Page:Hamilton Men I Have Painted 255.jpg

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AT the time that Irving was giving sittings to Onslow Ford, for the Hamlet, I often met the great actor: and at one of these meetings it was suggested that I should make a drawing of him similar to a pastel I had made of Ford.

Irving asked me to come to the Lyceum Theatre and draw him in his dressing-room. For some reason the drawing proceeded badly, and I had to discard the first attempt and begin a second. When it was well advanced, Irving went behind me and, looking over my shoulder for a minute without saying a word, crossed to the door leading down to the stage and called, "Bram! Come here!" In a minute Bram Stoker appeared, and Irving, who was standing behind me, said to him, "Who does that look like?"

"Moses in the city," replied Bram.

Irving's impersonation of Shylock was admirable. I liked him better as Becket; and he could have played Macbeth if he had not misread the intention of the play. To him Macbeth was a poetic villain from birth; and he once, I believe, wrote a magazine article to show that he was right in that interpretation of the thane's character. Lewis Campbell, of St. Andrews, did not agree with him.

I can well remember going to the Lyceum to see his Macbeth. When he appeared on the stage, his expression,

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