DANDYISM. 85 



"Your Liverpool dandies are not the thing. Their 

 cravats are good, so are their coats, their breeches still 

 better, and the creatures have tolerable legs ; but still 

 their gait exhibits a sympathetic mingling with the long 

 shanks of the three-legged stool utterly destructive of the 

 true style. A dandy out of London, I verily believe, is 

 like a fish out of the water. He may fly for a few hundred 

 yards with some effect, but ere long he will either exhibit 

 characters incompatible with the dandy state, or sink at 

 once into the blue profound of his native element. Even 

 Edinburgh, with its superb terrace, is all unfit ; and then, 

 the science of Schneiderism is there unknown — amidst the 

 total eclipse not a beam of light falls on the needle of one 

 masterly artificer. Besides, an essential dandy has no more 

 to do with time than he has with eternity. The observance 

 of stated periods, or any law of necessity, is destructive to 

 the very existence of the character which he aims at ; and 

 being obliged to do any one thing is just the same as being 

 obliged to resign all pretensions to a seat in the court and 

 parliament of dandies. Now, smelling rum or tearing 

 cotton, running at one time to the quay, at another to the 

 custom-house, is to a merchant a work of necessity. The 

 Liverpool men are merchants, and consequently, whatever 

 they may think, not dandies in the genuine sense of the 

 term. Unless a man has it in his power to drive out in 

 his chariot or tilbury every day of the year, and at any 



