George IV. 105 



Crow" in his honour. The Pavilion might be said to 

 be his head-quarters at this period, and " the volup- 

 tuous 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 deathbed 

 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 re- 

 plied " Yes, it is true what you have heard. I re- 

 mained by the body of the King, when they wrapped 

 it round in the cerecloth ; but before that was done, 

 1 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 Belling- 

 ham Graham, and Colonels Mellish and Leigh, as 

 their esquires. Nothing but a dark black-legged bay 

 was in those days harnessed to the royal carriages, 

 and they were all chosen with the most scrupulous 

 care by Sir John Lade, whose four bays and harlequin 



