ge, ring the bell' character, and those told of his heavy
gaming, are more valuable as showing his wit, his cleanliness, his
distaste of display--in fact, his 'exquisite propriety.'

A Beau is hardly a possible figure to-day; we have so few
personalities, and those we have are chiefly concerned with trade--men
who uphold trusts, men who fight trusts, men who speak for trade in
the House of Commons. We have not the same large vulgarities as our
grandfathers, nor have we the same wholesome refinement; in killing
the evil--the great gambler, the great men of the turf, the great
prize-fighters, the heavy wine-drinkers--we have killed, also, the
good, the classic, well-spoken civil gentleman. Our manners have
suffered at the expense of our morals.

Fifty or sixty years ago the world was full of great men, saying,
writing, thinking, great things. To-day--perhaps it is too early to
speak of to-day. Personalities are so little marked by their clothes,
by any stamp of individuality, that the caricaturist, or even the
minute and truthful artist, be he painter or writer, has a difficult
task before him when he sets out to point at the men of these our
times.

George Brummell came into the world on June 7, 1778. He was a year or
so late for the Macaroni style of dress, many years behind the
Fribbles, after the Smarts, and must have seen the rise and fall of
the Zebras when he was thirteen. During his life he saw the
old-fashioned full frock-coat, bagwig, solitaire, and ruffles die
away; he saw the decline and fall of knee-breeches for common wear,
and the pantaloons invented by himself take their place. From these
pantaloons reaching to the ankle came the trousers, as fashionable
garments, open over the instep at first, and joined by loops and
buttons, then strapped under the boot, and after that in every manner
of cut to the present style. He saw the three-cornered hat vanish from
the hat-boxes of the polite world, and he saw fine-coloured clothes
give way to blue coats with brass buttons or coats of solemn black.

It may be said that England went into mourning over the French
Revolution, and has not yet recovered. Beau Brummell, on his way to
Eton, saw a gay-coloured crowd of powdered and patched people, saw
claret-coloured coats covered with embroidery, gold-laced hats,
twinkling shoe-buckles. On his last walks in Caen, no doubt, he
dreamed of London as a place of gay colours instead of the drab place
it was beginning to be