John Kemble was now both actor and manager at Covent Garden, and the results were much more satisfactory in every way to Mrs. Siddons. Harris the proprietor was strictly punctual in his payments, and the Kemble family, who numbered Charles Kemble in their ranks, were sufficient to make the performances attractive enough to the public. Mrs. Siddons appeared in several of her old parts; amongst others in Elvira, when the actor Cooke came on so drunk as to be unable to act his part. He did not improve matters by attempting to excuse himself. He could only articulate, “Ladies and Gentlemen, my old complaint,” when he was removed, and Henry Siddons had to read his part. Fit pendant to the night when he appeared as Sir Archy Macsarcasm with Johnstone, who was playing Sir Calaghan. There was a dead pause. At last Johnstone, advancing to the footlights, said with a strong brogue, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Cooke says he can’t spake,” which bull was received with roars of laughter and hisses.
The great actress performed sixty times that season. At its conclusion she went on a visit to Mrs. Damer at Strawberry Hill, where she met Louis Philippe, afterwards King of France, and the Prince Regent. The two ladies, whenever they were together, indulged their passion for sculpture. As winter approached she suffered much from rheumatism, and, for the sake of country air, removed from Great Marlborough Street to a cottage at Hampstead for a few weeks. Mr. Siddons, who was also a martyr to rheumatism, had advocated the change, and the old gentleman was much delighted with his new abode. He ate his dinner, and, looking out at the beautiful view that stretched before the windows, observed, “Sally, this will cure all our ailments.” In spite of his hopes, however, Mrs. Siddons was confined to bed for weeks with acute rheumatism. She tried electricity with some beneficial effect, but suffered anguish while undergoing the treatment.
As the winter advanced they returned to town; but Mr. Siddons grew so much worse that he resolved to try the waters of Bath. Mrs. Siddons parted, therefore, with her house in Marlborough Street, and took lodgings for herself and Miss Wilkinson in Princes Street, Hanover Square. Her landlord there was an upholsterer of the name of Nixon. He and his wife always talked afterwards with the deepest affection of Mrs. Siddons. One day, looking at Nixon’s card, she found that he was also an undertaker, and said laughingly, “I engage your services to bury me, Mr. Nixon.” Twenty-seven years afterwards Nixon did so.
During the winter and spring of 1804 and 1805 Mrs. Siddons only performed twice at Covent Garden, partly in consequence of delicate health, partly in consequence of the appearance of Master Betty, the “young Roscius,” a prodigy whom the public ran after with an enthusiasm that seems inexplicable. Managers gave him sums that a Garrick or a Siddons were unable to obtain; his bust was done by the best sculptors; his portrait painted by the best artists, and verses written in a style of idolatrous adulation were poured upon this boy of thirteen. Actors and actresses were obliged to appear on the stage with him to avoid giving offence. Mrs. Siddons and Kemble, with praiseworthy dignity, retired while the infatuation lasted. She went to see him, however, and gave him what praise she thought his due. Lord Abercorn came into her box, declaring it was the finest acting he had ever seen. “My lord,” she answered, “he is a very clever, pretty boy, but nothing more.”
Independently of the boy Betty, or any other trials in her profession, Mrs. Siddons now began to long for rest. We have seen how years before, when in Dublin, she had expressed herself to Dr. Whalley: “I don’t build any castles, but cottages without end. May the great Disposer of all events but permit me to spend the evening of my toilsome, bustling day in a cottage where I may sometimes have the converse and society which will make me more worthy those imperishable habitations which are prepared for the spirits of just men made perfect!”
In the April of 1805 she satisfied this wish by taking a cottage at Westbourne, near Paddington. With the help of Nixon she fitted it up luxuriously, built an additional room behind for a studio, and laid out the shrubbery and garden. Westbourne was then, we are told, one of those delightful rural spots for which Paddington was distinguished. It occupied a rising ground, and commanded a lovely view of Hampstead, Highgate and the distant city. Mrs. Siddons’s was a small retired house, in a garden screened with poplars and evergreens, resembling a modest rural vicarage, standing, it is said, on the site now levelled for the Great Western Railway Station. She loved, she said, to escape from “the noise and din of London” to the green fields surrounding her new home.
Here her friends congregated round her also. Miss Berry and Madame D’Arblay both mention, in their diaries, having spent an afternoon and met many people at Mrs. Siddons’s country retreat.
“I spoke in terms of rapture of Mrs. Siddons to Incledon,” Crabb Robinson tells us. “He replied, ‘Ah! Sally’s a fine creature. She has a charming place on the Edgware Road. I dined with her last year, and she paid me one of the finest compliments I ever received. I sang The Storm after dinner. She cried and sobbed like a child. Taking both of my hands she said, “All that I and my brother ever did is nothing compared with the effect you produce.”’”
The following lines were written by Mr. Siddons, describing his wife’s country retreat, during the last visit he ever paid to it:—
1.