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This accomplished gentleman was the son of Sir William Skeffington, a much respected Baronet of Bilsdon, in Leicestershire, where he enjoyed considerable estates and great provincial esteem. He was born in 1778, and was educated at Soho School, and at Newcome's, at Hackney. At the latter he distinguished himself in the dramatic performances for which the school was long celebrated. Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, author of The Suspicious Husband, and his brother, Dr. John Hoadley, were both educated here, and shone in their amateur performances; at the representation of 1764, there were upwards of "one hundred gentlemen's coaches." Young Skeffington excelled in Hamlet, as he afterwards shone in "the glass of fashion." His hereditary prospects afforded him a ready introduction to the fashionable world, and during upwards of twenty years he was considered as a leader of ton, and one of the most finished gentlemen in England. He was a person of considerable taste in literature: he wrote The Word of Honour, a comedy, and the dialogue and songs of a highly finished melodrama, founded on the legend of The Sleeping Beauty. In 1818 he lost his father, who having embarrassed his estates, his son, as an act of filial duty to rescue a parent from distress, consented to the cutting off the entail, by which he deprived himself of that substantial provision without which the life of a gentleman is a life of misery.

Sir Lumley was the dandy of the olden time, and a kinder, better-hearted man never existed. He was of the most polished manners; nor had his long intercourse with fashionable society at all affected that simplicity of character for which he was remarkable. He was a true dandy, and much more than that, he was a perfect gentleman. In 1827, a contributor to the New Monthly Magazine wrote: "I remember, long, long since, entering Covent Garden Theatre, when I observed a person holding the door to let me pass; deeming him to be one of the box-keepers, I was about to nod my thanks, when I found, to my surprise, that it was Skeffington who had thus good-naturedly honoured a stranger by his attention. We with some difficulty obtained seats in a box, and I was indebted to accident for one of the most agreeable evenings I remember to have passed.

"I remember visiting the Opera when late dinners were the rage, and the hour of refection was carried far into the night. I was again placed near the fugleman of fashion, for to his movements were all eyes directed, and his sanction determined the accuracy of all conduct. He bowed from box to box, until recognizing one of his friends in the lower tier, 'Temple,' he exclaimed, drawling out his weary words, 'at—what—hour—do—you—dine—to-day?' It had gone half-past eleven when he spoke.

"I saw him once enter St. James's Church, having at the door taken a ponderous red morocco prayer-book from his servant; but although prominently placed in the centre aisle, the pew-opener never offered him a seat; and stranger still, none of his many friends beckoned him to a place. Others in his rank of life might have been disconcerted at the position in which he was placed; but Skeffington was too much of a gentleman to be in any way disturbed; so he seated himself upon the bench between two aged female paupers, and most reverently did he go through the service, sharing with the ladies his book, the print of which was more favourable to their devotions than their own diminutive liturgies."

Sir Lumley Skeffington continued to the last to take especial interest in the theatre and its artists, notwithstanding his own reduced fortunes. He was a worshipper of female beauty, his adoration being poured forth in ardent verse. Thus, in the spring 1829, he inscribed to Miss Foote the following ballad:

When the frosts of the Winter in mildness were ending,

To April I gave half the welcome of May;

While the Spring, fresh in youth, came delightfully blending

The buds that are sweet, and the songs that are gay.

As the eyes fixed the heart on a vision so fair,

Not doubting, but trusting what magic was there,

Aloud I exclaim'd, with augmented desire,

I thought 'twas the Spring, when in truth 'twas Maria!

When the fading of stars in the region of splendour

Announc'd that the morning was young in the east,

On the upland I rov'd, admiration to render,

Where freshness, and beauty, and lustre increas'd.

Whilst the beams of the morning new pleasures bestow'd,

While fondly I gaz'd, while with rapture I glow'd,

In sweetness commanding, in elegance bright,

Maria arose! a more beautiful light.

Again, on the termination of the engagement of Miss Foote, at Drury Lane Theatre, in May, 1826, Sir Lumley addressed her in the following impromptu:

Maria departs! 'tis a sentence of dread;

For the Graces turn pale, and the Fates droop their head!

In mercy to breasts that tumultuously burn,

Dwell no more on departure, but speak of return.

Since she goes when the buds are just ready to burst,

In expanding its leaves, let the willow be first.

We here shall no longer find beauties in May;

It cannot be Spring when Maria's away!

If vernal at all, 'tis an April appears,

For the blossom flies off in the midst of our tears.

Sir Lumley, through the ingratitude and treachery of

Friends found in sunshine, to be lost in storm,

became involved in difficulties and endless litigation, and his latter years were clouded with sorrow; still his buoyant spirits never altogether left him, although "the observed of all observers" passed his latter years in compulsory residence in a quarter of the great town ignored by the Sybarites of St. James's.

When Madame Vestris established a theatre of her own, Sir Lumley thus sang, in the columns of The Times:—

Now Vestris, the tenth of the Muses,

To Mirth rears a fanciful dome,

We mark, while delight she infuses,

The Graces find beauty at home.

In her eye such vivacity glitters,

To her voice such perfections belong,

That care, and the life it embitters,

Find balm in the sweets of her song.

When monarchs o'er valleys are ranging,

A court is transferr'd to the green;

And flowers, transplanted, are changing

Not fragrance, but merely the scene.

'Tis circumstance dignifies places;

A desert is charming with spring!

And pleasure finds twenty new graces

Wherever the Vestris may sing!

Sir Lumley, who had long been unheard of in fashionable circles, died in London in 1850 or 1851.

Skiffy at the Birthday Ball.

Robert Coates, the Amateur of Fashion, as Romeo.