136 The Stories fixed on Sheridan. Folly, not folly only-but a lie! What recked the dead of the four noble pall-bearers--the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, and the Bishop of London? What good was it to him to be followed by two royal highnesses—the Dukes of York and Sussex-by two marquises, seven earls, three viscounts, five lords, a Canning, a lord mayor, and a whole regiment of honourables and right honourables, who now wore the livery of grief, when they had let him die in debt, in want, and in misery? Far more, if the dead could feel, must he have been grateful for the honester tears of those two untitled men, who had really befriended him to the last hour and never abandoned him, Mr. Rogers and Dr. Bain. But peace; let him pass with nodding plumes and well-dyed horses to the great Walhalla, and amid the dust of many a poet let the poet's dust find rest and honour, secure at last from the hand of the bailiff. There was but one nook unoccupied in Poet's Corner, and there they laid him. A simple marble was afforded by another friend without a title-Peter Moore. To a life like Sheridan's it is almost impossible to do justice in so narrow a space as I have here. He is one of those men who, not to be made out a whit better or worse than they are, demand a careful investigation of all their actions, or reported actions-a careful sifting of all the evidence for or against them, and a careful weeding of all the anecdotes told of them. This requires a separate biography. To give a general idea of the man, we must be content to give that which he inspired in a general acquaintance. Many of his 'mots,' and more of the stories about him, may have been invented for him, but they would scarcely have been fixed on Sheridan, if they had not fitted more or less his character: I have therefore given them. I might have given a hundred more, but I have let alone those anecdotes which did not seem to illustrate the character of the man. Many another good story is told of him, and we must content ourselves with one or two. Take one that is characteristic of his love of fun. Sheridan is accosted by an elderly gentleman, who has forgotter. the name of a street to which he wants to go, and who informs him precisely that it is an out-of-the-way name. Extempore Wit and Inveterate Talkers. 137 'Perhaps, sir, you mean John Street?' says Sherry, all in nocence. 'No, an unusual name.' 'It can't be Charles Street ?' Impatience on the part of the old gentleman. 'King Street ?' suggests the cruel wit. 'I tell you, sir, it is a street with a very odd name!' 'Bless me, is it Queen Street?' Irritation on the part of the old gentleman. 'It must be Oxford Street ?' cries Sheridan as if inspired. 'Sir, I repeat,' very testily, 'that it is a very odd name. Every one knows Oxford Street !' Sheridan appears to be thinking. 'An odd name! Oh! ah! just so; Piccadilly, of course?' Old gentleman bounces away in disgust. 'Well, sir,' Sheridan calls after him, 'I envy you your admirable memory!' His wit was said to have been prepared, like his speeches, and he is even reported to have carried his book of mots in his pocket, as a young lady of the middle class might, but seldom does, carry her book of etiquette into a party. But some of his wit was no doubt extempore. When arrested for non-attendance to a call in the House, soon after the change of ministry, he exclaimed, 'How hard to be no sooner out of office than into custody!' He was not an inveterate talker, like Macaulay, Sydney Smith, or Jeffrey: he seems rather to have aimed at a strik-' ing effect in all that he said. When found tripping he had a clever knack of getting out of the difficulty. In the Hastings speech he complimented Gibbon as a 'luminous' writer; questioned on this, he replied archly, 'I said vo-luminous.' I cannot afford to be voluminous on Sheridan, and so I quit him, BEAU BRUMMELL. Two popular Sciences.-'Buck Brummell' at Eton.-Investing his Capital.Young Cornet Brummell.-The Beau's Studio.-The Toilet.-' Creasing Down.'-Devotion to Dress.-A Great Gentleman.-Anecdotes of Brummell.-'Don't forget, Brum: Goose at Four !'-Offers of Intimacy resented. -Never in love.- Brummell out Hunting.-Anecdote of Sheridan and Brummell.-The Beau's Poetical Efforts.-The Value of a Crooked Sixpence. The Breach with the Prince of Wales.-'Who's your Fat Friend?' -The Climax is reached.-The Black-mail of Calais.-George the Greater and George the Less.-An Extraordinary Step.-Down the Hill of Life.— A Miserable Old Age.—In the Hospice Du Bon Sauveur.-O Young Men of this Age, be warned ! T is astonishing to what a number of insignificant things high art has been applied, and with what suc cess. It is the vice of high civilization to look for it and reverence it, where a ruder age would only laugh at its eraployment. Crime and cookery, especially, have been raised into sciences of late, and the professors of both received the amount of honour due to their acquirements. Who would be so naïve as to sneer at the author of 'The Art of Dining?' or who so ungentlemanly as not to pity the sorrows of a pious baronet, whose devotion to the noble art of appropriation was shamefully rewarded with accommodation gratis on board one of Her Majesty's transport-ships? The disciples of Ude have left us the literary results of their studies, and one at least, the graceful Alexis Soyer, is numbered among our public benefactors. We have little doubt that as the art, vulgarly called ' embezzlement,' becomes more and more fashionable, as it does every day, we shall have a work on the Art of Appropriation.' It is a pity that Brummell looked down upon literature: poor literature! it had a hard struggle to recover the slight, for we are convinced there is not a work more wanted than the 'Art 6 Two Popular Sciences. 139 of Dressing,' and 'George the Less' was almost the last professor of that elaborate science. If the maxim, that 'whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well,' hold good, Beau Brummell must be regarded in the light of a great man. That dressing is worth doing at all, everybody but a Fiji Islander seems to admit, for everybody does it. If, then, a man succeeds in dressing better than anybody else, it follows that he is entitled to the most universal admiration. But But there was another object to which this great man condescended to apply the principles of high art—I mean affectation. How admirably he succeeded in this his life will show. can we doubt that he is entitled to our greatest esteem and heartiest gratitude for the studies he pursued with unremitting patience in these two useful branches, when we find that a prince of the blood delighted to honour, and the richest, noblest, and most distinguished men of half a century ago were proud to know him? We are writing, then, of no common man, no mere beau, but of the greatest professor of two of the most popular sciences-Dress and Affectation. Let us speak with reverence of this wonderful genius. George Brummell was a self-made man.' That is, all that nature, the tailors, stags, and padding had not made of him, he made for himself-his name, his fame, his fortune, and his friends—and all these were great. The author of 'Self-help' has most unaccountably omitted all mention of him, and most erroneously, for if there ever was a man who helped himself, and no one else, it was, 'very sincerely yours, George Brummell.' The founder of the noble house of Brummell, the grandfather of our hero, was either a treasury porter, or a confectioner, or something else.* At any rate he let lodgings in Bury Street, and whether from the fact that his wife did not purloin her lodgers' tea and sugar, or from some other cause, he managed to ingratiate himself with one of them-who afterwards became Lord Liverpool-so thoroughly, that through his influence he obtained for his son the post of Private Secretary to Lord Mr. Jesse says that the Beau's grandfather was a servant of Mr. Charles Monson, brother to the first Lord Monson. 140 'Buck Brummell' at Eton. North. Nothing could have been more fortunate, except, perhaps, the son's next move, which was to take in marriage the daughter of Richardson, the owner of a well-known lotteryoffice. Between the lottery of office and the lottery of love, Brummell père managed to make a very good fortune. At his death he left as much as £65,000 to be divided among his three children-Raikes says as much as £30,000 a-pieceso that the Beau, if not a fool, ought never to have been a pauper. No anecdotes once cried be In later years George Bryan Brummell, the second son of this worthy man, honoured by his birth the 7th of June, 1778. of his childhood are preserved, except that he cause he could not eat any more damson tart. he would probably have thought damson tart He first turns up at Eton at the age of twelve, and even there commences his distinguished career, and is known as 'Buck Brummell.' The boy showed himself decidedly father to the man here. Master George was not vulgar enough, nor so imprudent, it may be added, as to fight, row, or play cricket, but he distinguished himself by the introduction of a gold buckle in the white stock, by never being flogged, and by his ability in toasting cheese. We do not hear much of his classical attainments. The very gentlemanly youth was in due time passed on to Oriel College, Oxford. Here he distinguished himself by a studied indifference to college discipline and an equal dislike to studies. He condescended to try for the Newdigate Prize poem, but his genius leaned far more to the turn of a coatcollar than that of a verse, and, unhappily for the British poets, their ranks were not to be dignified by the addition of this illustrious man. The Newdigate was given to another; and so, to punish Oxford, the competitor left it and poetry together, after having adorned the old quadrangle of Oriel for less than a year. He was now a boy of seventeen, and a very fine boy, too. To judge from a portrait taken in later life, he was not strictly handsome; but he is described as tall, well built, and of a slight and graceful figure. Added to this, he had got |