radeship in art that existed between Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble is one of the pleasantest features in both their lives.
He was educated, as we have seen, principally at the Roman Catholic College at Douay, where he became remarkable for his elocution, every now and then astonishing his masters and schoolfellows by delivering speeches in scholastic Latin, and learning with the greatest facility books of Homer and odes of Horace. We are told that his noble cast of countenance, his deep melodious voice, and the dignity of his delivery, impressed his comrades considerably; especially in the scene between Brutus and Cassius, which he got up for their benefit. It is a curious proof of his want of facility that, although he was extremely fond of the study of language, grammar being all his life his favourite light reading, he never was able to master any language but his own. He read Italian, Spanish, and French, but spoke none of them, in spite of his education in France and his long residence later at Lausanne. He had no ear, and it never could have been an easy task to him to learn the rhythm of Shakespeare. We know the story of old Shaw, conductor of the Covent Garden orchestra, who vainly endeavoured to teach him the song in the piece of Richard Cœur de Lion, "O Richard—O mon roi!" "Mr. Kemble, Mr. Kemble, you are murdering the time, Sir!" cried the exasperated musician; on which Kemble made one of the few jokes ever perpetrated by him: "Very well, Sir, and you are for ever beating it."
After six years' residence at Douay he made up his mind that he was not suited to the church, and left for England, determined to follow his father's profession. He landed at Bristol in that very December,
