It was not all old comedy at the Haymarket.  “Much Ado About Nothing” was put on during my engagement, and I played Hero to Miss Louisa Angell’s Beatrice.  Miss Angell was a very modern Beatrice, but I, though I say it “as shouldn’t,” played Hero beautifully!  I remember wondering if I should ever play Beatrice.  I just wondered, that was all.  It was the same when Miss Angell played Letitia Hardy in “The Belle’s Stratagem,” and I was Lady Touchwood.  I just wondered!  I never felt jealous of other people having bigger parts; I never looked forward consciously to a day when I should have them myself.  There was no virtue in it.  It was just because I wasn’t ambitious.

Louise Keeley, a pretty little woman and clever, took my fancy more than any one else in the company.  She was always merry and kind, and I admired her dainty, vivacious acting.  In a burlesque called “Buckstone at Home” (in which I played Britannia and came up a trap in a huge pearl, which opened and disclosed me) Miss Keeley was delightful.  One evening the Prince and Princess of Wales (now our King and Queen) came to see “Buckstone at Home.”  I believe it was the very first time they had appeared at a theater since their marriage.  They sat far back in the royal box, the ladies and gentlemen of their suite occupying the front seats.  Miss Keeley, dressed as a youth, had a song in which she brought forward by the hand some well-known characters in fairy tales and nursery rhymes—­Cinderella, Little Boy Blue, Jack and Jill, and so on, and introduced them to the audience in a topical verse.  One verse ran: 

    “Here’s the Prince of Happyland,
    Once he dwelt at the Lyceum;
    Here’s another Prince at hand,
    But being invisible, you can’t see him!”

Probably the Prince of Wales must have wished the singer at—­well, not at the Haymarket Theater; but the next minute he must have been touched by the loyal greeting that he received.  When the audience grasped the situation, every one—­stalls, boxes, circle, pit, gallery—­stood up and cheered and cheered again.  Never was there a more extraordinary scene in a playhouse—­such excitement, such enthusiasm!  The action of the play came to a full stop, but not the cheers.  They grew louder and louder, until the Prince came forward and bowed his acknowledgments.  I doubt if any royal personage has ever been so popular in England as he was.  Of course he is popular as King too, but as Prince of Wales he came nearer the people.  They had more opportunities of seeing him, and they appreciated his untiring efforts to make up by his many public appearances for the seclusion in which the Queen lived.

1864