Joseph Jefferson came to his artistic spurs slowly but surely, being nearly
thirty years of age when he got his chance, and therefore wholly equal to
it and prepared for it.

William E. Burton stood and had stood for twenty-five years the recognized,
the reigning king of comedy in America. He was a master of his craft as
well as a leader in society and letters. To look at him when he came
upon the stage was to laugh; yet he commanded tears almost as readily as
laughter. In New York City particularly he ruled the roost, and could and
did do that which had cost another his place. He began to take too many
liberties with the public favor and, truth to say, was beginning to be both
coarse and careless. People were growing restive under ministrations which
were at times little less than impositions upon their forbearance. They
wanted something if possible as strong, but more refined, and in the person
of the leading comedy man of Laura Keene's company, a young actor by the
name of Jefferson, they got it.

Both Mr. Sothern and Mr. Jefferson have told the story of Tom Taylor's
extravaganza, "Our American Cousin," in which the one as Dundreary, the
other as Asa Trenchard, rose to almost instant popularity and fame. I shall
not repeat it except to say that Jefferson's Asa Trenchard was unlike any
other the English or American stage has known. He played the raw Yankee
boy, not in low comedy at all, but made him innocent and ignorant as a
well-born Green Mountain lad might be, never a bumpkin; and in the scene
when Asa tells his sweetheart the bear story and whilst pretending to light
his cigar burns the will, he left not a dry eye in the house.

New York had never witnessed, never divined anything in pathos and humor
so exquisite. Burton and his friends struggled for a season, but Jefferson
completely knocked them out. Even had Burton lived, and had there been no