The National Register.
London, England, 1813-01-17 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTF.R.

J AN. 17.

DR.' ATIC I? EG 1811P.R.

YMARKE t THEATRE.
It i, hardly- pissible to find a man who, however despica-
ble in the eyes of the rest of mankind. has not some means
of calling upon vanity for comolation ; who, however dul.
in other repccts, has not sufficient ingenuity to discover
some propensity or quality on which to value himself,
though all Cie world seek any thing to value hini for in vain.
His honesty or his roguery, his complaisance or his rude-
ness, his politeness or his vulgality, furnish something by
which he fancies he is distinguished from the common herd
of matil.:ied.

4. Hell either tell von It cart drinli, or smoke,
Or play at tt hist—or on the pine and tabor ;
Or cut a throat. a caper, or a 'eke,
Much better than his neighbour.
One tells von how a kayo h to be taken;
A second o';;;- the fair sex boasts his power )
. * ;fin "
.her brags he'll eat •iN pound of bacon,
for half a crown, in half an hour.
Thus native always brnig.t, in r'moue's spite.
Aliie's '' ru.tz g passion," as Pope says, t•i light."
Mr. Co AT ES IS Otte of those persons in whom talent or
merit of any kind was sought for by the great mass of
his fellow creatures for a considerable number of years.
From his childhood, it was obvious, that nature had
given him a singularly unwieldy fo; ; and a face, which, if
it had any expression at all, was only that sort of expression
which might enable its possessor to get his bread as a board-
school bug-a-lue, by frightening children to bed; but all
his Creoterrit graces for a long time never induced a suspi-
cion that he was likely to act a conspicuous part on the great
stage Of life. It was imagined, that if not entitled to the praise
of being a respectable Hottentot, as a nameless Yahoo, he
might pass unnoticed to an obscure grave, but It was never
thought he had sufficient talents to become a fool of cele-
brity. •
Genius, however, will break out : TFlONtscri and CitAT-
TERTON weee thought dunces, till the splendour of their
talents at once burst forth en the eye,with a brightness as glow-
ing and as dazzling, as the gloom by which it had been pre-
ceded had been cheerless and profound. In like manner
COAT es in the early part of his life was thought nothing of,
ti!l his aspiring ii;norance and boundless vanity made him at
notorious for his folly, as he had been for his stupidity ;
remarkable for his impudence, as be is for his ostentation.
liooted from the serge with contempt and ridicule, his
effrontery in appearing agalu provoked mirth, while it in-
censed taste, and hundreds ran to laugh at absurdity, who
would not have crorsed the read to encourage excellence.
The pleasure of insulting such a lump of vulgar affectation
was found so delicious a treat, that Mr. COATES became
more attractive than a performer of merit, and still believ-,
ing his powers to be great, or his antics to be entertaining.
he has been brought forward aeain and again to gratify the
curiosity of the lovers of natural history, to show the philso-
2her how far the hunein understanding cau be degraded,
or to fill the pockets of flatterers and fools who were willing
to wear his livery, but who in this way only could get their
wants satisfied at Iris expence.
On Monday last this " celebrated amateur of fashion," as
he calls himself, was announced to perform the part of Lotha-
rio in The Fair Penitent. at the Haymarket Theatre, for the
benefit of Mr. Sins. Who Mr. Sims is we have no- auxieLy
to know, but we are curious to know what claims Mr. Sims
has on the benevolence of the public, and zehat share he has
of the produce of this exhibition. Before the curtain rose
the house was filled in every part, and the Theatre
prescpted a . scene of glJrious uproar from the open.,ng

. .
of the doors till the commencement of the play. When
this eventful period arrived, the uproar rose with the cur-
tain, and the two first performers were greeted with warmth,
equal to their merits. These, it is bin justice to say, were no
common actors. They were of themselves ridiculous endue'
to draw a good house any where else. The representative
of Altamont, in lnticular, was so felicitously absurd, that
Mr. M Toe (so ws he called in the bills) had the ho-
nour to be taken for the great attraction of the evening.
The hero of the piece, the real allractitm, had some reason
to be jealous of him, or if not jealous, on witnessing sue h
congenial ignorance, he might almost have been expected,
to exclaim, in imitation of At. es ANDER the Gm eat when
speaking of Dioceses ('ltat is if the, history of ALEX kti-
DElt has ever been lead to him) " If I %ewe not Mr.
Co A T CS I would be Mr. 'MERTON."
Mr. CO AT LS at length appeared, and was received with
loud plaudits. Throtiehout his performance, the crowing of
cocks, the cackling of hens, and every sort of discord an
ingenious audience could produce were liberally contributed
to heighten the entertainment of the evening. We spare
out selves the trouble of describing the performance of Mr.
CO ATV as we have already often depicted it. It is only
necessary to suppose the living caricature of a human being
caricaturing the character of Tag in " The Spoiled Child,"
of SyICCSICT DagiterWOOd in the interlude of that name, and
something like a correct idea may be forteed of the extrava-
gant gesticulation and ridiculous enunciation of this 4CiOT
in the gallant gay tothario.
In the fourth act, when Lothario died, the death was una-
nimously encored. This call was not complied with. The
audience on this gave him the honours of a wake, and con-
tinued to howl throughout the fifth act, the performance of
which did not take up more than four minutes. The whole
tragedy was got through in an hour and twenty minutes. If
from this, the time lost between the acts be deducted, that
occupied by the performance could scarcely exceed hell
an hour. This treat altogether was by no means equal to the
former, as Mr. Co AT AS did not stop in the tragedy to ad-
dress the audience in propria persopa.
When the cry of encore subsided, that of " The Ilobbio"
succeeded, and was kept up till the end of the first act of
:he farce. Mr. COAT es then came forward and spoke a she;c
m::serable thing called " The Hob.6ies," which is. understood
to have been written by ANTuotor PAsotg, and oreceer/
by himself. This, after a few nonsensical lines about Lord
WELL' s GTON, describes the Hobby of Mr. COATES to be to
act for widows, orphans, &c. This is a very pretty story, but
we cannot say we give it much credit. We de not think
charity has been much served by his exertions, and wit:
the attraction of absurdity is lost, we do not believe hie
be-
nevolence will do mitch towards filling a theatre ; it is, there-
fore, useless to make this an excuse for continuing to strut
his hour upon the stage. The town has pretty well had
enough of him, and we hope common sense will b© outraged
by him no longer. Let him now retire. He has had scorn
enough to serve any one for life. Let him she w if he has not
" Lees human reason ,hail God gives an ape;'
that he thinks he has been suflicienily despised ; or, if he
must still court the public gaze, let him, out of respect for
the national character as far as it is connected with taste in
theatrical matters, confine the future exhibition of his per-
son to Exeter Chriege or Bartholomew Fair.

The V7IINCFAIS C n Aiti.ottr. is to be presented to the
QGEEN, fcr the first time, at the Drawing-Rootn, on 4th of
I:&)rnarv; and on the,sth the PRi.;:CE is to.givc a rnagnift-
cent jet(' at C4r!ton-hou.,:!, fir which Got# ticks:s are isuf.-d.