otic fury in the last act, which had always before been a piece of measured declamation, his savage fight, his terrible death, in which his cruel fingers seemed in their agony digging their own grave. No such acting lingered in any living memory. The Daily Post said next morning that his reception "was the most extraordinary and great that was ever known on such an occasion." Assured of success, he wrote at once to Peter, acquainting him with the step he had taken, and trying to make an apology out of the badness of their business, and from the fact that he could make £300 a year by his new profession, which was more than he could ever hope to draw from the wine trade. Peter, his brothers and sisters, and all Lichfield society, were of course horrified and outraged at a man sinking from the elevation of a poor tradesman to be an exponent of Shakespeare, and there were pitiful lamentations over the family disgrace. A few months afterward, when David had already become a great man, the disgraced family were not at all backward in requesting and receiving favors continually from such a disreputable source.

For some nights the receipts at Goodman's Fields did not average above £30 nightly; but the fame of the new actor was being rapidly spread. By-and-by came the rush, and the carriages extended from Temple Bar to Whitechapel. Pope was drawn from Twickenham to see this prodigy, and the sight of the little black figure in the boxes at first greatly disconcerted the actor. "That young man never had an equal, and will never have a rival," was the great poet's expressed opinion. Then came Pitt, who pronounced him to be "the only actor in England," and Halifax, Chesterfield, and Sandwich, who invited him to dine with them. His terms

were increased from one pound a night to half the profits. Quin came to see him and called him the Whitfield of the stage, which was very appropriate; only his prophecy that the people would soon get tired of the novelty and go back to their church was not so happy. Soon the patent theatres, now deserted, were glad to make overtures to him, and he accepted an engagement for Drury Lane at £600 per annum for the ensuing

season.

It was on December 1, 1741, that, dropping his fictitious name on the occasion of his benefit, he first appeared in the bills as David Garrick. He continued to play in the east until the 29th of May in the following year. From November to that time he appeared in nineteen different characters-Richard, Chamont, Lothario, the Ghost (in "Hamlet"), Aboan, Lear, and Pierre, in tragedy. In comedy, among others, Fondlewife, Bayes, in the "Rehearsal," in which he gave his imitations of actors, Lord Foppington, Johnny the Schoolboy, Duretete, etc. At the end of the Drury Lane season he appeared for three nights to crowded houses as Richard, Bayes, and Lear.

During the summer he played at Dublin, where his success was as prodigious as it had been in London; so great was the crowd that an epidemic, the product of heat and dirt, broke out, which was called the Garrick fever. There he was given the name of Roscius. During an engagement of two months he took three benefits; for the last he appeared as Hamlet for the first time. This, according to contemporary accounts, must have been a very beautiful performance, full of refinement and sensitiveness. Partridge's immortal criticism will occur to every reader of Fielding.

"You may call me a coward if you will, but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw a man frightened in my life. . . . Did you not yourself observe afterward when he found out it was his father's spirit, and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, and he was struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, just as I should have been had it been my own case. . . . He the best player! why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure if I had seen a ghost I should have looked in the same manner, and done just as he did."

He introduced many new readings and much new business, that were eagerly discussed at the time, but which remained orthodox until Fechter swept them away.

Upon returning to London, he, Macklin, and Woffington kept house together at No. 6 Bow Street, each undertaking the management for a month. The partnership did not long endure; Peggy's extravagances not being acceptable to careful David. It is now we begin to hear stories of his meanness and avarice, upon which Foote and so many others exercised their wit and their malice throughout his life-and after it. "Peggy made the tea too strong," says one. Well, it is impossible for a man to ever shake off his early impressions; in the old Lichfield time, when the captain was away in Gibraltar, the tea had, doubtless, to be eked out-it was an expensive article then-and the question of even a few grains was one of importance in the needy officer's family; David had not forgotten those days, and could not endure wastefulness, more honor to him. There is another story told of his walking up and down before his house one evening with some person of great importance from whom he could not break away abruptly, and seeing

through the dining-room window a thief in one of the candles guttering it down to the socket, and of the almost agony he endured at the sight. The anecdote is told as an illustration of his meanness; but would it not be more just to ascribe it to his horror of waste? So thought Johnson, and no man was at times more harsh and bitter in his judgment of the player who had outstripped him on the road to fame and fortune. "I know," he said, defending him against Wilkes, who said he would play Scrub all his life—“I know that Garrick has given away more money than any man in England that I am acquainted with; and that not from ostentatious views. Garrick was very poor when he began life; so, when he came to have money, he probably was unskillful in giving away, and saved when he should not. But Garrick began to be liberal as soon as he could."

The Drury Lane fund for decayed actors is a noble instance of his munificence. It was first started under his management, and his various donations to it amounted to nearly five thousand pounds. And after his death it was found he had a whole host of small annuitants. It might have vexed David Garrick to have tea unnecessarily strong, or to have seen "a thief" guttering his candle, or to have uselessly squandered a halfpenny, but he could be princely generous for all that.

In the following season Garrick made a great hit by his revival of Shakespeare's " Macbeth." "What, haven't I been playing Shakespeare's 'Macbeth?'" cried Quin. Indeed he had not, but a garbled version of the text, very little resembling the original. Macbeth was a part then little esteemed by tragedians; it was Garrick who first developed, theatrically, its marvelous power. He had

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.