The murmur of London approval, awarded to his Castalio, was the delicious magic which drew him for ever within the charmed circle of the actors, and George Frederick passed through all the heavy trials through which most of the vocation have to pass. He strolled through villages, thence to provincial towns, and I think, when in 1786, he played Baldwin to the Isabella of Mrs. Siddons, that lady must have been compelled, perhaps was willing, to confess, that there was a dramatic genius who, at least, approached the excellence of her brother. From York, after much more probation, Cooke went over to Dublin, where he acted well, drank hard, and lost himself, in one of his wild fits, by enlisting. Fancy the proud and maddened George Frederick doing barrack scullery-work, and worse!--he who had played the Moor in presence of a vice-regal court! If his friends had not purchased his discharge, Miss Campion would certainly soon have heard that her Othello had hanged himself. The genius who would not be a soldier, though born in a barrack, found an asylum in the Manchester theatre; and subsequently Dublin welcomed him back to its well-trod stage. There, he and John Kemble met for the first time. John took the lead, George Frederick played,--I can hardly call them secondary parts, for Booth had acted some of them to Betterton, Garrick to Sheridan, and one great performer to another,--such parts, in fact, as Ghost to Kemble's Hamlet, Henry to his Richard, Edmund to his Lear, and a similar disposition of characters. What Kemble then thought of his acting, I cannot say, but he complained of being disturbed by Mr. Cooke's tipsily defective memory. George Frederick was stirred to anger and prophecy. "I won't have your faults fathered upon me," he cried; "and hark ye, Black Jack,--hang me if I don't make you tremble in your pumps one day yet." He kept his word. On the 31st of October 1801,[75] he acted Richard, at Covent Garden, to the Henry of Murray, the Richmond of Pope, the Queen of Miss Chapman, and the Lady Anne of Mrs. Litchfield;--and Kemble was present to see how Cooke would realise his promise. Kemble had played Richard himself that season at Drury Lane, to the Richmond of his brother Charles,--Henry, Wroughton; Queen, Mrs. Powell; Lady Anne, Miss Biggs. I fancy he was satisfied that in the new and well-trained actor there was a dangerous rival. Kemble acted Shylock and one or two other characters against him. They stood opposed in some degree as Quin and Garrick were, at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, in 1742-43. In that season, Garrick played Richard eleven times.[76] In Cooke's first season at the Garden, he acted the same part double the number of times. Shylock, Iago, and Kitely, he acted each ten times. Macbeth, seven; Sir Giles Overreach, five; the Stranger, twice; and Sir Archy Macsarcasm, several times.