mplicity of dress, every item of which was
studied and discussed for many an hour. In the mornings he was still
guilty of hessians and pantaloons, or 'tops' and buckskins, with a blue
coat and buff waistcoat. The costume is not so ancient, but that one may
tumble now and then on a country squire who glories in it and denounces
us juveniles as 'bears' for want of a similar precision. Poor Brummell,
he cordially hated the country squires, and would have wanted rouge for
a week if he could have dreamed that his pet attire would, some fifty
years later, be represented only by one of that class which he was so
anxious to exclude from Watier's.

But it was in the evening that he displayed his happy invention of the
trouser, or rather its introduction from Germany. This article he wore
very tight to the leg, and buttoned over the ankle, exactly as we see it
in old prints of 'the fashion.' Then came the wig, and on that the hat.
It is a vain and thankless task to defend Brummell from the charge of
being a dandy. If one proof of his devotion to dress were wanted, it
would be the fact that this hat, once stuck jauntily on one side of the
wig, was never removed in the street even to salute a lady--so that,
inasmuch as he sacrificed his manners to his appearance, he may be
fairly set down as a fop.

The perfect artist could not be expected to be charitable to the less
successful. Dukes and princes consulted him on the make of their coats,
and discussed tailors with him with as much solemnity as divines might
dispute on a mystery of religion. Brummell did not spare them.
'Bedford,' said he, to the duke of that name, fingering a new garment
which his grace had submitted to his inspection, 'do you call this
_thing_ a coat?' Again, meeting a noble acquaintance who wore shoes in
the morning, he stopped and asked him what he had got upon his feet.
'Oh! shoes are they,' quoth he, with a well bred sneer, 'I thought they
were slippers.' He was even ashamed of his own brother, and when the
latter came to town, begged him to keep to the back streets till his new
clothes were sent home. Well might his friend the Regent say, that he
was 'a mere tailor's dummy to hang clothes upon.'

But in reality Brummell was more. He had some sharpness and some taste.
But the former was all brought out in sneers, and the latter in
snuff-boxes. His whole mind could have been put into one of these. He
had a splendid collection of them, and was famous for the