a great success, and they were so strange that their voices and their
dresses were mimicked partout. The English beauties were rather angry,
especially with the Prince, whom alone they blamed for the vogue of
their rivals. History credits His Royal Highness with many notable
achievements. Not the least of these is that he discovered the
inhabitants of America.

It will be seen that in this renaissance the keenest students of the
exquisite were women. Nevertheless, men were not idle, neither. Since
the day of Mr. Brummell and King George, the noble art of self-
adornment had fallen partially desuete. Great fops like Bulwer and le
jeune Cupidon had come upon the town, but never had they formed a
school. Dress, therefore, had become simpler, wardrobes smaller,
fashions apt to linger. In 1880 arose the sect that was soon to win
for itself the title of `The Mashers.' What this title exactly
signified I suppose no two etymologists will ever agree. But we can
learn clearly enough, from the fashion-plates of the day, what the
Mashers were in outward semblance; from the lampoons, their mode of
life. Unlike the dandies of the Georgian era, they pretended to no
classic taste and, wholly contemptuous of the Aesthetes, recognised no
art save the art of dress. Much might be written about the Mashers.
The restaurant--destined to be, in after years, so salient a delight
of London--was not known to them, but they were often admirable upon
the steps of clubs. The Lyceum held them never, but nightly they
gathered at the Gaiety Theatre. Nightly the stalls were agog with
small, sleek heads surmounting collars of interminable height.
Nightly, in the foyer, were lisped the praises of Kate Vaughan, her
graceful dancing, or of Nellie Farren, her matchless fooling. Never a
night passed but the dreary stage-door was cinct with a circlet of
fools bearing bright bouquets, of flaxen-headed fools who had feet