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134                           A FEW  MEMORIES
curbed, Irving seems to me to show mannerism, to be lacking in power, and strained; and it is not in him alone I find this fault, but in all foreign actors. There seems to be a limit of passion within which they remain true in their rendering of Nature, but beyond that limit they become transformed, and take on a conventionality in their intonation, exaggeration in their gesture, and mannerism in their bearing." This certainly could not be said with truth of Irving's Louis, Booth's Richard, Cushman's Meg, or Barrett's Cassius. The performance of " Charles I." was, I thought, admirable. Mr. Irving looked as though he had stepped from Van Dyck's canvas. There was something weird in seeing that well-known and beautiful figure out of its frame, moving about the stage. Miss Terry's Henrietta Maria was as charming as her Portia was dazzling, both in look and manner. "The Silver King" at the Princess, with Mr. Wilson Barrett's fine performance, was so poetically treated that it did not seem like a melodrama. Everywhere we noticed the great care bestowed upon the productions. I felt that I should never be able to mount my play (I feared the theatre would be closed after the first night) in the same finished style.