perishable nature of an actor's fame. It is
easier to describe a special rainbow, or the
swift vision of a momentary sunbeam, than to
convey an impression to those who have not
seen him what even Robson was like in his
climaxes of nervous irritation alternating with
gaiety. Who can describe justly Macready's
Werner or Virginius, the elder Kean's tiger-
like rage, or the generous manliness of
Bannister? The actor's true fame perishes with
his life; after death it is only a fitful and
varying tradition. It soon becomes disputed
whether Roscius or Garrick were or were not
better than the Boanerges of this or that
theatre, he who acts Othello like the mad
butcher that he is, and croaks through Hamlet
like the raven on Macbeth's battlements. Ita
vita! such is the fame of the actor. It really
ceases when the footlights are put out after the
last appearance. The poem and novel may be
eternal, the picture has its own more precarious
but still long existence, the conquest is
remembered by the future misery it entails; but
the actor, the actor is

                                            Such stuff
     As dreams are made of, and his little life
     Is rounded by a sleep.

His painted world of laughter and of tears is
but the baseless fabric of a vision; his cloud-
capped towers are but as the evening shadows,
and melt into air—into thin air.

Garrick had already felt some bitter foretastes
of death. The worst kick the dying lion
receives is from the hoof of the ass. The
detractors, who often appear like bats in the
twilight of a great man's life, began to say that
as Ranger he had got old in the legs; that his
face was now too wrinkled and his eye too
lustreless for Romeo; that his voice was too
hoarse and hollow for Hamlet. His dimples
had become pits, said they; his neck was
sinewy; his upper lip was like a turgid piece
of leather. Cibber had been better as Bayes,
Quin as Sir John Brute and Macbeth; the town
had disliked his Hotspur. O'Brien had been a
smarter coxcomb and man of fashion. Mrs.
Clive had surpassed him in low comedy, Quin
in Lear, Johnson in nature, Mrs. Porter
in passionate tragedy. These foolish haters
hated as strongly as if they could derive
pecuniary benefit from a great man's downfal, and
Garrick, all nerve and vanity, Garrick, the man
who wrote his own critiques, quivered at every
gnat-bite as if he had been crunched by the
teeth of a tiger.

     Three acts are done, the jest grows stale,
     The lamps are growing dim and pale,
      And reason asks cui bono ?

The night before he quitted the stage for
ever, Garrick bade farewell to tragedy. He
played Lear to the Cordelia of Miss Younge.
His biographer, Murphy, tells us where Garrick
got his model for the mad king. He says:

"When he began to study this great and
difficult part, he was acquainted with a worthy
man who lived in Leman-street, Goodman's
Fields; this friend had an only daughter, about
two years old; he stood 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 spot. He remained at his window screaming
in agonies of grief. The neighbours flocked
to the house, took up the child, and delivered it
dead to the unhappy father, who wept bitterly,
and filled the street with lamentations. He lost
his senses, and from that moment never
recovered his understanding. As he had sufficient
fortune, his friends chose to let him remain in
his house under two keepers appointed by Dr.
Monro. Garrick frequently went to see his
distracted friend, who passed the remainder of
his life in going to the window, and there
playing in fancy with his child. After some
dalliance he dropped it, and, bursting into a
flood of tears, filled the house with shrieks of
grief and bitter anguish. He then sat down
in a pensive mood, his eyes fixed on one object,
at times looking slowly round him as if to implore
compassion. Garrick was often present at
this scene of misery, and was ever after used to
say that it gave him the first idea of King Lear's
madness."

As the curtain fell on the dead king and
his dead daughter, Lear and Cordelia lay on the
stage side by side and hand in hand. They rose
together, and hand in hand still went in silence
to the dressing-room, followed by many of the
company. They stood there, Lear and Cordelia,
still bound by the strong sympathy of the play,
hand in hand, and without speaking. At last
Garrick said, mournfully, and with a sigh:

"Ah! Bessie, this is the last time I shall ever
be your father—the last time I"

Then their hands fell asunder.

Miss Younge replied with an affectionate hope
that, before they finally parted, he would kindly
give her a father's blessing.

Garrick raised his hands solemnly; Miss Younge
bent her knee, and bowed her fair head, as the
old man fervently prayed God to bless her. Then
slowly turning, he said, "May God bless you
all!" and retired to take off his King Lear
dress for the last time.

When Quin was dying at Bath, he said: "I
could wish that the last tragic scene were over,
and I hope I may be enabled to meet and pass
through it with dignity." On Garrick, that
actor who had played a hundred characters,
and had originated thirty, that last scene had
now opened. Regret, sorrow, and gratitude,
were struggling in his heart.

On the 10th of June, 1776, Garrick appeared
for the last time as Don Felix in the comedy of
the Wonder. He had wished to close with
Richard the Third, his first great triumph; but he
had considered that after the nervous tumult of
the tent-scene, and the rage and passion of
the battle, he should be worth nothing, and
might be too fatigued to utter his farewell. He
braced himself up to be once more dazzling,
vivacious, airy, gallant, and witty. He resolved
to show himself as if passed through Medea's