"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."

"SHE WAS A GOOD DEAL CAST DOWN."

"The Smiths, with the exception of Melinda, were delighted with the decision, for it made it reasonably certain that Josiah could never be recognised as her husband. She was a good deal cast down about it, for, like every other Indiana girl, she had looked forward to being married and divorced as the natural lot of woman. Now it appeared that she was married, but in such an unsatisfactory way, that she could never have a husband, and never be divorced from anyone. As for Josiah, he was furious, but there was no help for it, the law was against him, and, as a law-abiding man, he was obliged to respect it, especially as he could not hope to kill off all four of the Smiths, if he decided to make a family feud of it; he himself having no family whatever, and no one to help him to keep up his end of the feud.

"For the next fifteen years Josiah lived a single man except in name, and Melinda mourned her hard fate and kept house for her father and brothers; but one day Josiah's lawyer, who was by this time in the Legislature, came to him and offered to have his marriage to Melinda made legal in all respects for five hundred dollars. The lawyer was so certain that he could do this that he was willing to wait for his pay until after he had gained a verdict, and Josiah, after a little bargaining such as every self-respecting man would have made, in his place, consented to the lawyer's terms. It seems that the lawyer had accidentally discovered that there had been a mistake in the survey of part of the boundary line between Indiana and Illinois, and at the very place where Josiah and Melinda were married, A rectification of this mistake would move the line ten feet west, and so place the spot where the pair stood during their wedding entirely within the state of Indiana. The proper steps to obtain the rectification of the boundary were taken, and it was rectified. Then Melinda in her turn began a suit for divorce against Josiah, and had no difficulty in proving the marriage and in obtaining a decree. Josiah paid the lawyer his five hundred dollars, and was overjoyed at being finally able to call his Melinda his own. But he met with a little disappointment. Now that Melinda had obtained her divorce she thought she might as well live up to it, and marry a fresh husband. So she married the Methodist minister, who had just lost his third wife, and lived happily ever afterwards.

"OFFERED TO HAVE HIS MARRIAGE MADE LEGAL."

"It was just after this that Josiah, being perhaps made a little reckless by his disappointment, became involved in the affair that I was going to tell you about when you interrupted me, and wanted to hear about his marriage. Matrimony is a mighty curious thing, and you can never tell precisely how it is going to turn out. That is one reason why I was never married but once, though I spent ten years of my life in Chicago, and had friends at bar who stood ready to obtain divorces for me at any moment and without a dollar of expense."

IDLERS.

MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH.

A little, slight man, with a thin, clever, mobile, clean-shaven face, a sharp inquisitive nose surmounted by a perpetual pair ofpince-nez, and a rather sarcastic mouth, from which wit and humour as light and airy as the cigarette smoke which accompanied each remark continually flowed.

Mr. George Grossmith, the well-known actor and society clown.

He stands on the hearthrug of his own special sanctum in his handsome house in Dorset Square, with his back to the fire, cigarette in his mouth, his hands now in his pockets, now waving in the air, as he vivaciously tells me the story of his busy, energetic and wonderfully interesting life.

MRS. GEORGE GROSSMITH.

"I was born," said he, "in 1847. I come of a family of actors and reciters. My father, whose portrait you see there on the wall, was a well-known lecturer and entertainer. Sixty or seventy years ago my uncle created a great sensation as a child actor, and he was commonly known as the 'celebrated infant Roscius.' Come out into the hall," continued the lively little entertainer, "and I will show you some old engravings which represent him in his favourite characters. Then my brother Weedon, as you know, is, of course, a well-known actor, as well as a clever artist, and part author with myself of several sketches which have appeared inPunch. My eldest son now begins to display the family tendency to a most alarming extent. For my own part, I started my career as a reporter at Bow Street Police Court, a training which I have found invaluable in many respects ever since. My subsequent history as actor and society clown is so well known that I need not trouble you with it any further."

"I suppose you find the taste of your audiences has gone up considerably within the last twenty years, do you not?"

"Why, yes," he replied. "They wouldn't stand to-day what they used to roar at then. My music is quite elaborate compared with the two or three chords which easily satisfied people in the sixties and early seventies. Listen to this," continued my host, as he sat down to thepianoand struck a couple of very simple chords. Then he glided softly into what he termed a modern accompaniment. It was all the difference between "Ten Little Niggers" and a slumber song of Schubert.

MR. GROSSMITH'S HOUSE.

"And do you find the public very critical?"

"Well," he replied, with a smile, "they are very kind. It is your professional critic who is severe, though I can honestly say they invariably treat me well. Criticism up to a certain point is good enough. Beyond that point it is absolutely disabling to me. My father was a very severe critic. When we went out together he used to take the first half-hour, and then go to the back of the hall and criticise me. But it so hampered me by causing me to think of and consider every pose that I had to beg of him to desist. And then again, as regards criticism, I always think—it may be very conceited on my part—that I know a great deal more what the public want than my critics do. I declare to you I should have to take everything out of my sketches if I attempted to carry out all the suggestions that are made to me. I can absolutely feel the public pulse after so many years upon the platform. I am almost always right. When I first started 'See me Dance the Polka' it fell quite flat. I gave it up, although I felt sure it ought to go. The public then demanded it, and it went with a swing. The public had changed its mind. Not I."

THE DINING ROOM.

"And how do you prepare your sketches?" said I, as Mr. Grossmith lit another cigarette, and took up his position on the hearthrug again.

"Anyhow and anywhere the idea comes to me for a sketch. I am seated in a railway train, and I think of a sea-side sketch. I close my eyes and try to recall every single feature of interest on a crowded fashionable beach in the height of the season. Nothing is too unimportant. The way in which an old lady settles herself comfortably into her chair, the manner in which a man, especially a shy man, walks into the room, all these things, slightly exaggerated, but still true to nature, are immensely appreciated. First I have the idea, then I elaborate, sometimes for months, then I produce on the stage, and the people say, 'How remarkable it is you should invent all this on the spur of the moment!' That, of course, is a great compliment. The song-writing is always amusing," continued Mr. Grossmith, as he placed in my hand a little notebook in which were suggestions and elaborations innumerable. One thing I noticed, which he himself had condemned, but which was decidedly amusing, although it has never been allowed to see the light of day:

THE DRAWING-ROOM.

"Ah!" said Mr. Grossmith, as he leaned over me and saw what I was reading; "my better judgment told me that was not good enough for the public."

"I ENCOURAGE HIM."

"I ATTEMPT TO LEAD HIM."

"I CARRY HIM."

"I LOSE ALL PATIENCE."

Then came a pencilled note in this little book, "You can take a horse to water, but can't make him drink." "That gave me an idea," cried Mr. Grossmith, as he sprang to his feet. "You can take a boy to the piano, but you can't make him play.' Thought I to myself, that would make a capital sketch. And here is how I set about it," continued he, as he proceeded to illustrate his remarks. "Imagine a little fellow in the corner there. I then begin in dumb show to encourage him to come to the piano. 'Come on, my boy; you know you can play that pretty piece you played yesterday. Come on, there's a good fellow!' Wonderful what you can do with persuasion! He refuses. I attempt to lead him to the piano. He won't budge an inch. I carry him under my arm and seat him in front of the instrument, the audience roaring all the time. At last his mistakes are so many and so ridiculous, I lose all patience and catch him a mighty box upon the ears! Tableau!! Of course there is no boy on the platform at all, I am quite alone, but I have so thoroughly lost myself in my imagination that people have declared years after, 'Oh! but I am quite sure you had a boy with you; why, don't you remember how you boxed his ears?'"

"HOW I DO IRVING."

No less marvellous than his power of acting is his power of mimicry. "I will show you how I do Irving," said he, and in a moment the little man had ruffled his hair, had assumed to the life not only Irving's peculiar gait, but, even more remarkable still, had managed to secure almost exactly the very expression of the great tragedian's face.

"Then again, I find it a good idea to take up some craze or topic of the moment. 'The Drama on Crutches' I wrote when the craze first arose amongst the aristocracy for going on the stage. One of the sketches which you will find outlined in that little notebook is entitled, 'Is Music a Failure?' and I endeavoured to answer the question by showing how popular it is among all classes of the community." I will quote pretty freely from this outlined sketch, as it will give my readers an idea, better than anything else would do, of the manner in which Mr. Grossmith prepares his delightful sketches.

"I am not going to treat the subject seriously," he writes, "but in my own particular, impertinent way. The question often arises—are we a musical nation? The foreigners think we are not. But where in the wide, wide world is there a country where you will hear so many organs and German bands? Where is the country, excepting ours, that can appreciate the concertina? Where, except in England, can you hear that delightful combination of harp and cornet outside a house of refreshment? The prejudice of other nations is distressing; and as for their ignorance, why, I don't suppose Italy and Germany have even heard of the ocarino and the Jew's harp."

And so the sketch runs on, until, in speaking of the universal manner in which music is appreciated in England by all classes, Mr. Grossmith goes on to say: "We have made rapid strides, so have our servants. They don't know how to dust the piano, but they can play it. Everybody plays the piano, from the Peerage to the School Board. Then look how music has crept into our homes and social circles. Besides the piano, the mother and daughters play the banjo, the son plays the first fiddle, and the father the second fiddle—as usual. I know of a Lord Mayor who plays the trombone, a clergyman who plays the big drum—that's a nice unpretentious, giddy instrument!—and I know of any number of members of Parliament who blow their own trumpets!!" And so the notes go brightly on through many pages.

MR. WEEDON GROSSMITH.

THE STUDY.

MR. GEO. GROSSMITH, JUN.

OLD ENGRAVINGS.

"This," explained my host, "is a fair specimen of the method I employ in preparing a drawing-room sketch. As a rule, my audiences of that class are capital. I always love a well-dressed audience, it is so cheerful. You mayn't perhaps get as much applause as you do from the sixpenny gallery, but then applause often spoils your point. Once, however, I remember singing at a private house in the country to an odd assortment of people. I was informed that the party followed a wedding which had taken place in the morning. If it had followed a funeral it could not have been more gloomy and depressed than it was. I played the piano and the fool for three-quarters of an hour, and anything more dismal than the result it would be impossible to conceive. A temptation seized me suddenly, and I said: 'Ladies and gentlemen,—I am going to reveal to you a secret. Pray don't let it go any further. This is supposed to be a comic entertainment. I don't expect you to laugh at it in the least; but if, during the next sketch, you would only once oblige me with a society smile, it would give me a great deal of encouragement.' The audience for a moment were dumbfounded. They first began to titter, then to laugh, and actually to roar, and for a time I could not proceed with the sketch. They were transformed into a capital and enthusiastic audience, and the hostess told me that both her guests and herself were most grateful to me. I am sometimes amused with the little eccentricities of people who wish to secure my services for their parties. A gentleman once wrote to me to entertain some friends of his, and, added he, 'I trust that your sketches are strictlycomme il faut, as I have several young daughters.' I was so immensely tickled by this that, rightly or wrongly, I replied that my entertainmentswereas they should be, for I was recently married, and hoped myself to have several young daughters. He wrote thanking me for this assurance, and I was to consider myself accordingly engaged. There is a story I tell in my book which will bear repetition: A young gentleman once called upon me. He explained that he was acting as a sort of ambassador for a friend of his, Mrs. ——, of Mayfair, who wished me to dine at her house. I replied that I had not the honour of the lady's acquaintance, and, though appreciating her kind invitation, I did not see how I could very well avail myself of it. He said that Prince Somebody or other and La Comtesse de So-and-so would be dining there, and Mrs. —— would be so pleased if I would join the party, and sing a little song after dinner. 'Oh,' I said, 'if Mrs. —— wishes to engage me professionally, that is another matter, and if I am at liberty, I will come with much pleasure.' 'Well,' said the ambassador, 'I fancy Mrs. —— is under the impression that if she includes you in her dinner party it is an understood thing that you sing afterwards.' 'I am afraid I do not understand that,' I said. 'It would not pay me to do so. I only consume about ten shillings worth of food and wine, and my terms are more than that.' There," said Mr. Grossmith, "could you have believed that anyone would have been so inconceivably mean and caddish?"

MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH.

"A FLASHY YOUNG CAD, IN A VERY LOUD SUIT."

"I have had some curious experiences on tour," he went on. "That is hard work, if you like. I have gone a four months' tour without missing a night. It takes it out of one terribly. But it is very paying work. In the South of England I have made as much as £300 a week. My friends tried to frighten me as to the apathy of my Scotch audiences; as a matter of fact, I have no better audiences anywhere. I like performing to country audiences. I am never nervous as I am apt to be at St. James's, where there are a number of my friends. And it is on my country tours that I have many curious experiences. Amateurs invariably call at the hotel to see me, and to ask my advice as to their powers of recitation. Some are quite hopeless, and I haven't the heart to condemn them utterly, or to go beyond 'I tell you quite candidly, since you ask me, that I have heard better.' As a rule they are very quiet and modest, but now and again one encounters some fearful specimens. I remember once at a country town, which we will call Mudborough, a flashy young cad, in a very loud suit, called to see me with a parcel under his arm. He had come, he told me, to learn my opinion of his singing. He further informed me that he was known as 'the Mudborough Grossmith.' He didn't have the courtesy to take off his hat; he walked up and down my room, whistling, singing, and handing me over now and again specimens of his powers as a water-colour painter. I looked at them. At last, tired of the idiot and his airs, I said, 'I hope your musical sketches are better than you water-colour sketches.' Nothing, however, could snub this fellow. He proceeded straightway to sing me an improved version of 'See me Dance the Polka.' 'Do your audience like it?' I asked. 'I should think they did,' he replied; 'I will let you have that last verse if you like.' I thanked him sarcastically, and at last he withdrew. I have, however, come across some real talent in this way. For instance, that admirable actor and entertainer, Eric Lewis, is aprotégéof mine, and you could not have a better man than he. Another amusing incident occurred at Southsea. My secretary was in a shop one day, and he overheard three ladies discussing the respective merits of Corney Grain and myself. Two of them were for Corney Grain and one was for me. Finding at last that the odds were too strong for her, she departed with this final shot: 'Well, never mind, Mr. Corney Grain can't jump on to a piano,' referring to my imitation of Minnie Palmer."

Replying to a question I put to him as to his theatrical experiences, Mr. Grossmith told me that it was in the November of 1877 that he received the following letter:—

"Beefsteak Club,"King William Street,"Tuesday Night."Dear Mr. Grossmith,—Are you inclined to go on the stage for a time? There is a part in the new piece I am doing with Gilbert which I think you would play admirably. I can't find a good man for it. Let me have a line, or come to Albert Mansions to-morrow, after 4; or Thursday, before 2.30."Yours sincerely,"ARTHUR SULLIVAN."

"Beefsteak Club,

"King William Street,

"Tuesday Night.

"Dear Mr. Grossmith,—Are you inclined to go on the stage for a time? There is a part in the new piece I am doing with Gilbert which I think you would play admirably. I can't find a good man for it. Let me have a line, or come to Albert Mansions to-morrow, after 4; or Thursday, before 2.30.

"Yours sincerely,

"ARTHUR SULLIVAN."

"This was a great moment in my life, although at the time my father, whose good judgment I valued much, was of opinion that I was not very successful as an actor. Sullivan, however, who had heard me give a musical sketch at a dinner party, was of the contrary opinion, and felt sure that I should suit him. It appears he and Arthur Cecil were both writing letters at the Beefsteak, when the former said, 'I can't find a fellow for this opera.' Cecil said, 'I wonder if Grossmith—' Before he had finished the sentence, Arthur Sullivan said, 'The very man!' And so I was engaged. I am much indebted to these two Arthurs," continued the bright little man with a laugh. "I reverence the very name of Arthur. I remember when Gilbert wanted to engage me for the part ofJohn Wellington Wells, though I saw the part would suit me to perfection, I said to him, 'I should have thought you required a fine man with a fine voice for the part of a magician.' I can still see Gilbert's humorous expression as he replied, 'That is just what wedon'twant.' I playedSir Joseph Porterin 'Pinafore' every night for nearly two years. Long runs don't affect the nerves of the actors nearly as much as they affect the performance. Constant repetition begets mechanism, and that is a terrible enemy to contend against. I make a point of playing my best to a bad house; for it is a monstrous thing to slur through one's work because the stalls are empty, and thereby punish those whohavecome for the fault of those whohave not. Still, I repeat it, constant repetition is a dreadful thing. Fancy playing 'Pinafore,' as I did, for 700 nights without missing a single performance!"

As he said this Mr. Grossmith led the way out of the room in which we had been talking, and which he told me was his own special sanctum, "into which no one is ever allowed to come except my wife, for anyone rushing in here when I was composing or thinking out a sketch would inevitably drive every single idea from my head," and we went upstairs together. Here in the drawing-room he set himself down to a spinet which bore the date of 1770, and he struck a few exceedingly sweet-sounding, if slightly tinkling, chords from it. "And this," said he, "is the oldestBroadwoodin England. You can see for yourself the date—1795." Downstairs he showed me a beautiful model of a steam engine, upon which he was enabled to ride, and which he could drive himself. "I thoroughly understand locomotives," said he, as he pointed to a shelf full of all the works upon the subject which he had been able to discover.

Long ago, the Fairies often stole children; they chose the prettiest, and carried them to Fairyland—the Kingdom of Tyrnanoge,—leaving hideous Changelings instead. In those days no man had call to be ashamed of his offspring, since it a baby was deformed or idiotic it was known to be a Changeling.

"THE PIG WAS A FRIENDLY ANIMAL."

It is sixty years now since old Mike Lonergan, who lived in a hovel in Moher Village, was robbed of his child. It was his wife first found out the theft, for she had seen her unborn son in a dream, and he was beautiful; so when she saw the sickly and ugly baby, she knew that he was not hers, and that the Fairies had stolen the child of her dream. Many advised her to roast the Changeling on the turf-fire, but the White Witch of Moher said it would be safer to leave him alone. So the child Andy grew up as a stranger in his father's hovel and had a dreary time of it, he got little food and no kindness. The Lonergans gave him neither offence nor welcome, hoping that he might see fit to go home to Tyrnanoge and yet bear them no grudge. He grew up an odd wizened little wretch, and everyone shunned him. The children loathed him because they were afraid of him, so they hooted him from a distance, or stoned him from behind walls.

Indeed, at this time his only ally was the pig that lived in one corner of the hovel. The pig was a friendly animal, his front half was a dull white and the other half black, and this gave him a homely look as if he was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. Andy would shrink into the corner, and sit cuddled there with one arm round the pig's neck. Old Mike Lonergan took to drink, and spent every evening at the Shebeen—small blame to him—for how could a man be expected to stay at home with a Changeling sitting in a corner and staring at him?

When the pig was driven to the Fair at Ennistimon, Andy was left friendless, and then—in all winds and weather—was to be found on the Cliffs of Moher. Sometimes he stopped out all night, till hunger would bring him back when the Lonergans were rejoicing at his disappearance. He knew every inch of the Cliffs, and spent half his time lying on the edge of the grey precipice, looking down at the sea, six hundred feet below, or watching the clouds of sea-birds; he found new paths down the cliff-side and clambered like a goat; he knew where the gulls nested, but never robbed them, and the caves where the seals lived, and the seals shouldered their way through the water close by him, looking at him with soft eyes.

When he was about fourteen, the Famine Year came; fever and "The Hunger" swept Clare. The fever took Lonergan and his wife, and they were buried in the dead-pit at Liscannor; it left Andy, but it left him blind. Then the neighbours began to have their doubts whether he was a Changeling after all; for the Fairies are faithful, and who ever heard of a Changeling being left blind and penniless? If he was only mortal he had been cruelly treated, so to make amends they gave him the fiddle that had belonged to the "Dark" Man—that is the blind man—of St. Bridget's Well, who had lately starved. There was still a feeling that he was unfit for a Holy Well, so he took up a post at the Liscannor Cross-roads, and there levied a toll on passers with the professional heart-broken cry:

"Remember the Dark Man! For God's sake, remember the Dark Man!"

For nearly twenty years Andy haunted the Cross-roads, he came to be honoured as one of the institutions of Moher, though the folk considered there was much that was uncanny about him, he was so silent, and he hated the smell of whisky. Now those were the times when Cornelius Desmond ruled Moher in the old open-handed haphazard way, never troubling penniless tenants. But "Corney" died and the daisies grew over him, so the estate was managed by an agent who made short work of paupers, and evicted "Dark" Andy from his ancestral hovel. Andy did not seem to know his misfortune. He spent the day of the eviction, as usual, at the Cross-roads, and came back at night to a ruin. His neighbour, Larry Ronan the blacksmith, was grieved to see that he took the change as a matter of course, and that after groping in the four corners of the cabin he sat on the window-ledge as if unaware that nothing was left of his home but the walls.

Next day it was rumoured that Bridget McCaura, of Moher Farm, had sheltered Dark Andy. Bridget was a warm woman, a "woman of three cows," a masterful old maid, who in her time had refused many a pretty fellow, perhaps because she suspected them of hankering after her live stock, her poultry, and her sixty acres of rocks. Then the old parish priest, Father Peter Flannery, rode over to see her. Bridget was called out of her house to speak to him; he was afraid to dismount. She stood in the narrow gateway in front of her farm, with her arms akimbo, ready to defend her home against all comers. Peter's heart trembled; he has a great dread of angry women.

"Is it thrue?" he asked—and was so frightened that he looked even sterner than usual—"is it thrue what I'm afther hearing, Bridget McCaura, that ye've taken the Dark Man, Lonergan, to live with ye—to live in the Farm?"

"Is it thrue? 'Tis so," said Bridget.

"But ye're not going to keep him, are ye now?"

"Keep him? I am that," said Bridget.

Peter screwed up his courage and told her warily, that though it was well-meant of her, and "'tis you have the kind warm heart, Bridget me dear," still, that propriety forbade it.

He was afraid to look at her as he spoke. Bridget was purple.

"What! a misfortnit ould omadhaun the likes of that?" she cried.

"I know, I know," said Peter (this is a pet phrase of his and usually means that he does not know). "I know, I know, but 'tis because ye're a lone woman, tell me now are ye listening to me? If ye'd been married now, 'twould have been another thing."

"Married!" cried Bridget with infinite scorn—"Married! If that's all, I'll marry the craythur to-morrow!"

And so Dark Andy was married to the richest woman in Moher. He seemed indifferent; as for Bridget, she had made up her mind to shelter him, and there was an end of it, she took pleasure in astounding her neighbours.

"I'LL MARRY THE CRAYTHUR TO-MORROW!"

There was never such excitement in Clare as when those banns were read. Everyone saw that poor Bridget McCaura—"dacint woman"—had been bewitched. All the old stories about Dark Andy came to life, there was no room for doubt now, and the bravest unbelievers trembled before him. There was many a woman would never hear his name without crossing herself, and he got the credit of every misfortune between Kilkee and Kinvarra, though some doubted whether a blind man could have the Evil Eye. It was felt that he should be asked to give up his post by the Cross-roads, since it was inconvenient for the neighbours to have to climb two stone walls to avoid passing him. However, no one could be found to suggest this to him, so he still sat there daily, for he liked to feel that he was earning his own livelihood.

One rough afternoon during my first visit to Clare I was caught in a storm of rain, and took refuge at the Liscannor Cross-roads under a thick clump of trees that are stunted and bent eastward by cowering from the sea-wind. As I reached them I heard a shrill cry, "Remember the Dark Man!" Then I saw the blind beggarman sitting huddled in a ragged great-coat so much too big for him that till he stood up I did not see how tiny he was. He had a doleful peaked face, set in a shock of grey hair. By him sat a little brown dog—the queerest of mongrels—with a tin can tied round his neck.

Andy was friendly that day, and talked eagerly in a shrill, stammering voice. I found later that he was wretched in still weather, and loved the malicious rush of the rain; he was happiest when the wind rattled in his ears and the rain whipped his face. "Call that rain?" he said, "sure th' air is flooded, an' ye might as well swim as walk."

Many times after that I went out of my way on my long solitary walks to pass the Cross-roads, but as often as not he was glum and silent, and then Bonaparte, sharing his mood, would growl like a small thunderstorm. The seat was well chosen, for the cowering trees are like a shed over it, and there is a pleasant landscape in front (though that mattered little to Andy), a landscape of dim green moors—with brown stains on them where sedge grows and black shadows where bushes huddle in clefts—chequered by a grey net of low walls, dotted with the white gables of cabins, and framed by a wavering line of hills.

Sometimes I found him playing his fiddle to keep himself company, but he stopped when he heard me, and, to tell the truth, I was glad of it, for his playing was uncanny. Sometimes I met him shambling along the brink of the Cliffs—a grotesque little figure, with his old shapeless hat, his huge coat flapping behind him, and the mighty blackthorn he carried—he knew the ground so well that he walked as if he could see (indeed, he saw more than I could, for while to me the breakers were only streaks of light, he spoke as if he was close to them on the wet weedy rocks), or I came on him lying by the edge, listening to the grumbling of the breakers and the cries of the gulls.

"LISTENING TO THE GRUMBLING OF THE BREAKERS AND THE CRIES OF THE GULLS."

Mostly he was unsociable, he shrank from his neighbours because they had been cruel to him when they were children, and the dislike was more than returned; yet I think that, but for the loneliness of his whole life, he would have been friendly enough. No one knew more of folklore—I think he half believed that he was a Changeling, and found comfort in the thought of that former life when he was one of the merry "Little Good People"—and sure old Mike Lonergan and his wife ought to have known best. He knew the ways of every ghost in the county, and it was even said that he was on speaking terms with the Headless Man who haunted Liscannor. Of course he knew all about Fairies. When the fallen leaves scurried past his feet he knew that the "Little Good People" were playing football, when the wind whispered in the leaves overhead he heard them chatting, and when it whined in the creaking bare branches, heard the poor little folk crying with cold and bewailing the days when they found shelter by snug firesides and sat there unseen but not unwelcome. Once, before the world grew hard, they gathered in the cabins, and the roughest fare grew pleasanter, the saddest hearts lighter, from their good wishes; but no one cares for them now, and they cannot rest in unfriendly houses.

"HE WAS ON SPEAKING TERMS WITH THE HEADLESS MAN OF LISCANNOR."

As he grew older, he talked more of them, grew more moody and restless, could not sit quiet while the wind was up, and spent night after night out of doors. My friend Father Peter Flannery, who is my chief authority for this history, told me that often, riding on his sick calls in stormy weather, he met Andy staggering along the rough roads.

Last year on November Eve—the night when the Fairies have power, and the dead wake and dance reels with them—the blind beggarman started out from the Farm. An Atlantic gale was shattering seas against the Cliffs, the air was salt with foam, and throbbed with the pulse of the breakers. Bridget tried in vain to stop him; he said the "Little Good People" were calling him. She watched him disappear into the darkness, the whimpering of his fiddle died into the shrieks of the wind. "'Tis a quare divil, he is," she said, "God help him!"

Once in the night she thought she heard a snatch of the "Fairies' Reel"; but Andy never came back. Next morning they found Bonaparte whining on the edge of the Cliffs; there was no sign of his master. He must have gone over the Cliffs in the darkness, but the waves gave no token.

Some folk in Moher believe that the Fairies took back their child, and that the old blind fiddler lives now in the Kingdom of Tyrnanoge, and makes music for their dances in that enchanted country where the old grow young and the blind see. Some say that he still haunts the Cross-roads, and only a week ago, Larry Ronan, coming back at night from Ennistimon Fair, saw a black shadowy figure under the black trees, and heard a heart-broken voice cry "Remember the Dark Man!" Larry's natural surprise at this accounted for his being found next morning asleep in the ditch. But it is agreed in Moher that Andy left life on November Eve, whether he became the playfellow of the Fairies or the plaything of the waves.

MR. IRVING AS "HAMLET." (From the Portrait by EDWIN LONG.)

MR. IRVING AS "DIGBY GRANT" IN "TWO ROSES."

The innumerable reviews of Mr. Irving by literary and artistic experts have left room enough for an amateur estimate by a man who is accustomed to regard human life mainly from a religious standpoint. A complete review of the Stage by the Pulpit could hardly be the work of a single pen; for my own part, therefore, I can only make a very small contribution to such a review by indicating a few points which have occurred to me in the study of one particular actor. At once, however, the question arises, Is Mr. Irving a man who can be thus summarily characterised? In a dramatic sense, are there not many Mr. Irvings? When a man can act "The Two Roses" and "The Dead Heart" with equal effect, when he can at will be as vulgar asRobert Macaire, or as dignified asCardinal Wolsey;when he can be either as young as Hamlet or as old as Lear, the inquiry as to his plurality becomes natural and pertinent. For my part, I rank Mr. Irving the comedian above Mr. Irving the tragedian, just as I rank Nature above Art: each may be highest in its own way, yet the one may have a charm which the other cannot boast. Mr. Irving's tragedy sometimes requires working up, but his comedy is spontaneous and immediate. The needful working up of tragedy is no fault of the actor. Tragedy should hardly ever begin at once. The murder may come too soon. Premature rage is followed by untimely laughter.Digby Grantbegins at once, and can be his best self in the very first sentence, butMacbethmust move towards his passion by finely-graded ascents. In Mr. Irving's exquisite representation,Macbeth'sanxieties and perturbations, his rapid alternations of courage and cowardice, make delicate but obvious record of themselves in deepening the grey of his hair, and ploughing more deeply the lines of his face. A comedy may be judged scene by scene, almost sentence by sentence, but a tragedy can be truly estimated only when viewed in final perspective.

"A LITTLE CHEQUE." (MR. IRVING AS "DIGBY GRANT" IN "TWO ROSES.")

Judged by this test, I have no hesitation in regarding Mr. Irving'sKing Learas the finest creation of his genius. This is an instance in which the actor creates the piece. Shakespeare is, as a poet and playwright, at his worst in "King Lear." Yet his accessories are wonderful in variety and suggestiveness. Only Shakespeare could have created the heath, and have so ordered the old King's passion, as to make his madness part of the very thunder and lightning. That was Shakespeare's magnificent conception, and Mr. Irving's rendering is worthy of its tempestuous grandeur. How to talk up to the storm, how to pierce the tumult with the cries of human distress, how to escape the ridiculous and the incongruous, how to be a King on the desolate heath, and to make the royalty gleam through the angry darkness, were the problems, and Mr. Irving solved them one and all, even with redundance of faculty and skill. At the end of the heath scene the man is more remembered than the storm. It has been objected that in the first scene Mr. Irving'sLearis too old and feeble. I venture to think otherwise. I further venture to think that the King's age and the King's imbecility have both been accurately appreciated. A man at eighty, a man athirst for flattery, a man who would pay a kingdom in exchange for adulation, must have outlived all that is best and strongest in human nature. He comes upon the stage as a wreck. His vanity has eaten up his sagacity, so that she,GonerilorRegan, who can flatter most, can lie most, and can play the devil best, shall fare most lavishly at his hands. Is it not well partly to excuse these excesses of self-valuation by such mitigations as can be found in the infirmity of old age? Even in an elderly man they would have been treated with contempt; they could only be endured in one whose eighty years had been doubled by the hardness of his life lot.

In "Henry VIII." Mr. Irving had little to do. In that play the labour and the glory fell upon another, to the infinite delight of the public. In "Lear," Mr. Irving has everything to do. From beginning to end there is only one character. Even the fascinatingCordeliais but a silver cloud on the far horizon. "The King is coming" is the cry of the play. His madness is more, as to display and effect, than the sense of all the others. The scene is stiff and cold until his wild hair is observed to approach the front, and then the whole spectacle is alight with feeling and purpose. The other actors are not to blame that, to a large extent, they are thrown into the shade; indeed, they are to be warmly congratulated upon their self-suppression and their passive sympathy. It is a hard task to play the part of two heartless and treacherous daughters, and a pitiful fate to have to represent the villainy ofEdmund, yet all this was admirably done. It cannot be an easy thing to come forward to play the villain well, for the better the dramatic villain is played the more is the actor compelled to recognise in his execration the exact degree of his success. So admirably can Mr. Irving himself play the villain, that it is difficult to believe that any godparents ever, on his unconscious behalf, renounced the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.

In many minor parts—or along the subsidiary lines of great parts—Mr. Irving's subtlest power comes into effective play. Who, for example, can be more gentle or more graceful with a little child? Who could hug the "fool" more fondly than oldKing Lear? Then recall his wonderful recognitions of old friends. When, in "The Dead Heart," he is liberated from the Bastille, how old times slowly but surely dawn into consciousness, and how quickly the dawn hastens into the noontide of the tenderest fellowship and highest festival of joy. It is verily a resurrection. After eighteen years' entombment this political Lazarus comes forth to liberty, to leadership, to dominance.

In "Lear," there are two wonderful instances of recognition, the recognition ofGlosterand ofCordelia.Glosteris blind and bandaged.Cordeliahas been long out of sight—if not in actual days yet in depth of feeling—and the King himself is demented. Little by little things shape themselves in the memory and fancy of the King. There is something confusedly familiar in the voice ofGlosterwhich, tone by tone, settles into recognition. In the case ofCordeliathe father gradually subdues the King, and instinct takes the place of reason; then, in a fine strain, comes the identification:

The utterance of these words by Mr. Irving is simply thrilling. The tones, the glances, the approach, the embrace, lift up the words into new light, keen and tender as the brightness of a summer morning. The words themselves are by no means striking, are, indeed, the merest commonplace, but, uttered with the natural pathos of a consummate actor, they carry the play to its most subduing climax. The humanity and the genius satisfy expectation in its most eager and jealous temper. Failure at that point would have ruined the play. Which was better,LearorCordelia, in that critical action? We must first settle, Which is better, the star of morning or the morning star?

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