egan. It was all the work of a
few boys and girls who from the gallery of the Star Theater, New York,
had watched Irving's productions and learned to love him and me. Joe
Evans had done a lovely picture by way of frontispiece of a group of
eager heads hanging over the gallery's edge, his own and Taber's among
them. Eventually Taber came to England and acted with Henry Irving in
"Peter the Great" and other plays.

Like his friend Joe, he too was heroic. His health was bad and his life
none too happy--but he struggled on. His career was cut short by
consumption, and he died in the Adirondacks in 1904.

I cannot speak of all my friends in America, or anywhere, for the matter
of that, _individually_. My personal friends are so many, and they are
all wonderful--wonderfully staunch to me! I have "tried" them so, and
they have never given me up as a bad job.

My first friends of all in America were Mr. Bayard, afterwards the
American Ambassador in London, and his sister, Mrs. Benoni Lockwood, her
husband and their children. Now after all these years they are still my
friends, and I can hope for none better to the end.

William Winter, poet, critic and exquisite man, was one of the first to
write of Henry with whole-hearted appreciation. But all the criticism in
America, favorable and unfavorable, surprised us by the scholarly
knowledge it displayed. In Chicago the notices were worthy of the
_Temps_ or the _Journal des Debats_. There was no attempt to force the
personality of the writer into the foreground nor to write a style that
should attract attention to the critic and leave the thing criticized to
take care of itself. William Winter, and, of late years, Allan Dale,
have had their personalities associated with their criticisms, but they
are exceptions. Curiously enough the art of acting appears to bore most
dramatic critics, the very people who might be expected to be interested
in it. The American critics, however, at the time of our early visits,
were keenly interested, and showed it by their observation of many
points which our English critics had passed over. For instance, writing
of "Much Ado about Nothing," one of the Americans said of Henry in the
Church Scene that "something of him as a subtle interpreter of doubtful
situations was exquisitely shown in the early part of this fine scene by
his suspicion of Don John--felt by him alone, and expressed only by a
quick covert look, but a look so full of intelligence a