audience caught as electrical and applauded in rapture, for at least a minute:—
A daughter's arm, fell monster, strikes the blow!
Yes, first she strikes—an injured daughter's arm
Sends thee devoted to the infernal gods!
After this she acted Jane Shore. "Mrs Siddons," as one of the critics remarked on this performance, "has the air of never being an actress; she seems unconscious that there is a motley crowd called the pit waiting to applaud her, or that a dozen fiddlers are waiting for her exit." Her "Forgive me, but forgive me," when asking pardon of her husband, convulsed the house with sobs. Crabb Robinson, while witnessing this harrowing performance, burst into a peal of laughter, and, upon being removed, was found to be in strong hysterics.
After Jane Shore, she appeared as Calista, Belvidera, and Zara. All were received with the same enthusiasm.
On the 5th June she acted Isabella for the last time that season, having performed in all about eighty nights, and on six of them for the benefit of others; and during that short time she may be said to have completely revolutionised the English stage. Nothing now was applauded but tragedy. The farces which before had won a laugh, were now not listened to. The young actress so completely depressed the spirits of the audience, that the best comic actor seemed unable to raise them. Already she was preparing the way for the stately solemnity of John Kemble and the Revival of Shakespearean Tragedy.
The town went "born mad," as Horace Walpole said, after her. The papers wrote about her continually, her dress, her movements. Nothing else
