(Thomas), the celebrated actor, was the son of Mr Betterton under-cook to King Charles I. and was born in Tothil-street Westminster in the year 1635. Having received the first rudiments of a genteel education, his fondness for reading induced him to request of his parents that they would bind him an apprentice to a bookseller, which was readily complied with, fixing on one Mr Rhodes near Charing-cross for his master. This gentleman, who had been wardrobe-keeper to the theatre in Blackfriars before the troubles, obtained a licence in 1659, from the powers then in being, to set up a company of players in the Cock-pit in Drury-Lane, in which company Mr Betterton entered himself, and, though not much above 20 years of age, immediately gave proof of the most capital genius and merit.

Presently after the restoration, two distinct theatres were established by royal authority; the one in Drury-Lane in consequence of a patent granted to Henry Killigrew, BET

Killigrew, Esq; which was called the King's Company: the other in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, who styled themselves the Duke of York's Servants, the patente of which was the ingenious Sir William Davenant: which last mentioned gentleman having long had a close intimacy with and warm friendship for Mr Rhodes, engaged Mr Betterton, and all who had acted under Mr Rhodes, into his company; which opened in 1662 with a new play of Sir William's, in two parts, called the Siege of Rhodes. In this piece, as well as in the subsequent characters which Mr Betterton performed, he increased his reputation and esteem with the public, and indeed became so much in favour with King Charles II. that by his majesty's special command he went over to Paris to take a view of the French stage, that he might the better judge what would contribute to the improvement of our own; and it was upon this occasion, as is generally supposed, that moving scenes were first introduced upon the English theatre, which before had been only hung with tapestry.

In the year 1670 he married one Mrs Sanderson, a female performer on the same stage; who, both as an actress and a woman, was every thing that human perfection was capable of arriving at, and with whom he through the whole course of his remaining life possessed every degree of happiness that a perfect union of hearts can bestow.

When the duke's company removed to Dorset-Gardens, he still continued with them; and on the coalition of the two companies in 1684, he acceded to the treaty, and remained among them; Mrs Betterton maintaining the same foremost figure among the women that her husband supported among the male performers. And so great was the estimation that they were both held in, that in the year 1675, when a pastoral called Calisto or the Chaste Nymph, written by Mr Crown at the desire of Queen Catherine comfort to Charles II. was to be performed at court by persons of the greatest distinction, our English Rofeins was employed to instruct the gentlemen, and Mrs Betterton honoured with the tutorage of the ladies, among whom were the two princesses Mary and Anne, daughters of the Duke of York, both of whom succeeded to the crown of these realms. In grateful remembrance of which, the latter of them, when queen, settled a pension of £100 per annum on her old instructor.

In 1693, Mr Betterton having founded the inclinations of a select number of the actors whom he found ready to join with him, obtained, through the influence of the Earl of Dorset, the royal licence for acting in a separate theatre; and was very soon enabled, by the voluntary subscriptions of many persons of quality, to erect a new playhouse within the walls of the Tennis-Court in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. To this step Mr Betterton is said to have been induced, partly by ill treatment from the managers, and partly with a view to repair, by the more enlarged profits of a manager, the loss of his whole fortune (upwards of £2000) which he had undergone in the year 1692, by adventuring it in a commercial scheme to the East-Indies. Be this, however, as it will, the new theatre opened in 1695 with Mr Congreve's Love for Love, the success of which was amazingly great. Yet in a few years it appeared that the profits arising from this theatre, opposed as it was by all the strength of Cibber's and Vanbrugh's writings at the other house, were very insignificant; and Mr Betterton growing now into the infirmities of age, and labouring under violent attacks of the gout, he gladly quitted at once the fatigues of management and the hurry of the stage.

The public, however, who retained a grateful sense of the pleasure they had frequently received from this theatrical veteran, and sensible of the narrowness of his circumstances, resolved to continue the marks of their esteem to him by giving him a benefit. On the 7th of April 1709 the comedy of Love for Love was performed for this purpose, in which this gentleman himself, though then upwards of 70 years of age, acted the youthful part of Valentine; as in the September following he did that of Hamlet, his performance of which the author of the Tatler has taken a particular notice of. On the former occasion, those very eminent performers, Mrs Barry, Mrs Bracegirdle, and Mr Doggett, who had all quitted the stage some years before, in gratitude to one whom they had had so many obligations to, acted the parts of Angelica, Mrs Frail, and Ben; and Mr Rowe wrote an epilogue for that night, which was spoken by the two ladies, supporting between them this once powerful supporter of the English stage. The profits of this night are said to have amounted to upwards of £500, the prices having been raised to the same that the operas and oratorios are at present; and when the curtain drew up, almost as large an audience appearing behind as before it.

The next winter Mr Betterton was prevailed on by Mr Owen M'Swinney, then manager of the opera-house in the Hay-market (at which plays were acted four times a-week), to continue performing, though but seldom. In consequence of which, in the ensuing spring, viz. on the 25th of April 1710, another play was given out for this gentleman's benefit, viz. The Maid's Tragedy of Beaumont and Fletcher, in which he himself performed his celebrated part of Melanthus. This, however, was the last time of his appearing upon the stage. For having been suddenly seized with the gout, and being impatient at the thoughts of disappointing his friends, he made use of outward applications to reduce the swellings of his feet, which enabled him to walk on the stage, though obliged to have his foot in a flipper. But although he acted that day with unusual spirit and briskness, and met with universal applause, yet he paid very dear for this tribute he had paid to the public; for the fomentations he had made use of occasioning a revulsion of the gouty humour to the nobler parts, threw the distemper up into his head, and terminated his life on the 28th of that month. On the 2d of May his body was interred with much ceremony in the cloister of Wellsminster, and great honour paid to his memory by his friend the Tatler, who has related in a very pathetic, and at the same time the most dignified manner, the process of the ceremonial. As an author, Mr Betterton had a considerable degree of merit. His dramatic works are,

1. Amorous Widow, a comedy. 2. Dioclesian, a dramatic opera. 3. Masque in the Opera of the Prophets. 4. Revenge, a comedy. 5. Unjust Judge, a tragedy. 6. Woman made a Justice, a comedy.

As an actor, he was certainly one of the greatest of either his own or any other age; but those who are desirous of having him painted out in the most lively colours to their imagination, we must refer to the description given of him by his cotemporary and friend Colley Cibber, in the Apology for his own life.