One of Garrick's distinguishing characteristics was his power of suddenly assuming any passion he was called on to represent. This often occurred during his continental travels, when in the private rooms of his various hosts,—princes, merchants, actors,—he would afford them a taste of his quality; Scrub or Richard, Brute or Macbeth, and identify himself on the instant with that which he assumed to be. Clairon, the famous French actress, almost worshipped him for his good-nature, but more for his talent, particularly on the occasion when, in telling the story of a child falling from a window, out of its father's arms, he threw himself into the attitude, and put on the look of horror, of that distracted father. The company were moved to honest tears, and when the emotion had subsided, Clairon flung her arms round his neck, kissed him heartily, and then, turning to Mrs. Garrick, begged her pardon, for "she positively could not help it!"
Of the French players, Garrick said that Sophie Arnould was the only one who ever touched his heart. To a young Englishman of French descent, subsequently Lord North's famous antagonist, Colonel Barré, whom he met in Paris, he said, on seeing him act in private, that he might earn a thousand a year, if he would adopt playing as a profession.
French ana abound with illustrations of Garrick's marvellous talent, exercised for the mere joke's sake. How he deceived the driver of a coucou into believing his carriage was full of passengers, Garrick having presented himself half a dozen times at the door, each time with a different face; how he and Preville, the French actor, feigned drunkenness on horseback; and how Garrick showed that his rival, drunk everywhere else, was not drunk enough in his legs. But the greatest honour Garrick ever received was in his own country, and at the hands of Parliament. He happened to be sole occupant of the gallery in the Commons, one night of 1777, during a very fierce discussion between two members, one of whom, noticing his presence, moved that the gallery should be cleared. Burke thereupon sprang to his feet, and appealed to the House; was it consistent with becomingness and liberality to disturb the great master of eloquence? one to whom they all owed so much, and from whom he, Burke, had learned many a grace of oratory? In his strain of ardent praise, he was followed by Fox and Townshend, who described the ex-actor as their great preceptor; and ultimately, Garrick was exempted from the general order that strangers leave the House! Senators hailed him as their teacher, and the greatest of French actors called him "Master!"
It was Grimm's conclusion, that he who had not seen Garrick, could not know what acting was. Garrick alone had fulfilled all that Grimm's imagination could conceive an actor should be. The player's great art of identification astounded him. In different parts he did not seem the same man; and Grimm truly observed, that all the changes in Garrick's features arose entirely from inward emotion;—that he never exceeded truth; and that, in passion alone, he found the sources of distinction. "We saw him," he says, "play the dagger scene in 'Macbeth,' in a room, in his ordinary dress, without any stage illusion; and as he followed with his eyes the air-drawn dagger, he became so grand, that the whole assembly broke into a general cry of admiration. Who would believe," he asks, "that this same man, a moment after, counterfeited, with equal perfection, a pastry-cook's boy, who, carrying a tray of tartlets on his head, and gaping about him at the corner of the street, lets his tray fall in the kennel, and at first stupefied by the accident, bursts at last into a fit of crying?" Such was he who fairly frightened Hogarth himself, by assuming the face of the defunct Fielding!
Garrick's assertion, that a man must be a good comic actor to be a great tragedian, gave M. de Carmontelle the idea of a picture, in which he represented Garrick in an imposing tragic attitude, with a comic Garrick standing between the folding-doors, looking with surprise, and laughing at the other. While the ever-restless actor was sitting for this, he amused himself by passing through imperceptible gradations, from extreme joy to extreme sadness, and thence to terror and despair. The actor was running through the scale of the passions.
Grimm approvingly observed, that Garrick's "studio" was in the crowded streets. "He is always there," writes Grimm; and, no doubt, Garrick perfected his great talents by the profound study of nature. Of his personal appearance, the same writer remarks: "His figure is mediocre; rather short than tall; his physiognomy agreeable, and promising wit; and the play of his eyes prodigious. He has much humour, discernment, and correctness of judgment; is naturally monkeyish, imitating all he sees; and he is always graceful!" Such is the account by a member of a society, whose kindness was never forgotten by the English actor. The desire to see him there again was as strong as Mrs. Woffington's, who, being reminded by Sir C. Hanbury Williams, that she had seen Garrick that morning, exclaimed, "but that's an age ago!"[110]
St. Petersburg caught from Paris the Garrick fever; but the offer of the Czarina Catherine, to give Garrick two thousand guineas for four performances, could not tempt him to the banks of the Neva. Denmark was fain to be content with his counterfeit presentment; and a portrait, painted in London, by order of the King was hung up in the royal palace at Copenhagen.
I have alluded to some things his enemies laid to his charge. They are small matters when they come to be examined; and the more they are examined, the less obnoxious does Garrick seem to censure.
I find more instances of his generosity than of his meanness—more of his fairness of judgment than of his jealousy. He was ever ready to play for the benefit of his distressed brethren. When Macklin lost his engagement under Fleetwood, Garrick offered to allow him £6 per week out of his own salary till he found occupation. He saw, when his own triumph was in its freshness and brilliancy, the bright promise of Barry; and pointed out its great merits, and predicted his future success. To insure that of young Powell, he gave him frequent instruction; and when he brought the soon-forgotten Dexter from Dublin, he not only gave him "first business," and useful directions, but expressed his convictions that, with care and diligence, he would stand in the foremost rank of actors.
The commonest incidents have been tortured to depreciate Garrick's character. When, in 1775, Sheridan's "Duenna" was in the course of its first run of seventy-five nights, the name of the author was extraordinarily popular. At this juncture Garrick did further honour to that name by reviving the "Discovery," by Sheridan's mother, and acting the principal part in it himself.[111] The carpers immediately exclaimed, that the mother had been revived in opposition to the son. They did not even take the low ground of the revival being adopted as a source of profit on account of the author's family name.