Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/547

1885.] and most tender and melodious pastoral – the thought will rise that to him, much more aptly than to Sheridan, might Moore have applied his eulogy, that he ran

"Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all. "

Yet, with his various talents, he appeared to many simply as a medium through whose lips a familiar spirit poured stirring utterances which were hardly filtered through his brain; for, tried in society on a sudden, or when the weird influence was absent, he gave no indication of a superior mind, while he offered but too many proofs that he was neither wise nor prudent.

"What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own," are remarks that may be reflected upon the writer of them. Neither Johnson nor Goldsmith saw, probably, how he would appear to posterity, yet each seemed to have some insight into the other's genius. Goldsmith told Johnson that if he wrote of fishes, he would make them all whales; while Johnson said of his friend, that he would make a history of the earth and animated nature as entertaining as a fairy tale.

There was a common friend of them both in whose honour a centenary commemoration might have been very fitting, because, from the nature of his art, his productions could not remain to speak for themselves. I mean, of course, Garrick, whom we can know only by the descriptions and panegyrics which his contemporaries have handed down to us. Some ceremonies, addresses, and well-chosen dramatic exhibitions might have kept dear to memory one whom his own generation thought to be the foremost actor of all this world. In writing thus, I do not, of course, overlook the fact that Garrick's fame has been preserved by the works of his friends.

Apropos of his fame, the assertion that he, or any other, was the greatest actor that ever lived, sounds very arbitrary. That an actor was the first of his own time is a thing susceptible of proof by evidence; but how it can be proved that he excelled performers of another time beside whom he never appeared, and who were never seen by audiences who had enjoyed his presentations of characters, passes comprehension. It is a received axiom with some writers, and accepted by a vast number of believers, that Garrick was the greatest of the actors who have walked the English boards. But how compare Garrick with Macready or with Irving? It is hardly possible that a critic who has seen Irving can have seen Garrick. How, then, is a comparison to be made? This we know – viz., that Garrick's generation be-Rosciused him, extolled him, and enjoyed his talents in a degree to which we find no parallel in foregoing or succeeding generations. This, however, simply proves that Garrick's contemporaries were more devoted to the drama than men of older time or than men of this day. Say that Garrick's career was run at a period when the minds of instructed men and capable critics were directed to the achievements of actors more intently than at any other time, and you will find few to differ from you; but this is very different from demonstrating that he was never equalled on the English stage. He improved, no doubt, the style of acting – was, as Goldsmith said, "natural, simple, affecting" – and so he won the hearts and admiration of all who witnessed his playing; yet others