Squire Bancroft

“ Nature was Robertson's goddess, and he looked upon the bright young manager as the high-priestess of the natural school of acting.
When the prolific fountain ceased, through the early and untimely death of Robertson, the choice of plays until the end of our career was left to me. I was honoured and helped by implicit confidence in my judgment; no word of rebuke passed her lips for a mistake, no word of praise was withheld when it was thought merited. No spark of professional jealousy was born to her; she always loved to act with the ablest and best equipped of her comrades. ”

“ Her eyes, which were not so much curious as unusual and always alive, were laughing, merry, twinkling eyes, the eyes of one who would never allow her outlook on the world to be other than genial and good; who could bear misfortune with as much courage as good fortune. He had noticed also what was almost the first thing that the spectator observed about Marie Bancroft's performance in almost every one of her parts, and that was the inscrutable fashion in which she at once established the best relations with her audience. ”

“ To represent in any way the vivacity, the buoyancy, the gaiety that belong to youth, its irrepressible humour, its unquenchable hope, is a task that the years make difficult enough for us all. To attempt it successfully is only for those who in themselves have never yet grown old. Lady Bancroft was a lover of young life. She was beloved by all young people who knew her. And one felt in talking to her that, as her voice had kept its magic, so her nature had preserved within a tired body something of its youth. ”

“ The farewell words of Jules Claretie, the accomplished director of the Théâtre français, spoken by his grave, were indeed a tribute: "Coquelin was more than a stage king, he was a king of the stage, and has left a luminous trail in the heaven of art."
I was one of the group of English actors who went to Paris with our sculptured offering to his genius which is enshrined in the historic foyer, where, at a luncheon, I had the temerity to make a short speech in indifferent French, urged to do so by Madame Bartet, a brilliant actress, who helped me to frame some of its sentences. ”

“ Five years after he had first adopted the stage he was an actor in earnest and became one of its greatest favourites.
His career was chiefly identified with the Lyceum and the Adelphi; but he first became prominent by his acting as Thornhill in Olivia, under Hare's management at the Court Theatre. His bright, breezy nature was a tonic, and, like his daughter and her husband, Seymour Hicks, he carried sunshine about with him and shed it on all he met. He was as brave as a lion and as graceful as a panther. ”

“ I have seen all the finest acting available to me in the last seventy years—since my boyhood—and still delight in the enjoyment of the stage. I can summon noble phantoms from the past, and dwell gladly upon the experiences of more recent days. After searching thought, the most critical remembrance, I can recall no acting more perfect, in my judgment, than my wife's performances in Sweethearts. The creatures of the different acts were, from the first line to the last, absolutely distinct, but equally complete; the one, a portrait of impetuous girlhood, the other of calm maturity. ”

“ Bancroft, if there is such a thing as a ghost, I saw one this afternoon, for as I was slithering down Hay Hill in a hansom, hanging on to the doors through the dangerous condition of the road, a man was walking on the pavement, so like the Prince of Wales, that I instinctively raised my hand to take off my hat, when I remembered that it could only be some amazing resemblance to the Prince, who never walks in the streets alone. ”

“ I thank them for the privilege with all my heart, and promise to bear in mind the wise counsel of Polonius, 'brevity is the soul of wit!' I can only speak from my point of view. There are debts which can never be paid in full; there is homage which never can be amply rendered; there is love no tongue can truly tell. All these are Shakespeare's. As every tribute must fall short of what is really due, I resolved to speak my own words—the best in my power to frame—rather than be but the echo of an abler brain. ”

“ Every movement was simple, direct and natural; every intonation and inflection true; every word that fell from her lips clean cut and distinct. No matter how rapidly a passage was delivered, she was heard even to the farthest seat of the largest theatre.
"Polly Eccles! Why, the very thought of the name makes my face pucker with smiles, and it must be bordering on fifty years ago when first she bewitched me in the part! Yes, 'bewitching Marie Wilton' was a phrase common amongst us in those days, and in truth the witchery was there in full measure, and to overflowing. ”

“ I reminded my listeners of the answer David Garrick gave to the bishop who asked him this question: "Can you tell me, sir, why it is that you players, who deal with romance, can yet profoundly move an audience, while we preachers, who deal with reality, fail to do so?" "Yes, my lord, I can. It is because we players act fiction as if it were the truth; while you preachers too often speak of truth as though it were but fiction." ”

“ The boy Pippo, by Miss Marie Wilton, while it is astonishingly impudent—must be or it could not be done at all—is so stupendously like a boy and unlike a woman that it is perfectly free from offence. I have never seen such a curious thing; the manner, the appearance, the levity, impulse and spirits of it are so exactly like a boy that you cannot see anything like her sex in association with it. I call her the cleverest girl I have ever seen on the stage in my time, and the most original.' That is, of course, a tribute to her cleverness, which made her the best of burlesque actresses. ”

“ We owe to Shakespeare the most alluring, the most entrancing creations in our mother-tongue. How much poorer should we be if we lacked the imperishable charm of those {209} Princesses of the drama—Juliet, Rosalind, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, Miranda, Portia, Imogen, Desdemona, and Cordelia. They are not withered by age, nor stricken by decay. The Angel of Death passes them by. They are celestial and immortal. What joy that mighty pen must have given for three hundred years to the gifted women who have portrayed those matchless heroines. ”

“ When I became acquainted with Frank Lockwood he was a young actor at a seaside theatre. He did not, in the judgment of his comrades, show much promise and wisely abandoned the stage as a career. I next met him as a rising barrister at the house of the Kendals, with whom he was on terms of close friendship, as he soon became with my wife and me.
Lockwood was a brilliant caricaturist. His company was always a delight. I remember an evening when he sat by me at dinner after he had fought many a hard battle, and I asked if he were offered a judgeship would he accept it. ”

“ Having pleasant memories of two distinguished American actors—one a comedian, the other a tragedian—I will follow the high opinion held by the great Englishman of Thalia's children, and write first of Joseph Jefferson, incomparably the finest actor who has come to us from America, and who in his day made a powerful impression and won enduring fame by his performance of Rip Van Winkle and his new rendering of Bob Acres in The Rivals, which he admitted was not free from liberties with Sheridan. I can think of no actor who has been more beloved by audiences in his native land. ”

“ The finest feather in Alexander's managerial cap—his panache—was the production of Pinero's great play, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. He alone had the courage—a quality most essential in theatrical enterprise—to risk what thirty years ago was a dangerous undertaking, the truth and humanity of the play, which has kept it vigorously alive, being at the time of its production lost sight of in the sensation caused by the selection of such a daring scheme and subject for the stage. ”

“ The company of the dainty little Prince of Wales's Theatre had carried their delicate art to that not too salubrious quarter of the town, and were delighting the East-enders in Robertson's Caste. Nowadays it is the critical habit to sniff at Robertson and his simple, humane comedies; but the work of a writer for the stage should be judged in relation to the period which produced it, and, so judged, Robertson was a man of vision and courage. There is no dramatist now writing, 'advanced' or otherwise, who is not in a measure indebted to Robertson. ”

“ His tragic end was connected with the revival of a comedy in which my wife appeared for her old friend John Hare, at the Garrick Theatre. Yates was seated in the centre of the stalls, and throughout my wife's performance had laughed and applauded heartily. At its close, when she was loudly called for by the audience, he gave her his last smile, turned to his neighbour and said: "The old brigade, the old brigade—it will take a deal to beat it!" He stooped for his hat, fell forward in a fit, and never recovered consciousness. "How oft when men are at the point of death have they been merry!" ”

“ We do not mistake the inimitable touch of a Millais or confuse it with that of a Sargent. We do not read a page of Henry James and imagine that it could have been written by George Meredith. In the same way an actor portraying a character puts into it so much of himself that we contrast his representation with that of another actor—quite as good, perhaps, but of a different quality. This element of personality is called 'style,' and it is by style that an artist lives and betrays his or her idiosyncrasy. ”

“ What a pity, for your own sake; for no actor can be remembered long who does not appear in the classical drama."
I fear egotism is getting the better of me. Irving once said:
"One point must strike all in connection with Bancroft's career—before he left the Haymarket, at the age of forty-four, he was the senior theatrical manager of London. In conjunction with that gifted lady who was the genius of English comedy, he popularised a system of management which has dominated our stage ever since, and the principle of which may be described as the harmony of realism and art." ”

“ It is my firm belief that the most ardent and persistent lover of the drama, after a long life of playgoing, and when the footlights illuminating his own private and personal drama are beginning to burn low, can, if he be honest with himself, count his red-letter nights in the theatre, at a liberal estimate, on the fingers of both hands. ”

“ In my early days in theatreland, with the audacity of youth, I acted many characters in Shakespeare's plays and then laid some budding leaves of a modest chaplet at the shrine of the master whose works have made the stage eternal. Now, in my old age, I rejoice in the remembrance that I have been what William Shakespeare was—an actor. ”

“ The extraordinary thing about Marie Bancroft, when she left burlesque for modern comedy, is that from the first she interpreted the character she was representing in the largest, most sympathetic manner, as having an inner nature or temperament of much more subtle value than came out in the actual presentation. Superficially, the characters of Polly Eccles and Naomi Tighe—both great favourites with Marie Bancroft—can be easily described. They are bright, garrulous, happy creatures, full of fun, quick in tongue, responsive to humour, and always amusing to watch. ”

“ I shall not do more than remind you of {239} those many gifts which Lady Bancroft possessed, which the years in their passing seemed to leave almost untouched, which she offered so freely for the public good. After all, the work and significance of any life depend not so much upon its natural endowment as upon the spirit in which that endowment is accepted and used. It is the spirit of the artist that matters, and it is of this in the lifetime of Lady Bancroft that you are thinking, I know, at this hour. ”

“ There is a sort of affinity between the bar and the stage: actors are attached to lawyers because lawyers are attached to actors; at least that has been my experience—my wife and I were rich in their friendship from very early days.
I have often thought there is a strong link between our callings. The feelings of the distinguished counsel when he goes into court, with all the anxious weight upon his mind, with all his grave responsibility, cannot be unlike the feelings of the great actor on a "first night," when his fame may be in peril. ”

“ The glorious Queen of the Swords, The Challenge, Hard Hit, The Young Duke, Napoleon in the Bellerophon, The First Cloud, with their exquisite colourings, the secret of which never seems to have been divulged; and still one other, so delicate in conception, so perfect in its pathos, Her Mother's Voice. ”

“ Wilson Barrett was a good actor of the robust type. He had an adventurous career: sometimes high on the wave of success, at others deep down in the trough of the sea of failure, but always strictly honourable. At the old Princess's Theatre, in Oxford Street, he made large sums by good dramas like The Silver King and The Lights of London, and lost them through the failures of ambitious efforts, which included a youthful Hamlet, to be wiped out in turn by the enormous success of The Sign of the Cross, a religious drama that appealed to a large public which rarely entered theatres. ”