e merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have our
misgivings, as if he was probably after all little better than a
Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and
laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with
my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was ever
moved by the true histrionic _aestus_, it was Garrick. When he followed
the Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword, as most actors do
behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so
fully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight
of his part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord
----'s, they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was
become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive
screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on
the ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicing a
turkey-cock in the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind,
and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party
only two persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed
as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old
favourite.

We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful
speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame to
make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the
neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries
and rivals of Shakspeare. B---- said he had anticipated this objection
when he had named the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out of
caprice insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preference
to the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St.
Ann's, Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to
Decker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Heywood; and
even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting
the wrong author on their joint productions. Lord Brook, on the
contrary, stood quite by himself, or in Cowley's words, was "a vast
species alone." Some one hinted at the circumstance of his being a
lord, which rather startled B----, but he said a _ghost_ would perhaps
dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his
title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some were
afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present to