Never had tailor two such patrons as these two. The young lord, who numbered among what the “Clerical Tap-Tub”—as the clergy call a certain “religious” print, famous for its nasty advertisements—styles “perverts,” was nothing to these illustrious two. When the young lord of whom I speak was at Oxford, and got, as young lords sometimes will, into difficulties,—on the overhauling of his wardrobe, it was found that he had ordered, in seven months, upwards of three hundred and seventy waistcoats! The youthful aristocrat however was a follower of the two Georges, only “longo intervallo.” George Brummell’s wardrobe, indeed, dwindled down to the suit in which he died; but the wardrobe of the other George sold, after his death, for upwards of fifteen thousand pounds. How many a poor man might have been warmed beneath the cloth the Sovereign never used! The original cost of the wardrobe would not have surprised Alexander, but we do not live in the days of the Macedonian; and in the era of high-priced bread, England was half-appalled at the thought that a hundred thousand pounds had scarcely purchased what was sold for fifteen. Among it all was a celebrated cloak, the sable lining of which alone had originally cost eight hundred pounds. Lord Chesterfield, as little nice about wearing a cheap cast-off garment as one of his own lacqueys, procured this mantle for little more than a fourth of the original price of the lining.
Brummell never recovered the effects of the wager which he won by telling “Wales” to “ring the bell,” and which order, although obeyed, was followed by another for “Mr. Brummell’s carriage.” He struggled indeed long, and not unsuccessfully, to retain his place among dandies and wits; but his prestige gradually failed, play went against him, liabilities increased, and creditors were clamorous. He put a bold face on his ugly position, and was never more brilliant or at his ease than the last night he appeared at the Opera,—one Saturday night, when, with the Sunday before him, he had determined to fly leisurely to the Continent, and leave his creditors to regret their confidence in him.
He was eloquent that night with an anecdote having reference to Weston, the famous tailor of Bond-street. “That fellow Weston,” said Brummell, “is an inimitable fellow,—a little defective perhaps in his ‘linings,’ but irreproachable for principle and button-holes. He came to London, Sir, without a shilling; and he counts more realized thousands than our fat friend does ‘frogs’ on his Brandenburg. He is not only rich, but brave; not only brave, but courteous; and not alone courteous, but candid. The other day he was coming up from some d—d place on the coast, by that thing, the—the—stage-coach.” (It was Brummell’s boast,—not a true one, as it was with the last Marquis of Bath, who died full of years,—that he had never ridden by a “public” conveyance of any kind, whether by sea or land.) But to resume: “There were two women in the coach,” said Brummell, “two deucedly pretty women, and an over-dressed fellow, who was of course an ass; and who was so over-civil to the prettier of the two, that the persecuted creature appealed to quiet little Weston for protection. Weston, Sir, talked to the fellow with an aplomb that would have done honour to either of my friends the Lord Primate or the Lord Chancellor. The brute,—not the tailor, but the ‘gentleman,’—was deaf to remonstrance, and ruder than ever. Thereupon, Weston, without losing his self-possession, stopped the coach, dragged the astonished fellow out, explained to the outside passengers the state of the case, and found his challenge to fight received with acclamations by everybody but his designated opponent. He compelled his unwilling adversary, however, to stand upon the defensive, and a most terrible thrashing he gave him. But his coup de grâce, Sir,” said Brummell, “was the most finished thing I ever heard of. Weston, Sir, picked him up from the ground, held him at arm’s length, and in a cruel loud voice exclaimed to him, ‘Now, Sir, it may be a pleasure to you and to your friends, to know that you have not only been well licked, but you have been licked by a tailor! ’
“From this time forth,” continued Brummell, after the generally excited laugh had subsided, “I shall religiously pay my tailors’ bills. The act of Weston has heroified the profession.”
Alas! poor fallen potentate! he could not have paid his share of the table d’hôte, had he sat down at that at which Candide encountered half-a-dozen dethroned kings in Venice. A few hours after he was an Adullamite in Calais, warming the poor palette afterwards to be occupied by Romeo Coates.
Some half-century to come, the grandson of Mr. Millais perhaps may limn the scene when George IV., on his Hanover trip, suddenly observing at Calais his ex-friend making his way, pale and serious, through the crowd, sank back in his carriage with a “Good God,—Brummell!” and almost fainted at the recognition.
During fourteen years did the fallen dandy impatiently support his exile, and very patiently endure the disgrace of living on the charity of his friends and on that of compassionate and, too often, insulted acquaintances. He abused the fare set before him with delicate courtesy, and ridiculed the hosts who had gone to some expense to make his misery tolerable. He never learned modesty; never had a heart; not even one made out of brains, as in the case of Fontenelle. In his fallen state he annoyed his hearers with repetitions of abuse, levied against those he had known in the period of his spangled vanity. He was particularly bitter against the Duke of Clarence, whom he described as “a man who did very well to wear a cocked hat and walk about the quarter-deck crying ‘luff!’” and who was so rough and uncivilized, according to the narrator, that the latter was compelled to “cut” him!
Destitute, idle, and in debt, his position at Calais was one that would have appalled any honest and industrious man. It simply annoyed our hero, because he was no longer imperious master. His impudence however did not forsake him, but his independence did; and when he accepted the consulship at Caen, with its poor £80 per annum set apart to provide for his necessities, the remainder to be devoted to the liquidation of his Calais debts, he was as much a pensioned slave as the veriest lacquey could be.
His pride was wounded, but his arrogance flourished. This too was shaken when the consulship was suppressed; and pride and arrogance were crushed when his friends had died off, contributions ceased, debts increased, and the solid door of the gloomiest of prisons stood barred and locked between him and the world.
Retributive justice fell upon this splendidly-useless human being. He had been proud of two things, his extreme refinement and his mental qualifications. He was terribly smitten in both directions. After his release from prison he fell into the tender keeping of the Sisters of Charity of the “Bon Sauveur” at Caen. He was an abject pauper, and worse. His infirmities were of that sort at which a nice and healthy nature is repelled; and he who had detected vulgarity in the odour of a rose became, in his degraded hours, ere death relieved him, offensive to a degree that turned sick and disgusted the charity of all but of the Sisters who nursed him.