ich she had rendered to the company by her performance of "Juliet." It
was not until the 9th of December that she had to change her _role_. She
then performed Belvidera in "Venice Preserved," and achieved another
triumph. For some time the part was alternated with that of "Juliet." The
latter, during the season, was performed thirty-six times; the former,
twenty-three. The "Grecian Daughter," and Mrs. Beverley, Portia in "The
Merchant of Venice," Isabella, and Lady Townley, followed, and in all
she was eminently successful. Her season finished on the twenty-eighth
of May, and in it she performed altogether, one hundred and two times.
Her reputation, however, proved to be greater in the metropolis than in
the provinces. Nevertheless, on her return to London, she was greeted
with an enthusiastic reception. The next season was celebrated by the
failure of the "Jew of Aragon," and the affair with Mr. Westmacott;
however, Miss Kemble added to her _repertoire_ the characters of Mrs.
Haller, Beatrice, Lady Constance, and Bianca in "Fazio."

In 1832 she came with her father to the United States, where she played
with unprecedented success in the principal cities, confirming the
reputation she had acquired, of being the greatest British actress of the
age. While here she published her dramas, "The Star of Seville" and
"Francis the First," and at this period she was a frequent contributor
to the literary journals,--many of her best fugitive poems having
appeared in the old "New York Mirror."

In 1834 she retired from the stage, and was married to Mr. Pierce Butler
of Philadelphia, a gentleman of fortune, accomplishments, and an
honorable character. The history of this union is sufficiently notorious.
On both sides there was ambition: it was a distinction to be accepted by
a woman of so much genius; it was a great happiness to change the
dominion of a spendthrift and sometimes tyrannical father for that of a
rich and indulgent husband. But a woman accustomed to the applause of the
theater never yet was content with the repose of domestic life, and she
was of all her sex the most ill-fitted by nature for such an existence.
Her second resort to the stage in 1847, her fortunes at Manchester and in
London, her return to America, her public readings of Shakspeare here,
her divorce, and the very curious and unexplained circumstance of her
translation of a profligate French play, and disposal of it as a piece of
her own original composit