was instantly complied with. The duke afterwards nominally lent Kemble the sum of ten thousand pounds, and converted the loan into a gift by burning the obligation for repayment after the fire in Covent Garden.

He had at York an adventure of another kind, tending to show him how peculiarly the most meritorious of the profession he had chosen were exposed to the taunts of the unworthy. On 8th February, 1778, while he was playing in Murphy's tragedy of Zenobia, Kemble became the object of the gross and marked ridicule of a lady who sat in the stage-box. She was of some condition, and apparently enjoyed that sort of provincial consequence, which, when combined with a rude disposition, makes country ladies now and then guilty of ill-breeding, such as would never be permitted to those of the first rank in the capital.

"As to the insults designed for himself during the evening, he had retorted them by looks of infinite disdain. His sensibility was noticed in the box by loud and repeated peals of laughter from the lady and her echoes. At this, Kemble suddenly stopped, and being called upon by the audience to proceed, with great gravity and a pointed bow to the stage-box, he said, 'he was ready to proceed with the play as soon as THAT lady had finished her conversation, which he perceived the going on with the tragedy only interrupted.'

"The audience received this rudeness of the stage-box as an insolent attempt to control their amusements, and with shouts, which could not be laughed down, ordered the lady and her party out of the theatre."-BOADEN, vol. i, p. 26.

The lady thus most deservedly punished had interest sufficient to excite a party in her behalf, who insisted that Kemble should come forward and ask pardon immediately.

"Mr. Kemble on this, with the greatest firmness, and with some of that mingled astonishment and disdain, which he threw afterwards into Coriolanus, exclaimed, 'Pardon! ask pardon! no, sirs,-NEVER;' and immediately quitted the stage."-BADEN, vol. i, p. 27.

All subsequent efforts of an active faction among the audience vainly attempted to break that lofty spirit, which was as much Kemble's by nature as it belonged to any of the heroes whom he represented. He could but be brought to say,

"Let me be heard before I am condemned: if, when I have explained my conduct, any gentleman, or set of gentlemen, will say, in that character, that I have acted unworthily, I shall cheer

fully make any reparation that they may judge proper.' To this there could be no reasonable objection, and he was heard. His fine address, his clear statement, his modesty and manliness, carriod the cause, and contributed essentially to his progress in the public favour."-BOADEN, vol. i, p. 28.

The same lady, uncorrected by what had happened, made an attack on Mr. Michael Kelly, by the same obstreperous procedure, especially when he consulted his watch as his part required in the course of the drama, by exclaiming loud enough to be heard in the gallery,

"Why, look there; la! the fellow has got a watch.' I could not bear this (says Kelly)—I admit I lost my temper: but I walked up to the box, and said, 'yes, madam, it is a gold watch, and reckoned one of the best in England,' putting it close to her;-the lady was violently hissed, and ever after, when she came to the theatre, conducted herself with becoming decency."-Kelly, vol. i, p. 306.

The indulgence of such impertinent humour on the part of the audience, towards those who are tasking their best abilities to please, is akin to the display of ignorance, folly, and wanton cruelty which children exhibit in torturing the inferior animals. Fifty years ago the pelting the performers from the galleries was so legitimate a species of amusement, that we think even Garrick was exposed to it, and when hit by an orange only ventured to say, after pretending to taste it, "it was an orange, but not a Seville (civil) one." Digges, on another occasion, when subjected to some such insult, made a touching appeal to his former situation as an officer and a man of fashion-" My feelings," he said, "are wounded as a man-I had almost said as a gentleman."

Kemble argued with the perpetrators of such brutality in a different and a bolder mood, and as his unspotted character supported the justice of his complaint, there can be no doubt that the respect due to him both as a public and private character, and the spirit with which he maintained it, was a principal means of raising the estimation of the profession at large. An apple was upon one occasion thrown on the stage, which fell between him and Mrs. Siddons, then acting in the unrivalled scene between Coriolanus and his mother. Kemble instantly advanced to the front of the stage with the apple in his hand, and appealed to the audi

ence for protection against this brutal insult. A person in the gallery called out in reply, "We can't hear."

"Mr. Kemble (with increased spirit), 'I will raise my voice, and the GALLERIES shall hear me.' (Great tumult.)

"This protection is what the AUDIENCE Owe it to themselves to grant-what the PERFORMERS, for the credit of their profession, have a right to demand-and WHAT I will venture to assert, that, on the part of the PROPRIETORS, I here offer a hundred guineas to any man, who will disclose the ruffian who has been guilty of (A murmur only in the gallery.)

this act.'

"I throw myself, ladies and gentlemen, upon the high sense of breeding, that distinguishes a London audience; and I hope I shall never be wanting in my duty to the public; but nothing shall induce me to suffer insult.'"-BOADEN, vol. i, p. 429.

The galleries, awed into silence, endeavoured to shift the charge from themselves. But though Kemble thus asserted the dignity of his profession, and the claim which a performer has to be treated like a gentleman, there cannot be a question that he made enemies among the low and malicious party in the common audience of a theatre, who had hitherto considered the right of insulting the players as a valuable part of the privilege purchased by the half-price which they had paid at the door. These petty tyrants felt controlled under the superiority of a man like Kemble, but theirs were the right minds for bearing malice, and we believe that the dislike entertained against one who was willing to contribute to their pleasure, but not to endure their insolence, was a great ingredient in the celebrated O. P. riot.

We return to Mr. Kemble's professional progress. He visited Dublin in 1783, where he was received with approbation. His sister, Mrs. Siddons, had now displayed for several months before the public that blaze of varied excellence which was never before equalled, and certainly will never be surpassed. Beautiful as an angel, she seemed gifted also with superhuman powers. The horrors and the sorrows of the scene, were alike her own; the boldest trembled, the wisest wondered, the most hard-hearted and the most selfish wept ere they were aware.

Her unrivalled excellence naturally led the managers to inquire respecting that brother who began already to be called the Great Kemble. There is a ludicrous story, however, of the meaning of the epithet being mistaken by the

person intrusted with the negotiation, who instead of our friend is said to have sent to the metropolis his jolly brother Stephen as the greatest of the name who was going.

The mistake, if it ever took place, was soon rectified, and on the 30th of September, 1783, John Philip Kemble made his first appearance at Drury Lane in the character of Hamlet.

It cannot be denied that this extraordinary conception of Shakspeare is one of the boldest, most striking, and most effective parts in the drama, and yet it is invested with so much obscurity, that it may be played in twenty different ways without the critic being able to say with certainty which best expresses the sense of the author. Hamlet unites in his single person a variety of attributes, by bringing any of which more forward, or throwing others farther into the background, the shading of the character is effectually changed. Hamlet is the predestined avenger called on to this task by a supernatural voice-he is a prince resenting the intrusion of his uncle into his mother's bed and his father's throne. He is a son devoted to the memory of one parent and to the person of the other, and yet, to do justice to his murdered father's memory, he is compelled to outrage, with the most cutting reproaches, the ears of his guilty mother. Wittenberg has given him philosophy and the habits of criticism-nature has formed him social and affectionate disappointment and ill-concealed resentment of family injuries have tinged him with misanthropy-the active world has given him all its accomplishments.

"The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword, The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form."

To all these peculiar attributes must be added his love for Ophelia, and something which resembles an incipient touch of insanity; for this, after all, is necessary to apologize and account for some parts of his conduct. All these exist in Prince Hamlet, but the art of the performer is to distinguish the proper or most striking mode of exhibiting them. The author has done little to help him in the management of the piece, which as a story indicates nothing decisive respecting the real character of Hamlet. He does not resemble Richard or Macbeth, or most of Shakspeare's other distinguished characters, who show themselves and purVOL. III.-3

poses not by their words and sentiments only, but by their actions, and whose actions therefore are the best commentaries on their characters and motives. On the contrary, Hamlet being passive almost through the whole piece, and only hurried into action in its conclusion, does nothing by which we can infer the precise meaning of much that he says. There exists therefore a latitude about the representation of Hamlet, which scarcely belongs to that of any other character in the drama. It consists of many notes, and the dwelling upon or the slurring of any of them totally changes the effect of the air.

It is natural to expatiate on these peculiarities in the character, because Kemble, in representing it, was to encounter at once the shade of the murdered King of Denmark, and, in the mind's eye of the audience, that of the lost Garrick. The young performer had never seen and could not imitate Garrick. He was relieved from that great stumbling-block in the path of a novice-the temptation to copy some honoured predecessor. Those who are subjected to this temptation and give way to it, seldom rise above respectability in their performances. They are admitted to play the line of characters possessed by the "well-graced actor" who has left the stage, but it is merely in the character of substitutes: those who aim at great eminence must show originality of conception.

Originality, however, in a novice has its perils; and it was often objected to Kemble, that in playing Shakspeare's best-known characters he frequently sought to give them effect by a mode of delivery and action daringly opposed to what the audience had been used to. This, in the beginning of his career, was often hardly received by pedantic critics, who had become so much bigoted to one style of acting that they were unable to tolerate any departure from it. Such venturing on new ground is no doubt a hazardous task, and demands both the powers and perseverance of decided genius; and Garrick was, in his time, equally censured as an innovator on the solemn and pompous manner of Booth and Betterton. But were it possible to promulgate and enforce a scale of the tones in which each speech of Hamlet or any other character should be delivered, or to issue a tariff of the emphasis to which each striking passage should be subjected, it is evident we should destroy one great source