Chapter V: Part 5

The earliest life of Blake which we have seen is in the second volume of a collection entitled ‘Lives English and Foreign,’ published at the beginning of the last century. Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, Heath’s Chronicle of the Civil Wars, the Memoirs of Ludlow, Whitelock, and other contemporary authorities, will furnish minute accounts of the many battles of which we have here only made short mention.

_Engraved by R. Woodman._

L’HÔPITAL.

_From the original by Janet, in the Musée Royal, Paris._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

L’HÔPITAL.

Michel de l’Hôpital was born at Aigueperse in Auvergne. The date of his birth he himself declares, in his testament, to be uncertain, but at the same time he refers it to the year 1505. His father was the domestic physician, the faithful friend, and trusted counsellor of the Constable of Bourbon, and still followed his patron’s fortunes, when that ill-used and misguided prince took up arms against France in 1523. Michel de l’Hôpital, then a student at the University of Toulouse, was arrested as the son of one of Bourbon’s partizans; but after a short time he was set at liberty by the express order of Francis I., and after the lapse of two or three years was permitted to rejoin his father in Italy. He completed his education during a residence of six years at the celebrated University of Padua. Quitting that University with high credit for his acquirements both in polite literature and legal knowledge, he took up his abode at Rome with his father, and soon obtained the favourable notice both of the Emperor Charles V. and the French ambassador, Cardinal de Grammont. But preferring the hope of re-establishment in his native country to the prospects of advancement held out in a foreign land, he returned to France in the train of the Cardinal; was present at the espousal of Catherine de Medici with the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II., in 1583; and laid a stepping-stone towards his fortunes by attracting the notice of his future queen. The death of the Cardinal however in the following year overclouded his prospects. His father was unable to procure a reversal of the sentence of exile and confiscation passed on him for his adherence to Bourbon; and Michel de l’Hôpital, without means or friends, betook himself to the practice of the law in the courts of Paris. Fortunately, his merits procured a discerning friend in Jean Morin, a high legal functionary, who gave him his daughter in marriage in 1537, with the judicial office of _Conseiller_ for her dowry.

L’Hôpital filled this office during nine years. It was one in which he found no pleasure; for though attached to the philosophical study of the law (and he mentions it as one of the evils of his situation that he had been obliged to abandon a project for collecting into one body the laws of France, both written and resting on judicial decisions), he found the daily routine of trying causes extremely irksome. His letters are full of complaints of this drudgery, as he esteemed it, and express in lively terms the pleasure which he felt in escaping during the vacations into the country, and renewing his literary pursuits. He numbered the most intellectual and learned men of France among his friends, nor was he backward in seeking to conciliate the great and powerful. It is worth noting, as indicative of the manners of the age, that his favourite method of addressing such persons was in Latin hexameters. Accounts of his way of life, statements of his wishes, petitions, &c., are conveyed in that form; and he composed with fluency, and with a competent share of elegance, without great attention to correctness. One of his frequent correspondents, to whose favour he owed in great measure his future rise, was Cardinal Lorraine. The Chancellor Olivier, a man of no common virtue, was another of his best friends, and to him L’Hôpital was indebted for being withdrawn from the hated bustle of the law, by his appointment as envoy to the Council of Bologna. This proved a sinecure; and he employed his time in wandering about the neighbourhood of that city, and writing letters to the Chancellor, full of poetical descriptions, and requests for a more permanent provision away from the tumult of the law courts.

Early in 1549 L’Hôpital was recalled, after remaining upwards of a year in Italy. He found the Chancellor in disgrace; but his acknowledged merit obtained the notice of Margaret of Valois, daughter of Francis I., a steady patroness of learning, herself devoted to literary as well as religious study. Being created Duchess of Berri, she appointed him her Chancellor, to manage the affairs of the province; and one of his first steps in that capacity was the establishment of a new law-school at Bourges, to which he endeavoured to attract the most eminent teachers. Her influence, added to that of Cardinal Lorraine, procured for him the high financial appointment of Superintendent of the Chamber of Accounts, in 1554. His conduct in that station was firm and honest. He laboured to put a stop to numberless abuses, which had prevailed both in the collection and disposition of the revenue; and his zeal is testified by the ill-will which it brought upon him, and which twice endangered the loss of his place. His independence in this respect is ill contrasted by his obsequiousness in supporting the edict known in French history by the name of the _Semestre_. This requires a few words of explanation. No legislative body was recognised by the French constitution. Even the States-General could not enact: the power of making laws resided solely in the sovereign. But by the practice of the land, the edicts of the monarch required to be registered by the body of lawyers called the Parliament of Paris, before they could possess validity as law: a wholesome practice, which often served as a check upon the court. It was probably with the intention of rendering that body more subject to control, that Henry II., or his ministers, introduced the above-mentioned edict, by which it was proposed to divide the Parliament into two bodies, to relieve each other every six months. Under this arrangement it would have been easy to collect the refractory spirits into one body, and then to bring measures forward for registration in whichever half year might best suit the views of the crown. L’Hôpital’s accession to this measure has been palliated by alleging, that, as the price of it, he stipulated for the abolition of a custom which prevailed, for suitors to offer fees to the judges before whom their causes were to be tried, under the name of _spices_ (_épices_),—a ready means of corruption, for yielding to which, or something not much worse, Bacon, about half a century later, was removed with disgrace from the chancellorship of England. The whole tenor of L’Hôpital’s policy in after times tended to depress the Parliament; and this furnishes a presumption that his conduct in this particular instance was honest. But it is strange that he should not have perceived any inroad on the independence of the judicial body to be a still greater evil than even that from which he endeavoured to free it. After all, the scheme failed, and he was deeply mortified at the obloquy which his accession to it incurred.

The accession of Francis II., by bringing the house of Guise into power, proved the means of L’Hôpital’s advancement. One of the first acts of the new government was to restore to the office of chancellor Olivier, a man of tried integrity, and a friend to toleration. But while the princes of Guise availed themselves of his high character to court popularity, they had no thought of acting by his advice; and Olivier, compelled to be the unwilling instrument of a policy which he detested, and afraid or unable to resign, was hastened by vexation to his grave. L’Hôpital was selected to be his successor in June, 1560. The Guises and the Queen Mother are said to have been actuated by different views in agreeing upon this appointment. The former thought that from an old adherent and petitioner of Cardinal Lorraine they had no opposition to fear: the latter is said to have been influenced by the hope that L’Hôpital’s patriotism would lead him to be a check on the over-powerful house of Lorraine.

The circumstances under which he became Chancellor were such as might fairly breed suspicion of his honesty. None but a bold man could have hoped to do good after the example of Olivier; none but a dexterous man could have succeeded. And such dexterity is seldom joined with that sincerity and purity of purpose, which is one of the most valuable qualities of a statesman, or any man. There are sometimes seasons in which an honest man may take office, with the certainty not only that he will not be permitted to do much that he would wish, but also that he will be obliged to do a good deal that he disapproves. But such compromises are of bad example and evil influence, and can only be excused by the necessity of the times, and by the good results which ensue. By this test, L’Hôpital’s conduct is vindicated. He conferred a signal benefit on France at his first entrance upon office, by dexterously contriving to prevent the establishment of the Inquisition, which had been resolved on. He obtained the convocation of an Assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau, in which, through his influence, conciliatory measures were adopted towards the Protestants, and it was resolved to summon a meeting of the States-General. But the Guises, by working on the young king’s fears, turned that measure to their own advantage. Condé no sooner appeared than he was arrested, tried, and condemned to death. The King of Navarre was threatened with a similar fate; and but for the opportune death of Francis II., the kingdom probably would have been plunged at once into the utmost fury of a religious war. But the succession of Charles IX., a minor, in December 1560, threw the regency into the hands of Catherine; and she, encouraged by L’Hôpital, asserted her independence of the Guises, and, to conciliate the support of a powerful party, released Condé, and allied herself with the King of Navarre.

At first, the Chancellor’s liberal measures seemed to prosper. As if in compliance with the demands of the States, he published the celebrated Ordonnance of Orleans, which embodied most of his views for the reformation of the state, and introduced a variety of bold and important changes into the church, the courts of justice, and the financial system. One portion of it is expressly directed against the oppressive rights claimed and exercised by the nobility. But the spirit of the age was not ripe for such extensive reforms: they were too far in advance to produce a lasting influence. And in attempting to overcome an interested and prejudiced opposition, the Chancellor was led to an act unworthy of his real zeal for the welfare of his country. His legal improvements had not conciliated the good will of the lawyers; and, foreseeing that the Parliament of Paris might probably refuse to register his edicts, he took it on himself to dispatch them to the provinces, without ever having submitted them to that body. To justify such a step, it is not enough to say that his views were enlarged and noble, theirs bigoted and illiberal; for it is seldom or never that any object can be of importance enough to justify a constitutional statesman in breaking down a constitutional security. Nor had he even the bad excuse of success. The Parliament were justly incensed, and probably became still more hostile to the measures adopted in defiance of its authority; and the high Catholic party prevailed in obtaining a new Assembly of Notables, at which all was undone which the Chancellor had been labouring to do, and the persecuting edicts against the Protestants were re-established in full force.

This blow to his system of toleration the Chancellor contrived to obviate. He had no assembly, no body of recognised authority on which to lean for support. The Parliament of Paris was against him; the Assembly of Notables, composed of lawyers and nobility, was against him; the States-General were tedious to convoke, and were paralysed by their division into three orders. In this difficulty he bethought himself of calling an assembly of deputies from the provincial Parliaments of the kingdom; and fortified by their recommendation, he promulgated and obtained registration of the celebrated edict of January, 1562, which, under certain restrictions, permitted the open profession of the Protestant faith. Upon this the furious bigotry of the Duke of Guise broke into open violence, and kindled the first of those religious wars which long desolated France. Strengthened by the adhesion of the Constable Montmorenci, and by possession of the persons of the King, and Queen Regent, the brothers of Lorraine usurped the conduct of affairs, and excluded L’Hôpital from the council. It is remarkable, considering his resolute opposition to their policy, that they did not deprive him of his office; and this may be taken as an evidence either of the consummate prudence with which, without betraying his own principles, he avoided giving personal offence to his opponents; or that his character stood so high as to render his opponents unwilling to incur the odium of displacing him.

The assassination of the Duke of Guise, in February, 1563, restored to Catherine her own free-will, and L’Hôpital to power; and he immediately availed himself of it to lay the basis of peace by fresh edicts in favour of toleration, which as usual were opposed by the Parliament. In the following year, Charles IX. having reached the age of fourteen, the Chancellor revived an old law which fixed the majority of Kings of France at that age, and declared the King’s majority before the Parliament of Rouen. Soon after, he was engaged in a quarrel with his old patron, Cardinal Lorraine, relative to the privileges of the Gallican Church. The question was, whether or not the decrees of the Council of Trent should be admitted as authority in France. The Chancellor opposed this, and he carried his point.

To amuse Charles, and to avoid some of the evils which usually beset a court, the Chancellor conducted his young sovereign on a tour to the southern provinces of France. This was attended with unforeseen and evil consequences. At Bayonne Charles was met by his sister, the Queen of Spain, attended by the Duke of Alva and other Spanish noblemen. Alva acquired the confidence of Catherine, whom he persuaded that in the hands of L’Hôpital she really had no more freedom of action than under the control of the Guises; and as in her opposition to them she had been actuated by no love of toleration, she had little to unlearn under the tuition of that bigoted and able partizan of the papacy. L’Hôpital soon perceived that his power was shaken. He laboured to make up for the lost confidence of Catherine, by attaching himself more and more to Charles IX.; and for a time he succeeded in retaining influence over that prince, who, during the years 1565 and 1566, was kept in a state of vacillation between those who pleaded for peace and toleration, and those who would have exterminated Protestantism at all hazards and by all means. The religious war was renewed in 1567. Peace was concluded in 1568; but L’Hôpital was not employed to manage it. His only hold upon power was now in the reverence of the King; and this was shaken by the artful representations of Catherine. It shows, however, in a strong light, the ascendancy which L’Hôpital had acquired over Charles’s mind, that the joint influence of Catherine and the House of Guise could not induce him absolutely to dismiss his faithful minister. In 1568 he sent to request the Chancellor to give up the seals for a time, with a promise of returning them. L’Hôpital says in his Testament, that “he judged it better to yield to the necessity of the state, and to its new governors, than to contend with them.” He retired to his estate at Vignay, near Etampes, where he returned with avidity to his literary pursuits, and to the amusements and occupations of the country, to which his letters represent him as devotedly attached.

The Chancellor had not amassed wealth in his various high employments; but his pensions were continued by the King; and Catherine herself did not forget his former services. Even in the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew’s they interfered to protect him; though his family were Protestants, and he himself, though a Catholic by profession and in observances, was so suspected by the bigot party, who did not understand how sincerity and tolerance could go together, that it passed into a sort of proverb, ‘Lord deliver us from the Chancellor’s mass.’ A troop of horse was sent from court to preserve his mansion from insult. His domestics were alarmed, and proposed to shut the gates. “No,” said the Chancellor; “but if the small gate is not enough, open the great one.” His daughter, then in Paris, was in imminent danger, and escaped only through the intervention of the Duchess of Guise.

The Chancellor did not long survive this signal proof that his labours had been in vain. “I have lived too long,” he said, “since I have seen what has occurred in my last days,—a youth changed from a mild king into a merciless tyrant.” He died, March 13, 1573; and was buried in his parish church of Champmoteux. His monument is among those which have been collected at Paris, in the Musée des Petits-Augustins.

Brantôme has described the person of L’Hôpital. He wore a long white beard; his face was pale, his demeanor grave, and he resembled the pictures of St. Jerome, by which name he was known at court. He and the Constable Montmorenci were famous as _rabroueurs_, or reprimanders, and were joint terrors to the idle courtiers; and this harshness, if we may trust his own representations, was not natural, but assumed as a necessary qualification for his office. His private habits were very simple and frugal, and he regarded the increase of luxury as the bane of France. Brantôme says that once, when he paid the Chancellor a visit with Maréchal Strozzi, their host gave them for dinner a single dish of _bouillie_, and that his whole stock of plate consisted of one silver saltcellar. He adds an amusing account of the way in which the Chancellor rated two newly appointed functionaries, who came to present themselves, and who could not pass satisfactorily through a legal examination, which he bestowed upon them.

The leading objects of L’Hôpital’s political life were to obtain the reformation of abuses, to establish the independence of the Gallican church against the usurpations of Rome, and to procure toleration for the Protestants. He is, we believe, the first minister who laid down the principle of toleration, and proclaimed the impossibility and absurdity of making force the rule of reason; and he has thus gained an indefeasible title to the reverence, not only of his countrymen, but of mankind. “What laws,” he said, in his inaugurative speech to the Parliament of Paris, “have not been promulgated on this point of religion? What judgments and punishments, of which even the magistrates of the Parliament have been victims? To what purpose have served such continued armaments and combats in Germany, in England, and in Scotland? The ancient religion has been shaken by these combats, and the new confirmed. The mistake lies in treating the maladies of the mind as if they were those of the body. Experience teaches us that it is the force of reason, the gentle persuasion of words alone, which can win hearts, and cure diseased spirits.”

This great man has another claim to notice, as one of the most distinguished jurists and reformers of France. He has been classed with Charlemagne and St. Louis, as one of the three principal legislators of that country; and his eminent successor D’Aguesseau bore testimony to the merits of his edicts, as the foundation of the most useful laws which were afterwards enacted. His constitutional views were directed towards raising the royal authority, at the expense of the nobility and the Parliament. We have expressed our belief that in the latter instance his conduct was wrong. His views of reform are embodied in the Ordonnance of Orleans (January, 1561), and that of Moulins (February, 1566), which De Thou describes as being the complement of the former. Of the contents of the Ordonnance of Orleans we have already given such notice as our space allows; that of Moulins pertains rather to legal and judicial reforms; it limits and defines the powers of judicial officers, and determines the law on various points, relative to entails, arrests for debt, sales, &c. In short, these two edicts provide for the removal of most of those evils which, unredressed, produced the first Revolution.

It is much to be regretted that L’Hôpital’s essay towards a work on French law is lost. There is a volume extant of his Poetical Epistles, of which the best edition is that of Amsterdam, 1732. To these, and to his Testament, which is printed in the Bibliothèque Choisie of Colomiès, and in Brantôme (article of the Constable Montmorenci), we may refer for authentic details of his life; of which numerous particulars will be found in the history of De Thou, the Memoirs of Brantôme, the Letters of Pasquier, the Eloges of Thevet, and other contemporary writers. His speeches before the States of Orleans have been published; and a Collection of Memoirs, consisting of various State Papers, printed at Cologne, 1672, has been ascribed to him. The Eloge of L’Hôpital was proposed as a prize by the French Academy in 1777. Slight accounts of him will be found in the various biographical dictionaries; but no publication, so far as we know, has appeared either in French or English, which can dispense with the necessity of consulting the original authorities, on the part of those who wish to obtain more than a superficial acquaintance with the history of this illustrious statesman.

[The Conciergerie at Paris, from whence the Huguenot prisoners were
liberated by L’Hôpital himself,—from a Print in the British Museum.]
]

MRS. SIDDONS.

The light esteem in which the theatrical profession has commonly been held renders it probable that the introduction of an actress among the few female names included in our Gallery may seem to some persons uncalled for and injudicious. That there are few players entitled to such admission we allow: but for one who studied acting as a branch of art, discarding every unworthy species of stage trickery; and who, by profound study, and a rare union of mental and bodily excellence, has inseparably connected her name and memory with the masterpieces of the British drama, we do claim a place (to which her eminent brother is almost equally entitled) among the master-minds of the fine arts.

Sarah Kemble came of a theatrical stock. Her father was manager of a provincial company of actors; her mother was the daughter of a provincial manager. Both parents maintained a high character for moral rectitude; and the latter is said to have been distinguished by a strength of mind, and stateliness of demeanour, which may have had some influence upon the character and manners of her celebrated children. Sarah, their eldest daughter, was born at Brecon, July 5, 1755. From an early period of childhood she was trained to the stage. She was scarcely more than seventeen when her affections were engaged by an actor of her father’s company, named Siddons, to whom, after some opposition on the part of her parents, she was married, November 26, 1773. Her early married life was beset with difficulties. Mr. Siddons possessed little merit as an actor; and during nine years, which elapsed before Mrs. Siddons established a metropolitan reputation, she had to endure hard work and low pay. The first encouragement which she received in her career was from the notice of the Hon. Miss Boyle, afterwards Lady O’Neil, a lady possessed of high mental qualities, as well as birth and beauty, who was so much struck

_Engraved by W. Holl._

M^{RS}. SIDDONS.

_After the Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

by the young actress’s performance of Belvidera at Cheltenham in 1774, that she sought her out in her obscurity, and there commenced a warm and lasting friendship. Through this connection Mrs. Siddons seems to have been introduced to Garrick, by whom she was engaged at Drury Lane theatre. Her first appearance was in the character of Portia, December 29, 1775. She was received with indifference; and during the remainder of the season she did not establish herself in the favour of the London audiences, nor did she appear in any first-rate part. Garrick professed high admiration for her, and on quitting the stage, which he did towards the close of that season, promised to procure for her an advantageous engagement with his successors in the management. In this promise he failed, for during the summer of 1776 she received an abrupt dismissal from Drury Lane. Her failure to produce a sensation in the first instance does not seem to have weighed much on her mind. She knew her powers, but was conscious that they were immature; and she was deeply sensible through life how necessary, even to the greatest powers, are cultivation and study. But this dismissal affected her in a very different manner. In her own words, quoted from the autograph ‘Recollections’ intrusted to her friend and biographer, Mr. Campbell, “it was a stunning and cruel blow, overwhelming all my ambitious hopes, and involving peril, even to the very subsistence of my helpless babes.”

Her fears were soothed, and her mortification relieved by her success at several of the provincial theatres. She received her dismissal from Drury Lane while at Birmingham, where she was engaged during the summer to perform the highest characters; and where she laid the foundation of her fame, by acquiring the good opinion of the actor Henderson, who pronounced, within a year of her expulsion from Drury Lane, that she was an actress who never had an equal, nor would ever have a superior. Through his recommendation, in the following year she obtained a permanent engagement at Bath, where she was received with distinguished favour, and where she remained until her increasing reputation procured for her an invitation to return to Drury Lane. She chose the part of Isabella, in the ‘Fatal Marriage,’ for her debut, October 10, 1782. The anxiety with which she approached this second trial is described in an interesting manner in her own memoranda. On this occasion her hopes were fully gratified. She played Isabella eight times between October 10, and October 30, when she appeared in her second character, Euphrasia, in the ‘Grecian Daughter.’ Her other parts, during this first season, were Jane Shore, Calista, Belvidera, and Zara in the ‘Mourning Bride.’

We propose in this sketch of Mrs. Siddons’s theatrical life to notice only the most remarkable of her characters, reserving to the end a complete list of them, together with a few remarks on her style of acting. In November, 1783, she played Isabella in ‘Measure for Measure,’ with entire success; and thus solved the real or pretended doubts of a few persons, who questioned her courage or capacity to represent the masterpieces of Shakspeare to a London audience. No one could do more justice to the pure, uncompromising, clear-sighted virtue of Isabella, so consonant to her own honest and high-souled simplicity: nor was she at fault in attempting, during the same season, Constance, in ‘King John,’ a character of more varied emotion, and far greater demand on the resources of the player. Of this part she says, in an elaborate criticism, worthy of being read with attention by all persons, and especially by actors, “I cannot conceive in the whole range of dramatic character a greater difficulty than that of representing this grand creature.” Those who remember her performance of it in the meridian of her powers, bear testimony, with Mr. Campbell, to the depth of her maternal affection, her queen-like majesty, and her tremendous power of invective and sarcasm: when first revived for her the play seems to have been coldly received.

The celebrated portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse was painted by Reynolds in 1783. The character was suggested by the painter: the attitude is that in which the sitter first placed herself, by which Reynolds was so struck that he at once adopted it.

An interesting anecdote relative to Mrs. Siddons’s first country performance of Lady Macbeth, is told in the Memoranda from which we have already quoted. “It was my custom to study my characters at night, when the domestic cares and business of the day were over. On the night preceding that in which I was to appear for the first time, I shut myself up, as usual, when all the family were retired, and commenced my study of _Lady Macbeth_. As the character is very short, I thought I should soon accomplish it. Being then only twenty years of age, I believed, as many do believe, that little more was necessary than to get the words into my head; for the necessity of discrimination, and the development of character, at that time of my life, had scarcely entered into my imagination. But, to proceed, I went on with tolerable composure in the silence of the night, (a night I can never forget,) till I came to the assassination scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a degree that made it impossible for me to get farther. I snatched up my candle, and hurried out of the room, in a paroxysm of terror. My dress was of silk, and the rustling of it, as I ascended the stairs to go to bed, seemed to my panic-struck fancy like the movement of a spectre pursuing me. At last I reached my chamber, where I found my husband fast asleep. I clapt my candlestick down upon the table, without the power of putting the candle out; and I threw myself on my bed, without daring to stay even to take off my clothes. At peep of day I rose to resume my task; but so little did I know of my part when I appeared in it at night, that my shame and confusion cured me of procrastinating my business for the remainder of my life.”

“About six years afterwards I was called upon to act the same character in London. By this time I had perceived the difficulty of assuming a personage with whom no one feeling of common general nature was congenial or assistant. One’s own heart could prompt one to express with some degree of truth the sentiments of a mother, a daughter, a wife, a lover, a sister, &c.; but to adopt this character must be an effort of the judgment alone.”

In accordance with this, Mrs. Siddons has been known to say, that Lady Macbeth gave her more trouble than any other of her characters, both in settling her conception of the poet’s meaning, and determining the means of giving effect to it. Her success however in the eyes of the public was complete: in Mr. Campbell’s words, “the moment she seized the part she identified her image with it in the minds of the living generation.” She appeared in it for the first time in London, February 2, 1785. Smith played Macbeth. As in the case of Constance, Mrs. Siddons has left, in an elaborate essay on the character of Lady Macbeth, interesting evidence of the deep study which she bestowed on her profession; a point in which, as well as in general mental cultivation, the Kemble family have been advantageously distinguished from others even of our first-rate actors. It is scarcely possible to conceive ‘Macbeth’ so well performed as when the principal characters were filled by Mrs. Siddons and Kemble: the actors might have been thought born for the parts. The same may be said of ‘Coriolanus,’ in which they appeared together for the first time in February, 1789. But the season of 1785 is also memorable for Mrs. Siddons’s first appearance in Desdemona, a character as widely different from the Scottish Queen as can well be imagined. Yet it is recorded to have been one of the actress’s most exquisite performances; and this is one of the strongest proofs of her extraordinary talent. Unsuitable as her person, voice, and general demeanour may seem to those who knew her only in her later days, we have the undeniable testimony of competent judges to the grace, loveliness, and sweetness with which she personated the gentle Venetian. Her very stature, Mr. Boaden says, seemed to be lowered. Ophelia she performed once, and once only, for her benefit, May 15, 1786, to her brother’s Hamlet; and, though a poor singer, she rendered the part deeply affecting. Juliet she also performed, we believe once only, for her benefit in 1789. Cordelia and Imogen are to be added to the list of characters of the gentler cast. The former was not one of her most popular, probably not one of her most effective, performances, for Lear is said to have been almost the only play in which, when both were on the stage, the brother made a stronger impression than the sister. The pure, gentle dignity of Imogen must have found in her a most effective representative.

In the autumn of 1783, about a year before Dr. Johnson’s death, Mrs. Siddons, at his own request, paid him a visit, which was several times repeated. He expressed a strong desire to see her in Queen Katherine, his favourite character among Shakspeare’s females. He was not so gratified; for the play was not brought forward until November 28, 1788, after an absence from the stage of near half a century. This, like Lady Macbeth, we must regard as one of Mrs. Siddons’s peculiar characters. “It was an era,” Mr. Campbell says, “not only in Mrs. Siddons’s history, but in the fortune of the play as an acting piece; for certainly, in the history of all female performance on the British stage, there is no specific tradition of any excellence at all approaching to hers as Queen Katherine.” The two principal scenes belonging to the part are strikingly contrasted. The high mind and majestic deportment of the actress, and the sarcasm which she pours out on the Cardinal, render the Trial Scene one of the most effective on the stage; and it has fortunately been preserved from oblivion by the pencil of Harlowe. But the last scene, in the sick chamber, was among the strongest proofs of Mrs. Siddons’s close adherence to nature, and one of her greatest triumphs over the difficulties of her art, enhanced as they were by the extravagant dimensions of the modern theatres. It may be mentioned to show her confidence in her own judgment as to the truth of nature that, though the audience in the gallery sometimes asked her to speak louder, she never obeyed the call; but left the architect responsible for any failure of effect, rather than herself overstep the bounds of propriety in the most solemn event of human life.

Mrs. Siddons quitted Drury Lane for the season 1789–90, in consequence of the difficulty of obtaining her salary while the treasury was in the hands of Sheridan. She was induced by promises to return in the following season; but a weak state of health prevented her playing more than seven nights, and she appeared in no new character; nor, during the summer of 1791, did she act on any provincial stage. She returned to Drury Lane in 1794, after the rebuilding of the theatre, and remained there until 1802; when the impossibility of rescuing the reward of her labours from that “drowning gulf,” as she justly calls Sheridan in one of her letters, drove her away finally. The most remarkable of her new characters, during this period of eight years, were Millwood, in ‘George Barnwell,’ and Agnes, in ‘Fatal Curiosity,’ both plays of Lillo; Mrs. Haller; Elvira in ‘Pizarro,’ which, in spite of the demerits of the play, she rendered one of her most popular characters; and Hermione, in the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ her last new part, which she acted for the first time, March 25, 1802. The statue scene was one of her most extraordinary performances, both for its illusion while she remained motionless, and for the effect produced by her descent from the pedestal, and recognition of her daughter Perdita.

In one of her early performances of this character she met with an accident which might well have ended fatally. The muslin draperies in which she was enveloped caught fire from a lamp; fortunately, one of the scene-men saw and extinguished it before it spread. Her gratitude for his interposition is eloquently expressed in her correspondence; and her warmth of feeling was subsequently evinced in the pains which she took to procure for the man’s son, who had deserted from the army, remission from what she justly calls “the horrid torture and disgrace of the lash,” and in the lively pleasure which she expresses in the prospect of succeeding.

Upon her final departure from Drury Lane, Mrs. Siddons formed an engagement at Covent Garden, where she appeared for the first time, September 27, 1803. She continued there until June 29, 1812, on which day she bid farewell to the stage. During this time she performed in no new characters, nor is any circumstance which requires notice recorded of this part of her professional life. In her last season we find that, of her earlier characters, she performed Isabella, in ‘The Fatal Marriage,’ twice; Isabella, in ‘Measure for Measure,’ seven times; Euphrasia, twice; Belvidera, six times; and Mrs. Beverley, four times. It may perhaps be taken as an indication of that by which she wished chiefly to be remembered, that she played Lady Macbeth ten times, and chose it for her farewell. Queen Katherine she played six times; Constance and Volumnia, four times each; Elvira, five times; Mrs. Haller, twice; Hermione, four times. On her last appearance the house was crowded to excess, and the excitement of the occasion was testified by a general demand that the play should be stopped after Lady Macbeth’s appearance in the sleeping scene. Mrs. Siddons returned to the boards on various occasions, chiefly for her brother Charles’s benefit: her last performance was in the part of Lady Randolph, June 9, 1819.

In giving, in addition to what we have already said, a short general notice of the professional merits of Mrs. Siddons, we shall confine our remarks chiefly to those characters which better suited her maturer years, in which alone a large majority of our readers can have seen her. She was throughout the tragic department the unrivalled actress of her time; though in such parts as Belvidera, Desdemona, Cordelia, &c., the power of exciting the sympathy of an audience might have been shared with her by Mrs. Cibber and other of her predecessors, or by her successors, Miss O’Neil or Miss Kemble. But in one respect she stands alone in her profession: she was the most intellectual of actresses. She was a person of deep thought, and an habitual student of nature with a view to the perfection of her art; and that as much, or more, in advanced life, than when she had her reputation to make or to enjoy in the first years of her celebrity. Mrs. Siddons sat day after day in her study, looking at Shakspeare and whatever bore upon him, not as if he were the mere poet of the stage, furnishing an outline to be filled up by her peculiar powers, but as if he were the high priest and expositor of human nature, whose lessons it was the serious business of her life to learn, and having learned, to teach.

We shall not add to what we have already said of her Queen Katherine, or Lady Macbeth, except one circumstance, illustrative of the above position. Mrs. Siddons, who repeatedly read ‘Macbeth’ before the most competent judges, made a deeper and more lasting impression, not only in her own part, but in the other characters, than did the representation on the stage by her brother and herself, with all the advantages of dress and the illusion of scenery. The audience, at her readings, consisting of men and women of taste and literature, professed never to have understood Shakspeare so thoroughly before.

Her Isabella, in ‘Measure for Measure,’ claims a short notice. This play in Garrick’s reign was acted occasionally to empty benches in the dull part of the season; but neither the manager himself, nor his leading performers, condescended to appear in so grave and sermonizing a piece. Even when played by Kemble and his sister, it did not draw crowded houses; but it ensured a critical and enlightened audience. The theatre seldom contained so many men of the first reputation for taste and literature as when that play was performed. John Kemble’s mind was framed in the same mould with his sister’s; he gave to a sententious and philosophic part dignity and interest, where an ordinary actor would preach his audience to sleep. The scene between the Duke in the disguise of a Confessor, and Isabella, excited neither tears nor rapturous applause, but intense interest, and breathless attention. The Duke’s exposition of his project is long, her intervening speeches short, and not emphatic; so that such a scene bids fair to be called _prosing_. But the intense and intelligent expression in her eyes, and more perhaps in her mouth, the great seat of expression, filled up whatever was wanting: the gradually increasing, but as yet far from complete comprehension of the device, and of its consistency with her own purity, marked without words what was passing in her mind: but when she exclaims “The image of it gives me content already, and I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection,” the burst of perfect understanding, the lighting up of every feature, and the tones of sudden joy, produced a corresponding effect in the spectators, which scenes of intense pathos could scarcely surpass in effect. Mrs. Siddons’s power over the mind was as great as over the passions.

Another extraordinary performance was her Millwood, in ‘George Barnwell.’ She took that part, which had never been played by a first-rate actress, in hopes that she might be of service to her brother Charles, then a young actor, who was to be brought forward as Barnwell. In the early scenes the severity of her blandishments bordered on the ludicrous; she was more like Barnwell’s mother than his mistress: but in her scene of dissimulation with Thorowgood, and in her subsequent arrest and diabolically triumphant avowal of the motive of her conduct through life, the desire to revenge her wrongs on the opposite sex, she pourtrayed wickedness with grand and appalling force. Her thundering exclamation, “I know you, and I hate you all; I expect no mercy, and I ask for none,” was made with a withering effect. The scene in ‘Fatal Curiosity,’ in which Agnes suggests to her husband the murder of their unknown son, was another of her wonderful exhibitions: in Mr. Campbell’s words, “it made the flesh of the spectator creep.”

Mrs. Siddons is said to have thought well of her own talents for comedy; and her reading of Shakspeare’s characters of low humour was admirable. She played at different times Katherine, in ‘The Taming of the Shrew,’ and Rosalind; as well as Mrs. Oakley, and a few other characters of the modern drama. There seems to have been nothing against her success in genteel comedy but a deficiency of animal spirits. Her delivery of the level conversation in tragedy was easy, graceful, and refined. Her representation of the early scenes in ‘The Gamester,’ where she had merely to personate an elegant and highbred woman, bearing up against present anxiety and impending misfortune, was as attractive and as finished as her deep tragedy in the sequel was pathetic and harrowing. And in the first scenes of Mrs. Haller, the charm of her manners and delivery imparted interest even to the dull detail of a housekeeper’s weekly routine.

We subjoin a list of the parts which Mrs. Siddons performed in London. The reader will be surprised to find how many of them are in plays all but forgotten, and utterly unworthy of her talents. In those marked (*) she made her first appearance for her own benefit: in those marked (†), for John Kemble’s.

Characters. Plays.

1782–3.

Isabella Fatal Marriage

Euphrasia Grecian Daughter

Jane Shore Jane Shore

Calista Fair Penitent

*Belvidera Venice Preserved

*Zara Mourning Bride

1783–4.

Isabella Measure for Measure

Mrs. Beverley Gamester

Constance King John

*Lady Randolph Douglas

Countess of Salisbury Countess of Salisbury (_Hartson._)

*Sigismunda Tancred and Sigismunda

1784–5.

Margaret of Anjou Earl of Warwick (_Franklin._)

Zara Zara (_from Voltaire._)

Matilda Carmelite (_Cumberland._)

Camiola Maid of Honour

*Lady Macbeth Macbeth

Desdemona Othello

Elfrida Elfrida (_Mason._)

Rosalind As you like it

1785–6.

The Duchess Duke of Braganza (_Jephson._)

Mrs. Lovemore Way to keep Him

*Hermione Distressed Mother

*Ophelia, and the Lady in
Comus

Malvina The Captives (_Delap._)

Elwina Percy (_Miss H. More._)

1786–7.

Cleone Cleone (_Dodsley._)

Imogen Cymbeline

Hortensia Count of Narbonne (_Jephson._)

†Lady Restless All in the Wrong

Julia Italian Lovers (_Jephson._)

Alicia Jane Shore

1787–8.

Cordelia Lear

Cleonice Fall of Sparta (_Mrs. Cowley._)

†Katherine Taming the Shrew

Dionara Regent (_Greatheed._)

*Cleopatra All for Love

1788–9.

Queen Katherine Henry VIII.

Volumnia Coriolanus

*The Princess and Mrs. Riot Law of Lombardy (_Jephson._)
Lethe (_Farce. Garrick._)

Mary Mary Queen of Scots (_St. John._)

*Juliet Romeo and Juliet

1791–2.

Queen Elizabeth Richard III.

Mrs. Oakley Jealous Wife

1792–3.

Ariadne Ariadne (_Murphy._)

1793–4.

Countess Orsini Emilia Galotti (_from Lessing._)

1794–5.

Horatia Roman Father (_Whitehead._)

Elvira Edwyn and Elgiva (_Miss Burney._)

Palmira Mahomet (_from Voltaire._)

Emmeline Edgar and Emmeline (_Afterpiece._)

1795–6.

Roxana Alexander the Great (_Lee._)

Almeyda Queen of Granada (_Miss Lee._)

Julia Such Things were (_Prince Hoare._)

1796–7.

Eleanora Edwin and Eleonora (_Thomson._)

Vitellia Conspiracy (_Jephson._)

Millwood George Barnwell

Athenais Force of Love (_Lee._)

Aspasia Tamerlane (_Rowe._)

Dido Queen of Carthage (_Reed._)

Agnes Fatal Curiosity

1797–8.

Julia Rivals

Mrs. Haller Stranger

1798–9.

Miranda Aurelio and Miranda (_Boaden._)

Countess Castle of Montval (_Dr. Whalley._)

Elvira Pizarro

1799–1800.

Adelaide Adelaide (_Pye._)

Lady Jane De Montfort

1800–1.

Helena Antonio (_Godwin._)

Agnes Julian and Agnes (_Sotheby._)

1802.

Hermione Winter’s Tale

Of Mrs. Siddons’s private life it is not necessary for us to speak at length. She had a full share of domestic troubles; and suffered the most poignant sorrow which could have befallen her affectionate temper, in the successive deaths of two lovely daughters in the prime of youth, and of her eldest son at a more advanced age. Nor was she exempted by her brilliant success and large gains from great anxiety upon pecuniary matters, and from the necessity of diligent labour at times when rest would have been most grateful to a distressed spirit, and a body weakened by frequent indisposition. And she made it her boast that she had never wilfully disappointed either a manager or the public; and that in point of punctuality, she had always been _an honest actress_. But Mr. Siddons lost money in some unfortunate speculations; and this, combined with the extreme difficulty of extracting from Sheridan her salary, or even the proceeds of her benefits, kept Mrs. Siddons poor for many years. It is however gratifying to know that the evening of her life was spent in affluence.

In social intercourse Mrs. Siddons commanded the respect of all, the admiration and love of those who knew her intimately. To a constitutional want of animal spirits, and to a fear of that presumptuous intrusion to which actresses are often exposed, we may attribute a gravity, not to say severity of manner, from which distant observers sometimes inferred a corresponding severity of character. That this was not the case, that she was benevolent, cheerful, and affectionately interested in the welfare of all who enjoyed her friendship, is shown by the testimony of many, and by the evidence of her own actions.

To be courted by the rich and noble is not the best proof or reward even of professional merit; and no one ever was less disposed than Mrs. Siddons to act the part of what is called _a lion_. But it should be mentioned that her acquaintance was eagerly cultivated among the highest of the land; and that she was personally esteemed by George III. and his queen, and often summoned to attend on their private circle. She possessed a still higher honour, and one which she is said to have esteemed more highly, in the admiration and friendship of Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, Fox, and other intellectual ornaments of the age.

After quitting the stage, Mrs. Siddons gave public readings of poetry at the Argyle Rooms, and also, by special invitation from the Universities, at Cambridge and Oxford. At home her readings of Shakspeare were the delight of large and frequent parties, till within a year or two of her death. The latter years of her life were spent, the winter months at her house in London, the summer months at some watering-place, and in visits to her numerous friends. Time laid his touch gently on her noble face and person; and to the end of life she looked some years younger than her age, and preserved her mental powers unimpaired. She died June 8, 1831, in her seventy-sixth year.

We need hardly refer to the Lives of Messrs. Boaden and Campbell. The interest of the latter is much increased by the critical and other writings of Mrs. Siddons, with which it is interspersed.

]

_Engraved by E. Scriven._

SIR W. HERSCHELL.

_From a Crayon Picture by the late J. Russell, Esq^{re}. R.A. in the
possession of Sir John Herschell._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

HERSCHEL.

William Herschel was born at Hanover, November 15, 1738. His father was a musician, and brought up his four sons to his own art, which in Germany gave him better means of educating his children, than would have fallen to the lot of a person holding the same station in England. The subject of our memoir is said to have had a master who instructed him in French, ethics, and metaphysics: but at the age of fourteen he was placed in the band of the Hanoverian regiment of guards, and in 1758 or 1759 he accompanied a detachment of the regiment to England. Another account states that he grew tired of his occupation, and came to England alone. Here, after struggling with poverty for some time, he was chosen by Lord Darlington to organize a band for the Durham militia; after which he passed several years in the West Riding of Yorkshire, employed in teaching music and studying languages. About 1765 he was elected organist at Halifax, and employed himself in the study of harmony and mathematics. Such at least is the statement of the ‘Obituary;’ but in that respectable work we find no references to the sources from which these minute particulars of Herschel’s early life are obtained. About this time he is said to have visited Italy; and, without professing to give credit to it, we may here insert a curious story which appears to have been copied into English works from the ‘Dictionnaire des Auteurs Vivans,’ &c., Paris, 1816. Being at Genoa, and not having wherewith to pay his passage home to England, he procured from a M. L’Anglé the use of some public rooms for a concert, at which he played a quartett, alone, upon a harp, and two horns, one fastened to each shoulder. Those who are in the least acquainted with wind instruments will hardly believe that a horn fastened to the shoulder would be of much more use than one growing out of the head, as a musical instrument; to say nothing of the difficulty of blowing two horns at once, or of playing a _quartett_ upon _three_ instruments. Remarkable characters are generally made the subject of wonderful stories, of which each is fashioned in accordance with the general habits of the inventor: the groom’s idea of a wit was “a gentleman who could ride three horses at once;” surely two horns and a harp are not too much to be played at once by a planetary discoverer.

About 1766, he is said to have been one of the Pump-room band at Bath, and was shortly afterwards organist of the Octagon Chapel there. He taught and read as before; and here he turned his attention to astronomy. He borrowed a small reflecting telescope of a friend; and at length, finding that the purchase of such an instrument was (“fortunately,” as it has been well expressed,) above his means, he endeavoured to construct one for himself. His first attempt was a five-feet Newtonian reflector. It was some time before he perfected himself in the method of forming mirrors: in one instance he is said to have spoiled 200 before he succeeded.