"Imperial Rome fell by the too great strength of its own citizens! So fell this mighty opera, ruin'd by the too great excellency of its singers! For, upon the whole, it proved to be as barbarously bad as if Malice itself had composed it."
It was a pity, no doubt, that the light of opera shone but dimly at the Haymarket, yet the ill wind which almost extinguished that light blew a blessing towards the nimble Santlow. For the dear creature prospered exceeding well as Dorcas Zeal; the heart of the public waxed warm toward the ex-dancer, and so did the cardiac organ of Barton Booth. A few years later Booth married the charmer, and she, having become virtuous and prim, made the remainder of his life a bed of domestic roses.
And now for the brief story of Booth's dignified career. Barton came of good English stock, and his father, with a true British desire to rule the destinies of his family, mapped out a clerical life for the boy. But the latter had no thought of the pulpit, and from the time that he acted in the "Andria" of Terence, at Westminster School, his hope was all for the stage. 'Tis very easy to applaud that hope now; perhaps his relations looked upon it as a temptation offered by the Evil One. When he reached the mature age of seventeen, and had orders to begin his university training, what does the youth do but run away from home, and, taking the theatrical bull by the horns, appear on the Dublin boards.
"He first apply'd to Mr. Betterton, then to Mr. Smith, two celebrated actors," says Chetwood, "but they decently refused him for fear of the resentment of his family. But this did not prevent his pursuing the point in view; therefore he resolv'd for Ireland, and safely arrived in June 1698. His first rudiments Mr. Ashbury[A] taught him, and his first appearance was in the part of Oroonoko, where he acquitted himself so well to a crowded audience, that Mr. Ashbury rewarded him with a present of five guineas, which was the more acceptable as his last shilling was reduced to brass (as he inform'd me). But an odd accident fell out upon this occasion. It being very warm weather, in his last scene of the play, as he waited to go on, he inadvertently wiped his face, that, when he enter'd, he had the appearance of a chimney-sweeper (his own words). At his entrance he was surprised at the variety of noises he heard in the audience (for he knew not what he had done), that a little confounded him, till he received an extraordinary clap of applause, which settled his mind. The play was desir'd for the next night of acting, when an actress fitted a crape to his face, with an opening proper for the mouth, and shap'd in form for the nose; but, in the first scene, one part of the crape slip'd off. 'And zounds!' said he (he was a little apt to swear), 'I look'd like a magpie. When I came off, they lamp-black'd me for the rest of the night, that I was flayed before it could be got off again.'"[B]
[Footnote A: Joseph Ashbury, Master of the Revels, in Ireland, actor, and manager of the theatre in Dublin.]
[Footnote B: Chetwood adds in a footnote: "The composition for blackening the face are ivory-black and pomatum, which is, with some pains, clean'd with fresh butter." "Oroonoko" was what we would now call a "black face" part.]
But Booth was too much in earnest to be daunted by anything so trifling as the misplacing of a mask. He studied hard, despite a youthful liking for the jolly joys of Bacchus, and soon made for himself an enviable position upon the Dublin stage. For the youth had all the qualities that went toward the formation of a fine actor; he possessed keen dramatic instinct, poetic sensibility, a beautiful voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had, perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tragedian often went through a part in a perfunctory manner.[A] But those early days in Ireland marked the sunrise of his genius—a time no less noble, in its freshness and promise, than the later glory of the noontide—and there was in his performance nothing but youthful ardour and devotion.
[Footnote A: He (Booth) would play his best to a single man in the pit whom he recognised as a playgoer, and a judge of acting; but to an unappreciating audience he could exhibit an almost contemptuous disinclination to exert himself. On one occasion of this sort he was made painfully sensible of his mistake and a note was addressed to him from the stage-box, the purport of which was to know whether he was acting for his own diversion or in the service and for the entertainment of the public? On another occasion, with a thin house and a cold audience, he was languidly going through one of his usually grandest impersonations, namely, Pyrrhus. At his very dullest scene he started into the utmost brilliancy and effectiveness. His eye had just previously detected in the pit a gentleman, named Stanyan, the friend of Addison and Steele, and the correspondent of the Earl of Manchester. Stanyan was an accomplished man and a judicious critic. Booth played to him, with the utmost care and corresponding success. "No, no!" he exclaimed, as he passed behind the scenes, "I will not have it said at Button's that Barton Booth is losing his powers!"—DR. DORAN.]
With that ardour, only whetted by his popularity in Dublin, Barton travelled to London (1701), and there offered respectful incense at the shrine of Betterton. 'Twas a shrine at which the public still worshipped; and when Roscius extended a helping hand to the kneeling postulant, and brought him before the patrons of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the success of Booth seemed assured. The latter never forgot the generosity and kindly interest of his idol, and he spoke with all the sincerity of gratitude when he once said: "When I acted the Ghost with Betterton (as Hamlet), instead of my awing him, he terrified me. But divinity hung round that man." Had he been of an egotistic mould Barton might have added, that his Ghost was considered hardly less effective than the Hamlet of the mighty Betterton.
For a decade, or longer, Booth went on this prosperous way, gaining in favour with the theatre-goers, and increasing his artistic resources. During this period he married the daughter of a baronet, and she lived for six years, but not long enough to witness his triumphs in the "Distressed Mother" and the classic "Cato." As Chetwood well said, "Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother' placed him in the seat of Tragedy, and Cato fixed him there." We have already read something of the "Distressed Mother," and of the production of Addison's tragedy, and so there is no need to linger over the episodes which caused Booth to be acclaimed Betterton's logical successor.