“My acquaintance, at this time, with Mrs. as well as Mr. Garrick, was improved into a real friendship; and frequently, on the Saturday night, when Mr. Garrick did not act, he carried me to his villa at Hampton, whence he brought me to my home early on Monday morning. I seldom was more happy than in these visits. His wit, humour, and constant gaiety at home; and Mrs. Garrick’s good sense, good breeding, and obliging desire to please, rendered their Hampton villa, on these occasions, a terrestrial paradise.
“Mrs. Garrick had every faculty of social judgment, good taste, and steadiness of character, which he wanted. She was an excellent appreciator of the fine arts; and attended all the last rehearsals of new or of revived plays, to give her opinion of effects, dresses, scenery, and machinery. She seemed to be his real other half; and he, by his intelligence and accomplishments, seemed to complete the Hydroggynus.”
This eminent couple paid their court to Mr. Burney in the manner that was most sure to be successful, namely, by their endearing and good natured attentions to his young family; frequently giving them, with some chaperon of their father’s appointing, the lightsome pleasure of possessing Mrs. Garrick’s private box at Drury Lane Theatre; and that, from time to time, even when the incomparable Roscius acted himself; which so enchanted their gratitude, that they nearly—as Mr. Burney laughingly quoted to Garrick from Hudibras—
“Did,—as was their duty,
Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie.”
Garrick, who was passionately fond of children, never withheld his visits from Poland-street on account of the absence of the master of the house; for though it was the master he came to seek, he was too susceptible to his own lively gift of bestowing pleasure, to resist witnessing the ecstacy he was sure to excite, when he burst in unexpectedly upon the younger branches: for so playfully he individualised his attentions, by an endless variety of comic badinage,—now exhibited in lofty bombast; now in ludicrous obsequiousness; now by a sarcasm skilfully implying a compliment; now by a compliment archly conveying a sarcasm; that every happy day that gave them but a glimpse of this idol of their juvenile fancy, was exhilarated to its close by reciprocating anecdotes of the look, the smile, the bow, the shrug, the start, that, after his departure, each enraptured admirer could describe.
A circumstance of no small weight at that time, contributed to allure Mr. Garrick to granting these joyous scenes to the young Burney tribe. When he made the tour of Italy, for the recovery of his health, and the refreshment of his popularity, he committed to the care of Mr. Burney and his young family his own and Mrs. Garrick’s favourite little dog, Phill, a beautiful black and white spaniel, of King Charles’s breed, luxuriant in tail and mane, with the whitest breast, and spotted with perfect symmetry.
The fondness of Mr. Garrick for this little spaniel was so great, that one of his first visits on his return from the continent was to see, caress, and reclaim him. Phill was necessarily resigned, though with the most dismal reluctance, by his new friends: but if parting with the favoured little quadruped was a disaster, how was that annoyance overpaid, when, two or three days afterwards, Phill re-appeared! and when the pleasure of his welcome to the young folks was increased by a message, that the little animal had seemed so moping, so unsettled, and so forlorn, that Mr. and Mrs. Garrick had not the heart to break his new engagements, and requested his entire acceptance and adoption in Poland-street.
During the life of this favourite, all the juvenile group were sought and visited together, by the gay-hearted Roscius; and with as much glee as he himself was received by these happy young creatures, whether two-footed or four.
On the first coming-out of the “Cunning Man,” Mr. Garrick, who undoubtedly owed his unequalled varieties in delineating every species of comic character, to an inquisitive observance of Nature in all her workings, amused himself in watching from the orchestra, where he frequently sat on the first night of new pieces, the young auditory in Mrs. Garrick’s box; and he imitatingly described to Mr. Burney the innocent confidence of success with which they all openly bent forward, to look exultingly at the audience, when a loud clapping followed the overture: and their smiles, or nods: or chuckling and laughter, according to their more or less advanced years, during the unmingled approbation that was bestowed upon about half the piece—contrasted with, first the amazement; next, the indignation; and, lastly, the affright and disappointment, that were brought forth by the beginning buzz of hissing, and followed by the shrill horrors of the catcall: and then the return—joyous, but no longer dauntless!—of hope, when again the applause prevailed.
In these various changes, Mr. Garrick altered the expression of his features, and almost his features themselves, by apparent transformations—which, however less poetical, were at least more natural than those of Ovid.