^gg^^^ssls^ss^s^s^^^^s^®^^^ E L L E :S TERRY ^^mmmmm^mmmm^mm&m^^^^^^^^ '/. u^/y' • err- ELLEN TERRY % St m SI m wit ILLUSTRATED NEW rORK • FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY • Publishers % THStf Copyright^ igoo^ by Frederick A. Stokes Company Tht Univtrsitr Prtss Cambridge, U.S.A. / ILLUSTRATIONS Miss Ellen Terry (Photogravure) Frontispiece As Portia, in " The Merchant of Page Venice " 6 As Olivia, in " Olivia " . . . . 12 As Ophelia, in " Hamlet" ... 18 As Queen Henriette Maria, in " Charles the First "... 24 As Camma, in " The Cup "... 30 As Margaret, in " Faust "... 36 As Juliet, in " Romeo and Juliet " 42 As Fair Rosamund, in " Becket " . 48 As Imogen, IN "Cymbeline" . . 54 As Viola, in " Tv^^elfth Night " . 60 As Ellaline, in "The Amber Heart" 66 As Beatrice, in " Much Ado About Nothing" 72 As Cordelia, in " King Lear " . . 78 As Lady Macbeth, in " Macbeth " 84 As Fair Rosamund, in "Becket" . 90 ILL U Sr RA T I O N S As Queen Katherine, in "King page Henry VIIL'* 96 As Guinevere, in "King Arthur " 102 As Lucy Ashton, in " Ravenswood " 108 As loLANTHE, IN " KiNG ReNE'S Daughter" 114 As Catharine Duval, in "The Dead Heart" 120 As Nance Oldfield, in "Nance Oldfield " 126 As Catharine Huebscher, in "Madame Sans Gene" . , 132 As Catharine Duval, in "The Dead Heart" 138 As Clarisse de Maulucon, in "Robespierre" 144 ELLEN TERRT AN APPRECIATION IF it be a gift to think of lovely- girls and women whom we have worshipped in early life, only in their first youth, only in the pure charm of their earliest influence, only when they were " queen roses of the rosebuds, gar- dens of girls'' — then this happily is a gift that I for one possess, and which I studiously endeavour to cultivate. Women who have inspired men with love, or loyalty, or homage, or respect, should never be allowed to grow old. ELLEN T E R RT Why is it that we remember the impressions of yesterday far more distinctly and vividly than the casual excitements of to-day ? The page of childhood is bright and clear ; the manuscript of middle or old age is blurred, blotted, and indistinct. My first play, my first Hamlet, my first Juliet, my first Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, are cut like cameos on the memory. But with ease I forget the name of the play, of the actor and the actress that I saw last week. I have to invent for the first time in my life a *'memoria technica'' to recall them. I close my eyes as in a reverie, and am in fancy escorted miles and MISS ELLEN TERRY As Opht'lia in " Hamlet ' ELLEN TER RT miles back on the tempestuous journey of life. I am in a humble dancing Academy in a North London suburb, pre- sided over by an ugly little man bearing: the unromantic name of "Jenks." He wears pumps with bows, and he plays to the children on a diminutive little fiddle known in those days as a " kit." But the then grassy and flowered suburb, the mean little Academy fellow with his tiny fiddle, and all the details of an unaccustomed scene sink into insignificance beside the still vivid picture in my mind of a fair-haired child with a cream- white face, sitting on an uncomfor- ELLEN TERRT table bench in a blue silk frock, dangling her little legs encased in white silk stockings ending in white sandalled shoes. How I worshipped that little Elsie ; what a thrill it gave me when I was allowed to choose her as a partner in baby valse or childish cotillon ; how my heart seemed to break when I was dragged home ; how I seldom slept at night and kept my devotion religiously to myself, for fear that the purity of my love might be soiled by ridicule or rib- aldry; how it all ended in a dream, as dreamlike it began ! Well, let me dream again ! It is a child's party on Twelfth Night, for we ELLEN T ERRT had Twelfth Night parties in those merry days, and we had a Twelfth Cake, and drew ** characters " who should be King and Queen of the Feast on that annual festivity. I was in luck's way on that occa- sion, for, either by chance, or man- agement of an affectionate mother, I was selected King, and my Queen was another angel with corn-col- oured hair. She was to me as Robertson says, " like china with a soul in it,'' I loved her at a distance when I was a surpliced chorister in church, and I thought her an angel, because she resembled one in the painted window over the altar, and on this particular ELLEN TER RT angel I bestowed all the wealth of my youthful imagination. But I fear she was a very material angel ; for when we were out of church, and away from anthems and Kyrie Eleisons and chants and hymns, and found ourselves side by side as Twelfth Night King and Queen, I remember as distinctly as if it were yesterday, that during the very darkest scene of a magic lantern show I felt a tiny pair of arms around my neck, and heard a w^his- per, " Kiss me, my King, you may, you must ! '* Fancy leads me to Ilford in Essex, then, as it seemed to me, in the heart of the country, and to a huge MISS ELLKN TERRY As Portia in "Tlie Merchant ol Venice." ELLEN TERRT Georgian house with a romantic walled garden where an adorable girl of eighteen or nineteen took me for her child lover, and sang me songs in a quiet corner of an old deserted drawing-room, and made me blush at table when she looked at me ; and in the gloam- ing when all was still I heard the " frou frou " of her dress, and her entry in the half dark to bend over my cot and " kiss me good- night." Again I am at Bournemouth when it consisted of one row of houses, a High Church, and a deserted beach, carving the name of " Alice " on the trees in Westover Gardens ; ELLEN TERR T and I am at Stony Stratford sit- ting under the apple blossoms in a garden full of lilacs and lavender, listening to the tender voice of a "Belle Marie;" and I am in the blue-bell woods of Somersetshire, which seemed " the heavens up- breaking through the earth,*' when in the divine company of Geraldine. And so on, and so on, and so on. And then I awaken from these reveries and dreams, and say to my- self, " Do you appreciate the solemn fact that all these idols of your boyhood and your youth, in the lovely primrose and King-cup days, are old women now, verging upon sixty years ? " ELLEN TERRT I cannot believe it. I refuse to recognise the fact. To me they will ever be what they always were, young, and sweet, and tender, and pure, and beautiful. In fancy Ellen Terry must have been the love dream of many men of susceptibility and strong imagina- tion, for in her days of girlhood she was distinctly the most romantic- looking creature I had ever seen. Of course I saw her as a child when she was in Charles Kean's company at the Princess's in Oxford Street, with her sister Kate and her good old father " Ben Terry,'' busy be- hind the scenes, the factotum of the manager and manageress, for Mrs, ELLEN TERRT Charles Kean was quite as impor- tant a person as her husband. I can well recall Ellen Terry with the child's " go-cart " as Mamillius in the Winter's Tale, I must have seen her many a time at the old Bristol Theatre in the glorious days of the elder Chute, for all my rel- atives lived at Clifton, and I was there every year in the playgoing days of the Tom Cannings and Fuidges and Fords and Beloes and Stocks and Fripps, who scarcely ever missed a premiere when the splendid and well organised com- pany contained such names as Marie Wilton and Kate as well as Ellen Terry and Henrietta Hodson, and lO ELLEN TE R RT Madge Robertson and the brothers Rignold, George and William, and Arthur Stirling, and W. H. Vernon and Wood and Fosbroke, who alone I think remained true to the Bris- tol Chute allegiance. The impressions left on the mind by what were more or less children actresses are never very vivid. In those Bristol days they were all very clever and remarkably well trained. All these at any rate illus- trate the old adage that "practice makes perfect,'' for they one and all rose to considerable fame in their profession. They were nearly all children of actors and actresses, humble and honest folk who did 1 1 ELLEN T ERRT not value themselves so highly or give themselves such airs and graces as their brothers and sisters do in these days. They v^orked and worked hard, I can tell you, but their heads were well screwed on. Two passages from Much Ado About Nothing have always seemed to me to convey exactly the idea of Ellen Terry, both in youth and womanhood ; they suggest that extraordinary " charm " that the actress recently in America was unable to define, though I, for one, could have embodied it in two words, *' Ellen Terry.'' The passages from Shakespeare to which I allude are these, I 2 MISS ELLEN ItKKV As Olivia in " (Jlivia ' ELLEN T E RRT Bon Pedro. Will you have me, lady ? Beatrice, No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days ; your grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your grace, pardon me ; I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. Don Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you ; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. Beatrice. No sure, my lord, my mother cried ; but then there was a star danced, and under that I was born ! Cousins, God give you joy ! Now if William Shakespeare had had the model before him he could not have drawn a more perfect picture of Ellen Terry than this. 13 ELLEN T ERRT She was indeed " born to speak all mirth and no matter/* If ever lovely woman was ** born in a merry hour," it was Ellen Terry, for she can scarcely be serious for an hour together, and is never happier than when she is playing some practi- cal joke on her more serious companions. And who whilst life lasts can ever forget how the actress in the char- acter of Beatrice, one of the most enchanting personations of my time, one of the most exquisite realisa- tions of a Shakespearian heroine that any of us have ever seen, spoke those words, — " No sure, my lord, my mother cried ; but then there ELLEN TERRT was a star danced, and under that I was born." Why, it was not Beatrice but Ellen Terry, personated by Ellen Terry. It was a revelation. The other quotation from the same play, Much Ado About Nothings is Hero's description of her cousin, Beatrice, which is simply Ellen Terry in action. " For look where Beatrice, like a lap- wing, runs Close by the ground, to hear our con- ference." Is this not an exact description of the Ellen Terry movement which others so ludicrously attempt to imi- tate? She does not run off the 15 ELLEN T ERRT stage, or skip up the steps of an Italian garden. She simply floats seemingly on the air. A more exquisitely graceful movement has never been seen from any other actress. But Shakespeare has hit it. She like " a lapwing runs close by the ground." It is the skim- ming of a bird in the air. Ellen Terry did that lapwing run to per- fection when she was sent to invite Benedick to dinner, and left him with the famous chaffing rejoinder, " You have no stomach, signior : fare you well." And up the marble steps ran the lapwing. i6 ELLEN T ERRT But before this merry lapwing pe- riod of Ellen Terry's art, there was another and, to my mind, almost a more enchanting one. Years be- fore she played Beatrice at the Lyceum, she had enacted Hero at the Haymarket. I think that when Ellen Terry first appeared at the Haymarket after her baby performances under the Keans at the Princess's Theatre, and her school-girl exercises at Bristol under good old Chute, — a warm upholder of Macready and the classical school, — I never saw a more enchanting and ideal creature. She was a poem that lived and breathed, and suggested to us the 17 ELLEN T ERRT girl heroines that we most adored in poetry and the fine arts generally. Later on, as we all know, Ellen Terry played Queen Guinevere ; but at this period she was " Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable, Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat." She was Vivien with her mad girlish pranks. She might have sat for Rapunzel in that earliest book of Morris, The Defence of Guinevere, We , pictured her as the luckless woman in that lovely but comparatively unknown poem. The Haystack in the Floods. Most of our favourite queens in verse were made realities by Ellen Terry. I saw her as the "Gardener's Daughter." Again and i8 ELLEN TE R RT again I saw her as I read and re- read Tennyson's Princess. She was the Porphyria of Robert Browning, and surely one of the crowned queens in the Morte d' Arthur. I wish I could paint with pen an even vague suggestion of this en- chanting personality, tall, fair, wil- lowy, with hair like spun gold, a faultless complexion, the very poetry of movement, with that wonderful deep-toned voice that has a heart- throb in it. What wonder that when painters and poets saw Ellen Terry play Hero they raved about her! We were then in what I may call the second Pre-Raffaelite movement in 19 ELLEN TERR T art. Millais and Holman Hunt and Madox Brown and Charles Collins and their companions be- longed to a former age. Our en- thusiasms were now devoted to the Dante Gabriel Rossetti set, of which Arthur Hughes, Frederick Sandys, and others were prominent mem- bers. The text-book in art that we followed was a weekly illus- trated periodical, " Once a Week," that cultivated what I may call modern mediasvalism, and we seemed to see Ellen Terry's face, or something like it, on almost every page. It has been the regret of my life that I never preserved those early illustrated numbers of 20 ELLEN T ERRT " Once a Week " when it was edited by Lucas and Edward Walford. I had special advantages for the study and culture of work of the Rossetti school ; for very early in life I was a member of the Arundel Club, held in an old-world house at the bottom of Salisbury Street, in the Strand, long since destroyed, — a club of literary Bohemians whose walls were hung with priceless pic- tures and engravings collected by the lifelong friend of Rossetti and Sandys, John Anderson Rose, an art-loving solicitor. Small wonder then that such a face and form should appeal to men of imagination and culture. Ellen 21 ELLEN TE R RT Terry at that time was the most unreal thing to look at that I ever beheld. When she had done sug- gesting Tennyson and Browning and William Morris, who in early life had painted the frescoes in the old Union at Oxford, and was now designing wall-papers, the pome- granate pattern — blue, green, and yellow — and the daisy pattern for our lifelong delight, this mysteri- ous creature galloped off with our imaginations to German mysticisms and became Undine, or the idol of Sintram and his companions, and the Shadowless Man. Of this particular painter-set, Arthur Lewis, the future brother-in-law of 22 ELLEN TERRT Ellen, was a kind of art patron. He was an artist himself, and his bachelor banquets to artists and musicians were very memorable functions indeed, in the early six- ties. Through his good offices, he created « The Wandering Minstrels," and I think that my own brother-in- law, George du Maurier, who had just commenced his brilliant career as an artist on " Punch," " Once a Week," the " Cornhill Magazine," and other periodicals, first distin- guished himself as a singer and raconteur at the well remembered artistic salon at Moray Lodge, Campden Hill. ELLEN TERR T In the artistic world, Ellen Terry and her sister Kate had another very influential godfather in Tom Taylor, the dramatist, art critic for " The Times,'* and often the dra- matic critic for the same important paper during the absence of John Oxenford. This amiable gentle- man devoted himself heart and soul to the personal interest of the Terry girls from the moment he discov- ered their rare and unique talent at Bristol. Never did two clever de- butantes have a more loyal or de- voted friend. The biographies that I have seen of these gifted sisters teem with inaccuracies of an extraordinary 24 MIFS ELLEN TERRY As Queen Henrietta Maria in " Charles the First' ELLEN T E RRT kind. One glaring one I may be permitted to correct here in con- nection with the early fame of Kate Terry. It has been said with au- thority that the elder sister, Kate, came to London straight from Bristol, and was engaged by Charles Fechter for his first managerial venture at the Lyceum Theatre. This is wholly incorrect. As I happened to be present when Kate Terry made her first astonish- ing London success, I may perhaps be permitted to describe it. It was at the St. James Theatre, when managed by Miss Ruth Her- bert (Mrs. Crabbe), in 1862; the same theatre in which later on in ELLEN T ERRT 1866 Henry Irving made his first London success. It was probably Tom Taylor who obtained the first London engage- ment for Kate Terry, a beautiful girl, but of a different pattern from her sister Ellen. Kate was a pure English beauty ; Ellen, as I have said before, was ideal, mystical, and medieval. In 1862 Miss Herbert produced at the St. James a version of Sardou's Nos Intimes, called Friends or Foes, the same play that Charley Stephenson and your humble servant turned into Peril, a play that lives on the stage to- day, though Horace Wigan's version has long since been forgotten. 26 ELLEN TE R RT The play was admirably cast. George Vining, the good old Frank Matthews, husband and wife, ad- mirable comedians ; Fred Dewar, who afterwards made such a hit with Patty Oliver at the little Roy- alty ; Fred Charles, the ever-young, and of course Miss Herbert, one of the loveliest and stateliest women the stage has ever seen, as Mrs. Union, the tempted wife. A small part in the cast, that of a girl in- genue, was awarded to Kate Terry. On one occasion Miss Herbert fell ill, and her understudy for the great part in the play, Kate Terry, was warned that she might be wanted in the emergency. Faithful Tom ELLEN TER R T Taylor was warned of the event, and you may be sure he was pres- ent to watch the progress of his young protegee. I happened to be present on that night also, for some of us youngsters at the Arun- del Club, notably two persistent playgoers and Oxford (Brasenose) chums, Adams Reilly and Charles J. Stone, were enthusiasts in the Terry cause. On that never-to-be-forgotten night this young girl, Kate Terry, made an astounding success. Her name was scarcely known ; no one knew that we had amongst us a young actress of so much beauty, talent, and, what was more wonderful still, 28 ELLEN T ERRT true dramatic power, — for the temptation scene wants acting and not the kind of trifling that we see in these modern and amateurish days. The next morning Tom Taylor, in " The Times," let himself go, and blew the trumpet in praise of the new actress, Kate Terry. Her fame was made from that minute. She never turned back. Her grace, beauty, and talent at- tracted the Baroness Burdett Coutts and Fechter, who engaged Kate Terry for Blanche de Nevers in his first venture, the Duke's Motto, She was the heroine in Bel Demonio and other Lyceum productions. 29 ELLEN TER RT From there she went to the Olympic, where she was the art comrade of Henry Neville and Charles Cogh- lan in many of Tom^ Taylor's plays. From thence she went to the Adel- phi, to help Charles Reade and others, and there took her farewell of the stage on her marriage to Arthur Lewis. In recent years she returned, however, to her old love, and supported her clever daughter under the management of her old and devoted friend, John Hare. Homer himself did not enjoy so many disputed birthplaces as Ellen Terry. ** Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Sal- amis, Rhodes, Argos, Athena." 30 MISS ELLF.N TLRRY As Camma in the "Cup" ELLEN TERRY We all remember that school-boy hexameter. Homeric students may- settle the Homeric birthplace for themselves. Ellen Terry or her family or some- one who ought to know have de- cided that she was born in Coventry, the famous midland city of Lady Go diva. " I waited for the train at Coventry ; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires ; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this." The last Poet Laureate might have added a Godiva sequel in Coventry's second heroine, Ellen 31 ELLEN T ER R T Terry, for some of us can see her too, ". . . looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud : . . . And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee." But even now they cannot decide in what house the famous actress of the future was born or where "her mother cried," and that lucky star danced over the " three tall spires." One would have thought that somewhere under those same Coventry spires was hidden a parish register which would have recorded the date of birth, the place and parentage of the baby Ellen, " Our Nell " of the 32 1 ELLEN T E RRT future. The Coventry tradesmen still battle for the Ellen Terry birthplace, and fiercely struggle for the supremacy of fame. But if doubt exists concerning the actual house in Coventry, to which our Nell will never be sent so long as she lives, there is still greater doubt concerning the actual part in which she made her first appearance. I think that the playgoing world is more interested in that, than in the precise room where Ellen Terry was born in a midland town, when her father, Ben Terry, and his wife, who gave to the world children one and all of such remarkable beauty 3 33 ELLEN T ERRT and talent, were on a wandering tour in the early forties. Beauty and comeliness seem to be clustered in theatrical families. The Rignolds, the Robertsons, and the Standings are striking exam- ples of hereditary beauty and talent combined. But they all pale before the Terrys. Think of it, Kate, with her lovely figure and comely features ; Ellen, with her quite indescribable charm; Marion, with a something in her \ deeper, more tender, and more fem- inine than either of them ; Flor- ence, who became lovelier as a woman than as a girl ; and the brothers, Fred and Charles, both 34 ELLEN T ERRT^ splendid specimens of the athletic Englishman. This is a family of which any parents might be proud, and proud they were of their gifted children, for they never missed a first night when one or other of them had to '' face the music/* That this sweet home feeling was mutual and reciprocal is proved by a letter written to me by Ellen Terry on the 6th of March 1892, which I much value and cherish. It shows not only her own kind and affectionate heart, but that of her brothers and sisters also. 35 ^ tSk .^p ^£ 52 jSx S< S* ^£ ^£ wx ELLEN T ERRT n 22 Barkeston Gardens, Earl*s Court, S.W. 6th March, 1892. It was you, I feel sure, who wrote the tender words about our pretty, sweet mother, and I should like to be able to tell you how much we all loved them, as we read them, and always shall love them, only I can't speak as I feel. Thank you again and again. There is no one left in the world now who is just the same as she was. Yours affectionately, Ellen Terry. And now as to the disputed point about Ellen Terry's first appearance on any stage. On September 21, 1887, when I was editing the ** Theatre Magazine,'' I received 36 MISS ELLEM TERRY As Margaret in " Faust " ELLEN TERRT the following memorandum from a very learned theatrical authority on the subject of Ellen Terry's baby efforts as an actress. It was as follows : — MISS ELLEN TERRY'S FIRST APPEAR- ANCE ON THE STAGE. In "The Dramatic List" (1880) Mr. Pascoe in his notice of Miss Ellen Terry, after stating that she was born in 18485 mentions that she made her first appearance on the Stage as Mamil- lius in ^he Winter s T^ale^ at the Prin- cess's, April 28, 1856. This notice had been submitted to Miss Terry, and approved of by her for publication. In "The Theatre," of June, 1880, Mr. Button Cook had an article on Miss Ellen Terry's early appearances, in 37 ELLEN T ERRT which he made a statement contradic- tory of the one approved by Miss Terry, his words being, " The sis- ters (Kate and Ellen) figured together as the Princes murdered in the Tower by Mr. Charles Kean as Richard III. My recollection of Miss Ellen Terry dates from her impersonation of the little Duke of York." The present performance of Miss Mary Anderson of "The Winter s ^ale has again brought up this question, and Mr. Cook's state- ment has been repeated by Mr. Moy Thomas in his interesting column " The Theatres," in the " Daily News." As a careful examination of the file of the Princess's Play Bills in the British Museum shows, the documentary evi- dence is completely against Mr. Cook's statement. Richard the ^hird was pro- ■ ^7 ELLEN TE RRT duced at the Princess's on February 20, 1854, and ran nineteen non-consec- utive nights up to April 17th, when it expired from inaction. The following characters were performed : — King Edward the Fourth (Mr. Gra- ham), Edward, Prince of Wales (Miss Maria Ternan), Richard, Duke of York (Miss Kate Terry), Richard, Duke of Gloster (Mr. Charles Kean), Henry, Earl of Richmond (John Ryder, up to March 27th, and March 31st and to end of the run, Walter Lacy), Lord Mayor of London (Mr. Terry), Miss Heath, Miss Murray, and Mrs. Wal- ter Lacy playing the ladies* part ; Miss Ellen Terry's name is in none of the nineteen Bills, while Miss Ter- nan's and Kate Terry's names are in each Bill for ^he Princes Murdered in 39 ELLEN T ERRT the Tower, As the Bills did not run for weeks, or even days, without alterations as our modern programmes do, but were reset and issued as fresh Bills for each performance, any change of the cast would have been easily made had such been necessary, as indeed it was made when Walter Lacy took the part of Richmond, instead of John Ryder. It is not to be supposed that a gentle-i man of Mr. Charles Kean's standing would permit the published Bills to represent Miss Ternan as the Prince of J Wales, while the part was being played by someone else. Of course, in the event of sudden indisposition, it is pos- sible that Kate Terry took Miss Ter- nan's part for a night, and that Ellen took the part of " the Little Duke of York," but if so the fact would have 40 ELLEN T ERRT been remembered either by Ellen Terry or some member of her family, and so communicated to Mr. Pascoe for his Biography. Mr. Moy Thomas supplements Button Cook's statement by adding that it was in April Mr. Cook witnessed Ellen Terry as the " Little Duke of York." If so, as Rich- ard was only performed in April, on Monday the 3rd, Friday the 7th, and Monday the 17th, the question is nar- rowed down considerably. Button Cook's statement was made in 1880, over twenty-six years after the event. If. he did not take a note of this almost unnoticeable change of cast at the time, it is marvellous how so small an incident, out of so many, could have impressed itself or be impressed upon his memory so as 41 ELLEN T ER RT to be remembered twenty-six years afterwards. Miss Ellen Terry, being then but a child a little over five years of age, cannot herself remember the incident, and as she is committed to her first appearance in 7^/ie TVinters T!ale^ Dutton Cook*s statement lacks cor- roboration, especially in the face of the testimony of the play-bills them- selves. While it is possible that Ellen Terry appeared for one night in conse- quence of Miss Ternan's supposed sudden indisposition, it is also pos- sible, nay probable, that Mr. Cook's memory had played him false when trusting to recall so small an inci- dent twenty-six years after it occurred. The point, however, is interesting, 42 MISS ELLEN TERRY As Juliet in " Romeo and Juliet " CO cc^ec-^6 t'BC «'» ELLEN TER RT and probably may now be definitely settled. Yours truly, George Tawse. Belsize Road, London, N. W. I naturally consulted the fair lady most concerned in the discussion, for, as she herself humourously puts it, " fax is fax." This is her reply to me, dated Sep- tember 26, 1887. Theatre Royal, Manchester. My Dear Clement Scott, Mr. Button Cook*s statement was in- accurate, that's all! I didn't contra- dict it, although asked to do so by my father at the time, for I thought it of little, if of any interest. 43 ELLEN TERRT The very first time I ever appeared on any stage was on the first night of ^he Winter s ^ale, at the Princess's Thea- tre, with dear Charles Kean. As for the young Princes, — them unfortu- nate little men, I never played — not neither of them — there ! What a cry about a little wool i It 's flattering to be fussed about, but " Fax is Fax ! " I hope you are very well and your little girl also. I am very well, and my big girl is well, and I am Yours ever, E. T. P, S. — 1 was born in Coventry, 1848, and was, I think, about seven when I played In I'he Winter s ^ale. But even this did not satisfy the industrious student of play-bills. 4+ ELLEN T ER RT Mr. Tawse returned to the attack on September 28, 1887, and brought out some more interesting facts con- cerning the first appearance not only of Ellen Terry, but of her sister Kate and of Mrs. Kendal. Dear Sir, Many thanks for your letter of the 26th, respecting Miss Ellen Terry's first ap- pearance on the stage. Regarding your enquiry as to the Pan- tomime played at the Princess's the same year as Richard the ^hird^ is there not a mistake in saying it was "Bluff King Hal"? The Pantomime running at the Prin- cess's concurrently with Richard the ^hird was Harlequin^ and the Miller and his Men^ and it ran sixty-eight 45 ELLEN TER RT times, ending on the i8th of March, 1854, Miss Kate Terry playing the Fairy. The next one produced on Boxing Night, 1854, was Blue Beard^ the Great Bashaw^ ^c, Preciosa, the Good Fairy, by Miss Kate Terry (Ellen's name not in the Bill). This ran on till March, Miss Kate Terry's name, however, being taken out on February 24, 1855, and Miss Caroline Parkes playing the Fairy instead. There was a Miss Eliza Terry at the Surrey Theatre at this time, but she was another woman. Respecting first appearances, Mr. Pas- coe, in his notice of Kate Terry, is careful not to fix the date of her first appearance, farther than it was at the Princess's under Charles Kean. The earliest date he mentions is February 46 B6 as: Rfi ap Hji «fc 5C Pft 3» «ft i^jX Hft bC «ft 5t a?: HP aC «P af^ «R WC ELLEN TERRT 9, 1852, when Kate played Arthur in King John. But I have a Princess's Bill dated January 12, 1852, with her as Robin, page to Falstaff, and afterwards in the Pantomime. Even that may not be her earliest, for I have not searched any complete file. My own fairish collection, however, is not complete. Then Mrs. Kendal : Pascoe says Miss Robertson appeared in 1852, at the Marylebone Theatre as the Blind Child in The Seven Poor Travellers. 1852 is a printer's error for 1855, ^^^ ^^^ Dickens* story was not published until December, 1 854, and the drama was pro- duced at the Marylebone on February 26, 1855, — the father, mother, and Tom the dramatist, along with Miss Robert- son, all in the piece together. I have the play-bill. But I have a bill nearly 47 ELLEN TERR T two years earlier at the Marylebone with Miss Robertson as a child in the cast. I communicated this to Mrs. Kendal, and she said she had no recollec- tion of her earlier appearances. She had been informed of them partly by a note-book of her father's, and partly by the recollections of E. F. Edgar, a fellow-actor of the time. Yours truly, George Tawse. P,S. — I shall feel much obliged if you will kindly let me know Miss Ellen Terry's opinion respecting her first appearance on the stage, and after your purposes are served, I should esteem it a favour if you will kindly let me have her letter (if not a pri- vate one) to retain in connection with this matter. 48 MISS ELLEN TERRY As Fair Rcsatnund in "Becket " ELLEN T ERRT I need hardly say that my re- spected correspondent did not get the Ellen Terry letter. It is carefully preserved amongst my val- uable epistolary archives, which in the long future may be of consider- able interest. The loth of October, 1887, brought me another note from Mr. Tav^se, bristling with history and play-bill lore. Dear Mr. Scott, I beg to return the portion of Miss Ellen Terry's letter I received this morning. I have given a hasty turn over to my Bills (I am, however, not rich in pantomimes), but can find no scent of a Simple Simon, Does Miss 4 49 ELLEN T ERRT Terry imply that the pantomime she appeared in was a Princess's and a Charles Kean's Pantomime ? If so, she is certainly mistaken in the name. From April, 1856, her first appearance, to August, 1859, close of Charles Kean's management, there were only three pantomimes: 1856, Aladdin; 1857, White Cat; 1858, King of the Castle, As those Bills are not in my collection I shall look at the Museum Bills. But as I suspect Simple Simon may have been a Surrey or new sub- urban pantomime, I would like to know whether you can give me any more definite clue than she gives in her letter, so that I may search with a prospect of speedy success. I assume the panto she appeared in was between April, 1856, and March, 1863, when 50 ELLEN TE R RT (Pascoe says) she made her professional debut at the Haymarket. If it was in the provinces, it will be difficult to trace. Yours sincerely, George Tawse. P. S, — Pascoe does not mention the following appearances of Ellen Terry : October, 1856, Puck in Midsummer Night's Bream ; 1858, Easter Monday, Faust and Marguerite (she did not play in the first production of this in 1854); October, 1858, Arthur in King John (this I think Pascoe does mention) ; 17th November, 1858, Fleance in Mac- beth^ not mentioned either by Pascoe or Blanchard in " Era Almanack/* In Kean's Richard the Second^ The Tempest^ King Leary Merchant of Venice^ Much Ado About Nothings Henry the Fifths 51 ELLEN TERR T and Henry the Eighth, which closed the list, Ellen Terry had no part, accord- ing to my bills. . And now I thought I would turn to one of the greatest living author- ities on the subject, — my ever- lamented friend, Edward Leman Blanchard, who was a perfect mine of information, as anyone can see who reads his Life, — a book that should be on the shelves of every dramatic student and critic. He was a playgoer from boyhood, the son of an actor, — the celebrated com- edian Blanchard, — and a dramatic critic from his earliest youth. Here is Blanchard's reply to my letter : 52 ELLEN T ERRT My Dear Scott, Pardon the delay of this response to your enquiry re Ellen Terry's first appearance on the stage, but I have been making industrious researches among my dusty books and papers for the last four days. At last I am able to put you at least on the track of Simple Simon, though I doubt if the clever (and still young) lady who must have been born in 1843, would care to have the date divulged. I have re- corded all I can gather on the accom- panying slip of paper, and if you can get any friend in Glasgow to look at the Glasgow newspaper file for Christ- mas, 1848 or 1849, ^^'^ ^^^^ y°^ ^^^ 'title of the Glasgow Theatre Royal Pantomimes for those years, the " Mys Tery " will be solved to your own sat- 53 ELLEN T ERRT isfaction. I have not been able to find some old copies of the " Theatrical Times," I once had, published at that period, and thus have no record of the provincial pantomimes for those dates. Yours always faithfully, E. L. Blanchard. In Re Ellen Terry : In 1848, Mr. and Mrs. Terry and their two daughters were engaged by John Alexander for the Theatre Royal, Glas- gow. The two daughters played the Princes in Richard the Third, and the father acted the Lieutenant of the Tower, Mrs. R. H. Wyndham (who I think still survives), afterwards of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, being the Lady Anne. Simple Simon was probably the panto- mime at the Glasgow Theatre Royal 54 Ml-S ELLEN TERRY As Imc>cen in " Cvmbeline ELLEN TERRT that year, or more likely the following year, 1849. ^^ might have been 1850, as that house was where the children acquired their early stage practice. John Alexander, the Manager, died December 15, 1851. The Theatre Royal, Glasgow, was burned down in January, 1863. £. L. B. N, B. — Mrs. Wyndham would hardly be likely to have kept more than the play-bills recording her own perform- ances, or the Glasgow papers would probably be the best reference if pan- tomime notices were then written at any length giving cast of characters, etc. The diligent searcher in play-bills was not, however, to be beaten, and 55 ELLEN TERR T he triumphantly discovered that Ellen Terry played a fairy in a Princess's pantomime on Boxing Night, 1857. I have succeeded in tracing Miss Ellen Terry's first appearance in Pan- tomime. It was not in a Panto called Simple Simon^ but in the Panto by J. M. Morton played at the Princess's, and brought out on December 26, 1857, called Harlequin and the White Cat ; or Blanchflower and Her Fairy Godmother^ and which ran seventy-eight times, ex- piring on March 27, 1858. The following were some of the char- acters : — Simple Simon the 2326 (King of the Ver- dant Islands), Mr. Paulo (afterwards clown) ; Count Verygreenindeeds, etc., Mr. Collett ; 56 " ELLEN TERRT The Princess Blanchflower, etc., Master R. Hodsdon ; Her Royal Nurse, Mr. Taylor ; The White Cat, Miss Kate Terry. Immortals. — The Fairy Goldenstar (no con- nection with the Comet), Miss Ellen Terry; The Fairy Topaz (a gem of the first water), Miss Emily Edwards ; The Fairy Rosebud (a young lady just coming out), Miss Clara Denvil ; The Fairy Dragonetta (not invited to stand Godmother, and therefore deter- mined not to stand nonsense), Miss Amelia Smith. I have examined all the Bills ; Ellen Terry's name appears In every one as Fairy Godmother, Amelia Smith al- ways as Fairy Dragonetta, so that when Miss Terry took Miss Smith's part (through illness) of the Bad Fairy, someone must have taken Miss Terry's part of the Good Fairy. No doubt this 57 ELLEN T ERRT had only occurred for one or two nights, and the parts being so very in- ferior it would not be deemed neces- sary to correct the Bills. At the same time, to show that Charles Kean was an exact man, in December, 1855, panto- mime Maid and the Magpie, Kate Terry, who played Fairy Paradisa, fell ill soon after the piece started, and Miss Rose Leclerq's name was immediately put in the Bill, in consequence of Kate Terry's, illness ; within a fortnight she recovered, when her name resumed its place. In a few days she fell ill again, and Miss Rose Leclerq's name was again put in, and remained there till the end of the run. There can be no doubt, I think, that 'The White Cat, December, 1857, was the pantomime in which our Ellen ELLEN TE RRT Terry made a success of the Bad Fairy. I cannot inform you whether she took a part in the pantomime of 1858, King of the Castle ; because, unfortunately, the Museum file of the Princess's play-bills ends early in 1858, and my own col- lection lacks this and other pantomime bills. She did not have a part in Alad- din or the Wonderful Lamp^ in Decem- ber, 1856. I think the following is a correct list of Ellen Terry's early appearances on the stage, all at the Princess's under the Charles Kean management. April 28, 1856 (first appearance), Mam- illius in ^he Winter s T^ale. October 15, 1856, Puck or Robin Goodfellow, a Fairy in Midsummer Night's Dream; De- cember 26, 1857, the Fairy " Golden Star " in 'The White Cat Pantomime, 59 ELLEN T ERRT also the Fairy Dragonetta, when Amelia Smith was ill. April 5, 1858, Karl in Faust and Marguerite; October 1 8th, Prince Arthur in King John; November 17th, Fleance in Macbeth (revivals and for a short time only), Kean's management closed August 29, 1859. Pascoe's biography infers that Ellen Terry did not appear on the stage again until March, 1863, when she made her professional debut at the Hay market. Yours very sincerely, George Tawse. P,S. — I have seen a Bill of King of the Castle^ and Ellen Terry's name is not on it, neither is her sister Kate's. Dear Mr. Scott, I find I have unwittingly led you into error in a small way by my pencilled 60 MISS ELLhX TERRY As Viola in " Twelfth Night " ELLEN T ERRT note in my last letter. I there men- tioned that Ellen Terry did not play in Charles Kean's pantomime, King of the Castle, produced December 28, 1858; but I made a mistake; she did play. " The Genius of the Jewels " — Miss Ellen Terry — is at least on the Bill for the first, second, third, and fourth time. As the Princess's file of Bills in the British Museum is incom- plete, I called on a friend (a fellow play- bill worm), and saw his copy of King of the Castle, where her name does not appear; but his Bill is about the termina- tion of the run, and I naturally assumed she had not been in it at all. Since then I have found the first night Bill, with her name in it as above, and also the second, third, and fourth nights. 61 ELLEN T ERRT It is most probable that l^he White Caty December, 1857, and King of the Castle^ Xmas, 1858, were the only pantomimes in which she ever played. These were the last two pantomimes produced by Charles Kean, and, as we do not hear of Ellen Terry at any other theatre until she came out at the Haymarket in 1863, the assumption is a fair one. Yours very sincerely, George Tawse. We all know the story of the young Ellen Terry's marvellous " shriek " in a play called Attar Gully during the Albina de Rhona engagement at the Royalty Theatre — the scene of Charles Wyndham s debut as a burlesque actor, for he began life as an American Army 62 ELLEN TE R RT surgeon, drifted into burlesque, was fascinated by farce, and developed into a splendid comedian. The story of Ellen Terry appearing in a sensation drama, and rushing upon the stage enfolded in the deadly coil of a serpent, and par- alysing her audience by her as- sumed terror, has been told by herself and countless biographers at second hand. It has, however, never been better told than by her old and faithful friend, "Joe Knight," who was present with me on that memorable occasion. It was an incident, — little more, — but neither of us have ever for- gotten it. 6^ ELLEN TERRT But, so far as my memory is con- cerned, I shall always date the Ellen Terry that I have known, and have studiously followed since childhood, from the Haymarket engagement under the management of Buckstone (old Bucky), a once famous and most popular actor ; but, alas, how soon forgotten! When I talk to-day of Buckstone or Benjamin Webster or Compton or Robson or Robert Keeley, or the he- roes of the past, people simply stare and shrug their shoulders. When I was a lad I liked to hear playgoers discuss the favourites of their time. But nowadays the young playgoer is firmly convinced and persuaded ELLEN T ER RT that the stage only began to exist when Henry Irving became man- ager of the Lyceum Theatre. They consider it was chaos before that auspicious event, and crea- tion afterwards ; but we who were in the movement before the name of Henry Irving was ever heard of can prove the contrary to be the real truth. The appearance of Ellen Terry as the girl in The Little Treasure [La Joie de la Maison), a Hay market play once connected with the fame of an exceedingly attractive and beautiful lady at the same theatre, called Blanche Fane, first introduces her name with that of Edward 5 Is ELLEN TE R RT Askew Sothern, — the father of three clever young actors. I can hear old Buckstone when he first saw Ellen Terry, and was con- vinced of her talent as a lovely girl, suggesting, in his comical way. The Little Treasure as worthy of production, based on his recollec- tions of the enormous popularity of Blanche Fane, the idol of the young men of her day, — the late fifties. So Ellen Terry appeared as "The Little Treasure" to the Captain Maydenblush of the celebrated Lord Dundreary, with whom she was as- sociated, also in Our American Cousin as Georgiana in one of the many 66 MISS ELLEN TLRRY As Ellaline i.i " Tlie Amber Heart ELLEN TERRT revivals of this phenomenally suc- cessful play. One of Ellen Terry's biographers places it on record that the beauti- ful, fair-haired girl in the early sixties at the Haymarket disliked Edw^ard Sothern. There is no ac- counting for the likes or dislikes of fair women. At any rate Ellen Terry must have been in a minority, for the elder Sothern was more liked by women of his time of all classes and of all ages than any actor I have ever known. A good actor, a mighty Nimrod, a tall, handsome fellow, a pronounced humourist, Edward Askew Sothern was em- phatically a lady-killer. But unfor- 67 ' ELLEN TERR T tunately the fatally foolish biographer gives a reason for the dislike in this instance. It was that Sothern was such a determined practical joker. Now if there was one particular quality possessed by man which would appeal to Ellen Terry and the Ellen Terry temperament, it was that power of practical joking. She herself has hugged that same gift from girlhood to this very hour. If ever there was a madcap on or off the stage it was, and is, Ellen Terry. Of her it may indeed be said she was born to speak '* all mirth and no matter.'' I have seen her sit on the stage in a seri- ous play and literally cry with _ ELLEN T ERRT laughing, the audience mistaking her fun for deep emotion ; and actors have told me that in most pathetic scenes she has suddenly been attracted by the humorous side of the situation and almost made them " dry up," as the say^ ing is. I remember that Walter Gordon, a dear old friend of mine who was in the Haymarket company in the days of Buckstone and Ned Sothern, told me that they were playing some scene connected with the legendary days of King Arthur. There was a marvellous stone, of sacred origin, on a Saxon altar, which no Knight of the Round ELLEN T ERRT Table could move notwithstanding all his strength and heroism. One after another of these strong men approached the stone, and all failed in the attempt to lift it or even ,| move it a quarter of an inch. Ellen Terry was in the play, and, in one of her madcap moods, she ap- proached the altar and the sacred stone (made of course of property stuff to resemble granite), and tossed it into the air as if it had been a child's ball, murmuring to the au- dience with childish glee, ** Why, it 's the easiest thing in the world." This scene must have occurred in a polyglot play called Bucksto?ie at Horne^ a kind of revue in 70 ELLEN TERRT which the lively young lady ap- peared as Britannia. The anecdote of Ellen Terry at a straiofht-laced and sedate dinner party, suddenly bounding into the room dressed as Cupid, to shock propriety, may or may not be true. If not " vero '' it is certainly " ben trovato," and is quoted to this hour to illustrate the temperament of this remarkable woman. But there is one good story ascribed to another actress that is quite in the Ellen Terry vein, and has, I am confident, been placed on the wrong shoulders. A somewhat self-satisfied, vain- glorious, and grumpy actor com- ELLEN T ERRT plained that the merry actress continually laughed in one of his most important scenes. He had not the courage to tell her his ob- jections, so he wrote her a letter of heartbroken complaint. Dear I am extremely sorry to tell you that it is impossible for me to make any effect in such and such a scene if you persist in laughing at me on the stage, and so spoiling the situation. May I ask you to change your attitude, as the scene is a most trying one. Truly yours. The answer was very direct and to the point. 72 MISS ELLEN J ERRV As Eeatrice in " Much Ac^o About Notliing ELLEN TERR T Dear You are quite mistaken. I never laugh at you on the stage. I wait till I get home ! Yours truly. The early professional life of Ellen Terry was, to the great disappoint- ment of her warmest admirers, fit- ful, wayward, and uncertain. She would appear, and then mysteriously disappear again, alternately beaming on us, and then flying away again like some beautiful butterfly. One of her biographers attempts to justify this erratic proceeding by a quotation from Talma, one of the greatest French actors, but one also 73 ELLEN TERRT who talked a good deal of inde- fensible nonsense about his profes- sion. If he really said that ** long spells of rest and abstinence'' from acting were to be recommended in order that " the sympathy may not become dulled or the imagination impaired," he spoke words that are quite aggravatingly untrue. In this art, as indeed in all others, practice, and practice alone makes perfect, and the true artist never considers that the perfection line can ever be over-reached. I grant that to continue to play the same part for hundreds and hun- dreds of nights on a stretch may dull the faculties and become ruin- 74 ELLEN TE RRT ous to the imagination. But hard work, and as much of it as possible, never hurt any craftsman. To the real artist, life is too short to allow us to spare one minute in trying to attain perfection. Luckily, in this instance, the long spells of leisure did no harm to this particular artist ; but it would be extremely rash to say that she did not act far better when she got into regular harness again. She was fairly back in the fold when she gave us those most beautiful creations, Portia and Olivia. I agree with Tennyson that " unto him who works and feels he works the same Grand Year is ever at the doors." 75 ELLEN T ERRT Tom Taylor and Charles Reade had always been firm friends. They collaborated on that excellent play, still a classic. Masks and Faces, so it was not astonishing that the fair protegee of Tom Taylor should find herself, sooner or later, after once more playing truant, serving under the leadership of eccentric, clever, and pugnacious Charles Reade. This is Charles Reade's description of Ellen Terry: "Her eyes are pale, her nose rather long, her mouth nothing particular, com- plexion a delicate brick-dust, her hair rather like tow. Yet some- how she is beautiful. Her expres- 76 ~ ELLEN TERRT sion kills any pretty face you see beside her. Her figure is lean and bony ; her hand masculine in size and form. Yet she is a pattern of fawn-like grace. Whether in movement or repose, grace pervades the hussy,'' I don't think I ever met such a determined and obstinate fighter as Charles Reade, or one who, with an angelic smile, wrote such alarmingly scurrilous letters. How well I remember the opening of the old Queen's Theatre in Long Acre, now turned into a carriage factory ! It was built on the site of the old St. Martin's Hall, where John Hullah, a musical enthusiast, "7 ELLEN TERRT gave monster concerts and oratorios, and had some wonderful system for teaching the art in a popular form. Charles Reade opened the ball with a new play called The Double Mar- riage^ which was founded on his own novel, White Lies, which again was founded on an old French melodrama by Maquet. When this fact was pointed out to the angry old gentleman by Captain Alfred Thompson, who knew the French stage by heart, and by Leo- pold Lewis, who translated The Bells for Irving, and when in the pages of a clever periodical, " The Mask," ample quotations were given MISS ELLEN TERRY As Cordelia in " King Lear" ELLEN TE R RT from the French melodrama to prove the plagiarism, then the " feathers began to fly." It was a hideous " ruction " whilst it lasted, and of course Charles Reade talked about his honour and his dignity as a public writer and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Ox- ford, which Fellowship kept him a lifelong bachelor, and threatened the " satirical rogues " with all the penalties of the law. I remember that on that evening I sat at the back of the dress circle with my old friend Charles Mathews and " Mrs. Charley," Arthur Sketchley, and Palgrave Simpson. We all rejoiced that 79 ELLEN T E RRT Ellen Terry was to come back to the stage to play the heroine. Alfred Wigan, Charles Wyndham, and Lai Brough were all in the cast, and they were soon to be joined at this theatre by Johnnie Toole and those then very promis- ing young actors, Henry Irving and Jack Clayton, — the adopted son of Palgrave Simpson, the dram- atist. The hit of the evening was unquestionably made by Wynd- ham in a romantic part, but the piece proved a failure. The audi- ence hissed it, and nearly sent irri- table Charles Reade into a fit ; for he was intolerant of criticism, either from the public or journalists. 80 ELLEN T ERRT A stop gap was found in Tom Taylor's Still Waters Run Deep^ founded on a novel by Charles de Bernard. I suppose I was a here- tic, even in those days. I never cared for Alfred Wigan as John Mildmay. Wyndham has since played the part a thousand times better. He was the Hawksley on this occasion. Mrs. Alfred Wigan, who had a mania for society and titled people, was a clever actress, but not an atom like Mrs. Stern- hold, though it was rank heresy to say so at that time. Still I never at any time saw Mrs. John Mild- may better acted than by Ellen Terry. I recall to this day her ELLEN T ERRT plaintive parting with her prig of a husband, — she all poetry and im- agination, he all prose and matter of fact. It should never be forgotten that it was at this very theatre, and under this same management, that Ellen Terry first met and acted with Henry Irving. How little did either of them know that in a few years' time they would be associated in the great art work of their age, and that they would go down to posterity as the most famous actor and actress of the Victorian Era. It is said, " Coming events cast their shadows before," but in this case 82 ELLEN TE R RT it was the very faintest possible shadow, and the meeting of these distinguished artists took place in David Garrick's shameful old farce, or travesty, of Shakespeare which, I regret to say, still holds the stage, called, Katharine and Petruchio. I have not much recollection of the performance, save that Ellen Terry was the sweetest shrew ever seen, and that it seemed barbaric to crack a whip in her presence, or to go through the tomfoolery of the blackened leg of mutton and the bonnet-boxes. Irving must have been angular, and, as John Oxenford said, more like a " brig- and chief than an ideal Petru- _ ELLEN TERRT chio. The true and the new Katharine and Petruchio were reserved, years after, for Ada Rehan and John Drew. Before these brilHant American artists came to London, we had never seen the Tafning of the Shrew, as it ought to be acted, or had conceived such a Katharine were possible. It was a revelation. During one of her spasmodic re- turns to the stage, I have a vivid recollection of Ellen Terry's Phil- ippa in The Wandering Heir, by Charles Reade, a part originally created by Mrs. John Wood. It was the first time that I ever saw the delightful actress in what old 84 MISS ELLEN TERRY As Lady Macbeth in " Madxfth ELLEN T ERRT sta2:ers used to call *' breeches parts/' Looking back, as I do, through the vista of the past, and still seeing Philippa struggling as a boy to forget she is really a woman, with a woman's heart and impulse, it is not unnatural that I should say to myself, *' What a Lady Ursula, Ellen Terry would haye made ! " and how Mrs. Hodgson Burnett would haye rejoiced had she the assistance of such an artist for Clo- rinda Wildairs in her Lady of ^ality, Ellen Terry's serious stao-e work really began when she was engaged ! by the Bancrofts to play Portia in S5 ELLEN T ERRT Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice at — of all theatres of the world — the little old Prince of Wales Thea- tre in the Tottenham Court Road, hitherto dedicated to the "teacup and saucer drama " and Robertso- nian comedies. We could scarcely believe our ears when the announce- ment was made. Shakespeare in a bandbox ! that was the comment. Sir Squire Bancroft as he is now, I shall always consider the very best manager of my time. He has an orderly and precise mind ; he is a man of good taste and rare judg- ment, emphatically a long and level headed man. He has been one of the very few of my time who was 86 ELLEN TERRT able to retire at a comparatively- early age, having made a fortune by his own and his clever v^ife's endeavours. Bandbox or no bandbox, The Merchant of Venice was never so superbly set on the stage, not even at the Lyceum, as it was in the little theatre off the Tottenham Court Road, Bancroft's tact in anticipating the verdict of the public in plays and actors was little less than marvellous. It was he who selected Ellen Terry for Portia, the most beautiful ever seen, and started her on what may be called her serious stage career. ELLEN T ERRT Bancroft, it must be confessed, had very few failures indeed to place to his account. This superb version of The Merchant of Venice was certainly one of them. Not even the glorious mounting or the ex- quisite acting of Ellen Terry could save it. It was The Merchant oj Venice without a Shylock, for Charles Coghlan hopelessly failed in the part. The ill-success oi The Merchant of Venice^ which Bancroft accepted with his usual calmness and philosophy, has always been ascribed to the extraordinarily tame and colourless Shylock of Coghlan, a " teacup and saucer " performance, if ever one was seen, 88 ELLEN T ERRT And yet, as I have recently heard on excellent authority, there were some excuses for the actor. Cogh- lan did not want to play Shylock at all. He would have been quite content to play Antonio, to say some older actor, such as Hermann Vezin ; but when it was suggested that George Rignold, a junior as it were, should be the Shylock, then Coghlan, as the leading man, pro- tested, and said he must be Shylock or nothing. When Ellen Terry played Portia for the first time, she was in the very perfection of her youth and beauty. She made a superb picture in her glorious Venetian costumes, 89 ELLEN T ERRT and she moved with the grace and ease of a fawn. Bulwer (Lord) Lytton, the drama- tist, is the "bete noire " of the mod- ern superficial critics. They rave at him whenever he is produced ; they scream out at the top of their voices that he is old-fashioned ; they babble about his flashy imitation of poetry ; and, if they had thei-r way, they would condemn him to the dust-bin. And yet the public, for whom plays are written, the public that this well abused drama- tist so well understood, the public that likes a good play containing effective scenes, the public that probably is not indifferent to flashy 90 MISS ELLEN TERRV As Fair Rosamund in "Becket"' < ; ' r « ELLEN TE R RT rhetoric when it cannot get first class poetry, is not dismayed when a manager produces either Money or The Lady of Lyons, But, if produced, these old plays must be well acted. They will not stand a Henry Irving as Claude Melnotte ; but they were delighted to welcome Charles Fechter as the " gardener's son," flashy rhetoric and all. With a Marie Bancroft as Lady Franklin, and a George Honey, or Arthur Cecil, as Graves there was no lack of laughter, whether Money be old-fashioned or not. It fell to Ellen Terry to keep green the memory of these old plays that 91 ELLEN TERRT delighted our fathers who were playgoers. She enacted Clara Douglas and Pauline, as well as they have been ever played in our time, and showed us that the stagi- ness of the stagiest of old plays can be eliminated by acting so sincere and natural as that of Ellen Terry. I now come to a new and very im- portant period in the art life of this remarkable woman. We have seen her fitful, uncertain vagabond life since childhood, — here, there, and everywhere, on and off the stage, the idol of painters and the artistic world in general. We have seen .her tempted to the Bancroft school, where, according to her own ac- 92 ELLEN T ERRT count, she intended to stay for evermore; but, as we all know, promises such as these are like the proverbial pie-crust, made to be broken, especially by women of this unreliable temperament. We have welcomed her on the tiny Bancroft stage in her second won- derful performance, that of Portia, — as lovely a picture as her girl Hero of years before. Another artistic manager now claimed the services of Ellen Terry. This was John Hare, whose debut I had seen, as a mere boy, when Marie Wilton first became man- ageress ; and Hare had been loyal to the Bancroft cause ever since. It 93 ELLEN TE R RT is a matter of stage history that John Hare was, with Marie Wilton (Lady Bancroft), the keystone of the success of the Robertsonian comedies. It was Hare who made the success in Robertson's first pro- duction of Society, Such perform- ances as Sam Gerridge in Caste, and Beau Farintosh in School, had never been seen before on the Eng- lish stage, and are never likely to be seen again. I do not write this with prejudice. There are certain characters that fit men and women like kid gloves. They are part and parcel of them- selves ; they are seemingly the actual people they are interpreting. 94 ELLEN TERRT Amongst such I may mention the Polly Eccles of Marie Bancroft, there never can be another " Polly " like that ; the Sam Gerridge of John Hare, — well, his son Gilbert is an excellent artist, he 's a veri- table chip of the old block, but still it is not the same Sam Gerridge ; the Paula Tanqueray of Mrs. Pat- rick Campbell, there will never be another of that exact pattern and design ; the Elder Miss Blossom of Mrs. Kendal, — a creation that no other woman in the world could displace ; and, of course, the Rip Van Winkle of Joseph Jefferson. I could add to the list, but this will suffice for the purpose of argument. 95 ELLEN TER R T It is not that one impression ca: be removed by another impress one reading by another readmg, but there are certain artists who defy competition in certain char- acters. I am often told, " Oh, there are others quite as good! " I wish there were. I should like to see another Mrs. Keeley and another Frederic Robson, and I should dearly love the young men and women of to-day to see another Charles Fechter, — the best roman- tic actor I ever saw. Well, the happy family that had so long flourished in the Tottenham Court Road Theatre had to be 7-> 'y M15S ELLEN TERRY As i^ueen Katharine in " King Henry VIH. c < c < • « o c ELLEN TERR T broken up and dispersed. Bancroft and Hare, who started life as com- panions and boys, always " making up " and dressing in the same room at the theatre, were married and fathers of families. Both were fired with ambition. Bancroft determined to become a manager on a grand scale, and be- came lessee of the historic Hay- market. John Hare thought it high time also that he should be- come a manager, — the apparent life-object of every successful actor. He, therefore, took the Court The- atre, way down in remote Chelsea, — a suburban little bandbox which had once been a dissenting chapel " 97 ELLEN T E R RT — church and the stage once more under the same roof. John Hare pinned his faith at the outset to three individuals. First, Charles Coghlan, for whose art and literary talent he had a supreme admiration. He knew that Charles Coghlan could not only act, but could write plays, and he deter- mined he would exploit his friend in the dual role of actor and dramatist. His second choice was Charles Kelly (Wardell), who promised to be one of the best artists of his kind in London. He had been an officer in a crack cavalry regiment; he was extremely well educated ; 98 ELLEN TE R RT he had a cultured and logical mind ; and he had that extraordinary power of "grip " that so few Anglo-Saxon actors possess. He reminded one of Dumaine and Arnold Dupuis in 'France, of Charles Thorne in America, and of John Clayton in Eneland. At one time Charles Kelly threatened to be the best of them all. The third string to John Hare's bow in his new venture and first experience in management was Ellen Terry, who married the sec- ond string to the bow, — Charles Kelly (Wardell). Her first marriage was an artistic one, — George F. Watts, the cele- 99 ELLEN T E RRT brated painter and a genius. Her second marriage was a dramatic one, — Charles Kelly, the officer- actor, a man of excellent talent, of firm determination, and who could argue and argue well on any given subject. For a time things did not prosper very brightly at the Court Theatre, and it looked as if John Hare's experiment would be doomed to failure. The Charles Coghlan play. Brothers, the posthumous Lord Lytton's play. The House of Darnley, the Victims of Tom Tay- lor were frozen out. The only success at the outset was made by Ellen Terry as Lilian Vavasour in lOO ELLEN T E R R r New Men and Old Acres, a part originally created by Madge Rob- ertson (Mrs. Kendal). Then suddenly John Hare was in- spired. He wanted an English play, on an English subject, with an Eng- lish setting, and acted by the best representatives of the English school. Suddenly he must have cried, ** Eu- reka ! I have found it ! " [It was Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- field?[ A happier idea could not have occurred to mortal man. We were in the middle of a seventeenth century craze. We were all mad about blue china, Chippendale chairs, Sheraton sideboards, old spinets, and brass fire-irons. ICI ELLEN TER RT George du Maurier, with his " Punch " pictures, had started the fashion, and there was scarcely one in the artistic world who did not in their own home and belong- ings revert with joy to the modes and whims of their great-grand- mothers. The men ransacked the bric-a-brac shops for last cen- tury china, clocks, and furniture ; the women appeared wearing the mob caps, bibs, tuckers, fichus, and frills of their ancestors. The age was exactly ripe for the Ficar of Wakefield, and John Hare, with his keen instinct, pictured in his mind's eye an ideal " Olivia" in Ellen Terry. I02 MISS Ei.LlX lERRV As Guinevere in " King Arthur " ELLEN TERRT John Hare was right ! Once again, he, with faultless judg- ment, set W. G. Wills to work on a dramatisation of the immortal book which Oliver Goldsmith him- self never destined for the stage. It was a happy choice. This de- lightful Irishman — Wills — has given the stage better work than the majority of his fellows. His friends could consent to rest his reputation on Charles the First, Eugene Ararriy Vanderdecken, and Olivia, It is the sneering fashion of to-day to pooh-pooh and to belittle poor W. G. Wills, as Sheridan Knowles and Bulwer Lytton were pooh- poohed before him ; but, for all 103 ELLEN TERR T that, his plays will live when the work of much more vaunted dram- atists will be forgotten. The excitement of John Hare, the manager, who had determined not to act himself this time, but to de- vote himself to a triumph of stage management, became infectious. It was caught up by Marcus Stone, the Royal Academician, who loved the period, by Wills the dramatist, the fellow-countryman of Oliver Goldsmith, and the whole com- pany, including Ellen Terry and William Terriss, who, as Olivia and young Squire Thornhill, made the great and abiding successes of their artistic lives. 104 ELLEN T ERRT I once thought that U Ami Fritz of Erckmann-Chatrian, as staged and acted at the Comedie Fran- 9aise in Paris, was the most perfect " play of a period," a purely pastoral and idyllic play, that had ever been seen on any stage. • John Hare went " one better " with Olivia, The play was an exact and faithful reproduction of one of the most graceful and picturesque periods of Old England. The exact period of the Ficar of Wakefield might have had its dis- advantages : there were no rail- ways ; gas and electric light were unknown quantities ; there were no hurrying or scurrying, no bustle 105 ELLEN T ER RT or scramble ; but, dear me, what peace, what serenity, what dignity, what supreme love of God's coun- try as against man's town ! It was this exquisitely calm atmos- phere that John Hare and William G. Wills caught so happily. It was Old England in its most love- able attire, — the Old England of pink-and-white apple-blossoms, yellow daffodils, and blue-bells ; when simplicity had not been de- stroyed by steam and smoke ; the England that Ruskin wrote about and that poets and painters love. A Olivia, as I first saw it at the Court Theatre, is a memory that will never die whilst life lasts. It is ic6 ELLEN TE R RT one of the most precious souvenirs in my collection. I did not quite like the Dr. Primrose selected for the Court production, before Henry- Irving ever dreamed of playing the part. An excellent and experienced actor may not have the tenderness, the parental affection, and the pas- toral simplicity required for the Vicar of Wakefield, At that time, if John Hare himself and Charles \ Kelly wilfully refused the part, if I had been a manager, I should have ^ given it to Arthur Cecil, who had, like Rutland Barrington, the ; " clergyman tone," which is so 1 essential in a play of this kind. But words fail to convey an ade- 107 ELLEN TER R T quate impression of the original Olivia, — the spoiled child and dar- ling of the English home as por- trayed by Ellen Terry. I see the idol of her old father's heart. Vividly and clearly is presented to my memory the scene where Olivia, under the hypnotic influence of love, bids farewell to her loved ones, scattering around her little treasures, and that " white face at the window," when " Livvy " is on the high road to destruction. All that was pathetic enough ; but the dramatic effect was bound to follow, and it came with vivid truth in the great scene between Ellen Terry and William Terriss. io8 MISS ELLEN lERRY As Lucy Ashton in " Ravenswood' ELLEN T ERRT At that time both actor and act- ress were perfect specimens of manly beauty and feminine grace. Terriss was just the dare-devil, defiant, creature, handsome to a fault, that women like Olivia love. He looked superb in his fine clothes, and his very insolence was fascinating and attractive. When Olivia struck Squire Thorn- hill in her distraction and impotent rage, an audible shudder went through the audience. It was all so unsuspected. But the truth of it was shown by the prolonged and \ audible '' Oh ! " that accompanied it. When we talk of the Ellen Terry manner, and her indescribable charm. 109 ELLEN T ERRT where, may I ask, were they ever better shown than in the scene where OHvia kisses the holly from the hedge at home, and then hangs it on a chair and dances round it with childish delight. And so it went on from perfection to perfection. For me there will be only one Olivia, — Ellen Terry. Fate willed it that this same Olivia should be the great stepping-stone in the career of the now famous actress. Tihey came to see her ; we saw and applauded ; she conquered — everybody. Henry Irving, by one of his acts of dramatic diplomacy, had somehow I lO ELLEN TERRT or other shaken himself clear of the Bateman faction. Into the rights or wrongs of that controversy- it is not my province to enter. We must never expect to hear the " still small voice of gratitude " in any walk of life, least of all in the theatrical profession, whose mem- bers are notorious for calmly and complacently shaking off their obligations, and very often biting the hand that once fed their ambi- tion. At least I have found it so, and I can often sigh with Wordsworth, — "I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning. 1 1 1 ELLEN T ERRT Alas ! the Gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning." At any rate old " Colonel '' Bate- man was dead and buried ; his widow, who succeeded him as man- ager, was conveniently shelved ; and Henry Irving became manager of the Lyceum Theatre. He naturally wanted a leading lady, one who would not disturb his triumphs, but, on the contrary, would materially assist them, one who would occupy a very comfort- able throne by his side without combating his supremacy, — in fact, a beautiful, talented, popular, amen- able Queen to sit by the side of the ambitious Lyceum King. I I 2 ELLEN T E R RT He could not have discovered a better theatrical consort than Ellen Terry. Fate willed her for the part she had to play. No stroke of diplomacy was more sure and convincing. Macready owed much of his fame to Helen Faucit. Half the success of Charles Kean's career was made by his talented wife, who had cleverness, but no beauty to recommend her. History will have to decide in the distant future how much of Henry Irving's success was due at the outset of his managerial career to the extraordinary influence, charm, and fascination of Ellen Terry. I am certain of one thing, that a 8 115 ELLEN T ERRT more loyal comrade, no actor-man- ager ever had. I have sometimes thought that v^hen it was decreed from the Lyceum Throne that Ellen Terry was to play Lady Macbeth to the Master's Macbeth, and Queen Katharine to the new Cardinal Wolsey, and various other characters within the conspicuous talent, but outside the peculiar temperament of the actress, that during this long Lyceum reign she might have been allowed to play Rosalind, the one of all the Shake- spearian heroines whose tempera- ment was so absolutely pronounced in Ellen Terry. If ever there was a born Rosalind, 114 — -v-k— « k MISS ELLEN TERRY As I< >lanthe in " King Rene's Daughter ELLEN TE R RT it was Ellen Terry, and I should not have thought it would have been outside any managerial policy to engage the best possible stripling for Orlando, and for the Lyceum manager to give us a new, a true, and, I am sure, a most philosophic reading of Jacques. But, alas! As Ton Like It was never on the Lyceum list, and now it is too late. Alluding to what I have before referred to as the Ellen Terry tem- perament, which in my humble judgment is too pronounced and sweet for Lady Macbeth, and I am certain I said so, I can recall a most interesting discussion we had ELLEN TERRT on this subject soon after the re- vival at the Lyceum, when Ellen Terry succeeded to Lady Macbeth in place of Miss Bateman (Mrs. Crowe). I remember her saying, in her generous, emphatic way, — - *'You have hit the blot, *an empty barren cry.' '* Indeed it was. "When I called on the Spirits to unsex me, I acted that bit just as badly as anybody could act any- thing. " You know it was most kind of vou to suppose that I could act Lady Macbeth. You wrote from that point of view which in itself is a very great compliment. " Ti6 ELLEN T E R R r " For my own part, I am quite surprised to find I am real/y a use- ful actress. For I really am." Of course I laughed at the idea that anybody in the wide world could urge that she was not, and I implored her to go on. "Well," said Ellen Terry, with justifiable sarcasm, " I have been able to get through with such parts as Ophelia, Olivia, Beatrice, Mar- garet, and Lady Macbeth, and my aim is usefulness to my lovely art and to Henry Irving. This is not a very high ambition, is it ? But long ago I gave up dreaming, and I think I see things as they are — especially see myself as I am, alas ! 117 ELLEN TER RT both off and on the stage, and I only aspire to help a little." Then we drifted on to Ellen Terry's conception of Lady Macbeth, and here her views became to me pregnant with interest. " Mind you though," she said vivaciously, and with intense en- thusiasm, " although I know I cannot do what I want to do in this part, I don't even want to be * a fiend,' and cant believe for a moment that Lady Macbeth did conceive that murder — that one murder. " Most women," she went on, " break the law during their lives ; few women realise the consequences ii8 ELLEN TERRT of what they do to-day." Again the earnest artist returned to her own reading of the character. " I do believe," she said, *' that at the end of that Banquet, that poor wretched creature was brought through agony and sin to repen- tance, and was forgiven. Surely she called the spirits to be made bad, because she knew she was not so very bad ? " *' But was Lady Macbeth good ? " I asked. " No, she was not good, but not so much worse than many women you know." Away she broke in her impetuous way, and darted on to another sub- 119 ELLEN TERR T ject, after we had discussed what murders a woman would commit, for child or lover, a subject on which the actress was profoundly- interesting. "You would have laughed the other night though. The man at the side put the paint — " Then came the Ellen Terry shud- der, and she went on in her deep tragic voice, — " T/ie Blood ! On my hands, and in the hurry and excitement I did n't look ; but when I saw it, I just burst out crying." That of course is the Ellen Terry temperament, and she never acted better. After a mock self-accusa- 1 20 MI5S LLLEN TERRY As Catherine Duval in "The Dead Heart' ELLEN T ERRT tion, all in the vein of tragic- comedy, she went on, — " You say I can't be Lady Mac- beth, whilst all the time you see I am quite as bad." Immediately I dissented, but she went on, — " Don't have me hanged, drawn, and quartered after this. You are quite right, I can't play Lady Mac- beth ; but it 's because my methods are not right, and, oh, nothing is right about it yet. To be consis- tent to a conviction is what I am going to try for.'* Then came a very pretty compli- ment, which touched me very much. " It 's good of you to have 121 ELLEN T E R RT * let me down easy ; ' but I care most for what you think than be- cause you say it to others in print." Away she went again at a tangent about the shoes of Mrs. Siddons. " Was it not nice of an actress ; she sent me Mrs. Siddons' shoes ! — not to wear, but to keep. I wish I could have * stood in 'em.' She played Lady Macbeth, — her Lady Mac- beth, not Shakespeare's, and if I could I would have done hers, for Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth was a fool to it." I roared with laughter. " But at the same time," she went on, " I don't think I 'd even care to try to imitate her imitators." 122 ELLEN TE R R r I mentioned Helen Faucit. **Ah!'' she said enthusiastically, " I wish I could have seen Helen Faucit in the part. I do believe she was the rightest, although not to be looked at by the side of the Siddons' portrait, as a single efFec- h tive figure." The career of Ellen Terry at the Lyceum has been one long triumph, and it is only fair to her to say that she has made as many friends in America as in England. (In her art she is, above all, an " im- pressionist " of the finest order, and so she has been recognised by the English-speaking world. If I were asked to give an order 123 ELLEN T ERRT of merit in connection with Ellen Terry's Shakespearian creations, I should classify them thus, — 1 . Beatrice. 2. Portia. 3. Ophelia. And for the rest, — 1 . Olivia. 2. Camma. 3. Margaret. I do not think that sufficient credit was ever given to Ellen Terry for her conspicuous success in con- nection with the Lyceum cam- paign. At the outset, she was quite as popular as Henry Irving. In fact she had a double clientele. 124 ELLEN TER R T The clever men were at her feet, notably all the artists and musicians of note, and she was the positive idol of that enthusiastic creature known in America as the "Matinee Girl." My friend William Archer is in- clined to snub and deride this young lady, and to class her with stage- struck assistants at stores and sten- ographers ; but I have studied her closely, and find her an exception- ally cultured and delightfully enthu- siastic creature. Such enthusiasms do as much good to the stage as to I the individual. The Matinee Girl fcspends her pocket-money on flower Bgifts for her idol, male or female ; B 125 ELLEN T E RRT she is an excellent client to the photographer ; and if she may be classed with the " autograph fiend," she has more claim on the patience of popular artists than most people. We have hundreds of Matinee Girls in London, though they are not so classified ; they attend the theatre as devoutly in the evening as in the morning. Such as these have never been converted from the " cultus '* of Ellen Terry. When this charming creature first joined Henry Irving to "build an everlasting name " for the Lyceum Theatre, she was in the very per- fection of health, grace, and beauty. She was the ideal picture in every 126 MISS ELLEN TERRY As Nance Oldfield in "Nance OldfielJ' ELLEN TE RRT picture presented on the Lyceum stage. Certain plays, revived for her sake, might have been forgotten save for the delightful art of Ellen Terry. One I may name in particular, the Charles the First of W. G. Wills. Henrietta Maria, the ill-fated Queen, had been fairly played be- fore, when first acted under the Bateman regime; but nothing more exquisitely pathetic was ever seen on any stage than the parting in the last act, just before the King goes to execution. The throb in her voice, the lovely sense of maternity, the tender treatment of the chil- dren, and the woman's determina- 127 ELLEN T ERRT tion not to " break down " when her lord and master was going to his death, — are things that abide for ever in the memory. This parting scene is, if such a re- mark is not heretical, even better than the sad parting of Olivia be- fore she leaves the loved ones in the Vicarage of Wakefield, dis- tributing her trinkets and her toys, kissing them all between her sobs, and seen in the dim evening, pass- ing the window like a grey shadow to her doom, — poor, fate-haunted « Liwy." Here, then, we have the Charles the First play, absolutely improved, by the new and inspired Henrietta 128 ELLEN T ERRT Maria ; and her own Olivia re- stored to the Lyceum with an Olivia even sweeter and more love- able than the old clergyman's child that we found at the Court Theatre, and certainly the best Vicar of Wakefield ever seen, in Henry Irving. For there were plenty of sta^e versions of Oliver Gold- smith's immortal romance before the gentle and genial Irishman, W. G. Wills, took it in hand. There are at least three plays in which Ellen Terry particularly dis- tinguished herself at the Lyceum that are sometimes passed over in comparative silence by her critics. I refer to lolanthe^ which had been 9 129 ELLEN T ERRT previously acted in other versions such as King Renes Daughter by- Mrs. StirHng, Mrs. Charles Kean, and Helen Faucit (Lady Martin), the Amber Heart by Alfred Cal- mour, in v^hich Ellen Terry was at her very best, and Camma in the Cupy by the Poet Laureate, Alfred Tennvson. Ellen Terry as Camma, aptly real- ised the poet's lines, — " The Lark first takes the sunlight on his wing, But you, twin sister of the morning sun, Forelead the Sun ! " Who that ever heard it can forget the pathos of Ellen Terry as she 130 ELLEN T E R RT parted from Sinnatus and delivered these lovely lines, — " He is gone already : W Oh, look ! — yon grove upon the moun- tain — white P In the sweet moon, as with a lovelier snow ! But what a blotch of blackness under- neath I Sinnatus, you remember — yea, you must — That there three years ago, the vast vine-bowers Ran to the summit of the trees, and dropt Their streamers earthward, which a breeze of May Took ever and anon, and opened out, The purple zone of hill and heaven ; there 131 ELLEN TERRY You told your love ; and, like the swaying vines — Yea, with our eyes, our hearts, our prophet hopes. Let in the happy distance, and that all But cloudless heaven which we have found together In our three married years 1 You kissed me there For the first time. Sinnatus, kiss me now 1 I, for one, shall never forget the end of the play, with the libations poured in the honour of Artemis, and amidst music and flowers and processions, faultless in colour, and of classic pomp, making the dull mind live in another age, we hear intoned, with strophe and anti- 132 MISS ELLEN TERRY As Catlierine Huebscher in "Madame Sans Gene ELLEN T ERRT strophe of chanting chorus, the double appeal by Camma and Syn- orix, containing as it does the most impassioned poetry of the play. Synorix, O Thou, that dost inspire the germ with life. The child, a thread within the house of birth. And give him limbs, then air, and send him forth The glory of his father — thou whose breath Is balmy wind to robe our hills with grass. And kindle all our vales with myrtle blossom, And roll the golden oceans of our grain And sway the long grape-bunches of our vines, 133 ELLEN T ERRT And fill all hearts with fatness, and the lust Of plenty — make me happy in my marriage ! Chorus, Artemis, Artemis, hear him, Ionian Artemis ! Camma. O Thou, that slayest the babe within the womb Or in the being born, or after slayest him As boy or man — great Goddess, whose storm-voice Unsockets the strong oak, and rears his root Beyond his head, and strews our fruits, and lays Our golden grain, and runs to sea and makes it Foam over all the fleeted wealth of kings, 134 ELLEN TERRT And peoples, hear ! Who bringest plague and fever, whose quick flash Smites the memorial pillar to the dust, Who causes the safe earth to shake and gape, And gulf and flatten in her closing chasm Doomed cities, hear ! Whose lava-torrents blast and blacken a province To a cinder, hear ! Whose water-cataracts find a realm and leave it A waste of rock and ruin, hear ! I call thee To make my marriage prosper to my wish. Chorus, Artemis, Artemis, hear her, Ephesian Artemis ! 135 ELLEN T ERRT But Camma has drugged the mar- riage cup with deadly poison, and it is drained by both the bride and bridegroom, when due Ubation has been made to the goddess at whose altar stands the priestess and the tributary King. The conclusion of the play is singularly fine, mag- nificent fi-om a scenic point of view in every detail, acted from first to last in the true spirit of the poem, and charged to the brim with the almost extinguished fire of tragic poetry. Camma, Thou hast drunk enough to make me happy. Dost thou feel the love I bear to thee Glow through thy veins ? 136 ELLEN T ER RT Synorix, The love I bear to thee Glows through my veins since first I looked on thee. But wherefore slur the perfect cere- mony ? The Sovereign of Galatia weds his Oueen. Let all be done to the fullest, in the sight Of all the Gods. {He staggers.) This pain, what is it ? — Again ? I had a touch of it last year — in — Rome. Yes, yes ; your arm. I reel beneath the weight of Utter joy — this all too happy day — Crown — Queen at once. A moment — it will pass. O, all ye Gods ! Jupiter ! Jupiter ! {Falls backzvard.') 137 ELLEN TER RT Camma. Dost thou cry out upon the Gods of Rome ? Thou art Galatian born. Our Artemis Has vanquished their Diana. Synorix, (^On the ground.) I am poisoned. Let her not fly. Camma, Have I not drunk of the same cup with thee ? Synorix. Ay, by the Gods ! She too ! She too ! Murderous mad-woman ! I pray you Hft me. And make me walk awhile, I have heard these poisons May be walked down. {Antonius and Pub- lius raise him up.) My feet are tons of lead, They will break in the earth — I am sinking — Hold me ! ^^8 MISS ELL EX TERRY As Catherine Duval in "The Dead Heart" ELLEN TERRT Let me alone! {'^^^y ^^^^^ ^''^' ^^ ^^"^^ down on the ground^ Too late — thought myself wise — A woman^s dupe! Antonius, tell the Senate I have been most true to Rome — would have been truer Xo her — if — if — Thou art coming my way, too — Camma ! Good-night ! {Dies.) Camma, Same way? Crawl, worm, down thine own dark hole To the lowest Hell. My Lord Antonius, I meant thee to have follov/ed — better thus. If we must go beneath the yoke of Rome. Have I the Crown on ? I will go 139 ELLEN TERR T To meet him, crowned victor of my will. On my last voyage ; but the wind has failed ; Growing dark, too, but light enough to row. Row to the Blessed Isles ! the Blessed Isles ! There, league on league of ever-shining shores, Beneath an ever-rising sun. I see him. Why comes he not to meet me ? It is the crown offends him, And my hands are too sleepy to lift it off. Camma ! Camma ! Sinnatus ! Sinna- tus ! {Dies.) And so the curtain falls upon a double death, and a magnificent picture. 140 ELLEN T E RRT I said at the time, " If ever there was a play that from its intrinsic merits demanded a second, if not a third, visit, it is The Cup. At present the landscape of Mr. W. Telbin, and the decorative splendour of Mr. Hawes Craven's Temple of Artemis absorb all atten- tion. We seem to see before us the concentrated essence of such fascinating art as that of Sir Fred- erick Leighton and Mr. Alma Tadema in a breathing and tan- gible form. Not only do the grapes grow before us, and the myrtles blos- som, the snow mountains change from silver-white at daytime to roseate hues at dawn, not only 141 ELLEN T ERRT are the Pagan ceremonies acted before us with a reality and fidelity that almost bajffles description, but in the midst of all this scenic allurement glide the classical dra- peries of Miss Ellen Terry, who is the exact representative of the period she enacts, while following her we find the eager glances of the fate-haunted Mr. Irving. The pictures that dwell on the memory are countless, and not to be effaced in spell or witchery by any of the most vaunted productions of the stage, even in an era devoted to archeology. We see, as we travel back through this enchanting vista, the first meeting of Synorix and 142 ELLEN TE R RT Camma, — he with his long red hair and haunting eyes, his weird, pale face and swathes of leopard skins ; she with her grace of movement, unmatched in our time, clad in a drapery seaweed tinted, with complexion as clear as in one of Sir Frederick Leighton's classical studies, and with every pose studied, but still natural. We remember Camma as she re- clined on the low couch with her harp, moaning about her husband's late-coming, and can recall the hungry eyes of Synorix, as he drank in the magic of her pres- ence. All was good here, the ten- derness of the woman, the wicked H3 ELLEN TERRT eagerness of her lover, the quick, impulsive energy of the husband. Difficult as it was to study any- thing of the acting, when so much had to be seen, still it was felt that Mr. Irving, Mr. Terriss, and Miss Ellen Terry had well opened the tragedy long before the first curtain fell. There were time and opportunity, at any rate, to comprehend the subtlety of Mr. Irving's expression in that long soliloquy, how well it was broken up, and how face ac- corded with action when Sinnatus lay dead, and the frightened Camma had fled to the sanctuary of the Temple. With the first act, but 144 MISS ELLEN TERRY As Clarisse de Maulu^on in " Robi-sj^ierre ELLEN TERRT little fault could be found. The fastidious amongst the audience, who complained of dulness and want of action, possibly forgot that whilst their eyes were feast- ing on the scenery, their ears were closed to the poetry, and on another visit will confess how much mean- ing and study were at the first blush lost to them. With the aid of the text, the beauties hidden for the moment will reappear. As for the second act, with its groupings, its grace, its centre figures and .surroundings, its hymns to Artemis, its chants and proces- sions, we are inclined to doubt if the Stage has ever given to educated lo 145 ELLEN T ERRT tastes so rare a treat. In the old days, such pictures might have been caviare to the general public, but the public at the Lyceum is one of culture and a very high order of intelligence. Such poems are necessarily for the fastidious and the elegant in mind and schol- arship ; but granted the right of the Stage to demand such poetic studies, it would be impossible for modern scenic art to give them more splendour and completeness. iEsthetic tastes have had their nec- essary ridicule and banter, for every- thing that is affected is hateful to the ordinary English nature ; but here, in this Temple of Artemis, 146 ELLEN T E R RT when Miss Ellen Terry, veiled as the Galatian priestess, stands by the incense-bearing tripod, and Mr. Henry Irving, robed in the scarlet of Rome's tributary King, comes to demand his anxiously expected bride, there is an aiming at the beautiful and thorough, most cred- itable in itself and distinctly worthy of respect. But, as I have said before, and I shall never cease to voice the same opinion, there is one Shakesperian heroine, one of the most enchant- ing, that should have been added to the long list of Ellen Terry's tri- umphs. To her ideal Ophelia, her ideal Portia, her ideal Beatrice, 147 ELLEN T E R RT should have been added Rosalind. If ever an actress lived who had the Rosalind temperament, it was Ellen Terry. The failure to mount ^s You Like It at the Lyceum, with such a Rosalind at hand, is about the only "lost chord" that I can recall in a delightful dra- matic harmony. All through her career at the Ly- ceum, Ellen Terry has been loyal to the core, and enthusiastic in her endeavour to assist the art scheme of her gifted partner. If I cannot follow this artist through the list of plays and style of art iden- tified with Rejane, I must be ex- cused. I do not know her or 148 ELLEN T ERRT recognise her as Madame Sans Gene or even as the mother in Robespierre, It is the first where an excuse has to be found for stage salacity ; it is the last where we discuss the details of a nobler, more energis- ing, and loftier art. I now regretfully take leave of an enchanting subject. In all our careers, artistic or otherwise, we who are in earnest, and speak our mind in the cause of art, have our ups and downs. Sometimes, try to avoid it as much as we may, there is much, very much more than the ** rift within the lute." i\t any rate, among my most trea- sured letters I preserve one written 149 ELLEN T E R R T to me on the eve of my departure on a journey round the world in 1892. 10 October, 1892. 22 Barkston Gardens, Earl's Court, S. W. I send this — which wants no answer, — to say I much hope you are not going away because you are really ill, — and to wish you every good thing on your journey. Will you take me to Japan ? ! ! ! Oh ! I want to go there. By — Jingo ! I 1 1 1 1 You *11 be missed here. I may chance to see you be- fore you start, but, if not, I pray God be with you and God Bless You. Yours affectionately, Ellen Terry. 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