and fumed on that stage, where he was destined to initiate a new ideal of dramatic art.
Macready gives an interesting account of his first meeting the great actress whom every young aspirant looked up to with such awe. It was at Newcastle; the Gamester and Douglas were the plays selected, and the young actor received the appalling information that he was to act with her. With doubt, anxiety, and trepidation he set about his work, the thought of standing by the side of the great mistress of her Art hanging over him in terrorem. At last she arrived, and he received orders to go to the Queen's Head Hotel to rehearse. The impression, he says, the first sight of her made on him recalled the page's description of the effect of Jane de Montfort's appearance on him in Joanna Baillie's tragedy. It was
So queenly, so commanding, and so noble.
In her grand, but good-natured manner, having seen his nervousness, she said, "I hope, Mr. Macready, you have brought some hartshorn and water with you, as I am told you are terribly frightened at me," and she made some remarks about his being a very young husband. Her daughter Cecilia went smiling out of the room, and left them to the business of the morning.
Her instructions were vividly impressed on the young actor's memory, and he took his leave with fear and trembling. The audience were, as usual, encouraging, and the first scene passed with applause; but in the next—his first with Mrs. Beverley—his fear overcame him to that degree, that for a minute his presence of mind forsook him; his memory seemed to have gone, and he stood bewildered. She kindly whispered the word to him, and the scene proceeded.
