_Swords worn in public_ (Vol. i., p. 415.; vol. ii. p. 110.).--I am
surprised that the curious topic suggested by the Query of J.D.A. has
not been more satisfactorily answered. Wedsecuarf's reply (Vol. ii., p.
110.) is short, and not quite exact. He says that "Swords ceased to be
worn as an article of dress through the influence of Beau Nash, and were
consequently first out of fashion at Bath;" and he quotes the authority
of Sir Lucius O'Trigger as to "wearing no swords _there_." Now, it is, I
believe, true that Nash endeavoured to discountenance the wearing swords
at Bath; but it is certain that they were commonly worn twenty or thirty
years later.
Sir Lucius O'Trigger talks of Bath in 1774, near twenty years after
Nash's reign, and, even at that time, only says that swords were "not
worn _there_"--implying that they were worn elsewhere; and we know that
Sheridan's own duel at Bath was a rencontre, he and his adversary,
Mathews, both wearing swords. I remember my father's swords hung up in
his dressing-room, and his telling me that he had worn a sword, even in
the streets, so late as about 1779 or 1780. In a set of characteristic
sketches of eminent persons about the year 1782, several wear swords;
and one or two members of the House of Commons, evidently represented in
the attitude of speaking, have swords. I have seen a picture of the Mall
in {219} St. James's Park, of about that date, in which all the men have
swords.
I suspect they began to go out of common use about 1770 and were nearly
left off in ordinary life in 1780; but were still occasionally worn,
both in public and private, till the French Revolution, when they
totally went out, except in court dress.
If any of your correspondents who has access to the Museum would look
through the prints representing out-of-doors life, from Hogarth to
Gilray, he would probably be able to furnish you with some precise and
amusing details on this not unimportant point in the history of manners.