Among the members of Wattier's Club was Bligh, a notorious madman, of whom Mr Raikes relates:—'One evening at the Macao table, when the play was very deep, Brummell, having lost a considerable stake, affected, in his farcical way, a very tragic air, and cried out—"Waiter, bring me a flat candlestick and a pistol." Upon which Bligh, who was sitting opposite to him, calmly produced two loaded pistols from his coat pocket, which he placed on the table, and said, "Mr Brummell, if you are really desirous to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy to offer you the means without troubling the waiter." The effect upon those present may easily be imagined, at finding themselves in the company of a known madman who had loaded weapons about him.'
Brummell was at last completely beggared, though for some time he continued to hold on by the help of funds raised on the mutual security of himself and his friends, some of whom were not in a much more flourishing condition than himself; their names, however, and still more, their expectations, lent a charm to their bills, in the eyes of the usurers, and money was procured, of course at ruinous interest. It is said that some unpleasant circumstances, connected with the division of one of these loans, occasioned the Beau's expatriation, and that a personal altercation took place between Brummell and a certain Mr M—, when that gentleman accused him of taking the lion's share.
He died in utter poverty, and an idiot, at Caen, in the year 1840, aged 62 years. Brummell had a very odd way of accounting for the sad change which took place in his affairs. He said that up to a particular period of his life everything prospered with him, and that he attributed good luck to the possession of a certain silver sixpence with a hole in it, which somebody had given him years before, with an injunction to take good care of it, as everything would go well with him so long as he did, and the reverse if he happened to lose it. The promised prosperity attended him for many years, whilst he held the sixpence fast; but having at length, in an evil hour, unfortunately given it by mistake to a hackney-coachman, a complete reverse of his previous good fortune ensued, till actual ruin overtook him at last, and obliged him to expatriate himself. 'On my asking him,' says the narrator, 'why he did not advertise and offer a reward for the lost treasure; he said, "I did, and twenty people came with sixpences having holes in them to obtain the promised reward, but mine was not amongst them!" And you never afterwards,' said I, 'ascertained what became of it? "Oh yes," he replied, "no doubt that rascal Rothschild, or some of his set, got hold of it."' Whatever poor Brummell's supernatural tendencies may have generally been, he had unquestionably a superstitious veneration for his lost sixpence.
TOM DUNCOMBE.
Tom Duncombe graduated and took honours among the greatest gamblers of the day. Like Fox, he was heir to a good fortune—ten or twelve thousand a year—the whole of which he managed to anticipate before he was thirty. 'Tom Duncombe ran Charles Fox close. When Mr Duncombe, sen., of Copgrove, caused his prodigal son's debts to be estimated with a view to their settlement, they were found to exceed L135,000;(133) and the hopeful heir went on adding to them till all possibility of extrication was at an end. But he spent his money (or other people's money), so long as he had any, like a gentleman; his heart was open like his hand; he was generous, cordial, high-spirited; and his expectations—till they were known to be discounted to the uttermost farthing—kept up his credit, improved his social position, and gained friends. "Society" (says his son) "opened its arms to the possessor of a good name and the inheritor of a good estate. Paterfamiliases and Materfamiliases rivalled each other in endeavouring to make things pleasant in their households for his particular delectation, especially if they had grown-up daughters; hospitable hosts invited him to dinner, fashionable matrons to balls; political leaders sought to secure him as a partisan; DEBUTANTES of the season endeavoured to attract him as an admirer; TRADESMEN THRONGED TO HIS DOORSTEPS FOR HIS CUSTOM, and his table was daily covered with written applications for his patronage." Noblesse oblige; and so does fashion. The aspirant had confessedly a hard time of it. "He must be seen at Tattersall's as well as at Almack's; be more frequent in attendance in the green-room of the theatre than at a levee in the palace; show as much readiness to enter into a pigeon-match at Battersea Red House, as into a flirtation in May Fair; distinguish himself in the hunting-field as much as at the dinner-table; and make as effective an appearance in the park as in the senate; in short, he must be everything—not by turns, but all at once—sportsman, exquisite, gourmand, rake, senator, and at least a dozen other variations of the man of fashion,—his changes of character being often quicker than those attempted by certain actors who nightly undertake the performance of an entire dramatis personae."'
(133) It will be remembered that when Fox's debts were in like manner estimated they amounted to L140,000: the coincidence is curious. See ante.
Tommy Duncombe was not only indefatigable at Crockford's, but at every other rendezvous of the votaries of fortune; a skilful player withal, and not unfrequently a winner beyond expectation. One night at Crockford's he astonished the house by carrying off sixteen hundred pounds. He frequently played at cards with Count D'Orsay, from whom, it is said, he invariably managed to win—the Count persisting in playing with his pleasant companion, although warned by others that he would never be a match for 'Honest Tommy Duncombe.'
Tom Duncombe died poor, but, says his son, 'rich in the memory of those who esteemed him, as Honest Tom Duncombe.'
Perhaps the best thing the son could have done was to leave his father's memory at rest in the estimation of 'those who esteemed him;' but having dragged his name once more, and prominently, before a censorious world, he can scarcely resent the following estimate of Tom Duncombe, by a well-informed reviewer in the Times. Alluding to the concluding summary of the father's character and doings, this keen writer passes a sentence which is worth preserving:—
'Much of this would do for a patriot and philanthropist of the highest class—for a Pym, a Hampden, or a Wilberforce; or, we could fancy, a son of Andrew Marvell, vowing over his grave "to endeavour to imitate the virtues and emulate the self-sacrificing patriotism of so estimable a parent, and so good a man." But we can hardly fancy, we cannot leave, a son of Duncombe in such a frame of mind. We cannot say to HIM—