58 Mrs. Jordan and her Biographer. ^JAN. 



chest, in which there were about eight hundred pounds, and this was 

 nearly all that was preserved. Never was devastation more complete. 

 However, Novosielsky erected on its site, a theatre really suited to its 

 object, admirably calculated for sound; and afforded a magnificent refuge 

 to the Drury-lane Company : which, perhaps, disposed both our ma- 

 nagers to erect playhouses which were fit for nothing but Operas." 



Why did Mr. Carnevale reveal the name of the incendiary ? or did he 

 manage the office himself? The present King's Theatre has had a mar- 

 vellous longevity, and half-a-dozen still more marvellous escapes from 

 fire in its time. 



One of Mrs. Siddons's sentiments on the difference between a town 

 and a country audience is remarkable, besides being strikingly expressed. 

 We should have thought the country audiences not quite so fastidious. 



" Acting Isabella, for instance, out of London, is double thefaiigiie. 

 There the long and loud applause at the great points and striking situa- 

 tions invigorate the system ; the time it occupies recruits the breath and 

 nerve. A cold, respectful, hard audience chills and deadens an actress, 

 and throws her back upon herself; while the warmth of approbation 

 confirms her in the character, and she kindles with the enthusiasm she 

 feels around her." 



It is a misfortune to the readers of this Memoir, as it was an infinite 

 one to the unhappy subject of it, that she seems to have been educated 

 with no sense whatever of that which has been called " woman's first 

 virtue and her last." Her parentage was a bad example. It is not 

 known whether her mother was ever married, and there seems certainly 

 that she was not married at the time of her daughter's birth. That 

 daughter, in the very beginning of her professional life, was charged 

 with being the mistress of Daly, the Irish manager. She was subse- 

 quently known on the London stage as the mother of children by Ford, 

 afterwards one of the police magistrates; and, in 1792, began that royal 

 connection, which, to the crime and shame of both parties, lasted for 

 twenty years. It is said as if that were any palliation that Mrs. Jor- 

 dan proposed to Ford to make her his wife, and that only on his refusal 

 she adopted her alternative. But the whole of her conduct was in such 

 utter carelessness of every pretence to female virtue, that the only way 

 in which it can be mentioned is with regret that so gross and painful a 

 topic should ever have been forced again upon the public. 



The town expressed great offence at her conduct on this change of 

 circumstances. She wrote an Amazonian letter to the newspapers, 

 which produced no effect. Her next appeal was in person to the audi- 

 ence. They had hissed her in Roxalana. She came to the front of the 

 stage, and assuring them upon her HONOUR (which the volume gives in 

 capitals), " that she had never been absent one moment from the stage but 

 through real indisposition, placed herself under the public protection." 

 Different as the cause of the displeasure might be, the audience received 

 the apology ; the handsome actress was a favorite, she had made a 

 spirited speech, they were amused by the display, and with the consi- 

 deration for the morals of the boards, gave her their applause. 



Her life henceforth was in a higher sphere. But perhaps there were 

 few women who could less deserve to be envied, even in the enjoyment 

 of the luxuries of her situation. By the errors and vices of some of her 

 connections by her former friends, she was always kept poor, and was 

 sometimes reduced to very painful difficulties. At length, on the mar- 

 riage of his royal highness, she necessarily retired, and attempted the stage 



