We now approach a period within the memory of many persons now living. Some few octogenarians may survive who can recall Burton's performances of over forty years ago; but they must be few indeed; and their recollections cannot be otherwise than dim and uncertain. But the achievements of Burton in Chambers Street; the unexampled popularity of his theatre; the unequalled company he gathered there; the indisputable creations of character that there originated; the birth of a revival of Shakespeare, with a felicity of conception that revealed the appreciative student, and with a beauty and minuteness of appointment unprecedented at the time;—all this, through a decade of years, forms an enchanting reminiscence vivid still in the retrospect of numberless New Yorkers. It is not surprising that we of the city of New York forget that the comedian so long belonged to Philadelphia. So brilliant was his success in Chambers Street that all other theatres where he flourished seem to be viewed by the reflected light of that; and we think there will be no question that there were clustered his rarest triumphs and there blossomed the flower of his fame.
BURTON'S THEATRE,
CHAMBERS STREET.
"There is the playhouse now, there must you sit."
BURTON IN NEW YORK.
1848-1856.