found in Oxberry's collected British Drama. In Furness' Variorum edition of Richard III, page 604, will be found a table of the number of lines retained by Cibber, his borrowings from other Shakespearean plays, and his own additions, all of which totalled some thousand odd lines.[1]
The following revivals of Richard III, previous to Garrick's London début are recorded by Genest: Dec. 6, 1715, Drury Lane; March 11, 1721, Lincoln's Inn Fields, with Ryan as Richard. The latter continued to play the part until 1740, challenging rivalry with Cibber of the Drury Lane company in the rôle. In 1732 Ryan and the Lincoln's Inn company moved to Covent Garden. Drury Lane revived the play in 1734 and 1739 with Quin as Richard.
On October 19, 1741, at Goodman's Fields, David Garrick (1717–1779) appeared for the first time on the London stage, choosing for his début the character of Richard the Third. Possibly no first night in the history of the English stage has created a greater sensation than this of Garrick's. It was a triumph, establishing him at once as the foremost actor of the day, a position he retained throughout his life. The secret of Garrick's success, apart from the genius with which he was endowed, was the naturalness of his acting. The playing of tragic rôles had become conventionalized into declamation, rant, artificial gestures and poses. For these defects Garrick substituted an "easy and familiar, yet forcible style in speaking and acting."[2] Garrick played Richard seventeen times that season, and fourteen times the next season at Drury Lane. He continued to play the part at intervals throughout his whole career, his last appearance as Richard being on June 5, 1776, the occasion of his re-
- ↑ For the classic condemnation of Cibber's version, see Hazlitt, The Characters of Shakespear's Plays, essay on Richard III.
- ↑ Davies: Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, 1780.
