ich seemed ever fading
further and further from his grasp. Think of the disappointments, the
cruel mockeries of hope which, day after day, he had to encounter;
and then be harsh if you can to those moral failings for which his
misfortunes rather than his faults were responsible. If you are
inclined to be severe, you may console yourselves with the reflection
that this genius, who had given the highest intellectual pleasure to
hundreds and thousands of human beings, was hounded by hypocritical
sanctimoniousness out of his native land; and though, two years
afterwards, one is glad to say, for the honor of one's country, a
complete reaction took place, and his reappearance was greeted with
every mark of hearty welcome, the blow had been struck from which
neither his mind or his body ever recovered. He lingered upon
the stage, and died at the age of forty-six, after five years of
suffering--almost a beggar--with only a solitary ten-pound note
remaining of the large fortune his genius had realized.

It is said that Kean swept away the Kembles and their Classical school
of acting. He did not do that. The memory of Sarah Siddons, tragic
queen of the British stage, was never to be effaced, and I would
remind you that when Kean was a country actor (assured of his own
powers, however unappreciated), resenting with passionate pride the
idea of playing second to "the Infant Roscius," who was for a time
the craze and idol of the hour, "Never," said he, "never; I will play
second to no one but John Kemble!" I am certain that when his
better nature had the ascendency no one would have more generously
acknowledged the merits of Kemble than Edmund Kean. It is idle to say
that because his style was solemn and slow, Kemble was not one of the
greatest actors that our stage has produced. It is only those whose
natures make them incapable of approbation or condemnation in artistic
matters without being partisans, who, because they admire Edmund Kean,
would admit no merit in John Kemble. The world of art, thank Heaven,
is wide enough for both, and the hearts of those who truly love art
are large enough to cherish the memory of both as of men who did noble
work in the profession which they adorned. Kean blended the Realistic
with the Ideal in acting, and founded a school of which William
Charles Macready was, afterwards, in England, the foremost disciple.

Thus have we glanced, briefly enough, at four of our greatest actors
whose names are l