Next she is the centre of attraction, if not of gravity, at Covent Garden, and the unemotional Walpole chronicles that "there is much in vogue a Mrs. Woffington, a bad actress, but she has life." Later she meets Garrick, plays with him, and as she is not so strong in moral as in artistic sense, thinks nothing of sharing the same home with him. A curious partnership it must have been and with far less about it of "loves young dream" than one might imagine at the first blush. Garrick, with his habitual closeness in money matters, allowing Peg to share the expenses of the joint household, chiding her for spending too much during the month that he footed the bills, and content that she should make as lavish an outlay as she wished for the next month; Peg, charming and housewifely, happy in the thought that Garrick may marry her, yet not above a flirtation in another direction-this is the not very edifying or even romantic picture as it has come down to us. If the canvas be a trifle dimmed by age we need not complain; there is enough of it left to show that the original colors were gairish rather than alluring.

The new managment, so auspiciously inaugurated with the assistance of two such curiously unlike persons as Johnson and Mistress Woffington, was soon in full swing. There were numerous revivals, one of them being Henry V., in which Garrick generously allowed Spranger Barry to play the King, (it was wisely done, too, for Barry must have been an ideal Hal) and mod

estly assigned himself to the Chorus. In the ensuing season of 1748-9 Woffington, whose intimacy with the actor-manager had come to a more or less prosaic end, returned to Covent Garden and the easily consoled Garrick went on producing a variety of plays, among them Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, with Barry as the fervid Montague, and Dr. Johnson's tragedy of Irene.

In bringing out the last named piece, Garrick exercised the greatest care in casting the parts, the four principal ones being divided between himself, Barry, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Cibber, and he provided the richest sort of a stage setting, but nothing could save this ponderous, not to say stupid child of Johnson's moralizing muse. On the first performance several of the critics disapproved of the strangling of the fair Irene in full view of the house, and the accommodating Garrick, anxious to do anything that might make the tragedy a success, modified the scene as desired, yet it is painful to learn that "the approbation of Irene was not so general as might have been expected.” In other words, to put it less politely, after an enforced run of nine nights the play was quietly consigned to the limbo of oblivion. It had a fine moral, but all the fine morals in the world will not constitute a theatrical hit.

If the serious Dr. Johnson could not please the town just then a far different person had the power to do so, and this was that delightful mimic and entertainer, but

none the less unscrupulous scalawag, Samuel Foote. Garrick, who spoke of him as "a man of wonderful abilities, and the most entertaining companion I have ever known," was afraid of this heartless portrayer of human frailties, and so were many other Londoners of mark, for Foote made all his reputation, good or bad, by caricaturing his contemporaries. And charming caricatures they proved, too, excepting to the unfortunate subjects of the sarcasm. Even Johnson admitted the talents of this prince of mimics, although when it came his turn to be parodied, he took good care that no jest or jibe, however amusing, should be pointed at his own expense. "The first time I was in company with Foote," the lexicographer tells Boswell, "was at Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased; and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him; but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, throw myself back, and fairly laugh it out."

Wonderful indeed he must have been, this witty Foote, to make the great Johnson forget for the nonce the pleasures of Fitzherbert's dinner-table. “No, sir, he was irresistible," the Doctor continues. 'He upon one occasion experienced, in an extraordinary degree, the efficacy of his powers of entertaining. Among the many and various modes which he tried of getting money, he became a partner with a small beer brewer,