Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/249

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Sir Joshua Reynolds.

��even in this, which is considered as Foote's greatest excellence. Garrick. besides his exact imitation of the voice and gesture of his original, to a degree of refinement of which Foote had no conception, exhibited the mind and mode of thinking of the person imitated. Besides, Garrick confined his powers within the limits of decency; he had a character to preserve, Foote had none x . By Foote's buffoonery and broad-faced merriment 2 , private friendship, public decency, and every thing estimable amongst men, were trod under foot. We all know the differ ence of their reception in the world. No man, however high in rank or literature, but was -proud to know Garrick, and was glad to have him at his table 3 ; no man ever considered or treated Garrick as a player; he may be said to have stepped out of his own rank into a higher, and by raising himself, he raised the rank of his profession 4 . At a convivial table his

��of himself without going into other people.' Life,\\. 154. * Foote being mentioned, Johnson said, " He is not a good mimic."' /<. iii. 69.

1 'Then Foote has a great range for wit; he never lets truth stand between him and a jest, and he is sometimes mighty coarse. Garrick is under many restraints from which Foote is free.' Ib. iii. 69. ' Garrick is restrained by some principle, but Foote has the advantage of an un limited range.' Ib. v. 391.

2 ' Foote told me (writes Boswell) that Johnson said of him : " For loud, obstreperous, broad-faced mirth I know not his equal." ' Ib. iii. 70, n. i.

( 'A gentleman attacked Garrick for being vain. JOHNSON. " No wonder, Sir, that he is vain ; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder." BOSWELL. " And such bellows too. Lord Mans field with his cheeks like to burst :

VOL. II.

��Lord Chatham like an have read such notes from them to him, as were enough to turn his head." ' Ib. ii. 227.

Among the pall-bearers at his funeral were the Duke of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, the Earl of Ossory, Lord Camden, and Viscount Palmer- ston. The service was performed by the Bishop of Rochester. The train of carriages reached from Charing Cross to the Abbey. Murphy's Garrick, p. 349.

4 ' Here is a man who has ad vanced the dignity of his profession. Garrick has made a player a higher character.' Life, iii. 263.

A great change had taken place before Garrick's day. Pope wrote in 1725 of the players in Shake speare's time : ' They were led into the Buttery by the Steward, not plac'd at the Lord's table, or Lady's toilette ; and consequently were en tirely depriv'd of those advantages they now enjoy in the familiar con versation of our Nobility, and an intimacy (not to say dearness) with R exhilarating

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