s
inexhaustibly good-natured and good-humoured, and gave us excellent
suppers after the performance.

Then there was Edward Hobhouse, with--more or less with--his
exceedingly pretty and clever wife, and her sister, the not at all
pretty but still more clever and very witty Miss Graves. Hobhouse was
a man abounding in talent of all sorts, extremely witty, brim full
of humour, a thorough good fellow and very popular. He and his wife,
though very good friends did not entirely pull together; and it used
to be told of him, that replying to a man, who asked him "How's your
wife?" he answered with much humorous semblance of indignation, "Well!
if you come to that, how's yours?" Hobhouse was far and away the
cleverest and best educated man of the little set (these dramatic
reminiscences refer to the early years of my Florence life), and in
truth was somewhat regrettably wasted in the midst of such a frivolous
and idle community. But I take it that he was much of an invalid.

Of course we got up _The Rivals_. I was at first Bob Acres, with an
Irishman of the name of Torrens for my Sir Lucius, which he acted,
when we could succeed in keeping him sober, to the life. My Bob Acres
was not much of a success. And I subsequently took Sir Anthony, which
remained my stock part for years, and which I was considered to do
well.

Sir Francis Vincent, a resident in Florence for many years, with whom
I was for several of them very intimate, played the ungrateful part
of Falkland. He was a heavy actor with fairly good elocution and
delivery, and not unfitted for a part which it might have been
difficult to fill without him. He was to a great degree a reading man,
and had a considerable knowledge of the byeways of Florentine history.

My mother "brought the house down" nightly as Mrs. Malaprop; and
a very exceptionally beautiful Madame de Parcieu (an Englishwoman
married to a Frenchman) was in appearance, _maniere d'etre_, and
deportment the veritable _beau ideal_ of Lydia Languish, and might
have made _a furore_ on any stage, if it had been possible to induce
her to raise her voice sufficiently. She was most good-naturedly
amenable. But when she was thus driven against her nature and habits
to speak out, all the excellence of her acting was gone. The meaning
of the words was taken out of them.

Sir Anthony Absolute became, as I said, my stock part. And the phrase
is justified by my having acted it many years afterwards in a totally
diff