THE COURIER
13
i
BEAU BRUMMELL.
gl ICHARD MANSFIELD gave the Lincoln public on Monday
Kf evening a portrayal of one of the most interesting and unique
g characters of a period that was singularly productive of ex
aggerated types, of a time when tho Prince of Wales, afterwards
George IV, set the pace in a mad whirl of frivolity.
One writer has said that "a real leader of fashion must be a great
man. Not good, perhaps, oftenest radically bad; shamming, if not
truly exhibiting puerile weaknesses, mental obliquities; for the most
party inordinately prone to love of self, and self alone; scornful of
such qualities as men call great, noble, magnanimous, nevertheless
abounding in some excellences as rare as they. A popular sovereign
essentially. "Reigning by tanure of most delicate fibre; no guards,
no castles, no spirit of conservatism, not even a ray of gratitude to
rely on in the hour of insurrection; everything, in short, against him
popular fickleness, ambitious rivalry, inevitable scandal, and,
sooner or later, exhaustion of his own resources. Yet all the bow
strings and scimitars of Asia have not brought forth despots more
confidently despotic than some men of fashion the world has seen."
George Brummell, called Beau, was such a man.
Beau Brummell, according to the capricious Lord Byron, was one
of the three great men of the Nineteenth century, the other two '
being Napoleon and himself.
The son of a secretary of Lord North, his mother being the young
est child of a lottery office keeper, Brummell passes through child
hood and reaches Oxford where, probably his snobbishness first began
to develop. Here he met the Prince of Wales.
The beau's first establishment was not elaborate at this time ho
had thirty thousand pounds, but it was elegant. "But one French
cook; a single pair of bays; dinners rarely twice a week." But he
speedily became the leader of fashion.
He out princed the prince. He was the most important personage
in the gay world. It is related that a duchess thought it necessary
to warn her daughter to be careful of her behavior when "the cele
brated Mr. Brummell" approached her. A lord considered himself
well treated when Brummell gave him his arm from Whitens to
Watier's. A creditor was paid by a bow.
On one occasion, it is said, he was asked to dinner by R . "He
wishes me to notice him," says Brummell, "but desired that I should
make up the party myself; so I. asked Alvanley, Mills, Pierrepoint
and a few others, and the affair turned out unique; there was every
delicacy in and out of season; the celery was perfect, and not a wish
remained ungratified, but, my dear sir, conceive my astonishment
when I tell you that Mr. R had the assurance to sit down and
dine with us."
Such was his supremacy that he could say to a gentleman who
offered him his carriage to go to a party, "But, my dear fellow, pray
how are you to go? Ycu would not like, perhaps, to get up behind?
And yet it will hardly do for me to be seen in the same carriage with
you."
Mr. Mansfield in the play brings in the famous remark to the
future king of England, "Wales, ring the bell." This has never been
fully authenticated. One version of the story is that he did make
such a request, and that the prince complied, and, ordering Brum
mell's carriage, never spoke to him again. Another is that Brum
mell and Lord Moira were engaged in conversation at Carlton house
when the prince requested the former to ring the bell, and that he
replied: "Your Royal Highness is close to it."
That there was a rupture between Brummell and the prince,
caused very likely by Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was trying to win favor
with the prince, and who was miffed at the attentions Brummell
was bestowing upon her rival, is an historic fact.
Afterward, the prince leaning on Lord Moira's arm, met Brummell
walking with Lord Alvanley, and wishing to cut the beau, his Royal
Highness stopped and spoke to Lord Alvanley without noticing his
companion. When he turned Brummell was heard to say: "Alvan
ley, who's your fat friend?"
The decline of the King of Fashion was rapid after his rupture
with the prince. Creditors who had waited for years pressed him,
and he was finally forced to fly to Calais. He tried to renew his
relations with George, now king, but in vain. For a brief timo he
was consul at Caen. This office abolished, he was left with abso
lutely no income. He was imprisoned for two months for debt at
Caen, and soon afterward he had a btroke of paralysis. In his deso
late apartment, assailed by hunger, ho would imagine that he was
entertaining hie trieade of lose am. TkimtmmmX
described-aa fallow: MOa these nk irnlip he iiilnl Us at
tendant to arrMff the apei tenet, mi. vta wbJet table, mi light
the bougies (he bent ealy aae talliw t the tame); tut etJJffcJL.
o'clock his me te wheat bf had airway ffraa hie. iesjerwetieae,
opened the doeref' bis atttia roes aa4 aanwan J the 'IHnam ef
Devonshire.' At the atmad ef fear grace's well leaMeshered mm,
the beau, instaetly rieiag treat kia chair, would edraaea teward the
door and greet the cold air from the stairway as if it had been the
beautiful Georgiana herself. Tho supposed visitor was received
with all his former courtly ease of manner and the earnestness that
the pleasure of such an honor might be supposed to excite. 'Ah!
very dear duchess,' faltered the beau, 'how rejoiced I am to see you;
so very amiable of you at such short notice! Pray bury yourself in
this armchair; do you know it was a gift to me from the Duchess of
York, who was a very kind friend of mine; poor thing! you know she
is now no more.' Here the eyes of the old man would till with the
tears of idiocy, and sinking into the fauteuil himself, he would sit
for same time looking vacantly at the fire until Lord Alvanley,
Worcester, or any other old friend he chose to name was announced.
At ten his attendant announced the carriages, and this farce was at
an end.
There is a scene much resembling this in the play.
Beau Brnmmell died March .10, 1&10.
THE GORBBTT-JACKSON FIGHT.
John L. Sullivan, in discussing the proposed Corbett-Jackson
fight, says: "I believe that the battle will take place, but I fear
it will not be fought on American soil. England, I think, will
secure the fight. My reasons for bo believing are, first, that Corbett
cannot afford to shirk a conflict' with the only man at present in the
ring who is a constant menace to his fistic supremacy; and secondly,
that England is the only civilized country in which glove contests
between champions can be surely pulled off. A champion has the
right to name the time (so long as it be within a reasonable time)
and place of battle.
"I don't blame Corbett for wishing to fight in his own country if
ho possibly can. But can he? I am afraid not. But he frankly
adds that he will fight in another country if ho finds that he cannot
battle in his own. His suggestion about going to Mexico I do not
think a good one. Corbett's peculiar actions of late do not, I think,
indicate any disinclination upon his part to face the ebony-hued
fighter.
"He is simply actuated by a desire to make hay while the sun
shines. Were he to fight Jackson in June he would be obliged to go
into training right away, and thus lose thousands of dollars in the
show business. The people of England are eager to see the man
who first overthrew your humble servant and then Mitchell.
"Corbett's and Brady's talk about a 845,000 purse aad insistence
on a battle in America is simply for effect. Corbett and Brady
simply wish to play American against British clubs.
"Should an American club offer $10,000 or 850,000 for the fight,
they, knowing that a battle cannot take place in the United States,
will prod an English club into giving a tidy sum like 825,000 or 830,
000 for the fight. I venture to predict, too, that they will get it and
fight across the water. It will be six months before they do battle.
'I thoroughly believethat Corbett is fully impressed with the con
viction that he can beat any man in the fighting business to-day.
He will enter the ring to face Jackson with all the confidence born
of success. I'm not much stuck on Englishmen or English methods,
but I believe that both men will receive fair play. They will in all
likelihood, if they battle in London, fight at the National or Ormonde
club, and the best men of England belong to these organizations. .
"Barring accidents I think Corbett ought to win. He has the
advantage in point of age, is shiftier on his feet and a little quicker
and cleverer with his hands, and is away ahead at ducking.
"I do not believe that the winner will have an easy time cJf-it- The
battle, in my opinion, will be a hard, scientific one from start to
finish, and it will last from about twenty to thirty rounds."
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