To me this was in one way the most interesting of all his readings to the company of a new play. Hitherto I had not read the play or even the _scenario_, and I am bound to say that as it went on my heart sank. The play was not a good one. It had too many characters and covered too wide a range. Indeed had it not been for Irving’s wonderful reading I should not have been able to follow the plot. When I saw the play on the first night, acted by a lot of people and lacking the concentration of the whole thing passing through one skilled mind, I found a real difficulty of comprehension. Strange to say this very difficulty in one way helped the play with the less cultured part of the audience. As they could not quite understand it all they took it for granted that there was some terribly subtle meaning in everything. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico._ The play was produced at Drury Lane Theatre on April 30, 1903—the last day, by the way, allowable for production in London by the contract—with great enthusiasm. There was an immense audience, and managerial hopes ran high. Irving was certainly superb. He did not merely look like Dante—he _was_ Dante; it was like a veritable re-incarnation. His features had a natural resemblance to the great poet! The high-bred “eagle” profile; the ascetic gauntness; the deep earnest resonant voice; the general bearing of lofty gloom of the exile—these things one and all completed a representation which can never be forgotten by any one who saw it. The play ran during the whole season at Drury Lane, eighty-two performances. On the provincial tour the following autumn it was given twenty-one times in only three towns. Then succeeded the American tour on which it was played thirty-four times—a total of one hundred and thirty-seven performances. When we opened in New York the civic elections, which that term were conducted with even more than usual vigour, were on. As the receipts were not up to our normal we thought that the political “colieshangie” was the sole cause; we found out the difference when the _répertoire_ bill was put up the third week. The experience was repeated in Philadelphia, Boston, Springfield, Hartford, New Haven, Brooklyn, and Washington. The last performance in America was given at the Federal capital to a great house—the largest the piece was played to in America. Perforce we had to accept the verdict: the public did not care for the play. Accordingly we stored it in Washington and for the rest of the tour gave the _répertoire_ plays. When the tour was over we paid the expenses of sending the scenery into Canada where we gave it away. This was cheaper than paying the duty into the United States, which we should have had to do had we left it behind us.