discussing the riot that the tears ran down his face, and at length, in a sort of frenzy, he took off his coat and began "letting out" at everybody around him, no matter whether his victims were on his side of the question or not. He hit here, and there, and cracked right, left, and centre, clearing the whole place in a very few moments. When the thing was over Marks was not to be found; and I had retired early myself.

Forrest in the engagement during which the riots occurred played Macbeth, and when the lines came, "What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug will scour these English hence?" the whole house rose and cheered for many minutes.

Fredericks, an actor who died recently, was an exceedingly good-looking, tall, and finely built man. He was an Irishman and of a rather cynical and

Joseph Jefferson.

jealous nature. Macready, who was always rather dictatorial, worried Fredericks a good deal at rehearsals, and Fredericks, on Macready's last visit here, chanced to see him play Othello. Now it is a fact that the great tragedian's appearance in "Othello" was very opposite to, and very much belied, the beauty of his acting. He wore a big

negro-looking wig, and a long gown, in which he was very awkward; indeed he looked more like a very tall woman than a soldierly man. Fredericks was afterward at a party at which there was a great deal too much praise of Macready floating about to please him; and at last he was appealed to for his opinion, and said: "I have nothing to say about the man's acting! But he looked like an elderly negress of evil repute, going to a fancy ball!"

Mr. Bancroft Davis, an old friend of my father's, came to him one day with a play which Mr. Tom Taylor, of London, who knew nothing of American theatres or American dramatic possibilities, had sent out to this country for a market. Mr. Davis wished to have it produced at our house. I read the manuscript, was struck with its title, "Our American Cousin," but saw that it contained no part which could compare with the titular one, created by Mr. Taylor no doubt with an idea of pleasing theatre-goers on our side of the Atlantic as well as his. I told Mr. Davis that it was hardly suited to our requirements, that it wanted a great Yankee character-actor, that Mr. Joseph Jefferson-then a stock actor in Miss Laura Keene's company-was the very man for it, and advised its presentation to her. Mr. Davis replied, "At any rate I have done what my friend Mr. Taylor wished; I have given you the first choice." I said, "I think it is only right to tell you that if the play is to make a success. at all Jefferson is the man to make it." He took the play to Miss Keene, who read it. She did not see any great elements of popularity in it, but she thought that it might do to fill a gap some time, and she pigeon-holed it. She was just then busy getting up a Shakespearean revival, "Midsummer Night's Dream." She had Mr. Blake with her, and Mr. Jefferson, as well as Mr. Sothern, who was engaged to play such parts as I was playing at the other house. She was taking great pains with the "Midsummer Night's Dream," in which these people were all to appear; but it so happened that her scene-painters and her mechanics disappointed her with regard to the time in which she could produce it, and she found that this would delay her quite

two weeks. Then she bethought her of the " American Cousin," and she cast Mr. Blake for Binney the Butler, Mr. Couldock for Abel Murcot, Sara Stevens for Mary Meredith, Mr. Sothern for Lord Dundreary, with Mr. Jefferson, of course, for Asa Trenchard. Blake positively refused the part of Binney. Sothern, on looking over Lord Dundreary, found it was a part of forty or fifty lines, a sort of second old man; at least that was the view he took of it, and he went to Miss Keene, laid it upon her desk, and told her that he absolutely declined to play it. "You engaged me for Mr. Lester Wallack's parts, and I cannot possibly consent to undertake a thing of this sort." Miss Keene did not know what to do; she thought the play was a weak one, and she wanted all her best talent in it, though Sothern was not considered a great man then. Finally she appealed to his generosity, and asked him to do this thing as a mere matter of loyalty to her. At last he said, "Well, Miss Keene, I have read the part very carefully, and if you will let me 'gag it and do what I please with it I will undertake it, though it is terribly bad." Miss Keene said, "Do anything you like with it, only play it," and then Sothern set about to think how he should dress it. That was a time when the long frock-coat was in fashion-a coat that came down almost to the heels and was made like what is now called an Albert coat; a coat that Punch took hold of and caricatured unmercifully. It happened that Brougham had borrowed from me the coat in which I had played a part called The Debilitated Cousin in "Bleak House," and with true Irish liberality, and without thought that it was the property of somebody else, he generously lent it to Sothern; and that was the garment in which Sothern first appeared as Lord Dundreary. Jefferson was the star, but as the play went on, week after week, Asa Trenchard became commonplace, and up came Lord Dundreary. Sothern added every night new "gags;" he introduced the reading of Brother Sam's letter, etc., until at last nothing else was talked of but Lord Dundreary. After Sothern had worn it pretty well out here he went to London. On the first night "Our American Cousin" made such a

front, went behind and said, "Buckstone, you push this piece." "But it is an offence to all the swells." "Don't you believe it," replied Mathews; "you push it, and it will please them more than anybody else." Buckstone was induced to give it further trial, and the consequence was four hundred consecutive nights. Sothern told me that Buckstone cleared thirty thousand pounds by it.

During my long career I have naturally been brought into contact with some of the most interesting men of my own profession and of the world at large. I saw a great deal, for instance, of Samuel Lover when he was in America in 1848. He was advertised to appear at the Broadway Theatre, and when he attempted to play in his own piece, "The White Horse of the Peppers," he was certainly the most frightfully nervous man I ever saw in my life. There was a great house because of the natural curiosity to see the poet in his own play. He was a very intimate friend of my

father's. I stood in the wings when he came down as Gerald Pepper. The costume was the military dress of a cavalier of the time of James II., the scene of the play being the Revolution-William III. coming over and turning James II. out of the country-and Gerald Pepper was one of the Irish who remained faithful to the Stuart king. His feathers on this occasion were stuck in the back of his hat, his sword-belt was over the wrong shoulder, one of his boots was pulled up over his knee, and the other was down over his foot. He looked as if somebody had pitchforked his clothes on to him, and he was trembling like a leaf. I induced him to put a little more color in his face, took his hat off, and adjusted the feathers properly, put his sword on as it ought to go, fixed his boots right, and literally pushed him on to the stage. Of course there is no harm now in saying that it was one of the worst amateur performances I ever saw in my life, and I don't think Lover ever acted after that uncomfortable night.

Maurice Power, a son of Tyrone Power, played an engagement in New York at about the same time. Tyrone Power was perhaps the greatest delineator of Irish character of the middle and peasant class that has ever been seen. His melancholy death in the lost steamer President will be well remembered by all who take an interest in theatrical affairs. A son of the Duke of Richmond, who had delayed his return to England for the sake of accompanying Power in the same vessel, was also lost, and I can well remember the many applications to my father, who it was well known had made the voyage to America and back so very often, for his opinion upon their chances of escape. It was his painful duty at last to convey to Mrs. Power the melancholy news that all hope was lost. It was the more touching perhaps from the fact that when he entered the house on his sad mission he was confronted by all the little gifts that the children had prepared as surprises for their father when he should arrive. The sympathy and good feeling that was shown afterward in England was as general as it was unusual; and the thoughtful kindness of Lord Melbourne, who was then Prime

Minister, was exhibited in a very marked manner. Almost his last act before he resigned the premiership was the gift to Power's eldest son, William Tyrone Power, of a commission in the army Commissariat Department. I remember very well the glee with which young William Power came to announce to our family the gratifying news. He was well versed in languages, speaking German, Italian, and French; the consequence was that his promotion was unusually rapid. He served all through the Crimean War, and became finally Sir William Tyrone Power, and absolute chief of the English Commissariat Department. It is not often that patronage is so wisely and successfully bestowed.

A very different man from Power was Mr. Goffé, "the man-monkey," a capital performer in his own way, although naturally very low in the professional scale. Frederick Conway, who always stood upon his dignity as the representative of high and noble parts, togaed Romans and the like, was getting on famously in this country when he chanced to meet one night in a theatrical barroom Goffé, with whom in his humbler days and in the old country he had had intimate social and professional relations, playing with him in some of the smaller provincial towns, and upon pretty even terms. Goffé was delighted to meet his old companion and addressed him thus: "Well now is it? yes it is Convay! Why, Convay, old man, how are ye?" "I beg your pardon, sir, I do not recognize you," said Conway. "Oh come, I say now, none of that, that won't do, let's take a glass together," said Goffé. There were some very swell members of the profession around them, and Conway felt exceedingly uncomfortable, but he replied: "I will certainly imbibe with you, sir; I have no objection.” "I heard you were in America, but I didn't think I'd meet ye. Well, now we are together here, Mr. Convay, can't we make something hup?" "I do not understand, sir," said Conway. "I have, at your request, just taken something down, and I think that is all that is necessary between us." 'No, you don't see what I mean," persisted Goffé; "there's money for both of us; suppose we 'ave a benefit together. You do a Roman part.

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I'll do my scene as the hape between the hacts, and we'll draw a lot of money." At last Conway lost all patience and retorted: "Sir, I have endured the ups and downs of life in my time, I have met with various indignities, I have been appreciated and slighted, I can stand a great deal, but Cato and a ring-tailed monkey-never!"

When Thackeray was here on his last visit I was presented to him, at the old theatre, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway. I thought him, with his

VOL. IV.-77

great height, his spectacles, which gave him a very pedantic appearance, and his chin always carried in the air, the most pompous, supercilious person I had ever met; but I lived to alter that opinion, and in a very short time. He saw the play, "A Cure for the Heartache," in which Blake and I played Old Rapid and Young Rapid. When the piece was over Mr. Blake and I went into the greenroom and were introduced to Thackeray by my father, who knew him intimately in London. I remember his saying: "I