“‘Ci gît le Prince de Ligne,
Il est tout de son long couché.
Jadis il a beaucoup péché,—
Mais ce n’etait pas à la ligne!’”
We may excuse Malfati for smiling at the refined wit of the once famous jeu d’esprit; but it did not restrain him from making the Prince aware of the danger of his position. The latter received the intelligence with disgust, ill-concealed under a few light words; and with the assurance that, like Adrian, he had verses to write to his soul, but that he had not time just then!
It was true; for Death, at that moment, laid upon him that hand which mortal may not resist. The Prince not only felt, but he beheld, the terrible and unconquerable aggressor. The hour was dull midnight when the old warrior and “macaroni” frantically fought his last battle, and succumbed ingloriously. He sprang from a recumbent into a sitting position, shrieked aloud, ordered the door to be closed; and as Death pressed upon him, he struggled and wrestled with the calm, strong phantom, as though a substantial foe was before him, who might be strangled by bodily effort. But it was fruitless, for the decree had gone forth, and doom had come. In the midst of cries for help, and writhing efforts to get free, the stroke was given, and the Prince fell dead. The day was the 13th of December, 1814. What was mortal of him was magnificently entombed, and the terms of his epitaph were more poetical than veracious. But, beneath it all,—brass, marble, and mendacity,—the dandy of two centuries was left to sleep as undisturbedly as the curses of unpaid tailors would allow him to do.
On the day of the Prince’s decease, a very fine gentleman indeed was sunning himself on the Steyne at Brighton. He was the cynosure of all observers, and his magnificent shadow glides this way. Do not mistake him for Romeo Coates. It is the famous Mr. Brummell. Chapeau bas at that illustrious name!
BEAU BRUMMELL.
“I scorn’d to crowd among the muddy throng