Though Ophelia was not a triumph, nor the Lady in "Comus," nor Cleone, to which nobody went on the second night, for the strange reason, that Mrs. Siddons was too affecting!—her position was unassailably established. Mrs. Jordan she put out of all competition with her in certain parts, by playing Imogen; for which she asked of the artist Hamilton to sketch for her "a boy's dress to conceal the person as much as possible."
Whether she desired to set aside Mrs. Jordan altogether as a rival in comedy, is doubtful; but she certainly continued to try comic parts, but the laugh excited was not hearty; her Lady Townly had no airiness; her smiles are spoken of as glorious condescensions; when Bannister was asked if her comic acting had ever pleased him, he "shook his head, and remarked," says Campbell, "that the burthen of her inspiration was too heavy for comedy," in which, according to Colman, she was only "a frisking Gog." Miss Baillie, on the other hand, insists that but for unfair discouragement she would have been a great comic actress. In private life, she had great relish for humour, and told laughable stories in her slow way, as well as read scenes in comedy with great effect. And yet Katharine, with its passionate expression, was as little thought of as Rosalind. One would have thought this character would have fitted her; her own judgment as to what suited her is not satisfactorily exhibited in her preference of Tate's Cordelia and of Dryden's Cleopatra to those of Shakspeare. But she distrusted her own judgment in some things. "Mr. Siddons," she remarks to Dr. Whalley, "is a much better judge of the conduct of a tragedy than myself."
This remark occurs in a letter written in September 1787 under perplexing circumstances. Young Mr. Greatheed, of Guy's Cliff, was the author of a tragedy, the "Regent," the heroine in which he designed for her acting. She liked neither the play nor her own part in it; but how could she disoblige the present head of a family where she had found an asylum, when love had disturbed the tenor of her life. Therefore, she wrote this letter to her friend Dr. Whalley, who did not burn it, as he ought to have done:—"September 1, 1787.—Mrs. Piozzi may be an excellent judge of a poem possibly, but it is certain that she is not of a tragedy, if she has really an opinion of this. It certainly has some beautiful poetry, but it strikes me that the plot is very lame, and the characters very, very ill-sustained in general, but more particularly the lady, for whom the author had me in his eye. This woman is one of those monsters (I think them) of perfection, who is an angel before her time, and is so entirely resigned to the will of heaven, that (to a very mortal like myself) she appears to be the most provoking piece of still life one ever had the misfortune to meet. Her struggles and conflicts are so weakly expressed, that we conclude they do not cost her much pain, and she is so pious that we are satisfied she looks upon her afflictions as so many convoys to heaven, and wish her there, or anywhere else but in the tragedy.... Mr. G. says that it would give him too great trouble to alter it, so that he seems determined to endeavour to bring it on the stage, provided I will undertake this milksop lady.... Mr. Siddons says it will not do at all for the stage in its present state, for the poetry seems to be all its merit; and if it is to be stripped of that—which it must be, for all the people in it forget their feelings to talk metaphor instead of passion—what is there to support it? I wish, for his own sake, poor young man, that he would publish it as it is....
"Your truly affectionate S. Siddons."
The event justified her sentiments, and the "Regent" did not live. She continued, however, to reap her harvest of laurels, gathering them most profusely by her acting in that Queen Katharine, which had been recommended to her by Dr. Johnson. We continue to associate her name with this part, in which she was more queenly and dignified, I suspect, than Katharine herself; certainly more imposing, if it be true that by simply saying, "You were the Duke's Surveyor, and lost your office on the complaint o' the tenants," she put the surveyor, to whom the words were addressed, into such perspiring agony, that as he came off, crushed by her earnestness, he declared he would not for the world meet her black eyes on the stage again!
I doubt, however, if the poor fellow could afford to give up his engagement; and I know that some of these "affectations" are assumed by inferior actors. I have heard of a lady so audibly affected, as she stood at the wing, by the acting of her manager, then on the stage, that she was invited to his room to partake of cake and wine. But Mrs. Siddons undoubtedly possessed power above all other actresses of attracting and subduing. In the procession scene, in her brother's barbarous mutilation of Shakspeare's Coriolanus, which he played so inimitably, her dumb show, as Volumnia, triumphing in the triumph of her son, attracted every eye, touched every heart, and caused the pageant itself to be as nothing, except as she used it for her purpose. It is strange that one so gifted should have ventured, at four-and-thirty, to act Juliet, who
"Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night, shall be fourteen!"