Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1917-02-02
NASH Was NO BEAU
Some Plain Truths About the
Noted "King of Bath"
He Was a Tawdry Dresser, Says Gold.
smith, Who Sought to Advertise
Himself, and His tests Were
Coarse and Offensive.

They do some queer things over in
that merry monarchy called England.
They have always done them, from the
time that Alfred the Great turned a
spit in a peasants kitchen down to the
days when Sir Edward Carson organ
lied a rebel army, equipped them with
wooden guns, and got rewarded for his
bit of revolutionary diversion with
portfolio in the cabinet. A country
1t is of strange contradictions, says
the Kansas City Times, where, not
withstanding the rightly of caste lines,
brewers have become peers and peers
wine peddlers, where ladies' maids
have welded princes and duchesses
have set up millinery shops, where
tramps have become lord mayors, and
clerks dictators of fashion and chums
of royalty, where "plungers' are called
FOUNDERS" and where jokes are des-
ignated as "wheezes," and where lot
Of other just as impossible things have
been done and named from time i'm
memorial.
For instance, in what country save
England could an unknown man ride
into a famous watering place, say, like
Hot Springs, Ark, frequented by rep
resentatives from every stratum of So
ciety, from kings and queens to maids
and mechanics, create q social and mu-
nicipai sovereignty, with laws as in
flexible as those of the Modes and Per-
slams, make noblesse oblige hobnob
with laisser faire, exact social homage
and obedience to his regulations from
all, levy tribute and dispense bounty
like real king, and get away with it
for so years? Yet that Is what the
celebrated "bounder," Beau Nash did
at Bath, the Hot Springs Of England,
in the days when England was suffer-
ing from the early Georges, the South
Sea bubble and other foreign aflic-
lions in the first half Of the eighteenth
century. There must have been some
quality in a man that could do the
things Nash did. Success doesn't sue
coed for any length Of time unless
there are reasons or conditions that
support 1t.
In the first place, whatever else
Richard Nash was, he was no beau.
A good dresser he very emphatically
was not. Beau Brummel laid down
the dictum that a man who would be
well dressed should so dress as to
attract no attention. Beau Nash's idea
was just the reverse Of this. He
dressed to advertise himself; he want
ed his devotees at Bath to turn and
look. He discovered the virtues Of the
hat as a stimulator of curiosity, and
early adopted a big white one of a
peculiar style as his official headgear.
He was ''tawdry" dresser, says Gold
smith. In the second place, he was
not a wit, although he set up for one.
His jests were very trough stuff" the
sort that hurt. Here's a sample: A
lady who had very crooked figure
came to take the waters, and the
Beau greeted her thus:
"Whence do you come, MADAME
straight from London" replied the
dame,
"Egad," said Nash, winking at his
courtiers, you appear to have warped
considerably on the way down."
And, in the third place, he was not
polite. For instance, he asked a lady
of quality to dance with him, and on
her declining the honor, Nash replied
with some spirit'
"Why, d-n you, madam, what dc
We come down here for? I must needs
believe ye have handy legs"