and said that I never played the part
so well again; but the Lyceum production was a great success, and
Beatrice a great personal success for me. It is only in high comedy that
people seem to know what I am driving at!

The stage-management of the play was very good; the scenery nothing out
of the ordinary except for the Church Scene. There was no question that
it _was_ a church, hardly a question that old Mead was a Friar. Henry
had the art of making ceremonies seem very real.

This was the first time that we engaged a singer from outside. Mr. Jack
Robertson came into the cast to sing "Sigh no more, ladies," and made an
enormous success.

Johnston Forbes-Robertson made his first appearance at the Lyceum as
Claudio. I had not acted with him since "The Wandering Heir," and his
improvement as an actor in the ten years that had gone by since then was
marvelous. I had once said to him that he had far better stick to his
painting and become an artist instead of an actor. His Claudio made me
"take it back." It was beautiful. I have seen many young actors play the
part since then, but not one of them made it anywhere near as
convincing. Forbes-Robertson put a touch of Leontes into it, a part
which some years later he was to play magnificently, and through the
subtle indication of consuming and insanely suspicious jealousy made
Claudio's offensive conduct explicable at least. On the occasion of the
performance at Drury Lane which the theatrical profession organized in
1906 in honor of my Stage Jubilee, one of the items in the programme was
a scene from "Much Ado about Nothing." I then played Beatrice for the
last time and Forbes-Robertson played his old part of Claudio.

During the run Henry commissioned him to paint a picture of the Church
Scene, which was hung in the Beefsteak Room. The engravings printed from
it were at one time very popular. When Johnston was asked why he had
chosen that particular moment in the Church Scene, he answered modestly
that it was the only moment when he could put himself as Claudio at the
"side"! Some of the other portraits in the picture are Henry Irving,
Terriss, who played Don Pedro; Jessie Millward as Hero, Mr. Glenny as
Don John, Miss Amy Coleridge, Miss Harwood, Mr. Mead, and his daughter
"Charley" Mead, a pretty little thing who was one of the pages.

The Lyceum company was not a permanent one. People used to come, learn
something, go away, and come back at a larger salary! Miss Emer