have all seen Puff do in the "Critic," in modern times, and showed them how to deliver their speeches in what he called the true theatrical flourish. For this purpose he selected some of the most eminent favourites of the day, and by his wonderful powers of mimicry was able to assunie, and, of course, to colour up the exact peculiarities and deportment of each in his turn. Delane, who stood in the first rank, was tall and comely, had a clear and strong voice, but no variety of tone regulated by feeling or emotion. Garrick began with him. He retired to the upper part of the stage, and drawing his left arm across his breast, rested his right elbow upon it, raising a finger to his nose, with the expression of his face as solemn as if he were going to preach a sermon. He then came forward in a stately gait, nodding his head as he advanced, and, in the exact tone of Delane, spoke the famous simile of the boar and sow. The audience recognised the burlesque, screamed with delight, and vociferated "encore."

Hale, of Covent Garden, had a striking figure, with an extensive and melodious voice, and was in the habit of playing lovers. Garrick chose a speech suited to the occasion, and in a soft, plaintive accent, without a vestige of real feeling, vox et præterea nihil, gave an exaggerated resemblance of Hale in

"How strange a captive am I grown of late," &c.

from Varanes, in the "Force of Love." Ryan had a croaking, drawling accent. Garrick gave a grotesque imitation of his manner, by speaking in a tremulous raven-tone of voice, "Your bed of love from dangers will I free," &c.

He never attempted to mimic Quin, whose style was equally open to attack. Either he really respected his talent, or was afraid of him; for Apemantus was a man of the sword, not to be trifled with, and ready to betake himself to his tools on slighter provocation than that would have been. He had twice killed his opponent in fair combat, and fought a third and impromptu duel with Theophilus Cibber under the piazza in Covent Garden. Little David was more inclined to be a member of the

peace congress. Although he had enough, and to spare, of the irritable petulance belonging to power and prosperity, he was not constitutionally pugnacious, and would have referred a

quarrel to Touchstone's seventh course, and have backed out logically rather than proceed to extreme measures. Murphy could not remember whether Garrick burlesqued any actor besides the three we have named. Davies adds Bridgewater and Giffard. Cooke, a poet, biographer, and barrister, who wrote the "Elements of Dramatic Criticism," says, in his "Life of Macklin," that Garrick was admonished to omit the travesty of his manager by a challenge and a puncture in the sword-arm. But nobody believed the tale when told, as Cooke cited no authority, and, with many features of invention, it had none of what the French designate vraisemblance.

Delane suffered much in the estimation of the town by Garrick's ludicrous imitation. His progress received a check, and if it be true that he took to drinking, this may perhaps have been an exciting cause. When the public have once been taught to laugh at what formerly called forth their serious interest and admiration, a Rubicon has been passed which seldom admits of return. Hale was present one night at Garrick's Bayes, and laughed heartily at his imitations of Delane and Ryan; but when it came to his own turn to be taken off, he was shocked at the mortifying scene, and felt the folly and injustice of approving that ridicule of others which he could not bear himself. When Garrick had become a prosperous manager, unrivalled in professional reputation, and courted by all classes, at the solicitation of several friends, the remonstrances of the actors, and from a conviction that his full-blown fortunes required not the spurious aid of mimicry, which was but a trifling feather in his cap of fame, for once in his life, as Tate Wilkinson satirically expresses it, he did a generous action, and gave up what he no longer wanted.

When Garrick was so bitterly offended with Foote, Wilkinson, and Henderson, for presuming to take him off, he should have called to mind how long and often he had inflicted that pain on others, When,

in 1758, at the request of Sparks of Covent Garden, he promised to put a stop to Wilkinson's imitations at Drury-lane, Wilkinson again exclaimed, "Bless his goodnature!" We marvel that Delane and Ryan, who were men of pluck and spirit, submitted tamely to the ridicule and attending damage. Perhaps they thought with Quin, that the new style was "heresy, not reformation," and that the public would grow tired of it, when the first blush of novelty had passed over. However skilfully imitation may be executed, it reflects faults rather than beauties, and therefore cannot be a flattering or impartial portraiture. Edmund Kean was endowed with this faculty, though not to such an extent as his more versatile type and predecessor. As a vehicle for its indulgence, he usually selected Sylvester Daggerwood, on his benefit nights, and always concluded by a harlequin leap through the scene. His best hits were Braham and Incledon, as Richard and Richmond, in the dialogue preceding the fight in "Richard the Third." The late Charles Young, occasionally in private, gave excellent copies of Garrick and Henderson in Lear and Falstaff, which he had acquired from contemporaries of both.

Supposed imitation or resemblance sometimes vanishes entirely when the parties are placed in juxtaposition. Miss Cushman was generally pronounced an exact counterpart, in features, voice, and manner, of an eminent male tragedian; so much so that she was often called Mr.

in petticoats. When, at last, they acted together, the similarity disappeared, and the marked contrast astonished the audience. Mr. Junius Brutus Booth was said to look and act exactly like Edmund Kean; but the fallacy of the impression evinced itself conclusively on that memorable night of "Othello," when Kean snuffed out his reputed double at Drury-lane. This J. B. Booth, when he enacted Sir Giles Overreach, carried in one of his hands, in the last scene, a piece of sponge saturated with rose-pink, and during the concluding frenzy, contrived to pass it to his mouth, unseen by the spectators, so that when he fell, he conveyed the horrible idea of having burst an internal vessel. This was "art pro

ducing nature," with a vengeance. As one of the "startling sensation effects," in one of the recently-current new versions of the old "Heart of Mid - Lothian, triply dramatized with prodigious success by Dibdin, Terry, and Murray of Edinburgh, in 1819 and 1820, Jeanie Deans presented herself to the Duke of Argyle with the semblance of bare and bleeding feet, as if she had then and there rushed in from her four hundred miles' walk on the hard and dusty road. The outrage on delicacy and good taste was as flagrant as the most unnecessary violation of the novelist's minute description of the Edinburgh lassie's toilet and chaussure on that momentous occasion.

with

When Garrick entered on management at Drury-lane in 1747, he found Delane a well-established member of the old company, and, perhaps from some compunctious visitings, retained him in the prominent position he had long held, associating Barry with him. He gave them both many opportunities, to husband his own attraction, or when he wanted to dine with an archbishop or a duke, or to entertain a foreign ambassador at his own house. It was quite true, as Dr. Johnson said to Sir William Jones, at Garrick's funeral, more than thirty years later, that the obligations between the great actor and his art were reciprocal. His art made him rich, and he made his art respectable. In 1748, Delane visited Edinburgh professionally, in company Sparks, during the London recess, and met with a flattering reception. He was greatly impressed by the talents of Mrs. Ward, the leading actress and favourite of the Northern metropolis, and, in an evil hour, recommended her to Rich, who had a vacancy, instead of to his own employer, who had none; an act of apparent disloyalty by which the latter was mortally offended. Before this, Garrick had publicly expressed himself the familiar friend of Delane, and took a pleasure in walking with him in the street, arm and arm. But Delane, soon after his arrival from Scotland, accidentally met Garrick under the piazza at Covent Garden, who not only would not return his salute, but gave him such a look of anger and disdain, as few men besides himself had the power of bestow

Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,

Whose meal and exercise are still together;

Who twin, as 'twere, in love inseparable, Shall, within this hour, on a dissension of a doit,

Break out to bitterest enmity."

Garrick, to his discredit it must be recorded, finding that Mrs. Ward, was well received by the town, encouraged her to break her engagement with Rich, which she was the more easily tempted to do, as Miss Bellamy was in possession of many of the characters she wished to play. Mrs. Ward speedily made her first appearance at Drury-lane, as Cordelia to Garrick's Lear. Several years later, she was the original Lady Randolph, at Edinburgh, in Home's tragedy of "Douglas." A better understanding arose subsequently between the managers of the rival London theatres, under the reigns of Harris and Sheridan.

It was

settled that neither should engage a performer from the other house, until after the expiration of the season. Delane, at Covent Garden, played seconds to Quin, from 1748 to 1750, and occasionally such first-rate parts as Hotspur, Lord Hastings, Oroonoko, Antony, Young Bevil, Varanes, and Henry the Fifth. His last appearance occurred on the 22nd of March, 1750, only eight days before his death, as Piercy, in Banks's old tragedy of "Virtue betrayed, or Anna Bullen," which had been revived, after a slumber of thirty years, for Mrs. Woffington's benefit, on the 17th of the same month. A repetition of the play had been announced for the 24th, but it was postponed on account of Delane's sudden illness. We know not where he was buried. Most probably in St. Paul's, Covent Garden, the most popular resting-place of the

actors of his time. Delane died eleven years before Churchill wrote the "Rosciad," or the satirist would surely have found room for an actor of his marked peculiarities on the capacious gibbet whereon he impaled nearly all his surviving contemporaries.

LACY RYAN, the faithful Pylades of Quin through life, was always reputed to be an Irishman, and so called himself; but in some brief memoirs published after his death, it was said that he was born in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, and about the year 1694. His names, sponsorial and patronymic, have no Saxon flavour in them; if they are not of truly Milesian descent, they are exceedingly happy counterfeits; we, therefore, in the absence of better proof to the contrary, retain him in our present list. His godfather, Mr. Lacy, an attorney, resident in London, took charge of his education at St. Paul's school, and intended to bring him up to the law. But he soon imbibed a strong propensity for the stage, and through the interest of his countryman, Sir Richard Steele, became a member of the Haymarket company in 1710. One of the first parts he was set to perform was Seyton, an elderly officer in "Macbeth," at which time he was about sixteen years of age. Betterton, who was then acting Macbeth, at seventy, and as it happened, for the last time, had not seen Ryan before he presented himself to him when the time for his entry came on at night, and was surprised at the apparition of a boy in a huge cauliflower wig, profusely powdered, such as our judges were wont to wear upon the bench. However, by his looks, he encouraged the neophyte to deliver himself boldly of his part, and when the scene was over, commended the young aspirant for what he pronounced a creditable effort, but severely reproved old Downes, the prompter, for sending on the stage a child, to represent a man advanced in life."

Three years later, Addison's celebrated tragedy of "Cato" was produced at Drury-lane. By this time, Ryan had advanced so far as to be intrusted with the character of Marcus, and to be honoured with the special instructions of the author and