When, as a philosophic wanderer, I contemplate the motley scene which every evening is poured forth from all quarters, on the Steine, I have sometimes thought that the Highlander's prayer, as recorded by the late Mr. Pennant*, had actually come to pass→→→ "Lord! turn the world upside down, that Christians may make bread of it:" at Brighton this certainly has taken place, and its inhabitants, who are vulgarly denominated Christians, make their bread accordingly.. The dissipated scene is occasionally diversified and enriched by some stray prelates, who form an admirable contrast to the pantalooned, and cropped beaux from Bond Street: but I have often observed as much vanity and attention to the minutiae of dress, in the priggish wig, and shovel hat, and square-cut coat of the one, as in the cropped head and cockatoo top, and skirtless jacket of the other have seen the former equally attentive to the ladies; and though the spine of a prelate possesses a superior degree of stiffness and rigidity, it has suddenly become as pliable before God and Mammont as that of the beau before a beauty or at a gaming table. Let me not, however, be thought to include under this description, either the venerable seer who ་་ * Tour in Scotland, 1772. + "I am far from insinuating that the prelates of the established church, for whom 1 profess the highest respect, can worship both God and Mammon, in the scriptural sense of the expression-my allusion is only to the poet," "O Melibæe Deus nobis hæc otia fecit Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus, illius aras VIRG. graces the palace of Lambeth, or the respectable and So justly-respected, the eminent divine who inhabits that of Fulham, nor the mild and amiable Bishop of Winchester: these men, with some others, seem born for the sacred offices they fill with so much credit; and are equally removed from the pride and puppyism of spiritual conceit in high places.... .... For the purpose of variety, I frequently station myself of an evening at some of the coach offices, in order to enjoy the exquisite delight of seeing these vehicles disgorge the various commodities they have imported from London. At first I had some difficulty; but the book-keepers, who are now convinced that I am a harmless madman, come down to bathe for the recovery of my intellects, allow me to sit unmolested among other lumber in their warehouse. Yesterday I had a rich treat: in one of the hottest and dustiest days that ever melted a poor traveller in a stage-coach, one that was filled both inside and out, at length arrived: when on a sudden issued from all sides" Coachman! have you brought my swimming bladders-Did you bring my lady's stays from Mrs. Bayley's?-Oh you, Sir, you d-d coachee; have you at last brought that basket of fish?-Pray, Mr. Coachman, have you been so good as to call at the dentist's for my teeth? Is my wig come?" Scarcely had these and similar enquiries been issued from a hundred mouths, when, one by one, after they had unstuck from each other, descended a man cook, with a turtle that had nearly expired; Mr. the celebrated hair-cutter; two wet nurses, with their complement of children; three ladies from King's Place, and a methodist parson. Two bird cages, and a bottle of curdled milk, were afterwards taken out of the disembogued machine: the whole made me feel so hot, I was obliged to retreat to the sea side.... .... It is the observation of our kind friends, the French, that the inhabitants of this island are certainly WEB-FOOTED; to own the truth, I have long suspected this to be the case with some of my fair country women; to examine this subject with the minute attention it deserves, in order to make a report to the dilettanti society, I took my station one morning, after the usual custom now prevailing at Brighton, immediately opposite the place that is appropriated to female bathing: this, for wise reasons, is in the most public and exposed part of the beach, vis à vis the end of the Steine, or public promenade: doubtless a mark of the innocence or delicacy of the present philosophic age. On the beach at Brighton, and probably at all other fashionable sea-bathing places: "they go naked, both the man and the woman, and are not ashamed.” Having taken this fashionable station, I immediately began to scrape an acquaintance with one of the female bathers. On a sudden, from one of the blue machines sprang forth a female, as beautiful, and doubtless as chaste, as Venus; who immediately began to ride the billows with all the ease of the webb-footed tribes. My pleasure may easily be imagined, and I eagerly asked "Whether that was the elegant female swimmer, so long renowned in the highest circles of ton?"- "No Sir," replied the bather, "that is a lady of fashion.""Of fashion!""Why Lord, Sir, where be ye come from: why now don't you know, that we now calls all your high-fliers, your dammerips, and them there sort - of folks, ladies of fashion!"-I begged the bather's pardon for my ignorance, and walked off. Let my fair country-women be careful how they play with SALT. It has been frequently used with success in fattening the cattle: and the sea, as we are now informed, from the lectures given at the Royal Institution, is strongly impregnated with it. What would the world say, if some unsuspicious young ladies, should in consequence of frequent plunges and swimming in the sea, lose their delicate slimness, and return to town with an edious protuberance? "O ye fair inhabitants of Grosvenor Square," as a popular preacher was once heard to exclaim at the beginning of the last century," beware of salt! beware of salt!" Dr. Johnson has declared, that though it is incombustible, yet it is an active substance. I will leave to some future writer des Memoires gallants et badins to develope the very considerable advantages that the fair and frail sex derive from resorting to the sea-side.... .... It affords ample subject of entertainment at Brighton to read the account the London newspapers give of the company and their amusements. A mas querade was announced, as to be given by the Prince at the pavilion, which neither his Royal Highness, nor his friends had ever heard of: and paragraphs are continually sent up to the London papers, and their insertion paid for, by people whom nobody knows, who wish. to appear to belong to the Prince's party, and the circle of ton. When considering the manners of the fashionable world at Brighton, it might be deemed a want of due respect not to mention, "Th' observed of all observers," His Royal Highness, the Prince. The change which his presence has wrought in what was only a paltry village of fishermen, can hardly be credited by any but those who, remembering what Brighton originally was, are enabled to compare it with its present rising opu lence. The taste which his Royal Highness displayed in the first decorations of his pavilion is now still more apparent, by an entirely new and admirable arrangement, which gives to nearly the whole of the lower apartments the rich splendour of a Chinese building: and I doubt not that the originality and beautiful contrast of colour which his Royal Highness has displayed, will open a new field for the imagination and taste of our ornamental painters*. ....I cannot take leave of Brighton without expressing a wish, that either the sixty commisioners who superintend the miserable lighting up of the townt, or a These Chinese ornaments have been executed with historic exactness, under the direction of a Mr. Scrase, and nothing has been selected but what strictly belongs to the costume and manners of that country. The prevailing taste of the age, in building, has been to select and combine the beauties of the different orders of architecture; and, although this is certainly blameable in the construction of great national edifices, it certainly is allowable in buildings on a smaller scale; and, in this respect, the introduction of parts of the Chinese style must afford an essential service to those improvements which modern refinement is daily making in the villas and rural re treats of our opulent countrymen. + The lamps are only lighted from Midsummer to Michaelmas, though Brighton can boast of a summer season, of an autumnal season, and of a winter season, when families from the Weald make a sort of London of it. |