I'll make a corse of him that disobeys,"—
his voice was scarcely distinguishable; but his old attitude of leaning at the side scene, as he contemplated Lady Anne, was as full of grace as ever,—save that the contemplator had now a swollen and unkingly face. Then—
"Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass,"—
was sportive in accent as in the very action of saluting; and there was a world of argument and resolution in the delivery of the simple words—"The tower?—Aye; the Tower!" The chuckle at "So much for Buckingham!" I always considered wanting in dignity, but it brought a roar of applause. In the scene with the Mayor and Buckingham, he displayed talent unsurpassable;—the scarcely-subdued triumph that lurked in his eyes, as he refused the crown; his tone in "Call him again;" his acceptance of the throne, and his burst of joy, when he had dismissed the petitioners, were perfect in their several ways; but he was exhausted before the fifth act, and when, after a short fight, Richmond (Cooper) gave him his death-wound in Bosworth Field, as he seemed to deal the blow, he grasped Kean by the hand, and let him gently down, lest he should be injured by a fall.
The end was at hand. He could no longer even venture, after the play, to Offley's symposium, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, that lively singing-room, with a window looking into the mouldiest of churchyards,—where, however, slept some noble actors. To and from Richmond he occasionally travelled,—a feeble bundle of humanity, that seemed to lie unconsciously in one corner of his carriage. But, I think, conscience was there, too, and rage, and remorse,—that a life had been so wasted, and mighty powers, almost as divine as the poet's, so irretrievably abused. He aroused himself to make his last appearance, as it proved, on the stage, in conjunction with his son, in Othello, Mr. Charles Kean playing Iago. The night was the 25th of March 1833. Edmund Kean was so shattered in frame, that he had scarcely strength to pass over him the dress of the Moor; so shattered in nerve, that he dreaded some disaster. Brandy gave some little heart to the greatly fallen actor, but he anxiously enjoined his son to be ever near him, in case of some mischance, and he went through the part, dying as he went, till after giving the sweet utterance, as of old, to the celebrated "Farewell," ending with "Othello's occupation's gone!" he attempted to utter the next speech, and in the attempt fell on his son's shoulder, with a whispered moan, "I am dying,—speak to them for me!" The curtain here descended on him for ever, and the rest was only slow death, with intervals of hope. He, the faithless, and now helpless, husband sent a note, which sounds as a cry of anguish, to that good Mary Chambers of old, who had had the ill-luck to listen to his wooing. But, having so listened, she would not now be deaf to the wail of the man who said that he had gone wrong in judgment, not in feeling; in head, not in heart, and who cried, "Come home; forget and forgive!" She went, and forgave; an angel could not, however, have forgotten all; but she acted as if she had, and the true-hearted young partner of his early miseries was the gentle alleviator of his last sufferings. She stood by him till, on the 15th of May, death came upon the unconscious man after some old tag of Octavian had passed his restless lips, of "Farewell, Flo—, Floranthe!"
Come home! was the dying actor's cry to his wife. Dead; there was no home for the widow; for creditors took possession of it, and its contents. To such end had come the humble and hapless wedding of Mary Chambers and Edmund Kean at Gloucester, the brief glory after long suffering,—sorrow and want at the end as at the beginning; with him, an added shame; with her, uncomplainingness. Yes, and consolation. The happiness she lacked with her husband was vouchsafed to her through her son, and the union of the two strolling players at Gloucester was thus not altogether barren of good and happy fruits.
And over the grave of one of the greatest of actors something may be said in extenuation of his faults. Such curse as there can be in a mother's indifference hung about him before his birth. A young Huron, of whose tribe he subsequently became a member, could not have lived a more savage,—but certainly enjoyed a more comfortable and better-tended boyhood. Edmund Kean, from that very time of boyhood, had genius, industry, and ambition,—but, with companionship enough to extinguish the first, lack of reward sufficient to dull the second, and repeated visitations of disappointment that might have warranted the exchange of high hopes for brutal despair,—he nourished his genius, maintained his industry, and kept an undying ambition under circumstances when to do so was a part of heroism. Compare his young and hard and blackguard life with the disciplined boyhood of Betterton, the early associations of Booth, the school career of Quin, the decent but modest childhood of Macklin, the gentlemanly home of the youth Garrick, the bringing up of Cooke, and the Douay College life of the Kembles. Kean was trained upon blows, and curses, and starvation, and the charity of strangers. It was enough to make all his temper convert to fury, and any idea of such a young, unnurtured savage ever becoming an inheritor of the mantle worn by the actors I have named, would have seemed a madness even to that mother who soon followed him in death, Nance Carey. But Edmund Kean cherished the idea, warm in his bosom, never ceased to qualify himself for the attempt, studied for it while he starved,—and when about to make it, felt and said that success would drive him mad. I believe it did; but whether or not, I can part from the great actor of my young days only with a tender respect. I do not forget the many hours of bright intellectual enjoyment for which I, in common with thousands, was indebted to him, and, in the contemplation of this actor's incomparable genius, I desire to forget the errors of the man.
Over his remains, in Richmond churchyard, a plain tablet arrests the eye. I never look at it without a crowd of memories of the old and brilliant scene he for awhile adorned, nor without thinking of the words of Lesingham, in the Elizabethan drama:—
"Oh! what our wills will do,