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ing, and another of sparring, with a professional pugilist. He then played the leading part in a musical interlude; and finished with Chimpanzee, or some such name, the monkey in the melodramatic pantomime of "La Perouse ;" and in this character he showed agility scarcely surpassed by Mazurier or Gouffe, and touches of deep tragedy in the monkey's death-scene, which made the whole audience shed tears.

A few years afterwards I happened to be in London; and Kean was then in the very height of his reputation, for he was firmly established, having triumphed over the envious, or conscientious, opposition of the Kemble school, and stood his ground against the more perilous risk of public caprice. I had heard of his great success in the capital, and had followed the accounts of his various performances with much interest. I was curious also to form a judgment of the man's real character, in this intoxicating state of triumph and celebrity. I therefore determined to call on him, and repaired one morning to his house, in Clarges Street, Piccadilly. I had no sooner sent up my card than the servant came quickly down stairs again to the parlour, requesting I would walk up to the drawing-room; and before I could reach the stairs, Kean himself

had sprung half way down them, to greet me with the most cordial welcome. Had he received the visit of a powerful patron or generous benefactor, he could not, or at least need not, have shown more gratitude than he evinced at the recollection of my slight services, in passing some tickets for his Chimpanzee benefit, so long before.

I consider this trait in Kean's conduct a fair test of his character. It was thoroughly disinterested; and was not a mere burst of good feeling, nor a display of ostentation-for these would have been sufficiently satisfied with a momentary expression. But his whole behaviour, during a couple of months that I remained in London at that time, the spring of 1816, was a continuance of friendly attentions. I dined with him frequently, and met at his house much good company. Persons of very high respectability, and many of them of rank, were among his constant guests. His dinners were excellent, but his style of home living did not appear extravagant; and the evening parties were extremely pleasant, with a great deal of good music.

Kean himself sang very agreeably, though without science. But he was an excellent mimic, not only in burlesque imitation of such vocalists as Incledon, Michael Kelly, and others, but of a good style of singing, apart from individual peculiarities. I do not recollect to have met with any man professionally literary on these occasions. Miss Plumtree, the translator of some of Kotzebue's plays, and of a Tour in Ireland, of which Kean was the main subject, was of all these parties, and seemed almost domiciliated in the family. Nothing could be more friendly or hospitable than the conduct of the worthy hostess, whom I had never formerly seen but in her solitary exhibition at Waterford. She was, in her own house, and surrounded by every thing that might dazzle the mind's eye, and dizzy the brain of almost any one, a fair specimen of natural cha racter. Her head was evidently turned by all her husband's fame and her own finery; and their combined consequences were visibly portrayed in her looks, and bodied forth with exquisite naïveté. But there was withal a shrewdness, an off handedness, and tact quite Irish; and, what was still more so, a warm-hearted and overflowing recognizance of ever so trivial a kindness, or tribute of admiration, offered to "Edmund”

before he became a great man." I was consequently a favourite with her; and I retain a strong recollection of her kindness.

During this period of frequent intercourse I often went to the theatre with Kean, and was introduced by him to the green-room, and to seve ral of the principal actors. But I do not remember to have ever seen more than one or two of them at his house; and I was only once in his company at a tavern, and that by accident, though I knew he was in the constant habit of repairing to some one or other to pass the night, after a most pleasant party at home had broken up, or he had retired from an overflowing theatre, panting with the still felt excitement of his splendid acting. On the occasion to which I allude, I had invited him to dine with me at the Sablonière Hotel, in Leicester-square. I pro mised him a snug dinner and a quiet party; and I accordingly had but two others to meet him one an old Etonian of Kean's own standing, afterwards a clergyman, whose poetical talents were beginning to be well-known; the other, a gentleman, a friend of the latter, who had considerable powers of imitation, and, among other specimens, was fond of giving some of Kean himself.

He was very punctual to the hour, six o'clock if I rightly remember. His carriage drove up to the door, and he stepped out of it, in full dress, a silk-lined coat, white breeches, buckles in his shoes, &c. He apologized for coming in so flashy a style to a simple bachelor's dinner, saying, that he must leave me as early as nine to attend a party where he was particularly expected. When that hour arrived we none of us thought of breaking up. The dinner had gone off well; and some excellent wine marvellously aided in keeping up the sociability of the evening. The valuable horses were kept waiting somewhat unmercifully, and messenger after messenger came in search of my unpunctual guest only to be treated with the same neglect as their predecessors. At length, as the clock struck midnight, Kean said it was impossible for him "to break his engagement;" and he proposed that my friends aud I should accompany him. We were all four very much under the influence of each other's example; and no objection was made by the invited to a proposition which was scarcely comprehended.

We all squeezed as well as we could into Kean's chariot, which waited at the door, and away we went, not knowing or caring in what direction. After a short time, and a furious drive, the carriage stopped at the head of a very narrow passage. We got out without any order of precedence, and followed our leader, with considerable assistance from the walls of the passage, against which we

"Went knicketty knock,

Like pebbles in Carisbrook Well."

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We arrived at an open door, evidently that of a tavern or hotel from the bustling welcome awarded to Roscius and to us, who followed him, by the self-announcing landlord, and half a score of waiters, women, and attendant gazers, who all struggled for a look at the great man. He staggered rapidly up stairs, and we three after him; and he, to the apparent horror of several of the waiters and others, dashed at once at the large folding doors of the first-floor apartment, and in we all rushed into a room where there were assembled full sixty persons at a long supper table. A shout, of applause hailed Kean as he entered; but when we popped in after him, a loud murmur of disapprobation was

raised. A hustling sort of expostulation and explanation ensued; which terminated in our being obliged to withdraw, along with Kean and four or five of the party, into an adjoining room, where we were made to comprehend the outrageous violation committed by this grand master of the association against the rigid law, of which he was the founder, that no stranger could be admitted into the society without a formal intro duction, and a regular accordance to its sacred regulations,

In short, we each entered our name in an expansive register, got a printed card in return, paid two or three pounds for fees, took a mock oath, blindfolded, on an old book of ballads, and were then announced as members, in due form, of the notorious association, or club,tor fraternity, called collectively "The Wolves."

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Among the three-score persons composing this assembly I did not recognize a face, with but one exception, and that in the person of a comedian named Oxberry, at whose performance of Justice Greedy, in "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," I had heartily laughed a few nights before. I had no notion of what sort of company I was in. Indeed I had no clear conception of anything but lights, looking-glasses, bottles, and decanters. I remember that Kean, from the head of the table which had been reserved for him, stammered a speech in return for his health being drunk; and that I, and my two brother novices who sat beside me, laughed in such immoderate ill-breeding at the whole adven÷ ture, that we soon became ashamed of ourselves, and by a simultaneous movement left the room.

When I heard next morning some particulars about "The Wolves," and that the place of their orgies was a tavern off the Strand, called "the Coal-Hole," I was thoroughly out of conceit with my friend Kean's: convivial pursuits. 'I, however, gave him full credit for his unwillingness to tell the sort of place he was about to introduce me to; and, as if by tacit consent, we neither of us ever mentioned it to the other. afterwards...

15

It was at this period that I was initiated by Kean into another species of society, to know something of which I had a great curiosity. I re membered the advice given in one of Lord Bacon's essays to see and observe in great cities, triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows," and I thought that a boxing-match, or prize-fight, came fairly into the et cæleras. I therefore expressed a wish to Kean to be present at one of these exhibitions; and an opportunity soon offered. He was in high reputation with " the fancy," as one of its most liberal patrons, and a distinguished amateur. I fre quently saw at his house some of its chief professors, Mendoza, Richmond the Black, and others, with whom he used to have sparring bouts. in his dining parlour. He had early intimation of all the fights to come, and was, I believe, an attendant at most of them. The battle which he took me to see was between a man named Curtis (afterwards killed in another of those encounters) and one who bore the sobriquet of "West Country Dick." The place of action was close to a village about ten miles from town on the western road. We rode there together, I being mounted on one of Kean's handsome and spirited horses. Great honours were paid to him on the field, of which I, as his friend, partook. We were admitted within the ring close to the combatants, before the fight began; and a number of introductions took place between

Kean, myself, and the titled and untitled patricians and plebeians who composed the motley throng. To say nothing of the former, I was presented in form to Mister Jackson, to Cribb, Oliver, Scroggins, and others. ebdo not mean to describe the battle: suffice it to say, it greatly excited me, and I by no means felt the disgust I had anticipated. I was neither assaulted nor insulted; nor was my pocket picked; nor did I encounter any of the mishaps commonly incidental to so blackguard a combina tion. I returned to town well satisfied with this Midsummer day's entertainment, but have never, from that day to this, repeated the experiment.

7

On my next visit to London the year following, (1817,) I found Kean just as I left him when I quitted England for France after the circumstances above stated. He was going on in the same apparent round of home respectability and, no doubt, of tavern dissipation. I dined several times at his house. I there met, as usual, extremely good company. But Miss Plumtree, Miss Spence, a novelist, Miss Benger, a woman of higher talents, and Captain Glascock, author of "The Naval Sketch Book," were the only persons then or since connected with literature whom I recollect to have seen at these parties. Kean's associates were not certainly hommes de lettres. I never dreamt at the time of being classed among the tribe. His wife liked to have people of ton, and, when she could, of title, at her house. He seemed to endure, rather than take pride in them; and always behaved with great decorum and good manners. But when the company took leave, and he was free, his hours of enjoyment began; and I fancy he often slept from home.

Among the dinner company, Alderman and Mrs. Cox always had a place. She was so little remarkable in any way that I can scarcely remember her appearance. She had nothing attractive about her, certainly, either as to person or manners.

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It was now that I began to perceive in Kean (what had not, perhaps, become established during my former visit to London) an evident affectation of singularity, an overstrained boldness of demeanour, { a rage for being conspicuous, not merely as an actor, but as a man. was still much sought after by the aristocracy, who were proud of show. ing such a “lion" in their social menageries. He made it a boast that he refused their invitations, and despised their patronage; and that he knew they meant him no honour by those distinctions, which were only so many negative tributes offered to their own importance.

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There was, no doubt, much truth in this. The theory was good. The vice consisted in Kean's method of acting on it. There is a wide line between the servility to rank which degrades too many men of talent in England, and the fierce contempt of it assumed by some few others.. It requires but small intellect to see through the general motives of aristocratical patronage; but much tact and knowledge of life are essens tial to hold it at its just value, and turn it to real account. Kean, í from the circumstances of his whole career until this period, had no opportunity of acquiring such knowledge; and nature had not given him that prompt sentiment des convenances which some French writer con- c siders the great test of genius.

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Kean thought that as he would not fawn upon title, he must necessarily shun every one who was a lord" merely because he was one. His impatient vanity made him see but himself alone in the large com

panies, where he was, no doubt, an attractive object; and he took alarm at being exhibited as a show. He did not appreciate the advantages which a man less self-enamoured finds in the mansions of the great, 'those shrines of the glorious works of art, those arenas where the collision of learning, taste, and talent brings forth a galaxy of brilliant things not to be met with elsewhere. If this atmosphere occasionally intoxicates those who are not born in it, it is a tribute paid by Nature to civilization but he who sacrifices his independence to exist in it on sufferance would be more respectable, though less refined, had he lived obscure, and died in his native sphere, be that ever so lowly.

Kean grew angry at the haughty condescension lavished on him by his noble entertainers. A man of more sense, or one better bred, would have admitted and smiled at it. If a portion of the English nobility fancy themselves formed of a different clay, or breathed into by a purer essence, than the class just below it in the social scale, it is chiefly from the adoration offered to it by that very class. Who can blame the aristocracy, which, seeing the servility, contemns the sycophants? To one who has lived much abroad, and known society in an aspect of rational and graduated equality (so to express it), the "exclusive" arrogance at home is more melancholy than irritating. The "fantastic tricks" played, at a crisis like this, may be indeed wept at, both by angels and men, in pity for the death-struggle in which they originate.

Kean had not the discrimination to distinguish, perhaps not the good luck to meet with, any of the delightful exceptions to the general rule. The only "lord" he could tolerate was Lord Byron,-a fatal fancy on his part, if, as I have reason to think, the example of the poet influenced most banefully the conduct of the actor. That Byron himself was discontented with his greatness is very certain,-a humiliating caprice of Nature. Unsatisfied with celebrity almost unbounded, he panted for distinction of a far less noble kind. Sated with admiration, he longed to excite wonder. Fame was not enough for him; his ambition was too big for the sphere assigned him by fate. In forcing it beyond that, the recoil was a death-stroke to both his reputation and his happiness.

Who will refuse to see an analogy in character between Byron and his avowed archetype, Buonaparte? It must be sympathy which leads to imitation. And what Byron was to Buonaparte, Kean most assuredly was to Byron. My readers must not be startled by the rapprochement, nor think that the greatest conqueror of the age is degraded by forming one in the trinity of fame with the greatest poet and the greatest actor. And, after all, which was most a stage-player of the three? Was not the political world the great theatre of Napoleon's deeds-the social world of Byron's doings? Did not both act a part from first to last? and was not Kean more an actor in the broad gaze of London life than on the narrow boards of Drury Lane? The generic signs of genius were common to them all; and they were un doubtedly of the same species of mind. Had their relative positions been reversed, their individual career had most probably been the same, or nearly so. Reckless, restless, adventurous, intemperate; brain-fevered by success, desperate in reverse; seeking to outdo their own destiny for good; and rushing upon dangers and difficulties, which they delighted first to make, and then to plunge within.

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