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 diverting war of sections to drown all else, Jefferson would have come to his growth and taken his place as the first serio-comic actor of his time.
Rip Van Winkle was an evolution.