He who fairly considers the requisites indispensable to a tolerable actor, will allow that the professors of that art must be persons of intellectual capacity and personal endowments much superior to the common herd of mankind. The vivid intelligence, the high animal spirits, the aspiring temper, and the resolute intrepidity, which impel them to the stage and support them under its difficulties, are generally associated with an eccentricity of character and a giddy disregard of prudential considerations, which generate adventure and chequer their lives with a greater variety of incidents and whimsical intercourse with the world than falls to the lot of men of other professions. Hence it follows that the stage presents the most ample field for the biographer; and that whether he writes for the instruction or the entertainment of his readers, he will not be able to find in any other department of society men whose lives comprise such an interesting variety as the actors. In selecting the persons with whose lives it is intended to enrich this work, the editors find it necessary in the very first instance to depart from the rule which their original purpose and strict justice, as well as a due regard to priority, had prescribed to them. The biography of the deceased Mr. Hallam, as the father of the American stage, no doubt lays claim to the first place. There were others too, whose priority to Mr. Cooper cannot be contested; but, as the materials were not to be immediately had they have been obliged to postpone them. LIFE OF MR. COOPER.