hall which
he was pleased to consider obnoxious. In his studies he affected to
despise college distinctions, but yet wrote for the Newdigate prize, and
produced the second best poem. But his violation of college rules was
systematic and contemptuous. He always ordered his horse at hall time,
was the author of half the squibs, turned a tame jack-daw with a band on
into the quadrangle to burlesque the master, and treated all proctors'
and other penalties with contempt. Such, at least, is the character
given him by Mr Lister in Granby.

But he was now to commence a new career. In 1794 he was gazetted to a
cornetcy in the Tenth Hussars, the gift of its colonel the Prince of
Wales. Brummell's own account of this origin of his court connexions is,
that when a boy at Eton he had been presented to the Prince, and that
his subsequent intimacy grew out of the Prince's notice on that
occasion. But a friend of his told the biographer that the Prince,
hearing of the young Etonian as a second Selwyn, had asked him to his
table, and given him the commission to attach him to his service. This
was a remarkable distinction, and in any other hands would have been a
card of fortune. He was then but sixteen; he was introduced at once into
the highest society of fashion; and he was the favourite companion of a
prince who required to be amused, delighted in originality, and was fond
of having the handsomest and pleasantest men of the age in his regiment.

Brummell, though an elegant appendage to the corps, was too much about
the person of the Prince to be a diligent officer. The result was, that
he was often late on parade, and did not always know his own troop.
However, he evaded the latter difficulty in general, by a contrivance
peculiarly his own. One of his men had a large blue-tinged nose.
Whenever Brummell arrived late, he galloped between the squadrons till
he saw the blue nose. There he reined up, and felt secure. Once,
however, it happened unfortunately that during his absence there was
some change made in the squadrons, and the place of the blue nose was
shifted. Brummel, on coming up late as usual, galloped in search of his
beacon, and having found his old friend he reined up. "Mr Brummell,"
cried the colonel, "you are with the wrong troop." "No, no," said
Brummell, confirming himself by the sight of the blue nose, and adding
in a lower tone--"I know better than that; a pretty thing, indeed, if I
did not know my own troop!"

His