“Eyes right!  Chest out!  Chin tucked in!” I can hear the dear old man shouting at us as if it were yesterday; and I have learned to see of what value all his drilling was, not only to deportment, but to clear utterance.  It would not be a bad thing if there were more “old fops” like Oscar Byrn in the theaters of to-day.  That old-fashioned art of “deportment” is sadly neglected.

The pantomime in which I was the fairy Goldenstar was very frequently preceded by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and the two parts on one night must have been fairly heavy work for a child, but I delighted in it.

In the same year (1858) I played Karl in “Faust and Marguerite,” a jolly little part with plenty of points in it, but not nearly as good a part as Puck.  Progress on the stage is often crab-like, and little parts, big parts, and no parts at all must be accepted as “all in the day’s work.”  In these days I was cast for many a “dumb” part.  I walked on in “The Merchant of Venice” carrying a basket of doves; in “Richard II.”  I climbed up a pole in the street scene; in “Henry VIII.”  I was “top angel” in the vision, and I remember that the heat of the gas at that dizzy height made me sick at the dress-rehearsal!  I was a little boy “cheering” in several other productions.  In “King Lear” my sister Kate played Cordelia.  She was only fourteen, and the youngest Cordelia on record.  Years after I played it at the Lyceum when I was over forty!

The production of “Henry VIII.” at the Princess’s was one of Charles Kean’s best efforts.  I always refrain from belittling the present at the expense of the past, but there were efforts here which I have never seen surpassed, and about this my memory is not at all dim.  At this time I seem to have been always at the side watching the acting.  Mrs. Kean’s Katherine of Aragon was splendid, and Charles Kean’s Wolsey, his best part after, perhaps, his Richard II.  Still, the lady who used to stand ready with a tear-bottle to catch his tears as he came off after his last scene rather overdid her admiration.  My mental criticism at the time was “What rubbish!” When I say in what parts Charles Kean was “best,” I don’t mean to be assertive.  How should a mere child be able to decide?  I “think back” and remember in what parts I liked him best, but I may be quite wide of the mark.

In those days audiences liked plenty for their money, and a Shakespeare play was not nearly long enough to fill the bill.  English playgoers in the early ’fifties did not emulate the Japanese, who go to the theater early in the morning and stay there until late at night, still less the Chinese, whose plays begin one week and end the next, but they thought nothing of sitting in the theater from seven to twelve.  In one of the extra pieces which these hours necessitated, I played a “tiger,” one of those youthful grooms who are now almost a bygone fashion.  The pride that I had taken in my trembling star in the pantomime was almost equaled now by my pride in my top-boots!  They were too small and caused me insupportable suffering, but I was so afraid that they would be taken away if I complained, that every evening I used to put up valorously with the torture.  The piece was called “If the Cap Fits,” but my boots were the fit with which I was most concerned!