iked it being left out, but
people used to say, like parrots, that "the interest of the play ended
with the Trial Scene," and Henry believed them--for a time. I never did.
Shakespeare _never_ gives up in the last act like most dramatists.

Twice in "Iolanthe" I forgot that I was blind! The first time was when I
saw old Tom Mead and Henry Irving groping for the amulet, which they had
to put on my breast to heal me of my infirmity. It had slipped on to the
floor, and both of them were too short-sighted to see it! Here was a
predicament! I had to stoop and pick it up for them.

The second time I put out my hand and cried: "Look out for my lilies,"
when Henry nearly stepped on the bunch with which a little girl friend
of mine supplied me every night I played the part.

Iolanthe was one of Helen Faucit's great successes. I never saw this
distinguished actress when she was in her prime. Her Rosalind, when she
came out of her retirement to play a few performances, appeared to me
more like a _lecture_ on Rosalind, than like Rosalind herself: a lecture
all young actresses would have greatly benefited by hearing, for it was
of great beauty. I remember being particularly struck by her treatment
of the lines in the scene where Celia conducts the mock marriage between
Orlando and Ganymede. Another actress, whom I saw as Rosalind, said the
words, "And I do take thee, Orlando, to be my husband," with a comical
grimace to the audience. Helen Faucit flushed up and said the line with
deep and true emotion, suggesting that she was, indeed, giving herself
to Orlando. There was a world of poetry in the way she drooped over his
hand.

Mead distinguished himself in "Iolanthe" by speaking of "that immortal
land where God hath His--His--er--room?--no--lodging?--no--where God
hath His apartments!"

The word he could not hit was, I think, "dwelling." He used often to try
five or six words before he got the right one _or_ the wrong one--it was
generally the wrong one--in full hearing of the audience.

IX

LYCEUM PRODUCTIONS

"THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" TO "ROMEO AND JULIET"

"The Merchant of Venice" was acted two hundred and fifty consecutive
nights on the occasion of the first production. On the hundredth night
every member of the audience was presented with Henry Irving's acting
edition of the play bound in white velum--a solid and permanent
souvenir, paper, print and binding all being of the best. The famous
Chiswick Press did a