Once she was in peril

der, she said, which led to the next world. of taking that first step less agreeably. While standing as the statue in the "Winter's Tale," the flowing white drapery of her dress caught fire from behind, but it was extinguished by the courage and prudence of a poor scene-shifter, before she knew the whole of her danger. He saved her life; and she not only rewarded him liberally, but saved his son, a deserter from the army, from the horrible punishment which was then inflicted on such offenders.

She upheld the dignity of her vocation, by refusing to act with the "young Roscius," while to act inferior parts in the same piece with her, actresses of reputation esteemed it an honor. Miss Pope, on having the part of Lucy, in "George Barnwell," sent to her, returned it with some anger; but when she was told that Mrs. Siddons was about to play Milwood to Charles Kemble's Barnwell, Miss Pope resumed the character with eagerness. On the stage, and even in the green-room, she seldom departed from the humor of the part she sustained on that particular evening; but she had no sooner concluded it than she was herself again. Miss Seward records with particular delight, after seeing the great actress in Beatrice, at Birmingham, that Mrs. Siddons having made a courtesy generally to the house, made one in particular, with an especial smile of benignity to Miss Seward and her friends in the stage-box.

She began and ended her London theatrical life with Shakspeare -commencing in 1775 with Portia, and terminating in June, 1812, with Lady Macbeth. Some few subsequent appearances, indeed, there were. When her son, Henry Siddons, was the somewhat unlucky proprietor of the Edinburgh Theatre, he thought that if his mother and uncle would but play for him, in the same pieces, on the same night, he should retrieve his fortunes. He wrote separately to both, and received respective answers. That from Mrs. Siddons intimated that she would act for half the receipts and a free benefit. The reply from John Kemble expressed his readiness to act, for a free benefit and half the receipts! Henry Siddons, much perplexed, had to look elsewhere for less expensive aid. After his death, and subsequent to his mother's farewell to the London Stage, she played several nights, in Edinburgh, gratis, for the benefit of his family;—and critics saw no other change in her,

than that she looked older. Her "last" appearance in public was in June, 1819, when she played Lady Randolph, for the benefit of Charles Kemble. The Shakspearian characters for which she enjoyed the greatest fame, are Lady Macbeth and Queen Katherine; and these were included in the readings which she continued to give during a few years. These last were especially relished by Queen Charlotte and her family;-the guerdon for many of which, including Othello, read aloud at Windsor one Sunday evening, was a gold chain with a cross of many-colored jewels.

Her beauty, personal and mental, she retained to the last, the former only slightly touched by time. That was marked, in the Gallery of the Louvre, even amid the finest examples of mortal and godlike beauty from the hands of Greek sculptors. Her sense of the beautiful was also fresh to the last. Standing rapt at the sublimity of the scenery in the neighborhood of Penmanmawr, she heard a lady remark, "This awful scenery makes me feel as if I were only a worm, or a grain of dust, on the face of the earth!" Mrs. Siddons turned round and said: "I feel very differently."

She had the misery to outlive all her children, except her daughter Cecilia, but in successive visitations she was so well-tempered as to create the means of consolation, and in modelling statuary, often found at least temporary relief from sorrow. Hannah More as heartily applauded her in private life as the warmest of her admirers ever did in public; and in truth her religion was cheerful, and her rule of life honest. She was not only a great artist, but a thorough English lady, a true, honest, exquisite woman;-one of the bravest and most willing of the noble army of workers. Proud, she may have been, and justly so. Simple she was, and simpleminded, in many respects. The viola amana was her favorite flower; and, from the purple borders of her garden in spring-time up at then secluded Westbourne, her managing handmaid acquired the name of Miss Heartsease.

Those who knew her best have recorded her beauty and her grace, her noble carriage, divine elocution, and solemn earnestness; her grandeur and her pathos, her correct judgment, her identification of whatever she assumed, and her abnegation of self. Erskine studied her cadences and intonations, and avowed that he owed his best displays to the harmony of her periods and pronunciation.

According to Campbell, she increased the heart's capacity for tender, intense, and lofty feelings, and seemed something above humanity, in presence of which, humanity was moved, exalted, or depressed, according as she willed. Her countenance was the interpreter of her mind, and that mind was of the loftiest, never stooping to trickery, but depending on nature to produce effect.

She may have borne her professional habits into private life, and "stabbed the potatoes," or awed a draper's assistant by asking, "Will it wash ?" but there was no affectation in this;-as she said, still in her tragic way, "Witness truth, I did not wish to be tragical !"

I have alluded to the apparent lack of judgment in her assuming, at thirty-four, the character of Juliet, a girl not yet fourteen. Miss Weston, however, writes:-" a finer performance was never seen. She contrived to make her appearance light, youthful, and airy, beyond imagination, and more beautiful than any thing one ever saw. Her figure, she tells me, was very well fitted by previous indisposition."

In carrying into private life her stately stage manner, Mrs. Siddons undesignedly imitated Clairon, the "Queen of Carthage," as the French called her, from her marvellous acting as Dido. "If," said Clairon, “I am only a vulgar and ordinary woman during twenty hours of the day, I shall continue to be a vulgar and ordinary woman, whatever efforts I may make, in Agrippina or Semiramis, during the other four."

There remains but to be said that this "lofty-minded actress," as Young called Mrs. Siddons, died on the 8th of June, 1831,leaving a name in theatrical history, second to none, and deep regret that the honored owner of it had departed from among the living. Of the latter was the elder brother, who owed much of his greatness to her, and who is noticed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIX.

JOHN KEMBLE.

On the 1st of February, 1757, John Philip Kemble was born, at Prescot, in Lancashire. His father's itinerant life not only led to his appearance on the stage, when a child, but to his being placed at school, at Worcester, whence he passed through Sedgley to Douay, where he was remarkable for his elocution. He had for college fellow, Miller, or Milner, as he chose to call himself,-and who, when a Roman Catholic prelate, used to affirm that, in point of elocution, he was considered equal to Kemble!

In 1776, the year in which Garrick retired, Kemble may be said to have made his first public appearance as an actor, at Wolverhampton, and Boaden thinks he was too good for his audience. In various northern towns he endured a stern probation, and made sundry mistakes. He played Plume, Ranger, and Archer, which were totally unsuited to him; and he was actually laughed at in tragedy, by some persons of distinction in the boxes, at York. He resented this with such dignity, that the York fine people, who could not understand the latter feeling, insisted on an apology; and when the rest of the house declared he should make none, he thanked them with such a weight of heavy argument to show they and he were right, that those bewildered Yorkists demanded of him to beg pardon immediately.

Subsequently, John Kemble published fugitive poems, which he was afterwards glad to burn; wrote a tragedy, "Belisarius," and a comedy, the "Female Officer;" composed a Latin ode, Ad Somnium, and a Latin epitaph for his dead comrade, Inchbald; laid the foundations of friendship with the Percys; gave lectures on oratory; and, at twenty-three, made an attempt to improve Shakspeare's "Comedy of Errors," by turning it into a farce, called "Oh, it's impossible!" the chief point in which was that the audi

ence should be as puzzled about the two Dromios, of whom he made a couple of niggers, as their masters themselves.

If, at York, the admirers of the now forgotten Cummins contended that he was superior to Kemble, so in Ireland those who remembered their old favorite Barry, were slow to admit Kemble's cquality. But, though he nearly made shipwreck of his fame by playing comedy, he rose in Irish estimation by his acting in tragedy; and he won all hearts by his finished performance of Jephson's "Count of Narbonne," in which he represented the Count, to the Adelaide of Miss Francis-the Mrs. Jordan of later years. Jephson was an Irishman, and Dublin was grateful to the actor who helped him to a triumph. Black Rock, I dare say, is to this day proud of the author.

On the 30th of September, 1783, John Kemble first appeared in London, at Drury Lane, as Hamlet. The fierceness and variety of the criticism denote that a new and a great actor had come before the critics. His novel readings were severally commented on-some of them were admirable, but bold. The utmost one critic could urge was, that the player was "too scrupulously graceful;" and objection was fairly made to his pronouncing the word "lisp," to Ophelia, as "lithp." Boaden calls this "a refinement;" but he is forced to allow that it was "below the actor."

Just previous to this successful début at Drury Lane, John Kemble's brother Stephen had very moderately succeeded in Othello, at Covent Garden, where the management had secured the big, instead of the great, Mr. Kemble. Just subsequent to the former first appearance, two sisters of these players, Elizabeth and Frances Kemble (afterwards Mrs. Whitelock and Mrs. Twiss), made an attempt to share in a theatrical and family glory, in which, however, they had no abiding part. These ladies passed away, and left that glory to be divided by John Kemble, and his sister, Mrs. Siddons. But some time elapsed before the latter were permitted to play in the same piece. Smith had possession of parts of which custom forbade his being deprived; and it was not till each had played singly in various stock pieces, that they came together in "King John," and subsequently in the "Gamester." Previous to Kemble's undertaking the former character, the old actor, Sheridan, read the part to him as Sheridan was VOL. II.-12