Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims
(Though but perhaps a muster-roll of names),
How will our fathers rise up in a rage,
And swear all shame is lost in George's age."
The performance of Cato raised Booth to fortune as well as to fame; and through Bolingbroke he was appointed to a share in the profits of the management of Drury Lane, with Cibber, Wilks, and Dogget. The last-named, thereupon, retired in disgust, with compensation; and Cibber hints that Booth owed his promotion as much to his Tory sentiments as to his merits in acting Cato. The new partner had to pay £600 for his share of the stock property, "which was to be paid by such sums as should arise from half his profits of acting, till the whole was discharged." This incumbrance upon his share he discharged out of the income he received in the first year of his joint management.
His fame, however, by this time had culminated. He sustained it well, but he cannot be said to have increased it. No other such a creation as Cato fell to his lot. Young and Thomson could not serve him as Addison and opportunity had done, and if he can be said to have won additional laurels after Cato, it was in the season of 1722-23, when he played Young Bevil, in Steele's "Conscious Lovers," with a success which belied the assertion that he was inefficient in genteel comedy. The season of 1725-26 was also one of his most brilliant.
Meanwhile, a success off the stage secured him as much happiness as, on it, he had acquired wealth and reputation. The home he had kept with Susan Mountfort was broken up. In the course of this "intimate alliance of strict friendship," as the moral euphuists called it, Booth had acted with remarkable generosity towards the lady. In the year 1714 they bought several tickets in the State Lottery, and agreed to share equally whatever fortune might ensue. Booth gained nothing; the lady won a prize of £5000, and kept it. His friends counselled him to claim half the sum, but he laughingly remarked that there had never been any but a verbal agreement on the matter; and since the result had been fortunate for his friend, she should enjoy it all.
A truer friend he found in Miss Santlow, the "Santlow famed for dance," of Gay. From the ballet she had passed to the dignity of an actress, and Booth had been enamoured of her "poetry of motion" before he had played Worthy to her Dorcas Zeal. He described her, with all due ardour, in an Ode on Mira, dancing,—as resembling Venus in shape, air, mien, and eyes, and striking a whole theatre with love, when alone she filled the spacious scene. Thus was Miss Santlow in the popular Cato's eyes:—
"Whether her easy body bend,