you have a father, and that parent a very
respectable man, to be told that you never had one. This was Nash's
case, and his father was so little known, and so seldom mentioned, that
the splendid Beau was thought almost to have dropped from the clouds,
ready dressed and powdered. He dropped in reality from anything but a
heavenly place--the shipping town of Swansea: so that Wales can claim
the honour of having produced the finest beau of his age.

Old Nash was, perhaps, a better gentleman than his son; but with far
less pretension. He was a partner in a glass-manufactory. The Beau, in
after-years, often got rallied on the inferiority of his origin, and the
least obnoxious answer he ever made was to Sarah of Marlborough, as rude
a creature as himself, who told him he was ashamed of his parentage.
'No, madam,' replied the King of Bath, 'I seldom mention my father, in
company, not because I have any reason to be ashamed of him, but because
he has some reason to be ashamed of me.' Nash, though a fop and a fool,
was not a bad-hearted man, as we shall see. And if there were no other
redeeming point in his character, it is a great deal to say for him,
that in an age of toadyism, he treated rank in the same manner as he did
the want of it, and did his best to remove the odious distinctions which
pride would have kept up in his dominions. In fact, King Nash may be
thanked for having, by his energy in this respect, introduced into
society the first elements of that middle class which is found alone in
England.

Old Nash--whose wife, by the way, was niece to that Colonel Poyer who
defended Pembroke Castle in the days of the first Revolution--was one of
those silly men who want to make gentlemen of their sons, rather than
good men. He had his wish. His son Richard was a very fine gentleman, no
doubt; but, unfortunately, the same circumstances that raised him to
that much coveted position, also made him a gambler and a profligate.
Oh! foolish papas, when will you learn that a Christian snob is worth
ten thousand irreligious gentlemen? When will you be content to bring up
your boys for heaven rather than for the brilliant world? Nash, senior,
sent his son first to school and then to Oxford, to be made a gentleman
of. Richard was entered at Jesus College, the haunt of the Welsh. In my
day, this quiet little place was celebrated for little more than the
humble poverty of its members, one-third of whom rejoiced in the
cognomen of Jones.