Part 1

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VISITS AND SKETCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD.

VOL. III.

VISITS AND SKETCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD

WITH TALES AND MISCELLANIES NOW FIRST COLLECTED.

BY MRS. JAMESON,

AUTHOR OF "THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN," "LIVES OF CELEBRATED FEMALE SOVEREIGNS," &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 1835.

LONDON: IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

PAGE

Sketch of Mrs. Siddons 3 Sketch of Fanny Kemble 49 The False One 93 Halloran the Pedlar 177 The Indian Mother 231 Much Coin, Much Care 263

VOL. III.

Page 42, line 5, _for_ the full stop _read_ a comma, and _for_ she had _read_ having.

59,--4, _for_ cannot _read_ could not.

MRS. SIDDONS.

[The following little sketch was written a few days after the death of Mrs. Siddons, and was called forth by certain paragraphs which appeared in the daily papers. A misapprehension of the real character of this remarkable woman, which I know to exist in the minds of many who admired and venerated her talents, has induced me to enlarge the first very slight sketch, into a more finished but still inadequate portrait. I have spared no pains to verify the truth of my own conception by testimony of every kind that was attainable. I have penned every word as if I had been in that great final court where the thoughts of all hearts are manifested; and those who best knew the individual I have attempted to delineate bear witness to the fidelity of the portrait, as far as it goes. I must be permitted to add, that in this and the succeeding sketch I have not only been inspired by the wish to do justice to individual virtue and talent,--I wished to impress and illustrate that important truth, that a gifted woman may pursue a public vocation, yet preserve the purity and maintain the dignity of her sex--that there is no prejudice which will not shrink away before moral energy, and no profession which may not be made compatible with the respect due to us as women, the cultivation of every feminine virtue, and the practice of every private duty. I might here multiply examples and exceptions, and discuss causes and results; but it is a consideration I reserve for another opportunity.]

MRS. SIDDONS

"_Implora pace!_"--She, who upon earth ruled the souls and senses of men, as the moon rules the surge of waters; the acknowledged and liege empress of all the realms of illusion; the crowned queen; the throned muse; the sceptred shadow of departed genius, majesty, and beauty,--supplicates--_Peace!_

What unhallowed work has been going forward in some of the daily papers since this illustrious creature has been laid in her quiet unostentatious grave! ay, even before her poor remains were cold! What pains have been taken to cater trifling scandal for the blind, heartless, gossip-loving vulgar! and to throw round the memory of a woman, whose private life was as irreproachable as her public career was glorious, some ridiculous or unamiable association which should tend to unsphere her from her throne in our imagination, and degrade from her towering pride of place, the heroine of Shakspeare, and the Muse of Tragedy!

That stupid malignity which revels in the martyrdom of fame--which rejoices when, by some approximation of the mean and ludicrous with the beautiful and sublime, it can for a moment bring down the rainbow-like glory in which the fancy invests genius, to the drab-coloured level of mediocrity--is always hateful and contemptible; but in the present case it is something worse; it has a peculiar degree of _cowardly_ injustice. If some elegant biographer inform us that the same hand which painted the infant Hercules, or Ugolino, or Mrs. Sheridan, half seraph and half saint--could clutch a guinea with satisfaction, or drive a bargain with a footman; if some discreet friend, from the mere love of truth, no doubt, reveal to us the puerile, lamentable frailties of that bright spirit which poured itself forth in torrents of song and passion: what then? 'tis pitiful, certainly, wondrous pitiful; but there is no great harm done,--no irremediable injury inflicted; for there stand their works: the poet's immortal page, the painter's breathing canvass witness for them. "Death hath had no power yet upon _their_ beauty"--over them scandal cannot draw her cold slimy finger;--on _them_ calumny cannot breathe her mildew; nor envy wither _them_ with a blast from hell. There they stand for ever to confute injustice, to rectify error, to defy malice; to silence, and long outlive the sneer, the lie, the jest, the reproach. But _she_--who was of painters the model, the wonder, the despair;--she, who realised in her own presence and person the poet's divinest dreams and noblest creations;--she, who has enriched our language with a new epithet, and made the word _Siddonian_ synonymous with all we can imagine of feminine grace and grandeur: she has left nothing behind her, but the memory of a great name: she has bequeathed it to our reverence, our gratitude, our charity, and our sympathy; and if it is not to be sacred, I know not what is--or ever will be.

Mrs. Siddons, as an _artist_, presented a singular example of the union of all the faculties, mental and physical, which constitute excellence in her art, directed to the end for which they seemed created. In any other situation or profession, some one or other of her splendid gifts would have been misplaced or dormant. It was her especial good fortune, and not less that of the time in which she lived, that this wonderful combination of mental powers and external graces, was fully and completely developed by the circumstances in which she was placed.[1] "With the most commanding beauty of face and form, and varied grace of action; with the most noble combination of features, and extensive capability of expression in each of them; with an unequalled genius for her art, the utmost patience in study, and the strongest ardour of feeling; there was not a passion which she could not delineate; not the nicest shade, not the most delicate modification of passion, which she could not seize with philosophical accuracy, and render with such immediate force of nature and truth, as well as precision, that what was the result of profound study and unwearied practice, appeared like sudden inspiration. There was not a height of grandeur to which she could not soar, nor a darkness of misery to which she could not descend; not a chord of feeling, from the sternest to the most delicate, which she could not cause to vibrate at her will. She had reached that point of perfection in art, where it ceases to be art, and becomes a second nature. She had studied most profoundly the powers and capabilities of language; so that the most critical sagacity could not have suggested a delicacy of emphasis, by which the meaning of the author might be more distinctly conveyed, or a shade of intonation by which the sentiment could be more fully, or more faithfully expressed. While other performers of the past or present time, have made approaches to excellence, or attained it now and then, Mrs. Siddons alone was pronounced faultless; and, in _her_, the last generation witnessed what we shall not see in ours;--no, nor our children after us;--that amazing union of splendid intellectual powers, with unequalled charms of person, which, in the tragic department of her art, realized the idea of perfection."

Such was the magnificent portrait drawn of Mrs. Siddons twenty years ago; and it will be admitted by those who remember her, and must be believed by those who do not, that in this case, eulogy could not wander into exaggeration, nor enthusiasm be exalted beyond the bounds of truth.

I have heard people most unreasonably surprised or displeased, because this exceeding dignity of demeanour was not confined to the stage, but was carried into private life. Had it been merely conventional,--a thing put on and put off,--it might have been so; but the grandeur of her mind, and the light of her glorious beauty, were not as a diadem and robe for state occasions only; her's was not only dignity of manner and person, it was moral and innate, and, I may add, hereditary. Mrs. Siddons, with all her graces of form and feature, her magnificence of deportment, her deep-toned, measured voice, and impressive enunciation, was in reality a softened reflection of her more stern, stately, majestic mother, whose genuine loftiness of spirit and of bearing, whose rare beauty, and imperious despotism of character, have often been described to me as absolutely awful,--even her children trembled in her presence.

"All the Kembles," said Sir Thomas Lawrence, "have historical faces;" and for several generations their minds seem to have been cast in a poetical mould. It has, however, been disputed, whether Mrs. Siddons possessed genius. Whether genius be exclusively defined as the creative and inventive faculty of the soul, or taken, in its usual acceptation, as "a mind of large general faculties, accidentally determined to some particular direction," I think she did possess it in both senses. The grand characteristic of her mind was power, but it was power of a very peculiar kind: it was slowly roused--slowly developed--not easily moved; her perceptions were not rapid, nor her sensations quick; she required time for every thing,--time to think, time to comprehend, time to speak. There was nothing superficial about her; no vivacity of manner; to petty gossip she would not descend, and evil-speaking she abhorred; she cared not to shine in general conversation. Like some majestic "Argosie," bearing freight of precious metal, she was a-ground and cumbrous and motionless among the shallows of common life; but set her upon the deep waters of poetry and passion--there was her element--there was her reign. Ask her an opinion, she could not give it you till she had looked on the subject, and considered it on every side,--then you might trust to it without appeal. Her powers, though not easily put in motion, were directed by an incredible energy; her mind, when called to action, seemed to rear itself up like a great wave of the sea, and roll forwards with an irresistible force. This prodigious intellectual power was one of her chief characteristics. Another was _truth_, which in the human mind is generally allied with power. It is, I think, a mistaken idea, that habits of impersonation on the stage tend to impair the sincerity or the individuality of a character. If any injury is done in this way, it is by the continual and strong excitement of the vanity, the dependence on applause, which in time _may_ certainly corrode away the integrity of the manner, if not of the mind. It is difficult for an admired actress not to be vain, and difficult for a very vain person to be quite unaffected, on or off the stage; it is, however, certain that some of the truest, most natural persons I ever met with in my life, were actresses. In the character of Mrs. Siddons, truth, and a reverence for truth, were commensurate with her vast power: Heaven is not farther removed from earth than she was from falsehood. Allied to this conscientious turn was her love of order. She was extremely punctual in all her arrangements; methodical and exact in every thing she did; circumstantial and accurate in all she said. In little and in great things, in the very texture and constitution of her mind, she was integrity itself: "It was," (said one of her most intimate friends,) "a mind far above the average standard, not only in ability, but in moral and religious qualities; that these should have exhausted themselves in the world of fiction, may be regretted in reference to her individual happiness, but she certainly exercised, during her _reign_, a most powerful moral influence:--she excited the nobler feelings and higher faculties of every mind which came in contact with her own. I speak with the deepest sense of personal obligation: it was at a very early age that she repeated to me, in a manner and tone which left an indelible impression,

'Sincerity, Thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave Thy onward path,' &c.

and I never knew her to omit an opportunity of making her fine genius minister to piety and virtue." Now what are the bravos of a whole theatre,

"When all the thunder of the pit ascends,"

compared to such praise as this?

"Her mind" (again I am enabled to give the very words of one who knew her well) "was a perfect mirror of the sublime and beautiful; like a lake that reflected only the heavens above, or the summits of the mountains around, nothing below a certain level could appear in it. The ideal was her vital air. She breathed with difficulty in the atmosphere of this 'working-day world,' and withdrew from it as much as possible. Hence her moral principles were seldom brought to bear upon the actual and ordinary concerns of life. She was rather the associate of 'the mighty dead,' than the fellow-creature of the living. To the latter she was known chiefly through others, and often through those who were incapable of reflecting her qualities faithfully, though impressed with the utmost veneration for her genius. In their very anxiety for what they considered her interests, (and of her worldly interests she took _no charge_,) they would in her name authorize prudential arrangements, which gave rise to the suspicion of covetousness, whilst she was sitting rapt in heavenly contemplation. Had she given her mind to the consideration and investigation of relative claims, she might on some occasions have acted differently--or, rather, _she_ would have acted where in fact _others only_ acted: for never, as I have reason to believe, was a case of distress _presented to her_ without her being ready to give even till her 'hand lacked means.' Many of the poor in her neighbourhood were pensioned by her.

"She was credulous--simple--to an extraordinary degree. Profession had, therefore, too much weight with her. She was accustomed to _manifestations_ of the sentiments she excited, and in seeking the demonstration sometimes overlooked the silent reality;--this was a consequence of her profession.

"She was not only exact in the performance of her religious duties; her religion was a pervading sentiment, influencing her to the strictest observance of truth and charity--I mean charity in judging others: the very active and excursive benevolence which

'_Seeks_ the duty, nay, _prevents_ the need,'

would have been incompatible with her toilsome engrossing avocations and with the visionary tendencies of her character. But the visionary has his own sphere of action, and can often touch the master-springs of other minds, so as to give the first impulse to the good deeds flowing from _them_. There are some who can trace back to the sympathies which Mrs. Siddons awakened, their devotedness to the cause of the suffering and oppressed. Faithfully did she perform the part in life which she believed allotted to her; and who may presume to judge that she did not choose the better part?"

The idea that she was a cold woman is eminently false. Her affections, like her intellectual powers, were slow, but tenacious; they enveloped in folds, strong as flesh and blood, those whom she had found worthy and taken to her heart; and her happiness was more entwined with them than those who knew her only in her professional character could have supposed; she would return home from the theatre, every nerve thrilling with the excitement of sympathy, and applause, and admiration, and a cold look or word from her husband has sent her to bed in tears. She had that sure indication of a good heart and a fine mind, an exceeding love for children, and a power to attract and amuse them. It was remarked that her voice always softened in addressing a child. I remember a letter of her's relative to a young mother and her infant, in which, among other tender and playful things, she says, "I wonder whether Lady N---- is as good a talker of baby-nonsense as I flatter myself _I_ am!" A lady who was intimate with her, happening to enter her bedroom early one morning, found her with two of her little grand-children romping on her bed, and playing with the tresses of her long dark hair, which she had let down for their amusement. Her own children adored her; her surviving friends refer to her with tenderness, with gratitude, even with tears. I speak here of what I _know_. I have seldom been more touched to the heart than by the perusal of some of her _most_ private letters and notes, which for tenderness of sentiment, genuine feeling, and simple yet forcible expression, could not be surpassed.[2] Actress though she was, she had no idea of doing any thing for the sake of appearances, or of courting popularity by any means but excellence in her art. She loved the elegances and refinements of life--enjoyed, and freely shared what she had toiled to obtain--and in the earlier part of her career was the frequent victim of her own kind and careless nature. She has been known to give generously, nobly,--to sympathize warmly; but did she deny to greedy selfishness or spendthrift vanity the twentieth demand on her purse or her benevolence? Was she, while absorbed in her poetical, ideal existence, the dupe of exterior shows in judging of character? Or did she, from total ignorance of, or indifference to, the common-place prejudices, or customary forms of society, unconsciously wound the _amour-propre_ of some shallow flatterer or critic,--or by bringing the gravity and glory of her histrionic impersonations into the frivolities and hard realities of this our world, render herself obnoxious to vulgar ridicule?--then was she made to feel what it is to live in the public eye: then flew round the malignant slander, the vengeful lie, the base sneer, the impertinent misinterpretation of what few could understand and fewer feel! Reach _her_ these libels could not--but sometimes they reached those whose affectionate reverence fenced her round from the rude contact of real life. In some things Mrs. Siddons was like a child. I have heard anecdotes of her extreme simplicity, which by the force of contrast made me smile--at _them_, not at _her_: who could have laughed at Mrs. Siddons? I should as soon have thought of laughing at the Delphic Sybil.

As an artist, her genius appears to have been slowly developed. She did not, as it has been said of her niece, "spring at once into the chair of the tragic muse;" but toiled her way up to glory and excellence in her profession, through length of time, difficulties, and obstacles innumerable. She was exclusively professional; and all her attainments, and all her powers, seem to have been directed to one end and aim. Yet I suppose no one would have said of Mrs. Siddons, that she was a "_mere actress_," as it was usually said of Garrick, that he was a "_mere player_;"--the most admirable and versatile actor that ever existed; but still the mere player;--nothing more--nothing better. He does not appear to have had a tincture of that high gentlemanly feeling, that native elevation of character, and general literary taste which strike us in John Kemble and his brother Charles; nor any thing of the splendid imagination, the enthusiasm of art, the personal grace and grandeur, which threw such a glory around Mrs. Siddons. Of John Kemble it might be said,[3] as Dryden said of Harte in his time, that "kings and princes might have come to him, and taken lessons how to comport themselves with dignity." And with the noble presence of Mrs. Siddons, we associated in public and in private, something absolutely awful. We were accustomed to bring her before our fancy as one habitually elevated above the sphere of familiar life,--

"Attired in all the majesty of art-- Crown'd with the rich traditions of a soul That hates to have her dignity profan'd By any relish of an earthly thought."[4]

Who was it?--(I think Northcote the painter,) who said he had seen a group of young ladies of rank, Lady Fannys and Lady Marys, peeping through the half-open door of a room where Mrs. Siddons was sitting, with the same timidity and curiosity as if it had been some preternatural being,--much more than if it had been the queen: which I can easily believe. I remember that the first time I found myself in the same room with Mrs. Siddons, (I was then about twenty,) I gazed on her as I should have gazed at one of the Egyptian pyramids--nay, with a deeper awe, for what is material and physical immensity, compared with moral and poetical grandeur? I was struck with a sensation which made my heart pause, and rendered me dumb for some minutes; and when I was led into conversation with her, my first words came faltering and thick,--which never certainly would have been the case in presence of the autocratrix of all the Russias. The greatest, the noblest in the land approached her with a deference not unmingled with a shade of embarrassment, while she stood in regal guise majestic, with the air of one who bestowed and never received honour.[5] Nor was this feeling of her power, which was derived, partly from her own peculiar dignity of deportment, partly from her association with all that was grand, poetical, terrible, confined to those who could appreciate the full measure of her endowments. Every member of that public, whose idol she was, from the greatest down to the meanest, felt it more or less. I knew a poor woman who once went to the house of Mrs. Siddons to be paid by her daughter for some embroidery. Mrs. Siddons happened to be in the room, and the woman perceiving who it was, was so overpowered, that she could not count her money, and scarcely dared to draw her breath. "And when I went away, ma'am," added she, in describing her own sensations, "I walked all the way down the street, feeling myself a great deal taller." This was the same unconscious feeling of the sublime, which made Bouchardon say that, after reading the Iliad, he fancied himself seven feet high.

She modelled very beautifully, and in this talent, which was in a manner intuitive, she displayed a creative as well as an imitative power. Might we not say that in the peculiar character of her genius--in the combination of the _very_ real with the _very_ ideal, of the demonstrative and the visionary, of vastness and symmetry, of the massive material and the grand unearthly forms into which it shaped itself--there was something analogous to sculpture? At all events, it is the opinion of many who knew her, that if she had not been a great actress she would have devoted herself to sculpture. She was never so happy as when occupied with her modelling tools; she would stand at her work eight hours together, scarcely turning her head. Music she passionately loved: in her younger days her voice in singing was exquisitely sweet and flexible. She would sometimes compose verses, and sing them to an extemporaneous air; but I believe she did not perform on any instrument.

To complete this sketch I shall add an outline of her professional life.