better morals of the Revolution, and the popular progress which was made at the accession of the house of Hanover, the drama was modified:  the older plays were revived in their original freshness; a new and better taste was to be catered to; and what of immorality remained was chiefly due to the influence of the Prince of Wales.  Actors, so long despised, rose to importance as great artists.  Garrick and Foote, and, later, Kemble, Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, were social personages in England.  Peers married actresses, and enduring reputation was won by those who could display the passions and the affections to the life, giving flesh and blood and mind and heart to the inimitable creations of Shakspeare.

It must be allowed that this power of presentment marks the age more powerfully than any claims of dramatic authorship.  The new play-writers did not approach Shakspeare; but they represented their age, and repudiated the vices, in part at least, of their immediate predecessors.  In them, too, is to be observed the change from the artificial to the romantic and natural, The scenes and persons in their plays are taken from the life around them, and appealed to the very models from which they were drawn.

DAVID GARRICK.—­First among these purifiers of the drama is David Garrick, who was born in Lichfield, in 1716.  He was a pupil of Dr. Johnson, and came up with that distinguished man to London, in 1735.  The son of a captain in the Royal army, but thrown upon his own exertions, he first tried to gain a livelihood as a wine merchant; but his fondness for the stage led him to become an actor, and in taking this step he found his true position.  A man of respectable parts and scholarship, he wrote many agreeable pieces for the stage; which, however, owed their success more to his accurate knowledge of the mise en scene, and to his own representation of the principal characters, than to their intrinsic merits.  His mimetic powers were great:  he acted splendidly in all casts, excelling, perhaps, in tragedy; and he, more than any actor before or since, has made the world thoroughly acquainted with Shakspeare.  Dramatic authors courted him; for his appearance in any new piece was almost an assurance of its success.

Besides many graceful prologues, epigrams, and songs, he wrote, or altered, forty plays.  Among these the following have the greatest merit:  The Lying Valet, a farce founded on an old English comedy; The Clandestine Marriage, in which he was aided by the elder Colman; (the character of Lord Ogleby he wrote for himself to personate;) Miss in her Teens, a very clever and amusing farce.  He was charmingly natural in his acting; but he was accused of being theatrical when off the stage.  In the words of Goldsmith: 

    On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
    ’Twas only that when he was off, he was acting.

Garrick married a dancer, who made him an excellent wife.  By his own exertions he won a highly respectable social position, and an easy fortune of L140,000, upon which he retired from the stage.  He died in London in 1779.