Young, CHARLES MAYNE

Young, CHARLES MAYNE, tragedian, was born on 10th January 1777, the second son of a clever but scoundrelly London surgeon. He spent a twelvemonth with an uncle at the Danish court (1786–87), was educated at Eton and Merchant Taylors, and, driven from home with his mother and two brothers, had for a while been a clerk in a West India house, when in 1798 he made his début at Liverpool. One liss—his father's—was mingled with the applause that greeted his first appearance in London, in 1807, as 'Hamlet'; this, 'Iago,' and 'Falstaff' being perhaps his best characters. 'With his personal advantages and his d—d musical voice,' as Kean put it, he was a really original actor, second only, nay in some parts superior, to Kean himself. In 1829 he declined an offer of £12,000 for a ten months' tour in the United States, and in 1832 he retired with a fortune of £60,000. He died at Southwick, near Brighton, on 28th June 1856. In 1805 he had married a brilliant young actress, Julia Anne Grimani (1785–1806), who left him a son, the Rev. Julian Charles Young (1806–73). He was educated at Clapham, St Andrews, and Worcester College, Oxford; became rector of Southwick, Sussex (1844–50), and then of Ilmington, Worcestershire; and published a most amusing Memoir of Charles Mayne Young (2 vols. 1871), four-fifths of which is taken up with his own Journal, and which was supplemented in 1875 by Last Leaves from that same Journal.