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enjoyed his refreshments ; but occasionally stopped short , and , laying down his knife and fork , lifted up his venerable face , and throwing back bU silver hair , gave way to tears of happiness . We soon parted tor the night ; and I , worn out with continually broken rest and laborious exertion , after an hour ' s retrospection , ( who can conceive the intense * nesv of that review ?) fell into a profound sleep , which lasted to the middle o ( the next day . I arose alert in mind and body /—Vol . i
p . Z 59—163 , Though this was onl y the introduction of an actress to a London life ; dead and gone though all the parties be ; and history may pass over the event as insignificant , and puritanism turn from it with supercilious pity ; we think that heart is much to be grieved for , which is not touched and strongly moved to sympathy by the
narrative . It makes one forget that they are dead and gone , and that there are scales of importance in which the occurrence would be below zero . It throws us back in feeling to that long-past point of time ; we look forward to the career of the heroine ; and the illusion only breaks to leave us lamenting that the writer did not complete her autobiography , and comprise in the record , not
only the annals of her art , but of her character ; blending with the achievements which raised the actress to fame , the discipline , whether self-imposed or of external influence , which trained the woman to the moral and intellectual dignity exhibited in these extracts , and of the degree of which , they alone have made us fully aware . The fifth chapter of the first volume might be entitled a chapter
of anecdotes ; many of them are from Mrs . Siddonss own memoranda . They relate to the times , and she was entitled to call them ' glorious days / when Sir Joshua Reynolds , Burke , Gibbon , Sheridan , Windham , and Pox , used to occupy the orchestra of Old Drury ; when she sat to Sir Joshua for his celebrated picture of the Trasric Muse , but which always seems to us more like Ladv
Randolph and the ghost of Douglas ; when she first visited Edinburgh , and heard in the street a poor serving girl with a basket of greens on her arm , say as she passed , € Ah ! well do I ken that sweet voice , that maae me greet sae sair the streen ; ' and when she had the more questionable honour ( without emolument ) of being appointed preceptress in English reading to the princesses , and , consequently , her native dignity was brought into contrast * ith the barbarism and affectation of royal etiquette . For the
propriety of these terms let the following anecdote vouch : — 4 1 had very soon the honour of reading to their llajetUi e * in Bucking- - ham House , and it occurred frequently . One could not appear in the \ presence of the queen except in a drea * , pot e ]* ewhere worn , called a i taque or negli gee , with a lioop , treble ruffles , and lappets , in which i costume I felt not at all at mj case . Wbcn J arrived at Buckingham i Route , I was conducted inio at ) ante-chamber , where I found some ; Wtee of my acquaintance ; wad in a short time th * king entered from i ** dntwing-tWMft * 1 * tto amiable o + cvprfoa of 4 i * w » g the Pisces * i
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CvmpteU * Lift of Mr * . Siddon * . * 43
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 543, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/13/
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