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.
“At about seven o’clock we arrived at Dorchester. On my stepping out
of the coach, a gentleman very civilly gave me his hand. Who should it
be but Mr. Siddons! who was come on purpose to meet me. He was very
well, and the same night I had the pleasure of seeing my dear boy, more
benefited by the sea than can be conceived. He desires me to thank Mr.
Whalley for the fruit, which he enjoyed very much. We have got a most
deplorable lodging, and the water and the bread are intolerable; ‘but
travellers must be content.’ Mr. Whalley was so good as to be interested
about my bathing. Is there anything I could refuse to do at his or your
request? I intend to bathe to-morrow morning, cost what pain it will. I
expected to have found more company here.
“I went to Dorchester yesterday to dine with Mr. Beach, who is on a visit
to a relation, and has been laid up with the gout, but is recovering very
fast. He longs to see Langford, and I am anxious to have him see it. I
suppose Mr. Whalley has heard when Mr. Pratt comes. [Mr. Pratt was a Bath
bookseller who had given her lessons in elocution; and afterwards, when
she was not allowed by the manager of Drury Lane to act in his tragedy,
declared he would write an ode on Ingratitude and dedicate it to her.]
Pray present the kindest wishes of Mr. Siddons, little Harry, and myself.
I hope Mr. Whalley will do me the favour to choose the ribbon for my
watch-string. I should like it as near the colour of little dear Paphy’s
ear as possible. I did not very well comprehend what Lady Mary (Knollys)
said about the buckles. Will you please to give her my respectful
compliments, and say I beg her pardon for having deferred speaking to her
on that subject to so awkward a time, but hope my illness the last day I
had the honour of seeing her ladyship will be my excuse. I hope I shall
be favoured with a line from you, and that her ladyship will explain
herself more fully then. Harry has just puzzled me very much. When going
to eat some filberts after dinner, I told him you desired he would not
eat them; ‘But,’ says he, ‘what would you have done if Mr. Whalley had
desired you would?’ I was at a stand for a little while, and at last he
found a means to save me from my embarrassment by saying, ‘But you know
Mr. Whalley would not desire you to eat them if he thought they would
hurt you.’ ‘Very true, Harry,’ says I; so it ended there.”
The following shows that the engagement with the London manager was not
yet completely ratified; she was probably standing out for better terms,
which he was not inclined to give.
“I look forward with inexpressible delight to our snug parties, and
I have the pleasure to inform you that I shall not go to London this
winter. Mr. Linley thinks my making a partial appearance will neither
benefit myself nor the proprietors. Mrs. Crawford threatens to leave them
very often, he says, but I suppose she knows her own interest better.
I should suppose she has a very good fortune, and I should be vastly
obliged to her if she would go and live very comfortably upon it. I’ll
give her leave to stay and be of as much service to my good and dear
friend’s tragedy as she possibly can, and then let her retire as soon
as she pleases. I hope I shall not tire you; Mr. Siddons is afraid I
shall, and in compliance to him (who, with me, returns his grateful
acknowledgments for all your kindnesses), I conclude with, I hope, an
unnecessary assurance, that I am ever your grateful and affectionate
servant, S. SIDDONS.
“P.S.—Please to present our joint compliments to Mr. Whalley, Mrs.
Whalley, and Miss Squire, and, in short, the whole circle, not forgetting
Mrs. Reeves, to whom I am much obliged. In an especial manner, I beg
to be remembered to the cruel beauty, Sappho. She knows her power, and
therefore treats me like a little tyrant. Adieu! God for ever bless you
and yours! The beach here is the most beautiful I ever saw.”
She alludes above to Whalley’s tragedy _Morval_, which was acted later
with her as heroine. It was a complete failure, and was only performed
three nights.
Mrs. Siddons became fond of Weymouth, and often returned there in after
years. Miss Burney, in her _Memoirs_, tells us of being there once on
duty with the King and Royal Family. They met the actress, who made
a sweeping curtsey, walking on the sands with her children. The King
commanded a performance at the theatre, but the Royal Family having
gone away on an expedition, did not get back in time, and kept everyone
waiting. The King and Queen arriving at last, sent a page home for their
wigs, so as not to keep the audience waiting any longer.