In the autumn of 1783, about a year before Dr. Johnson’s death, Mrs. Siddons, at his own request, paid him a visit, which was several times repeated. He expressed a strong desire to see her in Queen Katherine, his favourite character among Shakspeare’s females. He was not so gratified; for the play was not brought forward until November 28, 1788, after an absence from the stage of near half a century. This, like Lady Macbeth, we must regard as one of Mrs. Siddons’s peculiar characters. “It was an era,” Mr. Campbell says, “not only in Mrs. Siddons’s history, but in the fortune of the play as an acting piece; for certainly, in the history of all female performance on the British stage, there is no specific tradition of any excellence at all approaching to hers as Queen Katherine.” The two principal scenes belonging to the part are strikingly contrasted. The high mind and majestic deportment of the actress, and the sarcasm which she pours out on the Cardinal, render the Trial Scene one of the most effective on the stage; and it has fortunately been preserved from oblivion by the pencil of Harlowe. But the last scene, in the sick chamber, was among the strongest proofs of Mrs. Siddons’s close adherence to nature, and one of her greatest triumphs over the difficulties of her art, enhanced as they were by the extravagant dimensions of the modern theatres. It may be mentioned to show her confidence in her own judgment as to the truth of nature that, though the audience in the gallery sometimes asked her to speak louder, she never obeyed the call; but left the architect responsible for any failure of effect, rather than herself overstep the bounds of propriety in the most solemn event of human life.