CHAPTER X.

THE GARRICK SCHOOL.

GARRICK, after he retired, was to leave behind him a school of well-trained, well-graced actors, each furnished with a round of sterling characters, which they performed at regular intervals, and which belonged to them of right. They were, in fact, the characters; anyone else would be out of keeping. There are some admirable well-sketched descriptions of these players which, besides touching on some useful principles, bring them very picturesquely before us. Boaden, who was on friendly terms with many of them, and had a graphic though redundant style, shall portray them for us, all his amplifications being omitted.

Macklin's Shylock was seen by Bernand, the actor, and his recollection furnishes him with an excellent bit of criticism, well worthy the attention of the general performer. After saying that its success was owing to certain physical advantages which suited to his own peculiar nature, he adds: “If the truth could be ascertained, I believe that the key to the success of all actors in particular characters would be found to consist in certain complexional resemblances between the two, independent of all genius, which enabled a more ready and perfect identity to take place; not that the man who plays a villain well must be a villain, or a hero a hero, but each must

possess some natural adaption to assume the one with more ease and felicity than the other. Cook and Kemble are cases in point."

Smith. This player enjoyed the complimentary sobriquet of "Gentleman Smith," from his style and tastes, as from his having married a lady of title. His deportment was dignified and manly, his action graceful and never redundant. Nature had denied to him an expressive countenance, yet was he certainly a handsome man and an elegant stage figure. The fine gentleman in comedy was then very different from what it has since become-it was regulated by higher manners, and seemed born in polished life and educated in drawing-rooms. The dress kept the performer up to the character. It was necessary to wear the sword and to manage it gracefully. As the hair was dressed and powdered, the hat was supported under the arm. The mode of approaching the lady was more respectful; and it required the most delicate address to lead and seat her upon the stage. It will be recollected that ladies wore the hoop, and in all the brilliancy of court dress appeared very formidable beings. The flippancy of the modern style makes a bow look like a mockery; it does not seem naturally to belong to a man in pantaloons and a plain blue coat, with a white or a black waistcoat. Genteel comedy, among us, suffers greatly from the comparative undress of our times. What can you do, for instance, with such a comedy as "The Careless Husband"? Its dialogue could never proceed from the fashionables of the present day; different times can only be signified by difference of costume. Should we, therefore, venture back to the lace and embroidery, the swords and bags of the last age, the difference from our present costume would excite a laugh. [A curious comment on the system of stage costume then in vogue.] Mr. Burke has observed the reason why these comedies in higher life are so pleasing. He adds: "I have observed that persons, especially women, in lower life and of no breeding, are fond of such representations; it seems like introducing them into good company, and the honour compensates the dulness of the entertainment."

Palmer, in his general deportment, had a sort of elaborate grace and stately superiority, which he affected on all occasions, with an accompaniment of the most plausible politeness. He

was the same on and off the stage, he was constantly acting the man of superior accomplishments. This it was that rendered Palmer so exquisite in "High Life Below Stairs." He was really my lord duke's footman, affecting the airs and manners of his master, and here was the difference between him and Dodd, who, from the radical gentility of his fops, became in the kitchen the real Sir Harry, instead of his coxcomb and impudent valet.

Palmer, however, was an actor of infinite address, and sustained a very important line of business in the company. He was a man of great expense and luxurious habits, perfectly irreclaimable, and usually negligent; but he would throw up his eyes with astonishment that he had lost the word, or cast them down with penitent humility, wipe his lips with his eternal white handkerchief to smother his errors, and bow himself out of the greatest absurdities that continued idleness could bring upon him.

Dodd, with more confined powers, was one of the most perfect actors. He was the fopling of the drama rather than the age. He was, to be sure, the prince of pink heels and the soul of empty eminence. As he tottered rather than walked down the stage, in all the protuberance of endless muslin and lace in his cravats and frills, he reminded you of the jutting motion of the pigeon. His action was suited to his figure. He took his snuff, or his bergamot, with a delight so beyond all grosser enjoyments that he left you no doubt whatever of the superior happiness of a coxcomb.

King, though very confined in his powers, was one of the most perfect actors. His peculiar sententious manner made him seek, and indeed require, dialogue of the greatest point. He converted everything into epigram, and although no man's utterance was more rapid, yet the ictus fell so smartly upon the point, his tune was so perfect, and the members of his sentences were so well antagonised, that he spoke all such composition with more effect than any man of his time. He was at home in the arch and impudent valet who shares his master's imperfections with his confidence, and governs him by his utility. A character which I do not think belongs to our manners as a nation, and seems imported from the French stage, but never naturalised among us. Nothing approached

him in the dry and timid habitual bachelor, drawn into the desperate union with youth, and beauty, and gaiety.

Parsons. He was a master in the exhibition of vulgar importance. His Alscrip in "The Heiress" was ludicrous in the extreme, but it was, perhaps, reserved for Sheridan to show the utmost that Parsons could achieve in Sir Fretful Plagiary in "The Critic." I have repeatedly enjoyed this rich treat, and became sensible how painful laughter might be when such a man as Parsons chose to throw his whole force into a character. When he stood under the castigation of Sneer, affecting to enjoy criticisms which made him writhe in agony; when the tears were in his eyes and he suddenly checked his unnatural laugh to enable him to stare aghast upon his tormentors, a picture was exhibited of mental anguish and frantic rage, of mortified vanity and affected contempt, which would almost deter an author from the pen unless he could be sure of his firmness under every possible provocation.

Passing over to Covent Garden with the same guide, we find not less entertainment.

Lewis. The youthful hero there was at this time sustained by Mr. Lewis, the sprightly, the gay, the exhilarating, the genteel; the animating soul of modern, and of much of ancient, comedy. The charm of this really fine actor was in his animal spirits. As a speaker he totally failed. He hurried as much of a sentence together as he could in a breath, and stopped where the verbal complexion of what he said required him to In action he was the most restless of human beings. go on. He kept up a perpetual flicker before the eye, and seemed to exact an almost exclusive attention. As our theatres became larger this was rendered in some degree necessary, there was a great space to fill, and without infinite expression of the face an actor who did not bustle was totally without effect. The tendency of Lewis, just mentioned, rendered him rather insensible to the great results of combination in the scene.

Wroughton's person was ill-made, his face round and swoln, his features small and inexpressive, his voice uncertain, hoarse, and disagreeable. However, a certain consequence invested his deportment. He was never vacant or idle.

Quick had most generally the honour to sustain the testy old gullable personage. There was the same constantly florid face, the same compression of the mouth and elevation of the eyebrows, the same shrill squeak in the utterance, and odd totter in the step; but his entrance was invariably the signal for honest hearty merriment. To this general effect of Quick's acting, an important circumstance in his theatrical life most powerfully contributed. He was beyond all comparison in comedy, the decided favourite of the late King, a determined patron of the stage. There was a gay and hearty jocularity about the King while sitting at a comedy-a something so endearing to see greatness relaxing from its state, throwing off, and apparently glad to throw off, some of the trammels of royalty, and exhibiting, without the least restraint, a full sense of pleasure at a liberal and enlightened amusement. Quick's powers of entertainment were not confined to the stage; he told a story admirably. The late King sometimes had him in attendance at Buckingham House; and the little time he could spare from the various business that pressed upon him he delighted to pass in listening to Quick's eccentricities. He frequently appointed to see him in the ridinghouse, and took his amusement and his exercise together.

Edwin. As a comedian he seemed born to give effect to the farces of O'Keefe. Peeping Tom had one scene more masterly than anything I have seen in a farce; I mean that of poor Tom's abstraction while, in his mind's eye, he sees the whole procession of Lady Godiva pass before him. This was a thing of pure fancy and infinitely productive. You would have sworn to the succeeding images of this procession; the distant view of the equitation of Godiva; her approach; "her unadorned charms" at last brought fully before his eye, and the burst of commentary, "Talk of a coronation!" all together produced a revelry of enjoyment that used to convulse the spectators; and it is a precious recollection of the power of a true comedian. Nothing from Edwin, in pure comedy, exceeded his Sir Hugh Evans; his study of the sword and the word; his ejaculations; his cholers and tremblings of mind; his music; his songs and psalms, neither and yet both; were among the greatest luxuries of the art.