The Washington times., 1901-10-27
RAREGARRICK ENGRATINGS
An Interesting Collection Acquired
by Harvard Library.
Old Prints That Throw Light on the
Stngc of Century and n Half
AEo-Many Curious Caricatures
and Portraits of the Grent Actor.

ana PORTRAITS oil the Ureut Actor'
CAMBRIDGE. Mass, Oct 26.-There
has recently been added TO the Harvard
Library, as the gift of about twenty
graduates, a collection of prints Illus
trating the life of the great English play
er, David Garrick, who is usually cred
tied with introducing the modern meth
DDS of acting. Garrick, that is, taught
his audiences to appre ciatc a subtle
study of human character rather than
the exaggerated defamation and pom
pous acting which had gained possession
of the stage in the generation immedi-
ately preceding him.
Unlike most collections OF "Garrick
iania" the prints in the Harvard Libra
ry are strictly confined to Garrick him
self, fact which gives them a more con-
densed interest than is possessed by
many larger collections. At the sale of
the Augustine DAILY collection in New
York, for example, there were two note
worthy examples of extra illustration" "
one of them a two-volume edition of
life of Garrick which had been extended
TO ten volumes by the insertion of sew
eral hundred portraits, engravings,
playbills, and autograph letters, and the
other volume which had been enlarged
tion of 500 Illustrations; but the addi-
tional prints included not only Garrick
but a small army of contemporaries. The
Harvard collection, originally brought
together by London amateur and sold
TO the University by a well-known Lon
don dealer. consists of 219 prints, all of
which are pictures of the actor himself.
The collection. valuable first of all to
students of the drama or of manners. is
of very general interest as basis for
comparing the theatrical situation of our
own time with that of the latter half of
the eighteenth century. II is interesting
to know, for instance, that even before
the era of photography the features of
star like Garrick were produced by the
artists brush and the engravers burin
almost as generously now by the cam
era.
GarTick was painted not once but
many times each by HOgauh, by Gains
borough, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and by
Zoffahi-to say nothing of other less ia
nous artists-and these paintings were
again and again copied by various en-
graycrs. In the Harvard collection some
lew of these engravings are familiar
enough-like Hogarths picture of Gar
rick in the tent scene in Richard IL
or like Sir Joshua Reynolds "Garric2l
Between Tragedy and Comedy" with its
explanatory inscription, Strive Not
TRAGEDY nor COMEDY to engross
GARRICK, Who TO Your NOBLEST
CHARACTERS Docs EQUAL HONOR"
Others showing the actor in his various
characters, or picturing him as a figure
of caricature, are perhaps more inter
esting, because less well known.
Among the works of the better known
artists are a print engraved from Rey-
nolds painting Of Garrick as Kitely in
Rare Ben Jonson's Every Man in His
Humor; and prints of Hogarth's paint
ings of Garrick the Farmer in the now
forgotten play, the Farmers Return"
and of Garrick and his wife. the dancer.
Madamoiselle Violetu. An earlier en-
craving, dated l743 and printed for r.
Baldwin, ir., at ye Rose in Paternoster
Row" shows the two before their mar
riage, and a later print, etched by J. r.
Cruikshank in 1870, shows Mrs Garrick
at the great age of ninety-seven more
than forty years after her husbands
death
OF the characters acted by Garrick-in
all something over lO0-twenty-four are
represented in the collection. These char
acter portraits, accordingly, represent
very well the activity of the actor-nara-
Of the modern stage he served in both
capacities-and show also the survival of
the dttest as it applies to dramatic litera-
ture. Richard III, Benedict in Much
Ado About Nothing. Macbeth, Lear. and
Hamlet are still acted.
The others, some of which are from
plays that still have an established posi-
tion IN the library but the ma jority from
pieces practically forgotten even by the
reader, are as follows: Abel Drugger in
the '.Alchemist; Mr.. Fribble in Miss in
Her Teens one of the plays written by
Garrick himself; Leon, in Rule a Wife
and Have a Wife Periander in ''Eury-
dice Lord Gladstone. in '-Lethe;" De-
metrius, in the Brothers Kiteiy, in
Every Man in His Humor;' the Coun-
tryman, in the prologue to 'Barbaros-
sss2 Ranger, in the Suspicious Hus-
band Sir John Brute, in the .'Provok-
ed Wife, the Farmer, in the Farmers
Return; Lusignan. in ''Zara;' Don John
\in the Chances Don Felix, in the
bride the Drunken Sailor in the pro-
logue TO Britannia" :" Archer in the
"Beau's Straregeffi;" Edward in Edward
the Black Prince; and Bayes in the
as a "take-off'' on the great John Dry
den, but which was later successfully
adapted to include limitations of prorni-
nent contemporary actors and which was
finally abandoned by Garrick in answer
TO their remonstrance that the success of
his mimicry was spelling their standing
with audiences.
The costuming Of these character pOr-
traits presents some curious anomalies
AS is generally known, accuracy Of cos
fume. we understand such accuracy
today was not one Of the artistic neccs-
stiles Of the eighteenth century stage,
and one must not be surprised, therefore,
10 find that Garrick dressed Hamlet in a
skirted coat Of his own period, that he
provided Macbeth with ruffies and . curl
ed peruke, or that his Benedict strlkingly
suggests the Richard Carvei of our own
stage. More surprising Is the elegance
of these costumes and, in their own way
their artistic cOmplcteness-which, with
out leaving the dress Of the actors period
goes 50 far as TO put patch on the old
shoe worn by Abel DTugger in the Al
Three cartoons illustrate the endless
struggle between the legitimate drama,
so called and popular amusement Of a
spectacular and ludicrous kind, compare
BILE to our modern vaudevilles or the min
strel shows Of a generation ago. one Of !
these, a rare print called the Theatrical
SteelyaIds Of lfJ9 signallzes the success
Of pantomime at GaTicks S Drury Lane |
Theatre after an unsuccessful season Of /
seriously written plays. Garrick, in turn
ing to pantomime, had taken leaf out
OF another managers book, and the car
toon depicts him triumphantly bearing
down one side of the scale Of popular sue
cess, while his rivals, among them the I
famous Wellington. hang vainly suspend !
ed from the other. and Harlequin hirnself
dances triumphant in the foreground. The =.
others depict the attitude OI the Iphold-f
ers of the Legitimate TOW ard an actor !
who seemed to De turning his acknoWl- /
edged talents wholly toward the Spectacu-
lar In which the eighteenth century was !
not so far behind the nineteenth and |
twentieth as people would sometimes |
have US think.
Although the engraving itself is not one
of those that has been marked by the !
collector-after the manner Of collectors