Roger de Coverley, his own creation, that gentleman of ancient descent,
whose "singularities proceeded from his good sense, and were
contradictions to the manners of the world only as he thought the world
was in the wrong," and who was such a great lover of mankind, with such
a mirthful cast in his behaviour, so cheerful, gay, and hearty, that
"his tenants grew rich, his servants were satisfied, all young women
professed love to him, and the young men were glad of his company." The
squire was now spending one of his frequent visits to London, and
informed the Spectator that having read his paper on Westminster Abbey,
he should like to go there with him, never having visited the tombs
since he read history.
"As we went up the body of the church, the knight pointed at the
trophies on one of the new monuments, and cried out, 'A brave man! I
warrant him!' Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung his
head that way, and cried, 'Sir Cloudesley Shovel, a very gallant man!'
As we stood before Busby's tomb the knight uttered himself again after
the same manner. 'Doctor Busby, a great man! He whipped my grandfather;
I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead. A very
great man!' Among several other figures he was very well pleased to see
the statesman Cecil upon his knees.... Sir Roger, in the next place,
laid his hand upon Edward III.'s sword, and leaning upon the pommel of
it gave us the whole history of the Black Prince, concluding that, in
Sir Richard Baker's opinion, Edward III. was one of the greatest princes
that ever sat upon the English throne. We were then shown Edward the
Confessor's tomb, upon which Sir Roger acquainted us that he was the
first who touched for the evil, and afterwards Henry IV.'s, upon which
he shook his head, and told us there was fine reading in the casualties
of that reign. Our conductor then pointed to that monument where there
is the figure of one of our English kings without a head, and upon
giving us to know that the head, which was of beaten silver, had been
stolen away years before, 'Some Whig, I warrant you!' says Sir Roger.
'You ought to lock your kings up better. They will carry off the body,
too, if you don't take care!' The glorious names of Queen Elizabeth and
Henry V. gave the knight great opportunities of shining. For my own
part, I could not but be pleased to see the knight show such an honest
passion for the glory of his country, and such a respectful gratitude to
the memory of its princes."
Addison died when under fifty years of age, and the story goes that in
his last moments he sent for young Lord Warwick, his stepson.
"Dear sir," said the lad, "any commands you may give me, I shall hold
most sacred."
"See in what peace a Christian can die," answered the older man
tenderly.
Years before, in his first letter as Spectator, he had written these
honest words, "If I can in any way contribute to the improvement of the
country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it,
with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain."
And the knowledge that he had been true to this pure ambition brought
him a calm content in that hour when all the things of this life
vanished into the dim background.
His funeral in the Abbey has been thus vividly described by Tickell, his
friend:--
"Can I forget the dismal night that gave
My soul's best part for ever to the grave?
How silent did his old companions tread,
By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead.
Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,
Through rows of warriors and through walks of kings!
What awe did the slow solemn march inspire,
The pealing organ and the pausing choir;
The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid
And the last words that dust to dust conveyed!
While speechless o'er the closing grave we bend--
Accept those tears, thou dear departed friend!
Oh, gone for ever, take this last adieu,
And sleep in peace next thy loved Montagu."
*CHAPTER XVI*
*GARRICK, JOHNSON, AND SHERIDAN*
Near together and under the shadow of Shakespeare's monument lie three
men whose lives brought them into close contact with each other: David
Garrick, the actor and manager; Dr. Samuel Johnson, the critic and
conversationalist; and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, prince of playwriters
and parliamentary orators. Little Davy Garrick was the first of the
trio on whom the curtain fell, and his funeral in the Abbey, which took
place on the 1st of February 1779, was a most imposing one. The streets
were crowded with people gathered to see the last of him they had so
delighted in applauding. The procession extended far down into the
Strand; players from Drury Lane and Covent Garden mourned the kindliest
and most lovable of comrades; seven carriages were filled with the
members of the Literary Club, and round the grave stood Edmund Burke,
Charles James Fox, Sheridan, Dr. Johnson, with many another
distinguished man. That was a day of triumph for the English stage.
True, indeed, other players had been buried in Westminster--Anne
Oldfield, who lies in the nave; Anne Bracegirdle and Mr. Cibber, whose
graves are in the cloisters--but the death of David Garrick was
accounted a national loss, and all desired to honour him, under whose
wise guidance "the drama had risen from utter chaos into order, fine
actors had been trained, fine plays had been written for the fine actors
to act, and fine, never-failing audiences had assembled to see the fine
plays which the fine actors had acted." It has often been said that
even had he been neither an actor nor a public character his name would
have gone down to future generations as a perfect English gentleman, so
great was the spell of his charm and his influence. He was born in an
inn at Hereford in the year 1716, the son of a penniless officer in the
dragoons, who had married Miss Isabella Clough, the equally penniless
daughter of the vicar-choral of Lichfield Cathedral. The lieutenant had
to serve at Gibraltar, and little David, a bright lad, ever ready with a
witty answer, got his early education in a free school at Lichfield,
presided over by a master who used the rod freely, "to save his boys
from the gallows," as he assured them for their comfort. An older boy
at the same school was Samuel Johnson, the son of a highly respected
bookseller in Lichfield. In spite of the great difference in their
ages, he became David's friend, and together they used to patronise such
plays as the companies of strolling players brought within their reach,
the acting taking place in such barns as were available. David, full of
enterprise, organised and drilled a little company of his own when he
was barely eleven, which company performed a play called "The Recruiting
Officer," to the admiration of a large and interested audience, composed
mainly of parents. But funds did not allow of many such pastimes, and a
year later David was sent out to Portugal to work in the office of an
uncle, a prosperous wine merchant there. Never was boy more unfit for
the daily routine of an office, a fact which, fortunately, his uncle
soon recognised, for in a few months he was back again in Lichfield,
slightly in disgrace, it is true, and was sent to his old school that
"discipline might repair his deficiencies."
[Illustration: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.]
Young Johnson, who by now had returned from Oxford, had, thanks to the
assistance of a wealthy friend, Mr. Walmesley, set up a school of his
own in the town, dignified by the name of "The Academy." At this seat
of learning Garrick studied for a while, and years afterwards he wrote
of his solemn ponderous master, "I honoured him, he endured me." But
the academy did not prosper, and Johnson, who had already begun to
write, determined to try his fate in London. Thither, too, young
Garrick was bent, for it had been decided that he was to study law, and
kind Mr. Walmesley had arranged to pay the expenses of the special
instruction he would need, declaring him to be "of a good disposition,
and as ingenious and promising a young man as ever I knew in my life."
So together they set out, and together they lived for awhile, Johnson
finding a scanty livelihood as a bookseller's assistant, David working
as a student of Lincoln's Inn.
Soon afterwards Captain Garrick died, and at the same time died also the
rich wine merchant uncle, who left a fair sum of money to his brother's
children, with a special legacy to David, of whom he had been
particularly fond. Then it was that for the first time the boy's
ambition took definite shape: he knew there was only one life and one
career for him, and that was summed up in the stage. His mother,
though, shrank in horror from the idea, and to his eternal credit,
rather than add to her sorrows, he set aside his own wishes, and made
one more desperate effort to please his family by going into the wine
business, as the London manager, with his brother Peter. Even in so
doing, theatrical life pursued him, for his wines were so patronised by
the coffee-houses and clubs to which the actors resorted, that he
considered it part of his business to amuse and entertain his customers
by "standing on the tables at the clubs to give his diverting and loudly
applauded mimicries." To make a long story short, the genius that was
in David would not allow him to settle down to a wine merchant's career;
he became restless and dissatisfied, and one fine morning two letters
fell like bombshells into the Garrick household at Lichfield: one from
David, saying that his mind was so inclined to the stage that he could
no longer resist it, and he hoped they would all forgive him when they
found he had the genius of an actor; the other from an old friend, who
hastened to assure the family how great a success Davy's first
appearance had been, how the audience was in raptures, and how several
men of judgment had wondered that he had kept off the stage so long.
Richard II. was the ambitious part Garrick had undertaken. "I played
the part to the surprise of every one," he wrote humbly to his furious
brother. "It is what I doat upon, and I am resolved to pursue it." The
_Daily Post_ had an enthusiastic notice about this unknown gentleman who
had never appeared before, "whose reception was the most extraordinary
and great that was ever known, whose voice was clear, without monotony,
drawling, affectation, bellowing, or grumbling; whose mien was neither
strutting, slouching, stiff, nor mincing." Pope, most keen of critics,
had watched him delightedly from a box. "That young man never had his
equal, and never will have a rival," he remarked; adding, "I only fear
lest he should become vain and ruined by applause."
But there was a simplicity of character and a fund of good sense in
David which saved him from this latter fate, even though he quickly
became the talk of the town, the man about whom the fashionable London
world went mad. After acting with ever-increasing success in nineteen
different parts, his London season came to an end for the time being,
and in response to an urgent invitation he went over to Dublin, where
the craze for him was so intense that, when a mild epidemic broke out,
it was given the name of the Garrick fever. A second visit to that gay
capital was even more successful, and Garrick finally returned to London
with a clear L600 in his pocket.
It was then that various difficulties beset him, chiefly owing to the
bad management of the theatres and the endless quarrels between the
principal actors of the day; but at last, thanks to the many friends who
firmly believed in him, and whose faith he never disappointed, he was
able to invest L8000 in Drury Lane Theatre, and to become its manager as
well as its leading actor. His determination was to "get together the
best company in England," and it is characteristic of him that he let no
past jealousies or quarrels interfere with his selection. Even Macklin,
who had violently attacked him with tongue and pen, was engaged, as well
as his wife, and he skilfully smoothed down the sensitive feelings of
the various ladies. He insisted on rehearsals, which hitherto had
seldom been enforced, and he also insisted that players should learn
their parts, a very necessary proviso. On the opening night he
remembered the friend with whom he had entered London, when triumphs
such as this had been undreamt of, and it was Dr. Johnson whom he
commissioned to write the prologue, which he himself gave with splendid
effect. Later on he loyally did his best to make a success of Johnson's
heavy and somewhat clumsy play "Irene," and thanks to his efforts and
the money he freely spent on its staging, it ran for nine nights, so
that the Doctor made the sum of L300. But with this the author was far
from satisfied, and always declared that the actors had not done justice
to their parts!
It would take too long to dwell on the many plays Garrick produced, the
many parts he created, the wide range of writers new and old he
explored, and the excellent standard he maintained. Whether it was a
tragedy of Shakespeare's, or a comedy of Ben Jonson's, or a pantomime,
he threw himself heartily into them all and never spared himself. He
knew his public and catered for them, but at the same time he taught
them to understand and applaud the best. His kindness to every one with
whom he came in contact was proverbial; indeed, his greatest weakness
lay in his good-nature. He could not bear to vex people by refusing them
anything, and this trait often landed him into difficulties with the
army of playwriters to whose entreaties that he would produce their
works he seldom turned a deaf ear. And when these plays were too
hopelessly bad to be dreamt of, David tried to soften the blow by a gift
of money, sometimes actually a pension. As might have been expected, he
had a wide circle of acquaintances from the highest in the land to the
poorest Grub Street poets, and rarely was man so well liked. For in
spite of his weaknesses--and he was restless and sensitive to the point
of touchiness--he never allowed himself to be unjust or ungenerous to
other people, and no thought of self ever interfered with the standard
he had set up for his theatre and his own profession.
More than once he talked of retiring, for the strain of his life was
heavy, and he looked forward to years of restful enjoyment with his
"sweet wife," who had been before her marriage the celebrated dancer
Mademoiselle Violette. But the very mention of such an idea raised a
storm of excitement. Once even the king intervened when David had taken
an unusually long holiday, and his Majesty requested Mr. Garrick to
shortly appear again. The night when, thus commanded, he reappeared in
"The Beggar's Opera," was one of his greatest triumphs; again "the town
went half mad," and the theatre was crowded to an alarming extent. All
ideas of retirement vanished from David's mind; the old magic had not
lost its spell, and for more than ten years longer he went on with his
work as vigorously as ever.
His fame became even more widespread, his public loved him even more
dearly, and from far-away country places people journeyed to London so
that they might boast of once having seen the great Mr. Garrick.
But in 1776, an illness, which he had long kept at bay, made itself
felt, and he was the first to recognise that the time had nearly come
for the curtain to fall. He gave a series of his greatest
representations, ending with Richard II. "I gained my fame in Richard,"
he said, "and I mean to close with it."--Though he confessed to being in
agonies of pain, in the eyes of his enraptured audience he was as great
as he had ever been in his palmiest days of success, as graceful, as
winsome, and as gay. His real farewell play, however, was "The Wonder,"
in which he took his favourite part, that of Don Felix, and "as his
grand eyes wandered round the crowded house, he saw a sea of faces,
friends, strangers, even foreigners, a boundless amphitheatre
representing most affectionate sympathies and exalted admiration. He
played as he had never played before. When the last note of applause
had died away, the other actors left the stage and he stood there alone.
The house listened in awe-struck silence. At first he tried in vain to
speak; for once the ready words would not come for his calling. When at
last he went on to thank his friends for their wonderful kindness to
him, he broke down, and his tears fell fast. Sobs rang through the
theatre. "Farewell! Farewell!" was cried in many a quivering voice.
Mrs. Garrick wept bitterly in her box, and David slowly walked off the
stage with one last wistful glance at the sea of faces all around him.
His interest in his theatre did not cease after he had left it, and he
was disturbed at finding that the new manager, Sheridan, was sadly
easy-going and unbusiness-like. But there was not much time left for
such things to trouble him. Though he kept up his merry heart and his
sprightly manner to the end, and though he delighted in the undisturbed
companionship of his wife, the disease gained rapidly and he suffered
much pain. Gradually a stupor crept over him, and though it sometimes
lifted, so that with his old sweet smile he had a jest or a word of
welcome for his friends, it never cleared, and he passed gently away in
the early dawn of a January morning, 1779, "leaving that human stage
where he had played with as much excellence and dignity as ever he had
done on his own."
So ended a prosperous, pleasant life, and rarely was a man better liked
by his fellows, or more genuinely mourned. Dr. Johnson, in this moment,
forgot all his later coldness towards the Davy he had once so loved. He
left a card on Mrs. Garrick, and "wished some endeavours of his could
enable her to support a loss which the world cannot repair;" while he
wrote those well-known words, which Mrs. Garrick had engraved on her
husband's memorial monument in Lichfield Cathedral, and which form an
inscription more appropriate than that on the Abbey tomb:--"I am
disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of
nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."
David's devoted wife outlived him for over forty years, keenly
interested to the last in all matters theatrical, and a well-known
figure in the Abbey, where, little and bent, she often made her way to
the tomb which held him she had so loved, and standing there would
readily recount over and over again to willing listeners the triumphs of
"her Davy."
Johnson, as we have seen, settled down in London with the intention of
making literature pay. "No man but a blockhead," he said in his
strongest manner, "ever wrote except for money." Perhaps it was for
opinions such as these that his wife, more than twenty years older than
himself, declared him to be the most sensible man that lived. A curious
figure he must have seemed to those booksellers of whom he demanded work
as a translator, mightily tall and broadly made, with a face which he
twirled and twisted about in a strange fashion, features scarred by
disease, eyes which were of little use to him, and a manner pompous and
overbearing, though redeemed by a kindliness of heart not to be
concealed. But he managed to struggle along, writing squibs or
pamphlets, reporting speeches in Parliament, trying his hand at plays or
poetry, and all the while working away at his Great Dictionary, for
which when finished he was to receive L1500, he out of that sum paying
his copyists and assistants. He founded a club at which he began to
make his reputation as a talker, and out of those conversations with his
special friends there came to him the idea of starting a newspaper on
the lines of Addison's _Spectator_. But Johnson's heavy hand, his love
of long discourses, and the natural melancholy of his nature, did not
fit him for work such as this. His _Rambler_ only lasted for two years,
and certainly made him no fortune, though it may have helped him to
exist during that time. His Dictionary, when it was at last completed,
gave him a surer position in the literary world of London, and he was
paid the sum of L100 for his story of "Rasselas," but most of this went
in paying for the last illness and funeral of his mother, and Johnson
seems to have been sadly in need of money. Through the influence of
some friends, the king, George III. who declared that he was most
anxious to offer "brighter prospects to men of literary merit," proposed
to give Johnson a pension of L300 a year. At first he would not hear of
accepting it--indeed, there was a rather formidable difficulty in the
way, for in his Dictionary he had defined the word pension as being
"generally understood to mean pay given to a State hireling for treason
to his country." However, the explanations and persuasions of his
friends at last overcame the obstacle, and from that time forward he
became one of the best known public characters. A favourite such as
David Garrick he could never have aspired to be, and to fashionable
folks, especially to ladies, he was an untidy, conceited, rugged old
man, who ate enormous meals, drank sometimes twenty-five cups of tea at
one sitting, wore slovenly and dirty clothes, half-burnt wigs, and
slippers almost in tatters. Then he contradicted flatly, and his anger
was of a very vehement kind; though he always declared himself to be a
"most polite man," and was occasionally ceremonious to a wonderful
degree. And yet as he discoursed, men listened to him with such
pleasure that they forgot entirely his many monstrous failings. His
power of argument was magnificent; never could man so slay an adversary
by his words as could this vigorous, quarrelsome, brilliant talker, and
though he hit hard, he did not hit cruelly. There was no venom in his
words, and however violently he argued, he never seems to have lost a
friend through it. On the contrary his circle of admirers constantly
grew, and cheerfully submitted to whatever demands he made upon them.
Chief among those friends, of course, stands the faithful Boswell, who
idolised him with a worship that must have been very wearisome. If
Johnson so much as opened his mouth Boswell bent forward wild with
eagerness, terrified lest one precious word should escape him; he sat as
close to him as he could get, he hung around him like a dog, and no
amount of snubbing could damp his ardour. He delighted in asking his
master a series of such questions as these:--"What would you do if you
were shut up in a castle with a new-born baby?" Or, "Why is a cow's tail
long?"
"I will not be baited with what and why," Johnson would answer
impatiently. "You have only two subjects, yourself and me. I am sick
of both. If your presence does not drive a man out of his house,
nothing will."
Johnson's daily life seems to have been mapped out in this wise. He lay
in bed late into the morning, surrounded by an admiring circle of men
friends, who consulted him on every particular, and listened
respectfully to all his opinions. He only rose in time for a late
dinner at some tavern which occupied most of the afternoon, as other
circles of friends came to listen to him. Then he would drink tea at
some house, frequently spending the rest of the evening there, unless he
was supping with other acquaintances. Except for his "Lives of the
Poets," he wrote but little at this period of his life, and said in
excuse, "that a man could do as much good by talking as by writing."
Johnson was generally melancholy, the result of his miserable health to
a great extent. Yet his pessimism never affected his wonderfully tender
heart. Of his pension he barely spent a third on himself. His house
became, after the death of his wife, the haven for a variety of
unfortunate and homeless people, and there lived in it Miss Williams, a
blind lady, whose temper was not sweet; Levett, a waiter, who had become
a quack doctor; Mrs. Desmoulins, and her daughter, old Lichfield
acquaintances, and a certain Miss Carmichael. Needless to say there was
very little peace in that household, and the poor old Doctor often
dreaded going home. "Williams hates everybody," he wrote to his really
good friends, the Thrales. "Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love
Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll Carmichael loves none of
them."