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 care of the woman who had
befriended her in her trouble. When he was but three years old he was
brought, amongst a number of other children, to Michael Kelly who
was then bringing out the opera of _Cymon_ at the Opera House in the
Haymarket, and, thanks to his personal beauty, he was selected for
the part of Cupid. Shortly afterwards he found his way to Drury Lane,
where the handsome baby--for he was little more--figured among the
imps in the pantomime. Taught here the tricks of the acrobat, he had
at four years old acquired such powers of contortion that he was fit
to rank as an infant phenomenon. But the usual result followed: the
little limbs became deformed, and had to be put in irons, by means
of which they regained that symmetry with which nature had at first
endowed them. Three years afterwards, in March, 1794, John Kemble was