I merited the compliments with which it has pleased Sir Walter
Scott to preface the proposal of my health, or the very
flattering manner in which you have done me the honour to receive
it. The approbation of such an assembly is most gratifying to
me, and might encourage feelings of vanity, were not such
feelings crushed by my conviction that no man holding the
situation I have so long held in Edinburgh could have failed,
placed in the peculiar circumstances in which I have been placed.
Gentlemen, I shall not insult your good taste by eulogiums upon
your judgment or kindly feeling, though to the first I owe any
improvement I may have made as an actor, and certainly my success
as a manager to the second. (Applause.) When, upon the death of
my dear brother, the late Mr. Siddons, it was proposed that I
should undertake the management of the Edinburgh Theatre, I
confess I drew back, doubting my capability to free it from the
load of debt and difficulty with which it was surrounded. In
this state of anxiety, I solicited the advice of one who had ever
honoured me with his kindest regard, and whose name no member of
my profession can pronounce without feelings of the deepest
respect and gratitude. I allude to the late Mr. John Kemble.
(Great applause.) To him I applied, and with the repetition of
his advice I shall cease to trespass upon your time--(hear, hear)
--"My dear William, fear not. Integrity and assiduity must prove
an overmatch for all difficulty; and though I approve your not
indulging a vain confidence in your own ability, and viewing with
respectful apprehension the judgment of the audience you have to
act before, yet be assured that judgment will ever be tempered by
the feeling that you are acting for the widow and the
fatherless." (Loud applause.) Gentlemen, those words have never
passed from my mind; and I feel convinced that you have pardoned