We remember, likewise, that the original Cato was admitted to a share in the management of Drury Lane, as a result of the increased fame accruing from his impersonation of the grand old Roman.  It was an incident, into which politics entered not a little; there were wires to pull, and Lord Bolingbroke had his hand in the theatrical pie.  “To reward his merit,” chronicles Chetwood, “he (Booth) was joined in the patent, tho’ great interest was made against him by the other patentees, who, to prevent his soliciting his patrons at Court, then at Windsor, gave out plays every night, where Mr. Booth had a principal part.  Notwithstanding this step, he had a chariot and six of a nobleman’s waiting for him at the end of every play, that whipt him the twenty miles in three hours, and brought him back to the business of the theatre the next night.”

“He told me,” adds the writer, “not one nobleman in the Kingdom had so many sets of horses at command as he had at that time, having no less than eight; the first set carrying him to Hounslow from London, ten miles; and the next set, ready waiting with another chariot to carry him to Windsor.”  Evidently the inspired Barton, with all his high-flown talent, had an eye for the main chance.  In this respect he resembled one greater than he—­David Garrick.

Like Garrick, too, the enterprising Booth had his Peg Woffington, in the pretty person of Susan Mountford, a daughter of the great Mistress Verbruggen.  He never placed a wedding-ring upon a finger of this young woman, but he gave her his protection after the death of the baronet’s daughter, and continued to do so until the fragile creature ran off with a craven fellow named Minshull.  This Minshull made away with over L3000, the sum of Susan’s savings,[A] and the erring woman, alike false to her virtue and the destroyer of that virtue, ended her darkening days amid the clouds of insanity.

[Footnote A:  In the year 1714, they (Booth and Susan) 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 pounds, 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.—­Dr. DORAN.]

The picture is far prettier with Hester Santlow leaping into the affections of the actor, and finally marrying him according to the law of the land.  She loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the “New Woman,” and when he was wont to eat too much (for he had given up the flowing bowl[A] and must cultivate some other species of gluttony), the ex-dancer would have the dinner-table removed.

[Footnote A:  Booth told Cibber that he “had been for sometime too frank a lover of the bottle; but having had the happiness to observe into what contempt and distress Powel had plung’d himself by the same vice, he was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fix’d a resolution (which from that time to the end of his days he strictly observed) of utterly reforming it.”  And Colley adds; “An uncommon act of philosophy in a young man!”]