and a heavy stilted style of declamation.  Betterton died in 1710, and six years after, in 1716, Garrick was born.  About twenty years after, in 1737, Samuel Johnson and his friend and pupil, David Garrick, set out from Lichfield on their way to London.  In spite of the differences in their ages, and their relationship of master and pupil, a hearty friendship had sprung up between them, and one destined, in spite of Johnson’s occasional resentment at the actor’s success in life, to last till it was ended by the grave.  Much of Johnson’s occasional harshness and almost contemptuous attitude towards Garrick was, I fear, the result of the consciousness that his old pupil had thoroughly succeeded in life, and had reached the highest goal possible in the career which he had chosen; while he himself, though looked up to as the greatest scholar of his time, was conscious, as he shows us in his own diary, of how much more he might have done but for his constitutional indolence.

Garrick’s family was of French origin, his father having come over to England during the persecution of the Huguenots in 1687, and on his mother’s side he had Irish blood in his veins; so that by descent he was a combination of French, English, and Irish, a combination by no means unpromising for one who was going to be an actor.

On reaching London, Garrick enrolled his name in Lincoln’s Inn, and was looking about him to see what would turn up, when the news of his father’s death reached him.  There is no doubt that, if Garrick had consulted his own wishes only, he would at once have gone upon the stage.  But fortunately, perhaps, for his future career, he could not bear to grieve his mother’s heart by adopting at once, and at such a time when she was crushed with some sorrow for her great loss, a calling which he knew she detested so heartily.

Within a year Mrs. Garrick followed to the grave the husband whom she never ceased to mourn, and David had nothing more to face than the prejudice of his brother, Peter, and of his sisters, if he should resolve ultimately to adopt the profession on which his heart was fixed.

It was not, however, till nearly three years after, in 1741, that Garrick, determined to take the decisive step, first feeling his way by playing Chamont in The Orphan, and Sir Harry Wildair, at Ipswich, where he appeared under the name of Mr. Lydall; and under this same name, in the same year, he made his first appearance at Goodman’s Fields Theatre, in the part of Richard III.  His success was marvellous.  Considering the small experience he had had, no actor ever made such a successful debut.  No doubt by waiting and exercising his powers of observation, and by studying many parts in private, he had to a certain extent, matured his powers.  But making allowance for all his great natural gifts, there is no denying that Garrick, in one leap, gained a position which, in the case of most other actors, has only