celebrated husband, and lived to the ripe age of
ninety-eight, retaining to the very last much of that grace and charm
of expression which had won the actor's heart.

Time will not allow me to dwell on the many points of interest
in Garrick's career; all of which are to be found in Mr. Percy
Fitzgerald's _Life of Garrick_. On returning to London after a visit
to the Spensers at Althorp in January, 1779, he was struck down by
a fatal attack of his old malady, the gout, and died at the age of
sixty-three.

He was buried in Westminster Abbey with ceremonies as imposing as ever
graced the funeral of a great man. The pall-bearers were headed by the
Duke of Devonshire and the Earl Spenser, while round the grave there
were gathered such men as Burke and Fox, and last, not least, his old
friend and tutor, Samuel Johnson, his rugged countenance streaming
with tears, his noble heart filled with the sincerest grief. The words
so often quoted, artificial though they may seem, came from that heart
when, speaking of his dear Davy's death, he said that it "had eclipsed
the gayety of nations."

Garrick's remarkable success in society, which achieved for him a
position only inferior to that he achieved on the stage, is the best
answer to what is often talked about the degrading nature of the
actor's profession. Since the days of Roscius no contempt for actors
in general, or for their art, has prevented a great actor from
attaining that position which is accorded to all distinguished in what
are held to be the higher arts.

Nearly nine years after the death of Garrick, on November 4th, 1787, a
young woman, who had run away from home when little more than a child
to join a company of strolling players, and who, when that occupation
failed, earned a scanty living as a hawker in the streets of London,
gave birth, in a wretched room near Gray's Inn, to an illegitimate
child. This woman was Nancy Carey, the grand-daughter of Henry Carey,
the author of the "National Anthem." She was the great-grand-daughter
of George Saville, Marquis of Halifax, whose natural son Henry Carey
was. A compassionate actress, Miss Tidswell, who knew the father of
the child, Aaron Kean, gave her what assistance she could. Poor Nance
was removed to her father's lodgings, near Gray's Inn, and there, on
the day before mentioned, Edmund Kean was born.

Three months after his birth his mother deserted him, leaving him,
without a word of apology or regret, to the ca