For a few years he was

'George, ring the bell.' The Prince rang it, and told the servant who answered it: Mr. Brummell's carriage.' This Brummell always denied; however, he was a second time forbidden Carlton House. a hanger-on at Oatlands, the seat of the Duke of York, then, having lost large sums at play, he was obliged to fly the country, and having lived for some years in obscurity at Calais, he obtained the post of British Consul at Caen-for which his previous career, of course, eminently fitted him! He died in that town in poor circumstances in 1840.

Let us conclude this short account of the poor moth, basking in the royal sunshine for awhile, with one or two anecdotes. One day a youthful beau approached Brummell, and said: 'Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking ? Ah,' said the beau, my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence-it is made with the finest champagne! He was once at a party in Portman Square. On the cloth being removed, the snuff-boxes made their appearance; Brummell's was particularly admired; it was handed round, and a gentleman, finding it somewhat difficult to open, incautiously applied a desert-knife to the lid. Brummell was on thorns, and at last could contain himself no longer, and addressing the host, he said, loud enough to be heard by the company: Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuff-box is not an oyster ?"

England has had no regular beau since the time of Brummell, though occasionally some crack-brained individual has attempted to wear his mantle. Such a one was Ferdinand Geramb, a tight-laced German General and Baron, who in the second decade of this

century strutted about the parks, conspicuous for his ringlets, his superb moustaches, and immense spurs. It was asserted that he was a German Jew, who, having married the widow of a Hungarian Baron, assumed her late husband's title. His fiery moustaches were closely imitated by many illustrious personages, and gold spurs several inches long became the fashion-one fool makes many. It is to him the British army is indebted for the introduction of hussar uniforms. Having to leave England under the Alien Act, he went to Hamburg, where he set himself to writing against the Emperor Napoleon, who shut him up in the Castle of Vincennes. There, in terrible fear of being shot, he made a vow that should he regain his liberty he would renounce the devil and his works, and join the Trappist community. He was released at the Restoration, and at once entered a Trappist monastery, under the name of Brother Joseph, and in course of time became Abbot and Procurator-General of the Order. No more fighting of duels now, no more keeping the bailiffs who wanted to seize him for debt at bay for twelve days in an English country house which he had fortified; he submitted to the severest rules of the Order, and in 1831 made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died at Rome in 1848.

XI.

LONDON

SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES.

IN the year 1765 a Frenchman, who did not give his name, visited London, and afterwards published in Paris an account of his visit.

'I reached London,' he says, 'towards the close of the day. . . and at last, quite by chance, I found myself settled in an apartment in the house of the Cruisinier Royal in Leicester Fields. This neighbourhood is filled with small houses, which are mostly let to foreigners.' On the following day he walked down Holborn and the Strand to St. Paul's, then crossed London Bridge, and returned to his hotel by walking through Southwark and Lambeth to Westminster, 'a district full of mean houses and meaner taverns.' The localities named have not greatly altered their character since then. In another place our traveller says: "Even from the bridges it is impossible to get a view of the river, as the parapets are ten feet high. . . . The reason given for all this is the inclination which the English, and the Londoners especially, have for suicide. It is true that above and below the town the banks are

unprotected, and offer an excellent opportunity to those who really wish to drown themselves; but the distance is great, and, besides, those who wish to leave the world in this manner prefer doing so before the eyes of the public. The parapets, however, of the new bridge [Blackfriars] which is being built will be but of an ordinary height.' Suicidal tendencies must indeed have greatly declined, since the most recently erected bridges, the new Westminster and Blackfriars, have particularly low parapets.

Of the streets our author says: "They are paved in such a manner that it is barely possible to ride or walk on them in safety, and they are always extremely dirty. . . . The finest streets... would be impassable were it not that on each side . . . footways are made from four to five feet wide, and for communication from one to the other across the street there are smaller footways elevated above the general surface of the roadway, and formed of large stones selected for the purpose. . . In the finest part of the Strand, near St. Clement's Church, I noticed, during the whole of my stay in London, that the middle of the street was constantly covered with liquid stinking mud, three or four inches deep. . . . The walkers are bespattered from head to foot. . . . The natives, however, brave all these disagreeables, wrapped up in long blue coats, like dressinggowns, wearing brown stockings and perukes, rough, red and frizzled.'

Well, we cannot find much fault with this description, unflattering as it is, for in the last century London certainly was one of the most hideous towns to live in, and its inhabitants the most uncouth, repulsive set of 'guys!

Concerning Oxford Street our author makes a false prognostic: 'The shops of Oxford Street will disappear as the houses are sought after for private dwellings by the rich. Soon will the great city extend itself to Marylebone, which is not more than a quarter of a league distant. At present it is a village, principally of taverns, inhabited by French refugees.'

Our traveller sees but four houses in London which will bear comparison with the great hotels in Paris. To the inconvenience of mud, he says, must be added that of smoke, which, mingled with a perpetual fog, covers London as a pall. We, to our sorrow, know this to be true even now.

But we have improved in one respect: our old watchmen or 'Charleys' have disappeared before the modern police. Concerning these watchmen our author says: 'There are no troops or guard or watch of any kind, except during the night by some old men, chosen from the dregs of the people. Their only arms are a stick and a lantern. They walk about the streets crying the hour every time the clock strikes . . . and it appears to be a point of etiquette among hare-brained youngsters to maul them on leaving their parties.'

Our Frenchman formed a correct estimate of the London watchman of his day-nay, it held good to the final extinction of the Charleys.' In December, 1826, a watchman was charged before the Lord Mayor with insubordination. On being asked who had appointed him watchman, the prisoner replied that he was in great distress and a burden to the parish, who therefore gave him the appointment to get rid of him. The Lord Mayor: "I thought so; and what can be ex