Place him beside the man who once pretended to be his friend, the man of whom Thackeray spoke so truly: 'But a bow and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur coat, a star and a blue ribbon, a pocket handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's best nutty-brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth, and a huge black stock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then nothing.' Nothing! Thackeray is right; absolutely nothing remains of this King George of ours but a sale list of his wardrobe, a wardrobe which fetched L15,000 second-hand--a wardrobe that had been a man. He invented a shoe-buckle 1 inch long and 5 inches broad. He wore a pink silk coat with white cuffs. He had 5,000 steel beads on his hat. He was a coward, a good-natured, contemptible voluptuary. Beside him, in our eyes, walks for a time the elegant figure of Beau Brummell. I have said that Brummell was the inventor of modern dress: it is true. He was the Beau who raised the level of dress from the slovenly, dirty linen, the greasy hair, the filthy neckcloth, the crumbled collar, to a position, ever since held by Englishmen, of quiet, unobtrusive cleanliness, decent linen, an abhorrence of striking forms of dress. He made clean linen and washing daily a part of English life. See him seated before his dressing-glass, a mahogany-framed sliding cheval glass with brass arms on either sides for candles. By his side is George IV., recovering from his drunken bout of last night. The Beau's glass reflects his clean-complexioned face, his grey eyes, his light brown hair, and sandy whiskers. A servant produces a shirt with a 12-inch collar fixed to it, assists the Beau into it, arranges it, and stands aside. The collar nearly hides the Beau's face. Now, with his hand protected with a discarded shirt, he folds his collar down to the required height. Now he takes his white stock and folds it carefully round the collar; the stock is a foot high and slightly starched. A supreme moment of artistic decision, and the stock and collar take their perfect creases. In an hour or so he will be ready to partake of a light meal with the royal gentleman. He will stand up and survey himself in his morning dress, his regular, quiet suit. A blue coat, light breeches fitting the leg well, a light waistcoat over a waistcoat of some other colour, never a startling contrast, Hessian boots, or top-boots and buckskins. There was nothing very peculiar about his clothes except, as Lord Byron said, 'an exquisite propriety.' His evening dress was a blue coat, white waistcoat, black trousers buttoned at the ankle--these were of his own invention, and one may say it was the wearing of them that made trousers more popular than knee-breeches--striped silk stockings, and a white stock.