But neither the married nor the professional life of Booth was destined to be of long continuance. His health began to give way before he was forty. The managers hoped they had found a fair substitute for him in the actor Elrington. Tom Elrington subsequently became so great a favourite with the Dublin audience that they remembered his Bajazet as preferable to that of Barry or Mossop, on the ground that in that character his voice could be heard beyond the Blind Quay, whereas that of the other-named actors was not audible outside the house! Elrington had none of the scholar-like training of Booth. He was originally apprentice to an upholsterer in Covent Garden, was wont to attend plays unknown to his master, and to act in them privately, and with equal lack of sanction. His master was a vivacious Frenchman, who, one day, came upon him as, under the instruction of Chetwood, he was studying a part in some stilted and ranting tragedy. The stage-struck apprentice, in his agitation, sewed his book up inside the cushion, on which he was at work, "while he and Chetwood exchanged many a desponding look, and every stitch went to both their hearts." The offenders escaped detection; but on another occasion the Frenchman came upon his apprentice as he was enacting the Ghost in "Hamlet," when he laid the spirit, with irresistible effect of his good right arm. Elrington was, from the beginning, a sort of "copper Booth." His first appearance on the stage, at Drury Lane, in 1709, was in Oroonoko, the character in which Booth had made his _coup d'essai_ in Dublin. He was ambitious, too, and had influential support. When Cibber refused to allow him to play Torrismond, while Elrington was yet young, a noble friend of the actor asked the manager to assign cause for the refusal. Colley was not at a loss. "It is not with us as with you, my Lord," said he; "your Lordship is sensible that there is no difficulty in filling places at court, you cannot be at a loss for persons to act their part there; but I assure you, it is quite otherwise in our theatrical world. If we should invest people with characters they should be unable to support, we should be undone."