, the
very delight of dandies.

He had entered his name, by way of excuse, at the Temple, and we can
quite believe that he ate all the requisite dinners, though it is not so
certain that he paid for them. He soon found that a fine coat is not so
very far beneath a good brain in worldly estimation, and when, on the
accession of William the Third, the Templars, according to the old
custom, gave his Majesty a banquet, Nash, as a promising Beau, was
selected to manage the establishment. It was his first experience of the
duties of an M.C., and he conducted himself so ably on this occasion
that the king even offered to make a knight of him. Probably Master
Richard thought of his empty purse, for he replied with some of that
assurance which afterwards stood him in such good stead, 'Please your
majesty, if you intend to make me a knight, I wish I may be one of your
poor knights of Windsor, and then I shall have a fortune, at least able
to support my title.' William did not see the force of this argument,
and Mr. Nash remained Mr. Nash till the day of his death. He had another
chance of the title, however, in days when he could have better
maintained it, but again he refused. Queen Anne once asked him why he
declined knighthood. He replied: 'There is Sir William Read, the
mountebank, who has just been knighted, and I should have to call him
"brother."' The honour was, in fact, rather a cheap one in those days,
and who knows whether a man who had done such signal service to his
country did not look forward to a peerage? Worse men than even Beau Nash
have had it.

Well, Nash could afford to defy royalty, for he was to be himself a
monarch of all he surveyed, and a good deal more; but before we follow
him to Bath, let us give the devil his due--which, by the way, he
generally gets--and tell a pair of tales in the Beau's favour.

Imprimis, his accounts at the Temple were L10 deficient. Now I don't
mean that Nash was not as great a liar as most of his craft, but the
truth of this tale rests on the authority of the 'Spectator,' though
Nash took delight in repeating it.

'Come hither, young man,' said the Benchers, coolly: 'Whereunto this
deficit?'

'Pri'thee, good masters,' quoth Nash, 'that L10 was spent on making a
man happy.'

'A man happy, young sir, pri'thee explain.'

'Odds donners,' quoth Nash, 'the fellow said in my hearing that his wife
and bairns were starving, and L10 would make him the happiest man _sub
sole_, a