KINGS OF DANDYISM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5604, 12 April 1943, Page 4

KINGS OF DANDYISM

BRUMMELL AND NASH ASTONISHING INFLUENCE (By C.R.8.) The word dandyism has fallen out of the language, largely because the men with the wit, insolence, and audacity to underline their graces are not begotten in these hard, material times. But in the past dandyism was something more than a gesture: there were periods when it attained the stature of a cult and its premier exponents were the talk of their worlds. Furthermore, these exquisite fellows, who were wont to grow fagged in inventing the appropriate gesture for a sniff of snuff, inspired a considerable literature, much of it amusing, some of it startling, but all of it conscious of the vanity of Man. That fiery character Barbey d’Aurevilly wrote a history of dandyism in rich, effulgent French. Those two memorabel English beaus, Nash and Brummell, strut through several biographies and figure in numerous histories of their periods, and it is uncommon to find an adverse comment. Rather the note is one of admiration for men who., by idling before their mirrors and by making their tailors, shoe-makers, and other tradesmen famous, established little perfumed monarchies in which personable peers were glad to be lackeys, and even kings joined in the applause. Nash the Magnificent

Looking over the history of the magnificent Richard Nash one finds his sway almost incredible. He came of good parents, but he was strictly a commoner. Yet he was only 31 years old when he asserted himself at Bath, in 1705, and commenced that parade of pretences which was to make Bath the haunt of fashion and earn him royal regard. True enough, he was educated, and did start the study of law in the Temple, in London; but from the first he aspired only to become master in the arts of dress and behaviour, to compel his satellites to exchange their boots for shoes and stockings, and show them how to tie a cravat. His own glorious state—he never travelled anywhere in Bath without lounging splendidly in a chariot drawn by six greys—was sufficient to impress his importance on those who were criminal enough to be ignorant of his identity. Nash certainly improved Bath, and gave it a set of rules to meet every possible dilemma or special occasion. He abolished duelling, or declared it disreputable, and all the gay fellows who were hungry for blood were made to blush for their abominable passion: In this respect he had the air of a reformer, but the real Nash was never greatly concerned with social movements. In the case of duelling he probably never considered it babyish or uncivilised, but rather held it to be something vulgar—a breach of decorum.

Beau Nash reached the great age of 88 years. In his latter days he was a distinctly faded butterfly, a tottering echo of his triumphs, his tongue lacking its old abandon, and his eyes misty with dreams; but, despite all the wounds he had left with his impertinences and egotisms, he did command the devotion of the people of Bath. When he died on 3rd February, 1762, they gave him a public funeral. For some years previously he had lived, but not sumptuously, on a small civic pension—a reward flung to him when the law passed against gambling robbed him of his method of sustaining his beauty.

The Despot of London Beau Brummell. who made his debut in the early years of the eighteenth century, was a somewhat different fellow. He sprang from where he was the grandson of a valet—but he achieved an even greater celebrity than his predecessor

Nash, ultimately convincing Byron that “ there are but three great men in the nineteenth century—Brummell, Napoleon, and myself.” Brummell’s reign was truly memorable. His sayings and quips ran from tongue to tongue, and no anecdote was complete without him in a prominent position. Let it not be forgotten that no exquisite could succeed without absurdly despotic behaviour. Did he invent a new cut to a coat, that new cut was solemnly adopted as if by royal command. Did he introduce a new boot polish—Brummell was a savant on boot polishes—the whole mad town of snobs and profligates became its honorary salesmen. Brummell was everywhere. No door was forbidden him. If by chance he was not invited to a party he simply walked in. There is a story that on one occasion he was not invited to a ball given by a Mr Johnson. He appeared just the same, calmly presenting a card to another evening given by a Mr Thomson. When some demur was made he said, with his customary withering impertinence: “ What does it matter—Johnsons or Thomsons, Thomsons or Johnsons ? I see no difference.” Abounding Insolence

Brummell’s insolence was as abounding as his extravagance and verbosity. He was the author of innumerable neat and searching “ mots,” and. if he felt like it, would coolly insult the greatest in the land. It is related that after he had lost the friendship of his former admirer and bosom companion, George IV., Brummell and a certain peer happened to encounter the king walking with another in Piccadilly. George ignored Brummell and talked briefly with the peer. When he had passed on, but still within earshot, Brummell turned to the peer and said, with infinite ennui: “ I say, my dear fellow, who’s your fat friend ? ” Brummell died at Caen in 1840 at the age of 61 years—a pitiable relic corroded by disorders. Sinister Wainewright Worth a place in this chronicle also is the career of the most sinister of all the dandies, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright. He was a contemporary of Brummell, but he postured only among men of letters, displaying his fine clothes, his carefully kept hands, his rare taste in rings and antique breast-pins, not forgetting his then unique indulgence in lemon-col-oured gloves for the interest of such eminent observers as Lamb and de

Quincey. Wainewright wrote, but not very much, under several extraordinary pen names, including “Janus Weathercock ” and “ Egomet Bonmot,” and Lamb has declared that his prose was “ capital.” He also painted somewhat and had a canvas hung in the Royal Academy which the great William Blake declared to be “ very fine.”

But his two real activities were forgery and murder—crimes probably induced by debt, though in one case he casually exonerated himself from my sordid motive by declaring that his victim, a charming girl of twenty years, was murdered “ because she had very thick ankles.” Wainewright’s weapon was strychnine, administered with Asiatic craft and subtlety in an age when its effects were not so readily detectable as they are now. It was his habit of insuring his victims which aroused the suspicion of the insurance companies, but, curiously enough, it was his forgeries that brought about his conviction and his subseqeunt sentence to penal servitude in Hobart Town, where he continued his dalliance with the arts and made two further attempts to poison men who had offended him.