re he brought out the blithe Sir William Don; and one
of the sprightliest episodes of his memoir is the chapter in which he
describes that tall, elegant, nonchalant adventurer. Don was a
Scotchman, born in 1826, who made his first appearance in America in
November 1850 at the Broadway theatre, New York, and afterward drifted
aimlessly through the provincial theatres. Don was married in 1857 to
Miss Emily Sanders, and he died at Tasmania, March 19, 1862, and was
buried at Hobartstown. Jefferson saw the dawn of promise in the career
of Julia Dean,--when that beautiful girl was acting with him, in the
stock--and afterwards he saw the noonday splendour of her prosperity;
and he might have recalled, but that sad touches are excluded from his
biography, her mournful decline. In 1853 he was stage manager of the
Baltimore museum, for Henry C. Jarrett, and in 1854 he was manager of
the Richmond theatre, for John T. Ford. Among the players whom he met,
and who deeply influenced him, were James E. Murdoch, Henry Placide,
Edwin Forrest, Edwin Adams, and Agnes Robertson. But the actor who most
affected the youth of Joseph Jefferson, whose influence sank deepest
into his heart and has remained longest in his memory and upon his
style, was his half-brother, Charles Burke: and certainly, as a
serio-comic actor, it may be doubted whether Charles Burke ever was
surpassed. That comedian was born March 27, 1822, in Philadelphia, and
he died in New York, November 10, 1854. Jefferson's mother, Cornelia
Frances Thomas, born in New York, October 1, 1796, the daughter of
French parents, was married in her girlhood to the Irish comedian Thomas
Burke, who died in 1824; and she contracted her second marriage, with
Jefferson's father, in 1826. Jefferson writes at his best in the
description of scenery, in the analysis of character, and in the
statement of artistic principles. His portraiture of Murdoch, as a
comedian, is particularly clear and fine. His account of Julia Dean's
hit, as Lady Priory, is excellent and will often be cited. His portrayal
of the reciprocal action of Burton and Charles Burke, when they were
associated in the same piece, conveys a valuable lesson. His anecdotes
of Edwin Forrest present that grim figure as yet again the involuntary
cause of mirth. It often was so. Jefferson, however, draws a veil of
gentle charity over those misused powers, that perverse will, that
wasted life. The most striking dramatic portraiture in the boo