Doran John
Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 3 of 3)
Her beauty, personal and mental, she retained to the last, – the former only slightly touched by time. That was marked, in the Gallery of the Louvre, even amid the finest examples of mortal and godlike beauty from the hands of Greek sculptors. Her sense of the beautiful was also fresh to the last. Standing rapt at the sublimity of the scenery in the neighbourhood of Penmanmawr, she heard a lady remark, "This awful scenery makes me feel as if I were only a worm, or a grain of dust, on the face of the earth!" Mrs. Siddons turned round and said: "I feel very differently."
She had the misery to outlive all her children, except her daughter Cecilia, but in successive visitations she was so well-tempered as to create the means of consolation, and in modelling statuary, often found at least temporary relief from sorrow. Hannah More as heartily applauded her in private life as the warmest of her admirers ever did in public; and in truth her religion was cheerful, and her rule of life honest. She was not only a great artist, but a thoroughly English lady, a true, honest, exquisite woman; one of the bravest and most willing of the noble army of workers. Proud, she may have been, and justly so. Simple she was, and simple-minded, in many respects. The viola amœna was her favourite flower; and, from the purple borders of her garden in spring time up at then secluded Westbourne, her managing hand-maid acquired the name of Miss Heartsease.
Those who knew her best have recorded her beauty and her grace, her noble carriage, divine elocution, and solemn earnestness; her grandeur and her pathos, her correct judgment, her identification of whatever she assumed, and her abnegation of self. Erskine studied her cadences and intonations, and avowed that he owed his best displays to the harmony of her periods and pronunciation. According to Campbell, she increased the heart's capacity for tender, intense, and lofty feelings, and seemed something above humanity, in presence of which, humanity was moved, exalted, or depressed, according as she willed. Her countenance was the interpreter of her mind, and that mind was of the loftiest, never stooping to trickery, but depending on nature to produce effect.
She may have borne her professional habits into private life and "stabbed the potatoes," or awed a draper's assistant by asking, "Will it wash?" but there was no affectation in this; – as she said, still in her tragic way, "Witness truth, I did not wish to be tragical!"
I have alluded to the apparent lack of judgment in her assuming, at thirty-four, the character of Juliet, a girl not yet fourteen. Miss Weston, however, writes, "a finer performance was never seen. She contrived to make her appearance light, youthful, and airy, beyond imagination, and more beautiful than anything one ever saw. Her figure, she tells me, was very well fitted by previous indisposition."
In carrying into private life her stately stage manner, Mrs. Siddons undesignedly imitated Clairon, the "Queen of Carthage," as the French called her, from her marvellous acting as Dido. "If," said Clairon, "I am only a vulgar and ordinary woman during twenty hours of the day, I shall continue to be a vulgar and ordinary woman, whatever efforts I may make, in Agrippina or Semiramis, during the other four."
There remains but to be said that this "lofty-minded actress," as Young called Mrs. Siddons, died on the 8th of June 1831 – leaving a name in theatrical history second to none, and deep regret that the honoured owner of it had departed from among the living. Of the latter was the elder brother, who owed much of his greatness to her, and who is noticed in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII
JOHN KEMBLE
On the 1st of February 1757, John Philip Kemble was born at Prescot, in Lancashire. His father's itinerant life not only led to his appearance on the stage when a child, but to his being placed at school at Worcester, whence he passed through Sedgley to Douay, where he was remarkable for his elocution. He had for college fellow Miller, or Milner, as he chose to call himself – and who, when a Roman Catholic prelate, used to affirm that, in point of elocution, he was considered equal to Kemble!
In 1776, the year in which Garrick retired, Kemble may be said to have made his first public appearance as an actor at Wolverhampton, and Boaden thinks he was too good for his audience. In various northern towns he endured a stern probation, and made sundry mistakes. He played Plume, Ranger, and Archer, which were totally unsuited to him; and he was actually laughed at in tragedy – by some persons of distinction in the boxes at York. He resented this with such dignity, that the York fine people, who could not understand the latter feeling, insisted on an apology; and when the rest of the house declared he should make none, he thanked them with such a weight of heavy argument to show they and he were right, that those bewildered Yorkists demanded of him to beg pardon immediately.63
Subsequently, John Kemble published fugitive poems, which he was afterwards glad to burn; wrote a tragedy, "Belisarius," and a comedy, the "Female Officer;" composed a Latin ode, Ad Somnium, and a Latin epitaph for his dead comrade, Inchbald; laid the foundations of friendship with the Percys; gave lectures on oratory; and, at twenty-three, made an attempt to improve Shakspeare's "Comedy of Errors," by turning it into a farce, called "Oh, it's impossible!" the chief point in which was that the audience should be as puzzled about the two Dromios, of whom he made a couple of niggers, as their masters themselves.
If, at York, the admirers of the now forgotten Cummins contended that he was superior to Kemble, so in Ireland those who remembered their old favourite Barry, were slow to admit Kemble's equality. But, though he nearly made shipwreck of his fame by playing comedy, he rose in Irish estimation by his acting in tragedy; and he won all hearts by his finished performance of Jephson's "Count of Narbonne," in which he represented the Count, to the Adelaide of Miss Francis – the Mrs. Jordan of later years. Jephson was an Irishman, and Dublin was grateful to the actor who helped him to a triumph. Black Rock, I dare say, is to this day proud of the author.
On the 30th of September 1783, John Kemble first appeared in London, at Drury Lane, as Hamlet. The fierceness and variety of the criticism denote that a new and a great actor had come before the critics. His novel readings were severally commented on – some of them were admirable, but bold. The utmost one critic could urge was that the player was "too scrupulously graceful;" and objection was fairly made to his pronouncing the word "lisp," to Ophelia, as "lithp." Boaden calls this "a refinement;" but he is forced to allow that it was "below the actor."
Just previous to this successful début at Drury Lane, John Kemble's brother Stephen had very moderately succeeded in Othello, at Covent Garden, where the management had secured the big, instead of the great, Mr. Kemble. Just subsequent to the former first appearance, two sisters of these players, Elizabeth and Frances Kemble (afterwards Mrs. Whitelock and Mrs. Twiss), made an attempt to share in a theatrical and family glory, in which, however, they had no abiding part.64 These ladies passed away, and left that glory to be divided by John Kemble, and his sister, Mrs. Siddons. But some time elapsed before the latter were permitted to play in the same piece. Smith had possession of parts of which custom forbade his being deprived; and it was not till each had played singly in various stock pieces, that they came together in "King John," and subsequently in the "Gamester."65 Previous to Kemble's undertaking the former character, the old actor, Sheridan, read the part to him as Sheridan was used to play it; but grandly as the King was played, the Constance in the hands of Mrs. Siddons was the magic by which the audience was most potentially moved. It was the same in the "Gamester;" the sufferings of Mrs. Beverley touched all hearts; but the instability, selfishness, cowardice, and maudlin of the wretched husband, excited both contempt and execration – but that was precisely what the author, as well as the actor, intended.
This union of genius was not, however, permanent; when Mrs. Siddons played Lady Macbeth, Smith acted, with graceful indifference, the Thane; and it was not till March 1785, that brother and sister appeared together in another play,66 and then in "Othello" – the Moor and Desdemona being assigned to them. Neither player was ever identified with the character respectively acted; but what could even John Kemble do, who performed the Moor in the uniform of a British general of the actor's own time? He made a more certain flight by selecting "Macbeth" for his benefit, and playing the chief part to his sister's Lady; but it was only for one night. The Thane belonged by prescriptive right to Smith, and as long as he remained a member of the company, the original Charles Surface was entitled to one of the sublimest parts in all the range of tragedy. Even when Mrs. Siddons selected the "Merchant of Venice" for her benefit, and played Portia, Shylock fell, as by right, to King, and John Kemble had to be content with Bassanio!67
He had his revenge; not in playing the insipid heroes of the new tragedies, which were then more or less in fashion, but in acting Lear to his sister's Cordelia, on occasion of her benefit in January 1788. The greatest admirers of Garrick confessed that Kemble's Lear was nearly equal to that of their idol; but Boaden records that he never played it so grandly and so touchingly as on that night.
Kemble is said to have been so much attached to Miss Phillips (afterwards Mrs. Crouch), that he was exceedingly moved on reading the epitaph on her tomb, by Boaden. He is reported also to have been tenderly affected by Mrs. Inchbald – for he composed a Latin epitaph for the tomb of her defunct husband. I find further mentioned "a young lady of family and fortune at York," whose cruel brother interfered menacingly in the matter, and also that "the daughter of a noble lord, once high in office, was strongly attached to him, and that the father bought off the match with £3000. It is certain that Mrs. Siddons was highly offended at the alliance (subsequently with Mrs. Brereton) – perhaps she looked with anxious hope to a consanguinity with the noble house of G – ." So sneers old legend, and here follows truth.
The lady he did marry was a very excellent lady indeed. Her own parents had fought their way well through life, for Mr. Hopkins was a strolling player when he married the daughter of a Somersetshire Boniface; but the bridegroom became Prompter, and Mrs. Hopkins a respectable actress at Drury Lane. One of their daughters, Priscilla, subsequently belonged to the company, when young Brereton persuaded her to take his name, and share his fortunes. Whether excess of admiration for Mrs. Siddons, with whom he frequently acted, drove Brereton mad or not, his widow kept her senses under cool control, and about a year after the death of her first husband, one of Garrick's ineffective pupils, she said to Mrs. Hopkins, "My dear mother, I cannot guess what Mr. Kemble means: he passed me just now, going up to his dressing-room, and chucking me under the chin, said, 'Ha, Pop! I shouldn't wonder if you were soon to hear something very much to your advantage!' What could he mean?" "Mean!" the sensible mother answered – Adolphus so styles her – "why he means to propose marriage; and if he does, I advise you not to refuse him."
The wedding was dramatic enough. Mrs. Hopkins, her daughter, Jack Bannister and his wife, walked from Jack's house in Frith Street, to John's in Caroline Street, Bedford Square, to breakfast with the bridegroom, who did not seem to expect them. Thence, on a December morning, 1787, in two hackney coaches, the party went to church and were married by "the well-known Parson Este." The bride – no dinner having been thought of by any one else – dined early, the bridegroom late, at the Bannisters'; at whose house Kemble remained with Mrs. Bannister, or rather taking his wine without her, while Mr. Bannister and Mrs. Kemble went to Drury Lane, where they had to act in the "West Indian." The lady's former name was in the bill. On her return to Frith Street, Kemble took his good wife home, and the next acting day, Monday, Lady Anne was acted by Mrs. Kemble to the Richard of Mr. Smith. On the 14th, man and wife played together, Sir Giles and his daughter Margaret; the delicate audience seizing on a marked passage in the play, and laughing as they applauded, to indicate they knew all about it. Sir Giles remained grave and self-possessed.
Subsequently, Kemble attained the management of Drury Lane, succeeding King, who had been merely the servant of the proprietor, in 1788-89. He could now play what parts he chose, – and his first character was Lord Townly; his second, Macbeth.68 In the first, he was second only to Barry; in Macbeth, from the weakness of his voice, he failed to rise to an equality with Garrick. Leon followed, with some state; Sciolto, in which he rendered the stern paternal principle sublime; Mirabel, in which he was to be altogether distanced by his brother, Charles; and Romeo, in which he never approached the height of Barry. On his first revival of "Henry VIII.," he left Bensley in possession of his old part, Wolsey, and for the sake, it is said, of giving a "duteous and intelligent observance" to his sister in the heavier scenes, doubled the parts of Cromwell and Griffith, in his own person. His great Wolsey triumph was a glory of a later time; so was the triumph of his Coriolanus, – not yet matured; but in which he was not only never surpassed, but never equalled. His first season as manager was a decided success, as regards the acting of himself and sister, and also the novelties produced.
His second was marked by some revivals, such as "Henry V." and the "Tempest," and adaptations of the "False Friend" of Vanbrugh, and the "Rover" of Aphra Behn. In the first piece, in which Kemble played the King better than he did his other Kings, – Richard and John, he made a fine point in starting up from prayer and expression of penitence, at the sound of the trumpet. In lighter pieces he was less successful. His Don John, the Libertine, was as far beyond his powers as were the songs of Cœur-de-Lion in Burgoyne's pretty recasting of "Sedaine". How he cared to attempt such a feat as the last is inexplicable – but did not droll little Quick, George III.'s favourite actor, and almost personal friend, once play the Hunchback Richard? and did not Kemble play Charles Surface? and also take as a compliment Sheridan's assurance that he had "entirely executed his design?"
Nevertheless fortune attended the Kemble management, although George III.'s especial patronage was bestowed on the rival house. It had its perils, and once brought him to a duello with James Aikin, a spirited actor, who had caused the destruction of the Edinburgh Theatre through his refusal to beg pardon of the audience on his knees. His only offence was in having succeeded a favourite, but discharged actor, named Stayley. In this duel, fought in Marylebone Fields, with Jack Bannister as sole second to both combatants, Aikin's fire was not returned by his manager, and the adversaries were soon reconciled.
With a short interval John Kemble was manager of Drury Lane till 1801.69 In the following year he went abroad, the affairs of Drury having fallen into confusion; and in 1803, having purchased a sixth share of Covent Garden, he succeeded Lewis in the management of that theatre, and remained there till his retirement in 1817, at the close of the season in which Mr. Macready made his first appearance in London, as Orestes; and Lucius Junius Booth, as Richard, flashed promise for a moment and straightway died out.
With Kemble's departure from Drury Lane closes the first part of his career. He had begun it with £5 per week, and ended it with a weekly salary strangely reckoned of £56, 14s. He had borne himself well throughout. He had a lofty scorn of anonymous assailants; was solemn enough in his manners not to give a guinea, for drink, to the theatrical guard, without stupendous phrases; but he could stoop to "knuckle down" at marbles with young players on the highway; and to utter jokes to them with a Cervantic sort of gravity.
He addressed noisy and unappreciative audiences with such neat satire that they thought he was apologising, when he was really exposing their stupidity. I do not know if he were generous in criticism of his fellow actors; he said of Cooke's Sir Pertinax, that comedy had nothing like it. This had been called "liberal;" but it looks to me satirical; and he certainly never praised Cooke's tragedy. The utmost, indeed, he ever said of Kean was, that "the gentleman was terribly in earnest." On the other hand, his own worshippers nearly choked him with incense. Boaden may not have been far wrong when he said that Kemble was at the head of the Academics, but he certainly was so in describing Cooke as merely at the head of the vulgar; and he approached blasphemy when he tells us that Kemble's features and figure as the Monk in "Aurelio and Miranda" reminded him, and could only be compared with, those of One, to name Whom would be irreverent!
Kemble's secret of success lay in his indefatigable assiduity. In studying the part of the Stranger he neglected for weeks, that for which he was particularly distinguished, – neatness of costume. Whatever the part he had to play, he acted it as if it were the most important in the piece; and, like Betterton, Booth, Quin, Barry, and Garrick, he made his impersonation of the Ghost70 as distinct a piece of art as Hamlet, when that character fell to him, in its turn. Even in Earl Percy, in the "Castle Spectre," an inferior character, he took such pains as nearly to break his neck, and in the scene of the attempted escape, fell back, from the high window to which he had climbed, to the sofa below, from which he had painfully ascended, with the agility and precision of a harlequin.
Rolla would have seemed to me unworthy of him, but that I remember Pitt, on seeing him in that character, said, "there is the noblest actor I ever beheld!" Sheridan had almost despaired of Kemble's success in Rolla; but Kemble felt that everything was in his favour, and gave all his own admiration to his sister, who, in Elvira, rendered so picturesque "a soldier's trull."
I have heard eyewitnesses describe his Octavian, not as a heart-rending, but a heart-dissolving display, the feelings of the spectators being all expressed by tears; and yet he could win a laugh from the same spectators in Young Marlow, and shake their very hearts again in that mournful Penruddock, his finest effort in comedy; but in comedy full of tragic echoes.
Next to Penruddock, Boaden classes his Manly, for perfection; I have heard that parts of his Lord Townly surpassed them both. There the dignity and gravity were of a quality quite natural to him.
In Henry V. he was so much the King that an earl, Guilford, wrote an essay by way of eulogy on it; and his Hotspur had but one fault, that of being incorrectly dressed. In Roman parts, and in the Roman costume, he seemed native and to the manner born. His Coriolanus and Hamlet are the characters the most associated with his name. Nevertheless, I do not discern any great respect, on Kemble's part, for Shakspeare, in his revival of Coriolanus or of any other of the plays of the national poet. The revival of Coriolanus was a mixture of Thomson and Shakspeare's tragedies, with five of the best scenes in the latter omitted, and what was judicious in the former, marred. I cannot help thinking that Kemble had only that sort of regard for Shakspeare which people have for the picturesque, who tear away ivy from a church tower in order to whitewash its walls.
Then, again, in that matter of Ireland's forgery of "Vortigern," as Shakspeare's, it is not clear what opinion Kemble held of it previous to the night of its performance. Mrs. Siddons declined to play Edmunda; but Kemble's consenting, or rather resolving, to play the principal character in the tragedy, would seem to indicate that, at the best, he had no opinion, and was willing to leave the verdict to be pronounced by the public. I take from a communication to Notes and Queries, by an eyewitness, an account of what took place on that eventful night when an alleged new piece, by William Shakspeare, was presented to the judgment of a public tribunal.
"The representation of Ireland's tragedy took place on Saturday, April 2, 1796. Being one of those who were fortunate in gaining admittance and a seat on the second row in the pit, I am anxious, while my life is spared, to state what I saw and heard on this memorable occasion. The crowd and the rush for admittance were almost unprecedented. I do not think that twenty females were in the pit, such was the eagerness of gentlemen to gain admittance. Mr. Ireland's father, I remember, sat in the front box on the lower tier, with some friends around him. His son was behind the scenes. There was little or no disapprobation apparently shown by the audience until the commencement of the fifth act, when Mr. Kemble, it was probable, thought the deception had gone on long enough." Such, I think, was Ireland's own opinion; for in his Confessions, published in 1805, I find the following account of the disapproval of the audience given by himself.
"The conduct of Mr. Kemble was too obvious to the whole audience to need much comment. I must, however, remark, that the particular line on which Mr. Kemble laid such a peculiar stress was, in my humble opinion, the watchword agreed upon by the Malone faction for the general howl. The speech alluded to ran as follows; the line in italics being that so particularly noticed by Mr. Kemble: —
"'Time was, alas! I needed not this spur.
But here's a secret and a stinging thorn,
That wounds my troubled nerves. O Conscience! Conscience!
When thou didst cry, I strove to stop thy mouth,
By boldly thrusting on thee dire Ambition:
Then did I think myself, indeed, a god!
But I was sore deceived; for as I pass'd,
And traversed in proud triumph the Basse-court,
There I saw death, clad in most hideous colours:
A sight it was, that did appal my soul;
Yea, curdled thick this mass of blood within me.
Full fifty breathless bodies struck my sight;
And some, with gaping mouths, did seem to mock me;
While others, smiling in cold death itself,
Scoffingly bade me look on that, which soon
Would wrench from off my brow this sacred crown,
And make me, too, a subject like themselves:
Subject! to whom? To thee, O sovereign Death!
Who hast for thy domain this world immense:
Churchyards and charnel-houses are thy haunts,
And hospitals thy sumptuous palaces;
And, when thou wouldst be merry, thou dost choose
The gaudy chamber of a dying king.
O! then thou dost ope wide thy bony jaws,
And, with rude laughter and fantastic tricks,
Thou clapp'st thy rattling fingers to thy sides:
And when this solemn mockery is o'er,
With icy hand thou tak'st him by the feet,
And upward so; till thou dost reach the heart,
And wrap him in the cloak of 'lasting night.'
"No sooner was the above line uttered in the most sepulchral tone of voice possible, and accompanied with that peculiar emphasis which, on a subsequent occasion, so justly rendered Mr. Kemble the object of criticism (viz., on the first representation of Mr. Colman's 'Iron Chest'), than the most discordant howl echoed from the pit that ever assailed the organs of hearing. After the lapse of ten minutes the clamour subsided, when Mr. Kemble, having again obtained a hearing, instead of proceeding with the speech at the ensuing line, very politely, and in order to amuse the audience still more, redelivered the very line above quoted with even more solemn grimace than he had in the first instance displayed."
During John Kemble's fourteen years' connection with Covent Garden, he created no new character that added to his fame, except, perhaps, Reuben Glenroy, in Morton's "Town and Country." His other original parts were in poor pieces, more or less forgotten. In old characters which he assumed for the first time during his proprietorship in Covent Garden, the most successful was Gloucester, in "Jane Shore," to which he gave a force and prominency which it had never previously received. His Prospero was a marvel of dignity and beautiful elocution, and his Brutus perfect in conception and execution. Of other parts his Pierre was good, but his Iago was below the level of more than one fellow-actor; his Eustace de St. Pierre was, perhaps, as fine as Bensley's, but his Valentine, in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," could have been better played, even then, by his brother Charles.
In judgment, he sometimes erred as Garrick did. He peremptorily rejected Tobin's "Honeymoon," which, with Elliston as the Duke Aranza and Miss Duncan as Juliana, became one of the most popular comedies of the day. He acknowledged his mistake; and he was as ready to acknowledge the sources of some of his best inspirations. His Wolsey, for instance, was one of his finest parts, but he confessed that his idea of the Cardinal was taken from West Digges. He was sensitive enough as to public criticism, and when about to try Charles Surface, he wrote to Topham, "I hope you will have the goodness to give orders to your people to speak favourably of the Charles, as more depends on that than you can possibly be aware of." The act was facetiously characterised as "Charles's Martyrdom," rather than "Charles's Restoration," and Kemble himself used to tell a story how, when offering to make reparation to a gentleman, for some offence, committed "after dinner," the gentleman answered that a promise on Mr. Kemble's part never to play Charles Surface again, would be considered ample satisfaction. Wine is said to have always made Kemble dull, but not offensive. Naturally dull he was not, though he was styled so by people who would have called Torrismond dull, because he said, "Nor can I think; or I am lost in thought!" Kemble was lively enough to make a good repartee, when occasion offered. He was once rehearsing the song in "Cœur-de-Lion," – which he used to sing to the blaring accompaniment of French horns, that his voice might be the less audible, – when Shaw, the leader, exclaimed, "Mr. Kemble, Mr. Kemble, you really murder the time!" "Mr. Shaw," rejoined the actor, taking coolly a pinch of snuff, "it is better to murder Time than to be always beating him, as you are."
He bore misfortune manfully. When Covent Garden, Rich's old house, with the royal arms in the centre of the curtain, which had hung on the old curtain at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was burnt down after the performance of "Pizarro," on the night of the 19th of September 1808, he was "not much moved," though, in the fire, perished a large amount of valuable property. Mrs. Kemble mourned over the supposed fact that they had to begin life again, but Kemble, after long silence, burst into a rhapsody over the ancient edifice, and straightway addressed himself to the rearing of that new building which has since gone the way of most theatres. In the completion of that second playhouse on this spot, he was nobly aided by his patron, the Duke of Northumberland, who lent him £10,000, and at the dinner by which the opening was celebrated, sent the actor his bond, that he might, as a crowning effect, commit it to the flames. It was a princely act, and he who was thought worthy of being the object of it, must have been emphatically a gentleman.
In earlier days, Kemble was accustomed to be with the first of gentlemen. One of the finest of the few left makes some record of him. Walpole notices Kemble twice; and we find that he held him superior to Garrick in Benedick, and to Quin in Maskwell. In September 1789, Walpole writes from Strawberry Hill to the Miss Berrys: "Kemble, and Lysons the clergyman, passed all Wednesday here, with me. The former is melting the three parts of 'Henry VI.' into one piece. I doubt it will be difficult to make a tolerable play out of them." The only other notice is dated April 1791; when the writer says to Miss Berry: "Apropos to Catherine and Petruchio, I supped with their representatives, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, t'other night, at Miss Farren's …" at the bow-window house in Green Street, Grosvenor Square. "Mrs. Siddons is leaner, but looks well. She has played Jane Shore and Desdemona, and is to play in the 'Gamester,' all the parts she will act this year. Kemble, they say, shone in Othello."
Othello was one of Kemble's effective, yet not his most successful character; but his figure was well formed for it. He bore drapery with infinite grace, and expressed every feeling well, by voice, feature, and glance of the eye – though in the first, as with his brother Charles, lay his chief defect. It wanted strength. We are accustomed, perhaps, to associate him most with Hamlet, and old playgoers have told me of a grand delivery of the soliloquies; a mingled romance and philosophy in the whole character; an eloquent bye-play, a sweet reverence for his father, a remembrance of the prince, with whatever companion he might be for the moment, of a beautiful filial affection for his mother, and of one more tender which he could not conceal for Ophelia. When Kemble first appeared in Hamlet, the town could not say that Henderson was excelled, but many confessed that he was equalled. That confession stirred no ill-blood between them. "I never had an opportunity," said Kemble, later, "to study any actor better than myself, except Mr. Henderson."
Of the grandeur and sublimity of the passion-tossed Orestes he gave so complete a picture that it was said – by that single character alone he might have reaped immortal fame.
