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VISITS AND SKETCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD.

VOL. III.






VISITS AND SKETCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD

WITH TALES AND MISCELLANIES NOW FIRST COLLECTED.

BY MRS. JAMESON,

AUTHOR OF "THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN," "LIVES OF CELEBRATED FEMALE
SOVEREIGNS," &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

SECOND EDITION.


  LONDON
  SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.
  1835.


  LONDON:
  IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.




CONTENTS OF VOL. III.


                                                                      PAGE

  Sketch of Mrs. Siddons                                                 3
  Sketch of Fanny Kemble                                                49
  The False One                                                         93
  Halloran the Pedlar                                                  177
  The Indian Mother                                                    231
  Much Coin, Much Care                                                 263


VOL. III.

    Page 42, line 5, _for_ the full stop _read_ a comma, and _for_ she had
      _read_ having.

     59,--4, _for_ cannot _read_ could not.




MRS. SIDDONS.


[The following little sketch was written a few days after the death of
Mrs. Siddons, and was called forth by certain paragraphs which appeared
in the daily papers. A misapprehension of the real character of this
remarkable woman, which I know to exist in the minds of many who admired
and venerated her talents, has induced me to enlarge the first very
slight sketch, into a more finished but still inadequate portrait.
I have spared no pains to verify the truth of my own conception by
testimony of every kind that was attainable. I have penned every word as
if I had been in that great final court where the thoughts of all hearts
are manifested; and those who best knew the individual I have attempted
to delineate bear witness to the fidelity of the portrait, as far as it
goes. I must be permitted to add, that in this and the succeeding sketch
I have not only been inspired by the wish to do justice to individual
virtue and talent,--I wished to impress and illustrate that important
truth, that a gifted woman may pursue a public vocation, yet preserve
the purity and maintain the dignity of her sex--that there is no
prejudice which will not shrink away before moral energy, and no
profession which may not be made compatible with the respect due to us
as women, the cultivation of every feminine virtue, and the practice of
every private duty. I might here multiply examples and exceptions, and
discuss causes and results; but it is a consideration I reserve for
another opportunity.]




MRS. SIDDONS


"_Implora pace!_"--She, who upon earth ruled the souls and senses
of men, as the moon rules the surge of waters; the acknowledged and
liege empress of all the realms of illusion; the crowned queen; the
throned muse; the sceptred shadow of departed genius, majesty, and
beauty,--supplicates--_Peace!_

What unhallowed work has been going forward in some of the daily
papers since this illustrious creature has been laid in her quiet
unostentatious grave! ay, even before her poor remains were cold!
What pains have been taken to cater trifling scandal for the blind,
heartless, gossip-loving vulgar! and to throw round the memory of a
woman, whose private life was as irreproachable as her public career was
glorious, some ridiculous or unamiable association which should tend to
unsphere her from her throne in our imagination, and degrade from her
towering pride of place, the heroine of Shakspeare, and the Muse of
Tragedy!

That stupid malignity which revels in the martyrdom of fame--which
rejoices when, by some approximation of the mean and ludicrous with the
beautiful and sublime, it can for a moment bring down the rainbow-like
glory in which the fancy invests genius, to the drab-coloured level of
mediocrity--is always hateful and contemptible; but in the present case
it is something worse; it has a peculiar degree of _cowardly_ injustice.
If some elegant biographer inform us that the same hand which painted
the infant Hercules, or Ugolino, or Mrs. Sheridan, half seraph and half
saint--could clutch a guinea with satisfaction, or drive a bargain with
a footman; if some discreet friend, from the mere love of truth, no
doubt, reveal to us the puerile, lamentable frailties of that bright
spirit which poured itself forth in torrents of song and passion: what
then? 'tis pitiful, certainly, wondrous pitiful; but there is no great
harm done,--no irremediable injury inflicted; for there stand their
works: the poet's immortal page, the painter's breathing canvass witness
for them. "Death hath had no power yet upon _their_ beauty"--over them
scandal cannot draw her cold slimy finger;--on