by the hope of vengeance on Macbeth, he exclaims-" He has no children!"

I will not attempt to analyse the piece which concluded the evening's entertainments. Monsieur Tonson is one of those insipid productions founded on absurd blunders, the author of which exposes himself to ridicule in attempting to entertain the galleries by a supposed caricature of the French. M. Tonson is an emigrant, who turns perruquier, apparently with no other object than to confirm John Bull in the belief that Providence has assigned to the English the honour of supplying Europe with clever heads, and to France the task of providing those heads with wigs. A coxcomb .diverts himself by tormenting the old man, by exciting his fear and impatience; and poor M. Tonson becomes rather an object of pity than ridicule. I could not bring myself to laugh at the stupid blunders which were uttered by Gattie, his grotesque faces, or the accommodating easiness with which he suffered himself to be mystified. The performers of Drury Lane theatre seem to possess more talent for broad farce than for genuine comedy.

LETTER XXXII.

TO M. DESFONTAINES.

I HAVE seen Kean in Othello; but I shall not give you any account of his performance until I see the same play represented at Covent Garden. I subjoin for your amusement a few particulars, which I have collected respecting the Roscius of Drury Lane.

Edmund Kean was born on the 4th of November, 1787. His father was a tailor, and resided in London, and his grand-father, Moses Kean, enjoyed some reputation as a mimic and ventriloquist. Kean's parents, who were too poor to maintain him, procured for him, as soon as he could walk, an engagement at Drury Lane theatre, where he used to perform in pantomime. He was placed under the tuition of a celebrated posture master, who subjected his limbs to so many contortions, that they acquired wonderful flexibility. The English would, in all probability, have had a rival to our Mazurier, had not the child's health suffered by this system of training. His joints became distorted and deformed. By the advice of the faculty, all the remedies of orthopedia were employed, and his limbs were put into irons. Young Kean had before personated Cupid, in Garrick's afterpiece of Cymon; but the manager now gave him the part of a goblin, for

the perfect personification of which it was only necessary for him to conceal his fine expressive countenance. The child submitted to this metamorphosis, and endured the jokes that were passed upon his figure, with more philosophic cheerfulness than might have been expected. He soon discovered that he had to rely solely on himself, and in spite of his neglected education, he gave proofs of singular intrepidity and independence of mind. After performing until he was about five years of age, he was dismissed from the theatre for a trick, which excited the inexorable indignation of the celebrated John Kemble. That great tragedian, who was then manager of Drury Lane, conceived the idea of making some additions to one of the scenes in Macbeth, which was to be brought out with extraordinary splendour. He recruited a number of children, who were to represent a troop of fiends and goblins of various colours, and to dance round the cauldron in which the Weird Sisters prepare the charm that is to ruin the regicide. Young Kean was, of course, selected to personate one of these infernal spirits; but just as Macbeth entered the cavern, Kean pretended to stumble against the boy who stood next him, and pushed him down. The latter, in his fall, knocked down another, and in a moment the whole party, as if overthrown by a shock of electricity, lay prostrate on the ground. Kemble, who was always extremely anxious to maintain the strictest decorum on the stage, was completely disconcerted by this ludicrous occurrence, and he

immediately disbanded the whole troop of goblins, addressing a smart reprimand to the author of this infraction of the rules of the sublime. Kean felt his dignity wounded by the reproof of the manager, and he was not sorry to find himself released from his engagement. However, he was not long in the enjoyment of liberty. His parents sent him to a school, the rules of which, though certainly not very rigid, were insupportable to him, and he ran away and entered himself as cabin-boy on board of a vessel, which was about to sail for Madeira. He was, as may readily be supposed, soon disgusted with his new situation, and the severe restraint to which it subjected him. But escape was now impossible, and his only hope was to devise some means of getting himself dismissed. He would not have scrupled to neglect his duty, but this appeared to him not a very certain mode of gaining his object, and besides, it would have subjected him to an arbitrary punishment. He thought of feigning illness; but he was afraid of being put upon a short allowance of food. Deafness appeared to be the only malady which was at all reconcileable with the cravings of his appetite. He accordingly pretended to be deaf, and he played his part so ably, that the captain sent him ashore and placed him in an hospital, where, for the space of two months, he deceived his medical attendants, who declared that nothing but his native air would have the effect of restoring his hearing. He set sail for England on board of the same vessel, and he soon

had to sustain a trial which sufficiently attests his heroic firmness of disposition. On the night after the ship sailed from Madeira, a dreadful storm arose, the sea raged mountains high, and the crew gave themselves up for lost. In the agony of despair rather than in the hope of preservation, all endeavoured to contend against the fury of the elements. But amidst this scene of confusion and distress, young Kean never for a moment betrayed himself. He faithfully kept up his assumed character, and gazed with indifference on all that was passing around him.

He arrived pennyless in London, and the first thing he did was to seek out his uncle the ventriloquist. Moses Kean, who was a passionate lover of the stage, expressed a wish that his nephew should qualify himself for a tragic actor. Young Kean, however, thought himself better calculated for pantomimical performance, and the feats of tumblers and rope-dancers appeared to him the ne plus ultra of talent. After the death of his uncle, he joined a party of mountebanks, and made his appearance on a booth at Bartholomew Fair, in the character of an ape. The magical flexibility of his limbs surpassed all the apes that had ever been seen, he performed all sorts of gambols to the great admiration of the spectators, and, like another Proteus, he assumed every possible variety of shape.

But Kean did not long continue in this situation. As he advanced in years, he no doubt felt that he was destined for something better, and he