Servant answers door. Mathews (forgetting he's in America). Is your master at home? Servant (indignantly). I have no master! (Walks off) Mathews. Whew! there she goes again. I've set her republican back up. What a nuisance! This is the way they always serve me. Really, I beg her ladyship's pardon-ha! ha!-always forget-no masters, no mistresses in America-all independent-all ladies and gentlemen here. Well,-must announce myself as usual, I suppose. What a bore!-no, no,-shan't occur again-shan't-poz! (Goes in, and shuts door.) Next day, Mathews calls again. Mathews (forgetting as usual). Is your master at home? Mathews. Oh, d-n it! this is intolerable! They call themselves helps, too,-helps!-ha! ha!-That's monstrous good-amazingly funny-ha! ha! Helps, indeed!-one way of helping a man, certainly, turning up "her right honorable nose," and walking off in this sort of- Well, now I am determined (takes out tablets) I won't get into this scrape again. (Writes.) "Mem.-No masters or mistresses in America, except in the slave States." There, that settles it. But, alack! when Mathews called again, he forgot all about it, and the same scene was enacted da capo. There was an old woman, too, who bored him exceedingly. This person, who had a figure like a feather-bed, never saw Mathews without detailing her complaints to him. One day, after running through the catalogue as usual, she added,-" And then I was took with a pain in the small of my back, sir." "In the small of your back, ma'am !" interrupted Mathews, losing all patience; "in heaven's name, where can that be?" Mathews was thrown by a skittish horse. Incledon met him mounted on a fresh purchase. A few days after, "Hallo, Charley!" cried the former, "are you sure that new Bucephalus of yours is safe?" "Oh, certain," replied Mathews; "I took good care to ascertain that before I bought him." "How did you manage that?" By sawing him well under the tail with the bridle," answered Mathews. DANDYISM AND GEORGE BRUMMELL. [Impressed with the idea that Beau Brummell's biographer (Captain Jesse) has been too matter-of-fact, has treated his hero too much in the national spirit, and given his countrymen a kind of straightforward delineation of his character, rather than a philosophical analysis of it, M. d'Aurevilly, whom we beg to introduce to the reader, has presented us with a disquisition both profound and mephysical, which enforces us to smile at its laborious trifling, while we admire the ingenuity of the author. "It is the Dandy," he observes, we would discuss, his influence, and social position; what signifies the rest?" We wish we could afford room for more of the "metaphysical aid" which M. d'Aurevilly has brought to the rescue, or, rather, to the elevation of the character of the unhappy and illfated Beau. What is given, however, furnishes a fair specimen of our author's analytical acumen.] George Brummell, born at Westminster, was the son of W. Brummell, Esq., private secretary to Lord North, who, like the son of his protégé, was now and then a dandy himself, and slept contemptuously on the ministerial benches during the most virulent attacks of the opposition. After his fall, Mr. Brummell retired to the country, where he lived in the indulgence of that opulent hospitality, the spirit and force of which are understood by Englishmen only. Here Fox and Sheridan visited; and one of the earliest impressions of the future dandy was received while listening to the inspired sallies of these fascinating and intellectual men. By these was he endowed; but they gave him but half their power, the most ephemeral of their faculties. There cannot be a doubt that, living as Brummell did amongst these wits, whose casual conversation was as excellent in its way as their parliamentary displays, and whose pleasantry was eloquence, those faculties were gradually developed which subsequently rendered him one of the first conversationalists of his day. In 1790 he was sent to Eton; and there the pains he bestowed upon his dress, and the cold languor of his manner, gained for him the nickname then in vogue; he was called Buck Brummell, for dandy was not yet the mol. His popularity at school was equal to Canning's; but that of the latter arose from the ardour of his soul, and the kindness of his disposition, while Brummell's justified and illustrated the words of Machiavel, "the world belongs to cold hearts." From Eton he went to Oxford, where he had also a share of that success to which he was destined; and on leaving the University on the death of his father, he entered the army as cornet of the 10th Hussars. People have taken a world of trouble to explain the Prince of Wales's sudden fancy to him, and anecdotes are told touching this sudden partiality which are not worth repeating. What is the use of all such gossip? It was impossible that he should not attract the attention of the man who was said to be more pleased with, and prouder of his own distinguished manners than of his elevated rank and the brilliancy of his youth, which he sought with such anxiety to perpetuate. At this period the Prince was thirty-two, and handsome, — of the lymphatic and frigid handsomeness of the Hanoverian race, but sedulous to animate and enliven it by dress, and to distinguish it by manner. Scrofulous in mind as well as body, but at least possessed of grace, the first and last virtue of courtiers, George the Fourth recognized a part of himself in George Brummell, the sound and enlightened part; and here is the secret of the favour that he shewed him. Are there not friendships that arise from corporeal qualities, from external grace, in the same way that love arises in the soul from a spiritualized and secret charm? Such was the friendship of the Prince of Wales for the young cornet of hussars. Thus the inconstant favour which glanced at Lord Barrymore, Hanger, and others, rested on Brummell only in all the impromptu of caprice. He was presented at Windsor, in the presence of the most imperious fashion, and displayed all that the Prince esteemed in human nature, youth, combined with the self-possession of a man that knew life, the most crafty and resolute mixture of impertinence and respect, and lastly, the genius of dress, the whole being protected by a ready power of the liveliest repartee. From this moment he found that he stood in high estimation: he, the grandson of a shopkeeper, was selected in preference to the noblest youths of England, to fill the place of chevalier d'honneur on the marriage of the heir-apparent with Caroline of Brunswick, and was at once surrounded by distinguished people, with whom he mingled on the most familiar footing. So far, there was nothing extraordinary; he was only lucky: he was only born, as the English say, with a silver spoon in his mouth. For him, emphatically, there existed that incomprehensible thing called "our star," which often decides our fate without either reason or justice; but what is more surprising, and what justified his good luck, he did not throw his chance away; the spoiled child of fortune, he became that of society; he entered upon his reign without anxiety, without hesitation; with a confidence that amounts to a conscience. Everything concurred to establish his singular power, for no one opposed it. In a society where connexion is valued more than merit, and where men, in order that each may maintain his position, wear an impenetrable shell of reserve, Brummell attracted to himself, even more as admirers than rivals, the Dukes of York and Rutland, the Earls of Westmoreland, Sefton, and Chatham, &c. &c., politically and socially people of the first class. The women, like the priests, are always on the side of the strongest, and from their vermilion lips went forth their admiration; they were the trumpets of his glory, and he suffered them to be no more: and here is Brummell's originality-in this he differed essentially from Richelieu and all other men formed to captivate women;-he was not what the world calls a libertine, and his vanity never suffered from his virtue. In a country like England, where pride and baseness united create prudery instead of modesty, it was piquant to see a man so young, possessing every seductive power, conventional or natural, punish the women in their pretensions, and check himself just at those limits of gallantry which they did not set up to be respected; -and Brummell effected this without calculation or the slightest effort. No illusion of the heart, no impulse of the senses, enervated or -suspended his decrees; besides, being the autocrat of opinion, a word from him, whether of praise or blame, was everything. In England, in a London fog, the woman most deeply in love, while adjusting a flower or trying on a dress, thought far more of Brummell's opinion, than of pleasing her lover. A Duchess (and it is well known what arrogance is allowed to a title in the drawingrooms of London) in the middle of a ball-room, warned her daughter, at the risk of being heard, to be careful of her movements and expressions if Brummell should perchance deign to speak to her; for at this period of his life he still mingled in the crowd of dancers in those balls where the most beautiful hands remained unengaged waiting for the offer of his. Later in life, intoxicated with his position and conscious of his powerful prestige, he remained only a few minutes at the door of a ball-room, scanned the party at a glance, criticised it in a word, and disappeared; thus carrying out the principle of dandyism," remain in a company till you have produced your effect and then depart." Enveloped in this éclat and sovereignty of opinion, his youth, which augmented his fame, and the engaging but impassive spirit that women at once curse and adore, there is not a doubt that he inspired violent and opposite passions, unbounded love and inexorable hate. But to resume; Alcibiades, though a pretty fellow, was a good general; but George Bryan Brummell had no military ardour, and did not remain long in the 10th Hussars; perhaps he entered it with a more definitive object than was supposed, to be near the Prince of Wales, and to form the connexion which lifted him forward. It has been falsely said that the uniform must have fascinated him, and turned his head; but this is to identify the principles of the dandy with the feelings of a drum-major: a dandy, who stamps his signet upon every thing, ought necessarily to hate an uniform. For the rest, and on subjects more important, it is Brummell's fate, now that his influence is departed, to be falsely judged and condemned: while he lived, the most refractory submitted; but now the dominant prejudices render the analysis of such a person a difficult psychological experiment; the women will never forgive him for having been as graceful as themselves, nor the men that they were not so graceful. Self-dependence makes the dandy, otherwise there would be a legislature, a code, of dandy laws, which there is not; every dandy is an oseur, but an oseur of tact, who stops in time, and finds, between originality and eccentricity, Pascal's famous point of intersection;-is it a marvel, then, that Brummell could not submit to the restraints of a military life, and the enforced sameness of an uniform? To say the truth, he was a detestable officer, and Captain Jesse, his admirable chronicler, gives many anecdotes of the irregularities of his hero; he broke the ranks in the manoeuvres, and neglected orders, but the Colonel was under the spell and could not be severe. In three years he was a captain, when his regiment was suddenly ordered to Manchester,-a destination so abhorrent, that the youngest captain of the finest regiment in the army told the Prince of Wales he could not leave him; a politic device, under a show of friendship, and better than talking about London -for it was London that he loved. The pearl of dandyism to be dropped at Manchester-a manufacturing town! it is as bad as Rivarol at Hamburgh. He saved his glory-his renown; he re mained in London, and took a lodging in Chesterfield-street, opposite George Selwyn. His fortune was not equal to his position; many of the nobility and gentry lived in a luxury that would have annihilated his, if that which does not think could annihilate that which does. Brummell's luxury was more intellectual than brilliant, and was another proof of the soundness of that mind which left scarlet to savages, and afterwards invented the great axiom, "To be well-dressed there must be nothing remarkable about you." Bryan Brummell had saddle-horses, and an excellent cook; he gave exquisite dinners, and the guests at his table were as choice as the wines. Like his countrymen of those days he loved to drink to excess. Lymphatic and nervous in that languid English existence, the ennui of which dandyism only half escapes, he sought the excitement which is to be found only in wine. Solemn humbugs, and all the myopes, who have said or written anything about him, have represented him as a dolt without either head or heart, and to reduce him still lower, have tried to degrade the age he lived in, saying, that it had its follies. Fruitless pains! they can never maintain that English society from 1794 to 1816 was nothing but a society in decay. The great epoch of Pitt, Fox, Wyndham, Byron, Walter Scott, all at once to be nothing because it echoed the name of Brummell! Brummell, then, had something in him worthy the attention of a grand epoch; his tailors, Davidson and Meyer, who insolently endeavoured to establish themselves as the authors of his reputation, did not hold that place in his estimation which was assigned them. At the time of his first appearance, the moment when the democratic Charles Fox introduced red-heeled shoes* into English drawing-rooms, Brummell, with a genius for externals, might well be occupied with the toilet in all its forms. He knew its power over men who professed to despise it; afterwards, however, he relinquished the study, preserving only what experience and observation justified, an irreproachable style,-he discarded colours, simplified the cut of his clothes, and wore them without thinking of them. He has been represented as purely physical, yet he was, on the contrary, intellectual, even in his style of face; he shone more by expression than correct features. His hair, like Alfieri's, was almost red; and a fall from his horse in a charge had injured the Grecian outline of his nose; his air de tête was superior to his face, and the tones of his magnificent voice rendered the English language as beautiful to the ear as it is to the eye or the mind. Such was the dandy George Brummell. We who dedicate these pages to him knew him in his old age, and there was still that about him which had distinguished him in early life. He was a great artist in his way, and he pleased with his appearance, as others do by their works. He drew from its torpor a society horribly blasée, learned, and the victim of all the wear and tear of the customs of an old civilized country. But, to do this, he surrendered not a hair's breadth of his personal dignity. Even his caprices were respected. Neither Etherege, Cibber, Congreve, nor Vanbrugh could have introduced such a personage into their comedies, for ridicule could A mistake on the part of our clever essayist. This was one of the follies of Fox's youth. He was no beau or dandy during Brummell's reign. |