Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/141

 nationality. "There are rarely any English to be seen there." The second argument was more original. "As Paris is France, so at this hotel the table d'hôte is the kitchen. Each and every dish at a private dinner is a réchauffé." So he invites Raikes to drop down the river and rest for two or three days at Rouen.

Colley Grattan came across him again at Boulogne in August 1849. His appearance was quite changed and for the better. He looked spruce, "so neatly-dressed, so gentlemanlike in air, so lively and fresh in conversation." His dining-out days were past and gone. But he had acquired an unfortunate habit. He had taken to walk in his sleep and had on one occasion "awoke finding himself on the banks of a river." A year or two later he had ventured to cross to England. Hawtrey met him at Eton probably in the autmn of 1851 but would not have recognised him" had he not mentioned his name." He seemed quite broken down.

The home of Scrope Davies was then in Paris; he was lodging at No. 2 Rue Miromenil and living on £80 a year. There he died suddenly, on 24 May 1852. He left this world "obscurely, but not quite deserted, or with any ignominious circumstances of discomfort." One old friend, Hopkins Northey, was with him. He had been one of that brilliant little set of Englishmen at Brussels that so warmly welcomed the visits of Davies.

His slight expenditure in living is corroborated by the chronicler of the Gentleman's Magazine. He had become " economical, almost penurious, and is supposed to have accumulated a large sum of money." Another popular belief was that he possessed some curious documents relating to lord Byron. None, however, could be found, "nor the ring which the noble lord sent on his death-bed by his valet Fletcher and upon which Davies placed much