studied and slaved beyond any actor I ever knew." Is not this the key, to show how it was that he excelled, as he did, in the wonderful characters of Shakspeare?

July, 1808.-But let us conclude this part of our biography. Master Betty did not draw the houses which were expected. Beverley's company, therefore, broke up, and Kean, Miss Chambers, and others, went to play with Watson's company at Cheltenham. Here they played without pay, Kean enacting Octavian and other characters, until (for it seems to have been a state of probation) the admiration that his performances excited gave him an irresistible claim upon Watson's treasury. We understand that it was about a fortnight after the migration of Kean from Stroud to Cheltenham, that he and Miss Chambers set off one fine morning for the former place, in a returned postchaise. They

were accompanied by Miss Chambers's sister, and by a Mr. White (a friend of Kean) and before they returned to Cheltenham, which they did on the same day, Edmund Kean and Maria Chambers were-man and wife.

CHAPTER V.

ACTS AT CHELTENHAM-AT WARWICK-AT WALSALL-JOINS THE BIRMINGHAM COMPANY-STE

PHEN KEMBLE-OUR HERO ATTACKS THE MAIL COACH-JOURNEY ON FOOT FROM

BIRMINGHAM

TO SWANSEA.

KEAN, raised by the magic of the Rev. Mr. 's words, from his degree of bachelor to that of "Kean the married man," came back with his young wife to Cheltenham to seek a fresh engagement. Beverley, the manager, was there, and was about to make terms with the supposed Miss Chambers, when the fact of the marriage becoming known, he frowned upon the nuptials so lately celebrated, and abandoned her and her husband altogether, saying that he would have "nothing to do with either of them."

After a short time spent at Cheltenham, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Kean proceeded to Warwick, where the husband obtained an engagement, and received a guinea per week for his services. He produced very little effect there, and in fact played but few parts of note; the principal characters (especially in comedy, the best-beloved) being occupied by a certain large, tall, light-haired Mr. Waring, who appropriated most of the applause to himself. Mr. Chatterley also was a great man in this company, and Mr. Mason (was he not a relation of Mrs. Siddons?) was a tolerably great man; but Kean was esteemed a person of no account. Upon one occasion, indeed, he played Lothaire, in Monk Lewis's tragedy of Adelgitha, to Chatterley's Guiscard (the real hero) and Mason's Michael Ducas; but in general he was unemployed and dissatisfied. He very willingly therefore took his departure for Walsall, where he

arrived in the month of September, entered Watson's company, and commenced his career in his since celebrated character of Richard the Third. At this small place he took a benefit, and cleared about twelve pounds by it. He thought the sum a fortune, and with it in his pocket he, in October, 1808, quitted Walsall, and, full of high anticipations, proceeded to Birmingham.

Birmingham contains a large and respectable theatre, and here Mr. and Mrs. Kean stayed full four months, each of them at a guinea a week salary. They were still in Watson's company, which however was now enlarged. He reckoned amongst his leaders the aforesaid Mr. (and also a Mrs.) Chatterley, Mr. and Mrs. Waring (the lady with a voice like a giant's), Mr. Vandenhoff, then passing by the name of Villars, and others. They got on pretty well till March, 1809, when the company set out for Lich