[8] M. de Grammont visited England during the Protectorate. His second visit, after being forbidden the court by Louis XIV., was in 1662.
[9] The Earl of Dorset married Elizabeth, widow of Charles Berkeley, Earl of Falmouth, and daughter of Hervey Bagot, Esq., of Pipe Hall, Warwickshire, who died without issue. He married, 7th March, 1684-5, Lady Mary Compton, daughter of James Earl of Northampton.
[10] Lord Rochester succeeded to the Earldom in 1659. It was created by Charles II. in 1652, at Paris.
[11] Mr. William Thomas, the writer of this statement, heard it from Dr. Radcliffe at the table of Speaker Harley, (afterwards Earl of Oxford,) 16th June, 1702.
[12] See De Grammont's Memoirs.
BEAU FIELDING.
On Wits and Beaux.—Scotland Yard in Charles II.'s day.—Orlando of 'The Tatler.'—Beau Fielding, Justice of the Peace.—Adonis in Search of a Wife.—The Sham Widow.—Ways and Means.—Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine.—Quarrels with the King.—The Beau's Second Marriage.—The Last Days of Fops and Beaux.
Let us be wise, boys, here's a fool coming, said a sensible man, when he saw Beau Nash's splendid carriage draw up to the door. Is a beau a fool? Is a sharper a fool? Was Bonaparte a fool? If you reply 'no' to the last two questions, you must give the same answer to the first. A beau is a fox, but not a fool—a very clever fellow, who, knowing the weakness of his brothers and sisters in the world, takes advantage of it to make himself a fame and a fortune. Nash, the son of a glass-merchant—Brummell, the hopeful of a small shopkeeper—became the intimates of princes, dukes, and fashionables; were petty kings of Vanity Fair, and were honoured by their subjects. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king; in the realm of folly, the sharper is a monarch. The only proviso is, that the cheat come not within the jurisdiction of the law. Such a cheat is the beau or dandy, or fine gentleman, who imposes on his public by his clothes and appearance. Bonâ-fide monarchs have done as much: Louis XIV. won himself the title of Le Grand Monarque by his manners, his dress, and his vanity. Fielding, Nash, and Brummell did nothing more. It is not a question whether such roads to eminence be contemptible or not, but whether their adoption in one station of life be more so than in another. Was Brummell a whit more contemptible than 'Wales?' Or is John Thomas, the pride and glory of the 'Domestics' Free-and-Easy,' whose whiskers, figure, face, and manner are all superb, one atom more ridiculous than your recognized beau? I trow not. What right, then, has your beau to a place among wits? I fancy Chesterfield would be much disgusted at seeing his name side by side with that of Nash in this volume; yet Chesterfield had no objection, when at Bath, to do homage to the king of that city, and may have prided himself on exchanging pinches from diamond-set snuff-boxes with that superb gold-laced dignitary in the Pump-room. Certainly, people who thought little of Philip Dormer Stanhope, thought a great deal of the glass-merchant's reprobate son when he was in power, and submitted without a murmur to his impertinences. The fact is, that the beaux and the wits are more intimately connected than the latter would care to own: the wits have all been, or aspired to be, beaux, and beaux have had their fair share of wit; both lived for the same purpose—to shine in society: both used the same means—coats and bon-mots. The only distinction is, that the garments of the beaux were better, and their sayings not so good as those of the wits; while the conversation of the wits was better, and their apparel not so striking as those of the beaux. So, my Lord Chesterfield, who prided yourself quite as much on being a fine gentleman as on being a fine wit, you cannot complain at your proximity to Mr. Nash and others who were fine gentlemen, and would have been fine wits if they could.