prudent, self-respecting woman, uninflated by her
extraordinary fame, and the high society into which
it had led her. After gala days at countesses',
where lords and ladies elbowed each other, and
stood on chairs in their anxiety to see her, she
returned, calm, dignified, and contented, to her
quiet home in Gower-street. It might have
turned even the wisest woman's head to
have Reynolds painting his name on the hem
of her garment as the Tragic Muse, and Dr.
Johnson calling her "a glorious woman"—a
prodigiously fine woman, who on the stage was
adorned by nature and glorified by art.

As even the sun has spots, so there are certain
deductions, however, to be made from even such
a fame as that of the Siddons. Mrs. Crawford
equalled her as Lady Randolph. Mrs. Cibber
rivalled her in Zara. She did little as Juliet.
She spoiled Rosalind by prudish scruples about
the pretty fantastic male dress necessary to the
part. Mrs. Jordan was far more charming in
that charming character. Mrs. Cibber surpassed
the Siddons as Ophelia. In love she was too
solemn, in comedy too heavy. Her Lady Townley
wanted airiness; her Lady in Comus, her
Katharine, Portia, and Cleone, were by no means
successes.

The Siddons' face, though grandly grave and
Grecian, was rather too Jewish and prononcée
in the nose and chin; the action of her arms
dissatisfied even to the last hypercritical men with a
difficult taste, like Horace Walpole. In domestic
life she retained a certain stiff, tragic manner,
which had become habitual with her, as with
her brother, John Philip. She stabbed the
potatoes at dinner, and said regally and
metrically to the servants:

I asked for water, and you gave me beer.

But a great genius left the stage when the dark
green curtain fell for the last time on the
majestic figure and face of Sarah Siddons.

IN DIFFICULTIES. THREE STAGES.

FIRST STAGE. THE "SPONGING-HOUSE."

I THINK it is Mr. Edmund Yates, in one
of his recent novels, who has remarked, that to
pay a tradesman's debt in part—to "give
something on account"—is like applying a wet
brush to an old hat. It certainly makes matters
better, but only for a time, and the final state
of that creditor's anger is much worse than
before. This certainly proved to be the case
in my instance. I owed my tailor—a fourth-rate
suburban tailor, to whom I had resorted in a
moment of temporary insanity—some thirty-four
pounds odd shillings. He asked me for the
amount two or three times, but was always
civil, although pressing. I gave him ten
pounds "on account," and on the very next day he
served me with a writ for the balance. Having
your true Britisher's faith in solicitors—an
Englishman has much the same reliance upon
an attorney that a Spaniard has upon a priest
—I at once went to a gentleman of that profession,
firmly believing that he could, if he liked,
get me out of my trouble. This lawyer was of a
"most respectable" City firm, and I must
acknowledge that, beyond money out of pocket,
he never charged me a penny for all he did for
me. He looked at the writ, made a note of the
day it was served upon me, said he "would
put in an appearance"—I did not know in those
days what that meant, but I do now—and told
me that if I liked to incur three or four pounds
expenses, he could manage to "tide over" the
business for the next month. I replied that I left
matters entirely in his hands, that he must do his
best for me; all I wanted was "time." He asked
me what proposition he should make the tailor—
who, by the way, had also his solicitor—and I
offered at his suggestion to pay the law costs up
to the present time, and give my creditor two
notes of hand, payable in one and two months
respectively, for twelve pounds odd shillings each.
This was agreed on; but a condition was made
that the tailor should be allowed to "sign
judgment" for the whole amount, so that if I failed
to make good either payment, he could at once
"issue execution:" in other words, as I had
no tangible property of my own, arrest my
person and cast me into prison.

When I made this arrangement, and for
four years previously, I had been "a
traveller," as it is called, for a wholesale tea
and sugar merchant. My beat extended over
four midland counties, but I came to London
every fortnight in order to give an account of
the money I had collected, to deliver the
various orders I had received, and report upon
the new customers I had secured. My salary
was only a hundred pounds a year, but I was
allowed one pound a day travelling expenses,
and a commission of five per cent upon all
the orders I received, provided those orders
were paid for. On the other hand, whatever
bad debts I incurred for the firm, I was charged
at the rate of two and a half per cent. If trade
were flourishing, I made a very fair income:
certainly not less than four or five hundred a
year net profit. But, on the other hand, if
times were bad, if debts were not paid, or
orders not given, or if failures took place amongst
the retail grocers who were our customers, I
found a difficulty in paying my way. At
the time I write of, things had gone very
ill indeed all over my circuit. There had
been continued strikes in the iron trade,
followed by locks out, which were again followed
by strikes. The working men and artisans had
incurred shop debts which they could not pay,
and the grocers, not being able to get in their
bills, had got very much behind with their
payments to the wholesale firms. The house I
represented had a very large amount of money
outstanding in the country over which I
travelled, and the partners looked exceedingly
glum in consequence. Hardly a day passed, on
which I was not obliged to report some failure
among my clients. The rule of our firm was to
regard the failure of every retail tradesman they
dealt with as a bad debt, and write it off as