King Henry IV, Part 1: William Charles Macready (1793-1873) as King Henry IV.

Macready's performances always displayed fine artistic perceptions developed to a high degree of perfection by very comprehensive culture, and even his least successful personal turns had the interest resulting from thorough intellectual study. He belonged to the school of Kean rather than of Kemble. He was responsible, in 1834, and more fully in 1838, for returning the text of King Lear to the Shakespeare's text (although in a shortened version), after it had been replaced for more than a hundred and fifty years by Tate's happy-ending adaptation, The History of King Lear. In 1843-1844 he made a prosperous tour in the United States, but his last visit to that country, in 1849, was marred by a riot at the Astor Place Theatre, New York, arising from the jealousy of the actor Edwin Forrest, and resulting in the death of twenty-three persons and the further injuring of one hundred, who were shot by the militia called out to quell the disturbance; Judge Charles Patrick Daly later presided at the trial. Macready was playing Macbeth at the time of the riot, a fact which added to the ominous reputation of that play. (Data partly from Wikipedia) Lithograph: Furness Image Collection.