THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 BY THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 " Pity it is that the momentary beauties flowing from a harmonious elocution 
 cannot, like those of poetry, be their own record; -that the animated graces of the 
 Player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that represent them ; 
 or at least can but faintly glimmer through the memory and imperfect attestation of 
 a few surviving spectators." 
 
 CIBBER. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. 
 
 1834.
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 PAS' 
 
 TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND. 
 
 I HAVE heard you say, that, rare as it was to 
 meet with so gifted a genius as that of Mrs. Sid dons, 
 it was almost equally so to meet in human nature with 
 so much candid and benignant singleness of mind as 
 belonged to her personal character. Though this was 
 always my own conviction, yet I was gratified to hear 
 it strongly expressed by one so well acquainted with 
 her, and possessing so much perspicacity. From the 
 happiness which I have felt in the congeniality of our 
 sentiments respecting the illustrious subject of these 
 Volumes, I beg leave to inscribe them to you, with 
 the regard of 
 
 Yours si: -"M-plv 
 
 BELL.
 
 VJU
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's Parents Names of two distinguished Indi- 
 viduals among her Ancestral Relations List of her 
 Brothers and Sisters Notices of some of them Mrs. 
 Whitelocke, her eldest Sister, a successful Actress in 
 America Anecdotes of the Indians during her Perform- 
 ance at Philadelphia Brecon, in North Wales, the Birth- 
 place of Mrs. Siddons Sir Hugh Evans, a Personage in 
 " The Merry Wives of Windsor," was Curate of the 
 Priory of Brecon Resemblance between the Frolics of 
 Fairy Puck, in " Midsummer Night's Dream," to the 
 Gambols of his Namesake in Breconshire Anecdote of 
 Mrs. Siddons in her Childhood Her early fondness for 
 Milton's Poetry Early Appearance on the Stage Mr. 
 Siddons joins her Father's Company Engages her 
 Affections, and marries her, in her nineteenth Year. 
 
 Page 352
 
 Vlll. CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons acts at Cheltenham Meets with the Hon. 
 Miss Boyle, afterwards Lady O'Neil Is invited by Garrick 
 to Drury Lane Appears as Portia Has indifferent 
 Success Is dismissed from Drury Lane by a Letter from 
 the Prompter Retires to the Provincial Theatres, where 
 she is popular Her future greatness predicted by Hen- 
 derson Is admired at Bath, and from thence recalled to 
 Drury Lane . . . .P. 55 94 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 First Introduction of Females on the English Stage Names 
 and Characters of Mrs. Siddons's greatest Predecessors 
 Mrs. Betterton Mrs. Anne Marshall Mrs. Boutell 
 Mrs. Barry Mrs. Bracegirdle Mrs. Oldfield Mrs. 
 Porter Mrs. Gibber Mrs. Pritchard Mrs. Yates 
 Mrs. Crawford P. 97152 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons plays Isabella, in the " Fatal Marriage," at 
 Drury Lane Suitableness of the Part for her first new 
 Trial Remarks on the Tragedy Resumption of her 
 Memoranda She appears as Euphrasia, in " The Grecian 
 Daughter" as Jane Shore as Calista as Belvidera 
 and as Zara, in the " Mourning Bride" Her first 
 Season . P. 155193
 
 CONTENTS. IX. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's second Season at Drury Lane Plays Isabella, 
 in " Measure for Measure" Performs in " The Gamester," 
 with her Brother, John Kemble Performs Constance, in 
 " King John" Her own Criticisms on the Character 
 Plays Lady Randolph, the Countess of Salisbury, and 
 Sigismunda in Thomson's Tragedy Conclusion of the 
 Season 1783-4 P. 197232 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's Memoranda Her Summer Excursion to 
 Edinburgh and Dublin Important Quotation from Lee 
 Lewes's Memoirs P. 235 272 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's own Account of her being affronted in the 
 Theatre Public Opinion is disabused, and she recovers 
 her Popularity Appears as Margaret of Anjou, in 
 Franklin's " Earl of Warwick" Character of the Piece 
 Her next new Part is Zara, in the Tragedy translated by 
 Aaron Hill from Voltaire's " Za'ire" Napoleon's Opinion 
 of Voltaire as a Dramatic Poet Mrs. Siddons plays the 
 Lady of St. Vallori, in Cumberland's " Carmelite" 
 Comparison of that Tragedy with Home's " Douglas" 
 John Kemble adapts Massinger's " Maid of Honour" for 
 the modern Stage, and Mrs. Siddons acts Camiola 
 Remarks on the " Maid of Honour." P. 275 299
 
 IN THE PRESS, 
 
 THE RICHES OF CHAUCER: 
 
 In which the impurities have been expunged, the orthography moder- 
 nised, the rhythm accentuated where necessary, and the obsolete terms 
 explained at the foot of each page. To which have been added, a few 
 Explanatory Notes, with a new Life of the Poet. 
 
 By CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE, 
 Author of " Tales in Prose, from Chaucer ;" and " Adam the Gardener."
 
 CHAPTER I. 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's Parents Names of two distinguished 
 Individuals among her ancestral Relations List of 
 her Brothers and Sisters Notices of some of them 
 Mrs. Whitelocke, her eldest Sister, a successful Ac- 
 tress in America Anecdotes of the Indians during 
 her performance at Philadelphia Brecon, in North 
 Wales, the Birth-place of Mrs. Siddons Sir Hugh 
 Evans, a Personage in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," 
 was Curate of the Priory of Brecon Resemblance 
 between the Frolics of Fairy Puck, in " Midsummer 
 Night's Dream," to the Gambols of his Namesake, in 
 Breconshire Anecdote of Mrs. Siddons in her Child- 
 hood Her early fondness for Milton's Poetry Early 
 appearance on the Stage Mr. Siddons joins her Fa- 
 ther's Company Engages her affections, and marries 
 her, in her nineteenth Year.
 
 LIFE 
 
 MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MRS. SIDDONS'S maiden name was Kemble. 
 She was the daughter of Roger Kemble, the 
 manager of a theatrical company that per- 
 formed chiefly in the midland and the western 
 towns of England; and of Sarah Ward, whose 
 father was also a strolling manager. Mr. Ward 
 had been an actor in the days of Betterton, 
 and had been the original Hazareth, in Fenton's 
 " Mariamne." 
 
 I remember having seen the parents of the 
 great actress in their old age. They were 
 both of them tall and comely personages. The 
 
 B 2
 
 4 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 mother had a somewhat austere stateliness 
 of manner; but it seems to have been from 
 her that the family inherited their genius and 
 force of character. Her voice had much of 
 the emphasis of her daughter's ; and her 
 portrait, which long graced Mrs. Siddons's 
 drawing-room, has an intellectual expression 
 of the strongest power : she gave you the 
 idea of a Roman matron. The father had all 
 the suavity of the old school of gentlemen. 
 
 Persons who cannot for a moment disjoin 
 their idea of human dignity from that of 
 station, will perhaps be surprised that I should 
 speak of the dignified manners of a pair who 
 lived by the humble vocation which I have 
 mentioned. It is nevertheless true that the 
 presence and demeanour of this couple might 
 have graced a court ; and, though their rela- 
 tionship to Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble, 
 of course, enhanced the interest which their 
 venerable appearance commanded, yet I have
 
 LTFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 5 
 
 been assured by those who knew them long 
 before their children became illustrious, that 
 in their humblest circumstances they always 
 sustained an entire respectability. There are 
 some individuals whom no circumstances can 
 render vulgar, and Mr. and Mrs. Kemble were 
 of this description. Besides, in spite of all 
 our prejudices against the player's vocation, 
 irreproachable personal character will always 
 find its level in the general esteem. 
 
 Respecting Roger Kemble, Mrs. Siddons's 
 father, I have not been able to make out any 
 very interesting particulars. His wife alleged 
 that he was an unparalleled Falstaff, but I 
 know of no impartial testimony to the same 
 effect. Ward disapproved of his daughter 
 marrying an actor; and, when he found that 
 her union with Kemble was inevitable, he was 
 with difficulty persuaded to speak to her. He 
 then forgave her with all the bitterness of his 
 heart, saying, " Sarah, you have not disobeyed
 
 6 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 me: I told you never to marry an actor, and 
 you have married a man who neither is nor 
 ever can be an actor." This anecdote has 
 been often mistold, and the same words inac- 
 curately ascribed to Roger Kemble, on his 
 daughter's marriage with Mr. Siddons. 
 
 Those who remember Roger Kemble de- 
 scribe him as a man of plain sense and of good- 
 humoured and jocose disposition. His mild- 
 ness made him more popular at home than 
 his spouse, who, having a brood of high- 
 mettled boys and Solomon's precept respecting 
 the rod incessantly before her eyes, was rather 
 a stern disciplinarian towards her masculine 
 progeny. He was born in the city of Hereford, 
 in 1721, and died in 1802, in his 82d year. 
 When in poor circumstances, he used laugh- 
 ingly to console himself by alleging that he 
 was come of a good house, though decayed. 
 It was handed down in the family, that they 
 were sprung from the Kembles of Wydell, in
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 7 
 
 Wiltshire, a house of undoubted antiquity. I 
 have not been able to prove this descent, even 
 with the aid of my friend, Mr. Young, of the 
 Herald's College. But still I am not inclined 
 to disbelieve the general tradition, that their 
 ancestors had once been wealthy and powerful. 
 Their property, it was said, had been confis- 
 cated in Charles's Civil war, and their misfor- 
 tunes consummated by their adhesion to the 
 Roman Catholic faith. 
 
 Though the gifted theatrical Kembles have 
 no need of heraldic blazonry, yet still their 
 family, like every other, has a right to its own 
 traditional recollections ; and they still cherish 
 the memory of two ancestral members, whose 
 names are not wholly destitute of historical 
 interest. The one was a soldier, the other 
 a martyr. 
 
 In the description of the battle of Worcester 
 it is mentioned, that, "after the rout of the
 
 8 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Royal army, the Earl of Cleveland and some 
 others rallied what force they could, though 
 inconsiderable to the number of the republi- 
 cans, and charged the enemy very gallantly, 
 in Sudbury street, where Sir James Hamilton 
 and Captain Kemble were both desperately 
 wounded, and others slain. Yet this action," 
 the chronicler adds, " did much secure his 
 Majesty's march out at St. Martin's gate, 
 who had otherwise been in danger of being 
 taken in the town. For this service, Captain 
 Kemble was rewarded by Charles the Second, 
 after the Restoration, with the gift of a war- 
 horse." 
 
 Another ancestral relative, who, I imagine, 
 was the great grand-uncle of Roger Kemble, 
 was one of the last individuals in England who 
 was publicly put to death for his religion.* 
 
 * It is not true, however, though sometimes asserted, 
 that he was the very last of those who suffered for the 
 Romish faith in England. The Reverend Oliver Plunket,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 9 
 
 Some Church of England readers will possibly 
 be shocked, or incredulous, when they are told 
 that this poor man was murdered by Christians 
 of their own persuasion : for it is but re- 
 cently that the bulk of Englishmen have been 
 forced to believe the historical fact, that their 
 Protestant forefathers were nearly as stanch 
 persecutors as the Catholics. No principle, 
 so worthy of growth in the English mind, 
 has taken root in it so slowly as a charita- 
 ble and just spirit towards that body of be- 
 lievers. Even the soul of Milton could not 
 raise itself entirely above intolerant senti- 
 ments. He deprecates the persecution of 
 Catholics, but proposes that they should never 
 be allowed the public exercise of their reli- 
 
 titular bishop of Armagh, was hanged at Tyburn, 1681, 
 two years after the death of Mr. Kemble : nor was the 
 ceremony of taking out Plunket's heart and bowels 
 omitted on this disgraceful occasion. Still later, a Fa- 
 ther Attwood was sentenced, but reprieved and taken off 
 the hurdle. Father Atkinson, a Franciscan friar, died a 
 prisoner in Hurst castle, in 1729.
 
 10 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 gion ; as if, restraining men from worshipping- 
 according to their creed, were not the essence 
 of persecution. 
 
 The martyr to whom I have alluded was 
 the Reverend John Kemble, who, according 
 to the Diary of Douay College, was ordained 
 a priest in February, 1625 ; and in the June 
 following was sent upon the English mission : 
 after which, his usual residence was in the 
 diocese of his native county of Hereford. He 
 officiated as a priest for fifty-four years. In 
 the fifty-fifth year after his ordination, and in 
 the eightieth of his age, he was apprehended, 
 and executed on the 2d of August, 1679. 
 
 A Mr. Jaby, who claims relationship with 
 Mr. Charles Kemble, about two years ago, 
 addressed to that gentleman a letter, which 
 is now before me ; in which he says, that their 
 ancestral relation, the above priest, was com- 
 pelled to walk from London to Hereford at
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 11 
 
 the age of eighty, and that he was there burnt 
 upon the stones. The manner of death here 
 ascribed to him is, however, a mistake; Mr. 
 Jaby indeed contradicts it himself, by imme- 
 diately adding, that the same Captain Kemble, 
 the martyr's nephew who behaved so gallantly 
 at Worcester, preserved one of his uncle's 
 hands, which is kept to this day in the Wor- 
 cester Catholic chapel. It would certainly 
 tell more martyrologically that the old gentle- 
 man had suffered by fire, and at this moment 
 it would make no difference to him; but, in 
 point of fact, no part of him was burnt, except 
 his heart and bowels, after he was hanged, 
 and when it is to be hoped he was insensible. 
 Mr. Jaby says, in the same letter, that his 
 brother possesses a likeness of the martyr, 
 painted in oil, whilst he was in prison. The 
 old man's fortitude is still a traditional by- 
 word in the place. On his way to execution, 
 he smoked his pipe and conversed with his 
 friends; and in that county it was long usual
 
 \2 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 to call the last pipe that was smoked in a social 
 company, a Kemble's pipe. I have heard that 
 John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons once paid a 
 visit together to the martyr's tomb ; though I 
 know not at what time they made the pilgrim- 
 age. One would have gone far for a sight of 
 their countenances on the spot. 
 
 The poor old man was apprehended at Pern- 
 bridge castle, in the parish of Witchcastle, in 
 Herefordshire, by a Captain Scudamore, of 
 Kentchurch. He was apprized of his pur- 
 suers, but refused to abscond, saying that, in 
 the course of nature, he must die ere long, 
 and that it would be better for him to die for 
 his religion. He was committed to Hereford 
 gaol, but was cruelly and unnecessarily ordered 
 up to London, on pretence of implication in 
 Titus Oates's plot ; and from thence sent back 
 again to take his trial at Hereford. He was 
 put on horseback for the journey, but his 
 infirmities permitting him only to ride side-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 13 
 
 ways, he was compelled to perform the greater 
 part of it on foot. After his return to Here- 
 ford gaol he was frequently visited by Captain 
 Scudamore's children, whom he treated to 
 whatever dainties were sent to him by his 
 friends; and when asked why he so petted 
 his captor's children, he said, it was because 
 their father was his best friend. He suffered 
 on the field of Wigmarsh, close by Hereford. 
 His last words from the cart were as follows : 
 " It will be expected I should say some- 
 thing ; but, as I am an old man, it cannot be 
 much. I have no concern in the plot, neither 
 indeed do I believe that there is any. Gates 
 and Bedloe, not being able to charge me with 
 anything when I was brought up to London, 
 makes it evident that I die only for professing 
 the old Roman Catholic religion, which was 
 the religion that first made this kingdom Chris- 
 tian ; and, whoever intends to be saved, must 
 die in that religion. I beg of all whom I 
 have offended, either by thought, word, or
 
 14 LIFE OF MRS. STDDONS. 
 
 
 
 deed, to forgive me, as I do heartily for- 
 give all that have been instrumental or de- 
 sirous of my death." He then turned to 
 the executioner, and said, " Honest friend 
 Anthony, do thine office ; thou wilt do me a 
 greater kindness than discourtesy." After his 
 death, Captain Kemble begged off his body, 
 and buried it in the churchyard of Welsh 
 Newton. 
 
 Mr. Roger Kemble being, like his ancestors, 
 a Catholic, whilst his wife was % a Protestant, it 
 was arranged that their sons should be bred 
 in the Catholic faith, and the daughters in that 
 of their mother.* Some of their children died 
 
 * LIST OF THE KEMBLE FAMILY. 
 
 ROGER KEMBLE, born in 
 the city of Hereford, March 
 1, 1721. Died 1802. 
 
 SARAH WARD, born at 
 
 Clonmell, in Ireland, Sep- 
 tember 2, 1735. Married R. 
 Kemble, at Cirencester, 1753. 
 Died 1806. 
 
 THEIR CHILDREN WERE 
 
 1. SARAH KEMBLE, (Mrs. Siddons,) born at Brecon, July 
 5, 1755. Died in London, June 8, 1831.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 15 
 
 in infancy, but three sons and five daughters 
 arrived at adult years. John Philip Kemble, 
 the eldest son, was born more than a year 
 after Mrs. Siddons, and proved ultimately 
 
 2. JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE, born atPrescott, in Lancashire, 
 February 1, 1757. Died at Lausanne, 1823. 
 
 3. STEPHEN KEMBLE, born at Rington, in Herefordshire, 
 May 3, 1758. Died 1822. 
 
 4. FRANCE^ KEMBLE, born at Hereford, December 28, 
 1759. Died at Bath, in 1812. 
 
 5. ELIZABETH KEMBLE, born at Warrington, Lancashire, 
 April 2, 1761. Alive in 1834. 
 
 6. MARY KEMBLE, born at Stratford on Avon, 1763. 
 Died very young. 
 
 7. ANNE KEMBLE, born at Worcester, April 1764. Alive 
 in 1834. 
 
 8. CATHERINE KEMBLE, born at Hereford, July 4, 1765. 
 Died very young. 
 
 9. LUCY KEMBLE, born at Worcester, July 28, 1767. 
 Died young. 
 
 10. HENRY KEMBLE, born at Leominster, December 29, 
 1773. Died young. 
 
 11. CHARLES KEMBLE, born at Brecon, South Wales, 
 November, 1775. Alive in 1834. 
 
 12. JANE KEMBLE, born at Warwick, September 30, 
 1777. Died very young.
 
 16 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 * 
 
 the greatest actor of his time on the English 
 stage. 
 
 Roger Kemhle always declared it to be his 
 wish that his children should not follow his own 
 vocation, and he gave the male part of them, at 
 least, an education that might have made them 
 independent of the stage. The sons were suc- 
 cessively sent to the catholic seminary at Douay, 
 a school at that time inferior to none in Europe 
 in discipline and tuition. They proved both 
 of them accomplished men, whose acquirements 
 did credit to their seminary. 
 
 I have not a doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Roger 
 Kemble were anxious to prevent their children 
 from becoming actors, and that they sought out 
 other means of providing for them ; but they 
 made this attempt too late, that is, after their 
 offspring had been accustomed to theatrical joy- 
 ousness. For parents who are players them- 
 selves, it is hardly possible to keep their children
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 17 
 
 from following the same life. The conversations 
 the readings the books of the family the 
 learning of parts the rehearsals at home the 
 gaiety diffused by the getting-up of comic cha- 
 racters before they are acted, and the imposing 
 dignity of tragic characters the company 
 everything, indeed, which the children of play- 
 acting parents hear and see, has a tendency to 
 make them more prone to the stage than to any 
 other such plodding and drudging occupations 
 as the most of them would be otherwise des- 
 tined to pursue. 
 
 Stephen Kemble accordingly, when put an 
 apprentice to an apothecary, soon grew weary 
 of the pestle and mortar, and attached himself 
 to an itinerant company. He afterwards mi- 
 grated to Dublin, where his brother John was 
 beginning to establish his fame. Harris, the 
 manager of Co vent Garden, anxious to be be- 
 forehand with Drury Lane, secretly dispatched 
 an agent thither to bring over the great Kemble.
 
 18 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 The messenger, mistaking the large for the great 
 brother, unfortunately engaged the former ; 
 and Stephen made his first appearance at 
 Co vent Garden, as Othello, in 1785. In the 
 bills announcing that debut, Stephen was called 
 Mr. Kemble. Whether or not the Covent 
 Garden managers had already discovered their 
 mistake, but wished to save other people from 
 the pain of sharing it, certain it is that they 
 got ample credit for an attempt to mystify 
 the public, though the debutant's appearance, 
 if not a triumph, was at least not a complete 
 failure.* This mistake of the managers pro- 
 duced many comic remarks, that would have 
 
 * In the Morning Herald of September, 1783, I find 
 the following friendly notice : 
 
 " The Siddons and the Kemble were seated over the 
 stage-box on Wednesday evening, the 24th, to see their 
 brother Stephen Kemble's first appearance. Nature, 
 whose effusions have in public secured to the former an 
 universal admiration, operated very powerfully and fre- 
 quently on this occasion. The tears of sensibility stole 
 down her cheek, and with a sister's sympathy, spoke all 
 the brother felt."
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 19 
 
 been of great detriment to the tragic laurels of 
 my friend Stephen, if his talents in the graver 
 drama had been greater than they were. But 
 though he was not the worst of tragedians, his 
 forte was in comedy. He became afterwards a 
 member of the Haymarket theatre, where he 
 played Sir Christopher Curry, in "Incle and 
 Yarico," with great applause; but he relin- 
 quished London in consequence of becoming 
 manager at Edinburgh. There he had a long 
 contest with Mrs. Esten, the mistress of the 
 Duke of Hamilton, an actress of considerable 
 celebrity, who laid claims to the management 
 of the same theatre. She dropped them, how- 
 ever, for a stipulated sum. Some years after- 
 wards Mr. Stephen Kemble removed from Edin- 
 burgh, to conduct the theatre of Newcastle- 
 upon-Tyne ; but he acted occasionally both in 
 London and on the Scottish stage, and his 
 Falstaff always drew full houses. I have seen 
 him often act in Edinburgh in my boyish days, 
 and, if it was the prepossession of youth and 
 
 c 2
 
 20 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 strong personal friendship to believe him an 
 unparalleled comedian, I would go a great way 
 to enjoy the same illusion again. Joy comes to 
 my heart at the recollection of his Falstajf and. 
 Village Lawyer; and the memory of the man 
 who was pleasantness personified, touches me 
 with still deeper feelings. His accomplished 
 daughter married the grandson of Sir Richard 
 Arkwright. She is the authoress of many 
 charming musical compositions. 
 
 Frances Kemble, the sister of Mrs. Siddons 
 next in age to herself, married Francis Twiss, 
 esq., who is known to the public chiefly by an 
 " Index to Shakespeare," on the plan of the 
 Indices in the Usum Delphini editions of the 
 Classics, a very useful work. Their surviving 
 son, Mr. Horace Twiss, was lately member of 
 parliament for Wootton Basset, and under- 
 secretary of state for the Home Department. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's next sister, Elizabeth, I am
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 21 
 
 happy to say, is still alive ; and to those who 
 knew the great actress she offers a striking 
 and pleasing resemblance of her. She has a 
 full share of the noble air and elocution of 
 her departed sister, and more varied and 
 amusing powers of conversation. Miss Eli- 
 zabeth Kemble acted for some time at Drury 
 Lane, till she married Charles Edward White- 
 lock, who was manager of the Theatre Royal 
 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was a descend- 
 ant of the great lawyer Whitelock, and was 
 godson to the prince commonly called the 
 Pretender. For this Jacobitical god-name, 
 imposed upon him by others at his baptism, 
 it is difficult to imagine any one less re- 
 sponsible than the bearer himself; and we 
 should scarcely expect him to have been 
 exposed to reproach for it at the end of the 
 eighteenth century. Nevertheless, the cele- 
 brated Cooke, at that time an actor in Mr. 
 Whitelock's troop, charged him with it at 
 a public dinner that was given to the ma-
 
 22 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 nager at Newcastle, and declared that it was 
 impossible for the bearer of such a god-name 
 to be a loyal subject. The company, how- 
 ever, took a different view of the matter, and 
 shewed his drunken accuser out of the room. 
 
 Mrs. Whitelock accompanied her husband 
 in a professional expedition to America, where 
 she acted for many years with eminent suc- 
 cess, and realized a fortune; her popularity 
 on the other side of the Atlantic having fairly 
 supported a family resemblance to that of her 
 sister at home. She played principally at 
 Charleston and Philadelphia, and frequently 
 before General Washington. That great man 
 was by no means a stoic at the sight of tra- 
 gedy ; but he hated to be seen weeping, and 
 always wiped the tears with his handkerchief 
 hastily from his face. She had on one occa- 
 sion other auditors, who were no less disdainful 
 of the melting mood than Washington, and 
 who were themselves no uninteresting a spec-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 23 
 
 tacle, whilst they sat as spectators. This was 
 a group of Indians, who had come from their 
 distant wildernesses to conclude a treaty with 
 the United States' government. They were 
 accompanied by an interpreter, as none of 
 them knew a word of English. They came 
 to the theatre of Philadelphia on an appointed 
 night, and were received with vociferous 
 cheering. They were tall, dark, gaunt figures, 
 in their native costume. With steady, slow 
 steps they entered the stage-box, and, with- 
 out noticing the audience, or seeming to hear 
 their claps of welcome, they seated themselves 
 with their eyes fixed on the stage, as if they had 
 had but one head. All the time of the principal 
 piece they continued thus sitting like statues, 
 with immoveable tranquillity. But in the after- 
 piece, an artificial elephant was introduced ; and 
 it so electrified the sons of the forest, that 
 they all started up on a sudden with an earn- 
 est cry. Little suspecting that the imagined 
 mammoth was a harmless structure of sticks,
 
 24 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 and clouts, and pasteboard, with four stupid 
 men for its legs, they demanded through 
 their interpreter where this quadruped had 
 been found. There had been once, they 
 said, a great beast like this in the land of 
 the Red Men ; but it had been slain, and they 
 were fearful that the white men had brought 
 a second mammoth over the Big Lake in order 
 to eat the Indians. After some time, they 
 were appeased by an assurance that the great 
 beast was as harmless as a squirrel, and that 
 they should see him to-morrow by daylight. 
 Accordingly, they were taken behind the 
 scenes next morning, and initiated in the 
 mysteries of its construction. An European 
 would have laughed at the discovery," but 
 the Red Men maintained an imperturbable 
 gravity. They could not leave the house, 
 however, without asking the manager for a 
 mighty favour namely, that they might be 
 allowed to approach the heavenly women 
 who had appeared on the stage last night,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 25 
 
 and to salute them. When this was reported 
 in the green-room, it spread dismay among 
 the actresses; but it was represented to them 
 that there was a general wish among the 
 Americans to conciliate the Indians, that 
 the popularity of the company might be 
 injured by offending the swarthy strangers, 
 and that their request, after all, had been 
 made in no immodest spirit, and might be 
 complied with without the least degradation 
 on the part of the ladies. Some of the hea- 
 venly women, therefore, allowed a kiss to 
 their savage admirers, who took no further 
 liberty. Mrs. Whitelock was about to go 
 through the same ceremony, when a fit of 
 shyness came over her, and she shrank from 
 the salute of the chief who came up to her. 
 But the most polished gentleman, she said, 
 could not have behaved with more delicate 
 courtesy than this blanketed Indian. He 
 put his hand to his breast, bowed respect- 
 fully, and retired.
 
 26 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. . 
 
 All the Indian diplomatists, however, were 
 not endowed with the same polite gallantry. 
 One day, Mrs. Whitelock observed one of 
 them eyeing and following her at a distance 
 in the streets of Philadelphia. Her house 
 was situated out of the town, and she had 
 to cross an unfrequented common before she 
 could reach it. At the suburbs there were 
 several negroes, who were selling fruit, and 
 she offered a dollar to any one of them who 
 would accompany her home, and protect her 
 from the approaching Indian. But the blacks, 
 who are free in that part of the States, only 
 laughed at her distress ; so she had to post 
 all alone over the common, like another 
 Daphne, with her copper Apollo in interest- 
 ing proximity behind her. At last, in a 
 panting panic, she got home just in time to 
 shut the gate in his face; and, before she 
 had well recovered to tell the cause of her 
 fright, the pursuer had disappeared. But the 
 same evening, whilst Mr. Whitelock and she
 
 LIFE OF MRS. S1DDONS. 27 
 
 were at supper, a crash, like the stroke of 
 a battering-ram, was heard at the garden- 
 gate. The Indian had burst it open by 
 throwing a large stone against it, and her 
 picturesque admirer was seen by moonlight 
 deliberately walking up the avenue towards 
 the house. Mr. Whitelock immediately took 
 down a sabre and fire-arms, but he had no 
 occasion to use them; for an athletic young 
 Englishman, who lived in the house, rushed 
 out, and repaid the intruder for his crash at 
 the door by a stroke upon his jaw that was 
 almost equally audible. The savage took 
 his punishment very quietly, and, after one 
 flooring, got up and walked back to Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 To return to the immediate subject of these 
 memoirs : our great actress's birth-place was 
 Brecon, or Brecknon, in South Wales. A 
 friend has obligingly written to me as follows 
 respecting the house in which Mrs. Siddons
 
 28 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 * 
 
 was born : " It is a public-house in the high 
 street of this town, which still retains its 
 appellation, 'The Shoulder of Mutton,' though 
 now entirely altered from its pristine appear- 
 ance. I send you a drawing of the house, 
 not as it is at present, but as I perfectly 
 well remember seeing it stand, with its gable 
 
 House in tvhich Mrs. Siddons tvas born. 
 
 front, projecting upper floors, and a rich well- 
 fed shoulder of mutton painted over the door, 
 offering an irresistible temptation to the sharp- 
 ened appetites of the Welsh farmers, who
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 29 
 
 frequented the adjoining market-place ; espe- 
 cially as within doors the same, or some 
 similar object in a more substantial shape, 
 was always, at the accustomed hour, seen 
 roasting at the kitchen fire, on a spit turned 
 by a dog in a wheel, the invariable mode 
 in all Breconian kitchens. In addition to 
 which noontide entertainment for country 
 guests, there was abundance of Welsh ale 
 of the rarest quality ; and, as the ' Shoulder of 
 Mutton' was situated in the centre of Brecon, 
 it was much resorted to by the neighbouring 
 inhabitants of the borough. If I am rightly 
 informed, old Kemble was neither an unwil- 
 ling nor an unwelcome member of their jolly 
 associations. Those who remember him tell 
 me that he was a man of respectable family, 
 and of some small hereditary property in 
 Herefordshire; and that having married the 
 daughter of a provincial manager, he received 
 a company of strolling players for her dowry, 
 and set up as a manager himself."
 
 30 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Brecnoc, as far as I can learn, could never 
 boast in modern times of having produced 
 any other distinguished individuals than Mrs. 
 Siddons and Charles Kemhle ; yet the place 
 is not without its interesting historical, and 
 even dramatic associations. It was the first 
 ground in Wales on which the Anglo-Nor- 
 man banner intruded ; and the grey moss- 
 grown cairns upon its mountains are still the 
 acknowledged resting-places of British war- 
 riors, whose memory is preserved in the songs 
 of the ancient language of Britain. The last 
 prince of Brecnoc, Bleddyn, who died fighting 
 pro aris et focis against the Anglo-Normans, 
 was the descendant of Sir Caradoch Bris Bras, 
 one of the heroes of old French romance. 
 
 In the fifteenth century, the lordship of 
 Brecon fell into the possession of the Staffords, 
 Dukes of Buckingham, one of whom acts a 
 conspicuous part in Shakespeare's " Richard 
 the Third."
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 31 
 
 Buckingham. 
 
 " And is it thus repays he my deep service 
 With such contempt ? Made I him king for this ? 
 Oh ! let me think on Hastings, and begone 
 To Brecnoc whilst my fearful head is on." 
 
 Act IV. Sc. 2. 
 
 It was in the castle of Brecnoc that 
 Buckingham, in concert with Moreton, Bishop 
 of Ely, plotted the rebellion in favour of 
 Richmond. 
 
 Catesby. 
 
 " Bad news, my lord : Moreton is fled to Richmond, 
 And Buckingham, backed by the hardy Welshmen, 
 Is in the field; and still his power increaseth." 
 
 Act IV. Sc. 3. 
 
 It appears, however, that Buckingham was 
 no great favourite with the Breconians and 
 other Welshmen ; for, after having followed 
 him to the banks of the Severn, they left 
 him to be taken by the adherents of Richard, 
 who beheaded him without ceremony. The
 
 32 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 
 
 fact of so powerful a nobleman having been 
 so wholly abandoned by his followers, would 
 imply that the authority of the feudal lords 
 had not been established in Wales to the 
 same extent as in the rest of the kingdom, 
 and probably never existed at all much beyond 
 the limits of the boroughs and fortified towns. 
 Soon after, when the Earl of Richmond landed 
 at Milford Haven, he being a Tudor and 
 of Welsh extraction, the natives of the Prin- 
 cipality flocked to his standard, and contri- 
 buted to the victory of Bosworth. 
 
 Brecon has also furnished a character for 
 the drama of Shakespeare, namely, that of 
 Sir Hugh Evans, that " remnant of Welsh 
 flannel" in " The Merry Wives of Windsor." 
 He was curate of the priory of Brecon in 
 the days of Queen Elizabeth. He died in 
 1581, and by a will, which is still among the 
 records of Brecon, left a library which must 
 have been at that time thought considerable,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. STDDONS. 33 
 
 and which bespeaks him to have been a man 
 of reading. In the same will, he bequeaths 
 his swash-buckler to one of his friends, and 
 appoints Richard Price, Esq. to be overseer 
 of his testament. The last-named gentleman 
 was the son of Sir John Price, of the Priory,* 
 a great patron of Sir Hugh Evans. By the 
 younger Price, Evans was presented, in 1572, 
 to the living of Merthyr Cynog, and was doubt- 
 less introduced also to Shakespeare. At least 
 so says my learned Cambrian friend ; f who 
 adds, that this Richard Price was a favourite 
 at the court of Elizabeth ; and, on the autho- 
 rity of the family records, is stated to have 
 held a correspondence with Shakespeare. It 
 is so delightful to identify anything apper- 
 taining to the poet of poets with the birth- 
 
 * Sir John Price is well known among the Welsh 
 as an antiquary. He took an active part in the union 
 of Wales with England, and is supposed to have 
 dictated the petition of his countrymen to Henry the 
 Eighth. 
 
 t The Rev. T. Price, of Crickhowell. 
 
 D
 
 34 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 
 
 place of our heroine, that I am fain to indulge 
 a pleasing belief in the probability of what 
 my correspondent says further. He states " that, 
 from the intimacy which subsisted betwixt 
 Shakespeare and the Prices of the Priory, an 
 idea prevails that he frequently visited them 
 at their residence in Brecon, and that he not 
 only availed himself of the whimsicalities of 
 old Sir Hugh, but that he was indebted to 
 this part of the kingdom for much of the 
 machinery of ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' 
 This idea is confirmed by the similarity which 
 the frolics of Puck and his companions bear 
 to the goblins and fairies of this portion of 
 the Principality ; there being in Breconshire a 
 valley which bears his name, Cwm Pwica. Here 
 this merry sprite is said still to practise his 
 gambols with all the energies of the sixteenth 
 century ; and certainly, if beautiful scenery 
 have any influence in localizing these beings, 
 they could find few better places than the deep 
 romantic glen of the Clydach."
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 35 
 
 In the Memoranda which she has left me, 
 Mrs. Siddons says nothing of her juvenile 
 days: but I remember her telling an anec- 
 dote cf her infancy, which strongly illustrated 
 her confidence in the efficacy of prayer, or 
 rather of the Prayer Book. One day, her mo- 
 ther had promised to take her out the following, 
 to a pleasure party in the neighbourhood, 
 and she was to wear a new pink dress, which 
 became her exceedingly. But whether the 
 party was to hold and the pink apparel to 
 be worn, was to depend on the weather of 
 to-morrow morning. On going to bed, she 
 took with her her Prayer Book, opened, as 
 she supposed, at the prayer for fine weather, 
 and she fell asleep with the book folded in 
 her little arms. At daybreak she found that 
 she had been holding the prayer for rain 
 to her breast, and that the rain, as if Heaven 
 had taken her at her word, was pelting at 
 the windows. But she went to bed again, 
 with the book opened at the right place, and 
 
 D 2
 
 36 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 she found the mistake quite remedied ; for the 
 morning was as pink and beautiful as the dress 
 she was to wear. 
 
 I have heard her say that Milton's poetry 
 was the object of her admiration earlier than 
 Shakespeare's, and that when but ten years old 
 she used to pore over " Paradise Lost" for 
 hours together. Some portion of this Mil- 
 tonic devotion may have sprung from piety 
 more than taste; for, without disparagement 
 to the bard of Eden be it said, that we are 
 awed into idolatry of him by the sacredness 
 of his subject, before we can appreciate his 
 beauties. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons continued devoted to Milton 
 all her life ; and she was one of the most 
 judicious critics you could hear discourse of 
 him. No doubt, when she thought, in her 
 latter days, of making " Paradise Lost" more 
 popular by her readings, she miscalculated
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 37 
 
 even her own powers of recitation. The best 
 reading can do little or nothing for great 
 poetry that is not dramatic ; and the Muse 
 of Milton is too proud to borrow a debt 
 from elocution. 
 
 I am unable to state the exact date of 
 Mrs. Siddons's first appearance on the stage, 
 but it must have been very early ; for the 
 company was offended at her appearance of 
 childhood, and was for some time shaken 
 with uproar. The timid debutante was about 
 to retire, when her mother, with character- 
 istic decision, led her to the front of the 
 stage, and made her repeat the fable of the 
 " Boys and the Frogs," which not only ap- 
 peased the audience, but produced thunders 
 of applause. At thirteen, she was the heroine 
 in several English operas, and sang very 
 tolerably. In the " History of Worcester," 
 there is found the copy of a play-bill, dated 
 Feb. 12, 1767, in which Mr. Roger Kemble
 
 38 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 
 
 announces his company of comedians, as play- 
 ing at the King's Head, in that city; with 
 a concert of music. The play was " Charles 
 the First," by an actor named Havard, in- 
 differently written, and from its subject ill 
 calculated for the universal sympathy of a 
 British audience.* The characters were thus 
 cast : James, Duke of Richmond, by Mr. 
 Siddons, who was now an actor in Kemble's 
 company; James, Duke of York, by Master 
 John Kemble, who was then about twelve 
 
 * Havard undertook the tragedy of " Charles I." at 
 the desire of the manager of the company of Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields, to which he then belonged, in 1737. The 
 manager had probably read of the salutary effects pro- 
 duced on the genius of Euripides by seclusion in his 
 cave, and he was determined to give Havard the same 
 advantage in a garret during the composition of his task. 
 He invited him to his house, took him up to one of its 
 airiest apartments, and there locked him up for so many 
 hours every day, well knowing his desultory habits; nor 
 released him, after he had once turned the davis tragica, 
 till the unfortunate bard had repeated through the key- 
 hole a certain number of new speeches in the progressive 
 tragedy.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 39 
 
 years old. Tlie Young Princess, by Miss 
 Kemble, then approaching to fourteen ; Lady 
 Fairfax, by Mrs. Kemble. Singing between the 
 acts, by Mr. Fowler and Miss Kemble. In 
 the April following, Master John Kemble 
 is announced as Philidel, in " King Arthur," 
 and Miss Kemble as Ariel, in " The Tempest." 
 
 Her education could not be expected, from 
 her father's circumstances, to be very accom- 
 plished ; but it included instruction both in 
 vocal and instrumental music. Her father also 
 remarked that she had fine natural powers 
 of elocution, and he wished them to be cul- 
 tivated by regular tuition. For this purpose, 
 when she was about fifteen, he engaged a 
 stranger to be her reading preceptor, who 
 would have undertaken the office, if Mrs. 
 Kemble had not interposed her veto. This 
 individual was William Combe, recently known 
 as the author of " Doctor Syntax's Adven- 
 tures." This eccentric being, after mis-spend-
 
 40 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 ing a handsome fortune, had come to Wol- 
 verhampton as a common soldier, and, after 
 obtaining his discharge, and pecuniary relief 
 from some friendly people in the place, had 
 set up as a teacher of elocution. Roger 
 Kemble had promised him a pupil in his eldest 
 daughter, and went home to boast of the ac- 
 complished tutor he had engaged. But Mrs. 
 Kemble more wisely determined that such an 
 adventurer should not give lessons to her child.* 
 
 * Mr. Combe's history is not less remarkable for the 
 recklessness of his early days than for the industry of 
 his maturer age, and the late period of life at which he 
 attracted popularity by his talents. He was the nephew 
 of a Mr. Alexander, an alderman of the city of Lon- 
 don ; and, as he was sent first to Eton College, and 
 afterwards to Oxford, it may be inferred that his 
 parents were in good circumstances. His uncle left 
 him sixteen thousand pounds. On the acquisition of 
 this fortune he entered himself of the Temple, and 
 in due time was called to the bar. On one occasion 
 he even distinguished himself before the Lord Chan- 
 cellor Nottingham. But his ambition was to shine 
 as a man of fashion, and he paid little attention to 
 the law. Whilst at the Temple, his courtly dress, his 
 handsome liveries, and, it may be added, his tall stature
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 41 
 
 When she was about seventeen, Mr. Siddons, 
 who was still an actor in her father's com- 
 pany, paid his first attentions to her; and 
 it was soon perceived that they were accept- 
 able. Mr. Siddons had been bred to business 
 
 and fine appearance, procured him the appellation of 
 Duke Combe. Some of the most exclusive ladies 
 of fashion had instituted a society which was called 
 the Coterie, to which gentlemen were admitted as 
 visitors. Among this favoured number was the Duke 
 Combe. One evening, Lady Archer, who was a beau- 
 tiful woman, but too fond of gaudy colours, and who 
 had her face always lavishly rouged, was sitting in 
 the Coterie, when Lord Lyttleton, the graceless son 
 of an estimable peer, entered the room evidently intoxi- 
 cated, and stood before Lady Archer for several minutes 
 with his eyes fixed on her. The lady manifested 
 great indignation, and asked why he thus annoyed 
 her. " I have been thinking," said Lord Lyttleton, 
 " what I can compare you to, in your gaudy colouring, 
 and you give me no idea but that of a drunken pea- 
 cock." The lady returned a sharp answer, on which 
 he threw the contents of a glass of wine in her face. 
 All was confusion in a moment; but, though several 
 noblemen and gentlemen were present, none of them 
 took up the cause of the insulted female till Mr. Combe 
 came forward, and, by his resolute behaviour, obliged
 
 42 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 in Birmingham ; but, being handsome and ac- 
 tive, and not without versatile talents for the 
 stage, as his range of characters extended 
 from Hamlet to Harlequin, he acquired pro- 
 
 the offender to withdraw. His spirited conduct on 
 this occasion gained him much credit among the circles 
 of fashion ; but his Grace's diminishing finances ere 
 long put an end to the fashionableness of his acquaint- 
 ance. He paid all the penalties of a spendthrift, and 
 was steeped in poverty to the very lips. At one time 
 he was driven for a morsel of bread to inlist as a private 
 in the British army ; and, at another time, in a similar 
 exigency, he went into the French service. From a more 
 cogent motive than piety, he afterwards entered into a 
 French monastery, and lived there till the term of his 
 noviciate expired. He returned to Britain, and took ser- 
 vice wherever he could get it ; but in all these dips into 
 low life, he was never in the least embarrassed when he 
 met with his old acquaintance. A wealthy divine, who 
 had known him in the best London society, recognised 
 him when a waiter at Swansea, actually tripping about 
 with the napkin under his arm, and, staring at him, ex- 
 claimed, " You cannot be Combe ? " " Yes, indeed, but I 
 am," was the waiter's answer. He married the mistress of 
 a noble lord, who promised him an annuity with her, but 
 cheated him ; and in revenge he wrote a spirited satire, 
 entitled " The Diaboliad." Among its subjects were an 
 Irish peer and his eldest son, who had a quarrel that
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 43 
 
 vincial popularity as an actor. The people 
 of Brecon even took an interest in his attach- 
 ment to Miss Kemble, especially at one period, 
 when he thought himself threatened with a 
 
 extinguished any little natural affection that might have 
 ever subsisted between them. The father challenged 
 the son to fight; the son refused to go out with him, 
 not, as he expressly stated, because the challenger was 
 his own father, but because he was not a gentleman. 
 
 After his first wife's death, Mr. Combe made a more 
 creditable marriage with a sister of Mr. Cosway, the 
 artist, and much of the distress which his imprudence 
 entailed upon him was mitigated by the assiduities of 
 this amiable woman. For many years he subsisted by 
 writing for the booksellers, with a reputation that might 
 be known to many individuals, but that certainly was 
 not public. He wrote a work, which was generally 
 ascribed to the good Lord Lyttleton, entitled " Letters 
 from a Nobleman to his Son," and " Letters from an 
 Italian Nun to an English Nobleman," that professed 
 to be translated from Rousseau. He published also 
 several political tracts, that were trashy, time-serving, 
 and scurrilous. Pecuniary difficulties brought him to 
 a permanent residence in the King's Bench, where he 
 continued about twenty years, and for the latter part of 
 them a voluntary inmate. One of his friends offered to 
 effect a compromise with his creditors, but he refused 
 the favour. " If I compounded with my creditors," said
 
 44 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 disappointment. At this crisis, Mr. Siddons 
 made a public statement of his case, which, 
 though it flowed in rhyme, might possibly con- 
 tain more rhyme than reason. He alleged 
 
 Mr. Combe, " I should be obliged to sacrifice the little 
 substance which I possess, and on which I subsist in 
 prison. These chambers, the best in the Bench, are 
 mine at the rent of a few shillings a week, in right 
 of my seniority as a prisoner. My habits are become 
 so sedentary, that if I lived in the airiest square of 
 London, I should not walk round it once in a month. I 
 am contented in my cheap quarters." 
 
 When he was near the age of seventy he had some 
 literary dealings with Mr. Ackermann, the bookseller. 
 The late caricaturist, Rowlandson, had offered to Mr. 
 Ackermann a number of drawings, representing an old 
 clergyman and schoolmaster, who felt, or fancied him- 
 self, in love with the fine arts, quixottically travelling 
 during his holidays in quest of the picturesque. As the 
 drawings needed the explanation of letter-press, Mr. 
 Ackermann declined to purchase them unless he should 
 find some one who could give them a poetical illustra- 
 tion. He carried one or two of them to Mr. Combe, 
 who undertook the subject. The bookseller, knowing 
 his procrastinating temper, left him but one drawing at 
 a time, which he illustrated in verse, without knowing 
 the subject of the drawing that was next to come. The 
 popularity of the " Adventures of Dr. Syntax" induced
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 45 
 
 that, though he had been accepted by Miss 
 Kemble with the approbation of her parents, 
 they had suddenly forbidden his pretensions, 
 on the prospect of a wealthy neighbouring 
 squire being about to solicit her hand, and 
 that the young lady herself had acquiesced 
 
 Mr. Ackermann afterwards to employ him in two succes- 
 sive publications, " The Dance of Life," and " The 
 Dance of Death," in England, which were also accom- 
 panied by Rowlandson's designs. 
 
 It was almost half a century before the appearance of 
 these works that Mr. Combe so narrowly missed the 
 honour of being Mrs. Siddons's reading master. He 
 had exchanged the gaieties of London for quarters at a 
 tap-room in Wolverhampton, where he was billeted as a 
 soldier in the service of his Britannic Majesty. He 
 had a bad foot at the time, and was limping painfully 
 along the high street of the town, when he was met by 
 an acquaintance who had known him in all his fashion- 
 able glory. This individual had himself seen better 
 days, having exchanged a sub-lieutenancy of marines 
 for a strollership in Mr. Kemble's company. " Hea- 
 vens !" said the astonished histrion, " is it possible, 
 Combe, that you can bear this condition?" " Fiddle- 
 sticks !" answered the ex-duke, taking a pinch of snuff, 
 " a philosopher can bear anything." The player ere 
 long introduced him to Mr. Roger Kemble; but, by
 
 46 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 in their decision. The object of Mr. Siddons's 
 terrors and jealousy was a Mr. Evans, of 
 Pennant, a gentleman who, at that time, 
 had an estate near Brecon, though he lived 
 to consume it, and died an insolvent bachelor. 
 It is still remembered by some survivors at 
 
 this time, Mr. Combe had become known in the place 
 through his conversational talents. A gentleman, pass- 
 ing through the public-house, had observed him reading, 
 and, looking over his shoulder, saw with surprise a copy 
 of Horace. " What," said he, " my friend, can you 
 read that book in the original ?" " If I cannot," replied 
 Combe, " a great deal of money has been thrown away 
 on my education." His landlord soon found the lite- 
 rary red-coat an attractive ornament to his tap-room, 
 which was filled every night with the wondering audi- 
 tors of the learned soldier. They treated him to gra- 
 tuitous potations, and clubbed their money to procure 
 his discharge. Roger Kemble gave him a benefit night 
 at the theatre, and Combe promised to speak an ad- 
 dress on the occasion. In this address, he noticed the 
 various conjectures that had been circulated respecting 
 his real name and character ; and, after concluding the 
 enumeration, he said, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall 
 tell you what I am." While expectation was all agog, 
 he added, " I am ladies and gentlemen, your most obedi- 
 ent humble servant." He then bowed, and left the stage.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 47 
 
 Brecon, that this Mr. Evans was rumoured 
 to have fallen in love with Miss Kemble on 
 hearing her sing an opera song, " Sweet 
 Robin," with peculiarly fascinating effect ; and 
 people expected that he would ask her in 
 marriage. Of the instability of Miss Kemble's 
 affection, however, there is not the slightest 
 proof beyond the word of a jealous lover; 
 and, though Mr. and Mrs. Kemble might well 
 grudge their lovely daughter to a fellow- 
 stroller, we are not to take Mr. Siddons's 
 song as evidence of their culpability.* Mr. 
 
 * The following was the Song, sung by Mr. Siddons 
 on this occasion, entitled " The Discarded Lover." 
 
 1. 
 
 " Ye ladies of Brecon, whose hearts ever feel 
 For wrongs like to this I'm about to reveal : 
 Excuse the first product, nor pass unregarded 
 The complaints of poor Colin, a lover discarded. 
 
 2. 
 
 " When first on the shore of fair Cambria he trode, 
 His devotion was paid to the blind little god, 
 Whose aid and assistance each day he'd implore 
 To grant him his Phyllis he wanted no more.
 
 48 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Siddons proposed to his beloved an immedi- 
 ate elopement, who, tempering amatory with 
 
 3. 
 
 " No cloud seemed to threaten, each bar was removed : 
 The father, though silent, with silence approved : 
 The mother, at last, bestowed her assent, 
 When Phyllis seemed pleased, and Colin content. 
 
 4. 
 
 " Secure, as he thought, in a treasure so dear, 
 Neither duke, lord, nor squire, had he reason to fear ; 
 But, oh ! strange the reverse to all things brought about, 
 For the last undersigned has poor Colin thrown out. 
 
 5. 
 
 " Common fame, who we all are inform'd is a liar, 
 Reported of late that a wealthy young squire 
 Had received from the fair an invincible dart, 
 And " Robin, sweet robin," had thrill'd thro' his heart. 
 
 6. 
 
 " At length the report reach'd the ears of his flame, 
 Whose nature he fear'd from the source whence it came ; 
 She acquainted her ma'a, who, her ends to obtain, 
 Determined poor Colin to drive from the plain. 
 
 7. 
 
 " Not easily turn'd, she her project pursued, 
 Each part of the shepherd was instantly viewed ; 
 And the charms of three hundred a year, some say more, 
 Made her find out a thousand she ne'er saw before.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 49 
 
 filial duty, declined the proposal. The impa- 
 tient lover then became so impetuous in his 
 language to her parents, that he received his 
 dismissal, for the time being, from Mr. Kem- 
 ble's company as an actor. He was allowed, 
 however, to have a benefit, and the people 
 
 " Poor Colin, whose fame bids all slander defiance, 
 Could not help being moved at their talk'd-of alliance ; 
 The means so alluring, so tempting the bait, 
 Thus Colin consider'd, and dreaded his fate. 
 
 9. 
 
 " Yet still on his Phyllis his hopes were all placed, 
 That her vows were so firm they could ne'er be effac'd ; 
 But soon she convinced him 'twas all a mere joke, 
 For duty rose up, and her vows were all broke. 
 
 10. 
 
 " Dear ladies, avoid one indelible stain, 
 Excuse me, I beg, if my verse is too plain ; 
 But a jilt is the devil, as has long been confess'd, 
 Which a heart like poor Colin's must ever detest. 
 
 11. 
 
 " Now your pardon he begs, as your pity he might, 
 But here 'tis confess'd you have shewn it to-night; 
 For his merits, tho' small, you have amply rewarded, 
 To accept the poor thanks of a lover discarded." 
 

 
 50 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 of Brecon gave him a bumper house. At the 
 conclusion of the play he sang the song of his 
 own composition already mentioned, which does 
 no remarkable credit either to his delicacy or 
 poetical genius. But it described the pangs 
 of his own attachment, the coldness of Miss 
 Kemble, and the perfidy of her parents ; and, 
 indifferent as the effusion was, it was greeted 
 by the audience with all the Welsh warmth of 
 their hearts. Their applauses were still re- 
 sounding, after his last bow, when Colin, 
 retiring into the green-room, was met by the 
 stately mother of Miss Kemble, who was fully 
 prepared to avenge the honour of the family, 
 and crowned Mr. Siddons's benefit by boxing 
 his ears very heartily. 
 
 How the feud was healed I know not; but 
 the event proved that Mr. Siddons was cured 
 of his jealousy. Miss Kemble promised to 
 marry him as soon as her father and mother's 
 objections could be overcome. Meanwhile,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 51 
 
 she agreed to go from home, and lived for 
 some time under the protection of Mrs. Great- 
 heed, of Guy's Cliff, in Warwickshire. From 
 a surviving member of that family, I learn that 
 she came into it in a dependant capacity ; and, 
 though she was much liked, that her great 
 latent genius was not even suspected. It was 
 observed, however, that she passionately ad- 
 mired Milton ; and I have seen a copy of his 
 works which the Greatheeds presented to her 
 at this period. This circumstance is at vari- 
 ance with a rumour often repeated, I have no 
 doubt with a charitable wish to make her early 
 days appear as vulgar as possible, namely, that 
 she went as a nursery-maid into the house at 
 Guy's Cliff. Families rarely present their nurse- 
 maids with copies of Milton's poetry; and, 
 besides, there were at that time no children 
 to be nursed in the Greatheed family. Her 
 station with them was humble, but not servile, 
 and her principal employment was to read to 
 the elder Mr. Greatheed. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 The younger Mr. Greatheed at that time^was, 
 I believe, about twelve years of age. His recol- 
 lections of Mrs. Siddons, and her future history, 
 gave him an interest in our great actress that 
 lasted for life. George Greatheed, though un- 
 w successful as a poet, was a most honourable 
 and estimable man. He wrote the " Regent," 
 an indifferent tragedy, and, having joined the 
 Delia Cruscans, came under the savage vitu- 
 peration of Gifford. But his scathed laurels 
 never lowered him in Mrs. Siddons's regard. 
 
 Whilst she remained at Guy's Cliff she re- 
 ceived several visits from Mr. Siddons ; and 
 her parents, seeing that the attachment was 
 serious, ceased to oppose it. In her nine- 
 teenth year she was united to the object of 
 her choice, her own father giving her away. 
 They were married at Trinity church, Coven- 
 try, November 26, 1773; and on the 4th of the 
 October following, their eldest son, Henry, was 
 born, at Wolverhampton.
 
 CHAPTER II.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons acts at Cheltenham Meets with the Hon. 
 Miss Boyle, afterwards Lady O'Neil Is invited by 
 Garrick to Drury Lane Appears as Portia Has in- 
 different success Is dismissed from Drury Lane by a 
 Letter from the Prompter Retires to the Provincial 
 Theatres, where she is popular Her future greatness 
 predicted by Henderson Is admired at Bath, and 
 from thence recalled to Drury Lane.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IN the course of the year 1774, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Siddons were both engaged to act at 
 Cheltenham. That place, though now an opu- 
 lent and considerable town, consisted in those 
 days of only one tolerable street, through 
 the middle of which ran a clear stream of 
 water, with stepping-stones that served as a 
 bridge. At that time, the Honourable Miss 
 Boyle, the only daughter of Lord Dungarvon, 
 a most accomplished woman, and authoress 
 of several pleasing poems, one of which, 
 "An Ode to the Poppy," was published by 
 Charlotte Smith, happened to be at Chelten- 
 ham. She had come, accompanied by her
 
 56 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 mother, and her mother's second husband, the 
 Earl of Aylesbury. One morning that she and 
 some other fashionables went to the box-keeper's 
 office, they were told that the tragedy to be 
 performed that evening was "Venice Pre- 
 served." They all laughed heartily, and pro- 
 mised themselves a treat of the ludicrous, in 
 the misrepresentation of the piece. Some one 
 who overheard their mirth kindly reported 
 it to Mrs. Siddons. She had the part of 
 Belvidera allotted to her, and prepared for the 
 performance of it with no very enviable feelings. 
 It may be doubted indeed whether Otway had 
 imagined in Belvidera a personage more to be 
 pitied than her representative now thought 
 herself. The rabble, in " Venice Preserved," 
 showed compassion for the heroine, and, when 
 they saw her feather-bed put up to auction, 
 "governed their roaring throats, and grumbled 
 pity''' But our actress anticipated refined 
 scorners, more pitiless than the rabble : and 
 the prospect was certainly calculated to pre-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 57 
 
 pare her more for the madness than the dig- 
 nity of her part. In spite of much agitation, 
 however, she got through it. About the 
 middle of the piece she heard some unusual 
 and apparently suppressed noises, and therefore 
 concluded that the fashionables were in the 
 full enjoyment of their anticipated amusement, 
 tittering and laughing, as she thought, with 
 unmerciful derision. She went home, after 
 the play, grievously mortified. Next day, how- 
 ever, Mr. Siddons met in the street with Lord 
 Aylesbury, who inquired after Mrs. Siddons's 
 health, and expressed not only his own admi- 
 ration of her last night's exquisite acting, but 
 related its effects on the ladies of his party. 
 They had wept, he said, so excessively, that 
 they were unpresentable in the morning, and 
 were confined to their rooms with headachs. 
 Mr. Siddons hastened home to gladden his 
 fair spouse with this intelligence. Miss Boyle 
 soon afterwards visited Mrs. Siddons at her 
 lodgings, took the deepest interest in her for-
 
 58 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 tunes, and continued her ardent friend*till her 
 death. She married Lord O'Neil, of Shane's 
 Castle, in Ireland. It is no wonder that Mrs. 
 Siddons dwells with tenderness in her Memo- 
 randa on the name of this earliest encourager of 
 her genius. Miss Boyle was a beauty of the 
 first order, and gifted with a similar mind, as her 
 poetry, and her patronage of the hitherto un- 
 noticed actress, evince; though patronage is 
 too cold a word for the friendship which she 
 bestowed on so interesting an object. Though 
 the powers of the latter were by her own confes- 
 sion still crude, yet her noble young friend con- 
 soled and cheered her ; and, with the prophetic 
 eye of taste, foresaw her glory. Miss Boyle took 
 upon her the direction of her wardrobe, enriched 
 it from her own, and made many of her dresses 
 with her own hands. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons continues thus in her Auto- 
 graph Recollections: "Mr. King, by order of 
 Mr. Garrick, who had heard some account of
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 59 
 
 me from the Aylesbury family, came to Chel- 
 tenham to see me in the " Fair Penitent." I 
 knew neither Mr. King nor his purpose; but 
 I shortly afterwards received an invitation 
 from Garrick himself, upon very low terms. 
 Happy to be placed where I presumptuously 
 augured that I should do all that I have since 
 achieved, if I could but once gain the oppor- 
 tunity, I instantly paid my respects to the 
 great man. I was at that time good-looking ; 
 and certainly, all things considered, an actress 
 well worth my poor five pounds a week. His 
 praises were most liberally conferred upon me ; 
 but his attentions, great and unremitting as 
 they were, ended in worse than nothing. 
 How was all this admiration to be accounted 
 for, consistently with his subsequent conduct ? 
 Why, thus, I believe : He was retiring from 
 the Management of Drury Lane, and, I sup- 
 pose, at that time wished to wash his hands 
 of all its concerns and details. I moreover had 
 served what I believe was his chief object in
 
 60 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 the exaltation of poor me, and *that was, 
 the mortification and irritation of Mrs. Yates 
 and Miss Younge, whose consequence and 
 troublesome airs were, it must be confessed, 
 enough to try his patience. As he had now 
 almost withdrawn from it, the interests of the 
 Theatre grew, I suppose, rather indifferent to 
 him. However that may have been, he al- 
 ways objected to my appearance in any very 
 prominent character, telling me that the fore- 
 named ladies would poison me, if I did. I 
 of course thought him not only an oracle, but 
 my friend ; and, in consequence of his advice, 
 Portia, in the " Merchant of Venice," was fixed 
 upon for my debut ; a character in which it 
 was not likely that I should excite any great 
 sensation / was, therefore, merely tolerated. 
 The fulsome adulation that courted Garrick 
 in the Theatre cannot be imagined ; and who- 
 soever was the luckless wight who should 
 be honoured by his distinguished and envied 
 smiles, of course, became an object of spite
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 61 
 
 and malevolence. Little did I imagine that I 
 myself was now that wretched victim. He 
 would sometimes hand me from my own seat 
 in the green-room, to place me next to his own. 
 He also selected me to personate Venus, at 
 the revival of the "Jubilee." This gained me 
 the malicious appellation of Garrick's Venus ; 
 and the ladies who so kindly bestowed it on 
 me rushed before me in the last scene, so that 
 if he (Mr. Garrick) had not brought us forward 
 with him with his own hands, my little Cupid* 
 and myself, whose appointed situations were 
 in the very front of the stage, might have as 
 well been in the Island of Paphos at that mo- 
 ment. Mr. Garrick would also flatter me, by 
 sending me into one of the boxes, when he 
 acted any of his great characters. In short, 
 
 * This little Cupid was the subsequent autobiogra- 
 pher, Thomas Dibdin. He told me that, as it was ne- 
 cessary for him to smile in the part of his godship, Mrs. 
 Siddons kept him in humour by asking him what sort 
 of sugar-plums he liked best, and promising him a large 
 supply of them. After the performance she kept her 
 word.
 
 62 LIFE OF MRS. STDDONS. 
 
 his attentions were enough to turn an older 
 
 * 
 and wiser head. He promised Mr. Siddons to 
 
 procure me a good engagement with the new 
 Managers, and desired him to give himself no 
 trouhle about the matter, but to put my cause 
 entirely into his hands. He let me down, how- 
 ever, after all these protestations, in the most 
 humiliating manner; and, instead of doing me 
 common justice with those gentlemen, rather 
 depreciated my talents. This Mr. Sheridan 
 afterwards told me ; and said that, when Mrs. 
 Abingdon heard of my impending dismissal, 
 she told them they were all acting like fools. 
 When the London season was over, I made an 
 engagement at Birmingham, for the ensuing 
 summer, little doubting of my return to Drury 
 Lane for the next winter ; but, whilst I was 
 fulfilling my engagement at Birmingham, to my 
 utter dismay and astonishment, I received 
 an official letter from the Prompter of Drury 
 Lane, acquainting me that my services would 
 be no longer required. It was a stunning and 
 cruel blow, overwhelming all my ambitious
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 63 
 
 hopes, and involving peril, even to the sub- 
 sistence of my helpless babes.* It was very 
 near destroying me. My blighted prospects 
 indeed, induced a state of mind that preyed 
 upon my health, and for a year and a half I 
 was supposed to be hastening to a decline. 
 For the sake of my poor children, however, I 
 roused myself to shake off this despondency, 
 and my endeavours were blest with success, in 
 spite of the degradation I had suffered in being 
 banished from Drury Lane, as a worthless can- 
 didate for fame and fortune." 
 
 These sentences, which were penned by Mrs. 
 Siddons in her advanced age, shew that neither 
 a long lifetime, nor most forgiving habits of 
 mind, had effaced the poignant feelings which 
 this transaction had inflicted on her ; and those 
 who knew her best will have the most implicit 
 
 * Her eldest daughter, Sarah Martha, was born at 
 Gloucester, Nov. 5, 1775, within two months before Mrs 
 Siddons's first appearance in London.
 
 64 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 belief in her veracity. Her statement, however, 
 
 * 
 
 I think, shews that Garrick behaved to her 
 rather like a man of the world than with absolute 
 treachery. One traces in his conduct more 
 of that thoughtlessness which the French call 
 " une heureuse legerete" than of any bad mean- 
 ing. It is utterly improbable that he was 
 ever jealous of her genius, or that he sought to 
 keep it back from popularity, for fear of its 
 eclipsing his own. At that time she had not 
 risen (at least in the common opinion,) to 
 rivalship with players far inferior to Garrick. 
 His culpability, in failing to keep his promise 
 to Mrs. Siddons as to her engagement, cannot 
 be very definitely measured. In leaving so 
 complicated a concern as Drury Lane, he might 
 be obliged to sacrifice his influence. For the 
 fact of his having depreciated her talents to 
 the Managers, we have only the testimony of 
 Sheridan, who probably found her mind irri- 
 tated on the subject, and was a man much dis- 
 posed to say to a beautiful woman whatever
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 65 
 
 was likely to fall in with her prevailing mood. 
 When Garrick ceased to be the Manager of 
 Drury Lane, he ceased to have the power of 
 dictating engagements. Still it were to be 
 wished that he had left the affair explained. 
 
 Mr. Boaden, in his Life of our great actress, 
 asserts, that some years previous to her debut 
 on the London boards, she made a private 
 application to Garrick, as Manager of Drury 
 Lane, soliciting first his judgment, and se- 
 condly his protection. She repeated, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Boaden, some of the speeches of 
 " Jane Shore" before the Manager. " He seemed 
 highly pleased with her elocution and deport- 
 ment, wondered how she could have got rid 
 of the provincial ti-tum-ti, but regretted he 
 could do nothing for her, and wished her a 
 good morning." 
 
 I have strong doubts with regard to this 
 anecdote. The scene of it is laid in Lon- 
 
 F
 
 66 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 don; and I have heard Mrs. Siddons herself 
 
 * 
 
 say, that she never was in London before 
 her invitation from Garrick, in 1775. At the 
 time alleged, she was in the family of the 
 Greatheeds, and the surviving members of that 
 family have no recollection either of Mrs. 
 Siddons's having left them, or of their hav- 
 ing removed from Guy's Cliff, during her 
 abode with them. 
 
 It was on Friday, the 29th of December, 
 1775, that Mrs. Siddons made her first appear- 
 ance on the London boards, in the character 
 of Portia, in the " Merchant of Venice." She 
 was announced merely as a young lady, whose 
 performances had met with great applause. 
 The part of Portia was manifestly too gay for 
 Mrs. Siddons under the appalling ordeal of a 
 first appearance in London. She played it to 
 be sure many years afterwards with very fair 
 success ; but that was when her triumphs had 
 given her strength. The nobleness of her form,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 67 
 
 and the energy of her acting made her appear 
 constitutionally strong; but she was far from 
 being so, and her nerves were of the most deli- 
 cate texture. By looking at the note appended 
 to page 63, it will be seen that her health could 
 not now be very robust. She had thus to throw 
 the first die for her fame in a sprightly and half- 
 comic part, under disadvantages both physical 
 and moral. 
 
 The great obstacle to the early develop- 
 ment of her powers, I have heard Mrs. Sid- 
 dons declare, was timidity. The following 
 critique on her first appearance at Drury 
 Lane will exemplify the truth of this ac- 
 knowledgment, though it equally convicts the 
 vile newspaper critic of insensibility to the real 
 cause of her failure in the part. The scrib- 
 bler acknowledges that she delivered the great 
 speech to Shylock witn the most critical pro- 
 priety, though he had not the charity to ascribe 
 her tremulous tones to diffidence, the most par- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 
 
 donable of all faults, because the most ^indica- 
 tive of sensibility. In describing her appear- 
 ance, the newsman says, " On before us tot- 
 tered rather than walked, a very pretty, 
 delicate, fragile- looking young creature, dress- 
 ed in a most unbecoming manner, in a faded 
 salmon-coloured sack and coat, and uncertain 
 whereabouts to fix either her eyes or her 
 feet. She spoke in a broken tremulous tone ; 
 and at the close of a sentence her words 
 generally lapsed into a horrid whisper, that 
 was absolutely inaudible. After her first exit, 
 the buzzing comment went round the pit gene- 
 rally. She certainly is very pretty, but then 
 how awkward, and what a shocking dresser! 
 Towards the famous Trial-scene, she became 
 more collected, and delivered the great speech 
 to Shy lock ivith the most critical propriety, but 
 still with a faintness of utterance which seemed 
 the result rather of internal physical weakness 
 than of a deficiency of spirit or feeling. Alto- 
 gether, the impression made upon the audi-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 69 
 
 ence by this first effort was of the most nega- 
 tive nature." 
 
 She repeated the character of Portia a few 
 nights afterwards, but with no greater effect. 
 She then waited until the 13th of January, 
 1776, for one of the ladies collegiate, in Ben 
 Jonson's " Epiccene," which had been restored 
 to the stage by Colman. 
 
 Soon after, in the same season, she acted a 
 part, of trifling moment, in an opera, called 
 "The Blackamoor Washed White." The au- 
 thor of this opera, Henry Bate, was a clergy- 
 man, who had a living near Chelmsford, in 
 Essex. He produced " Henry and Emma," an 
 interlude, which was acted at Covent Garden 
 in 1774 ; and " The Rival Candidates," a comic 
 opera, which came out at Drury Lane, with ap- 
 probation ; but his third piece, in which Mrs. 
 Siddons performed, was coldly received, lived 
 only three nights, and was never printed.
 
 70 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 On the 17th of February, 1776, Mrs. Siddons 
 
 * 
 
 performed in Mrs. Cowley's comedy of " The 
 Runaway," which was acted for seventeen 
 nights consecutively. The " Runaway" is not 
 the best of Mrs. Cowley's comedies ; but it is 
 by no means contemptible. Her " Belle's Stra- 
 tagem" is her chef d'oeuvre ; and I would recom- 
 mend to those who despise her as a Delia 
 Cruscan poetess to read that comedy. A re- 
 cognition of her merits as a comic writer is the 
 more due to her, that they were forgotten by 
 the world in her latter years, when the author 
 of the "Baviad" and " Maeviad" lashed her 
 under her assumed name of Anna Matilda. I 
 must acknowledge, to be sure, that nothing but 
 sheer infatuation can account for the authoress 
 of the " Belle's Stratagem" having obscured a 
 fair reputation by printing cartloads of Delia 
 Cruscan rhymes. As a matter of taste, she de- 
 served admonition : but her sex and her services 
 to literature ought to have screened her from 
 gross vituperation. Gifford abused his power.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDUONS. 71 
 
 The public were thankful to him for writing 
 down such nuisances as Williams, the self- 
 styled Anthony Pasquin, an impudent fellow 
 to whom many of the artists and players of 
 London actually paid black mail, in order to be 
 saved from his scurrility. This was performing 
 a public duty. But he was too savage on the 
 tinsel school ; for the feeble Delia Cruscans 
 would have died without a public execution. 
 Besides, it would have been but justice on the 
 part of Gifford to have blended his censure of 
 Mrs. Cowley's Delia Cruscanism with a full ac- 
 knowledgment of her better works.* At this 
 
 * I never saw this authoress but once, and that was 
 some thirty years ago, in a bookseller's shop. An old 
 lady came in, who, I was told, was the Delia Cruscan 
 Anna Matilda. She inquired about the sale of her 
 last poem, " The Siege of Acre." I have since learnt 
 that she was at that time in good circumstances, and 
 cherished by many friends ; but, either from my fancy 
 picturing the prints of Gifford's satire in her furrowed 
 countenance, or that she was in uncommonly bad 
 spirits, she seemed to me the most forlorn being 1 had
 
 72 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 time, when Mrs. Siddons acted in the " Run- 
 
 
 
 away," Miss Younge was the great magnet in 
 comedy. Yet the part allotted to Mrs. Siddons 
 bespeaks no intention of keeping her back from 
 public attention. On the contrary, whilst Miss 
 Younge in the piece acted Bella, whose fortune 
 is rather in the side-plot, Mrs. Siddons appeared 
 as Emily, the lovely fugitive, who may be called 
 the heroine of the play. The part is tender 
 and dignified, and was peculiarly suited to the 
 beauty of Mrs. Siddons. But the comedy, 
 though in some respects pleasant, fails to con- 
 centrate much interest in the principal charac- 
 
 ever seen. When the bookseller told her that he had 
 sold only fifteen copies of her " Siege of Acre," her 
 chagrin was manifest. After she was gone, the bi- 
 bliopolist informed us that he had actually disposed of 
 only three copies, but could not find in his heart to 
 mortify her with the strict truth. I was told, however, 
 that Mrs. Cowley had written the " Belle's Stratagem." 
 I went home, and read it ; and Letitia Hardy cured me of 
 my contemptuous compassion for an excellent comic 
 authoress.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 73 
 
 ter. In one of the last scenes, the heroine's 
 distress consists in being accused of having 
 been a strolling player, a somewhat mortifying 
 part for our young actress to personate. Mrs. 
 Siddons, according to Mr. Boaden, was to sound 
 the very bass-string of humility, by performing 
 in a farce, by T. Vaughan, called " Love's Me- 
 tamorphoses ;" but Mr. Boaden seems to have 
 condemned the piece without having read it, 
 for he gives it not even its real title, which 
 is "Love's Vagaries," not "Metamorphoses," 
 and it is very passable. The author was 
 Clerk of the Peace for Westminster. He is 
 canonized in the " Rosciad," by the name of 
 Dapper. 
 
 Garrick was now about to leave the stage, 
 and was determined to leave the parting im- 
 pression of his comic excellence by playing his 
 favorite character of Ranger, in " The Suspi- 
 cious Husband." To Mrs. Siddons he allotted 
 the part of Mrs. Strickland ; and, as far as
 
 74 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 beauty could give attraction in comedy, no 
 
 4 
 
 one could better represent the young and love- 
 ly wife. On tbis occasion Mrs. Siddons's type 
 was enlarged on the bills of the play, and she 
 had a whole line to herself "Mrs. Strickland, 
 Mrs. Siddons." Hitherto she had played no part 
 that was strictly tragic on the London boards, 
 but Garrick now revived " Richard HI.," which 
 had been discontinued for several years, and he 
 assigned the part of Lady Anne to our actress. 
 She here met Roscius in all his terrors. 
 Garrick 's acting that night must have been 
 startling. From what his cotemporaries have 
 said of it, we may guess that his impressive- 
 ness bordered upon excess. He made the gal- 
 leries often laugh when he intended that they 
 should shudder. By his force, approaching to 
 wildness, and the fire of his eyes, he dismayed 
 the young actress. He had directed her, in 
 speaking to him, always to turn her back to 
 the audience, in order that he might keep his 
 own face towards them ; and her forgetfumess
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 75 
 
 of this direction was punished by Garrick with 
 a glance of displeasure, that unnerved her 
 powers. Of this performance the following ac- 
 count is given, in the theatrical report of " The 
 London Magazine" for May, 1776. After 
 declaring that Garrick's appearance beggared 
 all description, the writer adds : " As to most 
 of the other characters, particularly the fe- 
 male ones, they were wretchedly performed. 
 Mrs. Hopkins was an ungracious Queen, Mrs. 
 Johnston a frightful Duchess, and Mrs. Siddons, 
 a lamentable Lady Anne" 
 
 A week afterwards she had an opportunity to 
 attempt reinstating herself in Garrick's good 
 graces, as " Richard II I." was again performed, 
 by command of their Majesties, on the 5th 
 of June. Whether she succeeded or not, I 
 know not ; but Garrick closed his own bril- 
 liant career five days afterwards, and left 
 Mrs. Siddons to receive from the Managers 
 a dismissal, to which, if he had not prospec-
 
 76 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 lively consented, he had at least offered no op- 
 position. 
 
 Altogether, though this first failure of the 
 greatest of actresses evinces nothing like posi- 
 tive or acute discernment in the public taste ; 
 and though the criticism which I have quoted 
 was most heartlessly uncandid ; yet I am not 
 prepared to blame her audiences implicitly for 
 wilful blindness to her merit. By her own con- 
 fession, she was infirm in her health, and fear- 
 fully nervous. It is true she was the identical 
 Mrs. Siddons who, a year afterwards, electri- 
 fied the provincial theatres, and who, in 1782, 
 eclipsed all rivalship whatsoever : but it does 
 not follow that she was the identical actress. 
 Her case adds but one to the many instances in 
 the history of great actors and orators, of timi- 
 dity obscuring the brightest powers at their 
 outset; like chilling vapours awhile retarding 
 the beauty of a day in spring. But the day of 
 her fame, when it rose, well repaid her for the
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 77 
 
 lateness of its rising, and its splendour more 
 than atoned for its morning shade : indeed, it 
 renders her history more interesting by the 
 contrast.* 
 
 * It is remarkable, that Mrs. Elizabeth Barry, the 
 greatest of Mrs. Siddons's stage predecessors, and Mrs. 
 Oldfield, the most beautiful, were both, like herself, un- 
 successful debutantes. " The fame," says Colley Gibber, 
 "to which Mrs. Barry arrived is a particular proof of 
 the difficulty there is of judging with certainty, from 
 their first trials, whether young people will ever make 
 any great figure on a theatre. There was, it seems, so 
 little hope of her at her first setting out, that she was, at 
 the end of the first year, discharged the company. I 
 take it for granted, that the objection to Mrs. Barry 
 must have been a defective ear, or some unskilful dis- 
 sonance in her manner of pronouncing ; but where there 
 is a proper voice and person, with the addition of a good 
 understanding, experience tells us that such a defect is 
 not always invincible, of which both Mrs. Barry and the 
 late Mrs. Oldfield are eminent instances. Mrs. Oldfield 
 had been a year in the Theatre Royal before she gave 
 any tolerable hope of her being an actress, so unlike to 
 all manner of propriety was her speaking." How unac- 
 countably then does a genius for the stage make its way 
 towards perfection.
 
 78 LIFE OF MRS. S1DDONS. 
 
 In her Autograph Memoranda, she says that, 
 
 * 
 
 after her dismissal by letter from the Prompter 
 of Drury Lane, she made an engagement at 
 Bath. I imagine she means, that her first im- 
 portant engagement was at Bath, for I find 
 that her first performance, after she quitted 
 London, was at Birmingham ; and there, whilst 
 she had an engagement for the whole summer 
 season of 1776, she was allowed the highest 
 characters. It was there that she acted with 
 Henderson, who was so struck by her merits, 
 that he wrote immediately to Palmer, the Ma- 
 nager of the Bath Theatre, urging him in the 
 strongest terms to engage her. The Bath Ma- 
 nager could not for the present engage her, but 
 he kept Henderson's advice in his mind. 
 
 Early in the year 1777 Mrs. Siddons played 
 at Manchester, and became there so celebrated 
 that her fame brought her an invitation to 
 York. By this time her range of characters 
 was considerable, though it included none of
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 79 
 
 the great females of Shakespeare. She ex- 
 celled in Euphrasia (" The Grecian Daughter"), 
 Alicia (" Jane Shore"), Rosalind (" As You 
 Like It"), and Matilda (in "Douglas"). She 
 was even acceptable as Lady Townley. At 
 Manchester, one of her most applauded cha- 
 racters was Hamlet, which she performed many 
 years afterwards in Dublin, though she could 
 never be prevailed upon to play it in London. 
 
 At York, she was engaged from Easter to 
 Whitsuntide, in 1777 ; and, on the 15th of 
 April, played the Grecian Daughter. Tate 
 Wilkinson, who acted with her, as Evander, 
 says, in his Memoirs, that though he saw in 
 her every other requisite for great acting, he 
 trembled for fear her wretched health should 
 disable her from sustaining the fatigues of her 
 duty. She had at York at first to encounter 
 some disparagers, among whom, the leading 
 critic of the place, a Mr. Swan, was the most 
 noisy. But she had only performed a few
 
 80 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 times when all the Yorkists knelt at her shrine, 
 and the swan himself waddled forward to bow 
 his neck in admiration. 
 
 " I never remember," says Wilkinson, " any 
 actress to have been so great a favorite at York 
 as Mrs. Siddons was during that short time. 
 All lifted up their eyes with astonishment, that 
 such a voice, such a judgment, and such act- 
 ing, should have been neglected by a London 
 audience, and by the first actor in the world." 
 In the meantime, Henderson's advice had not 
 slept in Palmer's ear, and he invited her to 
 Bath, where she consummated the reputation 
 that brought her in triumph to the London 
 boards. " I now made an engagement at Bath," 
 she says, in her Memoranda : " there my talents 
 and industry were encouraged by the greatest 
 indulgence, and, I may say, with some admira- 
 tion. Tragedies, which had been almost ba- 
 nished, again resumed their proper interest; but 
 still I had the mortification of being obliged to
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 81 
 
 personate many subordinate characters in co- 
 medy, the first being, by contract, in the pos- 
 session of another lady. To this I was obliged 
 to submit, or to forfeit a part of my salary, 
 which was only three pounds a week. Tragedies 
 were now becoming more and more fashionable. 
 This was favorable to my cast of powers ; and, 
 whilst I laboured hard, I began to earn a distinct 
 and flattering reputation. Hard labour indeed 
 it was ; for, after the rehearsal at Bath, and on 
 a Monday morning, I had to go and act at Bris- 
 tol on the evening of the same day ; and reach- 
 ing Bath again, after a drive of twelve miles, I 
 was obliged to represent some fatiguing part 
 there on the Tuesday evening. Meantime, I 
 was gaining private friends, as well as public 
 favour ; and my industry and perseverance were 
 indefatigable. When I recollect all this labour 
 of mind and body, I wonder that I had strength 
 and courage to support it, interrupted as I was 
 by the cares of a mother, and by the childish 
 sports of my little ones, who were often most 
 
 G
 
 82 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 unwillingly hushed to silence, for interrupting 
 their mother's studies." 
 
 During her residence at Bath, July 1, 1779, 
 she gave birth to her second daughter, Maria. 
 
 "I remained at Bath," she continues, "about 
 three years, during which time Mr. Henderson 
 came there to act for a few nights. He was 
 most kindly encouraging to me, and, on his re- 
 turn to London, spoke of me most favourably. 
 I acted Beatrice with his Benedick, and he 
 commended my efforts even in comdey. He 
 was a fine actor, with no great personal advan- 
 tages indeed; but he was the soul of feeling 
 and intelligence." 
 
 Henderson's name has a right to a place in 
 Mrs. Siddons's biography. Within a year after 
 her expulsion from Drury Lane, he pronounced 
 that " she was an actress who never had had an 
 equal, nor would ever have a superior" He
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 83 
 
 was the only great player of his time who did 
 her early justice ; and if we had nothing more 
 than this to inscribe on his tomb, it would be 
 no ignoble epitaph. 
 
 John Henderson was the son of an Irish 
 factor, in London, and was born in Cheapside, 
 1746. His father died whilst he was a child, 
 and left his widowed mother with something 
 less than WOOL to support him and two other 
 children. With these slender means she re* 
 tired to Newport Pagnell, and in that place 
 Henderson, with no other teacher than his 
 mother, passed the first ten years of his life. 
 She taught him to read, she put the English 
 poets into his hands, and was rewarded by 
 hearing him recite them with the instinctive 
 grace of enthusiasm. Shakespeare enraptured 
 his boyish imagination. In his passion for the 
 drama he could not be said to have been stage- 
 struck ; for he longed and pined to see a play of 
 Shakespeare's acted before he had seen an actor 
 
 G 2
 
 84 LIFE OF MRS. SFDDONS. 
 
 or a stage, there being at that time not even 
 strollers at Newport Pagnell. 
 
 f 
 At eleven years of age he went to a school at 
 
 Hemel Hempstead, where, within little more 
 than a year, he acquired some knowledge of 
 French, and learnt the common rules of arith- 
 metic, besides a little Latin. He owns that he 
 never made a regular study of English gram- 
 mar. If we were all honest, the confession 
 would not seem singular. 
 
 From thence he went to London ; and, hav- 
 ing shown an early propensity to drawing, he 
 was placed as a house-pupil with a drawing- 
 master, of the name of Fournier. But in that 
 artist's employ he was ill-used, and had few op- 
 portunities of studying his art. Nevertheless, 
 during his stay with Fournier, he made a pen- 
 and-ink drawing of a Fisherman smoking his 
 pipe, which gained him a premium from the 
 Society for the Encouragement of Art.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 85 
 
 Leaving this master, he went to live with a 
 Mr. Cripps, a working silversmith, in St. James's 
 street ; but the death of this employer left him 
 at twenty years of age upon the world, with 
 few connexions, and with no determinate pur- 
 suit. In these circumstances he betook himself 
 to his powers of elocution, and gained consi- 
 derable popularity by public readings in Lon- 
 don. Garrick recommended him to Palmer, at 
 Bath, who gave him an engagement at the 
 theatre there; and he soon became so distin- 
 guished as to be called the Bath Roscius. 
 From thence, and to requite him for many 
 mortifying rebuffs from the London managers, 
 he might be said to have come, in despite of 
 them, into the Haymarket and Drury Lane 
 Theatres ; and, for several years after Garrick's 
 retirement, he was regarded as the first actor 
 on the English stage. He died in 1785, with a 
 distinguished public and an amiable private 
 reputation.
 
 86 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Mr. Gait, in his " Lives of the Players" has 
 
 ) 
 made, in my opinion, a harsh and false estimate 
 
 of his character as an actor. " The elder Col- 
 man," says Mr. Gait, " objected to the style in 
 which Henderson sometimes dressed himself, 
 and condemned his costume, in Shylock, as too 
 shabby. Foote said of him, that ' he would not 
 do;' and Garrick's contempt of him amounted 
 to personal enmity. All this," says Mr. Gait, 
 " serves to confirm the idea that he was not so 
 extraordinary a man as his friends represented." 
 With a little explanation, however, all this leads 
 to no such conclusion. Colman's objection to 
 his dress in Shylock was never confirmed by 
 public opinion. On the contrary, according to 
 tradition, Henderson was the happiest of all 
 the actors of that part. Boaden observes, with 
 great felicity of expression, that " the power of 
 Henderson, as an actor, was analytic. He was 
 not contented with the mere light of common 
 meaning. He showed it you through a prism,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 87 
 
 and reflected all the delicate and mingling hues 
 that enter into the composition of any ray of 
 human character. Besides, he had a voice so 
 flexible, that his tones conveyed all that his 
 meaning would insinuate." This is the testi- 
 mony of an ear and eye witness, and it surely 
 outweighs the assertion of Mr. Gait, who never 
 saw him, that "Henderson was a mere mimic." 
 That he had great powers of mimicry, is cer- 
 tain; but what great comic actor was ever 
 without them? Garrick himself delighted in 
 imitating the gobbling of a turkey-cock. 
 
 Foote said of Henderson, that " he would not 
 do" Yes ; but it was before he had seen him 
 on the stage. When he had seen him, he spoke 
 of him as an actor of genius. 
 
 Garrick's contempt of Henderson, according 
 to Gait, approached to personal enmity. But, 
 in the first place, contempt and enmity cannot 
 very well exist together ; and, in the next place,
 
 88 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Garrick could have no contempt for Henderson, 
 or else he would never have invited him from 
 Bath to London. As to Garrick's enmity, it 
 arose from Henderson's refusing his invitation 
 to Drury Lane, and complying with the little 
 Manager's request to take him off before his 
 face. Garrick had chuckled at Henderson's 
 mimicry of all the other eminent players, 
 and at last entreated to be taken off himself; 
 but he sulked at the imitation, and never for- 
 gave it. 
 
 Professor Dugald Stewart, who knew Hen- 
 derson, told me that his power of memory was 
 the most astonishing he had ever met with. In 
 the philosopher's presence he took up a news- 
 paper, and, after reading it once, repeated such 
 a portion of it as to Mr. Stewart seemed utterly 
 marvellous. When he expressed his surprise, 
 Henderson modestly replied, " If you had been 
 obliged, like me, to depend, during many years, 
 for your daily bread, on getting words by heart,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 you would not be so much astonished at habit 
 having produced this facility." 
 
 " In the summer of 1782," Mrs. Siddons thus 
 continues her Memoranda, " I received an invi- 
 tation to re-visit Drury Lane. After my former 
 dismissal from thence, it may be imagined that 
 this was to me a triumphant moment. My 
 good reception in London I cannot but partly 
 attribute to the enthusiastic accounts of me 
 which the amiable Duchess of Devonshire had 
 brought thither, and spread before my arrival. 
 I had the honour of her acquaintance during 
 her visit at Bath, and her unqualified approba- 
 tion at my performances." 
 
 Mrs. Siddons says she was truly touched 
 at the thought of parting from her kind 
 friends at Bath. She took leave of them 
 in the following lines of her own composi- 
 tion.
 
 90 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 MRS. SIDDONS S ADDRESS ON QUITTING THE 
 BATH THEATRE. 
 
 HAVE I not raised some expectation here ? 
 Wrote by herself? What ! authoress and player ? 
 True, we have heard her, thus I guess'd you'd say, 
 With decency recite another's lay ; 
 But never heard, nor ever could we dream 
 Herself had sipp'd the Heliconian stream. 
 Perhaps you farther said Excuse me, pray, 
 For thus supposing all that you might say, 
 What will she treat of in this same address ? 
 Is it to shew her learning ? Can you guess ? 
 Here let me answer No : far different views 
 Possess'd my soul, and fired my virgin Muse; 
 'Twas honest gratitude, at whose request 
 Shamed be the heart that will not do its best. 
 The time draws nigh when I must bid adieu 
 To this delightful spot nay, ev'n to you 
 To you, whose fost'ring kindness rear'd my name, 
 O'erlooked my faults, but magnified my fame. 
 How shall I bear the parting ? Well I know 
 Anticipation here is daily woe.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 91 
 
 Oh ! could kind Fortune, where I next am thrown, 
 
 Bestow but half the candour you have shewn. 
 
 Envy, o'ercome, will hurl her pointless dart, 
 
 And critic gall be shed without its smart; 
 
 The numerous doubts and fears I entertain, 
 
 Be idle all as all possess'd in vain. 
 
 But to my promise. If I thus am bless'd, 
 
 In friendship link'd, beyond my worth caress'd, 
 
 Why don't I here, you'll say, content remain, 
 
 Nor seek uncertainties for certain gain ? 
 
 What can compensate for the risks you run, 
 
 And what your reasons? Surely you have none. 
 
 To argue here would but your time abuse: 
 
 I keep my word my reason I produce 
 
 [Here three children were discovered: they were 
 HENRY, SALLY, and MARIA SIDDONS.] 
 
 These are the moles that bear me from your side, 
 Where I was rooted where I could have died. 
 Stand forth, ye elves, and plead your mother's cause : 
 Ye little magnets, whose soft influence draws 
 Me from a point where every gentle breeze 
 Wafted my bark to happiness and ease 
 Sends me adventurous on a larger main, 
 In hopes that you may profit by my gain.
 
 92 LIFE OF MRS. S1DDONS. 
 
 Have I been hasty ? am I then to blame ? 
 Answer, all ye who own a parent's name ? 
 Thus have I tired you with an untaught Muse, 
 Who for your favor still most humbly sues, 
 That you, for classic learning, will receive 
 My soul's best wishes, which I freely give 
 For polished periods round, and touched with art, 
 The fervent offering of my grateful heart. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons returned to Drury Lane The- 
 atre in 1782, and may be said to have mounted 
 with but a few steps to unrivalled possession of 
 the tragic throne. The oldest praisers of the 
 "by-gone time scarcely pretended to have be- 
 held or heard of her superior in acting, though 
 they had seen the best actresses of the century, 
 and had heard their fathers describe those of 
 the age before. 
 
 When I entered on the Life of Mrs. Sid- 
 dons, I felt curious to ascertain the tradi- 
 tional characters of those women who may 
 be called her predecessors as the Queens of
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 93 
 
 our Tragic stage; and, when any subject en- 
 gages our own interest, we naturally imagine 
 that it will not be wholly unattractive to the 
 curiosity of others. I even felt as if there 
 would be something like abruptness in com- 
 mencing the history of her professional supre- 
 macy without some prefatory remarks on the 
 previous state of Female acting in England. 
 This was perhaps taking an exaggerated view 
 of the subject. But, at all events, as my retro- 
 spect of our greatest tragic actresses, anterior 
 to Mrs. Siddons, will be brief, I hope the reader 
 will not repudiate it as a wholly uninteresting 
 digression. 
 
 It is true, that all the information to be 
 gleaned respecting those elder actresses is very 
 scanty ; and it is the misfortune of histrionic 
 genius that the most vivid portraits of it con- 
 vey but vague conceptions of its excellence. 
 And yet, amidst all this vagueness, the mind 
 can make out some general and trustworthy
 
 94 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 conclusions. I find, for instance, no Queen of 
 our stage so unequivocally extolled for majesty 
 and beauty of person as Mrs. Siddons : nor any 
 one whose sway over her audiences can be 
 imagined to have been stronger. My inference 
 is, if I may parody Milton's phrase, that she 
 was the fairest of her predecessors and that if 
 Time could re-build his ruins, and re-act the 
 lost scenes of existence, he would present no 
 female to match her on the Tragic stage.
 
 CHAPTER III.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 First introduction of Females on the English Stage 
 Names and Characters of Mrs. Siddons's greatest Pre- 
 decessors Mrs. Betterton Mrs. Anne Marshall 
 Mrs. Boutell Mrs. Barry Mrs. Bracegirdle Mrs. 
 Oldfield Mrs. Porter Mrs. Cibber Mrs. Pritchard 
 Mrs. Yates Mrs. Crawford.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 UNTIL the time of Charles the Second, there 
 were no women actors in our Theatres. 
 Female characters were performed by boys, 
 or young men. Evfcn after the Restoration, 
 this custom w r as not all at once disconti- 
 nued ; and we hear of Kynaston, the last 
 beautiful youth who figured in petticoats 
 on the stage, having been carried about in 
 his theatrical dress by ladies of fashion in 
 their carriages. This was an unseemly spec- 
 tacle, and we can forgive the Puritans for 
 objecting' to see " men in women's clothing." 
 But, against this impropriety, the Puritans 
 ought to have appealed to common sense 
 and decency, instead of quoting a text from 
 the Book of Deuteronomy, which forbids 
 
 H
 
 98 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 the appearance of men in female attire: for, 
 though it is true that the Jewish law has inter- 
 dicted the assumption of women's dress by men, 
 yet it should be remembered that the Levitical 
 law is not binding upon Christians. 
 
 The restorers of our theatres, without 
 troubling themselves about the Puritans, fol- 
 lowed the custom of the continent, in bring- 
 ing women upon the stage, putting a stop to 
 the impersonation of queens and heroines by 
 he creatures, who had sometimes to be shaved 
 before they acted. Yet this admission of 
 women among the players, though a great 
 natural improvement, occurred in times and 
 circumstances that made it appear at first 
 rather an unfavourable change for the moral 
 character of the stage. Since the death of 
 Shakespeare, and during the latter part of 
 James's reign, the Drama had grown more 
 and more licentious. The speeches which 
 stage-heroines had to hear and utter were
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 99 
 
 so gross, that the Puritans pronounced it 
 impossible for any woman who was not a 
 courtesan to tread the boards ; and Charles 
 the Second, who had re-opened the theatres, 
 and was effectively the manager of one of 
 them, seemed as if he strove for a wager 
 to make good the words of the Puritans. 
 Considering the profligacy of the age, it is 
 more wonderful that a few actresses, and 
 these the best, were unexceptionable private 
 characters, than that the stage gave its con- 
 tingency to Charles's seraglio.* 
 
 Though, even in those times, the lives of 
 Mrs. Betterton and other actresses belied the 
 
 * Among Charles's mistresses, his "Loves of the 
 Theatre" were the least expensive and unpopular. Nell 
 G wynne, it is true, had 1500/. a year ; but the Duchess 
 of Cleveland had 4700/. : the Duchess of Portsmouth 
 had still more. The latter were hated by the whole 
 nation; while Nelly, who was called the "Poor Man's 
 Friend," was literally a general favourite, and not un- 
 deservedly : for, bred as she had been, as an orange-girl, 
 
 H2
 
 100 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 puritanic assertion, that no modest woman 
 could tread the boards, still modern civilization 
 has robbed the Puritans of the strongest ob- 
 jection which they could allege against the 
 Theatre, namely, the grossness of its language ; 
 so that the most delicate female need not now 
 shrink from the profession on that account. At 
 
 amidst the haunts of dissipation, vice was more her des- 
 tiny than her blame. She was really a good-hearted 
 woman, and, in the days of her prosperity, showed herself 
 grateful to her old friends ; among whom she had the 
 honour of ranking Otway and Dryden. She was faith- 
 ful to the King, never pestered him about politics, and 
 was never the creature of Ministers. Once, when Charles 
 had ordered an extravagant service of plate, as a present 
 to the Duchess of Portsmouth, from a jeweller in Cheap- 
 side, an immense crowd collected about the shop, cursing 
 the Duchess, and wishing that the plate were melted and 
 poured down her throat. But they added, " What a pity 
 it should not be bestowed on Madam Ellen !" 
 
 Nell was often successful in throwing ridicule on 
 her rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth, originally Mile. 
 Querouaille. She pretended to be related to the best fami- 
 lies of France ; and, whenever one of their members died, 
 she put herself into mourning. It happened that news
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 101 
 
 present, after so many women, who have been 
 patterns of their sex, have heen actresses, it 
 may be safely affirmed, that a young debutante, 
 ambitious of first-rate rank as an actress, would 
 find the greatest talents scarcely available with- 
 out personal respectability of character. Still 
 there are persons, not puritanical, who think it 
 
 of the Cham of Tartary's death had lately reached Eng- 
 land. A Prince of France was also recently dead, and the 
 Duchess of Portsmouth was of course in sables. Nell 
 came to Court in the same attire, and, standing close by 
 her Grace, was asked by one of her friends, why she was 
 in mourning ? " O !" said Nell, " have you not heard of 
 my loss, in the death of the Cham of Tartary ?" " And 
 what the dense," replied her friend, " was the Cham of 
 Tartary to you ?" " Oh," answered Nell, " exactly the 
 
 same relation that the Prince of was to Mile. 
 
 Querouaille." 
 
 The mistaken tradition of Ellen Gwynne having 
 founded Chelsea Hospital probably arose from her cha- 
 racter for benevolence, as well as from her frequently 
 visiting Chelsea, where her mother lived many years, 
 and where the old woman died, in consequence of falling 
 one day into the Thames, when looking out of her win- 
 dow. What had made her top-heavy is not recorded.
 
 102 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 derogatory to female delicacy to meet the gaze 
 of spectators in impassioned parts. This ob- 
 jection, I grant, may apply to private theatri- 
 cals. The unprofessional actress, who makes 
 and returns love-speeches before an audience, 
 is likely to have no better motive than her 
 vanity. But the public actress has a fair apo- 
 logy, and her professional publicity is an addi- 
 tional challenge to her virtuous pride. 
 
 We sometimes hear the player's vocation 
 pronounced degrading, because it exposes him 
 to public insults ; but this is certainly a most 
 unfair argument, at least when it comes from 
 those who frequent the Theatre. By attending 
 such entertainments, they recognise the player 
 as a dispenser of innocent amusement ; and, 
 when they insult him, merely because he fails 
 to please, they are no doubt obliging the actor 
 to ply a degrading vocation; but, if cruelty 
 and injustice be disgraceful, they are also de- 
 grading themselves. Either it should be proved
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 103 
 
 that the Stage is noxious to society, and that 
 it should therefore be abolished, or, if it be 
 tolerated, the player's occupation should be 
 made as respectable as possible by good treat- 
 ment. Even if it were admitted, for the sake 
 of argument, that there is something in the 
 actor's life (that something I leave to others to 
 ascertain,) which necessarily tends to impress 
 faults on his moral character, still, what pro- 
 fession can be named which, if it finds any 
 weaknesses in the nature of a man, will not 
 tend to increase them, and bring them out? 
 All professions tend, more or less, to stamp us 
 with something peculiar, and not always with 
 amiable peculiarities. Yet society wisely ho- 
 nours several professions for their general use- 
 fulness, though they labour under this objection. 
 To give but one instance: The world very 
 properly holds* the barrister's calling in high 
 respect; for we know that life and property 
 would be less secure than they now are, if 
 every man were to be his own lawyer. And
 
 104 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 yet it is notorious, that the lawyer's life, which 
 makes him daily and hourly a hireling either 
 on the right side or the wrong side of a cause, 
 as his brief may chance to call him, must tend 
 to imbue his mind with a taste for sophistry, as 
 well as with adroitness in the practice of it. 
 In fact, there is a great deal of acting, both in 
 courts of justice and elsewhere, that goes by a 
 different name. 
 
 If I should appear all this time to be begging 
 the question, and to be assuming that theatrical 
 amusements are de facto indispensable to so- 
 ciety, I would only ask of those who object to 
 them, to say if, practically speaking, they could 
 be done away with ? Would the public permit 
 you to shut up the theatres? No; no more 
 (I speak it respectfully,) than to shut up the 
 churches. The love of the drama is a public 
 instinct, that requires to be regulated, but is 
 too deep for eradication. I am no such bigot 
 for the stage, as to say that it is necessarily a
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 105 
 
 school of morals ; for, by bad management, it 
 may be made the reverse : and I think, on the 
 whole, that the drama rather follows than leads 
 public morals. At the same time, it has a ge- 
 neral indirect tendency towards the good of 
 society, which, if the theatre be kept amenable 
 to decency and public opinion, may make the 
 Drama directly promotive of good morals. It 
 contributes to cheerfulness, and it draws men 
 from grosser enjoyments. It may be made an 
 innocent, nay, an instructive amusement. As 
 a tasteful recreation, it sweetens the public 
 temper. It has well been compared to a 
 mirror, in which we may see ourselves as 
 others see us. But, granting the similitude 
 to be just, the enemy of the theatre will 
 possibly ask me, Has the mirror at which 
 we dress ourselves the power of giving sym- 
 metry to our features, or of adding an inch to 
 our stature ? No ; but still that chamber-mirror 
 will shew a man how ugly he looks with an un- 
 washed face, or an angry physiognomy. In like
 
 106 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 manner, the moral mirror of the Drama will shew 
 us what passions most become us and most de- 
 form us, and may therefore, certainly, instruct 
 us in the regulation of our moral feelings. 
 
 To say that the Stage is liable to abuse, is to 
 say nothing more than is applicable to every 
 other source of human pleasure. You cannot 
 excite men joyously without some contingent 
 dangers. The playhouse, say its enemies, is 
 the resort of great numbers of the vicious, the 
 idle, and the dissipated. Unhappily, so are all 
 popular assemblies, not excepting every Me- 
 thodist meeting in the kingdom. In fact, if 
 
 % 
 
 you proscribe theatres, you are bound, in con- 
 sistency, to persecute Methodism, to uproot 
 vineyards, to destroy breweries, and to abolish 
 music and dancing. 
 
 And religion says as little as sound morality 
 against plays and players. The Scriptures no 
 where stigmatize them, though, in our Savi-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 107 
 
 our's time, there was a theatre in Jerusalem. 
 That theatrical establishment/ we know, was 
 forced upon the Jews, at the expense of several 
 lives, by Herod the Great ; and, after his death, 
 if Jesus Christ had thought a theatre among 
 the evils to be extirpated by Christianity, he 
 would have found no topic more popular than 
 an innovation so violent to Jewish feelings. 
 But he has left upon it not the slightest denun- 
 ciation ; and, in this circumstance, he is imi- 
 tated by all the Apostles : St. Paul even quotes 
 a dramatic poet, and shews that he was well 
 acquainted with the Attic Drama. 
 
 It is not positively certain, but it is ex- 
 tremely probable, that the earliest regular 
 actress of the English stage was a Mrs. 
 Saunderson, afterwards Mrs. Betterton, the 
 wife of the famous actor. At all events, if 
 not the earliest, she was the greatest actress 
 for many years after the Restoration. Both 
 her husband's theatrical character and her
 
 108 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 own have been painted by Gibber in me- 
 morable colours. " Betterton," he says, " was 
 an actor, as Shakespeare was an author, both 
 without competitors, formed for the mutual 
 assistance and illustration of each other's 
 genius. How Shakespeare wrote, all men 
 who have a taste for nature may read and 
 know; but with higher rapture still would 
 Shakespeare be read, could they conceive how 
 Betterton played him. Pity it is, that the mo- 
 mentary beauties flowing from a harmonious 
 elocution cannot, like those of poetry, be their 
 own record ; that the animated graces of the 
 player can live no longer than the instant 
 breath and motion that represent them ; or, at 
 least, can but faintly glimmer through the me- 
 mory and imperfect attestation of a few sur- 
 viving spectators." 
 
 Mrs.,* or, as we should now call her, Miss 
 Saunderson, married Mr. Betterton in 1663. 
 
 * Unmarried ladies at that time got the title of Mrs.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 109 
 
 Gibber speaks of her in 1690, when she was 
 already a veteran on the stage : but he says 
 that, "though far advanced in years, she was 
 still so great an actress, that even the famous 
 Mrs. Barry, who acted Lady Macbeth after her, 
 could not in that part, with all her superior 
 strength and melody of voice, throw out those 
 quick and careless strokes of terror which the 
 other gave, with a facility in her manner that 
 rendered her at once tremendous and delight- 
 ful. Time could not impair her skill, though 
 it gave her person to decay. She was, to the 
 last, the admiration of all true judges of nature 
 and lovers of Shakespeare, in whose plays she 
 chiefly excelled, and without a rival. She was 
 the faithful companion of her husband and his 
 fellow-labourers for five and forty years, and 
 was a woman of unblemished and sober life. 
 She had the honour to teach Queen Anne, 
 when Princess, the part of Semandra, in 
 * Mithridates,' which she acted at Court, in King 
 Charles's time." After her husband's death,
 
 110 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 which happened in 1710, the Queen gave her 
 a pension. Betterton's death so much affected 
 her, that she lost her senses for some time, 
 but recovered them, and survived him for two 
 years.* 
 
 Whilst Mr. and Mrs. Betterton were the 
 ornaments of that one of the two great thea- 
 tres which was called the Duke's, Mrs. Anne 
 Marshall was for many years the principal actress 
 in the King's Company. She is said to have 
 excelled in parts of dignity. Davies tells us, 
 in his Dramatic Miscellanies, that the high sen- 
 timents of honour, in many of her characters, 
 corresponded with the dictates of her mind, 
 and were justified by her private conduct. But 
 
 * Among the characters of Shakespeare which she 
 performed, were Ophelia, Juliet, Queen Katharine, and 
 Lady Macbeth. For a full list of the parts played by 
 this actress, and by all the other predecessors of Mrs. 
 Siddons, whom I have mentioned, I refer the reader, if 
 he is curious on the subject, to Mr. Genest's "Account 
 of the Stage," published in 1833.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. Ill 
 
 Davies got this information from a book of no 
 authority, written by Gildon, and published by 
 Curl, two names that may well make the hair 
 of our literary faith stand on end. We might 
 accept their testimony, perhaps, on the mere 
 ground of its being favourable to Mrs. Marshall, 
 as we may safely take our oaths that neither 
 Curl* nor Gildon ever uttered, in the whole 
 course of their lives, a single falsehood in be- 
 half of any human character, except their own. 
 And Mrs. Marshall may have been an excellent 
 woman for aught that appears to the contrary ; 
 but, in truth, very little is known about her : 
 for, in the long story of her resisting Lord 
 Oxford's dishonourable addresses, but being at 
 last basely beguiled into a mock marriage, in 
 which his Lordship's coachman was dressed up 
 as a clergyman, Curl has related what happened 
 to a different actress. 
 
 * Curl was so formidable for getting up lives of 
 people, when they were hardly cold in their coffin, that 
 Dr. Arbuthnot denominated him "one of the new terrors 
 of Death."
 
 112 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 That Mrs, Marshall was capable, like Mrs. 
 Betterton, of sustaining the high characters of 
 Shakespeare, is not at least evinced by the list 
 of her parts ; for in that list I find her perform- 
 ing only one Shakespearian character, namely, 
 Calphurnia, in "Julius Caesar." Something like 
 a lingering taste for the great Dramatist seems 
 to have been kept alive at the Duke's Theatre 
 by the genius of the Bettertons ; though, ulti- 
 mately, they were obliged to appear in plays of 
 Shakespeare basely altered. But, at the King's 
 Theatre, Shakespeare was fairly obsolete. In- 
 deed, in that iron age, Ben Jonson himself 
 was not more popular than Crowne, whilst, 
 for one play of Shakespeare's, probably five 
 of Beaumont and Fletcher's, and seven of 
 Dryden's, were performed. 
 
 The sweet-featured Mrs. Boutell was a highly 
 popular actress in that period, from 1663 to 
 1696. Her forte was simplicity and tenderness, 
 and she was particularly admired in Aspasia, in
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 113 
 
 the " Maid's Tragedy." Though Cibber makes 
 no mention of her, the parts which she played 
 denote her consequence on the stage. She 
 was the original Statira of Lee's " Alexander/' 
 and acted the Rival Queens successively with 
 Mrs. Marshall and Mrs. Barry. Once, when 
 playing with the latter of these ladies, she was 
 in danger of dying on the stage in earnest. 
 Before the curtain drew up, the two Queens, 
 Statira, Boutell, and Roxana, Barry, had a real 
 rivalship about a lace veil, which was at last 
 awarded to the former by the property-man. 
 This decision so enraged Roxana, that she 
 acted her part rather too naturally, and, in 
 stabbing Statira, sent her dagger, though it 
 was a blunted one, through Mrs. Boutell's stays, 
 about a quarter of an inch into the flesh. Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Barry, however, though a virago, 
 was the best actress of her age, for she eclipsed 
 both Mrs.Marshall and Mrs. Boutell ; and Cibber 
 tells us that, in 1696, he found her in possession 
 of all the chief tragic parts.
 
 114 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 She was the daughter of Edward Barry, a 
 barrister, who got the title of colonel, for having 
 raised a regiment in the cause of Charles I. 
 But, as he ruined himself by providing soldiers 
 for Charles, his family were left at his death to 
 provide for themselves. His orphan daughter 
 was born in 1658. She was educated by the 
 charity of Lady Davenant, a relation of the 
 poet of that name, and by his interest was 
 brought upon the boards, in 1673. Her first 
 effort was a failure. With a good voice, she 
 was thought to be utterly defective in ear ; and 
 the Duke's company pronounced her incapable 
 of ever becoming an actress. It must be al- 
 lowed that they were precipitate in their judg- 
 ment, for the young debutante was then only 
 fifteen years of age. Two years afterwards, 
 she re-appeared in Otway's " Alcibiades," when 
 her merit obtained the thanks of the poet, and 
 drew universal attention. In 1680 the part 
 of Monimia, in the first representation of the 
 " Orphan," drew forth her powers to still higher
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 115 
 
 advantage; and, two years afterwards, her 
 Belvidera, in " Venice Preserved," obtained for 
 her the permanent appellation of the famous 
 Madam Barry. Her fame was not diminished 
 by her appearing as the original Isabella, in 
 Southerne's "Fatal Marriage;" and she enjoyed 
 perhaps a higher character than any actress, 
 anterior to Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 I am sorry to add, however, that it was 
 professional, not private character. She was 
 the mistress of Lord Rochester; and we are 
 told that she owed her improvement in acting 
 chiefly to his instructions. The latter circum- 
 stance I am inclined to consider apocryphal, 
 for two reasons : in the first place, because the 
 minute account of her tuition by Rochester, 
 which Davies gives, in his Dramatic Miscella- 
 nies, was derived solely from a book of bad 
 authority published by Curl; and, in the next 
 place, because, putting disgust out of the ques- 
 tion, I have some difficulty in imagining the 
 
 i 2
 
 116 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 actress of Monimia or Belvidera drawing les- 
 sons of refined enchantment from a gentleman 
 so habitually drunk, and so grossly profligate, 
 as Lord Rochester. I admit that some letters 
 of the peer to Mrs. Barry, published by Tonson, 
 in 1716, if they be genuine, are, considering 
 the nature of the connexion, not discreditable 
 to him; and farther, that his name has be- 
 come a by-word of infamy to a greater degree 
 than it really merits. Innumerable verses of a 
 vile nature have been fathered upon Lord 
 Rochester, which he never wrote. I believe him 
 indeed to have been more intelligent and ac- 
 complished than the odium attached to his 
 vices generally allows us to suppose. But, 
 after all, he was a gross being, in spite of his 
 best poems and the history of his penitence ; 
 and he illustrates the truth, that if men's vices 
 do not degrade them more than crimes, they 
 at least throw a heavier cloud over their genius. 
 I cannot figure to myself Mrs. Barry imbibing 
 graces from his suggestions.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 117 
 
 I have quoted Gibber's testimony, that in 
 1696 he found Mrs. Barry in possession of all 
 the chief parts of tragedy. Cibber adds, "With 
 what skill she gave life to them you will judge 
 from the words of Dryden, in his preface to 
 ' Cleomenes,' where he says, ' Mrs. Barry, al- 
 ways excellent, has, in this tragedy, excelled 
 herself, and gained a reputation beyond any 
 woman I have ever seen on a theatre.' I very 
 well remember," continues Cibber, " her acting 
 that part; and, however unnecessary it may 
 seem to give my judgment after Dryden's, I 
 cannot help saying, I do not only close with 
 his opinion, but will venture to add, that, though 
 Dryden has been dead these thirty-eight years, 
 the same compliment to this hour may be due 
 to her excellence. And though she was then* 
 not a little past her youth, she was not till that 
 
 * By the word, then, Cibber means the later time at 
 which he himself saw her, and not the time alluded to 
 by Dryden, when Mrs. Barry was still very young.
 
 118 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 time fully arrived at the maturity of her 
 power and judgment : from whence I would 
 observe, that the short life of beauty is not 
 long enough to form a complete actress. In 
 men, the delicacy of person is not so absolutely 
 necessary, nor the decline of it so soon taken 
 notice of. 
 
 " Mrs. Barry, in characters of greatness, had 
 a presence of elevated dignity : her mien and 
 motion, superb and gracefully majestic ; her 
 voice, full, clear, and strong, so that no violence 
 of passion could be too much for her ; and, 
 when distress or tenderness possessed her, she 
 subsided into the most affecting melody and 
 softness. In the art of exciting pity, she had 
 a power beyond all the actresses I have yet 
 seen, or what your imagination can conceive. 
 Of the former of these two great excellencies, 
 she gave delightful proofs in almost all the he- 
 roic plays of Dryden and Lee; and, of the latter, 
 in the softer passions of Otway's Monimia and
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 119 
 
 Belmdera. In scenes of anger, defiance, or 
 resentment, while she was impetuous and ter- 
 rible, she poured out the sentiment with an 
 enchanting harmony; and it was this particular 
 excellence for which Dryden made her the 
 above-recited compliment, upon her acting 
 Cassandra, in his ' Cleomenes.' But here I 
 am apt to think his partiality for that charac- 
 ter may have tempted his judgment to let it 
 pass for her masterpiece, when he could not 
 but know, that there were several other 
 characters, in which her action might have 
 given her a fairer pretence to the praise he 
 has bestowed on her for Cassandra; for in 
 no part of that is there the least ground for 
 compassion as in Monimia ; nor equal cause 
 for admiration, as in the nobler love of Cleo- 
 patra, or the tempestuous jealousy of Roxana. 
 It was in these lights I thought Mrs. Barry 
 shone with a much brighter excellence than in 
 Cassandra"
 
 120 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Yet Anthony Aston*, in his Supplement to 
 Gibber's Works, tells us that, " with all her 
 enchantment, this fine creature was not hand- 
 some; her mouth opening most on the right 
 side, which she strove to draw the other way; 
 and, at times, composing her face as if to have 
 her picture drawn. She was middle-sized," 
 he adds, " had darkish hair, light eyes, and was 
 indifferent plump. She had a manner of drawl- 
 ing out her words, which suited her, but not 
 
 * Anthony Aston wrote a theatrical pamphlet, enti- 
 tled "A brief Supplement to Colley Gibber's Lives 
 of the famous Actors and Actresses." He lived early 
 enough to have seen Mrs. Barry, having been a per- 
 former in the reign of King William. Chetwood says, 
 he played in all the theatres in London, but never con- 
 tinued long in any. His way of living was peculiar to 
 himself*, he used to resort to the principal cities and 
 towns in England with his Medley, as he called it, 
 which consisted of some capital scenes of humour out 
 of the most celebrated plays. Chetwood adds, that he 
 was as well known in every town as the post-horse that 
 carried the mail.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Mrs. Bradshaw and Mrs. Porter, her succes- 
 sors. In tragedy, she was solemn and august; 
 in comedy, alert, easy, and genteel, pleasant in 
 her face and manner, and filling the stage with 
 a variety of action. Yet she could not sing, 
 nor dance ; no, not even in a country-dance." 
 
 Mrs. Barry appeared above a hundred times 
 as the original heroine of some new comic or 
 tragic drama, which is more, I believe, than can 
 be said of any actress that ever trod the Bri- 
 tish stage. She died of hydrophobia, from the 
 bite of her own lap-dog, at the age of fifty- 
 five, and was buried in the churchyard of 
 Acton, where her monument still remains. 
 
 When Mrs. Gibber was at the zenith of her 
 popularity, Gibber tells us, that Mrs. Anne 
 Bracegirdle was just blooming towards matu- 
 rity. He luxuriates in describing her fascina- 
 tion of her audiences, which was such, that it 
 was the fashion, among the gay and young, to
 
 122 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 have a taste or tendre for Mrs. Bracegirdle. 
 From the important characters that were in- 
 trusted to her in tragedy, such as Almeira, in 
 the " Mourning Bride," Isabella, in " Measure 
 for Measure," Cordelia, Portia, and Ophelia, 
 it is presumed that she was a good tragic ac- 
 tress : but Cibber does not say so ; and her 
 chief charm appears to have lain in the lighter 
 drama. 
 
 Her name, however, was connected with too 
 deep a tragedy in real life. A Captain Hill, 
 whose offers of marriage she had refused, made 
 an attempt at her abduction; and, having been 
 foiled, he, on the same evening, stabbed her 
 friend and fellow-actor, Mountford, of whom 
 he was jealous, in the neighbourhood of her 
 dwelling. The ruffian Hill escaped the gal- 
 lows by flight. Lord Mohun, who figures 
 twice in the State Trials, was indicted as his 
 accomplice in the murder, but was acquitted.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 123 
 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle lived to a great age, and, it 
 would seem, with a fair reputation, in spite of 
 the surmise that Mountford died the victim of 
 an illicit attachment to her. Both Gibber and 
 A. Aston speak of her in terms of the highest 
 respect. But I am sorry to have seen in our own 
 day, in Mr. Bellchambers's .edition of Gibber's 
 Apology, an attack upon her memory, in my 
 opinion, as unfair as it is furious ; raking up the 
 very scandal which the more respectable part 
 of her cotemporaries appear to have disbe- 
 lieved. Perhaps I may be asked, of what con- 
 sequence now is Mrs. Bracegirdle's character? 
 Very true: as a matter taken entirely by itself, 
 it is of no consequence whether she was a wan- 
 ton or a vestal ; but it is of importance that 
 even deceased human character should not be 
 taken away on forced suspicions or on feeble 
 proofs; for injustice towards the dead leads, 
 by no very circuitous route, to injustice towards 
 the living. Once convict the one on false or 
 defective evidence, and you will soon leave the
 
 124 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 other at the mercy of malignity. The serpent 
 vituperation will thus grow into an amphisbsena, 
 to sting at both ends.* 
 
 * At the passage where Gibber says of Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle that she was not unguarded in her private con- 
 duct, his annotator catches at the words, and says, " She 
 was decidedly not unguarded in her conduct, for, though 
 the object of general suspicion, no proof of positive 
 unchastity was ever brought against her; but her in- 
 trigue with Mountfort is hardly to be disputed, and 
 there is pretty ample evidence that Congreve was 
 honoured with the gratification of his love." Here is a 
 fine juxta-position of admission and assertion : no proof 
 of positive unchastity, and yet pretty ample evidence 
 of Congreve's success ! But where did Mr. Bellchanibers 
 find that she was the object of general suspicion? Not 
 in the testimony of her coternporaries, Aston and 
 Gibber, but in the lampooner, Tom Brown, and in a 
 collection of poems which, by Mr. Bellchambers's own 
 shewing, is the most infamous that was ever published. 
 
 Of her intrigue with Mountfort there is no evidence 
 at all. Hill, whom she had refused in marriage, used 
 to talk jealously over his cups about Mountfort, and 
 threaten to kill him. But are the ravings of a drunken 
 murderer, and a man capable of attempting a rape and 
 abduction, to pass for evidence? Mountford, however,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 125 
 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle left the stage in conse- 
 quence of the ascendant popularity of Mrs. 
 Oldfield. 
 
 was killed near her dwelling, before which Lord Mohun 
 and Hill, on the night of the failure of their noble 
 enterprise, when the crowd rescued Mrs. Bracegirdle, 
 after she had been knocked down by the ruffians, were 
 parading with drawn swords ; and Mr. Bellchambers's 
 inference is, that Mountford could by no possibility have 
 come thither but for an improper purpose. Now Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle's house was in Arundel street, in the Strand, 
 and Mountford, who was a married man, had to cross 
 the top of that street on the way to his own home. He 
 came down Arundel street instead of crossing the top 
 of it, and was struck, challenged, and slain by Hill. 
 But is the circumstance of his having come out of his 
 way such damnatory proof of his connexion with Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle ? He was ignorant of the late attempt at 
 her abduction ; but, when he came to the top of Arundel 
 street, if there was either starlight or moonlight, 
 or the glimmer of a lamp, he must have seen that there 
 was something extraordinary going on before Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle's door, where Hill and Mohun, refreshed 
 with wine from the neighbouring vintner's, were pleading 
 for entrance, and alarming the neighbourhood. And 
 that the night was not dark, is proved by the evidence
 
 126 LIFE OF MRS. STDDONS. 
 
 I imagine Anne Oldfield, though the descrip- 
 tions of her give us no idea of such majesty as 
 Mrs. Siddons, to have been otherwise the most 
 beautiful woman that ever trod the British 
 stage. Even indifferent prints of her give us a 
 conception of those large, speaking eyes, which 
 she half shut with so much archness, in comedy, 
 and of the graceful features and spirited mien 
 that could put life in tragedy, even into 
 Thomson's "Sophonisba." " She was tallish in 
 stature," says Cibber, "beautiful in action and 
 aspect, and she always looked like one of those 
 
 on Lord Mohtm's trial. Mountford must, therefore, not 
 only have heard, but seen, the disturbance in a short 
 street; and with the most innocent motives he might 
 have gone down that street, instead of crossing the top 
 of it. Mr. Bellchambers, in this business, seems almost 
 to have a kindly feeling for the ruffian Hill ; and he praises 
 Lord Mohun for his chivalrous devotion to his friend, 
 the murderer and would-be ravisher. In his opinion, 
 " the player Mountford fell a victim, not unfairly, to one 
 of those casual encounters which mark the general vio- 
 lence of the times." Abominable !
 
 LIFE OF MRS. STDDONS. 127 
 
 principal figures in the finest paintings, that first 
 seize, and longest delight the eye of the spec- 
 tator. Her countenance was benevolent, like 
 her heart,* yet it could express contemptuous 
 dignity so well, that once, when a malignant 
 beau rose in the pit to hiss her, she made him 
 instantly hide his head and vanish, by a pausing 
 look, and her utterance of the words ' Poor 
 creature'" Her voice, according to Gibber, 
 was sweet, strong, and melodious, and her elo- 
 cution voluble, distinct, and judicious. But I 
 
 * For many years, indeed as long as she lived, she gave 
 an annuity of 50/. a year to the poet Savage, that he 
 might pursue his poetry and his studies undistressed. 
 After her death, the benevolence of the whole British 
 public was canvassed for the same sum, but without 
 success. Latterly, whilst she was allowing Savage this 
 pension, she was still plying her profession, under the 
 painful illness that preceded her death, and when her 
 cheeks were often bathed with tears from corporeal pain, 
 whilst she was playing her most smiling parts. 
 
 Pope attacked her, dead and alive, four times, in his 
 poetry. He hated her, merely for being the friend of 
 Gibber, who had ridiculed the obscene and stupid farce
 
 128 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 must take an abrupt leave of this fair being, 
 with a confession, that neither she nor Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle can, in strictness, be ranked among 
 the great tragic predecessors of Mrs. Siddons. 
 Perhaps, if Anne Oldfield had not delighted in 
 her comic supremacy, she had beauty, feeling, 
 and intellect enough to have been a finished 
 tragedian. But, though Chetwood attests her 
 popularity in many characters of tragedy, still 
 she seems to have been forced into its service 
 against her inclination, by her looks, voice, and 
 
 of " Five Hours after Marriage," which Pope was con- 
 cerned in getting up. In chapter xii. of " The Art of 
 Sinking in Poetry," he accuses her of prurient conver- 
 sation, but his own indecency disarms his scandal, for, 
 he utters it in sentences unfit to be quoted, and which 
 he was himself ashamed to reprint. The damnation of 
 the " Five Hours" gave Pope an implacable aversion to 
 players. He says, " The players and I are luckily no 
 friends;" but he might have omitted the word " luckily," 
 for his enmity to players, as to other people, kept him 
 in the foul atmosphere of satire, when he should have 
 been breathing the empyreal of poetry.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 129 
 
 elocution. When offered a tragic part, she used 
 to say, " Oh, give it to Mrs. Porter ; she can 
 make a far better tragedy face than I can." 
 
 Mrs. Porter was the genuine tragic successor 
 of the famous Barry,* whose female attendant 
 she had been. She was noticed, when a child, 
 by the great Betterton, who saw her in a Lord 
 Mayor's pageant, in the reign of James II. 
 In those times it was customary for the fruit- 
 women of the theatres to stand fronting the 
 pit, with their backs to the stage; and this 
 actress was so little, when she came under 
 Betterton's tuition, that he used to threaten, if 
 she would not speak and act as he would have 
 her, that he would put her into a fruitwoman's 
 basket, and cover her with a vine-leaf. Bred 
 under Betterton she lived to see Garrick, and 
 was so charmed by his acting, that she lamented 
 
 * It will hardly be necessary to caution any reader 
 against confusing the elder and famous Madam Barry with 
 the wife of Spranger Barry, afterwards Mrs. Crawford. 
 
 K
 
 130 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 her age and want of power to tread the stage 
 with him. 
 
 Mrs. Porter was tall, fair, well-shaped, and 
 easy and dignified in action. But she was not 
 handsome, and her voice had a small degree 
 of tremor. Moreover, she imitated, or rather 
 faultily exceeded, Mrs. Barry in the habit of 
 prolonging and toning her pronunciation, 
 sometimes to a degree verging upon a chant. 
 But whether it was that the public ear was at 
 that period accustomed to a demi-chant, or that 
 she threw off the defect in the heat of passion, 
 it is certain that her general judgment and 
 genius, in the highest bursts of tragedy, inspired 
 enthusiasm in all around her ; and that she was 
 thought to be alike mistress of the terrible and 
 the tender. Dr. Johnson said, that in the ve- 
 hemence of tragic acting, he had never seen her 
 equal ; and the great actor, Booth, spoke in 
 raptures of her Belvidera. By her powers 
 and popularity, she kept several new-born and
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 131 
 
 weakly tragedies from dying a natural death ; 
 an act of charity, however, that is, like many 
 others, of doubtful benefit to the public. 
 
 Her history inspires regret. With a cha- 
 racter not only unquestioned, but marked by 
 the noblest traits of generosity, she had to ply 
 her profession for many years on the stage, 
 when she was absolutely a cripple. The cause 
 of her lameness deserves honourable mention. 
 On a summer evening, when she was taking the 
 air in a one-horse chaise, having with her, ac- 
 cording to custom, a brace of pistols to defend 
 her against robbery, a highwayman came up 
 and demanded her money : she levelled one of 
 her pistols at him; the assailant immediately 
 changed his tone to supplication, told her his 
 name and the abode of his starving family, and 
 appealed to her compassion so strongly, that 
 she gave him ten guineas out of her purse. He 
 left her, and she lashed her horse to go on, but 
 the animal started out of his track, upset the 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 chaise, and caused her by her fall to dislocate 
 her hip-joint. Notwithstanding all the pain 
 and loss which the man had thus occasioned to 
 her, she inquired into his circumstances, and 
 finding that he had told her the truth, she 
 raised sixty pounds among her acquaintance, 
 and sent it to the relief of his family. She was 
 so much injured by this accident, that in acting 
 Elizabeth, in the " Albion Queens," she had to 
 support herself on a crutched cane ; but she 
 turned even that circumstance to advantage ; 
 for, after signing Marys death-warrant, she ex- 
 pressed her agitation by striking the stage with 
 her cane so violently, as to draw bursts of 
 applause. 
 
 When she could act no longer, in conse- 
 quence of her lameness, she had to subsist upon 
 charity. Dr. Johnson paid her a visit some 
 years before her death. She was then so 
 wrinkled, that he said a picture of old age, in 
 the abstract, might have been taken from her 
 countenance.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 133 
 
 Among her principal characters were the 
 Duchess of Malfy ; the Queen, in " Hamlet ;" 
 Aspasia, in the " Maid's Tragedy ;" Portia, in 
 " Julius Caesar;" Monimia, Belvidera ; Isabella, 
 in the " Fatal Marriage ;" Zara, in the " Mourn- 
 ing Bride ;" Volumnia, Desdemona, and Queen 
 Katharine. She scarcely appeared on the stage 
 after 1738. 
 
 Mrs. Cibber, having been formerly a singer, 
 came out as an actress, in 1736. Her maiden 
 name was Arne. She was the sister of the 
 famous musician of that name. Dr. Burney, 
 in his " History of Music," says that she cap- 
 tivated every hearer by the sweetness and ex- 
 pression of her voice in singing. Unfortunately 
 for herself, she married Theophilus, the worth- 
 less son of Colley Gibber. She made her first 
 appearance at Drury Lane with great eclat, in 
 Hill's tragedy of " Zara," but was soon after- 
 wards obliged to retire for awhile, in conse- 
 quence of a public trial, that exposed a lapse in
 
 134 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 her conjugal duty, if duty she could be said to 
 have owed to such a wretch as Theophilus 
 Gibber. It was clearly proved that he had 
 connived at, or rather plotted, her seduction. 
 He laid his damages at 5000/. : the jury awarded 
 him ten pounds. Davies praises the symmetry 
 of her form, the expressiveness of her features, 
 and her preservation of the appearance of youth 
 till long after she had attained to middle life. 
 He says that the harmony of her voice was as 
 powerful as the animation of her look ; that in 
 grief and tenderness her eyes looked as if they 
 swam in tears, and in rage and despair seemed 
 to dart flashes of fire ; and that, in spite of the 
 unimportance of her figure, she maintained a 
 dignity in her action and a grace in her step. 
 She was so like Garrick that she might have 
 passed for his sister. This is observable, I 
 think, even in the wretched portrait of her in 
 Mathews's collection, though that portrait 
 makes her anything but a beauty. But her 
 countenance must have been full fraught with
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 135 
 
 expression. Tate Wilkinson, one of the most 
 extraordinary mimics that ever lived, could imi- 
 tate all the best actors and actresses of his time ; 
 but the electrifying manner of Mrs. Gibber was 
 beyond his reach, and he owns that he could 
 only retain her in his mind's eye. He says that 
 her features, figure, and singing, made her the 
 best Ophelia that ever appeared either before 
 or since. Craddock tells us that she was iden- 
 tified with Ophelia. Davies speaks with rap- 
 ture of her Cordelia ; and John Taylor told me 
 that she strongly resembled Mrs. Siddons in the 
 indescribable power of her eyes. Finally, when 
 Garrick heard of her death, he exclaimed, 
 " Then Tragedy is dead on one side !" meaning 
 female actors. On the other hand, there are 
 two testimonies not wholly to be rejected, which, 
 I think, may justify some suspicion that her 
 elocution had a chant which would not have 
 suited our modern ears, though in those of her 
 cotemporaries it seemed to harmonize, heaven 
 knows how, with Garrick's acting !
 
 136 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Cumberland, in his Memoirs, tells us that, 
 " as Calista, Mrs. Cibber sang, or at least reci- 
 tatived, Rowe's harmonious strain in a key high 
 pitched yet sweet withal, something in the 
 manner of the Improvisator e. It was so ex- 
 tremely wanting in contrast, that, though it did 
 not wound the ear, it wearied it." 
 
 Miss Seward says, in one of her Letters, 
 " I perfectly remember Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. 
 Pritchard, young as I was, in all their capital 
 characters. Mrs. Cibber had very pathetic 
 powers : her features, though not beautiful, 
 were delicate, and very expressive ; but she 
 uniformly pitched her silver voice, so sweetly 
 plaintive, in too high a key to produce that 
 endless variety of intonation with which Mrs. 
 Siddons declaims. Mrs. Siddons," she adds, 
 "had all the pathos of Mrs. Cibber, with a 
 thousand times more variety in its exertions." 
 
 Mrs. Pritchard played from 1733 to 1768.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 137 
 
 She acted in her youth at Bartholomew Fair, 
 where, we are told, she was caressed by the 
 public, particularly for her mode of singing a 
 favourite song, " Sweet, if you love me, smiling 
 turn" It would be at present no great recom- 
 mendation for a young debutante at any of our 
 great theatres to have been caressed by the 
 public at Bartholomew Fair. But that place 
 was then more respectable than it now is. The 
 opulent used to resort to it in their carriages. 
 When transferred to the Haymarket, Drury 
 Lane, and Covent Garden, she shone in all 
 walks of character. Natural, i . *. unrefined 
 comedy, seems to have been her forte. Her 
 deliverance of sprightly dialogue, according to 
 Davies, was never surpassed, nor perhaps 
 equalled. In her smooth and voluble enuncia- 
 tion not a syllable of articulation was lost to 
 the ear ; and she Was a perfect mistress, if we 
 may believe the same writer, of familiar dra- 
 matic eloquence. Versatility of talent she must 
 have possessed astonishingly, since we find her
 
 138 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 in the same seasons enjoying the first-rate po- 
 pularity as Lady Macbeth, and as Mrs. Doll, 
 in Ben Jonson's " Alchymist." Miss Seward 
 bears testimony to her declamation in tragedy 
 having been more free and natural than Mrs. 
 Gibber's, Churchill speaks highly of her Zara, 
 in " The Mourning Bride ;" and such was her 
 excellence as the Queen, in " Hamlet," that, 
 after she left the stage, it was long before her 
 substitute could be found in the character. 
 
 And yet something of her Bartholomew Fair 
 origin may be traced in Mrs. Pritchard's pro- 
 fessional characteristics. She never rose to the 
 finest grade even of comedy, but was most fa- 
 mous in scolds and viragos. In tragedy, though 
 she had a large imposing figure, she wanted 
 grace in her manner, and was too loud and pro- 
 fuse in her expression of grief. Garrick told 
 Tate Wilkinson that she was apt to blubber 
 her sorrows. Her features, it is generally al- 
 lowed, were rather expressive than pleasing;
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 139 
 
 nay, to judge by her picture in Mathews's col- 
 lection, they were coarse and ugly. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons says, in her Autograph Recollec- 
 tions, " When I begged Dr. Johnson to let me 
 know his opinion of Mrs. Pritchard, whom I 
 had never seen, he answered, ' Madam, she was 
 a vulgar idiot ; she used to speak of her gownd, 
 and she never read any part in a play in which 
 she acted, except her own.' Is it possible, 
 thought I," Mrs. Siddons continues, " that Mrs. 
 Pritchard, the greatest of all the Lady Mac- 
 beths, should never have read the play ? and I 
 concluded that the Doctor must have been mis- 
 informed ; but I was afterwards assured by a 
 gentleman, a friend of Mrs. Pritchard's, that he 
 had supped with her one night after she had 
 acted Lady Macbeth, and that she declared she 
 had never perused the whole tragedy : I can- 
 not believe it." 
 
 Well might our great actress wonder at Mrs.
 
 140 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Pritchard's sluttishness. Mrs. Siddons's own 
 life was one of constant study and profound 
 reflection on the characters which she played, 
 and on their relations to surrounding parts. 
 Mrs. Siddons had a right to be painted as the 
 Tragic Muse, for her very manner in society 
 was marked by an abstractedness and reserve 
 that were the result of her studiousness. By 
 the force of fancy and reflection she used to be 
 so wrought up in preparing to play the Lady 
 Constance, that when she set out from her own 
 house to the theatre, she was already Constance 
 herself. 
 
 Mrs. Pritchard, I dare say, was a vulgar 
 woman ; but, when I read the accounts of her 
 acting worthily with Garrick, I cannot consent 
 to Dr. Johnson calling her a vulgar idiot, even 
 though she did pin an unnecessary d to her 
 gown. Encrusted with indolence as she was, 
 she was still a diamond. At the same time, 
 being palpably devoid of devotion to her pro-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 141 
 
 fession, she must have been unequal in her ap- 
 pearances. Accordingly, we find that her popu- 
 larity in London fell ; and, when she went over 
 to Dublin, that she electrified the Irish with 
 disappointment. 
 
 Next to Mrs. Pritchard in point of time, our 
 two greatest actresses were Mrs. Yates and 
 Mrs. Crawford. They were cotemporaries 
 and rivals ; the former bearing the palm for 
 dignity and sculpturesque beauty, whilst the 
 latter, though less pleasing in looks, had more 
 passion and versatility. 
 
 Anna Maria Grahame, afterwards Mrs. Yates, 
 acted from 1754 to 1784. She made her debut 
 on the Dublin stage, but with so little success 
 that the manager made her a present to dissolve 
 the engagement. She had the courage, never- 
 theless, to make a second attempt at Drury 
 Lane, as Marcia, in " Cato," when her appear- 
 ance interested the public. By her marriage
 
 142 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 with Richard Yates, shortly afterwards, she 
 acquired a valuable stage friend as well as in- 
 structor, and she had the merit of assiduous 
 industry. 
 
 From all that I can collect respecting this 
 actress, out of the remarks of Mr. Boaden and 
 other writers, including even my good-natured 
 friend, John Taylor, I believe, an unfavourable 
 profile of her theatric endowments might be 
 drawn without absolute injustice, though still it 
 would be only on a one-sided view. It appears 
 that her countenance, with the beauty of the an- 
 tique statue, had also something of its monotony, 
 and that she was defective in parts of tenderness. 
 But it is confessed, even by her censurers, that 
 her fine person, haughty features, and powerful 
 voice, carried her well through rage and disdain, 
 and that her declamation was musical. Taylor 
 himself told me that she was the most com- 
 manding personage he had ever looked upon 
 before he saw Mrs. Siddons. She was a superb
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 143 
 
 Medea; and Wilkinson compares her Margaret 
 of Anjou with Mrs. Siddons's Zara. Davies 
 says that she was an actress whose just elocu- 
 tion, warm passion, and majestic deportment, 
 excited the admiration even of foreigners, and 
 fixed the affection and applause of her own 
 countrymen. 
 
 It may also temper our estimate of her de- 
 fects, to find that the cotemporary criticism, 
 which was looked up to as quite authoritative, 
 found fault with her sometimes on very ques- 
 tionable grounds. For instance, the Dramatic 
 Censor, in 1770, asserts that she had not a trace 
 of comedy about her. Now the oldest and 
 most judicious eye-witness of those times, who 
 is at present alive, and one whose judgment I 
 would prefer to that of a thousand Dramatic 
 Censors, assures me that, in high comedy, she 
 had an extraordinary degree of grace and re- 
 finement. Mr. Godwin, to whom I shall have 
 further occasion to mention my obligations for
 
 144 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 the kind interest which he has taken in this 
 work, favoured me lately with the following 
 note, respecting his recollection of Mrs. Yates : 
 
 " 13, Old Palace Yard; 
 Jan. 12, 1834. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 " What I seem best to remember her in is 
 Violante, in the ' Wonder ;* and, though it is 
 sixty years since I saw Garrick and her in that 
 play, I remember a great deal of it as if it had 
 occurred yesterday. It is an admirably acting 
 play, and the two principal performers seemed 
 to leave nothing to be desired. What I recol- 
 lect best of Mrs. Yates is, the scene in which 
 Garrick, having offended her by a jealousy, not 
 altogether without an apparent cause, the lady, 
 conscious of her entire innocence, at length ex- 
 presses a serious resentment. Felix had till 
 then indulged his angry feelings ; but finding, 
 at last, that he had gone too far, applies himself 
 with all a lover's arts to soothe her. She turns
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 145 
 
 her back to him, and draws away her chair ; 
 he follows her, and draws his chair nearer ; 
 she draws away further : at length, by his win- 
 ning entreaties and cajoling, she is gradually 
 induced to melt, and finally makes it up with 
 him. Her condescension in every stage, from 
 its commencement to its conclusion, was ad- 
 mirable. Her dignity was great and lofty, and 
 the effect highly enhanced by her beauty ; and 
 when by degrees she laid aside her frown, 
 when her lips began to relax towards a smile, 
 while one cloud vanished after another, the 
 spectator thought he had never seen anything 
 so lovely and irresistible : and the effect was 
 greatly owing to her queen-like majesty. The 
 condescension, in a graceful and wayward 
 beauty, would have been comparatively nothing, 
 with Mrs. Yates's figure and demeanor, it 
 laid the whole audience, as well as her lover, 
 at her feet. 
 
 " It is a curious point to distinguish between 
 
 L
 
 146 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 the loftiness of this actress and that of Mrs. 
 Siddons. In Mrs. Siddons, it appeared the un- 
 taught loftiness of an elevated soul, working 
 outwards ; but, in Mrs. Yates, it was the lofti- 
 ness of a person who had associated only with 
 the majestic and the great who was therefore 
 complete in herself and in all her motions, and 
 had an infallibility which could never for a mo- 
 ment be called in doubt. Mrs. Siddons was 
 great only as the occasion sustained her ; but 
 Mrs. Yates was great, because, by the habit 
 of her soul, it was impossible for her to be 
 otherwise. 
 
 " You desired me also to put down, though 
 of a very trifling nature, a circumstance which 
 I mentioned as occurring in Mrs. Yates's per- 
 formance of Lady Constance, but which is rather 
 characteristic of the fashion of the times than 
 deserving to be imputed to any defect in the 
 performer. When Lady Constance, a few lines 
 before her final exit, says, wildly, ' / will not
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 147 
 
 keep this form upon my head, when there is such 
 disorder in my wit I Mrs. Yates, to suit the 
 action to the word, took off a thin cap which 
 surmounted her head-dress, and merely placed 
 it on the right side of the circumference of her 
 hoop. 
 
 I remain, dear sir, 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 WM. GODWIN." 
 
 Mrs. Crawford acted from 1759 to 1797. 
 Her maiden name was Street : she was the 
 daughter of an apothecary, in Bath. When 
 about seventeen she was asked in marriage by 
 a young scion of nobility, but he jilted her, and 
 the misfortune deeply affected her. In order 
 to recover her health and spirits, she was invited 
 by a kind family of friends to visit Yorkshire, 
 and at York she attended the theatre, and be- 
 guiled her sorrow so successfully as to become 
 attached to an actor of the name of Dancer, 
 
 L 2
 
 148 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 who married her. With him she went on the 
 stage, to the dire offence of her relations, and 
 accepted an engagement in the Dublin theatre, 
 where she acquired an increasing reputation. 
 Her husband died when she was still young, 
 and ere long she gave her hand to Spranger 
 Barry, commonly called the Irish Roscius. He 
 was manager of the stage on which they both 
 acted, so that he secured for her all the capital 
 parts, both comic and tragic, and she filled them 
 brilliantly. Her success coinciding with her 
 husband's, Garrick invited them both, on very 
 high terms, to Drury Lane. 
 
 This was the palmy state of her reputation, 
 and for many years she had at least no superior 
 on the stage ; but Barry died in 1777. She 
 married a third husband, who was unkind to 
 her, and domestic distress cast such a damp 
 over her genius, that frequently she could only 
 be said to have walked through her parts. 
 Mrs. Siddons's success prompted her for a time
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 149 
 
 to emulation, and she came back from Dublin 
 in 1783, to act at Co vent Garden. But, by this 
 period, age had made ravages on her beauty, and 
 had brought her faculties to a state somewhat be- 
 yond their ripeness. On her reappearance on the 
 London stage, momentary gleams of her former 
 excellence were indeed displayed, but they only 
 suggested a melancholy comparison between 
 what she then was and what she had once been. 
 John Taylor says, that though once most elegant 
 in her deportment, she became at last rough 
 and coarse, and that her person had the ap- 
 pearance rather of an old man than of one of 
 her own sex. 
 
 Let us not, however, form a general estimate 
 of Mrs. Crawford from her appearances during 
 the manifest decline of her powers. For, though 
 even in her best days, it appears that she was 
 too vehement in action, and that she neglected 
 to insinuate herself into admiration from her 
 ambition to create surprise, yet still it is
 
 150 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 allowed that she could produce astonishment 
 deep and thrilling. The effect of her question, 
 as Lady Randolph, in " Douglas," to the pea- 
 sant, respecting the child, "Was he alive?" 
 was perhaps never surpassed on the stage. 
 Bannister told me that it made rows of specta- 
 tors start from -their seats. Mr. Boaden, I con- 
 ceive, has been over anxious to make it appear 
 that Mrs. Crawford's mode of uttering this 
 query, or, as he says, of screaming it, was 
 unnatural, and that it succeeded merely as a 
 tour de force, or stage trick. The actress's 
 violence, he alleges, was out of nature, be- 
 cause Lady Randolph could not anticipate any 
 hope that her son was still alive, even if the 
 peasant had answered yes; since she imme- 
 diately afterwards accuses him of having killed 
 the infant. But this is arguing as if a mother 
 in agony about a lost child could calculate as 
 coolly as a chess-player about the moving of a 
 pawn. Lady Randolph palpably utters that 
 question in a state of transport, as if the life or
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 151 
 
 death of her hopes depended on the instant 
 answer. The inconsistency of her still sup- 
 posing him dead, though she had heard that he 
 was found alive, is beautifully true to nature. 
 It is fear, rushing in phrenzy to precipitate 
 conclusions. That Mrs. Siddons could dispense 
 with extreme vehemence in this interrogation, 
 only shews the perfection of her acting in other 
 points. Her Lady Randolph was altogether a 
 more sustained and harmonious performance 
 than Mrs. Crawford's. But I believe that she 
 avoided her rival's vehemence of manner in 
 this instance, not from thinking that it was 
 unnatural, but from the fear of being taxed 
 with imitation. 
 
 Mrs. Crawford died as late as 1801, and was 
 buried near her second husband, Barry, in the 
 cloisters of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 In this retrospect of Mrs. Siddons's prede- 
 cessors, I have omitted the names of several
 
 152 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 actresses, highly distinguished for their general 
 powers, and partially successful even in tragedy ; 
 such as Mrs. Wonlngton, Anne Bellamy, and 
 others. But as my object, in this digression, 
 was only to advert to names of the first-rate 
 tragic grade, I fear the reader may tax me with 
 a fault the opposite of omission, namely, my 
 having mentioned one or two actresses who 
 were more famous on the comic than the graver 
 stage I allude to Bracegirdle and Oldfield. 
 Still, however, let me state, in apology, that 
 general tradition represents the former as 
 a beautiful tragic performer, and that the 
 Oldfield could have been no second-rate who 
 could throw enchantment around Thomson's 
 dramatic poetry.
 
 CHAPTER IV.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons plays Isabella, in the "Fatal Marriage," 
 at Drury Lane Suitableness of the Part for her first 
 new Trial Remarks on the Tragedy Resumption of 
 her Memoranda She appears as Euphrasia,'m the 
 " Grecian Daughter " as Jane Shore in Calista as 
 Belvidera and as Zara, in the " Mourning Bride"- 
 Her first Season.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " I WAS truly grieved," says Mrs. Siddons, in 
 ~~ her Memoranda, " to leave my kind friends at 
 Bath, and was also fearful that the power of 
 my voice was not equal to filling a London 
 theatre. My friends, too, were also doubtful ; 
 but I soon had reason to think that the bad 
 construction of the Bath theatre, and not the 
 weakness of my voice, was the cause of our 
 mutual fears. On the 10th of October, 1782, 
 I made my first new appearance at Drury Lane, 
 with my own dear beautiful boy, then but eight 
 years old, in Southerne's tragedy of ' Isabella.' 
 This character was judiciously recommended 
 to me by my kind friend, Mr. Sheridan, 
 the father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who 
 had seen me in that play at Bath. The
 
 156 LIFE OF MRS. 8IDDONS. 
 
 interest he took in my success was like that 
 of a father." 
 
 It was a judicious choice undoubtedly. The 
 part of Isabella had pathos enough to develop 
 her genius, without complexity to make it an 
 extreme ordeal for her powers on their new 
 great trial ; and, with her beautiful little son, 
 Henry, in her hand, she looked the very per- 
 sonage.* 
 
 Southerne, the author of this play, deserves 
 our gratitude, in common with Otway and 
 
 * The Morning Post for October 10, 1782, gives the 
 following anecdote about young Henry Siddons. 
 "Mrs. Siddons, of Drury Lane theatre, has a lovely 
 little boy, about eight years old. Yesterday, in the re- 
 hearsal of the " Fatal Marriage," the boy, observing his 
 mother in the agonies of the dying scene, took the fiction 
 for reality, and burst into a flood of tears, a circumstance 
 which struck the feelings of the company in a singular 
 manner."
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 157 
 
 Howe, for having sustained our graver drama 
 in tolerable respectability, towards the close of 
 the seventeenth century, at a time when it was 
 threatened with the pestilence of rhyming tra- 
 gedies ; and he is a purer moralist than either 
 Otway or Rowe. Inferior as all the three may 
 be to the more immediate successors of Shake- 
 speare, still they will seem entitled to our 
 respect, when we consider that, more than a 
 century has elapsed in England, without pro- 
 ducing anything like such a triad of dramatic 
 names. 
 
 I am glad to find that the poet Gray was a 
 great admirer of Southerne. Critics of far less 
 authority have contemned this very tragedy of 
 " Isabella" for heavy and confused incidents. 
 I confess, curtailed as it now is of the comic 
 underplot* which Southerne threw in, only 
 
 * Gray, with all his admiration of Southerne, inveighs 
 severely against his comic intermixtures in this tra-
 
 158 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 in compliance with the grotesque taste of the 
 time, that there seems to me to be not the 
 slightest redundancy of business or dialogue 
 in the piece. On the contrary, the action 
 advances with a beguiling rapidity, and the 
 deeply affecting story has an air of fatalism, 
 that always reminds me of the Greek stage. 
 Perhaps, in all powerful tragedies, this air is to 
 be traced. It is a cold, dramatic achievement, 
 to shew us only the ordinary and necessary con- 
 nexion between the passions and the misfor- 
 tunes of our species. The poetic invention 
 
 gedy ; and, in fact, in its original state, there was a 
 complete comic underplot, some of which seems to have 
 been borrowed from Boccaccio. A jealous old fellow 
 gets a sleeping potion, is put into a tomb, and made to 
 believe that he has been dead. When he awakes he 
 is reconciled to his wife, and promises never more to be 
 jealous of her. When the play was revived at Drury 
 Lane, in 1757, this comic stuff was omitted, but the 
 original name was not changed from that of the " Fatal 
 Marriage, or Innocent Adultery," to " Isabella," till se- 
 veral years after.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 159 
 
 that affects us to the deepest degree, is that 
 which teaches us by what surprising coinci- 
 dences the passions of the bad may work more 
 misery than even they themselves intend ; and 
 how the shafts of cruelty may strike the inno- 
 cent with more than their natural force, coming 
 like arrows impelled by the wind. My greatest 
 objection to the tragedy of " Isabella" is, that 
 old Biron moralizes most unnecessarily at the 
 end of it ; for, when poetry affects us, the heart 
 will find its own moral. 
 
 Speaking of her first appearance on this 
 occasion, Mrs. Siddons says, " For a whole 
 fortnight before this (to me) memorable day, 
 I suffered from nervous agitation more than 
 can be imagined. No wonder ! for my own 
 fate, and that of my little family, hung upon 
 it. T had quitted Bath, where all my efforts 
 had been successful, and I feared lest a second 
 failure in London might influence the public 
 mind greatly to my prejudice, in the event of
 
 160 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 my return from Drury Lane, disgraced as I for- 
 merly had been. In due time I was summoned 
 to the rehearsal of ' Isabella.' Who can ima- 
 gine my terror? I feared to utter a sound 
 above an audible whisper ; but by degrees en- 
 thusiasm cheered me into a forgetfulness of my 
 fears, and I unconsciously threw out my voice, 
 which failed not to be heard in the remotest 
 part of the house, by a friend who kindly un- 
 dertook to ascertain the happy circumstance. 
 The countenances, no less than tears and flat- 
 tering encouragements of my companions, em- 
 boldened me more and more ; and the second 
 rehearsal was even more affecting than the first. 
 Mr. King, who was then manager, was loud in 
 his applauses. This second rehearsal took 
 place on the 8th of October, 1782, and on the 
 evening of that day I was seized with a nervous 
 hoarseness/which made me extremely wretched ; 
 for I dreaded being obliged to defer my appear- 
 ance on the 10th, longing, as I most earnestly 
 did, at least to know the worst. I went to
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 161 
 
 bed, therefore, in a state of dreadful suspense. 
 Awaking the next morning, however, though 
 out of restless, unrefreshing sleep, I found, 
 upon speaking to my husband, that my voice 
 was very much clearer. This, of course, was 
 a great comfort to me ; and, moreover, the sun, 
 which had been completely obscured for many 
 days, shone brightly through my curtains. I 
 hailed it, though tearfully, yet thankfully, as a 
 happy omen ; and even now I am not ashamed 
 of this (as it may perhaps be called) childish 
 superstition. On the morning of the 10th, my 
 voice was, most happily, perfectly restored; 
 and again ' The blessed sun shone brightly on 
 me' On this eventful day my father arrived 
 to comfort me, and to be a witness of my trial. 
 He accompanied me to my dressing-room at 
 the theatre. There he left me; and I, in 
 one of what I call my desperate tranquillities, 
 which usually impress me under terrific cir- 
 cumstances, there completed my dress, to the 
 astonishment of my attendants, without utter- 
 
 M
 
 162 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 ing one word, though often sighing most pro- 
 foundly. 
 
 " At length I was called to my fiery trial. I 
 found my venerable father behind the scenes, 
 little less agitated than myself. The awful 
 consciousness that one is the sole object of 
 attention to that immense space, lined as it 
 were with human intellect from top to bottom, 
 and all around, may perhaps be imagined, but 
 can never be described, and by me can never 
 be forgotten.* 
 
 " Of the general effect of this night's per- 
 formance I need not speak : it has already been 
 publicly recorded. I reached my own quiet 
 fireside, on retiring from the scene of reiterated 
 shouts and plaudits. I was half dead ; and my 
 
 *, The other parts of the play were thus cast : Biron, 
 Smith ; Villeroy, Palmer ; Carlos, Farren ; Count Bald- 
 win, Packer : Nurse, Mrs. Love.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 163 
 
 joy and thankfulness were of too solemn and 
 overpowering a nature to admit of words, or 
 even tears. My father, my husband, and my- 
 self, sat down to a frugal neat supper, in a 
 silence uninterrupted, except by exclamations 
 of gladness from Mr. Siddons. My father en- 
 joyed his refreshments ; but occasionally stopped 
 short, and, laying down his knife and fork, lift- 
 ing up his venerable face, and throwing back 
 his silver hair, gave way to tears of happiness. 
 We soon parted for the night ; and I, worn out 
 with continually broken rest and laborious ex- 
 ertion, after an hour's retrospection, (who can 
 conceive the intenseness of that reverie ?) fell 
 into a sweet and profound sleep, which lasted 
 to the middle of the next day. I arose alert in 
 mind and body. 
 
 " I should be afraid to say," she continues, 
 " how many times ' Isabella' was repeated suc- 
 cessively, with still increasing favour. I was 
 now highly gratified by a removal from my 
 
 M2
 
 164 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 very indifferent and inconvenient dressing-room 
 to one on the stage-floor, instead of climbing 
 a long staircase ; and this room (oh, unexpected 
 happiness!) had been Garrick's dressing-room. 
 It is impossible to conceive my gratification, 
 when I saw my own figure in the self-same 
 glass which had so often reflected the face and 
 form of that unequalled genius : not perhaps 
 without some vague fanciful hope of a little 
 degree of inspiration from it. About this time* 
 I was honoured by the whole body of the Law 
 with a present of a purse of one hundred 
 guineas." 
 
 Mrs. Siddons performed Isabella eight times 
 between the 10th and 30th of October. The 
 
 * The high compliment paid by the gentlemen of the 
 Bar to the unrivalled merit of Mrs. Siddons is unexam- 
 pled in the history of the English Theatre, except in 
 the instance of the celebrated Mr. Booth, who, on his 
 first appearance in the character of Addison's Cato, was 
 presented by the Tories with a purse of fifty guineas, 
 for so nobly declaiming against a perpetual Dictator.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 165 
 
 next character that was allotted to her was 
 JEuphrasia, in the "Grecian Daughter."* In 
 this part, Mrs. Yates, with the aid of Hender- 
 son's powerful acting, still maintained a sem- 
 blance of rivalship with the Siddons : but it 
 was only a semblance; for the querulous re- 
 monstrances which Mrs. Yates's friends put 
 forth in the newspapers against " the infatuated 
 attention that was paid to the rising actress" 
 sorely betrayed to which of the rivals public 
 favour had inclined. Mrs. Siddons's admirers 
 troubled the press with no lamentations for 
 Mrs. Yates's popularity : they only regretted 
 that the talents of their favourite, instead of 
 being wholly devoted to Shakespeare and other 
 great dramatists, should be wasted on Murphy's 
 tragedy, which the Morning Post, a paper at 
 that time ably conducted, denominated " an 
 abortion of Melpomene? 
 
 * On the 30th of October the other parts of the 
 " Grecian Daughter" were thus cast: Evander, Bensley; 
 Dionysius, Palmer ; Philotas, Brereton ; Phocion, Farren.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 This was rather hard language; for there 
 must be some merit in a drama that can be 
 made the medium of popular acting ; and the 
 " Grecian Daughter" is a practical favourite 
 with players. Since its first appearance, sixty- 
 three years ago, there has been no great tragic 
 actress who has not thought the part of Eu- 
 phrasia worthy of her ambition. At the same 
 time, the " Grecian Daughter," though not an 
 abortion of Melpomene, is not one of her love- 
 liest brood. Its merit may be placed on a level 
 with that of our best pantomimes and melo- 
 dramas. It is a tolerable tragedy in all but the 
 words. 
 
 The wonderful power of great players to 
 delight us on the stage with dramatic poetry 
 which we read with indifference ; their power, 
 we might rather say, of putting poetry into 
 action where they have little or none of it on 
 the author's page, is a subject of curious in- 
 terest, and so much worthy of better discussion
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 167 
 
 than I can bring to it, that I hazard with diffi- 
 dence the most general remarks. I have said 
 that there must be some merit in a drama 
 which can be made the medium of popular 
 acting : and this truism is so palpable, that I 
 am not afraid of the reader contradicting it, 
 but only of his smiling at being told what 
 might be taken for granted. But, supposing 
 you went a little farther, and were to say, that 
 a drama, which good acting can render impres- 
 sive, must necessarily have a great deal of merit, 
 you would soon find yourself mistaken, and be 
 obliged to draw back into the former vague 
 and trite position : for it is not more certain, 
 that the Northern Lights can play upon ice, 
 than that electrifying acting has often irradi- 
 ated dramas very frigid to the reader. What 
 is the "Cato" of Addison to our perusal; and 
 yet how nobly John Kemble performed its 
 hero ? The greatest acting, it is true, cannot 
 create a soul under the ribs of death, nor recon- 
 cile us to false or insipid views of human na-
 
 168 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 ture. A tragedy, to affect us by the best possible 
 acting, must assuredly have some leading con- 
 ceptions of grandeur, some general outlines of 
 affecting character and situation. Nevertheless, 
 it is astonishing how faint and general those 
 outlines may be, and yet enable, or rather per- 
 mit, the great stage-artist to fill up what he 
 finds a comparative blank into a glowing pic- 
 ture. Mrs. Siddons did this in the " Grecian 
 Daughter ;" and so did Fanny Kemble. 
 
 Shakespeare's plays would continue to be 
 read, if there was not a theatre in existence ; 
 whereas, if poor Murphy, as a tragedian, were 
 to be banished from the stage to the library, it 
 may be said, in the fullest sense of the phrase, 
 that he would be laid on the shelf. And yet 
 Murphy might affirm with truth, that in play- 
 ing his heroine Mrs. Siddons herself increased 
 her reputation. The part of Isabella had deve- 
 loped her strength as well as her tenderness ; 
 but Euphrama allowed her to assume a royal
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 169 
 
 loftiness still more imposing, (at least to the 
 many,) and a look of majesty which she alone 
 could assume. When she rushed on the stage, 
 addressing the Grecian patriots, " War on, ye 
 heroes!" she was a picture to every eye, and she 
 spoke passion to every heart. I have seen 
 the oldest countenances of her cotemporaries 
 lighten up with pleasure in trying to do justice 
 to their recollections of her Euphrasia. They 
 spoke of the semi-diadem on her brow, and of 
 the veil that flowed so gracefully on her shoul- 
 ders; but they always concluded by owning 
 that words could not describe " her heroic love- 
 liness" The finest effect that she produced in 
 the part was at the crisis when Philotas pre- 
 tends that her father was dead, and that his 
 body had been thrown into the sea. Here she 
 acted filial anxiety with a fidelity so terrible, 
 that the spectators counted the moments of 
 suspense, and felt that a few more of them 
 would have been intolerable.
 
 170 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 The next part in which she appeared was 
 
 Nov. 8, 
 
 1782 - Jane Shore* Here she tried her powers 
 in a character as widely as possible con- 
 trasted with Euphrasia ; and made a transition 
 from the proudest pomp to the most desolate 
 pathos of tragedy. I am glad that I can recol- 
 lect the great actress in Jane Shore; for it was 
 a spectacle that struck me with a degree of 
 wonder, of illusion, and of intense commisera- 
 tion, that neither she nor any other performer 
 ever excited in my mind. I will not say that it 
 is the part in which I should chiefly choose to 
 see her once more, if I had the power, by some 
 miracle, of seeing her again. It was not her 
 most poetical, nay, it was not her most pleas- 
 ing part : on the contrary, the semblance of her 
 physical suffering was the more appalling for a 
 sort of prosaic closeness to reality. But it was 
 
 * The other parts were thus cast : Hastings, Smith ; 
 Shore, Bensley; Gloucester, J. Aickin: Alicia, Mrs.Ward.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 171 
 
 terrible and perfect acting up to the truth of 
 nature. Mr. Boaden tells us, that she pre- 
 sented at the outset of the play a dignified 
 aspect, which could never have belonged to the 
 mistress of Edward the Fourth ; and that the 
 first look of her threw a doubt upon her situa- 
 tion and its sorrows. Whether this doubt ever 
 crossed the minds of three persons among her 
 spectators is very uncertain ; but if it did, it 
 was immediately lost in different feelings. For 
 Mr. Boaden himself, in his next paragraph, 
 commemorates what can be well recollected, 
 namely, " the sobs and shrieks among the tender 
 part of her audiences, and those tears which 
 manhood at first struggled to suppress, but at 
 last grew proud of indulging." Fainting fits 
 were long and frequent in the house. 
 
 And yet this fearful semblance of reality, if 
 it did not strictly accord with Lord Bacon's 
 definition, of poetry being that which accom- 
 modates the show of things to the wishes of
 
 172 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 the mind, was still in so far poetical that its 
 terrors were sheathed in some welcome illu- 
 sions. It was something to have so romantic a 
 legendary favourite as Jane Shore restored, like 
 a friend in a dream, though only to hear her 
 speak, and to answer her with our tears. And 
 so far was my imagination loth to identify Mrs. 
 Siddons with the heroine she represented, that 
 I remember, as if it were yesterday, my illusion 
 amounting, as far as waking thoughts could go, 
 to the belief that I was looking on reality, and 
 seeing History revived before me. 
 
 The story of Jane Shore has certainly one 
 disadvantage as a tragic subject, namely, in the 
 catastrophe being a death by hunger. And yet 
 the poet has met this difficulty with some skill ; 
 for, before he compels us to shudder at her phy- 
 sical sufferings, he has wound us up to a high 
 interest in her moral character, and prepared 
 us to regard her as expiring not solely from 
 corporeal inanition, but from having her death
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 1T3 
 
 at least accelerated by mental agitation. Rowe 
 is judicious in giving her a modest and gradual 
 progress in our sympathy. She is at first 
 only a desolate penitent, who says of her own 
 beauty, 
 
 "Sin and misery, 
 
 Like loathsome weeds, have overrun the soil ; 
 And the destroyer Shame hath laid all waste." 
 
 She is at the outset nothing but contrition ; 
 and her repentance-sheet shrouds from our 
 view the fine lineaments of her heroic and wo- 
 manly nature. But these come forth, when her 
 fondness for Edward's memory breaks out in 
 her anxiety for his children, though in a man- 
 ner so delicate, that her husband himself cannot 
 be imagined to take umbrage at it. Under this 
 feeling she defies the tyrant Gloucester, It was 
 here that the part ascended to the level of Mrs. 
 Siddons's powers, that her voice took a rich- 
 ness beyond the wailing of penitence, and her 
 cheek a nobler glow than the blush of shame. 
 The fervour of her benediction on Hastings,
 
 174 LIFE OF MRS. S1DDONS. 
 
 though he had insulted her, when, in gratitude 
 for his protecting Edward's children, she ex- 
 claims, 
 
 " Reward him for the noble deed, just heavens !" 
 
 makes Jane Shore now possess our hearts as a 
 heroine. If ever words were pronounced with 
 thrilling prolongation, it was when Mrs. Siddons 
 uttered that line, 
 
 "The poor, forsaken, Royal little ones!" 
 
 Her death-scene in Jane Shore would have 
 baffled the power of the pencil, for it was a 
 succession of astonishing changes. Her eagle 
 eye, obedient to her will, at times parted with 
 its lustre, and, though open, looked sightless 
 and bewildered ; but resumed its fire as wonder- 
 fully, when, " with life's last spark that fluttered 
 and expired? she turned to her husband, and 
 uttered the heart-piercing words, 
 
 "Forgive me ! but forgive me !" 
 
 Whilst her impression as Jane Shore was
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 175 
 
 still fresh in the public mind, and whilst so 
 many great tragic parts remained untouched by 
 her, it may well surprise us to find her next 
 appearing in a prose tragedy, which had no 
 name to recommend it, and which was never 
 found to be worth publishing. This was the 
 " Fatal Interview," by Thomas Hull.* It was 
 not absolutely hissed off the stage ; but it was 
 
 * This piece, like several others by the same author, 
 was never published ; though he was a voluminous 
 writer of plays, novels, tales, and verses. Thomas 
 Hull was founder of the Theatrical Fund, an institution 
 that does honour to his memory. He was for many 
 years deputy-manager of Covent Garden, and always 
 valued himself on his address in making apologies to 
 the public. During the riots of 1780, the mob pelted 
 his house with stones, in consequence of his having 
 sent out to them a barrel of small-beer instead of porter. 
 The deputy-manager appeared on the first floor, with 
 his velvet cap, and, after making three low bows, gave 
 scope to his apologetical eloquence in these words : 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen, Upon my honour I have 
 sent to Gifford's brewhouse for some porter. In the 
 meantime, I must humbly solicit your usual indul- 
 gence."
 
 176 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 so coolly received, and so many reflections 
 were cast on Mrs. ,Siddons's genius being 
 thrown away on such a piece, that it was with- 
 drawn, after dragging on to the third night. 
 Mr. Genest says that Sheridan damned the 
 play to save the actress : but the play appears 
 to have damned itself. 
 
 On the 29th of November, she appeared for 
 the first time as Calista, in the Fair Peni- 
 tent;" and her success in the character was 
 another large step in her popularity.* It has 
 been common with dramatic critics to abuse 
 Calista, as a person most improperly named a 
 penitent. This objection to her character is 
 much older than the days of Gifford and Haz- 
 litt ; but, like many an old judgment, it is 
 unjust : for, though reluctant to repent, she 
 
 * The other parts were thus cast : Lothario, Palmer ; 
 Horatio, Bensley; Sciolto, J. Aickin: Lavinia, Mrs. 
 Bulkely.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 177 
 
 becomes in the end a deep and true penitent, 
 and may well say, 
 
 " I have more real anguish in my heart 
 Than all their pedant discipline can shew." 
 
 Those who reproach Calista for not being 
 all of a sudden repentant, forget how con- 
 temptible she would be if she were so repre- 
 sented. A female loathing her frailty the 
 moment after detection, would virtually ac- 
 knowledge it to have sprung from a mo- 
 mentary impulse, and not from that boundless 
 affection and confidence, which, however mis- 
 placed, is at least some palliation of her fault 
 to the charity of others, and still more natu- 
 rally a pretext for slow self-condemnation 
 in the delinquent herself. Calista is the vic- 
 tim of profound attachment. Jane Shore had 
 had full leisure to repent of her errors ; but 
 Calista is exposed to shame, while she is yet 
 under the spell and illusion of her passion for 
 Lothario. Love, be it ever so illicit, is of all 
 
 N
 
 178 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 passions the least self-condemning whilst the 
 mind is under its full dominion. It may re- 
 proach the infatuated heart in its growth and 
 decay ; it may have its morning and evening 
 shadows for the conscience, but it has none at 
 its vertical height. 
 
 And, after all, whilst Calista is slow to re- 
 proach herself for a natural passion, she is not 
 without some right to speak of "a base world," 
 when she is doomed to infamy by the ingrati- 
 tude of her seducer; and, when she is forced to 
 marry the man whom she cannot love by a 
 father, who, after raving about her sainted 
 mother, arid Calistds prattling infant days, 
 takes upon him the fatherly duty of her execu- 
 tioner. If there was anything in the character 
 of Calista to make it worthy of the Siddons, 
 it was the heroine's slowly-penitent pride, which 
 capitulates only in the last extremities. 
 
 I cannot, to be sure, confess an unqualified
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 179 
 
 admiration of this tragedy ; for, though Calista 
 acts consistently with the domination of pas- 
 sion over her mind, yet the exposure of a frail 
 woman's dishonour seems a bad tragic subject 
 to set out with. Her errors are not, like those 
 of Jane Shore, half hid from us by the con- 
 ception of their remote occurrence, but are 
 blazoned in fresh discovery. The mind recoils 
 from the reception of a proud and beautiful 
 female upon the stage, being prepared by the 
 description which her betrayer gives of the 
 scene and circumstances of her seductio n 
 
 Rowe is, however, an insinuating dramatist ; 
 and the protracted martyrdom of Calista is, 
 in spite of the faults of the tragedy, very 
 affecting. I never saw our great actress in this 
 character; but I can easily imagine the new 
 scope that it gave to her powers. A sensible 
 writer of that early period remarks of her per- 
 formance, that " having to shew, in Calista, that 
 
 N2
 
 180 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 haughty affectation of being above control, 
 which the deviation from virtue ever produces 
 in a proud mind, in this struggle between pride 
 and shame, she walked with greater precipi- 
 tation, her gestures were more frequent and 
 more violent, and her eyes were restless and 
 suspicious." Calista was therefore a new cha- 
 racter for the display of her genius; and it 
 particularly gave a new modification to that 
 passion of pride which she was unparalleled in 
 expressing. Neither Isabella nor Jane Shore 
 are characters of such complicated agony as 
 Calista. The pride of Isabella has to combat 
 only with her destiny, and the shame of Jane 
 Shore is aggravated by no feeling of pride. 
 Neither of them are so distracted as Howe's 
 heroine, between passions entirely opposite, or 
 put on the rack, as she is, between virtue and 
 vice. Calista } s shame inflames her pride, whilst 
 her pride makes her shame more excruciating. 
 She perishes, like Laocoon, between double
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 181 
 
 stings ; and, though not perhaps a fair penitent 
 for the stage, she is a strong picture of unfor- 
 tunate human nature. 
 
 Such acting as Mrs. Siddons's had never 
 been brought to Rowe's poetry, at least during 
 the last century. Neither Mrs. Cibber nor 
 Mrs. Crawford are alleged, by their warmest 
 eulogists, to have been so equal to the haughti- 
 ness of CaUsta's part. Mrs. Yates, in per- 
 forming it, departed from her usual grace, 
 and sawed the air with her arms ; and Mrs. 
 Woffington, though pleasing to the eye, used 
 to bark out the Fair Penitent with most disso- 
 nant notes. 
 
 For her benefit, on the 14th of December 
 Mrs. Siddons chose the part of JBelvidera, in 
 " Venice Preserved,"* a tragedy which so con- 
 stantly commands the tears of audiences, that 
 
 * Cast of parts : Jaffier, Brereton ; Pierre, Bensley ; 
 Priuli, J. Aickin ; Renault, Packer.
 
 182 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 it would be a work of supererogation for 
 me to extol its tenderness. There may be 
 dramas where human character is pictured with 
 subtler skill, though Belvidera might rank 
 among Shakespeare's creations ; and " Venice 
 Preserved" may not contain, like " Macbeth/' 
 and " Lear," certain high conceptions, which 
 exceed even the power of stage representation; 
 but it is as full as a tragedy can be of all the 
 pathos that is transfusable into action. 
 
 I am glad that I have far better testimonies 
 than my own to offer in proof of the great 
 actress's triumph in this character ; for, to say 
 the truth, when I saw her perform Belvidera, 
 she was in the autumn of her beauty, large, 
 august, and matronly; and my imagination had 
 been accustomed to picture the object of 
 Jqffier's fondness as a much younger woman. 
 Accordingly, I recollect having thought (it was 
 a new thought, indeed, for her acting to inspire,) 
 that I could have conceived another actress to 
 have played the part more perfectly. But, with-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 183 
 
 out retracting my general opinion that she con- 
 tinued to act this character when she was some- 
 what too old for it, I can easily conceive that 
 in my boyish criticism I may have judged of 
 her unspiritually, and too much by externals. 
 Attending to the woman more than the actress, 
 I dare say I was blind to innumerable beauties, 
 that made her Belvidera, even late in life, one 
 of her finest performances in the eyes of better 
 judges than myself. When she was young, 
 there were no two opinions about her perfec- 
 tion in the part. 
 
 I have already acknowledged that I consult 
 the newspapers of those times for remarks on 
 her acting with nothing like unqualified con- 
 fidence. At the same time, I should not con- 
 sult them at all, unless their consentaneous or 
 well expressed opinions were not occasionally 
 entitled to fair belief. Now, the language of 
 her daily cotemporary critics, respecting her 
 appearance in Belvidera, is so warm, so una-
 
 184 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 nimous, and, above all, so circumstantial, 
 that I cannot help receiving it as truth. They 
 point out with rapture the particular traits of 
 her excellence, such as the heart-wringing 
 effect of her call to Jqffier, " Oh, thou unkind 
 one !" the magic delicacy with which she 
 bade him remember the hour of twelve; and 
 the electrifying manner in which she sprang 
 to his arms, on his threat to kill her. I should 
 take Mr. Boaden's testimony to the same effect, 
 even if it stood quite solitary ; but I like it 
 none the worse for circumstantially agreeing 
 with the above critiques : and his description 
 of her Belvidera is able, minute, and copious. 
 She attached herself by this part with a new 
 and bright link to public favour. 
 
 Mr. Boaden inveighs, and not unjustly, 
 against the omission of some lines of the tra- 
 gedy, both beautiful and unexceptionable, in 
 the prompt-book from which Mrs. Siddons 
 acted. These were tasteless omissions I own;
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 185 
 
 but, in a general view, no play was ever more 
 indebted to the stage for purification than 
 " Venice Preserved." As it originally came 
 out, it was stamped with all the profligacy of 
 the age, and offered the melancholy spectacle 
 of genius prostituted to court corruption. It 
 is generally supposed that, in the character of 
 the buffoon-senator, Antonio, the poet meant 
 to ridicule Lord Shaftesbury; and, from the 
 primitive indecent prologue, it may also be 
 inferred that he made another hit at his Lord- 
 ship, in pourtraying the conspirator Renault.* 
 
 This chain-shot satire seems to have been 
 discharged against Shaftesbury by the order of 
 Charles II., a prince who, with the love of 
 monopolies that was inherent in his family, seems 
 to have thought that he had a right to exclude 
 
 * It is said, in this prologue, that if Poland had 
 heard of Renault, she would have made him her king. 
 Shaftesbury 's enemies alleged that he was ambitious of 
 the crown of Poland.
 
 186 LIFE OF MRS. 8IDDONS. 
 
 all others from competition with him in pro- 
 fligacy. To preserve consistency, the poet 
 dedicated his tragedy to the Duchess of Ports- 
 mouth, congratulating her on being the king's 
 mistress, and on having lately borne him an 
 illegitimate child. 
 
 In his utmost destitution, Otway appears 
 less humiliated than in this dedication. I am 
 sorry that his recent editors have not, in mercy 
 to his memory, forborne to re-print all the 
 disgusting dialogue, which has been long since 
 expunged from stage - representation. The 
 courtezan, Aquillia, I believe, has ceased to 
 disgrace the dramatis personce since the be- 
 ginning of the last century. George II., so at 
 least says the "Dramatic Censor," commanded 
 all those scenes of " Venice Preserved," which 
 had been already rejected by public modesty, 
 to be restored when the play was to be acted 
 before him; but the audience, with one con- 
 sent, hooted them off'. If this be true, it is
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 187 
 
 probable that our German liege acted more 
 from ignorance of the English language than 
 from profligacy. 
 
 The alterations of " Venice Preserved" have 
 redeemed it as a public spectacle, and as a 
 work of taste. Pierre is a miserable conspi- 
 rator as Ot way first painted him, impelled to 
 treason by his love of a courtezan, and his 
 jealousy of Antonio. But his character, as it now 
 comes forward, is a mixture of patriotism and 
 of excusable misanthropy. Even in the more 
 modern prompt-books, an improving curtail- 
 ment has been introduced. Until the middle 
 of the last century, the ghosts of Jaffier and 
 Pierre used to come in upon the stage, haunt- 
 ing Belmdera in her last agonies, which, God 
 knows! require no aggravation from spectral 
 agency. 
 
 Never were beauties and faults more easily 
 separable than those of this tragedy. The
 
 188 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 former, in its purification for the stage, came 
 off like dirt from a fine statue, taking away 
 nothing from its symmetrical surface, and 
 leaving us only to wonder how the author 
 himself should have soiled it with such dis- 
 figurements.* 
 
 For her second benefit, this season, she 
 
 Mar. 18, 
 
 ^' chose the part of Zara, in the "Mourning 
 
 * It is pretty generally known that Otway founded 
 his tragedy on St. Real's History of the Venetian Con- 
 spiracy in 1618. Nearly the whole of the dramatis 
 persona are real persons. Belvidera, however, is ficti- 
 tious. The real Renault was no villain, and the real 
 Pierre was privately strangled on board his own ship, 
 by order of the Venetian senate. The prose and true 
 Jaffier was not melted in his faith to the conspiracy by 
 a woman's tears, but was struck with compunction 
 during a city jubilee, when he contrasted its gaiety with 
 the horrors and massacres that would eventually result 
 from the plot. Otvvay's Jaffier is more pathetic and 
 dramatic, but St. Real's History is wonderfully impres- 
 sive. Voltaire compares it author to Sallust, and not 
 unworthily.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 189 
 
 Bride." In this character I never had the 
 good fortune to see her ; and, if it were not for 
 the information I have received from others, 
 I should at this moment remain half incredu- 
 lous that even her powers of acting could have 
 made Zara a captivating heroine. I by no 
 means wish to rank among the censurers of 
 this tragedy who call it a pantomime. Its concin- 
 nity of structure as a drama, and its many im- 
 passioned and picturesque passages, I admit, and 
 admire. But, in reading the "Mourning Bride," 
 I cannot like Zara, and I feel a predominant 
 interest for her tamer rival, Almeria. Having 
 never seen our great actress as the captive 
 Queen, I was the more anxious to consult the 
 most trustworthy lovers of the drama, who 
 could remember her in the part ; and among 
 these the first with whom I happened to con- 
 verse on the subject was Mr. Godwin. I shall 
 never forget the pleasure I received from the 
 vivid remarks of this patriarch of our living 
 literature. The freshness of his recollections,
 
 190 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 and his hearty interest in the history of the 
 stage, are worthy of his gifted genius. He 
 spoke to me of Garrick very fervidly ; but he 
 said that, in spite of Garrick's superior versa- 
 tility, Mrs. Siddons shewed at times concep- 
 tions of her characters which he thought more 
 sublime than anything even in Garrick's acting. 
 I confessed to my philosophical friend, that I 
 wondered how any powers of acting could 
 throw magnificence around a character so vi- 
 cious, so selfish, and so hateful, as Zara ; and 
 I asked him how the part of Almeria, who 
 ought indeed to be the heroine of the tragedy, 
 had affected him ? His answer was, " I recol- 
 lect nothing about the acting of Almeria ; for 
 the disdain and indignation of the Siddons, in 
 Zara, engrossed all attention, and swept away 
 the possibility of interest in anything else. Her 
 magnificence in the part was inexpressible. It 
 was worth the trouble of a day's journey to 
 see her but walk down the stage. Her Zara 
 was not inferior even to her Lady Macbeth."
 
 LIFE OF MRS. STDDONS. 191 
 
 It was at this time that she sat for her por- 
 trait, as Isabella, to the distinguished artist, 
 Hamilton. Her immense popularity was now 
 shewn, in the general enthusiasm to see her 
 picture, even when it was scarcely finished. 
 Carriages thronged the artist's door ; and, if 
 every fine lady who stept out of them did not 
 actually weep before the painting, they had 
 all of them, at least, their white handkerchiefs 
 ready for that demonstration of their sensibility. 
 
 One day, after her sitting, Mr. Hamilton and 
 his wife were bidding good morning to the 
 great actress, and accompanying her down 
 stairs, when they pointed out to her her own 
 resemblance to an antique sculpture of Ariadne, 
 that stood on the staircase. Mrs. Siddons was 
 taken by surprise, and her honesty was here 
 a traitor to her vanity. She clasped her hands 
 
 in delight, and said, " Yes, it is very " but, 
 
 immediately recollecting herself, before she got 
 out the word like, substituted the word, beau-
 
 192 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 tiful. " It is so very beautiful, that you must 
 be flattering me." She then sat down on the 
 staircase to contemplate the sculpture, fre- 
 quently exclaiming, " It is so very beautiful, 
 that you must be flattering me." She departed, 
 however, evidently well pleased to believe in 
 the likeness : but it would require one to be as 
 handsome as herself to have a right to blame 
 her self-complacency. 
 
 On the 5th of June she acted Isabella for 
 the twenty-fourth time ; and, having performed, 
 in all, about eighty nights, and on six of them 
 for the benefit of others, she closed a season of 
 as brilliant success as her own wishes could 
 have shaped, even if they had been castle- 
 building. Her fellow-performers complained 
 that, after her tragic parts, the best comic act- 
 ing of after-pieces could not raise the spirits 
 of the audience ; and this continued to be the 
 case, till the enchantress, Mrs. Jordan, appeared 
 on the same boards.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 193 
 
 It has been said of Mrs. Siddons, by the last 
 historian of the stage,* that, even in this first 
 season, she made all other actresses be forgotten. 
 Perhaps it would be more correct to say, though 
 it ought to be said with a due sympathy 
 for the previous idols of the public, that she 
 left to her still nominal rivals, Mrs. Yates and 
 Mrs. Crawford, a remnant of reputation more 
 painful than utter oblivion. 
 
 * Mr. Genest. 
 

 
 CHAPTER V.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Her Second Season at Drury Lane Plays Isabella, in 
 "Measure for Measure" Performs in the " Gamester" 
 with her Brother, John Kemble Performs Constance, 
 in "King John" Her own Criticisms on the Cha- 
 racter Plays Lady Randolph The Countess of Salis- 
 bury, and Sigismunda in Thomson's Tragedy Con- 
 clusion of the Season, 1783-4.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AFTER four months, during which she acted 
 at Liverpool, Dublin, and Cork, Mrs. Siddons 
 returned to Drury Lane, in the October of 
 1783, and commenced her second season, by 
 Royal command, with Isabella, in the " Fatal 
 Marriage." Their Majesties, accompanied by 
 the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and 
 the Princess Augusta, honoured the perform- 
 ance with their attendance.* 
 
 * The London Chronicle, for October 9, 1783, gives 
 so graphic an account of the canopies erected on this 
 occasion for the Royal spectators, together with the 
 dresses which they wore, that I could find in my heart 
 to transcribe it as a picture of by -gone fashions, if I 
 were not afraid of surly criticism demanding, What 
 have valances, velvet draperies, golden tassels, and silks 
 and satins, to do with Mrs. Siddons's History?
 
 198 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Hitherto, since her return to the London 
 stage, Mrs. Siddons had attempted none of the 
 characters of Shakespeare ; and at this period, 
 notwithstanding all her popularity, I find that 
 she had still some detractors, who pretended 
 to doubt whether she had courage to make the 
 attempt, or would succeed, if she should make 
 it. To this scepticism, whether it was sincere 
 or affected, she put a practical termination, on 
 the 3d of November, by playing Isabella, in 
 "Measure for Measure," in a manner that com- 
 manded undivided applause.* 
 
 This success was an epoch in her life ; not 
 for its merely silencing a few detractors, but 
 for the triumph of uniting her name with 
 Shakespeare's, in the most solemn and religious 
 of his characters. 
 
 * Cast of the other parts in " Measure for Measure :" 
 Duke, Smith; Lucio, Lee Lewes; Angela, Palmer; 
 Claudio, Brereton; Clown, Parsons; Escalus, J. Aickin : 
 Mariana, Mrs. Ward.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 199 
 
 There is so entire an exemption in Shake- 
 speare's genius from any thing assimilating to 
 cant or puritanism, that we listen with unsus- 
 picious reverence to his morality when he 
 pitches it at the highest key ; and no creation 
 of his mind gives us a finer proof of its sublime 
 moral tone than the saintly character of his 
 Isabella. By the eloquence of this fair agent 
 he illustrates the momentous truth, that the 
 worth of life is inferior to the worth of honour ; 
 a truth seemingly romantic, but the denial of 
 which, if it were negatived as unreal, would in- 
 volve the debasement and wreck of our species. 
 Substitute for this principle the doctrine of 
 Hobbes, that the preservation of its own life is 
 the paramount duty of every human being, and 
 see, by Hobbes's own theory of government, 
 what a slave and mere animal you would make 
 of man. In upholding the opposite doctrine, 
 Shakespeare writes with his natural fearless- 
 ness : he makes no sophistical juggling, and 
 tells no lies, like the stoics, about death being
 
 200 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 only an imaginary evil. On the contrary, he con- 
 fronts the novice of St. Clair with a brother 
 pleading to her for his life ; and he depicts the 
 horrors of the agonized petitioner with a fide- 
 lity that makes us shudder. And yet he in- 
 spires his heroine with sufficient eloquence to 
 convince us of the sacred principle. 
 
 I deny not that the page of Shakespeare is 
 competent, even in reading it, to inspire us 
 with an exulting sympathy with Isabella, and to 
 make us exclaim, " No ! let not the purity of so 
 hallowed a being be sacrificed for the life of a 
 dastard." But it was wonderful to feel what 
 freshness and force this sentiment acquired 
 from our actress's impersonation of the he- 
 roine. The simplicity of her dress might be 
 described, but not the moral simplicity of her 
 demeanour, that brought the expression of 
 lofty feelings in close succession to meekness, 
 and made her final sternness to her brother as 
 becoming as her former sisterly suavity. It is
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 201 
 
 true, that, in Isabella, she had less scope for 
 impassioned acting than in Constance and Lady 
 Macbeth; she had to represent principle more 
 than passion : but Mrs. Siddons, with that air 
 of uncompromising principle in her physiog- 
 nomy, which struck you at first sight, and 
 was verified by the longest acquaintance, looked 
 the novice of St. Clair so perfectly, that I am 
 sure, if Shakespeare had seen her among a 
 thousand candidates for the part, he would have 
 beckoned to her to come and perform it. 
 
 Hitherto Mrs. Siddons had been but indif- 
 ferently supported by actors in the highest 
 tragic parts at Drury Lane. Henderson un- 
 fortunately played at the other house. Bensley 
 delivered dialogue with a propriety of emphasis 
 and a nicety of discrimination that evinced a 
 sound and comprehensive j udgment ; but when 
 we are told that his voice and manner were well 
 suited to Malvolio,aiid to the Ghost in " Hamlet," 
 we are naturally prepared for what is added by
 
 202 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 his most candid describers, that he shewed a 
 mind labouring against natural defects. He 
 had an ungainly solemnity of action, and a 
 nasal pronunciation. A good judge of acting, 
 who remembers him, tells me that, in seeing 
 him on the stage, his mind alternated between 
 admiration of Bensley's sagacity as an actor, and 
 regret that one so unfitted by nature for acting 
 should have chosen it for his profession. 
 
 Smith has been immortalized by Churchill as 
 a gentlemanly actor : but his forte was comedy. 
 His person was agreeable, his countenance en- 
 gaging, and his voice smooth and powerful, 
 though monotonous. A potent physical per- 
 sonage he must have been, who could swim a 
 league at sea, drink his bottle of port, and after 
 fatigue and conviviality commit his part dis- 
 tinctly to memory. He was respectable in 
 Richard the Third, and a tolerable Hotspur* 
 
 * In the Catalogue of Mathews's 'Gallery of Thea- 
 trical Portraits," I find a quotation from Charles Lamb,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 203 
 
 Mr. Boaden, in mentioning Smith, speaks of 
 the " hunter's health that glowed on his shoul- 
 ders." It was a strange place, if he had clothes 
 on his back, for his health to make its appear- 
 ance : but he means, I suppose, that Smith had 
 no great refinement as an actor. 
 
 Aickin can scarcely be quoted as even consi- 
 derable in tragedy. His forte lay in the repre- 
 sentation of an honest steward, or an affectionate 
 parent. Brereton was, with the exception of 
 John Kemble, the most promising young actor 
 of the day ; but his career was short,* and his 
 
 stating that Bensley was an inimitable Hotspur. If so, 
 Mr. Genest, in his "Account of the English Stage," 
 is strangely at fault in omitting Hotspur among the 
 parts of Bensley. But, much as I respect both the taste 
 and sincerity of Charles Lamb, I should suspect that he 
 is here speaking from some exaggerated impressions 
 made upon him in his boyish years. Bensley great in 
 Hotspur! The thing is impossible. 
 
 * Brereton was considered but a third or fourth rate 
 actor till the time that Mrs. Siddons acted Belvidera. 
 There was none of the actors already celebrated who
 
 204 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 end unfortunate. He died while yet a young 
 man in an asylum for the deranged. 
 
 But Mrs. Siddons this season found a coad- 
 jutor in acting, who was an acquisition to the 
 English stage, and not the less acceptable to 
 her for being her own brother. John Kemble 
 had not indeed yet reached the height of his 
 reputation, but he was fast advancing to it; 
 and he was already so decidedly popular, that 
 the prejudices which had pursued her sisters 
 for merely daring to act on the same boards 
 with Mrs. Siddons were dropt in welcoming 
 him. His acknowledged talents and heroic 
 appearance disarmed invidious, or, at all events, 
 contemptuous comparison of him with his noble 
 sister. There was a pleasing harmony in their 
 manner, although hers was the more natural ; 
 and, side by side, they appeared the two noblest 
 
 could be trusted with the part of Jaffier. To Brerelon 
 the part was given as an experiment: he was inspired 
 by Mrs. Siddons, and acted to admiration.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 205 
 
 specimens that could be produced of the breed 
 of England. Her first appearance, in conjunc- 
 tion with her brother, was in the " Gamester," 
 in which she played Mrs. Beverley. (Nov. 22.*) 
 Their success was brilliant. As this tragedy 
 has some great beauties, and as it continually 
 affects large audiences with strong emotions, I 
 shall trouble the reader with no lucubrations of 
 my own on its imperfections, but content my- 
 self with stating the fact, that Mrs. Siddons 
 made it deeply affecting. Mr. Young, the actor, 
 related to me an instance of her power in the 
 part of Mrs. Beverley over his own feelings. 
 He was acting Beverley with her on the Edin- 
 burgh stage, and they had proceeded as far as 
 the 4th scene in the 5th act, when Beverley 
 has swallowed the poison, and when Bates 
 comes in, and says to the dying sufferer, 
 " Jarvis found you quarrelling with Lewson 
 in the streets last night," Mrs. Beverley says 
 
 * Cast of parts : Beverley, Kemble ; Stukely, Palmer ; 
 Jarvis, J. Aickin : Charlotte, Mrs. Brereton.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 ! I am sure he did not !" to which Jarms 
 
 Dec 10 
 J^' replies, "Or if I did?" meaning, it may be 
 
 supposed, to add, " the fault was not with my 
 master :" but the moment he utters the words 
 "Or if I did?" Mrs. Beverleij exclaims, "Tis 
 false, old man ! they had no quarrel there 
 was no cause for quarrel!" In uttering this, 
 Mrs. Siddons caught hold of Jarvis, and gave 
 the exclamation with such piercing grief, that 
 Mr. Young said his throat swelled, and his 
 utterance was choked. He stood unable to 
 speak the few words which, as Beverley, he 
 ought to have immediately delivered : the pause 
 lasted long enough to make the prompter seve- 
 ral times repeat Beverley's speech, till Mrs. 
 Siddons, coming up to her fellow actor, put the 
 tips of her fingers on his shoulders, and said, 
 in a low voice, "Mr. Young, recollect your- 
 self." 
 
 It does credit to the taste of George the 
 Third, that his wish to see the Siddons
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 207 
 
 and the Kemble together, in the tragedy of 
 "King John," was the immediate cause of 
 her coming out this season in the new cha- 
 racter of Constance* I find, to my surprise, 
 the cotemporary daily newspapers exceedingly 
 truculent in their remarks on her performance 
 of this part ; and, if their testimony were to be 
 solely relied upon, we must believe that she 
 was at first an infinitely less popular Constance 
 than she ultimately proved to be. Attaching 
 as I do a certain consequence to the news- 
 paper criticism of that period,f I should 
 nevertheless be sorry to give it my arbitrary 
 credence only when it speaks in favour of my 
 
 * Cast of the other parts : King John, Kemble ; 
 Falconbridge, Smith ; Hubert, Bensley ; King of France, 
 J. Aickin; Dauphin, Barrymore; Pandulph, Palmer; 
 Chatillon, Farren : Queen Eleanor, Mrs. Hopkins. 
 
 f The dramatic criticism of our newspapers at that 
 time was as inferior to what it has since been, as the 
 engravings of the same period are inferior to those 
 plates which so exquisitely adorn several modern pub- 
 lications.
 
 208 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 heroine. It was her boast, that she gradu- 
 ally improved in all her characters, and that 
 she never repeated her performance of any part 
 without studying it anew to the utmost of her 
 power and leisure. Thus I can believe it pos- 
 sible, that she was not at this period the same 
 perfect Lady Constance, such as I saw her some 
 ten years afterwards. Besides, the entire tra- 
 gedy of " King John," from conforming to his- 
 tory more than to our wishes, disappoints us 
 by Constance belonging to it only in two acts, 
 and disappearing before its catastrophe. This 
 circumstance is a disadvantage to any actress, 
 however great she may be in the part; or, 
 at least, a difficulty not likely to be over- 
 come, till, by repeated impressions, she has 
 won the public to feel the tragedy worth 
 seeing, for the sake of Constance alone. 
 "King John" had not been revived for se- 
 veral years ; and, with Mr. Boaden's leave, it is 
 not credible that Kemble was in the least com- 
 parable to Garrick in the dreadful death-scene
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 209 
 
 of the tyrant. Accordingly, the main weight of 
 resuscitating the popularity of the play fell on 
 Mrs. Siddons; a task which she ultimately, 
 though possibly not all at once, accomplished. 
 At the same time, I cannot help suspecting 
 that there was even thus early an evil agency 
 at work in the press against her professional 
 fame, not unconnected with that which soon 
 afterwards attacked her personal character. 
 
 Be that as it may, she was ere long regarded 
 as so consummate in the part of Constance, that 
 it was not unusual for spectators to leave the 
 house when her part in the tragedy of " King 
 John" was over, as if they could no longer 
 enjoy Shakespeare himself when she ceased to 
 be his interpreter. I could speak as a wonder- 
 struck witness to her power in the character, 
 with almost as many circumstantial recollec- 
 tions of her as there are speeches in the part. 
 I see her in my mind's eye, the embodied image 
 of maternal love and intrepidity ; of wronged 
 
 p
 
 210 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 and righteous feeling ; of proud grief and ma- 
 jestic desolation. With what unutterable ten- 
 derness was her brow bent over her pretty 
 Arthur at one moment, and in the next how 
 nobly drawn back, in a look at her enemies that 
 dignified her vituperation. When she patted 
 Lewis on the breast, with the words "Thine 
 honour! oh, thine honour!" there was a subli- 
 mity in the laugh of her sarcasm. I could 
 point out the passages where her vicissitudes 
 of hurried and deliberate gesture would have 
 made you imagine that her very body seemed 
 to think. Her elocution varied its tones 
 from the height of vehemence to the lowest 
 despondency, with an eagle-like power of 
 stooping and soaring, and with the rapidity 
 of thought. But there is a drawback in the 
 pleasure of these recollections, from their 
 being so little communicable to others ; and^ 
 besides, in attempting to do them justice, I 
 am detaining the reader from more interesting 
 matter which Mrs. Siddons has left me in her
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 211 
 
 Memoranda, namely, her own remarks on the 
 character of Constance. 
 
 "My idea of Constance," she says, "is that of 
 a lofty and proud spirit, associated with the 
 most exquisite feelings of maternal tenderness, 
 which is, in truth, the predominant feature of 
 this interesting personage. The sentiments 
 which she expresses, in the dialogue between 
 herself, the King of France, and the Duke of 
 Austria, at the commencement of the second 
 Act of this tragedy, very strongly evince the 
 amiable traits of a humane disposition, and of 
 a grateful heart. 
 
 ' Oh ! take his mother's thanks a widow's thanks ! 
 Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength 
 To make a more requital to your love.' 
 
 " Again, in reply to the King's bloody deter- 
 mination of subjugating the city of Angiers to 
 the sovereignty of her son, she says, 
 
 ' Stay for an answer to your embassy, 
 Lest, unadvis'd, you stain your swords with blood. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 My Lord Chantillon may from England bring 
 That right in peace which here we urge in war ; 
 And then we shall regret each drop of blood 
 That hot rash, haste so indiscreetly shed.' 
 
 " The idea one naturally adopts of her qua- 
 lities and appearance are, that she is noble in 
 mind, and commanding in person and demea- 
 nour ; that her countenance was capable of all 
 the varieties of grand and tender expression, 
 often agonized, though never distorted by the 
 vehemence of her agitations. Her voice, too, 
 must have been 'propertied like the tuned 
 spheres? obedient to all the softest inflections 
 of maternal love, to all the pathos of the most 
 exquisite sensibility, to the sudden burst of 
 heart-rending sorrow, and to the terrifying im- 
 precations of indignant majesty, when writhing 
 under the miseries inflicted on her by her das- 
 tardly oppressors and treacherous allies. The 
 actress, whose lot it is to personate this great 
 character, should be richly endowed by nature 
 for its various requirements : yet, even when
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 213 
 
 thus fortunately gifted, much, very much 
 remains to be effected by herself; for in the 
 performance of the part of Constance great 
 difficulties, both mental and physical, present 
 themselves. And perhaps the greatest of the 
 former class is that of imperiously holding the 
 mind reined-in to the immediate perception of 
 those calamitous circumstances which take place 
 during the course of her sadly eventful history. 
 The necessity for this severe abstraction will 
 sufficiently appear, when we remember that all 
 those calamitous events occur whilst she her- 
 self is absent from the stage ; so that this power 
 is indispensable for that reason alone, were 
 there no other to be assigned for it. Because, 
 if the representative of Constance shall ever 
 forget, even behind the scenes, those disastrous 
 events which impel her to break forth into the 
 overwhelming effusions of wounded friendship, 
 disappointed ambition, and maternal tender- 
 ness, upon the first moment of her appearance
 
 214 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 in the third Act, when stunned with terrible 
 surprise she exclaims, 
 
 ' Gone to be married gone to swear a peace ! 
 False blood to false blood joined gone to be friends !' 
 
 " if, I say, the mind of the actress for one 
 moment wanders from these distressing events, 
 she must inevitably fall short of that high and 
 glorious colouring which is indispensable to 
 the painting of this magnificent portrait. 
 
 " The quality of abstraction has always ap- 
 peared to me so necessary in the art of acting, 
 that I shall probably, in the course of these re- 
 marks, be thought too frequently and pertina- 
 ciously to advert to it. I am now, however, 
 going to give a proof of its usefulness in the 
 character under our consideration ; and I wish 
 my opinion were of sufficient weight to impress 
 the importance of this power on the minds of 
 all candidates for dramatic fame. Here then
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 215 
 
 is one example among many others which I 
 could adduce. Whenever I was called upon to 
 personate the character of Constance, I never, 
 from the beginning of the play to the end of 
 my part in it, once suffered my dressing-room 
 door to be closed, in order that my attention 
 might be constantly fixed on those distressing 
 events which, by this means, I could plainly 
 hear going on upon the stage, the terrible 
 effects of which progress were to be represented 
 by me. Moreover, I never omitted to place 
 myself, with Arthur in my hand, to hear the 
 march, when, upon the reconciliation of Eng- 
 land and France, they enter the gates of Angiers 
 to ratify the contract of marriage between the 
 Dauphin and the Lady Blanche ; because the 
 sickening sounds of that march would usually 
 cause the bitter tears of rage, disappointment, 
 betrayed confidence, baffled ambition, and, above 
 all, the agonizing feelings of maternal affection 
 to gush into my eyes. In short, the spirit of 
 the whole drama took possession of my mind
 
 216 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 and frame, by my attention being incessantly 
 riveted to the passing scenes. Thus did I 
 avail myself of every possible assistance, for 
 there was need of all in this most arduous 
 effort ; and I have no doubt that the observance 
 of such circumstances, however irrelevant they 
 may appear upon a cursory view, were power- 
 fully aidant in the representations of those ex- 
 pressions of passion in the remainder of this 
 scene, which have been only in part considered, 
 and to the conclusion of which I now proceed. 
 
 " Goaded and stung by the treachery of her 
 faithless friends, and almost maddened by the 
 injuries they have heaped upon her, she be- 
 comes desperate and ferocious as a hunted 
 tigress in defence of her young, and it seems 
 that existence itself must nearly issue forth with 
 the utterance of that frantic and appalling ex- 
 clamation 
 
 ' A wicked day, and not a holy day ! 
 What hath this day deserved ? what hath it done
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 That it in golden letters should be set 
 Among the high tides in the calendar ? 
 Nay, rather turn this day out of the week 
 This day of shame, oppression, perjury: 
 Or if it must stand still, let wives with child 
 Pray that their burthens may not fall this day, 
 Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd * 
 Butf on this day let seamen fear no wreck, 
 This day all things begun come to ill end ! 
 Yes, faith itself to hollow falsehood change.' 
 
 " When King Philip says to her 
 
 ' By heaven ! Lady, you shall have no cause 
 To curse the fair proceedings of this day ; 
 Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty ' 
 
 " What countenance, what voice, what gesture, 
 shall realize the scorn and indignation of her 
 reply to the heartless king of France ? 
 
 ' You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit 
 Resembling majesty, which being touch'd and tried 
 Proves valueless : you are forsworn forsworn, 
 You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood, 
 But now in arms you strengthen it with yours, &c.' 
 
 * Lest they bring forth prodigies or monsters, 
 f " But" here means except.
 
 218 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 " And then the awful, trembling solemnity, 
 the utter helplessness of that soul-subduing, 
 scriptural, and prophetic invocation 
 
 ' Arm, arm, ye heavens ! against these perjur'd kings ! 
 A widow cries Be husband to me, Heavens ! 
 Let not the hours of this ungodly day 
 Wear out the day in peace but ere sun set 
 Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings.' 
 
 " If it ever were, or ever shall be, pourtrayed 
 with its appropriate and solemn energy, it must 
 be then, and then only, when the power I have 
 so much insisted on, cooperating also with a 
 high degree of enthusiasm, shall have transfused 
 the mind of the actress into the person and 
 situation of the august and afflicted Constance. 
 The difficulty, too, of representing with tem- 
 pered rage and dignified contempt the biting 
 sarcasm of the following speeches to Austria, 
 may be more easily imagined than explained : 
 
 ' War ! war ! no peace peace is to me a war 
 Lymoges ! O Austria ! thou dost shame 
 That bloody spoil thou slave ! thou wretch ! thou 
 coward !
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 219 
 
 Thou little valiant great in villany 
 Thou ever strong upon the stronger side ! 
 Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight 
 But when her humorous Ladyship is by 
 To teach thee safety thou art perjured too, 
 And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou, 
 A ramping fool ; to brag, and stamp, and swear 
 Upon my party thou cold-blooded slave ! 
 Hast thou not spoke, like thunder, on my side ? 
 Been sworn my soldier bidding me depend 
 Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength ? 
 And dost thou now fall over to my foes ? 
 Thou wear a lion's hide ? doff it for shame ! 
 And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs ! ' 
 
 " But, in truth, to beget, in these whirlwinds 
 of the soul, such temperance as, according to the 
 lesson of our inspired master, shall give them 
 smoothness, is a difficulty which those only can 
 appreciate who have made the effort. 
 
 " I cannot indeed conceive, in the whole 
 range of dramatic character, a greater difficulty 
 than that of representing this grand creature. 
 Brought before the audience in the plenitude 
 of her afflictions ; oppression and falsehood
 
 220 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 having effected their destructive mark ; the 
 full storm of adversity, in short, having fallen 
 upon her in the interval of their absence from 
 her sight, the effort of pouring properly forth so 
 much passion as past events have excited in her, 
 without any visible previous progress towards 
 her climax of desperation, seems almost to exceed 
 the powers of imitation. Hers is an affliction 
 of so ' sudden floodgate and overbearing na- 
 ture; that art despairs of realizing it, and the 
 effort is almost life-exhausting. Therefore, 
 whether the majestic, the passionate, the ten- 
 der Constance, has ever yet been, or ever will 
 be, personated to the entire satisfaction of sound 
 judgment and fine taste, I believe to be doubt- 
 ful ; for I believe it to be nearly impossible. 
 
 " I now come to the concluding scene ; and I 
 believe I shall not be thought singular, when I 
 assert, that though she has been designated the 
 ambitious Constance, she has been ambitious 
 only for her son. It was for him, and him
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 221 
 
 alone, that she aspired to, and struggled for, 
 hereditary sovereignty. For example, you find 
 that from that fatal moment when he is sepa- 
 rated from her, not one regret for lost regal 
 power or splendour ever escapes from her lips ; 
 no, not one idea does she from that instant 
 utter which does not unanswerably prove that 
 all other considerations are annihilated in the 
 grievous recollections of motherly love. The 
 following scene, I think, must determine that 
 maternal tenderness is the predominant feature 
 of her character. 
 
 Act 3. Scene 4. Enter CONSTANCE. 
 
 King Philip. 
 
 ' Look, who comes here ? a grave unto a soul, 
 Holding th' eternal spirit 'gainst her will, 
 In the vile prison of afflicted breath : 
 I pray thee, lady, go away with me.' 
 
 Constance. 
 ' Lo ! now I see the issue of your peace.' 
 
 King Philip. 
 ' Patience, good lady ! Comfort, gentle Constance !'
 
 222 LIFE OF MRS. S1DDONS. 
 
 Constance. 
 
 ' No, I defy all counsel and all redress 
 But that which ends all counsel, true redress ! 
 Death, Death Oh, amiable, lovely Death 
 Thou odoriferous stench ! sound rottenness ! 
 Arise forth from the couch of ^endless night, 
 Thou hate and terror to prosperity, 
 And I will kiss thy detestable bones, 
 And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows, 
 And ring these fingers with thy household worms, 
 And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust, 
 And be a carrion monster like thyself ! 
 Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st, 
 And buss thee as thy wife Misery's love, 
 Oh, come to me !' 
 
 King Philip. 
 ' Oh, fair Affliction, peace !' 
 
 Constance. 
 
 1 No, no, I will not, having breath to cry. 
 Oh, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth ! 
 Then with a passion would I shake the world, 
 And rouse from sleep that fell Anatomy 
 Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice ! 
 Which scorns a modern invocation.'* 
 
 * " Modern" here means trite, or common.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 223 
 
 King Philip. 
 1 Lady ! you utter madness, and not sorrow.' 
 
 Constance. 
 
 ' Thou art unholy to belie me so. 
 I am not mad. This hair I tear is mine. 
 My name is Constance I was Geoffrey's wife. 
 Young Arthur is my son and he is lost. 
 I am not mad ! I would to heaven I were ! 
 For then 'tis like I should forget myself. 
 Oh ! if I could, what grief should I forget ! 
 Preach some philosophy to make me mad, 
 And thou shalt be canonized cardinal ! 
 For being not mad, but sensible of grief, 
 My reasonable part produces reason 
 How I may be delivered of these woes, 
 And teaches me to kill or hang myself. 
 If I were mad I should forget my son, 
 Or madly think a babe of clouts were he. 
 I am not mad ! too well, too well I feel 
 The different plague of each calamity.' 
 
 King Philip. 
 
 ' Bind up those tresses. Oh, what love I note 
 In the fair multitude of those her hairs ! 
 Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen, 
 Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends 
 Do glue themselves in sociable grief, 
 Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, 
 Sticking together in calamity.'
 
 224: LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Constance. 
 ' To England, if you will.' 
 
 King Philip. 
 
 ' Bind up your hairs.' 
 
 Constance. 
 
 ' Yes ! that I will. And wherefore will I do it ? 
 I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud, 
 Oh that these hands could so redeem my son 
 As they have given these hairs their liberty ! 
 But now I envy at their liberty ; 
 And will again commit them to their bonds, 
 Because my poor child is a prisoner. 
 And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say 
 That we shall see and know our friends in heaven ; 
 If that be true, I shall see my boy again ; 
 For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, 
 There was not such a gracious creature born. 
 But now will canker sorrow cut my bud, 
 And chase the native beauty from his cheek ; 
 And he will look as hollow as a ghost, 
 As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, 
 And so he'll die ; and rising so again, 
 When I shall meet him in the court of heaven 
 I shall not know him ; therefore, never, never 
 Shall I behold my pretty Arthur more.' 
 
 Pandulph. 
 1 You hold too heinous a respect of grief.'
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 226 
 
 Constance. 
 ' He talks to me that never had a son.' 
 
 King Philip. 
 ' You are as fond of grief as of your child.' 
 
 Constance. 
 
 ' Grief fills the room up of my absent child ; 
 Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, 
 Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
 Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
 Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form ; 
 Then have I reason to be fond of grief. 
 Fare you well ! had you such a loss as I, 
 I could give better comfort than you do. 
 
 I will not keep this form upon my \iQV.&[tearsoffherhead- 
 . . . dress. 
 
 When there is such disorder in my wit. 
 Oh Lord ! my boy ! my Arthur ! my fair son, 
 My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
 My widow's comfort, and my sorrow's care !' 
 
 " Her gorgeous affliction, if such an expres- 
 sion is allowable, is of so sublime and so intense 
 a character, that the personation of its grandeur, 
 with the utterance of its rapid and astonishing 
 eloquence, almost overwhelms the mind that 
 meditates its realization, and utterly exhausts 
 
 Q
 
 226 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 the frame which endeavours to express its 
 agitations." 
 
 In spite of all these difficulties in the part of 
 Constance, Mrs. Siddons must have been con- 
 scious that she had strengthened her reputation 
 by performing it, and it is difficult henceforward 
 to imagine her fearful of attempting any other 
 great character in the drama. I therefore very 
 much doubt the justice of Mr. Boaden's remark, 
 when, after noticing that she selected the part of 
 Lady Randolph for her first benefit this season, 
 December 22, 1783,* he adds, that "perhaps 
 the most serious moment of her professional life 
 was that in which she resolved to contest even 
 that character with her rival, Mrs. Crawford." 
 I cannot conceive what there was to render 
 the trial so terrific. The passion of one of 
 Constance's speeches would leaven the whole 
 
 * Cast of parts : Douglas, Brereton ; Norval, Bensley ; 
 Glenalvon, Palmer ; Lord Randolph, Farren.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 227 
 
 part of Lady Randolph. Mrs. Crawford's Lady 
 Randolph had undoubtedly been once a great 
 performance ; but I have already noticed, that 
 from the first night of her reappearance at 
 Covent Garden, after an absence of five years, 
 the general opinion regarded her as a broken- 
 down actress. The tragedy of " Douglas" was 
 got up for Mrs. Crawford's reappearance, on 
 the 13th November, 1783, and Mrs. Siddons did 
 not perform Lady Randolph at Drury Lane till 
 more than a month afterwards, so that she had 
 plenty of time to rally her courage. Indeed, 
 when we contemplate Mrs. Siddons in the blaze 
 of her beauty, competing with this toil and age 
 worn rival, it is almost cruel to exult in her 
 victory. Mrs. Siddons omitted Mrs. Crawford's 
 scream in the far-famed question, " Was he 
 alive?" but she gave the character its appro- 
 priate beauty, and made the tragedy itself more 
 permanently popular. 
 
 The only other new characters which she 
 
 Q-2
 
 228 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 acted during her second season, were the Coun- 
 tess of Salisbury, in a tragedy of that name, 
 and Sigismunda, in Thomson's " Tancred and 
 Sigismunda." In neither of those pieces could 
 she be said to he worthily employed. The 
 " Countess of Salisbury" had first appeared some 
 thirty years before, on the Dublin stage, where 
 the popularity of Barry and of Mrs. Dancer, 
 afterwards Mrs. Barry, supported it. Small as 
 its merit was, its real author, Hall Hartson, was 
 accused of having had it from his college tutor, 
 Dr. Leland, the translator of Demosthenes : 
 the charge against Hartson, of purloining this 
 tragedy, was as unfounded as the claim of 
 the piece itself to popularity. The Morning 
 Chronicle for March 8, 1784, says, " The 
 performance of the Countess of Salisbury, by 
 Mrs. Siddons, turned out but an unhappy 
 experiment, the play being so infamously 
 underwritten, that even her great acting could 
 not keep it from ridicule ; and when Smith 
 came on the stage to give it out for a second
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 representation, he was saluted with a horse- 
 laugh." 
 
 Whilst acting in " Tancred," for her second 
 benefit, April 24th,* she was at least adorning 
 the drama of an acknowledged poet, and that 
 which is generally thought the most successful 
 of Thomson's plays. We are told f that Garrick 
 was very great in Tancred, and that Mrs. Cibber 
 was harmony itself in Sigismunda. Mrs. Siddons, 
 in the opinion of those who remembered 
 her great predecessor in the part, fell nothing 
 short of her, in the eloquence of her eye and 
 gesture, and she made the death of Sigismunda 
 tenderly perfect. Yet, in spite of this assur- 
 ance, and of all my reverence for the poet of 
 the Seasons, and the Castle of Indolence, I 
 cannot imagine the powers of our actress in- 
 
 * Tancred, Kemble ; Siffredi, Bensley ; Osmond, 
 Farren. 
 
 *f- Murphy's Life of Garrick.
 
 230 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 voked to the sphere where they ought to have 
 moved, in this verbose tragedy. The spell of 
 Thomson's enchantment seems to he broken the 
 moment he enters on the drama ; he had culti- 
 vated his genius into a rich, soft soil, too luxu- 
 riant for dramatic poetry. The main issue of 
 the plot of " Tancred" depends on the father 
 of Sigismunda, Siffredi* whose inconsistency is 
 enough to spoil a better tragedy. At first, the 
 old chancellor of Sicily is all self-denial and 
 conscientiousness, the beau ideal of political 
 morality. So far so good ; but he turns out 
 an inhuman father, a false guardian, and a legal 
 swindler. He has taken Prince Tancred into 
 his house, and, after causing his attachment to 
 his daughter by domestication, he chooses ra- 
 ther to break both their hearts than his own 
 political views for the good of Sicily. In a 
 heated moment Tancred gives Sigismunda a 
 carte blanche, with his signature. The old 
 lawyer, with a treachery unworthy of the lowest 
 attorney, gets this paper from his daughter, and
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 231 
 
 fills it up with a promise on the part of Tancred 
 that he will marry Constantly the daughter of 
 his father's murderer. In Poetry, the feigned 
 description of improbable animals is as sus- 
 ceptible of detection as in Natural History, and 
 such a medley of morality and mischief as 
 Siffredi, probably never existed in nature. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons concluded her second season 
 the 13th of May, 1784, with a sixth performance 
 of Belmdera. Between the 8th of October and 
 this last night she acted fifty-three times, that 
 is, allowing for the oratorios in Lent, nearly 
 once in every three nights of the company's 
 performance. Isabella and Mrs. Beverley were 
 her most frequent characters. 
 
 Before the end of the season Mr. and Mrs. 
 Siddons left their lodgings, in the Strand, and 
 took and furnished a comfortable house, in 
 Gower street, and she now returned the visits 
 of her friends in her own carriage.
 
 232 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 I shall now recur to the few Recollections of 
 her Life which Mrs. Siddons has left me in her 
 own writing. My last quotation from them 
 ended with her description of her reception in 
 Isabella. As her Memoranda are resumed at 
 that point, they necessarily refer to some cir- 
 cumstances belonging to the history of her first 
 season. But as she almost immediately passes 
 into recollections of her second season, and as I 
 wished to break upon the continuity of her 
 Memoranda as little as possible, I postponed 
 what I now quote from them to the end of 
 my account of her professional appearances 
 in 1783-4.
 
 CHAPTER VI.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's Memoranda Her Summer Excursion 
 to Edinburgh and Dublin Important Quotation 
 from Lee Lewes's Memoirs.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " I CANNOT now remember the regular succes- 
 sion of my various characters during this my 
 first season, 1782-3. 1 think Belmdera came soon 
 after Isabella, who almost precluded the appear- 
 ance of all others for a very long time ; but I 
 well remember my fears and ready tears on each 
 subsequent effort, lest I should fall from my 
 high exaltation. The crowds collected about 
 my carriage, at my outgoings and incomings, 
 and the gratifying and sometimes comical re- 
 marks I heard on those occasions, were ex- 
 tremely diverting. The Royal Family very fre- 
 quently honoured me with their presence.* 
 
 * As early as the January of 1783, the Royal Family 
 began to patronize Mrs. Siddons; and they continued 
 to see her in all her characters : her Euphrasia ; her
 
 236 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 The King was often moved to tears, and the 
 Queen at one time told me,in her gracious man- 
 ner and broken English, that her only refuge 
 was actually turning her back upon the stage, 
 at the same time protesting that my acting was 
 ' indeed too disagreeble.' In short, all went on 
 most prosperously; and, to complete my triumph, 
 I had the honour to receive the commands of 
 their Majesties to go and read to them, which 
 I frequently did, both at Buckingham-house and 
 at Windsor. Their Majesties were the most 
 gratifying of auditors, because the most unre- 
 mittingly attentive. The King was a most judi- 
 cious and tasteful critic both in acting and dra- 
 matic composition. He told me he had endea- 
 voured, vainly, to detect me in a false emphasis, 
 and very humorously repeated many of Mr. 
 Smith's, who was then a principal actor. He 
 
 Belvidera ; her Jane Shore; her Calista ; and her 
 Isabella ; and even the offensive politics of the Manager, 
 Sheridan, vanished before the charms of the new sove- 
 reign of the stage.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 237 
 
 graciously recommended the propriety of my 
 action, particularly my total repose in certain 
 situations. This, he said, is a quality in which 
 Garrick failed. ' He never could stand still 
 He was a great fidget' 
 
 " I do not exactly remember the time, (she 
 continues,) that I was favoured with an invita- 
 tion from Dr. Johnson, but I think it was dur- 
 ing the first year of my celebrity."* The 
 Doctor was then a wretched invalid, and had re- 
 quested my friend, Mr. Windham, to persuade 
 me to favour him by drinking tea with him, in 
 Bolt Court. * * * * The Doctor spoke 
 highly of Garrick's various powers of acting. 
 When Mr. Windham and myself were discuss- 
 ing some point respecting Garrick, he said, 
 
 * Mrs. Siddons is pretty nearly right in her recollec- 
 tion. Her introduction to Dr. Johnson took place about 
 a year after her return to Drury Lane, namely, in Octo- 
 ber, 1783, at the commencement of her second season.
 
 238 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 ' Madam, do not trouble yourself to convince 
 Windham ; he is the very bull-dog of argu- 
 ment, and will never lose his hold.' Dr. John- 
 son's favourite female character in Shakespeare 
 was Katharine, in " Henry VIII." He was most 
 desirous of seeing me in that play ; but said, 
 ' I am too deaf and too blind to see or hear 
 at a greater distance than the stage-box, and 
 have little taste for making myself a public 
 gaze in so distinguished a situation.' I assured 
 him that nothing would gratify me so much as 
 to have him for an auditor, and that I could 
 procure for him an easy chair at the stage-door, 
 where he would both see and hear, and be per- 
 fectly concealed. He appeared greatly pleased 
 with this arrangement, but, unhappily for me, 
 he did not live to fulfil our mutual wishes. Some 
 weeks before he died I made him some morning 
 visits. He was extremely, though formally 
 polite ; always apologised for being unable to 
 attend me to my carriage ; conducted me to 
 the head of the stairs, kissed my hand, and bow-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 239 
 
 ing, said, 'Dear Madam, I am your most hum- 
 ble servant ;' and these were always repeated 
 without the smallest variation. 
 
 " About this time occurred a memorable 
 evening, which is accurately described in 
 Cumberland's Observer. I was invited into this 
 snare by Miss Monkton, (since Lady Cork.) 
 This lady had given me her word of honour 
 that I should meet only half a dozen of our 
 mutual friends ; for I had often told her very 
 seriously, that it suited neither my studies nor 
 my inclinations to be engaged in parties, from 
 which I begged most earnestly to be excused ; 
 for, to say the truth, I had been forewarned 
 how eagerly any notorious person was pursued 
 for exhibition. Miss Monkton solemnly pro- 
 mised me to keep her word, and assured me 
 that I need never fear meeting a crowd at her 
 house. The appointed Sunday evening came. 
 I went to her very much in undress at the 
 early hour of eight, on account of my little boy,
 
 240 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 whom she desired me to bring with me, more 
 for effect, I suspect, than for his beaux yeux. 
 I found with her, as I had been taught to ex- 
 pect, three or four ladies of my acquaintance ; 
 and the time passed in agreeable conversation, 
 till I had remained much longer than I had ap- 
 prehended. I was of course preparing speedily 
 to return home, when incessantly repeated thun- 
 derings at the door, and the sudden influx of 
 such a throng of people as I had never before 
 seen collected in any private house, counter- 
 acted every attempt that I could make for 
 escape. I was therefore obliged, in a state of 
 indescribable mortification, to sit quietly down, 
 till I know not what hour in the morning ; but 
 for hours before my departure, the room I sat 
 in was so painfully crowded, that the people ab- 
 solutely stood on the chairs, round the walls, 
 that they might look over their neighbours' 
 heads to stare at me ; and if it had not been for 
 the benevolent politeness of Mr. Erskine, who 
 had been acquainted with my arrangement, I
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 241 
 
 know not what weakness I might have been sur- 
 prised into, especially being tormented, as I was, 
 by the ridiculous interrogations of some learned 
 ladies, who were called Blues, the meaning of 
 which title I did not at that time appreciate, 
 much less did I comprehend the meaning of the 
 greater part of their learned talk. These pro- 
 found ladies, however, furnished much amuse- 
 ment to the town for many weeks after, nay, 
 I believe I might say, for the whole winter. 
 Glad enough was I at length to find myself at 
 peace in my own bed-chamber. 
 
 " I was, as I have confessed, an ambitious can- 
 didate for fame, and my professional avocations 
 alone, independently of domestic arrangements, 
 were of course incompatible with habitual ob- 
 servance of parties and concerts, &c. I there- 
 fore often declined the honour of such invita- 
 tions. As much of time as could now be stolen 
 from imperative affairs was employed in sit- 
 ting for various pictures. I had frequently the 
 
 R
 
 242 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 honour of dining with Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 in Leicester square. At his house were assem- 
 bled all the good, the wise, the talented, the 
 rank and fashion, of the age. About this time 
 he produced his picture of me in the character 
 of the Tragic Muse. Injustice to his genius, 
 I cannot but remark his instantaneous decision 
 of the attitude and expression of the picture. 
 It was, in fact, decided within the twinkling of 
 an eye. When I attended him, for the first sit- 
 ting, after more gratifying encomiums than I 
 can now repeat, he took me by the hand, say- 
 ing, ' Ascend your undisputed throne, and gra- 
 ciously bestow upon me some good idea of the 
 Tragic Muse.' I walked up the steps, and in- 
 stantly seated myself in the attitude in which 
 the Tragic Muse now appears. This idea 
 satisfied him so well, that without one moment's 
 hesitation he determined not to alter it. When 
 I attended him, for the last sitting, he seemed 
 to be afraid of touching the picture ; and, after 
 pausingly contemplating his work, he said, ' No,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 243 
 
 I will merely add a little more colour to the 
 face.' I then begged him to pardon my pre- 
 sumption in hoping that he would not heighten 
 that tone of complexion so deeply accordant 
 with the chilly and concentrated musings of 
 pale melancholy. He most graciously complied 
 with my petition ; and, some time afterwards, 
 when he invited me to go and see the picture 
 finished, and in the frame, he did me the honour 
 to thank me for persuading him to pause from 
 heightening the colour, being now perfectly con- 
 vinced that it would have impaired the effect : 
 adding, that he had been inexpressibly gratified 
 by observing many persons strongly affected in 
 contemplating this favourite effort of his pencil. 
 I was delighted when he assured me that he 
 was certain that the colours would remain un- 
 faded as long as the canvass would keep them 
 together, which, unhappily, has not been the 
 case with all his works: he gallantly added, with 
 his own benevolent smile, ( And, to confirm my 
 opinion, here is my name ; for I have resolved 
 
 R2
 
 244 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 to go down to posterity on the hem of your 
 garment.' Accordingly, it appears upon the bor- 
 der of the drapery. Here ended our interview ; 
 and, shortly afterwards, his precious life.* Her 
 gracious Majesty very soon procured my dear 
 little boy admittance to the Charterhouse ; and 
 the King, who had been told that I used white 
 paint, (which I always detest,) sent me, by my 
 friend, Sir Charles Hotham, a condescending 
 message, to warn me against its pernicious 
 effects. I cannot imagine how I could be sus- 
 pected of this disgusting practice. 
 
 " Sir Joshua often honoured me by his pre- 
 sence at the theatre. He approved very much 
 of my costumes, and of my hair without pow- 
 der, which at that time was used in great 
 profusion, with a reddish-brown tint, and a 
 great quantity of pomatum, which, well kneaded 
 
 * Mrs. Siddons is a little mistaken. Sir Joshua 
 lived several years longer. The portrait was exhibited 
 in 1784. Sir Joshua died in 1792.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 245 
 
 together, modelled the fair ladies' tresses into 
 large curls like demi-cannon. My locks were 
 generally braided into a small compass, so as 
 to ascertain the size and shape of my head, 
 which, to a painter's eye, was of course an 
 agreeable departure from the mode. My short 
 waist, too, was to him a pleasing contrast to the 
 long stiff stays and hoop petticoats, which were 
 then the fashion, even on the stage, and it obtain- 
 ed his unqualified approbation. He always sat 
 in the orchestra ; and in that place were to be 
 seen, O glorious constellation! Burke, Gibbon, 
 Sheridan, Windham ; and, though last, not 
 least, the illustrious Fox, of whom it was fre- 
 quently said, that iron tears were drawn down 
 Pluto's gloomy cheeks. And these great men 
 would often visit my dressing-room, after the 
 play, to make their bows, and honour me with 
 their applauses. I must repeat, O glorious 
 days! Neither did his Royal Highness the 
 Prince of Wales withhold this testimony of his 
 approbation.
 
 246 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 " Garrick's conduct towards me was by these 
 gentlemen attributed to jealousy ; and Mr. G. 
 A. Stevens was heard to say, in reference to 
 the clamorous applause of my first night, ' If 
 Garrick could hear this, it would turn him upon 
 his face in his coffin.' This expression, though a 
 compliment to myself, I take to be as unjust as 
 it was shocking. For my own part, I never 
 could give credit to such a notion ; for it is 
 utterly inconceivable that he should have seen 
 anything in an untaught, unpractised girl, to 
 excite such a feeling; and, as I have already ob- 
 served, I really think it was merely for the plea- 
 sure of mortifying others that he distinguished 
 me. Cruel, cruel, pleasure ! 
 
 " My door was soon beset by various persons 
 quite unknown to me, whose curiosity was on 
 the alert to see the new actress, some of whom 
 actually forced their way into my drawing-room, 
 in spite of remonstrance or opposition. This 
 was as inconvenient as it was offensive ; for, as
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 247 
 
 I usually acted three times a week, and had, 
 besides, to attend the rehearsals, I had but little 
 time to spend unnecessarily. One morning, 
 though I had previously given orders not to be 
 interrupted, my servant entered the room in a 
 great hurry, saying, * Ma'am, I am very sorry to 
 tell you there are some ladies below, who say 
 they must see you, and it is impossible for me to 
 prevent it. I have told them over and over again 
 that you are particularly engaged, but all in vain ; 
 and now, ma'am, you may actually hear them on 
 the stairs.' I felt extremely indignant at such 
 unparalleled impertinence ; and, before the ser- 
 vant had done speaking to me, a tall, elegant, in- 
 valid-looking person presented herself, (whom, I 
 am afraid, I did not receive very graciously;) and, 
 after her, four more, in slow succession. A very 
 awkward silence took place; when presently the 
 first lady began to accost me, with a most inve- 
 terate Scotch twang, and in a dialect which was 
 scarcely intelligible to me in those days. She 
 was a person of very high rank : her curiosity,
 
 248 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 however, had been too powerful for her good 
 breeding. f You must think it strange,' said she, 
 'to see a person entirely unknown to you in- 
 trude in this manner upon your privacy ; but, 
 you must know, I am in a very delicate state of 
 health, and my physician won't let me go to the 
 theatre to see you, so I am to look at you here.' 
 She accordingly sat down to look, and I to be 
 looked at, for a few painful moments, when she 
 arose and apologised ; but I was in no humour 
 to overlook such insolence, and so let her depart 
 in silence. 
 
 " I had very soon the honour of reading to 
 their Majesties, in Buckingham House, and it 
 occurred frequently.* One could not appear 
 in the presence of the Queen except in a dress, 
 
 * She was this year appointed preceptress in English 
 reading to the Princesses. The appointment exacted 
 no farther employment than these occasional readings ; 
 but, I believe, it was without emolument.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 249 
 
 not elsewhere worn, called a saque or negligee, 
 with a hoop, treble ruffles, and lappets, in 
 which costume I felt not at all in my ease. 
 When I arrived at Buckingham House, I was 
 conducted into an ante-chamber, where I found 
 some ladies of my acquaintance ; and in a short 
 time, the King entered from the drawing-room, 
 in the amiable occupation of 'drawing the 
 Princess Amelia, then scarce three years old, 
 in a little cane chair. He graciously said some- 
 thing to one of the ladies, and left the lovely 
 baby to run about the room. She happened 
 to be much pleased with some flowers in my 
 bosom, and, as I stooped down, that she might 
 take them, if so disposed, I could not help ex- 
 claiming to a lady near me, ' What a beautiful 
 child! how I long to kiss her!' When she 
 instantly held her little hand to my mouth to 
 be kissed : so early had she learnt this lesson 
 of Royalty. Her Majesty was extremely gra- 
 cious, and more than once during the reading 
 desired me to take some refreshment in the
 
 250 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 next room. I declined the honour, however, 
 though I had stood reading till I was ready to 
 drop, rather than run the risk of falling down 
 by walking backwards out of the room, (a cere- 
 mony not to be dispensed with,) the flooring, 
 too, being rubbed bright. I afterwards learnt 
 from one of the ladies who was present at the 
 time, that her Majesty had expressed herself 
 surprised to find me so collected in so new a 
 position, and that I had conducted myself as 
 if I had been used to a court. At any rate, I 
 had frequently personated queens. 
 
 " Afterwards I had the honour of attending 
 their Majesties at Windsor also. The readings 
 there were arranged in the apartments of my 
 dear and honoured friend, Lady Harcourt, 
 whom I had lately seen as the hostess of 
 Nuneham, doing the honours of her splendid 
 mansion, when the King and Queen and several 
 of the younger branches of the Royal Family 
 came, while I was on a visit there. They were
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 251 
 
 so delighted with their loyal and noble host and 
 hostess, and so charmed with all they saw, that 
 their attendants were sent back to Windsor for 
 what was necessary for three days, and even 
 then they were loth to depart. One may imagine 
 the usual style of magnificence in which they 
 lived, from the circumstance that they were but 
 little deranged by the unexpected arrival even 
 of Royal guests." 
 
 During the summer recess of 1784 Mrs. 
 Siddons visited Edinburgh, and acted eleven 
 times, to the delight of her Scottish audiences. 
 Her reception in Scotland was worthy of a land 
 already enlightened by philosophy and the 
 Muses, and in which the very lowest class were 
 now so far emerged from the old fanaticism, 
 that we shall soon find them crowding in mul- 
 titudes around the great actress's hotel, in their 
 enthusiasm to see her. 
 
 What a pleasing contrast is here presented
 
 262 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 to the gloomy temper of the Scotch, with re- 
 gard to stage entertainments, that had exhibited 
 itself in times not long gone by. Only seven- 
 teen years were elapsed since the date of an 
 admonition and exhortation by the Reverend 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh, to all within their 
 bounds, declaring themselves at this time 
 loudly called upon, in one body and with one 
 voice., to expostulate, in the bowels of love and 
 compassion, against the encouragement given 
 to the play-house, and denouncing the sin of 
 seeing a play with as much awful solemnity as 
 if they had been denouncing the crime of mur- 
 der. Well meaning as those mistaken kirkmen 
 might be, it is disgusting to see them gar- 
 nishing this medley of cant and ignorance with 
 the holy and beautiful language of Scripture. 
 They blindly asserted that the Christian church 
 had been at all times hostile to the stage, for- 
 getting, or not knowing, that stage-entertain- 
 ments had sprung out of the church itself ; and, 
 with equal falsehood, implying that there was
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 253 
 
 no Christian church in the days of Shakespeare. 
 There were sermons printed by Scottish divines 
 within the 18th century, representing the play- 
 house as the actual Temple of the Devil, where 
 he frequently appeared, clothed in a corporeal 
 substance, and possessing the spectators, whom 
 he held as his worshippers.* The spirit of 
 this Odium Theatricum seems scarcely to have 
 abated when the above admonition was penned; 
 and it was followed by the punishment of John 
 Home, for writing the only good tragedy ever 
 written by a Scotsman. Assuredly, Edinburgh 
 at that period had a right to the name of the 
 Modern Athens, from one point of resemblance 
 to the ancient city of Minerva. In Athens 
 the priests persecuted .ZEschylus, and in Edin- 
 
 * Little more than a hundred years ago, my Scottish 
 countrymen had such an abhorrence of all carnal re- 
 creations, that they denounced dancing itself as the 
 sin of " louping against the Lord!" and when a public 
 ball-room was instituted at Edinburgh, the godly rabble 
 came and perforated the doors with red-hot spits.
 
 254 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 burgh the clergy prosecuted the author of 
 "Douglas." 
 
 The people of Glasgow were but a year 
 later than those of Edinburgh in welcoming 
 our great actress to their city, but they were 
 so far from being behind them in enthusiasm, 
 that they presented her with a massive piece 
 of plate, with an inscription, purporting that 
 they sent it as a proof of their being able to 
 appreciate theatrical genius as well as the peo- 
 ple of Edinburgh. They also came in great 
 numbers to Edinburgh during this first year of 
 Mrs. Siddons's appearance in Scotland, and 
 augmented the pressure of those crowded 
 audiences which made it a service of danger to 
 attend her performances. The over-heated 
 houses which she drew occasioned illness to 
 many individuals, and the medical faculty of 
 Edinburgh owed her a token of their regard 
 more immediately than the lawyers, for their 
 practice was increased by a prevalent indispo-
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 255 
 
 sition, which got the name of the Siddons' 
 fever. 
 
 In the progress of Scottish liberality, how- 
 ever, I cannot compliment my fellow- citizens 
 of Glasgow on having at all had the start of 
 their eastern neighbours. On the contrary, my 
 worthy townsmen, in the days of their ima- 
 gined godliness, shewed more practically than 
 the people of Edinburgh how well they could 
 appreciate theatrical genius, by badgering and 
 burning-out the unfortunate histrions. The 
 cause of the destruction of the first play-house 
 that was ever erected in Glasgow, was a voice 
 from the pulpit. The ground of that edifice 
 was purchased by the proprietors from a malt- 
 merchant of the city. In bargaining for the 
 sale of it, the man of malt expressed to the 
 purchasers his horror at the idea of disposing 
 of his land to be occupied by a temple of 
 Belial ; and, for this devout consideration, he 
 could not in conscience part with it for a
 
 256 LIFE OF MRS. S1DDONS. 
 
 smaller price than five shillings the square yard. 
 His demand, though enormous for those days, 
 was complied with, and the temple of Belial 
 forthwith uprose. But, before it could be 
 acted in, a fanatical preacher, who was popular 
 in Glasgow, told his auditors that he dreamed, 
 the preceding night, he was in the infernal 
 regions, at a grand entertainment, where all 
 the devils were present, when Lucifer, their 
 chief, gave for a toast, the health of Maister 
 John Miller, maltster, in Glasgow, who had sold 
 them his ground to build a house upon, which 
 was to be opened the next day, and wherein 
 they were all to reign. The preacher's hearers 
 hastened away in a body to the new theatre, 
 and consumed it with fire.* Some years later, 
 in 1757, the Presbytery of Glasgow responded 
 with due solemnity to the admonition of their 
 Edinburgh brethren, which I have quoted 
 above. They echoed its owlish hootings at 
 the innocent amusements of the stage. They 
 
 * This was in 1746.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 257 
 
 blasphemously condemned, as ministers of God, 
 what the Gospel has nowhere reprehended. 
 They attributed the then existing war to our 
 manifold sins, one of which was permitting 
 theatres; and, with a true feeling of Scotch 
 economy, they described the dearth of provi- 
 sions as one of the surest tokens of Divine 
 displeasure against a playgoing generation. 
 
 Trifling circumstances, like straws showing 
 the direction of the wind, are often sure tests 
 of popular opinion. Among the veriest vulgar 
 of Scotland Mrs. Siddons had now her de- 
 voted worshippers. A poor serving-girl, with 
 a basket of greens on her arm, one day stopt 
 near her, in the High street of Edinburgh, and, 
 hearing her speak, said, "Ah! weel do I ken 
 that sweet voice, that made me greet sae sair 
 the streen." The poet Gray, on seeing a copy 
 of Thomson's Seasons in a blacksmith's shop, 
 exclaimed, " This is true popularity !" And 
 the remark might have been equally applied 
 to Mrs. Siddons's humble admirer.
 
 258 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 In recording this visit to Edinburgh, Mrs. 
 Siddons says, " How shall I express my gra- 
 titude for the honours and kindness of my 
 Northern friends ? for, should I attempt it, I 
 should be thought the very Queen of egotists. 
 But never can I forget the private no less 
 than public marks of their gratifying suffrages. 
 There I became acquainted with the venerable 
 author of "Douglas," with Dr. Blair, David 
 Hume, Dr. Beattie, Mr. Mackenzie, &c., and 
 passed with them a succession of fleeting 
 days, which never failed to instruct and de- 
 light me. 
 
 " On the first night of my appearance, I 
 must own, I was surprised, and not a little 
 mortified, at that profound silence which was 
 a contrast to the bursts of applause I had been 
 accustomed to hear in London. No ; not a 
 hand moved till the end of the scene : but 
 then, indeed, I was most amply remunerated. 
 Yet, while I admire the fine taste and judg- 
 ment of this conduct on the part of an audience,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 259 
 
 I am free to confess that it renders the task of 
 an actor almost too laborious ; because, cus- 
 tomary interruptions are not only gratifying 
 and cheering, but they are really necessary, in 
 order to give one breath and voice to carry 
 one on through some violent exertions ; though, 
 after all, it must be owned, that silence is the 
 most flattering applause an actor can receive." 
 
 How much more pleasantly people tell their 
 history in social converse than in formal 
 writing. I remember Mrs. Siddons describing 
 to me the same scene of her probation on the 
 Edinburgh boards with no small humour. The 
 grave attention of my Scottish countrymen, 
 and their canny reservation of praise till they 
 were sure she deserved it, she said, had well- 
 nigh worn out her patience. She had been 
 used to speak to animated clay ; but she now 
 felt as if she had been speaking to stones. 
 Successive flashes of her elocution, that had 
 always been sure to electrify the South, fell in 
 
 s2
 
 260 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 vain on those Northern flints. At last, as I 
 well remember,, she told me she coiled up her 
 powers to the most emphatic possible utter- 
 ance of one passage, having previously vowed 
 in her heart, that if this could not touch the 
 Scotch, she would never again cross the Tweed. 
 When it was finished, she paused, and looked 
 to the audience. The deep silence was broken 
 only by a single voice exclaiming, " That's no 
 bad/" This ludicrous parsimony of praise 
 convulsed the Edinburgh audience with laugh- 
 ter. But the laugh was followed by such 
 thunders of applause, that, amidst her stunned 
 and nervous agitation, she was not without 
 fears of the galleries coming down. 
 
 " I took my leave," she continues, " of dear 
 Edinburgh, and proceeded to fulfil an engage- 
 ment at Dublin. After a rough voyage, we 
 were put on shore in the middle of the night, 
 and were obliged, sick and weary as we were, 
 to wander about the streets for about two
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 261 
 
 hours, before we could find a resting-place; 
 for, strange to tell, they would not at that 
 period receive a woman at any hotel. Of this, 
 of course, we had been quite ignorant. We 
 found our way, however, to my brother John's 
 lodgings, who took compassion on the helpless 
 wanderers, and sheltered us till we were accom- 
 modated, which was very soon effected by my 
 charming friend, Mrs. O'Neil, the late Miss 
 Boyle. 
 
 " This visit to Ireland answered all my ex- 
 pectations both of profit and pleasure. I was 
 received by all the first families there with the 
 most flattering hospitality; and the days I 
 passed with them will be ever remembered 
 as among the most pleasurable of my life. The 
 Duke of Rutland, however, the then Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, was very unpopular ; and upon one oc- 
 casion, when 1 acted Lady Randolph, at his 
 command, the public displeasure against him 
 was so excessively clamorous, that not one word 
 of the play was heard from beginning to end :
 
 262 LIFE OF MRS. StDDONS. 
 
 and I had the honour of participating in the 
 abuse with the representative of Majesty. 
 
 " The Manager of the theatre also very soon 
 began to adopt every means of vexation for 
 me that he could possibly devise, merely be- 
 cause I chose to suggest, at rehearsal, that his 
 proper situation, as Falconbridge, in * King 
 John,' was at the right hand of the King. Dur- 
 ing the scene between Constance and Austria, 
 he thought it necessary that he should, though 
 he did it most ungraciously, adopt this arrange- 
 ment ; but his malevolence pursued me unre- 
 mittingly from that moment. He absurdly 
 fancied that he was of less consequence, when 
 placed at so great a distance from the front of 
 the stage, at the ends of which the Kings were 
 seated ; but he had little or nothing to say, and 
 his being in the front would have greatly inter- 
 rupted and diminished the effect of Constance's 
 best scene. He was a very handsome man, and, 
 1 believe, was mortified that his personal attrac- 
 tions had failed to pervert my judgment in the
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 263 
 
 grouping of this scene. He made me suffer 
 however sufficiently for my personality, by em- 
 ploying all the newspapers to abuse and annoy 
 me the whole time I remained in Dublin, and 
 to pursue me to England with malignant scan- 
 dal : but of that anon. The theatre, meantime, 
 was attended to his heart's content ; indeed, the 
 whole of this engagement was as profitable as 
 my most sanguine hopes could have antici- 
 pated. 
 
 " When it was ended I made a visit to Shane's 
 Castle, the magnificent residence of Mr. and 
 Mrs. O'Neil. I have not words to describe the 
 beauty and splendour of this enchanting place ; 
 which, I am sorry to say, has been since levelled 
 to the earth by a tremendous fire. Here were 
 often assembled all the talent, and rank, and 
 beauty, of Ireland. Among the persons of the 
 Leinster family whom I met here was poor 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the most amiable, 
 honourable, though misguided youth, I ever 
 knew. The luxury of this establishment almost
 
 264 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 inspired the recollections of an Arabian Night's 
 entertainment. Six or eight carriages, with a 
 numerous throng of lords and ladies on horse- 
 back, began the day, by making excursions 
 around this terrestrial paradise, returning home 
 just in time to dress for dinner. The table was 
 served with a profusion and elegance to which 
 I have never seen anything comparable. The 
 sideboards were decorated with adequate mag- 
 nificence, on which appeared several immense 
 silver flagons, containing claret. A fine band 
 of musicians played during the whole of the 
 repast. They were stationed in the corridors, 
 which led into a fine conservatory, where we 
 plucked our dessert from numerous trees, of 
 the most exquisite fruits. The foot of the 
 conservatory was washed by the waves of a su- 
 perb lake, from "which the cool and pleasant 
 wind came, to murmur in concert with the har- 
 mony from the corridor. The graces of the 
 presiding genius, the lovely mistress of the 
 mansion, seemed to blend with the whole 
 scene.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 265 
 
 " When my visit to Shane's Castle was over, 
 I entered into another engagement in Dublin. 
 Among the actors in that theatre was Mr. 
 Digges, who had formerly held a high rank in 
 the drama, but who was now, by age and infir- 
 mity, reduced to a subordinate and mortifying 
 situation. It occurred to me that I might be 
 of some use to him, if I could persuade the 
 Manager to give him a night, and the actors to 
 perform for him, at the close of my engagement ; 
 but, when I proposed my request to the Ma- 
 nager, he told me it could not be, because the 
 whole company would be obliged to leave the 
 Dublin theatre, in order to open the theatre at 
 Limerick ; but that he would lend the house for 
 my purpose, if I could procure a sufficient 
 number of actors to perform a play. By inde- 
 fatigable labour, and in spite of cruel annoy- 
 ances, Mr. Siddons and myself got together, 
 from all the little country theatres, as many as 
 would enable us to attempt ' Venice Preserved.' 
 Oh ! to be sure, it was a scene of disgust and 
 confusion. I acted Betvidera, without having
 
 266 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 ever previously seen the face of one of the 
 actors ; for there was no time for even one re- 
 hearsal ; but the motive procured us indulgence. 
 Poor Mr. Digges was most materially bene- 
 fited by this most ludicrous performance; and 
 I put my disgust into my pocket, since money 
 passed into his. Thus ended my Irish engage- 
 ment; but not so my persecution by the Mana- 
 ger, at whose instance the newspapers were 
 filled with the most unjust and malignant re- 
 flections on me. All the time, I was on a visit 
 of some length to the Dowager Duchess of 
 Leinster, unconscious of the gathering storm, 
 whilst the public mind was imbibing poisonous 
 prejudices against me. Alas! for those who 
 subsist by the stability of public favor." 
 
 I subjoin an extract from the Memoirs of 
 Lee Lewes, in which he bears a manly and dis- 
 tinct testimony to the unblameableness of Mrs. 
 Siddons's conduct in this whole affair. 
 
 " There, at Dublin, (he says,) I am enabled,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 267 
 
 as I was in the kingdom, and know every par- 
 ticular, gathered partly from inquiries, and 
 partly from observation, to throw some light 
 upon as dark a transaction as was ever prac- 
 tised against innocence and merit. I mean 
 that infamous combination carried on against 
 Mrs. Siddons, which raised that opposition she 
 soon afterwards met in Drury Lane theatre, 
 1785, to the disgrace of that part of the audi- 
 ence who were deceived into it ; who were but 
 few, after all, in comparison with her friends 
 who opposed them, and who, on the second 
 night, silenced them entirely. 
 
 "In the summer of 1783, Mrs. Siddons was 
 engaged by Mr. Daly, the Manager, to perform 
 a certain number of nights in Dublin. I be- 
 lieve, twelve. Her terms were half the receipts, 
 the charges of the theatre being first deducted, 
 which charges were called sixty pounds. At 
 the latter end of June she began her career, 
 which was as brilliant here as in London. At
 
 268 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 the conclusion she very much wished to per- 
 form for the benefit of the Marshalsea prison ; 
 but, being pressed for time by her engagements 
 at Cork, and hoping to have that opportunity 
 another season, she sent a sum of money to the 
 conductors of the above prison, and had the 
 thanks of the debtors, as well as an acknow- 
 ledgment from the managers, in the public 
 Papers ; though, by her own wish, the thanks, 
 though full, were not ostentatiously expressed. 
 Thus ended her first season at Dublin. 
 
 In the summer of 1784 she engaged herself 
 for twenty nights, at a certain sum each night. 
 The theatre was again crowded, and all things 
 went on prosperously, till about the middle of 
 the engagement, when she was unfortunately 
 seized with a violent fever, which confined her 
 to her bed for a fortnight. This accident be- 
 gan to arouse the venal tribe against our hero- 
 ine ; and rumours were spread that her illness 
 was put on for some improper purpose. She
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 269 
 
 recovered, however, and went on with her en- 
 gagement. And now we come to the principal 
 incident which introduced the injured lady into 
 this part of my Memoirs. As she was rehears- 
 ing the part of Belvidera, one morning, Digges, 
 as he was standing for the part of Pierre, sud- 
 denly sank down. It was no less than a para- 
 lytic stroke, which deprived him of the use of 
 one side. He was taken from the theatre, and, 
 I believe, never returned to where he had fret- 
 ted and strutted so many hours. Mrs. Siddons's 
 engagement was coming to a conclusion; and 
 she was advertised for Cork a few days after. 
 In the meantime, a person came to her/ and 
 told her that it would be a charitable action if 
 she would perform in a benefit play for poor 
 Digges. Her answer was, that she was sorry 
 she had but one night to spare, and for that 
 she thought she was engaged in honour to play 
 for the Marshalsea prisoners, as she had intend- 
 ed, in the year before. This, to be sure, was a 
 denial to Digges, though not an uncharitable
 
 270 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 refusal : and yet, what an artful and fiend-like 
 use was made of it! As will appear. The 
 messenger had not been long gone, when it 
 struck her that it would be more humane to 
 assist this old unfortunate ; and immediately 
 she dispatched a person to Drumcondra, where 
 Digges then was, to say that Mrs. Siddons had 
 reconsidered the matter, and would be glad to 
 perform for him. He was thankful, and the 
 night and play were fixed. There was a good 
 house. The next day, while preparing for her 
 journey for Cork, she received a note from 
 Digges, expressing his gratitude. It will be 
 proper to inform my reader, that while she 
 was at Dublin there was a little sparring be- 
 tween her and the Manager. At Cork the 
 misunderstanding was renewed, and I there 
 made my own observations. These little bic- 
 kerings brought down many paragraphs upon 
 her from the party; and, directly after, a 
 paper war ensued. She was accused of hav- 
 ing charged Digges fifty pounds for playing
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 271 
 
 at his benefit. A very artful letter, written 
 by a Mr. F y, upon that subject, appeared 
 in a Morning print; and, as it was inserted 
 with a more mischievous intent than any of 
 the rest, so it had a greater effect. It was 
 now predicted, that she was to be driven from 
 the London stage whenever she should appear 
 on it: and, among the rest, appeared a para- 
 graph, calling on any of her profession to come 
 forth, and say if she had ever done a kind 
 action. This was rather an unlucky chal- 
 lenge; for, a few weeks before, even in the 
 city of York, it was a fact, that she had per- 
 formed three times without any emolument to 
 herself: once for my benefit; once for that of 
 Mr. Aickin, of Covent Garden ; and once for 
 the benefit of a poor-house. I should have 
 thought myself base indeed to have remained 
 neutral at such a time; and I immediately 
 published this circumstance in several of the 
 Morning prints. Should not Mr. Digges have 
 done the same ? But, though called upon, and
 
 272 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 urged by many of Mrs. Siddons's friends, he, 
 for reasons best known to himself, kept an ob- 
 stinate silence, and even suffered a rumour to 
 prevail that she had taken money from him. 
 But, at last, being closely pressed, he sent a 
 letter, in which he owned that she had played 
 for him gratis. He died soon after : and peace 
 be to his manes! Mrs. Siddons appeared on 
 the London boards ; and, though this confes- 
 sion of her having performed gratis was made 
 public, there were persons determined not to 
 believe it, and who absolutely insulted her : 
 but, as I have said before, they were but few 
 in comparison of her powerful and numerous 
 friends, and the vipers were soon crushed."
 
 CHAPTER VII.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons's own Account of her being affronted in 
 the Theatre Public Opinion is disabused, and she 
 recovers her popularity Appears as Margaret of 
 Anjou, in Franklin's " Earl of Warwick" Character 
 of the Piece Her next new Part is Zara, in the Tra- 
 gedy translated by Aaron Hill, from Voltaire's 
 "Zaire" Napoleon's Opinion of Voltaire as a dra- 
 matic Poet Mrs. Siddons plays the Lady of St. Val- 
 lori, in Cumberland's " Carmelite" Comparison of 
 that Tragedy with Home's " Douglas" John Kemble 
 adapts Massinger's " Maid of Honour," for the 
 modern Stage, and Mrs. Siddons acts Camiola 
 Remarks on the "Maid of Honour."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE falsehoods that were now in circulation 
 respecting our great actress, she seems herself 
 to attribute to the enmity of the Dublin Mana- 
 ger ; but the plot, that was evidently forming 
 against her, must have had several partakers, 
 and the rumour of the day said, that it included 
 some members of her own profession, whose 
 envy sickened in the shade that her superior 
 merit threw over them. It would be unfair, 
 at this distance of time, to quote names on 
 mere suspicion. The only person who was 
 clearly convicted of calumny was the wife of 
 Digges ; but she was a poor, insignificant crea- 
 ture, who could not be supposed capable of 
 envying Mrs. Siddons. Brereton the actor was 
 but too justly condemned for having seen Mrs. 
 
 T2
 
 276 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Siddons publicly insulted on his account, before 
 he published his testimony " that she had been 
 in no respect the occasion of his having missed 
 a benefit in Ireland; but, on the contrary, that lie 
 owed her the highest obligations of friendship" 
 The calamitous alienation of Brereton's mind, 
 that took place not long subsequent, inclines me 
 to judge of his actions at this period with some 
 allowance. That there was, however, a regular 
 conspiracy, got up to insult her, in London, was 
 made but too plain by the sequel ; and it is only 
 to be regretted that its unknown agents had not 
 been branded with shame in the flagrancy of 
 their guilt. It must be owned that the arti- 
 ficers of calumny had a difficult object of attack 
 in Mrs. Siddons. Against her character, as 
 a wife and mother, scandal itself could not 
 whisper a surmise ; and it was equally hopeless 
 to impugn her genius as an actress. But they 
 spread abroad that she was avaricious, uncha- 
 ritable, and slow to lend her professional aid 
 to unfortunate fellow-players. Two specific
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 277 
 
 charges alone of this kind could be alleged, and 
 they were both met and refuted by the clearest 
 demonstration. Digges testified that she had 
 performed for him, as an act of charity, in Ire- 
 land. His miserable wife could only say for 
 herself, that she had believed the misstatement 
 to which she had given currency ; and Brereton 
 made the declaration which I have quoted. 
 
 " I had left London," says Mrs. Siddons, in 
 her Memoranda, "the object of universal ap- 
 probation ; but, on my return, only a few weeks 
 afterwards, I was received, on my first night's 
 appearance, with universal opprobrium, ac- 
 cused of hardness of heart, and total insensi- 
 bility to everything and everybody except my 
 own interest. Unhappily, contrary winds had 
 for some days precluded the possibility of re- 
 ceiving from Dublin such letters as would 
 have refuted those atrocious calumnies, and 
 saved me from the horrors of this dreadful 
 night, when I was received with hissing and
 
 278 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 hooting, and stood the object of public scorn. 
 Amidst this afflicting clamour I made several 
 attempts to be heard, when at length a gentle- 
 man stood forth in the middle of the front of 
 the pit, impelled by benevolent and gentle- 
 manly feeling, who, as I advanced to make my 
 last attempt at being heard, accosted me in 
 these words: 'For heaven's sake, madam, do 
 not degrade yourself by an apology, for there 
 is nothing necessary to be said.' I shall always 
 look back with gratitude to this gallant man's 
 solitary advocacy of my cause : like f Abdiel, 
 faithful found; among the faithless, faithful 
 only he? His admonition was followed by 
 reiterated clamour, when my dear brother ap- 
 peared, and carried me away from this scene of 
 insult. The instant I quitted it, I fainted in 
 his arms ; and, on my recovery, I was thankful 
 that my persecutors had not had the gratifica- 
 tion of beholding this weakness. After I was 
 tolerably restored to myself, I was induced, by 
 the persuasions of my husband, my brother,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 279 
 
 and Mr. Sheridan, to present myself again be- 
 fore that audience by whom I had been so 
 savagely treated, and before whom, but in con- 
 sideration of my children, I would have never 
 appeared again. The play was the 'Game- 
 ster,' which commences with a scene between 
 Beverley and Charlotte. Great and pleasant 
 was my astonishment to find myself, on the 
 second rising of the curtain, received with a 
 silence so profound that I was absolutely awe- 
 struck, and never yet have I been able to 
 account for this surprising contrast ; for I 
 really think that the falling of a pin might 
 have been then heard upon the stage." 
 
 On Mrs. Siddons's second entrance, this night, 
 she addressed the audience in these words : 
 
 9 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, The kind and flatter- 
 ing partiality which I have uniformly experi- 
 enced in this place, would make the present 
 interruption distressing to me indeed, were I, 
 in the slightest degree, conscious of having de-
 
 280 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 served your censure. I feel no such consci- 
 ousness. The stories which have been circu- 
 lated against me are calumnies : when they 
 shall be proved to be true, my aspersors will 
 be justified. But, till then, my respect for the 
 public leads me to be confident, that I shall be 
 protected from unmerited insult. 
 
 " The accusations which had been brought 
 against me," she continues, " were pride, inso- 
 lence, and savage insensibility to the distresses 
 of my theatrical associates ; and, as I have 
 observed already, even the winds and waves 
 combined to overwhelm me with obloquy ; for 
 many days elapsed before I could possibly re- 
 ceive from Dublin those letters which, when 
 they did arrive, and were published, carried 
 conviction to the public mind. The most cruel 
 of these aspersions accused me of having in- 
 humanly refused, at first, to act for the benefit 
 of poor Mr. Digges, and of having at last 
 agreed to do so upon terms so exorbitant as
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 281 
 
 had never before been heard of. A letter from 
 himself, however, full of grateful acknowledg- 
 ments, sufficed to clear me from the charge, by 
 testifying that, so far from having deserved it, 
 I had myself arranged the affair with the Mana- 
 ger, and had acted Belvidera under the most 
 annoying and difficult circumstances. 
 
 " Here ended my disgrace and persecution ; 
 and from that time forth the generous public, 
 during the remainder of the season, received 
 my entree each succeeding night with shouts, 
 huzzas, and waving of handkerchiefs, which, 
 however gratifying as testimonials of their 
 changed opinion, were not sufficient to oblite- 
 rate from my memory the tortures I had en- 
 dured from their injustice, and the conscious- 
 ness of a humiliating vocation" 
 
 I believe that, in spite of preponderating 
 applause, her entree, for several evenings after- 
 wards, was met with attempts to insult her.
 
 282 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 She made her reverence, and went on steadily 
 with her part : but her manner was for a time 
 perceptibly damped; and she declared to one 
 of her friends, that, for many a day after this 
 insult, all her professional joy and ambition 
 drooped in her mind, and she sickened at the 
 thought of being an actress. 
 
 On the 3d of November, 1784, she appeared, 
 for the first time, in Franklin's tragedy of 
 the "Earl of Warwick," as a heroine distin- 
 guished in English history, namely, Margaret 
 qfAnjou.* 
 
 This play, by Franklin, was an una vowed 
 translation of La Harpe's Comte de Warwick; 
 in which the French author, says Mr. Boaden, 
 had the mortification to see the tender interest 
 
 * Earl of Warwick, Smith ; King Edward, Palmer ; 
 Lady Elizabeth Grey, Miss Kemble ; Margaret of 
 Anjou, Mrs. Siddons.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 283 
 
 of his piece frittered away. For the translator's 
 concealment of his original I have no apology 
 to offer ; but, of the alleged tender interest of 
 that original, I confess myself unable to per- 
 ceive a trace : and Mr. Boaden, I conceive, is as 
 much mistaken in eulogizing the French tra- 
 gedy as in confounding its author with the 
 Colonel La Harpe, who was tutor to the 
 Emperor of Russia. The Gallic poet, with 
 equal defiance of nature and history, repre- 
 sents the beautiful Lady Elizabeth Woodville 
 as enamoured of the old iron-sheathed Earl 
 of Warwick, and refusing King Edward's 
 hand, from her preference of the greybeard. 
 He also makes Margaret of Anjou assassinate 
 with her own hand the Earl of Warwick. 
 This is rather too bad; as every schoolboy 
 in England may be supposed to know, that 
 Edward the Fourth made a romantic love- 
 marriage with Lady Elizabeth Woodville ; that 
 Warwick was old enough to be the father of 
 the said Elizabeth; and that the tough old
 
 284 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 king-maker died fighting in the cause of Queen 
 Margaret. 
 
 Indifferent as the French play may be, how- 
 ever, I grant that the English translator has not 
 made it better : and no information that I have 
 ever received respecting Mrs. Siddons ever 
 struck me with so much surprise as to learn, 
 from unquestionable authority, that she 
 made an imposing and electrifying stage part 
 out of Margaret of Anjou. I could conceive 
 her having been impressive in the so-called 
 Shakespeare's Queen Margaret, of " Henry the 
 Sixth ;" though it is doubtful if Shakespeare 
 wrote much in that tragedy ; but her dignify- 
 ing La Harpe's and Franklin's heroine, as I 
 never saw her perform the part, appeared to me 
 unimaginable. If it should convict me, however, 
 of being a false critic on the written play, I am 
 bound to confess the fact, as it is attested to 
 me by others, that Mrs. Siddons made it in- 
 teresting in representation. Mrs. Bartley told
 
 LTFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 285 
 
 me that " her superb disdain, as the captive 
 Queen, dwelt strongly in her recollection; and 
 that when she informed Elizabeth that her 
 Warwick had not an hour to live, her dissyllabic 
 pronunciation of the word hour was so powerful 
 that it still seemed to vibrate in her ears." 
 
 Mr. Bartley, when I wrote to consult him 
 on the subject, had the goodness to favour 
 me with the following note : 
 
 " I despair of being able to convey any idea 
 of the wonders which Mrs. Siddons wrought in 
 ' The Earl of Warwick ;' for wonders they may 
 be called, as I agree with you that it is a very 
 indifferent tragedy. But especially I feel the 
 difficulty of giving you any idea of that inde- 
 lible impression which she made upon me, as 
 Margaret of Anjou, in the last act of the piece. 
 The performance I allude to must have oc- 
 curred either in 1809 or 1810, at least twenty- 
 four years ago ; and yet, to my imagination, 
 she stands before me at this instant.
 
 286 LIFE OF MRS. STDDONS. 
 
 " On that occasion I happened to personate 
 the character of King Edward the Fourth, who, 
 in the scene referred to, learns that Warwick 
 has taken Margaret and her son captives, and 
 is momentarily expecting the triumphant ap- 
 pearance of Warwick. He does not know (nor 
 does the audience) that Margaret had taken 
 advantage of an unguarded moment to approach 
 and stab Warwick as he stood in triumph over 
 her son. Instead of Warwick, therefore, .Mar- 
 garet enters : and the skilful management made 
 by this great performer to produce her effect 
 was the following. The scene had a large 
 archway, in the centre, at the back of the 
 stage. She was preceded by four guards, who 
 advanced rapidly through the archway, and 
 divided, two and two on each side, leaving the 
 opening quite clear. Instantly, on their sepa- 
 rating, the giantess burst upon the view, and 
 stood in the centre of the arch motionless. 
 So electrifying was the unexpected impression, 
 that I stood for a moment breathless. But the 
 effect extended beyond me : the audience had
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 287 
 
 full participation of its power ; and the con- 
 tinued applauses that followed gave me time 
 to recover and speculate upon the manner in 
 which such an extraordinary effort had been 
 made. I could not but gaze upon her atten- 
 tively. Her head was erect, and the fire of her 
 brilliant eyes darted directly upon mine. Her 
 wrists were bound with chains, which hung 
 suspended from her arms, that were dropped 
 loosely on each side ; nor had she, on her 
 entrance, used any action beyond her rapid 
 walk and sudden stop, within the extensive 
 archway, which she really seemed to fill. This, 
 with the flashing eye, and fine smile of appal- 
 ling triumph which overspread her magnificent 
 features, constituted all the effort which usually 
 produced an effect upon actors and audience 
 never surpassed, if ever equalled. 
 " I am, dear sir, &c. 
 
 " G. W. BARTLEY." 
 
 Her next new character was Zara, in the
 
 288 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 i 
 
 tragedy so named, which Aaron Hill trans- 
 lated from the "Zaire" of Voltaire. She ap- 
 peared in it on the 7th of November, 1784.* 
 I find, from the cotemporary prints, that 
 high expectations were entertained respecting 
 Mrs. Siddons in this part : for tradition still 
 told of Mrs. Gibber's brilliant performance of 
 it. It should, however, have been remembered 
 also, that the latter actress had Garrick to assist 
 her, whose magic acting, as Lusignan, I suspect, 
 gave the main spell of popularity to this tra- 
 gedy, on its first appearance. The part of Zara, 
 whatever impression our great actress made in 
 it, certainly never became one of her favourites, 
 nor has the play been ever revived since that 
 season at Drury Lane. 
 
 In justice to Voltaire's " Zaire," it must be 
 owned, that the young Orosmanes and the old 
 
 ' Osman, Smith ; Lusignan, Bensley ; Nerestan, 
 Brereton ; Chatillon, J. Aickin : Zara, Mrs. Siddons.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS'. 289 
 
 crusader Lusignan are in some degree impo- 
 sing personages. But it is altogether a frigid 
 production. Indifferent as the Grecian Daugh- 
 ter is, I think she is a better heroine than 
 Voltaire's; for Euphrasia is a main agent in 
 the drama to which she belongs, whilst Zaire 
 is shut up from action ; and, whilst other per- 
 sonages engross a paramount attention, she has 
 only to suffer and declaim. 
 
 The French themselves seem now to appre- 
 tiate Voltaire pretty soberly as a dramatic poet. 
 Even La Harpe, after extolling " Za'ire" for al- 
 leged beauties, such as might be found in the 
 commonest melo-drama, lets out that, in his 
 own days, it was scarcely ever acted in Paris. 
 This circumstance he attributes to the want of 
 such actors as Le Kain and Mile. Gaussin; 
 of the latter of whom it was eloquently said, 
 that "there were tears in her voice:" a fine 
 expression to be sure, but which will not clench 
 La Harpe's conclusion as to the sole cause of the 
 
 u
 
 290 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 " Zaire's" infrequent representation, Voltaire's 
 general fame as a man of talents, and as a 
 stormer of prejudices in their strongest holds, 
 justly rests undiminished ; but his glory as a 
 tragic writer is as justly on the wane.* 
 
 On the 2d of December (1784), Cumberland's 
 tragedy of the " Carmelite" gave Mrs. Siddons 
 a new character, in the Lady of St. Vallori.-\ 
 The piece was well received, and deservedly, 
 for it is respectable, though not superlative, 
 
 * Nothing in Napoleon's personal history is more 
 interesting than his quick-sightedness in literature. In 
 one of his conversations, at St. Helena, after dismissing 
 Voltaire's miserable conception of Mahomet's character 
 with deserved contempt, he said, " It is astonishing how 
 ill all his dramas are adapted for reading. When criti- 
 cism and sound taste are not cheated by pompous diction 
 and scenic illusion, they immediately lose a thousand 
 per cent." 
 
 f St. Vallori, Smith ; Montgomeri, Kemble ; Lord 
 Hildebrand, Palmer ; Lord De Courci, J. Aickin j 
 Gyfford (an old Servant), Packer : Matilda (the Lady of 
 St. Vallori), Mrs. Siddons. It was acted thirteen times.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 291 
 
 nor, in my opinion, perfectly original. I will 
 not indeed go so far as to say that Cumberland 
 borrowed his subject from Home, but he treads 
 close enough upon " Douglas," to show that that 
 tragedy had given him strong suggestions; In 
 both stories, a mother has for twenty years la- 
 mented the husband of her youth ; in " Douglas," 
 a real, in the "Carmelite," an imaginary, death. 
 And each of the mothers has a son, to whom 
 the demonstration of her maternal love is mis- 
 construed, and brings or threatens tragic results. 
 To Home's heroine the mistake is fatal, whilst 
 Cumberland's plot is wound up agreeably to 
 our wishes, and HUdebrcmd, the counterpart 
 to Glenalvon, alone perishes. The scene of 
 Hildebrand* s death, by-the-way, has consider- 
 able power, and contains one memorable poeti- 
 cal passage. When the supposed murderer of 
 her husband speaks of mercy to Matilda, she 
 replies to him, 
 
 " Mercy ! and dare thy tongue pronounce the name ? 
 Mercy ! thou man of blood, thou hast destroy'd it 
 
 u2
 
 292 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 It came from heaven to save St. Vallori. 
 
 You saw the cherub messenger alight 
 
 From its descent : with outspread wings it sat 
 
 Covering his breast : you drew your cursed steel, 
 
 And through the pleading angel pierc'd his heart!" 
 
 The interest both of "Douglas" and the 
 " Carmelite" lies principally in maternal affec- 
 tion, that deep source of pathos, by appealing 
 to which Euripides has been more indebted than 
 to any other circumstance for his share in the 
 trine supremacy of Greek dramatic poetry. 
 But Cumberland's mother, it is hardly neces- 
 sary to say, is an incomparably less interesting 
 being than Lady Randolph. The Matilda of 
 the "Carmelite" has indeed never lost her son ; 
 but, for no discoverable reason, she educates 
 him as her page, without revealing to him the 
 secret of his parentage in all the years during 
 which she falsely imagines her husband dead. 
 With equal absurdity she sends out this un- 
 a vowed son as her champion, though he has 
 never couched a lance at tilt or tournament.
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 293 
 
 In one respect, and in one alone, the author of 
 " St. Vallori" can compete with the author of 
 "Douglas," to wit, in showing more know- 
 ledge of Norman castles and of the times of 
 chivalry. Home was probably not profpund 
 in Scottish antiquities ; but, if he had been so, 
 prudence would have cautioned him not to 
 awaken Popish reminiscences amongst the 
 Scotch. He derives, however, a picturesque- 
 ness from nature beyond the charm of antiqua- 
 rian knowledge, and worth a hundred Norman 
 castles. 
 
 Cumberland's Matilda, in the "Carmelite," 
 owns herself to be a little deranged in her in- 
 tellects by grief. This was rather unreason- 
 able; as, though she had lost her youthful 
 husband, she still retained her son. But Lady 
 Randolph's delirium is perfectly natural; and, 
 in concluding the tragedy with her suicide, it 
 was fortunate that Home merged the Scottish 
 priest in the daring poet.
 
 294 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 Amidst this modern poverty of the na- 
 tional drama, John Kemble proposed turning 
 back upon its ancient resources. He was 
 much better acquainted than most of his 
 cotemporaries with our elder playwriters ; 
 and, amongst them, he particularly admired 
 Massinger, who, with less rich sensibility than 
 some of the nearest successors of Shakespeare, 
 has perhaps more dignity and judgment. Kemble 
 re-touched this poet's tragedy of " Camiola, or 
 the Maid of Honour," so as to adapt it to the 
 modern stage, and to produce Mrs. Siddons in 
 the part of its heroine. 
 
 Dr. Ireland ranks the " Maid of Honour" in 
 the higher order of Massinger's dramas. With 
 deference to so good a critic, I should hardly 
 conceive this tragedy to be one that has princi- 
 pally refreshed the old poet's laurels ; at least, 
 it is not one that I should cite in proof of his 
 judgment. Bertoldo, the lover of the Maid of 
 Honour, is a disappointing hero. He is the
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 295 
 
 natural brother of the King of Sicily, a Knight 
 of Malta, invested at the outset with every 
 attribute that can make us in love with chi- 
 valry, and "with high thoughts seated in a 
 heart of honour" He woos Camiola, and wins 
 a confession of her affection; but she cannot 
 consent to wed him, because he is bound to 
 celibacy by the oath of his order, though her 
 refusal is prefaced by praises of the warmest 
 eloquence. 
 
 " Truth bear witness for me, 
 That in the judgment of my soul you are 
 A man so absolute and circular 
 In all those wish'd-for rarities that may take 
 A virgin captive ; that, though at this instant 
 All sceptred monarchs of our Western world 
 Were rivals with you, and Camiola worthy 
 Of such a competition, you alone 
 Should wear the garland." 
 
 When Bertoldo answers her objection of his 
 being bound to a single life, by saying, 
 
 " A dispensation, lady, 
 Will easily absolve me :" 
 
 she replies, 
 
 "O! take heed, sir!
 
 296 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 When what is vow'd to heaven is dispens'd with, 
 To serve our ends on earth, a curse must follow, 
 And not a blessing." 
 
 Bertoldo embarks at the head of a warlike 
 adventure, is overwhelmed by numbers, cap- 
 tured, and chained in a dungeon. When the 
 news of his fate is brought to Sicily, the King 
 refuses to ransom him : but Camiola, sacrificing 
 half her fortune, sends a friend with the price 
 of his release. This friend of hers, Adorni, is 
 also her lover, but unaccepted, and hopelessly 
 devoted to her. She gives him the cruel 
 commission of ransoming his rival ; and (still 
 worse) of exacting from him an oath to marry 
 her in return for his ransom, so much had the 
 Maid of Honour changed her mind as to the 
 curse that must follow a dispensation. 
 
 When poor Adorni, to show that he loves 
 Camiola better than himself, has fulfilled this 
 commission, and sworn-in Bertoldo, the Knight 
 of Malta is brought to the Court of Aurelia,
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 297 
 
 Duchess of Siena, whose troops had defeated 
 him. She falls in love with him, and, after 
 short hesitation, and a too unexplained lapse of 
 character, all the principles, nay, common feel- 
 ings of honour, honesty, and gratitude, in 
 Bertoldo, fall down like a house of cards, and 
 the recreant pledges himself to marry Aurelia ; 
 nay, even accompanies her to Sicily, where he 
 is sure to meet with the Maid of Honour. The 
 whole ends in Aurelia giving him up, in Camiola 
 devoting herself to a nunnery, and in the pre^ 
 cious Knight re-swearing to keep his vows as 
 a bachelor. 
 
 Bertoldo's metamorphosis is not dramatic. 
 But are we not disappointed, it may possibly 
 be asked, by daily mutations of human charac- 
 ter in real life : and may these not be pictured 
 in the drama ? Yes ; but they should be pic- 
 tured with probability. In real life we know 
 men's hearts but imperfectly, and may be 
 utterly unable to account for their changes ;
 
 298 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 
 
 but the poet makes the hearts and natures of 
 his personages ; and if he will transmute them 
 from good to bad, he ought to prepare us, by 
 some natural prognostic, for the change. All 
 that is noble in Bertoldo disappears like a 
 phantom; and he forfeits our esteem like a 
 detected cheat, who ought never to have pos- 
 sessed it. 
 
 Kemble, whatever he thought of Bertoldo, 
 could not well alter his character in re-model- 
 ling Massinger's play. But he removed two 
 other defects from the piece, about which 
 there can be no question, namely, certain gross 
 speeches, and an entire foolish character, wholly 
 unnecessary to the plot. Sytti, a creature fa- 
 tuous with self-conceit, is brought constantly 
 by Massinger into the same scene with Camiola, 
 and spoils the dignity of her impression by 
 our disgust at her endurance of his presence. 
 Kemble threw this idiot overboard ; and he is a 
 character of most agreeable absence. The old
 
 LIFE OF MRS. SIDDONS. 299 
 
 dramatists, all but their Chief, seldom fail more 
 egregiously than in their efforts to create jest- 
 makers. They exhibit foolish fellows indeed, 
 but not the arch fools of Shakespeare, who 
 alone knew how to dip their motley coats in 
 the hues of immortality. 
 
 The joint powers of Mrs. Siddons and her 
 brother prolonged the reception of this play 
 only for three nights. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 J. AND C. ADl.ARD, PRINTERS, 
 
 Bnrtholomow close.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 
 
 University of California 
 
 SSsS 
 
 from which It was borrowed.
 
 UCLA-College Library 
 
 PN2598S5C11834V.1 
 
 400 
 
 V.I 
 
 J 001 
 
 FHOUT