ng it. He has studied his heroes so profoundly, analyzed
their characters so subtly, and entered so heartily into sympathy with
them, that he has, become able, by the aid of his wonderful genius, to
entirely discard his own personality, and assume theirs at will.

Mr. Booth has steadily risen in power and finish as an actor, for his
labors have been unceasing. Great as his triumphs have been, he does
not regard himself as freed from the necessity of study. His studies
have become more intelligent than in former years, but not the less
faithful. He has the true artist's aspiration after the rarest
perfection in his art, though to those of us without the charmed circle
it is difficult to see how he can excel his present excellence. Yet that
he does so we have undoubted proof, for we see him rising higher in the
admiration and esteem of the world every year, and each year we gather
fresh laurels to twine around his brows.

He has steadily educated his audiences, and has elevated the standard of
his art among his countrymen. He has shown them what fine acting really
is, and has taught them to enjoy it. He has kept them true to the
legitimate drama, and has done more than any other man to rescue the
American stage from the insignificance with which it was threatened. It
speaks volumes for him as an actor and a manager, that when New York
seemed wholly given up to ballet, burlesque, and opera bouffe, he was
able to make the almost forgotten masterpieces of Shakespeare the most
popular and most profitable dramatic ventures of the year.

[Illustration: JEFFERSON, AS RIP VAN WINKLE.]

CHAPTER XXXVI.

JOSEPH JEFFERSON.

The subject of this sketch is one of a race of actors. His
great-grandfather was a contemporary of some of the brightest ornaments
of the English stage, and was himself a famous actor and the intimate
friend of Garrick, Sam Foote, and Barr. He was a man of amiable and
winning disposition, and was strikingly handsome in person. He occupies
a prominent place in the history of the English stage, and is said to
have been, socially, one of the most brilliant men of his day. He died
in 1807. In 1795 his son came to America. Of him, Dunlap, in his
"History of the American Stage," says, referring to him, in February,
1797: "He was then a youth, but even then an artist. Of a small and
light figure, well formed, with a singular physiognomy, a nose perfectly
Grecian, and blue eyes full of laughter, he had t