It was while we were still living in Covent Garden Chambers that Talma, the great French actor, came to London.  He knew both my uncle and my father, and was highly esteemed and greatly admired by both of them.  He called one day upon my father, when nobody was at home, and the servant who opened the door holding me by the hand, the famous French actor, who spoke very good English, though not without the “pure Parisian accent,” took some kind of notice of me, desiring me to be sure and remember his name, and tell my father that Mr. Talma, the great French tragedian, had called.  I replied that I would do so, and then added, with noble emulation, that my father was also a great tragedian, and my uncle was also a great tragedian, and that we had a baby in the nursery who I thought must be a great tragedian too, for she did nothing but cry, and what was that if not tragedy?—­which edifying discourse found its way back to my mother, to whom Talma laughingly repeated it.  I have heard my father say that on the occasion of this visit of Talma’s to London, he consulted my uncle on the subject of acting in English.  Hamlet was one of his great parts, and he made as fine a thing of Ducis’ cold, and stiff, and formal adaptation of Shakespeare’s noble work as his meagre material allowed; but, as I have said before, he spoke English well, and thought it not impossible to undertake the part in the original language.  My uncle, however, strongly dissuaded him from it, thinking the decided French accent an insuperable obstacle to his success, and being very unwilling that he should risk by a failure in the attempt his deservedly high reputation.  A friend of mine, at a dinner party, being asked if she had seen Mr. Fechter in Hamlet, replied in the negative, adding that she did not think she should relish Shakespeare declaimed with a foreign accent.  The gentleman who had questioned her said, “Ah, very true indeed—­perhaps not;” then, looking attentively at his plate, from which I suppose he drew the inspiration of what followed, he added, “And yet—­after all, you know, Hamlet was a foreigner.”  This view of the case had probably not suggested itself to John Kemble, and so he dissuaded Talma from the experiment.  While referring to Mr. Fechter’s personification of Hamlet, and the great success which it obtained in the fashionable world, I wish to preserve a charming instance of naive ignorance in a young guardsman, seduced by the enthusiasm of the gay society of London into going, for once, to see a play of Shakespeare’s.  After sitting dutifully through some scenes in silence, he turned to a fellow-guardsman, who was painfully looking and listening by his side, with the grave remark, “I say, George, dooced odd play this; its all full of quotations.”  The young military gentleman had occasionally, it seems, heard Shakespeare quoted, and remembered it.