Eminent Women Series

EDITED BY JOHN H. INGRAM

MRS. SIDDONS.

(All rights reserved)

MRS. SIDDONS

BY
MRS. A. KENNARD.

LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
1887.

(All rights reserved.)

LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.

PREFACE.

In spite of Mrs. Siddons’s professed shrinking from the celebrity that biographers would confer upon her, and her preference for the “still small voice of tender relatives and estimable friends,” we know that she bequeathed her Memoranda, Letters, and Diary to the poet Campbell—an intimate friend during her latter years—with a request that he would prepare them for publication. How, with the ample material at his command, Campbell wrote so bad a life, it is difficult to conceive. He seemed conscious himself that he was not doing justice to his subject. The task of finishing it weighed on him like a nightmare. To secure himself from interruption he would fix a placard on the door of his chambers announcing that “Mr. Campbell was engaged with the biography of Mrs. Siddons, and was not to be disturbed.”

Though performing the task unwillingly, he stubbornly refused to allow anyone else to attempt it. When Mrs. Jameson contemplated writing a life of the great actress he was most indignant, and expressed himself as unable to understand how Mrs. Combe (Cecilia Siddons) could patronise a life of her mother by Mrs. Jameson, knowing that he had been appointed the biographer.

Boaden’s account of Mrs. Siddons is sketchy and meagre, and his style, if possible, more pedantic and ponderous than Campbell’s. Crabb Robinson declared it to be “one of the most worthless books of biography in existence.”

In writing an account of a woman like Mrs. Siddons, or, indeed, of anyone whose life has been passed entirely before the public, it is necessary to divest the character as much as possible of the legendary traditions adhering to it. It must be brought down into the regions of ordinary life, and the only way to accomplish this is to transcribe her actual words and expressions written without thought of publication. We must therefore ask our readers to forgive us for quoting so many of her letters in full. When we attempt to shorten or interpolate, all their easy charm and freshness seems to evaporate.

Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his Lives of the Kembles, has incorporated Mrs. Siddons’s history with that of her brother, John Kemble, and written by far the best biography yet done of the great actress. To him we must express our deep obligation, and almost our contrition, for venturing to treat a subject already so ably handled in his interesting volumes. We must also express our gratitude to Mr. Alfred Morrison and Mr. Thibaudeau for allowing us to make use of the valuable documents contained in the Morrison collection of autograph letters.

NINA A. KENNARD.

February, 1887.

CONTENTS.

MRS. SIDDONS.

CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD.

The lax morality prevailing in England at the time of the Restoration, produced a literary and dramatic school of art suited to the taste of the public. Congreve wrote Love for Love, and coolly remarked, when accused of immorality, “that, if it were an immodest play, he was incapable of writing a modest one.”

The reaction from the almost overstrained energy and chivalry of the Elizabethan age, which a century of Stuart rule effected in the minds of Englishmen, had brought them thus low. Manners were looked upon as better than morals. Scepticism as better than belief, as well when it concerned the tenets of the Bible as the honour of their neighbours’ wives.

The stage—especially when the public has no other intellectual outlet—is invariably the test by which we can discover the moral condition of a country. When that condition is unnatural and feverish, proportionally artificial and stimulating must be the mental food presented to it, until the audience gradually becomes incapable of digesting any other. The want at the end of the seventeenth century produced the supply. A drama arose which was polished, dainty, finished in detail, but from the stage of which virtue was excluded like a poor relation, who, clad in fustian, and shod with hob-nail boots, is not supposed to be fit company for profligate gentlemen in gold-embroidered coats and lace ruffles.

Shakespeare was too strong food for the digestive capacities of an age whose poets preferred falsehood to truth. Pepys speaks of Henry VIII. as a simple thing made up “of a great many patches.” The Tempest, he thinks, “has no great art, but yet good above ordinary plays.” Othello was to him “a mean thing,” compared to the last new comedy. He is good enough, however, to allow that he liked or disliked Macbeth, according to the humour of the hour, but there was a “divertissement” in it, which struck him as being a droll thing in tragedy.

The fiery energy of Pitt was needed to galvanise the paralysed enthusiasm, the fanatical earnestness of John Wesley was needed to arouse the deadened moral sense of England. Religion and patriotism come first as important factors in the education of a people, but they are closely followed by poetry and the drama. If Pitt and Wesley did much to elevate the political and religious tone, as much was done to elevate the literary and dramatic by Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, David Garrick, and Sarah Siddons.

Our readers may be inclined to think we exaggerate the importance of the stage, by thus classing poets and players together; but if we wish to appreciate the influence wielded by players a hundred years ago, we have but to examine the careers of these last two great artists; and if we wish to appreciate the moral reform effected, we have but to turn to a list of the plays in vogue at the time of the Restoration and the plays in vogue twenty years after Garrick had been acting, and ten years after Sarah Siddons’s first appearance.

The reaction came, as do all reactions, with too great intensity; vice was not only punished in its own person, but the sins of the father were visited on the children, with a harshness almost Semitic. Through the fine-spun sentiment of The Fatal Marriage, and the melodramatic heroism of The Grecian Daughter, two of Mrs. Siddons’ greatest parts, we trace the high moral tone that cleared away eventually the foul and noisome atmosphere hanging over the theatrical world. Gloomy morality and dramatic pathos paved the way for the return of the Winter’s Tale and Hamlet.

Justly are the memories of David Garrick and Sarah Siddons revered by Englishmen, not only because they devoted their genius to the reinstatement of England’s greatest dramatist, but that, also, by their strict adherence to an almost rigid decorum in public behaviour and private life, they raised a profession that had hitherto been despised and looked upon as one unbefitting a modest woman, or an honourable man, into a position of respectability and consideration.

That these two great artists had faults, who can wonder? No reformation was ever yet accomplished by the flaccid-minded ones, and we must remember that many of the stories told of his vanity and meanness and her hardness and reserve, were circulated by their enemies on and off the stage, because of their very rigidity and morality. In spite, however, of some passing clouds, never was there a career so admired, a personality so adored in public life, as that of Mrs. Siddons. Whenever she appeared, enthusiastic applause rang through the house, not only on account of her pre-eminent genius, but because of her untarnished private character. Step by step we propose to trace the career of this wonderful woman, who, dowered with singular beauty and genius, and placed amid all the temptations of a profession in which so few of her sex remain pure, has shown an example of unswerving rectitude and religious fervour, unusual in any walk of life, keeping her to the last a “great simple being,” direct and truthful, noble and industrious. She had faults, as we have said, but they were so far outbalanced by her virtues that we can well afford to forgive them; always remembering that, though only the daughter of a strolling actor, born amidst the lowliest surroundings, she conceived an ideal of her art which enabled her to raise the stage of her country, from consisting simply in the delineation of the coarsest gallantry, into a source of the highest moral and artistic instruction.

Far from the strife of political parties or the vagaries of fashionable dramatists, both she and Garrick, with whose name we have coupled hers, were born in the romantic country of Wales: he at Hereford; she in the small town of Brecon, by the shores of the river Usk. The following copy of her certificate of baptism, from the register-book in St. Mary’s, Brecon, is given in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1826: “Baptism, 1755, July 14th, Sarah, daughter of George Kemble, a commedian (sic), and Sarah, his wife, was baptised. Thomas Bevan, curate.” Her father’s name was “Roger,” not “George,” as given above. The young couple’s theatrical wanderings happened to bring them, at the time of Mrs. Kemble’s confinement, to the little Welsh town, where they had put up in the High Street at a public-house familiarly called “The Shoulder of Mutton.” In 1755 the inn was a picturesque gable-fronted old house, with projecting upper storey, exhibiting as sign-board a large shoulder of mutton. It was much frequented by the farmers on market-day for its good ale and its legs of mutton, which might regularly in those days be seen roasting before the kitchen fire, on a spit turned by a dog in a wheel.

Brecon is not without dramatic and historic interest, and, as Mrs. Siddons afterwards was fond of pointing out, is several times mentioned by Shakespeare. Buckingham, in Richard III., says:

Oh! let me think on Hastings, and begone

To Brecon whilst my fearful head is on.

Sir Hugh Evans also, that “remnant of Welsh flannel,” in the Merry Wives of Windsor, was curate of the priory of Brecon in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and from the intimacy which existed between Shakespeare and the priors of the priory, Campbell tells us, “an idea prevails that he frequently visited them at their residence in Brecon, and that he not only availed himself of the whimsicalities of old Sir Hugh, but that he was indebted for much of the romantic setting of the Midsummer Night’s Dream to the surrounding scenery, where Puck and his fairy companions are familiar household words, one of the glens in the neighbourhood being named Cwm Pwca, or the Valley of Puck.” Be this as it may, we cannot wonder at Mrs. Siddons’ desire to connect the places that played important parts in her fortunes with the name of the great poet whom she honoured so devotedly and so well.

Roger Kemble, father of the little girl, was the manager of a strolling company of actors, his theatrical “circuit” including the counties of Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire. He was born in Hereford in the year 1721, and it was said that he began life as a “barber.” John Kemble, when convivial, would sometimes allude to this fact; but, indeed, in those days many actors are said to have been “barbers,” the fact being that, when strolling, it was sometimes found convenient for one of the company to combine the two professions. He was a Roman Catholic, and was fond of tracing his descent from an old English family, claiming as ancestors a Captain Kemble, who fought at Worcester in the camp of the Stuarts, and a Father Kemble, who died for the faith a few years later.

Her mother was a Miss Ward, daughter also of an actor and manager of a strolling company. Peg Woffington, when only fifteen, played at his theatre in Auniger Street, until Mr. Ward’s strait-laced severity drove the wild young Irish girl away. The Wards seem, indeed, to have been almost Methodistical in their strict religious views. The following inscription may be seen on their tomb at Leominster:

Here, waiting for the Saviour’s great assize,

And hoping through His merits hence to rise

In glorious mode, in this dark closet lies

John Ward, Gent.,
Who died Oct. 30th, 1773, aged 69 years;

Also
Sarah, his Wife,
Who died Jan. 30th, 1786, aged 75 years.

Mrs. Siddons was, therefore, 31 before her grandmother died. Tough, vigorous races, both Kembles and Wards, full of religion and prejudices, which they kept intact until they died. On one side we see the great actress inherited Irish blood. John Ward was an Irishman, and Sally, his daughter, was born in Clonmel. Roger Kemble, a member of Ward’s company, aided by his good looks, courteous manners, and fine black eyes, won the heart of Sally Ward. The father strongly objected to the match; but, finding opposition of no avail, at last reluctantly consented, making the hackneyed joke—afterwards attributed to Roger Kemble himself, on the occasion of Sarah’s marriage with Siddons—that “he wished her not to become the wife of an actor, and she had certainly complied with his request.”

The young couple were married at Cirencester in the year 1753. Sarah was their first child. John Philip, the second, was born two years after his sister, at Prescott in Lancashire. They had ten brothers and sisters, and, although all of them—except those who died in very early youth—went on the stage, none reached the pre-eminence of the two eldest. They were an intelligent, industrious family, blossoming into genius in one member and very remarkable talent in another. As Roger Kemble was a Catholic and his wife a Protestant, it was agreed that the girls were to be brought up in the mother’s faith, the boys in their father’s.

The accounts given us of Mrs. Siddons’ childhood are meagre; but, from numerous memoirs and racy theatrical reminiscences, we can see what the life of the travelling actor in England a hundred years ago was like, with all its accompaniments of squalor and humiliation. In these days, when actors and actresses of no very great eminence are whirled about in first-class express carriages or in special trains from place to place, it is difficult, in spite of accurate information, to realise the hardships attending the profession then. The travelling from town to town in all weathers, in carts little better than those constituting a gipsy caravan; the parading through the streets, offering play-bills and puffs. A resident of Warwick—Walter Whiter, the commentator on Shakespeare—when Mrs. Siddons had “become known all the world over,” recalled as one of the sights of his boyhood in the town, the daylight procession of old Roger Kemble’s company, advertising and giving a foretaste of the evening’s entertainment. A little girl, the future Queen of Tragedy, marched with them in white and spangles, her train held by a handsome boy in black velvet, John Philip Kemble, of the “all hail hereafter.”

It is almost impossible to conceive the ignominy the company was subjected to, when either the mayor of the town—which was often the case—had forbidden theatrical representation, or when, owing to the pranks of some rowdy members of the troupe, the feeling of the inhabitants was aroused against them collectively, and they were obliged to cringe and supplicate for a renewal of the favour of the changeable and narrow-minded provincials.

Enough of the Puritan spirit still remained to induce Government to frequently place restrictions on the representations of the “Servants of Belial.” A story is told of the Kemble company evading the tax on unlicensed houses, introduced by Sir Robert Walpole, by selling tooth-powder at a shilling a box, and giving the ticket; a proceeding which reminds one of the old smuggling trick of selling a sham sack of corn, and making a present of the keg of brandy placed within it.

The representations of these strolling actors, FitzGerald tells us, took place sometimes in a coach-house or barn, or sometimes in a room of an inn; even the open inn-yard, with its galleries running round, was now and then converted into a theatre. All sorts of old clothes and decorations were borrowed, a few candles stuck in bottles in front, and then the play began. Very often the proceeds did not cover expenses, and either debts were made or the owner of the inn let them go scot-free in consideration of the amusement they had afforded his guests.

The shifts and tribulations, related later by the Kembles themselves, seem almost incredible. Stephen Kemble, the wittiest of the family, described with great humour a season of privation in a wretched village, where the unfortunate actors could not muster a farthing, and were in consequence dunned and abused by their landladies. To avoid their persecution he lay in bed two days, suffering the pangs of hunger, and then was obliged to take refuge in a distant turnip-field, where he persuaded a fellow-actor to accompany him by boasting of the hospitality and size of the establishment.

In one town the theatre was said to have been built, the stage in Sussex, the audience in Kent, the two being divided by a ditch, so as to enable the players to evade their bailiffs by escaping into another county. There is a certain humour and tragedy running through all these theatrical histories, that makes us laugh at one moment at the comical incidents related, and makes us sad the next to think of men of talent—often men of genius—being subjected to such degradation.

It is difficult to understand how Sarah and John Kemble can have emerged from it so untainted by its associations, and so far above its social and artistic aims and ideals; or how their stately manners and stem ideas of morality and decorum can have been fostered in such an atmosphere. In blaming them, perhaps, later, for what their detractors called their “closeness” about money matters, we must remember that the years of suffering and privation they had been through, and the very laxity they saw around them, was likely to crystallise strong natures like theirs into hardness and rigidity, exaggerating, perhaps, their ideas of theatrical dignity and self-respect.

There can be no doubt, in spite of all its drawbacks, that, from a professional point of view, the Bohemian existence of the strolling comedian was a valuable discipline for artistic perception. The intimate communion in which all lived together, gave much more chance of expansion to rising genius than the artificial barriers now erected between the leader of a company and his subordinates. Not only was the freemasonry existing between underling and superior invaluable, but also the course of probation before country audiences, who, uninfluenced by prestige or fashion, spoke their mind without reserve. Young recruits, who arrived ignorant and raw, thus obtained the necessary ease of deportment and knowledge of stage effects, uninfluenced by preconceived ideas. The very fact, also, of so much depending on the individual excellence of the actor, independently of scenery and accessories, was a valuable stimulus. His expression, his action, had to tell the story.

In passing his earliest years upon the stage, the strolling actor obtained a power of identification with theatrical representation only to be thus acquired. The atmosphere he breathed from his earliest years was dramatic. When quite a child, Sarah Kemble was announced as an “Infant phenomenon,” at an entertainment the company gave. As she appeared, some confusion arose in the gallery which overpowered all her attempts. Her mother immediately led her down to the footlights, and made her recite the fable of The Boys and Frogs, which at once lulled the tumult and restored good humour. Thus early was the actress taught to dominate her audience, an art that stood her in good stead in after life.

Besides this early theatrical training, Sarah received as good an education in the ordinary rudiments of learning as it was possible for her energetic mother to obtain for her. Mrs. Kemble sent her child to respectable day schools, we are told, in the country towns to which their various wanderings brought the troupe. At Worcester, a schoolmistress of the name of Harris received her among her pupils at Thornloe House, refusing to accept any payment. An old lady, living not long ago, recalled perfectly the contempt of the young girls in the establishment for the “play actors’ daughter,” until, some private theatricals being set on foot, her histrionic taste and experience made her services extremely valuable. She won universal popularity by exhibiting a device for imitating a “sack back” with thick sugar-loaf paper procured from the grocer. But this education must have been desultory, for Roger Kemble could not afford to dispense with the girl’s assistance.

Besides the appearance mentioned above, we hear of her acting as a child, in a barn at the back of the “Old Bell Inn,” at Stourbridge, Worcestershire, when some officers quartered in the neighbourhood gave their services. It is said that she burst into laughter at the most tragic moment, and inflamed to fury the military tragedian who acted with her. The play was The Grecian Daughter. Another tradition tells us that her first appearance in a regular five-act piece was as Leonora in The Padlock.

A play-bill of one of these early performances was found not long ago, pasted on a brick wall in a shoemaker’s shop, in one of the country towns of the Kemble circuit.

Campbell tells that Roger Kemble determined not to allow his children to follow his vocation; we think, however, this statement must be bracketed with the legend of the ancestor at the battle of Worcester, for we find him, as we have seen, making Sarah appear when almost a baby, and taking John away from a day school at Worcester, while still in frock and pinafores, to act in Havard’s tragedy of Charles the First. The characters were thus cast: James, Duke of Richmond, by Mr. Siddons, who was now an actor in Kemble’s company; James, Duke of York, by Master John Kemble, who was then eleven years old; the young princess by Miss Kemble, then about thirteen; Lady Fairfax, by Mrs. Kemble. Singing between the acts by Mr. Fowler and Miss Kemble. In the April following, we again find “Mr. Kemble’s company of Comedians” appearing in “a celebrated comedy,” called The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, with all the scenery, machinery, music, monsters, and the decorations proper to be given, entirely new. “The performance will open with a representation of a tempestuous sea (in perpetual agitation), and storm, in which the usurper’s ship is wrecked; the wreck ends with a beautiful shower of fire; and the whole to conclude with a calm sea, on which appears Neptune, poetick god of the ocean, and his royal consort, Amphitrite, in a chariot drawn by sea-horses, &c. &c.” It was in this performance, as Ariel, Chief Spirit, that, at the age of thirteen, Sarah made her first success. “She darted hither and thither,” we are told, “with such airy grace; there was something so sprite-like in her free swiftness of motion, she seemed to be so entirely a creature born of the loves of a breeze and a sunbeam, that the whole audience broke into frantic applause at the end of the play, and her proud happy father began dimly to foresee his daughter’s future.”

Later, we find a performance by the company of Love in a Village announced, the names printed thus:—

• Sir William Meadows, by Mr. K—mb—le.
• Young Meadows, by Mr. S—dd—ns.
• Rosetta, by Miss K—mb—le.
• Madge, by Mrs. K—mb—le.
• Housemaid, by Miss F. K—mb—le.

In the November following, John Philip was sent to Sedgely Park near Wolverhampton, a Catholic seminary. A short entry has been discovered in the College books, stating that “John and (sic) Philip Kemble came Nov. 3rd 1767, and brought 4 suits of clothes, 12 shirts, 12 pairs of stockings, 6 pairs of shoes, 4 hats, 2 Daily Companions, a Half Manual, knives, forks, spoons, Æsop’s Fables, combs, 1 brush 8 handkerchiefs, 8 nightcaps.”

“Jack abiit, July 28, 1771.”

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.”

CHAPTER II.
MARRIAGE.

As Sarah Kemble passed from childhood to early womanhood, she continued to act the round of all the company’s plays, taking more important parts as she grew older. The very atmosphere she breathed was dramatic. To walk the stage was a second nature to her. She was not, however, at the same time shut out from common-place every-day matters. She helped her mother in the household work, and went from a rehearsal to the making of a pudding or the darning of a pair of stockings. There is little doubt that this free mixing in the simple family life of her home gave a healthy balance to her mind. Like her mother, she always kept her domestic life intact in the midst of her professional occupations, and ever remained simple and womanly. Her fine friends in later days would tell how they had found her ironing a frock for one of her children, or studying a new part while she rocked the cradle of the last baby.

At the age of sixteen, Sarah’s beauty had attracted the attention of her audiences. One or two squires of the county places they visited offered her their homage; but before she was seventeen her affections were already engaged by a member of the troupe, an ex-apprentice from Birmingham.

We have already seen the name of Siddons figuring on the Kemble play-bills, when Sarah was only thirteen years of age. We can imagine, therefore, all the opportunities that the young people had of falling in love, rehearsing together, acting together, with the continual communion of interest brought about by their profession. No wonder that even Mr. Evans, a Welsh squire, with three hundred a year, who, enslaved by Sarah’s singing of Robin, Sweet Robin, offered her his hand, was ignominiously refused. Her parents, however, took a different view, and, allured by the splendour of Mr. Evans’s offer, revoked the unwilling consent they had given to their daughter’s engagement to Siddons, and summarily dismissed him from the company.

The indignant lover had recourse to a method of revenge that seems as novel as it was ungentlemanly. Being allowed a farewell benefit, he took the opportunity—it was at Brecon—of taking the audience into his confidence, and, in doggrel of the worst description, informed them of his woes:—

Ye ladies of Brecon, whose hearts ever feel

For wrongs like to this I’m about to reveal,

Excuse the first product, nor pass unregarded

The complaints of poor Colin, a lover discarded.

Yet still on his Phyllis his hopes were all placed,

That her vows were so firm they could ne’er be effaced;

But soon she convinced him ’twas all a mere joke,

For duty rose up, and her vows were all broke.

Dear ladies, avoid one indelible stain,

Excuse me, I beg, if my verse is too plain;

But a jilt is the devil, as has long been confessed,

Which a heart like poor Colin’s must ever detest.

We only give three verses of the eleven, being as much, we think, as our readers could submit to with patience.

How a girl of any spirit could forgive a lover for thus exposing their private affairs, and how a girl of any artistic appreciation could forgive a lover such bad verses, and take him back into her good graces, is more than we can understand. Mrs. Kemble, her mother, seemed to take the most correct view of the situation, for, instead of excusing “the first product” of the luckless poet, “his merits tho’ small,” she amply rewarded with a ringing box on the ears as he left the stage.

Jones, a member of Roger Kemble’s company, preserved some verses written by Sarah to her lover, which show her to be as superior to him in taste and poetic perception, as she afterwards proved herself in dramatic power:—

Say not, Strephon, I’m untrue,

When I only think of you;

If you do but think of me

As I of you, then shall you be

Without a rival in my heart,

Which ne’er can play a tyrant’s part.

Trust me, Strephon, with thy love—

I swear by Cupid’s bow above,

Nought shall make me e’er betray

Thy passion till my dying day:

If I live, or if I die,

Upon my constancy rely.

Siddons sufficiently relied on her constancy, in spite of his statements to “ye ladies of Brecon,” to suggest to his beloved an immediate elopement, which suggestion she, as Campbell quaintly puts it, “tempering amatory with filial duty,” politely declined, and her lover left.

As it was considered advisable to wean Sarah from old associations she was sent away for a time, and lived “under the protection” of Mrs. Greatheed, of Guy’s Cliff in Warwickshire. Some have maintained that she was nursemaid or housemaid; but the terms she was on with her mistress, who presented her with a copy of Milton, precludes that idea, unless, by her smartness and industry, she, within a very short period of her engagement, worked herself into a better position. Campbell also points out that there were no children to be nursed in the Greatheed family at that time. “Her station with them,” he continues, “was humble, but not servile, and her principal employment was to read to the elder Mr. Greatheed.” The secret history of the green room informs us that she was maid to Lady Mary Bertie, Samuel Greatheed’s second wife; and the Duchess of Ancaster told Mrs. Geneste she well remembered Lady Mary once bringing this attractive attendant with her on a visit.

It was remarked that she delighted in reciting fragments of plays for the entertainment of the servants’ hall. Lord Robert Bertie was so fond of listening and admiring her declamation, that Lady Mary had to beg of him to desist, and “not encourage the girl to go on the stage.” Young Greatheed told Miss Wynn later on that he had often heard Mrs. Siddons read Macbeth when she was his mother’s maid.

Lady Mary confessed years afterwards to “Conversation” Sharp, that so queenly was the bearing of the young girl, even at that early age, that she always felt an irresistible inclination to rise from her chair when her maid came to attend her.

We can imagine the romantic girl wandering through the lonely glades, and amongst the stately elm-groves of Guy’s Cliff, or along the shores of the soft-flowing Avon, Shakespeare’s Avon, that glides at the foot of the rocks between green meadows, dreaming of her love, and reading the poet she loved so well, whose birth-place and burial-place lay so near where she was. She must have heard reminiscences told of the great Jubilee that had taken place in 1769, only three years before, when Mr. Garrick and a “brilliant company of nobility and gentry,” had come down to Stratford to celebrate the Shakesperean centenary. She little knew then that it was in a repetition of the Jubilee procession on the boards of Drury Lane she was destined to make her first bow to a London audience. There is a tradition that she met Garrick during her stay at Guy’s Cliff. It is not impossible, as, after the Jubilee, he was a constant guest of the Greatheeds. The statement hardly tallies, however, with his writing sometime later to Moody to the effect that there “was a woman Siddons” acting at Liverpool, who might suit the Drury Lane company, and asking him to go and have a look at her. He might easily, however, have failed to connect the girl Sarah Kemble with the woman Mrs. Siddons.

It redounds much to the credit both of the Greatheeds and the actress, that afterwards, in spite of the change of circumstances, Mrs. Siddons ever remained a firm friend of the family. We find Miss Berry in 1822, forty-seven years later, writing in her journal:—

“Guy’s Cliff, Tuesday, Jan. 1st.—Mrs. Siddons and her daughter arrived.

“Wednesday, 2nd.—Mrs. Siddons read Othello, the two parts of Iago and Othello, quite à merveille.”

We find Bertie Greatheed standing sponsor for her daughter Cecilia in 1794; and, greatest test of true friendship, writing a tragedy, The Regent, which failed disastrously.

In spite of stern parents and social obstacles, “Love will be ever Lord of all.” William Siddons came several times to Guy’s Cliff to see her. There, almost within sight of Shottery, where Shakespeare enacted his love story with Anne Hathaway, Sarah Kemble enacted hers. Wandering amidst the scented fields through which Shakespeare wandered, William Siddons again pleaded his cause, and was forgiven his bad verses and untimely confidences for the sake of his persistency.

The Kembles, seeing the attachment was serious, at last gave their consent, and in her nineteenth year Sarah Kemble became Mrs. Siddons.

The marriage took place at Trinity Church, Coventry, November 26th, 1773, and on the 4th of October following, the first child, Henry, was born, at Wolverhampton.

Mr. Siddons was just the man to fascinate a young and high-spirited girl. Good-looking, calm, sedate, even-tempered, not over-burdened with brain-power, and not too much will of his own. One might apply to him what Johnson said of Sheridan’s father, “He is not a bad man, no, Sir; were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand considerably within the ranks of the good.” “A damned rascally player,” the Rev. Henry Bate says forcibly, “but a civil fellow.” We are told that he had not only that invention which in provincial theatres is the first of requisites, but he also possessed the second, a quick study, in almost unequalled perfection. He could make himself master of the longest dramatic character between night and night, and deliver it with the accuracy that seems to result only from long application; but so slight was the impression made, that it escaped from his memory in as few hours as he had employed to learn it. It was said later, by members of his wife’s company, that though Siddons was a bad actor himself, he was an excellent judge, always drilling his wife, and very cross at any failure. His position as husband of the “great Mrs. Siddons,” continually cast into the shade by her superiority, was an unthankful one, but we must confess that he filled it with commendable equanimity.

Their love wore better than the tinsel finery amidst which it began. The happy domestic life that succeeded was undoubtedly a great safe-guard amidst the dangers and difficulties of her life, saving her from much that is the ruin of her less protected sisters. We are told that in the days of her success, when her would-be admirers and lovers were legion, her husband’s ear was the one to which she confided all the incidents of attempted gallantry, invariably attending an actress’s life; and many were the hearty laughs they indulged in together over them. Perhaps now and then there was too great an inclination to make use of him. We find the poor man writing to managers as their obedient humble servant, making piteous appeals to Garrick, and put forward to dun Sheridan for the amount due to his wife; but at first they seem to have shared all the trials and struggles of their profession together.

Wolverhampton was their first stage after their marriage. The reigning Mayor seems to have nourished a prejudice against all actors. He had closed the King’s Head Yard, and declared contemptuously that “neither player, puppy, nor monkey,” should perform in the town. After a popular demonstration, he was induced to rescind this harsh interdict; and by the Christmas of 1773, Roger Kemble was giving two stock dramas, The West Indian and The Padlock. Sarah appeared for the first time as Mrs. Siddons, at a farewell “Bespeak.” An address, written by herself, and spoken on this occasion, has been found and published by an inhabitant of Wolverhampton:—

Ladies and Gentlemen,—my spouse and I

Have had a squabble, and I’ll tell you why.

He said I must appear; nay, vowed ’twas right

To give you thanks for favours shown to-night.

...

He still insisted, and, to win consent,

Strove to o’ercome me with a compliment;

Told me that I the favourite here had reigned,

While he but small or no applause had gained.

“Pen me some lines where I may talk and swagger,

Of poisons, murders, done by bowl or dagger;

Or let me, with my brogue and action ready,

Give them a brush, my dear, of Widow Brady.”

...

First, for a father, who on this fair ground,

Has met with friendship seldom to be found,

May th’ All-Good Power your every virtue nourish,

Health, wealth, and trade in Wolverhampton flourish!

This doggrel is almost on a par with Mr. Siddons’s effusion to the Ladies of Brecon.

In the year following Mr. and Mrs. Siddons made their way to Cheltenham, then a town consisting of but one street, “through the middle of which ran a clear stream of water, with stepping-stones that served as a bridge.” Already, however, its merits as a watering place had been noised abroad, and some of the “people of quality” had begun to find their way there. Seeing the play of Venice Preserved announced for representation at the theatre, some of the fashionables took tickets, hoping to be highly diverted with the badness of the rustic performance. The man at the box-office, who had listened to their thoughtless remarks, reported them to Mrs. Siddons, who was to act the part of Belvidera. The young actress felt oppressed at the idea of the ordeal she was to be subjected to. Ridicule was all her life the one thing the tragic muse could not face; and from the moment of first coming on she was conscious of the antagonistic influence in one of the boxes, and imagined she heard sounds of suppressed laughter. She left the theatre after the play, deeply mortified. Next day, Mr. Siddons met Lord Aylesbury in the street, who inquired after Mrs. Siddons’s health. He then expressed his admiration of her acting the night before, and declared that the ladies of his party had wept so excessively that they were laid up with headaches. Mr. Siddons rushed home to gladden his wife’s heart with the news. The actress owed one of the truest friendships of her life to this incident, for Miss Boyle, Lord Aylesbury’s step-daughter, came to call on her the same day to express her delight in person, and from that time never allowed the intimacy to drop. This lady seems to have possessed considerable artistic gifts in several ways, having, as Campbell tells us with much emphasis, written An Ode to a Poppy, which was thought full of merit in her day. What was of more importance to the young actress, however, than her new friend’s qualifications for writing “odes” was her power of making costumes for different parts with her own hands, and her generosity in supplying “properties” from her own wardrobe. There were some, however, that even the Honourable Miss Boyle did not possess. For the male habiliments of the Widow Brady, the young actress found on the night of the performance that no provision had been made. The story goes that a gentleman politely left the box where he was seated, lent her his coat, and stood in the side-scenes with a petticoat over his shoulders until his property was restored to him. Whether this courteous individual was Lord Aylesbury we are not told, but we know that he was one of Miss Boyle’s party.

The particular fascination of Mrs. Siddons’s acting in those early days was its simplicity and pathos, which, united with remarkable beauty and power of expression, gained the hearts of all rustic audiences. Her talent, however, seems to have been singularly immature, considering the continual practice she had enjoyed, almost from her cradle, in stage affairs. Rachel reached the summit of her power at seventeen, Mrs. Siddons not until she was thirty. She herself confesses later, in the account she gives of her first reading of Macbeth: “Being then only twenty years of age, I believed, as many others do believe, that little more was necessary than to get the words into my head; for the necessity of discrimination, and the development of character, at that time of my life, had scarcely entered into my imagination.”

The power of drawing tears, however, was already hers, and rumours of the charm and beauty of the young actress had been wafted to London, reaching even the ears of the great Garrick himself. Mrs. Siddons tells us, in her Autograph Recollections: “Mr. King, by order of Mr. Garrick, who had heard some account of me from the Aylesbury family, came to Cheltenham to see me in the Fair Penitent. I knew neither Mr. King nor his purpose at the time.” Neither did she know of the second emissary whom Garrick sent, the Rev. Henry Bate, who in 1781 took the name of Dudley, and was afterwards made a canon and a baronet; a bruising, muscular clergyman of the old school, who fought duels one moment and wrote “slashing” articles on every subject, “human and divine,” the next. He was well known as a theatrical censor and critic of considerable acumen. We know him by Gainsborough’s portrait, standing in a garden with his dog. It is said that a political opponent remarked that the man wanted “execution” and the dog “hanging.” We find Garrick continually sending him on theatrical errands. We give the letters he wrote about Mrs. Siddons very nearly in their entirety, on account of their characteristic quaint humour and shrewd power of observation; and also because they to a certain degree exonerate Garrick from some of the charges brought against him by Mrs. Siddons:—

My Dear Friend,

After combatting the various difficulties of one of the cussidest cross-roads in this kingdom, we arrived safe at Cheltenham on Thursday last, and saw the theatrical heroine of that place in the character of Rosalind. Though I beheld her from the side wing of the stage (a barn about three yards over), and consequently under almost every disadvantage, I own she made so strong an impression upon me, that I think she cannot fail to be a valuable acquisition to Drury Lane. Her figure must be remarkably fine, although marred for the present. Her face (if I could judge from where I saw it) is one of the most strikingly beautiful for stage effect that I ever beheld, but I shall surprise you more when I assure you that these are nothing to her action and general stage deportment, which are remarkably pleasing and characteristic; in short, I know no woman who marks the different passages and transitions with so much variety, and at the same time propriety of expression. In the latter humbug scene with Orlando previous to her revealing herself, she did more with it than anyone I ever saw, not even your divine Mrs. Barry excepted. It is necessary after this panegyric, however, to inform you that her voice struck me at first as rather dissonant, and I fancy, from the private conversation I had with her, that in impassioned scenes it must be somewhat grating; however, as I found it wear away as the business became more interesting, I am inclined to think it only an error of affectation, which may be corrected, if not totally removed. She informed me she has been upon the stage from her cradle. This, though it surprised me, gave me the highest opinion of her judgment, to find she had contracted no strolling habits, which have so often been the bane of many a theatrical genius. She will most certainly be of great use to you, at all events, on account of the great number of characters she plays, all of which, I will venture to assert, she fills with propriety, though I have yet seen her but in one. She is, as you have been informed, a very good breeches figure, and plays in Widow Brady, I am informed, admirably. I should not wonder, from her ease, figure, and manner, if she made the proudest she of either house tremble in genteel comedy—nay, beware yourself, Great Little Man, for she plays Hamlet to the satisfaction of the Worcestershire critics.

The moment the play was over I wrote a note to her husband (who is a damned rascally player, though seemingly a very civil fellow) requesting an interview with him and his wife, intimating at the same time the nature of my business. You will not blame me for making this forced march in your favour, as I learnt that some of the Covent Garden Mohawks were intrenched near the place and intended carrying her by surprise. At the conclusion of the farce they waited upon me, and, after I had opened my commission, she expressed herself happy at the opportunity of being brought out under your eye, but declined proposing any terms, leaving it entirely with you to reward her as you thought proper.

You will perceive that at present she has all that diffidence usually the first attendant on merit; how soon the force of Drury Lane examples, added to the rising vanity of a stage heroine, may transform her, I cannot say. It happens very luckily that the company comes to Worcester for the race week, when I shall take every opportunity of seeing her, and if I find the least reason to alter my opinion (perhaps too hastily formed), you shall immediately have my recantation. My wife, whose judgment in theatrical matters I have a high opinion of, joins with me in these sentiments respecting her merit. I should have wrote to you before, but no post went out from anywhere near here but this night’s.

I shall expect to hear from you by return of the post, as Siddons will call upon me to know whether you look upon her as engaged. My wife joins me in respects to Mrs. Garrick and yourself. I remain, my dear Sir (after writing a damned jargon, I suppose, of unintelligible stuff in haste),

Ever yours most truly,

H. Bate.

Worcester, 12th August, 1775.

P.S.—Direct to me at the “Hop Pole.”

To David Garrick, Esq., Adelphi, London.

Worcester, Aug. 19th, 1775.

My Dear Friend,

I received your very friendly letter, and take the first post from hence to answer it. I found it unnecessary to make the intimation you desired to the husband, since he requires only to be employed in any manner you shall think proper; and as he is much more tolerable than I thought him at first, it may be no very difficult matter to station him so as to satisfy the man, without burdening the property. I saw him the other evening in Young Marlow in Goldsmith’s Comedy, and then he was far from despicable; neither his figure nor face contemptible. A jealousy prevailing through the theatre, upon a suspicion of their leaving them, the acting manager seems determined that I shall not see her again in any character wherein she might give me a second display of her theatrical powers. I am resolved, however, to continue the siege till they give her something capital, knowing that must speedily be the case, or the garrison must fall by famine.

She has already gone six months, so that pretty early in December she will be fit for service; as you certainly mean to open the ensuing campaign, by charging in person at the head of your lines, I conceive she will come at a very favourable crisis to take a second command, when the retreat from the field may be politically necessary. I am strongly for her first appearance in Rosalind; but you may judge better, perhaps, after a perusal of the list on the other side; the characters marked under [in italics] are those which she prefers to others:—

• Jane Shore.
• Alicia.
• Roxana.
• Grecian Daughter.
• Matilda.
• Belvidera.
• Calista.
• Monimia.
• Juliet.
• Cordelia.
• Horatia.
• Imogen.
• Marianne.
• Lady Townley.
• Portia.
• Mrs. Belville.
• Violante.
• Rosalind.
• Mrs. Strickland.
• Clarinda.
• Miss Aubrey.
• Charlotte.
• Widow Brady.

You are certainly right respecting a memorandum between you; the moment, therefore, I receive one from you, it shall be conveyed to them at Cheltenham, where they return next week, and they have promised to return me an answer immediately at Birmingham, for which place I shall set off the instant I have received your letter in any way to town, in order to conclude this business finally, and to the satisfaction of all parties. I am desired to request your answer to the three following particulars:—

1st. As they are ready to attend your summons at any time, Whether they are not to be allowed something to subsist upon when they come to town previous to her appearance?

2nd. Whether you have any objection to employ him in any situation in which you may think him likely “to be useful”?

3rd. When you chuse they should attend you?

As to the first, without you are inclined to have them at the opening of the house, perhaps her remaining in the country, in their own company, where they do very well, may ease you of some expense; but of this you must be the best judge. With respect to him, I think you can have no objection to take him upon the terms he proposes himself. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Siddons is about twenty years of age. It would be unjust not to remark one circumstance in favour of them both; I mean the universal good character they have preserved here for many years, on account of their public as well as private conduct in life. I beg you to be very particular in your answer to the three queries, and likewise expressly to mention the time you wish to see them, that they may arrange their little matters accordingly.

In a postscript he adds:—

She is the most extraordinary quick study I ever heard of. This cannot be amiss, for, if I recollect right, we have a sufficient number of the leaden-headed ones at D. Lane already.

Then come letters from Siddons, in answer to some from Bate, concluding an engagement. We can see the trembling anxiety of the young couple. “They were in much concern,” he says, “at not hearing sooner,” as from the line he had shown him in Mr. Garrick’s handwriting, he had been sure of Mrs. Siddons’s engagement. They had, in consequence, given his partners in management at Cheltenham notice of his intention to go; if anything had happened, therefore, to prevent their engagement, it would have “proved a very unlucky circumstance.” He then touches on a very necessary point—their pressing need of money to tide them over Mrs. Siddons’s expected confinement. “Mr. Garrick,” he says, “has conferred an eternal obligation by his kind offer of the cash.”

In his next letter, dated Gloucester, November 9th, 1775, he writes:—“From my former accounts of Mrs. Siddons’s time, you’ll be surprised when I tell you she is brought to bed; she was unexpectedly taken ill when performing on the stage, and early the next morning produc’d me a fine girl. They are both, thank Heaven, likely to do well; but I am afraid, Sir, notwithstanding this, I shan’t be able to leave this much sooner than the time I last mentioned.” He then alludes to twenty pounds borrowed in Garrick’s name to meet pressing demands.

This “fine girl” was Mrs. Siddons’ daughter Sarah, whose premature death later nearly broke her mother’s heart.

CHAPTER III.
“DAVEY.”

“Have you ever heard,” asked Garrick, in an unpublished letter to Moody, then at Liverpool, “of a woman Siddons, who is strolling about somewhere near you?” Four months later, by the help of the Rev. Henry Bate’s favourable report of her powers, she made her first appearance at Drury Lane. The Golden Gates of the Temple of Fame were thrown open. The young priestess had but to enter, one would have thought, and light the sacred flame; but genius is not to be bound by expediency or opportunity.

It was in 1775, the year when Garrick gave up the management, that Mrs. Siddons appeared on the boards of Drury Lane. She had reached the highest point of her ambition—she was to act with the greatest actor of his time before a dramatic audience rendered fastidious and critical by great traditions.

This is the most unfortunate portion of her life to recount. Failure and disappointment attended every step she made; and this failure and disappointment, although it did not in the least discourage her in the prosecution of her art, hurried her into bitterness and an unjust feeling of rancour against Garrick, which an examination of the circumstances of the case in no way warrants. One of the Kemble weaknesses was a proud sensitiveness to anything like slight or neglect, and these slights were as often as not phantoms of their own imaginations.

It gives one a mournful sense of injustice to see the charge of jealousy she openly brings repeated by the earlier biographer who wrote about her—when we, who have fuller light thrown upon the great actor’s life by the publication of his correspondence, know how free he was from the besetting sins of his craft. To be popular, a man must have the faults of those among whom he is placed. Garrick was called stingy because he did not throw away his money like his colleagues; stiff, because he was a moral man amidst a laxity of manners that has become proverbial; jealous, because he placed the honour of his art and his theatre above personal considerations. He was an object of envy because of his unparalleled success. The two clouds which veiled the nobility of his character—love of money and love of fine friends—vanished like mists in the sunshine if he were really called upon to help a case of distress or take notice of an old friend. These faults were harped upon, however, by Johnson, Foote, and hosts of others. Well might Garrick, in the evening of his days, sitting on the terrace of his house at Twickenham, make the, for him, bitter observation, “I have not always met gratitude in a play-house.”

It was at the time, no doubt, a salve to Mrs. Siddons’s disappointment to listen to the specious Mr. Sheridan’s insinuation of Garrick’s jealousy; but it is a curious fact, if Sheridan were sincere in his statements, that when he succeeded Garrick as manager he never endeavoured to re-engage her; indeed, on the contrary, abruptly and discourteously closed all negotiations and cancelled all agreements made both with the actress and her husband for a reappearance at Drury Lane.

We will allow the reader, however, to judge the story upon its own merits.

After the favourable reports of King and Bate, Garrick, as we have seen by the Bate letters, engaged Mrs. Siddons and her husband. The energy that afterwards distinguished her to such an extraordinary extent was now exhibited.

Although not at all strong—her eldest girl, and second child, as we have seen, having only been born on the 5th of November 1775—in the beginning of December she began making preparations for her journey to London, no joke in those days when, “starting two hours before day, or as late at night,” it took three days to reach Bristol.

Five days, Mrs. Delaney tells us, travelling over the same road the Siddons had now to face, it took to reach her father’s place in Gloucestershire. “Every half hour flop we went into a slough, not overturned, but stuck. Out we were hauled, and the coach with much difficulty was set up again.”

Full of hope and excitement, however, the young actress, accompanied by husband and babies, prepared for their expedition. No pilgrim approaching the shrine of Mecca was ever more enthusiastic than she approaching the bourne of all actors of that day, Drury Lane. Yet already, through all her delight, we hear a note of dissatisfaction that is displeasing. Garrick had arranged to give her five pounds a week, a munificent salary for a beginner in those days. Mrs. Abington and Mrs. Yates only received ten. She had heard the charge of stinginess made against him, and, parrot-like, repeated it, without really considering if in her own case it were true.

We will relate the story, however, in her own words, taken from Recollections written many years after, but full of as much bitterness as though penned while still smarting under her reverse.

“Happy to be placed where I presumptuously augured that I should do all that I have since achieved, if I could but once gain the opportunity, I instantly paid my respects to the great man. I was at that time good-looking; and certainly, all things considered, an actress well worth my poor five pounds a week. His praises were most liberally conferred upon me.” We are told by Campbell that he complimented her in this interview for not having the regular “tie-tum-tie” or sing-song of the provincial actress. “But,” she goes on, “his attentions, great and unremitting as they were, ended in worse than nothing. How was all this admiration to be accounted for consistently with his subsequent conduct? Why, thus, I believe: he was retiring from the management of Drury Lane, and, I suppose, at that time wished to wash his hands of all its concerns and details. However this may be, he always objected to my appearance in any very prominent character, telling me that Mrs. Yates and Miss Young would poison me if I did. I, of course, thought him not only an oracle but my friend; and, in consequence of his advice, Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, was fixed upon for my début, a character in which it was not likely that I should excite any great sensation. I was, therefore, merely tolerated.”

We here beg to mention that it can hardly be correct that Mrs. Siddons thought she would make no impression in Portia, as she had underlined Portia in the list she gave Mr. Bate of her favourite parts, and we find her choosing it later as the character in which to appear before Horace Walpole when desirous of propitiating the pitiless critic. But we will continue to relate the unfortunate story of this period in her own words.

“The fulsome adulation that courted Garrick in the theatre cannot be imagined; and whosoever was the luckless wight who should be honoured by his distinguished and envied smiles, of course, became an object of spite and malevolence. Little did I imagine that I myself was now that wretched victim. He would sometimes hand me from my own seat in the green-room to place me next to his own.... He also,” she goes on, “selected me to personate Venus at the revival of the Jubilee. This gained me the malicious appellation of Garrick’s ‘Venus,’ and the ladies who so kindly bestowed it on me rushed before me in the last scene, so that if he (Mr. Garrick) had not brought us forward with him with his own hands, my little Cupid and myself, whose appointed situations were in the very front of the stage, might have as well been in the Island of Paphos at that moment.”

Thomas Dibdin, the Cupid on this occasion, afterwards told Campbell that, as it was necessary for him to smile in the part of his godship, Mrs. Siddons kept him in good humour by asking him what sort of sugar-plums he liked best, and promising him a large supply of them. After the performance she kept her word. This is a characteristic trait; most young actresses under the circumstances would have been rather occupied with the effect of their own beauty on the audience than of the smiles of their Cupids.

At last the day came on which her fate was to be decided. It fell in Christmas week, 1775, and the audience present is described as “numerous and splendid.”

The following is a copy of the play-bill:—

(Not acted these two years.)
By Her Majesty’s Company at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
This day will be performed

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

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:—

“He (Garrick) promised Mr. Siddons to procure me a good engagement with the new managers, and desired him to give himself no trouble about the matter, but to put my cause entirely into his hands. He let me down, however, after all these protestations, in the most humiliating manner, and, instead of doing me common justice with those gentlemen, rather depreciated my talents. This Mr. Sheridan afterwards told me; and said that when Mrs. Abington heard of my impending dismissal, she told them they were all acting like fools. When the London season was over, I made an engagement at Birmingham for the ensuing summer, little doubting of my return to Drury Lane for the next winter; but, whilst I was fulfilling my engagement at Birmingham, to my utter dismay and astonishment, I received an official letter from the prompter of Drury Lane, acquainting me that my services would be no longer required. It was a stunning and cruel blow, overwhelming all my ambitious hopes, and involving peril even to the subsistence of my helpless babes. It was very near destroying me. My blighted prospects, indeed, induced a state of mind that preyed upon my health, and for a year and a half I was supposed to be hastening to a decline. For the sake of my poor children, however, I roused myself to shake off this despondency, and my endeavours were blest with success, in spite of the degradation I had suffered in being banished from Drury Lane as a worthless candidate for fame and fortune.”

Siddons wrote piteously to Garrick on the 9th of February 1776, soliciting his “friendship” and “endeavour” for their continuance in Drury Lane. “I account we have been doubly unfortunate at our onset in the theatre, first that particular circumstances prevented us from joining it at a proper time, and thereby rendered it impossible for us to be mingled in the business of the season, where our utility might have been more observed; second, that we are going to be deprived of you as manager, and left to those who, perhaps, may not have an opportunity this winter of observing us at all: these considerations, Sir, have occasioned this address, with hopes you will lay them before Mr. Lacy and those gentlemen your successors; and as there has been no agreement with regard to salary between you and us, it may now be necessary to propose that article, thereby to acquaint them with what we shall expect, which (as we are so young in the theatre) is no more than what we can decently subsist on and appear with some credit to the profession. That is, for Mrs. Siddons three pounds a week, for myself two; this, I flatter myself, we shall both be found worthy of for the first year; after that (as it may be presumed we shall be more experienced in our business) shall wish to rise as our merits may demand. I am, Sir, with many apologies for this freedom, your most obedient and very humble servant, Wm. Siddons.”

It shows how disastrous the effect of her acting must have been that, in spite of the smallness of their demands, Lacy, Sheridan & Co. refused to entertain their proposal.

It is a curious fact, if, as she says, the treatment she received at Garrick’s hands was unjust, that at this juncture the managers of the rival theatre of Covent Garden, who had already been in treaty with her, and thought themselves unhandsomely dealt with when Garrick secured her, did not come forward now. It is clear that the anxiety of the Covent Garden managers for her assistance was extinguished by her performance; those talents which they were ready before her appearance to contest with Garrick, they subsequently resigned without an effort to the obscurity of a strolling company. We have a curious corollary to her statement, “that Mrs. Abington told them they were all acting like fools,” in the lately published Memoirs of Crabbe Robinson, in which he relates a conversation he held in 1811 with Mrs. Abington on the subject of Mrs. Siddons. She was by no means warm, he says, in her praise. She objected to the elaborate emphasis given to very insignificant words. “That was brought in by them,” she added, with truth, alluding to the weakness of the family. Perhaps the fair Abington’s praise at first was as conclusive a sign of failure as Sheridan’s dismissal.

Good-natured Pivey Clive was more honest in saying nothing at the time; but on going with Mrs. Garrick to see her later, when she was in the heyday of her success, she pronounced the young actress, in her own characteristic fashion, to be “all truth and daylight.”

We never hear Garrick’s name mentioned again with hers, except in a note in connection with two folio Shakespeares of 1623. “In 1776,” Payne Collier says, “Garrick had presented the volume (one of the folio copies with the autographs of David Garrick and Sarah Siddons) to Mrs. Siddons as a testimony of her merits, and of his obligation.” So far Payne Collier. Another writer, commenting on this note, demonstrates that it is not likely that Garrick presented so great a treasure as the folio Shakespeare of 1623 to Mrs. Siddons, especially as the words “a testimony of her merits and his obligation” was an addition of Payne Collier. He then relates the circumstances of her first appearance. Garrick, he says, amongst other things, noticed some awkward action of her arms, and said “if she waved them about in that fashion she would knock off his wig,” upon which she retorted to the person who told her, “He was only afraid I should overshadow his nose.” A mutual feeling not likely to lead to such a gift. It would be interesting, therefore, to know through what hands the volume passed from Garrick to Mrs. Siddons, and from Mrs. Siddons to Lilly the bookseller. With the great actor’s wife she was afterwards on terms of friendship; and when Mrs. Garrick died, she left her in her will a pair of gloves which were Shakespeare’s, “and were presented to my late dear husband by one of the family during the Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon.” And so “Davey” vanishes from her life.

CHAPTER IV.
WORK.

The rebuff she had sustained at Drury Lane called out all that was finest in Mrs. Siddons’ nature. The blow had been “stunning and cruel,” as she says; but the resolute valiant nature she had inherited from her mother soon reasserted itself. In spite of delicate health, which Wilkinson, who acted with her in Evander, feared “might disable her from sustaining the fatigues of duty,” we find her moving from place to place, unintermitting in study, attaining a step higher each new representation she essayed, persistently raising her audience to her level, not descending to theirs.

She no longer led the “vagabond” life of her early strolling days, but still one of constant anxiety and unrest. The young actress returned to the provinces with the prestige of having acted with the great Garrick, and of having even excited the jealousy of “Roscius” by her dramatic power—a report industriously circulated by her friends and managers, and, no doubt, confirmed by the actress herself. So unconsciously does self-interest colour our opinions.

In saying that she no longer led the “vagabond” life of her early days, we mean that instead of wandering, as strolling players were obliged to do, from town to town, trusting to the chances of the hour, pitching their tent in a barn or an inn, and trusting to the caprice and humours of the public officials of the places they came to, she now secured fixed engagements at the best provincial theatres, which, owing to the difficulties and expenses of a journey to London, were attended during the season by many of the county magnates, and the lesser stars following and surrounding the brighter planets.

Bath stood at the head of these provincial theatres. York, Hull, Manchester, Hereford, Liverpool, Worcester, and many others came next in order of merit.

The first engagement she received on quitting Drury Lane was at Birmingham, where she remained the whole summer of 1776, acting parts of the highest standing. Here she enjoyed the privilege of having Henderson as coadjutor, who, Campbell tells us, was so struck by her merits, that he wrote immediately to Palmer, the manager of the Bath Theatre, urging him in the strongest terms to engage her. Palmer was unable to follow this advice just then, but did so later.

The only direct communication we have from her during this time of work and struggle is a letter to Mrs. Inchbald, whose friendship with the Kembles had begun in 1776. Charges were, indeed, “tremendous circumstances” to her who, at the best of times in those early days, only enjoyed a salary of three pounds a week. Her observations about “exotics” are amusing, she herself figuring so largely later in that character, to the dread of all provincial actresses:—

“I played Hamlet in Liverpool, to near a hundred pounds, and wish I had taken it to myself; but the fear of charges, which, you know, are most tremendous circumstances, persuaded me to take part of a benefit with Barry, for which I have since been very much blamed; but he, I believe, was very much satisfied—and, in short, so am I. Strange resolutions are formed in our theatrical ministry; one of them I think very prudent—this little rogue Harry is chattering to such a degree, I scarce know what I am about. [Her eldest boy was then four.] But to proceed: Our managers have determined to employ no more exotics; they have found that Miss Yonge’s late visit to us (which you must have heard of) has rather hurt than done them service; so that Liverpool must, from this time forth, be content with such homely fare as we small folks can furnish to its delicate sense.... Present our kind compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson, and tell the former I never mention his name but I wish to be regaling with him over a pinch of his most excellent Irish snuff, which I have never had a snift of but in idea since I left York.” It is difficult to conceive the divine Melpomene taking snuff, though she did so all her life; but in that day it was the fashion for everyone to snuff.

Early in 1777 she played at Manchester, where she made so great an impression that the shrewd and enterprising Tate Wilkinson, lessee of the York Theatre, offered her an engagement. Her range of characters now included “the Grecian Daughter,” Alicia, Jane Shore, Matilda, Lady Townley—all the tearful dramas of the day, which the young actress brought into fashion instead of the artificial comedy of the preceding age. At Manchester, we are astonished to hear, one of her most applauded characters was Hamlet.

Her playing this great play in strolling days, as Mr. Bate tells us, “was most likely only a girlish freak.” Her acting it now shows that she was cultivating her dramatic genius in every direction, working out of the restricted domain of Jane Shore, the Grecian Daughter, and Calista, no longer content to move her audience by her pathos and grace, but determined to bring them to her feet by her intellectual power. It is curious that, though many years afterwards she acted it in Dublin, she never could be persuaded to appear in it in London. Her dislike to anything approaching male attire was almost morbid, and even in Rosalind she vastly amused the town by her costume—“mysterious nondescript garments,” that were neither male nor female, devised to satisfy a prudery which in such a character was wholly out of place.

At York, where Mrs. Siddons acted for Tate Wilkinson, the manager, from Easter to Whitsuntide 1777, she enjoyed an unequivocal success. “All lifted up their eyes with astonishment that such a voice, such a judgment, and such acting, should have been neglected by a London audience, and by the first actor in the world!”—another hit at Garrick made by Wilkinson, who, generously aided by Garrick at the beginning of his career, had turned against his benefactor, and never missed an opportunity of detracting from his merits.

The most critical local censors were lavish in their praise, though all remarked “how ill and pale she was, and wondered how she got through her parts.” She acted the round of her characters. Her attitudes and figure were vastly admired; she was thought “so elegant.” Wilkinson endeavoured to secure her permanently as a member of his company, and in his Memoirs tells how he endeavoured to tempt her by fine clothes, providing for one of her parts a most “elegant sack-back, all over silver trimmings.” He did not understand any more than Garrick the nature of the woman with whom he had to deal. On the 17th May she acted Semiramis for her benefit, and the York season closed. Palmer, of the Bath Theatre, had not forgotten Henderson’s strong recommendation, and, finding at last an opening, he concluded an engagement with her.

Bath was first in importance among the provincial theatres. The audience, indeed, was very largely composed of the London “fashionables,” who came to drink the waters; no “sack-backs,” therefore, “all over silver trimmings,” were allowed to interfere with her determination, for, although in her petulant moments she was wont to declare that she preferred the country, and had been treated so cruelly in London she never would play there again, in her heart she was resolved to rule supreme on those boards she had once trod with Garrick.

“I now made an engagement at Bath,” she says in her Memoranda. “There my talents and industry were encouraged by the greatest indulgence, and, I may say, with some admiration. Tragedies which had been almost banished, again resumed their proper interest; but still I had the mortification of being obliged to personate many subordinate characters in comedy, the first being, by contract, in the possession of another lady. To this I was obliged to submit, or to forfeit a portion of my salary, which was only three pounds a week. Tragedies were now becoming more and more fashionable. This was favourable to my cast of powers; and, whilst I laboured hard, I began to earn a distinct and flattering reputation. Hard labour, indeed, it was! for, after the rehearsal at Bath, and on a Monday morning, I had to go and act at Bristol on the evening of the same day, and reaching Bath again, after a drive of twelve miles, I was obliged to represent some fatiguing part there on the Tuesday evening. When I recollect all this labour of mind and body, I wonder that I had strength and courage to support it, interrupted as I was by the care of a mother, and by the childish sports of my little ones, who were often most unwillingly hushed to silence for interrupting their mother’s studies.”

From the pages of Horace Walpole, Mrs. Montagu, and Fanny Burney, we can bring the Pan-tiles of Tunbridge Wells or the parade at Bath, with their periwigs, powder-patches, and scandal, distinctly before us. Let us stand for a moment on the parade, and watch the noteworthy people, muses, poets, statesmen, who have assembled there, in 1778, to drink the water. Royal dukes and princesses might be seen sauntering about, playing whist and E. O. in the evening, and taking “three glasses of water, a toasted roll, a Bath cake, and a cold walk in the mornings.” Next to them, the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire, loveliest of the lovely, gayest of the gay, attracts most notice. Her dazzling beauty, and those eyes the Irish labourer at the Fox Election said he could light his pipe at, are said to have taken away the readiness of hand and happiness of touch of the young painter “reported to have some talent,” named Gainsborough, while painting her this year at Bath.

After the Queen of Beauty comes the Queen of the Blues, Mrs. Montagu, “brilliant in clothes, solid in judgment, critical in talk, with the air and manner of a woman accustomed to being distinguished and of great parts.” She writes in her letters of hating “ye higgledy-piggledy of the watering-places,” but seems happy enough combating for precedence “with the only other candidate for colloquial eminence” she thought worthy to be her peer—short, plump, brisk Mrs. Thrale; on the one side a placid, high-strained intellectual exertion, on the other an exuberant pleasantry, without the smallest malice in either. All the “Johnsonhood,” as Horace Walpole calls the circle, musters round the two brilliant ladies, the Great Bear in the centre, for he and Boswell are stopping at the Pelican Inn. The conversation turns on Evelina, the universal topic of the day; Johnson declaring he had sat up all night to read it, much to Fanny Burney’s delight, who, thirsting for flattery, sits with observant eyes and sarcastic little mouth, that belies the prudishly-folded hands and prim air. Moving about from group to group is the brilliant Sheridan, walking with his father and wife, and surrounded by the Linley family, to whom the lovely Cecilia is recounting the honours heaped on them in London.

Unnoticed among all these great people is a little lame Scottish boy, destined to be the greatest of them all. Mrs. Siddons most likely saw and knew the little fellow then, who afterwards became so true a friend, for Walter Scott, in his autobiography, tells us he was frequently taken to Bath for his lameness, and, after he had bathed in the morning, got through a reading-lesson at the old dame’s near the parade, and had had a drive over the downs, his uncle would sometimes take him to the old theatre. On one occasion, witnessing As You Like It, his interest was so great that, in the middle of the wrestling scene in the first act, he screamed out, “A’n’t they brothers?”

Amongst this “higgledy-piggledy,” we are suddenly struck by a beautiful young creature, whose arrival seems to cause a flutter among the fashionables. She is accompanied by a handsome fair man and two beautiful children. This is the new actress who is turning every head. From Lawrence’s coloured crayon drawing, done of her during this stay at Bath, we can form a distinct idea of what she was like. He has drawn her three-quarter face, black velvet hat and plume, white muslin cavalier tie, brown riding spencer with big buttons and lappels turned back. Under the shadow of the hat is the refined, noble face, with delicate, arched eye-brows, aquiline nose, finely modelled mouth, and round cleft chin. She is not yet the tragic muse of Reynolds, nor the full-orbed, fashionable beauty of Gainsborough, but a lovely young Diana, with frank, large, out-looking eyes, and a pretty air of defiance and resolution, the brightness undimmed by the anxiety and hard work of later days; the young beauty is evidently determined to conquer the universe.

It was a world strangely at issue with her own ideas into which she had stepped—a dandified, ceremonious world, full of witty and wicked ladies and gentlemen, who played cards and backed horses; but, mercifully for her, a world at the same time full of childish enthusiasm, an age of pallor and fainting and hysterics. Grown men and women sitting up at night weeping and laughing over the woes and escapades of Clarissa Harlowe and Evelina; ladies writing to Richardson: “Pray, Sir, make Lovelace happy; you can so easily do it. Pray reform him! Will you not save a soul?”

The same vivid interest was taken in dramatic situations. It was a common thing for women—and, indeed, men also—to be carried out fainting; and as to the crying and sobbing, it was generally audible all over the house. In a pathetic piece, Miss Burney describes two young ladies, who sat in a box above her, being both so much shocked at the death of Douglas that “they both burst into a loud fit of roaring, and sobbed on afterwards for almost half the farce.” Needless to say, therefore, the enthusiasm a beautiful young actress like Mrs. Siddons would create. It was not, however, immediate; she was obliged, as we have seen, to personate subordinate characters, and was obliged to act in comedy that did not suit her.

Thursdays were the nights of the Cotillon balls at Bath, and of the assemblies at Lady Miller’s, of Bath Easton vase celebrity, which are alluded to by Horace Walpole: “They hold a Parnassus fair every Thursday, before the balls, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman vase, dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival. Six judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest compositions, which the respective successful ten candidates acknowledge.”

These events always emptied the theatre, and it was one of the young actress’s grievances that for a time she was put forward—no doubt owing to the claims of the leading ladies—on these occasions. Gradually, however, her attraction increased, and on various occasions she succeeded in drawing the frequenters of the balls to the theatre. She brought tragedies into fashion, and in The Mourning Bride, Juliet, the Queen in Hamlet, Jane Shore, Isabella, succeeded in gaining the suffrages of her Bath audience.

We find the “tonish” young men, on the occasion of her benefit, presenting her with sixty guineas “in order to secure tickets, as they were afraid the demand for them would be so great by-and-bye.” “Was it not elegant?” she asks. One of these benefits produced to her one hundred and forty-six pounds—a handsome sum in those days. Before two years of her four years’ stay at Bath had elapsed, we see her the favourite and friend of all the great people in the place. The Duchess of Devonshire showed her particular favour; and subsequently, when her engagement at Drury Lane hung in the balance, threw the weight of her influence, which was supreme, into the scale.

We cannot help remarking, in spite of the accusations so frequently brought against her of her love of fine friends, that those who clustered about her in those early Bath days occupied the same position in her heart thirty years later. One of these, a Dr. Whalley, and his wife, were true and devoted friends all her life, and her letters to him contribute some of the most valuable materials we have for writing her life. Dr. Thomas Sedgwick Whalley was a gentleman of taste and good income, derived from his own private estates, and the rich stipend of an unwholesome Lincolnshire living, which a kind-hearted bishop had given him on condition he never resided on it. He enjoyed some literary celebrity as the author of a long narrative poem, Edwy and Edilda. He occupied one of the finest houses on the Crescent; was intimate with Mrs. Piozzi; corresponded with the voluminous letter-writer, Miss Seward; and was, in fact, a fine specimen of the dilettante gentleman of the old school.

Little Burney’s sharp-pointed pen describes Whalley exactly:

One of the clergymen was Mr. W⸺, a young man who has a house on the Crescent, and is one of the best supporters of Lady Miller’s vase at Bath Easton. He is immensely tall, thin, and handsome, but affected, delicate, and sentimentally pathetic; and his conversation about his own “feelings,” about “amiable motives,” and about the wind—which, at the Crescent, he said in a tone of dying horror, “blew in a manner really frightful!”—diverted me the whole evening. But Miss Thrale, not content with private diversion, laughed out at his expressions, till I am sure he perceived and understood her merriment.

Later she mentions:—

In the evening we had Mrs. Lambart, who brought us a tale called Edwy and Edilda, by the sentimental Mr. Whalley, and unreadably soft and tender and senseless is it.

He was of the soft and tender school; Miss Seward’s heart “vibrates to every sentence of his last charming letter”; they indulge in the “communication of responsive ideas”; and on leaving Bath she thus addresses him:—

Edwy, farewell! To Lichfield’s darkened grove,

With aching heart and rising sighs, I go.

Yet bear a grateful spirit as I rove,

For all of thine which balm’d a cureless woe.

We cannot tell whether the “communication of responsive ideas” with so many fair ladies aroused Mrs. Whalley’s jealousy ultimately, or whether incompatibility of temper was the cause, but in 1819 Mrs. Piozzi writes:—

I hear wondrous tales of Doctor and Mrs. Whalley; half the town saying he is the party aggrieved, and the other half lamenting the lady’s fate. Two wiseacres sure, old acquaintances of forty years’ standing, and both past seventy years old!

When Mrs. Siddons first knew them at Bath, there was evidently nothing of that sort. She writes to him from Bristol:—

“I cannot express how much I am honoured by your friendship; therefore you must not expect words, but as much gratitude as can inhabit the bosom of a human being. I hope, with a fervency unusual upon such occasions, that you will not be disappointed in your expectations of me to-night; but sorry am I to say I have often observed that I have performed worst when I most ardently wished to do better than ever. Strange perverseness! And this leads me to observe—as I believe I may have done before—that those who act mechanically are sure to be in some sort right; while we who trust to nature—if we do not happen to be in the humour (which, however, Heaven be praised! seldom happens)—are dull as anything can be imagined, because we cannot feign. But I hope Mrs. Whalley will remember that it was your commendations which she heard, and judge of your praises by the benevolent heart from which they proceed, more than as standards of my deserving. Luckily I have been able to procure places in the front row, next to the stage-box, on the left-hand of you as you go in. These, I hope, will please you.”

Meantime, Henderson, who had before so strongly recommended her to the Bath manager, came down for one or two nights and acted Benedict to her Beatrice; returned to London so full of her praises that the managers of Drury Lane made her the offer of an engagement in the summer of 1782. “After my former dismissal from thence,” she says later in her Memoranda, “it may be imagined that this was to me a triumphant moment.”

At the same time, she was loth to leave her appreciative friends at Bath, and, curiously enough, hesitated at the last moment about accepting; so that Whalley’s congratulatory poem on her engagement at Drury Lane, contributed to Lady Miller’s “Roman Vase,” was a little premature. At last, however, her departure was formally announced, and she took her farewell benefit. She acted in the Distressed Mother and The Devil to Pay, and then came forward and recited some lines of her own composition, of which we give the reader only a short sample, as the “Virgin Muse” does not soar very high:—

Have I not raised some expectation here?

“Wrote by herself? What! authoress and player?

True, we have heard her”—thus I guess’d you’d say—

“With decency recite another’s lay;

But never heard, nor ever could we dream,

Herself had sipp’d the Heliconian stream.”

Perhaps you farther said—Excuse me, pray,

For thus supposing all that you might say—

“What will she treat of in this same address?

Is it to show her learning? Can you guess?”

Here let me answer: No. Far different views

Possess’d my soul, and fired my virgin Muse.

’Twas honest gratitude, at whose request

Sham’d be the heart that will not do its best!

She then informs them they must part; that, if only she meets as much kindness elsewhere,

Envy, o’ercome, will hurl her pointless dart,

And critic gall be shed without its smart.

Nothing would drag her from Bath, she says, but one thing; here she went to the wing and led forward her children:—

These are the moles that bear me from your side,

Where I was rooted—where I could have died.

The moles now numbered three, her second daughter and third child, Maria, having been born on 1st July 1779.

Stand forth, ye elves! and plead your mother’s cause,

Ye little magnets, whose soft influence draws

Me from a point where every gentle breeze

Wafted my bark to happiness and ease—

Sends me adventurous on a larger main,

In hopes that you may profit by my gain.

Have I been hasty? Am I, then, to blame?

Answer, all ye who own a parent’s name!

Thus have I tired you with an untaught muse,

Who for your favour still most humbly sues;

That you for classic learning will receive

My soul’s best wishes, which I freely give—

For polished periods round, and touched with art,

The fervent offering of my grateful heart.

So Mrs. Siddons made her bow. When she next appeared at Bath it was as the greatest tragic actress then on the stage.

Towards the end of August, she set out determined to make her way slowly to London, acting at various country theatres as she went along. Her letters written to the Whalleys are full of fun, and show she had the pen of a ready writer.

“You will be pleased to hear,” she says, “that Mrs. Carr was very civil to me—gave me a comfortable bed, and I slept very well. We were five of us in the machine, all females but one, a youth of about sixteen, and the most civilized being you can conceive—a native of Bristol, too.

“One of the ladies was, I believe verily, a little insane. Her dress was the most peculiar, and manner the most offensive, I ever remember to have met with; her person was taller and more thin than you can imagine; her hair raven black, drawn as tight as possible over her cushion before and behind; and at the top of her head was placed a solitary fly-cap of the last century, composed of materials of about twenty sorts, and as dirty as the ground; her neck, which was a thin scrag of a quarter of a yard long, and the colour of a walnut, she wore uncovered, for the solace of all beholders; her Circassian was an olive-coloured cotton of three several sorts, about two breadths wide in the skirt, and tied up exactly in the middle in one place only. She had a black petticoat spotted with red, and over that a very thin white muslin one, with a long black gauze apron, and without the least hoop. I never in my life saw so odd an appearance; and my opinion was not singular, for wherever we stopped she inspired either mirth or amazement, but was quite innocent of it herself. On taking her seat among us at Bristol, she flew into a violent passion on seeing one of the windows down. I said I would put it up, if she pleased. ‘To be sure,’ said she; ‘I have no ambition to catch my death!’ No sooner had she done with me, but she began to scold the woman who sat opposite to her for touching her foot. ‘You have not been used to riding in a coach, I fancy, good woman.’ She met in this lady a little more spirit than she found in me, and we were obliged to her for keeping this unhappy woman in tolerable order for the remainder of the day. Bless me! I had almost forgot to tell you that I was desired to make tea at breakfast. Vain were my endeavours to please this strange creature. She had desired to have her tea in a basin, and I followed her directions as near as it was possible in the making her tea; but she had no sooner tasted it than she bounced to the window and threw it out, declaring she had never met with such a set of awkward, ill-bred people. What could be expected in a stage-coach, indeed? She snatched the canister from me, poured a great quantity into the basin, with sugar, cream, and water, and drank it all together. Did you ever hear of anything so strange? When we sat down to dinner, she seemed terrified to death lest anybody should eat but herself.

“The remaining part of our journey was made almost intolerable by her fretfulness. One minute she was screaming out lest the coachman should overturn us; she was sure he would, because she would not give him anything for neglecting to keep her trunk dry; and, though it was immoderately hot, we were obliged very often to sit with the windows up, for she had been told that the air was pestilential after sunset, and that, however people liked it, she did not choose to hazard her life by sitting with the windows open. All were disposed, for the sake of peace, to let her have her own way, except the person whom we were really obliged to for quieting her every now and then. She had been handsome, but was now, I suppose, sixty years old. I pity her temper, and am sorry for her situation, which I have set down as that of a disappointed old maid.