did. It was quite touching to see the two women together, so different

in their stations, their years, their occupations. Miss Terry was the first actress Mrs. Beecher had ever known. To begin with, she was very courteous; her greeting was hospitable, but not cordial. The suggestion of coldness in her demeanor gradually thawed, and at the close of the visit she took Miss Terry into her arms, and the two women cried. ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’ Human sympathy,—what a fine thing it is! It is easy to understand how a woman of the training and surroundings that belong to the class in which Mrs. Beecher has lived might regard an actress, and especially one who has made a name, and is therefore the object of gossip. All the more delightful is the bit of womanly sympathy that can bind together two natures which the austerity of professed religionists would keep asunder.”

“It is a greater triumph for the stage than you, perhaps, quite appreciate,—this visit to the home of a popular preacher; for, however liberal Mr. Beecher’s sentiments may be in regard to plays and players, there are members of his congregation who will not approve of his going to the theatre, and who will probably be horrified at his entertaining you at his own home.”

“No doubt,” Irving replied. “Beecher said to me, ‘I wish you could come and spend a week with me at my little country-house. You might leave all the talking to me, if you liked. I would give you a bit of a sermon now and then, and you in return should give me a bit of acting. Oh, we should have a pleasant time! You could lie on your back and smoke and rest. I suppose some day you will allow yourself a little rest.’”

“What was the Beecher home like? New or old,—characteristic of the host or not?”

“Quite characteristic, I should say. It impressed me as a home that had been gradually furnished over a period of many years. That was particularly the case with regard to the library. Around the walls were a series of cabinets, with old china and glass in them. The room had an old English, or what I suppose would be called an old New England, appearance. Books, pictures, china, and a wholesome perfume of tobacco-smoke. Mr. Beecher does not smoke, but his sons do. ‘I cannot pretend to put down these small vices,’ he said. ‘I once tried to, I believe.’—‘Oh, yes,’ said one of his sons, a fine fellow,—‘the only thrashing he ever gave me was for smoking a cigar; and when the war broke out, and I went to the front, the first present I received from home was a box of cigars, sent to me by my father.’ Altogether I was deeply impressed with Beecher. A robust, fearless man, I can quite understand how great he might be in face of opposition. Indeed, I was witness of this on the occasion of his famous platform fight at Manchester, during the war. I was acting in a stock company there at the time, and either in the first or last piece, I forget which, I was able to go and hear him speak. The incident, as you know, is historical on this side of the Atlantic, and it created quite a sensation in Manchester. The lecture-room was packed with secessionists. Beecher was attacking the South, and upholding the Federal cause. The great, surging crowd hooted and yelled at him. I fear I did not know much about the rights or wrongs of the matter. I had my work to do, and, though I watched the course of the American trouble, I had no very definite views about it. But I admired the American preacher. He faced his opponents with a calm, resolute face,—stood there like a rock. Whenever there was a lull in this commotion he would speak, and his words were defiant. There was the sound of the trumpet in them. We English admire courage, worship pluck, and after a time the men who had tried their hardest to shout Beecher down evidently felt ashamed. There presently arose cries of ‘Hear him!’ and ‘Fair play!’ Beecher stood there firm and defiant, and I felt my heart go out to him. Once more he got a few words in. They bore upon the rights of free speech, and in a little while he had the floor, as they say in America, and kept it. It seemed as if he were inspired. He spoke with a fervid eloquence I don’t think I have ever heard equalled. In the end he carried the entire meeting with him. The crowd evidently knew no more about the real merits of the quarrel between North and South than I did. They entered the hall Confederates, and left it out-and-out Federals, if one should judge by the thundering cheers that broke out every now and then during the remainder of Beecher’s oration, and the unanimous applause that marked the finish of it.”

IV.

AMONG the little suppers which Irving accepted after the play was a cosey entertainment given by Major Frank Bond, at which a dozen gentlemen of distinction in politics, science, and the army, were present. Dr. Fordyce Barker, who was intimate with Dickens, during that illustrious author’s visits to America, was one of the guests. He started, among other subjects, a very interesting conversation.

“Have you ever made studies of deaths for stage purposes?” asked Dr. Barker.

“No.”

“And yet your last moments of Mathias and of Louis XI. are perfectly consistent and correct psychologically.”

“My idea is to make death in these cases a characteristic Nemesis; for example, Mathias dies of the fear of discovery; he is fatally haunted by the dread of being found out, and dies of it in a dream. Louis pulls himself together by a great effort of will in his weakest physical moment, to fall dead—struck as if by a thunderbolt—while giving an arrogant command that is to control Heaven itself; and it seems to me that he should collapse ignominiously, as I try to illustrate.”

“You succeed perfectly,” the doctor replied, “and from a physiological point of view, too.”

“Hamlet’s death, on the other hand, I would try to make sweet and gentle as the character, as if the ‘flights of angels winged him to his rest.’”

“You seem to have a genius for fathoming the conceptions of your authors, Mr. Irving,” said the doctor; “and it is, of course, very important to the illusion of a scene that the reality of it should be consistently maintained. Last night I went to see a play called ‘Moths,’ at Wallack’s. There is a young man in it who acts very well; but he, probably by the fault of the author more than his own, commits a grave error in the manner of his death. We are told that he is shot through the lungs. This means almost immediate unconsciousness, and a quick, painless death; yet the actor in question came upon the stage after receiving this fatal wound, made a coherent speech, and died in a peaceful attitude.”

“Talking of interesting psychological investigations,” said Irving, “I came upon a curious story, the other day, of the execution of Dr. de la Pommerais, in 1864. He was a poisoner, somewhat after the Palmer type. I was present, then a boy, during the trial of the English murderer, and was, therefore, all the more interested in the last hours of the Frenchman. He was a skilled physician, it seems, and a surgeon named Velpeau visited him in his prison, the night before his execution, in the pure interest of physiological science. ‘I need not tell you,’ he said to de la Pommerais, ‘that one of the most interesting questions in this connection is, whether any ray of memory or sensibility survives in the brain of a man after his head is severed from his body.’ The condemned man turned a startled and anxious face to the surgeon. ‘You are to die; nothing, it seems, can save you. Will you not, therefore, utilize your death in the interest of science?’ Professional instinct mastered physical fear, and de la Pommerais said, ‘I will, my friend; I will.’ Velpeau then sat down, and the two discussed and arranged the proposed experiment. ‘When the knife falls,’ said Velpeau, ‘I shall be standing at your side, and your head will at once pass from the executioner’s hands into mine. I will then cry distinctly into your ear: “Count de la Pommerais, can you at this moment thrice lower the lid of your right eye while the left remains open?“‘ The next day, when the great surgeon reached the condemned cell, he found the doomed man practising the sign agreed upon. A few minutes later the guillotine had done its work,—the head was in Velpeau’s hands and the question put. Familiar as he was with the most shocking scenes, it is said that Velpeau was almost frozen with terror as he saw the right lid fall, while the other eye looked fixedly at him. ‘Again,’ he cried frantically. The lids moved, but they did not part. It was all over. A ghastly story. One hopes it may not be true.”

VIII.

A QUIET EVENING.

A First Visit behind the Scenes—Cooper and Kean—The University Club—A very Notable Dinner—Chief Justice Davis and Lord Chief Justice Coleridge—A Menu worth Discovering—Terrapin and Canvas-Back Duck—“A Little Family Party”—Florence’s Romance—Among the Lambs—The Fate of a Manuscript Speech—A Story of John Kemble—Words of Welcome—Last Night of the New York Engagement—_Au Revoir!_

I.

“TURN the gas down a little.”

“Yes, sir,” said the attentive Irish-American waiter at the Brevoort House.

“And don’t let us be disturbed.”

“Very well, sir.”

“The fire-light glows on the walls as if the so-called volcanic sunset had taken possession of the place,” said Irving, stretching his legs upon the hearth; “what a rest it is to sit and talk to a friend and look into the fire!”

“It is, indeed. Let us have a chat in that spirit, and call the chapter ‘A quiet evening.’”

“You mean a talk for the book?”

“Yes; one gets so few opportunities of this kind that it is worth while to avail ourselves of the present one. I think you had better tell me what you have done in New York, and I will chronicle it from your own lips.”

“Do you mean generally, or in detail? There are some things that fix themselves in one’s memory not to be forgotten. Of course, the first night at the Star Theatre—one is not likely to forget that!”

“No, I shall always remember you standing in the door-way of the burgomaster’s inn. It had seemed as if hours were passing between the rise of the curtain and your appearance!”

“Ah! I dare say; we were all more or less anxious.”

“But let us get away from the theatre. What do you look back upon so far, to remember with special pleasure, in the way of social entertainment and American hospitalities?”

“It is difficult to select, is it not? It is bewildering to try to select the incidents. The Lotos dinner,—that was glorious, eh! How well Whitelaw Reid spoke! and Mr. Depew, Dr. Macdonald, General Porter, Mr. Oakey Hall,—everybody, in fact. A great gift to be able to express your thoughts well, standing up in the presence of others! Then the Lambs Club. I felt their reception as a very pleasant thing, because there were so many actors present. I think I got well out of the speech-making there by adopting Florence’s written oration. That amused me greatly, and I think Florence enjoyed it as much as the others. Well, those are two of the New York events. I am endeavoring to think of them in their order, categorically. The breakfast which Mr. Joseph Harper gave me at the University Club,—what a rare lot of men! Mr. George William Curtis[15] struck me as one who might be very eloquent as a speaker.”

“He is.”

“So I should have thought, and he talks of the stage with the unsophistication of one who knows nothing about it mechanically, but is full of the romantic and poetic spirit of it. Let me see, it was at Franklin square where we saw that modern Dutch interior.”

“The private room at Harper Brothers?”

“Yes, and where we again met Mr. Curtis, Mr. Alden, the editor of the magazine, and Mr. Conant of “The Weekly,” I remember. Don’t you think that when America once takes up the work of a complete representation of legitimate and established plays she will go ahead at it as fast as she has done in the production of book-engravings?”

“I do.”

“And they tell me—actors tell me—that they have never had Shakespeare as completely and as worthily represented as at the Star this week. Mr. Gilbert says it will work a revolution in dramatic art in this country.”

“The papers are beginning to say so all round.”

“I confess I am as surprised as I am delighted. I thought more had been done in the way of harmonious representation, grouping, color, painting, lighting, than is evidently the case. By the way, I heard a good deal about this on the night of the Century Club reception.[16] They were very like Garrick men, many of them. An excellent idea having an exhibition of pictures at a club! I suppose it would hardly do in London to allow members such a margin in regard to the friends they introduce as in New York. I wish it could be done, and, especially, that granting of the entire privileges of the club to the stranger whom you invite to dinner. In case of transient membership, the compliment we pay to a stranger at the Garrick does include all the privileges of the club. The Manhattan is a cosey club. We got our first canvas-back in New York there. It was a little too early in the season; but in the way of a terrapin and canvas-back dinner the feast Buck gave us at Sieghortner’s was a triumph.[17] It scored by its simplicity. Let me see, I have the _menu_ here. Now to look at it in comparison with what is called a swell dinner, some people would think its dishes wanting in variety and number. Somebody, I remember, said at the time, ‘This is a man’s dinner! Let us dissect it!’”

He had fetched the _menu_ from his table, had returned to his seat by the fire, and was holding the _carte_ before his face, partly to read it, and partly to ward off the glow of the hot coals.

“Now, _first_, oysters on the half shell, and I noticed they were on the half shell. That is the proper way to serve an oyster, and they should be in their own liquor.[18] They were lying on a bed of crushed ice,—did you notice? The dainty half of a lemon was placed in the centre of them. Shall you include this conversation in the book?”

This last question he asked suddenly.

“Oh, yes! I think it will be very interesting.”

“Then they will say I am a gourmand.”[19]

“Who?”

“Some of our friends in London.”

He emphasized the word “friends.”

“They do now; you are reported as giving suppers and banquets in London on a grander scale than ever Lucullus dreamed of?”

“Am I? Well, I like to have my friends around me; but I think they appreciate a mutton-chop, a glass of fine wine, and a good cigar, as much as we do, and, after all, Dr. Johnson says, “The man who can’t take care of his stomach can’t take care of anything else.” If to be a gourmand, or, rather, let us say _gourmet_,[20] is to enjoy a well-cooked and elegantly served little dinner or supper, then I plead guilty to the soft impeachment; so let us go on eating the Sieghortner banquet over again, just as we shall, I hope, in future years sit down and re-fight our American victories by an English fireside. To return to the bill of fare. _Second_, soup. A vegetable soup, that reminded me a little of the cock-a-lukie which is so well constructed at the Garrick in London, only that the vegetable basis of it is in an esculent we have not,—the gumbo, or okra, which is so delicious here. Sauterne with the oysters, and a remarkably fine sherry with the soup. _Third_, terrapin. I am told this came from Baltimore ready for the cook.”

“They are celebrated at Baltimore for the three great American dishes,—oysters, terrapin, and canvas-back ducks. Terrapin is prepared there and shipped to all parts of the United States, and even to Europe. I am told that a Baltimore firm sends in the season supplies of terrapin and canvas-backs to England for the table of the Prince of Wales.”

“Indeed,” he answered, “His Royal Highness knows what is good! I wish he could have tasted the Baltimore terrapin at Sieghortner’s. Buck is a friend of the Duke of Beaufort, and the duke, they say, is up to all the luxurious tricks of American cooking.

“Now we are at the terrapin. It was handed round very hot, and, as your plate was removed, a fresh supply, better still, it seemed to me, was placed before you. It is polite to ask for terrapin twice; but, that no one might be embarrassed, it was served twice. Champagne and Burgundy with the terrapin. I prefer champagne. ‘Next to going to heaven,’ said a friend near me, ‘is to go down to——, Baltimore, and eat terrapin.’ _Fourth_, canvas-back duck. An entire breast of the bird on each plate. A chip-potato and a little celery; you should eat nothing else with a canvas-back duck, though some persons, I observe, take currant or cranberry jelly with it. As in the case of the terrapin, there were two courses of duck,—the first, roast; the second, grilled and devilled. An excellent notion this. A _soufflé_ followed; then cheese; then coffee. That was the dinner; and it was one of the greatest successes I remember, in the way of dining; though I do not forget how perfectly we had terrapin and canvas-back cooked in our own humble little kitchen at the Lyceum Theatre.”

“In responding to the toast of your health, you were very much moved.”

“I was. Chief Justice Davis supplemented the host’s words so eloquently, and with so much heart and earnestness, that he touched me deeply. Then his references to England,—to Lord Coleridge representing the high estate of the Bench, and to myself as being considered worthy in every way to represent my art, as he in his way is to represent his high calling,—and his tender tributes to the old country, and to the deep, sincere friendship that lies at the root of the relations between England and America,—this was all so sympathetic. And when I knew that many of the men around the board who cheered him so warmly had come as far as a thousand miles to meet me, I could not have attempted to say more than to try and thank them. There are occasions when silence is the best, when ‘Gentlemen, I thank you; my heart is too full to say more,’ is about the most eloquent speech you can make. Mr. John B. Lyon came all the way from Chicago in response to Buck’s invitation; Mr. John B. Carson came from Quincy,—a day’s journey further than Chicago; he had been fifty-two hours on the train; Mr. Watterson,—what a bright, witty fellow he is!—came almost as far, from Louisville in the South.”

II.

“THE supper given to me by Mr. Florence, at the St. James Hotel, was also an entertainment to remember. Quite a little family party, was it not? Mr. Jerome—Larry, as his friends call him—was splendid; and how many years of local dramatic history he had at his fingers’ ends! We were quite a little family party; Gilbert, Edwards, Jefferson,—God bless him!—they were among the guests. Florence, if you remember, had after supper a great brass urn placed upon the table, sat before it, and made whiskey toddy. How well actors understand the art of sociability! ‘Now, friends, let us gather round the tea-table,’ said Florence, ‘and try the brew!’ We pronounced it ‘nectar for the gods,’ and so it was. Do you remember the interesting episode of his boyish days that Florence told us? I repeated it to some people who supped here the other night. It is worth printing, with his permission.”

“And that of Mrs. Florence?” I suggest.

“Oh, yes, of course! I think I remember it. Florence was a very young man, a boy, in fact, and was filling one of his first engagements on any stage at the Bowery Theatre. A girl about his own age (who is now a wife, and a woman of position, in New York) in the company, was his first love. His adoration was mingled with the most gallant respect. Their salaries were about ten to twelve dollars each a week. For a time they only played in the first piece; for in those days two plays a night were more popular on the American stage than they are now. One evening, at about nine o’clock, after pulling himself together for so daring an effort in his course of courtship, he asked her if she would go to an adjacent restaurant and take something to eat. The house was kept by a person of the name of Shields, or Shiells. The supper-room was arranged something after the manner of the old London coffee-houses. It had compartments divided off from each other. Into one of these Florence escorted his sweetheart. He asked her what she would take. After some hesitation, and a good deal of blushing (more probably on his part than on hers), she said oyster-stew and lemonade. He concluded to have the same,—an incongruous mixture, perhaps; but they were boy and girl. Florence was more than once on the eve of declaring his undying passion and asking her to name the day. Presently, supper being ended, they rose to go, and Florence discovered that he had come away without his purse, or, rather, his pocket-book, as they call it here. He explained to the Irish waiter (and Florence, I suspect, is himself of Irish descent), who cut him short by saying, ‘No money? Oh, that won’t do; you’re not going to damage the moral character of the house, bringing of your girls here, and then say you can’t pay the bill.’—‘How dare you, sir!’ exclaimed Florence, the girl shrinking back. ‘Dare! Oh, bedad, if you put it that way, I’ll just give you a piece of my mind!’ and he did. It was a dirty piece, which hurt the poor young fellow. ‘Take me to your master,’ he said. The girl was crying; Florence was heart-broken. The master was not less rude than the man. ‘Very well,’ said the boy; ‘here’s my watch and ring. I will call and redeem them in the morning with the money. I am a member of the Bowery Company, and I will ask the manager to call and see you also. Your conduct is shameful!’—‘By heaven, it is!’ exclaimed a stranger, who, with some others, was smoking near the desk of the clerk, or landlord. ‘It is infamous! Cannot you understand that this young gentleman is a good, honest young fellow? Damme! you ought to apologize to him, and kick that waiter-fellow out. Don’t frown at me, sir. Give the young gentleman his watch and ring. Here is a fifty-dollar bill; take what he owes, and give me the change.’ The stranger was a well-dressed gentleman, with white hair; not old, but of a venerable appearance. They all went out together, Florence, the young lady, and their benefactor. As they stepped into the street, Florence said, ‘I cannot sufficiently thank you, sir. Where shall I call and leave the money for you?’—‘Oh, don’t trouble yourself about it,’ said the benevolent gentleman; ‘your surly friend won’t make much out of the transaction,—it was a counterfeit bill that he changed for me.’”

III.

IRVING did not expect to be called upon for a set speech at the Lambs Club. The President, Mr. Florence, did, and was prepared. He made no secret of his nervousness, nor of his arrangements against failure. The manuscript of his address was lying before him during the dinner. He consulted it occasionally, to the amusement of his neighbors. When the time came he rose, his speech in his hand, his heart in his mouth. The most eminent of actors have felt similar sensations under the influence of an exaggerated sense of the responsibility of making a public speech. This banquet of the Lambs was not reported in the newspapers. As in other instances where I have ventured to annex speeches and incidents for these pages, I have done so with the full consent of all the parties concerned.

“Gentlemen,” said President Florence, “we have met to-night to do honor to a brother actor,—for in that character do we welcome the distinguished guest of the evening,—an artist who has done more to elevate and dignify our calling than any actor that ever trod the stage.”

A ringing cheer greeted these few sentences. The applause evidently disturbed the speaker’s memory. He consulted his MS. and could make nothing of it. Throwing it upon the table, he continued his address. The few unstudied sentences that followed came from the heart, and were sufficiently effective. They commended Irving as an example to all of them,—an example of work, of unostentation, of success worthily won and worn, and expressed the gratification it afforded the Lambs—a club largely composed of actors—to welcome him at their board.

“I’ll never make another speech as long as I live!” exclaimed the president, as he resumed his seat.

“Give me the manuscript,” said Irving. “Do you mind my using it?”

“Not at all, my dear friend; do what you like with it.”

Irving, rising to reply, stood up with the president’s unspoken speech in his hand. Referring to the difficulties actors often experience in regard to public speaking, he said, “At Edinburgh, recently, looking over the old ‘Courant,’ I came across an incident _apropos_ of the present occasion. It was concerning a dinner given to John Kemble in that city. ‘The chair was taken at six o’clock by Francis Jeffrey, Esq., who was most ably assisted by the croupiers, John Wilson and Walter Scott,’—the creator in fiction of poor, old, wretched King Louis XI.—Walter Scott, the mighty master of romance, who also proposed this night ‘The Memory of Burns.’ (Applause.) In reply to the toast of his health, John Kemble said, ‘I am not successful in extemporaneous delivery; actors are so much more in the habit of giving utterance to the thoughts of others than in embodying their own, that we are much in the same position with those animals who, subsisting by the aid of others are completely lost when abandoned to their own resources.’ Gentlemen, brother actors, I feel that I am in a similar condition to-night. (Cries of ‘No! no!’ and laughter.) But my friend, the president, has given me leave to avail myself of the eloquent speech which he had written, but has not read to you.” (Laughter.)

Irving looked down at the president for his final consent.

“Certainly, go ahead,” was the response.

“The president,” said Irving, reading the MS. amidst shouts of laughter and applause, “was anxious to tell you that ‘the efforts of the guest of the evening have always been to make his dramatic work in every way worthy the respect and admiration of those who honor our art; and at the same time he has been none the less indefatigable in promoting the social and intellectual standing of the profession; this has been to him a labor of love.’”

Irving read these lines with mock-oratorical show; but when the laughter of his hearers changed to loud applause, he laid aside the written speech of his friend, and in a few simple words expressed himself proud of the honor the club had done him, and grateful for the cordiality of its welcome.

“There is one point, however, in that speech which I would like you to hear,” said the president, rising again, “and it is this: ‘We are not here to pass an opinion on Mr. Irving’s qualities as an actor,—the critics have done that already; and, if you had at first any doubts as to the high position he should occupy in our profession, the American critics and your own judgment have removed them. Possibly it was just as well that David Garrick did not live in the White Star epoch, for, had he ever crossed the Atlantic ocean, his bones might not now be reposing so peacefully under the ancient towers of Westminster Abbey.’”

During the evening Mr. Henry Edwards,[21] of Wallack’s, recited with stirring effect the following:—

WELCOME TO HENRY IRVING.

Round about the board of banquet Blazed the bright wits of the town: “A royal toast,” and well they drank it— “‘Tis for a king to wear the crown; Thrones may totter in the tempest, Empires, too, may rise and fall; But a king, by grace of genius, Sits secure above them all.”

Thus, a grave and graceful poet, And his glowing glass uplifts With a warm eye-flash of welcome To the Man of Many Gifts; Then a clamor and kindly clinking Like sudden song breaks round the board, And the soul of the wine they’re drinking Seems into their own souls poured.

And, “Huzza for our guest, King Irving;” From a hundred hearty throats, And the lovingly lengthened greeting, Like a chorused chime, up floats— When more swift than an earthly echo Bursts a sound over guest and hosts, Strangely shrill, yet faint and far off,— “Way there for the coming ghosts!”

Into statued silence stricken, Stand and gaze the speechless throng, While the walls slide wide from side to side As if moved in grooves along, And a shadowy stage, whose foot-lights Loom white through a weirdly mist, Is peopled with phantoms of players Trooping in as if keeping a tryst.

Then with buskined steps and soundless, Streaming forward as a tide, Surge the serried shades of actors Whose greatness time has testified; And their brows are bound with bay-leaves, And their garments’ phantomed fold Shape out the bygone costumes Of the parts they played of old.

All the fine and famous faces In the records of the stage, Canonized in highest places On the drama’s brightest page! Their “brief hour” made eternal, Where the deathless laurel nods, And where Shakespeare reigns superral In the green-room of the gods!

There, each grandly visioned visage, Looking through a mellow haze On the spell-bound reverent watchers With a long, fraternal gaze, Whose mute and mighty meaning Seem, like a benediction, cast O’er the promise of the present, By the high priests of the past!

Then, at an unseen, silent signal, Given by some mystic chief, Each of the ghosts of great ones From his own wreath plucks a leaf, And fleeter than arrowed lightning Through space a chaplet’s sped! And the brow of the actor living Is laurelled by actors dead!

And a sigh sweeps over the silence, And the walls are walls again, While the lights flash up to brightness, And sparkles the gold champagne; And the joyous voice of the poet Rings out the blended toasts, “Huzza for our good guest, Irving!” And “Huzza for our grand old ghosts!”

IV.

FOR the last night of the New York engagement programme was a novelty, in every respect, to a New York audience. Custom confines the night’s entertainment in American theatres to one piece. On occasion the play-bill contained the first act of “Richard III.”; the Lyceum version of “The Belle’s Stratagem”; the, in England, well-known recitation “Eugene Aram”; and Irving was also expected to make a speech. The programme was played to an enthusiastic audience; and, at the close of “The Belle’s Stratagem,” Mr. Irving addressed them as follows:

“_Ladies and Gentlemen,_—A month ago, standing before you for the first time, and stimulated by your most kind welcome, I expressed the hope that our loves might increase as our days did grow. You, for your part, have fulfilled my dearest wishes, and I can but hope that we have not disappointed you. On that same first night I bespoke your good-will for my sister artist, Ellen Terry. I felt sure that she would win hearts, and I believe she has. For her, for all comrades, and for myself, I thank you for your enthusiastic and generous indorsement of our work. I sorry that the time has come when I must leave you. I am glad that I have not yet to say ‘Good-by,’ but only ‘_Au revoir_.’ In April next we shall have the honor—if all be well—of appearing before you again, and I would propose to present to you ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Hamlet.’ In my old home, on the other side of the Atlantic, these plays are often performed by us; and I hope they will be welcome in—if I may say so—my new home on this side of the sea. And now, ladies and gentlemen, with a grateful remembrance of your kindness, I must say ‘_Au revoir_.’ I find no words to adequately express my gratitude to you; indeed, I would feel but little, if I could say how much.”

Retiring for a few minutes, Irving, in evening dress, returned to the stage. A chair was placed in the centre of it. Now standing, now sitting, he recited Hood’s dramatic poem. The audience sat spell-bound. Even as Mathias, with the accessories of the mysterious court-scene, Mr. Irving had not held New York play-goers with a firmer grip. They followed the grim story almost in silence. The ancient mariner’s narrative did not more impress the wedding-guest. I have seen all kinds of audiences in both hemispheres, and under all sorts of circumstances, and never saw a theatre full of people more under the control of a story. At the end the applause was loud and continued for some minutes, the reciter having to bow his acknowledgments again and again. The next day a discriminating critic pointed out to one of Irving’s few opponents, that “the _pseudo_ critic who pronounced Irving’s ‘Bells’ a mere success of lime-lights, properties, scenery, and stage-management,” had been quite extinguished “by the recitation of Hood’s ‘Dream of Eugene Aram,’ delivered in evening dress, without any lime-lights, properties, scenery, or stage-management.”

“And,” added a journalistic writer in the “Herald” “aside from the artistic success Mr. Irving has made here the financial result should be considered very satisfactory. The total amount received from subscriptions and box-office sales for the four weeks’ engagement is $75,687. The receipts for the first week were $15,772; for the second week, $18,714; for the third week, $18,880, and for the week closing last evening, $22,321. It has been estimated that the public paid altogether, to speculators and to the box-office, upwards of $200,000. Judged, therefore, by the financial standard of the box-office, as well as by that of the highest criticism, New York’s answer to the London “Standard” was a full and complete endorsement of the English popularity of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry.”

But it remained for Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, to pronounce upon them. The campaign was only in its infancy, though the first stronghold had been won. An advance was made upon Philadelphia, on the day following the recitation of “Eugene Aram.” The reader who follows the fortunes of the campaigners in these pages will find the record justified by independent pens, and supported by the current chronicles of the entire Union.

IX.

AT PHILADELPHIA AND “IN CLOVER.”

Rivalries of American Cities—Boston and Philadelphia—The Real and the Picturesque—Miss Terry’s Portia—“Three Kinds of Criticism”—First Appearance as Hamlet—Miss Terry’s Ophelia—Journalism and the Stage—Critics, Past and Present—Philadelphia and English Cities—A New Style of Newspaper—Bogus Reports and Interviews; an Example of Them—The Clover Club—A Letter from an Eminent American Tragedian—Presented with Forrest’s Watch—The Macready Trouble—Hamlet, and an Invitation from Guest to Hosts.

I.

“THE rivalries between American cities,” said Irving, “seem to take a far more aggressive form than the rivalry between England and America, or even between France and England; I mean in regard to their criticisms of each other, and their hostile chaff or badinage in regard to each other’s peculiarities.”

“Is it not very much the same in England?”

“Perhaps.”

“Sheffield scoffs at Birmingham, Liverpool sneers at Bristol, Manchester is supercilious concerning London,” I said.

“And London mildly patronizes the whole of them. I think you are right; but one does not notice the competition at home so much, perhaps, as in America. Boston and Philadelphia seem to indulge in a good deal of badinage at each other’s expense.”

“And they are both sarcastic about the morality of Chicago.”

“A Boston friend of ours,” said Irving, “was telling me yesterday of a little war of words he had with a Philadelphian. Said Boston to the Quaker, ‘Well, there is one thing in which you have the best of us.’—‘Glad you admit one point in our favor anyhow; what is it?’—‘You are nearer to New York than we are.’ Our Boston friend is fond of New York, takes his holidays there; says he likes it nearly as well as London. A less subtle, but more direct, hit at Philadelphia was that of the Bostonian, who, in reply to the question of a Philadelphian, ‘Why don’t you lay out your streets properly?’ said, ‘If they were as dead as yours we would lay them out.’”

“Looked at from a balloon,” I said, “Philadelphia would have the appearance of a checker-board. Boston, on the other hand, would present many of the irregular features of an English city. Both cities are eminently representative of American characteristics, and both are possibly more English in their habits, manners, and customs, than any other cities of the Union.”

“There is nothing dead about the Philadelphia streets, so far as I have noticed them,” Irving replied. “This morning I walked along Chestnut street, and thought it particularly lively and pleasant. The absence of the elevated railroad struck me as an advantage. I felt that when walking down Broadway, in New York. Then the cars in the street itself did not rush along at the New York pace. These seem to me to be advantages in their way on the side of life in Philadelphia. Perhaps one feels the rest, too, of a calmer city, a quieter atmosphere.”

We are sitting near a front window at the Bellevue, looking out upon Broad street. Presently we are joined by the interviewer, and Irving is not long before he is engaged in a conversation about the actor’s art, and his own methods.

“Every character,” he says, “has its proper place on the stage, and each should be developed to its greatest excellence, without unduly intruding upon another, or impairing the general harmony of the picture. Nothing, perhaps, is more difficult in a play than to determine the exact relation of the real, and what I may call the picturesque. For instance, it is the custom in Alsatia for men to wear their hats in a public room; but in a play located in that country it would not do to have a room scene in which a number of men should sit around on the stage with their hats on. There are reasons why they should not do that. In the first place, their hats would hide their faces from the audience. It is also an incongruity to see men sitting in the presence of an audience with their heads covered. Then, again, the attention of the audience would be distracted from the play by a feeling of curiosity as to the reason why the hats were not removed. These are little things that should be avoided; but in general they are not likely to intrude themselves where proper regard is paid to the general appearance of a scene. The make-up of the stage is exactly like the drawing of a picture, in which lights and colors are studied, with a view to their effect upon the whole. There is another feature. I would not have the costume and general appearance of a company of soldiers returning from a war exactly the same as they appeared when the men were starting for the battle-field. I would have them dishevel their hair and assume a careworn aspect, but yet appear in clean clothes. Everything on the stage should always be clean and pleasant.”

The subject of realism being mentioned, he said his death in “The Bells” had been called very realistic, whereas the entire story was unrealistic, in the strict sense, particularly the trial and death. “Dramatically poetic, if you like,” he said, “but not realistic. There are so-called realisms on the stage that are no doubt offensive,—overstrained illustrations of the pangs of death, physical deformities, and such like. As for the interest of an audience in the person who is acting, the knowledge that what they see is an impersonation has its intellectual attractions for them. For instance, it would not be satisfactory to see an old man of eighty play ‘King Lear’; but it would be highly satisfactory to an audience to know that the character was being portrayed by a man in the vigor of life. As you look upon a picture you do not see something that is real, but something that draws upon the imagination.

“Perhaps there is no character about which such a variety of opinions has been expressed as that of Hamlet, and there is no book that will give any one as much opportunity of understanding it as the ‘Variorum Shakespeare’ of Mr. Horace Howard Furness. He is still a young man,—he is not an old man,—and I trust that he will be able to complete the whole of the work that he has begun, and I hope that some one will follow in his footsteps. It was a labor of love, of most intense love to him, and he has earned the gratitude of all readers of Shakespeare. I hope I shall meet him.”

II.

THE Chestnut Street Theatre, where Irving appeared on November 28, is a handsome brick building. The width of the stage at the proscenium is thirty-three feet, depth forty feet, height of proscenium forty feet. There are three tiers of seats, which will accommodate one thousand five hundred people. The theatre was first opened in 1863, under the management of William Wheatley, with Edwin Forrest as the leading actor. The interior was reconstructed in 1874, and improved in 1875, with results that make the house singularly elegant and comfortable. Among the audience on the first night of Irving’s appearance were his old friend Mr. McHenry, and a party of relatives and friends; the latter including Lord and Lady Bury, whom he and Miss Terry, and several of his fellow-travellers, met at a number of social receptions during the week.

Irving’s Louis made just as profound an impression here as in New York. “No finer performance has been seen on the Philadelphian stage for many years,” said the “Ledger.”—“From his first appearance on the stage to the moment when he falls dead upon the floor, he rose from climax to climax, and held, not the hearts, but the minds, of his audience captive,” said the “Inquirer”; and they give the cue to the general criticisms. The other plays were equally well received. Shylock excited the usual controversy as to Shakespeare’s intentions, but none as to Irving’s interpretation of his own views. The critics, on the whole, were the honest mouth-pieces of the audiences in regard to their enjoyment of the entire play. A writer, who confessed to disappointment in Miss Terry’s Portia, and who counted Shylock’s business as above his elocution, had no words to express his admiration of the entire setting of the piece, which he described as “a discovery and a conquest.” It is no reflection upon the literary skill and critical powers of the Philadelphia press, when it has to be admitted that here and there the notices bore evidence of an influence preceding Mr. Irving’s appearance, notably in their criticisms of Hamlet.

“There are three kinds of criticisms,” said Irving, when discussing this point one evening after a quiet supper: “the criticism that is written before the play; the criticism that is more or less under the influence of the preconceived ideas that are associated with previous representations by other actors; and the criticism that is _bona fide_ a result of the night’s performance, and also, in a measure, an interpretation of the opinions of the audience. What I mean by a criticism written before the play is the notice that has been partially prepared beforehand, in connection with the literature of the subject, and the controversies as to the proper or improper views taken of the character under discussion. These start in on one side or the other, just as the writer feels about it, irrespective of the art that is exercised by the actor. This is more particularly the case in regard to Shylock and Hamlet. As to the latter character there is the natural loyalty some writers feel towards what is called the established or accepted Hamlet of the country. It is not given to all men to feel that art is universal, and of no country. Don’t think I am complaining; I am not. I am trying to justify some of the Philadelphian notices of Hamlet, which were in opposition to the verdict of the audience before whom I played it in America for the first time.”

“You were warned that Philadelphia claims to occupy the highest critical chair in America; and that, of all other cities, it would be the least likely to accept a new Hamlet, especially a Hamlet that aims at being natural as against the artificial school; or, in better words, an impersonation as opposed to the so-called traditional school of declamation.”

“I think that decided me to play Hamlet for the first time in Philadelphia; and I never played it to an audience that entered more fully into the spirit of my work.”

“I have never,” said a Philadelphian, “seen an audience in this city rise and cheer an actor as they cheered you when you took your call after the play scene in Hamlet. Such enthusiasm is unknown here. Miss Terry and yourself both might have had scene-calls of the most cordial character. You both refused them; it is a rule, I understand, with you to do so. The excitement of some audiences would have been dampened by these checks. Not so yours,—the calls at the close of the play were quite phenomenal for Philadelphia.”

A numerous company of critics and reporters came from New York, Boston, and other cities, to be present at Irving’s first appearance in Hamlet. Nowhere at any time during the tour were the influences of London so apparent as in the criticisms of Hamlet at Philadelphia; most of them entirely out of harmony with the warmly expressed satisfaction of one of the most intellectual and high-class audiences ever gathered together in the Chestnut Street Theatre.[22] For instance, the “Evening Bulletin” found in the duelling scene reminiscences of “æsthetic sketches from ‘Punch,’” and the “Press” said “It is unfortunate that Du Maurier has taken Miss Terry as the model of the æsthetic set. The curly blonde hair, delicate face, and soft, clinging robes reminded one so often of ‘Punch’s’ caricature, that it was difficult to take it seriously.” There is, in certain critical circles of Philadelphia, the same kind of affectation of a knowledge of English thought, and a following of London taste, as there is in London in regard to French art and French criticism. The audience at the Chestnut Street Theatre had no difficulty in taking Miss Terry’s Ophelia seriously. There was hardly a dry eye in the house during her mad scene. The “Bulletin” critic aired his knowledge of English affectation by associating her with “Burns-Jonesism”; but the “Times” found “Miss Terry’s Ophelia tender and beautiful, and pathetic beyond any Ophelia we have lately seen.” The “Record” described it as “sweet and unartificial as the innocent and demented maiden Shakespeare painted for us.” Said the “Inquirer,” in a criticism of singular literary force:—

In the play scene, in which he seemed to fill the whole stage, in which a real frenzy appeared to fall upon his mind, he justified by the greatness of his acting almost all that has been or could be said in praise of it. So grandly and impressively did he bring the scene to a close as to call down thunders of applause from an audience that he had thrilled and swayed by a power undeniably great. If that scene was ever before so nobly played we were not there to see it done. Mr. Irving rose to greater heights of excellence as the play proceeded. From the moment Miss Terry put her foot upon the scene she held and controlled her audience as she would. Never before upon our stage has there appeared an actress who played Ophelia with such lovely grace and piteous pathos. To all who saw this most perfect performance it was a revelation of a higher, purer, and nobler dramatic art than they had ever seen or dreamed. What she did just here or there, or how she did it, cannot be told. Over it all was cast the glamour of the genius in which this fine woman is so greatly blessed. She does not seem to act, but to do that which nature taught her.

III.

TALKING of criticism and the press, the press and the stage, one evening, Irving expressed some views in regard to the influence and relations of the newspaper and the theatre which are full of suggestiveness and point.

“Journalism and the stage,” he said, “have always been more or less in sympathy with each other. As they have progressed this sympathy may be said to have grown into an alliance in the best interests of civilization. As exponents of the highest thought of the greatest writers, as educationists of the most comprehensive character, the press and the stage are, I think, two of the most powerful institutions for good in our times, and represent the greatest possibilities in the future.

“It is interesting to contemplate how closely they are associated, these two institutions, artistically and commercially. The advertisements of the theatres represent a large revenue to the newspapers; the employment of writers and reporters in chronicling and commenting upon the work of the theatres represents, on the other hand, an important outlay for the newspapers. The press is telling the story of the theatre from day to day; and, while it extends an earnest and honest sympathy to dramatic art in its highest aspirations of excellence, I hope the time will come when the criticism of the work of the stage will be considered one of the most serious features that belong to the general and varied compositions of a newspaper.

“In the past we, in England, at all events, look upon but two men as critics in the most complete sense,—men who, by thought and study, feeling and knowledge, had the power to sympathize with the intention of the artist, to enter into the motives of the actor himself, criticising his conceptions according to his interpretation of that which he desires to express. These two writers were Lamb and Hazlett. But nowadays we have thousands of critics. Every newspaper in Great Britain has its critic. Even the trade-journals, and some of the professedly religious journals, have their critics, and some of them speak with an emphasis and an authority on the most abstruse principles of art which neither Lamb nor Hazlett would have dreamed of assuming. I don’t know how this contrasts with America; but I am sure that when the conductors of the great journals of the two worlds are fully convinced of the deep interest and the friendly interest the people are taking in the stage they will give increasing importance to the dramatic departments of their papers.”

“You are going to a journalistic breakfast or supper one day this week,” I said. “Is that your idea of the sort of speech you will make to them?” I asked, for he expressed his opinions with more than ordinary firmness, seeing that the topic was comparatively new.

“Well, I thought of saying something,” he replied, walking all the time about his room. “Do you think the relations of the stage and the press a good subject?”

“Excellent,” I said; “a text worthy of an essay in ‘The Fortnightly’ or the ‘Edinburgh Review.’”

IV.

TAKING a quiet stroll along Broad street, and occasionally up and down the thoroughfares right and left, on the first Sunday afternoon of our arrival in Philadelphia, we paused once or twice to note the people coming out of church and chapel.

“You know that part of Manchester called Hulme,” said Irving. “Is not this quarter like that? Could you not fancy we were in almost any suburban part of Manchester? And the people, do you see anything in their appearance to denote that they are any other than English?”

“No; they might be a Birmingham, or a Manchester, or a Liverpool crowd.”

“Better dressed, perhaps, so far as the women go. This absence of strong contrasts between American and English is often noticeable. Nothing in that way struck me more forcibly than the Lotos-Club dinner at New York. They might have been a gathering of London clubmen, only that they all made such singularly humorous speeches. The English after-dinner oratory is more solemn. And the audience here last night,—I could not see their faces, of course; but I felt their influence, and their response to various points was very English. I am told that it is thoroughly American to hurry away the moment the curtain falls on the last act.”

“It certainly is the general practice of American audiences. An English friend of ours, and a popular comedian here, was only telling me yesterday how the habit afflicts him and his company. ‘At first,’ he said, ‘it was terrible. We thought we had utterly failed, and we shall never get used to it.’ He asked me how it affected you. I would not hurt his feelings, of course, by telling him that your audiences, so far, had waited every night to applaud, and to call you and Miss Terry, and frequently other members of your company. I said you seemed to drop into the habits of the country easily.”

“It is very generous, is it not? And I know they are making an exception with us, because my attention has been called to it so often. I drove down Chestnut street yesterday. Have you noticed what a picturesque effect, both in form and color, the signboards give to Chestnut street? And there is something very clean and homelike about the private houses,—red brick mostly, with white marble steps and green blinds. The atmosphere of the place is calmer than New York. I have been reading a new daily paper here, the ‘Evening Call,’—very odd, clever kind of paper.”

“Yes,” I said; “it is a type of quite a new departure in daily journalism. The ‘Morning Journal,’ in New York, and the ‘Evening News,’ in Chicago, are examples in point. Akin to the first idea of the ‘Figaro,’ in London, they are a little in the style of the ‘Cuckoo,’ which croaked in the London streets for a short time. They may be considered as outside the competition of the regular high-class daily journals. They occupy ground of their own. Their leading idea is to amuse, rather than to instruct. They employ humorous versifiers, story-tellers, jesters. They are the cap and bells in print, the jester, or court-fool, in newspapers; and sometimes are as personal as that very strange jester in the American play of ‘Francesca da Rimini.’ How this new form of daily journalism represents American civilization, or what side of it, is a point which Mr. Arnold or Spencer may be left to discuss. I am glad you have noticed it, because I have collected a few Philadelphian examples of its style,—bright, easy, clever, frivolous, perhaps, and sometimes a trifle broad, but full of go.”

We sat down at the hotel to look over my notes, and here are a few items from them:—

_Theatre-goer._—“I notice that a favorite device with Irving in a moment of deep feeling is for him to clutch and perhaps tear open the collar or loose scarf that is around his neck.”

_Scarf Manufacturer._—“Well, I declare! That is the best news that I have heard for a long time. Three cheers for Irving!”

_Theatre-goer._—“Why, man, are you demented?”

_Scarf Manufacturer._—“Not at all. Can’t you see? The five hundred thousand amateur actors in this country will all be imitating Irving, and the result will be the biggest kind of a boom in scarfs.”

In the same column it is announced that “James Malley wants to go on the stage,” and the editor adds, “We hope he will wait until eggs are cheaper.” “You cannot convert 15,000 tons into 20,000 tons,” is quoted as a remark of the late Lord Beaconsfield to accentuate the general grievance about short weight in coals. “Dizzy’s remark clearly shows that he knew nothing about the coal business.” Plumbers in America are subjects of much newspaper sarcasm. “Three weeks ago,” says the “Lock Haven Express” “the writer sent for a plumber, who never appeared, but yesterday he sent in his bill.” The “Call” prints this to add, “He must have been a poor sort of plumber to wait three weeks before sending in a bill.” Chicago looks down upon some of the Eastern cities, and there is a rivalry between the journals of Chicago and the cities that are scorned, which is often amusing. “The only cure for love is marriage,” says the “Call”; “the only cure for marriage, divorce. Beware of imitations; none genuine without the word ‘Chicago’ blown on the bottle.”

An imaginary description of Irving’s visit to the Rev. Ward Beecher, with an account of the family dinner and conversation, was started by one of these new daily papers, and it was repeated even by several of the more serious journals in other cities as a genuine thing. It is difficult sometimes to know when the news of some of these papers is true. Ingenious readers will probably ask in what respect they thus differ from other papers. But our satirical friends must always get in their little joke. It strikes me as a weakness, in the programme of some of the new sheets, that you should for a moment be left in doubt as to when they are in earnest and when in fun; when they are recording real events, or when they are chaffing history. Here is an extract from the report of Irving’s visit to Beecher:—

The party rested in the parlor until the dinner was ready. The conversation was of an every-day nature, and did not enter deeply either into theatricals or religion.

The party filed into the dining-room, Mr. Beecher behind, turning his cuffs end for end as he walked. In this room was a palatable show,—a big, fat goose, entrenched in gravy, and flanked by all kinds of vegetables, slept the final sleep in the centre of the table. Everything necessary accompanied the star of the feast.

“Dark meat, Miss Terry?” asked the reverend gentleman as he grasped the carver.

“If you please, with plenty of stuffing,” returned the little lady.

All were helped from the generous goose, and Mr. Beecher sat down to enjoy his reward. He is very fond of onion stuffing, and had taken care that it was not all gone before his turn came.

“This goose,” began Mr. Beecher, the bird’s biographer, “has a history. She is the seventh goose of a seventh”—

Just what the reverend gentleman was going to attribute to the goose will not be known, as just then he tasted the stuffing. There was no onion in it. A stern look came over his face, and he was on the point of saying something when he caught the warning glance from his wife’s eyes and kept quiet. Nothing was heard for ten minutes besides the tuneful play of knives, forks, and dishes. The dinner was topped off with mince and pumpkin pies, in whose favor the guests could not say too much. After dinner a quiet, enjoyable talk was indulged in. Mr. Beecher neglected his Sunday school to entertain the artists. He highly complimented Irving by telling him that he was a born preacher.

“If I were not pastor of Plymouth Church, I would be Henry Irving,” said Mr. Beecher.

“You are a born actor,” said Mr. Irving. “As for myself, there is no one I feel more inclined to envy than the pastor of Plymouth Church.”

Miss Terry was not slighted much in Mr. Beecher’s meed of praise. The topics of discussion momentarily changed from America to England and back again, both of the leading gentlemen having well-stored minds that relieved them from “talking shop.”

At four o’clock the visitors departed, carrying and leaving delightful impressions.

“Newspapers are not allowed to be noisely hawked in the streets here, I find,” said Irving; “and ticket speculators on the sidewalks are also tabooed. A little newsboy offered me a paper yesterday quite confidentially. By the way, you saw the military band belonging to “The Evening Call.” It is composed of the _employés_ of the newspaper. It looked like a band of French guides. It serenaded Miss Terry at her hotel yesterday, and afterwards serenaded me at mine. I was just getting up. It quite affected me to hear “God save the Queen” played as finely almost as if the and of Her Majesty’s Guards were under my window.[23]

V.

“IRVING in Clover,” was the journalistic title of a report of “a notable breakfast given to the English tragedian,” which appeared in the “Philadelphia Press.” “A gathering of distinguished men listen to entertaining words by the famous actor; he is presented with the watch of Edwin Forrest.”

The “Clover Club” is one of the pleasantest of Philadelphian institutions. Its reception to Mr. Irving, and the Forrest incident, which makes the day historical in the annals of the stage, calls for a special record. As I was travelling at this time to another city, I propose to repeat the chronicle of the local journalist, and Mr. Irving’s own personal report of the interesting proceedings. Let me say, then, in the language of the “Press,” that on the morning of December 7 Mr. Irving broke his fast with the club that has a four-leaved Shamrock on which to spread its bounty, _à votre santé_ for its toast cry, and for its motto the quatrain,—

“While we live, We live in clover; When we die, We die all over.”

The banqueting-room of the Hotel Bellevue, the scene of so many memorable gatherings, and the shrine at which the quadrifoil devotees ever worship, had been turned into a fairy bower. The regular clover table had an addition in the shape of a crescent, spreading on either side from the stem of the club’s emblem and from its centre, and concealing a pillar supporting the floor above, arose what the florist’s art made to appear a gigantic plant. Its branches, bearing numerous camellias, reached to the ceiling. At its base, in a bed of emerald moss, grew ferns and lilies. Smilax (a beautiful American creeper), in graceful windings, covered the entire board, furnishing a radiant green setting for dazzling glass and shining silver, and handsome plaques of flowers and fruits. Directly in front of the president of the club, and the guest of the occasion, was a handsome floral structure, from which the modest clover grew around the name “Henry Irving,” composed of radiant blossoms. On the emblematic gridiron was placed the massive “loving-cup.” The walls of the room were covered with precious works of art, and over all was shed the mellow light of many wax candles, with their rays subdued by crimson shades. The sunlight, so suggestive of business activity and all that rebukes feasting and frivolity, was rigorously excluded from the scene of pleasure. An English and American flag entwined draped one end of the room.

Breakfast was served shortly, at noon, fifty-three gentlemen sitting around the clover-leaf. Around the table, beside Mr. Irving and twenty-three members of the club, were seated the following gentlemen: Ex-Attorney-General MacVeagh, Charles Wyndham, the English comedian; A. Loudon Snowden, Superintendent of the Mint; Charles Godfrey Leland (Hans Breitman); Calvin Wells, of Pittsburg; Captain J. W. Shackford, of the yacht Atlanta; Professor E. Coppee Mitchell, of the University; James D. Fish, president of the Marine National Bank, New York, and owner of the New York Casino; John B. Schoeffel, partner of Henry E. Abbey; Morton McMichael, Jr., cashier of the First National Bank; A. G. Hetherington, J. H. Copleston, James H. Alexander; Commodore James M. Ferguson, President of the Board of Port Wardens; E. A. Perry, of “The Boston Herald”; E. T. Steel, President of the Board of Education; Thomas Hovenden, J. W. Bailey, Marcus Mayer, Peter A. B. Widener, Dr. Alfred C. Lambdin; Henry Howe, the “first old man” of Mr. Irving’s company; W. E. Littleton, J. M. White; Hon. Robert P. Porter, of New York; Nathaniel Childs, the comedian; Charles A. Dougherty, J. Beaufoy Lane, and J. H. Palser.

After the “Baby”[24] member, Colonel John A. McCaull, had descended from the high-chair and been divested of his rattle, and the loving-cup had been passed around, and the game on the bill of fare had been reached, President M. P. Handy arose, and in a few fitting remarks introduced Mr. Irving, reminding him, in conclusion, that “this unconventionality is our conventionality,” and, further, that he was expected “to stir up the animals.”

After the warm applause that greeted him had subsided, Mr. Irving, in a conversational, unrestrained manner, spoke as follows:—

“Gentlemen, I can never forget, so long as I live, the hearty welcome you have given me, coupled with such unusual and hearty hospitality. When it was first known that I was coming to Philadelphia, your club extended to me a most kind invitation,—the first invitation I received after my arrival in America, and one that will ever be memorable to me. Your great hospitality, and the gridiron there before me, has reminded me of an old organization of which I am a member,—the Beefsteak Club. I hope I shall have the pleasure of welcoming some of the members of this club whenever they cross the water. Should any of them come to London I will endeavor to make some return for this unexpected welcome. I hope by that time we will have some of your unconventional conventionalities of which you have, in such an excellent manner, given me a specimen. I am told that speech-making is not part of the programme. Therefore I can do no better than follow the suggestion of my friend Dougherty, and give you an experience of my early life. I don’t wish to do aught against the rules,—for I am a great stickler for rules,—which I see you carry out; but I will tell you a little story concerning my early life, or it may possibly be the story of the early life of several of us.”

And then Mr. Irving branched off into a recitation descriptive of how “some vast amount of years ago” a precocious youth—one Tom by name, and but eleven years of age—had a prematurely amorous longing for a spinster of thirty-two, who finally married an elder, but hated, rival. At the conclusion of the recitation, which was received with great laughter, he continued his remarks, as follows:—

“I feel most fondly unto you, O Clovers! Many of you, I believe, are associated with the press. Between journalism and the stage there has always been a great sympathy, and I fancy it will continue so until all things cease to exist. I have often thought that the stage is a sort of father of journalism,—it is a sort of Utopian idea,—but from the days of the Greek drama to the time of Shakespeare there was much news discussed at the theatres, such as we now find in the newspapers. Our interests are mixed. We represent much of the newspaper treasury I know, in England, and I fancy it is the same in this country. We are therefore interested, to a very large amount, in the newspapers, and I have found my friend, Charles Wyndham, whom I am glad to meet at this board, interested to the extent of anxiety concerning some of his large advertisements.

“But this is not solely a gathering of journalists. I have to-day the honor of meeting many gentlemen who represent every class in Philadelphia,—every class of professional calling. I will say from my very heart that I thank you. I will remember, as long as I live, the courtesy that has supplemented this sumptuous banquet, and your kindness in calling me to meet such representative men. I am living next door to this room, and had I only heard that I was to meet such a distinguished gathering I am afraid I would have been deterred from facing you. Mr. Handy, your president, has told me that your conventionality consists in being unconventional, and I have tried to be as unconventional as I possibly can. I thank you with all my heart.”

* * * * *

At the conclusion of Irving’s remarks Secretary Deacon read the following letter from the eminent American tragedian, James E. Murdoch:—

Previous engagements of a domestic kind induce me to send “Regrets,” in reply to your invitation to breakfast with the members of the Clover Club and their distinguished guest, Mr. Henry Irving. In regard to certain “effects, defective” consequent upon the “feast of reason and the flow of soul,” I am constrained to say, in the language of Cassio [somewhat altered], “I have but a poor and unhappy stomach for feasting.” I am unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not task my weakness with the tempting dishes of mind and matter so bountifully served up at complimentary festivals. I hope it will not be considered out of place for me to state that I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Irving socially, and of witnessing some of his performances. I esteem him as a man of gentle manners, and regard him as a dramatic genius. He appears to me to possess, in an eminent degree, all those qualities of thought and action which marked so strikingly the historical career of Macready and Charles Kean, and which established the reputation of those gentlemen for consummate skill in stage direction, and for exquisite portraiture of dramatic characters. Desiring to be excused for the obtrusion of my opinion, allow me to add: although I shall not have the pleasure of sitting down to your banquet, I take pleasure in saying:—

“Now, good digestion wait on appetite and health on both”— ... “Come, love and health, to all”....

I drink to the general joy of the whole table, and especially to the health and happiness of your accomplished and worthy guest.

Yours, always, in the bonds of good-fellowship,

JAMES E. MURDOCH.

The next episode of the memorable occasion was one that almost moved Mr. Irving to tears. It was as great a surprise to many members of the club as it was to the guest of the day. Thomas Donaldson, a well-known Clover, after some remarks concerning the drama, in which he spoke of the United States having 1,800 theatres, 20,000 actors and actresses, and spending $40,000,000 for theatrical entertainment, said: “Mr. Irving, I desire to present you with the watch of the greatest genius America ever produced on the mimic stage,—Edwin Forrest.” Mr. Irving clasped the relic extended to him and reverently kissed it. He remained on his feet, having impulsively arisen, and in a voice deep with feeling spoke again:—

“You have bereft me of all words. My blood alone can speak for me in my face, and if my heart could tell it would describe to you my gratitude. This recalls so many memories that you will pardon me if I am not able to express my deep gratitude for this mark of affection. I say affection, for to receive here such a memento of your great country is more than I could have dreamt of. To think that to-day, before so many distinguished Americans, a watch could be given to me that belonged to Edwin Forrest! It recalls a most unfortunate affair; I refer to the _contretemps_ between Forrest and my countryman, Macready. That such a tribute should have been offered me shows how changed is your feeling towards art; shows how cosmopolitan art is in all its phases. I shall wear this watch, Mr. Donaldson, close to my heart. It will remind me of you all, and of your city and of your country,—not that I need anything to remind me,—but close to my heart it will remind me of your kind friendship. With all my heart I thank you.”

As Mr. Irving sat down he kissed the watch again, and then placed it in the upper left-hand pocket of his vest. Accompanying the timepiece which had been Mr. Donaldson’s private possession, were papers proving the authenticity of its original ownership.[25]

Ex-Attorney-General MacVeagh was the next speaker, and he paid a very graceful tribute to foreign theatrical and operatic artists, and the welcome they receive in these days on the shores of America.

Mr. Henry Howe (a leading member of Mr. Irving’s company), who, for forty consecutive years, was a member of the Haymarket Theatre Company, made a warm defence of Macready anent the Forrest trouble. “I have heard him say,” said Mr. Howe, “time and time again, ‘Never in my life did I do anything that would prevent me from shaking Forrest by the hand. I appreciate his genius, and that I could ever have been thought mean enough to do anything against him is the greatest misfortune of my life.’ And henceforth, gentlemen, I believe you will all be ready to defend this man who has been unjustly assailed.”

After many other speeches, songs, and recitations Mr. Irving rose to leave. He said:—

“The welcome you have given me has surpassed my most ideal dream. I cannot describe my feelings. Such generosity, such welcome, such friendship, as I have met with here, no act of mine can repay. I hope to to be back here in the early part of the coming year, and I ask if you will not all at that time be my guests. If you will come you will only add to the greatness of my obligation.”

As Mr. Irving left the room he passed around the table and shook hands warmly with each gentleman present. The breakfast party did not arise until five o’clock. Among those, other than the gentlemen mentioned, who contributed to the pleasure of the occasion, by speech, song, or recitation, were Dr. Edward Bedloe, Rufus E. Shapley, John B. Schoeffel, A. Loudon Snowden, Hon. Robert P. Porter, A. G. Hetherington, British Consul Clipperton, and Nat. Childs. At the latter part of the festivities Attorney-General Brewster entered the room and expressed his regrets that he had been unable to be present in time to shake hands with the Clover guest, and add his own to the club’s welcome of England’s leading actor.

X.

BOSTON AND SHYLOCK.

Rural Scenes on Both Sides of the Atlantic—First Impressions of Railway Travel—The Cars—One of the Largest Theatres in America—The Drama in Boston—Early Struggles to represent Plays in Public—“Moral Lectures”—Boston Criticisms—Shylock, Portia, Hamlet, and Ophelia—Different Readings of Shylock—Dressing-Room Criticism—Shylock considered—A Reminiscence of Tunis—How Shakespeare should be interpreted on the Stage—Two Methods illustrated—Shylock before the Court of Venice—How Actors should be judged.

I.

NOTHING in America is so unlike England as the desolate appearance of the meadows in the fall and early winter months. From New York to Boston, a journey of six hours, in the second week of December, not a blade of green grass was to be seen. The train ran through a wilderness of brown, burnt-up meadows. With a tinge of yellow in the color of them, they would have resembled the late corn-stubbles of an English landscape. But all were a dead, sombre brown, except once in a way, where a clump of oaks still waved their russet leaves. Another noticeable contrast to England is the wooden houses, that look so temporary as compared with the brick and stone of the old country. The absence of the trim gardens of English rural districts also strikes a stranger, as do the curious and ragged fences that take the place of the English hedge-rows. The New England homesteads are, however, more like those of old England than are the farms of other States in the Union.

The habit of letting out walls and buildings, roofs of barns, and sides of houses, for the black and white advertisements of quack-medicine venders and others, is a disfigurement of the land which every English visitor notices with regret; and lovers of the picturesque, Americans and English, grow positively angry over the disfigurement of the Hudson by these money-making Goths and vandals.

A change of scene was promised for the Irving travellers on their return to New York, over the same line. A cold wave from the West was predicted. “We shall have snow before long,” said an American friend, “and not unlikely a hard winter. I judge so from the fact that all the great weather prophets say it will be a mild one. Your Canadian seer, for instance, is dead on an exceptionally calm and warm winter. So let us look out.”

Boston delighted the members of Irving’s company; all of them, except Loveday, who contracted, on the way thither, an attack of malarial fever. With true British pluck he fought his assailant until his first spell of important work was over, and then he retreated. Medical assistance, rest, and plenty of quinine, pulled him through. But the company were destined later to sustain other climatic shocks; and they all, more or less, had a dread of the threatened winter. Until Loveday broke down everybody had stood the change of climate well. Reports came from England that Miss Ellen Terry was ill in New York. On the contrary, she had never been better than during these first weeks of the tour. She suffered, as all English women do, from heated rooms. “That is my only fear,” she said to me. “The climate!—I don’t object to it. If they would only be content with it, I would. Some of the days are gorgeous. The snap of cold, as they call it, was delightful to me. But when I would be driving out in open carriages New York ladies would be muffled up in close broughams. And, oh, the getting home again!—to the hotel, I mean. An English hot-house, where they grow pine-apples,—that is the only comparison I can think of. And their private houses! How the dear people can stand the overwhelming heat of them, I don’t know!”

The railway journey from Philadelphia to Boston was Irving’s first experience of American travel.

“It is splendid,” he said, when I met him at his hotel, on the night of his arrival. “Am I not tired? Not a bit. It has been a delightful rest. I slept nearly the whole way, except once when going to the platform and looking out. At a station a man asked me which was Irving, and I pointed to Mead, who had been walking along the track, and was just then getting into his car. No; I enjoyed the ride all the way; never slept better; feel quite refreshed.”

Said Miss Terry, the next morning, when I saw her at the Tremont House, “Oh, yes, I like the travelling! It did not tire me. Then we had such lovely cars! But how different the stations are compared with ours! No platforms!—you get down really upon the line. And how unfinished it all looks,—except the cars, and they are perfect. Oh, yes! the parlor-car beats our first-class carriage. I shall like Boston very much,—though I never expect to like any place as well as New York.”

II.

THE Boston Theatre is the largest of the houses in which Irving has played on this side of the Atlantic. It is claimed that it is the largest in the Union, though many persons say that the Opera House at the Rocky Mountain city of Denver is the handsomest of all the American theatres. The main entrance to the Boston house is on Washington street. It has not an imposing exterior. The front entrance is all that is visible, the rest being filled up with stores; but the hall is very spacious, and the vestibule, _foyer_, lobbies, and grand staircase beyond, are worthy of the broad and well-appointed auditorium. The promenade saloon is paved with marble, and is forty-six feet by twenty-six feet, and proportionately high. Upon the walls, and here and there on easels, are portraits of Irving, Booth, McCullough, Salvini, and other notable persons. The promenade and entrance hall cover one hundred feet from the doors to the auditorium, which, in its turn, is ninety feet from the back row to the foot-lights. The stage is one hundred feet wide and ninety feet deep; and the interior of the house from front to back covers three hundred feet, the average width being about one hundred feet. In addition to the parquette, which occupies the entire floor (as the stalls do at the English Opera Comique, and, by a recent change, also at the Haymarket), there are three balconies, severally known as the dress circle, the family circle, and the gallery. The house will seat three thousand people. It is built on a series of arches, or supporting columns, leaving the basement quite open, giving, so far as the stage is concerned, great facilities for the manipulation of scenery and for storage, and allowing space for offices, drill-rooms for supers, and other purposes.

“It is a magnificent theatre,” said Irving; “the auditorium superb, the stage fine; the pitch of the auditorium in harmony with the stage, by which I mean there is an artistic view of the stage from every seat; the gas managements are perfect, and the system of general ventilation unique; but the dressing-rooms are small and inconvenient. For anything like quiet acting, for work in which detail of facial expression, significant gesture, or delicate asides, are important, the theatre is too large.”

“Are you acquainted with the history of the stage in Boston?” I asked him, “or of this theatre in particular?”

“Only from what I have read or heard in a cursory way,” he said; “but one can readily understand that our Puritan ancestors would bring with them to these shores their hatred of plays and players. The actors persevered in their terrible occupation in New England, notwithstanding a local ordinance to prevent stage plays and other theatrical entertainments, passed in 1750. Otway’s ‘Orphan’ was, I am told, the first piece done in Boston. It was played at the British Coffee-house, ‘by a company of gentlemen,’ and this gave rise to the passing of the act in question. Some five or ten years later a number of Tories got up an association to promote acting and defy this statute. They revolted in favor of art; and in these days of political tolerance that is a good thing to remember. The members of this society were chiefly British officers, who, with their subalterns and private soldiers, formed the acting company. I believe one of them wrote the first piece they attempted to give in public. It was called ‘The Blockade of Boston’; but the entertainment was stopped by a _ruse_,—a sudden report that fighting had begun at Charlestown; a call to arms, in fact. For many years no more efforts were made to amuse or instruct the people with semi-theatrical entertainments or stage plays. The next attempt was a theatre, or, more properly speaking, a variety show, in disguise. The house was called ‘The New Exhibition Room,’ and the entertainment was announced as ‘a moral lecture.’ One Joseph Harper was the manager. The programme of the first night included tight-rope dancing, and various other athletic feats; ‘an introductory address’; singing, by a Mr. Woods; tumbling, by Mr. Placide; and, in the course of the evening, ‘will be delivered the Gallery of Portraits; or, the World as it Goes, by Mr. Harper. Later, ‘Venice Preserved’ was announced as a moral lecture, ‘in which the dreadful effects of conspiracy will be exemplified.’ Mr. Clapp’s book on Boston contains several curious instances of this kind. Shakespeare, it seems, filled the stage as ‘a moral lecturer’; and a familiar old English drama was played as ‘a moral lecture, in five parts, wherein the pernicious tendency of libertinism will be exemplified in the tragical history of George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant.’ Eventually, in the year 1793, I think, or thereabouts, Harper was arrested on the stage while playing Richard in one of Shakespeare’s moral illustrations of the bane of ambition and the triumph of virtue over vice. The audience protested, and destroyed a portrait of the governor of the city, which hung over the stage-box. They also tore down the State arms, and trampled upon them. At the hearing of the charge against Harper a technical flaw in the indictment procured his discharge. After this, however, the ‘Exhibition Room’ did not flourish; but a bold and earnest movement, a year or two later, resulted in the building of the Federal Street Theatre, sometimes also called the Boston, and sometimes Old Drury, after the London house. From this time the stage in Boston is a fact; and one feels at home in reading over the names of the actors who have been well known here,—Macready, Charles Kemble and Fanny Kemble, Charlotte Cushman, Ellen Tree, John Vandenhoff, Sheridan Knowles, John Gilbert, Fanny Ellsler, the Booths, our friend Warren, and others. The present theatre, the Boston,[26] in which we are acting, has been built about thirty years. The grand ball given to the Prince of Wales when he visited this country took place here, the auditorium being boarded for the occasion.”

III.

“THE audience” on the first night of Irving’s appearance in Boston, said the “Post,” on the following morning, “was not made up of average theatre-goers; many regular ‘first-nighters’ were there, but a very large majority of those present were people of wealth, who go to the theatre comparatively little.”[27] The play was “Louis XI.” It excited expressions of admiration in the audience, and was as warmly praised in the press as at New York and Philadelphia. A fine theatre, the scenery appeared almost to greater advantage than in the Lyceum itself; and some of the readers of these pages will be surprised to learn that much of the original scenery was dispensed with. Portions of the sets, indeed, for all the pieces during the week, were painted on the spot by Mr. Hall (a clever young artist, who is devoted to the service of Mr. Irving), and Lyceum draperies, groupings, dresses, and stage manipulation, did the rest. The usual orchestra of the theatre was strengthened, as at New York and Philadelphia, and the conductor had the satisfaction of a call for the repetition of some of the _entr’acte_ music.

Among the most remarkable tributes to Irving’s genius as an actor are the critical notices that appeared in the Boston newspapers the next day; and the people of Boston gave practical evidence of their satisfaction by attending the theatre in increasing numbers every night. The fortnight’s work included, besides the opening play, “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Lyons Mail,” “Charles I.,” “The Bells,” “The Belle’s Stratagem,” and “Hamlet.” The old controversies as to the characters of Hamlet and Shylock, and the interpretation of them, cropped up in the press, and, as before, were entirely absent from the audiences. They evidently had no doubts; they showed no desire to discount their pleasure; they found themselves wrapped up in the stage stories, rejoicing, sorrowing, weeping, laughing, with the varying moods of poet and actor. They did not stop to analyze the reasons for their motion; it was enough for them that they followed the fortunes of the hero and heroine with absorbing interest. They had no preconceived ideas to vindicate; they were happy in the enjoyment of the highest form of dramatic entertainment which even those critics, that are chary of their commendation of individual artists, say America has ever seen. Said “The Boston Herald,” in its notice of “Hamlet”:—

At the end of each act he received one or more calls before the curtain, and after the “play scene” the demonstrations were really enthusiastic; shouts of “Bravo!” mingling with the plaudits that summoned him to the foot-lights again and again. Miss Ellen Terry won all hearts by her exquisite embodiment of Ophelia. A better representative of this lovely character has not been, and is not likely to be, seen here by the present generation of play-goers. She received her full share of the honors of the evening, and her appearance before the curtain was often demanded, and hailed with delight, by the large audience present.

The “Advertiser,” “Traveller,” “Globe,” “Post,”—indeed all the Boston daily press,—were unanimous in recognizing the merits of Irving and his work. The “Transcript” was especially eulogistic in its treatment of Hamlet. As a rule the criticisms were written with excellent literary point. It will be interesting to give two brief examples of this; one from the “Traveller”:—

Of Mr. Irving’s performance of the part we can truthfully say that, while differing almost entirely from that of nearly every actor that we have seen in Hamlet, it abounded in beauties, in new conceptions of business, in new ideas of situation. It was scholarly and thoughtful, princely and dignified, tender yet passionate, revengeful yet human, filial yet manly. The Ophelia of Miss Ellen Terry was supremely delicious. In the early parts it was artless and girlish, yet womanly withal. It was sweet, tender, graceful, loving, and lovable. As a piece of acting, it was “stuff’d with all honorable virtues.” It was very powerful in the mad scene in the fourth act, and yet it was not more powerful than it was refined and intellectual; and while it may be looked upon in every respect as a perfect piece of dramatic art, it was yet faithful to life and true to the best instincts of womanly nature.

And another from the “Transcript”:—

Last evening we found ourselves uncontrollably forced to admiration and enthusiasm. He manages by some magic to get the full meaning of almost every sentence, and the emphasis always falls upon the right word; withal, he has this great and rare merit, that whatever he says does not sound like a speech committed to memory beforehand. He always seems to be talking, and not declaiming. He made Hamlet more of a convincing reality to us than any actor we can remember. The greatness, the intellectual and the ethical force, above all, the charm and lovableness of the man, were shown as we have never seen them before. Miss Terry’s Ophelia is a revelation of poetic beauty. Here one has nothing to criticise, no one trait to praise more than another. Such a wonderful embodiment of the poet’s conception is quickly praised, but never to be forgotten.

IV.

ON the first night of the “Merchant of Venice” at Boston, Irving played Shylock, I think, with more than ordinary thoughtfulness in regard to his original treatment of the part. His New York method was, to me, a little more vigorous than his London rendering of the part. Considerations of the emphasis which actors have laid upon certain scenes that are considered as especially favorable to the declamatory methods possibly influenced him. His very marked success in Louis no doubt led some of his admirers in America to expect in his Shylock a very hard, grim, and cruel Jew. Many persons hinted as much to him before they saw his impersonation of this much-discussed character. At Boston I thought he was, if possible, over-conscientious in traversing the lines he laid down for himself when he first decided to produce the “Merchant” at the Lyceum. Singularly sensitive about the feelings of his audiences, and accustomed to judge them as keenly as they judge him, he fancied the Boston audience, which had been very enthusiastic in their applause on the previous nights, were not stirred as they had been by his other work in response to his efforts as Shylock. The play, nevertheless, was received with the utmost cordiality, and the general representation of it was admirable. I found a Londoner in front, who was in raptures with it. “I think the carnival, Belmont, and court scenes,” he said, “were never better done at the Lyceum.”

At the close of the piece, and after a double call for Irving and Miss Terry, I went to his dressing-room.

“Yes,” he said, “the play has gone well, very well, indeed; but the audience were not altogether with me. I always feel, in regard to this play, that they do not quite understand what I am doing. They only responded at all to-night where Shylock’s rage and mortification get the better of his dignity.”

“They are accustomed to have the part of Shylock strongly declaimed; indeed, all the English Shylocks, as well as American representatives of the part, are very demonstrative in it. Phelps was, so was Charles Kean; and I think American audiences look for the declamatory passages in Shylock, to compare your rendering of them with the readings they have previously heard. You omit much of what is considered great business in Shylock, and American audiences are probably a little disappointed that your view of the part forbids anything like what may be called the strident characteristics of most other Shylocks. Charles Kean ranted considerably in Shylock, and Phelps was decidedly noisy,—both fine, no doubt, in their way. Nevertheless they made the Jew a cruel butcher of a Jew. They filled the stage with his sordid greed and malignant desire for vengeance on the Christian, from his first entrance to his final exit.”

“I never saw Kean’s Shylock, nor Phelps’s, nor, indeed, any one’s. But I am sure Shylock was not a low person; a miser and usurer, certainly, but a very injured man,—at least he thought so. I felt that my audience to-night had quite a different opinion, and I once wished the house had been composed entirely of Jews. I would like to play Shylock to a Jewish audience.”

Mr. Warren,[28] the famous Boston comedian, came into the dressing-room while we were talking. He has been a favorite here for thirty-six years.

“Not so long in one place as Mr. Howe,” he says, with a smile, “who tells me he was a member of the Haymarket Company for forty years.”

“You know Mr. Toole well?” said Mr. Irving.

“Yes,” he replied; “it was a pleasure to meet him here.”

“He often talks of you.”

“I am glad to know it,” he replied; “I want to tell you how delighted I have been to-night. It is the “Merchant of Venice,” for the first time. I have never seen the casket scene played before, nor the last act for twenty years. A great audience, and how thoroughly they enjoyed the piece I need not tell you.”

“I don’t think they cared for me,” said Irving.

“Yes, yes, I am sure they did,” Mr. Warren replied, at which moment an usher brought Miss Terry, to be introduced to him, and the subject dropped, to be revived over a quiet cigar after supper.

“I look on Shylock,” says Irving, in response to an invitation to talk about his work in that direction, “as the type of a persecuted race; almost the only gentleman in the play, and most ill-used. He is a merchant, who trades in the Rialto, and Bassanio and Antonio are not ashamed to borrow money of him, nor to carry off his daughter. The position of his child is, more or less, a key to his own. She is the friend of Portia. Shylock was well-to-do—a Bible-read man, as his readiness at quotation shows; and there is nothing in his language, at any time, that indicates the snuffling usurer which some persons regard him, and certainly nothing to justify the use the early actors made of the part for the low comedian. He was a religious Jew; learned, for he conducted his case with masterly skillfulness, and his speech is always lofty, and full of dignity. Is there a finer language in Shakespeare than Shylock’s defence of his race? ‘Hath not a Jew eyes; hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food; hurt with the same weapons; subject to the same diseases; healed by the same means; warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?’ As to the manner of representing Shylock, take the first part of the story; note his moods. He is, to begin with, quiet, dignified, diplomatic; then satirical; and next, somewhat light and airy in his manner, with a touch of hypocrisy in it. Shakespeare does not indicate at what precise moment Shylock conceives the idea of the bond; but he himself tells us of his anxiety to have Antonio on the hip.

“‘I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation, and he rails, Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, Which he calls interest.’

“His first word is more or less fawning; but it breaks out into reproach and satire when he recalls the insults that have been heaped upon him. ‘Hath a dog money?’ and so on; still he is diplomatic, for he wants to make reprisals upon Antonio: ‘Cursed be my tribe if I forgive him!’ He is plausible, even jocular. He speaks of his bond of blood as a merry sport. Do you think if he were strident or spiteful in his manner here, loud of voice, bitter, they would consent to sign a bond having in it such fatal possibilities? One of the interesting things for an actor to do is to try to show when Shylock is inspired with the idea of this bargain, and to work out by impersonation the Jew’s thought in his actions. My view is, that from the moment Antonio turns upon him, declaring he is ‘like to spit upon him again,’ and invites him scornfully to lend the money, not as to his friend, but rather to his enemy, who, if he break, he may with better force exact the penalty,—from that moment I imagine Shylock resolving to propose his pound of flesh, perhaps without any hope of getting it. Then he puts on that hypocritical show of pleasantry which so far deceives them as to elicit from Antonio the remark that ‘the Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind.’ Well, the bond is to be sealed, and when next we meet the Jew he is still brooding over his wrongs, and there is in his words a constant, though vague, suggestion of a desire for revenge, nothing definite or planned, but a continual sense of undeserved humiliation and persecution:—

“‘I am bid forth to supper, Jessica. There are my keys. But why should I go? I am not bid for love. They flatter me; But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon The prodigal Christian.’

“But one would have to write a book to go into these details, and tell an actor’s story of Shylock.”

“We are not writing a book of Shylock now, but only chatting about your purpose and intention generally in presenting to the public what is literally to them a new Shylock, and answering, perhaps, a few points of that conservative kind of criticism which preaches tradition and custom. Come to the next phase of Shylock’s character, or, let us say, his next dramatic mood.”

“Well, we get at it in the street scene: rage,—a confused passion; a passion of rage and disappointment, never so confused and mixed; a man beside himself with vexation and chagrin.

“‘My daughter! Oh, my ducats! Oh, my daughter! Fled with a Christian! Oh, my Christian ducats! Justice! the law! my ducats and my daughter!’

“I saw a Jew once, in Tunis, tear his hair, his raiment, fling himself in the sand, and writhe in a rage, about a question of money,—beside himself with passion. I saw him again, self-possessed and fawning; and again, expressing real gratitude for a trifling money courtesy. He was never undignified until he tore at his hair and flung himself down, and then he was picturesque; he was old, but erect, even stately, and full of resource, and as he walked behind his team of mules he carried himself with the lofty air of a king. He was a Spanish Jew,—Shylock probably was of Frankfort; but Shakespeare’s Jew was a type, not a mere individual: he was a type of the great, grand race,—not a mere Hounsditch usurer. He was a man famous on the Rialto; probably a foremost man in his synagogue; proud of his descent; conscious of his moral superiority to many of the Christians who scoffed at him, and fanatic enough, as a religionist, to believe that his vengeance had in it the element of a godlike justice. Now, you say that some of my critics evidently look for more fire in the delivery of the speeches to Solanio, and I have heard friends say, that John Kemble and the Keans brought down the house for the way they thundered out the threats against Antonio, and the defence of the Jewish race. It is in this scene that we realize, for the first time, that Shylock has resolved to enforce his bond. Three times, during a very short speech, he says, ‘Let him look to his bond!’ ‘A beggar that was used to come so smug upon the mart; _let him look to his bond_; he was wont to call me usurer; _let him look to his bond_; he was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; _let him look to his bond_.’ Now, even an ordinary man, who had made up his mind to ‘have the heart of him if he forfeit,’ would not shout and rave and storm. My friend at Tunis tore his hair at a trifling disappointment; if he had resolved to stab his rival he would have muttered his intention between his teeth, not have screeched it. How much less likely still would this bitterly persecuted Jew merchant of Venice have given his resolve a loud and noisy utterance! Would not his settled hate have been more likely to show itself in the clinched hand, the firmly planted foot, the flashing eye, and the deep undertones in which he would utter the closing threat: _’Let him look to his bond’?_ I think so.”

“And so do the most thoughtful among your audiences. Now and then, however, a critic shows himself so deeply concerned for what is called tradition that he feels it incumbent upon him to protest against a Shylock who is not, from first to last, a transparent and noisy ruffian.”

“Tradition! One day we will talk of that. In Davenant’s time,—and some dare to say he got his tradition from Shakespeare himself—they played Shylock as a comic character, in a red wig; and to make it, as they thought, consistent, they cut out the noblest lines the author had put into his mouth, and added some of their own. We have no tradition in the sense that those who would insist upon our observance of it means; what we have is bad,—Garrick played Othello in a red coat and epaulettes; and if we are to go back to Shakespeare’s days, some of these sticklers for so-called tradition forget that the women were played by boys. Shakespeare did the best he could in his day, and he would do the best he could if he were living now. Tradition! It is enough to make one sick to hear the pretentious nonsense that is talked about the stage in the name of tradition. It seems to me that there are two ways of representing Shakespeare. You have seen David’s picture of Napoleon and that by Delaroche. The first is a heroic figure,—head thrown back, arm extended, cloak flying,—on a white horse of the most powerful, but unreal, character, which is rearing up almost upon its haunches, its forelegs pawing the air. That is Napoleon crossing the Alps. I think there is lightning in the clouds. It is a picture calculated to terrify; a something so unearthly in its suggestion of physical power as to cut it off from human comprehension. Now, this represents to me one way of playing Shakespeare. The other picture is still the same subject, ‘Napoleon crossing the Alps’; but in this one we see a reflective, deep-browed man, enveloped in his cloak, and sitting upon a sturdy mule, which, with a sure and steady foot, is climbing the mountain, led by a peasant guide. This picture represents to me the other way of playing Shakespeare. The question is, which is right? I think the truer picture is _the right_ cue to the poet who himself described the actor’s art as to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature.”

“Which should bring us very naturally back to Shylock. Let us return to your brief dissertation at the point where he is meditating vengeance in case of forfeiture of the bond.”

“Well, the latest mood of Shylock dates from this time,—it is one of implacable _revenge_. Nothing shakes him. He thanks God for Antonio’s ill-luck. There is in this darkness of his mind a tender recollection of Leah. And then the calm command to Tubal, ‘Bespeak me an officer.’ What is a little odd is his request that Tubal shall meet him at the synagogue. It might be that Shakespeare suggested here the idea of a certain sacredness of justice in Shylock’s view of vengeance on Antonio. Or it might be to accentuate the religious character of the Jew’s habits; for Shylock was assuredly a religious Jew, strict in his worship, and deeply read in his Bible,—no small thing, this latter knowledge, in those days. I think this idea of something divine in his act of vengeance is the key-note to the trial-scene, coupled, of course, with the intense provocation he has received.

“‘Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause; But since I am a dog, beware my fangs! The duke shall grant me justice. ... Follow not, I’ll have no speaking; I will have my bond.’

“These are the words of a man of fixed, implacable purpose, and his skilful defence of it shows him to be wise and capable. He is the most self-possessed man in the court. Even the duke, in the judge’s seat, is moved by the situation. What does he say to Antonio?

“‘I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer A stony adversary.’

“Everything indicates a stern, firm, persistent, implacable purpose, which in all our experience of men is, as a rule, accompanied by an apparently calm manner. A man’s passion which unpacks itself in oaths and threats, which stamps and swears and shouts, may go out in tears, but not in vengeance. On the other hand, there are those who argue that Antonio’s reference to his own patience and to Shylock’s fury implies a noisy passion on the part of the Jew; but, without taking advantage of any question as to the meaning of ‘fury’ in this connection, it seems to me that Shylock’s contempt for his enemies, his sneer at Gratiano:—

“‘Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond, Thou but offend’st thy lungs to speak so loud’—

and his action throughout the court scene, quite outweigh any argument in favor of a very demonstrative and furious representation of the part. ‘I stand here for law!’ Then note when he realizes the force of the technical flaws in his bond,—and there are lawyers who contend the law was severely and unconstitutionally strained in this decision of the court,—he is willing to take his bond paid thrice; he cannot get that, he asks for the principal; when that is refused he loses his temper, as it occurs to me, for the first time during the trial, and in a rage exclaims, ‘Why, then, the devil give him good of it!’ There is a peculiar and special touch at the end of that scene which, I think, is intended to mark and accentuate the crushing nature of the blow which has fallen upon him. When Antonio stipulates that Shylock shall become a Christian, and record a deed of gift to Lorenzo, the Jew cannot speak. ‘He shall do this,’ says the duke, ‘or else I do recant the pardon.’ Portia turns and questions him. He is hardly able to utter a word. ‘I am content,’ is all he says; and what follows is as plain an instruction as was ever written in regard to the conduct and manner of the Jew. ‘Clerk, draw a deed of gift,’ says Portia. Note Shylock’s reply, his last words, the answer of the defeated litigant, who is utterly crushed and borne down:—

“‘I pray you give me leave to go from hence; I am not well; send the deed after me, And I will sign it.’

“Is it possible to imagine anything more helpless than this final condition of the Jew? ‘I am not well; give me leave to go from hence!’ How interesting it is to think this out! and how much we all learn from the actors when, to the best of their ability, they give the characters they assume as if they were really present, working out their studies, in their own way, and endowing them with the characterization of their own individuality! It is cruel to insist that one actor shall simply follow in the footsteps of another; and it is unfair to judge an actor’s interpretation of a character from the stand-point of another actor; his intention should be considered, and he should be judged from the point of how he succeeds or fails in carrying it out.”

XI.

A CITY OF SLEIGHS.

Snow and Sleigh Bells—“Brooks of Sheffield”—In the Boston Suburbs—Smokeless Coal—At the Somerset Club—Miss Ellen Terry and the Papyrus—A Ladies’ Night—Club Literature—Curious Minutes—“Greeting to Ellen Terry”—St. Botolph—Oliver Wendell Holmes and Charles the First—“Good-by and a Merry Christmas.”

I.

“A TRANSFORMATION scene, indeed!” said Irving. “Yesterday, autumn winds, bright streets, a rattle of traffic—to-day, snow and sleigh-bells—yesterday, wheels—to-day, runners, as they call the enormous skating-irons upon which they appear to have placed every vehicle in the city. I have just returned from rehearsal, and find everybody sleighing. The omnibuses are sleighs—the grocer’s cart is a sleigh—the express-wagons are sleighs; it is a city of sleighs! The snow began to fall in earnest yesterday. Last night it must have been a foot deep. It would have ruined the business at a London theatre. Here it made no difference. We had a splendid house.”

“As I walked to my hotel at midnight,” I replied, “snow-ploughs were in the streets clearing the roads and scouring the car-tracks. Boston tackles the snow in earnest. The trees on the Common were a marvel of beauty. They looked like an orchard of the Hesperides, all in blossom, and the electric lamps added to the fairy-like beauty of the scene.”

“A lovely city. Shall we take a sleigh-ride?”

“‘Why, certainly,’ as they say in ‘The Colonel,’ but rarely in America.”

Irving rings for his colored attendant. He has discovered that his surname is Brooks, and takes a curious pleasure in addressing him as Brooks, sometimes as “Brooks, of Sheffield!”

“Order me a sleigh, Brooks!”

“Yes, sah,” says Brooks, grinning.

“Two horses, Brooks!”

“Yes, sah,” says the attendant, preparing to go, not hurriedly, for who ever saw a colored gentleman (they are all colored gentlemen) in a hurry?

“And take my rugs down!”

“Yes, sah,” he says, marching slowly into the next room for the rugs.

“And, Brooks—”

“Yes, sah.”

“Would you like to go to the theatre one night?”

“Berry much, sah—yes, sah.”

“What play would you like to see?”

“Hamlet, sah!”

“Hamlet! Very good. Is there a Mrs. Brooks?”

“‘Deed there is, sah,” answers the darkey, grinning from ear to ear.

“And some little Brookses—of Sheffield?”

“Yes, sah; not ob Sheffield, ob Boston.”

“That’s all right. Mr. Stoker shall give all of you seats. See if he is in the hotel.”

“Yes, sah.”

As he stalks to the door Stoker comes bounding in (Stoker is always on the run), to the discomfiture of Brooks and his load of rugs.

Brooks picks himself up with dignity. Stoker assures his chief that there is not a seat in the house for anybody.

“Then buy some for Brooks,” says Irving.

“Where?” asks Stoker, in amazement.

“Anywhere,” says Irving, adding, with a significant glance at me,—“from the speculators.”

“Oh, very well, if you wish it,” says Stoker.

“And, Brooks”—

“Yes, sah.”

“Anybody else in the hotel like to go?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, sah!” says Brooks—“de cook, sah.”

“And what play would the cook like to see?”

“Hamlet, sah.”

“You’ve been paid to say this!” says Irving, quoting from Louis. “Who bade you do it?”

But this was only whispered in a humorous “aside” for me, who know how much he likes Hamlet, and how much he likes other people to like Hamlet.

At the door of the Brunswick we find a sleigh, pair of horses, smart-looking driver, a heap of rugs and furs, under which we ensconce ourselves. The weather is bitterly cold, the sky blue; the windows of the houses in the fine streets of the Back Bay district flash icily; the air is sharp, and the sleigh-bells ring out aggressively as the horses go away.

The snow is too deep for rapid sleighing; there has been no time for it to solidify. It is white and pure as it has fallen, and when we get out into the suburbs it is dazzling to the eyes, almost painful. Crossing the Charles river the scene is singularly picturesque: a cumbersome old barge in the foreground; on the opposite shore a long stretch of red-brick buildings, vanishing at the point where the heights of Brookline climb away, in white and green and grey undulations, to the bright blue sky. As we enter Cambridge there are fir-trees growing out of the snow, their sombre greens all the darker for the white weight that bows their branches down to the drifts that wrap their trunks high up; for here and there the snow has drifted until there are banks of it five and six feet deep.

“Very pretty, these villas; nearly all wood,—do you notice?—very comfortable, I am sure; lined with brick, I am told, some of them. Nearly all have balconies or verandas; and there are trees and gardens everywhere,—must be lovely in summer; good enough now, for that matter. One thing makes them look a trifle lonely,—no smoke coming from the chimneys. They burn anthracite coal,—good for this atmosphere,—excellent and clean; but how a bit of blue smoke curling up among the trees finishes and gives poetry to a landscape,—suggests home and cosey firesides, eh?”

“Yes. New York owes some of its clear atmosphere to its smokeless coal.”

“What a pity we don’t have it in London! Only fancy a smokeless London,—what a lovely city!”

“It may come about one day, either by the adoption of smokeless coal or the interposition of the electrician. Last summer I spent some time in the Swansea Valley, England, not far from Craig-y-nos, the British home of Patti. One day I suddenly noticed that there was no smoke over the villages; none at some local ironworks, except occasional bursts of white steam from the engine-houses; nothing to blemish the lovely sky that just slightly touched the mountain-tops with a grey mist. I was near Ynyscedwyn, the famous smokeless-coal district of South Wales. London need not burn another ounce of bituminous coal; there is enough anthracite in Wales to supply all England for a thousand years.”

“What a blessing it would be if London were to use nothing else!”

Through Cambridge, so intimately associated with Longfellow, past its famous colleges, we skirted Brookline, and returned to our head-quarters in Clarendon street, meeting on the way many stylish sleighs and gay driving-parties.

On another day Irving took luncheon with a little party of undergraduates in Common hall, was received by the President of the college, inspected the gymnasium, saw the theatre, and had long talks with several of the professors.

Perhaps from a literary and artistic stand-point the most interesting social event among the many entertainments given to Irving was a dinner given by Mr. Charles Fairchild and Mr. James R. Osgood, at the Somerset Club. The company included Messrs. T. B. Aldrich, A. V. S. Anthony, Francis Bartlett, William Bliss, George Baty Blake, S. L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”), T. L. Higginson, W. D. Howells, Laurence Hutton, W. M. Laffan, Francis A. Walker, George E. Waring, and William Warren. After dinner the conversation was quite as brilliant as the company—Mark Twain told some of his best stories in his best manner. Mr. Howells and Mr. Aldrich in no wise fell short of their reputations as conversationalists. There were no drinking of toasts, no formal speeches, which enhanced the general joy of the whole company.

Driving homewards along the Common, Irving said, “By gas-light, and in the snow, is not this a little like the Green park, with, yonder, the clock-tower of the Houses of Parliament?”

“Do you wish it were?”

“I wouldn’t mind it for an hour or two, eh? Although one really sometimes hardly feels that one is out of London.”

II.

“LADIES’ Night.—The Papyrus Club request the pleasure of the company of Miss Ellen Terry at the Revere House, December 15th, at six o’clock. Boston, 1883. Please reply to J. T. Wheelwright, 39 Court street.”[29]

Thus ran the invitation, which was adorned with a miniature view of the Pyramids in a decorative setting of the reed that is familiar to travellers in the Nile valley.

Miss Terry concluded to accept, and I had the honor of being her escort. The handsome rooms of the Revere House that were devoted to the service of the club on this occasion were crowded with ladies and gentlemen when we arrived. Among the guests in whom Miss Terry was especially interested were Mrs. Burnett, the author of “Joan” and other remarkable novels; Miss Noble, the author of “A Reverend Idol”; Miss Fay, Mrs. John Lillie, Mrs. Washburne, and other ladies known to the world of letters. She was surrounded for a long time by changing groups of ladies and gentlemen, who were presented in a pleasant, informal way by Mr. Babbitt, the president of the club, and other of its officers.

The dinner was a dainty repast (one of the special dishes was a “baked English turbot with brown sauce.”) The details of it were printed upon a photographic card which represented the loving-cup, punch-bowl, Papyrus’ manuscripts, gavel, pen and ink, and treasure-box of the institution.

During dinner Miss Terry was called upon to sign scores of the _menu_ cards with her autograph. Upon many of them she scribbled poetic couplets, Shakespearian and otherwise, and on others quaint, appropriate lines of her own. She captivated the women, all of them. It is easier for a clever woman to excite the admiration of her sex in America than in England. A woman who adorns and lifts the feminine intellect into notice in America excites the admiration rather than the jealousy of her sisters. American women seem to make a higher claims upon the respect and attention of men than belongs to the ambitious English women, and when one of them rises to distinction they all go up with her. They share in her fame; they do not try to dispossess her of the lofty place upon which she stands. There is a sort of trades-unionism among the women of America in this respect. They hold together in a ring against the so-called lords of creation; and the men are content to accept what appears to be a happy form of petticoat government. So the women of Boston took Ellen Terry to their arms and made much of her.

After dinner the President expressed, in quaint terms, the club’s welcome of its guests, and the Secretary read the following official and authorized

REPORT OF THE LAST MEETING.

SCENE.—_The Banqueting Hall of the Papyrus Club. The members, reclining in the Roman fashion, sip the cool Falernian from richly-chased pateræ, while the noiseless attendants remove the wild Etrusian boar (the only one in the club). The President raps sharply upon the table with his gavel._

SPURIUS LARTIUS (_a provincial guest from a hamlet called New York_).—Truly, Marcenas, the ruler of the feast is a goodly youth; a barbarian by his golden beard, I ween.

MARCENAS (_a literary member of the club, who derives his income, in whole or in part, from the fact that his father is working_.)—“Non Anglus sed Angelus.” Perhaps, some day. But, mark, he is calling upon a player for a speech, one of a strolling band which hath of late amused the town.

SPURIUS LARTIUS.—Me herculi. ‘Tis Wyndham. I have seen him oft in Terence’s comedy, “Pink Dominoes.”

_Wyndham arises, pulls down his tunic, and makes a neat speech._ (Cheers and applause.)

The PRESIDENT.—Gentlemen, we have among us to-night an inspired Prophet; the Chronicler of the Gospel’s according to St. Benjamin.

The Prophet arises, takes a stone tablet from his waistcoat-pocket, and reads

_The Gospel according to St. Benjamin._