Garrick, DAVID

Garrick, DAVID, actor, manager, and dramatist, was born on 20th February 1717, at Hereford, where his father, Captain Peter Garrick, was then stationed. Lichfield, however, was the home of the Garricks, and it was in the grammar-school there that David received the chief part of his education, for he must have been in his nineteenth or twentieth year before he was sent to study Latin and Greek under Samuel Johnson, at Edial near Lichfield. His tuition by Johnson lasted for only a few months, and its well-known result was the setting out of master and pupil together, on the morning of 2d March 1737, to journey to London; Garrick to study 'mathematics, and philosophy, and humane learning,' with a view to the bar; Johnson 'to try his fate with a tragedy, and to see to get himself employed in some translation, either from the Latin or the French.' But circumstances brought Garrick's legal studies to nothing, and in 1738 he became a wine-merchant, in partnership with his eldest brother, Peter. Samuel Foote in after years used to say that 'he remembered Garrick living in Durham Yard, with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine-merchant.' Garrick, there is no doubt, already had the stage fever, and his attention was probably more taken up with plays and players than with business, so it is not surprising that in 1740 the partnership was dissolved. Garrick then devoted his mind to preparing himself for his intended profession, and in the summer of 1741 made his first appearance as an actor. He did not venture at once to play in London, but went through a short probationary season at Ipswich, playing under the name of Lyddal. His first part was Aboan in Southerne's Oroonoko, which he chose because Aboan's black face disguised him and gave him greater confidence. He subsequently played with great success several other parts, including Harlequin. On 19th October 1741 he appeared in London at the theatre in Goodman's Fields, of which his friend Giffard was manager. Richard III. was his first character, and his success was so great that within a few weeks the two patent theatres were deserted, and crowds flocked to the unfashionable East-end playhouse. But Goodman's Fields had no license, so the managers of Drury Lane and Covent Garden set the law in motion and had the theatre closed. Garrick played at both the patent theatres, but ultimately settled at Drury Lane, of which he became joint-patentee with James Lacy in 1747. Until 1776 he continued to direct the leading theatre, and in that year he retired from the stage and from management, his successor in the direction of the theatre being Richard Brinsley Sheridan. During this period Garrick was himself the great attraction and played continually, his only long rest being a trip to the Continent from 1763 to 1765, at which time he fancied that his popularity was in danger of diminishing. His farewell appearance was made on 10th June 1776, when he played Don Felix in the comedy of The Wonder. He died on 20th January 1779, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a hideously theatrical monument was erected to his memory. As an actor, Garrick occupies the first rank. At his coming the stage was given over to formality and tradition, but these disappeared before the new actor whose leading characteristic was naturalness. He possessed also the most astonishing versatility, being equally at home in tragedy, comedy, or farce—in Lear, Don Felix, or Abel Druggier. As a man, he has been charged with meanness, vanity, and petty jealousy; but his faults of character were grossly exaggerated by those who envied his fame, and they were more than balanced by his many excellent qualities. Garrick's dramatic productions, some forty in number, are of minor importance, but some of his numerous prologues and epilogues are excellent. Garrick married in June 1749 a good and excellent woman, Eva Maria Violette, the celebrated dancer. She long survived him, dying in 1822, at the great age of ninety-seven. See Fitzgerald's Life of David Garrick (1868), and that by Joseph Knight (1894).