Part 13

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.

"Romeo" Coates.

This celebrated leader of fashion, who rejoiced in the sobriquets of "Romeo" and "Diamond," obtained the former from his love of amateur acting, and the latter from his great wealth obtained from the West Indies. He was likewise noted by his splendid curricle, the body of which was in the form of a cockleshell, bearing the cock-bird as his crest; and the harness of the horses was mounted with metal figures of the same bird, with which got associated the motto of "Whilst we live, we'll crow."

By his amateur performances he shared with young Betty (Roscius) the admiration of the town. A writer in the New Monthly Magazine, 1827, pleasantly describes one of these performances:--"Never shall I forget his representation of Lothario (some sixty years since), at the Haymarket Theatre, for his own pleasure, as he accurately termed it; and certainly the then rising fame of Liston was greatly endangered by his Barbadoes rival. Never had Garrick or Kemble in their best times so largely excited the public attention and curiosity. The very remotest nooks of the galleries were filled by fashion; while in a stage-box sat the performer's notorious friend, the Baron Ferdinand Geramb.

"Coates's lean Quixotic form being duly clothed in velvets and in silks, and his bonnet highly fraught with diamonds (whence his appellation), his entrance on the stage was greeted by so general a crowing (in allusion to the large cocks, which as his crest adorned his harness), that the angry and affronted Lothario drew his sword upon the audience, and actually challenged the rude and boisterous tenants of the galleries, seriatim or en masse, to combat on the stage. Solemn silence, as the consequence of mock fear, immediately succeeded. The great actor, after the overture had ceased, amused himself for some time with the Baron ere he condescended to indulge the wishes of an anxiously expectant audience.

"At length he commenced: his appeals to the heart were made by the application of the left hand so disproportionately lower down than 'the seat of life' has been supposed to be placed; his contracted pronunciation of the word 'breach,' and other new readings and actings, kept the house in a right joyous humour, until the climax of all mirth was attained by the dying scene of

that gallant, gay Lothario:

but who shall describe the grotesque agonies of the dark seducer, his platted hair escaping from the comb that held it, and the dark crineous cordage that flapped upon his shoulders in the convulsions of his dying moments, and the cries of the people for medical aid to accomplish his eternal exit? Then, when in his last throes his coronet fell, it was miraculous to see the defunct arise, and after he had spread a nice handkerchief on the stage, and there deposited his head-dress, free from impurity, philosophically resume his dead condition; but it was not yet over, for the exigent audience, not content 'that when the men were dead, why there an end,' insisted on a repetition of the awful scene, which the highly flattered corpse executed three several times, to the gratification of the cruel and torment-loving assembly."

Coates was destined to be tantalized by the celebrated fête given at Carlton House, in 1821, in honour of the Bourbons. Having no opportunity of learning in the West Indies the propriety of being presented at Court ere he could be upon a more intimate footing with the Prince Regent, he was less astonished than delighted at the reception of an invitation on that occasion to Carlton House. What was the fame acquired by his cockleshell curricle; his theatrical reputation; all the applause attending the perfection of histrionic art; the flatteries of Billy Finch, a sort of kidnapper of juvenile actors and actresses of the O.P. and P.S., in Russell Court; the sanction of a Petersham; the intimacy of a Barry More; even the polite endurance of a Skeffington to this! To be classed with the proud, the noble, and the great! It seemed a natural query whether the Bourbon's name were not a pretext for his own introduction to Royalty, under circumstances of unprecedented splendour and magnificence. It must have been so. What cogitations respecting dress, and air, and port, and bearing! What torturing of the confounded lanky locks, to make them but revolve ever so little! Then the rich cut velvet,--the diamond buttons,--ay, every one was composed of brilliants. The night arrived--but for Coates's mortification. Theodore Hook had contrived to imitate one of the Chamberlain's tickets, and to produce a facsimile, commanding the presence of Coates; he then put on a scarlet uniform, and delivered the card himself. On the night of the fête, June 19th, Hook stationed himself by the screen at Carlton House, and saw Romeo arrive and enter the palace; he passed in without question, but the forgery was detected by the Private Secretary, and Coates had to retrace his steps to the street, and his carriage being driven off, to get home to Craven Street in a hackney-coach. When the Prince was informed of what had occurred, he signified his regret at the course the Secretary had taken; he was sent by his Royal Highness to apologize in person, and invite Coates to come and look at the state rooms; and Romeo went.

Mr. Coates, who by his cockleshell curricle had acquired some of his celebrity, lost his life by a vehicular accident: he died February 23, 1848, from being run over in one of the London streets. He was in his seventy-sixth year.

Abraham Newland.

Abraham Newland, who was nearly sixty years in the service of the Bank of England, and whose name became a synonym for a bank-note, was one of a family of twenty-five children, and was born in Southwark in 1730. At the age of eighteen he entered the Bank service as junior clerk. He was very fond of music, which led him into much dissipation. Still, he was very attentive to business, and in 1782 he was appointed chief cashier, with a suite of rooms for residence in the Bank, and for five-and-twenty years he never once slept out of the building. The pleasantest version of his importance is contained in the famous song in the Whims of the Day, published in 1800:--

There ne'er was a name so handed by fame, Thro' air, thro' ocean, and thro' land, As one that is wrote upon every bank note, And you all must know Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Notified Abraham Newland! I have heard people say, sham Abraham you may, But you must not sham Abraham Newland.

For fashion or arts, should you seek foreign parts, It matters not wherever you land, Jew, Christian, or Greek, the same language they speak That's the language of Abraham Newland! Oh, Abraham Newland! Wonderful Abraham Newland! Tho' with compliments cramm'd, you may die and be d--d, If you hav'n't an Abraham Newland.

The world is inclin'd to think Justice is blind; Lawyers know very well they can view land; But, Lord, what of that, she'll blink like a bat At the sight of an Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Magical Abraham Newland! Tho' Justice, 'tis known, can see through a millstone, She can't see through Abraham Newland.

Your patriots who bawl for the good of us all, Kind souls! here like mushrooms they strew land; Tho' loud as a drum, each proves orator mum, If attack'd by an Abraham Newland! Oh, Abraham Newland! Invincible Abraham Newland! No argument's found in the world half so sound As the logic of Abraham Newland!

The French say they're coming, but sure they are mumming; I know what they want if they do land; We'll make their ears ring in defence of our king, Our country, and Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Darling Abraham Newland! No tricolour, elf, nor the devil himself Shall e'er rob us of Abraham Newland.