not yet Mrs. Pritchard for his lady. How wonderfully those two acted together in that wonderful play, although he did act the thane in scarlet coat and white wig, has been described too frequently to call for special mention.

His Othello, however, was a failure. His appearance was against him; his black face-for the Moor was a nigger in those days-and his small figure clad in the scarlet uniform of a British officer must have produced rather a comic coup d'œil. Quin was in the pit on the first night, and when he entered exclaimed, loud enough to be heard upon the stage, "Here's Pompey, by ——, where's the lamp and the tea-kettle?" (alluding to Hogarth's black boy). In the next season Barry came with his splendid and majestic figure, and drew all London to see him as the noble Moor. Upon which Garrick very wisely abandoned the part.

David went to Covent Garden. It was the most critical, indeed the turning, point of his career. Barry was drawing crowds by his Othello, Lord Townly, Macbeth, etc., and now he, Garrick, was to be pitted against Quin upon the same boards, the two styles of acting were to be brought face to face, put upon their trial, and judgment to be pronounced. It was the battle of the old and new school, and no quarter would be given. The excitement was enormous. The theatre was an institution in those days, and its wars and rivalries were to intellectual London a subject of almost as much importance as had been the Scottish rebellion. It was on the 14th of November, 1746, in Rowe's "Fair Penitent," the duel took place. Cumberland, then a youth, was present, and has bequeathed us a most graphic picture of the event.

"I have the spectacle even now before my eyes. Quin presented himself, on the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat, embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very little variation of cadence, and in a deep, full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the senate than the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the plaudits that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key highpitched but sweet withal, sang, or rather recitatived, Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the Improvisatores; it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that, though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it. When she had once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the manner of every succeeding one; it was like a long, old legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of which is sung to the same tune eternally, chiming in the ear without variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard was an actress of a different cast, had more nature, and of course more change of tone, and variety both of action and expression; in my opinion the comparison was decidedly in her favor; but when after long and eager expectation I saw little Garrick, then young and light, and alive in every muscle and in every feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont and heavy-paced Horatio-heavens, what a transition!-it scemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too long attached to prejudices of custom, and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. This heaven-born actor was struggling then to emancipate his audience from the slavery they were resigned to, yet in general they seemed to love darkness better than light, and in the dialogue of altercation between Horatio and Lothario bestowed far the

greater show of hands upon the master of the old school than upon the founder of the new.

After this the two rivals appeared as Falstaff and Hotspur; here Quin had the best, for his fat knight was a great performance, and Percy was not one of Garrick's successful parts. But in "Jane Shore" the tables were again turned: Quin strutted and bellowed through Glo'ster, but Garrick played Hastings superbly, and it continued to be one of his finest impersonations. That splendid comedy too, "The Suspicious Husband," gave him an opening for such comedy-acting as had never been witnessed before in that generation. Nothing more dashing, vivacious, and artistic than his Ranger could be conceived.

The next year he went into partnership with Lacy, in the Drury-Lane patent. He had come off best against Quin; he now entered the lists against the man who was dividing with him the favor of the town-Spranger Barry. It was a grand company: Garrick, Barry, and Macklin, the leading men; Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Clive, were among the ladies. Quin had retired in disgust; Macklin was the Shylock; Barry the Hamlet, Othello, Pierre; Garrick the Archer, Abel Drugger, Lear, Richard, Sir John Brute, Hamlet, Macbeth; and the two appeared together as Chamont and Castalio ("The Orphan "), Lothario and Horatio ("Fair Penitent"), Jaffier and Pierre ("Venice Preserved"). How one envies one's ancestors who beheld these splendid intellectual contests! The next season witnessed the revival of "Romeo and Juliet," with Barry and Mrs. Cibber, but it was played only once: the furore was to come. Garrick's great triumph was Benedick, with Mrs. Pritchard as Beatrice-two splendid per

formances. That year he married the beautiful Mdlle. Violetta, the dancer, the protégée of my lord and lady Burlington. There was plenty of romance and mystery about this young lady. She had come over from Vienna a few years previously disguised as a boy, and made her début at the Opera House in the Haymarket. She was immediately taken under the protection of Lady Burlington, whose daughters used to frequently stand at the wings with wraps to throw round her when she came off from her dance. Her début had been patronized by the king himself, and the noblest houses were thrown open to her. Some said she was a natural daughter of Lord Burlington's whom he had discovered while traveling abroad from her likeness to her mother, a lady to whom he had been devotedly attached; others, that she was the illegitimate offspring of some noble Austrian. Be this as it may, she was received in the best society. Seeing Garrick play one night she fell desperately in love with him, they met in society, and afterward in secret. But Lady Burlington was violently opposed to the match; the story of Robertson's play of "David Garrick" is said to be founded upon an incident of this love-affair; but the real catastrophe was very different to the fictitious one; for the countess, touched by the actor's generous self-sacrifice, gave her consent to the marriage. Ten thousand pounds were settled upon the bride-six thousand by the Burlingtons, four thousand by Garrick himself. They took up their abode in Southampton Street, Strand, a not unfashionable neighborhood then. The house is still standing, No. 27, and the little back room in which they used to breakfast is said to be little changed.

1750-'51 was the celebrated "Romeo and Juliet"

season. Barry and Mrs. Cibber had withdrawn to Covent Garden. Barry insinuated in a prologue that they had been driven from Drury Lane by Garrick's arrogance and selfishness-the latter might well have retorted the accusation. It was now Quin versus Barry, and as the veteran received one thousand pounds for his services that season he does not seem to have come off worst. On the 28th of September, 1750, "Romeo and Juliet" was performed at both houses. At Covent Garden, Barry was the Romeo, Macklin the Mercutio, Mrs. Cibber the Juliet. At Drury Lane the parts were sustained by Garrick, Woodward, and Mrs. Bellamy. All the town was divided between these rival claims. Barry's noble presence, handsome face, and silver-toned voice gave him great personal advantages; the balcony scene of this most exquisite of the stage lovers was unapproachable; but Garrick excelled in the scene with the Friar. "Had I been Juliet to Garrick's Romeo," said a lady critic, so impassioned was he that I should have expected he would have come up to me. But had Barry been my lover, so seductive was he that I should certainly have jumped down to him." Of the Juliets Mrs. Cibber was more passionately pathetic; Bellamy more lovely, more impulsive, more natural.

Barry played Romeo twelve nights, Garrick thirteen ; the town was astounded at this prodigious run, and wrote epigrams upon it.

"Well, what's to-night?' says angry Ned,

As up from bed he rouses;

'Romeo again!' he shakes his head,

'A plague on both your houses!'"

Six years later the rivalry of the two great actors in King Lear created an equal excitement. The palm had