George Brummell, the Famous Beau in Youth

George Brummell, the Famous Beau in Youth
Identifier: lifeartofrichard01wint (find matches)
Title: Life and art of Richard Mansfield : with selections from his letters
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Winter, William, 1836-1917
Subjects: Mansfield, Richard, 1857-1907
Publisher: New York : Moffat, Yard and company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library



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Times, and, changing my plan, withoutimproving it (a plan which his assistant, meanwhile,read), Mansfield fashioned the play of Beau Brum-mell, dictating to that assistant the greater part ofthe colloquy contained in it, but allowing Mr. Fitchto write dialogues from notes and from memory ofhis talk. That statement was made to me, by theactor, in explanation, with marked emphasis, over andover again, in speaking and in writing, and uponMansfields authority I repeat it here: he said, also,that the play was composed mostly at the ContinentalHotel, Philadelphia. Some of the more piquantlines in the dialogue in Beau Brummell weretaken from Captain Jesses biography; others weretaken from earlier plays; others were supplied byMansfield, who had a particularly happy knackof odd witticism. One colloquy was conveyedfrom Peacocks Nightmare Abbey,—a book thatI once mentioned to Mansfield as among the mostquaint compositions in our language. The planof choosing Brummell as the subject of a drama
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GEORGE BRUMMELL, THE FAMOUS BEAU, IX YOUTH From an Old Print LIKE SHEEP . 133 and the plan of idealizing his character were mine,and so was a general scheme for the conduct ofthe plot. Mansfield and his amanuensis possessedmy original written outline of story, together withthe substance of many hints and suggestions madeto the actor, in conversation and in various letters,upon which to build, and it was, and is, my opinion,that they might have built upon that basis withbetter judgment and better taste. Brummell, inactual life, was a voluptuary. For the purposes ofa drama it Vas imperative that he should be rehabili-tated. That I had prescribed, and that was done.Mansfields acting, even in a caricature of mannersand circumstances, made him a magnanimous gentle-man, and invested him with a romantic and patheticcharm, while the long-continued success of the play,—in which, while Mansfield lived to present it, Brummellwas always an attractive figure,—made Mr. Fitch,who contributed to