garet was enchanting. She took domestic pride in the fact that she used a real spinning-wheel on the stage, and was able to make progress with her work right under the eyes of the audience.

When Irving put on "Macbeth," Sargent was so impressed with Ellen Terry's Queen that he begged permission to paint her. The resulting picture long hung in the Beefsteak Room at the Lyceum Theatre, but is now preserved in the Tate Gallery, London. BurneJones was another artist who was greatly impressed by the beauty of Ellen Terry in this part, declaring that she looked like a great Scandinavian queen, and that her presence, her voice and her movement made "a marvellously poetic harmony."

When Irving began to do "Dante " and "Becket," his long alliance with this gifted woman came naturally to an end, because there was no proper part for her in either of these plays. She then proceeded to act modern drama, both in this country and in England.1

1 On Miss Terry's seventy-sixth birthday (February 27, 1924) the London Times declared her "our greatest actress even though no great part was ever written for her." Her distinction, it was then noted, was that she had always been "very woman, impulsive, instinctive, passionate, responsive to all the joy and beauty of life while keeping alive also to the great contribution which she might make to the theatre with which her entire life has been associated." On February 12, 1925, Miss Terry was invested at Buckingham Palace as Grand Dame of the Order of the British Empire, so crowning with the highest honors that could be conferred upon a woman a career which had done so much for the modern English stage. The dispatch noted that, after a few minutes' quiet chat with the King, Miss Terry was taken along by her attendants to the Queen's sitting room where Her Majesty recalled a visit paid to the Lyceum before she was married to see Dame Terry and Sir Henry Irving in "Charles I." The Queen herself helped the famous actress to get comfortably settled in her wheel-chair after the investiture and its succeeding interview.

EDWIN BOOTH was born at his father's farm in Belair, Maryland, on the night of November 13, 1833, a night fittingly marked by a series of meteoric showers. He was named Edwin after Forrest, who had been his father's friend but was never his; without intending to do so, young Booth superseded the elder tragedian in the public esteem.

The relationship of these two Edwins to the American theatre, William Winter has stated in a few pregnant sentences. When the nineteenth century dawned, he shows us, Hodgkinson and Cooper were the principal tragic figures on the American stage; but by the middle of the century, Forrest was the reigning theatrical monarch. It was under Forrest that America, theatrically, attained for the first time a character of its own; then came Charlotte Cushman and E. L. Davenport to emphasize the fact that we were no longer a province of England.

Yet the art of acting was not spiritual and intellectual as well as American · until Edwin Booth rose to eminence. He it was who gave to dramatic expression in this country sensitiveness, taste, and feeling.

Americans who regard the theatre as a force for great good in our life as a people cannot render too much honour, therefore, to Edwin Booth. For, as Augustin Daly said in his final tribute: "Booth was, certainly, the greatest tragic actor of his time, and beyond dispute, the noblest figure, as man and actor, our stage has known this century."

The most impressionable years of the lad Edwin's life were passed in the purlieus of the stage, where it was his singular office to act as mentor, dresser, companion, and guide to his highly gifted but exceedingly erratic father. This father seems never to have concerned himself much about his son's education, but he was steadily opposed to having Edwin on the stage, and when the decisive first step was taken, in a half-accidental manner, he gave it only negative countenance.

Young Booth played his first part at the Boston Museum on September 10, 1849, assuming the rôle of Tressel in "Richard III," for the sake of relieving an overworked prompter, to whom this character had been assigned. The elder Booth, hearing what was to happen, called his son before him and interrogated him as follows:

"Who was Tressel?"

"A messenger from the field of Tewksbury."

"What was his mission?"

"To bear the news of the defeat of the king's party."

"How did he make the journey?"

"On horseback."

"Where are your spurs?"

Edwin glanced quickly down and said he had not thought of them.

"Here, take mine."

The youth did as he was told and went out to perform his part. When he returned to the dressing-room, he found his father still there, with his feet upon the table, apparently engrossed in thought.

"Have you done well?" asked the elder Booth.

"I think so," replied Edwin.

"Give me my spurs," directed the parent laconically.1 The news that young Edwin Booth had made a success on the stage soon spread, and a number of managers requested that father and son should appear together. But to this suggestion the elder Booth would not listen; once, in refusing such an offer, he volunteered that Edwin was a good banjo player and could be announced for a solo between the acts, if so desired. Apparently he saw nothing humourous in this concession. None the less, the youth soon got his chance. The place this time was New York, Richard III was again the play, and on this occasion, also, he got a part by accident. His father was billed at the National as the crooked-backed tyrant, but, when the hour arrived to set out for the theatre, sullenly declared that he would not stir from his lodgings. Edwin's entreaties were utterly without effect. "Go act it yourself," said the impracticable parent, with the utmost calmness. At the theatre the much-tried youth explained that his father could not be persuaded to play that night and, in desperation, Asia Booth Clarke: "The Elder and The Younger Booth."