particular genius in any other department of life but the stage, she had a fine cultivated taste for artistic and beautiful things. She employed much of her time in modelling, and executed many respectable pieces of work. Her childish love of Milton revived again now, and after her retirement she published a small volume of extracts from his poems. Above all, she had the support and consolation of a pure unswerving religious faith; through her chequered life of triumph and bereavement, joy and sorrow, Sarah Siddons had ever kept that alive in her heart. It saved her in many a crisis, and illumined the darkened road that lay before her.
The following verses, written by her at this time, are a truer indication of her frame of mind than any conclusions drawn from external observation by outsiders:—
Say, what's the brightest wreath of fame,
But canker'd buds, that opening close;
Ah! what's the world's most pleasing dream,
But broken fragments of repose?
Lead me where peace with steady hand
The mingled cup of life shall hold;
Where Time shall smoothly pour his sand,
And Wisdom turn that sand to gold.
Then haply at Religion's shrine
This weary heart its load shall lay,
Each wish my fatal love resign,
And passion melt in tears away.
She had now leisure for journeys abroad and the enjoyment of intellectual pleasure outside her profession which she had never had before. In the autumn of 1814 she made an excursion to Paris in company
