All this is so honorable to him, that I shall soon feel little regret except for the poor beings who perished in the devouring fire. “James Ballantyne—God bless and prosper all the desires and designs of a heart so amiable, a head so sound! prays most fervently his truly affectionate friend, “S. SIDDONS.” “My head is so confused I scarce know what I have written; but you wish’d me to answer your kind letter immediately, therefore excuse all defects.” The result of John Kemble’s thirty years of hard service was swept away in the flames that destroyed Covent Garden. Mr. Heathcote’s loan was still unpaid. Boaden gives us a tragi-comic account of a visit he paid at the Kembles’ house the morning after the fire. Mrs. Kemble loudly expressing her sorrow. Charles Kemble sitting listening, a tragic expression on his naturally melancholy face; John shaving himself before the glass. “Yes,” he said to his visitor in the intervals of this operation, “it has perished—that magnificent theatre! It is gone, with all its treasures of every description; that library, which contained all those immortal productions of our countrymen; that wardrobe; the scenery. Of all this vast treasure, nothing now remains but the arms of England over the entrance of the theatre, and the Roman eagle standing solitary in the market-place.” All differences which were said to have arisen between brother and sister were sunk and forgotten in this crisis. Though she may have smiled at his sententiousness, and snubbed Mrs. Kemble’s loud-voiced expressions of grief, she now gave him efficient help in reconstituting the theatre. The performances of the company were transferred first to the Opera House, and afterwards to the Haymarket Theatre. Between September 12th, 1808, and May 6th, 1809, she acted forty times. The wear and tear of this on a woman of her years—she was now over fifty—must have been great indeed. All seemed to turn to her, to depend on her masculine strength of will and energy. Beside the anxiety of her profession, we find her occupied with the future of her children. Letter after letter could be quoted, showing the affectionate and practical interest she took in their welfare, in spite of the statement circulated, and believed in, that she bargained and haggled with her son Henry as though he were some manager with whom she was doing business. She wrote on November 26th, 1808, to Mr. Ingles on the subject of an expedition to Edinburgh, to help her son in his theatrical venture there:—