112 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



hear them, and did not care to be seen, as he was 

 not in full dress ; but the Prince merrily routed him 

 out from behind a screen, where he was drinking in 

 the melody, and bade the band strike up " The Chough 

 and the Crow" in his honour. The Pavilion might 

 be said to be his head- quarters at this period, and 

 " the voluptuous charms of her to whom he had in 

 secret plighted his faith" were then well known to 

 every Sussex gazer* Those who still remember her 

 there, when in the heyday of her beauty at forty, 

 speak with no small rapture of her stately well- 

 rounded figure, her deep blue eyes, and her long 

 dark ringlets. She died in the March of 1837, 

 faithful to the last to the memory of him who had 

 shown himself so little worthy of her love, and only 

 three months before " The Sailor King," with whom 

 she was always an especial favoured guest whenever 

 he visited Brighton. "Perdita" had sent The 

 Prince a lock of her hair as a death-bed memento of 

 the forsaken ; while Mrs. Fitzherbert is said to have 

 addressed some touching lines to him when his own 

 hour was come, as from a wife offering her services 

 to a sick husband, which he did not peruse without 

 emotion ; and she held the pleasant belief that he was 

 buried with her portrait round his neck. Dr. Carr 

 in a measure confirmed this report, when he was 

 questioned by Mr. Bodenham, and replied " Yes it 

 is true what you have heard. I remained by the 

 body of the King, when they wrapped it round in 

 the cere-cloth ; but before that was done, I saw a 

 portrait suspended round his neck it was attached 

 to a little silver chain." 



Brighton will never see such picturesque Watteau- 

 like groups again, as those which were then presented 

 by the Prince's court, as it sallied forth from the 

 Pavilion, for the evening promenade on the Steyne ; 

 the ladies with their high head-dresses and spreading 

 "peacock tails," and the two Mannerses, Sir 



