t to the university, he resolved to run
any risk, rather than enter upon a course of life inconsistent
with the liveliness of his temper, and the natural bent of his
inclinations. It happened that there was then in London one Mr.
Ashbury, who had been long master of a company at Dublin, with whom
young Booth became acquainted, and finding that under his direction
there was no danger of his getting a livelihood, he quitted all other
views, stole away from school, and went over to Ireland with Mr.
Ashbury in 1698.[B]

He very soon distinguished himself on the stage at Dublin, where
he had great natural advantages over most of his cotemporaries,
especially in tragedy; he had a grave countenance, a good person, an
air of dignity, a melodious voice, and a very manly action. He spoke
justly, his cadence was grateful to the ear, and his pronunciation was
scholastically correct and proper. He so far insinuated himself into
the favour of English gentlemen in Ireland, and found his reputation
growing to so great a heighth, that he returned home in 1701, to make
a trial of his talents on the British stage. He accordingly applied to
lord Fitzharding, of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark, and
was by him recommended to Mr. Betterton, who took him under his care,
and gave him all the assistance in his power, of which Mr. Booth
greatly profited.

Never were a tutor and pupil better met; the one was capable of giving
the best instructions in his own performance, and the other had a
promptness of conception, a violent propensity, and a great genius.
The first part Booth performed in London was Maximus in Valentinian,
a play of Beaumont and Fletcher's originally, but altered, and brought
upon the stage by the earl of Rochester. The reception he met with
exceeded his warmest hopes, and the favour of the town had a happy
effect upon him, in inspiring him with a proper degree of confidence
without vanity. The Ambitious Step-mother, a tragedy written by Mr.
Rowe, in which that author has thrown out more fire, and heat of
poetry, than in any other of his plays, was about this time introduced
upon the stage; the part of Artaban was assigned to Booth, in which he
raised his character to such a heighth, as to be reckoned only second
to his great master.

In the year 1704 he married Miss Barkham, daughter to Sir William
Barkham of Norfolk, bart. who lived with him six years, and died
without issue. In the theatrical revolutions which