He was born in Tothill Street, Westminster, about 1635, eighteen
years after the death of Burbage. He seems to have received a fair
education; indeed, but for the disturbing effect of the Civil War, he
would probably have been brought up to one of the liberal professions.
He was, however, apprenticed to a bookseller, who, fortunately
for Betterton, took to theatrical management. Betterton was about
twenty-four years old when he began his dramatic career. For upwards
of fifty years he seems to have held his position as the foremost
actor of the day. It was fortunate, indeed, for the interests of the
Drama that so great an actor arose at the very time when dramatic art
had, as it were, to be resuscitated. Directly the Puritans (who hated
the stage and every one connected with it as heartily as they
hated their Cavalier neighbors) came into power, they abolished the
theatres, as they did every other form of intellectual amusement;
and for many years the Drama only existed in the form of a few vulgar
"Drolls." It must have been, indeed, a dismal time for the people of
England; with all the horrors of civil war fresh in their memory, the
more than paternal government allowed its subjects no other amusement
than that of consigning their neighbors to eternal damnation, and of
selecting for themselves--by anticipation--all the best reserved seats
in heaven. When the Restoration took place, the inevitable reaction
followed: society, having been condemned to a lengthened period of an
involuntary piety--which sat anything but easily on it--rushed into
the other extreme; all who wanted to be in the fashion professed but
little morality, and it is to be feared that, for once in a way, their
practice did not come short of their profession. Now was the time
when, instead of "poor players," "fine gentlemen" condescended to
write for the stage; and it may be remarked that as long as the
literary interests of the theatre were in their keeping, the tone of
the plays represented was more corrupt than it ever was at any other
period of the history of the Drama. It is something to be thankful
for, that at such a time, when the highly-flavored comedies of
Wycherley and Congreve were all the vogue, and when the monotonous
profligacy of nearly all the characters introduced into those plays
was calculated to encourage the most artificial style of acting--it
was something, I say, to be thankful for, that at such a time,
Betterton, and one or two other actors, could infuse life into
the noblest creations of Shakespeare. Owing, more especially, to
Betterton's great powers, the tragedy of _Hamlet_ held its own in
popularity, even against such witty productions as _Love for Love_. It
was also fortunate that the same actor who could draw tears as Hamlet,
was equally at home in the feigned madness of that amusing rake
Valentine, or in the somewhat coarse humor of Sir John Brute. By
charming the public in what were the popular novelties of the day, he
was able to command their support when he sought it for a nobler
form of Drama. He married an actress, Mrs. Saunderson, who was only
inferior in her art to her husband. Their married life seems to
have been one of perfect happiness. When one hears so much of the
profligacy of actors and actresses, and that they are all such a
very wicked lot, it is pleasant to think of this couple, in an age
proverbial for its immorality, in a city where the highest in rank set
an example of shameless licence, living their quiet, pure, artistic
life, respected and beloved by all that knew them.
Betterton had few physical advantages. If we are to believe Antony
Aston, one of his contemporaries, he had "a short, thick neck, stooped
in the shoulders, and had fat, short arms, which he rarely lifted
higher than his stomach. His left hand frequently lodged in his
breast, between his coat and waistcoat, while with his right hand he
prepared his speech." Yet the same critic is obliged to confess that,
at seventy years of age, a younger man might have _personated_ but
could not have _acted_, Hamlet better. He calls his voice "low and
grumbling," but confesses that he had such power over it that he could
enforce attention even from fops and orange-girls. I dare say you
all know how Steele and Addison admired his acting, and how
enthusiastically they spoke of it in _The Tatler_. The latter writes
eloquently of the wonderful agony of jealousy and the tenderness
of love which he showed in _Othello_, and of the immense effect he
produced in _Hamlet_.
Betterton, like all really great men, was a hard worker. Pepys says
of him, "Betterton is a very sober, serious man, and studious, and
humble, following of his studies; and is rich already with what he
gets and saves." Alas! the fortune so hardly earned was lost in an
unlucky moment: he entrusted it to a friend to invest in a commercial
venture in the East Indies which failed most signally. Betterton never
reproached his friend, he never murmured at his ill-luck. The friend's
daughter was left unprovided for; but Betterton adopted the child,
educated her for the stage, and she became an actress of merit, and
married Bowman, the player, afterwards known as "The Father of the
Stage."
In Betterton's day there were no long runs of pieces; but, had his
lot been cast in these times, he might have been compelled to perform,
say, _Hamlet_ for three hundred or four hundred nights: for the rights
of the majority are entitled to respect in other affairs besides
politics, and if the theatre-going public demand a play (and our
largest theatres only hold a limited number) the manager dare not
cause annoyance and disappointment by withdrawing it.
Like Edmund Kean, Betterton may be said to have died upon the stage;
for in April, 1710, when he took his last benefit, as Melantius, in
Beaumont and Fletcher's _Maid's Tragedy_ (an adaption of which, by the
way, was played by Macready under the title of _The Bridal_,) he was
suffering tortures from gout, and had almost to be carried to his
dressing-room; and though he acted the part with all his old fire,
speaking these very appropriate words:--
"My heart
And limbs are still the same, my will as great,
To do you service,"
within forty-eight hours he was dead. He was buried in the Cloisters
of Westminster Abbey with every mark of respect and honor.
I may here add that the censure said to have been directed against
Betterton for the introduction of scenery is the prototype of that
cry, which we hear so often nowadays, against over-elaboration in
the arrangements of the stage. If it be a crime against good taste
to endeavor to enlist every art in the service of the stage, and to
heighten the effect of noble poetry by surrounding it with the most
beautiful and appropriate accessories, I myself must plead guilty to
that charge; but I should like to point out that every dramatist who
has ever lived, from Shakespeare downwards, has always endeavored to
get his plays put upon the stage with as good effect and as handsome
appointments as possible.
Indeed, the Globe Theatre was burned down during the first performance
of _King Henry VIII._, through the firing off of a cannon which
announced the arrival of King Henry. Perhaps, indeed, some might
regard this as a judgment against the manager for such an attempt at
realism.
It was seriously suggested to me by an enthusiast the other day, that
costumes of his own time should be used for all Shakespeare's plays. I
reflected a little on the suggestion, and then I put it to him whether
the characters in _Julius Cæsar_ or in _Antony and Cleopatra_ dressed
in doublet and hose would not look rather out of place. He answered,
"He had never thought of that." In fact, difficulties almost
innumerable must invariably crop up if we attempt to represent plays
without appropriate costume and scenery, the aim of which is to
realize the _locale_ of the action. Some people may hold that paying
attention to such matters necessitates inattention to the acting; but
the majority think it does not, and I believe that they are right.
What would Alma-Tadema say, for instance, if it were proposed to him
that in a picture of the Roman Amphitheatre the figures should be
painted in the costume of Spain? I do not think he would see the point
of such a noble disregard of detail; and why should he, unless what is
false in art is held to be higher than what is true?
Little more than thirty years were to elapse between the death of
the honored Betterton and the appearance of David Garrick, who was
to restore Nature once more to the stage. In this comparatively
short interval progress in dramatic affairs had been all backward.
Shakespeare's advice to the actors had been neglected; earnest
passion, affecting pathos, ever-varying gestures, telling intonation
of voice, and, above all, that complete identification of themselves
in the part they represented--all these qualities, which had
distinguished the acting of Betterton, had given way to noisy
rant, formal and affected attitudes, and a heavy stilted style of
declamation. Betterton died in 1710, and six years after, in 1716,
Garrick was born. About twenty years after, in 1737, Samuel Johnson
and his friend and pupil, David Garrick, set out from Lichfield on
their way to London. In spite of the differences in their ages, and
their relationship of master and pupil, a hearty friendship had sprung
up between them, and one destined, in spite of Johnson's occasional
resentment at the actor's success in life, to last till it was ended
by the grave. Much of Johnson's occasional harshness and almost
contemptuous attitude towards Garrick was, I fear, the result of the
consciousness that his old pupil had thoroughly succeeded in life,
and had reached the highest goal possible in the career which he had
chosen; while he himself, though looked up to as the greatest scholar
of his time, was conscious, as he shows us in his own diary, of how
much more he might have done but for his constitutional indolence.
Garrick's family was of French origin, his father having come over to
England during the persecution of the Huguenots in 1687, and on his
mother's side he had Irish blood in his veins; so that by descent he
was a combination of French, English, and Irish, a combination by no
means unpromising for one who was going to be an actor.
On reaching London, Garrick enrolled his name in Lincoln's Inn, and
was looking about him to see what would turn up, when the news of his
father's death reached him. There is no doubt that, if Garrick had
consulted his own wishes only, he would at once have gone upon the
stage. But fortunately, perhaps, for his future career, he could not
bear to grieve his mother's heart by adopting at once, and at such
a time when she was crushed with some sorrow for her great loss, a
calling which he knew she detested so heartily.
Within a year Mrs. Garrick followed to the grave the husband whom she
never ceased to mourn, and David had nothing more to face than the
prejudice of his brother, Peter, and of his sisters, if he should
resolve ultimately to adopt the profession on which his heart was
fixed.
It was not, however, till nearly three years after, in 1741, that
Garrick, determined to take the decisive step, first feeling his way
by playing Chamont in _The Orphan_, and Sir Harry Wildair, at Ipswich,
where he appeared under the name of Mr. Lydall; and under this same
name, in the same year, he made his first appearance at Goodman's
Fields Theatre, in the part of Richard III. His success was
marvellous. Considering the small experience he had had, no actor ever
made such a successful _début_. No doubt by waiting and exercising his
powers of observation, and by studying many parts in private, he had
to a certain extent, matured his powers. But making allowance for
all his great natural gifts, there is no denying that Garrick, in one
leap, gained a position which, in the case of most other actors, has
only been reached through years of toil. He seems to have charmed all
classes: the learned and the ignorant, the cultured and the vulgar;
great statesmen, poets, and even the fribbles of fashion were all
nearly unanimous in his praise. The dissentient voices were so few
that they were drowned in the clamor of applause. Quinn might snarl
and growl; and Horace Walpole, who seems to have grown alarmed at
so much of the incense of praise finding its way to the nostrils of
another, might give vent to a few feeble sneers; such as when he said,
"I do not mention the things written in his praise because he writes
most of them himself." But the battle was won. Nature in the place
of Artificiality, Originality in the place of Conventionality, had
triumphed on the stage once more.
Consternation reigned in the home at Lichfield when the news arrived
that brother David had become a play-actor; but ultimately the family
were reconciled to such degradation by the substantial results of the
experiment. Such reconcilements are not uncommon. Some young man of
good birth and position has taken to the stage; his family, who could
not afford to keep him, have been shocked, and in pious horror have
cast him out of their respectable circle; but at last success has
come, and they have managed to overcome their scruples and prejudices
and to profit by the harvest which the actor has reaped.
Garrick seems to have continued playing under the name of Lydall for
two months, though the secret must have been an open one. It was not
till December the second, the night of his benefit, that he was at
last announced under his own name; and henceforward his career was
one long triumph, checkered, indeed, by disagreements, quarrels and
heart-burnings (for Garrick was extremely sensitive), caused, for the
most part, by the envy and jealousy which invariably dog the heels of
success.
Second-rate actors, like Theophilus Gibber, or gnats such as Murphy,
and others, easily stung him. He was lampooned as "The Sick Monkey"
on his return to the stage after having taken a much needed rest.
But discretion and audacity seemed to go hand-in-hand, and the
self-satisfied satirizer generally over-shoots the mark. Garrick was
ever ready with a reply to his assailants; when Dr. Hill attacked his
pronunciation, saying that he pronounced his "i's" as if they were
"u's," Garrick answered--
"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 right 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_."
Comparing Garrick with Betterton, it must be remembered that he was
more exposed to the attacks of envy from the very universality of
his success. Never, perhaps, was there a man in any profession
who combined so many various qualities. A fair poet, a most fluent
correspondent, an admirable conversationalist, possessing a person
of singular grace, a voice of marvellous expressiveness, and a
disposition so mercurial and vivacious as is rarely found in any
Englishman, he was destined to be a great social as well as a great
artistic success. He loved the society of men of birth and fashion; he
seems to have had a more passionate desire to please in private even
than in public, and almost to have justified the often quoted couplet
in Goldsmith's "Retaliation."
"On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only
that when he was off he was acting."
Some men, envious of the substantial fortune which he realized by
almost incessant hard work, by thorough good principle with regard
to money, and by a noble, not a paltry, economy, might call him mean;
though many of them knew well, from their own experience, that his
nature was truly generous--his purse, as well as his heart, ever open
to a friend, however little he might deserve it. Yet they sneered
at his want of reckless extravagance, and called him a miser. The
greatest offender in this respect was Samuel Foote, a man of great
accomplishments, witty, but always ill-natured. It is difficult to
speak of Foote's conduct to Garrick in any moderate language. Mr.
Forster may assert that behind Foote's brutal jests there always
lurked a kindly feeling; but what can we think of the man who,
constantly receiving favors from Garrick's hand, could never speak of
him before others without a sneer; who the moment he had received the
loan of money or other favor for which he had cringed, snarled--I will
not say like a dog, for no dog is so ungrateful--and snapped at the
hand which had administered to him of its bounty. When this man,
who had never spared a friend, whose whole life had been passed in
maligning others, at last was himself a victim of a vile and cruel
slander, Garrick forgot the gibes and sneers of which Foote had made
him so often the victim, and stood by him with a noble devotion as
honorable to himself as it was ill-deserved by its object. Time would
not suffice, had I as many hours as I have minutes before me, to tell
you of all the acts of generosity that this mean man, this niggardly
actor, performed in his lifetime. One characteristic anecdote will
suffice. When Whitfield was building his Tabernacle in Tottenham Court
Road, he employed one of the carpenters who worked for Garrick at
Drury Lane. Subscriptions for the Tabernacle do not seem to have
come in as fast as they were required to pay the workmen, so that the
carpenter had to go to Garrick to ask for an advance. When pressed for
his reason he confessed that he had not received any wages from Mr.
Whitfield. Garrick made the advance asked for, and soon after quietly
set out to pay a visit to Mr. Whitfield, when, with many apologies for
the liberty he was taking, he offered him a five hundred pound bank
note as his subscription towards the Tabernacle. Considering that
Garrick had no particular sympathy with Nonconformists, this action
speaks as much for his charity as a Christian as it does for his
liberality as a man.
Perhaps Richard III. remained Garrick's best Shakesperean character.
Of course he played Cibber's version and not Shakespeare's. In fact,
many of the Shakesperean parts were not played from the poet's own
text, but Garrick might have doubted whether even his popularity
would have reconciled his audiences to the unadulterated poetry of our
greatest dramatist.
Next to Richard, Lear would seem to have been his best Shakesperean
performance. In Hamlet and Othello he did not equal Betterton; and
in the latter, certainly from all one can discover, he was infinitely
surpassed by Edmund Kean. In fact Othello was not one of his great
parts. But in the wide range of characters which he undertook, Garrick
was probably never equalled. A poor actor named Everard, who was first
brought out as a boy by Garrick, says: "Such or such an actor in their
respective _fortes_ have been allowed to play such or such a part
equally well as him; but could they perform Archer and Scrub like
him? and Abel Drugger, Ranger, and Bayes, and Benedick; speak his own
prologue to _Barbarossa_, in the character of a country-boy, and in a
few minutes transform himself in the same play to _Selim_? Nay, in the
same night he has played _Sir John Brute_ and the _Guardian, Romeo_
and _Lord Chalkstone, Hamlet_ and _Sharp, King Lear_ and _Fribble,
King Richard_ and the _Schoolboy_! Could anyone but himself attempt
such a wonderful variety, such an amazing contrast of character, and
be equally great in all? No, no, no! Garrick, take the chair."
Garrick was, without doubt, a very intense actor; he threw himself
most thoroughly into any part that he was playing. Certainly we know
that he was not wanting in reverence for Shakespeare; in spite of the
liberties which he ventured to take with the poet's text, he loved
and worshipped him. To Powell, who threatened to be at one time a
formidable rival, his advice was, "Never let your Shakespeare be out
of your hands; keep him about you as a charm; the more you read him,
the more you will like him, and the better you will act." As to his
yielding to the popular taste for pantomime and spectacle, he may
plead a justification in the words which his friend Johnson put into
his mouth in the Prologue that he wrote for the inauguration of his
management at Drury Lane:--
"The Drama's laws the Drama's patrons give,
And we, who live to please, must please to live."
We must remember how much he did for the stage. Though his alterations
of Shakespeare shock us, they are nothing to those outrages committed
by others, who deformed the poet beyond recognition. Garrick made
Shakespeare's plays once more popular. He purged the actors, for a
time at least, of faults that were fatal to any high class of drama,
and, above all, he gradually got rid of those abominable nuisances
(to which we have already alluded), the people who came and took their
seats at the wings, on the stage itself, while the performance was
going on, hampering the efforts of the actors and actresses. The stage
would have had much to thank Garrick for if he had done nothing more
than this--if only that he was the first manager who kept the audience
where they ought to be, on the other side of the footlights.
In his private life Garrick was most happy. He was fortunate enough
to find for his wife a simple-minded, loyal woman, in a quarter which
some people would deem very unpromising. Mrs. Garrick was, as is
well-known, a celebrated _danseuse_, known as Mademoiselle Violette,
whose real name was Eva Maria Weigel, a Viennese. A more affectionate
couple were never seen; they were not blessed with children, but they
lived together in the most uninterrupted happiness, and their house
was the scene of many social gatherings of a delightful kind. Mrs.
Garrick survived her celebrated husband, and lived to the ripe age of
ninety-eight, retaining to the very last much of that grace and charm
of expression which had won the actor's heart.
Time will not allow me to dwell on the many points of interest
in Garrick's career; all of which are to be found in Mr. Percy
Fitzgerald's _Life of Garrick_. On returning to London after a visit
to the Spensers at Althorp in January, 1779, he was struck down by
a fatal attack of his old malady, the gout, and died at the age of
sixty-three.
He was buried in Westminster Abbey with ceremonies as imposing as ever
graced the funeral of a great man. The pall-bearers were headed by the
Duke of Devonshire and the Earl Spenser, while round the grave there
were gathered such men as Burke and Fox, and last, not least, his old
friend and tutor, Samuel Johnson, his rugged countenance streaming
with tears, his noble heart filled with the sincerest grief. The words
so often quoted, artificial though they may seem, came from that heart
when, speaking of his dear Davy's death, he said that it "had eclipsed
the gayety of nations."
Garrick's remarkable success in society, which achieved for him a
position only inferior to that he achieved on the stage, is the best
answer to what is often talked about the degrading nature of the
actor's profession. Since the days of Roscius no contempt for actors
in general, or for their art, has prevented a great actor from
attaining that position which is accorded to all distinguished in what
are held to be the higher arts.
Nearly nine years after the death of Garrick, on November 4th, 1787, a
young woman, who had run away from home when little more than a child
to join a company of strolling players, and who, when that occupation
failed, earned a scanty living as a hawker in the streets of London,
gave birth, in a wretched room near Gray's Inn, to an illegitimate
child. This woman was Nancy Carey, the grand-daughter of Henry Carey,
the author of the "National Anthem." She was the great-grand-daughter
of George Saville, Marquis of Halifax, whose natural son Henry Carey
was. A compassionate actress, Miss Tidswell, who knew the father of
the child, Aaron Kean, gave her what assistance she could. Poor Nance
was removed to her father's lodgings, near Gray's Inn, and there, on
the day before mentioned, Edmund Kean was born.