William Hazlitt, "Mrs Siddons," The Examiner, 16 June 1816

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Introduction

Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) was considered the outstanding tragic actress of her time; her crowning performance was her memorable portrayal of Lady Macbeth. The critic William Hazlitt (1778–1830) here discusses Mrs Siddons's fading career.

"Mrs Siddons," The Examiner, 16 June 1816

Players should be immortal, if their own wishes or ours could make them so; but they are not. They not only die like other people, but like other people they cease to be young, and are no longer themselves, even while living. Their health, strength, beauty, voice, fails them; nor can they, without these advantages, perform the same feats, or command the same applause that they did when possessed of them. It is the common lot; players are only not exempt from it. Mrs Siddons retired once from the stage; why should she return to it again? She cannot retire from it twice with dignity; and yet it is to be wished that she could do all things with dignity. Any loss of reputation to her, is a loss to the world. Has she not had enough of glory? The homage she has received is greater than that which is paid to queens. The enthusiasm she excited had something idolatrous about it; she was regarded less with admiration than with wonder, as if a being of a superior order had dropped from another sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. She raised Tragedy to the skies, or brought it down from thence. It was something above nature. We can conceive of nothing grander. She embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and deified mortals of elder time. She was not less than a goddess, or than a prophetess inspired by the gods. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. She was Tragedy personified. She was the stateliest ornament of the public mind. She was not only the idol of the people, she not only hushed the tumultous shouts of the pit in breathless expectations, and quenched the blaze of surrounding beauty in silent tears, but to the retired and lonely student, through long years of solitude, her face has shone as if an eye had appeared from heaven; her name has been as if a voice had opened the chambers of the human heart, or as if a trumpet had awakened the sleeping and the dead. To have seen Mrs Siddons, was an event in every one's life; and does she think we have forgotten her? Or would she remind us of herself by shewing us what she was not? Or is she to continue on the stage to the very last, till all her grace and all her grandeur gone, shall leave behind them only a melancholy blank? Or is she merely to be played off as 'the baby of a girl' for a few nights?— 'Rather than so,' come, Genius of Gil Blas, thou that didst inspire him in an evil hour to perform his promise to the Archbishop of Grenada, 'and champion us to the utterance' of what we think on this occasion.

It is said that the Princess Charlotte has expressed a desire to see Mrs Siddons in her best parts, and this, it is said, is a thing highly desirable. We do not know that the Princess has expressed any such wish, and we shall suppose that she has not, because we do not think it altogether a reasonable one. If the Princess Charlotte had expressed a wish to see Mr Garrick, this would have been a thing highly desirable, but it would have been impossible; or if she had desired to see Mrs Siddons in her best days, it would have been equally so; and yet without this, we do not think it desirable that she should see her at all. It is said to be desirable that a princess should have a taste for the Fine Arts, and that this is best promoted by seeing the highest models of perfection. But it is of the first importance for princes to acquire a taste for what is reasonable: and the second thing which it is desirable they should acquire, is a deference to public opinion: and we think neither of these objects likely to be promoted in any way proposed. If it was reasonable that Mrs Siddons should retire from the stage three years ago, certainly those reasons have not diminished since, nor do we think Mrs Siddons would consult what is due to her powers or her fame in commencing a new career. If it is only intended that she should act a few nights in the presence of a particular person, this might be done as well in private. To all other applications she should answer—'Leave me to my repose.'

Mrs Siddons always spoke as slow as she ought: she now speaks slower than she did. 'The line too labours, and the words move slow.' The machinery of the voice seems too ponderous for the power that wields it. There is too long a pause between each sentence, and between each word in each sentence. There is too much preparation. The stage waits for her. In the sleeping scene she produced a different impression from what we expected. It was more laboured, and less natural. In coming on formerly, her eyes were open, but the sense was shut. She was like a person bewildered, and unconscious of what she did. She moved her lips involuntarily; all her gestures were involuntary and mechanical. At present she acts the part more with a view to effect. She repeats the action when she says, 'I tell you he cannot rise from his grave', with both hands sawing the air, in the style of parliamentary oratory, the worst of all others. There was none of this weight or energy in the way she did the scene the first time we saw her, twenty years ago. She glided on and off the stage almost like an apparition. In the close of the banquet scene, Mrs Siddons condescended to an imitation which we were sorry for. She said, 'Go, go', in the hurried familiar tone of common life, in the manner of Mr Kean, and without any of that sustained and graceful spirit of conciliation towards her guests, which used to characterize her mode of doing it. Lastly, if Mrs Siddons has to leave the stage again, Mr Horace Twiss will write another farewell address for her: if she continues on it, we shall have to criticize her performances. We know which of these two evils we shall think the greatest.

Too much praise cannot be given to Mr Kemble's performance of Macbeth. He was 'himself again', and more than himself. His action was decided, his voice audible. His tones had occasionally indeed a learned quaintness, like the colouring of Poussin; but the effect of the whole was fine. His action in delivering the speech, 'To-morrow and to-morrow', was particularly striking and expressive, as if he had stumbled by an accident on fate, and was baffled by the impenetrable obscurity of the future. In that prodigious prosing paper, The Times, which seems to be written as well as printed by a steam-engine, Mr Kemble is compared to the ruin of a magnificent temple, in which the divinity still resides. This is not the case. The temple is unimpaired; but the divinity is sometimes from home.