Miss Kelly said that when, as Constance, Mrs. Siddons wept over her, her collar was wet with her tears. Tom Davies is said to have declared that in the third act of the _Fair Penitent_ she “turned pale under her rouge.” She tells us herself that “when called upon to personate the character of Constance, I never, from the beginning of the play to the end of my part in it, once suffered my dressing-room door to be closed, in order that my attention might be constantly fixed on those distressing events which, by this means, I could plainly hear going on upon the stage, the terrible effects of which progress were to be represented by me. Moreover, I never omitted to place myself, with Arthur in my hand, to hear the march, when, upon the reconciliation of England and France, they enter the gates of Angiers to ratify the contract of marriage between the Dauphin and the Lady Blanche, because the sickening sounds of that march would usually cause the bitter tears of rage, disappointment, betrayed confidence, baffled ambition, and, above all, the agonizing feelings of maternal affection to gush into my eyes.” As a set-off against the above statement, we have Cumberland’s description of Mrs. Siddons coming off the stage in the full flush of triumph—having harrowed her audience with emotion—and walking up to the mirror in the green room to survey herself with perfect composure. We imagine there is no law to be laid down on the subject of the amount of feeling an actor really puts into the part he is enacting. It must vary. Conventionality must, with the greatest of them, now and then take the place of emotion; or, as Talma expresses it, the “_Métier_ must now and then take the place of _Le vrai_.” We know the story of how once, when Garrick was playing King Lear, Johnson and Murphy kept up an animated conversation at the side-wing during one of his most important scenes. When Garrick came over the stage, he said, “You two talk so loud you destroy all my feelings.” “Prithee,” replied Johnson, “do not talk of feelings; Punch has no feeling”—a remark which is borne out by another account of Garrick as Lear rising from the dead body of his daughter Cordelia, where he had been convulsing the audience with sobs, running into the green-room gobbling like a turkey to amuse Kitty Clive and Mrs. Abington. Mrs. Siddons is said to have made the statement that, after playing the part of Lady Macbeth for thirty years, she never read it over without discovering in it something new. In her _Remarks_, however, on the character, left amongst her memoranda, we do not find any particular depth or originality in her conception, and we doubt if she ever improved much on her first ideal. As to her notion that Lady Macbeth was a small, fair, blue-eyed woman, delicate and fragile, it could have been but a “caprice” of later days, originating in her endeavour to find new readings and impressions. A short analysis of some of her opinions on the character may be interesting.