His other characters this season were Hamlet, when to John Bannister was assigned the first of the two Grave-diggers, whom he had restored to the stage from which they had been abolished by Garrick; Othello, to the Iago of Pope; and Iago, to the Othello of Sowerby, Pope, Rae, and Elliston; Miss Smith, who refused to play the Queen, in "Richard," being his Desdemona. He also acted Luke, in "Riches" ("City Madam"), to the Lacy of Wallack; and the Lady Traffic of Mrs. Edwin. Of these, he was always inclined to think Hamlet his best character. He had, perhaps, studied it more deeply than the others, and Mrs. Garrick took such especial interest in his representation of it, that on comparing it with her husband's, she saw only one great defect,--in the closet scene. Garrick was severer with the Queen of Denmark than Kean, and Mrs. Garrick persuaded him, though unconvinced by her, to throw more sternness into this celebrated scene. The good old lady merited _some_, yet not _such_ concession; but then she invited Kean to Adelphi Terrace, and sent him fruit from Hampton, and made him a present of Garrick's stage-jewels. The young man was in a fair way of being spoiled, as Pope said of Garrick, when thinking of the laborious, but splendid time of his friend and favourite, Betterton. Tenderness to Ophelia, affection for his mother, reverential awe of his father, and a fixed resolution to fulfil the mission confided to him by that father, were the distinct "motives," so to speak, of his Hamlet. The critics especially dwell on the tender vibration of his voice when uttering the word "father" to the Ghost; they approve of his sinking on one knee before the solemn spirit, and they are lost in admiration of his original action when, instead of keeping the Ghost off with his sword, when he bids it, "go on," he pointed it back at his friends to deter them from preventing his following the visionary figure. This, and another original point, have become stage-property. I allude to the scene in which he seems to deal so harshly with Ophelia. At the close of it, Kean used to return from the very extremity of the stage, take Ophelia's hand, kiss it with a tender rapture, look mournfully loving upon her, with eyes full of beautiful significance, and then rush off. The effect never failed, and the approbation was tumultuous.