DOI Artikel:
Beerbohm, Max: Poor Romeo!
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0173
Poor Romeo !
By Max Beerbohm
Even now Bath glories in his legend, not idly, for he was the
most fantastic animal that ever stepped upon her pavement.
Were ever a statue given him (and indeed he is worthy of a
grotesque in marble), it would be put in Pulteney Street or the
Circus. I know that the palm-trees of Antigua overshadowed
his cradle, that there must be even now in Boulogne many who
set eyes on him in the time of his less fatuous declension, that he
died in London. But Mr. Coates (for of that Romeo I write)
must be claimed by none of these places. Bath saw the laughable
disaster of his debut, and so, in a manner, his whole life seems to
belong to her, and the story of it to be a part of her annals.
The Antiguan was already on the brink of middle-age when he
first trod the English shore. But, for all his thirty-seven years,
he had the heart of a youth, and, his purse being yet as heavy as
his heart was light, the English sun seemed to shine gloriously
about his path and gild the letters of introduction that he
scattered everywhere. Also, he was a gentleman of amiable,
nearly elegant mien, and something of a scholar. His father
had been the most respectable resident Antigua could show, so
that little Robert, the future Romeo, had often sat at dessert with
distinguished travellers through the Indies. But in the year 1807
The Yellow Book—Yol. IX. k old
By Max Beerbohm
Even now Bath glories in his legend, not idly, for he was the
most fantastic animal that ever stepped upon her pavement.
Were ever a statue given him (and indeed he is worthy of a
grotesque in marble), it would be put in Pulteney Street or the
Circus. I know that the palm-trees of Antigua overshadowed
his cradle, that there must be even now in Boulogne many who
set eyes on him in the time of his less fatuous declension, that he
died in London. But Mr. Coates (for of that Romeo I write)
must be claimed by none of these places. Bath saw the laughable
disaster of his debut, and so, in a manner, his whole life seems to
belong to her, and the story of it to be a part of her annals.
The Antiguan was already on the brink of middle-age when he
first trod the English shore. But, for all his thirty-seven years,
he had the heart of a youth, and, his purse being yet as heavy as
his heart was light, the English sun seemed to shine gloriously
about his path and gild the letters of introduction that he
scattered everywhere. Also, he was a gentleman of amiable,
nearly elegant mien, and something of a scholar. His father
had been the most respectable resident Antigua could show, so
that little Robert, the future Romeo, had often sat at dessert with
distinguished travellers through the Indies. But in the year 1807
The Yellow Book—Yol. IX. k old