undest study; but, alas! his impudence
marred the former, and the latter can scarcely be imitated in the
present day. Still as a great example he is yet invaluable, and must be
described in all detail.

His morning toilette was a most elaborate affair. Never was Brummell
guilty of _deshabille_. Like a true man of business, he devoted the best
and earliest hours--and many of them too--to his profession, namely--
dressing. His dressing-room was a studio, in which he daily prepared
that elaborate portrait of George Brummell which was to be exhibited for
a few hours in the club-rooms and drawing-rooms of town, only to be
taken to pieces again, and again made up for the evening. Charles I.
delighted to resort of a morning to the studio of Vandyck, and to watch
his favourite artist's progress. The Regent George was no less devoted
to art, for we are assured by Mr. Raikes that he often visited his
favourite beau in the morning to watch his toilet, and would sometimes
stay so late that he would send his horses away, insisting on Brummell
giving him a quiet dinner, 'which generally ended in a deep potation.'

There are, no doubt, many fabulous myths floating about concerning this
illustrious man; and his biographer, Captain Jesse, seems anxious to
defend him from the absurd stories of French writers, who asserted that
he employed two glovers to covers his hands, to one of whom were
intrusted the thumbs, to the other the fingers and hand, and three
barbers to dress his hair, while his boots were polished with champagne,
his cravats designed by a celebrated portrait painter, and so forth.
These may be pleasant inventions, but Captain Jesse's own account of his
toilet, even when the Beau was broken, and living in elegant poverty
abroad, is quite absurd enough to render excusable the ingenious
exaggerations of the foreign writer.

The _batterie de toilette_, we are told, was of silver, and included a
spitting-dish, for its owner said 'he could not spit into clay.'
Napoleon shaved himself, but Brummell was not quite great enough to do
that, just as my Lord So-and-so walks to church on Sunday, while his
neighbour, the Birmingham millionaire, can only arrive there in a
chariot and pair.

His ablutions took no less than two whole hours! What knowledge might
have been gained, what good done in the time he devoted to rubbing his
lovely person with a hair-glove! Cleanliness was, in fact, Brummell's
religion; perhaps because it is gener