By their suppression of all applause and the restrictions they laid on their audience, the potentates of Weimer stopped all dramatic spontaneity; by the size and unwieldiness of the theatre they built, and the banishment of the lower part of the audience to a distance from the stage, the proprietors of Covent Garden deprived their art of the indispensable verdict of the ordinary public. The Kembles' school of dramatic art also was passing away. They had substituted for the naturalness and variety of Garrick's style a measured and stately dignity. This stateliness was now destined to be succeeded by the impetuosity and spontaneous passion of Kean.
We have seen that one of the boys introduced by John Kemble into the Witches' Scene in Macbeth, and subsequently turned away for disobedience, was named Edmund Kean. This little imp, undeterred by hardship, degradation, and misery, had developed into one of the greatest geniuses that ever trod the English stage. Many are the stories given of Mrs. Siddons's first meeting with Kean, but all are unanimous that it was by no means a creditable performance so far as the young actor was concerned. It was in Ireland, either at Belfast or Cork. Kean had been engaged to act with her. As usual, instead of learning his part, he employed the interim between her arrival and the play in drinking with some friends, with such success that when he came upon the stage the whole of his part had vanished from his memory; he was, therefore, obliged to improvise as he went on. Needless to say, his performance was a tissue of nonsense, sentences without meaning, drunken absurdities of all sorts. The audience was not a critical one, but Mrs. Siddons's disgust may be imagined. The next
