He died in utter poverty, and an idiot, at Caen, in the year 1840, aged 62 years. Brummell had a very odd way of accounting for the sad change which took place in his affairs. He said that up to a particular period of his life everything prospered with him, and that he attributed good luck to the possession of a certain silver sixpence with a hole in it, which somebody had given him years before, with an injunction to take good care of it, as everything would go well with him so long as he did, and the reverse if he happened to lose it. The promised prosperity attended him for many years, whilst he held the sixpence fast; but having at length, in an evil hour, unfortunately given it by mistake to a hackney-coachman, a complete reverse of his previous good fortune ensued, till actual ruin overtook him at last, and obliged him to expatriate himself. 'On my asking him,' says the narrator, 'why he did not advertise and offer a reward for the lost treasure; he said, "I did, and twenty people came with sixpences having holes in them to obtain the promised reward, but mine was not amongst them!" And you never afterwards,' said I, 'ascertained what became of it? "Oh yes," he replied, "no doubt that rascal Rothschild, or some of his set, got hold of it."' Whatever poor Brummell's supernatural tendencies may have generally been, he had unquestionably a superstitious veneration for his lost sixpence. TOM DUNCOMBE. Tom Duncombe graduated and took honours among the greatest gamblers of the day. Like Fox, he was heir to a good fortune--ten or twelve thousand a year--the whole of which he managed to anticipate before he was thirty. 'Tom Duncombe ran Charles Fox close. When Mr Duncombe, sen., of Copgrove, caused his prodigal son's debts to be estimated with a view to their settlement, they were found to exceed L135,000;(133) and the hopeful heir went on adding to them till all possibility of extrication was at an end. But he spent his money (or other people's money), so long as he had any, like a gentleman; his heart was open like his hand; he was generous, cordial, high-spirited; and his expectations--till they were known to be discounted to the uttermost farthing--kept up his credit, improved his social position, and gained friends. "Society" (says his son) "opened its arms to the possessor of a good name and the inheritor of a good estate. Paterfamiliases and Materfamiliases rivalled each other in endeavouring to make things pleasant in their households for his particular delectation, especially if they had grown-up daughters; hospitable hosts invited him to dinner, fashionable matrons to balls; political leaders sought to secure him as a partisan; _DEBUTANTES_ of the season endeavoured to attract him as an admirer; _TRADESMEN THRONGED TO HIS DOORSTEPS FOR HIS CUSTOM_, and his table was daily covered with written applications for his patronage." _Noblesse oblige;_ and so does fashion. The aspirant had confessedly a hard time of it.