Sarah Siddons

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

“ 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 [233] 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. ”

“ We have already seen the name of Siddons figuring on the Kemble play-bills, when Sarah was only thirteen years of age. We can imagine, therefore, all the opportunities that the young people had of falling in love, rehearsing together, acting together, with the continual communion of interest brought about by their profession. ”

“ For commanding figures in tragedy, for the Duses and Bernhardts of earlier days, we must look, as a rule, outside of England and America. There is, to be sure, always Sarah Siddons, a majestic figure, a veritable Queen of Tragedy, who made her characters—such as Lady Macbeth and Queen Katherine—awe-inspiring even to those who acted with her. Her niece, Frances Ann Kemble, was prevented from being a truly great actress only by a dislike for the stage. ”

“ 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 [137] 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. ”

“ Garrick had never been given much cause to think highly of women during his long life as an actor—his own wife always excepted—and he most likely put Sarah Siddons on the same level as the others—sordid, like Miss Pope ”

“ Her connection with the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William 4th, is well known. They lived very happily together, and had ten Children, but the connection was broken off in 1811—and she was left to shift for herself. She died in 1816.
The name of Sarah Siddons is too well known to elicit any remark; as a tragedian, her equal has, probably, never been seen on an English Stage. She had a long career—from her début, at Drury Lane, in 1775, till her last appearance, in London, in 1816. Died 1831—aged 76.
Miss Farren, was a most lady-like, and elegant actress. ”

“ But Sarah Siddons was a true artist. She ever made the best of the very worst materials; she invested Elvira with dignity, and it became by far the most popular of the characters of which she was the original representative. Young Betty entered a theatre for the first time to see Sheridan’s ‘Pizarro’ acted at the Belfast theatre, and Mrs. ”

“ The death of her daughter Maria was the first serious grief Mrs. Siddons had known. We have touched on Lawrence the painter’s proposal to her, and the transference of his affection, after a short engagement, to her sister Sarah. Mrs. Siddons did everything she could to soften the blow to the poor deserted girl. We find her writing in desperation to her old friend Tate Wilkinson:—
“My plans for the summer are so arranged that I have no chance of the pleasure of seeing you. ”

“ No wonder that even Mr. Evans, a Welsh squire, with three hundred a year, who, enslaved by Sarah’s singing of Robin, Sweet Robin, offered her his hand, was ignominiously refused. Her parents, however, took a different view, and, allured by the splendour of Mr. Evans’s offer, revoked the unwilling consent they had given to their daughter’s engagement to Siddons, and summarily dismissed him from the company.
The indignant lover had recourse to a method of revenge that seems as novel as it was ungentlemanly. ”

“ Our readers may be inclined to think we exaggerate the importance of the stage, by thus classing poets and players together; but if we wish to appreciate the influence wielded by players a hundred years ago, we have but to examine the careers of these last two great [3] artists; and if we wish to appreciate the moral reform effected, we have but to turn to a list of the plays in vogue at the time of the Restoration and the plays in vogue twenty years after Garrick had been acting, and ten years after Sarah Siddons’s first appearance. ”

“ The Kembles, seeing the attachment was serious, at last gave their consent, and in her nineteenth year Sarah Kemble became Mrs. Siddons.
The marriage took place at Trinity Church, Coventry, November 26th, 1773, and on the 4th of October following, the first child, Henry, was born, at Wolverhampton.
Mr. Siddons was just the man to fascinate a young and high-spirited girl. Good-looking, calm, sedate, even-tempered, not over-burdened with brain-power, and not too much will of his own. One might apply to him what Johnson said of Sheridan’s father, “He is not a bad man, no, Sir ”

“ The next five quotations are from the same scene.
P. 64. Mrs. Siddons. Sarah Siddons (1775-1831) , “The Tragic Muse,” the most celebrated actress in the history of the English stage. Hazlitt wrote this passage for the Examiner (June 16, 1816) immediately after seeing a performance of the part by Mrs. Siddons. See Works, VIII, 312-373.
P. 65. There is no art. ”

“ Siddons’s ill-treatment of me originated entirely in her. One may pay for one’s experience, and the consciousness of acting rightly is a comfort that hell-born malice cannot rob us of. Lady Langham has done me the honour to call with her daughter. Her drawings are very wonderful things for such a girl. In the compositions she has drawn me in Macbeth asleep and awake; but I think she has been unsuccessful in this effort. Next week I shall see your daughter and the rest. Sarah is an elegant creature, and Maria is as beautiful as a seraph. Harry grows very awkward, sensible, and well-disposed ”

“ Thus early was the actress taught to dominate her audience, an art that stood her in good stead in after life.
Besides this early theatrical training, Sarah received as good an education in the ordinary rudiments of learning as it was possible for her energetic mother to obtain for her. Mrs. Kemble sent her child to respectable day schools, we are told, in the country towns to which their various wanderings brought the troupe. At Worcester, a schoolmistress of the name of Harris received her among her pupils at Thornloe House, refusing to accept any payment. ”

“ We find Bertie Greatheed standing sponsor for her [23] daughter Cecilia in 1794; and, greatest test of true friendship, writing a tragedy, The Regent, which failed disastrously.
In spite of stern parents and social obstacles, “Love will be ever Lord of all.” William Siddons came several times to Guy’s Cliff to see her. There, almost within sight of Shottery, where Shakespeare enacted his love story with Anne Hathaway, Sarah Kemble enacted hers. ”

“ The circumstance is not alluded to either by Campbell or Boaden, but is so interwoven with Mrs. Siddons’s existence, and so colours her mode of thought at the time, that it can hardly be passed over.
Mrs. Siddons met Katherine Galindo, author of the libel, at the theatre in Dublin. She was a subordinate actress, and her husband a fencing-master. It is difficult to understand how she can have become so intimate, except that her own perfect sincerity and openness led her to bestow confidence on a variety of persons, many of them not in any way [212] worthy of it. ”

“ She looked the novice of St. Clare to perfection. In the spring she made her way northwards to keep her engagement with the Edinburgh manager, and on Saturday, 22nd May, 1784, she appeared on the stage of the Royalty Theatre, in Belvidera. The well-known impassibility of the Edinburgh audience affected Mrs. Siddons with an intolerable sense of depression.
After some of her grandest outbursts of passion, to which no expression of applause had responded, exhausted and breathless, she would pant out in despair, under her breath, “Stupid people, stupid people!” ”

“ No reformation was ever yet accomplished by the flaccid-minded ones, and we must remember that many of the stories told of his vanity and meanness and her hardness and reserve, were circulated by their enemies on and off the stage, because of their very rigidity and morality. In spite, however, of some passing clouds, never was there a career so [4] admired, a personality so adored in public life, as that of Mrs. Siddons. Whenever she appeared, enthusiastic applause rang through the house, not only on account of her pre-eminent genius, but because of her untarnished private character. ”

“ I dare not trust myself further. Oh! that you were here, that I might talk to you of [198] her death-bed—in dignity of mind and pious resignation far surpassing the imagination of Rousseau and Richardson in their Heloïse and Clarissa Harlowe; for hers was, I believe, from the immediate inspiration of the Divinity.”
Troubles now began to fall thick and heavy. Mr. Siddons, actuated by a morbid jealousy of his wife’s energy and success, entered into a connection with Sadler’s Wells Theatre without consulting her, or even taking her into his confidence. ”

“ It is a tremendous undertaking for so young a creature, and where so perfect a model has been so long contemplated. I was frightened when I yesterday received information of it. Oh! I hope to God he will get well through it. Adieu, dear Muse.”
Henry Siddons soon quitted the stage, married a Miss Murray, daughter of an actor, and herself an actress, and in 1808 became manager of the Edinburgh Theatre. ”

“ The wretched woman was stung to the quick by the withdrawal of her engagement at Covent Garden, and although Mrs. Siddons advanced a thousand pounds to the husband to buy a share in a provincial theatre, and showed them much kindness, the jealous and infuriated wife published in pamphlet form a wild and libellous attack on the great actress, to which she added the letters that had passed between them in their days of intimacy. ”

“ She is described as a large woman with a squint. A volume is in existence, ‘Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, by Ann Curtis, Sister of Mrs. Siddons,’ London, 1783, 8vo, printed for the author. It was dedicated to the Duchess of Devonshire, and is now very scarce.
Mrs. Siddons's greatest parts were Isabella in Garrick's version of Southerne's ‘Fatal Marriage,’ Lady Macbeth, Zara in ‘Mourning Bride,’ Elvira, Constance, Queen Katharine, Belvidera, and Lady Randolph. ”

“ She accused the public of taking pleasure in mortifying their old favourites by setting up new idols; “I have been three times threatened with eclipse, first by means of Miss Brunton (afterwards Lady Craven) , next by means of Miss Smith, and lastly by means of Miss O’Neill; nevertheless,” she added, “I am not yet extinguished.” Mrs. Siddons had no right to complain. She had drunk fully the draught of success and appreciation, and had been singularly exempt from rivalry in her own particular walk. No public, however indulgent, can save an actress [244] from the penalties of old age. ”

“ Garrick was at this time employed in mounting an abridgment by Colman of Ben Jonson’s Epicœne, and trusting, we conclude, to the statement of his friend Mr. Bate, that the débutante had “a very good breeches-figure,” he selected her for the heroine’s part. The result was a failure. Critics complained of “the confusion, when Mrs. Siddons, disguised in the piece as a woman, revealed herself at the end as a boy.” The Morning Post, edited by Parson Bate, was the only paper that spoke in favour of the attempt. ”

“ The nightly stimulus, the mental habit of studying for a certain object, the production of evanescent emotions and transitory effects, must have a deteriorating effect on the noblest disposition. Shrewd Miss Berry, in her Journal, dated February 24th, 1811, mentions a visit she paid at Westbourne. “Mrs. Siddons received me, as she always does, in a manner that flattered my internal vanity, for she has the germ of a superior nature in her, though burnt up by the long-continued brand of popular applause”; and Fanny Kemble writes: “What a price my Aunt Siddons has paid for her great celebrity! ”

“ On enquiring in a whisper and with a confidential smirk for Mrs. Siddons, he learned from the maid servant that the lady was in her room, and that Mr. Siddons had not returned from his morning visit to the theatre. The servant stated, however, that Mrs. Siddons had given the strictest orders to admit no one into her presence.
“Ah, discreet as one might have expected,” murmured Dionysius. “She does not mean to run the chance of disappointing me. Which is her parlour, child?”
“It's the first front, yer honour,” said the girl; “but, Lord save yer honour, she'd murther me if I let ye go up. ”

“ From her first burst of indignation when she objects to the Cardinal as her judge, to her last expiring scene, was all so perfectly natural and so touching, we could give no applause but tears. Mrs. Siddons is beautiful even at this moment. Some who had seen her on the stage in this part assured me that it had a much greater effect upon them in a private room, because they were near enough to see the changes of her countenance, and to hear the pathos of her half-suppressed voice. Some one said that, in the dying scene, her very pillow seemed sick. ”