Vanity, it has been said, was one of Garrick's weak points; but he was not so proud of the Prince of Hesse talking with him at Ranelagh, as people were of Mr. Garrick telling them what the Prince had said. His courtesy, discretion, justice, and firmness are illustrated in a thousand ways, in his correspondence. His best actresses vexed him to the heart; but he never lost his temper or his politeness with the most vexing or capricious of them all. His counsel to young actors grasping at fame, was of the frank and useful nature which was likely to help them to seize it; and his reproof to foolish and impertinent players,--like the feather-brained Cautherley,--was delivered with a severity which must have been all the more stinging, as its application was as dignified as it was merciless. As for Garrick's professional jealousy, he seems to me to have had as little as was consonant with human nature. I know of no proprietor of a theatre, himself an actor, who collected around him such a brilliant brotherhood of actors as Garrick did; yet, when any one of these left him, or was dismissed by him, the partizans of the retiring player raised the cry of "_jealousy_!" When Mallet was writing his _Life of the Duke of Marlborough_, he dexterously enough intimated to Roscius that he should find an opportunity of noticing in that work the great actor of the later day. The absurdity of this must have been evident to Garrick, who immediately replied, "My dear friend, have you quite left off writing for the stage?" As Mallet subsequently offered to Garrick his reconstruction of the masque of "Alfred," which he had originally written in conjunction with Thomson, and Garrick produced the piece, it has been inferred that the latter took the bait flung for him by the wily Scot. It seems to me that Garrick perceived the wile, but produced the play, notwithstanding. There was, perhaps, weakness of character rather than frankness, in the way he would allude to his short stature,--in his obviating jokes on his marriage, by making them himself, or getting his friend, Edward Moore, to make them, not in the most refined fashion. Sensitive to criticism no doubt he was; but he was more long-suffering under censure than Quin, who pummelled poor Aaron Hill in the Court of Requests, because of adverse comments in the _Prompter_. Sensitive as Garrick was, he could reply to criticism merrily enough. Another Hill, the doctor and dramatist, had attacked his pronunciation, and accused him of pronouncing the _i_ in _mirth_ and _birth_ as if it were an _u_. On which Garrick wrote:-- "If 'tis true, as you say, that I've injured a letter, I'll change my note soon, and I hope, for the better. May the just rights of letters as well as of men, Hereafter be fixed by the tongue and the pen; Most devoutly I wish that they both have their due, And that I may be never mistaken for U."