Lady Louisa Strangways, writing to her sister, Lady Harriet Frampton, on
April 24, 1805 ('Journal of Mary Frampton', p. 129), says, "I was full
dressed for seventeen hours yesterday, and sat in one spot for seven,
which is enough to tire any one who enjoyed what was going on, which I
did not. I saw them walk to St. George's Chapel, which was the best
part, as it did not last long ... Their dresses were very magnificent.
The Knights, before they were installed, were in white and silver, like
the old pictures of Henry VIII., and afterwards they had a purple mantle
put on. They had immense plumes of ostrich feathers, with a heron's
feather in the middle."]


[Footnote 2: William Henry West Betty (1791-1874), the "Young Roscius,"
made his first appearance on the stage at Belfast, in 1803, in the part
of "Osman," in Hill's 'Zara;' and on December 1, 1804, at Covent Garden,
as "Selim" disguised as "Achmet," in Browne's 'Barbarossa'. In the
winter season of 1804-5, when he appeared at Covent Garden and Drury
Lane, such crowds collected to see him, that the military were called
out to preserve order. Leslie ('Autobiographical Recollections', vol. i.
p. 218) speaks of him as a boy "of handsome features and graceful
manners, with a charming voice." Fox, who saw him in 'Hamlet', said,
"This is finer than Garrick" ('Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', p. 88).
Northcote ('Conversations', p. 23) spoke of his acting as "a beautiful
effusion of natural sensibility; and then that graceful play of the
limbs in youth gave such an advantage over every one about him." "Young
Roscius's premature powers," writes Mrs. Piozzi, February 21, 1805,
"attract universal attention, and I suppose that if less than an angel
had told 'his' parents that a bulletin of that child's health should be
necessary to quiet the anxiety of a metropolis for his safety, they