THE LIFE OF EL)!NIUND KEAN
Is a readable and aniusino publication, but with little pretensions to the title ofa biooraphical work. The book indeed is a collaction of anecdotes relating to one person, and exhibiting him, though without mush aim at connexium in the different awes of his life. These anecdotes ale freqeently ludicrous, and sometimes painful, although the pain is limited to our compassion for physical dis- tress. The incidents are sulliciently marked to display the general character of the hero, but they are not told with that happy minuteness of delineation which brinos out the finer points of the individual man. As many of them, however, make us acquainted with the changes and privations of a stroller's life, and almost all of them relate ton person of considerable celebrity, they possess an interest independent of the circumstances of which they are made up. But if the Life be really written, as is creditably asserted, by BARRY CORNWALL, it says little for his biographical powers, and not much for his taste or industry. The narrative is stopped and diafi- glued by indifferent attempts at verbal jocularity and smartness, such as mark the compositions of hangers-on of the green-room. During the latter part of KEAN'S career, same important public events are treated in a slight and even slovenly manner ; and some well-known matoers relating to private affair:, though strongly
characteristic of the man, are omitted. There is more of novelty as regards his baybood and his strolling adventures; but the statements would have been more satisfactory if supported by authority ; for, not to mention the want of an author's name, we have greater reason to be anxious for the sources of new s a'ements which we have no means of verifying, than for those which might be hunted out from books. The criticisms, whether
on K N's general merits as an actor or on his particular characters, are fair, but not distinguished by much knowledge of the principles of tuning, or anv extraordinary- nicety of discrimination; and they are disfigured by some flippant remarks, whieh reminded us of Mrs. Iltsriaos The estimate or his personal character, though very slieht, and marked by a leaning to KEAN, appears to us just and vonsiderate. The best pieces of composition in the volumes, are I he alit on the drama: ie characters of Mullet, :11(v.betk, (Or11,,, Nit !finch, and some others, most of whieh are excellent. For the hest nineteen yeara of his life, almost evesy thing relative to KEAN is known to the lover of them idea ls, or even to the commoa reader of eewspapers. Front his leo:hood till Ilia appeataace as Shy- at Drury Lane in is 1 I, he led the life id a et roller, and su &aid. all the di aresses and vicissitudes—changes loon bail to worse— which are inseparable from the callino; aggvavatcd in his ease by the prile thuit ecceitopan his a cooscionsness of abilities, as well as by I abits of sensual hidulgeuce, and an unreasoniag impulse of self- will, w Ii ii really often wear.: the appearance el mania. Of his: birth, nothing to -,stive is known, either as to parents or date; but our
anther toesiders that his feller was one EnstuNo sx, a person io the tiotior the builder: his mather a Miss
Cem.y, an ineirior actress; awl be infers that he was born in 1 7s7. 13.o h iii iafancy and childhocil, he was sadly neeleeled ; put alma from his mother to Miss in oswoni., and Irvin Miss TII+NVELL to a nurse. rfl, iii y things Which 11) ZIppears to have been con- stantly traieed to, either by accident or desion, were vagaboadiz- ing From the FhtelnelltS Lrilse ft:, it WellId. Seelll tllat ix ad:11g a I til eritieg formed the utmost ext cut of his so Ito. lastic atiquirunients : met even these Were perhapi ttttiIteul rather peal lee a mime Alan as a seholer. How the Narious bodily accomplishments which he possessed were acquired, duet not ap- pear to be very clearly known. We have an e poesy phal account Of his learaing to " il.t u tie, Ii tie, an:1 ride,- Whilst under the patronage of a Mrs. Cr..eiss:; but it seems more probable that he " pieked them up whilst attending the munereus theatres, upon whose staoes he was figuring, with sineo intervahe front the age of two yea ra and upwards. His ;severs as an actor appear to have leen "a gift," as the phrase is, like an car f music, or any other faculty of the purely animal spi cies ; they were also accompa- nied, as in Gamticre's case, by an extraordinary faculty of
mitniery, indeed his histrionic stele was nut altogether itmled
upon it. What inetheils of profeesioual improvement 111.,1Hul, lie 1110t I kilo NVOIlla 11:11"e 142C11 111Vible to tell itiniself; but his cours0 and rang-cl or study were at least exten-
sive: the pintewle of mimetic greatness, which he at was net reached till after the striloo,les and labours of iii He than twenty years, in every braneh of the pursuit. Two poitos in his conduct, however, the present biographer has discovered and preserved.
" When an great eharacter required his at he threw his whole thoughts into it. The account we have reeeived (and we can rely upon it) is, He used to mope about for huurs, walking miles and miles alone, with his hands in his pockets, thiukiug in- tensely on his characters. No one could get a word front him. He studied and stared beyond any actor I ever knew." And, when in his senses, he always did his best, let the part have been ever so insignificant. Though small in stature, his muscular power was great, and bis constitution wonderful. It failed him, indeed, at a comparatively early period of life; yet the readers of this book will not he surprised that he died early, but that he lived so long. The wear and tear of the vital powers commenced in childhood, if not in infancy, through the faults of others; and no sooner was KEAN his own master, than exertion, privation, and indulgence, began to waste them, at a rate that would have killed even strong mete in a tithe of the time which it took to break up the iron frame of KEAN. ,The present publicatioa has added another to the list of' these which have appeared of late years with the professed object of making us familiar with the areana of the stage and the private lives of players, but whose real elrectints been to degrade both the individuals aad their art. Such examples of' the grosser sen- sual appetites—such exhibitions of the meaner passions, and such displays of finery and fustian, when the better but still annual qualities of thoughtless good-nature and spendthrift charity are brought into exercise—fully justify the philosophical wits and the people of all ages in their contemptuous estimate e,f players. Nor does there seem to be any thing redeeming in the faculties essential to their calling. None of the higher powers of reason or imagination are brought into exercise; so that their art can (of necessity) induce no improvement of the judgment or intellect. And though it would be predicated ei priori that they must feel admiration of the passages they recite, or sympathy with the cha- racters they represent, yet their own conduct and confessions belie the supposition. Their observation, in the words of JouNsoar, seems limited " to watching the face." animal energies which made him what he was as an actor, seem to have required some kind of vent; allow something for the force of long habit, anti a good deal for an ardent temperament, that certainly at times approached, if it did not actually touch insa- nity ; haut from these volumes that he jumped suddenly front a state of obscurity and au i but starvation, to fame, fortune, and luxury; and the most rigid moralist, we think, will admit that KEAN'S eonduct was less unaccountable and more excusable than at first it appears.
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