ak it is!
But I never mind; for what does it signify?
See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify:
All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness--
Have I not played with Phelps?
(_To Wenman_) I'll teach you all the business!

[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS CARDINAL WOLSEY IN "HENRY VIII."

FROM A DRAWING BY ERIC PAPE]

T. Mead (of whom much has already been written in these pages):

What's this about a voice? Surely you forget it, or
Wilfully conceal that _I_ have no competitor!
I do not know the play, or even what the title is,
But safe to make success a charnel house recital is!
So please to bear in mind, if I am not to fail in it
That Hamlet's father's ghost must rob the Lyons Mail in it!
No! that's not correct! But you may spare your charity--
A good sepulchral groan's the thing for popularity!

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY

FROM A PAINTING, NEVER BEFORE REPRODUCED, BY GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS]

H. Howe (the "agricultural" actor, as Henry called him):

Boys take my advice, the stage is not the question
But whether at three score you'll all have my digestion,
Why yearn for plays, to pose as Brutuses or Catos in,
When you may get a garden to grow the best potatoes in?
You see that at my age by Nature's shocks unharmed I am!
Tho' if I sneeze but thrice, good heavens, how alarmed I am!
But act your parts like men, and tho' you all great sinners are,
You're sure to act like men wherever Irving's dinners are!

J. H. Allen (our prompter):

Whatever be the play, _I_ must have a hand in it,
For won't I teach the supers how to stalk and stand in it?
Tho' that blessed Shakespeare never gives a ray to them,
I explain the text, and then it's clear as day to them!
Plain as A, B, C is a plot historical.
When _I_ overhaul allusions allegorical!
Shakespeare's not so bad; he'd have more pounds and pence in him,
If actors stood aside, and let me show the sense in him![3]

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY

WITH HER FOX-TERRIERS, DUMMY AND FUSSIE; FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN
1889]

Louis Austin's little "Lyceum Play" was presented to me with a silver
water-jug, a souvenir from the company, and ended up with the following
pretty lines spoken by Katie Brown, a clever little girl who played all
the small pages' parts at this time:

Although I'm but a little page,
Who waits for Portia's kind be