[John Philip Kemble, actor and manager of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.] Autograph Memorandum, signed 'J. Kemble.', regarding the 'Caducean Trident' of Albion, with an ink drawing of the same (a dragon with intertwining serpents).

The text is on one side of a 13 x 16 cm piece of laid watermarked paper. The signature 'J. Kemble' is at bottom left, in slightly-darker ink than the fifteen lines of text. Lightly aged and with short closed tears at edges of two folds. Slight traces of brown-paper mount at top corners on reverse, which carries a capable ink drawing of 'the Caducean Trident' mentioned in the text: a dragon with two sets of wings, body stiff as a rod, encircled by two snakes. The text, which has a few deletions and interpolations indicating original composition, may refer to a prop required for a dramatic production by Kemble. It reads: 'Albion, having accepted from his cousin Mercury, God of Commerce, his original Caduceus, and, from his father, Neptune, his original Trident, requested of Vulcan to new mould them, making the two into one badge of sovereign authority, symbolical of commercial supremacy and marine dominion. In compliance with this request, Vulcan produced the Caducean Trident. The Dragon is the symbol of a military marine; vigilant, swift, terrible and potent; and the Serpents are the types of the sagacity, address and prudence of Commerce, which is the source and foundation of naval power; and therefore this symbolical sceptre of Albion is in a tridental form, well at [sic] its lower as well as its upper extremity.'