Little dreamed we, when in our prettly little song-books we saw the initial ‘B.’ at the bottom of these verses, that a real human butterfly had written them, and that they conveyed a solemn prognostication of a fate that was not his.  Little we dreamed, as we lisped out the verses, that the ‘gentleman who roamed in a’ not velvet but ’plum-coloured suit,’ according to Lady Hester Stanhope, was the illustrious George Brummell, The Beau wrote these trashy little rhymes—­pretty in their way—­and, since I was once a child, and learnt them off by heart, I will not cast a stone at them.  Brummell indulged in such trifling poetizing, but never went further.  It is a pity he did not write his memoirs; they would have added a valuable page to the history of ‘Vanity Fair.’

Brummell’s London glory lasted from 1798 to 1816.  His chief club was Watier’s.  It was a superb assemblage of gamesters and fops—­knaves and fools; and it is difficult to say which, element predominated.  For a time Brummell was monarch there; but his day of reckoning came at last.  Byron and Moore, Sir Henry Mildmay and Mr. Pierrepoint, were among the members.  Play ran high there, and Brummell once won nearly as much as his squandered patrimony, L26.000.  Of course he not only lost it again, but much more—­indeed his whole capital.  It was after some heavy loss that he was walking home through Berkeley Street with Mr. Raikes, when he saw something glittering in the gutter, picked it up, and found it to be a crooked sixpence.  Like all small-minded men, he had a great fund of superstition, and he wore the talisman of good luck for some time.  For two years, we are told, after this finding of treasure-trove, success attended him in play—­macao, the very pith of hazard, was the chief game at Watier’s—­and he attributed it all to the sixpence.  At last he lost it, and luck turned against him.  So goes the story.  It is probably much more easily accountable.  Few men played honestly in those days without losing to the dishonest, and we have no reason to charge the Beau with mal-practice.  However this may be, his losses at play first brought about his ruin.  The Jews were, of course, resorted to; and if Brummell did not, like Charles Fox, keep a Jerusalem Chamber, it was only because the sum total of his fortune was pretty well known to the money-lenders.

  ’Then came the change, the check, the fall;
  Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. 
  There is one remedy for all.’

This remedy was the crossing of the Channel, a crossing kept by beggars, who levy a heavy toll on those who pass over it.

The decline of the Beau was rapid, but not without its eclat.  A breach with his royal patron led the way.  It is presumed that every reader of these volumes has heard the famous story of ‘Wales, ring the bell!’ but not all may know its particulars.