Chapter VII

Garrick's Funeral from the Adelphi--Johnson's Opinion of Garrick: "A Liberal Man"--His Death "Eclipsed the Gaiety of Nations"--Topham Beauclerk and Johnson--Mrs Garrick's famous Dinner Party--Johnson and other Celebrities Present--Described by Hannah More and Boswell--Johnson's Morning Visit to Adelphi Terrace--Hannah More's Life Here--Another Dinner Party--Death of Mrs Garrick--Shakespeare's Gloves sent to Mrs Siddons from the Adelphi--Goldsmith writes from a Sponging-House to Garrick in the Adelphi--Becket, the Bookseller.

THE funeral procession which wended its way from the Adelphi Terrace, through Adam Street to the Strand and thence by way of Whitehall to Westminster Abbey, on that winter's morning in February, 1779, was a lengthy and imposing one, though nowadays we should consider such pomp and circumstance very lugubrious. First of all, came four porters on horseback, their staffs, or wands of office, covered with black silk and scarves. Then came six other men, with mourning cloaks, followed by another official bearing a heavily-draped pennon. Then came other six men carrying a surcoat of arms, a helmet with crest, wreath, and mantlet. A state lid of black ostrich feathers, surrounded by escutcheons, immediately preceded the hearse, which was 'full-dressed'--that is to say, it bore at each corner and on the sides waving black ostrich plumes. A state coach, empty, and with a page on each side, was followed by a mourning coach containing the clergy from St Martin's-in-the-Fields. Then came six more mourning coaches "with the pall-bearers, two in each coach, six pages on each side. A ditto, with the chief mourners, a page on each side. A ditto, with three family ditto. A ditto, with three physicians. A ditto, with surgeon and apothecaries, a page on each side. A ditto, with Messrs Sheridan and Harris, a page on each side. Three ditto, with a deputation of twelve gentlemen, performers from Drury-Lane theatre, three pages on each side. Two men in mourning, on horseback, with cloaks, etc. Three ditto, with a deputation of twelve gentlemen, performers from Covent-garden theatre, three pages on each side. Two men in mourning, on horseback, with cloaks, etc. Four mourning coaches, with the members of the literary club, four pages on each side. Two men in mourning, on horseback, with cloaks. Seven coaches with intimate friends of the deceased, seven pages on each side. Mr Garrick's coach, empty. All the gentlemen's family coaches, empty."[37] The body was received at the great west door of the Abbey, about three o'clock, by the Bishop of Rochester, Dean of Westminster, who, attended by the clergy and choir, preceded the corpse up the centre aisle, during which time Purcell's funeral music was played and sung.[38]

Among those who followed the mournful procession from the Adelphi were Lord Camden, the Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Ossory; the Duke of Devonshire; Earl Spencer; the Right Hon. Richard Rigby, and Viscount Palmerston, who, with others, were the pall-bearers. The mourning coaches also contained Dr Johnson; George Colman, the elder, the dramatist; John Dunning, afterwards Baron Ashburton, whose _Inquiry into the Doctrines lately promulgated concerning Juries, Libels_, etc., was pronounced by Horace Walpole "the finest piece ... written for liberty since Lord Somers"; Edmund Burke; Colonel Isaac Barré, the Irish soldier and politician; the Hon. Charles Fox; Lord Charles Spencer; the deputy usher of the black rod; and many other distinguished men. The committee from Drury Lane consisted of Richard Yates, Tom King, Vernon, William Parsons, James Dodd--an actor who, according to Charles Lamb, "was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice collection of old English literature"--Aickin, John Palmer--an incomparable Joseph Surface--W. Bensley--the great Malvolio of his day--William Brereton, John Moody, and Robert Baddeley. From Covent Garden, there came "Gentleman" Lewis, Lee Lewes, John Quick--George III.'s favourite comedian--and some nine other players of good repute. It was said at the time that a greater concourse of people attended than was ever known on a similar occasion.

Johnson, as all students of the stage are aware, had a sincere admiration for Garrick, a fact that is proved by several references in the pages of Boswell. A few months before the death of the player, Johnson and Boswell dined with William Scott, in his chambers in the Temple. The conversation turned upon fame, and Boswell "slily introduced" the name of David Garrick, "and his assuming the airs of a great man. _Johnson_: 'Sir, it is wonderful how _little_ Garrick assumes. No, Sir, Garrick _fortunam reverenter habet_. Consider, Sir,--celebrated men such as you have mentioned have had their applause at a distance; but Garrick had it dashed in his face, sounded in his ears, and went home every night with the plaudits of a thousand in his cranium. Then, Sir, Garrick did not _find_, but _made_ his way to the tables, the levees, and almost the bedchambers of the great. Then, Sir, Garrick had under him a numerous body of people; who, from fears of his power and hopes of his favour, and admiration of his talents, were constantly submissive to him. And here is a man who has advanced the dignity of his profession. Garrick has made a player a higher character.' _Scott_: 'And he is a very sprightly writer too.' _Johnson_: 'Yes, Sir; and all this supported by great wealth of his own acquisition. If all this had happened to me, I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had happened to Cibber or to Quin, they'd have jumped over the moon. Yet Garrick speaks to _us_' (smiling). _Boswell_: 'And Garrick is a very good man, a charitable man.' _Johnson_: 'Sir, a liberal man. He has given away more money than any man in England. There may be a little vanity mixed; but he has shown that money is not his first object.' _Boswell_: 'Yet Foote used to say of him, that he walked out with the intention to do a generous action, but turning the corner of a street, he met the ghost of a halfpenny, which frightened him.' _Johnson_: 'Why, Sir, that is very true, too; for I never knew a man of whom it could be said with less certainty to-day what he will do to-morrow, than Garrick; it depends so much on his humour at the time.' _Scott_: 'I am glad to hear of his liberality. He has been represented as very saving.' _Johnson_: 'With his domestic saving we have nothing to do. I remember drinking tea with him long ago, when Peg Woffington made it, and he grumbled at her for making it too strong. He had begun to feel money in his purse, and did not know when he should have enough of it!'"

Shortly after Garrick's death, Johnson accorded the actor praise that was even greater. The occasion was a dinner party, on April 24, 1779, at Topham Beauclerk's, at which Sir Joshua Reynolds, as well as Johnson and Boswell, was present. Boswell mentioned that John Wilkes had spoken of Garrick as a man who had no friend, a contention which Johnson allowed to be right. "'He had friends, but no friend,' he said. 'Garrick was so diffused, he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself. He found people always ready to applaud him, and that always for the same thing; so he saw life with great uniformity.'" Whereupon, Boswell, taking upon himself "for once, to fight with Goliath's weapons, and play the sophist," said: "'Garrick did not need a friend, as he got from everybody all that he wanted. What is a friend? One who supports and comforts you, while others do not. Friendship, you know, Sir, is the cordial drop "to make the nauseous draught of life go down"; but if the draught be not nauseous, if it be all sweet, there is no occasion for that drop.' _Johnson_: 'Many men would not be content to live so. I hope I should not. They would wish to have an intimate friend, with whom they might compare minds and cherish private virtues.'" One of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield as a man who had no friend. "_Johnson_: 'There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.' _Boswell_: 'Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf. Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.' _Johnson_: 'Garrick was a very good man, the most cheerful man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family whose study was to make fourpence do as much as others made fourpence halfpenny do. But when he had got money he was very liberal.' I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in his _Lives of the Poets_. 'You say, Sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations.' _Johnson_: 'I could not have said more or less. It is the truth: _eclipsed_, not _extinguished_; and his death _did_ eclipse; it was like a storm.' _Boswell_: 'But why nations? Did his gaiety extend farther than his own nation?' _Johnson_: 'Why, sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said--if we allow the Scotch to be a nation--to have gaiety--which they have not. _You_ are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.' _Beauclerk_: 'But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.' I, however, continued to think the compliment to Garrick hyperbolically untrue. His acting had ceased some time before his death; at any rate he had acted in Ireland but a short time, at an early period of his life, and never in Scotland. I objected also to what appears an anti-climax of praise, when contrasted with the preceding panegyric, 'and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure!' 'Is not _harmless pleasure_ very tame?' _Johnson_: 'Nay, Sir, harmless pleasure is the highest praise. Pleasure is a word of dubious import; pleasure is, in general, dangerous, and pernicious to virtue; to be able, therefore, to furnish pleasure that is harmless, pleasure pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess.'"

Johnson was a frequent visitor to Adelphi Terrace, for not only was he on intimate terms with Mr and Mrs Garrick, but another of his friends, Topham Beauclerk, lived there at one time. From 1757 to 1780, there are frequent and most kindly allusions to him in the pages of Boswell. In the former year, he matriculated at Oxford. Here he met another of Johnson's friends--"High, shy, and dry" Bennet Langton, the eminent Greek scholar. Beauclerk was a man of culture and of great knowledge of the world. And he had the good fortune to win the affectionate regard of Dr Johnson. On March 10, 1768, Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, was divorced from her husband, Lord St John and Bolingbroke, and, two days later, she was married to Beauclerk, to whom "she made an excellent wife." Beauclerk died, in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on March 11, 1780. His extensive library, which was particularly rich in English plays, history, travel, and science, was dispersed by auction in 1781.

On Friday, April 20, 1781, there was a memorable dinner party in Adelphi Terrace, the first of the kind given by Mrs Garrick since the death of her husband. "We begin now," records Hannah More, who was staying with Mrs Garrick at the time, "to be a little cheerful at home, and to have our small parties. One such we have just had, and the day and evening turned out very pleasant. Johnson was in full song, and I quarrelled with him sadly. I accused him of not having done justice to the _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_. He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised _Lycidas_, which he absolutely abused, adding, 'If Milton had not written the _Paradise Lost_, he would have only ranked among the minor poets: he was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry-stones.

"Boswell brought to my mind the whole of a very mirthful conversation at dear Mrs Garrick's, and my being made by Sir William Forbes the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr Johnson's manner. I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry. Mrs Boscawen shone with her usual mild lustre."

Boswell, in recording this auspicious event in the history of the Adelphi, says that it was "one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her. The company was, Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her chaplain; Mrs Boscawen, Mrs Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr Burney, Dr Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him who gladdened life. She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that 'death was now the most agreeable object to her.' The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend, Mr Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakespeare:--

'A merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal. His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch, The other turns to a mirth-moving jest; Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor) Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse.'

"We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs Boscawen, 'I believe this is as much as can be made of life.' In addition to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a peculiar appropriate value. Sir Joshua, and Dr Burney, and I, drank cordially of it to Dr Johnson's health; and though he would not join us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you do me.'

"The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance: but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved shall be faithfully given.

"One of the company mentioned Mr Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who used to send over Europe, presents of democratical books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs Carter said, 'he was a bad man: he used to talk uncharitably.' _Johnson_: 'Poh! poh! Madam; who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived: and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. I, however, slipped away, and escaped it.'

"Mrs Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an atheist.' _Johnson_: 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have become one, if he had time to ripen (_smiling_). He might have _exuberated_ into an atheist.'

"Sir Joshua Reynolds praised _Mudge's Sermons_. _Johnson_: '_Mudge's Sermons_ are good but not practical. He grasps more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love _Blair's Sermons_. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and everything he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour' (_smiling_). _Mrs Boscawen_: 'Such his great merit, to get the better of all your prejudices.' _Johnson_: 'Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour and his merit.'

"In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room; several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Percy, Mr Chamberlayne of the Treasury, &c., &c. Somebody said, the life of a mere literary man could not be very entertaining. _Johnson_: 'But it certainly may. This is a remark which has been made, and repeated without justice; why should the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any other man? Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life? As _a literary life_ it may be very entertaining.' _Boswell_: 'But it must be better surely, when it is diversified with a little active variety--such as his having gone to Jamaica; or--his having gone to the Hebrides.' Johnson was not displeased at this.

"Talking of a very respectable author, he told us a curious circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. _Reynolds_: 'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in rags.' _Johnson_: 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose he had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very serious and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him;--the woman had a bottom of good sense.' The word _bottom_, thus introduced, was so ludicrous, when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slily hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly around, and called out, in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, 'I say the _woman_ was _fundamentally_ sensible'; as if he had said, hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral.

"He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him, with some emotion, that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. 'Ay, Sir,' said he tenderly, 'and two such friends as cannot be supplied.'"

Hannah More spent many months with Mrs Garrick--the winter at Hampton, the spring in the Adelphi--after the death of the celebrated player, and from her letters written in the Adelphi, we obtain several passages of note, apart from that of the famous dinner party of April 20, 1781. Thus, early in 1779, soon after Garrick's decease, we find that the widow and her friend were visited by various ladies: "Mrs Montague and Mrs Vesey have spent one afternoon with us; and these with Ladies Bathurst, Edgecombe, and Spencer, are all we have seen." She then goes on to describe her way of life as being "very different" from what it used to be in Garrick's time. "After breakfast, I go to my own apartment for several hours, where I read, write, and work; very seldom letting anybody in, though I have a room for separate visitors, but I almost look on a morning visit as an immorality. At four we dine. We have the same elegant table as usual, but I generally confine myself to one single dish of meat. I have taken to drink half a glass of wine. At six we have coffee; at eight tea, when we have, sometimes, a dowager or two of quality. At ten we have sallad and fruits. Each has her book, which we read without any restraint, as if we were alone, without apologies or speech-making." During this visit, her play, _The Fatal Falsehood_, was produced at Covent Garden, but, as already recorded, was not a success. It lacked the guiding hand of her old friend. "We have stolen away for a few days to town," she writes in 1781, "but I am now so habituated to quiet, that I have scarcely the heart to go out, though I am come here on purpose. As to poor Mrs Garrick, she keeps herself as secret as a piece of smuggled goods, and neither stirs out herself, or lets any body in. The calm of Hampton is such fixed repose, that an old woman crying fish, or the postman ringing at the door, is an event which excites attention."

A little later on, Mrs Garrick and Hannah More were invited to an assembly at Mrs Thrale's. "Just as my hair was dressed, came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr Thrale was dead. A very few hours later, and he would have died in this assembly. What an awful event. He was in the prime of life, but had the misfortune to be too rich, and to keep too sumptuous a table, at which he indulged too freely. He was a sensible and respectable man. I am glad the poor lady has, in her distress, such a friend as Dr Johnson; he will suggest the best motives of consolation." A few days after this event, "we were a small and very choice party at Bishop Shipley's. Lord and Lady Spencer, Lord and Lady Althorpe, Sir Joshua, Langton, Boswell, Gibbon, and, to my agreeable surprise, Dr Johnson, were there." This was the first meeting between Johnson and Mrs Garrick since the latter's bereavement, and, on the next morning, Johnson paid a lengthy visit to the ladies at No. 5 Adelphi Terrace. "On Mrs Garrick's telling him she was always more at her ease with persons who had suffered the same loss with herself, he said that was a comfort she could seldom have, considering the superiority of his [Garrick's] merit, and cordiality of their union. He bore his strong testimony to the liberality of Garrick. He reproved me with pretended sharpness for reading _Les Pensées de Pascal_, or any of the Port Royal authors; alleging that, as a good Protestant, I ought to abstain from books written by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, 'Child,' said he, with the most affecting earnestness, 'I am heartily glad that you read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'" Then came the famous dinner party which Dr Johnson attended, and that was his last visit to the Adelphi, for, during Hannah More's visits to town in the subsequent years, prior to Johnson's death in 1784, the Doctor was ailing. So, with this picture in the mind's eye of the worthy Doctor, in sentimental mood, now lecturing Hannah More, anon entertaining Mrs Garrick and her friends, and, finally, looking across the Adelphi railings at the Thames, as he thought tenderly of his dead friends, we take leave of Samuel Johnson.

Mrs Garrick, who was a Catholic, be it said, was by no means prejudiced, and she gave way to Hannah More's religious scruples: "It is very considerate in Mrs Garrick, to decline asking company on Sunday on my account; so that I enjoy the whole day to myself. I swallow no small portion of theology of different descriptions, as I always read, when visiting, such books as I do not possess at home. After my more select reading I have attacked South, Atterbury, and Warburton. In these great geniuses, and original thinkers, I see many passages of scripture presented in a striking and strong light. I think it right to mix their learned labours with the devout effusions of more spiritual writers, Baxter, Doddridge, Hall, Hopkins, Jeremy Taylor (the Shakespeare of divinity), and the profound Barrow in turn. I devour much, but, I fear, digest little. In the evening, I read a sermon and prayers to the family, which Mrs G. much likes." She frequently went from the Adelphi to the Church of St Clement Dane's, in the Strand. It gave her "peculiar pleasure to think" that she "there partook of the holy sacrament with Johnson the last time he ever received it in public."

On a certain Wednesday in 1785, "we had a great dinner at home"--in the Adelphi--"for the first time this year, Mrs Garrick disliking company more and more. The party consisted of the Smelts, the Montagus, the Boyles, the Walsinghams, Mrs Carter, Mr Walpole, and Miss Hamilton. Though I like them every one separately, yet it was impossible to enjoy them altogether; and I never desire to sit down with more than six, or eight at the outside, to dinner." In 1786, she records, with a certain amount of ingenuousness: "I am this day in the full enjoyment of a most complete holiday--Mrs Garrick is gone to Hampton. I have refused all invitations, and have ordered that nobody should be let in, that I may have the luxury of one quiet uninterrupted day. I woke with great delight in the very anticipation of it."

It is a long jump from 1786 to 1814, but Hannah More had many occupations during this period, and, apparently, but little time for writing to her old friend, for, in December of the latter year, Mrs Garrick sends to her, begging for some news of the world. Her letter is addressed to "My dearest friend," and runs thus: "If you could imagine how much pleasure a letter from you gives me, you would oftener favour me with one. As writing is no trouble to you, you might now and then bestow a moment upon me, to tell me what passes in London; for I am quite unacquainted with the world of folly. I almost thanked God for my illness, during all the time that every person ran mad to see for six weeks together the same thing. Now, if I could have seen the royal strangers with ease, I should have been glad to have seen them; but as that was out of my power (if I had been in health), as I have almost out-lived my London friends, I have seen nothing, so I must trust to what I am told.

"Indeed, my beloved friend, I have been very near parting for ever from this world; but the great care taken of me set me up again upon my feet, but not so high as my knees, for they are as yet very _doddering_. But when you consider that I am six months past ninety, you would say that I am a wonder still if you were to see me. I do not often shew my teeth, as there is but one and a quarter left. God bless you all! and love me, as I do you all, from my very soul." The death of Mrs Garrick occurred on October 16, 1822--over forty-three years after the death of her husband. She had been invited by Robert William Elliston to a private view of Drury Lane Theatre, which he had just redecorated, and, while preparing to leave her house in the Adelphi, a servant handed her a cup of tea. She had hardly raised it to her lips when she fell back in her chair, and passed away peacefully, in her ninety-ninth year. She was interred in Westminster Abbey, close by the remains of her husband, on October 25. The news of her death reached Hannah More on October 20, and is thus alluded to by her: "I was much affected yesterday with a report of the death of my ancient and valued friend, Mrs Garrick. She was in her hundredth year! I spent above twenty winters under her roof, and gratefully remember not only their personal kindness, but my first introduction, through them, into a society remarkable for rank, literature, and talents. Whatever was most distinguished in either, was to be found at their table. He was the very soul of conversation." David Garrick, it may be recorded, died in the back-room of the first floor of his house, his widow in the front drawing-room.

Mrs Garrick was a native of Vienna, where, in her youth, she acquired much celebrity as a dancer. Her maiden name was Eva Maria Violetta. She was remarkably beautiful in her face and person, and it is said that she retained, until the day of her death, that erect deportment which she had acquired as a dancer. She was married to Garrick in June, 1749, first at a Protestant, then at a Roman Catholic Chapel. After the testimony already given in these pages, it is almost superfluous to say that the actor and his wife were a very happy couple. "It is remarkable," said a public journal at the time of her death, "that during the whole period of their marriage"--thirty years--"whatever invitations they received, or excursions they took, they never once slept asunder." On August 15, 1755, Walpole writes: "I dined to-day at Garrick's; there were the Duke of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, Lady Holdernesse, the crooked Mostyn, and Dabreu, the Spanish minister; two regents, of which one is Lord Chamberlain, the other Groom of the Stole, and the wife of a Secretary of State. This being _sur un assez bon ton_ for a player. Don't you want to ask me how I liked him? I like _her_ exceedingly; her behaviour is all sense, and all sweetness, too." In 1770, Mrs Delany, Queen Charlotte's friend, visited Garrick's house at Hampton, and recorded her appreciation of its hostess: "As to Mrs Garrick, the more one sees her, the better one must like her; she seems _never_ to depart from a perfect propriety of behaviour, accompanied with good sense and gentleness of manners." In her widowhood, she twice refused the hand in marriage of Lord Monboddo, the Scottish judge, and author of _The Origin of Language_. Dr Doran says that Mrs Garrick held her own at the Bishop of London's table, "against the clever men and women who held controversy under Porteus's roof."

This gentle lady, by a codicil to her will, dated August 15, in the year of her death, made a most interesting bequest: "I give to Mrs Siddons a pair of gloves which were Shakespeare's, and were presented by one of his family to my late dear husband, during the jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon." Information of this bequest was conveyed to the great actress, with this note from Mrs Garrick's executors:--

"5 Adelphi Terrace, _Oct. 30, 1822_.

"Madam,--We beg leave to transmit to you the above extract from a codicil to Mrs Garrick's will, and to acquaint you that we will have the honour of waiting on you, for the purpose of delivering the relic therein mentioned, whenever you may be so good as to inform us that it may be convenient to you to receive our visit.--We remain, with much respect, Madam, Your most obedient humble servants,

"Thos. Rackett, G.F. Belty, Executors."

This connecting link between Shakespeare, Garrick, and Sarah Siddons is one of the most interesting incidents in connection with the Adelphi. Garrick is also responsible for a side-light on the life of Oliver Goldsmith. Forster, in his _Life and Times of Goldsmith_, says that the alteration of his first comedy for Garrick, even upon Garrick's own conditions, seems to have suddenly occurred to the impecunious author as a means of raising money. Goldsmith's two letters on the subject by chance survived and were transcribed by Forster, who, in regard to the first one, says that: "As well in the manner as in the matter of it, the writer's distress is very painfully visible. It has every appearance, even to the wafer hastily thrust into it, of having been the sudden suggestion of necessity; it is addressed without date[39] or place to the Adelphi; nor is it unlikely to have been delivered there by the messenger of a sponging-house.

"'My Dear Sir,--Your saying you would play my _Good-Natured Man_ makes me wish it. The money you advanced me upon Newbery's note I have the mortification to find is not yet paid, but he says he will in two or three days. What I mean by this letter is to lend me sixty pound, for which I will give you Newbery's note, so that the whole of my debt will be an hundred, for which you shall have Newbery's note as a security. This may be paid either from my alteration if my benefit should come to so much, but at any rate I will take care you shall not be a loser. I will give you a new character in my comedy and knock out Lofty, which does not do, and will make such other alterations as you direct.--I am yours,

"'Oliver Goldsmith.

"'I beg an answer.'

"This letter is indorsed in Garrick's handwriting as '_Goldsmith's parlaver_.' But though it would thus appear to have inspired but little sympathy or confidence, and the sacrifice of Lofty had come too late and been too reluctant, Garrick's answer, begged so earnestly, was not unfavourable. He evaded the altered comedy; spoke of the new one already mentioned between them; and offered the money required on Goldsmith's own acceptance.... The second note exhibits such manifest improvement in the writing as a sudden removal of a sore anxiety might occasion; but the writer's usual epistolary neatness is still absent. It is hastily folded up in three-cornered shape, is also sealed with wafer, and also indorsed by Garrick, '_Goldsmith's parlaver_.'

"'My Dear Friend, I thank you! I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall have a comedy for you in a season or two at furthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. I wish you would not take up Newbery's note, but let Waller' [probably a mistake for Wallis, Garrick's solicitor] 'tease him, without, however, coming to extremities; let him haggle after him and he will get it. He owes it and will pay it. I'm sorry you are ill. I will draw upon you one month after date for sixty pound, and your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart.--Ever,

"'Oliver Goldsmith.'"

A final reminiscence of Garrick and this neighbourhood shows the actor soliciting the Adam brothers on behalf of Andrew Becket, who, when the Adelphi was being erected, had a bookseller's shop in the Strand. He was the son of Thomas Becket, the Pall Mall bookseller, whose establishment was frequented by Garrick. He must have been a precocious youth, for, at the age of fourteen, he had written a comedy founded on Rousseau's _Emile_, and a poem entitled _Theodosius and Constantia_. Born in 1749, he died in 1843. He was a frequent contributor to the chief magazines of his day. He had a great grievance against Ralph Griffiths, the proprietor of the _Monthly Review_, for having given him only forty-five pounds for nearly five years' work--280 articles, the result of reading and condensing 590 volumes. In _Shakespeare Himself Again_, Andrew Becket "released the original text from much muddy nonsense of commentators."[40]

Garrick besought the corner house of Adam Street for his friend, a request that was granted. He asked for this "corner blessing," and addressed the architects as his "dear Adelphi." The house was No. 73 Strand, at the north-east corner of Adam Street. It was destroyed by fire on June 28, 1822, but rebuilt according to the original plan. Garrick, in the course of his letter to the Adams, said: "Pray, my dear and very good friends, think a little of this matter, and if you can make us happy, by suiting all our conveniences, we shall make his shop, as old Jacob Tonson's was formerly, the rendezvous of the first people in England. I have a little selfishness in this request--I never go to a coffee-house, seldom to taverns, and should constantly (if this action takes place) be at Becket's at one at noon and six at night." Garrick, no doubt, meant what he said, but there is no trace of his having visited Andrew Becket in this "corner blessing." The shop is now occupied by a firm of silversmiths.

Samuel Foote, who hated Garrick, is said to have related a story in which I have little faith. But, as it concerns the great actor and the Adelphi, I give it for what it is worth. "Garrick," said Foote, "lately invited Hurd to dine with him in the Adelphi, and after dinner, the evening being very warm, they walked up and down in front of the house. As they passed and repassed the dining-room windows, Garrick was in a perfect agony, for he saw that there was a thief in one of the candles which was burning on one of the tables; and yet Hurd was a person of such consequence that he could not run away from him to prevent the waste of his tallow." This story was put into print by Samuel Rogers, who was a boy of sixteen at the time of Garrick's death. Foote died in 1777, when Richard Hurd was Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: Davies's _Garrick_, vol. ii., p. 445.]

[Footnote 38: See also Hannah More's description of the funeral in the Appendix.]

[Footnote 39: It was written in 1773, soon after Garrick had left Southampton Street, Strand, for the Adelphi.]

[Footnote 40: _Haunted London_, p. 99.]