The Finest Flavour

The Letters of David Garrick. Edited by David M. Little and George M. Kand. (Harvard and O.U.P., three volumes, 9 gns.)

E'en matchless Garrick's art, to Heaven resigned, No fixed effect, no model leaves behind.

Garrick the actor, the greatest exponent of his art who has, perhaps, ever lived, has vanished beyond recovery. But Garrick was more than just an actor. He was a prolific and not un- talented author; he was a great director and theatre manager; and, above all, he was a charm- ing and delightful man. It is these last two aspects which the magnificent collection of his letters now assembled by the Havard editors illustrates.

There are, indeed, a few asides on his acting here and there. An anonymous correspondent stings him into defending his interpretation of some lines in Macbeth; an occasional generali- sation about inspiration and preparation is dropped:

The greatest strokes of Genius, have been unknown to the Actor himself, 'till Circum- stances, and the warmth of the Scene has sprung the Mine, as it were, as much to his own Surprize, as that of the Audience— And yet this is no more than a confession of ignorance.

The few details about actual parts played by him are all -too often flippant asides, which only reveal the casual no-nonsense attitude of the professional:

am now Writing, during the first Act of a New Comedy, call'd the School for Lovers—I have Spoke the Prologue & don't appear in ye play till the beginning of the 2d when Sr John Dorilant (that's ye Name) make his Entrance— `Sometimes there comes an outstanding novel which makes 'a reviewer wish he had ten times as much space in which to write about it; such a one is Martha Wiley Emmett's A SHADOW BACKWARDS . . . great subtlety . . . brilliantly achieved . . . Her language is fresh without any straining for newness . . . a remarkable book, a fine novel.' B. S. JOHNSON, SPECTATOR

If we are not to read Garrick's letters for what we can find out about acting, are they worth reading at all? They do, of course, provide an invaluable mine of information for workers on the eighteenth-century theatre: that goes with- out saying. It is to the relatively small band of scholars that these volumes are in the first place addressed. But do they deserve a wider public? The editors call attention to Garrick's learning, wit and charm. His learning, if eccentric, is cer- tainly there; but Garrick's phenomenal memory was for odd tags, rather than for the sense of the past, and he compares sadly with the erudite Dr. Johnson. His wit was all too often lavatorial, and his politer style too carefully calculated for its appeal to be felt today. Charm, however, is there in plenty. Garda was, above all, vivacious; he had, Dr. Johnson said, 'more con- vivial pleasantry than almost any other man.' And if, at times, it became mechanical, that is only to be expected of an actor.

The assembly of the correspondence has been a daunting task. Although the three major collections of Garrick letters here and in America have long been known, two of them are not yet catalogued. And their total was only a fraction of the whole: the others were scattered about in innumerable collections all over the world. It has taken the two editors over thirty years to bring this work to fruition, and only one of them is alive to witness the publication.

But, exceptionally slow and long-drawn-out though the editing has been, the result is in most ways very satisfactory. The three volumes are superbly printed and well bound. The annotation is masterly: far fuller than might reasonably have been expected, and beautifully laid out. As scholarly tools, these books will be in demand for many generations.

Having said this, qualifications must begin. From the point of view of the theatrical re- searcher, accuracy is the first quality demanded. Atte here there seems to be room for doubt. It is worrying to find that where I have been able to check the originals mistakes and inaccuracies occur. One cannot complain if a few of the letters are based on poor texts. But simple mis- reading is another matter. For instance, in No. 617, 'pay the losses out of my own pocket, which 1 am with other Matters,' should read 'which Sum.' Letter 553, which is given as taken from autograph, is, I am almost certain, taken from James Saunders's nineteenth-century transcript. The autograph is not .at Stratford. Letter 624 is ascribed (without query) 'To William Eaves.' It was written to Richard Graves, the author of The Spiritual Quixote. And there are several errors of fact in the introduction, and another in the brief chronological table.

If accuracy is the first requirement, complete- ness is the next. The work is marred by one very sad and important omission. Of Garrick's fifty- three extant letters to 'heavenly' Georgiana, the Countess Spencer, only three are printed here. The others are all listed, each with the same note: 'In the possession of the Earl Spencer: Not made available for publication.' No doubt the Earl has his reasons. One of them would seem to be the desire for scholarly fame: he pub- lished his fifty letters in a poorly edited and very expensive edition in 1960, an edition which was privately printed for the members of the Rox- burghe Club. There is no reason why wealthy aristocrats should not dabble in scholarship, but it seems a shame when it encourages them to obstruct serious research. The Earl has achieved his tiny niche in the literary pantheon. The blank spaces which appear on nearly every page of the final volume will see to that.

The real interest of these letters, however, lies not so much in their value as a source of theatrical and biographical information, great though that is, as in the light which they shed upon the social world of the eighteenth century. It was the great age of the domestic writer. We know more about the day-to-day life of some of the booksellers, publicans, actors and servants of this period than we do about that of some of the greatest men of the sixteenth century. A wealth of fascinatingly insignificant new charac- ters is to be found here.

Yet if Garrick had been, like Walpole, a semi- professional letter writer, the size and scope of his correspondence would not be extraordinary. But he was one of the busiest men of his day. As well as being the leading actor and manager of Drury Lane, he was a prolific dramatist, writing twenty-one plays and adapting countless others, He also produced an endless stream of light verse: enough to fill two volumes after his death.

When on earth did he find time to write all these thousands of letters? The answer goes some way to explain why his letters lack the grace and elegance of so much other correspondence of the period. Garrick set little time aside for letter- writing. He had none to spare. Instead he would grab a piece of paper whenever he had a moment free, and jot down whatever he had to say. Again and again his letters explain': 'I always write in a hurry, you know; 1 am this moment going upon ye Stage'; 'I must gallop over this small piece of paper, it was ye first I snatch'd • up.' What he loses in elegance, he gains in im- mediacy. These letters are unpremeditated, but they are also alive. Boswell's remark on one addressed to him applies to them all. It was, he said, 'a pine-apple of finest flavour.'

CHRISTIAN DEELMAN