The same newspaper of August 15 says: Brighthelmstone.—The celebration of the Prince's birthday was in a style of the utmost gaiety and conviviality, the more general and uniform, from the contracted circle in which it shone. The Prince gave a most sumptuous entertainment at the Marine Pavilion,[51] of which all the Nobility and Gentry in the town and neighbourhood partook by invitation. In the evening the illuminations were general, and some of them conspicuous for taste, particularly the Castle, the front of which was covered with various coloured lamps. A Ball was given by the Jockey Club, in honour of the Prince, who honoured several ladies with his hand during the course of the evening.'
Ibid., September 6.—'The Prince of Wales does not slumber in dull indolence at his retreat at Brighton, but promotes and participates in many manly exercises. Cricket is, at present, the chief amusement patronized by his Royal Highness, who is dexterous and indefatigable. Most of the young noblemen in the neighbourhood join in this vigorous and wholesome exercise, in which the domestics of the Prince are permitted to partake.'
We get a good glimpse of our great grandfathers and grandmothers at Brighton in the Morning Post of September 18: 'Dress at Brighton.—The fashionable bathing dress at Brighton is chiefly a pair of buff trousers, and a slight jacket.
'This is adopted by all the young men of the place, and such a number of idle, sauntering land lubbers meet the eye, every morning, on the Steyne, that one cannot help wishing for a sturdy press gang to give them useful employment, or, at least, keep them out of mischief.
'After breakfast, they are then accoutred for the sports of the field.
'The sporting dress is a brown jacket, with a multiplicity of pockets on each side, that reach from the bottom to the top, so that, from this appearance, it is somewhat difficult to determine which the fashionable tribe most resemble, a set of grooms, or a company of smugglers.
'When the dinner hour arrives, after these sprightly and heroic gentlemen have slain their thousands and ten thousands, according to their own account, in the field, with as little winking and blinking as Major Sturgeon himself, they then attire themselves in order to enjoy the pleasures of the table; and, however deranged they may, afterwards, be by convivial excess, they march, or stagger away to the Rooms, as circumstances may determine, and entertain the Ladies with elegant and decent gallantry.
'The Ladies have no particular dress for the morning, but huddle away to the bathing-place, in close caps and gipsy bonnets, so that they look like a set of wandering fortune tellers, who have just had the opportunity of pillaging the contents of a frippery warehouse, with which they have bedecked themselves in haste.
'It is to be remarked that the Ladies do not atone for the negligence of the morning, by neatness and elegance during the rest of the day, but shuffle on something by dinner time, covering themselves with an enormous nondescript bonnet, which, to the confusion of all order, they, afterwards, think a proper garb for the assembly.
'If a spectator, not cognizant in the fanciful and capricious variations of ton, were to cast his eyes on the motley groupe contained in the Rooms, of an evening; far from supposing them persons of the first fashion attired for a Ball, he would consider them as a band of Bedlamites; or, at best, conclude that the whole presented the extravagant vagaries of a Masquerade.'