angry at his print. There is, surely, very harmless, though very entertaining, stuff in it. He is a great and original genius. I would not, for all the politics and politicians in the universe, that you two should have the least cause of ill-will to each other. I am very unhappy at the thoughts of it. Pray, make me quiet as soon as possible." But Churchill's genius, as Garrick had, with great penetration, divined, disdained any direction. He had his way, and sent out this

most bloody performance." Garrick was deeply hurt by it. It seemed to him shocking and barbarous. But the wretched man, for all his genius, sinking deeply every day, was to receive many more favours from the same hand. There is no more dreadful letter, for its length, in the annals of debauchery, than the following appeal :

"MY DEAR MR. GARRICK,-Half drunk, half mad, and quite stripped of all my money, I should be much obliged if you would enclose, and send by the bearer five pieces, by way of adding to favours already received by yours, sincerely,

"CHARLES CHURCHILL.

A miserable death at Boulogne-and what are said to have been his last words, "What a fool I have been "-was not long in following. The satire remains a model for attacks of that class; and some fifty years later, when a Dublin wit, in far less nervous lines, brought out "Familiar Epistles on the Irish Stage," the success was not less decided, and the sensation on and off the stage, not less tumultuous. If the experiment were repeated now, there would be no such result; such an attack would be received

with indifference. The men and women of the stage then held a position which they had earned and worked up to, by labour and education. Now the carpenter, the artist, and the dressmaker, the pretty ankle, the décolleté neck, the slang song, the pièce à femmes, are becoming the cheap glories of the English stage. The poet who would waste his time and talent, on satirizing the smaller fry of our London theatres would be partly unintelligible, from dealing with names and creatures that no one knew of or cared for; the petty indignation behind the scenes would be unnoticed; and the thing itself would, perhaps, be unread.

When the season ended, Garrick had begun to think of setting about some important alterations in the arrangements of his house. Foote and Murphy, however, had entered into a strange partnership, and came to him with a proposal for taking the theatre during the "slack" summer months. Foote had been anticipated at the Haymarket by some "dancing dogs," and had no place to exhibit his mimicry. Garrick goodnaturedly agreed to help his two friends, and let them have the theatre at a very moderate rent. Yet in their opening prologue, Foote sneered at Roscius, who had locked up all the daggers and bowls of tragedy, and presently showed excellent taste in bringing a pantomime of Bentley's called "The Wishes," which Garrick, though pressed exceedingly, declined, in the most positive manner, to bring out. For this he was attacked by the author's friends in the usual strain. A pamphlet was published, in which his judgment and taste were held up to infinite ridicule for rejecting a piece of so much wit

and ingenuity. This was only the old story. With Foote, also, it was presently to be the old story.

Lord Melcombe, who was the patron of this performance, had a private performance at his villa, where Foote was received and entertained hospitably. The "wit" improved the occasion by taking careful notes of his host's peculiarities, and on the first opportunity brought out a finished portrait on the stage, which everybody knew!

The next season was unmarked by anything worthy of note. He celebrated the crowning of the new king by an absurd pageant, one of his favourite processions, which he was acute enough to see that the town was fond of. He now indulged the popular folly in these matters to the fullest bent. And it must be said, that he had done his best to please in the more legitimate course; but was bound to do so no further. There can be no doubt, but that a little pamphlet, entitled "The Muses' address to D. Garrick, Esq., with Harlequin's answer," was written or prompted by Garrick himself. It is a protest from Thalia and Melpomene, and the preface is suspiciously like the manager's hand, or at least his tactics. "As our theatrical monarch's partiality in favour of Harlequin, notwithstanding his intention to the contrary at the beginning of his reign, has been often made the topic of conversation, it was thought the publication," &c., and it was hoped that the reader would not too readily join in the accusation "that though such misconduct might, in others, proceed from an error

⚫ Harlequin was hanged in sight of the audience, and even the author himself when he saw his own catastrophe, whispered a friend, "If they do not damn this they deserve to be damned themselves."

of judgment, in Mr. Garrick it must be considered an error of will."

Then it addresses him as "the favourite of Apollo and the Muses," tells him, that he is to fix the glorious era of Shakspeare and the Muses. Harlequin is made to plead that the people of position prefer him to all his rivals, and during the performance of Shakspeare, Otway and other writers, are seen talking to each other, and "rivalling the actors in noise."

There was a rival procession at the other house, got up with infinite magnificence. But Garrick with due thrift utilized all the old dresses of his establishment. To add to the effect, the back of the stage was thrown open, and showed the audience a real bonfire blazing, the fumes from which suffocated the actors, while the draughts gave them colds. Windows looking into the Lane were let at good prices. The show "ran" for forty nights. This was the last effort of Rich, who died this year, successful to the end. He had certainly carried on the contest with spirit, and gave up the ghost in a blaze of glory, with pageants and processions, and gorgeous transformation scenes still before his dim eyes. Yet Garrick's behaviour to him had always been marked by an honourable rivalry, he forgot some unhandsome attempts to injure him, and, shortly before the old harlequin's death, was taking counsel with some private friends as to how they should get the King to divert a little of the royal patronage from Drury Lane to Covent Garden. This wonderful man could be above even his own interests.*

* Warburton remonstrated against this act. "Were the King's using your house intended as matter of mere favour to you, your modesty and generosity would be well employed to serve your neighbour. But since the King

His domestic peace was now to be disturbed by a little matter, which to one so sensitive became a serious annoyance. A Doctor Bower had been attracting public attention, as a "distinguished convert from Rome," with stories about his treatment by the Inquisition, &c. He was a man of some learning, and much industry, and when he was selected for one of the booksellers' speculations then fashionable, a bulky "History of the Popes," in quarto volumes, his subscription list showed how fashionable he had become. Among other houses, he was made welcome at that of one of his warmest patrons, Lord Lyttleton, Garrick's friend. But his account of his "conversion" was felt to be so curious and inconsistent, that suspicions were aroused: some of his supporters began to look coldly on him, and he found himself excluded from houses, where before he had been very welcome. One of these was Mr. Garrick's, where he had been received by Mrs. Garrick, "Catholic though she was," and where Garrick himself "was witness to the contradictions, prevarications, and falsehoods, which he endeavoured to impose upon her." Unfortunately, too, Doctor Douglas, later to be Bishop of Salisbury, had sent out a most damaging pamphlet, written in the good old "bludgeon" style of controversy, in which there was plenty of rough language, and pitiless conclusions drawn. The exposure was nearly fatal; and a story of a money transaction, into which he was said to have entered with "his old friends the Jesuits," injured him still more. Stung by these suspicions, he

in this only consults the gratification of his own amusement, which your acting is necessary to, modesty and generosity would seem to be misplaced in hinting anything in behalf of the other house."-Warburton to Garrick, Feb. 1761.

VOL. II.

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