FOOTNOTES
1 Since I wrote this, I have again visited my native town--this time to receive its civic congratulations on the occasion of my jubilee, and as recently as March of the present year I acted at the new Empire Theater.
2 Of course, all salaries are bigger now than they were then. The "stars" in old days earned large sums—[Edmund Kean] received two hundred and fifty pounds for four performances—but the ordinary members of a company were paid at a very moderate rate. I received fifteen shillings a week at the Princess's until I played [Puck], when my salary was doubled.—E.T.
4 A "join" in theatrical wig-makers' parlance is the point where the front-piece of the wig ends and the actor's forehead begins.]
5 This was a favorite story of Henry Irving's, and for that reason alone I think it worth telling, although Sir Squire Bancroft assures me that stubborn dates make it impossible that the tale should be true.
6 Mr. A.B. Walkley, the gifted dramatic critic of The Times.
7 From my Diary, June 1, 1887.—"Westland-Marston Benefit at the Lyceum. A triumphant success entirely due to the genius and admirable industry and devotion of H.I., for it is just the dullest play to read as ever was! He made it intensely interesting."
8 Alexander had just succeeded Terriss as our leading young man.
9 Wenman had a rolling bass voice of which he was very proud. He was a valuable actor, yet somehow never interesting. Young Norman Forbes-Robertson played Sir Andrew Ague Cheak with us on our second American tour.
10 Once when Allen was rehearsing the supers in the Church Scene in "Much Ado about Nothing," we overheard him show the sense in Shakespeare like this:
"This 'Ero let me tell you is a perfect lady, a nice, innercent young thing, and when the feller she's engaged to calls 'er an 'approved wanton,' you naturally claps yer 'ands to yer swords. A wanton is a kind of—well, you know she ain't what she ought to be!"
Allen would then proceed to read the part of Claudio:
"... not to knit my soul to an approved wanton."
Seven or eight times the supers clapped their "'ands to their swords" without giving Allen satisfaction.
"No, no, no, that's not a bit like it, not a bit! If any of your sisters was 'ere and you 'eard me call 'er a ——, would yer stand gapin' at me as if this was a bloomin' tea party!"
12 A quotation from "[The Bells]."
13 I am sorry to say that since I wrote this The Tribune, after a gallant fight for life, has gone to join the company of the courageous enterprises which have failed.
14 Mr. [Norman Forbes-Robertson].
15 Every lover of beauty and every lover of Henry Irving must have breathed a silent thanksgiving that day to the friends who had that inspiration and made the pall with their own hands.
16 "Wordsworth says he could write like Shakespeare if he had the mind. Obviously it is only the mind that is lacking."—Charles Lamb's Letters.