FRIENDS.
Needless to say that in those days, when genius was worshipped and the
entrance to the most exclusive circles of society accorded to talent of
every description, the social homage paid to Mrs. Siddons was of the most
enthusiastic description, passing sometimes the bounds of good taste. The
door of the lodgings she occupied in the Strand the first year she acted
was soon beset by various persons quite unknown to her, some of whom
actually forced their way into her drawing-room, in spite of remonstrance
or opposition.
This was as inconvenient as it was offensive; for as she usually acted
three times a week, and had, besides, to attend the rehearsals, she had
but little time to spend unnecessarily. None were more capable, however,
than she of keeping vulgar curiosity at a respectful distance. She gives
us a comic account of an interview that took place between her and some
of these intrusive individuals:—
“One morning, though I had previously given orders not to be interrupted,
my servant entered the room in a great hurry, saying, ‘Ma’am, I am very
sorry to tell you there are some ladies below who say they must see you,
and it is impossible for me to prevent it. I have told them over and over
again that you are particularly engaged, but all in vain, and now, Ma’am,
you may actually hear them on the stairs.’ I felt extremely indignant at
such unparalleled impertinence, and, before the servant had done speaking
to me, a tall, elegant, invalid-looking person presented herself (whom, I
am afraid, I did not receive very graciously), and after her four more,
in slow succession. A very awkward silence took place. Presently the
first lady spoke. ‘You must think it strange,’ she said, ‘to see a person
entirely unknown to you intrude in this manner upon your privacy; but,
you must know, I am in a very delicate state of health, and my physician
won’t let me go to the theatre to see you, so I am come to look at you
here.’ She accordingly sat down to look, and I to be looked at, for a
few painful moments, when she arose and apologised.” There is something
awful that sends a cold shiver through us as the Tragic Muse tells us,
“I was in no humour to overlook such insolence, and so let her depart in
silence.” We can picture her contemptuous scorn under the circumstances.
But it was not only in her own home she had to pay the penalty of fame;
the theatre was mobbed outside every evening by a crowd anxious to see
her walk across the pavement to her carriage; her dresses were copied,
and the dressmakers to whom she went were importuned to make for all
the fashionable ladies. Not only in these early days, but all her life,
Mrs. Siddons kept a position unexampled for one of her profession. The
house she occupied in Gore Street during her second season was, when
she entertained, filled with all that was brilliant in literature and
fashion; and later at Westbourne Cottage, and when she was in Pall Mall,
Campbell tells us of rows of “coaches and chairs” standing outside her
door. Invitations to most of the great houses in London poured in upon
her, and she herself gives a comic account of the manner in which she was
mobbed by her fashionable devotees at an assembly at the erratic Miss
Monkton’s (afterwards Lady Cork), one of the “Blues” who made oddity of
dress, appearance, and manner a study, and the running after “notorious
folk” a science.
The young actress had steadily declined many invitations, feeling that
the moments snatched from her profession ought to be devoted to the care
of her children. Miss Monkton, however, insisted on her coming one Sunday
evening, assuring her that there would only be some half-a-dozen friends
to meet her.
“The appointed Sunday evening came. I went to her very nearly in undress,
at the early hour of eight, on account of my little boy, whom she desired
me to bring with me, more for effect, I suspect, than for his _beaux
yeux_. I found with her, as I had been taught to expect, three or four
ladies of my acquaintance; and the time passed in agreeable conversation,
till I had remained much longer than I had apprehended.
“I was, of course, preparing speedily to return home, when incessantly
repeated thunderings at the door, and the sudden influx of such a throng
of people as I had never before seen collected in any private house,
counteracted every attempt that I could make for escape. I was therefore
obliged, in a state of indescribable mortification, to sit quietly down
till I know not what hour in the morning; but for hours before my
departure the room I sat in was so painfully crowded that the people
absolutely stood on the chairs, round the walls, that they might look
over their neighbours’ heads to stare at me; and if it had not been for
the benevolent politeness of Mr. Erskine, who had been acquainted with my
arrangement, I know not what weakness I might have been surprised into,
especially being tormented, as I was, by the ridiculous interrogations
of some learned ladies who were called ‘Blues,’ the meaning of which
title I did not at that time appreciate; much less did I comprehend the
meaning of the greater part of their learned talk. These profound ladies,
however, furnished much amusement to the town for many weeks after—nay, I
believe I might say for the whole winter. Glad enough was I at length to
find myself at peace in my own bed-chamber.”
Dr. Doran makes this scene take place at Mrs. Montagu’s; but besides
the victim’s own account of this remarkable evening, that gives such a
picture of the times, we have those of Cumberland and of Miss Burney.
Cumberland, in the _Observer_, disguising the people under feigned names,
tells us:—
I now joined a cluster of people who had crowded round an
actress who sat upon a sofa leaning on her elbow in a pensive
attitude, and seemed to be counting the sticks of her fan,
whilst they were vieing with each other in the most extravagant
encomiums.
“You were adorable last night in Belvidera,” says a pert young
parson with a high toupée. “I sat in Lady Blubber’s box, and I
can assure you she, and her daughters, too, wept most bitterly.
But then that charming mad scene—but, by my soul, it was a
_chef d’œuvre_! Pray, Madam, give me leave to ask you, was you
really in your senses?”
“I strove to do it as well as I could,” answered the actress.
“Do you intend to play comedy next season?” says a lady,
stepping up to her with great eagerness.
“I shall do as the manager bids me,” she replied.
“I should be curious to know,” says an elderly lady, “which
part, Madam, you yourself esteem the best you play?”
“I shall always endeavour to make that which I am about the
best.”
An elegant and enchanting young woman of fashion now took her
turn of interrogating, and, with many apologies, begged to
be informed by her if she studied those enchanting looks and
attitudes before a glass?
“I never study anything but my author.”
“Then you practise them at rehearsals?” rejoined the questioner.
“I seldom rehearse at all.”
“She has fine eyes,” says a tragic poet to an eminent painter.
Vanessa now came up, and, desiring leave to introduce a young
muse to Melpomene, presented a girl in a white frock, with a
fillet of flowers tied round her hair, which hung down her back
in flowing curls. The young muse made a low obeisance, and,
with the most unembarrassed voice and countenance, whilst the
poor actress was covered in blushes, and suffering torture from
the eyes of all in the room, broke forth as follows:—
“O thou, whom Nature calls her own,
Pride of the stage and favourite of the town!”
Miss Burney, who was present, also contributes her account of what took
place:—
My father and I were both engaged to Miss Monckton’s; so was
Sir Joshua, who accompanied us. We found Mrs. Siddons, the
actress, there. She is a woman of excellent character, and,
therefore, I am very glad she is thus patronised, since Mrs.
Abington, and so many frail fair ones, have been thus noticed
by the great. She behaved with great propriety, very calm,
modest, quiet, and unaffected. She has a very fine countenance,
and her eyes look both intelligent and soft. She has, however,
a steadiness in her manner and deportment by no means engaging.
Mrs. Thrale, who was there, said:
“Why, this is a leaden goddess we are all worshipping; however,
we shall soon gild it.”
A lady who sat near me then began a dialogue with Mr. Erskine,
who had placed himself exactly opposite to Mrs. Siddons, and
they debated together upon her manner of studying her parts,
disputing upon the point with great warmth, yet not only
forbearing to ask Mrs. Siddons herself which was right, but
quite overpowering her with their loquacity when she attempted,
unasked, to explain the matter. Most vehement praise of all she
did followed, and the lady turned to me and said:
“What invitation, Miss Burney, is here for genius to display
itself? Everybody, I hear, is at work for Mrs. Siddons; but if
you would work for her, what an inducement to excel you would
both of you have. Dr. Burney⸺”
“Oh, pray, Madam,” cried I, “don’t say to him⸺”
“Oh, but I will. If my influence can do you any mischief you
may depend upon having it.”
She then repeated what she had said to my father, and he
instantly said:
“Your ladyship may be sure of my interest.”
I whispered afterwards to know who she was, and heard she was
Lady Lucan.[1]
It is amusing to see how conceited Fanny Burney always must turn every
incident to herself. When she did work for Mrs. Siddons, the play was
received with roars of laughter, and acted but one night.
We find a clue in the above description to Mrs. Siddons’s unpopularity.
Little Burney, with the frizzled head, and Mrs. Thrale, who “skipped
about like a young kid, all vivacity and sprightliness,” could not
understand the “steadiness in her manner,” and her dignified way of
checking intrusive admirers. No one appreciated admiration and love from
her intimate friends more than Mrs. Siddons, but to the adoration of
general society she was icy cold.
Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently went to see her act, and she was a welcome
guest at the house in Leicester Fields.
“He approved,” she writes, “very much of my costumes, and of my hair
without powder, which at that time was used in great profusion, with
a reddish brown tint, and a great quantity of pomatum, which, well
kneaded together, modelled the fair ladies’ tresses into large curls like
demi-cannon. My locks were generally braided into a small compass, so as
to ascertain the size and shape of my head, which to a painter’s eye was,
of course, an agreeable departure from the mode. My short waist, too, was
to him a pleasing contrast to the long stiff stays and hoop petticoats
which were then the fashion, even on the stage, and it obtained his
unqualified approbation. He always sat in the orchestra; and in that
place were to be seen—O glorious constellation!—Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan,
and Windham.”
It was at Reynolds’s she first met Edmund Burke. The story goes that
she was reading Milton for the benefit of the company, when she heard
the great orator’s deep melodious tones repeat, as she closed the book,
the lines beginning with “The angel ceased.” That wonderful face, full
of fiery power, was to be seen amongst those surrounding her. He was
afterwards frequently present while she sat to Reynolds for her portrait.
She ever counted mercurial Sheridan as a friend, in spite of the way in
which he treated her. She loved his beautiful, gentle wife, and some of
her happiest hours were spent in their society. She there put off all her
stateliness, and became the joyous-hearted young girl of the old Bath
days.
Sir Thomas Lawrence cherished all his life a feeling that was almost akin
to adoration for Mrs. Siddons’s genius and beauty. He painted her and
John Kemble in every dress and every pose. He was engaged subsequently to
two of her daughters, first one and then the other. He proposed to the
eldest daughter, Sarah; was accepted; but, before long, became miserable
and dejected, and at last confessed to Mrs. Siddons that he had mistaken
his feelings—that her younger daughter, and not the elder, was the object
of his affection. Fanny Kemble says:—
Sarah gave up her lover, and he became engaged to the second,
Maria. Both, however, died of consumption. Maria, the youngest,
an exceedingly beautiful girl, died first, and on her death-bed
made her sister promise that she would never marry Lawrence.
The death of her daughters broke off all connection between Sir
Thomas Lawrence and my aunt, and from that time they never saw
or had any intercourse with one another. Yet not long after
this Mrs. Siddons, dining with us one day, asked my mother how
the sketch Lawrence was making of me was getting on. After my
mother’s reply, my aunt remained silent for some time, and
then, laying her hand on my father’s arm, said: “Charles, when
I die, I wish to be carried to my grave by you and Lawrence.”
Lawrence reached his grave when she was yet tottering on the
brink of hers.
On my twentieth birthday, which occurred soon after my first
appearance, Lawrence sent me a magnificent proof plate of my
aunt as the “Tragic Muse,” beautifully framed, and with this
inscription: “This portrait, by England’s greatest painter, of
the noblest subject of his pencil, is presented to her niece
and _worthy successor_ by her most faithful humble friend and
servant, Lawrence.” When my mother saw this, she exclaimed at
it, and said: “I am surprised he ever brought himself to write
those words ‘worthy successor.’”
A few days after, Lawrence begged me to let him have the print
again, as he was not satisfied with the finish of the frame. It
was sent to him, and when it came back he had effaced the words
in which he had admitted any worthy successor to his “Tragic
Muse”; and Mr. H⸺, who was at that time his secretary, told me
that Lawrence had the print lying with that inscription in his
drawing-room for several days before sending it to me, and had
said to him, “I cannot bear to look at it.”
Among these artists, poets, statesmen, who were continually present at
her representations and attended afterwards at her dressing-room door to
pay their respects, in later years Byron might frequently be seen. He
declared her to be the “_beau ideal_ of acting,” and said, “Miss O’Neill
I would not see for fear of weakening the impression made by the queen of
tragedians. When I read Lady Macbeth’s part I have Mrs. Siddons before
me, and imagination even supplies her voice, whose tones were superhuman
and power over the heart supernatural.” On another occasion, he is
reported to have said that of actors Cook was the most natural, Kemble
the most supernatural, and Kean the medium between the two, but that Mrs.
Siddons was worth them all put together.
The first year she acted, “the gentlemen of the bar adorned her brows
with laurel,” as she says herself. The “laurel” took the substantial
form of a hundred guineas and a wreath presented by two barristers. She
declared it to be the most shining circumstance of her life, and alluded
modestly to her “poor abilities” and insufficient claims. The gentlemen
of Brookes’s Club also made up a handsome present.
“Mrs. Siddons continues to be the mode,” Horace Walpole writes, “and to
be modest and sensible. She declines great dinners, and says the business
and cares of her family take her whole time. When Lord Carlisle carried
her the tribute money from Brookes’s, he said she was not _maniérée_
enough. ‘I suppose she was grateful?’ said my niece, Lady Maria.”
It is easy to imagine the difficulty she experienced in keeping her
fame untarnished amidst that hotbed of vice, Covent Garden, and amidst
all the adulation lavished on her. It is impossible, indeed, to say how
many enemies she made by rejecting inopportune advances, and by exciting
jealousies and envy; but the worst they could ever allege was that she
was hard and haughty. She was continually on her guard. “One would as
soon think of making love to the Archbishop of Canterbury” was said
of her later; but in the early days of her first appearance at Drury
Lane she was obliged often to have recourse to an outspoken rebuff to
aspirants to her favour.
As a curious instance of the insidious manner in which attacks were
sometimes made to win her regard, John Taylor relates that one morning,
on calling on her, he found her in the act of burning some letters that
had been returned to her by the executors of the individual to whom they
were addressed. He sat down to help her, and, in doing so, a printed copy
of some scandalous verses on her that had appeared in the _St. James’s
Gazette_ dropped out. Some lines in the handwriting of the deceased poet
that were written on the top of the page proved the author, and proved
that attacker and defender had been one and the same person. In talking
the matter over afterwards, Mrs. Siddons recalled to mind that the same
person had once endeavoured to undermine her affection for her husband by
telling her tales of his infidelity.
We cannot resist giving here a letter which Mrs. Siddons received many
years after her first appearance on the stage, when one might have
thought her age and reputation a sufficient protection against such
addresses:—
Loveliest of women! In Belvidera, Isabella, Juliet, and
Calista, I have admired you until my fancy threatened to burst,
and the strings of my imagination were ready to crack to
pieces; but, as Mrs. Siddons, I love you to madness, and until
my heart and soul are overwhelmed with fondness and desire. Say
not that time has placed any difference in years between you
and me. The youths of her day saw no wrinkles upon the brow of
Ninon de l’Enclos. It is for vulgar souls alone to grow old;
but you shall flourish in eternal youth, amidst the war of
elements, and the crash of worlds.
May 2nd, Barley Mow, Salisbury Square.
So pertinacious became the persecutions of this young Irishman, for he
was an Irishman, that she was obliged to seek the protection of the law.
His bursting imagination was kept in check for some little time by the
sobering effects of a term of imprisonment.
Sometimes, also, her would-be adorers boasted of favours never received.
“If you should meet a Mr. Seton,” she wrote to Dr. Whalley, “who lived
in Leicester Square, you must not be surprised to hear him talk of being
very well with my sister and myself; for, since I have been here, I have
heard the old fright has been giving it out in town. You will find him
rather an unlikely person to be so great a favourite with women.”
Amongst fashionable ladies she counted many and constant friends. The
doors of Mrs. Montagu’s house (centre of intellect and fashion) were
always open to her; and we hear of her there on one occasion when all
the “Blues” swarmed round their “Queen Bee,” and she wore her celebrated
dress embroidered with the “ruins of Palmyra.”
Mrs. Damer (Anne Conway), daughter of General Conway, the celebrated
sculptress and woman of fashion, was also one of her most intimate
friends, and later in life the actress spent many hours in her studio
when bitten herself with the love of modelling. Campbell says that Mrs.
Siddons’s love of modelling in clay, began at Birmingham; and he tells
a story of her going into a shop there, seeing a bust of herself, which
the shopman, not knowing who she was, told her was the likeness of the
greatest actress in the world. Mrs. Siddons bought it, and, thinking she
could make a better replica of her own features, set to work and made
modelling a favourite pursuit. Whether the impetus was thus given we
hardly know, but it was the fashion of the time. Mrs. Damer, who was
declared by her admirers “to be as great a sculptor as Mr. Nollekens,”
and many other dainty fine ladies, put on mob caps and canvas aprons,
wielding mallet and chisel, and kneading wax and clay with their small
white hands. Mrs. Siddons was often the guest of Mrs. Damer at Strawberry
Hill.
In her circle of women friends, we must not forget, either, the
beautiful, fascinating, stuttering Mrs. Inchbald, the dear muse of
her and her brother John. It is said that, coming off the stage one
evening, she was about to sit down by Mrs. Siddons in the green-room,
when, suddenly looking at her magnificent neighbour, she said, “No, I
won’t s-s-s-sit by you; you’re t-t-t-too handsome!” in which respect she
certainly need have feared no competition, and less with Mrs. Siddons
than anyone, their style of beauty being so absolutely dissimilar.
Miss Seward was one of the adorers of her circle, but, in spite of the
pages of rhapsodies on the subject “of the most glorious of her sex,”
written to “her dear Lichfieldians” and the odes poured out to “Isabella”
and “Euphrasia,” it is a significant fact that we do not find one letter
personally to Mrs. Siddons, nor one from Mrs. Siddons addressed to her.
Practical and sincere herself, the great actress disliked “gush” of all
sorts. Miss Seward wrote, “My dear friends, I arrived here at five. Think
of my mortification! Mrs. Siddons in Belvidera to-night, as is supposed,
for the last time before she lies in. I asked Mrs. Barrow if it would be
impossible to get into the pit. “O heaven!” said she, “impossible in any
part of the house!” Mrs. B⸺ is, I find, in the _petit souper_ circle; so
the dear plays oratorios, and will be a little too much for my wishes,
out of question. Adieu! Adieu!”
The Lichfieldian incense was a little too pungent for the nostrils to
which it was offered. The great actress wrote, rather weariedly to her
friend Dr. Whalley:—
“Believe me, my dear Sir, it is not want of inclination, but opportunity,
that prevents my more frequent acknowledgments: but need I tell you this?
No; you generously judge of my heart by your own. I fear I must have
appeared very insensible, and, therefore, unworthy the honour Miss Seward
has done me; but the perpetual round of business in which I am engaged
is incredible. Shall I trespass on your goodness to say that I feel as I
ought on that occasion?”
She then alludes to the kindness of the King and Queen which, sometimes
to an inconvenient extent, was shown towards her all her life.
“I believe I told you that the Queen had graciously put my son down on
her list for the Charterhouse; and she has done me the honour to stamp
my reputation by her honoured approbation. They have seen me in all my
characters but Isabella, which they have commanded for Monday next; but,
having seen me in Jane Shore last night, and, judging very humanely that
too quick repetitions of such exertions may injure my health, the King
himself most graciously sent to the managers, and said he must deny
himself the pleasure of seeing Isabella till Tuesday. This is the second
time he has distinguished me in this manner. You see a vast deal of me
in the papers, of my appointment at Court, and the like. All groundless;
but I have the pleasure to inform you that my success has exceeded even
my hopes. My sister is engaged, and is successful. God be praised for all
His mercies! You will think me an egotist, I fear. I shall certainly be
at Bath in the Passion Week, if I am alive. I count the hours till then.”
Our readers may like to know that when their Majesties, with the Prince
of Wales, the Princess Royal, and the Princess Augusta went in state,
on October 8th, 1783, to see Mrs. Siddons play Isabella, the Sovereign
and his wife sat under a dome covered with crimson velvet and gold; the
heir to the throne sat under another of blue velvet and silver; and the
young Princesses under a third of blue satin and silver fringe. George
III. wore “a plain suit of Quaker-coloured clothes, with gold buttons;
the Queen, a white satin robe, with a head-dress which was ornamented by
a great number of diamonds; the Princess Royal was dressed in a white
and blue figured silk, and Princess Augusta in a rose-coloured and white
silk of the same pattern as her sister’s, having both their head-dresses
richly ornamented with diamonds. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales
had a suit of dark blue Geneva velvet, richly trimmed with gold lace.”
We are further told that on this occasion Mrs. Siddons was much
indisposed previous to her going on the stage; and, after the curtain
dropped at the end of the fifth act, was so very ill as not to be capable
of walking to her dressing-room without support. Notwithstanding her
suffering, she went through the part as if inspired. The Queen was so
affected at her performance, that His Majesty seemed alarmed, and often
diverted her attention from situations and passages that were likely to
distress her.
The following snarl was found among Horace Walpole’s papers:—
For the _Morning Chronicle_. On the King commanding the Tragedy
of _The Grecian Daughter_ on Thursday the 2nd inst. Jan. 10th,
1783.
EPIGRAMMATIC
Siddons to see—King, Lords, and Commons run,
Glad to forget that Britain is undone.
The Jesuit Shelburne, the apostate Fox,
And Bulls and Bears, together in a Box.
Thurlow neglects his promises to friends;
And scribbling Townsend no more letters sends.
Cits leave their feasts, and sots desert their wine;
Each youth cries “Charming!” and each maid, “Divine!”
See, of false tears, a copious torrent flows,
But not one real, for their country’s woes.
The club of spendthrifts, the rapacious bar
Of words, not arms, support the bloodless war.
Let Spain Gibraltar get, our islands France,
So Siddons acts, or Vestris leads the dance.
Run on, mad nation! pleasure’s frantic round;
For acting, fiddling, dancing be renown’d!
Soon foreign fleets shall rule the Western main;
George fill no throne but that of Drury Lane.
_Merlin._
George III. admired her, he said, “for her repose,” adding, “Garrick
could never stand still; he was a great fidget.” The Queen told her, in
broken English, that the only resource was to turn away from the stage;
the acting was, indeed, too “disagreeable.” She was frequently summoned
to read at the Palace, and to give lessons in elocution to the young
Princesses.
In Mrs. Siddons’s memoranda, we are given an account of one of these
readings. She felt extremely awkward, she tells us, in the “sack” with
“hoop and treble ruffles which it was considered necessary to put on,
according to court etiquette.” On her arrival she was led into an
ante-chamber, where there were ladies of rank whom she knew, while
presently the King appeared, drawing one of his little daughters in a
“go-cart.” This little princess was about three years old; and when
Mrs. Siddons remarked to the lady standing next her that she longed to
kiss the child, it held out its tiny hand ... so early had she learnt
this lesson of royalty. Mrs. Siddons was obliged to stand during the
whole of a lengthened evening, preferring this to their offers of
refreshment in an adjoining room, as she was terrified at the thought of
retiring backwards through “the whole length of a long apartment, with
highly-polished, slippery floor.” Her Majesty privately expressed much
astonishment at seeing her so collected, and was pleased to say that the
actress had conducted herself as though she had been used to a court. “I
had certainly often personated queens,” was the actress’s remark.
It may be mentioned as a remarkable fact that the first person outside
the royal family who seems to have entertained a suspicion that insanity
was creeping over the King was Mrs. Siddons. During a visit she paid
to Windsor Castle at the time, the King, without any apparent motive,
placed in her hands a sheet of paper bearing nothing but his signature—an
incident which struck her as so unaccountable, that she immediately
carried it to the Queen, who gratefully thanked her for her discretion.
But more than all the attentions of royalty, more than all the flattery
lavished upon her by great people, more than all the applause and worship
she received from the crowds who besieged the theatre, did she value
the sparingly awarded praises and sincere shake of the shabby, noble,
snuff-covered hand of “the Great Bear,” before whose growl everyone
trembled.
In Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ he tells us the Doctor had a singular
prejudice against players, “futile fellows” whom he rated no higher than
rope-dancers or ballad singers. This prejudice, however, did not prevent
him from hobbling off to see poor crippled Mrs. Porter when forsaken by
all the rest of the world. The beginning of his liking for Mrs. Siddons
is thoroughly characteristic. He always talked to his circle of lady
adorers of that jade, Mrs. Siddons, until one of the “fair females”
suggested that he must see the actress.
“But, indeed, Dr. Johnson,” said Miss Monckton, “you _must_ see Mrs.
Siddons. Won’t you see her in some fine part?”
“Why, if I _must_, Madam, I have no choice.”
“She says, Sir, she shall be very much afraid of you.”
“Madam, that cannot be true.”
“Not true?” said Miss Monckton, staring. “Yes, it is.”
“It _cannot_ be, Madam.”
“But she said so to me; I heard her say it myself.”
“Madam, it is not _possible_; remember, therefore, in future, that even
fiction should be supported by probability.”
Miss Monckton looked all amazement, but insisted upon the truth of what
she had said.
“I do not believe, Madam,” said he, warmly, “that she knows my name.”
“Oh, that is rating her too low,” said a gentleman stranger.
“By not knowing my name,” continued he, “I do not mean literally, but
that when she sees it abused in a newspaper she may possibly recollect
that she has seen it abused in a newspaper before.”
“Well, Sir,” said Miss Monckton, “but you must see her for all this.”
“Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go; see her, I shall not, nor
hear her; but I’ll go, and that will do. The last time I was at a play
I was ordered there by Mrs. Abington, or a Mrs. Somebody, I do not well
remember who, but I placed myself in the middle of the first row of the
front boxes, to show that when I was called I came.”
He kept his promise, and the huge, slovenly figure, clad in a greasy
brown coat and coarse black worsted stockings, was several times seen
taking handfuls of snuff, and criticising the actress in his outspoken,
growling fashion. She then paid him a visit in his den at Bolt Court, to
which he alludes in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale:—
“Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and
propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised.
Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seemed
to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother
Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked
of plays, and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the
character of Constance, Catherine, and Isabella, in Shakespeare.”
Boswell gives us also the account of what took place:—
“When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair
ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile: ‘Madam, you who
so often occasion a want of seats to other people will the more easily
excuse the want of one yourself.’
“Having placed himself by her, he with great good humour entered upon
a consideration of the English drama; and, among other enquiries,
particularly asked her which of Shakespeare’s characters she was most
pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen
Catherine in _Henry VIII._ the most natural: ‘I think so too, Madam,’
said he; ‘and whenever you perform it I will once more hobble out to the
theatre myself.’ Mrs. Siddons promised she would do herself the honour of
acting his favourite part for him, but was unable to do so before grand
old Samuel was laid to his last rest.”