ing its details, and doing much of
the drudgery essential to a thorough knowledge of his art. In 1854, he
went to Australia, and played a successful engagement there, stopping on
his way at several of the Pacific islands. On his return, he played an
engagement, with marked success, at the Sandwich Islands, and then went
back to California.

In 1857 he returned to New York, and, on the 4th of May, appeared at
Burton's Theater, in the character of Richard III. A writer who
witnessed his performance on that occasion thus speaks of him: "The
company was not strong in tragedy; the young actor came without
reputation; the season was late. But he conquered his place. His Richard
was intellectual, brilliant, rapid, handsome, picturesque, villainous.
But the villainy was servant to the ambition--not master of it, as a
coarse player makes it. The action was original; the dress was
perfect--the smirched gauntlets and flung-on mantle of the scheming,
busy duke, the splendid vestments of the anointed king, the glittering
armor of the monarch in the field. His clear beauty, his wonderful
voice--which he had not learned to use--his grace, his fine artistic
sense, made all triumphs seem possible to this young man. Evidently
there was great power in the new actor--power untrained, vigor ill
directed. But what was plainest to be seen, was the nervous, impulsive
temperament, which would leave him no rest save in achievement. He might
come back to us a robustious, periwig-pated fellow, the delight and
wonder of the galleries. He might come back the thorough artist, great
in repose as in action. But it was clear enough that what he was then in
Richard, in Richelieu, in Sir Edward Mortimer, he would never be again."

He followed this appearance by a general tour through the country, and
returned to New York in 1858, where he won fresh laurels. In 1860 he
reappeared at Burton's Theater, then called the Winter Garden, and added
Hamlet to his role. He had improved greatly during the time that had
elapsed since his last appearance at this theater, and had gained very
much in power and artistic finish. The most critical audiences in the
country received him with delight, crowded his houses, and hailed his
efforts with thunders of applause. This season silenced all the critics,
and placed him among the great actors of the American stage. He bore his
honors modestly, and though he was proud of the triumphs he had won,
they did not satisfy him. The