[Footnote A: "I recollect," says Bellchambers, "an incident of the same sort occurring at Bristol, where a very indifferent actor declaimed so long and to such little purpose that an honest farmer, who sat in the pit, started up with evident signs of disgust, and waving his hand, to motion the speaker off, cried out, 'Tak 'un away, tak 'un away, and let's have another.'"] Thus every one must have given a sigh of relief when industrious John objected to the age of Cato; every one, at least, excepting Wilks, who had taken this actor under his theatrical wing and sought to elevate him above one far greater than either of them--Barton Booth. The fact was that Wilks hid within his breast the troublesome, green-eyed monster of jealousy; he feared the rising genius of Booth, and, now that he was part manager of Drury Lane, probably took pains to keep the rival as much as possible in the background. Unfortunately for this plan of annihilation the screen provided in the commonplace person of Mills proved entirely too flimsy to hide the coming man. Barton Booth was in many ways an ideal actor, in that he was blessed with the poetic imagination and scholarship to understand his rôles and the tragic power to play them. He had, furthermore, a voice of marvellous resonance, an aristocratic bearing and a handsome face and figure which were sure to attract attention, whether he appeared upon the stage or amid the more genial confines of the Bedford coffee-house. It was to Booth, therefore, that Cato was finally assigned, the other masculine parts being handed over to Cibber, Mills, Wilks, Powell, Ryan, Bowman, and Keen. The latter was a popular actor of majestic mould who used to play the King in "Hamlet" (a rôle too often left to the mercies of third-rate mouthers) in a fashion which would have justified the loyal and historic gentleman who preferred that character to all others in the play. As already mentioned, Marcia was to be acted by Oldfield, and to Mistress Porter, who usually revelled in the delineation of high and mighty passions, was given gentle, tearful Lucia, daughter to Lucius (Keen).