An
excellent dancer, clever at 'vers de societe', an agreeable singer, a
talented artist, a judge of china, buhl, and other objects of 'virtu', a
collector of snuff-boxes, a connoisseur in canes, he had gifts which
might have raised him above the Bond Street 'flaneur', or the idler at
Watier's Club. Well-read in a desultory fashion, he wrote verses which
were not without merit in their class. The following are the first and
last stanzas of 'The Butterfly's Funeral', a poem which was suggested by
Mrs. Dorset's 'Peacock at Home' and Roscoe's 'Butterfly's Ball':--
"Oh ye! who so lately were blythsome and gay,
At the Butterfly's banquet carousing away;
Your feasts and your revels of pleasure are fled,
For the soul of the banquet, the Butterfly's dead!
* * * * *
And here shall the daisy and violet blow,
And the lily discover her bosom of snow;
While under the leaf, in the evenings of spring,
Still mourning his friend, shall the grasshopper sing."
In the days of his prosperity (1799-1816), Brummell knew everybody to
whose acquaintance he condescended. His Album, in which he collected 226
pieces of poetry, many by himself, others by celebrities of the day, is
a curious proof of his popularity. It contains contributions from such
persons as the Duchess of Devonshire, Erskine, Lord John Townshend,
Sheridan, General Fitzpatrick, William Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne)
and his brother George, and Byron.
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