ong," continued Crony, "from her earliest
days of obscurity and indigence to these of unexampled prosperity, and
I never could agree with common report in that particular." I dare say
I looked at this moment very ~309~~significantly; for Crony, without
waiting my request, continued his history. "Her father was the gay and
dissolute Jack Kinnear, well known in Dublin for his eccentricities
about the time of the Rebellion, in which affair he made himself so
conspicuous that he was compelled to expatriate, and fled to England by
way of Liverpool; where his means soon failing, Jack, never at a
loss, took up the profession of an actor, and succeeded admirably. His
animated style and attractive person are still spoken of with delight
by many of the old inhabitants of Carlisle, Rochdale, Kendal, and the
neighbouring towns of Lancashire, where he first made his appearance in
an itinerant company, then under the management of a man of the name
of Bibby, and in whose house, under very peculiar circumstances, our
heroine was born; but

'Merit and worth from no condition rise;
Act well your part--there all the honour lies.'

~309~~That little Harriet was a child of much promise there is no doubt,
playing, in her mother's name, at a very early period, all the juvenile
parts in Bibby's company with great _eclat_ until she attained the age
of eighteen, when her abilities procured her a situation to fill the
first parts in genteel comedy in the theatres-royal Manchester and
Liverpool. From this time her fame increased rapidly, which was not
a little enhanced by her attractive person, and consequent number of
admirers; for even among the cotton lords of Manchester a fine-grown,
raven-locked, black-eyed brunette, arch, playful, and clever, could not
fail to create sensations of desire: but at this time the affections
of the lady were fixed on a son of Thespis, then a member of the same
company, and to whom she was shortly afterwards betrothed; but the
marriage, from some capricious cause or other, was never consummated:
the actor, well-known as Scotch Grant, is now much reduced in life, and
a member of ~310~~one of the minor companies of the metropolis. On her
quitting Liverpool, in 1794, she played at the Stafford theatre during
the election contest, where, having the good-fortune to form an intimacy
with the Hortons, a highly-respectable family then resident there,
and great friends of Sheridan, they succeeded, on