weakness--if it was a weakness. He lived entirely for his age, and so
was more prominent in it than Charles Reade, for instance, whose name,
no doubt, will live longer.

He put himself at the mercy of Whistler, once, in some Velasquez
controversy of which I forget the details, but they are all set out, for
those who like mordant ridicule, in "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies."

When Tom Taylor criticised acting he wrote as an expert, and he often
said illuminating things to me about actors and actresses which I could
apply over again to some of the players with whom I have been associated
since. "She is a curious example," he said once of an actress of great
conscientiousness, "of how far seriousness, sincerity, and weight will
supply the place of almost all the other qualities of an actress." When
a famous classic actress reappeared as Rosalind, he described her
performance as "all minute-guns and _minauderies_, ... a foot between
every word, and the intensity of the emphasis entirely destroying all
the spontaneity and flow of spirits which alone excuse and explain; ...
as unlike Shakespeare's Rosalind, I will stake my head, as human
personation could be!"

There was some talk at that time (the early 'seventies) of my playing
Rosalind at Manchester for Mr. Charles Calvert, and Tom Taylor urged me
to do it. "Then," he said charmingly, "I can sing my stage Nunc
Dimittis." The whole plan fell through, including a project for me to
star as Juliet to the Romeo of a lady!

I have already said that the Taylors' home was one of the most softening
and culturing influences of my early life. Would that I could give an
impression of the dear host at the head of his dinner-table, dressed in