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 honors of his house very respectfully, and, though in high spirits, seemed sensible of the honor 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 behavior, 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 goodbreeding, 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 IIorace 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, 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, Gibbou, 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; Haberden, 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 honor of supporting the pall, at his funeral. The players, whose charitable fund he had been mainly instrumental in raising to near £5,000, stood near their master's grave, to which the statue of Shakspeare pointed, to do him honor. 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!"

And Mrs. Garrick? She wore her long widowhood till 1822, dying then in the same house on the Adelphi Terrace. She was the honored guest of hosts whom all men honored; 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.

ances.

As I take leave of Garrick, I remember the touching scene which occurred on the last night but one of his public performHis farewell to the stage was made in a comic character; but he and tragedy parted forever, 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 dressingroom; 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 forever!

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 poetsShakspeare, 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.

CHAPTER IX.

SPRANGER AND ANNE BARRY.

OUTSIDE the five and thirty years of Barry's professional life, little is known of him. As of Betterton, it may be said, he labored, loved, suffered losses, and died. It is the sum of many a man's biography.

I

Spranger's professional career is traced in preceding pages; but may add to it, that Dublin is to this day, and with reason, proud of Spranger Barry, and of Margaret Woffington; for mere human beauty they have never been surpassed; for talents and for genius, with respect to their profession, they have not often been equalled. Spranger of the silver tongue, was the only actor who ever shook Garrick on his throne; but lacking the fulness of the perfection of Garrick, Barry only shook him for an instant; he never dethroned him. He is remembered as the vanquished wrestler is remembered, who has wrestled his best, given a heavy fall or two, has succumbed in the last grapple, and is carried from the arena on loving arms, amid the acclamations of the spectators, and with the respect of his conqueror.

In the Irish silversmith's accomplished son, born in 1719, there was very good blood, with some of the disadvantages attached to that possession. Of fine personal appearance and bearing, an aristocratic expression, and a voice that might win a bird from the nest, Spranger Barry had expensive and too magnificent tastes. He was a gentleman; but he lived as though he were the lord of countless thousands, and with an income on which an earl might have existed becomingly, with moderate prudence, Spranger Barry died poor.

From the very first, Barry took foremost ground; and Mrs. Delaney may well expatiate on the delight of seeing Garrick, Barry, and Sheridan, together in one piece. Such a triad as those three were, when young, in the very brightest of their powers, and