Mason's "Caractacus," the acting of which Walpole styles “a barbarous exhibition." The chief part (given to Clarke), he cruelly says, "will not suffer in not being sputtered by Barry, who has lost all his teeth."

In Garrick's last season, he looked youthful parts as well as ever he did. It was the reverse with Barry, who gave up Douglas for Old Norval, and who was so ill, while dressing for Jaffier, that acting it seemned impossible; and yet the great player, at whom Walpole sneers, entered on the stage only to be inspired; he was warmed by the interest of the scene, and, brightening with the glow of love and tenderness, communicated his feelings to all around-but he fell almost into insensibility on reaching the greenroom. He played Evander to Mrs. Barry's Euphrasia, on the 28th of December, 1776-the last time on which his name appeared in the bills. Death took him, and Shuter, and Woodward, close upon one another; but Garrick and Kitty Clive retired to enjoy a season of luxurious rest-Garrick at Hampton, and Mrs. Clive, between Margaret Woffington's grave, and Horace Walpole's mansion at Teddington.

The great actor, in his retirement, used to smile, when his friends told him he had surpassed Betterton. Whether the smile showed he accepted the flattery or differed from the opinion, I do not know; but Garrick would remark, that Booth, in "Cato," had never been excelled; and yet, when Quin first played the part, the pit rang with," Booth outdone!" and encored the famous soliloquy -an honor never enjoyed by either Betterton or Garrick. Letus now accompany the latter to Hampton, and, sojourning with him there, look back over his past career.

CHAPTER VIII.

DAVID GARRICK.

WHEN Garrick commenced his career as actor, he was twentyfive 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 labor 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 every thing 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 is 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 honors. 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 £1,000, 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. 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 desormais, 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 gentlemen 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 10th 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 his guest inferior tea, talks of his jeweller and silversmith, boasts of his intimacy with Lord Cofty, alludes to his chariot, and ladies he takes in it to the Hark, 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