WESTBOURNE FARM.
John Kemble was now both actor and manager at Covent Garden, and the
results were much more satisfactory in every way to Mrs. Siddons. Harris
the proprietor was strictly punctual in his payments, and the Kemble
family, who numbered Charles Kemble in their ranks, were sufficient to
make the performances attractive enough to the public. Mrs. Siddons
appeared in several of her old parts; amongst others in Elvira, when
the actor Cooke came on so drunk as to be unable to act his part. He
did not improve matters by attempting to excuse himself. He could only
articulate, “Ladies and Gentlemen, my old complaint,” when he was
removed, and Henry Siddons had to read his part. Fit pendant to the night
when he appeared as Sir Archy Macsarcasm with Johnstone, who was playing
Sir Calaghan. There was a dead pause. At last Johnstone, advancing to the
footlights, said with a strong brogue, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Cooke
_says_ he can’t spake,” which bull was received with roars of laughter
and hisses.
The great actress performed sixty times that season. At its conclusion
she went on a visit to Mrs. Damer at Strawberry Hill, where she met
Louis Philippe, afterwards King of France, and the Prince Regent. The
two ladies, whenever they were together, indulged their passion for
sculpture. As winter approached she suffered much from rheumatism, and,
for the sake of country air, removed from Great Marlborough Street to a
cottage at Hampstead for a few weeks. Mr. Siddons, who was also a martyr
to rheumatism, had advocated the change, and the old gentleman was much
delighted with his new abode. He ate his dinner, and, looking out at
the beautiful view that stretched before the windows, observed, “Sally,
this will cure all our ailments.” In spite of his hopes, however, Mrs.
Siddons was confined to bed for weeks with acute rheumatism. She tried
electricity with some beneficial effect, but suffered anguish while
undergoing the treatment.
As the winter advanced they returned to town; but Mr. Siddons grew so
much worse that he resolved to try the waters of Bath. Mrs. Siddons
parted, therefore, with her house in Marlborough Street, and took
lodgings for herself and Miss Wilkinson in Princes Street, Hanover
Square. Her landlord there was an upholsterer of the name of Nixon. He
and his wife always talked afterwards with the deepest affection of Mrs.
Siddons. One day, looking at Nixon’s card, she found that he was also an
undertaker, and said laughingly, “I engage your services to bury me, Mr.
Nixon.” Twenty-seven years afterwards Nixon did so.
During the winter and spring of 1804 and 1805 Mrs. Siddons only performed
twice at Covent Garden, partly in consequence of delicate health, partly
in consequence of the appearance of Master Betty, the “young Roscius,”
a prodigy whom the public ran after with an enthusiasm that seems
inexplicable. Managers gave him sums that a Garrick or a Siddons were
unable to obtain; his bust was done by the best sculptors; his portrait
painted by the best artists, and verses written in a style of idolatrous
adulation were poured upon this boy of thirteen. Actors and actresses
were obliged to appear on the stage with him to avoid giving offence.
Mrs. Siddons and Kemble, with praiseworthy dignity, retired while the
infatuation lasted. She went to see him, however, and gave him what
praise she thought his due. Lord Abercorn came into her box, declaring it
was the finest acting he had ever seen. “My lord,” she answered, “he is a
very clever, pretty boy, but nothing more.”
Independently of the boy Betty, or any other trials in her profession,
Mrs. Siddons now began to long for rest. We have seen how years before,
when in Dublin, she had expressed herself to Dr. Whalley: “I don’t build
any castles, but cottages without end. May the great Disposer of all
events but permit me to spend the evening of my toilsome, bustling day in
a cottage where I may sometimes have the converse and society which will
make me more worthy those imperishable habitations which are prepared for
the spirits of just men made perfect!”
In the April of 1805 she satisfied this wish by taking a cottage at
Westbourne, near Paddington. With the help of Nixon she fitted it up
luxuriously, built an additional room behind for a studio, and laid
out the shrubbery and garden. Westbourne was then, we are told, one of
those delightful rural spots for which Paddington was distinguished. It
occupied a rising ground, and commanded a lovely view of Hampstead,
Highgate and the distant city. Mrs. Siddons’s was a small retired house,
in a garden screened with poplars and evergreens, resembling a modest
rural vicarage, standing, it is said, on the site now levelled for the
Great Western Railway Station. She loved, she said, to escape from “the
noise and din of London” to the green fields surrounding her new home.
Here her friends congregated round her also. Miss Berry and Madame
D’Arblay both mention, in their diaries, having spent an afternoon and
met many people at Mrs. Siddons’s country retreat.
“I spoke in terms of rapture of Mrs. Siddons to Incledon,” Crabb Robinson
tells us. “He replied, ‘Ah! Sally’s a fine creature. She has a charming
place on the Edgware Road. I dined with her last year, and she paid me
one of the finest compliments I ever received. I sang _The Storm_ after
dinner. She cried and sobbed like a child. Taking both of my hands she
said, “All that I and my brother ever did is nothing compared with the
effect you produce.”’”
The following lines were written by Mr. Siddons, describing his wife’s
country retreat, during the last visit he ever paid to it:—
1.
Would you I’d Westbourne Farm describe;
I’ll do it then, and free from gall,
For sure it would be sin to gibe
A thing so pretty and so small.
2.
The poplar walk, if you have strength,
Will take a minute’s time to step it;
Nay, certes, ’tis of such a length,
’Twould almost tire a frog to leap it.
3.
But when the pleasure-ground is seen,
Then what a burst comes on the view;
Its level walk, its shaven green,
For which a razor’s stroke would do.
4.
Now, pray be cautious when you enter,
And curb your strides from much expansion;
Three paces take you to the centre,
Three more, you’re close against the mansion.
5.
The mansion, cottage, house, or hut,
Call’t what you will, has room within
To lodge the King of Lilliput,
But not his court, nor yet his queen.
6.
The kitchen-garden, true to keeping,
Has length and breadth and width so plenty;
A snail, if fairly set a-creeping,
Could scarce go round while you told twenty.
7.
Perhaps you’ll cry, on hearing this,
What! everything so very small?
No; she that made it what it is
Has greatness that makes up for all.
Mr. Siddons passed some weeks at Westbourne, but, finding the rheumatism
from which he suffered only relieved at Bath, he was obliged to reside
there almost permanently. Bath did not agree with Mrs. Siddons, and
the exigencies of her profession obliged her to live in London. This
difference in their place of abode caused a rumour to get abroad that a
formal separation had taken place. Mr. Boaden, indeed, states explicitly
that Siddons became at this time somewhat impatient of the “crown
matrimonial,” while Campbell declares the report to be “absolutely
unfounded.”
In judging the case we think, perhaps, a medium course would be the best
to take. We can imagine a decided incompatibility in the husband’s and
wife’s mode of seeing things. She was ever impatient towards want of
energy and practical capacity, while he, all his life having to play
second to her, was jealous of the disposal of her earnings, and rushed
into ill-judged investments and speculations.
The following letter of good-humoured banter, written to him on the
16th December 1804, reveals the manner in which she turned off his weak
ebullitions of temper:—
“MY DEAR SID.,
“I am really sorry that my little flash of merriment should
have been taken so seriously, for I am sure, however we may
differ in trifles, _we can never cease to love each other_. You
wish me to say what I expect to have done. I can expect nothing
more than you yourself have designed me in your will. Be (as
you ought to be) the master of all while God permits; but, in
case of your death, only let me be put out of the power of any
person living. This is all that I desire; and I think that you
cannot but be convinced that it is reasonable and proper.
“Your ever affectionate and faithful,
“S. S.”
The wife’s was the stronger, more powerful mind, and with her sincerity
and openness of disposition which impelled her to show everything she
thought or felt, we have no doubt she often offended the irritable vanity
of a man who, in small things, had a painful sense of his own dignity.
Hers was too big a nature to nag and fight about trifles, and at the
same time often too self-absorbed to remember how she offended the
susceptibilities of others.
“To live in a state of contention,” she writes, “with a brother I so
tenderly love, and with a husband with whom I am to spend what remains
of life, would be more than my subdued spirit and almost broken heart
would be able to endure. In answer to the second, I can only say that the
testimony of the wisdom of all ages, from the foundation of the world to
this day, is childishness and folly, if happiness be anything more than a
_name_; and, I am assured, our own experience will not allow us to refute
the opinion. No, no, it is the inhabitant of a better world. Content,
the offspring of Moderation, is all we ought to aspire to _here_, and
Moderation will be our best and surest guide to that happiness to which
she will most assuredly conduct us.”
In the season of 1806-7, at Covent Garden, she played Queen Katherine
seven times, Lady Macbeth (to Cooke’s Macbeth) five times, Isabella
(_Fatal Marriage_) twice, Elvira twice, Lady Randolph once, Mrs. Beverley
once, Euphrasia once, and Volumnia fifteen times. We see by this
enumeration of her parts how she, and she alone, achieved popularity for
Shakespeare.
The subsequent season at Covent Garden was uncommonly short, and extended
only to the 11th of December 1807, when the _Winter’s Tale_ was announced
for her last appearance before Easter. As events turned out, it proved to
be her last for the season. Immediately after the performance she went to
Bath, where she spent six weeks with Mr. Siddons. He was so much improved
in health as to make plans for the future, and declared his intention
of spending a part of the summer at Westbourne. She left him, therefore,
comparatively free from anxiety in February 1808. Within a month of her
departure, however, he was seized with a violent attack of illness, and
on the 11th of March expired. She immediately threw up her engagement in
Edinburgh, and left for her London home. Thence, on the 29th March 1808,
she wrote to Mrs. Piozzi:—
“How unwearied is your goodness to me, my dear friend. There is something
so awful in this sudden dissolution of so long a connexion, that I shall
feel it longer than I shall speak of it. May I die the death of my
honest, worthy husband; and may those to whom I am dear remember me when
I am gone, as I remember him, forgetting and forgiving all my errors,
and recollecting only my quietness of spirit and singleness of heart.
Remember me to your dear Mr. Piozzi. My head is still so dull with this
stunning surprise that I cannot see what I write. Adieu! dear soul; do
not cease to love your friend.—S. S.”
So ended the love story begun thirty-three years before.
Before the end of the year she resumed her cap and bells again, but had
only acted on one or two nights at Covent Garden before it was burnt to
the ground. How the fire originated is a mystery. Some said that the
wadding of a gun, in the performance of _Pizarro_, must have lodged
unperceived in the crevice of the scenery. Miss Wilkinson declared
afterwards, that before the audience left the house she perceived a
strong smell of fire while sitting in Mr. Kemble’s box, and on her way to
Mrs. Siddons’s dressing-room mentioned it to some of the servants; they
declared it to be the smell of the footlights. How complete and rapid
the destruction was we learn by the following letter written by Mrs.
Siddons to her friend James Ballantyne.
“MY DEAR AND ESTIMABLE FRIEND,
“You have by this time, I am confident, felt many a humane
pang, for the wretched sufferers in the dreadful calamity which
has been visited on me and those most dear to me. The losses to
the Proprietors are incalculable, irreparable, and of all the
precious and curious dresses and lace and jewels which _I_ have
been collecting for these thirty years—not one, no, not one
article has escap’d! The most grievous of these _my_ losses is
a piece of Lace which had been a Toilette of the poor Queen of
France; it was upwards of four yards long, and more than a yard
wide. It never could have been bought for a thousand pounds,
but that’s the least regret. It was _so_ interesting!! But oh!
let me not suffer myself in the ingratitude of _repining_,
while there are so many reasons for thankful acknowledgment.
My Brothers, God be praised! did not hear of the fire till
ev’ry personal exertion would have been utterly useless. It is
as true as it is strange and awful, that everything appear’d
to be in perfect Security at _Two_ o’clock, and that at _six_
(the time my poor brother saw it) the whole structure was as
completely swept from the face of the earth as if such a thing
had never existed. Thank God that it _was_ so, since had it
been otherwise, he wou’d probably have perished in exertions
to preserve something from the terrible wreck of his property.
This is comfort. And you, my noble-minded friend, wou’d, I am
confident, participate the joy I feel, in beholding this ador’d
brother, Stemming this torrent of adversity with a manly
fortitude, Serenity, and even _hope_, that almost bursts my
heart with an admiration too big to bear, and blinds my eyes
with the most delicious tears that ever fell from my eyes. Oh!
he is a glorious creature! did not I always _tell_ you so?
Yes, yes, and all will go well with him again! _She_ bears it
like an Angel too. Lord Guilford and Lord Mountjoy have nobly
offer’d to raise him any sum of money—and a thousand instances
of generous feeling have already offer’d that evince the
goodness of human nature, and its Sense of his worth. All this
is so honorable to him, that I shall soon feel little regret
except for the poor beings who perished in the devouring fire.
“James Ballantyne—God bless and prosper all the desires and
designs of a heart so amiable, a head so sound! prays most
fervently his truly affectionate friend,
“S. SIDDONS.”
“My head is so confused I scarce know what I have written; but
you wish’d me to answer your kind letter immediately, therefore
excuse all defects.”
The result of John Kemble’s thirty years of hard service was swept away
in the flames that destroyed Covent Garden. Mr. Heathcote’s loan was
still unpaid. Boaden gives us a tragi-comic account of a visit he paid
at the Kembles’ house the morning after the fire. Mrs. Kemble loudly
expressing her sorrow. Charles Kemble sitting listening, a tragic
expression on his naturally melancholy face; John shaving himself before
the glass. “Yes,” he said to his visitor in the intervals of this
operation, “it has perished—that magnificent theatre! It is gone, with
all its treasures of every description; that library, which contained all
those immortal productions of our countrymen; that wardrobe; the scenery.
Of all this vast treasure, nothing now remains but the arms of England
over the entrance of the theatre, and the Roman eagle standing solitary
in the market-place.”
All differences which were said to have arisen between brother and sister
were sunk and forgotten in this crisis. Though she may have smiled at his
sententiousness, and snubbed Mrs. Kemble’s loud-voiced expressions of
grief, she now gave him efficient help in reconstituting the theatre. The
performances of the company were transferred first to the Opera House,
and afterwards to the Haymarket Theatre. Between September 12th, 1808,
and May 6th, 1809, she acted forty times. The wear and tear of this on a
woman of her years—she was now over fifty—must have been great indeed.
All seemed to turn to her, to depend on her masculine strength of will
and energy.
Beside the anxiety of her profession, we find her occupied with the
future of her children. Letter after letter could be quoted, showing
the affectionate and practical interest she took in their welfare, in
spite of the statement circulated, and believed in, that she bargained
and haggled with her son Henry as though he were some manager with whom
she was doing business. She wrote on November 26th, 1808, to Mr. Ingles
on the subject of an expedition to Edinburgh, to help her son in his
theatrical venture there:—
“Independently of any other consideration, it is a great object to me
to have a reasonable excuse for spending much of my remaining life in
the admired and beloved society of Scotland; I am therefore, on my _own_
account as _well_ as his, naturally anxious for the Success of my Son in
the Theatre, and I think I may without arrogance aver that you cou’d not
chuse better. He has great qualifications and wou’d not be the worse,
I apprehend, for my advice in respect to Dramatic business, or for the
pecuniary aid which I should be proud to afford in order to amplify the
costume of The Stage. His abilities as an Actor need not my eulogium, and
his private respectability is so universally acknowledged as to spare his
mother the pain of boasting. I have done my part, and trust the rest to
heaven! I have written to all you advis’d me to write to, and now in one
word let me thank you for your good counsel and assure you that whatever
be the result I shall for ever consider myself exceedingly oblig’d to
you. So much ambiguity and darkness seems to envelop the business (the
Galindo embroglio), however, that I know not what to wish—but that there
was an _end_ of both hopes and fears; since nothing is so insupportable
as Suspense.”
Those who serve the public have much to suffer from the caprices of
the crowd, but they also experience many proofs of the appreciation of
their genius by individuals. The Kembles met with instances of kindness
and friendliness at the moment of their need that strike one as almost
fabulous in their generosity. The Duke of Northumberland offered Kemble a
loan of ten thousand pounds on his simple bond. He hesitated to accept,
fearing his inability to pay the interest. The Duke promised he should
never be pressed for it, and on the day of the laying the first stone he
cancelled the bond, and made him a present of the whole sum.
Aided by the munificence of patrons, fifty thousand pounds was soon
subscribed; nearly the same amount was received from the insurance
companies, and on December 30th, 1808, the first stone was laid with
Masonic honours. John Kemble was not a person to do away with the pomp of
a ceremonial. All the actors and actresses were assembled; Mrs. Siddons,
wearing a nodding plume of ominous black feathers, while her brother, who
had risen from his sick bed, stood under the torrents of rain in white
silk stockings and pumps.
In less than a twelvemonth from the time of its destruction the new
theatre arose from the ashes of its predecessor. While it was building,
Drury Lane, the opposition house, under Sheridan’s management, was also
burnt to the ground, bringing down Sheridan with it in its ruin.
The new Covent Garden was a much more magnificent building than its
predecessor; but the system of private boxes, which had been introduced
first of all in Drury Lane, was now carried to an extreme extent, and
the third circle of the theatre was entirely given over to them. This
invasion of the privileges of the people by the aristocracy was not to
be borne. The “liberty of the subject” had been talked into fashion by
Fox and Burke, and the populace were determined to put their doctrines
into practice in every department of life. They would not submit, because
the new house had the monopoly of catering for their amusement, to be
slighted and thrust away in a dark gallery where they could neither see
nor hear, while a “bloated aristocracy” lounged in commodious boxes
with ante-rooms behind. We who deplore the radicalism of the age, and
the licence permitted to free speech, should read the account of the
outrageous O. P. (old prices) riots, and congratulate ourselves on the
improved decorum that reigns now-a-days.
The New House was opened on the 18th September 1809. Crowded to the roof
with a resplendent audience, on whom shone the light shed by thousands of
wax candles, with Kemble and Mrs. Siddons to act the parts of Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth, a brilliant inauguration might have been expected.
The National Anthem was sung, and then Kemble was to speak a poetical
address. But the moment he made his appearance, dressed for Macbeth, a
yell of defiance greeted him, while the mob in the pit stood up with
their hats on and their backs to the stage. Kemble begged a hearing in
vain. His sister then appeared, pale but determined, and both of them
went through their parts to the end. Whenever for an instant there was a
lull in the yelling and hissing, the musical voice of the great actress
was heard steadily going through her part.
Two magistrates appeared on the stage and read the Riot Act; soldiers
rushed in to capture the rioters, who let themselves down by the pillars
into the lower gallery. The sight of the soldiery, indeed, only increased
the Babel. “Why were prices raised,” the mob vociferated, “while
exorbitant salaries were paid to the actors and actresses? The money
received by the Kembles and Madame Catalani amounted for the season to
£25,575. There was Mrs. Siddons with £50 a night! The Lord Chief Justice
sat every day in Westminster Hall from 9 to 4 for half the sum!” “She and
her brother also appeared frequently on the stage with clothes worth
£500.[3] All this was to be screwed out of the pockets of the public.”
The whole state of the popular mind at the time was suffering from the
reflux of the revolutionary tide that had swept over France some years
before. The way, indeed, in which the authorities behaved during the
seventy nights the riots lasted, leads us to think that they were aware
of the undercurrent of political excitement, and were glad to see it
diverted into a channel that did not menace Church and State. In no other
country in the world would such a state of things have been allowed to
go on night after night. A magistrate now and then feebly appeared on
the stage, and read inaudibly the Riot Act. On one occasion the public
climbed the stage, and were only deterred from personally attacking the
actors by the sudden opening of all the traps. A lady received an ovation
for lending a pin to fasten a manifesto to one of the boxes, and the
whole house was placarded with offensive mottoes. The proprietors had
recourse to giving away orders to admit their own partisans. This led
to furious fighting and scuffling. Pigeons were let loose, as symbols
that the public were pigeoned; aspersions were cast on the morality of
the private boxes; the leaders of the riot incited the crowd to further
excesses by inflammatory speeches. On the sixth night Kemble came forward
to announce that Catalani’s engagement, one of the great grievances,
was cancelled, and that the business books of the proprietors would be
examined by competent gentlemen to prove that the theatre was not a
paying concern. The report appeared, proving that if any reduction were
made in prices, the proprietors would lose three-fourths per cent. on
their capital. This statement had no effect on the unreasoning mob.
On the reopening of the house on the 4th October, the riot began more
furiously than ever. Cooke, unfortunately, in a prologue alluded to
the late “hostile rage.” The expression was like throwing a match into
gunpowder. The people lashed themselves into a frenzy; they assailed
the boxes, and ran up and down the pit benches during the play. Then,
too, was introduced, we are told, the famous O. P. war-dance in the
pit, which seems to have resembled the French _Carmagnole_, “with its
calm beginning, its swelling into noise and rapidity, and its finale
of demoniacal uproar and confusion.” Princes of the Blood visited the
boxes, and having beheld the spectacle, and heard the Babel of roaring
throats, laughed and went home! Afterwards the crowd marched to Kemble’s
house, 89 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, and continued the riot there.
At last arrests were made of the leaders, but they were acquitted, and
Kemble consented to appear at the dinner given in their honour. This
was a hauling down of the flag, but in reality the proprietors came
off victors. The rate of admission to the pit was reduced by sixpence,
but the half-price remained at two shillings. The private boxes were
diminished, but the new price of admission was maintained. It must have
been a bitter probation for proud tempers like the Kembles to go through.
“My appearance of illness was occasioned entirely,” Mrs.
Siddons writes about this time to a friend, “by an agitating
visit that morning from poor Mr. John Kemble, on account
of the giving up of the private boxes, which, I fear, must
be at last complied with. Surely nothing ever equalled the
domineering of the mob in these days. It is to me inconceivable
how the public at large submits to be thus dictated to,
against their better judgment, by a handful of imperious and
intoxicated men. In the meantime, what can the poor proprietors
do but yield to overwhelming necessity? Could I once feel that
my poor brother’s anxiety about the theatre was at an end, I
should be, marvellous to say, as well as I ever was in my life.
But only conceive what a state he must have been in, however
good a face he might put upon the business, for upwards of
three months; and think what his poor wife and I must have
suffered, when, for weeks together, such were the outrages
committed on his house and otherwise, that I trembled for even
his personal safety; she, poor soul! living with ladders at
her windows in order to make her escape through the garden in
case of an attack. Mr. Kemble tells me his nerves are much
shaken. What a time it has been with us all—beginning with fire
and continued with fury! Yet sweet sometimes are the uses of
adversity. They not only strengthen family affection, but teach
us all to walk humbly with our God,
“Yours,
“S. S.”
The fury of the rioters was principally directed against John Kemble,
“Black Jack,” as he was called. They never lost a certain respect for
the great actress who had served them so long and so faithfully. We know
the story of her appealing through the windows of her sedan-chair to the
riotous crowds assembled round the theatre, “Good people, let me pass;
I am Sarah Siddons,” and of the mob immediately falling back to make way
for the dignified Queen of Tragedy. The whole business disheartened and
saddened her, however. “I have not always met gratitude in a play-house,”
Garrick said, and she but repeated his words with a sigh. She wrote to
her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry Siddons:—
“Octr. Jubilee Day, Westbourne Farm, Paddington.
“MY DEAR HARRIET,
“Mrs. Sterling has kindly undertaken to deliver a parcel to
you, which consists of a Book directed to you at Westbourne,
and a little Toy apiece for my dear little Girls. I would give
you an account of our Theatrical Situation if my right hand
were not so weak that it is with difficulty that I hold my
pen—I believe you saw it blistered at Liverpool, and I am sorry
to say it is but little better for everything I have try’d to
strengthen it. However, the papers give, as I understand, a
tolerably accurate account of this barbarous outrage to decency
and reason, which is a National disgrace: where it will end,
Heaven knows, and it is now generally thought, I believe, that
it _will not_ end without the interference of Government,
and, if they have any recollection of the riots of the year
’80, it is wonderful they have let it go thus far. I think it
very likely that I shall not appear any more this season, for
nothing shall induce me to place myself again in so painful and
so degrading a situation. Oh, how glad am I that you and my
dear Harry are out of it all! I long to hear how you are going
on; tell me very soon that you are all well and prosperous,
and happy. I find Mr. Harris is going to leave his house in
Marlbro’ Street, and you will have to let it to some other
tenant at the end of his term—I forget how long he took it
for. There is a Print of Mrs. Fitzhugh’s Picture coming out
very soon; I am told it will be the finest thing that has been
seen for many years. The Picture is more really like me than
anything that has been done, and I shall get one for you and
send it by the first opportunity. I have been amusing myself
with making a model of Mrs. Fitzhugh, which everybody says is
liker than anything that ever yet was seen of that kind. I
hope there is modelling Clay to be had in Edinburgh, for, if
it be possible, I will model a head of my dear Harry when I
go there. Give him my love and my blessing. Accept the same
for yourself and the darling children. Remember me kindly to
all our friends, but most afftly. to dear Miss Dallas and the
family of Hume. Patty will write to you by Mrs. Sterling; _her_
letter will, I hope, be better written and more entertaining
than mine. God bless you my dearest Harriet.
“Comps. whether it was his _Waft_, or himself.
“To MRS. H. SIDDONS.”
The riots were renewed on various occasions again, and though the
frightened managers, by the aid of apologies and humiliations of all
sorts, staved off a repetition of violence, the fate of the new house
as a paying concern was sealed; it had been a mistake artistically and
financially from the first, and soon ceased to be used as a theatre.
A poodle drove Goethe’s and Schiller’s plays from the stage of the
Weimar Theatre, the “dog Carlo” and Master Betty drove _Macbeth_ and
_Coriolanus_ from Covent Garden; in both instances, the public was
justified in its conclusions, but not in the manner in which it expressed
them. By their suppression of all applause and the restrictions they
laid on their audience, the potentates of Weimar stopped all dramatic
spontaneity; by the size and unwieldiness of the theatre they built,
and the banishment of the lower part of the audience to a distance
from the stage, the proprietors of Covent Garden deprived their art of
the indispensable verdict of the ordinary public. The Kembles’ school
of dramatic art also was passing away. They had substituted for the
naturalness and variety of Garrick’s style a measured and stately
dignity. This stateliness was now destined to be succeeded by the
impetuosity and spontaneous passion of Kean.
We have seen that one of the boys introduced by John Kemble into
the Witches’ Scene in _Macbeth_, and subsequently turned away for
disobedience, was named Edmund Kean. This little imp, undeterred by
hardship, degradation, and misery, had developed into one of the greatest
geniuses that ever trod the English stage. Many are the stories given
of Mrs. Siddons’s first meeting with Kean, but all are unanimous that
it was by no means a creditable performance so far as the young actor
was concerned. It was in Ireland, either at Belfast or Cork. Kean had
been engaged to act with her. As usual, instead of learning his part,
he employed the interim between her arrival and the play in drinking
with some friends, with such success that when he came upon the stage
the whole of his part had vanished from his memory; he was, therefore,
obliged to improvise as he went on. Needless to say, his performance was
a tissue of nonsense, sentences without meaning, drunken absurdities
of all sorts. The audience was not a critical one, but Mrs. Siddons’s
disgust may be imagined. The next play to be performed was _Douglas_,
and in this Kean played Young Norval. Whether he was ashamed, and wished
to show the great actress that he, too, was an actor, it is impossible
to say, but he imparted such pathos and spirit to the part, that she was
surprised into admiration. After the play (Kean himself tells us) she
came to him, and patting him on the head, said: “You have played well,
Sir. It’s a pity, but there’s too little of you to do anything.”
When the “little man” arrived in London, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons
announced their intention of honouring with their presence the new
actor’s performance of Othello. A relative of Kean, who was very
anxious about the result of the Kemble decision, placed herself in a
box opposite, to observe the effect the performance produced on them.
The Queen of Tragedy sat erect and looked cold; Mr. Kemble gave a grave
attention. But as the young actor warmed to his part, Mrs. Siddons
showed a pleased surprise, and at last leaned forward, her fine head on
her arm, quite engrossed in the scene, while Kemble expressed continual
approbation, turning to his sister as each point told. At the triumphant
close of the performance, Kean’s friend approached the Kembles’ box. Mrs.
Siddons would not allow that this extraordinary genius was the lad that
had acted with her before. “Perhaps,” she said, “he had assumed the name
of Kean.” “Then the present one has every right to drop it,” said Kemble;
“he is not Kean, but the real Othello.” Yet Kemble must have known that
night that a greater than he had arisen. It must have been a noteworthy
scene, those two remarkable figures of a by-gone age, sitting in judgment
on “the little gentleman who,” as Kemble said, “was always so terribly
in earnest,” while he fretted and fumed on that stage, where he was
destined to initiate a new ideal of dramatic art.
Macready gives an interesting account of his first meeting the great
actress whom every young aspirant looked up to with such awe. It was at
Newcastle; the _Gamester_ and _Douglas_ were the plays selected, and the
young actor received the appalling information that he was to act with
her. With doubt, anxiety, and trepidation he set about his work, the
thought of standing by the side of the great mistress of her Art hanging
over him _in terrorem_. At last she arrived, and he received orders to go
to the Queen’s Head Hotel to rehearse. The impression, he says, the first
sight of her made on him recalled the page’s description of the effect of
Jane de Montfort’s appearance on him in Joanna Baillie’s tragedy. It was
So queenly, so commanding, and so noble.
In her grand, but good-natured manner, having seen his nervousness, she
said, “I hope, Mr. Macready, you have brought some hartshorn and water
with you, as I am told you are terribly frightened at me,” and she made
some remarks about his being a very young husband. Her daughter Cecilia
went smiling out of the room, and left them to the business of the
morning.
Her instructions were vividly impressed on the young actor’s memory,
and he took his leave with fear and trembling. The audience were, as
usual, encouraging, and the first scene passed with applause; but in the
next—his first with Mrs. Beverley—his fear overcame him to that degree,
that for a minute his presence of mind forsook him; his memory seemed to
have gone, and he stood bewildered. She kindly whispered the word to him,
and the scene proceeded.
The enthusiastic young actor goes on:—
She stood alone on her height of excellence. Her acting was
perfect, and, as I recall it, I do not wonder, novice as I
was, at my perturbation when on the stage with her. But in the
progress of the play I gradually regained more and more my
self-possession, and in the last scene, as she stood by the
side wing, waiting for the cue of her entrance, on my utterance
of the words, “My wife and sister! Well, well! there is but
one pang more, and then farewell world!” she raised her hands,
clapping loudly and calling out: “Bravo, Sir, bravo!” in sight
of part of the audience, who joined in her applause.
On that evening I was engaged to a ball, “where all the
beauties”—not of Verona, but of Newcastle—were to meet. Mrs.
Siddons, after the play, sent to me to say, when I was dressed,
she would be glad to see me in her room. On going in, she
“wished,” she said, “to give me a few words of advice before
taking leave of me. You are in the right way,” she said, “but
remember what I say—study, study, study, and do not marry
till you are thirty. I remember what it was to be obliged to
study at nearly your age with a young family about me. Beware
of that: keep your mind on your art, do not remit your study,
and you are certain to succeed. I know you are expected at a
ball to-night, so I will not detain you, but do not forget my
words—study well, and God bless you.” Her words lived with me,
and often in moments of despondency have come to cheer me.
Her acting was a revelation to me, which ever after had its
influence on me in the study of my art. Ease, grace, untiring
energy through all the variations of human passion, blended
into that grand and massive style, had been with her the result
of patient application. On first witnessing her wonderful
impersonations I may say with the poet:
“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.”
And I can only liken the effect they produced on me, in
developing new trains of thought, to the awakening power that
Michael Angelo’s sketch of the Colossal head in the Farnesina
is said to have had on the mind of Raphael.