The next year was to witness the friend of Paoli in his most eccentric display--the Shakesperian Festival inaugurated by Garrick at Stratford. By this ludicrous gathering it is that Boswell is known to the mass of readers who have never cared to know more of 'Corsica Boswell' than what they can gather from the lively picture of Macaulay. There he is known only as it were in the gross, to which indeed, as Johnson said of Milton, the undramatic nature of the essayist's mind was rather prone, careless as it was or incapable of the finer shades of character. Yet, as we know, he was not the solitary masker or mummer in this extraordinary carnival, which seems not creditable to the taste of its promoters, and resembles rather the entry of a travelling circus into a provincial town than a serious commemoration of a great man. However, 'thither Mr Boswell repaired with all the enthusiasm of a poetical mind;' as he informs us, 'such an opportunity for the warbling of his Muse was not neglected.' On Wednesday, Sept. 6th, about five in the morning, says _The Scots Magazine_ for that month in its leading article, the performers from Drury Lane paraded the streets of Stratford, and serenaded the ladies with a ballad by Garrick, beginning
'Ye Warwickshire lads and ye lasses See what at our Jubilee passes; Come revel away, rejoice and be glad, For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad, Warwickshire lad, All be glad, For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad.'
Guns were fired, the magistrates assembled, and there was a public breakfast in the town-hall. In this number of the magazine there is a letter extending to seven columns from James Boswell, Esq., on his return to London, after being 'much agitated' by 'this jubilee of genius.' He describes it as 'truly an antique idea, a Grecian thought;' the oratorio at the great Stratford church, with the music by Dr Arne, was, he admits, grand and admirable, but 'I could have wished that prayers had been read, and a short sermon preached.' Then the performance of the dedication ode by Garrick is described as 'noble and affecting, like an exhibition in Athens or Rome.' Lord Grosvenor, at the close, went up to Garrick, 'and told him that he had affected his whole frame, showing him his nerves and veins still quivering with agitation.' The masquerade our traveller, as the 'travelled thane,' affects to regard complacently as an 'entertainment not suited to the genius of the British nation, but to a warmer country, where the people have a great flow of spirits, and a readiness at repartee.' Bozzy no doubt had seen the carnival abroad, and his memories of sunnier skies would not find congenial atmosphere in the unpropitious weather when the Avon rose with the floods of rain, the lower grounds were laid under water, and a guinea for a bed was regarded as an imposition, though 'no one,' declares our hero, 'was understood to come there who had not plenty of money'--their own or their father's, presumably. The break up seems to have been effected in confusion, but the good-humoured mummer, taking one consideration with another, compares it to eating an artichoke, where 'we have some fine mouthfuls, but also swallow the leaves and the hair, which are confoundedly difficult of digestion. After all, I am highly satisfied with my artichoke.'