Mr. Siddons was just the man to fascinate a young and high-spirited girl. Good-looking, calm, sedate, even-tempered, not over-burdened with brain-power, and not too much will of his own. One might apply to him what Johnson said of Sheridan’s father, “He is not a bad man, no, Sir; were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand considerably within the ranks of the good.” “A damned rascally player,” the Rev. Henry Bate says forcibly, “but a civil fellow.” We are told that he had not only that invention which in provincial theatres is the first of requisites, but he also possessed the second, a quick study, in almost unequalled perfection. He could make himself master of the longest dramatic character between night and night, and deliver it with the accuracy that seems to result only from long application; but so slight was the impression made, that it escaped from his memory in as few hours as he had employed to learn it. It was said later, by members of his wife’s company, that though Siddons was a bad actor himself, he was an excellent judge, always drilling his wife, and very cross at any failure. His position as husband of the “great Mrs. Siddons,” continually cast into the shade by her superiority, was an unthankful one, but we must confess that he filled it with commendable equanimity. Their love wore better than the tinsel finery amidst which it began. The happy domestic life that succeeded was undoubtedly a great safe-guard amidst the dangers and difficulties of her life, saving her from much that is the ruin of her less protected sisters. We are told that in the days of her success, when her would-be admirers and lovers were legion, her husband’s ear was the one to which she confided all the incidents of attempted gallantry, invariably attending an actress’s life; and many were the hearty laughs they indulged in together over them. Perhaps now and then there was too great an inclination to make use of him. We find the poor man writing to managers as their obedient humble servant, making piteous appeals to Garrick, and put forward to dun Sheridan for the amount due to his wife; but at first they seem to have shared all the trials and struggles of their profession together. Wolverhampton was their first stage after their marriage. The reigning Mayor seems to have nourished a prejudice against all actors. He had closed the King’s Head Yard, and declared contemptuously that “neither player, puppy, nor monkey,” should perform in the town. After a popular demonstration, he was induced to rescind this harsh interdict; and by the Christmas of 1773, Roger Kemble was giving two stock dramas, _The West Indian_ and _The Padlock_. Sarah appeared for the first time as Mrs. Siddons, at a farewell “Bespeak.” An address, written by herself, and spoken on this occasion, has been found and published by an inhabitant of Wolverhampton:—