A remarkable figure puts in an appearance in the caricatures of the early part of the century. This was the renowned "Romeo" Coates, a vain, weak-minded gentleman, who had an absolute passion for figuring on the boards as Romeo, Lothario, Belcour, and other romantic characters, for which his personal appearance and lack of brains altogether unfitted him. His "readings," like himself, being of the most original character, his vagaries afforded endless amusement to the coarse public of his day. The gods befooled him "to the top of his bent;" his overweening vanity failing to show the poor creature that he was exciting ridicule instead of applause. The fun (?) culminated in the tragic scene, Romeo, to their delight, responding to the encores of his audience, by repeating the dying scene so long as it suited the managers to prolong the sorry exhibition. Macready, whose dramatic genius and refined sensibilities revolted at a spectacle so degrading, describes him as he appeared at Bath, in 1815: "I was at the theatre," says the tragedian, "on the morning of his rehearsal, and introduced to him. At night the house was too crowded to afford me a place in front, and seeing me behind the scenes, he asked me, knowing I acted Belcour, to prompt him if he should be 'out,' which he very much feared. The audience were in convulsions at his absurdities, and in the scene with Miss Rusport, being really 'out,' I gave him a line which Belcour has to speak, 'I never looked so like a fool in all my life,' which, as he delivered it, was greeted with a roar of laughter. He was 'out' again, and I gave him again the same line, which, again being repeated, was acquiesced in with a louder roar. Being 'out' again, I administered him the third time the same truth for him to utter, but he seemed alive to its application, rejoining in some dudgeon, 'I have said that twice already.' His exhibition was a complete burlesque of the comedy and a reflection on the character of a management that could profit by such discreditable expedients." Poor "Romeo" Coates lived to get over his theatrical weakness, and died (in 1848), in his seventy-sixth year, from the results of a street accident. [Illustration: _Published March, 1816, by S. W. FORES, 50, Piccadilly._ LEAP YEAR, OR JOHN BULL'S PEACE ESTABLISHMENT. "When two ride upon a horse, one must ride behind." _Face p. 50._] 1816. MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.