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the city of Ipfwich, where, in the fummer 1741, there was a regular com pany of comedians. Garrick's diffidence was itill fo great, that he affumed the name of Lyddal; and, that he might remain unknown, he chofe, for his firit appearance, the character of Aboan, in the tragedy of Oroonoko. In that difguife he patled the rubicon; but his reception was fuch, that, in a few days, he ventured to throw off his black complexion, and fhew himself in the part of Chamont, in the Orphan. The applaufe he met with encouraged him to difplay his powers in comedy. The inhabitants of Ipfwich were not the only attendants at the theatre; the gentlemen, all round the country, went in crowds to fee the new performer. Ipfwich has reafon to be proud of the taste and judgment, with which they gave the warmest encouragement to a promifing genius. The people of that city were the first patrons of a young actor, who, in a fhort time, became the brilliant ornament of the English stage.

Garrick, from that time, fpoke on all occafions of the encouragement he received at Ipfwich with pride and gratitude. He used to say, that, if he had failed there, it was his fixed refolution to think no more of the stage; but the applause he met with infpired him with confidence. He returned to town before the end of the fummer, refolved in the courfe of the following winter to prefent himself before a London audience. To gain this point, he concerted all his meafures; but the road before him was by no means open. It was neceffary to procure a station at one of the theatres. For that purpose, he offered his fervice to Fleetwood, and after him to Rich. The two managers confidered him as a mere ftrolling actor, a vain pretender to the art, and rejected him with difdain. They had reafon, however, in the following season to repent of their conduct. Garrick applied to his friend Giffard, the manager of Goodman's Fields, and agreed to act under his management at a falary of five pounds a week. Having gained confidence in his powers from the encouragement he received at Ipfwich, he refolved to think no more of fubordinate characters, but to ftrike a bold ftroke, and fet out at the very head of the profeffion. The part he chofe was Richard III. a great and arduous undertaking. He had studied the character, and his feelings told him, that he should be able to acquit himself with reputation. Old Cibber had long before prepared the play with confiderable alterations, and the new matter introduced by him was, with great judgement, felected from Shakespeare himself. He acted Richard with great applause, and he tells us, he made Sandford his model. He adds, that Sir John Vanbrugh told him, that he never knew an actor profit fo much by another: you have the very look of Sandford, his gesture, gait, Speech, and every motion of him; and you have borrowed them all to ferve you in that character,' But this borrowing fo exactly and minutely from a contemporary actor does not convey the idea of a great tragedian. In fact, Cibber was a most excellent comedian, but by no means qualified for the great emotions of the tragic mufe. His voice was feeble, fwelling frequently to a drawling tone, and altogether illfuited to the force and energy of Richard. Garrick forned to lacky after any actor whatever; he depended on his own genius, and was completely an original performer. All was his own creation: he might truly fay I am myfelf alone!' His first appearance on the London ftage, was at Goodman's Fields, on the 19th of October 1741. The moment he entered the fcene, the character he affumed was vifible in his countenance; the power of his imagination was fuch, that he transformed himself into the very man;

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the

the paffions rofe in rapid fucceffion, and, before he uttered a word, were legible in every feature of that various face. His look, his voice, his attitude, changed with every fentiment. To defcribe him in the vaft variety that occurs in Richard, would draw us into too much length. rapidity, with which he spoke,

"The North!--what do they in the North,

The rage and

When they fhould ferve their Sovereign in the Weft? "made a most astonishing impreffion on the audience. His foliloquy in the tent-fcene difcovered the inward man. Every thing he defcribed was almoit reality; the spectator thought he heard the hum of either army from camp to camp, and steed threatening fteed. When he started from his dream, he was a fpectacle of horror: he called out in a manly tone,

"Give me another horfe;

"He paufed, and, with a countenance of dismay, advanced, crying out in a tone of diftrefs,

"Bind up my wounds;

"and then, falling on his knees, faid in the most piteous accent,

"Have mercy Heaven!

"In all this, the audience faw an exact imitation of nature. His friend Hogarth has left a moft excellent picture of Garrick in this fcene. He was then on the eve of a battle, and, in fpite of all the terrors of confcience, his courage mounted to a blaze. When in Bosworth field, he roared out,

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

"All was rage, fury, and almoft reality. To be convinced of this, the reader needs only to fee a moft admirable picture of him by Mr. Dance,* whofe pencil has given immortal fame to Garrick, and has done equal honour to himself. It is no wonder that an actor thus accomplished made, on the very first night, a deep impreffion on the audience. His fame ran through the metropolis. The public went in crowds to fee a young performer, who came forth at once a complete master of his art. From the polite ends of Westminster the moft elegant company flocked to Goodman's Fields, infomuch that from Temple Bar the whole way was covered with a ftring of coaches. The great Mr. Pope was drawn from his retreat at Twickenham, and, we are affured, Lord Orrery was fo ftruck with the performance, that he faid, I am afraid the young man will be spoiled, for he will have no competitor.'

"In the courfe of the feafon at Goodman's Fields, Garrick appeared in a variety of characters; in Lothario, Chamont, and feveral parts in comedy, fuch as Sharp, in his own farce of the Lying Valet, Lord Foppington, Captain Plume, and Bayes in the Rehearsal. About the end of two months, he faw that he was the grand magnetic that drew the town to Goodman's Fields, and, of courfe, thought that his reward was not in any degree ade, quate to his fervices. Giffard was fenfible of it, and, from that time, agreed to give him half the profits. Flushed with fuccefs, Garrick undertook the

"See Appendix, No. XXVIII."

difficult

difficult character of King Lear. He was transformed into a feeble old man, ftill retaining an air of royalty. Quin, at the time, was admired in that character, but to exprefs a quick fucceffion of paffions was not his talents. Barry, fome years after, ventured to try his ftrength in this bow of Ulyffes; and certainly with a most harmonious and pathetic voice was able to affect the heart in feveral paffages, but he could not, with propriety, represent the old king out of his fenfes. He ftarted, took long and hafty fteps, ftared about him in a vague wild manner, and his voice was by no means in unifon with the fentiment. It was in Lear's madness that Garrick's genius was remarkably diftinguished. He had no fudden ftarts, no violent geiticulation; his movements were flow and feeble; mifery was depicted in his countenance; he moved his head in the moft deliberate manner; his eyes were fixed, or, if they turned to any one near him, he made a pause, and fixed his look on the perfon after much delay; his features at the fame time telling what he was going to fay, before he uttered a word. During the whole time he prefented a fight of woe and mifery, and a total alienation of mind from every idea, but that of his unkind daughters. He was ufed to tell how he acquired the hints that guided him, when he began to ftudy this great and difficult part; he was acquainted with a worthy man, who lived in Leman-ftreet, Goodman's Fields; this friend had an only daughter, about two years old; he tood at his dining-room window, fondling the child, and dangling it in his arms, when it was his misfortune to drop the infant into a flagged area, and killed it on the fpot. He remained at his window fcreaming in agonies of grief. The neighbours flocked to the houfe, took up the child, and delivered it dead to the uuhappy father, who wept bitterly, and filled the street with lamentations. He loft his fenfes, and from that moment never recovered his understanding. As he had a fufficient fortune, his friends chose to let him remain in his houfe, under two keepers appointed by Dr. Monro. Garrick frequently went to see his distracted friend, who paffed the remainder of his life in going to the window, and there playing in fancy with his child. After fome dalliance, he dropped it, and, bursting into a flood of tears, filled the house with fhrieks of grief and bitter anguifh. He then fat down, in a penfive mood, his eyes fixed on one object, at times looking flowly round him, as if to implore compaffion. Garrick was often prefent at this fcene of mifery, and was ever after used to say, that it gave him the firft idea of King Lear's madness. This writer has often feen him rife in company give a reprefentation of this unfortunate father. He leaned on the back of a chair, feeming with parental fondness to play with a child, and, after expreffing the moft heart-felt delight, he fuddenly dropped the infant, and inftantly broke out in a most violent agony of grief, fo tender, fo affecting, and pathetic, that every eye in company was moistened with a gufh of tears. There it was, faid Garrick, that I learned to imitate madness; I copied nature, and to that owed my fuccefs in King Lear. It is wonderful to tell that he descended from that first character in tragedy, to the part of Abel Drugger; he repre fented the tobaccc-boy in the trueft comic ftile: no grimace, no ftarting, no wild gefticulation. He feemed to be a new man. Hogarth, the famous painter, faw him in Richard III. and on the following night in Abel Drugger: he was fo ftruck, that he faid to Garrick, " you are in your element, when you are begrimed with dirt, or up to your elbows in blood. The managers of Drury-Lane, and Covent-Garden played to thin houfes, while Garrick drew the town after him; and the actors beheld his prodigious

fuccefs

to

fuccefs with an evil eye. Quin, in his farcaftic vein, faid, this is the wonder of a day; Garrick is a new religion; the people follow him as another Whitfield; but they will foon return to church again.' The joke was relished, and foon fpread through the town. Garrick thought it required an anfwer he replied in the following Epigram:

"POPE QUIN, who damns all Churches but his own,
Complains that Herefy infeits the town;

That WHITFIELD GARRICK has milled the age,
And taints the found religion of the Stage.

He fays, that fchifm has turn'd the Nation's brain,
But eyes will open, and to Church again.
Thou GRAND INFALLIBLE! forbear to roar ;
Thy Bulls and Errors are rever'd no more.
When Doctrines meet with genr'al approbation,

It is not HERESY, but REFORMATION.

"Quin, was now, like his own Falstaff, not only witty in himself, but the caufe of wit in others. The lines contain more truth than is generally found in Epigrams. Garrick's ftile of acting was univerfally acknowledged to be a reformation. He was the undoubted master of the fock and bufkin. He afpired alfo to the rank of a dramatic writer, and to the Lying Valet, which had been performed with applause, he added the farce of Lethes in which he acted three different characters. In the month of May 17411 he closed the season at Goodman's Fields, after a career of the most brilliant fuccefs."

Peddie's Defence of the Associate Synod.
(Continued from P. 134.)

"HE propofed alterations in the Formula, were they not connected with other circumftances exciting fufpicions, we really fhould not confider as big with danger. It must be admitted, that a Formula, extremely proper and ever neceffary in a church established by law, may, in fome lefs important particulars, be improper and even abfurd in a church holding the fame faith, constituted in the fame manner, and ufing the fame forms of worship, if that church be only tolerated. Thus, the queftion-" Do you think that you are truly called according to the will of our Lord Jefus Chrift, and the due order of this realm, to the miniftry of the church?" is, with great propriety, put to the candidate for deacon's orders in England; but the claufe, printed in italic characters, could not, without abfurdity, be put in Scotland, or even in England, at the ordination of a man whose call was to serve the church in America. The mere alteration of the Formula therefore ought to excite no fufpicion, if that alteration do not open a door to the introduction of licentious principles. The only alteration proposed to be made by the Affociate Synod, which is of the fmalleft confequence, occurs in the 4th question. That question, as it ftands in the old Formula, is thus exprefled : E e

NO. XXXIV, VOL. VIII.

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"Do you acknowledge the perpetual obligation of the National Covenant of Scotland, particularly as explained in 1638, to abjure Prelacy and the Five Articles of Perth, and of the Solemn League and Covenant? And do you acknowledge, that public Covenanting is a moral duty under the New Teftament difpenfation, to be performed when God in his Providence calls to it ?"

Inftead of this queftion, the Affociate Synod propofed the following:

"Do you, WITH THE LIMITATIONS SPECIFIED IN THE ACT OF THE ASSOCIATE SYNOD, 17-, approve of the Covenants national and folemn league, as a folemn engagement on the part of our Fathers, to cleave to the TRUTHS of Christ, and to hand them down to fucceeding generations? And do you acknowledge that, in virtue of thefe Covenants, an additional guilt will be contracted by the prefent and future generations, if they shall renounce thefe Reformation principles?"

The act of the Affociate Synod, here referred to as fpecifying limitations, is the act of forbearance; and we must say that the new question, confidered in conjunction with it, would be greatly preferable to the old, had not thofe men excited fufpicions against every thing which they have done by their worse than Jefuitical doctrine respecting the obligation of oaths. Dr. Porteous is, indeed, highly offended at them for fubftituting in their facred queftion an act of their Synod inftead of the acts of the General Affembly, 1647 and 1648; and fays, that, by this conduct, they " undoubtedly intended to throw off, in the most public manner, all connection with the Church of Scotland, to renounce all relation to her, with all hopes of her reformation, and to make a return to her communion impoffible, whatever change of circumstances might lead to it."

Affuredly we mean not to plead the caufe of the feceders, of whom we know very little; but the caufe of truth we fhall always confider as facred by whomfoever it may be maintained. The Affemblies of 1647 and 1648 were the most turbulent and intolerant crews that ever met to prefcribe articles of faith to a Chriftian nation; and if the Affociate Synod have fincerely renounced the principles of compulfion, which in matters of religion were avowed by them, they could not, without the grofleft inconfiftency, require their candidates for orders to profefs their belief in the whole doctrine of the confeffion of faith, larger and shorter catechifins, &c. as they were received and approved by thofe affemblies. Upon what ground the Doctor calls the fubftitution of an act of their own Synod in the room of the acts of those rebellious conclaves, a renunciation for ever of all relation to the church of Scotland we cannot conceive; for he knows well, and, indeed, no man, who is not an absolute stranger to the hiftory of Great Britain, and to the prefent ftate of the church of Scotland, can be ignorant, that the Formula of that church makes no mention of the Affemblies of 1647 and 1648; but merely requires the candidate for orders to receive the Wefiminfter confeflion, &c. as approved by the General

Affemblies of this national church,"

But

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