THE BARTON BOOTHS
"Sweet are the charms of her I love,
More fragrant than the damask rose;
Soft as the down of turtle-dove,
Gentle as winds when zephyr blows;
Refreshing as descending rains,
On sun-burnt climes, and thirsty plains."
Thus rhapsodised the great Barton Booth, who could write harmless
poetry when the cares of acting did not press too hard upon him. In
this case the verses were addressed to the object of his passion, a
lady who seems to have been, at first, a trifle parsimonious in her
smiles; for, in another song intended for the same siren, the lover
asks:
"Can then a look create a thought
Which time can ne'er remove?
Yes, foolish heart, again thou'rt caught,
Again thou bleed'st for Love.
"She sees the conquest of her eyes,
Nor heals the wounds she gave;
She smiles when'er my blushes rise,
And, sighing, shuns her Slave.
"Then, Swain, be bold! and still adore her
Still the flying fair pursue:
Love, and friendship, still implore her,
Pleading night and day for you."
[Illustration: BARTON BOOTH]
Who was this "flying fair" that the swain pursued with such despairing
fervour? Nance Oldfield? Nay, there was no romance there, for while
Booth could make the most exquisite stage love to the actress, he
never carried that love beyond the mimic world. Rather was it the
lovely Mistress Santlow, that dancing bit of sunshine, who turned the
heads of many an amorous spectator, and had enough of the temptress
about her to lead a mighty warrior from the path of domestic
constancy, and bring a Secretary of State almost to the verge of
matrimony.[A] She seemed the apotheosis of grace, did this merry,
moving Hester, and when she forsook the art she so delightfully
adorned, and took to the "legitimate," there were not a few among her
admirers who regretted the change. "They mourned," says Dr. Doran, "as
if Terpsichore herself had been on earth to charm mankind, and had
gone never to return. They remembered, longed for, and now longed in
vain for that sight which used to set a whole audience half distraught
with delight, when in the very ecstacy of her dance, Santlow contrived
to loosen her clustering auburn hair, and letting it fall about such
a neck and shoulders as Praxiteles could more readily imagine than
imitate, danced on, the locks flying in the air, and half-a-dozen
hearts at the end of every one of them."
[Footnote A: The Duke of Marlborough and Secretary Craggs
respectively.]
At the end of one of those locks was the throbbing heart of Barton
Booth, which he had completely lost in watching the auburn hair and
the poetic movements of the _coryphée:_
"But now the flying fingers strike the lyre,
The sprightly notes the nymph inspire.
She whirls around! she bounds! she springs!
As if Jove's messenger had lent her wings.
"Such were her lovely limbs, so flushed her charming face
So round her neck! her eyes so fair!
So rose her swelling chest! so flow'd her amber hair!
While her swift feet outstript the wind,
And left the enamor'd God of Day behind."
Certes, Booth was in love when he wrote this eulogy.
But however sprightly and deftly did this charmer pirouette, she could
not deny herself the luxury of appearing as a regular actress. Her
first venture in this direction was as the Eunuch of "Valentinian,"
wherein she donned boy's attire, and was much more successful in
masculine garb than have been not a few better artists. From this
part to that of Dorcas Zeal in Shadwell's play, "The Fair Quaker of
Deal,"[A] was but a step, and a step, be it said, which for the moment
consoled the public for her desertion from the ballet. According to
Cibber, Santlow was the happiest incident in the fortune of the play,
and the Laureate tells us that she was "then in the full bloom of what
beauty she might pretend to."[B] He adds that "before this she had
only been admired as the most excellent dancer, which perhaps might
not a little contribute to the favourable reception she now met with
as an actress in this character which so happily suited her figure and
capacity: the gentle softness of her voice, the composed innocence
of her aspect, the modesty of her dress, the reserv'd deceny of her
gesture, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell from
her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented. In a word, not
the enthusiastick Maid of Orleans was more serviceable of old to the
French army when the English had distressed them, than this fair
Quaker was at the head of that dramatick attempt upon which the
support of their weak society depended."
[Footnote A: Produced at Drury Lane in February, 1710.]
[Footnote B: It might appear from this remark of Colley's that the
Santlow was not over handsome. Yet if a picture taken from life does
not belie her the dancer was most fair to look upon.]
This "weak society" was the new company recruited by William Collier
for Drury Lane Theatre, and wherein could be found, in addition to the
light-limbed Hester, such players as her adoring swain, Barton Booth,
Theophilus Keen, George Powell, Francis Leigh, Mrs. Bradshaw and Mrs.
Knight. Colley was at that time (1710) in opposition to Drury, his
interest lying with the Hay market management, and it is very evident
that the success of the "Fair Quaker"--a success made in face of the
counter attraction furnished by the long trial of Dr. Sacheverel--went
sorely against the grain with him.[A] The fact was that things at the
Hay market were not flourishing, and the prosperity enjoyed by the
Drury Lane comedy--and the Sacheverel show--seemed tantalising to
bear.
[Footnote A: Shadwell evidently had Cibber in mind when he wrote in
the preface to the "Fair Quaker of Deal": "This play was written
about three years since, and put into the hands of a famous comedian
belonging to the Haymarket Playhouse, who took care to beat down the
value of it so much as to offer the author to alter it fit to appear
on the stage, on condition he might have half the profits of the third
day; that is as much as to say, that it may pass for one of his,
according to custom. The author not agreeing to this reasonable
proposal, it lay in his hands till the beginning of this winter, when
Mr. Booth read it, and liked it, and persuaded the author that, with a
little alteration, it would please the town."]
Even in after years Colley grew bitter in thinking of the "Fair
Quaker," and could not help indulging in a dig at its expense when
he came to write the "Apology." He likewise paid his satirical
compliments to the new-fangled Italian opera which was given at the
Haymarket during the season of 1709-10, on the days when the regular
dramatic company did not appear. The opera had already proved a
drawing attraction, but at the time here mentioned the popular
interest in the performances had fallen off, and the dear and ever
fickle public, of high and low degree, prefered either Drury Lane or
the trial of Sacheverel to the artistic delights of music and the
drama at the rival house. And so Cibber plaintively sighs.
"The truth is, that this kind of entertainment [opera] being so
entirely sensual, it had no possibility of getting the better of our
reason but by its novelty; and that novelty could never be supported
but by an annual change of the best voices, which, like the finest
flowers, bloom but for a season, and when that is over are only dead
nosegays. From this natural cause we have seen within these two years
even Farinelli singing to an audience of five and thirty pounds, and
yet, if common fame may be credited, the same voice, so neglected in
one country, has in another had charms sufficient to make that crown
sit easy on the head of a Monarch, which the jealousy of politicians
(who had their views in his keeping it) fear'd, without some such
extraordinary amusement, his Satiety of Empire might tempt him a
second time to resign."[A]
[Footnote A: The monarch alluded to was evidently Victor Amadeus, King
of Sardinia. The tenor Farinelli (whose real name was Carlo Broschi)
was born in the dukedom of Modena in 1705, and died 1782.]
That Cibber knew something of the wrangles which inevitably follow in
the wake of an operatic troupe may be seen from the next paragraph:
"There is, too, in the very species of an Italian singer such an
innate, fantastical pride and caprice, that the government of them
(here at least) is almost impracticable. This distemper, as we were
not sufficiently warn'd or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into
perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce
a sensible auditor in the Kingdom that has not since that time had
occasion to laugh at the several instances of it. But what is still
more ridiculous, these costly canary birds have sometimes infested the
whole body of our dignified lovers of musick with the same childish
animosities."
It was merely an illustration of the melancholy fact that the heavenly
maid of music is too often attended by the handmaiden of discord. But
to continue:
"Ladies have been known," says Colley, "to decline their visits upon
account of their being of a different musical party. Caesar and Pompey
made not a warmer division in the Roman Republick than those heroines,
their country women, the Faustina and Cuzzoni, blew up in our
commonwealth of academical musick by their implacable pretentions to
superiority.[A] And while this greatness of soul is their unalterable
virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital singers of
the same sex do as they should do in one opera at the same time! No,
tho' England were to double the sums it has already thrown after them.
For even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion has
called a greater number of their best to sing together, the mischief
they have made has been proportionable; an instance of which, if I am
rightly informed, happen'd at Parma, where upon the celebration of
the marriage of that Duke, a collection was made of the most eminent
voices that expence or interest could purchase, to give as complete an
opera as the whole vocal power of Italy could form.
[Footnote A: Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni Hasse, whose
famous rivalry in 1726 and 1727 is here referred to, were singers
of remarkable powers. Cuzzoni's voice was a soprano, her rival's a
mezzo-soprana, and while the latter excelled in brilliant execution,
the former was supreme in pathetic expression. Dr. Burney("History of
Music," iv. 319) quotes from M. Quanta the statement that so keen was
their supporter's party spirit, that when one party began to applaude
their favourite, the other party hissed!--R.W. LOWE, "Notes to the
Apology."]
"But when it came to the proof of this musical project, behold! what
woful work they made of it! every performer would be a Caesar or
Nothing; their several pretentions to preference were not to be
limited within the laws of harmony; they would all choose their own
songs, but not more to set off themselves than to oppose or deprive
another of an occasion to shine. Yet any one would sing a bad song,
provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown
together like so many feather'd warriors, for a battle-royal in a
cock-pit, where every one was oblig'd to kill another to save himself!
What pity it was these froward misses and masters of musick had not
been engag'd to entertain the court of some King of Morocco, that
could have known a good opera from a bad one! With how much ease would
such a director have brought them to better order? But alas! as it has
been said of greater things,
"'Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.'
"Imperial Rome fell by the too great strength of its own citizens! So
fell this mighty opera, ruin'd by the too great excellency of its
singers! For, upon the whole, it proved to be as barbarously bad as if
Malice itself had composed it."
It was a pity, no doubt, that the light of opera shone but dimly at
the Haymarket, yet the ill wind which almost extinguished that light
blew a blessing towards the nimble Santlow. For the dear creature
prospered exceeding well as Dorcas Zeal; the heart of the public waxed
warm toward the ex-dancer, and so did the cardiac organ of Barton
Booth. A few years later Booth married the charmer, and she, having
become virtuous and prim, made the remainder of his life a bed of
domestic roses.
And now for the brief story of Booth's dignified career. Barton came
of good English stock, and his father, with a true British desire to
rule the destinies of his family, mapped out a clerical life for the
boy. But the latter had no thought of the pulpit, and from the time
that he acted in the "Andria" of Terence, at Westminster School, his
hope was all for the stage. 'Tis very easy to applaud that hope now;
perhaps his relations looked upon it as a temptation offered by the
Evil One. When he reached the mature age of seventeen, and had orders
to begin his university training, what does the youth do but run away
from home, and, taking the theatrical bull by the horns, appear on the
Dublin boards.
"He first apply'd to Mr. Betterton, then to Mr. Smith, two celebrated
actors," says Chetwood, "but they decently refused him for fear of the
resentment of his family. But this did not prevent his pursuing the
point in view; therefore he resolv'd for Ireland, and safely arrived
in June 1698. His first rudiments Mr. Ashbury[A] taught him, and his
first appearance was in the part of Oroonoko, where he acquitted
himself so well to a crowded audience, that Mr. Ashbury rewarded him
with a present of five guineas, which was the more acceptable as his
last shilling was reduced to brass (as he inform'd me). But an odd
accident fell out upon this occasion. It being very warm weather, in
his last scene of the play, as he waited to go on, he inadvertently
wiped his face, that, when he enter'd, he had the appearance of a
chimney-sweeper (his own words). At his entrance he was surprised at
the variety of noises he heard in the audience (for he knew not what
he had done), that a little confounded him, till he received an
extraordinary clap of applause, which settled his mind. The play was
desir'd for the next night of acting, when an actress fitted a crape
to his face, with an opening proper for the mouth, and shap'd in form
for the nose; but, in the first scene, one part of the crape slip'd
off. 'And zounds!' said he (he was a little apt to swear), 'I look'd
like a magpie. When I came off, they lamp-black'd me for the rest of
the night, that I was flayed before it could be got off again.'"[B]
[Footnote A: Joseph Ashbury, Master of the Revels, in Ireland, actor,
and manager of the theatre in Dublin.]
[Footnote B: Chetwood adds in a footnote: "The composition for
blackening the face are ivory-black and pomatum, which is, with some
pains, clean'd with fresh butter." "Oroonoko" was what we would now
call a "black face" part.]
But Booth was too much in earnest to be daunted by anything so
trifling as the misplacing of a mask. He studied hard, despite a
youthful liking for the jolly joys of Bacchus, and soon made for
himself an enviable position upon the Dublin stage. For the youth had
all the qualities that went toward the formation of a fine actor; he
possessed keen dramatic instinct, poetic sensibility, a beautiful
voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after
years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had,
perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tragedian often went through
a part in a perfunctory manner.[A] But those early days in Ireland
marked the sunrise of his genius--a time no less noble, in its
freshness and promise, than the later glory of the noontide--and there
was in his performance nothing but youthful ardour and devotion.
[Footnote A: He (Booth) would play his best to a single man in the pit
whom he recognised as a playgoer, and a judge of acting; but to an
unappreciating audience he could exhibit an almost contemptuous
disinclination to exert himself. On one occasion of this sort he was
made painfully sensible of his mistake and a note was addressed to him
from the stage-box, the purport of which was to know whether he
was acting for his own diversion or in the service and for the
entertainment of the public? On another occasion, with a thin house
and a cold audience, he was languidly going through one of his usually
grandest impersonations, namely, Pyrrhus. At his very dullest scene he
started into the utmost brilliancy and effectiveness. His eye had just
previously detected in the pit a gentleman, named Stanyan, the
friend of Addison and Steele, and the correspondent of the Earl of
Manchester. Stanyan was an accomplished man and a judicious critic.
Booth played to him, with the utmost care and corresponding success.
"No, no!" he exclaimed, as he passed behind the scenes, "I will not
have it said at Button's that Barton Booth is losing his powers!"--DR.
DORAN.]
With that ardour, only whetted by his popularity in Dublin, Barton
travelled to London (1701), and there offered respectful incense at
the shrine of Betterton. 'Twas a shrine at which the public still
worshipped; and when Roscius extended a helping hand to the kneeling
postulant, and brought him before the patrons of Lincoln's Inn Fields,
the success of Booth seemed assured. The latter never forgot the
generosity and kindly interest of his idol, and he spoke with all the
sincerity of gratitude when he once said: "When I acted the Ghost with
Betterton (as Hamlet), instead of my awing him, he terrified me. But
divinity hung round that man." Had he been of an egotistic mould
Barton might have added, that his Ghost was considered hardly less
effective than the Hamlet of the mighty Betterton.
For a decade, or longer, Booth went on this prosperous way, gaining in
favour with the theatre-goers, and increasing his artistic resources.
During this period he married the daughter of a baronet, and she lived
for six years, but not long enough to witness his triumphs in the
"Distressed Mother" and the classic "Cato." As Chetwood well said,
"Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother' placed him in the seat of Tragedy,
and Cato fixed him there." We have already read something of the
"Distressed Mother," and of the production of Addison's tragedy, and
so there is no need to linger over the episodes which caused Booth to
be acclaimed Betterton's logical successor.
We remember, likewise, that the original Cato was admitted to a share
in the management of Drury Lane, as a result of the increased fame
accruing from his impersonation of the grand old Roman. It was an
incident, into which politics entered not a little; there were wires
to pull, and Lord Bolingbroke had his hand in the theatrical pie. "To
reward his merit," chronicles Chetwood, "he (Booth) was joined in
the patent, tho' great interest was made against him by the other
patentees, who, to prevent his soliciting his patrons at Court,
then at Windsor, gave out plays every night, where Mr. Booth had a
principal part. Notwithstanding this step, he had a chariot and six of
a nobleman's waiting for him at the end of every play, that whipt him
the twenty miles in three hours, and brought him back to the business
of the theatre the next night."
"He told me," adds the writer, "not one nobleman in the Kingdom had so
many sets of horses at command as he had at that time, having no less
than eight; the first set carrying him to Hounslow from London, ten
miles; and the next set, ready waiting with another chariot to
carry him to Windsor." Evidently the inspired Barton, with all his
high-flown talent, had an eye for the main chance. In this respect he
resembled one greater than he--David Garrick.
Like Garrick, too, the enterprising Booth had his Peg Woffington, in
the pretty person of Susan Mountford, a daughter of the great Mistress
Verbruggen. He never placed a wedding-ring upon a finger of this young
woman, but he gave her his protection after the death of the baronet's
daughter, and continued to do so until the fragile creature ran off
with a craven fellow named Minshull. This Minshull made away with over
£3000, the sum of Susan's savings,[A] and the erring woman, alike
false to her virtue and the destroyer of that virtue, ended her
darkening days amid the clouds of insanity.
[Footnote A: In the year 1714, they (Booth and Susan) bought several
tickets in the State Lottery, and agreed to share equally whatever
fortune might ensue. Booth gained nothing; the lady won a prize of
5000 pounds, and kept it. His friends counselled him to claim half the
sum, but he laughingly remarked that there had never been any but
a verbal agreement on the matter; and since the result had been
fortunate for his friend, she should enjoy it all.--Dr. DORAN.]
The picture is far prettier with Hester Santlow leaping into the
affections of the actor, and finally marrying him according to the law
of the land. She loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants
with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the "New Woman," and
when he was wont to eat too much (for he had given up the flowing
bowl[A] and must cultivate some other species of gluttony), the
ex-dancer would have the dinner-table removed.
[Footnote A: Booth told Cibber that he "had been for sometime too
frank a lover of the bottle; but having had the happiness to observe
into what contempt and distress Powel had plung'd himself by the same
vice, he was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fix'd
a resolution (which from that time to the end of his days he strictly
observed) of utterly reforming it." And Colley adds; "An uncommon act
of philosophy in a young man!"]
Strange, is it not, that the wife who could be so full of constancy,
and all the other virtues, previously lived a notoriously loose
existence? For it had been the fate of Santlow to stand continually in
the glare of that fierce light which beats upon the stage, and
never, perhaps, did she give the town more to talk about than by her
celebrated _rencontre_ with Captain Montague. The story affords a
glimpse of the free-and-easy manners which sometimes prevailed in
theatres, and will bear the telling, ere we bid farewell to its fair
heroine.
"About the year 1717," writes Cibber, "a young actress of a desirable
person (Santlow), sitting in an upper box at the Opera, a military
gentleman (Montague) thought this a proper opportunity to secure a
little conversation with her, the particulars of which were probably
no more worth repeating than it seems the Damoiselle then thought them
worth listening to; for, notwithstanding the fine things he said
to her, she rather chose to give the Musick the preference of her
attention. This indifference was so offensive to his high heart,
that he began to change the Tender into the Terrible, and, in short,
proceeded at last to treat her in a style too grossly insulting for
the meanest female ear to endur unresented. Upon which, being beaten
too far out of her discretion, she turn'd hastily upon him with an
angry look and a reply which seem'd to set his merit in so low a
regard, that he thought himself oblig'd in honour to take his time to
resent it.
"This was the full extent of her crime, which his glory delay'd no
longer to punish than 'till the next time she was to appear upon the
stage. There, in one of her best parts, wherein she drew a favourable
regard and approbation from the audience, he, dispensing with the
respect which some people think due to a polite assembly, began to
interrupt her performance with such loud and various notes of mockery,
as other young men of honour in the same place had sometimes made
themselves undauntedly merry with. Thus, deaf to all murmurs or
entreaties of those about him, he pursued his point, even to throwing
near her such trash as no person can be suppos'd to carry about him
unless to use on so particular an occasion.
"A gentlemen then behind the scenes,[A] being shock'd at his unmanly
behaviour, was warm enough to say, that no man but a fool or a bully
could be capable of insulting an audience or a woman in so monstrous a
manner. The former valiant gentleman, to whose ear the words were soon
brought by his spies, whom he had plac'd behind the scenes to observe
how the action was taken there, came immediately from the pit in a
heat, and demanded to know of the author of those words if he was the
person that spoke them? to which he calmly reply'd, that though he had
never seen him before, yet since he seem'd so earnest to be satisfy'd,
he would do him the favour to own, that indeed the words were his, and
that they would be the last words he should chuse to deny whoever they
might fall upon.
[Footnote A: Secretary Craggs.]
"To conclude, their dispute was ended the next morning in Hyde Park,
where the determin'd combatant who first ask'd for satisfaction was
obliged afterwards to ask his life too; whether he mended it or not, I
have not yet heard; but his antagonist in a few years afterwards died
in one of the principal posts of the Government."
There were no more such scenes after Santlow became Mrs. Barton Booth.
Everything was respectability, and the voice of the turtle-dove
appears to have been heard in the home of the happy couple. Yea, the
husband waxed ecstatic after several years of married bliss, once more
tuned his lyre, and burst forth into verses, wherein he set forth,
among other things:
"Happy the hour when first our souls were joined!
The social virtues and the cheerful mind
Have ever crowned our days, beguiled our pain;
Strangers to discord and her clamorous train," &c.
The lines suggest placidity of existence, and placid, indeed, was the
married life of Booth, barring his moments of ill-health. When his
career is compared to that of certain other players, it stands out in
rather pleasant relief, by virtue of its even tenor and prosperity. It
was free from the vicissitudes which have waylaid the paths of equally
great artists, and the current of his genius ran on without a ripple,
save that of sickness. There was one direction, however, wherein Booth
found variety and excitement, and that was in the wondrous diversity
of parts which he assumed. In tragedy, his work took a wide range,
going all the way from Laertes to Othello, while he sallied forth now
and again into the field of comedy, and emerged therefrom with honour.
He did not, to be sure, distinguish himself so brilliantly as a
comedian as he did in tragic garb, yet he wooed Thalia in a genteel
way which seldom failed to please. Nay, it is chronicled that he
impersonated capon-lined Falstaff in a fashion that amused even
phlegmatic Queen Anne. But the actor of long ago thought nothing of
such catholicity in art. He often worked like a horse, that he might
later play like a god.[A]
[Footnote A: To show the versatility of Booth it need only be
mentioned that his parts (among many not herein named) included the
Ghost, Laertes, Horatio and the Prince in "Hamlet," Dick in "The
Confederacy," Captain Worthy in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," Pyrrhus,
Cato, Young Bevil in the "Conscious Lovers," Tamerlane, Oronooko,
Jaffier, Othello, King Lear, Hotspur, Wildair, Sir Charles Easy,
Falstaff, Cassio, Macbeth, Banquo, Lennox, Henry VIII. and Cinna. Few
living players can match such a repertoire.]
Perhaps the most annoying disturbance which ever came into Booth's
theatrical life, and not a great disturbance at that, was the jealousy
which existed between Wilks and himself. Wilks was impetuous, bad
tempered and crotchety, and it is possible that the envy was,
originally, rather of his own making. But be that as it may, Booth
suffered many a pang from the successes of the more dashing Wilks, and
the latter never lost an opportunity of thwarting his associate. We
remember how the commonplace Mills was pushed forward, with the idea
of hiding the genius of Barton, and Cibber refers more than once to
this short-sighted policy of Wilks. "And yet, again," he writes,
"Booth himself, when he came to be a manager, would sometimes suffer
his judgment to be blinded by his inclination to actors whom the town
seem'd to have but an indifferent opinion of." And thereupon Colley
asks "another of his old questions"--viz., "Have we never seen the
same passions govern a Court! How many white staffs and great places
do we find, in our histories, have been laid at the feet of a monarch,
because they chose not to give way to a rival in power, or hold a
second place in his favour? How many Whigs and Tories have changed
their parties, when their good or bad pretentions have met with a
check to their higher preferment?"
The fact is that there was never any artistic sympathy between the two
distinguished actors. Booth could play comedy, and play it quite well,
but his soul was all for tragedy. On the other hand, while Wilks knew
how to tread the sombre paths of high drama (he even made a creditable
Hamlet), the comedian looked with more regard upon his own peculiar
vein of work, the impersonation of the graceful, the genteel, and the
elegantly picturesque. In one way the latter proved more generous
than his rival. "It might be imagin'd," runs on Cibber, "from the
difference of their natural tempers, that Wilks should have been more
blind to the excellencies of Booth than Booth was to those of Wilks;
but it was not so. Wilks would sometimes commend Booth to me; but when
Wilks excell'd the other was silent."[A]
[Footnote A: During Booth's inability to act ...Wilks was called upon
to play two of his parts: Jaffier and Lord Hastings in "Jane Shore."
Booth was, at times, in all other respects except his power to go
on the stage, in good health, and went among the players for his
amusement. His curiosity drew him to the playhouse on the nights when
Wilks acted these characters, in which himself had appeared with
uncommon lustre. All the world admired Wilks except his brother
manager: amidst the repeated bursts of applause which he extorted,
Booth alone continued silent.--DAVIES.]
But all these petty heartburnings and jealousies were buried in the
grave of Wilks. That incomparable player, whose sprightliness seemed
to defy the grim tyrant, and who could act the lithesome youth upon
the stage even though he had to hobble to his hackney-coach when the
piece was ended, made his last exit in the autumn of 1732. Booth
followed on the same long journey in the May of 1733, after an illness
during which the great patient was dosed with crude mercury, bled,
plastered, blistered, and otherwise helped onward to his death.
Verily, it is a wonder that the physicians of old did not extinguish
the whole human race.
The still attractive Santlow (or rather Mrs. Booth) survived the
tragedian, and her sorrow may have been assuaged by the remembrance
that she was left the sole heir of her husband. "I have considered my
circumstances," wrote Booth in his will, "and finding upon a strict
examination that all I am now possessed of does not amount to
two-thirds of the fortune my wife brought me on the day of our
marriage, together with the yearly additions and advantages since
arising from her laborious employment on the stage during twelve years
past, I thought myself bound by honesty, honour, and gratitude due to
her constant affection, not to give away any part of the remainder of
her fortune at my death"; and with that eloquent stroke of the pen
the testator cut off with nothing a sister and a brother whom he had
sufficiently helped during his lifetime.
Surely so noble an actor deserves an epitaph. Perhaps none could be
more worthy than this estimate of the man, made by Aaron Hill: "He had
learning to understand perfectly whatever it was his part to speak,
and judgment to know how far it agreed or disagreed with his
character. Hence arose a peculiar grace which was visible to every
spectator, tho' few were at the pains of examining into the cause of
their pleasure. He could soften, or slide over, with a kind of elegant
negligence, the improprieties in a part he acted; while, on the
contrary, he would dwell with energy upon the beauties, as if he
exerted a latent spirit which had been kept back for such an occasion,
that he might alarm, waken, and transport, to those places only, where
the dignity of his own good sense could be supported with that of his
author."
If some players of to-day will take a lesson by this description, the
judicious Booth need not have lived in vain. His soul, like that of
the late lamented John Brown, will go marching on.