CHAPTER III.

"DAVEY."

"Have you ever heard," asked Garrick, in an unpublished letter to Moody, then at Liverpool, "of a woman Siddons, who is strolling about somewhere near you?" Four months later, by the help of the Rev. Henry Bate's favourable report of her powers, she made her first appearance at Drury Lane. The Golden Gates of the Temple of Fame were thrown open. The young priestess had but to enter, one would have thought, and light the sacred flame; but genius is not to be bound by expediency or opportunity.

It was in 1775, the year when Garrick gave up the management, that Mrs. Siddons appeared on the boards of Drury Lane. She had reached the highest point of her ambition—she was to act with the greatest actor of his time before a dramatic audience rendered fastidious and critical by great traditions.

This is the most unfortunate portion of her life to recount. Failure and disappointment attended every step she made; and this failure and disappointment, although it did not in the least discourage her in