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diff --git a/1859.txt b/1859.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d7e374 --- /dev/null +++ b/1859.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3515 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Max Beerbohm, by Max Beerbohm + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Max Beerbohm + +Author: Max Beerbohm + +Commentator: John Lane + +Posting Date: November 20, 2008 [EBook #1859] +Release Date: August, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM *** + + + + +Produced by Tom Weiss and G. Banks + + + + + +THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM + +by Max Beerbohm + + +With a Bibliography by John Lane + + + +Original Transcriber's Note: + +I have transliterated the Greek passages. Here are some approximate +translations: + +--philomathestatoi ton neaniskon: some of the youths most eager for +knowledge + +--Nepios: childish + +--hexeis apodeiktikai: things that can be proven (Aristotle, Nic. +Ethics) + +--eidolon amauron: shadowy phantom (phrase used by Homer in The Odyssey +to describe the specter Athena sends to comfort Penelope) + +--all' aiei: but always + +--tina phota megan kai kalon edegmen: I received some great and +beautiful light + + + + + 'Amid all he has here already achieved, full, we may + think, of the quiet assurance of what is to come, + his attitude is still that of the scholar; he + seems still to be saying, before all + things, from first to last, "I + am utterly purposed + that I will not + offend."' + + + +CONTENTS + + Dandies and Dandies + A Good Prince + 1880 + King George the Fourth + The Pervasion of Rouge + Poor Romeo! + Diminuendo + Bibliography + + + + +Dandies and Dandies + +How very delightful Grego's drawings are! For all their mad perspective +and crude colour, they have indeed the sentiment of style, and they +reveal, with surer delicacy than does any other record, the spirit of +Mr. Brummell's day. Grego guides me, as Virgil Dante, through all +the mysteries of that other world. He shows me those stiff-necked, +over-hatted, wasp-waisted gentlemen, drinking Burgundy in the Cafe des +Milles Colonnes or riding through the village of Newmarket upon their +fat cobs or gambling at Crockford's. Grego's Green Room of the Opera +House always delights me. The formal way in which Mdlle. Mercandotti is +standing upon one leg for the pleasure of Lord Fife and Mr. Ball Hughes; +the grave regard directed by Lord Petersham towards that pretty little +maid-a-mischief who is risking her rouge beneath the chandelier; the +unbridled decorum of Mdlle. Hullin and the decorous debauchery of Prince +Esterhazy in the distance, make altogether a quite enchanting picture. +But, of the whole series, the most illuminative picture is certainly the +Ball at Almack's. In the foreground stand two little figures, beneath +whom, on the nether margin, are inscribed those splendid words, Beau +Brummell in Deep Conversation with the Duchess of Rutland. The Duchess +is a girl in pink, with a great wedge-comb erect among her ringlets, the +Beau tres degage, his head averse, his chin most supercilious upon his +stock, one foot advanced, the gloved fingers of one hand caught lightly +in his waistcoat; in fact, the very deuce of a pose. + +In this, as in all known images of the Beau, we are struck by the utter +simplicity of his attire. The 'countless rings' affected by D'Orsay, the +many little golden chains, 'every one of them slighter than a cobweb,' +that Disraeli loved to insinuate from one pocket to another of his vest, +would have seemed vulgar to Mr. Brummell. For is it not to his fine +scorn of accessories that we may trace that first aim of modern +dandyism, the production of the supreme effect through means the +least extravagant? In certain congruities of dark cloth, in the rigid +perfection of his linen, in the symmetry of his glove with his hand, lay +the secret of Mr. Brummell's miracles. He was ever most economical, most +scrupulous of means. Treatment was everything with him. Even foolish +Grace and foolish Philip Wharton, in their book about the beaux and +wits of this period, speak of his dressing-room as 'a studio in which +he daily composed that elaborate portrait of himself which was to be +exhibited for a few hours in the clubrooms of the town.' Mr. Brummell +was, indeed, in the utmost sense of the word, an artist. No poet nor +cook nor sculptor, ever bore that title more worthily than he. + +And really, outside his art, Mr. Brummell had a personality of almost +Balzacian insignificance. There have been dandies, like D'Orsay, who +were nearly painters; painters, like Mr. Whistler, who wished to be +dandies; dandies, like Disraeli, who afterwards followed some less +arduous calling. I fancy Mr. Brummell was a dandy, nothing but a dandy, +from his cradle to that fearful day when he lost his figure and had to +flee the country, even to that distant day when he died, a broken exile, +in the arms of two religieuses. At Eton, no boy was so successful as +he in avoiding that strict alternative of study and athletics which +we force upon our youth. He once terrified a master, named Parker, +by asserting that he thought cricket 'foolish.' Another time, after +listening to a reprimand from the headmaster, he twitted that learned +man with the asymmetry of his neckcloth. Even in Oriel he could see +little charm, and was glad to leave it, at the end of his first year, +for a commission in the Tenth Hussars. Crack though the regiment +was--indeed, all the commissions were granted by the Regent +himself--young Mr. Brummell could not bear to see all his +brother-officers in clothes exactly like his own; was quite as deeply +annoyed as would be some god, suddenly entering a restaurant of many +mirrors. One day, he rode upon parade in a pale blue tunic, with +silver epaulettes. The Colonel, apologising for the narrow system which +compelled him to so painful a duty, asked him to leave the parade. The +Beau saluted, trotted back to quarters and, that afternoon, sent in his +papers. Henceforth he lived freely as a fop, in his maturity, should. + +His debut in the town was brilliant and delightful. Tales of his +elegance had won for him there a precedent fame. He was reputed rich. +It was known that the Regent desired his acquaintance. And thus, Fortune +speeding the wheels of his cabriolet and Fashion running to meet him +with smiles and roses in St. James's, he might well, had he been worldly +or a weakling, have yielded his soul to the polite follies. But he +passed them by. Once he was settled in his suite, he never really +strayed from his toilet-table, save for a few brief hours. Thrice every +day of the year did he dress, and three hours were the average of his +every toilet, and other hours were spent in council with the cutter of +his coats or with the custodian of his wardrobe. A single, devoted life! +To Whites, to routs, to races, he went, it is true, not reluctantly. He +was known to have played battledore and shuttlecock in a moonlit garden +with Mr. Previte and some other gentlemen. His elopement with a young +Countess from a ball at Lady Jersey's was quite notorious. It was even +whispered that he once, in the company of some friends, made as though +he would wrench the knocker off the door of some shop. But these things +he did, not, most certainly, for any exuberant love of life. Rather did +he regard them as healthful exercise of the body and a charm against +that dreaded corpulency which, in the end, caused his downfall. Some +recreation from his work even the most strenuous artist must have; and +Mr. Brummell naturally sought his in that exalted sphere whose modish +elegance accorded best with his temperament, the sphere of le plus beau +monde. General Bucknall used to growl, from the window of the Guards' +Club, that such a fellow was only fit to associate with tailors. But +that was an old soldier's fallacy. The proper associates of an artist +are they who practise his own art rather than they who--however +honourably--do but cater for its practice. For the rest, I am sure that +Mr. Brummell was no lackey, as they have suggested. He wished merely to +be seen by those who were best qualified to appreciate the splendour of +his achievements. Shall not the painter show his work in galleries, the +poet flit down Paternoster Row? Of rank, for its own sake, Mr. Brummell +had no love. He patronised all his patrons. Even to the Regent his +attitude was always that of a master in an art to one who is sincerely +willing and anxious to learn from him. + +Indeed, English society is always ruled by a dandy, and the more +absolutely ruled the greater that dandy be. For dandyism, the perfect +flower of outward elegance, is the ideal it is always striving to +realise in its own rather incoherent way. But there is no reason why +dandyism should be confused, as it has been by nearly all writers, with +mere social life. Its contact with social life is, indeed, but one of +the accidents of an art. Its influence, like the scent of a flower, is +diffused unconsciously. It has its own aims and laws, and knows none +other. And the only person who ever fully acknowledged this truth +in aesthetics is, of all persons most unlikely, the author of Sartor +Resartus. That any one who dressed so very badly as did Thomas Carlyle +should have tried to construct a philosophy of clothes has always seemed +to me one of the most pathetic things in literature. He in the Temple +of Vestments! Why sought he to intrude, another Clodius, upon those +mysteries and light his pipe from those ardent censers? What were his +hobnails that they should mar the pavement of that delicate Temple? Yet, +for that he betrayed one secret rightly heard there, will I pardon his +sacrilege. 'A dandy,' he cried through the mask of Teufelsdroeck, 'is a +clothes-wearing man, a man whose trade, office, and existence consists +in the wearing of clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, +and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of +clothes wisely and well.' Those are true words. They are, perhaps, the +only true words in Sartor Resartus. And I speak with some authority. +For I found the key to that empty book, long ago, in the lock of the +author's empty wardrobe. His hat, that is still preserved in Chelsea, +formed an important clue. + +But (behold!) as we repeat the true words of Teufelsdroeck, there comes +Monsieur Barbey D'Aurevilly, that gentle moqueur, drawling, with a wave +of his hand, 'Les esprits qui ne voient pas les choses que par leur plus +petit cote, ont imagine que le Dandysme etait surtout l'art de la mise, +une heureuse et audacieuse dictature en fait de toilette et d'elegance +exterieure. Tres-certainement c'est cela aussi, mais c'est bien +d'avantage. Le Dandysme est toute une maniere d'etre et l'on n'est +pas que par la cote materiellement visible. C'est une maniere d'etre +entierement composee de nuances, comme il arrive toujours dans les +societes tres-vieilles et tres-civilisees.' It is a pleasure to argue +with so suave a subtlist, and we say to him that this comprehensive +definition does not please us. We say we think he errs. + +Not that Monsieur's analysis of the dandiacal mind is worthless by any +means. Nor, when he declares that George Brummell was the supreme king +of the dandies and fut le dandysme meme, can I but piously lay one +hand upon the brim of my hat, the other upon my heart. But it is as an +artist, and for his supremacy in the art of costume, and for all he did +to gain the recognition of costume as in itself an art, and for that +superb taste and subtle simplicity of mode whereby he was able to expel, +at length, the Byzantine spirit of exuberance which had possessed St. +James's and wherefore he is justly called the Father of Modern Costume, +that I do most deeply revere him. It is not a little strange that +Monsieur D'Aurevilly, the biographer who, in many ways, does seem most +perfectly to have understood Mr. Brummell, should belittle to a mere +phase that which was indeed the very core of his existence. To analyse +the temperament of a great artist and then to declare that his art was +but a part--a little part--of his temperament, is a foolish proceeding. +It is as though a man should say that he finds, on analysis, that +gunpowder is composed of potassium chloride (let me say), nitrate +and power of explosion. Dandyism is ever the outcome of a carefully +cultivated temperament, not part of the temperament itself. That maniere +d'etre, entierement composee de nuances, was not more, as the writer +seems to have supposed, than attributory to Mr. Brummell's art. Nor is +it even peculiar to dandies. All delicate spirits, to whatever art they +turn, even if they turn to no art, assume an oblique attitude towards +life. Of all dandies, Mr. Brummell did most steadfastly maintain this +attitude. Like the single-minded artist that he was, he turned full and +square towards his art and looked life straight in the face out of the +corners of his eyes. + +It is not hard to see how, in the effort to give Mr. Brummell his due +place in history, Monsieur D'Aurevilly came to grief. It is but strange +that he should have fallen into a rather obvious trap. Surely he should +have perceived that, so long as Civilisation compels her children to +wear clothes, the thoughtless multitude will never acknowledge dandyism +to be an art. If considerations of modesty or hygiene compelled every +one to stain canvas or chip marble every morning, painting and sculpture +would in like manner be despised. Now, as these considerations do compel +every one to envelop himself in things made of cloth and linen, this +common duty is confounded with that fair procedure, elaborate of many +thoughts, in whose accord the fop accomplishes his toilet, each morning +afresh, Aurora speeding on to gild his mirror. Not until nudity be +popular will the art of costume be really acknowledged. Nor even then +will it be approved. Communities are ever jealous (quite naturally) of +the artist who works for his own pleasure, not for theirs--more jealous +by far of him whose energy is spent only upon the glorification of +himself alone. Carlyle speaks of dandyism as a survival of 'the primeval +superstition, self-worship.' 'La vanite,' are almost the first words of +Monsieur D'Aurevilly, 'c'est un sentiment contre lequel tout le monde +est impitoyable.' Few remember that the dandy's vanity is far different +from the crude conceit of the merely handsome man. Dandyism is, after +all, one of the decorative arts. A fine ground to work upon is its first +postulate. And the dandy cares for his physical endowments only in so +far as they are susceptible of fine results. They are just so much to +him as to the decorative artist is inilluminate parchment, the form of a +white vase or the surface of a wall where frescoes shall be. + +Consider the words of Count D'Orsay, spoken on the eve of some duel, 'We +are not fairly matched. If I were to wound him in the face it would not +matter; but if he were to wound me, ce serait vraiment dommage!' There +we have a pure example of a dandy's peculiar vanity--'It would be a real +pity!' They say that D'Orsay killed his man--no matter whom--in this +duel. He never should have gone out. Beau Brummell never risked his +dandyhood in these mean encounters. But D'Orsay was a wayward, excessive +creature, too fond of life and other follies to achieve real greatness. +The power of his predecessor, the Father of Modern Costume, is over us +yet. All that is left of D'Orsay's art is a waistcoat and a handful of +rings--vain relics of no more value for us than the fiddle of Paganini +or the mask of Menischus! I think that in Carolo's painting of him, we +can see the strength, that was the weakness, of le jeune Cupidon. His +fingers are closed upon his cane as upon a sword. There is mockery in +the inconstant eyes. And the lips, so used to close upon the wine-cup, +in laughter so often parted, they do not seem immobile, even now. Sad +that one so prodigally endowed as he was, with the three essentials of +a dandy--physical distinction, a sense of beauty and wealth or, if you +prefer the term, credit--should not have done greater things. Much of +his costume was merely showy or eccentric, without the rotund unity +of the perfect fop's. It had been well had he lacked that dash and +spontaneous gallantry that make him cut, it may be, a more attractive +figure than Beau Brummell. The youth of St. James's gave him a wonderful +welcome. The flight of Mr. Brummell had left them as sheep without a +shepherd. They had even cried out against the inscrutable decrees +of fashion and curtailed the height of their stocks. And (lo!) here, +ambling down the Mall with tasselled cane, laughing in the window at +Whites or in Fop's Alley posturing, here, with the devil in his eyes +and all the graces at his elbow, was D'Orsay, the prince paramount who +should dominate London and should guard life from monotony by the daring +of his whims. He accepted so many engagements that he often dressed very +quickly both in the morning and at nightfall. His brilliant genius would +sometimes enable him to appear faultless, but at other times not even +his fine figure could quite dispel the shadow of a toilet too hastily +conceived. Before long he took that fatal step, his marriage with Lady +Harriet Gardiner. The marriage, as we all know, was not a happy one, +though the wedding was very pretty. It ruined the life of Lady Harriet +and of her mother, the Blessington. It won the poor Count further still +further from his art and sent him spinning here, there, and everywhere. +He was continually at Cleveden, or Belvoir, or Welbeck, laughing gaily +as he brought down our English partridges, or at Crockford's, smiling +as he swept up our English guineas from the board. Holker declares +that, excepting Mr. Turner, he was the finest equestrian in London and +describes how the mob would gather every morning round his door to see +him descend, insolent from his toilet, and mount and ride away. Indeed, +he surpassed us all in all the exercises of the body. He even essayed +preeminence in the arts (as if his own art were insufficient to his +vitality!) and was for ever penning impenuous verses for circulation +among his friends. There was no great harm in this, perhaps. Even the +handwriting of Mr. Brummell was not unknown in the albums. But D'Orsay's +painting of portraits is inexcusable. The aesthetic vision of a +dandy should be bounded by his own mirror. A few crayon sketches of +himself--dilectissimae imagines--are as much as he should ever do. That +D'Orsay's portraits, even his much-approved portrait of the Duke of +Wellington, are quite amateurish, is no excuse. It is the process +of painting which is repellent; to force from little tubes of lead a +glutinous flamboyance and to defile, with the hair of a camel therein +steeped, taut canvas, is hardly the diversion for a gentleman; and to +have done all this for a man who was admittedly a field-marshal.... + +I have often thought that this selfish concentration, which is a part +of dandyism, is also a symbol of that einsamkeit felt in greater or less +degree by the practitioners of every art. But, curiously enough, the +very unity of his mind with the ground he works on exposes the dandy to +the influence of the world. In one way dandyism is the least selfish +of all the arts. Musicians are seen and, except for a price, not heard. +Only for a price may you read what poets have written. All painters +are not so generous as Mr. Watts. But the dandy presents himself to the +nation whenever he sallies from his front door. Princes and peasants +alike may gaze upon his masterpieces. Now, any art which is pursued +directly under the eye of the public is always far more amenable +to fashion than is an art with which the public is but vicariously +concerned. Those standards to which artists have gradually accustomed it +the public will not see lightly set at naught. Very rigid, for example, +are the traditions of the theatre. If my brother were to declaim his +lines at the Haymarket in the florotund manner of Macready, what a row +there would be in the gallery! It is only by the impalpable process of +evolution that change comes to the theatre. Likewise in the sphere +of costume no swift rebellion can succeed, as was exemplified by the +Princes effort to revive knee-breeches. Had his Royal Highness elected, +in his wisdom, to wear tight trousers strapped under his boots, +'smalls' might, in their turn, have reappeared, and at length--who +knows?--knee-breeches. It is only by the trifling addition or +elimination, modification or extension, made by this or that dandy and +copied by the rest, that the mode proceeds. The young dandy will find +certain laws to which he must conform. If he outrage them he will be +hooted by the urchins of the street, not unjustly, for he will have +outraged the slowly constructed laws of artists who have preceded him. +Let him reflect that fashion is no bondage imposed by alien hands, but +the last wisdom of his own kind, and that true dandyism is the result of +an artistic temperament working upon a fine body within the wide limits +of fashion. Through this habit of conformity, which it inculcates, the +army has given us nearly all our finest dandies, from Alcibiades to +Colonel Br*b*z*n de nos jours. Even Mr. Brummell, though he defied his +Colonel, must have owed some of his success to the military spirit. Any +parent intending his son to be a dandy will do well to send him first +into the army, there to learn humility, as did his archetype, Apollo, in +the house of Admetus. A sojourn at one of the Public Schools is also to +be commended. The University it were well to avoid. + +Of course, the dandy, like any other artist, has moments when his own +period, palling, inclines him to antique modes. A fellow-student once +told me that, after a long vacation spent in touch with modern life, he +had hammered at the little gate of Merton and felt of a sudden his hat +assume plumes and an expansive curl, the impress of a ruff about his +neck, the dangle of a cloak and a sword. I, too, have my Eliza-bethan, +my Caroline moments. I have gone to bed Georgian and awoken Early +Victorian. Even savagery has charmed me. And at such times I have often +wished I could find in my wardrobe suitable costumes. But these modish +regrets are sterile, after all, and comprimend. What boots it to defy +the conventions of our time? The dandy is the 'child of his age,' +and his best work must be produced in accord with the ages natural +influence. The true dandy must always love contemporary costume. In this +age, as in all precedent ages, it is only the tasteless who cavil, being +impotent to win from it fair results. How futile their voices are! +The costume of the nineteenth century, as shadowed for us first by +Mr. Brummell, so quiet, so reasonable, and, I say emphatically, so +beautiful; free from folly or affectation, yet susceptible to exquisite +ordering; plastic, austere, economical, may not be ignored. I spoke of +the doom of swift rebellions, but I doubt even if any soever gradual +evolution will lead us astray from the general precepts of Mr. +Brummell's code. At every step in the progress of democracy those +precepts will be strengthened. Every day their fashion is more secure, +corroborate. They are acknowledged by the world. The barbarous costumes +that in bygone days were designed by class-hatred, or hatred of race, +are dying, very surely dying. The costermonger with his pearl-emblazoned +coat has been driven even from that Variety Stage, whereon he sought +a desperate sanctuary. The clinquant corslet of the Swiss girl just +survives at bals costumes. I am told that the kilt is now confined +entirely to certain of the soldiery and to a small cult of Scotch +Archaicists. I have seen men flock from the boulevards of one capital +and from the avenues of another to be clad in Conduit Street. Even +into Oxford, that curious little city, where nothing is ever born nor +anything ever quite dies, the force of the movement has penetrated, +insomuch that tasselled cap and gown of degree are rarely seen in the +streets or colleges. In a place which was until recent times scarcely +less remote, Japan, the white and scarlet gardens are trod by men who +are shod in boots like our own, who walk--rather strangely still--in +close-cut cloth of little colour, and stop each other from time to time, +laughing to show how that they too can furl an umbrella after the manner +of real Europeans. + +It is very nice, this universal acquiescence in the dress we have +designed, but, if we reflect, not wonderful. There are three apparent +reasons, and one of them is aesthetic. So to clothe the body that its +fineness be revealed and its meanness veiled has been the aesthetic aim +of all costume, but before our time the mean had never been struck. The +ancient Romans went too far. Muffled in the ponderous folds of a toga, +Adonis might pass for Punchinello, Punchinello for Adonis. The ancient +Britons, on the other hand, did not go far enough. And so it had been in +all ages down to that bright morning when Mr. Brummell, at his mirror, +conceived the notion of trousers and simple coats. Clad according to his +convention, the limbs of the weakling escape contempt, and the athlete +is unobtrusive, and all is well. But there is also a social reason for +the triumph of our costume--the reason of economy. That austerity, which +has rejected from its toilet silk and velvet and all but a few jewels, +has made more ample the wardrobes of Dives, and sent forth Irus nicely +dressed among his fellows. And lastly there is a reason of psychology, +most potent of all, perhaps. Is not the costume of today, with its +subtlety and sombre restraint, its quiet congruities of black and white +and grey, supremely apt a medium for the expression of modern emotion +and modern thought? That aptness, even alone, would explain its +triumph. Let us be glad that we have so easy, yet so delicate, a mode of +expression. + +Yes! costume, dandiacal or not, is in the highest degree expressive, +nor is there any type it may not express. It enables us to classify any +'professional man' at a glance, be he lawyer, leech or what not. Still +more swift and obvious is its revelation of the work and the soul of +those who dress, whether naturally or for effect, without reference to +convention. The bowler of Mr. Jerome K. Jerome is a perfect preface +to all his works. The silk hat of Mr. Whistler is a real nocturne, his +linen a symphony en blanc majeur. To have seen Mr. Hall Caine is to have +read his soul. His flowing, formless cloak is as one of his own novels, +twenty-five editions latent in the folds of it. Melodrama crouches upon +the brim of his sombrero. His tie is a Publisher's Announcement. His +boots are Copyright. In his hand he holds the staff of The Family +Herald. + +But the dandy, in no wise violating the laws of fashion, can make more +subtle symbols of his personality. More subtle these symbols are for +the very reason that they are effected within the restrictions which are +essential to an art. Chastened of all flamboyance, they are from most +men occult, obvious, it may be, only to other artists or even only to +him they symbolise. Nor will the dandy express merely a crude idea of +his personality, as does, for example, Mr. Hall Caine, dressing himself +always and exactly after one pattern. Every day as his mood has changed +since his last toilet, he will vary the colour, texture, form of his +costume. Fashion does not rob him of free will. It leaves him liberty of +all expression. Every day there is not one accessory, from the butterfly +that alights above his shirt front to the jewels planted in his linen, +that will not symbolise the mood that is in him or the occasion of the +coming day. + +On this, the psychological side of foppery, I know not one so expert as +him whom, not greatly caring for contemporary names, I will call Mr. Le +V. No hero-worshipper am I, but I cannot write without enthusiasm of +his simple life. He has not spurred his mind to the quest of shadows +nor vexed his soul in the worship of any gods. No woman has wounded +his heart, though he has gazed gallantly into the eyes of many women, +intent, I fancy, upon his own miniature there. Nor is the incomparable +set of his trousers spoilt by the perching of any dear little child upon +his knee. And so, now that he is stricken with seventy years, he knows +none of the bitterness of eld, for his toilet-table is an imperishable +altar, his wardrobe a quiet nursery and very constant harem. Mr. Le V. +has many disciples, young men who look to him for guidance in all that +concerns costume, and each morning come, themselves tentatively clad, to +watch the perfect procedure of his toilet and learn invaluable lessons. +I myself, a lie-a-bed, often steal out, foregoing the best hours of the +day abed, that I may attend that levee. The rooms of the Master are in +St. James's Street, and perhaps it were well that I should give some +little record of them and of the manner of their use. In the first room +the Master sleeps. He is called by one of his valets, at seven o'clock, +to the second room, where he bathes, is shampooed, is manicured and, at +length, is enveloped in a dressing-gown of white wool. In the third +room is his breakfast upon a little table and his letters and some +newspapers. Leisurely he sips his chocolate, leisurely learns all that +need be known. With a cigarette he allows his temper, as informed by +the news and the weather and what not, to develop itself for the day. +At length, his mood suggests, imperceptibly, what colour, what form of +clothes he shall wear. He rings for his valet--'I will wear such and +such a coat, such and such a tie; my trousers shall be of this or that +tone; this or that jewel shall be radiant in the folds of my tie.' It is +generally near noon that he reaches the fourth room, the dressing-room. +The uninitiate can hardly realise how impressive is the ceremonial there +enacted. As I write, I can see, in memory, the whole scene--the room, +severely simple, with its lemon walls and deep wardrobes of white wood, +the young fops, philomathestatoi ton neaniskon, ranged upon a long +bench, rapt in wonder, and, in the middle, now sitting, now standing, +negligently, before a long mirror, with a valet at either elbow, Mr. Le +V., our cynosure. There is no haste, no faltering, when once the scheme +of the day's toilet has been set. It is a calm toilet. A flower does not +grow more calmly. + +Any of us, any day, may see the gracious figure of Mr. Le V., as he +saunters down the slope of St. James's. Long may the sun irradiate the +surface of his tilted hat! It is comfortable to know that, though he +die to-morrow the world will not lack a most elaborate record of his +foppery. All his life he has kept or, rather, the current valets +have kept for him, a Journal de Toilette. Of this there are now fifty +volumes, each covering the space of a year. Yes, fifty springs have +filled his button-hole with their violets; the snow of fifty winters has +been less white than his linen; his boots have outshone fifty sequences +of summer suns, and the colours of all those autumns have faded in the +dry light of his apparel. The first page of each volume of the Journal +de Toilette bears the signature of Mr. Le V. and of his two valets. Of +the other pages each is given up, as in other diaries, to one day of +the year. In ruled spaces are recorded there the cut and texture of the +suit, the colour of the tie, the form of jewellery that was worn on the +day the page records. No detail is omitted and a separate space is set +aside for 'Remarks.' I remember that I once asked Mr. Le V., half +in jest, what he should wear on the Judgment Day. Seriously, and (I +fancied) with a note of pathos in his voice, he said to me, 'Young man, +you ask me to lay bare my soul to you. If I had been a saint I should +certainly wear a light suit, with a white waistcoat and a flower, but I +am no saint, sir, no saint.... I shall probably wear black trousers or +trousers of some very dark blue, and a frock-coat, tightly buttoned.' +Poor old Mr. Le V.! I think he need not fear. If there be a heaven for +the soul, there must be other heavens also, where the intellect and the +body shall be consummate. In both these heavens Mr. Le V. will have his +hierarchy. Of a life like his there can be no conclusion, really. Did +not even Matthew Arnold admit that conduct of a cane is three-fourths of +life? + +Certainly Mr. Le V. is a great artist, and his supremacy is in the tact +with which he suits his toilet to his temperament. But the marvellous +affinity of a dandy's mood to his daily toilet is not merely that it +finds therein its perfect echo nor that it may even be, in reflex, +thereby accentuated or made less poignant. For some years I had felt +convinced that in a perfect dandy this affinity must reach a point, when +the costume itself, planned with the finest sensibility, would change +with the emotional changes of its wearer, automatically. But I felt that +here was one of those boundaries, where the fields of art align with the +fields of science, and I hardly dared to venture further. Moreover, +the theory was not easy to verify. I knew that, except in some great +emotional crisis, the costume could not palpably change its aspect. +Here was an impasse; for the perfect dandy--the Brummell, the Mr. Le +V.--cannot afford to indulge in any great emotion outside his art; like +Balzac, he has not time. The gods were good to me, however. One morning +near the end of last July, they decreed that I should pass through Half +Moon Street and meet there a friend who should ask me to go with him to +his club and watch for the results of the racing at Goodwood. This club +includes hardly any member who is not a devotee of the Turf, so that, +when we entered it, the cloak-room displayed long rows of unburdened +pegs--save where one hat shone. None but that illustrious dandy, Lord +X., wears quite so broad a brim as this hat had. I said that Lord X. +must be in the club. + +'I conceive he is too nervous to be on the course,' my friend replied. +'They say he has plunged up to the hilt on to-day's running.' + +His lordship was indeed there, fingering feverishly the sinuous ribands +of the tape-machine. I sat at a little distance, watching him. Two +results straggled forth within an hour, and, at the second of these, +I saw with wonder Lord X.'s linen actually flush for a moment and then +turn deadly pale. I looked again and saw that his boots had lost their +lustre. Drawing nearer, I found that grey hairs had begun to show +themselves in his raven coat. It was very painful and yet, to me, very +gratifying. In the cloak-room, when I went for my own hat and cane, +there was the hat with the broad brim, and (lo!) over its iron-blue +surface little furrows had been ploughed by Despair. + +Rouen, 1896. + + + + +A Good Prince + +I first saw him one morning of last summer, in the Green Park. Though +short, even insignificant, in stature and with an obvious tendency to be +obese, he had that unruffled, Olympian air, which is so sure a sign +of the Blood Royal. In a suit of white linen he looked serenely cool, +despite the heat. Perhaps I should have thought him, had I not been +versed in the Almanach de Gotha, a trifle older than he is. He did not +raise his hat in answer to my salute, but smiled most graciously and +made as though he would extend his hand to me, mistaking me, I doubt +not, for one of his friends. Forthwith, a member of his suite said +something to him in an undertone, whereat he smiled again and took no +further notice of me. + +I do not wonder the people idolise him. His almost blameless life has +been passed among them, nothing in it hidden from their knowledge. When +they look upon his dear presentment in the photographer's window--the +shrewd, kindly eyes under the high forehead, the sparse locks so +carefully distributed--words of loyalty only and of admiration rise to +their lips. For of all princes in modern days he seems to fulfil most +perfectly the obligation of princely rank. Nepios he might have been +called in the heroic age, when princes were judged according to their +mastery of the sword or of the bow, or have seemed, to those mediaeval +eyes that loved to see a scholar's pate under the crown, an ignoramus. +We are less exigent now. We do but ask of our princes that they should +live among us, be often manifest to our eyes, set a perpetual example of +a right life. We bid them be the ornaments of our State. Too often +they do not attain to our ideal. They give, it may be, a half-hearted +devotion to soldiering, or pursue pleasure merely--tales of their +frivolity raising now and again the anger of a public swift to envy them +their temptations. But against this admirable Prince no such charges can +be made. Never (as yet, at least) has he cared to 'play at soldiers.' +By no means has he shocked the Puritans. Though it is no secret that he +prefers the society of ladies, not one breath of scandal has ever tinged +his name. Of how many English princes could this be said, in days when +Figaro, quill in hand, inclines his ear to every key-hole? + +Upon the one action that were well obliterated from his record I need +not long insist. It seems that the wife of an aged ex-Premier came to +have an audience and pay her respects. Hardly had she spoken when the +Prince, in a fit of unreasoning displeasure, struck her a violent blow +with his clenched fist. Had His Royal Highness not always stood so far +aloof from political contention, it had been easier to find a motive for +this unmannerly blow. The incident is deplorable, but it belongs, +after all, to an earlier period of his life; and, were it not that no +appreciation must rest upon the suppression of any scandal, I should not +have referred to it. For the rest, I find no stain, soever faint, upon +his life. The simplicity of his tastes is the more admirable for that he +is known to care not at all for what may be reported in the newspapers. +He has never touched a card, never entered a play-house. In no stud of +racers has he indulged, preferring to the finest blood-horse ever bred a +certain white and woolly lamb with a blue riband to its neck. This he +is never tired of fondling. It is with him, like the roebuck of Henri +Quatre, wherever he goes. + +Suave and simple his life is! Narrow in range, it may be, but with every +royal appurtenance of delight, for to him Loves happy favours are given +and the tribute of glad homage, always, here and there and every other +where. Round the flower-garden at Sandringham runs an old wall of red +brick, streaked with ivy and topped infrequently with balls of stone. +By its iron gates, that open to a vista of flowers, stand two kind +policemen, guarding the Princes procedure along that bright vista. +As his perambulator rolls out of the gate of St. James's Palace, he +stretches out his tiny hands to the scarlet sentinels. An obsequious +retinue follows him over the lawns of the White Lodge, cooing and +laughing, blowing kisses and praising him. Yet do not imagine his life +has been all gaiety! The afflictions that befall royal personages always +touch very poignantly the heart of the people, and it is not too much to +say that all England watched by the cradle-side of Prince Edward in that +dolorous hour, when first the little battlements rose about the rose-red +roof of his mouth. I am glad to think that not one querulous word did +His Royal Highness, in his great agony, utter. They only say that his +loud, incessant cries bore testimony to the perfect lungs for which the +House of Hanover is most justly famed. Irreiterate be the horror of that +epoch! + +As yet, when we know not even what his first words will be, it is too +early to predict what verdict posterity will pass upon him. Already he +has won the hearts of the people; but, in the years which, it is to be +hoped, still await him, he may accomplish more. Attendons! He stands +alone among European princes--but, as yet, only with the aid of a chair. + +London, 1895. + + + + +1880 + + Say, shall these things be forgotten + In the Row that men call Rotten, + Beauty Clare?--Hamilton Aide. + +'History,' it has been said, 'does not repeat itself. The historians +repeat one another.' Now, there are still some periods with which no +historian has grappled, and, strangely enough, the period that most +greatly fascinates me is one of them. The labour I set myself is +therefore rather Herculean. But it is also, for me, so far a labour of +love that I can quite forget or even revel in its great difficulty. I +would love to have lived in those bygone days, when first society was +inducted into the mysteries of art and, not losing yet its old and +elegant tenue, babbled of blue china and white lilies, of the painter +Rossetti and the poet Swinburne. It would be a splendid thing to have +seen the tableaux at Cromwell House or to have made my way through the +Fancy Fair and bartered all for a cigarette from a shepherdess; to have +walked in the Park, straining my eyes for a glimpse of the Jersey +Lily; danced the livelong afternoon to the strains of the Manola Valse; +clapped holes in my gloves for Connie Gilchrist. + +It is a pity that the historians have held back so long. For this +period is now so remote from us that much in it is nearly impossible to +understand, more than a little must be left in the mists of antiquity +that involve it. The memoirs of the day are, indeed, many, but not +exactly illuminative. From such writers as Frith, Montague Williams or +the Bancrofts, you may gain but little peculiar knowledge. That quaint +old chronicler, Lucy, dilates amusingly enough upon the frown of Sir +Richard (afterwards Lord) Cross or the tea-rose in the Prime Minister's +button-hole. But what can he tell us of the negotiations that led +Gladstone back to public life or of the secret councils of the Fourth +Party, whereby Sir Stafford was gradually eclipsed? Good memoirs must +ever be the cumulation of gossip. Gossip (alas!) has been killed by the +Press. In the tavern or the barber's-shop, all secrets passed into every +ear. From newspapers how little can be culled! Manifestations are there +made manifest to us and we are taught, with tedious iteration, the +things we knew, and need not have known, before. In my research, I have +had only such poor guides as Punch, or the London Charivari and The +Queen, the Lady's Newspaper. Excavation, which in the East has been +productive of rich material for the archaeologist, was indeed suggested +to me. I was told that, just before Cleopatra's Needle was set upon the +Embankment, an iron box, containing a photograph of Mrs. Langtry, +some current coins and other trifles of the time, was dropped into the +foundation. I am sure much might be done with a spade, here and there, +in the neighbourhood of old Cromwell House. Accursed be the obduracy +of vestries! Be not I, but they, blamed for any error, obscurity or +omission in my brief excursus. + +The period of 1880 and of the two successive years should ever be +memorable, for it marks a great change in the constitution of English +society. It would seem that, under the quiet regime of the Tory Cabinet, +the upper ten thousand (as they were quaintly called in those days,) had +taken a somewhat more frigid tone. The Prince of Wales had inclined to +be restful after the revels of his youth. The prolonged seclusion +of Queen Victoria, who was then engaged upon that superb work of +introspection and self-analysis, More Leaves from the Highlands, had +begun to tell upon the social system. Balls and other festivities, both +at Court and in the houses of the nobles, were notably fewer. The vogue +of the Opera was passing. Even in the top of the season, Rotten Row, I +read, was not impenetrably crowded. But in 1880 came the tragic fall of +Disraeli and the triumph of the Whigs. How great a change came then +upon Westminster must be known to any one who has studied the annals of +Gladstones incomparable Parliament. Gladstone himself, with a monstrous +majority behind him, revelling in the old splendour of speech that not +seventy summers nor six years' sulking had made less; Parnell, deadly, +mysterious, with his crew of wordy peasants that were to set all Saxon +things at naught--the activity of these two men alone would have made +this Parliament supremely stimulating throughout the land. What of young +Randolph Churchill, who, despite his halting speech, foppish mien and +rather coarse fibre of mind, was yet the greatest Parliamentarian of his +day? What of Justin Huntly McCarthy, under his puerile mask a most dark, +most dangerous conspirator, who, lightly swinging the sacred lamp of +burlesque, irradiated with fearful clarity the wrath and sorrow of +Ireland? What of Blocker Warton? What of the eloquent atheist, Charles +Bradlaugh, pleading at the Bar, striding past the furious Tories to +the very Mace, hustled down the stone steps with the broadcloth torn in +ribands from his back? Surely such scenes will never more be witnessed +at St. Stephen's. Imagine the existence of God being made a party +question! No wonder that at a time of such turbulence fine society also +should have shown the primordia of a great change. It was felt that +the aristocracy could not live by good-breeding alone. The old delights +seemed vapid, waxen. Something vivid was desired. And so the sphere of +fashion converged with the sphere of art, and revolution was the result. + +Be it remembered that long before this time there had been in the heart +of Chelsea a kind of cult for Beauty. Certain artists had settled +there, deliberately refusing to work in the ordinary official way, and +'wrought,' as they were wont to asseverate, 'for the pleasure and sake +of all that is fair.' Little commerce had they with the brazen world. +Nothing but the light of the sun would they share with men. Quietly and +unbeknown, callous of all but their craft, they wrought their poems +or their pictures, gave them one to another, and wrought on. Meredith, +Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris, Holman Hunt were in this band of shy +artificers. In fact, Beauty had existed long before 1880. It was Mr. +Oscar Wilde who managed her debut. To study the period is to admit that +to him was due no small part of the social vogue that Beauty began to +enjoy. Fired by his fervid words, men and women hurled their mahogany +into the streets and ransacked the curio-shops for the furniture of +Annish days. Dados arose upon every wall, sunflowers and the feathers +of peacocks curved in every corner, tea grew quite cold while the guests +were praising the Willow Pattern of its cup. A few fashionable women +even dressed themselves in sinuous draperies and unheard-of greens. Into +whatsoever ballroom you went, you would surely find, among the women in +tiaras and the fops and the distinguished foreigners, half a score of +comely ragamuffins in velveteen, murmuring sonnets, posturing, waving +their hands. Beauty was sought in the most unlikely places. Young +painters found her mobled in the fogs, and bank-clerks, versed in the +writings of Mr. Hamerton, were heard to declare, as they sped home from +the City, that the Underground Railway was beautiful from London Bridge +to Westminster, but not from Sloane Square to Notting Hill Gate. + +Aestheticism (for so they named the movement,) did indeed permeate, in +a manner, all classes. But it was to the haut monde that its primary +appeal was made. The sacred emblems of Chelsea were sold in the +fashionable toy-shops, its reverently chanted creeds became the patter +of the boudoirs. The old Grosvenor Gallery, that stronghold of the few, +was verily invaded. Never was such a fusion of delightful folk as at its +Private Views. There was Robert Browning, the philosopher, doffing his +hat with a courtly sweep to more than one Duchess. There, too, was +Theo Marzials, poet and eccentric, and Charles Colnaghi, the hero of a +hundred tea-fights, and young Brookfield, the comedian, and many another +good fellow. My Lord of Dudley, the virtuoso, came there, leaning +for support upon the arm of his fair young wife. Disraeli, with his +lustreless eyes and face like some seamed Hebraic parchment, came also, +and whispered behind his hand to the faithful Corry. And Walter Sickert +spread the latest mot of 'the Master,' who, with monocle, cane and +tilted hat, flashed through the gay mob anon. + +Autrement, there was Coombe Wood, in whose shade the Lady Archibald +Campbell suffered more than one of Shakespeares plays to be enacted. +Hither, from the garish, indelicate theatre that held her languishing, +Thalia was bidden, if haply, under the open sky, she might resume her +old charm. All Fashion came to marvel and so did all the Aesthetes, in +the heart of one of whose leaders, Godwin, that superb architect, the +idea was first conceived. Real Pastoral Plays! Lest the invited guests +should get any noxious scent of the footlights across the grass, only +amateurs were accorded parts. They roved through a real wood, these +jerkined amateurs, with the poet's music upon their lips. Never under +such dark and griddled elms had the outlaws feasted upon their venison. +Never had any Rosalind traced with such shy wonder the writing of her +lover upon the bark, nor any Orlando won such laughter for his not +really sportive dalliance. Fairer than the mummers, it may be, were the +ladies who sat and watched them from the lawn. All of them wore jerseys +and tied-back skirts. Zulu hats shaded their eyes from the sun. Bangles +shimmered upon their wrists. And the gentlemen wore light frock-coats +and light top-hats with black bands. And the aesthetes were in +velveteen, carrying lilies. + +Not that Art and Fashion shunned the theatre. They began in 1880 to +affect it as never before. The one invaded Irving's premieres at the +Lyceum. The other sang paeans in praise of the Bancrofts. The French +plays, too, were the feigned delight of all the modish world. Not to +have seen Chaumont in Totot chez Tata was held a solecism. The homely +mesdames and messieurs from the Parisian boards were 'lionised' (how +strangely that phrase rings to modern ears!) in ducal drawing-rooms. +In fact, all the old prejudice of rank was being swept away. Even more +significant than the reception of players was a certain effort, made at +this time, to raise the average of aristocratic loveliness--an effort +that, but a few years before, would have been surely scouted as +quite undignified and outrageous. What the term 'Professional Beauty' +signified, how any lady gained a right to it, we do not and may never +know. It is certain, however, that there were many ladies of tone, upon +whom it was bestowed. They received special attention from the Prince of +Wales, and hostesses would move heaven and earth to have them in their +rooms. Their photographs were on sale in the window of every shop. +Crowds assembled every morning to see them start from Rotten Row. +Preeminent among Professional Beauties were Lady Lonsdale (afterwards +Lady de Grey), Mrs. Wheeler, who always 'appeared in black,' and Mrs. +Corowallis West, who was Amy Robsart in the tableaux at Cromwell House, +when Mrs. Langtry, cette Cleopatre de son siecle appeared also, stepping +across an artificial brook, in the pink kirtle of Effie Deans. We may +doubt whether the movement, represented by these ladies, was quite in +accord with the dignity and elegance that always should mark the best +society. Any effort to make Beauty compulsory robs Beauty of its chief +charm. But, at the same time, I do believe that this movement, so far as +it was informed by a real wish to raise a practical standard of feminine +charm for all classes, does not deserve the strictures that have been +passed upon it by posterity. One of its immediate sequels was the +incursion of American ladies into London. Then it was that these pretty +creatures, 'clad in Worth's most elegant confections,' drawled their way +through our greater portals. Fanned, as they were, by the feathers of +the Prince of Wales, they had a great success, and they were so strange +that their voices and their dresses were mimicked partout. The English +beauties were rather angry, especially with the Prince, whom alone they +blamed for the vogue of their rivals. History credits His Royal Highness +with many notable achievements. Not the least of these is that he +discovered the inhabitants of America. + +It will be seen that in this renaissance the keenest students of the +exquisite were women. Nevertheless, men were not idle, neither. Since +the day of Mr. Brummell and King George, the noble art of self-adornment +had fallen partially desuete. Great fops like Bulwer and le jeune +Cupidon had come upon the town, but never had they formed a school. +Dress, therefore, had become simpler, wardrobes smaller, fashions apt to +linger. In 1880 arose the sect that was soon to win for itself the title +of 'The Mashers.' What this title exactly signified I suppose no two +etymologists will ever agree. But we can learn clearly enough, from the +fashion-plates of the day, what the Mashers were in outward semblance; +from the lampoons, their mode of life. Unlike the dandies of +the Georgian era, they pretended to no classic taste and, wholly +contemptuous of the Aesthetes, recognised no art save the art of dress. +Much might be written about the Mashers. The restaurant--destined to be, +in after years, so salient a delight of London--was not known to them, +but they were often admirable upon the steps of clubs. The Lyceum held +them never, but nightly they gathered at the Gaiety Theatre. Nightly +the stalls were agog with small, sleek heads surmounting collars of +interminable height. Nightly, in the foyer, were lisped the praises of +Kate Vaughan, her graceful dancing, or of Nellie Farren, her matchless +fooling. Never a night passed but the dreary stage-door was cinct with a +circlet of fools bearing bright bouquets, of flaxen-headed fools who +had feet like black needles, and graceful fools incumbent upon canes. +A strange cult! I once knew a lady whose father was actually present at +the first night of 'The Forty Thieves,' and fell enamoured of one of the +coryphees. By such links is one age joined to another. + +There is always something rather absurd about the past. For us, who have +fared on, the silhouette of Error is sharp upon the past horizon. As +we look back upon any period, its fashions seem grotesque, its ideals +shallow, for we know how soon those ideals and those fashions were to +perish, and how rightly; nor can we feel a little of the fervour they +did inspire. It is easy to laugh at these Mashers, with their fantastic +raiment and languid lives, or at the strife of the Professional +Beauties. It is easy to laugh at all that ensued when first the mummers +and the stainers of canvas strayed into Mayfair. Yet shall I laugh? For +me the most romantic moment of a pantomime is always when the winged and +wired fairies begin to fade away, and, as they fade, clown and pantaloon +tumble on joppling and grimacing, seen very faintly in that indecisive +twilight. The social condition of 1880 fascinates me in the same way. +Its contrasts fascinate me. + +Perhaps, in my study of the period, I may have fallen so deeply beneath +its spell that I have tended, now and again, to overrate its real +import. I lay no claim to the true historical spirit. I fancy it was a +chalk drawing of a girl in a mob-cap, signed 'Frank Miles, 1880,' +that first impelled me to research. To give an accurate and exhaustive +account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine. +But I hope that, by dealing, even so briefly as I have dealt, with its +more strictly sentimental aspects, I may have lightened the task of the +scientific historian. And I look to Professor Gardiner and to the Bishop +of Oxford. + +'Cromwell House.' The residence of Lady Freake, a famous hostess of the +day and founder of a brilliant salon, 'where even Royalty was sure of a +welcome. The writer of a recent monograph declares that, 'many a modern +hostess would do well to emulate Lady Freake, not only in her taste for +the Beautiful in Art but also for the Intellectual in Conversation.' + +'Fancy Fair.' For a full account of this function, see pp. 102-124 of +the 'Annals of the Albert Hall.' + +'Jersey Lily.' A fanciful title bestowed, at this time, upon the +beautiful Mrs. Langtry, who was a native of Jersey Island. + +'Manola Valse.' Supposed to have been introduced by Albert Edward, +Prince of Wales, who, having heard it in Vienna, was pleased, for +a while, by its novelty, but soon reverted to the more sprightly +deux-temps. + +'Private Views.' This passage, which I found in a contemporary +chronicle, is so quaint and so instinct with the spirit of its time that +I am fain to quote it: + +'There were quaint, beautiful, extraordinary costumes walking +about--ultra-aesthetics, artistic-aesthetics, aesthetics that made +up their minds to be daring, and suddenly gave way in some important +point--put a frivolous bonnet on the top of a grave and flowing +garment that Albert Durer might have designed for a mantle. There were +fashionable costumes that Mrs. Mason or Madame Eliot might have turned +out that morning. The motley crowd mingled, forming into groups, +sometimes dazzling you by the array of colours that you never thought +to see in full daylight.... Canary-coloured garments flitted cheerily +by garments of the saddest green. A hat in an agony of pushes and angles +was seen in company with a bonnet that was a gay garland of flowers. A +vast cape that might have enshrouded the form of a Mater Dolorosa hung +by the side of a jauntily-striped Langtry-hood.' + +The 'Master.' By this title his disciples used to address James +Whistler, the author-artist. Without echoing the obloquy that was +lavished at first nor the praise that was lavished later upon his +pictures, we must admit that he was, as least, a great master of English +prose and a controversialist of no mean power. + +'Masher.' One authority derives the title, rather ingeniously, from 'Ma +Chere,' the mode of address used by the gilded youth to the barmaids of +the period--whence the corruption, 'Masher.' Another traces it to +the chorus of a song, which, at that time, had a great vogue in the +music-halls: 'I'm the slashing, dashing, mashing Montmorency of the +day.' This, in my opinion, is the safer suggestion, and may be adopted. + +London, 1894. + + + + +King George The Fourth + +They say that when King George was dying, a special form of prayer for +his recovery, composed by one of the Archbishops, was read aloud to him +and that His Majesty, after saying Amen 'thrice, with great fervour,' +begged that his thanks might be conveyed to its author. To the student +of royalty in modern times there is something rather suggestive in this +incident. I like to think of the drug-scented room at Windsor and of the +King, livid and immobile among his pillows, waiting, in superstitious +awe, for the near moment when he must stand, a spirit, in the presence +of a perpetual King. I like to think of him following the futile prayer +with eyes and lips, and then, custom resurgent in him and a touch of +pride that, so long as the blood moved ever so little in his veins, +he was still a king, expressing a desire that the dutiful feeling and +admirable taste of the Prelate should receive a suitable acknowledgment. +It would have been impossible for a real monarch like George, even after +the gout had turned his thoughts heavenward, really to abase himself +before his Maker. But he could, so to say, treat with Him, as he might +have treated with a fellow-sovereign, in a formal way, long after +diplomacy was quite useless. How strange it must be to be a king! How +delicate and difficult a task it is to judge him! So far as I know, +no attempt has been made to judge King George the Fourth fairly. The +hundred and one eulogies and lampoons, irresponsibly published during +and immediately after his reign, are not worth a wooden hoop in Hades. +Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has published a history of Georges reign, in which +he has so artistically subordinated his own personality to his subject, +that I can scarcely find, from beginning to end of the two bulky +volumes, a single opinion expressed, a single idea, a single deduction +from the admirably-ordered facts. All that most of us know of George +is from Thackeray's brilliant denunciation. Now, I yield to few in my +admiration of Thackeray's powers. He had a charming style. We never +find him searching for the mot juste as for a needle in a bottle of hay. +Could he have looked through a certain window by the river at Croisset +or in the quadrangle at Brasenose, how he would have laughed! He blew on +his pipe, and words came tripping round him, like children, like pretty +little children who are perfectly drilled for the dance, or came, did he +will it, treading in their precedence, like kings, gloomily. And I think +it is to the credit of the reading mob that, by reason of his beautiful +style, all that he said was taken for the truth, without questioning. +But truth after all is eternal, and style transient, and now that +Thackeray's style is becoming, if I may say so, a trifle 1860, it may +not be amiss that we should inquire whether his estimate of George is in +substance and fact worth anything at all. It seems to me that, as in his +novels, so in his history of the four Georges, Thackeray made no attempt +at psychology. He dealt simply with types. One George he insisted upon +regarding as a buffoon, another as a yokel. The Fourth George he chose +to hold up for reprobation as a drunken, vapid cad. Every action, every +phase of his life that went to disprove this view, he either suppressed +or distorted utterly. 'History,' he would seem to have chuckled, 'has +nothing to do with the First Gentleman. But I will give him a niche in +Natural History. He shall be King of the Beasts.' He made no allowance +for the extraordinary conditions under which all monarchs live, none for +the unfortunate circumstances by which George, especially, was from the +first hampered. He judged him as he judged Barnes Newcome and all the +scoundrels lie created. Moreover, he judged him by the moral standard of +the Victorian Age. In fact, he applied to his subject the wrong method, +in the wrong manner, and at the wrong time. And yet every one has taken +him at his word. I feel that my essay may be scouted as a paradox; but +I hope that many may recognise that I am not, out of mere boredom, +endeavouring to stop my ears against popular platitude, but rather, in +a spirit of real earnestness, to point out to the mob how it has been +cruel to George. I do not despair of success. I think I shall make +converts. The mob is really very fickle and sometimes cheers the truth. + +None, at all events, will deny that England stands to-day otherwise +than she stood a hundred and thirty-two years ago, when George was born. +To-day we are living a decadent life. All the while that we are +prating of progress, we are really so deteriorate! There is nothing but +feebleness in us. Our youths, who spend their days in trying to build +up their constitutions by sport or athletics and their evenings in +undermining them with poisonous and dyed drinks; our daughters, who are +ever searching for some new quack remedy for new imaginary megrim, what +strength is there in them? We have our societies for the prevention of +this and the promotion of that and the propagation of the other, +because there are no individuals among us. Our sexes are already nearly +assimilate. Women are becoming nearly as rare as ladies, and it is only +at the music-halls that we are privileged to see strong men. We are born +into a poor, weak age. We are not strong enough to be wicked, and the +Nonconformist Conscience makes cowards of us all. + +But this was not so in the days when George was walking by his tutor's +side in the gardens of Kew or of Windsor. London must have been a +splendid place in those days--full of life and colour and wrong and +revelry. There was no absurd press nor vestry to protect the poor at the +expense of the rich and see that everything should be neatly adjusted. +Every man had to shift for himself and, consequently, men were, as Mr. +Clement Scott would say, manly, and women, as Mr. Clement Scott would +say, womanly. In those days, a young man of wealth and family found +open to him a vista of such licence as had been unknown to any since +the barbatuli of the Roman Empire. To spend the early morning with his +valet, gradually assuming the rich apparel that was not then tabooed +by a hard sumptuary standard; to saunter round to Whites for ale and +tittle-tattle and the making of wagers; to attend a 'drunken dejeuner' +in honour of 'la tres belle Rosaline or the Strappini; to drive some +fellow-fool far out into the country in his pretty curricle, 'followed +by two well-dressed and well-mounted grooms, of singular elegance +certainly,' and stop at every tavern on the road to curse the host for +not keeping better ale and a wench of more charm; to reach St. James's +in time for a random toilet and so off to dinner. Which of our dandies +could survive a day of pleasure such as this? Which would be ready, +dinner done, to scamper off again to Ranelagh and dance and skip and sup +in the rotunda there? Yet the youth of that period would not dream +of going to bed or ever he had looked in at Crockford's--tanta lubido +rerum--for a few hours' faro. + +This was the kind of life that young George found opened to him, when, +at length, in his nineteenth year, they gave him an establishment in +Buckingham House. How his young eyes must have sparkled, and with what +glad gasps must he have taken the air of freedom into his lungs! +Rumour had long been busy with the damned surveillance under which his +childhood had been passed. A paper of the time says significantly that +'the Prince of Wales, with a spirit which does him honour, has three +times requested a change in that system.' King George had long postponed +permission for his son to appear at any balls, and the year before had +only given it, lest he should offend the Spanish Minister, who begged +it as a personal favour. I know few pictures more pathetic than that of +George, then an overgrown boy of fourteen, tearing the childish frill +from around his neck and crying to one of the Royal servants, 'See how +they treat me! 'Childhood has always seemed to me the tragic period of +life. To be subject to the most odious espionage at the one age when you +never dream of doing wrong, to be deceived by your parents, thwarted of +your smallest wish, oppressed by the terrors of manhood and of the world +to come, and to believe, as you are told, that childhood is the only +happiness known; all this is quite terrible. And all Royal children, +of whom I have read, particularly George, seem to have passed through +greater trials in childhood than do the children of any other class. +Mr. Fitzgerald, hazarding for once an opinion, thinks that 'the +stupid, odious, German, sergeant-system of discipline that had been so +rigorously applied was, in fact, responsible for the blemishes of the +young Princes character.' Even Thackeray, in his essay upon George III., +asks what wonder that the son, finding himself free at last, should have +plunged, without looking, into the vortex of dissipation. In Torrens' +Life of Lord Melbourne we learn that Lord Essex, riding one day with the +King, met the young Prince wearing a wig, and that the culprit, being +sternly reprimanded by his father, replied that he had 'been ordered +by his doctor to wear a wig, for he was subject to cold.' Whereupon the +King, to vent the aversion he already felt for his son, or, it may have +been, glorying in the satisfactory result of his discipline, turned to +Lord Essex and remarked, 'A lie is ever ready when it is wanted.' George +never lost this early-ingrained habit of lies. It is to Georges childish +fear of his guardians that we must trace that extraordinary power +of bamboozling his courtiers, his ministry, and his mistresses that +distinguished him through his long life. It is characteristic of the man +that he should himself have bitterly deplored his own untruthfulness. +When, in after years, he was consulting Lady Spencer upon the choice of +a governess for his child, he made this remarkable speech, 'Above all, +she must be taught the truth. You know that I don't speak the truth and +my brothers don't, and I find it a great defect, from which I would have +my daughter free. We have been brought up badly, the Queen having taught +us to equivocate.' You may laugh at the picture of the little chubby, +curly-headed fellows learning to equivocate at their mother's knee, but +pray remember that the wisest master of ethics himself, in his theory +of hexeis apodeiktikai, similarly raised virtues, such as telling the +truth, to the level of regular accomplishments, and, before you judge +poor George harshly in his entanglements of lying, think of the cruelly +unwise education he had undergone. + +However much we may deplore this exaggerated tyranny, by reason of +its evil effect upon his moral nature, we cannot but feel glad that it +existed, to afford a piquant contrast to the life awaiting him. Had he +passed through the callow dissipations of Eton and Oxford, like other +young men of his age, he would assuredly have lacked much of that +splendid, pent vigour with which he rushed headlong into London life. +He was so young and so handsome and so strong, that can we wonder if all +the women fell at his feet? 'The graces of his person,' says one whom he +honoured by an intrigue, 'the irresistible sweetness of his smile, the +tenderness of his melodious, yet manly voice, will be remembered by me +till every vision of this changing scene are forgotten. The polished +and fascinating ingenuousness of his manners contributed not a little +to enliven our promenade. He sang with exquisite taste, and the tones of +his voice, breaking on the silence of the night, have often appeared +to my entranced senses like more than mortal melody.' But besides his +graces of person, he had a most delightful wit, he was a scholar who +could bandy quotations with Fox or Sheridan, and, like the young men +of to-day, he knew all about Art. He spoke French, Italian, and German +perfectly. Crossdill had taught him the violoncello. At first, as was +right for one of his age, he cared more for the pleasures of the table +and of the ring, for cards and love. He was wont to go down to Ranelagh +surrounded by a retinue of bruisers--rapscallions, such as used to +follow Clodius through the streets of Rome--and he loved to join in the +scuffles like any commoner. Pugilism he learnt from Angelo, and he was +considered by some to be a fine performer. On one occasion, too, at an +exposition d'escrime, when he handled the foils against the maitre, he +'was highly complimented upon his graceful postures.' In fact, despite +all his accomplishments, he seems to have been a thoroughly manly young +fellow. He was just the kind of figure-head Society had long been in +need of. A certain lack of tone had crept into the amusements of the +haut monde, due, doubtless, to the lack of an acknowledged leader. The +King was not yet mad, but he was always bucolic, and socially out of the +question. So at the coming of his son Society broke into a gallop. +Balls and masquerades were given in his honour night after night. +Good Samaritans must have approved when they found that at these +entertainments great ladies and courtesans brushed beautiful shoulders +in utmost familiarity, but those who delighted in the high charm of +society probably shook their heads. We need not, however, find it a flaw +in Georges social bearing that he did not check this kind of freedom. At +the first, as a young man full of life, of course he took everything as +it came, joyfully. No one knew better than he did, in later life, that +there is a time for laughing with great ladies and a time for laughing +with courtesans. But as yet it was not possible for him to exert +influence. How great that influence became I will suggest hereafter. + +I like to think of him as he was at this period, charging about, in +pursuit of pleasure, like a young bull. The splendid taste for building +had not yet come to him. His father would not hear of him patronising +the Turf. But already he was implected with a passion for dress and +seems to have erred somewhat on the side of dressing up, as is the way +of young men. It is fearful to think of him, as Cyrus Redding saw +him, 'arrayed in deep-brown velvet, silver embroidered, with cut-steel +buttons, and a gold net thrown over all.' Before that 'gold net thrown +over all,' all the mistakes of his afterlife seem to me to grow almost +insignificant. Time, however, toned his too florid sense of costume, and +we should at any rate be thankful that his imagination never deserted +him. All the delightful munditiae that we find in the contemporary +'fashion-plates for gentlemen' can be traced to George himself. His +were the much-approved 'quadruple stock of great dimension,' the 'cocked +grey-beaver,' 'the pantaloons of mauve silk negligently crinkled' and +any number of other little pomps and foibles of the kind. As he grew +older and was obliged to abandon many of his more vigorous pastimes, he +grew more and more enamoured of the pleasures of the wardrobe. He would +spend hours, it is said, in designing coats for his friends, liveries +for his servants, and even uniforms. Nor did he ever make the mistake of +giving away outmoded clothes to his valets, but kept them to form what +must have been the finest collection of clothes that has been seen in +modern times. With a sentimentality that is characteristic of him, he +would often, as he sat, crippled by gout, in his room at Windsor, direct +his servant to bring him this or that coat, which he had worn ten or +twenty or thirty years before, and, when it was brought to him, spend +much time in laughing or sobbing over the memories that lay in its +folds. It is pleasant to know that George, during his long and various +life, never forgot a coat, however long ago worn, however seldom. + +But in the early days of which I speak he had not yet touched that +self-conscious note which, in manner and mode of life, as well as in +costume, he was to touch later. He was too violently enamoured of all +around him, to think very deeply of himself. But he had already realised +the tragedy of the voluptuary, which is, after a little time, not that +he must go on living, but that he cannot live in two places at once. +We have, at this end of the century, tempered this tragedy by the +perfection of railways, and it is possible for our good Prince, whom +Heaven bless, to waken to the sound of the Braemar bagpipes, while the +music of Mdlle. Guilbert's latest song, cooed over the footlights of +the Concerts Parisiens, still rings in his ears. But in the time of our +Princes illustrious great-uncle there were not railways; and we find +George perpetually driving, for wagers, to Brighton and back (he had +already acquired that taste for Brighton which was one of his most +loveable qualities) in incredibly short periods of time. The rustics +who lived along the road were well accustomed to the sight of a high, +tremulous phaeton flashing past them, and the crimson face of the +young Prince bending over the horses. There is something absurd in +representing George as, even before he came of age, a hardened and +cynical profligate, an Elagabalus in trousers. His blood flowed fast +enough through his veins. All his escapades were those of a healthful +young man of the time. Need we blame him if he sought, every day, to +live faster and more fully? + +In a brief essay like this, I cannot attempt to write, as I hope one day +to do, in any detail a history of Georges career, during the time when +he was successively Prince of Wales and Regent and King. Merely is it my +wish at present to examine some of the principal accusations that have +been brought against him, and to point out in what ways he has been +harshly and hastily judged. Perhaps the greatest indignation against +him was, and is to this day, felt by reason of his treatment of his two +wives, Mrs. Fitzherbert and Queen Caroline. There are some scandals that +never grow old, and I think the story of Georges married life is one of +them. It was a real scandal. I can feel it. It has vitality. Often have +I wondered whether the blood with which the young Princes shirt was +saturate when Mrs. Fitzherbert was first induced to visit him at Carlton +House, was merely red paint, or if, in a frenzy of love, he had truly +gashed himself with a razor. Certain it is that his passion for the +virtuous and obdurate lady was a very real one. Lord Holland describes +how the Prince used to visit Mrs. Fox, and there indulge in 'the most +extravagant expressions and actions--rolling on the floor, striking his +forehead, tearing his hair, falling into hysterics, and swearing that he +would abandon the country, forego the crown, &c.' He was indeed still +a child, for Royalties, not being ever brought into contact with the +realities of life, remain young far longer than other people. Cursed +with a truly royal lack of self-control, he was unable to bear the +idea of being thwarted in any wish. Every day he sent off couriers to +Holland, whither Mrs. Fitzherbert had retreated, imploring her to return +to him, offering her formal marriage. At length, as we know, she yielded +to his importunity and returned. It is difficult indeed to realise +exactly what was Mrs. Fitzherbert's feeling in the matter. The marriage +must be, as she knew, illegal, and would lead, as Charles James Fox +pointed out in his powerful letter to the Prince, to endless and +intricate difficulties. For the present she could only live with him as +his mistress. If, when he reached the legal age of twenty-five, he were +to apply to Parliament for permission to marry her, how could permission +be given, when she had been living with him irregularly? Doubtless, she +was flattered by the attentions of the Heir to the Throne, but, had she +really returned his passion, she would surely have preferred 'any other +species of connection with His Royal Highness to one leading to so much +misery and mischief.' Really to understand her marriage, one must look +at the portraits of her that are extant. That beautiful and silly face +explains much. One can well fancy such a lady being pleased to live +after the performance of a mock-ceremony with a prince for whom she felt +no passion. Her view of the matter can only have been social, for, +in the eyes of the Church, she could only live with the Prince as his +mistress. Society, however, once satisfied that a ceremony of some kind +had been enacted, never regarded her as anything but his wife. The day +after Fox, inspired by the Prince, had formally denied that any ceremony +had taken place, 'the knocker of her door,' to quote her own complacent +phrase, 'was never still.' The Duchesses of Portland, Devonshire and +Cumber-land were among her visitors. + +How much pop-limbo has been talked about the Princes denial of the +marriage! I grant that it was highly improper to marry Mrs. Fitzherbert +at all. But George was always weak and wayward, and he did, in his great +passion, marry her. That he should afterwards deny it officially seems +to me to have been utterly inevitable. His denial did her not the +faintest damage, as I have pointed out. It was, so to speak, an official +quibble, rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case. Not to +have denied the marriage in the House of Commons would have meant ruin +to both of them. As months passed, more serious difficulties awaited the +unhappily wedded pair. What boots it to repeat the story of the Princes +great debts and desperation? It was clear that there was but one way +of getting his head above water, and that was to yield to his father's +wishes and contract a real marriage with a foreign princess. Fate was +dogging his footsteps relentlessly. Placed as he was, George could not +but offer to marry as his father willed. It is well, also, to remember +that George was not ruthlessly and suddenly turning his shoulder upon +Mrs. Fitzherbert. For some time before the British plenipotentiary went +to fetch him a bride from over the waters, his name had been associated +with that of the beautiful and unscrupulous Countess of Jersey. + +Poor George! Half-married to a woman whom he no longer worshipped, +compelled to marry a woman whom he was to hate at first sight! Surely +we should not judge a prince harshly. 'Princess Caroline very gauche +at cards,' 'Princess Caroline very missish at supper,' are among the +entries made in his diary by Lord Malmesbury, while he was at the little +German Court. I can conceive no scene more tragic than that of her +presentation to the Prince, as related by the same nobleman. 'I, +according to the established etiquette,' so he writes, 'introduced +the Princess Caroline to him. She, very properly, in consequence of my +saying it was the right mode of proceeding, attempted to kneel to him. +He raised her gracefully enough, and embraced her, said barely one word, +turned round, retired to a distant part of the apartment, and calling +to me, said: 'Harris, I am not well: pray get me a glass of brandy.' At +dinner that evening, in the presence of her betrothed, the Princess +was 'flippant, rattling, affecting wit.' Poor George, I say again! +Deportment was his ruling passion, and his bride did not know how to +behave. Vulgarity--hard, implacable, German vulgarity--was in everything +she did to the very day of her death. The marriage was solemnised on +Wednesday, April 8th, 1795, and the royal bridegroom was drunk. + +So soon as they were separated, George became implected with a morbid +hatred for his wife, which was hardly in accord with his light and +variant nature and shows how bitterly he had been mortified by his +marriage of necessity. It is sad that so much of his life should have +been wasted in futile strainings after divorce. Yet we can scarcely +blame him for seizing upon every scrap of scandal that was whispered of +his wife. Besides his not unnatural wish to be free, it was derogatory +to the dignity of a prince and a regent that his wife should be living +an eccentric life at Blackheath with a family of singers named Sapio. +Indeed, Carolines conduct during this time was as indiscreet as ever. +Wherever she went she made ribald jokes about her husband, 'in such a +voice that all, by-standing, might hear.' 'After dinner,' writes one of +her servants, 'Her Royal Highness made a wax figure as usual, and gave +it an amiable pair of large horns; then took three pins out of her +garment and stuck them through and through, and put the figure to roast +and melt at the fire. What a silly piece of spite! Yet it is impossible +not to laugh when one sees it done.' Imagine the feelings of the +First Gentleman in Europe when the unseemly story of these pranks was +whispered to him! + +For my own part, I fancy Caroline was innocent of any infidelity to her +unhappy husband. But that is neither here nor there. Her behaviour was +certainly not above suspicion. It fully justified George in trying to +establish a case for her divorce. When, at length, she went abroad, her +vagaries were such that the whole of her English suite left her, and we +hear of her travelling about the Holy Land attended by another family, +named Bergami. When her husband succeeded to the throne, and her name +was struck out of the liturgy, she despatched expostulations in absurd +English to Lord Liverpool. Receiving no answer, she decided to return +and claim her right to be crowned Queen of England. Whatever the unhappy +lady did, she always was ridiculous. One cannot but smile as one reads +of her posting along the French roads in a yellow travelling-chariot +drawn by cart-horses, with a retinue that included an alderman, a +reclaimed lady-in-waiting, an Italian count, the eldest son of the +alderman, and 'a fine little female child, about three years old, whom +Her Majesty, in conformity with her benevolent practices on former +occasions, had adopted.' The breakdown of her impeachment, and her +acceptance of an income formed a fitting anti-climax to the terrible +absurdities of her position. She died from the effects of a chill caught +when she was trying vainly to force a way to her husband's coronation. +Unhappy woman! Our sympathy for her is not misgiven. Fate wrote her a +most tremendous tragedy, and she played it in tights. Let us pity her, +but not forget to pity her husband, the King, also. + +It is another common accusation against George that he was an undutiful +and unfeeling son. If this was so, it is certain that not all the blame +is to be laid upon him alone. There is more than one anecdote which +shows that King George disliked his eldest son, and took no trouble to +conceal his dislike, long before the boy had been freed from his tutors. +It was the coldness of his father and the petty restrictions he loved to +enforce that first drove George to seek the companionship of such men as +Egalite and the Duke of Cumberland, both of whom were quick to inflame +his impressionable mind to angry resentment. Yet, when Margaret +Nicholson attempted the life of the King, the Prince immediately posted +off from Brighton that he might wait upon his father at Windsor--a +graceful act of piety that was rewarded by his father's refusal to see +him. Hated by the Queen, who at this time did all she could to keep her +husband and his son apart, surrounded by intriguers, who did all they +could to set him against his father, George seems to have behaved with +great discretion. In the years that follow, I can conceive no position +more difficult than that in which he found himself every time his father +relapsed into lunacy. That he should have by every means opposed those +who through jealousy stood between him and the regency was only natural. +It cannot be said that at any time did he show anxiety to rule, so +long as there was any immediate chance of the King's recovery. On the +contrary, all impartial seers of that chaotic Court agreed that the +Prince bore himself throughout the intrigues, wherein he himself was +bound to be, in a notably filial way. + +There are many things that I regret in the career of George IV., and +what I most of all regret is the part that he played in the politics of +the period. Englishmen to-day have at length decided that Royalty shall +not set foot in the political arena. I do not despair that some day we +shall place politics upon a sound commercial basis, as they have already +done in America and France, or leave them entirely in the hands of the +police, as they do in Russia. It is horrible to think that, under our +existing regime, all the men of noblest blood and highest intellect +should waste their time in the sordid atmosphere of the House of +Commons, listening for hours to nonentities talking nonsense, or +searching enormous volumes to prove that somebody said something some +years ago that does not quite tally with something he said the other +day, or standing tremulous before the whips in the lobbies and the +scorpions in the constituencies. In the political machine are crushed +and lost all our best men. That Mr. Gladstone did not choose to be a +cardinal is a blow under which the Roman Catholic Church still staggers. +In Mr. Chamberlain Scotland Yard missed its smartest detective. What a +fine voluptuary might Lord Rosebery have been! It is a platitude that +the country is ruled best by the permanent officials, and I look forward +to the time when Mr. Keir Hardie shall hang his cap in the hall of +No. 10 Downing Street, and a Conservative working man shall lead Her +Majesty's Opposition. In the lifetime of George, politics were not a +whit finer than they are to-day. I feel a genuine indignation that he +should have wasted so much of tissue in mean intrigues about ministries +and bills. That he should have been fascinated by that splendid fellow, +Fox, is quite right. That he should have thrown himself with all his +heart into the storm of the Westminster election is most natural. But it +is awful inverideed to find him, long after he had reached man's estate, +indulging in back-stair intrigues with Whigs and Tories. It is, of +course, absurd to charge him with deserting his first friends, the +Whigs. His love and fidelity were given, not to the Whigs, but to the +men who led them. Even after the death of Fox, he did, in misplaced +piety, do all he could for Fox's party. What wonder that, when he found +he was ignored by the Ministry that owed its existence to him, he turned +his back upon that sombre couple, the 'Lords G. and G.,' whom he had +always hated, and went over to the Tories? Among the Tories he hoped to +find men who would faithfully perform their duties and leave him leisure +to live his own beautiful life. I regret immensely that his part in +politics did not cease here. The state of the country and of his own +finances, and also, I fear, a certain love that he had imbibed for +political manipulation, prevented him from standing aside. How useless +was all the finesse he displayed in the long-drawn question of Catholic +Emancipation! How lamentable his terror of Lord Wellesley's rude +dragooning! And is there not something pitiable in the thought of the +Regent at a time of ministerial complications lying prone on his bed +with a sprained ankle, and taking, as was whispered, in one day as many +as seven hundred drops of laudanum? Some said he took these doses to +deaden the pain. But others, and among them his brother Cumberland, +declared that the sprain was all a sham. I hope it was. The thought of +a voluptuary in pain is very terrible. In any case, I cannot but feel +angry, for Georges own sake and that of his kingdom, that he found +it impossible to keep further aloof from the wearisome troubles of +political life. His wretched indecision of character made him an easy +prey to unscrupulous ministers, while his extraordinary diplomatic +powers and almost extravagant tact made them, in their turn, an easy +prey to him. In these two processes much of his genius was spent +untimely. I must confess that he did not quite realise where his duties +ended. He wished always to do too much. If you read his repeated appeals +to his father that he might be permitted to serve actively in the +British army against the French, you will acknowledge that it was +through no fault of his own that he did not fight. It touches me to +think that in his declining years he actually thought that he had led +one of the charges at Waterloo. He would often describe the whole scene +as it appeared to him at that supreme moment, and refer to the Duke of +Wellington, saying, 'Was it not so, Duke?' 'I have often heard you say +so, your Majesty,' the old soldier would reply, grimly. I am not sure +that the old soldier was at Waterloo himself. In a room full of +people he once referred to the battle as having been won upon the +playing-fields of Eton. This was certainly a most unfortunate slip, +seeing that all historians are agreed that it was fought on a certain +field situate a few miles from Brussels. + +In one of his letters to the King, craving for a military appointment, +George urges that, whilst his next brother, the Duke of York, commanded +the army, and the younger branches of the family were either generals +or lieutenant-generals, he, who was Prince of Wales, remained colonel of +dragoons. And herein, could he have known it, lay the right limitation +of his life. As Royalty was and is constituted, it is for the younger +sons to take an active part in the services, whilst the eldest son is +left as the ruler of Society. Thousands and thousands of guineas were +given by the nation that the Prince of Wales, the Regent, the King, +might be, in the best sense of the word, ornamental. It is not for +us, at this moment, to consider whether Royalty, as a wholly Pagan +institution, is not out of place in a community of Christians. It is +enough that we should inquire whether the god, whom our grand-fathers +set up and worshipped and crowned with offerings, gave grace to his +worshippers. + +That George was a moral man, in our modern sense, I do not for one +moment pretend. It were idle to deny that he was profligate. When he +died there were found in one of his cabinets more than a hundred locks +of women's hair. Some of these were still plastered with powder and +pomatum, some were mere little golden curls, such as grow low down +upon a girl's neck, others were streaked with grey. The whole of this +collection subsequently passed into the hands of Adam, the famous Scotch +henchman of the Regent. In his family, now resident in Glasgow, it is +treasured as an heirloom. I myself have been privileged to look at all +these locks of hair, and I have seen a clairvoyante take them one by +one, and, pinching them between her lithe fingers, tell of the love +that each symbolised. I have heard her tell of long rides by night, of a +boudoir hung with grass-green satin, and of a tryst at Windsor; of one, +the wife of a hussar at York, whose little lap-dog used to bark angrily +whenever the Regent came near his mistress; of a milkmaid who, in her +great simpleness, thought her child would one day be King of England; +of an arch-duchess with blue eyes, and a silly little flautist from +Portugal; of women that were wantons and fought for his favour, great +ladies that he loved dearly, girls that gave themselves to him humbly. +If we lay all pleasures at the feet of our Prince, we can scarcely hope +he will remain virtuous. Indeed, we do not wish our Prince to be an +examplar of godliness, but a perfect type of happiness. It may be +foolish of us to insist upon apolaustic happiness, but that is the kind +of happiness that we can ourselves, most of us, best understand, and so +we offer it to our ideal. In Royalty we find our Bacchus, our Venus. + +Certainly George was, in the practical sense of the word, a fine king. +His wonderful physique, his wealth, his brilliant talents, he gave them +all without stint to Society. From the time when, at Madame Cornelys', +he gallivanted with rips and demireps, to the time when he sat, a stout +and solitary old king, fishing in the artificial pond at Windsor, +his life was beautifully ordered. He indulged to the full in all the +delights that England could offer him. That he should have, in his old +age, suddenly abandoned his career of vigorous enjoyment is, I confess, +rather surprising. The Royal voluptuary generally remains young to the +last. No one ever tires of pleasure. It is the pursuit of pleasure, +the trouble to grasp it, that makes us old. Only the soldiers who enter +Capua with wounded feet leave it demoralised. And yet George, who never +had to wait or fight for a pleasure, fell enervate long before his +death. I can but attribute this to the constant persecution to which he +was subjected by duns and ministers, parents and wives. + +Not that I regret the manner in which he spent his last years. On the +contrary, I think it was exceedingly cosy. I like to think of the King, +at Windsor, lying a-bed all the morning in his darkened room, with all +the sporting papers scattered over his quilt and a little decanter of +the favourite cherry-brandy within easy reach. I like to think of him +sitting by his fire in the afternoon and hearing his ministers ask for +him at the door and piling another log upon the fire, as he heard them +sent away by his servant. It was not, I acknowledge, a life to kindle +popular enthusiasm. But most people knew little of its mode. For all +they knew, His Majesty might have been making his soul or writing +his memoirs. In reality, George was now 'too fat by far' to brook the +observation of casual eyes. Especially he hated to be seen by those +whose memories might bear them back to the time when he had yet a waist. +Among his elaborate precautions of privacy was a pair of avant-couriers, +who always preceded his pony-chaise in its daily progress through +Windsor Great Park and had strict commands to drive back any intruder. +In The Veiled Majestic Man, Where is the Graceful Despot of England? +and other lampoons not extant, the scribblers mocked his loneliness. At +Whites, one evening, four gentlemen of high fashion vowed, over their +wine, they would see the invisible monarch. So they rode down next day +to Windsor, and secreted themselves in the branches of a holm-oak. Here +they waited perdus, beguiling the hours and the frost with their flasks. +When dusk was falling, they heard at last the chime of hoofs on the +hard road, and saw presently a splash of the Royal livery, as two grooms +trotted by, peering warily from side to side, and disappeared in the +gloom. The conspirators in the tree held their breath, till they caught +the distant sound of wheels. Nearer and louder came the sound, and +soon they saw a white, postillioned pony, a chaise and, yes, girth +immensurate among the cushions, a weary monarch, whose face, crimson +above the dark accumulation of his stock, was like some ominous +sunset.... He had passed them and they had seen him, monstrous and +moribund among the cushions. He had been borne past them like a wounded +Bacchanal. The King! The Regent!... They shuddered in the frosty +branches. The night was gathering and they climbed silently to the +ground, with an awful, indispellible image before their eyes. + +You see, these gentlemen were not philosophers. Remember, also, that +the strangeness of their escapade, the cramped attitude they had been +compelled to maintain in the branches of the holm-oak, the intense +cold and their frequent resort to the flask must have all conspired to +exaggerate their emotions and prevent them from looking at things in a +rational way. After all, George had lived his life. He had lived more +fully than any other man. And it was better really that his death should +be preceded by decline. For every one, obviously, the most desirable +kind of death is that which strikes men down, suddenly, in their prime. +Had they not been so dangerous, railways would never have ousted the +old coaches from popular favour. But, however keenly we may court such +a death for ourselves or for those who are near and dear to us, we +must always be offended whenever it befall one in whom our interest is +aesthetic merely. Had his father permitted George to fight at Waterloo, +and had some fatal bullet pierced the padding of that splendid breast, +I should have been really annoyed, and this essay would never have +been written. Sudden death mars the unity of an admirable life. Natural +decline, tapering to tranquillity, is its proper end. As a man's life +begins, faintly, and gives no token of childhood's intensity and the +expansion of youth and the perfection of manhood, so it should also end, +faintly. The King died a death that was like the calm conclusion of a +great, lurid poem. Quievit. + +Yes, his life was a poem, a poem in the praise of Pleasure. And it is +right that we should think of him always as the great voluptuary. Only +let us note that his nature never became, as do the natures of most +voluptuaries, corroded by a cruel indifference to the happiness of +others. When all the town was agog for the fete to be given by the +Regent in honour of the French King, Sheridan sent a forged card of +invitation to Romeo Coates, the half-witted dandy, who used at this time +to walk about in absurd ribbons and buckles, and was the butt of all the +streetsters. The poor fellow arrived at the entrance of Carlton House, +proud as a peacock, and he was greeted with a tremendous cheer from the +bystanding mob, but when he came to the lackeys he was told that his +card was a hoax and sent about his business. The tears were rolling down +his cheeks as he shambled back into the street. The Regent heard +later in the evening of this sorry joke, and next day despatched a +kindly-worded message, in which he prayed that Mr. Coates would not +refuse to come and 'view the decorations, nevertheless.' Though he does +not appear to have treated his inferiors with the extreme servility that +is now in vogue, George was beloved by the whole of his household, and +many are the little tales that are told to illustrate the kindliness +and consideration he showed to his valets and his jockeys and his +stable-boys. That from time to time he dropped certain of his favourites +is no cause for blaming him. Remember that a Great Personage, like a +great genius, is dangerous to his fellow-creatures. The favourites of +Royalty live in an intoxicant atmosphere. They become unaccountable for +their behaviour. Either they get beyond themselves, and, like Brummell, +forget that the King, their friend, is also their master, or they outrun +the constable and go bankrupt, or cheat at cards in order to keep up +their position, or do some other foolish thing that makes it impossible +for the King to favour them more. Old friends are generally the refuge +of unsociable persons. Remembering this also, gauge the temptation that +besets the very leader of Society to form fresh friendships, when all +the cleverest and most charming persons in the land are standing ready, +like supers at the wings, to come on and please him! At Carlton House +there was a constant succession of wits. Minds were preserved for +the Prince of Wales, as coverts are preserved for him to-day. For him +Sheridan would flash his best bon-mot, and Theodore Hook play his most +practical joke, his swiftest chansonette. And Fox would talk, as only he +could, of Liberty and of Patriotism, and Byron would look more than ever +like Isidore de Lara as he recited his own bad verses, and Sir Walter +Scott would 'pour out with an endless generosity his store of old-world +learning, kindness, and humour.' Of such men George was a splendid +patron. He did not merely sit in his chair, gaping princely at their +wit and their wisdom, but quoted with the scholars and argued with +the statesmen and jested with the wits. Doctor Burney, an impartial +observer, says that he was amazed by the knowledge of music that the +Regent displayed in a half-hour's discussion over the wine. Croker says +that 'the Prince and Scott were the two most brilliant story-tellers, +in their several ways, he had ever happened to meet. Both exerted +themselves, and it was hard to say which shone the most.' Indeed His +Royal Highness appears to have been a fine conversationalist, with a +wide range of knowledge and great humour. We, who have come at length to +look upon stupidity as one of the most sacred prerogatives of Royalty, +can scarcely realise that, if Georges birth had been never so humble, he +would have been known to us as a most admirable scholar and wit, or as +a connoisseur of the arts. It is pleasing to think of his love for the +Flemish school of painting, for Wilkie and Sir Thomas Lawrence. The +splendid portraits of foreign potentates that hang in the Banqueting +Room at Windsor bear witness to his sense of the canvas. In his later +years he exerted himself strenuously in raising the tone of the drama. +His love of the classics never left him. We know he was fond of quoting +those incomparable poets, Homer, at great length, and that he was +prominent in the 'papyrus-craze.' Indeed, he inspired Society with +a love of something more than mere pleasure, a love of the 'humaner +delights.' He was a giver of tone. At his coming, the bluff, disgusting +ways of the Tom and Jerry period gave way to those florid graces that +are still called Georgian. + +A pity that Georges predecessor was not a man, like the Prince Consort, +of strong chastening influence! Then might the bright flamboyance which +he gave to Society have made his reign more beautiful than any other--a +real renaissance. But he found London a wild city of taverns and +cock-pits, and the grace which in the course of years he gave to his +subjects never really entered into them. The cock-pits were gilded and +the taverns painted with colour, but the heart of the city was vulgar, +even as before. The simulation of higher things did indeed give the note +of a very interesting period, but how shallow that simulation was and +how merely it was due to Georges own influence, we may see in the light +of what happened after his death. The good that he had done died with +him. The refinement he had laid upon vulgarity fell away, like enamel +from withered cheeks. It was only George himself who had made the sham +endure. The Victorian era came soon, and the angels rushed in and drove +the nymphs away and hung the land with reps. + +I have often wondered whether it was with a feeling that his influence +would be no more than life-long, that George allowed Carlton House, that +dear structure, the very work of his life and symbol of his being, to +be rased. I wish that Carlton House were still standing. I wish we +could still walk through those corridors, whose walls were 'crusted with +ormolu,' and parquet-floors were 'so glossy that, were Narcissus to come +down from heaven, he would, I maintain, need no other mirror for his +beaute.' I wish that we could see the pier-glasses and the girandoles +and the twisted sofas, the fauns foisted upon the ceiling and the rident +goddesses along the wall. These things would make Georges memory dearer +to us, help us to a fuller knowledge of him. I am glad that the Pavilion +still stands here in Brighton. Its trite lawns and wanton cupolae have +taught me much. As I write this essay, I can see them from my window. +Last night, in a crowd of trippers and townspeople, I roamed the lawns +of that dishonoured palace, whilst a band played us tunes. Once I +fancied I saw the shade of a swaying figure and of a wine-red face. + +Brighton, 1894. + + + + +The Pervasion of Rouge + +Nay, but it is useless to protest. Artifice must queen it once more in +the town, and so, if there be any whose hearts chafe at her return, let +them not say, 'We have come into evil times,' and be all for resistance, +reformation, or angry cavilling. For did the king's sceptre send the sea +retrograde, or the wand of the sorcerer avail to turn the sun from +its old course? And what man or what number of men ever stayed that +inexorable process by which the cities of this world grow, are very +strong, fail, and grow again? Indeed, indeed, there is charm in every +period, and only fools and flutterpates do not seek reverently for what +is charming in their own day. No martyrdom, however fine, nor satire, +however splendidly bitter, has changed by a little tittle the known +tendency of things. It is the times that can perfect us, not we the +times, and so let all of us wisely acquiesce. Like the little wired +marionettes, let us acquiesce in the dance. + +For behold! The Victorian era comes to its end and the day of sancta +simplicitas is quite ended. The old signs are here and the portents to +warn the seer of life that we are ripe for a new epoch of artifice. Are +not men rattling the dice-box and ladies dipping their fingers in the +rouge-pot? At Rome, in the keenest time of her degringolade, when there +was gambling even in the holy temples, great ladies (does not Lucian +tell us?) did not scruple to squander all they had upon unguents from +Arabia. Nero's mistress and unhappy wife, Poppaea, of shameful +memory, had in her travelling retinue fifteen--or, as some say, +fifty--she-asses, for the sake of their milk, that was thought an +incomparable guard against cosmetics with poison in them. Last century, +too, when life was lived by candle-light, and ethics was but etiquette, +and even art a question of punctilio, women, we know, gave the best +hours of the day to the crafty farding of their faces and the towering +of their coiffures. And men, throwing passion into the wine-bowl to sink +or swim, turned out thought to browse upon the green cloth. Cannot we +even now in our fancy see them, those silent exquisites round the long +table at Brooks's, masked, all of them, 'lest the countenance should +betray feeling,' in quinze masks, through whose eyelets they sat +peeping, peeping, while macao brought them riches or ruin! We can see +them, those silent rascals, sitting there with their cards and their +rouleaux and their wooden money-bowls, long after the dawn had crept +up St. James's and pressed its haggard face against the window of the +little club. Yes, we can raise their ghosts--and, more, we can see +many where a devotion to hazard fully as meek as theirs. In England there +has been a wonderful revival of cards. Baccarat may rival dead faro in +the tale of her devotees. We have all seen the sweet English chatelaine +at her roulette wheel, and ere long it may be that tender parents will +be writing to complain of the compulsory baccarat in our public schools. + +In fact, we are all gamblers once more, but our gambling is on a finer +scale than ever it was. We fly from the card-room to the heath, and +from the heath to the City, and from the City to the coast of the +Mediterranean. And just as no one seriously encourages the clergy in its +frantic efforts to lay the spirit of chance that has thus resurged among +us, so no longer are many faces set against that other great sign of a +more complicated life, the love for cosmetics. No longer is a lady of +fashion blamed if, to escape the outrageous persecution of time, she +fly for sanctuary to the toilet-table; and if a damosel, prying in her +mirror, be sure that with brush and pigment she can trick herself into +more charm, we are not angry. Indeed, why should we ever have been? +Surely it is laudable, this wish to make fair the ugly and overtop +fairness, and no wonder that within the last five years the trade of the +makers of cosmetics has increased immoderately--twentyfold, so one of +these makers has said to me. We need but walk down any modish street +and peer into the little broughams that flit past, or (in Thackeray's +phrase) under the bonnet of any woman we meet, to see over how wide a +kingdom rouge reigns. + +And now that the use of pigments is becoming general, and most women +are not so young as they are painted, it may be asked curiously how the +prejudice ever came into being. Indeed, it is hard to trace folly, for +that it is inconsequent, to its start; and perhaps it savours too +much of reason to suggest that the prejudice was due to the tristful +confusion man has made of soul and surface. Through trusting so keenly +to the detection of the one by keeping watch upon the other, and by +force of the thousand errors following, he has come to think of surface +even as the reverse of soul. He seems to suppose that every clown +beneath his paint and lip-salve is moribund and knows it (though in +verity, I am told, clowns are as cheerful a class of men as any other), +that the fairer the fruit's rind and the more delectable its bloom, +the closer are packed the ashes within it. The very jargon of the +hunting-field connects cunning with a mask. And so perhaps came man's +anger at the embellishment of women--that lovely mask of enamel with its +shadows of pink and tiny pencilled veins, what must lurk behind it? +Of what treacherous mysteries may it not be the screen? Does not the +heathen lacquer her dark face, and the harlot paint her cheeks, because +sorrow has made them pale? + +After all, the old prejudice is a-dying. We need not pry into the secret +of its birth. Rather is this a time of jolliness and glad indulgence. +For the era of rouge is upon us, and as only in an elaborate era can +man, by the tangled accrescency of his own pleasures and emotions, reach +that refinement which is his highest excellence, and by making himself, +so to say, independent of Nature, come nearest to God, so only in an +elaborate era is woman perfect. Artifice is the strength of the world, +and in that same mask of paint and powder, shadowed with vermeil tinct +and most trimly pencilled, is woman's strength. + +For see! We need not look so far back to see woman under the direct +influence of Nature. Early in this century, our grandmothers, sickening +of the odour of faded exotics and spilt wine, came out into the daylight +once more and let the breezes blow around their faces and enter, sharp +and welcome, into their lungs. Artifice they drove forth and they set +Martin Tupper upon a throne of mahogany to rule over them. A very reign +of terror set in. All things were sacrificed to the fetish Nature. Old +ladies may still be heard to tell how, when they were girls, affectation +was not; and, if we verify their assertion in the light of such literary +authorities as Dickens, we find that it is absolutely true. Women appear +to have been in those days utterly natural in their conduct--flighty, +fainting, blushing, gushing, giggling, and shaking their curls. They +knew no reserve in the first days of the Victorian era. No thought was +held too trivial, no emotion too silly, to express. To Nature everything +was sacrificed. Great heavens! And in those barren days what influence +did women exert! By men they seem not to have been feared nor loved, but +regarded rather as 'dear little creatures' or 'wonderful little +beings,' and in their relation to life as foolish and ineffectual as the +landscapes they did in water-colour. Yet, if the women of those years +were of no great account, they had a certain charm, and they at least +had not begun to trespass upon men's ground; if they touched not +thought, which is theirs by right, at any rate they refrained from +action, which is ours. Far more serious was it when, in the natural +trend of time, they became enamoured of rinking and archery and +galloping along the Brighton Parade. Swiftly they have sped on since +then from horror to horror. The invasion of the tennis-courts and of the +golf-links, the seizure of the bicycle and of the typewriter, were +but steps preliminary in that campaign which is to end with the final +victorious occupation of St. Stephen's. But stay! The horrific pioneers +of womanhood who gad hither and thither and, confounding wisdom with the +device on her shield, shriek for the unbecoming, are doomed. Though they +spin their bicycle-treadles so amazingly fast, they are too late. Though +they scream victory, none follow them. Artifice, that fair exile, has +returned. + +Yes, though the pioneers know it not, they are doomed already. For of +the curiosities of history not the least strange is the manner in which +two social movements may be seen to overlap, long after the second has, +in truth, given its death-blow to the first. And, in like manner, as one +has seen the limbs of a murdered thing in lively movement, so we need +not doubt that, though the voices of those who cry out for reform be +very terribly shrill, they will soon be hushed. Dear Artifice is with +us. It needed but that we should wait. + +Surely, without any of my pleading, women will welcome their great and +amiable protectrix, as by instinct. For (have I not said?) it is upon +her that all their strength, their life almost, depends. Artifices first +command to them is that they should repose. With bodily activity their +powder will fly, their enamel crack. They are butterflies who must not +flit, if they love their bloom. Now, setting aside the point of view of +passion, from which very many obvious things might be said (and probably +have been by the minor poets), it is, from the intellectual point of +view, quite necessary that a woman should repose. Hers is the resupinate +sex. On her couch she is a goddess, but so soon as ever she put her foot +to the ground--ho, she is the veriest little sillypop, and quite done +for. She cannot rival us in action, but she is our mistress in the +things of the mind. Let her not by second-rate athletics, nor indeed +by any exercise soever of the limbs, spoil the pretty procedure of her +reason. Let her be content to remain the guide, the subtle suggester +of what we must do, the strategist whose soldiers we are, the little +architect whose workmen. + +'After all,' as a pretty girl once said to me, 'women are a sex by +themselves, so to speak,' and the sharper the line between their worldly +functions and ours, the better. This greater swiftness and less erring +subtlety of mind, their forte and privilege, justifies the painted mask +that Artifice bids them wear. Behind it their minds can play without +let. They gain the strength of reserve. They become important, as in +the days of the Roman Empire were the Emperor's mistresses, as was the +Pompadour at Versailles, as was our Elizabeth. Yet do not their faces +become lined with thought; beautiful and without meaning are their +faces. + +And, truly, of all the good things that will happen with the full +revival of cosmetics, one of the best is that surface will finally +be severed from soul. That damnable confusion will be solved by the +extinguishing of a prejudice which, as I suggest, itself created. Too +long has the face been degraded from its rank as a thing of beauty to +a mere vulgar index of character or emotion. We had come to troubling +ourselves, not with its charm of colour and line, but with such +questions as whether the lips were sensuous, the eyes full of +sadness, the nose indicative of determination. I have no quarrel with +physiognomy. For my own part I believe in it. But it has tended to +degrade the face aesthetically, in such wise as the study of cheirosophy +has tended to degrade the hand. And the use of cosmetics, the masking of +the face, will change this. We shall gaze at a woman merely because she +is beautiful, not stare into her face anxiously, as into the face of a +barometer. + +How fatal it has been, in how many ways, this confusion of soul and +service! Wise were the Greeks in making plain masks for their mummers to +play in, and dunces we not to have done the same! Only the other day, an +actress was saying that what she was most proud of in her art--next, of +course, to having appeared in some provincial pantomime at the age of +three--was the deftness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a +rapid succession of emotions, to dab her cheeks quite quickly with rouge +from the palm of her right hand or powder from the palm of her left. +Gracious goodness! why do not we have masks upon the stage? Drama is the +presentment of the soul in action. The mirror of the soul is the voice. +Let the young critics, who seek a cheap reputation for austerity, by +cavilling at 'incidental music,' set their faces rather against the +attempt to justify inferior dramatic art by the subvention of a quite +alien art like painting, of any art, indeed, whose sphere is only +surface. Let those, again, who sneer, so rightly, at the 'painted +anecdotes of the Academy,' censure equally the writers who trespass on +painters' ground. It is a proclaimed sin that a painter should concern +himself with a good little girl's affection for a Scotch greyhound, +or the keen enjoyment of their port by elderly gentlemen of the early +'forties. Yet, for a painter to prod the soul with his paint-brush is +no worse than for a novelist to refuse to dip under the surface, and the +fashion of avoiding a psychological study of grief by stating that the +owner's hair turned white in a single night, or of shame by mentioning +a sudden rush of scarlet to the cheeks, is as lamentable as may be. But! +But with the universal use of cosmetics and the consequent secernment of +soul and surface, upon which, at the risk of irritating a reader, I +must again insist, all those old properties that went to bolster up the +ordinary novel--the trembling lips, the flashing eyes, the determined +curve of the chin, the nervous trick of biting the moustache, aye, and +the hectic spot of red on either cheek--will be made spiflicate, as the +puppets were spiflicated by Don Quixote. Yes, even now Demos begins to +discern. The same spirit that has revived rouge, smote his mouth as it +grinned at the wondrous painter of mist and river, and now sends him +sprawling for the pearls that Meredith dived for in the deep waters of +romance. + +Indeed the revival of cosmetics must needs be so splendid an influence, +conjuring boons innumerable, that one inclines almost to mutter against +that inexorable law by which Artifice must perish from time to +time. That such branches of painting as the staining of glass or +the illuminating of manuscripts should fall into disuse seems, in +comparison, so likely; these were esoteric arts; they died with the +monastic spirit. But personal appearance is art's very basis. The +painting of the face is the first kind of painting men can have known. +To make beautiful things--is it not an impulse laid upon few? But +to make oneself beautiful is an universal instinct. Strange that the +resultant art could ever perish! So fascinating an art too! So various +in its materials from stimmis, psimythium, and fuligo to bismuth and +arsenic, so simple in that its ground and its subject-matter are one, so +marvellous in that its very subject-matter becomes lovely when an artist +has selected it! For surely this is no idle nor fantastic saying. To +deny that 'making up' is an art, on the pretext that the finished work +of its exponents depends for beauty and excellence upon the ground +chosen for the work, is absurd. At the touch of a true artist, the +plainest face turns comely. As subject-matter the face is no more than +suggestive, as ground, merely a loom round which the beatus artifex may +spin the threads of any golden fabric: + +'Quae nunc nomen habent operosi signa Maronis Pondus iners quondam +duraque massa fuit. Multa viros nescire decet; pars maxima rerum +Offendat, si non interiora tegas,' + +and, as Ovid would seem to suggest, by pigments any tone may be set +aglow on a woman's cheek, from enamel the features take any form. +Insomuch that surely the advocates of soup-kitchens and free-libraries +and other devices for giving people what Providence did not mean them to +receive should send out pamphlets in the praise of self-embellishment. +For it will place Beauty within easy reach of many who could not +otherwise hope to attain to it. + +But of course Artifice is rather exacting. In return for the repose she +forces--so wisely!--upon her followers when the sun is high or the moon +is blown across heaven, she demands that they should pay her long +homage at the sun's rising. The initiate may not enter lightly upon her +mysteries. For, if a bad complexion be inexcusable, to be ill-painted is +unforgivable; and, when the toilet is laden once more with the fulness +of its elaboration, we shall hear no more of the proper occupation for +women. And think, how sweet an energy, to sit at the mirror of coquetry! +See the dear merits of the toilet as shown upon old vases, or upon +the walls of Roman ruins, or, rather still, read Boettiger's alluring, +scholarly description of 'Morgenscenen im Puttzimmer Einer Reichen +Roemerin.' Read of Sabina's face as she comes through the curtain of her +bed-chamber to the chamber of her toilet. The slavegirls have long been +chafing their white feet upon the marble floor. They stand, those timid +Greek girls, marshalled in little battalions. Each has her appointed +task, and all kneel in welcome as Sabina stalks, ugly and frowning, to +the toilet chair. Scaphion steps forth from among them, and, dipping a +tiny sponge in a bowl of hot milk, passes it lightly, ever so lightly, +over her mistress' face. The Poppaean pastes melt beneath it like snow. +A cooling lotion is poured over her brow, and is fanned with feathers. +Phiale comes after, a clever girl, captured in some sea-skirmish on the +Aegean. In her left hand she holds the ivory box wherein are the phucus +and that white powder, psimythium; in her right a sheaf of slim brushes. +With how sure a touch does she mingle the colours, and in what sweet +proportion blushes and blanches her lady's upturned face. Phiale is the +cleverest of all the slaves. Now Calamis dips her quill in a certain +powder that floats, liquid and sable, in the hollow of her palm. +Standing upon tip-toe and with lips parted, she traces the arch of the +eyebrows. The slaves whisper loudly of their lady's beauty, and two of +them hold up a mirror to her. Yes, the eyebrows are rightly arched. But +why does Psecas abase herself? She is craving leave to powder Sabina's +hair with a fine new powder. It is made of the grated rind of the +cedar-tree, and a Gallic perfumer, whose stall is near the Circus, gave +it to her for a kiss. No lady in Rome knows of it. And so, when four +special slaves have piled up the headdress, out of a perforated box +this glistening powder is showered. Into every little brown ringlet it +enters, till Sabina's hair seems like a pile of gold coins. Lest the +breezes send it flying, the girls lay the powder with sprinkled attar. +Soon Sabina will start for the Temple of Cybele. + +Ah! Such are the lures of the toilet that none will for long hold aloof +from them. Cosmetics are not going to be a mere prosaic remedy for age +or plainness, but all ladies and all young girls will come to love them. +Does not a certain blithe Marquise, whose lettres intimes from the Court +of Louis Seize are less read than their wit deserves, tell us how she +was scandalised to see 'meme les toutes jeunes demoiselles emaillees +comme ma tabatiere? So it shall be with us. Surely the common prejudice +against painting the lily can but be based on mere ground of economy. +That which is already fair is complete, it may be urged--urged +implausibly, for there are not so many lovely things in this world that +we can afford not to know each one of them by heart. There is only one +white lily, and who that has ever seen--as I have--a lily really well +painted could grudge the artist so fair a ground for his skill? Scarcely +do you believe through how many nice metamorphoses a lily may be passed +by him. In like manner, we all know the young girl, with her simpleness, +her goodness, her wayward ignorance. And a very charming ideal for +England must she have been, and a very natural one, when a young girl +sat even on the throne. But no nation can keep its ideal for ever, and +it needed none of Mr. Gilbert's delicate satire in 'Utopia' to remind us +that she had passed out of our ken with the rest of the early Victorian +era. What writer of plays, as lately asked some pressman, who had been +told off to attend many first nights and knew what he was talking about, +ever dreams of making the young girl the centre of his theme? Rather he +seeks inspiration from the tried and tired woman of the world, in all +her intricate maturity, whilst, by way of comic relief, he sends the +young girl flitting in and out with a tennis-racket, the poor eidolon +amauron of her former self. The season of the unsophisticated is gone +by, and the young girl's final extinction beneath the rising tides of +cosmetics will leave no gap in life and will rob art of nothing. + +'Tush,' I can hear some damned flutterpate exclaim, 'girlishness and +innocence are as strong and as permanent as womanhood itself! Why, a few +months past, the whole town went mad over Miss Cissie Loftus! Was not +hers a success of girlish innocence and the absence of rouge? If such +things as these be outmoded, why was she so wildly popular?' Indeed, +the triumph of that clever girl, whose debut made London nice even in +August, is but another witness to the truth of my contention. In a very +sophisticated time, simplicity has a new dulcedo. Hers was a success of +contrast. Accustomed to clever malaperts like Miss Lloyd or Miss Reeve, +whose experienced pouts and smiles under the sun-bonnet are a standing +burlesque of innocence and girlishness, Demos was really delighted, +for once and away, to see the real presentment of these things upon his +stage. Coming after all those sly serios, coming so young and mere with +her pink frock and straightly combed hair, Miss Cissie Loftus had the +charm which things of another period often do possess. Besides, just +as we adored her for the abrupt nod with which she was wont at first to +acknowledge the applause, so we were glad for her to come upon the stage +with nothing to tinge the ivory of her cheeks. It seemed so strange, +that neglect of convention. To be behind footlights and not rouged! Yes, +hers was a success of contrast. She was like a daisy in the window at +Solomons'. She was delightful. And yet, such is the force of convention, +that when last I saw her, playing in some burlesque at the Gaiety, her +fringe was curled and her pretty face rouged with the best of them. +And, if further need be to show the absurdity of having called +her performance 'a triumph of naturalness over the jaded spirit +of modernity,' let us reflect that the little mimic was not a real +old-fashioned girl after all. She had none of that restless naturalness +that would seem to have characterised the girl of the early Victorian +days. She had no pretty ways--no smiles nor blushes nor tremors. +Possibly Demos could not have stood a presentment of girlishness +unrestrained. + +But, with her grave insouciance, Miss Cissie Loftus had much of the +reserve that is one of the factors of feminine perfection, and to most +comes only, as I have said, with artifice. Her features played very, +very slightly. And in truth, this may have been one of the reasons of +her great success. For expression is but too often the ruin of a face; +and, since we cannot, as yet, so order the circumstances of life that +women shall never be betrayed into 'an unbecoming emotion,' when the +brunette shall never have cause to blush nor La Gioconda to frown, +the safest way by far is to create, by brush and pigments, artificial +expression for every face. + +And this--say you?--will make monotony? You are mistaken, tots caelo +mistaken. When your mistress has wearied you with one expression, then +it will need but a few touches of that pencil, a backward sweep of that +brush, and ho, you will be revelling in another. For though, of course, +the painting of the face is, in manner, most like the painting of +canvas, in outcome it is rather akin to the art of music--lasting, like +music's echo, not for very long. So that, no doubt, of the many little +appurtenances of the Reformed Toilet Table, not the least vital will +be a list of the emotions that become its owner, with recipes for +simulating them. According to the colour she wills her hair to be for +the time--black or yellow or, peradventure, burnished red--she will +blush for you, sneer for you, laugh or languish for you. The good +combinations of line and colour are nearly numberless, and by their +means poor restless woman will be able to realise her moods in all their +shades and lights and dappledoms, to live many lives and masquerade +through many moments of joy. No monotony will be. And for us men +matrimony will have lost its sting. + +But that in the world of women they will not neglect this art, so +ripping in itself, in its result so wonderfully beneficent, I am sure +indeed. Much, I have said, is already done for its full revival. The +spirit of the age has made straight the path of its professors. Fashion +has made Jezebel surrender her monopoly of the rouge-pot. As yet, the +great art of self-embellishment is for us but in its infancy. But if +Englishwomen can bring it to the flower of an excellence so supreme as +never yet has it known, then, though Old England lose her martial and +commercial supremacy, we patriots will have the satisfaction of knowing +that she has been advanced at one bound to a place in the councils +of aesthetic Europe. And, in sooth, is this hoping too high of my +countrywomen? True that, as the art seems always to have appealed to the +ladies of Athens, and it was not until the waning time of the Republic +that Roman ladies learned to love the practice of it, so Paris, Athenian +in this as in all other things, has been noted hitherto as a far more +vivid centre of the art than London. But it was in Rome, under the +Emperors, that unguentaria reached its zenith, and shall it not be in +London, soon, that unguentaria shall outstrip its Roman perfection! +Surely there must be among us artists as cunning in the use of brush +and puff as any who lived at Versailles. Surely the splendid, impalpable +advance of good taste, as shown in dress and in the decoration of +houses, may justify my hope of the preeminence of Englishwomen in the +cosmetic art. By their innate delicacy of touch they will accomplish +much, and much, of course, by their swift feminine perception. Yet it +were well that they should know something also of the theoretical side +of the craft. Modern authorities upon the mysteries of the toilet are, +it is true, rather few; but among the ancients many a writer would seem +to have been fascinated by them. Archigenes, a man of science at the +Court of Cleopatra, and Criton at the Court of the Emperor Trajan, both +wrote treatises upon cosmetics--doubtless most scholarly treatises that +would have given many a precious hint. It is a pity they are not extant. +From Lucian or from Juvenal, with his bitter picture of a Roman levee, +much may be learnt; from the staid pages of Xenophon and Aristophanes' +dear farces. But best of all is that fine book of the Ars Amatoria that +Ovid has set aside for the consideration of dyes, perfumes, and +pomades. Written by an artist who knew the allurement of the toilet and +understood its philosophy, it remains without rival as a treatise upon +Artifice. It is more than a poem, it is a manual; and if there be left +in England any lady who cannot read Latin in the original, she will do +well to procure a discreet translation. In the Bodleian Library there +is treasured the only known copy of a very poignant and delightful +rendering of this one book of Ovid's masterpiece. It was made by a +certain Wye Waltonstall, who lived in the days of Elizabeth, and, seeing +that he dedicated it to 'the Vertuous Ladyes and Gentlewomen of Great +Britain,' I am sure that the gallant writer, could he know of our great +renaissance of cosmetics, would wish his little work to be placed once +more within their reach. 'Inasmuch as to you, ladyes and gentlewomen,' +so he writes in his queer little dedication, 'my booke of pigments doth +first addresse itself, that it may kisse your hands and afterward have +the lines thereof in reading sweetened by the odour of your breath, +while the dead letters formed into words by your divided lips may +receive new life by your passionate expression, and the words marryed +in that Ruby coloured temple may thus happily united, multiply your +contentment.' It is rather sad to think that, at this crisis in the +history of pigments, the Vertuous Ladyes and Gentlewomen cannot read the +libellus of Wye Waltonstall, who did so dearly love pigments. + +But since the days when these great critics wrote their treatises, with +what gifts innumerable has Artifice been loaded by Science! Many little +partitions must be added to the narthecium before it can comprehend all +the new cosmetics that have been quietly devised since classical +days, and will make the modern toilet chalks away more splendid in its +possibilities. A pity that no one has devoted himself to the compiling +of a new list; but doubtless all the newest devices are known to the +admirable unguentarians of Bond Street, who will impart them to their +clients. Our thanks, too, should be given to Science for ridding us of +the old danger that was latent in the use of cosmetics. Nowadays they +cannot, being purged of any poisonous element, do harm to the skin +that they make beautiful. There need be no more sowing the seeds of +destruction in the furrows of time, no martyrs to the cause like Maria, +Countess of Coventry, that fair dame but infelix, who died, so they +relate, from the effect of a poisonous rouge upon her lips. No, we need +have no fears now. Artifice will claim not another victim from among her +worshippers. + +Loveliness shall sit at the toilet, watching her oval face in the oval +mirror. Her smooth fingers shall flit among the paints and powder, to +tip and mingle them, catch up a pencil, clasp a phial, and what not +and what not, until the mask of vermeil tinct has been laid aptly, the +enamel quite hardened. And, heavens, how she will charm us and ensorcel +our eyes! Positively rouge will rob us for a time of all our reason; +we shall go mad over masks. Was it not at Capua that they had a whole +street where nothing was sold but dyes and unguents? We must have such +a street, and, to fill our new Seplasia, our Arcade of the Unguents, all +herbs and minerals and live creatures shall give of their substance. +The white cliffs of Albion shall be ground to powder for Loveliness, and +perfumed by the ghost of many a little violet. The fluffy eider-ducks, +that are swimming round the pond, shall lose their feathers, that the +powder-puff may be moonlike as it passes over Loveliness' lovely face. +Even the camels shall become ministers of delight, giving many tufts +of their hair to be stained in her splendid colour-box, and across her +cheek the swift hares foot shall fly as of old. The sea shall offer her +the phucus, its scarlet weed. We shall spill the blood of mulberries +at her bidding. And, as in another period of great ecstasy, a dancing +wanton, la belle Aubrey, was crowned upon a church's lighted altar, +so Arsenic, that 'greentress'd goddess,' ashamed at length of skulking +between the soup of the unpopular and the test-tubes of the Queen's +analyst, shall be exalted to a place of consummate honour upon the +toilet-table of Loveliness. + +All these things shall come to pass. Times of jolliness and glad +indulgence! For Artifice, whom we drove forth, has returned among us, +and, though her eyes are red with crying, she is smiling forgiveness. +She is kind. Let us dance and be glad, and trip the cockawhoop! +Artifice, sweetest exile, is come into her kingdom. Let us dance her a +welcome! + +Oxford, 1894. + + + + +Poor Romeo! + +Even now Bath glories in his legend, not idly, for he was the most +fantastic animal that ever stepped upon her pavement. Were ever a statue +given him (and indeed he is worthy of a grotesque in marble), it would +be put in Pulteney Street or the Circus. I know that the palm trees of +Antigua overshadowed his cradle, that there must be even now in Boulogne +many who set eyes on him in the time of his less fatuous declension, +that he died in London. But Mr. Coates (for of that Romeo I write) must +be claimed by none of these places. Bath saw the laughable disaster of +his debut, and so, in a manner, his whole life seems to belong to her, +and the story of it to be a part of her annals. + +The Antiguan was already on the brink of middle-age when he first trod +the English shore. But, for all his thirty-seven years, he had the heart +of a youth, and his purse being yet as heavy as his heart was light, +the English sun seemed to shine gloriously about his path and gild the +letters of introduction that he scattered everywhere. Also, he was a +gentleman of amiable, nearly elegant mien, and something of a scholar. +His father had been the most respectable resident Antigua could show, +so that little Robert, the future Romeo, had often sat at dessert with +distinguished travellers through the Indies. But in the year 1807 old +Mr. Coates had died. As we may read in vol. lxxviii. of The Gentleman's +Magazine, 'the Almighty, whom he alone feared, was pleased to take him +from this life, after having sustained an untarnished reputation for +seventy-three years,' a passage which, though objectionable in its +theology, gives the true story of Romeo's antecedents and disposes of +the later calumnies that declared him the son of a tailor. Realising +that he was now an orphan, an orphan with not a few grey hairs, our hero +had set sail in quest of amusing adventure. + +For three months he took the waters of Bath, unobtrusively, like other +well-bred visitors. His attendance was solicited for all the most +fashionable routs, and at assemblies he sat always in the shade of some +titled turban. In fact, Mr. Coates was a great success. There was an air +of most romantic mystery that endeared his presence to all the damsels +fluttering fans in the Pump Room. It set them vying for his conduct +through the mazes of the Quadrille or of the Triumph, and blushing at +the sound of his name. Alas! their tremulous rivalry lasted not long. +Soon they saw that Emma, sole daughter of Sir James Tylney Long, that +wealthy baronet, had cast a magic net about the warm Antiguan heart. In +the wake of her chair, by night and day, Mr. Coates was obsequious. When +she cried that she would not drink the water without some delicacy +to banish the iron taste, it was he who stood by with a box of +vanilla-rusks. When he shaved his great moustachio, it was at her +caprice. And his devotion to Miss Emma was the more noted for that +his own considerable riches were proof that it was true and single. He +himself warned her, in some verses written for him by Euphemia Boswell, +against the crew of penniless admirers who surrounded her: + +'Lady, ah! too bewitching lady! now beware Of artful men that fain would +thee ensnare Not for thy merit, but thy fortunes sake. Give me your +hand--your cash let venals take.' + +Miss Emma was his first love. To understand his subsequent behaviour, +let us remember that Cupid's shaft pierces most poignantly the breast +of middle-age. Not that Mr. Coates was laughed at in Bath for a +love-a-lack-a-daisy. On the contrary, his mien, his manner, were as yet +so studiously correct, his speech so reticent, that laughter had been +unusually inept. The only strange taste evinced by him was his devotion +to theatricals. He would hold forth, by the hour, upon the fine +conception of such parts as Macbeth, Othello and, especially, Romeo. +Many ladies and gentlemen were privileged to hear him recite, in this +or that drawing-room, after supper. All testified to the real fire with +which he inflamed the lines of love or hatred. His voice, his gesture, +his scholarship, were all approved. A fine symphony of praise assured +Mr. Coates that no suitor worthier than he had ever courted Thespis. +The lust for the footlights' glare grew lurid in his mothish eye. What, +after all, were these poor triumphs of the parlour? It might be that +contemptuous Emma, hearing the loud salvos of the gallery and boxes, +would call him at length her lord. + +At this time there arrived at the York House Mr. Pryse Gordon, whose +memoirs we know. Mr. Coates himself was staying at number ** Gay Street, +but was in the habit of breakfasting daily at the York House, where +he attracted Mr. Gordon's attention by 'rehearsing passages from +Shakespeare, with a tone and gesture extremely striking both to the eye +and the ear.' Mr. Gordon warmly complimented him and suggested that he +should give a public exposition of his art. The cheeks of the amateur +flushed with pleasure. 'I am ready and willing,' he replied, 'to play +Romeoe to a Bath audience, if the manager will get up the play and give +me a good "Juliet"; my costume is superb and adorned with diamonds, but +I have not the advantage of knowing the manager, Dimonds.' Pleased by +the stranger's ready wit, Mr. Gordon scribbled a note of introduction to +Dimonds there and then. So soon as he had 'discussed a brace of muffins +and so many eggs,' the new Romeo started for the playhouse, and that +very day bills were posted to the effect that 'a Gentleman of Fashion +would make his first appearance on February 9 in a role of Shakespeare.' +All the lower boxes were immediately secured by Lady Belmore and other +lights of Bath. 'Butlers and Abigails,' it is said, 'were commanded by +their mistresses to take their stand in the centre of the pit and give +Mr. Coates a capital, hearty clapping.' Indeed, throughout the week that +elapsed before the premiere, no pains were spared in assuring a great +success. Miss Tylney Long showed some interest in the arrangements. +Gossip spoke of her as a likely bride. + +The night came. Fashion, Virtue, and Intellect thronged the house. +Nothing could have been more cordial than the temper of the gallery. +All were eager to applaud the new Romeo. Presently, when the varlets of +Verona had brawled, there stepped into the square--what!--a mountebank, +a monstrosity. Hurrah died upon every lip. The house was thunderstruck. +Whose legs were in those scarlet pantaloons? Whose face grinned over +that bolster-cravat, and under that Charles II. wig and opera-hat? From +whose shoulders hung that spangled sky-blue cloak? Was this bedizened +scarecrow the Amateur of Fashion, for sight of whom they had paid their +shillings? At length a voice from the gallery cried, 'Good evening, Mr. +Coates,' and, as the Antiguan--for he it was--bowed low, the theatre was +filled with yells of merriment. Only the people in the boxes were still +silent, staring coldly at the protege who had played them so odious a +prank. Lady Belmore rose and called for her chariot. Her example was +followed by several ladies of rank. The rest sat spellbound, and of +their number was Miss Tylney Long, at whose rigid face many glasses +were, of course, directed. Meanwhile the play proceeded. Those lines +that were not drowned in laughter Mr. Coates spoke in the most foolish +and extravagant manner. He cut little capers at odd moments. He laid his +hand on his heart and bowed, now to this, now to that part of the house, +always with a grin. In the balcony-scene he produced a snuff-box, and, +after taking a pinch, offered it to the bewildered Juliet. Coming down +to the footlights, he laid it on the cushion of the stage-box and begged +the inmates to refresh themselves, and to 'pass the golden trifle on.' +The performance, so obviously grotesque, was just the kind of thing to +please the gods. The limp of Hephaestus could not have called laughter +so unquenchable from their lips. It is no trifle to set Englishmen +laughing, but once you have done it, you can hardly stop them. Act after +act of the beautiful love-play was performed without one sign of satiety +from the seers of it. The laughter rather swelled in volume. Romeo died +in so ludicrous a way that a cry of 'encore arose and the death was +actually twice repeated. At the fall of the curtain there was prolonged +applause. Mr. Coates came forward, and the good-humoured public pelted +him with fragments of the benches. One splinter struck his right temple, +inflicting a scar, of which Mr. Coates was, in his old age, not a little +proud. Such is the traditional account of this curious debut. Mr. Pryse +Gordon, however, in his memoirs tells another tale. He professes to +have seen nothing peculiar in Romeo's dress, save its display of fine +diamonds, and to have admired the whole interpretation. The attitude +of the audience he attributes to a hostile cabal. John R. and Hunter H. +Robinson, in their memoir of Romeo Coates, echo Mr. Pryse Gordon's tale. +They would have done well to weigh their authorities more accurately. + +I had often wondered at this discrepancy between document and tradition. +Last spring, when I was in Bath for a few days, my mind brooded +especially on the question. Indeed, Bath, with her faded memories, her +tristesse, drives one to reverie. Fashion no longer smiles from her +windows nor dances in her sunshine, and in her deserted parks the +invalids build up their constitutions. Now and again, as one of the +frequent chairs glided past me, I wondered if its shadowy freight were +the ghost of poor Romeo. I felt sure that the traditional account of his +debut was mainly correct. How could it, indeed, be false? Tradition is +always a safer guide to truth than is the tale of one man. I might amuse +myself here, in Bath, by verifying my notion of the debut or proving it +false. + +One morning I was walking through a narrow street in the western quarter +of Bath, and came to the window of a very little shop, which was full +of dusty books, prints and engravings. I spied in one corner of it the +discoloured print of a queer, lean figure, posturing in a garden. In one +hand this figure held a snuff-box, in the other an opera-hat. Its sharp +features and wide grin, flanked by luxuriant whiskers, looked strange +under a Caroline wig. Above it was a balcony and a lady in an attitude +of surprise. Beneath it were these words, faintly lettered: Bombastes +Coates wooing the Peerless Capulet, that's 'nough (that snuff) 1809. I +coveted the print. I went into the shop. + +A very old man peered at me and asked my errand. I pointed to the print +of Mr. Coates, which he gave me for a few shillings, chuckling at the +pun upon the margin. + +'Ah,' he said, 'they're forgetting him now, but he was a fine figure, a +fine sort of figure.' + +'You saw him?' + +'No, no. I'm only seventy. But I've known those who saw him. My father +had a pile of such prints.' + +'Did your father see him?' I asked, as the old man furled my treasure +and tied it with a piece of tape. + +'My father, sir, was a friend of Mr. Coates,' he said. 'He entertained +him in Gay Street. Mr. Coates was my father's lodger all the months +he was in Bath. A good tenant, too. Never eccentric under my father's +roof--never eccentric.' + +I begged the old bookseller to tell me more of this matter. It seemed +that his father had been a citizen of some consequence, and had owned +a house in modish Gay Street, where he let lodgings. Thither, by the +advice of a friend, Mr. Coates had gone so soon as he arrived in the +town, and had stayed there down to the day after his debut, when he left +for London. + +'My father often told me that Mr. Coates was crying bitterly when he +settled the bill and got into his travelling-chaise. He'd come back from +the playhouse the night before as cheerful as could be. He'd said he +didn't mind what the public thought of his acting. But in the morning +a letter was brought for him, and when he read it he seemed to go quite +mad.' + +'I wonder what was in the letter!' I asked. 'Did your father never know +who sent it?' + +'Ah,' my greybeard rejoined, 'that's the most curious thing. And it's a +secret. I can't tell you.' + +He was not as good as his word. I bribed him delicately with the +purchase of more than one old book. Also, I think, he was flattered by +my eager curiosity to learn his long-pent secret. He told me that the +letter was brought to the house by one of the footmen of Sir James +Tylney Long, and that his father himself delivered it into the hands of +Mr. Coates. + +'When he had read it through, the poor gentleman tore it into many +fragments, and stood staring before him, pale as a ghost. "I must not +stay another hour in Bath," he said. When he was gone, my father (God +forgive him!) gathered up all the scraps of the letter, and for a long +time he tried to piece them together. But there were a great many of +them, and my father was not a scholar, though he was affluent.' + +'What became of the scraps?' I asked. 'Did your father keep them?' + +'Yes, he did. And I used to try, when I was younger, to make out +something from them. But even I never seemed to get near it. I've never +thrown them away, though. They're in a box.' + +I got them for a piece of gold that I could ill spare--some score or +so of shreds of yellow paper, traversed with pale ink. The joy of the +archaeologist with an unknown papyrus, of the detective with a clue, +surged in me. Indeed, I was not sure whether I was engaged in private +inquiry or in research; so recent, so remote was the mystery. After two +days' labour, I marshalled the elusive words. This is the text of them: + + +MR. COATES, SIR, + +They say Revenge is sweet. I am fortunate to find it is so. I +have compelled you to be far more a Fool than you made me at the +fete-champetre of Lady B. & I, having accomplished my aim, am ready to +forgive you now, as you implored me on the occasion of the fete. But +pray build no Hope that I, forgiving you, will once more regard you as +my Suitor. For that cannot ever be. I decided you should show yourself +a Fool before many people. But such Folly does not commend your hand to +mine. Therefore desist your irksome attention &, if need be, begone from +Bath. I have punished you, & would save my eyes the trouble to turn away +from your person. I pray that you regard this epistle as privileged and +private. + +E. T. L. 10 of February. + + +The letter lies before me as I write. It is written throughout in a +firm and very delicate Italian hand. Under the neat initials is drawn, +instead of the ordinary flourish, an arrow, and the absence of any +erasure in a letter of such moment suggests a calm, deliberate character +and, probably, rough copies. I did not, at the time, suffer my fancy to +linger over the tessellated document. I set to elucidating the reference +to the fete-champetre. As I retraced my footsteps to the little +bookshop, I wondered if I should find any excuse for the cruel +faithlessness of Emma Tylney Long. + +The bookseller was greatly excited when I told him I had re-created the +letter. He was very eager to see it. I did not pander to his curiosity. +He even offered to buy the article back at cost price. I asked him if he +had ever heard, in his youth, of any scene that had passed between Miss +Tylney Long and Mr. Coates at some fete-champetre. The old man thought +for some time, but he could not help me. Where then, I asked him, could +I search old files of local news-papers? He told me that there were +supposed to be many such files mouldering in the archives of the Town +Hall. + +I secured access, without difficulty, to these files. A whole day I +spent in searching the copies issued by this and that journal during the +months that Romeo was in Bath. In the yellow pages of these forgotten +prints I came upon many complimentary allusions to Mr. Coates: 'The +visitor welcomed (by all our aristocracy) from distant Ind,' 'the +ubiquitous,' 'the charitable riche.' Of his 'forthcoming impersonation +of Romeo and Juliet' there were constant puffs, quite in the modern +manner. The accounts of his debut all showed that Mr. Pryse Gordon's +account of it was fabulous. In one paper there was a bitter attack on +'Mr. Gordon, who was responsible for this insult to Thespian art, the +gentry, and the people, for he first arranged the whole production'--an +extract which makes it clear that this gentleman had a good motive for +his version of the affair. + +But I began to despair of ever learning what happened at the +fete-champetre. There were accounts of 'a grand garden-party, whereto +Lady Belper, on March the twenty-eighth, invited a host of fashionable +persons.' The names of Mr. Coates and of 'Sir James Tylney Long and his +daughter' were duly recorded in the lists. But that was all. I turned at +length to a tiny file, consisting of five copies only, Bladud's Courier. +Therein I found this paragraph, followed by some scurrilities which I +will not quote: + + +'Mr. C**t*s, who will act Romeo (Wherefore art thou Romeo?) this +coming week for the pleasure of his fashionable circle, incurred the +contemptuous wrath of his Lady Fair at the Fete. It was a sad pity she +entrusted him to hold her purse while she fed the gold-fishes. He was +very proud of the honour till the gold fell from his hand among the +gold-fishes. How appropriate was the misadventure! But Miss Black Eyes, +angry at her loss and her swain's clumsiness, cried: "Jump into the +pond, sir, and find my purse instanter!" Several wags encouraged her, +and the ladies were of the opinion that her adorer should certainly dive +for the treasure. "Alas," the fellow said, "I cannot swim, Miss. But +tell me how many guineas you carried and I will make them good to +yourself." There was a great deal of laughter at this encounter, and the +haughty damsel turned on her heel, nor did shoe vouchsafe another word +to her elderly lover. + +'When recreant man Meets lady's wrath, &c. &c.' + + +So the story of the debut was complete! Was ever a lady more inexorable, +more ingenious, in her revenge? One can fancy the poor Antiguan going to +the Baronet's house next day with a bouquet of flowers and passionately +abasing himself, craving her forgiveness. One can fancy the wounded +vanity of the girl, her shame that people had mocked her for the +disobedience of her suitor. Revenge, as her letter shows, became her +one thought. She would strike him through his other love, the love of +Thespis. 'I have compelled you,' she wrote afterwards, in her bitter +triumph, 'to be a greater Fool than you made me.' She, then, it was that +drove him to his public absurdity, she who insisted that he should never +win her unless he sacrificed his dear longing for stage-laurels and +actually pilloried himself upon the stage. The wig, the pantaloons, the +snuff-box, the grin, were all conceived, I fancy, in her pitiless spite. +It is possible that she did but say: 'The more ridiculous you make +yourself, the more hope for you.' But I do not believe that Mr. Coates, +a man of no humour, conceived the means himself. They were surely hers. + +It is terrible to think of the ambitious amateur in his bedroom, +secretly practising hideous antics or gazing at his absurd apparel +before a mirror. How loath must he have been to desecrate the lines he +loved so dearly and had longed to declaim in all their beauty and their +resonance! And then, what irony at the daily rehearsal! With how sad a +smile must he have received the compliments of Mr. Dimonds on his +fine performance, knowing how different it would all be 'on the night! +'Nothing could have steeled him to the ordeal but his great love. He +must have wavered, had not the exaltation of his love protected him. But +the jeers of the mob were music in his hearing, his wounds love-symbols. +Then came the girl's cruel contempt of his martyrdom. + +Aphrodite, who has care of lovers, did not spare Miss Tylney Long. She +made her love, a few months after, one who married her for her fortune +and broke her heart. In years of misery the wayward girl worked out +the penance of her unpardonable sin, dying, at length, in poverty and +despair. Into the wounds of him who had so truly loved her was poured, +after a space of fourteen years, the balsam of another love. On the 6th +September 1823, at St. Georges, Hanover Square, Mr. Coates was married +to Miss Anne Robinson, who was a faithful and devoted wife to him till +he died. + +Meanwhile, the rejected Romeo did not long repine. Two months after the +tragedy at Bath, he was at Brighton, mingling with all the fashionable +folk, and giving admirable recitations at routs. He was seen every day +on the Parade, attired in an extravagant manner, very different to that +he had adopted in Bath. A pale-blue surtout, tasselled Hessians, and a +cocked hat were the most obvious items of his costume. He also affected +a very curious tumbril, shaped like a shell and richly gilded. In +this he used to drive around, every afternoon, amid the gapes of the +populace. It is evident that, once having tasted the fruit of notoriety, +he was loath to fall back on simpler fare. He had become a prey to the +love of absurd ostentation. A lively example of dandyism unrestrained +by taste, he parodied in his person the foibles of Mr. Brummell and the +King. His diamonds and his equipage and other follies became the +gossip of every newspaper in England. Nor did a day pass without the +publication of some little rigmarole from his pen. Wherever there was a +vacant theatre--were it in Cheltenham, Birmingham, or any other town--he +would engage it for his productions. One night he would play his +favourite part, Romeo, with reverence and ability. The next, he would +repeat his first travesty in all its hideous harlequinade. Indeed, there +can be little doubt that Mr. Coates, with his vile performances, must +be held responsible for the decline of dramatic art in England and the +invasion of the amateur. The sight of such folly, strutting unabashed, +spoilt the prestige of the theatre. To-day our stage is filled with +tailors'-dummy heroes, with heroines who have real curls and can open +and shut their eyes and, at a pinch, say 'mamma' and 'papa.' We +must blame the Antiguan, I fear, for their existence. It was he--the +rascal--who first spread that scenae sacra fames. Some say that he was +a schemer and impostor, feigning eccentricity for his private ends. They +are quite wrong; Mr. Coates was a very good man. He never made a penny +out of his performances; he even lost many hundred pounds. Moreover, as +his speeches before the curtain and his letters to the papers show, +he took himself quite seriously. Only the insane take themselves quite +seriously. + +It was the unkindness of his love that maddened him. But he lived to +be the lightest-hearted of lunatics and caused great amusement for many +years. Whether we think of him in his relation to history or psychology, +dandiacal or dramatic art, he is a salient, pathetic figure. That he is +memorable for his defects, not for his qualities, I know. But Romeo, +in the tragedy of his wild love and frail intellect, in the folly that +stretched the corners of his 'peculiar grin' and shone in his diamonds +and was emblazoned upon his tumbril, is more suggestive than some sages. +He was so fantastic an animal that Oblivion were indeed amiss. If no +more, he was a great Fool. In any case, it would be fun to have seen +him. + +London, 1896. + + + + +Diminuendo + +In the year of grace 1890, and in the beautiful autumn of that year, I +was a freshman at Oxford. I remember how my tutor asked me what lectures +I wished to attend, and how he laughed when I said that I wished to +attend the lectures of Mr. Walter Pater. Also I remember how, one +morning soon after, I went into Ryman's to order some foolish engraving +for my room, and there saw, peering into a portfolio, a small, thick, +rock-faced man, whose top-hat and gloves of bright dog-skin struck one +of the many discords in that little city of learning or laughter. The +serried bristles of his moustachio made for him a false-military air. I +think I nearly went down when they told me that this was Pater. + +Not that even in those more decadent days of my childhood did I admire +the man as a stylist. Even then I was angry that he should treat English +as a dead language, bored by that sedulous ritual wherewith he laid out +every sentence as in a shroud--hanging, like a widower, long over its +marmoreal beauty or ever he could lay it at length in his book, its +sepulchre. From that laden air, the so cadaverous murmur of that +sanctuary, I would hook it at the beck of any jade. The writing of Pater +had never, indeed, appealed to me, all' aiei, having regard to the couth +solemnity of his mind, to his philosophy, his rare erudition, tina phota +megan kai kalon edegmen [I received some great and beautiful light]. And +I suppose it was when at length I saw him that I first knew him to be +fallible. + +At school I had read Marius the Epicurean in bed and with a dark +lantern. Indeed, I regarded it mainly as a tale of adventure, quite as +fascinating as Midshipman Easy, and far less hard to understand, because +there were no nautical terms in it. Marryat, moreover, never made me +wish to run away to sea, whilst certainly Pater did make me wish for +more 'colour' in the curriculum, for a renaissance of the Farrar +period, when there was always 'a sullen spirit of revolt against the +authorities'; when lockers were always being broken into and marks +falsified, and small boys prevented from saying their prayers, insomuch +that they vowed they would no longer buy brandy for their seniors. In +some schools, I am told, the pretty old custom of roasting a fourth-form +boy, whole, upon Founder's Day still survives. But in my school there +was less sentiment. I ended by acquiescing in the slow revolution of its +wheel of work and play. I felt that at Oxford, when I should be of age +to matriculate, a 'variegated dramatic life was waiting for me. I was +not a little too sanguine, alas! + +How sad was my coming to the university! Where were those sweet +conditions I had pictured in my boyhood? Those antique contrasts? Did +I ride, one sunset, through fens on a palfrey, watching the gold +reflections on Magdalen Tower? Did I ride over Magdalen Bridge and hear +the consonance of evening-bells and cries from the river below? Did I +rein in to wonder at the raised gates of Queen's, the twisted pillars of +St. Mary's, the little shops, lighted with tapers? Did bull-pups snarl +at me, or dons, with bent backs, acknowledge my salute? Any one who +knows the place as it is, must see that such questions are purely +rhetorical. To him I need not explain the disappointment that beset me +when, after being whirled in a cab from the station to a big hotel, I +wandered out into the streets. On aurait dit a bit of Manchester through +which Apollo had once passed; for here, among the hideous trains and the +brand-new bricks--here, glared at by the electric-lights that hung from +poles, screamed at by boys with the Echo and the Star--here, in a riot +of vulgarity, were remnants of beauty, as I discerned. There were only +remnants. + +Soon also I found that the life of the place, like the place, had +lost its charm and its tradition. Gone were the contrasts that made it +wonderful. That feud between undergraduates and dons--latent, in the +old days, only at times when it behoved the two academic grades to unite +against the townspeople--was one of the absurdities of the past. The +townspeople now looked just like undergraduates and the dons just like +townspeople. So splendid was the train-service between Oxford and London +that, with hundreds of passengers daily, the one had become little +better than a suburb of the other. What more could extensionists demand? +As for me, I was disheartened. Bitter were the comparisons I drew +between my coming to Oxford and the coming of Marius to Rome. Could it +be that there was at length no beautiful environment wherein a man might +sound the harmonies of his soul? Had civilisation made beauty, besides +adventure, so rare? I wondered what counsel Pater, insistent always upon +contact with comely things, would offer to one who could nowhere find +them. I had been wondering that very day when I went into Ryman's and +saw him there. + +When the tumult of my disillusioning was past, my mind grew clearer. I +discerned that the scope of my quest for emotion must be narrowed. That +abandonment of ones self to life, that merging of ones soul in bright +waters, so often suggested in Pater's writing, were a counsel impossible +for to-day. The quest of emotions must be no less keen, certainly, but +the manner of it must be changed forthwith. To unswitch myself from my +surroundings, to guard my soul from contact with the unlovely things +that compassed it about, therein lay my hope. I must approach the Benign +Mother with great caution. And so, while most of the freshmen 'were +doing her honour with wine and song and wreaths of smoke, I stood aside, +pondered. In such seclusion I passed my first term--ah, how often did +I wonder whether I was not wasting my days, and, wondering, abandon my +meditations upon the right ordering of the future! Thanks be to Athene, +who threw her shadow over me in those moments of weak folly! + +At the end of term I came to London. Around me seethed swirls, eddies, +torrents, violent cross-currents of human activity. What uproar! +Surely I could have no part in modern life. Yet, yet for a while it was +fascinating to watch the ways of its children. The prodigious life of +the Prince of Wales fascinated me above all; indeed, it still fascinates +me. What experience has been withheld from His Royal High-ness? Was ever +so supernal a type, as he, of mere Pleasure? How often he has watched, +at Newmarket, the scud-a-run of quivering homuncules over the vert on +horses, or, from some night-boat, the holocaust of great wharves by +the side of the Thames; raced through the blue Solent; threaded les +coulisses! He has danced in every palace of every capital, played in +every club. He has hunted eleplants through the jungles of India, boar +through the forests of Austria, pigs over the plains of Massachusetts. +From the Castle of Abergeldie he has led his Princess into the frosty +night, Highlanders lighting with torches the path to the deer-larder, +where lay the wild things that had fallen to him on the crags. He has +marched the Grenadiers to chapel through the white streets of Windsor. +He has ridden through Moscow, in strange apparel, to kiss the catafalque +of more than one Tzar. For him the Rajahs of India have spoiled their +temples, and Blondin has crossed Niagara along the tight-rope, and the +Giant Guard done drill beneath the chandeliers of the Neue Schloss. +Incline he to scandal, lawyers are proud to whisper their secrets in +his ear. Be he gallant, the ladies are at his feet. Ennuye, all the wits +from Bernal Osborne to Arthur Roberts have jested for him. He has been +'present always at the focus where the greatest number of forces unite +in their purest energy,' for it is his presence that makes those forces +unite. + +'Ennuye?' I asked. Indeed he never is. How could he be when Pleasure +hangs constantly upon his arm! It is those others, overtaking her only +after arduous chase, breathless and footsore, who quickly sicken of her +company, and fall fainting at her feet. And for me, shod neither with +rank nor riches, what folly to join the chase! I began to see how small +a thing it were to sacrifice those external 'experiences,' so dear to +the heart of Pater, by a rigid, complex civilisation made so hard to +gain. They gave nothing but lassitude to those who had gained them +through suffering. Even to the kings and princes, who so easily gained +them, what did they yield besides themselves? I do not suppose that, if +we were invited to give authenticated instances of intelligence on the +part of our royal pets, we could fill half a column of the Spectator. In +fact, their lives are so full they have no time for thought, the highest +energy of man. Now, it was to thought that my life should be dedicated. +Action, apart from its absorption of time, would war otherwise against +the pleasures of intellect, which, for me, meant mainly the pleasures +of imagination. It is only (this is a platitude) the things one has not +done, the faces or places one has not seen, or seen but darkly, that +have charm. It is only mystery--such mystery as besets the eyes of +children--that makes things superb. I thought of the voluptuaries I +had known--they seemed so sad, so ascetic almost, like poor pilgrims, +raising their eyes never or ever gazing at the moon of tarnished +endeavour. I thought of the round, insouciant faces of the monks at +whose monastery I once broke bread, and how their eyes sparkled when +they asked me of the France that lay around their walls. I thought, +pardie, of the lurid verses written by young men who, in real life, know +no haunt more lurid than a literary public-house. It was, for me, +merely a problem how I could best avoid 'sensations,' 'pulsations,' +and 'exquisite moments' that were not purely intellectual. I would not +attempt to combine both kinds, as Pater seemed to fancy a man might. I +would make myself master of some small area of physical life, a life of +quiet, monotonous simplicity, exempt from all outer disturbance. I would +shield my body from the world that my mind might range over it, not hurt +nor fettered. As yet, however, I was in my first year at Oxford. There +were many reasons that I should stay there and take my degree, reasons +that I did not combat. Indeed, I was content to wait for my life. + +And now that I have made my adieux to the Benign Mother, I need wait no +longer. I have been casting my eye over the suburbs of London. I have +taken a most pleasant little villa in ----ham, and here I shall make my +home. Here there is no traffic, no harvest. Those of the inhabitants +who do anything go away each morning and do it elsewhere. Here no vital +forces unite. Nothing happens here. The days and the months will pass by +me, bringing their sure recurrence of quiet events. In the spring-time +I shall look out from my window and see the laburnum flowering in the +little front garden. In summer cool syrups will come for me from the +grocer's shop. Autumn will make the boughs of my mountain-ash scarlet, +and, later, the asbestos in my grate will put forth its blossoms of +flame. The infrequent cart of Buszard or Mudie will pass my window at +all seasons. Nor will this be all. I shall have friends. Next door, +there is a retired military man who has offered, in a most neighbourly +way, to lend me his copy of the Times. On the other side of my house +lives a charming family, who perhaps will call on me, now and again. +I have seen them sally forth, at sundown, to catch the theatre-train; +among them walked a young lady, the charm of whose figure was ill +concealed by the neat waterproof that overspread her evening dress. +Some day it may be...but I anticipate. These things will be but the cosy +accompaniment of my days. For I shall contemplate the world. + +I shall look forth from my window, the laburnum and the mountain-ash +becoming mere silhouettes in the foreground of my vision. I shall look +forth and, in nay remoteness, appreciate the distant pageant of the +world. Humanity will range itself in the columns of my morning paper. No +pulse of life will escape me. The strife of politics, the intriguing of +courts, the wreck of great vessels, wars, dramas, earthquakes, +national griefs or joys; the strange sequels to divorces, even, and the +mysterious suicides of land-agents at Ipswich--in all such phenomena I +shall steep my exhaurient mind. Delicias quoque bibliothecae experiar. +Tragedy, comedy, chivalry, philosophy will be mine. I shall listen to +their music perpetually and their colours will dance before my eyes. I +shall soar from terraces of stone upon dragons with shining wings +and make war upon Olympus. From the peaks of hills I shall swoop into +recondite valleys and drive the pigmies, shrieking little curses, to +their caverns. It may be my whim to wander through infinite parks where +the deer lie under the clustering shadow of their antlers and flee +lightly over the grass; to whisper with white prophets under the elms or +bind a child with a daisy-chain or, with a lady, thread my way through +the acacias. I shall swim down rivers into the sea and outstrip all +ships. Unhindered I shall penetrate all sanctuaries and snatch the +secrets of every dim confessional. + +Yes! among books that charm, and give wings to the mind, will my days be +spent. I shall be ever absorbing the things great men have written; with +such experience I will charge my mind to the full. Nor will I try to +give anything in return. Once, in the delusion that Art, loving the +recluse, would make his life happy, I wrote a little for a yellow +quarterly and had that succes de fiasco which is always given to a young +writer of talent. But the stress of creation soon overwhelmed me. Only +Art with a capital H gives any consolations to her henchmen. And I, who +crave no knighthood, shall write no more. I shall write no more. Already +I feel myself to be a trifle outmoded. I belong to the Beardsley period. +Younger men, with months of activity before them, with fresher schemes +and notions, with newer enthusiasm, have pressed forward since then. +Cedo junioribus. Indeed, I stand aside with no regret. For to be +outmoded is to be a classic, if one has written well. I have acceded to +the hierarchy of good scribes and rather like my niche. + +Chicago, 1895. + + + + +THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM A BIBLIOGRAPHY + +By John Lane + + +PREFACE + +After some considerable experience in the field of bibliography I cannot +plead as palliation for any imperfections that may be discovered in +this, that it is the work of a 'prentice hand. Difficult as I found my +self-imposed task in the case of the Meredith and Hardy bibliographies, +here my labour has been still more herculean. + +It is impossible for one to compile a bibliography of a great man's +works without making it in some sense a biography--and indeed, in the +minds of not a few people, I have found a delusion that the one is +identical with the other. + +Mr. Beerbohm, as will be seen from the page headed Personalia, was +born in London, August 24, 1872. In searching the files of the Times I +naturally looked for other remarkable occurrences on that date. There +was only one worth recording. On the day upon which Mr. Beerbohm +was born, there appeared in the first column of the Times, this +announcement: + +'On [Wednesday], the 21st August, at Brighton, the wife of V.P. +Beardsley, Esq., of a son.' + +That the same week should have seen the advent in this world of two such +notable reformers as Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm is a coincidence +to which no antiquary has previously drawn attention. Is it possible to +over-estimate the influence of these two men in the art and literature +of the century? + +Like two other great essayists, Addison and Steele, Mr. Beerbohm was +educated at Charterhouse, and, like the latter, at Merton College, +Oxford. At Charterhouse he is still remembered for his Latin verses, +and for the superb gallery of portraits of the masters that he completed +during his five years' sojourn there. There are still extant a few +copies of his satire, in Latin elegiacs, called Beccerius, privately +printed at the suggestion of Mr. A. H. Tod, his form-master. The writer +has said 'Let it lie,' however, and in such a matter the author's wish +should surely be regarded. I have myself been unable to obtain a sight +of a copy, but a more fortunate friend has furnished me with a careful +description of the opusculum, which I print in its place in the +bibliography. + +He matriculated at Merton in 1890, and immediately applied himself to +the task he had set before him, namely, a gallery of portraits of the +Dons. + +I am aware that he contributed to The Clown and other undergraduate +journals: also that he was a member of the Myrmidons' Club. It was +during his residence at Oxford that his famous treatise on Cosmetics +appeared in the pages of an important London Quarterly, sets of which +are still occasionally to be found in booksellers' catalogues at a high +price, though the American millionaire collector has made it one of the +rarest of finds. These were the days of his youth, the golden age of +'decadence.' For is not decadence merely a fin de siecle literary term +synonymous with the 'sowing his wild oats' of our grandfathers? a phrase +still surviving in agricultural districts, according to Mr. Andrew Lang, +Mr. Edward Clodd, and other Folk-Lorists. + +Mr. Beerbohm, of course, was not the only writer of his period who +appeared as the champion of artifice. A contemporary, one Richard Le +Gallienne, an eminent Pose Fancier, has committed himself somewhere to +the statement that 'The bravest men that ever trod this planet have worn +corsets.' + +But what is so far away as yester-year? In 1894, Mr. Beerbohm, in virtue +of his 'Defence of Cosmetics,' was but a pamphleteer. In 1895 he was +the famous historian, for in that year appeared the two earliest of his +profound historical studies, The History of the Year 1880, and his work +on King George the Fourth. During the growth of these masterpieces, his +was a familiar figure in the British Museum and the Record Office, and +tradition asserts that the enlargement of the latter building, which +took place some time shortly afterwards, was mainly owing to his +exertions. + +Attended by his half-brother, Mr. Tree, Mrs. Tree and a numerous +theatrical suite, he sailed on the 16th of January 1895, for America, +with a view, it is said, to establishing a monarchy in that land. Mr. +Beerbohm does not appear to have succeeded in this project, though he +was interviewed in many of the newspapers of the States. He returned, re +infecta, to the land of his birth, three months later. + +After that he devoted himself to the completion of his life-work, here +set forth. + +The materials for this collection were drawn, with the courteous +acquiescence of various publishers, from The Pageant, The Savoy, +The Chap Book, and The Yellow Book. Internal evidence shows that Mr. +Beerbohm took fragments of his writings from Vanity (of New York) and +The Unicorn, that he might inlay them in the First Essay, of whose +scheme they are really a part. The Third Essay he re-wrote. The rest he +carefully revised, and to some he gave new names. + +Although it was my privilege on one occasion to meet Mr. Beerbohm--at +five-o'clock tea--when advancing years, powerless to rob him of one +shade of his wonderful urbanity, had nevertheless imprinted evidence of +their flight in the pathetic stoop, and the low melancholy voice of one +who, though resigned, yet yearns for the happier past, I feel that +too precise a description of his personal appearance would savour of +impertinence. The curious, on this point, I must refer to Mr. Sickert's +and Mr. Rothenstein's portraits, which I hear that Mr. Lionel Cust is +desirous of acquiring for the National Portrait Gallery. + +It is needless to say that this bibliography has been a labour of love, +and that any further information readers may care to send me will be +gladly incorporated in future editions. + +I must here express my indebtedness to Dr. Garnett, C.B., Mr. Bernard +Quaritch, Mr. Clement K. Shorter, Mr. L. F. Austin, Mr. J. M. Bullock, +Mr. Lewis Hind, Mr. and Mrs. H. Beerbohm Tree, Mrs. Leverson, and Miss +Grace Conover, without whose assistance my work would have been far more +arduous. + +J.L. THE ALBANY, May 1896. + + + + +THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM + +1886. + +A Letter to the Editor. The Carthusian, Dec. 1886, signed Diogenes. A +bitter cry of complaint against the dulness of the school paper. [Not +reprinted.] + + +[1890.] + +Beccerius | a Latin fragment | with explanatory notes by M.B. [N.D. +About twelve couplets printed on rough yellow paper, pp. 1 to 4, +cr. 8vo, notes in double columns at foot of page. No publisher's or +printer's name. + + +1894. + +A Defence of Cosmetics. The Yellow Book, Vol. I., April 1894, pp. 65-82. +Reprinted in 'The Works' under the title of 'The Pervasion of Rouge.' + +Lines suggested by Miss Cissy Loftus. The Sketch, May 9, 1894, p. 71. A +Caricature. [Not reprinted. + +Mr. Phil May and Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. The Pall Mall Budget, June 7, +1894. Two Caricatures. [Not reprinted. + +Two Eminent Statesmen (the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour and the Rt. Hon. Sir +Wm. Harcourt). Pall Mall Budget, July 5, 1894. Two Caricatures. [Not +reprinted. + +Two Eminent Actors (Mr. Beerbohm Tree and Mr. Edward Terry). Pall Mall +Budget, July 26, 1894. Two Caricatures. [Not reprinted. + +A Letter to the Editor. The Yellow Book, Vol. II., July 1894, pp. +281-284. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Gus Elen (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Sept. 15, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Oscar Wilde (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Sept. 22, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: R. G. Knowles, 'Theres a picture for you!' +(Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Sept. 29, 1894. [Not reprinted. + +M. Henri Rochefort and Mr. Arthur Roberts. Pall Mall Budget, Oct. 4, +1894. Two Caricatures. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Henry Arthur Jones (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Oct. 6, +1894. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Harry Furniss (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Oct. 13, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +A Caricature of George the Fourth. The Yellow Book, Vol. III., Oct. +1894. [Not reprinted. + +A Note on George the Fourth. The Yellow Book, Vol. III., Oct. 1894, pp. +247-269. Reprinted in 'The Works' under the title of 'King George the +Fourth.' A parody of this appeared under the title of 'A Phalse Note on +George the Fourth,' in Punch, October 27, 1894, p. 204. + +Personal Remarks: Lord Lonsdale (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Oct 20, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: W. S. Gilbert (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Oct. 27, +1894. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: L. Raven Hill (Caricature). Pick- Me-Up, Nov. 3, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: The Marquis of Queensberry (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, +Nov. 17, 1894. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Ada Reeve (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Nov. 24, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Seymour Hicks (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Dec. 1, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Corney Grain (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Dec. 8, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Lord Randolph Churchill (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Dec. +22, 1894. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Dutch Daly (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Dec. 29, 1894. +[Not reprinted. + + +1895. + +Character Sketches of 'The Chieftain' at the Savoy. I. Mr. Courtice +Pounds. II. Mr. Scott Fishe. III. Mr. Walter Passmore. Pick-Me-Up, Jan. +5, 1895. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Henry Irving (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 5, 1895. + +'1880.' The Yellow Book, Vol. IV., Jan. 1895, pp. 275-283. Reprinted in +'The Works.' A parody of this appeared, under the title of '1894,' by +Max Mereboom, in Punch, February 2, 1895, p. 58. + +Character Sketches of 'An Ideal Husband' at the Haymarket. I. Mr. +Bishop. II. Mr. Charles Hawtrey. III. Miss Julia Neilson. Pick-Me-Up, +Jan. 19, 1895. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Harry Marks (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 19, 1895. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: F. C. Burnand (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 26, 1895. +[Not reprinted. + +Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 7, 1895. The above has been +reprinted with additions and alterations in 'The Works.' + +Personal Remarks: Arthur Pinero (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Feb. 9, 1895. +[Not reprinted. + +Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 14, 1895. + +Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 21, 1895. The above have +been reprinted with additions and alterations in 'The Works.' + +Personal Remarks: The Rt. Hon. Sir William Vernon Harcourt (Caricature). +Pick-Me-Up, Feb. 23, 1895. [Not reprinted. + +Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 28, 1895. The above has +been reprinted with additions and alterations in 'The Works.' + +Personal Remarks: Earl Spencer (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 9, 1895. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Arthur Balfour (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 16, +1895. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: S. B. Bancroft (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 23, +1895. [Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Paderewski (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 30, 1895. . +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Colonel North (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, April 6, 1895. +[Not reprinted. + +Personal Remarks: Alfred de Rothschild. Pick-Me-Up, April 20, 189;. [Not +reprinted. + +Merton. (The Warden of Merton.) The Octopus, May 25, 1895. A Caricature. +[Not reprinted. + +Seen on the Towpath. The Octopus, May 29, 1895. A Caricature. [Not +reprinted. + +An Evening of Peculiar Delirium. The Sketch, July 24, 1895. [Not +reprinted. + +Notes in Foppery. The Unicorn, Sept. 18, 1895. + +Notes in Foppery. The Unicorn, Sept. 25, 1895. The above have been +reprinted with additions and alterations in 'The Works,' under the title +of 'Dandies and Dandies.' + +Press Notices on 'Punch and Judy,' selected by Max Beerbohm. The Sketch, +Oct. 16, 1895 (p. 644). [Not reprinted. + +Be it Cosiness. The Pageant, Christmas, 1895, pp. 230-235. Reprinted in +'The Works' under the title of 'Diminuendo.' A parody of this appeared, +under the title of 'Be it Cosiness,' by Max Mereboom, in Punch, Dec. 21, +1895, p. 297. + + +1896. + +A Caricature of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, a wood engraving after the drawing by +Max Beerbohm. The Savoy, No. 1, Jan. 1896, p. 125. [Not reprinted. + +A Good Prince. The Savoy, No. 1, Jan. 1896, pp. 45-7. [Reprinted in 'The +Works.' + +De Natura Barbatulorum. The Chap-Book, Feb. 15, 1896, pp. 305-312. The +above has been reprinted with additions and alterations in 'The Works,' +under the title of 'Dandies and Dandies.' + +Poor Romeo! The Yellow Book, Vol. IX., April '96, pp. 169-181. +[Reprinted in 'The Works.' + +A Caricature of Aubrey Beardsley. A wood engraving after the drawing by +Max Beerbohm. The Savoy, No. 2, April 1896, p. 161. + + +PERSONALIA. + +On the 24th instant, at 57 Palace Gardens Terrace, Kensington, the wife +of J. E. Beerbohm, Esq., of a son. The Times, Aug. 26, 1872. + +A few words with Mr. Max Beerbohm. (An interview by Ada Leverson.) The +Sketch, Jan. 2, 1895, p. 439. + +Max Beerbohm: an interview by Isabel Brooke Alder. Woman, April 29, +1896, pp. 8 & 9. + +On Mr. Beerbohm leaving Oxford in July 1895, he took up his residence +at 19 Hyde Park Place, formerly the residence of another well-known +historian--W. C. Kinglake. Woman, April 29, 1896, p. 8. + + +PORTRAITS OF MR. MAX BEERBOHM. + +Max Beerbohm in 'Boyhood.' The Sketch, Jan. 2, 189;, p. 439. + +Max Beerbohm. Oxford Characters. Lithographs by Will Rothenstein. Part +6. It is believed this artist did several pastels of Mr. Beerbohm. + +Portrait of Mr. Beerbohm standing before a picture of George the Fourth, +by Walter Sickert. + +Mr. Max Beerbohm. Woman, April 29, 1896, p. 8. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Works of Max Beerbohm, by Max Beerbohm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM *** + +***** This file should be named 1859.txt or 1859.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/5/1859/ + +Produced by Tom Weiss and G. Banks + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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