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.
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