The Works of Max Beerbohm
by
Max Beerbohm
Part 2 out of 2
for age or plainness, but all ladies and all young girls will come to
love them. Does not a certain blithe Marquise, whose lettres intimes
from the Court of Louis Seize are less read than their wit deserves,
tell us how she was scandalised to see `me^me les toutes jeunes
demoiselles e'maille'es comme ma tabatie`re'? So it shall be with us.
Surely the common prejudice against painting the lily can but be based
on mere ground of economy. That which is already fair is complete, it
may be urged--urged implausibly, for there are not so many lovely
things in this world that we can afford not to know each one of them
by heart. There is only one white lily, and who that has ever seen--as
I have--a lily really well painted could grudge the artist so fair a
ground for his skill? Scarcely do you believe through how many nice
metamorphoses a lily may be passed by him. In like manner, we all know
the young girl, with her simpleness, her goodness, her wayward
ignorance. And a very charming ideal for England must she have been,
and a very natural one, when a young girl sat even on the throne. But
no nation can keep its ideal for ever, and it needed none of Mr.
Gilbert's delicate satire in `Utopia' to remind us that she had passed
out of our ken with the rest of the early Victorian era. What writer
of plays, as lately asked some pressman, who had been told off to
attend many first nights and knew what he was talking about, ever
dreams of making the young girl the centre of his theme? Rather he
seeks inspiration from the tried and tired woman of the world, in all
her intricate maturity, whilst, by way of comic relief, he sends the
young girl flitting in and out with a tennis-racket, the poor eido^lon
amauron of her former self. The season of the unsophisticated is gone
by, and the young girl's final extinction beneath the rising tides of
cosmetics will leave no gap in life and will rob art of nothing.
`Tush,' I can hear some damned flutterpate exclaim, `girlishness and
innocence are as strong and as permanent as womanhood itself! Why, a
few months past, the whole town went mad over Miss Cissie Loftus! Was
not hers a success of girlish innocence and the absence of rouge? If
such things as these be outmoded, why was she so wildly popular?'
Indeed, the triumph of that clever girl, whose de'but made London nice
even in August, is but another witness to the truth of my contention.
In a very sophisticated time, simplicity has a new dulcedo. Hers was a
success of contrast. Accustomed to clever malaperts like Miss Lloyd or
Miss Reeve, whose experienced pouts and smiles under the sun-bonnet
are a standing burlesque of innocence and girlishness, Demos was
really delighted, for once and away, to see the real presentment of
these things upon his stage. Coming after all those sly serios, coming
so young and mere with her pink frock and straightly combed hair, Miss
Cissie Loftus had the charm which things of another period often do
possess. Besides, just as we adored her for the abrupt nod with which
she was wont at first to acknowledge the applause, so we were glad for
her to come upon the stage with nothing to tinge the ivory of her
cheeks. It seemed so strange, that neglect of convention. To be behind
footlights and not rouged! Yes, hers was a success of contrast. She
was like a daisy in the window at Solomons'. She was delightful. And
yet, such is the force of convention, that when last I saw her,
playing in some burlesque at the Gaiety, her fringe was curled and her
pretty face rouged with the best of them. And, if further need be to
show the absurdity of having called her performance `a triumph of
naturalness over the jaded spirit of modernity,' let us reflect that
the little mimic was not a real old-fashioned girl after all. She had
none of that restless naturalness that would seem to have
characterised the girl of the early Victorian days. She had no pretty
ways-- no smiles nor blushes nor tremors. Possibly Demos could not
have stood a presentment of girlishness unrestrained.
But, with her grave insouciance, Miss Cissie Loftus had much of the
reserve that is one of the factors of feminine perfection, and to most
comes only, as I have said, with artifice. Her features played very,
very slightly. And in truth, this may have been one of the reasons of
her great success. For expression is but too often the ruin of a face;
and, since we cannot, as yet, so order the circumstances of life that
women shall never be betrayed into `an unbecoming emotion,' when the
brunette shall never have cause to blush nor La Gioconda to frown, the
safest way by far is to create, by brush and pigments, artificial
expression for every face.
And this--say you?--will make monotony? You are mistaken, tots caelo
mistaken. When your mistress has wearied you with one expression, then
it will need but a few touches of that pencil, a backward sweep of
that brush, and ho, you will be revelling in another. For though, of
course, the painting of the face is, in manner, most like the painting
of canvas, in outcome it is rather akin to the art of music--lasting,
like music's echo, not for very long. So that, no doubt, of the many
little appurtenances of the Reformed Toilet Table, not the least vital
will be a list of the emotions that become its owner, with recipes for
simulating them. According to the colour she wills her hair to be for
the time--black or yellow or, peradventure, burnished red--she will
blush for you, sneer for you, laugh or languish for you. The good
combinations of line and colour are nearly numberless, and by their
means poor restless woman will be able to realise her moods in all
their shades and lights and dappledoms, to live many lives and
masquerade through many moments of joy. No monotony will be. And for
us men matrimony will have lost its sting.
But that in the world of women they will not neglect this art, so
ripping in itself, in its result so wonderfully beneficent, I am sure
indeed. Much, I have said, is already done for its full revival. The
spirit of the age has made straight the path of its professors.
Fashion has made Jezebel surrender her monopoly of the rouge-pot. As
yet, the great art of self-embellishment is for us but in its infancy.
But if Englishwomen can bring it to the flower of an excellence so
supreme as never yet has it known, then, though Old England lose her
martial and commercial supremacy, we patriots will have the
satisfaction of knowing that she has been advanced at one bound to a
place in the councils of aesthetic Europe. And, in sooth, is this
hoping too high of my countrywomen? True that, as the art seems always
to have appealed to the ladies of Athens, and it was not until the
waning time of the Republic that Roman ladies learned to love the
practice of it, so Paris, Athenian in this as in all other things, has
been noted hitherto as a far more vivid centre of the art than London.
But it was in Rome, under the Emperors, that unguentaria reached its
zenith, and shall it not be in London, soon, that unguentaria shall
outstrip its Roman perfection! Surely there must be among us artists
as cunning in the use of brush and puff as any who lived at
Versailles. Surely the splendid, impalpable advance of good taste, as
shown in dress and in the decoration of houses, may justify my hope of
the pree"minence of Englishwomen in the cosmetic art. By their innate
delicacy of touch they will accomplish much, and much, of course, by
their swift feminine perception. Yet it were well that they should
know something also of the theoretical side of the craft. Modern
authorities upon the mysteries of the toilet are, it is true, rather
few; but among the ancients many a writer would seem to have been
fascinated by them. Archigenes, a man of science at the Court of
Cleopatra, and Criton at the Court of the Emperor Trajan, both wrote
treatises upon cosmetics--doubtless most scholarly treatises that
would have given many a precious hint. It is a pity they are not
extant. From Lucian or from Juvenal, with his bitter picture of a
Roman leve'e, much may be learnt; from the staid pages of Xenophon and
Aristophanes' dear farces. But best of all is that fine book of the
Ars Amatoria that Ovid has set aside for the consideration of dyes,
perfumes, and pomades. Written by an artist who knew the allurement of
the toilet and understood its philosophy, it remains without rival as
a treatise upon Artifice. It is more than a poem, it is a manual; and
if there be left in England any lady who cannot read Latin in the
original, she will do well to procure a discreet translation. In the
Bodleian Library there is treasured the only known copy of a very
poignant and delightful rendering of this one book of Ovid's
masterpiece. It was made by a certain Wye Waltonstall, who lived in
the days of Elizabeth, and, seeing that he dedicated it to `the
Vertuous Ladyes and Gentlewomen of Great Britain,' I am sure that the
gallant writer, could he know of our great renaissance of cosmetics,
would wish his little work to be placed once more within their reach.
`Inasmuch as to you, ladyes and gentlewomen,' so he writes in his
queer little dedication, `my booke of pigments doth first addresse
itself, that it may kisse your hands and afterward have the lines
thereof in reading sweetened by the odour of your breath, while the
dead letters formed into words by your divided lips may receive new
life by your passionate expression, and the words marryed in that Ruby
coloured temple may thus happily united, multiply your contentment.'
It is rather sad to think that, at this crisis in the history of
pigments, the Vertuous Ladyes and Gentlewomen cannot read the libellus
of Wye Waltonstall, who did so dearly love pigments.
But since the days when these great critics wrote their treatises,
with what gifts innumerable has Artifice been loaded by Science! Many
little partitions must be added to the narthecium before it can
comprehend all the new cosmetics that have been quietly devised since
classical days, and will make the modern toilet chalks away more
splendid in its possibilities. A pity that no one has devoted himself
to the compiling of a new list; but doubtless all the newest devices
are known to the admirable unguentarians of Bond Street, who will
impart them to their clients. Our thanks, too, should be given to
Science for ridding us of the old danger that was latent in the use of
cosmetics. Nowadays they cannot, being purged of any poisonous
element, do harm to the skin that they make beautiful. There need be
no more sowing the seeds of destruction in the furrows of time, no
martyrs to the cause like Maria, Countess of Coventry, that fair dame
but infelix, who died, so they relate, from the effect of a poisonous
rouge upon her lips. No, we need have no fears now. Artifice will
claim not another victim from among her worshippers.
Loveliness shall sit at the toilet, watching her oval face in the oval
mirror. Her smooth fingers shall flit among the paints and powder, to
tip and mingle them, catch up a pencil, clasp a phial, and what not
and what not, until the mask of vermeil tinct has been laid aptly, the
enamel quite hardened. And, heavens, how she will charm us and
ensorcel our eyes! Positively rouge will rob us for a time of all our
reason; we shall go mad over masks. Was it not at Capua that they had
a whole street where nothing was sold but dyes and unguents? We must
have such a street, and, to fill our new Seplasia, our Arcade of the
Unguents, all herbs and minerals and live creatures shall give of
their substance. The white cliffs of Albion shall be ground to powder
for Loveliness, and perfumed by the ghost of many a little violet. The
fluffy eider-ducks, that are swimming round the pond, shall lose their
feathers, that the powder-puff may be moonlike as it passes over
Loveliness' lovely face. Even the camels shall become ministers of
delight, giving many tufts of their hair to be stained in her splendid
colour-box, and across her cheek the swift hare's foot shall fly as of
old. The sea shall offer her the phucus, its scarlet weed. We shall
spill the blood of mulberries at her bidding. And, as in another
period of great ecstasy, a dancing wanton, la belle Aubrey, was
crowned upon a church's lighted altar, so Arsenic, that `greentress'd
goddess,' ashamed at length of skulking between the soup of the
unpopular and the test-tubes of the Queen's analyst, shall be exalted
to a place of consummate honour upon the toilet-table of Loveliness.
All these things shall come to pass. Times of jolliness and glad
indulgence! For Artifice, whom we drove forth, has returned among us,
and, though her eyes are red with crying, she is smiling forgiveness.
She is kind. Let us dance and be glad, and trip the cockawhoop!
Artifice, sweetest exile, is come into her kingdom. Let us dance her a
welcome!
Oxford, 1894.
Poor Romeo!
Even now Bath glories in his legend, not idly, for he was the most
fantastic animal that ever stepped upon her pavement. Were ever a
statue given him (and indeed he is worthy of a grotesque in marble),
it would be put in Pulteney Street or the Circus. I know that the palm
trees of Antigua overshadowed his cradle, that there must be even now
in Boulogne many who set eyes on him in the time of his less fatuous
declension, that he died in London. But Mr. Coates (for of that Romeo
I write) must be claimed by none of these places. Bath saw the
laughable disaster of his de'but, and so, in a manner, his whole life
seems to belong to her, and the story of it to be a part of her
annals.
The Antiguan was already on the brink of middle-age when he first trod
the English shore. But, for all his thirty-seven years, he had the
heart of a youth, and his purse being yet as heavy as his heart was
light, the English sun seemed to shine gloriously about his path and
gild the letters of introduction that he scattered everywhere. Also,
he was a gentleman of amiable, nearly elegant mien, and something of a
scholar. His father had been the most respectable resident Antigua
could show, so that little Robert, the future Romeo, had often sat at
dessert with distinguished travellers through the Indies. But in the
year 1807 old Mr. Coates had died. As we may read in vol. lxxviii. of
The Gentleman's Magazine, `the Almighty, whom he alone feared, was
pleased to take him from this life, after having sustained an
untarnished reputation for seventy-three years,' a passage which,
though objectionable in its theology, gives the true story of Romeo's
antecedents and disposes of the later calumnies that declared him the
son of a tailor. Realising that he was now an orphan, an orphan with
not a few grey hairs, our hero had set sail in quest of amusing
adventure.
For three months he took the waters of Bath, unobtrusively, like other
well-bred visitors. His attendance was solicited for all the most
fashionable routs, and at assemblies he sat always in the shade of
some titled turban. In fact, Mr. Coates was a great success. There was
an air of most romantic mystery that endeared his presence to all the
damsels fluttering fans in the Pump Room. It set them vying for his
conduct through the mazes of the Quadrille or of the Triumph, and
blushing at the sound of his name. Alas! their tremulous rivalry
lasted not long. Soon they saw that Emma, sole daughter of Sir James
Tylney Long, that wealthy baronet, had cast a magic net about the warm
Antiguan heart. In the wake of her chair, by night and day, Mr. Coates
was obsequious. When she cried that she would not drink the water
without some delicacy to banish the iron taste, it was he who stood by
with a box of vanilla-rusks. When he shaved his great moustachio, it
was at her caprice. And his devotion to Miss Emma was the more noted
for that his own considerable riches were proof that it was true and
single. He himself warned her, in some verses written for him by
Euphemia Boswell, against the crew of penniless admirers who
surrounded her :
`Lady, ah! too bewitching lady! now beware
Of artful men that fain would thee ensnare
Not for thy merit, but thy fortune's sake.
Give me your hand--your cash let venals take.'
Miss Emma was his first love. To understand his subsequent behaviour,
let us remember that Cupid's shaft pierces most poignantly the breast
of middle-age. Not that Mr. Coates was laughed at in Bath for a love-
a-lack-a-daisy. On the contrary, his mien, his manner, were as yet so
studiously correct, his speech so reticent, that laughter had been
unusually inept. The only strange taste evinced by him was his
devotion to theatricals. He would hold forth, by the hour, upon the
fine conception of such parts as Macbeth, Othello and, especially,
Romeo. Many ladies and gentlemen were privileged to hear him recite,
in this or that drawing-room, after supper. All testified to the real
fire with which he inflamed the lines of love or hatred. His voice,
his gesture, his scholarship, were all approved. A fine symphony of
praise assured Mr. Coates that no suitor worthier than he had ever
courted Thespis. The lust for the footlights' glare grew lurid in his
mothish eye. What, after all, were these poor triumphs of the parlour?
It might be that contemptuous Emma, hearing the loud salvos of the
gallery and boxes, would call him at length her lord.
At this time there arrived at the York House Mr. Pryse Gordon, whose
memoirs we know. Mr. Coates himself was staying at number ** Gay
Street, but was in the habit of breakfasting daily at the York House,
where he attracted Mr. Gordon's attention by `rehearsing passages from
Shakespeare, with a tone and gesture extremely striking both to the
eye and the ear.' Mr. Gordon warmly complimented him and suggested
that he should give a public exposition of his art. The cheeks of the
amateur flushed with pleasure. `I am ready and willing,' he replied,
`to play "Romeo" to a Bath audience, if the manager will get up the
play and give me a good "Juliet"; my costume is superb and adorned
with diamonds, but I have not the advantage of knowing the manager,
Dimonds.' Pleased by the stranger's ready wit, Mr. Gordon scribbled a
note of introduction to Dimonds there and then. So soon as he had
`discussed a brace of muffins and so many eggs,' the new Romeo started
for the playhouse, and that very day bills were posted to the effect
that `a Gentleman of Fashion would make his first appearance on
February 9 in a ro^le of Shakespeare.' All the lower boxes were
immediately secured by Lady Belmore and other lights of Bath. `Butlers
and Abigails,' it is said, `were commanded by their mistresses to take
their stand in the centre of the pit and give Mr. Coates a capital,
hearty clapping.' Indeed, throughout the week that elapsed before the
premie`re, no pains were spared in assuring a great success. Miss
Tylney Long showed some interest in the arrangements. Gossip spoke of
her as a likely bride.
The night came. Fashion, Virtue, and Intellect thronged the house.
Nothing could have been more cordial than the temper of the gallery.
All were eager to applaud the new Romeo. Presently, when the varlets
of Verona had brawled, there stepped into the square--what!--a
mountebank, a monstrosity. Hurrah died upon every lip. The house was
thunderstruck. Whose legs were in those scarlet pantaloons? Whose face
grinned over that bolster-cravat, and under that Charles II. wig and
opera-hat? From whose shoulders hung that spangled sky-blue cloak? Was
this bedizened scarecrow the Amateur of Fashion, for sight of whom
they had paid their shillings? At length a voice from the gallery
cried, `Good evening, Mr. Coates,' and, as the Antiguan--for he it
was--bowed low, the theatre was filled with yells of merriment. Only
the people in the boxes were still silent, staring coldly at the
prote'ge' who had played them so odious a prank. Lady Belmore rose and
called for her chariot. Her example was followed by several ladies of
rank. The rest sat spellbound, and of their number was Miss Tylney
Long, at whose rigid face many glasses were, of course, directed.
Meanwhile the play proceeded. Those lines that were not drowned in
laughter Mr. Coates spoke in the most foolish and extravagant manner.
He cut little capers at odd moments. He laid his hand on his heart and
bowed, now to this, now to that part of the house, always with a grin.
In the balcony-scene he produced a snuff-box, and, after taking a
pinch, offered it to the bewildered Juliet. Coming down to the
footlights, he laid it on the cushion of the stage-box and begged the
inmates to refresh themselves, and to `pass the golden trifle on.' The
performance, so obviously grotesque, was just the kind of thing to
please the gods. The limp of Hephaestus could not have called laughter
so unquenchable from their lips. It is no trifle to set Englishmen
laughing, but once you have done it, you can hardly stop them. Act
after act of the beautiful love-play was performed without one sign of
satiety from the seers of it. The laughter rather swelled in volume.
Romeo died in so ludicrous a way that a cry of `encore' arose and the
death was actually twice repeated. At the fall of the curtain there
was prolonged applause. Mr. Coates came forward, and the good-humoured
public pelted him with fragments of the benches. One splinter struck
his right temple, inflicting a scar, of which Mr. Coates was, in his
old age, not a little proud. Such is the traditional account of this
curious de'but. Mr. Pryse Gordon, however, in his memoirs tells
another tale. He professes to have seen nothing peculiar in Romeo's
dress, save its display of fine diamonds, and to have admired the
whole interpretation. The attitude of the audience he attributes to a
hostile cabal. John R. and Hunter H. Robinson, in their memoir of
Romeo Coates, echo Mr. Pryse Gordon's tale. They would have done well
to weigh their authorities more accurately.
I had often wondered at this discrepancy between document and
tradition. Last spring, when I was in Bath for a few days, my mind
brooded especially on the question. Indeed, Bath, with her faded
memories, her tristesse, drives one to reverie. Fashion no longer
smiles from her windows nor dances in her sunshine, and in her
deserted parks the invalids build up their constitutions. Now and
again, as one of the frequent chairs glided past me, I wondered if its
shadowy freight were the ghost of poor Romeo. I felt sure that the
traditional account of his de'but was mainly correct. How could it,
indeed, be false? Tradition is always a safer guide to truth than is
the tale of one man. I might amuse myself here, in Bath, by verifying
my notion of the de'but or proving it false.
One morning I was walking through a narrow street in the western
quarter of Bath, and came to the window of a very little shop, which
was full of dusty books, prints and engravings. I spied in one corner
of it the discoloured print of a queer, lean figure, posturing in a
garden. In one hand this figure held a snuff-box, in the other an
opera-hat. Its sharp features and wide grin, flanked by luxuriant
whiskers, looked strange under a Caroline wig. Above it was a balcony
and a lady in an attitude of surprise. Beneath it were these words,
faintly lettered : Bombastes Coates wooing the Peerless Capulet,
that's 'nough (that snuff) 1809. I coveted the print. I went into the
shop.
A very old man peered at me and asked my errand. I pointed to the
print of Mr. Coates, which he gave me for a few shillings, chuckling
at the pun upon the margin.
`Ah,' he said, `they're forgetting him now, but he was a fine figure,
a fine sort of figure.'
`You saw him?'
`No, no. I'm only seventy. But I've known those who saw him. My father
had a pile of such prints.'
`Did your father see him?' I asked, as the old man furled my treasure
and tied it with a piece of tape.
`My father, sir, was a friend of Mr. Coates,' he said. `He entertained
him in Gay Street. Mr. Coates was my father's lodger all the months he
was in Bath. A good tenant, too. Never eccentric under my father's
roof--never eccentric.'
I begged the old bookseller to tell me more of this matter. It seemed
that his father had been a citizen of some consequence, and had owned
a house in modish Gay Street, where he let lodgings. Thither, by the
advice of a friend, Mr. Coates had gone so soon as he arrived in the
town, and had stayed there down to the day after his de'but, when he
left for London.
`My father often told me that Mr. Coates was crying bitterly when he
settled the bill and got into his travelling-chaise. He'd come back
from the playhouse the night before as cheerful as could be. He'd said
he didn't mind what the public thought of his acting. But in the
morning a letter was brought for him, and when he read it he seemed to
go quite mad.'
`I wonder what was in the letter!' I asked. `Did your father never
know who sent it?'
`Ah,' my greybeard rejoined, `that's the most curious thing. And it's
a secret. I can't tell you.'
He was not as good as his word. I bribed him delicately with the
purchase of more than one old book. Also, I think, he was flattered by
my eager curiosity to learn his long-pent secret. He told me that the
letter was brought to the house by one of the footmen of Sir James
Tylney Long, and that his father himself delivered it into the hands
of Mr. Coates.
`When he had read it through, the poor gentleman tore it into many
fragments, and stood staring before him, pale as a ghost. "I must not
stay another hour in Bath," he said. When he was gone, my father (God
forgive him!) gathered up all the scraps of the letter, and for a long
time he tried to piece them together. But there were a great many of
them, and my father was not a scholar, though he was affluent.'
`What became of the scraps?' I asked. `Did your father keep them?'
`Yes, he did. And I used to try, when I was younger, to make out
something from them. But even I never seemed to get near it. I've
never thrown them away, though. They're in a box.'
I got them for a piece of gold that I could ill spare--some score or
so of shreds of yellow paper, traversed with pale ink. The joy of the
archaeologist with an unknown papyrus, of the detective with a clue,
surged in me. Indeed, I was not sure whether I was engaged in private
inquiry or in research; so recent, so remote was the mystery. After
two days' labour, I marshalled the elusive words. This is the text of
them:
MR. COATES, SIR,
They say Revenge is sweet. I am fortunate to find it is so. I have
compelled you to be far more a Fool than you made me at the fe^te-
champe^tre of Lady B. & I, having accomplished my aim, am ready to
forgive you now, as you implored me on the occasion of the fe^te. But
pray build no Hope that I, forgiving you, will once more regard you as
my Suitor. For that cannot ever be. I decided you should show yourself
a Fool before many people. But such Folly does not commend your hand
to mine. Therefore desist your irksome attention &, if need be, begone
from Bath. I have punished you, & would save my eyes the trouble to
turn away from your person. I pray that you regard this epistle as
privileged and private.
E. T. L. 10 of February.
The letter lies before me as I write. It is written throughout in a
firm and very delicate Italian hand. Under the neat initials is drawn,
instead of the ordinary flourish, an arrow, and the absence of any
erasure in a letter of such moment suggests a calm, deliberate
character and, probably, rough copies. I did not, at the time, suffer
my fancy to linger over the tessellated document. I set to elucidating
the reference to the fe^te-champe^tre. As I retraced my footsteps to
the little bookshop, I wondered if I should find any excuse for the
cruel faithlessness of Emma Tylney Long.
The bookseller was greatly excited when I told him I had re-created
the letter. He was very eager to see it. I did not pander to his
curiosity. He even offered to buy the article back at cost price. I
asked him if he had ever heard, in his youth, of any scene that had
passed between Miss Tylney Long and Mr. Coates at some fe^te-
champe^tre. The old man thought for some time, but he could not help
me. Where then, I asked him, could I search old files of local news-
papers? He told me that there were supposed to be many such files
mouldering in the archives of the Town Hall.
I secured access, without difficulty, to these files. A whole day I
spent in searching the copies issued by this and that journal during
the months that Romeo was in Bath. In the yellow pages of these
forgotten prints I came upon many complimentary allusions to Mr.
Coates : `The visitor welcomed (by all our aristocracy) from distant
Ind,' `the ubiquitous,' `the charitable riche.' Of his `forthcoming
impersonation of Romeo and Juliet' there were constant puffs, quite in
the modern manner. The accounts of his de'but all showed that Mr.
Pryse Gordon's account of it was fabulous. In one paper there was a
bitter attack on `Mr. Gordon, who was responsible for this insult to
Thespian art, the gentry, and the people, for he first arranged the
whole production'--an extract which makes it clear that this gentleman
had a good motive for his version of the affair.
But I began to despair of ever learning what happened at the fe^te-
champe^tre. There were accounts of `a grand garden-party, whereto Lady
Belper, on March the twenty-eighth, invited a host of fashionable
persons.' The names of Mr. Coates and of `Sir James Tylney Long and
his daughter' were duly recorded in the lists. But that was all. I
turned at length to a tiny file, consisting of five copies only,
Bladud's Courier. Therein I found this paragraph, followed by some
scurrilities which I will not quote:
`Mr. C**t*s, who will act Romeo (Wherefore art thou Romeo?) this
coming week for the pleasure of his fashionable circle, incurred the
contemptuous wrath of his Lady Fair at the Fe^te. It was a sad pity
she entrusted him to hold her purse while she fed the gold-fishes. He
was very proud of the honour till the gold fell from his hand among
the gold-fishes. How appropriate was the misadventure! But Miss Black
Eyes, angry at her loss and her swain's clumsiness, cried: "Jump into
the pond, sir, and find my purse instanter!" Several wags encouraged
her, and the ladies were of the opinion that her adorer should
certainly dive for the treasure. "Alas," the fellow said, "I cannot
swim, Miss. But tell me how many guineas you carried and I will make
them good to yourself." There was a great deal of laughter at this
encounter, and the haughty damsel turned on her heel, nor did shoe
vouchsafe another word to her elderly lover.
`When recreant man
Meets lady's wrath, &c. &c.'
So the story of the de'but was complete! Was ever a lady more
inexorable, more ingenious, in her revenge? One can fancy the poor
Antiguan going to the Baronet's house next day with a bouquet of
flowers and passionately abasing himself, craving her forgiveness. One
can fancy the wounded vanity of the girl, her shame that people had
mocked her for the disobedience of her suitor. Revenge, as her letter
shows, became her one thought. She would strike him through his other
love, the love of Thespis. `I have compelled you,' she wrote
afterwards, in her bitter triumph, `to be a greater Fool than you made
me.' She, then, it was that drove him to his public absurdity, she who
insisted that he should never win her unless he sacrificed his dear
longing for stage-laurels and actually pilloried himself upon the
stage. The wig, the pantaloons, the snuff-box, the grin, were all
conceived, I fancy, in her pitiless spite. It is possible that she did
but say: `The more ridiculous you make yourself, the more hope for
you.' But I do not believe that Mr. Coates, a man of no humour,
conceived the means himself. They were surely hers.
It is terrible to think of the ambitious amateur in his bedroom,
secretly practising hideous antics or gazing at his absurd apparel
before a mirror. How loath must he have been to desecrate the lines he
loved so dearly and had longed to declaim in all their beauty and
their resonance! And then, what irony at the daily rehearsal! With how
sad a smile must he have received the compliments of Mr. Dimonds on
his fine performance, knowing how different it would all be `on the
night! `Nothing could have steeled him to the ordeal but his great
love. He must have wavered, had not the exaltation of his love
protected him. But the jeers of the mob were music in his hearing, his
wounds love-symbols. Then came the girl's cruel contempt of his
martyrdom.
Aphrodite, who has care of lovers, did not spare Miss Tylney Long. She
made her love, a few months after, one who married her for her fortune
and broke her heart. In years of misery the wayward girl worked out
the penance of her unpardonable sin, dying, at length, in poverty and
despair. Into the wounds of him who had so truly loved her was poured,
after a space of fourteen years, the balsam of another love. On the
6th September 1823, at St. George's, Hanover Square, Mr. Coates was
married to Miss Anne Robinson, who was a faithful and devoted wife to
him till he died.
Meanwhile, the rejected Romeo did not long repine. Two months after
the tragedy at Bath, he was at Brighton, mingling with all the
fashionable folk, and giving admirable recitations at routs. He was
seen every day on the Parade, attired in an extravagant manner, very
different to that he had adopted in Bath. A pale-blue surtout,
tasselled Hessians, and a cocked hat were the most obvious items of
his costume. He also affected a very curious tumbril, shaped like a
shell and richly gilded. In this he used to drive around, every
afternoon, amid the gapes of the populace. It is evident that, once
having tasted the fruit of notoriety, he was loath to fall back on
simpler fare. He had become a prey to the love of absurd ostentation.
A lively example of dandyism unrestrained by taste, he parodied in his
person the foibles of Mr. Brummell and the King. His diamonds and his
equipage and other follies became the gossip of every newspaper in
England. Nor did a day pass without the publication of some little
rigmarole from his pen. Wherever there was a vacant theatre--were it
in Cheltenham, Birmingham, or any other town--he would engage it for
his productions. One night he would play his favourite part, Romeo,
with reverence and ability. The next, he would repeat his first
travesty in all its hideous harlequinade. Indeed, there can be little
doubt that Mr. Coates, with his vile performances, must be held
responsible for the decline of dramatic art in England and the
invasion of the amateur. The sight of such folly, strutting unabashed,
spoilt the prestige of the theatre. To-day our stage is filled with
tailors'-dummy heroes, with heroines who have real curls and can open
and shut their eyes and, at a pinch, say `mamma' and `papa.' We must
blame the Antiguan, I fear, for their existence. It was he--the
rascal--who first spread that scenae sacra fames. Some say that he was
a schemer and impostor, feigning eccentricity for his private ends.
They are quite wrong; Mr. Coates was a very good man. He never made a
penny out of his performances; he even lost many hundred pounds.
Moreover, as his speeches before the curtain and his letters to the
papers show, he took himself quite seriously. Only the insane take
themselves quite seriously.
It was the unkindness of his love that maddened him. But he lived to
be the lightest-hearted of lunatics and caused great amusement for
many years. Whether we think of him in his relation to history or
psychology, dandiacal or dramatic art, he is a salient, pathetic
figure. That he is memorable for his defects, not for his qualities, I
know. But Romeo, in the tragedy of his wild love and frail intellect,
in the folly that stretched the corners of his `peculiar grin' and
shone in his diamonds and was emblazoned upon his tumbril, is more
suggestive than some sages. He was so fantastic an animal that
Oblivion were indeed amiss. If no more, he was a great Fool. In any
case, it would be fun to have seen him.
London, 1896.
Diminuendo
In the year of grace 1890, and in the beautiful autumn of that year, I
was a freshman at Oxford. I remember how my tutor asked me what
lectures I wished to attend, and how he laughed when I said that I
wished to attend the lectures of Mr. Walter Pater. Also I remember
how, one morning soon after, I went into Ryman's to order some foolish
engraving for my room, and there saw, peering into a portfolio, a
small, thick, rock-faced man, whose top-hat and gloves of bright dog-
skin struck one of the many discords in that little city of learning
or laughter. The serried bristles of his moustachio made for him a
false-military air. I think I nearly went down when they told me that
this was Pater.
Not that even in those more decadent days of my childhood did I admire
the man as a stylist. Even then I was angry that he should treat
English as a dead language, bored by that sedulous ritual wherewith he
laid out every sentence as in a shroud--hanging, like a widower, long
over its marmoreal beauty or ever he could lay it at length in his
book, its sepulchre. From that laden air, the so cadaverous murmur of
that sanctuary, I would hook it at the beck of any jade. The writing
of Pater had never, indeed, appealed to me, all' aiei, having regard
to the couth solemnity of his mind, to his philosophy, his rare
erudition, tina pho^ta megan kai kalon edegmen [I received some great
and beautiful light]. And I suppose it was when at length I saw him
that I first knew him to be fallible.
At school I had read Marius the Epicurean in bed and with a dark
lantern. Indeed, I regarded it mainly as a tale of adventure, quite as
fascinating as Midshipman Easy, and far less hard to understand,
because there were no nautical terms in it. Marryat, moreover, never
made me wish to run away to sea, whilst certainly Pater did make me
wish for more `colour' in the curriculum, for a renaissance of the
Farrar period, when there was always `a sullen spirit of revolt
against the authorities'; when lockers were always being broken into
and marks falsified, and small boys prevented from saying their
prayers, insomuch that they vowed they would no longer buy brandy for
their seniors. In some schools, I am told, the pretty old custom of
roasting a fourth-form boy, whole, upon Founder's Day still survives.
But in my school there was less sentiment. I ended by acquiescing in
the slow revolution of its wheel of work and play. I felt that at
Oxford, when I should be of age to matriculate, a `variegated dramatic
life' was waiting for me. I was not a little too sanguine, alas!
How sad was my coming to the university! Where were those sweet
conditions I had pictured in my boyhood? Those antique contrasts? Did
I ride, one sunset, through fens on a palfrey, watching the gold
reflections on Magdalen Tower? Did I ride over Magdalen Bridge and
hear the consonance of evening-bells and cries from the river below?
Did I rein in to wonder at the raised gates of Queen's, the twisted
pillars of St. Mary's, the little shops, lighted with tapers? Did
bull-pups snarl at me, or dons, with bent backs, acknowledge my
salute? Any one who knows the place as it is, must see that such
questions are purely rhetorical. To him I need not explain the
disappointment that beset me when, after being whirled in a cab from
the station to a big hotel, I wandered out into the streets. On aurait
dit a bit of Manchester through which Apollo had once passed; for
here, among the hideous trains and the brand-new bricks--here, glared
at by the electric-lights that hung from poles, screamed at by boys
with the Echo and the Star--here, in a riot of vulgarity, were
remnants of beauty, as I discerned. There were only remnants.
Soon also I found that the life of the place, like the place, had lost
its charm and its tradition. Gone were the contrasts that made it
wonderful. That feud between undergraduates and dons--latent, in the
old days, only at times when it behoved the two academic grades to
unite against the townspeople--was one of the absurdities of the past.
The townspeople now looked just like undergraduates and the dons just
like townspeople. So splendid was the train-service between Oxford and
London that, with hundreds of passengers daily, the one had become
little better than a suburb of the other. What more could
extensionists demand? As for me, I was disheartened. Bitter were the
comparisons I drew between my coming to Oxford and the coming of
Marius to Rome. Could it be that there was at length no beautiful
environment wherein a man might sound the harmonies of his soul? Had
civilisation made beauty, besides adventure, so rare? I wondered what
counsel Pater, insistent always upon contact with comely things, would
offer to one who could nowhere find them. I had been wondering that
very day when I went into Ryman's and saw him there.
When the tumult of my disillusioning was past, my mind grew clearer. I
discerned that the scope of my quest for emotion must be narrowed.
That abandonment of one's self to life, that merging of one's soul in
bright waters, so often suggested in Pater's writing, were a counsel
impossible for to-day. The quest of emotions must be no less keen,
certainly, but the manner of it must be changed forthwith. To unswitch
myself from my surroundings, to guard my soul from contact with the
unlovely things that compassed it about, therein lay my hope. I must
approach the Benign Mother with great caution. And so, while most of
the freshmen `were doing her honour with wine and song and wreaths of
smoke, I stood aside, pondered. In such seclusion I passed my first
term-- ah, how often did I wonder whether I was not wasting my days,
and, wondering, abandon my meditations upon the right ordering of the
future! Thanks be to Athene, who threw her shadow over me in those
moments of weak folly!
At the end of term I came to London. Around me seethed swirls, eddies,
torrents, violent cross-currents of human activity. What uproar!
Surely I could have no part in modern life. Yet, yet for a while it
was fascinating to watch the ways of its children. The prodigious life
of the Prince of Wales fascinated me above all; indeed, it still
fascinates me. What experience has been withheld from His Royal High-
ness? Was ever so supernal a type, as he, of mere Pleasure? How often
he has watched, at Newmarket, the scud-a-run of quivering homuncules
over the vert on horses, or, from some night-boat, the holocaust of
great wharves by the side of the Thames; raced through the blue
Solent; threaded les coulisses! He has danced in every palace of every
capital, played in every club. He has hunted eleplants through the
jungles of India, boar through the forests of Austria, pigs over the
plains of Massachusetts. From the Castle of Abergeldie he has led his
Princess into the frosty night, Highlanders lighting with torches the
path to the deer-larder, where lay the wild things that had fallen to
him on the crags. He has marched the Grenadiers to chapel through the
white streets of Windsor. He has ridden through Moscow, in strange
apparel, to kiss the catafalque of more than one Tzar. For him the
Rajahs of India have spoiled their temples, and Blondin has crossed
Niagara along the tight-rope, and the Giant Guard done drill beneath
the chandeliers of the Neue Schloss. Incline he to scandal, lawyers
are proud to whisper their secrets in his ear. Be he gallant, the
ladies are at his feet. Ennuye', all the wits from Bernal Osborne to
Arthur Roberts have jested for him. He has been `present always at the
focus where the greatest number of forces unite in their purest
energy,' for it is his presence that makes those forces unite.
`Ennuye'?' I asked. Indeed he never is. How could he be when Pleasure
hangs constantly upon his arm! It is those others, overtaking her only
after arduous chase, breathless and footsore, who quickly sicken of
her company, and fall fainting at her feet. And for me, shod neither
with rank nor riches, what folly to join the chase! I began to see how
small a thing it were to sacrifice those external `experiences,' so
dear to the heart of Pater, by a rigid, complex civilisation made so
hard to gain. They gave nothing but lassitude to those who had gained
them through suffering. Even to the kings and princes, who so easily
gained them, what did they yield besides themselves? I do not suppose
that, if we were invited to give authenticated instances of
intelligence on the part of our royal pets, we could fill half a
column of the Spectator. In fact, their lives are so full they have no
time for thought, the highest energy of man. Now, it was to thought
that my life should be dedicated. Action, apart from its absorption of
time, would war otherwise against the pleasures of intellect, which,
for me, meant mainly the pleasures of imagination. It is only (this is
a platitude) the things one has not done, the faces or places one has
not seen, or seen but darkly, that have charm. It is only mystery--
such mystery as besets the eyes of children--that makes things superb.
I thought of the voluptuaries I had known--they seemed so sad, so
ascetic almost, like poor pilgrims, raising their eyes never or ever
gazing at the moon of tarnished endeavour. I thought of the round,
insouciant faces of the monks at whose monastery I once broke bread,
and how their eyes sparkled when they asked me of the France that lay
around their walls. I thought, pardie, of the lurid verses written by
young men who, in real life, know no haunt more lurid than a literary
public-house. It was, for me, merely a problem how I could best avoid
`sensations,' `pulsations,' and `exquisite moments' that were not
purely intellectual. I would not attempt to combine both kinds, as
Pater seemed to fancy a man might. I would make myself master of some
small area of physical life, a life of quiet, monotonous simplicity,
exempt from all outer disturbance. I would shield my body from the
world that my mind might range over it, not hurt nor fettered. As yet,
however, I was in my first year at Oxford. There were many reasons
that I should stay there and take my degree, reasons that I did not
combat. Indeed, I was content to wait for my life.
And now that I have made my adieux to the Benign Mother, I need wait
no longer. I have been casting my eye over the suburbs of London. I
have taken a most pleasant little villa in ----ham, and here I shall
make my home. Here there is no traffic, no harvest. Those of the
inhabitants who do anything go away each morning and do it elsewhere.
Here no vital forces unite. Nothing happens here. The days and the
months will pass by me, bringing their sure recurrence of quiet
events. In the spring-time I shall look out from my window and see the
laburnum flowering in the little front garden. In summer cool syrups
will come for me from the grocer's shop. Autumn will make the boughs
of my mountain-ash scarlet, and, later, the asbestos in my grate will
put forth its blossoms of flame. The infrequent cart of Buszard or
Mudie will pass my window at all seasons. Nor will this be all. I
shall have friends. Next door, there is a retired military man who has
offered, in a most neighbourly way, to lend me his copy of the Times.
On the other side of my house lives a charming family, who perhaps
will call on me, now and again. I have seen them sally forth, at
sundown, to catch the theatre-train; among them walked a young lady,
the charm of whose figure was ill concealed by the neat waterproof
that overspread her evening dress. Some day it may be...but I
anticipate. These things will be but the cosy accompaniment of my
days. For I shall contemplate the world.
I shall look forth from my window, the laburnum and the mountain-ash
becoming mere silhouettes in the foreground of my vision. I shall look
forth and, in nay remoteness, appreciate the distant pageant of the
world. Humanity will range itself in the columns of my morning paper.
No pulse of life will escape me. The strife of politics, the
intriguing of courts, the wreck of great vessels, wars, dramas,
earthquakes, national griefs or joys; the strange sequels to divorces,
even, and the mysterious suicides of land-agents at Ipswich--in all
such phenomena I shall steep my exhaurient mind. Delicias quoque
bibliothecae experiar. Tragedy, comedy, chivalry, philosophy will be
mine. I shall listen to their music perpetually and their colours will
dance before my eyes. I shall soar from terraces of stone upon dragons
with shining wings and make war upon Olympus. From the peaks of hills
I shall swoop into recondite valleys and drive the pigmies, shrieking
little curses, to their caverns. It may be my whim to wander through
infinite parks where the deer lie under the clustering shadow of their
antlers and flee lightly over the grass; to whisper with white
prophets under the elms or bind a child with a daisy-chain or, with a
lady, thread my way through the acacias. I shall swim down rivers into
the sea and outstrip all ships. Unhindered I shall penetrate all
sanctuaries and snatch the secrets of every dim confessional.
Yes! among books that charm, and give wings to the mind, will my days
be spent. I shall be ever absorbing the things great men have written;
with such experience I will charge my mind to the full. Nor will I try
to give anything in return. Once, in the delusion that Art, loving the
recluse, would make his life happy, I wrote a little for a yellow
quarterly and had that succe`s de fiasco which is always given to a
young writer of talent. But the stress of creation soon overwhelmed
me. Only Art with a capital H gives any consolations to her henchmen.
And I, who crave no knighthood, shall write no more. I shall write no
more. Already I feel myself to be a trifle outmoded. I belong to the
Beardsley period. Younger men, with months of activity before them,
with fresher schemes and notions, with newer enthusiasm, have pressed
forward since then. Cedo junioribus. Indeed, I stand aside with no
regret. For to be outmoded is to be a classic, if one has written
well. I have acceded to the hierarchy of good scribes and rather like
my niche.
Chicago, 1895.
THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM
A BIBLIOGRAPHY
BY
JOHN LANE
PREFACE
After some considerable experience in the field of bibliography I
cannot plead as palliation for any imperfections that may be
discovered in this, that it is the work of a 'prentice hand. Difficult
as I found my self-imposed task in the case of the Meredith and Hardy
bibliographies, here my labour has been still more herculean.
It is impossible for one to compile a bibliography of a great man's
works without making it in some sense a biography--and indeed, in the
minds of not a few people, I have found a delusion that the one is
identical with the other.
Mr. Beerbohm, as will be seen from the page headed Personalia, was
born in London, August 24, 1872. In searching the files of the Times I
naturally looked for other remarkable occurrences on that date. There
was only one worth recording. On the day upon which Mr. Beerbohm was
born, there appeared in the first column of the Times, this
announcement:
`On [Wednesday], the 21st August, at Brighton, the wife of V.P.
Beardsley, Esq., of a son.'
That the same week should have seen the advent in this world of two
such notable reformers as Aubrey Beardsley and Max Beerbohm is a
coincidence to which no antiquary has previously drawn attention. Is
it possible to over-estimate the influence of these two men in the art
and literature of the century?
Like two other great essayists, Addison and Steele, Mr. Beerbohm was
educated at Charterhouse, and, like the latter, at Merton College,
Oxford. At Charterhouse he is still remembered for his Latin verses,
and for the superb gallery of portraits of the masters that he
completed during his five years' sojourn there. There are still extant
a few copies of his satire, in Latin elegiacs, called Beccerius,
privately printed at the suggestion of Mr. A. H. Tod, his form-master.
The writer has said `Let it lie,' however, and in such a matter the
author's wish should surely be regarded. I have myself been unable to
obtain a sight of a copy, but a more fortunate friend has furnished me
with a careful description of the opusculum, which I print in its
place in the bibliography.
He matriculated at Merton in 1890, and immediately applied himself to
the task he had set before him, namely, a gallery of portraits of the
Dons.
I am aware that he contributed to The Clown and other undergraduate
journals: also that he was a member of the Myrmidons' Club. It was
during his residence at Oxford that his famous treatise on Cosmetics
appeared in the pages of an important London Quarterly, sets of which
are still occasionally to be found in booksellers' catalogues at a
high price, though the American millionaire collector has made it one
of the rarest of finds. These were the days of his youth, the golden
age of `decadence.' For is not decadence merely a fin de sie`cle
literary term synonymous with the `sowing his wild oats' of our
grandfathers? a phrase still surviving in agricultural districts,
according to Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Edward Clodd, and other Folk-
Lorists.
Mr. Beerbohm, of course, was not the only writer of his period who
appeared as the champion of artifice. A contemporary, one Richard Le
Gallienne, an eminent Pose Fancier, has committed himself somewhere to
the statement that `The bravest men that ever trod this planet have
worn corsets.'
But what is so far away as yester-year? In 1894, Mr. Beerbohm, in
virtue of his `Defence of Cosmetics,' was but a pamphleteer. In 1895
he was the famous historian, for in that year appeared the two
earliest of his profound historical studies, The History of the Year
1880, and his work on King George the Fourth. During the growth of
these masterpieces, his was a familiar figure in the British Museum
and the Record Office, and tradition asserts that the enlargement of
the latter building, which took place some time shortly afterwards,
was mainly owing to his exertions.
Attended by his half-brother, Mr. Tree, Mrs. Tree and a numerous
theatrical suite, he sailed on the 16th of January 1895, for America,
with a view, it is said, to establishing a monarchy in that land. Mr.
Beerbohm does not appear to have succeeded in this project, though he
was interviewed in many of the newspapers of the States. He returned,
re infecta, to the land of his birth, three months later.
After that he devoted himself to the completion of his life-work, here
set forth.
The materials for this collection were drawn, with the courteous
acquiescence of various publishers, from The Pageant, The Savoy, The
Chap Book, and The Yellow Book. Internal evidence shows that Mr.
Beerbohm took fragments of his writings from Vanity (of New York) and
The Unicorn, that he might inlay them in the First Essay, of whose
scheme they are really a part. The Third Essay he re-wrote. The rest
he carefully revised, and to some he gave new names.
Although it was my privilege on one occasion to meet Mr. Beerbohm--at
five-o'clock tea--when advancing years, powerless to rob him of one
shade of his wonderful urbanity, had nevertheless imprinted evidence
of their flight in the pathetic stoop, and the low melancholy voice of
one who, though resigned, yet yearns for the happier past, I feel that
too precise a description of his personal appearance would savour of
impertinence. The curious, on this point, I must refer to Mr.
Sickert's and Mr. Rothenstein's portraits, which I hear that Mr.
Lionel Cust is desirous of acquiring for the National Portrait
Gallery.
It is needless to say that this bibliography has been a labour of
love, and that any further information readers may care to send me
will be gladly incorporated in future editions.
I must here express my indebtedness to Dr. Garnett, C.B., Mr. Bernard
Quaritch, Mr. Clement K. Shorter, Mr. L. F. Austin, Mr. J. M. Bullock,
Mr. Lewis Hind, Mr. and Mrs. H. Beerbohm Tree, Mrs. Leverson, and Miss
Grace Conover, without whose assistance my work would have been far
more arduous.
J.L.
THE ALBANY, May 1896.
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF THE
WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM
1886.
A Letter to the Editor. The Carthusian, Dec. 1886, signed Diogenes.
A bitter cry of complaint against the dulness of the school paper.
[Not reprinted.
[1890.]
Beccerius | a Latin fragment | with explanatory notes by M.B. [N.D.
About twelve couplets printed on rough yellow paper, pp. 1 to 4, cr.
8vo, notes in double columns at foot of page. No publisher's or
printer's name.
1894.
A Defence of Cosmetics. The Yellow Book, Vol. I., April 1894, pp. 65-
82.
Reprinted in `The Works' under the title of `The Pervasion of Rouge.'
Lines suggested by Miss Cissy Loftus. The Sketch, May 9, 1894, p. 71.
A Caricature. [Not reprinted.
Mr. Phil May and Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. The Pall Mall Budget, June 7,
1894. Two Caricatures. [Not reprinted.
Two Eminent Statesmen (the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour and the Rt. Hon. Sir
Wm. Harcourt). Pall Mall Budget, July 5, 1894. Two Caricatures. [Not
reprinted.
Two Eminent Actors (Mr. Beerbohm Tree and Mr. Edward Terry). Pall Mall
Budget, July 26, 1894. Two Caricatures. [Not reprinted.
A Letter to the Editor. The Yellow Book, Vol. II., July 1894, pp. 281-
284. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Gus Elen (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Sept. 15, 1894.
[Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Oscar Wilde (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Sept. 22,
1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: R. G. Knowles, `There's a picture for you!'
(Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Sept. 29, 1894. [Not reprinted.
M. Henri Rochefort and Mr. Arthur Roberts. Pall Mall Budget, Oct. 4,
1894. Two Caricatures. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Henry Arthur Jones (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Oct. 6,
1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Harry Furniss (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Oct. 13,
1894. [Not reprinted.
A Caricature of George the Fourth. The Yellow Book, Vol. III., Oct.
1894. [Not reprinted.
A Note on George the Fourth. The Yellow Book, Vol. III., Oct. 1894,
pp. 247-269.
Reprinted in `The Works' under the title of `King George the Fourth.'
A parody of this appeared under the title of `A Phalse Note on George
the Fourth,' in Punch, October 27, 1894, p. 204.
Personal Remarks: Lord Lonsdale (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Oct 20,
1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: W. S. Gilbert (Caricature). Pick- Me-Up, Oct. 27,
1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: L. Raven Hill (Caricature). Pick- Me-Up, Nov. 3,
1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: The Marquis of Queensberry (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up,
Nov. 17, 1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Ada Reeve (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Nov. 24, 1894.
[Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Seymour Hicks (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Dec. 1,
1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Corney Grain (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Dec. 8, 1894.
[Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Lord Randolph Churchill (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up,
Dec. 22, 1894. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Dutch Daly (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Dec. 29, 1894.
[Not reprinted.
1895.
Character Sketches of `The Chieftain' at the Savoy.
I. Mr. Courtice Pounds.
II. Mr. Scott Fishe.
III. Mr. Walter Passmore.
Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 5, 1895. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Henry Irving (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 5, 1895.
`1880.' The Yellow Book, Vol. IV., Jan. 1895, pp. 275-283. Reprinted
in `The Works.'
A parody of this appeared, under the title of `1894,' by Max Mereboom,
in Punch, February 2, 1895, p. 58.
Character Sketches of `An Ideal Husband' at the Haymarket.
I. Mr. Bishop.
II. Mr. Charles Hawtrey.
III. Miss Julia Neilson.
Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 19, 1895. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Harry Marks (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 19, 1895.
[Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: F. C. Burnand (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Jan. 26,
1895. [Not reprinted.
Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 7, 1895.
The above has been reprinted with additions and alterations in `The
Works.'
Personal Remarks: Arthur Pinero (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Feb. 9,
1895. [Not reprinted.
Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 14, 1895.
Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 21, 1895.
The above have been reprinted with additions and alterations in `The
Works.'
Personal Remarks: The Rt. Hon. Sir William Vernon Harcourt
(Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, Feb. 23, 1895. [Not reprinted.
Dandies and Dandies. Vanity (New York). Feb. 28, 1895.
The above has been reprinted with additions and alterations in `The
Works.'
Personal Remarks: Earl Spencer (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 9,
1895. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Arthur Balfour (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 16,
1895. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: S. B. Bancroft (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 23,
1895. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Paderewski (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, March 30, 1895.
. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Colonel North (Caricature). Pick-Me-Up, April 6,
1895. [Not reprinted.
Personal Remarks: Alfred de Rothschild. Pick-Me-Up, April 20, 189;.
[Not reprinted.
Merton. (The Warden of Merton.) The Octopus, May 25, 1895. A
Caricature. [Not reprinted.
Seen on the Towpath. The Octopus, May 29, 1895. A Caricature. [Not
reprinted.
An Evening of Peculiar Delirium. The Sketch, July 24, 1895. [Not
reprinted.
Notes in Foppery. The Unicorn, Sept. 18, 1895.
Notes in Foppery. The Unicorn, Sept. 25, 1895.
The above have been reprinted with additions and alterations in `The
Works,' under the title of `Dandies and Dandies.'
Press Notices on `Punch and Judy,' selected by Max Beerbohm. The
Sketch, Oct. 16, 1895 (p. 644). [Not reprinted.
Be it Cosiness. The Pageant, Christmas, 1895, pp. 230-235.
Reprinted in `The Works' under the title of `Diminuendo.'
A parody of this appeared, under the title of `Be it Cosiness,' by Max
Mereboom, in Punch, Dec. 21, 1895, p. 297.
1896.
A Caricature of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, a wood engraving after the drawing
by Max Beerbohm. The Savoy, No. 1, Jan. 1896, p. 125. [Not reprinted.
A Good Prince. The Savoy, No. 1, Jan. 1896, pp. 45-7. [Reprinted in
`The Works.'
De Natura Barbatulorum. The Chap-Book, Feb. 15, 1896, pp. 305-312.
The above has been reprinted with additions and alterations in `The
Works,' under the title of `Dandies and Dandies.'
Poor Romeo! The Yellow Book, Vol. IX., April '96, pp. 169-181.
[Reprinted in `The Works.'
A Caricature of Aubrey Beardsley. A wood engraving after the drawing
by Max Beerbohm. The Savoy, No. 2, April 1896, p. 161.
PERSONALIA.
On the 24th instant, at 57 Palace Gardens Terrace, Kensington, the
wife of J. E. Beerbohm, Esq., of a son. The Times, Aug. 26, 1872.
A few words with Mr. Max Beerbohm. (An interview by Ada Leverson.) The
Sketch, Jan. 2, 1895, p. 439.
Max Beerbohm: an interview by Isabel Brooke Alder. Woman, April 29,
1896, pp. 8 & 9.
On Mr. Beerbohm leaving Oxford in July 1895, he took up his residence
at 19 Hyde Park Place, formerly the residence of another well-known
historian--W. C. Kinglake. Woman, April 29, 1896, p. 8.
PORTRAITS OF MR. MAX BEERBOHM.
Max Beerbohm in `Boyhood.' The Sketch, Jan. 2, 189;, p. 439.
Max Beerbohm. Oxford Characters. Lithographs by Will Rothenstein. Part
6.
It is believed this artist did several pastels of Mr. Beerbohm.
Portrait of Mr. Beerbohm standing before a picture of George the
Fourth, by Walter Sickert.
Mr. Max Beerbohm. Woman, April 29, 1896, p. 8.
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