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Updated: June 13, 2025
Kemble's judicious precaution of sending us to bed with very moderate wax candle ends; a prudent provision which we contrived to defeat by getting from my cousin, Cecilia Siddons, clandestine alms of fine, long, life-sized candles, placed as mere supernumeraries on the toilet table of a dressing-room adjoining her mother's bedroom, which she never used.
I have heard nothing of my Tragedy, except some silly remarks of Kemble's, to whom a friend showed it; it does not appear to me that there is a shadow of probability that it will be accepted. It gave me no pain, and great pleasure, in finding that it gave me no pain. I had rather hoped than believed that I was possessed of so much philosophical capability.
I remembered those pleasant evenings when he used to read to us in London, hour after hour, until the timepiece warned us to give over. I remembered, too, John Kemble "the great John Kemble," as Lord Guildford used to call him twice or thrice reading to us with Sir T. Lawrence; and the tones of Charles Kemble's voice, and the expression of his face, forcibly reminded me of our departed friend.
Occasionally, there are scenes of bold and stirring interest, just such as might be expected from an actor of Mr. Power's vivid stamp. The storm sketches towards the close of the second volume are even infinitely better than any of John Kemble's shilling waves or Mr. Farley's last scenes.
I see the evening at the Olympic as really itself partaking of that antiquity, even though Still Waters Run Deep, then in its flourishing freshness and as to which I remember my fine old friend Fanny Kemble's mentioning to me in the distant after-time that she had directed Tom Taylor to Charles de Bernard's novel of Un Gendre for the subject of it, passed at the moment for a highly modern "social study."
All these come within the scope of imaginative truth. To illustrate my third head by an example. Tieck criticises John Kemble's dressing for Macbeth in a modern Highland costume, as being ungraceful without any countervailing merit of historical exactness.
Kemble's acting seemed to him too studied and over-labored; he had the disadvantage of a voice lacking rich bass tones. Whatever he did was judiciously conceived and perfectly executed; it satisfied the head, but rarely touched the heart. Only in the part of Zanga was the young critic completely overpowered by his acting, Kemble seemed to have forgotten himself.
We trusted to our acting, not to real monkeys and real dogs to bring us through, and when the acting was Henry Kemble's, it was good enough to rely upon! Charles Coghlan seems to have been consistently unlucky. Yet he was a good actor and a brilliant man.
The introduction of the poet "Clément Marot" is no less happy than judicious; and Miss Kemble gives him a very beautiful speech, addressed to his master "Francis the First," in which the charm that reigns about the presence of a pure woman is so eloquently described, as to have reminded me of the exquisite passage in Comus, although there is not any plagiary in Miss Kemble's speech.
Kemble has been to see me and appealed to me for help to still be on hand if needed. Come, I've had my hour for weakness. I am on the up-grade now. Tell me how far the affair has progressed." "Haven't time, Hobart. Since Mr. Kemble's treatment is so efficacious, I'll continue it. You will be needed, you will indeed, no matter how it all turns out. I won't abandon my drugs, either.
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