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268
MRS. SIDDONS.

the performers of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Covent Garden. When the burial service had been read, a young woman, Campbell tells us, knelt down beside the coffin with demonstrations of the wildest grief. She came veiled, and her name was never discovered.

Why go into the items of the will Mrs. Siddons left, and the articles she assigned to her heirs? To us she has bequeathed the memory of one of the greatest dramatic artists that ever graced our stage, and of one of the noblest of the long list of noble women enrolled in the annals of our country. Time goes on whirling away all memories in its relentless rush. A new generation is ever ready to depreciate the enthusiasms of their grandfathers, and ours is incredulous when told of the powers of a Garrick or a Siddons.

It was with a feeling of pain that, while standing the other day by the great actress's grave where it lies lonely and untended in Paddington churchyard, we heard that our cousins across the Atlantic set more store on the memory of Sarah Siddons than we do. Miss Mary Anderson, the custodian told us, whenever she is in London, comes up on Sunday afternoons, with parties of her countrymen, to lay fresh flowers on the grave, and has undertaken, at her own expense, to execute all necessary repairs to the railings and tombstone. Let us, before it is too late, anticipate this high-minded and generous offer.



London: Printed by W. H. Allen & Co., 13 Waterloo Place. S.W.