One morning early in that year, 1701, he might have been seen leaving Lord Fitzharding's rooms at St. James's, with Bowman, the player, and making his way to Betterton's house in Great Russell Street. From the lord in waiting to Prince George of Denmark, he carries a letter of recommendation to the father of the stage; and generous old Thomas, jealous of no rival, depreciator of no talent, gave the stranger a hearty welcome; heard his story, asked for a taste of his quality, imparted good counsel, took him into training, and ultimately brought him out at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1701, as Maximus, in Rochester's "Valentinian." Betterton played Ætius, and Mrs. Barry, Lucina. These two alone were enough to daunt so young an actor; but Booth was not vain enough to be too modest, and the public at once hailed in him a new charmer. His ease, grace, fire, and the peculiar harmony of his voice, altogether distinct from that of Betterton's, created a great impression. "Booth with the silver tongue" gained the epithet before Barry was born. Westminster subsequently celebrated him in one of her school prologues:-- "Old Roscius to our Booth must bow, 'Twas then but art, 'tis nature now," and the district was proud of both players; of the young one of gentle blood, educated in St. Peter's College, and of the old one, the royal cook's son, who was christened in St. Margaret's, August 12,[125] 1635. At first, Booth was thought of as a promising undergraduate of the buskin, and he had faults to amend. He confessed to Cibber that "he had been for some time too frank a lover of the bottle;" but, having the tipsyness of Powell ever before him as a terrible warning, he made a resolution of maintaining a sobriety of character, from which he never departed. Cibber pronounces this to be "an uncommon act of philosophy in a young man;" but he adds, that "in his fame and fortune he afterwards enjoyed the reward and benefit." For a few years, then, Booth had arduous work to go through, and every sort of "business" to play. The House in the Fields, too, suffered from the tumblers, dancers, and sagacious animals, added to the ordinary and well-acted plays at the House in the Lane. Leisure he had also amid all his labour, to pay successful suit to a young lady, the daughter of a Norfolk baronet, Sir William Barkham, whom he married in 1704. The lady died childless six years later. Till this last period--that, too, of the death of Betterton--Booth may be said to have been in his minority as an actor, or, as Cibber puts it, "only in the promise of that reputation," which he soon after happily arrived at. Not that when that was gained he deemed himself perfect. The longest life, he used to say, was not long enough to enable an actor to be _perfect_ in his art.