upholstered houses in London. It was opened in November, 1899, with the evergreen David Garrick; the whole proceeds of the first night were given to the Aldershot Fund for the British Soldiers' Wives and Families; a guinea each was paid for seats in the first three rows of the gallery, and the whole amounted to over £4,000.

A revival of The Liars, Dandy Dick, and then Cyrano de Bergerac, which, though beautifully staged (1900), was not a success; as I said before, Sir Charles is not at his best in doublet and hose. Mrs. Dane's Defence in the same year, however, made ample amends. Perhaps it is the finest play that Mr. Jones has written, certainly he has done nothing else so subtle and powerful as the scene in which Sir Daniel Carteret draws from the unhappy Mrs. Dane the proofs of her guilt; the perfectly natural manner in which the conviction is evolved is beyond all praise. And the interpreters were worthy of the author; Miss Lena Ashwell established her right to be classed among the greatest emotional actresses of the day, and has since fully maintained it by her wonderful performance in Resurrection; while Sir Charles has never surpassed the perfect art, the touches of tenderness, with a soupçon of cynicism, that distinguished his impersonation of Justice Carteret. In my whole theatrical experience I cannot remember a scene that held an audience in more breathless suspense than the one referred to, or that evoked a more excited burst of applause, renewed again and again as the curtain fell upon it.

The Mummy and the Humming Bird, The End of a Story, two or three revivals, the transference hereto of The Marriage of Kitty from the Duke of York's, a brief revival of Rosemary, and Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace, by a new author, who has suddenly leaped into public

favour, Glittering Gloria, of which the bulldog, excellently supported by that clever comedian James Welch and others, was the leading attraction, brings us up to the latest success, Little Mary. For perhaps the first time an audience did not resent, but actually enjoyed being "sold." The secret of the enormous success of this very peculiar comedy is that it has given London a new catchword; but for that, and Mr. Barrie's extraordinary good luck, it would most probably have been a fiasco.

THE NEW THEATRE, 1903, another outcome of Sir Charles's indefatigable energy, and another very beautiful addition to the metropolitan playhouses, was opened on March 12th in the present year, 1903, with a revival of Rosemary. And again the lessee most generously devoted all the takings of the first night to a charitable purpose, connected with our soldiers and sailors. After a brief run of Rosemary, Forbes Robertson came hither from the Lyric with The Light that Failed, and was followed by Mrs. Patrick Campbell with a translation from Sudermann, The Joy of Living, a gloomy and repulsive play, and revival of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace, brought from Wyndham's, is still running.

CHAPTER VI

A BUNCH OF THEATRES

The Savoy-The Comedy-The Avenue-The Novelty-The Prince of Wales's Terry's-The Shaftesbury-The Lyric.

TH

'HE SAVOY, 1881-1903, built by D'Oyly Carte, was opened in October, 1881, with Patience, which had already enjoyed a good run at the Opera Comique. The Savoy, with its delicate decorations and quilted silk curtain and electric lighting, was one of the prettiest houses in London twenty years ago, when the old theatres had not yet emerged from ugliness, meanness, or tawdriness.

The Gilbert-Sullivan combination was in the height of its popularity, and the glories of the Savoy began, and, up to the present time, has ended, with a partnership that gave delight to a whole generation of playgoers. It was an irony singularly in keeping with that spirit of incongruity and topsy-turveydom which distinguishes Mr. Gilbert's humour, that while its most caustic sallies were levelled against puritan respectability, it was especially from that division of the public that the Savoy audiences were drawn, for the Savoy essentially had an audience of its own, many of whom scarcely attended any other theatre. So Mrs. Grundy sat and saw herself held up to ridicule, and laughed at her own absurd reflection, without any more sense of being in front of a looking-glass than had the original of Foote's

Cadwallader or Molière's George Dandin when subjected to a similar ordeal. Mr. Gilbert had the supreme good fortune of being associated with a musician who was in perfect harmony with his ideas; indeed, the words and the music of the lyrics are so indissolubly mingled that the one loses its significance without the other. Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote to please his public; he was melodious, catchy, and never composed anything that Miss Jones could not strum upon her piano or warble in her drawing-room, or that Mr. Jones could not "get through." In each succeeding opera there were so many comic, so many sentimental songs, a madrigal, the regulation number of duets, trios, sestettes, and concerted pieces, with very much the same phrasing in all. And here was the great secret of the success; people flocked night after night to the Opera Comique and afterwards to the Savoy to catch the airs and imitate the vocalists at home. Yet they were delightful entertainments, when the wit and the music were interpreted by George Grossmith, Richard Temple, Rutland Barrington, Jessie Bond, Miss Brandram, Miss Everard, and others whose names will occur to the reader; and then the mise en scène was so beautiful, the stage management so perfect, the whole thing so unique.

What a first night The Mikado was! I shall never forget the frantic delight of the audience over "Three Little Maids." It was the thing of the night. I do not think The Yeoman of the Guard has ever received its due. The Jester's song was an inspiration; Sir Arthur never did anything else in that particular strain half so good. In Iolanthe and The Princess Ida there was a poetic fantasy that recalled the librettist's fairy comedies. Recent revivals convey little conception of the fascination these operas exercised over the audiences

of the seventies and eighties, for the subtle charm, the aroma, so difficult to define, had gone from them.

Even before the rupture between the associates, the inevitable decay that comes at last to all things, whether material or intellectual, marked with inferiority the later productions of those facile pens, such as The Grand Duke, 1896, and after they were divorced the glory departed. Yet Haddon Hall, of which Sir Arthur composed the music and Mr. Sydney Grundy the libretto, was not without charm, but it had a short run. Clever composers and stage craftsmen have written for the Savoy-Pinero, Comyns Carr, and Sullivan, 1898, Ivan Caryll, 1899, in The Lucky Star-but I think the vein was exhausted; even Sir Arthur's last score, which he left unfinished, The Emerald Isle, was not exhilarating. And then the old company, that had been educated and steeped in the traditions of Gilbert and Sullivan opera, went one by one, and their successors, clever artistes though they are, lack the mellowness, the peculiar fitness of their predecessors. The Princess of Kensington was the last production at the Savoy. The house has been closed some time.

THE COMEDY, 1881-1903, started on its career on October 15th, 1881, under the management of Alexander Henderson, with Audran's La Mascotte, which had already been tried at Brighton; its brightness, tunefulness, humour, the drollery of Lionel Brough, and the piquante acting and beautiful singing of Miss Violet Cameron, in Bettina, caught the town at once and filled the new theatre for hundreds of nights. Planquette's Rip Van Winkle, in which Fred Leslie gave a performance of the ne'er-do-well Rip that was only surpassed by Jefferson's, was scarcely less popular. Falka, with Violet Cameron, Miss Wadman, Ashley, Harry Paulton, Penley, was another well-deserved success.