Garrick and his Circle. By Mrs. Clement Parsons. (Methuen -and
Co. 12s. 6d. net.)—" My aim has been," writes Mrs. Parsons in her preface, "to make each one of a series of vignettes illus- trate Garrick's character or career in contact with this or that group of outside characters or events." It was a happy idea, and it has been realised in the happiest way. Mrs. Parsons touches everything and every one that she has to deal with with a grace and a tact which are all that could be wished. We begin with "Eighteenth-Century Lichfield," and then come in succession the vignettes, charming pictures all of them, more than usually .attractive doubtless in themselves, and most felicitously pictured. He are some of the titles : "Peg Woffington," "Kitty Clive," "Mrs. Garrick" (one of her names was Mlle. Violette), "Garrick in his Green-room," "The Club "—with the admirably inconsistent Johnson, who opposed Garrick's election for ten years, and, after his death, would not suffer his place to be filled for a _year—" The Beau Monde," and the last scene of all with its well- chosen motto " Lusisti Satis." The epilogue, however, is in a higher note. What a thing it was when the great player was -laid to his rest in the Abbey, his pall borne by nobles, with Burke and Johnson standing by "bathed in tears." But after all, es Mrs. Parsons puts it, "Garrick belongs to the history of England." And he has found here an admirable chronicler.
Previous page
