Probably Master
Richard thought of his empty purse, for he replied with some of that
assurance which afterwards stood him in such good stead, 'Please your
majesty, if you intend to make me a knight, I wish I may be one of your
poor knights of Windsor, and then I shall have a fortune, at least able
to support my title.' William did not see the force of this argument,
and Mr. Nash remained Mr. Nash till the day of his death. He had another
chance of the title, however, in days when he could have better
maintained it, but again he refused. Queen Anne once asked him why he
declined knighthood. He replied: 'There is Sir William Read, the
mountebank, who has just been knighted, and I should have to call him
"brother."' The honour was, in fact, rather a cheap one in those days,
and who knows whether a man who had done such signal service to his
country did not look forward to a peerage? Worse men than even Beau Nash
have had it.
Well, Nash could afford to defy royalty, for he was to be himself a
monarch of all he surveyed, and a good deal more; but before we follow
him to Bath, let us give the devil his due--which, by the way, he
generally gets--and tell a pair of tales in the Beau's favour.
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