'Tagged ~ you're It!'

The Dandies of Regency London

Something of a scrapbook curiousity which has increasingly intrigued me over the past year:

'How unspeakably odious – with a few brilliant exceptions, such as Alvanley and others – were the dandies of forty years ago. They were a motley crew, with nothing remarkable about them but their insolence. They were generally not high-born, nor rich, nor very good-looking, nor clever, nor agreeable; and why they arrogated to themselves the right of setting up their own fancied superiority on a self-raised pedestal, and despising their betters, Heaven only knows. They were generally middle-aged, some even elderly men, had large appetites and weak digestions, gambled freely  – and had no luck. They hated everybody, and abused everybody, and would sit together in White's bay window, or the pit boxes at the Opera, weaving tremendous crammers.* They swore a good deal, never laughed, had their own particular slang, looked hazy after dinner, and had most of them been patronised at one time or other by Brummell or the Prince Regent. These gentlemen were very fond of having a butt. Many years ago Tom Raikes* filled this capacity: though he did kick out sometimes, and to some purpose. They gloried in their shame, and believed in nothing good, or noble, or elevated. Thank Heaven, that miserable race of used-up dandies has long been extinct! May England never look upon their like again!'

From the 'Regency Recollections' of Captain Rees Gronow (pictured) 

published during the 1860s

*tall stories

*another dandy and diarist