Booth has been called indolent, but he was never so when in health, and before a fitting audience. On one thin night, indeed, he was enacting Othello rather languidly, but he suddenly began to exert himself to the utmost, in the great scene of the third act. On coming off the stage, he was asked the cause of this sudden effort. "I saw an Oxford man in the pit," he answered, "for whose judgment I had more respect than for that of the rest of the audience;" and he played the Moor to that one but efficient judge. Some causes of languor may, perhaps, be traced to the too warm patronage he received, or rather friendship, at the hands of the nobility. It was no uncommon thing for "a carriage and six" to be in waiting for him--the equipage of some court friend--which conveyed him, in what was then considered the brief period of three hours to Windsor, and back again the next day in time for play or rehearsal. This agitated sort of life seriously affected his health; and on one occasion his recovery was despaired of. But the public favourite was restored to the town; and learned Mattaire celebrated the event in a Latin ode, in which he did honour to the memory of Betterton, and the living and invigorated genius of Booth. That genius was not so perfect as that of his great predecessor. When able to go to the theatre, though not yet able to perform, he saw Wilks play two of his parts,--Jaffier and Hastings,--and heard the applause which was awarded to his efforts; and the sound was ungrateful to the ears of the philosophical and unimpassioned Cato. But Jaffier was one of his triumphs; and he whose tenderness, pity, and terror had touched the hearts of a whole audience, was painfully affected at the triumph of another, though achieved by different means.