his? His presence is an honour, his notice is fame. To be his guest
is a distinction for a day; to be his host is to be illustrious for a
lifetime. Are these things nothing? Ask the noble earl as he sits in his
howdah; ask my lord marquis as he rides forth with a glittering staff.

Did any one, even Mr B. C. himself, ever imagine that Mr Macready
ought to be pensioned after he had played Cardinal Wolsey? Was it
ever proposed, even in Parliament, that Mr Kean should have a retiring
allowance when he had taken off his robes as Henry IV.? These eminent
men were, however, just as real, just as actual, during their brief hour
on the stage, as His Excellency the Viceroy or the "Lord High." They
were there under a precisely similar compact. They had to represent a
state which had no permanence, and a power that had no stability. They
were to utter words which would be ridiculous from their lips to-morrow,
and to assume a port and bearing that must be abandoned when they
retired to change their clothes.

It is one of my very oldest memories as a boy that I dined in company
with Charles Kemble. There was a good deal of talking, and a fair share
of wine-drinking. In the course of the former came the question of the
French Revolution of '30, and the conduct of the French King on that
occasion. Kemble took no part in the discussion; he listened, or seemed
to listen, filled his glass and emptied it, but never spoke. At last,
when each speaker appeared to have said his say, and the subject
approached exhaustion, the great actor, with the solemnity of a judge in
a charge, and with a grand resonance of voice, said: "I'll tell you how
it is, sirs; Charles X. has forfeited a--a--a right good engagement!"
And that was exactly the measure that he and all his tribe took, and are
now taking, of kings and rulers--and let us profit by it. The colonial
king has his "engagement;" it is defined exactly like the actor's. He is
to play certain parts, and for so many nights; he is to strut his hour
in the very finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not
always, of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes
seriously in him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some
impassioned moment or other like that in which I once knew Othello so
far carried away that he flung Iago into the orchestra.

Pension Carlisle, pension Storks, if you will; but be just as well as
generous, and take care that you provide for Paul Bedford