He was a man of perfect taste--of fastidious taste. On his tables lay books of all kinds in fine covers. Who would suspect it? but the Prince is leaning an arm on a copy of Ellis's 'Early English Metrical Romances.' The Beau is a rhymer, an elegant verse-maker. Here we see the paper-presser of Napoleon--I am flitting for the moment over some years, and see him in his room in Calais--here we notice his passion for buhl, his Sevres china painted with Court beauties. In his house in Chapel Street he saw daily portraits of Nelson and Pitt and George III. upon his walls. This is no Beau as we understand the term, for we make it a word of contempt, a nickname for a feeble fellow in magnificent garments. Rather this is the room of an educated gentleman of 'exquisite propriety.' He played high, as did most gentlemen; he was superstitious, as are many of the best of men. That lucky sixpence with the hole in it that you gave to a cabman, Beau Brummell, was that loss the commencement of your downward career? There are hundreds of anecdotes of Brummell which, despite those of the 'George, ring the bell' character, and those told of his heavy gaming, are more valuable as showing his wit, his cleanliness, his distaste of display--in fact, his 'exquisite propriety.' A Beau is hardly a possible figure to-day; we have so few personalities, and those we have are chiefly concerned with trade--men who uphold trusts, men who fight trusts, men who speak for trade in the House of Commons. We have not the same large vulgarities as our grandfathers, nor have we the same wholesome refinement; in killing the evil--the great gambler, the great men of the turf, the great prize-fighters, the heavy wine-drinkers--we have killed, also, the good, the classic, well-spoken civil gentleman. Our manners have suffered at the expense of our morals. Fifty or sixty years ago the world was full of great men, saying, writing, thinking, great things. To-day--perhaps it is too early to speak of to-day. Personalities are so little marked by their clothes, by any stamp of individuality, that the caricaturist, or even the minute and truthful artist, be he painter or writer, has a difficult task before him when he sets out to point at the men of these our times.