To muse over the dust of those about whom we have read so much--the great actors, thinkers, and writers, the warriors and statesmen for whom the play is ended and the lights are put out--is to come very near to them, and to realise more deeply than ever before their close relationship with our own humanity; and we ought to be wiser and better for this experience. It is good, also, to seek out the favourite haunts of our heroes, and call them up as they were in their lives. One of the happiest accidents of a London stroll was the finding of the Harp Tavern,¹ in Russell Street, Covent Garden, near the stage door of Drury Lane theatre, which was the accustomed resort of Edmund Kean. ¹ An account of the Harp, in the _Victuallers' Gazette_, says that this tavern has had within its doors every actor of note since the days of Garrick, and many actresses, also, of the latter part of the eighteenth century; and it mentions, as visitants there, Dora Jordan, Nance Oldfield, Anne Bracegirdle, Kitty Clive, Harriet Mellon, Barton Booth, Quin, Cibber, Macklin, Grimaldi, Eliza Vestris, and Miss Stephens--who became Countess of Essex. Carpenters and masons were at work upon it when I entered, and it was necessary almost to creep amid heaps of broken mortar and rubbish beneath their scaffolds, in order to reach the interior rooms. Here, at the end of a narrow passage, was a little apartment, perhaps fifteen feet square, with a low ceiling and a bare floor, in which Kean habitually took his pleasure, in the society of fellow-actors and boon companions, long ago. A narrow, cushioned bench against the walls, a few small tables, a chair or two, a number of churchwarden pipes on the mantlepiece, and portraits of Disraeli and Gladstone, constituted the furniture. A panelled wainscot and dingy red paper covered the walls, and a few cobwebs hung from the grimy ceiling. By this time the old room has been made neat and comely; but then it bore the marks of hard usage and long neglect, and it seemed all the more interesting for that reason. Kean's seat is at the right, as you enter, and just above it a mural tablet designates the spot,--which is still further commemorated by a death-mask of the actor, placed on a little shelf of dark wood and covered with glass. No better portrait could be desired; certainly no truer one exists. In life this must have been a glorious face. The eyes are large and prominent, the brow is broad and fine, the mouth wide and obviously sensitive, the chin delicate, and the nose long, well set, and indicative of immense force of character. The whole expression of the face is that of refinement and of great and desolate sadness. Kean, as is known from the testimony of one who acted with him,¹ was always at his best in passages of pathos.