great tragedies, with the names of Quin, Cibber, and Barry announced for a future night-when from some quarrel or sham illness behind the curtain, the play would be suddenly altered, and Mrs. Woffington, in some of her dashing parts, substituted. To this she submitted for a time, but warned them, if it was repeated, she would not be thus played upon. It happened again, and she refused to go on. The public unjustly made her a victim-flung orange-peel and bade her ask pardon, which she proudly and disdainfully refused to do.* The scene was indeed a picture. She stood there, as Lady Jane Grey, "looking more beautiful than ever; her anger gave a glow to her complexion, and even added lustre to her charming eyes." She treated them with sovereign scorn, and when they would not hear her, walked away. Then they roared for her, and she came back-told them bluntly she would play or not, just as they pleased-it was a matter of perfect indifference to her. They might say on, or off, as they liked. There was a shout of "On!" During this very season this honest actress actually painted her handsome face with wrinkles and crows' feet, to give effect to a play of Shakspeare's. Under such conditions even so "strong" a company could not play well together. The plays, too, were absurdly cast. Before long came the usual symptoms of disorganization-appeals to the public in the papers. By-and-by Quin was "much hissed" in King Richard. The two leading actresses, Woffington and Cibber, still showed their dislike and jealousy, exhibited under the restraint of contemptuous looks and speeches-to the enjoyment of the manager, who called them his Sarah Malcolm and his Catherine Hayes, two infamous women who had been hanged; and in this state of disorder the theatre was not prospering.

* "She was never thought to play more finely than when she thus defied the angry pit, treating their rudeness with contempt."

We have a graphic portrait, which may do as pendant for the one given before by Cumberland. Quin-past sixty, old, "battered," and uncouth-was playing Young Chamont in a long, grisly, half-powdered old periwig, hanging low down on each side of the breast, and down the back; a heavy scarlet coat and waistcoat, trimmed with broad gold lace; black velvet breeches, a black silk neckcloth, black stockings, a pair of squaretoed shoes, with an old-fashioned pair of stone buckles. He had stiff, high-topped white gloves, and a broad, old, scalloped laced hat; he was, besides, very corpulent, and much out of shape. Ryan, another old veteran, was the strong and lusty Polydore, " with a red face, and voice truly horrible." He was not nearly so well dressed as Quin, though in the same fantastic style. Beside these two stood Barry, in all his elegance, youth, and beauty, "in a neat bag-wig" of the prevailing cut and fashion; and the charming Cibber, all elegance and refinement. This extraordinary

Garrick always had really good pieces in reserve, and could vary his carte with one of Cibber's capital comedies, "Love's Last Shift," produced nearly sixty years before-a revival the author actually lived to see-which had true stuff in it; if not wit, the likeness of wit, and became a stock-piece. A strange apathy seemed to come over manager Rich, and he did not even have recourse to the unfailing attraction of his harlequinades, in which he was believed to be unapproached. Yet even in this department his supremacy was now to be attacked in a way he little dreamed of.

CHAPTER IV.

PANTOMIME-FOREIGN TRAVEL-MOSSOP.-1750-1752. THE name of Rich should be dear to all pantomime-goers, and to the rows of little ones that line the front seats at Christmas. There were pantomimes, indeed, before his dayso early as the year 1700; but it was Rich, both as player and writer, who made that sort of piece respectable. It was in 1717 that we find his name conspicuously associated with a Féerie, called "Harlequin Executed!" He was a strange being and curious manager; but beyond all question, the most original and vivacious of Harlequins.

A harlequinade then consisted of two portions-one serious and the other comic; the serious portion being a story selected from, perhaps, Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and set off with all magnificence of scenery, rich dresses, pretty music, and grand dances. At intervals, during the progress of the fable, Harlequin and his company came on, and, with diverting tricks and changes, varied the story; carrying on, in short, a sort of under-plot. Rich, from some affectation, would not appear under his own name, but was always set down in the bills as "Mr. Lun." He was not a little eccentric, and had a dialect

contrast of the old and new school must have been highly diverting; and it is most graphically described by Wilkinson, who was looking on. Justice has scarcely been done to Ryan's merit. Garrick once, going with Woodward to see his Richard, with a view of being amused, owned that he was astonished at the genius and power he saw struggling to make itself felt through the burden of ill-training, uncouth gestures, and an ungraceful and slovenly figure. He was generous enough to own that all the merit there was in his own playing of Richard he had drawn from studying this less fortunate player. Mrs. Bellamy and Wilkinson both mention this acknowledgment, to detract from Garrick's merit; but forget that, in another direction, they are adding to it.

The

of his own, with an odd, blunt, "Abernethy" manner.* tone of these pieces was purely rustic. The characters were farmers and village maidens; the scenes and changes were all taken from the country and farmyard. There were louts and countrymen. Harlequin, in all sorts of disguises, "courting Columbine," was always pursued by the "village constables," whom he eluded with all manner of tricks and devices-so that the introduction of modern policemen is founded on strict tradition. A most effective scene was that of building a house, with the scaffolding set, the bricklayers busy, the hodmen ascending ladders; when suddenly Harlequin appears among them, with a touch pulls scaffolding, bricklayers, all down, and is discovered to have escaped in the confusion. Another "trick," that "made the whole house ring with applause," was Harlequin's coming on disguised as an ostrich, pecking at every one, biting the servants slyly, "kissing Columbine," and then finally "morricing off" the stage. The changes and transformations, too, were all after the modern pattern; and, at a touch of the wand, palaces changed into huts. But more remarkable metamorphoses were the sudden change of men and women into "stools and wheelbarrows," of long colonnades into beds of tulips, and of shops into serpents. Sometimes Harlequin would ride in on a broom, and a magic transformation take place, which now appears of a very humble order-the garden wall changing into a wall covered with prints, ballads, broadsides, &c., and Harlequin disguised as an old woman, selling them; not to mention the "delightful perspective of a farmhouse, where you hear the coots in the water, as at a distance." There were yet more adventures of the same sort, and finally a sort of "transformation scene was discovered; a glittering perspective of pillars and temples. At the end, however, a strange retribution was made to overtake Harlequin, whe was carried off like Don Giovanni, upwards, to the infernal regions, surrounded with fire and demons.†

One of his own actors takes off his oddities for us excellently, and most dramatically. Rich had a kind of provincial dialect, and twisted names into special shape for himself. Wilkinson asked him to give a part to Ned Shuter. In reply, the manager took snuff, and stroked his cat. "If I give it to Muster Shuttleworth, he will not let me teach him; but I will larn you, Muster Williamskin." Younger, the prompter, "Get away, Muster Youngmore; I am teaching Muster Whittington." He warned his visitor against Barry, whom he called Muster Barleymore, and told him that he had no chance from Muster Griskin, which was his name for Garrick.

enters.

In another piece there was an "effect" of the sun rising, which was

But now the time for the carpenters to take possession of Drury Lane stage had arrived, and Garrick, consistent with his declarations, finding the public would not follow him in the correct and classical path, determined to let it have its way. The houses had been growing thin, and he himself, always a source of attraction, could not play every night. He therefore set to work diligently, and the "Boxing-night" of the year 1750 was celebrated with a gorgeous pantomime, in Italian grotesque characters," called "Queen Mab,” in which Woodward came bounding on as Harlequin. It was a marvellous spectacle-comprising gorgeous decorations, and a "great pomp of machinery." It drew all the town, and made Rich, thus attacked with his own weapons, tremble. Henceforward a pantomime became the regular Christmas feature at Drury Lane. This ran forty nights-a curious instance of the good fortune that attended all Garrick's schemes, for a harlequinade would seem to have been totally foreign to his tastes and experience.*

During this season, there was actually a daughter of the great Farquhar's alive, and in greatly reduced circumstances. Even to that generation it must have been a surprise to hear that there was such a link between them and the great humourist. Garrick paid a graceful tribute to his memory by giving his daughter a benefit at Drury Lane, and by acting himself in the appropriate "Beaux' Stratagem." He was always full of such charity in his professional dealings, and the bills of his theatre show innumerable notices of this pattern, "For the benefit of a widow of a reduced citizen," &c. He also gave fresh evidence of his steady purpose to reform his stage, even a "superb and complicated piece of machinery "-though how such effects were produced in these pre-gaseous days seems a mystery. Daphne was turned into a tree in the presence of the audience, which was a good surprise. The tossing of Harlequin in a blanket was a comic incident, and delighted the galleries; but they did not see that he was supported in two long slips all the time. There was acting then even in the conventional Harlequin. One of Rich's famous effects was the hatching of Harlequin by the heat of the sun, a masterpiece in dumb-show-from the first chipping of the egg, his receiving of motion, his feeling of the ground, his standing upright, his quick Harlequin trip round the empty shellevery limb had its tongue-every motion a voice." Dramatic genius triumphed then over every constraint.

That the public felt and enjoyed this success was evidenced by a caricature called "The Theatrical Steel-yard," in which Mrs. Cibber, Barry, Quin, and Mrs. Woffington are exhibited as hanging in a row at one end of the yard, and Garrick sits gaily and triumphantly in the other scale, waving his cap triumphantly, and weighing all four down; while Woodward in his proper dress, and Queen Mab, "strike" the traditional Harlequin attitude, in the centre of the background.

at some pecuniary sacrifice, and had the courage to abolish a time-honoured custom which obliged managers on Lord Mayor's Day to give their audience a coarse old play called "The London Cuckolds," and which seemed to be about as appropriate as "George Barnwell" was to Boxing-night.

In March, 1751, Drury Lane was to witness an unusual spectacle-perhaps the most remarkable, as well as the boldest venture, known to the amateur stage. Such interest and curiosity was excited by this performance, that the House of Commons adjourned at three o'clock to attend early. The Delaval family-men about town, bitten with a taste for acting -had performed "Othello" at Lord Mexborough's, and were fired with a desire for a larger field of action. Garrick, one of whose little weaknesses was an inclination to favour anything associated with persons of quality, interrupted his regular performances, and allowed his theatre to be used for the night. No expense was spared. All parts of the house indifferently shone with laces and jewels and costly dresses. Even in the footmen's gallery it was noted that half a dozen stars were glittering; the Royal princes, with some German ones, were in the side boxes. All these glories were lit up by the soft effulgence of waxlights. On the stage there were fresh scenes, and new and gorgeous dresses. The music was excellent. The scene outside the playhouse is described to have been almost ludicrous from the confusion, and block of chairs and coaches, which impeded each other from getting near the door; and the mob were delighted at seeing fine ladies and gentlemen picking their steps through the mud and filth. Even at the mean public-houses close by, lords, in stars and Garters and silk stockings, were seen waiting until the street should clear a little. Sir Francis Delaval's performance excited great admiration. The expenses, as may be imagined, were enormous. Garrick received £150 for his theatre, and the dresses, scenery, lights," cost upwards of £1,000.

66 wax

He had also produced two new plays, one "Gil Blas," by his friend Moore, which was a failure, and "Alfred," "a masque,' written by Mallet or Malloch. The distraction at the other house came to a point at the end of the season, when Quin, at last, made his final bow as a salaried actor, in the "Fair Penitent," having however met many mortifications during the season. Woffington left them in disgust, and went away to Dublin, where she was received rapturously. The manager of Drury Lane was now fairly entitled to his holiday.

In the summer of this year Mr. and Mrs. Garrick undertook what might be called their wedding trip, thus delayed for nearly