Queen Charlotte, who found her once peeling onions, and herself got a knife and began to peel onions also. George the Fourth, as well as his brothers, often called on her. She was always thought of with honour and esteem. The strange Monboddo persecuted her with proposals. At last it came to the 16th October, 1822, Elliston had been redecorating Drury Lane, and it had been arranged that the widow of its former great manager should come that night for a private view to see the effect. The old lady was looking forward to it. She had two or three dresses laid out on chairs, to see the effect, her two maids standing by. In the evening, when she was sitting in her chair, taking tea, one of the maids handed her over a cup, and Mrs. Garrick chid her a little testily: "Put it down, hussy; do you think I cannot help myself?" A strange ending for the Vienna dancer was drawing on. That little excitement seemed to have been fatal, for she took the cup herself, tasted the tea, and in a few seconds expired quietly in her chair. Round those declining days must have fluttered such strange old memories Maria Teresa and the Emperor's attentions-the old old rebellion of '45, when she came to town-the heads on Temple Bar-David's great glories-recollections of nearly a hundred years!*

*

As has been mentioned, Mr. Robert Cruikshank etched a picture of her in her old age, which has become so scarce that I have not been able to discover a copy and Mr. Smith—" Rainy Day" Smith—made a drawing of her after death. The coffin was covered with the sheets which, he was told, were the wedding sheets, in which both husband and wife wished to die. Dean Stanley, in his "Westminster Memorials," quotes a little sketch of "a little bowed down old lady, leaning on a gold-headed stick, and always talking of her Davy."

EPILOGUE.

SUCH is the varied story of the great English actor, of his life on the stage, whose "reformer" and glory he is, and off the stage, where he is a no less admirable model. As we look back to his times, one reflection, I am sure, will occur to the reader who has attended me thus far to the end: what days they were for the stage-how glorious, how important, what figures players then were-how they filled the public mind— what prodigious entertainment, and significance, there were in a play. Above all, how strange the contrast with our own time; how small the show, how little the interest, how poor the entertainment. As this contrast has been present to the writer all through, and as the examination of many past theatrical matters has furnished him with a favourable opportunity of judging on this point, he may be pardoned here, for drawing some profit out of Garrick's life, and pointing a moral as it were from the memoir.

There is certainly an impression abroad, that there exists a "sound healthy taste" for the drama, and that these are the palmy days of the stage. The number of theatres, the state of the profession,-like every other, overcrowded, the perfection to which scenery and machinery have been brought, the salaries, the

crowded houses, are thought substantial evidence of this prosperity. With pieces "running" one hundred, and two hundred nights, with such triumphs of "realism" as coal-mine shafts, water caves, set streets, and city offices; and, above all, conflagrations, house-burnings, that to the eye can hardly be distinguished from the originals, with water, fire, ice, grass, imitated perfectly, with the easier resource, where it can be done, of bringing the real objects themselves on the stage, things surely ought to look palmy. Yet it may be declared, that if we were to take the sense of the profession generally,―of authors, managers and actors,—it would be admitted that decay is setting in. The mechanists, scene-painters, actors, and writers,—named according to their proper precedence,

are at the end of their tether. They have exhausted their fertile fancy. The burlesque "arrangers," and actors have tried every conceivable physical extravagance within the compass of " break-downs," low dresses, goddesses looped up at the knee, parodies of songs, &c. The mythology is run out. The opera stories are done. So, too, with scenic effects. In real life, there are only half-a-dozen tremendous and dramatic physical catastrophes which can confound and surprise. When we have seen a fire, an earthquake, a breaking of the ice, and drowning, an accident, very few things remain either difficult to imitate, or likely to astonish. What will come next, must be something of this "school," new, but of lower interest, in which case our excitement will be languid. The man who has drunk brandy always, will find tea insipid. So with the break-downs, the dressing, the mythology, and the vulgar parodies of songs. They can only be re

produced. By-and-by even the admirers of this class of entertainment will find that the stage has grown dull.

For others, who expect another sort of entertainment, it may be fairly asked, is not the stage dull now? How many are there who set out for the night's amusement, with a complacent alacrity of anticipation, as Johnson might say, and by eleven o'clock are suffering a strange agony, compounded of tediousness, fatigue, a sort of eternal weariness, and a sense that the whole will never end! We hear laughter and sounds of enjoyment, in the house; but it must be remembered that here are persons who have been working hard all the day, and all the year, and to whom, perhaps, the annual visit to the play-house, the sight of the company, the lights, and the gay scenery, is a treat itself. The cheap test of what is called a run, nowa days, is no evidence of a flourishing profession. A certain class of people must go to the theatre, to fill in their evenings; and, above all, it must be remembered that the London theatres are now theatres for the kingdom, and that the audiences are changing every night. The manager is catering for England, Ireland, and Scotland, and a sprinkling from the Continent. This is another result of a fatal centralisation, and, it may be added, of the "sensation" system now in fashion. These costly spectacles cannot pay, unless exhibited for so many hundred nights. Sight is a far more costly sense than hearing; the eye is more extravagant than the ear, as any manager knows; but no manager has discovered as yet,-none at least have had the courage to act on the discovery,-that the mind is the cheapest of all to entertain.

As to this decay, what is the situation of the profes

sion? Actors will tell us that "it is going to the bad; that the stage is going down, but that some actors are flourishing. Salaries are high, and well paid- to "stars." The profession, they will tell you, is in confusion. It is a scramble. Neither training nor genius tells. The fellow of yesterday,-raw, untutored,—has the same chance now, as the old hand of ten or fifteen years' service. Like the labourers in the vineyard, those who come last are paid as liberally as those who have worked all the day long. And it may be asked, why not, according to present principles. Good looks, a handsome face, and a pert voice, do not improve by service, rather, are in better condition, on the first day. A tyro of a week's standing can wear a short dress about as well, if not more becomingly, than a lady who has served in the ranks. A few weeks' training will teach the steps of a break-down. In short, the physical gifts which sensation requires-are found by nature.

We can make no reasonable protest against Pantomimes. They are a genuine show; belong to their proper season; and come in well, as an alterative. They do not pretend to be more than they are. The great Garrick had his pantomime every Christmas. We have the associations of that cheerful season,—of the delighted row of children's faces, whose exquisite relish of the show should be a hint to the grown-up, as to the class of audience whom such things were meant to entertain. Just as the conductor of the Grand Opera lays down his bâton when the ballet begins, and disappears, and another gentleman of inferior degree takes his place, so may the Drama gracefully gather up her dress, and sweep away with dignity, during