lessee, retired, Mr. Webster took his place, and for sixteen years was lessee of that house. At the end of that time Mr. Buckstone took it, and Mr. Webster devoted himself exclusively to the Adelphi.
In 1858 he rebuilt that theatre, an old and inconvenient house, and raised in its stead one of the most complete and well-constructed houses in London. The Haymarket owes its position to his energy and liberality. He spent 2000l. a-year on English authors at a time when, as now, there was a cry that everything worth seeing was cribbed from the French. Knowles, Bulwer, and Jerrold supplied him with plays; and Macready, Phelps, Wallack, Warde, Farren, Reeve, Buckstone, Charles Mathews, Power, Helen Faucit, Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Warner, and Mrs. Stirling, illustrated them. Not least in this list of 'all the talents' was Benjamin Webster himself. It has been said of him, that 'his motley assumptions remind us of a crowd of Hogarth's. In looking back over all the years of his career, the mass is overpowering. Though each face is individual old age and youth, fops and vulgarians, Cockneys and countrymen, misers and gamblers, blacklegs and priests; Welshmen, Scotchmen, and Dutchmen; negroes, Jesuits, and Jews—their habiliments would form the wardrobe of a theatre.' Perhaps his greatest impersonation, out of all the characters he assumed, was that of Robert Landry, in the 'Dead Heart.' This was a wonderful delineation of character; and the scene in which Robert recovers his memory, after many years' incarceration in the Bastille, is as fine a piece of acting as ever was seen on the English stage. Old playgoers, too, will recall with delight his George Darville, his Richard Pride, and his Tartuffe. In all his characters, he entered heart and soul into the author's meaning, and the spectator was lost in the reality of the scene.
One other feature of Mr. Webster's career deserves notice; it is his connection with the Royal Dramatic College. This valuable institution he has from the first assisted with his purse and his labour, and has always done all he could to help it on to its present usefulness to decayed members of the profession.
Mr. Webster's very long connection with the stage has caused him to be looked upon as a sort of Nestor among actors; his friends, private and professional, looking up to him as 'the Governor.'
