had mistaken his feelings—that her younger daughter, and not the elder, was the object of his affection. Fanny Kemble says:—
Sarah gave up her lover, and he became engaged to the second, Maria. Both, however, died of consumption. Maria, the youngest, an exceedingly beautiful girl, died first, and on her death-bed made her sister promise that she would never marry Lawrence. The death of her daughters broke off all connection between Sir Thomas Lawrence and my aunt, and from that time they never saw or had any intercourse with one another. Yet not long after this Mrs. Siddons, dining with us one day, asked my mother how the sketch Lawrence was making of me was getting on. After my mother's reply, my aunt remained silent for some time, and then, laying her hand on my father's arm, said: "Charles, when I die, I wish to be carried to my grave by you and Lawrence."
Lawrence reached his grave when she was yet tottering on the brink of hers.
On my twentieth birthday, which occurred soon after my first appearance, Lawrence sent me a magnificent proof plate of my aunt as the "Tragic Muse," beautifully framed, and with this inscription: "This portrait, by England's greatest painter, of the noblest subject of his pencil, is presented to her niece and worthy successor by her most faithful humble friend and servant, Lawrence." When my mother saw this, she exclaimed at it, and said: "I am surprised he ever brought himself to write those words 'worthy successor.'"
A few days after, Lawrence begged me to let him have the print again, as he was not satisfied with the finish of the frame. It was sent to him, and when it came back he had effaced the words in which he had admitted any worthy successor to his "Tragic Muse"; and Mr. H, who was at that time his secretary, told me that Lawrence had the print lying with that inscription in his drawing-room for several days before sending it to me, and had said to him, "I cannot bear to look at it."
Among these artists, poets, statesmen, who were continually present at her representations and attended afterwards at her dressing-room door to pay their respects, in later years Byron might frequently be seen. He declared her to be the "beau ideal of acting," and said, "Miss O'Neill I would not see for fear of weakening the impression made by the queen of trage-
