David Garrick

David Garrick (1717-1779). Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

David Garrick (19 February 1717 - 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager, and producer, who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century.

Life

Overview

Garrick was born at Hereford, but got most of his education at Lichfield, to which his father. belonged. He was also 1 of the 3 pupils who attended Samuel Johnson's School at Edial. With his great preceptor, whom he accompanied to London, he always remained on friendly terms. He took to the stage, and became the greatest of English actors. He also wrote various plays, and adaptations, and did not scruple to undertake "improved" versions of some of Shakespeare's greatest plays including Cymbeline, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Winter's Tale, performing the same service for Jonson and Wycherley (in the last case with much more excuse). Of his original plays The Lying Valet and Miss in her Teens are perhaps the best.

As an actor, Garrick promoted realistic acting that departed from the bombastic style that was entrenched when he came to prominence. His acting delighted many audiences and his direction of many of the top actors of the English stage influenced their styles as well. Furthermore, during his tenure as manager of Drury Lane, Garrick sought to reform audience behaviour. While this led to some discontent among the theatre-going public, many of his reforms eventually did take hold. In addition to audiences, Garrick sought reform in production matters, bringing an overarching consistency to productions that included set design, costumes and even special effects.

Garrick's influence extended into the literary side of theatre as well. Critics are almost unanimous in saying he was not a good playwright, but his work in bringing Shakespeare to contemporary audiences is notable. In addition, he adapted many older plays in the repertoire that might have been forgotten. These included many plays of the Restoration era. Indeed, while influencing the theatre towards a better standard he also gained a better reputation for theatre folk. This accomplishment led Samuel Johnson to remark that "his profession made him rich and he made his profession respectable."

Youth and education

Garrick 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 recruiting expedition when his famous 2rd son was born at Hereford on the 19th of February 1717.

Captain Garrick, who had made his home at Lichfield, where he had a large family, 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. When the boy was about 11 years old he paid a short visit to Lisbon where his uncle David had settled as a wine merchant.

On his father’s return from Gibraltar, David, who had previously been educated at the grammar school of Lichfield, was, largely by the advice of Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical court, sent with his brother George to the “academy” at Edial, just opened in June or July 1736 by Samuel Johnson, the senior by 7 years of David, who was then 19. This seminary was, however, closed in about 6 months, and on 2 March 1736-7 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 initially the host of his former pupil, who, however, before the end of the year took up his residence at Rochester with John Colson (afterwards Lucasian professor at Cambridge).

London

Captain Garrick died about a month after David’s arrival in London. Soon afterwards, his uncle, the wine merchant at Lisbon, having left David a sum of £1000, he and his brother entered into partnership as wine merchants in London and Lichfield, David taking up the London business. The concern was not prosperous — though Samuel Foote’s assertion that he had known Garrick with 3 quarts of vinegar in the cellar calling himself a wine merchant need not be taken literally — 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 earliest dramatic piece, Lethe, or Aesop in the Shades, which he was 37 years later to read from a splendidly bound transcript to King George III. and Queen Charlotte, was played at Drury Lane on 15 April 1740; and he became a well-known frequenter of theatrical circles.

His earliest 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 1st part as an actor under the name of Lyddal, in the character of Aboan (in Southerne’s Oroonoko). His success in this and other parts determined his future career.

Actor

On 19 October 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. The next day Garrick wrote to his brother at Lichfield, proposing to make arrangements for his withdrawal from the partnership, which, after much distressful complaint on the part of his family, met by him with the utmost consideration, were ultimately carried into effect.

Meanwhile, each night had added to his popularity on the stage. The town, as Thomas Gray (who, like Horace Walpole, initially 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”) attended every performance; the duke of Argyll, lords Cobham and Lyttelton, Pitt, and several other members of parliament testified their admiration.

Within the beginning 6 months of his theatrical career he acted in 18 characters of all kinds, and from 2 December he appeared in his own name. Alexander Pope went to see him 3 times during his earliest performances, and pronounced that “that young man never had his equal as an actor, and he will never have a rival.” Before next spring he had supped with “the great Mr Murray, counsellor,” and was engaged to do so with Pope through Murray’s introduction, while he was dining with Halifax, Sandwich and Lord Chesterfield. “There was a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman’s Fields,” writes Horace Walpole. 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.

Drury Lane

Garrick's 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, where he found the same homage paid to his talents as he had received from his own countrymen. He was accompanied by Margaret (Peg) Woffington, of whom he had been for some time a fervent admirer. (His claim to the authorship of the song to Lovely Peggy is still sub judice. There remains some obscurity as to the end of their liaison.)

From September 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 1746–1747 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 Fleetwood’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 £8000 as 2/3 of the purchase-money. In September 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. The negotiations involved Garrick in a bitter quarrel with Macklin, who appears to have had a real grievance in the matter. Garrick took no part himself till his performance of Archer in the Beaux’ Stratagem, a month after the opening.

For a time at least “the drama’s patrons” were content with the higher entertainment furnished them; in the end Garrick had to “please” them, like most other managers, by gratifying their love of show. Garrick was surrounded by many players of eminence, and he had the art, as he was told by Mrs Clive, “of contradicting the proverb that one cannot make bricks without straw, by doing what is infinitely more difficult, making actors and actresses without genius.”

He had to encounter very serious opposition from the old actors whom he had distanced, and with the younger actors and actresses he was involved in frequent quarrels. But to none of them or their fellows did he, so far as it appears, show that jealousy of real merit from which so many great actors have been unable to remain free.

For the present he was able to hold his own against all competition. The naturalness of his acting fascinated 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 Charles Churchill wrote, in the Rosciad (1761),[1] 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. “It seemed,” wrote Richard Cumberland, “as if a whole century had been stepped over in the passage of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms of a tasteless age, too long superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation.”

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 wonderful variety. The list of his characters in tragedy, comedy and farce is large, and would be extraordinary for a modern actor of high rank; it includes not less than 17 Shakespearian parts.

As a manager, though he committed some grievous blunders, he did good service to the theatre and signally advanced the popularity of Shakespeare’s plays, of which no less than 24 were produced 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 without their favourite acquaintances the gravediggers.”

Among his published adaptations are an opera, The Fairies (from A Midsummer Night's Dream) (1755); an opera, The Tempest (1756); 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 English dramatic literature he rendered an important service by bequeathing 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 Mademoiselle 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, and where she found enthusiastic patrons in the earl and countess of Burlington. 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, to which 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. It was about this time that Grimm extolled Garrick as the only actor who came up to the demands of his imagination; and it was in a reply to a pamphlet occasioned by Garrick’s visit that Diderot gave expression to the views expounded in his Paradoxe sur le comédien. After 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.

Character

In person, Garrick was a little below middle height; in his later years he seems to have inclined to stoutness. The extraordinary 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.

Johnson, of whose various and often merely churlish remarks on Garrick and his doings many are scattered through the pages of Boswell, spoke warmly of the elegance and sprightliness of his friend’s conversation, as well as of his liberality and kindness of heart; while to the great actor’s art he paid the exquisite tribute of describing Garrick’s sudden death as having “eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.” But the most discriminating character of Garrick, slightly tinged with satire, is that drawn by Oliver Goldsmith in his poem of Retaliation. Beyond a doubt Garrick was not without a certain moral timidity contrasting strangely with his eager temperament and alertness of intellect; but, though he was not cast in a heroic mould, he must have been among the most amiable of men.

It was Garrick's acting, the most showy of his careers, that brought him the most adulation. Garrick was not a large man, only standing 5'4", and his voice is not described as particularly loud. From the beginning, Garrick departed from the bombastic style that had been popular, choosing instead a more relaxed, naturalistic style that his biographer Alan Kendall states "would probably seem quite normal to us today, but it was new and strange for his day." Certainly this new style brought acclaim: Alexander Pope stated, "he was afraid the young man would be spoiled, for he would have no competitor." and Garrick quotes George Lyttelton as complimenting him by saying, "He told me he never knew what acting was till I appeared." Even James Quin, an actor in the old style remarked, "If this young fellow be right, then we have been all wrong."

While Garrick's praises were being sung by many, there were some detractors. Theophilus Cibber in his Two Dissertations on the Theatres of 1756 believed that Garrick's realistic style went too far:

His over-fondness for extravagant attitudes, frequently affected starts, convulsive twitchings, jerkings of the body, sprawling of the fingers, flapping the breast and pockets; a set of mechanical motions in constant use; the caricatures of gesture, suggested by pert vivacity; his pantomimical manner of acting, every word in a sentence, his unnatural pauses in the middle of a sentence; his forced conceits; his wilful neglect of harmony, even where the round period of a well-expressed noble sentiment demands a graceful cadence in the delivery.

But Garrick's legacy was perhaps best summarized by the historian Rev Nicolas Tindal when he said that:

The 'deaf' hear him in his 'action', and the 'blind' see him in his 'voice'.

Last years

File:Zoffany-Garrick in Provoked Wife.jpg

"David Garrick in Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane" by Johann Zoffany, 1763.

Garrick practically ceased to act in 1766, but he continued the management of Drury Lane, and in 1769 organized the Shakespeare celebrations at Stratford-on-Avon, an undertaking which ended in dismal failure, though he composed an “Ode upon dedicating a building and erecting a Statue to Shakespeare” on the occasion. (See, inter alia, Garrick’s Vagary, or England Run Mad; with particulars of the Stratford Jubilee, 1769.) 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; but Garrick contrived to maintain the success of his theatre.

He sold his share in the property in 1776 for £35,000, 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 Drugger 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 Susanna Centlivre’s Wonder on 10 June 1776.

He died in London on 20 January 1779. He was buried in Westminster Abbey at the foot of Shakespeare’s statue with imposing solemnities. An elegy on his death was published by William Tasker, poet and physiognomist, in the same year.

Writing

Garrick was often happy in his epigrams and occasional verse, including his numerous prologues 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 Novelty Lethe (1740), The Guardian, Linco’s Travels (1767), Miss in her Teens (1747), Irish Widow, &c., and his alterations and adaptations of old plays, which together fill 4 volumes, evinced his knowledge of stage effect and his appreciation of lively dialogue and action; but he cannot be said to have added a new or original character to the drama. 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. His Dramatic Works (1798) fill 3, his Poetic (1735) 2 volumes.

Recognition

• Garrick was the 1st actor to be granted the honor of being buried in Westminster Abbey, in Poet' Corner next to the monument to William Shakespeare. Later Sir Henry Irving (the 1st actor to be knighted) was buried beside him on the same spot. Sir Laurence Olivier was the 3rd actor to be given that honor, in 1989.
• A monument to Garrick in Lichfield Cathedral bears Johnson's famous comment:

"I am disappointed by that stroke of death that has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."

• A carved stone medallion, 1m or more in diameter, showing Garrick is on display at Birmingham Central Library.
• A School House at King Edward VI School, Lichfield, is named after him.
• The lyrics he penned for "Heart of Oak" remain, with William Boyce's music, the official march of the Royal Navy.
• Legend has it that he was so engrossed in a performance of Richard III that he was oblivious to a bone fracture, inspiring the theatrical felicitation "Break a leg!"

Theatres

Several theatres have been named after Garrick:

• 2 theatres, in London, have been named for him. Garrick Theatre (Leman St) in Whitechapel opened in 1831, and closed in 1881. The 2nd, opened in 1889 as the Garrick Theatre, still survives.
• The Lichfield Garrick Theatre takes its name from David Garrick, as does the Garrick Room, the main function suite in Lichfield's George Hotel.
• 2 amateur dramatic theatres in Greater Manchester, the Altrincham Garrick Theatre and the Stockport Garrick Theatre, also take his name.
• The arts and theatre building at Hampton School is named after him.
• A Community Theatre located north of Perth, Western Australia, is named after Garrick.
• A Community Theatre located in Bonavista, Newfoundland, Canada, is named after Garrick.

In popular culture

• A film made in 1937, a comedy called The Great Garrick directed by James Whale is a fictional story revolving around Garrick's acting skills and his ego which inspires the Académie française to teach him a lesson. The film stars Brian Aherne as Garrick.
• Among Garrick's admirers long after his death was noted magician and stage performer Harry Houdini, who owned and treasured Garrick's personal diary as part of the huge theatrical library Houdini catalogued and maintained late in life in his home in New York City.

Publications

Poetry

• Poetical Works. London: George Kearsley, 1785; New York: B. Blom, 1968.

Plays

• Dramatic Works. (3 volumes), London: R. Bald, 1774; London: A. Millar, 1798; Farnborough, UK: Gregg, 1969.
• Plays (edited by Harry William Pedicord & Fredrick Louis Bergmann). (5 volumes), Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.

Letters and journals

• Letters. (3 volumes), Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963.
• Diary (edited by Ryllis Alexander Goslin). New York: B. Blom, 1971.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Plays performed

• Lethe: or, Aesop in the Shades (1740)
• The Lying Valet (1741)
• Miss in Her Teens; or, The Medley of Lovers (1747)
• Lilliput (1756)
• The Male Coquette; or, Seventeen Fifty Seven (1757)
• The Guardian (1759)
• Harlequin's Invasion (1759)
• The Enchanter; or, Love and Magic (1760)
• The Farmer's Return from London (1762)
• The Clandestine Marriage (1766)
• Neck or Nothing (1766)
• Cymon (1767)
• Linco's Travels (1767)
• A Peep Behind the Curtain, or The New Rehearsal (1767)
• The Jubilee (1769)
• The Irish Widow (1772)
• A Christmas Tale (1773)
• The Meeting of the Company; or, Bayes's Art of Acting (1774)
• Bon Ton; or, High Life Above Stairs (1775)
• The Theatrical Candidates (1775)
• May-Day; or, The Little Gypsy (1775)

See also

Kitty, A Fair but Frozen Maid by David Garrick

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

•  Carrruthers, Robert, & Ward, Adolphus William (1911). "Garrick, David". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 475-477.  Wikisource, Web, Apr. 17, 2020.
• Ennis, Daniel J. & Slagle, Judith Bailey. Prologues, Epilogues, Curtain-Raisers and Afterpieces. Rosemont Publishing, 2007.
• Freedley, George and John A. Reeves. A History of the Theatre. New York, Crown. 1968.
• Kendall, Alan. David Garrick: A Biography. New York, St. Martin's Press. 1985.
• Hartnoll, Phyllis. The Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1983.
• Holland, Peter. "David Garrick". in Banham, Martin, ed. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. London, Cambridge University Press. 1995. pp. 411–412.
• Pierce, Patricia. The Great Shakespeare Fraud: The Strange, True Story of William Henry-Ireland. Sutton Publishing, 2005.
• Oya, Reiko. Representing Shakespearean Tragedy: Garrick, the Kembles, and Kean. Cambridge University Press. 2007.
• Seewald, Jan. Theatrical Sculpture. Skulptierte Bildnisse berühmter englischer Schauspieler (1750–1850), insbesondere David Garrick und Sarah Siddons. Herbert Utz
• Swanson, Alan. "David Garrick and the Development of English Comedy". Edwin Mellen Press, 2013.
• Verlag, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-8316-0671-9
• Woods, Leigh. David Garrick. in Pickering, David, ed. International Dictionary of Theatre. Vol. 3. New York, St. James Press. 1996.

External links

Poems

• David Garrick at AllPoetry ("Hearts of Oak")
• David Garrick at English Poetry (2 poems)
• David Garrick at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (9 poems)

Audio / video

• David Garrick public domain audiobooks from LibriVox

Books

• Works by David Garrick at Project Gutenberg
• David Garrick at Amazon.com

About

• David Garrick in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• About David Garrick at the Garrick Club
• Timeline from the Garrick Club
• David Garrick" in Littell's Living Age 146:1881
• Garrick, David in the Dictionary of National Biography
• "Hiss’d off ye English Stage" at The Diary Review

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.. Original article is at Garrick, David