THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 
 

 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WINTER 
 
 * In the reproof of chance 
 Lies the true proof of men** 
 
 — Shakespeare, 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 GEORGE J. COOMBES 
 
 No. 5 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET 
 MDCCCLXXXV
 
 HENRY IRVING
 
 'A -mi^'i 1 ' '^ ' 
 
 fmlli J 
 
 \ /' , .-*• 
 
 1
 
 HENRY IRVING 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WINTER 
 
 "In the reproof of chance 
 Lies the true proof of men" 
 
 — Sh a kespea re. 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 GEORGE J. COOMBES 
 
 No. 5 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET 
 MDCCCLXXXV
 
 Copyright, 1S85, 
 
 by 
 
 William Winter.
 
 
 TO 
 
 THE GARRICK CLUB, OF LONDON, 
 
 THIS BRIEF HISTORY AND SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF A 
 
 COMRADE'S TRIUMPHS IN A FOREIGN LAND 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 TK3 *TRJ£ ARTS
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Z y HIS book is designed to be a Record of Henry 
 Irving 's professional career upon the New -York 
 stage and a Study of his Acting. The sketches that 
 compose it and that are now brought together in a con- 
 densed and carefully revised form were written by me 
 in the New -York Tribune in the performance of a liter- 
 ary duty, which also was a pleasure. The motive that 
 prompted them was my wish to form and suitably to 
 express a thoughtful and useful estimate of the art of a 
 great and famous actor, whose advent in America 
 would mark an epoch in the history of our stage and be 
 attended with important and incessant consequences. 
 This object might have been, by other hands, more ably 
 pursued and more thoroughly accomplished ; but at 
 least it has been sought with careful diligence and 
 active sympathy. The Record is accurate: the Study 
 is earnest : and although the manner of both be some- 
 what desultory I yet venture to indulge the hope that 
 this book will be accepted as a serviceable addition to 
 the dramatic chronicle of our time, and as a well-meatit 
 and well-deserved tribute to an extraordinary man. 
 The chapter on the Influence of the Stage was written by 
 me in the North American Review, and it is introduced 
 here as, perhaps, an appropriate statement of the rank 
 and power of the institution to which this actor has given 
 such faithful, honourable, and beneficent service. 
 
 New -York, February /6, iSSj. W. W.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 I. Welcome i 
 
 II. The First Night 3 
 
 III. The Golden Age of Acting 13 
 
 IV. Charles the First 19 
 
 V. Louis the Eleventh 26 
 
 VI. Shylock 32 
 
 VII. Discursive Impressions 37 
 
 VIII. Lesurques and Dubosc 42 
 
 IX. The Belle's Stratagem 49 
 
 X. Sources of Strength 53 
 
 XI. Much Ado about Nothing 59 
 
 XII. Purpose in Acting 68 
 
 XIII. The Return Wave 73 
 
 XIV. Poetry of Stage Effect 78 
 
 XV. Twelfth Night 81 
 
 XVI. Hamlet 84 
 
 XVII. Closing Scenes 97 
 
 XVIII. The Influence of the Stage 102 
 
 XIX. Farewell "5 
 
 XX. Appendix "9
 
 " Nay his Honours are a great part of the Honour of the 
 Times ; when by this means he is grown to Active Men 
 an Example ; to the Sloathful a Spur; to the Envious a 
 Punishment." — Ben Jonson's Timber.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Portrait of Henry Irving Frontispiece 
 
 Portrait of Ellen Terry Facing page 59
 
 WELCOME. 
 
 TF we could win from Shakespeare's river 
 ■*- The music of its murmuring flow, 
 With all the wild-bird notes that quiver 
 
 Where Avon's scarlet meadows glow; 
 If with our joy could blend, at meeting, 
 
 The love that lately grieved to part, 
 Ah, then, indeed, our song of greeting 
 
 Might find an echo in his heart. 
 
 II 
 But since we cannot, in our singing, 
 
 That gladness and that love entwine, 
 At least we'll set our blue-bells ringing, 
 
 And he shall hear our whispering pine 
 And these shall breathe a welcome royal, 
 
 In accents tender, sweet, and kind, 
 From lips as fond and hearts as loyal 
 
 As any that he left behind.
 
 II 
 
 THE FIRST NIGHT. 
 
 OCTOBER 30th, 1883. — Mr. Irving is a novelty, 
 but he is not a stranger. Hundreds of Americans 
 have seen his performances when he was acting at his 
 own theatre in London, and thoughtful observers, 
 whose duty it has been within the last ten years to 
 consider and record the reciprocal influences of the 
 stage and society, have naturally been compelled to 
 take into their account the originality, force, charm, 
 and commanding success of this remarkable actor. 
 Wherever, in the intellectual world, an earnest and 
 devoted spirit is steadfastly at work, no matter what 
 may be its line of thought or its vehicle of expression, 
 a source of power is soon established, which makes 
 itself felt, through either sympathy or antipathy, in 
 every fibre of the mental experience of the age. Such 
 a spirit has animated Mr. Irving. He is a man thor- 
 oughly in earnest, a thinker, a writer, a manager, a 
 representative leader of the dramatic art. He has 
 placed himself in the capital city of the world, and 
 there has gathered into his hands all the cords that 
 work the complex machinery of the contemporary stage.
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 It was inevitable that the influence of such a man should 
 be recognised in America as well as in Europe; that 
 his history should become known to this people ; and 
 that a wish for his personal presence should spring 
 up and thrive in all the communities of the western 
 world. 
 
 Mr. Irving has been an actor for twenty-seven years. 
 Seventeen of them he has passed in London, and during 
 the latter half of that time he has stood at the head of 
 the actors of England. No man could have had such a 
 career, exerted such an influence, or attained to such a 
 position, without being possessed of abilities of a high 
 order, used with wisdom, sincerity, and resolute will. 
 Mr. Irving possesses these abilities, and has used them 
 in this way. The structure of his renown, accordingly, 
 rests upon a solid foundation of worthy achievement. 
 Judgment and taste differ — and will continue to differ 
 — in defining his talents and estimating his rank. 
 But upon one point opinions are agreed : he is a thor- 
 ough actor. That he should come to America at this 
 time is in the natural sequence of events. His coming 
 has been sought, from this side of the Atlantic, for the 
 last six years. He has been invited, again and again — 
 not because he had a position to make, but because his 
 position was already made. It ought, accordingly, to 
 be said, at the outset, that Mr. Irving cannot be viewed 
 as an actor who comes here upon trial. His name and 
 fame were long ago established. He is " a sensation " 
 in America, because a new-comer ; but he is not a 
 probationer, and he is not a surprise. The audience 
 that greeted him last night in the Star Theatre, 
 where he made his first professional appearance in 
 this country, received him in this spirit, — hailing him,
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 not as a stranger, but as an honoured friend. A more 
 brilliant audience has not been seen, and a more 
 cordial welcome was never uttered. 
 
 A true actor can indicate his powers as surely — 
 though not as fully — in a character of melodrama 
 as in a character of poetic tragedy. The elder 
 Booth once electrified an audience in so slight a 
 part as the Second Actor, in " Hamlet." Genius, the 
 French philosopher said, is a question of a quarter of 
 an hour. Five acts of Shakespeare and four hours of 
 labour are not indispensable to a revelation of the 
 divine spark. It is the manner in which a thing is 
 done that, first of all, declares the actor. To act a 
 great part greatly is to reach the highest success ; but 
 a small part may be acted in a great manner, and 
 may be made the medium of a wonderful message. 
 Mr. Irving might have come before us in "Hamlet." 
 He has preferred to appear as Mathias, in the drama 
 of " The Bells." His judgment was vindicated. The 
 part is one that utilises all disorganising excitements, 
 and one that is helped, and not hurt, by Mr. Irving's 
 strangeness and by all his peculiarities. He obviously 
 felt great excitement, and so did his audience; but 
 this served only to intensify the emotion of the actor 
 and the enjoyment of the house. 
 
 Mathias is a murderer, who suffers, and he may be 
 depicted in either of two ways — as suffering from the 
 fear and dread of detection, or as suffering from this 
 cause intensified by remorse. Given from the former 
 point of view, he would be morally and spiritually 
 superficial, and the excellence of the best performance 
 of him would be scarcely more than technical — be- 
 cause the analysis, not of a human being, but of a 
 
 2*
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 grisly fiend. Given from trie other point of view, he 
 may be made the vehicle for profound, subtle, and 
 pathetic study of human nature, in one of the most 
 terrible forms of its possible experience, tremulous 
 under those haunting influences which, to the imagi- 
 nation, are so thrilling and so splendid. Remorse, it 
 should be remembered, is a misery that is only possible 
 to goodness. A radically wicked person is incapable 
 of suffering anything but physical pain. Iago never 
 suffers. Sir Edward Mortimer, who has committed a 
 partly justifiable homicide, suffers the torments of the 
 damned, because his conscience condemns his crime, 
 and because he dreads that, through detection, his 
 honour will be stained before the eyes of the world. 
 The analysis of his torments is afflicting ; yet we should 
 watch them almost as we watch a dying reptile, but 
 that his inherent goodness renders them no less mourn- 
 ful than terrible. All spectacles of pain and wretched- 
 ness are distressing ; but the quality of the distress 
 which they cause is determined by the nature of the 
 sufferer. 
 
 Mathias has done a cruel murder, and robbed his 
 victim, and prospered by the spoils of his crime ; but 
 the consequences of his crime have followed him in 
 his own soul. He walks the world in pomp and 
 pleasure — with a slow, corroding misery eating out 
 his heart. He is a living monument of the retribu- 
 tive vengeance of Divine Justice. It could not be 
 difficult for an experienced actor to play this part 
 effectively, in a professional sense. Mr. Irving has 
 accomplished far more than that. By giving this 
 murderer a human heart, by making paternal tender- 
 ness the motive and passion of his life, and then by
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 depicting, with consummate skill, those agonies of 
 the soul which only such a soul can suffer, he creates 
 an image not less pitiable than horrible of that forlorn 
 humanity which evil has conquered and which inexora- 
 ble justice must now destroy. It is possible to mis- 
 understand an actor's intention ; but Mr. Irving 
 produced the effect of pathos as well as largely the 
 effect of terror, the latter being predominant, and his 
 method, in the latter, being wonderfully subtle and 
 picturesque. The feverish alertness engendered by 
 the strife of a strong will against a sickening apprehen- 
 sion, the desperate sense, now defiant and now abject, 
 of impending doom, the slow paralysis of the feelings, 
 under the action of remorse — these, indeed, were 
 given with appalling truth. Since the days of Charles 
 Kean no display of morbid spiritual vivisection has 
 been seen upon the stage that resembles the dream 
 of Mathias as acted by Henry Irving. The audience 
 was spell-bound during this scene. In the long back- 
 ward of recollection no parallel arises to this sustain- 
 ment of agony in that most difficult of all dramatic 
 conditions, soliloquy. Here is the spring of Mr. 
 Irving's power. He wields a fascinating and victorious 
 magnetism, essentially personal. Nothing else could 
 sustain an actor, in his complete hold of an audience, 
 through so terrible an ordeal. 
 
 The effect upon that audience was singular ; and, 
 in fact, this actor is one who will always leave upon 
 the same assemblage strangely different impressions. 
 Speaking with reference to execution and quality, it may 
 be said that a taste for the acting of Mr. Irving has to be 
 acquired. But when once it has been acquired it gives 
 its possessor great delight. Mr. Irving is a peculiar
 
 8 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 actor. His personality and his methods of art are 
 characterised by special fascinations, and also by special 
 and perplexing singularities. His oddities help to 
 make him unique ; and these oddities are not, to all 
 persons, agreeable. Some of them, indeed, are defects. 
 Mr. Irving's stage-walk, for example, is sometimes 
 stilted and angular ; and this peculiarity, although 
 really natural to him, and one of the results of nervous 
 excitement, has the effect of artifice, wherever it 
 chances to be inharmonious with the character that 
 he personifies. His vocalism, furthermore, particularly 
 under the stress of agitation, is sometimes inarticulate 
 and indistinct. He indulges freely in what Shakespeare 
 has designated "flaws and starts." He uses at times 
 the rapid, tripping enunciation and song-like cadence 
 which are peculiar to the English speech of foreigners, 
 particularly the French. His machinery includes darkly 
 lowering glances, of portentous menace. His voice, 
 notwithstanding that he is a man of sinewy physi- 
 cal constitution, wiry, nervous, and sustained by patient, 
 resolute will, is neither copious nor resonant, not at 
 all the organ of a Forrest or a Salvini, and, therefore, 
 although his tones are often tender, or piercing, or 
 vibrant, he is apt to disappoint the listener, at moments 
 when great vocal resources are desired, as a relief, 
 by the over-wrought emotions of his audience. His 
 range of facial expression includes a variety of mean- 
 ings, but these are mostly weird, eccentric, saturnine, 
 mystical ; and hence his face is less eloquent with the 
 elemental feelings of human nature than with its wild- 
 ness, strangeness, and sombre and agonising pathos — 
 the poetry of storm or of desolation — under the rav- 
 ages of tragic imagination, intellectual strain, and
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 miserable experience. His smile, indeed, is one of 
 singular sweetness ; and sometimes it touches his sad, 
 scholastic, high-bred, noble features with the perfect 
 sunshine of beauty. But equally by temperament, 
 physique, taste, and training, Mr. Irving is a man of 
 mysterious quality and exceptional characteristics. 
 Such a man is not readily comprehended ; but, when 
 he is comprehended, he inspires a profound sympathy 
 and admiration. 
 
 It is to the puzzling influence of this complex web 
 of beauties and defects, to the prevalent and predom- 
 inant singularity of the actor, that divers commen- 
 tators monotonously and uselessly refer in ringing the 
 changes upon Mr. Irving's "mannerisms." Some 
 minds will always reject what they cannot understand, 
 and censoriousness ever prefers to dwell upon a fault 
 rather than a merit. But this is not the road to the 
 truth. Neither like nor dislike, neither praise nor 
 censure, is of the least importance alongside of the 
 necessity of interpretation. The liberal judgment 
 pierces to the meaning of the blemishes and of the 
 vagueness, while recognising and admitting the beauties 
 and the light. Mr. Irving's nature, while capable — 
 as the deepest and sternest of tragic natures often are 
 — of erratic and dazzling excursions into the domain 
 of grim, or grotesque, or farcical humour, and while 
 certainly sensitive and tender, is doubtless more par- 
 ticularly restricted to the region of the melancholy, 
 morbid, saturnine, sardonic, and terrible. His art- 
 methods, inevitably, would, under these conditions, be 
 touched with mysticism and grim extravagance ; and 
 they certainly are affected by physical impediments — 
 visible wherever repression is substituted for utterance,
 
 io HENRY IRVING. 
 
 and the shuddering quiver of the quicksand stands for 
 the explosion of the tempest. But, — allowing for 
 every physical inadequacy, and looking through all 
 spiritual vagueness and mystery, — the sensitive and 
 thoughtful observer cannot fail here to discern a glori- 
 ous instrument of dramatic emotion, sensitive, trem- 
 ulous, true, a soul and mind rich in the capacity to 
 feel and to translate the tragic aspects of humanity. 
 And, surely, this in acting is the main thing : not 
 simply a professional skill ; not simply a felicity of 
 special effort ; but the potency of individual resource, 
 — behind that skill and effort, — which makes the 
 true actor a perennial spring of refreshment to the 
 intellectual life of his age. 
 
 Mr. Irving, like every other human creature, has his 
 limitations. The work that he displayed as Mathias 
 made evident the delicacy of his physical powers, the 
 intricate character of his artistic means, and the per- 
 plexing eccentricities of his style. He is the flute and 
 not the trumpet. He could no more produce that 
 mellow thunder of voice, rugged grandeur of form, and 
 affluent and torrid sensuality, which only just fell 
 short of transcendent genius in Edwin Forrest, than he 
 could fly through the heavens. The flow of his spirit 
 could never be the great ninth wave that seems to 
 crush the crag whereon it dashes. He stands forth 
 with all his equipments in order and all his fine facul- 
 ties in the leash. He is an intellect enthroned above 
 the passions. He knows that inspiration may come, 
 but he will leave that to take care of itself. He 
 works with a thousand subtle touches, with many a 
 seeming accident of shadow, with many a sudden 
 jet of light. He will sometimes leave the senses
 
 HENRY IRVING. n 
 
 unthrilled. He will sometimes be fantastic in his 
 ideals. He will sometimes push singularity of treat- 
 ment to the verge of excess. But he speaks to the 
 imagination and to the soul ; and, in everything that 
 he says and does and is, you feel the nameless charm 
 of genius. Ample discussion may be anticipated as to 
 this actor's ideals of character, as to his suitability to 
 certain parts, and as to the exact nature and limits of 
 his powers of expression. But nobody will doubt that 
 he is a true and sure artist, and that his work is guided 
 by intellectual purpose and pervaded by that inde- 
 scribable attribute which is the consecration of poetry : 
 
 "The light which never was on sea or land." 
 
 The original of " The Bells," " Le Juif Polonais," is 
 a dramatic study by Messrs. Erckmann-Chatrian, and 
 in the French was not designed for representation. 
 Mr. Leopold Lewis made the version of it that is 
 used by Mr. Irving, but he has not made it much 
 more than a one-part play. This is noted, not as an 
 objection, but as a fact. The one-part play is some- 
 times an excellent thing — as maybe seen, for exam- 
 ple, in Home's " Death of Marlowe," which is not 
 only one-part but one-act. In construction a chief 
 merit of " The Bells " is that it so deftly surrounds 
 a terrible and tragic experience with the sweet cheer- 
 fulness of a happy domestic life. Mathias, this agoni- 
 sing wretch, is framed in sunshine. The cold lustre 
 that is made to play about the mystery is, likewise, to 
 be noted as a subtle and brilliant effect of art. Ever 
 and anon, through fifteen years of shuddering dread 
 and stealthy, furtive precaution, the assassin hears the 
 sleigh-bells tinkle that were on his victim's horse on
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 that terrible winter night _of the nameless and hideous 
 murder. This aerial voice, borne on the frosty, glitter- 
 ing air, creates an emotion of apprehensiveness, weird, 
 solemn, and awful. The movement of the play, like- 
 wise, is direct and rapid, and its language is appro- 
 priate and sincere. 
 
 * 
 
 At the close of the performance, Mr. Irving — who 
 had already been six times recalled — was again sum- 
 moned before the curtain, and he then replied to the 
 public greeting, as follows : 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen : I believe it is a cus- 
 tom with you to allow an actor to thank you for the 
 pleasure you have given to him ; and I will avail my- 
 self of that custom now, to say that I thank you with 
 all my heart and soul. It seems to me that the great- 
 ness of your welcome typifies the greatness of your 
 nation. I thank you, and ' beggar that I am, I am 
 even poor in thanks.' Let me say that my comrades 
 are also deeply sensible of your kindness, and let me 
 add that I hope you will give a warmer welcome, if 
 such were possible, than I have received, to my asso- 
 ciate and friend, Miss Ellen Terry, who will have the 
 honour of appearing before you to-morrow night. And 
 finally, if it be not a liberty, will you allow me to ex- 
 press the hope that ' our loves may increase even as 
 our days do grow.'" 
 
 '*HP
 
 Ill 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE OF ACTING. 
 
 THE public has just witnessed a remarkable suc- 
 cess, achieved by that intellectual and devoted 
 actor, Lawrence Barrett, in a poetical tragedy, of 
 American authorship, which has held the stage con- 
 tinuously and prosperously for many weeks. The best 
 of American comedians and one of the few great 
 actors of the world — Mr. Jefferson — is acting in New- 
 York to crowded houses, and with a potent and 
 beautiful alliance of art, pathos, and humour. In. 
 a neighbouring city, within a few days, the leader 
 of the stage in America, — Edwin Booth, — only re- 
 cently returned from triumphant successes in Europe, 
 makes his reentrance upon that field of dramatic 
 art which owes more to him than to any other living 
 man. In the populous and busy West that Roman 
 hero, John McCullough, is received with affection and 
 acclaim. Across the sea, in the capital city of Eng- 
 land, the beautiful and noble American actress, Mary 
 Anderson, has met with a triumph, unmatched for 
 suddenness and splendour since the days of Miss 
 
 3 13
 
 14 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 O'Neill. In other directions and in other ways the stage 
 is wielding extraordinary power. This period in theat- 
 rical history may be marked, therefore, as impressive 
 and auspicious. These, in fact, are the "palmy days." 
 It is noticeable, though, that the stage of the present 
 is always "degenerate." Persons who seek "the 
 golden age " invariably find that it retires backward as 
 they advance. Meres, in "Wit's Treasury," which is 
 dated 1598, when complimenting the poet Drayton, 
 speaks of "these declining and corrupt times, when 
 there is nothing but roguery in villainous man." No 
 doubt the stage was comprehended in that censure. 
 Yet that was the time of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, 
 and Burbage. Old Cibber, in his age, could see little 
 or no merit in contemporary players ; yet that was the 
 time of Garrick and Maria Arne, of Mossop and 
 Spranger Barry. Smollett's Squire Bramble, speaking 
 no doubt the actual belief of that great delineator 
 of character and manners, denotes a little later period 
 — that of 1770 — as " these times of dulness and de- 
 generacy." Macklin, when an old man, used to cry 
 out, disdainfully, " where are your actors ? " Yet 
 Macklin, who had lived in the period of Dogget, Mrs. 
 Barry, Barton Booth, Mrs. Oldfield, and Mrs. Bellamy, 
 might, even as he spoke, have seen Charles and John 
 Kemble, Edward Shuter, Thomas King, Mrs. Dancer, 
 and Mrs. Siddons. In 181 1, Mary Godfrey, one of the 
 intimate friends of Tom Moore, writing to him about 
 the theatre in London, said that "an author who 
 hopes for success on the stage must fall in with popular 
 taste, which is now at the last gasp and past all cure. " 
 Yet at that very moment Kean and the Kembles, 
 and Fawcett and Munden were in full career.
 
 HENRY IRVING. 15 
 
 In 1845, Mr. James Rces, a lachrymose chronicler 
 of the American theatre, described the genius of the 
 drama as "an owl," sitting "in gloom and eternal 
 night," upon the wreck of the stage. Yet that was 
 the time of Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Forrest, 
 Thomas Hamblin, Charles Burke, and the most illus- 
 trious of the house of Wallack. So in the present 
 period our theatre is very frequently disparaged, in 
 comparison with a boasted but not very well compre- 
 hended past, notwithstanding that, in the day now pass- 
 ing, the American stage is adorned and dignified by 
 Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson, Lester Wallack, John 
 McCullough, Lawrence Barrett, William Warren, John 
 Gilbert, Mary Anderson, and Clara Morris; while 
 across the Atlantic, the brilliant traditions of Garrick, 
 Kemble, Macready, and Phelps are sustained and aug- 
 mented by the genius and devotion of Henry Irving, by 
 the ample scholarship of men like William Creswick 
 and John Ryder, by the fine brain and splendid energy 
 of Genevieve Ward, by the rich, fascinating, woman- 
 like loveliness and the exquisite art of Mrs. Kendal, 
 by the intellectual character and fiery force of Ada 
 Cavendish, and by the original mind, the weird, mag- 
 netic temperament, and the strange, bewildering 
 beauty of Ellen Terry. The truth is that, in theatrical 
 history, every barren present becomes a golden past, 
 the moment it has drifted sufficiently far away upon 
 the ocean of time to be hallowed with the lovely mist 
 of antiquity. 
 
 The bright periods in the history of acting arrive 
 whenever it happens that one man has arisen, who, 
 to genius and character, adds devotion and inflex- 
 ible will. Such a man dignifies and adorns the stage,
 
 1 6 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 and invests it with an allurement which the public can- 
 not resist ; and then, suddenly there ensues a great 
 theatrical prosperity. This was so when Garrick ap- 
 peared — of whom the explanation is suggested in these 
 significant words, in George Anne Bellamy's " Apol- 
 ogy": "As Mr. Garrick was come to London" (so 
 wrote that sprightly actress), "I was obliged to attend 
 to the duties of my profession. The most intense ap- 
 plication was necessary for those who fought under his 
 banners. As he was unremitting himself in his atten- 
 tion to business, he expected those he employed to be 
 the same." Here, plainly enough, is the man of genius, 
 character, and will, whose method is hard work. The 
 result was inevitable. The Garrick period in stage 
 history, though not all golden, had its golden side ; 
 and Macready, Charles Kean, and Mr. Irving, since 
 then, have only repeated the experience of Garrick. 
 
 Lord Byron, writing in 1817, said that his personal 
 association and acquaintance with Drury Lane Theatre, 
 of which he was once a manager, in association with 
 Whitbread and others, had given him the greatest con- 
 tempt for the stage. Allowance has always to be made, 
 by the student who would know Byron's real opinions, 
 for that woman-like habit of strong statement in which 
 he generally indulged, and which made him, on one 
 occasion, say that he considered Shakespeare to be "a 
 damned humbug." Yet, aside from exaggeration, 
 this testimony of a great mind, as to the state of the 
 theatre at an important epoch, is useful and signifi- 
 cant. That period, evidently, had little that was 
 " golden " about it. Edmund Kean, the most comet- 
 like and dazzling dramatic genius that ever England has 
 produced, was, indeed, acting at that time. But Ed-
 
 HENRY IRVING. 17 
 
 mund Kean had neither moral stability, inflexible devo- 
 tion, nor steadfast will. Genius, as old Bernard noticed, 
 is apt to hold up more glasses than one — and Edmund 
 Kean was a type of all that, in genius, is wayward and 
 deplorable. The Kembles might have done much 
 more than they actually did, but neither of them seems 
 to have been animated with more than a personal am- 
 bition. The phlegmatic temperament of John Philip 
 Kemble and the selfishness of his great sister, Mrs. 
 Siddons, were notorious. After the ebb of the Garrick 
 days, in fact, the tide did not again come to flood till 
 the days of Macready and Charles Kean ; and after 
 their time the British drama languished till it was 
 revived by Henry Irving. Each of these actors has 
 made a golden era in stage history — and for a like 
 reason. Mr. Irving himself has said that "the fortu- 
 nate actor is the actor who works" — and work is his 
 principle, exactly as it was the principle of Garrick. 
 But work will not accomplish all. There is a crowning 
 and irradiating attribute, and that is charm. Much 
 depends upon the quality of the worker. When genius 
 works, having the implements of character, devotion, 
 and will, to work with, the result must always be 
 victory. 
 
 " The reason of things," said that wise old divine, 
 Dr. South, "lies in a little compass, if the mind could 
 at any time be so happy as to light upon it." The 
 reason of Mr. Irving's great success, and of its per- 
 manence, lies in these three words — character, work, 
 and charm. Some things in this shifting world are 
 not matters of opinion. The renown of an actor, 
 whose conduct of life has proceeded on the lines of 
 high motive and firm principle, becomes woven into 
 3*
 
 1 8 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 the texture of his countrymen's experience. His per- 
 sonality and his influence are a part of the common 
 life of his time. Mr. Irving, from the first step of his 
 career, — which, of late, is as well known here as in 
 England, — has kept his resolution fixed upon the 
 attainment of a great object. He has believed in his 
 profession and in himself. He has aimed at the highest 
 and has never faltered. He has comprehended the 
 intellectual spirit of the age — its thirst for sensuous 
 beauty, for luxury, for perfection of form, and, above 
 all, its passionate admiration for valiant and abso- 
 lute achievement ; and therefore he has been thor- 
 ough, and has made even success his servant. He has 
 pressed other arts and the mechanical sciences into the 
 service of the art of acting. He has played for a high 
 prize, and he has never been afraid to venture a high 
 stake. He has had the audacity of far-sighted courage 
 — the steadfast, self-centred strength of cool, intrepid, 
 patient, predominant intellect. And, which is indeed 
 extraordinary, he has preserved, throughout the devel- 
 opment of that inflexible character, something of the 
 gentleness of a child and the dreaminess of a poet. 
 When such a man as this has gained a large share in 
 the guidance of the stage the world may well feel that 
 the theatre is an instrument of vast, varied, and be- 
 neficent power. The harp-strings slumber till touched 
 by the magician's hand. Henry Irving is a magician 
 to-day. On both sides of the ocean the English race 
 hears him with honour ; and the echo of his earnest 
 and splendid artistic life will sound on in human 
 hearts long after its music has ended in the silence 
 that waits for all.
 
 IV 
 
 CHARLES THE FIRST. 
 
 OCTOBER 31st. — A greater contrast could scarcely 
 be imagined than that existing between "Charles 
 I." and "The Bells." The latter is a monologue of 
 misery, touched now and then with a lurid glare of 
 insane humour. The former is a grave historical 
 drama, depicting the domestic life and the surrounding 
 political tribulations of a king, during the days of dan- 
 ger and turbulence that immediately preceded his down- 
 fall and his death. "Charles I." was presented, last 
 night, at the Star Theatre, and Mr. Irving, in his 
 embodiment of the king, gave proof of his versa- 
 tility, as well as a large revelation of the lofty moral 
 aspects of his mind, his peculiar vein of melancholy 
 tenderness, and that noble serenity of repose which 
 is such an excellent thing in dramatic art. 
 
 The piece is new on the American stage. It is a 
 four-act play, by Mr. W. G. Wills, the novelist, 
 written in a style of blank verse which occasionally 
 becomes poetical, but, for the most part, remains 
 simply useful. The first scene is at Hampton Court, 
 where the King is shown with his wife and children
 
 2o HENRY IRVING. 
 
 around him. The second scene is at Whitehall, 
 where the King and Cromwell are confronted, and 
 where an attempt to arrest the sovereign person is 
 frustrated by his watchful wife. The third scene is in 
 the royal camp, at Fairfax, and it ends with the betrayal 
 and delivery of the King by his treacherous adherent, 
 Lord Moray, into the hands of the Parliament, — then 
 armed against him. The fourth and last scene is again 
 at Whitehall, where the Queen at first begs Cromwell 
 to spare her husband's life and then defies him, and 
 where the royal martyr takes his last farewell of wife 
 and children. 
 
 The slender story thus told has been made by a 
 falsification of history in several important particulars. 
 Oliver Cromwell, perhaps, was ambitious to make 
 himself King of England, and to establish his family 
 as a royal one, but there is no reason to believe that 
 he was the mean knave represented in this play. King 
 Charles was a man of pure life and exalted character, 
 refined, accomplished, and devout, but he was not 
 altogether the saint depicted by Mr. Wills ; for he was 
 very crafty, and his mind was so saturated with the 
 idea of the divine right of kings that it had little or no 
 sense of the obligation of absolute truthfulness to his 
 people. Charles was not betrayed by any one man, 
 but was sold by the Scots to the English Parliamentary 
 chieftains; and in his last hours only two of his six 
 children were with him, while the queen was in France. 
 
 It must be considered, however, that the only way in 
 which an effective drama can be made, on an histori- 
 cal subject, is the free way of making facts entirely 
 pliant to dramatic purpose. Shakespeare's " Henry 
 VIII." and Bulwer's " Richelieu," for example, are
 
 HENRY IRVING. 21 
 
 good plays, but dubious history. Mr. Wills could only 
 make his subject successful on the stage by exalting 
 Charles and degrading Cromwell, and by providing 
 personal situations — cabinet pictures — instead of com- 
 plex, populous, and diffused historical paintings. He 
 has done this, and done it well. There is not, 
 indeed, much invention in his work. The effect 
 most nearly electrical occurs at the close of the third 
 act, in Charles's solemn, withering denunciation of 
 his betrayer: but this — as a dramatic expedient — is 
 a situation reminiscent of Henry V. and his false Lords, 
 and of James V. and Lord Seyton, in " The King 
 of the Commons." 
 
 The felicity of the author is in contrivance of pictures 
 that carry onward his simple plot, and in selection and 
 combination of incidents that are authentic, or that 
 may rationally be presumed. The scene that presents 
 King Charles among his children, repeating an old 
 ballad to them, while all around him are whispers of 
 vague danger and menace, is conceived with ten- 
 derness and with a fine perception of dramatic sus- 
 pense. The characters, if somewhat inaccurately 
 drawn, are nevertheless drawn distinctly and with the 
 power of earnest conviction. Pathos inspires the beauti- 
 ful speech at the close, and the curtain falls upon 
 Charles's famous "Remember" (spoken, actually, to 
 Bishop Juxon, on the scaffold), which is made his last 
 word to his devoted wife, in solemn and passionate 
 adjuration that she will always love and cherish his 
 memory, and that a certain miniature of herself may 
 rest upon his bosom in death. This drama inspires affec- 
 tion toward the King, and leaves the spectator in noble 
 grief at the ruin and death of a good and lovable man.
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 The fine chapter in " Waverley " which describes the 
 execution of Fergus may be named as typical of the 
 anxious and grieved emotion that pervades it ; and as 
 that chapter is one of the gems of literature a work 
 must indeed be sincere, tender, and lovely in spirit 
 that can be thought worthy to stand beside it. 
 
 Mr. Irving as Charles I. reproduces the well-known 
 Vandyke face and figure as perpetuated on the glow- 
 ing canvas of that great painter, at Windsor and at 
 Warwick. As a matter of fact the unfortunate mon- 
 arch grew gray and haggard toward the last, and his 
 hair and his beard were long and were neglected — 
 for he suffered much. But the actor is wise who comes 
 not too near to fact. Mr. Irving reproduces that dark, 
 melancholy, stately figure to which imagination has 
 been accustomed ; and just so, no doubt, King Charles 
 appeared, in his better days, when walking in the sweet 
 sunshine of an English summer, on the terraces of 
 Hampton Court. Mr. Irving's acting in this part is 
 calmly vigorous with the weight of personal character ; 
 various with the play of a fine intellect ; excellent 
 for its even sustainment of royal dignity ; richly com- 
 plex in its elaborate, courtly manners ; and fraught 
 equally with sombre gravity and tender feeling. The 
 part admits of no wild outburst of morbid frenzy, 
 and of no fantastic treatment. Royal authority, moral 
 elevation, and domestic tenderness are the chief ele- 
 ments to be expressed ; and Mr. Irving found no diffi- 
 culty in expressing them. What most impressed his 
 auditors was his extraordinary physical fitness to the 
 accepted ideal of Charles Stuart, combined with the 
 passionate earnestness and personal magnetism that 
 enable him to create and sustain a perfect illusion.
 
 HENRY IRVING. 23 
 
 This performance is less striking than that of Mathias, 
 less relative to the imagination and the passions, and 
 therefore less indicative of the characteristic attributes 
 of his genius. But it is rounded and complete ; and 
 to the student it is especially significant, as indicative 
 of the actor's method of applying what is termed 
 "natural" treatment to the poetic drama. 
 
 Mr. Irving presents the perfection of aristocracy. 
 There is a moment in this performance — when the 
 king stands before the fire-place, just after his dis- 
 missal of Cromwell and. Ireton — that seems to take 
 you into the literal presence of Charles I., even as he 
 lived and acted. The more this impersonation is 
 studied the finer, indeed, does it seem to be, and the 
 more beauties, of this subtle order, does it disclose. 
 Mr. Wills's play has not provided a great situation for 
 anybody whom it introduces, and Mr. Irving's acting 
 is, therefore, the more remarkable for the illusion 
 he sustains and the effects he produces by means 
 of personal character and admirable art. The blem- 
 ishes are in the elocution. Mathias is the greater per- 
 formance of the two : not in moral attributes, weight of 
 character, gracious and lovely personal traits, or the 
 fine detail of manners ; but in power to deal with the 
 passions through the imagination, and to sustain a 
 human identity in an ideal region of terror and pathos. 
 
 The more surprising and absorbing performance of 
 the night was that of Miss Ellen Terry, who came for- 
 ward as Queen Henrietta Maria, making her first 
 appearance in America. She was welcomed with en- 
 thusiasm and was called before the curtain again and 
 again, as the night wore on. Her dazzling beauty as 
 the Queen, and her strange personal fascination, — in
 
 24 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 which a voice of copious and touching sweetness is 
 conspicuous, — would partly explain this result. But, 
 "There 's more in 't than fair visage." The Queen 
 has to exhibit impetuosity and caprice. She has to 
 express conjugal tenderness and to illustrate a woman's 
 fidelity to the man whom she loves, when that man 
 is in trouble and danger. She has to ask a boon from 
 a tyrant, and to turn upon him, in scorn and noble 
 pride, when repulsed. The situations are conventional. 
 What shall be said of the personality that can make 
 them fresh and new? Miss Terry is spontaneous, 
 unconventional, and positively individual, and will use 
 all characters in the drama as vehicles for the expres- 
 sion of her own. This, in Queen Henrietta Maria, was 
 a great excellence. Miss Terry's acting has less mind 
 in it than that of Mr. Irving, though not deficient 
 here, but it proceeds essentially from the nervous 
 system — from the soul. There were indications that 
 her special vein is high comedy ; but she was all 
 the woman in the desolate farewell scene that ends 
 the piece, and she melted every heart with her dis- 
 tress, even as she had charmed every eye with her 
 uncommon loveliness. With eloquence and with spir- 
 itual majesty, she possesses a sweetness that softens 
 the hard lines of ancient tragic form, and leaves the 
 perfect impression of nature. 
 
 The common idea of a queen, and one that has usually 
 found a liberal acceptance on the stage, presupposes 
 that majesty is furnished with a poker instead of a 
 spine, and uses no language save such as is stiffened with 
 starch. With this notion, certainly, Miss Terry's Queefi 
 Henrietta was inharmonious ; but, while she remained 
 a sweet and sympathetic woman, there never was an
 
 HENRY IRVING. 25 
 
 instant requiring that true loftiness which is in the 
 soul when she did not make the situation royal with a 
 dignity far beyond buckram. 
 
 A queen is not less a queen because she can be simple 
 and gentle. ' A noble English lady, long since dead, 
 used to relate one of her experiences with a real queen, 
 when, as a child, she lived at Versailles, and was the 
 pet of Marie Antoinette. That queen had been playing 
 with her in the morning, but was now to receive, sitting 
 at the bottom of her bed, a group of ambassadors. 
 The child wished to see this ceremony, and, for this 
 purpose, hid herself in the bed-curtains. When the 
 ambassadors had come, and the child looked forth 
 upon the scene, such a change had taken place in the 
 countenance of the queen, only just now her merry 
 and laughing play-fellow, that she was both astonished 
 and terrified ; nor was she ever able, through after 
 years, to forget that imperial face. This is the kind 
 of queen that Miss Terry has presented — and with 
 a ioveliness of presence and a purity and silvery 
 music of speech that any royal lady might be proud 
 to display.
 
 V 
 
 LOUIS THE ELEVENTH. 
 
 NOVEMBER 6th. — A wise Frenchwoman said that 
 "admiration is always impatient to put an end 
 to itself, and is glad to seize the first opportunity of 
 doing so." She was acquainted with human nature. 
 Few persons can long endure to behold the success of 
 others. There are signs that admiration of Mr. Irving 
 would expire if it could, but the opportunity seems to 
 be slow in coming. The renowned actor has now ap- 
 peared as Mathias, Charles I. , and Louis XL , and as 
 long as he continues to give such performances as he 
 has hitherto given admiration, assuredly, must bear 
 its impatience. Recognition of such brilliant efforts is 
 a manifest duty. It ought, likewise, to be a heartfelt 
 pleasure. This is a wide world. There is room in it 
 for everybody. And human life is not so richly blessed 
 with the refining and ennobling influences of intellect 
 and genius that any one of them can wisely be spared. 
 Last night Mr. Irving appeared as Louis XL, and 
 was welcomed by one of the most appreciative assem- 
 blies of the year. His fame is high, in this particular 
 part, and it soon became evident that his fame is de- 
 
 26
 
 HENRY IRVING. 27 
 
 served. It was one of those exceptional performances 
 that may justly be called great. It surpassed that of 
 Charles Kean in the same character. It was appalling 
 in its truth and its power. 
 
 The character of Louis XI. comes out of history, 
 and it was long ago immortalised by Scott, in his novel 
 of " Quentin Durward." The play comes, by the pen 
 of Mr. Boucicault, out of the stage literature of France ; 
 and when Charles Kean was here, in 1865, it was made 
 familiar throughout this country. The character is hate- 
 ful and the play is sombre ; but the hateful character 
 exerts the sinister fascination of potent and triumphant 
 evil, and the sombre play is fraught with absorbing 
 interest, because of the grisly vitality of this hideous 
 character. Since, however, Louis XI. is repugnant, 
 because mankind will soon hate what they fear, the 
 part cannot have a permanent success, and, indeed, 
 it is only endurable when splendidly shown — as it is 
 at present. 
 
 It would appear to be Mr. Irving's method first to 
 conceive and assume the temperament of a character 
 and then to allow the various attributes of that charac- 
 ter to crystallise around that temperament and take 
 from it their colour and direction. He indicated the 
 temperament of Louis XL as that of humourous, 
 grim, and bitter sadness, and with this he coloured 
 every attribute of the part. This course — warranted 
 no less by knowledge of human nature than by the 
 facts of history— is both wise in policy and subtle in 
 art ; for by this means the character is elevated and 
 brought within the range of human feeling — a feeling 
 difficult to define, but one that would be pity if it 
 dared. The attributes of Louis XL are authority, sus-
 
 28 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 picion, craft, jealousy, bigotry, cold intellect, sardonic 
 pleasantry, and superstitious fear. He can likewise 
 act with malignity, ferocity, and fury. These qual- 
 ities, however, are blent with imperial predominance, 
 polished speciousness, consummate tact, and the his- 
 trionic faculty of being "all things to all men." It 
 would be difficult to imagine a character more obnox- 
 ious, or one less susceptible of the investiture of even 
 a fearful fascination. The actor who can cast a halo 
 of romance over such a baleful compound as this must 
 possess, in a high degree, both imagination and pas- 
 sionate sensibility. 
 
 Mr. Irving has not failed to consider that Louis XI. 
 is "born in the purple"; that he has long exercised 
 the habit of command ; that he is old and ill ; that 
 his mind is haunted, harassed, and terrified by super- 
 stition; that his memory is loaded with horrors and 
 his conscience corroded with remorse ; and, though ma- 
 lign and terrible, that he is, nevertheless, a king and a 
 man. These things he makes to be felt, and by means 
 of these he lifts the character and invests it with an 
 atmosphere of awe. You are not drawn toward him, 
 indeed, by the compassion that his pathos inspires at 
 two or three points in the performance of Mathias. 
 The voice of Mr. Irving, when, as Mathias, he recog- 
 nises a piece of the Jew's gold, and murmurs, in a 
 tone of such bleak anguish, "not for them ! for me, 
 for me," will not, surely, soon be forgotten by those 
 who once have heard it. The wild agony of this 
 forlorn wretch, when in his lonely chamber, at mid- 
 night, and half stupefied with wine, he tries to dance, 
 and to sing a gay song, keeping time to the dying 
 music of distant revellers, was a sight too sad for tears. 
 So, too, in the court-room, the desperate and broken
 
 HENRY IRVING. 29 
 
 man's mechanical reiteration of his single poor and use- 
 less defence — "a dream, a dream, a dream, a dream" 
 — had an air of dramatic misery most appalling and 
 lamentable. These effects, when viewed in retrospect, 
 seem even finer than they did when they were passing. 
 There are no such human moments as these in the 
 personation of Louis XL Yet, by suggesting the 
 spiritual isolation and personal wretchedness of this 
 king, in association with his prodigious abilities, his 
 humour, his piety, and his self-poise in the wide and 
 turbulent political arena on which he plays his part, the 
 actor has adroitly contrived to give to him a sad and 
 lonely as well as a baleful magnificence ; so that, while 
 he never ceases to be dreadful, equally he never ceases 
 to charm. 
 
 The strangeness and the eccentricities of Mr. Irving 
 adjust themselves to this character, in his performance 
 of it, precisely as they did in his assumption oiMathias. 
 The execution matches the ideal. The part is full of 
 abrupt transitions — from weakness to strength; from 
 fear to frenzy; from deadly, implacable resolution to 
 pious and contrite humility; from the easy mood of 
 hypocritical humour to the sudden, hideous joy of tri- 
 umphant malice ; and this long fever of craft, wicked- 
 ness, and pain is rounded at last with a frightened and 
 frightful death. All along the line of the part, accord- 
 ingly, are excellent opportunities for this actor's inces- 
 sant vitality and complex method, and especially for 
 that picturesque mystery of manner through which his 
 magnetism plays, like the lightning in the cloud. 
 The wan face, the dark and sunken eyes, the thick, 
 black eyebrows, the lowering, evanescent smile, the 
 rapid yet stealthy movements — all these characteristics 
 of Louis Mr. Irving has reproduced. His royalty 
 
 4*
 
 3 o HENRY IRVING. 
 
 is innate — precisely as it was in Charles I. — and 
 although this is a monarch who cares little for the 
 mere shows of sovereignty, and can unbend and be 
 familiar and even jocose, for a purpose, he remains 
 a monarch, in every instant of his being, by virtue of 
 that indefinable but undeniable majesty of character 
 which makes certain men the superiors of their race. 
 His peculiar locomotion and his still more peculiar elo- 
 cution harmonise with the part and heighten its weird- 
 ness. The courage of Raphael, who could paint black 
 iron bars across his beautiful group of the Angel re- 
 leasing St. Peter from prison, did not surpass that of 
 Mr. Irving, in h>s utter sacrifice of symmetry and 
 music to what he regards as nature and truth in the 
 embodiment of his ideals of the morbid, the monstrous, 
 the agonising, and the terrible aspects of humanity, 
 transfigured in the world of the imagination. 
 
 Much is said about his "mannerisms." It is a 
 convenient word, and it seems to be freighted with 
 a vast significance. " The Spanish fleet thou canst 
 not see," says the Governor, in "The Critic," "be- 
 cause it is not yet in sight." Nothing solaces the 
 puzzled mind like one of these comprehensive and 
 final reasons. Yet it might not be amiss to remem- 
 ber that genius is a law to itself, and that its success 
 in art is the vindication of its means. One of the 
 greatest orators that ever lived was Rufus Choate ; and, 
 as all competent judges who ever heard him speak 
 will testify, Rufus Choate's oratory defied all the laws 
 that have been set down for the government of that 
 art. So much was this the case that another great 
 orator, Wendell Phillips, once referred to Choate as 
 "a monkey in convulsions." The seeming chaos,
 
 HENRY IRVING. 31 
 
 however, had a central purpose and a law; and the 
 orator was always triumphant. Furthermore, there 
 never was an actor, that attained to eminence, who was 
 not as distinctively marked as Mr. Irving is with 
 personal peculiarities. Garrick sputtered. Mossop in- 
 flated himself like the arrogant and bellicose turkey. 
 Edmund Kean croaked like a raven. John Philip 
 Kemble had chronic asthma and spoke in a high 
 falsetto. Macready stammered and grunted. Holland 
 snuffled. Burke twisted his spindle legs. Forrest 
 " chewed the cud," like an ox. Charlotte Cushman 
 had a masculine figure, a gaunt face, and a broken 
 and quavering voice. These things have little or 
 nothing to do with the essential question. The art of 
 acting is a complex art, made up of many arts. It is 
 not an actor's business always to be graceful in his 
 attitudes and movements, or always to be regular and 
 polished in his periods and enunciation. Every artist 
 has a way of his own, by which he reaches his results. 
 Mr. Irving's way is not the best way for everybody, 
 because the only true, right, and conclusive way of 
 universal human nature ; but, undoubtedly, it is the 
 best way for him. He produces marvellously fine 
 effects by it, and therefore he is right in using it. 
 Within a certain field, and up to a certain point, it is 
 invincible and triumphant. As far as he now stands 
 disclosed upon this stage Mr. Irving is a thorough and 
 often a magnificent artist, one who makes even his de- 
 fects to help him, and one who leaves nothing to blind 
 and whirling chance ; and if the light that shines 
 through his work be not the light of genius, by what 
 name shall it be called ?
 
 VI 
 
 SHYLOCK. 
 
 NOVEMBER 7th. — It is usual upon our stage 
 to represent "The Merchant of Venice" in a 
 mutilated condition. This custom has arisen from the 
 fact that the character of Shylock, after Macklin restored 
 it to the theatre, was adopted by the tragedians, and 
 made to overshadow the other characters in the piece. 
 Several parts were then cut out, others were shortened, 
 the comedy element was much depressed, and the play 
 was limited to four acts and ended with the trial 
 scene. The justification of this proceeding was neces- 
 sity. The tragedian, if he uses this piece at all, must 
 use it as a "star" piece. A company of comedians ca- 
 pable of playing it as pure comedy has seldom or never 
 existed, and, at present, it could not, in our country, be 
 rallied round a tragic actor, to "star " him in Shylock. 
 On the other hand, played by incompetent perform- 
 ers as pure comedy it would be intolerable and there- 
 fore practically useless to the stage. 
 
 In Shakespeare's time it appears to have been treated 
 as comedy, with Shylock as an eccentric character part 
 — played by Burbage, who wore a red wig. In Queen 
 
 32
 
 HENRY IRVING. 33 
 
 Anne's time Lord Lansdowne's perversion of the 
 original was accepted, with Dogget as Shylock, who 
 wore the red wig and turned the Jew into farce. Macldin 
 took up Shylock in 1 741, and astonished his generation 
 by showing what could be done with the part as 
 Shakespeare wrote it. Edmund Kean came later and 
 surpassed him. Stage history since then teems with 
 fine Shylocks, — Henderson, Cooke, the elder Booth, 
 Macready, the elder Wallack, G. V. Brooke, J. W. 
 Wallack, Jr., Edwin Booth, E. L. Davenport, Bogumil 
 Dawison, and Lawrence Barrett, for example, — but 
 "The Merchant of Venice" itself has scarcely ever 
 been treated in a thoroughly artistic and right manner. 
 It is absolute comedy, consistent and harmonious in 
 tone, but for a little excess of emphasis in the part of 
 Shylock, and exceedingly beautiful alike in its contrasts 
 of character, the invention of its scenes, and the poetry 
 of its language. It ought always to be played as a 
 comedy, and played with but the slightest condensa- 
 tion of the text. The most complete presentation of 
 it that has been made in our time was made by Edwin 
 Booth, at the Winter Garden Theatre, in 1867. 
 
 Last night at the Star Theatre the public had an 
 opportunity of seeing what Mr. Irving has done with 
 this good old play, in his London Lyceum revival of 
 it, which was reproduced in New -York. His work 
 commends itself as right in spirit, fine in scholarship, 
 and glowing in execution. The play was given in 
 five acts, and was treated throughout as a comedy. 
 The scenery was sufficiently correct and often beautiful. 
 Most of the scenery that Mr. Irving has displayed here 
 will be remembered as remarkable for harmony of 
 composition and for a rich mellowness of colour, highly
 
 34 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 tributary to illusion. For 1'The Merchant of Venice " 
 several of the sets were bright and gay ; but the more 
 dusky and sombre pictures were the more poetical. 
 Mr. Irving's company, likewise, was for the first time 
 shown in its strength. Mr. William Terriss made 
 Bassanio appropriately handsome, manly, noble, and 
 gay. A strong and picturesque performance of the 
 Prince of Morocco, notable for sonorous and dis- 
 creet delivery of a difficult text, was given by Mr. T. 
 Mead. Antonio was made dignified and earnest by 
 Mr. T. Wenman, who is a judicious and polished 
 speaker, sensible of the delicate shades of meaning 
 in the text. The address of the Duke of Venice could 
 not be better done than it was by the veteran Mr. 
 Howe, whose dignity and feeling, in this character, 
 graced by suggestions of ripe experience, wisdom, and 
 humour, made this a most satisfactory representation. 
 Miss Milward was gentle and pleasing in lessica. 
 
 Mr. Irving presented Shylock. His ideal is right 
 and his execution is full of subtle touches of art. 
 Douglas Jerrold said of Edmund Kean that his Shylock 
 made you think of "a chapter out of the Book of 
 Genesis." The Jew may be presented as acting from 
 personal covetousness and hatred, or he may be pre- 
 sented as acting from this motive, commingled with 
 high and stern religious fanaticism. The latter view 
 exalts the character, and therefore is the right one. 
 Antonio, in Shylock 's mind, has outraged Shy lock's 
 nation and religion as well as Shylock's self. The Jew, 
 in pursuing Antonio to the torture and the death, is 
 feeding his ancient grudge ; but likewise he is avenging 
 the wrongs of his sacred people. He thinks himself 
 the vicegerent of Divine Justice, and he has "an oath
 
 HENRY IRVING. 35 
 
 in heaven." This, apparently, was Edmund Kean's 
 theory of the character, and this is the ideal reasserted 
 by Henry Irving. His mental grasp of the part is per- 
 fect. His expression of austerity, of vindictive malignity, 
 of the sullen resentment that broods over long-hoarded 
 wrongs, was wonderfully fine — backed by great weight 
 of intellect and by fierce, hot-blooded, inveterate pur- 
 pose. His denotement of Shy lock's domestic affections, 
 which are passionate and pathetic, was clear and thrill- 
 ing — especially in the frantic lamentation over his 
 fugitive daughter, and the heart-broken words about 
 Leah and the turquoise ring. 
 
 His usage, in each performance, is to stud the work 
 with indications of the physical as well as the mental 
 peculiarities of the man whom he has undertaken to 
 embody. King Louis's trick of stroking his withered 
 cheeks with the ends of his fingers is an example of 
 this sort of embellishment. It is the province of an 
 actor to give a body to the soul which an author has 
 created, and this mechanism is Mr. Irving's recogni- 
 tion of that province. He may carry this embellish- 
 ment to excess, and he sometimes does, especially in 
 the poetic drama. His Shylock was profusely tinted 
 in this way, and thereby made a little prosy. Ideals 
 ought to be shown in the light of poetry, and not 
 in the light of common life. Mr. Irving's occa- 
 sional staccato elocution was also against him, in the 
 level speaking of Shylock. For the raving of the 
 infuriate Jew, in the street scene, he was found defi- 
 cient in overwhelming physical force ; but he wrought 
 up this scene with a controlled intensity of passion 
 that was painfully tragic. He reached his summit 
 and climax in "No tears but of my shedding"; and
 
 36 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 afterward, in the cold, determined, hellish cruelty of 
 purpose that animates Shylock in the trial scene, his 
 " Come, prepare " was spoken with superb effect. 
 Such single achievements as these flash backward and 
 irradiate a whole performance with the lustre of mind, 
 just as the heat-lightning illuminates a summer even- 
 ing sky. By these an observer looks into an actor's 
 thought and discerns what is known and meant by 
 him. Mr. Irving's ideal is truer than his execution of it. 
 His exit from the trial scene, in its Hebraic dignity, 
 was an apex of perfect pathos. The great audience 
 made the house resound here with plaudits and would 
 have recalled him — but he did not return. 
 
 Miss Ellen Terry presented Portia. The comedy 
 of this actress is delicious. Her voice is perfect music. 
 Her clear, bell-like elocution is more than a refresh- 
 ment — it is a luxury. Her simple manner, always 
 large and adequate, with nothing puny or mincing 
 about it, is a great beauty of the art which it so deftly 
 conceals. Her embodiment of a woman's loveliness, 
 such as, in Portia, should be at once stately and fasci- 
 nating and inspire at once respect and passion, was 
 felicitous beyond the reach of descriptive phrases. 
 During most part of the comedy she was arrayed in a 
 robe of what seemed flowing gold. In the trial scene 
 she wore scarlet velvet. Her delivery of the mercy 
 speech was a perfectly modulated and beautiful piece of 
 eloquence. Her sparkling by-play, in the "business " 
 about the ring, can only be called exquisite. Better 
 comedy has not been seen.
 
 VII 
 
 DISCURSIVE IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 NOVEMBER 12th.— Mr. Irving's Louis XL is so 
 excellent a work that it surpasses even the great 
 performance of that part which was given by Charles 
 Kean ; and to say this is to offer an uncommon tribute. 
 The statement, however, is just, and it implies no dis- 
 paragement. Mr. Irving is a younger man than 
 Charles Kean was when he acted here, and there- 
 fore to even the expression of age and weakness 
 he is able to impart, and does impart, a greater 
 emphasis of nervous vitality than was possible to the 
 older and feebler actor. Mr. Irving, furthermore, has 
 greatly the advantage of his famous predecessor, in 
 facial expression and vocal variety and power. The 
 play of feature in Mr. Irving's countenance throughout 
 this personation is marvellous. There are moments 
 when the soul of the king is mirrored in his face, and 
 every thought seems to cast a shadow. Then, too, 
 the performance excels its prototype in the qualities 
 of intellectual predominance, demoniac weirdness, 
 and grim humour. Finally, Mr. Irving's monarch is 
 more regal throughout, and, in the death scene, more 
 5 37
 
 38 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 awful. As a rule it is best to hold fast by Dogberry's 
 opinion, that "comparisons are odorous." But in 
 this instance comparison is instructive and expressive ; 
 and it can give no offence — seeing that Charles Kean 
 has long been dead, and that his generation has passed 
 away. Mr. Irving's treatment of the character of Louis 
 XI, furthermore, is almost exclusively his own. He 
 has imitated nobody; whereas Charles Kean's per- 
 formance is known to have been modelled, to a con- 
 siderable extent, on that of the French actor by whom 
 the part was originally played. Mr. Irving follows the 
 lines laid down by the author and by history ; but most 
 of his illustrative " business " is his own. 
 
 In Shylock Mr. Irving's ideal undoubtedly is sound. 
 His Shylock hates Antonio because Antotiio is a 
 Christian, "but more" because Antonio "lends out 
 money gratis," and spoils the trade of usury in 
 Venice. Religious fanaticism and sordid meanness are 
 thus blended in Mr. Irving's Shylock, even as they 
 are in the Jew of Shakespeare. But it is in the exe- 
 cution of an ideal that an actor is expected particu- 
 larly to excel; and in some parts of this Mr. Irving 
 was inadequate to his own intention. There is a pos- 
 sibility of being too "natural." The great persons in 
 Shakespeare are men and women, it is true ; but also 
 they are more than men and women. They have 
 their roots in the actual soil of human nature, but 
 they rise far above it. They neither speak the language 
 nor do the deeds of common life. They speak, for the 
 most part, in blank verse. They dwell and move in 
 a poetical atmosphere. They are ideals, exaggera- 
 tions, persons above the plane of ordinary human 
 existence. Accordingly, in the embodiment of them
 
 HENRY IRVING. 39 
 
 a fine poetical generalisation seems preferable to a 
 minute definement of particulars; just as, in another 
 branch of art, the oil-painting with its rich tones and its 
 mystery is preferable to the photograph. The Apollo is 
 the image and emblem of perfect human beauty ; and 
 yet no part of it is made with exact fidelity to the shape 
 of an actual man. This, of course, cannot be a new 
 doctrine, to such a scholar as Mr. Irving has shown 
 himself to be. It appeared, however, that in the act- 
 ing of Shylock his frequent close adherence to actual 
 life involved the sacrifice of a legitimate and desirable 
 poetic exaggeration. 
 
 In the street scene, after Shylock has heard of his 
 daughter's flight, Shakespeare authorises a torrent of 
 passion, and, furthermore, the passion is explosive. 
 Mr. Irving's acting, throughout this scene, is beauti- 
 ful in its variety and modulation and in its skilful use 
 of his strength and adroit concealment of his weak- 
 ness; but his method is that of the exact reverse of 
 explosive passion. The current is turned inward. The 
 spectacle is like that of breakers on a distant reef — so 
 remote that you cannot hear them. Doubtless this is 
 the passion of a man ; but is it the passion of this 
 particular man, at this particular place ? Is it the act- 
 ually uttered passion of Shylock ? Or is it only the 
 artistic suggestion of what that utterance ought to be ? 
 Mr. Irving has embellished the part with abundance 
 of illustrative "business," and he has carried this 
 thoroughness of embellishment into every portion of 
 the play; and all this artistic care tends toward the 
 structure and exposition of an actual segment of human 
 life, which is cut off and set in a picture. The Prince 
 of Morocco and his dusky attendants advance into Bel-
 
 4 o HENRY IRVING. 
 
 mont, and retire from Portia's presence, to the sound of 
 cymbals and oriental music. Gondolas, laden with 
 maskers, flit to and fro in the canals of Venice. Merry 
 revellers troop through the deserted street, after Jes- 
 sica and Lorenzo have fled, and then the lonely figure 
 of the Jew, returning from his supper of hatred with the 
 Christian, comes rapidly across a bridge and pauses at 
 his own door ; and so it is seen that the tempest must 
 soon and terribly break, from that despoiled and out- 
 raged hearth and heart. The trial scene is full of 
 happy touches of a realism that strictly harmonises 
 with the poetry of Shakespeare's conception. The use 
 of the populace is excellent. And all tends to the com- 
 pleteness of stage picture. A play was never mere 
 carefully set than "The Merchant of Venice" has 
 been set by Mr. Irving. But with reference to the 
 exceptional character of Shylock it seems just to say 
 that a more vivid poetical treatment and a more copi- 
 ous and splendid outburst, not of rant but of passion 
 and power, would stir the feelings more deeply than 
 any grace of detail can ever do, and would fill the 
 imagination with a sense of magnificence which other- 
 wise is lost. Public acceptance, touching such a mat- 
 ter as this, is inconclusive — for it accepts everything. 
 There is a true thought by old George Villiers which 
 bears on acting as well as on other phases of human 
 endeavour : " We can no more judge of the real value 
 of a man by the impression he makes on the public 
 than we can tell, from the stamp, whether the seal that 
 made it was of brass or gold." 
 
 Mr. Irving is an actor who has distinct reasons for 
 his methods of art. No thoughtful observer will deny 
 that his Shylock is consistent, harmonious, and natural ;
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 4* 
 
 and it has impressed many judges as superlatively fine. 
 It will be remembered for attributes distinctively intel- 
 lectual : whereas his Mathias and Louis XL must live 
 in memory as works of imagination, executed with 
 strong and fluent emotion and consummate skill ; 
 while his Charles I. is an ideal of majesty, and has 
 the mellow colour and sombre richness of an old 
 historic painting.
 
 VIII 
 
 LESURCLUES AND DUBOSC 
 
 NOVEMBER 13th. — In 1796, between Liewesaint 
 and Melun, in France, the Lyons mail-coach was 
 set upon by robbers ; the postilion and courier were 
 shot and killed ; and the coach was plundered. The 
 leader of the robbers, the actual murderer who figured 
 in this scene of crime, was a villain named Dubosc. 
 An innocent man, Joseph Lesurques, who chanced to 
 bear a strong personal resemblance to this miscreant, 
 was accused of this crime and was brought to trial ; 
 and, partly by the testimony of witnesses who swore 
 directly to his identity with the murderer, partly be- 
 cause of the cruel precipitancy of an unjust judge, 
 named Jerome Gohier, who rejected a conclusive alibi 
 and assumed his guilt, he was convicted and con- 
 demned to death ; and subsequently he suffered upon 
 the scaffold. He left a widow and three children. 
 His body was buried in sombre and dismal Pere La 
 Chaise, near to the famous tomb of Abelard and 
 Heloise, and his grave is now marked by a monument, 
 of white marble, bearing this inscription : "A la me- 
 moire de Joseph Lesurques, victime de la plus deplo- 
 
 42
 
 HENRY IRVING. 43 
 
 rable des erreurs humaines. 31 Octobrc, 1796. Sa 
 veuve et ses enfants, martyrs tous deux sur la terre, tous 
 deux sont reunis au ciel." Lesurques left this letter, 
 addressed to the murderer, which was published at 
 the time: "You, in whose stead lam about to die, 
 rest content with the sacrifice of my life. If ever you 
 fall into the hands of justice, think of my children, 
 covered with disgrace, and of their mother, a prey to 
 despair, and do not prolong the misery caused by 
 the fatal likeness that I bear to you." In 1800 the 
 truth became known, and the assassin Dubosc was 
 executed. 
 
 Upon this basis of facts the melodrama of " Le 
 Courier de Lyon" was constructed and written in 1850, 
 by Messrs. Moreau, Sevaudin, and Delacour, and it 
 was produced at the Gaiete Theatre, in Paris, with 
 Lacressoniere as Dubosc and Lesurques. Its success was 
 great, and it has remained a favourite on the French 
 stage. In the original piece Lesurques is led to the 
 scaffold, but when the play was adapted for the English 
 theatre, in 185 1, it was provided with a happy conclu- 
 sion. A little later Charles Kean brought it out at the 
 Princess's Theatre, in London, using a version made 
 by Charles Reade, and himself performing the double 
 part. In 1877 Mr. Irving revived it, with abundant 
 success, at the London Lyceum, under the name of 
 "The Lyons Mail," and last night he presented it 
 here, at the Star Theatre. It had before been given 
 in New York, but never under favourable circumstances, 
 or by an actor comparable with the extraordinary man 
 who now accomplished one of the most surprising and 
 admirable achievements in versatility and characterisa- 
 tion that have been seen upon the stage.
 
 44 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 "The Lyons Mail" is in three acts. The first 
 shows the commission of the crime. It is devoted 
 mainly to Dubosc. It is made up of exciting incidents 
 and it presents a fearful and ghastly picture. Its 
 atmosphere is that of horror and suspense, and it 
 clearly discloses the web of fatal circumstance in 
 which the innocent man is deplorably entangled. The 
 second act is devoted to Lesurques, and it shows the 
 rectitude and loveliness of his character, the gentleness, 
 the firmness, the simple candour and nobility with 
 which he confronts a cruel and terrible fate. Its 
 chief incident is the rejection by him of his father's 
 appeal, that he will avoid by suicide the disgrace of a 
 death upon the scaffold. The situation at this point 
 is one of absorbing interest. The third act reverts to 
 Dubosc, and presents him in a scene of brutal de- 
 pravity, surveying from a garret window the prepara- 
 tions for the execution of his double. The end is his 
 disappearance and the almost instant entrance of the 
 vindicated Lesurques. 
 
 The subject of this piece is horrible ; but so is the 
 subject of "Macbeth." Horror, like beauty, is a legiti- 
 mate element of art, if only it be treated in an artistic 
 manner. There are aspects of human nature and con- 
 duct and of actual life which ought never to be described 
 or shown. But when, as in this case, some of the noblest 
 traits and finest feelings of humanity and some of the 
 most dramatic and instructive contrasts of character 
 can be derived from the analysis and exposition of a 
 theme of crime, the use of that theme, in an intellectual 
 and artistic way, is right ; and the subject becomes 
 elevated by the use that is made of it. Mathias, in 
 " The Bells," for example, is only a burgomaster, in
 
 HENRY IRVING. 45 
 
 an obscure village of Alsace, who has done a mur- 
 der. But Mr. Irving, transcending the conditions 
 supplied by the authors, personates Mathias in such 
 a way as to lift him into the domain of poetry and 
 make him a character representative, as long as the 
 stage shall possess a history or art shall be recognised 
 among men, of the action of remorse in the human 
 soul. Define him as you like, call him by what name 
 you please, and prove by invincible logic that he figures 
 in one of the thinnest of plays, the fact remains that 
 this embodiment is worthy to stand among the most 
 appalling types of human remorse that you can sum- 
 mon out of the literature of the past. Manfred is not 
 more picturesque, nor does he suffer more, nor does 
 he impart a more significant moral lesson — notwith- 
 standing his sublime surroundings and his magnificent 
 blank verse. 
 
 So in " The Lyons Mail," which simply shows how 
 near an innocent man came to being sacrificed for the 
 crime of an abominable savage, the actor has, in still 
 another way, elevated the theme. This time it is by the 
 astonishing amplitude of the various nature that he has 
 poured into a common dramatic mould. The piece 
 counts for little. If Dubosc and Lesurques were cast to 
 different players and all the parts were acted with 
 average merit upon the peaceful level of mediocrity, 
 it probably would count for nothing. If Mr. Irving 
 were to appear simply as Dubosc he would only make 
 dramatic art tributary to the showing of a monster; 
 and that would be useless and wrong. By treating the 
 piece with intellectual earnestness and with perfect 
 refinement of touch, and by playing both Lesurqtces 
 and Dubosc entirely well*, he gives pathetic reality to a
 
 46 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 fearful human experience ; he denotes the almost in- 
 credible variety of attributes' which, by intuition and 
 imagination, may be circumscribed within one and the 
 same human being; and he affords a singularly bril- 
 liant illustration of the actor's art. In this latter par- 
 ticular the performance has an instructive value which 
 ought especially to be recognised. Spectators of stage- 
 art have too much the habit of thinking that an actor 
 does no more, and can do no more, than what has been 
 laid out for him to do by the dramatic author. Hence 
 it is that judgment is so often expended upon the litera- 
 ture of a play instead of the acting. Hence when an 
 actor plays Hamlet or Lear his auditors are so often lost 
 in the everlasting inquiry as to what Shakespeare meant. 
 Hence the common injustice of measuring an actor's 
 essentially dramatic faculties and skill by exclusive ref- 
 erence to the question of his fidelity to the author. Mr. 
 Irving — like M. Coquelin on the French stage, and 
 like Mr. Jefferson on our own — has, all along, been 
 remarkable for his insistence upon what the actor gives 
 to the character that he assumes and the subject that 
 he treats. Anybody can stand and repeat the grand 
 soliloquies of Macbeth ; but the actor must present 
 Macbeth in physical person, with all the fire of his 
 wicked, towering ambition and all the passion and con- 
 flict of his fiend-haunted soul crystallised in a distinct 
 and positive body. It is what Mr. Irving himself has 
 done with his various characters — his getting inside 
 of them and making them live as actual men — that 
 shows his superlative excellence as an actor. And he 
 will largely benefit the public in this country if he 
 should help to teach it, in looking at acting, to lay 
 aside for a while the "book of the play," and not to
 
 HENRY IRVING. 47 
 
 suppose that everything depends upon correct punctua- 
 tion. It is not meant that an actor shall be accounted 
 right who begins by undertaking to present King 
 Lear and ends by presenting King John; but that 
 the actor must embody characters with something of 
 himself and according to known and undeniable stand- 
 ards of human nature. "After the nicest strokes 
 of a Shakespeare, a Jonson, of a Wycherley or an 
 Otway," says Fielding (in "Tom Jones"), "some 
 touches of nature will escape the reader, which the 
 judicious action of a Garrick, of a Cibber, or of a 
 Clive, can convey to him." 
 
 A finer exemplification of abstract dramatic faculty 
 than this which Mr. Irving gives in "The Lyons Mail " 
 is not within remembrance. The callous villain Dubosc, 
 with his hideously expeditious ways and his grotesque 
 humour, can never be forgotten. The action of turning 
 over the corpse, to rifle its pockets, would alone have 
 sufficed to bespeak an artist. There are many deft 
 touches like this, in the work, and they make it a per- 
 fect showing of a hideous ruffian. The manly fidelity, 
 simple pathos, and lofty heroism of the character of 
 Lesurques were conveyed with the same truth and with 
 touching sincerity. The farewell to the daughter in 
 the prison created an effect of passionate sorrow, and 
 was, indeed, expressed with tenderness and manly 
 strength. The almost instantaneous changes create an 
 effect of astonishment : but this is only an ancient ex- 
 pedient of theatrical celerity. The truly astonishing 
 and impressive thing is the instant change made by 
 the actor, not merely in external appearance but in 
 the moral nature and the distinguishing mental attri- 
 butes. After all the brutal wickedness of Du&osc's
 
 48 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 garret scene — a terrific exhibition of insensate besti- 
 ality — he comes forth, in one moment-, tranquil, noble, 
 gentle, the image of devout virtue that has felt the win- 
 nowing of the wings of death and is humbly and grate- 
 fully triumphant over danger and misery. 
 
 Miss Ellen Terry acted Janette. It is a little part, 
 but every opportunity that it provides was improved. 
 Miss Terry's personality is invested with a spiritual 
 quality which makes her inharmonious with such dra- 
 matic conditions as those of this character. Yet it 
 is no uncommon thing to see a sweet, fragile, lovely 
 woman infatuated with a human brute.
 
 IX 
 
 THE BELLE'S STRATAGEM. 
 
 NOVEMBER 20th.— Last night, after a repetition 
 of the sombre drama of " The Bells," in which 
 Mr. Irving again presented his impressive psycholog- 
 ical study of remorse, in the character and experience 
 of Matkias, Mrs. Cowley's comedy of " The Belle's 
 Stratagem," reduced to two acts, was presented, with 
 Miss Ellen Terry as Letitia Hardy and Mr. Irving as 
 Doricourt. The performance of this old work in seven 
 brief and rapid scenes proved more enjoyable than the 
 representation of it in all its acts has commonly been. 
 It was shorter and it was pungent and pointed. There 
 is, to be sure, a sacrifice of clearness and coherence, 
 and the comedy becomes farcical ; but the quintessence 
 of the characters and of the fun is preserved, and this 
 suffices for Mr. Irving's purpose. 
 
 Doricourt and Letitia Hardy are familiar acquaint- 
 ances. The former is Mrs. Cowley's dilution of Con- 
 greve's Valentine in "Love for Love," and the latter 
 is her echo of Arthur Murphy's Maria in " The Citi- 
 zen." A girl who masquerades in order to bewitch or 
 cajole or mystify her lover is one of the usual figures 
 6 49
 
 50 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 in the old plays. Letitia Hardy is this type, and doubt- 
 less as good as any representative of womanly piquancy 
 that could readily be found for the practical purposes 
 of stage illustration. She has sentiment and tender- 
 ness, but the essential fibre in her character is glit- 
 tering gaiety. She can love and be sincere, but she 
 will begin by teasing and tantalising. Miss Ellen 
 Terry, with her buoyant and sparkling frenzy (there is 
 no fitter word with which to denote her essential char- 
 acteristic), is here suited with an identity into which 
 her own nature can abundantly flow. She suffused the 
 earlier scenes with a fine petulance and a high-bred dis- 
 tinction, touched with the pretty, pouting, mischievous 
 wilfulness of a wayward child. She carried the hoyden 
 scene with abundant animal spirits and a delicious spon- 
 taneity of archness, drollery, and downright broad hu- 
 mour — which, however, never passed across the line of 
 refinement. The offence was given to manners and 
 taste, but not to morals or to the heart. In the minuet 
 she was a vision of swan-like elegance, grace, and woman- 
 like fascination — a true type of elegant, tantalising, 
 high-bred coquetry. The rich and flexible delivery of 
 the text, so full of light and shadow, and as various as 
 the ripple of running water, added to the charm of this 
 work, and made it one of the most finished bits of com- 
 edy that have been set upon our stage. Miss Terry, 
 at the singing of "Where are you going, my pretty 
 maid ? " carried the house completely away from all 
 sobriety of judgment. 
 
 Mr. Irving's good qualities in Doricourt were seen 
 to be a superb aristocratical elegance, perfect manners 
 and costume, and a fine dexterity in treating the some- 
 what trivial incidents amid which the character is
 
 HENRY IRVING. 51 
 
 exhibited. His Doricourt has a distinct individuality, 
 being a luxurious, polished man of the world, well 
 contented with himself, ardent if not passionate, and 
 capable of serious, manly feeling and conduct, though 
 generally self-indulgent and volatile. But there is in 
 Mr. Irving himself an intellectual elevation, and his 
 person, face, and manner are characterised by a ro- 
 mantic strangeness and sombre quality of thought, 
 which make him inconsistent with such an ideal 
 as Doricourt. He wins admiration, accordingly, less 
 for actually impersonating this part — for merging 
 himself into it, and carrying it with dash and sparkle 
 — than for the proficiency with which he indicates its 
 texture and significance. His crisp delivery of the 
 text, particularly in the "aside" speeches and when 
 a dash of satire is essential, will be remembered as 
 especially felicitous. Mr. Irving and Miss Terry were 
 called before the curtain seven times in the course of 
 the night. Mr. Terriss presented a capital Flutter, — 
 alert, easy, garrulous, incessant, comical, a true and 
 amusing type of mendacious vacuity ; but the part is 
 reduced to a sketch. 
 
 * 
 
 All that has been said in recognition of Mr. Irving's 
 intellectual leadership, and of his puissant and thorough 
 method of dramatic art, was justified by his imperson- 
 ation of Louis XI, given yesterday afternoon, Novem- 
 ber 20th, before an audience mainly composed of actors. 
 He has not, since the remarkable occasion of his advent 
 in America, acted with such a noble affluence of power 
 as he displayed in this effort. It was not only an expres- 
 sion, vivid and profound, of the intricate, grisly, and
 
 52 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 terrible nature of King Louis; it was a disclosure of 
 manifold artistic resources, the fine intuition, the re- 
 pose, and the commanding intellectual energy of the 
 actor himself. An intellectual audience — alert, re- 
 sponsive, quick to see the intention and to recognise 
 each point, however subtle and delicate, of the actor's 
 art — seemed to awaken all his latent fire and nerve 
 him to a free and bounteous utterance of his own spirit. 
 More than one scene was interrupted by the uncon- 
 trollable enthusiasm of the house, and eight times in 
 the course of the performance Mr. Irving was re-called. 
 A kindred excitement was communicated to the other 
 actors, and an unusual spirit of emulation pervaded the 
 company. Mr. Mead, as the old monk, set forth a work 
 mediaeval in tone, replete with ecclesiastical dignity, and 
 borne along with weight of genuine character and much 
 felicity of vocal power. The audience and the per- 
 formance made up a memorable scene.
 
 X 
 
 SOURCES OF STRENGTH. 
 
 NOVEMBER 25th. — Mr. Irving's first engagement 
 in New-York was ended last night. The four 
 weeks during which he has acted at the Star Theatre 
 have been, to students and lovers of the dramatic 
 art, pleasant and beneficial. Much has been enjoyed 
 and something has been learned. Above all, the 
 exercise of thought has been compelled — and that 
 is always a blessing. There have been twenty- 
 nine performances, presenting, in succession, " The 
 Bells," "Charles I.," "Louis XL," " The Merchant 
 of Venice," "The Lyons Mail," "The Belle's Strat- 
 agem " (in Two Acts), a single Act of " Richard III.," 
 and a recitation of Thomas Hood's poem " The Dream 
 of Eugene Aram." Mr. Irving has been seen in Ma- 
 thias, Charles L., Louis XL, Shy lock, Lesurques, Du- 
 bosc, Doricourt, Gloster, and Aram. Miss Ellen Terry 
 has appeared as Queen Henrietta, Portia, Janette, 
 and Letitia Hardy. Conspicuous successes have been 
 gained by Mr. Terriss, Mr. Mead, Mr. Wenman, Mr. 
 Tyars, Mr. Archer, Mr. Howe, Mr. Andrews, and 
 Miss Milward. It has been a time of earnest, reso- 
 6* 53
 
 54 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 lute, ambitious, adequate effort, upon the stage, and 
 of quick appreciation and enthusiasm in front of it. 
 The Irving engagement marks an epoch in the history 
 of the American theatre. The prosperity of the dra- 
 matic art receives from it an extraordinary impetus, 
 and it will be attended with consequences far-reaching 
 and valuable, both on the stage and in the public mind. 
 The reason of this is obvious — or ought to be — to 
 all who have thoughtfully followed Mr. Irving's per- 
 formances. It is no new doctrine that a good actor 
 should be surrounded with good actors; that every 
 part in a play should be judiciously cast; that every 
 play should be set in appropriate and rational scenery, 
 so as to create and sustain an illusion of reality ; and 
 that careful attention should be given, in every dra- 
 matic performance, to the details of dress and adjuncts, 
 to form, colour, coherence, probability, and all kindred 
 essentials that blend to make the rounded and com- 
 plete picture. This idea has been formulated before 
 now, and practically pursued, in many theatres of 
 America. Yet its actual prevalence has not been usual 
 or invariable, and no tragedian of our time has been 
 so successful as Mr. Irving in obtaining and holding, 
 in permanent organisation, precisely the right persons 
 and appliances requisite to the attainment of this 
 result. All that he has done has been completely 
 done, and therefore each performance has possessed 
 the interest and vitality of truth. To look back upon 
 the series of pictures that he has presented is to be 
 impressed, almost with amazement, at the reality of 
 them — at the remembered glamour of illusion which, 
 while those pictures were passing before our eyes, 
 made us oblivious of the stage, and aware only of
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 55 
 
 what were persons, places, and events of actual human 
 life. Furthermore — which is another element in the 
 reason of Mr. Irving's triumph — his completeness has 
 been irradiated with glowing enthusiasm. Upon most 
 intellectual men, in this utilitarian, critical, and expe- 
 ditious age, sooner or later there falls a blight of lan- 
 guor and dejection. They weary of well-doing ; they 
 droop into apathy, sometimes into bitterness ; and 
 they cease to insist upon the enforcement of ideas. 
 Mr. Irving, thus far, has escaped this too common 
 experience. His spirit still remains eager, hopeful, 
 buoyant, and resolute — the spirit of a man interested 
 in his time and his avocation, sympathetic with the 
 abounding life which surrounds him, and impelled by 
 "the fixed persuasion of success." That forceful, 
 alert, and intrepid vitality, guided by a fine intellect 
 and a true taste, evokes the response of pleased at- 
 tention and eager interest. Life responds to life. No 
 spectator of Mr. Irving's performances could possibly 
 miss in them the consciousness of liberated power. 
 The sense of defeat and sorrow has not been exhaled 
 by them. Something has been attempted. Some- 
 thing has been done. Right or wrong, achievement 
 has been suffused with fire and with light — and that 
 way lies the conquest of the sympathies of this world. 
 
 It is not possible to specify and catalogue the several 
 attributes of a human soul. A few of the spiritual facts, 
 however, are visible, and it remains to be said that two 
 other elements in the reason of Mr. Irving's success are, 
 personal charm and a felicitous naturalness of method. 
 In any situation of life the personality of this actor 
 would give the impression of something strange, excep- 
 tional, and, in various ways, attractive. In other
 
 56 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 words, he is a man of genius ; and, on whatsoever line 
 of thought he might manifest his powers, their mani- 
 festation would inevitably be attended with originality 
 and allurement. He has impersonated here nine dif- 
 ferent men — each one distinct from all the others. 
 That is a practical exercise of the art of acting. Yet 
 in doing this he has never ceased to exert one and the 
 same personal charm — the charm of genialised intel- 
 lect. The soul that is within the man has suffused his 
 art and made it victorious. The same forms of expres- 
 sion, lacking this spirit, would have lacked the triumph. 
 All of them, indeed, are not equally fine. Mr. Irving's 
 Mathias and Louis XI. are higher performances than 
 his Shy lock and Doricourt — higher in imaginative tone 
 and in adequacy of feeling and treatment. But, 
 throughout all these forms, the drift of his spirit, set- 
 ting boldly away from conventions and formalities, has 
 been manifested with delightful results. He has always 
 seemed to be alive with the specific vitality of the per- 
 son represented. He has never seemed to be a wooden 
 puppet of the stage, bound in by formality and strain- 
 ing after a vague scholastic ideal of technical correctness. 
 This is the naturalness of his method, and this is per- 
 fect mechanism — if it be not carried too far. With 
 his ideals — with what was seen to be passing in his 
 mind — it has not been possible in any instance 
 much to disagree. His limitations are found in the 
 physical mediums of expression, and in the realm of 
 what may, perhaps, be suggested, if not described, as 
 the overwhelming ecstasy or frenzy of the passions. 
 He belongs to the traditions of Kemble and Macready, 
 rather than to those of Garrick and Edmund Kean. 
 Yet he is distinct from both of his artistic ancestors,
 
 HENRY IRVING. 57 
 
 and in some ways he has gone beyond them. In that 
 field which may be called weird, picturesque, romantic, 
 in the slow vivisection of piteous human misery, his 
 figure stands apart from all others — lonely and alone. 
 The performance of last night strengthened, without 
 changing, the impressions already made and stated. 
 The simulated fervour and the sardonic satire that are 
 characteristic of Shakespeare's Richard III, Mr. Irving 
 indicates with precision. He appeared in only the first 
 act of the tragedy, which is mainly devoted to that 
 unnatural scene of Gloster's wooing of the widowed 
 Lady Anne. His recital of "Eugene Aram" was 
 acted remorse, fluent, flexible, eloquent, passionate, 
 and very melodious. 
 
 Immediately before the recital of " Eugene Aram," 
 Mr. Irving addressed his audience, as follows : 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen : I should be unjust to 
 myself if I were to allow this moment to pass without 
 at least endeavouring to express my gratitude for your 
 great kindness to my comrades and myself. When I 
 stood here for the first time, about a month ago, I ven- 
 tured to express the hope (encouraged by your gener- 
 ous applause) that ' our loves might increase even as 
 our days do grow.' You, upon your part, have fulfilled 
 our highest anticipations. I also bespoke your consider- 
 ation for my sister artist, Miss Ellen Terry, saying that 
 she would win your hearts ; and I believe I am not 
 wrong, to-night, in thinking that she has done so. We 
 all regret that our stay with you is not longer- — that it 
 is not months instead of weeks. But I am not here to 
 bid you farewell. I will only say au revoir. We ex-
 
 58 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 pect to appear before you again next April, when we 
 shall present ' Much Ado ' and ' Hamlet.' These plays 
 were received with favour in our old home beyond 
 the sea, and we trust they will be received with equal 
 kindness in what I will venture to call our new home 
 on this side of the Atlantic. I can do but little to ex- 
 press, in behalf of my associates and in my own behalf, 
 the gratitude that we feel toward the public of New- 
 York. Could I say more I should feel less. We have 
 been happy in your society and we leave you with nat- 
 ural regret." 
 
 -^#^^s*
 
 - r- * 
 
 
 
 V '. 
 
 
 '
 
 XI 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 
 
 APRIL ist, 1884. — The excitement of that cheerful 
 October evening, last year, when Henry Irving 
 made his first appearance in New York, was repeated 
 last night, at the Star Theatre, where "Much Ado 
 About Nothing" was presented, and where Mr. Irving 
 and Miss Terry effected their reentrance, and were 
 welcomed by a brilliant company, with the heartiest 
 admiration and goodwill. The scene, indeed, was 
 one of unusual brightness and enjoyment, both before 
 the curtain and upon the stage. The applause, upon 
 the entrance of Beatrice, — a rare vision of imperial 
 yet gentle beauty ! — broke forth impetuously and 
 continued long ; and upon the subsequent entrance of 
 Benedick it rose into a storm of gladness and welcome. 
 Mr. Irving and Miss Terry — received here, at the 
 outset, six months ago, more as old friends than as 
 strangers — have now firmly established themselves in 
 the admiration and esteem of the American audience ; 
 and, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the 
 aptitude or felicity of either of them, in any specific 
 character, there is neither denial nor doubt of their 
 
 59
 
 6o 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 sterling ability, achievements, and merits. They have 
 become a portion of our pleasant, instructive, and 
 valuable experience ; and, since the American stage 
 is cosmopolitan, they doubtless will long retain their 
 place among the forces whence our culture as a peo- 
 ple is stimulated and refreshed. The circumstances 
 which attended their reentrance were confirmatory 
 of their permanent success and auspicious for their 
 future. 
 
 "Much Ado" had not before been given in New- 
 York by Mr. Irving, but it had been given by him in 
 other cities, and the rosy accounts of it sent from those 
 cities had inspired a lively anticipation as to its general 
 presentment, and as to the acting of Mr. Irving and 
 Miss Terry in Benedick and Beatrice. This anticipa- 
 tion was fulfilled. The scenic exposition of the piece 
 was elaborate, sufficiently correct, and often beautiful. 
 " The inside of a church," as Shakespeare calls it, with 
 his excellent directness, was one of the most imposing 
 sets that have been displayed. The cast was the same, 
 in many features, with which Mr. Irving revived this 
 comedy at the London Lyceum, on October nth, 1882, 
 and the acting, throughout, was careful, even, and 
 harmonious, as well in the subsidiary parts as in the 
 principals. 
 
 Extended comment on the comedy of " Much Ado" 
 is not requisite here. To traverse that familiar field 
 must necessarily be to walk again in the path that 
 many footsteps have already made. The piece was 
 written at what seems to have been the happiest 
 period of Shakespeare's life — the period when also 
 he produced "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and 
 "The Merchant of Venice." To the analytic mind
 
 HENRY IRVING. 61 
 
 " Much Ado " is especially interesting as showing 
 the maturity of Shakespeare's humour, his power to 
 contemplate life in the objective point of view, and to 
 portray it as if seen from above, with all its contrarie- 
 ties and all its lights and shadows. To such a student 
 the comedy is impressive, also, as showing the trans- 
 figuring power of Shakespeare's artistic skill and the 
 fertile wealth of his invention ; for in this piece he 
 made an old story new by his treatment of it, and he 
 invented Benedick and Beatrice, Dogberry and Verges, 
 and all that relates to them — a remarkable feat of 
 literary creation. 
 
 Upon Mr. Irving's impersonation of Benedick it is 
 not easy to form a precise judgment. The per- 
 formance is interesting and charming. The actor's 
 personal singularity and the peculiarities of his histri- 
 onic method do not detract from its charm : on the 
 contrary, they give it piquancy and make it unique. 
 His way is his own way, and it is richly fraught with 
 high-bred ease, intellectual repose, and demure grav- 
 ity. He speaks the soliloquies, to be sure, more with 
 the author's appreciation of them than with the air of 
 the impersonator; but he banters and fences nimbly 
 with the provoking Beatrice, and his demeanor in the 
 challenge scene is resolute, dignified, simple, and 
 rightly touched with a tone of dangerous menace. It 
 is a certain moral and mental exaltation in his ideal of 
 the part, combined with a sequent quietude or lack 
 of dash in his execution, that perplex judgment, and 
 make it difficult for an observer to determine whether 
 this is Shakespeare's Benedick or a glorification of it. 
 Whichever it be, it is a rich display of the art which 
 an actor should peculiarly possess — the art to invest 
 7
 
 62 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 a fanciful conception with a natural body — and it is 
 full of pleasure for those who see it. 
 
 The manner characteristic of Benedick, as Shake- 
 speare has drawn him, is a buoyant, brilliant, dashing, 
 aggressive manner, largely based on well-nurtured 
 animalism. He is not a man of sentiment and there 
 is no romance in his nature. Of his satirical percep- 
 tion and amused contempt of the romantic, love-lorn 
 swain, his " Poor, hurt fowl ! now will he creep into 
 sedges " is exceedingly significant. Before he loves 
 Beatrice he has avowed the ideas and feelings and he 
 has implied the customs of a sensual rover; and when 
 at last he does come really to love her — being tan- 
 talised, nettled, and stung into the passion by her 
 taunting indifference, her indomitable mirth, her bold, 
 brilliant, physical beauty, and her almost insolent 
 wit — his love stands at the furthest possible remove 
 from anything like spiritual rapture or any sweet tu- 
 mult whatsoever. It is a jubilant, militant, self-con- 
 fident love, and were it scorned and repulsed the lover 
 would still remain unhurt. Henry V., in his wooing of 
 his French Kate, is not further away from the mood 
 of Romeo than Benedick is, in his wooing of Beatrice. 
 " From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot," 
 says Don Pedro, "he is all mirth: what his heart 
 thinks his tongue speaks." The thought which should 
 prompt caution as to positive definition of Benedick, 
 however, — or as to positive definition of Beatrice, 
 either, — is the thought that they may, perhaps, have 
 been designed as pretenders to heartlessness, each in- 
 tuitively suspecting the other, in this particular. They 
 are very similar.
 
 HENRY IRVING. 63 
 
 Mr. Irving's humour may, perhaps, be best defined 
 as subtle playfulness. In Louis XL it is the grisly 
 playfulness of the sick panther. In Doricourt it is the 
 mocking playfulness of the accomplished and fastidious 
 gentleman. In Richard III. it is the heartless, sar- 
 donic, cruel playfulness of the astute, hypocritical vil- 
 lain. In Dubosc it is the cold, depraved, hideous 
 playfulness of the insensate, swaggering ruffian. In 
 each case it is playfulness — which, of course, may be 
 either amiable or baleful — and it is invariably subtle. 
 It is not the humour that laughs and shakes ; it is the 
 humour that smiles ; and whether the smile shall be 
 pleasant or unpleasant must depend upon the quality 
 of the character out of which the humour is derived. 
 Such humour may surprise and gratify a spectator, but 
 it seldom or never can rejoice him. The word " amus- 
 ing " seems a strange word to apply to either Dubosc 
 or Louis XL.; but the most amusing moments that 
 have been provided by the acting of Mr. Irving, thus 
 far, in America, have been provided in those char- 
 acters. 
 
 His Benedick, to be sure, amuses, but it is less amus- 
 ing than charming. In this part his playfulness reap- 
 pears under still another guise, and is the playfulness 
 of an odd, quaint fellow, eccentric although elegant, 
 and, although volatile and nimble on occasion, mostly 
 observant, quizzical, fond of sagacious rumination, and 
 slightly saturnine. If this is Shakespeare's Benedick, 
 Mr. Irving has exactly reproduced him. If not, he has 
 exalted him, intellectually and by personal traits, to a 
 place among the gentle and sprightly satirical thinkers 
 of the Shakesperean world. And this, perhaps, ex-
 
 64 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 presses his real achievement — that he has substituted 
 a complex nature, based on goodness, merrily pretend- 
 ing to cynicism, and having rich reserves, for the dash- 
 ing, predominant, sonorous, gallant known since 
 Charles Kemble's day as the Benedick of the stage. 
 
 There are certain lines of the play which spring into 
 the memory of every reader of " Much Ado," the mo- 
 ment Beatrice is mentioned ; and they help to elucidate 
 her character. "A star danced," she says, "and 
 under that was I born. . . I thank my heart, poor 
 fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. . . I was 
 born to speak all mirth and no matter. . . I have 
 a good eye, uncle, I can see a church by daylight. . . 
 I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man 
 swear he loves me." And Hero, who knows her best 
 and loves her most, declares that "her spirits are as 
 coy and wild as haggards of the rock. Disdain and 
 scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, misprizing what they 
 look on." 
 
 So far as a woman can be understood at all Beatrice 
 has commonly been understood as the image and es- 
 sence of flippant vivacity, strong, bold, brilliant, exult- 
 ant, but untender and devoid of woman-like gentleness. 
 She is a female Benedick, but, like Benedick, she is 
 sound and wholesome at heart. If she has not the 
 softness of her sex, neither has she its weakness, its 
 conventionality, its fickleness, nor is there any ro- 
 mantic element in her nature. When once it is 
 touched her heart will glow with generous warmth, 
 but her sense is paramount to her sentiment, and a 
 passionate resentment of injustice, where her family 
 affections are concerned, is the deepest feeling that she 
 displays ; for at the very moment when she owns her
 
 HENRY IRVING. 65 
 
 love for Benedick she pledges him to risk his life in a 
 duel in behalf of another woman; 
 
 Miss Terry's art is kindred with that of Mr. Irving, 
 and her success was of the same description. She per- 
 meates the raillery of Beatrice with an indescribable 
 charm of mischievous sweetness. The silver arrows of 
 her pungent wit have no barb — for evidently she does 
 not mean that they shall really wound. Her appear- 
 ance and carriage are beautiful, and her tones melt 
 into music. There is no hint of the virago here, and 
 even the tone of sarcasm is superficial. Archness play- 
 ing over kindness is the leading characteristic of Miss 
 Terry's ideal of Beatrice. She is nothing harsher than 
 a merry tease, and in the soliloquy after the arbor 
 scene she drops all flippancy and glows into tender and 
 loving womanhood. A more fascinating personality 
 than this Beatrice could not be wished ; and Miss 
 Terry's method of expressing it is marked with pliant, 
 effortless power and absolute simplicity. 
 
 In these impersonations, Mr. Irving and Miss Terry 
 apparently have chosen — partly with conscious design 
 and partly under the stress of inexorable tempera- 
 mental conditions — to transfigure rather than literally 
 to interpret the conception of Shakespeare, as to Bene- 
 dick and Beatrice. Mr. Irving presents a higher and 
 finer character than Benedick is in Shakespeare's page ; 
 and Miss Terry presents a more lovely and tender 
 woman than the Beatrice of the comedy. 
 
 In his dressing and stage-setting of "Much Ado" 
 Mr. Irving has respected the old authorities on the sub- 
 ject — following, indeed, the precedent of Macready, 
 by whom this piece was sumptuously revived in Lon- 
 don, at Drury Lane, in 1843. The last war in which 
 
 ~* 
 /
 
 66 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 the Italians were involved, while they were under the 
 dominion of Spain, occurred in 1529, and Charles V., 
 of Spain, made a triumphal entry into Messina in 1535 
 — to which time and circumstances the comedy relates. 
 Dress shapes of the period of Henry VIII., of England, 
 and Francis I., of France, and parti-coloured fabrics, 
 such as were then worn in Europe, are its suitable 
 investiture. On the occasion of Macready's revival its 
 male characters were dressed in close-fitting, parti- 
 coloured suits, with short tunics. Mr. Wallack dressed 
 the play in much the same manner, in his first repro- 
 duction of it, on what is now the Star stage, in 1869; 
 and Edwin Booth in 1873, at Booth's Theatre, fol- 
 lowed this good example. 
 
 "Much Ado" has been several times as well set 
 upon the American stage as it is now set by Mr. Irving, 
 if reference be made to dresses and to construction of 
 scenes. The superiority of Mr. Irving's mounting of it 
 consists in the colouring and tone of the scenery, and in 
 a studiously minute attention to minor detail — nothing 
 being omitted, within reason, that can heighten illusion 
 or deepen the effect of nature. It is difficult to keep 
 the judicious line in these matters, and stage-mount- 
 ing may easily be carried too far. The acting is 
 more important than the trappings that surround it. 
 Much of the scenery habitually used on the American 
 stage, however, is too obviously "scenery," and it 
 may be said to smell of new paint. In England 
 Stanfield and Telbin, among others, have painted stage 
 scenery, and particular attention has been given there to 
 mellowness of colour and to a due simulation of the 
 effects of time and climate upon architecture. Mr. Irving 
 has lived and laboured where he could have the counsel
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 67 
 
 of such artists as Alma Tadema and such scholars as 
 Planche. He tells nothing that was not known before ; 
 but he practically enforces his lesson, pointing out the 
 right way by zealously pursuing it. 
 
 And what is true of much American stage scenery is 
 equally true of much American acting — it is too obvi- 
 ously " acting"; the wires are not concealed. Under 
 the instructive influence of Mr. Irving's performances 
 numbers of persons have been made to understand 
 this truth, which yet is not a new truth to the habitual 
 thinker upon this subject. From the completeness of 
 the representation of " Much Ado," whether viewed 
 as picture or performance, this is the chief deducible 
 lesson.
 
 XII 
 
 PURPOSE IN ACTING. 
 
 APRIL 27th, 1884. — Last night, in presence of a 
 numerous assemblage and amidst acclamations 
 of delight as well as many denotements of regret at an 
 impending loss, Mr. Irving, Miss Terry and the Lon- 
 don Lyceum Theatre Company took their farewell of 
 America, and closed the first Irving season in the New 
 World. Upon the special performances of the night — 
 although many appreciative words remain unsaid as 
 to the intellectual subtlety and the scholar-like taste 
 with which the several plays have been treated — it is 
 not needful long to pause. Four jewels, each taken from 
 its especial setting, were displayed in one blazing cluster 
 of opulent beauty ; and the sense of them that lingers 
 now in memory is a sense of satisfying magnificence. 
 
 Mr. Irving endured a severe strain — for he was re- 
 quired to impersonate, in conditions of a climacteric 
 character, the successive natures of Shylock, Lout's XL., 
 Charles L., and Benedick; to reach these conditions 
 without preparatory gradations of advance, and to give 
 the characters all their vitality in an instant. His 
 readiness and versatility astonished even those who 
 
 68
 
 HENRY IRVING. 69 
 
 are best acquainted with the resources of his mind. 
 Miss Terry, if less severely tried, was yet fully as re- 
 sponsive to the needs of the hour ; and it was obvious, 
 furthermore, that the occasion itself had deeply touched 
 her sensitive heart. The acting of Miss Terry is never 
 a matter of impulse and accident ; yet she always lib- 
 erates her own nature into the nature she assumes, 
 bearing, indeed, a heart that sits ever " on the windy 
 side " of emotion, so that her tears follow quickly upon 
 her laughter. This lively sensibility could not fail to 
 be deeply moved, as well by the sense of parting as by 
 the demonstrative sympathy of the public. No audi- 
 ence of the year has been more thoroughly aroused, 
 or more liberal of its enthusiasm. 
 
 The measure of success in acting is found, probably, 
 in the question whether the testimony that an actor 
 bears to human nature is such as matches the best 
 knowledge of that subject which exists in the aggre- 
 gate mind of the community. To consider that ques- 
 tion is to look upon the soul of the actor — his resources 
 of thought, feeling, imagination, and poetry, and the 
 height of his spiritual altitude above the common 
 clay — and thus to discover whether he is an ex- 
 emplar and leader of men. The purpose of the stage 
 is not merely to amuse a crowd of people for two or 
 three hours, or to show how much more clever one man 
 is than another in a special line of expression, but to 
 display scenes and powers that tell of what human na- 
 ture is composed and of what it is capable, and so to 
 suggest how sacred our duty is to rule and guide it 
 upon eternal principles of right. So far as anything 
 of this sort can be defined, with reference to the serious 
 design and the latent, inexorable morality that dwell
 
 70 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 in all things, this view defines the drift of the stage. A 
 true actor knows this and treats his art in this spirit. 
 This is what Mr. Irving has done and this is the reason 
 of his success. Back of the actor is the lofty, calm, 
 resolute, far-seeing, and noble mind. Real achieve- 
 ment exists by right and not by sufferance. Such a 
 man never can fail in the commanding purpose of his 
 life. Honour goes before him and affection remains 
 behind. Fortunate for the world as for the actor 
 that this should be so. The history of the dramatic 
 art presents many examples, pitiable and pathetic, of 
 men with faculties of a high order who have spent long 
 years of toil in intellectual pursuits, but whose efforts 
 have passed without recognition and without reward. 
 Thrice happy he to whom nature has vouchsafed 
 the investiture of genius, so that his labour becomes 
 glorified, in all eyes, with that mysterious radiance of 
 divinity ! 
 
 An old Persian proverb says that "the words of 
 a King fall not to the ground." Mr. living's farewell 
 speech here finds its place: — 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : It is my privilege to 
 thank you for all your goodness toward us. I wish my 
 tongue possessed an eloquence that would adequately 
 express my thoughts. On a night that will ever be re- 
 membered by us, six months ago, you welcomed us to 
 these boards, and I thank you as the representative 
 audience of the empire city of the United States for 
 the welcome which we have everywhere received from 
 the American people. Not one jarring note, one un- 
 generous sentiment, has marred the happiness of our
 
 HENRY IRVING. 71 
 
 stay among you. Arab-like we closed our tents and 
 travelled to many places, and travelling in America is 
 unlike travelling in England : the distances are greater 
 and the cities are further apart. Some one has kindly 
 suggested that to oblige us they might perhaps be 
 pushed a little together; but we can certainly, after 
 visiting your country, sympathise with the American 
 gentleman who was afraid of venturing forth from his 
 hotel in London lest he should fall into the sea. But 
 wherever we have been we have received a gracious 
 and generous hospitality, and the last four weeks have 
 shown us that New-York has in no way forgotten the 
 first kind greeting she gave us. Of the efforts which 
 have helped to gain your favour it does not become me 
 to speak at length, but thanking you in behalf of each 
 and all I cannot refrain from expressing my pride in the 
 triumph of one who has made an impression on your 
 hearts which will never be effaced. I mean my sister- 
 artist, Miss Ellen Terry. She has won " golden opinions 
 from all sorts of people," her heart is full of gratitude, 
 and by her fireside she will often tell of the kindness she 
 received from the American people. For myself, I 
 have a host of delightful memories. You have shown 
 that upon the broad platform of a noble art the two 
 greatest sections of the English-speaking race are one 
 nation. You have shown that no jealous love of your 
 own most admirable actors has prevented you from rec- 
 ognising the earnest purpose of an English company, 
 and we shall return to our homes with the conviction 
 that, new as our methods may have been, you have set 
 the stamp of undisguised approval upon them, and 
 your generosity is, I am sure, heartily appreciated 
 by the English people. Certainly as long as I have a 
 theatre the doors of the Lyceum will be open to welcome 
 your distinguished countrymen. One is acting there 
 now ; others will be there by-and-by ; and that we may 
 not be quite forgotten, we are returning soon ourselves ; 
 and that we may not be forgotten by you we are re- 
 turningto you soon. " Dick," said your great Abraham 
 Lincoln to Governor Oglesby, " Dick, keep close to the
 
 72 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 people." And that the American people may not for- 
 get us, we are coming, if all be well, in the next autumn. 
 We shall return full of hope and anticipation, and to 
 our friends at home we shall say that we are returning 
 for a parting embrace — a six months' embrace — and 
 I am sure that our dear land, which has the first place 
 in our hearts, will not begrudge us the affection which 
 we bear to America, which out of the depths of your 
 kindness you have conjured up. Ladies and gentlemen, 
 I respectfully, gratefully, and, if I may say it, lovingly, 
 wish you good-bye. 

 
 XIII 
 
 THE RETURN WAVE. 
 
 NOVEMBER nth, 1884.— Mr. Irving, Miss Ellen 
 Terry, and the London Lyceum Theatre company 
 appeared at the Star Theatre last night in Shakespeare's 
 beautiful comedy of " The Merchant of Venice." The 
 applause which attended the first entrance of Portia 
 was marked by that chivalric and affectionate cordiality 
 which ever should and ever does attest the presence 
 of a true favourite ; and the subsequent greeting to 
 Shylock was a tumult of enthusiasm. Occasions of 
 this kind are made memorable in this way — when to 
 a noble artistic effort the public response is no less 
 adequate than genuine ; and they are long and proudly 
 cherished in the play-goer's memory. 
 
 Upon the general character of Mr. living's presen- 
 tation of u The Merchant of Venice" comment has 
 already been made. The play is still treated as a 
 comedy and not as a star piece for a tragedian, and 
 it is mounted and dressed with a careful eye to cor- 
 rect detail and picturesque accessories. The presen- 
 tation of the casket scenes in full, the restoration 
 of Shylock' 's scene with Antonio and the Jailer, and 
 8 73
 
 74 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 the restoration of Portia's words and conduct subse- 
 quent to the trial, together with the tender and ro- 
 mantic love-scene of Lorenzo and Jessica, are still 
 prominent among the chief beauties of this revival. 
 The deft introduction of oriental music, of a sonorous 
 and barbaric strain, to signalise the proceedings of the 
 Prince of Morocco, is still to be noted as an attendant 
 charm. The maskers of Venice still glide, in their 
 noiseless gondolas, along her silent and gloomy canals. 
 Shylock, as played by Mr. Irving, still inspires anxious 
 dread and painful suspense by his formidable return 
 across the vacant bridge to the dwelling left desolate by 
 his fugitive daughter. The picture of the high court 
 of Venice is still made opulent, imposing, and real by 
 fresco and drapery, by guards and groups, by stately 
 ceremonials, by a deft employment of pages within and 
 a mob without, and by correctness of dramatic treat- 
 ment. And still, to crown the pageant with a golden 
 light of happiness, the glittering but gentle mirth of 
 Portia is made to play — as Shakespeare meant it 
 should play — through an atmosphere of woman- like 
 tenderness and unstinted hospitality, over a closing 
 scene of summer luxury and princely wealth. 
 
 The scenery has been refreshed. Beneath it all may 
 be discerned the instinct that aims at completeness in 
 the display of a subject as well as in pictorial embellish- 
 ment. Judges who do not heartily like the acting of 
 Henry Irving — who deny that he possesses dramatic 
 genius, and affirm that he is a clever schemer in theatri- 
 cal art — have been known to place a marked emphasis 
 upon his skill and thorough- going care in the manage- 
 ment of the stage. No sagacious observer, however, is 
 misled by this amiable subterfuge. It is easy to put an
 
 HENRY IRVING. 75 
 
 undue stress upon this element in Mr. Irving's work. 
 Nobody who has known him long as a public man 
 will doubt either his diplomatic tact, his worldly wis- 
 dom, or his resolute purpose to succeed, any more 
 than the poetic glamour of his intellect and the 
 force of his splendid talent and discretion in the treat- 
 ment of plays. But Mr. Irving is, first of all, an actor. 
 Several of his best successes in London were gained 
 without especial attention to stage embellishment or 
 the adroit illustration of dramatic points. The par- 
 ticulars in which his achievements as a stage manager 
 have usually and notably surpassed those of his 
 predecessors and contemporaries are a felicitous mel- 
 lowness and harmony of colour in scenery, and a 
 resolute and almost invariably successful subordina- 
 tion of details to a central purpose, clearly defined 
 and steadily pursued. There were heroes, however, 
 before Agamemnon. Other men have presented plays 
 as magnificently as Mr. Irving has presented them — 
 if not always with as fine precision or perfection of 
 charm. The Shakesperean revivals made in London 
 by Macready, by Charles Kean, and by Samuel Phelps, 
 and those likewise made in America by W. E. Burton, 
 Thomas Barry, Edwin Booth, Lester Wallack, and 
 Augustin Daly should not be forgotten. That field 
 had long been abandoned in the British capital when 
 Mr. Irving arose to occupy it, and it had been consid- 
 erably neglected here for a long period antecedent to 
 his arrival in America. He was fortunate when he 
 entered upon it, no less than wise. It is a field in 
 which several of the old leaders of the stage have 
 laboured with zeal, liberality, and honour. Mr. Irving 
 has done splendid things in carrying on a good work
 
 7 6 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 in this respect. But it is not upon his "staging" of 
 plays, either wholly or mainly, that his title to renown 
 should be supposed to rest. More has been claimed 
 for him, as to this, than he has ever claimed for 
 himself. 
 
 It is as an actor that Mr. Irving ought, first of all 
 and most of all, to be considered. As such he is one 
 of the most remarkable men of this age. Several of 
 his impersonations, pending the disclosure of new 
 efforts, are now to be repeated, and the first that rears 
 his head is Shylock, Persons who have seen in this 
 character Edwin Forrest, Gustavus V. Brooke, James 
 W. Wallack, E. L. Davenport, Bogumil Dawison, 
 Lawrence Barrett, and Edwin Booth, are not likely to 
 be transported by the representation of it that is given 
 by Mr. Irving. His performance, no doubt, is truth- 
 ful in ideal, and flexible and often splendidly potent 
 in execution. Yet this is not one of the characters in 
 which he stands alone. He presents, indeed, a con- 
 sistent and symmetrical identity. He makes Shylock 
 the incarnation — at first specious, then obvious — 
 of infernal malignity. He depicts a Jew who hates his 
 victim for being a Christian, but more for being a foe 
 to usuiy. He shows a savage, — and yet he steadily 
 preserves in him the strain of human nature, making 
 him resentful of injuries; logical, fervent, and sin- 
 cere in his own justification ; domestic in his habits ; 
 reminiscent of a lost love, and that in a tone of true 
 passion and tender grief; and he sets forth, in the 
 indubitable form and colour of nature, a huge and 
 horrid type of implacable animosity. Nothing could 
 be more significant of a comprehension of Shylock's 
 nature, and nothing could be finer as dramatic art, than
 
 HENRY IRVING. 77 
 
 Mr. Irving's cold, wolfish glare and his demeanour 
 of indomitable purpose in confronting the merchant 
 in the court. But the manifestation of tremendous 
 emotional power that is possible in SJiylock, particu- 
 larly in the street scene, Mr. Irving does not ac- 
 complish — and, in fact, does not attempt. The 
 legend of Edmund Kean in this character — a pres- 
 ence meteoric, lurid, and terrible — is not realised ; 
 and this overwhelming personality is what in Shylock 
 seems ever most essential. This part does not and 
 can not call forth what is finest and best in this actor's 
 nature. Those characters in which Mr. Irving is dis- 
 tinctive or supreme are men in whom imagination, 
 weirdness, and pathos are the prevailing attributes. 
 
 Miss Terry gave her beautiful embodiment of Portia, 
 in which the elocution is a luxury to hear, and in which 
 a sympathetic perception of what is most endearing in a 
 woman's nature — loveliness, goodness, and fidelity — 
 is commingled with an arch merriment and an occa- 
 sional tenderness delightful to see and feel. Mr. 
 George Alexander appeared as Bassanio, Mr. Tyars 
 as Morocco, and Miss Emery as Jessica. Mr. Alex- 
 ander revealed a manly spirit, intelligence and re- 
 finement, and seemed to be neither self-conscious 
 nor self-assertive. 
 
 >v G^IiWs) 
 
 8*
 
 XIV 
 
 POETRY OF STAGE EFFECT. 
 
 NOVEMBER 14th.— Side by side the currents of 
 happiness and misery, sometimes blended, more 
 often contrasted, flow on together in the experience 
 of human creatures, so that no work of art can be so 
 dramatic as is the grand, comprehensive picture of 
 human life itself. In deep and thoughtful natures a 
 perception of the contrasts afforded in the vast picture 
 naturally engenders a grave and sweet tranquility, a 
 mournful but noble power of self-abnegation, and, 
 where the dramatic instinct is present, a capacity to 
 view life as nature shows it, in all its diversified aspects, 
 simply as a fact, and without comment whether upon the 
 hopes or fears, the joys or griefs, the gains or losses 
 which are inevitable in the fate of mankind. This was 
 Shakespeare's method; and thus in such a comedy as 
 ' ' Much Ado " the observer sees the procession of human 
 events much as he might behold the bend in a distant 
 river — partly in sunshine, partly in shadow, but not 
 perceiving either whence it springs or whither it flows. 
 The silvery waters have passed through unseen woods 
 and meadows, and they will flow through other unseen
 
 HENRY IRVING. 79 
 
 fields, to empty themselves into the distant, unknown 
 sea. Just so, in one of Shakespeare's comedies, the 
 observer feels that the current of life which has now 
 come into view has been steadily flowing down to this 
 point of sight, and will continue to flow on, long after 
 it has passed from the range of his vision. 
 
 In Mr. Irving's treatment of the play — in his setting 
 and embellishment of it — the leading characteristic is 
 the practical perception of this truth. The perform- 
 ance of "Much Ado " which has again been given is 
 not now to be viewed as a novelty. Yet it cannot be 
 amiss to refer to the intellectual exaltation, the im- 
 pressiveness, the atmosphere of commingled sadness 
 and mirth with which the comedy was displayed. 
 The sight of it is like a glimpse into a land of sun- 
 shine, love, and pleasure ; and when, at last, its happy 
 denizens dance away to the sound of merry music you 
 turn from it with a smile which hardly conceals a tear, 
 thinking that still in some happy region, far from the 
 troubles and cares of this world, their life of merriment, 
 passion, romance, and happiness is still flowing on, 
 immortal in its youth and beauty. To create and to 
 leave impressions of this kind has been the object of 
 Mr. Irving's art ; and the brilliant accomplishment of 
 this object is the basis of his renown. 
 
 Mr. Irving appeared as Benedick, Miss Ellen Terry 
 as Beatrice, Miss Winifred Emery as Hero, Mr. Alex- 
 ander as the Prince, Mr. Norman Forbes as Clandio, 
 and Mr. Johnson as Dogberry. It remains a truth that 
 Mr. Irving and Miss Terry have construed Benedick 
 and Beatrice m an ideal spirit, making them higher and 
 finer than they are in the book ; and now, as before, the 
 result justifies the expedient. There is no animal taint
 
 So HENRY IRVING. 
 
 in the Benedick of Mr. Irving; there is not a trace of 
 the shrew in the Beatrice of Miss Terry. For its femi- 
 nine charm, for that indefinable something which makes 
 a woman the object at once of chivalrous passion and 
 tender respect, it will be remembered as long as any- 
 thing is remembered on the stage of our time. Mr. 
 Irving's quiet, ruminant, sagacious drollery, playing 
 over a serious solidity of intellectual character, was ex- 
 erted in a charming manner. In the challenge to 
 Claudia he rises to true dignity, and he does not make 
 the common mistake of turning dangerous menace into 
 tragical bombast. The stickler for the old line of 
 treatment in Benedick — which makes him a dashing 
 soldier, a rattling man-of-the-world, and a not over- 
 delicate gallant — will reject this performance. It 
 nevertheless is one of exalted beauty in ideal, and 
 cf precision, firmness, and balance in execution. 
 
 Mr. George Alexander's preservation of an unob- 
 trusively considerate tone toward others, combined 
 with freedom from anxiety on the subject of rank, 
 making the essence of good breeding, his breezy good 
 humour, and his simplicity, in the character of Don 
 Pedro, were observed with admiration. The scene of 
 the interrupted bridal, in the ancient church of Mes- 
 sina, crystallised into itself the chief beauties of the 
 performance. Such a scene is at once a perfect 
 pleasure and a noble example in the dramatic art.
 
 XV 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 NOVEMBER 19th.— There is an uncertainty of 
 dramatic drift in the comedy of the " Twelfth 
 Night" — a kind of whimsical recklessness, sufficiently 
 denoted in the sub-title, " What You Will"— which, 
 in practical experience, has generally had the effect of 
 making this piece a little tiresome upon the stage. 
 Nobody can care much for anything that it contains, 
 aside from the gentle, piquant, lovely character of 
 Viola ; and the charm of this is not essentially dra- 
 matic, but resides almost exclusively in the delicious 
 sweetness of her temperament as displayed under the 
 mournful light of her patient and outwardly cheerful 
 resignation to the pangs of unrequited love. There 
 is but little dramatic incident in her experience or of 
 dramatic effect in the development of either her story 
 or her character. The love-lorn Orsino — a gentleman 
 far too easily reconciled to the loss of one love, so that 
 at last he may obtain another — is almost insipid. The 
 episode of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew is little more than 
 a tipsy frolic. Malvolio, though strong and complex as 
 a character, interests rather as a curiously carved and 
 
 81
 
 82 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 grotesque image of humanity than as a typical man : 
 he amuses and he stimulates analytic reflection upon 
 the possible oddities of human nature, but he does 
 not awaken sympathy. The discomfiture of "an 
 affectioned ass" and "contemplative fool" is a comic 
 spectacle, and yet the laughter to which it incites 
 is rebuked by a kind of humane regret that any man 
 should be so absurd, and should, in his infinity of 
 conceit, encounter such cruel treatment. As often as 
 the "Twelfth Night" has been seen here (and it 
 has been seen often since the old days of Burton), it 
 has proved a trial to patience, except for two or three 
 impressive beauties. Mr. Irving's revival of it, although 
 distinguished by rare beauty of scenery and fidelity of 
 detail in dress and "business," met with the usual 
 fortune of calm respect. Its chief features were Miss 
 Ellen Terry as Viola and Mr. Irving as Malvolio — the 
 latter being the first embodiment of this eccentric per- 
 son seen here of late years, or since the time of Walcot 
 and Gilbert in the character, that has made him an 
 actual human creature, capable of feeling passion and 
 of suffering pain as well as of causing mirth and point- 
 ing a moral. Mr. Irving presented him with distinct- 
 ness and firm execution, and with a wealth of subtle 
 mechanism. Miss Terry in Viola was a beautiful image 
 of boy-like grace, and she delivered the text with a 
 fine intelligence that penetrated and illumined every 
 line. But her performance had little of that half- 
 concealed sadness which, mingled with Viola's glee, 
 makes her pathetic as well as bewitching. Sweet 
 without insipidity and gay without coquetry, Viola is 
 the most piquant female character in Shakespeare, 
 and, excepting Imogen, the most tender and delicious
 
 HENRY IRVING. 83 
 
 of his women.- She is true but not intense; ardent 
 but not powerful. She loves and she suffers ; but she 
 is bright, gentle, and submissive, and she typifies 
 neither misery nor passion. Shakespeare's lapses from 
 verse into prose are always significant because always 
 made to serve a purpose in the art of acting ; and it 
 is notable that he seldom allows Viola to speak aught 
 else than the language of poetry. She is a rarefied 
 character, slighter alike in mind and will than Rosalind, 
 though kindred with that luxuriant, sparkling beauty, 
 but equally affectionate and noble, and more lovely. 
 There is not much of the character, but it is as pre- 
 cious as diamonds. The chief dramatic necessity in 
 the acting of Viola would seem to be the revelation 
 of her wistful sadness, her rueful, charming melan- 
 choly, under the repose of innocent glee — the half- 
 checked tear that is momentarily visible through the 
 guileless, patient, unselfish, eager smile of childlike 
 happiness. Miss Terry's expeditious treatment of the 
 part gave such emphasis to its brilliancy as quite 
 concealed its sorrow. But, while deficient in the 
 transparency of acting, it was a delightful image of 
 gladness, sweetness, and beauty.
 
 XVI 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 NOVEMBER 27th.— Mr. Irving has crowned his 
 noble series of performances in this capital with 
 his original, extraordinary, and deeply impressive im- 
 personation of Hamlet. This was given last night 
 before a numerous audience, enthusiastic but also 
 thoughtful ; and it was viewed with eager attention, 
 sometimes with surprise, sometimes with delight, once 
 in a while with consternation, more often with cordial 
 plaudits, always with profound respect. Miss Ellen 
 Terry appeared as Ophelia, and she dignified and 
 adorned the occasion by a performance so radiant in 
 beauty, so exquisite in grace, and so tender and lovely 
 in pathos that simply "it paragons description and 
 wild fame." The sublime tragedy of " Hamlet " was 
 set upon the stage in scenery remarkable for the rich 
 quality of its sombre tone, and its several characters, 
 judiciously distributed to suitable actors, were, with 
 little exception, personated in a competent and effective 
 manner. The night was a golden one, and it will long 
 abide in the pleased and grateful remembrance of this 
 community. 
 
 84
 
 HENRY IRVING. 85 
 
 The character of Hamlet appears to be chosen, by 
 common consent, as furnishing the standard by which 
 every actor should be judged, with reference to his 
 claim to a place in the front rank of the dramatic pro- 
 fession. It is not, indeed, so difficult a part to act as 
 either Macbeth or King Lear — since it requires neither 
 the lurid, overwhelming imagination of the fiend- 
 driven murderer, nor the vast torrent of thwarted ten- 
 derness and shattered senile sensibility essential to the 
 afflicted, insane monarch; neither does it exact such 
 prodigious physical resource and exertion as are de- 
 manded in these characters. But it is a majestic and 
 beautiful personality, richly fraught with intellect, sen- 
 sibility, refinement, and grace, and displayed under 
 circumstances of impressive mystery and romance ; its 
 thoroughly adequate representation is possible only to 
 a nature of exquisite sensibility, hallowed by the charm 
 of genius, matured by the experience of suffering, and 
 dominated by an intellect that perfectly controls alike 
 itself and the methods, expedients, and accomplishments 
 of dramatic art ; and hence it is reasoned that the actor 
 who can endear himself to the world in the character 
 of Hamlet is necessarily a great actor. In England, 
 where they accept a new Hamlet about once every twenty 
 years, and where the mantle of Garrick has fallen, 
 successively, on Kemble, Kean, Young, Macready, and 
 Fechter, Mr. Irving's embodiment of Hamlet was long 
 since crowned with the laurel of renown. He has now 
 placed this noble work for the first time before the 
 public of New -York, and so at length the corner-stone 
 of his great reputation stands fully disclosed. 
 
 The performance is one of the richest and most sug- 
 gestive that have been presented on the contemporary 
 9
 
 86 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 stage, and one of the most difficult to analyse and de- 
 scribe. In ideal — in fidelity to Shakespeare's concep- 
 tion — it is almost entirely great. The proportion, 
 indeed, is not strictly maintained. Certain attributes 
 of the character are more amply, boldly, and truly pre- 
 sented than others. The feeling exceeds the mentality. 
 The bitterness is more prominent than the charm. 
 Of that lucid interval of lofty poise — that Hamlet who 
 shines forth in the speech, to Horatio, about " passion's 
 slave" and "fortune's finger" — there is scarcely a 
 trace. But the Hamlet who looked into Ophelia's eyes 
 as if he would read her very soul ; the Hamlet who 
 seemed to her "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune 
 and harsh " ; the Hamlet who thought he could be 
 bounded in a nutshell and count himself king of infi- 
 nite space, but that he had bad dreams ; the Hamlet 
 through the temple of whose soul streamed a hideous 
 rout of foul and frightful shapes ; the Hamlet who said 
 "You would not think how ill all 's here, about my 
 heart " — this is thought, felt, understood, and inter- 
 preted with profound earnestness and remarkable 
 beauty. And this is enough. The blemishes will not 
 invalidate this. They are in the method and not in the 
 substance. Yet they exist : for Mr. Irving has applied 
 to Hamlet the same " natural " treatment and the same 
 colloquial style that he employs for Mathias in " The 
 Bells." They are, in that character, consummate; 
 but they sometimes seemed enfeebled and inadequate, 
 in contact with the towering magnitude of Shake- 
 speare's thought and the stately pomp and sonority of 
 his verse. Mr. living's Hamlet is great in ideal ; but 
 his expression of that ideal could be made, in some 
 ways, more massive and more splendid. It is upon
 
 HENRY IRVING. 87 
 
 the substance, and not the manner, of the work, ac- 
 cordingly, that reflection will first repose and longest 
 dwell. 
 
 The universal tendency of the human mind is to sum- 
 marise. Almost every person likes to hear, and likes 
 to make, comprehensive and positive statements upon 
 all subjects of knowledge or thought. Hundreds of 
 writers — pursuant to this usual impulse — have as- 
 sumed to define Hamlet. No writer has entirely suc- 
 ceeded in doing it. There are subjects that cannot be 
 summarised, and this is one of them. Much lucid 
 and splendid thought upon it has been uttered, be- 
 cause many of the greatest minds which have existed 
 within the last two hundred years have been attracted, 
 aroused and inspired by its glory and its mystery. 
 But the final elucidating word has never yet been 
 found. Much, to be sure, is clear. There can be no 
 doubt about the general drift. But what was left a 
 secret remains a secret still. When the human soul 
 and its relations to the universe are entirely understood, 
 Hamlet will be entirely understood — and not till then. 
 
 Without presuming to undertake to define Hamlet, 
 however, it may yet be said that certain illuminative 
 facts about him are positively known. He is a prince, 
 in a royal court ; noble, gentle, and of perfect breed- 
 ing ; " the expectancy and rose of the fair state." He 
 is thirty years old. He has been educated at the most 
 famous university in Europe. He has been reared in 
 the Catholic faith. He has lived a life, not of action 
 but of thought. His intellect, vast, far-reaching, and 
 conscious of its power, has been cultivated, by intense 
 thinking, to the most extreme limit, so that now the 
 idea of anything — no matterwhat — is more real to him
 
 88 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 than the thing itself; and he has lost the faculty, if 
 ever he had it, of practical, continuous action, even 
 while living at the height of mental activity and in a 
 fever of destructive excitement. It seems to have been 
 Shakespeare's intention to present a divinely gifted 
 man, as representative of all that is highest and best in 
 human nature ; to place him at the pinnacle of worldly 
 fortune ; to make him great in himself and in his 
 state ; to give him honour, genius, love, friendship, 
 power, wealth, popularity, every blessing; and then 
 to overwhelm him with affliction, developing a latent 
 strain of misery and taint of madness in his organ- 
 isation, and thus, on the largest canvas and with the 
 boldest colours ever used by mortal hand, to paint 
 human life in the aspect of total failure. 
 
 For this, surely, is what the tragedy of "Hamlet" 
 seems to say. However much mankind may close its 
 eyes to the truth, the truth nevertheless remains, that 
 mortality is a condition not of happiness but of sorrow. 
 The protracted and cruel pain with which it begins, 
 the uncertainty with which it is attended, the trouble 
 with which it is burdened, the mystery with which it is 
 surrounded, the mutability with which it is cursed, and 
 the misery in which it ends unite to make it, for all 
 who look beneath the surface, infinitely pathetic. Some 
 of its pleasures, indeed, are very great ; but all of them 
 are evanescent. Everything breaks and dies — every- 
 thing but memory, and that is the crudest affliction 
 of all. Poor Byron said the whole sad truth in four 
 
 lines : 
 
 " Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
 Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
 And know, whatever thou hast been, 
 'Tis something better not to be."
 
 HENRY IRVING. 89 
 
 All this is implied in Mr. Irving's impersonation. 
 He never misses the subtlety of the character. The 
 misery of Hamlet is inherent misery. It is not, to any 
 considerable extent, caused by his personal circum- 
 stances. "The uses of this world" are to him "weary, 
 stale, flat, and unprofitable " long before he knows that 
 his father was murdered, or that his mother's new hus- 
 band is the murderer, or that his father's spirit is 
 abroad. Grief at the death of his father, bitter resent- 
 ment of his mother's ensuing hasty nuptials, dim sus- 
 picion of his uncle's wickedness, and presentiment and 
 foreboding as to the love of Ophelia are the only 
 sources of his wretchedness that can be distinctly 
 stated. These are in part explanatory of his condi- 
 tion ; but only in part. For the secret, profound cause 
 of the overwhelming weight of his misery we must 
 look into his soul. Self-disgust and disgust at the 
 human race are properties of his mind. A sense of the 
 awful grandeur and mystery of the universe and of the 
 angelic and even godlike attributes that appertain to 
 the nature of man abide with him, it is true; yet as 
 he looks forth upon that universe he sees only "a foul 
 and pestilent congregation of vapours " ; and as he looks 
 upon mankind he sees only the " quintessence of dust." 
 Suicide has long been a familiar subject in his thoughts, 
 and he would destroy his own life but that self-murder 
 is forbidden, and — more important still — but that 
 greater misery may await the soul, beyond the grave, 
 than that which it suffers here. 
 
 Hamlet is the very genius of sorrow ; born so, and 
 not made so ; and whatever his circumstances might 
 have been he would have reacted on them to afflict- 
 ing if not to tragical results. Upon this nature, thus 
 9*
 
 90 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 saturated with gloom and predestined to anguish, falls 
 the shock of a supernatural visitation and a heartrend- 
 ing disclosure of cruel and loathsome crime; and thus 
 the will, already irresolute from baffled thinking and 
 enfeebling grief, is shattered ; the mind drifts from its 
 moorings, and steadfast action becomes impossible. 
 Hamlet is in a real delirium — to which Mr. Irving 
 gives prominent and thrilling expression — after the 
 disappearance of the Ghost, in the scene upon "the 
 dreadful summit of the cliff" ; and he then has the 
 impulse to assume to be insane (in which device it is 
 singular and significant to note that the Ghost appears 
 to concur), because he is already deranged, and feels 
 it, and wishes, in a certain blind way, to conceal it. 
 He has no plan in his madness. Whenever there is an 
 opportunity to act he will reason it away. He does 
 not really wish to plunge the soul of Claudius into 
 hell ; but he can persuade himself to think, for the 
 moment, that even this is needful, in order to free 
 himself from the necessity of killing him, then and 
 there, in the prayer scene. He can feel no personal 
 experience without presently making it into a gener- 
 alisation. This shattered condition — this incertitude 
 — this desolate, drifting plight — is thoroughly realised 
 in Mr. Irving's embodiment ; and this is Hamlet. 
 
 Charles Knight's theory, that the play commonly 
 referred to as " the old Hamlet " was, in fact, Shake- 
 speare's "Hamlet" as it stood when first written 
 (probably in 1589), and as it stands in the quarto pi- 
 ratically published in 1603, is a sagacious theory. The 
 first authentic draft is the quarto of 1604; and — as 
 readers doubtless know — it is from a comparison of 
 this, and of the folio print of 1623, with the pirat-
 
 HENRY IRVING. 91 
 
 ical copy, that Shakespeare scholars gain a peculiar 
 knowledge of the astonishing growth of Shakespeare's 
 mind, and, especially, derive instruction as to his 
 drift in this tragedy. This drift was far more defi- 
 nitely expressed at first, but in a manner far less poet- 
 ical, philosophical, eloquent, and profound. Great em- 
 phasis was laid on the madness of Hamlet. The Queen 
 was distinctly declared to be innocent of complicity in 
 the murder of her first husband. Hamlet himself was 
 made more comprehensible every way — being less 
 heavily freighted with the "large discourse of reason, 
 looking before and after," less reflective upon mankind, 
 and, especially, less interpenetrated with embittering 
 sorrow. The lesson learned from this research, as 
 applied to the acting of Hamlet, is that the character 
 should be deduced from the play as it stands in its 
 mature form ; that, while the Prince must be pre- 
 sented as a man whose soul and body are steeped in 
 hopeless misery, and who is sustained by proud, scorn- 
 ful, bitter, incessant, feverish, intellectual power, — the 
 restless, terrible excitement of a great brain and heart 
 surcharged with irremediable woe, — he must yet be 
 presented with a certain vagueness. It is a great ex- 
 cellence of Mr. Irving's embodiment of Hamlet that it 
 so presents him. 
 
 Observant persons who have ever heard Mr. Irving's 
 recital of Hood's poem of " The Dream of Eugene 
 Aram " had then a rare opportunity of studying his 
 peculiar method of execution — which again forces 
 itself upon attention in his performance of Hamlet. 
 He begins with repose. His level speaking is clear, 
 measured, even, precise, and always steadily effective. 
 Soon his nervous forces become excited ; the imagina-
 
 92 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 tion, working upon the feelings, throws the whole sys- 
 tem into a tremor of emotion ; and thereupon both his 
 walk and his enunciation are, in a peculiar way (pecu- 
 liar and not disagreeable), constricted, in some slight 
 degree, by a sort of inflexibility. He now moves a 
 little stiffly ; his words are spoken with monosyllabic 
 ejaculation, and with an occasional cadence. At 
 moments his tone is indistinct. The character and 
 the feeling have obtained control of the man, and 
 his intellectual will is forcing the man to become 
 representative and expressive of them. If the char- 
 acter and the feeling be weird, grimly grotesque, or 
 afflictively passionate, the intellectual will of the actor 
 splendidly predominates over all his functions and 
 makes him superlatively true and touchingly sympa- 
 thetic. If the character and the feeling be stately, 
 spiritualised, classical, philosophic, expressed within 
 the formalism and inflexible lines of verse, and exact- 
 ing of a body in which absolute symmetry is to be 
 shown with absolute grace, the emotion of the actor 
 responds less readily to his will, or does not yield at 
 all, but carries all before it ; and that which ought to 
 be perfect in form and held in supreme poise with the 
 iron grip of intellectual power is shattered and diffused, 
 like a coruscation of ever-changing fires ; and the eye 
 knows not where to rest. This is shown in his embod- 
 iment of Hamlet, and this is why so many students of 
 the work constantly speak of single features in it and 
 not of the work as a whole. There are parts of Ham- 
 let to which Mr. Irving's temperament and method 
 are exactly fitted. [No actor was ever truer or finer 
 than he in denotement of the blending of assumed 
 \ madness with involuntary derangement — the forlorn
 
 HENRY IRVING. 93 
 
 state of a wild, unsettled mind, protecting itself by- 
 simulated vvildness. No actor ever better expressed the 
 bitterness and sarcasm of a sweet nature, outraged, 
 shocked, and turned back upon itself. In the play ' 
 scene, in the ensuing colloquy with the two spaniel 
 courtiers, as in the first talk with them, and in the last 
 ghost scene, Mr. Irving's Hamlet is at its best; and its 
 best is exceedingly beautiful. J There was not a perfect 
 correspondence between the actor's ideal of Shake- 
 speare's conception and the actor's faculties of express- 
 ing it. There- ace defects of— execution. -Bu-ti viewed 
 as an ideal Mr. Irving's Hamlet is profoundly true on 
 the side of the emotions ; rightly saturated with sorrow ; 
 touched with glittering scorn and pathetic bitterness ; 
 tainted, as in Shakespeare's page, with the morbid 
 tinge of mental disease ; and, above all, and in spite of 
 irregularities of form and excess of impulse over will, it 
 is fused by passionate intensity into one continuous, 
 fluent strain of vital personification^ 
 
 Abstractly considered, however, what does it signify 
 whether Hamlet is a character who feigns madness, or 
 who really is mad ? whether Hamlet loves Ophelia, 
 or has ceased to love her ? whether Hamlet has really 
 seen his dead father's spirit, or a devil in that shape, or 
 has imagined a vocal apparition that he never saw at all ? 
 whether his mother was privy to the murder of her 
 husband, or guiltless of participation in that hideous 
 crime ? What signify any or all questions about the 
 matter — unless the experience of Hamlet be viewed as 
 something germane to the experience of every individ- 
 ual of the human race ? If nothing more is to be con- 
 sidered than cleverness in acting — the adroit treatment 
 of mooted points — sonority in soliloquies — flexibility 
 
 \
 
 94 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 in dialogue — grace or wildness of demeanour — felicity 
 of stage-business — taste in dress — we may as well 
 descant on the soap bubbles that a child blows from its 
 pipe, at the nursery window. The important thing is to 
 grasp Hamlet's experience as a whole, to absorb it into 
 our knowledge, to bring it home to our own hearts ; 
 and surely the actor who enables us to accomplish this 
 result, or who largely helps us toward it, has succeeded 
 in Hamlet, no matter what, to individual taste, may be 
 the defects of his technical mechanism. The execution, 
 to be sure, is the art of acting. Drama being, first of all, 
 for the eye, it is not so much what you do as how you do 
 it that is your potent element of victory. Signor Sal- 
 vini's embodiment oi Othello, for example, is a great piece 
 of acting, and one that exercises a prodigious power over 
 an audience, although to a considerable extent it is a 
 demonstrable perversion of Shakespeare. Mrs. Pritchard 
 was esteemed, in the eighteenth century, a wonderful 
 actress of Lady Macbeth, although she had never read 
 the tragedy of " Macbeth," but only knew the part that 
 she had to act; and Dr. Johnson called her an " inspired 
 idiot." Her ideal may have been wrong; her exe- 
 cution, obviously, was magnificent. No thinker will 
 deny or undervalue the prodigious influence of the art 
 of expression in these matters. Yet what you do is 
 also of great importance. In the last analysis of the 
 subject, looking toward what remains with the specta- 
 tor of a dramatic performance, it, indeed, transcends 
 all the rest, being an element of permanent worth and 
 an abiding result. A man who acts greatly is, doubtless, 
 a great actor, without reference to what it is that his act- 
 ing is specifically designed to exhibit; but the man who 
 acts a great part, like Hamlet, so as to put us into posses-
 
 HENRY IRVING. 95 
 
 sion of it, has accomplished more, and risen to a higher 
 intellectual station, than is possible to even the most 
 perfect executant. This is Mr. I rving's victory — and 
 it is a brilliant one ; unequivocal ; permanent ; not to 
 be denied ; and safe beyond the reach of disparagement. 
 The character of Ophelia, when first it dawns upon 
 the apprehension of a reader of the tragedy of "Ham- 
 let," appears to be all that is lovely. Its lack of strength 
 is not perceived until the observer reflects that strength 
 also is an element of loveliness in woman. Ophelia is 
 exquisitely beautiful, soft, innocent, trustful, and fond. 
 She loves with her whole heart — but her heart is 
 neither resolute nor passionate. She instantly yields 
 to the first touch of opposition and she is broken by 
 the first blow of adversity. That blow, indeed, it must 
 be admitted, is a heavy one — for it is her affrighted 
 perception of what, in Hamlet, her lover, she can re- 
 gard only as madness. Her description, to Polonius, 
 of the visitation that she has received from the Prince 
 is surely one of the most significant passages in the 
 tragedy, with reference both to herself and him. Ham- 
 let uses no guile with Ophelia. To others he may put 
 on " an antic disposition " ; to her he is himself. And 
 the meaning of that deplorable spectacle is that, with 
 everything else that has suffered shipwreck in the life 
 of Hamlet, love also is destroyed and henceforth will 
 exist only as a memory — now passionate, now meekly 
 and mutely woful, but always agonising and bitter : 
 for Hamlet's gaze has pierced through the loveliness of 
 Ophelia to the frailness beneath it, and beneath all 
 loveliness, and he knows that for him there is no de- 
 pendence on a woman's heart and no refuge in love. 
 His mind, in receiving its consecration to vengeance,
 
 9 6 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 has likewise received its death-blow from the spiritual 
 world. Ophelia, incapable at any time of fully under- 
 standing Hamlet, does understand that his mind is 
 distracted and that his love is dead ; and this, doubt- 
 less, is the beginning of her own mental derangement, 
 subsequently developed by the cruelty of Hamlet's re- 
 buke and by the calamitous death of her father, slain 
 by her frantic lover's hand. Ophelia, then, is an image 
 or personification of innocent, delicious, feminine youth 
 and beauty, and she passes before us in the two phases 
 of sanity and delirium. Miss Ellen Terry presented 
 her in this way. The embodiment is fully within her 
 reach, and it is one of the few unmistakably perfect 
 creations with which dramatic art has illumined liter- 
 ature and adorned the stage. Miss Terry was born to 
 play such a part and she is perfect in it. There is no 
 other word for such an achievement.
 
 XVII 
 
 CLOSING SCENES. 
 
 T^ECEMBER 7th. — Mr. Irving's engagement, which 
 -*- > ' began on November 10th, was ended last night. It 
 has filled a period of four weeks and it has been prosper- 
 ous to the actor and advantageous to the public. The 
 pieces presented were, with two exceptions, those in 
 which Mr. Irving and Miss Terry had been seen before. 
 The novelties were "Twelfth Night" and "Hamlet," 
 Mr. Irving presenting Malvolio and Hatnlet, and Miss 
 Terry presenting Viola and Ophelia. Mr.Wills's drama 
 of " Charles I." had a single representation. The atten- 
 dance throughout Mr. Irving's four weeks has been 
 large. The several plays produced by him have been 
 set upon the stage in a careful manner and with 
 as much correctness in dresses and scenery as is ever 
 desirable in these matters. Mr. Irving has had the 
 sagacity to employ scenic artists of the highest order, 
 and to enlist the services of a stage manager (Mr. H. 
 J. Loveday) of ripe experience and great and peculiar 
 talent and energy ; but it would be a mistake to sup- 
 pose that Mr. Irving's renown rests upon stage pictures 
 or stage management. To the illumination of the plays 
 10 97
 
 98 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 by adroit devices of treatment he has given thoughtful 
 and thorough attention ; but it is as an actor that he has 
 made his fame. Comment upon his recent perform- 
 ance of Hamlet has already been as far enlarged as is 
 desirable; but that performance, for example, what- 
 ever may be its blemishes of elocution or its questiona- 
 ble expedients of stage business, would suffice to show 
 him possessed of the intuition of genius. It has aroused 
 controversy. Mr. Irving's personal peculiarities invari- 
 bly do that — for even when he is walking quite in the 
 beaten track they are so marked and singular that they 
 distract and perplex the general observation. But 
 adverse criticism of Mr. Irving's acting, such as is war- 
 ranted by justice, amounts simply to this — that his 
 physical means of expression are, in certain respects, 
 distinctly limited, and that his temperament, face, 
 person, and individual demeanour make him unfit for 
 some characters, and less suitable for some than for 
 others. Yet he is a great actor, and his performance 
 of Hamlet would alone suffice to prove it. 
 
 His version of the tragedy, indeed, is not as well 
 made as it might be. He has restored certain essen- 
 tial passages — such as the delirious speeches of Ham- 
 let, toward the end of Act I., which are more often 
 omitted than used — the usually omitted parts of Ham- 
 let's dialogue with the courtiers, and certain bits in the 
 play scene ; but he has dropped Ophelia's account of 
 Hamlet's dishevelment, and the whole of the first scene 
 of the fourth act, together with various lines, here and 
 there, in the text of the different minor characters. 
 There is much of " Hamlet " that has to be cut, impera- 
 tively ; but a scrupulous observer of these matters 
 would like to see the excisions made with purpose
 
 HENRY IRVING. 99 
 
 and never with caprice. Mr. Irving does not use the 
 portraits, but he does make use of "tablets." There 
 are various other points of this sort that could be noted 
 and questioned ; and it is certain that Mr. Irving is 
 defective as a speaker of blank verse. But when all is 
 said the fact remains that the actor has shown a great 
 ideal of Hamlet, and that his execution has, in many 
 ways, matched with his ideal. Miss Ellen Terry's 
 finest success has been made in OpJielia. The rare 
 beauty of this performance eludes description. It is the 
 embodiment of a broken-hearted, distracted woman; 
 but the woman is one of extraordinary loveliness in 
 her original nature, and the touch of frenzy only 
 seemed to invest her with spiritual radiance. The 
 execution was as free as a summer wind. 
 
 Mr. Irving's Malvolio is the best that has been seen 
 in recent years. It was easy to see that he had got in- 
 side of this character. The formalism of Malvolio, his 
 scrupulous cleanliness, his precise demeanour, his con- 
 stitutional habit of routine, his inordinate self-compla- 
 cency, — over which, nevertheless, his judgment keeps a 
 kind of watch, — his sensitiveness of self-love, his con- 
 dition of being real in all that he feels and suffers, — 
 these attributes Mr. Irving combined into a distinct and 
 rounded personality, of which the humour is — as it 
 should be — wholly unconscious. His sustained pres- 
 ervation of the identity was especially impressive, and 
 he was most characteristic in his dry, distinctly articu- 
 lated, unconsciously pompous delivery of the text. One 
 notable incident in the revival of " Twelfth Night " was 
 a dashing, sparkling, gleeful performance of Maria by 
 Miss Payne. Mr. George Alexander, appearing as 
 Orsino, gained distinction for dignity of manner and
 
 ioo HENRY IRVING. 
 
 for delicacy and sweetness in the delivery of the Duke's 
 impassioned speeches. In the revival of " Charles I." 
 Mr. Irving and Miss Terry repeated their artistic 
 success of an earlier time. This play is a series of 
 pictures, and is deficient of dramatic action ; but it does 
 present character, and it contains situations that affect 
 the heart. The intense earnestness of Mr. Irving's 
 nature is conspicuously shown in his power to invest 
 the character of Charles I. with unflagging sincerity, 
 and to sustain it, before the imagination, in nobility 
 and pathos. Innate aristocracy never had a better 
 emblem than this performance. Self-concentration 
 and high-bred reserve are maintained, even through a 
 most afflicting scene of farewell, to the pathetic "re- 
 member" with which this sad figure passes out of 
 view — to live forever in tender remembrance. A 
 strong feature of this revival was Mr. Howe's impersona- 
 tion of Lord Huntley — a manly, tender, rugged, sim- 
 ple, and discreet piece of work. It seemed as if the old 
 knight had come to life out of Scott's "Woodstock." 
 The final performance presented "The Bells," in 
 which Mr. Irving, as Mathias, is seen in the full vigour 
 of his imagination. He had a great house and an 
 affectionate greeting of farewell. This was his closing 
 address : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : I wish I could tell you 
 in the simplest phrase how deeply we are indebted for 
 a renewal of that generous welcome which we received 
 during our first visit to America. It is difficult on 
 such an occasion as this to express what is in one's 
 heart, without running the risk of seeming fulsome on 
 the one hand or indifferent on the other. But this I 
 can tell you, that our third visit to New -York, which 
 ends to-night, has been — if I may say so — more
 
 HENRY IRVING. ioi 
 
 gratifying than our first; for it has proved that we 
 have a place in your esteem — a place which will be 
 remembered and cherished by me as long as I live. 
 You doubtless have heard, and will hear, many strange 
 and odd fictions about our humble selves, but you will 
 never hear too deep an expression of our appreciation 
 of the infinite kindness which we have received at 
 your hands; and that feeling is echoed by a dear 
 friend and fellow-worker of mine, — a friend who holds 
 so enviable a sway over your hearts, — Miss Ellen 
 Terry. Ladies and gentlemen, we shall once again 
 have the pleasure and privilege of appearing before 
 you, next March, and then, as actors, we must take 
 a last and long farewell. On this subject I shall not 
 dwell, — sufficient to the day is the pain thereof, — but 
 look forward to our next meeting, assuring you that my 
 colleagues are as sensible as I am of the courtesy, the 
 welcome, and the generous good-will which we have 
 received at your hands, and the remembrance of it will 
 ever bring happiness to our hearts. 
 
 10*
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE STAGE. 
 
 THE assailants of the stage, who are mostly repre- 
 sentatives of the church, seem to believe that their 
 fulminations are potent and effective. Yet the stage 
 continues to grow in wealth, power, and public consid- 
 eration. An impartial observer might well be amused 
 at the fatuity with which these strenuous censors oppose 
 the clamour of assertion to the inexorable logic of facts. 
 If the stage were really an immoral institution it would 
 not enjoy the favour of any save the depraved ; whereas, 
 in fact, it has the approval of the majority — and the 
 majority of the community is moral. Putting religion 
 out of the question, there is a power in the affections, 
 in the bond of family, in reverence for the hearth-stone 
 of home, which, by itself, insures the coherence of a 
 virtuous society, and would make a radically corrupt 
 stage impossible. The reason that the charge of im- 
 morality against the stage has failed is simply that the 
 charge is false, and that right-thinking persons know 
 it to be so. 
 
 Both stage and church have been used as cloaks for 
 vice, but that is the fault of evil-doers and not of the
 
 HENRY IRVING. 103 
 
 institutions themselves. There have been profligate 
 actors, and there have been profligate clergymen ; and 
 there is reason for surprise at the forbearance of the 
 stage toward the church, considering the animosity so 
 often exhibited by the latter. It is not long since a 
 minister of Christ publicly stigmatised an actress, by 
 name, as being " as vile a hag as the sewers of Paris 
 ever spewed into the state-room of an Atlantic 
 steam-ship." This is the kind of provocation that 
 the pulpit gives, and this is the kind of language 
 that clergymen too often use. It is needless to re- 
 mark that no man who is not a clergyman would 
 ever dream of applying such words to a woman. No 
 respectable actor would ever speak in that way of even 
 the most vituperative assailant of his profession. The 
 stage seldom or never strikes back. At long intervals, 
 to be sure, an actor plays Aminadab Sleek, or Mr. 
 Chadband; but even then the shaft of satire is 
 directed against sanctimonious hypocrisy, which Christ 
 himself rebuked. The stage does not attack religion 
 or virtue. 
 
 It is true that the stage does not aim to teach Chris- 
 tianity. But neither does it aim to teach the differen- 
 tial calculus. There is a place for everything. Chris- 
 tian ethics on the stage would be as inappropriate as 
 Mr. Owens's Solon Shingle in the pulpit. The legiti- 
 mate purpose of acting has been specified by Shakes- 
 peare in language that no writer can improve and that 
 no reader needs to see quoted. The worst mistake 
 ever made by the stage and the most offensive attitude 
 ever assumed by it are seen when, as in " Camille " 
 and two or three similar plays, it tries to deal with what 
 is really the function of the church, — the consequence
 
 104 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 of sin in the human soul. Here it makes a disastrous 
 and mournful failure. 
 
 There is no need to discuss the state of the stage as 
 it was in the time of Charles II. and John Dryden. All 
 thinkers agree as to that. It was vile. The attack 
 upon it began promptly. Jeremy Collier's onslaught 
 was made in 1698, and it was made with good reason 
 and great force ; and a reform of the stage almost im- 
 mediately ensued. Cibber, Dogget, and Wilks, when 
 they obtained the Drury Lane patent [1714], at once 
 effected many desirable improvements. Later still, 
 Thomas Sheridan, in Dublin, and David Garrick, in 
 London, were especially commended for their salutary 
 and effective measures for the purification of the theatre. 
 It did not become a Sunday-school, but it was im- 
 proved ; and it has kept pace with the moral tone of 
 society ever since. There have, indeed, been several 
 serious abuses — spurts of indelicate spectacle and of 
 wanton French opera. But these are the excrescences 
 of the stage, and not the institution itself — the expe- 
 dients of speculators, temporary, evanescent, having 
 their little day and going out of fashion. Davenant 
 introduced such things in England in the seventeenth 
 century, and they have cropped out, intermittently, 
 ever since, with reinforcements from the French thea- 
 tre. Nobody questions the viciousness of such pieces 
 as "La Grande Duchesse " and " La Belle Helene " ; 
 but these are not types of the genuine permanent liter- 
 ature which, in furnishing a vehicle for acting, has kept 
 the stage alive. Plays like " Grandfather Whitehead," 
 the "Willow Copse," and "The Chimney Corner" 
 will always hold their own, when they are properly acted. 
 " The Hunchback," when Miss Mary Anderson appears
 
 HENRY IRVING. 105 
 
 in it, always draws good houses — a merited tribute as 
 well to a good play as to the brilliant genius and 
 thoughtful art of a great actress. The theatre is never 
 either much better or much worse than the commun- 
 ity in which it exists. 
 
 To estimate the actual influence of the stage of the 
 present day we must consider who the actors are that 
 prosper and what plays achieve the widest and most 
 permanent success. Edwin Booth, John McCullough, 
 Lawrence Barrett, Joseph Jefferson, Mary Anderson, 
 Genevieve Ward, John L. Toole, Henry Irving, — 
 these are chief among the leaders of the stage in our 
 day ; and there is not one of them who would not be 
 astonished at being accused of producing an immoral 
 piece. Wallack's Theatre is the leading theatre of 
 New-York, and the plays that have earned the most 
 money in Wallack's Theatre are Mr. Wallack's play of 
 "Rosedale" and Mr. Boucicault's play of "The 
 Shaughraun." Both of them are innocent. Of Shakes- 
 peare's plays at least fourteen are in continual use, in 
 a form beyond rational reproach. 
 
 Objection is specially made against the old come- 
 dies ; but it appears to be forgotten that the old come- 
 dies do not constitute the staple of contemporary 
 dramatic representations. In fact only a few of them 
 are ever acted, either in England or America. The 
 number of English plays recorded as existing at the 
 beginning of the present century is about six thousand. 
 How many of these survive in actual use in the thea- 
 tre ? Not fifty, altogether. At long intervals we may, 
 for a few nights, see " The School for Scandal," "She 
 Stoops to Conquer," " Wine Works Wonders," " The 
 Road to Ruin," "The Belle's Stratagem," "The
 
 106 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Rivals," "The Poor Gentleman," "A Cure for the 
 Heartache," "To Marry or not to Marry," "The 
 Clandestine Marriage, " " She Would and She 
 Wouldn't," "The Busybody," "Wild Oats," and 
 "The Wonder": but such performances are ex- 
 tremely infrequent and generally unpopular and un- 
 remunerative. Ben Jonson, Cartwright, Fletcher, 
 Congreve, Murphy, Foote, Dibdin, Cherry, O'Keefe, 
 Prince Hoare, Cumberland, Cibber, — all these and 
 many more, and all of them writers of exceptional 
 dramatic brilliancy, are practically as dead as if they 
 never had existed. It is twenty years since " Love 
 for Love " was last acted. " The Man of the World " 
 died with Hackett and "The Lyar" died with 
 Charles Mathews. When the old comedies are acted, 
 nowadays, they are acted chiefly as curiosities, and 
 they are invariably given in edited, altered, and 
 pruned versions. Mr. Jefferson — surely an authority 
 in such matters, and never found anywhere but on the 
 side of goodness, right and true taste — uses three of 
 them: "The Rivals," "The Poor Gentleman," and 
 "The Heir at Law." But he expunges from them 
 every coarse expression, and that has been his invaria- 
 ble custom ever since he acquired the authority to do 
 as he liked in his profession. The few indelicate lines 
 of " The School for Scandal " (and they are very few 
 and unnecessary) are usually spoken. It is to be said, 
 however, for the text of this comedy, that not a single 
 indelicate word or allusion is written in it for the mere 
 sake of impropriety or with the intention to corrupt. 
 Sheridan portrays a company of scandal-mongers such 
 as existed in his time, and he makes them talk as 
 such; and then he rebukes and defeats them, and
 
 HENRY IRVING. 107 
 
 covers them with ridicule and contempt. He portrays 
 the affectation of virtue, also, — which is one of the 
 infallible signs of a bad nature, — and he utterly over- 
 whelms it with defeat and scorn. His morality as to 
 trifles is seen to be careless and even indulgent. His 
 colouring of the spendthrift is rosier than might be 
 wished. Still, the teaching of the play is exemplary, 
 and it exerts no hurtful influence. You cannot rebuke 
 an evil unless you state what the evil is that you wish 
 to rebuke. You cannot, in a play, exemplify the 
 triumph of a hero over a rascal unless you depict both 
 the rascal and the hero. Certain works of art, to be 
 sure, are right in precept while wrong in spirit — be- 
 cause their authors may, insidiously and adroitly, aim 
 at diffusing impurity while ostensibly inculcating moral 
 excellence. The novels of Emile Zola, some of which 
 have been turned into plays, have practically this 
 effect. But such works are few and " The School for 
 Scandal " is not one of them. Its purpose was dis- 
 tinctly good ; and all moral scientists declare that the 
 moral quality of an action resides in the purpose with 
 which the action is performed. The censor would be 
 right in ascribing an evil purpose to Etherege and 
 perhaps to Dryden, but not in imputing it to Sheridan. 
 The plays of the Restoration are often vile, but 
 those of the eighteenth century are not. Coarse, they 
 may be, now and then; but as to filthy words the 
 coarsest of them falls short of the books of "Num- 
 bers," "Ezekiel," and "Jeremiah," in the Bible; and, 
 coarse or refined, they are practically a dead letter 
 to-day — the great bulk of old English comedy being 
 unseen, unread, forgotten, and unknown. When John 
 Gilbert, William Warren, Joseph Jefferson, Lester Wal-
 
 108 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 lack, Charles Fisher, William Davidge, and John S. 
 Clarke shall have passed away, the old comedies, so far 
 as the American stage is concerned, will have passed 
 away with them. The traditional manner of acting 
 them — the dash, the "gig," the sparkle, the lofty, 
 superb demeanour — is fast dying out. There need be 
 no solicitude, accordingly, as to the alleged iniquity of 
 the old comedies. But, even if they were to any con- 
 siderable extent in possession of the stage, if suitably 
 edited and adequately acted they would at their best 
 prove not only inoffensive, but, as to the elements of 
 character, dialogue, equivoke, and humour, superior to 
 many of the plays of to-day. 
 
 After " the spacious times of great Elizabeth" had 
 declined, and prior to the reign of Charles II., the 
 theatres in England were in a wretched condition. 
 There was an inherited dramatic literature of superb 
 and surpassing excellence in all the higher attributes 
 of literary genius and art. But it lived in a hovel. 
 At the Restoration taste and luxury came in, and 
 with them came in licentiousness. A reaction fol- 
 lowed, and the stage arose to a still better condition. 
 Under Garrick's leadership it made a great advance. 
 In later days it received additional impetus to noble 
 improvement from the influence of the Kemble fam- 
 ily and the efforts of Macready and Charles Kean. 
 Within the last ten years, in London, Henry Irving 
 has administered its affairs in a thoroughly royal way, 
 and — having ampler resources than they had with 
 which to work, and a much larger and perhaps more 
 attentive and sympathetic, certainly a more fastidious 
 and helpful, public to address — has surpassed all his 
 predecessors in the splendid task of developing and
 
 HENRY IRVING. 109 
 
 applying its beneficence, and keeping its intellectual 
 standard high and its moral condition pure. Here in 
 America, after an initiatory period of great hardship, 
 the stage took excellent shape in such institutions as 
 the old Chestnut Street Theatre, in Philadelphia, the 
 John Street house, and afterward the Park (at first 
 called simply "The Theatre"), in New- York, and 
 the Federal Street Theatre, in Boston. The stock 
 companies then were composed of actors almost every 
 one of whom would in our day be a star. Scholar- 
 ship was the rule, thorough discipline prevailed, and 
 perfect decorum was imperative. Through the growth 
 of our country and the broadening of the theatrical field 
 by the multiplication of theatres the old stock system 
 has been almost entirely destroyed, and opportunity 
 has been provided for the inroad of many hybrid and 
 distasteful, or downright offensive forms of amusement, 
 all of which shelter themselves under the name of the 
 stage. In this way the general dramatic tone has been 
 lowered. America has as good actors now as she ever 
 had ; but their forces are not concentrated, and there- 
 fore do not seem as formidable as once they did. 
 Nevertheless, the true dramatic spirit burns as brightly 
 as ever in this land, and the practical success of such 
 actors as Booth, Jefferson, McCullough, Lawrence Bar- 
 rett, Miss Mary Anderson, Miss Clara Morris, Miss 
 Ward, Mme. Modjeska, Mme. Janauschek, Signor 
 Salvini, and Maggie Mitchell is a substantial evidence 
 of it. If a measure of success also attends divers 
 unworthy exhibitions, that is the fault not of the 
 stage but of the public. " Look elsewhere, sire ! " 
 These extraneous shows are not the American 
 theatre, any more than the thimble-riggers and gipsy 
 11
 
 no HENRY IRVING. 
 
 fortune-tellers on Epsom downs are the race for the 
 Derby. 
 
 It is difficult to understand the extreme sensitiveness 
 of certain moralists as to the alleged corrupting influ- 
 ence of the stage. They pay that institution a great 
 compliment in ascribing to it such remarkable power 
 over the public morals ; or else, surely, they must con- 
 ceive individual virtue to be exceedingly fragile. If a 
 censor of the stage were to arraign it as at times a 
 bore it would be possible to appreciate his feelings and 
 sympathise with his views. Many of the proceedings 
 visible upon the stage are trivial and tedious to a 
 degree not readily expressed. Stuffy scenery, ear-pierc- 
 ing music, execrable elocution, nasal vocalism, obvious 
 ignorance, offensive conceit, pitiable vanity, the sad 
 lack of reticence which so often permits a public dis- 
 closure of individualities that Nature plainly intended 
 for sweet retirement and deep domestic seclusion, — 
 all these blemishes upon the stage are appreciable. 
 But where does the immoral influence appear ? How 
 does it strike ? In what manner does its victim con- 
 duct himself ? Does the youth upon seeing Iago, for 
 example, presently rush forth and prod a fancied 
 Cassia in a dark street ? Is he driven to incontinence 
 by the sight of a pretty woman playing Parthenia, or 
 Pauline, or Desdemona, or Lady Teazle ? What, then, 
 must be thought of the virtue which melts like wax in 
 the heat of such exceedingly mild fires as these ? What 
 becomes of such a person when he is led into society 
 and obliged to stand the tremendous strain of an even- 
 ing party? It is a great pity, surely, for certain 
 philosophers, and for the weak vessels of the earth in 
 general, that Nature has made women alluring and
 
 HENRY IRVING. m 
 
 roses sweet. But there is one way of safety for all 
 such imperiled creatures. If the stage is really thought 
 to weaken character by undue enticement, you have 
 only to present it as it really is, and that dreaded 
 glamour will vanish like smoke. Divest it of nonsense 
 in your thought. Quit describing it as a fascination 
 of the devil. Cease telling ignorant people to keep 
 away from the one particular room in Blue-Beard's 
 palace. There is not among men a more exacting, 
 laborious, stern profession than that of the stage. 
 There is no place more strictly mechanical and prosaic 
 than a theatre. The stage is not a Paphian Bower ; 
 it is a machine-shop. You may as sensibly allege the 
 immoral influence of a cotton factory as the immoral 
 influence of the stage, to those who know it. 
 
 The worst influence that proceeds from the stage is 
 one that also proceeds from the pulpit, and perhaps 
 from all artistic pursuits, — the possible weakening of 
 character, from encouragement of the love of admira- 
 tion in persons who are before the public, whether as 
 actors, orators, writers, preachers, or personal exhibi- 
 tors of any kind. It takes a long time for a man to 
 learn the usual vagueness, the frequent ignorance, the 
 heedless flippancy, and, therefore, the general worth- 
 lessness of the opinions and remarks of most other 
 people about himself or his proceedings ; to learn that 
 the only rational way to live is to make duty a rigid 
 law of life and utterly to ignore what people say. 
 Many men never learn this; and actors in particular, 
 whose fortunes depend so immediately on popu- 
 lar liking, are sometimes pitiable in their restless, 
 craving vanity. The same thing is sometimes seen 
 in clergymen. At least half of all that occurs in the
 
 112 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 world, whether on the stage or elsewhere, is of no 
 public importance and ought never to be noticed in 
 any way. We should see fewer cases of vanity, and 
 hear less of nobodies and nothings, if society and the 
 press had not such an inveterate disposition to " chroni- 
 cle small beer." 
 
 The literature of the stage has not improved, and for 
 simple and obvious reasons. After Shakespeare it 
 could not improve ; for that was the flood-tide. No 
 such man has since appeared. Then likewise the 
 stage has long been a costly institution, dependent on 
 immediate gains and obliged to aim at pleasing an 
 immediate audience. For this reason, as well as by 
 their nature, most of the writers for the stage have 
 been followers and not leaders of the public sentiment. 
 Great writers have their credentials from God; little 
 ones are chartered by the life which surrounds them ; 
 and it is the little writers who have furnished most of 
 the stage literature of the last two hundred and fifty 
 years. Shakespeare produced his plays upon the 
 stage ; but he wrote them on a scale and with a scope 
 that transcend all theatrical needs and limits, and made 
 them for a stage as broad as the world and as perma- 
 nent as the human race. Were there no stage at all 
 these works would still survive in all their imperial 
 power and brilliant renown ; but, without a stage, the 
 works of most dramatists would vanish like the morn- 
 ing mist. Yet with regard to modern stage litera- 
 ture let us not forget that although the nineteenth 
 century has not in this attained to the altitude of the 
 Elizabethan age, it has fully equalled that of any 
 later period. Knowles, Jerrold, Talfourd, Taylor, Mar- 
 ston, Bulwer, Gilbert, Robertson, Boucicault, Boker,
 
 HENRY IRVING. 113 
 
 Payne, Willis, and Epes Sargent are alone sufficient 
 to prove this. 
 
 The principal fault of the stage of the present time 
 is frivolity, and this comes from the frivolity of the pub- 
 lic and the press. Acting is a learned profession. The 
 stage should be devoted to good plays, well acted, and to 
 nothing else. The position of acting as a learned pro- 
 fession and the utility of the stage as an intellectual force 
 are not entirely appreciated. The public is too easily 
 pleased. Many silly things are accepted. Many com- 
 monplace persons are admired and commended. News- 
 papers, almost without exception, sedulously record, as 
 matters of importance, the theatrical doings of obscure 
 individuals, who by dint of three- sheet posters and lith- 
 ograph portraits assume to be actors, and, as Dr. John- 
 son said, make themselves public without making 
 themselves known. All this is out of proportion. 
 Such a state of things tends to lower the value of criti- 
 cal recognition, cheapen the rewards of effort in dra- 
 matic art, and bring serious and splendid endeavour 
 and high ambition into contempt. 
 
 The world does not advance in wisdom, virtue, and 
 happiness by denial and destruction. All institutions 
 should be bent to the good of all mankind. It was 
 John Wesley, a clergyman, who said that the devil 
 should not have all the good music. Men should not 
 make their lives tributary to their pursuits, but their 
 pursuits tributary to their lives — drawing from the 
 stage, as from all things else, whatever is good and 
 strong, whatever will help to build up and round out 
 a noble character. Must we destroy the stage because 
 a milksop may chance to be injured by it ? Is all life 
 to be squared to the tastes and needs of simpletons ?
 
 U4 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 The thing to be desired is gravity and thoroughness 
 in character, more scholarship, habits of study, the 
 rare and noble habit of thinking, in which few persons 
 ever indulge. As the ideals of intellectual effort rise 
 higher in the community, the sincere workers upon the 
 stage, as in every other department of art, will be en- 
 couraged and strengthened and the stage itself will be 
 ennobled.
 
 &&&!& 
 
 XIX 
 
 FAREWELL 
 
 FAR off beyond the shining sea, 
 Where scarlet poppies glisten 
 And daisies on the emerald lea 
 Lift up their heads and listen, 
 Where Thames and Avon glance and glow, 
 
 To-day the waters, straying, 
 Will murmur in their tranquil flow 
 The words that we are saying. 
 
 Ah, not in parting hours alone 
 
 Are those sweet accents spoken ; 
 Farewell, that sobs in sorrow's moan, 
 
 May smile in welcome's token. 
 Farewell, farewell, our hearts will sigh, 
 
 When void and dark his place is, 
 But, oh, fare well is England's cry, 
 
 To him her love embraces. 
 
 "5
 
 1 1 6 HENR Y IR VING. 
 
 Farewell, thou child of many a prayer, 
 
 Thou pride of her that bore thee ! 
 All crystal be the seas that bear 
 
 And skies that sparkle o'er thee ! 
 Thy mother's heart, thy mother's lip 
 
 Will soon again caress thee — 
 We can but watch thy lessening ship 
 
 And softly say, God bless thee ! 
 
 But let the golden waves leap up, 
 
 While yet our hearts beat near him ! 
 No bitter drop be in the cup 
 
 With which our hope would cheer him ! 
 Pour the red roses at his feet ! 
 
 Wave laurel boughs above him ! 
 And if we part or if we meet 
 
 Be glad and proud to love him ! 
 
 His life has made this iron age 
 
 More grand and fair in story ; 
 Illum'ed our Shakespeare's sacred page 
 
 With new and deathless glory; 
 Refreshed the love of noble fame 
 
 In hearts all sadly faring; 
 And lit anew the dying flame 
 
 Of genius and of daring. 
 
 Long may his radiant summer smile 
 Where Albion's rose is dreaming, 
 
 And over art's hesperian isle 
 His royal banner streaming;
 
 HENRY IRVING. 117 
 
 And every trumpet-blast that rolls 
 
 From Britain's lips to hail him, 
 Be echoed in our kindred souls, 
 
 Whose truth can never fail him. 
 
 On your white wings, ye angel years, 
 
 Through roseate sunshine springing, 
 Waft fortune from all happier spheres, 
 
 With garlands and with singing ! 
 Make strong that tender heart and true — 
 
 That thought of heaven to guide him — 
 And blessings pour, like diamond dew, 
 
 On her that walks beside him 1 
 
 And when is said the last farewell, 
 
 So solemn and so certain, 
 And Fate shall strike the prompter's bell, 
 
 To drop the final curtain, 
 Be his, whom every muse hath blest, 
 
 That best of earthly closes — 
 To sink to rest on England's breast 
 
 And sleep beneath her roses.
 
 XX 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 - + - 
 
 The London Lyceum Dramatic Company. 
 First American Tour, 1883-84. 
 
 -+- 
 
 Miss Ellen Terry. 
 Miss G. Pauncefort. 
 Miss Jessie Millward. 
 Miss L. Payne. 
 Miss Amy Coleridge. 
 Miss C. Daubigny. 
 Miss K. Brown. 
 Miss F. Holland. 
 Miss L. Harwood. 
 Miss F. Harwood. 
 Miss K. Harwood. 
 Mrs. Louther. 
 Miss E. de Silva. 
 Miss T. Russell. 
 Mr. J. Harwood. 
 Mr. J. Millward. 
 Mr. C. Epitaux. 
 Mr. T. Dwyer. 
 Mr. H. Kemble Barnet. 
 Mr. J. H. Allen. 
 
 Mr. Henry Irving. 
 Mr. William Terriss. 
 Mr. H. Howe. 
 Mr. T. Mead. 
 Mr. T. Wenman. 
 Mr. F. Tyars. 
 Mr. N. Forbes. 
 Mr. S. Johnson. 
 Mr. C. Harbury. 
 Mr. Haviland. 
 Mr. J. Carter. 
 Mr. J. Archer. 
 Mr. H. Louther. 
 Mr. C. Clifford. 
 Mr. M. Harvey. 
 Mr. F. Dwyer. 
 Mr. W. Marion. 
 Mr. W. Baker. 
 Mr. C. T. Helmsley. 
 Mr. J. Robertson. 
 
 no
 
 The London Lyceum Dramatic Company. 
 Second American Tour, 1884-85. 
 
 -+- 
 
 Mr. Henry 
 Miss Ellen Terry. 
 Miss G. Pauncefort. 
 Miss Winifred Emery. 
 Miss L. Payne. 
 Miss M. Foster. 
 Miss L. Marion. 
 Miss C. Daubigny. 
 Miss A. Daubigny. 
 Miss A. Allen. 
 Miss K. Brown. 
 Miss F. Holland. 
 Miss May Holland. 
 Mr. VV. Baker. 
 Mr. C. T. Helmsley. 
 Mr. W. Denman. 
 Mr. W. Graham. 
 Mr. H. Kemble Barnet. 
 
 Irving. 
 
 Mr. G. Alexander. 
 Mr. H. Howe. 
 Mr. T. Mead. 
 Mr. T. Wen man. 
 Mr. F. Tyars. 
 Mr. N. Forbes. 
 Mr. S. Johnson. 
 Mr. C. Harbury. 
 Mr. Fuller Mellish,. 
 Mr. J. Carter. 
 Mr. J. Archer. 
 Mr. H. Louth er. 
 Mr. J. Benn. 
 Mr. M. Harvey. 
 Mr. E. G. Craig. 
 Mr. W. Marion. 
 Mr. J. H. Allen.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Mr. Irving and Miss Terry, making their first voyage from 
 England to America, sailed from Liverpool, October nth, 
 1883, and arrived at New-York, October 21st. The Lyceum 
 Company came over aboard the City of Rome, arriving 
 October 19th. At the close of their first American tour, Mr. 
 Irving and Miss Terry sailed from New- York for Liverpool 
 aboard the Aurania, May 2d, 1884. The Lyceum Company 
 sailed, April 29th, aboard the City of Chester. Mr. Irving 
 and his entire company made their second voyage to Amer- 
 ica aboard the Parisian, leaving Liverpool on September 
 18th, 1884, and landing at Quebec on September 28th. Mr. 
 Irving's fourth and farewell engagement in New- York was 
 played at the Star Theatre, beginning on March 9th, 1885, 
 with " Eugene Aram," and ending on April 4th, with 
 " Charles I." The only new feature of it was the presentation 
 of " Eugene Aram," which Mr. Irving had already given, 
 January 14th, 1885, for the first time in America, at Chicago, 
 where also, January 20th, he first produced " Richelieu " to 
 an American audience. This record is complete when it 
 shall be added that Mr. Irving and Miss Terry sailed from 
 New- York for Liverpool, April 7th, 1885, aboard the Ari- 
 zona, and that the Lyceum Company sailed, April 9th, aboard 
 the City of Chicago. 
 
 123
 
 PRESS OF THEO. L. DE VINNE & CO., NEW-YORK.
 

 
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