Prospectus. has frequently been the subject of much complaint, that Glasgow, the second City in Great Britain, notwithstanding its vast wealth and extensive population, produces no Periodical Work, exclusively devoted to taste and general literature; to whatever cause this may be owing, it is impossible to dispute the truth of the observation or the justice of the complaint. With the exception of a single attempt solely undertaken for religious purposes, no Magazine, Review or Journal, of a .. literary description, has been conducted here for many years; and of course no channel whatever has been opened to the reading or lettered portion of the community, for the publication of their sentiments on topics of general literature, except through the medium of the Newspapers. Such a Work therefore, appearing to the Publishers to be desideratum, if not from general, at least from local circumstances, they have been induced to undertake the LITERARY MELANGE, or WEEKLY REGISTER Of LITERATURE and the ARTS. + PRICE 34d. miscellaneous description. Without pretending to the distinctive characteristics of a Magazine or a Review, it will contain the most prominent and useful qualities of both, with this exception, that Political and Religious controversy will be totally excluded; its chief object will afford to the reader 1st.-A succinct but early account of every Publication, of any moment, that issues from the Press. 2d.-Interesting Extracts from such larger and more valuable Works as, from their expensive nature, ordinary readers may not have 1 access to. 3d.-Occasional Memoirs of eminent 1 and extraordinary characters. 4th.-Original Essays, Letters and す Anecdotes relative to Literature and the Arts. 5th.-Original Communications relative to the Drama, and Criticisms on Dramatic Performers. The earliest notices of new, Discoveries in Philosophy. Notices of the Fine Arts, with Criticisms on individual produc 6th. 7th tions. The title which has been adopted Sth-Poetry, original and selected. for this Work, will at once suggest to A Title Page and copious Table the reader that its contents are in- of Contents will be published yearly, ended to be of a very mixed and, and given gratis to the Subscribers. Mr. KEAN. The following account of this meritorious Performer is taken from a very elegant work entitled the British Theatrical Gallery, containing Portraits with Memoirs of emi nent Performers; it is edited by Mr. D. Terry, a Gentleman who not only ranks very high as an actor, but is distinguished for his love of Literature and the Arts. the whole circle of his tiny fellow Soon after this misfortune he was removed from the Theatre and placed at his first school, and was already remarked for the expressive beauty of his countenance, contrasted with a weakly and unpromising growth of his From the memoirs which have been limbs. A subsequent period of his published at various times of Mr. childhood is said to have passed under Kean, numerous as they are, it is the care of Miss Tidswell an actress nevertheless rather a difficult and a lately belonging to the Drury-lane delicate task to extract a very satis- company, from whom he received a factory sketch of his biography. Ac-truly maternal attention. During the cording to one account, which indeed time he was with this lady, he kept. avows the obscurity as well as scanti-his theatrical talents in practice by ness of its information, Edmund Kean several obscure trials, and went at last was born in Gray's-inn, in the year 1789; while another which assumes a more voluminous minutness of detail, dates his birth two years earlier and states it to have taken place in Castle-street, Leicester-square, on the 4th November 1787; it also asserts that his fasher Aaron Kean was brother to the well known Moses Kean, a ventriloquist and mimic of considerable notoriety, and that his mother was a daughter of Saville Carey, who if it be the same person with George Saville Carey, was like his father Henry Carey, a dramatic author of some celebrity, and also for one season an actor at Covent-garden Theatre. Thus it appears, that he was by birth connected with the stage, and indeed it seems tolerably certain that his infant powers were applied to it as soon as they could be serviceable; among other anecdotes of his early life, it is related that, at the time when Mr. J. P. Kemble first produced the Tragedy of Macbeth' at the Drurylane Theatre, and attempted to give additional effect to the cauldron scene by introducing" the black spirits and white, red spirits and grey" to mingle in the incantations of the witches, the disapprobation the audience bestowed upon this innovation was heightened to excess by an accidental stumble of little Kean in the dance that prostrated by her recommendation, to some small theatre in Yorkshire, and though not yet fourteen years old is reported to have played with success some of the most leading characters in tragedy; very shortly after he went to Windsor, where by the ability he displayed in some declamatory recitations, he attracted the notice of Dr. Drury, through whose friendly means he obtained some opportunities of a more regular edu cation, after which he launched fairly and finally into all the wild and adventurous vicissitudes of a strolling actor's life. Changing from company to company he now traversed nearly the whole of the kingdom, and his ardent mind and good spirits seem to have born him lightly and manfully through many of those chequered scenes of distress and difficulty, mortification and despondency to which such a life is exposed. His talents embraced every department of the drama, and he performed tragic, comic, vocal and panto mimical parts, with a combination of vigour and carlessness, an ease and eccentricity that always made him the mark of notice and gained him the favour of the audience. Birmingham, Sheerness, Sevenoaks, Tunbridge-wells, Swansea, and Waterford, Weymouth, Exeter, and Guernsey, were successively the scene "A man convinced against his will of his labours; and it is a singular fact that the wreath of fame is waiting that this extraordinary man whose their brows at the hands of the public; genius within a few years, was des-to be sure the public, if they are pertined to form a new era in the history mitted to come before it generally of the stage, and to give a new feature convinces them of their mistake, but, to the theatrical taste of the nation, as generally indeed only to verify the passed the whole summer of the year distich of Butler, that 1806 in London, unknown and unnoticed at the little theatre in the Haymarket, performing the most trifling and subordinate parts of the drama, adding thereby another instance to many of the low and apparently hopeless obscurities to which the finest talents are liable for a time to be condemned, and shewing how necessary even to such talents, is patience both to endure and labour. The stage as much as any other art, demands, before skill and excellence can be acquired in it, a long and laborious apprenticeship, fact which though proved by the history of all who have attained to any settled eminence, (it may not altogether be out of the way here to remark) appears seldom to be adverted to, scarcely indeed to be believed, by many who witnessing only its effects in public, unfortunately imbibe a desire to embrace and pursue it. No youth of tolerable understanding ever believed in the most enthusiastic moments of admiration produced by music, that he could take up a fiddle and at his first attempt command the strings, as it were by intuition, "to an utterance of harmony" nor ever fancied he might snatch the pencil and the paette and at one effort rival the painter's performances on the canvas; yet such the singular infatuation respecting the actor's art, that managers are perpetually applied to, by young people of good education, and good sense too in other matters, who never having once trod upon a stage, and having merely committed to memory a few of the principal and, most difficult characters, apply in perfect confidence of their competency for a regular engagement to lead the business, nothing doubting their complete success, and While Mr. Kean was at Guernsey, the critics of that island either could not, or would not perceive in him any promises of that superiority which the whole kingdom was shortly to acknowledge, and are reported to have treated his performance of Richard the Third with such gross severity as to call forth a retort from the actor, which convinced his audience of his spirit, whatever doubts they may have had of his talents; the consequence of which was, a riot in the theatre and the event ual loss to Mr. Kean, who by this. time was a husband and a father, of his situation in the company. 1 i He left Guernsey soon after this unlucky event and arrived at Weymouth, where his companions from. whom he had been so harshly separated. were performing: rejecting the offer of a re-engagement in it, he enlisted under Mr. Lee, manager of the Taunton Theatre, in which town he met with great encouragement, and at the close of the season repaired to Dorchester; it was here while sustaining the whole range of heroes from those of the sock and buskin to him of the motley vest and wooden sword, (in which he is said to have been excellent) that he was visited by Mr. Arnold, then the acting manager at the Theatre Royal Drury-Lane; his old friend Dr. Drury, it appears had not forgotten him, and having lately witnessed his professional improvement at Exeter had written in strong terms of recommendation concerning him, to Pascoe Glenfell, Esq. By the active influence of this gentleman, the attention of the Drury-Lane Committee of Management was turned towards him, and an engagement for three years concluded through the agency of Mr. Arnold. least, the ascendancy over public opinion with the noble and accomplished tragedian who had hitherto borne " solely sovereign sway and master theless to acknowledge the daringness, originality, and vigour of his attacks. Without therefore presuming to decide (which were it possible, would in the present instance be indelicate) between the relative merits of the old and new school, as they have been termed; merits peculiar to each, and both great, it may be remarked by the way, that it is the lot of actors, more especially perhaps than of any other Upon Mr. Kean's arrival in town a misunderstanding seems to have arisen between the committee and Mr. Ellis-dom," but they were compelled neverton, who was then conducting one of his minor theatrical speculations, called the Olympic, and who claimed a prior right of engagement to the services of Mr. Kean; after some small delay however this mistake was adjusted in favour of the committee, and on the 26th of January, 1814, Mr. Kean made his first appearance at the Theatre Royal Drury-Lane in the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.' His success was decided and the ap-class of persons, to be subjected to the plause tumultous, and he repeated the character six times, but it was not till his first performance of Richard the Third, on the 12th of February following, that his talents can be said to have blazed in full splendor upon the town; after which both the extent and the duration of his popularity may almost be said to be unparallelled in the annals of the stage. Perhaps no actor ever reached so rapid an altitude in public favour and maintained it more vigorously for such a length of time; the cbbing of popularity is proverbially as quick and extensive as its flood, and that the latter has continued, with so little variation to follow Mr. Kean, may fairly be adduced as an indication of the genuine as well as powerful nature of his attraction. Like all bold and original innovators Mr. Kean has given rise to the most violent factions of criticism, which may be regarded as a proof that Mr. Kean was no common man.Many who had long slumbered in a settled belief of the unassailable superiority of their favourite school of tragic acting, the school, certainly of much erudite labour, majestic dignity, poetical refinement, grandeur, elegance and grace, were awakened and alarmed for the stability of their critical code; they denied the legitimacy of the new Invader, who threatened to divide at 66 torture of that taste which Gray has distinguished as the only taste of ordinary minds, the "gout de comparai son," such minds, incapable of perceiving and understanding the specific excellence either of an actor, an author, or a composition, can easily select a standard of decision from known and acknowledged excellence, by which the merits or demerits of every new aspirer to fame, must be compared and tried and judged, as caprice, passion or prejudice may dictate. The standard of comparison too, as it is the instrument of weakness becomes consequently often the instrument of cruelty and injustice; for if the miserable claimants to popular applause who are measured by it, chance to approach its dimensions, they are condemned as having only the talent of imitation, and if its proportions vary they are condemned as having no talent; and are thus reduced to a dilemma about as equitable as that of the poor wretches formerly accused of witchcraft, who were cast into the water, where if drowned they were pronounced innocent, but were hanged as guilty if they unluckily swam. But why need this be? why should we so circumscribe our own enjoyment, as to shut our eyes to the peculiar and proper glory which belongs to each particular star, and in which it differs from another? why, when speaking of eminent persons in any art, should we |