I was enraptured, and my brother was enraptured, for we had both gained our objects. I had got rid of him and ennui. He had got rid of me, and the displeasure of the grand dispensers of place and pension. No time was lost in forwarding me to make my bow at the Horse Guards; and my noble brother lost as little time in making me put my hand to a paper, in which, for prompt payment, I relinquished one half of my legacy. But what cared I for money? I had obtained a profession in which money was contemptible, the only purse the military chest, and the only prize, like Nelson's, a peerage or Westminster Abbey. The ferment did not cool within the week, and within that period I had taken leave of half the county, been wished laurels and aiguillettes by a hundred or a thousand of the fairest of our country belles; and been wished a thousand miles off by the wise matrons, to whom the sight of a "younger son without house or land" is a nuisance, a kite among their family pigeons.
At that moment, however, all their dovecots were secure. I should not have spent a sigh on the Venus de Medicis had she sprung from her pedestal to enchant me. The world was open before me; and trite and trifling objects were no more to occupy my time. I felt like one who, after wandering all day through the depths of an American forest, suddenly reaches its border, and sees before him the boundless prairie, with its boundlessness still more striking, from the absence of any distinct object on which the eye could rest. What were horses, dogs, and country dinners, to the world of London and of life which now came in full, and, I will own it, extravagant vision before me? The ideas which I conceived of men and things, of my own fortunes, and the fortunate exercise of my own powers, were of an order which, in my calmer days, have often made me smile; yet what is the whole early life of man but a predisposition to fever? and I was then throbbing on the fiery verge of the disease.
I shall say but little of my first sensations on reaching London. My eyes and ears were in full activity. But the impression upon all who enter this mightiest of capitals for the first time, is nearly the same. Its perpetual multitude, its incessant movement, its variety of occupations, sights and sounds, the echo of the whole vast and sleepless machinery of national existence, have been a thousand times the subject of description, and always of wonder. Yet, I must acknowledge, that its first sight repelled me. I had lived in field and forest, my society had been among my fellows in rank; I had lived in magnificent halls, and been surrounded by bowing attendants; and now, with my mind full of the calm magnificence of English noble life, I felt myself flung into the midst of a numberless, miscellaneous, noisy rabble, all rushing on regardless of every thing but themselves, pouring through endless lines of dingy houses; and I nothing, an atom in the confusion, a grain of dust on the great chariot wheel of society, a lonely and obscure struggler in the mighty current of human life, which rolled along the sullen channels of the most cheerless, however it might be the largest, of capitals.
For the first week, I was absolutely unable to collect my thoughts. All that I learned was, to make my way through the principal thoroughfares, and know the names of her chief buildings. In later days, I took a more practical view of matters, and regarded them only as places in which the business of the hour was to be done. But in my first view, something of the romance and revival of my forest walks clung to me. I remember that, when I first saw the Horse Guards, to which, of course, one of my earliest visits was paid, I found no slight difficulty in thinking of it as only a remarkably clownish mass of brick and stone, crowded with clerks. To me it was the very palace of war; the spot from which the thunderbolts of England were launched; the centre and the stronghold of that irresistible influence with which England sways and moulds mankind. The India House was another of my reveries. I could not think of it as but a huge pile in a vulgar outlet of the city, as a place of porters and messengers loitering in gloomy corridors, of busy clerks for ever scribbling in nooks unvisited by the sun, or even of portly directors, congregating in halls encrusted with the cobwebs of centuries. To my eyes it was invested with the mystery and dignity of Orientalism. I thought of the powers by which rajahs were raised and overthrown, of the mandates which spread war and restored peace over regions wide as Europe, and a thousand times more brilliant. I had rambling visions of armies of elephants, superb cavalry, and chieftains covered with gold and diamonds. As I traversed the dusky halls, I thought of the will which pronounced the fate of kingdoms, the fallen glories of Aurengzebe, the broken sceptre of the Mahratta, and the crushed tiara of Mysore. Round me was the moving power of an empire, the noblest that the East has ever seen, and which, in the act of assuming additional greatness, by a contradiction to all the laws of extended conquest, was hourly assuming additional stability.
And yet, and yet, are not those the true views, after all? Are the effects to be forgotten in the instruments, or is it not the result which forms the character of the whole? Are we to think of the dagger which strikes the master of a throne, as only the steel in the hand of an assassin, or as the summoner to civil war and the subversion of thrones? Is the pen which pours political frenzy through the hearts of living millions, or sheds the splendours of poetry over millions still to come, to be valued only as the feather of a bird? Or is the press itself to be remembered only as a dexterous combination of springs and screws; or to be bowed down to as the steward of all the hidden treasures of mindas the breaker of intellectual chains, the avenger of injured rights, the moral Hercules that goes forth turning the wilderness to fertility, and smiting the monsters of the world?
But among the wonders of the time, there was one which struck me with prodigious force, which has remained on my recollection to this hour, and which still survives with undiminished vividness. It was the acting of Siddons.
The stage is now almost undone. The absurd liberalism of the day has given every corner of London a theatre, and has degraded the character of the stage in all. By scattering the ability which still exists, it has stripped the great theatres of the very means of representing dramatic excellence; while, by adopting popular contrivances to obtain temporary success, they have driven away dramatic genius in contempt or in despair. Our stage is now condemned to be fed like a felon from the dungeons, and, like the felon, to feel a stigma in every morsel which it puts between its lips. It must stoop to French frivolity, or German extravagance, and be glad to exist upon either. Yet, why should not higher names come to its aid? Why should not the State relieve the difficulties of a great institution, which might be made to repay its assistance a thousand-fold? Is there nothing that could be withdrawn from the waste of our civil lists, or the pomp of public establishments, to reunite, to purify, and even to exalt the stage? The people will have theatres. Good or evil, noble or degraded, the stage will be demanded by the people. Is it a thing indifferent to our rulers, to supply them with this powerful and universal excitement in its highest degree of moral influence, or in its lowest degree of impurity; to bring before them, with all the attractions of the drama, the memory of heroes and sages, patriots and martyrs, or leave them to rake for the indulgence of eye and ear in the very kennels of crime?
"They order those things better in France."
Unquestionably. The care of Government there protects the national taste, and prevents the theatres from looking for subsistence to the history of the highway. The vices which now haunt theatres are no more necessary to their nature, than to the senate or the palace. Why should not the State interpose to prevent the sale of poison on the stage, as in the streets? Why should it not offer prizes and honours for great tragedies and comedies, as soon as it would for a voyage to the Arctic or Antarctic? But is dramatic genius dead in England? What, in England! where nothing dieswhere every faculty of the heart and understanding is in the most perpetual activitywhere the noblest impulses are perpetually pushing forward to the noblest endswhere human nature moves in all its vigour, from hour to hour, without disguisewhere the whole anatomy of the moral frame is visible, and all its weakness, and all its wonders, are the daily spectacle of all mankind!
"They order those things better in France."
Unquestionably. The care of Government there protects the national taste, and prevents the theatres from looking for subsistence to the history of the highway. The vices which now haunt theatres are no more necessary to their nature, than to the senate or the palace. Why should not the State interpose to prevent the sale of poison on the stage, as in the streets? Why should it not offer prizes and honours for great tragedies and comedies, as soon as it would for a voyage to the Arctic or Antarctic? But is dramatic genius dead in England? What, in England! where nothing dieswhere every faculty of the heart and understanding is in the most perpetual activitywhere the noblest impulses are perpetually pushing forward to the noblest endswhere human nature moves in all its vigour, from hour to hour, without disguisewhere the whole anatomy of the moral frame is visible, and all its weakness, and all its wonders, are the daily spectacle of all mankind!
In giving these opinions of the powers of the stage, need I guard them by saying, that I contemplate a higher spirit than the drama even of Shakspeare has ever displayedone which, to the vigour of his characters, and the splendours of his poetry, should add a moral of which his time was scarcely conscious? My idea would approach more nearly the objects of the great Greek dramas, in which the first sympathies of the people were appealed to by the most powerful recollections of historic virtue; their national victories over the Persian, the lofty conceptions of their Olympus, the glories of their national power, and the prospects of their imperishable renown. I contemplate nothing of the weakness, locality, or license, of our old drama. I think only of a rich and lofty combination of characters above the level of our time, thoughts belonging to that elevation, feelings more generous, vivid, and majestic, and exploits uniting the soaring spirit of old romance with the sustained strength of modern energy; Greece in her brightest days of intellectual lustre, Rome in her most heroic days of patriotism, and England in those days which are yet to come, and which shall fill up her inheritance of glory.
Siddons was then witching the worldwitching, in its more solemn sense; for though her smile was exquisite, she might have sat for the picture of a Sybil or a Pythoness. The stage had never seen her equal, and will probably never see another so completely formed to command all its influences. Yet her beauty, her acting, even her movement, were characteristic, and their character was noble melancholy. I never saw so mournful a countenance combined with so much beauty. Her voice, though grand, was melancholyher step, though superb, was melancholy; her very smile was melancholy; and yet there was so much of living intellect in her expression, such vast variety of passion in her look and gesture; she so deeply awoke the feelings, or so awfully impressed the mind; thus it was impossible to escape the spell, while she moved upon the stage.
In this language there is not the slightest exaggeration. I have seen a whole audience burst into tears at a single tone of her voice. Her natural conception was so fine, that the merest commonplace often received a living spirit from her lips. I have seen a single glance from her powerful eye hush an audienceI have seen her acting sometimes even startle and bewilder the actors beside her. There is perhaps a genius for every art, and hers was the genius of the stagea faculty of instant communication between the speaker and the hearer, some unaccountable sympathy, the power to create which belongs to but one in millions, and which, where it exists, lifts its possessor to the height of the Art at once, and constitutes perfection.
It may be presumed that I saw this extraordinary being whenever it was possible. But her chef-d'œuvre, in my eyes, was the "wife of Macbeth." The character seemed made for her, by something of that instinct which in olden times combined the poet and the prophet in one. It had the ardour and boldness mingled with the solemnity and mystery that belonged to the character of her beauty.
Her entrance was hurried, as if she had but just glanced over the letter, and had been eager to escape from the crowd of attendants to reperuse it alone. She then read on, in a strong calm voice, until she came to the passage which proved the preternatural character of the prediction. "They have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burnt with desire to question them further, they made themselves into air andvanished." As she was about to pronounce the last word, she paused, drew a short breath, her whole frame was disturbed, she threw her fine eyes upwards, and exclaimed "Vanished!" with a wild force, which showed that the whole spirit of the temptation had shrunk into her soul. The "Hail, king that shall be!" was the winding-up of the spell. It was pronounced with the grandeur of one already by anticipation a Queen.
Her solitary summons to her distant lord followed, like an invocation
"Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round."
The murder scene was the next triumph: her acting was that of a triumphant fiend. I must follow these recollections no further; but the most admirable piece of dumb show that perhaps ever was conceived, was her "Banquet scene." That scene, from the terrible business on the stagethe entrance of Banquo's ghost, the horrors of Macbeth, stricken in the moment of his royal exultation, and the astonishment and alarm of the courtiersis one of the most thrilling and tumultuous. Yet Siddons, sitting at the extremity of the royal hall, not having a syllable to utter, and simply occupied with courtesies to her guests, made her silence so expressive, that she more than divided the interest with the powerful action going on in front. And when at last, indignant at Macbeth's terrors, stung by conscience, and alarmed at the result of an up-breaking of the banquet with such rumours in their lips, she rushed towards her unhappy husband, and burst out with the words, still though but whispered, yet intensely poured into his passive ear
"Are you a man?
This is the very painting of your fear!
This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool!"
In those accents all else was forgotten.
But her sleep-walking scene! When shall we see its "second or its similar?" Nothing so solemn, nothing so awful, was ever seen upon the stage. Yet it had one faultit was too awful. She more resembled a majestic shade rising from the tomb than a living woman, however disturbed by wild fear and lofty passion. It is a remarkable instance of the genius of Shakspeare, that he here found the means of giving a human interest to a being whom he had almost exalted to the "bad eminence" of a magnificent fiend. In this famous soliloquy, the thoughts which once filled and fired her have totally vanished. Ambition has died; remorse lives in its place. The diadem has disappeared; she thinks only of the blood that stains her for ever. She is the queen no more, but an exhausted and unhappy woman, worn down by the stings of conscience, and with her frame dying by the disease of her soul.
But Siddons wanted the agitation, the drooping, the timidity. She looked a living statue. She spoke with the solemn tone of a voice from a shrine. She stood more the sepulchral avenger of regicide than the sufferer from its convictions. Her grand voice, her fixed and marble countenance, and her silent step, gave the impression of a supernatural being, the genius of an ancient oraclea tremendous Nemesis.