them all
my accomplishments. Litchfield frequently whispered 'Enough!' but I
thought with Macbeth, 'Damned be he who first cries, Hold, enough!' I
kept him at it, and I believe we fought almost literally a long hour
by Shrewsbury clock. To add to the merriment, a matter-of-fact fellow
in the gallery, who in his innocence took everything for reality, and
who was completely wrapt up and lost by the very cunning of the scene,
at last shouted out: 'Why don't he shoot him?'"

The famous Mrs. Jordan was, it seems, unknown to Mathews, present
among the audience on this occasion, having been attracted from her
residence at Bushey by the announcement of an amateur Richard. "Years
afterwards," records Mathews, "when we met in Drury Lane green-room, I
was relating, amongst other theatrical anecdotes, the bumpkin's call
from the gallery in commiseration of the trouble I had in killing
Richard, when she shook me from my feet almost by starting up,
clasping her hands, and in her fervent, soul-stirring, warm-hearted
tones, exclaiming: 'Was that you? I was there!' and she screamed with
laughter at the recollection of my acting in Richmond, and the length
of our combat."

"Where shall I hit you, Mr. Kean?" inquired a provincial Laertes of
the great tragedian. "Where you _can_, sir," was the grim reply. For
Kean had acquired fencing under Angelo, and was proud of his
proficiency in the art. He delighted in prolonging his combats to the
utmost, and invested them with extraordinary force and intensity. On
some occasions he so identified himself with the character he
represented as to decline to yield upon almost any terms. Hazlitt
censures certain excesses of this kind which disfigured his
performance of Richard. "He now actually fights with his doubled
fists, after his sword is taken from him, like some helpless infant."
"The fight," writes another critic, "was maintained under various
vicissitudes, by one of which he was thrown to the earth; on his knee
he defended himself, recovered his footing, and pressed his antagonist
with renewed fury; his sword was struck from his grasp--he was
mortally wounded; disdaining to fall"--and so on. No wonder that many
Richmonds and Macduffs, after combating with Mr. Kean, were left so
exhausted and scant of breath as to be scarcely able to deliver
audibly the closing speeches of their parts. The American stage has a
highly-coloured story of an English melodramatic actor with the
pseudonym of Bill Sh