5

his attentions were enough to turn an older and wiser head. He promised Mr. Siddons to procure me a good engagement with the new Managers, and desired him to give himself no trouble about the matter, but to put my cause entirely into his hands. He let me down, however, after all these protestations, in the most humiliating manner; and, instead of doing me common justice with those gentlemen, rather depreciated my talents. This Mr. Sheridan afterwards told me; and said that, when Mrs. Abingdon heard of my impending dismissal, she told them they were all acting like fools. When the London season was over, I made an engagement at Birmingham, for the ensuing summer, little doubting of my return to Drury Lane for the next winter; but, whilst I was fulfilling my engagement at Birmingham, to my utter dismay and astonishment, I received an official letter from the Prompter of Drury Lane, acquainting me that my services would be no longer required. It was a stunning and cruel blow, overwhelming all my ambitious

hopes, and involving peril, even to the subsistence of my helpless babes.* It was very near destroying me. My blighted prospects indeed, induced a state of mind that preyed upon my health, and for a year and a half I was supposed to be hastening to a decline. For the sake of my poor children, however, I roused myself to shake off this despondency, and my endeavours were blest with success, in spite of the degradation I had suffered in being banished from Drury Lane, as a worthless candidate for fame and fortune."

These sentences, which were penned by Mrs. Siddons in her advanced age, shew that neither a long lifetime, nor most forgiving habits of mind, had effaced the poignant feelings which this transaction had inflicted on her; and those who knew her best will have the most implicit

* Her eldest daughter, Sarah Martha, was born at Gloucester, Nov. 5, 1775, within two months before Mrs Siddons's first appearance in London.

belief in her veracity. Her statement, however, I think, shews that Garrick behaved to her rather like a man of the world than with absolute One traces in his conduct more

S treachery.

of that thoughtlessness which the French call

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une heureuse legéreté," than of any bad meaning. It is utterly improbable that he was ever jealous of her genius, or that he sought to keep it back from popularity, for fear of its eclipsing his own. At that time she had not risen (at least in the common opinion,) to rivalship with players far inferior to Garrick. His culpability, in failing to keep his promise to Mrs. Siddons as to her engagement, cannot be very definitely measured. In leaving so complicated a concern as Drury Lane, he might be obliged to sacrifice his influence. For the fact of his having depreciated her talents to the Managers, we have only the testimony of Sheridan, who probably found her mind irritated on the subject, and was a man much disposed to say to a beautiful woman whatever

was likely to fall in with her prevailing mood. When Garrick ceased to be the Manager of Drury Lane, he ceased to have the power of dictating engagements. Still it were to be wished that he had left the affair explained.

Mr. Boaden, in his Life of our great actress, asserts, that some years previous to her debut on the London boards, she made a private application to Garrick, as Manager of Drury Lane, soliciting first his judgment, and secondly his protection. She repeated, according to Mr. Boaden, some of the speeches of "Jane Shore" before the Manager. "He seemed highly pleased with her elocution and deportment, wondered how she could have got rid of the provincial ti-tum-ti, but regretted he could do nothing for her, and wished her a good morning."

I have strong doubts with regard to this anecdote. The scene of it is laid in Lon

F

don; and I have heard Mrs. Siddons herself say, that she never was in London before her invitation from Garrick, in 1775. At the time alleged, she was in the family of the Greatheeds, and the surviving members of that family have no recollection either of Mrs. Siddons's having left them, or of their having removed from Guy's Cliff, during her abode with them.

It was on Friday, the 29th of December,

1775-1775, that Mrs. Siddons made her first appear

ance on the London boards, in the character of Portia, in the "Merchant of Venice." She was announced merely as a young lady, whose performances had met with great applause. The part of Portia was manifestly too gay for Mrs. Siddons under the appalling ordeal of a first appearance in London. She played it to be sure many years afterwards with very fair success; but that was when her triumphs had given her strength. The nobleness of her form,