ENGLISH LIBRARY or TV* UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY WALERY 164, REGENT STREET, W V PLAYERS OF THE PERIOD. A SERIES OF ANECDOTAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, AND CRITICAL MONOGRAPHS OF THE LEADING ENGLISH ACTORS OF THE DAY. BY ARTHUR GODDARD, BY " ALMA," FRED. BARNARD, ALFRED BRYAN, PHIL MAY, J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE, GEORGES PILOTELLE, F. H. TOWNSEND, ETC., PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SUBJECTS AND AUTOGRAPH QUOTATIONS. LONDON: DEAN &~ SON, i6o A , FLEET STREET. 1891. ENGL. LIB. FD. PREFATORY NOTE. \7 O attempt has been made in this volume to give a quite complete record of the careers and impersona- tions of the " Players of the Period" with whom it deals. Such an undertaking would be beyond the scope and foreign to the purpose of the work) the aim of which is rather, by the aid of reminiscences of popular actors in their principal parts, supplemented by personal and pro- fessional anecdotes and biographical notes, portraits, and character-sketches, to depict by pen and pencil repre- sentative players in the roles with which they are most widely identified, and so stimulate the memories of play- goers, and call up in their minds countless recollections of pleasant hours owed to the arts of the actor and the dramatist, and to the glamour of the modern stage, which, by perfection of mechanical and artistic realism and illusion, imports an element of romance and poetry 125969 vi PREFATORY NOTE. into the prose of life, and compels us to rank the theatre as the most popular intellectual pleasure of the period. Considerations of space have made it impossible to include in this volume many admirable actors whose talent would have assured them a place in any such work had it not been deemed advisable to select sub- jects not only for their ability, but as representing dis- tinct schools of acting; and a supplementary volume is in preparation, in which many players now unavoidably omitted will be represented. My cordial thanks are due to Mr. Alfred Gibbons for his kind permission to reproduce a number of the admirable character-sketches which originally appeared in the pages of the "Ladys Pictorial; 1 ' to Mr. W. J. Ingram for similar permission in regard to the illus- tration by Mr. Bernard Partridge of Mr. Henry Irving as " Mephistopheles," which originally appeared in the " Illustrated London News ; " and to Mr. Henry Irving for permission to reproduce certain illustrations from the Lyceum Souvenirs of " Macbeth " and " The Dead Hearth ARTHUR GODDARD. CONTENTS. HENRY IRVING. PAGE An Ugly Duckling First Appearance An Odd Attrac- tionDiderot's Theory Oscar Wilde The David of the Drama Slaying the Philistine At Home Pre- histrionic Times Garrick and George II. What the Stage Does Contrasts and Chasms University Honours London Debut An Odd Badge The Bells Irvingmania and I rvingphobia Charles I. The Psychology of Crime A Prince of the Church- Actors' Mannerisms The Chinese Ambassador A Clashing of Critics The Actor and the Poet Laureate A Study of Malignant Senility An Excellent Ideal Engagement of Miss Ellen Terry An Unconven- tional Shylock The Corsican Brothers A Sensual Pagan Romeo and Benedick A Unique Banquet A Farewell Demonstration Compliments and Can- vas-back Ducks ' ' Fussie " Mai volio A Curiosity of Criticism Mr. William Winter's Poetical Address- Diplomacy Goldsmith's Ideal Goethe Anglicised viii CONTENTS. PAGE A Perfect Mephistopheles W^r;/^ Exploiting a Revolution Ravcnswood . . . .17 WILSON BARRETT. First Appearance A Doubtful Pie Romantic Heroes A Wasted Play Life as it is Zolaistic Naturalism The . Silver KingI.^ "Spider's Whistle" A Touching Story Claudian Chatterton A Com- prehensible Hamlet A Queer Experience Junius The Passions in Arcadia A Village Othello A Gallant Cavalier Clito The Ideal Woman A Muscular Christian Dan Mylrea Plain John Saxton The People 's Idol The Actor at Home . . . 117 H. BEERBOHM TREE. The Chameleon of the Stage The Ideal Actor A Caged Lion An Irishman's Advice Sir Andrew Aguecheek Qualifications, Real and Imaginary " Something Wrong in his Inside " A Polished Rascal A Gallery of Scoundrels The Private Secretary Sir Mervyn Ferrand A Libel on Humanity A Railway Metamorphosis Paul Demetrius The Actor-Man- ager's Controversy Our Mother-in-law, The County Council A Revolutionary Poet Humanity at its Best A Fascinating Bushranger A Study in Mono- mania A Gloating Falstaff A Man's Shadow Laroque and Luversan A Soul-torn Priest Beau CONTENTS. IX PAGE Austin A Sublimated Horatio Sparkins Vice, Virtue, and Versatility-A Duke and a Dancing Girl 185 E. S. WILLARD. A Society Villain " Responsible Utility " Dramatic Method At Home A Tender Dramatic Conscience First London Chance "The Spider" The New Villain A Terrible Curse A Natural Claudius A Splendid Sinner Hard Middle-age A Greek Volup- tuary and a Roundhead Rascal ''The Tiger" Macbeth The Monk's Xoom Cyrus Blenkarn Capital and Labour'' 7 Buy Now ! " An Al Fresco Understudy Filippo Judah Llewellyn Judah's Sole Virtue A Converted Deacon In Shakespeare's Inn In America 241 S. B. BANCROFT. The Sublimation of the Swell Typical Men about Town Complete Man, Perfect Gentleman A Stage- stricken Youth The First Robertsonian Comedy A New Stage Fop An Impudent Adventurer Jack Poyntz Triplet A Broken-down Gentleman Diplo- macy The Scene des Trots Hommes Abolition of the Pit Count Loris Ipanoff Lords and Com- monsThe, Farewell Night The Dead Heart The Actor off the Stage Arbitration A Word Duel . 297 x CONTENTS. JOHN LAWRENCE TOOLE. PAGE In 1838 Civic Sweetness and Light Toole and Cruik- shank The Piano Pedal of Pathos A Nineteenth- Century Yorick Practical Jokes First Appearance John Lavers Mr. Spriggins Caleb Plummer The Phonographic Epilogue Michael Garner High- ways and Byeways A Good Heart The Comedian at Home Dick Dolland How a "Wheeze" was Obtained Paul Pry The 1874 Banquet Lord Rose- bery's Unconscious Prophecy " Bolo " Toole's Theatre Mr. Barnaby Doublechick " The Speaker's Eye" '"Paw Clawdian " From Butler to Oxford Don A Breakfast with Mr. Gladstone The Austra- lian Project Dining with the Prince of Wales "God-speed" 337 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Portrait of MR. HENRY IRVING . . . . Frontispiece. PAGE Mr. Irving as " Charles I." . By Horace More hen . 37 "Hamlet" . . . . 4I ,, -IE: ,, "Shylock" ...,, ,, .60 " Benedick" . . ,, ,, ,, . 68 H "Malvolio". ..,,,, ,, . 79 ,, ,, " Mephistopheles " . J.Bernard Partridge 89 ,, " Robert Macaire," and Mr. Weedon Grossmith as "Jacques Strop " . By F. H. Townsend . 99 ,, ,, "Macbeth" . . ,, /. Bernard Partridge 101 ,, ,, " Robert Landry " . ,, ,, 105 ,, ,, " Ravenswood " . 109 Portrait of MR. WILSON BARRETT 116 Mr. Wilson Barrett as "Hamlet" . By T. H. Wilson . 139 " Jack Yeulett" /. Bernard Partridge 159 ,, ,, ,, " Lord Harry Bendish" . ,, ,, l6 3 Portrait of MR. H. BEERBOHM TREE l8 4 Mr. Tree as " Prince Borowski " After /. Bernard Partridge 197 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Mr. Tree as " Sir Mervyn Ferrand" After/. Bernard Partridge 205 ,, "Falstaff" . . . ^ Alfred Bryan . .225 Portrait of MR. E. S. WILLARD 240 Mr. Willard as " The Spider" . After /. Bernard Partridge 255 " Mark Lezzard " . By ,, 265 ,, ,, " Captain Ezra Promise " ,, ,, ,, 267 Portrait of MR. S. B. BANCROFT 296 Mr. Bancroft as " Jack Poyntz " . By Horace Morehen . 313 ,, ,, "Triplet". ..,,,, ,, . 317 " Count Orloff". . ,, ,, .321 Portrait of MR. J. L. TOOLE 336 Mr. Toole and the gamins . . . By Alfred Bryan . . 344 ,, ,, as " Caleb Plummer". . ,, Fred. Barnard . . 347 ,, ,, "Paul Pry" . . . ,, Alfred Bryan . . 357 PLAYERS OF THE PERIOD. HENRY IRVING. THERE was once an ugly duckling, and many of the other ducklings, and of the ducks too, for that matter, except just a few who saw a little further than the end of their bills, were disposed to jeer at it, because it declined to turn its toes out like a conventional, well- brought-up duck. And some critical turkey- cocks, invested with spurs, and therefore thinking themselves emperors, blew themselves out like ships in full sail and bore straight down upon it, gobbled, and grew quite red in the face. But, despite many troubles, the ugly duckling, braving the quackings and the peckings, took the water and saw its own image, only to find itself a swan. And after a time he heard them all saying that he was i 4 HENR Y IR VING. the most beautiful of all the birds. Even the turkey-cocks moderated their rancour, and the sun of popular favour shone warm and bright. And the name of the ugly duckling was Henry Irving. Thirty years ago just one or two shrewd readers of men, such as Charles Dickens who had been much impressed by Mr. Irving's acting in Uncle Dicks Darling, remarking, " That young man will be a great actor" and Adelaide Kemble, recognised the coming actor in the fluttering, frightened ddbutant, who, on his first appearance on the stage of the New Royal Lyceum Theatre, Sunderland, on September 29th, 1856, when the play was Richelieu, and the young actor had to utter the first words spoken in the play, " Here's to our enter- prise!" was a dire failure ; and on his second, as Cleomenes in A Winter s Tale, inconti- nently took to his heels, covering his retreat with a gasping, incoherent adjuration to his fellow-actors to "come on to the market- place." Yet, in this timid, stage-frightened Cleomenes was to be found, in the fulness of time, the populariser of Shakespeare, the bril- AN ODD ATTRACTION. 15 liant and scholarly exponent of Shakespearean creations, the most intellectually and aesthetically satisfying Hamlet, Shylock, Benedick, of the modern stage ; a Romeo who should be a veritable type of the triumph of mind over body ; a Macbeth who, while original and occasionally antipathetic, should yet compel respect as a thoughtful and scholarly psychological study. That Mr. Irving's ctibut in the North should have not been an instantaneous triumph is not surprising when the taste of local audiences at that period is taken into account. Even as recently as 1880 an action was brought against a manager at Barnsley, to restrict him from producing a drama which excited the enthusiasm of the audience to such a pitch that it became a nuisance, the play in question being The Six Stages of Crime ; or, Wine, Women, Gambling, Theft, Murder, and the Gallows, an additional attraction being the son of Charles Peace, the burglar-murderer, who played the concertina and answered any questions put to him by the audience. The record of an actor who has appeared in more than six hundred and fifty parts is 1 6 HENR Y IR VING. terrifying to a conscientious chronicler, and compels an eclecticism that under other con- ditions might seem unreasonably narrow. But the only possible method of dealing with such a career with the hope of giving a just idea of the artistic nature and capacity of the actor, is to indicate the impersonations in which he has achieved the greatest distinction, and which have also served to illustrate most lucidly the opulence of his resources. An actor who has succeeded in satisfying a cultured and critical section of the playgoing public in characters so numerous and diverse that nothing less than an Irving Encyclopaedia could deal exhaustively with his repertoire, is a living negation of Got's cynical axiom that a great actor should have no brains beyond those essential to a mere mimic. He offers, also, in his own person, an argument in qualified sup- port of Diderot's theory that an actor should have no sensibility. For it is clear that while Mr. Irving has won and kept his position by sheer brain-power, it is impossible that he can have felt in his own person all the storm and stress of passion, all the heartbreaking "ART DOES NOT HURT US." 17 pathos, all the brain-sucking cynicism of the dramatic characters which he has represented, except within the limits which he himself has assigned, namely, that it is quite possible for an actor who has mastered his art to feel all the excitement of the situation and yet be perfectly self-possessed. Otherwise he must have been, long ere this, a wreck of over-wrought nerves, a hopeless hypochondriac, a melancholy ghost of manhood, instead of the brilliant, tactful, astute informing spirit of the Lyceum. Upon this point there is something to be said for Mr. Oscar Wilde's theory : " We must go to Art for everything, because Art does not hurt us. The tears that we shed at a play are a type of the exquisite sterile emotions that it is the function of Art to awaken in us. We weep, but we are not wounded. We grieve, but our grief is not bitter. In the actual life of man, sorrow, as Spinoza says somewhere, is a passage to a lesser perfection, but the sorrow with which Art fills us both purifies and initi- ates. . . . Emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of Art, and emotion for the sake of action is the aim of life." 1 8 HENR Y IR VING. Mr. Irving occupies a position in the social history of his period that is unique. He is not simply a great actor. There are even to-day those who deny him any claim to histrionic greatness, as they consider that his "manner- isms " handicap him too severely as if every really strong man, whether in the dramatic or any of its sister arts, did not prove his strength by individuality of style, or, as the unbelievers prefer to dub it, "mannerism." But he is more than a celebrated actor. He is a distin- guished figure in the social life of to-day, and, more than that, he is a living influence. Henry Irving is the David of the drama. After the disappearance from the stage of Macready, in 1851, with the honourable ex- ceptions of the efforts of Charles Kean at the Princess's Theatre and Samuel Phelps at the remote and therefore comparatively uninfluen- tial Sadler's Wells, the stage had lapsed into a lamentably commonplace and conventional not to say comatose condition, varied with occasional visitations of nightmare. The Goliath of Philistinism strutted in self-satisfied complacency until this dramatic David came SLAYING THE PHILISTINE. 19 from his provincial wanderings, and slew the Philistine with the smooth stone of polished, intellectual art. With the advent of Irving, culture killed conventionality and claptrap ; intellectual dis- tinction triumphed over commonplace dulness and brain proved its superiority alike to the banality of burlesque, the soulless splendour of spectacle, and the mania and mouthings of melodrama. Moreover, as regards the actor himself, the subtle chemistry of intellect has transmuted "mannerism" into personal dis- tinction, and metamorphosed potential weakness into added strength. Mr. Irving's artistic feeling is innate, and displays itself as unmistakably in his private life as upon the stage. His chambers in Grafton Street, so grim externally, and his house at Hammersmith, are full of quaint and interesting things, beautiful old engravings of great actors of the past, curiously carved old cabinets, sketches of the actor himself in char- acter, cabinets crowded with curious relics of dead-and-gone players rings, ' ' properties " of all sorts, and a host of interesting souvenirs 20 HENR Y IR VING. which Mr. Irving's admirers have taken occa- sion to present to him from time to time ; books everywhere, on shelves, tables, chairs, the floor an unfailing token of the great actor's student-nature, and many of them of great rarity and value ; statuettes of Mephistopheles and Don Quixote, with charming Miss Ellen Terry as a foil to their grim picturesqueness ; pictures of every kind, and each with some special charm of its own ; dogs, including the prime favourite "Fussie;" and a thousand- and-one pleasant and graceful indications of the refined, artistic nature of the foremost player of the period. Nor is the great actor himself less picturesque and delightful. The pink of courtesy and the prince of hosts, his high-bred manner and rich voice, his strongly-marked features, so full of character, and illumined by " twin stars, which nature has stuck in his head," as Colman said of Garrick, make up a personality full of charm and fascination. Success has not spoiled Mr. Irving. He is to-day as unaffected, cordial, kindly, and hard- working as he was in the long-past period PRE-HISTRIONIC TIMES. 21 when " plain living " was the necessity, and "high thinking" the rule, of his life ; and he is to the full as popular as a man as he is as an actor. His heart is ever sympathetic, his ear ever willing to listen to the voice of the timid or the suffering, his head and hand ever ready to counsel and to aid. It is an interesting speculation whether in the midst of his histrionic triumphs Mr. Irving's thoughts ever revert to that memorable morning when, leaving his humdrum duties in the quiet back office of Messrs. Thacker & Co., in Newgate Street, where for about three years the embryo tragedian had carried out with con- scientious care the work of an invoice clerk, he paid a visit to Phelps at Crosby Hall, in Bishopsgate Street, and, encouraged by the great actor's opinion of his single recitation, took the step which proved the turning-point in his life, returned to his office, and then and there "gave notice" to his employers, and announced his intention of adopting the stage as a profession. There are members of the staff of the well- known firm in Newgate Street who still retain 2 2 HENR Y IR VING. pleasant memories of the gentlemanly and amiable young Henry Brodribb, who came to their office from school, displayed so much assi- duity and care in his work, and was so keenly alive to the refinements of life as to institute among the clerks who shared his desk a little code of rules, by which each agreed to be subject to a small fine for any lapse from the niceties of grammar or any of the proprieties of speech. From the first the young fellow was fond of poetry and of reciting, yet, had not the artistic temperament been so strong within him, the world of art would probably have never known a Henry Irving, but the world of commerce might have been the richer to-day by an Anglo- Indian Henry Brodribb, sedate, methodical, pursy perhaps, and liverless. That instead of this estimable but possibly rather prosaic person we have .the brilliant actor-manager of the Lyceum, is a curious example of the truth of the axiom, " Talent does what it can : Genius does what it must ! " It is not so many years since Watkins Burroughs, disgusted at the indifference of GARRICK AND GEORGE II. 23 his patrons to the merits of the legitimate drama, festooned the doors of the Preston Theatre with crape, and painted over them the inscription : (!5one into FOR BRAINS, GOOD TASTE, AND APPRECIATION, DEFUNCT AMONGST THE UPPER TEN OF PRESTON. Mr. Irving has done more than any other living actor to render a repetition of any such practical satire impossible, although there are still slow-witted people who can no more appre- ciate his delicate art than George II. could that of Garrick, of whom it is on record that, after seeing the great little actor in Richard III., all that impressed the royal mind was the Lord Mayor ; and Garrick, thirsting for criti- cism of Richard, was fain to content himself with the King's rhapsodical ejaculations : "I do love dat Lord Mayor. Capital Lord Mayor ! Fine Lord Mayor, dat, Mr. Garrick ; where you get such capital Lord Mayor ? " 24 HENR Y IR VING. The provincial experience of Mr. Irving, naturally more or less of a probationary and educational phase in his career, may be dis- missed with the truism that to the hard work and varied impersonations which it entailed London owes the present institution of the Lyceum Theatre. As Mr. Irving himself says, " The lucky actor works ; " and it is, without question, to incessant, conscientious work, in the study and on the stage, that he owes, to a great extent, the position which he now enjoys. But still more do we owe the Lyceum drama of to-day to the actor-manager's worthy con- ception of the responsibilities and potentialities of the stage and of the actor's calling. Mr. Irving has said with truth : " To the thoughtful and reading man the stage brings the life, the fire, the colour, the vivid instinct which are beyond the reach of study. To the common, indifferent man, immersed as a rule in the business and socialities of daily life, it brings visions of glory and adventure, of emotion and of broad human interest. . . . To the most tor- pid and unobservant it exhibits the humorous in life, and the sparkle and finesse of language, A MAGNETIC PERSONALITY. 25 which in dull ordinary existence are shut out of knowledge or omitted from particular notice. To all it uncurtains a world, not that in which they live, and yet not other than it a world in which interest is heightened, and yet the con- ditions of truth are observed ; in which the capabilities of men and women are seen developed without losing their consistency to nature, and developed with a curious fidelity to simple and universal instincts of clear right and wrong." Upon another occasion, and referring more particularly to the functions of tl^e individual actor, Mr. Irving said: " Acting, like every other art, has a mechanism. No painter, how- ever great his imaginative power, can succeed in pure ignorance of the technicalities of his art ; and no actor can make much progress till he has mastered a certain mechanism which is within the scope of patient intelligence. Be- yond that is the sphere in which a magnetic personality exercises a power of sympathy which is irresistible and indefinable. That is great acting ; but though it is inborn, and cannot be taught, it can be brought forth only 26 HENR Y IR VING. when the actor is master of the methods of his craft." Upon these two maxims, it may be said, hang all the laws of the higher drama. And how has Mr. Irving translated his precepts into practice ; crystallised his theories into actualities ? To form a just estimate of this it is necessary to ignore to some extent the second stage of his professional evolution, when he was acting under the Bateman man- agement at all events until his insistence upon the dramatic possibilities of The Bells, which made the Bateman management successful, and gave him his first untrammelled opportunity of making a mark with metropolitan audiences judging him rather by what he has done under the favourable, if onerous, conditions of being answerable only to himself and the public, and free to carry out in their integrity and to their ultimate power his individual theories and principles. Of a truth Mr. Irving has not at any period let his critics languish for lack of material. The mere repetition of his principal imperson- ations is like the Homeric catalogue of ships. From the refined comedy of Benedick to the CONTRASTS AND CHASMS. 27 brutal blackguardism of Bill Sikes ; from the pure, gentle, ideal spirituality and sweet human- ity of the Vicar of Wakefield to the diabolical, mocking cynicism of Mephistopheles ; from the dignity of Charles I. and the curiously pathetic passion of Shylock to the flippant rascality of Jingle and the airy insolence of Digby Grant ; from the haunting terror of Mathias and the conscience-stricken misery of Eugene Aram to the subtle treachery of lago and the airy comedy of Doricourt; from the vulpine cunning of Louis XI. and the wittier brilliancy of Richelieu to the vivid contrast of a Dubosc and Lesurques, the devil-may-care knavery of a Robert Macaire and the pathos and nobility of a Robert Landry, are huge physical and psychical chasms for the genius of one actor to bridge. It would also be unjust to deny that, despite the fact that the marked indivi- dualities of Mr. Irving's physique and method necessarily make each of these impersonations to a certain extent a variation of himself, yet each possesses a distinct identity, and, for the time at least, entirely satisfies the intellectual appetite of the audience. 2 8 HENR Y IR VING. Mr. Irving has upon three occasions had the honour of delivering an address by special invita- tion before the authorities and undergraduates, professors and students, of three Univer- sities. The first occasion was on November 29th, 1876, when he was honoured by an address delivered to him, in the Dining Hall of Trinity College, Dublin, by the graduates and under- graduates, in the presence of the highest officers of the University, the address being read by the Member of Parliament for the University. On March 3Oth, 1885, at the invitation of the professors and students of Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S.A., Mr. Irving delivered a lecture on " Dramatic Art" at Sander s Theatre, Boston, before a crowded and enthusiastic audience, many members of which had come specially from New York. Mr. Irving gave then an eloquent exposition of his well-loved art, and combated the prejudicial impression many hold of a player's calling because he represents only feigned emotions, by pointing out that " this would apply with equal force to poet and novelist." After the address, President Eliot gave a reception to Mr. Irving, at which nearly DEB UT IN 'L OND ON. 29 all the Professors of Harvard University and the notables present in the theatre attended. The third occasion was on June 26th, 1886, at Oxford, when Mr. Irving delivered an address on M Four Great Actors," before the heads of the Colleges and a remarkable gathering of distinguished scholars. It was in 1859, at the Princess's Theatre, that Mr. Irving made his first appearance upon the London stage, but, with sound discretion, failing to see an opportunity of substantial advancement, he relinquished his engagement, returned to the provinces, and only came back to the metropolis after some years of further apprenticeship, to take leading parts at the St. James's Theatre, under the management of Miss Herbert, where he appeared, on October 6th, 1866, as Doricourt, in The Belles Stratagem, and at once proved himself a master of light and polished comedy. Then followed a medley of impersonations including a revival of Rawdon Scudamore in Himted Down, a character which Mr. Irving had created with striking success in the pro- vinces; Harry Dornton in The Road to Ruin ; 3 30 HENR Y IR VING. both Joseph and Charles Surface in The School for Scandal ; Robert Macaire, Petruchio, Bob Gassit in Dearer than Life; a realistic Bill Sikes, a creation of genuine power and origin- ality ; Young Marlow in She Stoops to Conquer; John Peerybingle in Dot, in which Mr. Irving showed that he could depict homely pathos as effectively as the nonchalant gaiety of light comedy or the power and depth of tragedy ; Reginald Chevenix in Uncle Dicks Darling ; Digby Grant in The Two Roses, a finished study of gentlemanly rascaldom, full of origin- ality and polished to the last degree ; an admirably impudent Jingle in Pickwick the oddest prelude conceivable to the creation which stimulated the fortunes of the Bateman manage- ment at the Lyceum, and compelled all the town to flock to see the newly-revealed dramatic comet which was glowing luridly in the weird, fantastic, thrilling character of Mathias in The Bells, that powerful melodrama, in which, like Single Speech Hamilton, poor one-play Leopold Lewis apparently exhausted his dramatic resources. And here it may not be out of place to LIGHT- CHA RA CTER-ECCEN1RIC- COMEDIAN. 3 1 correct a misapprehension which was, at all events at one time, prevalent, to the effect that while The Bells made Mr. Irving, he neglected to help poor Lewis in the days of his decline. Mr. Irving scrupulously regarded the amour- propre of the broken-down playwright, and did not parade his benevolence, but as a matter of common justice it should be recorded that Leopold Lewis received countless kindnesses from Mr. Irving in the troubles sequent to an unfortunate career, and, during the last years of his life, received a regular income from the actor. It is not altogether surprising that there was a time when a section of the critical wisdom of the day could find no more fitting badge for Mr. Irving than that of a light-character- eccentric-comedian. He was still, to it, the ugly duckling. It could not quite understand him and his originality, in which it only saw an exaggeration of character-acting, while his marked individuality appeared mere wanton, purposeless eccentricity. Instead of welcoming the advent of an actor who aimed above all else at fidelity of representation, and this in the face of so strongly-marked a physique as 32 HENR Y IR VING. to make versatility doubly difficult, the critics of this particular school seemed as if they would have welcomed a return to the classic but constrictive use of masks, rather than that their ideal of a particular character should not be rigidly maintained. With true artistic insight, Mr. Irving re- cognised in The Bells, rejected though it had been with contumely and 'cynical amusement by many a managerial wiseacre, his oppor- tunity. Not without hesitation, not without protest, was the play produced. Disaster was predicted with cheerful confidence, and the judicious grieved over what was considered a foregone failure. But what was the result ? The vivid realism, the apparent spontaneity, the grim picturesqueness, and, above all, the obvious truth to nature of the Mathias com- pelled attention, insisted upon serious criticism, even when they did not command the un qualified admiration of those who refused to hear the voice of this new and uncanny charmer. Never has Mr. Irving's own theory as to the power of an actor who combines the magnetic THE DIDEROT PARADOX. 33 force of a strong personality with a mastery of the resources of his art been more amply justified. Never, too, has he more plainly illustrated Diderot's paradox than in his crea- tion of the haunted, conscience-stricken burgo- master, for, of a surety, the agony of the terror-stricken Mathias, the struggles of the dual nature the eternal Ormuzd and Ahriman of humanity could only be realised by the vivid imagination of an artist ; and the secret of their hold upon the audience was to be found in their direct appeal to fundamental emotions, common to all ages, climes, and classes, made by an actor who was all the while a perfect master of his methods. As Mr. Irving has himself said : " Every jealous man does not utter laments as pathetic and eloquent as Othello's, but these are none the less human because they are couched in splendid diction. They move the hearer because they are the utterance of a man's agony. . . . The whole soul of an actor may be engaged in Hamlet's revenge upon Claudius, but he need not on that account feel any desire to slay the excellent gentleman who enacts the King." 34 HENR Y IR VING. No doubt for a while the sheer horror of the new Lyceum drama drew the public with all the primitive and powerful fascination of crime. The awful death of Mathias, the enthralling dream scene, the romantic realism of the whole thing, gripped the imagination even of the slowest-witted, much as if some ghastly crime had been enacted in their midst and was being served up to them with sauce piquante by the skilled special correspondents of an enterprising Press. But this succes de thorreur, morbid and undesirable, soon gave place to an honest appreciation of the com- bined force and finesse with which a great actor could lift a part from its melodramatic low-level origin into the healthier air of tragedy, in which the passions of the audience might be stirred, not unworthily. The courage of Mr. Irving in choosing this play was all the more remarkable as a different version of Le Juif Polonais had been produced at another theatre with anything but success. But in the hands of Mr. Irving the easily vulgarised figure of Mathias became a finished study profoundly true and thought-compelling, IRVINGMANIA AND IRVINGPHOBIA. 35 exhibiting human nature under conditions as exceptional as they were, in their own way, fascinating. Intensity and intelligence made the English version of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian's <*tude-dramatique a truly absorbing study, instead of merely an appalling and repellent story of a crime and its punishment ; and, on the morning of November 26th, 1871, Mr. Irving awoke, in Byronic fashion, to find him- self famous. It was not long before society split into two camps the Irving-idolaters, and the Anti- Irvingites. The individualities of the actor in gait and pronunciation were stigmatised as ineradicable blots or hailed as affording a new and higher criterion of histrionic excellence ; and, as the " mannerisms " of the French dramatist Marivaux necessitated the coining of a new word, marivaudage, so the cult of the new dramatic star soon gave us Irvingese, Irvingmania, and Irvingphobia, and Henry Irving became a universal dinner-table topic, as indispensable as the weather, and far more interesting. For this alone Mr. Irving deserves well of his age, for while amusing 36 HENR Y IR VING. subjects are not always interesting, and inter- esting subjects rarely amusing, he and his art are many-sided enough to be both. It would not be easy to mention any person and place the sudden blotting out of whom or which would make so lamentable a gap in the social life of to-day as Mr. Irving and the Lyceum Theatre. From the morbid, monomaniacal Mathias Mr. Irving passed at a bound to the other extreme of his art, and appeared on April ist, 1872, as Jeremy Diddler in the old-fashioned farce, Raising the Wind. But this was only an instance of reculer pour mieux sauter, and his next essay proved to be one of his finest creations, namely, that of Charles I. in Mr. W. G. Wills's poetical drama of that name. It was on September 28th of the same year that Mr. Irving gave to the stage his dignified and touching picture of the White King a work of rare beauty, softened by countless tender touches, invested with royal dignity, and illumined by an innate spirituality which seemed to surround the picturesque personality of the King with the sanctity of martyrdom. THE WHITE KING:' 37 The ascetic features of the actor, humanised and made gentle by the soft dark eyes and the tender smile, and with an intellectual beauty to MR. HENRY IRVIXC. AS CHARLES I. many people far more fascinating than the comely curves, pink and white perfection, and sleek shapeliness of the stage Adonis, har- monised well with the dramatist's conception of 38 HENR Y IR VING. the First Charles ; and the picturesque dress, a faithful copy of Van Dyck, with the calmly regal bearing, combined to make one of the most finished and refined stage pictures of the period. The unstudied grace of gesture, the high-bred inflections of the voice, all were admirable, and those who have witnessed the magnificent moment when the King, flinging back his cloak with a superb gesture, half of contempt, half of simple confidence in " the divinity that doth hedge a king," held his breast at the mercy of the rebels' pikes ; or that final scene upon the threshold of the scaffold, when women sobbed and men were strangely moved as the pathos culminated in the King's farewell to his wife and little children, will not easily forget the Charles I. of Henry Irving. That the melancholy beauty of the latest stage- version of Charles was intensified at the expense of Cromwell, who was painted with an unsparing brush as a human monster unfamiliar to the more judicial pages of the historian, does not alter the fact that Mr. Irving's creation was one of exceptional dignity ; and its conscientious THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIME. 39 elaboration proved that he was uttering no idle words when he expressed the opinion that to have an ideal in art, and to strive through one's life to embody it, may be a passion to the actor as it may be to the poet. But the day of absolute realisation of his ideals was not yet come to the now celebrated actor. That was to be when, swaying a dual sceptre Mr. Irving should lord it at the Lyceum six years later as actor-manager. But how full of excellent work those six years of the Bateman management were ! Creation followed creation, success succeeded success. In April 1873 Mr- Wills provided Mr. Irving with a part absolutely opposed at all points to that of Charles, yet one which was peculiarly adapted to the actor's physique and to his methods as manifested in Mathias. As Eugene Aram, another study in the psychology of crime was made by Mr. Irving, and, with all the intensity of his mental power, he gave the world a representation of terror, remorse, bravado, and despair which will not be soon forgotten, evanescent as the greatest triumphs and most moving effects of an actor's art must 40 HENR Y IR VING. inevitably be. The defiance of the vulgar Houseman, the agony in the churchyard, the moment when with true artistic instinct Aram falls at the foot of a cross in the dumb misery of despair, the final confession and death, were details which stamped the impersonation as more than merely clever ; and the play-going public looked forward with exceptional interest to Mr* Irving's creation of Richelieu in Lord Lytton's drama of that name, which was announced for September 27th, 1873. Here, too, a complete triumph awaited the actor. To this day there are not wanting those who consider that the wily, worldly old Cardinal was, and is, the best of Mr. Irving's many impersonations. But this opinion was not universal, and there were those who found Richelieu disappointing, complaining that for three acts he was spiritless, and in the fourth delirious. Delirious or no, the audience accepted with instinctive justice, and without a dissentient voice, Mr. Irving's impersonation as a vivid, intellectual presentment of an exceptionally interesting figure. Here again Mr. Irving's make-up was fault- MR. IRVING AS HAMLET. or THE UNIVERSITY or Af?7 '"HE UNIVERSITY A PRINCE^F THE CHURCH. 43 less, his picturesqueness unmarred by a single inconsistency, -his bearing perfect in its versa- tility. Sarcasm and philosophy, fierce priestly denunciation as when he all at once clothes himself in the sacerdotal dignity of a prince of the Church, and threatens the sacrilegious servants of the King with the awful curse of Rome all seemed to spring spontaneously from Richelieu's lips ; and thus to make the key-note of the drama tragic is surely a higher interpretation than that of Macready, who presented the Cardinal as something very like a comic character in the earlier scenes of the play. After Mr. Irving's Richelieu it would be as reasonable to expect an intelligent public to accept the old-time reading of Shylock, as a comic part, to be played by the low-comedian of the company in a red wig. The dramatic version of Balzac's romantic story of the bricked-up lover, written by Mr. Hamilton Aide under the title of Philip and produced on the stage of the Lyceum on February yth, 1874, gave Mr. Irving one more opportunity of depicting the misery of remorse, accentuated this time by the addition of jealousy. 44 HENR Y IR VING. Philip is a sombre young Spaniard, the victim of remorse for the supposed murder of his half-brother, and consumed with jealousy of his wife. It can easily be imagined what Mr. Irving would make of these two powerful passions, and his Philip was a distinctly inter- esting study, despite many improbabilities in the circumstances by which he was conditioned. After an intervening revival of The Bells, intense interest centred in the Lyceum again in October, on the 3ist of which month Mr. Irving appeared as Hamlet. There have been so many Hamlets, good, bad, and indifferent, that it might almost have been supposed that even an impersonation by so interesting an actor as Mr. Irving might excite but a languid and conventionally cour- teous show of interest, and secure nothing more satisfactory than a succes destime. But to English audiences there seems to be a perennial charm about this wonderful play, and it obviously possesses a peculiar fascination for actors. It was objected by some sticklers for con- sistency that Mr. Irving was too old to play the Prince of Denmark with effect, as he could ACTORS' MANNERISMS. 45 not look the part. Others thought that his " mannerisms " would render anything but a caricature of Hamlet impossible as though " mannerisms," or a powerful personality, were not inseparable from great acting. As an old dramatist once said : "No man has ever been a popular favourite in my time unless he was a pronounced mannerist. Charles Kemble was a silver-toned, sententious mannerist ; Edmund Kean was a stuttering, spasmodic mannerist ; Macready and Phelps always grim and growling over their bones ; Charles Kean had a chronic cold in the head; Keeley was sleek and sleepy; Buckstone a chuckler ; Compton funny as a funeral; Ben Webster always imperfect, and had a Somersetshire dialect ; Mathews a Mephisto in kid gloves and patent leather boots ; Ryder a roarer," and it is an open question whether the so-called "mannerisms" of Henry Irving have not helped rather than hindered his popu- larity, even if now and then they have obtruded themselves out of season to the detriment, in some degree, of his art. But mannerisms or no mannerisms, Hamlet was a success. Thoughtful to the minutest 4 46 HENR Y IR VING. detail, distinguished, refined, picturesque, intelli- gent and intelligible, the new Hamlet made his mark from the first moment of his effective entrance, and the interest grew as the play progressed. It is a moot point whether Mr. Irving is the more successful when he appeals to the heads or to the hearts of his audience. Upon either theory his complete success as Hamlet can be understood. Unconventional, original, as in many respects it was, Mr. Irving's Hamlet bore in every tone, gesture, and glance the amplest evidence of earnest study. The assumed madness, the mingled pity and horror of his mother, the marvellous by-play in the great play-scene, the deliberate, novel, and natural method of the soliloquies, the abandon- ment of certain stage traditions and the cou- rageous setting of new precedents, all went to prove that the complex nature and conflicting surroundings of the ill-starred Prince had been the subject of close and zestful study upon the part of the actor. The impersonation was an intellectual treat throughout, and at one or two great moments it stirred the emotions also into activity, and it was felt that in Mr. Irving we BEHIND THE SCENES. 47 had as complete and satisfactory a representa- tive of the Danish Prince as even the most exigcant critic, the most bigoted and confirmed laudator temporis acti, could desire ; and the play ran for two hundred representations the longest run of Hamlet on record. It was during the run of Hamlet that a very amusing contretemps was avoided by a hair's breadth of good luck. His Excellency the Chinese Ambassador and his attendant, petti- coated, pig-tailed, and with the little round button at the top, like the Great Panjandrum, had been "behind the scenes." Upon making their way out from the dim regions they mistook the route, and it was only by the merest accident that they did not suddenly appear on the stage at the most critical moment of the play-scene, when their apparition would probably have 41 frighted" the King even more than the " false fires " of the players hired by Hamlet ; while the effect upon the audience would have been one of those things that can be " better imagined than described." On June 29th, 1875, Hamlet came to an end, to be superseded by Macbeth on September 1 8th, 48 HENR Y IR VI NG. a revival to the full as interesting, as conscien- tious, as artistically complete, as its predecessor; but which did not, so far as the assumption of the title role by Mr. Irving, give general satis- faction. The actor was intense as ever, his conception of the ambitious, vacillating Thane was both unconventional and consistent, and there were great moments in the impersonation. But the infirmity of purpose which other actors, with the exception of Edmund Kean, have slurred over, was perhaps insisted upon a little too obtrusively, and without doubt Mr. Irving's peculiarities of gait and elocution were more noticeable than usual ; and as these are red rags to a certain class of playgoers, the " occasion to blaspheme" was not wasted upon the enemy. Yet the actor's infinite resources in the way of inventing ''business" stood him in good stead, and it was generally admitted that his by-play and facial expressiveness were as mutely eloquent as ever, and that while the conception of the new Macbeth might not be altogether satisfying, the presentment of human passions was lucid and subtle as in other of the actor's creations. A CLASHING OF CRITICS. 49 The metamorphosis of Macbeth from a not ignobly ambitious or naturally craven man, by the fascination and spell of superstitious belief in a prophecy which jumped with his own ambition, was finely indicated ; so, too, were the remorse, the pitiful terror, the struggle between the higher and lower nature of the man, all the outcome of supernatural influence, acting upon a weak rather than a wicked nature, in a superstitious age the impersona- tion proving an interesting, if not an absolutely great, performance. Then came Othello, in February 1876, and again opposing critical forces met and clashed with noisy vigour. Again "Mr. Irving had for- saken tradition in costume and in conception of the part ; and although there were many touches of the master-hand patent from time to time, the impersonation cannot rank amongst the great successes of the courageous actor. There was undoubtedly an occasional tendency in Mr. Irving's Moor to hysteria, and some- times a lapse into lachrymosity, which equally robbed Othello of the dignity which is an integral part of his character, read simply by 5 o HENR Y IR VING. the light of the Shakespearean text. Inevitably the Anti-Irvingites seized with avidity upon the chance .to " batten on this Moor," and would,, no doubt, have gladly consumed him utterly. But, despite frantic gesticulation and incoherent unintelligibility, despite the whirlwind of pas- sion and the occasionally lugubrious sentimen- tality and excessive uxoriousness, the indications of dawning jealousy, the sensitive delicacy acid self-condemnation with which Othello commis- sions lago to set Emilia to spy upon Desdemona, and the sudden tragedy and irresistible pathos of his self-slaughter and death, dragging his dying body to the side of his victim's couch and there falling dead, compelled an admiration which might be withheld from the impersonation as a whole, as in Othello again those irrepress- ible " mannerisms " thrust themselves unduly to the front, to the ctelight of captious critics. After Othello had run for some two months, Shakespeare was abandoned for a while, and the Poet Laureate's historical drama, Queen Mary, produced in elaborate and imposing fashion, Mr. Irving creating the part of Philip of Spain. In the adaptation and representation A DRESSING-GOWN "-DE LUXE." 5 r of this drama and its hero for the stage, there seemed to be a courtesy competition, a rivalry in relinquishment, between the author and the actor. The Laureate sacrificed personage after personage, scene after scene ; and, not to be outdone in graceful renunciation, Mr. Irving stripped himself well-nigh bare of his manner- isms, exhibiting a self-control, a moderation, an absence of his usual restless energy, which not only befitted the cool callousness of the royal and heartless King, but revealed the actor in a new, subdued, and quietly-effective light. The cynical cruelty of his treatment of Mary - devoid of all humanity, mocking and merciless, was admirably conveyed, and, as an instance of polished brutality, Philip was a brilliant creation. After a short and not too successful career, Queen Mary gave place to The Bells and The Belle s Stratagem, a return to melodrama, old comedy, and a Doricourt dressing-gown de luxe, which is said to have cost three and a half guineas a yard ; to be followed, however, quickly, by a remarkably successful Shake- spearean provincial tour, which was the prelude 52 HENR Y IR VING. to another Shakespearean revival at the Ly- ceum, in the shape of the inauguration of the season of 1877 by a production of Richard III. Mr. Irving wisely discarded the mutilated, not to say irreverently tinkered, version of Colley Gibber, and reverted to the original text. His impersonation of the crouch-backed Duke of Gloucester proved to be instinct with intelligence- full of force and fire, the charac- teristics of the " unpopular King" being clearly marked, while anything like a vulgar exagge- ration of his physical deformity was avoided. The cynical cruelty of Richard's forecast of the death of the young princes, the passion of his love-scene with the Lady Anne, were artistic and finished to the last degree. In this new impersonation Mr. Irving fully atoned for any alleged shortcomings in Macbeth and Othello. Richard was well-nigh perfect. All the cyni- cism and subtlety of the man, as we feel that he must have,been, were brought out boldly by the art of the actor, and the curiously interesting, if rather painful, study of a deformed, misshapen, malignant creature, glorying, in a sense, in his own moral and physical warping, was presented THE " UNPOPULAR KING." 53 with quite exceptional skill. The new Glouces- ter was a triumph of originality and indepen- dence, and was if anything too well furnished with the physiognomical expressiveness and ingenious by-play of which Mr. Irving is so complete a master ; but the extreme discretion of the actor in limiting the physical pecu- liarities of the character, and emphasising the ingenuity of Richard's dissimulation, and Mr. Irving's power of engrossing the imagination of an audience by cleverly conceived " business," were very conspicuous, notably when he studied the map of the battle-field in his tent, before the engagement, in absolute silence, yet without for a single moment losing grip of the complete attention of his audience. As though in illustration of Diderot's " non- sensibility " theory, the next appearance of Mr. Irving was in the two roles of Joseph Lesurques and Dubosc, in Charles Reade's adaptation of Le Courier de Lyons, produced at the Lyceum on May iQth, 1877. For one man to impersonate with convincing realism two such widely divergent characters in the same play was itself a proof of genius. The trans- 54 HENR Y IR I 'ING. formation, in appearance, manner, voice, was most remarkable in the last act, when after the brutal ruffian Dubosc, uncouth, passionate, hoarse, excited by drink, makes a savage attack upon Fouinard, and then lapses into delirious terror and violent anger with those who have betrayed him, and rushes, distorted and disfigured with rage and fear, behind the opening door Lesurques enters a few seconds later, calm and self-possessed, the very type of unassuming, well-bred ease. All the passion and brutality of Dubosc were obliterated as though they had never been, and Mr. Irving's ability to convey the agony of a noble-minded man accused of a revolting crime, and hedged in by circumstantial evidence of a convincing kind, and the physical traits common to the two men, differing so utterly in nature, more than justified his following the lead of Charles Kean and taking part in an uncomfortably violent melodrama. It was on March Qth, 1878, that Mr. Irving appeared for the first time as Louis XI. in Dion Boucicault's adaptation of Casimir Delavigne's drama, and simply took his A NIGHTMARE OF MALIGNANT SENILITY. 55 audience by storm by the brilliant intel- lectuality of his impersonation. The dramatist has played no courtier's part in dealing with this mean and shifty monarch. Yet there are rags and tatters of regality still clinging to the decrepit, toothless, crafty old King, and now and then they flutter feebly in defence of the right of Louis to a royal title. For the most part the character is despicable, treacherous, malignant, yet Mr. Irving never quite allows his audience to forget that Louis, with all his squalid crouching over the fire, his grim, toothless chuckling over mean triumphs, his malign ill-will, his saturnine humour, his senile incipient decay of body and mind, his doting superstition, his hobbling gait and fantastic mopping and mowing, is still a man, is still a King. Conditioned by the physical limits of extreme old age, Mr. Irving runs the gamut of human emotions in this part, while the make-up of Louis is perfect a very nightmare of repellent, malignant senility. The grim comedy, too, of the scene with the peasants in the third act, and the ghastly 56 HENR Y IR VI NG. terror of the fourth, when the King, in a frenzy of passionate hate, fights the air in the belief that he is slaying the Due de Nemours, lead up to the really marvellous death-scene in the fifth act a masterpiece of painful realism, illustrating the utter collapse of physical strength and the pitiless approach of death with a fidelity that is positively appalling. In the opinion of many, Mr. Irving's Louis XI. remains the impersonation of all others most incontestably instinct with genius from first to last, a quite remarkable effort, intellectually convincing and terrible in its unsparing truth. This wonderful impersonation was followed by that of Vanderdecken on June 8th, in Messrs. W. G. Wills and Percy Fitzgerald's drama of that name ; but although the character was, in its way, weirdly impressive and admirably picturesque, it did not rank with Mr. Irving's most successful parts, and in the following month the drama was succeeded by Pickwick, in which, as Jingle, Mr. Irving again showed a positively ebullient humour. December 3Oth, 1878, was a red-letter day in Mr. Irving's career, for on that date the AN EXCELLENI IDEAL. 57 Lyceum was re-opened under his management a fact which, while it imposed new obliga- tions, new labours, new responsibilities, upon him, possessed the compensating advantage of giving him an absolutely free hand. Now, if at all, he might be expected to carry out his ideas to their perfect fruition, to prove that his apostrophe of the actor's calling was no mere vapouring affectation. " How noble the privilege," said Mr. Irving, speaking of the relations of actor and audience, " to work upon these finer these finest feelings of universal humanity ! How engross- ing the fascination of those thousands of steady eyes, and sound sympathies, and beating hearts which an actor confronts, with the confidence of friendship and co-operation, as he steps upon the stage to work out in action his long-pent comprehension of a noble master- piece ! " And now the time had come for the justification of this theory, the fulfilment of this excellent ideal. Fortified by the con- sciousness of a devoted following and many notable successes in the past, Mr. Irving entered upon his new role of actor-manager 58 HENR Y 1R VING. with many points in his favour. His was now the opportunity of making the Lyceum a power the shrine of culture, the triumph of art, the Mecca of the aesthetic, the intellectual, the intense. Their confidence he already pos- sessed, and he promptly justified it further by the engagement of Miss Ellen Terry his dramatic "affinity" if there be such a thing in art, and by the revival in splendid fashion of Hamlet. He had already proved that the Prince of Denmark, to use his own words, was " flesh and blood, and not a bundle of philoso- phies," and as such had an unfailing hold upon human sympathies, and upon this memorable first night anxious as he must have been, burdened with the responsibility of a divided duty in his dual capacity of manager and actor, Mr. Irving re-created the sad and thoughtful Hamlet with a brilliancy and individuality more remarkable than ever. Spurred by a de- monstration of loyal attachment such as might have made even a less emotional man than Henry Irving glad and grateful, he excelled himself, and that initial performance of Hamfo under the new regime was of splendid augury A RANTING LOVER. 59 proved the right of the actor to assume absolute control, and sent the audience away with bright anticipations, destined in due course to be realised to the full. The season of 1879 was more remarkable for revivals than new productions, the only novelty in Mr. Irving's impersonations being Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons, pro- duced with mediocre success on April 26th. Mr. Irving is never seen at his best in the role of a ranting lover, and his Claude, though not without merit and a certain originality of treatment, need not be dwelt upon in the presence of so many assumptions of far more importance. Somewhat to the dismay of his disciples, Mr. Irving, in his speech at the end of the season, threatened his audience with a revival of some old and effete dramas, such as The Stranger, The Iron Chest, and The Gamester ; but happily this infliction was reduced to one only, The Iron Chest, produced without conspicuous suc- cess on September 27th, Mr. Irving as Sir Edward Mortimer adding one more figure to his gallery of conscience-stricken criminals. 6o HENRY IRVING. Following this came a production of TJie Merchant of Venice which proved that Shake- spearean drama is never an anachronism, but a thing for all time. The new Shylock was a MR. IRVING AS SHYLOCK. brilliant impersonation, conceived in a nobler spirit than convention would have prompted, and carried out with characteristic consistency. Never before had Shylock been invested with so much dignity. Never before had he so AN UNCONVENTIONAL SHYLOCK, 61 clearly embodied all the pathos of a conquered, down-trodden, despised, yet innately great people. Never before had racial character- istics been so strongly marked, yet kept so studiously within the boundary which divides character-acting from caricature. Never before had there been a Shylock for whom it was so easy to feel respect and sympathy. The con- ventional and vulgar notion of a contemptible Jew usurer, with no soul above his money- bags, no care beyond the natural instinct of paternal affection for aught but his ducats, was cast to the winds, and in its place we had a picturesque and pathetic figure, cherishing gold, it is true, but as a shield from Gentile contumely, a sole weapon of defence against powerful and pitiless persecutors ; and even the cruel clamouring for the " pound of flesh lost something of its savagery, conditioned by the actor's new conception of the character. That Mr. Irving had given minute study to the part and to the play was evident by some bits of " business " not to be found in Shake- speare or in tradition, but which none the less aided the actor's new reading of the part. 5 62 HENR Y IR VING. The noisy execration of the crowd outside the court, after Shylock's dignified exit, growing fainter by degrees, and the unexpected lifting of the curtain, showing the baffled Jew striding moodily to the home from which, all unknown to him, his daughter had fled, were innovations of genuine artistic value, emphasising the pathos of the new rendition, and compelling sympathy for the defeated, deserted, despairing man. Whether a Pope of to-day would be disposed to say of Mr. Irving's impersonation as the keen little poet-critic said of Macklin's Shylock "This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew" is open to discussion ; but it might reasonably be said of Mr. Irving, as of his great pre- decessor in the part, that he has given us emphatically " his own Jew." The revival of The Merchant of Venice, sumptuous, colourful, satisfying alike to eye and brain, ran for no less than two hundred and fifty nights, and during the latter part of the period Mr. Irving appeared on the same nights as the lover, Count Tristan, in Mr. Wills's lolanthe, a version of King Rtne^s Daughter, by Herz. " THE CORS1CAN BROTHERS." 63 Always possessed, like most people of imagi- native minds, by a penchant for the mysterious in nature, it was not surprising that the autumn season of 1880 should find Mr. Irving returning to melodramatic mysticism, and producing, on September r8th, Boucicault's version of Les Freres Corses. In The Corsican Brothers, as Fabien and Louis dei Franchi, Mr. Irving had a comparatively easy task. The picturesque- ness and mysterious affinity of the twin brothers, the occult sympathy which is the keynote of the play, were well within the range of his art, and the romantic story, splendidly illustrated by a series of perfectly appointed stage pictures, and invested with peculiar interest by Mr. Irving' s assumption of the sympathetic twins, proved popular, and titillated successfully that taste for the creepy and supernatural which is innate in the great majority. The thrilling tremolo of the time-honoured Ghost Melody, the masterly duel in the wood with Chateau Renaud, and the all-pervading air of supernaturalism, fascinated the town, and enabled Mr. Irving to congratu late himself upon yet one more success. The new year was destined to see one of 64 HENR Y IR VING. the few new plays produced by Mr. Irving put upon the stage, and on January 3rd, 1881, the Laureate and the Lyceum actor-manager were again in conjunction. But again the two luminaries did not prove as brilliantly attractive as might have been expected. Yet Mr. Irving did all for the play that art and enterprise could suggest. The staging was superb, one scene, the interior of the Temple of Artemis, being almost oppressively solid and magnificent. All that music, incense, elaborate ritual, the mysterious flickerings of sacred fires, the ornate and imposing ceremonial of Pagan religious rites could do, was pressed into the service of the tragedy, but for all that The Cup was not an unqualified success. The diction of the work, like everything from the pen of Tennyson, was graceful, polished, faultily fault- less ; but the theme was unpleasant, unwhole- some, and not new. The crime of Camma, in avenging the death of her husband by that of Synorix, has been dealt with on the stage more than once; and, moreover, the motif of the play does not lend itself consistently to the Laureate's daintiness of diction, the result being that the A SENSUAL PAGAN. 65 speeches sometimes fail to convince a fatal fault in work presented upon the stage. As the libertine Synorix, enamoured to mad- ness of the beautiful Priestess of Artemis, Mr. Irving was vigorous, realistic, consistent, and audacious. He left no doubt as to the nature of the sensual Pagan, nor as to the object and passion of his life. The barbarian is a pictur- esque semi-savage and a bold and effective study, but there is a lack of human sympathy, an absence of verisimilitude about the tragedy, for which no managerial lavishness or perfect actor-craft could atone, and The Cup proved likely to remain a play for the study rather than the stage. On May 2nd, 1881, London playgoers ex- perienced a somewhat exceptional pleasure in a revival of Othello at the Lyceum, with Mr. Irving and Mr. Booth playing lago and the Moor on alternate nights, with Miss Ellen Terry as Desdemona. Naturally, the lago of so subtle a master of method and finesse as Mr. Irving was antici- pated with lively interest, and the event justified the utmost expectations of his admirers. Malign, 66 HENR Y IR VIN&. merciless, yet veiling both qualities under an irresistible air of swaggering candour, the new lago was daring, original, effective fertile in fresh " business," restlessly energetic, spirited and vigorous from first to last, and the novel revival proved a success in every sense of the word. The summer season of 1881 was brought to a close with a representation of The Hunchback, with Mr. Irving as Modus, in which role he displayed a spirit of true comedy, and showed that if he could not play the sentimental lover to advantage he was able to invest the part of a more fanciful wooer with a charm of its own. On Boxing-night, Mr. Irving revived The Two Roses, but although the humour of his impersonation of Digby Grant was riper than ever, the always thin plot and dialogue now proved too weak for popular taste, accustomed to dramatic strong meat; and on March nth, 1882, an elaborate revival of Romeo and Juliet took the stage at the Lyceum, and occupied it, despite much critical dissension, for a hundred and sixty representations. TWO LOVERS. 6; The beautiful stage-pictures, the perfect stage-management, compelled admiration and commanded success. But the Romeo of Mr. Irving was not ideally excellent. Refined, thoughtful, picturesque, it was an admirable presentment of the graver, sterner side of the character, but the boyish exuberance of passion, the youthful inflammability of temperament, which are the notes of Romeo's nature in the earlier scenes, were sought almost in vain. In his despair, when the boyish, impulsive lover had been sharply urged by sorrow into man- hood, Mr. Irving-was excellent, and again his by-play and significance of look and gesture and movement were full of intelligence. But the revival is remembered rather as a managerial than a histrionic success. But Mr. Irving had a lover of another kind in store, and with admirable discretion his next Shakespearean revival was of that happy comedy Much Ado about Nothing. London playgoers were on the tiptoe of ex- pectation as rumours of colossal preparations floated about town, and, while even unbelievers recognised the wisdom of Mr. Irving's latest 68 HENRY IRVING. choice, his votaries anticipated, and rightly, that his Benedick would rank amongst his most consummately artistic impersonations. And in truth the modern stage has seen I MR. IRVING AS BENEDICK. nothing finer in pure high comedy than the Benedick of Mr. Irving. The production of Much Ado about Nothing, on October nth, 1882, had been much canvassed, yet even Mr. Irving's most loyal admirers scarcely hoped for A PERFECT BENEDICK. 69 such an unqualified triumph. But it was not surprising that the distinction, the perfect refinement and delicate humour, the high-bred courtesy and quick play of fancy of this delight- ful Shakespearean creation, should find satisfy- ing realisation in the person of so refined and distinguished an actor. And curiously enough, that even the conquest of the cavillers might lack nothing, the actor's " mannerisms" almost absolutely disappeared. The carriage of this new Benedick was grace and courtliness incar- nate ; the witty verbal thrust and parry were delivered as clearly and intelligibly as the dullard on the one hand and the purist on the other could desire ; the whimsical humour and play of fancy which make Benedick a figure for all time were never more fully brought out by an actor or more completely enjoyed by an audience ; the creation of Shakespeare, refined, petulant, loyal, affectionate, embittered, but never malignant or mean, was embodied to perfection by Mr. Irving, whose Benedick must always remain one of the most pic- turesque and absolutely charming of his many impersonations. ; o HENR Y IR VING. In the inevitable speech on the first night of Much Ado about Nothing Mr. Irving said : " I am told sometimes that I do wrong to inflict on you the tediousness of Shakespeare an author whose works some of the wise judges of dramatic art assure us are rather dull and tiresome to a nineteenth-century audience ; " but his own inimitable acting made the three- centuries-old play as stirring and as pleasing as it ever could have been in its earliest days. As a writer of vers de socidte said at the time : " And yet and yet there are a few Poor fools who fondly cherish A hope that what is good and true Will somehow never perish ; Who hold a stupid threadbare creed, That in our poet's pages There lies enough true life indeed To last through all the ages ; " Who feel his magic to be such, That till the great Hereafter, All hearts shall own his gentle touch With weeping and with laughter ; Who know that while this world shall last, As long as words are spoken, His fame shall never be o'ercast, His kingly sway be broken." A UNIQUE BANQUET. 71 And the success of the revival proved that, as Mr. Irving once said, "Shakespeare is as modern as any playwright of our time. The delightful humour of Much Ado about Nothing is as highly relished as the best comedy of our own life and manners." To this most admirable production suc- ceeded a number of revivals of pieces to be taken to America ; and when the time of departure drew near, the whole artistic world of London exerted itself to speed the great actor on his voyage with every token of honour and goodwill. Latterly the farewell banquet- ing business has been carried by enthusiasts to ridiculous excess, but the great dinner given to Mr. Irving at St. James's Hall, on July 4th, 1883, was unique in stage history. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge presided, and a great crowd, brilliant in literature, the arts, and society, flocked to do honour to the great actor. Five hundred guests, almost without exception men of some distinction, sat down, and some two thousand five hundred applicants for tickets had to be refused. The demonstra- tion was indeed remarkable, and the eloquent 72 HENR Y IR VING. speech of the Lord Chief Justice a brilliant tribute to Mr. Irving and his art. In one clever passage Lord Coleridge summed up the secret of Mr. Irving's power. " It does not become me now," said the Lord Chief Justice, " to analyse critically Mr. Irving's genius, to weigh it in the balance of opinion, or to say that in this or in that it is deficient. To me it is sufficient to be sure that he has an extraordinary and unusual power of conveying the conception of the part which he acts, that he has the power of expressing to me and to others, and making us com- prehend, what is in his own mind, and what is his own distinct intellectual conviction." And in his modest and dignified reply, Mr. Irving seemed happily to hit upon his own secret of success when he said, speaking of actors who would elevate their art : u To effect this creditable purpose they must bring resolute energy and unfaltering labour to their work ; they must be content to spurn delights and live laborious days ; they must remember that whatever is excellent in art must spring from labour and endurance." A FAREWELL DEMONSTRATION. 73 This tribute of the representatives of litera- ture, learning, and the arts was followed by a great popular farewell demonstration within the walls of the Lyceum. With equal courage and discretion Mr. Irving elected to appear that night in two totally dissimilar characters to give a speci- men of his excellent comedy as Doricourt, and of his tragic power as Aram. He was admirable in both, but the real event of the night was the farewell speech, when the audience cheered like people possessed, women did not disguise their emotion, and Mr. Irving himself was profoundly moved. In the face of such a scene the most cynical unbeliever in the stage, save as one of many methods pour passer le temps, could not but admit the influence for good or evil it might be in the hands of a " magnetic personality " capable of eliciting such emotion as Mr. Irving. A short tour in the provinces followed the Lyceum farewell, and at a banquet in Edin- burgh Mr. Irving made a clever speech, in which he said : "I am proud of being an actor, and I am proud of my art. It is an 74 HENR Y IR VING. art which never dies whose end and aim is to hold the mirror up to nature, to give flesh and blood to the poet's conception, and to lay bare to an audience the heart and soul of the character which the actor may attempt to portray. It has been the habit of people to talk of Shakespearean interpretations as classics. We hear of classic this and classic that ; and if classic is to be refined, and pure, and thoughtful, and natural, then let us be classic by all means ; but if in the interpreta- tion of Shakespeare to be classic is to be anything but natural, then the classic is to my thinking a most dangerous rock to strike upon ; and as I would be natural in the repre- sentation of character, so I would be truthful in the mounting of plays. My object in this is to do all in my power to heighten, and not distract, the imagination to produce a play in harmony with the poet's ideas, and to give all the picturesque effect that the poet's text will justify." On October i ith the Britannic steamed away from Liverpool to New York, bearing thither Mr. Irving and Miss Terry, after a final " God- COMPLIMENTS AND CANVAS-BACK DUCKS. 75 speed," in which the very hearts of the people spoke, and which Mr. Irving received with bared and bowed head, touched beyond words. The American tour, which commenced in New York on Monday, October 29th, 1883, and terminated in the same city on March 3Oth, 1884, was one round of triumphs, banquets, bouquets, wreaths, speeches, compliments, canvas-back ducks, good-will, good houses, and good cheer. The American interviewers were enraptured with so fertile a subject, the American critics almost unanimous in their praise ; the American public generous and appreciative to a fault. A leading critic summed up the secret of the great actor's charm in a phrase, by assert- ing that he " speaks to the soul and the ima- gination," and the Americans promptly showed their desire to be credited with the possession of both these good things by crowding the theatres, and so, to the solid satisfaction of all concerned, proving that soulful and imaginative acting is a paying concern. While Mr. Irving was playing in a town in the " Wild West," he experienced for the first and last time something like discourtesy from 76 HENR Y IR VING. the manager of the hotel at which he was stopping. Mr. Irving had with him his pet dog, " Fussie," between whom and himself a strong affection exists. But the hotel manager was indisposed to accept a dog as a visitor in his establishment, and informed Mr. Irving with unnecessary brusquerie that "Fussie" must go. Protest and expostulation proving wholly vain, Mr. Irving finally precipitated matters by saying calmly : " Very well, bring me my bill. If the dog goes, I go too." The manager then assured Mr. Irving that the dog should be well taken care of outside the hotel if he himself remained, but this did not meet with the actor's approval. He had no desire to leave, but at the same time he was determined not to part with his dog ; and all at once an inspiration came to him, and in his coolest fashion he looked at the manager quietly and remarked : " No that won't do. We'll go. / don't mind, but when the dog has gone what will you do about the rats ? " Apologies, en- treaties, humility of manager, slow yielding "FUSSIES* 77 of Mr. Irving, who remained in the hotel, and heard nothing more of the necessity of " boarding out" his faithful " Fussie." Mr. Irving made his re-appearance at the Lyceum after his first visit to America on the night of May 3ist, 1884, as Benedick, in a revival of Much Ado about Nothing. The moment he appeared on the stage, the audi- torium became the scene of the wildest enthu- siasm. So vigorous and vociferous was the audience in its manifestations of cordial welcome and hearty goodwill, that for a time the pro- gress of the play was interrupted. Mr. Irving rose to the occasion, and acted superbly in what is certainly one of the finest examples of high comedy which has been seen by the pre- sent generation of playgoers. And when upon the final fall of the curtain the usual clamorous demand for a speech was made, he delivered a quite admirable little oration, charmingly spoken, conspicuous for its good taste, and com- mendably free from cheap claptrap about the elevation of the drama and the art of acting, with which, he may have thought, theatrical audiences had been somewhat surfeited. The 6 78 HENR Y IR VING. occasion was a notable one in every way, and offered one more proof of Mr. Irving's popu- larity, and the irrefragable hold which he had taken upon the sympathies of the public. On July 8th of the same year a small and ungracious minority saw fit to express a some- what adverse opinion of the representation of Twelfth Night, as revived at the Lyceum by Mr. Irving. Such a discord in the usually har- monious tone of a Lyceum audience jarred unpleasantly upon the ear of habitues of the theatre, and inspired Mr. Irving with some unusual comments upon the " strange element" that appeared to be present in the house. The expressions of dissatisfaction were certainly a breach of good taste, and a distinct injustice. Never in living memory had a play been more magnificently staged ; the scenery was exquisite, the dresses superb, the acting, as a rule, excellent. The play dragged, and was, in a degree, a disappointment, but the ironical calls for the " author " were not without signifi- cance in this respect, for Twelfth Night is not a good acting play. There is so little that is really dramatic in its situations, so little that MORE COURAGE THAN DISCRETION. 79 enlists the sympathy of an audience in the char- acter or circumstances of the principal figures, and the humour is of such a decidedly old-world flavour, that the chances are that if the play were written by a modern dramatist it would go a-begging amongst the managers, and perhaps Mr. Irving showed more courage than discretion in putting upon the stage what he himself has called " one of Shakespeare's most difficult plays." He toned down the coarseness and clipped the verbiage of the original text with judgment, but for all that the play did not win public favour. Mr. Irving's Malvolio was quaint, fantastic, grimly humorous. Made up like a cross between MR. IRVING AS MALVOLIO. 8o HENR Y IR VING. Shylock and Don Quixote with thin grey hair, a Van Dyck tuft, and an emaciated, oddly-lined, and wrinkled visage, Malvolio, in his prim dress of black and old gold, was a fascinating figure ; and in the garden scene, where he is fooled to the top of his bent by Maria's letter purporting to declare her mistress's passion for the steward, Mr. Irving gave us one of the most whimsical bits of humour of the modern stage. The reading of the letter was an excellent piece of comedy, and in the famous cross-gartered scene with Olivia, Malvolio's smile was impayable. The scene in the dark room erred on the side of excessive prostration ; but in the final out- burst, in which the " badly-used Malvolio " rushes from the stage with a threat of revenge, Mr. Irving invested the part with the dignity and passion of a man who feels that he has been grossly and unjustly outraged. This, in many respects, notable and worthy production, was not> however, destined to hold the stage for long> and on August 23rd Mr. Irving frankly accepted the situation, and com- menced with The Bells a series of brief re- vivals of some of his more famous and popular A SUPERB IMPERSONATION. 81 productions, including Louis XL and Richelieu and by this means succeeded in finishing the season with tclat. The limited success, save in an artistic sense, of Twelfth Night must have been somewhat disheartening to Mr. Irving, after the immense pains and expense to which he had gone in its production, but the truth is that Malvolio is a quaint and whimsical creation not to be quite so easily "understanded of the people " as other Shakespearean roles essayed by Mr. Irving with unqualified success. None the less it was appetising to the few, if " caviare to the general." The Lyceum season of 1884 closed on August 28th, and never, perhaps, did Mr. Irving do himself or his subject more ample justice than on the night of his farewell. His Richelieu was a superb impersonation. No shade of the strangely complex nature was lost or slurred. We read as in an open book the character of the wily, yet brave ; ambitious, yet tender ; pitiless, yet just, disposition of the great Cardinal. Never, too, had the contrast between physical infirmity and mental vigour been more strongly or more subtly defined. There is 82 HENR Y IR VING. something infinitely pathetic in the grand wreck which Richelieu becomes in Mr. Irving's hands. We see the story of the loveless life as well as that of the soaring ambition in every gesture of the majestic old man, and the character- study is all the more interesting by reason of the marvellous transitions from the verge of despairing melancholy to the most quaintly cynical humour, or triumphant victory, almost hysterical in its ungovernable ecstasy, over his would-be assassins. The farewell itself was again a scene to remember a repetition of all the enthusiasm and affection which were so manifest upon the occasion of the last Lyceum performance prior to his first visit to America. Mr. Irving's second American tour com- menced in Quebec on September 3Oth, 1884, and terminated in New York on April 4th, 1885, the American public again giving the Lyceum company and their brilliant actor-manager the most cordial welcome. In connection with this second visit to the States some remarkably free-spoken as well as flattering criticism was indulged in by the A CURIOSITY OF CRITICISM. 83 American Press, and in December 1884 the Philadelphia Record published something of a curiosity in the way of dramatic criticism. Speaking of the general impression made by Mr. Irving in America, and the attitude adopted towards him, it remarked : " Enlisted as enthu- siastic champions on his side is a goodly array of ox-eyed literary daisies, whose nauseating pollen is flung far and wide, stifling the public judgment even as Dalmatian powder chokes a cockroach. Very few of these encephalitic growths, however, project their looming mass upon the horizon of Philadelphia, and Mr. Irving has been generally judged and approved in this city with clue regard to his merits and demerits as well." This was frank, and, in its own way, flattering ; moreover it had the merit of possessing a distinct flavour of truth. During the same tour, in the following April, anamusing incident occurred at the Star Theatre, New York, during a representation of Twelfth Night. It was when Malvolio, fooled to the uttermost, is being roasted by Sir Toby, Fabian, and Maria, and has to ask them, " Do you know what you say ? " As fate would have it, Mr. 84 HENR Y IR VING. Irving put a distinct accent on the "you," and as the phrase was drily enunciated " Do you know " the audience gave noisy vent to their delight in a burst of laughter. Mr. Irving paused a moment, evidently a little embarrassed at making this unexpected point. Then he repeated it, to the provocation of another roar, and it was only in the wings that he learned that he had unwittingly parodied The Private Secretary. Upon the departure of Mr. Irving from America an example of the enthusiasm which he evoked may be gathered from a short excerpt from a poetical address penned by the well-known critic, Mr. William Winter : "Now fades across the glimmering deep, now darkly drifts away The royal monarch of our hearts, the glory of our day : The pale stars shine, the night winds sigh, the sad sea makes its moan, And we, bereft, are standing here, in silence and alone. Gone every shape of power and dread his magic touch could paint ; Gone haunted Aram's spectral face and England's martyred saint, Gone Mathias of the frenzied soul, and Louis' sceptred guile, The gentle head of poor Lesurques, and Hamlet's holy smile." The delicate flattery of this is as exceptional SUCCESSFUL DIPLOMACY. 85 a tribute as even a " royal monarch" of the stage could desire or expect. A notable instance of Mr. Irving's success as a diplomatist occurred upon the occasion of his return from America, in the spring of 1885. The night of Saturday, May 2nd, was trebly interesting. There was the question : Had Mr. Irving lost touch with the public during his prolonged absence ? Then it was doubtful how far the innovation of booking seats in the pit and gallery would be approved ; and, during Mr. Irving's absence, a new and notable Hamlet had appeared to invite comparison. The reception awarded to Mr. Irving was cordial, affectionate ; his performance refined, touching, full of subtlety and poetic feeling, always excellent, occasionally great ; and the audience recognised this heartily. But when the curtain fell for the last time, and Mr. Irving made the usual "speech," the Old Pitites and the New Pitites grew vociferous. An unusual storm raged in the Lyceum, and Mr. Irving, whose bearing throughout was in admirable taste, very properly said that it was not the time to arrive at any definite decision. But the 86 HENR Y IR VING. storm still raged, until, by one of his flashes of genius, Mr. Irving turned the situation to his advantage by quoting Hamlet with a grace and charm which simply won the whole house, summing up the affair by saying, with inimitable courtesy of tone and bearing : " What so poor a man as Hamlet is may do, to express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack." It would be difficult to imagine and ungrateful to desire anything more exquisitely beautiful, though almost painfully pathetic, than the repre- sentation of Mr. W. G. Wills's play Olivia, as revived at the Lyceum on May 3oth, 1885. The Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith's perfect and classic story of woman's love and trust sacrificed to man's passion and perfidy, has formed the motif of innumerable plays, poems, and pictures, so tempting is it to the artistic temperament. Mr. Wills kept closely to Gold- smith's story, but the simple, nervous, direct, and graceful diction was largely his own. There was no fine writing, no straining after effect a touching simplicity and tender delicacy per- vaded the whole work ; the tone was consistent, GOLDSMITH'S IDEAL REALISED. 87 and the pathetic character of the play relieved by the only humour possible in such a theme the gentle playfulness of the Vicar, whose humour is as softly lambent and as harmless as summer lightning, and the coy and simple loves of Moses and Polly. The story is so full of tender pathos that it would have been barbarous to have marred its tearful charm with bucolic witticisms or rustic buffoonery, and although the Lyceum version of The Vicar of Wakefield must be classed amongst the pleasures of melan- choly, the pity and sympathy which it compelled prove the purity and beauty of the work. Mr. Irving's Dr. Primrose was a delight. The Vicar proved as gentle, lovable an old man as Goldsmith's ideal. Full of simple dignity, in- vested with a rare charm of old-world grace and courtesy, and showing, when occasion demands, a sturdy manliness and righteous indignation, Dr. Primrose must ever rank amongst Mr. Irving's happiest impersonations. The almost idolatrous affection of the old Vicar for his beautiful and gentle daughter ; his happiness in her love ; his despair at her flight ; his dignified rebuke of her betrayer ; his passionate welcome 88 HENR Y IR VING. to his erring child ; his simple piety and faith all were painted with marvellous fidelity to nature, all bore the unmistakable stamp of genius. At one or two critical moments Mr. Irving's individuality was perhaps a little too pronounced, but the impersonation as a whole was a fine one and a faithful. The production of Mr. W. G. Wills's version of Faust, on the night of Saturday, December 1 9th, 1 885, was remarkable for two points : it gave London playgoers a spectacle such as even the Lyceum stage had never before presented, and it further gave them a Mephistopheles without equal in the history of the stage. Beyond these two features there was little in the new Faust that had not been done, and done as well, before. But what exceptions these two points were ! Weird and almost superhumanly vivid as must have been the imagination which conjured up the unholy revels of Walpurgis Night on the Brocken, its wildest dreams were realised upon the Lyceum stage ; and grimly humorous, splendidly Satanic, as was Goethe's conception of Mephistopheles, the terrible and fantastic I M m MR. IRVING AS MEPHISTOPHELES. GOETHE ANGLICISED. gi creation was embodied with perfect fulness and fidelity by Mr. Irving. Critics and commentators without number have so thoroughly thrashed out the motif "and construction of the great poem upon which this latest dramatic version was based, that it is only necessary to deal with what was actually put before the audience by Mr. Wills and Mr. Irving. Mr. Wills, in his share of the work, showed a commendable regard for the integrity of the original. It was Goethe anglicised ; and even when the adapter found it necessary to strike out a path for himself, he did so with discretion, and diverged as little as possible from the sequence and spirit of the poem. Mr. Wills gave, perhaps, a little too much prominence to the pessimistic side of the tragedy. Mephis- topheles was so pitilessly sardonic ; Margaret's farewell cry, " Heinrich ! Heinrich ! " so rich in hope and promise, was expunged, and the curtain fell upon a Faust dragged to perdition by Mephistopheles, and without apparent hope of redemption from the purgatorial fires ; yet that is perhaps a detail which would bring the 92 HENR Y IR VING. great play to a more artistic as well as a happier climax. The sardonic diablerie of Mephistopheles, as shown by Mr. Irving in every gesture, glance, and word, was marvellous. The sense of power conveyed by the cruel face made the undercurrent of mocking humour the more comprehensible. It was evident, from the moment when the grim, cynical features peered through the cloud of vapour in Faust's study, that Mephistopheles was so sure of his prey, that his power over' his victim was so absolute, that he could afford to unbend ; that the rigid muscles could well relax into a sardonic smile ; that the lips, curling in devilish scorn, could condescend to juggle with words, to taunt poor purblind man, to sneer at a weak woman, to bandy repartee with and fool to the top of her bent an amorous Martha. The potency of the Mephistopheles of Mr. Irving was so all- pervading, so palpable, that it was not surprising that he played with his victim, and thrust him down to perdition with a laugh. Now and then the humour of Faust's tempter smacked just an atom of ordinary comedy ; yet A PERFECT MEPHISTOPHELES. 93 when Mephistopheles was on the stage all else sank into insignificance, and this, be it said, not because of undue or inartistic obtrusiveness, but by sheer force of the fascination of the figure. Although it may appear a doubtful compli- ment, it is a fact that Mr. Irving's physique proved peculiarly adaptable for the imperson- ation. The minimum of make-up could and did produce a perfect Mephistopheles. The glittering eyes, the curiously heavy brows, the long, gaunt visage, all the materials for an ideal Mephistopheles were there, and the actor was too true an artist not to take advantage of them to the full. Even the perennially discussed individualities of style stood Mr. Irving in good stead in the new role, the Evil Spirit being usually credited with a cloven hoof and a slight lameness, which fully justified Mr. Irving's gait in the part. It was in Faust's study a grim chamber, hung about with stuffed monsters, crammed with scientific apparatus, and illumined only by a flickering lamp, that Mephistopheles first appeared, coming from a cloud of mist which 7 94 HENR Y IR VI NG. hissed and curled up into the dim shadows of the roof. Mephistopheles then looked more like Dante than himself, and in this character he first tempted his victim, and gave the audience a fine little bit of grim comedy when he donned the robe of Faust and gave the student who called in quest of the great scholar some diabolically cynical advice about women. In the scene in St. Lorenz Platz, despite its splendid grouping, Mephistopheles took part in somewhat too pantomimic business with the drunken revellers ; but the scene at the City Wall, in which Mephistopheles taunted Faust with his super-sensitiveness, and sneered him into sin, was excellently done. So too were the capital bit of gruesome comedy in Martha's house, when Mephistopheles, with mischievous humour and mocking cynicism, told the trumped-up tale of the death of her husband ; and the great garden-scene, with its irritating alternations of dialogue, but also its irresistible Mephistophelean humour. The episode in the church, when Mephis- topheles whispered evil counsels into the ear of the praying Margaret, was subtle and effective, HELL AS IT MIGHT IIA VE BEEN. 95 The stage management of this act throughout was beyond praise, and the effect of the final moment, when Mephistopheles was alone upon the stage, crouching beneath a statue of the Madonna, trying to shut out the sound of the holy music, and at the same time wearing an expression of devilish triumph and malignancy, was superb. But perhaps the crowning triumph of Mr. Irving, both as actor and manager, was reached in the remarkable scene upon the summit of the Brocken, where Walpurgis Night revels, weird, fantastic, grim, ghastly, yet picturesque beyond description, revealed Mephistopheles at the very apex of his mad wickedness. Revel- ling in the unholy antics, he stalked and hobbled about the stage, caressing foul goblins and re- pulsive apes, calling legions of spirits with a word, and dismissing them with an imperious gesture, and at last standing amidst lurid flames and utter desolation, alone, triumphant, devilish. The " Revisioners" having abolished hell, Mr. Irving did his best in this scene to show what it might have been, and neither Dante nor Dore 96 HENR Y IR VING. ever had a more ghastly, lurid, appalling vision, and perhaps no audience ever heard a more perfectly inhuman laugh of triumph in its infernal cynicism, than that given by Mephis- topheles when the lovers meet in the garden after he himself had been driven cowering from Margaret's presence by the uplifted cross. Faust had, as it deserved, a quite stupendous success. Indeed, it seemed as if Mr. Irving's jocular reference in his speech upon the first night of its production, to the introduction of new features from time to time, so that an element of variety might be imported into its six-hundred-nights' run, would in all sober earnest prove prophetic. As a matter of fact the play ran right through the season of 1886, and was revived again in unbroken sequence, continuing the run until April 23rd, 1887, an d it was not until the 244th representation, on November I5th, 1886, that Mr. Irving even deemed it politic to introduce the promised new element in the shape of the introduction of the famous scene in the witches' kitchen, which, needless to add, was put upon the stage with characteristic thoroughness. "THOROUGH." 97 The withdrawal of Faust was followed by a series of short revivals of favourite pieces, among them being The Merchant of Venice, The Bells, Pickwick, and Olivia; the last performance of the season, on July i6th, being that of The Merchant of Venice, in which Mr. Irving sur- passed himself as Shylock. But prior to this a notable performance, though only a single representation of the drama, was held at the Lyceum for the benefit of the poet and dramatist, Dr. Westland Marston. The event proved an instance of Mr. Irving's conscientiousness as an artist, and kindness as a man, when on the afternoon of June ist he revived the sombre drama Werner for the benefit of his old friend. With a thoroughness which was peculiarly graceful under the circum- stances, Mr. Irving went to as much trouble and expense in the provision of dresses and scenery as if an extended run were expected. Special incidental music was composed, and the drama was strengthened by a new and effective scene written at Mr, Irving's suggestion by Mr. Frank Marshall. The result was not only 98 HENR Y IR VING. the realisation of the substantial sum of ^800 for the b4n4ficiaire> but also an artistic success. As Werner Mr. Irving once more engrossed the attention of the audience whenever he was upon the stage. Not only was his appearance curiously impressive, his white hair, dark, rest- less eyes, and incessant movement compelling them to follow him in every gesture, by which, quite as much as by the spoken text, he reveals the sensitive nature of the man. Excellent in the earlier part of the play, irritated and rendered morbidly petulant under the pres- sure of poverty ; more excellent still in the curious reasoning as to the varying degrees possible in crime, in which Werner enunciates arguments to be adopted with terrible logic later on by his guilty son, Mr. Irving, with true artistic instinct, reserved the superlative force of his acting for the final scene, and so confirmed and consummated the success of one more remarkable and thoughtful impersonation. Mr. Irving's third American tour, which was also destined to prove successful, commenced in New York on November 7th, 1887, and on his return from the States he reopened the Lyceum ROBERT MACAIRE. 99 MR. IRVING AS ROBERT MACAIRE. MR. WEEDON GROSSMITH AS JACQUES STROP. with a revival of Faust, following this with a re- vival of The Amber Heart and Robert Macaire ioo HENR Y IR VING. on May 23rd, which sufficed to fill the theatre until the close of the season on July 7th, when, in the customary speech, Mr. Irving promised Macbeth as his next Shakespearean revival. This promise he redeemed on December 29th, when the great play was revived with elaborate and magnificent stage effects and scenery, and ran throughout the following season. For the first time since his appearance upon the London stage, Mr. Irving was com- pelled to absent himself through illness during part of the run of this play, from January i;th to the 26th, 1889, during which period Macbeth was excellently impersonated by Mr. Hermann Vezin. On April 26th, Mr. Irving and his company had the honour of appearing before the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales at Sandringham, in The Bells and the trial scene from the Merchant of Venice, and Mr. Irving was the recipient of much flattering criticism from his royal audience. Ever a diplomat of diplomats, Mr. Irving was not the man to let the centenary of the French Revolution pass without a discreet dramatic MR. IRVING AS MACBETH. EXPLOITING A REVOLUTION. 103 exploitation of its artistic and financial possibili- ties. With all the world flocking to Paris to the great Exhibition, and crossing the Channel to round off their holiday in London, what so safe a card to play as one directly concerned with the great celebration ? With a little liter- ary doctoring at the hands of Mr. W. H. Pollock, there was an old Adelphi drama ready to hand, and if Benjamin Webster, with his compara- tively limited spectacular resources, could make Watts Phillips's melodrama The Dead Heart a success, why should not Mr. Irving, with his prestige, his popularity, his splendid facilities, all aided by the sentiment of the centennial celebration, do the same ? That he did so, and more, is now a matter of history. Nor was this result surprising. The curtain had not long risen on the night of September 28th, 1889, when it was evident not only that Mr. Irving was determined to give the revival the advantage of all that taste, research, and lavish outlay could command, but that there was, after all, so much humanity in the old play that it might well have held the stage again awhile, even without the attraction of such 104 HENR Y IR VING. magnificent mounting and the adventitious aid of the Revolution centenary. Full of stirring incidents and opportunities for a potent and astute stage-manager to evolve marvels of spectacular effect, and dealing with a period absolutely crowded with emotional conditions, l^he Dead Heart could scarcely fail to at least excite some popular interest. Staged and acted as it was at the Lyceum, it became the sensa- tion of the autumn season. Opinions might differ as to the realism of Mr. Irving's dis- hevelled locks and flowing beard, and the rapidity of his recovery of something like reason after his release from eighteen years' incarcera- tion in the Bastile but the surging mob of maniacal men and unsexed women which filled the stage with its inarticulate cries, its mad dancing of the Carmagnole, and inhuman gam- bols at the taking of the Bastile, and the picturesque nobility of Robert Landry as he awaited his voluntary martyrdom on the scaffold, were very real and very fascinating. And so this dramatic picture of the Revolution, with its central group of interesting figures all " palpitating with actuality," was " restored " MR. IRVING AS ROBERT LANDRY "THE DEAD HEART." 107 by the great actor-manager, and all London rushed to see it. In Robert Landry Mr. Irving was once more able to display the artistic versatility in a single role which is one of his strong points. In the prologue Robert Landry was the joyous lad handsome, frank, debonair, irresistible, an artist-patriot almost reckless in his boyish self- abandonment, an ardent lover, with, as he believes, a long vista of happy life stretching away before him. Suddenly all is changed : the young patriot is thrown into the Bastile, not again to see the light of the sun until eighteen years later, when, upon the seizure of the prison by the Revolutionaries, he rushes, dazed and blinded, back to light and life and liberty. But his bewilderment is rather physical than mental, and ere long he recovers his wits, only to gain a knowledge bitterer than death. The woman in whose faith and constancy he trusted has married. Then, with inimitable art, Mr. Irving depicted Robert Landry as a man restored to life and freedom, but valuing neither, as his heart was dead within him. From this stage to the sublime self-sacrifice 1 08 HENR Y IR VING. with which the drama closes, Mr. Irving's im- personation became consistently impressive. His first callous indifference to the prayer of his old love for the life of her son, the young Comte de St. Valery, now in Landry's power and condemned to death an indifference inten- sified into pitilessness by the knowledge that his old-time enemy, the Abbe Latour, was the young man's tutor ; the terrific duel to the death with the Abbe, after the discovery of his perfidy in the old days, in keeping back Landry's reprieve ; his ultimate relenting for the sake of the effort which the young Comte's father had made for him eighteen years before, and the final sublime sacrifice upon the scaffold, were all intense and emotional in the extreme, and the play was made, like almost everything touched by Mr. Irving, an artistic and financial success. The complexities of Landry's character made the part a satisfying study for the critical ; the spectacular magnificence delighted the lovers of display ; the strong humanity of the story appealed to all, and The Dead Heart revival became one more proof that Mr. Irving had not rashly undertaken the task of gauging MR. IRVING AS RAVENSWOOD. A BEAUTIFUL CREATION. in public taste as a manager, as well as gratifying it as an actor. Upon the night of Saturday, September 2Oth, 1890, Mr. Irving produced with magnificent scenic effects and unqualified artistic success Mr. Herman Meri vale's blank verse play, Ravens- wood, based upon Sir Walter Scott's story, " The Bride of Lammermoor," himself creating the part of Edgar, the Master of Ravenswood. Although the drama diverged in many points from the story, the spirit of the original was admirably preserved ; and although there was a certain inevitable sombreness and gloom about a play in which the principal characters are so obviously the puppets of a terrible and fatal destiny, the whole work was instinct with a dignity, a pathos, a grace, a romance, which threw the glamour of poesy over even the most harrowing scenes, raising them to pure tragedy and making them an absorbing and fascinating study. As the Master of Ravenswood Mr. Irving added a noble and beautiful crea ion to his repertoire. Whether as the orphaned and beggared son of the earlier scenes, in which ii2 HENRY IRVING. there is a Hamlet-like intensity of filial affection and bitter sense of wrong ; as the chivalrous, tender, passionate lover whose wooing is idyllic in its grace and charm ; as the despairing, heart-broken man who reels in the weakness of fever to the aid of his betrothed wife, only to find that she has agreed to wed another ; or as the desperate, wretched soul racked by the sense of loss and the suspicion of treachery, he was perfect in his subtle art, his personal distinction, the inimitable refinement and intellectuality of his conception of the part. A compound of Hamlet and Romeo, with all the miserable sense of impotence to avenge the wrongs of a dead father, and all the ill-starred love for a girl whose family is at deadly feud with his own, Edgar, the Master of Ravenswood, is a power- ful and tragic conception, and Mr. Irving brought out all the intense pathos and beauty of the role with consummate art. Even in his inarticulate cries of scorn and subtle indications of an effort at self-control under the taunts of Lady Ash ton, Mr. Irving gave ample proof of the perfection and delicate finish of his art ; and it speaks eloquently for his genius that, despite A DUAL TRIUMPH. 113 the innately and persistently melancholy nature of Edgar, he never failed to grip the attention and compel the sympathy of the audience from the moment of his first impressive entry upon the occasion of his father's funeral, when with a stern sadness he commands the bearers to " set down their burden " that he may commune with his dead, until that other solemn moment, when he finally rushes from the stage on learn- ing the death of Lucy, with the wild cry that he must " hold her dead corse in his arms the rest is nothing ! " Mr. Irving's genius both as actor and manager was patent in every detail of the play and of his own impersonation, and Ravenswood, in the face of obvious difficulties, proved a dual triumph and so great a delight to cultivated playgoers that it is no longer difficult to understand the zeal of those enthusiasts who gathered around the pit- door of the theatre ten hours and a half before the opening of the doors. Such acting as Mr. Irving's, and such exquisite beauty as that of the mounting of Ravenswood, are just those things which cannot be bought too dearly. A keen pleasure at the time, such an experience remains 1 14 HENR Y IR VING. a notable memory for ever, and the playgoing public owe a debt to Mr. Irving for artistic and emotional delights which no amount of cordial recognition of the great work which he has done for the stage can ever pay. On December 2Oth and 27th, 1890, Mr. Irving, reverted once more to his powerful im- personation of the haunted burgomaster Mathias in a revival of The Bells, which proved to have lost no iota of its hold, upon the lovers of weird and grim melodramatic acting of the first school, and upon January 5th, 1891, he revived Much Ado about Nothing in the superb fashion of his former revival of this exquisite play, and again delighted his audience with the perfec- tion of high comedy as Benedick. - M Wj MR, WILSON BARRETT, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. THOMSON, 7