In all the other great Shakespearean characters he was, according to the best critics, inferior to them, least so in Lear (though he never played Shakespeare's tragic Lear, preferring the happy ending "History of King Lear" as adapted by Nahum Tate), Hamlet and Wolsey, and most so in Shylock and Richard III. His production of "Cymbeline" was staged regularly from 1801 on. On account of the eccentricities of Sheridan, the proprietor of Drury Lane, Kemble withdrew from the management, and, although he resumed his duties at the beginning of the season 1800–1801, he at the close of 1802 finally resigned connection with it.