THE BELVOIR CIRCLE 



snuff-dealer, used to be saluted, whenever he opened his 

 mouth at mess, by a volley of sneezes. But Brummell made 

 no mistakes, and choosing his friends with the same discretion 

 which had made him the most successful hunter of tufts at 

 Oxford, found entrance into many of the great houses whose 

 sons were also in the loth. Among Brummell's brother 

 officers were Lords Charles and Robert Manners, the younger 

 brothers of the Duke. With them his intimacy was close, 

 and it led to invitations to Belvoir and Cheveley. He soon 

 became a welcome guest ; and the Duchess, an otherwise 

 acute woman, seems to have liked him at least as much as 

 did her husband and her brothers. For Brummell had the 

 art of being always interesting. His wit has evaporated with 

 the social gossip of that time, to which it owed its flavour, 

 and we can recover from memoirs nothing of Brummell but 

 his taste in dress and his greediness. Brummell had no 

 heart, and he made heartlessness the fashion of the day, for 

 he could give vogue to anything — a cravat, a coat, or a 

 Prince of Wales. At Belvoir he paid his first visit when the 

 fifth Duke came of age, in January, 1799. " He was one of 

 the distinguished party that assembled there, amongst whom 

 were the Prince of Wales, the late Duke of Argyll, the 

 Marquis of Lome, the present Lord Jersey, etc., and all the 

 neighbouring gentry. The festivities on this occasion lasted 

 for three weeks, and were conducted on a truly ducal scale. 

 The weather being severe, there was, of course, no hunting, 

 so skating was the order of the day ; and Brummell, in going 

 down the hill to the ice, clad in a pelisse of fur, was one 

 morning mistaken by the people, who had assembled in great 

 numbers, for the Prince of Wales, and loudly cheered. This 

 little incident will give some idea of the elegance and dignity 

 of his carriage." ^ 



Brummell was no sportsman, and very moderate indeed 

 is the head of game to his account in the interesting game 

 book still to be seen in the smoking room at the Castle. 

 But hunting had several advantages in George Brummell's 

 eyes. In the first place, it is a sport in which costume bears 

 1 Life of Beau Brummell, by Captain Jesse (1844), vol. i., p. 85. 



Ill 



