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elocution. Mrs. Rowbotham played Ophelia sufficiently good; but her hair looked like a Lord Chancellor's wig without powder. Roberts was not so irresistibly droll as Blisset, but quite natural. Faulker is the best Polonius we ever had here.

Colly Cibber took exceptions to the long pauses of both Mr. and Miss Fanny Kemble. But the young lady used to occupy such intervals with appropriate expression or action, that forcibly appealed to the mind. Her father was not so happy in his silence. This reminds us of an anecdote: John P. Kemble was noted for pauses. In a conversation with manager R. B. Sheridan, Kemble expressed a wish for some novelty at Drury Lane. Sheridan replied, "Kemble, play Hamlet, and have music set between your pauses." Charles' Hamlet was a transcript of his brother's, without the latter's genius.

October 11th, the Ravels' benefit. This corps was now very attractive. They performed during the "off-nights" of the Kembles' engagement.

October 12th, Miss Fanny Kemble made her first appearance her in Milman's tragedy of "Fazio." Geraldi Fazio, Mr. Wood; Duke of Florence, Rowbotham; Bartolo, Maywood; Bianca, Miss Fanny Kemble; Marchesa Aldebella, Mrs. Maywood. The house was crowded with our fashion and beauty, even to the back seats of the second tier. In the front forms of the pit were seated the critical elite of our city's professional intellect, both old and young, impatiently awaiting the appearance of the celebrated Fanny Kemble, whose extraordinary powers of intellect and genius had just revived the decayed drama of England, and restored the lost image of a Siddons to the London audience in the person of her own niece.

During the first act of "Fazio" a breathless silence pervaded the entire audience. Miss Kemble came in as a lady would enter into her own parlor, with quiet elegance and polish to receive her guests. The manner was novel, for the conventionalisms of the stage were entirely absent. Her stature was short, but she was symmetrically formed, well rounded in graceful contour, having the ample chest and muscular development so characteristic of the English women, no doubt the result of calisthenic exercises, rigidly adhered to in their female educational institutions. Her face reminded us of Harlowe's portrait of Mrs. Siddons, in Queen Katharine, in "Henry Eighth," where she exclaims, "Lord Cardinal, to you I speak!" and also the same artist's painting of Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth, act 5, scene 2, "Out, damned spot!" The likeness was most striking. We cannot say that we saw the same regularity of Grecian features; but there was the dark gushing aspect of the Italian female that at once, although in repose, spoke the passions of the Italian wife she was about to depict. When the progress of the scene brought out the passions of the soul in all their various moods, the fearful energy with which she depicted the emotions of jealousy and rage were intense to a degree that the audience did not anticipate. In her first quiet scenes all was hushed as death. "Silence was pleased." It was only at each approaching climax, and the final consummation, that the feelings of the excited audience broke forth in ecstasies. Her countenance was admirably expressive. She had a flashing black eye; her voice was sweet and musical, well attuned by elocutionary rules; her action was the echo of her thought and feeling, but seldom used. It is said "Racine brought order, precision, purity of language, elegance, tenderness and pathos, into the national drama." It was these intellectual qualities, based on Nature and its harmonies eternal, that gave birth to Miss Fanny Kemble's school of acting; for she originated a school with her powerful genius. The tone and tendency of Miss Kemble's mind are of the masculine, both in her acting and her very able literary productions, abounding in strength and originality of thought.

Whether we contemplate Miss Kemble in the elevated sublimities of heroic verse, or in the utterance of the attic wit of Beatrice, or in the fashionable elegancies of Lady Townley, we only behold the symbols of Melpomene and Thalia in their classic forms. When shall we see such another actress? Echo answers "Never!" The ideal of the Kemble school was repose blended with command; but Miss Kemble's style was based upon a repose, thrilling the feelings at intervals with the electrical shocks of passion. She had none of the mere pantomime of the art, such as vehemence and impetuosity without passion, nay, withot a semblance of nature. The stage tricks are seen in beating the head and body, clasping of the forehead, violent pulling of the hair, and all those ludicrous mock-heroic actions which are so vividly satirized in the Critic, as the exagerations of tragedy, and which are too often witnessed in a certain class of the profession at the present day. A sound judgment and taste made Miss K. ever true and natural, as if she painted from inspiration. Thus the philosophy of her dramatic studies was drawn from the works of nature, guided by a lofty genius. Her acting was of so elevating a tone that it left over the stage, after her retirement, a moral feeling, a purifying influence, such as no other individual power ever so effectually impressed on the histrion's mind. Not even Cooke's depth of genius in the evil passions, nor Kean's dazzling flashes, nor his fitful bursts of eloquence and pathos, ever wrought such spiritual reformation, or those changes to rational acting, as did the beautiful aesthetic conceptions and illustrations of Fanny Kemble.

We have not space or time to point out those silent -- sometimes felt by some as monotonous -- passages, by which her elocutionary beauties so effectively ascended to the climax, or like a musical crescendo descended to the anti-climax. Many must remember her Mariana, in the Knowles' play of "The Wife" -- that graphic, descriptive speech, that she gave with so much emphatic grace, keeping her eyes cast down to the floor while reciting the lines, at the end of which she would suddenly raise her face to the object addressed with a flashing expression, confirmative of her truth. The effect thus ever thrilled her auditory. Yet all these and similar passages were said with the calmness of a prayer.

In 1829-'30, the Covent Garden Theatre was in a hopeless state of bankruptcy. The doors were closed. The pecuniary interests of the Kemble family were seriously affected by this result, such interests having been long connected with the building. In this dilemma the idea of Miss Fanny Kemble's theatrical trial was suggested. This event took place on the opening of the season, October 5th, 1830, when she made her debut at Covent Garden in "Romeo and Juliet," thus cast: -- Romeo, Abbott; Mercutio, C. Kemble; Juliet, Miss Fanny Kemble, her first appearance on any stage. Her mother, Mrs. Charles Kemble, returned to the stage for that night only, and supported her effort as Lady Capulet. Miss Kemble was so attractive that she enabled the proprietors of Covent Garden to pay off a debt of [British pounds symbol]13,000.

Miss Kemble was born in 1811, and bred at one of the educational convent institutions in France. Her literary abilities were early developed in may fugitive poems. Her tragedy of "Francis the First," which the London Quarterly Review pronounced "one of the most extraordinary works of the present age," was written and acted in London before her coming hither. Whatever opinions may be entertained of her literary labors, it cannot be denied that they are imbued with great originality of thought.

A critic of our city said, speaking of her tragedy, "that it abounded in many beautiful passages of poetry, scattered with a profuse hand through its elegant dialogue, such as would confer honor on the name of a veteran author."

Monday, 14th, Mr. Kemble and Miss Fanny Kemble's second night. "Romeo and Juliet" -- Romeo, Kemble; Mercutio, Wood; Friar Lawrence, Maywood; Paris, Smith; Tibalt, Rowbotham; Juliet, Miss F. Kemble.

This performance produced the largest audience in numbers and fashion since Cooke's great benefit, when all the front and second seats of the upper boxes were taken. Thus said Colly Cibber and the other critics, who agreed with him: "Miss Kemble, in the estimation of an audience when a Siddons might be proud to please, more than justified the encomiums showered upon her in London and New York. She proved herself to be a tragedienne of extraordinary powers and genius, most richly endowed with gifts of nature which no art can supply, and thoroughly instructed in an excellent school. The only faults noted are a peculiar manner which frequently appears like affectation in the eyes of those unaccustomed to it, and those inordinately long pauses which weary the audience, and therefore must be wrong."

Mr. McKewan, of Chestnut Street, now published a lithographic portrait of Miss K., taken from a drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and which he dedicated to her mother.

Oct. 17th, the Kembles' third night. "School for Scandal" -- Charles Surface, C. Kemble; Joseph, Wood; Sir Peter Teazle, (first time,) Rowbotham; Lady Teazle, Miss F. Kemble; Crabtree, Roberts; Sir Benjamin Backbite, Mr. Spencer; Sir Oliver Surface, Faulkner; Trip, Whiting; Mrs. Candour, Mrs. Maywood; Maria, Mrs. Rowbotham; Lady Sneerwell, Mrs. Thayer.

Mr. Murgrave says -- and we quote him again on this subject, as he had seen all the old actors of the English stage in these comedies -- "Miss Kemble's Lady Teazle, though we must say we thought it not perfect, was the most charming, take it all in all, that we ever saw. She was not equal to Mrs. Wood in the tattling coterie, and she was inferior to Mrs. Entwisle in animation. But she excelled both beyond comparison in her conversations with Sir Peter and Joseph, and was so admirable in these that nothing, except respect for our seniors, induces us to suppose it possible that Mrs. Warren could have surpassed her. As to the style in which Lady Teazle should be represented, there exists a difference of opinion, which Sheridan had it come up in his time, would never have undertaken to settle. Miss Kemble did not show the fashionalbe airs that it is said distinguished Miss Farren and Mrs. Abington, but there was no want of delicacy in a single word or action."