Dining at a large party at the house of an opulent but young member of London society, he asked the loan of his carriage to take him to Lady Jersey's that evening. "I am going there," said his entertainer, "and will be happy to take you." "Still, there is a difficulty," said Brummell in his most delicate tone. "You do not mean to get up behind, that would not be quite right in your own carriage; and yet, how would it do for me to be seen in the same carriage with you?" Brummell's manner probably laughed off impertinences of this order; for, given without their colouring from nature, they would have justified an angry reply. But he seems never to have involved himself in personal quarrel. He was intact and intangible. Yet he, too, had his mortifications. One night, in going to Lady Dungannon's, he was actually obliged to make use of a hackney coach. He got out of it at an unobserved distance from the door, and made his way up her ladyship's crowded staircase, conceiving that he had escaped all evidence of his humiliation; however, this was not to be. As he was entering the drawing-room a servant touched his arm, and to his amazement and horror whispered—"Beg pardon, sir, perhaps you are not aware of it, that there is a straw sticking to your shoe." His style found imitations in the public prints, and one sufficiently characteristic thus set forth the merits of a new patent carriage step:—"There is an art in every thing; and whatever is worthy of being learned, cannot be unworthy of a teacher." Such was the logical argument of the professor of the art of stepping in and out of a carriage, who represented himself as much patronised by the sublime Beau Brummell, whose deprecation of those horrid coach steps he would repeat with great delight:—

"Mr Brummell," he used to say, "considered the sedan was the only vehicle for a gentleman, it having no steps; and he invariably had his own chair, which was lined with white satin quilted, had down squabs, and a white sheepskin rug at the bottom, brought to the door of his dressing-room, on that account always on the ground-floor, from whence it was transferred with its owner to the foot of the staircase of the house that he condescended to visit. Mr Brummell has told me," continued the professor, "that to enter a coach was torture to him. 'Conceive,' said he, 'the horror of sitting in a carriage with an iron apparatus, afflicted with the dreadful thought, the cruel apprehension, of having one's leg crushed by the machinery. Why are not the steps made to fold outside? The only detraction from the luxury of a vis a vis, is the double distress! for both legs—excruciating idea!'"

Brummell's first reform was the neckcloth. Even his reform has passed away; such is the transitory nature of all human achievements. But the art of neckcloths was once more than a dubious title to renown in the world of Bond Street. The politics of the time were disorderly; and the dress of politicians had become as disorderly as their principles. The fortunes of Whiggism, too, had run low; and the velvet coat and embroidered waistcoat, the costly buckles and gold buttons of better days, were heavier drains on the decreasing revenues of the party than could be long sustained with impunity. Fox had already assumed the sloven—the whole faction followed; and the ghosts of the old oppositionists, in their tie wigs and silver-laced coats, would have been horrified by the sight of the shock-headed, leather-breeched, and booted generation who howled and harangued on the left side of the Speaker's chair from 1789 to 1806. All was canaille. Fox could scarcely have been more shabby, had he been the representative of a population of bankrupts. The remainder of the party might have been supposed, without any remarkable stretch of imagination, to have emerged from the workhouse. All was sincere squalidness, patriotic pauperism—the unwashing principle. One of the cleverest caricatures of that cleverest of caricaturists, the Scotchman Gilray, was his sketch of the Whigs preparing for their first levee after the Foxite accession on the death of Pitt. The title was, "Making decent!" The whole of the new ministry were exhibited in all the confusion of throwing off their rags, and putting on their new clothing. There stood Sheridan, half-smothered in the novel attempt to put on a clean shirt. In another corner Fox, Grey, and Lord Moira, straining to peep into the same shaving-glass, were all three making awkward efforts to use the long-forgotten razor. Others were gazing at themselves in a sort of savage wonder at the strangeness of new washed faces. Some sans culottes were struggling to get into breeches; and others, whose feet were accustomed to the ventilation of shoes which let their toes through, were pondering over the embarrassment of shoes impervious to the air. The minor apparatus of court costume scattered round on the chairs, the bags and swords, the buckles and gloves, were stared at by the groups with the wonder and perplexity of an American Indian.

Into this irregular state of things Brummell made his first stride in the spirit of a renovator. The prevailing cravat of the time was certainly deplorable. Let us give it in the words of history:—"It was without stiffening of any kind, and bagged out in front, rucking up to the front in a roll." (We do not precisely comprehend this expression, whose precision, however, we by no means venture to doubt.) Brummell boldly met this calamity, by slightly starching the too flexible material—a change in which, as his biographer with due seriousness and truth observes—"a reasoning mind must acknowledge there is not much objectionable."

Imitators, of course, always exceed their model, and the cravat adopted by the dandies soon became excessively starched; the test being that of raising three parts of their length by one corner without bending. Yet Brummell, though he adhered to the happy medium, and was moderate in his starch, was rigorous in his tie. If his cravat did not correspond to his wishes in its first arrangement, it was instantly cast aside. His valet was seen one morning leaving his chamber with an armful of tumbled cravats, and on being asked the cause, solemnly replied, "These are our failures."

Perfection is slow in all instances; but talent and diligence are sure to advance. Brummell's "tie" became speedily the admiration of the beau monde. The manner in which this dexterous operation was accomplished was perfectly his own, and deserves to be recorded for the benefit of posterity.

The collar, which was always fixed to his shirt, was so large, that, before being folded down, it completely hid his head and face, and the neckcloth was at least a foot in height. The first coup d'archet was made with the shirt-collar, which he folded down to its proper size; but the delicate part of the performance was still to come. Brummell "standing before the glass, with his chin raised towards the ceiling, now, by the gentle and gradual declension of his lower jaw, creased the cravat to reasonable dimensions; the form of each succeeding crease being perfected with the shirt which he had just discarded." We were not aware of the nicety which was demanded to complete the folds of this superior swathing; but, after this development, who shall pronounce a dandy idle?

Brummell was as critical on the dress of others as he was recherche in his own, and this care he extended to all ranks. He was once walking up St James's Street, arm-in-arm with a young nobleman whom he condescended to patronize. The Beau suddenly asked him, "what he called those things on his feet."—"Why, shoes."—"Shoes are they?" said Brummell doubtfully, and stooping to look at them; "I thought they were slippers?"

The late Duke of Bedford asked him his opinion of a new coat. "Turn round," said Mr Beau. When the examination was concluded in front and rear, the Beau, feeling the lapel delicately with his finger and thumb, asked in a most pathetic manner, "Bedford, do you call this thing a coat?"

Somebody told him, among a knot of loungers at White's, "Brummell, your brother William is in town. Is he not coming here?"—"Yes," was the reply, "in a day or two; but I have recommended him to walk the back streets till his new clothes come home."

Practical jokes are essentially vulgar, and apt to be hazardous besides; two reasons which should have prevented their performance by an individual whose object was to be the standard of elegance, and whose object at no time was to expose himself to the rougher remonstrances of mankind; but the following piece of sportiveness was at least amusing.

Meeting an old emigre marquis at the seat of some noble friend, and probably finding the Frenchman a bore, he revenged himself by mixing some finely powdered sugar in his hair-powder. On the old Frenchman's coming into the breakfast-room next morning, highly powdered as usual, the flies, attracted by the scent of the sugar, instantly gathered round him. He had scarcely begun his breakfast, when every fly in the room was busy on his head. The unfortunate marquis was forced to lay down his knife and fork, and take out his pocket-handkerchief to repel these troublesome assailants, but they came thicker and thicker. The victim now rose from his seat and changed his position; but all was in vain—the flies followed in fresh clusters. In despair he hurried to the window; but every fly lingering there was instantly buzzing and tickling. The marquis, feverish with vexation and surprise, threw up the window. This unlucky measure produced only a general invasion by all the host of flies sunning themselves on the lawn. The astonishment and amusement of the guests were excessive. Brummell alone never smiled. At last M. le Marquis gave way in agony, and, clapping his hands on his head, and followed by a cloud of flies, rushed out of the room. The secret was then divulged, and all was laughter.

"Poodle B—g," so well known in the world of fashion, owed his soubriquet to Brummell. B—g was fond of letting his hair, which was light-coloured, curl round his forehead. He was one day driving in his curricle, with a poodle by his side. The Beau hailed him with—"Ah, B—g, how do you do?—A family vehicle, I see."

Some of those oddities of expression are almost too well known now for effect; but they must have sparkled prodigiously among the exhausted circles of his West-end day.

"You seem to have caught cold, Brummell," said a lounging visitor on hearing him cough. "Yes—I got out of my carriage yesterday, coming from the Pavilion, and the wretch of an innkeeper put me into the coffee-room with a damp stranger."

In a stormy August—"Brummell, did any one ever see such a summer day?"—"Yes, I did, last winter."

On returning from a country mansion, of which he happened to disapprove, he defined it "An exceedingly good house for stopping a single night in."

On the whole, the biographer has given a tolerable selection of Brummell's hits, some of which, however, were so intolerably impertinent, that he must have either thoroughly "known his man," or he must have smoothed down their severity by some remarkable tone of voice or pleasantry of visage. Without those palliations, it is not easy to comprehend his occasional rudeness even to friends. One day, standing and speaking at the carriage-door of a lady, she expressed her surprise at his throwing away his time on so quiet and unfashionable a person.—"My dear friend, don't mention it: there is no one to see us."

But his admiration for the sex must have often brought him close on the edge of serious inconvenience. Once, at the house of a nobleman, he requested a moment's interview in the library, and then and there communicated the formidable intelligence, "that he must immediately leave the house—on that day."

"Why, you intended to stay a month," said his hospitable entertainer.

"True—but I must be gone—I feel I am in love with your countess."

"Well, my dear sir, I can't help that. I was in love with her myself twenty years ago," said the good-humoured husband. "But is she in love with you?"

The Beau cast down his eyes, and, in all the modesty of impudence, said faintly, "I believe she is."

"Oh! that alters the case. I shall send for your post-horses. Good morning."

His life was flirtation, a matter which could not be indulged in matrimony, and he therefore never married. Yet once he went so far as to elope with a young person of rank from a ball: the pair were, however, immediately overtaken. The affair was, of course, the talk of the clubs. But Brummell had his own way of wearing the willow. "On the whole," said he, "I consider I have reason to congratulate myself. I lately heard from her favourite maid that her ladyship had been seen—to drink beer!"

Some of the Beau's letters at this period are given; but they are not fortunate specimens of his taste: even in writing to women they are quaint, affected, and approaching to that unpardonable crime, dulness. His letters written in his wane of life, and under the realities of suffering, are much more striking, contain some pathetic and even some powerful language, and show that fashion and his own follies had obscured a mind of natural talent, if not of original tenderness.

The following letter we look upon as quite sufficient to have excluded him from the recollections of any Lady Jane on earth, if she happened to know the difference between coxcombry and common feeling:—

"MY DEAR LADY JANE,—With the miniature, it seems, I am not to be trusted even for two pitiful hours. My own memory must be then my only disconsolate expedient to obtain a resemblance.

"As I am unwilling to merit the imputation of committing myself by too flagrant a liberty in retaining your glove, which you charitably sent at my head yesterday, as you would have extended an eleemosynary sixpence to the supplicating hat of a mendicant, I restore it to you. And, allow me to assure you, that I have too much regard and respect for you, and too little practical vanity myself, (whatever appearances may be against me,) to have entertained, for one treacherous instant, the impertinent intention to defraud you of it. You are angry, perhaps irreparably incensed against me for this petty larceny. I have no defence to offer in mitigation but that of frenzy. But you know that you are an angel visiting these sublunary spheres, and therefore your first quality should be that of mercy. Yet you are sometimes wayward and volatile in your seraphic disposition. Though you have no wings yet you have weapons, and those are resentment and estrangement from me.—With sentiments of the deepest compunction, I am always your miserable slave,

"GEORGE BRUMMELL."

We have not a doubt that he perused this toilsome performance a dozen times before he folded it up, advanced to his mirror to see how so brilliant a correspondent must look after so astonishing a production, moved round the room in a minuet step; and, when he sent it away at last, followed it with a sigh at the burial of so much renown in a woman's escritoire, and a regret that it could not be stereotyped to make its progress round the world. And yet, as it appeared that the lady had thrown the glove at him, and even lent him her miniature, it would be difficult to discover any ground for her wrath or his compunction. Both were evidently equally imaginary.

The Beau always regarded the city as a terra incognita. A merchant once asked him to dine there. Brummell gave him a look of intense enquiry. The merchant pressed him. "Well," said the Beau, (who probably had excellent reasons for non-resistance to the man of money;) "well, if it must be—but you must first promise faithfully never to say a word on the subject."

A visitor, full of the importance of a tour in the north of England, asked him which of the lakes he preferred. "I can't possibly remember," was the reply; "they are a great way from St James's Street, and I don't think they are spoken of in the clubs." The visitor urged the question. "Robinson," said the Beau, turning in obvious distress to his valet, "Robinson, pray tell this gentleman which of the lakes I preferred."—"Windermere, sir, I think it was," said the valet. "Well," added Brummell, "probably you are in the right, Robinson. It may have been. Pray, sir, will Windermere do?"

"I wonder, Brummell, you take the trouble of driving to the barracks of the 10th with four horses. It certainly looks rather superb," said one of the officers. "Why, I dare say it does; but that is not the point. What could I do, when my French valet, the best dresser of hair in the universe, gave me warning that he must leave me to myself, unless I gave up the vulgarity of posting with two?"

We come, in the course of this goodly history, to the second great event of the Beau's life—the first being his introduction to Carlton House. The second was his being turned out of it. Brummell always denied, and with some indignation, the story of "Wales, ring the bell!"—a version which he justly declared to be "positively vulgar," and therefore, with due respect for his own sense of elegance, absolutely impossible for him. He gave the more rational explanation, that he had taken the part of lady who was presumed to be the rival of Mrs Fitzherbert, and had been rash enough even to make some remarks on Mrs Fitzherbert's en bon point, a matter of course never to be forgiven by a belle. This extended to a "declining love" between him and the Prince, whose foible was a horror of growing corpulent, and whom Brummell therefore denominated "Big Ben," the nickname of a gigantic porter at Carlton House; adding the sting of calling Mrs Fitzherbert Benina. Moore, in one of his satires on the Prince's letter of February the 13th, 1812, to the Duke of York, in which he cut the Whigs, thus parodies that celebrated "sentence of banishment:"—

"Neither have I resentments, nor wish there should come ill To mortal, except, now I think on't, Beau Brummell, Who threaten'd, last year, in a super-fine passion, To cut me, and bring the old king into fashion."

Brummell now, since the sword was drawn, resolved to throw away the sheath, and his hits were keen and "damaging," as those things are now termed. In this style he said to little Colonel M'Mahon, the Prince's secretary—"I made him, and I shall unmake him."

The "fat friend" hit was more pungent in reality than in its usual form. The Prince, walking down St James's Street with Lord Moira, and seeing Brummell approaching arm-in-arm with a man of rank, determined to show the openness of the quarrel, stopped and spoke to the noble lord with an apparent unconsciousness of ever having seen the Beau before. The moment he was turning away, Brummell asked, in his most distinct voice, "Pray, who is your fat friend?" Nothing could be more dexterously impudent; for it repaid the Prince's pretended want of recognition precisely in his own coin, and besides stung him in the very spot where he was known to be most thin-skinned.

It is sufficiently remarkable, that the alienation of the Prince from Brummell scarcely affected his popularity with the patrician world, or his reception by the Duke and Duchess of York. He was a frequent guest at Oatlands, and seems to have amused the duke by his pleasantry, and cultivated the taste of the duchess by writing her epigrams, and making her presents of little dogs. The Duke of York, though not much gifted with the faculty of making jests, greatly enjoyed them in others. He was a good-humoured, easy-mannered man, wholly without affectation of any kind; well-intentioned, with some sagacity—mingled, however, with a good deal of that abruptness which belonged to all the Brunswicks; and though unfortunate in his domestic conduct, a matter on which it would do no service to the reader to enlarge, yet a brave soldier, and a zealous and most useful commander-in-chief at the Horse Guards. He, too, could say good things now and then. One day at Oatlands, as he was mounting his horse to ride to town, seeing a poor woman driven from the door, he asked the servant what she was. "A beggar, your royal highness: nothing but a soldier's wife."—"Nothing but a soldier's wife! And pray, sir, what is your mistress?" Of course, the poor woman was called back and relieved.

Still Brummell continued in high life, and was one of the four who gave the memorable fete at the Argyll Rooms in July 1813, in consequence of having won a considerable sum at hazard. The other three were, Sir Henry Mildmay, Pierrepoint, and Lord Alvanley. The difficulty was, whether or not to invite the Prince, who had quarrelled with Mildmay as well as with Brummell. In this solemn affair Pierrepoint sounded the Prince, and ascertained that he would accept the invitation if it were proposed to him. When the Prince arrived, and was of course received by the four givers of the fete, he shook hands with Alvanley and Pierrepoint, but took no notice whatever of the others. Brummell was indignant, and, at the close of the night, would not attend the Prince to his carriage. This was observed, and the Prince's remark on it next day was—"Had Brummell taken the cut I gave him last night good-humouredly, I should have renewed my intimacy with him." How that was to be done, however, without lying down to be kicked, it would be difficult to discover. Brummell however, on this occasion, was undoubtedly as much in the right as the Prince was in the wrong.

Brummell, in conformity to the habits of the time, and the proprieties of his caste, was of course a gambler, and of course was rapidly ruined; but we have no knowledge that he went through the whole career, and turned swindler. One night he was playing with Combe, who united the three characters of a lover of play, a brewer, and an alderman. It was at Brookes's, and in the year of his mayoralty. "Come, Mash Tub, what do you set?" said the Beau. "Twenty-five guineas," was the answer. The Beau won, and won the same sum twelve times running. Then, putting the cash in his pocket, said with a low bow, "Thank you, alderman; for this, I'll always patronize your porter."—"Very well, sir," said Combe dryly, "I only wish every other blackguard in London would do the same."

At this time play ran high at the clubs. A baronet now living was said to have lost at Watier's L.10,000 at one sitting, at ecarte. In 1814, Brummell lost not only all his winnings, but "an unfortunate L.10,000," as he expressed it, the last that he had at his bankers. Brummell was now ruined; and, to prevent the possibility of his recovery at any future period, he raised money at ruinous interest, and finally made his escape to Calais. Still, when every thing else forsook him, his odd way of telling his own story remained. "He said," observed one of his friends at Caen, when talking about his altered circumstances, "that, up to a particular period of his life, every thing prospered with him, and that he attributed this good luck to the possession of a silver sixpence with a hole in it, which somebody had given him some years before, with an injunction to take good care of it, as every thing would go well with him so long as he kept it, and everything the contrary if he happened to lose it." And so it turned out; for having at length, in an evil hour, given it by mistake to a hackney coachman, a complete reverse of his affairs took place, and one misfortune followed another until he was obliged to fly. On his being asked why he did not advertise a reward for it, he answered—"I did; and twenty people came with sixpences with holes in them for the reward, but not my sixpence." "And you never heard any more of it?" "No," he replied; "no doubt that rascal Rothschild, or some of that set, have got hold of it." But the Beau's retreat from London was still to be characteristic. As it had become expedient that he must make his escape without eclat, on the day of his intended retreat he dined coolly at his club, and finished his London performances by sending from the table a note to his friend Scrope Davies, couched in the following prompt and expressive form:—

"MY DEAR SCROPE,—Lend me two hundred pounds: the banks are shut, and all my money is in the 3 per cents. It shall be repaid to-morrow morning.—Yours, GEORGE BRUMMELL."

The answer was equally prompt and expressive—

"MY DEAR GEORGE,—It is very unfortunate, but all my money is in the 3 per cents.—Yours, S. DAVIES."

Such is the story;

"I cannot tell how the truth may be, I tell the tale as 'twas told to me."

Nothing daunted, the Beau went to the opera, allowed himself to be seen about the house, then quickly retiring, stepped into a friend's chaise and met his own carriage, which waited for him a short distance from town. Travelling all night with four horses, he reached Dover by morning, hired a vessel to carry him over, and soon left England and his creditors behind. He was instantly pursued; but the chase stopped on reaching the sea. Debtors could not then be followed to France, and Brummell was secure.

The little, rude, and thoroughly comfortless town of Calais was now to be the place of residence, for nearly the rest of his life, to a man accustomed to the highest luxuries of London life, trained to the keenest sensibility of London enjoyment, and utterly absorbed in London objects of every kind. Ovid's banishment among the Thracians could scarcely be a more formidable change of position. Yet Brummell's pleasantry did not desert him even in Calais. On some passing friend's remark on the annoyance of living in such a place—"Pray," said the Beau, "is it not a general opinion that a gentleman might manage to spend his time pleasantly enough between London and Paris?"

At Calais he took apartments at the house of one Leleux, an old bookseller, which he fitted up to his own taste; and on which, as if adversity had no power to teach him common prudence, he expended the greater part of the 25,000 francs which, by some still problematical means, he had contrived to carry away with him. This was little short of madness; but it was a madness which he had been practising for the last dozen years, and habit had now rendered ruin familiar to him. At length a little gleam of hope shone across his fortunes. George IV. arrived at Calais on his way to Hanover. The Duke d'Angouleme came from Paris to receive his Majesty, and Calais was all in a tumult of loyalty. The reports of Brummell's conduct on this important arrival, of the King's notice of him, and of the royal liberality in consequence, were of every shape and shade of invention. But all of them, except the mere circumstance of the King's pronouncing his name, seem to have been utterly false. Brummell, mingling in the crowd which cheered his Majesty in his progress, was observed by the King, who audibly said, "Good heavens, Brummell!" But the recognition proceeded no further. The Beau sent his valet, who was a renowned maker of punch, to exhibit his talent in that art at the royal entertainment, and also sent a present of some excellent maraschino. But no result followed. The King was said to have transmitted to him a hundred pound note; but even this is unluckily apocryphal. Leleux, his landlord, thus gives the version. The English consul at Calais came to Mr Brummell late one evening, and intimated that the King was out of snuff, saying, as he took up one of the boxes lying on his table, "Give me one of yours."—"With all my heart," was the reply; "but not that box, for if the King saw it I should never have it again"—implying that there was some story attached to it. On reaching the theatre the consul presented the snuff, and the King turning, said, "Why, sir, where did you get your snuff? There is only one person that I know that can mix snuff in this way!"—"It is some of Mr Brummell's, your Majesty," replied the consul. The next day the King left Calais; and, as he seated himself in the carriage, he said to Sir Arthur Paget, who commanded the yacht that brought him over, "I leave Calais, and have not seen Brummell." From this his biographer infers that he had received neither money nor message, and his landlord is of the same opinion. But slight as those circumstances are, it seems obvious that George IV. had a forgiving heart towards the Beau notwithstanding all his impertinences, that he would have been glad to forgive him, and that he would, in all probability, have made some provision for his old favourite if Brummell had exhibited any signs of repentance. On the other hand, Brummell was a man of spirit, and no man ought to put himself in the way of being treated contemptuously even by royalty; but it seems strange that, with all his adroitness, he should not have hit upon a middle way. There could have been no great difficulty in ascertaining whether the King would receive him, in sending a respectful message, in offering his loyal congratulations on the King's arrival, or even in expressing his regret at his long alienation from a Prince to whom he had been once indebted for so many favours, and who certainly never harboured resentment against man. Brummell evidently repented his tardiness on this occasion; for he made up his mind to make a more direct experiment when the King should visit the town-hall on his return. But opportunities once thrown away are seldom regained. The king on his return did not visit the town-hall, but hurried on board, and the last chance of reconciliation was gone.

Yet during his long residence in Calais, the liberality of his own connexions in England enabled him to show a good face to poverty. He paid his bills punctually whenever the remittance came, and was charitable to the mendicants who, probably for the last thousand years, have made Calais their headquarters. The general name for him was the Roi de Calais. An anecdote of his pleasantry in almsgiving reached the public ear. A French beggar asked him for a two-sous piece. "I don't know the coin," said Brummell, "never having had one; but I suppose you mean a franc. There, take it." His former celebrity had also spread far and wide among the population. A couple of English workmen in one of the factories of the town, one day followed a gentleman who had a considerable resemblance to Brummell. He heard one of them say to the other, "Now, I'll bet you a pot that's him." Shortly after, one of them strolled up to him, with, "Beg pardon, sir—hope no offence, but we two have got a bet—now, a'n't you George Ring the Bell?" Brummell's habits of flirtation did not desert him in France; and in one instance he paid such marked attention to a young English lady, that a friend was deputed to enquire his purposes. Here Brummell's knowledge of every body did him good service. The deputy on this occasion having once figured as the head of a veterinary hospital, or some such thing, but being then in the commissariat,—"Why, Vulcan!" exclaimed Brummell, "what a humbug you must be to come and lecture me on such a subject! You, who were for two years at hide-and-seek to save yourself from being shot by Sir T. S. for running off with one of his daughters." "Dear me," said the astonished friend, "you have touched a painful chord; I will have no more to do with this business." The business died a natural death.

His dressing-table was recherche. Its batterie de toilette was curious, complete, and of silver; one part of it being a spitting-dish, he always declaring that "it was impossible to spit in clay." His "making up" every morning occupied two hours. When he first arrived in Caen he carried a cane, but often exchanged it for a brown silk umbrella, which was always protected by a silk case of remarkable accuracy of fit—the handle surmounted by an ivory head of George the Fourth, in well-curled wig and gracious smile. In the street he never took off his hat to any one, not even to a lady; for it would have been difficult to replace it in the same position, it having been put on with peculiar care. We finish by stating, that he always had the soles of his boots blackened as well as the upper leathers; his reason for this being, that, in the usual negligence of human nature, he never could be sure that the polish on the edge of the sole would be accurately produced, unless the whole underwent the operation. He occasionally polished a single boot himself, to show how perfection on this point was to be obtained. Clogs, so indispensable in the dirt of an unpaved French street, he always abhorred; yet, under cover of night, he could, now and then, condescend to wear them. "Theft," as the biographer observes, "in Sparta was a crime—but only when it was discovered."

But after this life of fantasy and frivolity, on which so much cleverness was thrown away, the unfortunate Beau finished his career miserably. On his application to the Foreign Office, representing his wish to be removed to any other consulate where he might serve more effectually, and of course with a better income; the former part of his letter was made the ground of abolishing the consulate, while the latter received no answer. We say nothing of this measure, any further than that it had the effect of utter ruin on poor Brummell. The total loss of his intellect followed; he was reduced to absolute beggary, and finally spent his last miserable hours in an hospital for lunatic mendicants. Surely it could not have been difficult, in the enormous patronage of office, to have found some relief for the necessities of a man whose official character was unimpeached; who had been expressly put into government employ by ministers for the sake of preserving him from penury; who had been the companion, the friend of princes and nobles; and whose faults were not an atom more flagrant than those of every man of fashion in his time. But he was now utterly ruined and wretched. Some strong applications were made to his former friends by a Mr Armstrong, a merchant of Caen, who seems to have constantly acted a most humane part to him, and occasional donations were sent. A couple of hundred pounds were even remitted from the Foreign Office; and, by the exertions of Lord Alvanley and the present Duke of Beaufort, who never deserted him, and this is much to the honour of both, a kind of small annuity was paid to him. But he was already overwhelmed with debt, for his income from the consulate netted him but L.80 a-year, the other L.320 being in the hands of the banker, his creditor; and it seems probable that his destitution deprived him of his senses after a period of wretchedness and even of rags. Broken-hearted and in despair, concluding with hopeless imbecility, this man of taste and talent, for he possessed both in no common degree, was left to die in the hands of strangers—no slight reproach to the cruel insensibility of those who, wallowing in wealth, and fluttering from year to year through the round of fashion, suffered their former associate, nay their envied example, to perish in his living charnel. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery of Caen, under a stone with this inscription:—

In Memory of GEORGE BRUMMELL, ESQ., who departed this life On the 29th of March 1840. Aged 62 years.

Mr Jesse deserves credit for his two volumes. There is a good deal in them which has no direct reference to Brummell; but he has collected probably all that could be known. The books are very readable, the anecdotes pleasantly told, the style is lively, and frequently shows that the biographer could adopt the thought as well as the language of his hero. At all events he has given us the detail of a character of whom every body had heard something, and every body wished to hear more.

FOOTNOTES:

{A} The Life of George Brummell, Esq. By Captain Jesse. 2 volumes.



THE ACTUAL CONDITION OF THE GREEK STATE.

"Say why That ancient story of Prometheus chain'd? The vulture—the inexhaustible repast Drawn from his vitals? Say what meant the woes By Tantalus entail'd upon his race, And the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes? Fictions in form, but in their substance truths— Tremendous truths!—familiar to the men Of long past times; nor obsolete in ours."—Excursion.

In an article on the bankruptcy of the Greek kingdom, (No. CCCXXXV., September 1843,) we gave an account of the financial condition of the new state; and we ventured to suggest that a revolution was unavoidable. That revolution occurred even sooner than we expected; for our number had hardly reached Athens ere King Otho was compelled to summon a national assembly to aid him in framing the long promised constitution.

As our former number explained the immediate causes of the discontent in Greece, we shall now furnish our readers with a description of the revolution, of its results, and of the great difficulties which still oppose serious barriers to the formation of an independent kingdom in Greece. The late revolution was distinguished by an open rebellion of the army; and as a rebellion, in which the troops have been covered with decorations, and have received a gratification of some months' pay, is not the era from which we should wish to date the civil liberty and national prosperity of a monarchy founded by Great Britain, France, and Russia, we shall use great delicacy in describing the movement, and record no fact which we cannot substantiate by legal or documentary evidence.

It is not to be supposed when we in Edinburgh were informed of the approaching storm in Greece, that the people of the country were without anxiety. The Morning Post, (23d September 1843,) which has generally contained very accurate information from Athens, published a letter written from that city on the 5th September. This Athenian correspondent declared "that the Greeks have so fully made up their minds to put an end to the Bavarian dynasty, as to be resolved not even to accept a constitution at the hands of the king. They declare that they will abstain from all outrage and personal violence; and that they only desire the embarkation of King Otho and his German followers, who shall be free to leave the country without the slightest injury."

We solicit the attention of her majesty's ministers to these memorable words, written before the revolution.

The danger, in short, was visible to every body but King Otho, his German camarilla, and his renegade Greek ministers. At this time Kalergy was inspector of the cavalry. He had always expressed his dissatisfaction with the system of Bavarian favouritism in the army; and his gallant and disinterested conduct during the war against the Turks, rendered him universally popular. Infinitely more of a gentleman and a man of the world than any of the court faction, it is said that he was viewed with feelings of personal as well as political aversion. It happened that, about a week before the revolution, the king reviewed the garrison of Athens, and in the order of the day which followed this review, General Kalergy was noticed in such a way that he felt himself deeply insulted. A Bavarian, Captain Hess, then marshal of the palace, was supposed to be the author of this document. As the attack on Kalergy was evidently caused by his political conduct, the whole Greek army took his part, and the cry was raised that the Bavarians must be driven out of Greece.

The prominent part which General Kalergy has taken in the late revolution, and the romantic incidents of his life, induce us to offer our readers a short sketch of his earlier career. We have known him in circumstances when intercourse ensures intimacy; for we have sat together round the same watch-fires, on the mountains of Argolis and Attica. To parody the words of Anastasius, we saw him achieve his first deed of prowess, and we were present when he heard his first praises. Hastings's lips have long been silenced by death, but the music of his applause still rings in our ears.

Demetrius Kalergy is descended from a Cretan family, whose name is famous in the annals of Candia. He was born in Russia, and was studying in Germany when the Greeks took up arms against the Turks. His elder brothers, Nicolas and Manolis, having resolved to join the cause of their countrymen, repaired to Marseilles, where, with the assistance of their uncle, a man of great wealth in Russia, they freighted a vessel, and purchased a small train of artillery, consisting of sixteen guns, and a considerable supply of muskets and ammunition. Demetrius, though then only fifteen years of age, could not be restrained from joining them, and the three brothers arrived in Greece together. The young Kalergy soon gave proofs of courage and military talents. His second brother, Manolis, was killed during the siege of Athens; but the eldest, Nicolas, a man who unites the accomplishments of a court to the sincerest feelings of patriotism, still resides in Greece, universally respected. During the Bavarian sway he took no part in political affairs; but he was elected a member of the national assembly, which has just terminated its labours in preparing the constitution.

Demetrius Kalergy was first entrusted with an independent command in 1824, when the Peloponnesian chiefs and primates, Kolokotroni, Londos, Notaras, Deliyani, Zaimi, and Sessini, endeavoured to divide the Morea into a number of small principalities, of which they expected to secure the revenues for themselves. In spite of Kalergy's youth, he was ordered to take the field against the first corps of the rebels that had acted in open hostility to the existing government. With his usual promptitude and decision, he attacked Panos Kolokotroni, the son of the old Klepht, and Staikos, a Moreote captain of some reputation, in the plain of Tripolitza, where they were posted for the despicable purpose of intercepting the trains of mules laden with merchandise for the supply of the shops of Tripolitza, then the great market of all the central parts of the Morea.

The affair was really brilliant. The rebels were encamped on a low hill, and, not expecting that Kalergy would depart from the usual practice of carrying on a long series of skirmishes, they had paid no attention to their position. The attack opened in the usual way by a fierce fire at a very long distance; but Kalergy, on perceiving the careless arrangements of his enemy, soon induced his troops to creep up pretty close to the Moreotes, when he suddenly jumped up, and shouted to his followers, "The shortest way is the best. Follow me!" and rushed forward. His whole band was within the hostile lines in an instant. The manoeuvre was so unexpected, that few of the rebels fired; many were loading their muskets, and none had time to draw their swords or yatagans. About 170 were slain, and, if report may be trusted, one of the rebel chiefs was struck down by Kalergy, and the other taken prisoner after receiving a wound in personal combat with the young hero. The faction of the Moreote barons, as these greedy plunderers of the Greek shopkeepers would fain have been called, was dissolved by this unexpected victory. Many laid down their arms, and made peace with the government.

General Kalergy was afterwards present in the town of Navarin when it was besieged by Ibrahim Pasha, and marched out with his band when the place capitulated. This defeat, though he had only held a subordinate command, afflicted him greatly, and he looked round for some means of avenging his country's loss on the Turks. He resolved at last to endeavour to make a diversion by recommencing the war in Crete; but without a strong fortress to secure the ammunition and supplies necessary for prosecuting a series of irregular attacks, it was evident that nothing important could be effected. In this difficulty, Kalergy determined to attack the impregnable island-fortress of Grabusa, as it was known that the strength of the place had induced the Turks to leave it with a very small garrison. Kalergy having learned that the greater part of this garrison was absent during the day, disguised a few of his men in Turkish dresses, and appeared on the beach at the point from which the soldiers of the garrison crossed to this island Gibraltar. The commander of Grabusa ordered the boat to transport them over as usual, and the Greeks entered the fort before the mistake was discovered. The place was in vain attacked by all the forces of Mohammed Ali; the Greeks kept possession of it to the end of the war. The sagacity and courage displayed by Kalergy in this affair placed him in the rank of the ablest of the Greek chiefs.

When General Gordon (whose excellent history of the Greek revolution we recommend to our readers{A}) attempted to relieve Athens, then besieged by Kutayhi, (Reschid Pasha,) Kalergy and Makriyani commanded divisions of the troops which occupied the Piraeus. Subsequently, when Lord Cochrane and General Church endeavoured to force the Turkish lines, Kalergy was one of the officers who commanded the advanced division. In the engagement which ensued, his adventures afford an illustration of the singular vicissitudes of Eastern warfare. The Greek troops landed at Cape Kolias during the night, and pushed forward to within a mile and a half of the Turkish lines, where they formed a slight intrenchment on some undulating hills. They threw up some ill-constructed tambouria, (as the redoubts used in Turkish warfare are termed,) and of these some remains are still visible. A ravine descending from the lower slopes of Hymettus ran in front of this position, deep enough to shelter the Turkish cavalry, and enable them to approach without exposing themselves to the Greek artillery. This movement of the Turks was distinctly seen from the Greek camp at the Piraeus, and the approaching attack on the advanced posts of the army was waited for in breathless anxiety. The map of the plain of Athens is sufficiently familiar to most of our readers to enable then to picture to themselves the scene which ensued with perfect accuracy.

The Greek troops destined for the relief of Athens amounted to about 3000 men, and of these about 600 were posted far in advance of their companions, in three small redoubts. The main body drawn up in a long line remained inactive with the artillery, and a smaller corps as a rear-guard seemed destined to communicate with the fleet of Lord Cochrane at Cape Kolias. At the Piraeus, about 700 men were scattered about in all the disorder of an Eastern encampment, without making the slightest attempt to distract the attention of the Turkish troops. The French General Gueheneuc and the Bavarian General Heideck, both witnessed the battle.

The Turkish cavalry, to the number of about 700, having formed in the ravine, rode slowly up towards the brow of the hill on which the tambouria of the Cretans, the Suliots, and the regular regiment were placed. As soon as their appearance on the crest of the ridge exposed them to the fire of the Greeks, they galloped forward. The fire of the Greeks, however, seemed almost without effect, yet the Turks turned and galloped down the hill into the shelter of the ravine. In a short time they repeated their attack with a determination, which showed that the preceding attempt had been only a feint to enable them to examine the ground. As they approached this time very near the intrenchments, the fire of the Greeks proved more effectual than on the former occasion, and several of the Delhis, horse and man, rolled on the ground. Again the Turks fled to conceal themselves in the ravine, and prepared for another attack by dividing their force into three divisions, one of which ascended and another descended the ravine, while the third prepared to renew the assault in the old direction. The vizier Kutayhi himself moved forward to encourage his troops, and it became evident that a desperate struggle would now be made to carry the Greek position, where the few troops who held it were left unsupported.

The Turkish cavalry soon rushed on the Greeks, assailing their position in front and flanks; and, in spite of their fire, forced the horses over the low intrenchments into the midst of the enemy.{B} For the space of hardly three minutes pistol shots and sabre cuts fell so thick, that friends and foes were in equal danger. Of the Greeks engaged not one had turned to flee, and but few were taken alive. The loss of the Turks was, however, but trifling—about a dozen men and from fifteen to twenty horses.

The centre of the Greek army, on beholding the destruction of the advanced guard, showed little determination; it wavered for a minute, and then turned and fled towards the shore in utter confusion, abandoning all its artillery to the Turks. The Delhis soon overtook their flying enemies, and riding amongst them, coolly shot down and sabred those whose splendid arms and dresses excited their cupidity. The artillery itself was turned on the fugitives, who had left the ammunition undestroyed as well as the guns unspiked. But our concern with the battle of the 6th May 1827, is at present confined to following the fortunes of Kalergy. He was one of the prisoners. His leg had been broken by a rifle-ball as the Turks entered the tambouri of the Cretans, and as he received an additional sabre cut on the arm, he lay helpless on the ground, where his youthful appearance and splendid arms caught the eye of an Albanian bey, who ordered him to be secured and taken care of as his own prisoner.

On the morning after the battle, the prisoners were all brought out before the tent of Kutayhi, who was encamped at Patissia, very near the site of the house subsequently built by Sir Pulteney Malcolm. George Drakos, a Suliot chief, had killed himself during the night; and the Pasha, in consequence, ordered all the survivors to be beheaded, wishing, probably, to afford Europe a specimen of Ottoman economy and humanity, by thus saving the lives of these Greeks from themselves. Two hundred and fifty were executed, when Kalergy, unable to walk, was carried into the circle of Turkish officers witnessing the execution, on the back of a sturdy Albanian baker. Kutayhi calmly ordered his instant execution; but the prisoner having informed his captor that he would pay 100,000 piastres for his ransom; the Albanian bey stepped forward and maintained his right to his prisoner so stoutly, that the Pasha, whose army was in arrears, and whose military chest was empty, found himself compelled to yield. As a memento of their meeting, however, he ordered one of Kalergy's ears to be cut off. The ransom was quickly paid, and Kalergy returned to Poros, where it was some time before he recovered from his wounds.

Capodistrias on his arrival in Greece named Kalergy his aide-de-camp, and as he was much attached to the president, he was entrusted with the command of the cavalry sent against Poros and Nisi, when those places took up arms against the arbitrary and tyrannical conduct of Capodistrias. We are not inclined to apologize for the disorders which the Greek cavalry then committed; they were unpardonable even during the excitement of a civil war.

The marriage of Kalergy was as romantic as the rest of his career. Two chiefs, both of the family of Notaras, (one of the few Greek families which can boast of territorial influence dating from the times of the Byzantine empire,) had involved the province of Corinth in civil war, in order to secure the hand of a young heiress. The lady, however, having escaped from the scene of action, conferred her hand on Kalergy, whose fame as a soldier far eclipsed that of the two rivals.

As soon as the Bavarians arrived in Greece, they commenced persecuting Kalergy. An unfounded charge of treason was brought against him; but he was honourably acquitted by a court-martial, of which our country-man, General Gordon of Cairness, was the president; and from that period down to the publication of the order of the day, last September, he has been constantly an object of Bavarian hatred.

About twenty-four hours before the revolution of the 15th of September broke out, the court of Greece received some information concerning the extent and nature of the plot, and orders were given by King Otho to hold a council of his trusted advisers. The Bavarians Hess and Graff, and the Greeks Rizos, Privilegios, Dzinos, and John the son of Philip, (for one of the courtly councillors of the house of Wittelspach rejoices in this primitive cognomen,) met, and decided on the establishment of a court-martial to try and shoot every man taken in arms. Orders were immediately prepared for the arrest of upwards of forty persons.

A good deal has been said about the revolution as having been a mere military movement. This, however, is not a correct view of the matter, either with reference to the state of parties, or to the intensity of the national feeling at the time. Sir Robert Inglis most justly observed in Parliament—"That revolution in Greece had been prepared during years of intolerable despotism, and the soldiery merely shared in, and did not by any means lead, the proceedings of the great body of the nation." The fact is, that a plot for seizing the king and sending him to Trieste, had been formed by the Philorthodox or Russian party, in the early part of 1843; but the party, from some distrust of its own strength, and from the increasing unpopularity of King Otho, was induced to admit a few of the most determined of the constitutionalists into the plot, without intending to entrust them with the whole of the plan. The rising was at last fixed for the month of September. This occurred in consequence of the universal outcry raised by the Greeks, on finding that the representations of Great Britain in favour of the long-promised constitution, and the warnings which Sir Robert Peel threw out on the discussion of Greek affairs on Mr Cochrane's motion, were utterly neglected by King Otho. This indignation was reduced to despair when it was known that Mr Tricoupis, on his recall from London, had assured the king that the English cabinet was so determined to maintain the statu quo, that the constitutional party would meet with no countenance from England. Every party in Greece then prepared for action, and entered into negotiations, in which the opinions of the constitutionalists prevailed, because they were actively supported by the great body of the people.

In order to prevent the country from becoming a scene of anarchy, in case a civil war proved unavoidable, it was necessary to employ all the regular authorities who could be induced to join the national cause, in their actual functions, without any reference to party feelings. This was done; and the fact that it was so, proves the intenseness of the public feeling. The constitutional party decided that the recognition of Greece as a constitutional state, and the immediate convocation of a national assembly, were to be the demands made on King Otho. The Russian party allowed these two questions to be first mooted in the firm persuasion that the king would be induced by his own pride, his despotic principles, and the mistaken views of several of the foreign ministers at Athens, to refuse these demands; and, in that case, the throne would infallibly have been declared vacant.

About midnight, on the 14th of September, the gendarmes were ordered to surround the house of General Makriyani, an officer of irregulars on half-pay, and to arrest him on a charge of treason. On approaching the house they were warned off; but pressing forward they were fired on, and one gendarme was killed and one or two wounded. In consequence of the alarm given by the minister of war, for the purpose of supporting the arrests to be made, the garrison was all in readiness. In the mean time the greater part of the officers had been admitted into the secret, that a general movement of all Greece was to be made that night, and that their duty would be to maintain the strictest order and enforce the severest discipline.

Kalergy, therefore, as soon as he was informed that the movement had been made to arrest Makriyani, assembled all the officers, and, in a few words, declared to them that the moment for saving their country from the Bavarian yoke had arrived; and that they must now, if they wished to be free, call on the king to adopt a constitutional system of government. The importance of this step, which Kalergy adopted with his usual decision, can only be understood when it is recollected, that there existed a strong party determined to avail itself of every opportunity of driving King Otho from the throne. Had Kalergy, therefore, delayed pledging the officers and the army to the constitution, or allowed them to march out of their barracks before making the constitution the rallying word of the revolution, there can be no doubt that the agents of the Russian and Philorthodox parties would have raised the cry of "Death to the Bavarians! down with the tyrant!" Kalergy, however, put the garrison in motion amidst shouts of Long live the constitution; and as the cavalry moved from their barracks, these shouts were echoed enthusiastically by the citizens who were waiting anxiously without.

As soon as Kalergy had taken the command he marched all the troops to the square before the palace. Two squadrons of cavalry, two battalions of infantry, a company of Greek irregulars, and a number of half-pay officers and pensioners, were soon drawn up under King Otho's windows. His monstrous palace had begun to produce its effects. Strong patrols were detached to preserve order in the town, and to compel the gendarmes to retire to their quarters. Makriyani, on being relieved from his blockade, repaired to the square, collecting on the way as large a body of armed citizens as he was able.

The king had been waiting at one of the windows of the palace in great anxiety to witness the arrest of Makriyani; and on seeing the shots fired from the house, and the suspension of the attack by the gendarmes, he had dispatched a Bavarian aide-de-camp, named Steinsdorff, to order the artillery to the palace. The young and inexperienced Bavarian returned without the guns; but assured his Majesty that they would soon arrive. In the mean time, the whole garrison appeared in the square, and was ranged opposite the palace: the king, however, expected that the arrival of the artillery would change their disposition. In a short time, the guns came galloping up; but to the utter dismay of King Otho, they were ranged in battery against the palace, while the artillerymen, as soon as the manoeuvre was executed, gave a loud shout of "long live the constitution."

His Majesty, after a long period of profound silence, appeared at a window of the lower story of the palace, attended by the Bavarian captain, Hess—the most unpopular man in Greece, unless Dzinos, the agent in the celebrated cases of judicial torture, could dispute with him that "bad eminence." One of the servants of the court called for General Kalergy in a loud voice; and when he approached the window the king asked—"What is the meaning of this disturbance? What am I to understand by this parade of the garrison?" To this Kalergy replied, in a loud and clear voice, "The people of Greece and the army desire that your Majesty will redeem the promise that the country should be governed constitutionally." King Otho then said, "Retire to your quarters; I shall consult with my ministers, with the council of state, and the ambassadors of the three protecting powers, and inform you of my determination." This appeared to the audience to be acting the absolute sovereign rather too strongly under the circumstances, and a slight movement of the officers, who overheard the king's words, was conveyed like lightning to the troops, so that the king received a distinct reply from the whole army in a sudden clang of sabres and noise of arms. Kalergy, however, immediately replied in the same distinct tone in which he had before spoken—"Sire, neither the garrison of Athens, nor the people will quit this spot, until your Majesty's decisions on the proposals of the council of state, which will be immediately laid before you, is known." At this moment Captain Hess put himself forward beside the king, and said—"Colonel Kalergy; that is not the way in which it becomes you to speak to his Majesty." But to this ill-timed lesson in politeness Kalergy replied sharply—"Draw your head back, sir: you and such as you have brought the king and the country into their present unfortunate circumstances. You ought to be ashamed of your conduct." The Bavarian hero at these words disappeared; and this was the last occasion in which this champion of Bavarianism appeared in a public character.

At this time, Count Metaxas, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Church, and Major-General Londos, members of the council of state, who had been in the square with the troops, were engaged preparing the council for its share in the revolution. At the meeting which took place, Spiro Milios, the commandant of the military school, and an active member of the Russian party, was present as a representative of the army. It was evident that the council of state comprised three parties. One was willing to support King Otho and the actual system. This party included Kondouriotis, the president; Tricoupis, the late minister in London; and a German Greek named Theocharis. Another party was eager to drive King Otho from the throne, in order to proceed to the nomination of a regency preparatory to the choice of an orthodox prince. We are not sure that any individual is now anxious to identify his name with this party. The third party made the demand for a constitution their primary object; and as this party was led by Metaxas, Londos, Church, Palamidhis, and Mansolas, it was soon joined by the majority.

The meeting was long, and it is said that the conduct of the members was much more disorderly than that of the people and the troops in the square; but at last, a proclamation and an oath were drawn up, by which the council of state, the army, and the people, all pledged themselves to support the constitution. A committee consisting of Metaxas, Londos, and Palamidhis, was also charged to prepare an address to the king, recommending his majesty to convoke a national assembly, in order to prepare a constitution for the state; at the same time they invited his majesty to appoint new ministers, and in the list presented they of course took care to insert their own names. As soon as this business was terminated, the council dispatched a deputation to wait on his majesty, consisting of the president and five members, who were to obtain the king's consent.

The conduct of King Otho on receiving this deputation was neither wise nor firm. He delayed returning any answer for two hours, and attempted to open a negotiation with the council of state, by means of one of the members of the camarilla. The delay excited some distrust even among the best disposed in the square, and the report was spread that the king was endeavouring to communicate with the corps diplomatique, in order to create a diversion. At this very time a train of carriages suddenly appeared at the gates of the palace, and the ministers of the three protecting powers—Sir Edmund Lyons, Mr Katakazy, and Mr Piscatory, accompanied by General Prokesch d'Osten, and Mr Brassier de St Simon, the representatives of Austria and Prussia—requested to be admitted to see the king. General Kalergy, however, declared that he had orders to refuse all entry to the palace, until his majesty had terminated his conference with the deputation of the council of state; and repeated, in the presence of the ministers of Austria and Prussia, the assurance he had given at an early hour of the morning to Sir Edmund Lyons, Mr Katakazy, and Mr Piscatory, that the greatest respect would be shown to the person of his majesty. Mr Katakazy, the doyen of the corps diplomatique, satisfied that any parade of foreign interference could only increase the difficulties of the king's position, accepted the answer of Kalergy and began to withdraw. The representatives of the powers which had never protected Greece, deemed the moment favourable for a display of a little independent diplomacy, and accordingly the Prussian minister asked Kalergy in a tone, neither mild nor low, if he durst refuse to admit him to see his majesty. To this Kalergy, who was extremely anxious to avoid any dispute with the foreign ministers at such a moment, politely replied that he was compelled to refuse even the minister of Prussia. Mr Brassier, however, returned to the charge aided by his Austrian colleague; but as the Greeks place all Germans in the category of Bavarians, they gave some manifestations of their dislike to any German interference, which could not be otherwise than displeasing to the Prussian, who addressed Kalergy in a very rough tone. His words were lost to the spectators, but they were supported by General Prokesch d'Osten with a good deal of gesticulation. The patience of Kalergy gave way under these repeated attacks, and he turned to Mr Brassier, saying—"Monsieur le ministre, you are generally unlucky in your advice, and I am afraid his majesty has heard too much of it lately."

The thrust was a home one, and the Prussian minister, rather discomposed, addressed himself to Sir Edmund Lyons, who, while waiting till his carriage drew up, had been quietly contemplating the scene, and said—"Colonel Kalergy is insolent; but he only repeats what he has heard in the drawing-rooms of Athens." Sir Edmund Lyons replied—"I do not see, Mr Brassier, how that makes your case better," and withdrew to his carriage, leaving Austria and Prussia to battle out their dispute with Greece in the presence of the mob. The spectators considered the scene a very amusing one, for they laughed heartily as the corps diplomatique retired; but, if all the reports current in diplomatic circles be true, Mr Katakazy, the doyen of the Athenian diplomatists, was made to suffer severely for his prudent conduct; for it is said that his recall took place because he did not support with energy the foolish attempt of his enterprising colleagues. It is certain that any very violent support given to any feeling, in direct hostility to the national cause at the time, could hardly have failed to vacate the throne, or at least to push the people on to commit some disorders, of which the Russian court, and the friends of despotism at Vienna and Berlin, might have taken advantage.

The king, finding at last that there was no hope of his deriving any assistance from without, signed the ordinances appointing a new ministery, and convoking a national assembly. The troops, after having remained more than thirteen hours under arms, were marched back to their barracks, as if from a review; and every thing at Athens followed its usual course. Thus was a revolution effected in the form of government in Greece without any interruption in the civil government—without the tribunals' ceasing to administer justice for a single day—without the shops' remaining closed beyond the usual hours, or the mercantile affairs of the country undergoing the slightest suspension. Such a people must surely be fit for a constitution.

The national assembly has now met, and terminated its labours; and Greece is in possession of a constitution made by Greeks. In three months the first representative chamber will meet. It will consist of about 120 members. The senate, which is to consist of members named by the king for life, cannot exceed one-half the number of the representatives elected by the people. Faults may be found with some of the details of the constitution; but, on the whole, it must be regarded as a very favourable specimen of the political knowledge of the Greeks; and the manner in which the different articles were discussed, and the care with which every proposal and amendment were examined, gave all those who witnessed the debates a very high opinion of the legislative capacity of the people.

The form of the Greek government, as a constitutional monarchy, may now be considered as settled. We shall therefore proceed to examine the difficulties, of a social and political nature, which still obstruct the advancement of the nation, and render its prosperity problematical. Some of our statements may appear almost paradoxical to travellers, whose hasty glance at distant countries enables them to come to rather more positive conclusions than those who devote years to study the same subject. We shall, however, strive to expose our facts in such a way as to show that we state the plain truth, nothing but the truth, and, as far as our subject carries us, the whole truth.

That Greece has not hitherto improved, either in her wealth, population, or civilization, as fast as the energy of her people led her friends to expect would be the case after she was freed from the Turks, is universally admitted. The great bar to improvement exists in an evil rooted in the present frame of social life, but fortunately one which good and just government would gradually remove. In Greece there is no clear and definite idea of the sacred right of property in land. The god Terminus is held in no respect. No Greek, from the highest to the lowest, understands the meaning of that absolute right of property "which," as Blackstone says, "consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal by every Englishman of all his acquisitions, without control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land."

The appropriation of Mr Finlay's land by King Otho, without measurement, valuation, or payment, to make a garden for his palace—the formation of a great road leading to the French minister's house, by the municipality of Athens, without indemnifying the owners of the land, though a road sufficiently good already existed—and the confiscation of half the estates purchased by foreigners from the Turks by Maurocordatos, when Minister of Finance under the Bavarian Regency, in a ministerial circular deciding on rights of property, are mere trifling examples of the universal spirit. When Maurocordatos wrote his memorable declaration, "that every spot where wild herbs, fit for the pasturage of cattle, grow, is national property, and that the Greek government recognises no individual property in the soil except the exclusive right of cultivation," he only, in deference to the Bavarian policy of the time, which wished to copy Mohammed Ali's administration in Egypt, caricatured a misconception of the right of property equally strong in every Greek, whether he be the oppressor or the oppressed. Even the late National Assembly has not thought it necessary to correct any of the invasions of private property by the preceding despotism. Individuals, almost ruined by the plunder of their land, have not even received the offer of an indemnity, though the justice of their claims is not denied.{C}

The origin of this national obtuseness of mind on a question of interest, is to be found in the system of taxing the land. A Greek really views land somewhat as English labourers view game. The owner of the soil is absolute proprietor only during those months in which he is engaged in the labours of preparing the land and sowing the seed. As soon as the harvest time arrives, he ceases to be master of his estate, and sinks into the condition of a serf of the revenue officer, or of the farmer of the land revenue. It is true, that the government tax only amounts to a tenth of the gross produce of the soil; but, in virtue of this right to a tenth, government assumes the entire direction of all the agricultural operations relating to the crops, and the cultivator's nine-tenths (for it is really a misnomer to call him proprietor) become a mere adjunct of the government tenth.

Many of our readers, who are unacquainted with Eastern life, may suppose that we colour our picture too strongly. In order, therefore, to divest our statement of all ornament, we shall describe the whole of the events of an agricultural year. Our classic readers will then comprehend practically how the vulture could feast on the perpetually growing heart of Prometheus—why Tantalus tempted the gods by murdering Pelops—and they will see that the calamities of the Theban race are an allegorical representation of the inevitable fate which awaits a people groaning under the system of taxation now in force in Greece.

The tenths in Greece are usually farmed to speculators, and, as the collection is a matter of difficulty, extraordinary powers are conferred on the farmers; hence it happens, that the social position of the cultivators and the farmers is one of constant hostility. If the cultivator has it in his power, he cheats the farmer of the revenue, and if the farmer is able to do so he cheats the cultivator. The result is, that probably not one individual in the Greek kingdom really pays the exact tenth of the produce of his land. A few of the most active rogues contrive to cheat the farmers of the revenue; but these gentlemen, in virtue of the great powers with which the law invests them, contrive to cheat the greater part of the proprietors. As soon as the grain is ripe, the cultivator is compelled to address himself to the tax-farmer for permission to cut his crop; but as the farmer must keep a very sharp look-out after his interest, he only grants such permissions as accord with the arrangements he may have established for watching the cultivators at the smallest possible expense to himself, making the over-ripeness of the crop of the majority a very secondary consideration. It happens, consequently, that in Greece two-thirds of the grain are not gathered until it is over-ripe, and the loss is consequently very great.

When the grain is cut, it must be carried to a certain number of authorized threshing-floors collected together, in order that the tax farmer may take every possible care to secure his tenth. To these threshing-floors the whole grain of a district must be transported from the fields in the straw, though the straw may be wanted as fodder for cattle at the very spot from which it is taken, and will require to be carried back a very great distance. An immense loss of grain and labour is sustained by this regulation; but it is a glorious season for the donkeys;—long trains of these animals, lively under their heavy loads of sheaves, may be seen galloping one after the other, each endeavouring to seize a mouthful from his neighbour. The roads are strewed with grain and the broken-hearted cultivators follow, cursing man and beast.

The grain is at last collected in immense stacks round the threshing-floors—a cultivator perched on the top of each stack, defending it from the attacks of man and beast; and a tax-gatherer, seated with his pipe cross-legged in the middle of the circle, is watching the manoeuvres of the cultivators. No person who has not examined the subject with attention can imagine the scenes of fraud and violence which a Greek harvest produces. The grain is usually kept piled round the threshing-floors under various pretexts, for at least two months, unless the cultivator pay the farmer an additional sum, to facilitate the housing of his crops. Even in the vicinity of Athens, the operations of the wheat and barley harvest generally occupy the exclusive attention of the agricultural population for three months. The grain is trodden out by cattle; and a Greek who bought a winnowing machine at Athens, was not allowed to make use of it, as the farmers of the revenue contended that the introduction of such instruments would facilitate frauds.

The farmers of the tenths likewise increase the evils of this ruinous system, by throwing every difficulty in the way of the cultivators, in order to compel them to consent to pay for each facility they may require. We have known regular contracts entered into with the peasantry, by which they agreed to pay from 3 to 5 per cent more than the legal tenth. We believe no honest man ever paid less than from 12 to 13 per cent on his crop, even in the neighbourhood of the capital. It may be supposed that some redress can be obtained, in cases of gross oppression, by applying to the courts of law; but this is not the case. A special tribunal, consisting of administrative officers of the Crown, and municipal authorities, and from which lawyers have been always carefully excluded, is appointed to judge summarily all cases relating to the tenths. The infamous conduct of these administrative tribunals excited general discontent, and an article has been inserted in the constitution abolishing them, and sending all the pending cases to the ordinary courts of law. Government, however, defended them to the last, and even pressed for decisions down to the very hour in which King Otho took his oath to the constitution. There is here, however, some ground for consolation; for it is clear that the Greek ministers fear the ordinary administration of justice as being above their control.

It is needless to say, that under such laws the improvement of agriculture in Greece is impossible. No green crops can be grown with profit at any distance from a large town. The tenth of garden produce and green crops being generally valued and paid for in money, the disputes concerning the valuation, and the impossibility of obtaining any redress, in case of injustice, have induced the cultivators to give up such cultivation. We have known proprietors pay half the value of a crop of potatoes as the value of the tenth; and in one case, on our asking the farmer of the tenths, who after all was not a bad fellow at heart, though he wished to make his farming of the revenues turn out a good speculation in his hands, what he would recommend a proprietor to do in order not to lose money by cultivating potatoes; he looked grave, and after a few moments' thought, candidly replied—"Never to plant them as long as the present law remains in force!" Vineyards which have been planted with care, and cultivated for eight years, have been lately abandoned, as the high valuation of their produce renders them unprofitable. The only agriculture which can be pursued in Greece without loss, is that in which only the simplest and rudest methods of cultivation are followed. The land only yields a rent when it is in the immediate vicinity of a large market, or when it is of the richest quality; the employment of capital in improvements only opens new channels for the extortions of the farmers of the revenue. No money can be safely invested on mortgage in such a country, and no loans by the Three Allied powers to the Government, no national bank, no manufactory of beet-root sugar, no model farms, and no schools of agriculture can introduce prosperity into a country taxed in such a manner.

We do not intend to discuss any plan for ameliorating the condition of the Greeks; but we can easily point out what it is necessary for them to do before they can, by any possibility, better their condition. The system of selling the tenths must be abolished; for a government so inefficient as to be unable to collect them by its own officers, is incompetent to perform the functions for which it was created, and ought to be destroyed. The owners of the land must be rendered the real masters of their property. They must be allowed to reap their crops when they are ripe, and to thresh their grain when and where they please. Until this is the case, we can assure the Three Protecting Powers, they count without the people if they suppose that they have established a permanent monarchy in Greece. We do not hesitate to say that the royal dignity, even with the support of England and France, is not worth ten years' purchase until this is accomplished.

Every traveller who visits Greece declaims against the number of coffee-houses throughout the country, and the hosts of idle people with which they are filled. But nothing else can be expected in a country where the system of agriculture keeps the cultivators idle for three months annually, and deprives the proprietor of all profit from his land. Under such circumstances the demand for labour becomes extremely irregular. Many of the lower classes turn brigands and plunder their neighbours; the educated and higher classes turn government employes and plunder the country. This evil has arrived at an alarming pitch; the Greek army contains almost as many officers as privates; the navy has officers enough to man a fleet twice as large as that which Greece possesses, for she has three admirals, a hundred and fifty captains, and two hundred and seventy commanders. It has been in vain pressed on every successive administration, that a list of the army, navy, and civil employes ought to be published, in order to put an end to the shameful system of jobbing which has always existed. No minister would, however, adopt a principle which would so effectually have put an end to his own arbitrary power of quartering his friends and relations on the public. The loans of the three powers might be doubled to-morrow, and it is evident that, unless all the population of Greece were made pensioners, no surplus would be found to employ for any public improvement.

Indeed the national revenues of the Greek kingdom, as of old those of Athens and Rome, seem to be considered the property of that body of citizens who pursue no useful occupation, and possess no taxable property; while the unlucky proprietors are viewed as a species of serfs, existing to supply a revenue to the state. This political principle has been exemplified in a decree of the late national assembly, excluding every Greek or foreigner from public employment who happens not to be a born subject of the new kingdom, or who did not take part in the war against the Turks before the end of 1827, and perhaps even more strongly in a very unconstitutional private vote of a committee of the whole house, giving 800 drachmas to each member—this vote being in direct violation of one of the articles of the constitution, which requires that all grants of money should originate from the crown. We do not deny the necessity of allowing the deputies this small grant; many of them were poor, and their conduct had been disinterested; but we are bound to complain of the slightest infraction of constitutional principles by those who frame a constitution.

The length of this article compels us to leave a few observations we desire to make on the municipal government of the Greeks, and on the state of education, and of their judicial and ecclesiastical affairs, to another opportunity. The late debates in the House of Commons, and the able statement which Sir Robert Peel gave of the principles of our policy with regard to Greece, render it unnecessary for us to say one word on that subject. We can assure our readers that the policy of our present ministers has been applauded by every party in Greece, except the Philorthodox; and they, as they could find no fault, remained silent. We believe that no two governments ever acted more disinterestedly to a third than Great Britain end France have lately done to Greece, and that no ministers ever acted more fairly, in any international question, than Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot have done on the subject of the Greek revolution; but for this very reason we feel inclined to warn our countrymen against the leaven of old principles, which still exists in the palace at Athens. Let us judge of the new government of Greece by its acts, and let Great Britain and France remember that they are not looked on without some suspicion.

Enesti gar pos touto te tyrannidi Nosema, tois philoisi me pepoithenai.

FOOTNOTES:

{A} 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1832.

{B} The tambouria are always constructed with the ditch in the inside, in order that they may afford a better cover from artillery.

{C} One English sufferer has for several years vainly attacked the king for justice, even with the assistance of the English Minister in Greece and the Foreign Office at home.



INDEX TO VOL. LV.

Aborigines of New Holland, the, 193.

Achilles Tatius, account of his romance of Clitophon and Leucippe, 33.

Actual condition of the Greek state, the, 785.

Aden, the British position of, 272.

Adventures in Texas.—No. III. the Struggle, 18.

Adventures of Clitophon and Leucippe, the, 33.

Africa, ignorance of the interior of, 269.

Africa—the Slave Trade—and Tropical Colonies, 730 various expeditions to explore, 731 its principal rivers, and countries watered by them, 734.

Agriculture, causes of the decline of, in the Roman empire, 391.

Ameer Ali, a Thug, account of, 326.

Ameers of Scinde, case of the, 580.

Anti-corn-law League, measures of the, 121.

Ancient Greek romances—Clitophon and Leucippe, 33.

Arabs of Cordova, sketch of the history of the, 431.

Australia, statistics of the various colonies of, 184.

Banking in Australia, on, 186.

Banking-House, the, a history in three part. Part III. Chap. I., Symptoms of rottenness, 50 Chap. II., A meeting, 56 Chap. III., A chapter of loans, 61 Chap. IV., A dissolution of partnership, 65 Chap. V., The crisis, 69 Chap. VI., The crash, 75 Chap. VII., The vicarage, 79.

Beau Brummell, Jesse's memoirs of, reviewed, 769.

Beauclerk, Topham, 182.

Beke, Dr. T. C., his travels in Africa, 740.

Belfront castle, a retrospective review, 334.

Benton, Mr, on the treaty of Washington, 112.

Bewailment from Bath, a, or Poor Old Maids, 199.

Bristol, the Earl of, 180.

British fleet, the, 462.

Brummell, Jesse's memoirs of, reviewed, 769.

Bumbo Khan, sketch of, 223.

Bundelcund, Colonel Davidson's travels in, 325.

Canadian insurgents, trials of the, 3.

Catholicism, effects of in Ireland, 520.

Chartists, state trials of the, in 1842, 5.

Cheap labour and cheap bread, connection of, 125.

Chudleigh, Miss, career of, 180.

Church of Scotland, the secession from the, 221.

Churkaree, town of, 327.

Circulating libraries, on, 556.

Circulating medium of Great Britain, amount of the, 388.

Clitophon and Leucippe, account of the romance of, 33.