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<D, GROSVENOR STREET.
WILSON BARRETT.
AN enthusiast for the drama and everything
connected with it from his earliest youth as
he told his audience upon a notable occasion
he would hurry into the pit of the Princess's
Theatre to satisfy his theatrical cravings with
the contemplation of Charles Kean in one or
other of his great impersonations, it is yet
only during the last decade that the name of
Wilson Barrett has become a household word
with London playgoers. But during that
decade he has worked wonders by sheer force
of talent, courage, and perseverance.
Until September 2oth, 1879, when he ap-
peared as the advocate Pomerol, in Fcrnande,
at the opening of the Court Theatre under his
management, Mr. Barrett had been, if not
exactly wasting his fragrance on the desert air,
at least only undergoing a training, valuable
enough as it proved, in the provinces, where he
u8 WILSON BARRETT.
speedily acquired a name as an enterprising
and discreet manager, and an actor of more
than average intelligence and promise.
Mr. Barrett's first appearance was at Halifax
in 1864, when he was eighteen years old, and
he received a guinea a week as " general
utility," with a dance between the acts. But
after six weeks he was entrusted with a leading
juvenile part, having the book handed to him
half an hour before midnight one night, with
instructions to copy out, learn, and act his part
upon the following evening. Little then did
the young actor think of the time to come when,
as lessee of a great London theatre, he should
within the compass of a very few years pay no
less a sum than ,75,000 in authors' fees alone.
It was during these provincial wanderings
that Mr. Barrett had an amusing experience
while playing Triplet in Masks and Faces,
which afforded somewhat of an argument
against absolute realism on the stage.
In the attic scene, in which good-natured
Peg Woffington sends a pie for the delectation
of the poor broken-down gentleman and his
starving little ones, Mr. Barrett, knowing that
A DOUBTFUL PIE. 119
the children who appeared with him were not
too well accustomed to good solid meals, took
care to provide a genuine beefsteak pie each
night, which they consumed with unmistakable
gusto, he, too, taking his share of the realistic
meal. But one night, no sooner had Triplet
inserted the knife in the crust of the pie than
a malodorous savour assailed his nostrils, and
compelled him to " make believe " that he was
enjoying the welcome food.
Not unnaturally, he thought that the children
would not be so squeamish, and duly gave
them their portions. But to his horror they
remained upon the plates untouched, and the
curling lip of disdain was the only indication
which they gave of their knowledge of its
presence. The situation was critical. " Eat,
you little beggars, eat ! " said the actor, sotto
voce. But it was no good. Nature asserted
itself over art, and for once Mistress Woffing-
ton's bounty was unappreciated.
The incident reminds one of the conceited
young London star who, when touring in
the provinces, arrogantly demanded a real
chicken in one of his scenes, instead of a
120 WILSON BARRETT.
" property " make-believe. The stage-manager,
after bearing with his upstart ways as long as
he could, quietly said at last : " All right, Mr.
Dash ; I'll remedy it to-morrow. You play the
part of a man who is murdered, don't you ? "
" Yes," returned the star. " Very good,"
replied the manager, " I'll take care that the
poison is real ! "
As some men are born great, so, it would
seem, are some born to a certain class of
dramatic work. If ever there was .a born
actor of romantic drama of the robust and
picturesque school, Mr. Wilson Barrett is the
man. An expressive, handsome face, well-set-
up figure, resonant voice, and considerable
grace and dignity of bearing, he is the beau
ideal of a hero of romance. In an age by no
means insusceptible to the merits of muscularity,
Mr. Barrett's admirable physique gave him an
initial advantage. To this were added distinct
talent of a very high order, courage, modesty,
pluck, good taste, and minor characteristics
equally charming, with the result that when
he came to London he was seen, and he
conquered.
ROMANTIC HEROES. 121
With excellent discretion Mr. Barrett, having
gauged his strength and tested his capacity in
the art of acting, quickly identified himself with
a particular class of character, only diverging
from it now and again into some widely dis-
similar field, as if of set purpose to show the
public that he could, an he would, extend the
compass of his artistic efforts.
But when his excursions into the realm of
pure tragedy and Shakespearean fantasy are
remembered, and all due credit is given to the
actor for impersonations of quite exceptional
merit, the fact remains that the mention of the
name of Wilson Barrett calls up in the minds
of the majority of practised playgoers memories
of romantic heroes romantic in their essential
attributes, whether ruffling in the lace and
velvet of a Lord Harry Bendish ; pacing in
barbaric pride or weary dignity in the white
and classic robes of Claudian ; staggering in
picturesque dissipation as Wilfred Denver ;
moving with measured stately steps, clad in the
spotless robes of the patriot Junius ; passing
through dire suffering with manly pluck and
pathetic power as Harold Armytage ; or posing
122 WILSON BARRETT.
with facile grace as Jack Hearne, the Romany
Rye, or gipsy gentleman always romantic,
always suffering unmerited ills, always sure to
emerge triumphant in the final act, as becomes
so virile, so virtuous, so sympathetic a hero.
Mr. Barrett's career has not been one of
unclouded success, but it is on record to his
honour that he never put a play upon the stage,
or assumed a new part, without doing his
utmost to make both deserve, even if they did
not command, success. And it is yet more to
his credit that even in those cases where the
financial result has not been of the greatest, if
he has been convinced of the intrinsic worthi-
ness of the work he was presenting he has at
least kept it upon the boards sufficiently long
for it to achieve an artistic success.
Courage, enterprise, honest endeavour, and
thoughtful study, these have been the domi-
nant notes in Mr. Barrett's stage policy, and, as
such excellent qualities should do, they have
won for their possessor an enviable position and
reputation in the record of the stage of to-day,
as well as a large and enthusiastic following.
Certain creations which the persistent play-
WILFRED DENVER. 123
goers of the last ten years will instinctively
recall, would have been, if not impossible, at
least very much less satisfying, in the hands of
any other player of the period, not for lack of
adequate histrionic capacity, but because Mr.
Barrett, like all strong personalities, possesses
certain conspicuous characteristics, thoroughly
individual, though not eccentric enough to have
been stigmatised as mannerisms, which have lent
distinction to the roles he has assumed, adding
alike to their immediate effectiveness and to
their enduring quality. To illustrate this more
clearly, it is only necessary to mention the
brilliant creation of Wilfred Denver, in The
Silver King, a character which not only
afforded Mr. Barrett magnificent opportuni-
ties, but which, probably, no living actor could
have created with quite such convincing
completeness.
As actor and as manager Mr. Barrett has
given such repeated evidence of talent, of
lavish expenditure of his own powers and
discreet enlistment of those of others, of
scholarly care and artistic feeling as regards
the text and staging of the plays which he
124 WILSON BARRETT.
has produced ; of being, in effect, " thorough "
in everything to which he puts his hand, that
he has won the respect of all who recognise
and value clever and conscientious work for the
stage ; while his personal charm of manner and
obvious strivings to please the public and give
them of his best, have won for him a large
circle of enthusiastic admirers and loyal friends,
as well as an honoured place in the ranks of the
foremost actors of his day.
After M. Pomerol, in Fernande, ensued a
number of brief impersonations at the Court
and Princess's Theatres, including a thoughtfully
played Claude de Courcy in Courtship ; a quiet,
careful, and effective Henri de Sartorys, in
Frou-Frou ; an original, boldly unconventional,
and excellent Mercutio, full of humanity, and
revealing traits hitherto for the most part
hidden by actors of the part ; a dignified,
earnest study of John Stratton, in The Old
Love and the New ; and a remarkable repre-
sentation of a youthful priest, as Friar John, in
Juana, an impersonation which undoubtedly,
and in the face of adverse fortune, helped to
force upon the perception of habitue's of the
A WASTED PLAY. 125
theatre the fact that a new actor of quite
exceptional merit earnest, intelligent, with alert
brain, a mastery of his craft, and every quality
necessary to command success had arisen in
the dramatic firmament, and must hereafter take
a permanent place in the critical chart.
Rarely has there been so much admirable
blank verse wasted, permitted to die and be
buried away out of sight and out of the
memory of most, as in the case of Mr.
Wills's beautiful but sombre drama Juana.
Yet those who were present on the night of
its production at the Court Theatre, on May
7th, 1 88 1, must remember well the power
with which Madame Helena Modjeska held
the audience enthralled in the pathetic mad
scene in the second act.
The play, constructed as unskilfully as it
was gracefully written, was a failure, except in
an artistic sense, and has only been revived
once since, and then without success. But in
it Mr. Barrett gave the public an excellent
piece of work as Friar John, in which he pre-
sented a thoughtful, consistent, and dignified
picture of a high-minded young priest, tried
9
126 WILSON BARRETT.
by conflicting emotions, and declaimed with
admirable art some of the most beautiful pas-
sages in a play rich in poetical diction.
But neither the pathos of Madame Modjeska,
the elocution and art of Mr. Barrett, nor the
picturesqueness of monkish processions and the
weirdness of " ordeal by touch," could save the
play, which, containing much beautiful work,
the loss of which is a loss to dramatic literature,
chiefly served to afford the public an opportu-
nity of recognising an actor of rare promise in
Mr. Wilson Barrett.
The first great success in the direction of
that class of powerful romantic melodrama of
contemporary life, which Mr. Wilson Barrett
produced for a time with such marked success,
was made by The Lights o London, written
by Mr. G. R. Sims, and produced at the Prin-
cess's Theatre on Saturday, September loth,
1 88 1. In The Lights o' London the broad
human sympathy, the acute perception of the
noble and the beautiful in common life and
common people, the hatred of social shams, the
love of all that is true and kindly, which marked
the works of Dickens, were all present ; and
LIFE AS IT IS. 127
beneath all the pathos and tragedy, the sin
and suffering, the passion and the pain of the
drama, ran a pleasant vein of humour, con-
ceived in the true Dickens spirit. It was not
left merely for the " gods " to recognise the
strong situations and genuine value of the play.
The orthodox affectation of languid cynicism in
the stalls was lost in one great wave of sym-
pathy, which spread throughout the house as
situations of intense power and pathos followed
each other with overpowering rapidity. The
story of The Lights o' London is infinitely sad,
but the humorous element skilfully relieves it ;
and the audience, as it followed the fortunes
of the hero, Harold Armytage, felt that they
were looking at life as it is, with all its strange
vicissitudes and paradoxes, its joys and sorrows,
its virtue and its vice, its trials and temptations,
its sufferings and its triumphs. The story of
the scapegrace but noble-hearted son, dis-
carded by a stiff-necked father, and of the
terrible troubles which follow, is excellently
told, and in Harold Armytage Mr. Wilson
Barrett was fitted with a part which enabled
him to do full justice to his powers. His fine
128 WILSON BARRETT.
face, instinct with intelligence, harmonised with
the pure and manly sentiments of which he was
the mouthpiece ; his resonant, musical voice
and good presence lent dignity and strength
to countless powerful situations, and his delivery
of certain didactic passages, which in less skilful
hands might have savoured somewhat of plati-
tude, was marked by a nice appreciation of
the limits of effective moralising. There was
human nature in the play and the acting, and
the result was a pronounced success.
On Saturday, June loth, 1882, Mr. Barrett
created the part of Jack Hearne, in Mr. G. R.
Sims's gipsy drama The Romany Rye. Need-
less to say that as the Romany Rye, or gipsy
gentleman, Mr. Barrett had a part which was
calculated to display his physical attractions
and artistic skill to the uttermost. The drama
is a sensational melange, in which burglary,
murder, love, jealousy, gipsies, dog-fanciers,
gin-shops, underground cellars, the pure air of
the country, the pestilential effluvia of St. Giles's
slums, courage and cowardice, picturesque man-
hood, primed with all the virtues, and flash
villainy, treacherous and cruel, sweet girlhood
ZOLAISTIC NATURALISM. 129
and degraded womanhood, the beauties of the
Thames by moonlight and the filthy dens of
the depraved and brutal in Ratcliffe Highway,
are in one drama blent, and Zolaistic naturalism
is the mot dordre. Mr. Barrett's part involved
perhaps greater muscular than mental strain,
for it must be exhausting for even a hero of
melodrama to be perpetually rescuing virtue in
distress, struggling very literally against over-
whelming odds, and facing imminent peril and
incalculable hardship ere justice is done and
he comes to his own. But Jack Hearne was
a manly, dashing fellow from first to last, the
performance a really powerful one, and the
whole production a signal success.
In its particular school of work Mr. Wilson
Barrett never did anything finer than his
creation of the striking character of Wilfred
Denver, in Messrs. Henry Arthur Jones and
Henry Herman's clever drama The Silver
King, produced at the Princess's Theatre on
December 26th, 1882. A handsome scape-
grace, a slave, when we first meet him, to drink
and dissipation, yet never lacking in a certain
innate refinement and nobility ; weak . rather
130 WILSON BARRETT.
than vicious, and led by his weakness to a
tragic catastrophe, Wilfred Denver is an incar-
nate homily, but one that is never dull, never
even didactic. Admirably written and full of
splendid situations, The Silver King marked a
new era in romantic melodrama, and furnished
Mr. Barrett with quite one of his finest parts.
The spectacle of a not innately bad man
labouring under the awful belief that in a fit
of drunken delirium he has committed murder
is pathetic enough, but it is brightened in this
case by the extreme tenderness and affection of
Denver for his wife and children ; and a note
of intensely true pathos is struck when the
man, flying for his life, yearns to kiss his
sleeping children, takes a hesitating step or
two towards their room, and then, with a
broken-hearted cry that he is unworthy to
touch them, goes out into his compulsory exile.
Nor is the moment when Denver first dis-
covers the dead body of Geoffrey Ware, and
believes that he has killed him, less effective.
In it, Mr. Barrett rises to pure tragedy, and
his horror is a thing not to be easily for-
gotten. When, after attaining fortune in
THE SILVER KING. 131
America, Wilfred Denver, the Silver King,
returns to find his wife and children in dire
poverty, and can only help them secretly, Mr.
Barrett's pathos is of just the right tone never
whining or lachrymose, but as manly as it is
true. Indeed, in all the light and shade of
a picturesque but very exacting part, the actor
proves himself to be a master of his art and
a faithful student of humanity.
The character of Denver is conditioned by
circumstances of peculiar gravity and terror,
yet the sympathy of the audience is never
alienated. A scapegrace brought to reason by
the imagined commission of murder ; dead to
the world and all dear to him ; returning with
all the material elements of happiness, yet
unable even to declare to his wife and children
the fact that he is alive rarely, indeed, has a
story been told which appeals at once so
strongly to the imagination and the humanity
of an audience. And in the lowest depths of
Denver's degradation there is an inextinguish-
able refinement ; the pathos is true, and the
mental agony so vividly depicted by Mr.
Barrett as to ensure that the creation will
132 WILSON BARREfT.
remain one of the most touching studies of
the contemporary stage.
The make-up of Mr. Barrett in the third
act was a masterpiece of artistic skill, which led
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones to remark to him at
rehearsal, " No one could possibly be half as
good as you look ! "
A curious and pathetic proof of the odd use
to which stage " business" may sometimes be
put occurs in a story told some time ago by
Mr. Barrett in the Theatre. The " Spider " in
The Silver King had a peculiar whistle, with
which he used to signal to his accomplices, and
after a while this whistle was raised from the
individual to the general and became the signal
of the whole company at the Princess's and of
all the companies touring in the provinces a
masonic as well as windy suspiration of forced
breath.
Mr. Barrett says that it was whistled into
the wondering ears of many a would-be sleeper
in the country towns when the "boys" were
going home and bidding each other good-night.
It was whistled by Jack across the street to
Tom as a "Good-morning;" by Harry to
THE SPIDER'S WHISTLE. 133
Dick as a " Come here, I want you ; " by Clem
to Joe as a " Where are you ?" And amongst
others who acquired the art of rendering the
signal to perfection was the pretty little son
of two members of " Company K," a general
favourite, who had the run of the theatre, and
was simply the idol of his father and mother.
This little fellow would sometimes indulge
his Bohemian instincts to the extent of breaking
away from his parents' lodgings, bound for the
theatre ; and now and then he would be found
amiably wandering and hopelessly lost, on which
occasions he would announce that he was
"Austin Arfur Loder," and " I'se lost myself
and can't find my way home ; " and to the
question " Where is your home, my little
man?" he would promptly and invariably reply,
11 Ze fee-a-ter."
This nomadic habit caused his parents some
anxiety, but it was not considered serious until
one day, in a quaint little town on the rock-
bound east coast of Scotland, " Austin Arfur "
was missing too long for the peace of those
who were so devoted to him.
During the course of the play one evening,
134 WILSON BARRETT.
in which, by an odd coincidence, the father and
mother were simulating the joys of parents who
had recovered their lost children, the landlady
called at the stage door to know if Master
Austin was at the theatre. He was not, and
the actor and actress had to finish their per-
formance distracted with fear as to their missing
child.
Hurrying from the theatre to their lodgings
at the first possible moment, it was only to find
no news of their boy. Their distress was
terrible, and all night long search was kept up,
some of the good-hearted fellows at the theatre
foregoing their rest to help in the pathetic
business.
When day broke, the agonised father and
mother and a comrade in the company searched
the cliffs by the sea shore, the mother hoping
still to find that the little Austin had fallen
asleep in some grassy glade, while the father
feared the worst.
At last, weary and sick at heart, they were
turning to retrace their steps and renew their
search in the town, when, by some strange
instinct, the actor gave the " Spider's Whistle."
CLA UDIAN. 135
A faint echo seemed to come to them from
below. " Answer, Tom," said the comrade.
" I can't," replied the father, overcome with
emotion, while the mother screamed, "Austin!
Austin ! where are you ? " The faint sound of
the whistle was heard again, and in another
moment the father was making his way down
the face of the cliff at the risk of his own life,
to the cave whence the sound seemed to
proceed.
The tide was rising. Every moment meant
the nearer approach of death ; but despair gave
the father a new strength, and at last, clinging,
sliding, leaping, panting, breathless, his hands
covered in blood, he was at the mouth of the
cave, and his child was safe in his arms, saved
by the " Spider's Whistle."
On December 6th, 1883, Mr. Barrett pro-
duced the remarkable play Claudian, by Messrs.
W. G.Wills and Henry Herman, himself assum-
ing the title role. The drama contained much
that was noble in sentiment, and was superbly
staged and admirably acted. It tells the story
of the crime, punishment, and repentance of a
pagan libertine, who, for the murder of a holy
136 WILSON BARRETT.
hermit who would have stood in the way of his
unbridled passion, is condemned to perpetual
youth, coupled with the doom of yearning to
do good yet seeing all those whom he would
bless cursed and blighted by the baleful influ-
ence which attends his every action. The
prologue takes place in Byzantium, A.D. 362,
and the play a century later.
Mr. Barrett's Claudian Andiates proved a
fine study, picturesque and powerful to a degree.
Whether as the handsome young patrician
voluptuary of the Prologue, or the remorse-
stricken man of the play, Mr. Barrett was
admirable. His appearance was strikingly
effective, his acting almost faultless. By a score
of little touches he brought out the full signifi-
cance of the story, and the classic dress of the
period suited him to perfection. The earth-
quake tableau, where, in the midst of the ruined
palace, Claudian poses in an attitude of horror
and despair, was a scene not to be easily for-
gotten. Mr. Barrett's excellent elocution also
stood him in good stead, and whether he was
expressing the defiant voluptuousness of the
patrician profligate, or the agony of the miser-
CHATTERTON. 137
able, repentant man who, with a heart full of
good intent, sees evil dog his footsteps every-
where, the actor's voice and gestures brought
out the full force and significance of the text,
and helped to bring about an unqualified
success.
On May 22nd, 1884, Mr. Barrett produced
a dainty and effective little piece, a tragedy in
miniature, by Messrs. Henry Arthur Jones and
Henry Herman, in which were sketched in
dramatic form the episodes in the life of the
ill-starred boy-poet Chatterton immediately
preceding his pitiable death in the Brooke
Street garret, blent skilfully with the love
interest necessary to lend the story the element
of romance requisite to ensure widespread
popularity.
Gracefully, if now and then rhapsodically,
written, Chatterton was an instant success.
But this success was due in an even greater
degree to the actor than to the authors. It
would be scarcely too much to say that Mr.
Barrett was " Chatterton," poet and play alike,
for from first to last he overshadowed every-
body else by the tenderness, pathos, and pictur-
133 WILSON BARRETT.
esqueness of his remarkable impersonation.
He looked the handsome, harassed, weary, yet
passionate and contemptuous boy-poet to the
life, dowered with " the scorn of scorn, the hate
of hate," jaded, starving, despairing, loving, to
the bitter end of his few and stormy years.
The pride of Chatterton, his chivalrous love,
his contempt for the dull, plodding, prosaic
world, his passion for poetry, his mad ambition,
were all indicated by Mr. Barrett as only genius
could. By subtle gesture and splendidly ver-
satile elocution the actor laid bare the very
soul of the poet. As was said of Byron, " He
made a pageant of his bleeding heart," but so
delicately, and with such unerring tact, that he
won for the mimic Chatterton a sympathy
which the real poet sought in vain, even from
posterity usually so lavish when it is too late.
As a piece of delicate yet impassioned acting,
Chatterton was a veritable artistic triumph.
The admirable fashion in which Mr. Barrett
declaimed the rather long-winded but elegantly
written apostrophe to poetry remains a lucid
memory with those who heard it ; and the
quickly following ecstasy and agony with which
MR. WILSON BARRETT AS HAMLET
HAMLET. 141
he first finds Lady Mary's letter, offering him
the love and fame and fortune he has craved
so passionately, and all at once remembers that
in his hopeless misery he has taken poison, and
that the good news comes too late, was a mar-
vellously rapid and convincing transition from
rapture to despair, only equalled by the pathos
of the death scene, which was a dramatic realisa-
tion of a beautiful and familiar picture.
Mr. Barrett's Hamlet was naturally the
subject of much speculation, and the evening of
October i6th, 1884, found an eager audience
crowding every corner of the theatre. The grand
simplicity of Shakespeare has too frequently
been buried beneath a mountain of imaginary
subtleties, and there has been no creation of
Shakespeare's brain which has been the subject
of so much pseudo-subtle speculation, and often
absurdly unnecessary controversy, as Hamlet.
The tendency has been to lay so much stress
upon the character as a purely psychological
study that the intense and passionate humanity
of the young prince has been relegated to the
background, as an aspect of the creation only
worthy of secondary, if of any, serious
10
142 WILSON BARRETT.
consideration. Ridiculous controversies have
raged with the virulence of theological dis-
cussions upon what it has been the cant to
call the vexed question of Hamlet's real or
assumed insanity, when a reasonable reading
of Shakespeare's text must surely set the
question at rest for ever.
It was a matter for congratulation that Mr.
Barrett's Hamlet was so vividly instinct with
human life, and with passions common to all
humanity, that it became no longer a mere
psychological study, to be critically dissected
as a surgeon would dissect a corpse, but a
living, breathing personality, a man with all the
strength and weakness of manhood, a noble
nature weighed down with a heavy burden of
grief and an onerous duty of revenge ; but, for
all that, one whose grief was as real, and com-
manded as genuine a sympathy, as the troubled
career of some living person near and dear to
our very selves.
Mr. Barrett's Hamlet was a young prince
of noble nature, sorely tried by the conduct of
his mother, and impelled by intense filial affec-
tion to avenge the foul murder of his father.
A COMPREHENSIBLE READING. 143
A very comprehensible character and condition
this, and there is, very properly, no question
about the sanity of Hamlet as represented by
Mr. Barrett. By making it patent at once
that Hamlet is no crack-brained prince, but a
youth whose trouble is so heavy that it compels
him to a course opposed to his natural kind-
liness, Mr. Barrett secured the immediate
interest of his audience, and by emphasising
consistently from beginning to end his intense
love for his father, the new Hamlet compelled
sympathy.
It was thus that Mr. Barrett instinctively
took the surest road to popularity. His Hamlet
was a man of like passions with ourselves, dif-
fering only in degree. Filial devotion, utter
horror of a most foul crime, a painful sense of
the burden laid upon his youth, changing what
should be a period of joy into a time of
plotting, and the agony of a mind racked by
conflicting passions, these were the notes upon
which the new Hamlet played, and with such
skill that his audience were at one with him
from end to end. By making Hamlet com-
prehensible Mr. Barrett by no means made
i 4 4 WILSON BARRETT.
him commonplace, and although his impersona-
tion was so thoroughly human and sympathetic
as to be intelligible to the most unlettered of
his audience, it still afforded ample material
for study by the cultured and the critical.
From the moment of his impressive entrance,
with the slow and measured step of sorrow, the
one dull blot upon the boisterous gaiety of
a semi-barbaric court, glittering with gold and
colour to the touching death, with the portrait
of his well-loved father at his lips, the new
Hamlet carried the audience with him in a
creation at once emotionally and intellectually
satisfying. Shakespeare, harassed by his
learned commentators, has been compared to
Actaeon, worried to death with his own dogs.
Mr. Barrett called off the dogs, and for that the
countrymen of Shakespeare should be grateful. :
It may be thought that the mere physique of
such a character as the student-prince is a matter
of comparatively little moment, but such is not
by any means the case. To enjoy a represen-
tation of Hamlet, or any other play, it is
essential that the audience should be in full
sympathy with the prominent personages
AN ESTHETIC HARMONY. 145
brought before them. The contemplation of a
play should be one of the most perfect sources
of aesthetic gratification, and this can only be
when the senses are simultaneously pleased ;
when there is no discordant note in the chord
which is to charm us out of ourselves. A
coarse face may be wedded to a melodious
voice, or a silver voice to a clumsy figure and
uncouth gestures, and the result is that the
bad neutralises the good.
Fortunately, in the Hamlet of Mr. Wilson
Barrett the aesthetic harmony was complete. A
perfect Hamlet should at least approach our
ideal of the highest standard of physical and
mental refinement. His mind should teem
with cultured ideas, and his face and form and
bearing coincide with the lofty tenor of his
mind. The thoughts conceived by the student-
prince and lover are of the highest, and the
voice, the gesture, the movement in which these
bright thoughts find expression should be too,
in their way, of the most perfect that can be
conceived. No harsh or vulgar accent should
mar the sublimity of the sentiments which
the young prince utters in his dire distress
146 WILSON BARRETT.
and innate nobility of mind ; no clumsy gait
should detract from the awe, the pathos, or
the dignity of his bearing in the various life-
scenes in which he is forced to take part ; no
outre fancy in the fashion of his apparel should
distract the mind of his audience from the
perfect comprehension of Shakespeare's magni-
ficent creation. The words of the part should
flow fittingly from the lips of the actor, whose
every look and gesture should help us to
realise the character which was so very real
to Shakespeare, as he painted with a loving,
lingering pen the portrait of one of the most
human and pathetic figures in the world's
dramatic literature.
Mr. Wilson Barrett fulfilled these conditions
with a quite exceptional completeness. Phy-
sically he was an ideal Hamlet, the handsome,
weary face and boyish figure realising to
the full the ideal portrait which the student
of Shakespeare must inevitably have painted in
his own mind. Voice, gesture, and movement
were alike good, and in the details of dress the
new Hamlet evidently spared no pains to be
archaeologically as well as aesthetically correct.
AN ODD EXPERIENCE. 147
Herein may be found in a great degree the
secret of his success. The intellect and the eye
were at once satisfied, and a pleasant sense
of completeness was felt by the most exacting
and sensitive spectator. Mr. Barrett's Hamlet
was not only the most human of modern times,
but it gave us humanity at its best.
As an instance of the odd experiences, semi-
humorous, semi-pathetic, which fall to the lot
of actors more frequently than to ordinary hum-
drum folk, it may be told how, during the run
of Hamlet at the Princess's Theatre, on
arriving at his house " The Priory," North
Bank, St. John's Wood, where George Eliot
once lived, after the performance on a wretched
winter's night, when the snow was several
inches deep on the ground and in that half-
frozen, half-thawed condition which is so
intensely disagreeable, made still more un-
pleasant by a bitter north-east wind cutting
into the very marrow of one's bones, Mr.
Barrett saw leaning against the wall of the
garden in the shadow the figure of a boy,
apparently about twelve or fourteen years of
age. Wondering what could have brought
148 WILSON BARRETT.
the lad there, the actor unlocked the garden
door, and went into his cosy sitting-room, not
without some qualms of conscience at his in-
difference to the shivering figure he had left
outside. Consoling himself with the reflection
that the boy was going home, and had merely
stopped to see him get out of his brougham,
Mr. Barrett tried rather ineffectually to dis-
miss the lad from his mind. On the following
evening the weather was, if possible, still more
unpleasant, but on arriving at the house there
was the same little shivering figure in the
same attitude not courting observation in the
least, but rather seeking the darkest shadow
the wall afforded. This second apparition was
more than Mr. Barrett could resist. He called
to the boy to come to him, and a brisk dia-
logue ensued.
" What are you doing here, my lad ? "
" Waiting to see you get out of your carriage,
sir, that's all."
" Were you not here last night ? "
"Yes, sir."
"But, my boy, you must be wretchedly cold
and wet ? "
NAIVETE OR DIPLOMACY? 149
" That's nothing if I can only see you, sir."
1 ' What good can a hurried look at me do you ? ' '
"It gives me courage to fight on, sir. I have
heard of your early struggles, and how yon
conquered, and when I get down-hearted with
my own troubles I always try to get a look at
you, and so get fresh hope."
This naive tribute, or diplomatic little bit of
flattery, not unnaturally led Mr. Barrett to ask
the boy to come indoors. Very reluctantly he
was induced to do so, and, on getting him into
the room, the actor had a good look at him.
Short for his age, with large brown eyes, a
refined face, close-cropped light brown hair, a
small mouth, and very small hands and feet, the
former blue with cold, the latter enclosed in a
broken, down-at-heel pair of boots, through
which the slush and snow had penetrated ; he
had on a pair of very frayed grey tweed
trousers, and an Eton jacket ; in his hand he
nervously twirled a cloth cap.
"You must be very cold, come and warm
yourself at the fire," said Mr. Barrett, drawing
up a chair for the boy, determined to find out
something of his history,
150 WILSON BARRETT.
However, no persuasion could induce him to
sit down, but there he stood at attention,
waiting to be questioned. He would eat no
supper, and said that his mother was awaiting
him, and that she would have no supper.
This was enough for Mr. Barrett, who took
up the cold joint and some bread, wrapping
them in paper, with a bottle of wine, and gave
them to him with something else beside
bidding him go home, and wish his mother
better times. Quite timidly the boy asked if
Mr. Barrett could find some employment for
him, and the actor promised to consult his
business manager, Mr. John Cobbe, and told
the lad to come on the following evening to
the theatre. This he did. Mr. Barrett told
him that he had talked the matter over with
Mr. Cobbe, and had decided to try him as a
messenger boy at first, leaving it to his own
industry and perseverance to improve his posi-
tion. The boy seemed deeply grateful, and
Mr. Barrett sent for Mr. Cobbe.
" This is the lad I spoke to you about,
Cobbe," said the actor-manager.
A quick, searching glance from Mr. Cobbe,
BOY OR GIRL? 151
a queer look of suspense and anxiety from the
boy. Then the usually placid Mr. Cobbe
began slowly to colour crimson from the nape
of his neck to the tip of his nose, and to Mr.
Barrett's astonishment he turned to him, and
said,
" Mr. Barrett, this is not a boy at all, it's a
girl!"
The figure in the jacket trembled a little,
and the face grew as rosy red as Mr. Cobbe's,
but not a word was spoken until Mr. Barrett
broke the silence. " Is this true ? "
" No, sir, it is not."
"I'll swear to it," said Mr. Cobbe, "you
came here some weeks ago ; you had written
to Mr. Barrett for an engagement, and he
deputed me to see you. You then wore a
black dress, a sealskin jacket, and a black vel-
vet hat. I told you there was nothing for
you in the way of employment, and you went
away."
" Are you quite sure of what you say ? '
asked Mr. Barrett.
" Quite certain," replied his business-manager.
"It is not true!" still persisted the young
152 WILSON BARRETT.
person. Here was a dilemma. Mr. Barrett
could not doubt Mr. Cobbe.
The accused one trembled and blushed like
any school-miss.
" I'm afraid Mr. Cobbe is right," said the
actor at last, " and under the circumstances I
must withdraw the offer I have made; if you
are a girl you obviously cannot be a messenger
boy, and there's an end of the arrangement."
" But he is wrong," this was accompanied by
such a distinctly feminine stamp of the foot
that all that Mr. Barrett could do was to say as
gently as possible, " I am afraid he is right,
and I can only wish you good-night, and advise
you not to masquerade in this way in the
future."
Then came the impulsive question, " Will
you give me employment as a girl ? "
Again the answer was compelled to be in
the negative, and a flood of tears followed the
refusal.
Mr. Barrett was sorry, but the Fates were
not more inexorable.
One morning, taking up the daily paper, Mr.
Barrett was reminded of the odd little figure in
J UNI US. 153
the snow, and the curious incident in which it
was the principal actor in a strange fashion, by
reading under the heading :
"A STRANGE CASE,"
that "a young woman named was sentenced
to six months' imprisonment for personating a
boy ! "
One of the most important dramatic events
of 1885 took place on the 26th February at the
Princess's Theatre, when Mr. Wilson Barrett
gave to the world for the first time an unpub-
lished as well as unacted drama by Bulwer
Lytton a notable addition to the best works
of its author. Junius approaches in style
rather to Richelieu than to other of Lord
Lytton's works, making due allowance, of course,
for the different periods with which the two
plays are concerned. There is much nobility
of sentiment couched in suitably noble diction ;
much worldly wisdom conveyed in aphorisms,
and a great deal of fine writing in the play
fine in the best sense of the word, not the gilt
and tinsel artificiality of The Lady of Lyons.
Whether it is in depicting the half-savage
154 WILSON BARRETT.
sensuality and imperious self-indulgence of the
ruling classes at a period when emperors were
a law unto themselves, and government a
tyrannic autocracy tempered by revolt and
assassination, or whether it is in portraying
the smouldering fires of rebellion in the hearts
of dissatisfied patricians and an oppressed
people, and contrasting the pure patriotism of
a Junius with the unscrupulous and luxurious
egotism of a Tarquin, the author is equally
felicitous, equally vivid.
The Lucius Junius Brutus of Mr. Barrett
consistently ignored the assumed foolishness
of the patriot, and declined to emphasise the
nickname Brutus bestowed upon him by the con-
temptuous Tarquin and his parasites, but which
at the period when the drama opens had almost
fulfilled its purpose, and was only necessary as
a mask behind which, save before Tarquin and
his following, Junius takes small pains to hide
his real disposition. As Papinius says :
"Art thou so sure that Brutus is the clod
Which Tarquin's scoff proclaims him ? Hast thou ne'er
Seen his lip writhe beneath its vacant smile ?
Seen his eye lighten from its leaden stare ?
" THE NOBLEST ROMAN OF THEM ALL!" 155
And heard beneath that hollow-sounding laugh
The slow, strong swell of a storm-laden soul ? "
Here was the key to Mr. Barretts reading of
the part. The patriot entered, clothed in white
robes, superbly handsome, with classic fea-
tures, white hair clustering round a noble fore-
head, and every movement full of a dignity
which gave the lie to Tarquin's brutal nickname
an ideal Junius, the "noblest Roman of them
all." Alternately tender and bitterly scornful,
gentle and indignant, intensely pitiful and pas-
sionately stirred to righteous vengeance cul-
minating in the killing of Tarquin, Mr. Barrett
lost no single one of the many opportunities
of the part, and Junius proved an imposing
and dignified figure, shining with greater lustre
by the contrast of its classic simplicity and
serenity with the gaudy, noisy, and effeminate
parasites of the corrupt court of Tarquin.
The new play Hoodman Blind, by Messrs.
Henry Arthur Jones and Wilson Barrett, pro-
duced at the Princess's Theatre on August
1 8th, 1885, was anticipated with considerable
interest. It proved to be one more addition
to the realistic-cum-sensational-cum-domestic
156 WILSON BARRETT.
dramas familiar to London playgoers since the
inauguration of the new school of work by the
production of 71ie Lights o" London.
The manly, handsome fellow, wedded to a
charming and confiding wife ; the happy home
blighted by the machinations of a well-dressed
villain ; the facile descent from solid comfort
to squalid misery ; the curiously sensational
incidental episodes and odd acquaintances ; the
final frustration of the villain's wiles and
restoration of happiness to the devoted but
hoodwinked couple, are they not written in
the chronicles of the stage at any time since the
loves and trials of Harold Armytage and Bess
his wife, or Wilfred Denver and the faithful
Nell, won our tears and took fast hold of our
hearts ?
The ingredients for that class of popular
dramatic work being, apparently, not capable
of much variety, it is well that they should
be blent with discretion, and the authors of
Hoodman Blind certainly concocted a palatable
dish, although the cayenne was perhaps a little
too self-assertive for the taste of the fastidious
few. Sound judgment was shown in basing
THE PASSIONS IN ARCADIA. 157
the play upon passions and motives common
to all classes at all periods, and in exploding
the fallacy that great cities enjoy a monopoly
of vice.
The cruel wrong that might take place in a
little old-world village such as Abbot's Creslow ;
the fierce passions that have play amongst scenes
of Arcadian beauty ; the love, the jealousy,
the lying and slandering, the greed, the villainy
that mar the lives of men and women, were
shown to be as possible within the narrow
limits of a hamlet as in the maze of monstrous
London. And, by causing villainy to be
enacted amid scenes of rural loveliness, the
heinousness of crime was emphasised by force
of contrast with its surroundings, a perfectly
legitimate method, utilised by the authors of
Hoodman Blind with excellent effect.
The sketches of country life which preceded
the realistic studies of squalid London had
much in them of truth, the dialogue illustrating
clearly the pettiness of rustic spite, the uncouth
gambols of rustic humour, and the inordinate
appetite of village folk for slanderous gossip.
But the chattering village gossips, the garrulous
1 1
158 WILSON BARRETT.
village patriarch, the hysterically cheerful vil-
lage brats, the sturdy, stolid rustics, had been
seen so often that the advantage supposed to
be conferred by the inclusion of " thirty-two
speaking parts " in one play was not so obvious
as might have been wished.
Literary merit was not wanting in the drama,
and sometimes reached a high level, even when
the eloquent diction clothed a conventional
idea, but artistic self-restraint seemed lacking
in some of the violent sentiments attributed
alike to the villain and the hero of the piece.
The treacherous Mark Lezzard expressed an
amiable desire to ''gnaw the heart" of the
woman who would not marry him ; while the
hero, Jack Yeulett, in an extremity of provoca-
tion, talked ghoulishly of tearing a body from
the grave, stamping upon the dead flesh, and
casting the morsels over the earth.
Mr. Wilson Barrett was well fitted with the
manly and picturesque role of Jack Yeulett, a
young Bucks farmer, who, having sown his
wild oats and married a charming and devoted
wife, buckled to at a more profitable form
of husbandry, not without success. But the
MR. WILSON BARRETT AS JACK YEULETT.
A VILLAGE OTHELLO. 161
Nemesis of his old follies dogged his footsteps,
and, just as he was happy in the love of his
wife and five-year-old boy, a cloud hung over
the simple tranquillity of his home, in the shape
of the foreclosure of a mortgage, which meant the
rending from him of house and land which had
been in his family for generations, but possessed
the compensating advantage of enabling him to
deliver the first telling speech in the play.
Then blow followed blow. The faithful wife
was made, by the arts of the villain, to appear
false, and in a painful scene Jack Yeulett, a
village Othello, flung her from him and left
his home, with the wish that he may never
look upon her face again. Then followed the
usual sequence of trouble for both, until, after
learning the truth by a miraculous interposi-
tion of " the long arm of coincidence," the
hero dragged the villain to an elevated plateau
in the centre of the village, extorted confession,
then hurled the cowering wretch down amongst
the clamouring people, who, with the quick,
unreasoning fluctuation of a mob, stood eager
to rend in pieces the man before whom but a
day earlier they had cringed.
162 WILSON BARRETT.
The play was admirably staged, excellently
acted throughout, and Jack Yeulett was as
striking, pathetic, heroic a figure as Mr.
Barrett of all actors could make him, and both
as actor and manager Mr. Barrett scored one
more distinct success.
As part-author with Mr. Henry Arthur
Jones of the romantic drama The Lord Harry,
produced at the Princess's on the night of
February i8th, 1886, Mr. Wilson Barrett was
responsible for a not very novel but distinctly
popular play, produced with richness and beauty,
and affording him a dashing, gallant role such
as he and his admirers loved. Fascinating
and romantic as the era of Cavaliers and
Roundheads, ruffling gallants and sour-visaged
Puritans, had so often proved before, it was not
surprising that the clever collaborateurs should
fail to find much that was strikingly new to in-
troduce, save a quite remarkable pinioning of a
gaoler by a prisoner who rushes from behind
the door of his cell, and an even more startling
effect in a fight upon the roof of a nearly sub-
merged cottage an incident which would have
been perilously suggestive of a nocturnal en-
MR. WILSON BARRETT AS THE LORD HARRY.
A CHIVALROUS ROYALIST. 165
counter of tom-cats on the tiles, had it not been
part of a scene of such rare beauty that irreverent
criticism was stopped at the lips. Naturally
the play turns upon the rival loves of Lord
Harry Bendish, Royalist and ruffler, and a
grim and treacherous Roundhead, Captain Ezra
Promise, and the poetic idea of the gallant
Cavalier's love for the memory of the tiny
Puritan maiden who had given him a kiss many
years before is very dainty and charming.
As the Lord Harry, Mr. Barrett had a part
that suited his handsome presence and gallant
bearing to perfection. The chivalrous speeches
came not only trippingly but fittingly from his
tongue. In his soldierly capacity Mr. Barrett
was don camarade par excellence ; as a lover
he was all that is ardent and tender, and as a
Royalist the personification of chivalrous loyalty
a gallant manly figure throughout, carrying
the play triumphantly to success upon his own
broad shoulders.
A scene of intense enthusiasm marked the
final fall of the curtain at the Princess's on the
night of May ist, 1886, and rarely had such a
scene ampler justification. It was but fitting
166 WILSON BARRETT.
that a strikingly effective play, acted to perfec-
tion and superbly staged, should win such a
success as was achieved by Clito, the new
tragedy by Mr. Sydney Grundy.
There were those who, with ample faith in
the managerial instinct of Mr. Wilson Barrett
and the literary faculty of Mr. Grundy, hoped
for rather than anticipated a success, when they
heard that the new venture was to be a blank
verse tragedy, with the action located in
Athens in the year 400 B.C. But, as the event
proved, the passions, follies, crimes, with which
Clito was concerned were common to all time,
and old as humanity itself; and this tragedy of
ancient Greece was as full of moving interest
as, and far richer in romance than, any modern
drama of the sensational school, with which,
indeed, it had nothing else in common, happily
substituting a beauty and nobility of diction
rare upon the stage of to-day for the sanguinary
curses and platitudinising didactics of melo-
drama, and giving in its place loftily conceived
tragedy, written with grace and vigour.
The story of Clito has all the simplicity of
classic tragedy. A young Athenian sculptor,
167
Clito, pure and noble as a Greek Galahad,
loathing the vicious luxury of the age, and
fired with the wrongs of Athens, finds his
adopted sister, Irene, in the power of a venal
wretch employed by Helle, the mistress of the
governor, Critias. He rescues Irene and joins
a band of patriots, who plan the destruction of
the palace and the sweeping away of Critias,
Helle, and the vicious aristocrats by whom they
are surrounded. Clito had often held the
name of Helle up to scorn as the very synonym
for all that was cruel and devilish, but Helle, at
the instigation of the lustful Glaucias, seeks the
sculptor in his studio, disguised, and practises
all her arts upon him. Glaucias the cynic told
her, " Art is immortal, but artists are mortal,"
and so it proved. Clito yielded without parley
to the magic of Helle's wondrous beauty, and
not only unwittingly betrayed his comrades by
babbling to her of the plot, but, by visiting her
at the palace, brought upon himself the odium
of a traitor, only to find at last that the love for
which he had sold himself, body and soul, was
a lie. The vengeance of the patriots followed
hard upon the heels of their betrayal, and fell
168 WILSON BARRETT.
first upon Helle, who had fled to Clito for
protection, and then upon Clito himself, who
died, stabbed to the heart, at the side of the
dead Helle, the last word upon his lips
" Forgive ! "
Here and there some slight anachronisms
were evident, but for the most part the pathos
and horror of the story were clothed in tender
and terrible diction. The only humour which
could be legitimately interwoven in a drama
pitched in so high a key satire of the keenest
and the bitterest, the only humour possible in
tragedy, and itself the very tragedy of humour
was introduced in discreet proportion, and the
drama moved from first to last with firm,
unfaltering step.
Mr. Wilson Barrett's impersonation of Clito
was entirely admirable, the alternations of
human passion and exalted patriotism ; the
agonising struggle of a noble nature against
the subtle and unflinching arts of an abandoned
woman ; the humiliation and remorse after the
grievous lapse, all were presented with Mr.
Barrett's customary power and facility, and
Clito became the centre of unflagging interest.
THE IDEAL WOMAN. 169
The Greek dress of the young Athenian
sculptor was worn by Mr. Barrett with natural
dignity and grace, and throughout the play he
was a picturesque and poetic figure, fit hero
for a tragedy of classic Greece.
Perhaps one of the most melodiously given
as well as exquisitely written passages in the
play was that in which Clito described his ideal
woman :
11 A woman, fair,
For it is woman's province to be fair,
And yet whose beauty is her smallest grace :
No mail-clad Amazon with helm and spear,
Her only shield her native innocence.
The charm of gentleness is round her head,
The light of truth is in her gentle eyes,
Her garment the white robe of chastity :
While Charity, of all the virtues Queen,
Sits on her brow.
Fearless in well-doing, in sorrow strong,
Healer of wounds, affliction's minister,
More good than pious, just a little blind
To mortal weaknesses. A woman born,
Affecting not to scorn a woman's fate ;
At peace with destiny, her husband's crown.
Cheerful of spirit empress of her home ;
In presence tender and in absence true :
One who, when travelling life's common way,
Glads every heart and brightens every eye :
One in whose wake the beaten tracks appear,
A little greener where her feet have trod '
170 WILSON BARRETT.
The play was staged with a lavish magni-
ficence rare even under Mr. Barrett's liberal
management ; the acting of Miss Eastlake as
Helle was in some respects the finest thing she
had ever done, and, as a whole, Clito was a
completely worthy production and a distinct
artistic success.
After an extended tour in America, where
he received a cordial welcome, on the 22nd
December, 1887, Mr. Barrett made his reap-
pearance in London, and a crowded audience
received him, within the walls of the Globe
Theatre, with an enthusiasm which must have
reminded him of old days at the Princess's,
and certainly proved that his temporary absence
had not dulled their cordial goodwill and
admiration for him.
The new drama produced upon the occasion
was from the pens of Mr. Barrett and Mr.
G. R. Sims, and The Golden Ladder, as it was
called, exhibited a type of stage hero new to
the actor. The Rev. Frank Thornhill proved
to be a muscular Christian of missionary ex-
perience, and distinctly a son of the Church
militant a fine, manly fellow of noble instincts,
A MUSCULAR CHRISTIAN. 171
who gave early evidence of his generous nature
by relieving the father of the girl he loved from
threatened ruin, by the sacrifice of his own
fortune. The heroine, not to be outdone in
generosity, elected to marry Thornhill in his
self-imposed poverty and share the hardships
of life in Madagascar with him. After this
came trouble upon trouble, in accordance with
the habit of this class of drama to make its
misery fertile after its kind, and a spell of
poverty in Hampstead was followed by an
agonising scene in Millbank, where the heroine
was unjustly imprisoned for murder while her
only child lay dying.
Mr. Barrett rarely looked better or acted
with more force and pathos than in the exact-
ing role of the Rev. Frank Thornhill. Manly,
strong in body and mind, earnest and artistic
throughout, he gave a picture of a noble-natured
man fighting fortune bravely against fearful
odds, with a sincerity and thoroughness which
carried the audience with him, and secured an
artistic success for a melodrama of too painful
a tone to win enduring popularity.
A high-spirited, good-hearted, and altogether
172 WILSON BARRETT.
lovable lad, to be presently transformed by
events into the sterner stuff of triumphing and
then sorrowing manhood, was the sort of cha-
racter tolerably sure to appeal powerfully to
Mr. Barrett's artistic sympathies, to gain the
favour of an audience accustomed to see their
favourite actor the central figure of stirring and
romantic scenes, and further to win for its im-
personator a great popular success. So it was
not surprising that Mr. Hall Caine's powerful
but rather sombre novel " The Deemster "
should be adapted for the stage by the author
and Mr. Wilson Barrett, and produced with
complete success on May i7th, 1888, under the
more attractive title Ben-my-Chree.
The Dan Mylrea was, of course, Mr. Wilson
Barrett, and the role gave him many- opportu-
nities of displaying his versatility, of which he
availed himself to the full. The impersona-
tion was, in the earlier stages, so bright, breezy,
lovable a piece of work, that the sympathy of
the audience was secured at once, and, that
achieved, Mr. Barrett could be trusted to do
nothing to alienate it throughout the remainder
of the play. The boyish debonair bearing in the
DAN MYLREA. 173
first place, the sudden access of natural triumph
over his defeated cousin, and then the anguish
of discovering that the man is dead, were so
forcibly, so naturally, conveyed, that the audience
were carried out of themselves by the sheer
strength and compelling realism of the actor.
Mr. Barrett once more proved himself an artist
au bout des ongles in Dan Mylrea, which must
always rank with his most popular, picturesque,
and well-thought-out creations.
On February i2th, 1889, Mr. Barrett ap-
peared in The Good Old Times, a new drama
written by Mr. Hall Caine and himself; but
the result was not wholly satisfactory. As John
Langley Mr. Barrett was robust and manly as
ever, but the redundancy of dialogue, the
presence of many improbabilities, and the
falling-off from the dramatic excellence of
Ben-my-Chree, were too apparent, and the
play could not be added to the list of Mr.
Barrett's successes. Of course there were
moments when the actor's personal energy and
charm rose superior to the comparatively un-
favourable conditions of a too sensational melo-
drama; but, judged as a whole, The Good Old
\2
1 74 WIL SON BA RRETT.
Times failed to satisfy those who were fami-
liar with the vastly better work previously
done both by author and by actor.
On the night of February 28th, 1889, Mr.
Barrett appeared at the Princess's in a drama
of his own. Succeed or fail, he could say of
Nowadays : a Tale of the Turf" " Alone I did
it ! " No collaborator divided the honour or the
responsibility. And Nowadays, happily, proved
at least a tolerable success. The horse-loving
British public, from the sporting butcher-boy
with his shilling sweep to the noble Duke who
plunges in five figures, might reasonably be
counted upon to take some interest in a play in
which all the action was made to revolve
around a high-mettled racer ; and when, in
addition to the equine interest, a considerable
amount of human sentiment was introduced,
a certain conventionality alike of character and
central idea could easily be condoned.
But the play found its most interesting
feature in the fact that for once Mr. Barrett
flew in the face of nature, relegated romance to
oblivion, discarded alike picturesquely " looped
and windowed raggedness," classic toga, Cavalier
PLAIN JOHN SAXTON. 175
plumes, the inky cloak, the Silver Regal hat of
soft black felt with brim of subtly artistic curve,
for the suit of rough grey frieze of a sturdy
Yorkshireman, horsey and honest as a typical
North-countryman should be.
And with the toga and the plumes went the
highflown sentiment, the hairbreadth 'scapes,
the heroic endurance of immeasurable wrong,
the psychological subtlety, and the superhuman
attributes of other days, for plain John Saxton
was as homely, shrewd, big-hearted, obstinate
a specimen of a downright manly man as
Yorkshire itself could produce. The necessary
pathos was provided by the presence of a well-
loved daughter, who, yielding to the solicitation
of the arch-villain of the story, not only marries
him secretly, abandons her home, and aids him
and his co-conspirators to steal and hide the
Derby favourite, but, when a rescue party visits
the Brixton stable to which the equine hero
has been smuggled, very nearly shoots her
father.
That Mr. Barrett could assume with so much
success and so much force and realism the role
of a grey-headed, rough-tongued old York-
176 WILSON BARRETT.
shireman proved, in a way peculiarly gratifying
to his most discreet admirers, that he possessed
the versatility indispensable to acting talent of
the first order, and that although apparently
doomed by nature to the perpetual enactment
of handsome heroes of romantic drama, he
could, on occasion, shine very effectively as one
of the rough diamonds of humanity.
On December 4th, 1890, after a successful
tour in America and the provinces, Mr. Barrett
assumed the reins of management at his new
London home, the New Olympic Theatre in
Wych Street, built upon the site of the old
building where, as Hood said of himself and
his brother wits, they would
<( In the small Olympic pit sit, split,
Laughing at Listen, while they quiz his phiz."
Mr. Barrett opened his new theatre with a
drama by Mr. Victor Widnell and himself,
called The People s Idol. ,
The play chosen for the inauguration of the
new theatre proved to be a somewhat conven-
tional type of drama, dealing rather superficially
with the great question of " strikes" and the
THE PEOPLE'S IDOL. 177
relations of capital and labour as they are
understood or misunderstood to-day. In The
People s Idol Mr. Barrett created the part of
a certain well-born employer of labour, one
Lawrence St. Aubrey, a young gentleman of
most excellent presence and most tender sym-
pathies, combined with an earnestness of pur-
pose and a dogged resolution not to be cowed
by threats, which redeemed the character from
effeminacy. Tender as a woman with the
unhappy souls who are reduced to misery by
the strike, brave as an English gentleman
should be when personal peril hems him in, a
loyal and chivalrous lover, and a self-sacrificing
elder brother to a selfish and weak lad who has
got into a troublesome intrigue there were
many good points about Lawrence St. Aubrey,
and these the actor did not fail to emphasise
with all the resources of his melodious voice
and admirably finished art ; but the one strong
incident in the play, the killing of the villain,
Jim Stevens agitator, drunkard, and "The
People's Idol" was marred originally by the
sequent improbability of the ironmaster's intense
remorse, which led him to shrink and shudder
178 WILSON BARRETT.
as though he had committed some dastardly
crime, instead of at the worst killing a would-
be murderer in self-defence. Mr. Barrett's
acting was entirely good in this scene and its
sequence, but the situation, though dramatically
effective, was ethically false, and so, until it
was in some degree amended, half its value
went for nothing. The character of Lawrence
St. Aubrey, contrasted sharply with that of
the malignant Jim Stevens, was essentially
one to strike the popular imagination, and the
philanthropic sentiments put into his mouth
were entirely in harmony with the manly,
generous nature conceived by the authors ; but
for all that the effect produced was much less
remarkable than that by such characters as
Wilfred Denver in The Silver King, of which
now and then faint echoes seemed to be recalled
as The People s Idol unfolded its story. That
Mr. Barrett made Lawrence St. Aubrey the
cynosure of the scene whenever he was on the
stage goes without saying, and no man on
the boards could have created the role with more
convincing realism. That London playgoers
were glad indeed to see him permanently back
THE ACTOR AT HOME. 179
amongst them was proved by a welcome so
enthusiastic, so spontaneous, so affectionate,
that it might have gladdened and touched the
heart of any actor, as it obviously did that of
Mr. Barrett, who was plainly moved when he
found that during his temporary absence from
the London stage he had not been forgotten by
his admirers, who, on the contrary, vied with
each other in the warmth of their welcome to
an actor-manager who had given them so much
worthy and brilliant work in the past.
Mr. Wilson Barrett at home in his charming
house in Maresfield Gardens, South Hampstead,
is just the same manly, frank, winning person-
ality as on the stage. Full of pictures, books,
and beautiful things, the house is essentially the
home of an artist, and amongst other souvenirs
of his own career, and of the profession which
he loves so well, Mr. Barrett treasures a
number of delightful letters from famous men,
notably one from Mr. Ruskin, in which, writing
of Claudian, the great Art critic says: "You
know perfectly well, as all great artists do, that
the thing is beautiful, and that you do it per-
fectly. I regret the extreme terror of it, but
i8o WILSON BARRETT.
the admirable doing of what you intend doing,
and the faithful co-operation of all your com-
bination, and the exquisite scenery, gave me
not only much more than delight at the time,
but were a possession in memory of very great
value. What a lovely thing it would be for
you to play all the noble parts of Roman and
Gothic history in a series of such plays. . . .
These things, with scene-painting like that at
the Princess's Theatre, might do more for Art
teaching than all the galleries and professors
in Christendom." Another letter, from Mr.
Justin McCarthy, expresses the great pleasure
which he found in the study of Mr. Barrett's
Hamlet, " which explained much to him in a
true light, and which will always remain in his
memory with the few truly artistic performances
it has been his good fortune to witness."
Another valued souvenir of one of his greatest
successes is a handsome silver tankard, of
Georgian design, grapes and vine leaves form-
ing the decoration, and the lid being surmounted
by a stag, presented to Mr. Barrett, with a pair
of goblets, by the authors of The Silver King,
and bearing the following inscription, " To our
MR. BARRETT'S FAVOURITE PART. 181
Silver King, a token of our gratitude a tri-
bute of our admiration. Henry Arthur Jones
and Henry Herman ; " while on one goblet is
inscribed, " Long Life to our Silver King,"
the other, " Health, Wealth, and Happiness
to our Silver King.''
Mr. Barrett's favourite part is Hamlet, and
his theory of emotion in acting is interesting in
view of the difference of opinion on this point.
Mr. Barrett has said, " Tears come into my
eyes unbidden when I am acting my best.
With an effort I can repress them, but if I am
not sufficiently in my part for them to come
uncalled, no power of mine can bring them.
. . . But mere feeling, unguided by art, is
seldom, if ever, effective. Art without feeling
is better than that, but feeling, with art, is
better than both. The most sensitive organ-
isation, coupled with the highest art, makes the
greatest actor." Mr. Barrett has also asserted
his belief that personal sorrows have influenced
his acting for good.
After the comparatively brief run of The
People s Idol, which for some reason or other
failed to enlist the interest of the town, to the
1 82 WILSON BARRETT.
extent which might reasonably have been
anticipated, Mr. Barrett commenced a series
of revivals of his old successes, such as The
Silver King, The Lights o London, etc. ; as
well as giving some peculiarly interesting
matine'es of The Lady of Lyons, with himself
as a gallant Claude Melnotte ; and a revival of
Kotzebue's sombre old play The Stranger, in
which Mr. Barrett assumed the title role with
considerable effect, and succeeded in proving
that the human interest of the play was strong
enough to counterbalance its old-fashioned
flavour, and to compel sympathy even from the
blasts audiences of to-day.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY THE STEREOSCOPIC COMPANY.
H. BEERBOHM TREE.
ORIGINALITY, subtlety, perfection of finish, and
a quite remarkable versatility make Mr. Beer-
bohm Tree one of the most interesting figures
of the stage of to-day.
He is a veritable chameleon. Alike in stage
physique and in dramatic psychology he is con-
stantly changing with absolute completeness
and apparent absence of effort. The gods
have been good to him, giving him just the
physical and mental attributes of an ideal actor.
Even his defects are helpful from the histrionic
1 86 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
standpoint. Upon his thin colourless face he
can paint just what picture he may need. Only
the clear, glittering light blue eyes betray his
identity.
Never has an actor possessed a more accom-
modating set of features. A master of the art
of making-up, Mr. Tree assumes at will most
widely diverse facial characteristics, nor do his
other physical attributes lend themselves less
kindly to the exigencies of his profession. A
touch of the hare's foot, an artistic dishevel-
ment of the hair, a cunning wrinkle in a coat,
the tie of a bow, the angle of an eyebrow, the
crook of a knee, the slope of a shoulder, and
his audience may read rascal in the motions of
his back and scoundrel in the supple-sliding
knee ; or he will make them recognise all the
manly virtues by a well-padded frock-coat, the
whimsicality of human nature in a wig, the
pathos of a life in a bowed head, its villainy in a
toss of the hand, its cynicism in a curl of the lip,
its passion in a glance from his gleaming eyes.
Two remarkable instances of this rapid ver-
satility, this absolute power of merging his
own personality, both of body and mind, in the
THE IDEAL ACTOR. 187
characters he assumes, were his impersonations
of the starveling Gringoire, all fire and soul,
and that huge hill of flesh and animality, Sir
John Falstaff ; and, on another occasion, the
handsome, rattling hero of the comedietta Six
and Eightpence, and the cringing, currish,
treacherous Philip Dunkley in Breaking a
Butterfly. In both these cases the characters
assumed, with only the rising and falling of a
curtain between them, were the very antitheses
of each other, alike physically, intellectually,
and morally, yet in each the actor was equally
good, simply because he was no longer Beer-
bohm Tree, but the person whom for the
moment he was representing,
The ideal actor should personate any type of
character, within certain physical limits, with
almost equal facility, yet the most versatile are
apt to have certain classes of impersonation
which suit them more completely than others.
This is the case with Mr. Tree. While he
has proved his power of running up and down
the gamut of human passions, and of sounding
the depths as well as floating on the shallows of
human character, he has shone conspicuously
i88 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
in the delineation of refined, subtle, cynical
villainy not so much that of an I ago as of the
modern version of Mephistopheles a mocking,
heartless devil, dressed by Poole and not un-
popular in society.
Or, if there is a better than this best, it is
when the villain is upon a somewhat lower
social platform, and his intellectual cynicism is
tinctured with positive brutality and accen-
tuated by personal eccentricity.
From the days when as an amateur, and a
member of the Irrationals, he made a name by
his clever realisation of Achille Talma Dufard
in The First Night, and other roles in which
he has since been seen upon the regular stage,
Mr. Tree has sought every opportunity of
putting his versatility to the test. The wider
the gulf between a new and a preceding part,
the more zestfully has he approached it. And
when he has made an addition to his album of
villains he has invariably introduced some bold,
or preferably some subtle touch, which has given
each new character unmistakable individuality.
Mr. Tree's first engagement was to play at
the Town Hall, Hythe, and at the end of the
A CAGED LION. 189
first week he ran up to London, a little elated
at the style in which he had played the two
principal characters.
On the Monday morning he went to lunch
with some friends, and, being of a convivial
disposition, forgot until the last moment that
he was pledged to appear in Hythe at 8 p.m.
He rushed to Charing Cross just in time to
see the tail lamp of the 4.30 crawling out of
the station. There was another train at 4.55,
a slow one, but there was nothing else to be
done, so Mr. Tree wired to his manager :
" Missed train. Coming by 4.55."
Then came three hours of slow torture. Mr.
Tree used silvern eloquence to get the train
"put along," but for all that he paced up and
down the carriage like a caged lion as no
doubt he esteemed himself and got out at a
station before Hythe, taking a cab, which was
in those days something of an extravagance, in
order to save every possible moment.
As the clock struck eight the actor arrived
at the Town Hall, to find a crowd round the
door, reading, wide-eyed and grumbling, the
following placard :
13
H. BEERBOHM TREE.
" IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE
SEVERE INDISPOSITION
OF
MR. BEERBOHM TREE,
THE PERFORMANCE IS
UNAVOIDABLY POSTPONED
It appeared that the telegram had been sent,
" Coming by 8.55," which was of course
equivalent to not coming at all.
This little slip cost Mr. Tree a fine of five
pounds just one pound more than his weekly
salary in those " early struggle " days.
It was during this first engagement, too,
that he played the blind Colonel Challice in
Alone, at Folkestone, and got immensely
praised for a subtlety which even he himself had
not suspected. He was very nervous in those
days, and forgot his lines. To avoid an abso-
lute breakdown, he agreed with the prompter
that he would snap his fingers whenever he
had lost his words. The curtain went up, and
as soon as the blind Colonel appeared the
finger-snapping became fast and furious. Next
morning Mr. Tree found that the local critic
AN IRISHMAN'S ADVICE. 191
praised his performance without stint, compli-
menting him particularly on having mastered
the habits of the blind so thoroughly, " even
down to the nervous twitching of the fingers "
(the snapping for the prompter's help), and "the
listening for the falling leaf" (Mr. Tree's eager-
ness to catch the prompter's voice), "as though
loss of sight made hearing more dear to him."
At the early stages of his career Mr. Beer-
bohm Tree was the subject of much friendly
interest amongst those who recognised in the
new recruit one of the coming leaders of the
mimic world behind the footlights, and in some
cases this personal goodwill was shown in out-
of-the-way fashion.
It was on the occasion of his first appearance
in Dublin that a gentleman of Irish nationality
proposed his health at a dinner in eulogistic
terms, and subsequently took the opportunity
of administering a few words of friendly counsel,
punctuated by hiccoughs.
Drawing Mr. Tree aside in the smoking-
room, he said with the abnormal gravity of
incipient inebriety : "There's one rock, my dear
boy, you must avoid. So many of you go to
i 9 2 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
wreck on it. Drink, my boy, I mean. Drink !
What II you take?"
It is just about ten years since "the gentleman
with the peculiar name," as one of the judges
called Mr. Tree, began to attract the attention
of those critical astronomers whose business it
is to watch the theatrical firmament for the
dawning of new stars, and to chronicle the
movements of known luminaries. In May
1880 Mr. Tree's presentment of Monte Prade
in Miss Genevieve Ward's production of Emile
Augier's L Aventuricre, at the Prince of Wales' s
Theatre, impressed the critics and surprised the
public by evidence of unsuspected power ; and
in June of the same year, playing at the same
theatre in Forget-me-not, to Miss Genevieve
Ward's wonderful Stephanie de Mohrivart, he
scored heavily in the minor part of the suscep-
tible Prince Malleotti, his finesse, the delicacy of
touch with which he gave the smallest detail
a distinct value, and his obvious power of
appreciating the inner essence of a character
instead of merely treating it from the outside
by means of emphasised peculiarities or strongly-
marked idiosyncrasies, causing the more dis-
A YARD-MEASURE OF A MAN. 193
criminating of his critics to welcome an actor
of promise, and to anticipate his future work
with more than common interest.
In July, at an Imperial matinde, his Sir
Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night gave
the public their first taste of his quality as an
exponent of Shakespearean humour, and was
voted impayable, his extreme height and slim-
ness fitting him so well physically for the
representation of that " very yard-measure of
a man " the most striking contrast conceivable
to his portly Falstaff of later years. Other
clever studies led up to his famous impersona-
tion of that physically limp, but mentally acute
humbug, the " Professor of the Beautiful in
Art," Lambert Streyke, in Tlie Colonel, at the
Prince of Wales's Theatre in 1881.
That Mr. Tree achieved success in parts
differing so widely, and while his stage ex-
perience was as yet limited, was due to certain
principles which he has held without wavering
from the days of his obscurity to these of his
brilliant success, and to that affinity to the
stage which he considers absolutely essen-
tial. Mr. Tree's dicta upon these points are
194 H - BEERBOHM TREE.
interesting for the side-lights which they throw
upon his career.
Some time ago Mr. Tree expressed the
following opinions : " I consider a distinct
attraction to and sympathy with the stage
absolutely essential to success. And not, mind
you, merely the attraction which leads men
and women to go on the stage just to show
themselves, or their dresses. I mean a thorough
liking for their work, which will enable them
to face the inevitable difficulties for the work
is often stone-breaking and heart-breaking. ...
As to genuine qualifications, I should say that
a man should have a respectable education
especially a social education, which is, perhaps,
of more value on the stage than a mere
academical training. Then he should have this
affinity or enthusiasm for his art without it all
is barren. That, and a knowledge of men and
manners, are the first essentials. I would add,
too, a capacity for hard work, and a deter-
mination, at all times and in all places, to do
one's very best. There must be no ( playing
down ' to the intelligence of an audience I
detest the phrase ! It is not the public who
" SOMETHING WRONG IN HIS INSIDE ! " 195
are wanting in intelligence. Give them credit
for a capacity for appreciating all that you can
give them, and give them of your best. Nc
one who is an artist is content to put out his
second-best. Indeed, he has no second-best ;
he does all he can always. Audiences soon
learn if a man plays as it were with his tongue
in his cheek."
With regard to imaginary qualifications of
aspirants to histrionic honours, Mr. Tree tells
a capital story. A young fellow came to him
and asked him to obtain a footing for him on
the stage. " ' What are your qualifications?'
I asked him," says Mr. Tree, adding, " Imagine
my position when he replied : * Well, you see,
I've got something wrong in my inside which
interferes with my bicycling, and so I thought
I'd go on the stage.' And," says Mr. Tree,
" he went on, but not through me. He got on
the boards as a banner-bearer. I afterwards
ran against him by accident. He was still
carrying a banner. Yes, and still had some-
thing wrong in his inside."
In May 1882 Mr. Tree found an imper-
sonation which afforded him scope for his
196 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
peculiar qualities in Mr. Herbert Gardner's
drama Time will Tell, in which he played
Count Czernocski, eliciting the opinion that as
an instance of keen, incisive, discriminating
character it was the best thing yet placed to
his credit, original and highly finished. In this
role, too, Mr. Tree's exceptional talent in making
up was also the subject of comment, a clever
bald patch on his wig being quite a touch of art,
and the whole presentment of a cool, familiar,
insinuating rascal being finished in every detail.
In September 1882 a new departure was
made as Solon Trippetow, in that amusing piece
Miss Muffet, by James Albery, at the Criterion,
in which Mr. Tree displayed his characteristic
thoroughness almost to excess, getting too much
in earnest towards the end. As a critic said at
the time, his assumption of gravity when lectur-
ing his "awful dad " or admonishing his youth-
ful mamma was full of the most genuine fun,
but Solon Trippetow is most sublime when most
ridiculous, and to make him too serious spoils
the effect of a very original part. In November
of the same year Mr. Tree figured conspicu-
ously in Arthur Matthison's little piece Brave
A POLISHED RASCAL.
'97
Hearts as a poverty-
stricken and eccentric
French marquis; and
on March I4th, 1883,
we find him at the
Olympic, a gro-
tesque, wild, eccen-
tric figure,
Jabez Green,
a half-cracked
country lad, a
sort of rustic
B a r n a b y
Rudge, in
Mr. Robert Buchanan's
Stormbeaten, the dra-
matic version of his
story, " God and the
Man." In this small
part the instinct of the
actor contrived to find
material to work with,
and the shambling,
tripping figure, simple MR - BEERBOHM TREE AS PRINCE
. BOROWSKI, IN "THE GLASS OF
face and high-pitched FASHION."
198 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
voice, now and then cracking into falsetto,
made the character one of those which stand
out clearly in the memory. In March one
more phase of the actor's talent was shown
in Lord Boodle, the typical aristocrat in Mr.
Hamilton Aide's comedy A Great Catch, at
the Olympic Theatre, when it was said, " Mr.
Beerbohm Tree, if laughter may be accepted as
a fair criticism, achieved the greatest success."
It was on September 8th, 1883, that Mr.
Tree created the part of which it may perhaps
be said that it was so distinctive, so finished in
the smallest detail, that it identified the actor
once and for all time with the realisation of
a type of polished foreign rascal which he
has made peculiarly his own. This role, the
forbear of quite a family of villains of a some-
what similar stamp, was that of Prince Borowski,
in Mr. Sydney Grundy's smart comedy, The
Glass of Fashion, produced at the Globe
Theatre. The make-up was a study. The little
forked beard, the meagre moustache daintily
pointed, the affectation of militarism indicated
by the broad trouser-stripe of braid, the care-
fully arranged hair and expanse of snowy
A GALLERY OF SCOUNDRELS. 199
shirt-front, all were admirable, all helped the
illusion and intensified the distinctiveness of
the character. The mingled suavity and fero-
city, the supreme selfishness and utter lack
of scruple, the innate blackguardism forcing
itself from time to time through the veneer of
good breeding all these were elements which
were to be nurtured and cultivated, and to re-
appear in after days in various forms, anglicised
in a Sir Mervyn Ferrand, exaggerated to some
extent in a Slowitz, and with all the exotic
rascaldom well to the fore in a Paolo Macari,
a Prince ZabourofF, a Baron Hartfeld, and a
Luversan.
Following the subtle, microscopic study of
Borowski, successes came thick and fast. It
was on May 2Cth, 1884, m tne dramatised
version of Hugh Conway's story "Called Back,"
that Mr. Tree clinched his reputation at one
stroke by the creation of Paolo Macari, a figure
so picturesque, so superbly, superhumanly cyni-
cal, so consistent in every gesture, every glance,
every accent and cadence of the voice, that
each added something to the picture, and not
one could have been spared without damage to
200 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
its complete and convincing realism. It was
not only with his cunning tongue and in his
fascinating broken English that Macari spoke :
his eyes, his supple figure, his cigarette, his
moustache, the coat upon his back and the hat
upon his head were all eloquent. The self-
indulgent indolence which is the frequent
accompaniment, and often the direct cause, of
craftiness, was indicated in a score of delicate
touches, and Macari, gliding or swaggering,
as occasion needed, about the stage, was the
incarnation of that cynical proverb of his coun-
try which says that one has not learned how
to live until one has learned how to dissemble.
But intervening between these creations were
two strangely different types, both impersonated
by Mr. Tree at the Prince of Wales's Theatre,
on March 3rd and 29th, 1884, and differ-
ing as widely as the Poles : Philip Dunkley,
the reptile banker's clerk, a red-haired inverte-
brate animal akin to Uriah Heep, in Messrs.
Herman and Jones's version of Ibsen's play
Nora, called Breaking a Butterfly ; and the
Rev. Robert Spalding, simplest, funniest, and
mildest of curates, in Mr. W. F. Hawtrey's
"7 DON'T LIKE LONDON!" 201
adaptation of Von Moser's farce Der Bibliothe-
kar, The Private Secretary. The inventive-
ness, the apt appreciation of all that may be
made out of or put into a part, the fertility of
resource and quick-witted apprehension of pos-
sible additions so characteristic of Mr. Tree,
now stood him in good stead. Mr. Spalding,
with his lisp, his drawl, his perpetual cold in
the head, his bandbox, umbrella, and goloshes,
his blue ribbon, bag of buns, and bottle of milk,
his guileless simplicity and childlike credulity,
his dislike of London, and his physical and in-
tellectual limpness, was a remarkable creation ;
and if the author provided a promising skeleton,
it was the actor who largely clothed it with flesh
and blood, and gave it much of its whimsical,
grotesque personality.
It was the actor to whom such telling touches
as the introduction of a bottle of milk and such
catching phrases as : "I don't like London ! "
and " D'you know ? " were due, while the blue
ribbon in the button-hole was an inspiration at
so late a moment that there was no time to
procure a piece of actual ribbon before the first
appearance of the Rev. Robert, and Mr. Tree's
202 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
button-hole token of temperance was due, not
to the draper, but to the scene-painter, whose
colour was still wet upon the actor's coat when
the curtain went up.
The curious compound of clerical com-
placency and natural imbecility of the Rev.
Robert Spalding made him quite one of the
funniest figures of the modern stage. The sleek
fair hair and pale face, the incurable angularity
of mind and body, the shortness and skimpiness
of the black trousers and the length of flutter-
ing skirt to the shiny black coat, the soft felt
hat and the expansive umbrella, were all ad-
mirably consistent, so consistent that it would
have been difficult to imagine the man with
any differing detail of dress, manner, or make-
up. Itwas one harmonious and exquisi tely
funny whole, and proved that Mr. Tree was as
much at home in grotesque characterisation and
farcical comedy as in roles demanding subtler
treatment, and that he could produce bold effects
with a broad brush as easily and as surely as
the delicate half-tones which lent such distinction
to characters demanding the touch of the minia-
turist rather than that of the scene-painter.
A REASONABLE JOSEPH SURFACE. 203
From Macari to Joseph Surface is a far cry,
but Mr. Tree proved himself to the full as
fascinating a rascal in the satin coat and lace
ruffles of an eighteenth-century comedy as in
the more prosaic clothes of a villain of to-day,
and walked in stately fashion through the scenes
of the School for Scandal, sleek and suave,
"Soft smiling and demurely looking down,
But hid the dagger underneath the gown."
His Joseph Surface was admirable, and once
more the individuality of the actor was reflected
in his impersonation, and he rendered one point
in the play more reasonable by making Joseph
better looking, better dressed, and better man-
nered than convention warranted thus showing
a wholesome disregard of stage traditions fully
justifiable in the case of an actor strong enough
to trust to his own conception of a character.
By this innovation in the matter of make-up and
dress, Mr. Tree made Joseph's illusion as to Lady
Teazle's supposed tendresse for him intelligible;
and by his quiet, convincing acting, Joseph Sur-
face became an interesting study instead of the
transparent humbug which he may so easily be-
come in convention-tied or common-place hands.
204 H - BEERBOHM TREE.
It was on February loth, 1885, that Mr.
Tree appeared as the man of sentiment, and in
September of the same year, and on the same
stage, he added a remarkable creation to his
gallery of aristocratic villains. In Sir Mervyn
Ferrand, the most picturesque figure in Messrs.
Corny ns Carr and Hugh Conway's daring drama,
Dark Days, Mr. Tree excelled himself. Melo-
dramatic, ultra-sensational, verging at times
perilously near to the grotesque, the play was
admirably acted by others, notably Mr. Robert
Pateman, as well as by Mr. Tree, but it is Sir
Mervyn Ferrand who lingers in the memory,
clear-cut as a cameo, and as enduring.
In the dramatic version of Dark Days two
characters were introduced, and one, which was
the merest sketch in the story, though, be it
said, a sketch by a master-hand, was filled in
with such ability that it became one of the most
striking and interesting of the dramatis persona.
From being a mere silhouette, Sir Mervyn
Ferrand became a study, the details of which
were drawn with the fidelity of a Gerard Douw.
In the story we have simply a suggestion of a
villain ; in the play we have villainy incarnate.
MR. H. BEERBOHM TREE AS SIR MER.VYN FERRAND.
A BLASE ROUA\ 207
The character was too promising a creation,
though by no means a novel one, to be lost,
and a sound discretion was shown in throwing
back the action in the drama, painting the
heartless life of the blase roue in vivid colours,
and at the same time relieving to some extent
the sombre tone of the play by the light but
cruel cynicism of the man of the world. The
scenes in which Sir Mervyn Ferrand figured
were among the finest in the play, owing in no
small measure to the exquisite refinement and
subtlety with which Mr. Beerbohm Tree im-
personated a character of the class in which he
is seen at his best. The assumed nonchalance
of Sir Mervyn Ferrand, his airy persiflage, the
curiously clever cynicism which by its apparent
frankness disarms suspicion, the polished man-
ner, the perfect refinement, and beneath them
all the ever-present, hardly-veiled brutality,
all these were indicated by Mr. Tree as only an
actor gifted with something more than mere
talent could suggest them.
The new year provided Mr. Tree with an
opportunity of adding to the villains of the
stage a polished, patrician voluptuary, venerable
ao8 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
in age but in nothing else, vicious with all the
callous brutality of senility, a mirror of manner
and a miracle of mercilessness, the most
repulsive yet interesting figure in a powerful
but painful play. Admirably acted, Mr.
Maurice Barry more's sombre tragedy Nadjezda,
produced at the Hay market on January 2nd,
1886, failed to please the public for obvious
reasons. Written with nervous force, the
incident around which everything else revolved
was too revolting for the work to hold the
stage. But Zabouroff remains as fresh in the
recollection of those who saw it as if only days
had passed since the be-furred, aristocratic
old libertine tottered about the stage, made
his vile bargain, won his evil way, and then
repudiated his word of honour like the veriest
cad. Exquisitely dressed, perfectly groomed,
with all the affectations of youth and the
morbid viciousness of age, daintily gloved
as a demi-mondaine, perfumed and powdered,
false on the surface as he was at heart, Prince
Zabouroff was the incarnation of aristocratic
vice at its worst accustomed to will and
to have, contemptuously ignoring the necessity
A LIBEL ON HUMANITY. 209
of keeping a pledged word to the common
people, cool and conscienceless, unprincipled
and unsparing of man or woman, false as
dicers' oaths and cruel as the grave, a libel
on humanity, yet a libel for which truth might
be pleaded in justification.
In February of the same year Mr. Tree
appeared in two very different parts with
success, although as Herr Slowitz, in Mr. B.
C. Stephenson's A Woman of the World, his
make-up and his conception of the part were
a little exaggerated, and showed a tendency to
lapse into caricature. Yet the humour of the
impersonation was extreme, and there were
enough clever touches in it to impel a critic
to write of it : " Mr. Beerbohm Tree, as the
tone-poet, added another brilliant figure to his
gallery of eccentrics. His manipulation of his
inky mop of hair a reminiscence of Rubinstein
was simply superb, and his German accent
was by far the best and most consistent I
remember to have heard. His performance
as a whole was a piece of admirable comedy,
with just the legitimate dash of caricature."
It was in the same month Mr. Tree essayed
210 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
with success the part of the amorous Cheviot
Hill, in Mr. W. S. Gilbert's cynical play
Engaged.
In Sir Charles Young's powerful drama
Jim the Penman, produced at the Hay market
on April 3rd, 1886, Mr. Tree once more had
one of the parts which fitted him like a glove,
that of a German rascal, a financial swindler
and trickster, Baron Hartfeld, whose half-bald
wig, hooked nose, and black whiskers revealed
at a glance the born schemer and impudent
adventurer, without being either unnatural
or conventional. In this role, too, the perfect
werman accent of which Mr. Tree is master
Gas assumed with admirable effect, and the
presentment was full of quiet humour and
convincing in its realism. As a type of
adventurer such as may be found in shady
offices round about Capel Court, Baron Hartfeld
was impayable, and his Hebrew extraction was
indicated without vulgar exaggeration.
During his appearance mjim the Penman, Mr.
Tree had a very amusing, if rather embarrassing,
experience on the railway.
He had been down to Oxford, to play I ago
A RA IL WA Y MET A MORPHOSIS. 2 1 1
with Mr. Benson's company at a matinde,
calculating that by dressing and making-up as
Baron Hartfeld in the train he would reach the
Hay market just in time to prevent a stage wait.
But the Oxford performance was late, and
Mr. Tree only just caught his train to London
by throwing an ulster over his I ago dress and
bolting for the station. Arrived there, he
tipped the guard and got a compartment to
himself. So far, good. By the first stoppage
the I ago beard was off, and Mr. Tree bore the
appearance of an ordinary English gentleman,
to the obvious mystification of the guard, who
looked in as he passed along the platform,
stared, grunted, but ended at that. But when
the time came for taking tickets, another
metamorphosis had taken place. The Hartfeld
wig, whiskers, and, above all, the Hartfeld nose,
had been assumed, and when the hawk-like
and forbidding face loomed out of the growing
shadows in answer to the cry of " Tickets ! "
the suspicion of the guard was thoroughly
roused.
And now, to cap it all, Mr. Tree had lost his
ticket. This was the last straw, and with
212 H. BEERBOHM 7 REE.
ominous severity the guard said sharply, " Lost
it? Idessay! Come! take off that nose ! We
know your sort /" and it was only by the appli-
cation of liberal largesse that the Hay market
audience was not kept waiting while the
"three single gentlemen rolled into one"
underwent the ordeal of being marched off in
custody. And Mr. Tree is convinced that in
his secret conscience that guard fully believes
to this day that he aided and abetted in the
escape of some desperate criminal.
In January 1887 Mr. Tree was an inter-
esting study as Stephen Cudlip, the villain
in Mr. Jones's drama Hard Hit, and April
of the same year gave him an opportunity
of adding to his repertoire a creation of
a quite new kind, and upon this occasion
he so excelled as a master of the art of self-
effacement that it was not until he had
strolled leisurely from the back of the stage
to the footlights that the audience penetrated
his wonderful make-up, and recognised, with
a roar of applause, in the wily old chief of
Russian police, Paul Demetrius, the personality
of the young actor-manager. The success of
"H*M! I WONDER!" 213*
Mr. Outram Tristram's play The Red Lamp,
produced at the Haymarket on April 2oth,
was unquestionably due to a very large extent
to Mr. Tree's impersonation of the Chief of the
Police. Made-up as a florid, leisurely, white-
haired, stealthy old man, the physique, not fat,
but ample ; the baggy, ill-fitting dress suit ; the
fingers, diamond-ringed, ready for instant
bribery ; the humouring, tolerant tone, as of
one whose ripe experience by no means in-
clined him to be hard upon human weak-
nesses ; the sudden, swift leap into vivid life,
with every sense alert to detect the enemies
of the Czar ; the inimitable banter with the
venal little French baggage of a maid, so
delightfully played by Miss Rosina Filippi, all
were perfect, and proved that the subtler the
methods demanded, the more delicate the by-
play, the more minute the indications ofcharacter,
the more completely could Mr. Tree rise to
the occasion. It is sufficiently easy to con-
ceive a Demetrius who should have been
simply commonplace and conventional, or who,
escaping the Scylla of dulness, would have
been wrecked on the Charybdis of caricature,
2i 4 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
and have so coarsened and vulgarised the part
as to reduce the drama to the level of ordinary
sensationalism, and render the bribery scene
with the maid impossible, thus robbing the
stage of a perfectly irresistible bit of comedy.
And here it is worth remarking that although
Mr. Tree is naturally the central figure of the
dramas in which he appears it is often as
much by what he puts into a part as by what
he finds there, and that he has the excellent
taste to content himself, when occasion seems
to demand it, with a minor role in the plays
which he produces, and thus prove that the
actor-manager system is by no means synony-
mous with the old stock-company idea of
" stars and sticks."
And upon this actor-manager system, Mr.
Tree holds strong opinions. Replying to the
attack made upon it, and other alleged abuses
of the stage, by Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, Mr.
Tree not only proved that he was well qualified
to defend his position, but expressed views
upon the stage of to-day full of shrewd sense
and not lacking in humour.
Without running into the extreme of optimism,
THE ACTOR-MANAGER CONTROVERSY. 215
Mr. Tree maintains that the drama is to-day
as vital a factor in the life of the nation as it
has been in any period of our history, and of
all the arts, he says, it is perhaps the most
popular. Whether this popularity is due to
its inherent healthiness or to the degradation
of public taste, to which managers have
attempted to pander, is, he admits, debatable ;
but while many stupid plays succeed, good
plays do not meet with failure if worthily
presented. Mr. Crawfurd attributes the present
alleged degradation of the stage to four main
causes : (i) mixed audiences ; (2) the apathy
of the educated portion of these audiences ;
(3) long runs ; and (4) the actor-manager system.
As to the first of these "causes," Mr. Crawfurd's
" kid-gloved contempt for the ' gods,' ' says
Mr. Tree, shows that he has no sympathy with
that wider influence of the theatre which is
" beyond the mere pedantry of literature."
The theatre should be regarded as a benefactor
of the community at large. That art is best
which is broadest, and it is the truest art which
appeals equally to the simple and the scientific,
that which the man of genius would recognise
216 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
and the coster would applaud. " What play,"
asks Mr. Tree, "has failed (with the public)
from being too high in aim, too true in senti-
ment, too lofty in thought ? " With regard to
long runs, these are, in a sense, detrimental
to artistic development. But if long runs were
not to be, how could the author afford to
devote the time and care to his work, and the
manager be enabled to give the necessary
labour to rehearsals, and the necessary capital
for mounting ?
As to the actor-manager system, the pesti-
lence which casts its withering blight on the fair
flower of our art, which consigns the genius
of the actor to a garret, and that of the author
to the despair of a magazine article, if actor-
managers occasionally usurp positions to which
their talents have not entitled them, the un-
compromising common-sense of the box-office
will speak with no uncertain voice, and the
usurper will fall a victim to the fanaticism of
his self-worship. Then, as to the mounting.
The genius of Wagner disdained neither the
art of the scene-painter nor the research of
the archaeologist. Yet, for the recognition of
UR MOTHER-IN-LA W, THE L.C.C. 217
the more exacting artistic demands of the public,
our managers are denounced as Goths and
Vandals.
Mr. Tree argues also that nearly all the plays
that remain favourites with the public contain
what Mr. Crawfurd would call actor-manager
parts. As to the establishment of theatres on
"joint-stock principles," " reason pales, com-
mon-sense reels, and satire is dumb in face of
such a proposition." The tendency at present,
he says, is rather towards state-hampered
instead of state-aided theatres. If the inter-
ference of " our grandmother the State " is a
questionable blessing, it is surely not unreason-
able, he adds, to protest against the tyranny
of " our mother-in-law the County Council,"
whose absurd pretensions to take over the
entire control of the theatres will, it is to be
hoped, be consigned to " the dust-heap of ob-
livion along with the stucco statues and crinoline
classics of the early Victorian Era."
On September i5th, 1887, Mr. Tree made
a notable addition to his creations, as Gringoire
in The Ballad-monger, Messrs. W. H. Pollock
and Walter Besant's version of Theodore de
2i 8 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
Danville's play of that name. The starved,
half-crazy revolutionary poet, lean of frame,
clad in picturesque rags, with his heart fired by
a passion for an unattainable woman and his
lips inspired by love of the people, suited Mr.
Tree's intense, nervous style to perfection.
With his alternations of wild, half-hysterical
rhapsody, passionate denunciation, and fierce
contempt, Gringoire is a remarkable personality,
and in Mr. Tree's hands every phase of the
man was made to yield its fullest value. De-
spair and hope, eager love-pleading and fierce
denunciation of kingly vice ; the bitter sarcasm
in which were voiced the hatred of a disaffected
people ; the passionate abandonment of love-
rhapsodies and the scathing satire of " King
Rope," hurled in half-drunken frenzy at the
head of the wily Louis, all the passion and
pathos of a poet's breaking heart and a people's
dumb despair were embodied in this imper-
sonation, which was followed in January 1888
by a character of a quite new type all simple
humanity, large-hearted, gentle, full of manly
dignity, quiet humour, pure pathos, and an
almost womanly tenderness.
HUM A NITY A T ITS BEST. 2 1 9
This new and beautiful study was Heinrich
Borgfeldt, in Mr. Buchanan's play, Partners, an
adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's story " Fre-
mont Jeune et Risler Aine," produced at
the Haymarket on January 5th, 1888. In this
all the villainy, craft, passion, slipped away,
and in their place the actor gave us a delightful
picture of humanity at its best, but subject, as
such types often are, to being tricked, duped,
dishonoured, by a trusted friend. A simple-
minded merchant, the soul of honour, happy
in the affection of his wife and worshipping his
little daughter ; content with shabby clothes and
simple pleasures, coming from his office to the
pure pleasures of domesticity, nothing could
be more touching, more tender, more true than
the Heinrich Borgfeldt of Mr. Tree. The
charming broken English, the exquisite touches
by which his love for wife and child were
suggested, the make-up, from the thin greyish
hair to the ill-cut trousers and clumsy boots,
were all as artistic as could be, and, too, Mr.
Tree displayed in this role the truest art of all,
that of self-restraint. Beautiful and touching
as were the scenes in which the great love that
220 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
was his life beamed upon wife and child ;
whimsical and winning as was the humorous
catechising of his little girl as she perched upon
his knee while he enjoyed his long-stemmed
pipe with the painted china bowl from the
Fatherland, it was in the office scene, when
the foul treachery of his young partner is made
known to him, that Mr. Tree was really great.
It was a superb example of self-control, a
triumph of quiet power.
With brief spells of varied effort, we arrive
at Mr. Tree's next striking impersonation,
on May 3ist, 1888, when he appeared as
Narcisse Rameau in Messrs. W. G. Wills
and Sydney Grundy's romantic play The
Pompadour, adapted from Diderot's Neveu de
Rameau. This creation belonged to the same
school as Gringoire, but with his keen percep-
tion of minutiae, Mr. Tree succeeded in giving
it distinct individuality. Again the half-starved
man of the people was sharply, almost painfully,
contrasted with royal luxury and extravagance ;
but in the case of Narcisse Rameau it is not
the love of the people, but love for a lost wife
which is the paramount passion. The vagrant
FROM POET TO BUSHRANGER. 221
with so soft a heart and so tender a remembrance
of the woman he loves so tireless in his search,
so pathetic when he discovers his lost wife in
the king's mistress was splendidly drawn ; and
amid all the vivid colour and restless movement
of the gay crowds of courtiers and favourites of
Louis Bien-aime, it was the vagabond Narcisse
of the meagre figure and wild face who domi-
nated the stage.
Another turn of the kaleidoscope and we find
Mr. Tree assuming one more distinctly fresh
type of character in Mr. Wilding, alias " Captain
Swift," in Mr. C. Haddon Chambers's drama
of that name, first produced at a Haymarket
matinee on June 2Oth, and put into the evening
bill on September ist, 1888. Bushranger and
desperado, yet not without that "soul of good"
which is to be found even in things evil ; with
the refinement and polish of a man of the world,
and the compelling power which such qualities
in combination could alone give, Mr. Wilding
is a curious study, not without the power of
winning sympathy, and with a cool imperturbable
self-possession which is in itself fascinating.
The chord of pathos is struck with :io uncertain
15
222 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
touch in the relations of the man and his
mother, who, married and moving in society
respectable to the verge of Grundyism, has
lost sight of this son, the fruit of an unhappy
passion in her youth, but has always had
her life shadowed by her secret. There were
moments when Mr. Tree was seen to immense
advantage, notably when he turned with fierce
contempt upon the cringing servant who dis-
covers his identity and tries to blackmail him,
and again when, after recognising him as her
son, his mother pleaded that he would speak
" one word of love " to her, and he answered
her with a sob, half of fierce resentment, half
of natural pity, and the pathetic cry, " You
never taught me how ! "
As a psychological study, this impersonation
was of extreme interest. The sense of some-
thing lacking, of some inevitable and painful
difference between himself and others, breeding
a despairing defiance of society, a wild joy in
preying upon respectability, a morbid sensitive-
ness in resenting a secret shame, were indicated
by the actor in a score of subtle ways. The
dual nature in man and the desperate mischief
A STUDY IN MONOMANIA. 223
bred by a sense of social alienation were
excellently shown, and the strength and pathos
of the part brought out to the last degree.
Insanity, or monomania, is a tempting subject
to any actor with a special talent for the
delineation of psychological phenomena, and it
is not surprising that Mr. Tree approached the
role of Matthew Ruddock, in Mr. H. A. Jones's
play Wealth, produced at the Hay market on
April 27th, 1889, with something like eagerness,
and there were many points and moments in
it of real value. The character of the old
manufacturer, consumed with a passion for
money-making, devoted to his daughter but
more devoted to his ducats, was a study in
mental as well as moral pathology, and, so
conditioned, Mr. Tree was of course admirable.
Now and then the situations called for certain
physical powers which he does not possess, but
in the general outline of the character nothing
was blurred or indistinct, and the mental troubles
involved in the double illusions of wealth and
penury were rendered with extreme realism
and finesse. In the opinion of an able critic,
Mr. Tree, with his refined and delicately
224 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
constructive rather than impetuous talent, was
misplaced in such a part. But for all that
there were great moments in the play ; for
instance, Matthew Ruddock's reading of the
little letter written by his daughter when a
little child, which was perfect in its unaffected
pathos, and his wild raving when he imagined
that he was ruined and dishonoured. The play
may not have been convincing, but the figure
of the millionaire who imagined himself a
pauper remains graven upon the memory.
But prior to Matthew Ruddock, the embodi-
ment of thrift and niggardly self-denial, Mr. Tree
had given us a thriftless, self-indulgent Falstaff,
ripe, rich, and luscious to a degree. As a critic
said at the time of production at the Haymarket,
on January 2nd, 1889 the first performance
having been given at the Crystal Palace on
September I3th, 1888 perhaps the sensuality
of the new Falstaff is gloating rather than
roguish, but " if it be so it is not a grievous
fault," as " the gloating Falstaff is no doubt the
more probable of the two, though not the more
Shakespearean ; " although it is not altogether
easy to imagine a more gloating and less inno-
MR. H. BEERBOHM TREE AS FALSTAFF.
cently roguish libertine than the Falstaff of
Shakespeare, judged out of his own mouth.
The huge hill of flesh which Mr. Tree con-
226 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
trived by the art of make-up to apparently
impose upon his own slender personality was
a masterpiece of realism. The huge stomach,
the elephantine legs, the bloated, ruddy cheeks,
the rolling, bleared, watery eyes, were marvel-
lously assumed ; the voice acquired an oily
richness and the unctuous hoarseness sequent
upon much sack, the whole impersonation a
graceless caricature of a gentleman, as Mr. Tree
once called the fat knight. Those who saw
him in the part will not easily forget the burly
old rascal, with his broad jests and amorous
leers, his shameless boasting, unblushing lying,
and pitiful pretence of dignity.
It was on the occasion of Mr. Tree's first
appearance in this part that a most embarrass-
ing contretemps occurred. The actor who is
always nervous when essaying a new role,
noticed soon after his appearance that the
audience began to smile, then to titter audibly.
This naturally encouraged him. " They're
taking my Falstaff all right," he thought, and
his nervousness wore off. But the tittering
increased to such an extent that the player
began to suspect his own powers of amusing
A GLOATING FALSTAFF. 227
them so consumedly, and to wonder whether a
cat were crossing the stage. Looking about
for the cause of offence, he discovered to his
horror that his padded trunks had slipped down,
revealing to the delighted audience a pair of
lean shanks, admirable for Slender, but absurd
for the fat knight.
There was nothing for it but to waddle to
the wings, be re-trussed, and reappear with as
good grace as possible. Naturally, the obvious
pun upon Tree's trunks kept the comic journals
agog for a week ; and afterwards, to retrieve his
reputation, as Mr. Tree whimsically says, he
was compelled to reappear in the part at the
Haymarket, and although it was utterly un-
suited to him, managed to win favour in it,
and to keep up his trunks.
Naturally, Falstaff was as unlike Gringoire
as two types of humanity could be, equally in
body and mind ; yet Mr. Tree played both
characters on the same night for a considerable
time, an "object lesson" in versatility perhaps
never excelled even by David Garrick himself,
master of lightning-changes as he was.
Upon Triplet in Masks and Faces, as played
228 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
once by Mr. Tree, there is no need to dwell.
It was an excellent performance, true art in its
truth to nature, and equally acceptable in its
grim pathos and whimsical humour ; nor is it
necessary to deal at length with his impersona-
tion of King John, to which brief reference is
subsequently made, as it is not yet familiar to
the public, who will, however, one day recog-
nise in it all the grip of character which has
won for Mr. Tree his reputation as one of
the most intellectual players of the period.
The rendering of a dual role in any play
must of necessity handicap an actor, yet one of
Mr. Tree's most marked successes was made in
the characters of Lucien Laroque and Luversan
in Mr. Buchanan's adaptation of MM. Jules
Mary and Georges Grisier's Roger la Honte,
A Mans Shadow, produced at the Haymar-
ket Theatre for the first time on September
1 2th, 1889. A melodramatic, " penny-plain-
and-twopence-coloured " sort of piece, although
improved by Mr. Buchanan in the process of
adaptation, A Mans Shadow might well have
seemed a doubtful card to play before a
Haymarket audience ; but by admirable staging,
LAROQUE AND LUVERSAN. 229
excellent acting all round, and a peculiarly pic-
turesque impersonation by Mr. Tree, it proved
a success. And in this dual role Mr. Tree had
an opportunity of practising the art of conveying
differences of appearance and character by the
slightest touches. Essentially the " shadow "
of the amiable, handsome, refined, affectionate,
honourable young merchant Lucien Laroque,
the scoundrel Luversan was brutal, repulsive,
cruel, vulgar, and unprincipled ; and yet these
very opposite traits were conveyed by such
minute details as the substitution of an im-
pudent little scarlet bow for the flowing ends
of a highly respectable blue and white spotted
necktie, the change of a hat and of the turn of
an eyebrow, the addition of a " bang " to the
hair, the buttoning of a coat, and the change of
voice from a full manly tone to a curious
falsetto. In a moment the tender father, the
devoted husband, became transformed into the
brutal blackmailer, the pitiless villain, the paltry
thief. To those who were not familiar with the
mystery and potentiality of make-up, the identity
of the same actor with Laroque and Luversan
would have seemed impossible, and yet, upon
2 3 o H. BEERBOHM TREE.
critical inspection, the change was found to be
the result of a number of very minute differ-
ences, marked by a master-hand.
Always indefatigable, always sighing like a
modern Alexander for new worlds to conquer,
Mr. Tree made another essay at Shakespearean
acting by appearing as King John in a revival
of that play at the Crystal Palace on September
1 9th, emphasising the craft and cunning of the
coward-king with excellent subtlety and striking
effect. The death- scene was a triumph of real-
istic agony, and the impersonation as interesting
as the occasion a revival of the great play after
a hiatus of nearly a quarter of a century.
On April 3rd, 1890, Mr. Tree added one
more delightful study to the list of his more
benign impersonations. As the Abbe Dubois,
in Mr. Sydney Grundy's adaptation of MM.
Busnach and Cauvin's Le Sdcret de la Terreuse,
called The Village Priest, Mr. Tree once more
showed that he was as much at home in the
gentler, nobler kind of character, as in the
creation of masterly villains. The recipient,
under the seal of the confessional, of a terrible
secret, there comes a moment in the placid life
A SOUL-TORN PRIEST. 231
of the old village priest when he is bewildered by
two promptings, the clerical instinct urging him
not to break his vow and so alienate himself
from his Church ; the voice of humanity telling
him that he must not let the innocent suffer longer
for the guilty, and that justice must be done, even
though hearts may be broken and innocent lives
spoiled. The transition from the gentle, whim-
sical old man, with no anxiety more onerous than
that for his beloved flowers, to the soul-torn priest
halting between two opinions, so loth to hurt the
innocent representatives of a dead hypocrite,
yet so unwilling that injustice should be done to
any living soul, was admirable, and one of the
crucial moments of the play, a moment which
might easily have failed to convince an audi-
ence somewhat sceptical as to modern miracles
was a triumph, thanks to perfect acting.
Gentle and whimsical, tender and manly, old in
years but young in heart, a priest but with broad
human sympathies, a figure at once touching
in its simple dignity and pleasantly picturesque,
the Abbe Dubois was a clever and delightful
creation, full of fascination, and as lifelike a
study as any which Mr. Tree has created.
232 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
On October i6th Mr. Tree appeared for the
first time as Sir Peter Teazle in a performance
of The School for Scandal at the Crystal Palace,
and despite the number of distinguished actors
who have preceded him in the part, he contrived
to give his assumption a distinction of its own.
Uxorious, doubting, doting, torn by jealousy, yet
jealous of his wife's honour even more than his
own, the new Sir Peter was not only an interest-
ing but a sympathetic figure, capable of compel-
ling respect, and never forgetting, even in the
most bitter moment of his disillusionment, that he
was a gentleman, nor the restraint which a remem-
brance that noblesse oblige must always compel.
On Monday, November 3rd, in pursuance of
a novel and somewhat courageous policy of
breaking the run of successful plays, and devoting,
from time to time, Monday evenings for the
exploitation of new pieces, Mr. Tree produced
an original comedy called Beau Austin, by Mr.
W. E. Henley and Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson.
Mr. Tree was the Beau, admirably made up in
the bewigged, quizzing-glassed, short-waisted,
rolled-collar-coated, beaver-hatted, tasselled-
caned, and tight-pantalooned mode of seventy
BE A U A USTIN. 233
years ago, and his dress and deportment were
interesting studies. The hero of an intrigue
worthy of the age of pinchbeck politeness and
shoddy sentiment, Mr. Tree made his Beau
Austin the veritable incarnation of polished
heartlessness and artificiality. In this he was
right, but all human interest was so entirely
hidden beneath the veneer of manners, that the
piece took no hold upon the feelings, the heart
did not beat one atom more rapidly, no single
tear rose to the eyes, no throb of indignation
stirred the pulse throughout the whole repre-
sentation of a story of girlish credulity, piti-
less betrayal, and a final flicker of remorse
upon the part of the profligate Beau. In a
perfectly charming Prologue Mr. Henley struck
the key-note of the comedy thus :
" ' To all and singular,' as Dryden says,
We bring a fancy of those Georgian days
Whose style still breathed a faint and fine perfume
Of old-world courtliness and old-world bloom ;
When speech was elegant, and talk was fit,
For slang had not been canonised as wit ;
When manners reigned, when breeding had the wall,
And Women yes ! were ladies first of all ;
When Grace was conscious of its gracefulness,
And man though Man ! was not ashamed to dress.
234 H- BEERBOHM TREE.
" A sketch, a shadow, of the brave old time ;
A hint of what it might have held sublime ;
A dream, an idyl, call it what you will,
Of man, still Man, and woman Woman still ! "
The promise of the Prologue was scarcely
fulfilled in the play. Mr. Tree played the Beau
as probably no other actor in London could have
played it, realising with almost irritating fidelity
the contemptible, paltry affectation and puerile
vanity of the character, whose smirking and
posturing and pompous speeches made it so im-
possible to give him credit for the possession
of any sincerity or heart. The Beau was little
more than a sort of sublimated Horatio Sparkins,
and in an age when women were "ladies first
of all " it seemed incredible that even a silly,
sentimental schoolgirl like Dorothy Musgrave
could have been consumed by a passion for
such a middle-aged bundle of affectations. Mr.
Tree made all that he could of the self-satisfied,
self-conscious, self-worshipping George Austin ;
but with all his artistic elaboration of " business "
and make-up, his deliberate delivery of polite
platitudes, his finicking manipulation of his
quizzing-glass, his Regency, gingerbread manners
and easy morals, reminding one every moment
A SUBLIMATED HORATIO SPARKINS. 235
of that " fourth of the fools and oppressors called
George," he only left the impression of a con-
temptible creature devoid of all true manliness,
vain as a woman, lustful as a satyr, petty
and paltry as he was posturing an animated
clothes-screen, an advertisement for some
Georgian Turveydrop, a poor thing, all leather
and prunella. That Beau Austin became such
as this in Mr. Tree's hands was excellent proof
of the actor's art, but only made any appeal to
the hearts of an audience the more futile. As
a series of studies of the dress and manners of
the period, and of exquisite stage pictures of the
old Pantiles, when " trifling Tunbridge " was
the chosen resort of the beaux and belles of that
trifling age, Beau Austin was charming ; but
the whole thing seemed so superficial, so depen-
dent upon quaint dress and old-world affecta-
tions, that it was not altogether easy to think of
the vain and silly puppets on the stage as "man,
still Man, and woman Woman still." The
climax of the play was curiously cnaracteristic
of its pervading sentiment. Beau Austin was
saturated with snobbishness ; and when at last the
profligate Beau and the frail Dorothy are recog-
236 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
nised publicly as future man and wife, it is only
fitting that the dominant consideration in the
mind of the Tunbridge Wells Sparkins should
be one of horror that the superfine sensibilities
of His Royal Highness the Duke of York should
have been outraged by a " scene " on the
Pantiles in which the brother of the girl whom
Sparkins has betrayed slaps the Beau in the face
coram populo, and under the Royal Nose of the
Duke. All the potential pathos and passion go
for nothing when it is made so painfully evident
that a tender regard for the feelings of the puffy
" Royal Highness " was reckoned of infinitely
higher importance than the honour of a woman or
the good faith of a man. A remarkably able study
so far as Mr. Tree is concerned, Beau Austin will
always be interesting as a stage reincarnation of
a type which can well be spared in real life, a
revival of the unfittest in human nature a man
without manliness, ^petit-maitre, an apotheosised
tailor's dummy, an anything you please save a
man or a gentleman in the only worthy sense
of the words, a clever portrait of an unworthy
subject, the central figure in a series of charm-
ing pictures of English society under the regime
VICE, VIRTUE, AND VERSATILITY. 237
of that so-called " First Gentleman of Europe "
and caricature of kings, George the Fourth.
Mr. Tree revived Called Back on November
roth, resuming his original roleot Paolo Macari
with complete success, and in pursuance of his
" Monday Night " policy also gave a represen-
tation of The Red Lamp on December 8th,
Captain Swift on December I5th, and subse-
quently other favourite pieces in his repertoire,
resuming his original roles with obvious zest,
and making the characters riper and even more
interesting than before.
On January i5th, 1891, Mr. Tree produced
The Dancing Girl, a strong, daring drama
by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, with immediate
and unqualified success. His own assumption
of the part of a spendthrift, ruined Duke of
Guisebury, who has gone to the dogs, but yet
is full of excellent instincts, was as subtle as
ever ; and in the great scene, "The Last Feast,"
before he puts poison to his lips, he was power-
ful and effective to a degree. His " business "
was, as usual, fertile in significance ; and the
whole impersonation interesting, as Mr. Tree,
of all living actors, could make so well-conceived
16
238 H. BEERBOHM TREE.
a character. The play was not without incon-
sistencies both of incident and character-detail,
but Mr. Tree's creation of the principal role was
entirely consistent. From end to end of the
drama he was obviously a man of good instincts,
spoiled by conditions which, acting upon a
nature essentially weak, made him morally and
socially the sport of circumstances, the creature
of momentary impulse, a living example of the
struggle between the noble and ignoble instincts
of human nature the latter proving their power,
and the former, and weaker, going to the wall.
Vice and virtue, youth and age, stalwart
manhood and slinking currishness, every species
of human nature under all conceivable con-
ditions, these are the types with which Mr.
Tree has already enriched the stage. And he
has still youth on his side. He is on almost
the topmost rung of the dramatic ladder.
To-day, young as he is, and few years as he
has been upon the stage, he has already earned
for himself a place of honour upon the roll which
bears in brilliant blazonry the names of the
foremost actors of the century. Who shall say
what new triumphs are in store for him ?
%
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E. S. WILLARD.
THERE was a time when it seemed to the
habitual playgoer that the dramatic doom of
Mr. E. S. Willard was to perpetually " smile
and smile and be a villain." And, of a truth,
there were reasons enough for such an ima-
gining. A suavity of manner, coupled with a
sardonic sneer of bitterest import, dark, expres-
sive eyes, clear-cut features, a good carriage,
and a set of gleaming teeth worth a whole box
of make-up to an impersonator of gentlemanly
scoundrelism, seemed to have marked Mr.
Willard as the society villain par excellence of
modern melodrama ; and that very amiable and
excellent gentleman appeared to be fated to
242 E. S. WILLARD.
endure a dual existence an upright, kindly,
altogether admirable Jekyll by day a Hyde,
without the physical horror, by night.
But, brilliant as Mr. Willard's villains were ;
keen as was the delight which they afforded
to sensitive and romantic souls to whom inter-
mittent blood-curdling is a necessity of existence,
Fate, juster and kinder than she is commonly
reputed, had better things in store for a man
of such excellent gifts, and in Captain Herbert
Skinner, the Spider of to-day the swell mobs-
man who cracked cribs in evening dress, and
whose only regret for robbing his host's side-
board was that he would miss the plate when
next he dined with him was hidden the
Claudius, King of Denmark, of to-morrow.
Like most actors who have made their way
to the front of their profession, Mr. Willard
graduated in the provinces. His first appear-
ance was made upon the stage of the Theatre
Royal, Weymouth, on Boxing Day, 1869, in
the unimportant role of Second Officer in The
Lady of Lyons, and it was only after a good
many years of very varied work in the country
that he came to London, to win name and fame
"RESPONSIBLE UTILITY." 243
and honour by hard work, an obvious earnest-
ness, and a dramatic gift far above the average.
It is interesting, in the light of his subsequent
success, to recall some of his experiences in
those early days, when he "went the western
circuit," migrated to Glasgow as " responsible
utility," where Mr. Sothern, of Lord Dun-
dreary fame, engaged him for a tour, during
which he appeared as Captain de Boots in
Dundreary Married and Settled, Mr. Smith
in David Garrick, and Asa Trenchard in Our
American Cousin. Then came seasons at
Plymouth, Scarborough, Belfast, Dublin, where
he played John Feme in Progress, and first at-
tracted some attention ; Birkenhead, Newcastle,
Scarborough, Sunderland ; a second season in
Newcastle, where he appeared as Romeo, Mac-
duff, and lago; and Bradford, where he again
made some mark as Edmund in King Lear.
Ten years ago the name of Mr. E. S. Willard
was virtually unknown to the great playgoing
public of the metropolis. Now, after spending
sixteen of his thirty-seven years of life on the
stage, there are few names more familiar or
more popular, and this honourable position in
244 E > & WILLARD.
the dramatic world has been won by much
hard and estimable woik.
Mr. Willard's first appearance on the London
stage was also on a Boxing Day, in 1875, when
he undertook the part of Alfred Highflyer in
A Roland for an Oliver, at Covent Garden ;
and he appeared at the same time as Antonio
in The Merchant of Venice, both pieces pre-
ceding the pantomime. Then came more long
provincial tours, and an endless variety of im-
personations, including Edgar in King Lear,
Eugene Aram, Orlando Middlemark in A
Lesson in Love, Sidney Daryl in Society,
Horace Holmcroft in The New Magdalen,
Robert Folliott in The Shaughraun, Hector
Placide in Led Astray ; Dubosc and Lesurques
in The Lyons Mail, Macbeth, Claude Melnotte,
Lord Clancarty, Sir Peter Teazle, Sir Har-
court Courtley, and Richard Arkwright, Mr.
Willard supporting Miss Helen Barry as
her leading man ; and later on appearing as
Benedick, Charles Surface, Young Marlow,
Frank Annesley, Ham Peggotty, Charles
Middlewick, Augustus Vere in Married in
Haste, Lionel Leveret in Old Soldiers, Jack
MR. WILLARD'S DRAMATIC METHOD. 245
Dudley in Ruths Romance, Fletcher in H. J
Byron's Uncle, and in one of Mr. H. A. Jones's
earliest pieces, called Elopement, until his final
and decisive return to London in 1881.
In that year he appeared at the Imperial
Theatre as Sir Harcourt Courtley, De Lesparre
in Led Astray, and Peter Hayes mArkwrigkfs
Wife, playing in the afternoon at the Aquarium
and in the evening in Brighton ; and subse-
quently he appeared at the Alexandra Palace as
Frank Hawthorn in Extremes, Cyril in CyriFs
Success, Sir Thomas Clifford in The Hunchback,
and as Charles Surface.
Intense devotion to his art, an excellent
habit of thinking for himself, and so importing
originality even into the most familiar parts, in-
domitable courage and perseverance, have been
the secrets of Mr. Willard's success. Nor is
his dramatic method less admirable. Vigour,
restrained always from lapsing into violence ;
refinement of manner, speech, and style never
to be mistaken for affectation ; subtle and highly-
finished art, which extracts the utmost value
from every word and gesture ; a tenderness on
occasion ; a passionate self-abandonment in
246 . S. WILLARD.
moments demanding moral heroism ; a stern
intensity in depicting indignation or sorrow ; a
sincerity and refinement free from cloying senti-
mentality or smug self-satisfaction in love scenes,
have proved his versatility, his good taste, his
control over the resources of his art.
Like all actors of somewhat striking physique,
he possesses les qualitts de ses dtfauts. He
rarely quite obliterates himself in his part ; but
as Mr. E. S. Willard has the good fortune to
enjoy a well-deserved popularity, it is, at all
events in the eyes of very many habitues of
the theatre, no serious fault 'that his personal
identity is disguised rather than lost in the
characters which he assumes.
When the curtain has fallen and Mr. Willard
has returned to his pretty home in Blenheim
Road, St. John's Wood, the realistic professor
of villainy in all its branches becomes an ami-
able, refined, somewhat studious gentleman, of
decidedly aesthetic proclivities, with a passion
for Swinburne's melodious poetry, quaint old
furniture of blackest oak, dainty old china, and
all the artistic entourage of a man of taste.
Out of doors a well-kept lawn and garden,
" CYRUS BLENKARN" AT HOME. 247
rich in flowers, and a conservatory, in which the
actor cultivates successfully the Japanese chrys-
anthemums and colourful carnations in which
his soul delights, speak well for his devotion
to nature ; while, within, a host of professional
souvenirs, such as Tarquin's leopard-skin, Dick
Dugdale's revolver, the Spider's stick, and
Captain Ezra Promise's spurs and " Book of
Hours," speak well for his devotion to his art.
Portraits of a host of dramatic and literary
celebrities, original editions of Swinburne,
Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, and other of his
favourite authors, and some twenty editions of
Shakespeare, divide the honours with old blue
china, Persian rugs and curios, and the thousand
and one odds and ends which lend so indefinable
but real a charm to the home of a man who is
an artist in soul as well as by courtesy.
Mr. Willard is essentially a lover of home-
life, and has a holy horror of notoriety. The
cheap delight of being the centre of a circle of
admiring and effusive enthusiasts in the gilded
cages of the Mrs. Leo Hunters of to-day has
no attraction for him ; he does not " pine for
higher society " than that of his fellow-artists
248 E. S. WILLARD.
and beautiful and gentle wife, and in all that he
does he is both on and off the stage the same
earnest, sincere, honourable, self-respecting, and
kindly-natured man. He has made many
friends, and his successful career is followed by
them with a keen interest which could only result
from a feeling of personal liking and esteem.
Mr. Willard's amiable disposition and high
personal character have won him many friends,
and his charming wife dispenses the most
delightful hospitality, to which an added charm
is given by the cordial geniality of her popular
actor-husband.
It is perhaps a little curious that a player of
so much power should in his private life enjoy
environment by things purely, almost femininely,
aesthetic in their tone, but the combination of
the dual nature thus displayed is no doubt one
of the secrets of Mr. Willard's histrionic suc-
cess, as it evidences an adaptability of mind
and disposition as valuable on the stage as it is
interesting off it, and emphasises the truth of
Mr. Willard's theory of the necessity of ver-
satility in his art : " An actor must act, and not
trust to an author fitting him with a character
A TENDER DRAMATIC CONSCIENCE. 249
suitable to his particular mannerisms ; " and how
fully he has realised this idea in his own person
may be gathered from the dictum of the trade
journal of the pottery business, which said of
his Cyrus Blenkarn, in The Middleman, that
" one would imagine, from its correctness to
character and the furnace work, that some
excitable and clever potter had become an
actor, not that an actor had, for this piece
only, become a potter."
So tender a conscience has Mr. Willard upon
the question of fidelity in his representations
and stage " business," that he studied the garb,
mien, and deportment of half the Nonconformist
ministers in London before appearing as the
Rev. Judah Llewellyn in Mr. Jones's play ;
and in Mr. Berlyn's poetical version of
Francois Coppee's delightful piece Le Luthier
de Cremone the " bowing " of Filippo's violin
is the result of study, although the actual
music is made by a player posted out of sight
of the audience, just beneath the open window
by the side of which the hump-backed, gifted
violin-maker bends over the instrument which
he has made with so much loving labour.
2 5 o E. S. WILLARD.
When The Lights o London was produced
with such remarkable success at the Princess's
Theatre on September roth, 1881, Mr. Willard
got his first great chance of making a name
upon the metropolitan stage, after years of
varied and useful experience in the provinces.
He seized it with avidity, and his Clifford
Armytage was only second to the hero of Mr.
Sims' s clever drama in interest and individu-
ality, a thankless part to play, that of a cold-
blooded, currish, traitorous scoundrel, a nine-
teenth-century Jacob who had improved upon
the cunning of his biblical prototype by the aid
of all the resources of civilisation. But, like a
true artist, Mr. Willard accepted the hisses of
the honest critics in the pit and gallery as what
they were the sincerest tribute which they
could pay to the excellent art with which he
played the villain.
Jealous of the manly qualities of Harold,
grudging him alike the love of the woman upon
whom he himself had cast amorous eyes, and
the just inheritance of his father's wealth, the
supple, insinuating rascal set his snares and
planned a dual downfall for the hero. His
FIRST GREAT LONDON' CHANCE. 251
success was absolute, and Mr. Willard's quiet
method of conveying the triumph of mind over
matter, of callous, cruel, unscrupulous selfish-
ness and hate over manly, unsuspecting honesty
and goodwill, was faultless.
And all through the play the same careful
and complete contrast was sustained. In make-
up, in the unctuous voice, thickening on occa-
sion into the hoarseness of passion or sliding
into the sibilation of malignancy, in dress, in
movement, gesture, in every microscopical detail
by means of which the workings of an evil
mind could be translated into visible form or
audible sound, Clifford Armytage was the moral
and physical antithesis of his hero-cousin, adding
thus to the value of both parts, and intensify-
ing, as only the introduction of artistic light and
shade can, the interest of the whole work.
With this creation Mr. Willard planted his
foot firmly upon the ladder of dramatic fame,
and from that day to this he has quietly, reso-
lutely, and almost without exception, mounted
higher with each new impersonation.
Crammed with exciting incidents and remark-
able characters, and labouring beneath the
252 E. S. WILLARD.
burden of a too-complicated plot, The Romany
Rye, produced by Mr. Wilson Barrett at the
Princess's Theatre on June loth, 1882, enabled
Mr. Willard to create one more stage villain in
the person of Philip Royston, the young Squire
of Craigsnest, who won, by very virtue of his
consummate vice, the unstinted approval of the
public.
Cowardly and cruel to the ultimate degree,
Philip Royston, who plots the ruin of his elder
brother, Jack Hearne, consorts with scoundrels
dipped deep in the regulation melodramatic dye
of darkest hue, and acts the part of a pitiless
betrayer to a trusting girl, was invested by Mr.
Willard with so much charm, and surrounded
by so fascinating an atmosphere of romance,
that for once the audience, whose appreciation
of such characters is usually manifested by
groans and hisses, metaphorically took the
romantic rascal to their hearts, and lifted him
from the villainous to the heroic.
The triumph of the actor was complete. A
more insinuating, gentlemanly scoundrel than
Philip Royston could not have been created.
At times, too, Mr. Willard exhibited a callous
"THE SPIDER." 253
cruelty which told with excellent effect ; and from
first to last, throughout all the sturm und drang
of a melodrama so rich in exciting incidents
as to run the risk of surfeiting the audience
with sensationalism, Philip Royston remained
a noticeable figure, refreshingly cool in its im-
perturbable, consistent rascality, and as uncom-
promisingly villainous as even the most blast
connoisseur of stage criminals could demand.
Honours were divided between the audacity
of the authors and the art of the actor in the
case of Mr. Willard's quite remarkable creation
of Captain Herbert Skinner, alias the Spider,
in The Silver King. This dandy burglar, who
divided his time between dining with duchesses
and robbing them of their jewels ; who was
equally at home in a boudoir in Mayfair or
a " boozing-ken " in Ratcliffe Highway; whose
debonair criminality was combined with a
patrician ease of bearing which induced the best
people to accept him at his own valuation, was
a new thing on the stage, and as all the world
is secretly, if not admittedly, perpetually pant-
ing for novelty as the very salt of life, the
Spider was the hit of the season.
17
254 -S 1 . & WILLARD.
True, nobody in front of the foot-lights
believed in him. He was obviously, obtru-
sively impossible. But the authors believed
in him, and the actor believed in him as a
striking stage figure, and they were right. The
art of the actor enabled him to compel the
audience to discredit their senses, to stultify
their judgment, to accept and to applaud the
impossible. It was as though the Spider had
recognised the onus laid upon him, and had
said to himself : " They don't believe in me.
Very well they shall ! " and then presented
himself to them as a personality peculiar per-
haps, but there in the flesh, substantial, palpable,
not to be argued or reasoned out of existence.
So marked an individuality had this character,
that Mr. Willard was known as the Spider
outside the theatre ; and one night, riding in an
omnibus, the actor was much amused by the
collapse of an abortive attempt to give him
short change being clinched by the driver's dry
comment to the conductor, as the fare got down
and entered the theatre : " No good trying it
on Y/, Bill ! Don't you know who he is ?
Hes the ' Spider ' / "
THE NEW VILLAIN.
255
The veneer of a fine-gentleman air, with
its under- surface
of brutality and
its rough excres-
cences of irre-
pressible vulgarity
breaking through
here and there,
were most admir-
ably assumed. The
Spider was just as
delicate a carica-
ture in his assump-
tion of gentlemanly
airs as he was in
his autocratic or-
dering about of his
vulgar accomplices
in crime; the mere-
tricious varnish of
an affectation of
aristocratic polish
only served to
throw into coarser relief the innate vulgarity
of the man ; and Mr. Willard threw himself
MR. WILLARD AS THE SPIDER.
256 E. S. WILLARD.
into his part with so much artistic zeal that,
instead of the gentleman-burglar seeming an
absurd anomaly, fit only for the pages of a
" penny dreadful " and the horrifying of sensa
tion-seekers in the servants' hall, it became an
interesting study and a new stage type, a
triumph of art over artificiality, a metamor-
phosis of a daring, impossible conception into a
creation which, if not convincing, was consis-
tent, unique, and effective to a rare degree.
Mr. Willard's make-up in this part was so
striking, and his gleaming teeth played so
important a part in helping the illusion, that
an habitue of the theatre was much amused
one night by being accosted in \hefoyer of the
theatre by a rather seedy stranger, who, after
sundry apologies, announced that he had got
a recipe for a wonderful tooth-powder, and
innocently inquired if the critic thought that
there was " any chance of getting Mr. Willard
to be photographed as an advertisement of
the elixir ! "
As the Holy Clement, in Claudian, Mr.
Willard enjoyed the privilege of launching
with admirable elocutionary effect, and a bitter-
A TERRIBLE CURSE. 257
ness of denunciation only conceivable in a truly
pious character, the most blighting, baneful,
withering, and altogether awful curse ever
heard upon the stage. Stabbed by the impious
and licentious Claudian, he staggered across
the stage, and, supporting himself against a
rock, hurled gaspingly, with many moribund
but muscular spasms, a curse unrivalled out
of the pages of Barham.
But, maugre this terrible curse, which, be
it said, was delivered with excellent art, the
hollow tones and broken sequence caused by
impending death being admirably assumed, the
Holy Clement was so interesting a figure, so
artistically conceived and embodied, that it was
lamentable that the exigencies of the plot
snatched him from the audience so early in
the play.
Enough scope, however, was given in the
part to enable the actor to give convincing
evidence of the versatility which is indispensable
in the manufacture of an artist of the first
quality. From the impudent devilry of the
Spider to the venerable sanctity of the Holy
Clement was a change as utter as it was
258 E. S. W1LLARD.
successful, and Mr. Willard proved by it to
demonstration that he was essentially an actor,
not a mere projector of so many variations of
his own personality.
As a fit and consistent companion picture to
Mr. Wilson Barrett's boyish Prince of Den-
mark, the Princess's revival of Hamlet was
remarkable for a comparatively youthful and
refreshingly unconventional Claudius. Mr.
Willard's King was, in its way and its degree,
as fine, as original, as striking an assumption
as Mr. Barrett's Hamlet. In both, intelligi-
bility and a " sweet reasonableness " of concep-
tion were boldly opposed to the constrictive
convention and traditional obscurity of the
character.
Mr. Willard's Claudius was a full-blooded,
sensual, animal King, instinct with the spirit
of a court all lies and lust ; a muscular, eupep-
tic, pleasure-loving creature, caring for nothing
beyond the indulgence of his appetites ; auda-
cious in his selfishness ; cruel, cynical, contemp-
tuous of the loyal, loving student-soul which
he could not even understand.
With such a Claudius the whole play became
A NATURAL CLAUDIUS. 259
at once more lucidly intelligible, and so robust
a King was the legitimate and necessary com-
plement to a boyish Hamlet and a Gertrude
whose charms were yet lacking some years of
their decadence. The unholy loves of Claudius
and the Queen were comprehensible in this
fresh light, and the new reading of the part
was not only necessary to the consistency of the
scheme of the whole production, but absolutely
and convincingly natural.
The careless consciousness of power, the
fierce animal passion leading to crime, the sub-
sequent soul-sickening fear, were indicated by
Mr. Willard with splendid lucidity and force ;
his elocution was a delight to those who love
to hear the sublimities of Shakespeare worthily
voiced ; and the impersonation taken as a whole
was completely artistic, picturesque, powerful,
and harmonious.
It is given to few moderns to assume the
classic garb of ancient Rome with picturesque
effect, and in the great play offanius, produced
at the Princess's Theatre on February 26th,
1885, it was not the fault of Sextus Tarquin and
his boon companions that their entrance was
26o E. S. WILLARD.
provocative of a smile, as they lounged into
the banqueting-hall of Tarquin's palace, flower-
wreathed in strictly classical but lamentably
unbecoming fashion. Rose-wreathed revellers
are romantic enough on canvas, but it is difficult
to imagine the reality as not having been just
an atom absurd. But whatever tendency to an
irreverent smile might have been provoked by
the artificial roses, soon gave place in the case
of Sextus Tarquin to unlimited admiration of
the actor's art.
It was quickly apparent that Mr. Willard
had in store for his audience a bold and brilliant
character-study of a splendid sinner, a clue to
whose nature was given in a fine passage, in
which he rebuts the dictum of his more effemi-
nate brother that good wine should be quaffed
with slowness and discretion. With exuberant
animal delight in sensual pleasures Sextus
retorts :
" Oh, thou sluggard ! Joy
Is in the rapid seizure of the joy !
Methinks that Jove, the fashioner of kings
Gave his own lightning to my fiery blood !
War is with me no long-drawn tedious craft,
But the swift bliss of foeman grappling foe ;
A SPLENDID SINNER. 261
Love is with me no shepherd's timorous tale
Piped on his reed, and wasting hours in sighs ;
But a fierce gladness, like a mountain stream,
Flashing back sunlight as it storms along."
The symbols used by Sextus may sound a
little conventional to-day, but they are unques-
tionably just what he would have used in an
age when Nature was still the great inspirer,
and culture as yet only in its embryonic stage
of affectation. And it conveys the dominant
characteristics of the tyrant with admirable con-
ciseness. Mr. Willard declaimed the passage
magnificently, and his whole bearing throughout
the revel was superbly daring and defiant.
When, flushed with wine, the revellers boasted
of the virtues of their wives, and Tarquin made
a wager with the married Romans as to the
occupations of the women during their absence,
a quest was made, and when it was over, Sextus
told Casca what he had found in the house of
Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, in a brief
but very significant passage:
"Amidst the maidens at the loom,
By the chaste Household Gods, there sat a form
So fair, so young, so beautifully calm,
Unconsciously we hushed our tread, and stood
Gazing and awed, as in some holy temple."
262 . S. WILLARD.
To this Casca, wondering at the tyrant's
words, replied :
" Why, Sextus, thou speak'st worthily ; thou mov'st
My rugged soldier's breast. I honour thee
For honouring Virtue thus."
And then, with a splendid outburst of con-
tempt, the brutal, mocking animality of the
libertine bursts forth :
" For honouring Virtue ?
What prat'st thou of, dull man ? I spoke of Beauty,
And I thought of Love ! "
Presently came the crime of Tarquin, treated
with perfect tact. The temptation, the crime,
the remorse, all were conveyed with consum-
mate skill, and the crushing of the egoistic,
sensual tyrant, hitherto fearing neither the
gods nor man, was portrayed with fine effect
in Mr. Willard's masterly delivery of an elo-
quent passage :
" What noise is that ? Who stirs ? O Gods ! I start
At my own footfall, quake at my own shadow.
So this is fear ! this sinking of the heart,
This freezing horror in the veins, this awe
In solitude ; yet this recoil from man !
*****
Fell goddess Fear ! I who till now defied thee,
Feel thy pale power, and bow with trembling limbs.' 1
"ROOM FOR HIE HOUSEHOLD GODS!" 263
From this terrible moment Nemesis stalked
towards the wretched sensualist with unfalter-
ing feet, leading to the startling climax in the
final act.
The palace of Tarquin was a magnificent
realisation of imperial pomp and luxury.
Tarquin, utterly demoralised and in abject fear,
tried to forget in the splendour of his sur-
roundings the craven dread of coming doom
which was eating away his heart. He sat
upon a golden throne, the marble steps of which
were strewn with the skins of tigers ; his house-
hold guards surrounded him in all the panoply
of armour ; courtiers still fawned, and, to the
eye at least, his pride and power and luxury
were still unshaken. But gloom sat upon the
brow of the Greek philosopher of the court,
and Tarquin, the destroyer of life and honour,
knew that his hour had come.
A noise was heard in the distance, and a pro-
cession approached, to the cry of " Room for
the Household Gods ! " Collatinus, Valerius,
Junius, and a host of citizens and soldiers
brought the dead Lucretia to the very feet of
the libertine ; Junius told the people of the
264 & &
crime ; the tyrant, at bay, made one mad dash
for life and liberty, but failed, and was dragged
to the foot of the throne, forced to his knees,
and stabbed to the heart by Junius, with the
wild cry :
"Kneel, Tarquin, kneel!
Lucretia, tell the Gods that Rome is free ! "
With this splendid tableau the play ended,
and it was unanimously shown by the audience
that in their judgment the Tarquin of Mr.
Willard was a bold, powerful study, and a
worthy pendant to the Claudius which in
Hamlet marked him as an actor of equal power
and originality.
In Hoodman Blind, produced with great
success at the Princess's on August i8th, 1885,
Mr. Willard was entrusted with the work of
creating a villain of a type new to him. The
dainty cigarette, punctiliously pointed moustache,
and faultless tenue of the " Spider," and the
picturesque profligacy of Sextus Tarquin, gave
place to the grizzled, middle-aged, hard-featured,
plainly-dressed figure of a rascally land-agent,
by whose wiles and roguery the handsome
A STUDY OF HARD MIDDLE-AGE.
265
young Buckinghamshire farmer was to be
made miserable and penniless.
And as Mark Lez-
zard, Mr. Willard again
displayed a masterly
conception of character,
an instinct for making-
upwith perfect effect and
without exaggeration,
and a grim power of
portraying common-
place villainy,, which
once more justified the
high opinion of his
critics.
Consumed by a hope-
less passion for the
heroine, a passion fierce
and more engrossing
even than his love of
money, Mark Lezzard
was a well-thought-out
and vigorously rendered study of hard, un-
scrupulous middle -age, labouring under a
passion so misplaced, so hopeless, but so
MR. E. S. WILLARD AS MARK
LEZZARD.
266 E. S. WILLARD.
deeply rooted, that it only served to intensify
all the evil qualities of his nature, and be-
came transformed, in the fierce crucible of
despair, into malignant hate. With quiet
power, holding himself admirably free from
rant and raving, Mr. Willard made Mark
Lezzard an almost tragic figure. Condemned
still to play the villain, he appeared to revel in
creating a new species of the genus ; and, as
Paganini drew marvellously varied melody from
a single string, so the actor, vowed to dramatic
villainy, proved his talent by drawing from
each new role some marked variations from
its predecessors.
As Glaucias, in the brilliant production of
Clito, on May ist, 1886, Mr. Willard was
allotted some of the wittiest and bitterest
epigrams, and delivered them to perfection.
The veritable living embodiment of the volup-
tuous, cruel luxury of pagan Greece, Glaucias
is as cynical as he is selfish, as satirical as he
is pitiless in the pursuit of his own evil will.
The audacious imperturbability of the libertine,
the insolence of vice of which he is the incar-
nation, were rendered with the utmost effect
MR. E. S. W1LLARD AS CAPTAIN EZRA PROMISE.
^TBRTJSV
or THC
.UNIVERSITY
or
A ROUNDHEAD RASCAL. 269
by the actor ; and the merciless, poisoned wit
with which he expressed his contempt for
Clito and the band of patriots with whom he
was allied, flew from his sharp tongue with a
spontaneity which added much to its effect.
The callous animality, the caustic irony, the
cynical contemptuousness, the calculating cruelty
of the Greek voluptuary, were exhibited with
intense force, while the more delicate lights and
shadows of the character were indicated with
a subtlety and finesse which made the creation
very realistic and convincing. Indeed, a more
perfect foil to the classic grace and simple
dignity of Clito could not have been conceived,
and Glaucias proved a notable addition to Mr.
Willard's growing gallery of stage villains.
Although the romantic drama of the Cavalier
and Roundhead era, The Lord Harry, enjoyed
but a brief spell of dramatic life, it sufficed to
afford Mr. Willard an opportunity of creating
a scoundrel of a new type. As Captain Ezra
Promise, a Roundhead rascal whose lips were
devoted in about equal measure to lies and
biblical phrases, and whose rigid Puritanism
but served as a cloak for a raging passion of
18
270 . S. WILLARD.
unholy desire, Mr. Willard was superb. The
sham asceticism of the canting rogue, his
treachery and malignity, his not wholly assumed
severity and religious zeal, his bitter envy,
hatred, and malice towards the ruffling, hand-
some Cavalier whom he professed to despise,
were all excellently rendered. No gesture,
no movement of limb or feature, no harsh
inflection of tone which could accentuate the
character, was omitted. The impersonation
was exceptionally artistic and curiously pictur-
esque. Grim and often despicable as Ezra
Promise was often made, the actor's delicate
art contrived to import into the assumption
now and then an element of pathos, and thus
compelled the occasional pity which usually
exists, at least potentially, when an impersona-
tion is an unqualified success.
Upon the closing of the Princess's season
in 1886 Mr. Willard migrated to the Hay-
market Theatre, appearing in a revival of Jim
the Penman, playing the part of James Ralston,
the gentlemanly forger, with characteristic
finish and quiet force.
While playing at the Princess's as a member
A T THE " HA YMARKET." 271
of Mr. Barrett's company, Mr. Willard ap-
peared at various matindes with great success,
making an excellent impression in Robert-
sonian comedy in 1882, at the Crystal Palace,
appearing as Dunscombe Dunscombe in M.P.,
as Lord Ptarmigant in Society ; and as Master
Walter in The Hunchback. At the Gaiety he
made an excellent King William in Lady
Clancarty ; and at various other matinees he
appeared as Dr. Vasseur, in Won by Honours ;
as Tom Pinch ; Rawdon Scudamore in Hunted
Down, Wildrake in The Love Chase, and
lachimo in Cymbeline.
In 1887 and 1888 Mr. Willard appeared in
many characters and upon various stages, his
impersonations during that period embracing
Tony Saxon, in Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's
drama Hard Hit, produced at the Hay market
on January i7th, 1887, which give him a chance
of incisive, quietly effective acting in the part of
a ruined country gentleman who takes his ill-
luck with philosophical equanimity ; Geoffrey
Delamayn, in a Haymarket revival of Wilkie
Collins's gloomy but powerful play Man and
Wife, on March 29th, in which he made
272 E. S. WILLARD.
the athlete even more brutally cruel than
usual, and scored an artistic success ; Coranto,
in Mr. A. C. Calmour's Amber Heart, pro-
duced at a Lyceum matinee on June 7th, when
Mr. Willard delivered his poetical lines with
great charm, and revealed a new phase of his
talent by appearing as a tender-hearted, loyal
and sympathetic man, and a wise and gentle
physician ; an excellent Captain Hawkesley,
in Still Waters run Deep, at a Criterion matine'e ;
Gonzales, in Ross Neil's romantic play Loyal
Love, at a Gaiety matinee on August 1 8th, in
which part he glossed over an impossibly
extreme villain by the excellence of his acting ;
Richard Dugdale, in The Pointsman, by Messrs.
R. C. Carton and Cecil Raleigh, produced at the
Olympic Theatre on August 29th, which enabled
him to depict utter heartless, deliberate villainy
with the concentrated power of which he is
so complete a master ; and Colonel Prescott,
in Held by the Enemy, at the Olympic, on
December 24th, in which he proved capable
and incisive as ever.
The thoroughly artistic versatility of Mr.
Willard was shown convincingly enough in his
"THE TIGER." 273
impersonation of the Tiger, in the Olympic
revival of Tom Taylor's evergreen Ticket-of-
Leave-Man, on January 28th, 1888. Whether
as the frankly brutal villain, with a heart hard
as the nether millstone, and a sublime audacity
and recklessness, or disguised as the silvery-
haired, silver-toned merchant, mild as milk and
innocent as an unborn babe, Mr. Willard was
faultless. Make-up, bearing, voice, gesture, all
were utterly transformed, and testified to the
actor's consummate mastery of his art.
In the revival of Tom Taylor and John
Saunders' effective drama, Arkwrigkfs Wife,
on the occasion of Miss Helen Barry's matinde
at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, on Valentine's
Day, 1888, Mr. Willard, as Peter Hayes, scored
another notable success. The subtlety with
which he conveyed the feeling of the absorption
of Peter Hayes in his one idea was thoroughly
artistic, and the role proved to be a quite
remarkable assumption, in which Mr. Willard's
acting gripped the audience from first to last,
and won from them a cordial recognition.
On March 8th, 1888, the arch-villain of the
contemporary stage was given an opportunity
274 E - S> WILLARD.
of distinguishing himself once more in a role
after his histrionic heart. The romantic drama
Christina, originally produced at the Prince of
Wales's Theatre on April 22nd, 1887, was re-
vived at the Olympic. The authors, Messrs.
Percy Lynwood and Mark Ambient, had
strengthened their original work, and the villain
of the piece, Count Freund, could not have
been entrusted to better hands than those of
Mr. Willard. The actor apparently revelled in
the depths of meanness, cowardice, and selfish-
ness in which for the time being he had to sink
his moral nature, and he abandoned himself to
the ungracious task with heroic self-abnegation.
The result was a remarkable creation, a notable if
. ephemeral stage figure, one more Willardesque,
lago-like villain of the deepest dye.
At a matinee at the Prince of Wales's Theatre
on March 2oth, Mr. Willard enacted the role
of Master Walter in The Hunchback with signal
success. Always a faultless elocutionist, Mr.
Willard did the fullest justice to the text ; his
make-up was artistic and kept within discreet
bounds, and his every word and gesture instinct
with significance. The impersonation was a
MACBETH. 275
notable one, and helped to confirm the high
estimate of Mr. Willard's talent which was
now becoming universal.
Upon May 3rd, 1888, in a revival of the
tragedy at the Olympic, with Mrs. Bandmann
Palmer as Lady Macbeth, Mr. Willard essayed
the very difficult role of Macbeth. Versatile
as he had proved himself to be, and entirely
admirable as had been his Claudius in the
Princess's revival of Hamlet, his Macbeth
was not so striking an assumption as might
have been anticipated. There were excellent
moments in it, moments that were almost great,
but upon the whole there was a lack of
conspicuous originality of treatment, and the
impersonation, although thoughtful, conscien-
tious, and occasionally striking, was not as
distinctly individual as an actor of so much
talent might have been expected to make it. It
was good, but it was not great, and Mr. Willard's
past had led his critics to expect great things
of him, whether in Shakespeare or in modern
drama, and his Macbeth could only be written
down a negative success, inasmuch as it was
not a failure.
276 E. S. WILLARD.
At an Olympic matinee on March 23rd,
1888, and subsequently when the piece went
into the evening bill at the same theatre on
May 1 6th, Mr. Willard gave the public a taste
of his quality as a picturesque villain and
passionate lover in the role of Count Danella,
in the drama To the Death, a dramatic version
of the very romantic, sensational, and interesting
story, " Mr. Barnes of New York."
The terrible vendetta which is the central
motif of the. drama provided the audience with
a sequence of sensations, and in the vengeful,
subtle Count Danella, with all the fierce passion
of the South burning in his veins, yet with ever
a cool head and callous heart for intrigue and
revenge, Mr. Willard created a remarkably
effective stage figure. In the great scene with
Marita his passionate outburst of love, despair,
and crushing disappointment was an excellent
and convincing piece of acting, and marked one
more step on the road to the front rank in his
art. Ther<?/ of Count Danella was not only
an effective one in itself, but excellently well
suited to Mr. Willard's vivid and picturesque
method, nor did he fail to make the most of it.
" THE MONK'S ROOM." 277
Never unduly obtrusive, he was always the
most interesting figure on the stage, and his
creation of the part of the passionate Southerner
was a marked artistic success.
When Mr. John Lart rented the Globe
Theatre for a revival of his sombre but power-
ful drama, The Montis Room, Mr. Willard
appeared, on October i2th, 1888, in the role
of Sir Darrell Erne, with a success which was
anticipated by those who had watched his
previous impersonations critically. That Sir
Darrell Erne would become in Mr. Willard's
hands a thoughtful, earnest study was a fore-
gone conclusion, and it was not surprising to
find all the morbid melancholy of the part
painted with rare fidelity. But beyond this
phase of the character, so easily within Mr.
Willard's range, his graceful, tender love-scenes
with Eleanor Brandon lent a charm not only to
the part, but to the play, infusing into it an
element of pure romance and delicate senti-
ment of enormous value to the drama as a
whole. The piece was well received, and Mr.
Willard was unanimously acknowledged to
have added a fascinating figure to his rtpdrtoire,
278 E. S. WILLARD.
and to have given one more proof of his right
to rank amongst the leading actors of the day.
After this came a migration to the Shaftes-
bury Theatre, when Mr. Willard reappeared
with success as James Ralston in a revival of
Jim the Penman, on June 8th, 1889 ; and also as
Captain Howard Leslie, in My A^t,n s Advice,
given on the occasion of Mrs. Kitty Stephens's
farewell to the stage on July 9th, after fifty
years of acting. But these were only the pre-
liminaries of one more notable and convincing
impersonation.
On August 2;th, 1889, Mr. Willard achieved
one of his greatest successes, and enriched the
stage with a really remarkable creation, in the
character of Cyrus Blenkarn, in Mr. Henry
Arthur Jones's excellent play The Middleman.
With public feeling in regard to the relations
of capital and labour, of brains and bank
balances, excited to a pitch of enthusiasm which
would almost deem it an unpardonable* sin for
a man to possess five pounds of his own and
a determination to tyrannically insist on paying
them to some other man in payment for work
done, the popular success of a drama in which
CAPITAL AND LABOUR. 279
the capitalist is represented as a crafty scoun-
drel, ready to drive a hard bargain with brains
because their possessor is starving, was assured.
The spirit of justice to labour, of hand or head,
was in the air, and rightly. Nor, be it added,
was any jot of sympathy due to the capitalist,
the " Middleman " between the inventor and the
public, the producer and the consumer, in Mr.
Jones's drama. Moreover, the play itself was
well written, full of excellent situations and
effective contrasts, yet its success was certainly
none the less that in some of its most telling
passages, some of its most touching incidents,
were voiced and painted sentiments and pic-
tures in harmony with the exaggerated feeling
of the day.
In The Middleman Mr. Willard assumed the
role of an old inventor a simple, pathetic
figure, half blind with ceaseless labour at the
potter's wheel and furnace ; aged before his
time by devotion to his idea of reviving a lost
art in glazing pottery ; utterly absorbed in his
life-work, to the neglect of his interests and
even of his well-loved daughter. His whole
nature steeped in dogged resolution to succeed
280 E. S. WILLARD.
or die at his work, there was always a simple
dignity about Cyrus Blenkarn the innate and
ineradicable dignity of a man in fierce earnest
to realise a worthy aspiration ; and the inventor,
poor, purblind, poring, shabby, starving fanatic
that he seems, yet compels respect once and
for all time.
Engrossed by one idea, alternately rapt to
the seventh heaven of enthusiasm by a glim-
mering promise of success, and cast into an
abysmal despair by yet one more failure, the
old potter is an intensely pathetic study, elabor-
ated with loving care by author and by actor.
But beneath the surface, dormant but never for
an instant dead, burns a passionate love for his
motherless girl. The inventor is dominant for
the most part, but now and again the imperious
voice of nature makes itself heard, and the
father loving, tender, anxious, full of self-
reproach and tender solicitude touches all
hearts.
But the central idea is not domestic, it is
social. It is the mdtier of Cyrus Blenkarn not
only to revive, to some degree, all the romance
and tragedy of a historical incident familiar to
"7 BUY NOW!" 281
students of the industries of England, but in
a greater degree still to body forth the popular
ideal of the brainworker of to-day, robbed,
tyrannised over, cheated, crushed, by the
middleman and his money.
And Mr. Willard has rarely done anything
finer than the splendid old enthusiast, slaving,
fireless, foodless, desperate, yet buoyed up
through all with a prophetic instinct of ultimate
triumph. And when that triumph comes ;
when, after failure has succeeded failure, and
no money and no credit for the monomaniac
remain ; when the last chair in the wretched
home has been broken up to feed the insatiable
maw of the furnace when, with an inarticu-
late, gasping cry, culminating in a hoarse shout
of triumph, the middleman, tempting still
with his offers to purchase this man's life-
work, is met with the cry, " 7 buy now ! "
Mr. Willard is superb. The climax is per-
fect, the acting great, the artistic triumph
indisputable.
Mr. Willard has created many notable parts,
but it is doubtful whether he will ever do any-
thing much finer than the wild outburst of scorn
282 . S. WILLARD.
and triumph with which Cyrus Blenkarn meets
the middleman at the moment when, half-mad
with misery and failure, the crowning moment
of his life comes, and all the wrong and misery,
all the toil and heart-ache, all the failure and
humiliation of the past years are forgotten
in that one wild, exultant cry of passionate
triumph. If he had done nothing else, Cyrus
Blenkarn would alone entitle Mr. Willard to
the gratitude of playgoers for an emotional
and intellectual pleasure of a high order ;
and the figure of the old potter will always
remain a distinct .creation and a worthy
achievement.
A proof of the marked individuality of the
actor's style, and the crisp dialogue of Mr.
Jones's plays, is afforded by the fact that upon
the Parade at Brighton a short time ago an
al-fresco elocutionist was to be heard rendering,
with considerable dramatic power and a curi-
ously clever reproduction of Mr. Willard's inflec-
tions of voice and eloquence of gesture, scenes
from The Middleman, to a thoroughly interested
audience ; and the oddest part of the matter was
that, in reply to the inquiry of a gentleman
AN AL-FRESCO IMITATOR. 283
whose attention had been arrested as he was
walking along the King's Road by what he
at first believed to be Mr. Willard's voice, the
humble imitator of the popular actor asserted,
with every appearance of veracity, that he had
acquired his knowledge of the author's text and
the actor's method from only two visits to the
Shaftesbury Theatre.
On April 5th a new play by Arthur Law,
called Dick Venables, was produced at the
Shaftesbury Theatre, with Mr. Willard in the
title role ; but the drama did not prove a
popular success, nor the character of Dick
Venables, a returned convict, peculiarly accept-
able, although the actor contrived to intro-
duce certain artistic touches into what was from
the first an unattractive and unprofitable role.
The play enjoyed but a brief life, and Mr.
Willard was soon engaged upon a character
offering considerably more scope for the exer-
cise of his artistic talents.
One of the most beautiful and pathetic pieces
of acting which Mr. Willard has given to
the stage was his creation of the hunchback,
Filippo, in Mr. Alfred Berlyn's daintily-written
284 . S. WILLARD.
adaptation of Francois Coppee's poetical
play Le Luthier de Cremone entitled The
Violin Makers, produced for the first time at
the Shaftesbury Theatre on April 22nd, and
revived successfully on August 27th, 1890.
The sublime self-conquest of the deformed
genius, who beats down the love in his own
breast and foregoes a triumph as an artist in
order that the girl he loves may " weep no
more," but be happy with the man of her
choice, his fellow-pupil, was represented by
Mr. Willard with singular power and delicacy.
The ecstasy of the artist ; the bitter self-scorn
bred of his physical infirmity ; the absolute
self-sacrifice ; the passionate but brief spell of
self-pity, all were portrayed with true artistic
feeling, and Mr. Willard's fine voice lent new
music to the author's diction.
Mr. Willard has done nothing better in its
way than Filippo, a most touching and beautiful
impersonation, invested with an irresistible
natural dignity which blots out bodily infirmity
and sheds a soft light of sublime self-sacrifice
which hides all physical defects, and even
makes the triumph of genius, born of the
7 UDA H LLE WELL YN. 285
brain, second to the selflessness which is the
outcome of a noble nature.
Upon May 2ist, 1890, the Shaftesbury
Theatre was the scene of the production of a
curious play clever, daring, unconventional,
written by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, probably
with Mr. Willard in his mind as the ideal hero
of a drama destined to give rise to much dis-
cussion, and to an event unique in the history
of the stage a performance given to an
audience consisting entirely of the clergy. This
notable play was fitdah, and as the hero, the
Rev. Judah Llewellyn, Mr. Willard found a
congenial and remarkable part.
The author of Saints and Sinners wisely
deprecated criticism of the new drama until it
could be judged as a whole. For as a matter
of fact, he elected to point an admirable moral
by means of two acts of a most unwholesome
character, and a third which went far to redeem
the ill tendency of the other two.
The story was that of the loves of an earnest
young Welsh Presbyterian minister, garbed
like a high-church curate presumably for
aesthetic reasons and a girl, the tool of a
19
286 . S. WILLARD.
contemptible father, who compelled her to act
the part of a hypnotic healer, and to claim super-
natural powers induced by protracted fasts.
At first Vashti Dethic was worshipped by
Judah Llewellyn in a purely spiritual fashion
at least so he said, and no doubt believed. She
was an angel, a saint, so far above him, so pure,
that the mere mention of earthly love to her
was a profanation. Yet, a little later, all this
spirituality was thrown to the winds at the call
of passion, and the ascetic, fanatical minister,
having unwillingly discovered that Vashti was
an impostor, was seen to rejoice in the fact,
crying that he was glad of it, as now he could
make her his own ; in a word, the character
was transformed from a Judah to a Judas,
virtually denying the spiritual in man and glory-
ing wholly in the animal. And in this the
author was to be congratulated upon his
courage in preferring truth to a specious gloss
of pretence. He startled and shocked but he
convinced. It was a terrible transformation, or
rather a terrible revelation but it was human
nature : it was true ; and therefore, as a study, to
be tolerated, and, as a work of art, to be admired.
THE INFLUENCE OF A WOMAN' S BEAUTY. 287
But that the first two acts of the new drama
were about as unwholesome as they could be
is not to be denied. They showed the audience
the utter undermining of the spirituality of an
intensely strong and earnest man, and the
unqualified triumph of his animality, under the
influence of a woman's beauty. True, this
radical change was not effected without a
prelude of intense agony and moral torture ;
true that it led to a mental and moral con-
dition of misery that was to the man a very
hell upon earth ; but it meant that woman's
beauty, her physical attractions and they
alone, were potent enough to sweep away
all moral considerations, even from a man as
sublimely earnest and intensely religious as
Judah Llewellyn, and to induce him to become,
for the sake of the woman whose beauty had
maddened him, a liar and a perjurer.
Mr. Jones displayed his knowledge of human
nature in this, but whether the value of the
lesson taught was worth the painful spectacle
of a good man's degradation paraded without
pity was a debatable point.
In the last act the author portrayed both
288 E. S. WILLARD.
Judah and Vashti as worn-out by the misery of
their wretched secret. There was much of the
pathos of The Scarlet Letter in the situation,
but Mr. Jones, able as he is, is not Hawthorne,
and somehow or other it was not easy to feel
the unmistakable thrill of sympathy either with
the woman or the man. There were circum-
stances of sadness in her life which extenuated
her career of deception ; and there had been a
term of living agony for the man which might
well atone for his lapse from an almost super-
human height of spirituality into an abyss of
lying and fierce, almost brutal, passion.
Perhaps it was just this powerful contrast
which prevented the audience from feeling the
full measure of sympathy which Judah was
intended to command. He had been just a
little too good and just a little too bad, even
for poor human nature. At first Vashti was a
saint and he a pious worshipper at her shrine ;
afterwards she was a fiend and he a reveller
in her degradation, triumphing in the sin that
gave her to his passion. He might love this
woman with all the strength of his nature, but
it was hardly necessary for him to rave of an
JUDAH LLEWELLYN'S SOLE VIRTUE. 289
eternity of misery to be spent together. Judah's
sole virtue at one stage of the play was that
he was no hypocrite. He was wholly and
solely moved by the woman's beauty, and he
did not pretend anything else. The climax of
the last act was very fine, and almost made one
condone the incidents that had gone before ;
and the idea of setting Judah and Vashti to
work out their redemption together as man and
wife, and build a church whose foundations
should be Truth, was worthy and altogether
beautiful. But when all was told, and the
drama looked back upon calmly, it was not
easy to get rid of the conviction that Mr. Jones
had at last succeeded in writing an unwhole-
some play.
A striking, picturesque figure, Mr. Willard
dominated the stage and the audience ; and
Judah Llewellyn, ethical considerations apart,
must remain a remarkable memory with play-
goers and a distinct artistic triumph for the
actor.
On the afternoon of August 2Oth, an audience
wholly composed of members of the clerical pro-
fession witnessed Judah by invitation, proving
2 9 o E. S. WILLARD.
most appreciative, and condoning the Rev.
Judah Llewellyn's lamentable lapse for the sake
of Mr. E. S. Willard's consummate art.
Upon the afternoon of August 2/th, 1890,
Mr. Willard gave a pleasant proof of his
versatility by appearing first as Filippo, in Mr.
Alfred Berlyn's The Violin Makers, and then
as Abraham Boothroyd, in a new comedy
sketch, by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, called
The Deacon, which proved to be an amusing
piece, smartly written, and virtually a defence
of the stage against the prejudices of narrow-
minded bigots.
As Abraham Boothroyd, wholesale bacon
factor, Mayor of Chipping Padbury-on-the-
Wold, and Senior Deacon of Ebenezer Chapel,
grey and respectable, clad in a suit of superfine
black, with pale face, square grey beard, and long,
clean-shaven, rigid upper lip a monument of
prosperous piety and middle-class respectability,
and a bundle of deeply-rooted prejudices, Mr
Willard was irresistible. Little tradesmanlike
tricks of manner, a faint North-country burr in
the rich voice, a quiet twinkle in the eye as
if the old Adam were not wholly dead, and
A CONVERTED DEACON. 291
just the right note of passing pathos here and
there, necessary to give the man a certain
dignity, proved Mr. Willard a close observer
of human nature.
Coming to London to take part in an indig-
nation meeting to rescue Exeter Hall from the
contamination of being converted into a theatre,
he is taken to a theatre instead, and is himself
converted from his prejudices with a rather
miraculous suddenness and completeness, partly
by the discovery that the Juliet who has
awakened such tender memories in his old
heart is the child of his own daughter, who had
run away from home with an actor twenty
years before.
The Deacon was only what it professed to
be, a sketch, but it was so smartly written,
and, above all, it gave Mr. Willard a role so
rich in quiet comedy, that Abraham Boothroyd
ranked at once as a distinct creation, and
a pleasant addition to the repertoire of the
actor.
After a brief but very successful farewell
appearance in the provinces, Mr. Willard set
out for America on October i8th, 1890, seeking
292 E. S. WILLARD.
new laurels in a land where other notable
players from the old country had found so
warm a welcome, and followed by hearty good-
will and sympathetic interest on the part of
thousands of English playgoers, who had long
ago learned to recognise in him one of the
foremost, ablest, most capable, and most con-
scientious players of the period.
It was characteristic of Mr. Willard's strong
sympathy for everything Shakespearean that on
the last Sunday spent in England before his
departure for the States, after playing in
Birmingham on the Saturday night, he made
a pilgrimage from Kenilworth to Warwick, and
then to Stratford-on-Avon with Mr. Howard
Paul and another friend, dining at the old
" Red Horse," upon the very table on which
Washington Irving wrote his delightful sketch of
the old town in which Shakespeare was born.
It is not difficult to believe that as the popular
actor "lolled back in his elbow-chair, and cast
a complacent look about the little parlour of
the Red Horse," that " the words of sweet
Shakespeare " passed through his mind as
they had passed many years before through
TOUR THROUGH AMERICA. 293
that of the brilliant author of the inimitable
" Sketch-book."
Mr. Willard opened in New York at Palmer's
Theatre, on November loth, in The Middleman,
and at once secured a complete success, his
impersonation of Cyrus Blenkarn being ac-
cepted by critics and public alike as a thoroughly
artistic and convincing creation, and that initial
performance was the first step upon a tour
through America which proved one continuous
series of successes. Mr. Willard's peculiarly
earnest and straightforward style of acting,
combined with the elaborate and thoroughly
artistic finish of his characterisation, took the
American audiences by storm, and they ac-
cepted him at once and without question. That
he should so speedily win favour on the other
side of the Atlantic is not surprising to those
who know the mood of the best-class audiences
in the United States. There is a shrewness
and natural keenness of judgment about them
not altogether unlike that which characterises
north-country audiences here, with whom, too,
Mr. Willard is extremely popular. But when
all is said, the sufficient reason for his Trans-
294 E. S. WILLARD.
atlantic success may be found in the artistic
conception and conscientious study which Mr.
Willard brings to bear upon every role which
he undertakes, whether in the Old World or
the New.
J rf
S. B. BANCROFT.
BY a happy conjunction of circumstances, Mr.
S. B. Bancroft has achieved a position of
peculiar interest in the chronicles of the con-
temporary stage. A clever and conscientious
actor, he might yet have not bulked so largely
in the eye of the world, had it not been that,
in conjunction with the late T. W. Robertson,
he created a new ?; of dramatic character,
and, more than that, reflected with unimpeach-
able fidelity the physical, mental, and moral
peculiarities of a numerous body of men about
town. Mr. Bancroft achieved the sublimation
of the British swell, and forged a new and
lasting link between society and the stage.
298 S. B. BANCROFT.
The combined tenderness of the author and
refinement of the actor, enabled the genus
"swell" to recognise in the dramatic mirror a
somewhat flattering portrait of itself, learning,
perhaps to its surprise, that a man-about-town
might have a heart, and a "heavy swell" be
not wholly void of brain. This titillated the
amour propre of the class which gave the
dramatist such types as Jack Poyntz, Captain
Hawtree, and Sir Frederick Blount, and
ensured the success of the actor. Mr. Bancroft
presented a section of society and a section
with as much influence to-day as it had when,
as the late Lord Lamington told in the delight-
ful reminiscences which Death killed all too
soon, George IV. gave his famous breakfast
to conciliate " the dandies " of whom the
" Bancroft swells " are the legitimate de-
scendants with its portrait. And if by the
exercise of their art the author and the actor
invested the counterfeit presentments with per-
haps a rather more generous share of lovable
and manly attributes than Nature commonly
bestows upon the living originals, the excess
was kindly, diplomatic, easily condonable.
BANCROFT SWELLS. 299
The one great charm about Mr. Bancroft's
most notable creations, or, if not the most
notable, at least those with which he is most
generally identified, was that they were
essentially gentlemen. They might not scin-
tillate with intellectuality, their brains might
not always be as brilliant as their boots, they
might not be free from many weaknesses of
will and wit ; but they had the instincts of
gentlemen. One felt that they were in the
main honest, loyal, scorning a lie or any
mean thing, reverencing, if in somewhat easy-
going fashion, their conscience as their king ;
and, although perhaps a little dense and apt
to blunder off the line now and again, for
the most part holding a very clear code of
honour a code which might not always square
with the notions of bourgeois respectability and
convention, but Draconian in its claim upon
their conscience, and rendering impossible any
mean or cruel thing.
Society of to-day is not wholly lacking in
Colonel Newcomes, but, for one preux chevalier
of that exquisitely perfect type, there are
hundreds of Jack Poyntzes, of Blounts, of
3co S. B. BANCROFT.
Hawtrees good, slow-witted, but big-hearted
fellows, who, to paraphrase Rochester on
Charles II., " never do a cruel thing and
rarely say a wise one," but who yet inspire
confidence and affection by their simple manli-
ness and dunderheaded but dogged honesty.
And this numerous class looked in the mirror
which Mr. Bancroft held up to nature, saw
themselves at their best, and, pardonably
enough, did not quickly weary of contemplating
the pleasant picture.
There can be no doubt that the satisfy-
ing completeness with which Mr. Bancroft
idealised the "heavy swell" went straight to
the heart of society, and compelled success.
It is especially true of the actor's calling that
" those who live to please must please to live,"
and Mr. Bancroft's creations were above all
things pleasant clean, wholesome, refined,
good-hearted types of English gentlemen,
whose foibles and harmless affectations it was
possible to laugh at without an atom of con-
tempt. Indeed, the more one laughed at them
the more one loved them they were so very
human, and their little tincture of absurdity
COMPLETE MAN, PERFECT GENTLEMAN. 301
was distinctly consolatory to all who are
wise enough to recognise that the profoundest
philosopher, the most dignified personage, is
not without his humorous side to the acute
student of human nature.
Nor, when occasion served, did Mr. Bancroft
fail to indicate, with a good deal of quiet
power, the pluck, the dignity, the chivalrous
loyalty and almost womanly tenderness which
help to make up the best type of manhood.
Without this his art would have been incom-
plete and unsatisfying, for had he merely shown
the glittering surface of society life, and failed
to reveal the strongly running undercurrent of
earnestness and forceful emotions, he might
speedily have wearied the public and worn out
his welcome. Beneath the surface-nonchalance,
the lip-cynicism or banality, the apparent
shallowness of the man-of-the-world, would
all at once be indicated unsuspected depths
of feeling, fierce passions kept in check by
an iron will, beautiful brotherly tenderness,
ardent love of man for woman, all that go
to make a complete man and perfect gen-
tleman ; and the actor's talent proved itself
20
302 S. B. BANCROFT.
versatile, and vigorous, faithful, analytic and
convincing.
To create a distinct school of character, and
to invest a difficult and often dull type of man
with some humour, and a real, but often un-
suspected worthiness and charm, were no mean
achievements, and Mr. Bancroft would have
fairly earned the reputation he enjoys had he
done nothing more than this ; but, like all
successful actors, his repertoire has been as
varied as its range was wide.
It was on January ist, 1861, as Mr. Bancroft
records in that interesting volume of reminis-
cences, " Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft On and Off
the Stage," that he, a stage-stricken youth,
plodded along the cheerless streets of Bir-
mingham to the Theatre Royal, where he
was engaged by Mr. Mercer Simpson at the
modest salary of a guinea a week, to play
whatever might be thrown in his way. And,
a few nights later, he made his first appearance
upon any stage in the humble guise of a courtier
in the pantomime, hiding his feelings whatever
they may have been, behind a comic mask.
Whatever success or the reverse attained
A STAGE-STRICKEN YOUTH. 303
by the debutant in this initial part was so
impersonal, thanks to the mask, that it is
not recorded, but the assumption is that the
" courtier " showed some glimmer of light
through the chinks of his bushel, as, imme-
diately after, he was entrusted with his first
speaking part, that of Lieutenant Manley, in
Mr. Bayle Bernard's drama St. Marys Eve.
Evidently the juvenile enthusiast showed
even then some promise of his future excellence,
for, during the season, which came to an end
in July, Mr. Bancroft enacted no less than
thirty-six different parts, appearing, among
other things, with Madame Celeste in those
old-fashioned dramas The Green Biishes ard
Flowers of the Forest.
Then followed a term of provincial apprentice-
ship, which must have proved invaluable as
a means of training the memory and giving
elasticity to the mind by imposing upon the
young actor a constantly changing round of
more or less responsible impersonations. The
work must have been onerous and incessant,
but it was congenial, and " the labour we
delight in physics pain," while the zealous
304 S. B. BANCROFT.
young recruit, anxious to rise from the ranks
as rapidly as might be, welcomed what under
other circumstances might have appeared
intolerable drudgery.
After the close of his first season in Dublin,
Mr. Bancroft fulfilled a brief engagement in
Cork, returning to Birmingham for the season
terminating in the spring of 1862, by which
period he had mastered sixty-four new parts.
Then came a few weeks' engagement in the
summer at Devonport, where for the first time
he played leading parts, the first being that
of Captain Murphy Maguire in The Serious
Family, and the other that of Captain Hawkesley
in Still Waters run Deep.
The remainder of 1862 and the years 1863
and 1864 were occupied by a short engage-
ment in Birmingham ; a season in Dublin,
during which, in the spring of 1863, Mr.
Bancroft received an offer to join the company
of the St. James's Theatre, but preferred to
increase his experience in the provinces before
facing a London audience ; a month's engage-
ment in Birmingham, followed by a successful
summer in Devonport, during which an offer,
PROVINCIAL WANDERINGS. 305
again declined, was made for him to go to the
Princess's Theatre ; a return to Dublin in 1864,
and then an engagement at the Prince of
Wales's, Liverpool, where Mr. Bancroft met
Miss Marie Wilton for the first time, and
accepted an engagement to join the company
which she was forming to open the Prince
of Wales's Theatre in Tottenham Court Road,
in conjunction with Mr. H. J. Byron.
With the Liverpool engagement Mr. Ban-
croft's provincial wanderings came to an end,
but that he owed much to the wide experience
gained during that laborious period of four
years and four months is obvious from the
fact that during that time he played no less
than three hundred and forty-six parts, cover-
ing almost every conceivable detail of dramatic
work.
Remembering this, it is perhaps all the more
remarkable that Mr. Bancroft should so quickly
and so completely become identified with a
class of character new to the stage, and of
conspicuous individuality of style.
Happily, the author of the series of .delight-
ful plays which founded what has been called
3 c6 S. . BANCROFT.
with flippant injustice the teacup-and-saucer
school of comedy, was no believer in the
cynical theory that
" To feel for none is the true social art
Of the world's stoics men without a heart."
His men of the world might be stoical in so
far as a repression of any out ward sign of strong
feeling, whether of joy or suffering, was con-
cerned. But for all their Spartan or, it might
be, Sybaritic self-sufficiency, they were crea-
tures of living flesh and blood, in whom the
pulses of human passions throbbed with no
less strength because good breeding and caste
traditions forbade hysterical and violent mani-
festations.
The opening of the Prince of Wales's
Theatre, from which Mr. Bancroft's record as
a metropolitan actor dates, took place on
Saturday, April I5th, 1865, with a piece called
A Winning Hazard by Mr. J. P. Wooler,
in which Mr. Bancroft made his first appear-
ance on a London stage, and an operatic
burlesque extravaganza, called La ! Sonnam-
bula / or, The Supper, the Sleeper, and the Merry
Swiss Boy; " being a passage in the life
THE FIRST ROBERTSONIAN COMEDY. 307
of a famous 'Woman in White/ a passage
leading to a tip-top story, told in this instance
by Henry J. Byron." The programme, which
was then commonly of the three-decker de-
scription, was completed by the farce ot
Vandyke Broiun.
In May Mr. Bancroft appeared in a comic
drama by Palgrave Simpson, called A Fair
Pretender, and on June loth he created the
role of Captain Thistleton, in H. J. Byron's
bright and successful comedy, War to the
Knife. In this clever play Mr. Bancroft im-
personated the man-about-town with much ot
the quiet humour and originality which were
afterwards to be employed to so much
advantage, and attracted an amount of favour-
able notice which fairly started him upon a
career of popularity and success.
On September 25th, 1865, Mr. Bancroft
assumed with renewed success the principal
part in Dion Boucicault's farce, A Lover by
Proxy, and it was on November nth in the
same year that the keynote of the subsequent
career of Mr. Bancroft, and the lady who was
soon to become his wife, was struck by the
308 S. B. BANCROFT.
production of the first of the series of charming
Robertsonian comedies, Society.
Although the piece had been played with
success in Liverpool, it was not approached
without some qualms and misgivings, natur-
ally exaggerated by the feeling that so much
depended upon its finding favour with the
somewhat exacting and exceptional habitue's
of the Prince of Wales's Theatre. But courage
conquered, the piece was produced, and all the
best people flocked to see themselves satirised,
and to laugh good-naturedly at their own foibles
no doubt thinking all the while how excel-
lently the cap fitted their dearest friends.
Upon the first representation of Society
Mr. Bancroft was cast for Sidney Daryl, and
the managerial acumen which entrusted him
with so responsible a part was justified by its
skilful rendition. Later, when the comedy
was revived, with gratifying success, on Sep-
tember 2ist, 1868, Mr. Bancroft appeared as
Tom Stylus, and presented a curious but not
uncommon phase of Bohemian character
with remarkable fidelity and much shrewd
humour.
A NEW SI AGE FOP 309
In Mr. Byron's comedy, A Hundred
Thousand Pounds, produced on May 5th,
1 366, Mr. Bancroft created the part of General
Gerald Goodwin, and then appeared with the
Prince of Wales's company in Liverpool, when,
in addition to the existing repertoire, the
new comedy Ours, by T. W. Robertson, was
given a trial trip, before being launched upon
the wider waters of metropolitan criticism.
It was on September i5th, 1866, that Ours
was first produced at the Prince of Wales's
Theatre, with immediate and unqualified suc-
cess. Mr. Bancroft created the role of Angus
Macalister with all the care and finish which
playgoers had by this time learned to expect
from an actor who was obviously and always
conscientious. He played the new part for an
unbroken run of a hundred and fifty nights,
and consolidated his claim upon the good
opinion of the public.
As Captain Hawtree, in Caste, the next
of the famous Robertsonian series, produced
at the Prince of Wales's Theatre on April
6th, 1867, Mr. Bancroft was perfectly in his
element. It is not difficult to imagine how
310 S. B. BANCROFT.
easily the character might have been vulgar-
ised, or else conventionalised into a comparative
nonentity. An over-dressed, swaggering, noisy
Hawtree might have been evolved from the
inner consciousness of a commonplace character-
actor, but in the hands of Mr. Bancroft the
author's ideal was safe. The make-up alone
was a consummate piece of art. Quietly
dressed, as the heavy dragoon school of swells
like Hawtree are always sure to be ; with
sleek, dark hair, and all the personal character-
istics of a well-groomed man, this new style
of stage fop came as a revelation to those
accustomed to more coarsely-painted portraits
of a class not easily imitated or, in truth,
generally understood ; but it was so convinc-
ing in its quiet realism that it was accepted
without hesitation, and welcomed as a notable
addition to dramatic types. The drawling
speech and apparent affectation, the stolid
solemnity relieved by a subtly suggested shrewd-
ness, the " good form" of the man with it
all, his slight soupfon of horsiness, the whole
tone of the creation were irresistible ; and the
actor's reputation became more firmly rooted
THE CHEVALIER BROWNE. 311
than ever. The piece ran right through the
season, which ended in July, and was then
played in Liverpool and Manchester with equal
success.
The odour of popularity in which Caste was
steeped when the end of the season arrived
enabled Mrs. Bancroft to revive the play with
renewed success when the autumn campaign
commenced, on September 28th, 1867, and it
was not until December 2ist that Mr. Bancroft
was afforded an opportunity of creating one
more " swell " there is no other word which
conveys the idea of his impersonations so
clearly and completely in the role of Beecher
Sprawley, in Dion Boucicault's comedy How
She Loves Him, in which the actor once
more pleased playgoers and won new com-
mendation from the critics, although the play
itself, despite much clever dialogue and some
supremely amusing situations, only ran forty-
seven nights.
When the new comedy by T. W. Robert-
son, called Play, was produced, on the night of
Saturday, February I5th, 1868, Mr. Bancroft
was provided with the role of an unmitigated
312 S. B. BANCROFT.
rascal and impudent adventurer, in which he
exhibited his talent to great advantage, and
the Chevalier Browne proved one more succes-
ful and notable addition to his repertoire. This
was followed by another revival of Caste, which
lasted until the close of the season on July 27th,
the theatre being then closed until September
2ist, when Society was revived, Mr. Bancroft
then taking the part of Tom Stylus with
admirable effect, his nonchalant air suiting the
character to perfection.
On December i2th a new comedy by Mr.
Edmund Yates, Tame Cats, was produced,
Mr. Bancroft appearing as Mortimer Wedg-
wood, a poet-charlatan and " tame cat " of a
class that did not commend itself to the public
taste, and the play only ran for eleven nights,
being followed by a revival of the ever-popular
Society ; and on January i6th, 1869, the new
Robertsonian comedy, School, was produced
with instant and unqualified success, Mr. Ban-
croft creating the delightfully sympathetic part
of Jack Poyntz with admirable art, revelling in
the quiet humour of the character to the utmost,
and presenting, too, an excellent picture of the
JACK POYNTZ.
well-bred lover, handsome, well-groomed, well-
tailored, and an altogether wholesome and
agreeable specimen of Young England.
School was an enormous success, running
right through the season, and being revived
again on September
nth, to crowded
houses ; being played
altogether three hun-
dred and eighty-one
times.
The last comedy
destined to be writ-
ten for the Prince of /
Wales's Theatre by
the pen that had k \
done so much worthy
work was produced
On April 2jrd, 1870, MR. BANCROFT AS JACK POYNTZ IN
i i/r r i "SCHOOL."
and M.P. proved at
once as pronounced a success as any of its
predecessors, Mr. Bancroft exhibiting, in the
role of Talbot Piers, his customary shrewdness,
self-control, and quiet humour. An autumn
revival was followed by a revival of Ours on
3H & B. BANCROFT.
November 26th, Mr. Bancroft then taking the
part of Hugh Chalcot, instead of his original
one of Angus Macalister, and acquitting him-
self to the complete satisfaction of author
and audience. The revival ran through the
following season with unbroken success, to be
followed in its turn by a revival of Caste in
September 1871, and a production of Money
on May 4th, 1872, with Mr. Bancroft as Sir
Frederick Blount, an admirable piece of acting,
remarkable for the refinement and distinction
with which the actor invested this and similar
parts the physically colourless and mentally
inane baronet, with his lisp, his drawl, his
vacuous stare and excellently-cut clothes, being
perfect in his peculiar way.
It was not until February 22nd, 1873, that
it became advisable to supersede Lord Lytton's
comedy with Mr. Wilkie Collins's adaptation of
his powerful novel Man and Wife, in which
Mr. Bancroft undertook the minor part of
Mr. Speedwell, a doctor, but made it of
value by thoughtful and refined acting.
A revival of School followed, on September
20th, 1873, with Mr. Bancroft as Jack Poyntz,
JOSEPH SURFACE. 315
and so great was its success that it was not until
April 4th, 1874, that The School for Scandal
was acted for the first time by the Prince of
Wales's company, Mr. Bancroft proving an
unconventional Joseph Surface, his studious
moderation and careful avoidance of an over-
emphasis of the objectionable characteristics of
the man being purely artistic, and rendering
the role natural and acceptable to a rare
degree, Joseph's villainy being indicated rather
than expressed, with a. finesse and delicacy infi-
nitely more effective than any bolder or coarser
interpretation could have been. The actor
seemed thoroughly imbued with the spirit of
the age in which the action is laid, wore the
picturesque dress with grace, and expressed
the superficial courtliness of the manners of the
period with much lucidity and distinction, his
Joseph Surface being to the full as clever an
assumption as his affected macaroni Sir Benja-
min Backbite, in a matinee revival of the old
comedy given on May i4th, 1870, at Drury
Lane, for the benefit of the Dramatic College.
Mr. Bancroft modestly contented himself with
the small part of the Prince of Morocco in
316 S. B. BANCROFT.
the notable Prince of Wales's revival of The
Merchant of Venice, on April iyth, 1875, con ~
triving, as with everything else he touched, to
endue it with a certain importance. Admirably
as the play was mounted, and, for the most
part, acted, it only held the stage for thirty-six
performances, to be succeeded by a revival of
Money, and on June iQth Mr. Bancroft proved
his comedy power again at a matinde per-
formance of Mr. Honeyton in Theyre Smith's
delightful comedietta A Happy Pair.
Mr. Bancroft's next impersonation of impor-
tance revealed a pathos and a power of which
many of those who had only seen him in
Robertsonian comedy did not suspect him
capable, and compelled playgoers to recognise
in him something beyond and better than an
absolutely modern school actor, capable only of
representing types of his own world and period.
Triplet, in the Prince of Wales's revival of
Masks and Faces on November 5th, 1875,
proved one of the most artistic pieces of work
yet done by the actor. Mr. Bancroft's thought-
ful and delicate method was brought to bear
with delightful effect upon the representation
MR. BANCROFT AS " TRIPLET " IN " MASKS AND FACES.
21
A BROKEN-DOWN GENTLEMAN. 319
of the pathetic, beautiful figure of the half-
starved musician so tender, so exquisitely
refined in every instinct, with so great a heart,
so sensitive a soul in his bowed and shrunken
frame and the result was a Triplet of rare
tenderness and dignity, with whom one laughed
the kindliest laugh of all, that which is born
while sympathetic tears are in the eyes. In a
sense this was the most valuable part Mr.
Bancroft had as yet essayed before a London
audience, as its artistic possibilities were so
great, and it was all the more gratifying that
he developed these potentialities to the utmost
under the difficult condition of being handi-
capped by identification with a class of charac-
ters which, in their faultlessly-dressed, well-fed,
languid, nonchalant nineteenth-century swell-
dom, formed the most vivid contrast to the
pinched, threadbare dignity of the shabby
broken-down gentleman author, actor, and
artist whose ill-starred fortunes could not mar
his innate sweetness and artistic refinement of
character, and who could be tender with his sick
wife and tolerant of his noisy crew of children,
while his own heart was bruised and aching
320 S. B. BANCROFT.
and sick with hope deferred well-nigh to the
point of despair. Mr. Bancroft's Triplet was
profoundly moving, the half-broken heart puls-
ing in every tone of the voice, and the forced
smiles and hysterical gaiety, infinitely sadder
than tears, revealing the nature and condition
of the man with an art as delicate as it was
convincing and complete.
On Thursday, April i3th, 1876, Mr. Bancroft
appeared as Bob Blewitt, in Byron's ill-fated
piece Wrinkles, speaking countless smart things
with admirable humour ; but the play only ran
eighteen nights, and was followed by a revival
of Ours.
In Peril, an excellent adaptation of Sardou's
Nos Intimes, by Messrs. B. C. Stephenson
and Clement Scott, the first adaptation from
the French produced at the Prince of Wales's
Theatre under the management of Mr. and Mrs.
Bancroft, Mr. Bancroft figured to advantage as
Sir George Ormond, and in the crucial scene
with his wife he was manly, tender, and in every
respect the beau id^al of an English gentleman.
The production was a great success, and although
it was first given on September 3Oth, 1876, it
THE "SCENE DES TROIS HOMMES." 321
was not until March 3ist, 1877, that Mr. Ban-
croft appeared as Dazzle in a production of
London Assurance a most admirable piece of
acting, full of devil-may-care impudence, and
quite one of the best things he had done.
From September 29th, until the end of the
year Mr. Bancroft appeared as Blenkinsop in
Tom Taylor's comedy An Unequal Match, and
on Saturday, January i2th, 1878, he created with
immense success the
role of Count Orloff in
Diplomacy, the English _^
adaptation of Sardou
Dora, by Messrs B. C.
Stephenson and Clement
Scott. In the part of
Count Orloff, Mr. Ban-
MR. BANCROFT AS COUNT ORLOFF
croft had one magnifi- "DIPLOMACY."
cent opportunity for the exhibition of that
"reserved force" and indicated rather than
expressed emotion which is one of the most
conspicuous and admirable features of his
dramatic method ; and in the great scene des
trois hommes, which is the crucial point of the
play, he acted with a quiet power, a perfectly
322 S. B. BANCROFT.
modulated passion, which were the perfection
of art, and stamped him once and for all as
an actor of the first rank. Mr. Bancroft suc-
ceeded in completely merging his own strongly
marked personality in that of the Russian
Count, and made a conspicuous success with a
minimum of opportunity in a part which he
himself prefers to any of his impersonations.
On January nth, 1879, Mr. Bancroft re-
sumed his impersonation of Captain Hawtree,
in a revival of Caste, and towards the end of
the season appeared successfully as Harry
Spreadbrow and Sir Henry Spreadbrow in
Mr. W. S. Gilbert's dainty little idyl Sweet-
hearts, one of the tenderest, prettiest prose-
poems in the literature of the English stage ;
and subsequently as Harry Collier in Good for
Nothing.
Before leaving the Prince of Wales's Theatre
for the Haymarket, Mr. Bancroft reappeared
as Hugh Chalcot in a revival of Ours, and the
familiar but perennially popular play sufficed
to make the final season a success.
It was on Saturday, January 3ist, 1880, that
Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft entered upon their
THE ABOLITION OF THE PIT. 323
tenancy of the Haymarket Theatre, and revived
in excellent style Lord Lytton's comedy Money,
Mr. Bancroft resuming his part of the flaxen-
haired Sir Frederick Blount. The occasion
was notable for more reasons than one, the
abolition of the pit by the new management
giving rise to a serious disturbance when the
curtain went up, which lasted for twenty
minutes, and had to be faced not by Mr.
Bancroft in propria persona, but by Sir Frederick
Blount, who, despite his effeminate, foppish
outside, proved by his admirable imperturb-
ability and patience that he had the making of
a man in him after all. The play itself was
entirely successful, and filled the theatre until
the revival, on May ist, of School, with Mr.
Bancroft in his original part. In November
the successful run of School was resumed, and
Mr. Bancroft also appeared as Mr. George
Clarke, C. B., the travelled bachelor, in The
Vicarage\ and on February 5th, 1881, Masks
and Faces was revived, Mr. Bancroft alter-
nating his touching and delicate study of Triplet
with a carefully elaborated and amusing impcr
sonation of Colley Gibber.
324 S. B. BANCROFT.
The Haymarket revival of Tom Taylor's
Plot and Passion, on November 26th, 1881,
was not too successful, but Mr. Bancroft's
rendering of Joseph Fouche, Duke of Otranto,
was admitted to be an artistic and finished
conception of the part; and on January iQth,
1882, he resumed his arduous role of Hugh
Chalcot in the revival of Onrs, in which Mrs.
Langtry commenced her first series of appear-
ances as a professional actress.
On Tuesday, April 25th, 1882, the English
version of Sardou's Odette was produced in a
most elaborate way, and proved an instant suc-
cess, Mr. Bancroft giving force and distinction
to the role of Lord Henry Trevene, and adding
a notable figure to his catalogue of dramatic
creations.
Tom Taylor's comedy The Overland Route
was produced at the Haymarket on October
;th, 1882, with Mr. Bancroft as Tom Dexter,
in which character he again won the favour
of the public; and the year 1883 found the
player in his old part of Captain Hawtree
in a revival of Caste, on January 2Oth, the
final performance of which, on April I3th, was
COUNT LORIS IPANOFF. 325
the occasion of a quite remarkable demonstra-
tion on the part of a crowded audience. A
final brief revival of School followed, and on
May 5th Mr. Herman Merivale's version of
Sardou's Fedora was produced, with immense
success, Mr. Bancroft giving a polished and
well thought out rendering of Jean de Siriex,
a French diplomatist, his distingue style stand-
ing him in good stead in a role demanding
personal qualifications of a high order. The
resumption of the piece on September 29th
was attended by a circumstance which lent it
peculiar interest. Mr. Bancroft assumed for
the first time the role of Count Loris Ipanoff,
and there was considerable curiosity to see how
he would acquit himself in a part directly
opposed to the class of character with which
he was identified. Those who were familiar
with the lights and shades of Mr. Bancroft's
acting were tolerably sanguine that his new
impersonation would be a success, and the event
justified their confidence, for, if there were some
faults in Mr. Bancroft's new assumption, there
were also flashes of brilliant acting which fully
atoned for them.
326 S. B. BANCROFT.
The impression conveyed by Mr. Bancroft s
appearance, voice, and gestures in the earlier
scenes was that, probably unintentionally,
possibly unconsciously, he was reproducing
some of the mannerisms of another dis-
tinguished player the melodramatic stride, the
peculiar inflexion and studied hoarseness of
the voice, and certain tricks of hand and head,
having apparently strayed from the neighbour-
hood of the Strand to the stage of the Hay-
market. But, as he warmed to his work, Mr.
Bancroft threw off these peculiarities, and dis-
played the power which he had in reserve.
Throughout the second act Mr. Bancroft was
good, but in the third he was something
more his delineation of passion, despair, a
wild desire for vengeance, and an absorbing
love, being a masterly piece of acting. In a
drama like Fedora, where everything is so
highly pitched, and where the passion is so
intense as to at times appear unnatural, the
over-accentuation of any detail may prove an
element of grave danger, and once or twice
Mr. Bancroft ventured perilously near the
boundary which divides the sublime from the
A REMARKABLE MAKE-UP. 327
ridiculous ; but he grasped so completely and
portrayed with such consummate ability the
intense passion and agony of the situation,
that his Loris Ipanoff was justly accepted
as one of his most artistic successes.
When Mr. Pinero's clever, curious comedy,
Lords and Commons, was produced at the
Haymarket on November i4th, 1883, Mr.
Bancroft, made up in remarkable fashion with
a long orange-hued beard, was scarcely re-
cognised at first in the character of Tom
Jervoise ; but the actor's voice and manner
soon revealed his identity, and he received
a cordial welcome, quickly justified by his
admirable acting in the part.
After a successful run of eighty nights,
Lords and Commons gave place to a revival
of Peril, with Mr. Bancroft as Dr. Thornton,
a role acted with energy and a shrewd per-
ception of the possibilities of the part, which he
developed to the uttermost.
On May 3rd, 1884, The Rivals was revived,
with Mr. Bancroft as Faulkland, and ran with
some success.
The farewell season was devoted chiefly to
328 S. B. BANCROFT,
the revival of plays in which Mr. Bancroft and
his brilliant wife had won popular success.
Perhaps the most notable of these, inasmuch
as Mr. Bancroft appeared for the first time as
Henry Beauclerc instead of Count OrlofT, was
that of Diplomacy, on November 8th, 1884, the
distinction and autoritd demanded by such a
role being manifested by Mr. Bancroft with a
quiet force which few other living actors could
have brought to bear upon a part calling for
certain very special and rare qualities. The
manner and bearing of the new Henry Beauclerc
diplomat, polished man of the world, kindly
elder brother, lenient critic of poor humanity
were perfect, inspiring a regard and esteem,
even a confidence and affection, which made it
easy to understand the influence which men of
that calibre can and do exert with unobtrusive
but resistless force.
Not even the epidemic of Russophobia cur-
rent at the time, however, combined with the
admirable acting of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft,
sufficed to galvanise Ours into a great success
on the occasion of its revival in April 1885,
the episodes which in the old days were
THE FAREWELL NIGHT. 329
received with enthusiasm failing to arouse any
marked degree of interest, and the weakness
of the Shendryn sub-plot, and the ridiculous
improbability of the hut scene in the Crimea,
in which waiving the unlikelihood of such
a foregathering we see women who have
fainted with emotion at the mere departure of
the troops indulging in pantomimic antics with
curious levity upon the actual battle-field,
seemed more obtrusive than usual. But the
revival certainly served to remind the public
that in Mr. Bancroft they would soon lose a
capable actor, whose place it would be hard to
fill, for in Hugh Chalcot he again gave a most
admirable study of a man whose sole afflic-
tion in life is literally an embarras de richesses.
The imperturbable sang-froid, the dry humour,
with just sufficient cynicism to make it piquant
without veiling the good-nature of the man,
the quaint lamentations over his wealth, the
delight of finding a woman who loved him for
himself, were brought out to perfection, and
new reason was given for playgoers to regret
the impending loss of an actor whose powers
were ripening to such perfection.
330 S. B. BANCROFI.
But the farewell night, July 2oth, 1885,
proved beyond all doubt the high position
which Mr. Bancroft had secured in the
opinion of the playgoing public. The Prince
and Princess of Wales and a great represen-
tative crowd of London society gathered to-
gether to do honour to Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft,
and the occasion proved one to be long memor-
able in the annals of the stage ; while the pro-
gramme comprised the names of a remarkable
company of representative actors and actresses.
Mr. Bancroft appeared in his exquisitely pa-
thetic role of Triplet, with Mrs. Bancroft as
Peg Woffington, and subsequently delivered
with admirable effect a farewell address, and
"Valedictory Ode," conceived by Mr. Clement
Scott with excellent taste.
After so definitive a farewell to the stage
as that taken by Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft upon
that memorable night, the playgoing public
learned with some surprise that upon the
occasion of the revival of The Dead Heart
at the Lyceum, on October 28th, 1889, the
role of the Abbe Latour would be undertaken
by Mr. Bancroft. The. rumour was at first
THE ABBE LA TOUR. 331
received with some incredulity, but, to the
satisfaction of playgoers, it proved to be well
founded, and in due course they had the pleasure
of giving a cordial welcome to an old favourite
whom they had scarcely hoped to see again.
Possibly the warmth of his reception, and
the knowledge that a great deal would be
expected of him, combined with a compara-
tive strangeness to the ordeal of the footlights
which so prolonged an absence had involved,
shook the actor's nerve, for at first his Abbe
was not completely satisfying. The callous,
cynical man of the world was there, polished
and refined as Mr. Bancroft knew so well how
to make him, but for a while there was too
much repose, a too persistent painting of the
character in monochrome, a plentiful lack of
animation. Beneath the imperturbable sur-
face it was not difficult for the critical few to
discern all the fierce hate, cynical falseness,
and patrician courage of the man ; but to a
superficial observer the Abbe seemed at first
but a colourless creation of only moderate
interest.
But when the actor had got acclimatised
332 S. B. BANCROFT.
once more to the enervating atmosphere of
stage-land, all his old talent was perceptible.
With many a subtle touch he made the Abbe
an embodiment of aristocratic disdain, refined
villainy, heartless cynicism, absolute self-love,
while in the great duel scene he evolved a
power, a finesse, a splendid courage which took
the house by storm, and redeemed whatever
weakness might have preceded it. From first
to last the impersonation was marked by refine-
ment and distinction, and in the duel scene it
rose to the height of tragedy, the moment in
which he dragged the handkerchief, stained
with blood, from his breast, being just one of
those touches which remain in the memory, and
compel an audience to recognise the presence
of talent of a very high order. That one tragic
episode, combined with the passionate intensity
of the whole of the duel scene, and the perfect
refinement of the conception and rendition of the
part throughout, rendered Mr. Bancroft's Latour
a notable impersonation, and his return to the
stage the subject of general congratulation.
Mr. Bancroft is very popular off the stage,
and his charming house in Berkeley Square is
SPECIMEN OF A WORD-DUEL. 333
the scene of much pleasant hospitality, both
Mr. Bancroft and his clever wife thoroughly
understanding the art of entertaining their
guests to perfection. Mr. Bancroft's judgment,
in all matters connected with his profession, is
so highly valued that, on more than one occasion,
he has acted successfully as arbitrator between
dramatic authors and managers who could not
agree as to the acceptance or rejection of
dramas ; and his ready wit was amusingly exem-
plified in a romantic dispute in the law courts
in 1 88 1, when he was summoned as a witness
and questioned as to what could or could not
terminate the run of a piece. The following
little specimen of a word-duel is worthy of the
stage :-
COUNSEL. " But supposing your leading ac-
tress was injured coming down to the theatre,
you would be compelled to close the doors ? "
MR. BANCROFT. " Such a thing would be
impossible in a well-conducted theatre."
COUNSEL. " How so ? "
MR. BANCROFT. " She would be under-
studied."
COUNSEL (a happy thought]. "But supposing
22
334 ? & BANCROFT.
by some miracle the under-study was in the
same cab with her and both were injured :
what then ?"
MR. BANCROFT (unabashed). " I should send
on the Prompter ! "
This absolute imperturbability is distinctly
characteristic of the popular actor, and has
had not a little to do with his pronounced and
persistent success, " on and off the stage."
JOHN LAWRENCE TOOLE.
MOST men are born babies, but Mr. Toole
must have been born a comedian. It is not
absolutely on record that he made puns be-
tween his spoonfuls of pap, or lisped out a
request for a comic wig in preference to waiting
for Nature to do her work in her own way,
but the late Edward Laman Blanchard used
to delight in telling how, in the course of a
country walk, as long ago as the year 1838,
he chanced upon a small boy of five or six
years old, who, having been sent into pastures
new for his health, had so speedily acquired a
sense of "local colour," that he was enter-
taining a select audience of other small folk
with a series of quite wonderful imitations of
farmyard birds and animals, with humorously
interjected human voices, the mimetic power
displayed auguring well for the future talent
338 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
of the precocious performer, Master Johnny
Toole.
The son of a City toast-master, and accus-
tomed, in the intervals of consuming infantile
portions of those items in the menu which
represent the sweetness and light of lordly
banquets in the civic halls, to study human
nature from the cosy security of a screened
corner or quiet gallery, John Lawrence Toole
had ample opportunity for storing up in his
receptive and reproductive mind a host of odd
impressions, to be used in after years with
excellent effect ; and when, as a youth, he
relieved his diurnal labours at "the desk's
dead wood " in the office of a wine-merchant
by nocturnal performances as an amateur actor
at Sussex Hall, Leadenhall Street, as a mem-
ber of the City Histrionic Club, his love of
acting rapidly developed into a ruling passion,
only to be fully gratified at last by the adoption
of the stage as a career ; and his resolve, made
nearly forty years ago, has afforded an incal-
culable amount of innocent pleasure to tens
of thousands of people, while no doubt the
comedian has himself been happier than had he
TOOLE AND CRUIKSHANK. 339
become ever so rich and famous as the pro-
prietor of " Toole's Griffin B Sherry " or
celebrated " Guildhall Port" at twenty-four
shillings a dozen bottles included.
Whimsicality, quaintness, and a boldness of
delineation which sometimes breaks through
the boundary which divides character-drawing
from caricature, have been the dominant
elements in Mr. Toole's acting as long as
playgoers of the period can remember. His
artistic method is to the stage not wholly
unlike that associated in the popular mind
with the name of George Cruikshank in
another field of art. In the works of both,
especially when Mr. Toole's creations are
judged simply as stage figures and estimated
for their pictile quality, there is much the
same freehanded treatment, much the same
inoffensive grotesque rie, much the same whim-
sical exaggeration of characteristic features of
physique and dress.
But exaggeration is not without its value in
either the art of the worker with the pencil
and the brush, or of the actor who uses his
very self to body forth his idea of a character.
340 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
The caricaturist, on or off the stage, if he be of
the first rank, recognises the imperative axiom
that it is the business of his peculiar method to
heighten, not to disfigure or destroy, the in-
dividuality of a subject, and it is indisputable
that in the case of George Cruikshank and of
John Lawrence Toole each has made his
creations the more striking and memorable by
this artistic and legitimate utilisation of ex-
aggeration. Cruikshank's Artful Dodger or
Fagin, and Toole's Caleb Plummer or Dodger
or Dick Dolland, exhibit very much the same
degree of exaggeration, and it is unquestionable
that all the figures make a far clearer and more
enduring impression than would have been
possible had the artist or the actor permitted
himself to be strictly trammelled by the limits
of actuality. But with both, too, there was
always one clearly apparent condition the
original conception upon which they worked
was based upon a keen and true insight into
human nature. Without that they might have
explored the artistic field from Dan to Beer-
sheba, and still it would have proved barren of
worthy fruit.
THE PIANO PEDAL OF PATHOS. 341
Mr. Toole, moreover, is an actor of no mean
versatility. He has not yet, it is true, given to
the stage a new Hamlet or an ideal Romeo ;
sentiment and romance of the higher or of the
more conventional school are not within his
range ; neither for him is the passion or despair
of pure tragedy. But in the field of domestic
life and every-day joys and sorrows he is a
thorough master of his art, and is equally effec-
tive with the piano pedal of pathos hard down
as with the forte of boisterous farce. He can
make his audience laugh with him and weep
with him at will, and, even in his broadest
and wildest farcical extravagances, while they
roar at his comic bewilderment, for very good-
fellowship they wish him well out of his
scrapes.
Mr. Toole is a thorough comedian and don
camarade, through and through, hence his ex-
treme popularity in the profession and with the
public. He is not cast in the heroic mould, but
very little of the downright useful work of the
world is done by heroes, and so it is with the
drama. Who shall compute the pleasure given
and pure sympathy evoked by Mr. Toole in his
342 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
comical and pathetic moments ; and although he
may not have attained the dignity of a Charles I.,
the intellectual, melancholy charm of Hamlet,
or the romantic picturesqueness of Claude
Melnotte, he may well console himself with the
reflection that few living actors have stimulated
more the harmless enjoyment, honest pathos,
and wholesome merriment of the public.
There is nothing malicious about the class of
humour with which Mr. Toole is identified on
or off the stage. The laughter which he evokes
has no bitterness in it. Its ring is true as
eighteen-carat gold, its source as honest as
the day. In his most whimsical facial make-up
there are many merry lines but no mean ones.
The physiognomist would search in vain for
danger-signals, but might discover plenty of
indications of extravagant humour. With
tears and laughter equally at his command, it
is not surprising that Mr. Toole should be a
prime favourite with audiences who appreciate
above all else humour that is careful to keep
" within the limits of becoming mirth," and
when the inevitable day comes when the sock
and buskin can no longer be donned by him,
A NINETEENTH-CENTURY YORICK. 345
there will be tens of thousands who have
enjoyed countless happy hours, thanks to his
excellent talent, and who have learned to
honour him alike as a man and an actor, to
speak the kindly aspiration, " God rest his soul !
He was a merry man ! "
In his private life, too, if so well-known a
public personage can fitly be said to have any
private life, Mr. Toole has always been ready for
a harmless joke, such as the little jest he played
upon Mrs. Bancroft when, as Marie Wilton,
a nervous slip of a girl, she was playing at the
Lyceum in the same company as the comedian,
and he made her, after many anxious inquiries
as to the date and mysterious hints of some-
thing coming, a birthday present, wrapped up
with infinite care in many thicknesses of silvery
tissue paper, from which at last emerged not
a bracelet, as the youthful actress had hoped,
but a Tangerine orange ! But Mr. Toole
soon made up for the disappointment ; and it
was largely due to his encouraging and comical
whisper to the timorous little actress at
rehearsal, " Twenty pounds a week insisted
upon, I think, after the first performance," that
344
JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
she found courage to fight her way bravely
to the front.
To children Toole has always been particu-
larly kind, and the gusto with which he tells
the semi-pathetic, semi-humorous story of the
little girl who played Tiny Tim, and apparently
devoured an
alarmingly large
share of Bob
Cratchit's Christ-
^ mas goose up-
on which, as a
fact, the mem-
bers of the family
feasted each
night right
royally proves how big a heart he has, and
how tenderly susceptible it is to the claims and
needs of childhood.
Mr. Toole, who is a thorough Londoner
even when upon the stage, was born in
St. Mary Axe, on March i2th, 1832, and
speedily showed signs of possessing that
mimetic faculty which is essential to comic
acting of the best school. He was only twenty
FIRST APPEARANCE. 345
when, after a brief provincial apprenticeship,
(having made his first appearance on the regular
stage in Ipswich, the birthplace of Mrs.
Keeley, as Sylvester Daggerwood, appearing,
moreover, not as J. L. Toole but as John
Lavers, a detail which is significant as proving
that he had not then finally decided upon the
stage as a career) he made his first appearance
before a Metropolitan audience on July 22nd,
1852, upon the stage of the Hay market Theatre,
in a part which he first played at the Queen's
Theatre, Dublin, and has played since times out
of number, with unvarying success that of
Simmons, in The Spitalfields Weaver, in which
role his whimsical humour and distinct individu-
ality of style were quickly recognised as full of
promise.
On October 2nd, 1854, Mr. Toole played the
part of Sam Pepys, in The Kings Rival, by
Tom Taylor and Charles Reade, at the St.
James's Theatre, appearing the same evening in
a farce by Charles Selby, My Friend the Major,
impersonating a sheriffs officer who is in a
gentleman's house ostensibly as a friend, and
has some comical experiences at a ball, with a
346 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
jovial humour which speedily made its mark.
During the same engagement Mr. Toole
played Pierre, in Honour before Titles, with
success.
From 1856 until 1859 Mr. Toole was a
member of the Lyceum company, playing during
his engagement such parts as Fanfaronade in
Belphegor and Autolycus, in William Brough's
amusing burlesque, Perdita; or, The Royal
Milkmaid, and also gaining considerable favour
by his vivacious and original acting as the hero
of a farce called Doing the Hansom.
In 1859 Mr. Toole migrated to the new
Adelphi Theatre under Benjamin Webster's
management, and during his engagement had
opportunities of displaying his talent in im-
personating the heroes of eccentric comedy and
farce, of which he eagerly availed himself. It
was during this engagement that Mr. Toole
created among other distinctly original and
striking parts that of Asmodeus in the burlesque
of that name, and Mr. Spriggins, in the still
popular farce, Id on parle Franfais a character
which has perhaps been the cause of more
hearty laughter than any other in the actor's
MR. TOOLE AS CALEB PLUMMER.
CALEB PLUMMER. 349
repertoire ; Augustus de Rosherville, the eccen-
tric hero of The Willow Copse ; and Wapshot in
The Life of an Actress; while he gave proof
of an almost Robsonian genius for blending
homely humour with simple pathos in the parts
of Bob Cratchit in The Christmas Carol and
Caleb Plummer in The Cricket on the Hearth.
In both of these characters Mr. Toole entered
into the spirit of Dickens's delightfully tender
and lovably humorous creations with a thorough-
ness and a delicacy of style which stamped
him as an actor of the first degree of merit in
his own school, capable of manifesting, when
occasion arose, a simple pathos which went
straight from heart to heart, and formed an
indissoluble link of the pleasantest sort between
the actor and his audience. Mr. Toole's Bob
Cratchit and Caleb Plummer were, and are, an
education in the art of painting the pathos and
humour of humble life with a kindly and faithful
touch, and the intense, .real, living humanity of
both characters won for the comedian imme-
diate and enduring favour.
During the same year Mr. Toole created the
part of William Kite in Watts Phillips' Paper
23
350 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
Wings, and appeared at Drury Lane as Enoch
Flicker in a drama by the same author, called
A. Story of '45, transforming a comparatively
insignificant part into the attraction, par excel-
lence, of a successful play. In 1864 the come-
dian added to his reputation by his rendition of
the principal character in Messrs. Brough and
Halliday's lively farce, The Area Belle, in
which he introduced that extraordinary effusion,
"A Norrible Tale," which quickly took the
taste of the town, and was sung, decades later,
by Mr. Toole, into the receiving cylinder of a
phonograph, the actor remarking afterwards to
a friend, " How will that do ? " an epilogue
faithfully stored up by the instrument, to be
reproduced in due course, although quite unin-
tentionally added to the ditty.
In the following August Mr. Toole played
the amusing part of Mr. Lysimachus Tootles
in a comical piece called My Wifes Maid, and,
a few weeks subsequently, created the part of
Stephen Digges, in a piece of that name
adapted for him specially by John Oxenford,
from Balzac's famous novel, "Le Pere Goriot,"
and affording the popular comedian ample scope
MICHAEL GARNER. 351
v
for displaying in the one part both his humour
and his pathetic power. The development of
the character Was effected with masterly art,
and confirmed the judgment of those who saw-
in Mr. Toole the most likely successor to the
mantle of Robson.
On January 3Oth, 1865, Mr. Toole appeared
successfully as Fathom in an Adelphi revival
of The Hunchback, and in the following July
he created the role of Joe Bright, a plucky,
straightforward fireman, in Mr. Walter Gadin's
play, Through Fire and Water, with enormous
skill, shining equally in the happier scenes and
in the realistic episode of drunkenness.
In May 1866 Mr. Toole took the part of
Prudent in The Fast Family, by Benjamin
Webster, jun., adapted from Sardou's " La
Famille Benoiton ; " and in January 1886 he
created the powerful part of Michael Garner,
at the New Queen's Theatre, in Byron's
comedy, Dearer than Life. Those who are
familiar with Mr. Toole's method will quickly
understand how entirely such a part enabled
him to show his art at its best. The honour-
able, worthy, self-respecting tradesman, the
352 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLS.
affectionate husband and father stripping him-
self not only of his savings but of the good
name which he values so highly, in order to
save his son from shame, and then the pathetic
pretence of high spirits when his misery was
well-nigh breaking his heart, all were repre-
sented by the actor with convincing force, and
once again Mr. Toole proved that it was in the
depicture of familiar experiences, with comedy
and tragedy treading on each other's heels so
closely as well-nigh to trip each other up, that
he was to be seen at his best. It is well that
we should be reminded now and again of the
mirth and misery that are to be found in the
most humdrum round of every-day life, and
Mr. Toole in this and similar parts has brought
this condition of existence to the surface in a
conspicuously successful fashion.
Like Mr. Irving, who was also in the cast of
this production, Mr. Toole has always been
fond of going out into the highways and bye-
ways of city and country, recognising odd bits
of character with keen appreciation, and storing
them up for future reproduction. The come-
dian, in particular, has always been peculiarly
THOUGHTFULNESS FOR OTHERS. 353
fond of studying human nature with all its
unconscious elements of comedy and tragedy,
obscure and humble as they might be, and it is
a sterling proof of his genuine kindness of
heart that he has always taken care that any
one upon whom he played one of the harmless
practical jokes so dear to his humour-loving
soul, or who had afforded him some material
for future use, was never left quite unrewarded.
Even when sending presents to ailing friends
Mr. Toole's kind thoughtfulness for others
prompted him to habitually " put in a few
trifles that might be useful to the landlady."
Without doubt many a struggling soul has
been lightened and brightened by the actor's
kind-hearted consideration.
Mr. Toole's genuine good-nature has neces-
sarily won him an unusually large number of
friends, as distinguished from mere acquaint-
ances, who have rejoiced with him in his
happiness and success, and sympathised sin-
cerely with him in the heavy sorrows which
have fallen upon him from time to time in the
death of those dearer to him than life.
Whether in the old days at Haverstock Hill,
354 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
in the little house with the garden where
Robson would visit him on Sunday mornings
and be cheered by the sight of his young friend
pottering happily about amongst his plants ; or
in the pretty, cheerful house in Orme Square,
facing Kensington Gardens, with its windows
and balconies bright with flowers, " as who
should say ' cheerfulness and fun are as the air
we breathe,' " or later still, after the death of
his well-loved son, in the cosy little house at
No. 17, William Street, Lowndes Square, a
stone's-throw from Charles Reade's " Naboth's
Vineyard" at Albert Gate, with its busts of
Shakespeare and Macready, its quaint old
model of the " Maypole Inn," so dear to honest
Gabriel Varden and his cronies, its countless
souvenirs and tributes of affection and admira-
tion from other artists, including a dainty,
tender Thames study by Joseph Jefferson, the
immortal " Rip," books, statuettes, relics of
Charles Dickens, and general artistic litter of
interesting and beautiful things, Mr. Toole's
private life has always been the same hospit-
able, honest, kindly, and that of a man whose
home was, after all, his chief happiness.
" UNCLE DICK." 355
At the Queen's Theatre, in July 1868, Mr.
Toole impersonated Bob Acres with artistic
moderation and in a spirit of true comedy, and
in the following year he played Jack Snipe
in Watts Phillips' drama, Not Guilty^ and on
December i3th, 1869, at the Gaiety Theatre
in Byron's Uncle Dicks Darling, a play
specially written for him, he created the part
of Dick Dolland with unqualified success. It
would not be easy to surpass the cleverness of
the antithetic phases of the character so
jovial and full of spirits, and then so tender
and so heartbroken. The affectionate devotion
contrasted with the good-hearted geniality was
dramatically effective to a degree, and Dick
Dolland proved one of those literal transcripts
of human nature which those who run may
read, while the most critical students of original
and copy could not detect any discrepancy
worthy of note.
Mr. Toole followed up this success with a
lengthened tour in the provinces, where he has
always been an immense favourite, from the
early days when the stage carpenter at Sheffield
good-naturedly gave him the "wheeze " which
356 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
he has since used with such effect in The
Steeplechase, " It does make me so wild! " a
phrase introduced by a predecessor in the part,
and given to Mr. Toole as a friendly, and, as it
proved, really valuable hint.
In November 1871 Mr. Toole made his
reappearance on the London stage as Paul
Pry, at the Gaiety Theatre, bringing out all
the quaint, dry humour of the part with
excellent art, and appearing also in The
Spitalfields Weaver, as Simmons, one of his
earliest successes. On Boxing Day of the
same year, and at the same theatre, he appeared
as Thespis, in Mr. Gilbert's seasonable fantasy,
called Thespis ; or, The Gods Grown Old; and
in April 1872, still at the Gaiety, he created
the part of Neefit, in S hilly -Shally, by Anthony
Trollope and Charles Reade ; and in December
1873 appeared as Maw-worm in a revival of The
Hypocrite, a comically lugubrious bit of acting in
which he was seen to considerable advantage.
As Hammond Cooke, in Albery's comedy,
Wig and Gown, Mr. Toole gave a clever, if
rather extravagant, sketch of a barrister, in
April 1874, at the Globe Theatre, painting
MR. TOOLE AS PAUL PRY.
DEPARTURE FOR AMERICA. 359
with rare humour the shifts and struggles of a
briefless barrister, full of petty pride, who really
lives by letting furnished lodgings. In 1875
he went to America, and made an extended
tour with complete success.
Before his departure for America Mr. Toole
was the guest of the evening at a banquet held
in Willis's Rooms, on Midsummer Day 1874,
under the pleasant presidency of Lord Rose-
bery, who even then was an excellent after-
dinner speaker. Lord Rosebery must surely
have unconsciously possessed the gift of pro-
phecy on that occasion when he said of Mr.
Toole, " I should like to see a series of
banquets given day after day in his honour
until we had exhausted all the phases of his
character. Still, although that might redound
to his immortal glory, I am doubtful whether it
would not result in his precipitate death from
indigestion." This aspiration as regards the
banquets day by day, not, happily, the prema-
ture decease from dyspepsia was almost liter-
ally fulfilled prior to the comedian's departure
for Australia, nearly sixteen years later, where
Mr. Toole found so many claims upon his
360 JOHN LA WRENCE TQOLE.
time off the stage that he was often up night
after night until four in the morning, with-
standing the double strain with remarkable
physical strength for a man of his years.
Upon the same occasion Lord Rosebery
characterised Mr. Toole's humour rather curi-
ously, as of a kind "grateful alike to age and to
youth and to childhood to the genius and to
the fool " ; and, a little later, an American critic
emphasised this opinion by saying, with truth,
that the test which Mr. Toole met was that,
under all conditions of circumstance which
arouse the best emotions of average humanity,
his art made him the perfect reflection of the
nature of mankind. " The colour was English
but the fact was universal."
In December 1875 Mr. Toole created with
great success the character of Mr. Tottle, in
Byron's farcical comedy, Tottle 's, at the Gaiety
Theatre. The absurd incongruities of the
wealthy quondam proprietor of Tottle's refresh-
ment rooms, Tottle's eating house, Bucklersbury,
and Tottle's a la mode beef shop, Borough Road,
proving irresistibly funny, especially in the
final act, when, half beside himself with jealousy,
"BOLO." 361
he plays fantastic tricks in the disguise of a
waiter. Of course no such waiter could exist
for five minutes in actuality without detec-
tion and expulsion, but the public do not ask
Mr. Toole for realism. He is the Cruikshank,
theGavarni, the Pellegrini of the stage ; and
naturalism, at all events in his purely comic as-
sumptions, would be a disappointment to those
who fcnow and like him best.
It was at the Gaiety Theatre, too, in
February 1877, that Mr. Toole created the
part of Mr. Spicer Rumford in Mr. Burnand's
extravagantly funny play, Artful Cards ; and
his comic bewilderment and dismay when dis-
covered at the house of the doubtful Countess
Asterisk i, when the police make a raid upon it
as a gambling-hell, his attempts to master the
mysteries of " Bolo," and his forlorn appearance
in Piccadilly, in the small hours of the morning,
with battered hat, trombone, and ill-fitting
ulster, were humorous pictures which remain
in the memory.
In the same month Mr. Toole appeared at
the Gaiety Theatre as Jacques Strop, in Robert
Macaire, indulging in the most grotesque and
362 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
fantastic business, and depicting the miserable
rascal's comic despair and abject terror with
exceptional vigour. The part became quite a
new creation, and a remarkable one, in Mr.
Toole's hands, and the humour, though wildly
extravagant, was sufficiently possible to be
intensely amusing.
January of 1878 saw Mr. Toole in a new
part at the Globe Theatre, where he appeared as
Chawles, or Charles Liquorpond, in Byron's A
Fool and kis Money, a scheming and grotesque
butler, and an even more fantastic landowner
in Wales, bothered comically enough with the
language and customs of the Principality a
part which Mr. Toole made very entertaining
in his own way.
The Folly Theatre, which cynical people
promptly dubbed " Toole's Folly," in King
William Street, Strand, was opened by Mr.
Toole on November i7th, 1879, w ^h a revival
of A Fool and his Money, and in the new
theatre Chawles proved a complete success.
Mr. Toole's quaint gestures and sublime as-
sumption of self-satisfaction took the taste of
the town at once, and never has the unctuous
MR. BARNABY DOUBLECHICK. 363
imperturbability of a quondam autocrat of the
servants' hall been more humorously portrayed.
On February 23rd, 1880, at a Covent Garden
matinde revival of Pickwick, for the benefit of
Mr. F. B. Chatterton, Mr. Toole gave his
inimitably funny impersonation of Serjeant
Buzfuz ; and on March 3ist he created the
humorous character of Mr. Barnaby Double-
chick, in Byron's comedy, The Upper Crust, a
part in which, as the wealthy proprietor of
Doublechick's Diaphanous Soap, he overflowed
with humour and human nature. Mr. Toole
apparently has a peculiarly shrewd insight into
the idiosyncrasies of the successful trader class
and their little weaknesses, and revels in the
oddity of their characters, although not in-
frequently lapsing into caricature. On May
2ist, 1 88 1, Mr. Toole appeared as Cecil
Strutton, Esq., in Wits and Rabbits, a one-act
dramatic absurdity by Robert Reece and Knight
Summers ; in June Artjul Cards was revived ;
and on July 2oth he appeared as Mr. Norton
Folgate in Over the Garden Wall, a one-act
farce by Mr. Sydney Grundy.
On November 2nd, 1880, Mr. Toole created
564 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
with success the amusing role of Mr. Samuel
Slithery, in a farce called The Light Fantastic,
by Henry J. Byron.
Mr. Toole appeared as Mr. Bunny in
Auntie, on March I3th, 1882, and on the re-
opening of the theatre on October 7th,
reappeared as Barnaby Doublechick, and also
as Mr Guffin in Guffins Elopement, by Messrs.
Arthur Law and George Grossmith ; singing
a quaintly humorous song, " The Speaker's
Eye," with his usual extravagant comicality ;
and on October 3ist created the part of
Solomon Protheroe, the cobbler-schoolmaster,
in Mr. Pinero's play, Girls and Boys, a character
which in less creative hands would probably
have proved rather colourless and barren.
Always successful in caricature, towards
which his professional habit seemed to have
a natural bent, Mr. Toole was seen to great
advantage as Loris Ipanoff Atiloff, Commander
of the Reserve Forces, in Stage Dora : or, Who
killed Cock Robin? a travestie of Fedora, by Mr.
Burnand, produced at Toole's Theatre on May
26th, 1883, in which the comedian parodied
the make-up, voice, and style of Mr. Coghlan
" PA W CLA WDIAN? 365
with singular accuracy of perception and indis-
putable humour; and on February i4th, in the
following year, he displayed an equal power of
good-humoured travesty as Clawdian Andli-
vates, an "evergreen chappie," in Mr. Burnand's
burlesque, Paw Clawdian ; or, The Roman
Awry, in which, as a classic masher, in toga,
sandals, and white satin opera hat, and also in
it would scarcely be adequate to say with a
wonderful wax Roman nose as palpably false
as any souvenir of Epsom Races, he was ex-
ceptionally funny. Though the nose was the
nose of Barrett, the legs were the legs of
Toole, and Mr. Toole's Clawdian possessed the
humour of a caricature by " Ape." Between
these successful parodies he had created the
part of Kerosine Tredgold, in Mr. Law's
farcical comedy, A Mint of Money ; but neither
the play nor the character proved to possess
any striking novelty of conception, and Mr.
Toole was funny in his own way, and that
was all.
On December 6th, 1886, Mr. Toole created
the part of David Trott, in Mr. and Mrs.
Herman Merivale's domestic comedy, The
24
366 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
Butler, his dry humour enabling him to make
a good deal out of a quaintly conceived and
clearly delineated character of the kind in
which he is seen to great advantage. At
Miss Amy Roselle's benefit at the Lyceum on
June i6th, 1887, Mr. Toole gave his capital
impersonation of Spriggins in Id on parle
Pranfais.
It is not difficult to understand that with
such a part as Mr. Millikin, M.A., in Mr. and
Mrs. Herman Merivale's The Don, produced
on March ;th, 1888, Mr. Toole would display
infinite humour, blended with a genial simplicity
as irresistible as it was cleverly assumed. Mr.
Millikin's inflammability as regards the fair sex
was the motif 'of much amusing acting, and the
part became one of the comedian's drollest and
best. The play was revived on December 26th,
after Mr. Toole's provincial tour, with renewed
success, running again until the close of the
season of 1889, on July 6th.
Before going to Australia on February I5th,
1890, Mr. Toole was the subject of well-nigh
innumerable banquets, suppers, and genial
gatherings expressive of goodwill. He was also
BREAKFASTING WITH MR. GLADSTONE. 367
the recipient of many good wishes from friends
in all classes of society, as became not only a
man who had breakfasted with Mr. Gladstone
and Professor Blackie, to the accompaniment of
such an elevated tone of conversation that, on
leaving Downing Street, the comedian was com-
pelled to " talk to a policeman " in order to bring
himself down to the level of ordinary life ; but
an actor who had expressed the opinion that
" if the cultured people of a city were liberal
in their patronage of the drama, nothing would
tend more to elevate the stage, and improve
the character of the pieces performed, com-
pelling humourists to be wholesome and pure
in their fun, and the more serious dramatists
to be equally true in their pathos."
Upon the very eve of his departure, namely,
on Friday, February I4th, 1890, the Prince of
Wales gave a farewell dinner to Mr. Toole
at the Garrick Club, amongst those present,
besides the host and the principal guest, being
the Duke of Fife, Lord Randolph Churchill,
Lord Brooke, Sir Henry Thompson, Sir J.
E. Boehm, Sir Charles Russell, Dr. Russell,
Mr. F. C. Burnand, Mr. Edward Lawson, Mr.
368 JOHN LA WRENCE TOOLE.
G. A. Sala, and Mr. George Lewis. Mr. Toole
subsequently went to supper at the Beefsteak
Club-room at the Lyceum Theatre. He left
Charing Cross on Saturday morning at 1 1
o'clock, Mr. Clement Scott accompanying him
during the earlier part of his journey, and
bidding him a final " God-speed ! "
R
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