Burnand's Colonel, 1881, which was destined to exceed the longest of the Bancroft runs. Curious to relate, this piece was accepted and even put into rehearsal by the previous manager and then declined. The judgment, however, that so determined can scarcely be questioned, considering that The Colonel was but a new rendering of an old piece from a French original, The Serious Family, which had been a stock comedy at the Haymarket in Buckstone's days; and who could have had sufficient forethought to foresee that the transference of the satire from sham piety to sham æsthetics would have so seized upon the public taste? Beerbohm Tree made his début as Lambert Streyke in this play.

Although other pieces were produced by Mr. Bruce, with The Colonel all that is interesting in the history of the theatre terminates. A dispute between the lessees, Bancroft and James, and the tenant as to which of the three should be responsible for the alterations insisted upon by the Board of Works ended in closing the doors of the Prince of Wales's for ever as a theatre in 1882. And the old house, associated with so many delightful memories, became a Salvation Army barracks to what base uses may we not return! The last remains of the building have only just disappeared, and I understand that Mr. Frank Curzon intends to erect a new theatre upon the site.

CHAPTER IV

The Holborn Theatre (known also as the Mirror and the Duke's)—The Holborn Amphitheatre (alias the Connaught, the Alcazar, the Theatre Royal, Holborn)—The Queen's, Long Acre-The Globe-The Opera Comique-Toole's (The Charing Cross, The Folly).

THE utter stagnation the of century

HE utter stagnation into which theatrical speculation had fallen by the middle of the last

is testified by the circumstance that from 1841, when the Princess's was opened, until 1866 no new theatre was added to central London, and that several could not find tenants.

The first person who ventured upon what had long been regarded as the forlornest of hopes-an addition to the number of our dramatic temples-was Mr. Sefton Parry, who, in 1866, erected a theatre upon the site of an old coach-yard and stables, and called it after the thoroughfare in which it was situated, THE HOLBORN. It was opened in the October of that year with Flying Scud, a sporting drama, which, with a real horse and that fine actor George Belmore as the old jockey Nat Gosling, proved a hit. But it was a solitary one. When Mr. Parry retired from the management in 1868, it was undertaken by Miss Fanny Josephs; and in the following season she gave place to Mr. Barry Sullivan, an actor of the old school, who, with Mrs. Hermann Vezin as his leading lady, played a round of the oldfashioned legitimate drama, such as The Gamester; but

the abrupt closing of the theatre in the January of 1871 told its own story.

When, in 1875, Mr. Horace Wigan became lessee, the Holborn was renamed the Mirror. His brief tenancy was marked by one important production, All For Her, the first of the dramas founded upon the Sydney Carton episode (which Dickens had borrowed from Dumas). When John Clayton, who had hitherto been esteemed only an indifferently good actor, appeared in this play, a great future, as an exponent of the romantic drama, was predicted for him. It was the most picturesque and poetic performance that had been seen since Fechter's Ruy Blas. But All For Her, though moved from theatre to theatre, was never more than un succès d'estime, and curious to say, Clayton never made another hit in the romantic drama, unless it was as Osip in Les Danischeffs. Truly his ever-increasing obesity afterwards unfitted him for the heroic, yet it does not quite explain the why and the wherefore of the circumstance.

After Horace Wigan the house was again rechristened, this time the Duke's Theatre. Many were its managers and as many were their disappointments. Messrs. Holt and Wilmot broke the spell of ill luck with Paul Merritt's New Babylon in 1879. On June 4th in the following year the Duke's was burned to the ground. A portion of the First Avenue Hotel now covers the site.

An almost forgotten place of dramatic entertainment, which was first called the Amphitheatre, Holborn, and opened as a circus in 1868, and then converted into the Connaught Theatre, afterwards the Alcazar, and finally THE THEATRE ROYAL, Holborn, may be dismissed in a few sentences. It was John Hollingshead who

started it as a dramatic speculation in 1874, at cheap prices. Beginning with pantomime he leaped to Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy and other oldworld plays, which were interpreted by one or two serious actors, and the rest from the Gaiety. Perhaps he intended it for a huge joke and did not mind paying for the fun. George Rignold played a short season here in a version of Adam Bede and other pieces. But it was a hopeless affair from the first, and about 1888 was converted into a building called the Central Hall.

On October 24th, 1867, St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, having been reconstructed, was opened as THE QUEEN'S THEATRE. Although Alfred Wigan's name appeared at the head of the bill, it was an open secret that the lessee was Mr. Labouchere. During its brief existence the Queen's took a very important position among London houses. The first piece produced upon its boards was an adaptation of Charles Reade's White Lies. Mr. Liston, who afterwards took the Olympic, succeeded Wigan; then came Ernest Clifton, under whom most of the most notable successes of the house were achieved. It was here that Mrs. Rousby made her London début in 1869 as Fiordelisa in the Fool's Revenge; and drew very large audiences in 'Twixt Axe and Crown, and Joan of Arc. A beautiful face and the enthusiastic patronage of Tom Taylor, made for this actress one of those meretricious and transitory reputations which are common enough in stage annals; though she might have held the public longer had not her own follies robbed her of its respect.

The Queen's could always boast of one of the finest companies in London. J. L. Toole and Lionel Brough were the stock comedians; and it was here, after his engagement at the St. James's, that Henry Irving, in

such plays as Dearer Than Life, The Lancashire Lass, firmly established himself as an actor of exceptional powers. Miss Nelly Moore and Miss Henrietta Hodson, two ingénues that even the French stage might have been proud of, were chiefly identified with this theatre; John Ryder, Sam Emery, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, Hermann Vezin, Charles Wyndham were also at different times members of the company. Phelps played Bottom in a very fine revival of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1870, and also appeared in one or two new plays. Cymbeline was produced in the following year; there was also a revival of The Tempest, both for Henrietta Hodson. Some may remember the fiasco of The Last Days of Pompeii, which was so mercilessly burlesqued. And in 1872 George Rignold, a robust, picturesque actor of the Dillon school, who had he not gone away to Australia might have raised himself to a fine position on the London stage, made his mark in Watts Philips' Amos Clark, in which Miss Wallis first appeared. In the same year Colonel Richards's Cromwell, brought out as a counterblast to Charles I., offered Rignold another chance of distinguishing himself, as the Lord Protector. This was followed by Old London, a new version of Jack Sheppard, in which Miss Hodson played Jack. Here ended the Labouchere management, and for a time the tenants were various.

The Queen's scored but few successes, The Turn of the Tide, a version of the old Victorian drama The Black Doctor, produced early in its life, and Mrs. Rousby's engagements being the chief. Under Mrs. Seymour's direction, in 1873, Charles Reade's Wandering Heir was given, with Mrs. John Wood, and afterwards Ellen Terry, as the heroine. In 1875 Salvini, who came from Drury Lane, appeared here as Othello.