On these first nights at the Lyceum the occupants of the stalls and boxes the gathering is representative of various strata of Society. High finance and high philanthropy are there in the person of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who was long and generally supposed to have financed the Lyceum. This has now been officially contradicted by the authorized biography. All I can say is, that the Baroness might have done worse with her money. Sir George Lewis, eyeglass duly adjusted, stands surveying the house and nodding to his many acquaintances. On hearing of the death of Sir George an old friend of his spoke of him as having gone to learn “the great Secret.” “They will find,” said a lady, “that it is no secret from Sir George.” The higher branch of the profession is represented by Sir Edward Clarke, always looking fierce, and always feeling much the reverse, his short, square figure and “Dundreary” whiskers savouring much of the “City” which he loves, and in which he began life. Frank Lockwood, towering, genial, and majestic, does not permit his natural humour to become abated even in this grave gathering. Mr. Watts-Dunton, brisk and beady-eyed, busies himself with his playbill, and makes no pretence of hearing the remarks which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald passes on to him. Clement Scott, self-conscious and upheld by a sense of the importance of the occasion—and of his own—divests himself of his fur coat, and settles himself in his stall, assuming an expression of the deepest melancholy. Edmund Yates—evidently bored by, and sceptical concerning, the pervading air of gravity—discusses mere _World_-ly matters with his accomplished critic, Dutton Cook. Oscar Wilde, seated beside his pretty wife, preserves the cynical smile which characterizes him. Joseph Hatton—one of Irving’s most devoted literary henchmen—beams, like another Mr. Fezziwig, “one vast, substantial smile.” Knight is accompanied by a lady of great personal attractions—of a classic beauty, one might have said. It is the accomplished pluralist’s daughter. Frank Marshall, of the leonine head, looks as though he were anticipating one of the great moments of his life. And so he is. His admiration of Irving is sincere and whole-hearted. In his view Irving can do no wrong. Charles Dunphy, of the _Morning Post_, seated next to Howe, of the abhorred _Morning Advertiser_, takes a mental note of the Society persons who are present, and inquires after the health, I hope, of Howe’s father. For Howe is the son of the veteran actor of that name, now a member of the Irving company, and the son is present to sit in judgment of his parent. It is—to quote a phrase of Labouchere’s, in his speech to the jury in a famous libel case—a reversal of the old Scriptural legend: “Instead of Abraham offering up Isaac, we are presented with the spectacle of Isaac offering up Abraham.”