“I have at last, my friend, attained the _ten thousand pounds_ which I set my heart upon, and am now perfectly at ease with respect to fortune. I thank God who has enabled me to procure to myself so comfortable an income. I am sure my dear Mrs. Whalley and you will be pleased to hear this from myself. What a thing a balloon would be! but, the deuce take them, I do not find that they are likely to be brought to any good. Good heaven! what delight it would be to see you for a few days only! I have a nice house, and I could contrive to make up a bed. I know you and my dear Mrs. Whalley would accept my sincere endeavours to accommodate you; but don’t let me be taken by surprise, my dear friend, for were I to see you first at the theatre, I can’t answer for what might be the consequence. “I stand some knocks with tolerable firmness, I suppose from habit; but those of joy being so infinitely less frequent, I conceive must be more difficultly sustained. “You will find I have been a niggard of my praise, when you see your Fanny. Oh! my beloved friend, you could not speak to one who understands those anxieties you mention better than I do. Surely it is needless to say no one more ardently prays that God Almighty, in His mercy, will avert the calamity; and surely, surely there is everything to hope for from such dispositions, improved by such an education. My family is well, God be praised! My two sisters are married and happy. Mrs. Twiss will present us with a new relation towards February. At Christmas I bring my dear girls from Miss Eames, or rather she brings them to me. Eliza is the most entertaining creature in the world; Sally is vastly clever; Maria and George are beautiful; and Harry, a boy with very good parts, but not disposed to learning.” In spite of her statement that once she had made ten thousand pounds she would rest contented, we find her for the two next years working without intermission, going from York to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Liverpool. In 1788 Kemble succeeded King as manager of Drury Lane, and his sister returned to assist, first of all in his spectacular revival of _Macbeth_, in which, among other innovations, he brought in the black, grey, and white spirits, as bands of little boys. One of these imps was insubordinate, and was sent away in disgrace; his name was “Edmund Kean.” They then acted _Henry VIII._ together, Kemble contenting himself with “doubling” the characters of Cromwell and Griffith, Bensley having already possession of the part of Wolsey. The representation was a success in every way, and Mrs. Siddons’s Queen Katherine was henceforth ranked as equal to her Lady Macbeth. On the 7th February following she played for the first time Volumnia to her brother’s Coriolanus. An eye-witness tells us:—