“Pon honor.”

Neither Cuvier, nor Goldsmith, nor any other naturalist, has mentioned in his work an animal of the dandy genus; and yet it deserves a place in the list of Dame Nature’s prolific offspring, as being a singular compound of brute-like imbecility, and reasonable faculties.

Perhaps the greatest resemblance of this animal is the Orang-ou-tang, that rambles the wilds and deserts, and is remarkably attached to mimicry, and every kind of apish assumption; it is also frequently known to discharge the functions of women after a salutary taming and refinement. In this latter case, the striking resemblance between the monkey and the dandy must be immediately acknowledged; although the female accomplishments, and adapted modifications, are superior in the latter to those of the former. But we will exile all allegory, and jocular imaginings, and really become somewhat serious; for we are on a very sensitive and delicate subject, by far too important to be lightly spoken of , it shall have its due from me.

When Juvenal wrote his fiery satires, and fulminated them against the luxurious cruelties of Nero, and the gormandizing depravities of his successor, Domitian, Rome was considered as the most voluptuous retreat of vice, effeminacy, and every enervating passion: luxury and affluence even committing more ravages on the state, than war could ever have effected*.

Among the enumerated effeminences, the disgusting modes of dress are described with becoming detestation; but I doubt (allowing for the advanced state of society, its polish, and its tact of elegant refinement, and, above all, the different institutions of religion) if the Romans then produced a more debased set of soft, strait-laced, waxen images, intended for men, than does the present most glorious century. The Roman rakes appeared to preserve some modest quantum of sense and discernment amid their wildest freaks of degeneracy; but those who grace our country, add to the profligacy of the rake, the conceited fopperies and senseless idiotcy of the dandy! , “monstrum horrendum!” As it may be urged that every age produces its monsters; that fashion and dress in the present times, by no means equal the fantastic vacillations, and grotesque caprices, of our fashionable ancestors, it will not be impolitic just to recur to a few of their follies in habiliments; their dress may be less tasteless, but it will not be found of so lascivious a cast as that which graces the “exquisites” of the day.

The origin of many fashions, Mr. D’Israeli properly remarks, was an endeavour to conceal some deformity of the inventors. Patches were invented in Edward the Vlth’s time by a foreign lady, who thus ingeniously covered an ugly wen in her neck. Charles the Vllth of France introduced long coats to hide his crooked calves. Shoes of an outrageous length were invented by Henry Plataganet, to hide a protuberance in his foot. On the contrary, others have invented fashions to bedeck their peculiar charms with additional grace. Isabella of Bavaria, whose alabaster skin was greatly admired, introduced the fashion of unbaring the shoulders and part of the neck.

Fashions have often been reversed in their use at different times. Bags were originally worn in France only en dishabille and visits of ceremony; the hair was fastened with a ribbon, and “spread like a meteor” over the shoulders. The present fashion is exactly the reverse: , The ladies’ polls resemble , excuse the resemblance, it is too apposite to be omitted , the hinder parts of a little bantum cock! In 1735, hats were not worn; and what is termed a chapeau de bras, was used instead. In 1745, the fashionables wore hats no great deal larger than china slop-basons: in 1755, they wore an exceeding large one, as may be seen in Jeffery’s curious “Collection of Hahits,” &c.

Long beards and bushy mustachios were formerly quite the rage; and Queen Eleanor was much disgusted with Louis VII. for cropping his head, and shaving his beard. But some have entertained a respect for hairy charms, founded on something beyond an acquiescence with the reigning fashion. In a book called the “Elements of Education,” published in 1640, it is remarked, “I have a favorable opinion of that young gentleman who is curious in fine mustachios; the time he employs in adjusting, dressing, and curling them is no lost time, for the more he contemplates his mustachios, the more his mind will cherish, and be animated by masculine and courageous notions!” The author would not be of this opinion exactly, were he in existence now, and could see the unmanly creatures who stick their bushy mustachios on their faces, to appear , what? , military!! Few of them would have the courage of Gulliver to attack a room full of mice and cats. But more of this presently, after a few other words on departed fashion.

In Queen Elizabeth’s reign, it was fashionable for gentlemen to bury themselves in breeches of a ridiculous size. The bucks (there were no “exquisites” then) resembled images, with their heads peeping from a sack. The ladies, who never degenerate from the follies of the opposite sex, in their turn invented large hoop farthingales. We are indebted to that flimsy nation, the French, for the introduction of many fashions.

The reign of Charles II. abounded with French fashions, although the Puritans severely censured them, by observing the reverse of all they condemned. “When courtiers wore monstrous wigs, they cut their hair shor ; when they adopted hats with broad plumes, they clapt on round black caps, and screwe’d up their pale religious faces; and when shoe-buckles were revived, they wore strings to their shoes.” A satirist thus describes a buck of thirty years gone. “A coat of light green, with sleeves too small for the arms, and buttons too high for the sleeves; a pair of Manchester fine stuff breeches, without money in the pockets; clouded silk stockings, but no legs; a dub of hair behind larger than the head that carries it; a hat of the size of sixpence, on a block not worth a farthing.” From this curious memorial of human follies it will be seen, that amid all the buffooneries of past days, there was not so many squeezing, oulding, and enervating arts practised, as there are by the beaux which grace our Bond Streets, and other resorts of foplings and monkeys.

I have chosen to denominate the dandies of the day, “Neutral Tints,” because they partake of the shades of male and female characters: , all the bouncing imperiousness of the one, without its honorable hardihood , all the mock and wheedling effeminacies of the other, without its natural blandishments. They are the most nauseous compound of vanity, conceit, impudence, and stupidity. I would by far prefer the spectacle of a bear or elephant attempting to admire himself before a mirror, to coming in contact with a regular trained dandy, armed all over with external foppishness, and whose head, like his pocket, is seldom filled but with borrowed goods. However, I have been unfortunate enough to come in contact with exquisites, and think I can contrive to paint one that shall be no bad representation of the original.

You may tell a dandy at a great distance, from the positive strut and pliant movements of his person. Swelling like an air-tight bladder, with his nose pointed like an astronomer’s when gazing at heaven’s luminaries, he approaches you in the confidence of full-blown and all-convincing personal attributes: he does not deign to cast a glance at you; but you must mark his distance from you, nor presume to restrain his swagger, by not keeping out of his way, or a frown that would grace a sultan’s brow, announces his offended dignity, and the twirl of a stick, straight as his body, threatens one of your eyes if you remove not from its direction. A dandy is never comfortably at ease, although his glossy demeanour, and the voluble twist of his limbs, would feign convince you so. There is not any thing about the animal that is not studied and assumed: he is made of patchwork, and every patch requires attention; in short, a complete piece of mechanism, composed of every thing but common sense and understanding.

First, we will begin with the thing’s head and face. The head is well plastered with ointments and oils, and may be compared to an oily lump of lead, covered over with a wig: so much is the oil used, that the “Macassar” man is indebted to dandies’ pates for his fortune and greasy celebrity. Of course, every hair has had the nicest manual and brush-skill bestowed on it; and moulded to the different positions with as much care as Canova would have shaped the drapery of the Graces. When Nature has denied a handsome covering of hair, or if she has given them one of a bad colour, or stubborn thickness, an artificial bunch of ringlets is worn instead**. These ringlets, according as fashion governs the position of the hat, protrude either on both sides, or else they swell forth on the one, while the hat is cocked on the other to allow them full display: , so much for the hairy regulations.

A thorough-bred dandy’s face, were it not for the difference in size, would do for an infant’s instead of a man’s. It is smoothed, polished, and painted into a flammy humid softness; unhealthy in its appearance, and equally sickly in its temperament, though smirched with rouge, and richly pampered with cosmetics. To me, it always appears a bloodless fleshy masque from a visage-manufactory, and ready to burst like the shining skin of a ripe apple. So many artificial applications to the skin of the face, generally produce pustules, and similar annoying excrescences: but there is a remedy! , court-plaster, neatly shaped into ovals, circles, or squares, will conceal all; nay, these black conveniences are of themselves considered as interesting accompaniments to the charms of the visage.

A dandy’s dress is, like all else belonging to him; intended to attract, by the gracefulness of its fit, and the superficial beauties of its composition. But mercy on us! who, but one of the dandy genus, would submit to the tortures of wearing it, and the toilsome minuteness in putting it on? In order to appear shapely, and, as he thinks, irresistibly comely and engaging to the ladies, he must be encased in a pair of stays! Hear it, ye gods! a man pinched into a pair of stays!! How much more becoming would be a strait waistcoat! These stays, as dandies and non-dandies know (for we must mark distinctions), are contrived for tapering the waist in a shape very thin and elegantly round, in order to effect a symmetrical contrast between the smallness of the waist, and the protrusion of the hip. Then for his boots: , why they are generally as tight and hinding as Chinese shoes. A dandy will tacitly endure tortures to sport a foot “elegant and small.”

To complete the external accoutrements of the dandy, he generally hangs from his neck a quizzing-glass: this is worn not to assist his blindness, (though dandies are generally blind enough) but to consummate the fop! , that he may quiz the ladies as they pass, as if they were a vulgar piece of curiosity. What a graceful image a tall six-foot creature looks, standing on the tip of his toe, bending his pasteboard back a little forward, and his outstretched neck, to stare at a woman! , what a jackanapes! I almost forgot the snuffbox: this, too, is rarely dispensed with; the lid is generally painted with indecorous figures, to indicate the owner’s taste!

There is, however, one virtue with dandies , consistency: Their minds, supposing them of the real breed , and I allude to none but these , are of like stamp with their dress and person; showy, taudry, and calculated to attract the admiration of the silly and indiscriminate. A man of sense and feeling could not be punished more than by being doomed to pass a complete hour with a band of exquisites. In principles, they are for the most part ruffians; in heart, rakes, seducers, and swindling profligates. Their conversation is either a tissue of obscenities, lascivious jokes, disgusting allusions, and indelicate puns; or else it consists of thundering threats against “that fellow,” torrents of abuse and idle scurrilities against “that rascal” or rapturous communications concerning “fresh game.” I could make the picture more complete; but time and paper would be badly employed. I have painted them strongly enough for their image to be recognised; and I think most who read this article will agree with me, that modern dandies are not bad specimens of the absurdities and follies of a luxurious age. So much for “Neutral Tints for 1826.”

R. M.

* “Saevior armis
Luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem.”

** A false front of hair actually fell from a fopling’s head some time since in Hyde Park. If the head had fallen with it, society would have had no reason to lament the loss of an empty cranium.

Source: The Inspector, and Literary Review. Vol. I. London, 1826: 357-360.