We alluded a little while ago to some gigantic frauds in Stock Exchange operations. One of the most extraordinary and elaborate of such frauds was that carried out by De Berenger and Cochrane-Johnstone in 1814. Napoleon's military operations against the allies had greatly depressed the funds. On February 21, 1814, about one o'clock a.m., a violent knocking was heard at the door of the Ship Inn, then the chief hotel at Dover. When the door was opened, a person in a richly-embroidered scarlet uniform announced himself as an aide-de-camp of Lord Cathcart (who was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in 1815), and as the bearer of important news. The allies had gained a great victory, and entered Paris; Napoleon had been captured and killed by Cossacks, who had cut his body into a thousand pieces. Immediate peace was now certain. The stranger ordered a post-chaise, and departed for London, but before leaving, he sent a note containing the news to the Port Admiral, who received it about four a.m.; but the morning being foggy, the telegraph could not be worked. The sham aide-de-camp—really De Berenger, an adventurer, afterwards a livery stable-keeper—dashed along the road, throwing napoleons to the post-boys whenever he changed horses. At Bexley Heath it was clear to him that the telegraph could not have worked, so he moderated his pace, spreading at the same time the news of Napoleon's defeat and death. At Lambeth he entered a hackney-coach, telling the post-boys to spread the news, which reached the Stock Exchange about ten o'clock, in consequence of which the funds rose, but fell again when it was found that the Lord Mayor had had no intelligence. But about twelve o'clock three persons, two of whom were dressed as French officers, drove in a post-chaise over London Bridge; their horses were bedecked with laurels. The officers scattered papers among the crowd, announcing the death of Napoleon and the fall of Paris. They then paraded through Cheapside and Fleet Street, passed over Blackfriars Bridge, and drove rapidly to the Marshgate, Lambeth, got out, changed their cocked hats for round ones, and disappeared as mysteriously as their confederate, De Berenger, had done a few hours earlier.
The funds now rose again, but when, after hours of anxious expectation, it was discovered that the news, on which many bargains had been made, was false, there was, of course, wailing and gnashing of teeth. A committee was appointed by the Stock Exchange to track out the conspiracy, as on the two days before stocks to the amount of £826,000 had been purchased by persons implicated. One of the gang had, for a blind, called on Lord Cochrane, and Cochrane-Johnstone, a relation of his, had purchased Consols for him, that he might unconsciously benefit by the fraud. The Tories, eager to destroy a political enemy, concentrated all their rage on him, and he was tried, fined £1,000, and sentenced to stand for one hour in the pillory; but this latter part of the sentence was not carried out, as Sir Francis Burdett had declared that if it was done he would stand beside his friend on the scaffold of shame. Cochrane was further stripped of his knighthood, and his escutcheon kicked down the steps of St. George's Chapel at Windsor. But in his old age his innocence and the injustice done to him were recognised, and his coronet restored to him unsoiled. But could this atone for all the wrong inflicted, and all the misery endured? Those who wish to know all the details of this remarkable fraud will find them in the two volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1814. The first volume gives a full account of the evidence produced at the trial.
X.
WITS AND BEAUX OF OLD LONDON SOCIETY.
A mere beau, a 'man of dress,' as our dictionaries define him, is a pitiful object—a walking and talking doll, painted and bedizened, and as imbecile-looking as a wax figure. The man who chooses to go in for being a beau should, if he does not wish to be thoroughly contemptible, possess, besides physical beauty, a stock of brains, elegant manners, ready wit, and moral courage. The gentleman who at the seaside dresses altogether in white must have a personally distinguished appearance not to be taken for his own chef de cuisine. Beaux are rather out of fashion just now—mashers and fops replace them. In the last century they were more plentiful. Perhaps the then prevailing popinjay style of dress, with its embroidered and many-coloured coats and waistcoats, gaudy breeches, wigs and swords, lent itself more readily to the assumption of the character than does our more subdued costume. In those days the aspirants to the title of beau were termed bucks, gallants, macaronis; and one of their distinguishing features, as the plays and portraits of those days abundantly demonstrate, was their having small legs with slender calves—possibly to show they were not footmen in disguise. And, as a rule, in those days the valet had more brains than his master.
Beaux have always been a fruitful and pleasant theme for the satirist's pen. The Spectator, in No. 275, describes the dissection of a beau's head, which is found to contain no brain, but in the usual place for one, smelling strongly of essences and orange-flower water, a kind of horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors. Further, a lot of ribbons, laces, and embroidery, billets-doux, love-letters, snuff, fictions, vows, oaths, and a spongy substance, known as nonsense. A muscle, not often discovered in dissections, was found, the os cribriforme, which draws the nose upwards when by that motion it intends to express contempt. The ogling muscles were very much worn with use. The individual to whom this head had belonged had passed for a man for about thirty years, and died in the flower of his youth by the blow of a fire-shovel, he having been surprised by an eminent citizen as he was paying some attentions to his wife. This analysis of a beau's head, or character, was written in 1712. In 1757 an essayist described him thus in doggerel:
'Would you a modern beau commence,
Shake off that foe to pleasure, sense.
Scorn real, unaffected worth,
Despise the virtuous, good and brave,
To ev'ry passion be a slave....
Be it your passion, joy and fame
To play at ev'ry modish game....
Harangue on fashion, point and lace....
Affect to know each reigning belle
That throngs the playhouse or the Mall.
Though swearing you detest a fool,
Be versed in Folly's ample school....
These rites observed, each foppish elf
May view an emblem of himself.'
The combination of wit and beau in one person has, nevertheless, occasionally been seen, and the ordinary, or numskulled, beau has shared in the reputation created by such a combination, just as all judges are assumed to be sober. But in the days when beaux flourished wit of a very attenuated kind tickled the fancy of the public, who haunted the taverns patronized by the so-called wits. Even the jokes which passed at the Mermaid between Shakspere, Ben Jonson, and other professed jesters must appear to modern readers who are not absurdly prepossessed in favour of all that savours of antiquity, as heavy, dull, and often far-fetched. To justify what may appear rank heresy, let me quote one of Tarleton's 'witty' sayings. Tarleton was Shakspere's friend and fellow-actor, the low comedian of Queen Elizabeth's reign, who probably suggested to Shakspere some of his jesters and fools. Now, this is what is transmitted to us as a specimen of his wit: Tarleton, keeping an ordinary in Paternoster Row, would approve of mustard standing before his customers to have wit. 'How so?' inquired one. 'It is like a witty scold, meeting another scold, begins to scold first. So,' says he, 'the mustard, being licked up and knowing that you will bite it, begins to bite you first.' 'I'll try that,' says a gull, and the mustard so tickled him that his eyes watered. 'How now?' says Tarleton. 'Does my jest savour?' 'Ay,' says the gull, 'and bite too.' 'If you had had better wit,' says Tarleton, 'you would have bit first. So, then, conclude with me that dumb, unfeeling mustard has more wit than a talking, unfeeling fool, as you are.' And this was considered 'a rare conceit' in the days of Shakspere. We are rather more exacting now.
The beaux of the days we are speaking of were, indeed, poor specimens of humanity. They were a noisy, swaggering lot, as we learn from the author of 'Shakspere's England.' 'If a gallant,' he says, 'entered the ordinary ... he would find the room full of fashion-mongers ... courtiers, who came there for society and news; adventurers who have no home ... quarrelsome men paced about fretfully fingering their sword-hilts, and maintaining as sour a face as that Puritan moping in a corner, pent up by a group of young swaggerers, disputing over cards.... The soldiers bragged of nothing but of their employment in Ireland and in the Low Countries.... The mere dullard sat silent, playing with his glove, or discussing at what apothecary's the best tobacco was to be bought.'
But let us, in the career of an individual, Beau Fielding, famous in his day, show how beaux then acquired a reputation. Scotland Yard was so called from a palace which stood there, and was the residence of the Kings of Scotland on their annual visit to do homage for their kingdom to the Crown of England. On the union of the Scottish and English Crowns the palace was allowed to go to decay. Parts of it served as occasional residences for various persons, one of whom was Robert Fielding, who died there in the early part of the last century. This Fielding was generally known as Beau Fielding. The Tatler, in August, 1709 (Nos. 50 and 51), thus describes him: 'Ten lustra and more are wholly passed since Orlando (R. Fielding) first appeared in the metropolis of this island, his descent noble, his wit humorous, his person charming. But to none of these advantages was his title so undoubted as that of his beauty. His complexion was fair, but his countenance manly; his stature of the tallest, his shape the most exact; and though in all his limbs he had a proportion as delicate as we see in the work of the most skilful statuaries, his body had a strength and firmness little inferior to the marble of which such images are formed. This made Orlando the universal flame of all the fair sex; innocent virgins sighed for him as Adonis, experienced widows as Hercules. Thus did this figure walk alone, the pattern and ornament of our species, but, of course, the envy of all who had the same passions, without his superior merit, and pretences to the favour of that enchanting creature, woman. However, the generous Orlando believed himself formed for the world, and not to be engrossed by any particular affection.... Woman was his mistress, and the whole sex his seraglio. His form was always irresistible; and if we consider that not one of five hundred can bear the least favour from a lady without being exalted above himself ... we cannot think it wonderful that Orlando's repeated conquests touched his brain. So it certainly did, and Orlando became an enthusiast in love.... He would still add to the advantages of his person that of a profession which the ladies always favour, and immediately commenced soldier.... Our hero seeks distant climes ... after many feats of arms ... Orlando returns home, full, but not loaded, with years.... The beauteous Villaria (Barbara, daughter and heiress of William Villiers, Lord Viscount Grandison, of the Kingdom of Ireland) ... became the object of his affection.... According to Milton,