This ardent youth returned to Lichfield with more eager desire than ever to achieve fame and fortune on the stage. To supply what had been lacking in his education, he became the pupil of Samuel Johnson; but master and scholar soon wearied of it, and they together left Lichfield for London, Garrick with small means and great hopes, Johnson with means as small, and his tragedy of "Irene."
The resources of David were speedily increased by the death of his uncle, who bequeathed him a thousand pounds, with the interest of which David paid the cost of instruction which he received from the Rev. Mr. Colson. Other opportunities failing, he joined with his brother Peter in the wine trade, in Durham Yard, where, said Foote, in after years, and with his characteristic ill-nature, "David lived, with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine-merchant." Had the father of David been at home, instead of on service at Gibraltar, the latter would probably have been a Templar student; but Garrick hated the study of the law, and, out of deference to his mother, the vicar's daughter, he refrained from appearing on the stage; but when both parents had passed away, within the same year, Garrick, who had studied each living actor of mark, and even recorded his judgment of them, anonymously and honestly, in the public papers, left the stock in trade at Durham Yard to his senior partner and brother. In 1741, a diffident young gentlemen, calling himself Lyddell,36 made his first appearance on the stage; at Ipswich. He selected the part of Aboan for two reasons: that it was a secondary character, and that Aboan was a "black." The attempt presented less difficulty, for the first reason; and failure need not be followed by recognition, seeing that his features would be half-concealed under "colour." The attempt, however, was fairly successful, but not a triumph. David went earnestly into training. He played every species of character, solemn tragedy heroes, high and low comedy, and even that incarnation of the monkey in man, as Alphonse Karr calls him, the bustling, glittering, active, and potent Harlequin.
His career of a few months at Ipswich was as the preparatory canter of the high-mettled racer over the course. All who witnessed it augured well of the young actor; and Giffard, the manager, agreed to bring him out in London in the autumn of the same year, 1741, at that theatre, in Goodman's Fields, which had been made, twelve years previously, out of a throwster's shop. It had been opened, without competent licence, by Odell, the dramatist, and subsequently deputy licenser of plays under the famous Act which Walpole introduced and Chesterfield opposed. Odell was so conscientious, or so prudent, that in consequence of a sermon preached against the theatre, in one of the Aldgate churches, he sold his interest to Giffard, who enlarged the house, and opened it in 1732. After a struggle of three seasons' duration, the determined opposition of the Eastern puritans drove him to Lincoln's Inn Fields. He returned, however, at the end of two years; and maintained his position with varying fortunes, till at length, in 1741, he brought Mr. Lyddell,37 now Mr. Garrick, from the banks of the Orwell to the neighbourhood of the old gate, where the statues of Love and Charity still stood, and near which, crowds soon awoke such echoes as had not been heard in the vicinity since the godlike effigies were first erected.
In the season of 1742-43, Garrick acted about eighty nights, – Hamlet, thirteen times; Richard and Bayes, eleven; Archer, nine; Lear, six; Fondlewife and Hastings, four; Chamont, three; Plume, Clodio, and Pierre, twice; Abel Drugger, once; Wildair, created by him in Fielding's "Wedding Day," Lothario, Millamour,38 and Sharp, occasionally.39 Of these, Wildair was a decided failure.
Quin played against him at Covent Garden, Richard, Chamont, Lear, and Pierre, but in these he proved no competitor. He fell back on his general repertory, and, among many other characters, played Falstaff, Macbeth, Othello, and Brutus, none of which Garrick assumed this year. Garrick's Fondlewife was opposed by that of Hippisley at Covent Garden, and that of Cibber, the younger, at Lincoln's Inn Fields. His Hamlet was encountered by that of Ryan, at Covent Garden, to Quin's Ghost; and a counter-attraction to his Lothario was set up in those of Ryan and of the silly amateur, Highmore, the latter at Lincoln's Inn Fields. From all competition, Garrick came out triumphant.
Of Lincoln's Inn Fields, this was the "positively final" season. Giffard managed the house with judgment, but he lost there some of the wealth which he had acquired at Goodman's Fields, and out of which he purchased the ground on which he built Coventry Court, locality of gloomy reputation, near the Haymarket. Dulwich College was a wiser investment of money acquired in the theatre.
Covent Garden lost, this year, a great actress in Mrs. Porter, who commenced her theatrical career as theatrical attendant to Mrs. Barry, and was one of the old players of King William's days. Among the most marked of her original representations were Araminta, in the "Confederacy;" Hermione, Lucia, in "Cato;" Alicia, in "Jane Shore;" Lady Woodville, in the "Nonjuror;" Leonora, in the "Revenge;" and Lady Grace, in the "Provoked Husband." Few details of her life are known.
Genest combines the testimonies of Victor and Davies in describing Mrs. Porter as the genuine successor of Mrs. Barry, to whom the former had long played the "confidantes" in tragedy, and from the great mistress learned her noble art. We are told that Mrs. Porter was tall and well made, of a fair complexion, but far from handsome; her voice, which was naturally tender, was by labour and practice enlarged into sufficient force to fill the theatre, but by that means a tremor was contracted to which nothing but custom could have reconciled the audience. She elevated herself above all personal defects by an exquisite judgment. In comedy, her acting was somewhat cold and inefficient; but in those parts of tragedy where the passions predominate, she seemed to be another person, and to be inspired with that noble and enthusiastic ardour which was capable of raising the coldest auditor to animation. She had a dignity in her mien, and a spirited propriety in all characters of rage; but when grief and tenderness possessed her, she subsided into the most affecting softness. She acted the tragic parts of Hermione and Belvidera with great applause. Booth, who was no admirer of Mrs. Oldfield in tragedy, was in raptures with Mrs. Porter's Belvidera. She excelled particularly in her agony, when forced from Jaffier, in the second act, and in her madness.
After the dislocation of her limb, and in advanced age, she still acted with vigour and success. In Queen Elizabeth ("Albion Queens"), she turned the cane she used on account of her lameness, to great advantage. After signing Mary's death warrant, she "struck the stage," says Davies, "with such characteristic vehemence that the audience reiterated applause."
On Valentine's night, 1743, the Prince and Princess of Wales were present at her farewell benefit, when she played this Queen Elizabeth, under august patronage. The fine old lady seems to have fallen into some distress, for in 1758 she published, by five shillings subscriptions, for her benefit, the comedy of "The Mistakes, or the Happy Resentment," which had been given to her by Pope's Lord Cornbury, the son, but not destined to be the heir, of the last of the Hydes, who bore the title of Earls of Clarendon. He was a dull writer, but so good a man, that Walpole says, in reference to Pope's line —
"Disdain what Cornbury disdains" —
"it was a test of virtue to disdain what he disdained." After his death, by falling from a horse in France, the decayed tragedy queen published the play. The old and favoured servant of the public modestly says, that her "powers of contributing to their amusement are no more," but that she "always retains a grateful sense of the indulgence she had received from those who have had the goodness to accept her inclination and endeavours to please, as real merit." Nothing could be more modest, but the truth is that this was written for Mrs. Porter by Horace Walpole.