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 HENRY IRVING AS "LOUIS XI.
 
 HENRY IRVING 
 
 A SHORT ACCOUNT 
 
 OF 
 
 HIS PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER 
 
 I I MURRAY STREET 
 
 1883
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883 
 
 By William S. Gottsberger 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 
 
 5zc^ of 
 9Uw ^|o^
 
 X7H4 
 
 "I EARNESTLY LOOK FORWARD TO GOING TO AMERICA, 
 FOR T LOVE THE COUNTRY AND HAVE TROOPS OF FRIENDS 
 IN IT, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 849898

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 This little book does not pretend to be much more 
 than a compilation. The author has had no special op- 
 portunities for obtaining private information and has 
 never " interviewed " Mr. Irving. The history of his 
 progress as an artist is public property for those who 
 know where to seek it ; but to tliose who do not, or who 
 lack time and patience, the facts and opinions here col- 
 lected for the first time cannot fail to be interesting, if 
 the man and his art appeal to their sympathies. 
 
 Some original remarks on Mr. Irving's acting have 
 been added to those selected from the press-notices in 
 English journals; and the author, in making these 
 excerpts from the papers, has endeavored to exercise an 
 impartial discretion, eliminating those which contain un- 
 critical praise as well as those which betray prejudice or 
 animosity; for Mr. Irving, like every man of distinction 
 and eminence, has suffered both from over-zealous 
 friends and petty, if not malignant detractors. The facts 
 remain: the great fact — Henry Irving himself; and 
 the accessory facts that he is the English speaking actor 
 of our time, and that he lias done more than any other
 
 II PREFACE. 
 
 man to elevate the naturalism which was first introduced 
 into the humble walks of the drama — by Liston, the 
 younger Mathews, the Bancrofts, and Toole — to such 
 rank and dignity as should make it the worthy hand- 
 maid of the stately tragic muse. 
 
 Though the criticisms quoted are taken from many 
 and various journals the writer desires to acknowledge a 
 special debt of gratitude to Mr. Frederick Wedmore's 
 interesting and admirable contributions to the Academy 
 (a London weekly journal) which are well worthy to be 
 collected and reprinted in a volume. 
 
 August, 1883.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Henry Irving as " I.ouis XI." , . . Frontispiece. 
 
 Miss Ellen Terry as " Ophelia." , . . p- 76 
 
 Henry Irving and Ellen I'erry (Hamlet — 1879). . p. 100 
 
 Henry Irving as " Vanderdecken." ... p. 149
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY, ...... I 
 
 I. irving's apprenticeship as an actor, . . 7 
 
 II. IRVING IN LONDON TILL 1878, ... 34 
 
 III. irving's career as a manager, . . -95 
 
 IV. MR. irving's individuality and influence, 
 
 -i 
 
 HIS SPEECHES AND WRITINGS, 
 
 HIS SOCIAL QUALITIES, . . I48 
 
 V. ELLEN TERRY. WILLIAM TERRISS. THOS. MEAD, 1 97 
 
 INDEX, ....... 209
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 It has been the fate of many men of talent- 
 nay, even of genius — to be born, as the saying 
 goes, before their time ; to anticipate, always to 
 their cost, the needs of a future generation, to in- 
 terpret in language, dark to their own age, the 
 spirit and emotions of a later one. To such men 
 life is made sad by disappointment, ev^en though 
 their gifts may be quickened by suffering, and 
 only a few, it is to be feared, enjoy the prophetic 
 certainty that the croAA-n they have never been 
 permitted to wear will be laid on their grave. 
 There are others whose fortune it has been to be 
 born in due season, to be gifted with the very 
 genius of their own epoch, to utter the aspirations 
 of their contemporaries in accents which rouse an 
 echo in every heart or — if their talents do not 
 rise to such a height of inspiration — to give ex- 
 pression in their lives, their writings, or their art,
 
 2 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 to the dumb instinct of common feeling which 
 constitutes what we call the Spirit of the Age. 
 
 This instinct, this spirit are the prerogative of 
 the young — the outcome mainly and in the first 
 instance of a blind reaction (sometimes of a con- 
 scious revolt) ag.ainst that continuity of heredity 
 which would otherwise entail on our race a dull 
 and gradual intensifying of every characteristic 
 derived from our forefathers. 
 
 The specific mental pecuharities, not being held 
 in check to the same extent in human beings by 
 those external modifying influences which tend to 
 vary or annihilate inherited characteristics in the 
 rest of the organic creation, would accumulate 
 and eain force as time went on, cutting a deeper 
 and deeper groove out of which each succeeding 
 generation would find it harder to move. Con- 
 servatism is, naturally, the note of the old, and in 
 its turn and time becomes an inherited character- 
 istic in most of us — as gout, on one hand, or that 
 freedom from a disease which is known as " out- 
 growing it," on the other, is developed at a cer- 
 tain age in certain families ; at the same time it 
 must be owned that there is this enormous differ- 
 ence : The conservatism we develop is commonly 
 an adherence to the ideals of our own youth — 
 not those of our forefathers, and a loving fidelity
 
 . INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 to what was once the Spirit of our own Age. We 
 taste the new wine, the heaiiy hquor as we think 
 it, of the recent vintage, and we say " the old is 
 better." 
 
 It is in a great measure the pendulum swing 
 of thought between the two extremes of tradition 
 and innovation which gives rise to the historical 
 phenomena of epochs in philosophy, belief, and 
 art. Now and again Tradition holds the bob with 
 a firm hand, or nails it up to the wall ; but pres- 
 ently the hand waxes palsied or the nail rusts 
 through : Innovation clutches at the swinging rod, 
 holds it at first with an uncertain grasp, but pres- 
 ently possesses it and regulates its flight ; not with 
 unerring judgment perhaps but with some degree 
 of vital impetus, till old Tradition once more ar- 
 rests it for a time. Nothing can more clearly 
 prove the truth of this statement than the history 
 of Art. In every phase of Art one need remains 
 supreme : our craving for beauty must be satis- 
 fied. And is it not a matter of wonder to note 
 what the changes of taste have been — what, in 
 successive periods has been thought beautiful ? 
 The subject is trite. Instances without number 
 might be given in which, after periods of vacilla- 
 tion in taste, some master-mind has given a stamp 
 to his art, either of absolute newness of expression
 
 4 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 (like Berlioz in music — a man born before his 
 time — and since Berlioz Wagner; like Whistler 
 in painting; like Emerson or Swinburne in litera- 
 ture) or else of reversion to a past type, more or 
 less modified by his own temperament to his own 
 requirements. If he has spoken to the hearts of 
 his contemporaries his expression of beauty is ac- 
 cepted by them, not without criticism, but still as 
 one manifestation of the highest truth. 
 
 " Every work of art enshrines a spiritual sub- 
 ject," says John Addington Symonds in a recent 
 work, " and the artist's power is shown in finding 
 for that subject a form of ideal loveliness." What 
 the absolute expression of loveliness may be, 
 and what the relative beauty that is compatible 
 with the spiritual content or import of the work, 
 are questions which would need a separate discus- 
 sion for each branch of art per se. " The element 
 of beauty in the Actor's art is perfection of reali- 
 zation. It is his duty as an artist to show us 
 Orestes or Othello, not perhaps exactly as Othello 
 and Orestes were, but as the essence of their 
 tragedies, ideally incorporate in action, ought to 
 
 be."* 
 
 The man who has in his mind such a standard 
 
 * Italian By-ways.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 of beauty, who can express it in precisely such a 
 manner as his contemporaries can accept, or even 
 hail, as uttering their convictions or feeding their 
 craving — such a man is the Man of his Time. 
 Such a man is Henry Irving.
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 irving's apprenticeship as an actor. 
 
 John Henry Brodrib, who has assumed 
 the name of Irving, was born near Glastonbury 
 in Somersetshire, in the south-west of Eng- 
 land, on the 6th of February, 183S. He was 
 educated in London with the idea of his enter- 
 ing a merchant's office and following a mer- 
 cantile career to fortune or failure, as the case 
 might be ; but his tastes and instincts were essen- 
 tially histronic and combined, as may be supposed, 
 a determined and masterful will to make such a 
 life repugnant to him. He was placed in an 
 India Merchant's office on leaving school, but he 
 and the desk could never agree; he was still a lad 
 of onl}^ eighteen when he first acted in public. 
 
 This was at Sunderland, in the part of Orleans 
 in L\-tton's play of Richelieu, and subsequently,
 
 8 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 at the same place, he filled the part of Cleomenes, 
 in the Winter's Talc. 
 
 The Lyceum theatre at Sunderland had been 
 newly built, and was opened for the first time on 
 the 29th of September, 1856, the night when 
 Henry Irving made his first appearance on any 
 stage. 
 
 He remained at Sunderland throughout the 
 autumn, playing small parts; and it was there 
 that he made the acquaintance of Mr. Mead, who 
 played the principal parts when Miss Glyn came 
 for a short time to act Hermione, Mrs. Haller, 
 and Lady Macbeth. There is a story — an on dit 
 — that on one occasion, when young Irving's 
 performance of some part had been far from satis- 
 factory, Mr. Mead and Mr. Johnson, being his 
 seniors — and foreseeing perhaps that his ambition 
 and perseverance must triumph in the end — in- 
 terfered to prevent his dismissal by the wrathful 
 manager. Both these gentlemen are now on the 
 permanent staff of the Lyceum, London ; and if 
 the story is true this is a pleasing instance of Mr. 
 Irving's gratitude and friendly feeling. 
 
 In the following year Irving was acting at the 
 Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, at that time under the 
 management of Mr. R. H. Wyndham who en- 
 gaged a succession of stars to play various favorite
 
 EDINBURGH, 1857. 9 
 
 pieces, keeping a small permanent staff of utility 
 actors for minor parts. Among the actors at that 
 time attached to the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, was 
 the late Mr. E. U. Lyons, two of whose sons, 
 Mr. Edmund Lyons and Mr. Robert C. Lyons, 
 have since acted with Mr. L'ving at the Lyceum, 
 under Mr. Bateman's management. Here he 
 again played with Mr. Mead, as well as with other 
 and brighter stars, some now set for ever, but 
 some few still hving to criticise and guide the 
 generation that have grown up around them. 
 Miss Glyn was famous in the parts Miss Terry 
 now fills, Portia and Beatrice, but her repertoire was 
 wider. She retired in 1868, but is still a success- 
 ful reader. Helen Faucit, Mr. and Mrs. Wigan, 
 Buckstone, C. Matthews, Phelps, and others visited 
 Edinburgh from time to time, constituting a com- 
 plete school of art for any young actor who had 
 the faculty of assimilating all that they could 
 teach. 
 
 \\\ the company and under the influence of 
 such sound and thorough artists Irving could not 
 fail to learn the traditions of the old English 
 school of acting — traditions, some of them, which 
 have doubtless come down as from a respectable 
 antiquity and can trace a pedigree through suc- 
 cessive actors, even from Shakespeare himself At
 
 10 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 the same time he studied his parts from his own 
 point of view and stamped them with an origin- 
 ality which was not always pleasing. The first 
 time his name is mentioned in the cast there, it is 
 as playing in the Little Treasure, Miss Louise 
 Keeley playing Gertrude. " The other parts were 
 well filled by Mrs. Atkins, Miss Nicol, Messrs. 
 Irving, Lyons, and R. H. Wyndham." — iTr^?, Satur- 
 day, June 20, 1857. — In other cases he is in- 
 cluded under a comprehensive et cetera. 
 
 In the Era of January 31, 1858, he is again 
 mentioned by name as one of the stock, still at the 
 same theatre ; but he is absent from the list of 
 those by whom Mr. Stirling was well supported 
 on February 14th. He is mentioned again as 
 acting in Esmeralda, Miss Henrietta Sims playing 
 the Gipsy, and Mr. T. C. King, Quasimodo. On 
 Monday, April 19th, the theatre closed, having 
 ended its winter season — but reopened on the 
 29th for a summ^er season, when Mr. Irving 
 played Wormley in the Love Knot, Miss L. Keeley 
 being the star. 
 
 It is not till June 13th that he is spoken of 
 with any kind of comment, but then it is favor- 
 able: " In the part of Fitzherbert," the play being 
 Jletims, " Mr. Irving has achieved an undoubted 
 success. Animated bv a sincere devotion to his
 
 EDINBURGH, 1 858. II 
 
 art, as his care and earnestness testify, no doubt 
 he will speedily and successfully fill a higher range 
 of parts than he has hitherto done." — Era. Mr. 
 Toole, though quite young, was already an estab- 
 lished favorite with the Edinburgh play-goers, 
 and it was at the Theatre Royal, that he and Mr. 
 Irving first made an acquaintance which has since 
 ripened into friendship. Rivals they could never 
 have been, under any circumstances. 
 
 July 25th, in Marriage a Lottery, " Mr. Irving 
 as Herbert was, as usual, natural and gentlemanly, 
 tasteful in his dress and perfect in his part." Aug. 
 8th. " Mr. Irving evinces the same care in 
 Quaverly (Helping Hands) which characterizes 
 all his acting." In Perouron, the Bellows ALender, 
 "a by no means successful piece and the prototype 
 of the Lady of Lyons ;" we learn that there was 
 " some admirable acting, and we must not for- 
 get Mr. Irving as Raymond * * * who was very 
 good." 
 
 " Soyez tranquille," a cook, Sept. 26th, " ex- 
 cellently delineated by Mr. Irving." Oct. 31st. 
 " Mr. Irving as Charles Courtly (^London Assur- 
 ance^ deserves a word of praise ; he, with the 
 other characters, was honored with a call before 
 the curtain." 
 
 In November the Theatre Royal closed for the
 
 12 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 preparation of a pantomime, and Mr. R. H.Wynd- 
 ham's company was transferred to the Queen's, 
 where Sheridan Knowles' play. The Wife, was put 
 on the stage. It was " very creditably performed, 
 Miss Sophie Miles (Mariana), Mr. Melville, and 
 Mr. Irving (Leonardo), being called at the con- 
 clusion." The next piece was Still Waters Run 
 Deep, by Tom Taylor ; in this Irving played the 
 small part of Dunbilk, the Irish swindler, and 
 showed his unfailing care even in that. " His 
 make up was, as usual, exceedingly good." He 
 next appeared in A Hard Struggle, by Westland 
 Marston, and "Mr. Irving, as Fergus Graham, per- 
 formed excellently." Helpi7ig Hands was re- 
 vived for Toole's benefit on the 14th of December, 
 and Mr. Irving was now promoted to the part of 
 Lord Quaverly, a musical dilettante; "his make 
 up and acting were excellent." In January, 1859, 
 Mr. R. H. Wyndham was still lessee and 
 manager of both the Theatre Royal and the 
 Queen's theatre in Edinburgh, and Mr. Irving was 
 still a member of his company. Throughout the 
 winter his name stands on the bills of the Royal 
 in several pieces played before the Pantomime in 
 turn : My Wife's Mother ; Tom Noddy s Secret ; 
 The Little Treasure, and other " light articles," " in 
 which the principal parts have been filled bv * * *
 
 EDINBURGH. I 859. 1 3 
 
 Messrs. Ersser Jones, Irving, G. Smythson, etc.," 
 and on Monday, February 15th, "Mr. Irving — in 
 llic Porter's Knot — as Augustus Burr, gave evi- 
 dence of his continuous progress as an actor who 
 takes nature as his guide, and is determined to 
 succeed." Again, in Hamilton of BotJiwell HargJi, 
 " Mr. Irving has acquired new laurels in the part 
 of Cyril Baliol, the plotting priest, and making 
 allowance for the comparative inexperience of so 
 young an actor (Henry Irving was at this time only 
 just one and twenty and had been on the stage 
 little more than two years) the personation 
 is worthy of much praise, and indicative of 
 rapid progress. Messrs. George Melville and 
 Irving have frequently been called to acknowledge 
 the plaudits of the audiences for their able acting 
 in the parts of Hamilton and Cyril Baliol." 
 
 Raising the Wind was also being played — 
 Mr. Irving certainly not taking the part of Jeremy 
 Diddler, but it is highly probable that some lucky 
 hit — or perhaps some palpable shortcoming — on 
 the part of the actor who did play it suggested to 
 him a rendering of the impecunious scapegrace 
 which has since been very successful. Here too 
 he saw Louis XI. played by Mr. Dillon, " well 
 supported by Messsrs. Jones, Lyons, Irving, etc," 
 He is again mentioned as giving " good support "
 
 14 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 in SiJigk Life, and as Mr. Lionel Lynd in Mar- 
 ried Life, and at the close of this season, at the 
 beginning of May, Mr. Irving tasted the sweets of 
 his first benefit night. " Monday last, the 2nd, was 
 devoted to the first benefit of Mr. Irving, a young 
 actor whose progress we have frequentlyliad occa- 
 sion to notice. This gentleman, comparatively a 
 novice on the stage, has been engaged by Mr. 
 Harris for the Princess' Theatre, London, where, 
 we doubt not, he will in a few years, realize our 
 expectations ; for, though Mr. Irving undoubtedly 
 displays considerable talent in a varied line of 
 parts, it is, perhaps more for his zeal and rapid 
 progress, his evident determination to excel, and 
 his perceptible realization of this resolution, than 
 for the position he at present holds that he has 
 won the esteem and encouraging approbation of 
 Edinburgh play-goers." The Eras judgment 
 proved to be better than its English, though Mr. 
 Irving's provincial experiences were, as it turned 
 out, by no means at an end ; nothing but that 
 undaunted determination to rise which character- 
 ized him from his earliest youth could have ena- 
 bled him to triumph over a series of rebuffs and 
 difficulties. On this occasion he played Gustave de 
 Grignon in The Ladies Battle, a strongly-marked 
 character-part, and probably well suited to him,
 
 EDINBURGH, 1 859. I 5 
 
 Captain Beaugard in The Reviezv, and Walter War- 
 ren in A Poor GirV s Temptations. 
 
 The Theatre Royal, as it then existed, was 
 closed in May, condemned to make way for the 
 new Post-Office; and the last time Mr. Irving 
 stood on the boards which had been the scene of 
 his early studies and labors and where he had 
 gathered the first buds, so to speak, of that "herb 
 o' grace" fulfilment, it was as Soaper, one of the 
 critics who victimize Triplet in Masks and Faces, 
 who " lathers" while Snarl shaves. The whole 
 company now migrated to the Queen's, which 
 reopened in June after a short holiday. 
 
 On Friday, the 12th of August, by command 
 of the Prince of Wales, who was visiting Edin- 
 burgh, a Scotch piece was to be performed, 
 and Cramond Br-ig was selected and " ex- 
 ceedingly well acted." "Mr. Irving was a King 
 James truly noble in heart and speech, as a King 
 ought to be ;" a forecast this, perhaps, of his suc- 
 cess as a later and more hapless Stuart King. In 
 a bnrlesqne of Kenilworth, " Mr. Irving was great 
 in his make up as Wayland Smith. The origi- 
 nality displayed by this gentleman is remarkable, 
 and had he not been an actor, we think from this 
 feature alone that he would have been successful 
 as an artist." "The ungracious part of Appius
 
 1 6 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Claudius in Virginms was carefully filled by Mr. 
 Irving." (The chiefcharacter byMr. Dillon, an actor 
 who achieved popularity in the English provinces, 
 but who has left no mark on the history of the 
 stage.) He played again "excellently" in Grist 
 to the Mill, and on Tuesday, September 13th, 
 1859, took a farewell benefit, playing Claude Mel- 
 notte, a favorite benefit part with all jciines 
 premiers. " We have frequently adverted " (the 
 Era, September 18, 1859) "to the rapid progress 
 Mr. Irving has made in his profession by unremit- 
 ting zeal and study, but on his last appearance he 
 excelled all his previous personations. Some may 
 have deemed it somewhat ambitious that an actor 
 who has not been quite three years on the stage, 
 should attempt the character of Claude Melnotte 
 in TJie Lady of Lyons, but the finish with which 
 Mr. Irving sustained the part effectually proved 
 that he had not over-estimated his powers. Thrice 
 was he called in the course of the piece to receive 
 the applause of a well-filled house. He took leave 
 of his Edinburgh friends in a modest speech." 
 
 Mr. Irving now, no doubt, hoped and believed 
 that his Wander Jahre were over, and that Lon- 
 don, "paved with gold," was for the future to be 
 the scene of his efforts; but Fate was not yet on 
 his side. Nearly seven more years of probation
 
 LONDON, 1859. 17 
 
 and patience were still before him, an uphill fight 
 of which few details can be found. But he was 
 young and brave, with that strong self-confidence, 
 which in its lowest manifestations is sheer conceit, 
 but in its highest, self-reliant courage. 
 
 Henry Irving had a chance now on a London 
 stage ; but that he was not ripe for it is pretty 
 certain or in the dearth of high-class actors, now 
 that Charles Kean had retired (he still played for 
 a short time in the provinces), he must have made 
 his mark. He got no great part given him, it is 
 true, to fail in — perhaps that was not the unkind- 
 est trick Fortune could play him — but his mana- 
 ger never put his name in the advertisements, and 
 the few parts before which his name occurs in the 
 critiques are small enough to escape censure, as 
 well as to miss praise. 
 
 The Keans left the Princess's, London, in Sep- 
 tember, 1859, and it reopened shortly after under 
 the management of the late Mr. Augustus Harris 
 with a new play adapted from the French by John 
 Oxenford, and called Ivy Hall. 
 
 In September, 1859, Mr. Harris opened the 
 Princess's Theatre, London, with Ivy Hall, a free 
 adaptation of Ic Roman d'un Jcu7ic Homme 
 Pauvrc, and introduced Mr. Harcourt Bland and 
 Miss Kate Savile from the provinces to a London
 
 1 8 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 public ; but Mr. Irving is not named, though wc 
 have reason to beHeve he joined the company at 
 that time. On Saturday, October the 8th a small 
 part was given him in a farcical afterpiecp, The 
 Two Polts, and this was probably the first occasion 
 of his coming before a London audience — under 
 circumstances neither flattering nor gratifying, it 
 may be suspected. His name is not mentioned 
 by the critics. In October, however, when Mr. 
 George Melville was playing Hamlet, he took the 
 part of Osrick, not a bad little part as little parts 
 go, with a distinct individuality and an opening 
 for picturesque treatment ; but with what heart- 
 burning Henry Irving was by this time beginning 
 to look on at the successes or failures, the beau- 
 ties or defects of his seniors may be readily con- 
 ceived. 
 
 How far from satisfactory George Melville 
 proved himself in Hamlet may be gathered from 
 a contemporary criticism : " of the language and 
 play he has by no means a firm grasp * * he often 
 glides heedlessly over words and sentences which, 
 even to a careful reader unacquainted with stage 
 traditions, proclaim their own significance." Mr. 
 Melville is advised to eschew " unprofitable ambi- 
 tion," and the critic adds: "we are by no means 
 overstocked with actors strong enough to sus-
 
 LONDON, 1859. 19 
 
 tain the ordinary pieces of melodramatic in- 
 terest." 
 
 And at the time when this was written there 
 were only five first-class theatres open in London ! 
 
 Mr. Irving, as he read these remarks in the 
 Times, must have found much to reflect on. His 
 own criticism on the aspirant's performance would 
 be interesting to us now if it were to be found 
 lurking in some diary or note book ; and it would 
 probably be quite as sympathetic as severe since 
 he himself had already realized the difficulties of 
 the part. After this he played Rudolphe in a 
 revival of TJic Wonderful Woman, but we find no 
 further mention of his name in the Princess's play- 
 bills. 
 
 In this year, 1859, we find the first mention of 
 a dramatic reading given by Mr. Irving. It was 
 one night in December, at Crosby Hall in Bishop- 
 gate street, a place now used for public entertain- 
 ments, but interesting to the historian and to the 
 student of Shakespeare as having been between 
 1475 and 1483 the residence of Richard, Duke of 
 Gloster.* It would be pleasant to imagine that 
 
 * Crosby House Was subsequently the residence of the great Sir 
 Thomas More, and at a later period when Sir John Spencer lived there 
 many illustrious persons were visitors there. The Countess of Pem- 
 broke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, also lived for some years in Crosby 
 House.
 
 20 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 the unsuccessful young actor indulged in some 
 dreams of future triumph and drew an inspiration 
 of bloodless ambition as he stood under the roof 
 where the prince had lived whose presentment it 
 has since been his fortune to realize to the men of 
 a later generation. However on this occasion he 
 was satisfied to render the work of a less poet than 
 Shakespeare, and to follow the fortunes of a minor 
 hero than the ruthless Richard. 
 
 " We recollect," says a writer in Players, " that 
 Mr. Irving was a gentleman of considerable talent 
 and a great favorite in the provinces" — an un- 
 kind touch of the " faint praise '.' which is so fatal ; 
 " and went to hear him read T/ir Lady of Lyons. 
 Instead of finding the usual conventional medi- 
 ocrity which would seem to characterize the 
 dramatic reader, we were gratified by hearing it 
 poetically read by a most accomplished elocution- 
 ist, who gave us not only words, but that finer 
 indefinite something which proves incontestably 
 and instantaneously that the fire of genius is in 
 the artist." 
 
 Mr. Henry Irving is next heard of as acting at 
 Manchester, October 7th, i860, as a new member 
 of the company at the Theatre Royal, and as 
 "from Edinburgh;" it is to be presumed, there- 
 fore, either that he had not been successful in
 
 MANCHESTER, l86o-'6l. 21 
 
 London, or that a succession of small parts had 
 neither satisfied his ambition nor afforded him such 
 practice as he had hoped to have. Here he 
 played Adolphe in Plambi's Secret Service, Horace 
 in Daddy Hardacre, Frank Meredith in Romance 
 and Reality, and a leading part in Diamond Cut 
 Diamond. 
 
 In i86i his name appears in the cast for A 
 Word in Yonr Ear, " well acted," but changed in 
 February to George Barmueli in which he seems 
 to have played the leading part. He is also, " es- 
 pecially mentioned " in a little comedy entitled 
 Married Daughters and Young Husbands ; the 
 two last pieces, with the pantomime constituting, as 
 we can well believe, " a rather long performance and 
 plenty for the money." His name does not ap- 
 pear in the pantomimes, but it is quite certain that 
 during an apprenticeship of general utility he must 
 have done duty in some parts not strictly legiti- 
 mate ; indeed we have heard that he once figured 
 as one of those cross-grained sisters who led 
 Cinderella such a life. One thing is certain : what- 
 ever he did he did his best. 
 
 He afterwards filled a secondary part in TJie 
 Island Home, an adaptation of the same French 
 play as supplied Miss Herbert, and Mr. Alfred 
 Wigan, if we remember rightly, with the
 
 22 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 materials for a success in The Isle of Saint 
 Tropez. Then he played Herbert Waverly in 
 Playing with Fire, a comedy by John Brougham, 
 who acted the leading part. " He had a dif- 
 ficult part and^ acted with much care and feeling, 
 giving us less of his peculiar mannerism, and 
 showing us that he had studied the play as well 
 as the character of Herbert Waverly." {^Era, July, 
 i86i). 
 
 When the Theatre Royal, Manchester, re- 
 opened in September, 1861, Mr. Irving was still 
 only thought equal to inferior parts, Mr. D. H. 
 Jones being engaged for leading business, and Mr. 
 Irving standing third on the list of the staff. He 
 had " a very uphill part in the Family Secret and 
 got through it creditably." The starring system 
 was then in force at this theatre ; a system which 
 secures variety of stage practice for the perma- 
 nent staff, but small chances of making any ad- 
 vance in position, or " a hit" in a good part. He 
 acted with Mr. and Mrs. Florence, who were very 
 successful ; with Charles Mathews, first and last 
 perhaps the most popular light comedian ever seen 
 on the English stage ; with Mr. Edwin Booth — 
 when he played Othello, but Mr. Irving did not 
 play lago — and when he played Sir Giles Over- 
 reach in A Nezv Way to Pay Old Debts — a part
 
 MANCHESTER,. 1862-63. 23 
 
 which Mr. Edmund Kean had made fam.ous but 
 which Mr. Irving has not yet attempted — he took 
 the small part of Wellborn. He was the hero in 
 Mr. J. Brougham's next new comedy F/ies in the 
 Web, and played minor parts in several revivals. 
 On March 21st, Mr. Walter Montgomery played 
 Othello for the benefit of the acting manager of 
 the theatre and Irving, being named next to Mr. 
 Calvert, who played lago, it is probable that he 
 played Cassio. He was Sir Thomas in The Hunch- 
 back and is constantly mentioned throughout the 
 season as supporting — "ably, efficiently, care- 
 fully" — a succession of actors and actresses who 
 appeared in every variety of drama. He seems 
 to have escaped, or to have refused burlesque parts, 
 but to have worked at every other line of his art. 
 Lovers, husbands, villains, heroes, gentlemen, and 
 blackguards, he was each in turn. 
 
 He returned with the same company in Sep- 
 tember, 1862, playing Captain Howard in the 
 Peep d day, which had an unusually long run of 
 sixty-seven nights. The pantomime took its 
 place, preceded by a Hard Struggle in which 
 Irving acted Fergus Graham. 
 
 January, 1863, found him still in the same po- 
 sition — "he lacked advancement," and on Friday 
 night, May 15th, when he took a benefit, he
 
 24 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 secured the services of the unhappy Walter Mont- 
 gomery to play Hamlet, while he himself filled the 
 part of Laertes. However, he and his manager 
 seem to have agreed very well, or perhaps neces- 
 sity was his master, for when several of the per- 
 manent staff seceded, their number being greater 
 than was required, Mr. Irving remained at Man- 
 chester. 
 
 We find his name on September 14th, when 
 he played in the afterpieces, Mr. Sothern en- 
 grossing the Manchester public as Lord Dun- 
 dreary. When the piece was supplemented by 
 My Aiinf s Advice for Sothern to play Captain 
 Howard Leslie, Irving played witli him the small 
 part of the husband, and did "that little well." 
 During the winter season he played in the pieces 
 before the pantomime: "the principal part in Who 
 Speaks First? with gentlemanly ease and finish;" 
 Bernard Reynolds in JMirianis Crime; George 
 Barnwell, etc., Faust, in Faust and Marqiierite, 
 was a better part, and in April he played Mer- 
 cutio; "We have not seen Mr. Irving to better 
 advantage, he played the part well." 
 
 In May, 1864, the announcement that "he 
 filled the part of Hardress Cregan {^Colleen Baivn) 
 creditably," is supplemented by the remark that 
 he is becoming "quite a favorite," and on June
 
 APPEARS AS HAMLET — 1S64. 25 
 
 the 1 2th it is announced that Mr. Irving "will 
 take a benefit, when he will appear as Hamlet." 
 
 At last ! and perhaps this performance lives 
 in Mr. Irving's memor}', even to this day, after a 
 series of trials and successes, as the most momen- 
 tous event of his life — as the crisis of his develop- 
 ment, the critical instant of his personal experience, 
 and the test of his individuality. It took place on 
 Monday, June 26th, 1864. 
 
 It is to be regretted that no critic was present 
 more competent to judge of the qualities and 
 faults of the performance than the ordinary repor- 
 ter of the Era newspaper. This English weekly, 
 though of value as a record of many events which 
 would otherwise be lost in the gulf of time, is not 
 particularly well served by its provincial corres- 
 pondents. Men of taste and experience do not 
 care to undertake such small and poorly-paid 
 work, and while the standard of art is not com- 
 monly a very high one, a little friendliness, or 
 habits of pleasant intercourse, are not altogether 
 without influence. " One of the most curious 
 experiences of the actor is provided when, on 
 migrating from town to country, or vice versa, he 
 first notes tlic difference between the criticism 
 bestowed upon hini in the London journals and 
 the criticism — Hea\'en save the mark! — which
 
 26 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 his performances receive in the provincial press." 
 ( Theatre). London criticism is often hasty, super- 
 ficial, not absokitely unbiassed perhaps, but at any 
 rate it is based on some standard of comparison 
 and formed on some variety of experience. Still, 
 we may believe the report which says that " Mr. 
 Irving displayed a careful study and good appre- 
 ciation of the author, and many parts were 
 admirably rendered." He repeated it on the 
 following Saturday, and he seems to have made 
 good his right to leading parts from that time. 
 He played Hamlet again on the last night of that 
 season having "wonderfully improved." 
 
 When the theatre reopened The Comedy of 
 Errors was put upon the stage, with Mr. Irving 
 as one Antipholus, and Mr. G. F. Sinclair as the 
 other. He retired again into the part of Laertes for 
 Mr. Walter Montgomery to play Hamlet, and sup- 
 ported him when he played Romeo and Othello. 
 Then he played the pretty part of Maurice War- 
 ner in Camilla s Husband, and in the course of 
 November he made or improved his acquaintance 
 with Miss Bateman who played Leah, but he does 
 not seem to have had any part in the piece. 
 
 In January, 1865, he was playing in the small 
 comedies or farces before the pantomime and never 
 seems to have shirked work of any kind. On the
 
 MANCHESTER, 1 865. 2/ 
 
 26th of February, he played Robert Macaire, 
 " witli great power," a part he played again after 
 an interval of some years, in London ; and again 
 not long since, under Royal patronage, for the 
 benefit of the New College of Music. Haines' 
 drama of Charming Polly seems to have been the 
 last piece in which he acted at the Theatre Royal, 
 Manchester. He then, for a short while, joined 
 Messrs. Fred. Maccabe and Philip Day in giving 
 an entertainment at the Free-Trade Hall in that 
 city ; " a seance a la Davenport brothers ; the bur- 
 lesque lecture by Mr. Irving caused loud laughter 
 and applause." It must certainly have been exqui- 
 sitely funny. The performance was repeated two or 
 three times and "a complimentary benefit " was 
 given to Mr. Irving when he took his leave of 
 the Manchester public, after he had assisted his 
 colleague Mr. Maccabe to take his at the Prince's 
 theatre, where he played four times after leaving 
 the Theatre Royal. A committee of his friends 
 arranged an attractive miscellaneous programme 
 for that eventful Wednesday, 12th of April — the 
 last day when Mr. Irving was to be regarded 
 as merely a provincial actor. It was to include 
 the comedy Who Speaks First, the burlesque of the 
 Davenports, and the farce of Raising the Wind, 
 and "the reception accorded to him was the best
 
 28 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 proof of the appreciation and esteem in which 
 this young- actor is held by the play-goers of our 
 city. The Hall was crowded with nearly 3,000 
 persons and he was greeted with vehement and 
 prolonged cheering." {Era). He acted again at 
 Manchester, Wednesday, May 4th, for the benefit 
 of Mr. Robert Cooke the treasurer of the Prince's 
 Theatre, who " was so fortunate as to secure his 
 services for the part of Nemours in Louis XL," 
 and he repeated " the expose of the Davenport 
 brothers with Messrs. Maccabe and Day," for Mr. 
 Day's benefit at the end of the month. He played 
 Edmund in Khtg Lear for Mr. Calvert's benefit in 
 June, and Frank Hawthorne in Extremes for Mr. 
 John Nelson's, and he then performed for a week 
 as Edmund till the end of the season at the 
 Prince's, following it up every evening with Dick 
 Hazard in JMy J Fife's Dentist 
 
 We next find Mr. Irving acting at Douglas the 
 principal town of the Isle of Man, a speck of land 
 lying between England and Ireland in the Irish 
 Sea. He here played in the Wonderful Woman, 
 and Married Daughters, and took his benefit on 
 the 24th of July in My Wifes Dentist. From 
 thence he went to Oxford and played in London 
 Assurance, with what would be thought in these 
 days of elaborate touring, a rather scratch com-
 
 LIVERPOOL, 1866. 29 
 
 pany, including however some very respectable 
 names. The Ticket of Leave Man was revived and 
 Irving played the Lancashire lad Bob Brierly. 
 After this we find little trace of Henry Irving's 
 proceedings till he returned to London and began 
 that career of steady progress which has brought 
 him to such eminence. He probably went on prac- 
 tising his art in minor parts at various country 
 theatres. He is mentioned as playing at Liverpool 
 in June. 1866 — Ironbrace in Used Up, to Charles 
 Mathews' Sir Charles Coldstream, and he took a 
 benefit in Robert Macaire. 
 
 The lesson — the moral — of the early years 
 of Henry Irving's public life is simple and easy to 
 read. He has from the first had that infinite 
 capacity for taking pains which, if it does not 
 actually constitute genius — and we are far from 
 aereeincr with the great man who said it did — is 
 certainly an indispensable concomitant. He has 
 never shirked work, and we cannot but marvel at 
 the indomitable ambition and determination which 
 when he did not succeed in London in 1859, 
 carried him through seven years more of drudg- 
 ery in the provinces. 
 
 For provincial acting is drudgery ; under the 
 old-fashioned starring system it was desperately 
 hard work. Every fortnight, or oftener, a fresh
 
 30 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 play had to be got up, or, even more frequently, 
 some variation in the stage arrangements or busi- 
 ness of an old one had to be learnt ; this involved 
 constant rehearsals ; constant refreshing of the 
 memory and extreme flexibility of habit. It was 
 admirable practice but very exhausting — how 
 exhausting, none but those who have some knowl- 
 edge of the actor's art can fully understand. The 
 touring system, which is now so much more corh- 
 nion — a system by which a leading actor takes 
 his whole company with him — has in some meas- 
 ure altered this, but not we trust "reformed it 
 altogether." for it seems doubtful whether it will 
 produce such good actors as the permanent staff- 
 system. On that old plan a second-rate actor 
 now and again got a chance of making his mark 
 when there was no star in the ascendant, and one 
 thing he was almost always sure of: variety of 
 experience. It is only in a vast metropolis like 
 New York or London that there is such a supply 
 of play-goers, practically unlimited, as can keep 
 one stock piece on the boards of a theatre for a 
 run of several weeks or even months. A nar- 
 rower circle of audience must be tempted by 
 more variety. It is to this that an actor like 
 Irving, who was to all intents and purposes an 
 actor of general utility for ten years, owes the
 
 APPRENTICESHIP AS AN ACTOR. 3 1 
 
 extraordinary variety of experience which he can 
 now bring to bear on his great parts. It is evi- 
 dent at a glance that no one small part could give 
 an actor the stage practice which would enable 
 him to follow it up at once with Hamlet, Richard 
 III., or Richelieu. A villain in a melodrama — a 
 lover in a comedy — a character part, however 
 marked, affords experience in one groove only for 
 the time being. If an actor is many sided by 
 nature, he wilLplay each well in turn — and better 
 each time ; and by such a process he will learn to 
 use his means of expression with appropriate 
 variety — his tones of voice, that is to say, his 
 facial expression, his gesture, and action. Then 
 his mind will develop eclecticism, his imagination 
 grow more fertile, his sympathies expand, and his 
 taste become more fastidious with exercise ; his 
 genius will assert itself as the governing spirit of 
 the materials thus collected and the means thus 
 mastered. The man — if he is a born actor — will 
 find that he can act. 
 
 There are, alas, two alternatives to this hapjby 
 consummation : He may not after all be a born 
 actor or, even if he be, he may never learn to act. 
 We could make a melancholy list of failures in 
 both these kinds. The catalogue of the first class 
 is a short one, but it is a glorious one. It must.
 
 32 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 we like to believe, be headed by Shakespeare, and 
 include Burbage, Betterton, Garrick, and Edmund 
 Kean. 
 
 Now, at the end of his long probation, Henry 
 Irving hoped to add his name to this list. 
 
 Has he succeeded ? Yes, we think he has. 
 We think he is the actor born, we know he has 
 learnt his art. That he is without a flaw or a de- 
 fect no one could pretend to assert, but he has 
 imagination, sympathy, and taste; even after thir- 
 teen years of McistcrscJiaft we may trust to these 
 great qualities to judge and mitigate the defects of 
 which, we may be sure, he is as well aware as his 
 critics. 
 
 When he was still quite young he showed the 
 stuff that was in him, not the talent merely but 
 the philosophical ambition and tenacity of pur- 
 pose. There is a story told of the late highly- 
 respected actor Samuel H. Phelps which seems to 
 prove that he thought Henry Irving fully justified 
 in his choice of a profession. While he was still 
 a lad in a merchant's office he went to see Mr. 
 Phelps, then at Sadler's Wells theatre, and ex- 
 plained his ambition. " Sir, don't go on the stage," 
 said the elder man, " it is an ill-requited profes- 
 sion." His advice however was not to be listened 
 to. " In that case," said Phelps, " come here, and
 
 APPRENTICESHIP AS AN ACTOR. 33 
 
 I'll give you two pounds (ten dollars) a week to 
 begin with." The young fellow, however, thought 
 he should get better practice in the provinces, — 
 and perhaps he was right. 
 
 Dion Boucicault too, a man of wide experience 
 of men and of actors, discerned at a somewhat 
 later period the fine material of which young 
 Irving was made. On the occasion of some semi- 
 private tlieatricals of which Mr. Boucicault had 
 the management, he took steps to secure Irving's 
 services in London Assurance, in some part supe- 
 rior to any he was at that time playing in public, 
 and thus introduced him to a select and judicious 
 circle of connoisseurs. Such a lift, however tran- 
 sient in its immediate bearings, leaves its mark on 
 a man's career. Mr. Irving has had noble and in- 
 fluential friends and he may perhaps have owed 
 them to his personal demeanor on this occasion as 
 well as to his dramatic talent.
 
 34 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 » 
 
 IRVING IN LONDON TILL 1 878. 
 
 Thus for ten years had Henry Irving been 
 practising and rehearsing, as it were, for the Lon- 
 don stage before he fairly set his foot on the 
 boards of the great city. 
 
 AUhough, as we have said, focal criticism is 
 neither appreciative nor trustworthy, it is quite 
 clear that the young actor's career had not been 
 one of constant disappointment. He had grad- 
 ually conquered the sympathies of audiences 
 when he had failed to captivate them, and en- 
 thralled many whom he had failed to enchant. 
 He had, no doubt, made many delicate experi- 
 ments on their sensibilities, and had tested every 
 side of that masterful individuality which is now 
 an instrument in his hands on which he can play 
 with the subtle devilry with which Paganini is 
 said to have used his violin — sometimes insisting 
 on an unresolved discord with such emphasis and 
 tenacity that the closing harmony is almost
 
 irving's naturalism. 35 
 
 swamped in our ears, sometimes rushing to the 
 very verge of the gulf, a deep one for all that it is 
 but a step across, between the sublime and the 
 ridiculous. 
 
 The real art of the actor consists, no doubt, in 
 the power of absolutely separating the ego, the 
 subjective /, from the objective / — the personal 
 physique in which he has to find all his means of 
 expression. Henry Irving appears from the first 
 to have understood instinctively the limit line, 
 beyond which this divorce of the physical from 
 the metaphysical man cannot safely go — for that 
 there is a limit all the greatest actors seem to have 
 felt — indeed, most of those faults of trick and 
 manner which have laid him open to just criticism 
 may be referred to that Naturalism which inevita- 
 bly throws the artist back on his oivn nature. 
 This may arise partly from the reluctance of the 
 man to forego his identity and so lose his personal 
 influence over his audience; partly, perhaps, from 
 an unconscious, instinctive craving for their sym- 
 pathy Avith himself, inside and beneath the part he 
 acts. It is nevertheless true that for very high 
 class acting, especially in unattractive parts, total 
 self abnegation is sometimes indispensable.* But 
 
 * We have seen Mr. Anson, for instance, play Goodman Scum, 
 in Clancarty, in a way which made any impulse of sympathy with the 
 
 3*
 
 36 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 we may be sure that, in the first instance, Mr. 
 Irving ching to his identity, not merely from 
 instinct but from deliberate choice ; and though, 
 now, his warmest admirers would be glad some- 
 times that it should sink a little further into the 
 background, its originality, power, and charm are 
 beyond denial. 
 
 Having thus patiently and deliberately culti- 
 vated his art — and his nature — Henry Irving 
 first took his place as a London actor at the St. 
 James Theatre, October 6th, 1866, as Doricourt 
 in the Belle s Stratagem, and "Mr. Henry Irving's 
 performance gave the promise of his being a 
 valuable accession to Miss Herbert's company." 
 " He was the fine gentleman in Doricourt ; but 
 he was more, for his mad scenes were truthfully 
 conceived and most subtly executed." (Athe- 
 naeum). The Times, in criticising the performance 
 says : " this v/ork is essentially a play of one char- 
 acter," Letitia Hardy, to wit, only speaking of 
 Doricourt as " heavy company, till he feigns mad- 
 ness in the last act, and the mock insanity repre- 
 sented by Mr. Irving is the cause of considerable 
 mirth." 
 
 actor impossible ; and we frankly say that as acting it was admirable. 
 The fault in art was the author's — to us it is a fault in art to put a 
 purely repulsive object into any picture or drama.
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE — 1866. 37 
 
 Mr. Irving seems to have thought better of 
 Mrs. Cowley's comedy than the Times critic, 
 though it is true that Miss Terry now fully divides 
 the honors with him in it. Its revival in April, 
 1 88 1, was a wonderful sirccess, partly in conse- 
 quence, and partly in spite of the limitation of the 
 interest to the fate and fortunes of Letitia Hardy. 
 In consequence of it, because the sparkling her- 
 oine is played by Miss Terry; in spite of it, 
 because Mr. Irving gives value and importance to 
 the part of Doricourt. Of this revival the Satur- 
 day Review says : " it is not too much to call it 
 brilliant. The wit, the humor, and the courtliness 
 of Mr. Irving's Doricourt were already known to 
 many play-goers. The fun and grace of Miss 
 Ellen Terry's Letitia Hardy approach as near as 
 possible to perfection. The assumption of the 
 hoiden seems to us to be admirable alike in con- 
 ception and execution, and the piece is mounted 
 with excellent taste and discretion." 
 
 The Belle's Stratagem was followed in No- 
 vember by Dion Boucicault's Hunted Down (for 
 the first time in London), and Henry Irving 
 played the part of Rawdon Scudamore. This role, 
 the always unpopular one of the villain of the 
 piece, was far less easy to "score in" than that of 
 Doricourt, but we read that "the cool scoundrel
 
 38 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 was made quite a picture by the new actor Mr. 
 Henry Irving, whose quiet yet forcible manner, 
 easy gestures, and expressive features give interest 
 to a character by no means attractive." And 
 again "Rawdon Scudamore, a deliberate designing 
 villain, serves to display the talent of Mr. Henry 
 Irving whose ability in depicting the most malig- 
 nant feelings merely by dint of facial expression 
 is very remarkable." (Times). 
 
 The Saturday Rcvieiv, in speaking of the 
 play, mentions " two very promising performers 
 entirely new to the London stage — Mr. Irving, 
 who gives a very forcible and finished impersona- 
 tion of the malignant husband, and Miss Le 
 Thiere." 
 
 In 1867, TJic Road to Ruin was revived at the 
 same theatre, and Irving played Harry Dornton, 
 the leading part. "He is as yet but little known 
 to the London public, and it may be remarked 
 that though he has not the gallant and graceful 
 bearing of our old light comedians, he acted, 
 especially in the drunken scenes, with intelligence, 
 spirit, and feeling." (Observer). "Mr. Henry Ir- 
 ving's Harry Dornton is a more than promising 
 performance by an actor who has only been known 
 to the London public within the last few months. 
 His first appearance is excellently conceived, and
 
 VARIOUS PARTS — I 867. , 39 
 
 his latter scenes are marked by a most accurate 
 delineation of that sort of inebriety which neither 
 brutalizes nor stupefies. Still, against the sub- 
 stantial good qualities of Mr. Irving is to be set 
 off a certain ungainliness of manner." On Satur- 
 day, March the 2nd, 1867, A Rapid Thaw, by T. 
 W. Robertson, was produced. " It can only be 
 regarded as a mistake," says the Times. Mr. 
 Irving played in it, but though it was strongly 
 cast and admirably put on the stage it had no 
 legs. It was taken off and other plays were re- 
 vived for short runs till Holy-week. On Satur- 
 day, March 23rd, Mr. Irving played Joseph 
 Surface in TJie School for Scandal — we should 
 like to see this again — and on March 30th, 
 Robert Macaire. 
 
 His next part was Count Falcon, in a new play 
 called Ida Ha, by George Roberts. It was pro- 
 duced on Monday, April 22nd (Easter Monday), 
 and held its place, interrupted only by benefit 
 nights, till the end of the season, May 30th. 
 "Mr. Irving made a portrait of Count Falcon, 
 acting steadily, looking hard, ruthless, and a 
 thorough Italian." (Observer). 
 
 The St. James reopened in October, with Only 
 a Clod ; Mr. J. S. Clarke, announced as a " new 
 comedian," made his first appearance a few days
 
 40 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 after in the IVidoio Hunt, still one of his favorite 
 pieces, and Mr. Irving acted in both these plays. 
 Then he had a part in A Tale of P}-ocida, and 
 appeared for the last time at the St. James' 
 Theatre, on Saturday, December 2 1st, 1867, in 
 The ScJwol of Reform. 
 
 On the 1st of January, 1868, Mr. Irving was 
 acting at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre, London, 
 in the usual " acting edition" of The Taming of 
 the Shrezv, known as Katharine and Petritchio. 
 It was in this play that he first acted with Miss 
 Ellen Terry. At this theatre, too, he again met 
 Mr. Toole and played with him in Dearer than 
 Life. Irving took the "ungrateful part" of Bob 
 Gassitt, "a highly-finished piece of acting." "Bob 
 Gassitt, the vulgar conceited scamp, who has lured 
 the thoughtless youth into extravagance, and who 
 affects to be Charlie's firm friend while he is 
 endeavoring to supplant him in the affections of 
 his cousin, is rendered exceedingly effective by 
 Mr. H. Irving who seems to have found his 
 special vocation as an artistic perpetrator of all 
 sorts of stage villany." (Daily Telegraph, Janu- 
 ary nth, 1868). The play had a good run till 
 April nth, when Oliver Tzuist was produced, 
 arranged for the stage by John Oxenford, Mr. 
 Irving playing the ruffian. Bill Sykes. " Mr.
 
 A LANCASHIRE LASS — I 868. 4I 
 
 Irving's representation of Bill Sykes is for intensity 
 of expression and almost terrible earnestness, 
 something remarkable." (Era). He took a bene- 
 fit on the 1st of June, playing in The School for 
 Scandal, supported by Messrs. A. Wigan and 
 Toole ; and we then lose sight of him for a few 
 weeks when we must hope he was taking a 
 holiday. 
 
 On July 25th, he played Robert Redburn in 
 Byron's drama of domestic interest, A Lanca- 
 shire Lass. " Of the gentlemanly villain of whom 
 he is the type, Mr. Irving has made himself the 
 sole proper representative." (^ 7>V;i'r.yj. "Redburn 
 is a modern cigar-smoking scamp, and Mr. Henry 
 Irving, who seems to have studied stage-villany 
 as one of the fine arts in a manner that would 
 have dehghted de Quincey, renders the thorough- 
 paced scoundrel in a highly effective style." 
 (Daily Telegraph). 
 
 The interest and cast of A Lancashire Lass 
 were strong enough to keep the play on the 
 boards till the end of the year, and in 1869, after 
 a short holiday. Dearer tha?i Life was taken up 
 again — "an excellent little drama" as the Satur- 
 day Review called it — in which Irving played as 
 before. On February 13th, Not Guilty, a new 
 play by Watts Phillips, was produced. To Mr.
 
 42 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Irving was assigned the part of Robert Arnold, 
 an incompris and innocent locksmith who is con- 
 victed for a theft he has not committed, and at 
 last triumphantly vindicated. " Mr. Irving, who 
 is here directed into more virtuous paths than 
 those he has lately trodden on the stage, seems 
 scarcely yet reconciled to the utterance of noble 
 sentiments ; but his impersonation of Robert Ar- 
 nold is marked by all his wonted earnestness and 
 discrimination." It ran for about six weeks, with 
 the Spitalfields Weaver, a small play in which 
 Mr. Irving also had a part. 
 
 On the occasion of his benefit, March 19th, 
 1869, Mr. Irving came before the London public 
 in a new role. He had acted a few days pre- 
 viously in She Stoops to Conquer for Mr. Lionel 
 Blough, and the company now returned the com- 
 pliment by supporting him in Plot and Passion, 
 in which he acted de Neuville. When the Queen's 
 closed, Mr. Blough, Mr. J. L. Toole, and Mr. Irving 
 took Dearer than Life, bodily so to speak, to the 
 Standard Theatre, an unfashionable house in a 
 poor part of London where the audiences make 
 up by enthusiasm for the absence of refinement. 
 But they are sympathetic to play to, especially in 
 pieces which appeal to their moral sense of do- 
 mestic virtue, and Oliver Twist, Dot, (an adapta-
 
 DRURY LANE THEATRE — I 869. 43 
 
 tion of The Cricket on tJie Heaj'th, by C. Dickens) — 
 in which Irving played Peerybingle, and small 
 pieces were acted there throughout the spring 
 season of 1869, till early in May. 
 
 In June the company went to the Surrey, 
 another large and strictly ungenteel theatre, where 
 Mr. Irving played Robert Macaire for his benefit, 
 July 6th. From July 12th, Mr. Irving played for 
 three weeks at the Haymarket, opened by Miss 
 Amy Sedgwick for a sort of supplementary season 
 to produce All for Money, written by Miss Le 
 Thiere. " Mr. Henry Irving," says the Daily 
 Telegraph, " as the grasping dissolute captain 
 Fitzhubert, gives us a graphic picture of a spe- 
 cious selfish rogue of advanced years, who 
 throughout his life has made the world his prey." 
 
 In August Mr. Irving again " created " a part 
 (played it, that is to say, for the first time) in a 
 new play by Boucicault : Compton Kew in For- 
 mosa at Drury Lane ; once more " a plausible vil- 
 lain," and he remained at this famous old house till 
 the pantomime was put on for the Christmas holi- 
 days when he rejoined his friend and ally Mr. 
 Toole at the Gaiety, to play Mr. Chevenix, a part 
 in Uncle Dick' s Darling, "with great care." The 
 play was well cast and had a good run till April, 
 1870.
 
 44 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Alfred Skimmington was his next part, in For 
 Love or Money, a comedy with which Messrs. Mon- 
 tague, James, and Thorne opened the new Vaude- 
 ville Theatre in London, April i6th, 1870. This 
 play had " no substantial character," it was how- 
 ever kept on the stage till the production of The 
 Two Roses, a really capital comedy by Albery, 
 which was at once made famous by the acting of 
 Messrs. Irving, James, and Honey. " The preten- 
 tious humbug Digby Grant is portrayed by Mr. 
 H. Irving with all the touches of a finished artist 
 whose long practice has enabled him to give a 
 vivid coloring to portraitures of this description. 
 This latest embodiment is singularly perfect." 
 (Daily Telegraph). " The selfish arrogance, the 
 stuck-up hauteur, the transparent hypocrisy, and 
 the utter heartlessness of the character, made all 
 the more odious from the assumption of sanctity, 
 were depicted by Mr. Irving with exquisite truth- 
 fulness of detail, and admirable brilliancy and 
 vigor of effect. His make-up for the part was ex- 
 cellent, and his whole performance spirited, char- 
 acteristic, and life-like." (Morning Post). 
 
 "The actor's first great part in London," 
 wrote Mr. Frederick Wedmore some years later, 
 " fitted Mr. Irving exactly, for while it displayed 
 his merits it concealed his defects. The needy
 
 DIGBY GRANT — 187O. 45 
 
 proud man was forever posing, forever playing a 
 part; and not till Mr. Irving had passed from this 
 part into some other, did we perceive what his 
 own difficulty was in being quite natural." This 
 is to a great extent true, nevertheless : 
 
 " Digby Grant as presented by Mr. Irving de- 
 serves to rank as a creation, and as a picture of 
 self-satisfied, vaporous meanness; the performance 
 is admirable." ( Athcnacicui). 
 
 " Mr. Irving's Digby Grant is a figure oi genre, 
 profoundly understood and perfectly executed, and 
 * * his extraordinarily powerful study of a ty- 
 pical blackguard of society makes other studies 
 seem weaker than they really are. * * The 
 Digby Grant of the Tzuo Roses has the finish, the 
 expressiveness, and the clearness of a Meisson- 
 nier. The satire of the play is masculine, and so 
 is its emotion, though that does not happen to ac- 
 cord with the passing fashion for the languid, and 
 the momentary preference for the indifferent and 
 limp." (Academy, on the revival, December, 
 1881). 
 
 This play, which was most successful and has 
 been since revived more than once, kept the stage 
 with the original cast till the middle of May, 1871, 
 when the management changed hands, Mr. Mon- 
 tague seceding, and Mr. Irving played there no
 
 46 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 more ; he has occasionally acted the part since for 
 benefits, and revived it for awhile in December, 
 1881. 
 
 The top wave however of Mr. Irving's tide of 
 fortune may be said to have been that which 
 landed him in the Lyceum Theatre in 1871. The 
 late Mr. H. L. Bateman (formerly of this city) was 
 the manager. "To Mr. Bateman," says the Sattir- 
 day Review, "belongs the credit of reviving a 
 genuine taste for Shakespeare in the London pub- 
 lic;" but it remarks, and very justly, that he was 
 primarily guilty of introducing into England a 
 system of puffing advertisement which had al- 
 ready for some time been customary, — and not 
 let us add, altogether creditable to our taste, — 
 on this side of the Atlantic, whence Mr. Bateman 
 imported it. Mr. Bateman certainly did from the 
 earliest days of his management, show this ten- 
 dency towards puffing advertisement ; but as his 
 prosperity was better assured on the one hand, — 
 and as, on the other, he was far out-crowed by 
 others on his own midden, — this weakness became 
 less conspicuous and objectionable, and at any rate 
 he always had the credit of keeping his self-lauda- 
 tory promises. 
 
 The first part that Irving played on a stage 
 which has since been the scene of many sue-
 
 LANDRY BARBEAU — 1870. 47 
 
 cesses, — more or less qualified, no doubt, by ad- 
 verse criticism, — of some genuine triumphs and of 
 very few failures, in the pecuniary sense at any 
 rate, was that of Landry in a play called Fan- 
 chctte, adapted from a German piece, Die Grille, 
 which Charlotte Birch, had originally arranged 
 for the stage from George Sand's delightful little 
 novel La petite Fadettc. In this piece Miss Isabel 
 Bateman, the manager's third daughter, made a 
 very successful debut, and Mr. Irving " gave value 
 to Landry Barbeau, her lover, by his earnest and 
 impressive manner." 
 
 This was on the iith of September. On the 
 22d of October, an arrangement for the stage of 
 scenes from Pickwick, by Mr. Albery, gave 
 Mr. Irving an opening in the farcical part of 
 Jingle. " It was really sad to see such actors as 
 Mr. Irving, Mr. Addison, and Mr. Belmore, wast- 
 ing themselves on such a play," though " in make- 
 up Mr. Irving was Jingle to the life." (Daily Tele- 
 graph). " The full excellence of his acting was 
 more than usually distinguishable. His grotesque 
 shabby-genteel appearance, — the dignified seren- 
 ity with which he pursued his ulterior aims, — his 
 imperturbable impudence and unblushing confi- 
 dence thoroughly deserved the applause he re- 
 ceived. The little touch of sentiment in which
 
 48 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Jingle acknowledges the merits of Mr. Pickwick 
 deserves special mention." In spite of just strict- 
 ures on the total absence of constructive skill in 
 the piece itself of course it had a good run. For 
 one thing, it was the fashion in those days to rank 
 Dickens as next only to Shakespeare ; a strong cast 
 kept it going till The Bells was produced. Then, 
 when Pickwick was revived as an afterpiece, Jingle 
 was played by Mr. Gaston Murray till it was re- 
 placed by Raising the Wind, with Mr. Irving as 
 Jeremy Diddler. 
 
 Mr. Bateman, of course, saw that he had 
 taken a prize, and it was in behalf of Mr. 
 Irving's acting and his own management that 
 he first set the example of printing as an adver- 
 tisement extracts from the criticisms in the news- 
 papers. It was a masterly stroke in its way. 
 When the visitor in need of amusement glances 
 down the list of theatres to find an answer to the 
 question : " Where shall we go ?" a long array of 
 laudatory paragraphs, with all adverse criticism 
 carefully eliminated, catches his eye and cannot 
 fail to prove attractive. 
 
 It was in The Bells — a tragical melodrama as 
 we may call it — that Henry Irving achieved his 
 first great and original success. In this he may 
 really be said to have created a part in a far wider
 
 MATIIIAS — 1871. 49 
 
 and higher sense than is commonly understood by 
 that misused word. 
 
 Le jfuif Polonais, a very powerful and con- 
 centrated story by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian 
 was dramatized into a no less powerful, though 
 certainly "one-part" play by Mr. Leopold Lewis. 
 Whether Mr. Lewis had taken a singularly judi- 
 cious and sympathetic measure of the actor and 
 wrote for him ; or whether Mr. Irving understood 
 what a magnificent opening the play would afford 
 his particular vein of "eccentricity" the present 
 writer knows not — nor is it important. The 
 actor and the part are literally " hand and glove," 
 and, in its way, Mr. Irving's performance of Ma- 
 thias in The Bells — so the play was named — is a 
 masterpiece of art. It had a run of many weeks 
 and fairly took the town by storm. There can be 
 no better proof of the amazing force and poetry 
 of Mr. Irving's conception of the character of 
 Mathias than the way in which his audiences lent 
 him the aid of their own imagination in investing 
 it with terrors which it is not too much to say 
 that no play could dramatically display, and no 
 actor represent with any artistic fitness. People 
 went to see The Bells primed with horror, wound 
 up to an acute pitch of sympathetic prepossession, 
 and from first to last there was not — there is not, 
 
 4
 
 so 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 for it is as fine a piece of art as ever it was — a 
 flaw, not a discord to cheat the spectators out of 
 the fulfilment of their expectation. Every antici- 
 pation was fulfilled, and they went home saying 
 the play had "made their flesh creep," "that they 
 should dream of it for nights after." In truth the 
 horrors of the story are quite inadequate to 
 account for such a state of feeling, and in Mr. 
 Irving's performance some of the most admirable 
 moments are subtly blended with a most delicate 
 vein of humor, particularly in the scene with 
 Christian in the second act where he defies his 
 friend's penetration with a cool half-whimsical 
 
 audacity. 
 
 The Bells is therefore one of the signal in- 
 stances of what is Mr. Irving's most characteristic 
 quality : his personal influence over his audience. 
 The whole of the play from first to last is in his 
 hands, the love interest being of secondary im- 
 portance, and his power and finish are equally 
 amazing. In the tete-a-tete with Christian espe- 
 cially not a touch is wanting. 
 
 The Saturday Review, one of the best con- 
 ducted of high-class London journals, had for 
 many years steadily ignored Mr. Irving's efforts, 
 or alluded to them with the patronizing praise 
 that might be given to a beginner. When the
 
 MATHIAS — 1871. 51 
 
 Two Roses was produced it spoke well of the play 
 and said it was "well acted," but made no special 
 mention of Digby Grant. However, when he 
 played Mathias there was no doubt of his having 
 made his mark; it was no longer possible to over- 
 look him. However much his method might 
 displease the adherents of the classical school, Mr. 
 Irving had become a fact to be dealt with on his 
 own merits. " According to the Manager's ad- 
 vertisement," said The Saturday Review, "there 
 was a 'startling unanimity,' among the critics in 
 praising the performance. We fully admit that 
 the praise was deserved ; but the really startling 
 thing would have been to find a human creature, 
 critical or other, who desired to see the perform- 
 ance a second time. Happily there are many 
 rich communities in which English actors may ply 
 their calling, and if it is admitted that everybody 
 ought to see any play once the fortune of all 
 concerned in it is tolerably well secured. Thus 
 much we can certainly say on behalf both of Mr. 
 Irving and Miss Bateman (in Leah and Medea); 
 but in neither case should we expect that increase 
 of appetite should grow by indulgence. As the 
 Frenchman said of fox-hunting 'I have been.'" 
 The Saturday Review is now a convert, and like 
 all converts, a zealot. " A strangely fascinating 
 
 4*
 
 52 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 piece of acting is this impersonation throughout," 
 is what it says of Mathias in 1880; "Increased art 
 and experience have tempered impulse with 
 strongly-marked improvement" since 1872. 
 
 It was in April, 1872, that the farce of Raising 
 the Wind was revived for Mr. Irving to take the 
 part of Jeremy Diddler. The flippant, self-suffi- 
 cient, shifty adventurer was amusingly repre- 
 sented ; but such a role is in no respect calculated 
 to do the actor justice, and to tell the truth his 
 farcical importance was somewhat over done ; as 
 an acute and experienced critic observed: "he 
 played it no better than any one else would have 
 done" — in truth the final cause of a Nasmyth 
 hammer is not to crack nuts, for all that it cracks 
 them so neatly. However it served to display his 
 agile versatility : " Mr. Irving's triumph is great. 
 At one moment as Mathias he keeps his audience 
 spellbound by the terrible picture he presents to 
 them of a conscience-stricken murderer, and the 
 next excites uproarious laughter by his ingenious 
 devices as the gay and gifted Jeremy." (AtJie- 
 naenm, April, 1872). 
 
 After playing Mathias one hundred and fifty 
 nights Mr. Irving took a benefit on the hundred and 
 fifty-first. May 14, 1872, and left town for a time. 
 
 His next great part was that of Charles I.
 
 CHARLES I. — 1872. 53 
 
 in a play, so named, by W. G. Wills. The 
 pathos of the situations was very strong, espe- 
 cially in the last act ; and this, added to Mr. Ir- 
 ving's elegant and dignified aspect, served to 
 plunge the audience into a luxury of woe, which 
 tempted crowded houses to see it, both then, and 
 later when it was revived. His make-up was so 
 like the portraits of the King that it might 
 have been one of them endowed with life and 
 speech. " Through Charles I. runs a melancholy 
 beauty which finds expression in many musical 
 passages, and which intensifies as the play pro- 
 ceeds into absolute pain. During the last act there 
 was hardly a dry eye in the house. Women sob- 
 bed openly, and even men showed an emotion 
 which comported ill with the habitual serenity of 
 the stalls. Much of this uncomfortable gratifica- 
 tion was due to the acting of Mr. Irving, the hero 
 of the play. * * * Nothing more regal can 
 be desired than his bearing, nothing more har- 
 monious than the effect of every look and gesture, 
 nothing more touching than his delivery of the 
 poetic beauties that abound. From the outward 
 appearance of the King down to each little detail 
 of posture everything is elaborated with con- 
 scientious care, and the result is a vivid creation of 
 art." (Daily News).
 
 54 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 " Etude dramatique" the words used by MM. 
 Erckmann-Chatrian to qualify Le Juif Polonais, 
 might with advantage have been employed to 
 characterize this work. " Dramatically speaking 
 the play is above the average work of the kind 
 that we have met with for some years. The char- 
 acter of Oliver Cromwell, it is true, would have 
 proved a better foil to Charles had he seemed a 
 worthier foe. In the scenes where they are 
 brought face to face, admiration is claimed for the 
 King and contempt for his rival. * * The situ- 
 ation at the close of the third act, where Crom- 
 well's soldiers are faced by the gentlemen from the 
 Temple and Lincoln's Inn, has genuine dramatic 
 fire. In general the interpretation of the part by 
 Mr. Irving was excellent. Seldom, indeed, of late 
 has a piece of equally fine acting been seen on the 
 London stage. It is satisfactory to find an actor 
 who can wear a court suit and look a gentleman. — 
 Mr. Irving did more ; he realized fully the con- 
 ception of his author." 
 
 The Saturday Review dealt very severely with 
 Charles I. as a historical play. " It seems," says 
 the critic, '* to have occurred to some artist in 
 theatrical costume that Mr. Irving might be made 
 up into a tolerable imitation of the portraits of 
 Charles I. * * It is to be feared that the his-
 
 CHARLES I. — 1872. 55 
 
 torian of Cromwell (the author of Sartar Resartiis) 
 might pronounce the drama of Charles I. a mere 
 affair of clothes. * * Nevertheless author 
 and actor are entitled to the credit of having 
 achieved a very considerable success by means 
 which may be fairly called legitimate." And when 
 the play was revived a few years later the same 
 journal goes on to say that: "Mr. Irving performs 
 a remarkable feat in giving interest to the puerile 
 and monstrous scene between Charles and Crom- 
 well, — a scene in which the two most prominent 
 figures of the time are perhaps more grossly misrep- 
 resented than they have ever been before, even in 
 history." Mr. Irving's acting alone could have 
 carried this piece through, the poetry, grace, and 
 dignity with which he performed the part of the 
 King " suggests," says the Daily Telegraph, " a 
 mind and character which may be false to history 
 but M^hich are nevertheless very interesting and 
 beautiful !" " In asking whether the play is good or 
 bad we presume the public means is it worth go- 
 ing to see, and this may be immediately answered 
 in the affirmative though the effect on the audi- 
 ence is, no doubt, depressing." Miss Isabel Bate- 
 man was careful, graceful, sweet, pathetic, — but 
 not equal to the part which Miss Terry now fills 
 with so much womanly pathos and queenly dignity.
 
 56 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 This play kept the stage for nearly seven 
 months and was succeeded in April, 1873, by 
 another work by W. G. Wills: Eiigc^ie Aram. 
 The part for Mr. Irving was one of those in which 
 almost the whole responsibility of the play rested 
 on him ; and here again it was in the passages 
 where passion carried him above and beyond the 
 real scene around him that he rose to the greatest 
 height. In Mathias he had shown us terror, in 
 Eugene Aram he is a prey to despair, — despair at 
 bay in the scene where he defies his persecutor 
 Houseman; despair, broken-hearted when he dies 
 after confessing his crime to his betrothed. " It 
 is not easy to see what can have commended the 
 story of Eugene Aram to Mr. Wills for dramatic 
 purposes. It is, of course possible to elevate to 
 importance almost any materials or subject what- 
 ever. But Eugene Aram's crime was common- 
 place and repellent, and the only process by which 
 it can be invested with force, dignity, or interest 
 is, in fact, that which Mr. Wills has adopted, a 
 complete departure from the facts." "Mr. Irving 
 has conceived the character and situation of Aram 
 with elaborate care and great power." [Daily Tele- 
 graph). " Commencing quietly in the first act, 
 Mr. Irving rises to a marvellous exhibition of 
 power in the second, and ends in the third by the
 
 EUGENE ARAM — 1873.' 57 
 
 wildest exaggeration and extravagance. What 
 service he might render to the stage is shown by 
 his splendid defiance of his enemy in the second 
 act and his adjuration at the commencement of 
 the third. If in these things Mr. Irving goes 
 beyond most living English actors, it is lamentable 
 to see that he subsequently falls into excesses 
 wholly unpardonable. He is insensible to the 
 virtue of repose. Sensible that his power of facial 
 play is remarkable he makes constant demands 
 upon it, and his gesticulation passes far beyond 
 the bounds of the permissible in art. This is the 
 more deplorable as Mr. Irving's power and talent 
 are both genuine. * * But the applause of 
 ignorant crowds is terribly misleading. * * * 
 The reception of the play was triumphant, and in 
 spite of the almost sepulchral character of the 
 interest, and in spite of — or perhaps by reason 
 of — the faults of the actor, it will probably enjoy 
 an extended popularity." We believe that riper 
 judgment has much modified the errors of excess 
 here pointed out. Mr. Irving has always liked 
 the part, perhaps for the sake of the tender feeling 
 and complex motive of the first act quite as 
 much as for the painful display of the third. 
 Some time before he acted the part we find that 
 he had recited Hood's ballad at a reading for a
 
 58 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 benefit, and we cannot but fancy that he must 
 have had some share in suggesting those altera- 
 tions in the story which lend it plot and pathos. 
 
 In the autumn of 1873 Irving once more took 
 up a historical part. Lytton Bulwer's Richelieu 
 was revived at the Lyceum and, as in Charles I., 
 Irving engaged the interest of the public from the 
 moment he appeared upon the stage, by the 
 wonderful success of his whole "make-up" as the 
 Cardinal ; he had carefully studied the best por- 
 traits and his resemblance to the most famous of 
 them (that by Philippe Champagne in the National 
 Gallery, London) must strike any one who has 
 seen it. In Richelieu some of the actor's favorite 
 tricks and mannerisms are provokingly conspicu- 
 ous, — for instance the rumpling of Francois' hair 
 in the third act, where the stage direction is ''Pat- 
 ting his locks,'' and the sudden and almost cynical 
 descent to colloquial commonplace from really 
 tragic heights, — but the conception of the part is 
 nevertheless very grand ; dignified and domineer- 
 ing, Irving in his robe of scarlet and lace looks 
 taller than usual, as if he had grown to his emi- 
 nence. 
 
 " Richelieu is an Argus; 
 
 " One of his hundred eyes will light upon us 
 
 " And then, — good-bye to life." 
 
 1
 
 RICHELIEU — 1873. 59 
 
 Irving himself had spoken of him thus seven- 
 teen years before on the boards of an obscure 
 provincial theatre (oddly enough also named the 
 Lyceum) in the modest part of Orleans, and had, 
 we may be sure, keenly watched, and no less keenly 
 criticised, the performance of his chief, Mr. Davis 
 of Sunderland, as the Cardinal. He had seen 
 other and greater actors play it since, and as 
 many men have acted it well it was perhaps a pe- 
 culiar temptation to one whose confidence in his 
 personality is so strong as Mr. Irving's to try how 
 far a considerable infusion of it might tell in his 
 presentment of the Cardinal. The natural conse- 
 quence was that, though full of grand and im- 
 pressive passages, it was undoubtedly marred by 
 the bathos of which we have spoken. The Satur- 
 day Review spoke of it with excellent judgment, 
 but it was once more " down" on Mr. Bateman. 
 " The clever actor who has undertaken the part of 
 Richelieu is supported by a manager skilled in the 
 art of advertising. * * It is rather hard that 
 we cannot bestow applause which is certainly well 
 deserved, without being described as endorsing a 
 profound impression. * * Perhaps we cannot 
 better gauge the decline of the national theatre 
 than by observing that Mr. Bateman, with his 
 'archaeological columns' has succeeded Mr.
 
 6o 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Macready as the manager who produces Richelieu. 
 The play was brought out in 1839 at Covent Gar- 
 den, with Macready as the Cardinal. * * We 
 have no fault to find with Mr. Irving's perform- 
 ance of Richelieu, nor do we think it calls for ex- 
 travagant commendation. The curse of Rome, 
 one of the finest passages in the play, has been 
 selected for special laudation by Mr. Irving's 
 critics, and all we have to say upon it is that Mr. 
 Irving will do well not to strive too much for this 
 kind of commendation. * * There is a strain- 
 ing after effect that is sometimes rather painful." 
 
 " Genuine interest," says Mr. Frederick Wed- 
 more, a conscientious and judicious critic, " has 
 been taken and will continue to be taken in this 
 performance of Mr. Irving's at the Lyceum — a 
 theatre to which people do not go so much with 
 the questions : ' Is the play good ? What of the 
 mise-en-scener — for that is almost known before- 
 hand — as with the enquiry how Mr. Irving has 
 again acquitted himself * * * i fear it is the 
 tendency of Mr. Henry Irving to be a little spoilt 
 by the indiscriminate applause of the groundlings, 
 who are better judges whether a passion is violent 
 than whether it is natural and appropriate. He 
 shows no tendency to be spoilt in the vulgar way. 
 With him nothing is slurred, nothing is careless ;
 
 RICHELIEU — 1873. 61 
 
 he is as completely absorbed in his part and as 
 completely devoted to it on the hundredth night of 
 the performance as on the first. * * But he is per- 
 haps inclined to pitch his performance in too high 
 a key, or to break into a high key when there is no 
 reason for it, — in a word he shows a tendency to 
 exaggeration. No one should object to the hor- 
 ror of The Bells; the circumstances require it. 
 No one has anything but praise for the pathos of 
 Charles the First and the subtle rascality of The 
 Tzvo Roses; but in Eugene Aram he dies nine 
 deaths, — his final release cannot possibly be a 
 greater comfort to him than it is to ourselves, — 
 and in Richelieu the outbreak of his rage is ex- 
 cessive" (this was written ten years since, when 
 Mr. Irving's judgment was "greener" than it is 
 now). " But fortunately there are two circum- 
 stances which do mark him out as a unique and 
 illustrious artist. First, there are many moments 
 when the high passion does not go wrong; and 
 secondly, there are the longer and, of course 
 more numerous, periods when, vehemence and ex- 
 citement being out of the question, there is room 
 for the uninterrupted display of sagacious judg- 
 ment and serious thoughtful art. The touches of 
 quiet art are very numerous and very admirable. 
 A hundred touches go to make up this picture of
 
 62 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Richelieu, and I ask the spectator to notice par- 
 ticularly one subtle moment of gesture and ex- 
 pression when the Cardinal, having forgiven Mau- 
 prat and granted him the hand of Julie, cannot 
 listen to his thanks. * * * Personal pleasure, 
 personal good- will ! — there is no room for these 
 in Richelieu's life, when he is busied with a thou- 
 sand affairs. It is by touches of character like this 
 that an actor earns that title to greatness which, 
 with all his failings, cannot, I think, be justly de- 
 nied to Mr. Irving." 
 
 "The fact is," says The Athenaeum, "that, 
 rightly or wrongly the public accepts Mr. Henry 
 Irving as the coming actor, and attends with min- 
 gled curiosity and interest each successive manifes- 
 tation of his powers. Very few performances have 
 sufficed to elevate him to the position he now oc- 
 cupies; Mathias, Charles I., and Eugene Aram, are 
 the only characters in which an opportunity of 
 testing his powers has been afforded. Each im- 
 personation however has been the subject of ex- 
 cited comment and criticism ; and the spectacle, 
 unusual in England, has been afforded of an artist 
 going through a series of debuts. When Mr. Ir- 
 ving appeared as Richelieu excitement was at the 
 height. * * Mr. Irving has much to qualify 
 him for bearing off the prizes of the stage, and his
 
 RICHELIEU — 1873. 63 
 
 right to a position in the front rank of such actors 
 as we have, cannot be contested. His figure is 
 commanding ; his face is expressive ; his hands 
 alone have more intelHgence and power of expres- 
 sion than most of the so-called tragedians can im- 
 part to their entire face and figure ; and his voice 
 is deep and powerful, and capable of being 
 charged with passion and pathos. Against these 
 eminent advantages we have to rank as distinctly 
 developed defects, a mannerism which augments 
 with each successive impersonation and a tendency 
 to rant. Few actors, however, are wholly free 
 from mannerism ; the propensity to rant is a more 
 serious drawback. * * His Richelieu is splen- 
 didly picturesque * * but in the scenes which 
 call for the display of passion Mr. Irving supplies 
 its place with noise. Here is the blot. Passion is 
 not loud. If we strike out from Mr. Irving's imper- 
 sonation two scenes in which this violence reaches 
 the climax, the whole extorts admiration." "The 
 facts," says Mr. Wedmore, "that Mr. Irving in 
 quiet moments is sometimes very artificial and that 
 he carries into each part his own mannerism, — 
 the-jueasured step, the drawl, and in moments of 
 excitement and passion, the high scream, which is 
 terribly womanish, — should not blind us to the 
 truth that all these faults are not the body of his
 
 64 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 acting, but the morbid growth upon it. * * * 
 It is the suggestiveness and thoughtfulness of his 
 acting that make its real value and most lasting 
 charm." 
 
 In July, 1875, when the piece was again put 
 upon the stage, the same judicious critic tells us 
 that " Mr. Irving's Richelieu is changed and bet- 
 tered. We will not say he never raves, but he raves 
 less. He brings the piece into accordance with his 
 physical means, and it gains in dignity. * * It 
 is a picture of many sides of Richelieu's life in his 
 old age, which Lord Lytton outlines and Mr. 
 Irving fills up; and it is the actor's admirable 
 work that interests you entirely in the charac- 
 ter." 
 
 We have given the critiques of the time on 
 Irving's performance of Richelieu at somewhat 
 greater length than may seem necessary, since the 
 part of the Cardinal is not on the list of those he 
 will act here. But it was the first part he played 
 in which he provoked comparison with the great 
 men gone before. Mathias, Charles I., and Eugene 
 Aram, had been written for him and fitted to his 
 powers with more or less success. His critics, as 
 they watched him play Richelieu, thought of 
 Macready, the first representative, Charles Kean, 
 Phelps, and Vezin; and though, in some respects.
 
 PHILIP — 1874. 65 
 
 theirs may seem to have been negative merits 
 where Irving's were brilhant mistakes, they may 
 very reasonably have felt, — as we some of us still 
 feel when we listen to Wagner, — a lurking prefer- 
 ence for the trustworthy methods of an earlier 
 phase of art. 
 
 The long extracts here given seem to us not 
 only remarkably fair but judicious. The nine 
 years of Mr. Irving's life since, have remedied cer- 
 tain of his defects and corrected some of his faults; 
 his voice has gained in weight and so he has 
 ceased to rant, and while he has lost a little in 
 youth he has gained something in seriousness and 
 style. The touch of character spoken of above 
 has its parallel in a thousand others in every part he 
 plays, his face, his hands, and his figure are as plas- 
 tic as ever ; but then the man himself, his qualities 
 and his defects are also the same and the critiques 
 written then are, with due abatement, equally 
 valid now, alike for good and for evil. 
 
 On Saturday, February 7, 1874, a romantic 
 drama was produced by Mr. Bateman, written by 
 Mr. Hamilton Aide, and called "Philip," in which 
 Mr. Irving played the title part. The original 
 story is to be found in Balzac's Scenes de la Vie 
 privee, and is entitled La Grande Breteche. Al- 
 though the plot, strictly speaking, is brought to 
 
 5
 
 66 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 naught and the play ends without bloodshed, it 
 is still but a dismal legend to put upon the stage. 
 It was however very ingeniously dealt with. Philip 
 himself, the hero is a model of stage virtue, but 
 for being inordinately jealous; his half-brother 
 Juan is the incarnation of vice. Philip, to protect 
 the girl they both love, from his brother's dishon- 
 orable suit, fires at Juan who falls shot, and, as 
 Philip believes, mortally wounded. After eight 
 years spent in gloomy remorse, Philip once more 
 meets his early love and- marries her; but in the 
 third act Juan reappears, and renews his addresses 
 to Marie under such critical circumstances that he 
 has to take refuge in an oratory when Philip 
 comes into his wife's room, and Philip, suspecting 
 his wife of having concealed a lover, sends for a 
 mason to brick up the entrance to it. However, 
 before it is done he changes his mind, and follows 
 the stranger pistols in hand. His indignation at 
 finding him there is mitigated by his relief at dis- 
 covering that his brother is still alive. He forgives 
 him (what for ?) but very properly dismisses him 
 from the premises. An uncomfortable doubt how- 
 ever lingers in the mind of the audience as to the 
 genuineness of this display of magnanimity on 
 Philip's part, since they see Juan packed off 
 through a window where they happen to know
 
 PHILIP — 1874. 6^ 
 
 that a man has been posted Avith general orders 
 to shoot any one he sees leaving the house. 
 
 Mr. Irving seems to have done well, nay won- 
 ders, with the inconsequent and incoherent char- 
 acter of Philip. " It stands forth," says the Daily 
 TclegrapJi, " among this accomplished actor's 
 finest creations." And the Athenaeum speaks of his 
 interpretation as good throughout. The Academy 
 makes this performance the occasion for a very 
 discriminating comparison between the methods of 
 Mr. Phelps — then playing Sir Anthony Absolute 
 in The Rivals — a champion, as we may say, of 
 the older school, and of Mr. Irving, the brilliant 
 pioneer of a new one. 
 
 " Intellectual subtlety united with sobriety and 
 a measured employment of the physical means, — 
 that is perhaps the characteristic of the old school 
 of acting of which Mr. Phelps has now for many 
 years been the accredited representative. Intellec- 
 tual subtlety, not seldom overshadowed by new 
 and unaccustomed violence and passion, — that is 
 perhaps the characteristic of the strenuous school 
 of which Mr. Henry Irving is easily the chief * * 
 Mr. Phelps in TJie Rivals, Mr. Irving in Philip, — 
 here is food for much curious consideration of the 
 stage. Mr. Phelps, as is his wont, appears in a 
 character which he has chiefly to interpret, and 
 
 s *
 
 68 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Mr. Irving in a character he has chiefly to 
 create. * * His inventive faculty is both great 
 and delicate. His acting is always worthy of care- 
 ful discussion, for if it is often disappointing it is 
 oftener in the highest degree suggestive." The 
 whole critique is too long to quote, especially as 
 it bears upon a play which, so far as we know, 
 Mr. Irving has never revived on any occasion — 
 thereby showing his wisdom — but the little essay 
 is full of judicious and appreciative criticism. 
 
 At the end of May PJiilip was taken off and 
 Charles I. taken up again for three weeks. Of 
 this revival we read that it was in many respects 
 an improvement on the first production, the minor 
 parts being better filled. Mr. Wedmore writes : 
 "A wonderful subtlety of expression and gesture 
 accompanies the recital of the ballad in Charles I.; 
 he repeats it to his children who like the story of 
 it, and shows you very plainly that it is not at afl 
 in his thoughts. It is in quieter moments like 
 these that we see most plainly that it is an artist 
 who is at work ; a man with whom voice and face 
 and gesture are but instruments, and that the 
 mind itself — the subtle intention — can alone give 
 them their worth. Throughout this play Mr. Ir- 
 ving does many things that are worth remem- 
 bering."
 
 CHARLES I. — REVIVED — I 874. 69 
 
 He certainly attains a purityof style which we do 
 not remember to have felt so strongly in any other 
 part we happen to have seen him in. He infuses 
 a touch of the "divine right" into his scorn and 
 anger, a calm marital dignity into his parting with 
 the Queen which are very delicate touches of art ; 
 the romantic side of the drama is fully felt, but 
 the reserve, etiquette and circumstance is duly 
 indicated too. This complex suggestion is the 
 great merit of the performance ; and for the admi- 
 rable intelligence and self-control it reveals we are 
 disposed to rank it very high among Mr. Irving's 
 efforts. It does not give an opening for that 
 flame of passion — whether of love or fury — that 
 he can flash forth at need, but as a sympathetic 
 presentment of a man who is also a King it seems 
 to us admirably conceived. 
 
 The last week of the Lyceum spring season 
 was chiefly devoted to benefits. For his man- 
 ager's benefit Mr. Irving played Mathias, and 
 detached portions of PJiilip and of CJiarles I. at 
 matinees, with Raising the Wind in the evening. 
 At the end of the fashionable season at the Ly- 
 ceum Mr. Irving and others of the company gave 
 a series of performances at the Standard Theatre, 
 a house at the east end of London and so com- 
 pletely of the ken of the West End that an actor
 
 70 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 may " star" there with as much success as in the 
 provincial towns. He then went to Liverpool, 
 Manchester, Bristol, etc., with Miss Isabel Bateman, 
 and the Lyceum reopened with The Bells in Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 Rarely in the history of the stage have expec- 
 tation and curiosity been so much excited by any 
 promised performance as they were by the an- 
 nouncement that Mr. Irving was preparing to act 
 Hamlet at the Lyceum. The last Hamlet of any 
 mark on the English stage had been Charles 
 Fechter ; the last of any fame Charles Kean. 
 But Kean had retired from the London stage in 
 1859 (he died, 1868) while Irving was still work- 
 ing hard in the provinces, and it is possible that 
 the young actor had never seen Kean whose 
 Hamlet was characterized by the dry rasping 
 utterance which must have thrown cold water on 
 almost any passion and chilled the eagerest sym- 
 pathy, in spite of the most intelligent reading and 
 painstaking presentment. (Louis XI. was Charles 
 Kean's greatest achievement). Mr. Irving tells us 
 himself that "he never saw Macready in the part." 
 i^Nineteerith Century, February 1876). Fechter's 
 Hamlet had found warm admirers ; it was clever 
 and singular, but it is no disrespect to that de- 
 lightful actor of sentimental and romantic parts to
 
 HAMLET — I 874-7 5- 71 
 
 say that its abstractions were outside if not beyond 
 his powers. Two American actors had also 
 played Hamlet in England, Mr. Wallack and Mr. 
 G. V. Brooke, but under unfavorable circum- 
 stances — indifferently supported perhaps — at any 
 rate they achieved no particular success. 
 
 The play, or to be accurate, the part, of 
 Hamlet must have some subtle affinities with the 
 English character. The morbid conscientious- 
 ness, the possession by an idea, a mania for 
 redressing a definite wrong are, of course, charac- 
 teristic of a lofty and acutely sensitive nature, of 
 whatever race ; but there is something essentially 
 Teutonic in the questioning spirit which compli- 
 cates every moral decision in Hamlet's mind, and 
 which "reasons of the judgment to come" in the 
 very crisis of volition when "to be or not to be" 
 must seal the fate of souls as well as bodies. The 
 English public is never tired of seeing Hamlet, 
 and with all its reverence for Shakespeare listens 
 with more than patience to every new reading 
 which may suggest some possible new answer to 
 the problems of life and mind which Hamlet, like 
 the rest of us, could only see and never solve. 
 The part of Hamlet is an abstract of one side of 
 human nature for all ages, and the London public 
 wanted — perhaps with but a vague consciousness
 
 72 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 of what it wanted — such a Man of his Time as 
 Irving undoubtedly is, to assimilate its essence and 
 then reproduce it as the interpretation of the 
 spirit of their own age. "Mr. Irving's admirers 
 felt that his Hamlet would be the true one," says 
 the Daily Telegraph; and they were so far right 
 that for them, for us, it is. "Some, who have 
 seen other Hamlets are aghast: 'Mr. Irving is 
 missing his points and neglecting his opportu- 
 nities : Betterton's face turned white when he saw 
 the ghost, Garrick thrilled the house as he fol- 
 lowed him ' — but by the end of the first act all 
 are spellbound. The second act finishes with the 
 same result. Mr. Irving's intention is not to make 
 to points but to give a consistent reading of a 
 Hamlet who thinks jilojjd. The Hamlet he pre- 
 sents to us may be rejected by some * * but 
 many will not only accept his interpretation, but will 
 feel that they are brought in close connection with 
 the Hamlet Shakespeare knew." "The originality 
 of the conception is at first startling, especially to 
 that army of old play-goers whose ideas have been 
 marshalled into order and arranged by the actors 
 of their youth." (Times). 
 
 The play-goers of the younger generation 
 could not fail by this time to discern in Irving an 
 actor, and a thinker, who might, if ever man could,
 
 HAMLET— I 874-75- 71 
 
 make those " sweet bells" ring in harmony, though 
 never in unison, which to Ophelia's narrower in- 
 telligence only "jangled out of tune." This, in 
 fact, was what Henry Irving did — other actors 
 have played Hamlet before him and others will 
 play it again ; but in each age, as the times 
 change, the actor who understands, as Irving has 
 done, the pure and adaptable human essence of 
 Hamlet's nature will not merely succeed but will 
 be one of the high-priest's of his *ige, speaking 
 both for and to the people. This sounds rhapsodi- 
 cal and it is meant as the highest praise ; at the 
 same time it does not exclude criticism as to the 
 execution of what is so nobly and broadly con- 
 ceived. The details of Mr. Irving's acting are al- 
 ways strangely and subtly aggravating. He 
 reminds us, even in Hamlet, of only too many 
 modern artists who, painters though they be, can- 
 not paint. The eccentricities of his pronuncia- 
 tioji-put his blank verse out of tune, and pauses 
 where they cannot commend themselves to our 
 common sense dislocate his meaning into some- 
 thing only too like nonsense. 
 
 The Athenaenm,\n speakingofthis performance, 
 puts forward the rather paradoxical opinion that in 
 spite of the length of the part, " the longest in the 
 acted drama," there is not one " more difficult and
 
 74 - HENRY IRVING. 
 
 thankless," and "that so long as every scholar 
 throughout civilization retains an individual con- 
 ception of Hamlet, the actor who undertakes to 
 present it will always encounter exceptional risks." 
 " Of all Shakespeare's great plays Hamlet belongs 
 most distinctly to the closet." But we venture to 
 think that this is not only paradoxical but the con- 
 verse of the truth. It is because it is the most 
 read — as it very probably is — that the public are 
 always ready to listen to a new reading ; and it is 
 not too much to say that it is actually because the 
 other great plays are less read in private, because 
 the individual play-goer has not so completely 
 envisage \\\Q other great parts, that the curiosity 
 and interest they excite is less eager. The 
 Athenaeum critic however expresses himself satis- 
 fied with Mr. Irving's reading. " Itjs interesting 
 and intellectual in an eminent degree. The char- 
 acter has been studied with care and intelligence 
 and the conception throughout is elevated and 
 sustained. As no event has created more profound 
 interest, no audience at any previous representa- 
 tion in recent times has been more capable and 
 more critical. Slowly and reluctantly it came un- 
 der the spell of the conception, and at the close 
 .of the third act was riveted in a way such as we 
 read of in records of past performances, but
 
 HAMLET — 1874-75. 75 
 
 scarcely — so far as English acting is concerned — 
 can recall. The performance is noteworthy as 
 marking a stage in the history of theatrical art, 
 since it shows the final abandonment^of old tradi- 
 tions of acting, and of conventions of declama- 
 tion^ The performance is revolutionary, — but 
 he makes no change for the sake of change : his 
 new business is occasionally unimportant ; it is 
 generally, however, significant, even when we 
 think it is wrong." 
 
 Mr. Frederick Wedmore deals with the per- 
 formance with his usual — nay unfailing, perception 
 and appreciation of its beauties and its faults ; but 
 his essays are too long to reproduce at full length 
 and too complete to cut with any justice. The 
 reader who wants a critic's sympathy in judging 
 of this great achievement will find them in the 
 Academy, literary journal. (London, November 7 
 and 14, and December 12, 1874). "The whole 
 performance," he ends, " may be summarized by 
 saying that Mr. Irving's interpretation, notwith- 
 standing a few errors, is vigorous, graceful, thought- 
 ful, and sagacious beyond contemporary experi- 
 ence. It is a picture touched not rarely by 
 the light of undeniable genius." 
 
 The Spectator too praised it with much discre- 
 tion. " Mr. Irving can still be stilted and not un-
 
 ^6 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 frequently hard ; but the gain of these few years 
 (from 1 87 1 to 1874) has been so marvellous that 
 we do not know what more he may not gain ; he 
 may easily reach — for he is yet young, even the 
 highest point attainable in his art. In a few of the 
 most difficult scenes his Hamlet is all but perfect. 
 He has the power in him to make it so in all." 
 
 The Sat2irday Review (December 19, 1874,) 
 compared Messrs. Creswick and Irving in Hamlet, 
 " not to Mr. Creswick's disadvantage. So much 
 nonsense, to speak plainly, has been written about 
 Mr. Irving that people will hear with surprise that 
 there is another actor, who, in his great part, is 
 not so very far behind him." It admits, however, 
 what is unfortunately only too true, that Mr. Cres- 
 wick looked old for the part, and added that " his 
 Hamlet was more stagey while Mr. Irving shows 
 more independent study." "It is satisfactory," 
 the same paper remarks, " to observe the care and 
 completeness with which the performance has been 
 undertaken. We do not in the least undervalue 
 the conscientious study which Mr. Irving has 
 given to this part ; but we may venture to remark 
 that it is not exactly what Shakespeare thought 
 most desirable in an actor. Emotional talent is a 
 more precious gift than any result that can be 
 worked out by study. We by no means say that
 
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 'j® 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 /^ 
 
 fef>% 
 
 
 f 
 
 'a-.'A 
 
 
 MISS EI.I.KN TKRRY AS "OPHELIA.
 
 MISS terry's OPHELIA. TJ 
 
 Mr. Irving does not possess this faculty of feeling 
 the part he undertakes, but we observe that his 
 admirers dwell emphatically on other faculties 
 ■which do not alone make a first-rate actor. Never- 
 theless he has attained a considerable success and 
 there can be no question that his Hamlet is well 
 worth seeing." 
 
 We recommend the real play-goer — the play- 
 goer whose enjoyment is at once sympathetic and 
 critical — to see Hamlet twice. Once, that is to 
 say, to see Hamlet, and once to see Ophelia. We, 
 who have seen many Hamlets have suffered under 
 many Ophelias — the stagey Ophelia, the whining 
 Ophelia, the feebly raving Ophelia. But Miss 
 Terry is the Ophelia beloved of Hamlet the 
 prince, the ideal maiden of Hamlet the philoso- 
 pher. It is a consummate piece of acting in more 
 ways than one, and not least in this : that she 
 makes Ophelia of due importance and the heroine 
 of the love interest — which we never saw any 
 other Ophelia do — and yet pitches her individual- 
 ity in a gentle key which gives consistency to the 
 character as a whole, and duly subordinates it to 
 the main current of the tragedy. Besides this she 
 has beauty and grace ; though, to tell the truth, 
 her appearance more exactly befits Portia and 
 Desdemona.
 
 78 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 At the close of this season on the 3d of July, 
 Mr. Irving gave a reading at the Crystal Palace, 
 selecting scenes from Hamlet and OtJiello as well 
 as some short pieces ; he had previously given a 
 similar entertainment in aid of a London hospital, 
 with a rather more varied selection, and an audi- 
 ence, of the class usually too genteel to applaud, 
 were fairly roused to enthusiasm and laughter. 
 
 On March 22d, 1875, Mr. Bateman died sud- 
 denly ; this was regarded as an almost irreparable 
 loss by all play-goers who understood the re- 
 sponsibilities and difficulties of a manager's func- 
 tions. " Who is to succeed him ?" asked The 
 Saturday Review suddenly awakened to a sense 
 of his managerial powers. " The prosperity and 
 popularity of Mr. Bateman and his family in Eng- 
 land, are a gratifying set-off to the many successes 
 of English actors in America." We confess that 
 as we remember Booth, Charlotte Cushman, and 
 Joseph Jefferson, not to mention Herman Vezin, 
 who has made England his home, we should have 
 thought the score fairly balanced already. His 
 widow now took up the reins of government ; 
 Mr. Irving was faithful to the theatre where he 
 had won his greatest triumphs, and Miss Kate 
 Bateman (Mrs. Crowe) came to reinforce the com- 
 pany.
 
 MACBETH — 1875. 79 
 
 It was with her, at the end of September that Mr. 
 Irving first played Macbeth. Very few play-goers 
 looked forward at all hopefully to his presentment 
 of the ambitious Thane and, on the whole, their 
 doubts and fears were fully justified. Some of his 
 critics, it is true, maintained that the actual per- 
 formance of certain passages was admirable : 
 " The final combat and death struggle have pro- 
 bably never been equalled for picturesque force 
 and intensity." (Daily News). However, opin- 
 ions differed as to his success. The Athenaeum 
 pronounced that though there was " intention in 
 Mr. Irving's conception it was wrong" and Mr. 
 Sheridan Knowles, in a careful and well-considered 
 study of Irving's Macbeth, comes to very much 
 the same conclusion and the analysis he gives of 
 the play fully warrants him in his verdict. 
 
 "That Mr. Irving's representation of the am- 
 bitious Thane has many strong points we have al- 
 ready acknowledged ; and if we cannot call them 
 redeeming points, it is because he utterly fails to 
 realize that marvellous balance of character and 
 situation which Shakespeare has so finely elabo- 
 rated."* 
 
 The tragedy was carefully prepared and mag- 
 
 * Sheridan Knowles' conception and Mr. Irving's performance of 
 Macbeth. London, Effingham Wilson, 1876.
 
 8o HENRY IRVING. 
 
 nificently put upon the stage. " We do not 
 suppose the oldest play-goer in the house can re- 
 member the play of Macbeth to have begun more 
 admiirably. The weird effects, almost too daring 
 for representation, were on this occasion crowned 
 with signal success. The marvellous mystery — 
 which has been known to provoke laughter — here 
 inspired awe. The three sisters are indeed black 
 and midnight hags, and as they patter round their 
 cauldron, revealed by an occasional lightning flash, 
 the very gloom and horror which Shakespeare 
 wished to throw over his tragedy are felt by the 
 audience. * * But before the second scene is over 
 they cannot quite grasp Mr. Irving's idea of Mac- 
 beth. * * In facial expression he is even better 
 than ever ; once more his face is an index to his 
 mind, his attitudes eloquent with expression and 
 meaning. * * Why then should there be any 
 hesitation in accepting Mr. Irving's Macbeth, and 
 why does a feeling of disappointment arise ? The 
 fact is that we are conscious of what the actor 
 means, and are confident of the care devoted to 
 the study, but we see with alarm that he is un- 
 able thoroughly to carry out his ideas. To make 
 matters worse his manner is occasionally so 
 dreamy and his voice so lowered that the text can- 
 not be heard." The Daily Telegraph was very
 
 OTHELLO — 1 876. 8 1 
 
 severe on the whole performance. " The thought 
 and culture devoted to the part of Macbeth" — it 
 ended — " by the young student actor (Mr. Irving 
 was then seven and thirty, but he had been only 
 nine years on the London stage) deserved no doubt 
 a happier fate ; but no great actor has ever suc- 
 ceeded well in all the Shakespearian characters he 
 has assumed. Many indeed, like Mr. Irving have 
 not been gifted with the physical strength or ro- 
 bust vigor necessary for the trying demands of a 
 tragedy like Macbeth." 
 
 Hamlet was revived for a short time during 
 the winter and meanwhile Mr. Irving was nursing 
 a still loftier ambition. 
 
 Though Macbeth was no doubt to a certain 
 extent a failure in art, and a success only in so 
 far as curiosity filled the house, it held the stage 
 nearly six months, and then Mr. Irving nothing 
 daunted flew at the highest mark that an English, 
 or any other, actor can ever hope to reach. In 
 February, 1876, he attempted to play Othello. 
 It is hardly disrespectful to say so markedly at- 
 tempted ; Edmund Kean is said to have played 
 Othello before the time of most living play-goers, 
 and an Italian actor performed it with extraor- 
 dinary power and success not long since in 
 Italian. At the same time it remains doubtful to 
 
 6
 
 82 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 this day whether any analysis of average men, or 
 synthesis arrived at even by the most perfervid 
 spirit, can result in a satisfactory presentment of 
 the Moor — it is perhaps the one part which a 
 ' noble savage' might seize, master, and then hurl 
 at an audience with a success never to be achieved 
 by the student. But we most of us feel, with the 
 Preacher, that " sl living dog is better than a dead 
 lion" and take Edmund Kean on trust as becomes 
 us when our elders speak ; and it is quite certain 
 that we apply to a foreigner far less subtle and 
 searching tests of quality than we do to an actor 
 who speaks our mother tongue. Grace, force, 
 dignity, and facial expression are of course the 
 language of aU mankind; but delicate beauties are 
 undoubtedly lost unless we have a very good 
 knowledge of the actor's tongue, and subtle faults 
 also escape our notice. Some of the most annoy- 
 ino- defects in Mr. Irving's elocution would no 
 doubt remain concealed if we heard them in 
 Italian, so it is not impossible that Signer Salvini's 
 talent, great as it is, has been overrated a little. 
 On the other hand it is impossible to be satisfied 
 with Irving's Othello. "There can be but one 
 true Othello," said the Times (February 17th, 
 1876), and a jerky, fidgety, undignified Othello 
 is not he. Othello's jealous suspicion is a slow,
 
 OTHELLO — 1876. 83 
 
 boa-constrictor-like demon, irresistible, unrelent- 
 ing to the death. The passion to which it tor- 
 tures him is the death-struggle of its victim. The 
 whole scheme of the story is not so much the 
 history of the man — though we do get to know 
 a good deal of that too — as the evolution of that 
 passion. The synthesis is not complex, it is 
 compounded of few elements but their combina- 
 tion results in flame, explosion, and ruin. Irving's 
 conception of it was not sufficiently grandiose. A 
 defect which often mars his art in this was curi- 
 ously conspicuous ; he did not seem to have con- 
 sidered duly the bearings of his own individuality as 
 it might affect the other persons in the drama. The 
 first thing we ask of the actor who plays Othello 
 is that it should seem possible that Desdemona 
 should love him. Of whatever shade of black- 
 ness he chooses to paint himself he must stand a 
 "lord of creation," self-respecting, masterful, and 
 heroic ; otherwise the weakest Desdemona could 
 not love him for " the perils he had known." The 
 least sJiade of fractiousness or smallness in him 
 mars our sympathy with her. On the other hand 
 we must not feel as if mere easy-going good-nature 
 had made him fall a prey, in the first instance, to 
 lago's villany ; it is a really sublime modesty which 
 is the soil in which the ancient sows the seed.
 
 84 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 That all this is difficult or even impossible to ren- 
 der may be granted ; the alternative is to grasp 
 only the broader effects, the high lights of the pict- 
 ure and never to fritter them away with spots and 
 patches of color. Irving's lago — which he did 
 not play till some years later — was not altogether 
 free from blemish of the same kind ; the whole 
 mass of the character, however, naturally suffered 
 less and his conception of it was admirably ren- 
 dered and perfectly satisfactory in its relations to 
 Othello. Not quite so as regards Desdemona, with 
 whom we can hardly believe that lago would have 
 ventured on any freedom of manner though he 
 mocks at her creed of virtue. To this however we 
 shall return in due course. 
 
 The critique on Othello in The Saturday Re- 
 view when Irving first acted it was unusually full 
 and conscientious. We find it saying in fact much 
 what we have said here : " His awkward gait and 
 unpleasant voice detract from the impressiveness of 
 his first entrance and when the Duke says : ' I 
 think this tale would win my daughter too,' we 
 can only say that we do not think so. * * He has 
 vicious habits which have been confirmed by suc- 
 cess and popularity. * * Mr. Irving has always 
 shown an intelligent disregard for stage traditions, 
 but unhappily he has created for himself — or
 
 KING PHILIP OF SPAIN — I 8/6. 85 
 
 Others have created for him — a standard of inten- 
 sity which is ahnost equally pernicious." 
 
 " Mr. Irving's Othello fails to impress on the 
 audience the ingrained nobility of the character, 
 and it almost necessarily follows that he is unsuc- 
 cessful in the effort to carry their sympathies with 
 him. Before the curtain rose upon the bed-cham- 
 ber scene it had been felt that no sufficient foun- 
 dation had been laid for sympathy with the tragic 
 fate of Desdemona (played then by Miss Isabel 
 Bateman) or the overwhelming misery of the 
 Moor." (F. Wedmore in The Academy). 
 
 In April, 1876, the Lyceum became the scene 
 of an interesting experiment on the part of Alfred 
 Tennyson (poet Laureate of England), who for the 
 first time wrote a drama for stage purposes on the 
 history of "Queen Mary." Miss Bateman (Mrs. 
 Crowe), filled the title part, and Mr. Irving played 
 that of King Philip of Spain. The play was only 
 moderately praised but Irving undoubtedly added 
 a leaf to his crown. It was a highly-finished piece 
 of "character acting." The Spanish King's rigid 
 haughtiness, suspicious alertness, and cold concen- 
 tration of selfish purpose were broadly and clearly 
 rendered. Here again he "made up" from well- 
 known pictures, but we do not remember to have 
 seen a photograph of him in the part. In dealing
 
 86 ' HENRY IRVING. 
 
 with the play of Queen Mary of course the task 
 of the critics was to dissect the piece quite as 
 much as to discuss the actors. " Mr. Irving and 
 Miss Bateman," says The Saturday Review, "did 
 all that was possible for the principal parts, as the 
 manager did for the play generally. * * Respect 
 is due even to misdirected art. The manager has 
 undertaken to supply the want of a national thea- 
 tre in producing this play as a sort of tribute to 
 literary eminence, and failure properly evokes 
 sympathy. But failure beyond a doubt there was." 
 Mr. Irving could only make the best of an ungra- 
 cious and ungrateful part, and a plain, sickly, un- 
 lovable woman cannot make a satisfactory heroine 
 though sl'te be a queen. " The sorrows of wretched 
 wives, too, pall upon the public, and it is certainly 
 not a frivolous amusement to sit through such a 
 play as Queen Mary." 
 
 In June, 1876, Mr. Irving played Joseph Sur- 
 face at Drury Lane for Mr. Buckstone's benefit 
 and within a fortnight took his own, after playing 
 Doricourt for that of Miss Isabel Bateman. Lady 
 Martin (the well-known actress Helen Faucit) who 
 has not unfrequently emerged from private life to 
 perform some such act of graciousness or charity, 
 played for Mr. Irving's benefit, " and both he and 
 the manager," says The Saturday Review, " de-
 
 RICHARD III. — 1877. 87 
 
 serve the compliment." The part she selected was 
 that of the blind princess in King Rene's Daugh- 
 ter, her husband's version of the Swedish play 
 which afterwards furnished Mr. Wills with the 
 motif for lo/anthe, in which Miss Ellen Terry 
 achieved so much success. Mr. Irving acted 
 Count Tristan. 
 
 The Lyceum company, with Mr. Irving at 
 their head, then made a tour through the provinces 
 and did not reappear in London till January, 
 1877, when the Lyceum reopened with Richard 
 III. Mr. Irving's impersonation of the crook- 
 backed Duke of Gloucester is, first and last, one 
 of the best things he has ever done. In spite of a 
 well-affected deformity he wears an air of chival- 
 rous grace which well becomes a descendant of 
 the Plantagenets. " Brilliant, energetic, impas- 
 sioned," says one critic, and he was all these in the 
 scene with the Lady Anne whom he wooes with a 
 courtly fascination underneath which the bully is 
 perceptibly lurking. 
 
 In February (3d), 1877, a very thoughtful ar- 
 ticle in The Saturday Review did full justice to Mr. 
 Irving's claims to consideration as an artist, and 
 spoke with sound judgment, whether we accept 
 the verdict it pronounced or no. " On the whole," 
 the writer ends, " Mr. Irving's is a performance
 
 88 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 full of fine and fiery qualities;" and five weeks 
 later he adds : " In several minor matters the ac- 
 tor has improved. The patience with which he 
 keeps the meaning of the character fully in view 
 of the audience, by means chiefly of by-play, 
 without ever thrusting it in their faces, is admira- 
 ble * * but there is a singular want of dignity 
 and kingliness in his acting with the messengers 
 who have just brought him in bad news." 
 
 The part of Richard III. is a strongly-marked 
 example of Mr. Irving's best and worst points and 
 most provoking peculiarities ; but as it will not 
 be played here it is unnecessary to enlarge upon it 
 at any length. Though there is much to criticise at 
 the end of the performance, the first act, as has al- 
 ready been said is full of beauties. " It may 
 reasonably be questioned," says Mr. Caine, " if 
 the contemporary stage have ever realized any- 
 thing so absolutely finished in its tender, pathetic, 
 sportive, and earnest aspects as the interview of 
 Mr. Irving's Richard with Queen Anne — ending 
 with its startling climax of withering satire."* 
 
 Mr Caine's pamphlet though very ill-written 
 is full of thoughtful observation. He is "of opin- 
 ion that Mr. Irving's delineations of the characters 
 
 * Richard III. and Macbeth ; the spirit of romantic play. J. H. 
 Caine, London, Simpkin & Marshall, 1877.
 
 LESURQUES AND DUBOSC — I 877. 89 
 
 of Macbeth and Richard III., although histrioni- 
 cally harmonious in the highest degree, are wide 
 of the truth in some leading particulars which the 
 exercise of a certain guiding principle might have 
 discovered." 
 
 It is interesting to find that the following year 
 Mr. Irving, at a meeting to which he was invited, 
 defended the views on which he had acted Mac- 
 beth at the Lyceum. 
 
 It was in May, 1 877, that Mr. Irving came out in 
 "The Lyons Mail," playing the two parts of Lesur- 
 ques and Dubosc. This has always been regarded 
 rather as a tour de force than as a piece of art 
 and no doubt the mere trick, as a trick, is a clever 
 one and cleverly performed ; but what is far more 
 remarkable is the solidity of the work Mr. Irving 
 has bestowed on what is, after all, a decidedly 
 sensational drama, with striking contrasts and 
 strong situations but with little subtlety of char- 
 acter. Dubosc is a drunken ruffian, Lesurques 
 the mildest of citizens ; the real art of the actor 
 consists more perhaps in keeping such a likeness 
 as may excuse the mistake as to their identity, 
 than in marking so trenchant a difference. But 
 the drama is exciting and worth seeing if only 
 to understand how wide Mr. Irving's intelligence 
 is. Dubosc is, so far as we recollect the only
 
 90 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 coarse and brutal part that Mr. Irving ever as- 
 sumes. 
 
 " To exhibit all the difference between the two 
 characters, and to exhibit it as if not merely a 
 material but a psychological change was effected, 
 is an object well worthy of a performer of Mr. Ir- 
 ving's powers. Nor does his performance fall far 
 short of ideal excellence. The situation where 
 Lesurque /^r^, convinced of his son's guilt, urges 
 him rather to kill himself than mount the scaf- 
 fold — when the son is at one moment on the point 
 of yielding but a nobler impulse induces him to 
 cast the pistol from him — is exceedingly dra- 
 matic — Mr. Irving's fine shades of expression and 
 terrible earnestness being aided in their effect by 
 contrast with the grave inflexibility and sombre 
 dignity of Mr. Meade as the father. The play 
 affords a field for acting of the highest quality." 
 (Academy). 
 
 The Saturday Review, however, did not speak 
 very highly of the performance when it was first 
 put on the stage. " There is nothing in the play 
 that calls for praise of any kind except Mr. Ir- 
 ving's well-meaning, but not altogether happy, 
 attempt to apply his great and peculiar talent to 
 a performance which is hardly worth so much 
 trouble." This was in June, 1877; but it is to
 
 LOUIS XL — 1878. 91 
 
 be presumed that the result to Mr. Irving was 
 worth the trouble, since he has lately revived the 
 play and elaborated his own parts with so much 
 care that the performance is now no longer a tour 
 de force but a phenomenon of character acting. 
 In its first state (as we say of other works of art) 
 it must have been distinctly overdone ; it is evi- 
 dent however that the actor has liked playing 
 it — perhaps the breadth of effect is a relief after 
 the subtleties of Hamlet and Benedick — and he 
 has added finish without losing vigor and con- 
 trast. 
 
 Louis XI. King of France was the next new 
 part that Irving studied ; he played it for the first 
 time on March 9th, 1878. Charles Kean's success 
 in this part was well remembered by most Jiabitiies 
 of the London theatres. It had been the best of 
 his parts, and it is now one of the best of Mr. 
 Irving's. An English provincial paper published 
 a discriminating comparison of the chief points of 
 resemblance and contrast in the performances of 
 Louis XI. by Charles Kean and Henry Irving 
 (quoted at full length in Pascoe s Dramatic List, 
 for 1880). The highly-intelligent writer prefers 
 Irving, excepting in one passage — where the 
 King begs to Nemours for his life. " It must be 
 recorded" he says " that the last act is vastly
 
 92 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 superior to anything that it entered into the mind 
 of Charles Kean to effect." 
 
 The new play of Louis XL was written in 
 blank verse by Mr. Dion Boucicault, for Mr. Irving. 
 "The character of the old King is eminently fitted 
 to his genius. In the play it is, to be sure, but a 
 flimsy piece of workmanship, and it is the actor's 
 faculty of appealing to the imagination through his 
 own imaginative power which renders this achieve- 
 ment distinctly greater than the late Mr. Charles 
 Kean's famous performance * * he did not exer- 
 cise the peculiar fascination which is felt by Mr. 
 Irving's audiences. In expressive play of feature 
 he is unrivalled. In Mr. Kean's hands the part 
 was essentially melodramatic ; as played by Mr. 
 Irving it becomes invested with a terrible sort of 
 idealit}^ and assumes far grander proportions than 
 anything we are accustomed to associate with the 
 name of melodrama." 
 
 At the same time, to gain any adequate idea 
 of what Irving can do, this is by no means the 
 best play to see him in. The ' make-up' is as 
 good as possible, and the restless, mean gestures, 
 the narrow movement and pinched vitality of a 
 suspicious and miserly hypocrite are admirably 
 rendered. But he has no opening for rising to a 
 broader or more impassioned vein; the climax of
 
 VANDERDECKEN — I 878. 93 
 
 emotion is superstitious terror, his utmost expres- 
 sion of gladness is hardly more than a senile 
 chuckle — of anger, a display of impotent fury. 
 Those who can see Mr. Irving in more than one 
 part will do well to see Louis XI. ; those who can 
 see him but once should select Hamlet if their 
 tastes are classical, The Bells or TJie Lyons Mail if 
 they crave after sensation. Another, quite dif- 
 ferent line of character was taken up by Mr. Irving 
 in the summer of the same year, 1878: Vander- 
 decken in a new version of the well-known story 
 of the Flying Dutchman. Of this again, the 
 present writer cannot speak from personal expe- 
 rience. Irving must have looked uncommonly 
 well in the part ; a photograph done of him by 
 Messrs. Vander Weyde of London is certainly the 
 most flattering portrait that we have seen. The 
 piece was not a success however ; perhaps it was 
 not intrinsically strong enough ; and this seems 
 probable when we reflect how monotonous the 
 interest is and how simple a plot has been ex- 
 tended to four acts. In spite of capital scenery 
 and careful mounting Vanderdecken was a failure. 
 The play was feebly constructed and the promi- 
 nence given to the spectral Dutchman was unduly 
 great. What little charm the part derived from 
 Mr. Irving's acting was due to his picturesque
 
 94 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 appearance, and to a certain air of " majesty and 
 command" in which he is able to wrap himself 
 even in the most gloomy scenes and situations. 
 The melodrama had a short life — impossible to 
 call it a merry one — and was soon taken off and 
 replaced by the adaptation from Pickwick called 
 "Jingle." By this time however the London 
 public had learnt that their favorite actor could 
 do something more and better than amuse them. 
 The resume of the part printed on the play- 
 bills shows, however, that even in so light a part 
 Irving took matters seriously and studied the 
 frothy fidgety Jingle as a character — as a man — 
 of far more substance than the original author, 
 Charles Dickens, had endowed him with. 
 
 ALFRED JINGLE, ESQ. 
 
 JINGLE THE STROLLER. 
 JINGLE THE LOVER. 
 JINGLE THE FINANCIER 
 
 JINGLE THE DANDY. 
 JINGLE THE SWINDLER. 
 JINGLE THE PENITENT. 
 
 "The impersonation, however," says Mr. 
 Pascoe, "was not of a kind to merit critical atten- 
 tion, and was possibly undertaken as a relief to 
 Mr. Irving's more arduous duties."
 
 MANAGER OF THE LYCEUM — I 878. 95 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 irvtng's career as a manager. 
 
 From the death of her husband in 1875 till 
 the summer of 1878, Mrs. "Bateman continued to 
 be the responsible manager of the Lyceum Theatre, 
 but the pla}'s performed were put upon the stage 
 under Mr. Irving's immediate direction and super- 
 intendence and no doubt the grave weight of re- 
 sponsibility to others, while it cannot be said to 
 have fettered his enterprise must have been the 
 source of considerable anxiety, though, at the 
 same time, of much valuable experience. When, 
 in September, 1878, Mrs. Bateman relinquished 
 the management she was able, in her farewell ad- 
 dress, to enumerate a goodly list of plays pro- 
 duced b)' her husband and herself during their 
 seven years reign, a catalogue creditable alike to 
 their own taste and their confidence in that of the 
 public. In recording Mrs. Bateman's death in 
 January, 1881, the 77/r«/;r adds a feeling tribute 
 to her memory : " If ever a woman loved the art 
 and worked for it with a man's energy and a high
 
 96 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 purpose it was Mrs. Bateman. The good work 
 she began at the Lyceum she intended to finish at 
 Sadler's Wells, and just as she was beginning to 
 see the promised fruit of all her industry she was 
 cut off, to the unspeakable sorrow of her family * * 
 Mrs. Bateman and her husband rest with us in 
 old England, far away from the ' Maryland, my 
 Maryland !' to which their hearts often turned in 
 their exile." **" They led the van," says the 
 same periodical in 1878, "in revolutionizing the 
 attitude of the thoughtful public towards the 
 stage. * * Under ordinary circumstances it would 
 have been a matter for profound regret that the 
 management during whose time so much valuable 
 work has been achieved should be in any way 
 changed * * but no evil is likely to come of the 
 transfer of the reins of management from the 
 hands of Mrs. Bateman to those of Mr. Irving. Mr. 
 Irving enters upon his task with the most am- 
 bitious motives, and with a past career and a pres- 
 ent position which give the strongest indication 
 of his power to accomplish his elevated purpose. 
 The engagement of Miss Ellen Terry, who fairly 
 heads the list of our emotional actresses, may 
 legitimately be held to mean a great deal. Any 
 work upon which artists of the calibre of Mr. Ir- 
 ving and Miss Terry simultaneously engage is
 
 THE LYCEUM — I 878. 97 
 
 morally sure to be worthy of the utmost attention. 
 If in other particulars the new Lyceum company 
 can be strengthened after this fashion, we are as- 
 suredly on the high-road to the foundation of a 
 school of dramatic art that will afford us both 
 pleasure and pride." 
 
 It was on the 30th of December, 1878, that 
 Mr. Irving first stood before the London public on 
 the Lyceum stage, " monarch of all he surveyed." 
 His play-bill which announced Hamlet, proclaimed 
 him '• sole lessee and manager," and when he ap- 
 peared he was received with unbounded enthu- 
 siasm. The hopes of the public ran high for the 
 future of the drama under his control. In the 
 first place he had strengthened the cast in many 
 ways, and conspicuously by securing the services 
 of Miss Ellen Terry who has ever since been his 
 worthy coadjutor in his work and whose gifts, 
 it may be safely said, have enabled him to put 
 plays on the stage which it would have been im- 
 possible to present with an inferior actress to 
 second him. It is largely due to her talent in the 
 female parts of Portia, Beatrice, and Pauline, that 
 we have seen Irving as Shylock, Benedick, and 
 Claude Melnotte. Miss Bateman (Mrs. Crowe) 
 was too heavy an actress, her sister. Miss Isabel 
 Bateman, too slight and ineffective to fill such 
 
 7
 
 98 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 parts ; and it is easy to imagine that it was witii 
 all the elation of freedom that Mr. Irving met his 
 old friends and supporters, the London public. He 
 addressed them briefly at the end of the evening 
 in a vein of very justifiable satisfaction. " To pro- 
 duce the Hamlet of to-night," he said, " I have 
 worked all my life, and I rejoice to think that my 
 work has not been in vain." In truth he had tri- 
 umphed that evening, for such an Ophelia had 
 certainly not acted with such a Hamlet within the 
 memory of man. " The support she afforded Mr. 
 Irving was of the highest value." Of the younger 
 actors who at that time found parts round Irving's 
 Hamlet several have since risen to higher distinc- 
 tion. Mr. Kyrle Bellew, who played Osric, is a 
 handsome and favorite jcime premier, and Mr. 
 Pinero, who had previously acted with Mr. Irving 
 in London and the provinces, has since distin- 
 guished himself not only as an actor but as an 
 author. 
 
 During that season Mr. Irving revived all his 
 most successful pieces and the new blood he 
 had brought into the casts added greatly to his 
 succ'ess as a manager. 
 
 On the 17th of April, 1879, Mr. Irving ap- 
 peared as Claude Melnotte in TJie Lady of Lyons, 
 with Miss Ellen Terry as Pauline. Claude Mel-
 
 CLAUDE MELNOTTE — I 879. .99 
 
 notte it may be remembered was the part he had 
 chosen to play, many years before, for his first 
 benefit at Edinburgh. " However, this perform- 
 ance," said the Athenaeum, "will not add to Mr. 
 Irving's reputation. * * The character, from the 
 author's standpoint was not realized, the Claude 
 Melnotte being a virile and passionate man instead 
 of a dreamy and sentimental boy." We cannot 
 agree with this view of the author's intention, be 
 it said. What we look on at in this play is the 
 sudden and rapid development of the man from 
 the boy ; this is what the actor has to show. It is 
 a character which demands what is known as 
 creating in each actor who takes it up ; the author 
 has not given substance enough to stand alone 
 and impress itself on its representative and, on the 
 other hand, the tradition of Macready's Claude — 
 if such a tradition exists — is impotent in this 
 generation. Still, with all its faults, which are so 
 obvious as to need no remark here, this play 
 perennially appeals to the romantic side of the 
 audience. That Pauline should be handsome and 
 Claude agile seems to be all that is needed to 
 blind them to the meretricious shallowness of 
 their characters. The situations are sufificiently 
 critical to be extremely interesting and the senti- 
 ments poetical enough to sound extremely plausi- 
 
 7*
 
 lOO HENRY IRVING. 
 
 ble. The language too is unquestionably graceful, 
 and the variety of demeanor required of the 
 chief personages veils their lack of backbone. 
 "As impersonated by Mr Irving," said the Theatre 
 "the character of Claude enlists as much sympa- 
 thy as the story will possibly allow," and alto- 
 gether his acting of the part sustained his 
 reputation even if it did not greatly add to it. 
 
 During this, his first season as a manager, Mr. 
 Irving returned to all his best and favorite parts. 
 In this way he prudently availed himself of all the 
 resources at his command and at the same time 
 fairly tested his own hold upon the public, and 
 his powers as a manager without straining them 
 too severely. He played in Richelieu, Louis XL, 
 The Bells, The Lyons Mail, and Charles L. with 
 Miss Terry as Henrietta Maria. Every play was 
 mounted with lavish care and rehearsed to the 
 last pitch of accuracy and finish. 
 
 But perhaps the most remarkable feat per- 
 formed by Mr. Irving throughout that season was 
 the assumption of a series of characters for his 
 own benefit on July 25th and 26th. On Friday 
 evening, July 25th, he played the first act of 
 Richard III. with Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Anne; 
 the fourth act of "Richelieu;" the fourth act of 
 " Charles I.," Miss Ellen Terry as the Queen,
 
 HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY (HAMLET — 1879).
 
 BENEFIT — 1879. lOI 
 
 Henrietta Maria; the third act of "Louis XI.;" 
 part of the third act of "Hamlet;" and the farce 
 of " Raising the Wind," in which he played 
 Jeremy Diddler. On the following afternoon, 
 Saturday July 26th, at 2 o'clock he repeated this 
 programme, all but the farce, and this he per- 
 formed the same evening, after " Eugene Aram." 
 On the evening of the 25th, Mr. Irving explained 
 in a very graceful manner his reasons for under- 
 taking a tour de force \v\i\Qh., otherwise, he must 
 have acknowledged to be a fault in art if judged 
 on the highest grounds. 
 
 " For nearly eight years Ladies and Gentle- 
 men " he said, "we have met in this theatre, and 
 the eloquence of your faces and of your applause 
 has thrilled me again and again. * * * * To- 
 night I have chosen to appear before you not in 
 one character, but in six, for each part has been 
 associated with so much pleasure, so many kindly 
 wishes from you and such sympathetic recogni- 
 tion, that I wished to renew in one night some of 
 the memories of many." 
 
 Mr. Irving's first-night and last-night speeches 
 have now become an institution at the Lyceum ; 
 indeed, his audience refuse to leave the house till 
 they have seen him, and he is always hailed with 
 excited applause when he appears before the
 
 I02 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 curtain, on the very best terms with himself and 
 his pubhc. On this occasion their satisfaction 
 might well be mutual, since Mr. Irving explained 
 that the total receipts in the season of seven 
 months had amounted to £^,6,000, a little under 
 1000 dollars a night. 
 
 Various rumors were afloat that autumn to 
 the effect that a New York manager had offered 
 Mr. Irving high terms to act in America. It was 
 evidently impossible that he should cross the 
 Atlantic at the very beginning of his career as a 
 manager, but he wrote to the TJicatre, a London 
 Magazine, expressing a hope that he might some 
 day do so, and visit his American friends. 
 
 The theatre reopened in September with The 
 Bells, and within a fortnight Mr. Irving put an 
 old play on the stage Vv^ith his usual care and 
 attention to details ; but nothing could make The 
 Iron Chest thoroughly interesting ; the only per- 
 son for whom it is possible to care is Sir Edward 
 Mortimer, and nevertheless a number of person- 
 ages, of the old melodramatic smuggler type, are 
 are indispensable to the plot, and are intolerably 
 dull. The youthful secretary — played by pretty 
 young Norman Forbes — engaged our sympathies, 
 but there was no genuine interest in the story. 
 Mr. Irving can act a one-part play as few people
 
 IRON CHEST — 1879. 103 
 
 can ; but that is a different thing altogether to 
 acting the only part when there are half a dozen 
 other personages to make the action drag till the 
 main motive is almost forgotten between the im- 
 portant scenes. The steward however was well 
 played by Mr. J. Carter. The Iron Chest was how- 
 ever perhaps only meant as a stop-gap at the be- 
 ginning of a new season, while the finishing 
 touches were being put to a gorgeously-mounted 
 edition — if we may so call it — of The Mercha^it 
 of Venice. Miss Ellen Terry did not play in The 
 Iron Chest, the small part of the heroine being 
 filled by her pretty little sister Miss Florence 
 Terry ; she reappeared for a short time as Ophelia, 
 and then on the ist of November came before the 
 Lyceum public in the part of Portia. She had 
 already played it at the Prince of Wales with a 
 success that was perhaps enhanced by the defects 
 of the other actors. Mr. Coghlan's Shylock had 
 not been satisfactory ; it is a part demanding char- 
 acteristics and natural gifts which that very con- 
 scientious artist can not command, and Miss Terry 
 had shone as the only star of any magnitude in 
 the whole cast. However, she lost nothing in 
 being seen in the midst of a much stronger com- 
 pany at the Lyceum. 
 
 The revival was a brilliant success; splendidly
 
 I04 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 mounted, beautifully dressed, and thoroughly re- 
 hearsed, there was nothing omitted that the most 
 exacting could wish for. The play was delightful 
 to see and to remember. As in a later Shakes- 
 pearian revival at the same theatre — Much Ado 
 About Nothing — an air of ease, wealth, beauty, 
 and romance was shed over everything which was 
 enchanting at the time and left a feeling in the 
 mind as of a brief visit to some happier realm 
 than our work-a-day world of common-place. 
 
 With regard to the acting too, the critics were 
 more truly unanimous perhaps than they had 
 been about any other part played by Mr. Irving. 
 In the first place he had the admirable good taste 
 not to treat the trial scene and discomfiture of 
 Shylock as the end and aim of the play ; he per- 
 ceived, and he was right, that a merely negative 
 satisfaction in the punishment of malice and re- 
 vengefulness was not in the least what Shakespeare 
 had intended to be the crowning close of the 
 drama. Shylock stole off the stage with a savage 
 snarl and lowering scowl, but we were taken back 
 to Belmont to witness the triumph and happiness 
 of Portia. It was not till the play had a long run 
 that it was abridged, in spite of many remon- 
 strances, to make a way for an afterpiece. Then 
 Shylock, without being a becoming part, certainly
 
 SHYLOCK — 1879. 105 
 
 suits Mr. Irving to a wonder. He has nothing 
 Jewish in him by nature — a Httle narrowness 
 about the eyes perhaps, but that is due to short 
 sight, certainly not another feature — and yet 
 there is hardly any — if any — other part in which 
 he is so nearly quit of Henry Irving as he is in 
 that of the Jew. His peculiarities fit the part so 
 far as he clings to them and he has taken the 
 broad generalities of the character as a type, in 
 both hands and moulded them to fit the details of 
 personalit}' of which he is master. Now this, we 
 take it, is a very high standard of histrionic art and 
 power, and in this respect Shylock is one of his 
 great achievements. 
 
 A very able criticism of the presentment was 
 published in the Daily News. " He is not the de- 
 , crepit Jew nor the grotesque Jew. * * * Malignant 
 by nature he scarcely seems to be, though the 
 ever-present hunger for retaliation on behalf of 
 himself and his race gathers strength from perse- 
 cution, till it reaches its height in the famous scene 
 with Tubal. Shylock is represented by Mr. Ir- 
 ving as an old, though not a very old man. The 
 most striking departure from the traditional per- 
 formance is the comparatively listless air of his 
 demeanor in the trial scene, only relieved, as it is 
 once or twice, by outbursts of ferocious eager-
 
 106 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 ness. But the prevailing mood in this scene is that 
 of a mind that has brooded over vengeance until 
 the sleepless eyes have grown hollow, the mind 
 become vacant, the outward world endowed with a 
 weird unreal aspect, and vengeance itself is like 
 the predominant image of a dream. Thus, in the 
 end, even hatred seems to fade out, and when 
 Gratiano's brutal jest arouses him, he simply fixes 
 his eyes slowly upon his persecutor, shakes his 
 head, and turning, disappears from the scene with 
 a slow walk and downcast look. The tendency of 
 the performance is to lessen our hatred of the Jew, 
 to give prominence to his wrongs and to suggest 
 that his avarice is but the habit of a persecuted 
 tribe." 
 
 The production of T/ie Merchant of Venice 
 gave occasion to an interesting observation in the 
 
 Theati'e, to which we shall again refer in discuss- 
 ing Mr. Irving's social influence as the " Member 
 for the Stage" as we may call him. "This revival 
 at the Lyceum," says the critic, " deals another 
 blow at the movement for establishing a national 
 theatre ; * * * its promoters are now wholly unable 
 to pretend that a theatre in which the poetic 
 drama can be adequately presented has yet to be 
 established. The revival of TJie Merchant of 
 
 Venice, regarded from any point of view is at least
 
 SHYLOCK — 1879. 107 
 
 equal — and we are not speaking without knowl- 
 edge — to anything that has been done in the 
 subsidized theatres of the European continent. 
 Mr. Irving's Shylock and Miss Terry's Portia 
 could hardly be surpassed ; the performance, as a 
 whole, is distinguished by an ensemble hitherto 
 supposed to be unattainable beyond the precincts 
 of the The'atre Fraiifais. * * * Mr. Irving in short 
 has made Shakespeare popular. 
 
 " That Shylock will take a prominent place 
 among the characters that Mr. Irving has assumed 
 there can be no question. The impersonation is 
 full of his best qualities as an actor — imagination, 
 sympathy, independence of thought, and wealth 
 of illustrative detail. Shylock appears before us 
 under three different aspects ; first he is the usurer, 
 then the outraged father, and finally the vengeful 
 creditor. Mr. Irving's appearance is in harmony 
 with his view of the part. He comes before us as 
 a man of between fifty and sixty years of age. 
 His acting at the beginning is studiously quiet in 
 tone. It is as he utters the words : 
 
 ' Antonio shall become bound, — well?' 
 
 that the idea of vengeance crosses his rnind. 
 
 " The scene which follows Jessica's fhght is 
 
 sustained with great power. * * * Then comes the
 
 I08 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 fierce thirst for revensfe which follows the news of 
 Antonio's ill-fortune, and again the actor rises 
 equal to the requirements of the situation. By 
 the time of the trial, however, the storm has sub- 
 sided into a dead calm. * * * His face wears a hard, 
 set expression, relieved at long intervals bj^ a 
 glance of bitter hate at Antonio, or a faint smile 
 of triumph. Nor is this superb calm less conspicu- 
 ous when the cause turns against him ; the scales 
 drop from his hands — but that is all. Nothing 
 can be finer and more impressive than his final 
 exit which brought the performance to a close 
 worthy of what had gone before. 
 
 "The Portia of Miss Ellen Terry is one of her 
 brightest impersonations and she now surpasses 
 even what she did at the Prince of Wales's Theatre 
 four or five years ago. While London possesses 
 such artists as Mr. Irving and Miss Terry the 
 public interest in the higher forms of drama is not 
 likely to languish." 
 
 " The performance is altogether consistent and 
 harmonious, and displays anew that power of self- 
 control which has lately come to Mr. Irving as a 
 fresh possession. Every temptation to extrava- 
 gance or eccentricity of action was resolutely 
 resisted and with the happiest results. Mr. Ir- 
 ving's Shylock, old, haggard, halting, sordid, rep-
 
 lOLANTIIE — 1880. ' 109 
 
 resents the dignity and intellect of the play." 
 (Button Cook). 
 
 " As Shakespeare went below the surface of 
 realistic comedy," says another critic, " to inspire 
 his Jew with fervent pride of race and meditative 
 individuality, so Irving has gone below the moral 
 stateliness of modern Shylocks, to impart to his 
 impersonation, at its very heart, the ruling feat- 
 ures of a Jew such as Shakespeare has drawn. 
 These feelings are betrayed in his face, in his port, 
 in his postures, and in his gait. * * * As in the 
 play, so in the acting, the greatest intellectual 
 triumph lies in the ample grasp and powerful ex- 
 pression of Shylock's profound and consuming 
 Hebraism. Shakespeare's composition abounds 
 in the loftiest and in the lowliest treatment of the 
 subject. Irving's rendering has caught the motive 
 and vivified the details of the theme." The 
 breadth and keenness of this critique is very 
 remarkable, and shows a sound appreciation of 
 Hebrew character and of Shakespeare's masterly 
 comprehension of it, as well as a very judicious 
 sympathy with the strong grasp that Mr. Irving 
 has on any part worthy of his thoughtful talent. 
 
 The Merchant of Venice deserved, and had, a 
 very long run ; it was not till it had been played 
 two hundred and fifty times that a change was
 
 no HENRY IRVING. 
 
 thought necessary, and then Charles I. was repro- 
 duced. On the 20th of May, 1880, Miss Ellen 
 Terry took her benefit in the part of the blind 
 princess in lolantJie. This is a " dramatic idyl," 
 adapted for the stage by Mr. Wills — as King 
 Rene's daugJiter had been by Mr. (now Sir Theo- 
 dore) Martin — from a Swedish poem by Henrik 
 Herz. This play continued to be acted till the 
 end of the season as an afterpiece to TJic Mer- 
 chant of Venice, which — as has been said — was 
 curtailed of its last act to allow of this arrange- 
 ment lolanthe was Miss Terry's play ; but there 
 was a pretty part for Mr. Irving in Count Tristan, 
 which he made "picturesque and chivalrously 
 reverent." "The part makes no great demand 
 on Miss Terry's resources, but it bears high wit- 
 ness to her artistic gifts. No performer of our 
 time possesses in anything like the same degree 
 the power of casting off the special accent of 
 modern life, and of passing without effort into 
 the region of ideal fancy. * * In the ability to 
 embody a conception of primitive grace, and to 
 express the simpler moods of feeling, either joyous 
 or pathetic, that are their fitting accompaniments, 
 she is, to our thinking, without a rival upon the 
 stage." 
 
 So wrote Mr. Comyns Case a propos to lolanthe
 
 THE CORSICAN BROTHERS — 1880. Ill 
 
 and we have quoted his opinion because it seems 
 to us one of the truest criticisms ever written of 
 this charming actress. She has not the whole art 
 of conceaUng art, but when artlessness is to the 
 point she is incomparable, and the remarks here 
 quoted are equally applicable to her performance 
 in the first act of The Cup, in Olivia, and in Leti- 
 tia Hardy. 
 
 Mr. Irving reopened his theatre that autumn 
 with The Corsican Brothers. He was received 
 with the hurricane of welcome which now always 
 awaits him after his holiday, and which he cer- 
 tainly has taken infinite pains and spared no ex- 
 pense to deserve. But probably not one of his 
 friends and admirers that evening failed to feel a 
 pang of regret at his selecting that vapid melo- 
 drama for rentree when he had made his last bow 
 in the gabardine of the Shakespearian Jew. 
 
 The story of the play need not be told here. We 
 who can remember its first production by Charles 
 Kean, with Alfred Wigan as Chateau Renaud, 
 must confess that its effect in Mr. Irving's hands 
 was inadequate. Perhaps it is because he has ac- 
 customed us to stronger meat — to the horror of 
 TJie Bells, the pathos of Charles /., the tenderness 
 of Hamlet — that the situations of this melodrama, 
 which, thirty }'ears ago created a perfect furore
 
 112 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 among- London play-goers, now produce compara- 
 tively little effect. But we are inclined to think it 
 is partly owing to a defect, an error in judgment, 
 pointed out by Mr. Dutton Cook, a very com.pe- 
 tent critic, who thinks that Mr. Irving failed to 
 suggest the glamour of mystery and impending 
 doom, the key-note which Charles Kean was so 
 careful to strike. The loss of this element is 
 fatal to the interest of the play ; nothing short of 
 an irresistible destiny can give coherence to such 
 an inconsequent plot and to the incalculable be- 
 havior of Fabien dei Franchi. However, the 
 Athenaeum differs from us. " Mr. Irving's per- 
 formance of the twins," it says, " is full of color, 
 and the fateful element is well shown." It is in 
 the last act that he is seen at his best ; still, there 
 is a want of continuity of character in his Fabien, 
 who, in the first act, is so prompt and brusque and 
 here has developed into a cool and resolute duel- 
 list. The current of events is exciting it is true, 
 and as Louis Mr. Irving gives us one of his 
 touches of courteous sentiment in his action and 
 demeanor towards Emilie de L'Esparre ; but — 
 excepting that what is worth doing at all is worth 
 doing well — the wonder remains that Mr. Irving 
 ever thought the parts of the twins deserving of so 
 much elaboration and finish. But he knows the
 
 THE CUP — I 88 I. 113 
 
 saying about " Toujoiirs perdrix," and though the 
 parts of the dei Franchi are not so high a mark 
 as Mr. Irving can aim at — and hit, he is no doubt 
 judicious to give himself opportunities for the dis- 
 play of a very considerable versatility, and the 
 play was so far a success that it held the stage, 
 sometimes as a first piece before a comedy, and 
 sometimes as an afterpiece, following The Cup, for 
 some months. 
 
 At the New Year The Cup was produced 
 (January 3d) and expectation ran high though 
 doubts were felt as to the success of another 
 poetical drama by the poet laureate. The Clip 
 however was a very different piece of work 
 from the dreary and didactic drama of Qiiee^i 
 Mary, brought out five years previously 
 under Mrs. Bateman's auspices ; and while 
 Miss Terry could not probably have played Queen 
 Mary it is very certain that Miss Bateman could 
 have done but little with the first act of Camma. 
 "The author of The Ciip^' says Mr. Comyns Case, 
 " has good reason to be content with the ser- 
 vices of those who have undertaken the labor 
 of presenting his work to the public. I can think 
 of no other actor who could have given the part 
 of Syno*ix the impression of vitality which it 
 assumes in Mr. Irving's hands * * in the earlier 
 
 8
 
 114 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 scenes with Camma the sinister softness of his 
 wooing carries the subtlest suggestion of the 
 inherent falseness of his character. There is no 
 question of failure in respect of The Cup in the 
 form in which it is presented at the Lyceum ; its 
 success is beyond dispute, and the causes of its suc- 
 cess are obvious enough. It is superbly mounted 
 and it is admirably acted." The story, bor- 
 rowed from an antique source, may be said to be 
 the primeval tragedy of life ; a simple as purely 
 human and as disastrous as that of Cain and 
 Abel. A man — a Galatian lord loves his neigh- 
 bor's wife and kills the husband. The woman 
 loathes and murders him by putting poison into 
 the cup of which both must drink at their mar- 
 riage feast. The motives are so elementary that 
 no genuine development of character is needed, 
 and the poet, it may be said, has given us abso- 
 lutely none ; there is a sense of poetical situation 
 but a lack of grip in painting the human forces 
 that lead up to it, and even Mr. Irving, though he 
 made the villain a man, could not give him much 
 individuality. But for this, he and Miss Terry 
 would have been admirably suited with their 
 parts and indeed " as it is the outlines have been 
 really admirably understood and rendered by both 
 actor and actress. Mr. Irving's own power of
 
 THE belle's stratagem — 1881. II5 
 
 grim satire serves him in good stead in giving 
 vitality to the picture ; he was never more incisive 
 in his method ; he never expressed with a more 
 extraordinary fidehty the force of evil and mean 
 desire. Miss Terry has seldom been seen to 
 greater advantage than in the first act at any rate. 
 She is not a tragic actress though her power of 
 representing a degree of personal anguish that is 
 in one sense genuinely tragical is very con- 
 siderable; but her force is not great enough 
 to carry her through scenes of violence." The 
 church scene in Mttch Ado About Nothing 
 and the sorrows of the wretched Olivia are 
 more fitted to her delicate and pathetic means 
 of expression and her touching tones and accent. 
 In March Mr. Irving published a bill of " pros- 
 pective arrangements," and announced that he pro- 
 posed varying the programme ; that April 9th 
 would be the last of TJie Corsican Brothers, and 
 that Mr. Booth's visit would add still further to 
 the attractions he should offer during the summer 
 season. After a short holiday in Passion week, 
 April 9th to 1 6th, The Belle's Stratagem took the 
 place of Tlie Corsica?i Brothers ; it was still pre- 
 ceded by The Cup and the remarkable versatility 
 thus exhibited by both Mr. Irving and Miss Terry 
 was, no doubt, as clever as it was startling. 
 
 8 *
 
 Il6 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 The Athenaeum thought Doricourt too elabo- 
 rate, "in place of simplicity we find extravagance 
 and caricature ;" but we fail to see where the sim- 
 plicity could " come in," for, if there is any thing 
 which Doricourt is not, it is simple. The Daily 
 Neivs, whose admiration for Mr Irving is at all 
 times tempered with judgment, and sometimes 
 with very good judgment, is we think in this in- 
 stance hypercritical ; or perhaps the critic had not 
 made due allowance, after seeing Mr Irving die in 
 long and writhing agony as Synorix, for his resur- 
 rection as a somewhat profligate beau of the last 
 century. " He does not attain the ideal of the 
 character," not being graceful so much as eccen- 
 tric even in the ballroom. " Yet the perform- 
 ance, even so far, cannot be said to be uninterest- 
 ing ; and in the scenes in which Doricourt feigns 
 madness the actor develops a power of combining 
 the grotesquely ludicrous with a tinge of serious 
 reality that is curiously impressive." 
 
 This is the truth — it is "curiously impres- 
 sive." It is a little vexing to see Synorix — Ham- 
 let — Othello, playing the fool; but he is so 
 desperately in earnest in acting that he is acting, 
 that our attention is involuntarily riveted. This 
 madness, quasi madness, could not for an instant 
 take in any rational creature ; it is the gravity of
 
 THE belle's stratagem — 1 88 1. 117 
 
 purpose that appeals to us and though we laugh 
 frankly enough at Doricourt's v^agaries it is rather 
 in spite of ourselves. With regard to the want of 
 grace it is, curiously enough, not lack of elegance. 
 It is as natural a defect — for we confess that the 
 accusation has some foundation — as it might, and 
 indeed must, have been to many a man born in 
 Doricourt's rank of life and destined to swagger 
 through the world as a fine gentleman — in fact, 
 the absence of apparently studied grace lends it 
 the elegance of a man whose birth and position 
 can dispense with adventitious polish. 
 
 " Doricourt," says Mr. Button Cook, " with his 
 airs and graces is one of the characters which Mr. 
 Irving delights to play from time to time, to show 
 us that a thousand performances of The Bells and 
 of tragedy have not dulled his sense of humor and 
 capacity to amuse. His performance is wonderfully 
 complete," worthy in finish and whimsical detail to 
 be compared with poor Edward Sothern's Dun- 
 dreary. " I can remember," says Mr. Clement Scott, 
 " when Mr. Irving played it first, a comparatively 
 unknown man, and it is a much better performance 
 now — more thoughtful, more studied, more com- 
 plete. Words fail me to express the singular 
 charm and spell of Miss Ellen Terry as Letitia 
 Hardy." In the dedication of her comedy Mrs.
 
 Il8 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Cowley explains that it was her intention to draw 
 a woman who, " to the most lively sensibility, 
 fine understanding, and elegant accomplishments, 
 should unite that beautiful reserve and delicacy 
 which, while they veil those charms, render them all 
 the more interesting." Miss Terry has understood 
 this intention and her reading does justice to the 
 ideal ; she adds to it a sparkle which Mrs. Cow- 
 ley's excellent dramatic treatment of the character 
 gives am.ple scope for and which makes Miss 
 Letitia Hardy a far more engaging person than 
 her creator's rather priggish description might 
 otherwise prepare us for. Miss Terry has thrown 
 herself into the humor of the situation as well as 
 the refinement of the character ; Letitia Hardy 
 lives and moves the ideal lady and the most irre- 
 sistible of hoidens. 
 
 It was in July, i88o, that the London public 
 were first promised a visit from Mr. Booth and 
 looked forward to it with the greatest interest. 
 Acting, not merely as an amusement but as an art, 
 has of late years become far better understood by 
 the more cultivated classes in England than it had 
 been during a long period when — though there 
 were many capital actors on the English stage — 
 the demand had been less for an intellectual and 
 critical pleasure than for a hearty laugh or a no less
 
 BOOTH AND IRVING — I 88 I. II 9 
 
 hearty cry. " It will be especially interesting," said 
 the Athenaeum in speaking of Edwin Booth's ad- 
 vent, " to contVast his methods with those of the 
 one English tragedian who has risen to eminence 
 within the last ten years * * * the warmth 
 of personal welcome which is not denied to a 
 Salvini or a Rossi — poetical aliens, who gesticu- 
 late through an Italianized Shakespeare — v/ill 
 certainly be accorded to one who comes to us 
 from a greater England, speaking Shakespeare's 
 tongue." 
 
 " The engagement of Edwin Booth at the Ly- 
 ceum in conjunction with Henry Irving is just the 
 kindly, generous and spirited act that might have 
 been expected from an actor ever on the alert to 
 do credit to his profession. The play chosen will 
 be Othello^ "When Edwin Booth arrived in 
 this country, a foolish, weak, and impotent attempt 
 was made on the part of an ungenerous faction to 
 declare that Henry Irving was jealous of him. 
 Nothing was further from the truth. Booth never 
 believed it to be true, and Irving was guiltless of 
 any such idea. * * * Booth always wanted to play 
 at Irving's theatre. * * * Everything that courtesy 
 and good feeling could do was done, and Irving- 
 treated Booth as a friend : ' Come to my theatre 
 and play with me, and we will have such a com-
 
 I20 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 bination as has not been seen for some time.' " 
 (Theatre, April, 1881). 
 
 And so it was settled. During the months of 
 May and June the regular business of the theatre 
 was varied by performances, three nights a week, 
 of Othello, Mr. Irving and Mr. Booth playing the 
 Moor and lago alternately. Mr. Booth had al- 
 ready been in England some montlis, and these 
 were in fact his farewell performances in England. 
 
 A few words as to Mr. Booth's birth and the 
 traditions he inherited may here be appropriate. 
 His father was an Englishman whose misfortune it 
 was when still young to be pitted against Edmund 
 Kean who on the occasion of their playing to- 
 gether — Kean as Othello and Booth as lago — 
 worked himself up to such a performance as has 
 rarely been seen or dreamed of. Booth felt that 
 with such a rival on the stage his chances were 
 nil ; he left the Drury Lane boards to Kean, and 
 after acting in Covent Garden for a few years went 
 to America where he steadily improved, working, 
 no doubt, on the grand traditions of the old Eng- 
 lish stage, which he transmitted, with his talents, 
 to his son. The contrast of method between 
 Booth and Irving is unmistakable. Booth, it is 
 true, has to some extent moved in the same direc- 
 tion as Irving ; he has thought for himself and is
 
 OTHELLO AND L\GO— 1881. 121 
 
 no slave to tradition ; still as compared with him 
 Irving is revolutionary. However, anything like 
 partisanship or bitter rivalry was, of course, quite 
 out of the question. " No one," says the -Daily 
 News, " will suspect Mr. Irving of grudging his 
 American brother in art any portion of the gener- 
 ous welcome which assuredly awaits Mr. Irving 
 when he shall undertake his professional visit to 
 the United States, so long in contemplation." The 
 English critics, too, it must be said, did Edwin 
 Booth every justice. The only rock round which 
 he could not steer — over which he could not soar, 
 was the fact which we have indicated on the first 
 page of this little book ; namely, that as Mr. Ir- 
 ving's triumphant success is the result of his 
 individuality as the representative to Englishmen 
 of the spirit of their age and tendencies, the 
 actor who, like Booth, represents or at any rate 
 recalls the spirit of the past, has not, and cannot 
 obtain, the same hold upon their sympathies. 
 It is very gre-atly to be regretted that the Amer- 
 ican public should not see the really wonderful 
 exhibition of art offered by OtJiello played by 
 Irving, Booth, and Ellen Terry. Opinions differ 
 widely as to the merits of the performance in 
 detail ; but the very variety of fault found by the 
 critics — whether Irving plays Othello and Booth
 
 122 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 lago, or vice versa — proves that though nothing 
 is or can ever be faultless the effects are undoubt- 
 edly to a considerable extent in the sympathy — 
 perhaps even in the mood — of the spectators. In 
 Othello one of the great beauties of Irving's act- 
 ing finds full play : " his tenderness," says The 
 Saturday Reviczv, " to Desdemona is exquisite ;" 
 but, as usual, " the phrasing is sometimes unfortu- 
 nate." However, "the present performance of 
 Othello (after an interval of five years since 1876) 
 marks more clearly than anything else could do 
 the amount of thought and pains which Mr. Ir- 
 ving must constantly devote to his art." 
 
 It is in the part of lago however that both 
 Mr. Booth and Mr. Irving gave such a piece of 
 finished acting as made their performances an 
 education in itself. Let any young actor, take up 
 lago for himself, read into it, and distil out of it 
 every trait of character, every point of situation, 
 feeling and emotion that he is capable of attributing 
 to the Ancient — as a man and as influenced by 
 the other characters ; then let him see first Irving 
 and then Booth perform the part and he will be 
 able to form some idea of the work they have 
 done, and that remains for him to do. Let 
 him take to heart the fact that the gifts and the 
 experience he here sees displayed to their highest
 
 OTHELLQ AND lAGO — ;l88l. 123 
 
 pitcli of development are also brought to bear on 
 other parts, less difficult no doubt but not less care- 
 fully handled, and he will understand that though 
 he may not hope or even wish ever to play lago 
 he has chosen an art which makes constant de- 
 mands on his patience, industr)^, and sympathetic 
 endeavor. "Mr. Irving's lago is one of his best 
 Shakespearian essays," writes Mr. Button Cook; 
 "forcible, ingenious, characteristic — a little melo- 
 dramatic perhaps here and there ; but his reputa- 
 tion for honesty is made readily intelligible; it 
 arises from his rude frank air, now cynical, now 
 convivial yet always really malevolent * * We 
 have here two simply masterly lagos, two insuffi- 
 cient Othellos." In comparing the two lagos we 
 find The Saturday Revieiv, always conscientious 
 and careful though sometimes incautious in its 
 criticism, selecting certain points of difference to 
 the advantage of one and the other actor. " Mr. 
 Irving's lago had been eagerly expected. * * * 
 With one exception, as it seems to us, Mr. Irving 
 shows us an ideal lago ; and this exception we 
 take to the seriousness of the revengeful motive 
 he gives to the Ancient. He seems to take lago's 
 jealousy of Othello, if not of Cassio, with regard 
 to Emilia as a real thing." * * " Mr. Booth 
 seemed to indicate that the notion of Emilia's
 
 124 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 infidelity is in the first instance merely an excuse 
 for his own villany." Again, and on the other 
 side: "Mr. Booth disappointed our expectations 
 in the well-known lines ending : 
 
 • Out of her own goodness make the net 
 That shall enmesh them all.' 
 
 " His action was full of grace, meaning, and 
 force ; but his tones and expression seemed to 
 miss the exultation of a man who has just thought 
 out his villanous scheme, and who delights as 
 much in his own power of so thinking it out as in 
 the probable success of the scheme itself" In 
 Mr. Irving's performance " we must point out the 
 honest reluctance with which he seems to give his 
 evidence against Cassio. Close upon this and 
 upon his seeming friendly cheering of Cassio, 
 comes the soliloquy ending with : 
 
 ' And out of her own goodness make the net 
 That shall enmesh them all.' 
 
 "The diabolical intensity of this was much aided 
 by the impressive stillness of the actor until the 
 last picturesque and meaning gesture of triumph." 
 
 From the same weekly we cull the following 
 paragraph, which our readers may take for what 
 it is worth. We believe it is true that Mr. Booth
 
 OTHELLO AND lAGO — 1881. I 25 
 
 found the direction at the Lyceum worthy of the 
 manager and he certainly was immeasurably 
 better supported there than he had been at Sad- 
 lers' Wells where he first acted in London. " By 
 a curious inversion or confusion of language Mr. 
 Booth has been represented, in an account coming 
 from America, as having found the stage-manage- 
 ment of the Lyceum, as it would seem from the 
 context, 'so bad as to be frightful,' while the 
 direction of the theatre generally was not what it 
 ought to be. Now it is tolerably well known 
 that Mr. Booth was, on the contrary, even enthu- 
 siastic in his praise of Mr. Irving's management, 
 both of the stage and of the theatre generally. 
 It should be added that the same account 
 contains the highest praise of Mr. Irving." 
 (Saturday Review, July 16, 1881). An intelligent 
 and appreciative critic in Macmillan's Magazine, 
 who by no means " swallows Irving whole," has 
 some very judicious remarks to make on the 
 subject: "The character of lago as understood 
 and presented by these two actors," he says, "very 
 clearly marks the distinguishing quality of their 
 respective styles. The American lago, clear, cool, 
 and precise, admirably thought out, never devia- 
 ting a hair's-breadth from the preconceived plan ; 
 design and execution marching hand-in-hand with
 
 126 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 ordered step from the first scene to the last ; a per- 
 formance of marvellous balance and regularity, 
 polished to the very finger-nail. The English- 
 man's startling, picturesque, irregular, brilliant, 
 sometimes less brilliant than bizarre, but always 
 fresh and suggestive, always bearing that peculiar 
 stamp of personality which has so often saved the 
 actor in his sorest straits. Nevertheless, as a work 
 of art, an artistic whole, self-contained and com- 
 plete, to Mr. Booth's must be assigned the palm 
 * * * It has truly been said of Mr. Irving that 
 he is never commonplace, but it must be remem- 
 bered that this freedom from commonplace may 
 be purchased at the expense of common-sense." 
 The whole article is very good, sympathetic but 
 full of sound criticism. 
 
 " Comparison ceases to be odious," says the 
 Daily TelcgrapJi, " in the case of actors so dis- 
 tinguished and so popular as Edwin Booth and 
 Henry Irving. The method of each actor starts 
 from opposite points. Mr. Booth moves in the 
 path chalked out by his father and the traditions 
 he inherited ; Mr. Irving, like the elder Kean, 
 ' translates his characters with great freedom and 
 ingenuity into a language of his own,' and seems 
 to take a mischievous delight in politely granting 
 the value of the various readings of clever men
 
 OTHELLO AND lAGO — 1 88 1. 12/ 
 
 and immediately conceiving something totally dif- 
 ferent. In Mr. Booth's Othello the classical form 
 is strained to the utmost tension while Mr. Irving's 
 lago is occasionally jeopardized by an excess of 
 gesture and a prodigality of variety." Mr. Booth's 
 Othello too, it may be observed incidentally, had 
 the same fault as Irving's — even more marked 
 perhaps — Desdemona could not have loved him. 
 Neither of them could be the ideal Othello to any 
 woman excepting by such a process of rational 
 self-persuasion of his merits, as is certainly not 
 presupposed by the narrative or the situation. 
 
 Mr. Irving's benefit on Saturday, July 23d, 
 terminated the season of 1881. He appeared, we 
 believe for the first and last time, in a scene with 
 Miss Terry from The Hunchback, in which he 
 played Modus ; but he could not altogether look 
 the part, which is that of a bashful student lover, 
 though he played it with feeling. His old friend 
 Mr. Toole acted for him in one of his most popu- 
 lar parts ; that of Tom Cranky in the Birthplace 
 of Podgers. 
 
 In the speech which Mr. Irving made to the 
 audience, he spoke in a way equally becoming to 
 himself and flattering to Mr. Booth, of their per- 
 formances together : " For myself I may say that 
 his artistic fellowship, his perfect courtesy and de-
 
 128 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 votion to our common art have made Mr. Booth's 
 visit here one of the most dehghtful occurrences 
 in my remembrance." 
 
 It was in December, 1879, for the benefit of 
 Mr. WiHiam Belford — " a man whose hand was, of 
 old, first in his pocket to help others," and who 
 had fallen into bad health * — that Mr. Irving first 
 revived TJie Ttvo Roses at the Lyceum. This per- 
 formance was one of those interesting tributes of 
 respect by which the guild of actors does itself 
 honor while honoring and substantially helping a 
 fellow-artist. Nearly fifty of the first actors 
 in London appeared on the stage before an en- 
 thusiastic audience whose contributions, by way of 
 payment for places, amounted to a very handsome 
 sum. " Once more," says Mr. Clement Scott, 
 " Henry Irving has played Digby Grant and I am 
 glad of it, for it has shown incontestably what an 
 actor he has become * * * I am certain that 
 never before did he act the part so well, or any- 
 thing like so well. * * The audience at the close of 
 each act seemed to sink back in the stalls with a 
 contented sigh saying: 'Ah ! this is acting.' " And 
 so it was, and I really don't know where the pes- 
 simists will find anything better. " Mr. Irving's 
 Digby Grant was as good as ever. If he had 
 
 * Mr. Belford died in June, 1881.
 
 THE TWO ROSES — I 88 1. 1 29 
 
 created it now for the first time the creation would 
 have been pronounced a worthy successor to his 
 Mathias, Hamlet, and RicheHeu." 
 
 When the Lyceum Theatre reopened, newly 
 decorated and in many ways improved, on the 
 26th of December, 1881, Mr. Irving revived The 
 Two Roses in which he had " created " the part of 
 Digby Grant eleven years before. The revival 
 was an immense success; Mr. Irving had retouched 
 the picture with the skill and judgment given by 
 long experience. " The portrait was filled in with 
 an infinite number of minute but valuable touches;" 
 and here again we find the critic speaking of " the 
 curious suggestiveness," of certain gestures, ac- 
 cents, and actions, v/hich filled up the outline 
 given by the clever author — Mr. Albery — in 
 what is originally a capitally-written character 
 part, so as to give it the vitality of an elaborately- 
 finished picture. " Digby Grant is infinitely im- 
 proved. To the plausibility of Mercadet he adds 
 the virtuous assumption of Mr. Pecksniff." 
 
 But TJie Tzvo Roses was only a lever de rideau 
 before the serious work of the season. In March, 
 1882, Mr. Irving redeemed a promise of many 
 months standing to produce Romeo and Juliet, 
 and the mise-en-scene and dresses were marked by 
 the magnificent naturalism which — for good or
 
 130 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 for evil — he has been instrumental in transfer- 
 ring from the domain of Robertsonian comedy, as 
 mounted by the Bancrofts, to the higher realm of 
 poetical and tragical drama. It was not less splen- 
 did than TJie Merchant of Venice and even more 
 beautiful ; but it was severely criticised on those 
 very grounds. 
 
 Mr. Frederick Wedmore wrote of it as follows : 
 " One of the pleasantest things to remember in 
 connection with this Lyceum revival will be the 
 evidence it affords of the employment of knowl- 
 edge, skill, and artistic sensibility. The acting is 
 not insignificant and very far from ludicrous, but 
 the magnificence of the accessories are now and 
 then a splendid encumbrance. Mr. Irving's judg- 
 ment is displayed by his avoiding any effort to 
 look like a smooth and comely lad ; you must take 
 the man as he is ;" (how impossible with Romeo — ) 
 " his complete activity and alertness, his pictu- 
 resqueness of aspect and his continual intelligence 
 of the character, though they do not allow him to 
 be an absolutely ideal Romeo, allow him to be a 
 Romeo of impulse, fire, and passion." ^^ Romeo and 
 Juliet,'' said the Daily TelegrapJi, "does not rise 
 to the level of the Lyceum standard in point of 
 acting. The scenery is gorgeous. Irving's Romeo 
 is picturesque and careful but he fails to convey
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET — I 882. I3I 
 
 the idea of Romeo." All the critics agreed that 
 Miss Terry's Juliet was the least successful thing 
 she had ev^er done. 
 
 " To Mr. Irving's Romeo," said the SaUirday 
 Review, " some of Hazlitt's remarks upon Ed- 
 mund Kean in the same part may be not inaptl}' 
 applied : ' In going to see Mr. Kean in any new 
 character we do not go in the expectation of see- 
 ing either a perfect actor, or perfect acting ; be- 
 cause this is what we have not seen either in him 
 or in any one else. But we go to see (what he 
 never disappoints us in) great spirit, ingenuity, and 
 originality given to the text in general, and an 
 energy and depth of passion given to certain 
 scenes and passages, which we should in vain look 
 for from any other actor on the stage.' Mr. Ir- 
 ving has many advantages which Edmund Kean 
 had not ; — it would seem improbable, for instance, 
 that Kean can have made so chivalrous a figure of 
 Romeo as Irving does — and he does not invite 
 the censure which was given by Hazlitt to Kean 
 in the love scenes. * * Mr. Irving is full of 
 thought and fancy ; but he is not Romeo." 
 
 Mr. Sala — our old friend G. A. S. — in the 
 Illustrated London News declares that " as the 
 impassioned lover Mr. Irving satisfies him," and he 
 gives good reason for the faith that he professes —
 
 132 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 " a powerful and soulful impersonation," he calls 
 it — but he admits that he stands alone. The 
 mounting was confessedly magnificent, perhaps it 
 a little overweighted the performance. " Since the 
 days when Charles Kean began to supply what 
 was derisively called upholstery a Shakespearian 
 revival has come to mean a pageant. To Mr. Ir- 
 ving then belongs the credit of having furnished a 
 pageant which in beauty and artistic value has not 
 been equalled, and of backing it up by an inter- 
 pretation of the play as competent as modern 
 resources will permit. * * That the representation 
 in the principal characters or in any of the char- 
 acters touches greatness or ever rises to the level 
 of the best Lyceum performances cannot be said. 
 Mr. Irving introduces much intelligent business, 
 and is earnest and impassioned — but he fails to 
 convey the idea of Romeo." (Daily Nezvs). Mr. 
 Irving himself, however, on the occasion of his 
 benefit, August 5th, stoutly defended his lavish 
 use of decorations and accessories. " Romeo and 
 Juliet," he said, "was no light undertaking, and it is 
 perhaps worth remembering that to each actor in 
 the cast it was a first-night's representation. This 
 in a play of Shakespeare's, is somewhat remarka- 
 ble, and difficult beyond belief to those who do not 
 know the disadvantages which actors labor under
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET — 1882. 133 
 
 on their first appearance in what are called legiti- 
 mate parts. * * It was thought too by some I re- 
 member that I had overdone our play with scenery 
 and trappings. That I distinctly dispute. Nothing 
 in my mind can be overdone on the stage that is 
 beautiful — I mean correct and harmonious, and 
 that heightens, not dwarfs the imagination and 
 reality. I took no less pains comparatively speak- 
 ing in producing TJie Tivo Roses." 
 
 Mr. Irving's address was characterized through- 
 out by that bonJwinie and intimacy which have 
 long given a friendly aspect to his relations with 
 the public. " It was conspicuous, among other 
 matters, for the defence of long runs. Romeo and 
 Juliet had been played 130 nights in succession ;" 
 he almost apologized to his colleague Miss Terry 
 for the severe strain he had thus put upon her " but 
 those who live to please must please to live." He did 
 not, however, allude — perhaps he was discreet in 
 not alluding — to the question as to how far very 
 long runs are advantageous to the actor's art, and 
 to the actor himself as an artist. 
 
 Mr. Irving added some courteous — we had al- 
 most said affectionate — compliments to the friends 
 who so faithfully and perennially support his bene- 
 fits. " Thanks to your generous favor every night 
 is a benefit to me as a manager ; but on occasions
 
 134 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 like this I come forward to take the benefit of see- 
 ing around me many of my best and well-tried 
 friends who throughout my career, my failures 
 and successes, have succored me with their 
 hearty sympathy and cheered me with ungrudging 
 encouragement. * * Whether it be called a bene- 
 fit, or by any other name, I shall always be proud 
 of the occasion which can gather together such a 
 distinguished assembly as have honored me with 
 their presence here to-night." Such a speech as 
 this charms and flatters; nay touches a deeper 
 fibre of genuine enthusiasm. In June, Mr. Irving 
 had announced his purpose of visiting America 
 and spending six months there, from the end of 
 October, 1883, till April, 1884, taking with him the 
 Lyceum company, and dresses and scenery com- 
 plete for ten pieces : Hamlet, Charles the First, 
 The Merchant of Venice, Richard the Thi7'd, 
 Richelieu, The Lyons Mail, The Belle's Stratagem, 
 Louis the Eleventh, The Bells, and ]\LHch Ado 
 About Nothing. G. A. S. advises us to appeal to 
 the hero and heroine of this tour — which may 
 rather be called a progress — to give a {tw repre- 
 sentations of Romeo and Juliet and The Cup. He 
 was however, as we have seen, in a minority in 
 admiring Romeo and Juliet ; and with regard to 
 Tlie Cup we believe that Miss Terry at any rate
 
 PLANS FOR AMERICA — l882. I35 
 
 is showing the better part of valor in leaving the 
 part of Camma at home. The first act is charm- 
 ing, is acting, indeed ; but the second is scenery 
 and mounting, et praeterca nihil — or very little. 
 G. A. S. prophesies — and no doubt rightly — 
 that " the Americans will go wild with enthusiasm 
 on Miss Ellen Terry," but Camma would risk her 
 prestige we fear even with enthusiasts. 
 
 After a holiday of only 6 or 8 weeks, Romeo 
 and Juliet was again taken up when the Lyceum 
 reopened in September, and was played till the 
 middle of October. Then another brilliant 
 " Shakespearian revival " was put upon the stage. 
 This time a comedy ; one of the Arcadian come- 
 dies that transport us to a realm and age when 
 " all the men were brave and all the women beau- 
 tiful ;" or when those who were not were unhappy 
 accidents serving as a foil only to the majority who 
 were. 
 
 On the 25th of July of this year Mr. Irving 
 had read the part of Benedick with a once famous 
 Beatrice, Lady Martin — formerly Helen Faucit — 
 whose grace and intelligent originality bewitched 
 the play-goers of the last generation. This read-
 
 136 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 ing must have been extraordinarily interesting, 
 and not least interesting to Irving himself, to 
 whom it must have felt like a prelude, a prelimi- 
 nary chord in anticipation of the performance 
 which, on October the 12th, reminded London 
 play-goers once more that Shakespeare's Comedy 
 was, if possible, even more lovely than his Tragedy, 
 and that Irving knew and felt that it was alike his 
 duty and his pleasure to interpret Shakespeare. 
 
 Much Ado About Nothing was the matter in 
 hand. This lovely play, sumptuously mounted, 
 ran Romeo and Juliet very hard in the splendor 
 of its scenery and general "get up;" and in the 
 estimation of those who admire Irving and Miss 
 Terry it is difficult to choose between the gay 
 romance of Much Ado and the melancholy ro- 
 mance of Hamlet. Benedick does not, it is true, 
 become Mr. Irving quite so well as Hamlet does, 
 but then Beatrice is so absolutely written for 
 Ellen Terry. 
 
 It was long since this play had been put on 
 the stage and longer still since it had been 
 thoroughly well done ; still its merits and success 
 were not comparative but, we may say, superla- 
 tive. Mrs. Charles Kean had been the last Bea- 
 trice — a rather matronly one perhaps; Miss Glyn 
 had played the part, but tragedy was the line she
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING — I 882. 1 37 
 
 preferred ; Miss Helen Faucit had been delightful 
 in it we are told, and we can quite believe that 
 she gave it infinite playful grace, though she 
 lacked perhaps the audacity of Miss Terry's 
 humor. Benedick had been a famous part of 
 Charles Kemble's, and that elegant actor must, 
 we rather suspect, have given a somewhat more 
 dignified aspect to the "officer and gentleman" — 
 which Benedick undoubtedly was — than we see 
 in Mr. Irving's performance. At the same time 
 it is possible that the Kemble manner was at least 
 as annoying as the Irving manner, though Charles 
 Kemble was freer from it than his more famous 
 brother and sister. Macready notes in his diary 
 that he acted Benedick "very well" — much to 
 his own satisfaction at any rate — and Mr. Wallack 
 also played the part in London. He again was 
 possibly a little heavy in his banter, and a very 
 little over-solemnity makes Benedick appear as 
 though he were being made a fool of, while flighti- 
 ness and flippancy make him look as though he 
 really were a fool. 
 
 " The personal peculiarities and shortcomings 
 of an actor of any force are speedily forgiven him. 
 The play-goers of the past soon learnt to forget 
 the low stature of Garrick and the ' foggy throat' 
 of John Kemble. It is understood now that every
 
 138 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 delineation presented by Mr. Irving must suffer 
 in some degree from the irremediable physical 
 characteristics of the actor." (Nights at the play. 
 Othello). 
 
 "Irving's Romeo could not pass unchallenged," 
 nor can his Benedick, though the challenge is a 
 more timid one ; but for pure enjoyment of a 
 play — or going to the play as we say — an evening 
 spent in the society of those beautifully-dressed, 
 admirably- graceful ladies and gentlemen, in that 
 Lyceum-land where, as in the Isle of the Lotos- 
 eaters, it is "always afternoon," is perfect. When 
 we leave we have indeed "been to the play" — 
 not merely looked on at a performance, but been 
 there — to the home of chivalry, romance, ease, 
 and wealth, where nothing sordid can ever enter, 
 though malice and all uncharitableness creep in 
 to make it human and to stir those softer emo- 
 tions without which Paradise itself would not be 
 perfect. The secret of the charm is revealed by 
 G. A. S. " Although Benedick and Beatrice are 
 only the hero and heroine of an under-plot they 
 are undoubtedly the personages in the comedy in 
 whom the interest of the spectators is concen- 
 trated" because (ive say because) "they have 
 nothing to do with the delectable conspiracy of 
 Don John."
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING — I 882. I 39 
 
 He adds, in speaking of the misc-cn-schie: 
 " one recognizes everywhere traces of the master- 
 mind of the earnest student and accompHshed 
 artist, whose rise to the very highest in his useful 
 and ennobling profession is only another proof of 
 the wisdom of the maxim that 'Genius is a great 
 power of taking pains.' 
 
 " Elliston and Lewis were famous Benedicks, 
 but very dissimilar it would seem. It strikes me 
 that the Benedick of Mr. Henry Irving is a happy 
 combination of the characteristics of the two ; 
 only, as they were both in their graves before he 
 was born, it is clear that the merit of the presen- 
 tation of a Benedick at once earnest and airy, 
 gallant and resolute, frank and careless, humorous 
 and grave, belongs to Mr. Henry Irving alone. 
 The Beatrice of Miss Ellen Terry is an entirely 
 fascinating and lovable performance." 
 
 " In the part of Benedick," says the Daily 
 Nezvs, " it must be confessed the chances were less 
 strong against Irving than in Romeo, or Doricourt, 
 or Claude Melnotte. There is a more manly fibre 
 about him, together with a far more subtle com- 
 bination of personal qualities than can be asso- 
 ciated in the mind with the wayward, impulsive, 
 boyish Romeo. Still, there can be no question 
 that the part makes much higher demands upon
 
 140 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 the powers of an actor than that of the lovesick 
 Montague, and it is Hkely to be an additional re- 
 commendation in the eyes of a great and am- 
 bitious performer that it affords a better hope of 
 originality in the interpretation. The extremes of 
 the conceptions hitherto shown on the stage were 
 the dashing coxcomb portrayed, as tradition tells 
 us, by the restless Lewis, and the rather moody, 
 saturnine reflective creature depicted by Macready. 
 Mr. Irving's Benedick is, from the first, the manly 
 friend, the gallant soldier, the courteous gentle- 
 man — to all save Beatrice who provokes him to 
 wordy combats. We do not remember any repre- 
 sentative of the character who so subtly engenders 
 a suspicion that the love which breaks out so sud- 
 denly when the trick is played upon him of lead- 
 ing him into the belief that the lady is secretly 
 pining for him, was, after all, only the bursting forth 
 of a flame that has long been smouldering. This, 
 it is true, must be found by the spectator for him- 
 self. Nowhere throughout the play however did 
 the performance reach so high a level as in the 
 powerfully dramatic colloquy in the scene between 
 Benedick and Beatrice in the church. Miss Terry 
 swiftly passes through the whole gamut of 
 Beatrice's deep 3^et wayward — froHcsome yet ear- 
 nestly tender nature."
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING — 1882. I4I 
 
 ^* Mtich Ado About Nothing must be pro- 
 nounced the most successful of Mr. Irving's 
 Shakespearian revivals," says the Athenaeum, 
 " and Benedick is probably the best Shakespearian 
 performance Mr. Irving has as yet supplied. In 
 eccentric comedy he has few equals. No actor of 
 whom the present generation has any knowledge 
 or preserves any recollection can claim to have so 
 thoroughly entered into the character or charged 
 it with equal vitality * * * it has much fancy and 
 variety and attains distinct intellectual elevation. 
 Miss Terry's Beatrice, in the stronger scenes 
 reached a high point of excellence. * * Few 
 Benedicks could be found to resist such conjura- 
 tion as was supplied." " Mr. Irving was made for 
 Benedick," says the Academy, " or Benedick for 
 Mr. Irving. He plays it with the keenest sense of 
 enjoyment and appreciation, and with that author- 
 ity of interpretation which comes most readily 
 when a man possesses the agreeable conscious- 
 ness that the authority will be recognized and ac- 
 cepted. The element of satire in the part — the 
 conception of a robust humanity boasting its own 
 strength and swayed, even while it boasts, by the 
 lightest of feminine charms — is much in his own 
 humor. The chivalry of the character suits him, 
 and so does the graciousness of the character, and
 
 142 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 its quiet and self-analytical wit. He is excellent 
 in speech, and as excellent in by-play. It is sel- 
 dom that a success is so unmistakable, though, in 
 this case we cannot consider it surprising. The 
 character fits him, as Beatrice fits Miss Ellen Terry. 
 Nearly all that she can do quite perfectly she can 
 do in Beatrice ; of all her best notes only one is 
 missing and that is the note of extreme pathos. 
 So it is that Mr. Irving and Miss Terry fit their 
 parts perfectly." (Academy). 
 
 We ourselves, let us add, rate Miss Terry's 
 Beatrice higher than her partner's Benedick. 
 There was indeed no lack of grace and humor in 
 his performance but the grace lacked finish — at 
 first at any rate, it has perhaps improved by prac- 
 tice — and the humor was in consequence a little 
 clumsy. In the garden scene we felt a touch of 
 the school-boy — a digging in the ribs of the 
 audience — that was certainly below the usual 
 mark of Mr. Irving's tact. But we saw it while it 
 was yet new to the Lyceum stage and Mr. Irving 
 has the magnanimous grace of never being too 
 proud to improve. 
 
 In Dramatic Notes, by Austin Brereton, a very 
 good account of the play and the gorgeous set 
 scenes ends with an appreciative comment on the 
 sound judgment which Mr. Irving has once more
 
 REVIVALS — 1883. 143 
 
 shown in giving the real story of the play — the slan- 
 der of Hero — due prominence. Irving and Miss 
 Terry can afford to do this ; still, the sacrifice on 
 his part is less than in The Merchant of Venice 
 where Shvlock slinks off humiliated and leaves 
 Portia to celebrate her triumphs at Belmont ; or, 
 in other words, leaves Miss Terry in possession of 
 the stage. This is as it should be ; it is conscien- 
 tious art and the very best taste. 
 
 In short Much Ado About Nothing is an al- 
 most ideal performance, as it is an ideal play ; 
 to live through it is an experience that ele- 
 vates the imagination and leaves a remembrance 
 in the mind which is as delightful as itself — even 
 though the critical faculty may refuse to be alto- 
 gether silenced. 
 
 It might have held the stage till the scenery 
 was a ruin and the dresses rags, but it was taken off 
 early this spring in order that the company might 
 once more go through a series of performances of 
 the nine other plays that Mr. Irving is bringing 
 bodily to America. " Bringing" very hterally, for 
 the scenery and properties constitute some tons' 
 weight of bales and cases, and the dresses alone 
 fill a considerable amount of luggage. The first 
 of the old pieces thus rehearsed, as we ma)- say, 
 for the American audiences, was Tlic Lyon's Mail,
 
 144 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 and the revival was particularly successful. Miss 
 Terry, with the frank generosity of a true artist, 
 plays the small part of Jeannette. *• Its success 
 was almost phenomenal; West-End play-goers, 
 who commonly scorn the melodrama, crowd the 
 stalls ; and yet we cannot but feel that such char- 
 acters are unworthy of Mr. Irving's talents when 
 we think of him as almost, if not quite, the sole 
 competent representative of the ' legitimate ' 
 muse." Melodrama however is a fact; on the 
 stage a great fact and not without a place in litera- 
 ture. " It is a form of stage work into which, if 
 genuine artists engage in it, art may largely enter," 
 and Irving's performance in The Lyon's Mail, 
 " invests its somewhat obvious contrivances for har- 
 rowing and surprising the spectator, with a dignity 
 that is not strictly their own." 
 
 Mr. Irving's benefit and leave-taking of the 
 London public took place on the 28th of July. It 
 is the end of history, so far as he is concerned for 
 the present. But some weeks previously a party of 
 his friends and admirers had given him a dinner, 
 and the American Minister in London so far 
 honored him as to postpone his customary enter- 
 tainment in honor of the day — it was the Fourth 
 of July — in order to be present. Mr. Irving's 
 health was proposed by the Lord Chief Justice in
 
 DINNER — JULY, 1883. I45 
 
 a long speech, in which he did equal justice to 
 their guest's qualities as an artist and to his per- 
 sonal merits, his generosity, liberality, and unsel- 
 fishness in those business relations which fill up 
 the larger part of a manager's life. Mr. Irving, in 
 returning thanks, spoke with eager anticipation of 
 his visit to America; "I am not going among 
 strangers," he said, "I am going among friends;" 
 and in expressing in feeling terms his sense of the 
 honor done him, he added the thanks of his coad- 
 jutor Miss Terry, who was sitting in the gallery 
 surrounded by relations and friends, and to whom 
 the chairman had alluded in his speech. 
 
 For his last appearance and benefit on the 28th 
 of July, Mr. Irving secured the assistance of hisfaith- 
 ful friend Mr. Toole and of Mr. Sims Reeves who, 
 after the "Death of Nelson," sang, "You'll Remem- 
 ber Me." He himself appeared as Eugene Aram 
 and as Doricourt. It was " with sincere emotion," 
 as we can well believe, that he took leave of an 
 audience many of whom were his personal friends 
 and all, probably without an exception, his hearty 
 admirers and well-wishers. He spoke, in some- 
 what tremulous accents we are told, as follows : 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen — I have often had to say 
 ' Good-bye ' to you on occasions like this, but never has
 
 146 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 the task been so difficult as it is to-night, for we are about 
 to have a longer separation than we have ever had before. 
 Soon an ocean will roll between us, and it will be a long, 
 long time before we can hear your heart-stirring cheers 
 again. It is some consolation, though, to think that we 
 shall carry with us across the Atlantic the good-will of 
 many friends who are here to-night, as well as of many 
 who are absent. Here — in this theatre — have we 
 watched the growth of your great and generous sympa- 
 thy with our work, which has been more than rewarded 
 by the abundance of your regard, and you will believe 
 me when I say I acutely feel this parting with those who 
 have so steadily and staunchly sustained me in my 
 career. Not for myself alone I speak, but on behalf of 
 my comrades, and especially for Miss Ellen Terry. 
 Her regret at parting with you is equal to mine. You 
 will, I am sure, miss her — as she will certainly miss 
 you. But we have our return to look forward to, and 
 it will be a great pride to us to come back with the 
 stamp of the favor and the good-will of the American 
 people, which, believe me, we shall not fail to obtain. 
 The 2d of next June will I hope see us home with you 
 again. We shall have acted in America for six months, 
 from October 29th, to the 29th of the following April, 
 during which time we shall have played in some forty 
 cities. Before our departure we shall appear in Glasgow, 
 Edinburgh, and Liverpool, from whence we start upon 
 our expedition. This theatre will not be closed long ; 
 for on the ist of September a lady will appear before you 
 whose beauty and talent have made her the favorite of
 
 LAST APPEARANCE — 1883. I47 
 
 America from Maine to California — Miss Mary Ander- 
 son, a lady to whom I am sure you will give the hearti- 
 est English welcome. That is a foregone conclusion. 
 You Avill, I know, extend the same welcome to my 
 friend Lawrence Barrett, the famous American actor, 
 who will appear here in the early part of next year. It 
 is a delight to me, as it must have been to you, to have 
 had my friend Sims Reeves here to-night, and I hope 
 that the echo of the words so beautifully sung by him 
 will linger in your memories, and that you Avill remem- 
 ber me ; and it has also been a great delight to have 
 had my old friend Toole and my young friend Herbert 
 Reeves here to-night. At all times it is a happy thing 
 to be surrounded by friends, and especially on such an 
 occasion as this. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I 
 must say ' Good-bye.' I can but hope that in our ab- 
 sence some of you will miss us ; and I hope that when 
 we return you will all be here, or some few of you at 
 least, to welcome us back. From one and all, to one 
 and all, with full and grateful and hopeful hearts, I wish 
 you lovingly and respectfully, ' Good-bye.'" 
 
 " Good-bye !" was echoed, in the fullest and 
 deepest sense of the little word, by his English 
 audience. It is our good fortune to be able instead 
 to say : 
 
 "Welcome!"
 
 148 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 MR. irving's individuality and influence. 
 
 HIS SPEECHES AND WRITINGS. 
 HIS SOCIAL QUALITIES. 
 
 A NOTICE of Henry Irving would be incom- 
 plete without some account of his personal ap- 
 pearance, though it no doubt is familiar to some 
 who will read these pages, and ere long those 
 who have not yet seen him will seize the oppor- 
 tunity now offered them on this side of the 
 Atlantic. He has of course been repeatedly photo- 
 graphed in his own country and it is to be hoped 
 that he will afford our own admirable artists many 
 opportunities of recording his appearance in the 
 parts he plays here. At the same time the most 
 pleasing presentment of his features is in a part in 
 which we shall not see him in America : that of 
 Vanderdecken. This is, we think, the most artistic 
 likeness we have ever seen of him ; the make-up, 
 which is in no respect a disguise — no disguise can 
 mask Henry Irving — brings out the best features 
 of his face, and the broad hat conceals his most
 
 HENRY IRVING AS " VANDERDECKEN.
 
 HIS FEATURES. 1 49 
 
 conspicuous defect : his flat and by no means well- 
 shaped head. The singularity of its form startles 
 us, so to speak, out of realizing that it is ugly ; 
 but when the furry hat worn by Vanderdecken 
 disguises the disproportion of the head and face 
 we feel at once what the defect is that we miss. In 
 point of fact it is hard to pronounce Irving a 
 liandsovie man, though his face is so finely and 
 powerfully moulded that it is far from being plain 
 and still further from being commonplace. The 
 features, without being bony, suggest a solid frame- 
 work under the flesh, of a somewhat animal type : 
 a broad jaw, a low skull and the eyes set close un- 
 der the brows. On the other hand the facial an- 
 gle is noble in profile and the temples wide. The 
 muscles that clothe the bones are fine and mobile ; 
 the eyes not large but expressive ; the lips thin, 
 firm, and remarkably free from sensuousness ; the 
 ears not too small, but set rather too low on the 
 head. 
 
 One grace Mr. Irving has that is almost match- 
 less — certainly unmatched on the English stage — 
 hands of extraordinary beauty ; not finikin, fem- 
 inine hands, -but such as might be regarded as the 
 typical model of what the Creator meant the 
 hand of man to be. Whether he lightly caresses 
 Ophelia's hair or grips lago's throat, fondly counts
 
 150 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 his gold as Mathias, or clutches his chair in The 
 Iron Chest, lifts them in tremulous anguish or gal- 
 lantly waves them in a minuet — their admirable 
 form, play and grip are an accessory of singular 
 value and would give him distinction and ele- 
 gance, even if he had no greater qualities. He 
 dresses his hands, it may be added, with no less 
 care than his face or figure ; the lace he wears in 
 Charles I. lends them the sentimental refinement 
 of a Vandyke painting, while in Louis XI. he half 
 covers them in a clumsy cuff that gives them the 
 pinched bloodless character of a sordid old man's 
 hands. 
 
 There are moments, however, when the beauty 
 of his expression entirely glorifies his face — mo- 
 ments in Hamlet, in Charles I., in Richelieu ; but 
 the slightly satirical humor which lifts a corner of 
 his mouth, and sometimes gives his very polish of 
 manner an accent of cynicism, would seem to be 
 the natural expression of his mind — as it is with 
 many men who have analyzed human nature, and 
 perforce tasted the bitterest depths of their own. 
 
 This is an experience without which no man 
 can become such an artist as Irving 'undoubtedly 
 is — though a man may go through it too, with- 
 out becoming an artist. Nothing but a sincere 
 study of human motive and its manifold outcome
 
 HIS EXPRESSION. I5I 
 
 can afford the materials for such a synthesis as is 
 necessary for the conception of the characters of 
 Othello, Shylock, Eugene Aram, lago, or even 
 Benedick. In every part he plays, whatever Mr. 
 Irving may do to jar on our preconceptions, he 
 always has the power which comes of zvholeness, 
 so far as his own part is concerned ; we feel, Avhen 
 we have seen him act, not so much that we like or 
 dislike him, as that we agree or disagree with the 
 scheme of character he has constructed out of the 
 materials in his hands. 
 
 He makes up with admirable care and skill. 
 Merely to see Mr. Irving's make-up in every part 
 he plays is enough to show how conscientious 
 his study must be. M. Jules Claretie found him 
 dressing for Richelieu with three or four photo- 
 graphs and prints of portraits of the Cardinal ; 
 and for Louis XI. he studied history and romance 
 alike with the greatest care. In 1877, when he was 
 preparing to produce The Lyon's Mail we are told 
 that he went to the Derby, as much to study the 
 aspect of rascals of the Dubosc type as to see the 
 race ; while he adopted for Vanderdecken a sort 
 of Rembrandt costume and in Charles I. looked 
 like a Vandyke come to life. And yet, in one 
 sense, Mr. Irving is not what play-goers of the old 
 school, at any rate, could call a great actor : he
 
 152 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 never succeeds in disguising himself for an instant. 
 He dresses Irving for a part and Irving is before 
 you with an individuahty far too powerful to 
 be masked. Herein, it must be said lie 
 a source of strength and a source of weak- 
 ness, and while pointing out the first, it is 
 not unfair to insist on the second. It is a source 
 of strength inasmuch as it is the secret of the 
 charm by which he holds his audience ; of weak- 
 ness inasmuch as it is a shortcoming in art. Ir- 
 ving plays entirely and solely to the audience ; 
 this, at any rate, is his rule, though some excep- 
 tions will be mentioned. This, let us say it at once, 
 is a flaw in his art qua art, and there are very few 
 actors with whom such a scheme of work would 
 succeed ; it is a system similar in kind, though ut- 
 terly dissimilar in style and degree, to that which 
 was used with such skill and success by Ravel (in 
 the Rtie dc la Lune for instance) and by other 
 French actors in farce and low comedy on the 
 boards of the Palais Royal theatre in Paris ; and 
 Mr. Irving's masterful and captivating individual- 
 ity has enabled him to transfer it to his own far 
 higher sphere of work, to refine and elevate it, till 
 the influence he exerts has the force of a spell. 
 But the consequence might have been predicted 
 by any one who could have forseen the channel
 
 HIS METHOD. 153 
 
 into which his peculiar talent was destined to flow. 
 Only too often does Mr. Irving act his part while 
 he does not act the play. He thrills, or touches 
 or terrifies the spectator by means which we know, 
 on reflection, could not produce the effects they 
 are supposed to have had on the other personages 
 in the story. To this we owe those grotesque 
 mannerisms which deface some of his finest 
 work, those descents of tone — not of voice alone 
 but of sentiment, not merely of gesture but of im- 
 pulse — which would shock the public, and do 
 shock some old-fashioned spectators, if it were not 
 for the mysterious impression they produce of self- 
 revelation in the actor. Instances might be given 
 from Richelieu (at the end of act IV.), from The 
 Merchant of Venice (Act III., Scene 4, Irving's 
 acting edition), and from his lago (Act I. of 
 Othello). 
 
 " Mr. Irving's performance of the hero presents 
 many artistic qualities, marred, however, by excess 
 of eftbrt and elaboration and by too manifest a 
 consciousness of the presence of the audience." 
 So wrote Mr. Button Cook when speaking of 
 Philip and there is still truth in the criticism. 
 
 Irrespective of the want of appreciation of his 
 stage, as a world in itself, which is betrayed by 
 this indifference to the logical results of his per-
 
 154 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 sonality on the development of the action, the 
 constant recurrence of the same forms of. bathos 
 (quite independently of peculiarities of walk and 
 accent) would suffice to stamp the man Irving- 
 whatever dress he might wear; and it is this 
 never-escaped -from identity that makes the ques- 
 tion of a part " suiting him" a prominent and im- 
 portant one. This is not for a moment meant to 
 convey the idea that Irving cannot act. Nothing- 
 could be more utterly false. No actor on the 
 English stage assumes a part more admirably. 
 When he plays Richelieu or Louis XL we feel 
 that Irving, as we see the man, might very fitly 
 have been a cardinal or a king; while in The Bells 
 and Richard III. we see no reason to doubt that 
 he might have been the villain he represents. 
 
 " Mr. Irving presents a most conscientious, 
 artistic, and elaborate study of the character," 
 says Mr. Button Cook, in 1878, of Lonis XL 
 " He is more senile perhaps than other represen- 
 tatives of Louis have been ; the quavering note of 
 age and decrepitude is heard even in his strongest 
 and boldest utterances ; the hand of death seems 
 to oppress him even from his first entrance. But 
 Mr. Irving is true to his own conception of his 
 part, and allowing for a trifling excess of accent 
 now and then, when it is deemed expedient to
 
 HIS METHOD. I 55 
 
 insist on some special point, his performance is 
 throughout v^ery masterly, even and consistent, 
 subtle and finished. There is no neglect of the 
 small delicate touches which give completeness to 
 a picture, while the stronger portions of the de- 
 sign are executed with supreme breadth and bold- 
 ness. Mr. Irving boasts the great actor's gift, or 
 art, of at once riveting the attention of his audi- 
 ence ; presently his influence extends more and 
 more, till each word, and glance, and action of 
 this strange king he represents — so grotesque of 
 aspect, so cat-like of movement, so ape-like of 
 gesture, so venomous in his spite, so demoniac in 
 his rage, and meanwhile so paltry and vile and 
 cringing a poltroon — are watched and followed 
 with a nervous absorption that has something 
 about it of fascination or even of terror. The per- 
 formance reaches its climax perhaps in the king's 
 paroxysms of fear after Nemours' assault upon 
 him ; the actor's passionate rendering of this 
 scene, his panic-stricken cries and moans, prayers, 
 threats, and the spectacle of physical prostration 
 that ensues, affect the audience very powerfully. 
 The death of the king is elaborately treated, but 
 with no undue straining after the horrible. In 
 these distinct and individual impersonations Mr. 
 Irving is seen to signal advantage and can afford
 
 156 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 comparison with the best artists of his class. 
 There is probably no actor now living who could 
 present such an interpretation of Louis XL as 
 Mr. Irving offers us." 
 
 When we try to discuss the vexed — and, it 
 must be honestly said, vexing — question of Mr. 
 Irving's mannerisms, judgment and justice give us 
 pause. That they exist is only too obvious and 
 certain ; that they repel many who see him for 
 the first time so completely as to defeat his charm 
 is indisputable ; and his sincerest admirers will 
 perhaps to their dying day, and in their moments 
 of tenderest remembrance — for we all think ten- 
 derly of our past enjoyments — wish that he had 
 been free from them. Still we must remember 
 that the great men who are gone are said to have 
 been just as much to blame in this respect. Bet- 
 terton's gestures were stiff and limited ; Garrick's 
 foes could give a very satirical caricature of the 
 action and accent that enthralled his admirers; 
 Edmund Kean even was not perfectly free and 
 natural till fire and passion lifted him above him- 
 self No passion ever did this with his son and 
 Macready is said to have been even colder, drier, 
 and narrower. However, to use a homely proverb, 
 "two blacks do not make white;" mannerism may 
 be defined as the indulgence, or perhaps the cul-
 
 MANNERISMS. , 157 
 
 tivation of a peculiarity which, being characteristic 
 of the actor, cannot by any possibihty be equally 
 characteristic of every man he feigns to be ; and 
 such mannerism is, beyond a doubt, a fault, a blot, 
 and a disfigurement. Such eccentricities of detail 
 it must be owned, with the deepest regret, have 
 always been Mr. Irving's rock ahead. It is an 
 ungracious task to point out the defects of an 
 actor who has given us so much and such exalted 
 pleasure ; whose ideal of art, as we know, is so 
 high ; whose insight is so keen and whose powers 
 of expression are so great. Small blame is it 
 indeed to any artist that he should fall short of 
 his aim when that aim is the highest ; but the 
 truth is that Mr. Irving has in some degree 
 allowed himself to be spoilt. His critics from his 
 earliest days, as we have seen, have warned him 
 while they have praised him ; meanwhile special 
 circumstances have given him extraordinary popu- 
 larity, and it is not perhaps strange that he has 
 been only too ready to overlook in himself the 
 faults tliat his public have condoned. Neverthe- 
 less it is_a^fact that Henry Irving's English is not 
 the tongue universally spoken in England, still 
 less in America ; that a stride complicated with a 
 drag, which may be thought picturesque in Ham- 
 let and characteristic in Richelieu, is grotesque in
 
 158 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Charles I. and intolerable in Romeo; and that 
 certain airs of supreme ease which are perfectly 
 fitting in melodrama or comedy are ill-advised, to 
 say the least, in even the comedy parts of a 
 tragedy — for instance, when lago sits on a table 
 and picks his teeth with his dagger. 
 
 The Athenaeum of October 2nd, 1875, has 
 some remarks on Mr. Irving in Macbeth which 
 unfortunately apply though with much qualifica- 
 tion to almost all his parts ; still the faults pointed 
 out were no doubt most conspicuous in Macbeth 
 (which the present writer has never seen). 
 
 " Mr Irvincr must learn that his mannerisms 
 have developed into evils so formidable that they 
 will, if not checked, end by ruining his career. 
 His slow pronunciation and his indescribable elon- 
 gation of syllables bring the whole occasionally 
 near burlesque. * * * Mr. Irving has youth, 
 intelligence, ambition, zeal, and resolution. These 
 things are sacrificed to vices of style which have 
 strengthened with the actor's successes, and like 
 all weeds of ill growth, have obtained successive 
 development. It is impossible to preserve the 
 music of Shakespeare if words of one syllable are 
 to be stretched out to the length of five or six." 
 In 1878, again "Mr. Irving's faults of elocution 
 are — or rather were, for they are growing less —
 
 MANNERISMS — 1878. 159 
 
 summed up in an eccentric habit of selecting for 
 special emphasis some syllables and words possess- 
 ing no perceptible claim to any such distinction, 
 and of giving to such syllables and words a degree 
 of quantity, as distinguished from mere accent, 
 altogether unknown to any system of prosody," 
 and even in 1880, "Mr. Irving still delights in 
 abrupt transitions from a slow and somewhat arti- 
 ficial delivery to almost startling by familiar con- 
 versational tones which, apart from the obvious 
 shallowness of acts of this kind, are apt to grate 
 on the ear as something incongruous in plays full 
 of poetical beauty and subtlety of thought." {Daily 
 Neivs). 
 
 An acute and thoughtful critic of " The 
 English Stage" in Scribner s Magazine Qdin. 1881) 
 observes, with some little exaggeration of the 
 truth : " Mr. Irving's peculiarities and eccentrici- 
 ties of speech are so strange * * * that the 
 spectator who desires to be in sympathy with him 
 finds himself confronted with a bristling hedge of 
 difficulties;" and though we cannot subscribe to 
 all this writer's opinions, we entirely agree when 
 he says that " in Louis XL his defects (that is to 
 say his mannerisms) to a certain degree stand him 
 in stead of qualities." 
 
 The very converse of this was true in Vander-
 
 l6o HENRY IRVING. 
 
 decken — in which Mr. Irving owned that he feh 
 that his pubHc were not " with him." One of the 
 chief reasons of Its failure was the ghastly — meant 
 to be ghostly — monotony and exaggeration of 
 manner which Mr. Irving infused into it. Theo- 
 retically he was right — theoretically, be it said, he 
 hardly ever fails to be right — for what character 
 can be attributed to a wandering and God-forsaken 
 spirit but that of the very demon of melancholy ; 
 but such a part is not Irving's forte and he failed 
 to make mannered melancholy an interesting psy- 
 chological study, though he made the spectral 
 captain an astonishingly picturesque personage. 
 
 Shylock throughout is less defaced by man- 
 nerisms than many of his parts ; partly, no doubt 
 because the assumption of the character necessi- 
 tates a strong individualization : in the trial scene 
 Irving again seems to be under the dominion of 
 passion too completely to be thinking of his audi- 
 ence and his acting is magnificent. Revenge, in- 
 herited revenge for centuries of insult and 
 oppression, fires his eye and whets his knife, and 
 lurks under his scowling brow as he quits the 
 scene, leaving love and youth triumphant. 
 
 Elaborate bitsiness may not be the highest, but 
 it is one of the most fascinating parts of the 
 actor's art ; and, given a broad grasp of the play
 
 HIS STAGE BUSINESS. l6l 
 
 first and then of the character to be represented, 
 it has quite as good a right to be considered next 
 in importance as a good make-up or appropriate 
 costume. In Irving's acting it sometimes perhaps 
 holds a too prominent place, but many instances 
 might be quoted where it supplements the general 
 conception and illustrates the situation. 
 
 In the second act of Richard III., Irving has 
 one of those delicately humorous bits of business 
 which captivate the attention of his audience so 
 completely that criticism — whether praise or 
 blame — is lost in sympathy. When the Duke of 
 Gloster comes into the room in the palace where 
 the Duchess of York, and Queen Elizabeth are 
 bewailing their griefs, he says to his mother : 
 
 " Humbly on my knee 
 I crave your blessing." 
 
 and Irving, with a refinement of mockery, lightly 
 spreads his handkerchief on the ground at her feet 
 before kneeling to her. This little touch is thrown 
 in with such finish that it is not till he rises again 
 with the ironical aside that follows that its ribald 
 insolence is made clear to the spectator. In TJie 
 Bells, when Mathias unties his money-bag to 
 count out Annette's dowry, he mechanically puts 
 the string round his neck not to lose it, and then
 
 1 62 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 snatches it off again with a shiver ; and again, in 
 the scene with Christian, note the apparently 
 mechanical action of carefully putting a coal into 
 the stove, of which he opens the door just as the 
 gendarme puts forward the hypothesis that the 
 body of the murdered Jew must have been cast 
 into a lime-kiln and burnt. Then in playing lago, 
 when Desdemona, in the first act, is to be brought 
 to confront her father and Othello, Irving, b)' a 
 gesture, puts Cassio forward as the most fitting 
 messenger, and affects a little surprise when 
 Othello bids him go himself, as " knowing the 
 place." 
 
 In the last act of Louis XI. there is extra- 
 ordinary finish, and suggestiveness of senility and 
 wilfulness in the way in which the king's trem- 
 bling fingers refuse to hold the sceptre, just after 
 he has asserted himself to be " strong and capa- 
 ble." — "An original and ingenious artifice," Mr. 
 Button Cook calls it. But we say much more. 
 
 Touches of this sort supply a clue to the under- 
 current of motive, by which the spectator is al- 
 most unconsciously initiated into the secrets of the 
 character as the actor has understood it. They 
 are not its very substance but they are neverthe- 
 less an assurance of individuality which, so long 
 as they strictly illustrate the character and do not
 
 HIS STYLE. 163 
 
 betray the actor are not merely suitable but in- 
 valuable, and the highest art. They are, in fact, 
 the very antithesis and opposite of mannerisms. 
 In Hamlet he is perhaps less of the prince 
 than the philosopher, but it is in one scene especi- 
 ally of that play that we find one of those excep- 
 tional passages where Irving sinks his individuality 
 in the situation with really exquisite effect. This 
 is in the third . act, where Ophelia restores the 
 jewels to her royal lover ; a good deal in the de- 
 tail of the conception is here original and novel, 
 but it is the performance that is so lovely as to 
 leave no loop-hole for criticism. The exalted 
 chivalry of Hamlet's nature which bids him sup- 
 press a passion that must find vent, and at last 
 bursts out in a speech verging on brutality from 
 the sheer impossibility of further self-control, is 
 rendered with a delicacy, fullness, and dignity 
 broken by anguish which make it one of the most 
 touching presentments ever given on the English 
 stage. Here, when Mr. Irving seems to have no 
 thought for any one but Opheha, he never fails to 
 have his audience with him in breathless and tear- 
 less sympathy. His suffering is too supreme at 
 the moment — but we may shed a tear, by stealth, 
 when it is over. Mr. Irving's love-making is not per- 
 haps so lavish and so devoted as was Fechter's for
 
 1 64 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 instance, but it is of a type which appeals as much 
 or more to the reasonable woman — it ought to 
 prove irresistible to our American girls ! " It is 
 objected to him," says Mr. Wedmore when speak- 
 ing of lolaiithe, "that he lacks the graces of 
 early youth ; but very young lovers are wont to 
 be a good deal occupied with their graces and Mr. 
 Irving as a lover is occupied with his love. He is 
 chivalrous and he is warm, and it is not generally 
 recognized — because he has been seen so little in 
 lovers' parts — that he is chivalrous and warm in 
 a peculiar measure." "Picturesque and chival- 
 rously reverent," are the adjectives applied to his 
 performance of Count Tristan in lolanthe and 
 these two epithets in fact very happily express the 
 features of a class of character that he excels in 
 representing. They apply to his tone and de- 
 meanor in fifty situations where tenderness and 
 respect for woman are the key-note and such situ- 
 ations become him well. 
 
 The truth is that after all Henry Irving stands 
 on that high place which makes those who 
 watch him, long to see him mount higher; he 
 does his work so well that we long to see 
 it perfect; and only to provoke that desire an 
 artist must be already great. Irving never fails to 
 rouse in the open-minded spectator two of the in-
 
 HIS STYLE. 165 
 
 stincts which human nature finds the keenest 
 pleasure in exercising: sympathy without the 
 pang of real sorrow, and the critical faculty with- 
 out any responsibility of judgment. // domic a 
 reflechir the French would say, and there is no 
 more delightful relaxation of mind than such re- 
 flection affords. Sometimes, indeed, we cannot 
 help feeling that in elaborating the part he has in 
 some degree misapprehended the play. The po- 
 tentialities of the man he sets before us are even 
 wider and deeper than the immediate situation 
 demands, but they do not always perfectly account 
 for the development of the action. It is extremely 
 difficult to give an instance of this, as it must de- 
 pend in some measure on the kinci of sympathy 
 he succeeds in evoking in each individual, and one 
 great merit counterbalances the fault : we never 
 feel as if he had ceased acting the instant he is off 
 the stage. On the other hand seeing him act — 
 at any rate in one of his best parts is not a mere 
 evening's recreation ; he has stored our minds with 
 new ideas which we cannot even pronounce a ver- 
 dict on without doubt or thought. " Mr. Irving's 
 performance one carries away and thinks about," 
 says a sympathetic but acute critic in Macmillan 
 when speaking of his lago ; and this is true of 
 everything he does. " And surely the most pre-
 
 l66 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 judiced person must admit that to sway the feel- 
 ings of an audience in such various roles as Ham- 
 let, Louis XL, Eugene Aram, Shylock, Mathias, 
 and Benedick, a man must possess something 
 more than a few mannerisms and much earnest- 
 ness. If such a series of performances does not 
 entitle a man to be called a great actor we do not 
 know what does." (Theatre). 
 
 The English stage was sorely in need of such 
 an actor when Irving first appeared upon it. 
 Montgomery, Dillon, and Melville were far from 
 satisfying the London public. Booth had visited 
 them and Phelps was still preeminent in his best 
 parts ; they had Vezin too, an actor who has 
 never been duly appreciated, but these had all 
 failed in what has been spoken of in the introduc- 
 tion as the magic touch of -the actor's art: they 
 had not interpreted the spirit of the time, and 
 failing that the tongues of men and of angels 
 would not have availed them. The light comedy 
 of Robertson, as played by the Bancrofts, held 
 possession of London and was the only fashiona- 
 ble form of drama. Henry Irving was young, 
 clever, and resolute ; he had, to a considerable ex-
 
 AS A STAGE MANAGER. l6j 
 
 tent gauged human nature in the provinces; he 
 felt that he could not only supply a want, but could 
 make the Londoners want what he could supply — 
 a subtler and a rarer talent. 
 
 We easily read between the lines of the cri- 
 tiques on his performances how large a share his 
 individuality has had in his success. His audiences 
 are " charmed, fascinated, spell-bound " in the first 
 instance; intellectual appreciation is postponed, at 
 any rate till the second time of seeing him. " I 
 can always tell when my audience is with me," 
 Mr. Irving has said, and the sheer determination 
 to hai'c them with him has no doubt lifted him 
 over many a shoal ; the intensity of his will has 
 turned the tide. 
 
 This power which Mr. Irving himself calls 
 " the magnetic personality " of an actor, is, it may 
 be added, precisely the same as that which makes 
 a manager. " The art of stage management is a 
 gift," writes Mr. Robert Recce, " a direct gift or 
 inspiration ; to be assisted no doubt by experience, 
 but never to be perfunctorily acquired." A mana- 
 ger who has this gift will not only insist on the 
 thorough rehearsal and careful interpretation of 
 the work in hand. He does much more than this. 
 Inspiration, like dulness, is catching ; if there be 
 any sort of fuel in the minds of his colleagues the
 
 1 68 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 vital Spark in his own fires it and diffuses warmtii 
 and glow to the whole, though he may fail to fan 
 it to a flame. Go, without which no play — from 
 a tragedy down to the lightest piece de circon- 
 stance — can rise above the level of amateurish 
 monotony, largely depends on the impulsive 
 power of the manager, and the little word is a 
 wide one as regards the balance of qualities it pre- 
 supposes in one man. Mr. Irving — so say all 
 who have worked with him — is a born manager, 
 and an eminently successful one. He is not, to be 
 Sure, his own stage-manager nominally ; Mr. Love- 
 day and Mr. Bram Stoker assisting him ; but he is 
 the moving spirit, and undoubtedly gives the im- 
 petus that produces the Go. " Any one who goes 
 to see the plays Mr. Irving performs in such varied 
 succession must admit, however strong his preju- 
 dices or sentiments against Mr. Irving's acting may 
 be, that they are produced with the greatest care, 
 and with something very like perfection as regards 
 all the accessories. The patience and intelligence 
 he brings to bear on every detail in the rehearsals, 
 thinking nothing too trivial for the exercise of 
 care, taking as much pains with the supernumer- 
 aries as with the principal actors, are manifest in 
 that general completeness and dramatic effective- 
 ness which are recognized by all the spectators,
 
 THE USE OF EXPERIENCE. 1 69 
 
 but the cause of which is only known to a 
 
 few." 
 
 When the manager is also the principal actor 
 a temptation lies open to him which it requires a 
 gracious and a magnanimous spirit alike to resist : 
 that namely to act his part rather than the play. 
 We have said that Mr. Irving has occasionally 
 erred in this direction, but we cannot, in his case, 
 attribute it to any want of magnanimity. It is 
 only that he is apt to carry his psychological study 
 beyond and outside the situations in which the 
 character is revealed to the audience and to the 
 other characters in the play. In such parts as 
 Shylock, Louis XI., Mathias, and Eugene Aram, 
 the result is splendid ; in some others it over- 
 weights the part with meaning — or so we venture 
 to think. 
 
 There are plays, and they are the finest, in 
 which the situation is the resultant of all the 
 forces of outer circumstance in collision with all 
 the forces of a man's nature ; but when the critics 
 tell us that Irving's Claude Melnotte is " too virile," 
 that his Modus is not pitched in quite the right 
 key, that his Romeo is not altogether satisfactory, 
 and when we try to find the reason, it irresistibly 
 strikes us this is not because he looks too old — that 
 would be easily remedied with a face and figure so
 
 170 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 alert and plastic — but because he overcharges the 
 character with experience. Not with the experience 
 of the actor, but with the experience of the man. 
 It is an old saying that : " no actor can learn to 
 act Romeo till he is too old to act it," and this is 
 the secret of the paradox. By the time the actor 
 knows enough the man knows too much, and to 
 render the character truthfully he must, for the 
 time, forget it 
 
 In an article in The Saturday Revieiv, written 
 early in 1876, we find a remark which throws so 
 direct a light on our own view that Irving is 
 essentially a man of his time, that we cannot for- 
 bear quoting it : " We must allow that there is 
 something morbid and unwholesome in both The 
 Bells and Eugene Aram, though the representa- 
 tion of their agonies is calculated rather to deter, 
 than to encourage any imitation of their example. 
 We have merely a dismal study in the morbid 
 anatomy of crime, without subtlety of character 
 or anything to elevate and exhilarate the mind." 
 
 "Without subtlety of character," — No. The 
 critic here contradicts himself; if this were lacking 
 there would be no anatomy properly speaking. 
 It would be mere hacking and hewing, not dis- 
 secting. Now Irving's work is dissecting; it is 
 this very display of morbid psychology which is
 
 HIS ADVOCACY OF THE THEATRE. I^I 
 
 SO thoroughly nineteenth century, and it is this 
 power of analysis and synthesis which enables him 
 to gratify one of the appetites of the day. That 
 he does so in a purely moral way and never has 
 pandered to the baser curiosity and sensual sym- 
 pathies of his audience is his great merit. He has 
 dignified remorse but not crime ; he has clung to 
 the beauty of truth — not only in accuracy of deli- 
 neation, but in sincerity of purpose, and to the 
 beauty of purity alike in the spirit of his acting 
 and in his choice of plays. 
 
 But Mr. Irving always carries his standard 
 high and defends his colors bravely. Being in- 
 vited to address a meeting at a conference held in 
 the East of London in 1877 he spoke at con- 
 siderable length on the moral value and far from 
 irreligious tendencies of the English stage. " It 
 is also a sign of the times," he said, " that you 
 have invited an actor to read a paper before you. 
 
 * * * Reflect how little the masses of our great 
 towns are under the active influence of religion 
 
 * * * and comparatively how much they frequent 
 the minor theatres. Much in these theatres is 
 vulgar, and there may even be things that are 
 deleterious. Nor would I deny that even good 
 teachings come disfigured on to the minor stage — 
 aye, and on the major also — as they often do in
 
 1/2 HENRY IRVING 
 
 pulpits and books. None the less, however, is it 
 true that the main stream of dramatic sentiment 
 in all veins is pure, kindly, righteous, and in a 
 sense, religious. * * * I claim for histrionic art 
 affinity with much that is beneficent and elevating 
 in religion. The stage must not be homiletic or 
 didactic. If there be any who are for veiling from 
 human sight all the developments of evil, they 
 indeed must turn from the theatre door and desire 
 to see the footlights put out ; but they must also 
 close Shakespeare, avoid Fielding, Dickens, Thack- 
 eray, George Eliot * * * and on the stage, as in 
 the noblest poetry and teaching, there is to be 
 found every refining influence known to mankind 
 — bright lights for guidance, sweet words of 
 encouragement, comprehended even by the most 
 ignorant — glowing pictures of virtue and devo- 
 tion — which bring the world of high thoughts 
 and bright lives into communion and fellowship 
 with the sphere of simple, or perhaps coarse, day- 
 to-day existence." 
 
 If space allowed the whole address would be 
 well Avorth quoting ; it is a worthy exposition of the 
 duties and the influence of the stage. In com- 
 menting on it a writer in The Theatre (May 8th, 
 1877), says : "The actor was addressing a society 
 connected by special designation with the Church.
 
 HIS ADVOCACY OF THE THEATRE. 1 73 
 
 The times indeed are changed ! Only in the last 
 century Junius addressed David Garrick as thou 
 vagabond y — as he was in fact, and as every actor 
 still is by the law and statute of England ! There 
 has, no doubt been a marked expansion of sym- 
 pathy for the stage, under every aspect, in 
 England during the last fifteen years, and during 
 the last ten Mr. Irving has had considerable influ- 
 ence in directing the flow of sympathy into a 
 wholesome channel. Some of it runs in driblets 
 of not unexceptionable taste — burlesque is popu- 
 lar, very popular in London ; but in every great 
 city there must be some vent for the animal 
 spirits of the young and ignorant ; and the finish 
 with which these frothy works are mounted fre- 
 quently justifies their success. But in England, 
 as with us, there is a steady demand for work of a 
 superior stamp and many of the West-end thea- 
 tres provide nothing of a lower class than domes- 
 tic drama, some of them adhering consistently to 
 the higher walks of comedy and tragedy. The 
 general tendency is upwards and this is partly due 
 to the immediate influence of Irving who has in 
 this respect handed down the good traditions 
 of the Kembles, Macready, and Charles Kean. 
 In the speech above quoted he very justly ob- 
 served that an evening spent by a laboring man
 
 174 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 even in an inferior theatre, was better than four 
 hours of drinking in a public-house ; and he 
 might have added that among the upper classes it 
 Avas a more intelligent amusement — to put it at 
 the lowest — than the constant card-playing at 
 which their grandparents lost their time, temper, 
 and money. 
 
 With some reason, we may think that the re- 
 vival of the old English dramatic literature — and 
 in particular of the romantic play of the Eliza- 
 bethans — which has recently set in, is due in 
 great measure to the serious exertions of one ac- 
 tor of Hberal education, critical discernment and 
 delicate taste. To the efforts towards the redemp- 
 tion of the stage made by Mr. Irving and those 
 who act with him, is due the interest which for 
 some few years past has been manifested in 
 Shakespearian play. That the interest for which 
 we have to thank the actor is wholesome in its 
 influence is a statement needing no proof; that it 
 is intense is shown by the circumstance that in the 
 consideration of the plays each disputant still con- 
 tests every nice discrimination of character, not 
 with the impartiality of one who sits in judgment 
 on the metaphysical accuracy of the creation of 
 an author's fancy, but with the warm partisanship 
 of one who claims kindred with the imaginary
 
 HIS SPEECHES AND WRITINGS. 175 
 
 personages, and a right to know them better than 
 another. 
 
 Mr. Irving speaks and writes with faciHty and 
 when his subject is the defense or rather eulogy of 
 the stage, the drama, and histrionic art, he speaks 
 with warmth and writes with elegance. The 
 addresses spoken at Northampton, Perry Barr, and 
 Edinburgh, are full of cogent persuasion, and his 
 last published article, " Shakespeare on the stage 
 and in the study," is really brilliant both in argu- 
 ment and in style. He has also written papers of 
 abstract study and of personal defence for various 
 journals and periodicals. To the Nineteejith Cen- 
 tury, a London monthly, he long ago contributed 
 some "Actor's Notes." The first of these on the 
 "Third Murderer in Macbeth," though the point it 
 deals with is not perhaps very important in eluci- 
 dating the text to the reader, is of technical value 
 to the actor and stage-manager as bearing on a 
 practical matter of probability in the development 
 of the action of the play. The second of these 
 "Actors Notes," published in May, 1877, is of the 
 highest interest as a clue to Mr. Irving's reading 
 of the complex mystery of Hamlet's character 
 and his relations to Ophelia. The third is a more 
 strictly historical discussion of the traditions and 
 practice of several actors in their treatment of the
 
 1/6 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 scene in Hamlet where he upbraids his mother for 
 her faithlessness to his father's memory. " It may," 
 he says, " be interesting to the public to receive 
 occasionally from an actor some explanation of 
 the theories which he embodies in his own imper- 
 sonations, or wishes to see incorporated in the un- 
 written constitution of his art;" and he proceeds 
 to give his reasons for discarding the use either of 
 full-length portraits or of miniatures in his reading 
 of t he pas sage : 
 
 " Look here, upon this picture, and on this." 
 
 "The stage," said Mr. Irving at Northampton in 
 1878, " is ruled by traditions compared with 
 which the laws of the Medes and Persians were 
 elastic ; but I suppose it is possible, even in these 
 degenerate days, to throw some new light on the 
 poet's meaning." 
 
 In the Theatre for July, 1879, we find a well- 
 written article comparing the efforts of Mr. Irving, 
 single-handed, with the results of the time-hon- 
 ored traditions of the Comedie Frangaise in Paris. 
 The members of that Society had been recently 
 acting in England, and the admirable results of
 
 THE TRUE SCHOOL OF DRAMATIC ART. 177 
 
 their scheme of working were no doubt very con- 
 spicuous. But the writer in the Theatre main- 
 tained, and we think not unsuccessfully, that in 
 every point which could be supposed to depend 
 on the constitution of the Society — perfection of 
 rehearsal, propriety of cast, and finish of " busi- 
 ness " — the performances at the Lyceum could 
 well hold their own. The necessity for a National 
 School for Dramatic Art, for a Conservatoire, for 
 a subsidized or at any rate for a chartered Theatre, 
 has been warmly and wearisomely discussed in 
 England and the subject is as far as ever from be- 
 ing settled. Every travelled American has seen 
 the performances at the famous Paris theatre and 
 may judge for himself of the relative merits of the 
 training there and in our own best play-houses ; 
 the question as regards London concerns us here 
 only so far as it concerns Mr. Irving. If ever an 
 actor was qualified by patient experience to speak 
 of the processes of histrionic training it is a man 
 who has so long and so diligently studied the art. 
 Little of the drill needed to cultivate the actor's 
 instincts for his art — given those instincts of 
 course — " can be got in a mere training school, 
 but all of it will come forth, more or less fully 
 armed, from the actor's brain in the process of 
 learning his art by practice," says Mr. Irving. We
 
 1^8 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 conceive that Mr. Irving was hardly so expHcit 
 here as he might have been. " The proposition 
 that young actors are to be pitchforked on to the 
 stage and learn all these things in the presence 
 and at the cost of audiences would be absurd 
 enough," says the Saturday Review, '' ^nd we 
 can hardly suppose that this is what Mr. Ir- 
 ving intended." Mr. Irving we are sure did not 
 mean that beginners should go through the goose 
 step and awkward squad drill of their art in pub- 
 lic performances of Hamlet or Othello, but we are 
 very sure nevertheless that he is right. Recep- 
 tiveness is one of the first quahties needed in an 
 actor ; he must study from life as he grows older 
 and he can hardly learn the rudiments by any bet- 
 ter method than by watching, nay even imitating, 
 actors of eminence and thus learning what he has 
 to work with. " Acting like every other art has 
 its mechanism," says Mr. Irving;* but some very 
 thoughtful writers seem to overlook the fact that 
 seeing the mechanism at work is at the bottom of 
 all stage training — watching how other actors 
 use their means and experimenting on oneself as 
 to what means of voice, facial expression or breadth 
 of gesture — one is blest with by nature, can mas- 
 
 * In a short preface to a translation of "Talma on the Actor's 
 Art." 1-ondon, Bickus & Rush.
 
 THE TRUE SCHOOL OF DRAMATIC ART. 1 79 
 
 ter by study or — on the other hand — can never 
 hope to acquire. The Saturday Review goes on 
 to remark tliat "in the Conservatoire at Paris the 
 actors are certainly taught how to enunciate, how to 
 emphasize, how to move well and effectively . . . . " 
 but what 'then? — if this is all a generation of 
 machines will be the result and not of actors. 
 
 " The lamentation that there are now no 
 schools for actors is a very idle one. Every actor 
 in full employment gets plenty of schooling, for 
 the best schooling is practice." So spoke Mr. 
 Irving at Edinburgh in 1881. But a critic in 
 Macmillaii s Magazine had an answer for him : 
 " No one knows better than Mr. Irving that every 
 actor is not always in full employment. * * * And 
 who has now to pay for such schooling as Mr. Ir- 
 ving advocates, as too many of our young actors 
 only get ? What of us, the poor public — the 
 vile corpus on whom these painful experiments are 
 made ?" Here again we think is a critic who has 
 failed to understand that it is Mr. Irving's own ex- 
 perience that leads him to speak thus. The ques- 
 tion we think is past disputing as to whether such 
 a course of training is the best or not — the real 
 point and a far more vital question now, is whether 
 the school which we, like Mr. Irving, think so 
 much the best still exists. The system of long 
 
 12 *
 
 l8o HENRY IRVING. 
 
 runs on one hand and touring with companies on 
 the other is we fear sapping it at the root. Mr. 
 Irving graduated in it, nay has come out first 
 wrangler ; but he must pardon us for pointing out 
 that the training which one of his own young 
 subordinates may get from seeing him play Romeo, 
 Hamlet, Shylock, what not, for weeks together 
 and playing under him — even if he should rise 
 from figuring as Bernardo to performing Horatio 
 or Bassanio — has absolutely no relation either as 
 mental education, or practical experience or, as we 
 might say, moral training, to the schooling that 
 contributed to make him what he is. He knows — 
 no one better — that catching a manner is not ac- 
 quiring a method ; that the precious grace of due 
 subordination will not carry an actor to the top of 
 the tree unless it is supplemented by a variety of 
 practice. Some little time since an actor was an- 
 nounced as " a pupil of Mr. Irving's," but Mr. 
 Irving repudiated him mercilessly. " I never had 
 a pupil," he wrote to the Theatre, " and I never 
 shall have a pupil." 
 
 We entirely agree with Mr. Frederick Wedmore, 
 one of the most judicious of living dramatic critics, 
 when he says : " Very long runs are, in the main, 
 injurious to theatrical art. They tend, generally, to 
 confirm and exaggerate mannerisms, even where
 
 THE TRUE SCHOOL OF DRAMATIC ART. l8l 
 
 they do not breed carelessness. They deprive the 
 player for the time of his variety and sometimes 
 permanently of his flexibility. They are apt to 
 make of the comedian a comic actor. They en- 
 courage the vice of the specialist, a vice which 
 afflicts all the arts," and which, we may add is 
 more vicious in that of acting than in any other. 
 The mania for expensive mounting is of course at 
 the bottom of long runs. A play costing from 
 5,000 to 8,000 dollars to put upon the stage must 
 run or it means ruin. " But a Shakespearian play 
 or even a brilliant 1 8th century comedy needs but a 
 moderate outlay in stage mounting, and perhaps" — 
 Mr. Wedmore goes on to say, " we should not be 
 far wide of the mark if we said that the art of 
 acting in the greater drama is never submitted to 
 its severest and final test until there is no opportu- 
 nity for surprise or unmeasured admiration at 
 the art of the scene-painter or decorator, and at 
 the knowledge of the antiquary." This, we know, 
 is not Mr. Irving's opinion. 
 
 Mr. Burnand thinks that there is " as good a 
 chance now as ever for the actor of ordinary 
 talent." So far we agree with him. But even the 
 man who " has it in him " needs to be fully trained 
 as an accomplished gentleman to figure well on 
 the stage. Of course it is immaterial whether he
 
 1 82 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 acquires it by imitation and practice or by regular 
 schooling, but somehow or somewhere he must 
 learn to move his limbs and speak with finish ; he 
 must fence, dance, and have a knowledge of artis- 
 tic effect in make-up. We believe a good theatre 
 is better for all this than "the quackery of 
 teachers." "The career of Mr. Irving," says the 
 Academy in 1874, " may be adduced in support of 
 the theory * * that, in spite of many disadvan- 
 tages, a provincial theatre is an actor's best train- 
 ing place. * * * Not a few of the best players, 
 even of the contemporary Theatre, first trod the 
 boards in parts of any importance at that old 
 Bristol play-house which Garrick used to praise so 
 warmly. Mr. Irving, we believe, acted chiefly in 
 the North." 
 
 " It is pleasant reflection, alike for those who 
 have urged and those who have feared the estab- 
 lishment of a state theatre, that should Mr. Irving's 
 prosperity last and should his endeavors retain 
 their present direction, most of the good, with some 
 of the possible evil, arising from any Government 
 interference will be secured. A Conservatoire will 
 it is true, still be wanted : but it is hard to see how, 
 in any subsidized theatre we could confidently 
 look for a worthier selection of plays, for more 
 perfect stage- presentation, or for more earnest art
 
 MR. IRVING'S LEADING POSITION. 1 83 
 
 than are given and promised us at the T.yceum * * 
 Mr. Irving has only to go on as he has begun to 
 make the Lyceum Theatre a nationl institution, 
 not by a vote granted by Act of ParHament, but 
 by the consensus of opinion amongst those who 
 take most interest in our acted drama as it is, and 
 who have most faith in its future development." 
 
 In 1876 when Mr. Irving made his first tour 
 in the provinces it was as "a star," playing his 
 best parts with the staff companies of whom he 
 had once been so earnest and painstaking a mem- 
 ber. Miss Isabel Bateman was with him in some 
 towns, but towards the end of the tour she fell ill. 
 His recent tours have been more elaborately or- 
 ganized and he has taken different members of his 
 company to support him. 
 
 His vigorous health and energy have carried 
 him through fatigues and anxieties which might 
 have broken down a less determined man ; on the 
 other hand successes worthy to be called triumphs 
 have been his reward and encouragement. 
 
 In June, 1877, he visited Dublin for one day. 
 He left London on Saturday night after acting at 
 the Lyceum, crossed to Dublin on Sunday, gave a 
 promised reading in Trinity College on Monday, 
 and was in London on Tuesday in time to appear 
 at the usual hour at the Lyceum, which had been
 
 1 84 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 closed for only one night. The day in Dubhn was 
 a great success. He was received at the Dean's 
 rooms before ^proceeding to the Hall of Trinity 
 College where he gave a reading in the afternoon. 
 The selection was intentionally as varied as possi- 
 ble, " from grave to gay, from lively to severe," 
 only reversed ; for he began with a humorous 
 poem and went on to passages from Othello and 
 Richard HI., ending with Hood's poem of Eugene 
 Aram. " The venerable provost of the college 
 told Mr. Irving that his rendering of this poem 
 reminded him of Edmund Kean in his grandest 
 moments of inspiration." Between the closing of 
 the Lyceum theatre in July, 1878, and its being 
 reopened under his own management in Decem- 
 ber Irving first took a short holiday — broken, 
 however, by reading for charities, and then made a 
 professional tour in the English provinces. He 
 went to Preston, Liecester, Liverpool, Dublin, Man- 
 chester, Greenock, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, 
 Sheffield, and Bristol and played to houses crowded 
 not merely with rank and fashion but with critical 
 play-goers who watched him with absorbed inter- 
 est and sympathy. This again was a .starring tour, 
 and in every respect an immense success ; the 
 provincial papers wrote of him with more enthus- 
 iasm perhaps than judgment but with a :^eal that
 
 PROVINCIAL TOURS. 1 85 
 
 found an echo in the applause of every audience 
 to whom he played. 
 
 In 1879, Mr. Irving gave himself* leave of ab- 
 sence from the boards, and paced the deck in- 
 stead — of a yacht belonging to his constant and 
 appreciative friend the Baroness Burdett Coutts. 
 In 1880 his holiday was a short one for in the 
 winter season he brought out as we have seen The 
 Corsicaii Brothers, The Cap, and The Belle's 
 Stratagem. The season began early too, before 
 the end of September. Mr. Irving's visits to Ire- 
 land and Scotland have usually been the crowning 
 glories of his provincial tours. At Dublin he is 
 always enthusiastically welcomed and in Novem- 
 ber, 1 88 1, when he and Miss Terry went together 
 to Edinburgh they played to houses, " packed to 
 suffocation," as may be easily imagined when we 
 hear that " thirteen performances were witnessed 
 by thirty thousand persons." It was on the oc- 
 casion of his being invited to .speak at the leading 
 Literary Institution of Edinburgh during his stay 
 that he delivered the address on " The Stage as it 
 is." In 1882 he v/as again away for a short tour — 
 and now he is about to make a very long one. He 
 has bid his London friends farewell for ten months, 
 promising to meet them again on the 2d of June 
 next year. Mr. Irving is, we know, the most
 
 1 86 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 punctual of men and always keeps his promises. 
 This being the case America must make the most 
 of her opportunities. She will see much to criti- 
 cise but more — infinitely more — to enjoy. 
 
 In his relations to his brother artists Henry 
 Irving shows a generous and magnanimous spirit. 
 His readings and performances for benefits and 
 charities are too many to enumerate. The invidi- 
 ous remark is of course sufficiently trite that these 
 are his best advertisement. We grant that for 
 what it is worth. It does not alter the fact that he 
 gives up his time and exercises his talents for 
 others and always in the most liberal and gracious 
 manner possible, whether it be at the request of 
 some illustrious personage for a public institution, 
 or for the more direct succour of some impover- 
 ished or invalided brother in art. And no trouble 
 is too great for him. On February 14th, 1877, 
 being Ash- Wednesday, Mr. Irving gave up his 
 holiday to read gratuitously for the benefit of a 
 charity. The eldest Miss Bateman (Mrs. Crowe) 
 very liberally shared the toil and Macbeth was 
 read, or rather recited without acting — with only 
 such artistic expression as was required to emplia-
 
 ACTS OF LIBERALITY. 1 8/ 
 
 size the reader's art. As is very usual with Mr. 
 Irving, the construction he gave to some of the 
 sentences by his punctuation startled the more 
 cultured part of his audience " by an ingenuity 
 which is not invariably satisfactory and which 
 finds no confirmation in any text hitherto dis- 
 covered." The room was crowded with an enthu- 
 siastic audience and the actors' liberality duly 
 recognized. Another graceful act on the part of 
 Mr. Irving was his joining the committee to con- 
 sider the form to be given a memorial to Mr. 
 John Oxenford who for many years had been a 
 popular and successful writer for the stage and a 
 discriminating dramatic critic. In August, 1878, 
 when the Lyceum season ended, before beginning 
 his tour for his own benefit Mr. Irving gave some 
 entertainments for the benefit of various local 
 societies and charities ; he read at Northampton 
 in aid of the fimd for restoring a church ; at 
 Edebarton he laid the foundation-stone of a 
 public institution and three days afterwards gave 
 a reading at Belfast for a charity. It need hardly 
 be said that gratitude added enthusiasm to the 
 applause he earned on these and many other 
 occasions. In Greenock, in 1878, he was the first 
 to suggest a subscription for the relief of the suf- 
 ferers by the failure of a great joint-stock bank
 
 1 88 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 and he and Mr. Toole at once gave two perfor- 
 mances in aid of the impoverished victims, handing- 
 over ;^730 sterHng to the committee. 
 
 In 1879 he was one of the first to offer aid at 
 Birmingham, when a fire destroyed the Shakes- 
 peare Library, by proposing to give a reading in 
 that town. In June, 1879, he helped in a per- 
 formance in aid of the Isandula fund as did Mr. 
 Vezin and many other distinguished professionals. 
 In 1 88 1 a bazaar was held for the Perry Beers 
 Institute, and Mr. Irving travelled down to Bir- 
 mingham and back in the day to open it, " earn- 
 ing the gratitude of the whole profession." 
 
 Acting for benefits is a piece of liberality on 
 the "ca' me and I'll ca' thee" principle which 
 every actor is bound to in his turn ; but a benefit 
 carried out with the liberality that Mr. Irving 
 showed when he organized a " good night's work" 
 before the retirement of his old friend and sup- 
 porter Mr. Chippendale, is uncommon even in 
 that very liberal profession. Irving played Hamlet 
 and the veteran actor performed Polonius, and in 
 the speech in which Mr. Chippendale took leave 
 of the public he acknowledged Mr. Irving's gener- 
 osity and delicacy in the warmest terms, explain- 
 ing that the whole receipts of the evening had 
 been presented to him " a princely and I believe
 
 HIS PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 89 
 
 unprecedented act of liberality." It was a hand- 
 some and graceful acknowledgment to perhaps the 
 oldest actor on the stage, for Mr. Chippendale, who 
 had played with Edmund Kean and Charles Kem- 
 ble, was then seventy-eight years of age. Mr. 
 Irving had a year or two previously played in 
 The Two Roses for his old friend Mr. Belford. 
 
 Of far greater importance, however, to the 
 profession at large than any direct act of kindness 
 is the improved position which Mr. Irving's per- 
 sonal influence has contributed to gain for it It 
 is certain that the audiences who have met, not 
 only to hear him speak and to enjoy his readings, 
 but who have frequented his theatre, include a 
 vast number of persons to whom the bare idea of 
 welcoming and listening to an actor would a few 
 years since have been utter abomination. This is 
 a change which does credit both to the profession 
 and the public, and Mr. Irving must have his full 
 share of the credit ; his tact and taste have been 
 largely instrumental in setting a seal of something 
 more than respectability on his profession and 
 showing that there is a dignity in his art which 
 raises it ''above the foot-lights and the green- 
 room." The demand for actors who have the 
 traditions of good society as well as the culture of 
 good education has grown greatly during the last
 
 190 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 few years, and the morals as well as the manners 
 of the stage have risen in tone. Men of family 
 and character have joined the profession and it 
 can show some shining examples of feminine 
 talent and virtue. As a wholesome sense of the 
 equality of all men of education and of all women 
 of pure lives and refined culture leavens English 
 society, the moral influence of the Theatre on the 
 public mind, and of public feeling on the whole 
 class of actors will be increasingly^ beneficial and 
 elevating. Mr. Irving is by no means the origi- 
 nator of this movement in the right direction, but 
 his personal charm and influence have contributed, 
 there can be no doubt, to add grace to the virtues 
 
 of others. 
 
 In private society Mr. Irving is a perfectly 
 courteous gentleman, always ready to discuss his 
 art with the lady next to him at dinner, and if she 
 is intelligent and bright-witted he will be frank 
 and responsive ; but like every man whose whole 
 life, and thought, and endeavor have been directed 
 into a channel which he has chosen for himself, the 
 flow is checked as by a frost in an uncongenial at- 
 mosphere ; and as he is probably one of those 
 men who will not submit to be dull he will, likely 
 enough, become satirical. 
 
 As a host he is said to be genial, lavish, emi-
 
 IN PRIVATE. 191 
 
 nently festive. His establishment " behind the 
 scenes," at the Lyceum inckides a good cook ; he 
 has a pretty dining-room there and gives very 
 elegant little suppers to small parties of friends. 
 Great suppers too have been given at the Lyceum, 
 on the stage itself, in honor of a long run, a clos- 
 ing night, or some distinguished guest. 
 
 We have a pleasing picture of Irving and 
 Delaunay havi»g met at a private house after Mr. 
 Irving had seen the French actor play in Les 
 Caprices de Marianne in London. "What a Romeo 
 he would make !" Irving had exclaimed on that 
 occasion. Delaunay, now, in private, recited the 
 poem of Fortunio, and Irving in return went 
 through Hood's poem of Eugene Aram. But the 
 Englishman had the advantage, for he understood 
 French and Delaunay does not understand Eng- 
 lish. However he was able to appreciate Mr. 
 Irving's variety of tone and accent and the 
 two actors are said to have exchanged some 
 little souvenirs — snuff-box and seal, or what 
 not. 
 
 Mr. Irving's sense of humor must be keen ; it 
 lurks in the droop of his eyelids, and in the angle 
 of his lips which close with a peculiar absence of 
 curve, and he is said to have no small powers of 
 satire. His mannerism and eccentricities of ac-
 
 192 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 cent lay him open, of course, to imitation and , 
 mimicry and he has been most successfully carica- 
 tured. In a burlesque, The Corsican Brothers & 
 Co., which came out when the melodrama was re- 
 vived at the Lyceum, Mr. Royce — now unfortu- 
 nately disabled from all work by paralysis — gave 
 an imitation of him which was almost too faithful 
 to deserve the name of burlesque ; and not long 
 since a young actor mimicked him with much suc- 
 cess in another burlesque. Mr. Irving, who cannot 
 take such mockery in very good part, went never- 
 theless to see the performance. Not long after he 
 met the culprit at dinner and made himself so in- 
 finitely agreeable that his new acquaintance began 
 to feel some qualms of conscience, till presently, 
 when matters theatrical came under discussion, 
 Mr. Irving turned to the younger man and said in 
 a tone of bland enquiry : " And are you an actor 
 too Mr. Z ?" 
 
 Mr. Irving will probably take with him his 
 dresser Walter, a very important personage who 
 has been in his service many years. Walter feels 
 it a point of honor to turn his master out a fin- 
 ished work of art, every evening, but the impa- 
 tience of Irving's temperament makes this a 
 matter of no small difficulty. " I can never send 
 him on to the stage tidy — Mr. Irving won't let
 
 SOME PERSONAL DETAILS. 1 93 
 
 me have a chance of making him tidy," is Walter's 
 lament. 
 
 A very important person is a good dresser ; 
 indeed, it is to him and to the skilled carpenter 
 that we owe the relief of short " waits " while 
 changes are made between the acts ; and without 
 a practised and thoughtful dresser rapid changes 
 of character — such as Dubosc and Lesurques for 
 instance — would be simply impossible. It is his 
 business to have every article of dress ready to be 
 slipped on in proper order, and so conveniently held 
 that no fumbling or wriggling is needed ; and in 
 Mr. Irving's case, as he is extremely short-sighted, 
 it is Walter's duty to attend him to the very verge 
 of the side-scene and at the last moment utter the 
 warning words: "Glasses Sir !" or the audience 
 might be edified by seeing Louis XL or Hamlet 
 wearing pince-nez. 
 
 An amusing incident — an unrehearsed effect 
 as it has become customary to call such mishaps — 
 once arose out of Irving's short-sightedness in a 
 performance of lolanthe. Count Tristan has to 
 give a talisman to the blind girl, and at the very 
 moment when his little "property" was most neces- 
 sary to the action of the play he unluckily drop- 
 ped it. Mr. Cooper, who was playing Sir Geof- 
 frey, was as short-sighted as his chief and after a 
 
 13
 
 194 ' HENRY IRVING. 
 
 few moments of sotto-voce dialogue : " Pick it 
 up — pick it up my boy." 
 
 "I can't see it, I can't feel it — " The blind 
 Princess was forced to stoop and pick up the in- 
 dispensable talisman, which she alone could see. 
 
 Mr. Irving like every really romantic actor has 
 admirers, personal and devoted admirers of the 
 gentler sex. A correspondent of The TJicatJ'e, 
 signing himself M. S. C, ends an account of a 
 "country cousin's" visit to the Lyceum, with a 
 description of an incident illustrating this — how 
 three young girls lingered till the house was empty 
 and the curtain drawn up, showing the darkened and 
 desolate stage, where, " amid that latter-end chaos, 
 stood Mr. Irving, in propria persona^' with two or 
 three persons to whom he was talking. " There 
 he is really himself,'' whispered one of the three — 
 and we fancy we can see him in his great coat and 
 hat ?ind pince-nez ; and it is saying something for 
 the prestige of an actor that it should stand the 
 test of such disiUusionment. " I think," adds M. 
 S. C, "that Mr. Irving is much to be congratu- 
 lated on having so entirely gained the sympathy 
 of the best portion of creation, and his fair ad- 
 mirers that they have concentrated their interest 
 on a not less worthy hero." 
 
 We have heard a storj^ of a damsel of good
 
 HIS YOUNG LADY ADMIRERS. I95 
 
 degree whose dream in life it was to touch Henry- 
 Irving, if it were but the hem of his garment, and 
 who to this end was content to wait outside the 
 theatre after a performance of Hamlet and open 
 his cab door. What was her delight then when — ^^ 
 unconscious no doubt of the fair one's rank in 
 life — he rewarded her services with a penny 
 which she ever after wore on her watch chain ! 
 Se non e vero e ben trovato. On another occasion, 
 a party of maiden enthusiasts were so happy to 
 pick up "a glove dropped by the object of their ad- 
 miration — four fingers, a thumb, the palm, the 
 back — seven precious fragments to treasure in 
 their desks ! And who shall say that hero-wor- 
 ship is dead ? The Hero as Actor ! Carlyle 
 omitted him from his classification. 
 
 We have done our best to remedy the omis- 
 sion. Henry Irving is not, to be sure, a hero to 
 us as he is to a Hamlet-stricken or Romeo-sick 
 damsel. He does not bewitch us altogether out 
 of our critical faculty ; but he has stirred our feel- 
 ings, roused our imagination to lofty flights, our 
 intelligence to noble conceptions, and our sympa- 
 thy to genial warmth. More than this, we take 
 it does not lie within the actor's province. The 
 next step must be to worthy deeds, and these lie 
 as far beyond his ken of his audience as they do 
 
 13 *
 
 196 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 beyond that of the preacher. But, looking back 
 on his own utterances, and reflecting on the 
 high position he has always claimed for the stage, 
 we believe Mr. Irving will gladly allow us to rank 
 ^lim with the preacher, and as one of the high- 
 priests of a humanizing vocation. " The influence 
 of a great work of art, indeed, is like that of the 
 heroes of a past generation ; it is seen through 
 the idealizing medium of imagination. I hope 
 you agree that this is a better thing than the in- 
 fluence of a self-complacent preacher, who offers 
 himself as an example good to follow." So says 
 a sympathetic English writer ; and Mr. Irving 
 himself has said : " It is fair to judge an art by 
 what should be its highest aim." (Preface to 
 Talma on the Actor's Art.) 
 
 So, for much wholesome pleasure, for many 
 inspiring thoughts, and above all for the keen en- 
 joyment which comes of enlarged apprehension 
 and generous emotion accept our thanks 
 
 Henry Irving.
 
 ELLEN TERRY. 197 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ELLEN TERRY. 
 WILLIAM TERRISS. THOS. MEAD. 
 
 Miss Ellen Terry was born at Coventry, 
 on the 27th of February, 1847 ! she first appeared 
 on the stage at Hull, almost as an infant, in a 
 pantomime in which others of her family were en- 
 gaged, and at the age of ten played the child 
 Mamillius in The Winter's Tale, which Charles 
 Kean brought out as one of a series of Shakespear- 
 ian performances very beautifully and elaborately 
 mounted ; she also played Arthur in King John, 
 in 1858, with as much success as her elder sister 
 Kate in 1852. 
 
 When the Keans gave up the management of 
 the Princess's and left London, Miss Ellen Terry 
 was for a time lost sight of She probably went 
 to serve her apprenticeship to stage-business un- 
 der Mr. Chute, for many years the manager of the 
 Bath and Bristol theatres. On the i6th of Sep- 
 tember, 1862, we find her at the Theatre Royal,
 
 198 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Bristol, playing Cupid in Brough's extravaganza 
 of Endymion, her sister Kate taking the part 
 of Diana ; and again she appeared in Perseus and 
 Andromeda, " making the most of the small part 
 of Dictys and being most graceful and effective." 
 On December 5th of that year she shared a bene- 
 fit with her sister, and they took their leave of the 
 Bristol public in some lines written for Kate Terry 
 to speak on the occasion. 
 
 There is no discipline so varied and incessant 
 as that of the permanent staff of a provincial 
 theatre and Miss Terry had profited by her ex- 
 perience and learnt to turn her exceptional beauty 
 and talents to good account when she made her 
 debut in London, March, 1863, as Gertrude in The 
 Little Treasure, at the Haymarket. To judge 
 from the critiques on this performance Miss 
 Terry's qualifications for the part were the same 
 characteristics as now, in riper age, make her 
 Letitia Hardy so dehghtful. "There is nothing 
 conventional or affected in her performance ; the 
 young girl of buoyant spirits, kindly heart, impul- 
 sive emotions, and somewhat remiss education is 
 presented in her natural shape, free and uncon- 
 trolled as her long black hair." After this, for 
 about ten months, from March, 1863, till January, 
 1864, she played Hero in Much Ado About
 
 ELLEN TERRY. 199 
 
 Nothing, Mary Meredith in The American Cousin, 
 and other secondary parts. 
 
 Miss Ellen Terry married and left the stage 
 while still a mere child ; she was not yet twenty 
 when she again came before the public at the end 
 of October, 1867, in a rather dismal play, The 
 Double Marriage, adapted from the French by 
 Charles Reade for the New Queen's Theatre, Lon- 
 don. She also played Mrs. Mildmay in Still 
 Waters, and Katharine in the common stage ver- 
 sion of the Taming of the Shrew known as Katha- 
 rine and Petruchio. It was in this comedy, on 
 the 26th of December, 1867, that she and Mr. 
 Irving first acted together ; and we have it on 
 good authority that his foresight of his own 
 powers and his judicious appreciation of Miss 
 Terry's talents — she was but nineteen — led him 
 to promise that when he should become the 
 manap;er of a London theatre she should be his 
 ■ " leading lady." 
 
 She left the theatre in January, 1868, and did 
 not reappear on the London stage till 1874 when 
 she returned to the Queen's as Philippa Chester 
 in the Wandering Heir. After playing for a few 
 months at Astley's Theatre she went to the 
 Prince of Wales' where the Merchant of Venice 
 was rashly put upon the stage with Mr. Coghlan
 
 200 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 as Shylock and with scarcely a redeeming point 
 in the performance but Ellen Terry's Portia. 
 This was then and has often since been highly 
 praised and, in fact, the figure, presence, and voice 
 of the actress lend themselves to the impersona- 
 tion. The heiress of Belmont might have been 
 well content to look the part in real life as Miss 
 Terry looks it on the stage. But the conception 
 of the woman behind the beauty, grace and gor- 
 geousness of the Italian lady is not in our opinion 
 quite satisfactory ; there is a fidgetiness not to say 
 flightiness of demeanor now and then in Miss 
 Terry's Portia which would be suitable in a woman 
 who assumed the lawyer's dress for a mere joke 
 but which is not quite " of a piece" with the lofty 
 earnestness of Portia's mind and the gravity of her 
 purpose. In her doctor's gown Miss Terry 
 affected suitable dignity, but in other parts of the 
 play, particularly the casket scene, her restlessness 
 was fatiguing ; it expressed the nervousness of 
 curiosity rather than the anxiety of passion. 
 
 "Sumptuous sweetness," is a particularly happy 
 phrase used by a critic in Scribner's Magazine for 
 Miss Terry's appearance. He undervalues her 
 acting though his judgment errs on the right side. 
 " He would like," he says, " a little less nature and 
 a little more art;" and on the whole we are of his
 
 ELLEN TERRY. 20I 
 
 mind — only, Miss Terry's nature is so winningly 
 engaging that it is ungracious to say so. But of 
 all this our readers will, before long, have the 
 pleasure of judging for themselves. 
 
 Some of her greatest successes were achieved 
 at the Court Theatre, a small but convenient house 
 at the south-west end of London. It was here 
 that on the 29th of March, 1878, an adaptation by 
 AV. G. Wills of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 
 was brought out under the name of Olivia which, 
 owing mainly to Miss Terry's delightful perfor- 
 mance of Olivia herself, supported by Mr. Her- 
 mann Vezin and Mr. Terriss, held the stage for a 
 very long run till Mr. Irving secured her services 
 3.S, prima domia at the Lyceum. 
 
 He showed his insight and judgment. The 
 change for the better, so far as he himself was 
 concerned must have been inestimable. Mrs. 
 Crowe and her sister must have failed in many 
 ways to satisfy his requirements and so far as the 
 part of Ophelia is concerned Miss Isabel Bateman 
 as compared with Miss Terry was in every respect 
 wanting. /*z^;^^//, January i ith, 1879, says: "If 
 anything more intellectually conceived or more 
 exquisitely wrought out than Miss Terry's Ophelia 
 has been seen on the English stage in this gener- 
 ation, it has not been within PuncJis memory."
 
 202 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Since that night, December 30th, 1878, Mr. 
 Irving and Miss Terry have not been parted. She 
 has had intervals of much-needed rest when he 
 has produced plays in which her appearance was 
 not required, but she has not acted elsewhere and 
 it is to be hoped that an alliance so extraordi- 
 narily favorable to the interests of art — and, we 
 may add a hope, to their well-earned advantage 
 and profit — may continue for many years. 
 
 There are parts still for them to act together. 
 Lear and Cordelia at once suggest themselves, 
 Malvolio and Viola, Joseph Surface and Lady 
 Teazle, nay, and why not Henri de Lagardere and 
 Blanche deNevers? — for The Duke' s Motto is one 
 of the most delightful melodramas ever played on 
 the English stage. The hero's part is captivating 
 in that delicately amorous way which is wonder- 
 fully sympathetic to Mr. Irving, if we may judge 
 from his acting in the third act of Hamlet and in 
 the supper scene in The Corsican Brothers, where 
 he expresses the tender and suppressed phase of 
 love in a captivating manner. 
 
 Of all the parts Miss Terry has played with 
 Mr. Irving Ophelia is the most pathetic, Beatrice 
 the most brilliant. These two extremes of the 
 scale of feeling are what she deals with best. In 
 the first act of " The Cup,'' where again what may
 
 ELLEN TERRY. 203 
 
 be called domestic pathos is the ruling sentiment, 
 her acting was exquisite, her song simply heart- 
 breaking without any rational cause for the emo- 
 tion it roused. In Letitia Hardy again, where 
 airy spirits and judicious impertinence are required 
 she is perfectly fascinating. But Miss Terry is 
 not a tragedy queen, and if she cares to keep the 
 hearts she has won she will still play such parts 
 as she is mistress of — facile princeps. 
 
 We shall see her here as Ophelia, as Henrietta 
 Maria, as Letitia Hardy, Portia, Ruth (Eugene 
 Aram), Jeanette ( The Lyon's Mail), and above all 
 as Beatrice — a part, which if Shakespeare had but 
 seen her play it, he might have believed he had 
 written for her. In the lighter scenes she is the 
 very woman Benedick loved — the very woman 
 perhaps that Shakespeare himself loved, who 
 knows? In the church scene she is tragical — 
 just as tragical as Beatrice and Miss Terry ought 
 ever to be. All is admirable from beginning to 
 end. 
 
 Miss Terry is rarely heard as a reciter but her 
 singularly pathetic voice — voix voilee even when 
 she is at her gayest — is heard to great advantage 
 in this kind of monologue. In the course of a 
 miscellaneous entertainment given, after Charles I., 
 for Mr. Irving's benefit in August, 1880. she re-
 
 204 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 cited a poem by Lewis, The Captive ; " so admir- 
 able, so full of tragic feeling, of skill in varied 
 intonation, of art to make one forget the silliness 
 of the words in the emotion with which she charged 
 them, that one could hardly regret that such rub- 
 bish should have been chosen." In truth, as she 
 repeated them Miss Terry was the poet ; she in- 
 terpreted the situation which the author had been 
 unable to find fitting expression for : that of a 
 sane woman imprisoned as a mad woman by her 
 husband and at last really losing her reason in 
 despair. 
 
 Mr. William Terriss. 
 
 T^XQ jeune premier, for such he is practically, who 
 now plays second to Mr. Irving in almost every 
 piece he puts on the stage, is a gentleman by 
 birth and education and was brought up to the 
 Navy. Bitten, however by the insidious demon 
 which leaves stage mania in the blood, at the age 
 of twenty he entered the dramatic profession, act- 
 ing first at Birmingham in 1869. In London, he 
 was at first a member of the Bancrofts' company 
 at the Prince of Wales' ; then he went to Drury 
 Lane, and to the Strand, where he played Dori- 
 court in The Belle's Stratagem through a very
 
 WILLIAM TERRISS. 205 
 
 long run. His first very successful effort however, 
 as a work of art, was as Squire Thornhill in Wills' 
 play of Olivia, in which Miss Terry also made 
 her mark. He did not join the Lyceum staff till 
 1880, when he played Chateau Renaud in The 
 Corsicari Brothers. Mr. Terriss is careful, con- 
 scientious and, we should imagine, a very capital 
 and trustworthy second to act with ; his indepen- 
 dence is probably not very pronounced, and he 
 acts like a man who relies enormously on habit, 
 whose stage-business — once thoroughly mastered 
 in rehearsal — has become part of the role to him 
 forever after. He is not an imaginative actor and 
 his voice is somewhat rigid and unsympathetic ; 
 and yet he is much more than a mere machine, 
 for he has taste and intelligence. His play is per- 
 haps less mechanical than it sometimes appears by 
 contrast with the impulsive vehemence of his 
 chief; it is possible too that his own discretion 
 keeps his energies at bay, for no stage on earth 
 could hold a second Irving however far he might 
 laer behind the first. 
 
 *t> 
 
 Mr. Thomas Mead. 
 
 One of the actors who appeared at the Lyceum 
 theatre Sunderland on the opening night, when
 
 206 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 Henry Irving first appeared as a professional actor, 
 was "Tom. Mead," now an honorably distinguished 
 member of Mr. Irving's company. This excellent 
 and trustworthy artist was born at Cambridge 
 (England) in 1819, and trained in the best tradi- 
 tions of the old school — a school somewhat pon- 
 derous and over-emphatic but careful in its reading, 
 accurate in its pronunciation and serious, though 
 far from subtle, in the interpretation and delivery 
 of blank verse. When we hear Mr. Mead give out 
 the speech of the Ghost in Hamlet, or of the friar 
 in MiicJi Ado About Nothing, in his full deliberate 
 tones we hear the echo — perhaps the last echo — 
 of the voices of a former generation of actors whose 
 method is disappearing under the " aesthetic" 
 reaction of our day. Naturalism is the watch- 
 word of the modern aesthetic — a naturalism 
 which, when pushed to excess, is the bane of dig- 
 nity and the ruin of style ; and though the impa- 
 tience of the juvenile play-goer might prove 
 refractory if this grave elocution were applied to 
 any less solemn parts than those Mr. Mead now 
 fills, we would fain point out that it has unmis- 
 takably that stamp of style which is as stately as 
 it is now rare. We are thankful not to be obliged 
 to criticise Mr. Mead in light parts, it might be a 
 trial to sit through them ; but many actors, who
 
 THOS. MEAD. 20/ 
 
 rank higher than he now does in popular favor, 
 might with advantage have an infusion of his com- 
 plaint. He often forces rhythm to excess, no 
 doubt, sometimes to the extent of misreading ; 
 still, such as he is, mark him with respect — he is 
 the last of the old English type of actors. 
 
 He first acted at Devonport in 1841, and after- 
 wards worked in the north of England, making* 
 himself generally useful, as was then the custom ; 
 it was not till 1 848 that he appeared in London, 
 and then at one of the less fashionable theatres, as 
 Sir Giles Overreach. He first became known to 
 the " West-end " public in 1852 when he took an 
 engagement at Drury Lane and played leading 
 parts for some years there, and afterwards at the 
 St. James. He was thought well enough of to be 
 engaged as a " star" in various provincial theatres, 
 and Mr. Irving has many times sjipported him at 
 Sunderland, Edinburgh, and Manchester. 
 
 There can be no clearer evidence of the 
 strength of the reaction in art that has charac- 
 terized the last decade than the relative position 
 the two actors now stand in — nor can there be 
 any better proof of the magnanimity of their 
 minds and the soundness of their natures, than 
 the faithful alliance of the two men.
 
 209 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Addison, Mr., actor, 47. 
 
 Anderson, Mary, Irving's allu- 
 sion to her in his farewell ad- 
 dress to the audience at Ly- 
 ceum Theatre, July 28th, 1883, 
 
 147- 
 Anson, Mr., actor, 35. 
 Art, changes in ideal of beauty, 3. 
 Atkins, Mrs., 10. 
 
 Barrett, Lawrence, Irving's al- 
 lusion to him in his farewell 
 address to the audience at Ly- 
 ceum Theatre, July 28th, 1883, 
 
 147- 
 
 Bateman, H. L., 46,59; his pro- 
 duction of Philip, 65 ; his 
 death, 78. 
 
 Bateman, Miss, 26, 51, 78, 85, 97. 
 
 Bateman, Miss Isabel, 47, 55, 70, 
 86, 97, 183. 
 
 Bateman, Mrs., her management 
 of Lyceum Theatre, 95 ; her 
 death, 96. 
 
 Belford, Wm., 128. 
 
 Belle's Stratagem, the, 36, 116. 
 
 Bellew, Kyrle. 98. 
 
 Bells, the, 48, 49, 50, 52. 
 
 Belmore, Mr., actor, 47. 
 
 Berlioz, 4. 
 
 Betterton, 32, 72. 
 
 Bland, Harcourt, 17. 
 
 Blough, Lionel. 42. 
 
 Booth, Edwin, 22, 78 ; his en- 
 gagement at Lyceum, 118; 
 his lago, 122; his Othello, 127. 
 
 Booth, the elder, 120. 
 
 Boucicault, Dion, 33; Hunted 
 Down, 37; Formosa, 43; 
 Louis XL, 92. 
 
 Brooke, G. V., 71. 
 
 Brougham, John, Playing with 
 Fire, 22 ; Flies in the Web, 23. 
 
 Buckstone, 9. 
 
 Burbage, 32. 
 
 Caine, J. H., criticisms on 
 Richard III. and Macbeth, 88. 
 
 Calvert, 23, 28. 
 
 Case, Comyns, . criticisms, on 
 lolanthe, no; Cup, 113. 
 
 Champagne, Philippe, his por- 
 trait of Richelieu, 58. 
 
 Clark, J. S., 39. 
 
 Coghlan, 103. 
 
 Cook, Dutton, cridcisms, Shy- 
 lock, 108 ; Corsican Brothers, 
 112; Doricourt, 117; lago, 
 123; Philip, 153; Louis XL, 
 T54, 162. 
 
 n
 
 2IO 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Cooke, Robert, 28. 
 
 Creswick, 76. 
 
 Crosby House, ig. 
 
 Cup, the, the production of, 113. 
 
 Cushman, Charlotte, 78. 
 
 Davenport Bros., burlesque of 
 
 27, 28. 
 Davis, 59. 
 Day, Philip, 27, 28. 
 Dickens, Charles, 48. 
 Dillon, 13, 16. 
 
 Elliston, 139. 
 
 Emerson, 4. 
 
 Eugene Aram, play of, 56. 
 
 Faucit, Helen, 9, 86, 135, 137. 
 Fechter, Charles, his Hamlet, 70. 
 Florence, Mr. and Mrs., 22. 
 Forbes, Norman, 102. 
 
 Garrick, 32, 72, 137, 173. 
 Genius, men of, their influence 
 
 on their times, etc., 3. 
 Gloster, Richard Duke of, his 
 
 residence, 19. 
 Glyn, Miss, 8, 9, 136. 
 
 Hamlet, 25, 70, 81, 98. 
 Harris, Augustus, 14, 17. 
 Herbert, Miss, 21,36. 
 Honey, Mr., 44. 
 
 Irving, Henry, a man of his time, 
 4 ; his early life, 7 ; first appear- 
 ance on any stage, 8 ; at Edin- 
 burgh, 1857, 9; at London, 
 1859, 17; at Manchester, 1860- 
 '64, 20 ; plays with Chas. 
 Mathews, Mr. and Mrs. Flor- 
 
 ence, and Edwin Booth, 22; 
 plays with Sothern, 24 ; first 
 appearance in Hamlet, 1864, 
 25; at Liverpool, 1866, 29; his 
 apprenticeship as an actor, 31 ; 
 his naturalism, 35 ; first appear- 
 ance in London, 1866, 36 ; vari- 
 ous parts, 1867, 39 ; a Lan- 
 cashire Lass, 1868, 41 ; Drury 
 Lane Theatre, 1869,43 ; Digby 
 Grant, 1870, 45 ; Landry Bar- 
 beau, 1870, 47; Mathias, 1871, 
 49; Charles I., 1872, 53; 
 Eugene Aram, 1873,56; Rich- 
 elieu, 1873, 58 ; Philip, 1874, 
 65; Charles I. revived, 1874, 
 68; Hamlet, i874-'75, 70; Mac- 
 beth, 1875,79; Othello, 1876, 
 81; King Philip of Spain, 1876, 
 85; Richard HI., 1877, 87; Le- 
 surques and Dubosc, 1877, 
 89; Louis XL, 1878, 91; Van- 
 derdecken, 1878, 93 ; becomes 
 manager of the Lyceum, 
 95; Claude Melnotte, 1879,98; 
 benefit, 1879, 100; Iron Chest, 
 1879, 103 ; Shylock, 1879, 
 104; lolanthe, 1880, no; Cor- 
 sican Brothers, 1880, in ; The 
 Cup, 1881, 113; The Belle's 
 Stratagem, 1881, 115; Booth 
 and Irving, 1881, 118; Othello 
 and lago, 1881, 121 ; The Two 
 Roses, 1881, 129; Romeo and 
 Juliet, 1882, 129 ; plans for 
 America, 1882, 134 ; Much Ado 
 About Nothing, 1882, 136 ; 
 revivals, 1883, 143 ; dinner,
 
 INDEX, 
 
 211 
 
 July, 1883, 14S ; his individu- 
 ality, 148 ; his features, 149 ; his 
 expression, 150; his method, 
 153 ; his mannerisms, 156 ; his 
 stage-business, 161 ; his style, 
 163 ; as a stage-manager, 167 ; 
 his advocacy of Theatre, 171 ; 
 his speeches and writings, 175 ; 
 the true school of dramatic art, 
 177; his leading position, 183; 
 provincial tours, 185 ; his acts 
 of liberality, 186; his personal 
 influence, 189; in private, 190 ; 
 some personal details, 192. 
 
 James, 44. 
 Jefferson, Joseph, 78. 
 Johnson, 8. 
 Jones, D. H., 22. 
 Jones, Ersser, 13. 
 
 Kean, Charles, 17, 64; his Ham- 
 let, 70 ; his Louis XL, 91, m, 
 132, 173, 
 
 Kean, Mrs. Charles, 136. 
 
 Kean, Edmund, 32, 82, 126; 
 Hazlitt's remarks on his 
 Romeo, 131. 
 
 Keeley, Louise, 10. 
 
 Kemble, 137, 173. 
 
 King, T. C, 10. 
 
 Knowles, Sheridan, on Irving's 
 Macbeth, 79. 
 
 Lady of Lyons, 16, 98. 
 Lewis, Leopold, 49. 
 Lewis, the actor, 139. 
 Louis XL, play of, 28 91. 
 Loveday, 168. 
 
 Lyons, E. D., 9, 10, 13. 
 Lyons, Edmund, 9. 
 Lyons Mail, the, 89. 
 Lyons, Robert C, 9. 
 
 Macbeth, 79. 
 
 Maccabe, Fred., 27, 28. 
 
 Macready, 60, 64, 70, 99, 137. 
 
 Mathews, Charles, 9, 22, 29. 
 
 Mead, Thomas, first acquain- 
 tance with Irving, 8,9; as Le- 
 surques/^rtf, 90 ; his style, 206. 
 
 Melville, George, 12, 13, 18. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, 103. 
 
 Miles, Sophie, 12. 
 
 Montague, 44, 45. 
 
 Montgomery, Walter, 23, 24, 26. 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, his residence 
 at Crosby House, 19. 
 
 Much Ado About Nothing, 104, 
 136. 
 
 Murray, Gaston, 48. 
 
 Nelson, John, 28. 
 Nicoll, Miss, 10. 
 
 Othello, 81. 
 
 Paganini, 34. 
 
 Pembroke, Countess of, her resi- 
 dence at Crosby House, 19. 
 Phelps, S. H., 9, 32, 64, 67. 
 Philip, drama of, 65. 
 Pickwick, Albery's, 47, 48. 
 Pinero. H. W. 98. 
 Prince of Wales, 15. 
 
 Queen Mary, play of, 85. 
 
 14 ""
 
 212 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Reece, Robert, on stage-man- 
 agement, 167. 
 Reeves, Sims, 145, 147. 
 Richard III., 87. 
 Richelieu, 58. 
 Romeo and JiiHet, 129. 
 
 Sala, G. A., criticisms, etc , 131, 
 
 134. 135. 138- 
 Savile, Kate, 17. 
 Scott, Clement, on Irving's Dori- 
 
 court, 117. 
 Sedgwick, Amy, 43. 
 Shakespeare, 9, 32, 48. 
 Sims, Henrietta, 10. 
 Sinclair, G. F., 26. 
 Smythson, G., 13. 
 Sothern, 24. 
 Spencer, Sir John, his residence 
 
 at Crosby House, 19. 
 Starring System, 22, 29. 
 Stirling, 10. 
 Stoker, Bram, 168. 
 Swinburne, 4. 
 Symonds, John Addington, on 
 
 art, 4. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Queen Mary, 
 
 85 ; The Cup, 113. 
 Terriss, William, his career, 204. 
 Terry, Ellen, 37, 40, 55; as 
 
 Ophelia, 77; joins the Lyceum 
 Company, 96 ; as Portia, 103, 
 107; as lolanthe, no; as Cam- 
 ma, 115 ; as Letitia Hardy, 118; 
 as Juliet, 131 ; as Beatrice, 136 ; 
 sketch of her life, 197. 
 
 Terry, Florence, 103. 
 
 The True School of Dramatic 
 Art, 177. 
 
 Thorne, 44. 
 
 Toole, J. L., II, 40, 41, 42, 43, 
 127, 14s, 147. 
 
 Two Roses, Albery's, 44, 51, 
 128. 
 
 Vanderdecken , the Fly in g Dutch- 
 
 man, 93. 
 Vezin, Herman, 64, 78. 
 
 Wagner, 4. 
 
 Wallack, 71, 137. 
 
 Wedmore, Frederick, criticisms, 
 on Irving's Digby Grant, 44; 
 Richelieu, 60, 63, 64; Charles 
 I., 68; Hamlet, 75; Othello, 
 85 ; Romeo, 130 ; on long runs, 
 180. 
 
 Whistler, 4. 
 
 Wigan, Alfred, 9, 41, in. 
 
 Wigan, Mrs., 9. 
 
 Wyndham, R. H., 8, 10, 12.
 
 ADVERTISEMENTS
 
 A TRAGEDY AT CONSTANTINOPLE. — By 
 
 LiCila-liailOlini, translated from the French, with notes, 
 by Geii. K. E. Colston, one vol. pa., 5octs. do., gocts. 
 
 "The romance has for its gromidwork the mysterious and 
 fascinating subject of harem life in the East, and is founded on 
 facts. The tragedy is one no less thrilling in culmination than 
 the violent ending of the Sultan Abdul-Aziz, which startled the 
 world only a few years ago. The author works her way to this 
 climax by a narrative almost as strange as a chapter out of the 
 Arabian Nights. Incidentally it falls to her lot to reveal the 
 secrets of the harems so jealously guarded from observation. She 
 seems to have enjoyed inside views of those shrouded places to 
 an extent rare if not unprecedented among persons not actually 
 inmates of them. At all events no work surpasses this in its dis- 
 closures of the deep shadows of that female slavery which remains 
 the foulest blot upon the domestic institutions of Turkey. The 
 Empress Eugenie, Midhat-Pasha, Reshid-Pasha, Hassan-Bey, 
 and other personages of rank and power in their day, are among 
 the characters who play their part in this extraordinary book. 
 General R. E. Colston, long identified with the Egyptian Army, 
 is the translator, and supplies a preface so good that it should not 
 be skipped." — The Journal of Commerce, New York. 
 
 " It is a translation from the French by Leila-Hanoum, by- 
 Gen. R. E. Colston, late Bey on the General Staff, Egyptian 
 Army, who thinks (and we agree with him) that it will give the 
 readers a more complete idea of the Mussulman than he could 
 obtain by wading through volumes of mere description. What 
 the novels of Georg Ebers are to the life of ancient Egypt and 
 Rome, and the stories of Galdos are to the life of Spain, the 
 Tragedy in the Imperial Harem is to the life of Turkey, as reveal- 
 ed in the luxuriant, indolent idleness of the Sultan and in the end- 
 less intrigues of his Pashas and Beys, and as concealed (at least 
 from the eye of the Giaour) in the stifling recesses of the seragho. 
 It is a story of love and vengeance, the love and the vengeance of 
 harem life running like a black thread through the tawdry splendor 
 of two generations, and shooting its stains along the web and 
 woof of other lives than those of the sufferers. If it reminds us 
 of anything, it is of the early romantic work of Byron, who was 
 the first Englishman whom the East really inspired, and who 
 painted with singular poetic power the dark unbridled passion of 
 its souls of fire— " with whom revenge was virtue." We have in 
 the Tragedy in the Imperial Harem a prose-poem of striking in- 
 terest, and of permanent value, as a picture of Eastern manners." 
 — T/ie Mail and Express, New York. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York.
 
 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. — //<'7.' to Grow and Shcrw 
 Them! By S. lleyiioltls Hole, in one volume. Paper, 
 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 "There is a June fragrance about this little book that is par- 
 ticularly refreshing, now that we are on the edge — very ragged 
 edge, to be sure — of summer. They say the flowers know those 
 who love them, and come forth only at their bidding. If this be 
 so, surely Mr. Hole should be a successful cultivator, as he is cer- 
 tainly an entertaining writer on a subject in which he has long 
 been a recognized authority. This is the seventh edition of his 
 ' Book About Roses ' that has been called for, and in responding 
 to the demand the happy author contributes some of the latest re- 
 sults of his experience, which will be gratefully received by all 
 rosarians. Mr. Hole is an enthusiast, and he communicates much 
 of that quality to his pages. It is impossible to read long in this 
 charming volume without becoming impressed with a profound 
 conviction that a rose is the most perfect thing in creation. Aside 
 from its value as a guide to cultivators, whether professional or 
 amateur, the work possesses a rare fascination, that jiartly belongs 
 to the subject and partly to its happy manner of treatment. There 
 is a vein of playful humor in Mr. Hole's writing that rarely de- 
 generates into 'flippancy, and occasionally a little flight of senti- 
 mentalism that accords well with his theme, mingling agreeably 
 enough with the purely scientific disquisitions like a wholesome 
 perfume, which is happily not a hot-house, but an out-of-door one. 
 We cordially commend this book to all who are interested in the 
 cultivation of the (lueen of flowers."— C/^/ra^fi- Evening Journal. 
 
 "The whole volume teems with encouraging data and statistics ; 
 and, while it is intensely practical, it will interest general readers 
 by an unfiling vivacity, which supplies garnish and ornament to 
 the array of facts, and furnishes 'ana' in such rich profusion that 
 one might do worse than lay by many of Mr. Hole's good stories 
 for future table-talk." — Saturday Revinu. 
 
 "■ It is the production of a man who boasts of thirty 'all Eng- 
 land' cups, v.'hose Roses are always looked for anxiously at 
 flower-shows, who took the lion's share in originating the first 
 Rose- Show pnr et simple, whose assistance as judge or amicus 
 curiae is alu-ays courted at such exhibitions. Such a man ' ought 
 to have something to say worth hearing to those who love the 
 Rose,' and he has said it." — Gardeners' Chronicle. 
 
 "A very captivating book, containing a great deal of valuable 
 information about the "Rose and its culture, given in a style which 
 can not fail to please." — Journal of Horticulture. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, Netv York.
 
 QUINTUS CLAUDIUS. — A Romance of Imperial Rome, 
 by Ernst Eckstein, from the German by Clara Bell, in 
 two vols. Paper, $ I. GO. Cloth, $1.75. 
 
 "We owe to Eckstein the brilliant romance of ' Quintus 
 Claudius,' which Clara Bell has done well to translate for us, for 
 it is worthy of place beside the Emperor of Ebers and the Aspasia 
 of Hamerling. It is a story of Rome in the reign of Domitian, 
 and the most noted characters of the time figure in its pages, 
 which are a series of picturesque descriptions of Roman life and 
 manners in the imperial city, and in those luxurious retreats at 
 Baiae and elsewhere to which the wealthy Romans used to retreat 
 from the heats of summer. It is full of stirring scenes in the 
 streets, in the palaces, in the temples, and in the amphitheatre, 
 and the actors therein represent every phase of Roman character, 
 from the treacherous and cowardly Domitian and the vile Domitia 
 down to the secret gatherings of the new sect and their exit from 
 life in the blood-soaked sands of the arena, where they were torn 
 in pieces by the beasts of the desert. The life and the manners 
 of all classes at this period were never painted with a bolder 
 pencil than by Eckstein in this masterly romance, which displays 
 as much scholarship as invention."— /l/<7// (7«^^ Express, N. V. 
 
 " These neat volumes contain a story first published in German. 
 It is written in that style which Ebers has cultivated so success- 
 fully. The place is Rome ; the time, that of Domitian at the end 
 of the first century. The very careful study of historical data, is 
 evident from the notes at tlie foot of nearly every page. The 
 author attempted the difi'icult task of presenting in a single story 
 the whole life of Rome, the intrigues of that day which compassed 
 the overthrow of Domitian, and the deep fervor and terrible trials 
 of the Christians in the last of the general persecutions. _ The 
 court, the army, the amphitheatre, the catacombs, the evil and 
 the good of Roman manhood and womanhood — all are here. 
 And the work is done with power and success. It is a book for 
 every Christian and for every student, a book of lasting value, 
 bringing more than one nation under obligation to its author." — 
 iV^TfT Jerusalem Magazine, Boston, Mass. 
 
 ''A new Roniance of Ancient Times/ The success of Ernst 
 Eckstein's new novel, 'Quintus Claudius,' which recently ap- 
 peared in Vienna, may fairly be called phenomenal, critics and the 
 public unite in praising the w'or]^."— Grazer Morgenpost. 
 
 " -Quintus Claudius' is a finished work of art, capable of 
 bearing any analysis, a literary production teeming with instruc- 
 tion and interest, full of plastic forms, and rich in the most dra- 
 matic changes of mood."— Pester Lloyd. 
 
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 ASP ASIA. — A Koniance, \>y I{ol)01*t HiJini'l'linj^-, from 
 the Gei-.i^.an by Mary J. Saftbrd, in two vols. Paper, $i.oo. 
 Cloth, $1.75. 
 
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 profit. Never have we had so clear an insight into the manners, 
 thought.^, and feelings of the ancient Greeks. No study has made 
 us so familiar witli the age of Pericles. We recognize throughout 
 that the author is master of the period of which he treats. Moi-e- 
 over, looking back upon the work from the end to the beginning, 
 Ave clearly perceive in it a complete unity of purpose not at all 
 e\ident during the reading." 
 
 " Hamerling's Aspasia, herself the most beautiful woman in 
 all Hellas, is the apostle of beauty and of joyousness, the im- 
 placable enemy of all that is stern and harsh in life. Unfortunately, 
 morality is stern, and had no place among Aspasia's doctrines. 
 This ugly fact, Landor has thrust as far into the backgrountl a.s 
 possible. Ilamerling obtrudes it. He does not moralize, lie 
 neither condemns nor praises; but like a fate, silent, ]iassionless, 
 and resistless, he carries the story along, allows the sunshine for 
 a time to silver the turbid stream, the butterflies and gnats to flut- 
 ter above it in rainbow tints, and then remorselessly draws over 
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 history; yet the absolute pitilessness with Mhich he does it is 
 almost terrible." — Extracts frovi J^cvici:.' in Yale Literary 
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 .sus." — Utiea Morning Herald. 
 
 'i> 
 
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 .song of the genius of the Greeks, that it is composed with perfect 
 artistic symmetry in the treatment of the different parts, and from 
 the first word to the last is thoroughly harmonious in tone and 
 coloring. Therefore, in 'Aspasia,' we are given a book, which 
 could only proceed from the union of an artistic nature and a 
 thoughtful mind — a book that does not depict fiery passions in 
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 therein described to the final catastrophe." — Allge»ieiiie Zritiiiig. 
 <Augsburg). 
 
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 A WOiiD, ONLY A WORD.— A Romance, 'nyGeorg" 
 Ebers, from the German by Ivlary J. Safford, in one voL 
 Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 " One never sits down to read a novel of Georg Ebers' with- 
 out the certainty of being entertained by it, and at the same time 
 instructed about the period that it depicts. 'A Word, Only a 
 Word,' which Miss Mary J. Safford has translated, is a story of 
 folk-life in the Black Forest, of soldier-life in the countries about, 
 and of art-life in Spain and the Netherlands. Out of these ele- 
 ments and the religious persecutions of the time when the Jewish 
 race was under the ban everywhere, he has constructed a plot of 
 uncommon interest and vitality, abounding in stirring scenes, now 
 in tents where poor men lie, and now in the abodes of the great, 
 notably in the palace of the Spanish king, and has cast over the 
 whole an air of reality which is delightful. The characters are 
 skilfully elaborated, particulaily the character of the hero Ulrich, 
 who, in his strength and v/eakness, is a realized ideal of the artist 
 of the period. There is a v,arm, human interest throughout, and 
 a pervading sense of the picturesque that is inseparable from all 
 that Ebers writes. 'A Word, Only a Word,' is the best family 
 romantic story that we have read for a long \xca.e..'"— The Mail 
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 THE BUKUOMASTER'S WIFE.— A Romance, by 
 Georg" Ebers, from the German by Mary J. Safford, in 
 one vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 " In this romance Dr. Ebers has chosen one of the most 
 glorious passages in the history of the Netherlands for tlie centre 
 of his plot. The scene opens in the year 1574, with the defeat 
 and death of Prince Louis of Nassau at the hands of Raguesenes 
 and his troops. This is fo!!o\\ed by that siege of Leyden, which 
 brought immortal glory to the friends of liberty in Holland, v.dien 
 the fii-mness of the citizens braved disaster, the loss of property 
 and the hazard of life. The sluices, which kept at bay the ever ag- 
 gressive waves, were, by an act of stern courage and self-sacrifice, 
 rarely equalled in the annals of ancient or modern warfare, opened 
 in the face of friend and foe and thus, at the cost of immense de- 
 struction to life and property, the Spaniards were forced to retreat, 
 the flower of the attacking forces being overwhelmed or burned 
 in the rising marshes. How effectively Dr. Ebers has treated 
 such a drama in Holland's struggle for freedom those who have 
 read his previous works need not be mioxxsv^d..'''' — The Gazette, 
 Montreal. 
 
 William S. Gottsbero^cr, Publisher, New York.
 
 THE E:>IPEI«0R.-A TloMANCE, by Georg Ebers, 
 
 from the Gciman by Clara Bell. Aiithorizc'd edition, in 
 two volumes. Paper, 8o cts. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " Like Hypatia, it gives a picture of the Roman Dominion 
 and the early growth of Christianity in Egypt. Its pages are 
 brightened v.ith the gay and sunny humanitarianism and the manv- 
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 author's own genial nature. True to the antique he avoids all dark 
 psychological depths, and delights our minds \\ith fresh and 
 healthy pictures of the objective world. He has a keen and deli- 
 cate discrimination in the reading of character. His men and 
 women are sharply individualized ; they glow with the warmest 
 life ; their forms do not easily fade from the memory ; but the psy- 
 chological power that created them is never obtruded ; the treat- 
 ment is entirely picturesque. For obvious reasons, the viilieu, or 
 environment, of an historical novel should be minutely pictured. 
 Such is the case in all of Ebers' novels. These minute touches 
 show the master and genius. A second-rate writer would never 
 ■think to tell us, as Professor Ebers does, that as Selene walked 
 along the corridor with the lamp in her hand, ' the flame blown 
 about by the draught, and her own figure, were mingled here and 
 there in the polished surface of the dark marble.' Notice the 
 minute touches, also, in the picture of the gate-keeper's house : 
 ' The front of the gate-keeper's house v/as quite grown over with 
 ivy v.'hich framed the door and windov/ in its long runners. Amidst 
 the greenery hung numb.ers of cages with starlings, blackbirds, and 
 smaller singing-birds. The wide door of the little house stood 
 open, giving a view into a tolerably spacious and well-painted 
 room. . . . Close to the drinking vessels on the stone top of the 
 table, rested the ai-m of an elderly woman who had fallen asleep in 
 the arm-chair in which she sat. Notwithstanding the faint gray 
 moustache that marked her upper-lip, and the pronounced ruddi- 
 ness of her forehead and cheeks, she looked pleasant and kind. 
 She must have been dreaming of something that pleased her, for 
 the expression of her lips and ol her eyes — one being half open 
 and the other closely shut — gave her a look of contentment. In 
 her lap slept a large gray cat, and by its side — as though discord 
 could never enter this bright little abode, which exhaled no savor 
 of poverty, but, on the contrary, a peculiar and fragrant scent — 
 lay a small shaggy dog, v\'hose snowy whiteness of coat could only 
 be due to the most constant care. Ebers excels in these studies of 
 still life. Those acquainted with the chief traits of character and 
 the chief events in Hadrian's life, will wonder at the skill with 
 which they are organically moulded into most charming narrative. 
 The Emperor's portrait is finely drawn, so is that of Sabina the 
 Empress, and that of the sculptor. In fact, all the chief charac 
 ters seem to us like our personal friends or acquaintances." — The 
 American, Philadelphia, Saturday, Jnue 18, 1881.
 
 OLORIA.— A NOVEL, by B. Perez Oaldos, from the 
 
 Spanish by Clara Bell, in two vols. Paper, $i.oo. Cloth, $1.75 
 
 "B. Perez Galdos is like a whirlwind, resistless as he sweeps 
 everything before him; while beneath, the waters of passion foam 
 and heave and are stirred to their depths. Some chapters of this 
 hovel are absolutely agonizing in their intensity of passion, and 
 the surge and rush of words bears the reader along breathless and 
 terrified, till he finds himself almost ready to cry out. In others, 
 the storm is lulled and the plash of waves is as musical as the 
 author's native tongue. In others still, he drones through the 
 lazy summer day, and the reader goes to sleep. However, the 
 story as a whole is stormy, and the end tragic ; yet we are lost in 
 wonder at the man who can so charm us. 
 
 " It is throughout a terrible impeachment of religious intoler- 
 ance. If it had been written for a people possessing the temper 
 of Englishmen or of Americans we should say that it must mark 
 an epoch in the political and reUgious history of the country. Even 
 written as it is by a Spaniard, and for Spaniards, allowing as we 
 must for Spanish impulsiveness and grandiloquence, which says a 
 great deal to express a very little, we cannot but believe that the 
 work is deeply significant. It is written by a young man and one 
 who is rapidly rising in power and influence ; and when he speaks 
 it is with a vehement earnestness which thrills one with the con- 
 viction that Spain is awaking, 'Fresh air,' cries he, of Spain, 
 ' open air, free exercise under every wind that blows above or be- 
 low ; freedom to be dragged and buffeted, helped or hindered, by 
 all tiie forces that are abroad. Let her tear off her mendicant's 
 hood, her grave-clothes and winding-sheet, and stand forth in the 
 bracing storms of the century. Spain is like a man who is ill from 
 sheer apprehension, and cannot stir for blisters, plasters, bandages 
 and wraps. Away with all this paraphernalia, and the body will 
 recover its tone and vigor.' Again : ' Rebel, rebel, your intelli- 
 gence is your strength. Rise, assert yourself; purge your eyes of 
 the dust which darkens them, and look at truth face to face.' 
 Strange language this for Spain of the Inquisition, for bigoted, 
 unprogressive, Catholic Spain. The author goes to the root of 
 Spanish decadence ; he fearlessly exposes her degradation and de- 
 clares its cause. All students of Spanish history will find here 
 much that is interesting besides the sioxy.''— The Yale Literary 
 Magazine. 
 
 William S. Gottsbergcr, Publisher, New York.
 
 MARIANELA.— By B. P«'ivz Gaklos, from tb.e Spanish 
 by Clara Bell, in one vol. i'aper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 "Gaklos is not a novelist, in the sense that now attaches to 
 that much-abused word, but a romancer, pure and simple, as 
 much so as Hawthorne was, though his intentions are less spir- 
 itual, and his methods more material. jNlarianela is the story 
 of a poor, negl-ected outcast of a girl, an orphan who is tolerated 
 by a family of miners, as if she were a dog or a cat ; who is 
 fed when the humor takes them and there is any food that can 
 be spared, and who is looked down upon by everybody; and a 
 boy Pablo, who is older than she, the son of a well-to-do landed 
 proprietor, whose misfortune it is (the boy's, we mean) that 
 he was born blind. His deprivation of sight is almost supplied 
 by the eyes of Marianela, who waits upon him, and goes with 
 him in his daily wanderings about the mining country of Socartes, 
 until he knows the whole country by heart and can when need 
 is find his way everywhere alone. As beautiful as she is homely, 
 he forms an ideal of her looks, based upon her devotion to 
 him, colored by his sensitive, spiritual nature, and he loves her, 
 or what he imagines she is, and she returns his love — with fear 
 and trembling, for ignorant as she is she knows that she is not 
 what he believes her to be. They love as two children might, 
 naturally, fervently, entirely. The world contains no woman so 
 beautiful as she, and he will marry her. The idyl of this young 
 love is prettily told, with simplicity, freshness, and something 
 which, if not poetry, is yet poetic. While the course of true love 
 is running smooth with them (for it does sometimes in spite of 
 Shakespeare) there appears upon the scene a brother of the chief 
 engineer of the Socartes mines who is an oculist, and he, after a 
 careful examination of the blind eyes of Pablo, undertakes to per- 
 form an operation upon them which he thinks may enable the lad 
 to see. About this time there also comes upon the scene a brother 
 of Pablo's father, accompanied by his daughter, who is very beau- 
 tiful. The operation is successful, and Pablo is made to see. He 
 is enchanted with the loveliness of his cousin, and disenchanled of 
 his ideal of Marianela, who dies heart-broken at the fate which 
 she knew would be hers if he was permitted to see her as she was. 
 This is the story of Marianela, which would have grown into a 
 poetic romance under the creative mind and shaping hand of 
 Hawthorne, and which, as conceived and managed by Galdos, is 
 a realistic one of considerable grace and pathos. It possesses the 
 charm of directness and simplicity of narrative, is written with 
 great picturesqueness, and is colored throughout with impressions 
 of Spanish country life." — The Mail and Express, New Yorky 
 Thursday, April 12, 1883. 
 
 Williavi S. Gottsbcrgcr, Publisher, New York.
 
 EK^'ESTINE. — A Novel, by Willieimiue von Hili- 
 
 ern, from the German by S. Baring- Gould, in two vols. 
 
 Paper, 80 cts. Cl oth, $1.50. 
 
 " 'Ernestine' is a work of positive genius. An English critic 
 has likened the conception of the heroine in her childhood to 
 George Eliot's Maggie Tulliver, and truly there is a certam resem- 
 blance ; but there is in the piece a much stronger suggestion of 
 George Eliot's calm mastery of the secret sprmgs of human 
 action, and George Eliot's gift of laying bare the life of a human 
 soul, than of likeness between particular characters or situations 
 here and those with which we are familiar in George Eliot's 
 works."— iAVic York Evening Post. 
 
 THE HOUR WILL COME. — A Tale of an Alpine 
 Cloister, by Wilheliniue von Hillern, from the Ger- 
 man by Clara Bell, in on^ vol. Paper, 40 cts. Cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 '''The Hour Will Come" i--> the title of a translation by 
 Clara Bell from the German original of Wilhelmine von Hillern, 
 author of that beautiful romance ' Geier-Wally.' 'The Hour 
 Will Come' is hardly less interesting, its plot being one of the 
 strongest and most pathetic that could well be imagined. The time 
 is the Middle Ages, and Frau von Hillern has achieved a remark- 
 able success in reproducing the rudeness, the picturesqueness and 
 the sombre coloring of those days. Those who take up 'The 
 Hour Will Come" will not care to lay it down again until they 
 have read it 'CmoVi^y —Baltimore Gazette. 
 HIGHER THAN THE CHURCH. — An Art Legend 
 of Ancient Times, by Wilhelmine von Hillern, from 
 the German by Mary J. Saflbrd, in one vol. Paper, 25 cts. 
 Cloth, 50 cts. 
 
 " Mary T Safford translates acceptably a very charming short 
 story from the German of Wilhelmine von Hillern. If it was not 
 told by the sacristan of Breisach, it deserves to have been. It has 
 the full flavor of old German and English love tales, such as have 
 been crystallized in the old ballads. The Emperor, the gifted 
 boy, his struggles with the stupidity of his townsmen h.s ap- 
 parently hopeless love above him; these form the old delightful 
 scene, set in a Diireresque border. There are touches here and 
 there which refer to the present. The sixteentn century tale has 
 a political moral that will appeal to Germans who believe that 
 Alsatia. once German in heart as well as in tongue, ought o be 
 heid by force to the Fatherland till she forgets her beloved 
 France."— A'^. Y. Tim,es. 
 
 William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York.
 
 THE ELEVENTH COMMAS i>MENT.— A Romance 
 by Anton liiulio 13arrili, from the Italian by Clara 
 Bell, in one vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts. 
 
 " If Italian literature includes any more such unique and 
 charming stories as this one, it is to be hoped that translators will 
 not fail to discover them to the American public. The ' Eleventh 
 Commandment ' deals with a variety of topics — the social intrigues 
 necessary to bring about preferment in political life, a communal 
 order, an adventurous unconventional heiress, and her acquiescent, 
 good-natured uncle, and most cleverly are the various elements 
 combined, the whole forming an excellent and diverting little story. 
 The advent of a modern Eve in the masculine paradise (?) estab- 
 lished at the Convent of San Bruno is fraught with weighty con- 
 sequences, not only to the individual members of the brotherhood, 
 but to the well-being of the community itself. The narrative of 
 M'lle Adela's adventures is blithely told, and the moral deducible 
 therefrom for men is that, on occasion, flight is the surest method 
 of combating temptation." — Art Interchange, Ne%v York. 
 
 "Very entertaining is the story of ' The Eleventh Command- 
 ment,' ingeniously conceived and very cleverly executed." — The 
 Critic, Ah'w York. 
 
 A WHIMSICAL WOOING. — By Anton GiiUio 
 
 Barrili, from the Italian by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 
 25 cts. Cloth, 50 cts. 
 
 "If 'The Eleventh Commandment,' the previous work of 
 Barrili, was a good three-act jjlay, 'A Whimsical Wooing' is a 
 sparkling comedietta. It is one situation, a single catastrophe, yet, 
 like a bit of impressionist painting of the finer sort, it reveals in a 
 flash all the possibilities of the scene. The hero, Roberto Fenoglio, 
 a man of wealth, position, and accomjjlishments, finds liimself at 
 the end of his resources for entertainment or interest. Hopelessly 
 bored, he abandons himself to the drift of chance, and finds him- 
 self, in no longer space of time than from midnight to davlight — 
 where and how, the reader will thank us for not forestalling his 
 pleasure in finding out for himself." — The A^ation, A^eio York. 
 
 " -A Whimsical Wooing' is the richly-expressive title under 
 which ' Clara Bell ' introduces a cleverly-narrated episode l)y 
 Anton Giulio Barrili to American readers. It is a sketch of Italian 
 life, at once rich and strong, but nevertheless discreet in sentiment 
 and graceful in diction. It is the old story of the fallacy of trust- 
 ing to a proxy in love matters." — Boston Post. 
 
 William S. Gottsbcrger, Publisher, New York.
 
 ELIAN E.— A Novel, by Mme. Augustus Craven, froni 
 the French by Lady Georgiana Fullerton, in one vol. Paper, 
 5octs. Cloth, 90 cts.^ 
 
 "It is not only pure, but is, we believe, a trustworthy de- 
 scription of the dignified French life of which it is a picture. 
 ' Eliane ' is one of the very best novels we have read for one or 
 two seasons past."— The American Literary Churchman, Balti- 
 more. 
 
 " ' Eliane' is interesting not only because it is such a record 
 of the best kind of French life and manners as could only have 
 been written by a person thoroughly at home m the subject, but 
 also because of the delicate drawing of character which it con- 
 tains." — London Sat. Review. 
 
 ANT! NOUS.— A Romance of Ancient Rome, by George 
 Taylor, from the German by Mary J. Safford, in one vol. 
 
 Paper, 50 cts. Clot h, 90 cts. 
 
 " ' Antinous,' a Romance of Ancient Rome, from the German 
 of George Taylor, by Mary J. Safford, is one of those faithful re- 
 productions of ancient manners, customs, and scenery which Ger^ 
 man authors are so fond of writing, and in which they are so 
 wonderfully successful. The story deals with the okl age of the 
 Emperor Hadrian and with his favorite Antinous. The recital is 
 full of power, and is extraordinary in its vividly realistic drawing 
 of character. Though a minutely close study of historical detail, 
 it is spirited in the telling and of absorbing interest m the plot 
 and descriptions. The era and the personages stand out with 
 stereoscopic clearness. Nothing could be finer than the portrait 
 of the melancholy Hadrian and its beautifully-contrasted fe low 
 picture, the sorrowful Antinous. The book is one that appeals to 
 every cultivated taste, and overflows with interest of the most re- 
 fined description." — A^/'wni'rt;/ Evening Gazette, Boston. 
 
 IIANTHOKPE.— A Novel, by George Henry "Lewes, 
 
 in one vol. Paper, 40 cts. Cloth, 75 cts. 
 
 "There is a good deal of wisdom in it that is not without its 
 use."— -A>/«/«r Science Monthly. 
 
 "'Ranthorpe' is a reprint of a novel written in 1842, by 
 Georire Henry Lewes, the well-known husband of George Lliot. 
 It belongs to the psychological class, and is keenly introspective 
 throuchout. The style is well adapted to the work, displaying the 
 versatility of a mind whose natural bent was towards metaphysics 
 and the exact '~.z\^vizt.%.'" —Montreal Star. 
 
 William S. Gottsbergcr, Publisher, New York.
 
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