Talfourd went to the law before
he found an early grave. Hale went to India. The younger generation were
scarcely fit to write pantomimes, and it was not always Christmas.
Besides, Robson had become a manager, and thought, perhaps, that
weightier parts became him. In copartnership with Mr. Emden, he had
succeeded Alfred Wigan as lessee of the Olympic, and there I hope he has
realized a fortune. But whenever his brief vacations occurred, and
actor-like he proceeded to turn them into gold by devoting to
performances in country-theatres those days and nights which should
properly have been given to rest and peace, he proved faithful to his
old loves, and _Jem Baggs_ and _Boots at the Swan_, _Medea_ and _the
Yellow Dwarf_, continued to be his favorite parts.
The popularity attained in England by this most remarkable of modern
actors has never, since the public were first aware of his qualities,
decreased. Robson is always sure to draw. The nights of his playing, or
of his non-playing, at the Olympic, are as sure a gauge of the receipts
as the rising and falling of the mercury in the thermometer are of the
variations of the temperature. A month's absence of Robson from London
always brought about an alarming depletion in the Olympic treasury.
Unhappily, these absences have of late years become more frequent, and
more and more prolonged.
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