Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/214

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192
Anecdotes and Reminisences

himself, for which his elegant deportment and good taste eminently qualified him; and he has often been mistaken for Gentleman Palmer, whose portrait is well drawn in the Memoir of Sheridan by Dr. Sigmond, prefixed to Bohn's edition of Sheridan's plays. Mr. Palmer was successful in his undertaking, and at his death, his son found himself the inheritor of a handsome fortune, and became a universal favourite in Bath.

The corporation of that city, consisting of thirty apothecaries, were, in those borough-mongering days, the sole electors to the House of Commons, and finding young Palmer hospitable, and intimate with the Marquis of Bath and Lord Camden, and likewise desiring for themselves and their families free access to the most agreeable theatre in England, they returned him to Parliament. He entered the army, and became a conspicuous officer in the 10th Hussars, which regiment being commanded by the Prince Regent, Palmer was at once introduced at Carlton House, the Pavilion at Brighton, and consequently into the highest society of the country; for which his agreeable manners, his amiable disposition, and his attainments, admirably qualified him. His fortune was sufficiently large for all his wants;