in a newspaper she may possibly recollect that she has seen it abused in a newspaper before."
"Well, Sir," said Miss Monckton, "but you must see her for all this."
"Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go; see her, I shall not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do. The last time I was at a play I was ordered there by Mrs. Abington, or a Mrs. Somebody, I do not well remember who, but I placed myself in the middle of the first row of the front boxes, to show that when I was called I came."
He kept his promise, and the huge, slovenly figure, clad in a greasy brown coat and coarse black worsted stockings, was several times seen taking handfuls of snuff, and criticising the actress in his outspoken, growling fashion. She then paid him a visit in his den at Bolt Court, to which he alludes in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale:—
"Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised. Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seemed to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays, and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the character of Constance, Catherine, and Isabella, in Shakespeare."
Boswell gives us also the account of what took place:—
"When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile: 'Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats to other people
