Terryfied into treading the stage even if I should write a sermon."

Benjamin Terry, the father of the clever family who form the subject of these pages, became in his time very popular in Edinburgh, and it was there that he attracted the attention of Charles Kean, and obtained his offer for the actor's Mecca—London. But his experience had no doubt been earned in some of the old "circuits" that were the theatrical schools of his early days, and turned out many a true artist. The actors and actresses who thus served their apprenticeship to the stage assuredly had rough times of it, but they had for the most part joined the profession for the love of it—they adored Shakespeare and the authors of the "legitimate drama,"—and, in spite of tedious journeys from town to town, poor business, and bad theatrical accommodation at the end of them, looked forward to and enjoyed the evening's performance. Enthusiasm and hard work led to their reward, and many a poor strolling-player became a shining light on the London stage.

When Ben Terry went on circuit, travelling actors were in better plight than they were in the days of poor Roger Kemble and his devoted wife, who travelled from town to town, and village to village, after the manner and under the difficulties and disadvantages of the time,—at some places being received with gracious favour, and at others treated like lepers and threatened with the stocks and whipping at the cart's tail, according as the great people were liberal minded or puritanical. But this struggling, persecuted Roger Kemble lived to see his daughter, Mrs. Siddons, and his son, John Philip, the stage idols of their day; and if sometimes his perturbed spirit could revisit Hereford (one of the cities of his early sorrows) he would realise the happy fact that the portraits of his never-to-be-forgotten family hold the places of honour on the Deanery walls.

Since to the often ridiculed circuits of a bygone day we can trace such actors as the Kembles, the Robertsons, and the Terrys, surely we should hold them in honoured memory?

Dickens turned them to comic account when he conceived the impossible but immortal Crummles family; but he put the true ring into the warm-hearted old manager's heart and voice when on bidding farewell to Nicholas, he said, "We were a very happy little company. You and I never had a word. I shall be very glad to-morrow morning to think that I saw you again, but now I almost wish you hadn't come."

It is pleasant to think that in their own way the circuit players all formed happy little companies. To enjoy the work of our choice is, in spite of any drawbacks, one of the greatest sources of happiness.

My esteemed friend, John Coleman, whose memory carries him back to the days of long ago, has told me that he met Mr. and Mrs. Ben Terry on the Worcester Circuit. He remembers the former as a handsome, fine-looking brown-haired man, and the wife as a tall, graceful creature, with an abundance of fair hair, and with big blue eyes set in a charming face. Years and years passed before he met his old-time friend again; but at the memorable banquet given to Henry Irving on the eve of his departure for his first tour in America, a grey-haired, dignified old gentleman, who sat next to him, told him that he was the "Ben Terry" of the dead and gone Worcester Circuit, and introduced him to his grandson, Gordon Craig.

On that evening the old actor had good reason to be proud, for he could boast of being the father of one of the most gifted and cultured of histrionic families. "Think of it," writes Mr. Clement Scott, "Kate, with her lovely figure and comely features; Ellen, with her quite indescribable charm; Marion, with a something in her deeper, more tender, and more feminine than either of them; Florence, who became lovelier as a woman than as a girl; and the brothers Fred and Charles, both splendid specimens of the athletic Englishman."

It was while the parent Terrys were fulfilling an engagement at Coventry—the interesting City of the Three Tall Spires—that their daughter Ellen was born. This was in the February of 1848, and quite a little feud has taken place between some of the good people of Coventry as to the precise house in which the important event took place. That it was on the 27th day of the second month of the year, and that the street was Market Street, one and all seem agreed, but several inhabitants of that thoroughfare have laid claim to be the occupiers, if not the owners of the shrine. No. 5 and No. 26 are the chief claimants of the honour (and in all seriousness it is no small honour), but as an "old nurse," who should know something about such things, has declared for No. 5, it stands first favourite; and a fact in its favour is that in the days of 1848 it was a popular lodging-house for actors. One can sympathise with No. 26, but the general vote must be given to No. 5. After all, it does not much matter, for who knows what changes have taken place in the old street during the last fifty years? Perhaps (but for pious pilgrims this is a dreadful thought!) even the door numbers may have been changed! With a few exceptions the birthplaces of celebrities are apt to be disappointing. My enthusiasm for famous artists once took me to Brecon so that I might visit the "Shoulder of Mutton" Inn, in which Sarah Kemble was born, but, though it was properly inscribed, it was not the interesting old tavern of my imagination, and manifest modern "improvements" made me content with a brief gaze at its exterior. It was at the beautiful Trinity Church at Coventry, on the 26th November 1773, that Sarah Kemble was married to Henry Siddons, the handsome young actor from Birmingham; and this brings me back to "leafy Warwickshire" (Warwickshire-men never forget that it is Shakespeare's county), and the Coventry of Ellen Terry's birthday in 1848.

Now let me show how easily, by those who care about such things, theatrical history may be traced.

Ellen Terry, as will soon be seen, was destined to make her earliest (though childish) successes with Charles Kean. Charles Kean had acted with his renowned father, Edmund Kean. Edmund Kean had in his childhood figured as one of the imps who danced around the cauldron in John Philip Kemble's revival of "Macbeth." Roger Kemble, the father of John Philip and Sarah Siddons, was the son of a Kemble who had been engaged by and was associated with Betterton. After "the King had got his own again" Betterton was acknowledged to be the legitimate successor to Burbage. Burbage was the first of our great tragic actors, and was the original performer of the greater number of Shakespeare's heroes—of Coriolanus, Brutus, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Shylock, Macbeth, Prince Hal, Henry V., and Richard III. In "Hamlet" Shakespeare enacted the touching character of the Ghost to the Prince created by Burbage; and so, in a rough and somewhat "House that Jack Built" fashion, the connection of such famous histrionic families as the Terrys can be traced back to the Elizabethan days, to Shakespeare, and the actors of his period.

We may now follow the Ben Terrys and their pretty children to the London Princess's Theatre, where the experienced actor not only played many parts but became assistant stage-manager to Charles Kean. Considering the magnitude of the productions aimed at, this must have been a post of no small importance and responsibility. When the famous series of Shakespearean revivals demanded the appearance of clever children, what was more natural than a conference between Kean and his trusted lieutenant, and the recommendation by the fond father of the engagement of his gifted little daughters, Kate and Ellen? Their services were secured, and