At this time, Garrick was in the height of his reputation; and as Fuseli
considered the theatre the best school for a foreigner to acquire the
pronunciation of the English language, and Garrick's performance an
excellent imitation of the passions, which would give him a lesson
essential to historical designs; he never missed the opportunity of
seeing him act, and he was generally to be found in the front row of the
pit: to obtain which, he often used much personal exertion, and put
himself in situations of hazard and inconvenience. And he has often
dwelt with delight upon the performances of the man who represented so
well the stormy passions of Richard, or the easy libertinism of Ranger;
and then could descend to the credulous Abel Drugger, and, in the
character of the silly tobacconist, so alter the expression of his
countenance as scarcely to be recognised as the person who had
delineated the higher character in the histrionic art. As a proof of the
strong impression which Garrick's acting made at this period upon
Fuseli, there are now in the possession of the Countess of Guilford, two
drawings, which he presented to the late Alderman Cadell; the one
representing Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth,
from the passage,
"I have done the deed;"
the other, Garrick as Richard the Third, making love to Lady Anne, over
the corse of her father-in-law, Henry the Sixth. These, according to an
inscription on the second, were made in London, in 1766. And although
they have the faults of most of his early productions, yet they are
drawn with characteristic truth and spirit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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