Eminent Women Series
EDITED BY JOHN H. INGRAM
MRS. SIDDONS.
(All rights reserved)
MRS. SIDDONS
BY
MRS. A. KENNARD.
LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
1887.
(All rights reserved.)
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
In spite of Mrs. Siddons’s professed shrinking fromthe celebrity that biographers would confer upon her,and her preference for the “still small voice of tenderrelatives and estimable friends,” we know that shebequeathed her Memoranda, Letters, and Diary tothe poet Campbell—an intimate friend during herlatter years—with a request that he would preparethem for publication. How, with the ample materialat his command, Campbell wrote so bad a life, itis difficult to conceive. He seemed conscious himselfthat he was not doing justice to his subject. Thetask of finishing it weighed on him like a nightmare.To secure himself from interruption he would fix aplacard on the door of his chambers announcing that“Mr. Campbell was engaged with the biography ofMrs. Siddons, and was not to be disturbed.”
Though performing the task unwillingly, he stubbornlyrefused to allow anyone else to attempt it.When Mrs. Jameson contemplated writing a life ofthe great actress he was most indignant, and expressedhimself as unable to understand how Mrs. Combe(Cecilia Siddons) could patronise a life of her mother[vi]by Mrs. Jameson, knowing that he had been appointedthe biographer.
Boaden’s account of Mrs. Siddons is sketchy andmeagre, and his style, if possible, more pedantic andponderous than Campbell’s. Crabb Robinson declaredit to be “one of the most worthless books of biographyin existence.”
In writing an account of a woman like Mrs. Siddons,or, indeed, of anyone whose life has beenpassed entirely before the public, it is necessary todivest the character as much as possible of the legendarytraditions adhering to it. It must be broughtdown into the regions of ordinary life, and the onlyway to accomplish this is to transcribe her actualwords and expressions written without thought of publication.We must therefore ask our readers to forgiveus for quoting so many of her letters in full. Whenwe attempt to shorten or interpolate, all their easycharm and freshness seems to evaporate.
Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, in his Lives of the Kembles,has incorporated Mrs. Siddons’s history with that ofher brother, John Kemble, and written by far the bestbiography yet done of the great actress. To him wemust express our deep obligation, and almost our contrition,for venturing to treat a subject already so ablyhandled in his interesting volumes. We must alsoexpress our gratitude to Mr. Alfred Morrison and Mr.Thibaudeau for allowing us to make use of the valuabledocuments contained in the Morrison collection ofautograph letters.
NINA A. KENNARD.
February, 1887.