180 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



disputatious rivals in the practice, of dramatic 

 writing. 



Acting had always, ever since Rachel and the 

 Marseillaise, a particular power on him. * If I 

 do not cry at the play,' he used to say, * I want 

 to have my money back.' Even from a poor 

 play with poor actors he could draw pleasure. 

 4 Giacometti's Elisabetta,' I find him writing, 

 * fetched the house vastly. Poor Queen Elizabeth ! 

 And yet it was a little good.' And again, after 

 a night of Salvini : ' I do not suppose any one 

 with feelings could sit out Othello, if lago and 

 Desdemona were acted.' Salvini was, in his view, 

 the greatest actor he had seen. We were all 

 indeed moved and bettered by the visit of that 

 wonderful man. ' I declare I feel as if I could 

 pray ! ' cried one of us, on the return from Hamlet. 

 ' That is prayer,' said Fleeming. W. B. Hole 

 and I, in a fine enthusiasm of gratitude, deter- 

 mined to draw up an address to Salvini, did so, 

 and carried it to Fleeming ; and I shall never 

 forget with what coldness he heard and deleted 

 the eloquence of our draft, nor with what spirit 

 (our vanities once properly mortified) he threw 

 himself into the business of collecting signatures. 

 It was his part, on the ground of his Italian, to 

 see and arrange with the actor ; it was mine to 

 write in the Academy a notice of the first perform- 

 ance of Macbeth. Fleeming opened the paper, 



