When I went with Coghlan to see Henry Irving's Philip I was no
stranger to his acting. I had been present with Tom Taylor, then
dramatic critic of the _Times_, at the famous first night at the
Lyceum, in 1874, when Henry put his fortune--counted, not in gold, but
in years of scorned delights and laborious days, years of constant
study and reflection, of Spartan self-denial and deep melancholy--when
he put it all to the touch "to win or lose it all." This is no
exaggeration. Hamlet was by far the greatest part that he had ever
played or ever was to play. If he had failed--but why pursue it? He
could not fail.
Yet, the success on the first night at the Lyceum, in 1874, was not of
that electrical, almost hysterical splendour which has greeted the
momentous achievements of some actors. The first two acts were
received with indifference. The people could not see how packed they
were with superb acting--perhaps because the new Hamlet was so simple,
so quiet, so free from the exhibition of actors' artifices which used
to bring down the house in "Louis XI" and in "Richelieu," but which
were really the easy things in acting, and in "Richelieu" (in my
opinion) not especially well done. In "Hamlet" Henry Irving did not
go to the audience; he made them come to him. Slowly, but surely,
attention gave place to admiration, admiration to enthusiasm,
enthusiasm to triumphant acclaim.
I have seen many Hamlets,--Fechter, Charles Kean, Rossi, Friedrich
Haase, Forbes-Robertson, and my own son, Gordon Craig, among
them,--but they were not in the same hemisphere! I refuse to go and
see Hamlets now. I want to keep Henry Irving's fresh and clear in my
memory until I die.