Seeing lately a copy of my play of “Francis the First,” with (to my infinite astonishment) “tenth edition” upon it, I said to a friend, “I suppose this was a bit of bookseller’s puffery; or did each edition consist of three copies?” He replied, “Oh, no, I think not; you have forgotten the furor there was about you when this came out.”  At twenty I believed it all; at sixty-eight I find it difficult to believe any of it.

It is certain, however, that I played Juliet upward of a hundred and twenty times running, with all the irregularity and unevenness and immature inequality of which I have spoken as characteristics which were never corrected in my performances.  My mother, who never missed one of them, would sometimes come down from her box and, folding me in her arms, say only the very satisfactory words, “Beautiful, my dear!” Quite as often, if not oftener, the verdict was, “My dear, your performance was not fit to be seen!  I don’t know how you ever contrived to do the part decently; it must have been by some knack or trick which you appear to have entirely lost the secret of; you had better give the whole thing up at once than go on doing it so disgracefully ill.”  This was awful, and made my heart sink down into my shoes, whatever might have been the fervor of applause with which the audience had greeted my performance.

My life now became settled in its new shape.  I acted regularly three times a week; I had no rehearsals, since “Romeo and Juliet” went on during the whole season, and so my mornings were still my own.  I always dined in the middle of the day (and invariably on a mutton-chop, so that I might have been a Harrow boy, for diet); I was taken by my aunt early to the theater, and there in my dressing-room sat through the entire play, when I was not on the stage, with some piece of tapestry or needlework, with which, during the intervals of my tragic sorrows, I busied my fingers; my thoughts being occupied with the events of my next scene and the various effects it demanded.  When I was called for the stage, my aunt came with me, carrying my train, that it might not sweep the dirty floor behind the scenes; and after spreading it out and adjusting its folds carefully, as I went on, she remained at the side scene till I came off again, then gathered it on her arm, and, folding a shawl around me, escorted me back to my dressing-room and tapestry; and so my theatrical evenings were passed.  My parents would not allow me to go into the green-room, where they thought my attention would be distracted from my business, and where I might occasionally meet with undesirable associates.  My salary was fixed at thirty guineas a week, and the Saturday after I came out I presented myself for the first and last time at the treasury of the theater to receive it, and carried it, clinking, with great triumph, to my mother, the first money I ever earned.