Rich once more succeeded in getting the management exclusively into his own hands, and either forgetful or fearless of the consequences which had resulted from the wantonness of his administration upon a former occasion, relapsed into those measures of oppression which had occasioned the formidable revolt of the actors under Betterton, in 1692. Another association was therefore formed to resist his tyranny, and after some treaty, the consent of the Lord Chamberlain was for a second time obtained, permitting the aggrieved members to arrange themselves together at the Opera House, and there perform the legitimate drama. Rich made several remonstrances against the proceeding, and was punished by an arbitrary suspension of his license; the theatre in Drury-lane was shut up, and the unfortunate retainers in its interest were left to address vain appeals to the Queen's mercy during the lapse of two successive seasons. At length a lawyer, named Collier, obtained a fresh license at court; and because Rich very naturally retained possession of his premises, though forbidden to turn them to any account, attacked the house in the night time, at the head of a hired rabble, and ejected the manager by armed force. This outrage put a period to the obnoxious proprietorship; but however censurable, or even culpable, the conduct of the man may have been, he was certainly checked by the Government in a most unjustifiable manner, and ruined in direct violation of the commonest principles of honesty and law.

While these altercations were at their height, Booth was left a widower without issue, and soon after essayed to console himself by an amour with Mrs. Mountford, which proved as unsatisfactory, as it was indefensible. One honourable circumstance, however, marked the abrupt close of the intimacy, and, upon his part at least, in some degree redeemed the immorality; for, discovering the lady in an intrigue with another, he replaced into her hands her fortune, amounting to 80007., which she had fondly presented to him upon their first intercourse, and never visited her more.

Many sufferings and great manœuvres took place; but a theatrical peace was at length agreed upon and a compact made, by which the public were ultimately secured in a good company, and the company itself enabled to reap a fruitful harvest in fame and money. By this prudent arrangement the offended actors

returned to Drury Lane, invested with the sole license for performing the legitimate drama; while the Haymarket, under the direction of Collier, was restricted to the representation of Italian Operas. The terms of this regulation were no sooner put into force, than the affairs of Drury Lane began to flourish with unprecedented rapidity; Wilks, Dogget, and Cibber superintended the property with an industry and talent which raised the house far beyond its former popularity, and converted it into a source of independence to all the patentees during their lives.

Booth stood at the head of the company, and in a prominent degree contributed to the prosperity of the establishment; his talents were now in their mellow prime, and his enthusiasm unmoistened above all he enacted without a rival; and by consequence this was the period of his public life at which he made the finest developement of his powers, and entitled himself to that commemoration from his contemporaries, which ranks him among the principal ornaments of the stage. The celebrity of this elevation was in a striking manner advanced by the production of Addison's long-laboured tragedy of Cato. Few plays have ever appeared under circumstances of more fortunate excitement, and no actor seems to have turned the tide of popular favour to a better account than Booth now did. Two political factions agitated the empire: the Whigs had long been exclaiming that the cause of liberty was endangered by the machinations of the Tories, and therefore applauded every line as an echo of their principles; while the Tories reverberated peal for peal in order to show that the fear was groundless, and the imputation despised. Through this contending emulation, the play was repeated for thirty-five successive nights, and Booth in the character of Cato, triumphed over the tumult as the direct object of the common applause. But his reward was more substantial; for upon the fall of the curtain, Lord Bolingbroke, who headed the Tories, called him into the boxes, and presented him with fifty guineas, as a slight acknowledgment for his honest opposition to a perpetual dictator, and his dying so bravely in the cause of liberty. This unusual compliment produced another present to the same amount, from the managers, who were happy to ascribe the extraordinary success of the piece to the great merit of their own actor--a eulogy which will not appear so extravagant, when it is added, that according to

dramatic writers, no performer has since then either equalled or surpassed the excellence of Booth's delineation of the character. His praises and his profits were both extraordinary; but they did not end here. Lord Bolingbroke, who at the time was one of the principal Secretaries of State, continued to be so pleased with the actor and the man, that he obtained the Queen's authority for recalling the outstanding patents; upon which he issued a new one to the former managers, but with the single addition of Booth's name to their number.

Being now firmly placed at the head of his profession, and at the head of the theatre, he once more turned his thoughts on matrimony, and in the year 1719 united his worldly interests with Hester Santlow, an actress, who has been commended for many favourable qualities. Of an affectionate disposition, engaging manners, and commanding talents, she had the good fortune to be enabled to gain, and the prudence to succeed in retaining, a very handsome portion of wealth, so that the connexion proved by no means unacceptable to a man like Booth, who though just in his dealings and honourable in his debts, yet appears to have always wanted either art or inclination for the saving of money. After this event, his life, public and domestic, endured with equal enjoyments for a lapse of eight years; and with the exception of a temporary suspension of the patent, in consequence of a dispute between Sir Richard Steele, who had been admittted into the management upon the death of Queen Anne, and the Duke of Newcastle, who filled the office of Lord Chamberlain, in 1720, there is no matter for recital save an even tenour of prosperity. In the year 1727, however, he was seized with a fever, which continued with unintermitted violence for six-and-forty days; and though the skill of his physicians and the strength of his constitution overcame the attack, yet his health from that time to the day of his death was never re-established.

The infirmities thus entailed upon him, so constantly enforced a suspension of his professional exertions, that henceforward we only find him appearing on the stage for seven nights. These were upon the occasion of the great run obtained by the 'Double Falsehood,' which Theobald impudently asserted to be the production of Shakspeare, and in which Booth was prevailed upon to take a part from the fifth to the twelfth representation. Steele

died in 1729, and three years after the Drury Lane patent expired, but the surviving managers succeeded in gaining a renewal of it for twenty-one years. Soon after this acquisition Wilks died, and Booth, finding his indisposition becoming still more distressing, was obliged to think of retiring also. With this intention he looked about him for a purchaser of his interest, and soon after concluded a bargain with a Mr. Highmore, by the terms of which he sold one half of his share, and all his right as manager, for 25007. Some mention may be here allowed of the only remaining partner in the most successful, as well as talented, administration that had as yet conducted the affairs of this ancient theatre. This was Cibber, who was so discontented with the strangers now associated with him, that he immediately forsook the office of responsibility, and after the affairs of a season or two, sold his property in the patent for three thousand guineas. Booth continued to linger on with infirmities gradually accumulating, until at last his energies were exhausted, and he expired on the 10th of May 1733. He had no children: to his wife, who survived him for forty years, he bequeathed the whole of his property in an honourable will, the contents of which express an affectionate regret that his means are so inferior to his esteem, and that the sum of all he has to leave, is by two-thirds less than the fortune he received with her in marriage.

Of the accounts extant which describe the dramatic powers of Booth, those of Cibber and Aaron Hill are the best and most particular. From them it appears that he was the last of the solemn school of actors who were displaced immediately after his death by Garrick, and among whom the chief points of excellence were dignity of deportment, rotundity of declamation, and a classical distinction of the cadences and melody of versification. His genius lay wholly in tragedy, in which, though he had too fine a taste for nature to neglect the expression of the passions, yet he always preferred the poetical sentimentality which constitutes the chief merit of Cato, and the similar productions of Rowe, to the deeper agonies of the more ancient dramatists. From the same feelings, he moved better as the monarch than the rebel struggling to supplant him; described the injured husband more faithfully than the seductive lover; and in every portraiture of passion was rather vehement than tender. In Shakspeare, his

T

favourite part was Othello, which must certainly be taken as some qualification of this character, for the Moor has many bursts of strong passion, and is both elevated by vivid imagery and moving in pathetic grief. For this cast of acting Booth was farther adapted by the supplementary qualifications of a good figure, a gentlemanly address, and the education of a scholar. In this latter capacity he appeared in a respectable light, though a constitutional indolence prevented him from making any considerable exertions: he translated some odes of Horace, wrote several songs and such light pieces of poetry, which were popularly esteemed, and composed a mask for the stage, which was entitled the Death of Dido,' and was performed with no mean success during the year 1716. Booth's private character has been praised for many virtues; his disposition was powerfully affectionate, and his integrity highly estimable. In the society of his friends he was all gaiety, laughter, and wit; but in the company of strangers somewhat proud in his bearing and abrupt in his address, -a trait which those who deem it faulty may excuse on the score of his gentlemanly education, for professional distinction was a subject upon which his modesty never permitted him to presume. So greatly was he caressed, that, according to Chetwood, in his “History of the Stage," there was not a man in the kingdom had more sets of horses at his command than Booth, although he never kept an equipage; and so fondly was his company courted, that when the court resided at Windsor, the coach and six of some nobleman or other was sure to be in waiting for him every night at the theatre, and forthwith hurry him off to a convivial

supper.