Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/249

Rh —Mr. Phelps, a chorus singer, and an excellent musician, with good looks and address, contrived to ingratiate himself with the Marchioness of Antrim, and was fortunate enough to marry her ladyship, by whose influence he was created a baronet, and, through his marriage, he became allied to some of our most aristocratic families.

—The late Lord Bloomfield likewise owed his elevation to the Peerage to his musical talents. When the Prince of Wales was living at the Pavilion at Brighton, he wanted some one who could accompany him on the violoncello, and having ascertained that Captain Bloomfield, of the Royal Artillery, who was then at Brighton with his troop, was an accomplished violoncello player, the captain was accordingly summoned to appear before the Prince, at the Pavilion. From that night commenced an intimacy which for many years existed between the Prince and Captain Bloomfield; who for a considerable length of time was well known in fashionable circles under the title of Sir Benjamin Bloomfield. A court intrigue, headed by a fascinating marchioness, caused him to be sent