life into very deep potations. On the occasion of Kemble's farewell performance previous to quitting the Edinburgh stage, 23 March 1817, Scott adds: ‘He has made a great reformation in his habits, given up wine, which he used to swallow by pailfuls, and renewed his youth like the eagle.’ In his quarrels with his fellow-performers, male and female, he conducted himself generally with tact and feeling. He was undoubtedly vain and opinionated. Rogers jokingly asserts that Kemble during his stay at Lausanne was jealous of the homage paid to Mont Blanc. The few extant letters to his relatives and to Mrs. Inchbald and others show him at his best.
Portraits of Kemble abound. No fewer than eleven are in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club. Of these the most noteworthy are one by Sir Thomas Lawrence as Cato—Lawrence also painted him in Hamlet and Rolla—a likeness by Sir W. Beechey, one by De Wilde as Penruddock in the ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ and a sketch from recollections of Kemble in Coriolanus by Harlowe. Prints of him as Wolsey, with Mrs. Siddons as Queen Katherine, and as Cato are well known. A poor statue of Kemble as Cato, executed by Hinchcliffe, from a design by Flaxman, was in the north transept of Westminster Abbey until 1865, when, with the concurrence of his niece, Miss Fanny Kemble, it was removed; a bronze medal by Hancock is also in existence. Two cenotaphs in St. Andrew's Chapel in Westminster Abbey commemorate Mrs. Siddons and Kemble.
[The chief authority for the life of Kemble is Boaden's Life, 2 vols. 1825. The Lives of Mrs. Siddons by Boaden and by Thomas Campbell supply further information. A Memoir by John Ambrose Williams was published in 12mo in 1817. Lives in the Secret History of the Green Room, 1795; Oxberry's Dramatic Biography; Tate Wilkinson's Wandering Patentee, 4 vols. 1798, and an Authentic Narrative of Mr. Kemble's Retirement from the Stage, 8vo, 1817, and Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's Lives of the Kembles, 2 vols. 1871, have also been consulted. The Life in the Biographia Dramatica supplies a full list of Kemble's adaptations. The Life of John Philip Kemble, Esq., London (no date) [1809], 8vo, went through two editions. Of Kembliana, a collection of the jeux d'esprit, &c., that were issued respecting King John, a first part only, so far as is known, has appeared. The Covent Garden Journal, 2 vols. 8vo, 1810, by Stockdale, gives a full account of the O. P. riots. Lives appear in the Georgian Era, Celebrities of the Century, in the Biographies Universelles of Dr. Huefer and of Michaud, and in innumerable magazines of the early part of the century. See also Genest's Account of the Stage; Allibone's Dictionary; Boaden's Lives of Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Jordan; Bernard's Retrospections of the Stage; the Journals of Frances Anne Butler (Fanny Kemble); Life of Reynolds; Gilliland's Dramatic Synopsis; Rogers's Table-talk; Clayden's Rogers; Dibdin's Edinburgh Stage; Boswell's Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill; Clark Russell's Representative Actors; Pollock's Reminiscences of Macready; Stanley's Westminster Abbey; Notes and Queries; Alison's Europe; Davies's Dramatic Miscellanies; Wheatley's London, Past and Present; Lockhart's Life of Scott; Scott's Journal, 1891; Theatrical Inquisitor; Monthly Magazine; London Magazine; Theatrical Mirror, v. 7. A long list of works written concerning Kemble and of the tracts connected with the O. P. riots will be found in Mr. Lowe's Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature, under the heads of ‘Kemble, John Philip,’ and ‘Covent Garden Theatre.’]
KEMBLE, MARIA THERESA or MARIE THÉRÈSE (1774–1838), actress, wife of Charles Kemble [q. v.], the daughter of George De Camp, whose real name it has been alleged was De Fleury, was born in Vienna 17 Jan. 1774. She belonged to a family of musicians and dancers. Brought to England, she appeared when six years old at the Opera House as Cupid in a ballet of Noverre. After playing at the age of eight in a theatre directed by M. Le Texier Zélie in a translation of Madame de Genlis's ‘La Colombe’ she was engaged for the Royal Circus, subsequently known as the Surrey Theatre. On the alleged recommendation of the Prince of Wales she was engaged by Colman for the Haymarket, where she appeared in a ballet entitled ‘Jamie's Return.’ She was then secured by King for Drury Lane, where, as Miss De Camp, 24 Oct. 1786, she played Julie, a small part in Burgoyne's ‘Richard Cœur de Lion.’ Her father, who left her in England and returned to Germany, where he died while she was still young, had taught her no English, and the few words she spoke were acquired by imitation. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, according to the ‘Biographia Dramatica,’ were taught her by Viscountess Perceval, and music, Italian, &c., by a Miss Buchanan. At Drury Lane or the Haymarket she played Prince Arthur, Lucinda in ‘Venice Preserved,’ and other juvenile or unimportant parts.
She first caught the public taste 15 Aug. 1792 at the Haymarket, when, in the ‘Beggar's Opera,’ she performed Macheath to the Polly of Bannister and the Lucy of Johnstone, in one of the fantastic experiments of changing the sex of the exponents then in vogue at that theatre. Biddy in ‘Miss in her Teens,’ Adelaide in the ‘Count of Narbonne,’ Gillian in the ‘Quaker,’ and Lucy in the ‘Recruiting Officer’
