[Illustration: LOLA MONTEZ. (After Jules Laure).]
No amount of judicious flattery could, however, blind the Great and Critical American Public to the fair stranger's imperfections as an actress and a dancer. On 27th December she appeared in the title _rôle_ of _Betly, the Tyrolean_, a musical comedy written especially for her, at the Broadway Theatre. It was expected that she would prove a powerful attraction, and seats for the first performance were put up to public auction on the preceding Saturday. But the piece was withdrawn on 19th January 1852, public curiosity having by then been satisfied, and what taste there was in New York not much gratified. Lola, however, secured an engagement at the Walnut Street Theatre, at Philadelphia, that dull, colourless city, which formed the most incongruous of all possible settings for her personality. In May, when a faint breath of romance seems to rustle the trees even in Union Square, she went back to New York. On the 18th she appeared again at the Broadway Theatre in a dramatised version of her career in Munich, written by C. P. T. Ware. She appeared as herself, in the characters of the Danseuse, the Politician, the Countess, the Revolutionist, and the Fugitive. The part of King Louis was sustained by Mr. Barry, and Abel--the villain of the piece--by F. Conway. The play ran five nights only. Even during these brief runs, and though the prices at New York theatres did not exceed a dollar in those days, Lola had amassed a considerable sum of money; but she was by nature prodigal, and easily outpaced the swiftest current of Pactolus. She now hit on a somewhat original scheme, which quickly replenished her exchequer. She organised receptions, to which any one paying a dollar was admitted for the space of a quarter of an hour, to shake her by the hand, gaze upon her in all the splendour of her beauty, and converse with her in English, French, German, or Spanish. The function was hardly consistent with the Countess's dignity, but it revealed in a striking manner her knowledge of the American character. To shake hands with a well-known personage is esteemed by your average Yankee a greater privilege than visiting the Acropolis or wading in the Jordan.