Complains that Heresy corrupts the That Whitefield Garrick has misled the age, [stage. And taints the sound religion of the But eyes will open, and to church again! It is not Heresy, but Reformation." Quin and Garrick were afterwards good friends; though the latter, in allusion to his own diminutive stature, and to a well-known print in Hogarth's "Harlot's Progress," on first undertaking the part of the Moor, said to a friend, "When I appear in Othello, if Quin be in the house, I suppose he will say, here's Pompey-where's the tea-kettle'." It is certain that Quin used to ridicule Garrick's size in the principal character of "The Provoked Wife," calling bim always" Master Jackey Brute," instead of "Sir John." Yet on Quin's death, Garrick pathetically alluded to him in his Prologue to "The Clandestine Marriage," and wrote his epitaph in Bath-abbey Church: "That tongue, which set the table in a [more! And charm'd the public ear, is heard no Clos'd are those eyes, the harbingers of wit, [Shakespeare writ. Which spoke before the tongue what Cold are those hands, which, living, were stretch'd forth [worth. At friendship's call to succour modest Here lies James Quin. Deign, reader, to be taught, [thought, (Whate'er thy strength of body or of In Nature's happiest mould however cast); [last." roar, To this complexion thou must come at he continued till 1745, when he again visited Ireland, and in the following year performed at Covent Garden, under the management of Mr. Rich. In 1747, he and Mr. Lacy jointly purchased of Mr. Fleetwood the property of Drury Lane Theatre, and having obtained a new patent, the house was opened with an inimitable prologue, written by Dr. Johnson. June 22, 1749, Garrick married Madam Eva-Maria Violetta, who still survives. In the same year the play of "Romeo and Juliet" was revived at the same time at the two rival theatres, Romeo, Garrick; Juliet, Mrs. Bellamy; and Mercutio, Woodward, at Drury Lane; opposed in the same characters by Barry, Mrs. Cibber, and Macklin, at Covent Garden. The rivalry commenced Oct. 1, and was continued for twelve successive nights, when Covent Garden gave up the contest, and Drury Lane in triumph performed it one night more. After both houses had acted this play many times, the following anonymous epigram appeared: "Well, what's the play? quoth angry As from his bed he rouzes; On Garrick's and Barry's performance of Lear, the Rev. Richard Kendal, of Peterhouse, Cambridge, wrote these beautiful lines : "The town have found out different ways In 1758, Dr. Hill's farce of the Rout was acted, when Garrick produced this epigram: "For physic and farces In the ensuing year Hill wrote a jur'd a letter, [for the better. I'll change my notes soon, and I hope May the right use of letters, as well as [pen! Hereafter be fix'd by the tongue and the of men, Most Most devoutly I wish they may both have their due, And that I may be never mistaken for U." I have somewhere seen or heard of a tale, which appears to have been either the parent or the offspring of Garrick's epigram: "Pray what is the name of the fellow in the pil. lory?" said a spectator to his neighbour. "It is one Vowel," was the reply. "One Vowel is it! I am heartily glad that it is neither I nor U." In 1764 Garrick set out on a tour through France and Italy. A few evenings before his departure he supped with his friend, the Rev. James Townley, head master of Merchant Taylors school, when Garrick asking him if he had no poetic adieu ready, he in a few minutes produced the following pointed energetic compliment : "When Garrick's steps the Alps have trod, Prepar'd to enter mighty Rome, The Amphitheatre shall nod, And Roscius shudder in his tomb." He returned from his journey in April 1765, and in the following year his friend Lord Camden being promoted to the Seals, Mr. Wilmot, his Lordship's purse bearer, called at Mr. Garrick's house at Hampton, where learning that he had not paid his congratulatory compliments, a conversation ensued, in which Garrick thus converts an imputed neglect into an elegant panegyric. Colloquial Epigram. "You should call at his house, or should send him a card; Can Garrick alone be so cold? Shall I a poorplayer,and still poorerbard- declare; illustration of this remark, Sir Joshua composed two imaginary dialogues, between Johnson, himself, and Gibbon, in the former of which, Johnson depreciates the intellectual character of his old pupil, and in the latter he justly extols it. This jeu d'esprit, which exhibits a caricature resem blance of Johnson's colloquial style, is preserved in the Supplement to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1816. There can be no doubt but that Johnson was sincerely attached to Garrick; and in his life of Smith, which was published shortly after the death of his friend, having delineated the character of his earliest patron, Gilbert Walmsley, of Lichfield, he pathetically adds, "At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful and instructive hours, with companions such as are not often found with one who has lengthened, and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James, whose skill in physic will be long remembered; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with the character of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure." The freedom of the borough of Stratford upon Avon having been presented to him, in a box made of Shakespeare's mulberry tree, Garrick undertook the principal management of the Jubilee, which was celebrated at that town in honour of its immortal native, on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of September, 1769, and wrote most of the songs and poems for the occasion. "The Mulberry-tree" by Lovibond is too long for insertion here; but if any of your readers have not seen it (and I do not think that it is very generally known), they will, I am sure, derive much pleasure by referring to a poem of lively unaffected versification and genuine wit; and most happily descriptive of Shakespeare, Garrick, and Johnson. Early in 1776 Garrick sold his interest in Drury Lane Theatre, and on June 10, of the same year, finally quitted the stage, after performing the character of Don Felix, in "The Wonder," for the benefit of the Theatrical Fund. Mr. Lewis, an actor (who, from his constant repining at almost every event, was known by the the name of the "King of Grief," and who was uncle to the celebrated comedian of the same name), having performed with Garrick on his first appearance at Goodman's Fields Theatre, and witnessed his retirement at Drury Lane, wrote— "I saw him rising in the East, With all his energetic glows; I saw him setting in the West, In greater splendour than he rose." Garrick died at his house in the Adelphi, January 20, 1779, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where on his monument is inscribed an epitaph by Pratt, which has too much common-place finery about it: "To paint fair Nature, by Divine command Her magic pencil in his glowing handA Shakespeare rose-then to expand his fame Wide o'er this "breathing world" a Garrick came. drew, Though sunk in death the forms the poet [anew: The actor's genius bade them breathe Though, like the bard himself, in night they lay, [day Immortal Garrick call'd them back to And till Eternity, with power sublime, Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time, Shakespeare and Garrick like twin stars shall shine, And earth irradiate with a beam divine." There is also a cenotaph to his memory, erected by his widow in Lichfield Cathedral, for which the following lines by Anna Seward were intended, but not inscribed, Mrs. Garrick properly preferring the concluding words of Johnson's testimony, be fore related: quently levelled at his supposed parsimony. Boswell tells us that Foote used to say of him, "Garrick walked out with an intention to do a generous action, but turning the corner of a street, he met with the ghost of a halfpenny, which frightened him." Shortly after the act for the regulation of the gold coin came out, Foote and Garrick being at a tavern together, the former pulling out his purse to pay the bill, asked the other, “What he should do with a light guinea that he had?" "Pshaw!" said Garrick, fling it to the Devil." "Ay, David," retorted Foote, " you are just the man I ever took you for, always contriving to make a guinea go further than any body else." The "Rosciad" of Churchill is well known for its spirited delineation of Garrick and his contemporary actors; and the "Retaliation" of Goldsmith (which was produced as a reply to the " Jupiter and Mercury," a fable by Garrick, in which he satirized the Doctor's inconsistencies,) contains admirably drawn characters of Garrick and his literary friends. To Goldsmith's Retaliative Cookery, Garrick replied: "Are these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us? Is this the great Poet whose works so content us? This Goldsmith's fine feast, who has The centenary of Garrick's birth was celebrated at his native city, Hereford, on Feb. 28, 1816, with ringing of bells, a large public dinner, and the theatre illuminated. Mr. URBAN, March 3. N addressing you upon the sub IN ject of the "Grammars used in public schools," I feel considerable pain, from liability to misconstruction: I may be supposed inimical to their institutions, or to be actuated by a private interest, or some motive not of public bearing. But the fact is not so. Educated I have myself been in a large public school; and I feel not any objection to them but in one point, viz. the absurdity of their using Grammars in Latin, before a pupil knows any thing of the language; which is just as rational as would be a direction post post in that language, for the general information of travellers. It was a remark of Dr. Johnson, that no man ever yet wrote an elementary book sufficiently clear for comprehension to a person previously unacquainted with the subject, or unassisted by a master. There certainly is no reason in requiring a pupil to read, before he can spell, or spell before he knows his letters. Yet such is the case every day.-Time, a most important thing in youth, is squandered in profusion, from practices founded entirely upon barbarism. The wretched versification of Propria quæ maribus, As in præsenti, &c. considered as poetry pure trash, is taken from the idea of the middle age, that matters in verse are better, as such, remembered than the same things in prose. The Abbé Sade, in his "Memoires de Petrarque," adduces this reason as the origin of these valuable acquisitions to the Literary world. It is not considered, that Dog Latin was in those days quite familiar. Chaucer's Abraham could draw a char ter of quittance; law and religion rendered such Latin as familiar as now is arithmetick, and it was not for the Latin, but the poetical form, that the grammars were so constructed in this exquisite taste. The real origin of propria quæ's, &c. &c. is precisely the same as would be "Conjug. the first from o makes avi, As a Barber would say from shavo shavi. Conjug. the second makes eo-ui, As ob he is he ob! and I you, is U I. Conjug. the third turns the O into 1, As O! a man cries out, who gets a black eye. Conjug. the fourth changes io to ivi, For a rhyme to which nonsense fruitlessly strive I." In a subsequent instance, soon to be quoted, I seriously declare that I am not joking. It was in compliance with the custom of our middle-age ancestors, that the alphabet was tacked on to the rhymes, "A was an archer and shot at a frog;" but then the verse was not in a foreign language. The child could comprehend the nonsense. It is not however the intention of this Essay to expose to ridicule those fine and elegant scholars, who fill the office of Teachers in our great public schools. They form our senators and our great men. They are (to rub their nerves up a little in the manner of their own grammars, with some Saxon termination,) the Praxiteleses, and the Phidiases and the Appelleses of classical writing-admirable chemists, who by simple process of exposing the bottom of a schoolboy retort to a fire of birch twigs, extract from the lumpish coal of idleness, a brilliant gas-light. No, they are public benefactors; they enable the children of men of fortune to shine; but we are not finding fault with the workmen, only with the tools. We have a just right to complain of carpenters, who will only use a chisel and an axe, and reject a saw.-But to come to the point. The Westminster Grammar is an admirable compendium of most useful knowledge in the Greek and Latin languages; yet such is the influence of pedantry, that knowledge is locked up in most barbarous Latin metre, where words at the end of lines are even divided into two, in order to make up an hexameter, and others absolutely crippled to make them fall into verse. The compiler of such extraordinary productions, (as silly as would be Mrs. Glasse's Cookery in rhymes) seems not to have known the natural propensity of the Roman language to fall into hexameters and pentameters, proved, as it has been, by only taking a prose sentence of Livy, and showing that it fell spontaneously into metre. No, they thought of no such thing. They seriously acted upon the same idea as the authors of "Who killed Cock Robin," or "This is the house that Jack built;" all derived from the dicibula of the Romans, Apples grow in the sea" and "Fishes in a tree;" the nonsense sung by the Roman soldiers, during the triumphs, and "Bucca, bucca, quot sunt hic," menhow many horns do I hold up?" The tioned by Petronius, " Buck, buck, propria quæ's, &c. still retained, had all the same origin, address to the memory via nonsense. Why not then place their rules in the most simple intelligible English? But to prove there is a real neglect of a solemn duty, due to the publick, so far as concerns unnecessary expence to the parents, by retarding instruction through such sheer adherence to pure pedantry, and danger |