with Jewson in the streets last night." Mrs. Beverley says, "No, I am sure he did not!" to which Jarvis replies, "Or if I did?" meaning, it may be supposed, to add, "The fault was not with my master." But the moment he utters the words "Or if I did?" Mrs. Beverley exclaims, "'Tis false, old man! They had no quarrel—there was no cause for quarrel!" In uttering this, Mrs. Siddons caught hold of Jarvis, and gave the exclamation with such piercing grief, that Young said his throat swelled and his utterance was choked. He stood unable to repeat the words which, as Beverley, he ought to have immediately delivered. The prompter repeated the speech several times, till Mrs. Siddons, coming up to her fellow-actor, put the tips of her fingers on his shoulders, and said in a low voice, "Mr. Young, recollect yourself."
Macready relates an equally remarkable instance of her power. In the last act of Rowe's Tamerlane, when, by the order of the tyrant Moneses, Aspasia's lover is strangled before her face, she worked herself up to such a pitch of agony that, as she sank a lifeless heap before the murderer, the audience remained for several moments awe-struck, then clamoured for the curtain to fall, believing that she was really dead; and only the earnest assurances of the manager to the contrary could satisfy them. Holman and the elder Macready were among the spectators, and looked aghast at one another. "Macready, do I look as pale as you?" inquired the former.
On another occasion, when performing Henry VIII. with a raw "supernumerary" who was playing Surveyor, when she warned him against giving false testimony against his master, her look was so terrific that the unfortunate youth came off perspiring with
