John McCullough was born in Coleraine, Ireland, in 1837, his parents, who were small farmers, bringing him to this country at the age of sixteen. They settled at Philadelphia and the boy was apprenticed to a chair-maker, but he soon broke away from that hum-drum employment, and in 1855, appeared in a minor part in "The Belle's Strategem." His story, after that, was the usual one of long years of training in various stock companies. He gradually worked his way into prominence, and finally in 1866, became associated with Edwin Forrest, taking the second parts in the latter's plays; and, after Forrest's death, taking his place as the first impersonator of robust tragedy in America. For ten years his success was tremendous--then came the sad ending. McCullough had always been supremely great in characters requiring the delineation of madness--Virginius, King Lear, Othello. Whether this had anything to do with the final tragedy cannot be said, but in 1884, while playing at Chicago, he broke down in the midst of a performance, and had to be led from the stage. His mind was gone; he never rallied, and ended his days in an asylum for the insane. One of the most successful engagements McCullough ever had was in 1869 and for some years thereafter, when, with Lawrence Barrett, he appeared at the Bush Street theatre in San Francisco. Barrett's name is also closely associated with that of Edwin Booth, for he played opposite Booth through many seasons--Othello to Booth's Iago, Cassius to Booth's Brutus, and so on; and the two formed a combination which for sheer genius has never been surpassed. But Barrett never commanded the adoration of the public as Booth did, because he lacked that power of enchantment which Booth possessed in a supreme degree. His mind was austere, he could win respect but not affection, and, as a result, criticism was more captious, honors came grudgingly or not at all, and the fight for recognition was up-hill all the way. Lawrence Barrett was born in 1838, and he began his theatrical career at the age of fifteen. After the usual hard stock-company experience, he secured a New York engagement, where, for nearly two years, he supported such actors as Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth. From New York he went to Boston for a similar engagement, but at the outbreak of the Civil War he left the stage, accepted a captaincy in the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry, and served through the war with distinction. Then he returned to the theatre, gaining an ever-increasing reputation until his death. Clara Morris called him "The Man with the Hungry Eyes," and they were hungry, for life was always a battle to him. From an obscure and humble position, without fortune, friends, or favoring circumstances he had fought his way upward in the face of indifference, disparagement and cold dislike.