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Garrick took his rejection very patiently, and fhewed his refentment of it no otherwise, than by enquiring of me from time to time how we went on at the club. He would often stop at my gate, in his way to and from Hampton, with meffages from Johnson relating to his Shakespeare, then in the prefs, and afk fuch questions as these :-- Were you at the club on Monday night? What did you talk of?'— Was Johnson there?' I fuppofe he faid fomething of Davy-that Davy was a clever fellow in his way, full of convivial pleafantry, but no poet, no writer, ha?'-I was vexed at these enquiries, and told him, that this perpetual folicitude about what was faid of him, was unneceffary, and could only tend to disturb him; that he might well be content with that share of the public favour which he enjoyed, that he had nothing to do but to poffefs it in quietnefs, and that too great an anxiety to obtain applaufe would provoke envy, and tend to intercept, if not totally deprive him of it.

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The greatest of Mr. Garrick's foibles was, a notion of the importance of his profeffion: he thought that Shakespeare and himfelf were, or ought to be, the objects of all mens' attention. When the king of Denmark was in England, he received an order from the lord-chamberlain to entertain that monarch with an exhibition of himfelf in fix of his principal characters. In his way to London, to receive his inftructions, he called on me, and told me this as news. I could plainly difcern in his looks the joy that tranfported him; but he affected to be vexed at the shortness of the notice, and feemed to arraign the wisdom of our councils, by exclaimingYou fee what heads they have!'

Johnson's

Johnson's objection to the admiffion of Garrick may seem to be cynical, and to have arifen from jealousy or refentment, but it admits of palliation: the truth is, that Garrick was no difquifitor; his reading had been confined, and he could contribute but little to the pleasures of fober and inftructive converfation. Even his knowledge of the world was derived through the medium of the dramatic writers, who, all men know, are not guides to be trufted; and, in his intercourfe with mankind, and manner of conducting business, he frequently betrayed fuch ignorance and inattention, as the following inftance will illuftrate.

There stood near the dwelling of Mr. Garrick at Hampton, and adjoining to his garden next the river, a small house, the owner and occupier whereof was Mr. Peele a bookfeller, who had retired from bufinefs. Mr. Peele had often faid, that as he knew it would be an accommodation to Mr. Garrick, he had given directions, that at his decease he fhould have the refufal of it. A man in the neighbourhood had fet his eye upon it, and formed a fcheme to make it his own. He had got intelligence that there was a relation or friend of Mr. Peele's living in the country, and immediately on Mr. Peele's death applied to his executors, pretending that he had a commiffion from him to purchase the house at any price; and, upon this fuggeftion, procured a conveyance of it to a perfon nominated by him, but under a fecret trust for himself. Mr. Garrick, feeing himself thus balked of his hopes, and in danger of being troubled with an ill neighbour, thought he had nothing to do but to complain. He told his fad ftory to me, and in a

lucky

lucky hour; for, juft before his entering my house, I had been reading the life of the lord-keeper Guildford, and therein a cafe of a fimilar fraud, against which his lordship decreed: it was the cafe of the duke of Buckinghamshire and Ambrofe Phillips, who had purchased of the duke an eftate as for Mr. Heneage Finch, a fon of the lord Nottingham, but in truth for himself, at two thousand pounds lefs than he would have fold it for to any but Mr. Finch. Upon hearing Mr. Garrick's ftory, I fearched farther, and found the cafe in law-language in Vernon's chancery reports, and giving him a note of it, told him he might file a bill in chancery, and, on the authority of that determination, hope for relief. About fix months after, I being in town, a meffage came to me in the evening from Mr. Garrick, fignifying, that his cause was to come on the next morning, and requesting me to furnish him with a note of a cafe that I had formerly mentioned to him as resembling his own. Astonished at his remiffness, and knowing that no time was to be loft, I immediately borrowed the book I had referred him to, and giving it my fervant, went with it to Drury-lane theatre, where, upon enquiry, I was informed, that he was bufily employed in exhibiting an imitation of a fpectacle then recent, the proceffion of the coronation of his prefent majefty, in an afterpiece to the play for that night. I waited in an outer room till all was ever, when in entered Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, and, after giving him time to recover from his fatigue, I told him what I had been doing to help him in his distress, and produced the book, but his thoughts were fo wholly taken up by the pageant he

was

was come from, which feemed still to be paffing before his eyes, that he could fcarcely attend to me, but afked Mrs. Garrick twenty questions about it, how it went off, and whether fhe did not think the applaufe of the audience great. He then turned to me, took from me the book, and faid he should lay it before his counfel. The book was returned in a few days, but I heard nothing of the decree of the court till fome months after, when meeting with his brother George, in the court of requests, I asked him how the cause had gone :- Oh,' faid he, withus-the first purchase is decreed fraudulent, and the defendant is condemned in cofts.'

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Mr. Garrick's forgetfulnefs and inattention, in a concern that gave him fome uneafinefs, is not to be accounted for by thofe who believe, contrary to the fact, that he was ever fufficiently awake to his own intereft, nor indeed by any who were not well acquainted with his character. In all that related to the theatre he was very acute, but in business of other kinds a novice. His profeflion was of fuch a nature, as left him no intervals of thought or cool deliberation his mind was either elevated to the highest pitch of intenfion, or let down to the lowest degree of remiffion. In the former ftate, it was inflated by the ideas with which the courfe of his reading had ftored his memory; in the latter, it funk into an indolent levity, which indulged in jokes, in mimicry, and witticisms.

In the first of these fituations, I have defcribed him by the relation of his conduct in a law-fuit: in a feason of vacuity, he was another man, easy and chearful,

and

and difpofed, out of every thing he faw or heard, to extract mirth. The following story I give as an inftance of his pleasantry, at times when the business of the theatre did not occupy his thoughts.

Living at Twickenham, at about two miles diftance from his house at Hampton, I made him, as I frequently did when in the country, an afternoon visit. It was in the month of Auguft, and I found him and Mrs. Garrick in the garden, eating figs. He complained that the wafps, which that year were very numerous, had left him very few; and, talking farther about those noxious infects, told me he had heard, that a perfon near Uxbridge, having fwallowed one of them in a draught of liquor, had died of the fting. I told him it was true, for that at a turnpike-meeting at Uxbridge I had dined with the apothecary that had attended him, and he had affured me of the fact.-' I believe it,' faid Mr. Garrick, and have been perfuad'ing this lady,' pointing to Mrs. Garrick, to do fo; but I cannot convince her, and yet, fhe can believe the story of St. Urfula and the eleven thousand vir'gins!'-Mrs. Garrick, it is no fecret, is of the Romish perfuafion.

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Davies, in his life of Mr. Garrick, has mentioned a variety of particulars that do honour to his memory. Among others, he gives several instances of liberality to his friends. Johnson would frequently fay, that he gave away more money than any man of his income in England; and his readiness to give the profits of a night to public charities, and to families and individuals in diftrefs, will long be remembered. He was the first that attempted to reform the ftage, by banishing from it all profaneness and immorality, and by ex

punging

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