Mrs. Siddons as Queen Katharine, Mrs. Beverly, and Lady Randolph

T

HE late Professor Bell's notes on Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth were received with an interest which more than justifies the publication of his remarks on the part of Katharine, as played by the great actress. No other part played by Mrs. Siddons was annotated by Professor Bell in the thoro manner adopted by him when witnessing her Lady Macbeth and Queen Katharine. He left, however, some notes on her Mrs. Beverley and Lady Randolph, concerning which a few words may be said before speaking of Shakspere's play.

Home's 'Douglas,' tho known to all by name, is so little read that a sketch of the plot is necessary to make Professor Bell's remarks intelligible to the general reader. Lady Randolph was secretly married in early

youth to one of a family at feud with her own, a Douglas, who was killed in battle three weeks after the marriage. The widow bore a son, but this infant, whose birth had been concealed, disappeared with his nurse, and his mother believes him to be dead. He, young Norval of the Grampian Hills, was however saved, and has been brought up in ignorance of his birth. Lady Randolph did not inform her second husband, Lord Randolph, of her first marriage, and explained her continual melancholy by attributing it to grief for the death of a brother. At the period when the play begins, your Norval is fortunate enough to save the life of his stepfather, Lord Randolph, who introduces him to his unknown mother and promotes him to an honorable command. In the course of the play the mother recognises her son, and makes herself known to him. The intimacy which results enables a villain, Glenalvon, so to poison the mind of Lord Randolph with jealousy as to cause him to attempt the youth's life. Young Norval or Douglas, while defending himself against Lord Randolph, is wounded to death by the villain, and dies in his mother's presence. She, in

despair, commits suicide. In accordance with the taste of the day, neither combat nor suicide takes place before the audience.

Although much of the sentiment in this play is exprest in language which nowadays. provokes a smile, an actress may find great scope for her art in presenting the feelings of the mother, who gradually acquires the certainty that her child still lives, and is the gallant youth who has already shown himself worthy of her love.

Professor Bell's notes, while sufficient to convince us that Mrs. Siddons could express great tenderness and strong affection, no less than the sterner emotions with which her name is more commonly connected, lack the precision by which, in writing of Shakspere's plays, he enables us in some measure to understand the means she employed. Referring to the wish exprest by the lady that every soldier of the two opposing armies might return in "peace and safety to his pleasant home," he writes:

The most musical sound I ever heard, and on the conclusion a melancholy recollection seemed to fill her whole soul of the strength of that wish in former times, and of its first disappointment. Again, where Lady Randolph addresses

Sincerity as the first of virtues, the note says:

Fine apostrophe. Her fine eyes raised in tears to heaven, her hands stretched out and elevated.

At the close of the well-known speech beginning, "My name is Norval," the following remark is appended:

The idea of her own child seems to have been growing, and at this point overwhelms her and fills her eyes with tears. Beautiful acting of this sweet feeling thruout these speeches. The interest she takes in the youth-her manifest retrospection.

The by-play of Lady Randolph thruout the long speeches of her husband and son was obviously the center of interest to the spectator, and ended in what is called

A great and affecting burst of affection and interest, as if she had already almost identified him with her son, or adopted him to supply the loss.

Answering Norval, who assures her that he will never be unworthy of the favor shown him, Lady Randolph says:

I will be sworn thou wilt not. Thou shalt be my knight.

The words printed in italics were underlined by Professor Bell.

Lady Randolph explains to her confidante that while Norval spoke she thought that, had the son of Douglas lived, he might have resembled this young gallant stranger.

Professor Bell writes:

It is this she has been acting during the preceding

scene.

There are no further notes on this play, nothing to guide us as to the manner in which Mrs. Siddons said the famous "Was he alive?" when a certain old man describes the finding of her infant son, who turns out to be Norval.

When we read Home's 'Douglas' we may feel a certain interest in our ancestors who liked it, but Moore's 'Gamester' awakens a feeling of loathing which extends even to the audience which can endure the degrading spectacle. The character of Lady Randolph is far from noble; this woman, who deceives her parents and husband, who lost her child and held her tongue, who has maundered thru life for twenty years nursing her melancholy and despising all good things present, because they are not better things past, belongs to no heroic type.

We cannot admire her indifference to the excellent husband who after twenty years of married life still sues in vain for

Decent affection and complacent kindness.

But Lady Randolph's well-bred coldness