DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

@ 22) ‘Salutation,’ at Tavistock Garden, where the Prince went by the name of Blackstock, Lord Surrey that of Greystock, and Sheridan, Thinstock. Disguised in various ways they knocked about the streets, and from one tavern to another. One night they went to a public-house in St. Giles’s called the ‘ Brown Bear,’ where they became so drunk and noisy that they were all three arrested by the watch, and owed their release merely to a witty remark of Sheridan. They ended the night with a supper at the ‘ Saluta- tion.’ I might give you endless instances of such con- duct on the part of a prince who was called the ‘ first gentleman in Europe,’ on account of his fine man- ners. One more specimen of the behaviour in which he habitually indulged will suffice. Accompanied by two of his equerries—one of them Colonel St. Leger, the founder of the St. Leger races at Doncaster—he called on a Miss Vanneck. On entering her room, the two equerries, at a signal from the Prince, pro- ceeded to lay her on the floor, upon which the Prince beat her with his riding-whip. ‘Pray excuse me,’ said the future George IV., ‘I mean no insult: I am merely carrying out a wager.’ And, strangely enough, Miss Vanneck took the beating and the insult in good part ; and her royal visitor left her on the most amicable terms. Such conduct was possible only because there was no public opinion to condemn it. One of the last barbarous and insane customs u =