Yesterday we breakfasted at Mrs. Somerville's, and I put on for her a blue crape turban, to show her how Fanny's was put on, with which she had fallen in love. We dined at Mrs. Hughan's, [Footnote: Jean, daughter of Robert Milligan, Esq., of Cotswold, Gloucestershire.] niece to Joanna Baillie: select party for Sir William Pepys, who is eighty-two, a most agreeable, lively old gentleman, who tells delightful anecdotes of Mrs. Montague, Sir Joshua, Burke, and Dr. Johnson. Mrs. Montague once whispered to Sir William, on seeing a very awkward man coming into the room, "There is a man who would give one of his hands to know what to do with the other." Excellent house of Mrs. Hughan's, full of flowers and luxuries. In the evening many people; the Baillies, and a Miss Jardine, granddaughter of Bruce, the traveller. We carried Sir William off with us at half-past nine to Mrs. Somerville's, and after we had been gone half an hour, Mr. Pepys, a young man between forty and fifty, arrived, and putting his glass up to his eye, spied about for his uncle, discovered that he was gone, and could not tell how or where! Miss Milligan, sister to Mrs. Hughan, told him Miss Edgeworth had carried him off. His own carriage arrived at eleven, and carried Mr. Pepys, by private orders, not knowing where he was going, to Mrs. Somerville's. We had brought Sir William there to hear Mrs. Kater sing and play Handel's music, of which he is passionately fond. It was worth while to bring him to hear her singing, he so exceedengly enjoyed it, and so does Wollaston, who sits as mute as a mouse and as still as the statue of a philosopher charmed.
I forgot to tell you that Lady Elizabeth Belgrave, [Footnote: Daughter of the first Duke of Sutherland] as pretty and winning as ever, came to see us with Lady Stafford; and yesterday, the third time of calling at her door, I was told by a pimpled, red-blotched door-holder that "her ladyship was not at home," but after he had turned the card to another form out of livery, he said, "My lady is at home to you, ma'am." So up we went, and she was very entertaining, with fresh observations from Paris, and much humour. She said she was sure there was some peculiar charm in the sound of the clinking of their swords in walking up and down the gallery of the Tuileries, which the old stupid ones pace every day for hours. She says she has met with much grateful attention from the royal family, and many of the French whom she had formerly known, but cannot give entertainments, because they have not the means. The Count d'Artois apologised; he has no separate dinner—always dined with the King, and "very sorry for it." Lady Stafford asked us all to dinner, but we were engaged to Mr. Morritt. She is to ask again after our return from the Deepdene, where we spend Monday and Tuesday with the dear Hopes.
To MRS. RUXTON.
8 HOLLES STREET, April 10, 1822.
The great variety of society in London, and the solidity of the sense and information to be gathered from conversation, strike me as far superior to Parisian society. We know, I think, six different and totally independent sets, of scientific, literary, political, travelled, artist, and the fine fashionable, of various shades; and the different styles of conversation are very entertaining.
Through Lydia White we have become more acquainted with Mrs. Siddons than I ever expected to be. She gave us the history of her first acting of Lady Macbeth, and of her resolving, in the sleep scene, to lay down the candlestick, contrary to the precedent of Mrs. Pritchard and all the traditions, before she began to wash her hands and say, "Out, vile spot!" Sheridan knocked violently at her door during the five minutes she had desired to have entirely to herself, to compose her spirits before the play began. He burst in, and prophesied that she would ruin herself for ever if she persevered in this resolution to lay down the candlestick! She persisted, however, in her determination, succeeded, was applauded, and Sheridan begged her pardon. She described well the awe she felt, and the power of the excitement given to her by the sight of Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Sir Joshua Reynolds in the pit. She invited us to a private reading-party at her own house: present only her daughter, a very pretty young lady, a Mrs. Wilkinson, Mr. Burney, Dr. Holland, Lydia White, Mr. Harness and ourselves. She read one of her finest parts, and that best suited to a private room—Queen Katherine. She was dressed so as to do well for the two parts she was to perform this night, of gentlewoman and queen—black velvet, with black velvet cap and feathers. She sat the whole time, and with a large Shakespear before her; as she knew the part of Katherine by heart, she seldom required the help of glasses, and she recited it incomparably well: the changes of her countenance were striking. From her first burst of indignation when she objects to the Cardinal as her judge, to her last expiring scene, was all so perfectly natural and so touching, we could give no applause but tears. Mrs. Siddons is beautiful even at this moment. Some who had seen her on the stage in this part assured me that it had a much greater effect upon them in a private room, because they were near enough to see the changes of her countenance, and to hear the pathos of her half-suppressed voice. Some one said that, in the dying scene, her very pillow seemed sick.
She spoke afterwards of the different parts which she had liked and disliked to act; and when she mentioned the characters and scenes she had found easy or difficult, it was curious to observe that the feelings of the actress and the sentiments and reasons of the best critics meet. Whatever was not natural, or inconsistent with the main part of the character, she found she never could act well.
We spent three days at Easter at the Deepdene; the company there were Mr. C. Moore, Mr. Philip Henry Hope, Mr. and Miss Burrowes, Mr. Harness, Lord Fincastle, Lady Clare, and Lady Isabella Fitzgibbon, and Lord Archibald Hamilton. Deepdene is beautiful at this time of the year—the hawthorn hedges, the tender green of the larch and the sycamore in full leaf.
To MRS. EDGEWORTH.
HOLIES STREET, April 20.