| Shylock | Mr. King. |
| Antonio | Mr. Reddish. |
| Gratiano | Mr. Dodd. |
| Lorenzo (with songs) | Mr. Vernon. |
| &c. &c. | |
| Then Jessica (with a song) | Miss Jarrett. |
| Nerissa | Mrs. Davies. |
| Portia, by a Young Lady (her first appearance). | |
The result can best be known by the judgment of the newspaper critics. One says: “On before us tottered rather than walked a very pretty, delicate, fragile-looking young creature, dressed 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 broken, tremulous tones; and at the close of each sentence her voice sank into a ‘horrid whisper’ that was almost inaudible. After her first exit, the judgment of the pit was unanimous as to her beauty, but declared her awkward and provincial.”
In the famous Trial scene she regained her courage, and delivered the great speech to Shylock with “critical propriety,” but with a faintness of utterance which seemed the result of physical weakness rather than of want of spirit or feeling. Another paper, who “understood that the new Portia had been the heroine of one of those petty parties of travelling comedians which wander over the country,” owned that she had a fine stage-figure; her features were expressive; she was uncommonly graceful; but her voice was deficient in variety of tone and clearness. This, however, might be the effect of a cold or nervousness. Her words were delivered with good sense and taste, only there was no fire or spirit in the performance. “Nothing,” the critic ends, “is so barren of either profit or fame as a cold correctness.”
Knowing the Kemble failing of over-study and self-restraint, this seems a fair enough criticism. She represented Portia again a few nights later, but her name did not appear on the bills. She showed more confidence, and succeeded a little better, but does not seem to have got a hold of her audience.
Garrick was at this time employed in mounting an abridgment by Colman of Ben Jonson’s Epicœne, and trusting, we conclude, to the statement of his friend Mr. Bate, that the débutante had “a very good breeches-figure,” he selected her for the heroine’s part. The result was a failure. Critics complained of “the confusion, when Mrs. Siddons, disguised in the piece as a woman, revealed herself at the end as a boy.” The Morning Post, edited by Parson Bate, was the only paper that spoke in favour of the attempt.
The next part she was put into was by this same Bate, The Blackamoor White-washed. We can see how Garrick was forced by the exigencies of his obligations to Bate to put this play on the stage; the only mistake he made was in subjecting the young actress to the risks and chances of the first representation, which, in consequence of the slashing pen and vigorous fists of its author, was not likely to be received with unalloyed approbation. Unfortunately he did not understand the proud timidity of the girl on whom he had laid the task. His other ladies did not mind a rebuff, and would do anything for a critic who praised them, as Mr. Bate had praised “Portia.” As to a theatrical riot, they rather enjoyed it than otherwise, if it were not turned against them personally. Though treated to many a one afterwards, Mrs. Siddons never forgot this first experience. A band of prize-fighters, supposed to be supporters of the parson’s, burst into the pit, and, striking out right and left, silenced the would-be detractors of the play. On the next night both sides mustered in force, and the scene defied description. Officers in the boxes fought with gentlemen from the pit and galleries. The ladies were driven from the boxes, leaving them in possession of the combatants. Garrick, who appeared to try and appease the mob, had an orange flung at him, and a lighted candle passed close to King, who came from the author to announce the withdrawal of the piece. Even this statement had not the effect of restoring quiet until past midnight, when, weary with their exertions, the rioters dispersed. Next day all the papers abused the Julia of the piece, who had not been allowed a chance of making herself heard. “Mrs. Siddons, having no comedy in her nature,” one said, “rendered that ridiculous which the author evidently intended to be pleasant.”
On the 15th of February, Garrick again allowed her to appear; this time in Mrs. Cowley’s Runaway—a slight but telling part, which caused one of her critics to say that she dropped into the walking gentlewoman, and was not permitted a long walk before she became the “Runaway.” Garrick then paid her the compliment of entrusting her with the acting of Mrs. Strickland to his Ranger in the old comedy of The Suspicious Husband. One lady confesses to being moved to tears by Mrs. Siddons in this part, but the majority of the audience and the newspapers seem to have passed her over in complete silence.
Garrick now began his farewell performances. He selected her to act the Lady Anne to his Richard III.—a selection which was an honour coveted by most of the ladies of the company. The actor surpassed his finest days; the young actress was almost petrified by the ferocity and fire of his gaze. She forgot, in her flurry, his important order that she should stand so that his face might be presented to the audience. The look she received made her almost faint with terror, and no doubt betrayed her fright in her acting. The critics pronounced that she was “lamentable,” and the public were utterly indifferent. This was her last appearance. And so ended her first disastrous season at Drury Lane. We think every unbiassed person in reading the account of it will entirely absolve Garrick of the charges brought against him. Other causes were at work which the offended actress did not take into consideration.
Garrick could not forgive crudeness, want of finish. He himself had stepped on the London stage with as much natural ease, and in his representation of Richard III. had taken the town as completely by storm the first time as the last time he acted it. He never made allowances for timidity, and grew impatient at want of confidence. We know he utterly despaired of Mrs. Graham, afterwards the great Mrs. Yates, when he first saw her in the part of Marcia; and Miss Barton, afterwards Mrs. Abington, he allowed to leave Drury Lane at first because he could not, he said, give her a fitting part. The Kemble genius, on the other hand, was a plant of tardy growth, needing much cultivation and many years to bring it to perfection.
Garrick was above all a manager who had the honour of his theatre at heart. He had held the helm at Drury Lane for years, guiding the fortunes of the company through stormy waters safely into the haven of financial and artistic success such as no theatre had ever enjoyed before; but at what a cost! Tormented by the jealousies, insolence, and greed of his leading ladies, disheartened by the envy and treachery of his oldest friends, he must have been glad to contemplate retirement from the turmoil, to enjoy undisturbed the competency he had been able to save from a long life spent in the service of his art and the public. He had but one year more of thraldom, but the harness had begun to gall almost beyond endurance. When he came home ill and worn out after protracted rehearsals, he found petulant letters to be answered, when he went back to the theatre hostile attacks to be avoided, while outside were ranged secret and declared foes, jealous of his success, anxious to find a flaw in his honour or his genius. Suddenly he bethought him of a method, tried before with success, to curb the fiery tempers of the ladies within “his kingdom.” He had heard of a lovely young actress, member of a company strolling in the provinces. He determined to engage her and use her as a foil against the rebellious members of his female staff, for the last year of office. It was not likely that, coming from humble surroundings and hard work, she would afflict him with many airs and graces; and before time had been given her to spoil, his term as manager would have ceased. Garrick had never been given much cause to think highly of women during his long life as an actor—his own wife always excepted—and he most likely put Sarah Siddons on the same level as the others—sordid, like Miss Pope; jealous, like Mrs. Yates; or ill-tempered, like Mrs. Clive—well able to take care of herself, and not gifted with those two rare qualities amongst theatrical ladies, modesty or sensitiveness. How could he guess, even with all his perspicacity and experience, that this young creature—whose life hitherto had been spent strolling from place to place with the vagabonds and adventurers her profession threw her with—was proud, sensitive, timid, nourishing the very highest ideal of her art, and indifferent to any homage given to her person and not to her intellectual power of interpreting the works of the great poets of her country? How could he tell that beneath the pretty exterior of this young and trembling recruit lay hidden the fiery soul of the majestic, terrific Lady Macbeth? He treated her with an amount of consideration and courtesy unusual even with him, sending her boxes for all his great performances, when Cabinet Ministers were imploring places and had to be refused. He would hand her from the green-room and put her in the place of honour beside him; and gave her parts which according to his judgment, formed hastily on what he had had an opportunity of seeing, best suited her. And how was he rewarded? By a resentment nourished the whole of a lifetime, and by a charge persistently stated and repeated by her friends, that the great “Roscius” was jealous of an unskilled, untrained, country actress! Why, then, had he not shown jealousy of Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Clive, or, still more, of the gentlemen of his company, Barry and Smith, the Romeo and Charles Surface of their day. There are so few figures in public life complete and admirable as David Garrick’s, so far removed above the pettiness and egotism accompanying success, that it is with pain we read Mrs. Siddons’s accusations, and think the only way to excuse her is to show the anguish experienced by both her husband and herself in the miserable sequel to the sad story of failure and disappointment, and to ascribe her injustice to the misery of lives embittered and prospects blighted, for the time, making her ever afterwards see the facts of the case through a distorted medium. We will relate in her own words what now took place:—