There might have been many more pairs of lovers in the great crowded house that night, taking to themselves, and making a personal matter of the play and its playing, thus failing to view it in a speculative and critical light. But there was absolutely nobody to whom Shakespeare and the Kembles were rant and fustian, who was moved to laugh when the players wept, or to joke and shrug when they raved. There was something marvellous in the unanimity of the sympathy, in the multitude swayed like one man by the poet and the players, till the old Italian tragedy in its passion and its piteousness lived again. Women clasped their hands and prayed for mercy on the young lovers, sobbed as Juliet drank the potion and composed herself to the semblance—too complete—of death,—and shrieked and swooned when Romeo met Paris at the tomb—when swords were crossed and the boy husband who believed himself widowed in the green accomplishment of his vows, piercing and pierced, fell for ever. Men drew long breaths, and swore deep oaths, as over their professional contests, their tussles in Parliament, their meetings at Chalk Farm, their long seats at the green board. We have it on recent record, that in one row in the orchestra there sat to see Mrs. Siddons play, men whose names are not forgotten, no, nor will be, “Reynolds, Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan, Windham, Fox.” These men were not babies, but “the tears were seen running down their dark faces.” The theatre was a power in those days, and the excitement which crossed and suspended the excitement of gaming tables and lottery drawings, was in the main a wholesome and saving excitement. Mrs. Siddons made a figure in Lady Bell’s history which sounds strange nowadays. Not only did the actress chance to interfere between the girl and imminent destitution, an incident which might in itself be passed over like any other fortuitous incident, but at the crisis of Lady Bell’s history, John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons played Romeo and Juliet, before Captain Fane and Lady Bell, and the players had much to answer for. A great deal which did come to pass might never have been. Human nature partially roused might have struggled in vain with its swaddling-bands, and sunk back into hopeless helplessness, unable to compass, within the course of a few days, its deliverance by one bold stroke. The opportunity once lost might never have returned. But in the very striking of the clock _Romeo and Juliet_ was played. What hearts must have been stirred to their depths by the grand acting of the grand old players! What moral revolutions must have been wrought out, what life and death actions compelled—transforming ordinary men and women into heroes and heroines! It would be curious if it were possible to make such a reckoning.