DANDY*O*RAMA .-. Sir Lumley "Skiffy" Skeffington

I.

Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington was the dandy of the olden time, and a kinder, better-hearted man, never existed. He is a person of some taste in literature, and of polished manners, nor has his long intercourse with fashionable society at all affected that simplicity of character for which he has been remarkable. He was a true dandy: and much more than, that, he was a perfect gentleman. I remember, long long since, entering Covent Garden Theatre, when I observed a person holding the door to let me pass; deeming him to be one of the box-keepers, I was about to nod my thanks: when I found, to my surprise, that it was Skeffington, who had thus goodnaturedly honoured a stranger by his attention. We with some difficulty obtained seats in a box, and I was indebted to accident for one of the most agreeable evenings I remember to have passed.

I remember visiting the Opera, when late dinners were the rage, and the hour of refection was carried far into the night. I was again placed near the fugleman of fashion (for to his movements were all eyes directed: and his sanction determined the accuracy of all conduct). He bowed from box to box, until recognising one of his friends in the lower tier, »Temple,« he exclaimed, drawling out his weary words, »at?what?hour?do?you?dine?to-day?« It had gone half-past eleven when he spoke!

Aus: THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. VOL. X, NO. 277. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1827.



II.

Another dandy of the day was Sir Lumley Skeffington, who used to paint his face, so that he looked like a French toy; he dressed a la Robespierre, and practised other follies, although the consummate old fop was a man of literary attainments, and a great admirer and patron of the drama. Skeffington was remarkable for his politeness and courtly manners; in fact, he was invited everywhere, and was very popular with the ladies. You always knew of his approach by an avant-courier of sweet smells; and when he advanced a little nearer, you might suppose yourself in the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop. He is thus immortalized by Byron,in the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, alluding to the play written by Skeffington, The Sleeping Beauty:-

»In grim array though Lewis' spectres rise,
Still Skeffington and Goose divide the prize:
And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise,
For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays
Renowned alike; whose genius ne'er confines
Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs,
Nor sleeps with 'sleeping beauties' but anon
In five facetious acts comes thundering on,
While poor John Bull, bewildered with the scene,
Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean;
But as some hands applaud - a venal few -
Rather than sleep, John Bull applauds it too.«

When Sir Lumley Skeffington, who had been a lion in his day - and whose spectacle, the Sleeping Beauty, produced at a great expense on the stage, had made him looked up to as deserving all the blandishments of fashionable life - re-appeared some years after his complete downfal and seclusion in the bench, he fancied that by a very gay external appearance he would recover his lost position; but he found his old friends very shy of him. Alvanley being asked, on one occasion, who that smart-looking individual was, answered, »It is a second edition of the Sleeping Beauty bound in calf, richly gilt, and illustrated by many cuts.«

Aus: Captain Rees Howell Gronow: Reminiscences


III.

Sir Lumley Skeffington, of Skeffington Hall, Leicestershire, was a celebrated votary of fashion. Descended from »Awly O'Farrell, King of Conereene,« and from innumerable Kings and Princes of Ireland, his ancient lineage, as well as his pronounced dandyism, gave him a claim upon the attentions of society, which was further augmented by his literary pretensions. Nevertheless, he subsequently experienced a reverse of fortune, typical of the days in which he lived; and of his rise and fall
John Stanhope gives a brief account.

»Poor Skeffington,« he relates, »was the Dandy of the day, par excellence. Remarkable for his ugliness, his dress was so exaggerated as to render his lack of beauty the more marked. He was a very good-natured man, and had nothing of the impertinence of manner of the fops who
succeeded him. Moreover, he was a bel-esprit, writing epilogues and prologues, and was at one time the observed of all observers. I have seen him at an assembly literally surrounded by a group of admiring ladies.«

Skeffington, in short, in 1805, wrote a play entitled The Sleeping Beauty, which, produced at great expense at Drury Lane, gained for him much fame among his contemporaries and caused him for a time to be looked upon as a lion in the fashionable world. Enjoying to the full his reputation as a literary celebrity, he elected to ape certain mannerisms and eccentricities which he considered in keeping with this character.

Skeffington, after the publication of his play, was known by the nickname of »The Sleeping Beauty,« and a representation of him in that role John Stanhope describes as »the best caricature I ever saw.« Tall, thin, and a complete slave to his toilet, Sir Lumley not only indulged in an abnormal use of perfumes and cosmetics, but was incessantly to be seen combing his scented tresses by the aid of a hand mirror, till it was suggested that one of his Royal ancestors must have formed a mésalliance with the mermaid who most appropriately figured in his armorial bearings, similarly employed. The extreme slimness of his figure was accentuated by a coat which he made as famous as Lord Petersham did the garment called after his name.

Unfortunately, however, the harmless foibles of Sir Lumley were combined with an unbounded extravagance which finally involved the luckless dandy in a ruin as complete as it was pathetic. He disappeared from fashionable life to undergo a dreary imprisonment, and when he at last issued thence, the world which had showered blandishments upon him in his prosperity, would have no more of him. In vain did he dress exquisitely, enunciate witticisms and assume a gaiety of manner which he was far from feeling. The friends who had courted his society before his downfall now shunned his acquaintance, and a bon-mot uttered at his expense elicited the applause which his most happily-conceived jests failed to evoke. On some stranger pointing out Skeffington to Lord Alvanley, and inquiring who wasthat smart-looking individual, Alvanley responded with a wit more keen than kind--»It is a second edition of 'The Sleeping Beauty,' bound in
calf, richly gilt and illustrated by _many cuts_.«

For long did the luckless beau continue, with a pathetic persistence, to haunt the scenes of his former triumph. At theatres, at picture auctions, in the Park, and in all fashionable thoroughfares, he was a familiar sight, still with the passing of years the butt of the contemporaries who had once fawned upon him, and, as they gradually diminished, the standard jest of a younger generation. With the flight of Time, the blackness of his false ringlets never varied, the brilliant rouge of his cheeks, or the strange costume which he had worn during the heyday of his existence, and to which he clung after it had been obsolete for half a century. And with each year his slim figure became yet thinner, his back more bent, and his spindle legs more bowed, till at length the man who had been born early in the reign of George III. witnessed the dawning of the year 1850; after which the quaint figure of the once-famous Sir Lumley Skeffington was seen no more.

Aus: A. M. W. Stirling (Hg.): The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I.