"His [Fielding's] biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the death of this charming woman [his first wife] he married her maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her; nor solace, when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he told his friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." It has now been ascertained that the marriage took place at St. Bene't's, Paul's Wharf, an obscure little church in the City, at present surrendered to a Welsh congregation, but at that time, like Mary-le-bone old church, much in request for unions of a private character. The date in the register is the 27th of November 1747. The second Mrs. Fielding's maiden name, which has been hitherto variously reported as Macdonnell, Macdonald, and Macdaniel, is given as Mary Daniel, [Footnote: See note to Fielding's letter in Chap. vii.] and she is further described as "of St Clement's Danes, Middlesex, Spinster." Either previously to this occurrence, or immediately after it, Fielding seems to have taken two rooms in a house in Back Lane, Twickenham, "not far," says the Rev. Mr. Cobbett in his _Memorials_, "from the site of Copt Hall." In 1872 this house was still standing,--a quaint old-fashioned wooden structure; [Footnote: Now (1883) it no longer exists, and a row of cottages occupies the site.]--and from hence, on the 25th February 1748, was baptized the first of the novelist's sons concerning whom any definite information exists--the William Fielding who, like his father, became a Westminster magistrate. Beyond suggesting that it may supply a reason why, during Mrs. Fielding's life-time, her husband's earliest biographer made no reference to the marriage, it is needless to dwell upon the proximity between the foregoing dates. In other respects the circumstance now first made public is not inconsistent with Lady Stuart's narrative; and there is no doubt, from the references to her in the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_ and elsewhere, that Mary Daniel did prove an excellent wife, mother, and nurse. Another thing is made clear by the date established, and this is that the verses "On Felix; Marry'd to a Cook-Maid" in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for July 1746, to which Mr. Lawrence refers, cannot possibly have anything to do with Fielding, although they seem to indicate that alliances of the kind were not unusual.