_
_The Sm. Y.M._ (_in the ear of the Spotty-faced One_). I say, I got
a job o' my own to attend to--jest pass the word to the Old Man, when
he's done with this pitch, to turn up beyind the swing-boats there,
and come along yourself, if yer can. It's the old lay I'm on--the
prize-packets fake.
_The Sp.-F.M._ Right--we'll give yer a look in presently--it'll be a
little change for the Ole Man--trades's somethin' cruel _'ere_!
* * * * *
HIS MAD-JESTY AT THE LYCEUM.
Except when HENRY IRVING impersonated the hapless victim of false
imprisonment in the Bastille, whence he issued forth after twenty
years of durance, never has he been so curiously and wonderfully
made-up as now, when he represents _Lear_, monarch of all he surveys.
Bless thee, HENRY, how art thou transformed!
[Illustration: Rather mixed. Mr. Irving as "Ophe-Lear."]
Sure such a _King Lear_ was never seen on any stage, so perfect in
appearance, so entirely the ideal of SHAKSPEARE'S ancient King.
It must have been a vision of IRVING in this character that the
divinely-inspired poet and dramatist saw when he had a _Lear_ in his
eye. For a moment, too, he reminded me of BOOTH--the "General," not
the "particular" American tragedian,--and when he appeared in thunder,
lightning, hail, and rain, he suggested an embodiment of the "_Moses_"
of MICHAEL ANGELO.
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