. Siddons, Mrs. Pope, Miss Smith, Mrs. H.
Johnston Miss Stephens, Miss Foote, and Miss Phillips. Later
representatives of it were Sally Booth, Helen Faucit, and Laura
Addison.

IV.

EDWIN BOOTH.

There was a great shower of meteors on the night of November 13, 1833,
and on that night, near Baltimore, Maryland, was born the most famous
tragic actor of America in this generation, Edwin Booth. No other
American actor of this century has had a rise so rapid or a career so
early and continuously brilliant as that of Edwin Booth. His father, the
renowned Junius Brutus Booth, had hallowed the family name with
distinction and romantic interest. If ever there was a genius upon the
stage the elder Booth was a genius. His wonderful eyes, his tremendous
vitality, his electrical action, his power to thrill the feelings and
easily and inevitably to awaken pity and terror,--all these made him a
unique being and obtained for him a reputation with old-time audiences
distinct from that of all other men. He was followed as a marvel, and
even now the mention of his name stirs, among those who remember him,
an enthusiasm such as no other theatrical memory can evoke. His sudden
death (alone, aboard a Mississippi river steamboat, November 30, 1852)
was pathetic, and the public thought concerning him thenceforward
commingled tenderness with passionate admiration. When his son Edwin
began to rise as an actor the people everywhere rejoiced and gave him an
eager welcome. With such a prestige he had no difficulty in making
himself heard, and when it was found that he possessed the same strange
power with which his father had conquered and fascinated the dramatic
world the popular exultation was unbounded.

Edwin Booth went on the stage in 1849 and accompanied his father to
California in 1852, and between 1852 and 1856 he gained his first
brilliant success. The early part of his California life was marked by
hardship and all of it by vicissitude, but his authentic genius speedily
flamed out, and long before he returned to the Atlantic seaboard the
news of his fine exploits had cleared the way for his conquest of all
hearts. He came back in 1856-57, and from that time onward his fame
continually increased. He early identified himself with two of the most
fascinating characters in the drama--the sublime and pathetic Hamlet and
the majestic, romantic, picturesque, tender, and grimly humorous
Richelieu. He first acted Hamlet in 1854; he ad