Early in 1777 she played at Manchester, where she made so great an impression that the shrewd and enterprising Tate Wilkinson, lessee of the York Theatre, offered her an engagement. Her range of characters now included “the Grecian Daughter,” Alicia, Jane Shore, Matilda, Lady Townley—all the tearful dramas of the day, which the young actress brought into fashion instead of the artificial comedy of the preceding age. At Manchester, we are astonished to hear, one of her most applauded characters was _Hamlet_. Her playing this great play in strolling days, as Mr. Bate tells us, “was most likely only a girlish freak.” Her acting it now shows that she was cultivating her dramatic genius in every direction, working out of the restricted domain of Jane Shore, the Grecian Daughter, and Calista, no longer content to move her audience by her pathos and grace, but determined to bring them to her feet by her intellectual power. It is curious that, though many years afterwards she acted it in Dublin, she never could be persuaded to appear in it in London. Her dislike to anything approaching male attire was almost morbid, and even in Rosalind she vastly amused the town by her costume—“mysterious nondescript garments,” that were neither male nor female, devised to satisfy a prudery which in such a character was wholly out of place. At York, where Mrs. Siddons acted for Tate Wilkinson, the manager, from Easter to Whitsuntide 1777, she enjoyed an unequivocal success. “All lifted up their eyes with astonishment that such a voice, such a judgment, and such acting, should have been neglected by a London audience, and by the first actor in the world!”—another hit at Garrick made by Wilkinson, who, generously aided by Garrick at the beginning of his career, had turned against his benefactor, and never missed an opportunity of detracting from his merits. The most critical local censors were lavish in their praise, though all remarked “how ill and pale she was, and wondered how she got through her parts.” She acted the round of her characters. Her attitudes and figure were vastly admired; she was thought “so elegant.” Wilkinson endeavoured to secure her permanently as a member of his company, and in his Memoirs tells how he endeavoured to tempt her by fine clothes, providing for one of her parts a most “elegant sack-back, all over silver trimmings.” He did not understand any more than Garrick the nature of the woman with whom he had to deal. On the 17th May she acted Semiramis for her benefit, and the York season closed. Palmer, of the Bath Theatre, had not forgotten Henderson’s strong recommendation, and, finding at last an opening, he concluded an engagement with her.