It was indeed a momentous evening in the history of our stage. Of it Dutton Cook said:-- "Mr. Irving's managerial career has commenced most auspiciously. The opening representation was, indeed, from first to last, triumphant. A distinguished audience filled to overflowing the re-decorated Lyceum Theatre, and the new _impresario_ was received with unbounded enthusiasm. These gratifying evidences of goodwill were scarcely required, however, to convince Mr. Irving that his enterprise carried with it very genial sympathy. His proved devotion to his art, his determination to uphold the national drama to its utmost, have secured for him the suffrages of all classes of society. And it is recognised that he has become a manager, not to enhance his position as an actor--for already he stands in the front rank of his profession--but the better to promote the interests of the whole stage, and to serve more fully, to gratify more absolutely, the public and his patrons. Let it be added, as a minor matter, that he has followed the good examples set by Mr. Hollingshead and Mr. Bancroft, and has been careful of the comfort of his audience, neither permitting them to be pinched for room, nor subjecting them to those petty imposts which, like so many turnpike dues, have so persistently impeded the visitor on his passage from the street to his seat within the theatre. "The tragedy of 'Hamlet' was well chosen for the first performance under the new management--as Hamlet Mr. Irving has obtained his greatest success. It has been said that no actor has ever been known to fail as Hamlet; it may be added that no actor has ever as Hamlet completely satisfied critical opinion. To many the play is a metaphysical study wholly unsuited for theatrical exhibition; 'an enigmatic work,' as Schlegel says, 'resembling those irrational equations in which a fraction of unknown magnitude always remains that will in no way admit of solution.' To many Hamlet is a mysterious and complex character, beyond the power of histrionic art adequately to interpret. Mr. Irving can, at any rate, point to the fact that, four years ago, for two hundred nights in succession, he played Hamlet to delighted crowds at the Lyceum. Weighed against popular success so consummate and prodigious, objections of any kind are as but feathers in the scale; and even those least disposed to accept this latest stage portraiture of Hamlet can afford to admit that the picture is in itself consistent and harmonious, the work of an ingenious and intellectual artist."