hlan, in which I see by the
evidence of an old play-bill that I made my first appearance under Mr.
Hare's management. I remember another play by Coghlan, in which Henry
Kemble made one of his early appearances in the part of a butler, and
how funny he was, even in those days, in a struggle to get rid of a pet
monkey--a "property" monkey made of brown wool with no "devil" in it,
except that supplied by the comedian's imagination. We trusted to our
acting, not to real monkeys and real dogs to bring us through, and when
the acting was Henry Kemble's, it was good enough to rely upon!

Charles Coghlan seems to have been consistently unlucky. Yet he was a
good actor and a brilliant man. I always enjoyed his companionship;
found him a pleasant, natural fellow, absorbed in his work, and not at
all the "dangerous" man that some people represented him.

Within less than a month from the date of the production of "Brothers,"
"New Men and Old Acres" was put into the Court bill. It was not a new
play, but the public at once began to crowd to see it, and I have heard
that it brought Mr. Hare L30,000. My part, Lilian Vavasour, had been
played in the original production by Mrs. Kendal, but it had been
written for me by Tom Taylor when I was at the Haymarket, and it suited
me very well. The revival was well acted all round. Charles Kelly was
splendid as Mr. Brown, and Mr. Hare played a small part perfectly.

H.B. Conway, a young actor whose good looks were talked of everywhere,
was also in the cast. He was a descendant of Lord Byron's, and had a
look of the _handsomest_ portraits of the poet. With his bright hair
curling tightly all over his well-shaped head, his beautiful figure, and
charming presence, Conway created a sensation in the 'eighties almost
equal to that made by the more famous beauty, Lillie Langtry.

As an actor he belonged to the Terriss type, but he was not nearly as
good as Terriss. Of his extraordinary failure in the Lyceum "Faust" I
shall say something when I come to the Lyceum productions.

After "New Men and Old Acres," Mr. Hare tried a posthumous play by Lord
Lytton--"The House of Darnley." It was _not_ a good play, and I was
_not_ good in it, although the pleasant adulation of some of my friends
has made me out so. The play met with some success, and during its run
Mr. Hare commissioned Wills to write "Olivia."

I had known Wills before this through the Forbes-Robertsons. He was at
one time engaged to one of