1896 he revived ‘King Richard III.’ On his return to his rooms after the play he fell and injured his knee, and it was not till the end of Feb. 1897 that he was able to return to work and resume the interrupted run of that play. In April 1897 he played Napoleon in Comyns Carr's adaptation of Sardou and Moreau's ‘Madame Sans-Gêne.’ The year 1897 had not been a successful one; the year 1898 was disastrous. ‘Peter the Great,’ a tragedy by Irving's son Laurence, and ‘The Medicine Man,’ by H. D. Traill and Robert Hichens, both failed outright; and in February Irving's immense stock of scenery, comprising the scenes of all his productions except ‘The Bells’ and ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ was destroyed by fire. During his autumn tour he was taken with pleurisy and lay dangerously ill at Glasgow. The result of these heavy losses was the sale of his library by auction in Feb. 1899, and the transference, early in the same year, of his interest in the Lyceum Theatre to a company. Not till April was Irving well enough to reappear on the stage; he then produced Laurence Irving's translation of ‘Robespierre,’ a play written for him by Sardou. After a brief autumn tour he sailed for his sixth tour in America, which lasted from October 1899 to May 1900, the company visiting more than thirty towns, and playing five plays in addition to ‘Robespierre.’ In April 1901 he produced at the Lyceum ‘Coriolanus’—his last new Shakespearean production. In October began his seventh American tour, which lasted till March 1902. It was at the conclusion of this tour that Miss Ellen Terry left Irving's company, though she appeared once or twice at the Lyceum in the next London season, and took part in the autumn provincial tour of 1902. In April 1902 Irving revived ‘Faust’ at the Lyceum and closed the season on 19 July with a performance of ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ This was his last performance in that theatre. The company which had taken over the Lyceum Theatre had lost so much money over their ventures during his tours that they were unable to carry out certain structural alterations demanded by the London County Council. The contract was annulled; the Lyceum Theatre remained empty till it was converted into a music-hall, and Irving had to find a house elsewhere.
It was at Drury Lane that he produced on 30 April 1903 ‘Dante,’ written for him by Sardou, and translated by Laurence Irving. The expenses of production and running were enormous, and the play failed to attract either in England or in America, where Irving made his eighth and last tour from Oct. 1903 to March 1904. In April he began a provincial tour which ended in June, and in September another, which he intended to be his last. ‘Becket’ was the play chiefly performed. Broken by a brief holiday at Christmas, the tour went on till Feb. 1905, when ill-health compelled Irving to rest. In April he revived ‘Becket’ at Drury Lane, and played it, with other pieces, with success till June. This was his last London season, and the last performances of it were, as if prophetically, scenes of enthusiasm as wild as any that had attended him in his early popularity. On 2 Oct. he resumed at Sheffield his provincial tour. In the following week he was at Bradford. On the evening of 13 Oct. 1905 he played ‘Becket,’ and on returning to his hotel collapsed and died almost immediately. His age was sixty-seven years and eight months. His body was taken to the London house of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, where it was visited by crowds of mourners; and after cremation the ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey on 20 Oct. 1905.
Irving occasionally gave recitations and readings. His recitation of Lytton's poem, ‘The Dream of Eugene Aram,’ was his most famous tour-de-force. His earlier readings have been mentioned; of those given later and for public objects the most important were his reading of ‘Hamlet’ in the Birkbeck Institute in Feb. 1887, of scenes from ‘Becket’ in the chapterhouse at Canterbury in May 1897, and at Winchester during the celebration of the tercentenary of Alfred in Sept. 1901. Among the many addresses he delivered were the following: ‘Acting: an Art,’ before the Royal Institution in February 1895; ‘The Theatre in its Relation to the State,’ the Rede Lecture for 1898 to the University of Cambridge; and ‘English Actors,’ delivered before the University of Oxford in June 1886. The last was published in 1886, and, together with three other addresses, was reprinted, under the title of ‘Four Great Actors,’ in ‘The Drama, by Henry Irving’ (1893). ‘The Stage,’ an address delivered before the Perry Bar Institute in March 1878, was published in the same year. To the ‘Nineteenth Century’ he contributed short articles, under the collective heading of ‘An Actor's Notes,’ in April and May 1877, Feb. 1879, and June 1887, a note on ‘Actor Managers’ in June 1890, and ‘Some Misconceptions about the Stage’ in Oct. 1892.
