GARRICK, DAVID 7 79), English actor and theat rical manager, was descended from a good French Protestant family named Garric or Garrique of Bordeaux, which had settled in England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His father, Captain Peter Garrick, who had married Arabella Clough, the daughter of a vicar choral of Lichfield cathedral, was on a re cruiting expedition when his famous third son was born at Here ford on Feb. 19, 1717. Captain Garrick, who had made his home at Lichfield, in 1731 rejoined his regiment at Gibraltar. This kept him absent from home for many years, during which letters were written to him by "little Davy," acquainting him with the doings at Lichfield. On his father's return from Gibraltar, David, who had previously been educated at the grammar school of Lichfield, was sent with his brother George to the "academy" at Edial just opened in June or July 1736 by Samuel Johnson, the senior by seven years of David, who was then 19. This seminary was, how ever, closed in about six months, and on March 2, 173 7, both Johnson and Garrick left Lichfield for London—Johnson, as he afterwards said, "with twopence halfpenny in his pocket," and Garrick "with three-halfpence in his." Johnson, whose chief asset was the ms. tragedy of Irene, was at first the host of his former pupil, who, however, before the end of the year went to live at Rochester with John Colson (afterwards Lucasian professor at Cambridge). Captain Garrick died about a month after David's arrival in London. Soon afterwards, his uncle, a wine merchant at Lisbon, having left David a sum of I i ,000, he and his brother entered into partnership as wine merchants in London and Lich field, David taking up the London business. The concern was not prosperous, and before the end of 1741 he had spent nearly half of his capital.
His passion for the stage completely engrossed him; he tried his hand both at dramatic criticism and at dramatic authorship. His first dramatic piece, Lethe, or Aesop in the Shades was played at Drury Lane on April 15, 1740; and he became a well-known frequenter of theatrical circles. His first appearance on the stage was made in March 1741, incognito, as harlequin at Goodman's Fields, Yates, who was ill, having allowed him to take his place during a few scenes of the pantomime entitled Harlequin Student, or The Fall of Pantomime with the Restoration of the Drama. Garrick subsequently accompanied a party of players from the same theatre to Ipswich, where he played his first part as an actor under the name of Lyddal, in the character of Aboan (in South erne's Oroonoko). On Oct. 19, 1741 he made his appearance at Goodman's Fields as Richard III. and gained the most enthusiastic applause. Among the audience was Macklin, whose performance of Shylock, early in the same year, had pointed the way along which Garrick was so rapidly to pass in triumph. On the morrow the latter wrote to his brother at Lichfield, proposing withdrawal from the partnership. Meanwhile, each night had added to his popu larity on the stage. The town, as Gray (who, like Horace Walpole, at first held out against the furore) declared, was "horn-mad" about him. Before his Richard had exhausted its original effect, he won new applause as Aboan, and soon afterwards as Lear and as Pierre in Otway's Venice Preserved, as well as in several comic characters (including that of Bayes). Glover ("Leonidas") at tended every performance; the duke of Argyll, Lords Cobham and Lyttelton, Pitt and others praised the new actor. Within the first six months of his theatrical career he acted in 18 characters of all kinds, and from Dec. 2, he appeared in his own name. Pope went to see him three times during his first performances, and pronounced that "that young man never had his equal as an actor, and he will never have a rival." Garrick's farce of The Lying Valet, in which he performed the part of Sharp, was at this time brought out with so much success that he ventured to send a copy to his brother.
His fortune was now made, and while the managers of Covent Garden and Drury Lane resorted to the law to make Giffard, the manager of Goodman's Fields, close his little theatre, Garrick was engaged by Fleetwood for Drury Lane for the season of 1742. In June of that year he went over to Dublin. He was accompanied by Margaret (Peg) Woffington, of whom he had been for some time a fervent admirer. From Sept. 1742 to April 1745 he played at Drury Lane, after which he again went over to Dublin. Here he remained during the whole season, as joint-manager with Sheridan, in the direction and profits of the Theatre Royal in Smock Alley. In 1746-47 he fulfilled a short engagement with Rich at Covent Garden, his last series of performances under a management not his own. With the close of that season Fleet wood's patent for the management of Drury Lane expired, and Garrick, in conjunction with Lacy, purchased the property of the theatre, together with the renewal of the patent ; contributing f 8,000 as two-thirds of the purchase-money. In Sept. 1747 it was opened with a strong company of actors, Johnson's prologue being spoken by Garrick, while the epilogue, written by him, was spoken by Mrs. Woffington. Garrick was surrounded by many emi nent players, and he had the art, as he was told by Mrs. Clive, "of contradicting the proverb that one cannot make bricks with out straw, by doing what is infinitely more difficult, making actors and actresses without genius." The naturalness of his acting fas cinated those who, like Partridge in Tom Jones, listened to nature's voice, and justified the preference of more conscious critics. To be "pleased with nature" was, as Churchill wrote, in the Rosciad (1761), to be pleased with Garrick. For the stately declamation, the sonorous, and beyond a doubt impressive, chant of Quin and his fellows, Garrick substituted rapid changes of passion and humour in both voice and gesture, which held his audiences spellbound. Garrick's French descent and his education may have contributed to give him the vivacity and versatility which distinguished him as an actor ; and nature had given him an eye, if not a stature, to command, and a mimic power of wonder ful variety. The list of his characters in tragedy, comedy and farce would be extraordinary for a modern actor of high rank; it includes not less than 17 Shakespearian parts. As a manager he did good service to the theatre and signally advanced the popu larity of Shakespeare's plays, of which not less than 24 were pro duced at Drury Lane under his management. Many of these were not pure Shakespeare ; and he is credited with the addition of a dying speech to the text of Macbeth. On the other hand, Tate Wilkinson says that Garrick's production of Hamlet in 1773 was well received at Drury Lane even by the galleries, "though with out their favourite acquaintances the gravediggers." Among his published adaptations are an opera, The Fairies (from Midsum mer Night's Dream) (17 5 5) ; an opera The Tempest (17 56) ; Catherine and Petruchio (1758) ; Florizel and Perdita (1762). But not every generation has the same notions of the way in which Shakespeare is best honoured. Few sins of omission can be charged against Garrick as a manager, but he refused Home's Douglas, and made the wrong choice between False Delicacy and The Good Natur'd Man. For the rest, he purified the stage of much of its grossness, and introduced a relative correctness of costume and decoration unknown before. To the study of Eng lish dramatic literature he rendered an important service by be queathing his then unrivalled collection of plays to the British Museum.
After escaping from the chains of his passion for the beautiful but reckless Mrs. Woffington, Garrick had in 1749 married Made moiselle Violette (Eva Maria Veigel), a German lady who had attracted admiration at Florence or at Vienna as a dancer, and had come to England early in 1746, where her modest grace and the rumours which surrounded her created a furore. Garrick, who called her "the best of women and wives," lived most happily with her in his villa at Hampton, acquired by him in 1754, whither he was glad to escape from his house in Southampton street. To this period belongs Garrick's quarrel with Barry, the only actor who even temporarily rivalled him in the favour of the public. In 1763 Garrick and his wife visited Paris, where they were cordially received and made the acquaintance of Diderot and others at the house of the baron d'Holbach. Grimm extolled Garrick as the first and only actor who came up to the demands of his imag ination; and it was in a reply to a pamphlet occasioned by Gar rick's visit that Diderot set forth the views expounded in his Paradoxe sur le cornedien. Af ter some months spent in Italy, where Garrick fell seriously ill, they returned to Paris in the autumn of 1764 and made more friends, reaching London in April 1765. Their union was childless, and Mrs. Garrick survived her husband until 1822. Her portrait by Hogarth is at Windsor castle.
Garrick practically ceased to act in 1766, but he continued the management of Drury Lane, and in 1769 organized the Shake speare celebrations at Stratford-on-Avon. Of his best supporters on the stage, Mrs. Cibber, with whom he had been reconciled, died in 1766, and Mrs. (Kitty) Clive retired in 1769. Garrick sold his share in the property in 1776 for £ 3 5,000, and took leave of the stage by playing a round of his favourite characters— Hamlet, Lear, Richard and Benedick, among Shakespearian parts; Lusignan in Zara, Aaron Hill's adaptation of Voltaire's Zaire; and Kitely in his own adaptation of Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, Archer in Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem; Abel Drug ger in Ben Jonson's Alchemist; Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife; Leon in Fletcher's Rule a Wife and have a Wife. He ended the series, as Tate Wilkinson says, "in full glory" with "the youthful Don Felix" in Mrs. Centlivre's Wonder on June 1o, 1776. He died in London on Jan. 20, 1779. He was buried in Westminster Abbey at the foot of Shakespeare's statue.
In person, Garrick was a little below middle height ; in his later years he seems to have inclined to stoutness. The extraordi nary mobility of his whole person, and his power of as it were transforming himself at will, are attested by many anecdotes and descriptions, but the piercing power of his eye must have been his most irresistible feature. The most discriminating char acter of Garrick, slightly tinged with satire, is that drawn by Goldsmith in his poem of Retaliation. Garrick was often happy in his epigrams and occasional verse, including his numerous pro logues and epilogues. He had the good taste to recognize, and the spirit to make public his recognition of, the excellence of Gray's odes at a time when they were either ridiculed or neglected. His dramatic pieces, The Lying Valet, adapted from Motteux's Nov elty Lethe (1740), The Guardian, Linco's Travels (1767), Miss in her Teens (1747), Irish Widow, etc., and his alterations and adap tations of old plays, which together fill four volumes, evinced his knowledge of stage effect and his appreciation of lively dialogue and acting. He was joint author with Colman of The Clandestine Marriage (1766), in which he is said to have written his famous part of Lord Ogleby.
Garrick's Private Correspondence (published in 1831-32 with a short memoir by Boaden, in 2 vols. 4to), which includes his ex tensive Foreign Correspondence with distinguished French men and women, and the notices of him in the memoirs of Cumberland, Hannah More and Madame D'Arblay, and above all in Boswell's Life of Johnson, bear testimony to his many attractive qualities as a companion and to his fidelity as a friend.
As to the portraits of Garrick, see W. T. Lawrence in The Connois seur (April 1905) . That by Gainsborough at Stratford-on-Avon was preferred by Mrs. Garrick to all others. Several remain from the hand of Hogarth, including the famous picture of Garrick as Richard III. The portraits by Reynolds include the celebrated "Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy." Zoffany's are portraits in character. Rou oiliac's statue of Shakespeare, for which Garrick sat, and for which tie paid the sculptor 30o guineas, was originally placed in a small temple at Hampton, and is now in the British Museum.