Booth reaped no brighter triumph than in this character, in which he has had worthy, but never equally able successors. Boheme was respectable in it; Quin imposing, and generally successful; Sheridan, conventional, but grandly eloquent; Mossop, heavy; Walker, a failure; Digges, stagy; Kemble, next to the original; Pope, "mouthy;" Cooke, altogether out of his line; Wright, weak; Young, traditional but effective; and Vandenhoff, classically correct and statuesque. In Cato, the name of Booth stands supreme; in _that_, the kinsman of the Earls of Warrington was never equalled. It was his good fortune, too, not to be admired less because of the affection for Betterton in the hearts of surviving admirers. This is manifest from the lines of Pope:-- "On Avon's bank where flow'rs eternal blow, If I but ask,--if any weed can grow?-- One tragic sentence if I dare deride, Which Betterton's grave action dignified, Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims (Though but perhaps a muster-roll of names), How will our fathers rise up in a rage, And swear all shame is lost in George's age." The performance of Cato raised Booth to fortune as well as to fame; and through Bolingbroke he was appointed to a share in the profits of the management of Drury Lane, with Cibber, Wilks, and Dogget. The last-named, thereupon, retired in disgust, with compensation; and Cibber hints that Booth owed his promotion as much to his Tory sentiments as to his merits in acting Cato. The new partner had to pay £600 for his share of the stock property, "which was to be paid by such sums as should arise from half his profits of acting, till the whole was discharged." This incumbrance upon his share he discharged out of the income he received in the first year of his joint management. His fame, however, by this time had culminated. He sustained it well, but he cannot be said to have increased it. No other such a creation as Cato fell to his lot. Young and Thomson could not serve him as Addison and opportunity had done, and if he can be said to have won additional laurels after Cato, it was in the season of 1722-23, when he played Young Bevil, in Steele's "Conscious Lovers," with a success which belied the assertion that he was inefficient in genteel comedy. The season of 1725-26 was also one of his most brilliant.