Before the end of the year she resumed her cap and bells again, but had only acted on one or two nights at Covent Garden before it was burnt to the ground. How the fire originated is a mystery. Some said that the wadding of a gun, in the performance of _Pizarro_, must have lodged unperceived in the crevice of the scenery. Miss Wilkinson declared afterwards, that before the audience left the house she perceived a strong smell of fire while sitting in Mr. Kemble’s box, and on her way to Mrs. Siddons’s dressing-room mentioned it to some of the servants; they declared it to be the smell of the footlights. How complete and rapid the destruction was we learn by the following letter written by Mrs. Siddons to her friend James Ballantyne. “MY DEAR AND ESTIMABLE FRIEND, “You have by this time, I am confident, felt many a humane pang, for the wretched sufferers in the dreadful calamity which has been visited on me and those most dear to me. The losses to the Proprietors are incalculable, irreparable, and of all the precious and curious dresses and lace and jewels which _I_ have been collecting for these thirty years—not one, no, not one article has escap’d! The most grievous of these _my_ losses is a piece of Lace which had been a Toilette of the poor Queen of France; it was upwards of four yards long, and more than a yard wide. It never could have been bought for a thousand pounds, but that’s the least regret. It was _so_ interesting!! But oh! let me not suffer myself in the ingratitude of _repining_, while there are so many reasons for thankful acknowledgment. My Brothers, God be praised! did not hear of the fire till ev’ry personal exertion would have been utterly useless. It is as true as it is strange and awful, that everything appear’d to be in perfect Security at _Two_ o’clock, and that at _six_ (the time my poor brother saw it) the whole structure was as completely swept from the face of the earth as if such a thing had never existed. Thank God that it _was_ so, since had it been otherwise, he wou’d probably have perished in exertions to preserve something from the terrible wreck of his property. This is comfort. And you, my noble-minded friend, wou’d, I am confident, participate the joy I feel, in beholding this ador’d brother, Stemming this torrent of adversity with a manly fortitude, Serenity, and even _hope_, that almost bursts my heart with an admiration too big to bear, and blinds my eyes with the most delicious tears that ever fell from my eyes. Oh! he is a glorious creature! did not I always _tell_ you so? Yes, yes, and all will go well with him again! _She_ bears it like an Angel too. Lord Guilford and Lord Mountjoy have nobly offer’d to raise him any sum of money—and a thousand instances of generous feeling have already offer’d that evince the goodness of human nature, and its Sense of his worth.