University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

The same Scene continues.
Enter Garrick, George, and Becket.
Garrick.
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

George.
It is a nipping and an eager air.

Garrick.
What hour now?

George.
I think, it lacks of twelve.

Becket.
No; it has struck.

George.
I heard it not:—it then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
[Fiddles are heard.
What does this mean?

Garrick.
At the fam'd house that's kept by Weatherby,
The rake-hells wake to night, and take their prouse;
And, as they drain their draughts of rumbo down,
Their volley'd oaths and fiddles thus bray out
The triumph of their vices.

George.
Is it a custom?

Garrick.
You know it is:
But, to my mind,
It is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.

Enter Ghost.
George.
Look where it comes!

Garrick.
Ye ministers of Drury Lane defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or poet damn'd,
Bring with thee laurel-wreath, or catcalls shrill,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com'st in so theatrical a shape,
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Shakespear,
Warwickshire lad, sweet Willy-o!—O answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell me
Why thus thy jubilee'd bones, deck'd out with ode,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Which thee at Stratford quietly inurn'd,
Hath oped its ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again? What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again upon the stage
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the lamps,
Making night hideous, and us fools of art
So horribly to shake our dispositions
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

George.
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

Becket.
Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.

George.
No, by no means.

Garrick.
It will not speak; then I will follow it.

George.
Do not, dear brother.

Garrick.
Why, what should be the fear?
It wants not a third night; and for my patent,
What can it do to that? It is a parchment
To which the Chancellor hath set the seal.
It waves me forth again;—I'll follow it.

George.
What, if it tempt you tow'rd the thunder-box,
Or to the summit of yon canvas clouds,
That wave about their tatters like rag-fair,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Perhaps the shape of some departed play,
And draw you into madness?

Garrick.
It waves me still—Go on, I'll follow thee.

Becket.
You shall not go—

Garrick.
Hold off your hands.

George.
Be rul'd; you shall not go.

Garrick.
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hard as is the flint that paves the streets.
Still am I call'd.—Unhand me, gentlemen:
By Heav'n, I'll low'r the pay of him that lets me.
I say, away:—Go on,—I'll follow thee.

[Exit after the Ghost.
George.
He waxes desperate with imagination.

Becket.
Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

George.
Have after:—To what issue will this come?

Becket.
Nay, let's follow him.

Scene,—another part of the Theatre.
Enter Ghost, and Garrick.
Garrick.
Where wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go no further.

Ghost.
Mark me.

Garrick.
I will.

Ghost.
The hour at length is come,
When you, for your late insult to my name,
Must render an account.

Garrick.
Oh! cruel Ghost!

Ghost.
Accuse me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

Garrick.
Speak, I am bound to hear.

Ghost.
So art thou to atone what thou shalt hear.

Garrick.
What?

Ghost.
I am Shakespear's Ghost,
For my foul sins, done in my days of nature,
Doom'd for a certain term to leave my works
Obscure and uncorrected; to endure
The ignorance of players; the barbarous hand
Of Gothic editors; the ponderous weight
Of leaden commentator; fast confin'd
In critic fires, till errors, not my own,
Are done away, and sorely I the while
Wish'd I had blotted for myself before:
But that I am forbid to tell the pangs,
Which Genius feels from ev'ry blockhead's pen,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would make that idiot-laughter keep the cheeks
Of ev'ry scribler; thaw thy frozen blood,
And bid a puny whipster's pen, like thine,
Deal out thy paragraphs and crude conceits
In Morning Chronicles, till ev'ry name
Should be begrim'd, and black as Barry's face,
When he, my best Othello, walks the stage.
But this effect of malice must not be
To ears of modern scriblers. List, list, O list!
If thou didst ever the fam'd Shakespear love—

Garrick.
O Heav'n! “my little loves like bees
Cluster and climb about your knees!”

Ghost.
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Garrick.
Murder?

Ghost.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Garrick.
Haste me to know it; that I, with haste as great
As Stratford's town-clerk at the Jubilee,
May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost.
I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the flat lines
That coldly creep in modern playwrights' page,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Garrick, hear:
'Tis giv'n out, that in a barb'rous age
Shakespear arose, and made th' unskilful stare
At monstrous farces: so the ear of Europe
Is by the forged process of a Frenchman
Rankly abus'd. But know, ungrateful man!
The serpent that did sting thy poet's fame
Has made his fortune by him.
O think what a sad falling-off was there!
From me, whose name was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand with time himself,
My honour blooming fresh:—and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
But public taste, the sport of fickle fashion,
May sate itself in a celestial page,
And prey on garbage.
But, soft!—methinks, I scent the morning air;—
Brief let me be:—My works have made your fortune;
And Hamlet brought to you, the mere reciter,
The organ of another's sense, more money,
Than e'er it did to me, who wrought the tale.
Yet on my scenes, by ages sanctified,
In evil hour thy restless spirit stole,
With juice of cursed nonsense in an inkhorn,
And o'er my fair applauded page did pour
A Manager's distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with wit of man,
That each interpolating word of thine
Annihilates the sense, and courses through
The natural turns of fable and of thought;
And, with a sudden stupor, it doth damp
And chill, like sheets of water on a fire,
The clear and glowing lines: so did it mine;
And a most instant numbness crept about,
Most blockhead-like, with vile and paltry phrase,
All my smooth writings.
Thus was I, ev'n by thy unhallow'd hand,
Of both my grave-diggers at once dispatch'd,
Cut off in the luxuriance of my wit,
Unstudied, undigested, and bemawl'd:
No critic ask'd,—but brought upon the stage
With all your imperfections on my head!

Garrick.
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

Ghost.
If thou hast nature in thee, dare it not;
Let not th' immortal page of Shakespear be
A place for ev'ry puny whipster's trash.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Attempt no more, nor let your soul conceive
Aught 'gainst my other plays; I leave thee now
To the just vengeance critics will inflict,
And to the thorns that in your bosom lodge,
To goad and sting thee. Fare thee well at once!
Yon window shews the morning to be near,
And thy once glow-worm eyes, with age grown dim,
Begin to pale their ineffectual fire.
Reflect in time; farewell! remember me.

[Exit Ghost.
Garrick.
Hold, hold my heart;
And you, my sinews, though you are grown old,
Yet bear me stiffly up.—Remember thee?
Ay, thou fierce ghost! while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the stock of plays i' th' Prompter's list,
I'll wipe away all trivial modern bards,
And thy remembrance all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with other matter than my own.
'Tis gone, and now I am myself again.
My tables,—meet it is, I set it down,
That, by the alteration of a play,
I can demand a benefit from Lacy.
I'm sure it's so, while I can act myself.

George and Becket.
within.
Illo! ho, ho!

Garrick.
Illo! ho, ho! come, boy, come.

Enter George and Becket.
George.
How is 't? what news?

Becket.
Good Sir, tell it—

Garrick.
No, you'll reveal it.

George.
Not I.

Becket.
Nor I.

Garrick.
How say you then? would heart of man once think it?
But you'll be secret?

Both.
By Heav'n, we will!

Garrick.
There's ne'er an actor strutting on the stage
That can do Shakespear justice, but myself.

Becket.
There needs no ghost, good Sir, come from the grave
To tell us this.

Garrick.
Why right; you say right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
Insert it in the St. James's Chronicle;
And circulate it wide in ev'ry paper.
I'll draw the paragraphs; and be it yours,
My trusty Becket, in your own fair hand
To copy all, and give it to the press.
This Ghost is pleas'd with this my alteration,
And now he bids me alter all his Plays.
His plays are out of joint;—O cursed spite!
That ever I was born to set them right!