little judgment, as the chin of many a Life Guardsman in a windy day attested. The extent to which he indulged his passion for dress is seen in the proceeds of the sale of his wardrobe, which amounted to the enormous sum of fifteen thousand pounds; and if we are to judge by the price of a cloak purchased by Lord Chesterfield for two hundred and twenty, the sable lining alone having originally cost eight hundred, it is scarcely straining the point to suppose that this collection of royal garments had cost little less than one hundred thousand. A list of the articles was given in the Athenæum of the day, which, after expressing its astonishment at the prodigious accumulation of apparel, says, that "Wealth had done wonders, taste not much."

But the best evidence that I can offer in support of the opinion that the word Beau ought not to be applied to Brummell in an offensive sense, is the following extract from a very kind and courteous letter which I received from the Rev. G. Crabbe, to whom I had written, having observed Brummell's name mentioned in his Life of his talented and amiable father.

"I am sorry that I can give you no other information respecting the communication between Mr. Brummell and my father at Belvoir, than the short and trifling remark in the Memoir, as I never heard my father mention him except when he made that remark; but short as it was, it entirely accords with the impression which I believe was general in that

He was

neighbourhood, viz., that Mr. Brummell was a sensible man and a finished gentleman; the term 'Beau,' which the world has offered to him, might be more applicable perhaps in his earlier years; but when my father met him at Belvoir, he was, I conceive, about forty, and certainly did not, either in manners or appearance, exhibit that compound of coxcombry in dress, and vulgar assiduity of address, which marks. the 'Beau' (that is the dandy); I remember being struck with the misapplication of this title when I saw him one day in the Belvoir hunt. dressed as plain as any man in the field, and the manly, and even dignified, expression of his countenance ill accorded with the implication the sobriquet conveyed." And yet Jack Robinson, an acquaintance of his early life, observes-"Brummell's carriage was never at any time graceful; perfect gentleman as he was, there was something of a slang air about him." I have heard it stated that Sir Henry Mildmay made the same remark. I cannot, however, agree with either of them; he might have been ungraceful and have had something unusual in his manner in early life; but, when I knew him at Caen in his old age, Brummell was eminently graceful and distinguishedlooking, and was considered so by French ladies, no mean judges.

CHAPTER V.

Brummell's Extreme Neatness—Lord Byron's Opinion of his Outward Appearance-Leigh Hunt's-The Beau's Cleanliness-His Precautions to ensure it-Why Country Gentlemen were Disqualified for becoming Members of Watier's-Mr. Pitt's Opinion of themBrummell's Manners and Tastes—Lord Chesterfield's Gentleman— Lord Petersham's Snuff-cellar-The ex-Garde-du-Corps-The Gentleman of the Old School-Innovations not Improvements-The Minuet and Cotillons-American Manners.

THERE was, in fact, nothing extreme about Brummell's personal appearance but his extreme cleanliness and neatness, and whatever time and attention he devoted to his dress, the result was perfect; no perfumes, he used to say, but very fine linen, plenty of it, and country washing. With regard to perfumery, his taste perfectly coincided with that of the Champion of England. "I remember," says Lord Byron, in his letter on Bowles' Strictures on Pope, "(and do you remember, reader, that it was in my earliest youth, 'Consule Planco')-on the morning of the great battle (the second) between Gully and Gregson, -Cribb, who was matched against Horton, for the second fight, on the same memorable day awaking me (a lodger at the inn in the next room), by a loud

remonstrance to the waiter against the abomination of his towels, which had been laid in lavender!" Mr. Leigh Hunt in a note, in which he kindly referred me to some anecdotes of Brummell, says, "I remember that Lord Byron once described him to me, as having nothing remarkable in his style of dress, except a 'certain exquisite propriety,'"-and that gentleman, in a sketch which he gave of the Beau at an early period of his life, observes, when speaking of his superior judgment on this point, "that the poet's hyperbole about the lady might be applied to his coat, 'You might almost say the body thought." "—It did think; and, had Montesquieu known Brummell, he would never have said, "Le goût est un je ne sçais quoi."

Cleanliness, however, rather than taste, was the touchstone upon which his acquaintances were invariably tried; to detect in them any deviation from that virtue, which has by common consent been placed next to godliness, was a sufficient reason for his declining any further intercourse with them. One of his friends, curious to know something of a family that he had passed a day with in the country, inquired of him, what sort of people they were: "Don't ask me, my good fellow," replied Brummell; "you may imagine, when I tell you, that I actually found a cobweb in my !" The anecdote is, perhaps, true; and it was probably this that induced him to keep a travelling one, for one of these indispensable articles of bed-room furniture is de

scribed in the catalogue of the sale of his effects as such, "in a folding mahogany case, with an external carpet case for the same." It is said, that he objected to country gentlemen being admitted to Watier's, assigning as a sufficient reason for their exclusion, that their boots stunk of horse-dung and bad blacking. If this had been true, many would have been of the same opinion, but his jocose remark was very probably made against some individual candidate. His objection to one of the prevailing tastes of his day-excessive devotion to stables, dog-kennels, and coachmanship appears to have been strong; and he gives a proof of this by having taken the trouble to insert some very severe lines against the Whip-club in his album.

But though ridicule, false or true, is often more keenly felt than just censure, the Squire Westerns must have been far more indignant with Mr. Pitt, who, after all the support they had given him, did in his convivial hours forget his official circumspection and suffer his real opinion of them to escape him. A diplomatist of my acquaintance, now living, was present when the flattering expressions I allude to were uttered at Lord Mulgrave's table, that nobleman being, at the time, First Lord of the Admiralty.

My gossip was then a young man, and the day on which he was so fortunate as to meet the Prime Minister at dinner, was remarkable for being the one on which the First Lord was to examine a boat,