On Bathing and Bathers—Advantages of Shampooing—French
Decency—Brighton Politeness—Sketches of Character—The
Banker's Widow—Miss Jefferies—Mrs. F——l—Peter
Paragraph, the London Correspondent—Jack Smith—The
French Consul—Paphian Divinities—C—— L——, Esq.—
Squeeze into the Libraries—The new Plunging Bath—Chain
Pier—Cockney Comicalities—Royal Gardens—The Club House.

The next morning early I proceeded to the beach to enjoy the delightful and invigorating pleasure of sea-bathing. The clean pebble shore extending, as it does here, for a long distance beneath the east cliff, is a great advantage to those who, from indisposition or luxury, seek a dip in the ocean. One practice struck me as being a little objectionable, namely, the machines of the males and females being placed not only within sight of each other, but actually close alongside; by which circumstance, the sportive nymphs sometimes display more of nature's charms to the eager gaze of her wanton sons than befits me to tell, or decency to dwell on. I could not, however, with all the purity of my ethics, help envying a robust fellow who was assisting in clucking the dear unencumbered creatures under the rising wave.{1}

1 Some of the female bathers are very adventurous, and from
the great drawback of water many accidents have occurred.
I was much amused one morning with three sisters, in the
machine adjoining mine, continually crying out to a male
attendant "to push on, and not be afraid of the
consequences; we can all swim well," said one of the Miss
B——'s (well known as the marine graces). "But my machine
a'n't water-tight," replied the bathing-man, "and if I
trust it any farther in, I shall never be able to get it out
again." A Frenchman who came down to bathe with his wife and
sister insisted upon using the same machine with the ladies;
the bathing-women remonstrated, but monsieur retorted very
fairly thus—"Mon dieu I vat is dat vat you tell me about
décence. Tromperie—shall I no dip mon femme a sour myself vith quite as much bienséance as dat vulgar brute
vat I see ducking de ladies yondere?"

The naiads of the deep are a strange race of mortals, half fish and half human, with a masculine coarseness of manner that, I am told, has been faithfully copied from their great original, the once celebrated Martha Gun. It is not unusual for these women to continue in the water up to their waists for four hours at a time, without suffering the least affection of cold or rheumatism, and living to a great age. A dingy empiric has invented a new system of humbug which is in great repute here, and is called shampooing; a sort of stewing alive by steam, sweetened by being forced through odoriferous herbs, and undergoing the pleasant sensation of being dabbed all the while with pads of flannels through holes in the wet blankets that surround you, until the cartilaginous substances of your joints are made as pliable as the ligaments of boiled calves' feet, your whole system relaxed and unnerved, and your trembling legs as useless in supporting your body as a pair of boots would be without the usual quantity of flesh and bone within them. The Steyne affords excellent subject for the study of character, and the pencil of the humorist; the walks round are paved with brick, which, when the thermometer is something above eighty-six in the shade (the case just now), is very like pacing your parched feet over the pantiles of a Turkish stove. There is, indeed, a grass-plot within the rails, but the luxury of walking upon it is reserved for the fishermen of the place exclusively, except on some extraordinary occasion, when the whole rabble of the town are let loose to annoy the visitants by puffing tobacco smoke in their faces, or jostling and insulting them with coarse ribaldry, until the genteel and decent are compelled to quit the promenade. I have had two or three such specimens of Brighton manners while staying here, and could only wish I had the assistance of about twenty of the Oxfordtogati, Trinitarians, or Bachelors of Brazennose. I think we should hit upon some expedient to tame these brutes, and teach them civilized conduct—an Herculean labour which the town authorities seem afraid to attempt. The easy distance between this and the metropolis, with the great advantages of expeditious travelling, enable the multitudinous population of London to pour forth its motley groups, in greater variety than at any other watering place, Margate excepted, with, however, this difference in favour of the former, that the mixture had more of the sprinkling of fashion about them, here and there a name of note, a splendid equipage, or a dazzling star, to illumine the dull nomenclatures in the library books of the Johnson's, the Thomson's, the Brown's, and the Levi's. The last-mentioned fraternity congregate here in shoals, usurp all the best lodgings, at the windows of which they are to be seen soliciting notice, with their hooked noses, copper countenances, and inquisitive eyes, decked out in all the faded finery of Petticoat-lane, or Bevis Marks; while the heads of the houses of Israel run down on a Saturday, after the Stock Exchange closes, and often do as much business here on the Sabbath, in gambling speculations for the account day, as they have done all the week before in London. Here, too, you have the felicity to meet your tailor in his tandem, your butcher on his trotter, your shoemaker in a fly, and your wine-merchant with his bit of blood, his girl, and tilbury, making a greater splash than yourself, and pleasantly pointing you out to observation as a long-winded one, a great gambler, or some other such gratuitous return for your ill-bestowed patronage. To amalgamate with such canaille is impossible—you are therefore driven into seclusion, or compelled to confine your visits and amusements to nearly the same circle you have just left London to be relieved from. Among the "observed" of the present time, the great star of attraction is the rich Banker's widow, who occupies the corner house of the Grand Parade, eclipsing in splendid equipages and attendants an Eastern nabob, or royalty itself. Good fortune threw old Crony in my way, just as I had caught a glimpse of the widow's cap: you know his dry sarcastic humour and tenacious memory, and perhaps I ought to add, my inquisitive disposition. From him I gleaned a sketch of the widow's history, adorned with a few comments, which gallantry to the fair sex will not allow me to repeat. She had just joined conversation with the Marquis of H——, who was attended by Jackson, the pugilist; an illustrious personage and a noble earl were on her left; while behind the jolie dame, at a respectful distance, paced two liveried emblems of her deceased husband's bounty, clad in the sad habiliments of woe, and looking as merry as mutes at a rich man's funeral. (See Plate.)

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"She has the reputation of being very charitable," said I. "She has," responded Crony; "but the total neglect of poor Wewitzer, in the hour of penury and sickness, is no proof of her feeling, much less of her generosity. I have known her long," continued Crony, "from her earliest days of obscurity and indigence to these of unexampled prosperity, and I never could agree with common report in that particular." I dare say I looked at this moment very significantly; for Crony, without waiting my request, continued his history. "Her father was the gay and dissolute Jack Kinnear, well known in Dublin for his eccentricities about the time of the Rebellion, in which affair he made himself so conspicuous that he was compelled to expatriate, and fled to England by way of Liverpool; where his means soon failing, Jack, never at a loss, took up the profession of an actor, and succeeded admirably. His animated style and attractive person are still spoken of with delight by many of the old inhabitants of Carlisle, Rochdale, Kendal, and the neighbouring towns of Lancashire, where he first made his appearance in an itinerant company, then under the management of a man of the name of Bibby, and in whose house, under very peculiar circumstances, our heroine was born; but

'Merit and worth from no condition rise;
Act well your part—there all the honour lies.'

That little Harriet was a child of much promise there is no doubt, playing, in her mother's name, at a very early period, all the juvenile parts in Bibby's company with great éclat until she attained the age of eighteen, when her abilities procured her a situation to fill the first parts in genteel comedy in the theatres-royal Manchester and Liverpool. From this time her fame increased rapidly, which was not a little enhanced by her attractive person, and consequent number of admirers; for even among the cotton lords of Manchester a fine-grown, raven-locked, black-eyed brunette, arch, playful, and clever, could not fail to create sensations of desire: but at this time the affections of the lady were fixed on a son of Thespis, then a member of the same company, and to whom she was shortly afterwards betrothed; but the marriage, from some capricious cause or other, was never consummated: the actor, well-known as Scotch Grant, is now much reduced in life, and a member of one of the minor companies of the metropolis. On her quitting Liverpool, in 1794, she played at the Stafford theatre during the election contest, where, having the good-fortune to form an intimacy with the Hortons, a highly-respectable family then resident there, and great friends of Sheridan, they succeeded, on the return of that gentleman to parliament for the borough of Stafford, to obtain from him an engagement for our heroine at the theatre-royal Drury Lane, of which he was at that time proprietor. 'Brevity is the soul of wit,'" said Crony: "I shall not attempt to enumerate all the parts she played there; suffice it to say, she was successful, and became a great favourite with the public. It was here she first attracted the notice of the rich old banker, who having just discarded another actress, Mrs. M——r, whom he had kept some time, on account of an intimacy he discovered with the lady and P——e, the oboe player, he made certain propositions, accompanied with such liberal presents, that the fair yielded to the all-powerful influence, not of love, but gold; and having, through the interference of poor W——, secured to herself a settlement which made her independent for life, threw out the well-planned story of the lottery ticket, as a 'tub to the whale': a stratagem that, for some time, succeeded admirably, until a malicious wag belonging to the company undertook to solve the riddle of her prosperity, by pretending to bet a wager of one hundred, that the lady had actually gained twenty thousand pounds by the lottery, and he would name the ticket: with this excuse, for what otherwise might have been deemed impertinent, he put the question, and out of the reply developed the whole affair. All London now rung with the splendour of her equipage, the extent of her charities, and the liberality of her conduct to an old actor and a young female friend, Miss S——n, who was invariably seen with her in public. Such was the notoriety of the intimacy, that the three married daughters of the banker, all persons of title and the highest respectability, thought it right to question their father, relative to the truth of the reports in circulation. Whatever might have been their apprehensions, their fears were quieted by the information, that the lady in question was a natural daughter, born previous to the alliance to which they owed their birth: this assurance not only induced the parties to admit her to their presence, but she was also introduced to, and became intimate with, the wife of the man to whom she owes her present good fortune. It was now, that, feeling herself secure, she displayed that capricious feeling which has since marked her character: poor W——r, her mentor and defender, was on some mere pretence abandoned, and a sturdy blustering fellow, in the same profession, substituted for the sincere adviser, the witty and agreeable companion: it was to R——d she sent a present of one thousand pounds, for a single ticket, on his benefit night. But her ambition had not yet attained its highest point: the banker's wife died, and our fortunate heroine was elected to her place while yet the clay-cold corse of her predecessor remained above ground; a circumstance, which brought down a heavy calamity on the clerical who performed the marriage rites,{2} but which was remedied by an annuity from the banker. From this period, the haughty bearing of the lady exceeded all bounds; the splendour of her establishment, the extravagance of her parties, and the munificence of her charities, trumpeted forth by that many-tongued oracle, the public press, eclipsed the brilliancy of the

2 Saturnine B——n, the author of 'the stage,' a Poem, on
hearing the day after her marriage with the banker, a
conversation relative to her age, said he was sure the
party were all in error, as there could be no doubt the lady
was on the previous night under age.