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