FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 15:  Dryden, in the Preface to his Fables, acknowledged that Collier ‘had, in many points, taxed him justly.’]

[Footnote 16:  Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax.  Lord Halifax was born in 1661, and died in 1715.  He was called ‘Mouse Montagu.’]

[Footnote 17:  See Burke’s ‘Peerage.’]

[Footnote 18:  The Duchess of Marlborough received L10,000 by Mr. Congreve’s will.]

    BEAU NASH.

  The King of Bath.—­Nash at Oxford.—­’My Boy Dick.’—­Offers of
      Knighthood.—­Doing Penance at York.—­Days of Folly.—­A very
      Romantic Story.—­Sickness and Civilization.—­Nash descends upon
      Bath.—­Nash’s Chef-d’oeuvre.—­The Ball.—­Improvements in the
      Pump-room, &c.—­A Public Benefactor.—­Life at Bath in Nash’s
      time.—­A Compact with the Duke of Beaufort.—­Gaming at
      Bath.—­Anecdotes of Nash.—­’Miss Sylvia.’—­A Generous
      Act.—­Nash’s Sun setting.—­A Panegyric.—­Nash’s Funeral.—­His
      Characteristics.

There is nothing new under the sun, said Walpole, by way of a very original remark.  ‘No,’ whispered George Selwyn, ’nor under the grandson, either.’

Mankind, as a body, has proved its silliness in a thousand ways, but in none, perhaps, so ludicrously as in its respect for a man’s coat.  He is not always a fool that knows the value of dress; and some of the wisest and greatest of men have been dandies of the first water.  King Solomon was one, and Alexander the Great was another; but there never was a more despotic monarch, nor one more humbly obeyed by his subjects, than the King of Bath, and he won his dominions by the cut of his coat.  But as Hercules was killed by a dress-shirt, so the beaux of the modern world have generally ruined themselves by their wardrobes, and brought remorse to their hearts, or contempt from the very people who once worshipped them.  The husband of Mrs. Damer, who appeared in a new suit twice a-day, and whose wardrobe sold for L15,000, blew his brains out at a coffee-house.  Beau Fielding, Beau Nash, and Beau Brummell all expiated their contemptible vanity in obscure old age of want and misery.  As the world is full of folly, the history of a fool is as good a mirror to hold up to it as another; but in the case of Beau Nash the only question is, whether he or his subjects were the greater fools.  So now for a picture of as much folly as could well be crammed into that hot basin in the Somersetshire hills, of which more anon.

It is a hard thing for a man not to have had a father—­harder still, like poor Savage, to have one whom he cannot get hold of; but perhaps it is hardest of all, when 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.