94 Garrick's Acting. knowledge of English literature by the remark that Pope's 'Dying Christian to his Soul' was partly borrowed from Flatman. The downfall of the hopes which the Thrales had built upon their son divided the attention of their circle with a topic of more general interest. Since the beginning of the year, their old acquaintance Garrick had withdrawn from Drury Lane Theatre, and had been succeeded there by a body of new proprietors, of whom Sheridan was the most important member. The retired manager, half sorry to be released, talked freely in all companies about himself and his past career with the pleasant vanity which distinguished him. Boswell tells us that on April 11 he dined with Johnson at General Paoli's, and mentioned his having that morning introduced to Garrick a Flemish nobleman of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick spoke of Abel Drugger† as a small part, adding, with an appearance of grave recollection: If I were to begin life again, I think I should not play those low characters.' Upon which,' says Boswell, 'I observed: "Sir, you would be in the wrong, for your great excellence is your variety of playing, your representing so well characters so very different." JOHNSON: "Garrick, sir, was not in earnest in what he said, for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his variety, and, perhaps, there is not any one character which has not been as well acted by somebody else, as he could do it." BOSWELL: "Why then, sir, did he talk so?" JOHNSON: "Why, sir, to make you answer as you did." The lines borrowed from are: When on my sick bed I languish, Campbell's 'Brit. Poets,' p. 301. Abel Drugger is a character in Ben Jonson's 'Alchemist.' |