day, show how beaux then acquired a reputation. Scotland Yard was so
called from a palace which stood there, and was the residence of the
Kings of Scotland on their annual visit to do homage for their kingdom
to the Crown of England. On the union of the Scottish and English Crowns
the palace was allowed to go to decay. Parts of it served as occasional
residences for various persons, one of whom was Robert Fielding, who
died there in the early part of the last century. This Fielding was
generally known as Beau Fielding. The _Tatler_, in August, 1709 (Nos.
50 and 51), thus describes him: 'Ten _lustra_ and more are wholly passed
since Orlando (R. Fielding) first appeared in the metropolis of this
island, his descent noble, his wit humorous, his person charming. But
to none of these advantages was his title so undoubted as that of his
beauty. His complexion was fair, but his countenance manly; his stature
of the tallest, his shape the most exact; and though in all his limbs he
had a proportion as delicate as we see in the work of the most skilful
statuaries, his body had a strength and firmness little inferior to the
marble of which such images are formed. This made Orlando the universal
flame of all the fair sex; innocent virgins sighed for him as Adonis,
experienced widows as Hercules. Thus did this figure walk alone, the
pattern and ornament of our species, but, of course, the envy of all who
had the same passions, without his superior merit, and pretences to the
favour of that enchanting creature, woman. However, the generous
Orlando believed himself formed for the world, and not to be engrossed
by any particular affection.... Woman was his mistress, and the whole
sex his seraglio. His form was always irresistible; and if we consider
that not one of five hundred can bear the least favour from a lady
without being exalted above himself ... we cannot think it wonderful
that Orlando's repeated conquests touched his brain. So it certainly
did, and Orlando became an enthusiast in love.... He would still add to
the advantages of his person that of a profession which the ladies
always favour, and immediately commenced soldier.... Our hero seeks
distant climes ... after many feats of arms ... Orlando returns home,
full, but not loaded, with years.... The beauteous Villaria (Barbara,
daughter and heiress of William Villiers, Lord Viscount Grandison, of
the Kingdom of Ireland) ... became the object of his affection....
According to Milton,
'"The fair with conscious majesty approved."
Fortune having now supplied Orlando with necessaries for his high taste
of gallantry and pleasure, his equipage and economy had something in
them more sumptuous and gallant than could be conceived in our
degenerate age, therefore ... all the Britons under the age of sixteen
... followed his chariot with shouts and acclamations.... I remember I
saw him one day stop, and call the youths about him, to whom he spoke as
follows: "Good youngsters, go to school, and do not lose your time in
following my wheels. I am loath to hurt you, because I know not but you
are all my own offspring.... Why, you young dogs, did you never see a
man before?" "Never such a one as you, noble General," replied a truant
from Westminster. "Sirrah, I believe thee; there is a crown for thee.
Drive on, coachman." ... Fortune being now propitious to the gay
Orlando, he dressed, he spoke, he moved as a man might be supposed to do
in a nation of pigmies ... he sometimes rode in an open tumbril, of less
size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs, and the grandeur
of his personage, to the greater advantage.... In all these glorious
excesses did ... Orlando live ... until an unlucky accident brought to
his remembrance that ... he was married before he courted the nuptials
of Villaria. Several fatal memorandums were produced to revive the
memory of this accident, and the unhappy lover was for ever banished her
presence, to whom he owed the support of his first renown and
gallantry.... Orlando, therefore, now rages in a garret.' The Barbara
Villiers mentioned by the _Tatler_ was identical with Lady Castlemaine,
Duchess of Cleveland, whose scandalous history is notorious. She was
sixty-five years old when she fell in love with Fielding and married
him. The 'unlucky accident' of the _Tatler_ was the fact that a few
weeks before Fielding had been taken in by an adventuress, one Mary
Wadsworth, whom, taking her for a rich widow, he had married. On his
second--bigamous--marriage, the first wife revealed the fact to Lady
Castlemaine, who, having been shamefully treated by Fielding, was glad
to get rid of him. The first marriage was proved in a court of law, and
sentence passed on Fielding to be burnt in the hand. By interest in
certain quarters he was spared this ignominious punishment; but he was
left destitute, and died forgotten and forsaken.
The _Tatler_ gave Fielding a noble descent, and he, in fact, claimed
descent from the Hapsburgs; and on the strength of his name ventured to
have the arms of Lord Denbigh emblazoned on his coach, and to drive
about the ring in Hyde Park. At the sight of the immaculate
coat-of-arms on the plebeian chariot, 'all the blood of the Hapsburgs'
flew to the head of Basil, fourth Earl of Denbigh. In a high state of
fury, he at once procured a house-painter, and ordered him to daub the
coat-of-arms completely over, in broad daylight, and before all the
company in the ring. The beau tamely submitted to the insult.
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 L30,000. At Eton he made many aristocratic friends, and thus
obtained the entree 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
dice-box circulated. 'Come, Mash-tub,' said the beau, who was the
caster, 'what do you set?' 'Twenty-five guineas,' said the Alderman.
The beau won, and eleven more similar ventures. As he pocketed the
money, he said: 'Thank you, Alderman; henceforth I shall drink no porter
but yours.' 'I wish, sir,' replied Combe, 'that every other blackguard
in London would say the same.' At the Watier Club, established at the
instigation of the Prince of Wales, Brummell suffered heavy losses, so
that ever after he was in constant pecuniary difficulties, though
Fortune smiled on him at times. Indulging in all the superstitious
tendencies of gamblers, he at one time attributed his luck to the
finding of a crooked sixpence in the kennel, as he was walking with Mr.
Raikes, who tells the story, through Berkeley Square. He had a hole
bored in the coin, and attached it to his watch-chain. As for the
succeeding two years he had great luck at the table and on the turf, he
attributed it to the lucky sixpence. He is supposed to have made nearly
L30,000 during that time.
A coolness between the Prince and the beau arose after a few years;
various reasons are assigned for it. He was, for instance, said to have
taken the part of Mrs. Fitzherbert, who had been privately married to
the Prince Regent at Carlton House; he is reported to have asked Lady
Cholmondeley, in the hearing of the Prince, and pointing to him, 'Who is
your fat friend?' Though it is also reported that this question was put
to Jack Lee, as he was walking up St. James's Street, arm-in-arm with
the Prince, a few days after the beau had quarrelled with the latter.
But this blew over, and Brummell was again invited to Carlton House,
where he took too much wine. The Prince said to his brother, the Duke
of York: 'I think we had better order Mr. Brummell's carriage before he
gets quite drunk.' Another version of the second rupture is that
Brummell took the liberty of saying to the Prince: 'George, ring the
bell.' The Prince rang it, and told the servant who answered it: 'Mr.
Brummell's carriage.' This Brummell always denied; however, he was a
second time forbidden Carlton House. For a few years he was a hanger-on
at Oatlands, the seat of the Duke of York, then, having lost large sums
at play, he was obliged to fly the country, and having lived for some
years in obscurity at Calais, he obtained the post of British Consul at
Caen--for which his previous career, of course, eminently fitted him!
He died in that town in poor circumstances in 1840.
Let us conclude this short account of the poor moth, basking in the
royal sunshine for awhile, with one or two anecdotes. One day a
youthful beau approached Brummell, and said: 'Permit me to ask you where
you get your blacking?' 'Ah,' said the beau, 'my blacking positively
ruins me. I will tell you in confidence--it is made with the finest
champagne!' He was once at a party in Portman Square. On the cloth
being removed, the snuff-boxes made their appearance; Brummell's was
particularly admired; it was handed round, and a gentleman, finding it
somewhat difficult to open, incautiously applied a desert-knife to the
lid. Brummell was on thorns, and at last could contain himself no
longer, and addressing the host, he said, loud enough to be heard by the
company: 'Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuff-box
is not an oyster?'
England has had no regular beau since the time of Brummell, though
occasionally some crack-brained individual has attempted to wear his
mantle. Such a one was Ferdinand Geramb, a tight-laced German General
and Baron, who in the second decade of this century strutted about the
parks, conspicuous for his ringlets, his superb moustaches, and immense
spurs. It was asserted that he was a German Jew, who, having married the
widow of a Hungarian Baron, assumed her late husband's title. His fiery
moustaches were closely imitated by many illustrious personages, and
gold spurs several inches long became the fashion--one fool makes many.
It is to him the British army is indebted for the introduction of hussar
uniforms. Having to leave England under the Alien Act, he went to
Hamburg, where he set himself to writing against the Emperor Napoleon,
who shut him up in the Castle of Vincennes. There, in terrible fear of
being shot, he made a vow that should he regain his liberty he would
renounce the devil and his works, and join the Trappist community. He
was released at the Restoration, and at once entered a Trappist
monastery, under the name of Brother Joseph, and in course of time
became Abbot and Procurator-General of the Order. No more fighting of
duels now, no more keeping the bailiffs who wanted to seize him for debt
at bay for twelve days in an English country house which he had
fortified; he submitted to the severest rules of the Order, and in 1831
made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died at Rome in 1848.
*XI.*
*LONDON SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES.*
In the year 1765 a Frenchman, who did not give his name, visited London,
and afterwards published in Paris an account of his visit.
'I reached London,' he says, 'towards the close of the day ... and at
last, quite by chance, I found myself settled in an apartment in the
house of the _Cruisinier Royal_ in Leicester Fields. This neighbourhood
is filled with small houses, which are mostly let to foreigners.' On
the following day he walked down Holborn and the Strand to St. Paul's,
then crossed London Bridge, and returned to his hotel by walking through
Southwark and Lambeth to Westminster, 'a district full of mean houses
and meaner taverns.' The localities named have not greatly altered
their character since then. In another place our traveller says: 'Even
from the bridges it is impossible to get a view of the river, as the
parapets are ten feet high.... The reason given for all this is the
inclination which the English, and the Londoners especially, have for
suicide. It is true that above and below the town the banks are
unprotected, and offer an excellent opportunity to those who really wish
to drown themselves; but the distance is great, and, besides, those who
wish to leave the world in this manner prefer doing so before the eyes
of the public. The parapets, however, of the new bridge [Blackfriars]
which is being built will be but of an ordinary height.' Suicidal
tendencies must indeed have greatly declined, since the most recently
erected bridges, the new Westminster and Blackfriars, have particularly
low parapets.
Of the streets our author says: 'They are paved in such a manner that it
is barely possible to ride or walk on them in safety, and they are
always extremely dirty.... The finest streets ... would be impassable
were it not that on each side ... footways are made from four to five
feet wide, and for communication from one to the other across the street
there are smaller footways elevated above the general surface of the
roadway, and formed of large stones selected for the purpose.... In the
finest part of the Strand, near St. Clement's Church, I noticed, during
the whole of my stay in London, that the middle of the street was
constantly covered with liquid stinking mud, three or four inches
deep.... The walkers are bespattered from head to foot.... The
natives, however, brave all these disagreeables, wrapped up in long blue
coats, like dressing-gowns, wearing brown stockings and perukes, rough,
red and frizzled.'
Well, we cannot find much fault with this description, unflattering as
it is, for in the last century London certainly was one of the most
hideous towns to live in, and its inhabitants the most uncouth,
repulsive set of 'guys'! Concerning Oxford Street our author makes a
false prognostic: 'The shops of Oxford Street will disappear as the
houses are sought after for private dwellings by the rich. Soon will
the great city extend itself to Marylebone, which is not more than a
quarter of a league distant. At present it is a village, principally of
taverns, inhabited by French refugees.'
Our traveller sees but four houses in London which will bear comparison
with the great hotels in Paris. To the inconvenience of mud, he says,
must be added that of smoke, which, mingled with a perpetual fog, covers
London as a pall. We, to our sorrow, know this to be true even now.
But we have improved in one respect: our old watchmen or 'Charleys' have
disappeared before the modern police. Concerning these watchmen our
author says: 'There are no troops or guard or watch of any kind, except
during the night by some old men, chosen from the dregs of the people.
Their only arms are a stick and a lantern. They walk about the streets
crying the hour every time the clock strikes ... and it appears to be a
point of etiquette among hare-brained youngsters to maul them on leaving
their parties.'
Our Frenchman formed a correct estimate of the London watchman of his
day--nay, it held good to the final extinction of the 'Charleys.' In
December, 1826, a watchman was charged before the Lord Mayor with
insubordination. On being asked who had appointed him watchman, the
prisoner replied that he was in great distress and a burden to the
parish, who therefore gave him the appointment to get rid of him. The
Lord Mayor: 'I thought so; and what can be expected from such a system
of choosing watchmen? I know that most of the men who are thus burdens
on the parish are the vilest of wretches, and such men are appointed to
guard the lives and property of others! I also know that in most cases
robberies are perpetrated by the connivance of watchmen.'
But in some cases our author is really too good-naturedly credulous.
Says he: 'The people of London, though proud and hasty, are good at
heart, and humane, even in the lowest class. If any stoppage occurs in
the streets, they are always ready to lend their assistance to remove
the difficulty, instead of raising a quarrel, which might end in murder,
as is often the case in Paris.' This is really too innocent! And our
French visitor must have been very fortunate indeed never to have got
into a London crowd of roughs or of pickpockets, who create stoppages in
the streets for the only purpose of pursuing their trade, and who seldom
hesitate to commit violence if they cannot rob without it. Our author's
belief, indeed, in London honesty is boundless. 'In order that the
pot-boys,' he says, 'may have but little trouble in collecting them [the
pewter pots in which publicans send out the beer], they are placed in
the open passages, and sometimes on the doorsteps of the houses. I saw
them thus exposed ... and felt quite assured against all the cunning of
thieves.' But more astounding is the statement that there are no poor
in London! 'A consequence,' says our visitor, 'of its rich and numerous
charitable establishments and the immense sums raised by the poor-rates,
which impost is one which the little householders pay most cheerfully,
as they consider it a fund from which, in the event of their death,
their wives and children will be supported.' Fancy a little householder
paying his poor-rate cheerfully! And what a mean opinion must our
author have had of the spirit of the householder who calmly contemplated
his family, after his death, going to the parish!
The Frenchman returns once more to our usual melancholy, 'which,' he
says, 'is no doubt owing to the fogs' and to our fat meat and strong
beer. 'Beef is the Englishman's ordinary diet, relished in proportion
to the quantity of fat, and this, mixed in their stomachs with the beer
they drink, must produce a chyle, whose viscous heaviness conveys only
bilious and melancholic vapours to the brain.'
It certainly is satisfactory to have so scientific an explanation of the
origin of our spleen.
Another French writer in 1784--M. La Combe--published a book, entitled
'A Picture of London,' in which, _inter alia_, he says: 'The highroads
thirty or forty miles round London are filled with armed highwaymen and
footpads.' This was then pretty true, though the expression 'filled' is
somewhat of an exaggeration. The medical student of forty or fifty
years ago seems to have been anticipated in 1784, for M. La Combe tells
us that 'the brass knockers of doors, which cost from 12s. to 15s., are
stolen at night if the maid forgets to unscrew them'--a precaution which
seems to have gone out of fashion. 'The arrival of the mails,' our
author says, 'is uncertain at all times of the year.... Persons who
frequently receive letters should recommend their correspondents not to
insert loose papers, nor to put the letters in covers, because the tax
is sometimes treble, and always arbitrary, though in a free country.
But rapacity and injustice are the deities of the English.' M. La Combe
does not give us a flattering character. 'An Englishman,' he says,
'considers a foreigner as an enemy, whom he dares not offend openly, but
whose society he fears; and he attaches himself to no one.' Perhaps it
was so in 1784, but such feelings have nearly died out--at least, among
educated people. M. La Combe, in another part of his book, exclaims:
'How are you changed, Londoners! ... Your women are become bold,
imperious, and expensive. Bankrupts and beggars, coiners, spies and
informers, robbers and pickpockets abound.... The baker mixes alum in
his bread ... the brewer puts opium and copper filings in his beer ...
the milkwoman spoils her milk with snails.'
Do more recent writers judge of us more correctly? We shall see.
I have lying before me a French book, the title of which, translated
into English, runs, 'Geography for Young People.' It is in its eighth
edition, and written by M. Levi, Professor of Belles-Lettres, of History
and Geography in Paris. The date of the book is 1850. The Professor in
it describes London, and if his pupils ever have, or rather had,
occasion to visit our capital, they must have been unable to recognise
it from their teacher's description of it. Among the many blunders he
commits, there are some which are excusable in a foreigner, because they
refer to matters which are often misapprehended even by natives; but to
describe London as possessing a certain architectural feature which a
mere walk through the streets with his eyes open would have shown him to
have no existence at all is rather unpardonable in a professor who takes
on himself to teach young people geography. But what does M. Levi say?
He says: 'In London you never see an umbrella, because all the streets
are built with arcades, under which you find shelter when it rains, so
that an umbrella, which to us Parisians is an indispensable article, is
perfectly useless to a Londoner.' M. Levi evidently, if ever he was in
London, visited the Quadrant only, before the arcade was pulled down,
and thereupon wrote his account of London. Yet he must have looked
about a bit, for he tells us of splendid cafes to be met with in every
street; the nobility patronize them; 'one of them accidentally treads on
the toes of another, a duel is the consequence, and to-morrow morning
one of them will have ceased to live.'