The chief grace in the new representation consisted in the delivery of the speeches to Ophelia in the third act. In this the mocking tone did not for a moment hide the profound emotion under which Hamlet laboured, and the hands which repulsed her petitioning hands trembled with passionate longing. That this view of Hamlet is correct will scarcely be disputed. That he loved Ophelia he declared over her grave; that he felt it his duty, under the influence of a task such as that enjoined him, to erase from the table of his memory all 'trivial fond records,' he also states. The indications of the pain it costs a nature such as this, quick in resolution and shrinking and incapable in action, to inflict on the woman he loves the grief it is yet necessary she should sustain, are well conceived. That they were effective in action was ascribable to a great extent to the admirable acting of Miss Terry. Picturesque, tender, and womanly throughout, Miss Terry on one or two occasions gave an inspired rendering of Ophelia. The support she afforded Mr. Irving was of the utmost importance, and the scene before the play has probably never been so well rendered."

I think it well to quote these undoubted authorities, lest readers might think that in my palpable admiration for these artists my personal judgment would be biassed.

ELLEN TERRY AS "OPHELIA."

From a portrait by Charles Campbell in the possession of Sir Henry Irving, and kindly lent by him for reproduction in these pages. Charles Campbell was a fellow-worker with Sir Edward Burne Jones. His premature death cut short a most promising career.

[To face page 224.

[[See larger version]]

I cannot end my little record of the auspicious evening of December 30, 1878, without noting that then Bram Stoker assumed his position as chief in the front of the house. How much he has done to make the Lyceum Theatre popular its frequenters fully recognise. Always genial and courteous, he plays the important part of host right well, cheerily attending to the comforts of one and all. Probably he would prefer to devote the whole of his time to writing his tenderly conceived and well loved romances (do we not owe to him "Under the Sunset," "The Snake's Pass," "The Shoulder of Shasta," and many other graceful fancies?); but happily for us, though we want more of his charming books, he remains true to his post, and has made himself as well liked in the provinces as he is in London.

Speaking of Ellen Terry's triumph as Ophelia, Percy Fitzgerald tells us that "on this momentous night of trial she thought she had completely failed, and, without waiting for the fifth act, she flung herself into the arms of a friend, repeating, 'I have failed, I have failed!' She drove up and down the Thames Embankment half-a-dozen times before she found courage to go home."

The newspapers of the next morning must have given her assurance that for her was no such word as fail!