and the Rev. A. Dyce, I am indebted for much kind and valuable assistance, in my endeavours to ascertain what portions of the poetry in Brummell's album had already been published. This has, I trust, together with my own researches, protected me from the error of publishing, as a novelty, what has been printed before, a remark which I hope will also apply correctly to the remaining little pieces and epigrams : they were entered anonymously, and with the exception of the epigrams, may or may not be, what he designates in his note, as some of his own "nambypamby productions;" if so, the following was probably written at Calais or Caen. TO MISS F. "Though such unbounded love you swear, 'Tis only art I see; Can I believe that one so fair Should ever dote on me? Say that you hate, and freely show That age displeases youth, THE YOUNGER BROTHER'S CLAIM. "Whene'er in rapturous praise I speak They tell me that I praise in vain, For Susan proudly will disdain A younger brother's claim. Yet my fond heart will not resign When first my eyes beheld her; I still believe my Bible true, For there 'tis clearly proved that you, LES MILLE COLONNES. "Boast, Versailles, thy hundred fountains; Place Vendôme let Mars arouse, and Raise one column o'er War's throne; Cupid elsewhere builds a thousand, Vivent! ah, vivent les Mille Colonnes. English, French, there throng together Prince Eugene's Italian throne is Pallas wove her Mechlin laces, Iris tinged that face of faces, Flora dressed those towering curls. But the Queen of love and joy, all Heaven forsook, her azure zone, Gasting in the Palais Royal, Round la dame des Mille Colonnes. As the dog of Nile when drinking Coy the alligator shuns, Quaffs the stream with terror shrinking, Dread, fond youths, this Gallic Circe, Fly! ah, fly! les Mille Colonnes !"1 ON THE COLLAR OF A LADY'S DOG. A quiconque me trouvera : Qui me ramène à ma maitresse, EPIGRAMS. "Certain rimeur, qui jamais ne repose, Qu'il ne sait point écrire en prose; Lisez ses vers-vous verrez comme il ment." Well known, but worthy of a reprint: D'UNE FEMME PAR SON MARI. 1 The Café des Mille Colonnes in Paris was visited by many people of fashion from 1814 to 1824, chiefly on account of the proprietor's handsome wife, Madame Romain, surnamed la belle limonadière, who sat behind the counter on a throne, which had formerly belonged to Eugène Beauharnais, when viceroy of Italy. The "towering curls" refer to her peculiar headdress; her portrait can be seen in the tenth chapter of V. Fournel's Les Rues du Vieux Paris, Paris, 1879. Madame Romain, a few years after the death of her very plain-looking and onearmed husband, retired to a convent, where she died. CHAPTER XXII. Brummell at the Clubs-Watier's-Lord Byron and the Dandies-The Ball at the Argyle-Brummell one of the Four Gentlemen who gave it -The Regent goes to it-The Beau's Run of Good Luck at HazardAlderman Combe and Brummell-Tom Sheridan and Brummell -High Play at Watier's-Brummell's Continued Losses-His Friend's Good-natured Attempt to Save Him-Ill Success of his Scheme-Dick the Dandy-killer-A New Way to Pay Old DebtsThe Sixpence with a Hole in it-The Storm Gathering. Ar the commencement of Brummell's career, he was generally with the Prince or his great friends, and but seldom at the clubs; so seldom, indeed, that one of his chums in the Tenth told me that he rarely met him at them. He did not at this period require strong excitements, like his friends Sheridan and Fox, and men of similar dispositions; to them the clubs were like night taverns, to which they retired for amusement, after undergoing the terrible sufferings of politicians wisely condemned by the country to legislate for it till midnight. Deep potations, blade-bones of mutton, and the music of the dice-box he had, at this time, the good sense to eschew: 'tis true he dropped in occasionally upon their orgies, pour se dévaliser l'esprit, and to enjoy the jokes of others, but not to steep his own intellects in wine. After his quarrel with the Prince, he was a great deal more at the clubs, particularly Watier's, which was at the corner of Bolton Street, and extremely select; this club was established by a person of that name, with a committee of gentlemen, Brummell being one of its principal supporters. It is thus alluded to by Lord Byron, who calls it the "Dandy Club," and he speaks of Lord Alvanley, Brummell, Mildmay, and Pierrepoint, as the four chiefs. "I liked the Dandies," says the noble Poet; "they were all very civil to me, although in general they disliked literary people, and persecuted and mystified Madame de Staël, Lewis, Horace Twiss, and the like, most damnably. They persuaded Madame de Staël 1 Brummell was also a member of Brookes's; he was proposed by Mr. Fawkener, on the 2nd of April 1799, and declined, as it is delicately expressed in the ledger of the club, in May 1816. In the July number of the Edinburgh Review 1844 appeared an article on John Heneage Jesse's "George Selwyn and his Contemporaries," in which it is stated that, “Watier's Club in Piccadilly was the resort of the Macao players. It was kept by an old maître d'hôtel of George the Fourth, a character in his way, who took a just pride in the cookery and wines of the establishment. All the brilliant stars of fashion (and fashion was power then) frequented it, with Brummell for their sun. Poor Brummell dead, in misery and idiocy at Caen! and I remember him in all his glory, cutting his jokes after the Opera at White's in a black velvet greatcoat and a cocked hat on his well-powdered hair. Nearly the same turn of reflection is suggested, on gaming, as we run over the names of his associates. Almost all of these were ruined, three out of four irretrievably. Indeed it was the forced expatriation of its supporters that caused Watier's to be broken up. During the same period, from 1810 to 1813 or thereabouts, there was a great deal of high play at White's and Brookes's, particularly whist. At Brookes's figured some remarkable characters, such as Tippoo Smith, Colonel Aubrey, and a nobleman who was called "le Wellington des joueurs." |