laudableness of such unmanly, as well as inhuman, proceedings; to which will be added, A short criticism on his acting Macbeth.-It had this motto in the titlepage, Macbeth has murder'd Garrick. This little pamphlet is written with humour and fancy. One of the parts which he acted after his marriage, and for the first time, was Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing. Some particular situations of this character occasioned much laughter and pleas antry, by applications of the audience to Mr. Garrick's change of condition. The excellent action of Mrs. Pritchard in Beatrice, was not inferiour to that of Benedick. Every scene between them was a continual struggle for superiority; nor could the audience determine which was the victor. CHAPTER XV. New tragedies acted in 1753, 1754.... The Gamester.... The Brothers ....Creusa, and Boadicea....Anécdotes relating to them, and remarks on their success. .* Ir has been a constant complaint of the publick against managers, that they were always very sparing of their entertainment ;* that they seldom brought on the stage new plays or farces; that acting managers, especially, took more pleasure in exhibiting characters in which they would acquire credit to themselves, than in doing justice to authors of merit; that if the manager should happen to be an author, he would be tempted to push forward his own pieces to the neglect of others. How far Mr. Garrick might deserve any censure of this kind, I shall not now examine; but he certainly, in 1753 and 1754, contributed much to the publick amusement, by bringing on the stage the four new tragedies of the Gamester, the Brothers, Creusa, and Boadicea; besides reviving old plays, among which was Dryden's Don Sebastian, and Shakspeare's Coriolanus. The Gamester of Mr. Edward More was an honest attack upon one of the most alluring and most pernicious vices to which mankind in general, and this nation in particular, is unhappily Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Harris, the present theatrical managers, give the town more novelty than any of their predecessors. subject. To shew how property is transferred from the undesigning votary of chance, to the vile betrayer of confidence, and the insidious darkminded sharper, was an undertaking worthy of the best writer. The play was shewn in MS. to Dr. Young, who approved it greatly, with this remarkable expression, "that gaming wanted such a caustick as the concluding scene of the play presented." The author has in his preface justified his tragedy against the censure of some criticks who complained of its low style, and who observed too that the catastrophe was too shocking. He has likewise acknowledged the assistance of Mr. Garrick, by telling us, that he was indebted to him for many popular passages in the play which were greatly applauded. I believe the scene between Leeson and Stukely, in the fourth act, was almost entirely his; for he expressed, during the time of action, uncom mon pleasure at the applause given to it. 4 Notwithstanding that the Gamester was generally approved, and the acting of it much applauded, (Mr. Garrick distinguishing himself by uncommon spirit in some scenes, and by great agonizing feelings in the last) the play after having been acted ten or eleven nights, was suddenly stopt. It was generally said, that the physick administered by the Gamester was not only too strong for the publick in general, but offensive to the squeamish palates of some gaming societies; and that its progress was prevented by the interposition of people who ought not to have had any weight in a matter of that kind. I rather think this was a mere circulated report, to give more consequence to some assemblies than they ever could really boast. The Brothers, a tragedy of Dr. Young, was written about the year 1726, and rehearsed at Drurylane soon after. The principal parts were given to Wilks, Booth, and Mills, and, I believe, to Mrs. Porter. But the author going into holy orders, it occasioned the sudden withdrawing of his tragedy: great expectations had been formed of it, and it was with some reluctance the managers gave it up. Near thirty years after, Dr. Young consented to have the Brothers acted at the same theatre. He had formed a design of giving a thousand pounds to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; and hoped that the profits arising from the acting of the play would enable him to prosecute his scheme. Whatever success the play met with in the acting, the money raised by it was not adequate to the sum which was intended to be given away; nevertheless the author made up the deficiency, and accomplished his pious intention. . We may reasonably imagine, that the tragedy, during so long a period that it was in the author's hands, received great and constant improvements from his revisal of it. I cannot think him equally fortunate in all his scenes or characters. Philip and his two sons are drawn agreeably to their historical delineation. The third act, in which the Brothers' plead their cause before Philip, is written in a masterly style; but Erixene, the lady, is a most unamiable and inconsistent character, and one to whom the spectator can afford very little pity. The last scene between Demetrius and Erixene is a laboured, but, I think, a very faint imitation of the admirable dying interview of Oroonoko and Imoinda. The great fault of this writer was his custom of seeking for pearls and diamonds, when less costly materials would have served his purpose much better. Shakspeare is not more fond of a quibble than Young is of a bright thought. Long descriptions of misery, with all its attributes, in scenes of the greatest anxiety and distress, is a forgetfulness of situation, to seek after prettiness and brilliancy of expression. From that charming magazine of beauty, from which love borrows his keenest shafts, the bright lustre of a lady's eyes, Dr. Young draws some of his most luminous thoughts, which the lover plays upon in the hour of dark suspicion and heart-felt anguish. Alonzo, in the Revenge, act iv., is worked up by Zanga to such a pitch of jealousy, that he is resolved to stab his wife; but his arm is arrested by the resistless power of the lady's eyes. Excusing his tardy vengeance to Zanga, he tells him, I quarrell'd with my heart, And push'd it on, and bid it give her death; In the fifth act of the same play, Alonzo goes to a bower, and finds Leonora sleeping: after a long meditation on her charms, which is but a faint imitation of Othello's soliloquy on his surveying the beauties of Desdemona, (for this admirer of original |