and half human, with a masculine coarseness of manner that, I am
told, has been faithfully copied from their great original, the once
celebrated Martha Gun. It is not unusual for these women to continue in
the water up to their waists for four hours at a time, without suffering
the least affection of cold or rheumatism, and living to a great age.
A dingy empiric has invented a new system of _humbug_ which is in great
repute here, and is called _shampooing_; a sort of stewing alive
by steam, sweetened by being forced through odoriferous herbs, and
undergoing the pleasant sensation of being dabbed all the while with
pads of flannels through holes in the wet blankets that surround you,
until the cartilaginous substances of your joints are made as pliable
as the ligaments of boiled calves' feet, your whole system relaxed and
unnerved, and your trembling legs as useless in supporting your body as
a pair of boots would be without the usual quantity of flesh and bone
within them. The Steyne affords excellent subject for the study of
character, and the pencil of the humorist; the walks round are paved
with brick, which, when the thermometer is something above eighty-six
in the shade (the case just now), is very like pacing your parched
feet over the pantiles of a Turkish stove. There is, indeed, a
~307~~grass-plot within the rails, but the luxury of walking upon it
is reserved for the fishermen of the place exclusively, except on some
extraordinary occasion, when the whole rabble of the town are let loose
to annoy the visitants by puffing tobacco smoke in their faces, or
jostling and insulting them with coarse ribaldry, until the genteel and
decent are compelled to quit the promenade. I have had two or three such
specimens of Brighton manners while staying here, and could only wish I
had the assistance of about twenty of the _Oxford_togati_, Trinitarians,
or Bachelors of Brazennose. I think we should hit upon some expedient to
tame these brutes, and teach them civilized conduct--an Herculean labour
which the town authorities seem afraid to attempt. The easy distance
between this and the metropolis, with the great advantages of
expeditious travelling, enable the multitudinous population of London
to pour forth its motley groups, in greater variety than at any other
watering place, Margate excepted, with, however, this difference in
favour of the former, that the mixture had more of the sprinkling of
fashion about them, here and there a name of note, a splendid equipage,
or a dazzling star, to illumine the dull nomenclatures in the library
books of the Johnson's, the Thomson's, the Brown's, and the Levi's. The
last-mentioned fraternity congregate here in shoals, usurp all the best
lodgings, at the windows of which they are to be seen soliciting notice,
with their hooked noses, copper countenances, and inquisitive eyes,
decked out in all the faded finery of Petticoat-lane, or Bevis Marks;
while the heads of the houses of Israel run down on a Saturday, after
the Stock Exchange closes, and often do as much business here on the
Sabbath, in gambling speculations for the _account day_, as they have
done all the week before in London. Here, too, you have the felicity
to meet your tailor in his tandem, your ~308~~butcher on his _trotter_,
your shoemaker in a _fly_, and your wine-merchant with his bit of
blood, his girl, and tilbury, making a greater splash than yourself, and
pleasantly pointing you out to observation as a long-winded one, a great
gambler, or some other such gratuitous return for your ill-bestowed
patronage. To amalgamate with such _canaille_ is impossible--you are
therefore driven into seclusion, or compelled to confine your visits
and amusements to nearly the same circle you have just left London to be
relieved from. Among the "observed" of the present time, the great star
of attraction is the rich Banker's widow, who occupies the corner house
of the Grand Parade, eclipsing in splendid equipages and attendants an
Eastern nabob, or royalty itself. Good fortune threw old Crony in my
way, just as I had caught a glimpse of the widow's cap: you know his dry
sarcastic humour and tenacious memory, and perhaps I ought to add, my
inquisitive disposition. From him I gleaned a sketch of the widow's
history, adorned with a few comments, which gallantry to the fair sex
will not allow me to repeat. She had just joined conversation with
the Marquis of H----, who was attended by Jackson, the pugilist; an
illustrious personage and a noble earl were on her left; while behind
the _jolie_ dame, at a respectful distance, paced two liveried emblems
of her deceased husband's bounty, clad in the sad habiliments of woe,
and looking as merry as mutes at a rich man's funeral. _(See Plate.)
[Illustration: page308]
"She has the reputation of being very charitable," said I. "She has,"
responded Crony; "but the total neglect of poor Wewitzer, in the hour
of penury and sickness, is no proof of her feeling, much less of her
generosity. I have known her long," continued Crony, "from her earliest
days of obscurity and indigence to these of unexampled prosperity, and
I never could agree with common report in that particular." I dare say
I looked at this moment very ~309~~significantly; for Crony, without
waiting my request, continued his history. "Her father was the gay and
dissolute Jack Kinnear, well known in Dublin for his eccentricities
about the time of the Rebellion, in which affair he made himself so
conspicuous that he was compelled to expatriate, and fled to England by
way of Liverpool; where his means soon failing, Jack, never at a
loss, took up the profession of an actor, and succeeded admirably. His
animated style and attractive person are still spoken of with delight
by many of the old inhabitants of Carlisle, Rochdale, Kendal, and the
neighbouring towns of Lancashire, where he first made his appearance in
an itinerant company, then under the management of a man of the name
of Bibby, and in whose house, under very peculiar circumstances, our
heroine was born; but
'Merit and worth from no condition rise;
Act well your part--there all the honour lies.'
~309~~That little Harriet was a child of much promise there is no doubt,
playing, in her mother's name, at a very early period, all the juvenile
parts in Bibby's company with great _eclat_ until she attained the age
of eighteen, when her abilities procured her a situation to fill the
first parts in genteel comedy in the theatres-royal Manchester and
Liverpool. From this time her fame increased rapidly, which was not
a little enhanced by her attractive person, and consequent number of
admirers; for even among the cotton lords of Manchester a fine-grown,
raven-locked, black-eyed brunette, arch, playful, and clever, could not
fail to create sensations of desire: but at this time the affections
of the lady were fixed on a son of Thespis, then a member of the same
company, and to whom she was shortly afterwards betrothed; but the
marriage, from some capricious cause or other, was never consummated:
the actor, well-known as Scotch Grant, is now much reduced in life, and
a member of ~310~~one of the minor companies of the metropolis. On her
quitting Liverpool, in 1794, she played at the Stafford theatre during
the election contest, where, having the good-fortune to form an intimacy
with the Hortons, a highly-respectable family then resident there,
and great friends of Sheridan, they succeeded, on the return of that
gentleman to parliament for the borough of Stafford, to obtain from him
an engagement for our heroine at the theatre-royal Drury Lane, of which
he was at that time proprietor. 'Brevity is the soul of wit,'" said
Crony: "I shall not attempt to enumerate all the parts she played there;
suffice it to say, she was successful, and became a great favourite with
the public. It was here she first attracted the notice of the rich old
banker, who having just discarded another actress, Mrs. M----r, whom
he had kept some time, on account of an intimacy he discovered with
the lady and P----e, the oboe player, he made certain propositions,
accompanied with such liberal presents, that the fair yielded to the
all-powerful influence, not of love, but gold; and having, through the
interference of poor W----, secured to herself a settlement which
made her independent for life, threw out the well-planned story of the
lottery ticket, as a 'tub to the whale': a stratagem that, for some
time, succeeded admirably, until a malicious wag belonging to the
company undertook to solve the riddle of her prosperity, by pretending
to bet a wager of one hundred, that the lady had actually gained twenty
thousand pounds by the lottery, and he would name the ticket: with this
excuse, for what otherwise might have been deemed impertinent, he put
the question, and out of the reply developed the whole affair. All
London now rung with the splendour of her equipage, the extent of her
charities, and the liberality of her conduct to an old actor and a young
female friend, Miss S----n, who was invariably seen with ~311~~her in
public. Such was the notoriety of the intimacy, that the three
married daughters of the banker, all persons of title and the highest
respectability, thought it right to question their father, relative to
the truth of the reports in circulation. Whatever might have been their
apprehensions, their fears were quieted by the information, that the
lady in question was a natural daughter, born previous to the alliance
to which they owed their birth: this assurance not only induced the
parties to admit her to their presence, but she was also introduced
to, and became intimate with, the wife of the man to whom she owes her
present good fortune. It was now, that, feeling herself secure, she
displayed that capricious feeling which has since marked her character:
poor W----r, her mentor and defender, was on some mere pretence
abandoned, and a sturdy blustering fellow, in the same profession,
substituted for the sincere adviser, the witty and agreeable companion:
it was to R----d she sent a present of one thousand pounds, for a single
ticket, on his benefit night. But her ambition had not yet attained its
highest point: the banker's wife died, and our fortunate heroine was
elected to her place while yet the clay-cold corse of her predecessor
remained above ground; a circumstance, which brought down a heavy
calamity on the clerical who performed the marriage rites,{2} but
which was remedied by an annuity from the banker. From this period, the
haughty bearing of the lady exceeded all bounds; the splendour of her
establishment, the extravagance of her parties, and the munificence of
her charities, trumpeted forth by that many-tongued oracle, the public
press, eclipsed the brilliancy of the
2 Saturnine B----n, the author of 'the stage,' a Poem, on
hearing the day after her marriage with the banker, a
conversation relative to her age, said he was sure the
party were all in error, as there could be no doubt the lady
was on the previous night _under age_.
~312~~royal banquets, and outshone the greatest and wealthiest of the
stars of fashion. About this time, her hitherto inseparable companion
made a slip with a certain amorous manager; and such was the indignation
of our moral heroine on the discovery, that she spurned the unfortunate
from her for ever, and actually turned the offending spark out of doors
herself, accompanying the act with a very unladylike demonstration of
her vengeance. B----d, her most obsequious servant, died suddenly.
Poor Dr. J---- A----s, who gave up a highly respectable and increasing
practice, in Greek-street, Soho, as a physician, to attend, exclusively,
on the 'geud auld mon' and his rib, met such a return for his kindness
and attention, that he committed suicide. Her next friend, a Mr. G----n,
a very handsome young man, who was induced to quit his situation in the
bank for the office of private secretary, made a mistake one night,
and eloped with the female confidante of the banker's wife, a crime for
which the perpetrator could never hope to meet with forgiveness. It
is not a little singular," said Crony, "that almost all her intimate
acquaintances have, sooner or later, fallen into disrepute with their
patroness, and felt how weak is the reliance upon the capricious and the
wayward." On the death of the old banker, our heroine had so wheedled
the dotard, that he left her, to the surprise of the world, the whole of
his immense property, recommending only certain legacies, and leaving
an honourable and high-minded family dependent upon her bountiful
consideration. "I could relate some very extraordinary anecdotes arising
out of that circumstance," said Crony; "but you must be content with
one, farcical in the extreme, which fully displays the lady's affection
for her former profession, and shows she is a perfect mistress of stage
effect. On the removal of the shrivelled remains of the old dotard for
interment, his affectionate rib accompanied the ~313~~procession, and
when they rested for the night at an inn on the road, guarded them in
death as she had done in the close of life, by sleeping on a sofa in
the same room. Cruel, cruel separation! what a scene for the revival of
'grief a la mode!' "But she is unhappy with all her wealth," said the
cynic. "Careless as some portion of our nobility are in their choice
of companions for their sports or pleasures, they have yet too much
consideration left of what is due to their rank, their wives, and
daughters, not to hesitate before they receive----. But never mind,"
said Crony; "you know the rest. You must have heard of a recent calamity
which threatened the lady; and on which that mad wag, John Bull, let fly
some cutting jokes. A very sagacious police magistrate, accompanied by
one of his _indefatigables_, went to _inspect the premises_, accompanied
by a gentleman of the faculty; but, after all their united efforts to
unravel the mystery, it turned out a mere _scratch_, a very flat affair.
[Illustration: page313]
~314~~"I think," said Crony, "we have now arrived at the ultimatum of
the widow's history, and may as well take a turn or two up the Steyne,
to look out for other character. The ancient female you perceive yonder,
leaning on her tall gold-headed cane, is Miss J----s, a maid of honour
to the late Queen Charlotte, and the particular friend of Mrs. F----l:
said to be the only one left out of eight persons, who accompanied
two celebrated personages, many years since, in a stolen matrimonial
speculation to Calais.
She is as highly respected as her friend Mrs. F----l is beloved here."
"Who the deuce is that strange looking character yonder, enveloped in a
boat-cloak, and muffled up to the eyes with a black handkerchief?"
"That is a very important personage in a watering place, I assure you,"
replied Crony; "being no other than the celebrated Peter Paragraph, the
London correspondent to the Morning Post, who involves, to use his
own phrase, the whole hemisphere of fashion in his mystifications and
reports: informs the readers of that paper how many rays of sunshine
have exhilarated the Brightonians during the week, furnishes a correct
journal of fogs, rains, storms, shipwrecks, and hazy mists; and, above
all, announces the arrivals and departures, mixing up royal and noble
fashionables and _kitchen stuff'_ in the same beautiful obscurity of
diction. Peter was formerly a _friseur_; but has long since quitted
the shaving and cutting profession for the more profitable calling
of collector of _on dits_ and _puffs extraordinaire_. The swaggering
broad-shouldered blade who follows near him, with a frontispiece like
the red lion, is the well-known radical, Jack S----h, now agent to the
French consul for this place, and the unsuccessful candidate for the
_independent_ borough of Shoreham." "A complete eccentric, by all my
hopes of pleasure! Crony, who are those two dashing divinities, who come
tripping along so lively yonder?" "Daughters of ~315~~pleasure," replied
the cynic; "a pair of justly celebrated paphians, west-end comets, who
have come here, no doubt, with the double view of profit and amusement.
The plump looking dame on the right, is Aug--ta C--ri, (otherwise lady
H----e); so called after the P--n--ss A----a, her godmamma. Her father,
old Ab--t, one of Q----n C----te's _original_ German pages, brought up
a large family in respectability, under the fostering protection of his
royal mistress. Aug----ta, at the early age of fifteen, eloped from St.
James's, on a matrimonial speculation with a young musician, Mr. An----y
C----, (himself a boy of 18)! From such a union what could be expected?
a mother at 16, and a neglected dishonoured wife, before she had counted
many years of womanhood. If she fell an unresisting victim to the
seduction which her youth, beauty, and musical talents attracted, '_her
stars were more to blame than she._' Let it be recorded, however,
that her conduct as wife and mother was free from reproach, until a
_depraved, unnatural_ man (who by the way has since fled the country)
set her the example of licentiousness.
"Amongst her earliest admirers, was the wealthy citizen, Mr. S----
M----, a bon vivant, a _five-bottle_ man (who has, not unaptly, been
since nominated a representative in p----l for one of the _cinque
ports_).
To this witty man's generous care she is indebted for an annuity, which,
with common prudence, ought to secure her from want during her own life.
On her departure from this lover, which proceeded entirely from her own
caprice and restless extravagance, the vain Aug--ta launched at once
into all the dangerous pleasures of a cyprian life. The court, the city,
and the _'change_, paid homage to her charms. One high in the r----l
h----h----id wore her chains for many months; and it was probably more
in the spirit of revenge for open neglect, than admiration of such a
~316~~faded beau, that lady G---- B---- admitted the E---- of B----e to
usurp the husband's place and privilege.
It is extraordinary that the circumstance just mentioned, which was
notorious, was not brought forward in mitigation of the damages for
the loss of conjugal joys; and which a jury of citizens, with a tender
feeling for their own honour, valued at ten thousand pounds. My lord
G---- B---- pocketed the injury and the ten thousand,; and his noble
substitute has since made the 'amende honorable' to public morals, by
uniting his destinies with an amiable woman, the daughter of a doctor of
music, and a beauty of the sister country, who does honour to the rank
to which she has been so unexpectedly elevated.
"Mrs. C----i had no acquaintance of her own sex in the world of gaiety
but one; the beautiful, interesting, Mademoiselle St. M--g--te, then
(1812 and 1813) in the zenith of her charms. The gentle Ad--l--de,
whose sylph-like form, graceful movements, and highly polished manner,
delighted all who knew her, formed a strange and striking contrast to
the short, fat, bustling, salacious Aug--ta, whose boisterous bon-mots,
and horse-laughical bursts, astonished rather than charmed. Both,
however, found abundance of admirers to their several tastes. It was
early in the spring of 1814 that the subject of this article had
the good or evil fortune to attract the eye of a noble lord of some
notoriety, who pounced on his plump prey with more of the amorous
assurance of the bird of Jove than the cautious hoverings of the wary
H--ke. Love like his admitted of no delay. Preliminaries were soon
arranged, under the auspices of that experienced matron, Madame
D'E--v--e, whose address, in this delicate negotiation, extorted from
his lordship's generosity, besides a cheque on H----d and
G--bbs for a cool hundred, the payment of 'brother Martin's' old score,
of long standing, for bed and board at Madame's house of business,
little St. Martin's-~317~~street. The public have been amused with the
ridiculous story of the mock marriage; but whatever were his faults
or follies, and he is since called to his account, his l--ds--p stands
guiltless of this. 'Tis true, her 'ladyship' asserted, nay, we believe,
swore as much; but she is known to possess such boundless imaginative
faculties, that her nearest and dearest friends have never yet been
able to detect her in the weakness of uttering a palpable truth. The
assumption of the name and title arose out of a circumstance so strange,
so ridiculous, and so unsavoury, that, with all our 'gusto' for fun, we
must omit it: suffice it to say, that it originated in--what?--gentle
reader--in a dose of physic!!! For further particulars, apply to Mrs.
C----l, of the C--s--le S--t--h--ll. After this strange event, which
imparted to her ladyship all the honours of the coronet, Mrs. C----i
was to be seen in the park, from day to day; the envy of every less
fortunate Dolly, and the horror of the few friends which folly left her
lordly dupe. In this state of doubtful felicity her ladyship rolled on
(for she almost lived in her carriage) for three years; when, alas! by
some cruel caprice of love, or some detected intrigue, or from the
holy scruples of his lordship's Reverend adviser, Padre Ambrosio, this
connexion was suddenly dissolved at Paris; when Mrs. C----, no longer
acknowledged as my lady, was at an hour's notice packed off in the Dilly
for Dover, and her jewels, in half the time, packed up in their casket
and despatched to Lafitte's, in order to raise the ways and means for
the peer and his ghostly confessor!
"Her ladyship's next attempt at notoriety was her grand masked ball at
the Argyll rooms in 1818; an entertainment which, for elegant display
and superior arrangement, did great credit to her taste, or to that of
her broad-shouldered Milesian friend, to whom it is said the management
of the whole was committed. The expense of this act of folly has been
variously ~318~~estimated; and the honour of defraying it gratuitously
allotted to an illustrious commander, whose former weakness and
culpability has been amply redeemed by years of truly r----l benevolence
and public service. We can state, however, that neither the purse or
person of the royal D----contributed to the _eclat_ of the _fete_. An
amorous Hebrew city clerk, who had long '_looked and loved_' at humble
distance, taking advantage of his uncle's absence on the continent in
a _diamond hunting_ speculation, having left the immediate jewel of His
soul, his cash, at home, the enamoured youth seized the very 'nick o'
time,' furnished half the funds for the night, for half a morning's
conversation in Upper Y--street: her ladyship's indefatigable industry
furnished the other moiety in a couple of days. A Mr. Z--ch--y
contributed fifty, which coming to the ears of his sandy-haired lassie,
his own paid forfeit of his folly, to their almost total abstraction
from the thick head to which they project with asinine pride. Since this
splash in the whirlpool of fashionable folly, her 'ladyship,' for she
clings to the rank with all the tenacity of a fencible field officer,
has lived in comparative retirement near E--dg--e R--d, nursing a
bantling of the new era, and singing '_John Anderson my Joe_' to her now
'gude man;' only occasionally relapsing into former gaieties by a sly
trip to Box Hill or Virginia Water with the grandson of a barber, a
flush but gawky boy, who, forgetting that it is to the talents and
judicial virtues of his honoured sire he owes his elevation, rejects
that proud and wholesome example; and, by his arrogance and vanity,
excites pity for the father and contempt for the son. Her ladyship, who
by her own confession has been 'just nine and twenty' for the last
ten years, may still boast of her conquests. Her amour with the _yellow
dwarf_ of G--vs--r P--e is too good to be lost. They are followed by
one, who, time was, would have chased them round the Steyne ~319~~and
into cover with all the spirit of a true sportsman; but his days
of revelry are past,--that is the celebrated _roue_, C---- L----, a
'_trifle light as air,_' yet in nature's spite a very ultra in the
pursuit of gallantry. To record the number of frail fair ones to whose
charms he owned ephemeral homage would fill a volume. The wantons wife
whose vices sunk her from the drawing-room to the lobby; the{4} kitchen
wench, whose pretty face and lewd ambition raised her to it; the romance
bewildered{5} Miss, and the rude unlettered {6} villager, the hardened
drunken profligate, and the timid half-ruined victim (the almost
infant Jenny!) have all in turn tasted his bounty and his wine, have
each been honoured with a page in his trifles: of his caresses he wisely
was more chary. Which of the frail sisterhood has not had a ride in
G---- L----'s worn out in the service 1 and which in its day might be
said to roll mechanically from C----L----to C----s-s--t, with almost
instinctive precision. But his days of poesy and nights of folly are now
past!
Honest C----has taken the hint from nature, and retired, at once,
from the republics of Venus and of letters. A kind, a generous, and a
susceptible heart like his must long ere this have found, in the arms
of an amiable wife, those unfading and honourable joys which, reflection
must convince him, were not to be extracted from those foul and polluted
sources from whence he sought and drew a short-lived pleasure."
You know Crony's affection for a good dinner, and will not therefore be
surprised that I had the honour of his company this day; but i'faith
he deserved his reward for the cheerfulness and amusement with which he
contrived to kill time.
3 Lady B----e.
4 Mrs. H----y.
5 Louisa V----e.