No fault, however, was found with the Regent’s favourite, and Brummell might have risen to any rank if he could have supported the terrific labour of dressing for parade.  Then, too, there came wars and rumours of wars, and our gallant captain shuddered at the vulgarity of shedding blood:  the supply of smelling-salts would never have been liberal enough to keep him from fainting on the battle-field.  It is said, too, that the regiment was ordered to Manchester.  Could anything be more gross or more ill-bred?  The idea of figuring before the wives and daughters of cotton-spinners was too fearful; and from one cause or another our brave young captain determined to retire, which he did in 1798.

It was now, therefore, that he commenced the profession of a beau, and as he is the Prince of Beaux, as his patron was the Beau of Princes, and as his fame has spread to France and Germany, if only as the inventor of the trouser; and as there is no man who on getting up in the morning does not put on his clothes with more or less reflection as to whether they are the right ones to put on, and as beaux have existed since the days of the emperor of beaux, Alexander the Macedonian, and will probably exist to all time, let us rejoice in the high honour of being permitted to describe how this illustrious genius clothed his poor flesh, and made the most of what God had given him—­a body and legs.

The private life of Brummell would in itself serve as a book of manners and habits.  The two were his profoundest 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.