“I have been for two days in town, and seen Mrs. Siddons. She pleased me beyond my expectation, but not up to the admiration of the _ton_, two or three of whom were in the same box with me.… Mr. Crawford asked me if I did not think her the best actress I ever saw? I said, ‘By no means; we old folks were apt to be prejudiced in favour of our first impressions.’ She is a good figure, handsome enough, though neither nose nor chin according to the Greek standard, beyond which both advance a good deal. Her hair is either red, or she has no objection to its being thought so, and had used red powder. Her voice is clear and good; but I thought she did not vary its modulations enough, nor ever approach enough to the familiar--but this may come when more habituated to the awe of the audience of the capital. Her action is proper, but with little variety; when without motion, her arms are not genteel. Thus you see all my objections are very trifling; but what I really wanted, but did not find, was originality, which announces genius, and without both which I am never intrinsically pleased. All Mrs. Siddons did, good sense or good instruction might give. I dare to say, that were I one-and-twenty, I should have thought her marvellous; but alas! I remember Mrs. Porter and the Dumesnil--and remember every accent of the former in the very same part. Yet this is not entirely prejudice: don’t I equally recollect the whole progress of Lord Chatham and Charles Townshend, and does it hinder my thinking Mr. Fox a prodigy?--Pray don’t send him this paragraph too.” Again: “Mrs. Siddons continues to be the mode, and to be modest and sensible. She declines great dinners, and says her business and the cares of her family take up her whole time. When Lord Carlisle carried her the tribute-money from Brooks’s, he said she was not _maniérée_ enough. ‘I suppose she was grateful,’ said my niece, Lady Maria. Mrs. Siddons was desired to play ‘Medea’ and ‘Lady Macbeth.’--‘No,’ she replied ‘she did not look on them as female characters.’ She was questioned about her transactions with Garrick: she said, ‘He did nothing but put her out; that he told her she moved her right hand when it should have been her left. In short,’ said she, ‘I found I must not shade the tip of his nose.’”