Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kemble added something to our dramatic literature; the lady's contribution to which, "A Day after the Wedding," still affords entertainment whenever it is performed. Her other piece, "First Faults," is now forgotten. Charles Kemble's additions to the literature of the stage, comprise the "Point of Honour," "Plot and Counterplot," and the "Wanderer;" the first two being translations from the French, and the third from the German.

In his later days Charles Kemble was afflicted with deafness, so complete that he could not hear the pealing thunder, but could fancy it was in the air; for, as he once remarked amid the crash, "I feel it in my knees!" It was, perhaps, this affliction which occasionally gave him that look of fixed melancholy which he occasionally wore. Of anecdotes of his later time, there are few known to me of any interest, except the following, which I cull from the Athenæum. It is in reference to his son, Mr. J. M. Kemble's Lectures at Cambridge, On the History of the English Language, which were unsuccessful. "After making a good deal to do about them," says the correspondent of the Athenæum, "he obtained the use of the Divinity School to lecture in, and it was pretty well crowded at the first lecture; but the lecture itself was such a sickener, and so unintelligible, that at the second, myself, and I think two others, formed the whole audience. The appearance was so absurdly ridiculous in the large room, that Kemble gave notice, in announcing the day of his third lecture, that in future he should deliver them at his own private apartments. Meanwhile his father, Charles Kemble, the actor, came to see him, and on the day fixed for the third lecture, nobody was there to hear him but his said father and I; upon which, when we had waited in vain nearly an hour for an increase of audience, I moved, and his father seconded the proposal, that instead of inflicting the lecture upon us two, the lecturer should send into Trinity College buttery, as it was then the hour it was open, and procure a quantity of ale and cheese, for the excellence of both which Trinity College was celebrated, and with the aid of these we passed the afternoon. Such was the end of Kemble's lectures."

Rogers has left in his Table Talk some record of the Kembles, which, as coming from an eye and ear witness, may find admission here. From this we learn that Mrs. Siddons, to whom he had been telling an anecdote showing that, when Lawrence gained a medal at the Society of Arts, his brothers and sisters were jealous of him, remarked:—"Alas! after I became celebrated, none of my sisters loved me as they did before!" And then, when a grand public dinner was given to John Kemble on his quitting the stage, the great actress said to the poet, "Well, perhaps, in the next world women will be more valued than they are in this." "She alluded," says Rogers, "to the comparatively little sensation which had been produced by her own retirement from the boards; and, doubtless, she was a far, far greater performer than John Kemble."

When young, she had superseded Mrs. Crawford (Barry), then in her old age, and she rejoiced in being rid of so able a rival; but when other competitors crossed her own path, Mrs. Siddons rather unfairly remarked that the public were fond of setting up new idols, in order to mortify their old favourites. She had herself, she said, been three times threatened with eclipse; first, by means of Miss Brunton (afterwards Lady Craven); next, by means of Miss Smith (Mrs. Bartley); and, lastly, by means of Miss O'Neill—"nevertheless," she is reported to have said, "I am not yet extinguished." She then stood, however, with regard to Miss O'Neill exactly as Mrs. Crawford (Barry) had stood with respect to herself—the younger actress carried away the hearts, the older lived respected in the memories of the audience. But over audiences, Mrs. Siddons had, in her day, deservedly reigned supreme; and that should have been enough of greatness achieved by one whom Combe remembered to have seen, "when a very young woman, standing by the side of her father's stage, and knocking a pair of snuffers against a candlestick, to imitate the sound of a windmill during the representation of some harlequinade."

When she had departed from the scene of her glory, the remembrance of that glory did not suffice her. When Rogers was sitting with her, of an afternoon, she would say, "Oh, dear! this is the time I used to be thinking of going to the theatre; first came the pleasure of dressing for my part; and then the pleasure of acting it; but that is all over now." This was not vanity, but the natural wail of an active spirit forced to be at rest. There was less dignity in the retirement of John Kemble, if what Rogers tells us be true, that "when Kemble was living at Lausanne, he was jealous of Mont Blanc; and he disliked to hear people always asking, 'How does Mont Blanc look this morning?'"

The two greatest rivalries that John Kemble had to endure, before the final one, in which Kean triumphed, emanated from two very different persons—George Frederick Cooke and Master Betty. The success of both marks periods in stage history, and demands brief notice here.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] If this means that his supporters changed about and asked him to apologise, it is a strange perversion of the story.

[64] These ladies appeared in the beginning of 1783, previous to both brothers' appearances.

[65] The "Gamester" preceded "King John," being played on 22d November, while "King John" was not played till 10th December.