ran down to the river's edge, where, within a year, he was building that little bit of affectation more fitted to Drury Lane than to the little country villa-the Shakespeare Temple." Hither came the vicar, "an old clergyman of simple tastes," whom the player's kind interest procured something better than his Hampton living of fifty pounds a year-to chat with Mrs. Garrick over gardening matters.

He loved children, although he had none of his own. During the run of the "Jubilee" he ordered a nightly distribution of tarts to the little ones who played the fairies, and used to delight in watching their enjoyment of them. Cumberland relates how he would imitate turkey-cocks, peacocks, and water-wagtails for the amusement of his children. Here is a reminiscence of childhood by the younger Colman :

"I always ran about his gardens, where he taught me the game of trap ball. He practised, too, a thousand monkey tricks upon me; he was Punch, harlequin, a cat in a gutter, then King Lear, with a mad touch that at times almost terrified me; and he had a peculiar mode of flashing the lightning of his eye, by darting it into the astonished mind of a child, as a serpent is said to fascinate a bird; which was an attribute belonging only to this theatrical Jupiter."

In 1758, finding his power of attraction waning-the houses are said to have fallen as low as thirty, fifteen, and one night five pounds—he resolved to retire for a time and recruit his health, by no means good, by a tour of the Continent. At Paris he was received at all the salons with the greatest honor. There he gave some specimens of his power that filled the spectators with wonder and admiration. Grimm wrote enthusiastically

of him; Marmontel pronounced his to be the only real style of acting-"You will be to me," he said, “a continual subject of regret."

There is a good story told in illustration of his powers. A Lichfield grocer had come up with a letter of recommendation to David from his brother Peter. Arriv

ing in London in the evening, he went into the two-shilling gallery to see the wonderful actor of whom he had heard so much, intending to deliver his credentials next morning. But Garrick played that night Abel Drugger, and so disgusted the honest grocer that he would not go near him. "Well," he said to Peter, on his return home, and giving him back his letter, "though Mr. Garrick be your brother, he is one of the shabbiest, meanest, most pitiful hounds I ever saw in the whole course of my life."

"Nature," says Cumberland, "had done so much for him that he could not help being an actor. She gave him a frame of so manageable a proportion, and, from its flexibility, so perfectly under command, that by its aptitude and elasticity he could draw it out to fit any sizes of character that tragedy could offer to him, and contract it to any scale of ridiculous diminution that his Abel Drugger, Scrub, or Fribble could require of him to sink it to. His eye in the mean time was so penetrating, so speaking, his brow so movable, and all his features so plastic and so accommodating, that wherever his mind impelled them they would go; and before his tongue could give the text, his countenance would express the spirit and passion of the part he was charged with."

He came back to London in 1766; he was not long in doubt as to his reception; he created a furore greater than all that had gone before, the house was nightly crammed to overflowing, and people of the highest con

dition bribed the attendants to admit them by a private door to avoid the terrible crush at the public entrance.

As the years passed on, he played less frequently, much of his time being spent in visits to the seats of many noblemen and gentlemen who were proud to call him friend, until the advance of age, failing health, and above all the carpings of malicious critics, who began to tell him that he was too old for Ranger and Hamlet, warned him it was time to quit forever the scene of his brilliant triumphs. The announcement of his farewell performances created a great sensation; people came up to town from all parts of the country-no small feat in those days-and even foreigners came over to England to witness them; the highest persons in the land fought at the thronged doors for admittance and very frequently failed. He played a round of all his great parts. "Last night," he writes in one place, "I played Abel Drugger for the last time. I thought the audience were cracked, they almost turned my brain." Hannah More, who came up from Bristol for these representations, says:

"I pity those who have not seen him. Posterity will never be able to form the slightest idea of his perfection. The more I see him the more I admire. I have seen him within these three weeks take leave of Benedick, Sir John Brute, Kitely, Abel Drugger, Archer, and Leon. It seems to me as if I was assisting at the obsequies of the different poets. I feel almost as much pain as pleasure."

It was on the 10th of June, 1776, that he made his last appearance, as Don Felix in "The Wonder," and never, it was said, did he play with more fire and energy, more lightness and animation. Then in a short speech broken by tears he wished the audience farewell, and, with a

long and lingering gaze on the vast concourse before him, scarcely a face of which but was bedewed with sympathetic tears, slowly retired. "Farewell-farewell! echoed a hundred voices choked with emotion, as he passed behind the curtain which was never again to rise upon him.

Not long did he enjoy his retirement. Within three years afterward there was a magnificent funeral procession to Westminster Abbey; the line of carriages reached from the Strand to the Sacred Building; the streets were crowded with spectators; the Bishop of Rochester received the coffin; the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls Camden, Ossory, Spencer, and Lord Palmerston were pall-bearers; Burke, Fox, and other celebrities stood beside the grave that was ready to receive the mortal remains of the great actor. His brother George survived him but a few days. He had always been David's factotum, and his first inquiry on entering the theatre at night was: "Has David wanted me?" Some one was remarking upon the singularity of his dying so soon after his brother. แ Oh," answered Bannister, who was by, "David wanted him." Of the respect in which Garrick was held, a proof was given not long before his death. One night he was the sole occupant of the gallery of the House of Commons during a fierce discussion between two members, one of whom moved that he should be ordered to withdraw. Burke sprang up indignantly and opposed the motion to expel the man who, he said, had taught them all they knew; Fox and Townshend followed in the same strain, calling him their preceptor.

A Centenarian Actor, the Author of "Love à la Mode," and "The Man of the World," and the First Great Representative of Shylock.-Sketch of a Long and Striking Career.-The Original of Sir Archy McSarcasm and Sir Pertinax McSycophant.-Farewell to the Stage at Ninetynine Years of Age.

A MAN who played with the contemporaries of the actors of the Restoration, and yet who might have heard Braham sing; who lived upon the confines of two centuries and nearly saw a third, must be remarkable, if only as an instance of abnormal longevity, and as a link uniting far-sundered generations. Charles Macklin's birth is believed to have been in 1690, about two months before the battle of the Boyne, in which his father was engaged, on the side of King James. His real name was McLaughlin, afterward abbreviated to suit Saxon tongues and prejudices. As a child he ran wild on a small farm in Ulster, but was afterward taken to be educated by his uncle, a Catholic priest, who soon gave him up in despair. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a saddler in Dublin, but neglected his business sadly for the low pot-houses, where he became notorious for his wit, songs, and powers of mimicry. He finally became a strolling player at twenty, playing in barns in England and Ireland. He showed from the first daring and originality, and shared those ideas of acting which Garrick so splendidly illustrated for the reform of the English stage.

After years of vagabondage, Rich engaged him to appear in London in 1725, as Alcander in “Edipus.” The manager did not approve of the aforesaid ideas. "I spoke