I 
 
 Oak Street I 
 iiKir.l ASSIFIED 
 
Univ. 3? II!, Library 
 

The Truth about 
 
 The Dead Heart 
 
 WITH 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE AUTHOR 
 AND THE ACTORS THEREOF 
 
 ‘ Fear not to touch the best! 
 
 Thy truth shall be thy warrant ! ’ 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN COLEMAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ‘THE WHITE LADY OF ROSEMOUNT,’ ‘CURLY — AN actor’s STORY,’ 
 ‘GLADY’S PERIL,’ ‘TALES TOLD BY TWILIGHT,’ 
 
 ‘ PLAYERS AND PLAYWRIGHTS I HAVE MET,’ ETC. , ETC. 
 
 With many full-page and other Illustrations by Horace Petherick. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HENRY J. DRANE, 
 
 LOVELL’S COURT, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 
 
 890. 
 
EDINBURGH 
 
 COLSTON AND COMPANY 
 
 PRINTERS 
 
Yi. V\ 
 
 FORE WORDS. 
 
 PORTIONS OF THESE NOTES WERE WRITTEN 
 EXPRESSLY FOR 
 THE NEW REVIEW 
 AND 
 
 THE NEW YORK HERALD. 
 
 THE AUTHOR HAS TO EXPRESS HIS THANKS TO 
 ARCHIBALD GROVE, Esq., 
 
 AND TO 
 
 "X 
 
 cr° 
 
 JAMES GORDON BENNET, Esq*, 
 
 BY WHOSE PERMISSION THEY ARE NOW REPRODUCED. 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/truthaboutdeadheOOcole 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 By Permission of 
 
 JAMES GORDON BENNET, Esq 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction, i 
 
 Eden Bridge, 2 
 
 Author of ‘ Tom Brown’s School-days,’ ... 2 
 
 Epitome of Watt Phillips’s Life, 3 
 
 Old Sadlers’ Wells, 3 
 
 Stage Struck, 3 
 
 Phelps, and Murray of Edinburgh, .... 3 
 
 Miss Cushman, 3 
 
 An Immature Ban quo, 4 
 
 A Remarkable Interjection, 4 
 
 Experience as a Journalist, 4 
 
 Bohemia, 4 
 
 Diogenes , 5 
 
 Introduction to Webster, 5 
 
 Phillips’s First Play, 5 
 
 Joseph Chavigny and The Poor Stroller , ... 6 
 
 A Tale of Two Cities, 6 
 
 Production of Dead Heart , 7 
 
 Preparations for Tale of Two Cities at the Lyceum, . 7 
 
The Truth about 
 
 The Dead Heart 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 It was a happy inspiration which induced 
 MR IRVING 
 
 to produce The Dead Heart , in commemoration, it 
 is said, of the centenary of the Great Revolution. 
 
 The revival is not only a noble tribute to the 
 genius of the author — but, if proof were needed, it 
 affords yet another convincing illustration of the 
 sagacity and liberality of the distinguished artist 
 whose reputation in the dual capacity of actor 
 and stage manager can rest on no firmer basis 
 than this magnificent production. 
 
 Thirty years ago The Dead Heart took the 
 town by storm at the Adelphi, just as it is now 
 doing at the Lyceum. Ephemera of the fleeting 
 hours have come and gone and left no sign, but 
 
 A 
 
5 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 this play, with all the faults of its youthful infla- 
 tion, is as lurid and powerful now as when it 
 first saw the light. 
 
 Alas ! the record of the author’s trials, his strug- 
 gles, and his triumphs is writ on sand or traced in 
 water. 
 
 Many amongst his old comrades (more especi- 
 ally one who now occupies a unique and distin- 
 guished position in the world of letters) are far 
 better qualified to tell the story of Watts Phillips’s 
 weary fight with fortune than the present writer. 
 Yet, since they make no sign, he elects to pre- 
 serve from oblivion these fugitive memories of a 
 friend whose untimely death he has never ceased 
 to deplore. 
 
 EDEN BRIDGE. 
 
 Some years ago I went down to stay with him 
 for a week or two in Kent. Being unable to 
 meet me at the railway station through ill-health, 
 he sent a man with a dog-cart to drive me to 
 Eden Bridge, where he had taken up his quarters 
 at an old-fashioned farmhouse. 
 
 I wonder whether the genial author of ‘ Tom 
 Brown’s School Days ’ will remember, in the writer 
 of these lines, the young actor who gave him 
 and his charming wife a lift to the village on that 
 delightful summer evening? 
 
 On my arrival a hearty welcome awaited me 
 from mine host, who, at that particular period, 
 with his high forehead, his bright, prominent eyes, 
 his moustache and Vandyke beard, and his ample 
 Shakespere collar, looked a duodecimo, replica of 
 the bard himself. 
 
 He had a wonderful flow of anecdote and of 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 3 
 
 animal spirits, and during the next fortnight we 
 made holiday. 
 
 It was- during our long and pleasant rambles 
 through the green Kentish lanes, more particu- 
 larly one lovely morning when we strolled over 
 to the old Palace at Eltham, that I gathered from 
 his own lips the following brief 
 
 EPITOME OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 Watts Phillips — playwright, artist, novelist, and 
 journalist — was the son of a timber merchant, who 
 was an intimate friend of Phelps during his 
 memorable management of Sadler’s Wells. Young 
 Watts was free of the theatre, and witnessed all 
 the famous productions which formed an epoch in 
 dramatic history. 
 
 Small wonder that he became stage-struck. His 
 father had designed him for his own profession, 
 but the boy had the bard upon the brain — an actor 
 he would be — that and nothing else. Having 
 arrived at this conclusion, he pestered the great 
 tragedian, morning, noon, and night, to provide 
 him an opening. At length, to get rid of his 
 importunities, Phelps gave him an introduction 
 to Mr Murray, of Edinburgh, and that gentleman 
 offered him an engagement at the usual rural 
 guinea a week for beginners to play second walk- 
 ing gentleman. Yielding a reluctant assent, the 
 elder Phillips provided a fitting wardrobe, and all 
 requisite properties — swords, tights, boots, etc., for 
 young hopeful. 
 
 Just as he was on the point of starting for the 
 Modern Athens he received a managerial notifica- 
 tion that he was to open in the part of Banquo to 
 the Lady Macbeth of Miss Cushman. 
 
4 
 
 The Tncth about 
 
 AUTO-BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 ‘Imagine me/ said Watts, ‘with my five feet 
 nothing as Banquo, beside that mature and ma- 
 jestic female. Mind you, although I had never 
 set foot on the stage, with the characteristic 
 modesty of youth, I think I would not have 
 hesitated to tackle Richard or Shylock ; but 
 Banquo — no, thank you ! An unreasoning and 
 unmanly funk possessed me. I consulted Phelps, 
 and he advised me to abandon the idea altogether, 
 undertaking to communicate with Murray on the 
 subject.’ 
 
 Here I interjected, ‘Upon receipt of Phelps’s 
 letter, intimating your inability to play Banquo, 
 Murray sent for me to come and take your place ! 
 So, you see, your refusal of that engagement gave 
 me my first start ! ’ 
 
 ‘ Nor you alone, dear boy, for I gave my brother 
 the “ props,” and it gave him a start ; he ran away 
 and joined a strolling company, and a stroller he 
 is to this day, playing all the principal parts, 
 tragedy, comedy, and farce, and managing a little 
 company acting in halls and barns in Wales. I 
 suppose it runs in the blood of the Phillipses, 
 for I have another brother who was a blighted 
 tragedian, but who is now a journalist. 
 
 I WAS A JOURNALIST MYSELF 
 
 for some time in Preston and Rochdale, where I 
 picked up the requisite cram for Lost in London, 
 and where I had the honour of being entertained 
 two or three times by the People’s Tribune, John 
 Bright ; a great man, sir, as big as they make ’em 
 now-a-days. 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 5 
 
 ‘ I was afterwards located in Devon, where I got 
 all the local crambo, which I utilised in a story 
 of Monmouth’s Rebellion. Perhaps I should have 
 done better had I stuck to journalism; but my 
 heart was always with the stage, so I came up to 
 town with a play or two in my carpet-bag, which 
 I thought would make my fortune. I found, how- 
 ever, the portals of the stage door as hard to pass 
 as scores of others have done before and since, and 
 had to take up my abode in the shady 
 
 KINGDOM OF BOHEMIA. 
 
 ‘ Although I had an empty pocket, and some- 
 times an empty stomach, I contrived to keep a 
 light heart, for had I not the best of company — 
 youth and hope, while as for friends and comrades 
 had I not Ned Blanchard, Tom Robertson, the 
 Broughs, Leicester Buckingham, Andrew Halliday, 
 Harry Byron, that prince of good fellows — George 
 Sala — and scores of others. 
 
 ‘ It was at this time that, with the aid of a con- 
 fiding publisher, I started a serio-comic weekly 
 called Diogenes . 
 
 ‘ I was editor, illustrator, and principal contri- 
 butor — in fact, “ three single gentlemen rolled into 
 one. 
 
 ‘ Poor Diogenes was, however, before his time, 
 and had a short life, but not a merry one. 
 
 ‘ I worked hard with pen and pencil to keep the 
 wolf from the door, till, one lucky day, I obtained 
 an introduction to Webster, then joint manager 
 of the old Adelphi, in conjunction with Madame 
 Celeste. 
 
 ‘ Glorious old Ben was as difficult to get at in 
 those days as a Prime Minister, and was as 
 
6 The Truth about 
 
 autocratic to all outsiders as the Tsar of all the 
 Russias.’ 
 
 HIS FIRST PLAY. 
 
 ‘ My first play was The Dead Heart ; it 
 was not only my first play, but the first play of 
 mine which Webster accepted, although Joseph 
 Charigny was the first play of mine he ever 
 brought out. It was produced in the summer 
 of ’57. It was all Webster and Celeste. At 
 that period, like many other sucking dramatists, 
 I mistook length for strength, and gave them a 
 succession of speeches as long as my arm, all 
 of which had to come out the second night It 
 was a useful lesson, though, for ever since I’ve 
 used the pruning-knife before the production, 
 instead of afterwards. The weather was burning 
 hot, but the play was a bitter frost, and ventilated 
 the house.’ 
 
 ‘ Was the play a good one ? ’ 
 
 ‘Well, no, I think not; but had it been the 
 best in the world, it hadn’t the ghost of a 
 chance. Webster was listless, spasmodic, and 
 imperfect ; Celeste uncertain and extravagant. 
 Well, it was a failure, and there was an end of 
 poor Joseph. 
 
 ‘ But I didn’t believe in being beaten, so I set 
 to work immediately on The Poor Stroller , 
 never ceasing, however, to urge upon Webster 
 the production of The Dead Heart. From 
 some unaccountable reason he still held off, 
 so I thought I’d try Phelps. I described the 
 play to him, and he offered to produce it if I 
 could induce Webster to give it up. I then pro- 
 posed to buy it back, but he wouldn’t hear of 
 that, though he still persisted in postponing its 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 7 
 
 production. To mollify me he produced The 
 Poor Stroller at the beginning of ’58. It was a 
 succes d'estime , and that was all, and my poor 
 Dead Heart was shelved foi; another year. 
 Oh ! that weary, weary waiting ; I protest I can’t 
 think of it now without a shudder. Hope de- 
 ferred maketh the heart grow sick, and I was 
 sick, sore, sorry, and desperately hard up besides. 
 
 * Imagine if you can, then, my feelings when, 
 in the middle of ’59, I read “A Tale of Two 
 Cities” in Household Words. No, stay! It was 
 then transmogrified into All the Year Round ! 
 
 ‘Three years and more I had awaited Webster’s 
 good will and pleasure, but now I raised “ Cain ” 
 until my poor play was put into rehearsal, and 
 at length it was produced in the beginning of 
 November 1859. 
 
 ‘ON THE FIRST NIGHT 
 
 the play occupied four mortal hours. It was 
 desperately slow in some places ; but its success 
 was pronounced, and in one or two scenes the 
 pit rose at it. 
 
 ‘ After a night or two it went like wildfire ! 
 
 ‘What did I think of the acting? Why, I 
 thought then, and think now, that, although 
 not quite juvenile enough for the prologue, 
 nothing finer has ever been seen than Webster 
 in the Bastille scene and in the duel ; while David 
 Fisher was simply lovely as Latour. Considering 
 that the part was not altogether what Mrs Mellon 
 had been accustomed to, she surprised and delighted 
 me in Catherine. Tom Stuart, too, was admirable 
 in Legrand, and Toole deuced funny as Toupet. 
 
8 The Truth about The Dead Heart . 
 
 The only critical exception I could take was that 
 the youth of Paris were not youthful enough, but, 
 que voulez vous ? one can’t have everything. 
 
 ‘Just as I was in the seventh heaven of delight, 
 there came the news that “A Tale of Two Cities” 
 was being put into a play by Tom Taylor for 
 immediate production at the Lyceum by Celeste.’ 
 
FROM THE NEW REVIEW. 
 
 By Permission of 
 
 ARCHIBALD GROVE, Esq. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Charles Dickens and Watts Phillips, . . 1 1 
 
 Doctor Strauss, the Old Bohemian, . . 1 1 
 
 Alleged Plagiarisms, . . . . 1 1 
 
 Mr Justin Huntley McCarthy, . . . .12 
 
 Anent Dumas’s ‘ Le Chevalier de la Maison Rouge,’ . 12 
 
 Boucicault’s Adaptation thereof, . . .12 
 
 Genesis of Robert Landry’s Sacrifice, . . .13 
 
 Buhver Lytton’s ‘ Zanoni,’ . . . .13 
 
 Phillips v. Strauss, . . . . .13 
 
 Facta non Verba , . . . . .14 
 
 Letters to Webster, . . . . .15 
 
 The Dead Heart comes to Life, . . .20 
 
 Tom Taylor’s Adaptation of ‘Tale of Two Cities,’ . 21 
 
 Rex Pecuniarum , . . . . .22 
 
 Letter from Phillips to Coleman, . . .22 
 
THE NEW REVIEW. 
 
 Apropos, I here quote in extenso my article in 
 THE NEW REVIEW of October last, with reference 
 to the remarkable coincidence which undoubtedly 
 exists between Phillips’s play and Charles Dickens’s 
 
 ‘ TALE OF TWO CITIES.’ 
 
 When this work was in course of publication, 
 the partisans of the great novelist alleged that the 
 struggling dramatist had stolen the central idea of 
 his play from Dickens’s story, while Phillips’s 
 friends were not slow to retort that the boot was 
 on the other leg. Nor was this the only charge 
 made against the author of The Dead Heart. 
 Doctor Strauss, a genial old Bohemian, who pro- 
 fessed an intimate acquaintance with French 
 dramatic literature, alleged very confidently that 
 this drama was but a mere replica of a French 
 original ; but, upon being brought to book, he 
 failed to substantiate the accusation. 
 
 ALLEGED PLAGIARISM. 
 
 It is difficult to draw the line between plagi- 
 arism and assimilation. The greatest geniuses 
 have ever been the greatest plagiarists. Moli£ie 
 avowed, with cynical candour, that ‘he took 
 his own where he found it ; ’ while Shakespere 
 took everything he could lay his hands on. 
 
12 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 Before examining the relations of the author 
 of The Dead Heart with the author of ‘A Tale 
 of Two Cities/ let us see first whether either of 
 them is indebted to any preceding author. 
 
 Mr Justin Huntley McCarthy has recently stated 
 that : — 
 
 ‘ Much has been said about the resemblance 
 between the sacrifice in The Dead Heart and the 
 sacrifice in “A Tale of Two Cities.” I have not 
 seen it pointed out anywhere that a very similar 
 sacrifice is to be found in the end of Dumas the 
 elder’s brilliant revolutionary play, Le Chevalier 
 de la Maison Rouge , which was first performed 
 at the Theatre Historique on August 3, 1847 — 
 that is, more than forty-two years ago, and some 
 twelve years before The Dead Heart was produced, 
 or the “Tale of Two Cities” published.’ 
 
 It is difficult to realise that this coincidence 
 should have escaped recognition in the very 
 theatre where, six years after the production of 
 Dumas’s play, and exactly six years before the 
 production of The Dead Heart , Boucicault’s adap- 
 tion of the former work ( Genevieve; or , the Reign 
 of Terror) was made memorable by the genius 
 of Celeste, Alfred Wigan, and Webster. 
 
 One thing is perfectly certain ; it never could 
 have escaped the eagle eye of the acute manager, 
 inasmuch as he was himself the chivalrous Lorin 
 who sacrifices his own life to save that of his 
 friend. It is possible, and even probable, that 
 it was owing to this remarkable coincidence that 
 Webster postponed the production of The Dead 
 Heart for so prolonged a period after he had 
 bought and paid for it 
 
 After this interval of time, one can scarcely 
 say whether Dickens or Phillips were indebted to 
 
The Dead, Heart. 
 
 3 
 
 Dumas, or to the illustrious Englishman to whom 
 the equally illustrious Frenchman was himself un- 
 doubtedly indebted. Le Chevalier de la Maison 
 Rouge was originally produced August 3, 1847 : 
 but Edward Bulwer Lytton’s weird romance of 
 Zanoni was published in January 1842, that is to 
 say, four years and eight months prior to the pro- 
 duction of Dumas’s play. Now, in the last chapter 
 of the last book of Lord Lytton’s work (the donnee 
 of which is The Reign of Terror ), occurs the sacri- 
 fice of the heroic precursor of Robert Landry and 
 Sidney Carton. Zanoni’s self-immolation, how- 
 ever, takes a nobler form, inasmuch as he lays 
 down the gift of perpetual youth and immortal 
 life to save the woman he loves from the guillotine. 
 
 Passing, however, from the region of specula- 
 tion to that of absolute fact, let us revert to the 
 question of the resemblance which undoubtedly 
 exists between Dickens’s story and Phillips’s drama, 
 and inquire how that resemblance came into 
 existence. 
 
 During the foregoing conversation at Eden 
 Bridge, I asked the latter if there was any founda- 
 tion for the statement, made by Doctor Strauss, 
 that The Dead Heart was taken from a French 
 drama, whereupon the irate dramatist replied : — 
 
 ‘ It is utterly untrue ! You know, of course, the 
 meddling old busybody alleged that I had founded 
 the play upon the “ Story of Latude.” 
 
 ‘It is the old, old business — “There is a river 
 in Macedon and there is also, moreover, a river at 
 Monmouth.” 
 
 ‘ Latude was a prisoner in the Bastille — so was 
 the Man in the Iron Mask, and so was Robert 
 Landry — that is the beginning and the end of the 
 resemblance.’ 
 
14 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 ‘ And how about the “ Tale of Two Cities ? ” * 
 
 ‘Well, The Dead Heart was written three years 
 before the “ Tale of Two Cities ” was published. 
 You can form your own inference. The facts are 
 these — ! ’ 
 
 Here the speaker became hot and angry. The 
 writer does not feel himself at liberty to repeat 
 wild and whirling words/ profitless to memory, 
 and better far forgotten — but he proposes to show, 
 beyond the possibility of doubt, that the statement 
 as to the priority of The Dead Heart is true in 
 every essential particular. 
 
 FACTA NON VERBA. 
 
 In his ‘Life of Dickens’ (Vol. III. p. 320), Mr 
 John Forster states that ‘The first notion of “ A 
 Tale of Two Cities,” occurred to Dickens while 
 acting with his friends and his children, in the 
 summer of 1857, m Tie Frozen Deep — but it was 
 only a vague fancy/ etc. 
 
 Now, there is documentary evidence to prove 
 that, at the very period when Dickens’s story was 
 in nubibus , Phillips’s play was an accomplished 
 fact. 
 
 We may assume (though it is difficult to be 
 sure of it in this delectable climate of ours) that 
 ‘the summer of 1857’ commenced in June of 
 that year. A month previous, Phillips’s play of 
 Joseph Chavigny was produced at the old Adelphi, 
 then under the management of Webster and 
 Celeste’ ( see Professor Morley’s ‘Journal of a 
 London Playgoer ’) * with doubtful success/ 
 
 A fortnight later (June 4, 1857), at the very 
 period when, according to Forster, Dickens was 
 ‘vaguely fancying’ the inception of ‘A Tale of 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 15 
 
 Two Cities/ the indefatigable young dramatist 
 (nothing daunted by the failure of his first play) 
 was already actively at work remodelling a new 
 drama called The Poor Stroller. 
 
 The Dead Heart was accepted by Webster, 
 bought and paid for, fully twelve months prior 
 to the advent of Joseph Chavigny ! 
 
 The delay in the production of the former work 
 was (as before stated) most probably devised by 
 the astute manager for the purpose of affording 
 the public time to forget the sacrifice of the noble- 
 hearted Lorin, before the appearance of the heroic 
 Robert Landry in a similar situation. 
 
 The following 
 
 LETTER TO WEBSTER 
 
 tends to corroborate Phillips’s assertion as to the 
 period when The Dead Heart was accepted : — 
 
 ‘June 4 / 57 . 
 
 ‘ My DEAR Sir, — I know you must be very busy, 
 hut think you might spare me a line of reply to 
 my letters. 
 
 ‘I have rewritten the 1st act of The Poor 
 Stroller , crammed it with movement and reduced 
 it by just one-third. It is now of great importance 
 that you should give me a business interview to 
 discuss the plan for the 2d and 3d acts. 
 
 ‘ I wish to create a thoroughly original character 
 for Wright. It is therefore REALLY REQUISITE 
 that I should see you at once, and you must 
 pardon me for saying that, had you from the first 
 vouchsafed me the benefit of the same counsel 
 and assistance that I KNOW to have been of such 
 vital service to Messrs Boucicault and Taylor, the 
 
r 6 The T ruth about 
 
 position that Joseph Chavigny occupies as an 
 acting piece would have been different (its position 
 as a literary work is most satisfactorily acknow- 
 ledged both by actors and authors). 
 
 * Many a piece that would have sunk upon the 
 stage a corpse on the first night, you have breathed 
 the “ breath of life ” into its nostrils and kept (with 
 a knowledge that can only be attained by experi- 
 ence) alive and moving before an audience. 
 
 * I wish to throw my entire strength into the 
 present drama, and RELYING upon your promise for 
 September, shall not attempt production elsewhere. 
 
 ‘ In haste, 
 
 4 Sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘Watts Phillips. 
 
 ‘ B. Webster, Esq. 
 
 ‘ N.B . — Would you wish to dispose of The Dead 
 Heart at the price you gave me for it if I find 
 a purchaser? Send me a line by return.’ 
 
 Now observe! The impatient author, chafing 
 at the continued delay in the production of The 
 Dead Heart , actually has the audacity to propose 
 to the all-powerful manager to buy the play back, 
 Moreover, note that he makes this proposal on 
 June 4, 1857, while, according to his biographer. 
 Dickens is as yet ‘ dreaming ’ about ‘ A Tale of Two 
 Cities.’ 
 
 It would appear, from this touching but manly 
 appeal to the autocrat of the Adelphi, that Phillips 
 was under the impression that he had been slighted, 
 and that his play had suffered from neglect. 
 
 Apparently managerial exigencies deterred 
 Webster from fulfilling his * promise for September 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 17 
 
 1857/ inasmuch as The Poor Stroller was not 
 produced until January 18, 1858. As already 
 stated by Phillips, this play appears to have been 
 a mere succes d'estime, , which was evidently pre- 
 judicial to the immediate production of The Dead 
 Heart , inasmuch as that unfortunate play was 
 postponed sine die. 
 
 Month followed month, year followed year, until 
 two more years had passed away, years of hope 
 deferred, of disappointment, of torture and misery. 
 
 That nothing might be wanting to complete the 
 unhappy playwright’s misery, on April 30, 1859, 
 the first instalment of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ 
 appeared in All the Year Round. Phillips’s mortifi- 
 cation and consternation may be imagined better 
 than described. From the depth of his anguish he 
 writes thus : — 
 
 ‘ Ramsey, June 2/59. 
 
 ‘ My dear Webster, — Of course they will 
 make A PLAY of Dickens’s new tale, “The Two 
 Cities,” and (if you have read it) you will see how 
 the character of the man “ dug out ” of the Bastille 
 will CLASH with the man in The Dead Heart , 
 written more than THREE years ago. Knowing 
 your peculiar powers, I wrote Robert Landry 
 EXCLUSIVELY with a notion how you would ACT 
 that character, and foreseeing the reputation that 
 would arise to me. And now, owing to a delay of 
 years , Dickens puts into words what I had hoped 
 long ago to see you put into ACTION. The tone of 
 this resurrection from the Bastille ought to have 
 been fresh on my play, not on his story. 
 
 ‘ It’s very heart-breaking. 
 
 ‘Yours sincerely, 
 
 ‘ Watts Phillips.’ 
 b 
 
i8 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 Heart-breaking indeed ! 
 
 After three dreary years of waiting, the strug- 
 gling dramatist finds that, by an unfortunate 
 coincidence, the ground is cut from beneath his 
 feet, and both he and his work are over-shadowed 
 by a giant. But ’twill never do to despair now : 
 he insists on the immediate production of the play, 
 and will not be denied. 
 
 At length, two months subsequent to the date 
 of the last letter, that is to say, on August 2, 1859, 
 our poor author approaches what is to prove the 
 goal or grave of his ambition. His hopes and fears 
 are expressed in 
 
 THE FOLLOWING LETTER : — 
 
 '‘August 2, 1859. 
 
 ‘ (In haste.) 
 
 ‘ My dear Webster, — I feel your prompt kind- 
 ness very much, nor will my future recognition of 
 it be the less because I now confine myself to the 
 sincere “ I thank you.” I DO thank you, and that 
 most warmly. 
 
 ‘ I am very pleased at the opinion you express 
 that David Fisher will make a hit in Latour. But 
 what will you do about Catherine? The part is 
 not only a most important one in itself, but, if not 
 well acted, fails to give the requisite relief to 
 Landry. I increased her power towards the end, 
 as it must be great and intense to shake the firm 
 resolution of Robert. An inferior actress would 
 fail to convey this. 
 
 ‘ I shall be all anxiety till I hear how you have 
 got over this difficulty. 
 
 ‘ “ A manager’s life is not a bed of roses,” says 
 Colley Cibber. It seems to me more akin to the 
 gridiron of St Lawrence. 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 i9 
 
 ‘ If you want trouble and have too much pelf, 
 
 First take a theatre, then manage it yourself. 
 
 ‘ I think Miss Kelly will do Cerisette capitally. 
 
 I wish some little song could be slipped in some- 
 where for her ; it would give relief. She’s got what 
 the French call “ tears in her voice,” and a little 
 song always puts the audience in good humour. I 
 remember the plaintive effect of the song in Green 
 Bushes ; it went through and through my heart, and 
 refined the whole drama. 
 
 * Couldn’t one be introduced ? 
 
 ‘ I wish Bedford and Stuart were more of a size. 
 Do you think Paul would object, just to oblige me , 
 to put himself upon bread and water for a week, 
 or, which is more likely, would Stuart go into 
 training — beefsteaks and porter three times a day, 
 with a dose of cod liver oil every three hours? 
 
 ‘Jesting apart, I think Stuart will do Legrand 
 very well. 
 
 ‘ I hope Toole takes to Toupet. I have only 
 seen him once as the Jack Pudding in Belphegor , 
 and thought it excellently done. . . . 
 
 ‘ Has Wright left the stage altogether ? 
 
 ‘ I think the spectacular effects of the drama will 
 tell well in the new theatre, which I seem fated 
 never to visit. 
 
 ‘ . . .1 am rapidly polishing up The Curse of 
 
 Gold. As a domestic drama, I think you will 
 highly approve of it. It is LAUGHTER, passion, 
 and tears all of the homely sort. The characters 
 are few, and this is how I hope to see them 
 filled : — 
 
 ‘Jan Smet (a sweep) . . B. Webster. 
 
 ‘ Peterkin ( his son) . . . Toole. 
 
 ‘Simon (, a shoemaker ) . . SELBY. 
 
 ‘ Townspeople, etc. 
 
20 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 ‘ Dame Smet .... Mrs Mellon. 
 
 ‘ Katie ( with song) . . . MlSS KELLY. 
 
 ‘ Lacemakers, etc., etc. 
 
 ‘ The plot is borrowed from a beautiful and 
 simple Flemish story, the stuff is my own, the 
 character of Jan Smet is made for you, and I’m 
 sure Mrs Mellon hasn’t had a better part than 
 Dame Smet. However, directly it’s done, you 
 shall have it for “judgment.” * 
 
 ‘ Anxiously waiting to hear more about the 
 Green Room difficulties, 
 
 ‘ I am, 
 
 ‘ My dear Webster, 
 
 ‘ Very sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘Watts Phillips. 
 
 ‘ B. Webster, Esq.’ 
 
 Land at last! Nearly four months later, that 
 is to say, actually three years and four months 
 after its acceptance, 
 
 THE DEAD HEART COMES TO LIFE. 
 
 On November 12, 1859, the long-deferred play 
 is produced. It is a triumph both for actor and 
 author, and the latter finds himself famous. But 
 there are breakers ahead. 
 
 On November 28 (sixteen days later), Madame 
 Celeste opens the Lyceum. The reader will, 
 doubtless, recollect that this lady was joint pro- 
 prietor of the Adelphi with Webster when The 
 Dead Heart was accepted, hence she was perfectly 
 familiar with the subject ; therefore, when the un- 
 fortunate rupture occurred which led to the dis- 
 
 * ‘Judgment’ appears to have been adverse, for this play was 
 never acted. 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 21 
 
 solution of partnership between these distinguished 
 artistes, and Celeste migrated to the Lyceum, 
 there can be no doubt that, smarting with the 
 sense of wrong, real or imaginary, or both, she 
 thought to take the wind out of Webster’s sails by 
 bringing out 
 
 TOM TAYLOR’S INGENIOUS ADAPTATION OF 
 DICKENS’S GREAT WORK, 
 
 which was produced January 1 8, i860. 
 
 It was an admirable production in all respects, 
 both as to acting and mounting. Certain imper- 
 sonations in this drama have not been excelled, 
 perhaps not equalled, in our time — notably 
 Madame Celeste’s boy in the prologue and her 
 Madame Defarge in the play ; the pathetic Lucy 
 Manette of Miss Kate Saville ; the Doctor Manette 
 of James Vining ; the sympathetic Sydney Carton 
 of poor Fred Villiers, and the wonderful wicked 
 Marquis of Walter Lacy. The two plays ‘caught 
 on,’ and their resemblance to each other having 
 attracted universal attention, society divided itself 
 into two factions — the Celestites and Dickensites, 
 the Websterites and Phillipsites. Then came ac- 
 cusations and recriminations as to coincidences 
 and plagiarisms, and bad blood arose on both 
 sides. Amidst this hurly-burly, both factions 
 appear to have been oblivious that Dumas, Phillips, 
 and Dickens were all alike indebted to Lytton for 
 the crowning incident of the denouement , but it is 
 not upon record that he accused any of the trio of 
 plagiarising from him. 
 
 As to the Bastille, no one has the prescriptive 
 monopoly of great historical incidents. Treatment 
 is everything. 
 
 Every one of these authors were more or less 
 
22 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 indebted to Carlyle, who, in his turn, was indebted 
 to the mighty Epic of the Terror for the fact on 
 which their fiction was founded. 
 
 Phillips admitted to me that he had derived 
 much of his inspiration from the Seer of Chelsea, 
 and Dickens publicly acknowledged his obligation. 
 
 Here is the actual genesis of this tempest in a 
 teacup. 
 
 Speaking of the fall of Robespierre (Book vi. 
 cap. 7 ; Hist. Revolution), Carlyle says : — 
 
 ‘ The notable person is Lieutenant - General 
 Loiserolles, a nobleman by birth and by nature, 
 laying down his life here for his son. In the prison 
 of Saint Lazare, the night before last, hurrying to 
 the Grate to hear the death-list read, he caught 
 the name of his son. The son was asleep at the 
 moment. “ I am Loiserolles,” cried the old man. 
 At Tinville’s bar, an error in the Christian name is 
 little; small objection was made.’ 
 
 He has spoken previously of this 4 notable per- 
 son ’ being on the tumbril. 
 
 The facts substantiated in the preceding letters 
 make it incontestably evident that The Dead Heart 
 was accepted by Webster, was bought and paid 
 for, fully three years and four months before the 
 first instalment of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ was 
 published ! 
 
 REX PECUNIARUM. 
 
 The writer had made Phillips a proposal for a 
 play. Here is the answer — undated — but apparently 
 written upwards of twenty years ago. 
 
 4 Eagle Lodge, 
 
 4 Eden Bridge, Kent, 
 
 1 Tuesday Morning. 
 
 4 My dear Coleman, — I have carefully read 
 
The Dead Heart. 23 
 
 your letter. In reply : For me to write such a play 
 
 as you desire on the subject of C , I should 
 
 have to throw up a portion of my regular pot- 
 boiling work. 
 
 ‘With my expenses, I could not afford to do 
 this except upon a certainty. 
 
 ‘ I propose, therefore, £100 down on the signa- 
 ture of agreement, £ 1 00 on the delivery of com- 
 pleted MS. into your hands, and a further sum of 
 ;£ioo, at the rate of £ 2 each representation, until 
 the entire amount be completed. 
 
 ‘ Half the battle is over when the “ scenarium ” 
 (sic) is prepared, and to write such a play as you 
 desire and I contemplate I shall have to make a 
 careful study of the epoch, as I did when I wrote 
 The Dead Hearty for which, by the way, Webster 
 paid me the terms here proposed. 
 
 ‘ While writing your play, the pen that is the 
 family bread-winner would not, could not be pro- 
 ducing the immediate cash, which is a stern ne- 
 cessity Webster, Labouchere, Vining, 
 
 Emden, and even Shepherd have always consented 
 to these terms — with this important difference, 
 that the third hundred was paid the morning after 
 the first representation. 
 
 ‘ I wish, dear boy, that I had the assured ease 
 of such happy authors as Lord Lytton — and you 
 would not find me stand upon the threshold of a 
 big work — haggling, as I am compelled to do, 
 about three d — nable letters (£ s. d .), but when I 
 wish to preserve a friendship (as I do yours), there 
 is nothing like a clear understanding in all com- 
 mercial matters. 
 
 ‘ I am the only man who has remained on terms 
 
 of close friendship with W for long years, and 
 
 yet retained business relations with him. For 
 
24 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 this fact I have to thank clear agreements in black 
 and white 
 
 ‘You’ve only to drop me a telegram, and say 
 when you are coming (you know you are always 
 welcome). 
 
 ‘ I am chained here to my desk for the next 
 fortnight on press work. 
 
 ‘ Always yours, 
 
 ‘ Watts Phillips/ 
 
EPISODICAL REMINISCENCES. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 First Night of The Dead Heart at the New Adelphi, . 27 
 
 Original Cast, 27 
 
 A Reverie, 28 
 
 Madame Celeste, 28 
 
 Miss Woolgar, 30 
 
 Her Versatility, 31 
 
 Flowers of the Forest and Green Bushes, ... 32 
 
 Catherine Duval, 33 
 
 Miss Kelly, 33 
 
 Benjamin Webster, 33 
 
 His Repertoire , 35 
 
 His Robert Landry, 36 
 
 David Fisher’s Early Career, 39 
 
 His Debut in Town, 40 
 
 The Abbe Latour, 41 
 
 Fisher’s Metier , . . . . . . . . 41 
 
 Landry’s Pylades — The Caged Lion, .... 42 
 
 The Youth of Paris, 44 
 
 Mark Lemon and Bellew pere , 44 
 
 Paul Bedford, 44 
 
 Sir Walter Scott and His Son, 45 
 
 Paul’s First Appearance in London, . . . . 45 
 
 ‘ I believe you, my boy,’ 46 
 
 T. P. Cooke and Buckstone, 46 
 
 Chinese Jugglers, 47 
 
 Paul’s Personality, 47 
 
 Mr Toole’s First Appearance, 47 
 
 Eburne, Philips, Smith, and Bob Romer, ... 47 
 
 Professor Morley, 47 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Miss Woolgar, 29 
 
 Benjamin Webster, 34 
 
 Prisoner of the Bastille, ‘ Who spake of Catherine ?’ . 36 
 
 The Cafe de Jocrisse, ‘ My deliverers — the people ! ’ . 38 
 
 David Fisher, 39 
 
 Tom Stuart, 43 
 
 Paul Bedford, 48 
 
 Toole, 50 
 
FIRST NIGHT OF THE DEAD HEART. 
 
 THOSE who, like the writer, were the youth of the 
 period when this play was originally produced, like 
 him doubtless retain vivid and delightful memories 
 of the past. Possibly the younger generation, who 
 were born too late to know the distinguished 
 actors of the original caste (of whom, alas ! only 
 three are spared to us) may be interested to learn 
 what they were like at their maturity. 
 
 Here is the original cast : — 
 
 Robert Landry . Mr WEBSTER. 
 
 Catherine Duval . Mrs Alfred Mellon. 
 
 ( afterwards Countess de St Valerie) 
 
 The Count Sb> 
 Valerie, andV 
 Arthur, his son) ) 
 The Abbe Latour . 
 Legrand 
 Toupet . 
 
 Jocrisse 
 The Crier 
 Reboul . 
 
 Cerisette 
 
 Mr Billington. 
 
 Mr David Fisher. 
 Mr Stuart. 
 
 Mr Toole. 
 
 Mr C. T. Smith. 
 
 Mr Robert Romer. 
 Mr Paul Bedford. 
 Miss Kate Kelly. 
 
 Thirty years have elapsed since the first re- 
 presentation of this drama. 
 
 There are some impressions which time can 
 never efface ; such a one is to me the memory 
 of that memorable night. 
 
 After all this time, the bare recollection quickens 
 the blood and stirs the brain with all the old 
 emotion. 
 
28 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 A REVERIE. 
 
 Here, from my lonely study, I behold Robert 
 Landry and his beautiful betrothed beneath the 
 lime-trees — their joyous laughter makes night 
 musical with unforgotten melody, while the hateful 
 Latour glides around them, like a serpent amidst 
 the flowers, biding his time to strike and sting. 
 
 I hear, I see, the storming of the Bastille. 
 From the smoke and the carnage, there emerges 
 an awful apparition, and I ask myself, ‘Can this 
 gaunt, horrent spectre be all that remains of the 
 joyous, light-hearted sculptor of the Rue St 
 Jacques ? * 
 
 In the Cafe Jocrisse — a grim, iron-grey man — 
 confronts his ancient enemy and his lost love. 
 Alas, his heart is dead ! He lives only for re- 
 venge. 
 
 Anon, crime and punishment are face to face in 
 the Bureau of Cato, the Censor. Yonder stands 
 Nemesis, erect and terrible, implacable as destiny, 
 relentless as death ! 
 
 At last, at last ! The Dead Heart quickens to 
 newer and diviner life beneath the shadow of im- 
 pending doom ; and the hero-martyr passes from 
 the darkness of night to the splendour of the 
 eternal morning ! 
 
 In 1844 MADAME CELESTE 
 
 and Mr Benjamin Webster entered upon the 
 management of the old Adelphi, which they con- 
 ducted with considerable success for fourteen or 
 fifteen years, when a rupture arose which led to 
 the secession of Madame Celeste, whereupon that 
 great popular favourite, 
 
30 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 MISS W00LGAR, 
 
 became the leading actress of the company. 
 
 My earliest impressions of this charming 
 lady take me back to a child’s recollection of 
 the little theatre at Derby, and to Manly’s 
 famous company of comedians, of which her 
 father was the leading man, and she the Prince 
 of Wales — Albert — in William Tell , Little Pickle , 
 and the like. 
 
 During a flying visit to the Theatre Royal, 
 Birmingham, I was dazzled by the gorgeous 
 Oriental spectacle of Cherry and Fair Star , in 
 which she enacted the Princess Fair Star to the 
 Prince Cherry of Miss Rosina Saker (now Mrs 
 Robert Wyndham), and a lovely couple they 
 were ; this, I knew instinctively, though too 
 young to form an opinion upon their proficiency 
 at the actor’s art. 
 
 It was then that I saw for the first time 
 William Farren, the elder, and Mrs Glover, as 
 Uncle Foozle and Mrs Fagg. Here, too, I saw 
 Harley as Tristram Sappy in Deaf as a Post. 
 Miss Helen Faucit’s elder sister, with her husband, 
 Mr John Bland, Mr Woolgar, and the late Mr 
 Harry Webb, were also in the cast. 
 
 Later I saw Miss Woolgar (then developed into 
 a beautiful young woman, and an admirable 
 actress) at the Adelphi, as Bella in the Wreck 
 Ashore , and I was also present at her first ap- 
 pearance at the Lyceum with the Keeleys in The 
 Forty Thieves. 
 
 Later still, I met the object of my childish ad- 
 miration in the country, where I (still in my 
 teens), was privileged to enact Harry Stanley (the 
 young middy in Paul Pry) to her Phoebe ; Lyttle- 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 3i 
 
 ton Coke to her Lady Alice Hawthorne, and 
 Orlando to her Rosalind. 
 
 William Brough’s sprightly burlesque, Perdita , 
 the Royal Milkmaid, with. Miss Woolgar as Florizel, 
 Marie Wilton as Perdita, Toole as Autolycus, and 
 Calhaem as Leontes, recalls halcyon memories of 
 Dillon’s opening night at the Lyceum. 
 
 HER VERSATILITY. 
 
 In her prime, Miss Woolgar was one of the 
 most accomplished all-round actresses of her day. 
 Tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce or burlesque 
 — nothing came amiss to her. Her figure and 
 appearance were better adapted to the heroines of 
 domestic drama than for the comedy parts usually 
 allotted to her. She was tall and slender, and 
 symmetrically proportioned ; her eyes were of 
 humidly tender blue, and her head was crowned 
 with a wealth of brown hair. Her features were 
 more expressive than actually beautiful ; and her 
 voice was musical and sympathetic. In high 
 comedy she lacked distinction and hauteur ; but a 
 plenitude of sprightliness, piquancy, and even ele- 
 gance, atoned for this drawback. In her Rosalind 
 and Lady Alice Hawthorne (one of the parts which 
 first brought her to the fore), these qualities were 
 very conspicuous. 
 
 By the way, this same Lady Alice Hawthorne 
 was originally acted by Madame Vestris at the 
 Haymarket. After a few nights, Madame had 
 given herself some airs ; and on the pretext of 
 indisposition, intimated her inability to act on a 
 particular occasion. Webster said nothing, but 
 whipped round to the Adelphi (which was then 
 
32 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 also under his management), and induced Miss 
 Woolgar to play the part that very night, 
 although she had only one hasty and imperfect 
 rehearsal. Her success was so phenomenal and 
 so pronounced, that Madame was immediately 
 cured of her indisposition, and resumed her part 
 on the very next night. 
 
 FLOWERS OF THE FOREST AND GREEN BUSHES. 
 
 In the Flowers of the Forest , Miss Woolgar dis- 
 tinguished herself highly as Lemuel, a performance 
 which stood out boldly beside Madame Celeste’s 
 Cynthia, and Mrs Fitzwilliam’s Starlight Bess, 
 certainly two of the most powerful and picturesque 
 impersonations the stage has ever witnessed in our 
 time. 
 
 On the secession of Mrs Fitzwilliam, Miss Wool- 
 gar essayed to fill her place in Nelly O’Neil, in 
 The Green Bushes , but the part was beyond her 
 reach, and she was not within measurable distance 
 of her predecessor. 
 
 It may be here remarked, by the way, that 
 although this play achieved a phenomenal success, 
 some of the original actors were remarkable illus- 
 trations of square pegs in round holes. 
 
 Charles Selby, prolific as an author, and 
 versatile as a comedian, was utterly out of place 
 in Connor O’Kennedy, while the great Obi 
 and matchless Grampus, O. Smith was the most 
 dismal failure in Wild Murtogh it is possible to 
 conceive. 
 
 At no subsequent period have these two char- 
 acters found such inefficient representatives as 
 these two really accomplished actors. 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 33 
 
 CATHERINE DUVAL. 
 
 Very grave apprehensions were entertained as 
 to Miss Woolgar’s fitness for the Countess St 
 Valerie, but she came out of the trying ordeal 
 with flying colours, and, indeed, gained fresh laurels 
 by the experiment. The entire performance was 
 replete with ability of a high, if not the highest, 
 order. In the prologue she was entirely at home, 
 in the scene with Latour (Act I.) and in the 
 Cafe Jocrisse, she was all that could be desired, 
 while in the parting with her son at the gates of 
 the Conciergerie, and the final interview with 
 Landry she was more than admirable. 
 
 MISS KELLY, 
 
 a buxom, ebullient young creature, was the Cerisette 
 of the occasion. She had, as Phillips said of her, 
 ‘ a voice of tears/ an alluring manner, and a pair 
 of sparkling eyes, which were accredited with hav- 
 ing played havoc with the too susceptible heart 
 of an erotic and distinguished performer of the 
 period. 
 
 So much for the ladies. 
 
 Now for the gentlemen. 
 
 During the time of the giants, 
 
 BENJAMIN WEBSTER 
 
 was accustomed to take a back seat, and look on 
 at the fighting, or if he ever took part in the fray, 
 it was but too frequently as a mere bottle-holder. 
 Obviously, there could be little room for him in a 
 company (though under his own management) 
 which comprised such names as Macready, 
 
 C 
 
The Truth about The Dead Heart . 35 
 
 Phelps, Warde, James Wallack, William Farren, 
 Elton, Charles Kean, Tyrone Power, Charles 
 Matthews, Buckstone, Keeley and Strickland ; 
 Helen Faucit, Mrs Kean, Mrs Warner, Mrs Nes- 
 bitt, Madame Vestris, Mrs Glover, Miss Horton, 
 and Mrs Keeley. 
 
 Occasionally, however, he got a look in ; for 
 instance, he gave himself a chance in Graves 
 (Money), and made the most of it ; but an event 
 of this kind was of rare occurrence. Besides, the 
 era of long runs had not commenced, and he was 
 engrossed in the then multifarious and exhausting 
 drudgery of management, a drudgery which occu- 
 pied him from morning till night in perpetual re- 
 hearsals and perpetual changes. 
 
 Fortunately, he was endowed with a compre- 
 hensive and receptive mind ; and having seen 
 all the great actors of the French stage, as well 
 as our own, he had acquired their best qualities, 
 and assimilated them to his own method, which 
 was singularly eclectic. 
 
 At length, when the great actors retired or 
 were dispersed, he came forward to reap the fruit 
 of years of constant, labour and patient observa- 
 tion. 
 
 HIS REPERTOIRE. 
 
 He had already attained high distinction in 
 Tartuffe, Richard Pride, Carlos ( Thirst for Gold), 
 Father Radcliffe (Two Loves and a Life), Luke 
 Fielding (The Willow Copse), Triplet, etc.; but 
 he was long past the meridian of life when he 
 essayed the part of Robert Landry; indeed, he 
 began to play the heroes a quarter of a century 
 too late — and yet, how admirably he did play 
 them — that is to say, as far as his resources 
 
The Truth about 
 
 36 
 
 carried him. Even then, he was singularly hand- 
 some and ‘ of a well-proportioned form and noble 
 presence.’ 
 
 To his dying day, however, he never could 
 wholly get rid of his native Somersetshire dialect, 
 which was scarcely appropriate to the Phidias 
 of the Rue St Jacques. 
 
 ROBERT LANDRY. 
 
 His Landry was an unequal performance, dis- 
 tinguished by many merits and by some defects. 
 The merits were everywhere, the defects scarcely 
 perceptible, except to the critic or the expert. 
 
 In the taking of the Bastille he made his first 
 great effect. 
 
 ‘ WHO STAKE OF CATHERINE? 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 37 
 
 I believe that, according to historical fact 
 (though at this moment I have not the means 
 of verifying it), there were only seven prisoners 
 in the Bastille at the time of its downfall ; but, 
 in the mimic scene at the Adelphi, so many 
 picturesque figures were brought on and taken 
 off, and Webster’s make up was so admirable, 
 his self-effacement so complete, that I actually 
 did not recognise him till Cerisette exclaimed, 
 ‘Recall the past, and then look here!’ It was 
 then that, for the first time, I knew that the 
 wretched object before me was 4 all that was left 
 of the once gay, light-hearted Robert Landry.’ 
 
 With what consummate skill the actor built 
 up this scene ; not even Macready’s marvellous 
 awakening in Lear ; James Brownes wonderful 
 impersonation of The Last Man (a performance, 
 unfortunately for them, unknown to London play- 
 goers), or Jefferson’s admirable Rip Van Winkle, 
 could excel this extraordinary effect. 
 
 I can answer for one auditor, at least, who never 
 saw it without being stirred to the core ; a lump 
 arose in his throat, and tears came unbidden to 
 his eyes. 
 
 In the following scene (the Cafe Jocrisse), 
 Webster cast aside his decrepitude, and became 
 a man of iron. The voice, too, became metallic. 
 How terrible was the story of his wrongs, how 
 touching the record of his eighteen years’ in- 
 carceration in the living tomb ; how thrilling, 
 and how awful sounded the words, — ‘They cast 
 me in to the tomb a living man, but with a Dead 
 Heart. Do you mark me, Catherine? The body 
 was living — but — the Heart was Dead ! Yes — 
 Dead ! ’ 
 
 When at length he confronted Latour in the 
 
The Truth about 
 
 38 
 
 Bureau of Cato, the Censor, doom and death 
 hovered around and about him ; and, when he 
 
 ‘MY DELIVERERS — THE PEOPLE’’ 
 
 concentrated his gaze upon his enemy, his eyes 
 coruscated, emitting flashes of fire, until they made 
 the fable of the Basilisk not only possible, but 
 even probable. From that moment it was certain 
 that Bertrand Latour, be his sword play never so 
 skilful, was a dead man. 
 
 Up to the revelation of St Valerie’s innocence, 
 Webster satisfied both the heart of the populace 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 39 
 
 and the intellect of the cultured ; but candour 
 constrains even friendly criticism to admit that 
 in the last great scene, where The Dead Heart 
 awakes to new and glorious life, the resources of 
 the actor scarcely enabled him to rise to the 
 rhythmical ring of this supreme moment. 
 
 For all that, this one performance was enough 
 to stamp Benjamin Webster as a great actor, one 
 of the greatest of our time. 
 
 The Abbe Latour was 
 
 MR DAVID FISHER. 
 
40 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 This gentleman hailed from a famous theatrical 
 family — a family which had been managers of a 
 circuit of theatres in Norfolk and Suffolk for up- 
 wards of a century. One of his ancestors (another 
 David) appeared at Drury Lane during Elliston’s 
 management, as Titus to Kean’s Lucius Junius, in 
 Howard Payne’s hash up, from the elder dramat- 
 ists, of Brutus ; or , the Fall of Tarquin. 
 
 Originally intended for the stage, Mr Fisher 
 was debarred for years from following the profes- 
 sion of his fathers by a severe accident, which left 
 him lame for life, although it did not debar him 
 from teaching the art of dancing. 
 
 He did not appear on the stage until he was 
 nearly thirty years of age, when he joined Edmund 
 Glover at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. There he 
 stayed for some years, until Charles Kean en- 
 gaged him for the Princess’s. 
 
 HIS d£but in town. 
 
 He debuted as Victor de Courcy in The La?icers. 
 His petite figure, his pronounced features, and his 
 lameness militated seriously against him in parts 
 of this kind ; but he was so bright and vivacious, 
 so intelligent, so artistic, and so gentlemanly, that 
 these drawbacks were soon forgotten. 
 
 It was rumoured that the first Lady in the land 
 had stated that he was the most gentlemanly 
 comedian of the period, and people were easily 
 led to endorse an opinion emanating from so ex- 
 alted a source. 
 
 Of all the parts he played at the Princess’s, De 
 Brissac, in Our Wife , was the best, and Faust the 
 worst. Mephistopheles he would have played ad- 
 mirably, but Faust — especially with the recollec- 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 4i 
 
 tion of Emil Devrient fresh on the public mind 
 — was impossible. 
 
 THE ABB£ LATOUR. 
 
 Although it scarcely tallies with the author’s 
 theory of the genesis of Landry, Webster assured 
 the writer that he would have preferred to have 
 played the Abbe himself, but that he was obliged 
 to take Landry, because a popular and delightful 
 actor in the company could no longer be relied 
 upon. 
 
 Mr Fisher’s Latour found great favour with the 
 public and the critics, who pronounced it to be 
 elegant, incisive, and modern idea’d. 
 
 Incisive and elegant it undoubtedly was ; but 
 it is a well established fact that when the come- 
 dians attempt to tragedise, they are invariably 
 more ponderous and portentous than the trage- 
 dians, and Mr Fisher formed no exception to this 
 rule. His Latour was unquestionably an admir- 
 able performance, but it was in 
 
 ECCENTRIC COMEDY, 
 
 more particularly in certain sketches of character 
 — peppery majors, precise lawyers, etc. — that he 
 attained his highest distinction. 
 
 For this class of character, his somewhat sen- 
 tentious manner, his clear and incisive utterance 
 (no man could emit an epigram better, hence his 
 Sir Benjamin Backbite was simply perfect) were 
 eminently adapted. 
 
 During subsequent engagements with me, he 
 enacted Sir Peter Teazle, Nicolas Flam, Damas 
 and Polonius, as well as I have seen them acted. 
 
42 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 Except the late Mr Vollaire (an admirable, but 
 unfortunate, actor), I have heard no one speak 
 Polonius’ advice to his son so well as David 
 Fisher. 
 
 He also frequently played the Abbe Latour with 
 me. 
 
 It may seem heterodox to say so, but this par- 
 ticular performance appeared to have grown old- 
 fashioned and somewhat too much in King Cam- 
 byses’s vein. 
 
 This was the more remarkable, as at this very 
 period he gave other performances which were 
 essentially modern and in touch with the time. 
 
 Mr Fisher was the author of two or three 
 comedies, and various bright little pieces, in which 
 he not only played the principal parts, but he also 
 ‘ played on the fiddle like an angel,’ an accom- 
 plishment which he utilised to great advantage in 
 Music hath Charms , and in his quaint performance 
 of Orpheus at the Hay market. 
 
 Landry’s Pylades, Robert le Grand, was acted, 
 and admirably acted, too, by 
 
 ‘ THE CAGED LION,’ 
 
 as we were wont to call him. Stuart, or Strett 
 (his family name), was a rugged, manly actor. 
 
 I have seen this gentleman play Macbeth , The 
 Stranger , The Provost of Bruges, and I ago admir- 
 ably. 
 
 A disciple of Macready, like most imitators, he 
 dwelt more on the blemishes than the beauties of 
 the master. Hence, he acquired a habit of growl- 
 ing through his parts. This pernicious custom 
 was, however, scarcely out of place in Robert le 
 
The Dead Heart. 43 
 
 Grand, whose brusquerie is so apparent, that his 
 friends dub him ‘ Old Bruin.’ 
 
 MR TOM STUART. 
 
 His affection for Landry was very touching, and 
 there were two situations in which his rugged 
 pathos materially aided the cunning of the scene ; 
 notably his recognition of Landry, when he emerged 
 from the Bastille, and the denouement , when he 
 
44 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 pointed out to the Countess St Valerie her heroic 
 lover sacrificing his life for the sake of her frivolous 
 and worthless son. 
 
 1 THE YOUTH OF PARIS.’ 
 
 On the first night Mark Lemon, Bellew ( pere ), 
 and I sat together. There were no more sympa- 
 thetic auditors present ; but, despite the interest 
 we took in the play, we were moved for a moment 
 in a manner not exactly intended by the author. 
 It was at the advent of the ‘youth’ of Paris, typi- 
 fied by those gay young dogs, Benjamin Webster, 
 Tom Stuart, Eburne, Phillips, and two or three 
 other Patriarchal personages, including 
 
 PAUL BEDFORD, 
 
 of facetious memory, who was the Reboul of the 
 occasion. ‘ Leetle Paul, the infant,’ as he was 
 termed by his friends (presumably in consequence 
 of his being some six feet or more high, and pro- 
 portionably broad and bovine), was not a par- 
 ticularly brilliant actor, but he was one of the 
 best story-tellers, and one of the most genial 
 boon companions that ever breathed. 
 
 Like his manager, Paul hailed from the beautiful 
 city of King Bladud. 
 
 Originally intended for an auctioneer, at an 
 early age he became stage-struck. Having some 
 knowledge of music, and a capital voice, he ob- 
 tained an introduction to the Bath manager, and 
 began, as was then the custom, at the lowest rung 
 of the ladder. 
 
 During his novitiate, he acted with Kean and 
 Macready, and sang with Catalani. 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 45 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS SON. 
 
 In Edinburgh, he had the honour of being en- 
 tertained by Sir Walter Scott. In Dublin, he was 
 still more entertained by Sir Walter’s son, who 
 held a commission in a regiment quartered there 
 during the visit of the famous potentate embalmed 
 in Byron’s scathing verse after this fashion : — 
 
 ‘Spread, spread for Vitellius the royal repast, 
 
 Let the gluttonous despot be stuffed to the gorge, 
 
 Till the roar of his drunkards proclaim him at last 
 
 The Fourth of the fools and oppressors called*— George !’ 
 
 Paul was wont to relate that, on this occasion, 
 an ebullient Irishwoman remarked to Captain 
 Scott that she would rather be the daughter of the 
 ‘Wizard of the North’ than of George IV. 
 
 ‘ Why so, Madame? ’ naively inquired the gallant 
 officer. 
 
 ‘ Because of your father’s great works/ replied 
 the lady. 
 
 ‘ Works ; what works ? ’ 
 
 ‘ His books, sir, his books.’ 
 
 ‘ Oh, ah, yes ; I’ve heard they are rather clever, 
 but I’ve never read any of ’em,’ ingenuously re- 
 sponded the son of Mars. 
 
 Such is fame. 
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE IN LONDON. 
 
 After a provincial apprenticeship of four or five 
 years’ duration, Paul debuted at Old Drury, as 
 Hawthorne, in Love in a Village ; and was one of 
 the original performers in Der Freischutz upon its 
 first production in this country. 
 
 His first manager was the inimitable and re- 
 nowned Elliston ; but Paul remained under the 
 
The Truth about 
 
 46 
 
 successive managements of Stephen Price (the 
 American), Polhill, Lee and Bunn, till he migrated 
 to Covent Garden, under Macready; and from 
 thence to Yates at the Adelphi, where he soon 
 ‘ caught on ’ in the burlesque of Norma. 
 
 His performance of the redoubtable Blueskin, 
 in the classic drama of Jack Sheppard ,’ accom- 
 panied as it was by his stentorian chaunt of Nix 
 my Dolly , to Mrs Keeley’s singing that world-re- 
 nowned ballad, added much to his popularity with 
 the pittites. 
 
 It was,- however, as Jack Gong in Green Bushes 
 (that remarkable drama of Buckstone’s, which was 
 acted at the Adelphi, year after year, and which 
 at this very moment I see announced for revival 
 by the Messrs Gatti), that he attained his greatest 
 vogue. 
 
 It was generally believed that the well-known 
 phrase, 
 
 ‘ I BELIEVE YOU, MY BOY ! ’ 
 
 was a gag of Paul’s own invention ; but he, him- 
 self, told me that it was my old friend, T. P. 
 Cooke, who suggested it to the author. 
 
 The renowned T. P., who was a capital hand at 
 spinning a yarn, called in one morning during the 
 rehearsals at the Adelphi. Chatting with Bucky 
 and Paul at the wings, Cooke said, that at the naval 
 engagement of the taking of Cape St Vincent, 
 during the fight, a chain-shot had just cleared the 
 figurehead of a messmate. 
 
 ‘ Hollo ! Joe ; that was too near to be pleasant ! ’ 
 said T. P. 
 
 ‘ I believe you, my boy,’ replied Joe. 
 
 ‘ A capital catch-word that,’ said Bucky. ‘ I’ll 
 annex it for Jack Gong.’ 
 
The Dead Heard. 
 
 47 
 
 So said, so done ; and this primitive expression of 
 faith was soon echoed from street to street, until at 
 length it found its way over every land and every sea. 
 
 A friend of the writer assured him that, after 
 assisting at the original production of Green Bushes , 
 he left England with, ‘ I believe you, my boy,’ 
 ringing in his ears, and that, in the course of a 
 voyage round the world, he heard it re-echoed 
 through the United States, in India, in Australia, 
 and at the Cape, and that on his return home, on 
 entering the Adelphi, he found ‘ Leetle Paul ’ still 
 intoning the magic refrain : — ‘ I believe you, my boy.’ 
 
 During the first year of my managerial career, 
 I engaged a troupe of Chinese jugglers, whose tour 
 de force consisted in cutting a boy’s head off. The 
 illusion was perfect, but the process was painful, 
 and the lad howled lustily during the operation. 
 Endeavouring to console him, I assured him that 
 his head was still on his shoulders. The little 
 rascal had only been in England a month, but, 
 clutching the apple and the orange I gave him in 
 either hand, and winking his dexter almond eye, 
 he replied, — ‘ I beleehaf you, my b-h-o-y ! ’ 
 
 PAUL’S PERSONALITY. 
 
 To return to Paul. Actors of ten times his 
 ability never achieved a tithe of his popularity. 
 His acting was nothing ; his personality every- 
 thing. It was as ‘Leetle Paul’ the public knew 
 him, and ‘ Leetle Paul ’ he remained to the end. 
 As for his Reboul, I remember principally his 
 ankles (which were ‘ fearfully and wonderfully 
 made ’) ; and his admirable singing of the song, 
 Gay Versailles. 
 
 I trembled, however, in the pathetic scenes, lest 
 he should burst out with ‘ I believe you, my boy.’ 
 
4 8 
 
 The Ti'uth about 
 
 On the stage he was funereally funny, — off it, — 
 the jolliest and best-natured fellow imaginable. 
 
 * GAY VERSAILLES ! * 
 
 Many a time and oft have I heard him keep the 
 table on a roar. Our last meeting was at a certain 
 hospitable board in Brompton Square. In response 
 to his health, he replied : — * Cackling never was 
 much in my way, dear boys, but, I can still 
 “ wobble” a bit ; and, if you’d like to hear an old 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 49 
 
 man chortle, I’ll give you the ‘ Lads of the Village.’ 
 And the old gentleman did give it beautifully. 
 
 Amongst the more youthful members of the 
 caste, Mr Billington (then, a remarkably good- 
 looking young fellow) was the St Valerie; Mr 
 Eburne (whom in Edinburgh we used to call 
 Lord Nelson, why, I know not), a capital 
 eccentric comedian ; and Mr Philips, a ‘ bowld 
 speaker,’ who hailed from the ‘ Orient/ were 
 Landry’s friends and fellow-students, Jean and 
 Michel. 
 
 Mr J. C. Smith, an experienced and accom- 
 plished actor, and an admirable pantomimist had 
 little to do as Jocrisse ; but, whenever he was 
 on the stage, he glided about like a snake, with 
 evil, glittering eyes, and impressed one with a 
 venomous personality, singularly appropriate to 
 Latour’s jackal. 
 
 And Robert Romer ! dear old Bob ! cause of 
 mirth to everybody but himself ; utterly uncon- 
 scious, yet preternaturally portentous. Had he 
 lived in times when kings and other superior 
 persons kept jesters to aid their digestions and 
 amuse their leisure hours, he would have surely 
 been Abbot of Misrule, and King of Cap and 
 Bells. 
 
 In the impersonator of Toupet, the barber, 
 I recognised a gentleman who, a short time 
 previously, had come down to Ipswich, with an 
 introduction, requesting permission to play for 
 my benefit. 
 
 It was on that occasion that ‘Mr Lawrence’ 
 made his first appearance on the stage, as Sylvester 
 Daggerwood, and upon this that I discovered that 
 the debutant had developed into my facetious 
 friend on the next page. 
 
 D 
 
JOHN LAURENCE TOOLE. 
 
The Truth about The Dead Heart. 5 1 
 
 PROFESSOR MORLEY. 
 
 In the ‘Journal of a London Playgoer,’ this dis- 
 tinguished writer states, ‘ The author has skilfully 
 produced an unbroken series of strong dramatic 
 situations and effective groupings ; he has never 
 sank below the common level in his dialogue, 
 either into absolute dulness, or by the more weari- 
 some pretence of fine writing. 
 
 ‘ If there had been a weak situation anywhere, 
 the audience on the first night, being a little 
 wearied by the quantity of matter, might have 
 become discontented ; but success was absolute, 
 as it deserved to be. It will also be permanent. 
 
 ‘ The scenes of the French revolution ; the taking 
 of the Bastille; the Conciergerie ; the guillotine 
 itself are so represented as to seize on the imagin- 
 ation of the spectator. 
 
 ‘ Cured of its wordiness, the drama may become 
 a treasure to the house.’ 
 
 However great its attraction may have been, 
 strange to relate, the first run of the play was re- 
 stricted, in consequence (so it was alleged) of Mr 
 Webster’s prior engagement at Bristol, to some 
 six or eight weeks, after which it was withdrawn in 
 favour of The Christmas Carol. Subsequently it 
 was revived at various intervals. 
 
 When the curtain fell on the first night, I went 
 round, and there and then arranged with Webster 
 for the provincial right. 
 
 Men of more mature years and larger experi- 
 ence than the writer had taken exception to certain 
 
52 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 faults of omission and commission ; of exuberance 
 and of verbosity which the glamour of the players’ 
 art concealed from my youthful mind ; but which 
 I was not slow to discover, when alternately I 
 came to deal with the unadorned and undiluted 
 Text. 
 
PRODUCTION IN THE 
 PROVINCES. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Production at Leeds, ...... 
 
 A Feat of Memory, 
 
 Various Catherines, 
 
 Various Latours, 
 
 Production in Scotland, .... 
 Tragedy during Rehearsal, .... 
 
 A Real Dead Heart, 
 
 ‘ Vex not his soul, but let him pass,’ . 
 
 Drop the Curtain, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Cato the Censor, 
 
 Robert Landry, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 55 
 
 55 
 
 55 
 
 55 
 
 57 
 
 58 
 
 61 
 
 61 
 
 61 
 
 56 
 
 60 
 
PRODUCTION IN THE PROVINCES. 
 
 The play was produced at my theatre at Leeds 
 with signal success. Afterwards, during my en- 
 gagements in nearly all the great cities, its attrac- 
 tion was perennial. 
 
 As a mere curiosity, to show of what the ‘un- 
 stuffed brain of youth ’ is capable, the fact may be 
 chronicled that I learnt the text of Robert Landry 
 in twelve hours. 
 
 I must, however, qualify this feat of memory by 
 stating that I had been studying the subject, and 
 everything pertaining to it, for weeks before. 
 
 VARIOUS CATHERINES AND VARIOUS LATOURS. 
 
 Subsequently, Miss Caroline Heath (Mrs Wilson 
 Barrett), Mrs Herman Vezin, Miss Leighton, and 
 Miss Helen Barry have been at various periods my 
 fair Catherine, while Mr David Fisher, Mr Wilson 
 Barrett, and Mr Johnson Towers have enacted the 
 Abb6 Latour with me. 
 
CATO THE CENSOR. 
 
The Truth about the Dead Heart , 57 
 
 Mr Barrett’s performance, although not exempt 
 from the shortcomings inseparable from youth and 
 inexperience, had fine moments which gave promise 
 of the excellence of his maturity. 
 
 His pronounced features, combined with his 
 slender, elastic figure, enabled him to look the part 
 to perfection. 
 
 ‘ The race is not always to the swift, nor the 
 battle to the strong/ Let me, therefore, bear testi- 
 mony to the fact that Mr Towers (a so-called minor 
 theatre actor), to my thinking, played this difficult 
 part with a subtlety, a picturesque elegance, and 
 a dramatic power which it would be difficult to 
 excel. 
 
 Little or nothing remains to be said about the 
 writer’s personal connection with the play, save 
 to chronicle an occurrence incidental to its 
 
 PRODUCTION IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 At our last rehearsal at the Gaiety Theatre, 
 Glasgow, the Prologue had gone without a hitch, 
 and we were all ready for the Taking of the 
 Bastille, when a wait occurred in arranging the 
 scenery. The delay appeared interminable, and 
 everything was in a muddle. 
 
 The set pieces had not been marked ; the scene 
 painter, who held the clue to the puzzle, was non 
 est; the local stage manager knew nothing about 
 it, and the carpenter was hopelessly at sea. 
 
 A more patient man than the writer might well 
 have been excused a little exacerbation. 
 
 ‘ Now, then, Mr Brown/ said I, addressing the 
 master carpenter, ‘ are we to wait your good pleas- 
 ure till its time to ring up?’ 
 
The Truth about 
 
 58 
 
 The man made no reply, but continued to potter 
 about, and the scene was as far off from being set 
 as ever. 
 
 ‘ Confound it all, sir/ I exclaimed, ‘ look alive, 
 and give us some idea of the scene.’ 
 
 Stirred to action, the man caught hold of a 
 piece of scenery he had been pointing out to his 
 men, held it for a moment, relinquished his hold, 
 threw his hands in the air, staggered, and fell back 
 heavily on the stage. 
 
 A TRAGEDY AT REHEARSAL. 
 
 My first impression was that he had been par- 
 taking too copiously of * the wine of the country ; ’ 
 but, on looking closer at him, I saw he had fainted. 
 
 Unloosing his neckcloth, I gave directions for 
 his men to carry him down below the stage to the 
 carpenters’ shop. 
 
 As they removed him, a vivid ray of sunlight 
 from a window at the prompt side of the stage 
 fell upon his face, and Miss Barry, who was stand- 
 ing beside me, grasped my arm, as she exclaimed, 
 ‘ Look, look ! My God, the man is dead ! ’ 
 
 ‘ No, no. I can’t — I won’t believe it,’ I replied. 
 Then, sending messengers in various directions for 
 a doctor, the manager, and some brandy, I rapidly 
 followed down below. 
 
 When the brandy came, I tried to pour some 
 down the poor fellow’s throat — in vain, it came 
 back again. 
 
 Presently the doctor arrived. Feeling his pa- 
 tient’s pulse, and placing his hand upon his heart, 
 he bluntly said, — 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 59 
 
 ‘ Humph ! Stoppage of the heart. Dead.’ 
 
 ‘ For God’s sake don’t say that, doctor,’ I ex- 
 claimed, ‘ can’t you do something ? Bleed him ! ’ 
 
 ‘ Bleed him ! ’ growled Aisculapius ; ‘ sir, I might 
 as well bleed a milestone. I tell you he’s dead, 
 and he’s gone off quietly, without any pain. When 
 your time comes, and mine, I hope we shall go off 
 the hooks as easily and as pleasantly.’ 
 
 Then, with professional phlegm, he closed the 
 eyes of the dead man, and took his departure. 
 
 It was by this time two o’clock in the day — the 
 news had not only to be broken to the poor car- 
 penter’s wife and children ; but it had to be kept 
 out of the evening papers, so as to prevent sensa- 
 tional versions of the occurrence being set about 
 before nightfall — besides this, we had to finish the 
 rehearsal. 
 
 Obviously, it was best to leave the corpse where 
 it was till the play was over. 
 
 Apart from the awful coincidence of the title of 
 the drama, with the morning’s catastrophe, certain 
 other coincidences, even yet more terrible, occurred 
 that night. 
 
 While preparing for the performance, I tried to 
 forget the tragedy of the rehearsal. This is one of 
 the ordeals of an actor’s life. The audience neither 
 knows nor cares for his private troubles. Why 
 should it ? His child is dead — his wife is dying — 
 what boots that to the many-headed multitude ? 
 The tragedian must forget his real woe in simu- 
 lated sorrow ; the comedian must laugh, and make 
 others laugh, with death in his soul. After all, he 
 is only an actor ; so ‘ on with the rags, ring up the 
 curtain, and get on with the play ! ’ 
 
 Well, the curtain was up, and on came 
 
ROBERT LANDRY. 
 
The Truth about the Dead Heart. 61 
 
 A REAL DEAD HEART. 
 
 At the very moment when his friends and fellow- 
 students were drinking his health, and that of his 
 beautiful bride ; when all was mirth and jollity, 
 Le Grand brusquely exclaimed, ‘ Robert ! you re- 
 member Pierre Bastin, the carpenter of the 
 Faubourg St Antoine? Well, he died this morn- 
 ing ! ’ At these ominous words, a thrill went 
 through every one on the stage, a pall fell over us, 
 and we danced our sprightly gavotte as if it had 
 been a funeral march. 
 
 Later in the play, when I had to reply to 
 Catherine — ‘ My heart is dead, dead ! ’ — the 
 thought of the man whose heart had ceased to 
 beat that morning, and who lay in the last sleep of 
 death only a few feet beneath the spot on which I 
 stood, quite unmanned me. 
 
 It was a night of horrors, and we were all only 
 too thankful when the curtain fell. 
 
 Poor carpenter ! Poor widow, left with three 
 fatherless bairns among strangers ! 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Author’s Career in Paris, ..... 65 
 
 Boccage, Macqudt and Lemaitre, .... 65 
 
 Alexander the Great and Victor the Greater, . . 65 
 
 Leon Gambetta, 68 
 
 The Cafe Racine, The Madrid and the Protocop£, . 68 
 
 The Baudin Speech, 68 
 
 Death-knell of the Man of December, ... 68 
 
 Lost in London and Marlboro ’, 68 
 
 Webster in Paris, 68 
 
 Discomfiture of a Bully at the Carnival, . . 68 
 
 The Missing MS., 70 
 
 The Huguenot Captain , 70 
 
 First Appearance of Adelaide Neilson, . . . 71 
 
 Pot-boiling, 71 
 
 ‘ Nelly ; or, The Companions of the Chain,’ . . 72 
 
 Dramatic Copyright in America Twenty Years ago, . 73 
 
 Letter from Phillips anent Amos Clark , . . . 73 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Love beneath the Lime-Trees, 
 Lettre de Cachet,’ 
 
 69 
 
 75 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 (Resumed.) 
 
 PHILLIPS’S CAREER IN PARIS — DUMAS — HUGO — 
 BOCCAGE, MACQU^T AND LEMAITRE. 
 
 AFTER this long digression, I return to my friend’s 
 narrative, and continue it in his own words, or as 
 near as I remember them : — 
 
 ‘ Soon after the production of The Dead Heart I 
 went to Paris, partly to represent Webster’s in- 
 terests, partly as correspondent to the ; but 
 
 principally to perfect myself in the art of dramatic 
 construction. 
 
 ‘ I took as my model Eugene Scribe and glorious 
 old Alexandre Dumas. Did I know him ? Rather ! 
 He was the most generous, large-hearted being in 
 the world. He also was the most delightfully amus- 
 ing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth. 
 His tongue was like a windmill ; once set in motion, 
 you never knew when he would stop, especially if 
 the theme was himself. Many and many a time 
 have I sat into the wee small hours, a rapt listener, 
 as he compared his youthful trials, troubles, esca- 
 pades and bonne fortunes with his trusty comrades 
 — Boccage, Macquet and Frederick — the great 
 Frederick Lemaitre.’ 
 
 ‘ I suppose he must have been great in his time ? ’ 
 
 ‘Must? H e was.’ 
 
 ‘ Ah, well, when I saw him he was a hoary ruin — 
 majestic in decay.’ 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 ‘ His sun was setting fast when I knew him, but 
 even then he had flashes of the old fire, and 
 moments of supreme inspiration, during which 
 the glory of his lost youth came back, and he 
 towered over everbody. When sober — which was 
 not very often — he was moody and saturnine ; when 
 mellow, delightful ; when drunk, mad. The first 
 night of Toussaint l’Overture Lamartine’s play, he 
 was a howling maniac. 
 
 ‘ To return to Alexandre the Great. Of course he 
 had lots of fellows to help him in his work. He 
 gave me a turn now and then, but Macquet was his 
 right hand. He was almost as great a genius as 
 his master. Certainly he wrote as much of ‘ Monte 
 Cristo’ and 4 The Musketeers’ as Dumas himself. 
 Of course Alexandre selected the subject, con- 
 ceived the characters, and invented the central 
 incidents — that is to say, he constructed the 
 skeletons, but Macquet clothed them. 
 
 ‘ Dumas detested description and elaboration, but 
 he would invent a plot in five minutes, and knock 
 off a play in five hours, if the fit took him. He 
 always maintained that he was a dramatist, and 
 nothing more. 
 
 ‘ Discussing the principles of dramatic art with 
 Victor Hugo, he said : “ My dear Victor, you are a 
 born poet — a great one, I admit — but you are not a 
 dramatist, dear boy ; now, I am a born dramatist — 
 a great one, too ! ” 
 
 ‘ “You, O poet! are nothing without your palaces, 
 churches, costumes, and crowds, but give me a 
 naked garret, with nothing but a pallet, a table, 
 a phial, a woman, and two men who can act 
 (they must be able to act, mind that !), and I’ll 
 give you a play with pathos, passion, humour, 
 smiles, tears, love, hate, revenge, remorse, and all 
 
The Dead Heart . 67 
 
 the constituent elements of human nature ! That’s 
 what I call being a dramatist.” 
 
 ‘ Now, I had instinctively adopted the same 
 theory. You will note that there are only two 
 men and a woman in The Dead Heart , all the 
 rest are lay figures. 
 
 ‘ I made Dumas’s theory my dominant idea of 
 character and composition, as you will see in Lost 
 in London and Marlboro ’. Ah ! you don’t know 
 them ; more’s the pity.* In Lost in London there 
 are only two men and one woman. In Marlbord 
 there’s only handsome Jack and the Duchess; but, 
 oh ! such parts. 
 
 LEON GAMBETTA. 
 
 ‘ Those golden days and roseate nights in L 
 Belle Lutetia were the happiest I ever passed 
 We’ve nothing like it here ; we are all so con- 
 foundedly insular and insolent. Talk about “the 
 wit, the dalliance of the days and nights in Egypt,” 
 which the serpent of Old Nile passed with her 
 Roman Antony, they couldn’t have been in it with 
 the days with the lads and lasses of the Latin 
 quarter, and the nights with Leon Gambetta and 
 the other stormy petrels of the coming revolt of 
 man who congregated nightly at the Cafe Racine, 
 the Madrid, and the Protocope. From the first I 
 believed in Gambetta. I always said he’d be a 
 great man even when he ‘ dried up ’ over his first 
 brief in 1861, and it was at his express invitation 
 that I went over in ’68 to hear his defence of Charles 
 Delescluze. Yes, my boy, I heard the Baudin 
 speech, the speech which sounded the death-knell 
 of the man of December, and the gang of knaves, 
 
 Marlboro ’ and Lost in London had not then been acted. 
 
68 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 and thieves, pimps, panders, and cut-throats who 
 had enslaved and degraded France. 
 
 WEBSTER. 
 
 ‘ During my stay in Paris, I wrote a lot of plays 
 for Webster, which are still lying idle, and likely 
 to remain so, since he will neither act them him- 
 self, nor allow any one else to do so. Par exemple , 
 there is Job Armroyd in Lost in London. This play 
 has been announced any time for the past five 
 years, but it has been put off from time to time. 
 Now he tells me he has dreamt that he is going 
 to die while acting the part, so the production is 
 postponed sine die. 
 
 Then there’s my biggest play, Marlboro* t has 
 been shelved for years — that’s the part for you, my 
 boy — but of course I can’t withdraw it, because he 
 has paid for it. Besides which, he took me by the 
 hand at first, and has been so kind ever since, and 
 we have had such good times together. 
 
 ‘ He often came to see me in Paris, and it was 
 one perpetual holiday. He is a wonderful man — 
 never means to grow old, and doesn’t know the 
 meaning of a headache or of fatigue ; never turns 
 in till two or three, and turns out again at eight as 
 fresh as a daisy. Then his strength is prodigious 
 for a man of his age. 
 
 ‘You should have seen him at the last carnival. 
 A great hulking bully of a Pierrot kept following 
 and insulting us. At last he laid his hand on 
 Ben’s shoulder. It would have done you good to 
 have seen the old boy take hold of the hound and 
 throw him over his head like a feather. He didn’t 
 molest us any more, I promise you. 
 
 ‘ These times were too bright to last, so I came 
 
Present Revival at the Lyceum.} love beneath the lime-trees. f[[ Tableau /. 
 
7o 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 back to England to produce The Huguenot 
 Captain in ’65. Yes, young gentleman, when 
 you were crossing the Channel one way I was 
 crossing the other. I lost my hero, and you lost 
 the Scrip. The only copy, too. Moral, never 
 trust a Scrip out of your hand without retaining 
 a duplicate.’ 
 
 THE MISSING MS. 
 
 To explain the foregoing I must here leave my 
 friend’s lively loquacity, and return to the more 
 prosaic first person singular. Although we had 
 never met in the flesh up to ’65, Phillips and I had 
 been in correspondence for a considerable period 
 during his stay in France. The fact was, that 
 having found the part of Robert Landry a very 
 congenial one, I had entered into negotiations 
 with the author to write me an original character. 
 Hence it came to pass that he suggested that I 
 should play the Huguenot Captain, and our mutual 
 friend, George Vining, was kind enough to offer 
 me the part. 
 
 The missing Scrip was sent for me to read ; un- 
 fortunately it came to hand just as I was starting 
 for the Continent for my annual holiday. 
 
 Upon arriving at Charing Cross Hotel, I was 
 taken suddenly and dangerously ill. My indispo- 
 sition lasted for a few days, during which time my 
 travelling impedimenta got mixed and deranged ; 
 and it was not until a week afterwards that, upon 
 my arrival in Paris, to my horror I discovered I 
 had lost the play ! Here was a pretty kettle of 
 fish! The MS. had been sent to me exactly as 
 it had left the author’s hands, and was the only 
 copy in existence. 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 7 1 
 
 Vining urged its immediate return, and my im- 
 mediate decision. 
 
 Of course I dared not say I had lost the play. 
 There was nothing for it but to get back as soon 
 as possible, and hunt up the missing Scrip. Down 
 I went to Cambridge. No sign there. 
 
 Happy thought ! try back to Charing Cross 
 Hotel, and, as luck would have it, there it was. 
 After a hasty perusal, I did not see my way in 
 Raoul, so declined it with thanks. Ultimately 
 Vining played the part himself, and I went up to 
 town to see the initial performance. Although 
 the play was splendidly mounted, and very well 
 cast, it was not particularly successful. I remem- 
 ber it principally for three things — First, because 
 it was then that I first met Phillips ; Second, be- 
 cause of a quartette of grotesque male dancers, 
 called the Clodoches, whom he had picked up in 
 Paris. These amusing buffoons were fantastically 
 attired after some designs which he had reproduced 
 from Jaques Callot. They were the first to intro- 
 duce into this country those Terpsichorean gym- 
 nastic contortions rendered afterwards so popular in 
 the Drury Lane pantomimes by the Vokes family. 
 Third, because, it was the occasion of the first 
 appearance of Adelaide Neilson at the Princess’s. 
 
 At that period she gave little or no indication 
 of the ability she afterwards displayed, and I 
 was more impressed with her beauty than her 
 capacity. From this night commenced a friendly 
 intimacy between Phillips and myself, which en- 
 dured until the end, which came, alas ! too soon. 
 
 POT-BOILING. 
 
 At the time when he was supposed to be at 
 
72 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 the height of his popularity, he was obliged to 
 eke out his precarious income by writing pot- 
 boilers for the London Journal ’ at that time an 
 institution much in vogue. 
 
 The proprietor was my excellent good friend, 
 W. S. Johnson, the doyen of theatrical printers, 
 the manager, Mark Lemon, through whose frendly 
 offices Phillips was placed upon the staff. Amongst 
 his colleagues were Sir John Gilbert, who did the 
 illustrations, and Charles Reade, whose ‘White 
 Lies/ strange to say, proved to be the most dis- 
 astrous ‘ ventilator ’ the paper ever had. 
 
 By the way, the most popular and attractive 
 serials in the London Journal , which at that time 
 circulated by hundreds of thousands, were ‘ The 
 Will and the Way/ ‘Woman and Her Master/ 
 etc., written by an ex-actor of the unusual name of 
 Smith, son to the manager of the Norwich circuit, 
 of whose death in New York I read while these 
 lines are going to press. 
 
 Phillips’s now de plume on these occasions was 
 Fairfax Balfour. 
 
 Upon calling one evening, I found him actively 
 engaged in the weekly instalment of a blood- 
 curdling romance, entitled ‘Nelly, or the Com- 
 panions of the Chain/ Dinner was nearly ready, 
 but the ‘ devil ’ was waiting below for copy. 
 
 ‘ The villain has hocussed Nelly,’ said his amanu- 
 ensis. ‘ What am I to do with her now ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Why, rescue her, of course/ 
 
 ‘ But how — how ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Well, Algy comes on/ 
 
 ‘ But he can’t. The door’s locked. 
 
 ‘ Well, he must burst it open.’ 
 
 ‘ He can’t ; it’s barred and bolted.’ 
 
 ‘ Well, then, he must come over the tiles, through 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 73 
 
 the window. Then a struggle for life and death. 
 He upsets the lamp ; it sets fire to the place ; 
 smoke, flames, all the rest of it. While the devour- 
 ing element enfolds its victims, and death, on the 
 pale horse rides triumphant on the blast — To be 
 continued in our next. Don’t forget the pale horse.’ 
 
 ‘ That’ll do. And now for the feast of reason 
 and the flow of soul.’ 
 
 DRAMATIC COPYRIGHT IN AMERICA TWENTY 
 YEARS AGO. 
 
 The cares of country management on an exten- 
 sive scale deterred us from meeting as often as we 
 could wish, but we kept up a regular correspondence. 
 
 While acting in Liverpool in 1867-8, 1 received 
 the following letter : — 
 
 ‘Eton Villas, Haverstock Hill, 
 
 ‘ 1 1 th January 1868. 
 
 4 My DEAR C., — I perceive you are in the thick 
 of your beastly pantomimes — pantomimes in 
 Lancashire, in Yorkshire, and in the Land o’ Cakes. 
 I expect you are living in the night mail, as usual. 
 For all that, try to find time to help me over a stile. 
 
 ‘ Of course, you are aware that The Dead Heart 
 was stolen for the States, and, although acted in 
 every city of the Union, I have never received as 
 much as a single dollar conscience money from any 
 of the thieves. 
 
 ‘ Imagine, then, if you can, my delight when I 
 tell you that I have found an honest American 
 manager, who has paid me, and paid me liberally, 
 for the American rights of my new play Amos 
 Clark. But now, oh, my son, “ read, mark, and 
 inwardly digest.” According to the iniquitous 
 
74 The Truth about The Dead Heart . 
 
 decision in the Colleen Bawn case, if Amos is acted 
 first in the States, any thief or knave (and America 
 doesn’t retain a monopoly of them !) may steal the 
 piece here, and do it in my very teeth without pay- 
 ing me a red cent. 
 
 ‘ I am in negotiation for its production in town, 
 but as yet have not settled where it will be pro- 
 duced. Now, “to make assurance doubly sure,” I 
 want you to do the piece for me at one or other of 
 your theatres. 
 
 4 Never mind getting it up, but “ shove” it on at 
 once, only you must play Amos. He is a fellow 
 after your own heart. If you care to do him in tov/n, 
 I daresay I can arrange it ; that is, if you don’t 
 open your mouth too widely. Anyhow, I can 
 ensure you the provincial right on equitable terms. 
 
 ‘ Mind ! “ If it were done, when ’tis done, then 
 
 it were well that it were done quickly.” So allez , 
 dear boy, allez l — Yours always, WATTS. 
 
 1 P.S . — Herewith I forward Scrip. For goodness’ 
 sake take better care of it than you did of The 
 Huguenot .’ 
 
 Years have elapsed since this letter was written, 
 yet the poor author is still robbed with impunity 
 by pirates on both sides of the 4 pond.’ Is it too 
 much to hope that the time is approaching when 
 the collective wisdom of two great nations will 
 combine to right this cruel wrong? 
 
Present Revival at the Lyceum . ] ‘ the lettre de cachet. {Tableau II. 
 

SOME OLD LETTERS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 No. i. A Prophecy, 79 
 
 „ 2. At the Gates of Paris, 80 
 
 ,*, 3. A Story of the ’45, 83 
 
 „ 4. A Writer on Telegrams, 84 
 
 „ 5. The Drama of the Period, .... 85 
 
 ,, 6. The Admirable Crichton, .... 89 
 
 Emoluments of Dramatists, 92 
 
 Lord Dundreary — a Blighted Tragedian, ... 94 
 
 The Remarkable Genesis of Marlboro\ ... 94 
 
 How it came into the Writer’s possession, ... 95 
 
 A Harmless Fraud, 95 
 
 ‘ When shall we three met again ?’ .... 96 
 
 His Last Letter, 97 
 
 End of the Journey, 98 
 
 List of Phillips’s Works, ...... 99 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ‘ Robert Landry lives ! ’ 81 
 
 Taking of the Bastille, 87 
 
 Abbe Latour, I pay a debt of long standing ! . . 93 
 
 The Terror of Toupet, 99 
 
SOME OLD LETTERS. 
 
 From a bundle of old letters, I select a few, 
 which may prove interesting to the reader. 
 
 The first was written immediately on his return 
 from Paris, during the last days of the tottering 
 empire. 
 
 No. I. A PROPHECY. 
 
 ‘ Eagle Lodge, Eden Bridge. 
 
 ‘ Sunday. 
 
 ‘ My dear Coleman, — Have just returned 
 from a three days’ business visit to Paris, and 
 find your letter awaiting my arrival. 
 
 ‘ Very many thanks, old fellow, for your friendly 
 and more than kind expressions. Am dead beat 
 now, but will treat myself to a good think over 
 what you have said, and will write in full in a day 
 or two. 
 
 ‘ Nothing doing in Paris. The modern French 
 piece will never do here. It’s Louis XV. back 
 again. An Augean stable which will one of these 
 days be cleansed by a Red Sea . — In haste, and very 
 sleepy , sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘Watts Phillips.’ 
 
 This letter was prophetic. 
 
 The next, written in reply to an invitation to 
 come and pass Christmas with us, was penned 
 
8 o The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 while France was actually passing ‘ through the 
 Red Sea/ and the victorious Germans were 
 
 No. 2. AT THE GATES OF PARIS. 
 
 ‘The Firs, Eden Bridge, Kent, 
 
 1 2 2 tk December 1871. 
 
 ‘ My dear Coleman, — J ust a line of thanks. 
 
 ‘Wish I could get away, but this war keeps me 
 as closely tied to the desk as a galley-slave is to 
 his bench. 
 
 ‘ My long , long acquaintance with France and 
 things French has made my pen of late in con- 
 stant requisition, but, oh ! what a sad business it 
 is ! My heart bleeds while I write. Whatever 
 France’s faults were, she deserves every brave and 
 honest man’s sympathy now. 
 
 ‘ Let us cut ourselves away from the dead corpse 
 of the Past ; it is with the heroic Present we have 
 to do. 1 love France, as much as I despise those 
 smug and self-sufficient traitors who have brought 
 her to this pass ; as much as I hate the moral 
 ugliness of that “pseudo Privy Council of God,” 
 Holy King William, who stalks over a battle- 
 field on Bible stilts, and thanks Providence at 
 each new act of murder. 
 
 ‘Ah, old boy, if you had only known France as 
 I have known her, not the putrescent society of 
 Paris, which, like fish in the dirt, glittered from its 
 rottenness — but the France of the workshop and 
 the field, the France that is now fighting while 
 its demoralised army is in captivity, and that will 
 fight on to the bitter end, you’d be as sad as I 
 am at the bloody work that is going on. 
 
F 
 
 Present Revival at the Lyceum .] * Robert landry lives ! ’ [ Tableau 111 \ 
 
82 
 
 The Truth abotit 
 
 ‘ However, let us drop the steel pen and the 
 red ink, and touch on a pleasanter theme. 
 
 ‘ This is the brief history of Marlboro . . . . 
 
 ‘ There is one thing, be assured, this war will do, 
 viz., sweep away the lardy-dardy frivolous puff 
 pastry which has so long defiled our stage. The 
 age of confectionery is at its death-grips. After 
 every great national convulsion in France, there 
 has been a change in England. There will be a 
 great one now. When a nation has passed through 
 the valley of the shadow, it begins to think. 
 
 ‘ France is passing through a Red sea and will 
 come out purified. 
 
 ‘ England’s time of trial is not far off. In politics, 
 in war, in literature, men will come to the front. 
 Phryne, with her leer, and her breakdown, Sporus, 
 with his drawl and his simper, will pass away from 
 us, as they have vanished for years to come from 
 France. Our authors must do something more 
 than cater for the jaded appetites of the swell and 
 his ‘ lad y,’ the inanity of the drawing-room and the 
 vice of the boudoir. Above all, the public will 
 demand other actors than those who treat all 
 dramatic creations (?) as the Italian image man treats 
 the casts he carries on his head, polishing down 
 every salient feature, till Shakespeare might pass 
 for the Marquis of Lome, and Milton and Moliere 
 
 for B and P .* — With a warm shake of 
 
 the hand, yours sincerely, 
 
 ‘ Watts Phillips.’ 
 
 Here is another letter in which he sought to 
 interest me in 
 
 * Two infamous notorieties of the period, 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 8 
 
 No. 3. A STORY OF THE ’45. 
 
 ‘ The Firs, Eden Bridge, 
 
 ‘ 2>d February . 
 
 * My dear Coleman, — Some eight or nine years 
 ago I produced A Story of the ’45. It was 
 brought out at Drury Lane, introducing gorgeous 
 effects — Hogarthian tableaux, river pageants, etc. 
 
 ‘ Since that time, at the suggestion of Lester 
 Wallack, who was greatly taken with it, I cut all 
 these adjuncts away, and left characters, situations 
 ( one the most powerful I have ever conceived), to 
 speak for themselves. The play was a great go in 
 America. A few months ago, in reading over 
 the notices, it occurred to me to reconstruct and 
 condense it, and, in fact, make it a new piece. 
 Having done so, I put my rough MS. in Lacy’s 
 hands, and now send you the result. 
 
 ‘ Can you and I make money out of it ? 
 
 1 Read the piece at once. It won’t take you long 
 over a cigar, and drop me a line. 
 
 ‘ Excuse this short letter, but it’s business. When 
 it’s friendship I allow my pen every licence to run 
 away with. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 4 Watts Phillips. 
 
 ‘ P.S. — Is Calhaem with you? There’s no man 
 in England could do Flicker like him.’ 
 
 Upon a careful perusal of The White Cockade 
 (which was the new title of the play), I found, 
 that although an admirable work, the interest was 
 not central enough for the object I had in view 
 hence I was under the necessity of declining it. 
 
The Truth about 
 
 84 
 
 Having again invited him to come and stay with 
 us a few weeks, I received the following rejoinder. 
 
 No. 4. A WAITER ON TELEGRAMS. 
 
 ‘The Firs, Eden Bridge, Kent, 
 
 ‘ 1 ^th February. 
 
 ‘ My dear Coleman, — I have been awfully ill, 
 and am still confined to my room with violent in- 
 fluenza, so can only write a few lines to thank Mrs 
 Coleman and yourself for your kind invitation. 
 
 ‘I only wish it were in my power to accept it, 
 but until peace is ratified, I am a Waiter on Tele- 
 grams , being engaged to write articles as events 
 turn up, though for a week past I have been utterly 
 unable to hold a pen. 
 
 ‘ Sorry you did not see yourself in Sir Andrew. 
 I think you would have played it admirably. 
 
 ‘ This war, you may be sure, will make a great 
 difference in our current literature. The Epicene 
 school has had its day, and more muscle and 
 sinew will be wanted. 
 
 ‘Tell Madame I should be only too happy to 
 take as a model for one of my heroes, the special 
 hero in whom her heart is so warmly interested, 
 and have no doubt of the result. Remember me to 
 her with all manner of kind phrases, which I would 
 write if I could, but, Anacreon himself must have 
 been a dull dog when suffering from a terrible cold 
 in his head. 
 
 ‘ What a fiasco at the Adelphi, X ’s piece ! 
 
 The sensation scene is “an Adelphi screamer,” 
 and, while the author is weeping, the audience 
 (now a very meagre one) yells with laughter. I 
 hear it is the worst piece W. ever produced, which 
 is saying much. 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 85 
 
 ‘You should order that “big drama” from me, 
 and give me time to write it, then I could promise 
 you something great, and a something that would 
 always be returning you a large profit. Good-bye, 
 and with kind regards, 
 
 ‘ I am, sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘ Watts Phillips. 
 
 ‘ I am writing this in bed, so excuse the manner 
 of it. I saw Harrison Ainsworth the other day* 
 Of course I breathed no word of Crichton to him. 
 He wears well for “ an old ’un.” ’ 
 
 On the hint contained in this letter, I entered 
 into negotiations for the composition of a new 
 play. Subjoined is Mr Phillips’s answer. 
 
 No. 5. THE DRAMA OF THE PERIOD. 
 
 ‘ Eagle Lodge, 
 
 ‘Eden Bridge, Kent, 
 
 ‘ iSlh April 1870. 
 
 ‘My dear Coleman, — First of all a warm and 
 friendly shake of the hand, then to plunge into the 
 “ middle of things ” and talk of business. 
 
 ‘ Twelve months ago I had two pieces produced 
 in London, both without the success very many 
 previous productions of mine have received. Here 
 are the facts. 
 
 ‘ Labouchere brought me a French piece (a bad 
 one), with a big sensation scene . “Will you adapt 
 this piece for me ?” he inquired. I replied that I 
 didn’t see a success, and was answered that he was 
 prepared to pay a big price, and that if I did not 
 do it Tom Taylor would jump at it, and that 
 
86 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 Halliday would do it at one-third what either of 
 us would charge. I adapted the piece, pouched a 
 good sum, and the result was what I had predicted. 
 
 ‘ Another manager had a mania that “ low life 
 sensation” was the one thing needed to make a 
 theatre. What Tommy Dod had done for one 
 piece a “ rat pit ” would do for another. Again I 
 gave way, and this time the failure was positive. 
 
 ‘ I pocketed the coin, read the criticisms, and 
 made a resolve never to write another piece unless 
 I had some belief in the subject, and some higher 
 aim than the mere £ s. d. 
 
 ‘ Acting upon this resolve, and pretty confident 
 as to the fate of most of the stuff so rapidly turned 
 out of the theatrical oven, I have withdrawn for a 
 time from the arena, nursing whatever little talent 
 I have, to keep it warm, but (and I say it most 
 sincerely) disdaining the “ you scratch me and I’ll 
 scratch you ” mode of doing business, which fills 
 the press with eulogies of “ certain dramatists,” and 
 empties the theatres ! 
 
 ‘ I don’t want to write again for the stage till I 
 have the opportunity of creating an honestly strong 
 comedy or drama in which there is something else 
 to be worked for besides the (always welcome) 
 £s.d. 
 
 ‘ So, like our ancient Roman friend, I retire 
 among my cabbages and get my bread and cheese, 
 with now and then a glass of claret, by writing 
 novels and “ articles for that Palladium of British 
 liberty, the immaculate and never (oh, never) pre- 
 judiced press.” 
 
 ‘ Show me a really good subject for a strong 
 healthy drama, and I will pounce upon it with 
 avidity, but don’t let either of us be misled because 
 certain celebrities are “ popular.” 
 
Present Revival at the Lyceum .] taking of the bastille. [Tableau IV. 
 
88 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 ‘I w as asked to adapt Frou-Frou . I refused 
 the money because I believed F.-F. was rot , and 
 would never draw a sensible British audience. It 
 was only popular in France because it tickled the 
 outer cuticle of immorality. 
 
 ‘Not so Patrie — a very noble drama, though 
 revolting (like some of the plays of that mighty 
 genius Hugo), but a great drama for all that, 
 though an impossible one for England, where 
 Sodom dreads no other fires than those Captain 
 Shaw and his brigade can efficiently deal with ; 
 where all is allowed, if the curtain be down, and 
 where vice is virtue, if it be well concealed. 
 
 ‘We have heaps of clever dramatists in brain 
 and heart, but banality rules the hour. Your friend 
 Charles Reade (with whom I see you are staying) 
 is a noble exception. He never writes without 
 thinking , and even his worst books are redolent of 
 genuine endeavour of the best kind, and full of 
 manly strength and tenderness. 
 
 ‘ It’s not for me to advise in business matters, 
 my dear Coleman, but to speculate in London 
 your material must be pure metal, and pure metal 
 is not to be obtained without many a painful pro- 
 cess. 
 
 ‘ What I should want to write a piece such as 
 I wish to write, and would try to write for you 
 would be a fair sum paid (pardon my being frank 
 in business matters), a portion down, to enable me 
 to cast aside ottier work for the time being, and 
 the remainder as we may, after consultation, 
 determine. 
 
 ‘ Everything in London is in a deplorable state. 
 No theatre is really making money at the present 
 time. What may be done is yet to be seen. 
 
 ‘ What I like in you is the frank, straightforward 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 manner you write and speak on all matters, and 
 you will like me none the worse that I tear a leaf 
 from your book, and am always, — Yours sincerely, 
 
 ‘Watts Phillips.’ 
 
 In reply I returned to the subject of ‘The 
 Admirable Crichton ’ which I had before sug- 
 gested, and asked Phillips to come to Cues about 
 terms. 
 
 I subjoin his reply, in order that the more fortu- 
 nate playwrights of to-day may see the rate at 
 which one of the most popular dramatists of 
 twenty years ago appraised his best work. 
 
 No. 6. THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON. 
 
 4 Eagle Lodge, Edfn Bridge, 
 
 4 5 th May jyo. 
 
 ‘My dear Coleman, — You will pardon, I am 
 sure, my amanuensis, or, rather, my a woman- u- 
 ensis — but I have been knocking about town for 
 the last two days, on some business for Sardou — 
 which I had hoped to carry through, but which 
 has been entirely thrown over by the Frou-Frou 
 decision, which upsets my hope to have procured 
 some remuneration in England fora French author. 
 
 ‘ I am now lying on the sofa, having taken my 
 boots, and my best clothes off — just in the humour 
 to talk to a friend, but too tired to write. 
 
 ‘ Crichton is a good hero for a drama. In himself, 
 he is a sort of myth, one of those doubtful person- 
 ages who have served as lay figures for romancists 
 to hang all kinds of fabulous stories upon ; but 
 the name to the general public is utterly unknown. 
 
go 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 He might as well be Chandos, or De Courcy ; nor 
 did Harrison Ainsworth’s novel tend much to 
 extend his popularity. His known history may 
 be summed up in a couple of pages — but the 
 period in which he moved, and the events in which 
 he might have taken a part are essentially dramatic. 
 For instance he could have been present at the 
 massacre of St Bartholomew. 
 
 ‘In fact, he was a sort of literary D'Artagnan 
 of the period. A period, by the way, with which 
 I am most thoroughly acquainted \ and which I was 
 once nearly illustrating — I think in a very power- 
 ful manner — on the stage. 
 
 ‘ A short time prior to Charles Kean’s leaving 
 England for his voyage round the world, he pro- 
 posed to me to write him a drama of the same 
 character as Casimir Delavigne’s Louis XL I 
 suggested to him the period you have selected, and 
 then mentioned to him a very remarkable work in 
 which the story of the 4 Dukes of Guise ’ is treated 
 in a dramatic form, but without any view to the 
 stage. The story of the house of Guise is the most 
 splendidly dramatic episode in all French history. 
 It has been treated, though not effectively treated, 
 by Chapman, and other of our elder dramatists, 
 and admirably treated by Alexander Dumas, and a 
 host of French writers, but none have approached 
 the power of the author I allude to, in his marvel- 
 lous and minute picture of Henry III. The scene 
 of the assassination of the Duke of Guise, Kean 
 declared to be one of the finest and most suggestive 
 he had ever read. We were corresponding about 
 it when he decided to leave England. When he 
 returned , his failing health rendered anything in 
 the shape of a new creation out of question. 
 
 ‘ I now send the book to you, to glance over and 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 9 1 
 
 return to me ( the markings in pencil are Kean's 
 own). The book is not a play , nor was it ever 
 meant for one — only a series of scenes, written by 
 a man of genius , intended to illustrate French 
 history. The special scenes that to my mind con- 
 tain the germ of a great play — are as I have said 
 pencil marked. Crichton was living during this 
 time, so any way your glance at the book will not 
 be waste of time. 
 
 ‘ Let me again repeat, it is a dramatic history I 
 send you, not a play. 
 
 ‘Whatever we decide on, my terms would be 
 three hundred pounds for a play such as The Dead 
 Heart , to be paid as follows : One hundred pounds 
 
 when the play is commissioned , one hundred pounds 
 when completed , and two pounds a night when acted 
 till the sum agreed upon is made complete. Web- 
 ster paid me three hundred pounds down for The 
 Dead Fleart , and for Maud's Peril , and Labouchere 
 two hundred and fifty pounds for that miserable 
 Comte de St Helene — while you, old fellow, want a 
 big piece, and an original plot — all of which I think 
 I can give you. 
 
 ‘ If I wanted merely to keep the pot boiling, I 
 can get plenty of fuel handsomely paid for in the 
 shape of novel and leader writing ; but my next 
 play must be a very strong one, and of a high 
 class, or it would pay me better not to write it 
 at all. 
 
 ‘Your frankness with me calls for frankness in 
 return, and it would be only waste of time for us to 
 sit down like Adam and Eve in the garden, patch- 
 ing up fig leaves to hide the naked truth. Come 
 what may, a tight grasp of the hand , and a hearty 
 wish for your happiness and success in whatever you 
 undertake, no matter who your coadjutor , and with 
 
92 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 very kind regards to Mrs Coleman (in which the 
 present amanuensis joins). 
 
 ‘ I am, 
 
 £ My dear Coleman, 
 
 ‘Very sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘ Watts Phillips. 
 
 ‘ I see Charles Reade has engaged Vining for the 
 Adelphi. Will his speculation be a success ? Its 
 risky ! ’ 
 
 EMOLUMENTS OF DRAMATISTS. 
 
 Three hundred pounds for a play like The Dead 
 Heart ! This affords food for reflection. At the 
 beginning of the present century, dramatists were 
 fairly remunerated. Morton and Reynolds got a 
 thousand or twelve hundred pounds for a comedy, 
 and Mrs Inchbald received twelve hundred pounds 
 for adapting a play from the German (of which 
 language she did- not know a word), while George 
 Colman was paid two thousand pounds for John 
 Bull. Then came a reaction, until, at length, three 
 hundred pounds was considered a liberal remunera- 
 tion for a big drama. 
 
 Thirty years ago the novelist was supreme, while 
 the unfortunate dramatist was the mere bond-slave 
 of the actor’s whim or the manager’s caprice. Now 
 it is the turn of the dramatist, who, if he happens 
 to ‘strike oil ’ with a single successful play, clears 
 more in a week than the majority of novelists can 
 earn in a year. 
 
 The commission was given, the requisite ar- 
 rangements made, but failing health and other cir- 
 cumstances caused the matter to be delayed from 
 
Present Revival at the Lyceum. ~\ ‘abb£ latour, i pay a debt of long standing! [ Tableau V. 
 
94 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 time to time, and unfortunately we never got 
 further than the scenario. 
 
 Meanwhile, by a strange concatenation of cir- 
 cumstances, I became the fortunate possessor of 
 a work greater than Crichton could have ever 
 been. 
 
 LORD DUNDREARY — A BLIGHTED TRAGEDIAN. 
 
 It is not generally known that the late Mr 
 Sothern was in reality the ‘ blighted tragedian ’ 
 whose woes he so cruelly caricatured. 
 
 During his managerial days in Canada, he had 
 (so he assured me) played Hamlet , Othello, and all 
 the great parts after his own fashion. 
 
 In my theatres he essayed Claude Melnotte, a 
 performance which was only redeemed from deri- 
 sion by the loyal co-operation of Miss Robertson 
 (Mrs Kendal), Mr Blakely, and Mr Coghlan, the 
 Pauline, the Damas, and Beauseant of the oc- 
 casion. 
 
 Besides his futile attempt at Claude, Sothern 
 had already enacted a hero of Romance in Dr 
 Westland Marston’s adaptation of The Romance 
 of a Poor Young Man , and other parts of a simi- 
 lar kind, and now he was on the look-out for a 
 hero of a yet more ambitious character. 
 
 One day in Liverpool, after dinner, he said, — 
 
 • Here’s a splendid play by Watts Phillips. The 
 hero is too big for my fireplace, but he may suit 
 yours. It’s Webster’s property, but he’ll part with 
 it for a price.’ 
 
 With that, he handed me the MS. of Marl- 
 borough. 
 
 It will be remembered that, years before, 
 Philips had mentioned this subject to me. 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 95 
 
 Although struck with the dramatic power and the 
 splendid possibilities of this great work, I instinc- 
 tinctly discovered a fatal weakness — the absence 
 of a love interest, — and I suggested a mode by 
 which this deficiency might be remedied. 
 
 Upon my hint, the author reconstructed the 
 play, and entirely re-wrote the last act. 
 
 Webster at that time was indisposed to buy the 
 new addition, and Vining, who had an eye to the 
 subject, purchased the last act, which was the key- 
 stone of the work. Ultimately arriving at the con- 
 clusion that the play would be useless without this 
 act, Webster sold his rights to Vining for a good 
 round sum. 
 
 He tried the play in Brighton and Liverpool, in- 
 tending ultimately to produce it in town, but a 
 fatal illness intervened, which prevented his carry- 
 ing out his intention. 
 
 A short time previous to his death, the dear old 
 fellow generously presented me with the play, and 
 mine it remains till time and opportunity shall 
 enable me to produce it. 
 
 A HARMLESS FRAUD. 
 
 During the Siege of Paris I was located in 
 Scotland. 
 
 At that period many of Phillips’s old Parisian 
 friends had fled to England for safety. 
 
 All were more or less, like himself, suffering 
 from ‘the ignominious pangs attendant upon im- 
 pecuniosity,’ and he was powerless to help them ; 
 or to offer them any return for their frequent 
 hospitality in La belle Lutetia , hence he shut 
 himself up in Kent, and made believe to be in 
 Scotland. 
 
96 
 
 The Truth about 
 
 Here is a communication on the subject. 
 
 ‘The Firs, Eden Bridge, Kent, 
 
 ‘ 2 d December. 
 
 ‘ My dear Coleman, — Will you favour me by 
 posting in Glasgow the enclosed, and should any 
 letters be sent to me under “your care,” please 
 post them back here. 
 
 ‘ The key to the mystery is this. Crowds of 
 friends who I knew in Paris in better times are 
 swarming over to London, especially French 
 actors and actresses, who I should not only be too 
 happy to serve were it in my power , but, alas ! I 
 can’t procure them what I want so badly for 
 myself. Nor, busy as I am, can I afford the time 
 to hasten, at every letter, up to London and listen 
 to their miseries, a sad task at any time, doubly 
 so when what they expect is impossible ! So, to 
 have a quiet Christmas, I have said that I have 
 taken a few days’ holidays to visit you in Scotland. 
 If any letters come, forward them, and oblige. — 
 “ Thine while this machine is to him.” 
 
 ‘ Watts.’ 
 
 ‘ WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN ? ’ 
 
 I suppose it must have been some thirteen years 
 ago or more when I made a descent upon his 
 place at Chelsea. His daughter, who had only just 
 returned from France, did not know me. Holding 
 the door on the chain, she intimated that papa 
 was out of town. ‘You are sure of that?’ I in- 
 quired. ‘ Quite sure,’ she replied. 
 
 ‘All right,’ said I; ‘when he returns, tell him 
 that a friend from Scotland has called.’ The words 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 97 
 
 were scarcely out of my mouth when a well-known 
 voice rang out from the first landing, ‘ Stop, dear 
 boy, stop ! Rolande, unbar the door ; unloose the 
 chain. Come to this manly bosom : glad to see 
 you, old man, and see ! here is the Duchess and 
 George Vining. We are going to feed, and you are 
 just in time.’ 
 
 What a delightful evening that was ! 
 
 He was then in very indifferent health, but he 
 persisted in coming out at two in the morning to 
 accompany Vining and myself to the cabstand. 
 
 4 When shall we three meet again ? ’ laughingly 
 inquired Watts, as we parted. 
 
 Alas ! we never met again ! 
 
 He continued to write at intervals, but his letters 
 became less frequent, and this, without date, is en- 
 dorsed : 
 
 * LAST LETTER FROM POOR WATTS.’ 
 
 ‘45 Redcliffe Road, 
 
 ‘ West Brompton. 
 
 ‘ Alas ! my dear Coleman — my Robert Landry — 
 my future Duke of Marlborough ! It is evident 
 that among the wilds of Snaefell, in the lone Isle 
 of Three Legs, much hath escaped thee that has 
 been going on here. I have been ill ! I am still 
 very ill y and though I should have liked to have 
 been with thee, searching the red lightning in its 
 lair, and calling the eagle and chamois my play- 
 mates, yet a cruel fate hath doomed it otherwise. 
 
 ‘Jesting apart, for many months now my health 
 (on the conclusion of my drama Black Mail , and 
 another work, an original comedy) has proved 
 treacherous, and, like a house long falling, caved 
 in, the doors closing with a crash. But for the 
 
 G 
 
98 The Truth about The Dead Heart . 
 
 great skill and ceaseless attention of my friend, 
 Doctor Ord, of Brook Street, matters were likely to 
 have gone badly with me. He picked me out of 
 the Slough of Despond, shot a ray of brightening 
 hope through my despondency, and promises soon 
 the shining city — which, of course, means Bright- 
 on ! Six months without a stroke of work. 
 Under the strictest orders “ not to write, not even 
 to think more than possible” (“Well, that’s easy 
 enough,” murmurs some d — d good-natured friend) ; 
 to close for the time being, the bank of the brain, 
 and live, so to speak, in the circumference of a 
 shilling ! 
 
 ‘ I send this “ Roundabout Paper ” of myself in 
 order to account for my apparent rudeness in not 
 thanking you before this for your kind remem- 
 brance of us. 
 
 ‘ Thanks, ten thousand thanks, for the big brown 
 jar and the hamper. 
 
 ‘The Spirit of Light and Life was most ac- 
 ceptable, and the kippers “ scrumptious.” 
 
 ‘(You see I use another hand to convey my 
 thoughts, for I am still very weak ; and it will be a 
 good month before the old horse shakes himself 
 into harness again.) 
 
 ‘ By-the-way, in the matter of the kippers, I 
 verily believe, had I not been prevented I should 
 have incontinently devoured them at one sitting, 
 and have got regal after with the “ nectar.” 
 
 ‘ Wishing you and Mrs Coleman health, wealth 
 and prosperity, with our united kind regards, yours 
 very sincerely, WATTS PHILLIPS.’ 
 
 END OF THE JOURNEY. 
 
 A few months after the receipt of this letter, ‘ the 
 
Present Revival at the Lyceum.'] the terror of toupet. [ Tableau VI. 
 
ioo The Truth about 
 
 doors did close with a clash,’ and never opened 
 again. 
 
 His journey through life had been one of per- 
 petual strife, and storm, and struggle. Troubled as 
 it was, had it not been for a few devoted friends 
 (two of whom will be known to the initiated by 
 the initials of H. L. and G. A. S.), it might have 
 been even worse. 
 
 I was abroad when the end came, hence the sad 
 news only reached me when all was over. 
 
 When I returned to town, our mutual friend, 
 Chatterton, the Drury Lane manager, who had been 
 one of the faithful few during poor Phillips’s illness, 
 told me that it was his last request that I should 
 bring his daughter Rolande on the stage. 
 
 I felt it my duty to carry out his wishes. 
 
 Singular to relate, the first play I acted when 
 Miss Phillips joined my company was The Dead 
 Heart . 
 
 When I relinquished my country theatres for 
 London management, I transferred her engagement 
 to my friend James Chute, of Bristol, and when, a 
 year later, I went there to act, by a yet more re- 
 markable coincidence, Miss Phillips played Ceris- 
 ette with me in her dead father’s play. Afterwards 
 she became a member of Mr Toole’s company, 
 and, while actually writing these lines, I have re- 
 ceived an Australian paper in which it is stated that 
 she is now acting in a splendid revival of Julius 
 Ccesar at the Theatre Royal, Sydney. 
 
 HIS WORKS. 
 
 Besides the plays already named ( Dead Heart , 
 Joseph Chavigney , The Poor Strollers , Huguenot 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 IOT 
 
 Captain . Amos Clarke , ^ Story of the ’45, and 
 Marlboro’), Phillips wrote Paper Wings for the 
 Adelphi ; Camilla's Husband (a charming play, 
 which never attained the success it deserved), 
 for the Olympic ; Paul's Return ; Barnaby Rudge 
 for Mrs Wood’s return to the English stage at 
 the Princess’s ; Not Guilty , Black Mail, Nobody's 
 Child , The Woman in Mauve, for Sothern at 
 the Haymarket ; Theodora (a far better play, be 
 it remarked, en passant , than the much vaunted 
 Sardou-Bernard recent production), for Avonia 
 Jones at the Surrey; On the Jury , for Chatterton 
 (in which Phelps and Webster acted together) at 
 the Princess’s ; A Ticket of Leave , and novels, etc., 
 without mention. 
 
 Many of these dramas took six months of the 
 author’s life, not one of them occupied less than 
 three months, yet, as he himself stated, his highest 
 remuneration for a play was three hundred pounds. 
 
 The other night a capricious Italian cantatrice 
 got double that amount for singing three songs. 
 
 In our convival moments, Phillips was wont to 
 say, ‘Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me 
 fortune ! ’ 
 
 The fickle jade never knocked at his door. 
 Were he living now, she would doubtless keep up 
 a perpetual rap, tap, tap, from morning to night. 
 
 Only recently a gentleman, whose highest 
 achievement in dramatic composition consisted in 
 adapting, ‘ convey — the wise it call,’ half a dozen 
 comic operettas from our lively neighbours on the 
 other side the silver streak, left behind him a 
 modest fortune of twenty-eight thousand pounds. 
 
 Had Phillips been born twenty years later ; had 
 he devoted his facile pen to the ennobling occu- 
 pation of burlesque, he might have bequeathed 
 
102 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 his children a fortune. As it is they do not receive 
 a single shilling from any work he ever wrote, and 
 for him, alas ! when the golden prize for which he 
 had so long and so gallantly struggled was almost 
 within his grasp, he died in sight of the promised 
 land — yes, died prematurely, and it is to be feared 
 of a broken heart. 
 
FIRST NIGHT OF THE 
 REVIVAL AT THE LYCEUM. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Scene in the Theatre, 105 
 
 A Popular Dramatist, 105 
 
 Author of Bootle’s Baby, 105 
 
 Old Memories, 106 
 
 Mise en Scene, 108 
 
 Taking of the Bastille, 108 
 
 The Carmagnole, 109 
 
 Finis Coronat Opus, . . * . . . .109 
 
 A Few Words as to the Acting, 111 
 
 Mr Irving, hi 
 
 Ellen Terry, 113 
 
 Mr Bancroft, 115 
 
 Touching the Text, 115 
 
 The Pessimists, 116 
 
 Vale, 1 18 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Vengeance of Robert Landry, .... 107 
 
 Irving, no 
 
 Ellen Terry, 112 
 
 Bancroft, 114 
 
 Apotheosis of The Dead Hearty 117 
 
FIRST NIGHT OF THE REVIVAL 
 AT THE LYCEUM. 
 
 FIRST nights at our principal theatres have now 
 become important social functions — nowhere more 
 so than at the Lyceum. Everybody who is any- 
 body is present. 
 
 How many old friends do we meet, and, alas ! 
 how many do we miss. 
 
 How small the world is after all. 
 
 The very first person the writer encounters as he 
 enters the stalls, on this occasion, is one of our 
 most popular and prolific dramatists, who whispers 
 that the first time he ever saw this play was upon 
 the first night of its production at Leeds. 
 
 Stepping aside at this moment to allow a lady 
 to pass, the writer finds himself face to face with 
 the author of Bootle's Baby , who, stranger still, 
 assures him that the very first time she ever saw a 
 play at all, was when she saw him play Robert 
 Landry at the York Theatre. 
 
 But it is time to be seated. 
 
 How often upon occasions like the present do 
 we rub shoulders with people whom we have 
 known nearly all our lives, yet with whom we 
 have never so much as passed the time of day. 
 
 Struggling to get to his place, the writer stumbles 
 over a well-known man of letters, whom he saw for 
 the first time on the first night of this very play 
 at the Adelphi. 
 
 Stopping to ask his pardon, Bruin growls, — 
 
106 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 ‘ At last ! at last ! After thirty years the oracle 
 has spoken.’ 
 
 For thirty years we had glared at each other after 
 our genial insular fashion ; but we had not been 
 introduced, so, of course, we couldn’t speak. ‘ It’s 
 so English, you know.’ Having broken the ice, we 
 make up for lost time. 
 
 But, hush ! The overture commences. 
 
 OLD MEMORIES. 
 
 What a host of memories the house conjures up ! 
 It was here I saw my second play in town. In 
 the dim light the place seems peopled with phan- 
 toms. There were the Keeleys, the Wigans, Miss 
 Woolgar, Miss Fairbrother, the beautiful wife of 
 the Duke of Cambridge (dead the very day I write 
 these lines), James Vining, Diddear, the ‘childlike 
 and bland ’ Fitzball, author of one hundred dramas. 
 
 Next came the Mathews — Charles and Madame 
 — Frank and Mrs Frank, my boyhood’s idol, Julia 
 St George, the buxom and ebullient Laura Keene, 
 Harley and Buckstone, Basil Baker, James Bland, 
 Bob Roxby, William Beverley, Charles Dauce, the 
 ever-genial and accomplished Planche. 
 
 Then came Anderson the ‘Wizard of the North.’ 
 
 After him, Frederick Gye, Augustus Harris, 
 Grisi, and Mario, followed by the Dillons, Marie 
 Wilton, Mrs Buckingham White, Toole, Calhaem, 
 Barrett, Shore, MacNeil, etc. 
 
 After them, Harrison and Louisa Pyne, Fal- 
 coner and Chatterton, with the Vezins, Walter 
 Lacy, George Melville, and Addison, followed by 
 Celeste. 
 
 What a galaxy of beautiful girls she had in 
 the Pets of the Parterre ! By-the-bye, one or two 
 
Present Revival at the Lyceum.] the VENGEANCE OF ROBERT LANDRY. [ Tableau VII. 
 
108 The Twth about 
 
 of them are here to-night, looking somewhat 
 matronly. Eheu fug aces ! 
 
 Then Falconer and Chattertons return with Peep 
 o' Day . Fechter, with all his brilliant following, 
 Kate Terry, Carlotta Leclercq, Mrs Archdecken, 
 George Vining, George Jordan (‘Handsome 
 George’), Sam Emery, Harry Widdicombe, Ryder, 
 and the rest. 
 
 Next cropped up the irrepressible E. T. Smith, 
 with Bandmann and Narcisse ; the Vezins and 
 The Rightful Heir , and the first and last panto- 
 mime of our modern Aristophanes, W. S. Gilbert. 
 
 Surely the beautiful Adelaide Neilson put in an 
 appearance at or about this time. 
 
 ‘ Last, not least, in our dear love,’ the Colonel, 
 and all his belongings ; Leah, with the voice of 
 gold ; Isabel and her sister, George Belmore, 
 Jemmy Albery, Irving, and — but the overture is 
 over, so is my reverie, and up goes the curtain. 
 
 MISE EN SCfeNE. 
 
 The opening scene — the Garden of the Cafe de 
 la belle Jardinere — is superbly beautiful ; the dra- 
 matic action is animated and appropriate ; the 
 dance bright and joyous, and eminently sugges- 
 tive of the spring time of mirth and joy, of life and 
 love. 
 
 TAKING OF THE BASTILLE 
 
 is the most picturesquely realistic spectacle of that 
 epoch ever presented either on the French or 
 English stage.* 
 
 * While these lines are going to press, it is satisfactory to note 
 that M. Coquelin, the eminent French comedian, entirely sub- 
 scribes to this opinion. 
 
The Dead Heart . 
 
 109 
 
 Every one concerned, from the principal actor 
 down to the humblest supernumerary, acts like an 
 artist. Every detail, every figure, every note of 
 
 the music, every costume, every colour, every 
 inflection of the voice, nay, even every whisper, 
 every gesture, and every look, are appropriate to 
 the tremendous strength of the situation, and the 
 result is an ensemble which does not fail to satisfy 
 the most exacting standard of criticism. 
 
 THE CARMAGNOLE. 
 
 Here is no crowd of pretty, pappy epicene 
 things, masquerading in boys’ attire, but the men 
 and women of the faubourgs, avant couriers of the 
 tempest, which is coming from the four winds of 
 the horizon, borne on the breath of God — or the 
 Devil — for, verily, the spirits of good and evil 
 both participated in that bloody business. 
 
 It is surely the sign of the Beginning of the 
 End, the dawning of the Lanterne and the Terror, 
 of the Noyades, and all the rest of the horrors of 
 that Titanic time. 
 
 The auditor may well forget that he is in a 
 theatre, as, with quickened pulse and throbbing 
 heart, he gazes upon this wonderful picture, in 
 which the dead past lives again. 
 
 Finis coronat opus. 
 
 The final tableau is so skilfully contrived, the 
 arrangement of the lights is so deftly managed, 
 the grouping is so artistic — above all, the subject 
 is one of such surpassing interest, that, once seen, 
 it must be visible ever after to the mind’s eye. 
 
The Truth about The Dead Heart. 1 1 1 
 
 A FEW WORDS AS TO THE ACTING. 
 
 Comparisons which seek to depreciate the dead, 
 or to disparage the living, are detestable when 
 instituted by any one, and doubly detestable when 
 instituted by an actor. Suffice it to say that 
 
 MR IRVING 
 
 has found in Robert Landry a character probably 
 more after his own heart and his resources than 
 any he has hitherto sustained — a character which 
 commingles the poetic and the picturesque with 
 the pathetic and heroic. 
 
 Landry is at once hero and martyr, victim and 
 victor, sufferer of wrong and avenger of blood. 
 
 Save in his brilliant historical sketch (all too 
 short) of Philip of Spain, in the Poet Laureate’s 
 Mary Tudor , the glamour of this accomplished 
 actor’s personality has, to my mind, never been so 
 apparent as in this play. 
 
 Except upon that memorable occasion (when he 
 irresistibly suggested a Titian or a Velasquez step- 
 ping forth from the canvas endowed with life), 
 never have I seen him look so young and interest- 
 ing as in the Phidias of the Rue St Jacques, who, 
 when transformed to the prisoner of the Bastille, 
 is, as Victor Hugo said of the Ruy Bias of the 
 great Frederick, ‘ not a transformation, but a trans- 
 figuration.’ 
 
 The grim grey figure in the Cafe Jocrisse and 
 the man of destiny in the bureau of Cato the 
 Censor, are faithful studies of a fixed and re- 
 lentless purpose. Truly might it be said of him, 
 
The Truth about The Dead Heart . 113 
 
 ‘though cold as marble, he is true as steel and 
 hard as flint/ 
 
 Yet mark what a wealth of tenderness flows 
 from him at last when his lost love confronts him 
 beneath the shadow of impending doom and death. 
 Looks, words, tones, body and soul thrill with the 
 love that dies not, and the faith which lifts the soul 
 to heaven. From the first moment the auditor 
 is held spellbound and captive by the players 
 potent art, and the entire performance rises in one 
 continuing and ever-increasing crescendo until the 
 climax of the sacrifice is reached, and the hero- 
 martyr passes from the darkness of night to the 
 splendour of the eternal morning. 
 
 ELLEN TERRY’S 
 
 Catherine Duval is the quintessence of all that 
 is sweet, and tender, and loveable in woman. 
 
 She appears at first like Aurora scattering 
 flowers before the dawn, and illumining the scene 
 with life and light. Anon she is transformed to 
 Madonna, our Lady of Tears. 
 
 In the scene with her boy (the image of his 
 fair mother) she ‘snatches a grace beyond the 
 reach of art.’ When tears come unbidden to the 
 eyes, how truly do we feel that ‘one touch of 
 nature makes the whole world kin.’ 
 
 Mr Arthur Stirling (whom I remember to have 
 seen with pleasure as the Abb£ Latour during the 
 revival of the play at the Adelphi) is now Robert 
 le Grand, and a very excellent Robert le Grand 
 he is — sound, sensible, earnest, and, above all, dis- 
 tinctly audible. 
 
 Toupet and Cerisette cannot be in better hands 
 H 
 

The Truth about The Dead Heart. 1 15 
 
 than those of Mr Righton and Miss Kate Phillips. 
 The only regret is, that there is so little of them. 
 
 MR BANCROFT. 
 
 It has been the fashion to decry this actor’s 
 Abb£ Latour — why, I know not. 
 
 Surely persons of even ordinary intelligence 
 might be able to conceive that, on the first 
 night of a new departure — the first night, too, 
 after a prolonged absence from the stage — an 
 actor (that is, if he possesses the true artistic tem- 
 perament) may be, nay, must be, one quivering 
 mass of agonised nerves ? 
 
 Being, however, a matter of which the Philis- 
 tine mind has no knowledge or comprehension, 
 it makes no allowance for its existence. Every 
 actor, however, knows it, and, knowing it, feels 
 sympathetically for a brother actor. 
 
 In the Prologue, Mr Bancroft was not master 
 either of his mind or his muscles ; but, as the play 
 progressed, he gained confidence, and confidence 
 gave him power. 
 
 Certain portions (fragmentary, if you will) of 
 this character have never been better acted than 
 by the present representative. 
 
 The duel scene between the two men rose to a 
 height of sustained excellence and dramatic power 
 which has not been excelled in the past, and pro- 
 bably may not be surpassed in the future. 
 
 TOUCHING THE TEXT. 
 
 And now a few words as to the rearrangement 
 of the text. 
 
1 1 6 The Truth about The Dead Heart. 
 
 The writer is not of those who take exception 
 to revision or transposition even of the greatest of 
 dramatists ; indeed, his views on that subject are 
 of so iconoclastic a character, that he holds that 
 Colley Cibber’s adaptation of Richard the Third 
 is amply justified, from the fact that it is a much 
 better acting play than the original text. One 
 must, however, draw the line somewhere. 
 
 The Dead Heart is not food for babes and suck- 
 lings. It is a strong play, written by a strong 
 man, who meant what he said, and who would 
 have vigorously protested against being Bowdler- 
 ised. 
 
 THE PESSIMISTS. 
 
 On the first night of the present revival, the 
 pessimists shrugged their shoulders, hummed and 
 hawed, and predicted that the piece would be 
 withdrawn in a fortnight. 
 
 It is easy to prophesy after the event, but that 
 very night the writer prophesied that the play 
 would prove one of the greatest triumphs of the 
 Lyceum management. He may therefore be par- 
 doned for complacency in beholding the fulfilment 
 of his prediction. The play has already been acted 
 upwards of a hundred and thirty nights to the 
 biggest houses ever known in the theatre, and it 
 bids fair to run to the end of the season. 
 
 Baffled in their vaticinations, these learned 
 pundits still shake their heads and mutter, — 
 
 ‘ H’m ! yes ! an effective melodrama — but, as to 
 literary merit — bah ! * 
 
 It is as easy to formulate a dictum of this kind, 
 as it is difficult to prove it. 
 
 The parrot cry is, however, taken up by the 
 
Present Revival at the Lyceum] apotheosis of ‘the dead heart.’ Tableau VIII. 
 
The Truth about 
 
 1 1 8 
 
 first feeble-minded flaneur who hears it, repeated 
 by the next, and echoed by the entire fraternity, 
 who find it a congenial task to decry everything 
 which appeals to susceptibilities of a higher order 
 than their own. 
 
 To these poor creatures, St Valerie’s pathetic 
 lament, ‘There are tears in my eyes, there are 
 tears in my heart,’ is as significant as the prim- 
 rose on the river’s bank was to the clown in the 
 poem, while Landry’s wrongs, his revenge, and his 
 heroic self-sacrifice are but as 
 
 ‘ A tale 
 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing ! * 
 
 val£. 
 
 This play appeals to those who have heads 
 to think, and hearts to feel. 
 
 From first to last it is instinct with 
 
 ‘ Love that hath the name 
 
 And fury and force of swift, bright, shuddering flame, 
 Hate that is foe to love and lovely life, 
 
 Yea, foe implacable, and hath death to wife ; 
 
 Death, that is friend to fate and fair love’s foe 
 Death, that makes waste the wolds of life with snow ; 
 Strife, fiercer than the forceful feathered fire, 
 
 Fed as a flame, with hope of heart and high desire ! ’ 
 
 If these master passions, throbbing with the 
 glow of life, colour, motion, and picturesque in- 
 cident, constitute (as indubitably they do !) the 
 essential conditions of the highest form of dra- 
 matic art, then this work supplies all the essential 
 elements of a great play. 
 
The Dead Heart. 
 
 119 
 
 In three short hours it crystallises three phases 
 in a nation’s history. 
 
 Before the mind’s eye arise the joy, the sorrow, 
 the love of love, the hate of hate, the villainy, 
 the revenge, the remor e and the despair, the crime 
 and the punishment, the storm and the strife, the 
 thunder breath of the great upheaval of the old 
 barriers, and the bloody baptism of the mightiest 
 epoch, which has ever burst upon this earth of 
 ours, since the dawning of Creation’s day. 
 
 Such it was at the beginning, and, after all this 
 lapse of thirty years, such is still 
 
 The Dead Heart. 
 
 the END. 
 
 COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH, 
 
PRICE ONE SHILLING. 
 
 BELLA-DEMONIA. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 SELINA DOLARO. 
 
 OPINIONS OP THE PRESS. 
 
 ‘ An uncommonly clever story ; a really brilliant performance in the 
 sensational line ; over-brimming with incidents exciting, novel, ingenious 
 and in all respects persuasively presented ; following the fortunes of the 
 heroine, you think nothing of probabilities, so absorbing is the interest 
 aroused.’ — The Saturday Review. 
 
 ‘ “ Bella-Demonia ” contains all the elements of a first-rate drama. 
 
 . . . Little short of extraordinary. . . . The action is positively 
 
 thrilling.’ — The Whitehall Review. 
 
 “Not only a dramatic, but a clever, and a thrilling story.’ — The 
 Morning Post. 
 
 * Within the pages there could not possibly have been crowded a 
 gerater number of crimes, mysteries, and surprises of all kinds. 
 Bella-Demonia is quite as vindictive as Monte Cristo himself.’ — The 
 Academy. 
 
 ‘ It has gorgeous colouring ; a real thrill of excitement throughout. 
 This writer is a faithful historian, and. an accurate painter of 
 character.’ — The Sheffield Telegraph. 
 
 ‘Will be read with a keen interest by all who take it up.’ — The 
 Scotsman. 
 
 ‘ Sensational, but remarkably clever story.’ — Newcastle Chronicle. 
 
 ‘ A good story. . . . Rightly described as a dramatic story.’ — 
 
 Manchester Guardian. 
 
 ‘ Selina Dolaro has told her story well.’ — The Publishers' Circular. 
 
 ‘ The writer’s capacity for invention is undeniable. ’ — News of the 
 World. 
 
 ‘This is a particularly smart and ingeniously-constructed story — 
 indeed, one of the cleverest bits of plot-weaving we have seen for a 
 long time.’ — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 HENRY J. DRANE, Lovell’s Court, Paternoster Row, E.C.