to give a complete illusion of the young and handsome
lover. She played other male characters in after years, notably Hamlet,
and created a deep impression in them. Her sister was a lovely girl, and
an accomplished actress, and their "Romeo and Juliet" ran for two
hundred nights. Susan Cushman would no doubt also have won high fame as
an actress, but she soon retired from the stage, marrying the
distinguished chemist and author, James Sheridan Muspratt, of Liverpool.

Charlotte Cushman returned to America in the fall of 1849, and was
received with acclamation. There was never any question, after that, of
her position as the greatest English-speaking actress, and that position
she easily maintained until her death. She gathered wealth as well as
fame, built a villa at Newport, and in 1863 earned nearly nine thousand
dollars for the United States Sanitary Commission by benefit
performances. Energetic, resolute, faithful, impatient of any
achievement but the highest, she seemed the very embodiment of many of
Shakespeare's greatest creations. She possessed a strange, and weird
genius, akin, in some respects, to that of Edwin Booth, and her
delineation of the sublime, the beautiful, the terrible has never been
surpassed. A noble interpreter of noble minds, Charlotte Cushman stands
for the supreme achievement of the actress.

What Booth and Forrest were to tragedy, William J. Florence was to
comedy. Indeed, he may be said to have gone farther than either Booth or
Forrest, for he founded a school and gave to the stage the chivalrous,
light-hearted and lucky Irishman, who has since become so familiar to
the drama, however rare he may be outside the theatre.

Florence was born in Albany, New York, in 1831. His family name was
Conlin, from which it will be seen that he came naturally by his insight
into Irish character; but he changed this name when he went upon the
stage to the more romantic and euphonious one of Florence. He gave
evidence of possessing unusual dramatic talent while still a boy, and
made his debut on the regular stage at the age of eighteen. He had the
usual hardships of the young actor, playing in various stock companies
without attracting especial attention, and finally, in 1853, marrying
Malvina Pray, herself an actress of considerable ability.

It was at this time that Florence began to find his field in the
delineation of Irish and Yankee characters, his wife appearing with him,
and together they won a w