But during the year 1892 the University of Dublin was the first to recognise officially the actor’s position, and at the celebration of its tercentenary conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Letters, in company with many distinguished men. Indeed, Irving’s sympathetic temperament has always been specially acceptable to this University, and the youths of Trinity College from the beginning were eager to exhibit their appreciation and admiration of his talent. They would attend him home from the theatre in uproarious procession, and sing songs in his praise in the galleries. So early as June, 1877, he had given a reading in the University in its great Examination Hall. The Provost, the Dean, and other “dons” all attended. He gave ‘Richard III.,’ a chapter of ‘David Copperfield,’ and ‘Eugene Aram.’ An illuminated address was presented to him, and to make the day truly festive and collegiate, the actor dined in the hall, the guest of the college, and went his way covered with honours. Later came the turn of Edinburgh, where he was much considered, and in 1881 delivered a lecture before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institute. He gave, also, an interesting lecture on acting at the Royal Institution in London. With pleasure, too, must he look back to his welcome at Harvard University, in the United States. The novelty of the scene, the warm welcome accorded to him in a strange land, must have made a most welcome form of honour. He delivered a lecture on the “Art of Acting”—his favourite topic—in the great Sande’s Theatre, into which over two thousand persons were crowded—the usual audience was sixteen hundred. An enormous crowd blocked the doors, so that the actor on his arrival could not gain admittance, and had to be taken in by a subterranean passage. The president was in a conspicuous place, and all the professors and dons attended. Another American University, that of Cambridge, also invited him to lecture (rather to give instruction) before them, and the newspapers of the country declared that the honours with which he was welcomed were really “unprecedented.” Again he discoursed on the “Art of Acting.” An even more flattering and unusual compliment was the invitation to the Military Academy at West-point, where, with his company, he performed ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in Elizabethan dresses, but without scenery—to the huge enjoyment of professors and students. Here is a round of University distinctions that has never fallen to the lot of any other actor. We may see in it an instinctive recognition of a cultured and artistic feeling that has influenced the community and done excellent educational service.