"The animated graces of the player," Colley Cibber has well said, " can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that present them, or at best can but faintly glimmer through the memory or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators." There are many descriptions, and good ones, of Garrick's acting; but the most vivid pen can sketch but faintly even the outlines of an actor's work, and all the finest touches of his art necessarily perish with the moment. Of Garrick, however, we get some glimpses of a very life-like kind, from the letters of Lichtenberg, the celebrated Hogarthian critic, to his friend Boie. Lichtenberg saw Garrick in the autumn of 1775, when he was about to leave the stage, in Abel Drugger, in Archer in the "Beaux Stratagem," in Sir John Brute in the "Provoked Wife," in Hamlet, in Lusignan in Aaron Hill's version of "Zaire," and in Don Leon in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife." He brought to the task of chronicler powers of observation and a critical faculty scarcely second to Lessing's. "What is it," he writes, "which gives to this man his great superiority? The causes, my friend, are numerous, and very very much is due to his peculiarly happy organization. . . In his entire figure, movements, and bearing, Mr. Garrick has a something which I have seen twice in a modified degree among the few Frenchmen I have known, but which I have never met with among the many Englishmen who have come under my notice. In saying this I mean Frenchmen of middle age, and good society, of course. If, for exam ple, he turns towards any one with an inclination of the person, it is not the head, not the shoulders, not the feet and arms alone, that are employed, but each combines harmoniously to produce a result that is most agreeable and apt to the situation. When he steps upon the stage, though not moved by fear, hope, jealousy, or other emotion, at once you see him and him alone. He walks and bears himself among the other performers like a man among marionettes. From what I have said, no one will form any idea of Mr. Garrick's deportment, unless he has at some time had his attention arrested by the demeanour of such a well-bred Frenchman as I have indicated, in which case this hint would be the best description. His stature inclines rather to the under than the middle size, and his figure is thickset. His limbs are charmingly proportioned, and the whole man is put together in the neatest way. The most practiced eye cannot detect a flaw about him, either in details, or in ensemble, or in movement. In the latter one is charmed to observe a rich reserve of power, which, as you are aware, when well indicated, is more agreeable than a profuse expenditure of it. There is nothing flurried, or flaccid, or languid about him, and where other actors in the motion of their arms and legs allow themselves a space of six or more inches on either side of what is graceful, he hits the right thing to a hair, with admirable firmness and certainty. His manner of walking, of shrugging his shoulders, of tucking in his arms, of putting on his hat, at one time pressing it over his eyes, at another pushing it sideways off his forehead, all done with an airy motion of the limbs, as though he were all right hand, is consequently refreshing to witness. One feels one's self vigorous and elastic, as one sees the vigor and precision of his movements, and how perfectly at ease he seems to be in every muscle of his body. If I mistake not, his compact figure contributes not a little to this effect. His symmetrically formed limbs taper down ward from a robust thigh, closing in the neatest foot you can imagine; and in like manner his muscular arm tapers off into a small hand. What effect this must produce you can easily imagine." A description like this, aided by the many admirable portraits which exist, enables us to see the very man, not merely as he appeared on the stage, but also as he moved in the brilliant social circle, which he quickened by the vivacity, the drollery, the gallant tenderness to women, and the kindly wit, which made him, in Goldsmith's happy phrase, "the abridgment of all that is pleasant in man." When Lichtenberg saw Garrick he was fifty-nine. But with such a man, as Kitty Clive had said of herself and him some years before, "What signifies fifty-nine? The public had rather see the Garrick and the Clive at a hundred and four than any of the moderns." His was a spirit of the kind that keeps at bay the signs of age. age. "Gout, stone, and sore throat," as he wrote about this period; "yet I am in spirits." To the two first of these he had long been a martyr, and sometimes suffered horribly from the exertion of acting. When he had to play Richard, he told Craddock, "I dread the fight and the fall; I am af terwards in agonies." But the audience saw nothing of this, nor, in the heat of the performance, was he conscious of it himself. It is obvious that Lichtenberg at least saw no trace in him of failing power, or of the bodily weakness which had for some time been warning him to retire. He had meditated this for several years; but at last, in 1775, his resolution was taken. His illnesses were growing more frequent and more severe. People were beginning to discuss his age in the papers, and, with execrable taste, a public appeal was made to him by Governor Penn to decide a bet which had been made that he was sixty. "As you have so kindly pulled off my mask," he replied, "it is time for me to make my exit." He had accumulated a large fortune. The actors and actresses with whom his greatest triumphs were associated were either dead or in retirement. Their successors, inferior in all ways, were little to his taste. The worries of management, the ceaseless wrangling with actors and authors which it involved, fretted him more than ever. He had lived enough for fame, and yearned for freedom and rest. the end of 1775 he disposed of his interest in Drury Lane to Sheridan, Linley, and Ford. "Now," he wrote, "I shall shake off my chains, and no culprit in a jail-delivery will be happier." At When his resolution. to leave the stage was known to be finally taken, there was a rush from all parts, not of England only, but of Europe, to see his last performances. Such were the crowds, that foreigners who had come to England for the purpose were un able to gain admission. While all sorts of grand people were going on their knees to him for a box, with characteristic kindness, he did not forget his humbler friends. The piece selected for his farewell was "The Wonder;" and it was announced, with Garrick's usual good taste, simply as a performance for "the benefit of the Theatrical Fund." No gigantic posters, no newspaper puffs clamorously invoked the public inter est. The town knew only too well what it was going to lose, and every corner of the theatre was crammed. In his zeal for the charity of which he was the founder, and to which this "mean" man contributed over £5000, Garrick had written an occasional Prologue, to bespeak the good-will of his audience in its favor. It has all his wonted vivacity and point, and one line "A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind”. has passed into a household phrase. This he spoke as only he could speak such things. He had entire command of his spirits, and he even thought that he never played Don Felix to more advantage. So, at least, he wrote to Madame Necker eight days afterwards; but when it came to taking the last farewell, he adds-"I not only lost the use of my voice, but of my limbs, too; it was indeed, as I said, a most awful moment. You would not have thought an English audience void of feeling, if you had then seen and heard them. After I had left the stage, and was dead to them, they would not suffer the petite pièce to go on; nor would the actors perform, they were so affected; in short, the public was very generous, and I am most grateful." Garrick did not enjoy his retirement long. While on his wonted Christmas visit to the Spencers at Althorpe, in 1778, he was attacked by his old ailment. He hurried back to his house in the Adelphi, and, after some days of great pain and prostration, died upon the 20th of January following. His funeral at Westminster Abbey was upon an imposing scale. Among the pall-bearers were Lord Camden, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Spencer, Viscount Palmerston, and Sir W. W. Wynne, and the members of the Literary Club attended in a body. "I saw old Samuel Johnson," says Cumberland, "standing beside his grave, at the foot of Shakespeare's monument, and bathed in tears." Johnson wrote of the event afterwards as one that had eclipsed the gayety of nations. In October, 1822, at the extreme age of ninety-eight, Mrs. Garrick was found dead in her chair, having lived in full possession of her faculties to the last. For thirty years she would not suffer the room to be opened in which her husband had died. "He never was a husband to me," she said, in her old age, to a friend; "during the thirty years of our marriage he was always my lover!" She was buried, in her wedding sheets, at the base of Shakespeare's statue, in the same grave which forty-three years before had closed over her "dear Davie." |