to try country-life on his estate at Bute, or haunt the "Red Lion" and the "Coal-Hole." In England it made him a volunteer jockey at a race; in Italy, a fascinating story-teller and mimic to the monks of road-side convents; and in America, caused him to be duly inaugurated chief of a tribe of Indians.
There is no actor of whom such instances of arrogance toward the public and individuals are related; but it is to be observed that they generally originated in exasperated feeling, caused by undeserved neglect or gross misappreciation; and charity will ever make allowance for the inevitable results of an incongruous and homeless childhood. Kean's father nearly ruined his son's physique by employing him, at a tender age, to figure in pantomime; timely surgical aid having only saved his limbs from utter deformity. The redeeming influences of his early years were the benevolent intervention of Dr. Drury, who, recognizing his promise, sent him to Eton; and the patient teachings of Miss Tidswell, an actress of Drury Lane. That he was born with a genius for the stage is evinced by the fact that at the age of thirteen his Cato and Hamlet satisfied provincial audiences; and his recitation of Satan's Address to the Sun, from Paradise Lost, won royal approbation at Windsor. His talent for feigning served him occasionally more practical benefit than that derived from its entertaining quality; as, when he was released from a rash engagement on board ship, as cabin-boy, for pretended deafness, and escaped the indignation of a London audience he wantonly disappointed, by a well-acted dislocation of the shoulder. If Kean's early circumstances were adverse to his moral, they were, in many respects, highly favorable to his professional development. The long apprenticeship he served to the stage, embracing every grade of character and almost all functions of a player, made him thoroughly at home on the boards, and induced much of his ease, tact, and facility; his circus experiences and habits of active life gave both vigor and suppleness to his frame; while the vagrant career ho led, brought him in view of all kinds of character and phases of life, by which he observantly profited to a degree that only those intimate with him fully realized. While in this country, his genius excited the intelligent admiration, and his recklessness the benevolent care, of
