ched in vain for
the mischievous ape, who was at length discovered in what my brother
dignified by the title of his laboratory, where, in a frenzy of gleeful
activity, he was examining first one bottle and then another; finally he
betook himself, with indescribably grotesque grinnings and chatterings,
to uncorking and sniffing at them, and then pouring their contents
deliberately out on the (luckily carpetless) floor,--a joke which might
have had serious results for himself, as well as the house, if he had
not in the midst of it suffered ignoble capture and been led away to his
own quarters; my mother that time, certainly, escaping imminent "blowing
up."

While we were living in Gerard Street, my uncle Kemble came for a short
time to London from Lausanne, where he had fixed his residence--compelled
to live abroad, under penalty of seeing the private fortune he had
realized by a long life of hard professional labor swept into the ruin
which had fallen upon Covent Garden Theatre, of which he was part
proprietor. And I always associate this my only recollection of his
venerable white hair and beautiful face, full of an expression of most
benign dignity, with the earliest mention I remember of that luckless
property, which weighed like an incubus upon my father all his life, and
the ruinous burden of which both I and my sister successively endeavored
in vain to prop.

My mother at this time gave lessons in acting to a few young women who
were preparing themselves for the stage; and I recollect very well the
admiration my uncle expressed for the beauty of one of them, an
extremely handsome Miss Dance, who, I think, came out successfully, but
soon married, and relinquished her profession.

This young lady was the daughter of a violinist and musical composer,
whose name has a place in my memory from seeing it on a pretty musical
setting for the voice of some remarkably beautiful verses, the author of
which I have never been able to discover. I heard they had been taken
out of that old-fashioned receptacle for stray poetical gems, the poet's
corner of a country newspaper. I write them here as accurately as I can
from memory; it is more than fifty years since I learnt them, and I have
never met with any copy of them but that contained in the old music
sheet of Mr. Dance's duet.

SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF MORN.

Now on their couch of rest
Mortals are sleeping,
While in dark, dewy vest,
Flowerets are we