Leaving Manchester, he passed to Edinburgh, Bury, Oxford, and even to Douglas, Isle of Man, where the assembly-room used to do duty as a “fit-up” theatre. For six months, from January to July, 1866, he was at Liverpool with Mr. Alexander Henderson. Thus had he seen many men and many theatres and many audiences, and must have learned many a rude lesson, besides learning his profession. At this moment, as he described it long after, he found himself one day standing on the steps of the theatre looking hopelessly down the street, and in a sort of despair, without an engagement, and no very likely prospect of engagement, not knowing, indeed, which way to turn, unless some “stroke of luck” came. But the “actor’s luck,” as he said, “is really _work_;” and the lucky actor is, above all, a worker. At this hopeless moment arrived unexpectedly a proposal from Dion Boucicault that he should join him at Manchester and take a leading character in his new piece. He accepted; but with some shrewdness stipulated that should he succeed to the author’s satisfaction, he was to obtain an engagement in London. This was acceded to, and with a light heart he set off. Mr. Boucicault, indeed, long after in America boasted that it was his good fortune to “discover Irving” in 1866, when he was playing in “the country.” The performance took place on July 30, 1866. “He was cast for a part in ‘Hunted Down,’ and played it so admirably that I invited my friend Mr. Charles Reade to go and see him. He confirmed my opinion so strongly, that when ‘Hunted Down’ was played in London a few months afterwards, I gave it conditionally on Mr. Irving’s engagement. That was his _début_ in London as a leading actor.” He added some judicious criticism, distinguishing Irving as “an eccentric serious actor” from Jefferson, who was “an eccentric comic actor.” “His mannerisms are so very marked that an audience requires a long familiarity with his style before it can appreciate many merits that are undeniable. It is unquestionable that he is the greatest actor as a tragedian that London has seen during the last fifty years.”[2]