not irrevelant to my subject; and the acting of Mr. Kemble always invited to the closest study of the excellences of Shakspeare.

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I had nearly omitted to mention, that in the wardrobe of a company contemporary with Shakspeare's, was "a robe for to go invisible."

Having incidentally mentioned Mr. Garrick's strange alteration of the play of Hamlet, it may not be here improper to add some account of it. In my youth I remember to have seen it acted, and for many years afterwards I could not get the smallest information, whether any copy was preserved of this unlucky compliment to Voltaire. A strange story was in circulation formerly, that it had been buried with the great actor: this, however, it was said, was not upon the humane principle, that a man's faults should die with him, but as a sort of consecration of so critical a labour.

But Mr. Kemble had in his library what I believe to have been the very copy of the play, upon which Mr. Garrick's alterations were made. He probably received it as a curiosity from Mrs. Garrick, who, I remember, presented to him the cane with which Mr. Garrick walked abroad, and which, as an accession to his vast collection of reliques of that great actor, Mr. Kemble properly bestowed upon Charles Matthews.

He cut out the voyage to England, and the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "who had made love to his employment, and marshalled his way to knavery." He omitted the funeral of Ophelia, and all the wisdom of the prince, and the rude jocularity of the grave-diggers. Hamlet bursts in upon the king and his court, and Laertes reproaches him with his father's and his sister's deaths. The exasperation of both is at its height, when the king interposes; he had commanded Hamlet to depart for England, and declares that he will no longer bear this rebellious conduct, but that his wrath shall at length fall heavy upon the prince. "First," exclaims Hamlet, "feel you mine:" and he instantly stabs him. The queen rushes out imploring the attendants to save her from her son. Laertes, seeing treason and murder before him, attacks Hamlet to revenge his father, his sister, and his king. He wounds Hamlet mortally, and Horatio is on the point of making Laertes accompany him to the shades, when the prince commands him to desist, assuring him that it was the hand of Heaven, which administered by Laertes "that precious balm for all his wounds." We then learn that the miserable mother had dropt in a trance ere she could reach her chamber-door, and Hamlet implores for her " an hour of

penitence ere madness ends her." He then joins the hadns of Laertes and Horatio, and commands them to unite their virtues (as a coalition of ministers) to "calm the troubled land." The old couplet, as to the bodies, concludes the play. All this is written in a mean and trashy common-place manner, and, in a word, sullied the page of Shakspeare, and disgraced the taste and judgment of Mr. Garrick.

There are upon this copy of Hamlet evidences of some unpardonable liberties taken by another great actor, Mr. Betterton. The play itself was printed in 1703, and the passages omitted in the representation were denoted by inverted commas. After all the elaborate description of Betterton's address to the ghost, this is the way in which that address is exhibited as spoken on the stage:

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

What may this mean,

That thou dead corse again in complete steel," &c.

All the solemn gradations by which Hamlet adjures the spirit, (so dear to an actor, who can discriminate,) were omitted. He employs no terrible or soothing terms he treats him with neither ceremony nor affection, but after having commended himself to the care of angelic guards, at once asks the apparent shade of his father what he means by disturbing them? And it now occurs to me, that what Cibber complained of, that some Hamlets absolutely bullied the ghost, could only have proceeded from this brutal omission of the very lines, that would have taught them how to approach so awful and mysterious a being.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!—

(A consirable pause.)

"Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,-
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,-

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,

That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee, Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,

Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements? why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interr'd,*

Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,

To cast thee up again? What may this mean?" &c.

• Interr'd with the quarto-not inurn'd with the folio; a term unsuited

to a body not reduced to ashes.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Kemble's range of parts at this period very limited.The Black Prince.--His sister, Miss E. Kemble.-Mrs. Siddons and her amazing exertions.-Her original appearance in 1775.-Mr. Siddons.-The published acknowledg ment of the great actress.-Johnstone in Irish characters. The Yates's.-Whimsical letter of Yates on newspaper hints. Return of Mrs. Crawford. Compared with Mrs. Siddons. Mr. Kemble in Richard III-Sir Giles Overreach.-King John.--The Critics.-Mr. Kemble's scene with Hubert.--Mrs. Siddons in Constance. Her majestic sorrows.--Beverly.--The other theatre.-Massinger's picture.-More Ways than One.-Poor Soldier.--State of our Theatres.--Mrs. Siddons in Lady Randolph.-Its beau

ties.

MR. Kemble repeated his Hamlet on the 2d, 4th, 6th, 13th, and, 28th of October.

There was something remarkable in the management of that period, and which would have materially injured any actor but himself. I mean he was expected to keep his ground in tragedy, alone, against the amazing attraction of his sister, Mrs. Siddons. On the 8th of October she commenced her performances, that season, with the character of Isabella, by royal command. The regulations of the theatre did not allow Mr. Kemble to dispossess any actor of his accustomed parts. He was not permitted to strengthen either himself or his sister by acting with her. In Isabella the Biron was Smith, who retained also the Osmyn in the Mourning Bride. The Horatio and Lothario of the Fair Penitent were preoccupied, and Mr. Brereton and Mr. Bensley were the Jaffier and Pierre of Venice Preserved. In Jane Shore, Hastings and Dumont were equally and inalienably appropriated. And even on the Sd of November, when Isabella in Measure for Measure was performed by Mrs. Siddons, the Duke was acted by Mr. Smith, and nothing whatever was yielded to Mr. Kemble, on the ground either of his genius or the supposed influence of his sister.

He was therefore compelled to take his position upon some ❝removed ground," and got up Shirley's Edward the Black

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Prince, which had sunk under Garrick; and the wits of the time called the revival a miracle,-the resurrection of the dead. They allowed him the aid of one sister, Miss E. Kemble, a lady of a beautiful figure and very expressive face; but, like Miss F. Kemble (the late Mrs. Twiss), doomed to fade away, before the amazing brilliancy of Mrs. Siddons. They, however, sustained the poet's severest test, to which female beauty and talent could be subjected.

"O blest with temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;
She who can love a sister's charms, and hear
A sister's praises with unwounded ear."

The Hamlet, notwithstanding, kept its ground, thus thwarted and opposed. It became so clear and undeniable a proof of rare and genuine talent, that Mr. Harris, the ablest of generals, started Henderson's as a rival attraction; and the two greatest actors of their day were drawn into a competition, highly enjoyed by the town, and productive of much dispute, some research, and criticism sometimes vague, and sometimes partial and even blind.

It was a common thing to style the one all nature, and the other all art. To be sure, this was done with strict reciprocity; for two epigrams, I remember, appeared on the same day, addressed to the two Hamlets;-the writers agreeing in the attributes, only bestowing them upon different persons. I cannot be certain that the same muse did not, in this manner, pay court to each of the rivals.

On the first night Mr. Kemble had omitted the instructions to the Players, upon the modest principle, that he must first be admitted a master in the faculty, before he presumed to censure the faults of others.

"Let such teach others, who themselves excel,
And censure freely, who have ACTED well."

He restored them afterwards, and gave the lesson very divertingly,-"Some of Nature's journeymen," with an arch smile; and becoming graver as he followed it by "they imitated humanity so abominably."

In the quarrel at the grave, with Laertes, he was at first thought rather too quiet; but he worked it up by degrees to a "towering passion," and finally converted the Ossa of Mr. Barrymore into a mere wart, by throwing his millions of acres against the burning zone. Of rants, mere intended rants, this is one of the best going, and an especial favourite with the gods of the theatre.

"LAUD we the gods!

And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils."

CYMB.

Wo, at all events, to the refinement that would wish to "govern their roaring throats." They may sometimes burst in thunder upon a moment of exquisite and tender feeling; and it is then hard to preserve a philosophic temperament. But nothing can to the actor compensate the cheer of their honest unrestrained applause.

I am now more immediately to notice the progress of Mrs. Siddons herself. From the 10th of October, 1782, to the 5th of June, 1783, is a period of 239 days. If we take away the Sundays and those of lenten entertainment, there will remain not quite 190 nights of dramatic performance. The amazing strength, as well as ardour, of this great actress, carried her through eighty nights of characters exceedingly trying to her feelings and her constitution. She had repeated,

Her salary at this theatre was at first put greatly below her value; but she looked to a benefit for a larger supply. It was a night free from all charges, and her receipts were said to amount to upwards of 8007. The size of the theatre then may be conceived, when I state that it had never before held more than 3007. and numerically reckoning the audience at common prices, there was on that night 330%. It was the 14th December, 1782; the play was Venice Preserved, and she acted Belvidera.

Nor was this all, for on the 18th March following she had a second benefit, when she performed the character of Zara in the Mourning Bride. Very considerable presents were made her, accompanied by suitable expressions of admiration from persons of rank and talent. Buckingham House had not been wanting in those distinctions which majesty can confer, for Mrs. Siddons was appointed reading preceptress to the young princesses, by her majesty's express command. However, it became apparent that her health could not sustain any long continuance of such prodigious efforts as she had made during her first season. She frequently fainted