One of the critical years in the life of Garrick—of whom Chesterfield always strangely asserted, that although he was the best actor the world had ever seen, or could see, he was poor in comedy!—was 1746, when he and Quin first appeared together at Covent Garden in the "Fair Penitent:" the night was that of the 14th of November. "The 'Fair Penitent,'" says Davies, "presented an opportunity to display their several merits, though the balance was as much in favour of Quin as the advocate of virtue is superior in argument[106] to the defender of profligacy.... The shouts of applause when Horatio and Lothario met on the stage together, in the second act, were so loud and so often repeated before the audience permitted them to speak, that the combatants seemed to be disconcerted. It was observed that Quin changed colour, and Garrick seemed to be embarrassed; and it must be owned that these actors were never less masters of themselves than on the first night of the contest for pre-eminence. Quin was too proud to own his feelings on the occasion; but Mr. Garrick was heard to say, 'Faith, I believe Quin was as much frightened as myself.'"
Davies, who praises Mrs. Cibber in the heroine, states that competent judges decided that Quin found his superior on this occasion. By striving to do too much, he missed the mark at which he aimed. "The character of Horatio is compounded of deliberate courage, warm friendship, and cool contempt of insolence.[107] The last Quin had in a superior degree, but could not rise to an equal expression of the other two. The strong emphasis which he stamped on almost every word in a line, robbed the whole of that ease and graceful familiarity which should have accompanied the elocution and action of a man who is calmly chastising a vain and insolent[108] boaster. When Lothario gave Horatio the challenge, Quin, instead of accepting it instantaneously, with the determined and unembarrassed brow of superior bravery, made a long pause, and dragged out the words, 'I'll meet thee there!' in such a manner as to make it appear absolutely ludicrous." He paused so long before he spoke, that somebody, it was said, called out from the gallery, "Why don't you tell the gentleman whether you will meet him or no?"
But there is no one who gives us so lively a picture of the principal actors in this piece as Cumberland, who tells us that "Quin presented himself, upon the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very little variation of cadence, and in a deep full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the senate than the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with an air of dignified indifference that seemed to disdain the plaudits that were showered upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key high pitched but sweet withal, sang, or rather recitatived, Rowe's harmonious strain. But when, after long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then young and light, and alive in every muscle and every feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont and the heavy-paced Horatio (heavens! what a transition), it seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the space of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and harmonious, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age too long attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation." Foote's imitation of Garrick's dying scene in Lothario was an annoyance to Garrick and a delight to the town, particularly at the concluding words:—"adorns my tale, and che-che-che-che-che-cheers my heart in dy-dy-dy-dying."
Garrick was again superior to Quin, when playing Hastings to his Gloucester in "Jane Shore." Davies describes Quin as "a good commonwealth-man," for taking an inferior character, one which the actor himself used to designate as one of his "whisker-parts,"[109] a phrase which shows that he dressed the Duke as absurdly as he did Horatio.
Quin had his turn of triumph when he played Falstaff to Garrick's Hotspur. The former character he kept as his own, as long as he remained on the stage; but after a few nights, Garrick resigned Hotspur, on the ground of indisposition, to careful Havard. The two great actors agreed to appear together as Orestes and Pyrrhus, and Cassius and Brutus; but Garrick did not like the old costume of Greece or Rome, and the agreement never came to anything.
It was long the custom to compare the French actor Lekain with Garrick. The two had little in common, except in their resolution to tread the stage and achieve reputation by it. Lekain was born in 1729, the year in which Baron departed the stage. He was the son of a goldsmith, and had gained wide notice as a maker of delicate surgical instruments, when a passion for the stage led him, as in Garrick's case, to playing frequently in private, especially in Voltaire's little theatre, in the Rue Traversière, now known as the Rue Fontaine Molière. On this stage Lekain exhibited great powers, with defects, which were considered incurable; but he was only twenty years of age, and he could then move, touch, and attract the coldest of audiences. Voice, features, and figure were against him, and yet ladies praised the beauty of all, so cunning was the artist. He played Orosmane, in "Zaire," before Louis XV., and the King was angry to find that the actor could compel him to weep! When Voltaire first heard him, he threw his arms round Lekain, and thanked God for creating a being who could delight Voltaire by uttering bad verses! And yet Voltaire dissuaded him from taking to the stage; but when Voltaire saw in him the hero of his own tragedies, then poet and player lived but for one another, thought themselves France, and that the eyes of the world were upon them. Voltaire addressed Lekain as "Monsieur le Garrick of France, in merit though not in purse!" and as "My very dear and very great support of expiring tragedy!" When he wrote this in 1770, there was a boy seven years old in Paris, who, seventeen years later, began the most splendid career ever run by French actor,—as Seïde, in Voltaire's "Mahomet,"—Talma!
Garrick and Lekain equally respected the original text of an author; but the former, more readily than the latter, adopted so-called "emendations." When Marmontel improved the bold phrases of old Rotrou's "Venceslas," Lekain repeated the improvements at rehearsal, but at night he kept to the original passages of the author, and thus created confusion among his fellow-actors, who lost their cues. In this, Garrick deemed him unjustifiable.
Lekain, like Betterton, never departed from the quality of the part he was playing, even when off the stage. Garrick, like Charles Young, would forget Lear, to set a group in the green-room laughing at some good story. Lekain treated his Paris audiences with contempt. He would affect fatigue after playing less than a dozen times in a single winter, and then pass from one country town to another, acting twice a day! He received a salary from Paris while he was acting at Brussels. He could not play a hundred different parts like Garrick, who identified himself with all; but he carried about with him a repertory of eight or nine characters, with half that number of costumes and a turban; and with these parts, painfully learnt and elaborately acted, he enthralled his audiences. Voltaire protests that Lekain's means were as great, and his natural truthfulness of acting as undeniable as Garrick's; "but, oh! sublime Garrick!" exclaims Mercier, "how much more extended are thy means; how different thy truthfulness!"
This truthfulness was the result of anxious care. Garrick spent two whole months in rehearsing and correcting his Benedick, and when he played it, all the gaiety, wit, and spirit seemed spontaneous.
In Fribble, he imitated no less than eleven men of fashion, so that every one recognised them; and in dancing Mrs. Woffington could not excel him. "Garrick," says Mrs. Delaney, "is the genteelest dancer I ever saw."