The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-20 00:00:00

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LITERATURE.

My Life and Recollections. By the Hon. Grantley
Berkeley. Vols. 111. and IV. Hurst and
Blackett.
Mr. Grantley Berkeley, pen in hand, has con-
trived to clear volume after volume of these his
harum-scarum personal recollections, as cleverly as
he has often and often before this—when lightly
seated in the pigskin, foot in stirrup, hand on bridle
—cleared, now a fivebarred gate, now a quick-set,
now a brook, now a veritable rasper, each of them
taken at a breakneck pace, in the hunting field.
And, watching him as he gets over his ground,
helter-skelter, slap-dash, almost anyhow, according
to the spur of the moment, it has been pretty
nearly as interesting and as anxious work for
the reader turning over the leaves of his book, as
it must frequently have been for the looker-on when
tracking the author's flight across country at the
tail of the pack, in his hot youth when George the
Fourth was King 1 So repeatedly has our author—
in his wild and random way of careering onwards,
pen in hand, over tho paper, seemed, time and
again, within an • ace of coming to grief I No-
thing daunts him in the outpouring of his Recol-
lections. Reputations of lords and ladies alike go
to the wall, as often as he talks quite confiden-
tially about this, that, and the other, to that noun of
multitude signifying many, his reader. In the tone
of his talk throughout the whole of these four
volumes, however, it is just medium talk after all. For,
while on the one hand he never talks what we call
largely, on the other he never indulges in mere
small talk, in the mincing, lisping, prattle of your
fribbling epicene jack-a-dandy. He is so confidential
with his readers, too, in an odd sort of a way, that,
while he almost affects in his manner to utter his
choicest confidences in a whisper, it is almost, we
might say, a whisper delivered through a speaking
trumpet. As for what he says about his mother, the
late Countess of Berkeley, that is a matter between
himself and the other members of his Happy
Family. " Brothers in arms" (against each other)
the Berkeleys have been, about as long as we our-
selves can well remember—" Brothers in arms" (in
that way) and " rivals in renown." Into their
domestic contentions, however, we care not to enter.
It is unpleasant merely to contemplate them quite
dispassionately from without, and would certainly
be intolerable to take part in, in any way what-
ever. There are broad facts, no doubt, in re-
gard to the cause of all these contentions, that
are we take it altogether beyond the reach of
dispute or denial. For instance, there is the well-
known fact, to begin with, that Frederick Augustus,
sth Earl of Berkeley—who *as born May 24, 1745,
and who succeeded his father, .the 4th Earl,
August 8, 1810—lived during several years with
his future countess née Cole, by whom he had
several children. After the birth of those children
he (the fifth Earl of Berkeley) on the 16th of May,
1796, married their mother, having several other
children by her who was thenceforth his acknow-
ledged wife Mary (née Cole) Countess of Berkeley--
the eldest son born after that marriage, in the same
year (1796), being Thomas Moreton Fitahardinge
Berkeley, the present or sixth Earl of Berkeley.
Earl of Berkeley, Moreton, at any rate, was declared
to be, a good many years ago, by a formal decision
the House of Lords. That title, however, he has
steadfastly refused to accept ever since the decision
was pronounced. An earlier marriage than the one
known to have taken place on the 16th of May,
1796, between his father and mother, Moreton (vir-
tually Sixth Earl of Berkeley) insists upon it took
place as long previously as on the 30th March,
1785, maintaining this, in common with all the rest
of his brothers, saving and excepting only the author
of these Four Volumes of " Recollections," mean-
ng the Hon. Grantley Berkeley—the novelist of
the romance of " Berkeley Castle" the horse-
whipper of the late learned and not very reputable
Dr. Maginn—Grantley, who was many years (but
who is now no longer) M.P. for one of thedivisions
of his native county of Gloucester. As every-
body knows—who knows anything at all about the
family—supposing this second son by the marriage
of the Fifth Earl with Mary, née Cole, on the 16th
May, 1796—t0 survive (in the course of nature) his
elder brother by five years, namely, Moreton (who is,
really and truly by law, the Sixth Earl)—that
second son by the marriage which is known to

have taken place in 179 G, will at once assume his
title and take his seat in the House of Lords as
legally Seventh Earl of Berkeley. He simply bides
his time. And, meanwhile, he writes his Recol-
lections. They are very shocking, no doubt, these
Recollections, to his immediate kith and kin. But
for all that, to the heartless multitude who are not
of his kith and kin, they are very pleasant reading
indeed. He has stores of anecdotes to tell—anec-
dotes many of them well worth the telling—and
many of these latter moreover he contrives to tell very
delightfully. Opening chapter after chapter as he
thus talks to us from his printed pages, it is with
each of these chapters as if he were talking to us
over a fresh bottle—so thoroughly after-dinner-
toned are the style and manner of his monologue.
Sometimes, too, when he indulges in what to him
evidently appears so much mere harmless chit-chat,
but what undoubtedly most other people are in the
habit of regarding as so much scandal and persona-
lity, this talk of his over the fresh bottle, as it were,
has the flavour sometimes noticeable in the conver-
sation that takes place over the dessert after the
ladies have quitted the dinner table, and have rustled
their silken way into the drawing rooms. Then
it is that there comes to us the stage whisper we
have hinted at —the whisper through the speaking-
trumpet ! Otherwise than for these same excep-
tional portions of the four volumes—to which por-
tions we would hereby intimate that we must be
understood to take the very strongest excep-
tion—the work as a whole is a most amusing and
exhilarating repertory of anecdotal recollections
illustrative of the highest and the lowest (never
once of the middle) classes of society here in Eng-
land during the chief part of the first half of the
present century. Princes and pugilists jostle each
other in the throng thus introduced to us. One or
two kings, and a great many more than merely one
or two rougher specimens of humanity, naffs and
creatures of the demi-monde, are here likewise made
to pass before us processionally or panoramically.
There is a distinct chapter, by the way, on Byron
and his circle. There is another distinct chapter on
Dandies and their sometime paragon, Beau Brum-
mell. Now Gore House is the particular locality
traversed anew by the author of these varied remi-
niscences. Now we take a ramble with him a whole
generation back round the margin of Virginia
Water. One specimen quotation at least, we must
here indulge ourselves and our readers with, by way
of indicating the vivacity with which the Hon.
Grantley Berkeley pours out these his recollections.
A friend of our author, calling one morning
at Mr. Brummell's to pay his homage to the Beau,
has just been introduced to the costly dressing-
room of Brummell, when that great leader of fashion
is completing his toilet for the day :
He entered a luxuriously-furnished dressing-room full of
magnificent mirrors. But the first objest that attracted his
attention was the person of the illustrious beau, seated in
a low arm-chair, in a muslin dressing-grown, having his
hair dressed by a tall fellow in a white apron, with deep
pockets, who he readily recognised as the principal coiffeur
at the West End. The man bowed, but proceeded with
his important duty without hazarding a word.
Mr. Brummell inclined his head very slightly to the bow
of introduction, but that was all the notice he seemed dis-
posed to take of his -visitor.

" Watson," he said, in a somewhat drawling
,one, addressing his valet, " what has arrived ?"

"Three haunches of venison, four salmon, two turbots,
one dressing-case, five lap-dogs, and an easy chair, sir !"
"Send the fish and the venison to Groves's. What is
the use of presenting things to a man who has twenty in-
vitations to dinner every day of his life ? Aw—no—re-
serve the finest turbot and the finest salmon for my Lady
Cholmondeley. Her ladyship gives a large dinner party
to-night—so send at once, that the cook may have it
early."
" Yes, sir."

"Aw—and tell Groves I shall expect the full allow-

ance."

" Yes, sir." •
" Aw—and the dressing-case and tho easy chair may
also be sold. I have five easy chairs and three dressing-
cases."

" And what's to be done with the lap-dogs, if you please,
sir ?"

" A.w—if there is a pug amongst them, send it to my
Lady Cowper; it there's a King Charles, send it to my
Lady Soften ; if there's a Blenheim, it must go to Mrs.
Drummond Burrell. A w—l don't know anybody else who
requires anything of the kind ; so the rest may be disposed
of. Is there anything else ?"
" Yes, sir ; a box of French kid gloves, three pairs of
worked slippers, a china christening bowl, a butt of Spa-
nish wine, and a canister of Dutch snuff."
" Aw--put the gloves away for use. I've got a drawer
full of slippers ; I shall never be able to wear half of them.
If the bowl is unusually large, reserve it for punch ; the
wine may be bottled if of superior quality ; the snuff, if
very good, may go to Lord Petersham and the Prince.
Anything else ?"
"My Lady Castlereagh sent to remind you that you aro
engaged to her dinner party ; my Lord Conyngham called
to leave word that you were on no account to forget the
masquerade ; Sir Benjamin Blomfield has left his Royal
Highness's command for your attendance at the concert to-
morrow evening; Sir John Lade drove up to inquire if
you could breakfast with him any morning this week ; and
the Duke of Dorset and my Lord Moreton rode to the door
to invite you to dinner on your first disengaged day."
" Aw—when is that likely to be ? People are most un-
reasonable—every day they expect me to eat a dozen
breakfasts, as many luncheons, at least a score of dinners,
and to attend an unlimited number of concerts, masquer-
ades, balls, private theatricals, conversaziones, and enter-
tainments of every possible description. Aw—Sir Boyle
Roche wished he was a bird to be in two places at once ;
but I'm required to do a great deal more than that. I'm
requested to be at Mayfair and 'Carlton House ; to be at
Manchester-square and St. James's ; to be at Grosvenor-
place aid Knightsbridge, and I know not how many. more
distant parts of town, where I am expected to have the
digestion of an ostrich, the agility of a dervish, the loqua-
city of a parrot, and the constitution of a horse."
" And very right, sir !" exclaimed the valet; with the
freedom of a favoured domestic ; " ordinary people are
only asked to do ordinary things, sir! —that you know,
sir !—and that this gentleman knows, sir !—who, like so
many thousands of the nobility and gentry, has come to
pay his respects to you !"
Here the great man slightlynodded again, andniy friend
bowed in return.
"But a Brummell, sir, as everybody in the three king-
doms is aware, is an extraordinary person—l may say a
very extraordinary person, sir !—therefore what so natural
as the general expectation that he should do extraordinary
things?"

"Aw, yes ; but not impossible things, my good fellow.
But did anybody else call ?"
"His Highness the Prince Esterhazy, the most noble the
Marquis of Cholmondeley, and my Lords Fyfe, Wilton,
Petersham, Alvanley, and Yarmouth."
" I wished to have seen them, Watson."
" So I thought, sir—and asked them into the drawing-
room, where they have been waiting this half hour."
" You have done, Le Fleur?"
"Yes, sare. The hair of your head. is superbe—it is
ravishing !"
The beau turned and looked at the effect in the glass,
with a very critical gaze ; the hairdresser and the valet
examining it at the same time with the most intense grati-
fication. My friend regarded the scene with all the inte-
rest of an amateur, almost afraid to exercise the privilege
of amateurship, oppressed by what he saw.
" My coat—my morning coat, of course."
The Frenchman tenderly took off the dressing-gown,
and delicately hung it on a peg at the back of the door,
while the vallet brought the requited garment, which he
helped on with the air of serious concern that might be ex-
pected from a person holding so responsible an office as
the confidential attendant of so renowned a potentate. It
fitted to a hair—there was not a speck of dust nor a crease
on the cloth.
The beau looked long and searchingly into the glass,
adjusted his cravat, turned round to see the fit of his frock
coat, pulled up his stiff shirt collar, smoothed the folds of
his waistcoat, and carefully examined his trousers and
boots.

" Aw—l think I shall do," he said.
" You never looked better, sir, and that is saying a great
deal," observed the vallet, with an air of profound satisfac-
tion.

"Monsieur shall excel himself," and the hairdresser fell
back a pace or two, clasping his hands, and looking exceed-
ingly happy.
" What do you think, sir ?" said the beau, suddenly ad-
dressing his visitor for the first time
" There cannot bo two opinionsabout it, Mr. Brummell,"
was the reply. "If you are not the best got-up gentle-
man in his Majesty's dominions, I should like to know
who is."

" Come along with me," criod the great man, apparently
well pleased, and taking him by the arm in a friendly way,
led him into tho next room, where my friand presently
found himself in the company of six of the most fashionable
men of the day.
" Aw—delighted to see you, Prince—charmed to see you
all, by G—d 1" .
" How are you, Brummell ?" and other conventional
greetings were said in the way of reply, every one direct-
ing his exclusive attention to his host—not ono appearing
to be aware of thepresence of the stranger.
They were all dressed after one pattern, but there were
some slight variations. Lord Wilton wore a fur collar to
his frogged surtout ; Lord Yarmouth a long overcoat. All
carried walking-sticks except Prince Eit;terhazy, who held