Then came, in John Hare’s company at the Court Theatre, where the other members included her husband and Charles Coghlan (besides Mr. Hare himself), two years remarkable chiefly for _Olivia_. The success of Mr. Hare’s venture was doubtful, when suddenly a happy idea came to him,--a play made from _The Vicar of Wakefield_. It was a time of enthusiasm for the eighteenth century. “We were all mad about blue china, Chippendale chairs, Sheraton sideboards, old spinets, and brass fire irons,” says one writer. “The age was exactly ripe for _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and John Hare, with his keen instinct, pictured in his mind’s eye an ideal Olivia in Ellen Terry.” W. G. Wills made the play, and made it well. Play, setting, and acting conspired to make _Olivia_ one of the best examples of the “play of a period.” As Olivia herself Ellen Terry was supremely successful and appealing. Among her non-Shakespearean characters it undoubtedly stands first, and for her sake _Olivia_ was introduced into the Lyceum repertoire, and acted by Irving and Terry for many years. It was her acting in this part, indeed, that immediately preceded and to a degree occasioned her becoming the chief support of Henry Irving, who just at this time (1878) became manager of the Lyceum Theatre. Irving’s ambition to gather the best possible company made the choice natural, inevitable indeed. She had just turned thirty, she was temperamentally fitted to complement his own peculiarly magnetic personality, she was thoroughly accomplished, and she was already universally popular. It is a question, as says Clement Scott, “how much of Henry Irving’s success was due at the outset to the extraordinary influence, charm, and fascination of Ellen Terry.” They were one in their enthusiasm for their art, and they were alike in their artistic prejudices. Like Irving, she was devoted to the poetic and romantic drama, as opposed to the realistic, psychological drama of modern life.[80]