230 BURTON STEALING WRIGHT'S THUNDER.

the public, and not laid to the charge of the performer?

BURTON CRITICISED BY POWER.

One night, after the play in which Mr. Power and I had been engaged, we remained at the wing to take a look at Burton, then acting in the farce. Power had known our popular comedian in the English theatres, and did not consider him an original actor. Struck by some point, he suddenly exclaimed, "By George! look at that! Why, he has stolen old Wright's thunder, and is playing it off here as his own!" As we turned to leave he observed, "This man's acting is made up of all the prominent features of our London celebrities, and he is as much like Jack Reeves as Jack himself." Some time after this incident Mr. Reeves, a great London favorite, came to America, and was charged by our critics with imitating Burton.

I remember that many years afterward, while witnessing a performance at the Adelphi Theatre, London, I was very much struck with the manner of an actor who was performing a low-comedy old man. I could not divest myself of the idea that it was Burton: the figure, kind of voice, its tricks of transition from brisk and high to heavy and low, the mode of action, everything, was as like our great comedian as though the actor before me was his reflex in a glass. I looked at the bill, and lo! there was the Mr. Wright that Power had charged Burton with copying a score of years

A ROYAL GIFT TO THE AUTHOR.

231

before. Nobody could mistake that personality, or fail to see the exact resemblance of it in Mr. Burton's stage manner of voice and gesture in his performance of certain characters.

POWER BESTOWS A MEDAL AND MAKES HIS EXIT.

I last saw Mr. Power in the stage-entrance of the Chestnut Street Theatre. I had played with him in the first piece, which was over, and I was about going on the scene in the afterpiece. He had resumed his citizen's dress, and was leaving the theatre. The performance of the evening was for his benefit, and he was to go to New York the next morning. In one of the plays in which we acted together very often-Frederick the Great of Prussia-in return for a gallant act by which Major O'Shaughnessy (the part played by Power) saves his life, the king bestows a royal medal on his preserver. The traditional manner of Frederick in bestowing the honor is quaint, quick, and sharp: "Kneel, major! Wear this as a token of regard from your sovereign;" at the same time taking the order from his own breast, and with a sudden snap of the fingers fastening it on the lapel of the major's uniform. The order which in the run of the drama was so often bestowed on the Major (Mr. Power) was a very fine imitation of the original decoration. As Mr. Power approached me to take his hasty leave he said, "When this you see, remember me," pinning the medal, with the peculiar curt manner of the old

232

POWER MAKES HIS FINAL EXIT.

king, on my breast; then, pressing my hand. warmly and raising his hat in true military style, he said, "Adieu, mon capitaine!" The next moment he was gone, and I was on the stage engaged in the business of the scene. After a farewell at New York the light-hearted comedian took his departure for Liverpool on board the illfated steamer President, sharing the mysterious doom which awaited that noble ship, her passengers, and her crew.

CHAPTER XII.

MISS CUSHMAN, AND HER EARLY STUDIES.

ABOUT 1835, during a period in which my

health interfered with my regular professional duties, I made a visit to New Orleans. I had, while playing subordinate parts to Mr. James Wallack, gained the good opinion of that highlyaccomplished actor, and received from him letters recommending me for a position in the St. Charles Theatre, then open for the first season under the management of its owner, Mr. James H. Caldwell.

I found Mr. Caldwell an exceedingly polite gentleman of old-school manners. He read Mr. Wallack's letters, and said they were a sufficient guarantee of my ability to fill the position he had kept open for me, and that my salary would be sixty dollars per week and a half benefit. When I was first ushered into his room I found him standing at a buffet taking his breakfast of coffee and toast. Our conversation did not occupy more than twenty minutes; while waiting, at his request, to take a look at the theatre, which I had not yet seen, a number of persons called on business appertaining to his official duties as mayor of the city, president of the gas company, and officer of an

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234

MRS. MAEDER AND MISS LANE.

extensive land company, the latter being for the reclaiming of swampy grounds within the limits of the city; all of which offices he filled in addition to the management of one of the largest and most prosperous theatres in the United States.

During my stay in New Orleans I had the pleasure of performing frequently with two of the most distinguished ladies of the profession. Mrs. James G. Maeder (formerly Miss Clara Fisher) was one of the bright stars of the theatrical firmament, whose acting as a child of twelve or thirteen in Richard the Third and as representative of various juvenile characters, often appearing in four to five parts in the same piece, had brought her fame and fortune. She was no less remarkable for her performance in high comedy and in light characters in English opera. The other lady to whom I have referred was Miss Louisa Lane (afterward Mrs. John Drew), another prodigy of the profession, who also acted in her childhood character parts of the same rôle as Miss Fisher, and a charming actress and a great favorite. Both these ladies have been, and continue to be, ornaments to the profession and representative women of the highest order.

It was during my visit to New Orleans also that I became acquainted with Miss Charlotte Cushman, who had made her first appearance in Boston, her native city, in opera. She was a pupil of my esteemed friend, Mr. James G. Maeder, the celebrated professor and teacher of vocal music, and made a "hit" in her début, and through