hat. For one, I should like to have seen and
heard with my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one
was ever moved by the true histrionic _aestus_, it was Garrick. When he
followed the Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword as most actors do
behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so fully
was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight of his
part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord -----'s, they
suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was become of him,
till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals of
laughter of a young negro-boy, who was rolling on the ground in an ecstasy
of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in the court-yard, with
his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seeming flutter of feathered
rage and pride. Of our party only two persons present had seen the British
Roscius; and they seemed as willing as the rest to renew their
acquaintance with their old favourite.

We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful
speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame to
make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the neglect
and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries and rivals of
Shakspeare. B---- said he had anticipated this objection when he had named
the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out of caprice insisted upon
keeping him to represent the set, in preference to the wild hair-brained
enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's, Webster, with his
melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to Deckar, who was but a garrulous
proser; to the voluminous Heywood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom
we might offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint
productions. Lord Brook, on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or in
Cowley's words, was "a vast species alone." Some one hinted at the
circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled B----, but he said
a _ghost_ would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly
addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally.
Some were afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present
to defend himself. "If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud,
"there is G---- can match him." At length his romantic visit to Drummond
of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his favour.

B----