Middletown transcript., 1888-10-18
FAMOUS DANDIES.

Although the love of fine clothing
has always been the subject of quip
and jokes at the expense of the wearers
the dandies of both sexes can point t,
quite as illustrious an array of prototy
pes as any other class of mortals
The dudes and their sisters who arr
seen on Fifth Avenue and in the gayly
lighted parlors of city palaces, the gild
ed youth who adorn May Fair anG
Rotten Row, the jeanesse doree oi
Paris, are one and all representatives
of great men and women whose names
are carried in the tablets Of history fol-
great achievements in dress as well as
thought and action.
Gazing far backward into the period
of traditional history, one sees
visions of Agamemnon, Hector and
Paris waging heroic, war on the
plain before ancient Troy, covered by
day with the ensanguined sweat of bat
tie. But in the council hall, by the
palace gates. at the feasts where heca-
tombs sent forth savory oders to the
gods, and in the connubial retreats,
the Homeric heroes and fair Helen, for
whom they fought, loved their robes
of Tyrian purple, soft shining silk. and
clean white linen, fresh from the
housewives distaff.
In ancient Egypt, where man first
learned the sweets Of wealth, mighty
kings and rich princes recorded, on
their sphinxes, monoliths, and pyra-
mids the beauties of their raiment
quite as faithfully as the stories Of
victories won by Ptolemys and Pha-
roahs. The rich alluvial mud Of the
Nile brought that ancient nobility all
the gifts Of material fortune, and the
inheritors joyously spent from their
boards for bartered jewels wherewith
to shine in the eyes of men.
1t is pleasant, too, to think Of Solo,
mon in the days of his wayward youth,
while he was singing his immortal
love-song. The wisdom of the proverb-
maker and the thoughtfulness of the
architect of the Temple had not then
been attained. Famed by the fairest
maidens of Jerusalem, surrounded by
the gayest of the Hebrew aristocraey,
when to be a prince of Jerusalem was
was to be almost king, the young
monarch so dazzled his courtiers by
the richness of his attire that his
"glory', became favorite metaphor
for every age of civilization.
Ancient Athens was a fine place for
dandies in the days when Alcibiades,
" the curled son of Clinias,' was the
spoiled child of the powerful little re-
public. The victor Cyzicus loved to
show himself with his matchless per-
son adorned with all the beauties Of
flowing robes of fine linen. Indeed
much of his power was due to the easy
grace with which the nephew of Peri
cles wore elegant apparel when loung-
ing about talking philosophy with
Socrates and poetry with Aspasia.
The aattocrat of the Breakfast Table
has called attention to Aristoteles, ''a
very distinguished writer. -. a
philosopher, in short, whom it took
centuries to learn, centuries to unlearn,
and is now going to take generation
or more to learn over again." "Regu-
lar dandy he was, says genial Doctor
Holmes, who, by-the-way, likes to
dress well himself.
Rome in her palmiest days produced
the most famous "swell" the world
has ever seen. Julius Caesar, in the
days of his unbridled boyhood, when
heaping debt upon debt by prodigality
justifable only in one who is conscious
of ability to acquire universal domin-
ion, astonished his luxurious patrician
companions by the splendor of his
dress and the magnifcence of the en-
tertainments he gave to the city. In
fact Caesar was quite buck before he
applied himself to the serious business
of conquering triple-divided Gaul"
and crossing the Rubican; but even
then cruel old proscriber, Sulla, saw
in him the powers and possibilities Of
a ruler and victor.
Skipping over fourteen centuries of
European barbarism, when the Hun,
the Goth, and the Vandal were playing
'' 'old Scratch' with the sweetness and
light of earlier civilizations, one comes
to the italian Renaissance, when Lor-
EMO the Magnificent made Florence
the civilized centre of Europe.
Petrarch, singer of love-sonnets, was
the beau of this era, for aside from his
love for Laura, he found plenty of time
to write his poems and array himself
in the medieval fashions. Sir Philip
Sidney, the idol of Elizabethan Eng
land, caught the infection during his