fashions of his time. Of him, a writer has sarcastically remarked. that he praised only the dead, and was forever attacking his contemporaries! He who refrained from evil-speaking against those who could no longer defend themselves, and who flung the shafts of his wit and satire only at those who had tongues wherewith to reply, was in that much a true and honest fellow. "Mr. Cibber, I take my leave of you with some respect!" It is none the less for the satire of the "Craftsman," who ordered the players to go into mourning for the defunct manager; the actresses to wear black capuchins, and the men of the company "dirty shirts!"

CHAPTER III.

ENGLAND AND IRELAND.

THE season 1757-8 was the last of the series during which Barry opposed Garrick. At the close of it, Spranger proceeded to Dublin, taking with him from Drury Lane, versatile Woodward, to retain whom Garrick would not increase his salary.

At Drury, Garrick brought out Home's "Agis," with a cast including himself, Mossop, and Mrs. Cibber; Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Yates! The piece failed notwithstanding. Walpole would not praise it, and the angry author would never speak, or even bow to him, afterwards. Gray compared this piece to an antique statue which Home had painted white and red, and dressed in a negligée, made by a York mantua-maker! Other critics found in "Agis,” Charles I. treacherously dealt with by the Scots, whereby the author had intended to punish his nation for its bigotry with regard to the drama generally, and "Douglas" in particular. Walpole added that Home was a goose for writing a second tragedy at all, after having succeeded so well with the first. It was unfortunate for this critic that "Agis" was written before "Douglas," though it followed in succession of representation.

Murphy, who had been a student at St. Omer's, a clerk in a city bank, an unsuccessful actor, and a political writer; who, moreover, was refused a call to the bar by the benchers of the Temple and Gray's Inn, on the ground of his having been a player! but who was admitted by the less bigoted benchers of Lincoln's Inn, feeling his way towards comedy illustrative of character, by farces descriptive of foibles, very humorously satirized the quidnunes who then abounded, in his "Upholsterer, or What Next?" in which Garrick acted Pamphlet, as carefully as he did Ranger or King Lear.

But Garrick's chief concern was to replace Woodward, and in this he as nearly succeeded as he could expect, by engaging an

Irish actor, O'Brien, who, in the early part of 1758-9 made his appearance as Captain Brazen, and, by the graceful way in which he drew his sword, charmed all who were not aware that his father was a fencing master. He exulted in light comedy and young tragic lovers, for half a dozen years, after which he became the hero of a romance in life, and began to be ashamed of his calling. The great incident of the season was the acting of Anthony, by Garrick, to the Cleopatra of Mrs. Yates, but they gained even more laurels as Zamti and Mandane in the "Orphan of China," a tragedy, wherein small matters are handled in a transcendental style. But Mandane lifted Mrs. Yates to an equality with Mrs. Cibber; and Walpole, who spoke of Murphy, sneeringly, as a "writing actor," did him the justice to add that he was very good company."

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Then, Foote played Shylock! Wilkinson delighted everybody by his imitations, save the actors whom he mimicked, and Garrick took the "Pupille" of the Gallo-Irish Fagan, and polished it into the pretty little comedietta, the "Guardian," in which his Heartly showed what a man of genius could make of so small a part. Mozeen, who had left the law for the stage, found a bright opportunity for Miss Barton in his "Heiress;" and Dr. Hill showed the asinine side of his character by describing his farce of the "Route" as by a person of honor!"

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"For physic and farces, his equal there scarce is ;

His farces are physic, his physic a farce is !"

So wrote Garrick of Hill, who was a clever man, but one who lacked tact and judgment, and got buffeted by men who had not a tithe of his zeal and industry. His chief defect lay in his intolerable conceit.

Dodsley's "Cleone," rejected by Garrick, became the distinction of the Covent Garden season of 1758-9. Ross played Sifroy, and Mrs. Bellamy the heroine. As a counter-attraction, Garrick essayed Marplot, in vain. "Cleone" is a romantic tragedy. The time is that of the Saracenic invasion of the south of France, and the story bears close resemblance to the legend of St. Genevieve, where a faithful young wife and mother suffers under unmerited charges of treason to her absent husband and her home. The author extended his drama from three acts to five, at the sugges

tion of Pope. Dr. Johnson subsequently looked upon it as the noblest effort made since the time of Otway! and Lord Chesterfield contributed advice which shows that stage-French was not of the best quality in those days. "You should instruct the actors," he said, "not to mouth out the oy in the name of Sifroy as though they were crying oysters." People," writes Gray to Mason, "who despised 'Cleone' in manuscript, went to see it, and confess they cried so!" Dodsley, after some flatness, “piled the agony," skilfully, and Mrs. Bellamy made hearts ache and eyes weep, for many successive glorious and melancholy nights.

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The stage lost Mrs. Macklin this year, such an "old woman" as it was not to see again till the period of Mrs. Davenport. In October, 1759, too, Theophilus Cibber satisfied people that he was not born to be hanged. With Lord Drogheda and his son, Harlequin Mattocks, Miss Wilkinson the wire-dancer, and a shipload of frippery, he was crossing the Irish Sea from Parkgate to Dublin, when the vessel was caught in a gale, and went down with all on board. Such was the end of a fair player and a sad rogue. Somewhere off the Scottish coast, whither the ship had been blown, perished Ancient Pistol, and the original George Barnwell. His sire, wife, and sister bore the calamity which had fallen upon him, with philosophical equanimity.

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On the retirement of Barry from London, Garrick travelled abroad, for a year, to recruit his health. All the intervening time, till Barry returned, has the appearance of a season of truce. great tragic actor arose to seize the wreath of either of the absent tragedians, though the town was seduced from its respective allegiances, for a moment, by the advent and bright promise of young Powell; and Walpole was eager to recognize a greater than Garrick in the aspiring city clerk.

Walpole was accustomed to describe Garrick as a mere machine, in whom the power to express Shakspeare's words with propriety, was absurdly held to be a merit! "On the night of Powell's first appearance, the audience," says Walpole, "not content with clapping, stood up and shouted." Walpole adds, that Powell had been clerk to Sir Robert Ladbroke, and "so clever in business, that his master would have taken him in as a partner; but he had an impulse for the stage. His figure is fine, and voice most

sonorous, as they say, but I wait for the rebound of his fame, and till I can get in, but at present all the boxes are taken for a month.” Walpole suppresses the fact that Garrick had not only selected Powell as his substitute, in his absence, but had carefully instructed him in the part of Philaster, and thereby helped him to the triumphant position which the young actor, then twenty-eight years of age, held during the first of his few seasons, from 1763 to 1768, the year of poor Powell's death.

No new tragic poet of eminence now arose, nor did any old one increase his reputation. Home is supposed to have been thinking of the siege of Berwick when, in his "Siege of Aquileia," he portrayed our Edward under the figure of Maximin. Brookes's boasted purity of language and sentiment in his "Earl of Essex" was playfully crushed by Johnson. "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free," was a line cited for its beauty, by Sheridan, the actor. "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat," was the stupid comment of the lexicographer.

Farce flourished within this period,-supplied by the Rev. Mr. Townley, Garrick, Foote, Colman, and Murphy, the last of whom increased his fame by such comedies as the bustling, and yet monotonously bustling, "All in the Wrong," and the "Way to Keep Him." The authors of this period sought to correct faults and not to laugh at them. This, perhaps, gives a didactic turn to the plays of Murphy and Mrs. Sheridan, which renders them somewhat heavy when compared with the comedies of those who were rather among the wits, than the teachers, of their days. But a new brilliancy, too, was to be found in the later writers. Colman's "Jealous Wife," in which Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard were the Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, and the "Clandestine Marriage," prin cipally Colman's, but in which Garrick had a share, were full of this brilliancy. With the exception of Hoadley's "Suspicious Husband," no modern comedy had such success as these. Every great actor still tries Mr. Oakley, and the noblest of old beaux has been the heritage only of the most finished of our comedians, from King, with whom it originated, down to Farren, with whom it seems to have died.

While the insolence of servants and the weaknesses of masters were satirized in "High Life below Stairs," a piece which George