La vie extraordinaire dune chienne nommée Cléo (French Edition)

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Peter seems to have done his best to oblige the friend who had been so useful in recommending Garrick Bros, to the Bedford Coffee-house, for in a later communication of David's we read: I am very uneasy till you send Me a particular Acc't of my Mother ; I hear by Severall hands she is in great Danger, pray my Duty, and I desire nothing may be con- ceal'd from Me.

Meaning of "chienne" in the French dictionary

The Ale I have receiv'd safe. Y' Carriage came in all to about 11 shillings. I believe it will prove good. I should be glad of some orders. Three weeks later she died, and was buried at Lichfield on September 28th, The date is of some importance, as all save one of the actor's biographers have assigned Mrs. Garrick's death to the same year as that of her husband. Baker's Unpublished Correspondence, p. Parsons gives the date of Mrs. Garrick's burial in her David Oarrick and his Circle.

Although his inclination was already, as formerly at Lisbon, overmastering his attempts at business and carrying him towards the stage, he refused to darken the last years of his mother's life by embarking on a career which was considered dis- honourable, and which her old-fashioned, cathedral- town respectability would have regarded with horror. He showed here, as in his earlier relations with his parents, a tender respect which is all to his credit. How difficult the temptation must have been to resist is plain from the first of the two letters quoted above. There we see him on friendly terms with the actor-manager who was, in the following year, to present him to the public in Richard III.

There we find him, too, supplying wine to the famous Bedford CofPee-house, the rooms of which were soon to ring with his praises, and were later to hear the railings of Fitzpatrick and his friends against the monarch of the stage. He had already written his first piece, the sketch Lethe, and seen it produced at Drury Lane April 16th, at a Benefit offered to his friend Giffard. As a matter of fact, the actor was twenty- five, and not thirty, at the date of his first appearance ; but this slip is possibly due to Northcote's informant.

Are brisk as bottled ale. From a print in the collection of A. With the young Irish actress he fell madly in love, wrote her verses in the public papers, disputed her favours with titled rivals, and passed for being loved by her. He was already a fre- quenter of wings and green-rooms ; and when, in March , his friend Yates was suddenly seized with an indisposition which prevented him from playing his part of Harlequin at Goodman's Pields, our young wine-merchant hid his com- mercial respectability under the spangled costume and the black mask, exchanged his pen for the cardboard sword, and replaced the sick actor.

At that date his mother was dead, and his few re- maining scruples were fast melting away. Perhaps had cash not been so low, or had Peter succeeded in sending him more orders, business might have made a better resistance. The unoccupied days left him too much leisure for the conning of parts ; the too brilliantly occupied nights made Durham Yard look miserably dingy next morning. The affairs of Garrick Bros, must have languished during the summer months of , while the London partner was touring, incognito, at Ipswich with his friend Giffard's company.

Back from this provincial debut, David began to prepare in earnest for an appearance in London ; and one day of October Peter, who suspected little or nothing, read in a letter from his brother: A dozen lines will resume all that needs be stated: In he deserts Drury Lane for Covent Garden ; then he becomes the partner of Lacy in buying the licence of the former theatre, and establishes himself as actor- manager. Garrick's birth and parentage. She was probably an illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Burlington ; it seems difficult otherwise to account for the protection extended to her by the Burlington family, and for the fact that the Earl gave her a dowry.

Knight's David Garrick, pp. What is certain is that she was an excellent wife to Garrick, and that the actor was devotedly attached to her. In her letter to George Garrick about his brother's illness p. In old age she lived to be ninety-eight , her thriftiness developed into a less creditable characteristic.

When she travelled with her husband in France she was much admired for her beauty, her gentle manners, and her devotion to David ; the letters of Garrick's foreign corre- spondents refer again and again to his charmante Spouse. A few years later his acting is bitterly criticized by Fitzpatrick, who foments the Half-pay riots. His popularity being somewhat on the wane, he decides to leave England, and travels on the Continent from to ; is the date of the Shakespearean Jubilee, organized by Garrick at Stratford.

In he retires from the stage, and dies on January 20th, Erom the very beginning of his career he played all parts with equal ease. Thus, in the course of his first season, he metamorphosed himself into characters so widely different as that dreadful minister of hell, Eichard III. Yet more ; in the same evening, after representing the age and weakness of tortured, maddened Lear, he became the young, stupid, vicious, country-lout. Master Johnny in Gibber's School-boy. What great actor would to-day dare assume disguises so diverse?

Our modern stage has, indeed, become so highly specialized that such Protean artists are looked upon with some disdain, and relegated to the music-halls. It is true that in a similar remark might almost have been made ; the chief actors of the time were usually masters in one style, or famous in two or three characters. There is a sameness in every other actor.

Gibber is something of a coxcomb in everything, and Wolsey and Syphax and lago all smell strong of Lord Foppington. Booth was a philosopher in Cato, and was a philosopher in everything else.

His passion in Hotspur and Lear was much of the same nature, whereas yours was an old man's passion and an old man's voice and action ; and in the four parts wherein I have seen you — Richard, Chamont, Bayes, and Lear — I never saw four actors more different from one another than you are from yourself. At this date he was tutor in Lord Carpenter's family at London.

In our century that honour was reserved for England. This, again, ;truck all those who witnessed his first perform- buces. The young actor had nothing of that [measured, rhythmic declamation, of those stiff and heavy movements, of that majestic sluggish- ness which reduced what should have been acting to an exchange of recitatives.

On the contrary, he endeavoured "to suit the action to the word and the word to the action," and, following ever the counsel of Shakespeare, '' to hold the mirror up to nature. Pour notre sifecle cet honneur 6tait r6serv6 k I'Angle- terre: THE ACTOR 4i It is evident, from all the passage to which we have just referred, that such was the manner of the players trained hy the great dramatist himself. This is the essential difference between Erench and English classical tragedy — a difference the explanation of which is to be found in the character of either race.

The Erench pieces appeal specially to the reason ; the poet sets forth everything in words, and the audience might well listen to his verses with closed eyes. On the English stage action plays an important part, and one may say, without exaggeration, that the spoken word often forms the accompaniment and commentary of that action. Erench tragedy, essentially a literary and aristocratic production, bound by the laws and traditions of antiquity, translates action into verse, and, to avoid the brutal fact shown nakedly on the stage, freely employs confidents, soliloquies by principal actors, and narrations of events by subordinates.

English tragedy, presenting its rich picture of life to a general public, ungloved and unperfumed, mitigates nothing of the cruelty of existence, but shows the terrible effects of all the passions — the blow that killed, the corpse that called forth tears and indignation, the madness wrought by folly, and the punishment of vice and inhumanity.

Synonyms and antonyms of chienne in the French dictionary of synonyms

Compare Shakespeare's Othello with Corneille's Korace. In the other follow the almost 42 DAVID GARRICK mathematical exposition of the situation, given by Sabine and Camille in their successive confi- dences with the obliging Julie; the artistically contrived narration of the combat and of the wavering fortunes of Rome and Alba, begun by old Horace and completed by Val6re ; see the pride of the victor and the agony of his bereaved sister, brought at length face to face ; and then, when the tragedy is fully ripe and the catastrophe imminent, see young Horace chase his sister off the stage, kill her in cleanly fashion in the wings, and, returning, declare: Aiasi receive nn chatiment soudain, Quiconqne ose plenrer un ennemy romain!

If he did not succeed in making them as living as those of the model he pretended to despise, it was not only that he lacked genius for the stage, but also, as we have already said, that the difference reposed on a dissimilarity of racial temperament. Macbeth and Britannicus ; Manliics of de La Fosse with Venice preserved, by Otway ; or Lillo's George Barnwell and Moore's Gamester, with their first adaptations on the French stage; finally, Ducis's arrangements of Shakespeare's tragedies witn the originals.

Unable to express emotions, whether violent or tender, he was forced and languid in action, and ponderous and sluggish in movement. In the great characters of tragedy he was lost, and the most trustworthy of contemporary critics declares that people will remember with pleasure his Brutus and his Oato, and wish to forget his Richard and his Lear. It will be remembered that, when Quin saw Garrick act for the first time, he declared that, if the young fellow was right, he and the other actors of the day were wrong.

Further, he compared Garrick to Whitefield, whose preaching at that time was emptying the regular churches. Pope Quin, who damns all churches but his own, Complains that heresy infects the town ; That Whitefield-Garrick has misled the age, And taints the sound religion of the stage. Schism, he cries, has turned the nation's brain. But eyes will open, and to church again. Thou great Infallible, forbear to roar ; Thy bulls and errors are revered no more.

When doctrines meet with general reprobation It is not Heresy, but Reformation. It is only fair to remind the reader that James Thomson has given a very favourable portrait of Quin in The Castle of Indolence: Here whilom ligg'd th' Esopus of the age: Ev'n from his slumbers we advantage reap: With double force th' enliven'd scene he wakes, Yet quits not Nature's bounds. He knows to keep Each due decorum ; now the heart he shakes And now with well-urg'd sense th' enlightened judgment takes. But there is certainly a good deal of friendly prejudice here ; the actor whose supremacy had been seriously threatened by Delane and by Macklm in succession was hardly such a giant.

For years the power of tragedy declined: From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, Till declamation roar'd, while passion slept. The coldness of the old conventional system and the necessity of substituting for it a more natural diction and a more expressive panto- mime — those are questions which Garrick and his friend Macklin must have often discussed. For, in justice to the latter, it should not be forgotten that he was really the precursor of Garrick in the revolution about to be accom- plished.

In training pupils he counselled them to adopt on the stage a manner of speaking that approximated to that they employed in daily life. His own acting was forcible and lively, though somewhat too rugged ; and then, his incurable Irish brogue suggested a want of polish. It was he who, a year before Garrick's first appearance, had reinstated Shylock among the great parts of Shakespearean tragedy, for since it had been the custom to treat the Jew as an amusing character.

It was he who coached his young friend in the r61e of Lear, and who emended by his criticisms Garrick's first attempts. It was he who, later, played Macbeth in a Scotch costume more becoming to the part than the gold-laced uniform and three- cornered hat worn by Garrick and others. In fine, Macklin had the intelligence and the courage necessary in the innovator ; but he lacked the physical means and attractions to make the public welcome his ideas.

Directly he appeared he amazed all by the whole-heartedness and impassioned force of his acting. In the celebrated scene of the last act, where, after the procession of ghosts, the tyrant starts from his disordered slumber and attempts to reason down his fears, he was no longer an actor repeating a part, but a weak and miserable man passing through a crisis of terror and anguish. Well might The Daily Fost, referring to this first per- formance of a " gentleman who never appeared before on any stage " declare that his reception was the most extraordinary and great that teas ever known on such an occasion.

In depicting moments of mental anguish, dis- order, and passion he was unequalled. The simplicity of his saying, 'Be these tears wet? His pre- paration for it was extremely affecting ; his throw- ing away his crutch, kneeling on one knee, clasping his hands together and lifting his eyes towards heaven, presented a picture worthy the pencil of a Raphael. Lastly, we will quote another contemporary description which, whilst insisting on the principal characteristics of Garrick's style, reveals incident- ally the defects of those actors whom he had found in possession of the stage: When three or four are on the stage with him he is attentive to whatever is spoke, and never drops his character when he has finished a speech, by either looking contemptibly [sic] on an inferior performer, unnecessarily spitting, or suffering his eyes to wander through the whole circle of spectators.

His action corresponds with the voice, and both with the character he is to play ; it is never superfluous, awkward, or too frequently repeated, but graceful, decent and various. It must be remembered that that effect was produced by the authority of his pantomime, for in the salons of the eighteenth century the Parisians who understood spoken English were rare. In these extraordinary mimetic powers, associated, no doubt, with a superior intelligence, seems to have especially resided Garrick's ex- cellence as an actor. An examination of his portraits reveals how varied were his means of facial expression.

His eyebrows were clearly and firmly pencilled ; they stood fairly high above his eyes, allowing him to employ every note in the scale of the emotions, from the greatest astonishment to the most threat- ening anger ; his nose was well-formed, the end was rather long and eminently mobile, so that its movements completely changed the expression of his physiognomy; the nostrils were delicate, capable of expanding with indignation or of narrowing in severity ; the lips were finely cut and full of vivacity, ready to lengthen with gaiety, to droop in sadness, or to protrude with rage and resentment.

THE ACTOR 49 Garrick relied so much on his facial resources that, according to Murphy, he abandoned the r61e of Othello because he could not employ them properly in that part, the black make-up prevent- ing the audience from following the workings of his countenance. His eyes were extremely striking, full of fire and movement. It is related that when, one day, he turned towards a subordinate with the words: It was no easy task to transfer to the canvas features so changeable.

Garrick, as a model, threw painters into despair. Let us listen a moment to Northcote relating Sir Joshua Eey- nolds's experiences: One feels light and at ease when one sees the strength and certainty of his movements, and how he appears present in every muscle of his body. The expression of his face is so clear and living that it com- municates itself to those who see him.

Barry comes into it, Sir, as a great Lord, swaggering about his love and talking so loud, that by G — , Sir, if we don't suppose the servants of the Capulet family almost dead with sleep, they must have come out and tossed the fellow in a blanket. But how does Garrick act this? Of these we add one more, taken from an obituary notice in The Whitehall Evening Post, March 17th, He had every requisite to fit him for every character ; his limbs were pliant, his features ductile and expressive, and his eye keen, quick, ana obedient, versant to all occasions and places.

His voice was har- monious, and could vibrate through all the modulations of sound ; could thunder in Passion, tremble in Fear, dissolve into the softness of Love, or melt into every mood of Pity and Distress. These liberal dowries of Nature were ornamented by the most refined acquisitions of Art: Music, Dancing, Painting, Fencing, Sculpture, gave him each their respective graces ; from them he borrowed his deportment, his ease, and his attitudes. Every degree of Age — every stage, scene, and period of life, from the hot and youthful lover up to the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon— all were alike to him.

At twenty-four he could put on all the weaknesses and wrinkles of the greatest age ; and at sixty he wore in his appearance and action all the agility of buxom and wanton youth. If he was angry, so was you ; if he was distress'd, so was you ; if he was terrified, so was you ; if he was merry, so was you ; if he was mad, so was you.

He was an enchanter, and led you where he pleased. Whilst rendering sincere homage to his great merits, one reserve suggests itself to our judg- ment: On this point let us consult Lichtenberg once again and see if his enthusiasm has not noted details somewhat too prominent, patches somewhat too purple. This is how he describes Garrick in the ghost- scene of Samlet: At Horatio's words, "Look, my lord, it comes! Angelo adds that Garrick did not at all appreciate the last part of the comparison.

Is it necessary to rewrite the poet's meaning in letters so gigantic? If we pass to comedy parts, the same character- istics are at times in evidence. Let us quote a newspaper account of the first performance of Garrick's Miss in her Teens. The critic, after detailing the incidents which form the somewhat unsubstantial foundation of the plot, goes on to regret that the actor has thus set himself the difficult task of '' diverting us with the trifling circumstances of a piece of black silk on his finger ; a camhrick handkerchief on his neck ; the posture in which he presents a pill-box ; the arming of a chair ; the advances to a duel ; the trip-on and Jaunt-off' the stage.

It is a pity that Mr. Garrick should impose the ridiculous task upon himself of diverting us in so unaccountable a manner. What say you now 1 Is he frightened now, or no 1 As much frightened as you think me, and, to Be sure, nobody can help some fears ; I would not be in so bad a condition as what's-his-name, Squire Hamlet, is there, for all the world," etc. Johnson, on the other hand, seems to have con- sidered that Garrick over-emphasized the Prince of Denmark's terror.

When Boswell asked him, " Would you not, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does, if you saw a ghost? If I did, I should frighten the ghost. We repro- duce the italics and capitals of the original. THE ACTOR 65 Here, again, there is something of that senseless exaggeration of the futile which merges the comic in the ridiculous ; something perilously like the red nose, yellow whiskers, and swollen umbrella of the music-hall artist. Lastly, we will consult a critic frankly un- favourable to Garrick, one of the comedians whose place he had taken in the favour of the public, but who, in spite — perhaps, because — of his hos- tility, is not lacking at times in keenness of perception and alertness of judgment: Methinks this slight short sentence requires not such a variety of action as minutely to describe the cat being clapp'd into the bottle, then being hung up, and the further painting of the man shooting at it.

Observe the Golden Rule of not too much ; this Eule every actor should pay regard to. Yet, on the opening of the scene, the actor, with folded arms, advances ahout three or four steps, then jumps and starts into an attitude of surprise: Why, at the sight of a monument he went to look for. And there he stands, till a clap from the audience relieves him from his post. Is not this forc'd? Is it not misplac'd? Is it not as improper as ranting loudly those threats to his servant which shou'd be deliver'd in an under voice, expressive of terror, but not mouth'd out loud enough to alarm the watch.

These are thy triumphs! Combining these latter observations with the more favourable criticisms first quoted, the reader will, perhaps, arrive at the conclusion that Garrick had, especially in the earlier half of his career, a certain tendency to strain the cord, to try and make the comic yet more laugh- able and the awful yet more terrible. It is to Garrick's credit that, in spite of the adulation, often uncritical, which attended his career, he learnt to correct his faults and to tone down his excesses.

But this particular weakness is one that would pass unperceived by those who could not appre- ciate the full value of the spoken word ; or rather, they would be grateful for so rich a visual trans- lation of the poet's meaning. That is why Garrick's powerful pantomime formed, for those Frenchmen who met him at Paris, one of his greatest attractions and the principal proof of his superiority. They made no distinction between Garrick and Shakespeare. The actor was received as the dramatist's heir and representative, self -entrusted with the mission of defending his ancestor's glory.

He will never forgive M. At Paris, in , he refused to meet abbe le Blanc, because the latter, in his Lettres d'un Frangais a Londres, had spoken disrespectfully of Garrick 's adopted ancestor. Then he would come at me like a madman, calling me Erench dog and pressing me with questions and vindications, in order to make me approve peculiarities which our taste cannot support. Thon art my living monament ; in thee I see the best inscription that my soul Could wish: And Walpole notes regretfully the same opinion: And first of all, it is an error to believe that, at the moment of Garrick's debut, Shakespeare's works were buried in oblivion.

At the time of Garrick's appearance Shakespeare's plays were, at any rate, acted quite as much in London as they are now, and the great, generally-known characters, such as Hamlet, Eichard III. Garrick, then, inaugurated no movement in favour of Shakespeare; rather did he profit by that already commenced.

One must assuredly accord him praise for con- tinuing that movement and for restoring to the stage pieces that had not been played for years. Timon of Athens, which had not seen the footlights since the Restoration, was given at DruryLane in , but in a version which still contained no few verses foreign to the original. Macbeth, considered since as a melodrama of which the first two acts were capable of pleasing by their animation, but the last three were dull and void of interest, became once more a tragedy of the highest class ; our actor-manager suppressed the addi- tions due to Dryden and D'Avenant, but he retained verses introduced from Middleton, and, with his own hand, added to his own part a speech in articulo mortis.

In his hands the first became Katharine and Fetruchio, and figures under that title in the actor's Dramatic Works. The under-plot is en- tirely removed ; we find Bianca already married to Hortensio, and thus the amusing scenes between the different suitors for her hand disappear. With them vanishes Petruchio's reason for demanding Kate in marriage. Thus simplified and reduced to classic unity, the play falls into three parts: Petruchio's courtship of the shrew ; the marriage, the hurried departure of the couple, and their arrival at the bridegroom's home ; the scenes much abridged in which Kate is brought to reason, and the tableau which shows us the scold reduced to meekness.

With characteristic clum- siness Garrick takes from Katharine a portion of her final speech on the duties of the model wife, and, by transferring it to the victorious husband, destroys all its veiled comic tone. Shakespeare's joyous farce finishes on a grave note suitable for a homily on the whole duty of woman. Needless to say that such vulgarly comic characters as the Athenian artisans found no place amid the trills and recitatives ; with them disappeared " the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

Titania becomes amorous, for no reason whatever — but then, this is an opera — with a clown whom she finds sleeping in the forest. In a word, all the dreamy fancy and all the rich playfulness of the charming pastoral are sup- pressed ; and in that lies the importance to the literary historian of Garrick's alterations of Shake- speare: The French mind, positive, realist, and intellectual, has never shown much sympathy for the visionary creations, so unlike anything in heaven or on earth, of our romantic imaginative poets. Now Garrick's was a French mind, formed in what may be called a French century.

But in the place of what he destroyed he set original productions from his own pen — songs, terrible in their triviality, their nudity unadorned save by strings of commonplaces. With mean disguise let others nature hide, And mimick virtue with the paint of art ; I scorn the cheat of reason's foolish pride, And boast the graceful weakness of my heart.

The more I think, the more I feel my pain, And learn the more each heavenly charm to prize ; While fools, too light for passion, safe remain, And dull sensation keeps the stupid wise. Or, Joy alone shall employ us, No griefs shall annoy us, No sighs the sad heart shall betray ; Let the vaulted roof ring, Let the full chorus sing, Blest Theseus and Hippolit-a. Dare we set in comparison with such verses some of the original lines discarded by Garrick? I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine.

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Luird in these flowers with dances and delight ; And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, And make her full of hateful fantasies. Por this production Garrick composed a Pro- logue, one of his weakest, in which he asked pardon for daring to put an English opera on the stage: An Op'ra too I play'd by an English Band!

Wrote in a Language which you understand! I dare not say who wrote it — I could tell ye, To soften matters, Signor Shakespearelli. And he adds, with becoming modesty: Except for the remains of Shakespeare's poetry, the piece cannot fairly be declared guilty on the first count; and, as for the second, the play has been so cut about that little sense remains. But then, as Garrick remarks: After this first attempt Garrick allowed The Tempest to slumber until ; then he turned it into another opera in the style of The Fairies, which the same composer.

Smith, fitted with music and in which the same tenor, Beard, played the principal part.

In this revival, however, Dryden's masque of Neptune and Am2 hitrite had been retained. This editor affirms that, in compiling his list, he had the assistance of Garrick's friends ; and he adds that he is informed that it is perfectly accurate. The latter phrase seems to suggest that he had submitted it to members of the actor's family, or to other competent judges. Moreover, the words used by Garrick in the Prologue to The Fairies " I confess the offence " point to him as author of the arrangement. All three of these operas were played at Drury Lane and published by Tonson ; of The Magician Garrick formally acknowledged the authorship.

Several critics, especially Theo. Gibber, accused him, during his life of having cut up Shakespeare's pieces into operas ; Garrick never denied these accusations. In any case, the operas were performed at his theatre and under his direction. Bandello, the Italian novelist, from whom Shakespeare has borrowed the subject of this play, has made Juliet to wake in the tomb before Romeo dies: At this theatre they added a dirge and funeral procession at the beginning of Act V.

Garrick, who was acting his own version with Miss Bellamy, replied by a similar attraction. The piece is printed in his Works, vol. A grave alteration, in more than one sense, is that by which he awakens Juliet in the tomb before Romeo is yet dead, thus introducing a sensational scene, with plenty of contortions and groans for himself, followed by a funeral procession and a dirge, to verses of his own composition, worthy, perhaps, of a place in some opera libretto, but hardly equal to the society in which they find themselves.

The changes in poetical form bear especially on two points: All " quibble " is removed ; for example, the second scene of Act I. In the same way the charming exaggera- tion in which Juliet anticipates the weariness of the long hours which are to separate her from her lover, " I must hear from thee every day in the hour," is garrickized into '' I must hear from thee every hour in the day " ; and that is certainly more ordinary and easily understanded of the people.

But why, instead of the original reply assigned to Romeo — I will omit no opportunity That may convey my greetings to thee, why do we read in Garrick, " I will admit no opportunity? Secondly, all the rhymed portions of the play are reduced to prose, so that no inharmonious "jingle" may remain; in other words, Garrick dared to unpoetize some of the finest passages, so as to produce a form of speech more closely assimilated to everyday conversation.

We append an example, taken from Act II. Here Friar Laurence's opening speech is cut down, but the rhymes are left, it being evidently considered more as a lyric than as a piece of dialogue. What is the matter, son? I'll tell thee ere thou ask it me again ; I have been feasting with my enemy, Where to the heart's core one hath wounded me, That's by me wounded ; both our remedies Within thy help and holy physic lie. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift.

Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is set On Juliet, Capulet's fair daughter ; As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine: When, and where, and how, We met, we woo'd and made exchange of vows, I'll tell thee as we pass ; but this I beg That thou consent to marry us to-day. Holy Saint Francis, what a change is this I Passage about Hosaline omitted; after which, Garrick comes to the rescue with the following lines: But tell me, son, and call thy reason home.

Is not this love the offspring of thy folly. Bred from thy wantonness and thoughtless brain? Be heedful, and see you stop betimes. Lest that thy rash ungovernable passions, O'erleaping duty and each due regard, Hurry thee on, thro' short-liv'd, dear-bought pleasures. To cureless woes and lasting penitence. Arms, take your last embrace ; and, lips, do you The doors of death seal with a righteous kiss]: She speaks, she lives I and we shall still be bless'd I My kind propitious stars o'erpay me now For all my sorrows past.

Rise, rise, my Juliet, And from this cave of death, this house of horror, Quick let me snatch thee to thy Romeo's arms, There breathe a vital spirit in thy lips. And call thee back to life and love. Why do you force me so? I'll ne'er consent ; My strength may fail me, but my will's unmov'd. I'll not wed Paris — Romeo is my husband. Her senses are unsettl'd — Heaven restore them! Romeo is thy husband ; I am that Romeo, Nor all the opposing powers of earth or man Shall break our bonds, or tear thee from my heart. I know that voice. Its magic sweetness wakes My tranced soul.

I now remember well Each circumstance. Dost thou avoid me, Romeo? I have no strength, but want thy feeble aid: Poison I what means my lord? The transports that I felt to hear thee speak. And see thy opening eyes, stopt for a moment His impetuous conrse, and all my mind Was happiness and thee ; but now the poison Rushes thro' my veins — I've not time to tell — Fate brought me to this place, to take a last.

Last farewell of my love and with thee die. I know not that. I thought thee dead ; distracted at the sight Fatal speed! And found within thy arms a precious grave ; But in that moment — oh!

And did I wake for this? My powers are blasted ; 'Twixt death and life I'm torn, I am distracted!

La vie extraordinaire d'une chienne nommée Cléo (French Edition)

And must I leave thee, Juliet? Oh cruel, cursM fate I in sight of heav'n. Thou rav'st ; lean on my breast. Fathers have flinty hearts, no tears can melt 'em. Nature pleads in vain ; children must be wretched. Oh, my breaking heart I Rom. She is my wife ; our hearts are twined together. Capulety forbear ; Paris, loose your hold. Pull not our heart-strings thus; they crack, they break. Stay, stay for me, Romeo — A moment stay ; fate marries us in death And we are one — no power shall part us.

It is of this feeble stuff that we are told that it is '' a clever Pasticcio," and that Garrick " deserves some credit for the manner in which he has fallen into the tone of the situation, and caught up the sweet key of Shakespeare's music. Is it in the charming line, '' Bless me! Or in the forcible reply of Romeo to Juliet's cry, " Death's in thy face": Or in the miserably disjointed prose, '' I thought thee dead ; distracted at the sight fatal speed! Or in the constant employment of worn-out phrases, such as: Or in the absence of any striking thought or image except such as are reminiscences of Shakes- peare?

No, no ; '' let him that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds," hail this as Shakespeare's harmony ; for our part, we refuse to hear in it anything but a very poor variation on a fine theme, played by an inferior musician on a wretched instrument. To sum up this examination of the new Romeo and Juliet: Garrick wanted a piece free of all fancy and of purely poetical declamation, a piece in which the dialogue should be as natural as possible, giving free scope to the actor ; he wished, moreover, to make Shakespeare's tragic force yet more powerful and to create for himself an oppor- tunity of playing one of those terrible scenes of passion and death in which he excelled.

To reach these ends he sacrificed the poet to his own preten- sions. He was neither the first nor the last actor- manager to do so ; may these pages be a warning to his successors! Antoine produced at the Odeon Theatre, Paris, a practically com- plete version of Romeo and Juliet in a very close translation. While this English edition is passing through the press the same play has once more been " managerized " on the London stage. It is curious that less respect should be shown at home than abroad for our great dramatist's works. Garrick found a simple remedy for this lengthy violation of the unity of time: There were, then, in the original Winter s Tale, two parts: This exposi- tion, with its condensed and solid action, its rapid happenings and touching scenes, must count among Shakespeare's best work ; compared with it, the conclusion, brought about by the well-worn trick of a recognition and by the unexpected change of a statue into a woman, is feeble, and is hardly saved from disaster by some pretty scenes of country life, and by the amusing, but super- numerary, character of Autolycus.

Between these two halves, Garrick did not hesitate one moment ; with what one is obliged to call his habitual bad taste in such matters, he chose the inferior portion, because it did not infringe the classical rules of unity. In order to make a piece of ordinary length out of the two acts he preserved, he added songs and verses of his own; yet he has the impudence to say in his Prologue, in which Shakespeare's genius is compared to good wine: In this night's various and enchanted cnp Some little Perry's mixt for filling np.

The five long acts from which our three are taken Stretched out to sixteen years, lay by, forsaken. It is of these arrangements of Garrick's that Theo. Gibber said in The Midsummer Night's Dream has been minc'd and fricasseed into an indigested and un- connected thing, call'd The Fairies: And how prettily might the North-Wind like the tyrant Barbarossa be introduc'd with soft Musick! Rouse, Britons, rouse, for shame! Think you see Shakespeare's Injured Shade. He grieves to see your tame submission to this merciless Frocrustes of the stage, who, wantonly as cruelly, massacres his dear remains.

Of all Garrick's nefarious attempts on Shake- speare's pieces, the most celebrated is his travesty of Hamlet. I have brought it out without the Grave-diggers' trick and the Pencing-match. In order to judge at the present day to what lengths his zeal carried him, we must have recourse to contemporary accounts. Here is one of them: In consequence of this arrangement, the old Third Act was extended to the Fourth.

Little or no change, in language or scenery, was attempted till the Fifth Act, in which Laertes arrives and Ophelia is distracted, as in the old play. Fitzgerald adds that, by the town, Garrick's version was considered to approach a burlesque. The Gravediggers were absolutely thrown out of the play. The audience were not informed of the fate of Ophelia ; and the Queen, instead of being poisoned on the stage, was led from her seat and said to be in a state of insanity, owing to her sense of guilt.

When Hamlet attacks the King, he draws his sword and defends himself and is killed in the rencounter. Laertes and Hamlet die of their mutual wounds. The people soon called for Ham- let as it had been acted from time immemorial. He always presented Richard in the horrible mixture we owe to Colley Gibber, and of which half comes from that scribbler's inkpot or has been looted by him from other plays of Shakespeare's. It is almost unnecessary to add that this latest concession to French criticism of Shakespeare's barbarisms delighted more than one of Garrick's friends abroad. That proves, my friend, not only how great an empire your rare talents as an actor have acquired among your nation, but still more, the perfect esteem it has conceived for your enlightenment and taste as an author: The same tenderness of heart caused Mr.

Tate to bring all to a happy ending: Resuming, then, this question of Garrick's atti- tude towards Shakespeare's plays, we may say that his enthusiasm, undoubtedly sincere, for the dramatist was corrupted by two influences: To this latter influence are chiefly due the adaptations of Romeo and Juliet and of Macbeth, as well as the preser- vation of Cibber's and of Tate's monstrosities. The two influences combined produced the opera of The Fairies and that of The Tempest. The publication of Johnson's Preface in marks the end of a school of criticism which deemed it necessary to judge Shakespeare by the rules of the classic theatre, to which he had never attempted to conform.

Thenceforth commentaries tend to become explicative rather than destructive: Farmer's important Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare ; Mrs. Montagu's enthusiastic, if at times ineflSicient, study; Morgan's curious ex- amination of the character of Palstaff; later, Schlegel's Lectures and Hazlitt's writings, — all these are tributaries to the same current of opinion.

Before the two last appeared the Romantic revival had brought about a general condition of thought more in sympathy with that of the dramatist. Garrick, born in , had been educated in the respect of the classical rules and theatrical pro- prieties; his knowledge of the French stage and his relations with French men of letters prevented him from throwing off this yoke. Chesterfield, writing to Mme de Tencin in and , declares that the French do too much honour to the English by translating their novels and plays.

He considers that the French theatre is too precise and refined to put up with the irregularity and the indecency of the English pieces ; but then he prefers the French stage to all others, not excepting that of ancient Greece. It was to Frenchmen especially that Garrick looked for sympathy in his efforts to shape the rough-hewn idol of his worship ; and they did not fail to greet his labours with benevo- lent approval. On the other hand, Le Blanc did not refuse to recognize Shakespeare's merits: If he is revolting because of the pettinesses which are common to him, he is yet more astounding by the sublimity of his genius He is, indeed, a great genius.

Sometimes, when reading his pieces, I am surprised at the sublimity of his vast genius ; but he does not allow my admiration to last long. Portraits in which I find all the nobility and loftiness of Raphael are followed by miserable pictures, worthy of the tavern-painters who copied Teniers," etc. Could one ask more from a Frenchman of that date? One could easily establish a parallel between Johnson's attitude towards Garrick and Garrick's toward Shakespeare ; of both it may be said: The piece and its author have been applauded none the less for that. It would be incredible that he could ever have imagined his poetical powers sufficient to allow him to correct the great writer's defects and to match his majestic verse, did we not remember that rhymers even feebler than he had dared undertake the same task.

Hoadley, brother of the author of The Suspicious Husband, and himself an ecclesiastic far happier in the court he paid to possessors of fat livings than in that he oifered to the Muses. He refers to Garrick's revision of Hamlet and "fears too little has been done. With a grave sufficiency that is delightfully comic, he suggests the addition of lines such as these: Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! I have made too free With that sweet lady's ear.

My place in Denmark, The time's misrule, my heavenly -urged revenge, Matters of giant stature, gorge her love As fish the cormorant. She drops a tear. As from her book she steals her eye on me. I'm angry at these tears: But 'tis our trick ; Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will ; when these are gone The woman will be out. Oh, speak the manner. O rose of May, kind sister, sweet Ophelia, By heaven, thy death shall be o'erpaid with weight Till our scale turn the beam. D'ye see this, Gods, And Hamlet still alive? In his most ambitious attempt, the Ode to Shakespeare, he borrows his form from Dryden ; but he does not succeed in discovering one new or personal thought, and the images which he employs are either commonplaces or quotations, avowed and unavowed.

We do not, of course, reproach him with the use of phrases quoted between inverted commas, such as: We note at random: Warble forth such wood- notes wild" cf. Even those expressions which cannot be assigned to any particular author are old and worn and belong to all the hack writers ; for example: When Garrick writes society verses and occa- sional lines he is more at ease. He possessed the knack necessary for turning a neat compliment to a lady, the wit required for aiming a dart at some rival or critic.

In throwing off these trifles he had no need of poetry, and in this subordinate class there is nothing better than his verses — To THE Countess of Burlington Written in a Prayer-hook she gave him This sacred book hath Dorothea given To show a straying sheep the way to heav'n ; With forms of righteousness she well may part Who bears the spirit in her upright heart. Or those on Johnson's Dictionary, completed in Talk of war to a Briton, he'll boldly advance That one English soldier will beat ten of France ;. From'a print in the collection of A.

These little monologues often represented a whole scene in epitome, and were, no doubt, sprightly and effective when spoken and played by a good actor; to-day, when we read them, after the lapse of a century and a half, much of their brilliancy has departed and they remind one of the faded tinsel of some theatre wardrobe.

Here is Peg Woffington complain- ing of a new regulation which forbids beaux to penetrate behind the scenes: No beaux behind the scenes! Public complaint, forsooth, is made a puff ; Sense, order, decency, and such like stuff. But arguments like these are mere pretence ; The beaux, 'tis known, ne'er gave the least offence, Are men of chastest conduct and amazing sense.

Each actress now a locked-up nun must be. And priestly managers must keep the key. Pritchard, in her r61e of Queen Bess, indulging in patriotic sentiment: If any here are Britons but in name, Dead to their country's happiness and fame. Let 'em depart this moment ; let 'em fly My awful presence and my searching eye. No more your Queen, but upright judge I come To try your deeds abroad, your lives at home. Your wit, whate'er your poets sing or swear, Since Shakespeare's time is somewhat worse for wear.

Your laws are good ; your lawyers good, of course ; The streams are surely clear, when clear the source. In greater stores these blessings now are sent ye ; Where I had one attorney you have twenty. The Chelsea pensioner, who, rich in scars, Fights o'er in prattle all his former wars, Tho' past the service, may the young ones teach To march — present — to fire — and mount the breach.

Should the drum beat to arms, at first he'll grieve For wooden leg, lost eye, and armless sleeve ; Then cocks his hat, looks fierce, and swells his chest: It is wonderful that he has been able to write such a variety of them. Pluto, at Proserpine's request, has granted a boon to mortals: Thus a whole series of characters defiles before the audience: The most amusing sketches are old Lord Chalk- stone and Mrs.

Bowman ; the second a would-be fine lady, to whom Sheridan's Mrs.

Malaprop perhaps owed a hint. There is also a Frenchman, who is in England " pour polir la nation," and who states thus his qualifications for the task: Sir, my merit consists in one vord — I am foreignere ; and, entre nous, vile de Englis be so great a fool to love de foreignere better dan demselves, de foreignere void be more great a fool did they not leave deir own countrie, vere dey have noting at all, and come to Inglande, vere dey want for noting at all, per die. Cela n'est il pas vrai. This little sketch is light, but sparkling ; the dialogue is good and the characters vigorously drawn.

Erom it one may judge of the meaning of the word comedy for Garrick — a series of situa- tions in which amusing and ridiculous types of humanity can be brought together to expose their peculiarities before the eyes of the audience. As for the plot, that was always as slight as might be, and he preferred to take it ready-made from the works of some predecessor.

Here, as in the poems, composing power is lacking, and it is worthy of note that, in the only one of his pieces which is important from its structure, he had the assistance of his friend George Colman. Colman would never admit that Garrick's collaboration had been an effective one, and, as Joseph THE DRAMATIST 91 A full analysis of his other comedies, farces, and interludes would not adduce much fresh evidence in his favour as a playwright; we will content ourselves with a brief mention of the most important.

The Lying Valet — a development of the second act of Motteux's curious medley, The Novelty; or, Uvery Act a Play, with reminiscences of a Prench comedy by Hauteroche — turns on the endeavours of Sharp, valet to Gayless, an in- debted beau, to prevent Melissa, his affianced bride, from discovering the true state of the master's fortunes. The situations are amusing, if somewhat forced.

Garrick, when young, must have been very vivacious in the part. A Miss in her Teens, or A Medley of Lovers, provides a somewhat insufficient frame for the portraits of Fribble, an effeminate dandy, and Flash, a cowardly bully, two suitors with whom Miss Biddy has amused herself during her lover's absence at the wars. In his adaptation Garrick has certainly not weakened the French piece on which he has founded his own. But, indeed, bullies and dandies are favourite characters in all the comedies of the day.

Knight says in his David Garrick p. Several married women whose affections he has trifled with decoy him to a rendezvous in Hyde Park, and expose him to the laughter of their friends. Daffodil is an amusing character, but he reminds one of Congreve's Vain-love and Tattle. In the same way, when in Nech or Nothing we see Martin Belford's servant disguise himself as a gentleman in order to marry a woman of fortune, we are reminded of a part of The Way of the World.

A Feep behind the Curtain is like- wise, as its sub-title The New Rehearsal con- fesses, only another version of the Duke of Buckingham's famous farce. The Guardian, in which Ave see the middle-aged Mr. Heartly slowly brought to understand that his ward. Miss Harriett, prefers him to the very foolish young suitor he had proposed for her, is a really excellent little comedy; but it is a very close adaptation of Pagan's La Fupille, of which Voltaire used to declare that it was the best short piece in the Prench language.

In Prance his value as an author was never overrated. VII THE MAN Shall we be accused of demolishing with ruthless hand Garrick's reputation as a dramatist, or of plucking too majiy laurels from the brow of one whom his friends deemed as worthy of the Laureate's crown as the illustrious Paul White- head? Our only desire is to judge according to the evidence, and, whilst despoiling Garrick of meretricious and unjustifiable glories, to leave him clad in one that is truly his own: He was one of those chameleon men who can change their personality at will, and adapt themselves at pleasure to the characters of every human type.

But this very plasticity of mind is the negation of that originality in thought and temper which is needed to achieve distinction as an author. Johnson would have been a poor comedian ; his pupil was a poor writer. To one more encomium Garrick has, however, every right: Certain weaknesses he had, the defects of those qualities which conducted him to success on the stage, and which the adulation attending his career served to nourish.

He was vain; but not uncommonly so, given the atmo- sphere in which he lived — and his good sense prevented the disease from becoming more than 04 THE MAN 96 skin-deep. He was changeable, inclined to follow his impulses and to promise more than he always cared to perform after reflection. The fact is that he brought to his calling more thought- fulness than is often the case ; the readiness of sympathy necessary in the translator of the feelings of fictitious characters was balanced in him by a strong common sense that saw things as they are.

He was Celt and Anglo-Saxon com- bined; and that is why he was so successful an actor-manager. That also explains why he was careful, even parsimonious at times, in small matters, but ever ready to faire un beau geste and to give freely. Johnson declared that, whenever he drew Garrick's attention to some case of distress, he always received from him more than from any other person, and always more than he expected: He has given away more money than any man in England. There may have been a little vanity mixed, but he has shown that money is not his first object.

By the excellence of his private character and the innocence of his life he raised the status of his profession. Parsons, David Garrick cmd his Circle. He was witty and vivacious, ever ready to amuse others ; anxious to shine, it is true — but then, he was an actor. If in France it was the eminence of his talents that drew the attention of the refined world, it was his qualities of heart which attached to him so many people of diverse ranks and turned his admirers into friends ; and Parisian society, as a whole, paid him the immense com- pliment of long repeating in their drawing-rooms, " Mr.

Garrick was made to live amongst us. They met at London in , and the friendship then begun lasted for thirty years ; in the Eorster Collection is a letter that Garrick received from Monnet only a few weeks before his death. Garrick paid a visit to Monnet in ; he met him again during his stay in Paris in ; Monnet came to see the English actor in London in Erom to they exchanged a regular corre- spondence, the Erench part of which, consisting of more than fifty letters, was carefully preserved by Garrick.

It is interesting and touching to follow through these papers yellow with age, the progress of this affection ever fresh. As Monnet grows older his letters become less frequent and the writing feebler ; but the friendship which united him to the Englishman does not lose its force. Monnet interests us here in three ways. Next, from a per- sonal point of view: Thirdly, the details of his visit to London are especially worthy of our consideration and throw light on the relations between the theatres of Prance and of England in the eighteenth century.

In order to set Monnet in his historical place as travelling impresario, we must remind our readers that, in , French actors were not exactly a novelty in England. The appearance of actresses on the stage had excited great interest, and, at a date when the opinion of London was becoming more and more Puritan, no little indignation. Charlanne, L' Influence fran- gaise en Angleterre Paris, , to whom we are mdebted for much guidance. But if the London merchants and apprentices looked askant at such ungodly foreign invasions, the Court, presided over by a Prench queen inordin- ately fond of shows and spectacles, did not hesitate to encourage them.

In a second Prench company sought the protection of Queen Henrietta, and was allowed to play in the Cockpit at Whitehall ; they gave, before Charles I. Purthermore, the king allowed them to perform at Drury Lane Theatre twice a week during Lent, on sermon-days — a manifest injustice to the English actors, who were debarred from showing at those times. If we may believe Sir Henry Herbert, they were even authorized to play all Holy Week — a most extraordinary permission and one calculated to offend other than Puritan susceptibilities. We find them established in their new quarters next winter and playing tragedies and comedies before the king and queen.

Educalingo cookies are used to personalize ads and get web traffic statistics. We also share information about the use of the site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Meaning of "chienne" in the French dictionary. The definition of dog in the dictionary is kind of mammals of the order of digitalis carnivores whose type is the dog, and which also includes the wolf, the jackal and the fox.

Mammal carnivorous very old domesticated, trained to the guard of the houses and herds, to the hunt or raised for the approval. Synonyms and antonyms of chienne in the French dictionary of synonyms. Examples of use in the French literature, quotes and news about chienne. Plus je connais les hommes, plus j'aime mon chien. Plus je connais les femmes, moins j'aime ma chienne. Charles Thibault, Marie-Claire Levasseur,

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