That these two great artists had faults, who can wonder? No reformation was ever yet accomplished by the flaccid-minded ones, and we must remember that many of the stories told of his vanity and meanness and her hardness and reserve, were circulated by their enemies on and off the stage, because of their very rigidity and morality. In spite, however, of some passing clouds, never was there a career so admired, a personality so adored in public life, as that of Mrs. Siddons. Whenever she appeared, enthusiastic applause rang through the house, not only on account of her pre-eminent genius, but because of her untarnished private character. Step by step we propose to trace the career of this wonderful woman, who, dowered with singular beauty and genius, and placed amid all the temptations of a profession in which so few of her sex remain pure, has shown an example of unswerving rectitude and religious fervour, unusual in any walk of life, keeping her to the last a “great simple being,” direct and truthful, noble and industrious. She had faults, as we have said, but they were so far outbalanced by her virtues that we can well afford to forgive them; always remembering that, though only the daughter of a strolling actor, born amidst the lowliest surroundings, she conceived an ideal of her art which enabled her to raise the stage of her country, from consisting simply in the delineation of the coarsest gallantry, into a source of the highest moral and artistic instruction. Far from the strife of political parties or the vagaries of fashionable dramatists, both she and Garrick, with whose name we have coupled hers, were born in the romantic country of Wales: he at Hereford; she in the small town of Brecon, by the shores of the river Usk. The following copy of her certificate of baptism, from the register-book in St. Mary’s, Brecon, is given in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ in 1826: “Baptism, 1755, July 14th, Sarah, daughter of George Kemble, a commedian (_sic_), and Sarah, his wife, was baptised. Thomas Bevan, curate.” Her father’s name was “Roger,” not “George,” as given above. The young couple’s theatrical wanderings happened to bring them, at the time of Mrs. Kemble’s confinement, to the little Welsh town, where they had put up in the High Street at a public-house familiarly called “The Shoulder of Mutton.” In 1755 the inn was a picturesque gable-fronted old house, with projecting upper storey, exhibiting as sign-board a large shoulder of mutton. It was much frequented by the farmers on market-day for its good ale and its legs of mutton, which might regularly in those days be seen roasting before the kitchen fire, on a spit turned by a dog in a wheel. Brecon is not without dramatic and historic interest, and, as Mrs. Siddons afterwards was fond of pointing out, is several times mentioned by Shakespeare. Buckingham, in _Richard III._, says: Oh! let me think on Hastings, and begone To Brecon whilst my fearful head is on.