Henry Irving, a biographical sketch . Histerror was wholly inconsistent with Macbeths reputation forcourage. This was not Macbeth at all, but a sort of mediaevalMathias. On the other hand, there were not wanting championsto take up the cudgels for the actor, and maintain that his con-ception was in strict accordance with the whole spirit of the play,that Macbeth, though brave in the field, was the trembling preyof his imagination when he had entered on the terrible courseof murder, and that the collapse of his courage must have beencomplete when with words of withering scorn his wife snatchedt
Henry Irving, a biographical sketch . Histerror was wholly inconsistent with Macbeths reputation forcourage. This was not Macbeth at all, but a sort of mediaevalMathias. On the other hand, there were not wanting championsto take up the cudgels for the actor, and maintain that his con-ception was in strict accordance with the whole spirit of the play,that Macbeth, though brave in the field, was the trembling preyof his imagination when he had entered on the terrible courseof murder, and that the collapse of his courage must have beencomplete when with words of withering scorn his wife snatchedthe dagger from his palsied hands. A fiercer controversy never! raged. Mr. Irving had assailed tradition in its strongest fortress,and the sally of the besieged was made with great spirit and per-sistence. Still to the general public, Mr. Irvings Macbeth, ifnot as attractive as his Hamlet, was a most picturesque per-formance. There have been few more stirring spectacles on thestage than this Macbeths last fight, and Mr. Irving showed. IRVING AS LOUIS XI. 1876] HIS OTHELLO. 53 himself much more consistent than many would admit, for whenthe superstitious tyrant was convinced that fate was against him,his courage revived, and he died like a Titan. Macbeth was played for eighty nights. It was followed bya revival of Hamlet, which, in turn, on February 14th, 1876,was succeeded by Othello. Of Mr. Irvings Moor it may besaid, that if this was not at the time one of the most popular ofhis many impersonations, its reception by no means discouragedfurther efforts in the same character, for some years later, played Othello to Mr. Edwin Booths lago, and MissEllen Terrys Desdemona, with marked success, the entire per-formance of the tragedy constraining one of the least friendly ofMr. Irvings critics to suggest that never probably had Othellobeen represented with greater effect. The advance which had made in his art was most conspicuously shown by thedifference between the
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