Not far from them was a somewhat tall animal, with hair curled by the barber’s tongs, half-coaxed-out moustachios, a drab beaver, swallow-tailed blue coat with gilt buttons, white pantaloons, boots into which were stuck brass spurs, white kid gloves, more than one breast pin with paste brilliants, a gold (?) chain and quizzing glass, a gold-headed cane which he twisted unceasingly between the fingers of one hand, while he held a cigar affectedly between two fingers of the other, , all proclaimed him to be that most insignificant and perhaps useless of God’s creatures , the dandy. This animal is peculiar to England. The French in their farces have endeavoured to classify him with the “calico” of Paris. It would not do , they were found not to be of the same genus. While our dandy was twisting his cane, and running his fingers, on which were several rings, from his ears to his forehead beneath carrotty curls, or attitudenizing with his cigar, a sober-looking Ludgate-Hill mercer, whose attention had been fixed for some time on the former, exclaimed “How very funny!” , a Parisian would have said much the same thing – “Mon Dieu, c’est drôle!”

Quoted from: John MacGregor: My Note Book. Vol. 1. London. Macrone, 1835.