In this same season, Kemble stood his ground against Kean in the one character played by both--Hamlet; but two new actors--tall, earnest, handsome, but ungainly Conway, from Dublin, and Terry, from Edinburgh--only took a respectable position. The Othello of the first, and the Shylock of the second, were never heard of after Kean had played and made them his own. In Kean's second season, he added to his other characters, Macbeth, which had some magnificent points, but in which Kemble had personal advantages over him: Romeo, which continues the traditional glory of Barry; Reuben Glenroy and Penruddock, in neither of which he equalled Kemble; Zanga, played in a style which made the fame of Mossop pale, and shook Young and Kemble from an old possession; Richard II., in an adaptation by Merivale,[110] acted with a new grace to the expression of melancholy; Abel Drugger, concerning which he answered the legendary--"I know it," to the "you can't play it," of Mrs. Garrick; Leon, performed with moderate success, and Octavian, with rare sweetness, but not with such rare ability as to make John Kemble uneasy. Kean also acted his first original character, Egbert, in the tragedy of that name,[111] by Mrs. Wilmot. His prestige suffered a little in consequence, for Egbert was condemned on the first night. He had compensation enough in Zanga. As one who stood among the crowd in the pit passage heard a shout and clamour of approbation within, he asked if Zanga had not just previously said, "Then lose her!" for that phrase, in the country, when uttered by Kean, used to make the walls shake; and he was answered that it was so. I remember having read that some one was with Southey, when the "Revenge" was played, and that when Zanga consummated his vengeance in the words, "Know then 'twas I"--lifting up his arms, as he spoke, over the fainting Alonzo, and seeming to fill the theatre--the same image was simultaneously presented to the minds of the two friends. "He looks like Michael Angelo's rebellious Archangel!" thought one. "He looks like the Arch-Fiend himself," said the other.[112] Covent Garden struggled nobly, with its old and strong company, against the single power of Kean at the other house; but found its best ally in a new actress. On the 13th of October 1814,[113] Miss O'Neill made her first appearance in Belvidera. It is not my intention to do more than record the names of the players who made their _début_ after the coming of Edmund Kean, but there is something so singular in the lucky chance which led to Miss O'Neill's well-merited fortune, that I venture to tell it in the words of Michael Kelly.[114]