Retiring for a few minutes, Irving, in evening dress, returned to the stage. A chair was placed in the centre of it. Now standing, now sitting, he recited Hood’s dramatic poem. The audience sat spell-bound. Even as Mathias, with the accessories of the mysterious court-scene, Mr. Irving had not held New York play-goers with a firmer grip. They followed the grim story almost in silence. The ancient mariner’s narrative did not more impress the wedding-guest. I have seen all kinds of audiences in both hemispheres, and under all sorts of circumstances, and never saw a theatre full of people more under the control of a story. At the end the applause was loud and continued for some minutes, the reciter having to bow his acknowledgments again and again. The next day a discriminating critic pointed out to one of Irving’s few opponents, that “the _pseudo_ critic who pronounced Irving’s ‘Bells’ a mere success of lime-lights, properties, scenery, and stage-management,” had been quite extinguished “by the recitation of Hood’s ‘Dream of Eugene Aram,’ delivered in evening dress, without any lime-lights, properties, scenery, or stage-management.”
“And,” added a journalistic writer in the “Herald” “aside from the artistic success Mr. Irving has made here the financial result should be considered very satisfactory. The total amount received from subscriptions and box-office sales for the four weeks’ engagement is $75,687. The receipts for the first week were $15,772; for the second week, $18,714; for the third week, $18,880, and for the week closing last evening, $22,321. It has been estimated that the public paid altogether, to speculators and to the box-office, upwards of $200,000. Judged, therefore, by the financial standard of the box-office, as well as by that of the highest criticism, New York’s answer to the London “Standard” was a full and complete endorsement of the English popularity of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry.”
But it remained for Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, to pronounce upon them. The campaign was only in its infancy, though the first stronghold had been won. An advance was made upon Philadelphia, on the day following the recitation of “Eugene Aram.” The reader who follows the fortunes of the campaigners in these pages will find the record justified by independent pens, and supported by the current chronicles of the entire Union.