the sad change which took place in his affairs at this time. "He used," observes one of his friends at Caen, "when talking about his altered circumstances, to say, that up to a particular period of his life everything prospered with him, and that he attributed this good luck to the possession of a certain silver sixpence, with a hole in it, which somebody had given him years before, with an injunction to take good care of it, as everything would go well with him so long as he did, and vice versa, if he happened to lose it. The promised prosperity attended him for many years, whilst he held the sixpence fast; but having at length, in an evil hour, unfortunately given it by mistake to a hackney-coachman, a complete reverse of his previous good fortune took place, and one disastrous occurrence succeeded to another, till actual ruin overtook him at last, and obliged him to expatriate himself. On my asking him why he did not advertise, and offer a reward for the lost treasure, he said, 'I did, and twenty people came with sixpences having holes in them to obtain the promised reward, but mine was not amongst them.' 'And you never afterwards,' said I, 'ascertained what became of it?' 'Oh yes!' he replied, 'no doubt that rascal Rothschild, or some of his set, got hold of it.' If you think the foregoing plaisanterie worth inserting, do so; I can vouch for its authenticity, as it occurred in conversation with myself. Whatever poor Brummell's superstitious tendencies may have generally been, he had unquestionably a superstitious veneration for his

VOL. I.

U

lost sixpence." But to continue: a cloud also had for some time been gathering over his fame as well as his fortunes; the prestige of his name was going, and his fiat no longer regarded; public events had eclipsed him, and the ladies of the beau monde were far more interested in hero-worship, or in procuring a hair from the tail of Platoff's horse, than securing the good opinion of the once all-powerful dictator. Brummell and Buonaparte, who had hitherto divided the attention of the world, fell almost together; the former being doomed to the mortification of seeing his share bestowed on the sea-fight in the Serpentine, the Chinese Pagoda, and Oldenburg hats, and his cleanliness forgotten in that of the fierce sons of the Don.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Symptoms of a Move-Brummell's Epistle to his Friend Scrope DavisThe Wit's Laconic Reply-His Extraordinary Penchant at CollegeBrummell Cuts his Cable, and Comes to an Anchor at Calais-The Author passes through that Town-Boxing, Gouging, and the Savatte-The Table d'Hôte at the Royal-The Mysterious StrangerA Walk on the Market-Place-English Refugees-Various Reasons for Expatriation.

Ar length the pressing solicitations of the Dandykiller made London-London, in the height of the season-positively unpleasant to unpleasant to the unfortunate Antonio, who would perhaps have given a pound of flesh, ay, and perhaps more, to have averted the crisis; but his creditor was no Shylock, and ducats there were none, so there was but one alternative left, and on the 16th of May, 1816, he suddenly retired from the stage on which he had played such a conspicuous part. On this eventful Thursday, he dined off a cold fowl and a bottle of claret, which was sent him from Watier's, and it is said that only a few hours before he took wing, he wrote the following laconic note to one of his intimes:

"MY DEAR SCROPE,-Lend me two hundred pounds; the banks are shut, and all my money is in the three

per cents. It shall be repaid to-morrow morning. Yours,

GEORGE BRUMMELL."

His friend, very probably thinking that he was hard up, immediately sent him this equally laconic reply:

"MY DEAR GEORGE,-'Tis very unfortunate; but all my money is in the three per cents.-Yours,

"S. DAVIES."1

"Scrope Davies," says Lord Byron, "is a wit, and a man of the world, and feels as much as such a character can do." In this respect the resemblance between the two friends was sufficiently strong, and, if the anecdote is true, the answer could scarcely have occasioned Brummell any surprise. But he was not a man to moralise upon it, or soliloquise in front of his club or the houses of his friends, those houses in which he had been so often a welcome guest; though, as he passed them this evening for the last time, the future must have pressed itself upon his mind, with a

1 A clergyman, a friend of mine, told me that he was once roused from his slumbers in the dead of the night by a violent knocking at his bed-room door, and a shrill female voice, calling out in accents of terror, "Sir, sir, Mary's a beginning to cut her throat," another Abigail of the establishment. I allude to the circumstance, as an introduction to an anecdote told of Scrope Davies, who, when at Cambridge, is said to have cut his, after every Newmarket meeting; indeed so frequently did he amuse himself in this way, that on one occasion the medical man who was sent for refused to hurry when he heard it was Scrope's throat that he was required to sew up, saying, "There is no danger of him, I have done that six times already."

very cheerless and unpromising aspect. On the night that he left 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 of the 17th 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 and his enemies, both of whom had long scores against him.

1

All sorts of reports were in circulation at the time Brummell disappeared. Thus in the "Diary of a Diplomatist" we find it stated, on May 21, 1816, "The respectable fraternity of legs in high life are thrown into a state of extreme consternation by the disappearance of Beau Brummell, a friend of the Prince Regent, with £40,000, the whole of which he is said to have fraudulently obtained. He absconded on Saturday last." And on May 24, two o'clock P.M.: "Beau Brummell's deficiencies amount to a still greater sum than I mentioned G told me an hour ago that he borrowed the money in the way of acceptances from the Duke of Rutland, Lords Charles and John Manners, &c. The Marquis of Worcester stood the flat for £7000. Brummell's private debts are very considerable, he

1 New Monthly Magazine, November 18, 1846.