heard Mr. Labouchere singing the song, and that was revenge enough for
any man. To Mr. Henley the part of Joseph evidently presented no serious
difficulties. In his opinion, Joseph is a whining hypocrite who rolls
his eyes when he wishes to look natural. Obviously he is a slavish
admirer of Mr. Irving. If Joseph had taken his snuff as this one does,
Lady Sneerwell would have sent him to the kitchen. If he had made love
to Lady Teazle as this one does, she would have suspected him of weak
intellect. Sheridan's Joseph was a man of culture: Mr. Henley's is a
buffoon. It is not, perhaps, so much this gentleman's fault as his
misfortune that his acting is without either art or craft; but then he
was not compelled to play Joseph Surface. Indeed, we may go further, and
say that if he is a man with friends he must have been dissuaded from
it. The Sir Peter Teazle of Mr. Ruskin reminded us of other Sir Peter
Teazles--probably because Sir Peter is played nowadays with his
courtliness omitted.

[Illustration]

Mr. William Archer was the Crabtree, or rather Mr. Archer and the
prompter between them. Until we caught sight of the prompter we had
credited Mr. Archer with being a ventriloquist given to casting his
voice to the wings. Mr. Clement Scott--their Benjamin Backbite--was a
ventriloquist too, but not in such a large way as Mr. Archer. His voice,
so far as we could make out from an occasional rumble, was in his boots,
where his courage kept it company. There was no more ambitious actor
in the cast than Mr. Pollock. Mr. Pollock was Sir Oliver, and he gave
a highly original reading of that old gentleman. What Mr. Pollock's
private opinion of the character of Sir Oliver may be we cannot say; it
would be worth an interviewer's while to find out. But if he thinks Sir
Oliver was a windmill, we can inform him at once that he is mistaken. Of
Mr. Sichel's Moses all that occurs to us to say is that when he let his
left arm hang down and raised the other aloft, he looked very like a
tea-pot. Mr. Joseph Knight was Old Rowley. In that character all we saw
of him was his back; and we are bound to admit that it was unexceptional.
Sheridan calls one of his servants Snake, and the other Trip. Mr. Moy
Thomas tried to look as like a snake as he could, and with some success.
The Trip of Mr. Sala, however, was a little heavy, and when he came
between the audience and the other actors there was a temporary eclipse.
As for the minor parts, the gentle