exterior, though not
distinguished, was graceful, and his countenance, though not handsome,
was intelligent. He possessed in a certain degree the general
accomplishments, and exactly in the degree, which produce a flattering
reception in society. He was a tolerable musician, he used his pencil
with tolerable skill, and he wrote tolerable verses; more would have
been worse than useless. He dressed admirably, and, as his _cheval de
battaile_, he talked with a keenness of observation and a dexterity of
language, scarcely less rare than wit, and still more exciting among the
exhausted minds, and in the vapid phraseology, of fashion.

His person was well formed, and his dress was a matter of extreme study.
But it is rather libellous on the memory of this man of taste to
suppose, that he at all resembled in this important matter the strutting
display which we have seen in later times, and which irresistibly
strikes the beholder with surprise, that any man capable of seeing
himself in the glass could exhibit so strong a temptation to laughter;
while to the more knowing in the affairs of costume, it betrays
instantly the secret that the exhibitor is simply a walking placard for
a tailor struggling for employment, and supplying the performer on the
occasion with a wardrobe for the purpose. Brummell's dress was finished
with perfect skill, but without the slightest attempt at exaggeration.
Plain Hessian boots and pantaloons, or top boots and buckskins, which
were then more the fashion than they are now; a blue coat, and a buff
coloured waistcoat--for he somewhat leaned to Foxite politics for
form's-sake, however he despised all politics as unworthy of a man born
to give the tone to fashion--was his morning dress. In the evening, he
appeared in a blue coat and white waistcoat, black pantaloons closely
fitting, and buttoning tight to the ankle, striped silk stockings, and
opera hat. We may thus observe how much Brummell went _before_ his age;
for while he thus originated a dress which no modern refinement has yet
exceeded, and which contained all that is _de bon ton_ in modern
equipment, he was living in the midst of a generation almost studiously
barbarian--the Foxite imitators of the French republicans--where every
man's principle was measured by the closeness of his approach to
savagery; and nothing but the War interposed to prevent the
_sans-culottism_ alike of the body and the mind.

Brummell, though not possessing the patro