In spite of her wonderful energy, old age was creeping on her apace. Erysipelas, which was ultimately fatal, frequently attacked her with a burning soreness in her mouth, or with headaches that were equally painful. She had to submit to that worst penalty of advancing years, the death of friends; those of Mrs. Damer and of Mrs. Piozzi were a great loss. In February 1823, John Kemble died at Lausanne. On the 9th he dined out, and it was remarked that he was in very good spirits; the next evening a few friends dropped in for a rubber of whist. The following Sunday he was out in his garden; but while he was sitting reading the paper, it fell from his hands. His wife rushed to him; he only faltered a few words, begging her not to be alarmed. The doctor was sent for, but one stroke after another seized him, and he died on the 20th. This was a sad blow to Mrs. Siddons. In her seventy-third year she wrote to Mrs. Fitzhugh from Cobham Hall, the seat of Lord Darnley:— “I have brought myself to see whether change of scene, and the cordial kindness of my noble host and hostess, will not at least do something to divert my torment. But real evils will not give way to such applications, gratifying though they may be. I have had the honour, however, of conversing with Prince Leopold; he is a very agreeable and sensible converser, and Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent seems to justify all the opinions of her amiability. I have begun to recover the loss of my dear little girls, George’s daughters. How I long to hear they are safe in the arms of their anxious parents. In this magnificent place, I assure you, my seventy-second birthday was celebrated with the most gratifying and flattering cordiality. We had music and Shakespeare, which Lord Darnley has at his finger’s ends. I should have enjoyed the party more if it had not been so large; but twenty-three people at dinner is rather too much of a good thing.... Talking of the arts, I cannot help thinking with sorrow of the statue of my poor brother. It is an absolute libel on his noble person and air. I should like to pound it into dust, and scatter it to the winds. “Yours, “S. S.” A statue of the great actress, by Chantry, was put up later, by Macready, beside her brother’s in Westminster Abbey. In April 1831 she was attacked with the illness that was to prove fatal. The appearance of the erysipelas in one of her ancles alarmed the doctor, but she got better, and before the end of the month felt so far recovered, that she laughingly told him that he need not come to see her any more, for “she had health to sell.”