Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/598

GAR was painter to Queen Elizabeth and Anne of Denmark, queen of James I., and died in England in 1635. Garrard's works, says Walpole, are very numerous, though not easily known, as they are not signed—"in general they are neat, the ruffs and habits stiff, and rich with pearls md other jewels. His flesh colours are thin and light, tending to a bluish tincture." He painted the procession of Queen Elizabeth to Hunsdon-house, which has been engraved by Virtue; it is now at Sherburn, Dorsetshire. He painted also, in 1584, a procession of the queen and the knights of the garter. This was likewise copied by Virtue in water colours. Among Garrard's many portraits are those of the sons of James I., the princes Henry and Charles. There are some portraits by him at Ditchley, Oxfordshire; Camden the historian is in the Bodleian gallery at Oxford. His own portrait was engraved by Hollar. His "Introduction to the general art of drawing" was published in English, in quarto, 1674.—(Van Mander, Het Leven der schilders; Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, &c.)—R. N. W.  GARRICK,, the celebrated actor, was born at Hereford, in the early part of 1716; the church register of baptisms proving that he was baptized on the 20th of February of that year. His father was a captain in the army, and a son of a merchant of France, who fled to England at the revocation of the edict of Nantes. His mother was the daughter of a Rev. Mr. Clough, one of the vicars in Lichfield cathedral. Young Garrick was sent to the school at Lichfield when he was ten years old, and before he had been there a twelvemonth, he gave token of what his future career was to be, by establishing a company of actors amongst his school-fellows, whom he drilled with such success, that they ventured to perform the Recruiting Officer before a select audience, their leader taking the part of Sergeant Kite with great humour. In 1729 or 1730 his friends tried to sober him down by sending him to a wine merchant's counting-house, but it was of no avail, and he came home to be consigned a little longer to his studies. It was just at this time, that the very simple advertisement appeared, that "at Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen were boarded and taught the Greek and Latin languages by Samuel Johnson," and to him Garrick accordingly went to try the classics. Johnson, however, soon got as weary of teaching as his pupil was of learning, and one morning in March, 1737, both the friends set out for London to seek their fortunes. Garrick, after attempting the law to no purpose, embarked in the wine trade in Durham Yard, where Foote recollected seeing him "with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine merchant." After some little time he found out that he was not in his element, and that he was born to be an actor. He thought it best to commence at a provincial theatre, and he therefore repaired to Ipswich, where he began with the character of Aboan in a tragedy called Oroonoka. The people for miles round flocked to see the new performer, who, in a few days, had taken the house by storm. He now determined to attempt the London stage, to which he obtained an introduction through his friend Gifford, the manager of Goodman's Fields. He made his first appearance on the 19th October, 1741, as Richard III., and immediately produced such a sensation, that it was a customary thing for the streets to be choked with carriages as far as Temple Bar. He afterwards distinguished himself still more in King Lear, and he has told us to what cause he owed a great portion of his success in that play. A poor friend of his had the misfortune to lose his granddaughter, to whom he was tenderly attached, by letting her drop out of the window. His grief and self-reproach brought on madness; the paroxysms of which Garrick would watch with intense interest, and then endeavour to reproduce them to his audience. That this is a complete account of the secret of his power, of course none will believe, for no method of working will explain the great mystery of genius; but there is no doubt he owed much of his popularity to his habit of copying carefully the passions of people whom he actually saw; and that the contrast which his faithful acting exhibited to the wretched, stilted mannerisms of his predecessors, must have charmed men's hearts as it could not have done, if they had previously been accustomed to anything less artificial. In 1741 his fame having spread to Ireland, he entered into an engagement with the proprietors of the Dublin theatre, where the furor he excited was so great, that an epidemic which happened at that time to be raging in the town was called the Garrick fever. In 1742 he returned to London, and was immediately secured by Fleetwood, the manager of Drury Lane, at what was then considered the enormous salary of .£500 a year. He now essayed Hamlet, and created such an enthusiasm, that his enemies called him the Whitfield of the stage—a comparison which we should now consider harmless, or even honourable, but which was then intended to convey a biting satire. We often hear it said that it is to the Germans that we in this country owe our appreciation of Shakspeare. To a certain extent this may be true; but we should recollect, that long before English philosophers had learnt to theorize about their great poet, the common people had loved and worshipped their everyday preacher, through Garrick, and that it was through him also, that the stage was first cleared of all those miserable travesties which had so long disfigured it. In 1747 he became the joint manager with Lacy, of Drury Lane, and the season opened with a prologue by Dr. Johnson. From this time down to the year 1776, when Garrick retired, his biography is a history of almost continual prosperity—a prosperity too which in the main was founded upon nothing meretricious, but which was honestly earned by his grand realizations of Shaksperian characters. One of the few failures was Johnson's Irene; but at this untoward event no one can wonder. By the year 1755, the fame of the great tragedian had pierced the dull ears of George II., who thought it his duty to honour Richard III. with his royal presence. What a dubious honour this was, may he gathered from the account of his majesty's emotions which Fitzherbert afterwards gave to Garrick, who was naturally impatient to know what the king thought of his acting. "I can say nothing on that head," replied Fitzherbert, "but when an actor told Richard, the Mayor of London comes to greet you, the king roused himself, and when Taswell entered buffooning the character, the king exclaimed, "Duke of Grafton, I like that Lord Mayor," and when the scene was over, he said, "Duke of Grafton, that is a good Lord Mayor." "Well, but the warlike bustle," said Garrick, "the drums and the trumpets and the shouts of the soldiers must have awakened a great military genius." "I can say nothing of that," replied Fitzherbert, "but when Richard was in Bosworth field roaring for a horse, his majesty said, "Duke of Grafton, will that Lord Mayor not come again?" Garrick held his tongue, but not from any inability to speak and that to the purpose, as the epigrams sufficiently show which he published about this time on an unfortunate creature named Hill, a physician, who had attacked him firstly for the misuse of the letters I and U, and secondly because a farce, which Hill had composed, had not met with the reception which the author thought was its due. He was punished in the following lines, which are worthy of being recorded as perhaps the neatest and most caustic of the kind ever written:—

And again—

In 1749, Garrick had married a beautiful danseuse named Violetti, and her health having begun to fail, he was induced for this and other reasons to undertake a tour abroad. He visited Paris in 1765 where he was invited to meet Clairon, the French actress. During the conversation he was invited to give the company some idea of his powers. He accordingly imitated the grief of his unfortunate friend who had lost his granddaughter, and he acted so well, that every one in the room was overcome and burst into tears. He returned to England in 1765 to resume his management at Drury Lane, and in 1769 we find him still constant to his old attachment, by planning a grand jubilee to the memory of Shakspeare at Stratford-on-Avon. He composed several songs as well as an ode for the occasion, which he recited himself, and which he repeated when the jubilee was afterwards transferred to the boards of Drury Lane. It is full of expressions of the deepest reverence for Shakspeare, whom he calls the "god of his idolatry," and it shows very strongly, that the author's power over his audience was not the result of any merely professional excellence, but was produced by his heartfelt, passionate worship of his great master. Soon after this, he began to think 