After various fruitless attempts to establish himself in some lucrative employment, he made his _début_, under an assumed name, at the Park Theatre, in the character of Douglas, in Home’s once famous tragedy of that name. My father’s choice of this part is suggestive of the moderate but respectable character of his success. He played to the judicious few; but their verdict in his favor was not sufficiently potent to make him a popular actor. He soon had to give up the high starring parts, and to content himself with playing the gentleman of comedies or the second part in tragedies. In this humbler line he gained a reputation which has not yet died out in theatrical circles. He could always command good engagements for the theatrical season in respectable stock-companies. He was fulfilling one of these engagements in New Orleans when I was born. A month afterwards he ended his career in a manner that sent a thrill through the public heart. He was one evening playing Othello for his own benefit. Grateful for a crowded house, he was putting forth his best powers, and with extraordinary success. Never had such plaudits greeted and inspired him. The property-man, whose duty it is to furnish all the articles needed by the actor, had given him at rehearsal a blunted dagger, so contrived with a spring that it seemed to pierce the breast when thrust against it. At night this false dagger was mislaid, and the property-man handed him a real one, omitting in the hurry of the moment to inform him of the change. In uttering the closing words of his part,— “I took by the throat the circumci-sed dog, And smote him _thus_,”— my father inflicted upon himself, not a mimic, but a real stab, so forcible that he did not survive it ten minutes. Great was my mother’s anguish at her loss. She was not left utterly destitute. My father had not fallen into the besetting sins of the profession. He saw in it a way to competence, if he would but lead a pure and thrifty life. In the seven years he had been on the stage he had laid up seven thousand dollars. Pride would not let him allow my mother to labor for her support. But now she gladly accepted from the manager an offer of twenty-five dollars a week as “walking lady.” On this sum she contrived for seventeen years to live decently and educate her son liberally. At last sickness obliged her to give up her theatrical engagement. She had invested her seven thousand dollars in bonds of the Planters’ Bank of Mississippi, to the redemption of which the faith of that State was pledged. The repudiation of the bonds by the State authorities, under the instigation of Mr. Jefferson Davis, deprived her of her last resource. Impoverished in means, broken in health, and unable to labor, she fell into a decline and died.