The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 283, November 17, 1827Various
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 283, November 17, 1827
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
Coates's lean Quixotic form, being duly clothed in velvets and in silks,
and his bonnet richly fraught with diamonds, (whence his appellation,) his
entrance on the stage was greeted by such a general 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 inhabitants 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 his heart were made by an application
of the left hand so disproportionably lower 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 "the gallant and the gay;" but who shall describe the prolonged
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 bonnet 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 man 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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