SARAH MARTHA SIDDONS

By R. J. Lane after Sir Thos. Lawrence

The Lady Inchiquin here referred to must have been the wife of Murrough, fifth Earl of Inchiquin, afterwards created Marquess of Thomond, who married in 1792, Mary, daughter of John Palmer of Torrington, and niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Abbé (Henry Essex) Edgeworth de Firmont, who belonged to a junior branch of the Edgeworthstown family, was confessor to the Princess Elizabeth, and to Louis XVI on the scaffold, and after the restoration became chaplain to Louis XVIII. He was granted a pension by Pitt, and died in 1807 of a fever contracted while ministering to the French prisoners.

Wensday, 22 May.

I am always ready to converse with my dear Mrs. Pennington, and always ready—so is Mr. Piozzi—to love your excellent Husband.... I rejoyce Mrs. Weston is so happy, and hope her good son will lure away all her affection and even remembrance from the bad son.

We were all together at Ranelagh two nights ago, and staid till morning, Mrs. Greatheed and the young Siddonses with us; Sally quite outlooked her sister by the bye, and was very finely drest. Of our Misses, Susanna is ever most admired, but I think the eldest and youngest very pretty dears too.

Meantime the young King of France is dying, poysoned I suppose; but to quiet the peoples' minds about him, he and his mother are removed to a better place than the Temple, the Palace de Luxembourg. Well! and we none of us hear a word from Helena Williams since I wrote last. Dr. Moore got £800 for his book, so we cannot doubt its excellence. I wish I could give you just such a proof of the merits of our poor Synonymes. Streatham Park does look beautiful, my Master has new gravelled the walks, and your Lilac is in such beauty.

Sweet Siddons will be quite well. Farquhar, like a wise fellow, goes to Sir Lucas to ask how he shall manage her; let a Scotchman alone for doing nothing, and yet keeping every one pleased. That man knows the mind's anatomy nicely, whether he is skilled in the body's or no.

Brynbella goes on; the water surrounds the house in a full stream ten feet deep, and the maids may catch the Trout in the frying pan, Mead says, without more ado; while the men may cart home the coals from a pit two miles off.

If Cecilia would marry and take Streatham from us, I should like to hie home, and dye, like a Hare, upon the old form, near the place I was kindled at. We should be as near you there as here. Cecy is very naughty; runs bills of £40 at Bague the Milliner's, and hides the dresses she sends home, hashing them about, and spoiling the look and appearance of them that we may not know. Silly little Titmouse! Always in a secret, and always in a scrape, and no Miss Weston to preach her over. Oh dear!...

Adieu! I shall be very happy to receive Harriet Lee. You will be all of one mind, and ask that fellow to supper at last, as I said you would. If the girl is contented no one alive has a right to call his conduct in question, after she comes of age and acknowledges him, which I never doubted her doing....

Dr. Moore's successful book must have been his "Journal during a residence in France, from the beginning of August to the middle of December, 1792," containing an account of the massacres, a work which is often quoted by Carlyle.

Mrs. Piozzi was just now bringing out a somewhat ambitious work in two volumes, under the title of "British Synonymy, or an attempt to regulate the Choice of Words in familiar Conversation." It was a chatty, discursive book, "entertaining rather than scientific," as the British Critic said, its chief interest lying in the store of anecdotes introduced as illustrations; but it contained some rather acute distinctions and clever analysis. Her old adversary Gifford and others again fell foul of her style, charging her with bringing to her task "a jargon long since proverbial for its vulgarity, an incapability of defining a single term in the language, and just so much Latin, from a child's Syntax, as suffices to expose the ignorance she so anxiously labours to conceal."

Tuesday, 10 June.

My dear Mrs. Pennington's accidents and afflictions have really given us very serious concern.... Mrs. Siddons is handsomer and more charming than ever. Lady Randolph took leave of the stage last Fryday, and I saw the exertions she made with some little anxiety; but here she is, as well and as chearful as can be. Mr. Murphy too is now almost perpetually in our society, and my own Lasses beat up our quarters whenever London affords little of that tumultuous amusement which delights the first 30 years of life. Mrs. Greatheed has not yet done delighting in them however; Susan Thrale says they two are the last in every publick place, the last in every great Assembly. Well! I tried a little raking myself this year, but it does not suit me somehow, I can make too little sport out on't, and the people tell me nothing which I did not know before, and that is what I want from company always.

Mr. Stone at Paris, the man who went over with dear Helena Williams, is guillotined. 'Tis now said he ruined a good wife, who brought him £20,000, and did a hundred shocking things, I know not how truly; but his worthy brother here is a horrible fellow, and will soon make a most dishonourable exit, I am told. You must read a Pamphlet, translated from the French, a very short one, called Dangers which threaten Europe. I have seen nothing as wise a long time,—always excepting my own stupendous performances, of course. Apropos, the European Magazine speaks very kindly of my little Synonymes, very kindly indeed, and selects the Adieu and Farewell as a specimen. Harriet Lee never writes to me hardly, and her Marquis, who used to be punctual at Whitsuntide and Christmas, supposing her here, has failed these holydays. How all the Foreigners must wonder at the fate of their heroe, Horne Tooke! That fellow was a great seducer, I am happy he is out of the way. Farewell and Adieu, dear Friend....