SID'DONS, Mrs. SARAH ( 1755-1831). A cele brated English actress. She was the daughter of Roger Kemble (q.v.) and was born at Brecon. in Wales. As a mere child she showed the family genius for the stage, and during her youth she played as a member of her father's company in the provincial towns. She married \Villiam Siddons, an actor, in 1773. Shortly afterwards she attracted such great attention that Garrick heard her praises in London and offered her an engagement at the Drury Lane Theatre, where, December 29, 1775, she made her first appearance, acting Portia in The Mer chant of Venice, Her beauty and fine person pleased the audience. but as an actress she made no great impression. At the end of the season she was not reengaged. She returned to Lon don in 1782 to enjoy a career of triumph as in disputably the greatest actress of her time, hav ing spent the intervening years on the stages of provincial cities. As Isabella in The Fatal Mar riage, she reappeared at Drury Lane on October 10, 1782. In 1784 her popularity was tempo rarily obscured by a calumny which charged her with pecuniary meanness toward certain of her fellow performers; but with this trivial excep tion her efforts were one long series of suc cesses till on June 29, 1812. in her great char acter of Lady Macbeth, she took her leave of the public. Belvidera. Queen Katharine, Volumnia in roriolanus, which she played with her brother, John Philip Kemble (q.v.), were but a few of the
many parts in which she captivated her audiences. Sirs. Siddons is said to have been strictly a stage genius; elsewhere she seems to have been a woman of no extraordinary intelligence. She carried her tragedy manners with her to the drawing-room or the dinner-table. Scott has re corded the amusement with which at Abbotsford he heard her stately blank verse to the servant : "T asked for water, boy! you've brought me beer:" and Sydney Smith used to say it was never without a certain awe that he saw her "stab the Potatoes." Tn the practice of her art, however, it was thi-s concentrated power of personal presence which made her irresistible. As a tragic actress she has probably never been equaled in Great Britain. Her picture as the "Tragic Muse" by Sir Joshua Reynolds is famous, Consult: Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons (London, 1527: 2d ed. 1831) ; .Campbell, Life of Mrs. Siddons (ib., 1834) ; Fitzgerald, Thc Kern ides (ib., 1871); Kennard, Mr:, Siddons (ib., 1887) ; Baker, Our Old Actors (ib., 1881) ; Mat thews and Hutton, Actors and. Actresses of Great Britain and the United Stales (New York, 1886) ; Doran, Annals of the Stage (ed. Lowe, London, 1888).