Lane she was obliged often to have recourse to an outspoken rebuff to aspirants to her favour.
As a curious instance of the insidious manner in which attacks were sometimes made to win her regard, John Taylor relates that one morning, on calling on her, he found her in the act of burning some letters that had been returned to her by the executors of the individual to whom they were addressed. He sat down to help her, and, in doing so, a printed copy of some scandalous verses on her that had appeared in the St. James's Gazette dropped out. Some lines in the handwriting of the deceased poet that were written on the top of the page proved the author, and proved that attacker and defender had been one and the same person. In talking the matter over afterwards, Mrs. Siddon recalled to mind that the same person had once endeavoured to undermine her affection for her husband by telling her tales of his infidelity.
We cannot resist giving here a letter which Mrs. Siddons received many years after her first appearance on the stage, when one might have thought her age and reputation a sufficient protection against such addresses:—
Loveliest of women! In Belvidera, Isabella, Juliet, and Calista, I have admired you until my fancy threatened to burst, and the strings of my imagination were ready to crack to pieces; but, as Mrs. Siddons, I love you to madness, and until my heart and soul are overwhelmed with fondness and desire. Say not that time has placed any difference in years between you and me. The youths of her day saw no wrinkles upon the brow of Ninon de l'Enclos. It is for vulgar souls alone to grow old; but you shall flourish in eternal youth, amidst the war of elements, and the crash of worlds.
May 2nd, Barley Mow,
Salisbury Square.
So pertinacious became the persecutions of this young Irishman, for he was an Irishman, that she was
