s, and remained there a
week, performing to crowded houses. He then started north by way of the
Mississippi, and was found dying in his stateroom a few days later. He
had been caught in a severe rain as he left New Orleans, a cold
developed, complications followed, and for forty-eight hours he lay
unattended in his stateroom, without that medical attention which he was
unable or unwilling to summon. He died November 30, 1852, and his body
was interred at Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore, in a grave afterwards
marked by a monument erected by his son Edwin.

This was only one of many tragedies which darkened the life of Edwin
Booth, for, to use the words of William Winter, he was "tried by some of
the most terrible afflictions that ever tested the fortitude of a human
soul. Over his youth, plainly visible, impended the lowering cloud of
insanity. While he was yet a boy, and while literally struggling for
life in the semi-barbarous wilds of old California, he lost his beloved
father, under circumstances of singular misery. In early manhood he laid
in her grave the woman of his first love, the wife who had died in
absence from him, herself scarcely past the threshold of youth, lovely
as an angel and to all who knew her precious beyond expression. A little
later his heart was well nigh broken and his life was well nigh blasted
by the crime of a lunatic brother that for a moment seemed to darken the
hope of the world. Recovering from that blow, he threw all his resources
and powers into the establishment of the grandest theatre in the
metropolis of America, and he saw his fortune of more than a million
dollars, together with the toil of some of the best years of his life
frittered away. Under all trials he bore bravely up, and kept the even,
steadfast tenor of his course; strong, patient, gentle, neither elated
by public homage nor embittered by private grief."

It has been said that Booth returned from California a finished actor.
He had, besides, the prestige of a great name, and he was welcomed with
open arms. He had not yet reached the summit of his skill, but he showed
an extraordinary grace and "a spirit ardent with the fire of genius."
From that time forward, his career was one of lofty endeavor and of
high achievement. In the great characters of Shakespeare, especially in
those of Hamlet, Richard the Third, and Iago, he had no rivals, and no
one who witnessed him in any of these parts ever outlived the deep
impression