liberality as a man.

Perhaps Richard III. remained Garrick's best Shakesperean character.
Of course he played Cibber's version and not Shakespeare's. In fact,
many of the Shakesperean parts were not played from the poet's own
text, but Garrick might have doubted whether even his popularity
would have reconciled his audiences to the unadulterated poetry of our
greatest dramatist.

Next to Richard, Lear would seem to have been his best Shakesperean
performance. In Hamlet and Othello he did not equal Betterton; and
in the latter, certainly from all one can discover, he was infinitely
surpassed by Edmund Kean. In fact Othello was not one of his great
parts. But in the wide range of characters which he undertook, Garrick
was probably never equalled. A poor actor named Everard, who was first
brought out as a boy by Garrick, says: "Such or such an actor in their
respective _fortes_ have been allowed to play such or such a part
equally well as him; but could they perform Archer and Scrub like
him? and Abel Drugger, Ranger, and Bayes, and Benedick; speak his own
prologue to _Barbarossa_, in the character of a country-boy, and in a
few minutes transform himself in the same play to _Selim_? Nay, in the
same night he has played _Sir John Brute_ and the _Guardian, Romeo_
and _Lord Chalkstone, Hamlet_ and _Sharp, King Lear_ and _Fribble,
King Richard_ and the _Schoolboy_! Could anyone but himself attempt
such a wonderful variety, such an amazing contrast of character, and
be equally great in all? No, no, no! Garrick, take the chair."

Garrick was, without doubt, a very intense actor; he threw himself
most thoroughly into any part that he was playing. Certainly we know
that he was not wanting in reverence for Shakespeare; in spite of the