suspected of doing so for he certainly felt his own value, and at all times firmly asserted it. Though the writer of the accusation was that villain ANONYMOUS, Kemble informed the public, rather than his assailant, "that no humiliation degraded his services to those who did him the honour to employ him; and that the power entrusted to him was perfectly satisfactory to his own feelings, and entirely adequate to the liberal encouragement of poets, of performers, and to the conduct of the whole business of the theatre."

As it is usual in such cases, the politicians of the play-house split into parties. The one set looked upon the appointment as the herald of reviving sense; the other, as the devotion of the whole stage to the interests of the house of Kemble. But the truth was, his system of management was precisely that of Garrick, with a greater desire to see strength every where. He thought more of the whole than his great predecessor, whether from modesty or judgment. Garrick, knowing himself to be the Pit diamond, surrounded himself with foil. Kemble, less dazzling, formed a cluster of kindred

value about him. His scheme of management was a good play and farce, well sorted, and strict regularity in every part of the concern. Yet, from the first hour of his management, I can, of my own knowledge, assert, that he did nothing without the permission of Mr. Sheridan.

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CHAPTER VII.

Kemble's management from October 1788-The Panel, for Mrs. Jordan-Beatrice and her gown-Her performance in the Confederacy-Her Rosalind somewhat divides the townWhether the sprightliness or the sensibility should predominate? Perhaps the truer Rosalind, if Shakspeare were to decide-Her Nell, in the Devil to Pay-Moody, in JobsonMrs. Jordan's opinion of her own art-Her aspiration after the fine lady-Mr. Cumberland writes for Mrs. JordanHis comedy of the Impostors, a hurried composition, while writing Calvary-The Farm House, Mrs. Jordan's Country Lass-In the summer of 1789, Edwin engaged her at Richmond-The King's illness, commenced at Cheltenham, when Mrs. Jordan was there-The question of the RegencyDisplay of Burke-His vehement dexterity-King's recovery, sympathy of the Stage-Duel between the Duke of York and Colonel Lennox-The Drawing-room-The Operahouse destroyed by fire-The French Revolution.

THE season of 1788-9 commenced in the usual way, the routine of the last season. Through the whole month of October Mrs. Jordan had very little rest, and performed in both pieces with untiring

zeal and great attraction. Kemble had not been inattentive to her, for he had found time to make a capital addition to her stock of after-pieces, by cutting down a comedy of Bickerstaff's, (taken from Calderon,) and called by him, 'Tis well it's no Worse. Kemble named his farce, however, the Panel, and I believe he was right; for the spectators love to be in the secret, while the actors are in the dark, and really enjoy a trick the more because it is none to them. Whoever heard Mrs. Jordan in Beatrice, reiterating her charge upon Lazarillo, that " he certainly stole her gown," in this farce, had a lesson of comic utterance which he would never either forget or equal. Vanbrugh's Confederacy, also, was to receive a Corinna fully equal to any representative of the character since the year 1705. Her Rosalind, in As You Like it, for her benefit, somewhat divided the town, and the lovers of the sentimental and the humorous were arranged under the standards of Siddons and Jordan. It seemed to me that your mood determined the preference at the time. If we refer ourselves to Shakspeare, who, in all reason, ought to determine on a matter so entirely his own, perhaps Ro

salind ought to excite laughter. She seems a being of such natural sprightliness, that it is hardly an effort for her to put down every thing by her wit. She assumes the style of a saucy forester, and the dress of a boy, forest-born; but the will cannot give the power for the occasion, in the degree she possesses of it-think of such an impromptu, for example, as the costume of a lover-the different paces of time-her dissection of Jaques, and declaration, as it seems, of her real, not assumed, advice: "I had rather have a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me sad, and to travel for it too." Then, again, the broad sally upon the tardy Orlando

"Break an hour's promise in love? he that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him, that Cupid hath clapt him o' th' shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole."

Think too, of the snail, his jointure and his destiny. But the natural buoyancy of Rosalind is incessant, and her wit inexhaustible. She "met the banished Duke, her father, yesterday, and had much