THE RIDER. 201 



necks more than, if as much as, we do every time we get into a 

 Hansom cab in the London streets, they will see far more of 

 the day's fun, and give a far better account of it, than the most 

 persevering and dauntless of 'bruisers.' Honest, reputable, 

 and blameless members of the great community of fox hunters, 

 enjoying themselves without any pretence or parade, jealous of 

 no man's glory, interfering with no man's sport, they are entitled 

 at least to our hearty respect if not to our admiration. 



But the man who is not entitled to our respect is he who 

 does make parade and pretence ; who at the covert-side is a 

 thing of beauty, indeed ; who from the crown of his glossy hat 

 to the sole of his yet glossier boot is, sartorially speaking, 

 the ideal man, whole, complete, polished to the finger naiL 

 Decked with the sweetest and choicest of flowers, soothed 

 and supported by the largest of cigars, perched on a nag fit to 

 carry Caesar's fortunes, he is by far the most conspicuous and 

 splendid object there, till the fox is found, and then — becomes 

 conspicuous only by his absence. Not that dandyism is in- 

 compatible with the hardest and straightest riding. The 

 records of the hunting field have proved that over and over 

 again, and prove it every day, just as in that larger and bloodier 

 field of which it is the image, the dandies have ever held their 

 own since that famous day in the pass of Thermopylae when 

 the Persian looked with awe on the Spartans dressing their 

 long hair for their last battle. It is the business of every 

 gentleman to dress himself as well as his means will permit, 

 and in the fashion which the custom of his day prescribes. A 

 conspicuous disregard of custom is just as contemptible a form 

 of affectation as a too slavish adherence to it ; and he who 

 noisily affects to despise the sumptuary amenities of his time is 

 influenced by precisely the same motive as he who carries 

 their observance to a point beyond the limits of taste and 

 reason — namely, a vulgar affectation of singularity. Brummell 

 does not seem to have been a very wise man ; but he was wise, 

 at least, in his own affairs, when he said that the best-dressed 

 man was the man whose dress attracted least notice In these 



