aspect, “conveying into his face every possible kind of passion, blending one into another, and as it were shadowing them with an infinite number of gradations....  In short,” says Dibdin, “his face was what he obliged you to fancy it:  age, youth, plenty, poverty, everything it assumed.”  Certainly an engraved portrait of Garrick as Lear, published in 1761, does not suggest his deriving much help from the arts of making-up or of costume.  He wears a short robe of velvet, trimmed with ermine, his white wig is disordered and his shirt-front is much crumpled; but otherwise his white silk hose, lace ruffles, high-heeled shoes and diamond buckles, are more appropriate to Sir Peter Teazle than to King Lear.  And as much may be said of his closely-shaven face, the smooth surface of which is not disturbed by the least vestige of a beard.  Yet the King Lears of later times have been all beard, or very nearly so.  With regard to Garrick’s appearance in the part of Lusignan, Davies relates how, two days before his death, the suffering actor, very wan and sallow of countenance, slow and solemn of movement, was seen to wear a rich night-gown, like that which he always wore in Lusignan, the venerable old king of Jerusalem; he presented himself to the imagination of his friend as if he was just ready to act that character.

Charles Mathews, the elder, no doubt possessed much of Garrick’s power of changing at will his facial aspect.  At the theatre of course he resorted to the usual methods of making-up for the part he played; but the sudden transformations of which his “At Homes” largely consisted were accomplished too rapidly to be much assisted by pencilling the face, as were indeed the feats he sometimes accomplished in private circles, for the entertainment of his friends.  In the biography of her husband, Mrs. Mathews relates how his advice was once sought by Godwin the novelist, just before the publication of his story of “Cloudesly,” on a matter—­the art of making-up—­the actor was held to have made peculiarly his own.  Godwin wrote to him:  “My dear Sir,—­I am at this moment engaged in writing a work of fiction, a part of the incidents of which will consist in escapes in disguises.  It has forcibly struck me that if I could be indulged in the pleasure of half-an-hour’s conversation with you on the subject, it would furnish me with some hints, which, beaten on the anvil of my brain, would be of eminent service to me on the occasion,” &c.  A meeting was appointed, and, at an early date the author dined at the actor’s cottage.  Godwin, anxious not to outrage probability in his story, sought information as to “the power of destroying personal identity.”  Mathews assumed several disguises, and fully satisfied his visitor upon the point in question.  “Soon after,” writes Mrs. Mathews, “a gentleman, an eccentric neighbour of ours, broke in upon us as Mr. Godwin was expressing his wonder at the variety of expression, character, and voice of which Mr. Mathews