induce himself to abandon the green room, where, as he told David, "the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses " excited feelings he felt bound to repress. To Mrs. Pritchard, however, the innocent cause of the misfortune, he showed himself relentless, declaring her a mechanical player, and saying, "It is wonderful how little mind she had." Garrick had himself suggested the use of the bow-string as a means of death, counting, doubtless, upon the novelty as an attraction. He behaved with all possible generosity to Johnson, and kept the play on the bills for nine nights, though it is pretty certain that more attractive entertainments could have been supplied. Johnson's name, it must be remembered, was not at this time an attraction such as it subsequently became.

In his own piece of "Lethe," revived with alterations, with a view to establishing its success, Garrick played three separate parts, the Poet, the Drunken Man, and the Frenchman. The first character did not please the public, and the two others he soon resigned into different hands. He also played, not for the first time, Tancred in Thomson's "Tancred and Sigismunda," and was the original Dorilas, otherwise Eumenes, in the "Merope" of Aaron Hill, which is in a great measure taken from Voltaire.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE summer which followed his second season of inanagement witnessed Garrick's marriage. This event had for some time been expected, and the mere anticipation had caused Garrick some difficulty with the female members of his company, more than one of whom conceived herself to have a lien upon his affections.) During the past years Garrick had done his best to establish a species of republic, or to reconcile the actresses to the idea of an intimacy purely Platonic. Mrs. Woffington had, as has been seen, flown off at a tangent. Others had, however, perplexed not a little a manager, recollections of whose past amiabilities were still treasured, and the task to give his little senate laws had been increasingly difficult. Marriage was a wise step on his part, and the experiment that he made proved more judicious than at first seemed probable. The growth and development of Garrick's love are shrouded in some mists which his biographers have as a rule done little to dispel. The account given by Lee Lewes in his Memoirs bears the apparent impress of truth, and is confirmed in some particulars from other sources. The whole truth will never presumably be known, and it is probable that Mrs. Garrick herself was in the dark

as to her origin and early history.) The romantic story of Lee Lewes presents her as the daughter of the Earl of Burlington and a young Italian lady of position, after whose death in Florence she was compelled to take to the stage as a dancer for a livelihood. Her father had, it is said, looked with care after her education, but the money he forwarded for her use had been misapplied by his agents. As a means of getting her near him, he used his influence to secure her a London engagement, and then induced his legitimate daughter, subsequently the Duchess of Devonshire, to accept her as companion.

A second and not less romantic story represents her as the daughter of a Viennese citizen, called Veigel, a name for which, at the request of Maria Teresa, she substituted that of Violette, the name of Veigel being a patois corruption of Veilchen, a violet. She was, however, unfortunate enough to attract the eye of the Emperor, and was hurriedly despatched to England out of his way. This account she herself favoured. She came over to England in masculine disguise, and under the charge of some Germans, and had naturally some stimulating adventures on the way. To deliver himself out of this thicket the reader may take which path he likes! That Eva Maria Violette, as she was known, had had in Florence or in Vienna considerable practice as a dancer is shown by her being able to make an immediate appearance at the Haymarket. Her first performance was attended by the king, and she created a furore in aristocratic circles.

Horace Walpole speaks of her as the finest and most advanced dancer in the world; ladies of rank admitted her to their houses, and her quarrel with another dancer was almost a state affair. A riot at Drury Lane was the consequence of her non-appearance, and the gossip of the middle of the last century is full of her doings. Through all this time the Burlingtons were her greatest patrons. Lady Burlington waited for her at the wings of the theatre, and Lord Burlington was prepared, as he afterwards showed, to give her what was then a considerable dower.

Mr. Fitzgerald, who has taken much pains to verify dates, and to search records, casts grave doubts upon all that is said by Lewes, and regards it as the outcome of ill-natured gossip., Lewes' story has more than a semblance of truth. (Garrick had met the dancer at Drury Lane, and does not appear to have been struck with her beauty, which, however, at this time was considerable.) It is at least impossible to trace her as the subject of those love songs which he was in the habit of addressing to those by whom he was struck. It was the lady, according to Lewes, who first fell in love with the actor, not at all an uncommon thing in the case of members of Garrick's company. Nothing has ever been advanced against the personal character of Mlle. Violette, and her love for Garrick, like that of Viola, remained untold. Her secret was at length surprised by Lady Burlington, and confided by her to the Earl.

Garrick was then fetched, the Earl acknow

ledged the relationship, and declared his intention of giving her a portion of ten thousand pounds on her marriage. The bait was readily swallowed, and the marriage duly arranged. Six thousand pounds was, according to Murphy, the sum given by the Earl upon the marriage. Lewes' story is pat. Suspicion is cast upon it by the obvious dislike to Garrick which colours his assertion, and by the animated style he gives to conversations he does not even claim to have overheard. One, however, who, on the ground last named, disputed the truth of theatrical anecdote, might as well sweep the whole into limbo. A more serious argument against the truth of Lewes' statement is that Lady Burlington remained long hostile to the proposed union, and that Garrick in contemporary chronicles is depicted as looking very glum and downcast in his attempts to escape her ladyship's supervision, and approach the object of his latest flame. Neither too important nor too edifying is the whole question. In dismissing it another charge of Lewes' may as well be dismissed also. (The quarrel soon to break out between Garrick and Spranger Barry is attributed to some rivalry with regard to Mrs. Garrick. As told, the story reflects great discredit upon Barry. Garrick's feuds were seldom, however, personal. Into the motives of theatrical animosities it is wholly inexpedient to enter. Morbid sensitiveness and dislike of rivalry are the most familiar accompaniments of the profession. Garrick possessed both in excess. A well-meaning, upright, honourable, and in some re