“I recited that once to a friend of mine,” said Mr. Irving, after quiet had been restored, “and what do you think he said? Why, he seriously exclaimed: ‘There is one point in that story that I’d like to know about. _What became of the boy?_’” This anecdote produced a chorus of laughter. After shaking hands all round, Mr. Irving went downstairs and out, accompanied by the club’s officers. Before he left the room, “Three cheers for Mr. Irving” were called for and given by throats already hoarse with applauding him. A second American expedition followed in the September of the same year, during which a visit was paid to Canada. CHAPTER XII. 1884. ‘TWELFTH NIGHT’—‘THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD’—OXFORD HONOURS. On July 8, 1884, a few weeks after the return to London, ‘Twelfth Night’ was brought out at the Lyceum, and, for luxury of scenery, dresses, and mounting, fully equalled all its predecessors. Irving was, of course, the Malvolio, which he rendered not exactly after Charles Lamb’s interpretation, but, indeed, as anyone of Shakespearian intelligence would have done, never lapsing into farce, but treating the whole earnestly. It was a beautiful and graceful show, full of alternate sympathy and humour. Personally we look back to it as one of the most welcome and interesting of his revivals; all the incidents connected with Viola, so charmingly interpreted by Ellen Terry, have an irresistible and touching interest. The scenery was costly and exquisite, and reflected the tone of the piece. The audience, however, listened with a somewhat languid interest—some said because of the oppressive heat of a July night, which fretted and put them out of humour; but I believe because they were unfamiliar with the piece, and had not been “educated up to it.” When the manager came out at the close, with all the good-humour and freedom of a privileged favourite, he was confounded to find his expressions of self-congratulation and satisfaction greeted with uncouth denial and rude interruptions. He was not accustomed to such coarse reception, and with much spirit he administered this well-deserved chastisement: “I can’t understand how a company of earnest comedians and admirable actors, having these three cardinal virtues of actors—being sober, clean, and perfect—and having exercised their abilities on one of the most difficult plays, can have given any cause for dissatisfaction.” But there are curious idiosyncrasies in audiences, one of which is, as I have noted, that they must be in some way familiar with the piece and its incidents; and there must be broad, comprehensive types of character. Now Malvolio, one of the most delicately exquisite of conceptions, it could be seen, was almost unintelligible to “the general”: they took him for some “crank,” or half-cracked being, appearing in his nightcap, etc. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew and their rollickings were actually thought “low” or vulgar, on the same principle that Tony Lumpkin’s alehouse friend could