David Garrick

“ She remained on the settle smiling now and again, and giving a laugh at intervals as she thought of how she had worsted David, as his namesake had worsted the champion of Gath. But soon she became grave.
“I should be ashamed of myself,” she muttered. “David Garrick is the only one of the whole crew at the Lane that never varies. He 's the only one that 's always at his best. God forgive me for the way. I sometimes try to spoil his scenes, for he 's worth Quinn, Macklin, and Barry bound up in one ”

“ Hill took Garrick to task for his faulty pronunciation in a pamphlet entitled ‘To David Garrick, Esq. The Petition of I. in behalf of herself and her sisters.’ To this Garrick replied with another epigram, and writing to Hawkesworth on 20 March 1759 says: ‘Such a villain sure never existed: his scheme now is abuse, and he talks of a paper call'd ye Theatre, in which his Pen will be as free as my crabstick whenever I meet his worship’ (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. viii. 55) . In all these controversies Hill invariably got the worst of it. ”

“ Johnson, whose chief asset was the MS. tragedy of Irene, was at first the host of his former pupil, who, however, before the end of the year took up his residence at Rochester with John Colson (afterwards Lucasian professor at Cambridge) . Captain Garrick died about a month after David’s arrival in London. Soon afterwards, his uncle, the wine merchant at Lisbon, having left David a sum of £1000, he and his brother entered into partnership as wine merchants in London and Lichfield, David taking up the London business. ”

“ GARRICK, DAVID (1717–1779) , English actor and theatrical manager, was descended from a good French Protestant family named Garric or Garrique of Bordeaux, which had settled in England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His father, Captain Peter Garrick, who had married Arabella Clough, the daughter of a vicar choral of Lichfield cathedral, was on a recruiting expedition when his famous third son was born at Hereford on the 19th of February 1717. Captain Garrick, who had made his home at Lichfield, where he had a large family, in 1731 rejoined his regiment at Gibraltar. ”

“ He then addressed himself to Davies: "What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an order for the play for Miss Williams, because he knows the house will be full, and that an order would be worth three shillings." Eager to take any opening to get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, "O, Sir, I cannot think Mr Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir, (said he, with a stern look) I have known David Garrick longer than you have done ”

“ He said one day to Garrick: "I'll come no more behind your scenes, David, for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities." He reproaches himself with his indolence, implores God's pardon, is humble, has scruples. All this is very strange. We ask men what can please them in this grumbling bear, with the manners of a beadle and the inclinations of a constable? They answer, that in London people are less exacting than in Paris, as to manners and politeness; that in England they allow energy to be rude and virtue odd ”

“ Garrick, David, a famous English actor and dramatist, born at Hereford; was educated at Lichfield, the home of his mother, and was for some months in his nineteenth year a pupil of Samuel Johnson; in 1737 he accompanied Johnson to London, with the intention of entering the legal profession, but soon abandoned the purpose, and started in the wine business with his brother; in 1741 he commenced his career as an actor, making his first appearance at Ipswich; in the autumn of the same year he returned to London, and as Richard III. achieved instant success ”

“ In the summer she returned to Dublin, when she sprang to the height of popularity.
She reappeared at Drury Lane on 15 June 1742 as Sir Harry Wildair, and on the arrival of Garrick two days later she played Lady Anne to his Richard III. She also supported him as Angelina in ‘Love makes a Man, or the Fop's Fortune,’ and other parts. She had her share in bringing about what was called the ‘Garrick fever’ [see Garrick, David] , and when Garrick returned to London, she accompanied him, or followed immediately after him. ”

“ On the other hand, Tate Wilkinson says that Garrick’s production of Hamlet in 1773 was well received at Drury Lane even by the galleries, “though without their favourite acquaintances the gravediggers.” Among his published adaptations are an opera, The Fairies (from Midsummer Night’s Dream) (1755) ; an opera The Tempest (1756) ; Catherine and Petruchio (1758) ; Florizel and Perdita (1762) . But not every generation has the same notions of the way in which Shakespeare is best honoured. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men,
We always are ready,
Steady, boys, steady;
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.
We ne’er see our foes but we wish them to stay;
They never see us but they wish us away ”

“ Another element, if not of his success at least of his happiness, was his marriage to that charming singer, the fair Eva M. Veigel or Violette. This lady was said to be “the most agreeable woman in England. ”

“ Besides, sir, I do not see why that should be imputed to him as a crime which we all so irresistibly feel and practise; we all make a greater exertion in the presence of new men than old acquaintance; it is undoubtedly true that Garrick divided his attention among so many, that but little remained to the share of an individual: like the extension and dissipation of water into dew, there was not quantity united sufficiently to quench any man’s thirst; but this is the inevitable state of things; Garrick no more than any other man could unite what was in their nature incompatible. ”

“ The voice of the man was not that of a foreigner.
"Here, Lucille, take this. Only get her interested—I will do the rest—and the money is yours. See—you crush it in the handkerchief—so. Be careful—you WILL crush it before you want to use it. There. Under her nose, you know. I shall be there in a moment and finish the work. That is all you need do—with the handkerchief."
Garrick made a motion, as if to turn a switch in the little vocaphone, and rested his finger on it. ”

“ I found no answer to my speculations, but a glance at my watch told me that it was nearing the time of my appointment with Guy.
A few minutes later I jumped off the car at Headquarters and met Garrick, waiting for me in the lower hall. As we ascended the broad staircase to the second floor, where Dillon's office was, I told him briefly of what I had discovered.
"The old lady will have her wish," he replied grimly as I related the incident of the letter to the editor. "I wonder just how much she really does know of that place. I hope it isn't enough to set her against Warrington. ”

“ By Foote’s buffoonery and broadfaced merriment, private friendship, public decency, and everything estimable amongst men, were trod under foot. We all know the difference of their reception in the world. No man, however high in rank or literature, but was proud to know Garrick, and was glad to have him at his table; no man ever considered or treated Garrick as a player; he may be said to have stepped out of his own rank into an higher, and by raising himself he raised the rank of his profession. ”

“ I speculated, "I don't think you'd have to look further for Forbes than to find her."
"But she isn't alive," concluded Garrick, "and there is nothing to show that there was anyone else at the poolroom for women who interested him—and—well, this isn't getting back to business."
He turned toward the street.
"Let's go down on a surface car," he said. "I think we ought to learn something down there at the Old Tavern, now. If these people have done nothing more, they'll think they have at least given an example of their resourcefulness and succeeded in throwing another scare into Warrington. ”

“ He ran the car carefully off the road and into a little clearing in a clump of dark trees. We got out and pushed stealthily forward through the underbrush to the edge of the woods. There, on the slope, just a little way below us, stood the house of mystery.
Garrick and Dillon were busily conferring in an undertone, as I helped them bring the packages one after another from the car to the edge of the woods. Garrick had slipped the little telephone mouthpiece into his pocket, and was carrying the huge reflector carefully, so that it might not be injured in the darkness. ”

“ The weakly-voiced lad, with no marked presence, and a consumptive look, could obtain audience or [146] favour from no one; least of all from Roscius. He went up to remote Islington, and, in the long room of an inn there, delivered Garrick's Ode on the Shakspeare Jubilee. After this, and, perhaps, in consequence, Garrick received him, heard him recite, shook his head at a voice which was more woolly than silvery, and, after some counsel, procured for him an engagement at Bath, and at a trifling salary.
For five seasons he was a rising, improving, and then cherished actor at Bath. ”

“ I am an old man—of all these varied expressions which is the veritable, the dominant one,—the one which expresses the character of your soul? As long as I fail to discover this expression in the model, so long is my brush paralyzed. I am obliged to seek until I find it. I have painted Garrick both in tragedy and comedy; Admiral Keppel, sword in hand, upon the point of giving the order to clear the decks for action; Kitty Fisher, at her toilet, since it was her profession to be beautiful and to please. ”

“ We hardly had time to enter our own car and reach the corner of Forty-seventh Street, when the big black automobile which we had followed uptown shot by almost before the traffic man at the crossing could signal a clear road.
"We must hang onto him!" cried Garrick, turning to follow. "Did you catch a glimpse of his face? It's our man, the go-between, the keeper of the garage whom they call the Boss. He was as pale as if he had seen a ghost. I guess he did think he heard one. Between the news-paper fake and the speaking arc, I think we've got him going. There he is." ”

“ You reason a thing out to your satisfaction and then one little fact knocks all your clever reasoning sky-high. The trouble here is that on this aspect of the case the truth seems to have been known by only two persons—and one of them is dead, while the other has disappeared."
"Strange what has become of Forbes," I ruminated.
"It is indeed," agreed Garrick. "But then he was such a night-hawk that anything might easily have happened and no one be the wiser. Since you saw him enter the gambling joint the night of the raid, I've been unable to get a line on him. ”

“ Is not Garrick reckoned a tolerable actor? His Cymon, his prologues and epilogues, and forty such pieces of trash, are below mediocrity, and yet delight the mob in the boxes as well as in the footman's gallery. I do not mention the things written in his praise; because he writes most of them himself. But you know any one popular merit can confer all merit. Two women talking of Wilkes, one said he squinted—t'other replied, "Squints!—well, if he does, it is not more than a man should squint." For my part, I can see how extremely well Garrick acts, without thinking him six feet high. ”

“ The situation of poor Garrick is most embarrassing—and appears the more so from the powers of face at his command, as delineated by the artist, whereby he is represented as doubting to which invitation he should yield, while with one half of his face he looks the deepest tragedy, and with the other, the merriest comedy. ”

“ On the stage he could do no more than interpret other people’s notions of life, and these, except in the case of Shakespeare, were, she thought, mostly feeble; but when he was off the stage—well, Sir Joshua Reynolds had told her what that queer person, Dr. Goldsmith, had written about Garrick—the truest criticism Garrick had ever received: “’Twas only that when he was off he was acting.” She knew [20] what she herself owed to Garrick from the time she was nine years old, when he had accustomed her and her sister to look for him at their house almost daily ”

“ There followed a most amazing series of groanings and mutterings from Garrick. I could not imagine what he was up to. The whole proceeding seemed so insane that, for the moment, it left me nonplussed and speechless.
Garrick caught the puzzled look on my face.
"What's the matter?" he laughed heartily, cutting out the microphone momentarily and seeming to enjoy the joke to the utmost.
"Would you prefer to be sent to a State or a private institution?" I rasped, testily. "What insanity is all this? It sounds like the fee-faw-fum and mummery of a voodoo man." ”

“ I can fancy it disturbed Garrick's performance of Tancred on that night; the Rambler was universally read, and the application could not fail. But it disturbed nothing else. Years later, when Johnson visited Garrick at his Hampton villa, the spirit of Asper was softened in his breast, and he was justified in the well-known remark he made, as he contemplated the beauty and grandeur around him:—"These are the things, Davy, that make death terrible!" ”