Such, briefly sketched, was the actor who constituted one of Burton's strongest pillars. For some years he played at no other theatre in New York. He gave enjoyment to thousands, and in dramatic annals his name and achievements have distinguished and honorable record. As one of the many who remain to own their debt of pleasure and instruction, the present writer pays this tribute to the genius and memory of Henry Placide.[7] [7] "When Edwin Forrest was in Europe on a visit, he was asked whom he deemed the best American actor; he promptly and unequivocally replied: 'Henry Placide is unquestionably the best general actor on the American boards, and I doubt whether his equal can be found in England.'"--HENRY DICKINSON STONE'S "Theatrical Reminiscences." We now summon another name from the famous corps, for the purpose of analysis, since we should be ill content with the cold respect of a passing glance at an artist so celebrated as was William Rufus Blake. We can recall no actor of the past, and we know of but one in the present, comparable with Blake in certain lines of old men--certainly in the rôle of tender pathos like _Old Dornton_, and in the portrayal of a sweetly noble nature framed in venerable simplicity, as in _Jesse Rural_, he had no equal; and it is simply truth to say that with him departed from the stage that unique, all-affecting, wondrous embodiment of _Geoffrey Dale_, in "The Last Man." The characteristics of Blake's power were a broad heartiness, suggestive sentiment, and eloquent idealization. These traits informed respectively the parts he essayed, and gave to each in turn rare flow of spirit, richness of color, and poetic fervor. For the verbal expression of these salient elements, he possessed a tuneful voice, which rose or fell as the sway of feeling dictated, and his delivery was singularly felicitous in tone and emphasis. Nor was he lacking in a humor at once subtle and delicate, happily evinced in his acting of _Mr. Primrose_, in the comedietta of "Bachelors' Torments." Those who saw Blake at the period of which we are writing, found it hard to believe that the _Sir Anthony Absolute_ of aldermanic proportions before them was once a slender young man and played light comedy! Yet so it was. Very old play-goers will recollect the Chatham Garden theatre, and perhaps some tenacious memory bears record of having seen Blake there in the long ago; for there he first appeared to a New York audience, in 1824, playing _Frederick_, in Colman's "Poor Gentleman." We never saw him earlier than at Burton's, and then with added years had come a rotundity of person which, however unobjectionable in the famous impersonations of his prime, was not, it must be confessed, the ideal physique of light comedy; so his _Frederick_ had long departed and his _Sir Robert Bramble_ had appeared.