shooting exploits were confined to the murder of a pair of pet pigeons
perched on a roof, while he confessed, as regards hunting, that it was a
bore to get up so early in the morning only to have one's boots and
leathers splashed by galloping farmers. However, hunting was a fashion,
and Brummell must needs appear to hunt. He therefore kept a stud of
hunters in his better days, near Belvoir, the Duke of Rutland's, where
he was a frequent visitor, and if there was a near meet, would ride out
in pink and tops to see the hounds break cover, follow through a few
gates, and return to the more congenial atmosphere of the drawing-room.
He, however, condescended to bring his taste to bear on the
hunting-dress; and, it is said, introduced white tops instead of the
ancient mahoganies. That he _could_ ride there seems reason to believe,
but it is equally probable that he was afraid to do so. His valour was
certainly composed almost entirely of its 'better part,' and indeed had
so much prudence in it that it may be doubted if there was any of the
original stock left. Once when he had been taking away somebody's
character, the 'friend' of the maligned gentleman entered his apartment,
and very menacingly demanded satisfaction for his principal, unless an
apology were tendered 'in five minutes.' 'Five minutes!' answered the
exquisite, as pale as death, 'five seconds, or sooner if you like.'
Brummell was no fool, in spite of his follies. He had talents of a
mediocre kind, if he had chosen to make a better use of them. Yet the
general opinion was not in favour of his wisdom. He quite deserved
Sheridan's cool satire for his affectation, if not for his want of mind.
The Wit and the Beau met one day at Charing Cross, and it can well be
imagined that the latter was rather disgusted at being seen so far east
of St. James's Street, and drawled out to Sheridan,--'Sherry, my dear
boy, don't mention that you saw me in this filthy part of the town,
though, perhaps, I am rather severe, for his Grace of Northumberland
resides somewhere about this spot, if I don't mistake. The fact is, my
dear boy, I have been in the d----d City, to the Bank: I wish they would
remove it to the West End, for re-all-y it is quite a bore to go to such
a place; more particularly as one cannot be seen in one's own equipage
beyond Somerset House,' etc. etc. etc. in the Brummellian style.
'Nay, my good fellow,' was the answer to this peroration, 'travelling
from the East? impossible!'
'Why, my dear boy, why?'
'Because the wise men came from the East,'
'So, then, sa-ar--you think me a fool?'
'By no means; I know you to be one,' quoth Sherry, and turned away. It
is due to both the parties to this anecdote to state that it is quite
apocryphal, and rests on the slenderest authority. However, whether fool
or not, Brummell has one certain, though small, claim upon certain small
readers. Were you born in a modern generation, when scraps of poetry
were forbidden in your nursery, and no other pabulum was offered to your
infant stomach, but the rather dull biographies of rather dull, though
very upright men?--if so, I pity you. Old airs of a jaunty jig-like kind
are still haunting the echoes of my brain. Among them is--
'The butterfly was a gentleman,
Which nobody can refute:
He left his lady-love at home,
And roamed in a velvet suit.'
I remember often to have ruminated over this character of an innocent,
and, I believe, calumniated, insect. He was a gentleman, and the
consequences thereof were twofold: he abandoned the young woman who had
trusted her affections to him, and attired his person in a complete
costume of the best Lyons silk-velvet, _not_ the proctor's velvet, which
Theodore felt with thumb and finger, impudently asking 'how much a
yard?' I secretly resolved to do the same thing as Mr. Butterfly when I
came of age. But the said Mr. Butterfly had a varied and somewhat awful
history, all of which was narrated in various ditties chanted by my
nurse. I could not quite join in her vivid assertion that she _would_
'----be a butterfly,
Born in a bower,
Christened in a tea-pot,
And dead in an hour.'
Aetat four, life is dear, and the idea of that early demise was far from
welcome to me. I privily agreed that I would _not_ be a butterfly. But
there was no end to the history of this very inconstant insect in our
nursery lore. We didn't care a drop of honey for Dr. Watts's 'Busy Bee;'
we infinitely preferred the account--not in the 'Morning Post'--of the
'Butterfly's Ball' and the 'Grasshopper's Feast; and few, perhaps, have
ever given children more pleasures of imagination than William Roscoe,
its author. There were some amongst us, however, who were already being
weaned to a knowledge of life's mysterious changes, and we sought the
third volume of the romance of the flitting gaudy thing in a little poem
called 'The Butterfly's Funeral.'
Little dreamed we, when in our prettly little song-books we saw the
initial 'B.' at the bottom of these verses, that a real human butterfly
had written them, and that they conveyed a solemn prognostication of a
fate that was _not_ his. Little we dreamed, as we lisped out the verses,
that the 'gentleman who roamed in a' not velvet but 'plum-coloured
suit,' according to Lady Hester Stanhope, was the illustrious George
Brummell, The Beau wrote these trashy little rhymes--pretty in their
way--and, since I was once a child, and learnt them off by heart, I will
not cast a stone at them. Brummell indulged in such trifling poetizing,
but never went further. It is a pity he did not write his memoirs; they
would have added a valuable page to the history of 'Vanity Fair.'
Brummell's London glory lasted from 1798 to 1816. His chief club was
Watier's. It was a superb assemblage of gamesters and fops--knaves and
fools; and it is difficult to say which, element predominated. For a
time Brummell was monarch there; but his day of reckoning came at last.
Byron and Moore, Sir Henry Mildmay and Mr. Pierrepoint, were among the
members. Play ran high there, and Brummell once won nearly as much as
his squandered patrimony, £26.000. Of course he not only lost it again,
but much more--indeed his whole capital. It was after some heavy loss
that he was walking home through Berkeley Street with Mr. Raikes, when
he saw something glittering in the gutter, picked it up, and found it to
be a crooked sixpence. Like all small-minded men, he had a great fund of
superstition, and he wore the talisman of good luck for some time. For
two years, we are told, after this finding of treasure-trove, success
attended him in play--macao, the very pith of hazard, was the chief game
at Watier's--and he attributed it all to the sixpence. At last he lost
it, and luck turned against him. So goes the story. It is probably much
more easily accountable. Few men played honestly in those days without
losing to the dishonest, and we have no reason to charge the Beau with
mal-practice. However this may be, his losses at play first brought
about his ruin. The Jews were, of course, resorted to; and if Brummell
did not, like Charles Fox, keep a Jerusalem Chamber, it was only because
the sum total of his fortune was pretty well known to the money-lenders.
'Then came the change, the check, the fall;
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.
There is one remedy for all.'
This remedy was the crossing of the Channel, a crossing kept by beggars,
who levy a heavy toll on those who pass over it.
The decline of the Beau was rapid, but not without its _éclat_. A breach
with his royal patron led the way. It is presumed that every reader of
these volumes has heard the famous story of 'Wales, ring the bell!' but
not all may know its particulars.
A deep impenetrable mystery hangs over this story. Perhaps some German
of the twenty-first century--some future Giffard, or who not--will put
his wits to work to solve the riddle. In very sooth _il ne vaut pas la
chandelle_. A quarrel did take place between George the Prince and
George the Less, but of its causes no living mortal is cognizant: we can
only give the received versions. It appears, then, that dining with
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Master Brummell asked him to ring the bell.
Considering the intimacy between them, and that the Regent often
sacrificed his dignity to his amusement, there was nothing extraordinary
in this. But it is added that the Prince did ring the bell in
question--unhappy bell to jar so between two such illustrious
friends!--and when the servant came, ordered 'Mr. Brummell's carriage!'
Another version palms off the impertinence on a drunken midshipman, who,
being related to the Comptroller of the Household, had been invited to
dinner by the Regent. Another yet states that Brummell, being asked to
ring the said bell, replied, 'Your Royal Highness is close to it.' No
one knows the truth of the legend, any more than whether Homer was a man
or a myth. It surely does not matter. The friends quarrelled, and
perhaps it was time they should do so, for they had never improved one
another's morals; but it is only fair to the Beau to add that he always
denied the whole affair, and that he himself gave as the cause of the
quarrel his own sarcasms on the Prince's increasing corpulency, and his
resemblance to Mrs. Fitzherbert's porter, 'Big Ben.' Certainly some
praise is due to the Beau for the _sans, froid_ with which he appeared
to treat the matter, though in reality dreadfully cut up about it. He
lounged about, made amusing remarks on his late friend and patron, swore
he would 'cut' him, and in short behaved with his usual _aplomb_. The
'Wales, ring the bell,' was sufficient proof of his impudence, but
'Who's your fat friend?' was really good.
It is well known, in all probability, that George IV. contemplated with
as much disgust and horror the increasing rotundity of his 'presence' as
ever a maiden lady of a certain age did her first grey hair. Soon after
the bell affair, the royal beau met his former friend in St. James's
Street, and resolved to cut him. This was attacking Brummell with his
own pet weapon, but not with success. Each antagonist was leaning on the
arm of a friend. 'Jack Lee,' who was thus supporting the Beau, was
intimate with the Prince, who, to make the cut the more marked, stopped
and talked to him without taking the slightest notice of Brummell. After
a time both parties moved on, and then came the moment of triumph and
revenge. It was sublime! Turning round half way, so that his words could
not fail to be heard by the retreating Regent, the Beau asked of his
companion in his usual drawl, 'Well, Jack, who's your fat friend?' The
coolness, presumption, and impertinence of the question perhaps made it
the best thing the Beau ever said, and from that time the Prince took
care not to risk another encounter with him.[11]
[11: Another version, given by Captain Jesse, represents this to have
taken place at a ball given at the Argyle Rooms in July, 1813, by Lord
Alvanley, Sir Henry Miklmav, Mr. Pierrepoint, and Mr. Brummell.]
Brummell was scotched rather than killed by the Prince's indifference.
He at once resolved to patronise his brother, the Duke of York, and
found in him a truer friend. The duchess, who had a particular fondness
for dogs, of which she is said to have kept no fewer, at one time, than
a hundred, added the puppy Brummell to the list, and treated him with a
kindness in which little condescension was mixed. But neither impudence
nor the blood-royal can keep a man out of debt, especially when he
plays. The Beau got deeper and deeper into the difficulty, and at last
some mysterious quarrel about money with a gentleman who thenceforward
went by the name of Dick the Dandy-killer, obliged him to think of place
and poverty in another land. He looked in vain for aid, and among others
Scrope Davies was written to to lend him 'two hundred,' 'because his
money was all in the three per cents.' Scrope replied laconically--
'MY DEAR GEORGE,
'It is very unfortunate, but _my_ money is all in the three per
cents. Yours,
'S. DAVIES,'
It was the last attempt. The Beau went to the opera, as usual, and drove
away from it clear off to Dover, whence the packet took him to safety
and slovenliness in the ancient town of Calais. His few effects were
sold after his departure. Porcelaine, buhl, a drawing or two,
double-barrelled Mantons (probably never used), plenty of old wine,
linen, furniture, and a few well-bound books, were the Beau's assets.
His debts were with half the chief tradesmen of the West End and a large
number of his personal friends.
The climax is reached: henceforth Master George Bryan Brummell goes
rapidly and gracefully down the hill of life.
The position of a Calais beggar was by no means a bad one, if the
reduced individual had any claim whatever to distinction. A black-mail
was sedulously levied by the outcasts and exiles of that town on every
Englishman who passed through it; and in those days it was customary to
pass some short time in this entrance of France. The English 'residents'
were always on the look-out, generally crowding round the packet-boat,
and the new arrival was sure to be accosted by some old and attached
friend, who had not seen him for years. Just as Buttons, who is always
breaking the plates and tumblers, has the invariable mode of accounting
for his carelessness, 'they fell apart, sir, in my 'ands!' so these
expatriated Britons had always a tale of confidence misplaced--security
for a bond--bail for a delinquent, or in short any hard case, which
compelled them, much against their wills, to remain 'for a period' on
the shores of France. To such men, whom you had known in seven-guinea
waistcoats at White's and Watier's, and found in seven-shilling coats on
the Calais pier, it was impossible to refuse your five-pound note, and
in time the black-mail of Calais came to be reckoned among the
established expenses of a Continental tour.
Brummell was a distinguished beggar of this description, and managed so
adroitly that the new arrivals thought themselves obliged by Mr.
Brummell's acceptance of their donations. The man who could not eat
cabbages, drive in a hackney-coach, or wear less than three shirts a
day, was now supported by voluntary contributions, and did not see
anything derogatory to a gentleman in their acceptance. If Brummell had
now turned his talents to account; if he had practised his painting, in
which he was not altogether despicable; or his poetry, in which he had
already had some trifling success: if he had even engaged himself as a
waiter at Quillacq's, or given lessons in the art of deportment, his
fine friends from town might have cut him, but posterity would have
withheld its blame. He was a beggar of the merriest kind. While he wrote
letters to friends in England, asking for remittances, and describing
his wretched condition on a bed of straw and eating bran bread, he had a
good barrel of Dorchester ale in his lodgings, his usual glass of
maraschino, and his bottle of claret after dinner; and though living on
charity, could order new snuff-boxes to add to his collection, and new
knick-knacks to adorn his room. There can be no pity for such a man, and
we have no pity for him, whatever the rest of the world may feel.
Nothing can be more contemptible than the gradual downfall of the broken
beau. Yet, if it were doubted that his soul ever rose above the collar
of a coat or the brim of a hat, his letters to Mr. Raikes in the time of
his poverty would settle the question. 'I heard of you the other day in
a waistcoat that does you considerable credit, spick-and-span from
Paris, a broad stripe, salmon-colour, and _cramoisé_. Don't let them
laugh you into a relapse--into the Gothic--as that of your former
English simplicity.' He speaks of the army of occupation as 'rascals in
red coats waiting for embarkation.' 'English education,' he says in
another letter, 'may be all very well to instruct the hemming of
handkerchiefs, and the ungainly romps of a country-dance, but nothing
else; and it would be a poor consolation to your declining years to see
your daughters come into the room upon their elbows, and to find their
accomplishments limited to broad native phraseology in conversation, or
thumping the "Woodpecker" upon a discordant spinet.' And he proceeds to
recommend a 'good French formation of manners,' and so forth.
Nor did he display any of that dignity and self-respect which are
generally supposed to mark the 'gentleman.' When his late friend and
foe, by this time a king, passed through Calais, the Beau, broken in
every sense, had not pride enough to keep out of his way. Many stories
are told of the manner in which he pressed himself into George IV.'s
notice, but the various legends mostly turn upon a certain snuff-box.
According to one quite as reliable as any other, the Prince and the Beau
had in their days of amity intended to exchange snuff-boxes, and George
the Greater had given George the Less an order on his jeweller for a
_tabatière_ with his portrait on the top. On their quarrel this order
was, with very bad taste, rescinded, although Brummell's snuff-box had
already passed into the Prince's hands and had not been returned. It is
said that the Beau employed a friend to remind the king of this
agreement, and ask for his box; to whom the latter said that the story
was all nonsense, and that he supposed 'the poor devil,' meaning his
late intimate friend, wanted £100 and should have it. However, it is
doubtful if the money ever reached the 'poor devil.' The story does not
tell over well, for whatever were the failings and faults of George IV.,
he seems to have had a certain amount of good nature, if not absolutely
of good heart, and possessed, at least, sufficient sense of what became
a prince, to prevent his doing so shabby an act, though he may have
defrauded a hundred tradesmen. In these days there _were_ such things as
'debts of honour,' and they were punctiliously attended to. There are,
as we have said, various versions of this story, but all tend to show
that Brummell courted the notice of his late master and patron on his
way through the place of his exile; and it is not remarkable in a man
who borrowed so freely from all his acquaintances, and who was, in fact,
in such a state of dependence on their liberality.
Brummell made one grand mistake in his career as a Beau: he outlived
himself. For some twenty-four years he survived his flight from England,
to which country he never returned. For a time he was an assiduous
writer of begging-letters and the plague of his friends. At length he
obtained the appointment of consul at the good old Norman town of Caen.
This was almost a sinecure, and the Beau took care to keep it so. But no
one can account for the extraordinary step he took soon after entering
on his consular duties. He wrote to Lord Palmerston, stating that there
were no duties attached to the post, and recommending its abolition.
This act of suicide is partly explained by a supposed desire to be
appointed to some more lively and more lucrative consulate; but in this
the Beau was mistaken. The consulate at Caen was vacated in accordance
with his suggestion, and Brummell was left penniless, in debt, and to
shift for himself. With the aid of an English tradesman, half grocer,
half banker, he managed to get through a period of his poverty, but
could not long subsist in this way, and the punishment of his vanity and
extravagance came at last in his old age. A term of existence in prison
did not cure him, and when he was liberated he again resumed his
primrose gloves, his Eau de Cologne, and his patent _vernis_ for his
boots, though at that time literally supported by his friends with an
allowance of £120 per annum. In the old days of Caen life this would
have been equal to £300 a year in England, and certainly quite enough
for any bachelor; but the Beau was really a fool. For whom, for what
should he dress and polish his boots at such a quiet place as Caen? Yet
he continued to do so, and to run into debt for the polish. When he
confessed to having, 'so help him Heaven,' not four francs in the world,
he was ordering this _vernis de Guiton_, at five francs a bottle, from
Paris, and calling the provider of it a 'scoundrel,' because he ventured
to ask for his money. What foppery, what folly was all this! How truly
worthy of the man who built his fame on the reputation of a coat!
Terrible indeed was the hardship that followed his extravagance; he was
actually compelled to exchange his white for a black cravat. Poor
martyr! after such a trial it is impossible to be hard upon him. So,
too, the man who sent repeated begging-letters to the English grocer,
Armstrong, threw out of window a new dressing-gown because it was not of
the pattern he wished to have.
Retribution for all this folly came in time. His mind went even before
his health. Though only some sixty years of age, almost the bloom of
some men's life, he lost his memory and his powers of attention, His old
ill-manners became positively bad manners. When feasted and feted, he
could find nothing better to say than 'What a half-starved turkey.' At
last the Beau was reduced to the level of that slovenliness which he had
considered as the next step to perdition. Reduced to one pair of
trousers, he had to remain in bed till they were mended. He grew
indifferent to his personal appearance, the surest sign of decay.
Drivelling, wretched, in debt, an object of contempt to all honest men,
he dragged on a miserable existence. Still with his boots in holes, and
all the honour of beau-dom gone for ever, he clung to the last to his
Eau de Cologne, and some few other luxuries, and went down, a fool and a
fop, to the grave. To indulge his silly tastes he had to part with one
piece of property after another; and at length he was left with little
else than the locks of hair of which he had once boasted.
I remember a story of a labourer and his dying wife. The poor woman was
breathing her last wishes. 'And, I say, William, you'll see the old sow
don't kill her young uns?'--'Ay, ay, wife, set thee good.' 'And, I say,
William, you'll see Lizzy goes to schule reg'lar?'--'Ay, ay, wife, set
thee good.' 'And, I say, William, you'll see Tommy's breeches is mended
against he goes to schule again?'--'Ay, ay, wife, set thee good.'--'And,
I say, William, you'll see I'm laid proper in the yard?' William grew
impatient. 'Now never thee mind them things, wife, I'll see to 'em all,
you just go on with your dying.' No doubt Brummell's friends heartily
wished that he would go on with his dying, for he had already lived too
long; but he would live on. He is described in his last days as a
miserable, slovenly, half-witted old creature, creeping about to the
houses of a few friends he retained or who were kind enough to notice
him still, jeered at by the _gamins_, and remarkable now, not for the
cleanliness, but the filthiness and raggedness of his attire.
Poor old fool! one cannot but pity him, when wretched, friendless, and
miserable as he was, we find him, still graceful, in a poor _café_ near
the Place Royale, taking his cup of coffee, and when asked for the
amount of his bill, answering very vaguely, 'Oui, Madame, à la pleine
lune, à la pleine lune.'