bring them, at the time of Mrs. Kemble's confinement, to the little Welsh town, where they had put up in the High Street at a public-house familiarly called "The Shoulder of Mutton." In 1755 the inn was a picturesque gable-fronted old house, with projecting upper storey, exhibiting as sign-board a large shoulder of mutton. It was much frequented by the farmers on market-day for its good ale and its legs of mutton, which might regularly in those days be seen roasting before the kitchen fire, on a spit turned by a dog in a wheel.
Brecon is not without dramatic and historic interest, and, as Mrs. Siddons afterwards was fond of pointing out, is several times mentioned by Shakespeare. Buckingham, in Richard III., says:
Oh! let me think on Hastings, and begone
To Brecon whilst my fearful head is on.
Sir Hugh Evans also, that "remnant of Welsh flannel," in the Merry Wives of Windsor, was curate of the priory of Brecon in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and from the intimacy which existed between Shakespeare and the priors of the priory, Campbell tells us, "an idea prevails that he frequently visited them at their residence in Brecon, and that he not only availed himself of the whimsicalities of old Sir Hugh, but that he was indebted for much of the romantic setting of the Midsummer Night's Dream to the surrounding scenery, where Puck and his fairy companions are familiar household words, one of the glens in the neighbourhood being named Cwm Pwca, or the Valley of Puck." Be this as it may, we cannot wonder at Mrs. Siddons' desire to connect the places that played important parts in her fortunes with the name of the great poet whom she honoured so devotedly and so well.
