Note 15 — Chapter V · 1874. ‘HAMLET’—‘OTHELLO’—‘MACBETH’—DEATH OF ‘THE COLONEL’—‘QUEEN MARY.’

At the close of the performance, Mr. Chippendale presented to him the sword used by Kean when playing Richard. Later a friend gave him “the George,” which the great actor also wore in the part. Lady Burdett-Coutts, always one of his great admirers, added Garrick’s ring, “in recognition of the gratification derived from his Shakespeare representations, uniting to many characteristics of his great predecessors in histrionic art (whom he is too young to remember) the charm of original thought.” I may add that I was the medium of conveying to Irving Macready’s dress as Virginius, at the request of Mrs. John Forster, to whose husband it had been given by the great tragedian, with the accompanying “tinfoil dagger” with which he used to immolate Virginia.