Such was the comedian who next undertook the r�le of _Rip_. How often his own phrase, “Are we so soon forgot,” has been applied to the actor and his art! The only preservative we have of this art is either in individual expressions of opinion or else in contemporary criticism. Fortunately, John Sleeper Clarke, another estimable comedian of the Jefferson family, has left an impression of how Burke read that one famous line of his. He has said: No other actor has ever disturbed the impression that the profound pathos of Burke’s voice, face, and gesture created; it fell upon the senses like the culmination of all mortal despair, and the actor’s figure, as the low, sweet tones died away, symbolized more the ruin of the representative of the race than the sufferings of an individual: his awful loss and loneliness seemed to clothe him with a supernatural dignity and grandeur which commanded the sympathy and awe of his audience. Never, said Clarke, who often played _Seth_ to Burke’s _Rip_, was he disappointed in the poignant reading of that line—so tender, pathetic and simple that even the actors of his company were affected by it. However much these various attempts at dramatization may have served their theatrical purpose, they have all been supplanted in memory by the play as evolved by Jefferson and Boucicault, who began work upon it in 1861. The incident told by Jefferson of how he arrived by his decision to play _Rip_, as his father had done before him, is picturesque. One summer day, in 1859, he lay in the loft of an old barn, reading the “Life and Letters of Washington Irving,” and his eye fell upon this passage: September 30, 1858. Mr. Irving came in town, to remain a few days. In the evening went to Laura Keene’s Theatre to see young Jefferson as _Goldfinch_ in Holcroft’s comedy, “The Road to Ruin.” Thought Jefferson, the father, one of the best actors he had ever seen; and the son reminded him, in look, gesture, size, and “make,” of the father. Had never seen the father in _Goldfinch_, but was delighted with the son. This incident undoubtedly whetted the interest of Joseph Jefferson, and he set about preparing his version. He had played in his half-brother’s, and had probably seen Hackett in Kerr’s. All that was needed, therefore, was to evolve something which would be more ideal, more ample in opportunity for the exercise of his particular type of genius. So he turned to the haven at all times of theatrical need, Dion Boucicault, and talked over with him the ideas that were fulminating in his brain. Clark Davis has pointed out that in the Jefferson “Rip” the credits should thus be measured: Act I.—Burke + Jefferson + Boucicault ending. Act II.—Jefferson. Act III.—Burke + Jefferson + ending suggested by Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”