like Brummell,
understand the delicacy of a quiet, but studied style. Those were
simpler, somewhat more honest days. It was not necessary for a man to
cloak his vices, nor be ashamed of his cloak. The beau then-a-day openly
and arrogantly gloried in the grandeur of his attire; and bragging was a
part of his character. Field