Fielding had several competitors in the beau-ship; contemporary with him were Beau Edgeworth and Beau Wilson. Of the former but little is on record; the latter’s career was cut short at an early date, for when he was not much beyond his twentieth year he was killed in a duel between him and John Law, afterwards so famous as the originator of the Mississippi scheme. The duel took place on the site of the present Bloomsbury Square. A mushroom growth of beaux arose about the year 1770, some of whom having travelled in Italy, and introduced macaroni as a new dish, they came to be designated by that name. They dressed in the most ridiculous fashion, wearing their hair in a very high foretop, with long side-curls, and an enormous chignon behind. Their clothes were tight-fitting, while silk stockings in all weathers were _de rigueur_. This folly was of but short duration. In the first half of the eighteenth century flourished Beau Nash—a great contrast in manners, character, social position, and conduct to Beau Fielding; but as his life was passed at Bath he cannot be reckoned among London beaux. Yet we mention him, as in his earlier years he was slightly connected with the Metropolis, by the fact that he was entered for the Temple, though he never followed the law as a profession. We have to come down to comparatively recent times to encounter a beau of some note; that beau was known as Beau George Brummel. He was born in 1777, and sent to Eton, where he enjoyed the credit of being the best scholar, the best oarsman, and the best cricketer of his day. His father was Under-Secretary to Lord North, and left each of his children some £30,000. At Eton he made many aristocratic friends, and thus obtained the entrée to Devonshire House, where the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, held her court, and where she introduced Brummell to the Prince Regent, who gave him a commission in the 10th Hussars. But the army, with its restraints, did not suit the beau; he left it, and then resided in Chesterfield Street, where the Prince, finding in him a kindred spirit of vanity and frivolity, used to visit him in the morning to see him make his toilet, and to learn the art of tying his neckerchief fashionably. And frequently the Prince would stay all day to enjoy his friend’s intellectual discourse, stopping to take a chop or steak with him, and not returning home till the next morning, half-seas over. The beau spent his time chiefly at Brighton and at Carlton House, and regularly established himself as a leader of fashion, his horses and carriages, his dogs, walking-sticks and snuff-boxes, but especially his clothes, becoming patterns to all the empty-headed noodles who required guidance in such matters. But such show could not be supported on the income derived from his patrimony; Brummell therefore went in heavily for gambling, with varying luck. Once at Brooks’s he played with Alderman Combe, nicknamed ’Mash-tub,’ Lord Mayor and brewer. The