that was passed in Washington,
Baltimore, and New York. He went to Chicago in 1838, when that place was
scarcely more than a village--making the journey from New York to
Buffalo in a canal-boat, and sailing thence, aboard a steamer, through
the lakes of Erie, Huron, and Michigan. He travelled with his parents,
and they gave dramatic performances, in which he assisted, in western
towns. It was a time of poverty and hardship, but those ills were borne
cheerfully--the brighter side of a hard life being kept steadily in
view, and every comic incident of it being seen and appreciated. His
father was a gentleman of the Mark Tapley temperament, who came out
strong amid adverse circumstances, and the early disappearance from the
book of that delightful person (who died in 1842, of yellow fever, at
Mobile), is a positive sorrow. His mother, a refined and gentle lady, of
steadfast character and of uncommon musical and dramatic talents and
accomplishments, survived till 1849, and her ashes rest in Ronaldson's
cemetery, in Philadelphia. Jefferson might have said much more about his
parents, and especially about his famous grandfather, without risk of
becoming tedious--for they were remarkably interesting people; but he
was writing his own life and not theirs, and he has explained that he
likes not to dwell much upon domestic matters. The story of his long
ancestry of actors, which reaches back to the days of Garrick (for there
have been five generations of the Jeffersons upon the stage), he has not
mentioned; and the story of his own young days is hurried rapidly to a
conclusion. He was brought on the stage, when a child, at the theatre in
Washington, D.C., by the negro comedian Thomas D. Rice, who emptied him
out of a bag; and thereupon, being dressed as "a nigger dancer," in
imitation of Rice, he performed the antics of Jim Crow. He adverts to
his first appearance in New York and remembers his stage combat with
Master Titus; and he thinks that Master Titus must remember it
also,--since one of that boy's big toes was nearly cut off in the fray.
That combat occurred at the Franklin theatre, September 30, 1837--a
useful fact that the autobiographer cares not to mention. He speedily
becomes a young man, as the reader follows him through the first three
chapters of his narrative,--of which there are seventeen,--and he is
found to be acting, as a stock player, in support of James W. Wallack,
Junius Brutus Booth, W.C. Macready, and Mr. an