in vain he was called off behind the scenes; the house roared with laughter, and all illusion was dispelled for the rest of the evening. On another occasion at Leeds, when about to drink poison on the stage, one of the audience in the gallery howled out "Soop it oop, lass!" She endeavoured to frown down the interrupter, but her own solemnity gave way. She was also at country theatres often subjected to bearing the brunt of a local quarrel or facetiousness directed against a member or members of the audience. Once at Liverpool the play of Jane Shore, which had sent London audiences into fits of sobbing and hysterics, was announced. The house was full, and Miss Mellon, from whom we have the story, says the actors behind the scenes expected a repetition of the same emotion; but the people in the gallery, seeing the principal merchants with their families present, thought this a delightful opportunity of indulging their wit respecting the "soldiering." Accordingly, they formed two bands, one on each side of the gallery, and, from the commencement of the play to the end, kept up a cross-dialogue of impertinence, about "charging guns with brown sugar and cocoanuts," and "small arms with cinnamon powder and nutmegs."
Miss Mellon was in agony for the object of her theatrical devotion. She cried, she ran about behind the wings as if she were going out of her senses. Mrs. Siddons, however, calm though deadly pale, merely said to her, with a slight tremor in her voice, "I will go through the time requisite for the scenes, but will not utter them."
She went on the stage; said aloud, "It is useless to act," crossed her arms, and merely murmured the speeches; and it is a fact that, on the first night one
