104 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



the exclusion of unauthorised persons from the Coffee 

 Eoom, was a remarkable person in many ways. He 

 seems to have called himself sometimes Boothby and 

 sometimes Scrymsher (or Scrymshire), and sometimes 

 Clopton, or Charles Scrymsher Boothby, or Charles 

 Boothby Scrymsher, or Charles Boothby Scrymsher 

 Clopton (for pardonable reasons connected with pro- 

 perty, no doubt), but the worst of it is that there ap- 

 pears to have been no agreement about the orthography 

 of the word beginning with Scr — or Skr — . Per- 

 haps he did not know how to spell it himself (as seems 

 to have been commonly the case with gentlemen and 

 their names in the ' good old times '), but certainly it 

 is found in print in the forms Scrymsher, Scrymshire, 

 Scrimshire, and Scrimsher. He was commonly known 

 as ' Prince ' Boothby, for the reason (says an enemy) 

 of his inordinate regard for rank and titles (so that 

 the * exclusive ' resolution of 1767 would be sure of 

 his signature) ; and he is said to have carried this 

 feeling so far that he would drop an Earl for a Duke 

 without a moment's hesitation. It is even related of 

 him (or of somebody like him) that he went home 

 incontinently and cut off his ' pigtail ' one day, because 

 he had met an illustrious personage, who, being fond 

 of a joke, had readily agreed to hide his own 'pigtail' 

 under his coat-collar to see what would be the effect 

 upon the ' Prince.' But, though he might cut off his 

 hair, he stuck to his hat, that is, to his form of hat ; 

 for it is said that he had worn the same sort of hat 



