s destined in the course of time to eclipse the fame
won by his father, and to endear himself to the American people as a
more finished, if less stormy, actor. This was EDWIN BOOTH. He was born
on his father's farm near Baltimore, Maryland, In 1833, and after
receiving a good common-school education, began his training for the
stage. The elder Booth was quick to see that his boy had inherited his
genius, and he took great pains to develop the growing powers of the
lad, and to incline them toward those paths which his experience had
taught him were the surest roads to success. He took him with him on his
starring engagements, and kept him about him so constantly that the boy
may be said to have grown up on the stage from his infancy. He was
enthusiastically devoted to his father, and it was his delight to stand
at the wings and watch the great tragedian in his personations, and the
thunders of applause which proclaimed some fresh triumph were sweeter to
the boy, perhaps, than to the man.

In 1849, at the age of sixteen, he made his first appearance on the
stage as Tyrrell, in "Richard III.," and gave great satisfaction by his
rendition of the character. From this time he continued to appear at
various places with his father, and in 1851 won his first great success
in the city of New York. His father was playing an engagement at the
Chatham Theater at the time, and was announced for Richard III., which
was his masterpiece. When the hour for performance came, he was too ill
to appear. The manager was in despair, for the house was filled with a
large audience, who were impatient for the appearance of the humpbacked
king. In this emergency Edwin Booth offered to take his father's place,
and the manager, pleased with the novelty of the proposal, accepted it.
Young Booth was but eighteen years old, and had not even studied the
part, and it was a perilous thing to venture before an audience in a
role in which one of his name had won such great fame. But he was
confident of his own powers, and he had so often hung with delight upon
his father's rendition of the part, that he needed but a hasty reference
to the book to perfect him in the text. He won a decided triumph, and
the public promptly acknowledged that he gave promise of being an
unusually fine actor.

In 1852 Mr. Booth went to California, and engaged for the "utility
business." He spent two years in careful and patient study in the
humbler walks of his profession, learn