For eight nights the play was acted, and still every time she appeared the tide of popular favour ran higher. The box office was besieged by people wanting tickets, and the most ridiculous stories were told of the crush. Two old men stationed themselves to play chess outside at all hours, so as to secure tickets. Footmen lay stretched out asleep from dawn to buy places for their mistresses. Years afterwards, when at a great meeting at Edinburgh, Mrs. Siddons’ health was proposed, Sir Walter Scott described the scene on one of those far-famed nights: the breakfasting near the theatre, waiting the whole day, the crushing at the doors at six o’clock, the getting in and counting their fingers till seven. But the very first step, the first word she uttered, was sufficient to overpay everyone their weariness. The house was then electrified, and it was only from witnessing the effects of her genius that one could guess to what a pitch theatrical excellence may be carried. “Those young fellows,” added Sir Walter, “who have only seen the setting sun of this distinguished performer, beautiful and serene as it is, must give us old fellows, who have seen its rise, leave to hold our heads a little higher.” After _Isabella_, the actress appeared in Murphy’s _Grecian Daughter_, a very indifferent play, but one into which she breathed life and beauty by the power of her intuition. Not yet had the ninety-one of the past century dawned upon civilisation with its Goddess of Reason, its scanty classic draperies, and its sandalled, bare-footed beauties. Toupees, toques, bouffantes, hoops, sacques, and all the paraphernalia of horse-hair, powder, pomatum, and pins were still in the ascendant. Not yet had Charlotte Corday sacrificed her life for the liberty of her people; but the muttering of the coming storm was heard in the distance, and, with the prescience of genius, the young actress anticipated its advent, and amazed her audience by the simple beauty of her classic draperies, and shook them with excitement by her rapturous appeals to Liberty. There was a glorious enthusiasm about her delivery of certain portions. She came to perish or to conquer. She seemed to grow several inches taller. Her voice gained tones undreamt of before:— Shall he not tremble when a daughter comes, Wild with her griefs, and terrible with wrongs? The _Man of blood shall hear me_! Yes, my voice Shall mount aloft upon the whirlwind’s wing. Her scorn was magnificent. Her reply to Dionysius, when he asks her to induce her husband to withdraw his army— Thinkest thou then So meanly of my Phocion? Dost thou deem him Poorly wound up to a mere fit of valour, To melt away in a weak woman’s tears? Oh, thou dost little know him. At the last line, Boaden tells us, there was a triumphant hurry and enjoyment in her scorn, which the audience caught as electrical and applauded in rapture, for at least a minute:—