“Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised. Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seemed to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays, and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the character of Constance, Catherine, and Isabella, in Shakespeare.”
Boswell gives us also the account of what took place:—
“When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile: ‘Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats to other people will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself.’
“Having placed himself by her, he with great good humour entered upon a consideration of the English drama; and, among other enquiries, particularly asked her which of Shakespeare’s characters she was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen Catherine in Henry VIII. the most natural: ‘I think so too, Madam,’ said he; ‘and whenever you perform it I will once more hobble out to the theatre myself.’ Mrs. Siddons promised she would do herself the honour of acting his favourite part for him, but was unable to do so before grand old Samuel was laid to his last rest.”
CHAPTER X.
1782 TO 1798.
Mrs. Siddons’s life between the years 1785 to 1798 was passed in the professional treadmill, and her history during this period is best told by an account of the characters she personated.
After her appearance as Lady Macbeth on February 2nd, she chose to act Desdemona to her brother’s Othello, and, to everyone’s surprise, acted it with a tenderness, playfulness, and simplicity hardly to be expected of the majestic actress, who had terrified her audience by her representation of the Thane of Cawdor’s wife. Campbell tells us that even years after, when he saw her play this part at Edinburgh, not recognising at first who was acting, he was spellbound by her “exquisite gracefulness,” and thought it impossible “this soft, sweet creature could be the Siddons,” until by the emotion and applause of the audience he knew it could be no other.
Unfortunately, in her first representation of this part, she was carelessly given a damp bed to lie on in the death scene, and caught so severe a cold as almost to threaten rheumatic fever. From this time her delicacy seems to date, for we now find her continually complaining and incapacitated from appearing by ill-health.
After Desdemona she appeared in Rosalind, which we can dismiss with the criticism of Young, the actor: “Her Rosalind wanted neither playfulness nor feminine softness, but it was totally without archness—not because she did not properly conceive it; but how could such a countenance be arch?” Her dress, too, excited great amusement—“mysterious nondescript garments.” We have a letter of hers to Hamilton the artist, asking “if he would be so good as to make her a slight sketch for a boy’s dress to conceal the person as much as possible.” The woman who was capable of taking this view of the representation of Rosalind was not capable of acting the part.