"What invitation, Miss Burney, is here for genius to display itself? Everybody, I hear, is at work for Mrs. Siddons; but if you would work for her, what an inducement to excel you would both of you have. Dr. Burney"
"Oh, pray, Madam," cried I, "don't say to him"
"Oh, but I will. If my influence can do you any mischief you may depend upon having it."
She then repeated what she had said to my father, and he instantly said:
"Your ladyship may be sure of my interest."
I whispered afterwards to know who she was, and heard she was Lady Lucan.[1]
It is amusing to see how conceited Fanny Burney always must turn every incident to herself. When she did work for Mrs. Siddons, the play was received with roars of laughter, and acted but one night.
We find a clue in the above description to Mrs. Siddons's unpopularity. Little Burney, with the frizzled head, and Mrs. Thrale, who "skipped about like a young kid, all vivacity and sprightliness," could not understand the "steadiness in her manner," and her dignified way of checking intrusive admirers. No one appreciated admiration and love from her intimate friends more than Mrs. Siddons, but to the adoration of general society she was icy cold.
Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently went to see her act, and she was a welcome guest at the house in Leicester Fields.
"He approved," she writes, "very much of my costumes, and of my hair without powder, which at that time was used in great profusion, with a reddish
brown tint, and a great quantity of pomatum, which,
- ↑ It was the same Lady Lucan who was said once to have asked the actress: "Pray, Madam, when you are to prepare yourself in a character, what is your primary object of attention, the superstructure, as it may be called, or the 'foundation' of the part?"
