Part 4

Dining at a gentleman's house in Hampshire, where the champagne was very far from being good, he waited for a pause in the conversation, and then condemned it by raising his glass, and saying loud enough to be heard by every one at the table, "John, give me some more of that cider."

"Brummel, you were not here yesterday," said one of his club friends; "where did you dine?" "Dine! why with a person of the name of R----s. I believe he wishes me to notice him, hence the dinner; but, to give him his due, he desired that I would make up the party myself, so I asked Alvanley, Mills, Pierrepoint, and a few others; and I assure you the affair turned out quite unique; there was every delicacy in or out of season; the sillery was perfect, and not a wish remained ungratified; but, my dear fellow, conceive my astonishment when I tell you that Mr. R----s had the assurance to sit down and dine with us."

An acquaintance having, in a morning call, bored him dreadfully about some tour he made in the north of England, inquired with great pertinacity of his impatient listener which of the lakes he preferred? When Brummel, quite tired of the man's tedious raptures, turned his head imploringly towards his valet, who was arranging something in the room, and said, "Robinson?" "Sir." "Which of the lakes do I admire?" "Windermere, sir," replied that distinguished individual. "Ah, yes; Windermere," repeated Brummel; "so it is--Windermere."

Having been asked by a sympathising friend how he happened to get such a severe cold, his reply was, "Why, do you know, I left my carriage yesterday evening, on my way to town from the Pavilion, and the infidel of a landlord put me into a room with a damp stranger."

On being asked by one of his acquaintance, during a very unseasonable summer, if he had ever seen such an one, he replied, "Yes; last winter."

Having fancied himself invited to some one's country seat, and being given to understand, after one night's lodging, that he was in error, he told an unconscious friend in town, who asked him what sort of place it was, "that it was an exceedingly good house for stopping one night in."

On the night that he quitted London, the Beau was seen as usual at the opera, but he left early, and, without returning to his lodgings, stepped into a chaise which had been procured for him by a noble friend, and met his own carriage a short distance from town. Travelling all night as fast as four post-horses and liberal donations could enable him, the morning dawned on him at Dover, and immediately on his arrival there he hired a small vessel, put his carriage on board, and was landed in a few hours on the other side. By this time the West-end had awoke and missed him, particularly his tradesmen.

It was while promenading one day on the pier, and not long before he left Calais, that an old associate of his, who had just arrived by the packet from England, met him unexpectedly in the street, and, cordially shaking hands with him, said, "My dear Brummel, I am so glad to to see you, for we had heard in England that you were dead; the report, I assure you, was in very general circulation when I left." "Mere stock-jobbing, my good fellow--mere stock-jobbing," was the Beau's reply.

We have said that Brummel's grandfather was a pastrycook. His aunt is said to have been the widow of a grandson of Brawn, the celebrated cook who kept 'The Rummer,' in Queen Street, and who had himself kept 'The Rummer' public-house, at the Old Mews Gate, at Charing Cross. Brummel spoke with a relish worthy a descendant of 'The Rummer,' of the savoury pies of his aunt Brawn, who then resided at Kilburn. Henry Carey, in the _Dissertation on Dumpling_, assumes Braun, or Braund, as he calls him, to have been the direct descendant in the male line of his imaginary Brawnd, knighted by King John for his unrivalled skill in making dumplings, and who subsequently resided, as he tells us, "at the ancient manor of Brands, _alias_ Braunds, near Kilburn, in Middlesex." Curious the accident that found Brummel's "Aunt Brawn" a resident at Kilburn, a century after the _Dissertation on Dumpling_ was written.

[Illustration: Beau Brummel at Calais.]

[Illustration: Sir Lumley Skeffington in a "Jean de Brie."]

Sir Lumley Skeffington, Bart.

This accomplished gentleman was the son of Sir William Skeffington, a much respected Baronet of Bilsdon, in Leicestershire, where he enjoyed considerable estates and great provincial esteem. He was born in 1778, and was educated at Soho School, and at Newcome's, at Hackney. At the latter he distinguished himself in the dramatic performances for which the school was long celebrated. Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, author of _The Suspicious Husband_, and his brother, Dr. John Hoadley, were both educated here, and shone in their amateur performances; at the representation of 1764, there were upwards of "one hundred gentlemen's coaches." Young Skeffington excelled in Hamlet, as he afterwards shone in "the glass of fashion." His hereditary prospects afforded him a ready introduction to the fashionable world, and during upwards of twenty years he was considered as a leader of _ton_, and one of the most finished gentlemen in England. He was a person of considerable taste in literature: he wrote _The Word of Honour_, a comedy, and the dialogue and songs of a highly finished melodrama, founded on the legend of _The Sleeping Beauty_. In 1818 he lost his father, who having embarrassed his estates, his son, as an act of filial duty to rescue a parent from distress, consented to the cutting off the entail, by which he deprived himself of that substantial provision without which the life of a gentleman is a life of misery.

Sir Lumley was the dandy of the olden time, and a kinder, better-hearted man never existed. He was of the most polished manners; nor had his long intercourse with fashionable society at all affected that simplicity of character for which he was remarkable. He was a true dandy, and much more than that, he was a perfect gentleman. In 1827, a contributor to the _New Monthly Magazine_ wrote: "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 good-naturedly 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 recognizing 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.

"I saw him once enter St. James's Church, having at the door taken a ponderous red morocco prayer-book from his servant; but although prominently placed in the centre aisle, the pew-opener never offered him a seat; and stranger still, none of his many friends beckoned him to a place. Others in his rank of life might have been disconcerted at the position in which he was placed; but Skeffington was too much of a gentleman to be in any way disturbed; so he seated himself upon the bench between two aged female paupers, and most reverently did he go through the service, sharing with the ladies his book, the print of which was more favourable to their devotions than their own diminutive liturgies."

Sir Lumley Skeffington continued to the last to take especial interest in the theatre and its artists, notwithstanding his own reduced fortunes. He was a worshipper of female beauty, his adoration being poured forth in ardent verse. Thus, in the spring 1829, he inscribed to Miss Foote the following ballad:

When the frosts of the Winter in mildness were ending, To April I gave half the welcome of May; While the Spring, fresh in youth, came delightfully blending The buds that are sweet, and the songs that are gay.

As the eyes fixed the heart on a vision so fair, Not doubting, but trusting what magic was there, Aloud I exclaim'd, with augmented desire, I thought 'twas the Spring, when in truth 'twas Maria!

When the fading of stars in the region of splendour Announc'd that the morning was young in the east, On the upland I rov'd, admiration to render, Where freshness, and beauty, and lustre increas'd.

Whilst the beams of the morning new pleasures bestow'd, While fondly I gaz'd, while with rapture I glow'd, In sweetness commanding, in elegance bright, Maria arose! a more beautiful light.

Again, on the termination of the engagement of Miss Foote, at Drury Lane Theatre, in May, 1826, Sir Lumley addressed her in the following impromptu:

Maria departs! 'tis a sentence of dread; For the Graces turn pale, and the Fates droop their head! In mercy to breasts that tumultuously burn, Dwell no more on departure, but speak of return. Since she goes when the buds are just ready to burst, In expanding its leaves, let the willow be first. We here shall no longer find beauties in May; It cannot be Spring when Maria's away! If vernal at all, 'tis an April appears, For the blossom flies off in the midst of our tears.

Sir Lumley, through the ingratitude and treachery of

Friends found in sunshine, to be lost in storm,

became involved in difficulties and endless litigation, and his latter years were clouded with sorrow; still his buoyant spirits never altogether left him, although "the observed of all observers" passed his latter years in compulsory residence in a quarter of the great town ignored by the Sybarites of St. James's.

When Madame Vestris established a theatre of her own, Sir Lumley thus sang, in the columns of _The Times_:--

Now Vestris, the tenth of the Muses, To Mirth rears a fanciful dome, We mark, while delight she infuses, The Graces find beauty at home.

In her eye such vivacity glitters, To her voice such perfections belong, That care, and the life it embitters, Find balm in the sweets of her song.

When monarchs o'er valleys are ranging, A court is transferr'd to the green; And flowers, transplanted, are changing Not fragrance, but merely the scene.

'Tis circumstance dignifies places; A desert is charming with spring! And pleasure finds twenty new graces Wherever the Vestris may sing!

Sir Lumley, who had long been unheard of in fashionable circles, died in London in 1850 or 1851.

[Illustration: Skiffy at the Birthday Ball.]

[Illustration: Robert Coates, the Amateur of Fashion, as Romeo.]

"Romeo" Coates.

This celebrated leader of fashion, who rejoiced in the sobriquets of "Romeo" and "Diamond," obtained the former from his love of amateur acting, and the latter from his great wealth obtained from the West Indies. He was likewise noted by his splendid curricle, the body of which was in the form of a cockleshell, bearing the cock-bird as his crest; and the harness of the horses was mounted with metal figures of the same bird, with which got associated the motto of "Whilst we live, we'll crow."

By his amateur performances he shared with young Betty (Roscius) the admiration of the town. A writer in the _New Monthly Magazine_, 1827, pleasantly describes one of these performances:--"Never shall I forget his representation of Lothario (some sixty years since), at the Haymarket Theatre, for his own pleasure, as he accurately termed it; and certainly the then rising fame of Liston was greatly endangered by his Barbadoes rival. Never had Garrick or Kemble in their best times so largely excited the public attention and curiosity. The very remotest nooks of the galleries were filled by fashion; while in a stage-box sat the performer's notorious friend, the Baron Ferdinand Geramb.

"Coates's lean Quixotic form being duly clothed in velvets and in silks, and his bonnet highly fraught with diamonds (whence his appellation), his entrance on the stage was greeted by so general a _crowing_ (in allusion to the large cocks, which as his crest adorned his harness), that the angry and affronted Lothario drew his sword upon the audience, and actually challenged the rude and boisterous tenants of the galleries, _seriatim_ or _en masse_, to combat on the stage. Solemn silence, as the consequence of mock fear, immediately succeeded. The great actor, after the overture had ceased, amused himself for some time with the Baron ere he condescended to indulge the wishes of an anxiously expectant audience.

"At length he commenced: his appeals to the heart were made by the application of the left hand so disproportionately lower down than 'the seat of life' has been supposed to be placed; his contracted pronunciation of the word 'breach,' and other new readings and actings, kept the house in a right joyous humour, until the climax of all mirth was attained by the dying scene of

that gallant, gay Lothario:

but who shall describe the grotesque agonies of the dark seducer, his platted hair escaping from the comb that held it, and the dark crineous cordage that flapped upon his shoulders in the convulsions of his dying moments, and the cries of the people for medical aid to accomplish his eternal exit? Then, when in his last throes his coronet fell, it was miraculous to see the defunct arise, and after he had spread a nice handkerchief on the stage, and there deposited his head-dress, free from impurity, philosophically resume his dead condition; but it was not yet over, for the exigent audience, not content 'that when the men were dead, why there an end,' insisted on a repetition of the awful scene, which the highly flattered corpse executed three several times, to the gratification of the cruel and torment-loving assembly."

Coates was destined to be tantalized by the celebrated fête given at Carlton House, in 1821, in honour of the Bourbons. Having no opportunity of learning in the West Indies the propriety of being presented at Court ere he could be upon a more intimate footing with the Prince Regent, he was less astonished than delighted at the reception of an invitation on that occasion to Carlton House. What was the fame acquired by his cockleshell curricle; his theatrical reputation; all the applause attending the perfection of histrionic art; the flatteries of Billy Finch, a sort of kidnapper of juvenile actors and actresses of the O.P. and P.S., in Russell Court; the sanction of a Petersham; the intimacy of a Barry More; even the polite endurance of a Skeffington to this! To be classed with the proud, the noble, and the great! It seemed a natural query whether the Bourbon's name were not a pretext for his own introduction to Royalty, under circumstances of unprecedented splendour and magnificence. It must have been so. What cogitations respecting dress, and air, and port, and bearing! What torturing of the confounded lanky locks, to make them but revolve ever so little! Then the rich cut velvet,--the diamond buttons,--ay, every one was composed of brilliants. The night arrived--but for Coates's mortification. Theodore Hook had contrived to imitate one of the Chamberlain's tickets, and to produce a facsimile, commanding the presence of Coates; he then put on a scarlet uniform, and delivered the card himself. On the night of the fête, June 19th, Hook stationed himself by the screen at Carlton House, and saw Romeo arrive and enter the palace; he passed in without question, but the forgery was detected by the Private Secretary, and Coates had to retrace his steps to the street, and his carriage being driven off, to get home to Craven Street in a hackney-coach. When the Prince was informed of what had occurred, he signified his regret at the course the Secretary had taken; he was sent by his Royal Highness to apologize in person, and invite Coates to come and look at the state rooms; and Romeo went.

Mr. Coates, who by his cockleshell curricle had acquired some of his celebrity, lost his life by a vehicular accident: he died February 23, 1848, from being run over in one of the London streets. He was in his seventy-sixth year.

Abraham Newland.

Abraham Newland, who was nearly sixty years in the service of the Bank of England, and whose name became a synonym for a bank-note, was one of a family of twenty-five children, and was born in Southwark in 1730. At the age of eighteen he entered the Bank service as junior clerk. He was very fond of music, which led him into much dissipation. Still, he was very attentive to business, and in 1782 he was appointed chief cashier, with a suite of rooms for residence in the Bank, and for five-and-twenty years he never once slept out of the building. The pleasantest version of his importance is contained in the famous song in the _Whims of the Day_, published in 1800:--

There ne'er was a name so handed by fame, Thro' air, thro' ocean, and thro' land, As one that is wrote upon every bank note, And you all must know Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Notified Abraham Newland! I have heard people say, sham Abraham you may, But you must not sham Abraham Newland.

For fashion or arts, should you seek foreign parts, It matters not wherever you land, Jew, Christian, or Greek, the same language they speak That's the language of Abraham Newland! Oh, Abraham Newland! Wonderful Abraham Newland! Tho' with compliments cramm'd, you may die and be d--d, If you hav'n't an Abraham Newland.

The world is inclin'd to think Justice is blind; Lawyers know very well they can view land; But, Lord, what of that, she'll blink like a bat At the sight of an Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Magical Abraham Newland! Tho' Justice, 'tis known, can see through a millstone, She can't see through Abraham Newland.

Your patriots who bawl for the good of us all, Kind souls! here like mushrooms they strew land; Tho' loud as a drum, each proves orator mum, If attack'd by an Abraham Newland! Oh, Abraham Newland! Invincible Abraham Newland! No argument's found in the world half so sound As the logic of Abraham Newland!

The French say they're coming, but sure they are mumming; I know what they want if they do land; We'll make their ears ring in defence of our king, Our country, and Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Darling Abraham Newland! No tricolour, elf, nor the devil himself Shall e'er rob us of Abraham Newland.

In 1807, he retired from the office of chief cashier, after declining a pension. He had hitherto been accustomed, after the business at the Bank in his department had closed, and he had dined moderately, to order his carriage and drive to Highbury, where he drank tea at a small cottage. Many who lived in that neighbourhood long recollected Newland's daily walk--hail, rain, or sunshine--along Highbury Place. It was said that he regretted his retirement from the Bank; but he used to say that not for 20,000_l._ a year would he return. He then removed to No. 38, Highbury Place. His health and strength declined, it is said, through the distress of mind brought upon him by the forgeries of Robert Aslett, a clerk in the Bank, whom Newland had treated as his own son. It was well known that Abraham had accumulated a large fortune; legacy-hunters came about him, and an acquaintance sent him a ham as a present; but Newland despised the mercenary motive, and next time he saw the donor he said, "I have received a ham from you; I thank you for it," said he, but raising his finger in a significant manner, added, "I tell you it won't do, it won't do."

Newland had no extravagant expectations that the world would be drowned in sorrow when it should be his turn to leave it; and he wrote this ludicrous epitaph on himself shortly before his death:--

Beneath this stone old Abraham lies: Nobody laughs and nobody cries. Where he's gone, and how he fares, No one knows, and no one cares!

His physician, in one of his latest visits, found him reading the newspaper, when the doctor expressing his surprise, Newland replied, smiling, "I am only looking in the paper in order to see what I am reading to the world I am going to." He died November 21, 1807, without any apparent pain of body or anxiety of mind, and his remains were deposited in the church of St. Saviour, Southwark.

Newland's property amounted to 200,000_l._, besides a thousand a year landed estates. It must not be supposed that this was saved from his salary. During the whole of his career, the loans for the war proved very prolific. A certain amount of them was always reserved for the cashier's office (one Parliamentary Report names 100,000_l._), and as they generally came out at a premium, the profits were great. The family of the Goldsmids, then the leaders of the Stock Exchange, contracted for many of these loans, and to each of them he left 500_l._ to purchase a mourning ring. Newland's large funds, it is said, were also occasionally lent to the Goldsmids to assist their various speculations.

[Illustration: Squire Mytton on his bear.]

The Spendthrift Squire of Halston, John Mytton.

The extravagant fellows of a family, says Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster, have done more to overturn ancient houses than all the other causes put together; and no case could be more in point to establish the fact than the history of John Mytton, descended from the Myttons of Halston, who represented, in the days of the Plantagenets, the borough of Shrewsbury in Parliament, and filled the office of High Sheriff of Shropshire at a very remote period. So far back as 1480, Thomas Mytton, when holding that appointment, was the fortunate captor of Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whom he conducted to Salisbury for trial and decapitation; and in requital Richard III. bestowed on "his trusty and well-beloved squire, Thomas Mytton," the Duke's forfeited castle and lordship of Cawes. Halston, to which the Myttons transferred their seat from their more ancient residence of Cawes Castle and Habberley, is called in ancient deeds "Holystone," and was in early times a preceptory of Knights Templars. The Abbey, taken down about one hundred and sixty years ago, was erected near where the present mansion stands. In the good old times of Halston, before reckless waste had dismantled its halls and levelled its ancestral woods, the oak was seen here in its full majesty of form; and it is related that one particular tree, coeval with many centuries of the family's greatness, was cut down by the spendthrift squire in the year 1826, and contained ten tons of timber.

In the great civil war, Mytton of Halston was one of the few Shropshire gentlemen who joined the Parliamentary standard. From this gallant and upright Parliamentarian, the fifth in descent was John Mytton, the eccentric, wasteful, dissipated, open-hearted, open-handed Squire of Halston, in whose day and by whose wanton extravagance and folly, a time-honoured family and a noble estate, the inheritance of five hundred years, was recklessly destroyed.