DAVID GARRICK.

DAVID GARRICK was born at Hereford, in 1716. He lived during one of the most interesting periods in the history of English literature. His father was a captain in the English army, but settled at Litchfield on half-pay, with the hope of being able to support his family. All his efforts in this direction were fruitless. He experienced the severest trials of poverty. He was compelled to join his regiment again in 1731, in order to relieve distress. His wife, poor dear, faithful creature, broken in health and spirits, undertook the care of a family of seven children. We cannot attempt to describe her suffering during the absence of her husband. She loved him with a devotion not of earth, but of some purer realm. In the midst of trouble and sickness and distress, she ever looked forward to a bright and happy future, when no cloud should darken the threshold of her happy home. The words of comfort she sent to the absent husband and father unlock all the portals of the heart capable of being moved by words of sympathy and love. "I must tell my dear life and soul," she writes, in a letter breathing the tenderest vow of affection, and which a reviewer says reads like a bit of Thackeray or Sterne, “that I am not able to live any longer without him, for I grow very jealous. But in the midst of all this I do not blame my dear. I have very sad dreams for you, but I have the pleasure when I am up to think were I with you,

how tender my dear would be to me

-nay, was when I was with you last. Oh, that I had you in my arms! I would tell my dear life how much I am his.”

How slowly the time passed! Only two years were gone three more were to elapse before they were to be together again. O cruel fate! why is it that the records of loved and loving hearts are so often written in tears and blood? The husband returned at last, but only to die in the arms of his fond and faithful wife. It is almost unnecessary to add that in less than one year her troubled soul too was at rest.

In early youth GARRICK displayed extraordinary talent for acting. When eleven years of age he acted in a play entitled "The Recruiting Officer," and received no little applause from a select audience. In 1728 he went to Lisbon to visit a wealthy uncle, and while at his house often amused dinner parties by the recitation of poems and speeches. He would then have adopted the profession of an actor, but his family had a great prejudice against the stage, and his kind and gentle and affectionate disposition would not allow him to do aught that would add to their displeasure.

At eighteen he was one of the three pupils at Dr. Johnson's "Academy." A few years afterward he went to London in company with his teacher. The latter described their pecuniary condition by saying that one had but twopence half-penny in his pocket, and the other three halfpence in his. Johnson doubtless endeavored to make sport of their condition, but it is certain that their means were indeed limited.

GARRICK tried his fortune as a wine merchant, with indifferent success. Foote, the author of the popular farce on Taste, and one of the wittiest as well as one of the meanest of men, used to say that he recollected GARRICK

calling himself a wine merchant with but three quarts of vinegar in his cellar.

GARRICK attended the theatres of London constantly, and in 1740 had made some reputation as a dramatic critic and as an elocutionist. In 1741 he made his first appearance as an actor at Ipswich. A few months later he played Richard III. before a London audience. His reputation. was at once secured. His fame spread rapidly throughout the country. The beau monde of London vied with one another in doing him homage. He was everywhere admired and praised. He was dined, wined and feasted, not only by people of fashion, but by the greatest authors, lawyers and statesmen. He won the friendship of Burke, of Pitt, and of Lyttleton, of Reynolds and Goldsmith. Leonidas Glover called to see him every day. Even the bard of Twickenham, now old and feeble and ill in health, left his home to see him. The London press teemed with the most enthusiastic eulogies upon his wonderful gifts. The Post declared him to be the most extraordinary man ever known. The history of the stage was searched in vain for a parallel. He had totally eclipsed the fame of Booth, and Quin, and Betterton. The Duke of Argyle could not find language extravagant enough to praise him. The cynical Walpole said that he was the greatest actor that ever lived, either in tragedy or comedy. Even Bishop Newton wrote to him, "I have seen your Richard, Chamont, Bayes, and Lear. I never saw four actors more different from one another than you are from yourself." Macklin, who disliked him, and who struggled to rival him, thus spoke of his Lear, "The curse was particularly grand. It seemed to electrify the audience with horror. The words 'Kill! kill! kill!' echoed all the revenge of a frantic king." Everything he played added to his reputation. There was something almost idolatrous about the honors shown him.

He was looked upon "less with admiration than wonder." Though small in stature, he awed every one who beheld him with the majesty of his appearance. Johnson, who had no appreciation whatever of acting, at one time pretended to dislike him, but would never allow any one else to speak ill of him. When GARRICK suggested some changes in the tragedy of "Irene," "Sir," said Johnson, "the fellow wants me to make Mahomet run mad, that he may have an opportunity of tossing his head and kicking his heels." At another time he spoke of him “ as a fellow who claps a hump on his back and a lump on his leg, and cries, 'I am Richard III.'" Even Boswell confesses that Johnson was jealous of the fame of GARRICK, and that it was incomprehensible to him that an actor's art should be esteemed so highly. Johnson, however, was either too conscientious, or had too high a regard for the opinion of others, not to acknowledge him the greatest actor he had ever seen.

But notwithstanding the many epithets Johnson applied to GARRICK, he offered to write his life, wept the bitterest tears at his funeral, and afterwards spoke of his death as an “event that had eclipsed the gaiety of nations." He took leave of the stage in 1776, in the part of Don Felix, in the comedy of "Wonder." He was greeted by a distinguished and an enthusiastic audience. His farewell address was eloquent and affecting in the extreme, and moved his hearers to tears. He died in 1779, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, near the monument of Shakspeare.

Few persons have been more distinguished for domestic and social virtues than this great actor. He was kind, and gentle, and charitable. He was on terms of intimacy with nearly all the great men of his time. to assist, both with his purse and with deserving person who applied to him.

He was ever ready his sympathy, every There was but one

thing about him that we do not love to think of. We allude to his unworthy attachment to the beautiful but frail Peg Woffington. She was a fine actress, and possessed the rarest gifts for the appreciation of excellence and merit in others. She was a brilliant talker, and charmed all who drew near her with her quick, ready wit, and sparkling humor. She could portray a fine lady to perfection. In such characters as Millamant and Lady Townley she reigned without a rival. She sprang from the lowest dregs of society. She had been actually picked up out of the streets of Dublin, crying "half-penny salads." She has been described as a dazzling creature, with a head of beautiful form, perched like a bird upon a throat massive, yet shapely, and smooth as a column of alabaster, with dark eyes full of fire and tenderness, a delicious mouth with a hundred varying expressions, and that marvelous faculty of giving beauty alike to love or scorn, a sneer or a smile. But with all her graces of mind and person, she lacked constancy and fidelity. She professed to care only for the society of gentlemen, and often said that women talked of nothing but silks and scandal. She is said to have played the character of Sir Harry Wildair even better than GARRICK. The latter refused to compete with her in it, and abandoned the part wholly to her. one occasion she was so pleased with the applause she received in this character, that she ran from the stage into the green-room, and exclaimed, "By Jove! I believe onehalf the audience think I am a man." To which Quin replied, “Madam, the other half, then, have the best reason of knowing to the contrary."

On

GARRICK at one time thought of marrying her, but his better nature triumphed over this folly.

He was a singularly pure-hearted man, a profound scholar, and was versed in an infinite variety of know