It is scarcely profitable to follow this lesser deity into all the details of his self-adornment.  It must suffice to say that he affected an extreme neatness and simplicity 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 grace with which he opened the lid of his box with the thumb of the hand that carried it, while he delicately took his pinch with two fingers of the other.  This and his bow were his chief acquirements, and his reputation for manners was based on the distinction of his manner.  He could not drive in a public conveyance, but he could be rude to a well-meaning