A list is mostly only interesting to those who appear in it, and this is mere list-making; no more than an attempt to register for the present generation the names of those who delighted their grandfathers—and most of those who are in it have _dis_appeared. But even from a list it is impossible to omit the name of Lady Bancroft. To all who saw her she will always remain a charming memory of the days when all the youth of London was in love with Miss Marie Wilton—across the footlights. Her sparkling gaiety, her delicious little impertinencies, her irresistible spirits, her entirely fascinating personality, were so full of life that the doctors might have prescribed a stall at the Strand Theatre for their rundown patients, when she was playing Pippo in _The Maid and the Magpie_, or one of her other burlesque parts. Then came the days of the Prince of Wales’s Theatre and Tom Robertson’s famous plays, _Society_, _Caste_, _Ours_, _School_—and here again Miss Marie Wilton proved her great powers in a new line. Acting more subtle and more refined has perhaps never been seen. Her troupe, moreover, was famous for the all-round excellence with which the pieces were given; it used to be a reproach to the English stage that if there were a first-rate star in the company, the rest of the characters were more or less left to chance, and people used to compare the slovenliness of our theatres with the exquisitely finished detail of Paris. At the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, under the Bancroft management, the finish given to the smallest parts was as careful and fastidious as that which marked the play of the chief actors. The result was a harmonious whole, setting an example which has wrought the best influence on our stage. The old slip-shod performances which I can remember would now no longer be tolerated, and for their disappearance much gratitude is owing to the Bancrofts. _Caste_ was, perhaps, their masterpiece. Lady Bancroft’s Polly Eccles, with her husband as Captain Hawtree, and Sir John Hare as Eccles, made the piece a landmark in the history of the English drama. Of the gynæceum of the English stage I have no more to say. It would be pleasing for a veteran play-goer like myself to pay his tribute to the charm of such delightful actresses as Miss Irene Vanbrugh, Miss Marie Tempest, Miss Gladys Cooper and others. Their praises must be left to be sung by their own contemporaries, of whom I only wish that I were one. CHAPTER X RUSSIA One day in the month of November, 1863, I agreed to make an exchange for six months with Mr. Locock, the second secretary of Embassy at St. Petersburg—it would be an anachronism to speak of “Petrograd”—and by the end of the month I was off. * * * * *