After four years’ residence here, his father sent him to the English College at Douai, to pursue a regular divinity course, his intention being to put the future Coriolanus into the priesthood.
Sarah still continued her studies, such as they were, at the various towns at which the “comedians” pitched their tent in their wanderings to and fro. She was taught vocal and instrumental music, and her father, remarking that she had fine natural powers of elocution, wished them cultivated by regular tuition as a part of her education, with no view to the stage; for this purpose he was tempted to enter into an agreement with an individual named William Combe, to give her a course of lessons.
The itinerant players were generally looked upon as a valuable addition to the inn parlour, and were welcome to a supper or a pot of ale in return for their society and amusing talk. It was on one of these occasions that Roger Kemble, who was a jovial and popular companion, met Combe, and was so attracted by his clever conversation, as to engage him as instructor to his daughter. Mrs. Kemble, evidently a woman of considerable common sense and penetration, refused to ratify the appointment, however, and Roger was obliged to get out of his promise by giving a performance for the benefit of the adventurer, who, having run through a fortune, was perfectly penniless.
To the last day of his life William Combe entertained a rancorous dislike to the great actress, and took pleasure in telling his friends maliciously how sordid her early life had been, and how he himself remembered her, when a girl, standing at the wing of a country theatre, beating snuffers against a candlestick to represent the sound of a windmill, in some rude pantomime.
Curiously enough, Milton’s poetry more than Shakespeare’s was the object of Sarah’s admiration in her youth. When but ten years old, Campbell tells us, she pored over Paradise Lost for hours together. The long, tiresome speeches between Adam and his wife, Satan’s address to the sun—most children’s despair—were her delight. The stately, ponderous verse suited her genius. The poet also gives us a story which, he tells, Mrs. Siddons left amongst her memoranda.
One day her mother promised to take her out with a party of friends picnicking in the neighbourhood. She was to wear a new pink dress, if the weather were fine. On going to bed the evening before the great event, she took her prayer-book with her, and opening it, as she supposed, at the prayer for fine weather, fell asleep with the book folded in her arms. At daybreak the child found, to her dismay, that she had been holding the prayer for rain to her breast, and that the rain—Heaven having taken her at her word—was pelting against the windows. She went to bed again, with the book opened at the right place, and found the mistake remedied. When she awoke the morning was as rosy as the dress she was to wear.
Croker thinks it necessary, with all the weight of his authority, to refute this childish reminiscence, by pointing out that the prayers for rain and fine weather are on the same page of the prayer-book. We repeat the story principally because it shows the quaint methodistical piety and almost childish superstition which dwelt with Mrs. Siddons all through her chequered career. There is little doubt this piety was greatly owing to the principles inculcated by her mother.
Mrs. Kemble was a stately, austere woman, with a certain amount of genius and much force of character, and energetic and brave in her humble sphere of life, in most difficult circumstances. She fought by the side of her husband a hard battle with poverty, and maintained and educated a family of twelve children. Spartan in her views of training youth, her imperious despotism of character has often been described as absolutely awful. It was the custom of the time to rule a household with some sternness, but her children trembled in her presence. In later days she addressed a characteristic reproof to her son John: “Sir, you are as proud as Lucifer.” He and that majestic mother of his must indeed have been a Coriolanus and Volumnia in every-day life. Her voice had much of the measured emphasis of her daughter’s, and her portrait, the only one we know of, that always hung in Mrs. Siddons’ sitting-room, had an intellectual, almost grand expression, reminding us more of a good-looking Elizabeth Fry, with the tight-fitting frilled cap, and soft muslin handkerchief crossed around the throat, than what one might have pictured Sally Kemble, the strolling actress. Though extremely handsome when Roger Kemble first married her, and subjected to all the temptations of an actress’s life, she never wavered in wifely devotion, and would maintain to the last day of her life that in some parts her Roger was “unparalleled.” Hers is the only testimony to that effect, and we rather imagine him to have been a very indifferent actor, but a handsome good-tempered man with the manners of a gentleman, and views of life beyond his humble profession.
Proud, reserved, John Kemble paid, years after, the best tribute to his memory, when, on hearing of his death, he wrote to his brother from Madrid, on 31st December 1802: “How sincerely I always loved my father and respected his sound understanding, you know too well for it to be necessary that I should even mention what I feel this moment, on opening your letter. God Almighty receive him into His everlasting happiness, and teach me to be resigned and resolute, to deserve to follow him when my appointed hour is come. My poor mother, though I know she will exert becoming firmness of mind in this, and every passage of her life, cannot but feel a melancholy void in losing the companion of her youth, the associate of her advancing years, and the father of her children. I regret from the very bottom of my heart that I cannot, with the most dutiful affection, assure her, at her feet, that what a grateful son can offer and do shall never be wanting from me to promote her content and ease and happiness. How, in vain, have I delighted myself in thousands of inconvenient occurrences on this journey, with the thought of contemplating my father’s cautious incredulity while I related them to him! Millions of things, uninteresting maybe to anybody else, I had treasured up for his surprise and scrutiny! It is God’s pleasure that he is gone from us. The resignation I had long observed in him to the will of Heaven, and his habitual piety, are no small consolation to me; yet I cannot help feeling a dejected swelling at my heart, that keeps me in a flood of tears for him, in spite of all I can do to stop them.”