Page:Mrs. Siddons (IA mrssiddons00kennrich).pdf/194

182 There is an amusing story told by Boaden of a supper at beautiful Mrs. Crouch's, when Kemble arrived charged with his grievances, and full of threats, expecting to meet Sheridan. Presently in came the culprit, light and airy as usual. The great actor looked unutterable things, occasionally emitting a humming sound like that of a bee, and groaning inwardly in spirit. Some little time elapsed, when at last, like a "pillar of state," slowly uprose Kemble, and thus addressed the proprietor:

"I am an eagle whose wings have been bound down by frosts and snows, but now I shake my pinions and cleave into the genial air into which I am born."

After having thus offered his resignation, he solemnly resumed his seat. Sheridan, however, undaunted, used all his arts of fascination to mitigate his wrath, and at an early hour of the morning both went away in perfect harmony.

Then we have Mrs. Siddons's opinion of him:—

"Here I am," she writes, "sitting close in a little dark room in a little wretched inn, in a little poking village called Newport Pagnell. I am on my way to Manchester, where I am to act for a fortnight, from whence I am to be whirled to Liverpool, there to do the same. From thence I skim away to York and Leeds; and then, when Drury Lane opens—who can tell? For it depends upon Mr. Sheridan, who is uncertainty personified. I have got no money from him yet, and all my last benefit, a very great one, was swept into his treasury, nor have I seen a shilling of it. Mr. Siddons has made an appointment to meet him to-day at Hammersley's. As I came away very early, I don't know the result of the conference; but unless things are settled to Mr. Siddons's satisfaction,