New-York tribune., 1909-05-09

| beauty. So marked was tnlS JnaI LdtJ DSuiLS-
field. when first meeting her without knowing
her name, recognized her resemblance to little
portrait OF lovely Mary Horneck given to her
years before.
| The queens Of the Georgian stage described BY
! Mr. Fyvie number no fewer than thirteen. be
| ginning with Elizabeth Barry. who died In the
last year of Queen Annes reign. but who Is in
cluded here chiefly because the tragic actresses
who succeeded her were deeply affected By the
| traditions she left to them The little biOg-
raphies of those SUCCESSORS are put together with
| an eye to the picturesque. but with due ref
| erence to authorities, and il is convenience 70
! the reader interested in the period to find them
| thus collected. The women celebrated here we're
nearly all of humble birth and Of early edu-
| cation Some OF them had little beauty. but
| they had "the gift" and they triumphed
| after the fashion of their day OF Anne
| OIdfeld it is said by Cibber that she went
| on improving to the end Of her life. and
this was largely because. he says. ''she never
| undertook any Part she Hk'd without being i'm
Fortunately desirOus of having all the Helps in
it that another could possibly give her" She
was too great for petty vanity. She re-
| markabIe we are told. in comedy as in tragedy.
and she neared her end and suffered
much from i'll health. she many times played -
| IaughabIe part. and delighted her audience,
| while the tears ran down her cheeks in conSe-
quence Of the pain she was enduring" When
death caTle this poor Narcissa of Pope"
| wrapped in linens and laces mot "odious, in
| woolIen"), lay in state in the famous Jerusalem
Chamber in Westminster Abbey and in the alb
hey she was buried. at dead Of night, with great
pomp.
| The sketch Of Mrs SiddOns is the longest in
this volume, and is fun OF aneCdOte- Not the
| least amusing part Of it is the account Of the
actresses first visit to Edinburgh. in 17S4 where
| so many of the members Of the General As
sembly of the Church Of Scotland attended her
| performances that their meetings had TO b.
timed 10 permit that attendance. Il is said that
| the packed and overheated house actually oc-
| casiOned illness prevalent that it
called the Siddons fever And with al this
| enthusiasm nobody appIauded until the end Of
the scene. and the actress felt "as if she were
speaking to stones Campbell says
| At last. as I well remember. she told she
| coied up her powers 70 the most emphatic pos
| vowed in her heart that if tbts could not touch
| the Scotch she would never again cross the
| Tweed When it was finished She paused and
| looked 70 the audience The deep silence was
no badt'. This Iudicr0us parsiuony Of praise con
- To,,--t - SIie - - = .
! pIause that amidst her stunned and nervous aEI-
coming down
1t is remembered that after the mad scene
in The Fatal Marriage" the young Scotcl
heiress who was in after days to become the
mother Of Lord Byron was carried oUt OF her
box screaming in violent Mysteries Il shows.
perhaps. that the poet inherited some OF h-s
sensibiHties from mamma
| That the celebrated Miss O'NefU Iady
Becher) the original Of the Fotheringay IN
| ''Pendennis Mr.. Fy-vie thinks there is no doubt
She had all FOtheringay'S majestic beauty. al
her plain practical common sense al her hack
of imagination and all the native gift that raw
aged the heart Of Pen Old NJ O'Neiu Was
yeritable COstigan. as eccentric absurd. and
as shrewd in reality in the pages of Thack-
cray Eliza was Splendidy made for TRAGEDY,
in comedy she was arrant a failure as .
woman of the Fotheringay type must always
be. Hazlitts comment on her Lady TeazIe COW
ers the ground. 1t not comic, it not
elegant il was not easy; it not dignifed Il
was not playful; it was not anything it OUght-to
be" 1t is said OF her that she knew her Lmi-
tatiOns pretty accurately-even to the extent
OF refusing kean'S proposal that she should
play Lady Macbeth She had little mind. how
ever. and it perhaps true OF her as Of the
| FOtheringay that she never opened Shake
speare from the day she left the stage. nor, in
deed understood it during all the time She
adorned the boards" Like Miss F'OtherinSay
she married u baronet. and lived happily
after