To anyone born with a taste for the theatre, a flair for the public demand in stage entertainment, and a desire for the society of actors and actresses, the position of dramatic critic on a London newspaper should be one of the most coveted berths on the ship. The opportunity of heralding a good play or of “slating” a bad one secures a true moment of satisfaction. Moreover, the occupation, notwithstanding the late hours, hot theatres, and liability to corporal punishment, involved, is one of the most healthy undertakings in the gift of the Press. A continuous pursuit of this gay science insures longevity. The dramatic critic is the most long-lived man in the profession. Some of the dramatic critics whom I knew in the early eighties and late seventies are still “hard at it,” I am pleased to hear. I imagine that the dramatic critic never dies. Like the majority of the plays upon which he passes judgment, he is translated or adapted.

John Oxenford, of the Times, was the doyen of the dramatic critics of my day. It was John’s proudest boast that he never wrote a word in the Thunderer that could do professional damage to an actor, or take the bread out of the mouth of an actress. An amiable sentiment, truly, but scarcely indicative of the critical attitude of a writer conscientiously performing his duty to the public, his employers—ay, and to the stage itself. Often after our Saturday dinner at the Junior Garrick Club, an association which I joined some time after my regular engagement as taster of new plays, I have heard the venerable man make this boast in a post-prandial speech. As the great majority of his hearers were actors, managers, and dramatic authors, the sentiment was invariably received with abundant applause.

Oxenford suffered for years from a chronic cough, which always announced his arrival at a theatre, and usually punctuated the performance throughout the night. Whether it was on account of this distressing affliction, or because he represented the leading journal, I do not know, but a box was always put at Mr. Oxenford’s disposition on the first night of a new play. Two determined “dead-heads” generally turned up sooner or later in the great man’s box. These were the late Lord Alfred Paget and John Murphy of Somerset House. The friendship between these three men, so different in station and in intellectual capacity, was exposed in a theatrical organ of the period, and in an article called “Dead-heads: Cornelius Nepos O’Mulligan.” O’Mulligan was evidently intended for Murphy. He was therein described as Oxenford’s toady, and his mission was indicated as being that of a diplomatic mediator who would persuade Oxenford to give a line of notice to some good-looking young woman on the stage in whom his lordship happened to take a passing interest. It was further suggested that Lord Alfred’s solicitude for the ambitious artist whom he wished to befriend was not altogether personal. Lord Alfred, it was said, was simply interesting himself in furtherance of the wishes of a third party—a Very Great Personage. That I do not believe. But what I do believe is that Oxenford was innocent of sinister designs on the part of his friends, and that when a kindly word appeared in the Times regarding the performance of some third-rate actress, enacting a fourth-rate part, the record testified to the possession of a kindly disposition and a congenital incapacity for saying “No.”

Murphy and Lord Alfred were both members of the Junior Garrick Club, and when the article to which I have alluded came out, Murphy consulted me as to what course he should take. Murphy had the baldest expanse of head I have ever seen—quite a continent it was. And it was surrounded by a fringe of red hair. He was clean-shaven, had a most bewitching squint, and a Cork accent of peculiar enormity.

“It’s not for meself I keer,” said John to me, with tears in his voice, “but Alfrid’s takin’ it to hear-r-r-t. He niver slep’ a wink since th’ attack on um come out. Now wh-h-at had we betther do?”

“I have no doubt that you and Lord Alfred will live it down,” I told him.

“Sure it’s what I’m afther tellin’ Alfrid meself. ‘Take no notice of um at all,’ says I. O’ny Alfrid wanted your opinion as well. He thinks sich a lot of your common-sinse, bedad.”

“Lord Alfred doesn’t suppose, by any chance, that I wrote the thing?” I asked.

“Alfrid would as soon think of suspectin’ Jan Axenford himself,” said Murphy. But he hesitated before he said it; his squint became more pronounced, and there was such a general air of confusion on his beaming and rubicund countenance that I was convinced that both the wily conspirators had attributed the essay to me, and that John had simply been “told off” by his noble friend to lure me into an admission.

Burlesque was still a leading card at the Gaiety, and one or two other “burlesque houses,” as they were called, though opera-bouffe was gradually superseding the old home-made article, with its pitiful puns and sawdust buffooneries. And the chorus engaged for these entertainments consisted of handsome girls possessing limbs suitable for exhibition in pink or yellow or violet tights. Murphy and Paget were constant visitors at these theatres. And his lordship would frequently present to some shapely ornament of the chorus a gold bangle as a token of his regards, and as an earnest of his desire for her success in the profession she had adopted. Some attempt on the part of a necessitous chorus girl to pawn one of his lordship’s bangles led to the discovery that the ornaments were of little value. And it eventually transpired that they had been purchased by the gross from a Jew dealer in Houndsditch. His lordship always posed among Bohemians as a poor man, and managers, therefore, thought it nothing that he should accept free admission to the playhouses. There was some searching of spirit among them when the aristocratic dead-head’s will was proved. He “cut up” for quite a lot of money. And when he died, John Murphy soon followed—of a broken heart, they said, and having nothing more to live for. So passed this par nobile fratum!

William Holland at one time “ran” the Surrey Theatre, with pantomime in the winter, and melodrama during the remainder of the year. I attended the Surrey during his occupancy, to notice a new piece by poor Henry Pettitt. Oxenford had a box as usual. And not only was his sneezing rather more distressing than usual, but he was accompanied by a lady whose babble was incessant. This acquaintance of the venerable critic was a person of no very exalted rank in Society, and Holland became anxious lest the sternutation and conversation in the box should interfere with the comfort of those in its immediate vicinity. During the second entr’acte he thought it well to pay his court to the eminent exponent of the higher criticism. He knocked at the door of the box, was bidden to enter, went in, and, greeting the occupants with his characteristic effusion, inquired:

“And what do you think of the play, Mr. Oxenford?”

“The play?” said the old gentleman. “Oh, the play is rot! . . . What do you think of it, my dear?”

“Rot?” exclaimed the lady friend thus addressed—“it’s muck!”

Only the word the fair creature employed was much coarser than “muck,” and the anxious manager went away sorrowing. However, an excellent notice of the melodrama subsequently appeared in the leading journal. It may interest a new generation of those who illustrate the gay science to learn that all the theatrical representative of the Times received for his services was one hundred pounds a year. At least, so Mr. Oxenford himself more than once assured me.

When Mowbray Morris succeeded Oxenford as the representative of the Thunderer, a very different spirit informed those columns of the Times devoted to the stage. Morris came to the task impressed with the idea that it was the business of a critic to criticize. “Have at you!” was evidently his motto. And he laid about him right merrily, not particular whom he might inconvenience by his shrewd thrusts; for, indeed, he was no respecter of persons, and was suspected of entertaining an invincible contempt for the personnel of the British stage. When Morris was appointed, Henry Irving was in the first flush of his triumph as manager of the Lyceum Theatre. And the shrewd actor-manager had inaugurated the custom of giving a reception to his friends on the first night of a new play.

The reception was held on the stage itself after the conclusion of the performance. Very agreeable, and even memorable, functions they were. The stage had been quickly transformed into a palatial hall, made comfortable by a judicious arrangement of curtains and palms, and—as at that advanced period of the night guests were usually in need of sustenance—tables were laid out laden with cold viands in profusion. And there was plenty to drink. Now, the attitude of Morris towards the stage was that of a person who did not accept the existence of the actor as a social fact, and he resented this surely innocent effort on the part of Irving to gratify his friends. It would all have been very well had the new critic kept his opinions on this head to himself. Unfortunately, he gave them to the readers of his journal. He attributed sinister motives to the founder of the feast, and boldly averred that it was an attempt to influence the Press with “chicken and champagne.” The phrase “chicken and champagne” in this connection persisted for a long time—for a much longer time than Mowbray Morris continued in his post. From the beginning of his managerial career it had been Irving’s great aim to consolidate friendly relations with the London and provincial newspapers. And the fearless and unconventional satirist of “chicken and champagne” gave the popular manager of the Lyceum furiously to think.

May I here, in justice to the present policy of the Times in the control of its dramatic columns, acknowledge the fact that the gentleman who at present represents that journal at the theatres more nearly approaches the ideal of what a dramatic critic ought to be than any of the men who were my contemporaries, and that he is head and shoulders above any of his own contemporaries? It is pleasant to be able to say this of any department of a Press which exhibits many of the symptoms of decadence. Mr. Walkley’s attitude regarding stage affairs is nicely calculated. He is beautifully poised. He never condescends to a contemptuous pose. On the other hand, he is never inclined to accept the dramatic art too seriously. He states his opinions with playfulness and not with brutality. He exhibits a fine spirit of detachment. He never insults the professors of the art. On the other hand, he declines to take those gentlemen as seriously as they take themselves. Under all that he writes may be discovered the social philosopher. His essays are scholarly without pedantry, lively without vulgarity, piquant without mordacity, and they always afford the most stimulating “reading.”

My mention above of Henry Pettitt reminds me of another writer of melodrama whom we, of the jocund years, were sometimes called upon to review. This was Paul Merrit. Paul was an enormously fat man with the absolutely hairless face of a boy. He had a high falsetto voice, and his blood-and-thunder dramas were crude, lurid, penny-plain-and-twopence-coloured productions. He had a great facility in plots and situations, and, in respect of these gifts and graces, was called in by Sir Augustus Harris to collaborate in one or two of the autumn melodramas at Drury Lane. Paul was the last man in all Europe to whom would apply the term “literary.” Yet he became a member of one or two literary clubs. On the day on which the death of Thomas Carlyle was announced, some of us were sitting in one of these institutions discussing the passing of the Sage of Chelsea. To us entered Paul Merrit. He wore the drawn and despairing expression of one who had suffered a severe personal bereavement. He had in his hand a journal containing a long obituary notice of Carlyle. Holding it towards us, he said in his high falsetto, shaken by a queer tremolo of emotion:

“Well, gentlemen, another gap in our ranks!”

The notion was too farcical. The claim of Merrit to a fellowship with Carlyle dispelled the cloud that the intelligence of the death of the author of the “Sartor Resartus” had superinduced. And, to the great surprise and disgust of poor Paul, we all burst into an incontrollable roar of laughter. Merrit eventually abandoned writing and took to farming. In that occupation, I understand, he discovered his mÉtier.

I mentioned a little while back that the business of dramatic criticism is conducive of longevity. When I first went professionally to the theatre stalls in 1870, until I gave up that healthy practice in 1890, I saw on first night after first night the same faces. They never appeared to be ill or tired. They never sent substitutes on important premiers. They never appeared to grow any older from year to year.

There was Joseph Knight, for example. He was occupying the critic’s stall long before I ever saw the inside of a London theatre, and he continued to occupy it—with credit to himself, and to the great satisfaction of the performers—for years after my connection with the Press had ceased. He was a fine, burly, broad-shouldered man. Hailed from Yorkshire, I think, and with his bronzed face, brown beard, genial smile, and keen eye, presented more the appearance of a retired officer of the mercantile marine than of a haunter of the auditorium, and a man who usually got up in the afternoon, and came home with the milk in the morning. He had a hearty way with him, and talked in a torrent that seemed to rush over pebbles. “Willie” Wilde used to give a wonderfully realistic imitation of Jo Knight, which the subject overhearing in the foyer of the Avenue Theatre one night gravely resented. But the two men “made it up,” and Knight, indeed, became so friendly with his imitator that on one occasion he asked him to write his weekly article in the AthenÆum for him. Willie readily consented; and when the article in due course appeared, it turned out to be a really remarkable travesty of dear Jo’s somewhat turgid and oracular style. The essay gave great delight to those who were in the secret. But Knight never saw the joke—I question whether he ever saw any joke—and expressed to Wilde his gratitude for the admirable manner in which he had filled his place.

Once and only once did I see the “Knight Owl” in a rage. Joseph was a sort of pluralist in dramatico-critical benefices, representing at one time three or four daily and weekly publications. This fact came to the knowledge of the very young critic of a very young weekly paper, who thought that he saw his way to a pungent personal paragraph. The paragraph duly made its appearance, and Knight was severely taken to task because he was in the habit of writing about the same performance in several newspapers. The young critic put it at half a dozen, which was overshooting the mark by at least two. At the very next first night of a new play, Knight and his small accuser were in their stalls before the rising of the curtain. Knight, perceiving his prey from afar off, made toward him and, assuming a very threatening attitude, said:

“What you wrote about me in your infernal paper is—A Lie!”

The youthful criticaster adjusted his monocle, produced a notebook and pencil, and, with the well-bred suavity of a man dying to oblige his accuser, inquired, “How many of it is a—er—lie?” and prepared to take down the correction for use in a future issue. But the torrent of Knight’s speech tumbled unintelligible over the pebbles, and he returned to his own stall snorting defiance.

Moy Thomas was an excellent judge of what a play ought to be, and understood also the sort of treatment best suited to the public for whom he wrote. For many years he wrote the dramatic notices for the Daily News. In those far-off days it had a literary staff, the character of which was not second to that of any morning journal. Thomas’s articles were remarkable for their admirable lucidity, sound judgment, and polished literary style. He also provided the dramatic notices for the Graphic.“Willie” Wilde, whom I have just mentioned in connection with the burly Joseph Knight, was a determined first-nighter. He was an exceedingly talkative man, and he talked so very well that one did not care to stop his agreeable chatter even when it was inconveniently out of place. One evening I happened to occupy a stall next to that of a then well-known gentleman of the Jewish persuasion who commenced in Fleet Street as an advertising canvasser, and subsequently blossomed into a newspaper proprietor, although the newspaper in question was, to quote the immortal excuse of the wet-nurse in “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” “a very little one.” I imagine he has done well, for the last time I saw him he was lolling back in a victoria, and driving down Portland Place with the air of a man who owned all the houses on both sides. On the occasion to which I allude, he had not as yet arrived at the victoria stage. Indeed, he had been released from gaol that very morning. He had been remanded in custody on a charge of a commercial kind; but being now out on bail, and having none of that supersensitiveness which would characterize a Gentile similarly situated, he celebrated his release by taking his wife to the theatre. Wilde was sitting immediately behind the pair, and next to William Mackay, to whom, as the play proceeded, he indulged in a series of humorous commentaries. Our hero, being very intent on the play—an opera-bouffe—became at last annoyed by the chatter behind him, and, turning round to Mackay, who had not uttered a word, said in a voice audible all over the place:

“I wish, sir, you’d make less noise.”

Mackay, conscious of innocence and deeply resentful, turned to Wilde, and observed audibly, with a touch of malice which was seldom absent from his impromptus:

“Do keep quiet, Willie; you are annoying the occupant of the adjoining cell.”

A London edition of the New York Herald was published in the Strand at the time when this little incident happened, and next morning the critic of that journal, under the head of “An Incident,” tacked the story on to his dramatic notice—names and all. He added the comment: “A word in season, how good it is!”

Wilde and his friend, who were both Irishmen, and had at various periods written the dramatic notices for Vanity Fair, represented the new school of criticism. They took neither themselves nor the dramatic art seriously. Accepting the dictum of their fellow-countryman, Sheridan, as to the purpose of the theatre and the limitations of dramatic art, their articles were irreverent, audacious, a little contemptuous. Vanity Fair encouraged this attitude towards players and playhouses. And, indeed, it was the natural and inevitable result of the seriousness with which the critics of the period were beginning to take both themselves and the theatre. The proprietors of the Daily Telegraph were greatly interested in theatrical affairs. Mr. Edward Lawson, now Lord Burnham, was the son-in-law of Mr. Ben Webster, of the Adelphi Theatre; and that paper led the way in devoting a considerable space to theatrical matters. “Epoch-making” became quite the appropriate phrase to employ regarding any new production which was unusually well received. Clement Scott, the critic of the Daily Telegraph, was an instrument ready to the hand of his employers. His standard of all dramatic work appeared to be the Robertson comedies as staged by the Bancrofts—just as in later years Mr. William Archer found nothing very good after “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.” That forgotten comedy was Mr. Archer’s “epoch-making play.”

Both Mr. Archer and Clement Scott had served an apprenticeship on the London Figaro, and surely no two members of a staff were ever before so unequally yoked together. Scott was impulsive, always in extremes of heat or cold, and never very particular as to the accuracy of his phrases. Archer was a “dour body,” solid in matter, turgid and dogmatic in manner, and as solemn in statement as a Presbyterian meenister. The atmosphere of seriousness by which Mr. Archer has surrounded himself when dealing with playhouses is, indeed, impenetrable, fuliginous.

Perhaps, all being said and done, the proper attitude of the man retained for this sort of work is neither that of satirical sceptic and scintillating detractor, nor that of fanatical worshipper and solemn commentator. Ernest Bendall, in my time, struck, I think, the golden mean. He was never betrayed into excessive praise or excessive censure. He found nothing in the theatre to make such a demand on the emotions as should call for literary heroics. Yet his judgments were sound, and they carried weight. He was temperate in expression, had a natural facility for hitting on the right word, and he always wrote like a gentleman. Bendall may have had contemporaries who wrote more brilliantly, but none who wrote with a nicer sense of his duty to the public, and with less desire to parade his own idiosyncrasies. A more admirable selection for the office of Censor under the Lord Chamberlain could not have been made.

Nesbit was another of the serious exponents of the art of dramatic criticism. He followed Morris on the Times, but whether he was his immediate successor, or whether some other contributor intervened, I do not recollect. I have never kept a diary, and I have never preserved a letter written to me. And I would embrace this opportunity of advising any young journalist who may happen to read these recollections to make a point of writing up his diary, and of filing letters possessing any literary value. Had I made a practice of diarizing, my present task would be very considerably lightened; and if I had kept my letters from contemporaries, I should by now have had a very fine collection of autographs upon which to draw for the entertainment of my readers. Nesbit wrote well, but he wrote too much. The marvel to me about his work always was, that, accomplishing so tremendous an output, he was able to keep his supply in bulk up to his sample. But Nesbit was dull—and that’s a fact. He and Archer approached the task of reporting a play much in the attitude of a Judge taking his seat to try a man for murder.

But there was a third class of reviewer. He adopted neither the solemn mood affected by Ibsenites and Irvingites, nor the detached and playful attitude of those who perpetuated Sheridan’s sane assignment of the position of the stage. James Davis was a fair representative of this third class. “Jimmy” delighted in setting the mummers by the ears. He attacked without scruple and without mercy. He had all the audacity of the free-lance, with all the love of mischief which characterizes the schoolboy. And yet “Jimmy” was one of the best-natured little fellows in the world. But he revelled in what the Germans call mischief-joy. And when you put a pen into his hand, it ran to libel as surely as the needle turns to the pole. He owned at various times the Cuckoo, originally started by Edmund Yates. He founded the Bat—wherein he fell foul of the whole theatrical hierarchy—and near the end he established a weekly organ called the Phoenix, which lacked somewhat of his old dash and vim. A member of the Jewish community, he was wanting in one of the racial characteristics. He cared nothing for money—as money. He married money, and he made money, and all the time he was flinging money about with both hands. It is strange to remember that, notwithstanding his early and persistent attacks on the stage and its professors, he eventually became a popular writer of musical comedy, and during this period he made thousands of pounds, and was the means of giving employment to hundreds of the performers whom he affected to hate. James was a most cheery companion, a finished gourmet, a lavish and agreeable host, a determined gambler, and a rattling good little chap. He went through several fortunes, died worth nothing, and he was the best bridge-player of his day.

The serene atmosphere in which the critic of plays dwelt was seldom disturbed by storms. Tempest did occur, however, to the intense delight of the newspaper-reading world, and to the great scandal of the more serious supporters of the British drama. Thus, Henry Irving found it advisable to take criminal proceedings against a paper for a perfectly harmless and very humorous skit written by Mr. G. R. Sims. Never, surely, in the history of the theatre was so much cry made over such a contemptible quantity of wool. But we were just beginning to stand on our dignity, you see, and the Lyceum manager stood for all that was respectable and traditional. Never, perhaps, had the suburbs been so moved as on that occasion. And had Mr. Sims been tried by a jury drawn from the fastnesses of Brixton, Clapham, and the Camden Road, he would have had but a short shrift. Happily for all concerned, the matter was amicably settled in court. It ended like a French duel—shots were exchanged, but nobody was hurt.

A more serious forensic encounter took place in the Court of Common Pleas. I had not at that time commenced business on the Press as a regular writer about plays; but I was enormously interested in all that concerned the drama and I attended the trial concerning which I shall say a word or two. The case was called “Fairlie v. Blenkinsop.” It came on for hearing before Mr. Justice Keating in the Court of Common Pleas in Westminster Hall. Fairlie was the lessee and manager of the St. James’s Theatre.

Mr. Fairlie’s manager—“producer” he would be termed in these fastidious days—was Richard Mansell. Mansell was an Irishman whose real name was Maitland, and he had been the first to introduce opera-bouffe. with English words, to a London audience. With very little money, but with unbounded pluck, he took the Lyceum Theatre, and produced “Chilperic” and “Le Petit Faust,” bringing HervÉ over from Paris to conduct the orchestra. The thing was a great success, but Dick Mansell had about as much notion of theatrical finance as had his great London predecessor, Dick Sheridan. The money flowed quickly into the treasury, but it flowed out in even greater volume. The system of accounts was lax, and Mansell, who should never have looked back after that successful venture, did nothing but look back for the rest of his life. He died a short time since after a long and painful illness. But to the last he was the hopeful, hearty, handsome Irishman whom I had met for the first time on the day that the disaster at Sedan was reported in the papers.

The management opened their theatre with an opera-bouffe entitled “Vert Vert,” translated from the French by Henry Herman, who afterwards made a reputation for himself as the author of “The Silver King.” The attack made on the opera by Vanity Fair was fierce, scathing, unsparing. The writer was especially nasty about the ladies of the chorus, whom he said could neither act, sing, nor dance, but who, he supposed, were exhibited before the public because “there are some rich young men about town, and several old ones, who devote their time and energies to the discovery and encouragement of dramatic talent in good-looking young women.” That was the gravamen of the charge—that and an allusion to a dance called the “Riperelle.” Serjeant Ballantine was for the plaintiff, and Mr. John Day (afterwards Mr. Justice Day) was for the defendant.

The interest of the occasion centred greatly in the cross-examination of Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, subsequently the representative of King’s Lynn, and the beloved “Tommy” of the House of Commons. Ballantine, of course, could see nothing wrong in anything theatrical, and contrived by maladroit questions to let “Tommy” get in some answers which Day dare not have elicited in chief. In particular he made the mistake of cross-examining him about the “Riperelle.” “It is the cancan in its essential part,” explained Bowles. Ballantine, rushing on his fate, pressed the witness. “Tell us,” he thundered, “in what the indecency of the dance consists.” Stroking his blonde cavalry moustache, and smiling pleasantly, Bowles replied, with great distinctiveness and amid a dead silence: “The ‘Riperelle’ is an illustration by gesture of the act of —” But the conclusion of the sentence is scarcely of a kind to be repeated here. It won the case. The jury found for the defendant without leaving the box. Mr. Fairlie soon after his theatrical experiences resumed his proper name of Philips, read for the Bar, was called, and in 1890 I happened to be with him in settling a case of newspaper libel in which he was engaged for the plaintiff. Mr. F. C. Philips has furthermore made a reputation for himself as a writer of excellent fiction. His “As in a Looking-Glass” has gone through many editions, and is to this day, I understand, “asked for” at Mudie’s.

That sort of criticism, however, is no longer in vogue, which for some reasons, I think, is rather a pity. And one of them is that theatre-goers have ceased to accept dramatic criticisms as being in any way a guide to the theatre. Bad plays are so frequently treated with respectful notices, and the public reading the criticisms have been so frequently deceived, that this department of a newspaper’s literary contents has become negligible. The most frank and most business-like method would be to drop all pretence at criticism, and simply “report” each new play. It will come to that.

A well-known barrister who wrote criticisms on plays was Sir Douglas Straight. He had not then received the honour of knighthood. He was the inseparable companion of Montagu Williams, represented the licensed victuallers in the House of Commons, and wrote his dramatic criticisms in the Sporting Times.

It would be impossible to give a complete list of the dramatic critics who exercised their craft during the couple of decades that comprise my experience of the front of the house. But as a suitable conclusion to this chapter on a gay art I shall endeavour to call up the appearance of the approaches and auditorium of a leading theatre on the production of an important work. In an attempt to visualize the scene, some figures will present themselves that, without this aid to memory, might—to my lasting regret—be overlooked. I shall not attempt to recall any particular play. But I shall select what I shall suppose to be a typical first night at the Lyceum Theatre at the beginning of the eighties. One proceeds along the Strand leisurely and in chastened mood. The tail of the pittites is struggling out of the covered passage that leads to the pit entrance. That passage, by the way, had been nicknamed by a witty policeman the “Cowshed,” in honour of certain elderly ladies who used to pervade that part of the Strand, and who were accustomed to take shelter in this recess. Turning out of the Strand into Wellington Street, one sees the long line of cabs and carriages discharging their occupants between the classic pillars which stand before the Lyceum portico. There are as yet no motors—no taxi-cabs—in this procession. Somehow those panting vehicles would not have harmonized with the sentiments of a Lyceum audience. We cross the threshold. On the right is the box-office, and through the aperture you see the benign and reverend face of Mr. Joseph Hurst, placid, gold-spectacled, serene. The vestibule is spacious, heavily carpeted, and from it an immensely wide flight of steps, covered in soft, thick stair-carpets, leads to the back of the circle. On each side of this stairway stand little boys in Eton suits. They are infant vergers in this temple of art; for Irving has disestablished the female programme-seller—she was perhaps a too frivolous person—and has installed these youths in clean collars and short jackets to conduct the patrons to their seats, and to see each one provided with a bill of the play. The lights are subdued. The arriving visitors do not indulge in the laughter and gay, irresponsible chatter of people entering a house of opera-bouffe. Here is more serious business, be assured. Our voices, as we advance to the foot of the stairs, are subdued, like the lights. The moving crowd has more the aspect of a congregation than of a theatrical audience.

At the top of the stairs stands a tall man in a reddish beard. He is in evening-dress, but wears no decoration of any kind. Yet he is there to receive this distinguished throng. There is a gracious bow to each as he passes, and to some an extended hand and a sedate greeting given in a rich Dublin brogue. For the gentleman in the red beard is Mr Bram Stoker, the business man, chief bottle-holder and Boswell, of the Lyceum manager. Bram is one of your genuine hero-worshippers. He abandoned a big berth under the Dublin Corporation to follow the fortunes of the Chief. He makes much of his hero’s friends on the Press, and does his best to conciliate his detractors. He manages Irving’s finances—as far as the manager will permit their supervision. And he writes the Chief’s after-dinner speeches and his lectures on Shakespeare and the musical glasses. As he smiles on us now, he little foresees what the future holds for Irving and himself. No gloomy anticipations intrude as we pass the well-pleased priest of the vestibule. The Irving regime is for all time, and the “wing of friendship shall never moult a feather.” Alas for the futility of human foresight! Poor Bram has himself now gone to solve the great mystery.

At last we have reached our stalls—you and I—and have time to look about us. The attendant acolyte has provided us with programmes. There is a subdued air of expectancy abroad. Conversation is carried on in decorous accents. There is no laughter. Even the deep bass of Jo Knight is tempered to the occasion. The orchestra files in. Mr. Hamilton Clarke takes his place above the tuneful choir. The popular parts of the house are crammed. The seasoned playgoers who have fought their way through the “Cowshed” to the front row of the pit point out to each other the eminent persons as they proceed to their stalls. They are not always infallible in their identification—these quidnuncs of the pit. Mr. Moy Thomas is confidently pointed out as Sir Garnet Wolseley. “Looks diff’rent in his uniform, don’t he?” observes the lady recipient of the information. I have heard them point out Lennox Browne as the Duke of Argyll, Sir Francis Jeune as Lord Leighton, and Mr. Hume Williams as Mr. Walter of Printing-House Square—a gentleman rarely seen at these functions, and one whose name, one would imagine, would hardly be known to the public of the pit. These illuminating asides were always delivered with the utmost confidence. And upon one such occasion I was overjoyed to hear myself identified and accepted as Cardinal Manning—an ecclesiastic to whom the theatre was anathema, whose priests were forbidden the playhouse, although, strangely enough, they were left free to patronize the music-halls.

On these first nights at the Lyceum the occupants of the stalls and boxes the gathering is representative of various strata of Society. High finance and high philanthropy are there in the person of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who was long and generally supposed to have financed the Lyceum. This has now been officially contradicted by the authorized biography. All I can say is, that the Baroness might have done worse with her money. Sir George Lewis, eyeglass duly adjusted, stands surveying the house and nodding to his many acquaintances. On hearing of the death of Sir George an old friend of his spoke of him as having gone to learn “the great Secret.” “They will find,” said a lady, “that it is no secret from Sir George.” The higher branch of the profession is represented by Sir Edward Clarke, always looking fierce, and always feeling much the reverse, his short, square figure and “Dundreary” whiskers savouring much of the “City” which he loves, and in which he began life. Frank Lockwood, towering, genial, and majestic, does not permit his natural humour to become abated even in this grave gathering. Mr. Watts-Dunton, brisk and beady-eyed, busies himself with his playbill, and makes no pretence of hearing the remarks which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald passes on to him. Clement Scott, self-conscious and upheld by a sense of the importance of the occasion—and of his own—divests himself of his fur coat, and settles himself in his stall, assuming an expression of the deepest melancholy. Edmund Yates—evidently bored by, and sceptical concerning, the pervading air of gravity—discusses mere World-ly matters with his accomplished critic, Dutton Cook. Oscar Wilde, seated beside his pretty wife, preserves the cynical smile which characterizes him. Joseph Hatton—one of Irving’s most devoted literary henchmen—beams, like another Mr. Fezziwig, “one vast, substantial smile.” Knight is accompanied by a lady of great personal attractions—of a classic beauty, one might have said. It is the accomplished pluralist’s daughter. Frank Marshall, of the leonine head, looks as though he were anticipating one of the great moments of his life. And so he is. His admiration of Irving is sincere and whole-hearted. In his view Irving can do no wrong. Charles Dunphy, of the Morning Post, seated next to Howe, of the abhorred Morning Advertiser, takes a mental note of the Society persons who are present, and inquires after the health, I hope, of Howe’s father. For Howe is the son of the veteran actor of that name, now a member of the Irving company, and the son is present to sit in judgment of his parent. It is—to quote a phrase of Labouchere’s, in his speech to the jury in a famous libel case—a reversal of the old Scriptural legend: “Instead of Abraham offering up Isaac, we are presented with the spectacle of Isaac offering up Abraham.”

On these first nights at the Lyceum there are a great many persons present whom one never sees on other occasions or at other theatres. If Bram Stoker had his way, they would not be sitting here and now. Mr. Stoker’s eye is ever on the main chance, and he resents the sort of dead-head out of whom you cannot get even a newspaper paragraph. But Irving has his way in all these matters, and the presence of this unproductive contingent testifies to a trait only too rare both in men and managers. Princely in his hospitalities, generous to a fault, Irving was above all capable of a lasting gratitude. These dead-heads were the recurring evidence of this sentiment. They were those who had been kind to him in early days, those who had faith in him when, as yet, the public had not accepted him. These he never forgot. And it is one of the little circumstances in his career as manager which I like most to remember. For, truth to tell, there are some of them that I would quite willingly forget.

Byron Webber, burly and black-bearded, appears rather restive under the restraint of the Lyceum auditorium. Tom Catling’s genial smile indicates that no amount of exterior depression can affect a spirit tuned to gentle enjoyment wherever two or three of his fellow-creatures are gathered together. Among the others who are constitutionally incapable of assuming the grave expression suitable to the occasion are Bendall the bland; Chance Newton, the Aristarchus cum Autolycus of the stalls; Burnand, beaming beatific—of Punch. . . . But the orchestra has ceased, and the curtain is going up.

One could not but admire Irving. He compelled admiration. But I never could enroll myself among the congregation of his worshippers. He had a magnetic and dominating personality; he was that strange portent—a gentleman of Nature’s own making; he was princely in his dealings; he was an accomplished stage-manager; his ideals were of the highest. But, in my opinion, he was never a great actor. He most nearly approached histrionic genius when cast for a part in which his outstanding mannerisms became utilized as qualities. In parts where they could not be made characteristic of the part, they were excrescences. Thus, I have always held that the actor’s best parts were Digby Grand in “Two Roses,” and Mathias in “The Bells”; and his most deplorable efforts, Othello and Macbeth.

But whatever his shortcomings, he deserved better of his day and generation than to have been made the subject of Mr. Brereton’s “Life.”