��Two Dialogues by
��exhilarating powers were unrivalled ; he was lively, entertaining, quick in discerning the ridicule of life, and as ready in repre senting it ; and on graver subjects there were few topics in which he could not bear his part. It is injurious to the character of Garrick to be named in the same breath with Foote x . That Foote was admitted sometimes into good company (to do the man what credit I can) I will allow; but then it was merely to play tricks : Foote's merriment was that of a buffoon 2 , and Garrick's that of a gentleman 3 .
GIB. I have been told, on the contrary, that Garrick in company had not the easy manners of a gentleman.
JOHNS. Sir, I don't know what you may have been told, or w r hat your ideas may be, of the manners of a gentleman : Garrick had no vulgarity in his manners ; it is true Garrick had not the airiness of a fop, nor did he assume an affected indifference to what was passing ; he did not lounge from the table to the window, and from thence to the fire, or, whilst you were
��people of the first condition.' John son's Shakespeare, vol. i. Preface, p. 90.
1 On Foote's death Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale : ' Did you think he would so soon be gone ? Life, says Falstaff, is a shuttle. He was a fine fellow in his way ; and the world is really impoverished by his sinking glories.' Letters, ii. 55.
2 ' BOSWELL. " If Betterton and Foote were to walk into this rootn, you would respect Betterton much more than Foote." JOHNSON. " If Betterton were to walk into this room with Foote, Foote would soon drive him out of it. Foote, Sir, quatenus Foote^ has powers superior to them all." ' Life, iii. 185.
How great an actor Betterton was is shown by a fine paper in the Tatler (No. 167) on his funeral in Westminster Abbey. ' From his action/ writes Steele, * I had received more strong impressions of what is great and noble in human nature
��than from the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descrip tions of the most charming poets I had ever read.' Steele goes on to quote the lines beginning ' To-morrow, and to-morrow, and
to-morrow,'
from the text, I suppose, at that time in common use 6n the stage.
- The way to dusty death,' for in
stance, is changed 'to the eternal night.'
Dr. Warton says that 'an old frequenter of the theatre' told him that on Betterton's last performance ' many spectators got into the play house by nine o'clock in the morning, and carried with them provisions for the day.' Warton's Pope's Works, ed. 1882, vii. 119.
3 ' JOHNSON. " Garrick's great distinction is his universality. He can represent all modes of life but that of an easy fine-bred gentle man."' Life,v.i26.
addressing
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