Chapter 40

Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1772. (page 65)

It is long indeed, dear Sir, since we corresponded. I should not have been silent if I had had any thing worth telling you in your way: but I grow such an antiquity myself, that I think I am less fond of what remains of our predecessors.

I thank you for Bannerman's proposal; I mean, for taking the trouble to send it, for I am not at all disposed to subscribe. I thank you more for the note on King Edward; I mean, too, for your friendship in thinking of me. Of Dean Milles I cannot trouble myself to think any more. His piece is at Strawberry: perhaps I may look at it for the sake of your note. The bad weather keeps me in town, and a good deal at home; which I find very comfortable, literally practising what so many persons pretend they intend, being quiet and enjoying my fireside in my elderly days.

Mr. Mason has shown me the relics of poor Mr. Gray. I am sadly disappointed at finding them so very inconsiderable. He always persisted, when I inquired about his writings, that he had nothing by him. I own I doubted. I am grieved he was so very near exact--I speak of my own satisfaction; as to his genius, what he published during his life will establish his fame as long as our language lasts, and there is a man of genius left. There is a silly fellow, I do not know who, that has published a volume of Letters on the English Nation, With characters of our modern authors. He has talked such nonsense On Mr. Gray, that I have no patience with the compliments he has paid me. He must have an excellent taste; and gives me a woful opinion of my own trifles, when he likes them, and cannot see the beauties of a poet that ought to be ranked in the first line. I am more humbled by any applause in the present age, than by hosts of such critics as Dean Milles. Is not Garrick reckoned a tolerable author, though he has proved how little sense is necessary to form a great actor'? His Cymon, his prologues and epilogues, and forty such pieces of trash, are below mediocrity, and yet delight the mob in the boxes as well as in the footman's gallery. I do not mention the things written in his praise; because he writes most Of them himself! But you know any one popular merit can confer all merit. Two women talking Of Wilkes, one said he squinted--t'other replied, "Squints!--well, if he does, it is not more than a man should squint." For my part, I can see how extremely well Garrick acts, without thinking him six feet high. It is said Shakspeare was a bad actor; why do not his divine plays make our wise judges conclude that he was a good one? They have not a proof of the contrary, as they have in Garrick's works--but what is it to you or me what he is? We may see him act with pleasure, and nothing obliges us to read his writings.(69)

(69) The best defence of Garrick against the charges which Walpole so repeatedly brings against him will be found in the estimation in which he was held by the most distinguished of his contemporaries. His friend Dr. Johnson thought well of' his talent in prologue writing: "Dryden," he said, "has written prologues superior to any that David has written; but David has written more good prologues than Dryden has done. It is wonderful that he has been able to write such variety of them. A true conception of character and natural expression of it, were his distinguished excellences; but I thought him less to be envied on the stage than at the head of a table. He was the first man in the world for sprightly conversation."-E.