Finally, the honest old tailor made a will, in which he wrote himself

“Gentⁿ,” as though he were too modest to make the assertion in the full

dignity of the complete word. And in this will, which could not have

been drawn up by a lawyer, for it is easily understood and leaves no

openings for legal objections, he bequeaths the lands and goods to which

he succeeded at Brampton, to his son “Samuel Pepys, Esqʳᵉ.” He left seven

pounds to the poor; ten pounds to each of his two grandsons; his largest

silver tankard to Pauline,—an appropriate legacy, for “Pall” married the

toper; a gold seal-ring to his son John; and if anything remained over

and above these bequests, he left the same to be divided among his three

children, amicably. He left no debts; and on that score, the honest old

tailor of Brampton may rank before many a baron, who neither paid his

tailor’s bills when living, nor left wherewith to honestly discharge

them, after his decease.

If there was one thing Pepys loved best, next to good wine and good

company, it was the stage. Let us see if we cannot find him a brother

among the actors.

RICHARD RYAN, THE THEATRICAL TAILOR.

“Honest man;

Here’s all the words that thou art worth.”

DAVENPORT: _The City Nightcap_.

Dignum and Moses Kean, the latter the uncle of Edmund Kean, were one day

standing employed in jovial converse under the Piazza in Covent Garden,

when Charles Bannister passed by with a friend. Dignum and Moses had been

but indifferent tailors, before the one turned vocalist and the other

mimic. “I never see those two fellows together,” said Charles, “without

thinking of one of Shakspeare’s plays.” “And which is that?” inquired his

friend. “_Measure for Measure_,” said Charles.

It is a custom with some Arab tribes for a man, when he becomes a father,

to take his name from his son. Thus the bachelor Mahmoud ben Youssef,

or Mahmoud son of Joseph, if he marries, no sooner has a boy, whom we

will call Taleb, then he becomes Mahmoud Abu Taleb, or Mahmoud father of

Taleb. In some such fashion the poor tailor Aaron Kean has no other name

in history than that of the father of Edmund,—the greatest of our actors

since the days of Garrick. The family of the Trees has, from as humble a

source, been as bountiful, in its way, to the stage.

The ever-youthful Harley,—who looks almost as young now as he did when

in 1815 he first appeared in London, at the Lyceum, as Marcelli in ‘The

Devil’s Bridge,’—is not far removed from the profession on which I have

been touching. His sire was a draper, and he himself is said to have

been initiated into the mysteries of stay-making, and to have tried those

of physic and the law, ere he settled down to comic acting and delighting

the town.

But I must go further back than this, for my illustration of one who

passed from a humble calling to add dignity to and gain credit in the

exercise of a difficult vocation. When the manager was busy “casting” a

new tragedy called ‘Cato,’ written by a gentleman about town, whose name

is connected with the ‘Spectator,’ and lives in the “Addison” roads and

terraces about Kensington, there was some hesitation as to the actor who

should represent Marcus. A youthful and aspiring player looked blushingly

on as the hesitation occurred. “There is hope, ay, and promise too, in

that blush,” said Addison; “Dick Ryan shall be my lover.” “Why, a year

ago he was only a tailor,” whispered Booth, who played the principal

character. “A London tailor,” said the manager, Syphax Cibber. “And a

present pretty fellow,” murmured Maria Oldfield. “And _my_ Marcus,” said

Addison, “or I do not make over the profits to the house.” And it was so.

It may be a legitimate boast for the profession, that Addison selected a

young tailor to play Marcus in his tragedy of ‘Cato,’ and that Garrick

took from the same source some hints for the improvement of his Richard.

In the latter case, Garrick and Woodward went together to see Ryan’s

Richard, thinking to be merry at witnessing such a character played by

such a person. Ryan was then ungraceful in carriage, slovenly in style,

and exceedingly ill-dressed; but Garrick discerned, in spite of all, some

original ideas, to which he gave development, and therewith he struck out

new beauties which he perhaps fairly claimed as his own. Foote alluded to

this in a prologue spoke by him at Ryan’s benefit in 1754, in which he

said, in allusion to Ryan himself,

“From him succeeding Richard took the cue;

And hence the style, if not the colour, drew.”

Garrick, however, was not generous enough to allow of the young tailor’s

excellence; and in Bayes he used to caricature Ryan’s manner by

delivering the passage beginning with

“Your bed of love from dangers will I free,”

in a sharp tone and lengthened, hesitating manner. Quin showed more

regard for the ex-tailor, by giving his farewell performance on the

Bath stage (in ‘Falstaff:’ Henry IV.), not for his own, but for Ryan’s

benefit. This was in 1752. The receipts were so great, that Ryan applied

to Quin, in a subsequent year, to repeat the performance. “I would play

for you, if I could,” wrote the generous old fellow in reply, “but I will

not _whistle_ Falstaff for you. I have willed you £1000. If you want

money, you may have that; and so save my executors trouble.”

Ryan had years before this met with an accident, which is so

characteristic of the times that I may here recount it without apology.

It was an accident which made such services as those rendered him by

Quin highly acceptable. He had been playing Scipio, in ‘Sophonisba,’ at

Covent Garden, and was passing down Great Queen-street, about midnight,

when one from among a group of footmen stepped off the pavement, followed

him into the road, and, as the actor turned round, discharged a pistol

close to his face, bidding him at the same time “Stand and deliver!” The

robber plundered the player only of his sword, and _that_ he dropped in

the street. As he was unbuckling it from Ryan’s side, the latter said,

“Friend, you have killed me, but I forgive you.” The watch, too polite

to intrude upon the pleasures of the thieves, picked up their victim,

and conveyed him to the house of a neighbouring surgeon, who found that

his patient had half his teeth shot out, and his face and jawbone much

shattered. Of course, he was incapable of playing Loveless, in ‘Love’s

Last Shift,’ as he was announced to do, on the 17th of the same month.

A benefit was got up for the wounded ex-tailor on the 19th. Everybody

loved him, and public and players exerted themselves in his behalf. The

play was ‘The Provoked Husband.’ Royalty patronized it; and many who

could not attend, sent cheques on their bankers as their representatives.

Ryan lay for some little time in a deplorable state, and it was very much

doubted whether he would ever be able to articulate again. The public

looked with sympathy upon their favourite actor; and when, on the 26th of

the following month, April, he made his appearance in a new part, that of

Bellair, in the ‘Double Deceit,’ great was the delight of the playgoers

to find that “their esteemed Ryan,” as he was called, was little, if any,

the worse in speech, spirits, or gracefulness, and that the footpad’s

pistol had not destroyed the man for whom Garrick himself had shown

respect, by at once imitating and caricaturing him. Ryan however never

did perfectly recover, although he retained his position on the stage for

many years longer.

It was probably more necessity than inclination that kept him on the

stage till 1760, in which year he died, after playing the lovers in

Tragedy and the fine gentlemen in Comedy for more than thirty years. The

line which he took was subsequently ably filled by Charles Kemble, and

for something like the same period. But Charles Kemble had, naturally,

advantages which Ryan did not at first possess, and which he only slowly

acquired. The former however was the subject of much critical ridicule

when he first appeared, so awkward was he in spite of his natural

advantages. If Ryan never became thoroughly graceful, he was always

perfectly easy; and, notwithstanding a harsh and dissonant voice, he

could, like Edmund Kean, so manage that organ as to create good effect

out of its very defects. He had, with some slight extravagance, excellent

judgement, sense, and feeling; and Johnson could not have said to the

honest tailor turned actor, as he did sneeringly to Garrick, that Punch

had _no_ feeling. In scenes where Comedy trenched upon the domain of the

sister Muse by the exhibition of profound emotion, Ryan was very great;

and probably no actor has so nearly resembled him in this respect as Mr.

Robson, whose origin is as modestly respectable as Ryan’s was. They who

can recollect Elliston, as he played, in his latter days, the genial

Rover, may have some idea of what Ryan was, when he grew old, in Captain

Plume,—namely, defiant of age, and full of the natural assumption of a

spirit that seemed backed by the strength which was not there, but which

had a substitute in irresistible goodwill.

The gay and graceful Woodward was a contemporary of Ryan’s; and though he

was not originally a tailor, he was a pupil of “Merchant Tailors’,” and,

if I mistake not, head scholar there in his youth. One good consequence

resulting therefrom was, that Woodward never had a benefit without

active and liberal patronage on the part of that establishment, which

felt itself honoured at ranking so distinguished an actor among its

celebrities; and distinguished indeed was Harry Woodward. Since his time

the part of Bobadil has never been justly represented; it may be said

to have died with him. At a period when correct costume was not cared

for, he was ever careful regarding the proprieties of dress; and, more

fortunate than Ryan, he sustained the assaults of Time without letting

the consequent ravages be seen. Charles Mathews is, in many respects,

exactly what Woodward is said to have been; but Woodward could play a

far wider range of characters. His scamps were perfect for their cool

impudence; his modern fops, for their brazen impertinence; his fops of

earlier days, for their elegant rascality; his every-day simpletons, for

their vulgar stolidity; his mock-brave heroes, for their stupendous but

ever-suspected courage; and his Shakspearian light characters, for their

truly Shakspearian spirit. He was gracefully shaped, and bore a serious

dignity of countenance, but he was no sooner before the foot-lights than

a ripple of funny emotion seemed to roll over his face; and this, with

the tones of a capital stage voice, never failed to arouse a laughter

which was inextinguishable until the green curtain separated the old

pupil of Merchant Tailors’ from his ecstatic audience.

The younger Rich used, like Foote, to ridicule actors who had abandoned

other professions for the stage, and generally on the ground of their

ignorance. But neither Ryan the actual tailor, nor Woodward the “Merchant

Tailor,” ever exhibited so much ignorance as Rich and Foote themselves.

Rich always confounded the words _turbot_ and _turban_; and he was once

heard to insist upon the necessity of “laying the _empharsis_ on the

_adjutant_.” Foote had more wit than Rich, but not more wisdom. “I almost

forget my own name,” said the latter, by way of apology for calling Foote

by no other appellation than “Mr.” “Well,” remarked Foote, “I knew you

couldn’t write your name, but I didn’t suppose you could forget it.” The

latter displayed his own ignorance when he laughed at the idea of a ghost

taking a corporal oath. He forgot that such an oath was so called because

it was taken on the _corporale_, or cloth which covers the elements in

the Sacrament.

But even tailors on the stage would be nothing if the poets did not write

for them; and here is a poet-tailor to our hand, doing honour to two

crafts.

PAUL WHITEHEAD, THE POET TAILOR.

“He lived a poet in this town

(If we may term our modern writers poets),

Sharp-witted, bitter-tongued, his pen of steel.

His ink was temper’d with the biting juice,

And extracts of the bitterest weeds that grew.

He never wrote but when the elements

Of fire and water tilted in his brain.”

HEYWOOD: _Fair Maid of the Exchange_.

Among the tailors who have been authors, Paul Whitehead takes a very

respectable rank; which is more, I am sorry to say, than he does among

men. The career of the two Whiteheads has a moral in it. William, the

son of a Cambridge baker, was, like Paul, the tailor’s son, a most

successful tuft-hunter; but then he hunted chiefly after patricians of

principle,—of good principle. William was a gentle lad; he walked through

the university of his native city with quiet credit, and passed into

Lord Grey’s family as private tutor; where he taught mildly, and wrote

classical tragedies of so soporific a nature, that the reading of them

might safely be recommended to the sleepless by hypnologists. William

the baker was a highly respectable and never-too-soon-to-be-forgotten

individual.

It is otherwise with roystering Paul the tailor. Chapel-yard, Holborn,

was the cradle (in 1709) of this boisterous and biting poet. His father

would have been content to see him take measures to follow his example;

but as Hervagault, the first pseudo-Dauphin, quitted his father’s board

to make assault upon the throne of Capet, so Paul, backed by his friends,

aimed at the realm of rhyme, and would wear his father’s coats, but would

not make them. His sire apprenticed him to a mercer; the ambitious son

went and entered himself at the Temple.

Paul was one of those daring wits whom profane men most admire; and as

the young tailor’s style was one which had respect for neither Olympus

nor the mortals, he became a laureate, like William the Baker, but not,

like him, poet-laureate to the King.

Paul of Castle-yard was laureate to the “Bucks.” He was a member of the

most reprobate clubs of the day. He was a member of the brotherhood of

Medenham Abbey,—not of the pious and pot-heaving Cistercians, who gurgled

their throats with good old wine, but of the God-denying and profligate

crew that had Sir Francis Dashwood for their prior. Paul was the Parny

of this and similar sets; and when his patrons required a lay against

loyalty, a rhyme against royalty, a metrical kick at kings, songs against

statesmen, or diatribes against dunces, the Muse of the tailor’s clever

boy was ever ready for the nonce. For clever he was, despite the abuse

of Churchill—himself very far from immaculate. If Paul was a reprobate,

Churchill was that, and a parson to boot,—two professions which should

never be united in one and the same individual. And yet Churchill wrote—

“May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?)

Be born a Whitehead, and baptized a Paul!”

The man who wrote these lines was in every way inferior to him against

whom they were levelled; certainly inferior to him in talent, though it

perhaps may be conceded that he excelled him in vice, power of abuse, and

ill-nature.

Paul the tailor was to Churchill, the reverend bruiser, what Cobbett

was to Hunt. The first had argument in his assertions; the latter had

as little logic as humanity. Paul, too, had taste, and imitated only

models of the rarest beauty; and this imitation was better than a low

originality without taste at all. His thoughts were marked by a manly

strength, and his phrases abound in a rich vein of poetical expression.

His quarry was folly wherever found, and particularly “the big, rich,

mighty dunces of the State.” Not that dunces, as he said, were to be

found there only:—

“Dulness no more roosts only near the sky,

But senates, drawing-rooms, with garrets vie;

Plump Peers and breadless bards alike are dull,

St. James’s and Rag Fair club fool for fool.”

And here is a pattern of the fashion after which Paul laid his yard about

the ears of one who was “by birth a senator, by fate a fool:”—

“Full placed and pension’d, see Horatio stands!

Begrimed his face, unpurified his hands.

To decency he scorns all nice pretence,

And reigns firm foe to cleanliness and sense.

How did Horatio Britain’s cause advance!

How shines the sloven and buffoon of France!

In senates now, how scold, how rave, how roar,

Of treaties run the tedious train-trow o’er!

How blunder out whate’er should be conceal’d,

And how keep secret what should be reveal’d!

True child of dulness! see him, Goddess, claim

Power next thyself, as next in birth and fame.”

The author was a persecuted man, rather that he was considered a tailor,

who had no authority to sit at home and comment on what was done “i’ the

Capitol,” than that he was a satirist. Pope was more severe; but Pope

was a gentleman, and was held unassailable. If Paul was prosecuted, it

was that Pope, in the penalties inflicted on the humbler bard, might see

the perils which did himself environ. Poor Paul nevertheless grumbled at

being thus made a scapegoat, and he said thereupon:—

“Pope writes unhurt; but know ’tis different quite

To beard the lion, and to crush the mite.

Safe may he dash the statesman in each line;

Those dread his satire who dare punish mine!”

So wrote the Tory tailor who abused the Whigs, who were at that time

most flourishing at court, and most arrogant in drawing-rooms. The day

came when the Tories took root at court, and swaggered in saloons: and

then, sooth to say, court life and lounging in boudoirs seemed no longer

reprehensible in the eyes of the satirist. When he abused the throne,

he never expected to be allowed to make a _congé_ at the foot of it.

Benedick, in a similar style, when he abused matrimony, never expected to

be a married man. And, besides, we may allow in well-abused Paul,—once

pillowed on his sire’s sleeve-board,—the tergiversation of principle

which was so coolly practised by such mighty fine gentlemen as Dryden,

and that insufferably impudent and dishonest fop, Waller.

One at least of Paul’s works led to a public demonstration of some

importance; and I may as well notice it here as where it would otherwise

as naturally come—under the head of “Masks.” Walpole, writing to Sir

Horace Mann, in November, 1741, says:—“I believe I told you that Vernon’s

birthday passed quietly; but it was not designed to be pacific, for at

twelve at night, eight gentlemen, dressed like sailors, _and masked_,

went round Covent Garden with a drum, beating for a volunteer mob; but

it did not take, and they retired to a great supper, that was prepared

for them at the Bedford Head, and ordered by Whitehead, the author of

‘Manners.’”

In this last piece the author had committed onslaught on some members

of the House of Lords; the latter assembly summoned and imprisoned

Dodsley the publisher, Whitehead himself having absconded. The publisher

confessed that he had not read the tailor’s strains, but that, as the

work was a satire, he had compelled the author to affix his name to the

title-page, and take the responsibility. One of the libelled Lords,

Essex, moved the discharge of Dodsley; and not only Whitehead, but Pope,

was kept quiet by fear of prosecution.

Whitehead had already known what imprisonment was. He had, like many a

foolish youth, been ambitious of maintaining an acquaintance with the

actors, and he was particularly intimate with Fleetwood the manager. He

had not read the admonitory remark of the Wise King, that he who goeth

security for his neighbour shall smart for it; and the consequence of

putting his name to a bond ultimately placed his person in bonds also,

and he expiated in the Fleet his act of generous folly.

But he soon recovered from the effects of this. He was something of a

beau, and he did what beaux were wont to do,—married an heiress. The lady

was Anne Dyer, daughter of an Essex baronet, Sir Swinnerton Dyer. She

was homely and somewhat imbecile, but she had ten thousand pounds,—“dix

milles vertus en louis bien comptés,”—and Paul always regarded her as

a woman who had rendered him some little service. As duty was then

accounted of, this was acting with most singular uprightness.

He now took to what Mrs. Partington calls his “opium cum digitalis,” and

ceased to publish, though not to write. His republican friends attacked

him as a renegade; his royalist foes assailed him as an atheist; and Paul

laughed at both. To show however that he had strength if he chose to

exert it, he wrote his ‘Gymnasiad,’ a punching philippic against boxing;

and he dedicated it to Boughton the “bruiser,”—and all this in the face

of fashion, which then took prize-fighters by the arm, and walked with

them in the Mall, proud of the acquaintance.

The atheistical gentleman who turned his satire from the Cabinet to the

“ropes,” was well rewarded by Ministers; and Lord le Despenser gave

Paul the post of Deputy-Treasurer of the Chamber, with £800 a year to

reconcile the patriot to becoming a placeman. He now took his annual

tours like a nobleman, and in the course of one of them he found himself

at Deal. There, in a little literary circle, Mrs. Carter met him, to

that pious and learned lady’s profound horror. She had scarcely patience

to hear him read one of his productions; and she who had translated

‘Epictetus,’ in order to gain consolation from his philosophy for being

the native of a place so dull, dreary, dirty, dear, and dismal as Deal,

could hardly recall a maxim or two to her mind to fortify her against

the annoyance of playing second fiddle to the atheistical son of an old

London tailor!

Yet Paul was one of the finest of gentlemen in his way, and associated

with the very finest of the same class. He not only had his country-house

at Twickenham, but a coruscant circle about him of wits whose brilliancy

was not considered as tarnished by the most mouldy blasphemy. He was, as

I have said, the choice spirit of that club which met at Medenham Abbey.

We are struck with a species of horror when we contemplate Augustus and

his friends reclining at a banquet dressed out as, and named after, the

gods whom they professed to adore. It was a thousand times worse with

the atheistical wits who met at Medenham to drown themselves in drink,

to wallow in every inconceivable extravagance of vice, and amid it all

to laugh at Heaven’s lightning. To crown the horror, these exemplary

individuals took the guise and names of the Apostles; and nude Marthas

and Marys held the bowl to the lips of Simon Peter and of Jude. But

enough of this awful habit of the day. Suffice it to say, that Paul

Whitehead and Wilkes, the immaculate patriot, were the most licentious of

these pseudo-apostles, and gloried in their shame.

The hour in which the former was called to answer for the crime, struck

in 1774. Paul was then residing in Henrietta-street, Covent-garden;

and, when he felt the hand of the Inevitable upon him, he burned all his

erotic and infidel poetry, as if _that_ could hide his sins from the

eye of his Judge. He added to this the heathenish folly of bequeathing

his heart to Lord le Despenser. That exemplary nobleman accepted the

legacy; and the precious bequest, solemnly inurned, was pompously borne

to West Wycombe Church, attended by a procession of minstrels, singers,

and admiring friends. As to the quality of the clergy present, it may

be judged of by the fact that they stood unprotestingly by while the

vocalists, engaged by the Medenham apostles, sang, with rapt expression,

the following strophe:—

“From earth to heaven Whitehead’s soul is fled;

Refulgent glories beam about his head;

His Muse, concording with resounding strings,

Gives angels words to praise the King of Kings.”

When such things were sung of a Medenham apostle, in presence of an

unprotesting clergy, we need not wonder that there were a few serious

men, with a certain John Wesley at the head of them, anxiously seeking

for a “method” to remedy the enormous evils of the times.

We perhaps have deferred too long to notice the establishment of which

such men as Stow and Speed were members, and which has furnished many a

scholar or gallant gentleman to illustrate arts or arms. Let us then say

a word of honoured “Merchant Tailors’.”

MEMS. OF “MERCHANT TAILORS.”

“My heart is yours,

And you shall see it spring, and shoot forth leaves

Worthy your eye; and the oppressed sap

Ascend to ev’ry part, to make it green

And pay your love with fruit, when harvest comes.”

LOVE TRICKS, _by Shirley, a pupil of M. T._

I regret to say it, but the Rev. H. B. Wilson, the reverend author of

that half-hundredweight quarto which gives the history of the Merchant

Tailors, and which the author hoped would find its way into our villages,

is ashamed of the origin of his heroes. He has even enough of false pride

to beg that writers will spell Merchant Ta_y_lors with a _y_, and not

with an _i_! Tailors with an _i_, he says, may be mistaken for a trade;

while Taylors with a _y_ may be taken for a name! So was Sir Piercie

Shafton ever blushing at the idea of his father’s calling; and so do the

Smiths with an _i_, fancy that they glide into gentility and euphony by

becoming Smyths with a _y_.

How long the City guild of tailors has sustained a corporate dignity

it would be hard to say; we know however that Edward I. confirmed the

guild under their old name of “Merchant Tailors and Linen Armourers.”

Their symbolic shield bore a tent between two mantles, denoting that the

honest men of the guild made cloaks for all customers, and tents for

the royal army. Many a marquis has not half so delicate a device; and

the _Mercatores Scissores_ have been worthily translated by those far

less useful gentlemen,—the members of the College of Arms. The oath of

the livery bound the new brother to the utmost possible respectability

of life; but the oath was not broken when the taker of it, in a fit of

enthusiastic pride, broke the head of a “Merchant Skinner” who dared

claim precedency over the “Tailor.” A “bloody coxcomb” was too often the

crest of the valiant Mercatores Scissores.

Of the members of the company, in the olden time, the most illustrious

was Hawkwood, to whom I have assigned a chapter, as becoming his

super-sartorial dignity. Here I will only briefly speak of the school,

and the more illustrious men whom it has furnished to the public service.

The latter are bound to drink the immortal memory of the royal founder of

the “Merchant Tailors and Linen Armourers.”

The school was established by the company in 1560-1, “for children of

all nations and countries indifferently;” a liberal provision, which

was contracted in 1731 by an order of court, whereby express exclusion

was made of the children of Jews. Among the statutes, there is especial

injunction that, “in the schoole, at noe time of the yere, they shall

use tallow candle in noe wise, but wax candles only;” an injunction

which shows less regard for grammar than gentility. The school rather

tripped at the beginning; for though Mulcaster, the head master, was an

accomplished scholar, the ushers brought with them from the north such a

Bœotian accent, that the boys went home talking “broad Yorkshire!”

Mulcaster, the master, too could occasionally indulge in very harsh

English of the vulgar tongue, abusing the “visitors” roundly,—a rudeness

that ought not to have been seen at a school lit only with wax candles,

and having six or seven and thirty scholarships at St. John’s. Mulcaster

was a choleric man; but in his mastership of a quarter of a century he

“turned out” four bishops. These, when boys, had been the widest awake,

while the master slept; for, as Fuller tells us, “he slept his hour

(custom made him critical to proportion it) in his desk in the school,

but woe be to the scholar that slept the while. Awaking, he heard them

accurately; and Atropos might be persuaded to pity, as soon as he to

pardon. The prayers of cockering mothers prevailed with him as much as

the requests of indulgent fathers, rather increasing than mitigating his

severity on their offending children.” In our days, Dr. Hessey can make

good scholars by a more merciful and dignified process.

Wilkinson, the successor of Mulcaster, had the famous Whitelock for a

pupil; and under the third master, Smith, we find at the school a boy

named Juxon, who afterwards stood on the scaffold with Charles I., and

smoothed the sovereign’s path from time into eternity. Boyle and Dee

were also at this time young “Merchant Tailors,” whose subsequent manly

merits reflected lustre on the old foundation. Smith’s successor, Haynes,

was, like Mulcaster, rather ready with his tongue and heavy with his

hand. He chastised unmercifully; and, on being menaced with complaint

to the wardens, he was so audacious as to declare that he did not care

a “phillip” for them. His ushers, too, appear to have been rough of

speech; and “Bridewell rogue” was the tutorial epithet for a rebellious

pupil. Haynes too was accused of encouraging little lotteries for his

own profit, and not for the recreation of the pupils. “For,” says the

complaint, “you suffer none to drawe any one lott, but those that bring

xiiᵈ. or above. Your biggest lot is one grammer of xᵈ. which is the

greate lott; the rest are ink-hornes, hobby-horses, gingerbread, paints,

and puddings of very small value.” The master of Merchant Tailors’ is

indignant thereat, and protests that not only is the matter one of

pure entertainment, but that he makes nothing by it, and that he finds

the drawers in “dyett bread, comfitts of all sorts, ffiggs, raysonnes,

allmonds, stewed prunes, wiggs, beare, and some wine, and all kinds of

ffrute, which the season of the yeare affordes.”

A story is told of one of Haynes’s pupils, which, like many other

stories, has had different individuals for its hero. It is to this

effect. A very proud and an intolerably ignorant gentleman was constantly

boasting that he enjoyed the advantage of having been a member of both

Universities. “You remind me,” said the old Merchant Tailors’ pupil, “of

a circumstance worth narrating. I have two cows at home which calved

at the same time. One calf died, but I let the other calf suck both

the cows.” “Well,” said the member of two Universities, “what was the

consequence?” “A prodigiously great calf indeed, Sir.”

For many years the scholastic portion of Merchant Tailors’ appears to

have suffered by repeated visitations of the Plague. Then came the Great

Rebellion, with a modifying of the rules, which were made excessively

stringent, and under which the pupils were converted to as sour a series

of classes as if they were enrolled in Dotheboys Hall. But then came the

Restoration, and therewith relaxation; and the young “tailors” pushed

up their beavers from off their eyes, turned up their lank hair into

seductive curls, put their hands on their hips, and looked saucily at the

maids of Cheapside. In the midst of it all burst forth the Great Fire;

and the “tailors,” for a time houseless, got their lessons by fits and

starts, till they were once more tabernacled, in high spirits, within a

comfortable dwelling.

One would have thought that all would have been harmony in the new

house; but such was not the case. For some time, indeed, nobody could

discover a grievance; but having looked everywhere to find one, and all

in vain, recourse was had to religion, and of course a few were created

_instanter_. Good, the master, continued to pray as heretofore in Latin.

The boys roared out for plain English precations. The City took various

sides of the question,—for, against, and a little of both languages. The

Latinists at last prevailed, and the orthodox declared that the heel of

the Apocalyptic Beast was on the brow of the scholars, and that the

sun of England had set for ever. It is a sun however that hitherto has

exhibited a great alacrity in rising again.

Of course the zealous party ousted Good in time. The members of it

held that daily prayers and much devotion after a ceremonious manner

savoured of Popery, and poor Good was turned out as a Papist; the boys

marvellously improved, and became very remarkable for their habits of

“profane swearing and debauchery, and misdemeanours.” St. Lawrence

Pountney was imitating Whitehall. A good deal of irregularity prevailed

throughout the periods of James II. and William and Mary. One instance

may be cited, namely, that of treating the boys who missed their election

to St. John’s College with canary and cake. It was like teaching them

that drink was a solace for disappointment. To be sure they had a sermon

first from the chaplain; but chaplains in those days were particularly

addicted to punch.

See the consequence! The school-kitchen was enlarged; the boys were

divided into the “table” and the “bench;” and, as an illustration of

these jolly juvenile “tailors,” it may be stated that Sam Phillips, a

“tailor” of the “table,” seduced little Will Nash, a “tailor” of the

“bench,” and took him to taverns, and playhouses, and gaming-houses,

and was tried for the same before the school authorities, who found him

guilty indeed, but construed mild of human frailty, and condoned him

on promise of his mending his naughty ways,—which he, like a gallant

“tailor,” scorned to do, and turned out a reprobate accordingly.

Not that the pupils were generally reprobate, but the masters unwise,

and regardless of their own regulations. Thus, when young Buckingham,

who was a very worthy juvenile “Merchant Tailor,” wrote the play of

Scipio Africanus, and had it represented, the masters, who denounced

stage representations, suspended the duties of the school, and sent all

the boys into the pit to clap the piece. It was like the British Senate

solemnly adjourning, as both Houses once did, in order to see Master

Betty play Hamlet.

But let me do all justice to the masters. If they turned their Christian

pupils into the pit of a very licentious theatre (Lincoln’s Inn Fields),

they exhibited their anxiety for pure morality by again turning all the

Jewish pupils out of the school. Israel was their scapegoat.

Quin’s ‘Scipio’ inoculated the boys and masters too with a scenic furor;

and the latter individuals consistently upheld the morals of the _alumni_

by permitting them to perform the most beastly of the beastly pieces of

Terence,—the ‘Eunuchus.’ Thus Merchant Tailors’ sank or rose to the nasty

practice of Westminster; and again I say, “See the consequence!” Garrick,

who used to patronize the performances, enticed Silvester, who played

in the epilogue to the ‘Phormio,’ to a wider stage; and Silvester’s

readiness to play anything, from Hamlet to harlequin, was subsequently

immortalized by Bannister, Junior, in the character of Sylvester

Daggerwood.

Nor can excuse be taken under the plea that the masters only patronized

the classic drama in a tongue defunct. One of the masters, himself a

clergyman, the Rev. P. Townley, wrote one of the most lively farces in

the English language, namely, ‘High Life below Stairs.’ This, too, was

long before the Terence period of the Merchant Tailor plays. It has had

two very lively results. Mrs. Abington’s Lady Bab fired many a “tailor”

youth, and the whole piece caused an insurrection among the liveried

gentlemen in the free list who waited for their masters in the Edinburgh

gallery. As for Dublin, when _the_ Abington went there and played Kitty,

the fashion of her cap set the whole town in a fever; and nothing else

was seen on fashionable heads but one made after that illustrious fashion.

The matter was not mended at Merchant Tailors’ when musical performances

were subsequently introduced, and the satires in Ruggles’s ‘Ignoramus’

were sung by the boys to sacred airs by Soper, by Hasse, and by Handel.

The mothers of some of these lads had to regret, like Niobe, that

the gods had made their children vocal. These operatic displays were

ultimately suppressed.

Finally, under the mastership of Cherry, Townley’s successor, a scene

of another description took place, which caused infinite commotion.

When the French Revolution broke out, the “Tailors” became infected;

and inscriptions scrawled on the walls of the school-passages proved

how disloyalty pervaded the breasts of the youthful writers. But from

writing they proceeded to action. On the 13th of January, 1796, the

Queen’s birthday, a tricoloured flag was hoisted on the Tower Walls,

where, strange enough, it was allowed to remain for three hours, side

by side with the royal standard. The City burst forth into a tumult of

indignation or delight. When the authorities, acting on information,

proceeded to the fortress, the insulting emblem had disappeared; but it

was traced to a hiding-place beneath the bed of the son of the Rev. Mr.

Grose, assistant chaplain at Merchant Tailors’. The horrified sire burnt

the rag of rebellion to ashes, while his son confessed his guilt, and

implicated in the raising of the insurrectionary standard a fellow-pupil

named Hayward, under whose suggestions young Grose professed to have

acted. Their fellow-pupils showed the vigour of _their_ loyalty by

nearly pounding Hayward to a pulpy consistence like that of the men whom

Professor Whewell, as I have elsewhere noticed, concedes as possibly

existing in the wide plane of Jupiter. The offenders were solemnly

expelled; and since that period, the establishment has flourished in

usefulness to the public and credit to its conductors.

It is an establishment which, despite some drawbacks, has produced not

a few eminent “Merchant Tailors.” I can cite but a few, and, among the

many, name the good and modest Bishop Andrews, and the learned Dove, who

in the reign of James preached the funeral sermon of Mary Queen of Scots,

at Peterborough. Spenser the Greek scholar, and the three virtuous sons

of the virtuous Sandys, Bishop of London; Fox, the son and biographer

of the Martyrologist; Heth, who logically tranquillized the public in

1582, when Harvey of Cambridge informed the world that it was coming to

an end; the pious Bowsfield and Gwinne, who renewed a love for Church

music after the Reformation, were all “Merchant Tailors.” So too were

those eminent Oxford men, Searchfield and Perin; Paddin, the physician at

James’s death-bed; Ravens and Buckridge, Latewar, Whitelocke, and Boyle;

Price, Tomson, and Lymby, Rawlinson, Rainsbee, Sansbury, Lauson, and

Tuer; with Wren and Campin, who upheld the honour of Merchant Tailors’

at Cambridge. What they did in general learning, in divinity, poetry,

or law, in the Hampton Court Conference, in the student’s closet, in

ambassadorial councils or the tented field, behold, is it not written in

the dictionaries of biographers?

To them may be added Hutton the controversialist, and the clever and

profligate Hill, who lived an Epicurean and died a Romanist, and to whose

opinions Ben Jonson alludes when he says:—

“Thou Atomi ridiculous,

Whereof old Democrite and Hill Nicholas,

One said, the other swore, the world consists.”

Glancing our eye adown the long roll, we distinguish the name of

Whitelocke, who was indebted for much of his education to Laud, and who,

when that prelate was in difficulty, refused to act on the committee

whose members had determined to push that difficulty to death. Pious

Juxon, the poetic Lodge, and honest Foster, the country clergyman,—who

wrote a treatise called ‘_Hoplocrissma Spongus_, or a sponge to wipe away

the weapon-salve, wherein is proved that the cure taken up among us by

applying the salve to the weapon is magical and unlawful,’—these follow;

and, not less honoured, succeed the names of Sutton and Buckland,—the

first, zealous Reformer; the second, as zealous Romanist. To these

may be added Wilde, the dramatist; Jones, the ornament of the English

Benedictines; tuneful Shirley, a greater dramatist than Wilde; and

Hutton, who was distinguished for his learning in French and Italian as

well as in classical literature. Further we find Dr. Speed, the son of

the chronologist; William Meaux or Meuse, who is described as having

“entered in the physick line;” the loyal divines Walwyn, Good, and

Edwards; and a host of men less known to fame, and who were expelled the

University for being consistent in their political opinions. Calamy is

a name not to be omitted; and Archdeacon Layfield is remembered as the

clergyman who was punished for having the letters I. H. S. in his church,

by being dragged in his surplice through the City, and who refused to pay

either fifteen hundred pounds or five to save himself from being sold to

the Algerines or the Plantations.

Snelling, the tragic writer; Howe, the naturalist; Frank Goldsmith, who

wrote for love and not for hire; Gayten, pleasant author of ‘Pleasant

Notes upon Don Quixote;’ Hewit, the clergyman, executed for loyalty to

the cause of Charles, and whom his old schoolfellow Wilde attended on the

scaffold; and perhaps greater than all, Davenant the commentator, brother

to the laureate, and son to Shakspeare’s melancholic host at Oxford, were

others of the _alumni_ of our house.

Nor must I omit the name of Will Quarles; Calamy and Shirley, men even

more noted, I have already incidentally mentioned: they both died

within the same week, of fright caused by the Great Fire of London,

a catastrophe which made a poet of another “Merchant Tailor,” the

well-known Markland. Indeed a great many of the pupils became at least

respectable poets, which is, after all, no great praise, as applied to

the sons of song.

Pepys and Evelyn record no more interesting incidents connected with the

Great Fire than are to be found in the reports, given by other writers,

of the deaths of these two distinguished pupils of Merchant Tailors’.

Shirley had exceeded by two years the allotted aggregate of “threescore

years and ten” when he and his second wife, Frances, were driven from

their habitation in Fleet-street. They took refuge from the flames in the

neighbouring parish of St. Giles’s in the Fields. But so overcome were

this much-tried and ancient pair, that they both died on the same day,

and within a month of the great calamity. The hapless couple were buried

in one grave in St. Giles’s, and became the associates of a goodly but

silent company,—among others, Chapman, the poet, and translator of Homer,

and Lord Herbert of Cherbury; a company that was afterwards enlarged

by the mute presence of Charles the Second’s “Dick Penderell,” Andrew

Marvell, the infamous Countess of Shrewsbury, who held Buckingham’s horse

while the Duke slew her husband in a duel, and Sir Roger L’Estrange, who

is called “the wit,” upon the principle of naming ill-painted animals

on village sign-boards,—you would not have made the necessary discovery

without the explanatory ‘legend.’

As for poor Calamy, he too died of the Fire. He was driven through the

burning ruins, and so shocked was he at the sight of the destruction that

had fallen on the great theatre of his popularity, that he never again

quitted the room at Enfield, whither he was conveyed, but died on the day

that Shirley and his wife were buried. Thus perished two of the greatest

of the _alumni_ of whom Merchant Tailors’ can boast. To the roll of those

pupils we will again resort.

First among them we find handsome Ezekiel Hopkins, with whom all the

women were in love,—in love both with his preaching and his person.

Oh, happy Ezekiel! cunning Hopkins! Presbyterian when Presbytery was

in power; Independent when to be so was to be “No. 1;” and winning all

hearts from the episcopal pulpit of St Mary’s, Exeter, and subsequently

St. Mary’s, Aldermanbury, when Episcopacy and Royalty walked hand-in-hand

among the lieges. Excellent Ezekiel! But, if he had his conceits, his

schoolfellow Webb had his hobby; and nothing could convince _him_ that

the Chinese language was not the language spoken by Adam and Eve before

the Fall.

Moreover there was the penniless and threadbare student Bonwicke; and the

well-paid Bernard, tutor to the Dukes of Grafton and Northumberland, sons

of Charles II. and the Duchess of Cleveland; but for his employers he was

too pure and grave a man. And there was Wells, the Nonconformist and, sad

blot in the school escutcheon, Titus Oates, who was also a nonconformist

to morality and religion; and Needler, fit name for pupil of such house,

and who wrote in defence of the Trinity when half England had more

delight in the argument than the end for which the argument was raised.

Several others of the pupils, now grown men, in the reign of James II.,

were hanging over their pulpits, half Romanists, half Reformers. Like

the tomb of the old prelate at Canterbury, they were neither in the

Church nor out of it, but a little of both. Indeed many of these men

were singularly constituted; and we may cite as an instance the case of

young Dawes, who began his poetical career by composing a poem, which I

should not like to read, entitled the ‘Anatomy of Atheism.’ Nevertheless

Merchant Tailors’ School boasted of Dawes, and of Boulter and Wilcox,

whose election to Magdalen was called by Dr. Hough, the President, the

“Golden Election,” as the Charterhouse boasted of Addison. The “small

change” here hardly represented the value of the larger piece.

Sayer and Oliver, two fellow-pupils of the school, were successive

Archdeacons of Surrey; Joshua Barnes and Peter Heylin were also of the

“Table” or the “Bench;” and Wright, Vicar of Okeham, was of the latter,

and not less famed for his steady refusal of all preferment. Like ‘Silver

Penny,’ so named for his pure eloquence, though it might have been

also for his liberality, and who has made so exquisite a restoration

of Mongeham Church, near Deal, he loved the temple of which he was the

priest too well to wish to change his office. Then there were botanical

Sherrard; Torriano, of Italian blood; Dee, descended from that Dr. Dee

who fooled Elizabeth so “consumedly;” and William Bridge, himself the son

of a tailor and draper, and who contributed a Threnodia to the cairn of

melodious mourning heaped upon the dead body of William the Third.

Merchant Tailors’ had peculiar joy in the accession of Anne, for it was

through one of the pupils that the succession of this sovereign lady

was undisputed. Crowther had married her mother, Anne Hyde, to the Duke

of York; and he did this so cautiously and entirely according to law,

with ample proof to support it, that James strove in vain to procure an

annulling of the marriage, and Merchant Tailors’ looked on the position

of the female monarch as one which had been achieved for her by one of

the popular scholars of the house. It was expected that she would have

shown her royal gratitude by conferring the Bishopric of Lincoln on

little Doctor Dawes, another scholar; but Dawes preached unpalatable

truths to her, and Anne would not move him from an honorary chaplaincy.

“You have lost a bishopric by your preaching,” said a good-natured friend

to him. “I do not know how that may be,” said Dawes, “but I certainly

never mean to try to gain one by preaching.” Divinely well said, O

doughty Dawes! You well deserved what you afterwards attained, the See of

Chester.

Among the pupils who _were_ raised to the Bench, Mews, of Winchester,

was perhaps as remarkable as any. His death certainly was so. He was

subject to fainting fits, from which he was used to recover by smelling

hartshorn. He was once in conversation with a clerical friend, when

he was suddenly attacked by one of these fits. He was speechless,

but he pointed to the bottle of hartshorn on his table. The friend

seized the bottle, and, opening the prelate’s mouth, poured the whole

of the contents down his throat, by which the bishop was suffocated.

Notwithstanding this neat achievement, the zealous clerical friend did

not succeed to the vacant see.

I could name many more “prelates” and “parsons,” who were all good men

and true, and who did honour to the establishment wherein they had

received their earlier education; but the glory of all these pales

before the brighter reputation of Ambrose Bonwicke, that “pattern for

a student,” who was ever so mild, save when he helped his father, the

schoolmaster, to flog the boys; so loyal, save when he refused to read

the prayer for the prosperity of the House of Hanover; and so wise, save

when, in honour of religion, he brought on death by his austerities. He

lacked no eulogists after his decease; and it is suggestive as to what

was considered early rising in the days of the first George, when we find

young Bonwicke praised for getting up at half-past six! Merchant Tailors’

School was prouder of him than it ever was of the greatly intellectual

Lowth. On the other hand, it was ashamed of Tooley, of St. John’s, who

edited Tully’s ‘Offices,’ for the good reason that he was a namesake

of the author; and this, his poor qualification, was also his solitary

one. He effected one other deed,—the seducing of Amhurst to such bad

ways, that the latter ex-alumnus of Merchant Tailors’ was expelled the

University. Amhurst, in a preface to his poems, declared that he was so

punished because he was said to “love foreign turnips and Presbyterian

bishops; and to believe that steeples and organs were not necessary to

salvation.”

Amhurst was among the “odd fellows” of the school. So was Leigh, who died

at Gravelines, and whom the Roman Catholics proved to have died in their

faith, by burying him within the church in that lively locality. Duncan

Dee belongs rather to the bold than the odd fellows. He will ever be

remembered as the intrepid defender of Sacheverel. Among the worthiest

fellows was Wheatly, for ever famous for his immortal illustration of

the Book of Common Prayer. Among the stout-hearted fellows was that

paradoxical Dr. Byrom, of short-hand notoriety, who was loved for his

wit and worth, and whose diary has lately been published by the Chetham

Society. He was the son of a linendraper; married for love; struggled

for life at his leisure; earned a decent maintenance by teaching and

practising the system of short-hand which he had invented; spent his last

days in well-earned ease; and is famous for his epigrammatic epitaph on

that irregular and chemical genius and jolly fellow, Dr. Byfield, who

invented the _sal volatile oleosum_, and who was thus celebrated by Byrom

over a flask at the Rainbow:—

“Hic jacet Dr. Byfield, diu volatilis, tandem fixus!”

I may add, as being worthy to be classed among the clever fellows,

Derham, whose ability was honoured by a sneer from Voltaire; and finally,

among the audacious fellows was Zinzano, a conscientious clergyman, who

thought to make Milton be forgotten by writing “an entirely new poem

entitled ‘Paradise Regained,’” which turned out to be a treatise on the

art of gardening! But the pupil whose name conferred most glory (so it

is alleged) upon the records of the school during the Georgian days, was

Clive,—that young hero who began by climbing church-spouts, and ended

so miserably after he had added a wide empire to our little kingdom. If

the celebrated Cline, another “Merchant Tailor,” killed more men in the

practice of his profession, Clive, who was by no means contemptible as

a slayer of legions, added millions of living subjects to our imperial

sway. The only pupil who has been “distinguished from the crowd by being

remembered to his infamy,” is Luke Milbourne, the antagonist of Dryden.

It has been said that Dr. South was a pupil of Merchant Tailors’, but

this is not the case. He was however appointed chaplain to the Company;

and he showed how he appreciated the honour, by taking for the text of

his inauguration sermon the words, “A _remnant_ shall be saved!”

The greater portion of the men of whom the Merchant Tailors are proud,

are men who made themselves, so to speak, and were not indebted in

any way for fortune to their tailors. There was another class of men

however, of whom the contrary may rather be said,—men who assumed the

poor vocation of the beau, and found it a bankrupt calling. They have

existed in all ages, and we will go back to those of old times. _Seniores

priores._

Chapters on Beaux.

THE BEAUX OF THE OLDEN TIME.

“Le Beau ne plaît qu’un jour, si le Beau n’est utile.”—ST. LAMBERT.

Dress, like all other things, has been amply used and abused in all ages;

but there is this to be said for man, that he is the only animal born

without being provided with a necessary costume. This shows that he is a

migratory animal; and if he be not naturally covered so as to suit all

climates and himself, he has reason given him to meet all exigencies, and

it is only a pity that he exhibits so little taste in the application of

it. His storehouse, or rough wardrobe, is in the vegetable and animal

kingdom; and plants die that man may live, and animals are skinned that

the lord of creation may be covered.

The passion for fine dressing commenced undoubtedly with the ladies.

When the Tyrian Alcides was one night loitering by the sea-side, his

arm encircling one of those nymphs whom demigods and boatswains’ mates

find in every port, and their eyes, when not looking into each other,

were fixed on the shadowy splendour of the western star, his dog, a

lank and hungry hound, came upon a shell, which he immediately began

crunching. Thereupon there issued a liquid from the expiring fish

within, so exquisite in colour that it attracted the eyes of the lady,

who immediately declared that never again should she know peace of

mind until she had a dress of that self-same hue. She bade the hero

never to appear in her presence again until the garment was procured;

and poor Hercules, who appears to have had as much perplexity about

ladies’ petticoats as lions’ hides, was sadly puzzled before he and an

eminent firm succeeded in procuring a dye which produced a garment of

the hue required, and would have made the fortune of the discoverers,

had they not been accustomed to the same sort of extravagances which

make bankrupts of London tradesmen. In spite of this, the Tyrian purple

long held on Fashion’s throne an undisputed sway; and no beau of old

appeared in the world without a mantle of this colour hanging from his

ivory shoulders. Agesilaus was one of this fashion-determining class;

but unlike modern followers of the philosophy of the mode, he turned

his ideas of dress to good account. For instance, when he was combating

in Pontus against the barbarians, as the finely-clad and tender-hearted

gentlemen there were called by their enemies, Agesilaus saw that they

were most superbly attired, but that they also were very delicate of

body. He accordingly gave orders that all the captains should be brought

in naked, and be sold by the public crier; but that their garments should

be sold separately. And this he did that the allies might know that they

had to fight for rich spoils with a poor enemy, and so might rush to the

attack with greater ardour. He had the picking of the spoil for his own

wardrobe.

Alexander and his friends were probably the best-dressed men of all

the Greeks at any period. Of one of these friends, Agnon, it is said

he wore gold nails in both his slippers and sandals,—a piece of pride

which was like that of the English farmer during the late war, who went

to a market-dinner in a coat garnished with gold buttons. The vanity of

the farmer was wounded at finding that they attracted no notice; and he

clumsily tried to feed his pride and win observation by remarking, that

“it certainly weer very warm work to wear goold buttons in the dog-days!”

Alexander of course slept on a couch of gold. Great Ammon’s son

deserved no less a bed; but I can hardly credit the assertion that

the sovereign’s tent contained a hundred such beds, and that the tent

itself was supported by fifty columns of gold. The beds however may

not have been for one individual’s use, and the tent was as vast as a

barracks: the couches may therefore have been for the general officers.

Five hundred Persians kept guard therein. These were the _Melophores_,

the “apple-bearers,” who carried a golden apple on the points of their

lances, and who were the admiration of all the maid-servants of the

district, attired as the Melophores were in uniforms of purple and

yellow. These were surpassed by the thousand archers, in their mantles

of flame-colour, violet, or celestial blue. These were irresistible; the

ladies at least said so, if the enemy did _not_; but even they achieved

fewer conquests (I allude less to the field than the bower) than the five

hundred Macedonian Argyraspides, the corps of “silver bucklers,” behind

whose shields however beat hearts more easily reached by the feathered

shafts of Dan Cupido than by the javelins of the foe.

The purple-robed guard of Alexander was his chosen troop, his

_cent-garde_, charged with watching over his personal safety, and seeing

that he got safely to bed when his divinity was exceedingly drunk. They

were terrible coxcombs, were these guards, and would condescend to the

folly of flinging eggs at the passers-by, as though they knew no better

than military gentlemen returning from Epsom, or a wrathful curate of the

district of St. Barnabas pelting an anti-puseyite. These men cared little

whether Alexander were a god or not, but they had a firmly fixed idea

that their tailor had a family claim upon Olympus.

But what were these to Alcisthenes the Sybarite, who has been

immortalized by Aristotle? This rather fast individual had a coat of

such magnificent material,—the coat worn by Prince Esterhazy, and which

that magnate never put on without losing I really _do not_ know how many

hundred pounds’ worth of pearls and diamonds, was, in comparison, a

coat for the Sybarite’s valet,—Alcisthenes had a habit, I say, of such

richness, that, on the day of the festival of Juno, it was exposed on

Mount Lacinium, to the veneration of the crowds who annually repaired

thither from all parts of Italy. It became the most attractive feature

of the festival; and the shrines were passed by, that the pilgrims might

fall into ecstasy in presence of Alcisthenes’ coat. It subsequently fell

into the hands of old Dionysius,—a Jew in his way, as we all know,—and he

sold it for one hundred and twenty talents to the Carthaginians: it was

the highest price ever realized for such a garment.

But it was not the only coat exalted, like the serpent of old, to win

insane worship from imbecile idolators. Gibbon smiles with warrantable

contempt upon the Roman priests who, behind the altar, were preparing

miracles wherewith to astound the people. A deeper contempt attaches to

the several priests who compelled two poor honest tailors, or weavers

rather, to produce the duplicate coats, without a seam, each warranted to

have been worn by the Great Victim ere He passed to Calvary, and before

each of which, as the only one genuine, thousands, ay millions, have

flung themselves down in speechless ecstasy.

There is _the_ one Holy Coat at Treves, and _the_ one Holy Coat at

Moscow; and the priests at either place will tell you that there were

never two. The Empress Helena discovered that of Treves, says the legend.

A Shah of Persia made a present of the Moscow garment to the Czar. Its

genuineness was warranted by a Russian archbishop, who declared that, in

a church in Georgia, a golden box placed upon a column had long contained

this coat, and that it was doubtless the seamless coat of our Lord. A

Muscovite monk standing by clinched the lie, by adding, that when the

soldiers cast lots for the possession of the coat, it fell to one who

lived in Georgia, and that this was the identical garment. Really, when

we think seriously of these things, we must not be too hard upon those

who reverenced the coat of the Sybarite.

To return to Alexander: he was the despair of all men who, desirous

of following the fashion as he gave it, lacked means to realize the

desire. He was to his generals, what very rich Hussar colonels are to

the younger and poorer officers; or what Count D’Orsay used to be to the

counter-dandies of the Metropolis.

Ephippus lived in the time of Commodus; and in allusion to that Emperor,

who used to dress himself as Hercules, and go out daily in his car with

the hero’s club, like a gold-headed cane, between his legs, he says:—“Is

it extraordinary that in our days Commodus does this, when Alexander, a

pupil of Aristotle, did worse in the olden time?”

Certainly, in the article of dress, the son of Philip was as different

from the simplicity of his father, as the Prince Regent from George III.

Not only did he wear the lion’s skin, and call himself Hercules, but,

in private intercourse with his friends, he put on the winged cap and

the ankle-pinions of Mercury. If I may say so without profanity, I would

remark, that if Prince Albert were to walk through Kensington Gardens

attired like David, with a sling and a stone in his hand to fling at the

first fat gentleman he might encounter, he would not be committing a more

unseemly act than Alexander was doing when he decked himself out to look

like Mercury.

But when this wretched madman, the Macedonian I mean, rode out in his

chariot, and forgetful of his wry neck—for he _had_ a wry neck, and

limped to boot,—and despite his very red nose and his blood-shot eyes,

dressed like Diana, the goddess of Chastity, a Persian purple robe about

him, and over his naked shoulder a bow and a quiver,—he must have looked

as ridiculous in the eyes of the beholders, as if the late Sir William

Curtis, who was so solemnly ridiculous in kilts, had exhibited himself

daily in front of the Mansion-house in the dress and attitude of the

Magdalene of Correggio.

In more modern days, we _have_ had the gods and goddesses assumed by

mortal men; but then it has been to amuse, and not to awe the multitude.

They were often introduced in the mediæval shows when Burgundy exulted in

her Dukes. I may cite, as an instance, the solemnity of the first entry

into Lille of Charles the Bold, in his character of Duke of Burgundy.

The delicate citizens got up a “mystery” whereby to do honour to the

refined prince, which excited great amusement. It was “The Judgement of

Paris.” To represent Venus, a tall and enormous woman had been selected,

who weighed some twenty stone; Juno was as tall as Venus, but she was

withered and lean; Minerva bore a hump both before and behind; while all

three goddesses were naked, only wearing rich crowns upon their heads.

Charles the Bold must have been as much pleased with pastime like this,

as Dr. Pusey would doubtless be were he, in company with Father Newman,

to take advantage of an order for two, and go and see Mr. Paul Bedford in

the part of Norma.

Mark Antony was, despite his habit of getting drunk by daylight, so

careful a dresser that he may be ranked among the _beaux_. Indeed he was

specially fantastic in some of his fashions; and, by way of proof that

he was the very “first fine gentleman” of his day, it is only necessary

to cite what Textor says of him in the preface to the ‘Cornucopia,’

namely, “M. Antonius, Triumvir, corporis excrementa non nisi vasis aureis

excipiebat.”

The Scandinavian _beaux_ were as fantastically nice in some of _their_

fashions. Rough as they were, there were many who wasted some amount

of thought on the adornment of their persons. Such an individual was

the pride of his relatives, and by these he was called, not the flower,

but the _leek_ of the family: he generally smelt a good deal stronger.

Of such a dandy, his kindred were as proud as the “blood” of Caffarelli

was of that smartly-dressed singer. But Caffarelli was a vocal beau who

sang to some tune. He lived in a palace of his own building. Over the

gate was this inscription:—“Amphion Thebas, ego domum;” and he purchased

for his nephew and heir the Dukedom of Sante Dorato. That _was_ a

well-dressed uncle, of whom his nephew might well be—what he was not, of

course—gratefully proud. Scandinavia reminds me of the great Gustavus

Adolphus. He was not indeed himself a _beau_, but he was the first who

made modern soldiers such. It was a consequence of his insisting on the

necessity of the men being well clothed, and kept clean and warm. Except

among Pompey’s cohort, this was not the custom of the ancients, with

whom prevailed the maxim, “horridum militem esse decet.” So too thought

Tilly, whose doctrine on the matter was comprised in the phrase, “A

ragged soldier and a bright musket.” Some of Gustavus’s officers became

the tightest-laced “exquisites” of suffering humanity, and reduced

their outward surface to such a degree, that, had they lived in remoter

times, they might have passed for those unhappy persons who had entered

the temple of Jupiter in Arcadia, despite prohibition. The well-known

consequence of such an act was, that the offender became for ever

shadowless.

There is a race of men, not at all thin, and as rich dressers as

Gustavus’s captains; I mean the Cardinals. There is a _reason_ for their

wearing red garments. Persons of early Church days used to draw Christian

zodiacs and solar systems. In the former, the saints took the place of

the old signs. In the latter, the planets were allotted to different

religions. The sun belongs to Christianity; _ergo_, _Sunday_ is the

sabbath. Rome is the solar, and therefore the holy city; and accordingly

the Cardinals wear red, because it is the colour of the sun.

To revert once more to the pupil of Aristotle, there remains but to be

said that it was only on state occasions that he appeared in the mantle,

sandals, and horns of Ammon. His ordinary dress was a chlamys of purple,

a striped tunic (white on a coloured ground), and a wide-flapped hat or

cap, with the royal diadem girt around it. He was in fact King of Fashion

as well as King of Men; and, like Count D’Orsay, he not only patronized

tailors, but, unlike the Count, paid their bills. The two men, in all

other respects, were very different; and it cannot be said of them, as

of Mr. Hunt’s ‘Light of the World,’ and his fast man in the ‘Awakened

Conscience,’ that they are one and the same person in two costumes.

The Greeks generally were remarkable for possessing tailors who worked

more according to the locality of their birth than to their merits;

thus, Xenophon tells us, in his Life of Socrates, that Demeas, being a

Collytensean, supported his household by making cassocks; while Menon,

whose birthplace is not given, effected the same object by making

cloaks. The custom however is more clearly defined when he adds that

the Megarensians supported _their_ families by making short jackets.

Aristophanes, in his ‘Acharnians,’ alludes to this fashion when he

makes the jovial Dicaopolis say, “Certain rascally fellows, base coin,

unfranchised, and counterfeit, and alien citizens, were in the habit of

informing against the small cloaks of the Megarians.” Between “cloak” and

“jacket,” we may conclude that the article was a vest, or an “almaviva,”

or mantle, and that it was no more lawful to wear it in Athens when the

state was at war with Megara than it was in accordance with our “customs”

a century ago to wear garments embroidered with gold-lace from France.

This barbarous habit of denouncing the employment of an article, simply

because it is the production of, or named from, an enemy, is still

prevalent in the dominions of the Czar. _If_ the thing be used, the name

must be changed. Were we to follow the same fashion, no Englishman would

condescend to put on a pair of “Russia ducks.”

But I have fallen into modern illustrations of the beau. When that

superb animal is being treated of by Dryden, the poet names the various

characteristics of divers beaux, from whom Sir Fopling Flutter had

derived his own united excellences, which made of him the recognized “Man

of Mode.” These are among them:—

“His various modes from various fathers follow:

One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow;

His sword-knot, this; his cravat, this design’d;

And this, the yard-long snake he twirls behind.

From one the sacred periwig he gain’d,

Which wind ne’er blew, nor touch of hat profaned.

Another’s diving bow he did adore,

Which, with a bag, casts all the hair before;—

Till he with full decorum brings it back,

And rises with a water-spaniel shake.”

I have elsewhere noticed that for a “beau” to comb his peruke was a

matter of serious business; but it was even more. To do so in presence

of a “belle” was to behave to her as became the very pink of politeness.

“A wit’s wig,” says Wycherly’s ‘Ranger,’ “has the privilege of being

uncombed in the very playhouse, or in the presence⸺” “Ay,” interrupts

Dapperwit, “but not in the presence of his mistress; ’tis a greater

neglect of her than himself. If she has smugg’d herself up for me, let

me plume and flounce my peruke a little for her; there’s ne’er a young

fellow in town but will do as much for a mere stranger in the playhouse.

Pray lend me your comb.” “Well,” says Ranger, “I would not have men of

wit and courage make use of every fop’s mean arts to keep or gain a

mistress.” _Dapperwit_. “But don’t you see every day, though a man have

ne’er so much wit and courage, his mistress will revolt to those fops

who wear and comb perukes well? She comes! she comes! pray, your comb!”

and thereupon, snatching Ranger’s comb, he commences drawing it through

the wavy honours of his wig, in order to do honour to, and be seen

doing it by, his “dear Miss Lucy.” In such wise did Wycherly hold the

mirror up to nature, as I find it in his Comedies, published by Richard

Bentley, not of New Burlington-street, but by his good ancestor, who,

in 1694, tabernacled “at the Post House, in Russell-street, in Covent

Garden, near the _Piazza’s_,” as it is written; and who delighted the

then novel-reading world with such delectable novels as ‘Zelinda,’ ‘Count

Brion,’ ‘The Happy Slave,’ ‘The Disorders of Love,’ ‘The Pilgrim,’ in

two parts, and ‘The Princess of Montferrat.’ And I can only express my

admiration at the courage of our great-grandmothers, who learned what was

unprofitable and not amusing at so vast an outlay of most patient labour.

To one or two modern “beaux” of great celebrity I will now introduce

you. Here is a jaunty, impudent, over-dressed gentleman approaching, who

will admirably suit our purpose. Pray allow me:—“Gentle Reader, Beau

Fielding.” “Beau Fielding, Gentle Reader.”

BEAU FIELDING.

“He pass’d his easy hours, instead of prayer,

In madrigals and Philising the fair.”—GARTH’S _Dispensary_.

Goldsmith once shed tears from his simple, unsophisticated eyes, as

he passed through a village at night, and thought that the sleeping

inhabitants were unconscious how great a man was journeying that way. I

fancy that most people who pass the Reigate station are in a similarly

ignorant state of unconsciousness, and are not at all aware that they are

close upon the cradle of Orlando the Fair.

I have heard the pleasant author of that pleasant story, ‘Crewe Rise,’

remark that the worthies of Suffolk count in greater numbers than the

worthies of any other county. If worthiness be “greatness,” in the sense

of Jonathan Wild, Suffolk may envy Surrey such a son as Robert Fielding.

The father of this incomparable youth was a cavalier squire, with

something like £500 per annum to nourish his dignity. “Bob” was early

entered at the Temple, where he behaved like a Templar; was too idle to

study the constitution of England, but very actively worked at the ruin

of his own. He thought Fleet-street vulgar, and removed to Scotland-yard,

next door to the court, which then rioted at Whitehall.

The “beauty” of his neighbour attracted the notice of that other scamp,

Charles II.; and as Fielding was too handsome for anything, the King only

made him a Justice of the Peace.

The women however left him none; and their importunities induced him

to abandon justice, and devote himself to wine, love-making, and living

upon pensions from female purses. In a succeeding reign he gave up the

Church, as he had before surrendered justice; and when James II. was

King, Fielding assumed Romanism as a good speculation, and was especially

zealous not only in protecting Popish chapels from the populace, but in

giving asylum to the prettiest devotees of that faith who flew to his

bosom for refuge.

He stuck to his profession under William III.; that is, he made none

at all; and as he was accounted of no religion, his friends had no

difficulty in getting him nominated Major-General. I think this must have

been in the Horse Marines. The gallant officer was, at all events, never

in fray more serious than with sleepy watchmen and slip-shod waiters,

whom he ran through (he was an excellent runner, when peril pursued) with

the most astonishing alacrity.

He was the handsomest man and the most extravagantly splendid dresser of

his day. When he passed down the Mall at the fashionable hour, there was

a universal flutter and sensation. “O’Carroll,” he would then say to his

servant, “does my sword touch my right heel? Do the ladies ogle me?”

“It does, Sir. They do, Sir.”

“Then, O’Carroll,” would the beau exclaim aloud, “let them die of love,

and be d—d!”

“What a perfect gentleman! what a delicious creature!” chorused the

ladies.

“Ay, ay,” said the beau, “look and die! look and die!”

He was not kicked off the public promenade, but he was occasionally so

ejected from the public stage. It was the habit or the fashion then

for a portion of the audience to stand upon the stage, and the actors

played, like mountebanks, in a crowd. It was further the habit of this

superlative _beau_ to make remarks aloud upon the ladies in the boxes.

The latter,—not the boxes, but the ladies,—were not slow in flinging back

retorts; and the players, enraged at being unheeded, would then fairly

turn upon Fielding and turn him out, with the ceremony, or want of it,

observed in ejecting ill-bred curs.

But the beau was amply compensated for such treatment as this by the

favour dealt to him by “officers and gentlemen.” He was once being

pursued by bailiffs sent after him by tailors whom he had ruined. As hare

and hounds approached St. James’s Palace, the officers on guard turned

out, attacked the myrmidons of the law, pinked them all over till they

looked like ribbed peppermint, and finally bore Fielding in triumph into

the Palace!

The equipage of “Orlando” was not less singular than he was himself.

He kept a hired chariot, drawn by his own horses, and attended by two

footmen in bright yellow coats and black sarsnet sashes. Maidens sighed

as he rode by, and murmured “Adonis!” Admiring widows looked at him and

exclaimed, “Handsome as Hercules!” He really did unite the most exquisite

beauty both of feature and stature, with the most gigantic strength. Boys

followed him in crowds, and hailed him _father_. He showered among them

as many curses as blessings. “Did you never see a man before?” he once

asked the foremost urchin of a youthful mob. “Never such a one as you,

noble general,” answered the lad, an embryo beau from Westminster School.

“Sirrah, I believe thee; there is a crown for thy wit.”

Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff states that the beau called himself an

antediluvian, in respect of the insects which appeared in the world as

men; and the ‘Tatler’ further says, that “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. At other

seasons all his appointments had a magnificence, as if it were formed by

the genius of Trimalchio of old, which showed itself in doing ordinary

things with an air of pomp and grandeur. Orlando therefore called for tea

by beat of drum; his valet got ready to shave him by a trumpet to horse;

and water was brought for his teeth when the sound was changed to boot

and saddle.”

Amid all this, the prince of beaux was speculatively looking abroad. At

Doctors’ Commons he had seen the will of a Mr. Deleau, who left to his

widow a town residence in Copthall-court, a country mansion at Waddon,

in Surrey, and sixty thousand pounds, at the lady’s absolute disposal.

Fielding resolved to woo, and of course to win her.

His first application was made through an agent, to a Mrs. Villars, who

used to act as hair-dresser to the much-sought-after widow. Her services

were asked for, under promise of great reward, to bring matters about so

that Mrs. Deleau should see Fielding, if it were only, as it were, by

accident. The beau thought that if the widow saw, _he_ would conquer.

Were a marriage to follow, Fielding promised hundreds out of his wife’s

money.

The worthy agents failed to do their hirer’s bidding. He even called at

Waddon, under the name of Major-General Villars, and was allowed to see

the gardens. He mistook a lady at a window of the house for _the_ lady

of whom he was in search, and as she smiled when he put his hand to the

left side of his laced waistcoat, and made a bow till his vertebra was

horizontal, he concluded that his fortune was made; and the next day he

sent letters in his own name, which the servants, knowing the writer, and

having their orders, dropped into the fire,—after reading them in the

servants’ hall.

The next move was an application to see the grounds at Waddon,

professedly from the famous or infamous Duchess of Cleveland, Fielding’s

chief patroness,—so low had fallen the mother of dukes and the concubine

of a king. Permission was granted, but nothing came of the concession.

In the meantime Mrs. Villars, by no means disposed to lose the promised

recompense, persuaded Fielding that the widow had yielded, and would pay

him a visit. He was in a state of delight at the intelligence. The lady,

however, who was to pass as Mrs. Deleau, was a “Mistress Mary Wadsworth,”

who was ready for any joke, and thought the one proposed the best she had

ever shared in,—and she had been an actress in many. These two sensitive

creatures accordingly repaired to Fielding’s lodgings one soft autumnal

eve. The beau was in a flutter of ecstasy, was continually on his knees,

and devoted himself to the lowest position in hades if he ever had loved

any woman before. The assumed Mrs. Deleau was coy, as became a widow with

sixty thousand pounds and no encumbrances. The lover pressed her to be

married that night, if she would not have him perish; but she playfully

touched his cheek with her fan, and bade him wait and hope,—sad, naughty

fellow that he was!

After two more such visits, the soft and tender creature was seduced

to sacrifice her scruples, and consented to a private marriage at

her lover’s chambers. The party supped joyously together, and then

the bridegroom sallied forth in search of a priest. He found one at

the Emperor of Germany’s ambassador’s; and his reverence having been

introduced to the lady, satisfied her of the reality of his vocation,

and in a twinkling buckled beau and belle together in a way, he said,

that defied undoing. All the after-ceremonies religiously observed in

those refined days ensued; indeed the marriage would not have been

half a marriage without them, and so all parties but the dupers were

satisfied,—and in fact even _they_ did not complain.

The bride left for home next morning unattended; for family reasons, she

averred, it was necessary to keep the union unrevealed, and accordingly

she only repaired now and then to see “the Count,” as her husband styled

himself, and to eat toasted cheese and drink port and vat-ale with a man

who had married her, as he exclaimed at the sacred ceremony, “with all

his heart, soul, blood, and everything else!”

There is no comedy of the last century, however absurd the plot, and

coarse and ridiculous the incidents, that is more absurd, coarse, and

ridiculous than this comedy in which Fielding was the hero and Mistress

Wadsworth and the Duchess of Cleveland the heroines. The beau was

convinced he had married a widow with a jointure of a golden character.

The letters he addressed to the residence of Mrs. Deleau must have

caused infinite astonishment to that calm relict of the citizen of

Copthall-court; but she held the writer as mad, and thought little more

of the matter. In the meantime Fielding, who had patronized half-a-dozen

tailors on the strength of his expectations, mysteriously alluded to,

acted the strangest of parts. He married her Grace the noble Barbara

within three weeks of his union with Mary Wadsworth. He provided himself

with two stools for the support of his dignity; and in the very fashion

of the proverb, he got very terribly bruised indeed.

The wretched duper turned out to be the dupe. He had expended his cake

and wine, his _petit soupers_, wax-lights, and sconces all to no purpose;

he had run in debt for a ring with a posy of his own choosing, “_Tibi

Soli_;” and he had paid an Italian singer Margaretta to come and sing to

his beloved, “Ianthe the lovely,” translated by himself from the Greek.

He had looked for threescore thousand pounds, and had been deluded into

the idea that he was about to be the sire of a little “Lord Tunbridge,”

and at the end of all, the bride proves a common jilt; goes boldly to

Fielding’s lodgings in Whitehall, claims him, as he walks into the

street, by the title of “lawful wife,” and gets an unsavoury name by way

of reply, and a thorough thrashing into the bargain.

The affair soon came into the courts. Fielding, a few weeks after his

union with Mistress Mary Wadsworth, had espoused _les beaux restes_ of

Barbara Duchess of Cleveland. Till he began to beat the Duchess as well

as the Dulcinea, he appears to have transferred his “green nightcap

and slippers” by the hands of a servant from the bower of one beauty

to the boudoir of another. The Duchess, at length, offered the first

wife £200 down and £100 annually for fifteen years, if she succeeded

in establishing the first marriage. Accordingly, the Beau was indicted

for bigamy at the Old Bailey. He endeavoured to prove that his supposed

widow had been married to one Brady, who was living at the time of her

marriage with Fielding, and something like a forged certificate in

the Fleet Register was produced to support it. But with Montague for

opposing counsel (Fielding was his own) and Powell for a judge, the

Beau could make nothing of a very bad case; and, being found guilty, he

was sentenced to be burnt in the hand,—a sentence which he escaped by

producing Queen Anne’s warrant to stay execution. He was accordingly set

free; and the Duchess of Cleveland, being now also freed from him and

his very heavy hand, the ex-beauty, but now be-rouged old flirt, lived

unmolested by anything more unpleasant than a very gentle remorse for her

_péchés mignons_.

The Beau soon fell into dire distress; and a sketch of the complexion of

this phasis of life will be found in Bulwer’s ‘Devereux.’ He is there

described as “terribly fallen, as to fortune, since the day when he

drove about in a car like a sea-shell, with a dozen tall fellows in the

Austrian livery, black and yellow, running before and behind him. You

know he claims relationship to the House of Hapsburg. As for the present,

he writes poems, makes love, is still good-natured, humorous, and odd;

is rather unhappily addicted to wine and borrowing, and rigidly keeps

the oath of the Carthusians, which never suffers them to carry any money

about them.”

The Austrian livery however had disappeared after the break with the

Duchess. The Beau’s den is probably more correct in its details. “The

chamber looked like a place in the other world, set apart for the ghosts

of departed furniture. The hangings were wan and colourless; the chairs

and sofas were most spiritually unsubstantial; the mirrors reflected all

things in a sepulchral sea-green; even a huge picture of Mr. Fielding

himself, placed over the chimney-piece, seemed like the apparition of a

portrait, so dim, watery, and indistinct had it been rendered by neglect

and damp. On a huge, tomb-like table in the middle of the room lay two

pencilled profiles of Mr. Fielding, a pair of ruffles, a very little

muff, an immense broadsword, a Wycherly comb, a jack-boot, and an old

plumed hat; to these were added, a cracked pomatum pot, containing ink,

and a scrap of paper, ornamented with sundry paintings of hearts and

torches. Upon the ground lay a box of patches, a periwig, and two or

three well-thumbed books of songs.” The Beau himself, half bully, half

fribble, a poet, a fop, a fighter, a beauty, is described as wearing an

old morning dressing-gown of once gorgeous material; a little velvet cap

with tarnished gold tassel, military boots, and with a coarse and florid

complexion as the remains of a beauty, the expression of which “had

settled into a broad, hardy, farcical mixture of effrontery, humour, and

conceit.”

But all his effrontery could not keep him afloat, and he finally

disappeared altogether from the “world;” and so little was known of his

end that men disputed of his burial-place, as of another Atala, and it

was quite undetermined whether he died in Hampshire or in Holland. The

estimation, however, in which he was held is amply demonstrated in the

annexed epitaph by a friend:—

“If Fielding is dead,

And rests under this stone,

Then he is not alive,

You may bet two to one.

But if he’s alive,

And does not lie here,

Let him live till he’s hang’d,

For which no man will care.”

In the 113th number of the ‘Tatler,’ under the motto of “Ecce iterum

Crispinus,” the catalogue is given of the effects of a defunct beau:

and probably with some allusion to Fielding. Among the articles cited

are “A very rich tweezer case, containing twelve instruments for the

use of each hour in the day.” To this succeed gilt snuff-boxes, with

looking-glasses in the lid, or portraits of equivocal ladies; “a sword

with a steel-diamond hilt, never drawn but once at May Fair;” eyebrow

brushes, a “pocket perspective,” a dozen pair of red-heeled shoes, three

pair of red silk stockings, and an amber-headed cane. The beau’s “strong

box” contains “five billets-doux, a Bath shilling, a crooked sixpence,

a silk garter, a lock of hair, and three broken fans.” His book-case is

instructive: on the upper shelf there are three bottles of diet-drink,

two boxes of pills, a syringe, and _other_ mathematical instruments;

on the second, there is a miscellaneous collection of lampoons, plays,

tailors’ bills, and an almanack for the year 1700; the third shelf holds

a bundle of unopened letters, indorsed “from the old gentleman,” with

Toland’s ‘Christianity not Mysterious,’ and a paper of “patterns of

several fashionable stuffs,”—Toland’s ‘Christianity’ being _stuff_ that

was very fashionable at _that_ time. The lowest shelf of all reveals an

odd shoe, a pair of snuffers, a French grammar, a mourning hatband, and

half a bottle of usquebagh. These “effects” paint the beau of a by-gone

time; and Fielding was the grand master of the _petits-maîtres_, who were

the proprietors of this very varied property.

There was however as great, as impudent, and as renowned a beau as he. He

comes this way in a white hat, and his name is Nash.

BEAU NASH.

“N’achetez pas vos principes chez ce _Gentis homo_, homme de la

nation.”—DE BONALD.

The gaudiest flies spring from the most unsavoury of cradles, and Beau

Nash was born in ill-odoured Swansea. He used to say, he “could not help

it.” Like Liston, it had been his own intention to be born in Shropshire;

but he and the grotesque comedian possessed not the privilege of the

embryo saint, whose prayers procured his birth in the locality and at

the period which best suited himself. Accordingly, Richard Nash was born

at Swansea in the stirring year 1674. His very boyhood was brassy, as

befitted so metallic a locality.

In after years, when Nash was at the most brilliant epoch of his

butterfly period, and it had for some time been remarked that, much as

the Beau talked of other people, he never mentioned his own father, the

Duchess of Queensberry, in her Grace’s usual familiar style, asked the

meek Richard if he were ashamed of his sire, that he never mentioned

him. “Nay, madam,” said Nash, “if I never name him, it is because he has

reason to be ashamed of _me_.” It was the only humble speech which Nash

ever uttered, and it had truth for its foundation.

The sire of the gay Richard was a quiet individual, a partner in one

of the Bristol glass-houses. He had more ambition than wisdom; and he

commenced blowing his son into a gentleman by sending him to Jesus

College, Oxford, at the age of sixteen. “I hope, Dick,” said the honest

man, “you will distinguish yourself before you are a year older.” “Dad,”

replied Dick, “I will astonish you _within_ that period.” And he kept

his word. Before a year had expired he had taken first-class honours

in puppyism, had become the terror or temptation of half the women in

Oxford, made an offer of marriage to a young lady as modest as himself;

and had got expelled. He _did_ astonish his father!

The good man, on recovering from his surprise, began to perceive that

his first attempt at making Dick a gentleman had failed; but he was a

determined individual, and had resolved to succeed. Accordingly he bought

for young Master Hopeful an ensign’s commission. “Now, Dick,” said he,

“the thing is done; you are ‘an officer and a gentleman’ by right of your

commission.” Poor old citizen! he might as well have said that the zenith

was also the nadir by power of astronomy.

I believe Nash entered the 46th. I am inclined to think so, from the

circumstance that he seemed to have lost his memory as soon as he

“joined.” He certainly forgot everything but what he had done well not

to remember. He forgot to get up to parade; could never remember, when

he did rise, the events of the preceding night; even what the chaplain

had said to him, over the punch, had gone out of his memory, as it had

from that of the reverend gentleman. He was oblivious of every point

of duty, never recollected to pay his bills, and was in all things a

consummate scamp. The colonel, who might have endured a young fellow who

was a more unprincipled scamp than himself, could not tolerate one who

was a greater wit. He made the ensign’s life miserable; and as the ensign

had determined that his life should not be of that quality, he sold his

commission, and, having spent the money, did his father the honour of

returning home.

“Go to the devil!” said his sire; and Dick accordingly came up to town,

and entered at the Temple. Having done this, he went to the gaming table.

It was impossible for son to show more alacrity in setting out on the

journey whither his father had sent him.

The ancient gentleman to whom his sire had consigned him must have been

proud of his young friend. The latter was at dice one half the night, at

balls and assemblies the other half; and he was in bed all day. His gains

were devoted not to the comfort of his appetite or the nourishment of his

intellect, but almost exclusively to dress. He eclipsed every beau of

whatever rank: the women adored, the men hated him, but all acknowledged

that a spirited young fellow, who had been expelled college, had found it

convenient to withdraw from the army, who was a Templar “for the fun of

the thing,” and who was all gold lace and gallantry, was worthy of being

the leader of the “_ton_;” and for that matter they were perfectly right.

He was the conductor of the entertainments given by the Middle Temple

to William the Third. The Monarch was so pleased with the Master of the

Ceremonies that he offered to make him a knight. “That depends,” said the

impudent beau, “upon what sort of a chevalier your Majesty would make of

me. If it were a ‘poor knight of Windsor,’ I should be rich at once, and

well content.” The King shook his head, and Nash lost the honour.

He made up for it by gaining them at whist; and he was so good-tempered

a player that even his adversaries bore his triumphs without cursing

him—much. The truth is, that he was a terrible rake; but he was not a

dishonourable fellow, according to the then existing code of honour. The

Templars entrusted him with some portion of their funds. His accounts

were once ten pounds short of correctness, and he accounted for its

deficit by saying, that he had heard a poor fellow say that ten pounds

would make him happy, and he could not resist giving him that sum.

The charity was something like that of Mrs. Haller, who gave away her

master’s wine to the sick, and got a character for generosity thereby.

However, the Templar auditors passed the accounts. The beau’s story was

probably true, for he was quick to feel for others, and the readiest man

at a lie of his own or any other period.

Nash never frittered away his money in paying his debts. “Doing that

vulgar sort of thing,” said he, “never procures you a friend; lending

money _does_!” and he was ready to lend to the great when the dice

favoured him. The young gentleman’s maxim was quite worthy of one whose

“indignant parient” had constituted him a ward of the devil.

His relaxations from town and Temple studies further showed the respect

he had for his eminent guardian. During a country excursion he stood in a

blanket at the door of York Minster. He professed to be doing penance for

his sins, and the clergy cut jokes with him as they passed. He performed

this pretty trick for a poor wager of half-a-dozen guineas, and he

performed a worse for a bet more trifling; he rode stark-naked through a

quiet and astonished village,—an achievement in which he was subsequently

imitated by the father of Louis Philippe. But these were little foibles

the most readily forgiven by the ladies: how could they be angry with a

fine gentleman, whose gallantry was so great that when he sat next one at

table he made love to her then and there, and swore with the most liberal

parade of oaths that he never drank any wine but such as had been “first

strained through his mistress’s smock!”

And then the pretty process was gone through, amid a world of wild talk

that would nowadays somewhat ruffle even the Vestas of Cremorne; but the

fair creatures of William’s age declared him to be “a dear, delicate,”

and some Lady Bettys added, in their grapy enthusiasm, “a d—d gallant

fellow.” His friend Satan must have chuckled at the word.

It is quite possible that after some one of these orgies, he was, by

way of a good practical joke, carried off, by a captain as drunk as

himself, on board a ship to the Mediterranean. It is quite certain that

he disappeared for a considerable period; and when he turned up again,

he not only told the tale of his abduction, but averred that he had been

in a naval battle, and had received a ball in the leg. He was one night

repeating the oft-told tale in the Bath rooms, when a countess boldly

expressed her disbelief of the alleged fact. Nash imprecated upon her

the disease which very fine people who quarrelled used to fling at one

another, and then said, as he put up his leg on her lap, “The ball is

there, Madam; and if you will, you may feel it!”

Such was the Beau in the Bath rooms; but at that period, the women went

thither in aprons, the squires in top-boots, with pipes in their mouths.

The longer they kept them there the better, for they were no sooner out

than forth flowed a torrent of filthiness. But all Bath, from the days

of the farewell to it of the Romans, down to a later period than this of

which I am speaking, was a mere _cloaca_; and they who resorted thither

were too often as dirty as the place. Its unsavouriness elicited some

very stringent remarks from Queen Elizabeth, and a contribution from the

royal purse for constructing a common sewer.

It is the custom to look upon Nash as the first of the dynasty of the

Bath Masters of the Ceremonies. The true founder of that highly august

dynasty however was the Duke of Beaufort himself. For the invalids who

resorted to the healing springs, there were but two houses fitted for the

reception of a “respectable,” that is, a _moneyed_ class of visitors;

namely, the Abbey House and Westgate House. It was not till long after

that there was either a ball-room, or any place of public amusement in

the city. Sometimes a convivial party of invalids, or their friends, got

up a dance on the open bowling-green. But such inconveniences attended

this, that the Duke of Beaufort gave up the town-hall for both the

dancers and gamblers. His Grace placed the conduct of the amusements

under the superintendence of Captain Webster; and that gentleman having

respectably inaugurated them, the sceptre of Master was made over to Nash.

The passion for play was long the ruling passion here, among the sick, as

well as among the sound. The passion is well illustrated in the epigram,

written when subscription books were opened for providing for the

expenses of Church service, and for opening a new card-room:—

“The books were open’d t’other day,

At all the shops, for Church and Play.

The Church got _six_; Hoyle _sixty-seven_:

How great the chance for Hell ’gainst Heaven!”

Nash’s great enemy he found in the doctors. They disliked him for helping

to cure invalids too quickly, by the general cheerfulness and gaiety

which he essayed to establish in the city. They moreover bore him little

love for his abolition of the sword, a general and not too deadly use of

which was wont to procure for them endless patients, and continual profit.

The profession pursued its vocation at Bath at this period with little

delicacy. The carriages of invalids, and the public stage-coach, which

reached the city on the third day after its departure from town, were

assailed at the outskirts by hosts of “touters,” who were engaged by

the physicians to publish their respective merits (they now do that for

themselves, thus saving expense), and to carry off as many patients as

they could respectively secure. For these the doctors paid the touters a

percentage; and as the touters were, in most cases, the husbands of the

nurses, all parties played into each other’s hands.

“And so, as I grew ev’ry day worse and worse,

The doctor advised me to send for a nurse;

And the nurse was so willing my health to restore,

She begg’d me to send for a few doctors more.”

As the vivacity which Nash put into the place very much injured the

latter gentlemen, one, more angry than the rest, threatened to “throw a

toad into the spring,” by writing against the waters. “Fling away!” cried

Nash; “we’ll charm him out again by an additional band of music!” And

he dealt another blow at them, by decreeing that, in future, the balls

should commence at six, and terminate at eleven, instead of lasting, as

heretofore, till daybreak.

His code of laws for these balls was the code of a terrible despot, and

I can hardly account for the ready obedience which was paid to it. His

force of impudence and blaze of dress, with some superiority of mind,

perhaps awed the sensual and stupid peers, peeresses, squires, and dames.

One of the articles of the code was to the effect, that “very young, and

also the ‘elder ladies,’ be content with the second benches at the balls,

the one not yet having arrived at, the other being past, perfection.” The

rule was obeyed!

Precisely at six the magnificent fellow gave the signal, and the couple

present highest in rank, advanced submissively, and walked a minuet.

After every couple had gone through the same solemnity, the splendid

“Master” gave the word for country-dances. How the ladies and gentlemen

went at it in those days, may be seen from what took place when the dial

showed eleven o’clock. The jewelled finger of Nash was then raised in

the air, the music ceased, and, “Now,” said he, “let the ladies sit down

_to cool_, before they go to their chairs!” On one occasion the Princess

Amelia begged for another dance after eleven had struck. Nash shook all

the powder out of his hair in mute horror at the bare idea of such a

solecism.

The Duchess of Queensberry was also once daring enough to infringe his

rules by appearing in the rooms in a laced apron. He tore it off, and

threw it among the servants; and to the richest squire of the county,

who presumed to appear, contrary to Nash’s own decree, in boots, he

exclaimed, “Holloa, Hog’s Norton, haven’t you forgot to bring your

horse?” The squire talked of swords. “No, no,” replied Nash, “I have put

an end to duels; and thereby, Squire, I have prevented people from doing

what they have no mind to.”

This sort of coarseness was refinement in Elizabethan days. I may cite in

proof thereof, that when the valiant Welsh commander, Sir Roger Williams,

knelt to Queen Elizabeth, in his rough untanned leather boots, to present

a petition she was determined not to grant, she only remarked, “Williams,

how your boots stink!” “Tut, Madam!” answered the Welshman, “it is my

suit, and not my boots, that stink!” So did she affect to annoy Cecil,

by wearing his portrait for a day tied to her shoe. On another occasion

she admitted to her presence a whole bevy of country-cousins named Brown.

They were of the kindred of Anne Boleyn; but when Elizabeth saw them in

their queer old-fashioned dresses, she fairly frightened them by her

coarse remarks, from ever coming to court again. Perhaps hence is derived

the popular saying, in which allusion is made to “_astonishing the

Browns_.” It is an Elizabethan phrase!

In the recess, Nash used to cross the country to Tunbridge. His

equipage was a flaming carriage, drawn by six greys; with outriders all

embroidery, and French horns all brass and bluster. He wore a white hat,

of which he was the introducer; and he did so, he said, that, it being

the only one of the sort, his hat might never be stolen.

In his dress he combined the fashions of two centuries; and, thanks to

his luck at play, he lived as grandly as half-a-dozen kings. But none

knew better than he the folly of gambling. He once lost a considerable

sum to an Oxford lad who had just come into a large fortune. “Boy,” said

he, “take my advice. You are a young Crœsus; play no more.” Nash himself

would not play with him, but the _millionnaire_ collegian found men less

scrupulous; and the prodigal, ere he had attained his twenty-fifth year,

could, like the gentleman in Shakspeare, “Thank Heaven that he was not

worth a ducat.”

Nash was the same sort of Mentor to the gambling Duke of Bedford; and

the Duke entered with the Beau into a gambling compact, whereby he bound

himself to put restraint upon his spirit of gambling. Nash gave him £100,

to receive £1000 whenever the Duke lost the latter sum at one sitting.

Nash came upon his Grace a month after, just as he had lost £8000, and

was about to throw for £3000 more. Nash reminded him of the compact.

The Duke paid the forfeit, threw his main, and lost. Perhaps the Beau

expected some such profitable result of his little investment.

He may not however have deserved this remark; for Nash could be most

romantically generous. Thus, Lord Townsend lost to him a sum which he

could not conveniently pay; the Beau forgave the debt, some £20,000, on

condition that the Peer should give him £5000 whenever asked to do so.

Nash never troubled Lord Townsend further; but, after the Lord’s decease,

when the Beau had fallen into adversity, he applied to the Peer’s

representatives, exhibited his vouchers, and was paid his claim. This is

honourable to both parties.