and, in pursuit of this study, I sojourned in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the length and in the breadth of our own proud Republic. To catch the living lineaments of passion, I mixed with the prince and with the potentate, with the peasant and with the proletary, with the serf and with the savage. All the glorious works of Art belonging to the world, in painting and in sculpture, in architecture and in letters, I endeavored to make subservient to the studies of my calling. How successful I have been I leave to the verdict of my fellow-countrymen,—my fellow-countrymen, who, for a quarter of a century, have never denied to me their suffrages. Ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken thus much not to indulge in any feeling of pride, nor to gratify any sentiment of egotism, but I have done so in the hope that the words which I have uttered here to-night may be the means, perhaps, of inspiring in the bosom of some young enthusiast who may hereafter aspire to the stage a feeling of confidence. Some poor and friendless boy, perchance, imbued with genius, and with those refined sensibilities which are inseparably connected with genius, may be encouraged not to falter in his path for the paltry obstacles flung across it by envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. Let him rather, with a vigorous heart, buckle on the armor of patient industry, with his own discretion for his tutor, and then, with an unfaltering step, despising the malice of his foes, ‘climb The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar.’” A shower of bravos broke out, bouquets were thrown upon the stage, and the actor slowly withdrew, crowned with the applauses of the people like a victorious Roman in the Capitol.