and the solidity of his temper being less illustrated, by the assurance in the succeeding words, than by the exquisite music in the tone with which he uttered the word brightness.""

As will readily be believed, this engagement was highly successful, and especially gratifying to the great actor, now struggling desperately against his fate. He wrote as follows:

ALBANY, New York, December 12th, 1825.

I am delighted with this city; they have received me with enthusiasm; the most fashionable and moral have attended the theatre with an avidity exceeding my most sanguine expectations.

At Boston, however, where he tried to play December 21st, following, he was driven from the stage and theatre, a mob filled the building, and although the riot act was read twice, the theatre was damaged to the extent of about $800. Kean never dared show his head there again. He wrote several most abject apologies, but he was a broken-down man. He appeared for the last time in America, December 5th, 1826, at the Park in New York. On returning to England, he found his popularity had vanished. In 1833, after a lengthened retirement, he appeared in Othello, with his son Charles as Iago. There had been a quarrel between them, and this was the reconciliation. There was great excitement; the house was crammed. Kean went through the part, "dying as he went," until he came to the "Farewell" and the strangely appropriate words "Othello's occupation 's gone," when he gasped for breath, and fell into his son's arms, moaning: "I am dying-speak to them for me!" The curtain went down; he was carried home, and in a few weeks was a corpse, at the age of forty-six. "His memory," says Ireland, "stands like a blasted monument, to warn the unwary of the path in which he fell.”

CHAPTER IX.

1825-1827.

The South Pearl Street Theatre-The North Pearl Street Circus.

[HE next star was Robert Campbell Maywood, one of the heaviest of tragedians. Previous to his appearance, however, the stock appeared in Charles P. Clinch's dramatization of Cooper's "Spy," which was said to have been played over sixty times in New York. Forrest played Harvey Birch. December 21st, Maywood made his Albany debut as Michael Ducas in "Adelgitha," and followed with several other characters, including (January 2d, 1826) Sir Pertinax McSycophant in "The Man of the World," then said to have been played for the first time in Albany. Maywood was now thirty-six years old. He was an excellent general actor, and particularly good in Scottish characters, like the one last mentioned. He became, afterward, manager of the Chestnut street theatre, Philadelphia, and was such for eight years. In 1828, he married Mrs. H. A. Williams. Her daughter, "La Petite Augusta," by a former husband, Mr. Maywood brought out at the age of twelve, as a danseuse, and at that age she challenged comparison, in grace and brilliancy, with any artist in her line America ever produced. In order to give her every possible advantage, he took her to Paris and gave her every opportunity, but before she had scarcely entered her teens, to his great chagrin and disappointment,she eloped with a worthless Frenchman, whom she deserted in less than two years. She became

very celebrated as a dancer, on the continent, and amassed a fortune. It was said she had a villa on Lake Como, worth half a million dollars. After things went wrong with Maywood, he found for a while an asylum with this step-daughter, for whom he had done so much, but at length she turned him off, and in 1855 he arrived in New York, a beggar. He finally died at the Marshall Infirmary, in Troy, of paralysis, November 27th, 1856, aged sixty-six.

The engagement of Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, which began February 2d, leads us to speak next of him. He was now about fifty years old, and, although born in London, he had always been considered an American actor, having come to this country at the age of twenty, and spending his life here. As such, he was our first great representative of the histrionic art. For thirty years and more he was a paramount favorite, holding his own even against George Frederick Cooke, who, by the way, he brought to this country. It was not till old age and the successive arrivals of Kean, Booth and Macready, that Cooper began to suffer in the estimation of the public as an actor. He first appeared in the United States at Philadelphia, under Wignell's management, December 9th, 1796. For several years he was a manager of the Park theatre, in New York, and in 1802 took to starring. He received much money, but spent it lavishly. He lived in sumptuous style in New York, and no finer equipage rolled through Broadway than that of this favorite actor. His society was eagerly sought for in the best circles, and by his second marriage in 1812, with the most beautiful and brilliant belle of New York city (the "Sophia Sparkle" of Irving's Salmagundi), Miss Mary Fairlie, daughter of the celebrated wit. Major James Fairlie, and grand daughter of Governor Robert Yates, Mr. Cooper became allied to some of the most eminent families in the state. Not only was he extravagant, but his passion for gaming dissipated large sums of money. It is said one afternoon, while standing in Broadway with a gentleman, he noticed a load of hay approaching. "I will bet you,"

said Cooper, "the value of my benefit to-night, against an equal sum, that I will pull the longest wisp of hay from this load." "Done," said his friend. The wisps were pulled and Cooper lost. "Ah!" he remarked, with the greatest nonchalance, "I've lost two hours' acting." The benefit netted the winner upwards of $1,200. Such freaks helped to the final disappearance of all his property, and then benefits were given for him and his family in all the large cities. That at the Bowery theatre, November 7th, 1833, yielded in gross $4,500, the largest sum then ever received for a single night's performance in America. In 1834, he took a benefit, when his daughter, Priscilla Cooper, made her first appearance. The play was Knowles's "Virginius," and the fact that a daughter, more in hopes of affording a support to an aged parent, than from any predilections for the stage, was to appear, attracted a great house. During the first and second scenes there was an anxiety to behold the young daughter. This was heightened in a wonderful degree when Virginius (Cooper) said:

"Send her to me, Servia,"

and every heart beat when Virginia (Miss Cooper) came tripping in and stood before her real father, saying:

"Well, father, what's your will ?”

The whole house burst forth in one tumultuous shout

of approbation. It was several moments before Virginius could reply, for both father and daughter were bathed in tears. This lady afterwards married Mr. Robert Tyler, and as daughter-in-law of the president, did the honors of the White House. Through her influence, her old father was provided with a situation in the New York custom house. Says Ireland: "A portly old gentleman, with rubicund face and silvery hair; clothed in summer in an entire suit of white, with an eye-glass hanging jauntily from his neck, and a certain indescribable air of high breeding about him, was, for several years, frequently observed in the neighborhood of Wall street, by many, who little imagined that in his person was once concentrated

all the matchless elegance of the tragedian Cooper. He died at his country residence, Bristol, Pennsylvania, April 21st, 1849, aged nearly seventy-three.”

"Mr. Cooper, in his prime," says a writer, "possessed from nature, the primary accomplishments of a pleasing actor; a fine person, a voice of great compass, of most melodious silver tone and susceptible of the greatest variety of modulation; an eye of the most wonderful expression, and his whole face expressive, at his will, of the deepest terror, or the most exalted complacency, the direst revenge or the softest pity. His form, in anger, was that of a demon; his smile, in affability, that of an angel."

During Cooper's engagement, at this time, he played Macbeth, Beverly, Damon, Virginius, Leon (in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife"), and for his benefit, was announced for the Duke Aranza and Petruchio, but was unable to appear, through illness.

Thus far, the theatre had been well patronized, although the heavy rental demanded by the stockholders and the expense of so strong a company, prevented Manager Gilfert from making much money. Now, however, another, and what was destined to be a highly popular place of amusement, divided the attention of the public. This was the New Circus, which opened its doors February 14th, 1826, under the management of Samuel B. Parsons, who had formerly had a show of the same kind on State street, near the capitol. This new establishment was on North Pearl street, on the ground now occupied by the Garretson Station Methodist Episcopal church. It was one of

the most spacious (66 by 111 feet) and well-appointed amphitheatres in the Union, and is said to have cost, including horses, $22,000. The stage and ring were very large, and the rear of the building allowed of an opening, from the back of the stage into a garden, over a hundred feet in depth, thus admitting of no end of display and processions in such pieces as "The Cataract of the Ganges," "Tekeli," "Blue Beard," etc.

The establishment opened auspiciously, with West