impertinent remarks on her extraordinary dress and infirm gait. "Directly my friend caught sight of them, and saw what they were after, he went to her assistance, threatened to give them in charge to a Bow Street officer, and with his best bow offered her his arm. She accepted it, and on the stairs he enquired whether she had a chair or a carriage? at the same time intimating his willingness to go for one. 'Thank you, sir, I have my chair,' replied the old lady, 'if you will only be good enough to remain with me until it arrives' as she was speaking, her servants came up with it, and making the cavalier a very stately curtsy, she requested to know to whom she had the honour of being indebted for so much attention? 'My name, madam,' replied the stranger, as he handed her to her chair, 'is Boothby, but I am usually called Prince Boothby;' upon which the antiquated lady thanked him once more, and left. Well, from that hour Boothby never saw her again, and did not even hear of her till her death, which took place a few years after; when he received a letter from her lawyer, announcing to him the agreeable intelligence of her having left him heir to several thousands a year! Now, my good sir," said Brummel to the abashed but youthful delinquent, "for the future, pray remember Prince Boothby." John Skrimshire Boothby, was one of the most celebrated of the fine gentlemen of his day, the great peculiarity of whose dress was the shape of his hat, which he never changed. He is supposed to be the person alluded to by Foote in one of his farces, as distinguished by his partiality for people of high rank, and ready at any time to leave a baronet to walk with a baron,-" to be genteelly damned beside a duke, rather than saved in vulgar company." Moore, in allusion to him, or his double, says, "Beside him place the god of wit, And Love's own sister for an Earl's." Boothby was well bred, intelligent, and amiable, but extremely eccentric, and he ended his career at his house in Clarges Street by his own hand, in July 1800. His servants at the inquest bore the strongest testimony to his character as a good master, and a kind-hearted man. He had been possessed of three large estates; the first was his own inheritance, which he dissipated; the second came to him from a distant family connection; and the third was the gift of the ancient lady in the lobby, whose name was Clopton, which he afterwards added to his own. Boothby was a great friend of the fifth Duke of Rutland, Lords Carlisle and Derby, and Charles Fox; and was brother-in-law to that fox-hunting centaur, the late Hugo Meynell. He was also a member of the clubs in St. James Street, where he used to play very high; and he is mentioned in Moore's Life of Sheridan as having made a bet with the orator of five hundred guineas, that there would not be a reform in the representation of the people of England, within three years from the date of the bet, the 29th of January 1793. Mr. Moore does not say that Sheridan paid. CHAPTER IX. Brummell's Softer Moments-His Numerous Offers-His Honesty in Love Affairs-The Intended Mrs. Brummell-His Flirtations and Love Letters-His Great Popularity with the Fair Sex-His GoodNature-Miss Seymour's Letter to him-Brummell's regard for her. THOUGH I have already alluded to Brummell's predilection for female society, I have not yet spoken of those moments, perhaps the most interesting of a man's life, at least to himself-his moments of tendresse. Brummell had his; but the organ of love in his cranium was only faintly developed. His temperament was elephantine; still it was scarcely possible for him to be constantly in the society of the most beautiful and accomplished girls in Europe, and who will deny that the daughters of our aristocracy are so ?-without having a preference for one of them, or perhaps half a dozen; and this was the case; for he never attained any degree of intimacy with a pretty woman of rank that he did not make her an offer, not with any idea of being accepted, but because he thought it was paying the lady a great compliment, and procured her an unusual degree of éclat in the fashionable world. His original view of the subject appears to have been generally understood and acted upon by his friends. One of his idols, however, seemed inclined to take him at his word, Lady W-; and often have I heard him rave about her. But Brummell's vanity and honesty in love affairs were equally extraordinary. It is related of him that he came one morning into the library of a noble friend, at whose house he was a frequent visitor, and told him, with much warmth and sincerity of manner, that he was very sorry, very sorry indeed, but he must positively leave Park that morn ing. "Why, you were not to go till next month! said the hospitable peer. "True, true," replied Brummell anxiously, "but I must be off." "But what for?" "Why the fact is-I am in love with. your countess." "Well, my dear fellow, never mind that, so was I twenty years ago-is she in love with you?" The Beau hesitated, and after scrutinising for a few seconds the white sheep-skin rug, said faintly, "I-believe she is." "Oh! that alters the case entirely," replied the earl; "I will send for your post-horses immediately." Once, however, though not with a lady of rank, he did very nearly "his quietus make with a gold ring;" for he interested the demoiselle sufficiently to induce her to consent to elope with him. The most favourable opportunity that presented itself for so doing, was at a ball in the neighbourhood of Grosvenor Square; but his measures on the occasion were so badly taken, that he and the intended Mrs. Brummell |