The bathos is complete when, the poet tells us, on Miss Wilkinson's authority, that while looking at a magnificent landscape of rocks and water, a lady within hearing of them exclaimed in ecstasy: "This awful scenery makes me feel as if I were only a worm, or a grain of dust, on the face of the earth." Mrs. Siddons turned round and said, "I feel very differently!"
She spent two months acting successfully in Dublin; then she went to Cork, and then to Belfast. On her return to Dublin she received the news of the death of her father at the ripe age of eighty-two. Although not unexpected, the severance of this life-long affection, coming, as it did, at a time when other sorrows and anxieties weighed on her, was a trying blow, and we find her writing to Dr. Whalley with a certain irritation that betrays her state of mind, and also betrays her attitude towards her husband at this time on money matters.
"I thank you for your kind condolence. My dear father died the death of the righteous; may my last end be like his, without a groan. With respect to my dear Mrs. Pennington, my heart is too much alive to her unhappy situation, and my affection for her too lively, to have induced the necessity of opening a wound which is of itself too apt to bleed. Indeed, indeed, my dear Sir, there was no occasion to recall those sad and tender scenes to soften my nature; but let it pass. You need not be informed, I imagine, that such a sum as £80 is too considerable to be immediately produced out of a woman's quarterly allowance; but, as I have not the least doubt of Mr. Siddons being ready and willing to offer this testimony of regard and gratitude, I beg you will arrange the business with him immediately. I will write to him this
