GARRICK, DAVID, actor and author, was b: at Hereford in 1716, and educated at the grammar school of Lichfield. After a short residence at Lisbon with an uncle, who was a wine-merchant in that city, he returned to England, and in 1735 became a pupil of the famous Dr. Johnson; but in the course of six months, master and pupil both proceeded to London, with the view of improving their fortunes. G. attempted the study. of law, but an irresistible instinct soon urged him to the stage. He made his (Out at Ipswich in 1741, as "Aboan," in the play of Oroonoka, and obtained a great suc cess. Encouraged by this, he ventured to appear before a London audience in the autumn of the same year, and in the character of "Richard III." was received with prodi gious applause. The fashionable theaters were emptied to gaze upon the new star that was shedding an unwonted luster on the obscurity of the Goodman's Fields' stage, and the other theatrical celebrities, such as Quin and Cibber, could not conceal their chagrin and disgust. In the following year, G. accepted an engagement at Dublin, where he excited the Hibernian enthusiasm to a miraculous agree. The playhouse, we are told, was so crowded, "that a very mortal fever was produced, which was called Garrick's fever." In 1747, he became joint-patentee of Drury Lane, and two years after, married Mdlle. Violette, a foreign danseuse; a circumstance which, somehow or other, he feared might -expose hint to ridicule, and to prevent such a thing, he got his friend Mr. Edward Moore "to write a diverting poem upon his marriage." This was not the
only occasion when his sensitiveness to malicious banter induced him to forestall the wits and critics, and so blunt the edge of their jests and criticisms: Before acting "Mac beth" for the first time, lie wrote a humorous pamphlet, reflecting on the "inimical behavior of a certain fashionable faulty actor," to wit, Garrick himself. In 1763, he paid a visit to Italy, and in 1769 projected and conduCted the memorable jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon in honor of Shakespeare. He died .in London, Jan. 20, 1779, having accumulated a fortune of £140,000. G. ranks as one of the very greatest—per haps having very greatest—of English actors. He exhibited a Shakespearian universality in the representation of character, and was equally at home in the highest flights of tragedy and the lowest depths of farce. But the naturalness which so wonderfully marked him on the stage, often forsook him in real life. He was jealous to an extreme, and had an unbounded stomach for flattery. His friend Goldsmith hits off his character happily in the poem, entitled Retaliation. As a dramatic author, G. does not hold a high place. He wrote about 40 pieces, some original, but mostly adaptations of old plays. His numerous prologues and epilogues, however, cleseive considerable praise.