[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 30,000l. 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.