There can be no doubt, in spite of all its drawbacks, that, from a professional point of view, the Bohemian existence of the strolling comedian was a valuable discipline for artistic perception. The intimate communion in which all lived together, gave much more chance of expansion to rising genius than the artificial barriers now erected between the leader of a company and his subordinates. Not only was the freemasonry existing between underling and superior invaluable, but also the course of probation before country audiences, who, uninfluenced by prestige or fashion, spoke their mind without reserve. Young recruits, who arrived ignorant and raw, thus obtained the necessary ease of deportment and knowledge of stage effects, uninfluenced by preconceived ideas. The very fact, also, of so much depending on the individual excellence of the actor, independently of scenery and accessories, was a valuable stimulus. His expression, his action, had to tell the story.

In passing his earliest years upon the stage, the strolling actor obtained a power of identification with theatrical representation only to be thus acquired. The atmosphere he breathed from his earliest years was dramatic. When quite a child, Sarah Kemble was announced as an “Infant phenomenon,” at an entertainment the company gave. As she appeared, some confusion arose in the gallery which overpowered all her attempts. Her mother immediately led her down to the footlights, and made her recite the fable of The Boys and Frogs, which at once lulled the tumult and restored good humour. Thus early was the actress taught to dominate her audience, an art that stood her in good stead in after life.

Besides this early theatrical training, Sarah received as good an education in the ordinary rudiments of learning as it was possible for her energetic mother to obtain for her. Mrs. Kemble sent her child to respectable day schools, we are told, in the country towns to which their various wanderings brought the troupe. At Worcester, a schoolmistress of the name of Harris received her among her pupils at Thornloe House, refusing to accept any payment. An old lady, living not long ago, recalled perfectly the contempt of the young girls in the establishment for the “play actors’ daughter,” until, some private theatricals being set on foot, her histrionic taste and experience made her services extremely valuable. She won universal popularity by exhibiting a device for imitating a “sack back” with thick sugar-loaf paper procured from the grocer. But this education must have been desultory, for Roger Kemble could not afford to dispense with the girl’s assistance.

Besides the appearance mentioned above, we hear of her acting as a child, in a barn at the back of the “Old Bell Inn,” at Stourbridge, Worcestershire, when some officers quartered in the neighbourhood gave their services. It is said that she burst into laughter at the most tragic moment, and inflamed to fury the military tragedian who acted with her. The play was The Grecian Daughter. Another tradition tells us that her first appearance in a regular five-act piece was as Leonora in The Padlock.

A play-bill of one of these early performances was found not long ago, pasted on a brick wall in a shoemaker’s shop, in one of the country towns of the Kemble circuit.

Campbell tells that Roger Kemble determined not to allow his children to follow his vocation; we think, however, this statement must be bracketed with the legend of the ancestor at the battle of Worcester, for we find him, as we have seen, making Sarah appear when almost a baby, and taking John away from a day school at Worcester, while still in frock and pinafores, to act in Havard’s tragedy of Charles the First. The characters were thus cast: James, Duke of Richmond, by Mr. Siddons, who was now an actor in Kemble’s company; James, Duke of York, by Master John Kemble, who was then eleven years old; the young princess by Miss Kemble, then about thirteen; Lady Fairfax, by Mrs. Kemble. Singing between the acts by Mr. Fowler and Miss Kemble. In the April following, we again find “Mr. Kemble’s company of Comedians” appearing in “a celebrated comedy,” called The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, with all the scenery, machinery, music, monsters, and the decorations proper to be given, entirely new. “The performance will open with a representation of a tempestuous sea (in perpetual agitation), and storm, in which the usurper’s ship is wrecked; the wreck ends with a beautiful shower of fire; and the whole to conclude with a calm sea, on which appears Neptune, poetick god of the ocean, and his royal consort, Amphitrite, in a chariot drawn by sea-horses, &c. &c.” It was in this performance, as Ariel, Chief Spirit, that, at the age of thirteen, Sarah made her first success. “She darted hither and thither,” we are told, “with such airy grace; there was something so sprite-like in her free swiftness of motion, she seemed to be so entirely a creature born of the loves of a breeze and a sunbeam, that the whole audience broke into frantic applause at the end of the play, and her proud happy father began dimly to foresee his daughter’s future.”

Later, we find a performance by the company of Love in a Village announced, the names printed thus:—

In the November following, John Philip was sent to Sedgely Park near Wolverhampton, a Catholic seminary. A short entry has been discovered in the College books, stating that “John and (sic) Philip Kemble came Nov. 3rd 1767, and brought 4 suits of clothes, 12 shirts, 12 pairs of stockings, 6 pairs of shoes, 4 hats, 2 Daily Companions, a Half Manual, knives, forks, spoons, Æsop’s Fables, combs, 1 brush 8 handkerchiefs, 8 nightcaps.”

“Jack abiit, July 28, 1771.”