Reminiscences of a Literary Life
CHAP. XXVII
BEAU BRUMMELL
CHAPTER XXVII
BEAU BRUMMELL
There has been nothing like a good, fair account of this
Autocrat of the Dandies.
Captain Jesse, who published two volumes of Memoirs about him some years ago, could
never have seen Brummell, and knew very little of
his life, character, and conversation; while the little he did know was only by hearsay.
Raikes’s account, just published (1856),
is by far the fairest I have seen, and yet it scarcely does justice to
Brummell’s wit and humour, and two or three things seem to
me incorrectly stated. Brummell ended his days at Caen, and would have
ended them in downright misery but for the Sœurs de Charité. The way in which he lost the
consulship was this. Being weary of Caen and of having nothing to do there, he represented
to Lord Palmerston that a British Consul was hardly
wanted in that place, and that he was very desirous of getting a change by being appointed
to some other place where there were English interests to attend to, and where he could be
useful and earn the salary he received from his country. Palmerston
abolished the Caen Consulship, but would not give Brummell another. If
Brummell had not confidently counted on being employed elsewhere,
he would never have written this letter to the Foreign Secretary. The pay at Caen was £300
a year; and when it was so suddenly suspended, the aged man of fashion, once the constant
companion of Royalty, was left penniless. There were some
CHAP. XXVII] | THE DANDIES’ INFLUENCE | 267 |
other cases in which Viscount
Palmerston was equally hard. Pensions from the Crown have always been
considered as safe from the grip of creditors. They are given because the recipients are
poor and are likely to be embarrassed. Yet, on the application of a set of Jews and other
usurers and cheats, Palmerston stopped and sequestrated the pension of
Lady Hester Stanhope, thus reducing her to cruel
straits in her Syrian retreat. More lenity might have been expected from him, as
Palmerston has been nearly all his life in debt and difficulties
himself. Until recently, when his wife had an accession
of property, he was considered one of the very worst “payers” in all London. I
once heard a St. James’s Street hatter tell his valet that he would not send another
hat until his lordship should have paid for the many hats he had already had. But London
used to ring with stories about Palmerston and his duns, and about his
ingenious devices to put off paying. About the same time poor Lord
Alvanley was abundantly furnishing similar matter for town talk.
As boy and youth I frequently saw Beau
Brummell in the parks and other regions of the West. Though an exquisite
dandy, he never seemed to me to be overdressed or stiff, or in any way guindé. His carriage was easy, free, and manly. He was
a remarkably well-made man, but his face was scarcely equal to his figure. I quite agree
with my friend Mountstuart Elphinstone that English
society owed a debt of gratitude to the dandies. When they triumphantly took the field, and
for a good many years previously, our young nobility and gentry adopted the dress, and too
often the language and manners, of the coach-box, stable, or turf. To be fashionable, was
to dress like a coachman or groom. I am quite old enough to remember how widely this
coarse, bad, vulgar taste prevailed. It was checked at about the time the Regency of
George,
268 | BEAU BRUMMELL |
[CHAP. XXVII |
Prince of Wales,
commenced in 1810; but it took the dandies more than seven years to subdue and expel it. It
was through Brummell, Luttrell,
Sir Harry Mildmay, Lord
Kinnaird, and a few others—for the original school was very limited in
number—that our young men of fortune and fashion began to dress like gentlemen. If some of
them overdid it, and were too fastidious and by far too extravagant, this could scarcely be
said of Brummell. The stories told of his notions of expense in dress
were mere jokes, and were never intended by him to be taken seriously.
One of these tales was, for a long time, in everyone’s mouth. A
wealthy, old-fashioned country squire, who had a son and heir to launch into the gay world,
asked Brummell, one day, what he ought to allow
young hopeful for his tailor’s bills, or for what annual sum the youngster might be
well and fashionably dressed? “Oh!” said Brummell
after some consideration, and with a very solemn countenance, “with the strictest
economy—mind, I say the strictest economy—it may be done for £1,000 a year.”
I saw the Beau, in full feather,
rather late one afternoon, in the spring of the year 1815, the day before I took my
departure for Portugal. He was evidently just out of bed; or rather, quite fresh from the
toilette. So late a sitter could hardly be an early riser. He used to say that, whether it
was summer or winter, he always liked to have the morning well-aired before he got up.
A friend of W. S. Rose once gently
reproved the Beau for passing so many of the
daylight hours in bed.
“Dear me!” said Brummell. “Don’t you know that I am quite a reformed man?
Now, I always begin to rise with the first muffin bell!” The muffin bell is,
I believe, quite silenced through my friend Ben
Hawes and his London Street Police Bill, or Bills. At least, I never hear it
in the West End of London;
but in 1815 the muffin bells
began to be heard between four and five o’clock in the afternoon.
The next time, being the last time of all, that I saw Brummell was at an hotel in Calais, in the autumn of 1820,
as I was on my way to the south of Italy.
H. and A., two very considerable dandies of that
day, who had crossed over with me from Dover, were pupils and almost idolaters of Brummell. They invited him to dinner, but he was engaged,
if I remember right, with Scrope Davies, who had
taken refuge in that dull old French town. However, he came in towards the small hours, and
sat until long after sunrise.
There was a terrible change in other things besides the financial ones;
but still he was an elegant, striking man, and became very amusing and rather animated,
though he drank but moderately. At times, however, I thought I saw a look of sadness and
despondency. There was reason for it. At this moment he was cruelly embarrassed. Before
H. left for Paris, he was obliged to administer to some of
Brummell’s pressing wants, and
H. himself was rather “hard up.”
Brummell’s anecdotes were innumerable. They were all told
with admirable humour, and most of them with good nature. I can remember only two that were
spiteful, or calculated to give pain to deserving persons, and these two I shall certainly
not tell. After this symposium, I could understand a good deal of the secret of
Brummell’s extraordinary success and influence in the
highest society. He was a vast deal more than a mere dandy; he had wit as well as humour
and drollery, and the most perfect coolness and self-possession. He did not speak harshly
of his ci-devant friend the Regent, by this time
His Majesty George IV.; on the contrary, he related
several clever and two or three kind things of him, and gave him credit for a great deal of
natural ability and esprit. He confirmed what
Raikes and others have said of the
Prince’s extraordinary powers
270 | BEAU BRUMMELL |
[CHAP. XXVII |
of mimicry. “If his lot
had fallen that way,” said he, “he would have been the best comic
actor in Europe.” Brummell confessed to the story of the
“stout friend,” and to his threat, after his quarrel with the
Prince, to go down to Windsor and make the old people fashionable; but he emphatically
denied that other common tale, “George, ring the
bell!” “I knew the Prince too well,” said he, “ever
to take any kind of liberty with him! Drunk or sober, he would have resented it, with a
vengeance! His vindictive spirit—and he could be vindictive about trifles—was the worst
part of him; and where he once took a spite he never forgave. There might have been
twenty good reasons for the rupture, but the world always guesses wrong in these
matters.” If my observations were shrewd and correct, I should say that at
this period the Beau did not quite despair of a reconciliation, or at
least of some token of the Royal bounty. In the following year, 1821, when the King, on his
way to Hanover, landed at Calais, he put himself in his way, in the hope that he might be
noticed. I was told that many of the English purposely made room for him, sharing in his
hope and expectation that His Majesty would at least recognize him with a gracious smile,
which might have the effect of tranquillizing some of his Calais creditors; that the King,
who almost touched him as he passed up the pier, must have seen him; that he turned his
Royal head another way; and that Brummell turned as pale as a ghost.
Falstaff was not so sad when turned off by
“sweet Prince Hal.” Fifteen
years after this, in 1836, my friend W. P., in the course of one of
his Cambridge long vacation rambles, put up at Caen for a few days, in the very comfortable
Hôtel d’Angleterre. Twice at the table d’hôte he noticed a very quiet, very
refined, and on the whole very interesting-looking, elderly gentleman, to whom some of the
guests and all the servants of the house seemed to pay unusual attention.
CHAP. XXVII] |
LAST DAYS IN FRANCE |
271 |
W. P. took him for a French gentleman of the old school, or for some
retired diplomatist whose life had been spent in the highest society; but on making inquiry
he was told that this was poor Beau Brummell, and
that he was then “poor indeed.” W. P., being a
remarkably quiet, modest, retiring person, made no attempt to draw him out; but he was
interested by his distinguished manners, his humility, and apparent submission to his fate.
Even the French frequenters of the table d’hôte, or most of them, seemed to be aware
that poor Brummell, who could now scarcely pay for his cheap dinner,
had lived in all the splendour of London, and had been for years the almost constant
companion of the Regent. A few months later, my old
friend, Major ——, then fast approaching the end of his days, put up at
the same hotel, and went to dine at the same table d’hôte. In the doorway he ran
against Brummell, whom he had not seen for twenty years or more. They
had been rather intimate in the days of the Beau’s prepotency,
for the Major had been a man of Fashion; and was always, and even to the last, when very
penitent for past misdeeds, a man of pleasantry and wit.
They immediately recognized each other. “On est bien changé,” said Brummell, “voilà
tout!” He uttered no complaint, but could not conceal his
poverty and painful embarrassments. He was no longer the scoffer that he had been; he even
seemed to entertain deep, religious convictions.
I believe that he died professing the faith of the Roman Catholic Church.
The last friends he had on earth were the Sisters of Charity. Raikes deplores that by his precept and example he demoralized and ruined,
in more senses than one, many young men of family and fortune. But is it not at least
probable that these extravagant, unthinking fellows would have run the road to ruin if they
had never known Brummell; and that, without his
acquaintance and tuition, their vices would only have been
272 | BEAU BRUMMELL |
[CHAP. XXVII |
more gross
and disgusting? For a long time there was a popular belief that the
Beau was of very low birth. Even now it is not rare to meet people who
believe that he was the son of a footman or valet. Brummell was a
“gentleman by birth as well as by education.” His father had
considerable West Indian property, at a time when such estates were worth holding. He was a
man of great address and business ability, the most intimate friend and confidential
adviser of Lord North; to whom, during his
lordship’s Premiership, he acted as Private Secretary. All the time that
Lord North remained Prime Minister, Brummell père was courted by the highest of the
land, and by all who looked for employment or ministerial patronage. Some of Warren Hasting’s letters, which have been published,
sufficiently show the importance of Brummell père, and the consideration in which he was held by the first and
greatest of our Governors-General in India.
My friend, the late Elijah Impey,
son of the Indian Judge, the pet of Warren Hastings, had in his possession many original
letters which still more clearly demonstrated the political importance of the Beau’s
father. In one of these letters, the Governor-General, writing from Calcutta to a friend in
London, said, “See Mr. Brummell as soon as
you can, for he is active and intelligent, and has more influence than any man with
Lord North.” This Brummell
père left a good fortune to be divided among his
children. The Dandy, a younger son, had between £40,000 and £50,000 for his share.
Raikes says £30,000; but Brummell always named the larger sum, and Major
—— had reasons for believing that his account was the true one. The
Brummell family still hold a goodly estate in Essex, where they
were known, a few years ago, to my friend Dr. W.
Lyall, now Dean of Canterbury. In the winter of 1844, there was an old
gentleman staying at Hastings, and driving a four-in-hand. I saw him every day
CHAP. XXVII] | SNUFF-BOXES | 273 |
for a week or two; he was attired in the
“slap-bang” Jehu style, and had always at his side on the coachbox a tall,
masculine-looking woman, wearing a light drab greatcoat with capes. One afternoon I
inquired of Lord W. F. who the pair might be. “Don’t
you know them?” said he. “The driver is Beau
Brummell’s brother; the
lady on the coach-box is the coachman’s daughter.”
This is like standing up in judgment against a deceased relative; the
prosperous squire was reproducing and maintaining what the poor Dandy had put down. What
would the Brummell have thought of these coats and capes? *The manners
of both father and daughter appeared to be about as rough as their top-covering. Raikes correctly describes the Dandy’s taste, or
rather passion, for costly or curious snuff-boxes. When the light wooden Scottish box,
called the “Lawrence Kirk” box, with the ingenious, invisible hinge, first came
out, he immediately purchased one. A day or two after, he was dining at Carlton House,
where, among other personages, the Earl of Liverpool,
the Premier, and rather a solemn, hard, severe man, was present. At the proper moment,
the Beau introduced his new snuffbox, praising its lightness and
prettiness, and doubting whether any of them would find out the hinge, or know how to open
it.
The Regent tried, but soon gave it up,
with a d——. When the others had tried and failed, the starch Prime
Minister essayed his skill, taking up a knife to help him. “My
lord!” cried Brummell. “Allow
me to observe that’s not an oyster, but a snuff-box!” The Prince
laughed out lustily; the Premier, looking grave, laid down the box, and said there was no
opening it.
Brummell, like that late facetious Canon of St.
Paul’s, the ever memorable Sydney Smith, had a
* From here, to nearly the end, to the phrase “married
to the gout,” in M.’s
handwriting. |
274 | BEAU BRUMMELL |
[CHAP. XXVII |
knack of dropping into houses and parties to which he had not been
invited, and then pretending it was all through absent-mindedness or some mistake. A Mr.
and Mrs. Thomson, rather new to “St. James’s air,”
gave a grand rout, and purposely and maliciously omitted inviting the King of the Dandies,
of whose satirical tongue they stood in dread. “This
Brummell,” said Mr. T.,
“may have the impudence of the devil, but, as sure as my name’s
Thomson, I will show him a bit of my mind if he comes to our
party without an invite! I will show him the way to the door in a jiffy!”
Vain boast! Brummell went, having
previously communicated his intention to some of the Dandies who had been invited. As his
name was being telegraphed from the hall to the drawing-room, the Beau
tripped up the stairs. On the very threshold of the outer saloon stood
Thomson, as stern and as determined-looking as Gog or Magog. With his
blandest smile and with extended fingers, the Beau said, in dulcet
tone, “What! You here, Mr. Thomson? I did not expect the
pleasure of seeing you to-night. How is Mrs. Thomson? Ha! There
she is, and looking remarkably well!” Here he kissed the tip of his
exquisitely gloved hand to the lady, now close to the door, and returning his smile and
salute. Thomson was quite nonplussed, and before he could recover
himself or say a single syllable beyond “Sir!” the Marquis of
——, Lord ——, and two or three other Dandies,
crême de la crême, and devoted lieges of
Brummell, arrived and gathered round their chief, and advanced
with him into the drawing-room, bowing to the hostess, who was seen whispering to her
husband. She must have made it clear to Thomson that it would never do
to insult a man who had such great friends as Beau Brummell. When that
hero had spent half an hour ingoing round the saloons and in talking with those who he
thought worth talking to, he coolly went up to the host,
CHAP. XXVII] | THE BEAU’S ASSURANCE | 275 |
who was now quite cooled down, and said:
“Dear me, Mr. Thomson, I find I have made a mistake! I
was invited to a Mrs. Johnson’s! The names are so much
alike! John’s son, Tom’s son!
Johnson, Thomson! It is so easy to
mistake!” Some of the Dandies laughed, some of the fashionable ladies
tittered; Thomson felt that the best thing he could do was to join in
the laugh; and Mrs. T., sailing up, said “they were only too
happy at a mistake that had procured them the pleasure of Mr.
Brummell’s company.” The Beau
chatted a few minutes to the smiling, benignant, highly-flattered hostess, and then went
his way to another fashionable gathering. Mrs. T. took care that he
should have an invitation to all her future parties.
The late Earl of W., Lady J.’s papa, but very unlike his always charming
daughter, was scarcely a man to be joked with. He was proud, punctilious, starch, and grim,
expecting more deference and peer-worship than he always obtained.
In filling their houses in the country with company, it was, as it still
is, the custom of our magnates to reserve all the best chambers and dressing-rooms for the
married couples, and to stow away the bachelors, anyhow, in the attics, or in the turrets,
or wings. At Lord A.’s, Brummell had been put into an uncomfortable room, at the very top of the
high house, more than once. He went to Lord A.’s in very cold
Christmas weather, and before he was quite recovered from an attack of gout.
On his arrival the groom of the chambers was conducting him to his old
dormitory. “Stop!” cried the Beau. “I
cannot go up and down all these infernal stairs! Is there no room lower down? Here, for
example?” He threw open the door of a most comfortable, luxurious apartment,
and entered. “Sir,” said the groom of the chambers, “this is
reserved for the Earl of W., who is expected every
minute. The single gentlemen’s apartments are——”
276 | BEAU BRUMMELL |
[CHAP. XXVII |
“I know! I know! So put Lord W. in one of them, for he is
now a bachelor. There! Bring in my portmanteau and dressing-case.” The
footman who was following did as he was bidden, and the groom of the chambers went off
shrugging his shoulders. The Beau then began to unpack and prepare for
his elaborate toilette. Hark! The sound of carriage-wheels in the avenue! He fastens the
chamber door, and calmly proceeds with his important operations. In a few minutes the voice
of Lord W. is heard on the staircase—in the corridor—and then a
petulant, sharp rap at the door. “Mr. Brummell! Mr.
Brummell!” cries his lordship. “My lord,”
responds the Beau, “I am dressing and cannot be disturbed. I
am in my buffs, in naturalibus.”
“But this is my room, sir!” “Possession, my lord,
possession! You know the rest! You are single, my lord! I am a married man—married to
the gout.” His lordship went away with an ominous growl, nor was his
ill-humour dissipated by being put into an equally comfortable apartment on the same floor.
It was not so much that he cared for this room or that, but that he, the Earl of
W., should be dislodged by one of inferior rank, by a commoner, by Beau Brummell, was hard to bear or to digest. But the
noble, easy, good-humoured master of the mansion only laughed at
Brummell’s impudence, and long before the company separated,
the Beau succeeded in dissipating the Earl’s ill-humour. I
have heard other stories of equal assurance and equal success. Until he fell upon his evil
days, Beau Brummell appears never to have been “put out”
by anybody or by anything. When a friend was condoling with him on his first fit of the
gout, Brummell said: “Oh! I should not so much care if the
gout had not attacked my favourite leg!”
William Arden, second baron Alvanley (1789-1849)
The son of Sir Richard Pepper Arden, first Baron Alvanley; he was a friend of Beau
Brummell with a reputation as a wit and a spendthrift.
William Brummell (d. 1794)
He was private secretary to Lord North, sheriff of Berkshire (1788), and the father of
Beau Brummell.
William Brummell (1777-1853)
Of Wivenhoe House near Colchester; educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford, he was the
elder brother of Beau Brummell and served as High Sheriff of Berkshire.
Emily Mary Cowper, countess Cowper [née Lamb] (1787-1869)
Whig hostess, the daughter of Sir Peniston Lamb, first Viscount Melbourne; she married
(1) in 1805 Sir Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Cowper, fifth Earl Cowper, and (2) in
1839, her long-time lover, Henry John Temple, third Viscount Palmerston.
Scrope Berdmore Davies (1782-1852)
Byron met his bosom friend while at Cambridge. Davies, a professional gambler, lent Byron
funds to pay for his travels in Greece and Byron acted as second in Davies' duels.
Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859)
After education in the Edinburgh High School he was in the Bengal civil service (1796);
he was ambassador at Kabul (1808) and governor of Bombay (1819-27).
John Fane, tenth earl of Westmorland (1759-1841)
Tory peer; he was lord lieutenant of Ireland (1789-94) and lord privy seal (1798-1827).
Charles Macfarlane described him as “proud, punctilious, starch, and grim, expecting
more deference and peer-worship than he always obtained.”
Warren Hastings (1732-1818)
Governor-general of Bengal (1774-84); he was charged high crimes by Edmund Burke,
initiating impeachment proceedings that continued from 1787 to 1795, when Hastings was
acquitted.
Sir Benjamin Hawes (1797-1862)
Son of Benjamin Hawes (1770-1861) a Lambeth soap-boiler, and grandson of the
philanthropist William Hawes (d. 1808), he was a radical MP (1832-47) and under-secretary
for war (1857-62).
Sir Elijah Impey (1732-1809)
A classmate of Warren Hastings, he was chief justice of Bengal (1774-89), unsuccessfully
impeached in the House of Commons (1783).
Elijah Barwell Impey (1780-1849)
The son and biographer of Sir Elijah Impey (1732–1809); educated at Westminster and
Christ Church, Oxford, he served briefly in the dragoons and published poetry.
William Jesse (1809-1871)
Information about Captain Jesse appears to be lacking; in addition to a biography of Beau
Brummel he published
History of the Afghans (1858).
Charles Kinnaird, eighth baron Kinnaird (1780-1826)
The son of George Kinnaird, seventh baron Kinnaird; he was Whig MP for Leominster
(1802-05) before he succeeded to the title. He was the elder brother of Byron's friend,
Douglas Kinnaird.
Henry Luttrell (1768-1851)
English wit, dandy, and friend of Thomas Moore and Samuel Rogers; he was the author of
Advice to Julia, a Letter in Rhyme (1820).
William Rowe Lyall (1788-1857)
English theologian who wrote for the
Quarterly Review and edited
the
British Critic (1816-17); he was dean of Canterbury in
1845.
Charles Macfarlane (1799-1858)
A traveler, historian, and miscellaneous writer who knew Shelley in Italy; he active in
the Royal Asiatic Society and worked for the publisher Charles Knight and the Society for
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. His
Reminiscences was published
in 1917.
Thomas Raikes (1777-1848)
English dandy and friend of Beau Brummel; his diary was published 1856-57.
William Stewart Rose (1775-1843)
Second son of George Rose, treasurer of the navy (1744-1818); he introduced Byron to
Frere's
Whistlecraft poems and translated Casti's
Animale parlante (1819).
Sir Henry St. John Carew St. John Mildmay, fourth baronet (1787-1848)
English dandy, the son of the third baronet and an associate of Beau Brummel; he was MP
for Winchester (1807-1818). In 1814 he was involved with a crim. con. case with the Earl of
Rosebery; he later became insolvent and shot himself in his residence in Belgrave
Square.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845)
Clergyman, wit, and one of the original projectors of the
Edinburgh
Review; afterwards lecturer in London and one of the Holland House
denizens.
Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope (1776-1839)
Oriental traveler; daughter of Charles Stanhope and niece of William Pitt the younger;
she departed England for Egypt and Palmyra in 1810, settled in Lebanon, and never
returned.
Henry John Temple, third viscount Palmerston (1784-1865)
After education at Harrow and Edinburgh University he was MP for Newport (1807-11) and
Cambridge University (1811-31), foreign minister (1830-41), and prime minister (1855-58,
1859-65).