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260 their minds to stay and see her. Campbell told them how annoyed Mrs. Siddons would be at meeting strangers; they were not to be gainsaid:—

When the carriage approached the house, Campbell goes on, I went out to conduct her over a short pathway on the common, as well as to prepare her for a sight of the strangers. It was the only time, during a friendly acquaintance of so many years, that I ever saw a cloud upon her brow. She received my apology very coldly, And walked into my house with tragic dignity. At first she kept the gentlemen of the New World at a transatlantic distance; and they made the matter worse, as I thought, for a time, by the most extravagant flattery. But my Columbian friends had more address than I supposed, and they told her so many interesting anecdotes about their native stage and the enthusiasm of their countrymen respecting herself that she grew frank and agreeable, and shook hands with both of them at parting.

Many were the honours heaped on her during these last years. She received a formal invitation to visit the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Her daughter writes to Miss Wilkinson, expressing their delight with the visit:—

I over and over wished for you, who would have enjoyed as much as I did the attention and admiration shown to our Darling. We had sights to see, colleges and libraries to examine, and at every one of them there was a principal inhabitant, eager to show and proud to entertain Mrs. Siddons. In the public library, my mother received the honour of an address from Professor Clarke, who presented her with a handsome Bible from the Stereotype press. After which she read to almost all the members of the University at present there the trial scene in the Merchant of Venice, and more finely she never did it in her life. Everyone was, or seemed to be, enchanted and enthusiastic.

After her retirement from the stage, she gave public readings at the Argyll Rooms in London. The arrangements were most simple. A reading-desk with lights, on which lay her book, a quarto volume, printed in large letters. When her memory failed her, she assisted her sight by spectacles, which in the