DAVID GARRICK.
When Garrick commenced his career as actor, he was twenty-five years
of age, and, according to Pond's portrait, a very handsome fellow.
In the first burst of his triumph, Cibber thought the new player
"well enough," but Foote, with the malice that was natural to him,
remarked, "Yes, the hound has something clever, but if his excellence
was to be examined, he would not be found in any part equal to
Colley Cibber's Sir John Brute, Lord Foppington, Sir Courtly Nice,
or Justice Shallow." This was said, not out of justice to Cibber,
but out of ill-will against Garrick. How he affected the town may
be seen in the criticism of the _Daily Post_. "His reception was
the most extraordinary and great that was ever known upon such an
occasion, and we hear that he obliges the town this evening, with
the same performance." The figure of Betterton looking down upon him
from between Shakspeare and Dryden, on the ceiling of the theatre,
may have stimulated him. Garrick's Hamlet placed him indisputably at
the head of his profession, and his Abel Drugger and Archer fixed
his pre-eminence in both low and light comedy. In the former comic
part, he "extinguished" Theophilus Cibber, whose grimaces had been
the delight of the gallery. Garrick's Abel was awkward, simple, and
unobtrusive; there was neither grimace nor gesticulation in it,
and he "convinced those who had seen him in Lear and Richard that
there was nothing in human life that such a genius was not able to
represent."
Walpole never liked him; and he laughed at the "airs of fatigue
which Garrick and other players give themselves after a long
part;"--comparing their labour with that of the Speaker and of some
members of the House of Commons. The fine gentleman depreciated the
fine actor systematically, but at the close of a score of years'
familiarity with his acting, he rendered a discriminating judgment
on him. "Good and various," the player was allowed to be, but other
actors had pleased Walpole more, though "not in so many parts." "Quin
in Falstaff, was as excellent as Garrick in Lear. Old Johnson far
more natural in everything he attempted. Mrs. Porter surpassed him
in passionate tragedy. Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could
never reach, coxcombs and men of fashion. Mrs. Clive is, at least,
as perfect in low comedy, and yet, to me, Ranger was the part that
suited Garrick the best of all he ever performed. He was a poor
Lothario, a ridiculous Othello, inferior to Quin in Sir John Brute
and Macbeth, and to Cibber in Bayes; and a woeful Lord Hastings and
Lord Townley. Indeed, his Bayes was original, but not the true part;
Cibber was the burlesque of a great poet, as the part was designed,
but Garrick made it a Garretteer. The town did not like him in
Hotspur, and yet I don't know if he did not succeed in it beyond all
the rest. Sir Charles Williams and Lord Holland thought so too, and
they were no bad judges." It was less fair criticism when Walpole
wrote, with reference to Garrick, "I do not mention the things
written in his praise;--because he writes most of them himself."
This last charge was also made in a pamphlet, said to have been by
Foote. It is there asserted that Garrick had considerable share
in the property, and great influence in the management, of the
_Public Advertiser_, the _Gazetteer_, the _Morning Post_, and the
_St. James's Chronicle_. The critical and monthly reviews, he found
_means_ (we are told) to keep in his interest. The _Gentleman's
Magazine_ and _London Review_ alone withstood him. Quin and Mossop,
living,--he is said to have hated; dead,--to have offered to bury
their remains with unusual honours. The Barrys, King, Lee, Mrs.
Abington, and others, he is said to have mimicked in private; by
similar mimicry in public, he is accused of having broken Delane's
heart, and he is also charged with having ruined Powell, by binding
him to beggarly-paid service, under a bond of £1000, and by exacting
the heavy penalty when the terms were infringed. He is charged with
damning his brethren with faint praise, and ridiculing the monotony
of Mrs. Cibber's action; _he_ who said that tragedy had died with
her! It was laid as a meanness on him that he would not engage great
actors,--at a time both the Barrys were in his company, drawing
houses as great as could be drawn by his own powers. Wilkinson has
asserted the youthfulness of his look and action to the last, but his
anonymous detractors, while they allowed that, as Ranger, he mounted
the ladder nimbly, professed to see that he was old about the legs.
Is he a lover? they mock his wrinkled visage and lack-lustre eye, in
which softness, they say, was _never_ enthroned; his voice is hoarse
and hollow, his dimples are furrows, his neck hideous, lips ugly,
"the upper one, especially, is raised all at once like one turgid
piece of leather." In such wise, was he described just before he left
the stage; and to embitter his retirement, he is told that his worst
enemy has got famous materials for his "Life!"
Garrick was proud of his Abel Drugger, but he was ready to
acknowledge the superiority of Weston in that part, whose acting was
described by Garrick as the finest he ever saw.[105] To this pleasant
piece of criticism was added a £20 note, on Weston's benefit night.
And yet, from first to last, did his enemies deny that Garrick was
influenced by worthy motives. Walpole describes him, unjustly, as
jealous (even after his retirement) of rising young players; and
Horace writes, in 1777, "Garrick is dying of yellow jaundice, on
the success of Henderson, a young actor from Bath. _Enfin donc
désormais_, there must never be a good player again! As Voltaire and
Garrick are the god and goddess of envy, the latter would put a stop
to procreation, as the former would annihilate the traces of all
antiquity, if there were no other gods but they."
I have quoted what Walpole said of the actor in his first year;--this
is what he says of him in his last: "I saw Lear the last time Garrick
played it, and as I told him, I was more shocked at the rest of the
company than pleased with him,--which I believe was not just what he
desired; but to give a greater brilliancy to his own setting, he had
selected the very worst performers of his troop; just as Voltaire
would wish there were no better poets than Thomson and Akenside."
This is not true. Garrick played with Gentleman Smith and Bensley;
Yates, Parsons, and Palmer; Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Yates, and, for a few
nights, Mrs. Siddons.
Because Garrick never allowed his judgment to be overpowered by his
emotions, intense as they were, Johnson thought there was all head
and no heart in his acting. While David was once playing Lear,
Johnson and Murphy were at the wing, conversing in no subdued tone.
As Garrick passed by them, he observed, "You two talk so loud, you
destroy my feelings." "Punch has _no_ feelings," growled Asper,
contemptuously.
By pen, as well as by word of mouth, did Johnson wound the
self-esteem of his friend. Although Boswell asserts that Garrick
never forgave the pointed satire which Johnson directed against him,
under the pseudonym of Prospero, the records of the actor's life
prove the contrary. That it was something he could never entirely
forget is true, for the assault was made under circumstances by
which its bitterness was much aggravated. Garrick had, just before,
manfully exerted himself to render Johnson's "Irene" successful.
And on the 15th February 1752, on the morning of the night on which
Garrick was to play Tancred, there appeared a paper in the _Rambler_,
from Johnson's pen, in the two personages of which, no one could be
mistaken. They are described as coming up to town together to seek a
fortune, which had been found by one of them, Prospero, who was "too
little polished by thought and conversation to enjoy it with elegance
and decency!"
Asper then describes a visit he reluctantly pays to Prospero's house.
He is tardily admitted, finds the stairs matted, the best rooms
open, that he may catch a glance at their grandeur, while his friend
conducts him into a back room, suited for inferior company--where
Asper is received with all the insolence of condescension. The
chairs and carpets are covered, but the corners are turned up that
Asper may admire their beauty and texture. He did "not gratify
Prospero's folly with any outcries of admiration, but coldly bade the
footman let down the cloth."
The host gives the guest inferior tea, talks of his jeweller and
silversmith, boasts of his intimacy with Lord Lofty, alludes to his
chariot, and ladies he takes in it to the Park, and exhibits his
famous Dresden china, which he "always associates with his chased
tea-kettle." "When I had examined them a little," says Asper,
"Prospero desired me to set them down, for they who were accustomed
only to common dishes seldom handled china with much care." Asper
takes credit for much philosophy in not dashing Prospero's "baubles
to the ground;" and when the latter begins to affect a preference for
the less distinguished position of one with whom he was "once upon
the level," Asper quits the house in disgust.
This attack was ungracious and cowardly, on one side, as it was
undeserved on the other. I can fancy it disturbed Garrick's
performance of Tancred on that night; the _Rambler_ was universally
read, and the application could not fail. But it disturbed nothing
else. Years later, when Johnson visited Garrick at his Hampton villa,
the spirit of Asper was softened in his breast, and he was justified
in the well-known remark he made, as he contemplated the beauty and
grandeur around him:--"These are the things, Davy, that make death
terrible!" It must not be forgotten, however, that Johnson, at
last, allowed no one to abuse Davy but himself, and he then always
mentioned that "Garrick was the most liberal man of his day."
So great, indeed, was his honesty, too, that Garrick, having entered
thoughtlessly into some bargain, carried it out with the remark,
that "terms made over our cups must be as strictly observed as if
I had agreed to them over tea and toast." His gallantry, also, was
indisputable. When Mrs. Yates invited him to her house to discuss
a treaty touching "£800 a year, and finding her own clothes," he
answered, "I will be as punctual as I ought to be to so fine a woman,
and so good an actress."
One of the critical years in the life of Garrick--of whom
Chesterfield always strangely asserted, that although he was the
best actor the world had ever seen, or could see, he was _poor in
comedy_!--was 1746, when he and Quin first appeared together at
Covent Garden in the "Fair Penitent:" the night was that of the
14th of November. "The 'Fair Penitent,'" says Davies, "presented
an opportunity to display their several merits, though the balance
was as much in favour of Quin as the advocate of virtue is superior
in argument[106] to the defender of profligacy.... The shouts of
applause when Horatio and Lothario met on the stage together, in
the second act, were so loud and so often repeated before the
audience permitted them to speak, that the combatants seemed to be
disconcerted. It was observed that Quin changed colour, and Garrick
seemed to be embarrassed; and it must be owned that these actors
were never less masters of themselves than on the first night of the
contest for pre-eminence. Quin was too proud to own his feelings on
the occasion; but Mr. Garrick was heard to say, 'Faith, I believe
Quin was as much frightened as myself.'"
Davies, who praises Mrs. Cibber in the heroine, states that competent
judges decided that Quin found his superior on this occasion. By
striving to do too much, he missed the mark at which he aimed. "The
character of Horatio is compounded of deliberate courage, warm
friendship, and cool contempt of insolence.[107] The last Quin had
in a superior degree, but could not rise to an equal expression
of the other two. The strong emphasis which he stamped on almost
every word in a line, robbed the whole of that ease and graceful
familiarity which should have accompanied the elocution and action
of a man who is calmly chastising a vain and insolent[108] boaster.
When Lothario gave Horatio the challenge, Quin, instead of accepting
it instantaneously, with the determined and unembarrassed brow of
superior bravery, made a long pause, and dragged out the words, 'I'll
meet thee there!' in such a manner as to make it appear absolutely
ludicrous." He paused so long before he spoke, that somebody, it was
said, called out from the gallery, "Why don't you tell the gentleman
whether you will meet him or no?"
But there is no one who gives us so lively a picture of the principal
actors in this piece as Cumberland, who tells us that "Quin presented
himself, upon the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat
embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig,
rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very
little variation of cadence, and in a deep full tone, accompanied
by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the senate than the
stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with an air of dignified
indifference that seemed to disdain the plaudits that were showered
upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key high pitched but sweet withal, sang,
or rather recitatived, Rowe's harmonious strain. But when, after long
and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then young and
light, and alive in every muscle and every feature, come bounding on
the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont and the heavy-paced
Horatio (heavens! what a transition), it seemed as if a whole century
had been swept over in the space of a single scene; old things were
done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and
harmonious, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry
of a tasteless age too long attached to the prejudices of custom, and
superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation."
Foote's imitation of Garrick's dying scene in Lothario was an
annoyance to Garrick and a delight to the town, particularly at the
concluding words:--"adorns my tale, and che-che-che-che-che-cheers
my heart in dy-dy-dy-dying."
Garrick was again superior to Quin, when playing Hastings to his
Gloucester in "Jane Shore." Davies describes Quin as "a good
commonwealth-man," for taking an inferior character, one which the
actor himself used to designate as one of his "whisker-parts,"[109]
a phrase which shows that he dressed the Duke as absurdly as he did
Horatio.
Quin had his turn of triumph when he played Falstaff to Garrick's
Hotspur. The former character he kept as his own, as long as he
remained on the stage; but after a few nights, Garrick resigned
Hotspur, on the ground of indisposition, to careful Havard. The two
great actors agreed to appear together as Orestes and Pyrrhus, and
Cassius and Brutus; but Garrick did not like the old costume of
Greece or Rome, and the agreement never came to anything.
It was long the custom to compare the French actor Lekain with
Garrick. The two had little in common, except in their resolution
to tread the stage and achieve reputation by it. Lekain was born in
1729, the year in which Baron departed the stage. He was the son of a
goldsmith, and had gained wide notice as a maker of delicate surgical
instruments, when a passion for the stage led him, as in Garrick's
case, to playing frequently in private, especially in Voltaire's
little theatre, in the Rue Traversière, now known as the Rue Fontaine
Molière. On this stage Lekain exhibited great powers, with defects,
which were considered incurable; but he was only twenty years of age,
and he could then move, touch, and attract the coldest of audiences.
Voice, features, and figure were against him, and yet ladies praised
the beauty of all, so cunning was the artist. He played Orosmane, in
"Zaire," before Louis XV., and the King was angry to find that the
actor could _compel_ him to weep! When Voltaire first heard him, he
threw his arms round Lekain, and thanked God for creating a being
who could delight Voltaire by uttering bad verses! And yet Voltaire
dissuaded him from taking to the stage; but when Voltaire saw in him
the hero of his own tragedies, then poet and player lived but for one
another, thought themselves France, and that the eyes of the world
were upon them. Voltaire addressed Lekain as "Monsieur le Garrick of
France, in merit though not in purse!" and as "My very dear and very
great support of _expiring tragedy_!" When he wrote this in 1770,
there was a boy seven years old in Paris, who, seventeen years later,
began the most splendid career ever run by French actor,--as Seïde,
in Voltaire's "Mahomet,"--Talma!
Garrick and Lekain equally respected the original text of an author;
but the former, more readily than the latter, adopted so-called
"emendations." When Marmontel _improved_ the bold phrases of old
Rotrou's "Venceslas," Lekain repeated the improvements at rehearsal,
but at night he kept to the original passages of the author, and thus
created confusion among his fellow-actors, who lost their _cues_. In
this, Garrick deemed him unjustifiable.
Lekain, like Betterton, never departed from the quality of the part
he was playing, even when off the stage. Garrick, like Charles Young,
would forget Lear, to set a group in the green-room laughing at
some good story. Lekain treated his Paris audiences with contempt.
He would affect fatigue after playing less than a dozen times in
a single winter, and then pass from one country town to another,
acting twice a day! He received a salary from Paris while he was
acting at Brussels. He could not play a hundred different parts like
Garrick, who identified himself with all; but he carried about with
him a repertory of eight or nine characters, with half that number
of costumes and a turban; and with these parts, painfully learnt and
elaborately acted, he enthralled his audiences. Voltaire protests
that Lekain's means were as great, and his natural truthfulness
of acting as undeniable as Garrick's; "but, oh! sublime Garrick!"
exclaims Mercier, "how much more extended are thy means; how
different thy truthfulness!"
This truthfulness was the result of anxious care. Garrick spent two
whole months in rehearsing and correcting his Benedick, and when he
played it, all the gaiety, wit, and spirit seemed spontaneous.
In Fribble, he imitated no less than eleven men of fashion, so that
every one recognised them; and in dancing Mrs. Woffington could not
excel him. "Garrick," says Mrs. Delaney, "is the genteelest dancer I
ever saw."
One of Garrick's distinguishing characteristics was his power of
suddenly assuming any passion he was called on to represent. This
often occurred during his continental travels, when in the private
rooms of his various hosts,--princes, merchants, actors,--he would
afford them a taste of his quality; Scrub or Richard, Brute or
Macbeth, and identify himself on the instant with that which he
assumed to be. Clairon, the famous French actress, almost worshipped
him for his good-nature, but more for his talent, particularly on the
occasion when, in telling the story of a child falling from a window,
out of its father's arms, he threw himself into the attitude, and put
on the look of horror, of that distracted father. The company were
moved to honest tears, and when the emotion had subsided, Clairon
flung her arms round his neck, kissed him heartily, and then, turning
to Mrs. Garrick, begged her pardon, for "she positively could not
help it!"
Of the French players, Garrick said that Sophie Arnould was the only
one who ever touched his heart. To a young Englishman of French
descent, subsequently Lord North's famous antagonist, Colonel Barré,
whom he met in Paris, he said, on seeing him act in private, that
he might earn a thousand a year, if he would adopt playing as a
profession.
French _ana_ abound with illustrations of Garrick's marvellous
talent, exercised for the mere joke's sake. How he deceived the
driver of a _coucou_ into believing his carriage was full of
passengers, Garrick having presented himself half a dozen times at
the door, each time with a different face; how he and Preville, the
French actor, feigned drunkenness on horseback; and how Garrick
showed that his rival, drunk everywhere else, was not drunk enough in
his legs. But the greatest honour Garrick ever received was in his
own country, and at the hands of Parliament. He happened to be sole
occupant of the gallery in the Commons, one night of 1777, during a
very fierce discussion between two members, one of whom, noticing his
presence, moved that the gallery should be cleared. Burke thereupon
sprang to his feet, and appealed to the House; was it consistent with
becomingness and liberality to disturb the great master of eloquence?
one to whom they all owed so much, and from whom he, Burke, had
learned many a grace of oratory? In his strain of ardent praise, he
was followed by Fox and Townshend, who described the ex-actor as
their great preceptor; and ultimately, Garrick was exempted from
the general order that strangers leave the House! Senators hailed
him as their teacher, and the greatest of French actors called him
"_Master!_"
It was Grimm's conclusion, that he who had not seen Garrick, could
not know what acting was. Garrick alone had fulfilled all that
Grimm's imagination could conceive an actor should be. The player's
great art of identification astounded him. In different parts he did
not seem the same man; and Grimm truly observed, that all the changes
in Garrick's features arose entirely from inward emotion;--that
he never exceeded truth; and that, in passion alone, he found the
sources of distinction. "We saw him," he says, "play the dagger scene
in 'Macbeth,' in a room, in his ordinary dress, without any stage
illusion; and as he followed with his eyes the air-drawn dagger, he
became so grand, that the whole assembly broke into a general cry
of admiration. Who would believe," he asks, "that this same man, a
moment after, counterfeited, with equal perfection, a pastry-cook's
boy, who, carrying a tray of tartlets on his head, and gaping about
him at the corner of the street, lets his tray fall in the kennel,
and at first stupefied by the accident, bursts at last into a fit
of crying?" Such was he who fairly frightened Hogarth himself, by
assuming the face of the defunct Fielding!
Garrick's assertion, that a man must be a good comic actor to be
a great tragedian, gave M. de Carmontelle the idea of a picture,
in which he represented Garrick in an imposing tragic attitude,
with a comic Garrick standing between the folding-doors, looking
with surprise, and laughing at the other. While the ever-restless
actor was sitting for this, he amused himself by passing through
imperceptible gradations, from extreme joy to extreme sadness, and
thence to terror and despair. The actor was running through the scale
of the passions.
Grimm approvingly observed, that Garrick's "studio" was in the
crowded streets. "He is always there," writes Grimm; and, no doubt,
Garrick perfected his great talents by the profound study of nature.
Of his personal appearance, the same writer remarks: "His figure
is _mediocre_; rather short than tall; his physiognomy agreeable,
and promising wit; and the play of his eyes prodigious. He has much
humour, discernment, and correctness of judgment; is naturally
_monkeyish_, imitating all he sees; and he is always graceful!" Such
is the account by a member of a society, whose kindness was never
forgotten by the English actor. The desire to see him there again was
as strong as Mrs. Woffington's, who, being reminded by Sir C. Hanbury
Williams, that she had seen Garrick that morning, exclaimed, "but
that's an age ago!"[110]
St. Petersburg caught from Paris the Garrick fever; but the offer of
the Czarina Catherine, to give Garrick two thousand guineas for four
performances, could not tempt him to the banks of the Neva. Denmark
was fain to be content with his counterfeit presentment; and a
portrait, painted in London, by order of the King was hung up in the
royal palace at Copenhagen.
I have alluded to some things his enemies laid to his charge. They
are small matters when they come to be examined; and the more they
are examined, the less obnoxious does Garrick seem to censure.
I find more instances of his generosity than of his meanness--more
of his fairness of judgment than of his jealousy. He was ever ready
to play for the benefit of his distressed brethren. When Macklin
lost his engagement under Fleetwood, Garrick offered to allow him
£6 per week out of his own salary till he found occupation. He saw,
when his own triumph was in its freshness and brilliancy, the bright
promise of Barry; and pointed out its great merits, and predicted his
future success. To insure that of young Powell, he gave him frequent
instruction; and when he brought the soon-forgotten Dexter from
Dublin, he not only gave him "first business," and useful directions,
but expressed his convictions that, with care and diligence, he would
stand in the foremost rank of actors.
The commonest incidents have been tortured to depreciate Garrick's
character. When, in 1775, Sheridan's "Duenna" was in the course of
its first run of seventy-five nights, the name of the author was
extraordinarily popular. At this juncture Garrick did further honour
to that name by reviving the "Discovery," by Sheridan's mother, and
acting the principal part in it himself.[111] The carpers immediately
exclaimed, that the mother had been revived in opposition to the son.
They did not even take the low ground of the revival being adopted as
a source of profit on account of the author's family name.
Even Mrs. Siddons's disparagement of Garrick tells in his favour. She
played two or three nights with him, but her first appearances were
comparatively failures. Garrick observed some awkward action of the
lady's arms, and he gave her good advice how to use them. But Mrs.
Siddons, in telling the story, used to say: "He was only afraid that
I should overshadow his nose." Years subsequently Walpole remarked
this very action of the arms, which Garrick had endeavoured to amend!
To those who object that Garrick was personally vain, it may suffice
to point out that he was the first to allude to his own defect of
stature. In the prologue to the tragedy of "Hecuba," written and
spoken by himself, he mentions the high-soled buskins of the ancient
stage; and adds--
"Then rais'd on stilts, our play'rs would stalk and rage,
And at three steps stride o'er a modern stage;
Each gesture then would boast unusual charms,
From lengthen'd legs, stuff'd body, sprawling arms!
Your critic eye would then no pigmies see,
But buskins make a giant e'en of me."
If he esteemed little of himself personally, he had, on the other
hand, the highest estimation of his profession. In this he bears
a resemblance to Montfleury, who, being asked, when his marriage
articles were preparing, how he wished to be described, answered:
that ancestry conferred no talent, and that the most honourable title
he desired to be known by, was, that of "_Actor to the King_."
Garrick was often severe enough with conceited aspirants, who came
to offer samples of their quality, to whom he listened while he
shaved, and whom he often interrupted by imitative _yaw, yaws_! But
when convinced there was stuff in a young man, Garrick helped him
to do his best, without thought of rivalry. It is pleasant thus to
contemplate him preparing Wilkinson, in 1759, for his attempt at
tragedy, in Bajazet, to the Arpasia of Mrs. Pritchard.[112] Garrick
heard him recite the character in his own private room; gave him some
valuable advice; presided at the making up of his face; and put the
finishing strokes of the pencil, to render the young face of one and
twenty as nearly like that of the elder Oriental, as might be.
It may be said that this was a cheap sort of generosity, but it
was characteristic of kindliness of heart. He could make other and
nobler sacrifices; on the last night he ever trod the stage, with
a house crammed, with a profusely liberal audience, Garrick made
over every guinea of the splendid receipts, not to his own account
at his bankers, but to that of the Theatrical Fund. After this, his
weaknesses may surely be forgotten. He may have been as restless and
ignorant as Macklin has described him; as full of contrasts and as
athirst for flattery as the pencil of Goldsmith has painted him; as
void of literary ability as Johnson and Walpole asserted him to be;
and as foolish as Foote would have us take him for; his poor opinion
of Shuter and Mrs. Abington may seem to cast reproach upon his
judgment; and his failure to impress Jedediah Buxton, who counted his
words rather than attended to his acting, may be accepted as proof
that he was a poor player (in Jedediah's eyes); but the closing act
of his professional life may be cited in testimony of a noble and
unselfish generosity. It was the crowning act in a career marked
by many generous deeds, but marred by many crosses, vexations, and
anxieties.
Colman, even before he quarrelled with Garrick, assailed him as a
"grimace-maker," a "haberdasher of wry faces," a "hypocrite who
laughed and cried for hire," and so forth; but Garrick, in return,
wrote verses in praise of Colman's translation of _Terence_; and when
these had softened the translator's resentment, Garrick chose the
most solemn and most joyous day, Christmas, 1765, to write better
verses, in which he states that failing in health, assailed by
enemies, treated with ingratitude, and weary of his vocation as he
is, that joyous season is made doubly joyous by the restoration of
their friendship.
Garrick could yield, too, to the most exacting of his rivals. When
Barry rather unjustly complained that Garrick only put him up to play
on unlucky days--when operas, or concerts, or lady's drums, were a
counter attraction, David kindly bade him select his own days; he
himself would be content to play singly on the others. "Well, sir!"
said Barry, "I certainly could not ask more than you grant!"
Vanity, it has been said, was one of Garrick's weak points; but he
was not so proud of the Prince of Hesse talking with him at Ranelagh,
as people were of Mr. Garrick telling them what the Prince had said.
His courtesy, discretion, justice, and firmness are illustrated in
a thousand ways, in his correspondence. His best actresses vexed
him to the heart; but he never lost his temper or his politeness
with the most vexing or capricious of them all. His counsel to young
actors grasping at fame, was of the frank and useful nature which
was likely to help them to seize it; and his reproof to foolish and
impertinent players,--like the feather-brained Cautherley,--was
delivered with a severity which must have been all the more stinging,
as its application was as dignified as it was merciless. As for
Garrick's professional jealousy, he seems to me to have had as little
as was consonant with human nature. I know of no proprietor of a
theatre, himself an actor, who collected around him such a brilliant
brotherhood of actors as Garrick did; yet, when any one of these left
him, or was dismissed by him, the partizans of the retiring player
raised the cry of "_jealousy_!"
When Mallet was writing his _Life of the Duke of Marlborough_, he
dexterously enough intimated to Roscius that he should find an
opportunity of noticing in that work the great actor of the later
day. The absurdity of this must have been evident to Garrick, who
immediately replied, "My dear friend, have you quite left off writing
for the stage?" As Mallet subsequently offered to Garrick his
reconstruction of the masque of "Alfred," which he had originally
written in conjunction with Thomson, and Garrick produced the piece,
it has been inferred that the latter took the bait flung for him by
the wily Scot. It seems to me that Garrick perceived the wile, but
produced the play, notwithstanding.
There was, perhaps, weakness of character rather than frankness,
in the way he would allude to his short stature,--in his obviating
jokes on his marriage, by making them himself, or getting his
friend, Edward Moore, to make them, not in the most refined
fashion. Sensitive to criticism no doubt he was; but he was more
long-suffering under censure than Quin, who pummelled poor Aaron
Hill in the Court of Requests, because of adverse comments in the
_Prompter_. Sensitive as Garrick was, he could reply to criticism
merrily enough. Another Hill, the doctor and dramatist, had attacked
his pronunciation, and accused him of pronouncing the _i_ in _mirth_
and _birth_ as if it were an _u_. On which Garrick wrote:--
"If 'tis true, as you say, that I've injured a letter,
I'll change my note soon, and I hope, for the better.
May the just rights of letters as well as of men,
Hereafter be fixed by the tongue and the pen;
Most devoutly I wish that they both have their due,
And that I may be never mistaken for U."
Again, if he were vain, he could put on a charming appearance of
humility. Lord Lyttleton had suggested to him that, as a member
of Parliament, he might turn his powers of eloquence to patriotic
account. Such a suggestion would have fired many a man's ambition--it
only stirred Garrick to write the following lines:
"More than content with what my labours gain;
Of public favour tho' a little vain;
Yet not so vain my mind, so madly bent,
To wish to play the fool in Parliament;
In each dramatic unity to err,
Mistaking TIME, and PLACE, and CHARACTER!
Were it my fate to quit the mimic art,
I'd 'strut and fret' no more, in _any_ part;
No more in public scenes would I engage,
Or wear the cap and mask, on any stage."
Burke said of Garrick, that he was the first of actors, because he
was the most acute observer of nature that Burke ever knew. Garrick
disliked characters in which there was a "lofty disregard of nature;"
yet he resembled Mrs. Siddons in believing that if a part seemed at
all _within_ nature, it was not to be doubted but that a great actor
could make something out of it.
Garrick's repertory extended to less than one hundred characters,
of which he was the original representative of thirty-six. Compared
with the half century of labour of Betterton, and the number of his
original characters, Garrick's toil seems but mere pastime. In his
first season, on that little but steep stage at Goodman's Fields, so
steep, it is said, that a ghost in real armour, ascending on a trap,
once lost his balance and rolled down to the orchestra, Garrick seems
to have been uncertain whether his vocation lay more with tragedy
or with comedy. In that season he repeated his comic characters
eighty-four times; he appeared but fifty nights in a repetition
of half-a-dozen tragic parts.[113] In the sum of the years of his
acting, the increase of number is slightly on the side of the latter,
while, of his original characters, twenty belong to tragedy, and
sixteen to comedy. After he had been two-and-twenty years on the
stage, Garrick undertook no new study.
Of his original characters, the best remembered in stage traditions
are, Sharp, in the "Lying Valet," Tancred, Fribble, Ranger, Beverley,
Achmet ("Barbarossa"), Oroonoko (in the altered play), Lovemore ("Way
to Keep Him"), and Oakley, in the "Jealous Wife." Of these, only
Beverley and Oakley can be said to still survive.
Of Garrick and his labours I have now said enough; let us follow him
thither where he found repose from the latter, in company with one
whom many of us, who are not yet old, may remember to have seen in
our early youth, the Mrs. Garrick who is said to have told Edmund
Kean that he could not play Abel Drugger, and to have been answered
by Edmund, "Dear madam, I know it!"
In June 1749, Lord Chesterfield, who, in his Irish viceroyalty, had
neglected Garrick, just as in London he ignored Sheridan whom he had
patronised in Dublin, wrote to his friend Dayrolles, "The parliament
is to be prorogued next Tuesday, when the ministers will have six
months leisure to quarrel, and patch up, and quarrel again. Garrick
and the Violetti will likewise, and about the same time, have an
opportunity of doing the same thing, for they are to be married next
week. They are, at present, desperately in love with each other. Lady
Burlington was, at first, outrageous; but, upon cooler reflection
upon what the Violetti, if provoked, might say or rather invent, she
consented to the match, and superintends the writings." Later in
June, Walpole touches on the same subject to Mann, announcing the
marriage itself "first at a Protestant, then at a Roman Catholic
Chapel. The chapter of this history," he adds, "is a little obscure,
and uncertain as to the consent of the protecting countess, and
whether she gives a fortune or not."
This Eva Maria Violetti was a dancer, who, three years previously to
this marriage, was enchanting the town with her "poetry of motion."
The sister Countesses of Burlington and Talbot competed for her
with "sullen partiality." The former carried her to Chiswick, wore
her portrait,[114] and introduced her to her friends. Lady Carlyle
entertained her; and the Prince of Wales paid his usual compliment,
by bidding her take lessons of Desnoyers, the dancing master, and
Prince's companion,--which Eva Maria did not care to do.
The public were curious to know who this beautiful young German
dancer was, in whom Lord and Lady Burlington took such especial
interest. That she was nearly related to the former was a very
popular conjecture. However this may have been, she was, in many
respects, Garrick's good genius, presiding gracefully over his
households in the Adelphi and at Hampton.
"Mr. Garrick," whose early residence was, according to the addresses
of his letters, "at a perriwig maker's, corner of the Great Piazza,
Covent Garden," saw good company at Hampton, where Walpole
cultivated an intimacy with him, for Mrs. Clive's sake, as he
pretended. Here is the actor at home, on August 15th, 1755. "I dined
to-day at Garrick's," writes Walpole to Bentley; "there were the Duke
of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, Lady Holdernesse, the crooked
Mostyn, and Dabreu, the Spanish minister; two regents, of which one
is Lord Chamberlain, the other Groom of the Stole, and the wife of a
Secretary of State. This being _sur un assez bon ton_, for a player.
Don't you want to ask me how I liked him? Do want, and I will tell
you. I like _her_ exceedingly; her behaviour is all sense, and all
sweetness too. I don't know how, he does not improve so fast upon me;
there is a great deal of parts, and vivacity, and variety, but there
is a great deal, too, of mimicry and burlesque. I am very ungrateful,
for he flatters me abundantly; but, unluckily, I know it."
Fifteen years later, Mrs. Delaney describes a day at Garrick's house
at Hampton, and speaks as eulogistically of the hostess. "Mr. Garrick
did the honours of his house _very respectfully_, and, though in high
spirits, seemed sensible of the honour done them. Nobody else there
but Lady Weymouth and Mr. Bateman. As to Mrs. Garrick, the more one
sees her, the better one must like her; she seems _never_ to depart
from a perfect propriety of behaviour, accompanied with good sense
and gentleness of manners; and I cannot help looking on her as a
_wonderful creature_, considering all circumstances relating to
her." The above words referring to Garrick are held by Lady Llanover,
the editor of Mrs. Delaney's correspondence, to be "high testimony to
Garrick's tact and good-breeding, as few persons in his class of life
know how to be '_respectful_,' and yet in '_high spirits_,' which is
the greatest test of real refinement." This is severe, oh! gentlemen
players; but the lady forgot that Mr. Garrick was the son of an
officer and a gentleman.
Walpole warned people against supposing that he and Garrick were
intimate. When the actor and his wife went to Italy:--"We are
sending to you," wrote Horace to Mann, "the famous Garrick and his
once famous wife. He will make you laugh as a mimic; and as he
knows _we_ are great friends, will affect great partiality to me;
but be a little upon your guard, remember he is an _actor_." It is
clear that Garrick, down at his villa, insisted on being treated as
a gentleman. "This very day," writes Walpole to Mason, September
9,[115] 1772, "Garrick, who has dropped me these three years, has
been here by his own request, and told Mr. Raftor how happy he was at
the reconciliation. I did not know we had quarrelled, and so omitted
being happy too."
Lord Ossory's intimacy with Garrick was one of the strictest
friendship. Lord Ossory speaks of him, Gibbon, and Reynolds, who were
then his guests, as all three delightful in society. "The vivacity of
the great actor, the keen, sarcastic wit of the great historian, and
the genuine pleasantry of the great painter, mixed up well together,
and made a charming party. Garrick's mimicry of the mighty Johnson
was excellent."
Garrick was the guest of Earl Spencer, Christmas 1778, when he was
attacked by his last and fatal illness. He was carried to his town
house, No. 5 Adelphi Terrace, where Dr. Cadogan asked him if he had
any affairs to settle. Garrick met the intimation with the calm
dignity of Quin: "I have nothing of that sort on my mind," he said,
"and I am not afraid to die."
Physicians assembled around him out of pure affection and respect;
Heberden, Warren, and Schomberg. As the last approached, Garrick,
placidly smiling, took him by the hand, faintly murmuring, "though
last, not least in our dear love." But as the crowd of charitable
healers increased, the old player who--wrapped in a rich robe,
himself all pale and feeble, looked like the stricken Lusignan,
softly repeated the lines in the "Fair Penitent," beginning with,
"Another and another still succeeds."
On January 20th, 1779, Garrick expired. Young Bannister, the night
before, had played his old part of Dorilas to the Merope of Miss
Younge. The great actor was solemnly carried to Westminster Abbey by
some of the noblest in the land, whether of intellect or of rank.
Chatham had addressed him living, in verse, and peers sought for
the honour of supporting the pall at his funeral. The players,
whose charitable fund he had been mainly instrumental in raising to
near £5000, stood near their master's grave, to which the statue of
Shakspeare pointed, to do him honour. Amid these, and friends nearer
and dearer still, the greatest of English actors, since Betterton,
was left in his earthly sleep, not very far from his accomplished
predecessor.
They who had accused him of extravagance were surprised to find that
he had lived below his income. They who had challenged him with
parsimony, now heard of large sums cheerfully given in charity, or
lent on personal security; and the latter often forgiven to the
debtor. "Dr. Johnson and I," says Boswell, "walked away together. We
stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the
Thames, and I said to him with some emotion, that I was now thinking
of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind
us--Topham Beauclerk and Garrick." "Ay, sir," said he tenderly, "and
two such friends as cannot be supplied."[116]
And Mrs. Garrick? She wore her long widowhood till 1822, dying then
in the same house on the Adelphi Terrace. She was the honoured guest
of hosts whom all men honoured; and at the Bishop of London's table
held her own against the clever men and women who held controversy
under Porteus's roof. Eva Maria Garrick twice refused Lord Monboddo,
who had written a book to show that humanity was merely apedom
without the tail. The widow of Roscius was higher in the social
scale than the wife of a canny Scotch Lord of Session, with an
uncanny theory.
As I take leave of Garrick, I remember the touching scene which
occurred on the last night but one of his public performances. His
farewell to the stage was made in a comic character; but he and
tragedy parted for ever the night before. On that occasion he played
Lear to the Cordelia of Miss Younge. As the curtain descended, they
lay on the stage hand in hand, and hand in hand they rose and went,
Garrick silently leading, to his dressing-room; whither they were
followed by many of the company. There stood Lear and Cordelia,
still hand in hand, and mute. At last Garrick exclaimed, "Ah,
Bessie, this is the last time I shall ever be your father; the _last
time_!" and he dropped her hand. Miss Younge sighed too, and replied
affectionately, with a hope that before they finally parted he would
kindly give her a father's blessing. Garrick took it as it was meant,
seriously; and as Miss Younge bowed her head, he raised his hands,
and prayed that God would bless her! Then slowly looking round, he
murmured, "May God bless you all!" and divesting himself of his
Lear's dress, tragedy, and one of her most accomplished sons, were
dissevered for ever!
In New Drury, such compliment was not paid to Garrick as was offered
to Betterton in New Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre; on the ceiling of
which house was painted a noble group of poets--Shakspeare, Rare Ben,
Beaumont, Fletcher, and some of later date. These were on a raised
terrace, and a little below them, looking up, stood Betterton, with
whom they were holding conference. Worthier homage was never rendered
to departed merit! From him to whom it was rendered, and from Garrick
who deserved no less, let us now turn to one who, lingering somewhat
longer on the stage, yet earlier passing from the scene of life,
claims a parting word,--silver-toned Barry.
[Illustration: Mr. Garrick as Sir John Brute.]
FOOTNOTES:
[105] This is very doubtful. Cooke, who tells the story, merely says
that Garrick pronounced Weston's Abel Drugger "one of the finest
pieces of acting he ever saw."
[106] These two words--"in argument"--are not in Davies's fourth
edition.
[107] Davies (fourth edition) has "vice."'
[108] Davies (fourth edition) has "audacious."
[109] "Strut-and-whisker parts" is the expression used.
[110] This is a very mild version of the story, which may be found
in John Taylor's "Records of my Life." Lord Darnley, not Sir Hanbury
Williams, was the hero.
[111] On 20th January 1776. Garrick was the original representative
of Sir Anthony Branville, the part alluded to.
[112] It is in connection with this preparation that Wilkinson gives
the peculiarly indecent specimen of Garrick's humour.
[113] I cannot reconcile these figures with the bills.
[114] Walpole's expression is "is having her picture," which, as I
understand it, does not mean wearing her portrait.
[115] September 19.
[116] Full justice has been done to Garrick's character by modern
dramatic historians, and notably by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.
[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. BARRY IN "TAMERLANE."]