remained on the stage till 1836. George Frederick Cooke, whose life was one perpetual debauch, and whose career on the stage extended from 1801 to 1812, when he died at Boston, did not, I think, appear at Drury Lane. His laurels were won chiefly at Covent Garden. Master Betty, born in 1791 at Shrewsbury, elegant, and quick of memory, appeared at Drury Lane in 1804, fretted his little hour upon the stage, and earned a fortune with which he prudently retired in 1808. He lived till 1876. King, the original representative of Sir Peter Teazle, Lord Ogleby, Puff, and Dr. Cantwell, began his London career at Drury Lane in 1748. He left the stage in 1802. His best characters were Touchstone and Ranger, and in these parts he was always arch, rapid, and versatile. Hazlitt discourses on King’s old, hard, rough face, and his shrewd hints and tart replies. Dickey Suett was a favourite low comedian from 1780 to 1805, when he died. He was a tall, thin, ungainly man, too much addicted to grimace, interpolations, and practical jokes. He drank hard, and suffered from mental depression. Hazlitt calls him “the delightful old croaker, the everlasting Dickey Gossip of the stage.”[579] Lamb describes his “Oh, la!” as irresistible; “he drolled upon the stock of those two syllables richer than the cuckoo.” Shakspere’s jesters “have all the true Suett stamp--a loose and shambling gait, and a slippery tongue.”[580] Miss Pope, who left the stage in 1808, had played with Garrick and Mrs. Clive. She was the original Polly Honeycomb, Miss Sterling, Mrs. Candour, and Tilburina. In youth she played hoydens, chambermaids, and half-bred ladies, with a dash and good-humour free from all vulgarity, and in old age she took to duennas and Mrs. Heidelburg. In 1761 Churchill mentions her as “lively Pope,” and in 1807 Horace Smith describes her as “a bulky person with a duplicity of chin.” In 1741 the theatre, which had been rebuilt by Wren in 1674, in a cheap and plain manner, became ruinous, and was enlarged and almost rebuilt by the Adams. In 1747 Garrick became the manager, and Dr. Johnson, as a friend, wrote the celebrated address beginning with the often-quoted lines-- “When Learning’s triumph o’er her barbarous foes First reared the stage, immortal Shakspere rose. * * * * * Each change of many-coloured life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new; Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toiled after him in vain.” In 1775, the year in which “The Duenna” was brought out at Covent Garden, Garrick made known his wish to sell a moiety of the patent of this theatre. In June 1776 a contract was signed, Mr. Sheridan taking two-fourteenths of the whole for £10,000, Mr. Linley the same, and Dr. Ford three-fourteenths at £15,000.[581] How Sheridan raised the money no one ever knew.