look of the _handsomest_ portraits of the poet. With his bright hair
curling tightly all over his well-shaped head, his beautiful figure, and
charming presence, Conway created a sensation in the 'eighties almost
equal to that made by the more famous beauty, Lillie Langtry.

As an actor he belonged to the Terriss type, but he was not nearly as
good as Terriss. Of his extraordinary failure in the Lyceum "Faust" I
shall say something when I come to the Lyceum productions.

After "New Men and Old Acres," Mr. Hare tried a posthumous play by Lord
Lytton--"The House of Darnley." It was _not_ a good play, and I was
_not_ good in it, although the pleasant adulation of some of my friends
has made me out so. The play met with some success, and during its run
Mr. Hare commissioned Wills to write "Olivia."

I had known Wills before this through the Forbes-Robertsons. He was at
one time engaged to one of the girls, but it was a good thing it ended
in smoke. With all his charm, Wills was not cut out for a husband. He
was Irish all over--the strangest mixture of the aristocrat and the
sloven. He could eat a large raw onion every night like any peasant, yet
his ideas were magnificent and instinct with refinement.

A true Bohemian in money matters, he made a great deal out of his
plays--and never had a farthing to bless himself with!

In the theater he was charming--from an actor's point of view. He
interfered very little with the stage management, and did not care to
sit in the stalls and criticise. But he would come quietly to me and
tell me things which were most illuminating, and he paid me the
compliment of weeping at the wing while I rehearsed "Olivia."