Edmund Kean

“ His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk; and his mother was an actress, Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey. When in his fourth year Kean made his first appearance on the stage as Cupid in Noverre’s ballet of Cymon. As a child his vivacity and cleverness, and his ready affection for those who treated him with kindness, made him a universal favourite, but the harsh circumstances of his lot, and the want of proper restraint, while they developed strong self-reliance, fostered wayward tendencies. ”

“ He never could be in the slightest degree a courtier or a tuft-hunter, but—like Edmund Kean, and many another man of genius whose abounding and impetuous soul loved nature and truth in their spontaneous forms more than any of the gilded substitutes for them—he ever preferred to be with those in whose presence he could act himself out just as he was and just as he felt. His playing in the theatre, instead of fitting, by reaction unfitted him for playing in society. ”

“ Of all the ‘Sir Edwards’ who have flourished in my time—a dismal phrase if taken aright, reader—that mad genius, the great little man with the fine Italian face and flashing eyes, Edmund Kean, is the most unforgetable. ”

“ Garrick could not sing; I can. Lewis could not act tragedy; I can. Mossop could not play comedy; I can. Edmund Kean never wrote a drama; I have.’ In the last comparison Elliston was altogether out. In the cheap edition of ‘Their Majesties’ Servants’ I have inserted a copy of a bill put up by Kean, in 1811, at York, in the ball-room of the Minster Yard of which city Edmund Kean and his young wife announced a two nights’ performance of scenes from plays, imitations, and songs, the whole enacted by the poor strolling couple. ”

“ At Waterford, Kean played tragedy, and in addition for his benefit, gave an exhibition of pugilism, tight-rope dancing, singing, and wound up by playing the Chimpanzee in the piece called ‘La Perouse.’ It was at Waterford that Edmund Kean’s second son, Charles, was born. Beaching Scotland, so exhausted were the funds of the actor, that at Dumfries he got up an entertainment at a tavern, and the only patron was a shoe-maker, who paid sixpence for admission. ”

“ It was during those days, when Edmund Kean, as a strolling player, was learning his art, and was making acquaintance with poverty in its most bitter forms, that he acquired those habits of intemperance which afterwards effected his ruin. After the engagement at the Haymarket, he acted at Tunbridge Wells, Portsmouth, Haddesden, Birmingham, and Edinburgh. More than once in these journeyings he exhibited at fairs and public houses; and for a short time he earned a scanty income in the capacity of usher at a school in Hertfordshire. ”

“ Forster flew from one topic to another with admirable skill, and entertained us with anecdotes of Wellington and Rogers, gilding the time with capital imitations of his celebrated contemporaries in literature and on the stage. A touch about Edmund Kean made us all start from our chairs and demand a mimetic repetition. Forster must have been an excellent private actor, for he had power and skill quite exceptional in that way. ”

“ Pity that so fine a nature as Edmund Kean’s, with his genius, and generous sympathies, should have struck on the rock of self-indulgence. But in any estimate of his moral shortcomings, the evil influence around his early life, and the effect of his early privation, should be steadfastly, and charitably, borne in mind. When we remember the conditions under which the actor pursues his calling, it is scarcely surprising that the term “poor players,” should have become proverbial. ”

“ Young Kean, however, had a bold heart, and a brain full of resources. He hired, on credit, a room in one of the Portsmouth taverns, and announced an entertainment consisting of “Selections from ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Richard III.,’ and ‘Jane Shore,’ with a series of acrobatic performances, and some exquisite singing, and all by Master Carey, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.” The entertainment was sufficiently successful for it to be repeated, and having paid all expenses, the entertainer found himself three pounds in pocket. Edmund Kean at this time was fourteen years old. ”

“ He was presented with a tame lion with which he might be found playing in his drawing-room. The prizefighters Mendoza and Richmond the Black were among his visitors. Grattan was his devoted friend. In his earlier days Talma said of him, “He is a magnificent uncut gem; polish and round him off and he will be a perfect tragedian.” Macready, who was much impressed by Kean’s Richard III. and met the actor at supper, speaks of his “unassuming manner ... partaking in some degree of shyness” and of the “touching grace” of his singing. Kean’s delivery of the three words “I answer—NO!” ”

“ The father of Edmund Kean was Aaron Kean, generally described as an architect, but described by some as a stage carpenter, and by others as a tailor. In a melancholy and miserable chamber of a house, situated at no great distance from Holborn, Edmund Kean first saw the light, on November 4th, 1787. It is stated by Miss Tidswell, the actress, that “about half-past three in the morning Aaron Kean, the father, came to me, and said, ‘Nance Carey is with child, and begs you to go to her at her lodgings in Chancery Lane.’ Accordingly my aunt and I went with him and found Nance Carey near her time. ”

“ Kean? which Kean?
Rose.
Edmund Kean. My mother acted with Edmund Kean when she was a girl.
Sir William.
[Approaching her slowly, speaking in a queer voice.] With Kean? with Kean!
Rose.
Yes.
Sir William.
[At her side, in a whisper.] My dear, I—I've seen Edmund Kean.
Rose.
Yes?
Sir William.
A young man then, I was; quite different, from the man I am now—impulsive, excitable. Kean! [Drawing a deep breath.] Ah, he was a splendid gypsy!
Rose.
[Looking down at the dress-basket.] I've a little fillet in there that my mother wore as Cordelia to Kean's Lear——
Sir William. ”

“ Hence a certain difficulty for the unsophisticated in [102] distinguishing the artist from what the philosophers call the empirical man; the Edmund Kean whose genius is illuminating and revitalizing Shylock from the Edmund Kean who is notoriously fond of the bottle and who has lately got into trouble with an alderman’s wife. The physique, the temperament, of the empirical man furnish the medium for the artist. He arrives at the theatre in a taxi, or his own Rolls-Royce, smoking a big cigar, every inch of him a man of to-day ”

“ Osborne. Kean, Tremaine, and Jago played in tragic parts. Murray and Taylor were comedians. Miss Nancy George and Miss Osborne were the chief ladies in comedy and tragedy. Woodham and Mrs. Taylor were comedians and vocalists, and Kean, like his more distinguished namesake, Edmund Kean, appears to have possessed some musical talent, for on the occasion of his first benefit he announces that he will sing “an oratorio.” Master Dickey Murray would seem to have been a favorite of the public. The other actors performed in subordinate parts. ”

“ For violation of nature, common sense, and I may add, sound, [357] this tragedy of Maturin's equals anything of the kind produced in the earliest ages of the drama. To Edmund Kean, in the very bloom of his fame and best of his strength, was raving, like the following, consigned. De Zelos has just died,—hiding his face,—probably ashamed of the whole business, whereupon Manuel exclaims, spasmodically:—
"False!—False!—ye cursed judges!—do ye hide him? ”

“ It was the acting of Edmund Kean in "Richard III." which first filled Daddy Howe with the desire to go on the stage. He saw the great actor again when he was living in retirement at Richmond—in those last sad days when the Baroness Burdett-Coutts (then the rich young heiress, Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts) , driving up the hill, saw him sitting huddled up on one of the public seats and asked if she could do anything for him.
"Nothing, I think," he answered sadly. "Ah yes, there is one thing. ”

“ He was a laborious student, and worked in almost every department of literature. Besides dramas and poems he wrote tracts on money. He wrote three dramas—‘The Statue Wife,’ ‘Diocletian,’ and ‘Caius Marius,’ at the suggestion, it is said, of Edmund Kean. ”

“ Colonel Fitz Bastard, depicted him and his friends in the act of assaulting the editor of the Cheltenham Journal.
Edmund Kean.The artist's tastes and sympathies threw him much in the society of actors. The following year his thoroughly Bohemian friend, Edmund Kean, was mulcted in £800 damages, in consequence of a disgraceful liaison with the wife of Alderman Cox; and while audiences thronged the one theatre to testify their sympathy for a favourite and popular actress, they crowded the other to howl and hiss at the thoroughly disreputable and disgraced .tragedian. ”

“ Some cities showed him a spirit of charity; many audiences submitted him to the grossest insults and endangered his life by the violence of their disapproval. In Quebec he was much impressed with the kindness of some Huron Indians who attended his performances, and he was made chief of the tribe, receiving the name Alanienouidet. Kean’s last appearance in New York was on the 5th of December 1826 in Richard III., the rôle in which he was first seen in America. ”

“ Unhappily, these absences have of late years become more frequent, and more and more prolonged. The health of the great tragi-comedian has gradually failed him. I have been for a long period without news from him; but I much fear that the heyday of his health and strength is past. The errors which made Edmund Kean, in the prime of life, a shattered wreck, cannot be brought home to Frederick Robson. Rumors, the wildest and the wickedest, have been circulated about him, as about every other public man ”

“ In some such fashion the poor tailor Aaron Kean has no other name in history than that of the father of Edmund,—the greatest of our actors since the days of Garrick. The family of the Trees has, from as humble a source, been as bountiful, in its way, to the stage. ”

“ In addition to her irregular habits, Edmund Kean’s mother was selfish, calculating, and cruel. It was not long after his birth that the child, with his strangely beautiful dark eyes and winning ways, was actually abandoned by his unnatural parent. Ann Carey quitted the metropolis to join a wandering troupe of Thespians, and when she next saw her child, he was three years [Pg 101] old, and living under the protection of a poor man and his wife, in Soho. ”

“ Calcraft, M.P., one of the managing committee of Drury Lane. This young Kean declined to accept unless his father consented to settle on his mother, from whom he was separated, an income of 400l. Professing his inability to do this, Edmund Kean parted in anger from his son, who declared his intention to become an actor. ”

“ When the place couldn’t hold no more, the duke he quit tending door and went around the back way and come on to the stage and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech, and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most thrillingest one that ever was; and so he went on a-bragging about the tragedy, and about Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main principal part in it; and at last when he’d got everybody’s expectations up high enough, he rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the king come a-prancing out on all fours, naked; ”

“ May the old man long enjoy what the young boy, between natural abilities and the madness of "fashion," earned with happy facility.
There remains but one name more of exceeding greatness to be mentioned,—that of Edmund Kean; but, ere we let our curtain fall on him, I have to notice something of the manners, customs, sayings, and doings of a past time, which differed greatly from that in which Kean was reared, flourished, and fell. Let us glance at that olden period before we summon him to occupy our final scene.
Mr. Foote as Mrs. ”

“ It was in the impersonation of the great creations of Shakespeare’s genius that the varied beauty and grandeur of the acting of Kean were displayed in their highest form, although probably his most powerful character was Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts, the effect of his first impersonation of which was such that the pit rose en masse, and even the actors and actresses themselves were overcome by the terrific dramatic illusion. His only personal disadvantage as an actor was his small stature. ”

“ Elliston thought of Master Betty!’
The Young Roscius withdrew from the stage and entered Christ’s College, Cambridge. He there enjoyed quiet study and luxurious seclusion. Meanwhile that once boy with the flashing eyes, Edmund Kean, had got a modest post at the Haymarket, where he played Rosencrantz to Mr. Rae’s Hamlet. He had also struggled his way to Belfast, and had acted Osman to Mrs. Siddons’ Zara. ‘He [Pg 52] plays well, very well,’ said the lady: ‘but there is too little of him to make a great actor.’ Edmund, too, had married ‘Mary Chambers,’ at Stroud, and Mr. ”

“ Kean specially excelled as the exponent of passion. In Othello, Iago, Shylock and Richard III., characters utterly different from each other, but in which the predominant element is some form of passion, his identification with the personality, as he had conceived it, was as nearly as possible perfect, and each isolated phase and aspect of the plot was elaborated with the minutest attention to details, and yet with an absolute subordination of these to the distinct individuality he was endeavouring to portray. ”

“ From Waterford, Edmund and his wife took with them no more than they had brought, except an additional son, the day of whose birth was a happy day in the mother's calendar of sorrows. They suffered, and the children with them, all that humanity could suffer and yet live. I find them at Dumfries, depending for food and shelter upon the receipts at an "entertainment," given by Kean, in a room at a tavern. There was one auditor, and he paid sixpence! There were even worse disappointments than these; and, under their accumulation, I do not wonder that Kean broke into curses at his perverse destiny ”