Reasons why David Garrick, Esq; should not appear on the stage, in a letter to John Rich, Esq

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A LETTER, &c.

SIR,

THERE are many undeniable and irrefragable arguments to support my negative; but, as Vellum says, Out of several, I shall only mention a few.

I need not, in this case, beg a question, which will readily be granted, and therefore I shall take it for granted, that all persons, who go to the theatre, go there for Entertainment, in order to hear and see every thing and every body. If I read Mr. Palmer's name in the bill of the way of the world for Mirabel, I go with a conviction that I shall see and hear him with entire satisfaction, and so of Mr. King, in the part of Atall, in the Double Gallant; now in neither of these plays, nor in many others does Mr. Garrick intrude upon my entertainment, nor obstruct my satisfaction, because he does not play in them: But when I go to see the Suspicious Husband, there I see Mr. Garrick in the part of Ranger; and sure no man will deny, but that he plays that part, better than any other man in the world; But will any person be so hardy as to tell me, I shall part with my money, to see honest Ranger only; I want to see Frankly and Bellamy and ratling Jack Meggot; I would willingly see Mr. Strictland; the character, who gives title to the Comedy, yet am I herein debarred, by Mr. Garrick's instrusion, for when he appears on the stage, I am so blinded, either by prejudice or admiration, that I can see no body else; I can hear no body else; I can bear no body else; for instance, the other day, I wanted to hear Jacky Meggot invite Ranger and his friend in the Italian taste, to his house, but I never heard a syllable of it.

When Ranger is with his two friends, Bellamy and Frankly, I hear him indeed speak of them, and I am as much surpized to find him speaking to them, but I can never set my eyes on them, while he is by: Before he came in, I could see and hear them, as distinctly, and as clearly, as visibly and audibly as ever I saw or heard any thing in all my life, but when he comes in, whether it is, that he clouds my eyes, or fills my sight, I cannot for my soul determine, but I see no more of Bellamy and Frankly. If they are there, I do not hear them, and though I use my glass I cannot see them, till he goes out again.

I hear him say (plain enough) Now it is, dear boy, and honest Ranger, and just now you would have cut my throat; but I never heard that they said any such words, but from his report, I suspected my own hearing, nor I would not believe my own eyes, till I asked a gentleman who sat by me, whether Frankly or Bellamy were on the Stage, and he said that he could not see any such persons.—Then, said I, who the devil is he speaking to?—By my soul, replied the gentleman, I can't tell, for I see neither of them, nor do I believe either of them to be on the stage: if they are, it is more than I can say, and I am as uneasy as you can be to see one man play the whole comedy by himself; it is really too hard upon him, and I can't find the reason why he keeps so many people in sallary to so little purpose, and almost for doing nothing.

I came here the other night, when Mr. Garrick did not play, and I saw every body, and heard every thing to my entire satisfaction; but when this confounded Garrick comes on the stage, he confounds my eyes and ears in such a manner, that I am deprived of both organs, which are entirely engrossed by his appearance and voice.

When my side's-man had done speaking, I asked a lady, who sat by me, Who Mr. Garrick was speaking to? She said, She could not tell.—When he says, any letters, or message? does he speak to the scene? for by the lord, I see no servant! She said, She thought her eyes pretty good, and that she was as blind as myself in that respect—and indeed she had the highest pair of eyes that ever my eyes beheld; yet clear as her vision was, she could see no servant, nor any thing else, but this individual, Garrick—He is not of so gigantic a stature, nor do I think he ever will exceed six feet in height; he is not so fat as Sir John Falstaff, and how the devil, does this manager manage to cover every body and every thing from our sight.—He must deal in magic, thus to interpose between the spectators and every body else, in such a black art manner, as render them invisible.

He is the reverse of a dark-lanthorn which hides the bearer, and throws light upon every body else; he is like the focus of a glass, which attracts all the rays of light; he is like a sun-dial, which interprets time by light and shade—himself all light, every body else all shade.

Now a representation may be called a picture, but no good picture was ever all light, and all shade, but both should be happily compounded and mixed to make a picture agreeable and striking.

I, like a fool, the other night, went to see the Alchymist: I saw Burton and Palmer plain enough, till Abel Drugger came on, fiddling with his shop-keeper's apron. He no sooner came on than away went Subtle, and captain Face: says I, to one near me, is not this monstrous, that Subtle and Face should go off the stage, at the time when Nab wants them He answered, that he thought it unaccountable, and that he was served so once before the last season; and that if he had recollected himself in that particular, he would not have come to see Abel Drugger alone.

You know the plot, says he, is mixt, and has a variety of persons in the drama, but the devil a one person here, but Abel Drugger.—You shall see him fight a parcel of Shadows, and beat them off presently: He is excellent at Skiomachy. He did so, in a very short time, beating the air, with as much dexterity, as if there had been a dozen people on the stage: Well, said I, to the gentleman near me, I don't like this egotism, for as Young the satyrist expresses it,‘ and I's the little hero of each tale.’

Another cogent reason, I shall offer to the public, and you, sir, why Mr. Gartick should not appear on the stage is that besides blind-folding people, by his fascination, he imposes upon our hearing, rendering us deaf to every other person, but himself.—This is an intolerable monopily, thus to seize upon, and captivate our two senses.

I have spoken to that of sight already, and now I shall enter upon that of hearing.

We have had occular proofs sufficient to convince all reasonable people, that is, all people that will believe their eyes, that Mr. Garrick should not appear upon the stage. Had he happened to be an actor in Paris, he would long since, have been put into the Bastile, but as he lives under so mild a government as that of Great-Britain; the best we can do, is to put him under the punishment of proscription, or in other words to banish him the stage, the scene of his delinquency, nor is it indeed reasonable in the nature of things to permit him to reign any longer in so unlimited a tyranny, a tyranny for which some men, would long since have been brought to the scaffold.

I most wonder, why his own company have not entered into a formal prosecution against him, and brought their habeas corpus, for rendering them invisible and inaudible: they permit their names to be printed, which is a kind of bond, or promissary note, payable to the public, that they will enact such, and such characters; now if Mr. Austin or Mr. Burton, or any of the players, engages thus in print to perform this or that part, and does not appear, when Garrick comes on, have not I my writ of insolvency against him; what can they plead why I should not oblige them to appear, when Mr. Garrick comes on.—Why do they go off that instant.—There's no body in the galleries, find any fault with them; they, and every other actor or actress in Drury-lane, have their peculiar merits in their own particular cast. Each has his proper walk, and shines in his own department; and the next time I see them disappear on Garrick's entering, I shall say with the witches in Macbeth, appear, appear. So I give them this fair warning.

When Mr. Garrick says in Hamlet—I am too much in the Sun; he speaks an evident truth, and if I may be allowed the Expression, a palpable one. It is downright demonstration.—He is too much in the sun; what he says needs no illustration, for he is so much in the sun, that he takes all the light to himself, and like a ray of glory, or an infula of beams, eclipses all others.

The moon herself, and most of the stars, who borrow their light from the sun, have not so much reason to complain: If they have not light of their own, they shine in borrowed robes, but they would take it very ill of Dan Phoebus, that wandering knight so fair, if he should, like Garrick, get up of a frosty night, put on his damask night-gown, and then put them all out.—It would be as cruel in the sun to do so, as it is in Othello, when he puts out the light, and then puts out the light. And I think, with deference to the judgment of the public, that it is as insufferable in Mr. Garrick to extinguish all other lights but his own: and I hope they will take proper cognizance, and jointly agree to put him out by the concurring votes of ostracism.

I will only ask the company of Drurylane-house, has the manager, (as Pythagoras did of old to his disciples) enjoin them silence for any term of years. If he has done this in his wisdom, 'tis but reasonable, he should set them an example.—He should, like a good father, enforce by his precedent, what he preaches in doctrine, and not like an incendiary, set us all by the ears; and like the sentence of perjury, impose the pillory upon his audience. I must own, that I am so great a lover of music, that I could sit a whole hour to hear a good solo performed by a good hand, but by the blood of the Mirables, I do not see why Mr. Garrick should every night for these many seasons, play nothing but solos. This is rehearsal upon rehearsal, and repetition upon the back of repetition. Are we never to have a concert, because truly Mr. Garrick loves nothing but solos. I think Mr. Holland and Mr. Howard, and Mr. Bransby, and indeed every Mr. and Mrs. in the house have a just title to perform their particular parts in the theatrical concert.

They are paid for doing so; we the public pay them, and we insist on their playing for the future, or we will pay them, and repay them.—Had we found fault with their performance at any one time, had we condemned their theatrical merit, whether natural or acquired, if we had refused to give them, what is their undoubted right, our just applause, they might offer some plea, for not discharging their duty, but as matters stand, we think this time as seasonable as well as unseasonable; silence is insensible, and we hope to see a reformation in due time, which yet we think cannot well be made, except Mr. Garrick begins it by a solemn departure from the stage, since we may apply Horace's saying to him,

Lusisti Satis—

Tempus abire tibi.

We shall now state some matters of fact, in order to support our arguments.

One matter of fact is, that when he played Hamlet, no body else appeared, when he was on. Our attention was so much engrossed by Hamlet, that we took no notice of any other person; I neither saw Bernardo nor Marcellus, nor heard one syllable of either Rosenerans or Guilderstern, while Hamlet was on.—When Hamlet says, ‘—The play's the thing.’ With which I'll catch the conscience of the thing we expected; there would have been a play, but if there was any such thing, I did not see it or hear it; it might have been play'd for any thing I know, but certain it is, it escaped me. Possibly, I was gazing too attentively on Hamlet sitting at the feet of Ophelia, and looking at something through her fan.—I knew that the object of his intuition was to have been the King, but the devil a king was there, or if there was it, was a king of Hamlet's own making; like that, when he says, ‘ A King of shreds and patches.’As in like manner, in the Alchymist, is it fitting, that Abel Dugger, should play the whole play himself, and let no one else be seen or heard, while he's on? If monopoly in trade be an injury to the public, then it must be confessed, with respect to our entertainments, a theatrical monopoly, is an unfair monopoly, an embargo on our taste, a kind of an inquisition, a very star-chamber on our understanding; and if trade in general suffers by such monopolies, so is taste in general utterly depraved by such unjust engrossment.

Why should not the witches be seen or heard, when Macbeth comes in, when he says,

Ye black confederate midnight hags,

What are ye doing?

Instead of answering him, a deed, &c. as they should do, they instantly disappear, they vanish, and are no more seen; he bewitches the very witches, rendering them, and all their diabolical proceedings invisible.—The cauldron is no more, he extinguishes their infernal flames, and plays hell with hell itself, sending the very devil, as the sentence does the condemned criminal, to the place from whence he came.—And is this sufferable? Will any man be so hardy as to say, this is to be borne,—it is not to be borne,— I think the witches have as great a right to answer, as Macbeth to ask a question; at least, I think it is so in your house, sir; and what is sauce for the goose, should be sause for the gander, as the saying is; now at your house, there are no such proceedings, no such indecorum. He does not swallow up the witches, and devour them at a mouthful. He does not like the famous fire-eater, feed upon brimstone and other combustibles, which reminds me of a story I have somewhere read, applicable to Mr. Garrick's thus eating up the devil without a grain of salt: I say, applicable to him for one very good reason, and that is, if I do not insert it here, I shall forget to insert it any where else.

A certain nobleman to divert himself, carried a young Blackamoor just imported to one of the Papish chapels in the city, and when the priest was eating the wafer, the blackamoor asked his master, What that man was eating? Who answered, that he was eating his God.—I wish we had him in our country, says the blackamoor, for he would eat the devil purely.

This story needs no comment, and therefore we shall make none; we hope therefore from what we have advanced that these irrefragable arguments will have some weight with Mr. Garrick, and you are at liberty to shew this letter to him: if he is able to answer all, or any one of them, to our satisfaction, we shall subscribe a submissive acknowledgment of our fault in the daily advertiser, with the hopes of forgiveness and promise that we shall never be again guilty in this particular, if not, we shall say as the King in the Mourning bride expresses it, ‘Take away his face’For we must acknowledge that it dazzles our sight, in such a manner, that we can see nothing else. Nor indeed is any thing herein written, sir, in the least to insinuate any thing to the prejudice of your house, which we honour and respect as we should do, and we should want taste did we say any other. Your performers have merit enough to extort praise from the best judges or the nicest criticks, and perhaps one of the best low comedians in the world is in Covent-Garden.

Neither is any thing herein written intended to depreciate or run down the Actors of Drury-lane, but the reverse is the intention of this letter; for if we were hardy enough to say, that all and every of them has not theatrical merit in an eminent degree, it were to give our own judgments the lie, and the falsehood, like dust thrown in the wind, would fly in our faces—it were a shallow artifice, because we run down this most unreasonable man, thereby to traduce or lessen that good esteem, which they have learned by their good quallities, or because they are not seen, or heard when Mr. Garrick appears, that therefore they are not fit to be seen, or that they should not be.

The reverse of all this is meant and intended by the whole tenour, of which however tortured to confess, will never be made to confess what it never intended; I say, it is fitting they should be seen or heard, and that in order thereto, we have given this our safe advice to David Garrick Esq manager of Drury-Lane play-house, that he will appear no more on the stage, which advice we should not have given in so peremptory a manner if he did not eclipse those who play with him. Our advice is candid, free, and disinterested, since it will be allowed, that as there cannot be two suns, neither can there be two Garricks, since he like his own Richard, has no brother, is like no brother. ‘ He is himself alone.’

If then no similarity appears, no corresponding features are seen, upon a comparison, that superiority of light which, we allow him, (and which if we did not allow him, the world would do it for us) has raised him to an eminence above all in the theatrical walk; and, as a witty orange-woman said to a gentleman, who asked, Where was his Fellow (meaning his servant) By G_+, sir, not in Christendom; so we may say of Garrick—not in the universe; and for this one material, mighty, and substantial reason, we exclude him from the stage, that other people may have their turn to shine; for if we did with him, as Juliet says of Romeo, Take him, and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine, that all the world would be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garnish sun.

Mr. Garrick would possibly glitter every atom and particle of him; and like a looking - glass, broke into ten thousand shatters, each brittle shatter would glitter, and sparkle still.

So that if the other actors, eminent as they are, each in his own walk, will condescend to allow this superiority in Mr. Garrick, we think they will join with us in expelling him the house, as an unruly member, who takes up so much box, that he elbows off every body else; one whose voice is so loud, that like that of Sentor the herald, it draws ten thousand voices, whose tongues so voluble, that he will not even allow the very women to indulge their favourite faculty of talking. And sure, when one man can impose silence upon so many women, a task above the power of all the husbands in England, or in the world, to perform, what must we think of such a sway? such a dispotic sovereign, arbitrary rule, should not be vested in any subject; and it is more than the Grand Monarque, Lewis himself would dare to do in France, where his motto is, Sic volo, sic Jubeo, nay, his favourites Pompadour would not obey so unreasonable a command; and if he had the confidence to proclaim silence in a printed edict, or declaration of his will, he would in all human, all moral probability, raise an army of female insurgents, to rebel against his throne, and like Sampson, pull an old house over his ears; we are delighted with the sweetness of the female voice, as they are the most harmonious; and shall Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Clive, Miss Macklin, and the other actresses, give up a privilege they have a right to enjoy, a perogative they have maintained since the days of old mother Eve, who, no doubt, enjoyed it in its full extent; nor shall we join with Mr. Garrick, or any other man, or set of man in the kingdom, to impose this unreasonable injunction on women, who have given us such uncommon pleasure, either in the tender or the elevated tones of their voices.

It would be an act more cruel than castration to men, by which the Italians equip their children for the opera, and I will speak for any of the above actresses, and promise this in their name, that they would think such dilapidation for procuring men, a voice would be less cruel, than to take the voice of women by any means; nay, I will vouch for them all, that they would rather be martyrs, and suffer themselves to be stoned to death, as the Italians are stoned for life, than to suffer the forfeiture of so rich a treasure, or to cede, by what treaty soever, upon any terms or conditions, clause or clauses, that high and mighty female right, the use of their tongues; and therefore we still continue to affirm, as we have sufficiently proved our assertion, by many solid reasons, that this unreasonable man, David Garrick, Esq should Not appear on the stage; and we hope you will shew him this letter; nay, we request it of you, and his abdicating the throne of his ancestors, and resigning his theatrical authority (we don't mean management) will for ever oblige,

SIR,
Your most obedient Humble servant, Y. Z.

REASONS WHY DAVID GARRICK, Esq SHOULD Not appear on the Stage, &c.

(Price One Shilling.)

REASONS WHY DAVID GARRICK, Esq SHOULD Not appear on the Stage, IN A LETTER TO JOHN RICH, Esq

LONDON: Printed for J. COOKE, at Shakespear's Head, behind the Chapter-House, St. Pauls Church-Yard, MDCCLIX.

POSTCRIPT.

SOMETHING I intended to say when I first sat down to write this epistle, but it slipt my memory, occasioned by the zeal I entertain for exterpating Garrick, and has again this moment occured to me.

In the name of common-sense are we to have nothing new at your house, is variety never to please our imagination, shall we neither have a new play, nor a new performer, but will you persist, and again lead us through that beaten path we have all these ten years walked in?

If we have not something new form you within this mouth, I shall be necessitated to give my vote, for keeping Garrick at Drury-lane.

Now Sir after having requested of you something new, I would recommend to your memory some account of Mademoiselle de Clairon, a celebrated actress at Paris, of whom you doubtless have heard; I mean by giving you this account of her, that you may instruct the novices that may offer.

Her first appearance is excessively engaging; she never comes in staring round upon the company, as if she intended to count of benefits of the house, or at least to see, as well as be seen. Her eyes are always, at first, intently fixed upon the persons of the drama, and she lifts them by degrees, with enchanting diffidence, upon the spectators. Her first speech, or at least the first part of it, is delivered with scarce any motion of the arm; her hands and her tongue never set out together; but the one prepares us for the other. She sometimes begins with a mute, eloquent attitude; but never goes forward all at once with hands, eyes, head, and voice. This observation, though it may appear of no importance should certainly be adverted to.

By this simple beginning she gives herself a power of rising in the scene. As she proceeds, every gesture, every look acquires new violence, till at last transported, she fills the whole vehemence of the part, and all the idea of the poet.

Her hands are not alternately stretched out, and then drawn in again, as with the singing women at Sadler's-wells; they are employed with graceful variety, and every moment please with new and unexpected eloquence.

FINIS.

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Reasons why David Garrick, Esq; should not appear on the stage, in a letter to John Rich, Esq

Garrick, David, 1717-1779.

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1106011481

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9781106011480

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CW3305107791

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— Reasons why David Garrick, Esq; should not appear on the stage, in a letter to John Rich, Esq, Garrick, David, 1717-1779.. [4],9-42p. ; 8⁰. London :: printed for J. Cooke,. 1759.. [Signed on p. 38: Y.Z., who is usually identified as Garrick himself.] [With a half-title.] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT46478.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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