Of John Kemble's brothers, Stephen and Charles, the former was the less celebrated, but he was not without merit. The fame of his sister induced him to leave a chemist's, or an apothecary's counter, for the stage, as, later in life, the reputation of the eldest brother tempted Charles Kemble to abandon an appointment in the Post Office, in order to try his fortune as a player. In these respective trials Stephen was less fortunate than Charles. Born in 1758, on the night his mother played Anne Boleyn, he was by seventeen years the elder of the latter. His theatrical life commenced in Dublin, after an itinerant training; but there John extinguished Stephen; and when, in 1783, he appeared at Covent Garden, as Othello, to the Desdemona of Miss Satchell, afterwards his wife, whatever impression he may have made, Stephen was speedily swept from public favour by the greater merit of John. After subsequently playing old men at the Haymarket, Stephen opened a house in Edinburgh, against Mrs. Esten at the established theatre. The opposition led to, in some sense, a dignified strife. The Duke of Hamilton loved Mrs. Esten, and the Duke of Northumberland was a friend to the Kembles. In the law proceedings which followed, each Duke gave material support to his favourite, and here was the old feud of Douglas and Percy again raging in the north! Ultimately Stephen left Edinburgh with no great amount of luck to boast of, and, after a wandering life, appeared, in 1803,[71] at Drury Lane, as Falstaff, after the delivery by Bannister of a heavy set of jocular verses, making allusion to his obesity, which enabled him to act Falstaff without stuffing! He did not act it ill; but Henderson had not yet faded from the memory of playgoers, and Stephen Kemble could not attain higher rank than a place among the best of the second class of actors. Again he disappeared from the metropolis, but returned, and played a few of the parts to which he was suited, rather by his size than his merits; and in 1818, at Drury Lane, where he assumed the office of manager, opened the season by introducing his son Henry, from Bath, as Romeo. In 1819 he played Orozembo; and "therewith an end." The theatre was then let to Elliston; Henry Kemble sank from Drury to the Coburg,[72] and Stephen withdrawing to a private life, not altogether ill provided, died in 1822. [Illustration: (Charles Kemble)]