He was but seventeen, when his brilliant folly led him to run away from home, and tempt fortune, by playing Oroonoko, in Dublin. The Irish audiences confirmed the judgment of the Westminster critics, and the intelligent lad moved the hands of the men and the hearts of the women, without a check, during a glorious three years of probation. And yet he narrowly escaped failure, through a ridiculous accident, when, in 1698, he made his début as Oroonoko. It was a sultry night in June. While waiting to go on, before his last scene, he inadvertently wiped his darkened face, and the lamp-black thereon came off in streaks. On entering on the stage, unconscious of the countenance he presented, he was saluted with a roar of laughter, and became much confused. The generous laughers then sustained him by loud applause. But Booth was disturbed by this accident, and to obviate its repetition, he went on, the next night, in a crape mask, made by an actress to fit close to his face. Unfortunately, in the first scene the mask slipped, and the new audience were as hilarious as the old. "I looked like a magpie," said Barton; "but they lamp-blacked me for the rest of the night, and I was flayed before I could get it off again." The mishap of the first night did not affect his triumph; this was so complete that Ashbury, the "master," made him a present of five guineas; bright forerunners of the fifty that were to be placed in his hands by delighted Bolingbroke.
The hitherto penniless player was now fairly on the first step of the ascent it was his to accomplish. When he subsequently passed through Lancashire to London, in 1701, his fame had gone before him; he reached the capital with his manly beauty to gain him additional favour, with a heavy purse, and a steady conviction of even better fortune to come. With such a personage, his hitherto angry kinsmen were, of course, reconciled forthwith.
One morning early in that year, 1701, he might have been seen leaving Lord Fitzharding's rooms at St. James's, with Bowman, the player, and making his way to Betterton's house in Great Russell Street. From the lord in waiting to Prince George of Denmark, he carries a letter of recommendation to the father of the stage; and generous old Thomas, jealous of no rival, depreciator of no talent, gave the stranger a hearty welcome; heard his story, asked for a taste of his quality, imparted good counsel, took him into training, and ultimately brought him out at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1701, as Maximus, in Rochester's "Valentinian." Betterton played Ætius, and Mrs. Barry, Lucina. These two alone were enough to daunt so young an actor; but Booth was not vain enough to be too modest, and the public at once hailed in him a new charmer. His ease, grace, fire, and the peculiar harmony of his voice, altogether distinct from that of Betterton's, created a great impression. "Booth with the silver tongue" gained the epithet before Barry was born. Westminster subsequently celebrated him in one of her school prologues:—
"Old Roscius to our Booth must bow,
'Twas then but art, 'tis nature now,"
and the district was proud of both players; of the young one of gentle blood, educated in St. Peter's College, and of the old one, the royal cook's son, who was christened in St. Margaret's, August 12,[125] 1635.
At first, Booth was thought of as a promising undergraduate of the buskin, and he had faults to amend. He confessed to Cibber that "he had been for some time too frank a lover of the bottle;" but, having the tipsyness of Powell ever before him as a terrible warning, he made a resolution of maintaining a sobriety of character, from which he never departed. Cibber pronounces this to be "an uncommon act of philosophy in a young man;" but he adds, that "in his fame and fortune he afterwards enjoyed the reward and benefit."
For a few years, then, Booth had arduous work to go through, and every sort of "business" to play. The House in the Fields, too, suffered from the tumblers, dancers, and sagacious animals, added to the ordinary and well-acted plays at the House in the Lane. Leisure he had also amid all his labour, to pay successful suit to a young lady, the daughter of a Norfolk baronet, Sir William Barkham, whom he married in 1704. The lady died childless six years later. Till this last period—that, too, of the death of Betterton—Booth may be said to have been in his minority as an actor, or, as Cibber puts it, "only in the promise of that reputation," which he soon after happily arrived at. Not that when that was gained he deemed himself perfect. The longest life, he used to say, was not long enough to enable an actor to be perfect in his art.
Previous to 1710 he had created many new characters; among others, Dick, in the "Confederacy;" and he had played the Ghost in "Hamlet," with such extraordinary power, such a supernatural effect, so solemn, so majestic, and so affecting, that it was only second in attraction to the Dane of Betterton. But Pyrrhus and Cato were yet to come. Meanwhile, soon after his wife's death, he played Captain Worthy, in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," to the Dorcas Zeal of Miss Santlow, destined to be his second wife—but not just yet.
The two great characters created by him, between the year when he played with Miss Santlow in Charles Shadwell's comedy, and that in which he married her, were Pyrrhus, in the "Distressed Mother" (1712), and "Cato" (1713). Within the limits stated, Booth kept household with poor Susan Mountfort, the daughter of the abler actress of that name. At such arrangements society took small objection, and beyond the fact, there was nothing to carp at in Barton's home. The latter was broken up, however—the lady being in fault—in 1718, when Booth, who had been the faithful steward of Susan's savings, consigned to her £3200, which were speedily squandered by her next "friend," Mr. Minshull. The hapless young creature became insane; in which condition it is credibly asserted that she one night went through the part of Ophelia, with a melancholy wildness which rendered many of her hearers almost as distraught as herself; soon after which she died. Meanwhile, her more faithful friend, the acknowledged successor of Betterton, achieved his two greatest triumphs—in characters originally represented by him—Pyrrhus and Cato. Those who have experienced the affliction of seeing or reading the "Distressed Mother," may remember that the heaviest part in that heavy play is that of Pyrrhus. But in acting it, Booth set the Orestes of less careful Powell in the shade. "His entrance," says Victor, "his walking and mounting to the throne, his sitting down, his manner of giving audience to the ambassador,[126] his rising from the throne, his descending and leaving the stage—though circumstances of a very common character in theatrical performances, yet were executed by him with a grandeur not to be described."