[Illustration: THE CLIFFS, BRIGHTHELMSTONE, 1789. _From an aquatint after Rowlandson._]
[Illustration: DR. RICHARD RUSSELL. _From the portrait by Zoffany._]
Brighthelmstone, indeed, has had more Guides written upon it than even Bath has had, and very curious some of them are become in these days. They range from lively to severe, from grave to gay, from the serious screeds of Russell and Dr. Relhan, his successor, to the light and airy, and not too admirable puffs of to-day. But, however these guides may vary, they all agree in harking back to that shadowy Brighthelm who is supposed to have given his peculiar name to the ancient fisher-village here established time out of mind. In the days when "County Histories" were first let loose, in folio volumes, upon an unoffending land, historians, archæologists, and other interested parties seemed at a loss for the derivation of the place-name, and, rather than confess themselves ignorant of its meaning, they conspired together to invent a Saxon archbishop, who, dying in the odour of sanctity and the ninth century, bequeathed his appellation to what is now known, in a contracted form, as Brighton.
But the man is not known who has unassailable proofs to show of this Brighthelm's having so honoured the fisher-folk's hovels with his name.
Thackeray, greatly daring, considering that the Fourth George is the real patron--saint, we can hardly say; let us make it king--of the town, elected to deliver his lectures upon the "Four Georges" at Brighton, among other places, and to that end made, with monumental assurance, a personal application at the Town Hall for the hire of the banqueting-room in the Royal Pavilion.
But one of the Aldermen, who chanced to be present, suggested, with extra-aldermanic wit, that the Town Hall would be equally suitable, intimating at the same time that it was not considered as strictly etiquette to "abuse a man in his own house." The witty Alderman's suggestion, we are told, was acted upon, and the Town Hall engaged forthwith.
It argued considerable courage on the lecturer's part to declaim against George the Fourth anywhere in that town which His Majesty had, by his example, conjured up from almost nothingness. It does not seem that Thackeray was, after all, ill received at Brighton; whence thoughts arise as to the ingratitude and fleeting memories of them that were either in the first or second generation, advantaged by the royal preference for this bleak stretch of shore beneath the bare South Downs, open to every wind that blows. Surely gratitude is well described as a "lively sense of favours to come," and they, no doubt, considered that the statue they had erected in the Steyne gardens to him was a full discharge of all obligations. Nor is the history of that effigy altogether creditable. It was erected in 1828, as the result of a movement among Brighton tradesfolk in 1820, to honour the memory of one who had incidentally made the fortunes of so many among them; but although the subscription list remained open for eight years and a half, it did not provide the £3.000 agreed upon to be paid to Chantrey, the sculptor of it.