Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his _Lives of the Kembles_, has incorporated Mrs. Siddons’s history with that of her brother, John Kemble, and written by far the best biography yet done of the great actress. To him we must express our deep obligation, and almost our contrition, for venturing to treat a subject already so ably handled in his interesting volumes. We must also express our gratitude to Mr. Alfred Morrison and Mr. Thibaudeau for allowing us to make use of the valuable documents contained in the Morrison collection of autograph letters. NINA A. KENNARD. February, 1887. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I.—PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 1 CHAPTER II.—MARRIAGE 18 CHAPTER III.—“DAVEY” 33 CHAPTER IV.—WORK 48 CHAPTER V.—SUCCESS 67 CHAPTER VI.—DUBLIN AND EDINBURGH 81 CHAPTER VII.—CLOUDS 95 CHAPTER VIII.—LADY MACBETH 115 CHAPTER IX.—FRIENDS 130 CHAPTER X.—1782 TO 1798 149 CHAPTER XI.—SHERIDAN 172 CHAPTER XII.—HERMIONE 186 CHAPTER XIII.—SORROWS 202 CHAPTER XIV.—WESTBOURNE FARM 216 CHAPTER XV.—RETIREMENT 239 CHAPTER XVI.—OLD AGE 255 MRS. SIDDONS. CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. The lax morality prevailing in England at the time of the Restoration, produced a literary and dramatic school of art suited to the taste of the public. Congreve wrote _Love for Love_, and coolly remarked, when accused of immorality, “that, if _it_ were an immodest play, he was incapable of writing a modest one.” The reaction from the almost overstrained energy and chivalry of the Elizabethan age, which a century of Stuart rule effected in the minds of Englishmen, had brought them thus low. Manners were looked upon as better than morals. Scepticism as better than belief, as well when it concerned the tenets of the Bible as the honour of their neighbours’ wives. The stage—especially when the public has no other intellectual outlet—is invariably the test by which we can discover the moral condition of a country. When that condition is unnatural and feverish, proportionally artificial and stimulating must be the mental food presented to it, until the audience gradually becomes incapable of digesting any other. The want at the end of the seventeenth century produced the supply. A drama arose which was polished, dainty, finished in detail, but from the stage of which virtue was excluded like a poor relation, who, clad in fustian, and shod with hob-nail boots, is not supposed to be fit company for profligate gentlemen in gold-embroidered coats and lace ruffles.