His de'but in the town was brilliant and delightful. Tales of his
elegance had won for him there a precedent fame. He was reputed rich.
It was known that the Regent desired his acquaintance. And thus,
Fortune speeding the wheels of his cabriolet and Fashion running to
meet him with smiles and roses in St. James's, he might well, had he
been worldly or a weakling, have yielded his soul to the polite
follies. But he passed them by. Once he was settled in his suite, he
never really strayed from his toilet-table, save for a few brief
hours. Thrice every day of the year did he dress, and three hours were
the average of his every toilet, and other hours were spent in council
with the cutter of his coats or with the custodian of his wardrobe. A
single, devoted life! To White's, to routs, to races, he went, it is
true, not reluctantly. He was known to have played battledore and
shuttlecock in a moonlit garden with Mr. Previte' and some other
gentlemen. His elopement with a young Countess from a ball at Lady
Jersey's was quite notorious. It was even whispered that he once, in
the company of some friends, made as though he would wrench the
knocker off the door of some shop. But these things he did, not, most
certainly, for any exuberant love of life. Rather did he regard them
as healthful exercise of the body and a charm against that dreaded
corpulency which, in the end, caused his downfall. Some recreation
from his work even the most strenuous artist must have; and Mr.
Brummell naturally sought his in that exalted sphere whose modish
elegance accorded best with his temperament, the sphere of le plus
beau monde. General Bucknall used to growl, from the window of the
Guards' Club, that such a fellow was only fit to associate with
tailors. But that was an old soldier's fallacy. The proper associates
of an artist are they who practise his own art rather than they who--
however honourably--do but cater for its practice. For the rest, I am
sure that Mr. Brummell was no lackey, as they have suggested. He