Part 44

It was in the impersonation of the great creations of Shakespeare's genius that the varied beauty and grandeur of the acting of Kean were displayed in their highest form, although probably his most powerful character was Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger's _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, the effect of his first impersonation of which was such that the pit rose _en masse_, and even the actors and actresses themselves were overcome by the terrific dramatic illusion. His only personal disadvantage as an actor was his small stature. His countenance was strikingly interesting and unusually mobile; he had a matchless command of facial expression; his fine eyes scintillated with the slightest shades of emotion and thought; his voice, though weak and harsh in the upper register, possessed in its lower range tones of penetrating and resistless power, and a thrilling sweetness like the witchery of the finest music; above all, in the grander moments of his passion, his intellect and soul seemed to rise beyond material barriers and to glorify physical defects with their own greatness. Kean specially excelled as the exponent of passion. In Othello, Iago, Shylock and Richard III., characters utterly different from each other, but in which the predominant element is some form of passion, his identification with the personality, as he had conceived it, was as nearly as possible perfect, and each isolated phase and aspect of the plot was elaborated with the minutest attention to details, and yet with an absolute subordination of these to the distinct individuality he was endeavouring to portray. Coleridge said, "Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." If the range of character in which Kean attained supreme excellence was narrow, no one except Garrick has been so successful in so many great impersonations. Unlike Garrick, he had no true talent for comedy, but in the expression of biting and saturnine wit, of grim and ghostly gaiety, he was unsurpassed. His eccentricities at the height of his fame were numerous. Sometimes he would ride recklessly on his horse Shylock throughout the night. He was presented with a tame lion with which he might be found playing in his drawing-room. The prizefighters Mendoza and Richmond the Black were among his visitors. Grattan was his devoted friend. In his earlier days Talma said of him, "He is a magnificent uncut gem; polish and round him off and he will be a perfect tragedian." Macready, who was much impressed by Kean's Richard III. and met the actor at supper, speaks of his "unassuming manner ... partaking in some degree of shyness" and of the "touching grace" of his singing. Kean's delivery of the three words "I answer--NO!" in the part of Sir Edward Mortimer in _The Iron Chest_, cast Macready into an abyss of despair at rivalling him in this role. So full of dramatic interest is the life of Edmund Kean that it formed the subject for a play by the elder Dumas, entitled _Kean on desordre et genie_, in which Frederick-Lemaitre achieved one of his greatest triumphs.

See Francis Phippen, _Authentic Memoirs of Edmund Kean_ (1814); B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall), _The Life of Edmund Kean_ (1835); F. W. Hawkins, _The Life of Edmund Kean_ (1869); J. Fitzgerald Molloy, _The Life and Adventures of Edmund Kean_ (1888); Edward Stirling, _Old Drury Lane_ (1887).

His son, CHARLES JOHN KEAN (1811-1868), was born at Waterford, Ireland, on the 18th of January 1811. After preparatory education at Worplesdon and at Greenford, near Harrow, he was sent to Eton College, where he remained three years. In 1827 he was offered a cadetship in the East India Company's service, which he was prepared to accept if his father would settle an income of L400 on his mother. The elder Kean refused to do this, and his son determined to become an actor. He made his first appearance at Drury Lane on the 1st of October 1827 as Norval in Home's _Douglas_, but his continued failure to achieve popularity led him to leave London in the spring of 1828 for the provinces. At Glasgow, on the 1st of October in this year, father and son acted together in Arnold Payne's _Brutus_, the elder Kean in the title-part and his son as Titus. After a visit to America in 1830, where he was received with much favour, he appeared in 1833 at Covent Garden as Sir Edmund Mortimer in Colman's _The Iron Chest_, but his success was not pronounced enough to encourage him to remain in London, especially as he had already won a high position in the provinces. In January 1838, however, he returned to Drury Lane, and played Hamlet with a success which gave him a place among the principal tragedians of his time. He was married to the actress Ellen Tree (1805-1880) on the 29th of January 1842, and paid a second visit to America with her from 1845 to 1847. Returning to England, he entered on a successful engagement at the Haymarket, and in 1850, with Robert Keeley, became lessee of the Princess Theatre. The most noteworthy feature of his management was a series of gorgeous Shakespearian revivals. Charles Kean was not a great tragic actor. He did all that could be done by the persevering cultivation of his powers, and in many ways manifested the possession of high intelligence and refined taste, but his defects of person and voice made it impossible for him to give a representation at all adequate of the varying and subtle emotions of pure tragedy. But in melodramatic parts such as the king in Boucicault's adaptation of Casimir Delavigne's _Louis XI._, and Louis and Fabian dei Franchi in Boucicault's adaptation of Dumas's _The Corsican Brothers_, his success was complete. From his "tour round the world" Kean returned in 1866 in broken health, and died in London on the 22nd of January 1868.

See _The Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean_, by John William Cole (1859).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This date is apparently settled by a letter from Kean in 1829, to Dr Gibson (see _Rothesay Express_ for the 28th of June 1893, where the letter is printed and vouched for), inviting him to dinner on the 17th of March to celebrate Kean's birthday; various other dates have been given in books of reference, the 4th of November having been formerly accepted by this Encyclopaedia.

KEANE, JOHN JOSEPH (1839- ), American Roman Catholic archbishop, was born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, Ireland, on the 12th of September 1839. His family settled in America when he was seven years old. He was educated at Saint Charles's College, Ellicott City, Maryland, and at Saint Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and in 1866 was ordained a priest and made curate of St Patrick's, Washington, D.C. On the 25th of August 1878 he was consecrated Bishop of Richmond, to succeed James Gibbons, and he had established the Confraternity of the Holy Ghost in that diocese, and founded schools and churches for negroes before his appointment as rector of the Catholic University, Washington, D.C., in 1886, and his appointment in 1888 to the see of Ajasso. He did much to upbuild the Catholic University, but his democratic and liberal policy made him enemies at Rome, whence there came in 1896 a request for his resignation of the rectorate, and where he spent the years 1897-1900 as canon of St John Lateran, assistant bishop at the pontifical throne, and counsellor to the Propaganda. In 1900 he was consecrated archbishop of Dubuque, Iowa. He took a prominent part in the Catholic Young Men's National Union and in the Total Abstinence Union of North America; and was in general charge of the Catholic delegation to the World's Parliament of Religions held at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. He lectured widely on temperance, education and American institutions, and in 1890 was Dudleian lecturer at Harvard University.

A selection from his writings and addresses was edited by Maurice Francis Egan under the title _Onward and Upward: A Year Book_ (Baltimore, 1902).

KEARNEY, a city and the county-seat of Buffalo county, Nebraska, U.S.A., about 130 m. W. of Lincoln. Pop. (1890), 8074; (1900), 5634 (650 foreign-born); (1910), 6202. It is on the main overland line of the Union Pacific, and on a branch of the Burlington & Missouri River railroad. The city is situated in the broad, flat bottom-lands a short distance N. of the Platte River. Lake Kearney, in the city, has an area of 40 acres. The surrounding region is rich farming land, devoted especially to the growing of alfalfa and Indian corn. At Kearney are a State Industrial School for boys, a State Normal School, the Kearney Military Academy, and a Carnegie library. Good water-power is provided by a canal from the Platte River about 17 m. above Kearney, and the city's manufactures include foundry and machine-shop products, flour and bricks. Kearney Junction, as Kearney was called from 1872 to 1875, was settled a year before the two railways actually formed their junction here, where the city was planned. Kearney became a town in 1873, a city of the second class and the county seat in 1874, and a city of the first class in 1901. It is to be distinguished from an older and once famous prairie city, popularly known as "Dobey Town" (i.e. Adobe), founded in the early 'fifties on the edge of the reservation of old Fort Kearney (removed in 1848 from Nebraska City), in Kearney county, on the S. shore of the Platte about 6 m. S.E. of the present Kearney; here in 1861 the post office of Kearney City was established. In the days of the prairie freighting caravans Dobey Town was one of the most important towns between Independence, Missouri, and the Pacific coast, and it had a rough, wild, picturesque history; but it lost its immense freighting interests after the Union Pacific had been extended through it in 1866. The site of Dobey Town, together with the Fort, was abandoned in 1871. Fort Kearney and the city too were named in honour of General Stephen W. Kearny, and the name was at first correctly spelt without a second "e."

KEARNY, PHILIP (1815-1862), American soldier, was born in New York on the 2nd of June 1815, and was originally intended for the legal profession. He graduated at Columbia University (1833), but his bent was decidedly towards soldiering, and in 1837 he obtained a commission in the cavalry regiment of which his uncle, (General) Stephen Watts Kearny (1794-1848), was colonel and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis adjutant. Two years later he was sent to France to study the methods of cavalry training in vogue there. Before his return to the United States in 1840 he had served, on leave, in Algeria. He had inherited a large fortune, but he remained in the service, and his wide experience of cavalry work caused him to be employed on the headquarters staff of the army. After six more years' service Kearny left the army, but almost immediately afterwards he rejoined, bringing with him a company of cavalry, which he had raised and equipped chiefly at his own expense, to take part in the Mexican war. In December 1846 he was promoted captain. In leading a brilliant cavalry charge at Churubusco he lost his left arm, but he remained at the front, and won the brevet of major for his gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco. In 1851 he again resigned, to travel round the world. He saw further active service with his old comrades of the French cavalry in the Italian war of 1859, and received the cross of the Legion of Honour for his conduct at Solferino. Up to the outbreak of the American Civil War he lived in Paris, but early in 1861 he hastened home to join the Federal army. At first as a brigade commander and later as a divisional commander of infantry in the Army of the Potomac, he infused into his men his own cavalry spirit of dash and bravery. At Williamsburg, Seven Pines, and Second Bull Run, he displayed his usual romantic courage, but at Chantilly (Sept. 1, 1862), after repulsing an attack of the enemy, he rode out in the dark too far to the front, and mistaking the Confederates for his own men was shot dead. His body was sent to the Federal lines with a message from General Lee, and was buried in Trinity Churchyard, New York. His commission as major-general of volunteers was dated July 4, 1862, but he never received it.

See J. W. de Peyster, _Personal and Military History of Philip Kearny_ (New York, 1869).

KEARNY, a town of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., between the Passaic and Hackensack rivers, adjoining Harrison, and connected with Newark by bridges over the Passaic. Pop. (1900), 10,896, of whom 3597 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 18,659. The New York & Greenwood Lake division of the Erie railroad has a station at Arlington, the principal village (in the N.W. part), which contains attractive residences of Newark, Jersey City and New York City business men. The town covers an area of about 7 sq. m., including a large tract of marsh-land. In Kearny are railway repair shops of the Pennsylvania system, and a large abattoir; and there are numerous manufactures. The value of the town's factory products increased from $1,607,002 in 1900 to $4,427,904 in 1905, or 175.5%. Among its institutions are the State Soldiers' Home, removed here from Newark in 1880, a Carnegie library, two Italian homes for orphans, and a Catholic Industrial School for boys.

The neck of land between the Passaic and the Hackensack rivers, for 7 m. N. from where they unite, was purchased from the proprietors of East Jersey and from the Indians by Captain William Sandford in 1668 and through Nathaniel Kingsland, sergeant-major of Barbadoes, received the name "New Barbadoes." After the town under this name had been extended considerably to the northward, the town of Lodi was formed out of the S. portion in 1825, the town of Harrison was founded out of the S. portion of Lodi in 1840, and in 1867 a portion of Harrison was set apart as a township and named in honour of General Philip Kearny, a former resident. Kearny was incorporated as a town in 1895.

KEARY, ANNIE (1825-1879), English novelist, was born near Wetherby, Yorkshire, on the 3rd of March 1825, the daughter of an Irish clergyman. She was the author of several children's books and novels, of which the best known is _Castle Daly_, an Irish story. She also wrote an _Early Egyptian History_ (1861) and _The Nation Around_ (1870). She died at Eastbourne on the 3rd of March 1879.

KEATE, JOHN (1773-1852), English schoolmaster, was born at Wells, Somersetshire, in 1773, the son of Prebendary William Keate. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he had a brilliant career as a scholar; taking holy orders, he became, about 1797, an assistant master at Eton College. In 1809 he was elected headmaster. The discipline of the school was then in a most unsatisfactory condition, and Dr Keate (who took the degree of D.D. in 1810) took stern measures to improve it. His partiality for the birch became a by-word, but he succeeded in restoring order and strengthening the weakened authority of the masters. Beneath an outwardly rough manner the little man concealed a really kind heart, and when he retired in 1834, the boys, who admired his courage, presented him with a handsome testimonial. A couple of years before he had publicly flogged eighty boys on one day. Keate was made a canon of Windsor in 1820. He died on the 5th of March 1852 at Hartley Westpall, Hampshire, of which parish he had been rector since 1824.

See Maxwell Lyte, _History of Eton College_ (3rd ed., 1899); Collins, _Etoniana_; Harwood, _Alumni Etonienses; Annual Register_ (1852); _Gentleman's Magazine_ (1852).

KEATS, JOHN (1795-1821), English poet, was born on the 29th or 31st of October 1795 at the sign of the Swan and Hoop, 24 The Pavement, Moorfields, London. He published his first volume of verse in 1817, his second in the following year, his third in 1820, and died of consumption at Rome on the 23rd of February 1821 in the fourth month of his twenty-sixth year. (For the biographical facts see the later section of this article.)