BOOTH, Barton, an English tragedian, descended from an ancient family in Lancashire, was born in 1681. He was educated at Westminster school under the celebrated Dr Busby, and his success in the Latin plays, customarily performed there by the scholars, gave him an inclination for the stage. He was intended for the church; but at seventeen years of age he ran away from school, and after some vicissitudes obtained employment in a theatrical company in Dublin. His first appearance was hailed with applause; and he continued to improve daily. After two successful campaigns in Ireland he returned to his native country, having first reconciled himself to his friends. Betterton, to whom he had an introduction, received him with great cordiality, and gave him all the assistance in his power. His success at London was complete, and he established his reputation as only second to his great instructor. He was indebted to a happy coincidence of merit and chance for the celebrity which he at length attained in the character of Cato. The Whigs, in favour of whose principles Addison’s tragedy had been written, thought it their duty to support it strongly; while the Tories, at every passage susceptible of a popular turn, were no less vehement in their approbation, and at the close the actor was presented by Lord Bolingbroke with a purse of fifty guineas, “as a slight acknowledgment of his honest opposition to a perpetual dictator, and his dying so bravely in the cause of duty.” Booth was twice married,—first to a daughter of Sir William Barkham, Bart., and afterwards to Miss Hester Santlow, an actress of great merit. During the twenty years of his management the theatre was in the greatest credit; and his death, which happened on the 10th of May 1733, contributed not a little to ...

BOOTHIA FELIX, a peninsula of British North America, between lat. 69° and 72° N., and long. 92° and 97° W. It was discovered by Captain (afterwards Sir James) Ross, in 1830, and was named after Sir Felix Booth, who had fitted out the expedition. It forms the western side of the gulf of the same name into which Prince Regent’s Inlet leads from Baffin’s Bay. From the American shore it is almost separated by lakes and inlets; and a narrow channel known as Bellot Strait intervenes between it and North Somerset Island, which was discovered by Sir E. Parry in 1819. The peninsula is not only interesting for its connection with the Franklin expedition and the Franklin search, but is of scientific importance from the north magnetic pole having been first distinctly localized there by Ross.