The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-30
From the London Times.

WD or was not great actor was
 w question hotly discussed in his lifetime, and one which his lamented death will doubtless revive. There is only one possible answer. A great actor he was, but his greatness sprang from a different source than that of any other actor that can be mentioned. The suc- cess of his famous predecessors lay in their powers to affect the emotions of their audience to the strength of their own emotions. They watched for oppor- tunities of emotion and tore the heart strings of their hearers, without much re- gard for the cohesion, or the general hu- manity of the characters they represented
 Sir Henry Irving was not an emotional actor, or one who touched the emotions
 His greatness lay in his brain, not in his feelings; his appeal was to the brain, and not to the feeling His first care was to read the part and the play to find out what the author intended, and to build up for himself conception (and 1t must be admitted that he preferred a totally new conception, wherever pos sble) of the character he was to repre- sent. He played not for moments, but LOT general eiltCt, He was WllllllS lo Do tedious through half play. rather than sacrifice the unity of his intellectual ap- prehension. The novelty of idea was an unfailing source of interest, and another was his magnetic personality. His tall figure, his beautiful, intense, ascetic face, there was spell over his audience-a spell not so much of sympathy as of interest But a strong personality necessarily implies limitations. Sir Henry Irving's mannerisms, his peculiar pronunciation, his halting gait, the intonations of his never powerful or melodious voice, the of ten exclusive slowness that grew upon him with the years, were welcome to some as the result and expression of his personality; others they inspired with a feeling that might be described as a de- sire to laugh if they dared. His per | sanality, again, while in Charles l.. Hamlet, Richard IT., Matthias, Beckett and a number of other parts, gave him extraordinary and impressive power, made him i'll suited to play such char | acters as Romeo, Claude Melnotte, or even Benedick, the last of whom in his hands became so sardonic. and too lit- tie merry a person for the gay and witty
 bachelor. Wherever there was room for his brain to work he was at home; any thing approaching the commonplace, the full-blooded or the sentimental left his
 peculiar gifts unemployed.
 But there was always occupation for | those gifts in the play, if not in the part, and they were unsparngly exer- cised on every new production. His e~l1 for hC-
 fore first night at the Lyceum, it was impossible to get Sir Henry to answer the commonest question without a refer ence to his new play. His mind was ab-
 sorbed In 1t. its period, it's atmosphere, it's character, its clothes. The result aimed at. and almost invariably achieved, was just that unity of impression that was a new thing. He regarded the play as a single whole, as a whole, no doubt, of which he himself should be the central
 point; but still neither merely as a field for the exhibition of his own powers,
 nor as an excuse for beautiful scenery and dresses. Himself and his painters, designers and musicians were all to be subsidiary to the authors intentions, and a Lyaeum production could be counted on to reveal not only ingenuity of invention or artistic beauty, but propriety and pro- portion. It was to that end that he swept into his service the revival of interest in art that was contemporary with the revival of interest in the stage. Like
 most exceptional men, he was partly product, and partly creator of the progress achieved in his day. He came into prominence at time when comedy was alreavv beginning to be regenerated. socially, mo ally and artistically by Mir
 and Mrs. Banc>oft at the Haymarket. Tragedy was wal 'pg for her champion, and found it in MT. IT sng It will be seen from the list of his productions that he did little for the original work of contemporary English playwrights His services to the stage came from another source, that of his own brain. By sne unsparing use of his intellect he sue ceeded in recalling to the theatre the intelligent public which had deserted 1t for ten years, in making playgoing fashionable among all classes, and in accustoming the l thousands of new and old playgoers wkom he attracted to look to the theatre for more than empty amusement. To scholars he appealed by his reverent and often acute treatme s.ss,-t, of ,shaSes-,