Epitaph on Mr. Quin by Mr. Garrick, engraved upon his monument in the Abbey Church at Bath. That tongue which fet the table on a roar, And charm'd the public ear, is heard no more: Cold is that hand, which, living, was ftretch'd forth CHA P. CHAP XXXIX. Mr. Garrick's Country Girl-Unhappy in the fubject, and choice of the actress-His Cymon, and Christmas Tale-Earl of Warwick-Mrs. Yates's Margaret of Anjou Dido-Widow'd Wife-Zenobia. A FTER his return from his foreign tour, Mr. Garrick was not fo conftantly employed as formerly in the fatigues of acting; he had now more leisure to apply himself to writing; and in a few months his muse produced the Country Girl, a comedy, and the dramatic romance of Cymon. The Country Girl was, borrowed from the moft licentious play in the English language, the Country Wife of Wycherley; in which there is to be found a more genuine representation of the loose manners, obfcene language, and diffolute practices of Charles the Second's reign, than in any other play whatfoever. The comedy, potwithstanding, is not deficient in wit, humour humour, and character. The decency of the French ftage, and the profligacy of our own, may be marked out in this æra; for the Country Wife was evidently taken from the L'Ecole des Femmes of Moliere, a comedy written upon the most fimple plan, and worked up with wonderful skill, by that excellent comedian. 1 Great part of the Country Girl is entirely new-written by Mr. Garrick, whỏ preserved fome of the most interesting fcenes of the old play, but he abfolutely changed the plot, and new-modelled the dialogue; to the characters he alfo gave a more modern glofs. Notwithstanding he took infinite pains to adapt the whole of his play to the prefent tafte, he could not entirely please the palate of the audience; he was unhappy in the choice of his actress to perfonate the Country Girl; Mifs Reynolds, though not deficient in merit, neither in age, perfon, or look, could pretend to be the innocent and fimple lafs of fixteen. The laft fcene of the play was an improvement on the original; the rage and and disappointment of an old debauchée, who finds himself outwitted by a raw country girl, were well conceived by the writer, and very naturally felt by the actor. Mr. Holland, in the part of Moody,' rofe above his ufual ftyle in playing. Cymon was termed by the author a dramatic romance, a title unknown to our stage. I do not mean to question its propriety; it seems an attempt to reconcile two things very oppofite, paftoral life and magical enchantment; it is the story of Cymon and Iphigenia greatly extended, and heightened by incantation. Shakespeare was the first dramatic writer who perfectly understood the force of theatrical effect: he knew that the eye must be fed, as well as the ear and the underftanding: many of his plays might be represented in pantomime. He faw that thew and magnificence were effential requifites; and, where-ever his plot would bear it, he has taken effectual care to make his exhibition of drefs, machinery, dance, and every decoration, as ftriking to the fight as the the then mean ftate of our theatres would permit. Of this great art of combining fable, character, paffion, and fentiment, with fplendor and fhew, Ben Jonfon was either entirely ignorant, or disdained the ufe of it; we find him continually, in his prologues and inductions, upbraiding Shakespeare with stealing the ар laufe of an audience by fuch low artifices. Mr. Garrick, in his Cymon and the Christmas Tale, embraced every occafion to treat the audience with fine fcenes, fplen did dreffes, brifk mufic, lively dances, and all the ornaments which his plot would admit. The fcene of the feveral orders of chivalry in Cymon, was new, and finely imagined; and the whole piece is happily varied, very lively, and entertaining. The Christmas Tale was fit only to be exhibited to a holiday audience. However, he gained his ends by both these pieces; they were acted frequently to crowded houfes: Cymon continues a favourite of the public; but the Christmas Tale is abfolutely forgotten. The |