Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, Esq

the lease of which he will also now be enabled to peruse. The inventory will occasionally provoke a smile;the lease will excite his astonishment, at the prodigious growth of the theatrical passion in Dublin. He will see Mr. Barry's theatre let at a rent of 450l. per annum, with two additional payments of 165l. to the subscribers and 1881. ground rent.-As an aid towards which, the government gave 120l. for four plays bespoke within the year.

He may then be told that upon Jones's refusal to come to terms as to the Crow-street house, it has been shut up these four seasons, and is now a mass of ruins; that Mr. Henry Harris, the patentee of Covent Garden Theatre, who is master of the revels in Ireland, obtained a renewal of the patent for 21 years to Jones, which had expired; that he purchased a building intended for the Dublin society in Hawkins-street, which cost 70,000l., the altering and furnishing of which cost him 50,000l. more; and that such theatre is now let by him to Mr. Abbot, for seven years, at a yearly rent of FOUR thouSAND POUNDS, and that the lessee has every reason to expect a very handsome residue, after fully satisfying his landlord! Surely, after such a fact, want of stage encouragement will not be deemed a feature of the Irish capital. The size of the theatre will be known, when I say that it holds 5201., at 5s. for the boxes, and 3s. for the pit.

Nor is this disparity in the furnishng of the ancient and modern stages peculiar to Dublin. The memory of no very aged persons may present, if closely urged, some not very brilliant impressions of the miserable pairs of flats that used to clap together on even the stage trodden by Mr. Garrick; architecture without selection or propriety; a hall, a castle, or a chamber; or a cut wood of which all the verdure seemed to have been washed away. Unquestionably all the truth, all the uniformity, all the splendour and the retinue of the stage came in, but did not die, with Mr. Kemble. He provoked a demand, that will now constantly be made-he

kindled a taste that may rest safely upon his measure for its indulgence, but which I hazard nothing in saying no power but some national calamity will ever extinguish.

To prove with what perfect truth this fame is attributed to Mr. Kemble, and to HIM alone, the reader will find in the present volume Mr. King, upon throwing up the management, to which Mr. Kemble succeeded, using these strong and very significant expressions: "I had not even the liberty to command the cleaning of a coat, or adding, by way of decoration, a yard of copper lace; both of which, it must be allowed, were often much wanted."-p. 228.

It was only necessary for me to show that Mr. Kemble introduced these improvements at Drury Lane; because it necessarily followed that the rival theatre would be compelled into an adoption of similar propriety and splendour.

What remains for me to state in this introduction, is the pride I have in remembering the aid which I have received. I found that Mr. Kemble was indeed beloved by his friends, and that their zeal for his honour led them to anticipate my inquiries. The efforts of my own immediate FRIENDS may be best answered by private acknowledgment; they were made to serve and oblige ME: but there are OTHERS, whom it would defraud, to withdraw from them an expression of thanks, as public as the advantages derived through their kindness to the present work. Such, for instance, as the present Alderman WILSON, of York, and a Dublin correspondent, whose name even is unknown to me-but whose record of Mr. Kemble, in the sister island, was of infinite use in the early period of the Life. As I owe this communication to the gentleman just named, he will be pleased to spare no scanty portion from my full measure of acknowledgment to himself, and honour me by conveying it to his friend. To EDWARD FITZ-SIMONS, Esq. of Sandymount, Dublin, my best thanks are due for the liberality, which imparted to me some most valuable documents relative to Barry's Theatre; and the good

ness which left me to use his bounty at my own discretion.

Although I have long reckoned Mr. Charles Kemble in the number of my private friends, yet, as a public man, it is fit he should be known for that affectionate brother, which Mr. Kemble merited for his heir. He came to me, with infinite candour and solicitude; open to all my inquiries, and communicative even of private correspondence. My late friend's letters to him, upon some interesting events of his life, are, if I mistake not, entitled to general admiration.

To myself the present work has given nothing but pleasure. I wrote it with the best likeness of my ever respected friend before me, and, therefore, as in his presence, describe him as he was.-On some few, a very few points, in the exercise of, I hope, a sound discretion, I have ventured to baffle the search of the malignant. It has sometimes happened to HIM, as to others, to utter, in convivial moments, incorrect opinions of persons and events where I have subsequently found his deliberate and settled opinions in opposition to such transient notions, I have not told that he ever spoke lightly of any one; because I am sure, even the person touched by it could not feel more pain in the attack, than Mr. Kemble did upon mature consideration of its injustice.

Perhaps Cicero, when alluding to his great Roman predecessor, may best exhibit Mr. Kemble; and the following terms need no other change, or modification, than the insertion of the Briton for the Roman actor.

"He was such an ARTIST, as to seem the only one, fit to come upon the stage; yet such a MAN, as to seem the only one unfit, to come upon it at all. He had even more integrity than skill; more veracity than experience; and the whole people knew him to be a better man, than he was an actor; and while he made the first figure on the STAGE for his art, was worthy of the SENATE for his virtue."-Pro. Q. RoSCIO 6. 25.

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