Shakespeare, who never went amiss, caused his Hermione to say—
"Our praises are our wages."
Happily Ellen Terry is still in the full ripeness of her great and constantly maturing gifts, and no thought of her retirement has yet troubled the lovers and students of the stage. If, in the course of years to come (and may they be far off), she deserts us for her dear country cottages, we might well, in grand chorus, repeat those lovely lines that occur in "Cymbeline"—and, in repeating them, recall the bitter and trembling anxieties that, in order to give us pleasure, she has undergone—
"Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages."