Macklin said of him that the young man had learned a great deal; but what remained for him was to unlearn much of it, in order that he might learn to be an actor. In this oracular manner there was more kindness than Hendersor met with from Foote, previous to his first season in London, and of which Genest has compiled this account :

"Henderson, accompanied by two friends, waited on Foote, and was received with great civility. Foote's imagination was so lively, his conceptions were so rapid as well as so exuberant, that by a torrent of wit, humor, pleasantry, and satire, he kept the company for a considerable time in convulsions of laughter; however, Henderson's friends thought it, at last, time to stop the current of Foote's vivacities, by informing him of the reason of their visit, and Henderson was permitted to begin a speech in 'Hamlet;' but before he could finish it, Foote continually interrupted him by some unlucky joke or droll thought. At the conclusion Henderson was, without interruption, allowed to speak Garrick's prologue on his return from the continent. This being no caricature, but a fair representation of Garrick's manner, not make any impression on Foote; however, he paid the speaker a compliment on the goodness of his earr-dinner was now announced, and when Henderson took his leave, Foote whispered one of the company, he would not do.

did

"Henderson once requested Palmer 'not to bring him forward in too many parts;' observing that it must be for the manager's interest, as well as his own credit, to have him studied in the parts he was to appear in: he added, 'to learn words, indeed, is no great labor, and to pour them out no very difficult matter; it is done on our stage almost every night, but with what success I leave you to judge-the generality of performers think it enough to learn the words; and thence all that vile uniformity which disgraces the theatre.’ This was rather proud criticism, as it referred to his early Bath colleagues; but Henderson's standard of propriety would not allow him to speak otherwise.

In his second character in London, Hamlet, he came into more direct contrast with Garrick, whose greatest idolaters found heavy fault in Henderson's young Dane for flinging away his uncle's picture, subsequent to the famous speech in which he compares

the portraits of his father and uncle. On the following night, he retained the picture in his hand, and the same party ridiculed him, on the ground that if he was right the first night, he must neces sarily have been wrong on the second! He was said, too, not to have managed his hat properly on first seeing the Ghost; and similar carpings were made against the new actor, only to hear whose words, "the fair Ophelia!" people went, as to the most exquisite music. But what was that to the Garrick faction who pronounced him disqualified, because in the closet scene he did not, in his agitation, upset the chair. "Mr. Garrick, sir, always overthrew the chair."

During his short, but brilliant and honorable career, he orinated no new character that may be found in any acting play of the present day. I think he was the first actor who, with Sheridan, gave public readings. They filled Freemason's Hall, and their own pockets, by their talents in this way, and Henderson could as easily excite tears by his pathos, as he could stir laughter by a droll way of reciting Johnny Gilpin, which gave wild impetus to the sale of that picturesque narrative.

His own temperament, however, was naturally grave, derived from that mother whose occasional melancholy was nearly allied to insanity. Yet he was not without humor, or he could not have played Falstaff with a success only inferior to Quin, nor have founded the Shandean Club in Maiden Lane, nor have written so quaint a pastoral love-song as his Damon and Phyllis. In acting Æsop, he delivered the fables with great significance. The chief characteristic of the part lay in its grim splenetic humor, such as he himself showed when he, the high-spirited pupil of Fournier, had to drive his master, when he gave drawing-lessons, and to clean the horse and chaise after reaching home again!

He loved praise, honestly owned his love, and worked hard to win public favor. When he was cast for a new character, he read the entire play, learned his own part, read the play again, and troubled himself no more about it, although a fortnight might elapse between the last rehearsal and the first performance. vious to which latter occasion, it was his custom to dine well, and sit at his wine till summoned to rise and go forth. A Garrickworshipper told him he was wrong. Mr. Garrick, on such occa

Pre

sions, shut himself up for the day, and dined lightly. Henderson was the last of the school of Garrick, and once imitated his master in his diet. The result was a cold and vapid performance of Bireno, in the "Law of Lombardy ;" and Henderson registered a vow, to be original and dine generously on like occasions, in future.

Henderson was, in every respect, a gentleman; his social position was as good as that of any gentleman of his time. In Dublın. as in London, he was a welcome guest in the best society, even in that for which the stage had few attractions. Personally, he had natural obstacles to surmount. He was short, not gracefully moulded, lacked intelligent expression of the eye, and had a voice too weak for rage, and not silvery soft enough for love. But he had clear judgment, quick feeling, ready comprehension, and accurate elocution. Cumberland names Shylock, Falstaff, and Sir Giles, as his best characters, but there were portions of others in which he could not be excelled; "in the variety of Shakspeare's soliloquies, where more is meant than meets the ear, he had no equal," and this is high praise, for the difficulty of the task is work for a genius.

Never strong, his poor health failed him early, and on the 8th of November, 1785, he acted for the last time. The part was Horatius, in the "Roman Father." In less than three weeks, and at the early age of thirty-eight, troops of friends escorted the body of the man they had esteemed, to Westminster Abbey,—one more addition to the silent company of the great of all degrees and qualities, from actors to kings. Professionally, Henderson did not die prematurely. Kemble had already been two years at Drury Lane, and the new school of acting was supplanting the old.

Let me add a word of Henderson's brother. He, too, belonged to art, and promised to be a great engraver, but consumption. struck him down early. He was residing, for his health, on the sunny side of a house in then fashionable Hampstead, when death came suddenly upon him. Among the company in the same house was the most beautiful and gayest of gay women,-Kitty Fisher. But, she was true woman, too, and hearing of a lonely stranger menaced with death, she went straightway to tend him, and Henderson's brother died in Kitty's arms.

His readings were attended frequently by Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble nis voice was so flexible that his tones conveyed every phase of meaning. Even his way of reading the words: "They order this matter, said I. better in France," had a world of significance in it, not to be found when uttered by others; and the letter of Mrs. Ford to Falstaff, when he read it on the stage, shook the house with such laughter as was seldom heard, save indeed when he imitated Garrick and Dr. Johnson, the former reciting his ode, and the latter interrupting him by critical objections. I do not wonder that both Munden and John Kemble, who, all their lives, had a longing to play Falstaff, abandoned the idea when they remembered Henderson's excellence.

At the period of Henderson's death, his early prophecy had been fulfilled, with regard to Mrs. Siddons ;-to whose career we will now direct our notice.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SARAH SIDDONS.

On the 13th of June, 1755, when Garrick and Mrs. Cibber, Yates and Mrs. Pritchard, Woodward and Mrs. Clive, were the leaders in the Drury Lane company,-while Barry and Mrs. Bellamy, Ryan and Mrs. Woffington, were among the "chiefs" of Covent Garden, Sarah Kemble was born, the first of twelve children, at a public-house in Brecon, in which town, exactly a score of years later, was born her youngest brother, Charles.

By both parents she belonged to the stage. Her mother's maiden name was Ward. This lady's father had been a respectable actor under Betterton, and was a stroling manager when the hairdresser of the company, a handsome fellow, poor of course, and a Roman Catholic, eloped with and married the manager's daughter. His name was Roger Kembie. He was an actor too; love, at first, had helped to make him a very bad one. Fanny Furnaval, of the Canterbury company, drilled him into the worst Captain Plume that ever danced over the stage; but Mrs. Roger Kemble, a woman who illustrated the truth that beauty is of every age, used in her later days to look at the grand old man, and assert that he was the only gentleman-like Falstaff she had ever seen.

Mr. and Mrs. Kemble were "itinerants" when the first child of their marriage was born,—a child who made her début on the London stage long before her father;-the latter playing, and playing very well, the Miller of Mansfield, at the Haymarket, in 1788, for the benefit of the wife of his second son, Stephen. When Roger carried off Miss Ward, her father with difficulty forgave her, -and only on the ground that she had, at all events, obeyed his injunction, not to marry an actor. "He will never be that," said the old player, of the Betterton era. With which remark, his discontent was exhausted.

Her grandsire acted under Betterton, and Booth; her parents VOL. IL-11