That his voice ill-fitted him for passionate, tragic heroes they will recollect who can recall to mind his Pierre and that of Young! Charles Kemble looked the part to perfection, and dressed it with the taste of a gentleman and an artist. Nothing could be finer, more gallant, more easy and graceful, than his entry; but he had scarcely got through "How fares the honest partner of my heart?" than the pipe raised a smile; it was so unlike the full, round, hearty, resonant tone in which Young put the query, and indeed played the part.
Nor was Charles Kemble invariably successful in all the comic parts he assumed. His Falstaff I would willingly forget. It was a mistake. When Ward, as the Prince, exclaimed "Peace, chewet, peace!" the command seemed very well timed. But his Mercutio! In that he walked, spoke, looked, fought, and died like a gentleman. Some of his predecessors dressed and acted it as if this kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo had been a low-bred, yet humorous fellow, cousin to the lacqueys, Abraham and Peter; but Charles Kemble was as truly Shakspeare's Mercutio as ever Macklin was Shakspeare's Jew. In comedy of another degree; in Young Mirabel, for instance, in the "Inconstant," he was unequalled by any living actor. Indeed his spirits here sometimes overcame his judgment; as in the last scene, when he is saved by the arrival of the "Red Burgundy," he leaped into the air like a man who is shot, and snapping his fingers, danced about the stage in a very ecstasy of delirium, too great, I thought, for a brave young fellow extricated from an awful scrape. But, whatever may be the worth of such thought, it is certain that in his Mirabel the delighted audience saw no fault; and who ever did in his Benedick?
Happy in his successes, he was thrice happy in his pretty and accomplished wife. Maria Theresa Decamp was one year his junior; and, like himself, was born in the purple. Miss Decamp's real name is said to have been De Fleury. She was a Viennese by birth. Her family belonged to the ballet and the orchestra, and she herself, at six years of age, was dancing Cupid in Noverre's ballets at the London Opera House; and, ultimately, was a leading, very young lady in those at the Circus, now the Royal Surrey. From the sawdust of the Transpontine Theatre she was transferred, on the recommendation of the Prince of Wales, it is said, to figure in similar pieces, at Colman's house in the Haymarket.
She was reserved, however, for better things than this: but Miss De Camp was not to attain them without study; she had to learn English—to speak and to read it; music, and other accomplishments. By a genius all this may be speedily effected; and Miss De Camp, in the season of 1786-87, appeared at Drury Lane as Julie, in "Richard Cœur de Lion," her future brother-in-law playing the King. At this time she was scarcely in her teens; but she was full of such promise, that she bade adieu for ever to ballet and the sawdust of the Royal Circus, and henceforth, and for upwards of thirty years, belonged to the regular drama. A score of years was to elapse before she was to change her name; but long previously she had made that first name distinguished in theatrical annals. She had exhibited unusual merit in singing and acting Macheath to the Polly of Charles Bannister, and the Lucy of Johnstone; and she created characters with which her name is closely associated in the memory of playgoers or playreaders. She was the original Floranthe in the "Mountaineers," Judith in the "Iron Chest," Irene in "Bluebeard," Maria in "Of Age To-morrow," Theodore in "Deaf and Dumb," Lady Julia in "Personation," Arinette in "Youth, Love, and Folly," Variella in the "Weathercock," and Morgiana in the "Forty Thieves."
And while the glory she derived from this last performance was still at its brightest, Miss De Camp in 1806 married Mr. Charles Kemble—some rather tempestuous wooing, for so tender and gallant a stage-lover, but for which he rendered public apology, not impeding the match.[73] In the year of her marriage Mrs. C. Kemble joined the Covent Garden Company, and on making her appearance as Maria in the "Citizen," she was congratulated, on the part of the audience, by three distinct rounds of applause. Between this period and 1819, when she withdrew from the stage, she created two parts in which she has had no successor, Edmund in the "Blind Boy," and Lady Elizabeth Freelove in "A Day after the Wedding;" and, in the last year of her acting, Madge Wildfire in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian."
Ten years later, Mrs. Charles Kemble returned to the stage (October 5, 1829), to do for her daughter what Mrs. Pritchard, on a like occasion, had done for her's—namely, as Lady Capulet, introduce the young débutante as Juliet. This one service rendered, Mrs. Charles Kemble finally withdrew.
She had a pleasant voice; charming, but not powerful in her early days, as a vocalist. In sprightly parts, in genteel comedy, in all chambermaids, in melodramatic characters, especially where pantomimic action was needed, she was excellent. Genest, who must have known her well, remarks, that "no person understood the business of the stage better; no person had more industry; at one time she almost lived in Drury Lane Theatre. The reason of her not being engaged after 1819 is said to have been that she wanted to play the young parts, for which her time of life, and her figure (for she had grown fat), had disqualified her; whereas if she would have been contented to have played Mrs. Oakly, Mrs. Candour, Flippanta, and many other characters of importance, which were not unsuitable to her personal appearance, it would have been greatly to her own advantage, and to the satisfaction of the public."
Charles remained on the stage till December 1836, but he returned for a few nights, a year or two later, when he went through a series of his most celebrated parts, for the especial gratification of the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, and for the gratification of the public generally. Occasionally he reappeared as a "Reader," in which vocation, his refined taste, his judgment, and his graceful, though not powerful elocution, were manifest to the last.