Doran relates, was prepared
for poor Edmund Kean, as, towards the close of his career, he was wont
to stagger from before the foot-lights, and, overcome by his exertions
and infirmities, to sink, "a helpless, speechless, fainting, bent-up
mass," into the chair placed in readiness to receive the shattered,
ruined actor. With Kean's prototype in acting and in excess, George
Frederick Cooke, it was less a question of stage or side-wing
refreshments than of the measure of preliminary potation he had
indulged in. In what state would he come down to the theatre? Upon the
answer to that inquiry the entertainments of the night greatly
depended. "I was drunk the night before last," Cooke said on one
occasion; "still I acted, and they hissed me. Last night I was drunk
again, and I didn't act; they hissed all the same. There's no knowing
how to please the public." A fine actor, Cooke was also a genuine
humorist, and it must be said for him, although a like excuse has been
perhaps too often pleaded for such failings as his, that his senses
gave way, and his brain became affected after very slight indulgence.
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