"Henderson once requested Palmer 'not to bring him forward in too many parts;' observing that it must be for the manager's interest, as well as his own credit, to have him studied in the parts he was to appear in: he added, 'to learn words, indeed, is no great labour, and to pour them out no very difficult matter; it is done on our stage almost every night, but with what success I leave you to judge--_the generality of performers think it enough to learn the words_; and thence all that vile uniformity which disgraces the theatre.'" This was rather proud criticism, as it referred to his early Bath colleagues; but Henderson's standard of propriety would not allow him to speak otherwise. In his second character in London, Hamlet, he came into more direct contrast with Garrick, whose greatest idolaters found heavy fault in Henderson's young Dane for flinging away his uncle's picture--subsequent to the famous speech in which he compares the portraits of his father and uncle. On a following night he retained the picture in his hand, and the same party ridiculed him, on the ground that if he was right the first night, he must necessarily have been wrong on the second! He was said, too, not to have managed his hat properly on first seeing the Ghost; and similar carpings were made against the new actor, only to hear whose words, "the fair Ophelia!" people went as to the most exquisite music. But what was that to the Garrick faction who pronounced him disqualified, because in the closet scene he did not, in his agitation, upset the chair. "Mr. Garrick, sir, always overthrew the chair." During his short, but brilliant and honourable career, he originated no new character that may be found in any acting play of the present day. I think he was the first actor who, with Sheridan, gave public readings. They filled Freemason's Hall, and their own pockets, by their talents in this way, and Henderson could as easily excite tears by his pathos, as he could stir laughter by a droll way of reciting Johnny Gilpin, which gave wild impetus to the sale of that picturesque narrative. His own temperament, however, was naturally grave, derived from that mother whose occasional melancholy was nearly allied to insanity. Yet he was not without humour, or he could not have played Falstaff with a success only inferior to Quin, nor have founded the Shandean Club in Maiden Lane, nor have written so quaint a pastoral love-song as his Damon and Phyllis. In acting Æsop, he delivered the fables with great significance. The chief characteristic of the part lay in its grim splenetic humour, such as he himself showed when he, the high-spirited pupil of Fournier, had to drive his master when he gave drawing-lessons, and to clean the horse and chaise after reaching home again!