the witty sayings of the day were attributed. The son of the famous
lawyer Sir Pepper Arden,[5] he began life in the Coldstream Guards,
of which the colonel was the Duke of York. He achieved his earliest
success as a wit at the expense of a brother officer, Gunter, a scion
of the famous catering-house. Gunter’s horse was almost beyond the
control of the rider, who explained that his horse was too hot to hold.
“Ice him, Gunter; ice him,” cried Alvanley. Thrown into such company,
it was not perhaps unnatural that Alvanley should be extravagant; but
his carelessness in money matters was notorious. He never paid ready
money for anything, and never knew the extent of his indebtedness.
He had no sympathy with those who devoted some time and trouble to
the management of their affairs, and expressed the utmost contempt
for a friend who was so weak as to “muddle away his fortune paying
tradesmen’s bills.” Though very wealthy, he soon became embarrassed in
his circumstances. He persuaded Charles Greville, the author of the
“Journals,” to put his affairs in order. The two men spent a day over
accounts, and Greville found that the task he had undertaken would not
be so difficult as he had been given to understand. His relief was not
long-lived, however, for on the following morning he received a note
from Alvanley saying he had quite forgotten a debt of fifty thousand
pounds!
[5] Sir Pepper Arden was a man of very violent temperament. One day,
when he was haranguing a jury, a Frenchman who was paying a visit to
the Law Courts asked who was the irascible advocate. His companion
translated the name literally, “_Le Chevalier Poivre Ardent_.”
“_Parbleu!_” replied the other, “_il est très bien nommé_.”
Alvanley was famous for his dinners, and indulged in the expensive
taste of having an apricot tart on his table every day throughout
the year. His dinners were generally acclaimed as the best in
England; certainly he spared no expense in the endeavour to secure
the blue ribbon of the table. Even Abraham Hayward commented on his
extravagance. “He had his _suprême de volaille_ made of the oysters,
or _les sots, les-laissent_ of fowls, instead of the fillet from the
breast,” he noted in “The Art of Dining,” “so that it took a score of
birds to complete a moderate dish.” It was Alvanley who organised a
wonderful freak dinner at White’s Club, at which the inventor of the
most costly dish should dine at the cost of the others; and he won
easily. His contribution to the feast was a _fricassée_ made of the
_noix_, or small pieces at each side of the back, taken from thirteen
different kinds of birds, among them being a hundred snipe, forty
woodcocks, twenty pheasants--in all some three hundred birds. The cost
of this dish exceeded one hundred pounds.
As he was beloved by his friends and vastly popular, society was
enraged when O’Connell in the House of Commons spoke of him as “a
bloated buffoon.” A challenge was sent at once, but the Liberator
refused to go out. He had been on the ground once, had killed his man,
and had vowed never to fight another duel. Alvanley would not forgive
the insult, however, and threatened to thrash the aggressor; whereupon
Morgan O’Connell met him in place of his father, when several shots
were exchanged without result. “What a clumsy fellow O’Connell must be,
to miss such a fat fellow as I!” said Alvanley calmly. “He ought to
practise at a haystack to get his hand in.” Driven back to London, he
gave the hackney-coachman a sovereign. “It’s a great deal,” said the
man gratefully, “for having taken your lordship to Wimbledon.” “No, my
good fellow,” the peer laughed; “I give it you, not for taking me, but
for bringing me back.”
Beyond all question the greatest dandy of his day was George Bryan
Brummell, generally called Beau Brummell. This famous personage
dominated all his rivals, and even the Prince of Wales accepted him
at least as an equal. It is not known with any certainty how his
acquaintance began with the heir-apparent. Brummell’s aunt, Mrs
Searle, who had a little cottage with stables for cows at the entrance,
opposite Clarges Street, of the Green Park, in which she had been
installed by George III., related that it was one day when the Prince
of Wales, accompanied by the beautiful Marchioness of Salisbury,
stopped to see the cows milked that he first met her nephew, was
attracted by him, and, hearing he was intended for the army, offered
him a commission in his own regiment. Gronow gives another story, which
on the face of it is more probable. Brummell made many friends among
the scions of good family while he was at Eton, where he seems to have
been regarded as an Admirable Crichton: “the best scholar, the best
boatman, the best cricketer.” He was invited to a ball at Devonshire
House, became a great favourite, and was asked everywhere. The Prince
sent for him, and, pleased by his manner and appearance, gave him a
commission. In his seventeenth year he was gazetted to a cornetcy in
the Tenth Light Dragoons. He resigned soon after because the regiment
was ordered to Manchester![6]
[6] At a grand review at Brighton he was thrown from his horse and
broke his classical Roman nose.
Brummell threw himself heart and soul into the social life of the
metropolis, and soon his reputation extended far and wide, until no
party was complete without him, and his presence was regarded as the
hall-mark of fashion. He was the very man for the part he had set
himself. Tall, well made, with a good figure, he affected an old-world
air of courtesy, picked up probably from the French refugees, as he had
never been out of England until he left it for good. His affectation of
_vieille cour_ showed itself in the use of powder, which distinguished
him in the days when the custom was dying out among civilians. His
grandfather was a tradesman, and let lodgings in Bury Street, St
James’s. His father, by the influence of a lodger, was presented to
a clerkship in the Treasury, became private secretary to Lord North,
made money by speculation, settled down at Donnington, and became High
Sheriff of Berkshire, where he was visited by Fox and Sheridan. Though
of no rank, Brummell lived with the highest in the land on terms of
equality. His acquaintance was sought, his intimacy desired; and, so
far from requiring a patron, it was he who patronised. His influence
was unbounded, his fascination undeniable, his indifference to public
opinion reckless. He was good-natured and rarely out of humour; neither
a drunkard nor a profligate. He had bright and amusing conversation,
some wit, and a considerable power of _persiflage_, which, while it
enabled him to laugh some people out of bad habits, only too frequently
was exerted to laugh others out of good principles.
He revived the taste for dress. “Clean linen, and plenty of it” was
an important item of his creed. His great triumph was in connection
with the cravat. Before he came into his own they were worn without
stiffening of any kind; as soon as he ascended his throne he had them
starched![7] A revolution would not have attracted more attention.
Thereafter his sway was undisputed, and his word law in all matters of
fashion. The Prince of Wales used to call on him in the morning at his
house in Chesterfield Street, and, deeply engrossed in the discussion
of costume, would frequently remain to dinner. “Brummell was always
studiously and remarkably well dressed, never _outré_; and, though
considerable time and attention were devoted to his toilet, it never,
when once accomplished, seemed to occupy his attention,” said one who
knew him well. “His manners were easy, polished, and gentleman-like,
and regulated by that same good taste which he displayed in most
things. No one was a more keen observer of vulgarity in others, or
more _piquant_ in his criticisms, or more despotic as an _arbiter
elegantarium_; he could decide the fate of a young man just launched
into the world with a single word.”[8]
[7] A visitor to Brummell met the great man’s valet on the stair having
on his arm a number of crumpled ties. In answer to an inquiring look,
the latter explained, “They are our failures.”
[8] The Duke of Bedford asked his opinion of a new coat; Brummell
looked at it carefully in front and, telling him to turn round, at the
back. Then he asked earnestly, “Bedford, do you call this thing a coat?”
The tastes of the Prince of Wales verged on the florid, but Brummell’s
efforts tended to simplicity of costume. Under Brummell the dandy’s
dress consisted of a blue coat with brass buttons, leather breeches,
and top-boots; with, of course, the deep, stiff white cravat which
prevented you from seeing your boots while standing. Gronow relates
that while he was in Paris after Waterloo trousers and shoes were worn
by young men, only old fogies favouring knee-breeches. On his return
to England in 1816, receiving from Lady Hertford an invitation to
Manchester House “to have the honour of meeting the Prince Regent,”
he went dressed _à la Française_--white neckcloth, waistcoat, black
trousers, shoes and silk stockings. He made his bow, and almost
immediately afterwards Horace Seymour came to him: “The great man is
very much surprised that you should have ventured to appear in his
presence without knee-breeches. He considers it as a want of proper
respect for him.” Gronow went away in high dudgeon. A month later the
Prince adopted the dress he had censured!
All the world watched Brummell to imitate him. He made the fortune of
his tailor, Weston, of Old Bond Street, and of his other tradesmen. The
most noteworthy of these was Hoby, the St James’s Street bootmaker, an
impertinent and independent man who employed his leisure as a Methodist
preacher. Many good stories are told of him. It was he who said to the
Duke of Kent, when the latter informed him of the issue of the great
battle at Vittoria, “If Lord Wellington had had any other bootmaker
than myself he would never have had his great and constant successes,
for my boots and my prayers bring him out of all his difficulties.”
When Horace Churchill entered his shop and complained in no moderate
words of a pair of boots, vowing he would never employ him again,
Hoby quickly turned the tables. “John, close the shutters,” he cried
to an assistant, affecting a woebegone look. “It is all over with us.
I must shut up shop. Ensign Churchill withdraws his custom from me.”
Sir John Shelley once showed him a pair of top-boots that had split
in several places. “How did that happen, Sir John?” “Why, in walking
to my stable,” the customer explained. “Walking to your stable!” Hoby
exclaimed, not troubling to suppress a sneer. “I made the boots for
riding, not walking.”[9]
[9] Hoby died worth one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. He was the
first man in London to drive a Tilbury.
It is but a step from boots to blacking, an article to which the
dandies devoted much attention. Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly, of the First
Foot Guards, was famous for his well-varnished boots. After his death,
which occurred in a fire owing to his efforts to save his favourite
boots, all the men about town were anxious to secure the services of
his valet, who alone knew the secret of the blacking. Brummell found
the man and asked his wages. The Colonel had given him a hundred and
fifty pounds a year, but now he required two hundred. “Well, if you
will make it guineas,” said the Beau, “_I_ shall be happy to attend
upon _you_!” Lord Petersham spent a great deal of time in making
a particular kind of blacking which he believed would eventually
supersede all others, and Brummell declared, “My blacking ruins me;
it is made with the finest champagne.” But Brummell must not be taken
too seriously. He was a master _poseur_, and many of his critics have
fallen into the error of taking him literally. Thus it has apparently
never occurred to his biographers to think he was joking when, in reply
to a lady who inquired what allowance she should make her son who
was about to enter the world, he assured her that, _with economy_,
her son could dress on eight hundred a year. They merely comment
upon his terribly extravagant ideas. Again, when the Beau, speaking
of a boy, said with apparent earnestness, “Really, I did my best for
the young man; I once gave him my arm all the way from White’s to
Watier’s”--about a hundred yards--they discuss his enormous conceit!
There are several accounts of the cause of the rupture of the intimacy
between Brummell and the Prince. It is certain, however, that the
story of “Wales, ring the bell,” has no foundation. “I was on such
intimate terms with the Prince that if we had been alone I could have
asked him without offence to ring the bell,” Brummell said; “but with
a third person in the room I should never have done so. I knew the
Regent too well.” The story was true in so far as the order, “Wales,
ring the bell,” was given at the royal supper-table by a lad who had
taken too much to drink. The Prince did ring the bell, and when the
servants came, told them, good-humouredly enough, to “put that drunken
boy to bed.” One authority says the quarrel arose because Brummell
spoke sarcastically of Mrs Fitzherbert, another because he spoke
in her favour when the Prince was bestowing his smiles in another
quarter. The Beau believed it was because of remarks concerning both
Mrs Fitzherbert and the Prince. There is no doubt Brummell did allow
himself considerable licence of speech, and having a ready wit, was not
inclined to forego its use.
A curious tale was told by General Sir Arthur Upton to Gronow. It seems
that the first estrangement did not last long. Brummell played whist
at White’s Club one night, and won from George Harley Drummond[10] the
sum of twenty thousand pounds. The Duke of York told the Prince of the
incident, and the Beau was again invited to Carlton House. “At the
commencement of the dinner matters went off smoothly; but Brummell, in
his joy at finding himself with his old friend, became excited, and
drank too much wine. His Royal Highness--who wanted to avenge himself
for an insult he had received at Lady Cholmondeley’s ball, when the
Beau, looking towards the Prince, said to Lady Worcester, ‘Who is
your fat friend?’--had invited him to dinner merely out of a desire
for revenge. The Prince, therefore, pretended to be affronted with
Brummell’s hilarity, and said to his brother, the Duke of York, who was
present, ‘I think we had better order Mr Brummell’s carriage before he
gets drunk’; whereupon he rang the bell, and Brummell left the royal
presence.” As Sir Arthur was present at the dinner, there can be no
doubt as to the facts; and, knowing the character of the royal host as
we do, there is no reason to doubt that he invited a guest to insult
him. That is quite of a piece with his conduct on other occasions; but
it seems certain that the motive that spurred the Prince on to revenge
was not that attributed to him. Of all the versions of the “Who’s your
fat friend?” episode, that given by the General is the least likely.
Inaccurate, too, is Raikes when he tells of Brummell asking the famous
question of Jack Lee in St James’s Street, after the latter had been
seen speaking to the Prince.
[10] Drummond was a partner in the great banking-house of that name,
and the episode caused his retirement from the firm. This was the only
occasion on which he had played whist at White’s Club.
The true story is the following: A dandies’ ball was to be given by
Lord Alvanley, Sir Henry Mildmay, Henry Pierrepoint and Brummell to
celebrate a great run of luck at hazard. The question of inviting the
Prince was mooted, but it was negatived because all felt sure it would
be declined, since he was not on friendly terms with Brummell. The
Prince, however, sent an intimation that he desired to be present, and
of course a formal invitation was despatched. The four hosts assembled
at the door to do honour to their royal guest, who shook hands with
three of them, but looked Brummell full in the face and passed on
without any sign of recognition. Then it was, before the Prince was
out of hearing, that Brummell turned to his neighbour and asked with
apparent nonchalance, “Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?”
After this there was war to the death, and Brummell, who was a good
fighter, did not miss any opportunity to wound his powerful antagonist.
He was passing down Pall Mall when the Regent’s carriage drew up at
a picture gallery. The sentries saluted, and, keeping his back to
the carriage, Brummell took the salute as if to himself. The Prince
could not hide his anger from the bystanders, for he looked upon any
slight to his dignity as rather worse than high treason. The foes met
again later on in the waiting-room at the opera. An eye-witness has
described the _rencontre_: “The Prince of Wales, who always came out
rather before the performance concluded, was waiting for his carriage.
Presently Brummell came out, talking eagerly to some friends, and,
not seeing the Prince or his party, he took up a position near the
checktaker’s bar. As the crowd flowed out, Brummell was gradually
pressed backwards, until he was all but driven against the Regent, who
distinctly saw him, but of course would not move. In order to stop him,
therefore, and prevent actual collision, one of the Prince’s suite
tapped him on the back, when Brummell immediately turned sharply
round, and saw there was not much more than a foot between his nose
and the Prince of Wales’s. I watched him with intense curiosity, and
observed that his countenance did not change in the slightest degree,
nor did his head move; they looked straight into each other’s eyes, the
Prince evidently amazed and annoyed. Brummell, however, did not quail,
or show the least embarrassment. He receded quite quietly, and backed
slowly step by step till the crowd closed between them, never once
taking his eyes off those of the Prince.” Moore, in the _Twopenny Post
Bag_, commemorated the quarrel in his parody of the letter from the
Prince of Wales to the Duke of York, in which he says:
“I indulge in no hatred, and wish there may come ill
To no mortal, except, now I think on’t, Beau Brummell,
Who declared t’other day, in a superfine passion,
He’d cut me and bring the old King into fashion.”
Brummell contrived to hold his own until he took to card-playing. His
patrimony of thirty thousand pounds was insufficient to justify him
in entering the lists with his companions. It was the case of the
earthenware pot and the iron pots. At first he was unsuccessful, and as
he was not then addicted to games of chance, his depression was very
great. Walking home from a club with Tom Raikes, he was lamenting his
bad fortune, when he saw something bright in the roadway. He stooped
and picked up a crooked sixpence. “This,” he said to his companion with
great cheerfulness, “is the harbinger of good luck.” He drilled a hole
in it and fastened it to his watch-chain. The talisman worked, and he
won thirty thousand pounds in the next two years.
Fortune deserted him; but he did not lose even a third of his winnings,
and Raikes, in his “Memoirs,” remarks that he was never more surprised
than when in 1816, one morning, Brummell confided to him that his
situation had become so desperate that he must fly the country that
night, and by stealth. He had lived above his income, had got into
debt, and then had fallen into the hands of the notorious usurers,
Howard and Gibbs. Other money-lenders may have had claims upon him; for
when it was said to Alvanley that if Brummell had remained in London
something might have been done for him by his friends, the witty peer
made a _bon mot_: “He has done quite right to be off; it was Solomon’s
judgment.”[11]
[11] Solomon was a well-known money-lender.
He went no farther than Calais. “Here I am _restant_ for the present,
and God knows solitary enough is my existence; of that, however, I
should not complain, for I can always employ resources within myself,
was there not a worm that will not sleep, called _conscience_, which
all my endeavours to distract, all the strength of coffee, with which
I constantly fumigate my unhappy brains, and all the native gaiety of
the fellow who brings it to me, cannot lull to indifference beyond
the moment; but I will not trouble you upon that subject.” He wrote
to Tom Raikes on 22nd May 1816, soon after his arrival: “You would
be surprised to find the sudden change and transfiguration which
one week has accomplished in my life and _propriâ personâ_. I am
punctually off the pillow at half-past seven in the morning. My first
object--melancholy, indeed, it may be in its nature--is to walk to
the pier-head, and take my distant look at England. This you may call
weakness; but I am not yet sufficiently master of those feelings which
may be called indigenous to resist the impulse. The rest of my day is
filled up with strolling an hour or two round the ramparts of this
dismal town, in reading, and the study of that language which must
hereafter be my own, for never more shall I set foot in my own country.
I dine at five, and my evening has as yet been occupied in writing
letters. The English I have seen here--and many of them known to me--I
have cautiously avoided; and with the exception of Sir W. Bellingham
and Lord Blessington, who have departed, I have not exchanged a word.
Prince Esterhazy was here yesterday, and came into my room unexpectedly
without my knowing he was here. He had the good nature to convey
several letters for me upon his return to London. So much for my life
hitherto on this side of the water.”
At first he put up at the famous Dessein’s, but soon he went into
apartments at the house of M. Leleux. His friends came to the
rescue--Alvanley, Worcester, Sefton, no doubt Raikes too, and
others--and sent him a good round sum of money. But his habits had
grown upon him, and he could not live economically. If he saw buhl or
marqueterie or Sèvres china that he liked he bought it; and he could
not accustom himself to the penny-wise economies of life. He would not
give way to despair, and, naturally high-spirited, he fought bravely
against depression. He wished to be appointed consul at Calais, and his
friends’ influence would have secured him the position, but no vacancy
occurred.
He had a gleam of hope on hearing of the accession to the throne of
his old companion. “He is at length King,” he wrote; “will his past
resentments still attach themselves to his Crown? An indulgent amnesty
of former peccadilloes should be the primary grace influencing newly
throned sovereignty; at least towards those who were once distinguished
by his more intimate protection. From my experience, however, of the
personage in question, I must doubt any favourable relaxation of those
stubborn prejudices which have, during so many years, operated to the
total exclusion of one of his _élèves_ from the royal notice: that
unfortunate--I need not particularise. You ask me how I am going on
at Calais. Miserably! I am exposed every hour to all the turmoil and
jeopardy that attended my latter days in England. I bear up as well as
I can; and when the mercy and patience of my claimants are exhausted I
shall submit without resistance to bread and water and straw. I cannot
decamp a second time.”[12]
[12] Brummell still interested himself in fashion. He wrote in 1818
from Calais to Raikes: “I heard of you the other day in a waistcoat
that does you indisputable credit, spick and span from Paris, a broad
stripe, salmon colour and cramoisi. Keep it up, my dear fellow, and
don’t let them laugh you into a relapse so Gothic as that of your
former English simplicity.”