EDMUND, one of the greatest of English tragedians, was a native of London. His biographers assign November of 1787 as the date of his birth, while he himself maintained that he was born on the 17th of March, 1790. His parentage is equally dubious. Who his father was is quite unknown; his mother seems to have been a Miss Carey, a descendant of the reputed author of the National Anthem. When a mere infant he appeared on the stage in the shows and pageants of the fairy-pieces and pantomimes. As he grew up his taste for acting increased with his years, and by the time he was seventeen he had wandered over England, Scotland, and Ireland with a strolling company, and played in every character from Richard III. down to harlequin in the pantomime. He soon discovered that tragedy was his forte, and the flashes of genius with which he sometimes astonished his rustic audiences were taken by his fellow players as an earnest of future eminence. His readings in Milton and Shakspeare attracted the notice of Dr Drury, head-master of Harrow, who interested himself in the young actor's destiny, and sent him to Eton, where he studied, though with moderate success, for about three years. Again he resumed his wandering life, visiting the principal cities in the United Kingdom, and playing with increasing success in Shylock, Hamlet, Richard III., and other Shakespearian characters. In 1813 Dr Drury's influence secured him an engagement at Drury Lane, where he made his début, January 25 of the following year, as Shylock. The house was thinly attended, but he was applauded to the echo. The critics pronounced him the greatest tragedian of the age, and next morning, like Byron after the publication of Childe Harold, "he awoke and found himself famous." His Richard III., Othello, Sir Giles Overreach, and Zanga, gained him fresh laurels, and he was everywhere hailed as a worthy rival of the Kemble family and their school. For several seasons his star continued to rise; and had his personal character corresponded at all with his professional eminence, he might have divided the honours and rewards of social life with the most respected actors of the day. But he was a man of no education, and in early life had contracted many vicious tastes and habits, which seemed to grow upon him with his years. Finding it necessary to quit England for a time, he visited America, and on returning he failed to reinstate himself in the high place he had once held. Dissipation and imprudence precipitated his fall, and finally destroyed his health, and on the 15th May 1833, he died a perfect wreck at Richmond, where he had latterly become manager of the theatre.

The genius of Kean was first fully recognised and insisted upon by Hazlitt. It was in all respects a complete contrast to that of the Kemble family, being impulsive, fiery, and startling. Though he played in a greater variety of character than Garrick himself, whose he resembled in the diminutive slightness of his person, the range of his real eminence was very narrow. The parts in which he excelled, Shylock, Richard III., Othello, Sir Giles Overreach, and Zanga, were probably never played as they were played by him; but in his most ambitious efforts, such as Brutus, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Lear, and Wolsey, he was left far behind by John Kemble. In his own walk, however, he has never had a rival. In the depth, the tragic force, the terrible intensity of his acting, he overleapt the barriers of art and training, and rose to heights which genius only could have dared.