How much judgment is there in a statement which classifies performances of _Othello_, _Mathias_, and _Hamlet_ among “entertainments”? Salvini had played _nothing_ like _Othello_, Irving _nothing_ like _Mathias_, Booth _nothing_ like _Hamlet_ before, respectively, they played those parts. (Such performances as _Sellers_, _Fritz_, _Crockett_, and _Kit_, well enough in their way, do not deserve thoughtful consideration as the basis of histrionic “fame.”) “_Any other_ actor might have become _just as famous_ if Fate had thrown the part first in _his way_!” That is, according to this careless commentator, although a “one-part actor” achieves his greatest success in a part which happens to combine “all the excellent things,” the peculiar, individual merits, of _that special actor_, nevertheless _any other_ actor could have achieved the same success if he had been fortunate enough to receive the golden opportunity first. Charles Harcourt played _Mathias_, under the name of _Paul Zegers_, at the Alfred Theatre (the old Marylebone), London, in a version of “The Polish Jew” by Frank Burnand, several months before Irving ever played it--and Harcourt utterly failed in it. _Othello_ and _Hamlet_ had been played by scores of contemporary actors before Salvini and Booth, respectively, played those parts,--yet the effect produced by those actors in those parts was not the less unique and extraordinary. Irving’s _fame_ as an actor, moreover, rested and rests at least as much on his _Hamlet_, _Shylock_, _King Louis_, _Mephistopheles_, and _Benedick_ as on his _Mathias_. _Hamlet_ certainly was Booth’s most typical performance, but also certainly he was more _popular_ as _Richelieu_ than as _Hamlet_, and his _fame_ rests on that part and on his _Brutus_, _Shylock_, _King Richard the Third_, and _Iago_ as much as on his _Hamlet_. Salvini’s _fame_ rests as much on his _Corado_, _Niger_, _King Saul_, and _Orosmane_ as on his _Othello_--and in all of those parts he was finer than he was in _Othello_. Salvini, Irving, and Booth were not “one-part actors,” nor does their fame rest on any one performance, nor should the credit for their achievement be given to any author, director, or stage manager--or to anybody but themselves. Booth, Irving, and Salvini were stage directors and managers, and though they did not write the parts which they acted, they certainly arranged them, and as to some of them they supplied vital suggestions. The character of _Mathias_, in “The Bells,” for instance, was completely reconstructed by Leopold Lewis, _at Irving’s suggestion_, to adapt it to his mysterious personality and peculiarities of style. _Lord Dundreary_, when first given to Sothern by Laura Keene, was a wretched part, about seventeen lines in length,--“a dyed-up old man” she called it, asking him to accept it,--but the comedian eventually expanded it till it dominated the play, and it is fair to say that, _literally_, he “created” it. THE FACTS ABOUT JEFFERSON’S _RIP_.