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Untitled Article
Amelia , then scarce three years old , in a little cane-chair . He graciously said something to one of the ladies , and left the lovely baby to run about the room . She happened to be much pleased with some flowers in my bosom , and , as I stooped down that she might take them if so disposed , I could not help exclaiming to a lady near me , ii What a beautiful child ! how I long to kiss her ! " When she instantly held her little hand to
my mouth to be kissed ; so early had she learnt this lesson of royalty . Her Majesty was extremely gracious , and more than once during the reading desired me to take some refreshment in tfue next room . I declined the honour , however , though I had stood reading till I was
ready to drop , rather than run the risk of falling down by walking backwards out of the room , ( a ceremony not to be dispensed with , ) the flooring too being rubbed bright . I afterwards learnt from one of the ladies who was present at the time , that her Majesty had expressed herself surprised to find me so collected in so new a position , and that I had conducted myself as if I had been used to a court . At any rate , I
had frequently personated queens . —Vol . 1 . p . 248—250 . ' Handy dandy / says Lear ; ' which is the justice and which the thief ? ' And which , say we , is the true queen ? and which boards , Buckingham House or Drury , most fitted for the tread of simulating foot ? Would even the shilling-gallery , although they had paid for the exhibition , have kept Mrs . Siddons thus pilloried in a saque , reading till she was fainting , and then graciously left
her to calculate the alternative of dropping on the spot , or of achieving her escape by skaiting backwards into a more humane apartment ? We can laugh at such a scene as happened upon a loyal address occasion ; four-and-twenty parsons , all in a row , bowing backwards till they bumped the wainscot ; but a lady like
Mrs . Siddons is no subject for such a practical joke . This portion of the story came out at the time in Peter Pindar ' s * Ode upon Ode / The remainder of it is far more melancholy . One ' s heart chills and sickens at the baby in the go-cart offering Mrs . Siddons her hand to kiss . The poor little thing , to have her humanities stifled in conventionalism before she was out of
leading-strings ! Why must any children be condemned to such treatment as this ? The predestined victim of the factory would have put up her round face and smiling mouth on such incitement . Alas for royalty ! The second volume opens with Mrs . Siddons ' s own delineation of the character of Lady Macbeth . It is well worth studying , and appears to us to be a more accurate conception than that of her biographer . We entirely agree in her notion of the kind of personal beauty which best embodies the Lady Macbeth of Shakspeare . She thinks it should be ' fair , feminine , nay perhaps even fragile ; ' a loveliness to hold in thrall , with the aid of superior intelligence , a hero of high honour and conscientious feeling , Macbeth was , notwithstanding his ambition . Her mental daring and hardness require contrast rather than correspondence in her form and features to produce the full dramatic effect . And this
Untitled Article
544 Campbell ' $ > Life of Mr * . Siddons .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/14/
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