BIOGRAPHY. 25 



kind on any occasion. He usually wore a blue body-coat 

 with gold— not gilt buttons, but at the urgent request of 

 the police, who told him that his costly buttons were a 

 perpetual anxiety to tliem whenever he went to Wakefield, 

 he at last consented to lay them aside, except at home, 

 and have his buttons covered with blue cloth. 



This peculiarity once caused him to lose the privilege of 

 an introduction to tlie Pope (Gregory XVI.). Etiquette 

 demanded that if uniform could not be worn, the presentee 

 must appear in ordinary evening dress. Now, had "Water- 

 ton qualified as Deputy-Lieutenant, he could have followed 

 the usual custom and worn that uniform, but as he had 

 refused to do so, evening-dress was the only alternative- 

 But he would not wear ' frac-nero,' and so lost the 

 presentation. 



On another occasion however, the difficulty was evaded 

 in a very characteristic manner. He bethought himself of 

 his commission in the Demerara militia ; but he had no 

 uniform, and there was no time to make one. Some naval 

 friends were with him, Captain Marryatt being, I believe, 

 one of them, and with V/aterton's blue coat and gold 

 buttons, surmounted with a pair of naval epaulettes, and 

 with the addition of a naval captain's cocked hat and sword, 

 they composed an amusingly miscellaneous uniform. One 

 friend wickedly suggested that spurs would have an impos- 

 ing effect in connection with the naval hat and epaulettes, 

 but he was not to be caught in so palpable a snare. 



Of his travels on the Continent, there is but little to say 

 as»they are related at some length in the three volumes of 

 Essays. It is remarkable, by the way, that on the Conti- 

 nent, as well as in England, he met with injuries far more 

 severe than any which he received in Guiana. 



Twice he was nearly drowned. 



