“Mr. Francis Wilson, the comedian, is a nephew of Pere Hyacinthe, the ancient divine.  During his recent sojourn in Paris he was the pere’s guest, and finally became deeply interested in the great work of reform in which the famous preacher is engaged.  His intimate acquaintances say that Mr. Wilson is fully determined to retire from the stage at the expiration of five years and devote himself to theological pursuits.  He gave Pere Hyacinthe his promise to this effect, and his sincerity is undoubted.”

William Florence, the comedian, was an actor of whom, on and off the stage, Field never wearied.  Night after night would we go to see “Billy,” as he was familiarly and irreverently called, as Bardwell Slote in the “Mighty Dollar,” or as Captain Cuttle in “Dombey and Son.”  Although originally an Irish comedian of rollicking and contagious humor, Florence had played “Bardwell Slote” so constantly and for so many years that his voice and manner in every-day life had the ingratiating tone of that typical Washington lobbyist.  Before his death, while touring with Jefferson as Sir Lucius O’Trigger in “The Rivals,” he renewed his earlier triumphs in Irish character, but, even here the accents of the oily Bardwell gave an additional touch of blarney to his brogue.

One of the stories that Field delighted to tell of Florence dates back to 1884, when Monseigneur Capel was in the United States.  It related with the circumspection of verity how Florence and the Monseigneur had been friends for a number of years.  Meeting on the street in Chicago, the story ran, after a general conversation Florence asked Capel whether he ever spent an evening at the theatre, intending, in case of an affirmative reply, to invite him to one of his performances.  Capel shook his head.  “No,” said he, “it has been twenty-four years since I attended a theatre, and I cannot conscientiously bring myself to patronize a place where the devil is preached.”  Florence protested that the monseigneur placed a false estimate on the theatrical profession.

“Ah, no,” replied Capel, with a sad smile; “you people are sincere enough; you don’t know it, but you preach the devil all the same.”

“Well, your grace,” inquired Florence, with great urbanity, “which is worse, preaching the devil from the stage without knowing it, or preaching Christ crucified from the pulpit without believing it?”

“Both are reprehensible,” replied Monseigneur Capel; and, bowing stiffly, he went his way, while Florence shrugged his shoulders a la his own fascinating creation of Jules Obenreizer in “No Thoroughfare,” and walked off in the opposite direction, whistling to himself as he walked.