BEAU NASH 239 



(an article of dress which, fashionable elsewhere, he 

 had tabooed), he told her to remove it or leave. The 

 apron was one of point lace, and said to have been 

 worth five hundred guineas ; but the Duchess removed 

 it humbly enough, for had not this mighty arbiter of 

 fashions declared aprons ''fit only for Abigails" (by 

 which name he meant maidservants to be under- 

 stood), and who was she that she should dispute such 

 an authority ? Then, when the Princess Amelia, 

 daughter of George the Third, begged him to allow 

 another dance after eleven o'clock, what did this 

 potentate reply ? Did he humbly grant the request ? 

 Not at all ; he refused, adding that the laws of Bath 

 were, like those of Lycurgus, unalterable. 



XL 



They say that Nash "made" Bath. That, how- 

 ever, is but partly true. Bath w^as beginning to 

 make its way when he appeared, and he simply 

 exploited the place. The Moment had come and 

 brought the Man with it, and a tight grip he re- 

 tained over all fashionable functions for over fifty 

 years. He warred with the high-class rowdies who 

 would have made the place a resort of Mohocks, and 

 elevated " Bath manners " into a school of conduct 

 perfectly well known and imitated, at a distance, in 

 other parts of the Kingdom. They were manners of 

 the most elaborate kind, and if attempted nowadays, 

 it is difiicult to conceive how the wheels of the world's 



