particular, at Snead, in Staffordshire—and, I believe, was fairly well off; for the design, which is that of a hunt, was made to commemorate his becoming the master of the local hounds. If you say that his name is not given in any of the handbooks, I am sure you are right; but all I know is, the firm, whatever it was called, came to grief owing to the war—and I can't tell you what war; but it was not the China war." Here the student of heredity will discern the rude germ of the artistic temperament which has so developed in the third generation. It was in the interests of the hereditary artistic strain that Mr. May was induced to tell the story. He is not so impressed as are many people with the necessity of having a grandfather, and knows no more about him than is related above. Mr. May's father was apprenticed as an engineer to George Stephenson, and worked in the drawing office of the great engineer at Newcastle, where he met his wife. She was a Miss Macarthy, and her father was Eugène Macarthy, who belonged to an old theatrical family connected with the management of the New Theatre, Wolverhampton. An old bill on satin struck to commemorate a "Bespeak" performance, "under the distinguished patronage of Lord Wrottesley," gives Eugène Macarthy as playing Lord Tinsel in The Hunchback, and Jenkins, in Gretna Green; or, The Biter Bit, on Friday, May 9th, 1845. In this bill Mr. James Bennett was the Master Walter; H. Lacy the Modus; Mrs. W. Rignold the Julia, and Miss Fanny Wallack, Helen.

Mr. May's father was unlucky in life. He started a brass-foundry, but, as your host puts it, his partner cleared off with all the brass; and a consulting-engineer business was not much more satisfactory. Mr. Phil May was born in 1864, shortly after the collapse of the brass-foundry, at Wortley, an outlying manufacturing district of Leeds. His father died when he was nine years old, and his schooldays, as he tells you, commenced early in the School Board era. At that time the new officials were very alert, so he had one year's scholastic education. He was a little delicate fellow, and was made a butt of by the other boys; and he was the victim of many practical jokes.

"My artistic career," Mr. May tells you, "may be said to have begun when I was about twelve, at which time the Grand Theatre, Leeds, opened. The local scene-painter was a man called Fox, a brother of Charles Fox, and I became acquainted with his son, who helped to mix the distemper. Young Fox and other boys called Ford, Sammy Stead, and I used to rehearse pantomimes. Our stage was a back street, and our scenery was designed with a stick in the gutter; but we omitted nothing. The star-traps were all marked out, and we made our descents by flinging ourselves on our faces in the muddy road. I was always a sprite, and carried 'The Book of Fate,' which had a prominent place in all our pantomimes."

Mr. May used to sketch sections of other people's designs of costumes for use in the ward-robe room, and eventually got to designing comic dresses and suggestions for masks and make-ups in the property-room. This brought him orders for actor's portraits, for which he received at first a shilling, and later five shillings. Remuneration bred independence, and he took to living with three or four other boys, their lodgings costing five shillings a week. After a year or two of this life, the late Fred Stimpson, who had a travelling burlesque company, engaged May to play small parts and do six sketches every week to serve as window-bills in the various small towns they visited. His remuneration was twelve shillings a week, and on this he lived for two or more years. After that, about 1873, he got an engagement to draw for a small local comic journal, called The Yorkshire Gossip, which died after four weeks. In 1882 Mr. May was engaged to design the dresses for the Leeds pantomime, and flushed with success, or sickened with the squalid hand-to-hand life he had led since he was a boy—he was then a full-grown man of seventeen—he made up his mind to burn his boats and come to London, and there he became a tragedian. His finances consisted of one sovereign. Fifteen shillings and five-pence halfpenny bought him a third-class ticket, and vanity and temptation cost him four shillings and sixpence at the Gaiety Bar. "But what," he adds, "did it all matter? I was in London—the lap of luxury. I remembered my aunt, Mrs. Hanner, who had married again, an actor called Fred Morton, and I looked them up at St. John Street Road, Islington." Mr. May does not think they were very glad to see him; but they took him in, gave him food and a night's lodging, and next day his new uncle, after showing him the sights of London, put him in the Leeds train. He got out, however, at the next station and walked back. Chance led him towards Clapham way. It was winter and he tried to get work, till he was too tired to walk and too cold and hungry to speak. He begged the broken dry biscuits at the public-houses; he quenched his thirst at the street fountains. The best bit of luck he had was when he induced a child on the Suspension Bridge to part with his bread and bacon in exchange for a walking-stick. He led a terrible life of privation, and by night slept in the Park, on the Embankment, or in a cart in the Market near the stage-door of the Princess's Theatre. He was too proud to go to his relations or to Mr. Wilson Barrett. The first bit of real luck he had was in meeting with the keeper of a photograph shop near Charing Cross. He took May's drawing of Irving, Toole and Bancroft, and published it. It was a partnership arrangement, and the publisher lost about £5 in the venture. But though he was nearly as hard up as Mr. May was, when he had any money, he used often to take him to a shop near the old Pavilion and give him a dinner of beef à la mode. "It was good!" Mr. May tells you. A Mr. Rising who played at the Comedy Theatre, introduced Mr. May to Lionel Brough, who purchased the original sketch of Irving, Bancroft and Toole for £2 2s., and introduced him to a little paper called Society, for which he did some drawings. But between these periods Mr. May suffered long spells of penury, when he would have been glad to have taken up his position with a handkerchief full of broken chalks and drawn on the pavement. At last a drawing of Mr. Bancroft in Society brought him an introduction to Mr. Edward Russell, who introduced him to the management of the St. Stephen's Review. It was not then an illustrated paper, but a Christmas Number was being issued. The illustrations were already arranged for, so there was nothing for him to do. The disappointment, or long privation—for he was only eighteen at the time—or both, brought on an illness, and he returned to Leeds. A telegram from Mr. Russell brought him to London. The illustrations for the Christmas Number would not do, and Mr. May was asked to do them all himself—cartoon, illustrations, cover, and initials—in a week! He hired a room in a small hotel near the Princess's, and worked day and night, finished the whole thing, and was paid. He remained in his humble lodgings till his money was gone, and he used, as he says, to "go out for breakfast and dinner," which meant walking about for appearances' sake. The proprietor of the hotel in question, who was also a waiter at a club, found him out, and when he came home at three or four in the morning used to dig him out to share his supper; and when, through sheer shame, May confessed he could not pay him, he insisted on his remaining in his house. Mr. Brough introduced Mr. May to Alias the costumier, who engaged him as designer of the Nell Gwynne dresses, and kept him on to design pictures for a book, The Juvenile Shakespeare, on which they were to collaborate; but it came to nothing. Then the St. Stephen's started illustrations, and he was employed by it till an agent came from Australia to discover an artist for the Sydney