An interesting anecdote relative to Mrs. Siddons’s first country performance of Lady Macbeth, is told in the Memoranda from which we have already quoted. “It was my custom to study my characters at night, when the domestic cares and business of the day were over. On the night preceding that in which I was to appear for the first time, I shut myself up, as usual, when all the family were retired, and commenced my study of _Lady Macbeth_. As the character is very short, I thought I should soon accomplish it. Being then only twenty years of age, I believed, as many do believe, that little more was necessary than to get the words into my head; for the necessity of discrimination, and the development of character, at that time of my life, had scarcely entered into my imagination. But, to proceed, I went on with tolerable composure in the silence of the night, (a night I can never forget,) till I came to the assassination scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a degree that made it impossible for me to get farther. I snatched up my candle, and hurried out of the room, in a paroxysm of terror. My dress was of silk, and the rustling of it, as I ascended the stairs to go to bed, seemed to my panic-struck fancy like the movement of a spectre pursuing me. At last I reached my chamber, where I found my husband fast asleep. I clapt my candlestick down upon the table, without the power of putting the candle out; and I threw myself on my bed, without daring to stay even to take off my clothes. At peep of day I rose to resume my task; but so little did I know of my part when I appeared in it at night, that my shame and confusion cured me of procrastinating my business for the remainder of my life.” “About six years afterwards I was called upon to act the same character in London. By this time I had perceived the difficulty of assuming a personage with whom no one feeling of common general nature was congenial or assistant. One’s own heart could prompt one to express with some degree of truth the sentiments of a mother, a daughter, a wife, a lover, a sister, &c.; but to adopt this character must be an effort of the judgment alone.”