Wilks was impetuous, bad tempered and crotchety, and it is possible that the envy was, originally, rather of his own making.

But be that as it may, Booth suffered many a pang from the successes of the more dashing Wilks, and the latter never lost an opportunity of thwarting his associate.

We remember how the commonplace Mills was pushed forward, with the idea of hiding the genius of Barton, and Cibber refers more than once to this short-sighted policy of Wilks.

"And yet, again," he writes, "Booth himself, when he came to be a manager, would sometimes suffer his judgment to be blinded by his inclination to actors whom the town seem'd to have but an indifferent opinion of." And thereupon Colley asks "another of his old questions"-- viz., "Have we never seen the same passions govern a Court! How many white staffs and great places do we find, in our histories, have been laid at the feet of a monarch, because they chose not to give way to a rival in power, or hold a second place in his favour?
How many Whigs and Tories have changed their parties, when their good or bad pretentions have met with a check to their higher preferment ?" The fact is that there was never any artistic sympathy between the two distinguished actors.

Booth could play comedy, and play it quite well, but his soul was all for tragedy.