one of the earliest “properties” of which he became possessor.  He always looked forward to impressing his audience deeply by his skill in combat.  Charles Mathews, the elder, has recorded in his too brief chapters of autobiography, “his passion for fencing which nothing could overcome.”  As an amateur actor he paid the manager of the Richmond Theatre seven guineas and a half for permission to undertake “the inferior insipid part of Richmond,” who does not appear until the fifth act of the play.  The Richard of the night was a brother-amateur, equally enthusiastic, one Litchfield by name.  “I cared for nothing,” wrote Mathews, “except the last scene of Richmond, but in that I was determined, to have my full swing of carte and tierce.  I had no notion of paying my seven guineas and a half without indulging my passion.  In vain did the tyrant try to die after a decent time; in vain did he give indications of exhaustion; I would not allow him to give in.  I drove him by main force from any position convenient for his last dying speech.  The audience laughed; I heeded them not.  They shouted; I was deaf.  Had they hooted I should have lunged on in my unconsciousness of their interruption.  I was resolved to show 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,