Miss Marie Tempest is perhaps the actress of the present day who reminds me a little of what Mrs. Bancroft was at the Prince of Wales's, but neither nature nor art succeed in producing two actresses exactly alike. At her best Mrs. Bancroft was unapproachable. I think that the best thing I ever saw her do was the farewell to the boy in "Sweethearts." It was exquisite! In "Masks and Faces" Taylor and Reade had collaborated, and the exact share of each in the result was left to one's own discernment. I remember saying to Taylor one night at dinner when Reade was sitting opposite me, that I wished he (Taylor) would write me a part like that. "If only I could have an original part like Peg!" Charles Reade, after fixing me with his amused and _very_ glittering eye, said across the table: "I have something for your private ear, Madam, after this repast!" And he came up _with_ the ladies, sat by me, and, calling me "an artful toad"--a favorite expression of his for me!--told me that _he_, Charles Reade and no other, had written every line of Peg, and that I ought to have known it. I _didn't_ know, as a matter of fact, but perhaps it was stupid of me. There was more of Tom Taylor in Mabel Vane. I played five parts in all at the Prince of Wales's, and I think I may claim that the Bancrofts found me a _useful_ actress--ever the dull height of my ambition! They wanted Byron--the author of "Our Boys"--to write me a part in the new play, which they had ordered from him, but when "Wrinkles" turned up there was no part which they felt they could offer me, and I think Coghlan was also not included in the cast. At any rate, he was free to take me to see Henry Irving act. Coghlan was always raving about Irving at this time. He said that one evening spent in watching him act was the best education an actor could have. Seeing other people act, even if they are not Irvings, is always an education to us. I have never been to a theater yet without learning something. It must have been in the spring of 1876 that I received this note: "Will you come in our box on Tuesday for Queen Mary? Ever yours, "CHARLES T. COGHLAN. "P.S.--I am afraid that they will soon have to smooth their wrinkled front of the P. of W. Alas! HŽlas! Ah, me!" This postscript, I think, must have referred to the approaching withdrawal of "Wrinkles" from the Prince of Wales's, and the return of Coghlan and myself to the cast. Meanwhile, we went to see Irving's King Philip. Well, I can only say that he never did anything better to the day of his death. Never shall I forget his expression and manner when Miss Bateman, as Queen Mary (she was _very_ good, by the way), was pouring out her heart to him. The horrid, dead look, the cruel unresponsiveness, the indifference of the creature! While the poor woman protested and wept, he went on polishing up his ring! Then the tone in which he asked: "Is dinner ready?" It was the perfection of quiet malignity and cruelty.