d, "and
Charley, my boy, you shall go to Eton,"--and he did.

The time when Edmund Kean made his first appearance in London was
certainly favorable for an actor of genius. For a long while the
national theatre had been in a bad way; and nothing but failure had
hitherto met the efforts of the Committee of Management, a committee
which numbered among its members Lord Byron. When the other members
of the committee, with a strange blindness to their own interests,
proposed that for the present, Kean's name should be removed from
the bills, Byron interested himself on his behalf: "You have a great
genius among you," he said, "and you do not know it." On Kean's second
appearance the house was nearly doubled. Hazlitt's criticism had
roused the whole body of critics, and they were all there to sit in
judgment upon the newcomer. His utter indifference to the audience won
him their respect, and before the piece was half over the sentence
of the formidable tribunal was in his favor. From that moment Kean
exercised over his audiences a fascination which was probably never
exercised by any other actor. Garrick was no doubt his superior in
parts of high comedy; he was more polished, more vivacious--his manner
more distinguished, and his versatility more striking. In such parts
as Coriolanus or Rolla, John Kemble excelled him: but in Shylock,
in Richard, in Iago, and, above all, in Othello, it may be doubted
whether Edmund Kean ever had an equal. As far as one can judge--not
having seen Kean one's-self--from the many criticisms extant, written
by the most intellectual men, and from the accounts of those who
saw him in his prime, he was, to my mind--be it said without any
disparagement to other great actors--the greatest genius that our
stage has ever seen. Unequal he may have been, perhaps often so, but
there were moments in his acting which were, without exaggeration,
moments of inspiration. Coleridge is reported to have said that to see
Kean act was "like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." This
often-quoted sentence embodies perhaps the main feature of Edmund
Kean's greatness as an actor; for, when he was impersonating the
heroes of our poet, he revealed their natures by an instant flash of
light so searching that every minute feature, which by the ordinary
light of day was hardly visible, stood bright and clear before you.
The effect of such acting was indeed that of lightning--it appalled;
the timid hid their eyes, and