And how was he rewarded? By a resentment nourished the whole of a lifetime, and by a charge persistently stated and repeated by her friends, that the great “Roscius” was jealous of an unskilled, untrained, country actress! Why, then, had he not shown jealousy of Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Clive, or, still more, of the gentlemen of his company, Barry and Smith, the Romeo and Charles Surface of their day. There are so few figures in public life complete and admirable as David Garrick’s, so far removed above the pettiness and egotism accompanying success, that it is with pain we read Mrs. Siddons’s accusations, and think the only way to excuse her is to show the anguish experienced by both her husband and herself in the miserable sequel to the sad story of failure and disappointment, and to ascribe her injustice to the misery of lives embittered and prospects blighted, for the time, making her ever afterwards see the facts of the case through a distorted medium. We will relate in her own words what now took place:— “He (Garrick) promised Mr. Siddons to procure me a good engagement with the new managers, and desired him to give himself no trouble about the matter, but to put my cause entirely into his hands. He let me down, however, after all these protestations, in the most humiliating manner, and, instead of doing me common justice with those gentlemen, rather depreciated my talents. This Mr. Sheridan afterwards told me; and said that when Mrs. Abington heard of my impending dismissal, she told them they were all acting like fools. When the London season was over, I made an engagement at Birmingham for the ensuing summer, little doubting of my return to Drury Lane for the next winter; but, whilst I was fulfilling my engagement at Birmingham, to my utter dismay and astonishment, I received an official letter from the prompter of Drury Lane, acquainting me that my services would be no longer required. It was a stunning and cruel blow, overwhelming all my ambitious hopes, and involving peril even to the subsistence of my helpless babes. It was very near destroying me. My blighted prospects, indeed, induced a state of mind that preyed upon my health, and for a year and a half I was supposed to be hastening to a decline. For the sake of my poor children, however, I roused myself to shake off this despondency, and my endeavours were blest with success, _in spite of the degradation I had suffered in being banished from Drury Lane as a worthless candidate for fame and fortune_.”