that philosopher superior to all competition. We were speaking of the Ethics and the Art of Poetry; and the conversation arose out of an examination he had been making of the admired translation of the latter by Mr. Twining. Our poetic versions of the Greek tragedians were not close enough to satisfy him.

He pointed in his library to a voluminous work of Alban Butler's, "The Lives of the Saints," which he told me he once knew thoroughly, whatever might be his present studies; and that the writings of the fathers of the church were familiar to him. He evidently, at that time, studied for divinity. But, amid the classical or sacred pursuits of his college, he kept up an ardent love for the literature of his country; and, as a reciter from our great poets, he had, at Douay, the reputation which through life he constantly maintained, of being one of the most harmonious speakers of English versification.

I once heard, from unquestionable authority, a pleasing trait of Kemble's mind, during his residence at Douay. His class, for some indiscretions, had fallen under severe censure of the masters; and with a view to vicarious atonement, an imposition was proposed of two books of Homer, to be gotten by heart. Kemble modestly, but immediately, volunteered to accept the task; and by close application, and his uncommon memory, enabled himself to remove the censure, by accurately repeating at least 1500 lines. The gallantry of the act could not but endear him to his class, and acquire for him the esteem and strong attention of the masters.

Of this college, perhaps, my readers may wish some brief account. It originated in the desire formed by certain English exiles to live together in some establishment, in which they might pursue their studies, and also propagate their religious opinions. William Allen, formerly of Oxford, and a dignitary of the church in Queen Mary's reign, in the year 1568, persuaded several persons, educated at both our universities, to unite themselves for this purpose. Morgan Phillips, who had been Provost of Oriel and Allen's tutor, was the first to subscribe for the purchase of a house. Pope Gregory XIII. increased their slender revenues to 15007. a year, a sufficient fund, it was thought, for a community of sixty persons.

They were occasionally, from the troubles excited against them, transferred to Rheims, but returned again at calmer seasons to Douay. The chief management of the concern was in the hands of Dr. Lewis, who had procured very considerable benefactions towards defraying the expenses of

furniture; and, as a mark of honour, he was himself allowed to nominate a president. He appointed Dr. Maurice Church, who was a bishop elect in Mary's time, but that reverend person held the appointment only a single year, when the government of the college was transferred to the jesuits. That learned body built up for Douay, as for every other seat of their residence, a high reputation for learning and discipline, which was, since their superintendance, not suffered to decline.

I am in course disposed to speak in commendation of a college from which Kemble derived such essential benefits; and I know not how to render them superior honour, to that which they acquired by their reply to the three queries put to them in 1789, by the Catholics of England,

They denied that the Pope or the cardinals, or even the church, derived from God any civil authority in the kingdom of England.

They equally denied the mischievous power to absolve the subjects of a temporal prince from their allegiance.

Upon the monstrous doctrine, that no faith was to be kept with Heretics, though under the sanction of an oath, they solemnly declared, that there was no principle in their religion that warranted such a conclusion; that it was the unanimous doctrine of the Catholics, that the respect due to the name of God requires that the oath be inviolably kept, to whomsoever it is pledged, whether Catholic, Heretic, or Infidel. That these are the doctrines constantly taught in their schools, and maintained in their theses.

The document, at length, may be found in Mr. C. Butler's Historical Memoirs of the Catholics, and is dated from Douay, 5th January, 1789. The same excellent writer has given a character of Alban Butler's work, noticed above, which, as much valued by Mr. Kemble, I shall here insert. "The erudition, the beauty of the style, the true spirit of "religion, and the mild and conciliating language, which "pervade the work, edified all its readers; disposed them to "be pleased with a religion in which they saw so much vir"tue; allayed their prejudices against its professors; and "led them to consider the general body with good will."

Mr. Gibbon characterises it thus "A work of merit"the sense and learning belong to the author-his prejudices "are those of his profession."-Decline and Fall.

But the sarcasm of the philosopher was, perhaps, sharpened by the recollection of his own penance as an apostate.

Mr. Gibbon has said, with respect to original bent of the mind to some one pursuit, that HE felt a strong and uncon

querable tendency to become an historian. Mr. Kemble considered himself destined to be an actor. At all times have I heard him testify this preference; and at some, when what he saw in the profession would have led many to regret that they had ever yielded to the temptation.

To England however he came, resolved to make a public appearance upon the stage. With his father's great experience, it is not astonishing that he should be displeased at a determination, which put an end to the more sober wishes he had formed for his advancement. He may be allowed to feel some mortification at his son's choice, for what was then to assure him of the great and lasting eminence which he attained? The son, however, having determined on his course, soon began the practice of his art. His first performance in England was on the 8th January, 1776. He acted the character of Theodosius, in the tragedy so called; and his debut was witnessed by the inhabitants of Wolverhampton. He was never. I think, calculated to make much impression upon an uncultivated assembly. His voice was not remarkably pow erful, and to the graces of refined elocution his audience had not been accustomed.

Our youthful hero was probably attracted to the Force of Love, by the speeches of ardent passion it contains, where Lee is the rival of Otway. All my female readers remember the often-quoted passage in the second act, beginning with this soft effusion :

for I disdain
Far be the noise
whose gentle souls

"No more of this, no more;
All pomp when thou art by.
Of kings and courts from us,
Our kinder stars have steer'd another way."

But the graver critic may consider and compare the following description of night, in the second scene of the fifth act, with that celebrated one by Dryden, and whatever else of the kind English poetry can supply.

Far." "Tis night, dead night, and weary nature lies
So fast, as if she never were to rise:

No breath of wind now whispers thro' the trees;

No noise at land, no murmur in the seas;

Lean wolves forget to bowl at night's pale noon;
No wakeful dogs bark at the silent moon,
Nor bay the ghosts that glide with horror by,

To view the caverns where their bodies lie;

The ravens perch, and no presages give,
Nor to the window of the dying cleave;
The owls forget to scream; no midnight sound
Calls drowsy echo from the hollow ground;
In vaults the walking fires extinguish'd lie;
The stars, heav'n's sentry, wink, and seem to die."

The power of the poet is felt, in these succeeding images of silence, to invade us with a creeping horror, which acquires at length a full possession of the breast, and our nerves are in their infancy again." A nice ear may object to the occurrence of the same rhymes; and the ideas may be deemed too common and appropriated; but the sensible effect of the lines is what I have stated.

The audience of Wolverhampton preferred his Bajazet to his Theodosius.

During this unsettled period of his life, the industry of his biographers has associated with the name of Kemble some of the long established anecdotes of the profession; making one ruffle do double duty, and other simple expedients, attributed to every country actor in succession. Some writers make him pay his landlady, by spinning a top violently over the head of her sick husband-an act of such unfeeling barbarity as no pecuniary distress could extenuate-and this, too, is told of a man who was exemplary for the tender regard he showed to the feelings of others. One writer brings to this stock of common stage properties, a banquet, that Kemble and his travelling companion took the liberty of making, of apples and pears, in a gentleman's orchard near Gloucester. They seem to have borrowed their notions of biography from Master Slender, who, after assuring Mistress Anne Page that he had a FATHER," requests his uncle, Mr. Justice Shallow, to tell Mrs. Anne the jest, how his father "stole two geese out of a pen."

It is moreover told, too, that this period of indolence and sordid distress lasted several years. To be sure, it is at the same time said, that he was born in 1757, came over to England from Douay when he was nineteen, and we find him a steady performer of the York company in 1778. The indolence, too, had produced some dramatic pieces, subsequently played at Liverpool, and York, and Edinburgh; lectures upon oratory, sacred and profane; and we may add, a study of his profession as an actor, which few have ever so deeply made. But every thing must give way to the desire of showing, that the excellence, which now cannot be denied, was once doubtful or unpossessed. Writers would shudder, if some deity were to display to them the malignity they shroud under the veil of narrative impartiality.

But all his time, it seems, was not to pass in indigence or contempt. One of his admirers, probably in recompense for the crude banquet in the orchard, gives him a flight as high as the episcopal palace of Gloucester, and seats him at the table of Bishop Warburton. The genius of that editor of

B

Shakspeare led him to bold experiments upon the text, and to interpretations of mere household words, by which a latent and profound meaning was extracted, that nobody but himself ever suspected to be there. It may be inferred that Warburton, when admiring the new readings of Kemble, was but applauding a kindred taste. He is said to have allayed the fervour of his commendations by a sober admonition to his guest, who is stated to have swallowed at table repeated draughts of ale: "Young man, they who drink ale think "ale." If the readings were acute, the caution had more point than pertinence. But the writer of the anecdote might have found, on a little reflection, that the occurrence was impossible.

In the discourse by his friend Hurd, printed in quarto, 1794, by way of general preface to the bishop's works, at page 108, is the following interesting account of his latter years; and they embrace the only period during which Kemble could have been introduced to Warburton.

"The last years of the bishop's life were clouded with mis"fortune as well as indisposition. He had for some time been "so sensible of his declining health, that he read little and "wrote less. But in the course of the year 1776, the loss of “a favourite son and only child, who died of a consumption "in his eighteenth year, when every hope was springing up "in the breast of a fond parent, to make amends, as it were, "for his want of actual enjoyment.-this sudden affliction, "I say, oppressed him to that degree, as to put an end to his "literary labours, and even amusements, at once. From that "disastrous moment he lived on, indeed, for two or three "years; but when he had settled his affairs, as was proper, "upon this great change in his family, he took no concern in "the ordinary occurrences of life, and grew so indifferent to "eve y thing, that even his books and writings seemed, thenceforth, to be utterly disregarded by him. Not that his me"mory and faculties, though very much impaired, were ever wholly disabled. I saw him so late as October, 1778, "when I went into his diocess to confirm for him. On our "first meeting before his family, he expressed his concern that "I should take that journey, and put myself to so much trou"ble on his account. And, afterwards, he took occasion to "say some pertinent and obliging things, which showed, not "only his usual friendliness of temper, but the command he "had of his attention. Nor was this all. The evening be"fore I left him, he desired the family to withdraw, and then "entered into a confidential discourse with me on some pri"vate affairs which he had much at heart, with as much per

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