always called him "Daddy." The
dear old man was much liked by every one. He had a tremendous pair of
legs, was bluff and bustling in manner, though courtly too, and cared
more about gardening than acting. He had a little farm at Isleworth, and
he was one of those actors who do not allow the longest theatrical
season to interfere with domesticity and horticulture! Because of his
stout gaitered legs and his Isleworth estate, Henry called him "the
agricultural actor." He was a good old port and whisky drinker, but he
could carry his liquor like a Regency man.

He was a walking history of the stage. "Yes, my dear," he used to say to
me, "I was in the original cast of the first performance of 'The Lady of
Lyons,' which Lord Lytton gave Macready as a present, and I was the
original Francois when 'Richelieu' was produced. Lord Lytton wrote this
part for a lady, but at rehearsal it was found that there was a good
deal of movement awkward for a lady to do, so I was put into it."

"What year was it, Daddy?"

"God bless me, I must think.... It must have been about a year after Her
Majesty took the throne."

For forty years and nine months old Mr. Howe had acted at the Haymarket
Theater! When he was first there, the theater was lighted with oil
lamps, and when a lamp smoked or went out, one of the servants of the
theater came on and lighted it up again during the action of the play.

It was the acting of Edmund Kean in "Richard III." which first filled
Daddy Howe with the desire to go on the stage. He saw the great actor
again when he was living in retirement at Richmond--in those last sad
days when the Baroness Burdett-Coutts (then the rich young heiress, Miss
Angela Burdett-Coutts), driving up the hill, saw him sitting huddled up
on one of the public seats and asked if she could do anything for him.

"Nothing, I think," he answered sadly. "Ah yes, there is one thing. You
were kind enough the other day to send me some very excellent brandy.
_Send me some more._"[1]

[Footnote 1: This was a favorite story of Henry Irving's, and for that
reason alone I think it worth telling, although Sir Squire Bancroft
assures me that stubborn dates make it impossible that the tale should
be true.]

Of Henry Irving as an actor Mr. Howe once said to me that at first he
was prejudiced against him because he was so different from the other
great actors that he had known.

"'This isn't a bit like Iago,' I said to myself when I first saw him