Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 11/Between tragedy and comedy
Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/707 Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/708 Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/709 Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/710 Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/711 Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/712 Tale " into halves. He invariably played Cibber's adaptation of Richard, and " Romeo and Juliet," with adulterations from Otway ; Victor's version of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and, frequently, " Hamlet," with the omission of the Oratediggtrs, Osric, and all reference as to the fate of Ophelia, There was a change also in the scenes between the King and Laertes, "so as to make the character of the latter more estimable;" the Queen was not poisoned, but went mad from a sense of guilt. Hamlet and the King fought with swords, and the King being slain, Hamlet and Laertes then died of their mutual wounds. It was said, however, that Garrick's finest acting was required to reconcile the public to this mangled version of the play ; but the adaptation kept the stage even after Garrick's retirement. The play was never printed with the alterations ; " they are far from being universally liked," Victor wrote to Tate Wilkinson : " Nay," he adds, " they are greatly disliked by the million, who love Shakespeare with all his glorious absurdities, and will jot suffer a bold intruder to cut Lim up." And the million were right : all the poets, wits, critics, managers, and players of the period notwithstanding. Churchill's "Rosciad," though it exalts Garrick rather at the expense of his contemporaries, yet contains in the main a fair summing-up of the arguments for Mid against him :— Last Garrick came. Behind him throng a train Of snarling critics, ignorant as vain. One finds out— " He's of stature somewhat low ; Your hero always phould be tall, you know ; True natural greatness all consists in height." Produce your voucher, critic. "Sergeant Kite." Another can't forgive the paltry arts By which he makes his way to shallow hearts ; Mere pieces of finesse, traps for applause— " Avaunt, unnatural start, affected pause."
If manly sense ; if nature linked with art ; If thorough knowledge of the human heart ; If powers of acting vast and unconfined ; If fewest faults with greatest beautieB joined ; If strong expression and Btrange powers which lie Within the magic circle of the eye ; If feelings which few hearts like his can know, And which no face so well as his can 6how, Peserve the preference,— Garrick, take the chair, Nor quit it, tiil thou place an equal there. Of his death Johnson said,—he had borne some what hardly upon the player during his life, he couid afford now to treat him with tender ness, —'* The death of Garrick has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasures." The mortal remains of the great actor were interred in Westminster Abbey, close to the monument of Shakespeare in Poet's Comer, the funeral Bervice being pcrformod by the Bishop of Rochester. All the way from the
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actor's house in the Adelphi Terrace, »lffi: the Strand to the Abbey, the route of lb funeral procession, the streets were so thruflw-: as to be barely passable. Every wiadoir <na full, and there were crowds even upon the ta-tops. A monument was afterwards erectri ' his memory comprising three full-length Sjur —the principal being a likeness of the su: actor ; seated beneath him are to be toesTragedy and Comedy. Dcrros Cos