e for
opening the doors in the evening, the crowd was so tumultuous that it
was evident there was little certainty that the holders of box tickets
would obtain their places, and for ladies the attempt would be
dangerous. A placard was therefore displayed, stating that all persons
who had tickets would be admitted at the stage door before the front
doors were opened. This notice soon drew such a crowd to the back of the
theatre that when Cooke arrived he could not get in. He was on foot with
Dunlap, one of the New York managers, and he was obliged to make himself
known before he could be got through the press. 'I am like the man going
to be hanged,' he said, 'who told the crowd they would have no fun
unless they made way for him.'"

The writer of these lines was Charles Robert Leslie, who, on the night
in question, occupied a place in the flies, and from that aerial station
"first saw George Frederick Cooke, the best _Richard_ since Garrick, and
who has not been surpassed even by Edmund Kean" (Autobiography of C. R.
Leslie, p. 18). Soon after this memorable night Leslie made a likeness
of Cooke which attracted Bradford's attention, and a fund was speedily
raised by subscription to enable the young artist to study painting two
years in Europe. Armed with letters to English artists, Leslie sailed
from New York on the 11th of November, 1811, in company with Mr.
Inskeep. So slight a circumstance gained for him an introduction into
the great world of West and Allston, and Landseer and Fuseli, and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, and gave to England and the world the treasures of the
Vernon and the Sheepshank's collections.

In the preface to the _Mirror of Taste_ (Vol. IV) the editors recognize
the importance to them of the visit of Cooke. The magazine "rose into
estimation just at that singular crisis when a great theatrical
character unexpectedly visiting this country held a new light to the
stage, and, pointing out the true dramatic representation, opened to our
people a new train of thought, gave to the public mind a new spring, and
imparted an impulse before unfelt, with a just and elegant direction to
the general taste, roused the feelings and perceptions from listlessness
and sloth, and infused into the best bosoms of the nation a generous
spirit, which gave new life to the arts, quickened them into action and
effect, called forth the infant genius of a LESLIE to the public view,
and bade breathing portraits start from the ca