R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

158 Sir Arthur PineroGenial, warm-hearted, light-hearted Byron! We couldhave better spared a better dramatist.I have left myself little time or space to deal with theacting in the 'seventies. I can give it only the merestglance. In 1870 there was no actor of commandingposition and, except for Marie Wilton, who had marriedand become Mrs Bancroft, no actress. Phelps was sixtysixand past the height of his powers. Mathews, Buckstoneand Webster, too, were old men and in their decline.A school of natural acting—the teacup-and-saucer school—had been created by the Robertson comedies at thePrince of Wales's and its novelty was overshadowing therank and file elsewhere. That the influence of this schoolwas wholly for good can hardly be maintained, thoughthe artists who appeared originally in the Robertsonianplays did not make the mistake committed by most ofthose who followed them in the revivals of Robertson'spieces. The seasoned and experienced actors and actresseswho originally interpreted Robertson at the Prince ofWales's recognized that acting is an imitation of life, nota reproduction; and so at the beginning the teacups-andsaucerswere handled in such a way as to be entertainingto the occupants of the back row of the gallery. Butalready, in 1870, there were signs of an acquisition ofstrength behind the footlights. At the HaymarketTheatre, infusing new blood into an ageing troupe, therewas appearing a young actress who for many years wasto be the embodiment on the stage of fresh, glowingwomanhood—Madge Robertson, a sister of the dramatist,still with us as Dame Madge Kendal. And as the 'seventiesadvanced, a young man with ascetic features and abeautiful voice made his debut at the now vanishedPrincess's Theatre in Oxford Street, showing promise thathas been richly fulfilled—a young man of the name ofForbes-Robertson. That diverting low-comedian in petti-