at her house, orders her meats from the butcher, her supplies from the grocer, her cakes and ices from the confectioner; but her invitations she puts in the hands of Brown.  He knows whom to invite and whom to omit.  He knows who will come, who will not come, but will send regrets.  In case of a pinch, he can fill up the list with young men, picked up about town, in black swallow-tailed coats, white vests, and white cravats, who, in consideration of a fine supper and a dance, will allow themselves to be passed off as the sons of distinguished New Yorkers.  The city has any quantity of ragged noblemen, seedy lords from Germany, Hungarian Barons out at the elbow, members of the European aristocracy who left their country for their country’s good, who can be served up in proper proportions at a fashionable party when the occasion demands it.  No man knows their haunts better than Brown.”

Here is a picture of the famous Brown, drawn by the same pen: 

“Brown is a huge fellow, coarse in his features, resembling a dressed up carman.  His face is very red, and on Sundays he passes up and down the aisles of Grace Church with a peculiar swagger.  He bows strangers into a pew, when he deigns to give them a seat, with a majestic and patronizing air designed to impress them with a relishing sense of the obligation he has conferred upon them.”

Later Peter Marie wrote the poem, “Brown of Grace Church,” beginning: 

    “O glorious Brown! thou medley strange,
    Of church-yard, ball-room, saint and sinner,
    Flying in morn through fashion’s range,
    And burying mortals after dinner,
    Walking one day with invitations,
    Passing the next with consecrations.”

This is the eloquent story of Mr. and Mrs. Newly-Rich who did not seek the social chaperonage of the all-powerful Brown.  He had been a reputable and successful hatter.  She had made vests for a fashionable tailor.  By a turn of fortune they found themselves rich.  He gave up hatting and she abandoned vests.  They bought a house on upper Fifth Avenue and proposed to storm society by giving a large party.  The acquaintances of the humbler days were to be ignored.  It was guests from another world that were wanted.  But instead of going to Brown and slipping him a handsome fee, Mr. and Mrs. Newly-Rich took the Directory, selected five hundred names, among them some of the most prominent persons of the city, and sent out invitations.  The first caterer of the town laid the table.  Dodsworth was engaged for the music.  The result is easy to guess.  The brilliantly lighted house, the silent bell, the over-dressed mother and daughter sitting hour after hour in lonely, heartbroken magnificence.  But save for its association with the omnipotent Brown, it is the story, not of the sixties in particular, but of any decade of social New York.

It may be worth while to follow the critic from up-state in some of his venturesome explorations of other parts of New York.  Those to whom he was to return, those for whose entertainment and instruction his book was written, wanted to hear of the shadows as well as the sunshine.  It was the picture of a very sinful metropolis that they demanded, and the author was bound that he was not going to disappoint them.