Part 3

In 1844, Mr. Cyrus Redding, when at Bath, had several interviews and conversations with Mr. Beckford, whose mind was then vigorous: his spirits were good, and he displayed his wonted activity of body nearly to the last. In his seventy-sixth year he said that he had never felt a moment's _ennui_ in his life. He was the most accomplished man of his time: his reading was very extensive; he used to say that he could easily read and understand an octavo volume during his breakfast. Besides the classical languages of antiquity, he spoke four modern European tongues, and wrote three of them with great elegance. He read Russian and Arabic. We have said that he was taught music by Mozart, to whom he was so much attached, that when the great composer settled in Vienna, Mr. Beckford made a visit to that capital "that he might once more see his old master."

Mr. Redding tells us that Mr. Beckford's custom, "in fine weather, was to rise early, ride to the tower or about the grounds, walk back and breakfast, and then read until a little before noon, generally making pencil notes in the margin of every book, transact business with his steward; afterwards, until two o'clock, continue to read and write, and then ride out two or three hours." Mr. Beckford was never idle. When planning or building, he passed the larger part of the day where the work was proceeding. He sometimes expressed contempt by a sarcastic sneer, peculiar to himself. Few could utter more cutting things than the author of _Vathek_, the delivery with a caustic expression of countenance that made them tell with double effect. Mr. Redding once ventured to remark, "It must have cost you much pain to quit Fonthill." "Not so much as you might think. I can bend to fortune. I have philosophy enough not to cry like a child about a play-thing." Mr. Britton, who had seen much of Mr. Beckford, tells us that the remarks and opinions in the novels of _Cecil a Coxcomb_ and _Cecil a Peer_, mostly written by Mrs. Gore when on a visit to Mr. Beckford at Bath, afford the nearest approach he had seen in print to the language, the ideas, the peculiar sentiments of the author of _Vathek_.

Mr. Beckford continued to reside in Bath (except his annual visits to the metropolis, when he lived in Park Lane and in Gloucester Place[3]) for about twenty years, and died there on May 2, 1844, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. His intention was to make the ground attached to the Lansdown tower the place of his sepulchre, and he had prepared and placed on the spot a granite sarcophagus, inscribed with a passage from _Vathek_; but the ecclesiastical authorities refused to consecrate the ground, the body was embalmed and placed in the sarcophagus in the cemetery of Lyncomb, to the south of Bath. It was afterwards removed to Lansdown, when the ground was consecrated.

[3] Three other of Mr. Beckford's town houses were:--1. On the Terrace, Piccadilly, part of the site of the newly-built mansion of Baron Rothschild; 2. No. 1, Devonshire Place, New Road; and it is said, though we do not vouch how correctly, 3. No. 27, Charles Street, Mayfair, a very small house, looking over the garden of Chesterfield House.

The author of _Vathek_ was unquestionably a man of genius and rare accomplishments. "But his abilities were overpowered and his character tainted by the possession of wealth so enormous. At every stage his money was like a millstone round his neck. He had taste and knowledge; but the selfishness of wealth tempted him to let these gifts of the mind run to seed in the gratification of extravagant freaks. He really enjoyed travelling and scenery, but he felt it incumbent on him, as a millionnaire, to take a French cook with him wherever he went;[4] and he found that the Spanish grandees and ecclesiastical dignitaries who welcomed him so cordially valued him as the man whose cook could make such wonderful omelettes. From the day when Chatham's proxy stood for him at the font till the day when he was laid in his pink granite sarcophagus, he was the victim of riches. Had he had only 5,000_l._ a year, and been sent to Eton, he might have been one of the foremost men of his time, and have been as useful in his generation as, under his unhappy circumstances, he was useless."[5] It may be added, that he was worse: for he so threw about his money at Fonthill as to corrupt and demoralise the simple country people.

[4] In conformity with an old English custom, Mr. Beckford invariably travelled with his bed among his luggage.

[5] _Saturday Review._

Against this judgment must, however, be placed Mr. Beckford's own declaration, that he never felt a single moment of _ennui_.

Mr. Beckford left two daughters, the eldest of whom, Susan Euphemia, was married to the Marquis of Clydesdale in 1810, and became Duchess of Hamilton. The tomb at Lansdown, with its polished granite, emblazoned shields, and bronzed and gilt embellishments, was not long cared for; since in 1850, it presented in its neglected state a lamentable object. _Vathek_ will be remembered. Byron, a good judge of such a subject, has pronounced that "for correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination," it far surpasses all other European imitations of the Eastern style of fiction.

Alderman Beckford's Monument Speech, in Guildhall.

The speech on the pedestal of Beckford's statue, and referred to at p. 2 _ante_, is the one which the Alderman is said to have addressed to his Majesty on the 23rd of May, 1770, with reference to the King's reply to the Remonstrance address which Beckford had presented:--"That he should have been wanting to the public as well as to himself if he had not expressed his dissatisfaction at the late address." Horace Walpole thus notes the affair: "The City carried a new remonstrance, garnished with my lord's own ingredients, but much less hot than the former. The country, however, was put to some confusion by my Lord Mayor, who, contrary to all form and precedent, tacked a volunteer speech to the 'Remonstrance.' It was wondrous loyal and respectful, but, being an innovation, much discomposed the solemnity. It is always usual to furnish a copy of what is said to the King, that he may be prepared with his answer. In this case, he was reduced to tuck up his train, jump from the throne, and take sanctuary in his closet, or answer extempore, which is not part of the Royal trade; or sit silent, and have nothing to reply. This last was the event, and a position awkward enough in conscience."--_Walpole to Sir Horace Mann_, May 24, 1770.

Now, at the end of the Alderman's speech, in his copy of the City addresses, Mr. Isaac Reed has inserted the following note:--"It is a curious fact, but a true one, that Beckford did not utter one syllable of this speech (on the monument). It was penned by John Horne Tooke, and by his art put on the records of the City and on Beckford's statue, as he told me, Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Sayer, &c., at the Athenæum Club.--Isaac Reed." There can be little doubt that the worthy commentator and his friends were imposed upon. In the _Chatham Correspondence_, volume iii., p. 460, a letter from Sheriff Townsend to the Earl expressly states that with the exception of the words "and necessary" being left out before the word "revolution," the Lord Mayor's speech in the _Public Advertiser_ of the preceding day is verbatim. (The one delivered to the King.)--_Wright_--_Note to Walpole._

Gifford says (_Ben Jonson_, VI. 481) that Beckford never uttered before the King one syllable of the speech upon his monument; and Gifford's statement is fully confirmed both by Isaac Reed (as above) and by Maltby, the friend of Roger and Horne Tooke. Beckford _made_ a "remonstrance speech" to the King; but the speech on Beckford's monument is the after speech written for Beckford by Horne Tooke.--_See Mitford, Gray, and Mason's Correspondence_, pp. 438, 439.--_Cuningham's Note to Walpole_, v. 239.

Such is the historic worth of this strange piece of monumental bombast, upon which Pennant made this appropriate comment:--

The things themselves are neither scarce nor rare, The wonder's how the devil they got there.

Beau Brummel.

This celebrated leader of fashion in the times of the Regency--George Bryan Brummel--was born June 7, 1778. His grandfather was a pastrycook in Bury Street, St. James's, who, by letting off a large portion of his house, became a moneyed man. While Brummel's father was yet a boy, Mr. Jenkinson came to lodge there, and this led to the lad being employed in a Government office, when his lodger and patron had attained to eminence; he was subsequently private secretary to Lord Liverpool, and at his death, left the Beau little less than 30,000_l._ Brummel was sent to Eton, and thence to Oxford, and at sixteen he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the 10th Hussars, at that time commanded by the Prince of Wales, to whom he had been presented on the Terrace at Windsor, when the Beau was a boy at Eton. He became an associate of the Prince, then two-and-thirty, but who, according to Mr. Thomas Raikes, disdained not to take lessons in dress from Brummel at his lodgings. Thither would the future King of nations wend his way, where, absorbed in the mysteries of the toilet, he would remain till so late an hour that he sometimes sent his horses away, and insisted on Brummel giving him a quiet dinner, which generally ended in a deep potation.

Brummel's assurance was one of his earliest characteristics. A great law lord, who lived in Russell Square, one evening gave a ball, at which J., one of the beauties of the time, was present. Numerous were the applications made to dance with her; but being as proud as she was beautiful, she refused them all, till the young Hussar made his appearance; and he having proffered to hand her out, she at once acquiesced, greatly to the wrath of the disappointed candidates. In one of the pauses of the dance, he happened to find himself close to an acquaintance, when he exclaimed, "Ha! you here? Do, my good fellow, tell me who that ugly man is leaning against the chimney-piece." "Why, surely you must know him," replied the other, "'tis the master of the house." "No, indeed," said the Cornet, coolly; "how should I? I never was invited."

Captain Jesse, the biographer of Brummel, has drawn his portrait at about this time. "His face was rather long and complexion fair; his whiskers inclined to sandy, and hair light brown. His features were neither plain nor handsome; but his head was well shaped, the forehead being unusually high; showing, according to phrenological development, more of the mental than the animal passions--the bump of self-esteem was very prominent. His countenance indicated that he possessed considerable intelligence, and his mouth betrayed a strong disposition to indulge in sarcastic humour: this was predominant in every feature, the nose excepted, the natural regularity of which, though it had been broken by a fall from his charger, preserved his features from degenerating into comicality. His eyebrows were equally expressive with his mouth; and while the latter was giving utterance to something very good-humoured or polite, the former, and the eyes themselves, which were grey and full of oddity, could assume an expression that made the sincerity of his words very doubtful. His voice was very pleasing."

Brummel was one of the first who revived and improved the taste for dress, and his great innovation was effected upon neckcloths; they were then worn without stiffening of any kind, and bagged out in front, rucking up to the chin in a roll: to remedy this obvious awkwardness and inconvenience, he used to have his slightly starched; and a reasoning mind must allow that there is not much to object to in this reform. He did not, however, like the dandies, test their fitness for use by trying if he could raise three parts of their length by one corner without their bending; yet, it appears that if the cravat was not properly tied at the first effort, or inspiring impulse, it was always rejected. His valet was coming down stairs one day with a quantity of tumbled neckcloths under his arm, and, being interrogated on the subject, solemnly replied, "Oh, they are _our_ failures." Practice like this, of course, made Brummel perfect; and his tie soon became a model that was imitated but never equalled. The method by which this most important result was attained, was thus told to Captain Jesse:--"The collar, which was always fixed to his shirt, was so large that, before being folded down, it completely hid his head and face; and the white neckcloth was at least a foot in height. The first _coup d'archet_ was made with the shirt-collar, which he folded down to its proper size; and Brummel, then standing before the glass, with his chin poked up to the ceiling, by the gentle and gradual declension of the lower jaw, creased the cravat to reasonable dimensions, the form of each succeeding crease being perfected with the shirt which he had just discarded."

"Brummel's morning dress was similar to that of every other gentleman. Hessians and pantaloons, or top-boots and buckskins, with a blue coat and a light or buff-coloured waistcoat, of course fitting to admiration on the best figure in England. His dress of an evening was a blue coat and white waistcoat, black pantaloons, which buttoned tight to the ankle, striped stockings, and opera-hat; in fact he was always carefully dressed, but never the slave of fashion.

"Brummel's tailors were Schweitzer and Davidson in Cork Street; Weston; and a German of the name of Meyer, who lived in Conduit Street. The trousers which opened at the bottom of the leg, and were closed by buttons and loops, were invented either by Meyer or Brummel. The Beau, at any rate, was the first who wore them, and they immediately became quite the fashion and continued so for some years."

Brummel was addicted to practical jokes, one of which may be related. The victim was an old French emigrant, whom he had met on a visit to Woburn or Chatsworth, and into whose hair-pouch he managed to introduce some finely-powdered sugar. Next morning the poor Marquis, quite unconscious of his head being so well-sweetened, joined the breakfast-table as usual; but scarcely had he made his bow and plunged his knife into the Perigord pie before him, than the flies began to desert the walls and windows to settle upon his head. The weather was exceedingly hot; the flies of course numerous, and even the honeycomb and marmalade upon the table seemed to have lost all attraction for them. The Marquis relinquished his knife and fork to drive off the enemy with his handkerchief. But scarcely had he attempted to renew his acquaintance with the Perigord pie, than back the whole swarm came, more teazingly than ever. Not a wing was missing. More of the company who were not in the secret, could not help wondering at this phenomenon, as the buzzing grew louder and louder every moment. Matters grew still worse when the sugar, melting, poured down the Frenchman's brow and face in thick streams; for his tormentors then changed their ground of action, and having thus found a more vulnerable part, nearly drove him mad with their stings. Unable to bear it any longer, he clasped his head with both hands, and rushed out of the room in a cloud of powder, followed by his persevering tormentors, and the laughter of the company.

Brummel was the autocrat of the world in which he moved. It has been said that Madame de Staël was in awe of him, and considered her having failed to please him as her greatest misfortune; while the Prince of Wales having neglected to call upon her, she placed only as a secondary cause of lamentation. The great French authoress, however, was not without reason in her regrets; to offend or not to please Brummel was to lose caste in the fashionable world, to be exposed to the most cutting sarcasm and the most poignant ridicule.

Captain Jesse thus tells the story of Brummel's _cutting_ quarrel with the Prince of Wales. Lord Alvanley, Brummel, Henry Pierrepoint, and Sir Harry Mildmay, gave at the Hanover Square Rooms a fête, which was called the Dandies' Ball. Alvanley was a friend of the Duke of York; Harry Mildmay, young, and had never been introduced to the Prince Regent; Pierrepoint knew him slightly, and Brummel was at daggers drawn with his Royal Highness. No invitation was, however, sent to the Prince, but the ball excited much interest and expectation, and to the surprise of the Amphitryons, a communication was received from his Royal Highness intimating his wish to be present. Nothing, therefore, was left but to send him an invitation, which was done in due form, and in the name of the four spirited givers of the ball; the next question was how were they to receive the guest, and which, after some discussion, was arranged thus:--When the approach of the Prince was announced, each of the four gentlemen took in due form a candle in his hand. Pierrepoint, as knowing the Prince, stood nearest the door with his wax-light; and Mildmay, as being young and void of offence, opposite. Alvanley, with Brummel opposite, stood immediately behind the other two. The Prince at length arrived, and, as was expected, spoke civilly and with recognition to Pierrepoint, and then turned and spoke a few words to Mildmay; advancing, he addressed several sentences to Alvanley; and then turned towards Brummel, looked at him, but as if he did not know who he was, or why he was there, and without bestowing on him the slightest recognition. It was then, at the very instant he passed on, that Brummel, seizing with infinite fun and readiness the notion that they were unknown to each other, said aloud for the purpose of being heard, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?" Those who were in front, and saw the Prince's face, say that he was cut to the quick by the aptness of the remark.

Mr. Grantley Berkeley (in his _Life and Recollections_) relates the story less circumstantially:--"There is a well-known anecdote I am able to correct, given to me by a medical friend of mine, who had it from the late Henry Pierrepoint, brother to the late Lord Manners:--'We of the Dandy Club issued invitations to a ball from which Brummel had influence enough to get the Prince excluded. Some one told the Prince this, upon which his Royal Highness wrote to say he intended to have the pleasure of being at our ball. A number of us lined the entrance-passage to receive the Prince, who, as he passed along, turned from side to side to shake hands with each of us; but when he came to Brummel, he passed him without the smallest notice, and turned to shake hands with the man opposite to Brummel. As the Prince turned from that man--I forget who it was--Brummel leaned forward across the passage, and said, in a loud voice, 'Who is your fat friend?' We were all dismayed; but in those days Brummel could do no wrong."

The following story was supplied to Captain Jesse by a correspondent. The Beau, it appears, had a great _penchant_ for snuff-boxes:--"Brummel had a collection chosen with singular sagacity and good taste; and one of them had been seen and admired by the Prince, who said, 'Brummel, this box must be mine: go to Gray's and order any box you like in lieu of it.' Brummel begged that it might be one with his Royal Highness' miniature; and the Prince, pleased and flattered at the suggestion, gave his assent to the request. Accordingly, the box was ordered, and Brummel took great pains with the pattern and form, as well as with the miniature and diamonds round it. When some progress had been made, the portrait was shown to the Prince; who was charmed with it, suggested slight improvements and alterations, and took the liveliest interest in the work as it proceeded. All in fact was on the point of being concluded when the scene at Claremont took place; [where this writer describes the quarrel as originating, through the Prince preventing Brummel from joining a party, on the plea of Mrs. Fitzherbert disliking him.] A day or two after this, Brummel thought he might as well go to Gray's and inquire about the box; he did so, and was told that special directions had been sent by the Prince of Wales that the box was not to be delivered: it never was, nor was the one returned for which it was to have been an equivalent. It was this, I believe, more than anything besides, which induced Brummel to bear himself with such unbending hostility towards the Prince of Wales. He felt that he had treated him unworthily, and from this moment he indulged himself by saying the bitterest things. When pressed by poverty, however, and, as I suppose, broken in spirit, he at a later period recalled the Prince's attention to the subject of the snuff-box. Colonel Cooke (who was at Eton called 'Cricketer Cooke,' afterwards known as 'Kangaroo Cooke'), when passing through Calais, saw Brummel, who told him the story, and requested that he would inform the Prince Regent that the promised box had never been given, and that he was now constrained to recall the circumstance to his recollection. The Regent's reply was: 'Well, Master Kang, as for the box it is all nonsense; but I suppose the poor devil wants a hundred guineas, and he shall have them;' and it was in this ungracious manner that the money was sent, received, and acknowledged. I have heard Brummel speak of the affair of the snuff-box, but I never heard him say that he received the hundred guineas."

Brummel, late in life, stood to his Whig colours. His evening dress consisted of a blue coat, with velvet collar and the consular button; a buff waistcoat, black trousers and boots. His white neckcloth was unexceptionable. The only articles of jewellery about him were a plain ring and a massive chain of Venetian ducat-gold, which served as a guard to his watch, and was evidently as much for use as ornament, only two links of it were to be seen; those passed from the buttons of his waistcoat to the pocket; the chain was peculiar, and was of the same pattern as those suspended _in terrorem_ outside the principal entrance to Newgate. The ring was dug out on the Field of the Cloth of Gold by a labourer, who sold it to Brummel when he was at Calais. An opera-hat, and gloves which were held in his hand, completed an attire that being remarkably quiet, could never have attracted attention on any other person. His _mise_ was peculiar only for its extreme neatness, and wholly at variance with an opinion very prevalent among those who were not personally acquainted with him, that he owed his reputation to his tailor, or to an exaggerated style of dress.

Brummel, however, maintained his supremacy in the world of fashion for years after the Prince had _cut_ him. "But though even royal disfavour could not seriously lower him, he managed in the end to do that which no one else could do, he ruined himself; the gaming table, in the long run, deprived him of all his fortune. Then came bills to supply the deficiencies of the hour, and with that the consummation which they never fail to bring about when necessity has recourse to them. A quarrel ensuing with the friends joined in one of these acceptances, and who accused him of taking the lion's share, he was obliged to quit England and take up his abode at Calais. It has been said, ludicrously enough, that Brummel and Bonaparte fell together. The Moscow of the former, according to his own account, was a crooked sixpence, to the possession of which his good fortune was attached, but which he unfortunately lost.