Читать книгу Mrs. Siddons - Nina H. Kennard - Страница 7

Table of Contents

“Have you ever heard,” asked Garrick, in an unpublished letter to Moody, then at Liverpool, “of a woman Siddons, who is strolling about somewhere near you?” Four months later, by the help of the Rev. Henry Bate’s favourable report of her powers, she made her first appearance at Drury Lane. The Golden Gates of the Temple of Fame were thrown open. The young priestess had but to enter, one would have thought, and light the sacred flame; but genius is not to be bound by expediency or opportunity.

It was in 1775, the year when Garrick gave up the management, that Mrs. Siddons appeared on the boards of Drury Lane. She had reached the highest point of her ambition—she was to act with the greatest actor of his time before a dramatic audience rendered fastidious and critical by great traditions.

This is the most unfortunate portion of her life to recount. Failure and disappointment attended every step she made; and this failure and disappointment, although it did not in the least discourage her in the prosecution of her art, hurried her into bitterness and an unjust feeling of rancour against Garrick, which an examination of the circumstances of the case in no way warrants. One of the Kemble weaknesses was a proud sensitiveness to anything like slight or neglect, and these slights were as often as not phantoms of their own imaginations.

It gives one a mournful sense of injustice to see the charge of jealousy she openly brings repeated by the earlier biographer who wrote about her—when we, who have fuller light thrown upon the great actor’s life by the publication of his correspondence, know how free he was from the besetting sins of his craft. To be popular, a man must have the faults of those among whom he is placed. Garrick was called stingy because he did not throw away his money like his colleagues; stiff, because he was a moral man amidst a laxity of manners that has become proverbial; jealous, because he placed the honour of his art and his theatre above personal considerations. He was an object of envy because of his unparalleled success. The two clouds which veiled the nobility of his character—love of money and love of fine friends—vanished like mists in the sunshine if he were really called upon to help a case of distress or take notice of an old friend. These faults were harped upon, however, by Johnson, Foote, and hosts of others. Well might Garrick, in the evening of his days, sitting on the terrace of his house at Twickenham, make the, for him, bitter observation, “I have not always met gratitude in a play-house.”

It was at the time, no doubt, a salve to Mrs. Siddons’s disappointment to listen to the specious Mr. Sheridan’s insinuation of Garrick’s jealousy; but it is a curious fact, if Sheridan were sincere in his statements, that when he succeeded Garrick as manager he never endeavoured to re-engage her; indeed, on the contrary, abruptly and discourteously closed all negotiations and cancelled all agreements made both with the actress and her husband for a reappearance at Drury Lane.

We will allow the reader, however, to judge the story upon its own merits.

After the favourable reports of King and Bate, Garrick, as we have seen by the Bate letters, engaged Mrs. Siddons and her husband. The energy that afterwards distinguished her to such an extraordinary extent was now exhibited.

Although not at all strong—her eldest girl, and second child, as we have seen, having only been born on the 5th of November 1775—in the beginning of December she began making preparations for her journey to London, no joke in those days when, “starting two hours before day, or as late at night,” it took three days to reach Bristol.

Five days, Mrs. Delaney tells us, travelling over the same road the Siddons had now to face, it took to reach her father’s place in Gloucestershire. “Every half hour flop we went into a slough, not overturned, but stuck. Out we were hauled, and the coach with much difficulty was set up again.”

Full of hope and excitement, however, the young actress, accompanied by husband and babies, prepared for their expedition. No pilgrim approaching the shrine of Mecca was ever more enthusiastic than she approaching the bourne of all actors of that day, Drury Lane. Yet already, through all her delight, we hear a note of dissatisfaction that is displeasing. Garrick had arranged to give her five pounds a week, a munificent salary for a beginner in those days. Mrs. Abington and Mrs. Yates only received ten. She had heard the charge of stinginess made against him, and, parrot-like, repeated it, without really considering if in her own case it were true.

We will relate the story, however, in her own words, taken from Recollections written many years after, but full of as much bitterness as though penned while still smarting under her reverse.

“Happy to be placed where I presumptuously augured that I should do all that I have since achieved, if I could but once gain the opportunity, I instantly paid my respects to the great man. I was at that time good-looking; and certainly, all things considered, an actress well worth my poor five pounds a week. His praises were most liberally conferred upon me.” We are told by Campbell that he complimented her in this interview for not having the regular “tie-tum-tie” or sing-song of the provincial actress. “But,” she goes on, “his attentions, great and unremitting as they were, ended in worse than nothing. How was all this admiration to be accounted for consistently with his subsequent conduct? Why, thus, I believe: he was retiring from the management of Drury Lane, and, I suppose, at that time wished to wash his hands of all its concerns and details. However this may be, he always objected to my appearance in any very prominent character, telling me that Mrs. Yates and Miss Young would poison me if I did. I, of course, thought him not only an oracle but my friend; and, in consequence of his advice, Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, was fixed upon for my début, a character in which it was not likely that I should excite any great sensation. I was, therefore, merely tolerated.”

We here beg to mention that it can hardly be correct that Mrs. Siddons thought she would make no impression in Portia, as she had underlined Portia in the list she gave Mr. Bate of her favourite parts, and we find her choosing it later as the character in which to appear before Horace Walpole when desirous of propitiating the pitiless critic. But we will continue to relate the unfortunate story of this period in her own words.

“The fulsome adulation that courted Garrick in the theatre cannot be imagined; and whosoever was the luckless wight who should be honoured by his distinguished and envied smiles, of course, became an object of spite and malevolence. Little did I imagine that I myself was now that wretched victim. He would sometimes hand me from my own seat in the green-room to place me next to his own.... He also,” she goes on, “selected me to personate Venus at the revival of the Jubilee. This gained me the malicious appellation of Garrick’s ‘Venus,’ and the ladies who so kindly bestowed it on me rushed before me in the last scene, so that if he (Mr. Garrick) had not brought us forward with him with his own hands, my little Cupid and myself, whose appointed situations were in the very front of the stage, might have as well been in the Island of Paphos at that moment.”

Thomas Dibdin, the Cupid on this occasion, afterwards told Campbell that, as it was necessary for him to smile in the part of his godship, Mrs. Siddons kept him in good humour by asking him what sort of sugar-plums he liked best, and promising him a large supply of them. After the performance she kept her word. This is a characteristic trait; most young actresses under the circumstances would have been rather occupied with the effect of their own beauty on the audience than of the smiles of their Cupids.

At last the day came on which her fate was to be decided. It fell in Christmas week, 1775, and the audience present is described as “numerous and splendid.”

The following is a copy of the play-bill:—

(Not acted these two years.)

By Her Majesty’s Company at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

This day will be performed

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

Shylock	Mr. King.
Antonio	Mr. Reddish.
Gratiano	Mr. Dodd.
Lorenzo (with songs)	Mr. Vernon.
&c. &c.
Then Jessica (with a song)	Miss Jarrett.
Nerissa	Mrs. Davies.
Portia, by a Young Lady (her first appearance).

The result can best be known by the judgment of the newspaper critics. One says: “On before us tottered rather than walked a very pretty, delicate, fragile-looking young creature, dressed in a most unbecoming manner, in a faded salmon-coloured sack and coat, and uncertain whereabouts to fix either her eyes or her feet. She spoke in broken, tremulous tones; and at the close of each sentence her voice sank into a ‘horrid whisper’ that was almost inaudible. After her first exit, the judgment of the pit was unanimous as to her beauty, but declared her awkward and provincial.”

In the famous Trial scene she regained her courage, and delivered the great speech to Shylock with “critical propriety,” but with a faintness of utterance which seemed the result of physical weakness rather than of want of spirit or feeling. Another paper, who “understood that the new Portia had been the heroine of one of those petty parties of travelling comedians which wander over the country,” owned that she had a fine stage-figure; her features were expressive; she was uncommonly graceful; but her voice was deficient in variety of tone and clearness. This, however, might be the effect of a cold or nervousness. Her words were delivered with good sense and taste, only there was no fire or spirit in the performance. “Nothing,” the critic ends, “is so barren of either profit or fame as a cold correctness.”

Knowing the Kemble failing of over-study and self-restraint, this seems a fair enough criticism. She represented Portia again a few nights later, but her name did not appear on the bills. She showed more confidence, and succeeded a little better, but does not seem to have got a hold of her audience.

Garrick was at this time employed in mounting an abridgment by Colman of Ben Jonson’s Epicœne, and trusting, we conclude, to the statement of his friend Mr. Bate, that the débutante had “a very good breeches-figure,” he selected her for the heroine’s part. The result was a failure. Critics complained of “the confusion, when Mrs. Siddons, disguised in the piece as a woman, revealed herself at the end as a boy.” The Morning Post, edited by Parson Bate, was the only paper that spoke in favour of the attempt.

The next part she was put into was by this same Bate, The Blackamoor White-washed. We can see how Garrick was forced by the exigencies of his obligations to Bate to put this play on the stage; the only mistake he made was in subjecting the young actress to the risks and chances of the first representation, which, in consequence of the slashing pen and vigorous fists of its author, was not likely to be received with unalloyed approbation. Unfortunately he did not understand the proud timidity of the girl on whom he had laid the task. His other ladies did not mind a rebuff, and would do anything for a critic who praised them, as Mr. Bate had praised “Portia.” As to a theatrical riot, they rather enjoyed it than otherwise, if it were not turned against them personally. Though treated to many a one afterwards, Mrs. Siddons never forgot this first experience. A band of prize-fighters, supposed to be supporters of the parson’s, burst into the pit, and, striking out right and left, silenced the would-be detractors of the play. On the next night both sides mustered in force, and the scene defied description. Officers in the boxes fought with gentlemen from the pit and galleries. The ladies were driven from the boxes, leaving them in possession of the combatants. Garrick, who appeared to try and appease the mob, had an orange flung at him, and a lighted candle passed close to King, who came from the author to announce the withdrawal of the piece. Even this statement had not the effect of restoring quiet until past midnight, when, weary with their exertions, the rioters dispersed. Next day all the papers abused the Julia of the piece, who had not been allowed a chance of making herself heard. “Mrs. Siddons, having no comedy in her nature,” one said, “rendered that ridiculous which the author evidently intended to be pleasant.”

On the 15th of February, Garrick again allowed her to appear; this time in Mrs. Cowley’s Runaway—a slight but telling part, which caused one of her critics to say that she dropped into the walking gentlewoman, and was not permitted a long walk before she became the “Runaway.” Garrick then paid her the compliment of entrusting her with the acting of Mrs. Strickland to his Ranger in the old comedy of The Suspicious Husband. One lady confesses to being moved to tears by Mrs. Siddons in this part, but the majority of the audience and the newspapers seem to have passed her over in complete silence.

Garrick now began his farewell performances. He selected her to act the Lady Anne to his Richard III.—a selection which was an honour coveted by most of the ladies of the company. The actor surpassed his finest days; the young actress was almost petrified by the ferocity and fire of his gaze. She forgot, in her flurry, his important order that she should stand so that his face might be presented to the audience. The look she received made her almost faint with terror, and no doubt betrayed her fright in her acting. The critics pronounced that she was “lamentable,” and the public were utterly indifferent. This was her last appearance. And so ended her first disastrous season at Drury Lane. We think every unbiassed person in reading the account of it will entirely absolve Garrick of the charges brought against him. Other causes were at work which the offended actress did not take into consideration.

Garrick could not forgive crudeness, want of finish. He himself had stepped on the London stage with as much natural ease, and in his representation of Richard III. had taken the town as completely by storm the first time as the last time he acted it. He never made allowances for timidity, and grew impatient at want of confidence. We know he utterly despaired of Mrs. Graham, afterwards the great Mrs. Yates, when he first saw her in the part of Marcia; and Miss Barton, afterwards Mrs. Abington, he allowed to leave Drury Lane at first because he could not, he said, give her a fitting part. The Kemble genius, on the other hand, was a plant of tardy growth, needing much cultivation and many years to bring it to perfection.

Garrick was above all a manager who had the honour of his theatre at heart. He had held the helm at Drury Lane for years, guiding the fortunes of the company through stormy waters safely into the haven of financial and artistic success such as no theatre had ever enjoyed before; but at what a cost! Tormented by the jealousies, insolence, and greed of his leading ladies, disheartened by the envy and treachery of his oldest friends, he must have been glad to contemplate retirement from the turmoil, to enjoy undisturbed the competency he had been able to save from a long life spent in the service of his art and the public. He had but one year more of thraldom, but the harness had begun to gall almost beyond endurance. When he came home ill and worn out after protracted rehearsals, he found petulant letters to be answered, when he went back to the theatre hostile attacks to be avoided, while outside were ranged secret and declared foes, jealous of his success, anxious to find a flaw in his honour or his genius. Suddenly he bethought him of a method, tried before with success, to curb the fiery tempers of the ladies within “his kingdom.” He had heard of a lovely young actress, member of a company strolling in the provinces. He determined to engage her and use her as a foil against the rebellious members of his female staff, for the last year of office. It was not likely that, coming from humble surroundings and hard work, she would afflict him with many airs and graces; and before time had been given her to spoil, his term as manager would have ceased. Garrick had never been given much cause to think highly of women during his long life as an actor—his own wife always excepted—and he most likely put Sarah Siddons on the same level as the others—sordid, like Miss Pope; jealous, like Mrs. Yates; or ill-tempered, like Mrs. Clive—well able to take care of herself, and not gifted with those two rare qualities amongst theatrical ladies, modesty or sensitiveness. How could he guess, even with all his perspicacity and experience, that this young creature—whose life hitherto had been spent strolling from place to place with the vagabonds and adventurers her profession threw her with—was proud, sensitive, timid, nourishing the very highest ideal of her art, and indifferent to any homage given to her person and not to her intellectual power of interpreting the works of the great poets of her country? How could he tell that beneath the pretty exterior of this young and trembling recruit lay hidden the fiery soul of the majestic, terrific Lady Macbeth? He treated her with an amount of consideration and courtesy unusual even with him, sending her boxes for all his great performances, when Cabinet Ministers were imploring places and had to be refused. He would hand her from the green-room and put her in the place of honour beside him; and gave her parts which according to his judgment, formed hastily on what he had had an opportunity of seeing, best suited her. And how was he rewarded? By a resentment nourished the whole of a lifetime, and by a charge persistently stated and repeated by her friends, that the great “Roscius” was jealous of an unskilled, untrained, country actress! Why, then, had he not shown jealousy of Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Clive, or, still more, of the gentlemen of his company, Barry and Smith, the Romeo and Charles Surface of their day. There are so few figures in public life complete and admirable as David Garrick’s, so far removed above the pettiness and egotism accompanying success, that it is with pain we read Mrs. Siddons’s accusations, and think the only way to excuse her is to show the anguish experienced by both her husband and herself in the miserable sequel to the sad story of failure and disappointment, and to ascribe her injustice to the misery of lives embittered and prospects blighted, for the time, making her ever afterwards see the facts of the case through a distorted medium. We will relate in her own words what now took place:—

“He (Garrick) 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. Abington 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.”

Siddons wrote piteously to Garrick on the 9th of February 1776, soliciting his “friendship” and “endeavour” for their continuance in Drury Lane. “I account we have been doubly unfortunate at our onset in the theatre, first that particular circumstances prevented us from joining it at a proper time, and thereby rendered it impossible for us to be mingled in the business of the season, where our utility might have been more observed; second, that we are going to be deprived of you as manager, and left to those who, perhaps, may not have an opportunity this winter of observing us at all: these considerations, Sir, have occasioned this address, with hopes you will lay them before Mr. Lacy and those gentlemen your successors; and as there has been no agreement with regard to salary between you and us, it may now be necessary to propose that article, thereby to acquaint them with what we shall expect, which (as we are so young in the theatre) is no more than what we can decently subsist on and appear with some credit to the profession. That is, for Mrs. Siddons three pounds a week, for myself two; this, I flatter myself, we shall both be found worthy of for the first year; after that (as it may be presumed we shall be more experienced in our business) shall wish to rise as our merits may demand. I am, Sir, with many apologies for this freedom, your most obedient and very humble servant, Wm. Siddons.”

It shows how disastrous the effect of her acting must have been that, in spite of the smallness of their demands, Lacy, Sheridan & Co. refused to entertain their proposal.

It is a curious fact, if, as she says, the treatment she received at Garrick’s hands was unjust, that at this juncture the managers of the rival theatre of Covent Garden, who had already been in treaty with her, and thought themselves unhandsomely dealt with when Garrick secured her, did not come forward now. It is clear that the anxiety of the Covent Garden managers for her assistance was extinguished by her performance; those talents which they were ready before her appearance to contest with Garrick, they subsequently resigned without an effort to the obscurity of a strolling company. We have a curious corollary to her statement, “that Mrs. Abington told them they were all acting like fools,” in the lately published Memoirs of Crabbe Robinson, in which he relates a conversation he held in 1811 with Mrs. Abington on the subject of Mrs. Siddons. She was by no means warm, he says, in her praise. She objected to the elaborate emphasis given to very insignificant words. “That was brought in by them,” she added, with truth, alluding to the weakness of the family. Perhaps the fair Abington’s praise at first was as conclusive a sign of failure as Sheridan’s dismissal.

Good-natured Pivey Clive was more honest in saying nothing at the time; but on going with Mrs. Garrick to see her later, when she was in the heyday of her success, she pronounced the young actress, in her own characteristic fashion, to be “all truth and daylight.”

We never hear Garrick’s name mentioned again with hers, except in a note in connection with two folio Shakespeares of 1623. “In 1776,” Payne Collier says, “Garrick had presented the volume (one of the folio copies with the autographs of David Garrick and Sarah Siddons) to Mrs. Siddons as a testimony of her merits, and of his obligation.” So far Payne Collier. Another writer, commenting on this note, demonstrates that it is not likely that Garrick presented so great a treasure as the folio Shakespeare of 1623 to Mrs. Siddons, especially as the words “a testimony of her merits and his obligation” was an addition of Payne Collier. He then relates the circumstances of her first appearance. Garrick, he says, amongst other things, noticed some awkward action of her arms, and said “if she waved them about in that fashion she would knock off his wig,” upon which she retorted to the person who told her, “He was only afraid I should overshadow his nose.” A mutual feeling not likely to lead to such a gift. It would be interesting, therefore, to know through what hands the volume passed from Garrick to Mrs. Siddons, and from Mrs. Siddons to Lilly the bookseller. With the great actor’s wife she was afterwards on terms of friendship; and when Mrs. Garrick died, she left her in her will a pair of gloves which were Shakespeare’s, “and were presented to my late dear husband by one of the family during the Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon.” And so “Davey” vanishes from her life.