The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 33

And again, in the "Parody of a Celebrated Letter":

"I am proud to declare I have no predilections, My heart is a sieve, where some scatter'd affections Are just danc'd about for a moment or two, And the 'finer' they are, the more sure to run through."]

[Footnote 2: The grandfather of Beau Brummell, who was in business in Bury Street, St. James's, also let lodgings. One of his lodgers, Charles Jenkinson, afterwards Earl of Liverpool, obtained for his landlord's son, William Brummell, a clerkship in the Treasury. The Treasury clerk became so useful to Lord North that he obtained several lucrative offices; and, dying in 1794, left 65,000 in the hands of trustees for division among his three children. The youngest of these was George Bryan Brummell (1788-1840), the celebrated Beau.

George Brummell went from Eton to Oriel College, Oxford, where his undergraduate career is traced in "Trebeck," a character in Lister's 'Granby' (1826). From Oxford Brummell entered the Tenth Hussars, a favourite regiment of the Prince of Wales. Well-built and well-mannered, possessed of admirable tact, witty and original in conversation, inexhaustible in good temper and good stories, a master of impudence and banter, the new cornet made himself so agreeable to the prince that, at the latter's marriage, Brummell attended him, both at St. James's and to Windsor, as "a kind of 'chevalier d'honneur." In 1798 Brummell left the army with the rank of captain. A year later he came of age, and settled at 4, Chesterfield Street, Mayfair.

On his intimacy with the Prince Regent, Brummell founded the extraordinary position which he achieved in society. Fashion was in those days a power; and he was its dictator--the oracle, both for men and women, of taste, manners, and dress. His ascendency rested in some degree on solid foundations. He was not a mere fop, but conspicuous for the quiet neatness of his dress--for "a certain exquisite propriety," as Byron described it to Leigh Hunt--and, at a time when the opposite was common, for the scrupulous cleanliness of his person and his linen. An excellent dancer, clever at 'vers de societe', an agreeable singer, a talented artist, a judge of china, buhl, and other objects of 'virtu', a collector of snuff-boxes, a connoisseur in canes, he had gifts which might have raised him above the Bond Street 'flaneur', or the idler at Watier's Club. Well-read in a desultory fashion, he wrote verses which were not without merit in their cla.s.s. The following are the first and last stanzas of 'The b.u.t.terfly's Funeral', a poem which was suggested by Mrs. Dorset's 'Peac.o.c.k at Home' and Roscoe's 'b.u.t.terfly's Ball':--

"Oh ye! who so lately were blythsome and gay, At the b.u.t.terfly's banquet carousing away; Your feasts and your revels of pleasure are fled, For the soul of the banquet, the b.u.t.terfly's dead!

And here shall the daisy and violet blow, And the lily discover her bosom of snow; While under the leaf, in the evenings of spring, Still mourning his friend, shall the gra.s.shopper sing."

In the days of his prosperity (1799-1816), Brummell knew everybody to whose acquaintance he condescended. His Alb.u.m, in which he collected 226 pieces of poetry, many by himself, others by celebrities of the day, is a curious proof of his popularity. It contains contributions from such persons as the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, Erskine, Lord John Townshend, Sheridan, General Fitzpatrick, William Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne) and his brother George, and Byron. Lady Hester Stanhope ('Memoirs', vol.

i. pp. 280-283) knew him well. She describes him "riding in Bond Street, with his bridle between his fore-finger and thumb, as if he held a pinch of snuff;" gives many instances of his audacious effrontery, and yet concludes that "the man was no fool," and that she "should like to see him again."

The story that Brummell told the Prince Regent to ring the bell was denied by him. A more probable version of the story is given in Jesse's 'Life of Beau Brummell' (vol. i. p. 255),

"that one evening, when Brummell and Lord Moira were engaged in earnest conversation at Carlton House, the prince requested the former to ring the bell, and that he replied without reflection, 'Your Royal Highness is close to it,' upon which the prince rang the bell and ordered his friend's carriage, but that Lord Moira's intervention caused the unintentional liberty to be overlooked."

The rupture between them is attributed by Jesse to Mrs. Fitzherbert's influence. Whatever the cause, the prince cut his former friend. A short time afterwards, Brummell, walking with Lord Alvanley, met the prince leaning on the arm of Lord Moira. As the prince, who stopped to speak to Lord Alvanley, was moving on, Brummell said to his companion, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?" In the 'Twopenny Postbag' Moore makes the Regent say, in the "Parody of a Celebrated Letter":

"Neither have I resentments, or wish there should come ill To mortal--except, now I think on it, Beau Brummell, Who threatened last year, in a superfine pa.s.sion, To cut me, and bring the old king into fashion."

Brummell's position withstood the loss of the Regent's friendship. He became one of the most frequent visitors to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of York, at Oatlands Park ('Journal of T. Raikes', vol. i. p. 146); and his friendship with the d.u.c.h.ess lasted till her death.

He was ruined by gambling at Watier's Club, of which he was perpetual president. This club, which was in Piccadilly, at the corner of Bolton Street, was originally founded, in 1807, by Lord Headfort, John Madocks, and other young men, for musical gatherings. But glees and s.n.a.t.c.hes soon gave way to superlative dinners and gambling at macao. Byron, Moore, and William Spencer belonged to Watier's--the only men of letters admitted within its precincts. From 1814 to 1816 Brummell lost heavily; he could obtain no further supplies, and was completely ruined. In his distress he wrote to Scrope Davies, in May, 1816:

"MY DEAR SCROPE,--Lend me two hundred pounds; the banks are shut, and all my money is in the three per cents. It shall be repaid to-morrow morning.

Yours, GEORGE BRUMMELL."

The reply ill.u.s.trates Byron's remark that

"Scrope Davies is a wit, and a man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do."

"MY DEAR GEORGE,--'Tis very unfortunate, but all my money is in the three per cents.

Yours, S. DAVIES."

On May 17,

"obliged," says Byron ('Detached Thoughts'), "by that affair of poor Meyler, who thence acquired the name of 'd.i.c.k the Dandykiller'--(it was about money and debt and all that)--to retire to France,"

Brummell took flight to Dover, and crossed to Calais. Watier's Club died a natural death, in 1819, from the ruin of most of its members.

Amongst Brummell's effects at Chesterfield Street was a screen which he was making for the d.u.c.h.ess of York. The sixth panel was occupied by Byron and Napoleon, placed opposite each other; the former, surrounded with flowers, had a wasp in his throat (Jesse's 'Life', vol. i. p. 361).

At Calais Brummell bought a French grammar to study the language. When Scrope Davies was asked, says Byron ('Detached Thoughts'),

"what progress Brummell had made in French, he responded 'that Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the 'Elements'' I have put this pun into 'Beppo', which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery;' for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself) by repeating occasionally as his own some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered him in the morning."

Brummell died, in 1840, at Caen, after making acquaintance with the inside of the debtor's prison in that town--imbecile, and in the asylum of the 'Bon Sauveur'. He is buried in the Protestant cemetery of Caen.

France has raised a more lasting monument to his fame in Barbey d'Aurevilly's 'Du Dandysme et de Georges Brummell' (1845).]

[Footnote 3: Henry James Pye (1745-1813) was, from 1790 to his death, poet laureate, in which post he succeeded Thomas Warton, and was followed by Southey. Mathias, in the 'Pursuits of Literature' (Dialogue ii. lines 69, 70), says:

"With Spartan Pye lull England to repose, Or frighten children with Lenora's woes;"

and again ('ibid'., lines 79, 80):

"Why should I faint when all with patience hear, And laureat Pye sings more than twice a year?"

His birthday odes were so full of "vocal groves and feathered choirs,"

that George Steevens broke out with the lines:

"When the 'pie' was opened," etc.

Pye's 'magnum opus' was 'Alfred' (1801), an epic poem in six books.]

[Footnote 4: David Mallet, or Malloch (1705-1765), is best known for his ballad of 'William and Margaret', his unsubstantiated claim to the authorship of 'Rule, Britannia', and his edition of Bolingbroke's works.

He was appointed, in 1742, under-secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales.]

240.--To Professor Clarke [1].

St. James's Street, June 26, 1812.

Will you accept my very sincere congratulations on your second volume, wherein I have retraced some of my old paths, adorned by you so beautifully, that they afford me double delight? The part which pleases me best, after all, is the preface, because it tells me you have not yet closed labours, to yourself not unprofitable, nor without gratification, for what is so pleasing as to give pleasure? I have sent my copy to Sir Sidney Smith, who will derive much gratification from your anecdotes of Djezzar, [1] his "energetic old man." I doat upon the Druses; but who the deuce are they with their Pantheism? I shall never be easy till I ask _them_ the question. How much you have traversed! I must resume my seven leagued boots and journey to Palestine, which your description mortifies me not to have seen more than ever. I still sigh for the aegean. Shall not you always love its bluest of all waves, and brightest of all skies? You have awakened all the gipsy in me. I long to be restless again, and wandering; see what mischief you do, you won't allow gentlemen to settle quietly at home. I will not wish you success and fame, for you have both, but all the happiness which even these cannot always give.

[Footnote 1: Edward Daniel Clarke (1769-1822), appointed Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge, in 1808, was the rival whose travels Hobhouse was anxious to antic.i.p.ate. He is described by Miss Edgeworth, in 1813 ('Letters', vol. i. p. 205), as

"a little, square, pale, flat-faced, good-natured-looking, fussy man, with very intelligent eyes, yet great credulity of countenance, and still greater benevolence."