has added much to the appearance of the Dean's walk.

At the particular request of one of our residentiaries, Miss Seward wrote the following lines, as an epitaph for the tablet beneath David Garrick's bust. The inelegant prose inscription was preferred. This is not the only instance wherein prejudice or ignorance has prevailed,

While o'er this marble bends thy pensive eye,
Here, Stranger, breathe the tributary sigh!
Beneath these groves their GARRICK nurs'd the art
That reign'd resistless o'er each feeling heart;
And here those virtues dawn'd, whose power benign
Bids Hope for him celestial palms entwine.

Oft has his bounty, with pervading ray,

Chac'd the dark cloud from Want's tempestuous day;
And oft his silence, generous as his aid,

Hid from the world the noblest part he play'd.

It is with much pleasure that I take an opportunity of adding some few particulars of the life of this great character.

DAVID GARRICK, ESQ.

THE great Roscius of this age and country, having received the first rudiments of his education at the free grammar school at Lichfield, is generally esteemed a Lichfieldian, though he was born at the Angel-inn, Hereford, in the year 1716. His father, captain Peter Garrick, had a troop of horse, which were then quartered in that City. This rank he maintained in the army some time, and had a majority given him, which death prevented his ever enjoying. Dr. Johnson and David Garrick were students at the same school; and it is a curious fact, that these two celebrated genuises travelled to London in the same coach, with an intention of pushing themselves into active life. On the the 9th of March, 1736, he was entered at the honourable society of Lincoln's Inn. The study of the law, however, he soon quitted; and followed, for a short time, the employment of a wine-merchant: but, that too disgusting him, he gave way to the irresistible bias of his mind, and joined a travelling

velling company of comedians at Ipswich in Suffolk, where he went by the name of Lyddle. Having in this poor school of Apollo got some acquaintance with the theatric art, he burst at once upon the world in the year 1740-1, in all the lustre of perfection, at the Little Theatre in Goodman's fields, then under the direction of Henry Giffard.

The character he first performed was Richard the Third, in which, like the sun bursting from behind a cloud, he displayed, in the earliest dawn, a somewhat more than meridian brightness. His excellence dazzled and astonished every one; and the seeing a young man in no more than his twenty-fourth year, and a novice in reality to the stage, reaching at one single step to that height of perfection, which maturity of years and long practical experience had not been able to bestow on the then capital performers of the English stage, was a phenomenon that could not but become the object of universal speculation, and of as universal admiration. The theatres at the West end of the town were deserted. Goodman's fields, from being the rendezvous of citizens and citizens' wives alone, became the resort of all ranks of men;

and Mr. Garrick continued to act till the end of the season.

Having very advantageous terms offered him for the performing in Dublin during some part of the summer (1741), he went over thither, where he found the same just homage paid to his merit which he had received from his own countrymen,

In the year 1747 Mr. Garrick, in conjunction with Mr. Lacy, purchased the property of Drury-lane theatre.

Were we to trace him through the various occurrences of his life, a life so active, so busy, and so full of occurrences as his, we should swell this account to many pages. Suffice it at once to say, he continued in the unmolested enjoyment of his fame and unrivalled excellence to the moment of his retirement.

Notwithstanding the innumerable and harrassing avocations attendant on his profession as an actor, and his station as a manager, yet still his active genius was perpetually bursting forth in various little productions in the dra

matic

matic and poetical way, whose merit cannot but make us regret his want of time for the pursuance of more extensive and important works. Certain it is, that his merit as an author is not of the first magnitude; but his great knowledge of men and manners, of stage-effect, and his happy turn for lively and striking satire, made him generally successful; and his prologues and epilogues in particular, which are almost numberless, possess such a degree of happiness, both in the conception and execution, as to stand unequalled.

It was in the year 1776 when Mr. Garrick, full of fame, with the acquirement of a splendid fortune, and in the evening of his days, thought proper to seek the vale of peace, to enjoy that dignified and honourable ease which was incompatible with his public situation, and which he had so well earned by the activity and the merits of his dramatic reign. But very short indeed was the time allotted him for this precious enjoyment; for, on the 20th of January, 1779, he departed this life, leaving no one rival in excellence upon earth to compensate for his loss, or a hope of our ever meeting with his like again.