1. Calcium-aluminium garnet (Grossularite), Ca3Al2Si3O12.2. Calcium-ferric garnet (Andradite), Ca3Fe2Si3O12.3. Calcium-chromium garnet (Uvarovite), Ca3Cr2Si3O12.4. Magnesium-aluminium garnet (Pyrope), Mg3Al2Si3O12.5. Ferrous-aluminium garnet (Almandine), Fe3Al2Si3O12.6. Manganous-aluminium garnet (Spessartine), Mn3Al2Si3O12.These are frequently called respectively:—(1) Lime-alumina garnet; (2) lime-iron garnet; (3) lime-chrome garnet; (4) magnesia-alumina garnet; (5) iron-alumina garnet; (6) manganese-alumina garnet.
1. Calcium-aluminium garnet (Grossularite), Ca3Al2Si3O12.
2. Calcium-ferric garnet (Andradite), Ca3Fe2Si3O12.
3. Calcium-chromium garnet (Uvarovite), Ca3Cr2Si3O12.
4. Magnesium-aluminium garnet (Pyrope), Mg3Al2Si3O12.
5. Ferrous-aluminium garnet (Almandine), Fe3Al2Si3O12.
6. Manganous-aluminium garnet (Spessartine), Mn3Al2Si3O12.
These are frequently called respectively:—(1) Lime-alumina garnet; (2) lime-iron garnet; (3) lime-chrome garnet; (4) magnesia-alumina garnet; (5) iron-alumina garnet; (6) manganese-alumina garnet.
The types are usually modified by isomorphous replacement of some of their elements.
All garnets crystallize in the cubic system, usually in rhombic dodecahedra or in icositetrahedra, or in a combination of the two forms (see fig.). Octahedra and cubes are rare, but the six-faced octahedron occurs in some of the combinations. Cleavage obtains parallel to the dodecahedron, but is imperfect. The hardness varies according to composition from 6.5 to 7.5, and the specific gravity in like manner has a wide range, varying from 3.4 in the calcium-aluminium garnets to 4.3 in the ferrous-aluminium species. Sir Arthur H. Church found that many garnets when fused yielded a product of lower density than the original mineral. The colour is typically red, but may be brown, yellow, green or even black, while some garnets are colourless. Being cubic the garnets are normally singly refracting, but anomalies frequently occur, leading some authorities to doubt whether the mineral is really cubic. The refractive power of garnet is high, so that in microscopic sections, viewed by transmitted light, the mineral stands out in relief.
Garnets are very widely distributed, occurring in crystalline schists, gneiss, granite, metamorphic limestone, serpentine, and occasionally in volcanic rocks. With omphacite and smaragdite, garnet forms the peculiar rock called eclogite. The garnets used for industrial purposes are usually found loose in detrital deposits, weathered from the parent rock, though in some important workings the rock is quarried. The garnets employed as gem-stones are described under their respective headings (seeAlmandine,Cinnamon Stone,DemantoidandPyrope). Most of the minerals noticed in this article are of scientific rather than commercial interest.Grossularite or “gooseberry-stone,” is typically a brownish-green garnet from Siberia, known also as wiluite (a name applied also to vesuvianite,q.v.), from the river Wilui where it occurs. It is related to hessonite, or cinnamon-stone. A Mexican variety occurs in rose-pinkdodecahedra. Romanzovite is a brown garnet, of grossularia-type, from Finland, taking its name from Count Romanzov. Andradite was named by J.D. Dana after B.J. d’Andrada e Silva, who described, in 1800, one of its varieties allochroite, a Norwegian garnet, so named from its variable colour. This species includes most of the common garnet occurring in granular and compact masses, sometimes forming garnet rock. To andradite may be referred melanite, a black garnet well known from the volcanic tuffs near Rome, used occasionally in the 18th century for mourning jewelry. Another black garnet, in small crystals from the Pyrenees, is called pyreneite. Under andradite may also be placed topazolite, a honey-yellow garnet, rather like topaz, from Piedmont; colophonite, a brown resin-like garnet, with which certain kinds of idocrase have been confused; aplome, a green garnet from Saxony and Siberia; and jelletite, a green Swiss garnet named after the Rev. J.H. Jellet. Here also may be placed the green Siberian mineral termed demantoid (q.v.), sometimes improperly called olivine by jewellers. Uvarovite, named after a Russian minister, Count S.S. Uvarov, is a rare green garnet from Siberia and Canada, but though of fine colour is never found in crystals large enough for gem-stones. Spessartite, or spessartine, named after Spessart, a German locality, is a fine aurora-red garnet, cut for jewelry when sufficiently clear, and rather resembling cinnamon-stone. It is found in Ceylon, and notably in the mica-mines in Amelia county, Virginia, United States. A beautiful rose-red garnet, forming a fine gem-stone, occurs in gravels in Macon county, N.C., and has been described by W.E. Hidden and Dr J.H. Pratt under the name of rhodolite. It seems related to both almandine and pyrope, and shows the absorption-spectrum of almandine. The Bohemian garnets largely used in jewelry belong to the species pyrope (q.v.).Garnets are not only cut as gems, but are used for the bearings of pivots in watches, and are in much request for abrasive purposes. Garnet paper is largely used, especially in America, in place of sandpaper for smoothing woodwork and for scouring leather in the boot-trade. As an abrasive agent it is worked at several localities in the United States, especially in New York State, along the borders of the Adirondacks, where it occurs in limestone and in gneiss. Much of the garnet used as an abrasive is coarse almandine. Common garnet, where abundant, has sometimes been used as a fluxing agent in metallurgical operations. Garnet has been formed artificially, and is known as a furnace-product.It may be noted that the name of white garnet has been given to the mineral leucite, which occurs, like garnet, crystallized in icositetrahedra.
Garnets are very widely distributed, occurring in crystalline schists, gneiss, granite, metamorphic limestone, serpentine, and occasionally in volcanic rocks. With omphacite and smaragdite, garnet forms the peculiar rock called eclogite. The garnets used for industrial purposes are usually found loose in detrital deposits, weathered from the parent rock, though in some important workings the rock is quarried. The garnets employed as gem-stones are described under their respective headings (seeAlmandine,Cinnamon Stone,DemantoidandPyrope). Most of the minerals noticed in this article are of scientific rather than commercial interest.
Grossularite or “gooseberry-stone,” is typically a brownish-green garnet from Siberia, known also as wiluite (a name applied also to vesuvianite,q.v.), from the river Wilui where it occurs. It is related to hessonite, or cinnamon-stone. A Mexican variety occurs in rose-pinkdodecahedra. Romanzovite is a brown garnet, of grossularia-type, from Finland, taking its name from Count Romanzov. Andradite was named by J.D. Dana after B.J. d’Andrada e Silva, who described, in 1800, one of its varieties allochroite, a Norwegian garnet, so named from its variable colour. This species includes most of the common garnet occurring in granular and compact masses, sometimes forming garnet rock. To andradite may be referred melanite, a black garnet well known from the volcanic tuffs near Rome, used occasionally in the 18th century for mourning jewelry. Another black garnet, in small crystals from the Pyrenees, is called pyreneite. Under andradite may also be placed topazolite, a honey-yellow garnet, rather like topaz, from Piedmont; colophonite, a brown resin-like garnet, with which certain kinds of idocrase have been confused; aplome, a green garnet from Saxony and Siberia; and jelletite, a green Swiss garnet named after the Rev. J.H. Jellet. Here also may be placed the green Siberian mineral termed demantoid (q.v.), sometimes improperly called olivine by jewellers. Uvarovite, named after a Russian minister, Count S.S. Uvarov, is a rare green garnet from Siberia and Canada, but though of fine colour is never found in crystals large enough for gem-stones. Spessartite, or spessartine, named after Spessart, a German locality, is a fine aurora-red garnet, cut for jewelry when sufficiently clear, and rather resembling cinnamon-stone. It is found in Ceylon, and notably in the mica-mines in Amelia county, Virginia, United States. A beautiful rose-red garnet, forming a fine gem-stone, occurs in gravels in Macon county, N.C., and has been described by W.E. Hidden and Dr J.H. Pratt under the name of rhodolite. It seems related to both almandine and pyrope, and shows the absorption-spectrum of almandine. The Bohemian garnets largely used in jewelry belong to the species pyrope (q.v.).
Garnets are not only cut as gems, but are used for the bearings of pivots in watches, and are in much request for abrasive purposes. Garnet paper is largely used, especially in America, in place of sandpaper for smoothing woodwork and for scouring leather in the boot-trade. As an abrasive agent it is worked at several localities in the United States, especially in New York State, along the borders of the Adirondacks, where it occurs in limestone and in gneiss. Much of the garnet used as an abrasive is coarse almandine. Common garnet, where abundant, has sometimes been used as a fluxing agent in metallurgical operations. Garnet has been formed artificially, and is known as a furnace-product.
It may be noted that the name of white garnet has been given to the mineral leucite, which occurs, like garnet, crystallized in icositetrahedra.
(F. W. R.*)
GARNETT, RICHARD(1835-1906), English librarian and author, son of the learned philologist Rev. Richard Garnett (1789-1850), priest-vicar of Lichfield cathedral and afterwards keeper of printed books at the British Museum, who came of a Yorkshire family, was born at Lichfield on the 27th of February 1835. His father was really the pioneer of modern philological research in England; his articles in theQuarterly Review(1835, 1836) on English lexicography and dialects, and on the Celtic question, and his essays in theTransactionsof the Philological Society (reprinted 1859), were invaluable to the later study of the English language. The son, who thus owed much to his parentage, was educated at home and at a private school, and in 1851, just after his father’s death, entered the British Museum as an assistant in the library. In 1875 he rose to be superintendent of the reading-room, and from 1890 to 1899, when he retired, he was keeper of the printed books. In 1883 he was given the degree of LL.D. at Edinburgh, an honour repeated by other universities, and in 1895 he was made a C.B.
His long connexion with the British Museum library, and the value of his services there, made him a well-known figure in the literary world, and he published much original work in both prose and verse. His chief publications in book-form were: in verse,Primula(1858),Io in Egypt(1859),Idylls and Epigrams(1869, republished in 1892 asA Chaplet from the Greek Anthology),The Queen and other Poems(1902),Collected Poems(1893); in prose, biographies of Carlyle (1887), Emerson (1887), Milton (1890), Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1898); a volume of remarkably original and fanciful tales,The Twilight of the Gods(1888); a tragedy,Iphigenia in Delphi(1890);A Short History of Italian Literature(1898);Essays in Librarianship and Bibliophily(1899);Essays of an Ex-librarian(1901). He was an extensive contributor to theEncyclopaedia Britannicaand theDictionary of National Biography, editor of theInternational Library of Famous Literature, and co-editor, with E. Gosse, of the elaborateEnglish Literature: an illustrated Record. So multifarious was his output, however, in contributions to reviews, &c., and as translator or editor, that this list represents only a small part of his published work. He was a member of numerous learned literary societies, British and foreign. His facility as an expositor, and his gift for lucid and acute generalization, together with his eminence as a bibliophile, gave his work an authority which was universally recognized, though it sometimes suffered from his relying too much on his memory and his power of generalizing—remarkable as both usually were—in cases requiring greater precision of statement in matters of detail. But as an interpreter, whether of biography orbelles lettres, who brought an unusually wide range of book-learning, in its best sense, interestingly and comprehensibly before a large public, and at the same time acceptably to the canons of careful scholarship, Dr Garnett’s writing was always characterized by clearness, common sense and sympathetic appreciation. His official career at the British Museum marked an epoch in the management of the library, in the history of which his place is second only to that of Panizzi. Besides introducing the “sliding press” in 1887 he was responsible for reviving the publication of the general catalogue, the printing of which, interrupted in 1841, was resumed under him in 1880, and gradually completed. The antipodes of a Dryasdust, his human interest in books made him an ideal librarian, and his courtesy and helpfulness were outstanding features in a personality of singular charm. The whole bookish world looked on him as a friend. Among his “hobbies” was a study of astrology, to which, without associating his name with it in public, he devoted prolonged inquiry. Under the pseudonym of “A.G. Trent” he published in 1880 an article (in theUniversity Magazine) on “The Soul and the Stars”—quoted in Wilde and Dodson’sNatal Astrology. He satisfied himself that there was more truth in the old astrology than modern criticism supposed, and he had intended to publish a further monograph on the subject, but the intention was frustrated by the ill-health which led up to his death on the 13th of April 1906. He married (1863) an Irish wife, Olivia Narney Singleton (d. 1903), and had a family of six children; his son Edward (b. 1868) being a well-known literary man, whose wife translated Turgeneff’s works into English.
(H. Ch.)
GARNIER, CLÉMENT JOSEPH(1813-1881), French economist, was born at Beuil (Alpes maritimes) on the 3rd of October 1813. Coming to Paris he studied at the École de Commerce, of which he eventually became secretary and finally a professor. In 1842 he founded with Gilbert-Urbain Guillaumin (1801-1864) the Société d’Économie politique, becoming its secretary, a post which he held till his death; and in 1846 he organized the Association pour la Liberté des Échanges. He also helped to establish and edited for many years theJournal des économistesand theAnnuaire de l’économie politique. Of the school oflaissez faire, he was engaged during his whole life in the advancement of the science of political economy, and in the improvement of French commercial education. In 1873 he became a member of the Institute, and in 1876 a senator for the department in which he was born. He died at Paris on the 25th of September 1881. Of his writings, the following are the more important:Traité d’économie politique(1845),Richard Cobden et la Ligue(1846),Traité des finances(1862), andPrincipes du population(1857).
GARNIER, GERMAIN,Marquis(1754-1821), French politician and economist, was born at Auxerre on the 8th of November 1754. He was educated for the law, and obtained when young the office ofprocureurto the Châtelet in Paris. On the calling of the states-general he was elected as one of thedéputés suppléantsof the city of Paris, and in 1791 administrator of the department of Paris. After the 10th of August 1792 he withdrew to the Pays de Vaud, and did not return to France till 1795. In public life, however, he seems to have been singularly fortunate. In 1797 he was on the list of candidates for the Directory; in 1800 he was prefect of Seine-et-Oise; and in 1804 he was made senator and in 1808 a count. After the Restoration he obtained a peerage, and on the return of Louis XVIII., after the Hundred Days, he became minister of state and member of privy council, and in 1817 was created a marquis. He died at Paris on the 4th ofOctober 1821. At court he was, when young, noted for his facile power of writing society verse, but his literary reputation depends rather on his later works on political economy, especially his admirable translation, with notes and introduction, of Smith’sWealth of Nations(1805) and hisHistoire de la monnaie(2 vols., 1819), which contains much sound and well-arranged material. HisAbrégé des principes de l’écon. polit.(1796) is a very clear and instructive manual. The valuableDescription géographique, physique, et politique du département de Seine-et-Oise(1802) was drawn up from his instructions. Other works areDe la propriété(1792) andHistoire des banques d’escompte(1806).
GARNIER, JEAN LOUIS CHARLES(1825-1898), French architect, was born in Paris on the 6th of November 1825. He was educated in a primary school, and it was intended that he should pursue his father’s craft, that of a wheelwright. His mother, however, having heard that with a little previous study he might enter an architect’s office and eventually become a measuring surveyor (vérificateur), and earn as much as six francs a day, and foreseeing that in consequence of his delicate health he would be unfit to work at the forge, sent him to learn drawing and mathematics at the Petite École de Dessin, in the rue de Médecine, the cradle of so many of the great artists of France. His progress was such as to justify his being sent first into an architect’s office and then to the well-known atelier of Lebas, where he began his studies in preparation for the examination of the École des Beaux Arts, which he passed in 1842, at the age of seventeen. Shortly after his admission it became necessary that he should support himself, and accordingly he worked during the day in various architects’ offices, among them in that of M. Viollet-le-Duc, and confined his studies for the École to the evening. In 1848 he carried off, at the early age of twenty-three, the Grand Prix de Rome, and with his comrades in sculpture, engraving and music, set off for the Villa de Medicis. His principal works were the measured drawings of the Forum of Trajan and the temple of Vesta in Rome, and the temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli. In the fifth year of his travelling studentship he went to Athens and measured the temple at Aegina, subsequently working out a complete restoration of it, with its polychromatic decoration, which was published as a monograph in 1877. The elaborate set of drawings which he was commissioned by the duc de Luynes to make of the tombs of the house of Anjou were not published, owing to the death of his patron; and since Garnier’s death they have been given to the library of the École des Beaux Arts, along with other drawings he made in Italy. On his return to Paris in 1853 he was appointed surveyor to one or two government buildings, with a very moderate salary, so that the commission given him by M. Victor Baltard to make two water-colour drawings of the Hôtel de Ville, to be placed in the album presented to Queen Victoria in 1855, on the occasion of her visit to Paris, proved very acceptable. These two drawings are now in the library at Windsor.
In 1860 came, at last, Garnier’s chance: a competition was announced for a design for a new imperial academy of music, and out of 163 competitors Garnier was one of five selected for a second competition, in which, by unanimous vote, he carried off the first prize, and the execution of the design was placed in his hands. Begun in 1861, but delayed in its completion by the Franco-German War, it was not till 1875 that the structure of the present Grand Opera House of Paris was finished, at a cost of about 35,000,000 francs (£1,420,000). During the war the building was utilized as the municipal storehouse of provisions. The staircase and the magnificent hall are the finest portion of the interior, and alike in conception and realization have never been approached. Of Garnier’s other works, the most remarkable are the Casino at Monte Carlo, the Bischoffsheim villa at Bordighera, the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie in Paris; and, among tombs, those of the musicians Bizet, Offenbach, Massé and Duprato. In 1874 he was elected a member of the Institute of France, and after passing through the grades of chevalier, officer and commander of the Legion of Honour, received in 1895 the rank of grand officer, a high distinction that had never before been granted to an architect. Charles Garnier’s reputation was not confined to France; it was recognized by all the countries of Europe, and in England he received, in 1886, the royal gold medal of the Royal Institute of Architects, given by Queen Victoria. Besides his monograph on the temple of Aegina, he wrote several works, of whichLe Nouvel Opéra de Parisis the most valuable. For the International Exhibition of 1889 he designed the buildings illustrating the “History of the House” in all periods, and a work on this subject was afterwards published by him in conjunction with M. Ammann. Not the least of his claims to the gratitude of his country were the services which he rendered on the various art juries appointed by the state, the Institute of France, and the École des Beaux-Arts, services which in France are rendered in an honorary capacity. Garnier died on the 3rd of August 1898.
(R. P. S.)
GARNIER, MARIE JOSEPH FRANÇOIS[Francis] (1839-1873), French officer and explorer, was born at St Étienne on the 25th of July 1839. He entered the navy, and after voyaging in Brazilian waters and the Pacific he obtained a post on the staff of Admiral Charner, who from 1860 to 1862 was campaigning in Cochin-China. After some time spent in France he returned to the East, and in 1862 he was appointed inspector of the natives in Cochin-China, and entrusted with the administration of Cho-lon, a suburb of Saigon. It was at his suggestion that the marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat determined to send a mission to explore the valley of the Mekong, but as Garnier was not considered old enough to be put in command, the chief authority was entrusted to Captain Doudart de Lagrée. In the course of the expedition—to quote the words of Sir Roderick Murchison addressed to the youthful traveller when, in 1870, he was presented with the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London—from Kratie in Cambodia to Shanghai 5392 m. were traversed, and of these 3625 m., chiefly of country unknown to European geography, were surveyed with care, and the positions fixed by astronomical observations, nearly the whole of the observations being taken by Garnier himself. Volunteering to lead a detachment to Talifu, the capital of Sultan Suleiman, the sovereign of the Mahommedan rebels in Yunnan, he successfully carried out the more than adventurous enterprise. When shortly afterwards Lagrée died, Garnier naturally assumed the command of the expedition, and he conducted it in safety to the Yang-tsze-Kiang, and thus to the Chinese coast. On his return to France he was received with enthusiasm. The preparation of his narrative was interrupted by the Franco-German War, and during the siege of Paris he served as principal staff officer to the admiral in command of the eighth “sector.” His experiences during the siege were published anonymously in the feuilleton ofLe Temps, and appeared separately asLe Siège de Paris, journal d’un officier de marine(1871). Returning to Cochin-China he found the political circumstances of the country unfavourable to further exploration, and accordingly he went to China, and in 1873 followed the upper course of the Yang-tsze-Kiang to the waterfalls. He was next commissioned by Admiral Dupré, governor of Cochin-China, to found a French protectorate or a new colony in Tongking. On the 20th of November 1873 he took Hanoi, the capital of Tongking, and on the 21st of December he was slain in fight with the Black Flags. His chief fame rests on the fact that he originated the idea of exploring the Mekong, and carried out the larger portion of the work.
The narrative of the principal expedition appeared in 1873, asVoyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine effectué pendant les années 1866, 1867 et 1868, publié sous la direction de M. Francis Garnier, avec le concours de M. Delaporte et de MM. Joubert et Thorel(2 vols.). An account of the Yang-tsze-Kiang from Garnier’s pen is given in theBulletin de la Soc. de Géog.(1874). HisChronique royale du Cambodje, was reprinted from theJournal Asiatiquein 1872. SeeOcean Highways(1874) for a memoir by Colonel Yule; and Hugh Clifford,Further India, in the Story of Exploration series (1904).
The narrative of the principal expedition appeared in 1873, asVoyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine effectué pendant les années 1866, 1867 et 1868, publié sous la direction de M. Francis Garnier, avec le concours de M. Delaporte et de MM. Joubert et Thorel(2 vols.). An account of the Yang-tsze-Kiang from Garnier’s pen is given in theBulletin de la Soc. de Géog.(1874). HisChronique royale du Cambodje, was reprinted from theJournal Asiatiquein 1872. SeeOcean Highways(1874) for a memoir by Colonel Yule; and Hugh Clifford,Further India, in the Story of Exploration series (1904).
GARNIER, ROBERT(c.1545-c.1600), French tragic poet, was born at Ferté Bernard (Le Maine) in 1545. He published his first work while still a law-student at Toulouse, where he won a prize (1565) in thejeux floraux. It was a collection of lyrical pieces, now lost, entitledPlaintes amoureuses de Robert Garnier(1565). After some practice at the Parisian bar, he becameconseiller du roi au siège présidial et sénéchaussée of Le Maine, his native district, and later lieutenant-général criminel. His friend Lacroix du Maine says that he enjoyed a great reputation as an orator. He was a distinguished magistrate, of considerable weight in his native province, who gave his leisure to literature, and whose merits as a poet were fully recognized by his own generation. He died at Le Mans probably in 1599 or 1600.
In his early plays he was a close follower of the school of dramatists who were inspired by the study of Seneca. In these productions there is little that is strictly dramatic except the form. A tragedy was a series of rhetorical speeches relieved by a lyric chorus. His pieces in this manner arePorcie(published 1568, acted at the hôtel de Bourgogne in 1573),CornélieandHippolyte(both acted in 1573 and printed in 1574). InPorciethe deaths of Cassius, Brutus and Portia are each the subject of an eloquent recital, but the action is confined to the death of the nurse, who alone is allowed to die on the stage. His next group of tragedies—Marc-Antoine(1578),La Troade(1579),Antigone(acted and printed 1580)—shows an advance on the theatre of Étienne Jodelle and Jacques Grévin, and on his own early plays, in so much that the rhetorical element is accompanied by abundance of action, though this is accomplished by the plan of joining together two virtually independent pieces in the same way.
In 1582 and 1583 he produced his two masterpiecesBradamanteandLes Juives. InBradamante, which alone of his plays has no chorus, he cut himself adrift from Senecan models, and sought his subject in Ariosto, the result being what came to be known later as a tragi-comedy. The dramatic and romantic story becomes a real drama in Garnier’s hands, though even there the lovers, Bradamante and Roger, never meet on the stage. The contest in the mind of Roger supplies a genuine dramatic interest in the manner of Corneille.Les Juivesis the pathetic story of the barbarous vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar on the Jewish king Zedekiah and his children. The Jewish women lamenting the fate of their children take a principal part in this tragedy, which, although almost entirely elegiac in conception, is singularly well designed, and gains unity by the personality of the prophet. M. Faguet says that of all French tragedies of the 16th and 17th centuries it is, withAthalie, the best constructed with regard to the requirements of the stage. Actual representation is continually in the mind of the author; his drama is, in fact, visually conceived.
Garnier must be regarded as the greatest French tragic poet of his century and the precursor of the great achievements of the next.
The best edition of his works is by Wendelin Foerster (Heilbronn, 4 vols., 1882-1883). A detailed criticism of his works is to be found in Émile Faguet,La Tragédie française au XVIesiècle(1883, pp. 183-307).
The best edition of his works is by Wendelin Foerster (Heilbronn, 4 vols., 1882-1883). A detailed criticism of his works is to be found in Émile Faguet,La Tragédie française au XVIesiècle(1883, pp. 183-307).
GARNIER-PAGÈS, ÉTIENNE JOSEPH LOUIS(1801-1841), French politician, was born at Marseilles on the 27th of December 1801. Soon after his birth his father Jean François Garnier, a naval surgeon, died, and his mother married Simon Pagès, a college professor, by whom she had a son. The boys were brought up together, and took the double name Garnier-Pagès. Étienne found employment first in a commercial house in Marseilles, and then in an insurance office in Paris. In 1825 he began to study law, and made some mark as an advocate. A keen opponent of the Restoration, he joined various democratic societies, notably theAide-toi, le ciel t’aidera, an organization for purifying the elections. He took part in the revolution of July 1830; became secretary of theAide-toi, le ciel t’aidera, whose propaganda he brought into line with his anti-monarchical ideas; and in 1831 was sent from Isère to the chamber of deputies. He was concerned in the preparation of theCompte renduof 1832, and advocated universal suffrage. He was an eloquent speaker, and his sound knowledge of business and finance gave him a marked influence among all parties in the chamber. He died in Paris on the 23rd of June 1841.
His half-brother,Louis Antoine Garnier-Pagès(1803-1878), fought on the barricades during the revolution of July 1830, and after Étienne’s death was elected to the chamber of deputies (1842). He was a keen promoter of reform, and was a leading spirit in the affair of the reform banquet fixed for the 22nd of February 1848. He was a member of the provisional government of 1848, and was named mayor of Paris. On the 5th of March 1848 he was made minister of finance, and incurred great unpopularity by the imposition of additional taxes. He was a member of the Constituent Assembly and of the Executive Commission. Under the Empire he was conspicuous in the republican opposition and opposed the war with Prussia, and after the fall of Napoleon III. became a member of the Government of National Defence. Unsuccessful at the elections for the National Assembly (the 8th of February 1871), he retired into private life, and died in Paris on the 31st of October 1878. He wroteHistoire de la révolution de 1848(1860-1862);Histoire de la commission exécutive(1869-1872); andL’Opposition et l’empire(1872).
GARNISH,a word meaning to fit out, equip, furnish, now particularly used of decoration or ornament. It is formed from the O. Fr.garnisantorguarnissant, participle ofgarnir,guarnir, to furnish, equip. This is of Teutonic origin, the base being represented in O. Eng.warnian, to take warning, beware, and Ger.warnen, to warn, Eng.warn; the original sense would be to guard against, fortify, hence equip or fit out. The meaning of “warn” is seen in the law term “garnishee,” a person who owes money to or holds money belonging to another and is “warned” by order of the court not to pay it to his immediate creditor but to a third person who has obtained final judgment against that creditor. (SeeAttachment;Execution;Bankruptcy.)
GARO HILLS,a district of British India, in the hills division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It takes its name from the Garos, a tribe of doubtful ethnical affinities and peculiar customs, by whom it is almost entirely inhabited. The Garos are probably a section of the great Bodo tribe, which at one time occupied a large part of Assam. According to the census of 1901 they numbered 128,117. In the 18th century they are mentioned as being frequently in conflict with the inhabitants of the plains below their hills, and in 1790 the British government first tried to reduce them. No permanent success was achieved. In 1852 raids by the Garos were followed by a blockade of the hills, but in 1856 they were again in revolt. Again a repressive expedition was despatched in 1861, but in 1866 there was a further raid. A British officer was now posted among the hills; this step was effective; in 1869 the district was constituted, and though in 1871 an outrage was committed against a native on the survey staff, there was little opposition when an expedition was sent in 1872-1873 to bring the whole district into submission, and there were thereafter no further disturbances.
The district consists of the last spurs of the Assam hills, which here run down almost to the bank of the Brahmaputra, where that river debouches upon the plain of Bengal and takes its great sweep to the south. The administrative headquarters are at Tura. The area of the district is 3140 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 138,274, showing an increase of 14% in the decade. The American missionaries maintain a small training school for teachers. The public buildings at Tura were entirely destroyed by the earthquake of June 12, 1897, and the roads in the district were greatly damaged by subsidence and fissures. Coal in large quantities and petroleum are known to exist. The chief exports are cotton, timber and forest products. Trade is small, though the natives, according to their own standard, are prosperous. They are fair agriculturists. Communications within the district are by cart-roads, bridle-paths and native tracks.
GARONNE(Lat.Garumna), a river of south-western France, rising in the Maladetta group of the Pyrenees, and flowing in a wide curve to the Atlantic Ocean. It is formed by two torrents, one of which has a subterranean course of 2½ m., disappearing in the sink known as the Trou du Taureau (“bull’s hole”) and reappearing at the Goueil de Jouéou. After a course of 30 m. in Spanish territory, during which it flows through the fine gorge called the Vallée d’Aran, the Garonne enters France in the department of Haute Garonne through the narrow defile of thePont du Roi, and at once becomes navigable for rafts. At Montréjeau it receives on the left the Neste, and encountering at this point the vast plateau of Lannemezan is forced to turn abruptly east, flowing in a wide curve to Toulouse. At Saint Martory it gives off the irrigation canal of that name. At this point the Garonne enters a fertile plain, and supplies the motive power to several mills. It is joined on the right by various streams fed by the snows of the Pyrenees. Such are the Salat, at whose confluence river navigation proper begins, and the Arize and the Ariège (both names signifying “river”). From Toulouse the Garonne flows to the north-west, now skirting the northern border of the plateau of Lannemezan which here drains into it, the principal streams being the Save, the Gers and the Baïse. On its right hand the Garonne is swelled by its two chief tributaries, the Tarn, near Moissac, and the Lot, below Agen; farther down it is joined by the Drot (or Dropt), and on the left by the Ciron. Between Toulouse and Castets, 33½ m. above Bordeaux, and the highest point to which ordinary spring-tides ascend, the river is accompanied at a distance of from a ½ to 3 m. by the so-called “lateral canal” of the Garonne, constructed in 1838-1856. This canal is about 120 m. long, or 133 m. including its branches, one of which runs off at right angles to Montauban on the Tarn. From Toulouse to Agen the main canal follows the right bank of the Garonne, crossing the Tarn on an aqueduct at Moissac, while another magnificent aqueduct of twenty-three arches carries it at Agen from the right to the left bank of the river. It has a fall of 420 ft. and over fifty locks, and is navigable for vessels having the maximum dimensions of 98½ ft. length, 19 ft. breadth and 6½ ft. draught. The carrying trade upon it is chiefly in agricultural produce and provisions, building materials, wood and industrial products. At Toulouse the canal connects with the Canal du Midi, which runs to the Mediterranean. After passing Castets the Garonne begins to widen out considerably, and from being 160 yds. broad at Agen increases to about 650 yds. at Bordeaux, its great commercial port. From here it flows with ever increasing width between two flat shores to the Bec d’Ambès (15½ m.), where, after a course of 357 m., it unites with the Dordogne to form the vast estuary known as the Gironde. The triangular peninsula lying between these two great tidal rivers is called Entre-deux-mers (“between two seas”) and is famous for its wines. The drainage area of the Garonne is nearly 33,000 sq. m. Floods are of common occurrence, and descend very suddenly. The most disastrous occurred in 1875, 1856 and in 1770, when the flood level at Castets attained the record height of 42½ ft. above low-water mark.
GARRET(from the O. Fr.garite, modernguérite, a watch-tower, connected ultimately with “guard” and “ward”), properly a small look-out tower built on a wall, and hence the name given to a room on the top storey of a building, the sloping ceiling of which is formed by the roof.
GARRETT, JOÃO BAPTISTA DA SILVA LEITÃO DE ALMEIDA,Visconde de Almeida-Garrett(1799-1854), perhaps the greatest Portuguese poet since Camoens, was of Irish descent. Born in Oporto, his parents moved to the Quinta do Castello at Gaya when he was five years old. The French invasion of Portugal drove the family to the Azores, and Garrett made his first studies at Angra, beginning to versify at an early age under the influence of his uncle, a poet of the school of Bocage. Going to the university of Coimbra in 1816, he soon earned notoriety by the precocity of his talents and his fervent Liberalism, and there he gained his first oratorical and literary successes. His tragedyLucreciawas played there in February 1819, and during this period he also wroteMeropeas well as a great part ofCato, all these plays belonging to the so-called classical school. Leaving Coimbra with a law degree, he proceeded to Lisbon, and on the 11th of November 1822 married D. Luiza Midosi; but the alliance proved unhappy and a formal separation took place in 1839.
The reactionary movement against the Radical revolution of 1820 reached its height in 1823, and Garrett had to leave Portugal by order of the Absolutist ministry then in power, and went to England. He became acquainted with the masterpieces of the English and German romantic movements during his stay abroad.
Imbued with the spirit of nationality, he wrote in 1824 at Havre the poem “Camões,” which destroyed the influence of the worn-out classical and Arcadian rhymers, and in the following year composed the patriotic poem “D. Branca,” or “The Conquest of the Algarve.” He was permitted to return to Portugal in 1826, and thereupon devoted himself to journalism. With the publication ofO Portuguez, he raised the tone of the press, exhibiting an elevation of ideas and moderation of language then unknown in political controversy, and he introduced the “feuilleton.” But his defence of Liberal principles brought him three months’ imprisonment, and when D. Miguel was proclaimed absolute king on the 3rd of May 1828, Garrett had again to leave the country. In London, where he sought refuge, he continued his adhesion to romanticism by publishingAdozindaandBernal-Francez, expansions of old folk-poems, which met with the warmest praise from Southey and were translated by Adamson. He spent the next three years in and about Birmingham, Warwick and London, engaged in writing poetry and political pamphlets, and by these and by his periodicals he did much to unite the Portugueseémigrésand to keep up their spirit amid their sufferings in a foreign land. Learning that an expedition was being organized in France for the liberation of Portugal, Garrett raised funds and joined the forces under D. Pedro as a volunteer. Sailing in February 1832, he disembarked at Terceira, whence he passed to S. Miguel, then the seat of the Liberal government. Here he became a co-operator with the statesman Mousinho da Silveira, and assisted him in drafting those laws which were to revolutionize the whole framework of Portuguese society, this important work being done far from books and without pecuniary reward. In his spare time he wrote some of the beautiful lyrics afterwards collected intoFlores sem Fructo. He took part in the expedition that landed at the Mindello on the 8th of July 1832, and in the occupation of Oporto. Early in the siege he sketched out, under the influence of Walter Scott, the historical romanceArco de Sant’ Anna, descriptive of the city in the reign of D. Pedro I.; and, in addition, he organized the Home and Foreign offices under the marquis of Palmella, drafted many important royal decrees, and prepared the criminal and commercial codes. In the following November he was despatched as secretary to the marquis on a diplomatic mission to foreign courts, which involved him in much personal hardship. In the next year the capture of Lisbon enabled him to return home, and he was charged to prepare a scheme for the reform of public instruction.
In 1834-1835 he served as consul-general and chargé d’affaires at Brussels, representing Portugal with distinction under most difficult circumstances, for which he received no thanks and little pay. When he got back, the government employed him to draw up a proposal for the construction of a national theatre and for a conservatoire of dramatic art, of which he became the head. He instituted prizes for the best plays, himself revising nearly all that were produced, and a school of dramatists and actors arose under his influence. To give them models, he proceeded to write a series of prose dramas, choosing his subjects from Portuguese history. He began in 1838 with theAuto de Gil Vicente, considering that the first step towards the recreation of the Portuguese drama was to revive the memory of its founder, and he followed this up in 1842 by theAlfageme de Santarem, dealing with the Holy Constable, and in 1843 byFrei Luiz de Sousa, one of the few great tragedies of the 19th century, a work as intensely national asThe Lusiads. The story, which in part is historically true, and has the merit of being simple, like the action, is briefly as follows. D. João de Portugal, who was supposed to have died at the battle of Alcacer, returns, years afterwards, to find his wife married to Manoel de Sousa and the mother of a daughter by him, named Maria. Thereupon the pair separate and enter religion, and Manoel becomes the famous chronicler, Frei Luiz de Sousa (q.v.). The characters live and move, especially Telmo, the old servant, who would never believe in the death of his former master D. João, and the consumptivechild Maria, who helps Telmo to create the atmosphere of impending disaster; while the episodes, particularly those of the return of D. João and the death of Maria, are full of power, and the language is Portuguese of the best.
Entering parliament in 1837, Garrett soon made his mark as an orator. In that year he delivered many notable discourses in defence of liberal ideas. He also brought in a literary copyright bill, which, when it became law in 1851, served as a precedent for similar legislation in England and Prussia. In 1840 he made his famous speech known asPorto Pyreu, in which he skilfully turned the well-known anecdote of the “mad Athenian” against his opponents. While attending with assiduity to his duties as a deputy, he wrote, about this time, the dramaD. Filippa de Vilhena, founded on an incident in the revolution of 1640, for representation by the pupils of the conservatoire, and the session of 1841 saw another of his oratorical triumphs in his speech against the law of tithes. In July 1843 an excursion to Santarem resulted in his prose masterpieceViagens na minha terra, at once a novel and a miscellany of literary, political and philosophic criticism, written without plan or method, easy, jovial and epigrammatic. He took no part in the civil war that followed the revolution of Maria da Fonte, but continued his literary labours, producing in 1848 the comedyA Sobrinha do Marquez, dealing with the times of Pombal, and in 1849 an historical memoir on Mousinho da Silveira. He spent much of the year 1850 in finishing hisRomanceiro, a collection of folk-poetry of which he was the first to perceive the value; and in June 1851 he was created a viscount. In the following December he drew up the additional act to the constitutional charter, and his draft was approved by the ministers at a cabinet meeting in his house. Further, he initiated theConselho Ultramarino; and theLaw of the Misericordias, with its preamble, published in 1852, was entirely from his pen. In the same year he became for a short time minister of foreign affairs. In 1853 he brought outFolhas Cahidas, a collection of short poems ablaze with passion and exquisite in form, of which his friend Herculano said: “if Camoens had written love verses at Garrett’s age, he could not have equalled him.” His final literary work was a novel,Helena, which he left unfinished, and on the 10th of February 1854 he made his last notable speech in the House. He died on the 9th of December 1854, and on the 3rd of May 1903 his remains were translated to the national pantheon, the Jeronymos at Belem, where they rest near to those of Camoens. As poet, novelist, journalist, orator and dramatist, he deserves the remark of Rebello da Silva: “Garrett was not a man of letters only but an entire literature in himself.”
Besides his strong religious faith, Garrett was endowed with a deep sensibility, a creative imagination, rare taste and a singular capacity for sympathy. Thus, though a learned man and an able jurist, he was bound to be first and always an artist. His artistic temperament explains his many-sided activity, his expansive kindliness, his seductive charm, especially for women, his patriotism, his aristocratic pretensions, his huge vanity and dandyism, and the ingenuousness that absolves him from many faults in an irregular life. From his rich artistic nature sprang his profound, sincere, sensual and melancholy lyrics, the variety and perfection of his scenic creations, the splendour of his eloquence, the truth of his comic vein, the elegance of his lighter compositions. Two books stand out in bold relief from among his writings:Folhas Cahidas, and that tragedy of fatality and pity,Frei Luiz de Sousa, with its gallery of noble figures incarnating the truest realism in an almost perfect prose form. The complete collection of his works comprises twenty-four volumes and there are several editions.
Authorities.—Gomes de Amorim,Garrett, memorias biographicas(3 vols., Lisbon, 1881-1888); D. Romero Ortiz,La Litteratura Portuguesa en el siglo XIX(Madrid, 1869), pp. 165-221; Dr Theophilo Braga,Garrett e o romantismo(Oporto, 1904), andGarrett e os dramas romanticos(Oporto, 1905), with a full bibliography; Innocencio da Silva,Diccionario bibliographico Portuguez, vol. iii. pp. 309-316, and vol. x. pp. 180-185. SeeRevue encyclopédique Larousse, No. 284, for a bibliography of the foreign translations of Garrett.Frei Luiz de Sousawas translated by Edgar Prestage under the titleBrother Luiz de Sousa(London, 1909).
Authorities.—Gomes de Amorim,Garrett, memorias biographicas(3 vols., Lisbon, 1881-1888); D. Romero Ortiz,La Litteratura Portuguesa en el siglo XIX(Madrid, 1869), pp. 165-221; Dr Theophilo Braga,Garrett e o romantismo(Oporto, 1904), andGarrett e os dramas romanticos(Oporto, 1905), with a full bibliography; Innocencio da Silva,Diccionario bibliographico Portuguez, vol. iii. pp. 309-316, and vol. x. pp. 180-185. SeeRevue encyclopédique Larousse, No. 284, for a bibliography of the foreign translations of Garrett.Frei Luiz de Sousawas translated by Edgar Prestage under the titleBrother Luiz de Sousa(London, 1909).
(E. Pr.)
GARRETTING,properly Galletting, a term in architecture for the process in which the “gallets” or small splinters of stone are inserted in the joints of coarse masonry to protect the mortar joints; they are stuck in while the mortar is wet.
GARRICK, DAVID(1717-1779), English actor and theatrical manager, was descended from a good French Protestant family named Garric or Garrique of Bordeaux, which had settled in England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His father, Captain Peter Garrick, who had married Arabella Clough, the daughter of a vicar choral of Lichfield cathedral, was on a recruiting expedition when his famous third son was born at Hereford on the 19th of February 1717. Captain Garrick, who had made his home at Lichfield, where he had a large family, in 1731 rejoined his regiment at Gibraltar. This kept him absent from home for many years, during which letters were written to him by “little Davy,” acquainting him with the doings at Lichfield. When the boy was about eleven years old he paid a short visit to Lisbon where his uncle David had settled as a wine merchant. On his father’s return from Gibraltar, David, who had previously been educated at the grammar school of Lichfield, was, largely by the advice of Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical court, sent with his brother George to the “academy” at Edial, just opened in June or July 1736 by Samuel Johnson, the senior by seven years of David, who was then nineteen. This seminary was, however, closed in about six months, and on the 2nd of March 1736/7 both Johnson and Garrick left Lichfield for London—Johnson, as he afterwards said, “with twopence halfpenny in his pocket,” and Garrick “with three-halfpence in his.” Johnson, whose chief asset was the MS. tragedy ofIrene, was at first the host of his former pupil, who, however, before the end of the year took up his residence at Rochester with John Colson (afterwards Lucasian professor at Cambridge). Captain Garrick died about a month after David’s arrival in London. Soon afterwards, his uncle, the wine merchant at Lisbon, having left David a sum of £1000, he and his brother entered into partnership as wine merchants in London and Lichfield, David taking up the London business. The concern was not prosperous—though Samuel Foote’s assertion that he had known Garrick with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar calling himself a wine merchant need not be taken literally—and before the end of 1741 he had spent nearly half of his capital.
His passion for the stage completely engrossed him; he tried his hand both at dramatic criticism and at dramatic authorship. His first dramatic piece,Lethe, orAesop in the Shades, which he was thirty-seven years later to read from a splendidly bound transcript to King George III. and Queen Charlotte, was played at Drury Lane on the 15th of April 1740; and he became a well-known frequenter of theatrical circles. His first appearance on the stage was made in March 1741,incognito, as harlequin at Goodman’s Fields, Yates, who was ill, having allowed him to take his place during a few scenes of the pantomime entitledHarlequin Student, orThe Fall of Pantomime with the Restoration of the Drama. Garrick subsequently accompanied a party of players from the same theatre to Ipswich, where he played his first part as an actor under the name of Lyddal, in the character of Aboan (in Southerne’sOroonoko). His success in this and other parts determined his future career. On the 19th of October 1741 he made his appearance at Goodman’s Fields as Richard III. and gained the most enthusiastic applause. Among the audience was Macklin, whose performance of Shylock, early in the same year, had pointed the way along which Garrick was so rapidly to pass in triumph. On the morrow the latter wrote to his brother at Lichfield, proposing to make arrangements for his withdrawal from the partnership, which, after much distressful complaint on the part of his family, met by him with the utmost consideration, were ultimately carried into effect. Meanwhile, each night had added to his popularity on the stage. The town, as Gray (who, like Horace Walpole, at first held out against thefurore) declared, was “horn-mad” about him. Before his Richard had exhausted its original effect, he won new applause as Aboan, and soon afterwards as Lear and as Pierre in Otway’sVenice Preserved, as well as in several comic characters (including that of Bayes).Glover (“Leonidas”) attended every performance; the duke of Argyll, Lords Cobham and Lyttelton, Pitt, and several other members of parliament testified their admiration. Within the first six months of his theatrical career he acted in eighteen characters of all kinds, and from the 2nd of December he appeared in his own name. Pope went to see him three times during his first performances, and pronounced that “that young man never had his equal as an actor, and he will never have a rival.” Before next spring he had supped with “the great Mr Murray, counsellor,” and was engaged to do so with Mr Pope through Murray’s introduction, while he was dining with Halifax, Sandwich and Chesterfield. “There was a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman’s Fields,” writes Horace Walpole. Garrick’s farce ofThe Lying Valet, in which he performed the part of Sharp, was at this time brought out with so much success that he ventured to send a copy to his brother.
His fortune was now made, and while the managers of Covent Garden and Drury Lane resorted to the law to make Giffard, the manager of Goodman’s Fields, close his little theatre, Garrick was engaged by Fleetwood for Drury Lane for the season of 1742. In June of that year he went over to Dublin, where he found the same homage paid to his talents as he had received from his own countrymen. He was accompanied by Margaret (Peg) Woffington, of whom he had been for some time a fervent admirer. (His claim to the authorship of the song to Lovely Peggy is stillsub judice. There remains some obscurity as to the end of their liaison.) From September 1742 to April 1745 he played at Drury Lane, after which he again went over to Dublin. Here he remained during the whole season, as joint-manager with Sheridan, in the direction and profits of the Theatre Royal in Smock Alley. In 1746-1747 he fulfilled a short engagement with Rich at Covent Garden, his last series of performances under a management not his own. With the close of that season Fleetwood’s patent for the management of Drury Lane expired, and Garrick, in conjunction with Lacy, purchased the property of the theatre, together with the renewal of the patent; contributing £8000 as two-thirds of the purchase-money. In September 1747 it was opened with a strong company of actors, Johnson’s prologue being spoken by Garrick, while the epilogue, written by him, was spoken by Mrs Woffington. The negotiations involved Garrick in a bitter quarrel with Macklin, who appears to have had a real grievance in the matter. Garrick took no part himself till his performance of Archer in theBeaux’ Stratagem, a month after the opening. For a time at least “the drama’s patrons” were content with the higher entertainment furnished them; in the end Garrick had to “please” them, like most other managers, by gratifying their love of show. Garrick was surrounded by many players of eminence, and he had the art, as he was told by Mrs Clive, “of contradicting the proverb that one cannot make bricks without straw, by doing what is infinitely more difficult, making actors and actresses without genius.” He had to encounter very serious opposition from the old actors whom he had distanced, and with the younger actors and actresses he was involved in frequent quarrels. But to none of them or their fellows did he, so far as it appears, show that jealousy of real merit from which so many great actors have been unable to remain free. For the present he was able to hold his own against all competition. The naturalness of his acting fascinated those who, like Partridge inTom Jones, listened to nature’s voice, and justified the preference of more conscious critics. To be “pleased with nature” was, as Churchill wrote, in theRosciad(1761),1to be pleased with Garrick. For the stately declamation, the sonorous, and beyond a doubt impressive, chant of Quin and his fellows, Garrick substituted rapid changes of passion and humour in both voice and gesture, which held his audiences spellbound. “It seemed,” wrote Richard Cumberland, “as if a whole century had been stepped over in the passage of a single scene; old things were done away, and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms of a tasteless age, too long superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation.” Garrick’s French descent and his education may have contributed to give him the vivacity and versatility which distinguished him as an actor; and nature had given him an eye, if not a stature, to command, and a mimic power of wonderful variety. The list of his characters in tragedy, comedy and farce is large, and would be extraordinary for a modern actor of high rank; it includes not less than seventeen Shakespearian parts. As a manager, though he committed some grievous blunders, he did good service to the theatre and signally advanced the popularity of Shakespeare’s plays, of which not less than twenty-four were produced at Drury Lane under his management. Many of these were not pure Shakespeare; and he is credited with the addition of a dying speech to the text ofMacbeth. On the other hand, Tate Wilkinson says that Garrick’s production ofHamletin 1773 was well received at Drury Lane even by the galleries, “though without their favourite acquaintances the gravediggers.” Among his published adaptations are an opera,The Fairies(fromMidsummer Night’s Dream) (1755); an operaThe Tempest(1756);Catherine and Petruchio(1758);Florizel and Perdita(1762). But not every generation has the same notions of the way in which Shakespeare is best honoured. Few sins of omission can be charged against Garrick as a manager, but he refused Home’sDouglas, and made the wrong choice betweenFalse DelicacyandThe Good Natur’d Man. For the rest, he purified the stage of much of its grossness, and introduced a relative correctness of costume and decoration unknown before. To the study of English dramatic literature he rendered an important service by bequeathing his then unrivalled collection of plays to the British Museum.
After escaping from the chains of his passion for the beautiful but reckless Mrs Woffington, Garrick had in 1749 married Mademoiselle Violette (Eva Maria Veigel), a German lady who had attracted admiration at Florence or at Vienna as a dancer, and had come to England early in 1746, where her modest grace and the rumours which surrounded her created afurore, and where she found enthusiastic patrons in the earl and countess of Burlington. Garrick, who called her “the best of women and wives,” lived most happily with her in his villa at Hampton, acquired by him in 1754, whither he was glad to escape from his house in Southampton Street. To this period belongs Garrick’s quarrel with Barry, the only actor who even temporarily rivalled him in the favour of the public. In 1763 Garrick and his wife visited Paris, where they were cordially received and made the acquaintance of Diderot and others at the house of the baron d’Holbach. It was about this time that Grimm extolled Garrick as the first and only actor who came up to the demands of his imagination; and it was in a reply to a pamphlet occasioned by Garrick’s visit that Diderot first gave expression to the views expounded in hisParadoxe sur le comédien. After some months spent in Italy, where Garrick fell seriously ill, they returned to Paris in the autumn of 1764 and made more friends, reaching London in April 1765. Their union was childless, and Mrs Garrick survived her husband until 1822. Her portrait by Hogarth is at Windsor Castle.
Garrick practically ceased to act in 1766, but he continued the management of Drury Lane, and in 1769 organized the Shakespeare celebrations at Stratford-on-Avon, an undertaking which ended in dismal failure, though he composed an “Ode upon dedicating a building and erecting a Statue to Shakespeare” on the occasion. (See,inter alia, Garrick’s Vagary, or England Run Mad; with particulars of the Stratford Jubilee, 1769.) Of his best supporters on the stage, Mrs Cibber, with whom he had been reconciled, died in 1766, and Mrs (Kitty) Clive retired in 1769; but Garrick contrived to maintain the success of his theatre. He sold his share in the property in 1776 for £35,000, and took leave of the stage by playing a round of his favourite characters—Hamlet, Lear, Richard and Benedick, among Shakespearian parts; Lusignan inZara, Aaron Hill’s adaptation of Voltaire’sZaire; and Kitely in his own adaptation of Ben Jonson’sEvery Man in his Humour; Archer in Farquhar’sBeaux’ Stratagem;Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson’sAlchemist; Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh’sProvoked Wife; Leon in Fletcher’sRule a Wife and have a Wife. He ended the series, as Tate Wilkinson says, “in full glory” with “the youthful Don Felix” in Mrs Centlivre’sWonderon the 10th of June 1776. He died in London on the 20th of January 1779. He was buried in Westminster Abbey at the foot of Shakespeare’s statue with imposing solemnities. An elegy on his death was published by William Tasker, poet and physiognomist, in the same year.
In person, Garrick was a little below middle height; in his later years he seems to have inclined to stoutness. The extraordinary mobility of his whole person, and his power of as it were transforming himself at will, are attested by many anecdotes and descriptions, but the piercing power of his eye must have been his most irresistible feature.
Johnson, of whose various and often merely churlish remarks on Garrick and his doings many are scattered through the pages of Boswell, spoke warmly of the elegance and sprightliness of his friend’s conversation, as well as of his liberality and kindness of heart; while to the great actor’s art he paid the exquisite tribute of describing Garrick’s sudden death as having “eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.” But the most discriminating character of Garrick, slightly tinged with satire, is that drawn by Goldsmith in his poem ofRetaliation. Beyond a doubt he was not without a certain moral timidity contrasting strangely with his eager temperament and alertness of intellect; but, though he was not cast in a heroic mould, he must have been one of the most amiable of men. Garrick was often happy in his epigrams and occasional verse, including his numerous prologues and epilogues. He had the good taste to recognize, and the spirit to make public his recognition of, the excellence of Gray’s odes at a time when they were either ridiculed or neglected. His dramatic pieces,The Lying Valet, adapted from Motteux’sNovelty Lethe(1740),The Guardian,Linco’s Travels(1767),Miss in her Teens(1747),Irish Widow, &c., and his alterations and adaptations of old plays, which together fill four volumes, evinced his knowledge of stage effect and his appreciation of lively dialogue and action; but he cannot be said to have added one new or original character to the drama. He was joint author with Colman ofThe Clandestine Marriage(1766), in which he is said to have written his famous part of Lord Ogleby. The excellent farce,High Life below Stairs, appears to have been wrongly attributed to Garrick, and to be by James Townley. HisDramatic Works(1798) fill three, hisPoetic(1735) two volumes.
Garrick’sPrivate Correspondence(published in 1831-1832 with a short memoir by Boaden, in 2 vols. 4to), which includes his extensiveForeign Correspondencewith distinguished French men and women, and the notices of him in the memoirs of Cumberland, Hannah More and Madame D’Arblay, and above all in Boswell’sLife of Johnson, bear testimony to his many attractive qualities as a companion and to his fidelity as a friend.