BEAU NASH.

"THERE is nothing new under the sun," said Walpole, by way of a very original remark. "No," whispered George Selwyn, "nor under the grandson either."

Mankind, as a body, has proved its silliness in a thousand ways, but in none, perhaps, so ludicrously as in its respect for a man's coat. He is not always a fool that knows the value of dress; and some of the wisest and greatest of men have been dandies of the first water. King Solomon was one and Alexander the Great was another; but there never was a more despotic monarch, nor one more humbly obeyed by his subjects, than the King of Bath, and he won his dominions by the cut of his coat. But as Hercules was killed by a dressshirt, so the beaux of the modern world have generally ruined themselves by their wardrobes, and brought remorse to their hearts, or contempt from the very people who once worshiped them. The husband of Mrs. Damer, who appeared in a new suit twice a day, and whose wardrobe sold for £15,000, blew his brains out at a coffee-house. Beau Fielding, Beau Nash, and Beau Brummell all expiated their contemptible vanity in obscure old age of want and misery. As the world is full of folly, the history of a fool is as good a mirror to hold up to it as another; but in the case of Beau Nash the only question is, whether he or his subjects were the greater fools. So now for a picture of as much folly as could well be crammed into that hot basin in the Somersetshire hills, of which

more anon.

It is a hard thing for a man not to have had a father-harder still, like poor Savage, to have one whom he can not get hold of; but perhaps it is hardest of all, when you have a father, and that parent a very respectable man, to be told that you never had one. This was Nash's case, and his father was so little known, and so seldom mentioned, that the splendid Beau was thought almost to have dropped from the clouds, ready dressed and powdered. He dropped in reality from any thing but a heavenly place--the shipping-town of Swansea: so that Wales can claim the honor of having produced the finest beau of his age.

Old Nash was, perhaps, a better gentleman than his son; but with far less pretensions. He was a partner in a glass

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THE KING OF BATH.

manufactory. The Beau, in after years, often got rallied on the inferiority of his origin, and the least obnoxious answer he ever made was to Sarah of Marlborough, as rude a creature as himself, who told him he was ashamed of his parentage. "No, madam,” replied the King of Bath, "I seldom mention my father, in company, not because I have any reason to be ashamed of him, but because he has some reason to be ashamed of me.” Nash, though a fop and a fool, was not a bad-hearted man, as we shall see. And if there were no other redeeming point in his character, it is a great deal to say for him, that in an age of toadyism, he treated rank in the same manner as he did the want of it, and did his best to remove the odious distinctions which pride would have kept up in his dominions. In fact, King Nash may be thanked for having, by his energy in this respect, introduced into society the first elements of that middle class which is found alone in England.

Old Nash-whose wife, by the way, was niece to that Colonel Poyer who defended Pembroke Castle in the days of the first Revolution-was one of those silly men who want to make gentlemen of their sons, rather than good men. He had his wish. His son Richard was a very fine gentleman, no doubt; but, unfortunately, the same circumstances that raised him to that much-coveted position, also made him a gambler and a profligate. Oh! foolish papas, when will you learn that a Christian snob is worth ten thousand irreligious gentlemen ? When will you be content to bring up your boys for heaven rather than for the brilliant world? Nash, senior, sent his son first to school and then to Oxford, to be made a gentleman of. Richard was entered at Jesus College, the haunt of the Welsh. In my day, this quiet little place was celebrated for little more than the humble poverty of its members, one third of whom rejoiced in the cognomen of Jones. They were not renowned for cleanliness, and it was a standing joke with us silly boys, to ask at the door for "that Mr. Jones who had a tooth-brush." If the college had the same character then, Nash must have astonished its dons, and we are not surprised that in his first year they thought it better to get rid of him.

His father could ill afford to keep him at Oxford, and fondly hoped he would distinguish himself. "My boy Dick" did so at the very outset, by an offer of marriage to one of those charming sylphs of that academical city, who are always on the look-out for credulous undergraduates. The affair was discovered, and Master Richard, who was not seventeen, was removed from the University.* Whether he ever, in after

* Warner ("History of Bath," p. 366) says, "Nash was removed from Oxford by his friends."

OFFER OF KNIGHTHOOD.

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life, made another offer, I know not, but there is no doubt that he ought to have been married, and that the connections he formed in later years were far more disreputable than his first love affairs.

The worthy glass-manufacturer having failed to make his son a gentleman in one way, took the best step to make him a blackguard, and, in spite of the wild inclinations he had already evinced, bought him a commission in the army. In this new position the incipient Beau did every thing but his duty; dressed superbly, but would not be in time for parade; spent more money than he had, but did not obey orders; and finally, though not expelled from the army, he found it convenient to sell his commission, and return home, after spending the proceeds.

Papa was now disgusted, and sent the young Hopeless to shift for himself. What could a well-disposed, handsome youth do to keep body and, not soul, but clothes together? He had but one talent, and that was for dress. Alas, for our degenerate days! When we are pitched upon our own bottoms, we must work; and that is a highly ungentlemanly thing to do. But in the beginning of the last century, such a degrading resource was quite unnecessary. There were always at hand plenty of establishments where a youth could obtain the necessary funds to pay his tailor, if fortune favored him; and if not, he could follow the fashion of the day, and take to what the Japanese call "the happy Dispatch." Nash probably suspected that he had no brains to blow out, and he determined the more resolutely to make fortune his mistress. He went to the gaming-table, and turned his one guinea into ten, and his ten into a hundred, and was soon blazing about in gold lace, and a new sword, the very delight of dandies.

He had entered his name, by way of excuse, at the Temple, and we can quite believe that he ate all the requisite dinners, though it is not so certain that he paid for them. He soon found that a fine coat is not so very far beneath a good brain in worldly estimation, and when, on the accession of William the Third, the Templars, according to the old custom, gave his Majesty a banquet, Nash, as a promising Beau, was selected to manage the establishment. It was his first experience of the duties of an M. C., and he conducted himself so ably on this occasion that the king even offered to make a knight of him. Probably Master Richard thought of his empty purse, for he replied with some of that assurance which afterward stood him in such good stead, "Please your majesty, if you intend to make me a knight, I wish I may be one of your poor knights of Windsor, and then I shall have a fortune, at least able to sup

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port my title." William did not see the force of this argument, and Mr. Nash remained Mr. Nash till the day of his death. He had another chance of the title, however, in days when he could have better maintained it, but again he refused. Queen Anne once asked him why he declined knighthood. He replied: "There is Sir William Read, the mountebank, who has just been knighted, and I should have to call him 'brother.”” The honor was, in fact, rather a cheap one in those days, and who knows whether a man who had done such signal service to his country did not look forward to a peerage? Worse men than even Beau Nash have had it.

Well, Nash could afford to defy royalty, for he was to be himself a monarch of all he surveyed, and a good deal more; but before we follow him to Bath, let us give the devil his due-which, by the way, he generally gets-and tell a pair of tales in the Beau's favor.

Imprimis, his accounts at the Temple were £10 deficient. Now I don't mean that Nash was not as great a liar as most of his craft, but the truth of this tale rests on the authority of the "Spectator," though Nash took delight in repeating it.

"Come hither, young man," said the Benchers, coolly: "whereunto this deficit ?”

"Pri'thee, good masters," quoth Nash, "that £10 was spent on making a man happy.

"A man happy, young sir, pri'thee explain."

"Odds donners," quoth Nash, "the fellow said in my hearing that his wife and bairns were starving, and £10 would make him the happiest man sub sole, and on such an occasion as His Majesty's accession could I refuse it him ?”

Nash was, proverbially, more generous than just. He would not pay a debt if he could help it, but would give the very amount to the first friend that begged it. There was much ostentation in this, but then my friend Nash was ostentatious. One friend bothered him day and night for £20 that was owing to him, and he could not get it. Knowing his debtor's character, he hit, at last, on a happy expedient, and sent a friend to borrow the money "to relieve his urgent necessities." Out came the bank-note, before the story of distress was finished. The friend carried it to the creditor, and when the latter again met Nash, he ought to have made him a pretty compliment on his honesty.

Perhaps the King of Bath would not have tolerated in any one else the juvenile frolics he delighted in after years to relate of his own early days. When at a loss for cash he would do any thing, but work, for a fifty pound note, and having, in one of his trips, lost all his money at York, the Beau under

He

took to "do penance" at the minster door for that sum. accordingly arrayed himself-not in sackcloth and ashes, but -in an able-bodied blanket, and nothing else, and took his stand at the porch just at the hour when the dean would be going in to read service. "He, ho,” cried that dignitary, who knew him, "Mr. Nash in masquerade ?" "Only a Yorkshire penance, Mr. Dean," quoth the reprobate; "for keeping bad company, too," pointing therewith to the friends who had come to see the sport.

This might be tolerated, but when, in the eighteenth century, a young man emulates the hardiness of Godiva, without her merciful heart, we may not think quite so well of him. Mr. Richard Nash, Beau Extraordinary to the Kingdom of Bath, once rode through a village in that costume of which even our first parent was rather ashamed, and that, too, on the back of a cow! The wager was, I believe, considerable. A young Englishman did something more respectable, yet quite as extraordinary, at Paris, not a hundred years ago, for a small bet. He was one of the stoutest, thickest-built men possible, yet being but eighteen, had neither whisker nor mustache to masculate his clear English complexion. At the Maison Dorêe one night he offered to ride in the Champs Elysées in a lady's habit, and not be mistaken for a man. A friend undertook to dress him, and went all over Paris to hire a habit that would fit his round figure. It was hopeless for a time, but at last a good-sized body was found, and added thereto, an ample skirt. Félix dressed his hair with mainte plats and a net. He looked perfect, but in coming out of the hairdresser's to get into his fly, unconsciously pulled up his skirt and displayed a sturdy pair of well-trowsered legs. A crowdthere is always a ready crowd in Paris-was waiting, and the laugh was general. This hero reached the horse-dealer's"mounted," and rode down the Champs. "A very fine woman that," said a Frenchman in the promenade, "but what a back she has!" It was in the return bet to this that a now well-known diplomat drove a goat-chaise and six down the same fashionable resort, with a monkey, dressed as a footman, in the back seat. The days of folly did not, apparently, end with Beau Nash.

There is a long lacune in the history of this worthy's life, which may have been filled up by a residence in a sponginghouse, or by a temporary appointment as billiard-marker; but the heroic Beau accounted for his disappearance at this time in a much more romantic manner. He used to relate that he was once asked to dinner on board a man-of-war under orders for the Mediterranean, and that such was the affection the of