Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/211

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Lord Alvanley.
189

throne of dandyism by Brummell; who, before that time, was always quoted as the sayer of good things, as Sheridan had been some time before. Lord Alvanley had the talk of the day completely under his control, and was the arbiter of the school for scandal in St. James's. A bon mot attributed to him gave rise to the belief that Solomon caused the downfall and disappearance of Brummell; for on some friends of the prince of dandies observing that if he had remained in London something might have been done for him by his old associates, Alvanley replied, "He has done quite right to be off: it was Solomon's judgment."

When Sir Lumley Skeffington, who had been a lion in his day—and whose spectacle, the Sleeping Beauty, produced at a great expense on the stage, had made him looked up to as deserving all the blandishments of fashionable life—re-appeared some years after his complete downfal and seclusion in the bench, he fancied that by a very gay external appearance he would recover his lost position; but he found his old friends very shy of him. Alvanley being asked, on one occasion, who that smart-looking individual was, answered, "It is a second edition of the Sleeping Beauty,