Part 10 (1/2)

[Illustration: BOOTH]

To the student of A, one name stands out before all the rest, the name of Booth No other actors in this country have ever equalled the achievements of Junius Brutus Booth and of his son, Edwin Booth They possessed the genius of tragedy, if any reat et the impression of absolute reality which they conveyed

Junius Brutus Booth was the son of an eccentric silversmith of London, and was born there in 1796 Let us pause here to rereatest Frenchreatest Russian woman a Gerlish or Irish This sounds rather Irish itself; but it is true

Certainly, in the end Napoleon Bonaparte became as French as any Frenchman and the Elish and Irish actors who came to these shores in search of fame and fortune, and who found theht to be considered in any account of the Ae which they did so much to adorn

Junius Brutus Booth, then, was born in London in 1796 Twenty years before, his father had been so carried away by Republican principles that he had sailed for America to join the ranks of the arland So it will be seen that he was so more than a mere silversmith; but he was very successful at his trade, and was able to give his son a careful classical education, to fit hirin when the boy, after a short experience in a an actor

He secured some small parts, ed in a reedian, Edmund Kean, which divided the town into two factions But Booth tired of the struggle, in which the odds were all against him, and in 1821 sailed for Areat popular favorite until the day of his death He was a short, spare, muscular hted by a pair of piercing blue eyes, and he possessed a voice of wonderful coe he was for power, in which his son, perhaps, never quite equalled hiht a farm near Baltimore, and there, on Novereat shower ofelse, reatest tragedian He was the seventh of ten children, all of whoenius It was not without a trace of madness, and reached a fearful culmination in John Wilkes Booth, when he shot down Abrahaton

Froe His father did not encourage him, but finally, in 1849, consented to his appearance with hi Richard the Third” Fros, and partook of the strange and sad adventures of that ard enius In 1852, he ith his father to California, and was left there by the elder Booth, who no doubt thought it the best school for the boy's budding talent There, in the Sandwich Islands, and in Australia, a ca that hardshi+p, discipline, and stern reality can furnish Arew and deepened, and when he returned again to the east in 1856 he was no longer a novice, but an accomplished actor

His last years in California had been shadowed by a great sorrow--the sudden and pitiful death of his father The elder Booth had for years been subject to attacks of insanity, brought on, or at least intensified, by extreme intemperance On one occasion he had attempted to commit suicide On another, he had had his nose broken, an accident which so interfered with his voice that he did not regain complete control of it for nearly two years On his return from California, where he had left his son, he stopped at New Orleans, and re to crowded houses He then started north by way of the Mississippi, and was found dying in his staterooht in a severe rain as he left New Orleans, a cold developed, coht hours he lay unattended in his stateroom, without thatto summon He died November 30, 1852, and his body was interred at Greenrave afterwards marked by a monument erected by his son Edwin

This was only one of edies which darkened the life of Edwin Booth, for, to use the words of William Winter, he was ”tried by some of the most terrible afflictions that ever tested the fortitude of a human soul Over his youth, plainly visible, i cloud of insanity While he was yet a boy, and while literally struggling for life in the semi-barbarous wilds of old California, he lost his beloved father, under circurave the woman of his first love, the ho had died in absence from him, herself scarcely past the threshold of youth, lovely as an angel and to all who knew her precious beyond expression A little later his heart ell nigh broken and his life ell nigh blasted by the crime of a lunatic brother that for afrom that blow, he threw all his resources and powers into the establishrandest theatre in the metropolis of America, and he saw his fortune of ether with the toil of some of the best years of his life frittered away Under all trials he bore bravely up, and kept the even, steadfast tenor of his course; strong, patient, gentle, neither elated by public horief”

It has been said that Booth returned from California a finished actor

He had, besides, the prestige of a great name, and he elcomed with open arms He had not yet reached the surace and ”a spirit ardent with the fire of genius”

From that tih achievereat characters of Shakespeare, especially in those of Hao, he had no rivals, and no one itnessed him in any of these parts ever outlived the deep i the last two or three years of his life his health failed gradually, and he was finally coe On April 19, 1893, he suffered a stroke of paralysis fro in a semi-conscious state until June 7th, when he sank rapidly and died

Of his art no words can give an adequate idea It was essentially poetic, full of a strange and coreat enius, and rank with the highest achievements of any actor who ever lived His countenance--

”That face which no man ever saw And from his memory banished quite, The eyes in which are Haht”--

as Thoent's portrait, which heads this chapter--was a strange and e of expression unsurpassed His eyes were especially wonderful, dark brown, but see, with electrical effect, the actor's thought He was unique He stood apart The Ae has never produced another like hilory of achieverace, in charht, but he surpassed hiedy, particularly in his voice, , with an extraordinary depth and purity of tone

Unlike Booth, Forrest came from no family of actors, nor inherited a nae He was born in Philadelphia in 1806, his father being a Scotchh money to keep his family of six children from actual want He died when Edas thirteen years old, and his , by opening a little store, ed to support the children She was a serious and devout woman and decided that Edwin should enter the , so he was apprenticed to a cooper

How long he stayed with the cooper nobody knows; but it could not have been long, for already he was fired with an ambition to be an actor, and after sorieved his e He made his first appearance on the 27th of Novelas,” and was an immediate success His youth--reme, and, above all, that wonderful and resonant voice, won the audience at once, and his career was begun

But many hardshi+ps awaited him The theatres of New York and Philadelphia had their companies of well-known and well-trained actors

There was no hope for hieton, and other towns of the ht dollars a week This, of course, was scarcely enough to keep body and soul together, but all Forrest wanted was a chance, and he did notand hardshi+p which followed

For business was poor, and Forrest did not always receive even that eight dollars The end came at Dayton, Ohio, where the company went to pieces Forrest, without money and almost without clothes, walked the forty miles to Cincinnati, where, after a ti of his career, and this hard novitiate lasted for four years, until, in 1826, at the age of twenty, he was able to return to New York and secure an engagement at the old Bowery Theatre He was an instant success, and from year to year his wonderful powers seemed to increase, until he became easily the most famous actor of the day

But his fame was soon to be dulled by unfortunate personalities

Conceiving a jealousy of Macready, the fah, and when Macready came to America in 1849, Forrest's followers broke in upon a performance at the Astor Place opera house, and a riot followed in which twenty-two men were killed A quarrel with his wife led to the divorce court, and the suit was decided against hiout for a long ti the sciatic nerve, so that he lost the use of one hand, and could not walk steadily His power had left him, and in the five years that followed, he played to empty houses and an indifferent public, not content to retire, but hoping against hope that he e A stroke of paralysis finally ended the hopeless struggle

Forrest's art was of a cruder and more robust sort than Edwin Booth's who, by the as nareat physique, a co presence and--yes, let us say it!--a loud voice Coriolanus, Spartacus, Virginius--those were his roles, and no a