' Of his `forthcoming
impersonation of Romeo and Juliet' there were constant puffs, quite in
the modern manner. The accounts of his de'but all showed that Mr.
Pryse Gordon's account of it was fabulous. In one paper there was a
bitter attack on `Mr. Gordon, who was responsible for this insult to
Thespian art, the gentry, and the people, for he first arranged the
whole production'--an extract which makes it clear that this gentleman
had a good motive for his version of the affair.
But I began to despair of ever learning what happened at the fe^te-
champe^tre. There were accounts of `a grand garden-party, whereto Lady
Belper, on March the twenty-eighth, invited a host of fashionable
persons.' The names of Mr. Coates and of `Sir James Tylney Long and
his daughter' were duly recorded in the lists. But that was all. I
turned at length to a tiny file, consisting of five copies only,
Bladud's Courier. Therein I found this paragraph, followed by some
scurrilities which I will not quote:
`Mr. C**t*s, who will act Romeo (Wherefore art thou Romeo?) this
coming week for the pleasure of his fashionable circle, incurred the
contemptuous wrath of his Lady Fair at the Fe^te. It was a sad pity
she entrusted him to hold her purse while she fed the gold-fishes.
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