ground, and commanded a lovely view of Hampstead, Highgate and the distant city. Mrs. Siddons's was a small retired house, in a garden screened with poplars and evergreens, resembling a modest rural vicarage, standing, it is said, on the site now levelled for the Great Western Railway Station. She loved, she said, to escape from "the noise and din of London" to the green fields surrounding her new home.
Here her friends congregated round her also. Miss Berry and Madame D'Arblay both mention, in their diaries, having spent an afternoon and met many people at Mrs. Siddons's country retreat.
"I spoke in terms of rapture of Mrs. Siddons to Incledon," Crabb Robinson tells us. "He replied, 'Ah! Sally's a fine creature. She has a charming place on the Edgware Road. I dined with her last year, and she paid me one of the finest compliments I ever received. I sang The Storm after dinner. She cried and sobbed like a child. Taking both of my hands she said, "All that I and my brother ever did is nothing compared with the effect you produce."'"
The following lines were written by Mr. Siddons, describing his wife's country retreat, during the last visit he ever paid to it:—
1.
Would you I'd Westbourne Farm describe;
I'll do it then, and free from gall,
For sure it would be sin to gibe
A thing so pretty and so small.
2.
The poplar walk, if you have strength,
Will take a minute's time to step it;
Nay, certes, 'tis of such a length,
'Twould almost tire a frog to leap it.
