The anecdote of "That's nae bad!" then, is not to be quoted to the disadvantage of Scottish audiences.[59] The Edinburgh people, moreover, had been told that Mrs. Siddons was unwilling to be interrupted by applause, which, however, was not true; as she herself alleged that the more applause the less fatigue, as she had more breathing time. Indeed, the Edinburgh enthusiasm anent the great actress surpassed all such manifestations elsewhere. Fancy the General Assembly of the Kirk being obliged to arrange their meetings with reference to Mrs. Siddons's acting, as the younger members followed the artist, as Bossuet used to follow contemporary actors, to study elocution. People, during her first engagement of three weeks, assembled in crowds, hours before the doors were opened, sometimes as early as noon. As soon as admission was given, there ensued a fierce struggle which disregarded even the points of bayonets, whose bearers were called in to quell disorder; and, as soon as the play was over, and the doors were closed, porters and servants took up a position, standing, lying, sleeping, but all ready to secure places on the opening of the box-offices on the following day. On one occasion there were applications for 2557 places, of which the house numbered but 630; and when, at night, the struggle was renewed for these, the loss of property, in costume and its attendant luxuries of jewellery and the like, was enormous. One night, as Mrs. Siddons was playing Isabella, and had uttered the words by which she used to pierce all hearts, words uttered on discovering her first husband, in whose absence she had remarried, "Oh, my Biron! my Biron!" a young Aberdeenshire heiress, Miss Gordon of Gight, sent forth a scream as wild as that of Isabella, and, taking up the words in a hysterical frenzy, was carried out still uttering them. Next year this impressible lady was wooed and won by a Byron, the honourable John of that name, by whom she became the mother of one more famous than the rest, Lord Byron, the "lord of himself, that heritage of woe." Lady Gray, of Gask, told my friend, Mr. Robert Chambers, that she "never could forget those ominous sounds of, 'Oh, my Biron!'" Notwithstanding all this success, I find contemporary critics expressing an opinion that she played too frequently. "If she hopes," says one, "to have the gratification of being followed by crowds, she should never perform more than once a week, or twelve times in a season." The arithmetical computation seems defective; but it is singular that Mrs. Delaney made a similar remark with respect to Garrick. Mrs. Siddons was, however, equal to more fatigue than some of her admirers would have had her undergo. I find it recorded, with admiration, in a paper three-quarters of a century old, that in four days she had achieved the (then) incredible task of acting in three theatres, so wide apart as London, Reading, and Bath!