_Cymbeline_ was the next of the Shakespearean revivals, and its production at the Lyceum, with Irving as Iachimo and Ellen Terry as Imogen, prompted eulogies of the performance and a burlesque of the plot. Mrs. Stirling (Lady Gregory), famous in her prime as Peg Woffington, incomparable in her old age as the Nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_, awakened gracious memories in _Punch_ when she died at the close of 1895. Sir Augustus Harris was little more than half her age when his crowded and in the main prosperous life ended some six months later. The memorial verses to "Druriolanus," the ingenious _agnomen_ of _Punch's_ coining, render full justice to one who began as an indifferent melodramatic actor and ended as a successful impresario, and throughout served "amusement's motley world" with unfailing energy and resourcefulness. But to call him the Showman and Solon of the stage was at once to exaggerate his defects and his merits. Mr. Henry Arthur Jones cannot be said to have been exactly a favourite with _Punch_ in these years. Indeed, the title under which _Punch_ habitually alluded to him--'Enery Author Jones--was the reverse of honorific. Yet in 1897 _The Liars_, with Charles Wyndham in the principal _rôle_, was cordially welcomed as "an exceptional play with the prospect of an exceptionally long run." Praise from such a source was praise indeed. The tragic death of William Terriss at the hand of a lunatic robbed melodrama of its brightest ornament, and _Punch's_ memorial verses, though melodramatic in their emotion, are a faithful reflection of popular sentiment. _Aladdin_ at Drury Lane impels _Punch_ to pay a well-deserved compliment to Mr. Oscar Barrett for maintaining the best traditions of pantomime. From first to last it was "very funny without being in the least vulgar," and _Punch's_ notice is embellished by an admirable portrait of Dan Leno as "The Second Mrs. Twankyray." In 1898 Rostand swam into our ken with _Cyrano de Bergerac_, but _Punch_ took decidedly a minority view in crediting Coquelin with a "nasal victory over difficulties of his own choice." The author "had much to be thankful for," and the play is pronounced overweighted with verbiage which was neither brilliant nor helpful. _Punch_ was much happier in his burlesques of Maeterlinck, "the Belgian Shakespeare," and the travesty of _Hamlet_, with "Ophelaine" and "Hamelette," and the dialogue, re-written in Ollendorffian sentences abounding in endless iteration, makes excellent reading, though perhaps eclipsed by the brilliant condensed American version of the same tragedy, in which prominence is assigned to the members of the Elsinore University Football Team. In 1899 the claims of the Celtic Drama begin to assert themselves, but _Punch's_ "recipe" for the construction of this new type, founded on Mr. Martyn's play, _The Heather Field_, shows little sympathy for the aims or methods of the new school:-- [Sidenote: _Rostand and Maeterlinck_]