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                           _Some Eccentrics
                              & a Woman_




_First Published in 1911_

[Illustration: A VIEW from the PUMP ROOM, BATH.]




                           _Some Eccentrics
                              & a Woman_

                          _By Lewis Melville_


                               _London_

                            _Martin Secker_

                       _Number Five John Street_

                               _Adelphi_




NOTE


Of the eight papers printed here, “Some Eighteenth-Century Men About
Town,” “A Forgotten Satirist: ‘Peter Pindar’,” “Sterne’s Eliza,”
and “William Beckford, of Fonthill Abbey,” have appeared in the
_Fortnightly Review_; “Charles James Fox” appeared in the _Monthly
Review_, “Exquisites of the Regency” in _Chambers’s Journal_, and
“The Demoniacs” in the American _Bookman_. To the editors of these
periodicals I am indebted either for permission to reprint, or
for their courtesy in having permitted me to reserve the right of
publication in book form. “Philip, Duke of Wharton” is now printed for
the first time.

    LEWIS MELVILLE




_Contents_


                                                               PAGE

  EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MEN ABOUT TOWN                              13

  SOME EXQUISITES OF THE REGENCY                                 47

  A FORGOTTEN SATIRIST: “PETER PINDAR”                          103

  STERNE’S ELIZA                                                129

  THE DEMONIACS                                                 161

  WILLIAM BECKFORD OF FONTHILL ABBEY                            189

  CHARLES JAMES FOX                                             219

  PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON                                       253

  INDEX                                                         283




_List of Illustrations_


  “A VIEW FROM THE PUMP ROOM, BATH”                  _Frontispiece_
    _A Facsimile Reproduction of a Drawing by Richard Deighton_

  SIR JOHN LADE                                   _To face page_ 16
    _From the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds_

  THE PRINCE OF WALES                                  "    "    48
    _From the Miniature by Cosway_

  LUMLEY SKEFFINGTON                                   "    "    80
    _From a Contemporary Miniature_

  PETER PINDAR                                         "    "   112
    _From the Painting by John Opie_

  LAURENCE STERNE                                      "    "   144
    _From the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds_

  WILLIAM BECKFORD                                     "    "   192
    _From the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds_

  CHARLES JAMES FOX                                    "    "   224
    _From the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds_

  PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON                              "    "   256
    _From a Contemporary Painting_




                 Some Eighteenth-Century Men about Town


When his Royal Highness George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George
IV., freed himself from parental control, and, an ill-disciplined lad,
launched himself upon the town, it is well known that he was intimate
with Charles James Fox, whom probably he admired more because the King
hated the statesman than for any other reason. Doubtless the Prince
drank with Fox, and diced with him, and played cards with him, but
from his later career it is obvious he can never have touched Fox
on that great man’s intellectual side; and, after a time, the royal
scapegrace, who would rather have reigned in hell than have served in
heaven, sought companions to whom he need not in any way feel inferior.
With this, possibly sub-conscious, desire, he gathered around him a
number of men about town, notorious for their eccentricities and for
the irregularity of their lives. With these George felt at home; but,
though he was nominally their leader, there can be little doubt that
he was greatly influenced by them at the most critical time of a young
man’s life, to his father’s disgust and to the despair of the nation.
Of these men the most remarkable were Sir John Lade, George Hanger
(afterwards fourth Lord Coleraine of the second creation), and Sir
Lumley Skeffington; and, by some chance, it happens that little has
been written about them, perhaps because what has been recorded is for
the most part hidden in old magazines and newspapers and the neglected
memoirs of forgotten worthies. Yet, as showing the temper of the times,
it may not be uninteresting to reconstruct their lives, and, as far as
the material serves, show them in their habit as they lived.

Sir John Lade, the son of John Inskipp, who assumed the name of Lade,
and in whose person the baronetcy that had been in the family was
revived, was born in 1759, and at an early age plunged into the fast
society of the metropolis with such vigour that he had earned a most
unenviable reputation by the time he came of age, on which auspicious
occasion, Dr Johnson, who knew him as the ward of Mr Thrale, greeted
him savagely in the satirical verses which conclude:

    “Wealth, my lad, was made to wander:
      Let it wander at its will;
    Call the jockey, call the pander,
      Bid them come and take their fill.

    When the bonnie blade carouses,
      Pockets full and spirits high--
    What are acres? what are houses?
      Only dirt, or wet and dry.

    Should the guardian friend or mother
      Tell the woes of wilful waste,
    Scorn their counsels, scorn their pother,
      You can hang, or drown, at last.”

Sir John became one of the Prince of Wales’s cronies, and for a while
had the management of his Royal Highness’s racing stable; but while it
has been hinted of him, as of George Hanger, that during his tenure
of that office he had some share in the transactions that resulted in
Sam Chifney, the Prince’s jockey, being warned off the turf, it is but
fair to state that there is no evidence in existence to justify the
suspicion. Indeed, he seems to have been honest, except in incurring
tradesmen’s debts that he could never hope to discharge; but this
was a common practice in fashionable circles towards the end of the
eighteenth century, and was held to throw no discredit on the man who
did so--for was it not a practice sanctioned by the example of “The
First Gentleman of Europe” himself?

Sir John’s ambition, apparently, was to imitate a groom in dress and
language. It was his pleasure to take the coachman’s place, and drive
the Prince’s “German Waggon,”[1] and six bay horses from the Pavilion
at Brighton to the Lewes racecourse; and, in keeping with his _pose_,
he was overheard on Egham racecourse to invite a friend to return to
dinner in these terms:--“I can give you a trout spotted all over like
a coach dog, a fillet of veal as white as alabaster, a ‘pantaloon’
cutlet, and plenty of pancakes as big as coach-wheels--so help me.”

[1] Barouches were so described on their first introduction into
England.

Dr Johnson naturally took an interest in Sir John, and, when Lady Lade
consulted him about the training of her son, “Endeavour, madam,” said
he, “to procure him knowledge, for really ignorance to a rich man is
like fat to a sick sheep, it only serves to call the rooks round him.”
It is easier, however, to advocate the acquisition of knowledge than
to inculcate it, and knowledge, except of horses, Sir John Lade never
obtained in any degree. Indeed, his folly was placed on record by
“Anthony Pasquin” in

    AN EPIGRAMMATIC COLLOQUY,

    Occasioned by Sir John Lade’s Ingenious Method of
    Managing his Estates.

    Said Hope to Wit, with eager looks,
      And sorrow streaming eyes:
   “In pity, Jester, tell me when,
      Will Johnny Lade be--wise?”

   “Thy sighs forego,” said Wit to Hope,
     “And be no longer sad;
    Tho’ other foplings grow to men,
      He’ll always be--a _Lad_.”

[Illustration: _Sir John Lade_]

When Sir John was little more