Garrick, David
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- Garrick, David
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(1717 - 79), actor, s. of Peter Garric, a Huguenot; L.Inn 1737; London debut 1740 and leading actor at Drury Lane 1743 - 76; m. 1749 Eva Maria Veigel (1724 - 1822); Dilettanti 1777.
1763 - 4 [dep. London 15 Sep. 1763] Turin (by 18 Oct. 1763), Milan, Genoa, Leghorn (3 days), Florence (by 16 Nov. - 1 Dec.), Rome (Dec.), Naples (17 Dec. 1763 - Feb. 1764), Rome (Feb - 11 Apr. - ), Leghorn, Bologna, Parma (mid-May), Venice (by 31 May - 13 Jul.) with visit to Padua (21 Jun.); Abano [Munich Aug. 1764; England Apr. 1765]
Garrick and his wife set out to spend a winter abroad in September 1763, but their tour lasted two years.1 Garrick was forty-five and famous, and he was treated with respect and admiration throughout his tour. They travelled in some style in their own carriage and their pleasure was only marred by Mrs Garrick's recurring arthritis. In October they reached Turin, which Garrick thought 'a good Place for two Days but for a Week 'tis not sufficient'. He was amazed by the Opera, where the audience talked loudly throughout the performance and the players, when not otherwise occupied, conversed with their friends in the audience. In Milan they stayed at the Tre Re and were attended by the Governor of Lombardy, Count Karl Joseph von Firmian, for whom Garrick ordered from England 'all ye Prints of myself that have any Character'. They sailed from Genoa to Leghorn, where they stayed three days and were well entertained by the English merchants, before they went on to Florence. There Algarotti, 'my dear Swan of Padua', furnished Garrick with introductions in Bologna and Venice. By 16 November they were in Florence and on the 20th they were dining with Horace Mann, whom Walpole had warned Garrick 'will make you laugh as a mimic ... but be a little on your guard, remember he is an actor'.2 He also looked up the house where the dramatist George Colman, son of the diplomat Francis Colman, was born.
Garrick's first impression of Rome, where they spent two weeks in December, was disappointing. He had long anticipated seeing the city where 'the great Roscius exerted those talents which rendered him the wonder of his age', but he was oppressed by the dirt and thought the Tiber 'pitiful'; but all changed after he had seen 'that glorious Structure' the Pantheon and the Colosseum. He met the Dance brothers, Nathaniel and George, to whom he had an introduction from their much older brother James [Dance] Love of the Drury Lane theatre, and found them 'both very ingenious and agreeable men'. The Garricks reached Naples on 17 December. Garrick met Lady Orford and Lord and Lady Spencer and he attended 'balls more than twice a Week & parties innumerable'; they visited the sights and saw the King's actors give an ex tempore performance in the dazzling San Carlo theatre. 'In Short', wrote Garrick, 'we are in great fashion & I have forgot England & all my trumpery at Drury Lane'. He sat to Angelica Kauffman (Burghley) and engaged Antonio Carrara of Padua as a valet, taking him back to England with him. The end of their stay in Naples was marred by the tragic effects of famine in the city, and by Mrs Garrick's health.
They returned to Rome late in February. Garrick sat to Nathaniel Dance (untraced) and Batoni (Clark/Bowron 266; Ashmolean), see Richard Kaye. In May James Martin saw both portraits in Rome; the Dance he thought 'somewhat too grave', but the Batoni a strong likeness.3 In April Garrick had exchanged the Batoni for a cameo belonging to Richard Kaye, who was then in Rome. Having recognised Nollekens in the street in Rome, Garrick sat to him for a marble bust (Althorp). He was 'antiquity hunting from morning till night', and for the 5th Duke of Devonshire he bought Bartolozzi prints. From Rome they went in May to Parma where the Duke of York was being feted. Garrick performed the dagger scene from Macbeth before the young Duke and the Duke of Parma (who presented him with an enamelled gold box), his performance apparently painted by Alessandro Longhi (Lady Lever AG).4 They went on to Venice, where the Duke of York was also staying. Garrick saw the Regatta which 'appeared to be a dream or a fairy-tale realiz'd'; 'I am grown fat', he added, 'and sleep half the day in a gondola'. He was amused by the Courts of Justice which he thought excelled the Italian Comedy. Advised by Giuseppe Baretti, he bought some 180 Italian books with the intention of selling them to Topham Beauclerk, and he helped the painter Richard Brompton with a loan of £;80, see Brompton.
Mrs Garrick meanwhile became seriously indisposed in Venice and in mid-July they went to the hot mud baths at Abano near Padua. There she improved, and Garrick became 'in treaty for no less than two Pictures by Tempesto, two Bassans, a Vandyke, a Rubens, a Paul Veronese, &c. I have a little money to throw away', he wrote, 'and I don't see why I should not be a little ridiculous as well as my betters'. Their return journey across Germany and France was delayed by Garrick's illness in Munich, and they stayed in Paris from November 1764 to April 1765.
1. See C. Oman, David Garrick, 233 - 45; G.W. Stone and G.M. Kahrl, David Garrick, 297 - 304; Garrick Letters, 1:389 - 420; 2:421. 2. Martin jnl.mss (16, 20 Nov. 1763). Wal.Corr., 22:164. 3. Martin jnl.mss (6, 7 May 1764). 4. See P. Walch, 18th cent.Studies, 3[1969]:527 - 30 (identities doubted in Lady Lever Cat. of Foreign Ptgs., [1983], 13 - 14, where the picture is given to Pietro Longhi).