ems 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
fortun