It was an extraordinary evening. The house was carried away in a storm of emotion; men were not ashamed to sob, and many women went into violent hysterics. It is difficult, indeed, for us now to understand such agitation; we fritter away our sentiment on the ordinary business of life:—
The town in those days mostly lay
Betwixt the tavern and the play.
The penny press had not yet come within the radius of everyone, and men depended on the theatre for their fictitious excitement. A new play, a young actor or actress, were greater subjects of interest than even Mr. Pitt’s or Mr. Fox’s last speech, which they only heard of piecemeal.
Mrs. Siddons had the good fortune still to play to audiences who were in the full enjoyment of their natural and critical powers of appreciation. She bent all her powers to calling forth their emotions. She touched them to the quick with her pathos and power. The audience surrendered at discretion to the summons of the young enchantress. Her own simple account of it all is very attractive; and afterwards, in the history of her life, when a little hardness, or a rather too abrupt assertion of superiority, is to be regretted, we turn to this spontaneous, almost girlish account of her first triumph—through which we can see the smiles beaming, the tears glistening—with pleasure and relief.
“I reached my own quiet fireside,” she says, “on retiring from the scene of reiterated shouts and plaudits. I was half dead; and my joy and thankfulness were of too solemn and overpowering a nature to admit of words, or even tears. My father, my husband, and myself sat down to a frugal neat supper in a silence uninterrupted except by exclamations of gladness from Mr. Siddons. My father enjoyed his refreshments, but occasionally stopped short, and, laying down his knife and fork, lifting 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 exertion, 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.”
And so the seven long years spent in tempering her genius, in working to gain strength and confidence, had borne their result, for we will not allow, as Mr. Fitzgerald says, that her present success was owing to the absence “of the restraint from the patronizing instruction of Garrick,” or any other exterior circumstance. The change had come from within, not from without. Hers was essentially a genius of tardy growth, both physically and mentally she did not reach her full development until the time when most actresses have enjoyed seven or eight years’ success. She had worked, and, like all other workers, had reaped her reward; though, unlike the common run of workers, having genius to back her, the reward she reaped was not only a temporary success, but fame. The memory of this night has been handed down to us in company with Garrick’s first appearance in Richard III. and Edmund Kean’s in Shylock in 1814.
The critics next day were unanimous in her praise. Some found the voice a little harsh, the passion a little too “restless and fluttering,” but all were agreed that a great event had occurred in the dramatic world. It is of little use repeating the praise and criticism, all that can be done in a reviewal of her artistic life; we are more interested in the personal history of the woman who had thus stirred up the waters that had threatened to become stagnant since the retirement of Garrick. It is natural for us rather to like to hear personal anecdotes of those who appear publicly before us than pages of hackneyed verbiage on their acting and appearance.
She wrote to Dr. Whalley one of those genuine, spontaneous letters that show how she was misunderstood by those who thought her hard and reserved:—“My dear, dear friend, the trying moment is passed, and I am crowned with a success which far exceeds even my hopes. God be praised! I am extremely hurried, being obliged to dine at Linley’s; have been at the rehearsal of a new tragedy in prose, a most affecting play, in which I have a part I like very much. I believe my next character will be Zara in the Mourning Bride. My friend Pratt was, I believe in my soul, as much agitated, and is as much rejoiced as myself. As I know it will give you pleasure, I venture to assure you I never in my life heard such peals of applause. I thought they would not have suffered Mr. Packer to end the play. Oh! how I wished for you last night, to share a joy which was too much for me to bear alone! My poor husband was so agitated that he durst not venture near the house. I enclose an epilogue which my good friend wrote for me, but which I could not, from excessive fatigue of mind and body, speak. Never, never let me forget his goodness to me. I have suffered tortures for (of?) the unblest these three days and nights past, and believe I am not in perfect possession of myself at present; therefore excuse, my dear Mr. Whalley, the incorrectness of this scrawl, and accept it as the first tribute of love (after the first decisive moment) from your ever grateful and truly affectionate, S. Siddons.”