The Duke's Loyal Friendship

295

concurrence in the general opinion that two more amiable and agreeable men were not to be found in the then society.

Thomas Raikes adds his evidence to that of others as to the loyalty of the Duke's friendship, for he tells us in his journal that it was a peculiar characteristic in the Duke "that he never was known to desert an old friend. Tom Stepney, I believe, tried him as high as any one, but still they were never entirely estranged; and though Brummell, on his departure from England, had given too much cause to the world, and indeed to his friends, to speak harshly of him, and remarks even of this nature. were at times by some people brought forward at His Royal Highness's own table, I never knew or heard of an instance in which he did not immediately check them. It was not in his nature to speak ill of those whom he had once liked, neither could he bear the feeling in others."

Alvanley gained the somewhat unenviable fame of having the talk of the day completely under his control, and of being the arbiter of the school for scandal in St. James's. It was he who said of Brummell before he fled the country that "he was the only Dandy-lion that flourished year after year in the hotbed of fashion: he had taken root; lions were only annual, but he was perennial."

There seem to be as many bon mots of Alvanley's in literary circulation still as there are of Selwyn's. Whether they were all his or were planted upon him as their most probable father I do not know. The following however is certainly traceable to him. On going up St. James's Street one Sunday morning, Lord Alvanley saw a hearse standing at the door of a gambling club. Approaching the mutes he took off his hat and said, with a polite bow," Is the devil really dead, gentlemen ?”

Some wit made the remark concerning a lively young man named Judge, who was imprisoned in the King's Bench, that it was the first instance of a judge reaching the bench without having been called to the bar. 'Well," answered Alvanley, "many a bad judge has been taken from the bench and placed at the bar."

A Mr. Neeld, who had inherited the money of a wealthy goldsmith, once had Lord Alvanley to dine with him. While they were waiting in the drawing-room the host pointed out his treasures, invariably telling how much they had cost. On the guests being seated in the dining-room Mr. Neeld apologised for not having a haunch of venison for dinner, but said that a very fine haunch of Welsh mutton had been prepared for them. After which he began to praise the room in which they sat; by the time he had got to the gilding the mutton appeared, and Lord Alvanley, who was bored to death, cried, "I do not care what your gilding cost; but what is more to the purpose, I am most anxious to make trial of your carving, Mr. Neeld, for I am excessively hungry, and should like to attack the representative of the haunch of venison."

A private dinner being given at White's, among a few of the members, it was agreed that he who could produce the most expensive dish should dine for nothing. Alvanley won the prize, by inventing a fricassee made entirely of the noix, or small pieces at each side of the back, taken from thirteen kinds of birds, among them being one hundred snipe, forty woodcocks, twenty pheasants, etc., in all about three hundred birds. The cost amounted to 108 55-an incident which brings to mind a dinner given a few years ago at one of the large hotels, which was upon such an absurd scale that the cost was over £80 a head.

The Unique Four

297

Alvanley had inherited from his father property which brought him in £8,000 a year; when he died he left his brother who succeeded him a total capital of £2,000.

Bernard Blackmantle, in "The English Spy," speaks of him thus in his old age:

"Lord Alvanley, the babe of honour-once the gayest of the gay, where fashion holds her bright enchanting court; now wrinkled and depressed, and plucked of every feather, by merciless Greek banditti. Such is the infatuation of play that he still continues to linger round that fatal table, and finds pleasure in recounting his enormous losses. Alvanley, who is certainly one of the most polished men in the world, was the leader of the Dandy club, or the unique four," composed of Beau Brummell, Sir Henry Mildmay, Henry Pierrepoint, and himself.

CHAPTER XVII

As to their dress, fashions change and the average boy and young man is neatly turned out; but the race of the dandies, some of whom survived in my boyhood, has quite died out and has never been replaced. More's the pity, I think, for their elegance and punctiliousness about dress led to the same in manners, and their disappearance has led to the decadence of these.

WALTER SEYMOUR, Ups and Downs of a Wandering Life.

OF Lord Yarmouth, later Marquis of Hertford, there

seems to be little that is good to be said. From 1811 to 1820 he was regarded as an authority on dress, becoming the Regent's chief adviser in matters sartorial after Brummell's fall, and holding appointments at Court. He married Maria Fagniana, Selwyn's Mie-Mie, in 1792, and by the time she had borne him three children she had had enough of his profligate ways, leaving him for Marshal Androche. John Mills said of Yarmouth that he was without one redeeming quality in the multitude of his glaring, damning vices, and Jesse speaks of "his open and unblushing depravity." He was licencious to such a degree that he was not really sane at the end of his life, which lasted eighty years, being partly paralysed and unable to talk. Yet up to the end we are told that lewd Bacchanalian scenes took place in the Tempio di Venere of this member of the aristocracy. In earlier life he had been a patron of art, had read much, was interested in politics, and returned many members to Parliament. As Marquis of Hertford he is said to have had £80,000 a year.

Bulwer Lytton as a Dandy

299

Early in last century the Isle of Thanet, and notably Broadstairs with its Assembly Room, had become a centre of cosmopolitan fashion, rivalling the Queen of the South herself. A glimpse of society in its new playground is given us by Mr. T. S. Escott in his life of Edward Bulwer, and we get a little picture both of Bulwer Lytton as he came later to be called, and of Lord Yarmouth.

One evening the young Lytton was there with Lady Caroline Lamb, who pointed out the people of note to him: "You see yonder man, in what they speak of as 'Court evening undress,' with the red hair that has made us call him Carrots'-at such pains to show grace, dignity, and spirit in his dancing steps? That is Lord Yarmouth, and there, of course, ready to black his boots, is his âme damnée, John Wilson Croker." It was the first occasion on which the future author of "Pelham" saw together the peer who sat to Thackeray for Lord Steyne and to Disraeli for Lord Monmouth, and Monmouth's factotum, the Rigby of "Coningsby."

Bulwer Lytton's appearance at the age of twenty-five is thus described: "To begin with, his features were the softened duplicates of his mother's; rather too much of the dandy may have shown itself in his glittering golden hair that, worn in ringlets, played about his shoulders, as in the air and dress of the young man himself. Still, in spite of these extravagancies, his face and bearing were not only gentleman-like, but patrician. .

Miss Wheeler (who afterwards married Lytton) records as a first impression that she had to struggle against a feeling of nauseation, not only at the fulsomeness of his compliments and flattery, but at the foppery of his dress; for, gleaming with French polish, his boots reflected the company like a looking-glass; while his transparent shirt-front was an arrangement in embroidery