266 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



puffs of to-day. But, however these guides may vary, 

 they all agree in harking back to that shadowy Bright- 

 helm who is supposed to have given his peculiar name 

 to the ancient fisher-village here established time 

 out of mind. In the days when " County Histories " 

 were first let loose, in folio volumes, upon an unoffending 

 land, historians, archaeologists, and other interested 

 parties seemed at a loss for the derivation of the place- 

 name, and, rather than confess themselves ignorant 

 of its meaning, they conspired together to invent a 

 Saxon archbishop, who, dying in the odour of sanctity 

 and the ninth century, bequeathed his appellation to 

 what is now known, in a contracted form, as Brighton. 



But the man is not known who has unassailable 

 j3roofs to show of this Brighthelm's having so honoured 

 the fisher-folk's hovels with his name. 



Thackeray, greatly daring, considering that the 

 Fourth George is the real patron — saint, we can hardly 

 say ; let us make it king — of the town, elected to 

 deliver his lectures upon the " Four Georges " at 

 Brighton, among other places, and to that end made, 

 with monumental assurance, a personal application at 

 the Town Hall for the hire of the banqueting-room in 

 the Royal Pavilion. 



But one of the Aldermen, who chanced to be present, 

 suggested, with extra-aldermanic wit, that the Town 

 Hall would be equally suitable, intimating at the same 

 time that it was not considered as strictly etiquette 

 to ' abuse a man in his own house." The witty 

 Alderman's suggestion, we are told, was acted upon, 

 and the Town Hall engaged forthwith. 



It argued considerable courage on the lecturer's 

 part to declaim against George the Fourth anywhere 

 in that town which His Majesty had, by his example, 

 conjured up from almost nothingness. It does not 

 seem that Thackeray was, after all, ill received at 

 Brighton ; whence thoughts arise as to the ingratitude 

 and fleeting memories of them that were either in the 

 first or second generation, advantaged by the royal 

 preference for this bleak stretch of shore beneath the 



