The play was acted in a manner so far above the expectation of the audience, that it gave general satisfaction, and was much applauded. The ease, vivacity, and humor of Kite are still remembered with pleasure at Lichfield. The first stage attempt of our English Roscius was in 1727.

Not long after, he was invited to Lisbon by an uncle, who was a considerable wine merchant in that city, but his stay there was very short, for he returned to Lichfield the year following. It is imagined that the gay disposition of the young gentleman was not very suitable to the old man's temper, which was, perhaps, too grave and austere to relish the vivacities of his nephew.

However, during his short stay at Lisbon, young Garrick made himself agreeable to all who knew him, particularly to the English merchants who resided there, with whom he often dined. After dinner they usually diverted themselves by placing him upon the table, and calling upon him to repeat verses and speeches from plays, which he did with great readiness, and much to the satisfaction of the hearers. Some Portuguese young gentlemen of the highest rank, who were of his own age, were also much delighted with his conversation.

He afterward returned to Lichfield, and in 1737 came up to town in company with Samuel Johnson, who was to make so conspicuous a figure in the literary world, and of whose life we have already given an account.

Soon after his arrival in London, Garrick entered himself at Lincoln's Inn, and he also put himself under the tuition of Mr. Colson, an eminent mathematician at Rochester. But as he applied himself little to the study of the law, his proficiency in mathematics and philosophy was not extensive. His mind was theatrically led, and nothing could divert his thoughts from the study of that to which his genius so powerfully prompted him. He had L1,000 left him by his uncle at Lisbon, and he engaged for a short time in the wine trade, in partnership with his brother, Mr. Peter Garrick; they hired vaults in Durham Yard, for the purpose of carrying on the business. The union between the brothers was of no long date. Peter was calm, sedate, and methodical; David was gay, volatile, impetuous, and perhaps not so confined to regularity as his partner could have wished. To prevent the continuance of fruitless and daily altercation, by the interposition of friends the partnership was amicably dissolved. And now Garrick prepared himself in earnest for that employment which he so ardently loved, and in which nature designed he should eminently excel.

He was frequently in the company of the most eminent actors; he got himself introduced to the managers of the theatres, and tried his talent in the recitation of some particular and favorite portions of plays. Now and then he indulged himself in the practice of mimicry, a talent which, however inferior, is never willingly resigned by him who excels in it. Sometimes he wrote criticisms upon the action and elocution of the players, and published them in the prints. These sudden effusions of his mind generally comprehended judicious observations and shrewd remarks, unmixed with that illiberality which often disgraces the instructions of stage critics.

Garrick's diffidence withheld him from trying his strength at first upon a London theatre. He thought the hazard was too great, and embraced the advantage of commencing his noviciate in acting with a company of players then ready to set out for Ipswich, under the direction of Mr. William Gifford and Mr. Dunstall, in the summer of 1741.

The first effort of his theatrical talents was exerted as Aboan, in the play of "Oroonoko," a part in which his features could not be easily discerned. Under the disguise of a black countenance, he hoped to escape being known, should it be his misfortune not to please. Though Aboan is not a first-rate character, yet the scenes of pathetic persuasion and affecting distress in which that character is involved, will always command the attention of the audience when represented by a judicious actor. Our young player's applause was equal to his most sanguine desires. Under the assumed name of Lyddal, he not only acted a variety of characters in plays, particularly Chamont, in the "Orphan;" Captain Brazen, in the "Recruiting Officer;" and Sir Harry Wildair; but he likewise gave such delight to the audience, that they gratified him with constant and loud proofs of their approbation. The town of Ipswich will long boast of having first seen and encouraged so great a genius as Garrick.

His first appearance as an actor in London, was on October 19, 1741, when he performed the part of Richard III., at the playhouse in Goodman's Fields. His easy and familiar, yet forcible, style in speaking and acting, at first threw the critics into some hesitation concerning the novelty, as well as propriety, of his manner. They had been long accustomed to an elevation of the voice, with a sudden mechanical depression of its tones, calculated to excite admiration, and to intrap applause. To the just modulation of the words, and concurring expression of the features from the genuine works of nature, they had been strangers, at least for some time. But after he had gone through a variety of scenes, in which he gave evident proofs of consummate art and perfect knowledge of character, their doubts were turned into surprise and astonishment, from which they relieved themselves by loud and reiterated applause. They were more especially charmed when the actor, after having thrown aside the hypocrite and politician, assumed the warrior and the hero. When news was brought to Richard that the Duke of Buckingham was taken, Garrick's look and action, when he pronounced the words

"——Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!"

were so magnificent and important, from his visible enjoyment of the incident, that several loud shouts of approbation proclaimed the triumph of the actor and satisfaction of the audience. Richard's dream before the battle, and his death, were accompanied with the loudest gratulations of applause.

Such was the universal approbation which followed our young actor, that the more established theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden were deserted. Garrick drew after him the inhabitants of the most polite parts of the town: Goodman's Fields were full of the splendor of St. James' and Grosvenor Square; the coaches of the nobility filled up the space from Temple Bar to Whitechapel. He had so perfectly convinced the public of his superior accomplishments in acting, that not to admire him would not only have argued an absence of taste, but the grossest stupidity. Those who had seen and been delighted with the most admired of the old actors, confessed that he had excelled the ablest of them in the variety of the exhibitions, and equalled them all in their must applauded characters.

Alexander Pope was persuaded by Lord Orrery to see him in the first dawn of his fame. That great man, who had often seen and admired Betterton, was struck with the propriety and beauty of Mr. Garrick's action; and as a convincing proof that he had a good opinion of his merit, he told Lord Orrery that he was afraid the young man would be spoiled, for he would have no competitor.

Mr. Garrick shone forth like a theatrical Newton; he threw new light on elocution and action; he banished ranting, bombast, and grimace; and restored nature, ease, simplicity, and genuine humor.

In 1742 he entered into stated agreements with Fleetwood, patentee of Drury Lane, for the annual income of L500. His fame continued to increase at the royal theatre, and soon became so extended that a deputation was sent from Ireland, to invite him to act in Dublin during the months of June, July, and August, upon very profitable conditions. These he embraced, and crossed the seas to the metropolis of Ireland in June, 1742, accompanied by Mrs. Woffington.



His success at Dublin exceeded all imagination, though much was expected from him; he was caressed by all ranks of people as a prodigy of theatrical accomplishment. During the hottest days in the year the play-house was crowded with persons of fashion and rank, who were never tired with seeing and applauding the various essays of his skill.

The excessive heat became prejudicial to the frequenters of the theatre; and the epidemical distemper, which seized and carried off great numbers, was nicknamed the Garrick fever. Satisfied with the emoluments arising from the summer campaign, and delighted with the generous encouragement and kind countenance which the nobility and gentry of Ireland had given him, and of which he always spoke in the strongest terms of acknowledgment and gratitude, he set out for London, to renew his labors and to receive the applause of the most critical, as well as most candid, audience in Europe.

Such an actor as Garrick, whose name when announced in the play-bill operated like a charm and drew multitudes to the theatre, of consequence considerably augmented the profits of the patentee. But at the time when all without doors was apparently gay and splendid, and the theatre of Drury Lane seemed to be in the most flourishing condition, by the strange and absurd conduct of the manager the whole fabric was absolutely running into certain destruction.

His behavior brought on a revolt of the principal actors, with Mr. Garrick and Mr. Macklin at their head, and for some time they seceded from the theatre. They endeavored to procure a patent for a new theatre, but without success; and Garrick at length accommodated his dispute with the manager, Mr. Fleetwood, by engaging to play again for a salary of six or seven hundred pounds.

In 1744, Garrick made a second voyage to Dublin, and became joint-manager of the theatre there with Mr. Sheridan. They met with great success; and Garrick returned again to London, in May, 1746, having considerably added to his stock of money. In 1747 he became joint-patentee of Drury Lane Theatre with Mr. Lacy. Mr. Garrick and Mr. Lacy divided the business of the theatre in such a manner as not to encroach upon each other's province. Mr. Lacy took upon himself the care of the wardrobe, the scenes, and the economy of the household; while Garrick regulated the more important business of treating with authors, hiring actors, distributing parts in plays, superintending of rehearsals, etc. Besides the profits accruing from his half-share, he was allowed an income of L500 for his acting, and some particular emoluments for altering plays, farces, etc.

In 1749, Mr. Garrick was married to Mademoiselle Violetti, a young lady who (as Mr. Davies says), to great elegance of form and many polite accomplishments, joined the more amiable virtues of the mind. In 1763, 1764, and 1765, he made a journey to France and Italy, accompanied by Mrs. Garrick, who, from the day of her marriage till the death of her husband, was never separated from him for twenty-four hours. During his stay abroad his company was desired by many foreigners of high birth and great merit. He was sometimes invited to give the company a taste of that art in which he was known so greatly to excel. Such a request he very readily consented to, for indeed his compliance cost him nothing. He could, without the least preparation, transform himself into any character tragic or comic, and seize instantaneously upon any passion of the human mind. He could make a sudden transition from violent rage, and even madness, to the extremes of levity and humor, and go through the whole circle of theatric evolution with the most surprising velocity.

On the death of Mr. Lacy, joint patentee of Drury Lane with Mr. Garrick, in 1773, the whole management of that theatre devolved on Mr. Garrick. But in 1776, being about sixty years of age, he sold his share of the patent, and formed a resolution of quitting the stage. He was, however, determined, before he left the theatre, to give the public proofs of his abilities to delight them as highly as he had ever done in the flower and vigor of his life. To this end he presented them with some of the most capital and trying characters of Shakespeare; with Hamlet, Richard, and Lear, besides other parts which were less fatiguing. Hamlet and Lear were repeated; Richard he acted once only, and by the king's command. His Majesty was much surprised to see him, at an age so advanced, run about the field of battle with so much fire, force, and agility.

He finished his dramatic race with one of his favorite parts, with Felix, in "The Wonder a Woman Keeps a Secret." When the play was ended, Mr. Garrick advanced toward the audience, with much palpitation of mind, and visible emotion in his countenance. No premeditation whatever could prepare him for this affecting scene. He bowed—he paused—the spectators were all attention. After a short struggle of nature, he recovered from the shock he had felt, and addressed his auditors in the following words:

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It has been customary with persons under my circumstances to address you in a farewell epilogue. I had the same intention, and turned my thoughts that way; but indeed, I found myself then as incapable of writing such an epilogue, as I should be now of speaking it.

"The jingle of rhyme and the language of fiction would but ill suit my present feelings. This is to me a very awful moment; it is no less than parting forever with those from whom I have received the greatest kindness and favors, and upon the spot where that kindness and those favors were enjoyed." [Here he was unable to proceed till he was relieved by a shower of tears.]

"Whatever may be the changes of my future life, the deepest impression of your kindness will always remain here" (putting his hand on his breast) "fixed and unalterable. I will very readily agree to my successors having more skill and ability for their station than I have; but I defy them all to take more sincere, and more uninterrupted pains for your favor, or to be more truly sensible of it, than is your humble servant."

After a profound obeisance, he retired, amid the tears and acclamations of a most crowded and brilliant audience.

He died on Wednesday morning, January 20, 1779, at eight o'clock, without a groan. The disease was pronounced to be a palsy in the kidneys. On Monday, February 1st, the body of David Garrick was conveyed from his own house in the Adelphi, and most magnificently interred in Westminster Abbey, under the monument of his beloved Shakespeare. He was attended to the grave by persons of the first rank; by men illustrious for genius, and famous for science; by those who loved him living, and lamented his death.



EDWIN FORREST[13]

[Footnote 13: Reprinted by permission of The Cassell Publishing Company, from "Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States."]

By LAWRENCE BARRETT

(1806-1872)



Edwin Forrest was born in the city of Philadelphia, March 9, 1806, his father, a Scotchman, having emigrated to America during the last year of the preceding century. The boy, like many others of his profession, was designed for the ministry, and before the age of eleven the future Channing had attracted admiring listeners by the music of his voice and the aptness of his mimicry. His memory was remarkable, and he would recite whole passages of his preceptor's sermons. Perched upon a chair or stool, and crowned with the proud approval of family and friends, the young mimic filled the hearts of his listeners with fervent hopes of his coming success in the fold of their beloved church. These hopes were destined to be met with disappointment. The bias of the future leader of the American stage was only faintly outlined as yet; his hour of development was still to come.

He must have learned early the road to the theatre, permitted to go by the family, or going, perhaps, without the knowledge or consent of his seniors in the overworked household; for, before he had passed his tenth year, our young sermonizer was a member of a Thespian club, and before he was eleven he had made his appearance at one of the regular theatres in a female character, but with most disastrous results. He soon outgrew the ignominy of his first failure, however, and again and again sought to overcome its disgrace by a fresh appearance. To his appeals the irate manager lent a deaf ear. The sacred portal that leads to the enchanted ground of the stage was closed against young Forrest, the warden being instructed not to let the importunate boy pass the door. At last, in desperation, he resolved to storm the citadel, to beat down the faithful guard and to carry war into the enemy's camp. One night he dashed past the astonished guardian of the stage entrance just as the curtain fell upon one of the acts of a play. He emerged before the footlights, eluding all pursuit, dressed as a harlequin, and, before the audience had recovered from its astonishment at this scene not set down in the bills, the baffled, but not subdued, aspirant had delivered the lines of an epilogue in rhyme with so much effect that, before he could be seized by the astounded stage-manager and hurled from the theatre, he had attracted public notice, successfully won his surprised audience, and not only secured immunity from punishment for his temerity, but actually gained that respect in the manager's estimation which he had so long and so vainly striven to acquire.

At last Forrest was promised an appearance at the Walnut Street house, then one of the leading theatres of the country. He selected Young Norval in Home's tragedy of "Douglas," and on November 27, 1820, the future master of the American stage, then fourteen years of age—a boy in years, a man in character—announced as "A Young Gentleman of this City," surrounded by a group of veteran actors who had for many years shared the favor of the public, began a career which was as auspicious at its opening as it was splendid in its maturity. At his entrance he won the vast audience at once by the grace of his figure and the modest bearing that was natural to him. Something of that magnetism which he exercised so effectively in late years now attracted all who heard him, and made friends even before he spoke.

He was allowed to reappear as Frederick in "Lovers' Vows," repeating his first success; and on January 8, 1821, he benefited as Octavian in the "Mountaineers," a play associated with the early glories of Edmund Kean. In this year, also, he made his first and only venture as a manager, boldly taking the Prune Street Theatre, Philadelphia, and giving a successful performance of "Richard III.," which not only pleased the audience, but brought him a few dollars of profit. He made many attempts to secure a regular engagement in one of the Western circuits, where experience could be gained; and at last, after many denials, he was employed by Collins and Jones to play leading juvenile parts in their theatres in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Lexington. Thus, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, Edwin Forrest enrolled himself as a regular member of a theatrical company, and broke loose from trade forever.

Of his professional progress here we have but poor accounts. He seems to have been very popular, and to have had an experience larger than he had heretofore enjoyed. He played with the elder Conway, and was affected by the grandeur of that actor's Othello, a study which served Forrest well when in late years he inherited the character.

Jane Placide, who inspired the first love of Edwin Forrest, was an actress who combined talent, beauty, and goodness. Her character would have softened the asperities of his, and led him by a calmer path to those grand elevations toward which Providence had directed his footsteps. Baffled in love, however, and believing Caldwell to be his rival and enemy, he challenged him; but was rebuked by the silent contempt of his manager, whom the impulsive and disappointed lover "posted."

The hard novitiate of Edwin Forrest was now drawing near its close. Securing a stock engagement with Charles Gilfert, manager of the Albany Theatre, he opened there in the early fall, and played for the first time with Edmund Kean, then on his second visit to America. The meeting with this extraordinary man and the attention he received from him were foremost among the directing influences of Forrest's life. To his last hour he never wearied of singing the praises of Kean, whose genius filled the English-speaking world with admiration. Two men more unlike in mind and body can scarcely be imagined. Until now Forrest had seen no actor who represented in perfection the impassioned school of which Kean was the master. He could not have known Cooke, even in the decline of that great tragedian's power, and the little giant was indeed a revelation. He played Iago to Kean's Othello, Titus to his Brutus, and Richmond to his Richard III.

In the interval which preceded the opening of the Bowery Theatre, New York, Forrest appeared at the Park for the benefit of Woodhull, playing Othello. He made a pronounced success, his old manager sitting in front, profanely exclaiming, "By God, the boy has made a hit!" This was a great event, as the Park was then the leading theatre of America, and its actors were the most famous and exclusive.

He opened at the Bowery Theatre in November, 1826, as Othello, and made a brilliant impression. His salary was raised from $28 to $40 per week. From this success may be traced the first absolute hold made by Edwin Forrest upon the attention of cultivated auditors and intelligent critics. The Bowery was then a very different theatre from what it afterward became, when the newsboys took forcible possession of its pit and the fire-laddies were the arbiters of public taste in its neighborhood.

An instance of Forrest's moral integrity may be told here. He had been approached by a rival manager, after his first success, and urged to secede from the Bowery and join the other house at a much larger salary. He scornfully refused to break his word, although his own interests he knew must suffer. His popularity at this time was so great that, when his contract for the season had expired, he was instantly engaged for eight nights, at a salary of two hundred dollars a night.

The success which had greeted Forrest on his first appearance in New York, was renewed in every city in the land. Fortune attended fame, and filled his pockets, as the breath of adulation filled his heart. He had paid the last penny of debt left by his father, and had seen a firm shelter raised over the head of his living family. With a patriotic feeling for all things American, Forrest, about this time, formed a plan for the encouragement or development of an American drama, which resulted in heavy money losses to himself, but produced such contributions to our stage literature as the "Gladiator," "Jack Cade," and "Metamora."[14] After five years of constant labor he felt that he had earned the right to a holiday, and he formed his plans for a two years' absence in Europe. A farewell banquet was tendered him by the citizens of New York, and a medal was struck in honor of the occasion. Bryant, Halleck, Leggett, Ingraham and other distinguished men were present. This was an honor which had never before been paid to an American actor.

[Footnote 14: Of Forrest's performance of Metamora, in the play of that name, W. R. Alger says, "Never did an actor more thoroughly identify and merge himself with his part than Forrest did in 'Metamora.' He was completely transformed from what he appeared in other characters, and seemed Indian in every particular, all through and all over, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot."]

He had been absent about two years when he landed in New York in September, 1836. On his appearance at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, he was received with unprecedented enthusiasm. He gave six performances only, on this occasion, and each saw a repetition of the scene at the beginning of the engagement. The receipts were the largest ever known in that house.

On September 19, 1836, Forrest embarked once more for the mother country, this time with serious purpose. After a speedy and uneventful passage he reached England, and at once set about the preliminary business of his British engagement, which began October 17, 1836. He was the first really great American actor who had appeared in London as a rival of the English tragedians; for Cooper was born in England, though always regarded as belonging to the younger country. His opening part was Spartacus in the "Gladiator." The play was condemned, the actor applauded. In Othello, in Lear, and in Macbeth, he achieved instant success. He began his engagement October 17th and closed December 19th, having acted Macbeth seven times, Othello nine, and King Lear eight. A dinner at the Garrick Club was offered and accepted. Here he sat down with Charles Kemble and Macready; Sergeant Talfourd was in the chair.

It was during this engagement he met his future wife, Miss Catherine Sinclair. In the latter part of June, 1837, the marriage took place in St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden. Mr. and Mrs. Forrest soon after embarked for America. The tragedian resumed his American engagements November 15, 1837, at the old Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. Presented to his friends, his wife at once made a deep and lasting impression. Her native delicacy of mind and refinement of manners enchanted those who hoped for some such influence to be exerted in softening the rough vigor and democratic downrightness of the man. Domestic discord came too soon, however, and in an evil hour for himself, in an evil hour for his art and for the struggling drama in America, Edwin Forrest threw open the doors of his home to the scrutiny of the world, and appealed to the courts to remove the skeleton which was hidden in his closet. With the proceedings of that trial, which resulted in divorce, alimony, and separation, this memoir has nothing to do.



Edwin Forrest, leaving the court-room a defeated man, was instantly raised to a popularity with the masses beyond anything even he had before experienced. He began an engagement soon after at the Broadway Theatre, opening as Damon. The house was crowded to suffocation. The engagement of sixty nights was unparalleled in the history of the American drama for length and profit. But despite the flattering applause of the multitude, life never again had for him the smiling aspect it had so often worn before. The applause which filled his ears, the wealth which flowed in upon him could not improve that temper which had never been amiable, and all the hard stories of his life belong to this period.

On September 20, 1852, he reappeared at the Broadway Theatre, New York. In February, 1853, "Macbeth" was produced in grand style, with new scenery and appointments. The tragedy was played on twenty consecutive nights, then by far the longest run of any Shakespearean play in America. The cast was very strong. It included Conway, Duff, Davenport, Pope, Davidge, Barry, and Madame Ponisi.

On September 17, 1860, after an absence of nearly four years, Edwin Forrest appeared again on the stage. He was engaged by James Nixon, and began his contract of one hundred nights at Niblo's Garden, New York, in the character of Hamlet. The long retirement only increased the curious interest which centred round his historic name. Upon his opening night the seats were sold at auction. His success in Philadelphia rivalled that of New York. In Boston the vast auditorium of the grandest theatre in America was found too small to contain the crowds he drew.

Severe attacks of gout were beginning to tell upon that herculean form, sapping and undermining it; and in 1865, while playing Damon at the Holiday Street Theatre, in Baltimore, the weather being very cold and the theatre open to draughts, he was seized with a sudden illness, which was followed by very serious results. Suffering the most intense agony, he was able to get to the end of the part; but when his robes were laid aside and physicians summoned, it was found to his horror that he had suffered a partial paralysis of the sciatic nerve. In an instant the sturdy gait, the proud tread of the herculean actor was forever gone; for he never regained complete control of his limb, a perceptible hobble being the legacy of the dreadful visitation. His right hand was almost powerless, and he could not hold his sword.

In 1866 he went to California, urged by the manager in San Francisco. His last engagement in New York took place in February, 1871. He played Lear and Richelieu, his two greatest parts. On the night of March 25, 1872, Forrest opened in "Lear" at the Globe Theatre, Boston. "Lear" was played six nights. During the second week he was announced for Richelieu and Virginius; but he caught a violent cold on Sunday, and labored sorely on Monday evening through the part of Richelieu. On Tuesday he repeated the performance, against the advice of friends and physicians. Rare bursts of his old power lighted up the play, but he labored piteously on against his illness and threatened pneumonia. When stimulants were offered he rejected them, declaring "that if he died to-night, he should still be his old royal self."

Announced for Virginius the following evening, he was unable to appear. A severe attack of pneumonia developed itself. He was carried to his hotel, and his last engagement was brought to an abrupt and melancholy end. As soon as he was able to move, he left Boston for his home in Philadelphia, resting on his way only a day in New York. As the summer passed away, the desire for work grew stronger and stronger, and he decided to re-enter public life, but simply as a reader of the great plays in which he had as an actor been so successful. The result was a disappointment. On December 11, 1872, he wrote to Oakes his last letter, saying sadly, but fondly: "God bless you ever, my dear and much-beloved friend."

When the morning of December 12th came, his servant, hearing no sound in his chamber at his general hour of rising, became alarmed, opened his master's door, and found there, cold in death upon his bed, the form of the great tragedian. His arms were crossed upon his bosom, and he seemed to be at rest. The stroke had come suddenly. With little warning, and without pain, he had passed away.

The dead man's will was found to contain several bequests to old friends and servants, and an elaborate scheme by which his fortune, in the hands of trustees, was to be applied to the erection and support of a retreat for aged actors, to be called "The Edwin Forrest Home." The idea had been long in his mind, and careful directions were drawn up for its practical working; but the trustees found themselves powerless to realize fully the hopes and wishes of the testator. A settlement had to be made to the divorced wife, who acted liberally toward the estate; but the amount withdrawn seriously crippled it, as it was deprived at once of a large sum of ready money. Other legal difficulties arose. And thus the great ambition of the tragedian to be a benefactor to his profession was destined to come almost to naught. Of this happily little he recks now. He has parted with all the cares of life, and has at last found rest.

Forrest's greatest Shakespearean parts were Lear, Othello, and Coriolanus. The first grew mellow and rich as the actor grew in years, while it still retained much of its earlier force. His Othello suffered with the decline of his faculties, although his clear conception of all he did was apparent to the end in the acting of every one of his parts. Coriolanus died with him, the last of all the Romans. He was greatest, however, in such parts as Virginius, William Tell, and Spartacus. Here his mannerisms of gait and utterance were less noticeable than in his Shakespearean characters, or were overlooked in the rugged massiveness of the creation. Hamlet, Richard, and Macbeth were out of his temperament, and added nothing to his fame; but Richelieu is said to have been one of his noblest and most impressive performances. He was in all things marked and distinctive. His obtrusive personality often destroyed the harmony of the portrait he was painting; but in his inspired moments, which were many, his touches were sublime. He passed over quiet scenes with little elaboration, and dwelt strongly upon the grand features of the characters he represented. His Lear, in the great scenes, rose to a majestic height, but fell in places almost to mediocrity. His art was unequal to his natural gifts. He was totally unlike his great contemporary and rival, Macready, whose attention to detail gave to every performance the harmony of perfect work.

This memoir may fitly close with an illustrative anecdote of the great actor. Toward the end of his professional career he was playing an engagement at St. Louis. He was very feeble in health, and his lameness was a source of great anxiety to him. Sitting at a late supper in his hotel one evening, after a performance of "King Lear," with his friend J. B. McCullough, of the Globe-Democrat, that gentleman remarked to him: "Mr. Forrest, I never in my life saw you play Lear so well as you did to-night." Whereupon the veteran almost indignantly replied, rising slowly and laboriously from his chair to his full height: "Play Lear! What do you mean, sir? I do not play Lear! I play Hamlet, Richard, Shylock, Virginius, if you please, but by God, sir, I am Lear!"

Nor was this wholly imaginative. Ingratitude of the basest kind had rent his soul. Old friends were gone from him; new friends were but half-hearted. His hearthstone was desolate. The public, to whom he had given his best years, was becoming impatient of his infirmities. The royalty of his powers he saw by degrees torn from his decaying form. Other kings had arisen on the stage, to whom his old subjects now showed a reverence once all his own. The mockery of his diadem only remained. A wreck of the once proud man who had despised all weakness, and had ruled his kingdom with imperial sway, he now stood alone. Broken in health and in spirit, deserted, forgotten, unkinged, he might well exclaim, "I am Lear!"



CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

By DUTTON COOK

(1816-1876)



The Pilgrim Fathers figure in American pedigrees almost as frequently and persistently as Norman William and his followers appear at the trunk of our family-trees. Certainly, the Mayflower must have carried very many heads of houses across the Atlantic. It was not in the Mayflower, however, but in the Fortune, a smaller vessel, of fifty-five tons, that Robert Cushman, Nonconformist, the founder of the Cushman family in America, sailed from England, for the better enjoyment of liberty of conscience and freedom of religion. In the seventh generation from Robert Cushman appeared Elkanah Cushman, who took to wife Mary Eliza, daughter of Erasmus Babbit, Jr., lawyer, musician, and captain in the army. Of this marriage was born Charlotte Saunders Cushman, in Richmond Street, Boston, July 23, 1816, and other children.

Charlotte Cushman says of herself: "I was born a tom-boy." She had a passion for climbing trees and for breaking open dolls' heads. She could not make dolls' clothes, but she could manufacture their furniture—could do anything with tools. "I was very destructive to toys and clothes, tyrannical to brothers and sister, but very social, and a great favorite with other children. Imitation was a prevailing trait." The first play she ever saw was "Coriolanus," with Macready in the leading part; her second play was "The Gamester." She became noted in her school for her skill in reading aloud. Her competitors grumbled: "No wonder she can read; she goes to the theatre!" Until then she had been shy and reserved, not to say stupid, about reading aloud in school, afraid of the sound of her own voice, and unwilling to trust it; but acquaintance with the theatre loosened her tongue, as she describes it, and gave opportunity and expression to a faculty which became the ruling passion of her life. At home, as a child, she took part in an operetta founded upon the story of "Bluebeard," and played Selim, the lover, with great applause, in a large attic chamber of her father's house before an enthusiastic audience of young people.

Elkanah Cushman had been for some years a successful merchant, a member of the firm of Topliffe & Cushman, Long Wharf, Boston. But failure befell him, "attributable," writes Charlotte Cushman's biographer, Miss Stebbins, "to the infidelity of those whom he trusted as supercargoes." The family removed from Boston to Charlestown. Charlotte was placed at a public school, remaining there until she was thirteen only. Elkanah Cushman died, leaving his widow and five children with very slender means. Mrs. Cushman opened a boarding-house in Boston, and struggled hard to ward off further misfortune. It was discovered that Charlotte possessed a noble voice of almost two registers, "a full contralto and almost a full soprano; but the low voice was the natural one." The fortunes of the family seemed to rest upon the due cultivation of Charlotte's voice and upon her future as a singer. "My mother," she writes, "at great self-sacrifice gave me what opportunities for instruction she could obtain for me; and then my father's friend, Mr. R. D. Shepherd, of Shepherdstown, Va., gave me two years of the best culture that could be obtained in Boston at that time, under John Paddon, an English organist and teacher of singing." When the English singer, Mrs. Wood—better known, perhaps, as Miss Paton—visited Boston in 1835 or 1836, she needed the support of a contralto voice. Charlotte Cushman was sent for, and rehearsed duets with Mrs. Wood. The young beginner was advised to prepare herself for the operatic stage; she was assured that such a voice would "lead her to any height of fortune she coveted." She became the articled pupil of Mr. Maeder, the husband of Clara Fisher, actress and vocalist, and the musical director of Mr. and Mrs. Wood. Instructed by Maeder, Miss Cushman undertook the parts of the Countess in "The Marriage of Figaro" and Lucy Bertram in the opera of "Guy Mannering." These were her first appearances upon the stage.

Mrs. Maeder's voice was a contralto; it became necessary, therefore, to assign soprano parts to Miss Cushman. Undue stress was thus laid upon her upper notes. She was very young, and she felt the change of climate when she went on with the Maeders to New Orleans. It is likely that her powers as a singer had been tried too soon and too severely; her operatic career was brought to a sudden close. Her voice failed her; her upper notes departed, never to return; she was left with a weakened and limited contralto register. Alarmed and wretched, she sought counsel of Mr. Caldwell, the manager of the chief New Orleans theatre. "You ought to be an actress, and not a singer," he said, and advised her to take lessons of Mr. Barton, his leading tragedian. Her articles of apprenticeship to Maeder were cancelled. Soon she was ready to appear as Lady Macbeth on the occasion of Barton's benefit.

The season ended, she sailed for Philadelphia on her way to New York. Presently she had entered into a three years' engagement with Mr. Hamblin, the manager of the Bowery Theatre, at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week for the first year, thirty-five for the second year, and forty-five for the third. Mr. Hamblin had received excellent accounts of the actress from his friend, Mr. Barton, of New Orleans, and had heard her rehearse scenes from "Macbeth," "Jane Shore," "Venice Preserved," "The Stranger," etc. To enable her to obtain a suitable wardrobe, he became security for her with his tradespeople, deducting five dollars a week from her salary until the debt was satisfied. All promised well; independence seemed secure at last. Mrs. Cushman was sent for from Boston; she gave up her boarding-house and hastened to her daughter. Miss Cushman writes: "I got a situation for my eldest brother in a store in New York. I left my only sister in charge of a half-sister in Boston, and I took my youngest brother with me." But rheumatic fever seized the actress; she was able to act for a few nights only, and her dream of good fortune came to a disastrous close. "The Bowery Theatre was burned to the ground, with all my wardrobe, all my debt upon it, and my three years' contract ending in smoke." Grievously distressed, but not disheartened, with her family dependent upon her exertions, she accepted an engagement at the principal theatre in Albany, where she remained five months, acting all the leading characters. In September, 1837, she entered into an engagement, which endured for three years, with the manager of the Park Theatre, New York. She was required to fulfil the duties of "walking lady" and "general utility" at a salary of twenty dollars a week.

During this period of her career she performed very many characters, and toiled assiduously at her profession. It was then the custom to afford the public a great variety of performances, to change the plays nightly, and to present two and sometimes three plays upon the same evening. The actors were forever busy studying new parts, and, when they were not performing, they were rehearsing. "It was a time of hard work," writes Miss Stebbins, "of ceaseless activity, and of hard-won and scantily accorded appreciation." Miss Cushman had no choice of parts; she was not the chief actress of the company; she sustained without question all the characters the management assigned to her. Her appearance as Meg Merrilies (she acquired subsequently great favor by her performance of this character) was due to an incident—the illness of Mrs. Chippendale, the actress who usually supported the part. It was in the year 1840; the veteran Braham was to appear as Henry Bertram. A Meg Merrilies had to be improvised. The obscure "utility" actress was called upon to take Mrs. Chippendale's place. She might read the part if she could not commit it to memory but personate Meg Merrilies after some sort she must. She had never especially noticed the part; but as she stood at the side scene, book in hand, awaiting her moment of entrance, her ear caught the dialogue going on upon the stage between two of the gypsies, "conveying the impression that Meg was no longer to be feared or respected—that she was no longer in her right mind." This furnished her with a clew to the character, and led her to present it upon the stage as the weird and startling figure which afterward became so famous. Of course, the first performance was but a sketch of her later portrayals of Meg Merrilies, yet she made a profound impression. "I had not thought that I had done anything remarkable," she wrote, "and when a knock came at my dressing-room door, and I heard Braham's voice, my first thought was, 'Now what have I done? He is surely displeased with me about something.' Imagine my gratification, when Mr. Braham said, 'Miss Cushman, I have come to thank you for the most veritable sensation I have experienced for a long time. I give you my word, when I saw you in that first scene I felt a cold chill run all over me. Where have you learned to do anything like that?'"

During her visits to England, Miss Cushman personated Meg Merrilies more often than any other character. In America she was also famous for her performance of Nancy, in a melodrama founded upon "Oliver Twist;" but this part she did not bring with her across the Atlantic. She had first played Nancy during her "general utility" days at the Park Theatre, when the energy and pathos of her acting powerfully affected her audience, and the tradition of her success in the part long "lingered in the memory of managers, and caused them, ever and anon, as their business interests prompted, to bring great pressure to bear upon her for a reproduction of it." Mr. George Vandenhoff describes Nancy as Miss Cushman's "greatest part; fearfully natural, dreadfully intense, horribly real."

In the winter of 1842 Miss Cushman undertook the management of the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, which was then in rather a fallen state. Under her energetic rule, however, the establishment recovered its popularity. "She displayed at that day," writes Mr. George Vandenhoff—who "starred at the Walnut Street Theatre for six nights to small audiences"—"a rude, strong, uncultivated talent. It was not till after she had seen and acted with Mr. Macready—which she did the next season—that she really brought artistic study and finish to her performances." Macready arrived in New York in the autumn of 1843. He notes: "The Miss Cushman, who acted Lady Macbeth, interested me much. She has to learn her art, but she showed mind and sympathy with me—a novelty so refreshing to me on the stage." She discerned the opportunity for study and improvement presented by Macready's visit, and underwent the fatigue of acting on alternate nights in Philadelphia and New York during the term of his engagement at the Park Theatre. Her own success was very great. She wrote to her mother of her great reception: of her being called out after the play; of the "hats and handkerchiefs waved to me; flowers sent to me," etc. In October, 1844, she sailed for England in the packet-ship Garrick. She had little money with her. A farewell benefit taken in Boston, her native city, had not proved very productive, and she had been obliged "to make arrangements for the maintenance of her family during her absence." And with characteristic prudence she left behind her a certain sum, to be in readiness for her, in case failure in England should drive her promptly back to America.

No engagement in London had been offered her; but she received, upon her arrival, a letter from Macready, proposing that she should join a company then being formed to give representations in Paris. She thought it prudent to decline this proposal, however, so as to avoid entering into anything like rivalry with Miss Helen Faucit, the leading actress of the troupe. She visited Paris for a few days, but only to sit with the audience of the best French theatres. She returned to her dull lodgings in Covent Garden, "awaiting her destiny." She was fond, in after years, of referring to the struggles and poverty, the hopes and the despair, of her first sojourn in London. Her means were nearly exhausted. Sally, the dresser, used to relate: "Miss Cushman lived on a mutton-chop a day, and I always bought the baker's dozen of muffins for the sake of the extra one, and we ate them all, no matter how stale they were, and we never suffered from want of appetite in those days." She found herself reduced to her last sovereign, when Mr. Maddox, the manager of the Princess's Theatre, came to her with a proposal. The watchful Sally reported that he had been walking up and down the street for some time early in the morning, too early for a visit. "He is anxious," said Miss Cushman. "I can make my own terms." He wished her to appear with Forrest, the American tragedian, then visiting the London stage for the second and last time. She stipulated that she should have her opportunity first, and "alone." If successful, she was willing to appear in support of Forrest. So it was agreed.

Her first appearance upon the English stage was made on February 14, 1845; she assumed the character of Bianca, in Dean Milman's rather dull tragedy of "Fazio." Her triumph was indisputable. Her intensity and vehemence completely carried away the house. As the pit rose at Kean's Shylock, so it rose at Charlotte Cushman's Bianca. She wrote to her mother in America: "All my success put together, since I have been upon the stage, would not come near my success in London." The critics described, as the crowning effort of her performance, the energy and pathos and abandonment of her appeal to Aldabella, when the wife sacrifices her pride, and sinks, "huddled into a heap," at the feet of her rival, imploring her to save the life of Fazio. Miss Cushman, speaking of her first performance in London, was wont to relate how she was so completely overcome, not only by the excitement of the scene, but by the nervous agitation of the occasion, that she lost for the moment her self-command, and was especially grateful for the long-continued applause which gave her time to recover herself. When she slowly rose at last and faced the house again, the spectacle of its enthusiasm thrilled and impressed her in a manner she could never forget. The audience were standing; some had mounted on the benches; there was wild waving of hats and handkerchiefs, a storm of cheering, great showering of bouquets.

Her second character in London was Lady Macbeth, to the Macbeth of Edwin Forrest; but the American actor failed to please, and the audience gave free expression to their discontent. Greatly disgusted, Forrest withdrew, deluding himself with the belief that he was the victim of a conspiracy. Miss Cushman's success knew no abatement. She played a round of parts, assisted by James Wallack, Leigh Murray, and Mrs. Stirling, appearing now as Rosalind, now as Juliana in "The Honeymoon," as Mrs. Haller, as Beatrice, as Julia in "The Hunchback." Her second season was even more successful than her first. After a long provincial tour she appeared in December, 1845, as Romeo at the Haymarket Theatre, then under the management of Mr. Webster, her sister Susan assuming the character of Juliet. She had sent for her family to share her prosperity, and had established them in a furnished house at Bayswater.

Her success as Romeo was very great. The tragedy was played for eighty nights. Her performance won applause even from those most opposed to the representation of Shakespeare's hero by a woman. For a time her intense earnestness of speech and manner, the passion of her interviews with Juliet, the fury of her combat with Tybalt, the despair of her closing scenes, bore down all opposition, silenced criticism, and excited her audience to an extraordinary degree. She appeared afterward, but not in London, as Hamlet, following an unfortunate example set by Mrs. Siddons; and as Ion in Talfourd's tragedy of that name.

In America, toward the close of her career, she even ventured to appear as Cardinal Wolsey, obtaining great applause by her exertions in the character, and the skill and force of her impersonation. But histrionic feats of this kind trespass against good taste, do violence to the intentions of the dramatists, and are, in truth, departures from the purpose of playing. Miss Cushman had for excuse—in the first instance, at any rate—her anxiety to forward the professional interests of her sister, who, in truth, had little qualification for the stage, apart from her good looks and her graces of manner. The sisters had played together in Philadelphia in "The Genoese"—a drama written by a young American—when, to give support and encouragement to Susan in her personation of the heroine, Charlotte undertook the part of her lover. Their success prompted them to appear in "Romeo and Juliet." Other plays, in which both could appear, were afterward selected—such, for instance, as "Twelfth Night," in which Charlotte played Viola to the Olivia of Susan—so that the engagement of one might compel the engagement of the other. Susan, however, quitted the stage in 1847, to become the wife of Dr. Sheridan Muspratt, of Liverpool.



Charlotte Cushman called few new plays into being. Dramas, entitled "Infatuation," by James Kenny, in 1845, and "Duchess Elinour," by the late H. F. Chorley, in 1854, were produced for her, but were summarily condemned by the audience, being scarcely permitted indeed a second performance in either case. Otherwise, she did not add to her repertory. For many years she led the life of a "star," fulfilling brief engagements here and there, appearing now for a term in London, and now travelling through the provinces, playing some half a dozen characters over and over again. Of these Lady Macbeth, Queen Katherine and Meg Merrilies were perhaps the most frequently demanded. Her fame and fortune she always dated from the immediate recognition she obtained upon her first performance in London. But she made frequent visits to America; indeed, she crossed the Atlantic "upward of sixteen times," says her biographer. In 1854 she took a house in Bolton Row, Mayfair, "where for some years she dispensed the most charming and genial hospitality," and, notably, entertained Ristori on her first visit to England in 1856. Several winters she passed in Rome, occupying apartments in the Via Gregoriana, where she cordially received a host of friends and visitors of all nations. In 1859 she was called to England by her sister's fatal illness; in 1866 she was again summoned to England to attend the death-bed of her mother. In 1860 she was playing in all the chief cities of America. Three years later she again visited America, her chief object being to act for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission, and aid the sick and wounded victims of the civil war. During the late years of her life she appeared before the public more as a dramatic reader than as an actress. There were long intervals between her theatrical engagements; she seemed to quit her profession only to return to it after an interval with renewed appetite, and she incurred reproaches because of the frequency of her farewells, and the doubt that prevailed as to whether her "last appearances" were really to be the "very last." It was not until 1874, however, that she took final leave of the New York stage, amid extraordinary enthusiasm, with many poetic and other ceremonies. She was the subject of addresses in prose and verse. Mr. Bryant, after an eloquent speech, tendered her a laurel wreath bound with white ribbon resting upon a purple velvet cushion, with a suitable inscription embroidered in golden letters; a torchbearers' procession escorted her from the theatre to her hotel; she was serenaded at midnight, and in her honor Fifth Avenue blazed with fireworks. After this came farewells to Philadelphia, Boston and other cities, and to these succeeded readings all over the country. It is to be said, however, that incessant work had become a necessity with her, not because of its pecuniary results, but as a means of obtaining mental relief or comparative forgetfulness for a season. During the last five or six years of her life she was afflicted with an incurable and agonizing malady. Under most painful conditions she toiled unceasingly, moving rapidly from place to place, and passing days and nights in railway journeys. In a letter to a friend, she writes: "I do get so dreadfully depressed about myself, and all things seem so hopeless to me at those times, that I pray God to take me quickly at any moment, so that I may not torture those I love by letting them see my pain. But when the dark hour passes, and I try to forget by constant occupation that I have such a load near my heart, then it is not so bad." She died almost painlessly at last on February 18, 1876.

Charlotte Cushman may assuredly be accounted an actress of genius in right of her originality, her vivid power of depicting emotion, the vehemence and intensity of her histrionic manner. Her best successes were obtained in tragedy, although she possessed a keen sense of humor, and could deliver the witty speeches of Rosalind or of Beatrice with excellent point and effect. Her Meg Merrilies will probably be remembered as her most impressive achievement. It was really, as she played it, a character of her own invention; but, in truth, it taxed her intellectual resources far less than her Bianca, her Queen Katherine, or her Lady Macbeth. Her physical peculiarities no doubt limited the range of her efforts, hindered her advance as an actress, or urged her toward exceptional impersonations. Her performances lacked femininity, to use Coleridge's word; but in power to stir an audience, to touch their sympathies, to kindle their enthusiasm, and to compel their applause, she takes rank among the finest players. It only remains to add that Miss Stebbins' fervid and affecting biography of her friend admirably demonstrates that the woman was not less estimable than the actress; that Charlotte Cushman was of noble character, intellectual, large and tenderhearted, of exemplary conduct in every respect. The simple, direct earnestness of her manner upon the mimic scene, characterized her proceedings in real life. She was at once the slave and the benefactress of her family; she was devotedly fond of children; she was of liberal and generous nature; she was happiest when conferring kindness upon others; her career abounded in self-sacrifice. She pretended to few accomplishments, to little cultivation of a literary sort; but she could write, as Miss Stebbins proves, excellent letters, now grave, now gay, now reflective, now descriptive, always interesting, and altogether remarkable for sound sense and for force and skill of expression. Her death was regarded in America almost as a national catastrophe. As Miss Stebbins writes, "The press of the entire country bore witness to her greatness, and laid their tributes upon her tomb."

* * * * *

The following letter of good counsel from Miss Cushman to young Mr. Barton is reprinted, by permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., from the "Life and Letters of Charlotte Cushman."

"I think if you have to wait for a while it will do you no harm. You seem to me quite frantic for immediate work; but teach yourself quiet and repose in the time you are waiting. With half your strength I could bear to wait and labor with myself to conquer fretting. The greatest power in the world is shown in conquest over self. More life will be worked out of you by fretting than all the stage-playing in the world. God bless you, my poor child. You have indeed trouble enough; but you have a strong and earnest spirit, and you have the true religion of labor in your heart. Therefore I have no fears for you let what will come. Let me hear from you at your leisure, and be sure you have no warmer friend than I am and wish to be."



RACHEL

By DUTTON COOK

(1821-1858)



It is told that Rachel Felix was born on March 24, 1821, at Munf, near the town of Aarau, in the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland; the burgomaster of the district simply noting in his books that upon the day stated, at the little village inn, the wife of a poor pedler had given birth to a female child. The entry included no mention of family, name, or religion, and otherwise the event was not registered in any civil or religious record. The father and mother were Abraham Felix, a Jew, born in Metz, but of German origin, and Esther Haya, his wife. They had wandered about the continent during many years, seeking a living and scarcely finding it. Several children were born to them by the wayside, as it were, on their journeyings hither and thither: Sarah in Germany, Rebecca in Lyons, Dinah in Paris, Rachel in Switzerland; and there were other infants who did not long survive their birth, succumbing to the austerities of the state of life to which they had been called. For a time, perhaps because of their numerous progeny, M. and Madame Felix settled in Lyons. Madame Felix opened a small shop and dealt in second-hand clothes; M. Felix gave lessons in German to the very few pupils he could obtain. About 1830 the family moved to Paris. They were still miserably poor. The children Sarah and Rachel, usually carrying a smaller child in their arms or wheeling it with them in a wooden cart, were sent into the streets to earn money by singing at the doors of cafes and estaminets. A musical amateur, one M. Morin, noticed the girls, questioned them, interested himself about them, and finally obtained their admission into the Government School of Sacred Music in the Rue Vaugirard. Rachel's voice did not promise much, however; as she confessed, she could not sing—she could only recite. She had received but the scantiest and meanest education; she read with difficulty; she was teaching herself writing by copying the manuscript of others. Presently she was studying elocution under M. St. Aulaire, an old actor retired from the Francais, who took pains with the child, instructing her gratuitously and calling her "ma petite diablesse." The performances of M. St. Aulaire's pupil were occasionally witnessed by the established players, among them Monval of the Gymnase and Samson of the Comedie. Monval approved and encouraged the young actress, and upon the recommendation of Samson she entered the classes of the Conservatoire, over which he presided, with Michelot and Provost as his co-professors.

At the Conservatoire Rachel made little progress. All her efforts failed to win the good opinion of her preceptors. In despair she resolved to abandon altogether the institution, its classes and performances. She felt herself neglected, aggrieved, insulted. "Tartuffe" had been announced for representation by the pupils; she had been assigned the mute part of Flipote, the serving-maid, who simply appears upon the scene in the first act that her ears may be soundly boxed by Madame Pernelle. To this humiliation she would not submit. She hurried to her old friend, St. Aulaire, who consulted Monval, who commended her to his manager, M. Poirson. She entered into an engagement to serve the Gymnase for a term of three years upon a salary of 3,000 francs. M. Poirson was quick to perceive that she was not as so many other beginners were; that there was something new and startling about the young actress. He obtained for her first appearance, from M. Paul Duport, a little melodrama in two acts. It was called "La Vendeenne," and owed its more striking scenes to "The Heart of Midlothian." After the manner of Jeanie Deans, Genevieve, the heroine of the play, footsore and travel-stained, seeks the presence of the Empress Josephine to implore the pardon of a Vendean peasant condemned to death for following George Cadoudal. "La Vendeenne," produced on April 24, 1837, and received with great applause, was played on sixty successive nights, but not to very crowded audiences. The press scarcely noticed the new actress. The critic of the Journal des Debats, however, while rashly affirming that Rachel was not a phenomenon and would never be extolled as a wonder, carefully noted certain of the merits and characteristics of her performance. "She was an unskilled child, but she possessed heart, soul, intellect. There was something bold, abrupt, uncouth about her aspect, gait, and manner. She was dressed simply and truthfully in the coarse woollen gown of a peasant-girl; her hands were red; her voice was harsh and untrained, but powerful; she acted without effort or exaggeration; she did not scream or gesticulate unduly; she seemed to perceive intuitively the feeling she was required to express, and could interest the audience greatly, moving them to tears. She was not pretty, but she pleased," etc. Bouffe, who witnessed this representation, observed: "What an odd little girl! Assuredly there is something in her. But her place is not here." So judged Samson also, becoming more and more aware of the merits of his former pupil. She was transferred to the Francais to play the leading characters in tragedy, at a salary of 4,000 francs a year. M. Poirson did not hesitate to cancel her agreement with him. Indeed, he had been troubled with thinking how he could employ his new actress. She was not an ingenue of the ordinary type; she could not be classed among soubrettes. There were no parts suited to her in the light comedies of Scribe and his compeers, which constituted the chief repertory of the Gymnase.

It was on June 12, 1838, that Rachel, as Camille, in "Horace," made her first appearance upon the stage of the Theatre Francais. The receipts were but seven hundred and fifty francs; it was an unfashionable period of the year; Paris was out of town; the weather was most sultry. There were many Jews in the house, it was said, resolute to support the daughter of Israel, and her success was unequivocal; nevertheless, a large share of the applause of the night was confessedly carried off by the veteran Joanny, who played Horace. On June 16th Rachel made her second appearance, personating Emilie in the "Cinna," of Corneille. The receipts fell to five hundred and fifty francs. She repeated her performance of Camille on the 23d; the receipts were only three hundred francs! the poorest house, perhaps, she ever played to in Paris. She afterward appeared as Hermione in "Andromaque," Amenaide in "Tancrede," Eriphile in "Iphigenie," Monime in "Mithridate," and Roxane in "Bajazet," the receipts now gradually rising, until, in October, when she played Hermione for the tenth time, six thousand francs were taken at the doors, an equal amount being received in November, when, for the sixth time, she appeared as Camille. Paris was now at her feet. In 1839, called upon to play two or three times per week, she essayed but one new part, Esther, in Racine's tragedy of that name. The public was quite content that she should assume again and again the characters in which she had already triumphed. In 1840 she added to her list of impersonations Laodie and Pauline in Corneille's "Nicomede" and "Polyeucte," and Marie Stuart in Lebrun's tragedy. In 1841 she played no new parts. In 1842 she first appeared as Chimene in "Le Cid," as Ariane, and as Fredegonde in a wretched tragedy by Le Mercier.

Rachel had saved the Theatre Francais, had given back to the stage the masterpieces of the French classical drama. It was very well for Thackeray to write from Paris in 1839 that the actress had "only galvanized the corpse, not revivified.... Racine will never come to life again and cause audiences to weep as of yore." He predicted: "Ancient French tragedy, red-heeled, patched, and beperiwigged, lies in the grave, and it is only the ghost of it that the fair Jewess has raised." But it was something more than a galvanized animation that Rachel had imparted to the old drama of France. During her career of twenty years, her performances of Racine and Corneille filled the coffers of the Francais, and it may be traced to her influence and example that the classic plays still keep their place upon the stage and stir the ambition of the players. But now the committee of the Francais had to reckon with their leading actress, and pay the price of the prosperity she had brought them. They cancelled her engagement and offered her terms such as seemed to them liberal beyond all precedent. But the more they offered, so much the more was demanded. In the first instance, the actress being a minor, negotiations were carried on with her father, the committee denouncing in the bitterest terms the avarice and rapacity of M. Felix. But when Rachel became competent to deal on her own behalf, she proved herself every whit as exacting as her sire. She became a societaire in 1843, entitled to one of the twenty-four shares into which the profits of the institution were divided. She was rewarded, moreover, with a salary of forty-two thousand francs per annum; and it was estimated that by her performances during her conge of three or four months every year she earned a further annual income of thirty thousand francs. She met with extraordinary success upon her provincial tours; enormous profits resulted from her repeated visits to Holland and Belgium, Germany, Russia, and England. But, from first to last, Rachel's connection with the Francais was an incessant quarrel. She was capricious, ungrateful, unscrupulous, extortionate. She struggled to evade her duties, to do as little as she possibly could in return for the large sums she received from the committee. She pretended to be too ill to play in Paris, the while she was always well enough to hurry away and obtain great rewards by her performances in the provinces. She wore herself out by her endless wanderings hither and thither, her continuous efforts upon the scene. She denied herself all rest, or slept in a travelling carriage to save time in her passage from one country theatre to another. Her company complained that they fell asleep as they acted, her engagements denying them proper opportunities of repose. The newspapers at one time set forth the acrimonious letters she had interchanged with the committee of the Francais. Finally she tended her resignation of the position she occupied as societaire; the committee took legal proceedings to compel her to return to her duties; some concessions were made on either side, however, and a reconciliation was patched up.

The new tragedies, "Judith" and "Cleopatre," written for the actress by Madame de Girardin, failed to please, nor did success attend the production of M. Romand's "Catherine II.," M. Soumet's "Jeanne d'Arc," in which, to the indignation of the critics, the heroine was seen at last surrounded by real flames! or "Le Vieux de la Montagne" of M. Latour de St. Ybars. With better fortune Rachel appeared in the same author's "Virginie," and in the "Lucrece" of Ponsard. Voltaire's "Oreste" was revived for her in 1845 that she might play Electre. She personated Racine's "Athalie" in 1847, assuming long white locks, painting furrows on her face, and disguising herself beyond recognition, in her determination to seem completely the character she had undertaken. In 1848 she played Agrippine in the "Britannicus" of Racine, and dressed in plain white muslin, and clasping the tri-colored flag to her heart, she delivered the "Marseillaise" to please the Revolutionists, lending the air strange meaning and passion by the intensity of her manner, as she half chanted, half recited the words, her voice now shrill and harsh, now deep, hollow, and reverberating—her enraptured auditors likening it in effect to distant thunder.

To the dramatists who sought to supply her with new parts, Rachel was the occasion of much chagrin and perplexity. After accepting Scribe's "Adrienne Lecouvreur" she rejected it absolutely only to resume it eagerly, however, when she learned that the leading character was to be undertaken by Mademoiselle Rose Cheri. His "Chandelier" having met with success, Rachel applied to De Musset for a play. She was offered, it seems, "Les Caprices de Marianne," but meantime the poet's "Bettine" failed, and the actress distrustfully turned away from him. An undertaking to appear in the "Medea" of Legouve landed her in a protracted lawsuit. The courts condemned her in damages to the amount of two hundred francs for every day she delayed playing the part of Medea after the date fixed upon by the management for the commencement of the rehearsals of the tragedy. She paid nothing, however, for the management failed to fix any such date. M. Legouve was only avenged in the success his play obtained, in a translated form, at the hands of Madame Ristori. In lieu of "Medea" Rachel produced "Rosemonde," a tragedy by M. Latour de St. Ybars, which failed completely. Other plays written for her were the "Valeria" of MM. Lacroix and Maquet, in which she personated two characters—the Empress Messalina and her half sister, Lysisca, a courtesan; the "Diane," of M. Augier, an imitation of Victor Hugo's "Marion Delorme;" "Lady Tartuffe," a comedy by Madame de Girardin; and "La Czarine," by M. Scribe. She appeared also in certain of the characters originally contrived for Mademoiselle Mais, such as La Tisbe in Victor Hugo's "Angelo," and the heroines of Dumas's "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle" and of "Louise de Lignerolles" by MM. Legouve and Dinaux.

The classical drama of France has not found much favor in England and America. We are all, perhaps, apt to think with Thackeray disrespectfully of the "old tragedies—well-nigh dead, and full time too—in which half a dozen characters appear and shout sonorous Alexandrines for half a dozen hours;" or we are disposed to agree with Mr. Matthew Arnold, that their drama, being fundamentally insufficient both in substance and in form, the French, with all their gifts, have not, as we have, an adequate form for poetry of the highest class. Those who remember Rachel, however, can testify that she breathed the most ardent life into the frigid remains of Racine and Corneille, relumed them with Promethean heat, and showed them to be instinct with the truest and intensest passion—When she occupied the scene, there could be no thought of the old artificial times of hair powder and rouge, periwigs and patches, in connection with the characters she represented. Phedre and Hermione, Pauline and Camille, interpreted by her genius, became as real and natural, warm and palpitating, as Constance or Lady Macbeth could have been when played by Mrs. Siddons, or as Juliet when impersonated by Miss O'Neill. Before Rachel came, it had been thought that the new romantic drama of MM. Hugo and Dumas, because of its greater truth to nature, had given the coup de grace to the old classic plays; but the public, at her bidding, turned gladly from the spasms and the rant of "Angelo" and "Angele," "Antony" and "Hernani," to the old-world stories, the formal tragedies of the seventeenth century poet-dramatists of France. The actress fairly witched her public. There was something of magic in her very presence upon the scene.

None could fail to be impressed by the aspect of the slight, pallid woman who seemed to gain height by reason of her slenderness, who moved toward her audience with such simple natural majesty, who wore and conducted her fluent classical draperies with such admirable and perfect grace. It was as though she had lived always so attired in tunic, peplum, and pallium—had known no other dress—not that she was of modern times playing at antiquity, she was the muse of Greek tragedy in person. The physical traditions of her race found expression or incarnation in her. Her face was of refined Judaical character—the thin nose slightly curved, the lower lip a trifle full, but the mouth exquisitely shaped, and the teeth small, white, and even. The profuse black-brown hair was smoothed and braided from the broad, low, white, somewhat over-hanging brow, beneath which in shadow the keen black eyes flashed out their lightnings, or glowed luridly like coals at a red heat. Her gestures were remarkable for their dignity and appropriateness; the long, slight arms lent themselves surprisingly to gracefulness; the beautifully formed hands, with the thin tapering fingers and the pink filbert nails, seemed always tremblingly on the alert to add significance or accent to her speeches. But there was eloquence in her very silence and complete repose. She could relate a whole history by her changes of facial expression. She possessed special powers of self-control; she was under subjection to both art and nature when she seemed to abandon herself the most absolutely to the whirlwind of her passion. There were no undue excesses of posture, movement, or tone. Her attitudes, it was once said, were those of "a Pythoness cast in bronze." Her voice thrilled and awed at its first note: it was so strangely deep, so solemnly melodious, until, stirred by passion as it were, it became thick and husky in certain of its tones; but it was always audible, articulate, and telling, whether sunk to a whisper or raised clamorously. Her declamation was superb, if, as critics reported, there had been decline in this matter during those later years of her life, to which my own acquaintance with Rachel's acting is confined. I saw her first at the Francais in 1849, and I was present at her last performance at the St. James' Theatre in 1853, having in the interval witnessed her assumption of certain of her most admired characters. And it may be true, too, that, like Kean, she was more and more disposed, as the years passed, to make "points," to slur over the less important scenes, and reserve herself for a grand outburst or a vehement climax, sacrificing thus many of the subtler graces, refinements, and graduations of elocution, for which she had once been famous. To English ears, it was hardly an offence that she broke up the sing-song of the rhymed tirades of the old plays and gave them a more natural sound, regardless of the traditional methods of speech of Clairon, Le Kain, and others of the great French players of the past.



Less success than had been looked for attended Rachel's invasion of the repertory of Mlle. Mars, an actress so idolized by the Parisians that her sixty years and great portliness of form were not thought hindrances to her personation of the youthful heroines of modern comedy and drama. But Rachel's fittest occupation and her greatest triumphs were found in the classical poetic plays. She, perhaps, intellectualized too much the creations of Hugo, Dumas, and Scribe; gave them excess of majesty. Her histrionic style was too exalted an ideal for the conventional characters of the drama of her own time; it was even said of her that she could not speak its prose properly or tolerably. She disliked the hair-powder necessary to Adrienne Lecouvreur and Gabrielle de Belle Isle, although her beauty, for all its severity, did not lose picturesqueness in the costumes of the time of Louis XV. As Gabrielle she was more girlish and gentle, pathetic, and tender, than was her wont, while the signal fervor of her speech addressed to Richelieu, beginning, "Vous mentez, Monsieur le Duc," stirred the audience to the most excited applause.

Rachel was seen upon the stage for the last time at Charleston on December 17, 1856. She played Adrienne Lecouvreur. She had been tempted to America by the prospect of extravagant profits. It had been dinned into her ears that Jenny Lind, by thirty-eight performances in America, had realized seventeen hundred thousand francs. Why might not she, Rachel, receive as much? And then, she was eager to quit Paris. There had been strange worship there of Madame Ristori, even in the rejected part of Medea. But already Rachel's health was in a deplorable state. Her constitution, never very strong, had suffered severely from the cruel fatigues, the incessant exertions, she had undergone. It may be, too, that the deprivations and sufferings of her childhood now made themselves felt as over-due claims that could be no longer denied or deferred. She forced herself to play, in fulfilment of her engagement, but she was languid, weak, emaciated; she coughed incessantly, her strength was gone; she was dying slowly but certainly of phthisis. And she appeared before an audience that applauded her, it is true, but cared nothing for Racine and Corneille, knew little of the French language, and were urgent that she should sing the "Marseillaise" as she had sung it in 1848! It was forgotten, or it was not known in America, that the actress had long since renounced revolutionary sentiments to espouse the cause of the Second Empire. She performed all her more important characters, however, at New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Nor was the undertaking commercially disappointing, if it did not wholly satisfy expectation. She returned to France possessed of nearly three hundred thousand francs as her share of the profits of her forty-two performances in the United States; but she returned to die. The winter of 1856 she passed at Cairo. She returned to France in the spring of 1857, but her physicians forbade her to remain long in Paris. In September she moved again to the South, finding her last retreat in the villa Sardou, at Cannet, a little village in the environs of Cannes. She lingered to January 3, 1858. The Theatre Francais closed its doors when news arrived of her death, and again on the day of her funeral. The body was embalmed and brought to Paris for interment in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, the obsequies being performed in accordance with the Jewish rites. The most eminent of the authors and actors of France were present, and funeral orations were delivered by MM. Jules Janin, Bataille, and Auguste Maquet. Victor Hugo was in exile; or, as Janin announced, the author of "Angelo" would not have withheld the tribute of his eulogy upon the sad occasion.



EDWIN BOOTH[15]

[Footnote 15: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By CLARENCE COOK

(1833-1893)



The great actor who has lately left the world furnished, in his own remarkable character and shining career, a striking exception to the popular tradition that men of genius are the fathers of ordinary sons. The father of Edwin Booth was in his time one of the glories of the English and American stage; but, even in his case the strict rule wavered, for his father, though not a genius, was yet a man of exceptional character; one who marked out a clear path for himself in the world, and walked in it to the end.

How far back the line of the family can be traced, or what was its origin, we do not know; but it has lately been said that the family was of Hebrew extraction, and came into England from Spain, where it had been known by the Spanish name, Cabana. The branch of the family that left Spain to live in England translated the name into the language of their new home, and from "Cabana," a shepherd's cabin, made the English equivalent, Booth.

However it may have been in this case, it was quite in the order of things that this change of name should be made. It has been done everywhere in Europe since very early times, and is doing to-day in this country by new comers from all parts of the old world.

The first of the Booths we read of in England was a silversmith, living in Bloomsbury, London, in the latter half of the last century. He had a son, Richard, who was bred to the law, but who was so imbued with the republican ideas rife at the time that he actually came to America to fight in the cause of Independence! He was taken prisoner, and carried back to England, where, not without some struggles, he again applied himself to the practice of the law, and in time made a fortune. He did not, however, forget America, and we are told that he had, hanging in his house, a portrait of Washington, which he expected all his visitors to salute.

One of the ways in which the republicans of that time showed where their sympathies lay, was in naming their children after the heroes of Greece and Rome; and accordingly we find Richard Booth calling his eldest son, Junius Brutus Booth, after the Roman patriot. This son was born in London, in 1796. His father was a man of scholarly tastes, and gave the boy a classical education, but it was long before he showed a marked inclination for any particular walk in life. He tried his hand at painting, sculpture, and poetry; and for a while studied law with his father. But, when the time came to choose, he gave his voice for the navy, and would have joined the brig Boxer, then fitting out for Nova Scotia. But, as war threatened between England and America, he was induced, by the strong persuasions of his father, not to run the risk of being forced to fight against America. He then decided to go upon the stage, and, in spite of his father's remonstrances, carried out his purpose. After some unimportant essays he at last succeeded in attracting public attention, and before long showed such unmistakable ability in dealing with difficult parts, that the public, till that time undivided in its enthusiasm for Kean, awoke to the fact that a dangerous rival threatened the security of their idol's throne. In the midst of his successes, however, Booth married and left England with his wife for a honeymoon trip to the West Indies. He had intended to return at once to England, but he was persuaded to prolong his journey and to visit New York. After playing a successful engagement there he went to Richmond, where he was no less prosperous. He next visited New Orleans and acquired such facility in speaking French that he played parts in French plays more than acceptably, and distinguished himself by acting Orestes in Racine's "Andromaque," to the delight of the French-speaking population. His accent is said to have been remarkable for its purity. Returning to New York, he acted Othello to Forrest's Iago; but, in the midst of his successes, the death of two of his children produced a temporary insanity, and this was made worse by the news of the death of his favorite son, Henry Byron, in London, of small-pox. This grievous loss was, however, to be made up to him by his son, Edwin, in whom he was to find the counterpart of himself, softened, refined, ennobled, while between father and son was to grow a strong attachment, a bond of mutual affection to last as long as life should endure.

Edwin Thomas Booth was born at Bel Air, Maryland, November 12, 1833. He was named Edwin, after his father's friend, Edwin Forrest, and Thomas, after Thomas Flynn, the actor, whom the elder Booth had known intimately in London. His son dropped the name of Thomas, later in life, and was only known to the public by the name of Edwin Booth. Owing to his father's wandering life Edwin had few advantages of education, but he made the most of his opportunities, and indeed was a student of good letters all his life, turning the light of all he learned from books and experience upon his art. His youth is described as reticent, and marked by a strong individuality, with a deep sympathy for his father, early manifested; his father, a much enduring, suffering man, strongly in need of sympathy, knowing to repay it, too, in kind.

Edwin Booth made his first appearance on the stage in 1849 at the Boston Museum in the youthful part of Tressil, in Colley Cibber's version of Shakespeare's "Richard III." It had been against his father's wishes that he had adopted the stage as a profession; but, as his father had done in a like case before him he persevered, and soon had the satisfaction of convincing his parent that he had decided wisely. He did not at once come to New York after his success in Boston, but went to Providence and to Philadelphia, acting Cassio in "Othello," and Wilford in the "Iron Chest," a part he soon made his own and in which he made his first appearance in New York, playing at the National Theatre in Chatham Street, in 1850. The next year he played Richard III. for the first time, taking the part unexpectedly to fill the place of his father, who was suddenly ill. In 1852 he went out with his father to San Francisco, where his brother, Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., was the manager of a theatre; and the father and his two sons acted together. At Sacramento, we are told that the incident occurred which led Edwin Booth to think of acting Hamlet, a part which was to become as closely associated with his name as that of Richard III. was with his father. He was dressed for the part of Jaffier in Otway's play, "Venice Preserved," when some one said to him "You look like Hamlet, why not play it?" It was, however, some time before he ventured to assume the part. In October, 1852, the father and son parted, not to meet again. The elder Booth went to New Orleans, and after playing for a week took passage in a steamboat on the Mississippi, and catching a severe cold succumbed after a few days' illness and died. For a while after his father's death Edwin suffered greatly from poverty and from the hardships of his precarious life, unsustained as he now was by the affection and encouragement of a father who, with all his faults, and in all the misfortunes brought on by serious ill-health and some aberrations that were the effect of ill-health had always been an affectionate and true friend. But a talent such as Edwin Booth possessed, united to a high character, and to a dauntless spirit, could not long be hid, and in a short time his name began to be heard of as that of one destined to great ends. In 1854 he went to Australia as a member of Laura Keene's company. He had made a deep impression in California, acting such parts as Richard III., Shylock, Macbeth, and Hamlet, and on returning there from Australia that first impression was greatly strengthened. On leaving San Francisco he received various testimonials showing the high esteem in which his acting was held by the educated part of the community; but throughout Edwin Booth's career, the interest he excited in the vast audiences that followed him was by no means confined to the self-styled "best people." Though he never "played to the gallery," the heart of the gallery was as much with him as the heart of the boxes, and he knew the value of its rapt silence as well as of its stormy voices.

In Boston, in 1857, he played Sir Giles Overreach, in Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," and the profound impression he made in it confirmed him in his purpose to devote himself to tragic acting. The story of an actor's life is seldom eventful, and Mr. Booth's history, after his first assured success, is the record of a long line of triumphs without a failure. The most remarkable of these triumphs was at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, where he acted Hamlet to large and ever-increasing audiences for over one hundred successive nights, that is, from November 21, 1864, to March 24, 1865. On this occasion a gold medal was presented to the actor by friends and admirers in New York; the list of subscribers including the names of many well-known citizens. The Winter Garden Theatre was managed by Booth and his brother-in-law, the clever actor, J. S. Clarke, until Booth bought out Clarke and assumed the entire management himself. In 1865 the terrible tragedy occurred which blighted Booth's whole after-life, and for a time drove him from the stage. He did not act again until 1866; in 1867 the theatre was destroyed by fire, and in 1868 the corner-stone of a new building, to be known as Booth's Theatre, was laid, and in a short time New York was in possession, for the first time, of a thoroughly appointed, comfortable, and handsome theatre. This building was made famous by a number of Shakespearian revivals that for beauty, magnificence, and scenic poetry have, we believe, never been equalled. We doubt if "Hamlet," "Julius Caesar," or "Romeo and Juliet," have ever been presented with more satisfying completeness to the eye and to the imagination than in this theatre by Mr. Booth and his company. Although the theatre was in existence for thirteen years, from 1868 to 1882, when it was finally closed, Mr. Booth's management lasted only about half that time. The speculation was not a fortunate one for the actor; the expenses ate up all the profits, and Mr. Booth was bankrupted by his venture. He paid all his debts, however, and went bravely to work to build up a new fortune. He made a tour of the South, which was one long ovation, and in a season of eight weeks in San Francisco he took in $96,000.

In 1880 he went to England and remained there two years. In 1882 he visited Germany, acting in both countries with great success, and in 1883 he returned home and made a tour of America, repeating everywhere his old triumphs, and winning golden opinions from all classes of his countrymen.

Edwin Booth died in New York, June 7, 1893, at the Players' Club, where he had lived for the last few years of his life. This was a building erected by his own munificence, fitted up with luxurious completeness, and presented to a society of his professional brethren for the use and behoof of his fellow-artists, reserving for himself only the modest apartment where he chose to live, in sympathetic touch with those who still pursued the noble art he had relinquished.

Mr. Booth was twice married. By his first wife, Miss Mary Devlin, who died in 1863, he had one child, a daughter; by the second, Miss McVicker, he had no children. She died in 1881.

[Signature of the author.]



JOSEPH JEFFERSON[16]

[Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By CLARENCE COOK

(BORN 1829)



Joseph Jefferson, distinguished, among his other brilliant successes as an actor, as the creator for this generation of the character of Rip Van Winkle in the play dramatized from the story in Washington Irving's "Sketch Book," was the third of his name in a family of actors. The first of the three was born at Plymouth, England, in 1774. He was the son of Thomas Jefferson, a comedian of merit, the contemporary and friend of Garrick, and came to this country in 1795, making his first appearance in New York on February 10, 1796, in the part of Squire Richard in "The Provoked Husband." Dunlap says that, young as he was, he was already an artist, and that among the men of the company he held the first place. He lived in this country for thirty-six years, admired as an actor and respected as a man. He died at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1832.

Joseph Jefferson, the second, was born in Philadelphia in 1804. He inherited the laughing blue eyes and sunny disposition of his father, but he had not his talent as an actor; he is said to have been best in old men's parts. His taste, however, led him to scene-painting rather than to acting; yet his skill in either direction was not enough to win success, and, in spite of well-meant efforts, he lived and died a poor man: ill luck pursuing him to the end of his days, when he was carried off by yellow fever at Mobile in 1842, just as his unprosperous skies were brightening a little. His son bears affectionate witness to the upright character of the man and to his indomitable cheerfulness in the most adverse circumstances. He spared no pains in bringing up his children in good ways, and he was earnestly seconded by his wife, a heroic figure in her humble sphere, whose tact and courage not seldom saved the family bark when it was drifting in shoal water. Mrs. Jefferson came of French parents, and was a Mrs. Burke, a widow with one child, a son, when she married Mr. Jefferson. Her son tells us that she had been one of the most attractive stars in America, the leading prima donna of the country; but she bore her changed fortune, as the wife of an unsuccessful actor and manager, with no less dignity on the stage of real life, where no applause was to be had but what came from those who loved her as mother, wife, and friend.

This, then, was the family circle in which our Joseph Jefferson passed his earliest years, the formative period of his life. There were the kind-hearted, easy-going father, the practical, energetic mother, a sister, and the half-brother, Charles Burke, whose after-reputation as an actor lives in the pages of Jefferson's autobiography enshrined in words of warm but judicious appreciation. "Although only a half-brother," says Jefferson, "he seemed like a father to me, and there was a deep and strange affection between us." Nor must mention be forgotten of one other member of the family: Mary, his foster-mother, as Jefferson affectionately calls her, "a faithful, loving, truthful friend, rather than a servant, with no ambition or thought for herself, living only for us, and totally unconscious of her own existence."

Joseph Jefferson, the third of the name, and in whom the talent of his grandfather was to reappear enriched with added graces of his own, was born in Philadelphia in 1829. He tells us that his earliest recollections are connected with a theatre in Washington. This was a rickety, old, frame-building adjoining the house in which his father lived as manager, the door at the end of the hall-way opening directly upon the stage; and as a toddling little chap in a short frock he was allowed full run of the place. Thus "behind the scenes" was his first playground; and here, "in this huge and dusty toy-shop made for children of a larger growth," he got his first experience. He was early accustomed to face an audience; for, being the son of the manager and almost living in the theatre, he was always pressed into the service whenever a small child was wanted, and "often went on the stage in long clothes as a property infant in groups of happy peasantry." His first dim recollection of such a public appearance is as the "child," in Kotzebue's play, "Pizarro," who is carried across the bridge by Rolla. His next appearance was in a new entertainment, called "Living Statues," where he struck attitudes as "Ajax Defying the Lightning," or "The Dying Gladiator." At four years of age he made a hit by accompanying T. D. Rice, the original "Jim Crow," as a miniature copy of that once famous character, and the first money he earned was the sum of $24 thrown upon the stage in silver from pit and gallery, to reward his childish dancing and singing on that occasion.