David Garrick

“ The mere repetition of the language of “Hamlet,” however graceful and correct the elocution may be, without that intensiveness by which Hamlet as a harmonious whole lives in and shines distinctly through the actor, is perhaps a correct enough portrait, but it lacks the living soul. Garrick too had a true workman-like delight in excellence. And with all his natural endowments and genius, perhaps few professional men have worked so constantly and with such a continued enthusiasm to the very end of a public career. ”

“ On a dark and cloudy day, the sun is obscured; he has risen, is well up the horizon, but is draped in cloud and shadow and is invisible; the wing of the storm sweeps away shadow and cloud, and in the twinkling of an eye the burning, blazing sun has burst on view. So burst David Garrick on the British stage. ”

“ Doubtless a helpmate so attractive and so congenial and pure greatly aided the actor in striving to attain his ideal.
Does any one, or all of the qualities mentioned as constituting the equipment of Garrick, account for the fact that unlike Mrs. Siddons, Kemble, and Macready, Garrick at once and by a bound placed himself in the front rank of the priesthood of the stage? The sun sometimes foretells his rising by scattering the clouds that cap the hilltops, while as yet we see him not; but inch by inch he rises like a golden wheel ”