'He was a man, take him for all in all,
We shall not look upon his like again.'
Many moons will wax and wane before from other lips, as from his, will fall:
'Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.'
or, giving expression to thoughts from the very depths, which have in all the ages held back from such dread ending:
'To die, to sleep;
To sleep! perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.'
"The ever-abiding memory that his brother was the real actor in a tragic scene that gave pause to the world, burdened the heart and mellowed the tone of Edwin Booth, and no doubt linked him in closer touch with what has, as by the enchanter's wand, been portrayed of the 'melancholy Dane.'
"Two years before the assassination of President Lincoln I heard Wilkes Booth as Romeo at the old McVicker. The passing years have not wholly dimmed his
'Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,'
and then, as if forecasting a scene to strike horror even in 'States unborn and in accents yet unknown,' the exclamation:
'I must be gone and live,
Or stay and die!'