that of Garrick, between comedy and tragedy. On the
one side, with her mask in hand, stood the presiding divinity of comic
poetry, coaxing the immortal hero of the sock and buskin with her
archest smiles; while on the other stood Melpomene, rapt in solemn
thought, and with eyes upraised in gloomy grandeur, pointing the actor
to a loftier walk than that of her witching sister Thalia. The
situation of poor Garrick is most embarrassing--and appears the more so
from the powers of face at his command, as delineated by the artist,
whereby he is represented as doubting to which invitation he should
yield, while with one half of his face he looks the deepest tragedy,
and with the other, the merriest comedy.

Very much in the situation of Garrick, as thus described, does the
biographer find himself at the threshhold of this concluding chapter.
It is not his fault, however, that comic or rather farcical incidents
must follow so closely upon the pathetic. But "the course of true love
never did run smooth"--a fact of which, as the reader has already seen,
my unfortunate friend Wheelwright had had some knowledge, early in his
wedded life--and of which he was convinced over again, soon after the
events recorded in the last two chapters.

It was on a clear frosty morning in March, that one of the watchful
guardians of the peace and quiet of the city, connected with the police
establishment, did me the unexpected honor of a visit. He stated that a
poor but very decent sort of a man had fallen into the hands of the
watch during the preceding night, and had been committed to Bridewell
by the sitting magistrate, on a charge of assault and battery.
According to the report of Dogberry, the man was "quite
down-in-the-mouth about it, and," (he added,) "he contests that he is
entirely hinnocent. He also says he is acquainted with you, and he
thinks if you would be good enough to come up to the hall and see him,
no doubt that you would bail him out."

"How is that, my friend? A man taken up in a night-row, and now in
Bridewell, and says he is an acquaintance of mine--eh?"

"So he says, and he looks as though he might have seen better days. We
have to deal with many such--but then he don't act as though he was
often in such scrapes, no how."

"His name?"

"Doctor--Wheel--Wheelwright, I think they call him."

"O--ah--yes:" another incident, thinks-I-to-myself, in the chequered
life of my unhappy friend.

"And a _striking_ incident, too