Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844

“As I am unwilling to merit the imputation of committing myself by too flagrant a liberty in retaining your glove, which you charitably sent at my head yesterday, as you would have extended an eleemosynary sixpence to the supplicating hat of a mendicant, I restore it to you. And, allow me to assure you, that I have too much regard and respect for you, and too little practical vanity myself, (whatever appearances may be against me,) to have entertained, for one treacherous instant, the impertinent intention to defraud you of it. You are angry, perhaps irreparably incensed against me for this petty larceny. I have no defence to offer in mitigation but that of frenzy. But you know that you are an angel visiting these sublunary spheres, and therefore your first quality should be that of mercy. Yet you are sometimes wayward and volatile in your seraphic disposition. Though   you have no wings yet you have weapons, and those are resentment and estrangement from me.—With sentiments of the deepest compunction, I am always your miserable slave,

    “George Brummell.”

We have not a doubt that he perused this toilsome performance a dozen times before he folded it up, advanced to his mirror to see how so brilliant a correspondent must look after so astonishing a production, moved round the room in a minuet step; and, when he sent it away at last, followed it with a sigh at the burial of so much renown in a woman’s escritoire, and a regret that it could not be stereotyped to make its progress round the world. And yet, as it appeared that the lady had thrown the glove at him, and even lent him her miniature, it would be difficult to discover any ground for her wrath or his compunction. Both were evidently equally imaginary.

The Beau always regarded the city as a terra incognita. A merchant once asked him to dine there. Brummell gave him a look of intense enquiry. The merchant pressed him. “Well,” said the Beau, (who probably had excellent reasons for non-resistance to the man of money;) “well, if it must be—but you must first promise faithfully never to say a word on the subject.”

A visitor, full of the importance of a tour in the north of England, asked him which of the lakes he preferred. “I can’t possibly remember,” was the reply; “they are a great way from St James’s Street, and I don’t think they are spoken of in the clubs.” The visitor urged the question. “Robinson,” said the Beau, turning in obvious distress to his valet, “Robinson, pray tell this gentleman which of the lakes I preferred.”—“Windermere, sir, I think it was,” said the valet. “Well,” added Brummell, “probably you are in the right, Robinson. It may have been. Pray, sir, will Windermere do?”

“I wonder, Brummell, you take the trouble of driving to the barracks of the 10th with four horses. It certainly looks rather superb,” said one of the officers. “Why, I dare say it does; but that is not the point. What could I do, when my French valet, the best dresser of hair in the universe, gave me warning that he must leave me to myself, unless I gave up the vulgarity of posting with two?”

We come, in the course of this goodly history, to the second great event of the Beau’s life—the first being his introduction to Carlton House. The second was his being turned out of it. Brummell always denied, and with some indignation, the story of “Wales, ring the bell!”—a version which he justly declared to be “positively vulgar,” and therefore, with due respect for his own sense of elegance, absolutely impossible for him. He gave the more rational explanation, that he had taken the part of lady who was presumed to be the rival of Mrs Fitzherbert, and had been rash enough even to make some remarks on Mrs Fitzherbert’s en bon point, a matter of course never to be forgiven by a belle. This extended to a “declining love” between him and the Prince, whose foible was a horror of growing corpulent, and whom Brummell therefore denominated “Big Ben,” the nickname of a gigantic porter at Carlton House; adding the sting of calling Mrs Fitzherbert Benina. Moore, in one of his satires on the Prince’s letter of February the 13th, 1812, to the Duke of York, in which he cut the Whigs, thus parodies that celebrated “sentence of banishment:”—

“Neither have I resentments, nor wish there should come ill
To mortal, except, now I think on’t, Beau Brummell,
Who threaten’d, last year, in a super-fine passion,
To cut me, and bring the old king into fashion.”

Brummell now, since the sword was drawn, resolved to throw away the sheath, and his hits were keen and “damaging,” as those things are now termed. In this style he said to little Colonel M’Mahon, the Prince’s secretary—“I made him, and I shall unmake him.”

The “fat friend” hit was more pungent in reality than in its usual form. The Prince, walking down St James’s Street with Lord Moira, and seeing Brummell approaching arm-in-arm with a man of rank, determined to show the openness of the quarrel, stopped and spoke to the noble lord with an apparent unconsciousness of   ever having seen the Beau before. The moment he was turning away, Brummell asked, in his most distinct voice, “Pray, who is your fat friend?” Nothing could be more dexterously impudent; for it repaid the Prince’s pretended want of recognition precisely in his own coin, and besides stung him in the very spot where he was known to be most thin-skinned.

It is sufficiently remarkable, that the alienation of the Prince from Brummell scarcely affected his popularity with the patrician world, or his reception by the Duke and Duchess of York. He was a frequent guest at Oatlands, and seems to have amused the duke by his pleasantry, and cultivated the taste of the duchess by writing her epigrams, and making her presents of little dogs. The Duke of York, though not much gifted with the faculty of making jests, greatly enjoyed them in others. He was a good-humoured, easy-mannered man, wholly without affectation of any kind; well-intentioned, with some sagacity—mingled, however, with a good deal of that abruptness which belonged to all the Brunswicks; and though unfortunate in his domestic conduct, a matter on which it would do no service to the reader to enlarge, yet a brave soldier, and a zealous and most useful commander-in-chief at the Horse Guards. He, too, could say good things now and then. One day at Oatlands, as he was mounting his horse to ride to town, seeing a poor woman driven from the door, he asked the servant what she was. “A beggar, your royal highness: nothing but a soldier’s wife.”—“Nothing but a soldier’s wife! And pray, sir, what is your mistress?” Of course, the poor woman was called back and relieved.

Still Brummell continued in high life, and was one of the four who gave the memorable fête at the Argyll Rooms in July 1813, in consequence of having won a considerable sum at hazard. The other three were, Sir Henry Mildmay, Pierrepoint, and Lord Alvanley. The difficulty was, whether or not to invite the Prince, who had quarrelled with Mildmay as well as with Brummell. In this solemn affair Pierrepoint sounded the Prince, and ascertained that he would accept the invitation if it were proposed to him. When the Prince arrived, and was of course received by the four givers of the fête, he shook hands with Alvanley and Pierrepoint, but took no notice whatever of the others. Brummell was indignant, and, at the close of the night, would not attend the Prince to his carriage. This was observed, and the Prince’s remark on it next day was—“Had Brummell taken the cut I gave him last night good-humouredly, I should have renewed my intimacy with him.” How that was to be done, however, without lying down to be kicked, it would be difficult to discover. Brummell however, on this occasion, was undoubtedly as much in the right as the Prince was in the wrong.

Brummell, in conformity to the habits of the time, and the proprieties of his caste, was of course a gambler, and of course was rapidly ruined; but we have no knowledge that he went through the whole career, and turned swindler. One night he was playing with Combe, who united the three characters of a lover of play, a brewer, and an alderman. It was at Brookes’s, and in the year of his mayoralty. “Come, Mash Tub, what do you set?” said the Beau. “Twenty-five guineas,” was the answer. The Beau won, and won the same sum twelve times running. Then, putting the cash in his pocket, said with a low bow, “Thank you, alderman; for this, I’ll always patronize your porter.”—“Very well, sir,” said Combe dryly, “I only wish every other blackguard in London would do the same.”

At this time play ran high at the clubs. A baronet now living was said to have lost at Watier’s L.10,000 at one sitting, at ecarté. In 1814, Brummell lost not only all his winnings, but “an unfortunate L.10,000,” as he expressed it, the last that he had at his bankers. Brummell was now ruined; and, to prevent the possibility of his recovery at any future period, he raised money at ruinous interest, and finally made his escape to Calais. Still, when every thing else forsook him, his odd way of telling his own story remained. “He said,” observed one of his friends at Caen, when talking about his altered circumstances, “that, up to a particular   period of his life, every thing prospered with him, and that he attributed this good luck to the possession of a silver sixpence with a hole in it, which somebody had given him some years before, with an injunction to take good care of it, as every thing would go well with him so long as he kept it, and everything the contrary if he happened to lose it.” And so it turned out; for having at length, in an evil hour, given it by mistake to a hackney coachman, a complete reverse of his affairs took place, and one misfortune followed another until he was obliged to fly. On his being asked why he did not advertise a reward for it, he answered—“I did; and twenty people came with sixpences with holes in them for the reward, but not my sixpence.” “And you never heard any more of it?” “No,” he replied; “no doubt that rascal Rothschild, or some of that set, have got hold of it.” But the Beau’s retreat from London was still to be characteristic. As it had become expedient that he must make his escape without eclat, on the day of his intended retreat he dined coolly at his club, and finished his London performances by sending from the table a note to his friend Scrope Davies, couched in the following prompt and expressive form:—

“My Dear Scrope,—Lend me two hundred pounds: the banks are shut, and all my money is in the 3 per cents. It shall be repaid to-morrow morning.—Yours, George Brummell.”

The answer was equally prompt and expressive—

“My Dear George,—It is very unfortunate, but all my money is in the 3 per cents.—Yours, S. Davies.”

Such is the story;

“I cannot tell how the truth may be,
I tell the tale as ’twas told to me.”

Nothing daunted, the Beau went to the opera, allowed himself to be seen about the house, then quickly retiring, stepped into a friend’s chaise and met his own carriage, which waited for him a short distance from town. Travelling all night with four horses, he reached Dover by morning, hired a vessel to carry him over, and soon left England and his creditors behind. He was instantly pursued; but the chase stopped on reaching the sea. Debtors could not then be followed to France, and Brummell was secure.

The little, rude, and thoroughly comfortless town of Calais was now to be the place of residence, for nearly the rest of his life, to a man accustomed to the highest luxuries of London life, trained to the keenest sensibility of London enjoyment, and utterly absorbed in London objects of every kind. Ovid’s banishment among the Thracians could scarcely be a more formidable change of position. Yet Brummell’s pleasantry did not desert him even in Calais. On some passing friend’s remark on the annoyance of living in such a place—“Pray,” said the Beau, “is it not a general opinion that a gentleman might manage to spend his time pleasantly enough between London and Paris?”

At Calais he took apartments at the house of one Leleux, an old bookseller, which he fitted up to his own taste; and on which, as if adversity had no power to teach him common prudence, he expended the greater part of the 25,000 francs which, by some still problematical means, he had contrived to carry away with him. This was little short of madness; but it was a madness which he had been practising for the last dozen years, and habit had now rendered ruin familiar to him. At length a little gleam of hope shone across his fortunes. George IV. arrived at Calais on his way to Hanover. The Duke d’Angoulême came from Paris to receive his Majesty, and Calais was all in a tumult of loyalty. The reports of Brummell’s conduct on this important arrival, of the King’s notice of him, and of the royal liberality in consequence, were of every shape and shade of invention. But all of them, except the mere circumstance of the King’s pronouncing his name, seem to have been utterly false. Brummell, mingling in the crowd which cheered his Majesty in his progress, was observed by the King, who audibly said, “Good heavens, Brummell!” But the recognition proceeded no further. The Beau sent his valet, who was a renowned maker of punch, to exhibit his talent in that art at the royal entertainment, and also sent a present of some excellent maraschino. But no result followed. The King was said to have transmitted to him a   hundred pound note; but even this is unluckily apocryphal. Leleux, his landlord, thus gives the version. The English consul at Calais came to Mr Brummell late one evening, and intimated that the King was out of snuff, saying, as he took up one of the boxes lying on his table, “Give me one of yours.”—“With all my heart,” was the reply; “but not that box, for if the King saw it I should never have it again”—implying that there was some story attached to it. On reaching the theatre the consul presented the snuff, and the King turning, said, “Why, sir, where did you get your snuff? There is only one person that I know that can mix snuff in this way!”—“It is some of Mr Brummell’s, your Majesty,” replied the consul. The next day the King left Calais; and, as he seated himself in the carriage, he said to Sir Arthur Paget, who commanded the yacht that brought him over, “I leave Calais, and have not seen Brummell.” From this his biographer infers that he had received neither money nor message, and his landlord is of the same opinion. But slight as those circumstances are, it seems obvious that George IV. had a forgiving heart towards the Beau notwithstanding all his impertinences, that he would have been glad to forgive him, and that he would, in all probability, have made some provision for his old favourite if Brummell had exhibited any signs of repentance. On the other hand, Brummell was a man of spirit, and no man ought to put himself in the way of being treated contemptuously even by royalty; but it seems strange that, with all his adroitness, he should not have hit upon a middle way. There could have been no great difficulty in ascertaining whether the King would receive him, in sending a respectful message, in offering his loyal congratulations on the King’s arrival, or even in expressing his regret at his long alienation from a Prince to whom he had been once indebted for so many favours, and who certainly never harboured resentment against man. Brummell evidently repented his tardiness on this occasion; for he made up his mind to make a more direct experiment when the King should visit the town-hall on his return. But opportunities once thrown away are seldom regained. The king on his return did not visit the town-hall, but hurried on board, and the last chance of reconciliation was gone.

Yet during his long residence in Calais, the liberality of his own connexions in England enabled him to show a good face to poverty. He paid his bills punctually whenever the remittance came, and was charitable to the mendicants who, probably for the last thousand years, have made Calais their headquarters. The general name for him was the Roi de Calais. An anecdote of his pleasantry in almsgiving reached the public ear. A French beggar asked him for a two-sous piece. “I don’t know the coin,” said Brummell, “never having had one; but I suppose you mean a franc. There, take it.” His former celebrity had also spread far and wide among the population. A couple of English workmen in one of the factories of the town, one day followed a gentleman who had a considerable resemblance to Brummell. He heard one of them say to the other, “Now, I’ll bet you a pot that’s him.” Shortly after, one of them strolled up to him, with, “Beg pardon, sir—hope no offence, but we two have got a bet—now, a’n’t you George Ring the Bell?” Brummell’s habits of flirtation did not desert him in France; and in one instance he paid such marked attention to a young English lady, that a friend was deputed to enquire his purposes. Here Brummell’s knowledge of every body did him good service. The deputy on this occasion having once figured as the head of a veterinary hospital, or some such thing, but being then in the commissariat,—“Why, Vulcan!” exclaimed Brummell, “what a humbug you must be to come and lecture me on such a subject! You, who were for two years at hide-and-seek to save yourself from being shot by Sir T. S. for running off with one of his daughters.” “Dear me,” said the astonished friend, “you have touched a painful chord; I will have no more to do with this business.” The business died a natural death.

His dressing-table was recherché. Its batterie de toilette was curious, complete, and of silver; one part of it being a spitting-dish, he always declaring that “it was impossible to   spit in clay.” His “making up” every morning occupied two hours. When he first arrived in Caen he carried a cane, but often exchanged it for a brown silk umbrella, which was always protected by a silk case of remarkable accuracy of fit—the handle surmounted by an ivory head of George the Fourth, in well-curled wig and gracious smile. In the street he never took off his hat to any one, not even to a lady; for it would have been difficult to replace it in the same position, it having been put on with peculiar care. We finish by stating, that he always had the soles of his boots blackened as well as the upper leathers; his reason for this being, that, in the usual negligence of human nature, he never could be sure that the polish on the edge of the sole would be accurately produced, unless the whole underwent the operation. He occasionally polished a single boot himself, to show how perfection on this point was to be obtained. Clogs, so indispensable in the dirt of an unpaved French street, he always abhorred; yet, under cover of night, he could, now and then, condescend to wear them. “Theft,” as the biographer observes, “in Sparta was a crime—but only when it was discovered.”

But after this life of fantasy and frivolity, on which so much cleverness was thrown away, the unfortunate Beau finished his career miserably. On his application to the Foreign Office, representing his wish to be removed to any other consulate where he might serve more effectually, and of course with a better income; the former part of his letter was made the ground of abolishing the consulate, while the latter received no answer. We say nothing of this measure, any further than that it had the effect of utter ruin on poor Brummell. The total loss of his intellect followed; he was reduced to absolute beggary, and finally spent his last miserable hours in an hospital for lunatic mendicants. Surely it could not have been difficult, in the enormous patronage of office, to have found some relief for the necessities of a man whose official character was unimpeached; who had been expressly put into government employ by ministers for the sake of preserving him from penury; who had been the companion, the friend of princes and nobles; and whose faults were not an atom more flagrant than those of every man of fashion in his time. But he was now utterly ruined and wretched. Some strong applications were made to his former friends by a Mr Armstrong, a merchant of Caen, who seems to have constantly acted a most humane part to him, and occasional donations were sent. A couple of hundred pounds were even remitted from the Foreign Office; and, by the exertions of Lord Alvanley and the present Duke of Beaufort, who never deserted him, and this is much to the honour of both, a kind of small annuity was paid to him. But he was already overwhelmed with debt, for his income from the consulate netted him but L.80 a-year, the other L.320 being in the hands of the banker, his creditor; and it seems probable that his destitution deprived him of his senses after a period of wretchedness and even of rags. Broken-hearted and in despair, concluding with hopeless imbecility, this man of taste and talent, for he possessed both in no common degree, was left to die in the hands of strangers—no slight reproach to the cruel insensibility of those who, wallowing in wealth, and fluttering from year to year through the round of fashion, suffered their former associate, nay their envied example, to perish in his living charnel. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery of Caen, under a stone with this inscription:—

In

Memory of

George Brummell, Esq.,

who departed this life

On the 29th of March 1840

Aged 62 years

Mr Jesse deserves credit for his two volumes. There is a good deal in them which has no direct reference to Brummell; but he has collected probably all that could be known. The books are very readable, the anecdotes pleasantly told, the style is lively, and frequently shows that the biographer could adopt the thought as well as the language of his hero. At all events he has given us the detail of a character of whom every body had heard something, and every body wished to hear more.

THE ACTUAL CONDITION OF THE GREEK STATE

“Say why
That ancient story of Prometheus chain’d?
The vulture—the inexhaustible repast
Drawn from his vitals? Say what meant the woes
By Tantalus entail’d upon his race,
And the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes?
Fictions in form, but in their substance truths—
Tremendous truths!—familiar to the men
Of long past times; nor obsolete in ours.”—Excursion.

In an article on the bankruptcy of the Greek kingdom, (No. CCCXXXV., September 1843,) we gave an account of the financial condition of the new state; and we ventured to suggest that a revolution was unavoidable. That revolution occurred even sooner than we expected; for our number had hardly reached Athens ere King Otho was compelled to summon a national assembly to aid him in framing the long promised constitution.

As our former number explained the immediate causes of the discontent in Greece, we shall now furnish our readers with a description of the revolution, of its results, and of the great difficulties which still oppose serious barriers to the formation of an independent kingdom in Greece. The late revolution was distinguished by an open rebellion of the army; and as a rebellion, in which the troops have been covered with decorations, and have received a gratification of some months’ pay, is not the era from which we should wish to date the civil liberty and national prosperity of a monarchy founded by Great Britain, France, and Russia, we shall use great delicacy in describing the movement, and record no fact which we cannot substantiate by legal or documentary evidence.

It is not to be supposed when we in Edinburgh were informed of the approaching storm in Greece, that the people of the country were without anxiety. The Morning Post, (23d September 1843,) which has generally contained very accurate information from Athens, published a letter written from that city on the 5th September. This Athenian correspondent declared “that the Greeks have so fully made up their minds to put an end to the Bavarian dynasty, as to be resolved not even to accept a constitution at the hands of the king. They declare that they will abstain from all outrage and personal violence; and that they only desire the embarkation of King Otho and his German followers, who shall be free to leave the country without the slightest injury.”

We solicit the attention of her majesty’s ministers to these memorable words, written before the revolution.

The danger, in short, was visible to every body but King Otho, his German camarilla, and his renegade Greek ministers. At this time Kalergy was inspector of the cavalry. He had always expressed his dissatisfaction with the system of Bavarian favouritism in the army; and his gallant and disinterested conduct during the war against the Turks, rendered him universally popular. Infinitely more of a gentleman and a man of the world than any of the court faction, it is said that he was viewed with feelings of personal as well as political aversion. It happened that, about a week before the revolution, the king reviewed the garrison of Athens, and in the order of the day which followed this review, General Kalergy was noticed in such a way that he felt himself deeply insulted. A Bavarian, Captain Hess, then marshal of the palace, was supposed to be the author of this document. As the attack on Kalergy was evidently caused by his political conduct, the whole Greek army took his part, and the cry was raised that the Bavarians must be driven out of Greece.

The prominent part which General Kalergy has taken in the late revolution, and the romantic incidents of his life, induce us to offer our readers a short sketch of his earlier career. We have known him in circumstances when intercourse ensures intimacy; for we have sat together round the same watch-fires, on the mountains of Argolis and Attica. To   parody the words of Anastasius, we saw him achieve his first deed of prowess, and we were present when he heard his first praises. Hastings’s lips have long been silenced by death, but the music of his applause still rings in our ears.

Demetrius Kalergy is descended from a Cretan family, whose name is famous in the annals of Candia. He was born in Russia, and was studying in Germany when the Greeks took up arms against the Turks. His elder brothers, Nicolas and Manolis, having resolved to join the cause of their countrymen, repaired to Marseilles, where, with the assistance of their uncle, a man of great wealth in Russia, they freighted a vessel, and purchased a small train of artillery, consisting of sixteen guns, and a considerable supply of muskets and ammunition. Demetrius, though then only fifteen years of age, could not be restrained from joining them, and the three brothers arrived in Greece together. The young Kalergy soon gave proofs of courage and military talents. His second brother, Manolis, was killed during the siege of Athens; but the eldest, Nicolas, a man who unites the accomplishments of a court to the sincerest feelings of patriotism, still resides in Greece, universally respected. During the Bavarian sway he took no part in political affairs; but he was elected a member of the national assembly, which has just terminated its labours in preparing the constitution.

Demetrius Kalergy was first entrusted with an independent command in 1824, when the Peloponnesian chiefs and primates, Kolokotroni, Londos, Notaras, Deliyani, Zaimi, and Sessini, endeavoured to divide the Morea into a number of small principalities, of which they expected to secure the revenues for themselves. In spite of Kalergy’s youth, he was ordered to take the field against the first corps of the rebels that had acted in open hostility to the existing government. With his usual promptitude and decision, he attacked Panos Kolokotroni, the son of the old Klepht, and Staïkos, a Moreote captain of some reputation, in the plain of Tripolitza, where they were posted for the despicable purpose of intercepting the trains of mules laden with merchandise for the supply of the shops of Tripolitza, then the great market of all the central parts of the Morea.

The affair was really brilliant. The rebels were encamped on a low hill, and, not expecting that Kalergy would depart from the usual practice of carrying on a long series of skirmishes, they had paid no attention to their position. The attack opened in the usual way by a fierce fire at a very long distance; but Kalergy, on perceiving the careless arrangements of his enemy, soon induced his troops to creep up pretty close to the Moreotes, when he suddenly jumped up, and shouted to his followers, “The shortest way is the best. Follow me!” and rushed forward. His whole band was within the hostile lines in an instant. The manœuvre was so unexpected, that few of the rebels fired; many were loading their muskets, and none had time to draw their swords or yatagans. About 170 were slain, and, if report may be trusted, one of the rebel chiefs was struck down by Kalergy, and the other taken prisoner after receiving a wound in personal combat with the young hero. The faction of the Moreote barons, as these greedy plunderers of the Greek shopkeepers would fain have been called, was dissolved by this unexpected victory. Many laid down their arms, and made peace with the government.

General Kalergy was afterwards present in the town of Navarin when it was besieged by Ibrahim Pasha, and marched out with his band when the place capitulated. This defeat, though he had only held a subordinate command, afflicted him greatly, and he looked round for some means of avenging his country’s loss on the Turks. He resolved at last to endeavour to make a diversion by recommencing the war in Crete; but without a strong fortress to secure the ammunition and supplies necessary for prosecuting a series of irregular attacks, it was evident that nothing important could be effected. In this difficulty, Kalergy determined to attack the impregnable island-fortress of Grabusa, as it was known that the strength of the place had induced the Turks to leave it with a very small garrison. Kalergy   having learned that the greater part of this garrison was absent during the day, disguised a few of his men in Turkish dresses, and appeared on the beach at the point from which the soldiers of the garrison crossed to this island Gibraltar. The commander of Grabusa ordered the boat to transport them over as usual, and the Greeks entered the fort before the mistake was discovered. The place was in vain attacked by all the forces of Mohammed Ali; the Greeks kept possession of it to the end of the war. The sagacity and courage displayed by Kalergy in this affair placed him in the rank of the ablest of the Greek chiefs.