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    instead of Romeo , that was sent into banishment . Her attachment endured the ordeal , and in her nineteenth year she legally took the name which her yet undeveloped powers were to make a name of . We must here quote a portion of the narrative because we are not quite satisfied with the biographer : —

    Miss Kemble promised to marry him as soon as her father and mother ' s objections could be overcome . Meanwhile she agreed to go from home , and lived for some time under the protection of Mrs . Greethead , of Guy ' s Cliff , in Warwickshire . From a surviving member of that family I learn that she came into it in a dependent capacity j and , though she was much liked , that her great latent genius was not even

    suspected . It was observed , however , that she passionately admired Milton ; and I have seen a copy of his works which the Greetheada presented to her at this period . This circumstance is at variance with a rumour often repeated , I have no doubt with a charitable wish to make her early days appear as vulgar as possible , namely , that she went as a

    nursery-maid into the house at Guy's Cliff . Families rarely present their nursery-maids with copies of Milton ' s poetry ; and besides , there were at that time no children to be nursed in the Greethead family . Her station with them was humble but not servile , and her principal employment was to read to the elder Mr . Greethead/—Vol . i . pp . 50 , 51 .

    Is not Mr . Campbell somewhat squeamish in these comments ? And has not the same false delicacy made him pass over the washing and ironing in which Mrs . Siddons was so often obliged to spend her days at Liverpool ? Is he shocked at the mention of tne muse of traged y in the suds , and the queen of the drama darning ? It is a foolish weakness that gives spite any advantage in the repetition of such tales . There is nothing in them but

    what was honourable at the time , and is interesting in the retrospect . What a beautiful story ( though so miserably told b y Mr . Boaden ) is that of Mrs . Inchbald . And who loves her better than when she is scrubbing her staircase and sitting without a fire ? Mrs . Siddons , as the family laundress , was by no means in her least dignified position . She was daring to 'do all that may become * a woman , a self-relying woman , resolved to deserve and

    win respect . Such a woman cannot be vulgar . Nor could being a nursery-maid have made her so . We should have supposed that , even on the taffety principle , the amateur laundress was scarcely entitled to precedence over the professional nursery-maid . More shame for the nursery-maid employers if it be so . Think they less of influencing a child ' s mind than of stiffening a

    shirtcollar ? And what a notion of the much vaunted English maternity is implied in this imputation of vulgarity to the occupation of a nursery-maid . We would not , willingly , have been the son of a mother who was capable of committing our infancy to the charge of one whose whole caste and calling she held in scorn . Out on such mothership ! It is a far more vulgar thing than any menial occupation . It is gross , disgusting ! If the functions

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    540 Campbell's Life of Mrs . Siddons .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 540, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/10/