his immediate predecessors who were nearly his contemporaries was not less marked than that between those masterpieces of the Laura Matilda school, which delighted Mrs Wititterly, and the works of Miss Edgeworth, or that between the _Great Cyrus_ and the author of _Waverley_. The _dramatis personæ_ of Robertson were the men and women, the youths and maidens, the old bucks and young officers, the pretty servant girls, their ogling followers, the dapper apprentices, the seasoned topers whom the English public had long known from Leech's drawings in the 'London Charivari,' but who had not often been met with recently on the London stage. Now, for the first time within the experience of many, the theatre became the fashion; the stalls at the Prince of Wales's first, and at other houses soon afterwards, were peopled by occupants as modish as the Italian Opera when Piccolomini sang in _Traviata_. Even then, however, the first night of a new drama, though at the most popular playhouse fell very short of reproducing the personal distinctions of a première at the Comédie Francaise or the Palais Royal. That was to follow in due time. Early in the sixties an impressario, with judgment sharpened by American experience, became the lessee of the same theatre, the Lyceum, which twenty years earlier had been managed by Charles Mathews and Madame Vestris. The first great feature in Mr Bateman's management was the powerful and picturesque acting of his accomplished daughter in _Leah_ first and in some Shakespearian parts afterwards. About the same time an actor with whose name in coming years the Lyceum was to be more widely associated had given the public specimens of an art surprisingly vigorous and picturesque. Henry Irving first played before a London audience in 1859. In 1866 he had the good fortune to be cast with Miss Herbert (Mrs Crabbe) in one of those character parts in which he has had few equals, the worthless, persecuting husband in _Hunted Down_. This was in the theatre that witnessed the first triumphs of the great singer Braham, that more recently had been filled from pit to gallery by the laughter loving admirers of Mr and Mrs Frank Mathews,[46] or by the appreciative few who realized the charm of the more subtle impersonations of Alfred Wigan. The place, therefore, was of good omen for the rising star. The most accomplished dramatic critic whom in England the century has produced, George Henry Lewes, and the lady who bore his name, but is best known to the public as George Eliot, author of _Adam Bede_, both witnessed the début. 'Ten or fifteen years hence,' said the gentleman, 'that young man will be where Kean once was, at the head of the English stage.' 'In my opinion,' faintly murmured the lady, 'he is there already.'